Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride (21 page)

T
he burgers were nearly ready, but Russell lost interest before the red meat turned to pink. He and Henry chased one another in the yard, leaving Andy to enjoy firing up his grill for the first time on Georgia soil.

"You'd better keep the leash handy," he called out to Russell. "He's a bolter."

"Nah, mate. He's not going anywhere."

Although the snow on the lawn had melted away to reveal large patches of greenish brown grass, Russell still managed to dig up enough from beneath the hedge to pat out a good sized snowball which he pitched across the yard. Henry bounded after it, barking when he picked it up in his mouth and it disintegrated. Amused, Russell went on a quest to create another one.

"Hi, Mr. Drummond!"

Aaron, the young kid from the neighborhood, had appeared out of nowhere and joined Russell and Henry in their antics on the back lawn. Andy waved back at him and watched the antics of the equivalent of two boys and a dog. They wiped out at the edge of the property when Henry chased them into

a full-on collision with the shrubs, and Aaron's laughter rolled along the slope of the yard.

"I thought you said you didn't have any kids," the boys giggled and called out to Andy. Russell raised a fist, and Aaron bumped it before they sprang to their feet and took off again across the yard.

"Hey, buddy. Need some help?" Jackson tightened his jacket as he stepped up to the grill beside Andy.

"Glad you could make it."

Jackson watched Russell for a moment. "So you drew the short straw, huh?"

"Yeah. Sherilyn's taken a liking to him."

"Emma too. She squealed like a girl when she heard he was back, and now she's baking Australian desserts for the guy. I don't know whether to laugh it off or punch him out."

"I know the feeling," Andy replied.

"So listen," Jackson began awkwardly, and Andy started to feel like a large shoe might drop on him at any moment. "About that woman you saw the night we went to the game together."

Andy swallowed. "Maya?"

"Yeah. Is there anything I need to know?" Jackson asked as he shook his head. "No, that's not what I mean. It's just that Emma is asking a lot of questions about her, on Sherilyn's behalf I presume. I just wondered if—"

"Oh, no," he answered, returning his attention to the grill. "She's an ex of mine. After that night, she went knocking on my mother's door, and I ran into her over there as well. Sherilyn knows all about it."

"She does."

"Yeah. It's all good."

"It is." Jackson tilted his head slightly and grimaced. "As long as you're sure."

"Yeah. Oh, yeah."

"Because in my experience, a woman doesn't go hunting down information on the ex if it's all good." Andy looked up at him and Jackson smiled slowly. "Just something to think about."

Andy nodded, staring a hole through the second burger on the left.

"I had to peel it out of him," Emma whispered as she watched Sherilyn stir the large bowl of potato salad with a wooden spoon.

"Well, what did he say about her?"

"Oh, did I tell you that your wedding dress was delivered this afternoon?"

"Which one?"

Emma chuckled at that. "They never found the first one, huh?"

"No sign of it. Wedding dress on the run."

"Well, the alterations are all complete, and your second and final wedding dress is being safely held in the front desk office. You can pick it up when you get back there today."

Sherilyn eyed Emma with suspicion. "Are you through?"

"Oh, Sher. Are you sure you want to hear—"

"Emma Rae," she reprimanded, holding the spoon up and pointing it at her.

"Okay. He said she's really pretty."

"Pretty?"

"Gorgeous."

"
Gor-geous?"

"Like someone off the cover of a magazine," she reluctantly added.

"Oh. Great. Details?"

"Tall. Long dark hair, great body. Your basic nightmare."

"Comparables?" she asked, dropping the spoon into the bowl and leaving it there.

"Megan Fox meets Lindsay Lohan."

"What?"

"Jackson's words, not mine, Sher."

"Andy can't stand that Lindsay Lohan."

"I didn't say she
is
Lindsay Lohan."

"I don't know how he feels about Megan Fox."

"What about her?" Russell asked as he strolled into the kitchen. "I know Megan."

Emma shook her head emphatically at Russell.

"We were just saying how it's too bad for her that she has to look like that," Sherilyn cracked. "I mean, poor Megan Fox. Some women just have bad genes. There's nothing they can do about it."

"Bad genes!" Russell cackled. "C'mon. What were you birds really chirping about, huh?"

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 dinky-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 glass, 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 assembly line as they passed along potato salad, condiments, sodas and the like. The last glass 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 bumpy crop of red bumps on the inside of her lower arm. "The same one I got from your earmuffs 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 bumpy 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."