11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Beck
She finally called me Beck.
It’s been a couple of days since and maybe we’re making some sort of progress since she called me that.
Not that I can even imagine what we’re progressing to. Not killing each other before the mansion’s done? It was really getting under my skin that she kept insisting on calling me Mr. Billingsley. What is this? Victorian England?
We like to keep things simple and non-formal here in Willow Cove. It’s part of our charm. Case in point? Our standing Sunday dinner with friends and family. It’s about as relaxed as you can get, as is made clear right now by my friends, Duke and Perry, turning their volleyball game into a wrestling match.
Even though it stops the game, the members of the opposing team, my other two oldest friends, Coop and King, don’t seem to mind. It’s a common occurrence for things to go off the rails with the guys around, which is why I often turn down their requests to play with them. Even though they’re my best friends, volleyball’s too important to me to be reduced to these antics. I’d rather watch from my sister’s patio set.
My intensity for volleyball makes me think of someone else who’s intense: Dallas. She’s been working here in town for two weeks now and one thing’s clear: she’s good at what she does. Like a cross between a tiger and a vulture, and she doesn’t take no for an answer. Ever. From anyone. Plus, she’s always in my business, wondering and worrying about how things are going on my end.
It’s annoying.
But in the week since Dallas booked the couple we met with at the mansion, she’s totally redone Walter’s former office. It smells good now—a mixture of tropical juice and coconut. Which lingers on Dallas even after she’s left the office.
It’s a nice scent. Not overpowering or too floral. Just enough to fill my nose and get in my head. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear right before she’s about to respond to someone in a meeting gets in my head, too. And the way she laughs. All this might be why I change my shirt and sometimes out of my steel-toed boots and into something else for administrator meetings now. I might peek into my truck’s visor mirror now, too. I can’t charge in there with hardhat hair and sweat stains, now can I?
Plus, Dallas has managed to get two more bookings for this summer, a fact that impresses my sister, Kate, Willow Cove’s postmaster.
“So, she’s booked four new weddings since she got here? For this summer?” Kate asks. “Why are couples booking their venue so late in the season?”
“We still have to book our venue,” Portia, my brother Elliot’s fiancée, says while sitting on his lap in the wicker chair across from us, wrapping her arms around him as she scoots herself closer to him.
Kate looks at Portia. “Have you picked a date yet?”
“We didn’t want to have the wedding right before we move to New Jersey for Portia’s master’s. But at this point, we won’t be ready until August at least.” Elliott focuses on the ring he put on her finger only a few weeks ago, sliding it around and around her finger with his own. “We need to set a date.”
Sounds like me after I proposed to Chloe. She wasn’t in any hurry to finalize wedding plans and I didn’t understand that until she dumped me and sold the ring on Craig’s List.
A good thing, it turns out. But everyone in town has something to say about it, which has become the worst part. I feel like I’ll never escape the scrutiny, the attempts to set me up with other people, the solemn and frequent, “How ya doing?”
“I’ve been exploring some ideas,” Portia says. “I do know it’s happening on the beach at sunset, and I’ll be in my Eowyn dress, all flowy and magical. And Elliot’s been practicing blowing into a big conch after the ceremony.”
Wow. I figured their wedding was going to be unconventional, but a big conch?
We’re temporarily interrupted by another scuffle in the grass between the guys. This time, Coop and Perry are going at it over a missed call. I’m putting my money on Perry. The guy’s a beast.
“Do you know which beach?” I ask Elliott and Portia. “Have you asked for permission yet? You’ll need a permit for a gathering of more than twenty people—”
“Okay, wedding cop!” Portia giggles. “I was going to pick a spot, walk out there, feel the vibe of it, and go from there.” She scrunches her nose. “Do I really need a permit if it’s a public beach?”
“Yeah, I think you do,” Kate says. Her husband, Braden, has finished scraping off the grill. I can still taste the fall-off-the-bone honey-lemon chicken he made.
Thanks, Kate, for backing me up here. I do feel grumpy about the upcoming nuptials of my only brother. Maybe I’m protective of him.
“Well, I’m going back inside to start the dishwasher,” Kate says, Braden quickly offering to join her.
Portia jumps up out of Elliot’s lap. “Let me help. I feel like I haven’t gotten enough opportunities to get to know you.”
Kate agrees with a smile, and they head back into the house. Of course, Portia doesn’t know them. She barely knows Elliot.
I’m not being fair. Maybe once they tie the knot, if they actually tie the knot, I’ll come around. And I don’t dislike Portia as a person. I just dislike feeling like I’m losing Elliott.
I pick up a push broom and start sweeping off the deck. Elliott getting married means I’m going to lose my best manager. Ever since he came back to Willow Cove after graduating college, he’s proven himself indispensable. It will be rough to see him go, and not just from a work standpoint.
A fact that I’m backpedaling in my mind the moment Elliott opens his mouth, his voice low. “Now that we don’t have an audience, tell me the real story with Dallas Cardon.” He’s standing so close to me, he’s messing up my sweeping.
“The real story?” I blow out a slow breath and shake my head. “She’s Mayor Dobb’s wedding planner for her wedding venue business. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Oh, there’s plenty you could tell me. You’re just not ready yet.”
“Why did I ever hire you in the first place, little brother?”
His grin reminds me of when he was five years old, trying to convince me to play with him. “You hired me because after I’d been away at school for so long, you missed me.”
I groan. “Whatever.”
“So. About Dallas…”
“What about her?”
Duke spikes the ball, and it lands with a thud on the opposing side. He and Perry yell and body slam each other while King and Coop protest vehemently. I’m glad for the distraction in this conversation.
“Foot fault!” King complains, rushing forward, pointing to their imaginary line boundary. “That was an absolute foot fault!”
“It was not!” Duke insists, and the four of them turn to me.
“He was clean, right Beck?” Perry asks, placing his hands on his hips and breathing heavily.
I hold up my hands. “I have no idea. I wasn’t watching that closely.”
All four of them groan.
“Sorry!” I say.
“If you’re not going to play with us, the least you could do is pay attention and make some calls.” King says, reaching down for his water bottle and chugging it so much that it spills down the front of his royal-blue tank top.
“You all need women in your lives. Badly.” Elliott mutters under his breath. He gives me a smirk and peers at me. “So, about Dallas. She’s interesting.”
“If obsessed with being early to things and renovating Walter’s office is interesting, then, I guess you’re right.”
“You know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to take her on a date. One date.”
“We’re working together. I don’t want to do that.” At least, part of me doesn’t want to do that. There’s another part of me that would like going on another walk along the beach with her.
“You haven’t been out with anyone since Chloe, and I think it’s been long enough—”
I take a long sip from my drink. “Six months isn’t long. Besides, I’ve been on a couple of dates.”
“I’m talking about a date with someone you asked, not someone that Mary from work set you up on.” Elliott releases a tight breath. “It’s time you stepped into your manhood and asked someone. Go out on a limb. Take a risk.”
“My manhood? If you ever mention my manhood again, I’ll bust your nose.”
Elliott laughs. “Okay, fine. But you know what I’m saying. Chloe doesn’t warrant this kind of grief. She wasn’t right for you anyway, man. You know that.”
I nod. “Yep. I know.” My jaw smarts as I bite down hard. She wasn’t the one. But that doesn’t mean I’m interested in trying to find someone else to fill that role.
“And your excuse has always been that Willow Cove’s too small to find someone and you’re not going to date a tourist. But Dallas is not a tourist.”
“So you’re saying Dallas is perfect for me because she’s not a tourist?”
“That’s part of it. You could go on a double date with Portia and me if it would make you feel any better.”
“Uh, that’s okay.” That’s never going to happen.
He holds up his hands. “Just wanted to throw the idea out there.”
I’ve finished sweeping the deck, and I change the subject to work. Soon we’re talking about the projects we have in various stages. I really don’t know what I’m going to do when he leaves in the fall with Portia.
Soon, the guys’ game ends with a Perry and Duke narrow victory and the four of them ascend on the deck to rest and get drinks.
“You up?” Duke asks me, wiping his brow with a towel. “King and I were supposed to be on a team, but he’s gotta go, so we need someone to take his place.”
I agree, even though it can get frustrating to play with my friends. I take it much more seriously and their casual stance can get annoying. Still, it’s better to get out there than risk having Elliott say something to them about Dallas.
“I’ll show you how it’s done,” I tell my friends, and there’s some good-natured ribbing. These guys are the best. They’ve been my close friends for as long as I can remember.
It’s close, but Duke and I beat the others in three sets.
*****
The next morning, as I pass Dallas’s office, I can’t resist peeking my head in. It may have something to do with that orange-blossom scent or whatever it is that she diffuses.
It doesn’t have to do with Dallas herself.
I’m not entertaining thoughts of asking her out, like Elliott wants me to. He’s just suffering from a classic case of “I’m engaged and it’s so great that I want everyone else to get engaged, too.”
When I glance in, I see Dallas standing in front of her enormous whiteboard calendar. She’s wearing a crisp, white blouse—she seems to have a lot of them—with a blue scrolly pattern. She’s wearing bright pink, wide-legged pants and matching heels.
Of course.
“Good morning.”
She wheels around and smiles a little. “Good Monday.”
“Is that like Good Friday? Is there a holiday I don’t know about?”
She re-caps her whiteboard marker and laughs. “It is for me. I love Mondays.”
“Really?” Why is that attractive to me? “We might have one thing in common then, because I love Mondays, too.”
She tilts her head to one side and scrunches up her nose. “You do not.”
“I do. Ask anyone.”
“This is a well-known thing? Are you known as ‘The Best Monday Lover in the East’?”
“Nailed it.” I lean on the doorframe, realizing I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I end up here more than I care to admit.
I know my smile’s goofy, but I can’t seem to curb it.
“You don’t seem like a Monday lover. You seem like the type to be lying awake on Sunday night, dreading the next day. I know you like to have fun.”
“No, I really do enjoy Mondays. I love me a fresh, new week. And work is fun to me a lot of the time.”
I don’t mention how I really was lying awake last night, but not because I was dreading the week. It was because my brother had put the idea of asking Dallas on a date in my head, which led to a lot of existential questions that kept hounding me. Like, I wonder what big things Dallas will do this week. Why did she take this job in the first place? And what does she wear when she’s not in her fussy business wear?
Dallas’s mouth twitches. “Well, that’s good news because I just got off the phone with another couple who wants to take a tour of the mansion. They’re actually from the Atlanta area, funny enough.”
She’s bouncing on her toes, and her excitement makes me excited, too.
“That’s great. What do you need me to do to make it happen? We’ve got to impress them, right?”
Her lips scroll inward, and she frowns. “That’s an understatement. If I do a good job, I could get a great reference from them, which would mean a lot to the powers that be in Atlanta.”
“You, uh, planning on going back soon?”
Dallas smooths down her auburn hair, her gaze going around her office. She sits down at her desk and focuses on her screen. “Well, I never meant for Willow Cove to be a permanent thing, like years and years, you know?” She finally meets my gaze. “I don’t plan on being here long, to be honest.”
“Yeah. That’s understandable. So, when are you meeting with them?”
“Next week.” She sighs and takes a sip from her water bottle. “I hope the plumbing in the bathroom is finished. I have to say, I’m also stressing about the mansion being ready for weddings.”
“It’s gonna be ready.” And the plumbing in the bathroom is almost finished, but I don’t add that. The word “almost” is incriminating right now.
She rubs the center of her forehead with two of her fingers. “You keep saying that. But how sure are you? Come on, I’m not a client. I deserve to know what your actual timeline is.”
Frustration builds in my chest. “What makes you think I’m not being honest about the timeline? I’ve done this job for eight years. I know when a project will be ready.” I’m confident we’ll finish in time. How much of this confidence is history and fact based, and how much of it involves the need to not fail, I’m not quite sure. But what does it matter?
“Fine. But I was planning on going over there tonight and seeing what I could do to speed things along.”
She wants to help? “I don’t need you breathing down my neck on the jobsite, Dallas.”
“I won’t be breathing down your neck.” Her eyes are thin slits. “But since I don’t really know anyone in the area, and have plenty of time after my work is done, I might as well, right? Anything to help the cause.”
Images of her mudding sheetrock in her fancy, bright pink pants make a laugh escape, which in turn, causes her to glower at me. What exactly she expects to be able to do is beyond me, but her expression is so determined, I’m not going to argue.
“Well, you can’t go over there alone, Dallas.”