Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
CLARA
I’d almost forgotten how good it felt to get ready for something that wasn’t a disaster.
My curling iron sat on the bathroom counter, cord snaked across the sink.
I watched my reflection as another strand slid off the barrel and fell into a soft wave against my shoulder.
I was no longer a runaway bride or the small-town girl returning home with her tail between her legs.
I was simply a woman with a job. Someone who finally had a plan.
My jeans were clean, my sweater was soft and neutral enough to look intentional, and my makeup was perfect.
A mug appeared on the edge of the vanity in the mirror.
“Big plans today, Duchess?”
Wes leaned in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame like the house had been built specifically to give him something to smolder against. His hair was still damp from his shower and a little dark at the temples. The worn Henley he wore did obscene things to his chest and arms.
Coffee steam curled up in front of his face, carrying the smell of dark roast and the tiniest, sweetest hint of vanilla creamer. He’d made it the way I liked it without asking.
Again.
I set the curling iron down and reached for the mug.
“A few errands. I’ll be starting at the farm,” I said, blowing across the surface.
“I’ve got to take measurements, finalize a few locations with Elodie and Cal, double-check power outlets and load-in paths.
” I shot him a wink in the mirror. “It’s real glamorous stuff. ”
His mouth tipped. “Sounds pretty fancy to me.”
I took a grateful sip and hummed as the coffee slid across my tongue. “I’m also trying to convince the weather to cooperate so no one gets hypothermia. All in a day’s work.”
He watched me for another beat, that lazy, quiet attention wrapping around my shoulders like a blanket. The bathroom had never felt so small.
“I’ll drive you,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ll freeze your ass off carrying the gear on your own.”
The mug hovered halfway to my mouth.
He usually said things like Have fun or Don’t die and then retreated to his room or the safe end of the couch. Turning down invitations was practically his part-time job.
Volunteering was new.
“You don’t have to,” I said carefully.
He shrugged, his muscles shifting under cotton. “Roads are clear. Farm’s not far.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder to the curling iron, the notebook already half stuffed in my bag. “Besides, I can see Cal and catch up for a minute while I see you in action.”
A fizzy little thought tried to uncurl in my chest. Maybe he wanted to see my world up close.
I swallowed it down with another sip of coffee. “Sounds good,” I said, turning back to the mirror so he wouldn’t see my grin. “You can be my assistant.”
“I’ll add it to my résumé,” he muttered, but there was a warmth in his voice that hadn’t been there a month ago.
Snow piled in soft drifts along the fence line at Star Harbor Family Farm, the inn sitting tall and moody against the pale sky.
In the distance, the barn’s blue siding glowed like a postcard.
Everywhere I looked, my brain snapped into framing and exposure and the bone-deep itch to make something beautiful out of all this cold.
Wes parked near the side entrance of the inn and killed the engine. When we stepped out, our breath puffed white, the air crisp enough to sting my nose.
“Well, time for my butt to freeze off just like you predicted,” I said, hitching my tote bag higher on my shoulder.
Wes’s gaze dropped to my ass. “It would be a tragic loss,” he replied, locking the truck. “Humanity will mourn.”
The front steps creaked under our boots as we climbed, the old wood dusted with fresh powder.
Inside, the inn smelled like coffee and cinnamon and the faint lemon of wood cleaner.
Light poured through the front windows, washing over the polished floors and the Christmas garland still wound along the banister.
“Clara!” Elodie appeared from behind the front desk, cheeks flushed, braid looped over one shoulder. Her gaze flicked to Wes, and her smile went knowing. “You brought muscle.”
“He insisted,” I said, ignoring the way my stomach fluttered at the word. “I’m just here to boss everyone around.”
Wes lifted a hand, half wave, half salute. “Contractor slash pack mule, reporting for duty.”
“Perfect,” Elodie said. “You can start by telling us where we’re all going to die of OSHA violations.”
My sister said something to Helen, who was working behind the desk before she wound her way around the desk and stood in front of us.
I pulled out my notebook, pen already uncapped.
“Okay. So. I’m thinking we do the ‘first look’ by the old oak.
If we get snow, the branches will look like a fairy tale.
If we don’t, we lean into the whole moody, winter-light vibe.
” I pointed toward the wide windows framing the field.
“Ceremony-inspired shots in front of the tree line. Then the bride framed in the barn doors for that ‘rustic but make it editorial’ moment . . .”
Words poured out of me as I walked them through it—the path from the inn to the barn, a few shots along the fence line, the angle of the late-afternoon light, the quick-change plan if temperatures plummeted and we all started losing toes.
Every sentence made my chest feel a little bigger, like my lungs finally had room.
“Backup plan,” I added, scribbling in the margin. “If it’s too cold or windy, we pull everyone inside and pivot to cozy, firelight shots by the hearth inside the restaurant. Maybe a champagne tower on that sideboard if I can keep Kit from knocking it over.”
Elodie laughed. “I can wrangle Kit. Anything else?”
“There will be plenty of opportunities to highlight the inn and the farm for you too.” I flipped to the page where my shot list was annotated with stars and arrows and the occasional panicked all-caps note.
“The photographers and designers are booked. All I need is a guy willing to fake-propose in twenty-degree weather. I swear, this time everyone knows it’s pretend from the start.
In fact, it’ll be my lowest-drama almost-wedding ever. ”
The joke slipped out before I could stop it. My eyes wanted to follow it straight to Wes. I forced them to stay on the paper.
He stood a few feet away, hands in the pockets of his jacket, watching me with that focused contractor gaze that had nothing to do with studs and joists and everything to do with me.
No glassy eyes, no polite smile. He looked like he was actually picturing every frame, every angle, the same way I was.
“Are those stairs slick?” he asked, nodding toward the wide staircase up to the inn’s upper-level rooms. “Will you be in heels?”
“Only for a couple of shots,” I said. “I’ll have someone on spotter duty.”
“If we get one thaw-and-freeze before then, that path out to the pines is an accident waiting to happen,” he added, moving toward the window. “We’ll want to put salt down before you haul anyone out there in a ball gown or dress shoes.”
Instead of rolling my eyes, I wrote it down. “See? This is why I bring a contractor. You think of all the ways we could die while I’m distracted by the pretty.”
He snorted. “Teamwork.”
It hit me, inexplicably hard, how different this was from sitting across a table from Greg while he nodded through my ramblings and glanced at his phone.
Wes wasn’t humoring me. He was building on it.
He was putting his hands and experience under the fragile little scaffolding of my ideas and quietly shoring them up.
Elodie was called away by the phone. I walked Wes toward the back door, notebook balanced on top of my tape measure.
“You know, I am accepting applications for a handsome groom,” I said lightly as we stepped outside again, snow glare sharp enough to make me squint. “The job description includes ‘looking hot in a tux’ and ‘doesn’t mind frostbite.’”
His jaw ticced, barely there. “Nah,” he muttered. “The last thing you need is me clomping around in the background of your perfect shots.” The words were rough and self-deprecating. Wes turned to face me. “But whoever you get to stand in better keep his hands to himself.”
The flicker of something darker underneath—the flash of his eyes at the thought of anyone else’s hands on me in a suit and a staged kiss—lit me up in places I didn’t want to examine too closely.
I pretended to write down something important so I could hide the way my mouth wanted to smile too much.
I didn’t want some random guy either. The treacherous voice writhed in my belly. I wanted him in those photos.
But I slammed a door on it.
In the cold, we made a loop of the property, the barn looming blue and bright against the cliffs and snow.
My phone was out, snapping reference photos of everything—how the path curved, how the light hit the inn’s stained-glass windows, the way the pines made a natural aisle if you framed them just right.
Wes walked beside me, boots crunching, hands gesturing as he pointed out where the snow drifted deepest, the cleanest lines for power cords, the best place to stash portable heaters without ruining the aesthetic.
“Run your cables along here,” he said, toe nudging the edge of the path near the fence. “Tape them down or you’re going to have a bridesmaid doing a full face-plant.”
“Noted.” I scribbled another reminder. “No maiming the pretend wedding party.”
We rounded the corner toward the barn’s side entrance, where the snow had been packed down by deliveries and Cal’s determined shoveling. I stepped where I thought the ground was solid, my weight hitting a sleek patch of black ice instead.
My feet went out. My notebook flew.