No Falling Allowed (No Kissing Allowed) (7 page)

“He walked me home…” I stared into the street, lost as to why I couldn’t tell my two best friends that he’d left. No note. No good-bye. But with being fired and then getting cut off by my father, they were already looking at me like a sad puppy at the animal shelter that no one wanted to take home. I couldn’t tell them that it had been one of the best nights of my life, or that it had clearly meant nothing to him.

“So that’s it? He walked you home and then left? Nothing happened?”

My gaze swung back to my friends, the picture of control, while my insides prickled at the memory, the hurt. “Nothing happened.”

“Oh well,” Cameron said as she took another bite of her sandwich. “You’ll probably never see him again.”

“Right…” And though I knew Cameron was right, I couldn’t help wishing that I could see him. Just once more. If only to prove to myself that it wasn’t all a figment of my imagination.

…

I made my way toward the Plaza at the intersection of Central Park and Fifth Avenue at one thirty the next Saturday, eager to meet Annalise and prove to her that I would be the best wedding planner in existence. I would listen and learn and do whatever I had to do to get this job. Forget the fact that I’d only assisted on a handful of weddings and knew little about the process. Small, inconsequential detail.

So I squared my shoulders and went inside New York’s most famous hotel, following the various signs to the Kemp/Walsh wedding, the names Annalise had texted me that morning. I had planned events, and I had taste—impeccable taste. But it wasn’t until I glanced though the French Doors of the Plaza’s Palm Court, into the Terrace Room, that I realized I would need a lot more than taste to work for Annalise. She wasn’t merely talented. She was a magician.

I quietly stepped into the room and craned my neck to take in the paintings adorning the ceiling, an obvious nod to the Italian Renaissance, and then the crystal chandeliers. The room was breathtaking all on its own, but Annalise had added special touches to turn it into the most enchanting place I’d ever seen.

Candles were situated all around the room; white flowers peeked out in just the right places. In the front, she’d fixed a beautiful canopy decorated with more flowers and candles, then two hundred or more chairs sat in rows, each with a wedding program in place, a tiny packet of tissues with the bride and groom’s names on the cellophane packet, and a single mint, also with their names.

“What do you think?”

I turned around, surprised to have not heard anyone approach. “Your heels didn’t make a sound.”

The woman beamed. “I’ve had practice.”

I smiled back. “You must be Annalise.”

“I am.” She reached out a hand to me. “And you must be Grace.” Her blond hair was pulled back in a messy, low bun, her face perfectly made up, and she wore a simple black dress and black pumps. At a best guess, she was in her forties, but in a city where age could be erased with a few injections, it was difficult to say for sure.

“I am. And this is amazing,” I said, motioning around us. “Absolutely amazing. Magical, even. I can’t believe you did all of this.”

She peered around, taking in her work. “It
is
beautiful, isn’t it? But it’s not me. It’s the venue, my team, and that special something that I can’t quite explain in any other way than to simply call it love. A wedding is magical. Two people committing to spend the rest of their lives together. That sort of love and devotion changes the air, changes everything around it. I only help shape it here and there to create what I hope to be the perfect day for them.”

My heart warmed at her words and the contentment so apparent on her face. Clearly, she loved her job, and that sort of love was very convincing. Maybe this could work for me after all, and though it might not be an office job, like what Dad wanted, it was a career. A career creating a beautiful day that would remain in people’s memories for the rest of their lives. The thought of doing this, building a couple’s wedding from start to finish, made me hopeful for the first time since being laid off from the Met.

“I think you’ve succeeded. This has to be one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen.”

Annalise smiled at me again. “You know, I was just thinking the same of you, dear. If you smile around the office like you are now, you will have clients begging to work with you. See, that’s the key to wedding planning. Anyone can follow a schedule and plan an event. It takes something extra to make it personal for the couple, to show them that it means as much to you as it does to them. You have that quality.”

“I hope so, because I really feel I would be good at this. I’m willing to learn, and I’m a hard worker. Just ask Margo.”

She walked around me and began adjusting a floral arrangement. “I have, and Margo speaks very highly of you. Well, let’s get you settled in and see how you feel after your first wedding. It’s a busy one!” She winked over at me and then passed me a schedule of tasks to be completed every ten to fifteen minutes from now until the reception ended.

“I’ll say.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening following Annalise around, doing whatever she asked, the moment she asked, directing wait staff, and generally loving every minute of it. By the time the reception came to a close, the bride and groom dancing in the center of the dance floor while a jazz band played “The Way You Look Tonight,” I was so thrilled with the day that I would have almost agreed to work for free so long as Annalise gave me a job. Almost.

“You were wonderful,” she said from beside me. “And as it sits, Perfectly acquired a major wedding down South. My Southern manager just went out on maternity leave, so I have been traveling there myself, but I could use an extra set of hands. If you are interested?”

A grin took over my face, and I threaded my fingers together, unable to remain still. “So you’re offering me a job?”

“Absolutely. I think you will fit in well here. Why don’t you come by my office Monday morning to go over the specifics. Does that sound okay?”

I peered around as the rest of the guests joined the bride and groom on the dance floor, the whole thing beautiful and enchanting and so, so satisfying. I’d never worked so hard in my life, only to wish I could do it all over again.

“It sounds perfect.”

Chapter Eight

Noah

Her hand slid over my face, down my chest, and a breath hissed through my teeth, my eyes finding hers. A mess of long, tousled black hair surrounded her face, dropping over her shoulders, and I had enough sense to reach up and stroke the long strands, feel their silkiness, before her body pressed against me, her lips meeting mine, and suddenly all thought dripped down from my brain into my boxers. She tightened her thighs around my hips, causing me to twitch against her, every nerve in my body attuned to this woman in my arms. A smile stretched across her face as she kissed my left cheek.

“You have a dimple.”

“I do.” I trailed a hand down her back, dipping into her panties, and securing her to me.

“I like it.”

“I like you.”

She lifted up. “You do?”

“More than I should…”

“Noah!”

I jumped up, my heart in my throat, my brain foggy. “What the…” But as I peered around, my mind gaining focus, I realized I wasn’t with Grace. I was here, in my room, with my familiar tan walls, plaid bedding, and dark walnut king-size bed—because thanks to my nightmares, I rolled around in my sleep. After the third or so time of landing face-first on my hardwood floor, I realized I needed a bigger bed…and heavy sleep meds. Though somehow that medication couldn’t keep me from dreaming about my night with Grace.

Again.

I wondered how one night could intoxicate a man so thoroughly, and why I couldn’t convince myself to find someone to help me forget her. After all, this wasn’t love. I hadn’t spent years with her, falling slowly and deeply in love, learning all the tiny things that made a person special so that now no one else would do. No, this was
one
night. One mind-blowing, soul-wrenching, perfect night that had shaken me from my head to my toes, and now it was like my body didn’t know how to function.

A part of me wondered why I hadn’t left my number. But then, what would she have done with it? What would I have done if she’d called? Nothing. She lived in New York and I lived here, our worlds so different they may as well be on different planets, instead of in different states. So why couldn’t I get her out of my mind?

Because you were a fucking moron, that’s why.

“Noah!”

It was then that I realized the scream hadn’t been in my dreams; it’d been real. I pushed out of my sheets and started down the hall, holding on to the walls as I went, because the medication that helped me sleep also made me a zombie first thing in the morning.

Rounding the corner, I opened Jonah’s room—decorated with train sets and Star Wars, and painted red, blue, and green—and went to his bed. Like me, he had nightmares that refused to lift, replaying the accident again and again and again. But where my dreams were just dreams, his were memories. Because unlike me, he had experienced it firsthand.

I wished I could erase it from his mind, relieve him of the pain. Relieve myself of the guilt that hit me every time he woke from a nightmare and I watched tears fill his eyes when he realized it was just the two of us, and that our parents would never come home again. But then I guess if I were making a wish list, I’d choose to go back and redo that whole day so they’d still be with us.

Instead, I kneeled beside his bed and swallowed my sadness so I could focus on Jonah and what he needed.

“Hey, little man, it’s me. You’re okay.”

He blinked, then his glassy eyes found mine, and I could see him trying to hold the tears back. “Noah?”

“It’s me. I’m here.”

He snuggled up closer, and I sat on the bed and held him until his breathing went back to normal.

“When will they stop?”

I stroked his hair and swallowed again. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can answer that myself.”

“I miss them.”

“Me, too, little man. Me, too.”

…

One thing I’d learned in my twenty-five years in the Creek was that there were a handful of events that were sure to bring out the Southern in Southern women. Beauty pageants. Proms.
Weddings
. And whenever one of these events was happening, it was best for the men in town to tuck their chins and keep out of Dodge. Which was why it made as much sense as hot sauce on chocolate cake for me to agree to meet with Mary Beth and Lindy Brockton to discuss Lindy’s wedding.

“Now, Noah, it’s important we keep the ducks away from the lake’s embankment. Can’t have duck rolls all over the place, now can we?”

I ran a hand over my face and glanced at Scarlett in hopes of a rescue that would never come. The staff was all placing wagers on how long it would take me to explode.

Mary Beth had approached me three months ago with a request to have Lindy’s wedding on the gazebo dock where Dane had proposed. My parents had it built twenty years ago, and I had it restored last year with new benches added, so people could sit and watch the water lap by.

It had taken no time for the gazebo to become one of Cricket Creek’s favorite spots, which had made it an easy choice for Dane Junior to propose to Lindy there. The romantics in them quickly decided they should also have their small wedding there.

Small, because the embankment by the gazebo could only hold so many people. And because my patience could handle even less.

“Noah, the ducks.”

My teeth gritted together. No one in town called me Noah. Not since before my days with a baseball uniform on my back, slugging another fastball at the plate, had anyone called me anything but Hunter. My family was the only exception—and apparently Mary Beth.

“Right, see, regardless of how it might appear, I don’t have remote controls attached to the ducks. And they aren’t dogs. I can’t force them to stay and come and roll over.”

Mary Beth flashed me a tight smile that said I’d better figure it out. “Noah Hunter, you wouldn’t be toying with a poor old lady’s nerves this close to her only daughter’s wedding, now would you?” She cocked her head, and I released a breath along with my pride.

“No, ma’am.”

Her smile relaxed. “Wonderful. Aren’t you going to write that down?” She eyed the notepad before me, which she’d brought over so I could make a list of everything she wanted me to do. Tiny purple wedding bells were printed in the corners, lines stretched out from the top to the bottom of the narrow pad. If she wanted me to take the notepad seriously, she should have brought me a manlier one. Something with fish on it, or antlers, or a freaking Clemson Tiger paw if nothing else. But no, my pad had bells.

I pushed it aside. “I think I can remember ducks.”

“Now, on to the landscaping. Our wedding planner is flying in to town tomorrow from New York. I’m told she’s bringing an assistant who’ll help us get everything organized.”

“Fantastic.”

“Noah Hunter.”

“Fantastic,
ma’am
.”

She smiled her true smile for the first time. “You know, I always thought you and Lindy might end up together. But then…”

I glanced briefly out the window to where Lindy stood, her cell pressed to her ear, long red hair halfway down her back, her skin as fair as ever. Lindy and I went out once, and she spent the better part of a year trying to get me to go out with her again. But I wasn’t a two-date kind of guy. Not then, and certainly not now. Hell, now I wasn’t a one-date kind of guy. So maybe it was a good thing Grace didn’t live in town. We could never be a thing anyway.

I pushed out of my chair as the lunch crowd filed into the bar. “Is that all then, Mary Beth?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.” She pressed a finger to her lips and glanced around in thought. “Should we consider painting the bar? In case guests want to sit in here?”

“No.”

“Maybe a nice green.”

“No.”

“Fine, fine. Well, I’ll have my—I mean, Lindy’s—wedding planner come by to speak with you tomorrow.”

I flashed her my own tight smile. “I’ll be counting the seconds.”

I brushed past Scarlett on my way behind the bar. “You know you love it,” she teased.

“Yeah, love it as much as having my leg hairs plucked out one by one. Why the hell did I agree to this again?”

She turned and leaned against the bar. “Because despite appearances, you’re a nice guy.”

“Who’s about to let his place get infiltrated by the Brocktons and their fancy New York staff.”

Scarlett and I watched Mary Beth brush off her pants as she stood, like the chair might have somehow dirtied them up. “It’s one day, right? How bad can it be?”

“Famous last words.”