Stand-In Groom (3 page)

“It’s lovely, thank you. My compliments to the chef. There’s just no way I can eat such a generous serving in one sitting.”

“I understand. Can I get you another box?”

“Yes, please. And if you can go ahead and bring my check, I’d appreciate it.”

“Yes, ma’am. Can I interest you in a dessert to go? Tiramisu, maybe?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll have to pass.”

In a few minutes, she boxed up the remaining half of her meal, all the while keeping tabs on Forbes’s table to make sure they didn’t leave before she managed to get over there or catch his eye. She left enough cash in the black folder with the receipt to cover a generous tip and picked up her purse, planner, and to-go boxes.

She crossed the room, stopping twice to speak to acquaintances and see baby pictures or leave a few business cards for any newly engaged couples they might know. Keeping her attention anywhere but on the handsome stranger proved difficult. She must learn his identity.

When she drew near, Forbes glanced in her direction. “Here’s someone you should meet,” he said to his dinner companion. Forbes stood to draw her into a hug, his grin creasing the corners of his grayish blue eyes.

“Hey. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I couldn’t just leave without stopping to speak to you.” She turned and smiled at the stranger, who’d also stood. He was a couple of inches taller than she, but more slender than the men she usually found attractive. She gazed into eyes the color of light-roast cinnamon hazelnut coffee, and her heart fluttered. Fluttered! Like some addlepated schoolgirl.

She regained control of her senses and extended her right hand. “Good evening. I’m Anne Hawthorne.”

His grasp was firm, his skin soft. He worked indoors, probably at the law firm with Forbes. Then why hadn’t she met him at the office Christmas party?

“George Laurence, ma’am, at your service.”

Tingles danced up and down her spine. A British accent! She’d always dreamed of marrying a man with a British accent.

Get ahold of yourself, girl! You’re thirty-five years old, not some starry-eyed teenager
. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Laurence. So how do you know Forbes?”

The Englishman cleared his throat and looked at her cousin. She frowned.

Forbes rested his hand on her shoulder. “George…represents someone I work with.”

Hopefully he wasn’t in town briefly for a trial or something like that. “So you’re a lawyer, too, Mr. Laurence?”

“Not exactly.” Had he grimaced? Frowned? Grinned? The expression was there and gone before she could be certain.

“It’s complicated, Anne.” Forbes squeezed her shoulder. “I thought you were waiting on someone, or we would have asked you to join us. How was your dinner, by the way?”

Okay, obviously this guy was working on some case that was so confidential they couldn’t even discuss it in front of her. “The food was great. I hadn’t planned on eating alone tonight, but you know, ‘the best-laid plans…’ ” Her cheeks burned as she was conscious of George Laurence standing next to her. Time to try to make a graceful exit. “Well, I’d best be going. As I said, I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“George, if you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’d like to walk Anne out to her car.” Forbes herded her toward the front door, stopping with alacrity, although only for a moment, when a family acquaintance recognized them. On the way past the hostess stand, Anne took one more peek at George Laurence, now sitting by himself at the table. Handsome, British, and at least six foot two.

She bit her bottom lip to contain her grin and braced herself for the heat as the air-conditioning chased them out the door. “Why haven’t I ever met him before?”

“Because he just arrived in town today.” Forbes tucked her left hand under the crook of his elbow, then took her food boxes and planner. “All kidding aside, what happened with your date, Annie?”

“I don’t know. I was running a few minutes late, and when I arrived, he wasn’t here. After I’d been here awhile, I called to check to see when he was coming, and some gal at his office told me he’d gotten called in for a breaking news story. So I had dinner by myself—” Her left heel caught in a crack in the cement parking lot and the shoe twisted out from under her. Thank goodness for Forbes’s supporting arm, or she would have fallen face-first onto the pavement—which would have been a fitting end to a night like this.

“Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.”

“He left word that he’d call me tomorrow.” She stopped at her car, pressing the unlock button on her key-fob remote, and took her food and planner from her cousin. Forbes opened the door for her, and she ducked in to set her things atop a stack of files on the passenger seat. She narrowly missed hitting her head on the door frame as she stood. “Of course, I can’t imagine why he’d rather go out with me and not with Jenn.”

Forbes placed his hands on her cheeks and pulled her close to kiss her forehead. “Because you are a beautiful and interesting woman, Anne. Any man would be lucky to have you. If we weren’t related—” He waggled his well-groomed eyebrows.

She groaned. “Forbes! I really wish you’d stop saying that. It’s bad enough that half your coworkers think I’m your wife because you take me to every office party.” If they weren’t related, he’d never have given her a second glance. Not someone as good looking and popular as he’d always been. Of course, she had somehow been noticed by—

No. She’d already determined not to think about that tonight. That part of her life was long over and done with. “Tell me about this George guy.”

“He’s not for you, Anne.”

“I didn’t notice a wedding ring.”

“No.” Forbes ran his fingers through his short, dark auburn hair.

She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Forbes never
touched his hair for fear of messing it up.

“Just take my word for it. He’s—not available.”

“Oh, so he’s—” She stopped when he pressed his fingers to her lips.

“Not available. Leave it at that, please?” He kissed her forehead again. “Now, go home and get some rest. I’m sure you have a very busy day tomorrow.”

“Rest?” She kept from snorting as a rueful laugh escaped, but just barely. “Do you see the stack of file folders on the passenger seat? It’s a wedding weekend, honey. I wouldn’t have taken the time to do more than pick something up at Rotier’s on my way home tonight if Jenn hadn’t insisted I go out with—” She snapped her fingers, her mind drawing a blank on her no-show date’s name.

“Danny?” Forbes prompted.

“Yes. With Danny.” She opened the car door. “Oh, and Forbes?”

“Yes?”

“Should your friend George ever become not
not available
, you’ll let me know, right?”

“You’ll definitely be the first person I’ll tell. Good night, Anne.”

She waved as he walked away, then got in the car and put the top down to enjoy the evening air.

Whatever Forbes meant by “not available,” God hadn’t let her cross paths with George Laurence for no reason. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t just going to take Forbes’s word.

8

George sipped his water.
Anne Hawthorne
. Something about her just wouldn’t let him be. She was pretty, yes. Tall for a woman, with a striking figure as well. But he’d met hundreds, perhaps thousands of beautiful women in his life. No, it was something in the expression of her eyes—something real that he wasn’t used to seeing.

Setting his goblet back on the table, he took a deep breath and blew it out.
Lord, how did I get rooked into this scheme? I only signed the first contract five years ago because it ensured me a work visa and job
security. This is the first time since then I’ve truly resented anything my employer has asked me to do. How can I live a life pleasing to You if I’m practicing deception? Yet how can I refuse when it means going back to England? If You can just get me through the next seventeen months until I can apply for citizenship—

The chair across the table scraped against the ceramic tiles. George conjured a smile for Forbes. How did this man know Anne Hawthorne?

“Sorry about that. Dessert?”

George declined. “You know the wedding planner well, then?”

“The—Anne? Yes, I’ve known her all my life. She’s my cousin.”

His cousin. George kept his grin in check. Whether she was his cousin or his sweetheart shouldn’t matter. She was still beyond his reach. The contract addendum litigated that. Maybe once his employer revealed the truth at the engagement party…

But by then, George would have been lying to this woman for more than a month. She would hate him, and her hatred would be well deserved. By then, he would probably hate himself as well.

To keep from dwelling on such thoughts, he turned his attention to his dinner companion. “When will the plumbing be repaired so Mrs. Agee and I can move into the house?”

“A few days more—probably next Monday or Tuesday. When does Miss Landry arrive?”

“Sunday evening. She has planned to lodge with a childhood friend while in town.”

“Good.” Forbes folded his napkin and laid it beside his empty plate. “Although it’s not generally known who owns the house, it’s better if she is seen only with and around people she’s known all her life. Less suspicion will be raised that way.”

“Would it be better if I stayed elsewhere?” Although he loathed the idea of spending the next five weeks in a hotel, better that than reveal his employer’s secret before the time of his employer’s choosing.

“No. I think you’ll be fine staying out there. The rumor around
town is that the property was purchased by a wealthy out-of-towner, and you’ll serve as the mysterious, eccentric new owner for the time being.”

“Does Mrs. Agee know—?”

“Who her real employer is? No. She signed a contract with a confidentiality clause, but we felt at this time she didn’t have a need to know. When the time is right, she’ll be informed.”

George nodded at the waitress to take his dinner plate and waved off the dessert menu. “And Ms. Hawthorne? If she were to sign a confidentiality agreement?”

“No.” Forbes’s expression became courtroom-caliber serious. “She is not to be told until the day of the engagement party. I don’t—she doesn’t need to know you aren’t Courtney Landry’s fiancé. Of course, that means you will have to handle some details yourself.”

Some details?
George nearly laughed at the understatement. How was Anne Hawthorne supposed to pull together an engagement party when seeing the invite list might tip her off as to the true identity of her client? And what about the invitation itself? It couldn’t have the name George Laurence on it. He’d have to do that, too. The more he thought about the event, the more tasks he discovered would fall to him to accomplish.

At least the next few weeks wouldn’t be boring.

8

As she climbed the back stairs to her apartment, Anne juggled her duffel bag, attaché case, purse, stack of files, and the cup of gourmet coffee she’d stopped for on the way home. As soon as she dropped everything but the coffee cup on the kitchen table, she realized she’d left the food in the car.

She jogged back downstairs, retrieved it, and went up to the apartment on the third floor where, as she expected, the door was unlocked. In the dark kitchen, she found a grease pencil in a junk drawer, wrote a note on the lid of the top Styrofoam box, and put them both in Jenn’s refrigerator.

Back in her own apartment, she turned on the computer in the guest bedroom, started the music media software, and filled the apartment with the dulcet tones of crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Kay Starr, and her favorite of all, Dean Martin.

Singing along with Dean’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” she returned to the kitchen and retrieved her mail from the floor where Jenn or Meredith had slid it under her back door.

She’d be surprised if George Laurence was any younger than forty.

Astonished by the wayward thought, warmth washed over her at the memory of the intensity of his gaze earlier.

Since her broken engagement ten years ago, every time she’d felt the least attracted to a man, her internal alarms had gone off. She trusted the instincts born of experience to keep her from being hurt again. But the entire time she’d stood there talking to George Laurence, all she’d felt was a profound sense of interest in getting to know him better.

God, what are You trying to tell me? Is he the one? Is this finally the answer to my prayer for a husband?

No answer came to her over the soft warbling of Frank Sinatra crooning “The Coffee Song.” The fact that her mind had instantly jumped to wondering if George Laurence was her future husband did bother her a bit. After everything she’d been through, the desire to maintain her independence—as a person and as a professional— kept her working eighteen to twenty hours nearly every day. Yet deep down, she just wanted to fall in love with someone and experience his falling in love with her in return. Not wanting anything from her, just loving her.

George Laurence seemed like the kind of man who had everything together. His expensive suit and shoes, grooming, and impeccable manners stood as proof of an established man comfortable with himself and those around him. So many of the men she’d gone out with at her cousins’ behest were still trying to “find” themselves,
even into their late thirties or early forties, and wanted to be with a woman who would have a stabilizing influence on them.

Anne, however, didn’t want that kind of turmoil in her life. She wanted a man who knew what he wanted out of life, a man comfortable with himself, and with simple tastes—classic music and movies, dining out—who didn’t mind the hours she put into her business.

Her phone chirped the
Pink Panther
theme. She unclipped it, flipped it open, and pressed it to her ear. “I wondered when you were going to call.”

Meredith laughed. “I didn’t figure you’d be home any earlier than now, but if you were still on your date and having a good time, you wouldn’t answer. So?”

She filled her cousin in on the evening, and by the time she got to seeing Forbes, she heard Meredith’s SUV pull up the driveway. Although she trusted her completely, something kept Anne from telling her about how she felt when she met George Laurence. Anne wasn’t sure herself what her feelings meant. She needed time to pray…and time to get to know him better.