Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper (4 page)

“You could look at it as a very practical matter and say that it’s bad for business,” Rose said. “If the Rose Chalet came to be associated with marriages that fail . . . . Well, not many couples are going to favor it as a wedding venue.”

Anne made a sound that might have been the result of trying to
pfft
around a mouthful of pins.

“I think what Anne is trying to say is that you could also look at it another way and say that the Rose Chalet doesn’t believe couples who are trying to make their marriages work should be taken advantage of. This scam takes advantage of people at their most vulnerable, twists their lives, ends their marriages, and all for financial gain.

“We’ve been fortunate,” she added, “to find love ourselves. We’re not prepared to see others lose it, if we can help it.”

“Yes,
we
have been fortunate and, yes,
we
do want to help.” Anne turned to address her next words to K.D. “You know she was trying to insist on paying each of us our regular amount for putting on this wedding for you and Eric. As if we’d only do it to be paid. We feel the same way, you know.”

Rose sent the other woman a mock frown. “Don’t you have more pinning to do?”

“No. All done. We can go try the menu samples Julie and Andrew promised. First, help me get K.D. out of this dress — carefully! Don’t hurt the dress.”

Rose smiled. “Or hurt K.D. with the pins.”

She hardly noticed the pinpricks, because she was thinking how interesting it would be to know why Eric had gotten involved in this.

That could affect how he responded to things. That’s why she wanted to know.

K.D.
Hamilton studied his house like it was a crime scene.

Oh, hell, maybe he wasn’t being fair. It had been a long, hard day. And it wasn’t getting any easier.

She’d insisted on carrying her suitcase up the stairs that rose a story from the street to his Victorian’s front door.

Then, the moment he unlocked and opened the door, Myrna appeared in the hallway with the packets of information from Ken, supplemented by her own questionnaire and orders. Big surprise.

“You could have helped her with her suitcase, you know. Suppose you’ll make her drag it all the way upstairs herself, too,” Myrna said. Then, before he could defend himself, she went on. “You both need to fill these out, then go over each other’s responses tonight. I’ll test you tomorrow. Need to be letter perfect the day after. So it’s natural by the time you check in at Marriage-Save.”

“K.D. Hamilton, let me introduce my assistant Myrna Edison. Who is almost as invaluable as she thinks she is, and far bossier than she’ll admit,” Eric said.

K.D. smiled and extended a hand. They resembled two of those fairy godmothers from the cartoon version of Sleeping Beauty his sister had watched over and over and over until it ground into his head, too. The short, round fairy godmother and the tall, thin one.

Only K.D. looked nothing like a kindly fairy godmother. Nothing.

In fairness, Myrna, though short, wasn’t as round as that fairy godmother, either. On second thought, maybe she resembled Napoleon more than a fairy godmother.

“Didn’t think you two were ever going to get here,” Myrna added.

“I told you not to wait,” he said. “Told you we were having dinner at the Rose Chalet, and you should go home at your regular time because I didn’t know—”

“Had to make sure you got this information and—” She frowned at him. “—paid attention to it. Besides, I wanted to meet K.D. — or should I call you Officer Hamilton?”

“K.D., please. May I call you Myrna?”

“Of course.” A queen might use that tone to invite a subject to kiss her ring. “You two better get a good night’s rest. We have lots to cover in the next few days. Go on, both of you.”

He picked up the suitcase and tipped his head toward the stairs, inviting K.D. to precede him.

“Sure, this time you don’t argue,” he muttered from behind her.

“Think I’m stupid?” she muttered back.

Giving no sign of having heard this exchange, Myrna said good night and was out the door.

“Just so you know, the idea of her waiting around to meet you? Don’t feel any guilt over that. Her apartment’s on the lower level. And don’t let her tell you it’s in the basement, either. It’s walkout level
and
she’s taken possession of the garden.”

“You two appear to have an unusual relationship.”

“You can say that again. Feel like an emotionally battered employer more often than not. And I wouldn’t want to try functioning without her.”

Now at the landing, Eric turned and caught the tail end of a smile on K.D.’s face.

It was enough to make a man want to stand on his head, do pratfalls, turn a handspring, all in the hopes of inducing more of those smiles.

“Your room is the last door on the right,” he said. He sounded a little hoarse.

“I can take my suitcase from here. Myrna’s gone.”

“She’d know. She has radar or Spidey sense or something. Besides, I have to make the bed.”

“I can—”

“My house, my job.”

He got the sheet set from the linen closet, pulled back the comforter, and got to work.

From the far side of the bed, she said, "Toss the other side of that sheet over here."

“Thanks, but I don't need help. I’m no domestic god, but I do know how to make a bed."

"I wasn't offering help. I need to know how you make a bed. That's something a wife would know about her husband — unless she made all the beds."

He met her gaze across the bed, saw the challenge in her face. Beneath it, though, was a flicker of vulnerability he hadn’t seen before. He snapped the sheet across the bed to let the far side float down to her. "I should let you make it yourself. So you'd make your own bed and lie in it."

She groaned, and he grinned.

They continued the task in quick order, the efficient movements not perfectly in sync, but companionable. Each dropped a case-enclosed pillow on the bed to finish at the same time.

He looked across the expanse of comforter at her, and she looked back.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll say good night then. The closet’s behind you. Extra blanket if you want it.”

She turned to look in that direction, as if it might be tough to spot a closet door in the middle of a wall . . . or as if she wanted an excuse to stop looking back at him.

“Through this door—” He jerked his head to the door behind him. “—there’s a bathroom. Small but private.”

P
rivate was good, she thought as she climbed into the bed with the homework Myrna had assigned.

Still, even with a bedroom and bathroom to herself, she was sharing this space — his house — with him. She hadn’t planned on that when she’d packed.

First thing tomorrow, she was going shopping for a few necessary items for that kind of sharing.

Right after she explored his house.

After all, she was supposed to be living here, too.

K.D.
did not get her exploring or shopping in, because Myrna had other ideas of how to start the day. Coffee, juice, and drill sergeant.

Actually, Eric did the coffee and juice. Also fluffy scrambled eggs and perfectly toasted bagels.

Drill sergeant? That was all Myrna.

But K.D. didn’t know that when she showered and dressed before opening the door to the hall, carrying the papers she’d studied last night.

The door to the room she’d guessed was Eric’s bedroom was closed. The door to the hall bath, however, was open.

From the hall, she could see that the towels had been hung, not dropped to the white tile floor. But the hanging job would never pass muster with a neat freak. Not that she was one. Not really. Just because the rest of Cabot’s officers were slobs . . . .

She stepped into the bathroom and adjusted a towel so it wouldn’t slide off the bar.

The towels were the same dark green as the pillows on the living room couch she’d noticed through an archway last night. And the shower curtain was green with abstract sweeps of white and cream. She twitched it back, spotting a grocery store shampoo — not the cheapest, but nothing a stylist would ever sell — soap, a washcloth.

The counter surrounding the sink was smooth and as white as the floor. Not vinyl, she knew that, but she didn't know what it was. A few water specks, a couple stray hairs. She flipped open the medicine cabinet above the sink. Not the regulation, narrow kind her matchbox apartment offered. But generous in width and depth, with three panels of mirrors. The two on either side could adjust for an all-around view, though he had them flat.

A razor was there, along with a can of shaving cream. She mentally catalogued the basic collection of headache pills, a couple over-the-counter packets for allergies, bandages. A mug held a hairbrush and combs on the bottom shelf. She closed the cabinet door, catching a glimpse of the form standing at the doorway.

Without turning around, she said, "I’m surprised Myrna hasn’t told you that you need a new toothbrush."

He stepped across the threshold and leaned against the doorframe. "Would you believe me if I said she hasn’t?"

She twisted her neck to look up at him. "No."

"You missed this." He stepped into the room. It wasn’t a bad size for a bathroom, but it suddenly seemed that the only way for two people to navigate it was if they stuck close to each other.

Reaching in front of her, he caught the narrow front panel of the cabinet directly below the sink and tilted it back, revealing a triangular space that held nail clippers, and small scissors.

"A secret drawer, huh?"

"A wife should know all a husband's secrets."

A flash crossed her mind, too quick to be identified. Then she saw something in his eyes that definitely hadn’t come from his mind. Uh-oh, maybe her flash hadn’t either.

“First, I want to know your house,” she said, breezing past him to the hall.

“Make yourself at home,” he invited with a wry smile. “My house is your house.”

She glanced at the now-open bedroom door, decided that could wait. She went down the stairs with him behind her.

“Myrna’s office is what used to be the front parlor,” he said. Open pocket doors allowed a view of a rigorously neat desk with two guest chairs in front of it, and a settee in the window behind it. Opposite the door, a large armoire sat near a fireplace. “Myrna said she got the front room because it was the one clients see first, and I’m too messy. I think she wanted the fireplace and the bay window.”

“Who can blame her?”

“For my humble office,” he said, gesturing her through Myrna’s office and through another open doorway with pocket doors, “we have to repair to the rear parlor.”

It was smaller. And messier. But it had great built-in bookcases flanking a side window.

“You don’t look too abused,” she said.

“Looks can be deceiving.” He ushered her out of the room and down a short hallway that opened into the large living room that . . . glowed. There was no other word for it. Not gaudy like neon, but like a lit fireplace in an otherwise dark room. Curtains were drawn back from a series of windows that held the opposite corner. Wrapped around the outside was a deck with cushioned lounge chairs and potted plants. Red. Petunias? No, something else familiar. Geraniums. The light streaming in from those windows was part of the glow, but not all of it.

It was what the room did with the light. The way the unadorned woods absorbed it and threw it back, the way the soft cream of the couch reflected it, the way the deep green pillows mellowed it.

“This used to be the dining room.”

He didn’t need to say it was now his living room. It was obvious from the clean lines and easy comfort of sofa, chairs, tables and bookcases. Light angled through the windows, like dusty gold.

Maybe he’d followed her gaze, because he said, “Not going to get Pacific sunsets here, but I like this. It's why I bought it."

Sunsets were an obvious lure, yet he’d appreciated something different, something subtle. She tucked away that observation.

"You kept this place in your divorce settlement?"

"No."

His tone said there was much more to that answer than two letters. It also saidd badgering him wouldn't get the answer. Sometimes patience was needed in police work. Hammering at a suspect just made some of them harder, like tempered steel. Not that she needed to treat Eric Larkin the way she would a suspect . . . precisely.

“Want some breakfast?” he said. “I make great scrambled eggs.”

“I’d make a crack about your lack of modesty, but since my breakfast skills usually run along the lines of opening a carton of yogurt, I don’t want to annoy the cook.”

“Good decision. Right this way.” Modern rremodeling had opened the living area into an expanded kitchen. “Have a seat.” Eric gestured to a row of stools at an island.

He pulled out eggs, bagels, butter, and other ingredients, setting to work with confidence.

“Is this what’s known as a chef’s kitchen?” she asked.

“No idea. As long as the kitchen has the necessities for scrambled eggs and toasting bagels, I’m good. The reason I’m so good at scrambled eggs is it’s the only thing I can cook. That’s the trick. Don’t spread your skills too thin.”

She chuckled. “Makes sense. Did you have the remodeling done?”

"No way. When I moved here, I wanted someplace I could get into right away.”

“Moved from Chicago,” she said, remembering that from the background packet she’d studied. “You wanted something like you’d had in Chicago?”

“No. Wanted nothing like we’d had in Chicago.”

“I’ve always heard Chicago’s a great city.”

“It is.”

She felt her brows draw down. Then why’d he leave?

“Fresh start,” he said, as if he’d heard her thoughts. He handed her a plate of toasted bagels, the butter dish, and a kitchen knife. She started buttering. “Loved the city. Didn’t like the high-rise. Or . . . .”

“Or?” She should let him tell her what he wanted to tell her. No need to push this. So if he sidestepped—