"Coffee, chocolate, all the good stuff."
"I"ll say," she replied, biting off another chunk of the warm, chewy cookie.
Fee finished her piping work and set about applying large, perfectly-crafted red sugar roses to the cake. Sherilyn grabbed another cookie before sliding atop one of the stools at the worktable.
"That"s beautiful."
"Thanks."
"Beekman wedding?" she asked curiously. It didn"t look like what Madeline had decided on.
"Sullivan anniversary."
"Ah."
"So how are you getting settled up there?" Fee asked as she cautiously poked the final rose into place at the base of the top tier.
"Pretty well, actually. I"ve been sitting in on Madeline"s scheduled appointments, and I"ve met a few of the regular vendors." She paused to pop the last of the latte cookie into her mouth, and she sighed. "Mmm, this is cookie brilliance."
"Emma went through about half a dozen versions before she finally got it just the way she wanted it."
"How does she do that? I mean, she can"t very well sample them all. She"s diabetic."
"That"s why G.o.d sent me," Fee grinned.
Sherilyn nodded into a shrug and smiled. "Used to be me . . . So anyway, I have my first meeting with Norma this afternoon to discuss how she manages her non-wedding events."
"What time?"
"What time do I meet with Norma?"
"Yeah."
"Two o"clock. Why?"
"Emma hasn"t told you?" Fee looked positively cat-atethe-canary as she leaned forward on the table and chuckled, and Emma made an entrance whose timing was Broadwayworthy.
"What haven"t you told me, Emma Rae Travis?" Sherilyn asked her as Emma sailed on past and into her office. "We"re taking you shopping this afternoon," she called back.
Sherilyn hopped down and followed her. "Shopping for what?" she asked, leaning in the doorway.
"A wedding dress."
"Oh, no," Sherilyn growled. "I can"t. I don"t have the strength to try on anymore wedding dresses that make me look like an elegant cow!"
"Then we won"t try those on," Emma told her, and she dropped an armload of magazines and file folders to the top of her desk. Without pause, she pushed her way past Sherilyn and back into the kitchen. "We"ll just pull the magical ones."
When she reached Fee, Emma held out her fist, which Fee b.u.mped two times fast with a grin. Palms upright and two slaps, then two returned, a couple of animated hip b.u.mps, and the two of them exclaimed in unison, "Hoo-yeah!"
"What is that? Some sort of secret baker handshake?" she asked them from the doorway to Emma"s office.
"Sort of," Fee answered. "You want to be in the club too?"
Sherilyn shook her head. "Probably not."
"Well, we"re going to take you to an awesome dress shop that Fee knows. And if there"s nothing there that you deem magical, well, we"ll just go to another one."
"And another," Fee added, "until you find your wedding dress."
Sherilyn grimaced and made her way toward the counter again. "It"s not like there"s any rush," she commented before picking up one more cookie and biting into it.
"Uh-oh. That doesn"t sound good," Emma said.
"On the way back to the hotel last night, I was telling Andy that I hadn"t found a dress yet, and I suggested we pick a date for the ceremony. Do you know what he said to me?" She pushed the rest of the cookie into her mouth and chewed it with a frown. "No rush! To pick a date or find a dress, he said there"s no rush!" After she swallowed the last of the cookie, she deflated atop one of the stools.
"Don"t worry," Emma rea.s.sured, standing behind her and patting her on the shoulder. "It"s just another phase."
"Just press on," Fee told her with a nod.
"Man," Sherilyn groaned. "That after-care thing is ruthless, isn"t it? Why haven"t I ever heard about it before? If it"s some kind of big hush-hush secret among women, shouldn"t someone have told me?"
"You didn"t know the handshake," Fee teased, and Sherilyn let out a spontaneous laugh.
Norma arrived at the table with two cups of coffee. Sherilyn continued tapping at the keyboard as she sat down across from her.
"Emma said you take milk and three sugars?"
"Yes. Thanks, Norma." She closed her laptop and took a sip from the white porcelain mug.
"So what do you think?" Norma asked her. "We"ve covered most of what I do, and how my events might intersect with your weddings now and then. Did you think of any additional questions?"
Sherilyn shook her head and smiled, stirring her coffee with the small silver spoon leaning against the side of the cup.
"Not that there are too many non-wedding soirees at The Tanglewood. A birthday here and an anniversary there, but I think people have pretty much-"
Norma"s observations were cut short as something crashed to the table between them. Coffee mugs went flying just before the table turned over amid Norma"s spontaneous wail and Sherilyn"s own instinctive and primal scream.
Sherilyn, still occupying her chair, clutching her open pink laptop to her chest, and relatively unscathed by the chaos, couldn"t seem to catch her breath as she surveyed her surroundings. Shattered gla.s.s littered the brick courtyard, and a large scruffy man rolled over at her feet.
"Arghhh!"
As she took it in and began to gather her wits about her again, Norma touched her on the shoulder. "Are you all right?"
Sherilyn simply nodded, still dazed, but she nearly jumped out of her skin when the guy at her feet-the one who"d dropped out of the sky-groaned and wrapped his arm around her ankle.
She let out another little scream and popped up from her chair, still holding tight to her open laptop, and maneuvered her foot away from his grasp. Norma dialed her cell phone as he groaned again, and Sherilyn knelt down beside him.
"Uh, sir? We"re going to call an ambulance, OK? Just, umm, be calm and try . . . not to . . . you know . . . move."
"Nah. No ambulance," he growled, tugging on his somewhat tattered gray T-shirt screened across the front with a large banana.
The courtyard doors burst open, and a couple of strangers emerged from the lobby. A young wisp of a girl stood several feet back, her arms folded across her barely-there chest, as the middle-aged man in a disheveled blue suit raced to the crumpled guy"s side.
"Russell! Russell, what were you thinking, you moron? Can you move?"
"Well, I"m not entirely sure," Norma exclaimed into her cell phone. "I think he . . . fell out of . . . a tree? We definitely need the para-"
"No!" the suit exclaimed, and he flew toward her and s.n.a.t.c.hed Norma"s phone away from her before she could complete her request. "Sorry, never mind," he said into the phone and closed it, disconnecting the call, and he handed Norma her phone.
"What is going on here?"
Sherilyn spun around on her heels as Jackson bounded through the doors. "Norma? What happened?"
"I don"t really . . . I don"t know, Jackson. We were sitting at a table, and the next thing we knew, this gentleman came barreling out of the sky."
Jackson squinted at her for a moment before turning to Sherilyn. "Did you see what happened?"
"He just dropped right on the table between us, Jackson!"
"Is he hurt? Hey, are you hurt?"
The blue suit cut Jackson off at the pa.s.s, taking him by the arm and leading him away from the groaning man. "Alan Burkus," he said, forcing his hand into Jackson"s and shaking it. "And you are?"
"Jackson Drake. I own this hotel."
"Excellent! The man in charge. Frankly, Mr. Drake, we have a bit of a situation here-"
"I can see that," Jackson replied as Burkus pushed him toward the lobby door.
"Let me fill you in."
The writhing man reached out his hand toward the slip of a girl. Keeping her distance from him, she looked almost as if she might spit on him before turning away.
"Come on, Danielle." Sherilyn detected the distant whisper of an accent. British?
"Don"t talk to me, Russell." She, on the other hand, was 100 percent American.
He laughed, looking to Sherilyn with a slight shrug. "Could I possibly get a little help to get up? And it appears I"ve lost my Cascade."
"Your Cascade?"
"His beer," Danielle snapped. "He climbs over the railing of his third-floor hotel room and falls out of the tree, and that"s right. He"s worried about what happened to his beer."
Sherilyn inched toward him, brushing his arm awkwardly with the palm of her hand. "I think you should just stay right where you are until we make sure you"re okay to move."
He appeared to consider her words before he finally rolled his hand through the air in an effort to call her closer. Sherilyn approached him with caution, but he rolled his hand again, nodding. "That"s right. Come here."
She took one more step toward him, and the overpowering scent of alcohol wafted toward her. Upon closer inspection, she took note of his bloodshot green eyes, his dazed expression, and the bead of drool balancing on the corner of his mouth.
"Are you drunk!?" she exclaimed.
He pushed his s.h.a.ggy blond hair away from his face and chuckled. "Not quite drunk enough," he said with a bitter tone. "But I"m willing to work on that. I believe you"ll find I"m quite agreeable that way."
Australian.
Norma took Sherilyn"s arm and pulled her away from him. Before they could exchange a word, Jackson reappeared with Alan Burkus close behind.
"Sherilyn, I need Andy"s cell number."
"Andy?"
"Please. Right away."
"O-oh, okay."
Jackson climbed out from behind the wheel of the car, followed by an unamused middle-aged man pushing his way out from the back seat.
"A little help here?" he snapped.
Jackson and Andy exchanged quick looks before they rounded the back of the car.
There he was, just as Jackson had forewarned, looking very much like one of the dozen headline photographs that had kept the tabloids in business over the last year or so.
Andy shook his head as he leaned into the back seat. "That really is Russell Walker."
"Pleased to make your acquaintanceship," he slurred. "No autographs, please."
Andy straightened and raised a curious eyebrow at Jackson before stating, "Let"s get him out of the car and into the clinic while there"s no one around."
It took all three of them to pull Walker out and dump him like a heap of potatoes into the seat of a wheelchair.
"Get this car out of here," Burkus snapped at a new arrival, a towering black man with a gold stud earring and a completely bald head. "Then come inside. We"re going to need you."
Andy pushed the chair through the sliding door, Jackson and Burkus keeping up with him stride for stride.
"I"ve only been working here about eight minutes, so I don"t know the staff well enough to choose someone based on their discretion. I did the best I could. We have one radiologist to take x-rays so I can evaluate his injuries."
"And then what?" Burkus asked.
"Then we"ll wing it from there."
When Russell began to sing "Waltzing with Matilda" at the top of his lungs, Andy turned to Burkus and frowned, smacking his shoulder several times. "Easy there, Pavarotti. We"re trying to keep you under wraps."
But Russell Walker was not deterred, and Andy stepped up his pace to get him to X-Ray before the whole clinic staff and all of their patients came running to check out the ruckus.
Once Russell had been safely delivered, Burkus a.s.signed Sean, the large and well-dressed refrigerator who had moved the car, to a.s.sist Todd, the somewhat frail radiologist. Andy, Jackson, and Alan Burkus closed the door to Andy"s office to discuss what came next.
"He was apparently involved in a hit-and-run last night while he"s here filming a movie," Jackson began. "I don"t know much more than that."