Sherilyn let her entire face drop as she told him. "Jackson thinks Andy"s ex-girlfriend looks like Megan Fox."
"Ewww," Russell groaned. "Not what any current one wants to hear, hey?"
"No. Not at all."
"But look on the bright side. You have curves that Megan doesn"t have. And you"re all natural. No preservatives, if you know what I mean."
"How do you know?" Sherilyn pouted.
Russell snickered. "Oh, I know. Don"t get all bunged up about an ex when you"re the one he picked, right? You"re the d.i.n.ky-di."
"The what?"
"The real deal," Fee chimed in as she walked in and dropped into one of the dining chairs at the adjacent table.
"Oh." Sherilyn thought it over for a moment, then tilted her head and smiled at Russell. "Thanks, Russell."
"No worries, love. When do we chow?"
"Any time now."
On the other side of the gla.s.s, Jackson, Andy, and Sean huddled together over the grill. The wind kicked up and blew against them, and Sean turned away, his hands raised in resignation as he hurried to the back door and stepped into the house.
"Who ever heard of grilling burgers on the frozen tundra?" he said with a groan. "These men of yours are out of their minds."
"Yeah, but we like them that way," Emma told him with a grin.
"Hot coffee?" Fee asked him, and she was out of her chair and into the kitchen by the time he nodded.
Russell acted as overseer, hovering as Emma and Sherilyn finished setting the table.
"Hey," he commented as he came to a stop in the kitchen. "You have your spices in alphabetic order."
Sherilyn turned around with a serious expression. "So? Everybody does that."
"I don"t think so, love."
"Oh, you"re not even American," she pouted. "What do you know?"
Russell looked around from one of them to the other. "What, you Americans are the only ones who use spices?"
Emma snickered as Sean and Fee pulled her into an a.s.sembly line as they pa.s.sed along potato salad, condiments, sodas and the like. The last gla.s.s was filled with ice as Andy rushed inside with a platter of burgers.
"Oh, good. I"m starving," Russell told them. "Let"s eat!"
The seven of them took their places at the dining table, and Andy reached for Sherilyn"s hand to pray.
"Ah, right," Russell said. "We"re going to say grace, are we?"
"Would you like to say it?" Sherilyn asked, partly in jest.
"Yeah, okay." He nodded, looking around at the others. "All righty."
When everyone had joined hands, they sort of froze there, looking from one to the other. Sherilyn realized that none of them knew exactly what they"d gotten into by handing Russell the reins to pray over their meal.
"Oh, Lord," he announced in his Australian brogue, his head bowed and his eyes closed, sounding a little like The Great and Powerful Oz. Sherilyn and Emma exchanged curious grins before following suit. "Thanks for the grub," he continued. "And please . . . bless these sinnahs as they eats their dinnahs."
They all laughed over it before digging into the feast before them. Every burger was accessorized in a different way: Andy"s with onions and ketchup only; Fee"s plain on the plate, no bun. Conversation floated to and fro like an ocean current, first this way and then that. By the time Emma served the Pavlova, spirits were still pretty high.
Russell shoveled a heaping spoonful of cake, whipped cream, and fruit into his mouth, and he moaned as it overflowed out one side.
"Grouse sweets, love," he said past his full mouth, and a droplet of whipped cream fell to his plate.
"Grouse is good?" Emma asked him, and he nodded emphatically.
"It"s good, yes."
"What"s it called again?" Sean asked.
"Pavlova," Fee answered him.
"I like the kiwi."
"I like the cake," Sherilyn chimed in.
"I wish I could eat more than a couple of spoonfuls," Emma added, and Russell whimpered at her.
"I don"t know how you do it, love."
"Me neither," said Sherilyn, shaking her head as she gathered the plates and stacked them. "Why don"t you boys . . . and Fee . . . go turn on the game."
Fee grinned at her. "Go, Thrashers!"
"I"ll get the dishes cleaned up and make some more coffee if anyone wants some."
"Who"s playing?" Russell asked them as they moved into the living room.
"Penguins," Andy replied. Then after a moment, Sherilyn heard him clarify. "Pittsburgh."
Emma rinsed the plates and utensils and handed them off to Sherilyn, who dropped them into the dishwasher with the other dinner dishes. She poured water into the reservoir on the Keurig as Russell joined them, plopping down at the table next to Emma.
"So, Red," he said, and Sherilyn looked up and grinned at him. "Why aren"t you moved in here with your doctor?"
She and Emma exchanged glances; Emma snickered.
"What? Too stickybeak?" he asked Emma.
"Way too."
"Is it?" He looked at Sherilyn, and she nodded at him. "It can"t be that no one else has ever asked you. I mean, the two of you are betrothed, righty? Engaged?"
"Yes. We"re engaged."
"So it can"t be that you"re . . . you know . . . saving yourself."
"Russell," she said sternly. "I am not having this conversation with you."
"So you and the doc, you never-"
"Well, I didn"t say that."
"Then you have."
"I didn"t say that either."
"But what she did say," Emma interjected, poking him in the arm with her index finger, "is that she"s not going to discuss it with you. Be a gentleman and take the hint."
"Now please get out of my kitchen," Sherilyn told him, "before I have Emma whip you up into peaks and make a dessert out of you."
He grinned as he raised both hands in surrender and got up from the chair. "Fine. I"ll go watch skating."
"Hockey," Emma corrected him.
"Same difference, right?"
"Not at all," Sherilyn warned. "And you"d better not say that in front of Fee or Andy. Either one of them could resort to violence over hockey disrespect."
"Same thing for Jackson with football," Emma told Sherilyn as Russell made his way into the living room. "The entire Falcons football season is more of an event than the holiday season. He and his friends are maniacs."
"Emma Rae Travis," Sherilyn taunted. "You are as much of a Falcons fiend as any guy I"ve ever met."
Emma chuckled and swatted Sherilyn"s arm with the back of her hand.
"Hey, Sher," Emma said suddenly. "What"s up with your arm?"
Sherilyn glanced down at one arm, and then the other, and she gasped as she held them both out in front of her.
"What is that?"
"It"s that rash again," she said, running a finger over the b.u.mpy crop of red b.u.mps on the inside of her lower arm. "The same one I got from your earm.u.f.fs and scarf."
"That"s really wicked," she said, and she rose from the chair for a closer look. "Does it hurt?"
"Not yet. It took a bit for the last one to develop an itch. But when it did, it was a doozy. I still have some of the cream left, over in my hotel room. I"ll put some on when I get there."
"I don"t think I"d waste much time, Sher."
"Why?"
Emma just stared at her neck, and Sherilyn"s hand immediately smacked against her own throat. Her fingers easily detected a b.u.mpy path along the side of her neck and over her collarbone.
"What"s up with this? What am I allergic to?"
"Maybe Russell," Emma whispered, and Sherilyn burst into laughter.
"In that case, we should check Andy for a rash rather than me."
As Sherilyn went over the notes for her two o"clock consultation, she noticed a pale blue sticky note on the inside of the file. From the desk of Georgiann Markinson. She recognized the cream-colored vine embossed along the top.
This is a very important consult. She"s marrying the son of our future governor.
She moved the note to the inside back cover of the file so that the bride wouldn"t see it if she opened it in her presence and, just as she added a blank consultation form to the file, the door opened slightly and a light knock drew her attention.
A poised, elegant older woman entered first. "Come on, dear," she said, and a young woman followed her inside.
"You must be Brittany Lund. I"m Sherilyn Caine, the wedding consultant here at The Tanglewood. Please come in and sit down."
Brittany pa.s.sed her, and Sherilyn extended her hand to the older woman. "Are you Brittany"s mother?"
"Oh, no. Beverly Pendleton, mother of the groom."
She seemed to greet her surroundings more than Sherilyn. The woman sat down in the chair beside Brittany and faced forward. Sherilyn hurried to fill her spot on the other side of the desk.
"We"re interested in a very traditional ceremony," Beverly began. "I"m told that arrangements here at The Tanglewood are all-inclusive? Room, reception, decor, cake . . ."
"Yes, ma"am. We offer a full-service experience, from engagement to honeymoon." She"d heard Madeline say that, and she stole it, tucking it away for a meeting like this one.
Sherilyn grabbed a pen from the drawer of the desk. She smiled at Brittany as she said, "I"d like to get some idea of what you"ve already started planning."
The girl didn"t even bother to open her mouth. She simply glanced at Beverly, awaiting her reply. The woman did not disappoint.
"The guest list is firm at two hundred. We want a traditional ceremony, and a full sit-down meal in an adjacent venue. Our theme will be a black-and-white ball, so guests will be asked to wear black, and the one and only floral statement will be red and white roses."
"It sounds very elegant," Sherilyn said, mostly to Brittany. When she glanced back at Beverly, she was met with an alarming grimace.
"Is it-" the woman said, drawing a circle around her face with an extended index finger. "-contagious?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You seem to have a . . . well . . ."
"Oh!" Sherilyn said on a chuckle. "The rash?"
"Yes."
"Just an allergic reaction. It"s almost gone, actually."
"It was worse?"