Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
N ick, Simone’s fiancé and a respected Nashville restaurant owner, surprised Amy with a visit to the newspaper the next morning.
“Simone offered for us to provide the food for the wedding next weekend. I had a menu in mind, but then Simone told me about the article.”
“Do you have something to add? Or did we make a mistake?” She really hoped he hadn’t spotted a flaw in the plan. There were probably massive holes in it, enough to drive a dump truck through.
“The only flaw is that I wasn’t invited to be part of the article, and I’d love to get some feedback on the menu.”
That had been an oversight on their part. “I can definitely include you in the article.” In case he hadn’t gotten the details from Simone, Amy explained their cover story.
Nick grinned. “That’s genius. Then yes, I would like to be part of it. We can call my ideas appetizers for a summer wedding. In fact, I like that. Having the theme narrows down choices and helps me with the menu.”
“The appetizers should go well with the cupcakes, don’t you think?” Amy asked. She knew nothing about event planning, but this made sense to her.
He nodded. “That won’t be a problem. I’ve tasted the cupcakes, and they’ll be easy to pair with savory food. And no matter which direction Cassie and Greg go in their selection, it’s a win. Of course, I love everything my fiancée bakes.” He leaned closer. “I’m supposed to.”
Amy laughed. “That’s definitely a good trait when you’ve got a cake maker and a chef together. When do you want to do this, Nick? The wedding is coming up soon, and I should probably get this article written in case Cassie asks about it.”
He frowned as he stared straight ahead for a moment. “My schedule is open today, so I could do this quickly. A meal of appetizers in my commercial kitchen. Greg and Cassie, Paige and CJ, Bella and Micah, and you, of course. I know I’ve seen you with Scott. Do you want to bring him?”
People thought she was dating Scott. She’d pushed that intentionally yesterday, but it felt both odd and good to have them connected in her friends’ minds. “He’s just a friend. But he’s deep in the heart of this wedding, so sure, we can invite him. And don’t forget Simone.”
He grinned. “I never forget about Simone. I guess I’d better get cooking. And if Simone isn’t on a cake deadline, I’ll reel her in to help. Tell everyone 6:00 p.m.”
When the door closed behind him, Amy realized she’d just been nominated to contact everyone.
And that’s when it hit her that she hadn’t done the invitations for the wedding yet. Amy sat up straight in her chair and gasped. “Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!” They were now a week away from the day of the wedding.
With everything else going on, she’d forgotten about the invitations, and Scott hadn’t brought them up. She’d handed the invitation samples to Bella ages ago. With everything else going on, she’d forgotten about them. She grabbed her phone and called Scott. “I need your help ASAP. What are you doing today?”
“I’m taking a long walk through town with Cookie. I left right after breakfast.”
“What was planned for you today?”
“I was going to watch Paige at a wedding photo shoot.”
Amy was sure there wasn’t a wedding today. “Wedding?”
“In Nashville .” He said the word with emphasis. “I was supposed to drive with her to the city where she is currently photographing a midweek morning wedding.”
Amy smiled so widely her cheeks hurt. “That definitely wouldn’t be my idea of a good time.” Remembering why she’d called, she added, “Bring your laptop.”
“I’ll drop off the dog and be at the newspaper office in about fifteen minutes. See you then.”
Her heart leaped in her chest when he said those words. She was looking forward to seeing him. Her heart needed to understand that Scott would be leaving soon and would not be looking back.
As to the invitations, they’d have to get them out today. Amy spent the time while she waited for Scott going through online invitation ideas, coming up with what she thought was a fairly good selection by the time Scott came through the door.
“What’s the crisis? Because it feels like there is one.”
“I forgot about the invitations.”
She was certain his expression mirrored her own earlier. “How did we manage that? I guess it was all of the behind the scenes espionage, but I don’t normally forget important things.”
“Neither do I.”
“Are we in trouble?”
“Definitely. But at least there aren’t wedding police.”
“Actually, there are. Everyone involved in this wedding is part of the Two Hearts wedding police force. So, I repeat, are we in trouble?”
Amy chewed on her lip. “Let’s finish this project today and call it a win. Maybe it’s for the best because fewer people will spill the news if they have just a week. Of course, on the downside, fewer people may come because it’s short notice.”
Scott sat at his desk and opened up his laptop.
Over a week ago, Mrs. Brantley suggested that they set up an email address to be used only for this list of guest email addresses. They had but that alone caused part of this problem because Amy had never thought to check the new account. She just hoped that email had arrived. He brought up that account, opened the one message in it, and Amy let out a breath.
Scott’s thoughts mirrored her own. “The addresses are here, so we have everything we need. Except for the actual invitation to use.”
Yet one more decision she had to make.
Scott tapped away on his keyboard as he went through the list and seemed to be organizing it.
“Do you go everywhere with your computer?”
“I only have one here. I usually have three monitors on my desk at work. And multiple computers in my house. For me, this is traveling light.”
A geek was never without a computer. He didn’t look or act like TV and movie versions of a geek—no dated clothes, too short pants, white socks, or pocket protector—but he truly was one. She forwarded him links to the wedding invitations. As soon as they arrived and he flipped through them, she asked, “Which one do you think we should base their invitation on, or do you think we ought to mix a couple of them together?”
He spun on his chair to face her. “Did you actually ask me for input on a wedding invitation?”
“Yes. I’m no more of an expert than you are. I have no idea what they should look like. I mean, I’ve received wedding invitations from friends and relatives in the past, but they’ve usually been the fancy ones on heavy cardstock and often with elegant calligraphy or using a formal font. What do we do for something digital?”
He pondered her question for a moment. “We have two options. We can go ahead and choose whatever we believe is best. Or we can put together several mock-ups, and you can walk around getting opinions. That will, of course, shine a light on the fact that they weren’t sent earlier.”
“More than that, it will take time we don’t have. I’d rather just send them out, but I’m not sure I know what would be best.”
“Simone knows cakes. Bella knows wedding dresses. Everybody has their own specialty. The town doesn’t have anyone who’s an expert with invitations. Maybe that could be you.”
She thought about the idea. “I spend a lot of time with graphic design because of the newspaper. You’re great at design. Maybe, between the two of us, we can figure this out.” She leaned over his shoulder. “All the options I bookmarked are beautiful. We know the colors Cassie chose—soft yellow and pink. Why not use those colors with something similar to one of these?”
They worked together on the invitation for about an hour, coming up with several options. Finally, Amy said, “I know I talked big earlier, but I’m not willing to make this decision on my own. They’re all going to know when these invitations go out because people will start sending in RSVPs. The biggest thing we need all over this invitation and in big letters at the top is, This is a surprise .”
Scott changed the text as she’d asked.
Amy sighed with frustration. “I was wrong. That takes away some of the elegance. This is the biggest flaw in our plan. Any one of these people could blow it. Can you save those to show the others?”
“Sure.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Do you want to ask everyone? And do you need a legitimate excuse for going from place to place?” He closed his computer and waited for her reply.
“I’m doing additional research for my article?”
“But why am I tagging along?”
An idea came to her, but she knew she’d turn bright red when she said it aloud. Amy cleared her throat. “Because you want to spend time with me?” She was coming to realize that she wanted to spend as much time with him as she could before he left.
Scott stared at her, an expression on his face she couldn’t read. “I like that. Let’s run with it.” He stood and put the computer back in his backpack, slipping the straps over his shoulders. “We may as well go now.”
Before they left, Amy realized she had a mission, anyway. She was in charge of contacting everyone about Nick’s event tonight.
“Hang on a sec.” She brought up Cassie on her phone. When her friend answered, she said, “Hey, Nick stopped by this morning. We’d left him out of the article, but he wants to be in with appetizers for a summer wedding.”
“That’s a great idea! We never should have left out the food.” Amy could hear the enthusiasm in Cassie’s voice.
“Agreed. But this gets even better. He wants the whole group of us to come to his kitchen for a tasting tonight at 6:00. Can you make it?”
“I would rearrange my schedule to eat Nick’s food. Of course, I’ll be there. And I’ll call Greg to make sure he can come. I know he’s not working tonight.”
Amy hadn’t considered that, and she should have. What was distracting her so much from being orderly and in control? “I’ll get the word around to everybody else. I need to work on the article more, anyway. Research.”
“Is everything okay, Amy? You sound a little . . . nervous.”
Amy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she said the first thing that came into her mind to push Cassie off the scent. “Scott will be hanging out with me today.”
Cassie quickly asked, “And he’s there with you right now?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “I’ll see the two of you tonight then.” Still laughing, she hung up the phone.
Now, everyone would think she was interested in Scott. He stood silently watching her. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“I had to come up with something in a hurry.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. “We’d better get going. I guess I’m having appetizers for dinner?”
“I hope you don’t mind being my . . . date.”
“Not at all.”
Whew! “And if you haven’t had Nick’s cooking before, you’re in for a treat.”
Simone was decorating a baby shower cake when they walked in. Amy didn’t think anything could be cuter than a cake decorated with sunflowers and baby booties.
Amy explained why she was there. Simone took a look at the pictures and pointed to the one Scott and Amy had both preferred.
Bella chose the same one, but not until after she’d asked questions. “Aren’t we cutting things a little close on this?”
Amy nodded. “I’m going to be honest and say I forgot about this.”
Bella said, “It’s partly my fault. I’d wondered about the invitations but didn’t mention them. This can’t all be on you, Amy. You have the article and sneaking around to coordinate, as well. Don’t worry.” Bella checked her watch. “I’d better get ready for my next appointment. I don’t move as quickly as I used to.”
“We’re on our way out.”
Bella walked them to the door. “You know, in the end, it may be better to give guests shorter notice. People can come or not. Even if we’d given them another week, that probably wouldn’t change their availability much. And this is one less week for someone to goof up and tell Cassie.”
“That’s what I thought. But hearing you say that makes me feel a lot better.” As she had with the others, she told Bella about the dinner.
“The three of us will be there.” She put her hand on her stomach. “I’ve been so hungry lately.”
They found Paige at her studio, adjusting a backdrop. She agreed with everyone’s choice of invitation but stopped them as they were leaving. “I’m still waiting to see goat photos in the paper.” She grinned.
Amy laughed. “Your photos were great, but I could barely look at the ones with the goats.” She paused as she thought about that day. “Enough time has passed, though, that I’m feeling more charitable toward Bernie. Once this wedding is over, I may have to do an article on him and his four-legged friends. My readers loved everything I wrote about Mabel.”
“I’m sure Michelle would be happy to have them featured.” Paige pointed to her camera. “And I’m willing to take more photos of them. They really are cute.”
She had thought the goats were cute—before she’d gone flying. “Bernie’s an adorable menace. Okay, let’s go ahead and do that next week. But now, we’d better get going.”
Paige called out, “See the two of you tonight,” as they exited. She’d put a bit too much emphasis on the word “two.”
As they went down the sidewalk to the catering kitchen Nick had built next to Simone’s bakery to give him his headcount for the evening, Scott said, “I noticed that none of your friends were surprised to see me with you, and yet you only decided to be seen with me on purpose last night and mentioned it to Cassie less than an hour ago.”
Amy felt her face heat. “Everyone had seen us together anyway, so staying away from each other was pointless. I think that horse has left the barn.” She used an expression her grandma had used when she was young.
“I get your point. Everyone thinks we’re a couple, don’t they? I got grilled by Greg yesterday.”
Amy gasped. If the guys were doing it, what were the women thinking?
“I decided none of that mattered. What we think is our own business.”
Yet one more reason to like this man. Even though they weren’t dating.
Back at the newspaper office, Amy worked on the wedding article, and Scott worked on getting the invitations out. She rubbed her shoulder when it tensed from the combination of wedding planning stress and sitting.
Scott surprised her less than a half hour later when he said, “Done.”
“What do you mean done? You haven’t been working on the invitations very long.”
“Once the invitation was chosen, there wasn’t much left to do. Mrs. Brantley did the hard work with assembling the email addresses.”
Amy pushed back from her desk. “Then I’m ready for a break. I didn’t expect to finish this article today, especially with the invitation and dinner surprise. I’d like to take some treats to Nosey. And I’ll get a few bananas for Mrs. Robinson. She seemed to enjoy those when I brought them before.”
“Nosey is the rabbit we rescued?”
Amy nodded as she closed her computer. “I’ve become friends with a rabbit.”
“Friends? With a rabbit?”
When she realized what she’d said, she turned to him. “He doesn’t like everyone, but he apparently likes me. I guess he runs and hides when it’s somebody he doesn’t know. Mrs. Robinson is all alone from midafternoon to the next morning when someone picks her up to return to Dinah’s, where she stays for both breakfast and lunch. Since I found out about that, I’ve been buying herbs I know Nosey likes and dropping them off.” She grabbed her purse and looked around to see if she needed to take anything else with her.
“I’ll go along.” Scott closed his laptop and put it in his backpack.
Mrs. Robinson’s question about whether or not she had a young man in her life popped into Amy’s head. When someone reached ninety-seven years old, they seemed to lose whatever filter they had. She just hoped Mrs. Robinson wouldn’t say anything embarrassing. Amy couldn’t find a way to tell Scott he couldn’t come when they’d be going together to Nick’s appetizer party in a couple of hours.
Outside, Amy started toward her car, and Scott walked toward his truck. Then they both stopped and turned to face each other.
Amy chuckled. “Which one of us is driving?”
“Why don’t we both drive to your house where you can drop off your car. Then I can bring you home after dinner.”
One more thing that made this feel a lot like a date. Her time with Scott had an increasing number of those moments.
Ten minutes later, they’d left her car at her brother’s house and were having a very domestic moment at the grocery store together. Scott grabbed a jar of peanut butter for himself, telling Amy he enjoyed peanut butter on toast in the morning, and Mrs. Brantley didn’t have any. If his host had known, Amy was certain it would have appeared in the cupboard within hours. She had to hand it to Scott for not bothering her with it. Amy grabbed parsley and bananas to take to Mrs. Robinson and bagels for her own breakfast. She’d have to remember to remove them from Scott’s car.
Walking side by side up to the cash register, they passed two older ladies she knew from church but couldn’t recall their names. “I don’t recognize your date, Amy,” one said as she passed. “Is this a boyfriend you brought with you when you moved here?”
As Amy tried to reply with her jaw wide open in shock, Scott said, “I’m visiting my friend Greg Brantley. Amy and I were just in the grocery store at the same time.”
One of the women got a shrewd expression on her face as she looked at the two of them. “If it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, it’s a skunk.” With that, she turned and left.
Scott watched her go. “Do you know?—”
“No idea. I hadn’t noticed that either of us needed to bathe.”
They made their way to the cash register, and as they were paying, she asked the woman if she knew what the expression meant.
“Sure do. It means that if it looks like it’s something, it is. It doesn’t matter if you tell somebody it’s not.”
Amy and Scott whipped around to look at each other, realizing the woman had been talking about their relationship.
Amy said, “I know some of the ladies enjoy spreading gossip around town.”
The clerk sniffed. “It isn’t gossip if it’s sharing information about a fellow resident. Think of it like a telephone line that goes around the town communicating important things.” The woman said it with such conviction that Amy believed for a moment that this was helpful. Then she realized it was still gossip.
“So does the woman who just left here participate in this service?”
The clerk stared at her for a few seconds, then started laughing, doubling over with her face turning bright red. She gasped for air. “I thought you were funning me for a second. Anything she knows will be spread around this town within three minutes. Maybe less.”
Amy had decided yesterday that she didn’t care as much what others thought of her relationship with Scott, but now she’d forever be connected to Scott in the town’s eyes. He’d be long gone, and they’d ask about the handsome man she’d dated. Then again, did it really matter? He wouldn’t care, though, because he’d be leaving soon. Her heart sank a little more than she thought it should.
As they drove from the grocery store to Mrs. Robinson’s, Scott said, “I don’t think the potential gossip about us matters. Do you?”
“Your thoughts echo my own. It doesn’t.” She thought about it for another few seconds before adding, “But it would be nice not to have everybody talking about us. Do you know what I mean?”
“Completely. There’s good and bad in a small town and a big city. In the city, very few people care.”
“That’s true. I lived in an apartment in Denver for almost a year, and I didn’t know who my next door neighbor was other than by sight because I’d passed his door when he stepped out to pay for pizza delivery. Here, everybody knows everybody.”
Scott grinned. “But you heard what the clerk said. It’s just information.”
“If her words were true, then why does the juiciest information get the most attention?” she wondered aloud.
He laughed as they pulled up to Mrs. Robinson’s house. “Good point. Should I wait in the car while you go in?”
Amy hated to have him do that. Leaving him behind seemed rude. Besides, Mrs. Robinson would probably be happy to have another person visit her. “Come on in with me. Let’s see how Nosey feels about you.”
She knocked on the door and, as always, heard, “Come in.” And as always, it unnerved her that Mrs. Robinson was inviting people in without knowing who they were. She pushed the door open and stood in the open entry for a moment. “Mrs. Robinson, it’s me, Amy. And I brought a friend.”
“Come in! Come in! I know Nosey is going to be thrilled to see you. Not that I’m not thrilled too.”
Amy walked in with Scott behind her and went over to Nosey’s bed. He hopped out of it when he spotted her, and she knelt to give him some fresh parsley. As he snacked, she ran her hand down his soft fur. “Could anything be softer than a rabbit?”
“This is mighty interesting. Nosey doesn’t seem to be afraid of you either, young man.”
“I’m Scott Miller, ma’am.”
“Amy said she didn’t have a young man.”
This time, his face turned bright red. Amy had been prepared.
“We’re just friends. We’re going to a dinner with some friends tonight.”
“When it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, it’s a skunk.”
Amy and Scott both grinned.
“We’ve heard that twice today,” Amy admitted.
“That’s probably because people don’t believe your words. They’re going with their eyes.”
Amy turned to look at Scott. “He’s just a friend, ma’am. He’s visiting Greg Brantley. They knew each other back in Chicago.”
“Uh-huh. Why don’t you kneel down, Scott, to see if Nosey will allow you to pet him?”
Scott stared down at the rabbit. “I’m more of a dog or cat person.”
“He’s sweet. See?” Amy rubbed her hand down the rabbit’s back again.
Scott knelt and did the same. “He does seem like a nice rabbit.”
Mrs. Robinson sounded happy when she said, “He likes both of you. That’s quite nice.”
Amy ignored the comment, which hinted at matchmaking. “We don’t have time to stay for long today. I got you some bananas that look like they’ll probably be ready to eat tomorrow.”
“Thank you. You’ve been a sweetheart to me. Could you stop by tomorrow afternoon? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Amy stood. “Is anything wrong?”
“I think everything’s going to be great.” She wore a satisfied smile.
They left with Amy wondering what Mrs. Robinson wanted to talk to her about. The older woman had talked about moving in with her son, but Amy wouldn’t have anything to do with that. Randi, the local real estate agent, would take care of any real estate transactions when her new friend sold her home.
Scott and Amy went back out to his truck. Driving away, he asked, “Is it common for her to ask you to return the next day?”
Amy shook her head, “I’ve only known her since we rescued Nosey, but she’s never asked me to return and especially not at a specific time. I hope everything’s okay.”
Tonight, she’d focus on having fun with friends and enjoying delicious food. In between being careful and sneaky and making sure she didn’t say the wrong thing.