Wedding Survivor (20 page)

"Where are you?" he asked.

"On Sunset, coming up on the 101."

"You're near my house," he said. 'Take Laurel Canyon and come on up."

Was he asking her over? Was he asking her
in
? Marnie grinned. "You want me to come to your house?"

"Why not?"

"No reason," she said, beaming like an idiot. "Are you going to feed me?"

There was a moment of silence on his end. "Sure, I'll feed you," he said. "Let me give you directions."

As it turned out, Marnie knew exactly where he was—in a very swank part of the Hollywood Hills—and told him she'd be there in a half hour. She clicked off the cell phone, grabbed the wheel of her BMW and cheerfully darted around another bus. "I don't know
what
you think you're doing, Marnie Banks!" she chastised herself aloud, then laughed.

It was pretty obvious. Ever since that night with Bingo, she'd been developing a size-large crush on Eli. The sudden urge to know him in a less than professional but very biblical manner was not really like her, but hey, she hadn't been attracted to a man in forever. Eli was an exceptionally good-looking man, and really, she
was
having all these great cowboy fantasies about him.

Somewhere from the time he'd awakened her this morning to this latest phone call, she'd come around to her What the Hell philosophy, as in, what the hell? It wasn't like she was angling to sleep with her
client
or anything, for chrissakes. Okay, so she was fantasizing about doing her boss, which really wasn't kosher, but then she rationalized it all away by acknowledging that she'd never flirt like this if this were a
real
job. Since this was just a little short-term gig, where was the harm?

The harm was that this little short-term gig could make or break her career as a wedding planner to Hollywood. This was the guy who would
pay
her and then
recommend
her. Fine. Did it necessarily follow that if she had a fling with him, he'd not recommend her? 'That does not necessarily follow, no," she said firmly to herself. "Anyway, probably nothing will come of it," she added to the rearview mirror as she checked her lipstick. "He's probably being polite." She could handle that. If nothing came of it, she would still enjoy a big flirt and some very hot cowboy fantasies.

Her mind made up, Marnie pulled into a little package store and went in for a bottle of very nice wine. Couldn't hurt to grease the wheels in her favor, now could it?

ELI figured it was Marnie he heard squealing to a stop at the curb and went to the front door to have a look. Yep. Her, all right. His house was built down the hill a little, so he could stand in the covered porch of his entry and watch her long legs unfold out of the BMW, then her tush as she bent over and retrieved something from the backseat, which he hoped to God wasn't that pink book she carried around. He'd had enough talk of weddings to last him a good long while.

Her arms full, Marnie bounced down the steps to his door and looked surprised when she saw him leaning up against the jamb. She smiled her big, infectious smile. "Hey!"

"You found it all right."

"Of course." She held out a bottle of wine, still grinning. "I also found the package store."

"Thanks," Eli said. "You shouldn't have."

"Yes I should have. I practically invited myself for dinner. The least I could do is bring some wine."

"That's right, you did say
feed me
, didn't you?"

"I did. And now that I have given you the wine to atone for my atrocious manners, you should invite me in."

He smiled, stepped to one side, made a grand sweeping gesture to the door and indicated she should proceed.

"Thank you," she said, and flashed a pert little smile as she walked past him into the small foyer of his house and deposited her purse on the antique bench there.

"
Wow
. This is so cool, Eli!" she exclaimed as she walked into the living area from the foyer. "I never had you pegged for the hacienda style."

"No? How'd you have me pegged?"

"I don't know, something… really square," she said, making an outline of an invisible square with her hands. "Boxy."

"I think I should be offended," he said cheerfully as Marnie walked deeper into the living area.

She looked down at the saltillo tile, and up at the low-beamed ceiling, and then at the overstuffed furniture scattered about, the Mexican rugs and earthen pottery and the Mexican-styled fireplace. "Damn," she said appreciatively, looking at a painting above the fireplace. "You've been holding out."

"How so?" he asked, walking from the living room into the kitchen, which was separated by a long bar covered in blue Mexican tile.

"Because this is really a fabulous place and you obviously have a flair for decorating. It's so cozy! And you are not a cozy kind of guy."

Eli laughed.

"All this time I thought you lived in a truck," she said, stepping into the dining room. "You know, the lonesome cowboy scene."

She had the lonesome part right, but he liked it that way. It was easy. Less complicated. No one stood him up at the altar.

"I mean, I am
really
surprised."

"Hey," he said with a laugh. "I'm not
that
bad."

"Yes you are," she said earnestly.

He chuckled, put the wine on the countertop, and looked for a corkscrew.

Marnie moved to a bar stool and sat directly across from him. He heard the
plop
of her shoes against the tile as she kicked them off. "I guess it's okay if I make myself at home?" she chirped.

"Could I stop you?" he asked as he poured her a glass of wine.

"No."

Eli smiled and handed her the glass.

Marnie sniffed it, swirled it around in the glass, then slowly sipped it. Her face lit up with pleasure. "Not bad."

He poured a glass for himself, sipped it, and thought it tasted like all the wine he'd ever drunk, and wondered if it would be all right to put it aside and get a beer, or if Marnie would get her feelings hurt. He figured her to be a little sensitive and decided to choke the stuff down.

"So," he asked, "did you manage to get anything done today, or were you too distracted by Vince's balls?"

"Ha ha. As a matter of fact, he put on shorts and deprived me of the opportunity to study his balls further. I did, however, have ample opportunity to study Olivia's breasts. Her towel just wouldn't stay put"

"Oh?"

"Pull your eyebrows down from your forehead," Marnie laughed. "There was nothing too exciting."

Actually, Eli knew that. Give him a woman with Marnie's breasts any day.

"I got a lot done today," Marnie continued. "Olivia and I have some shopping to do, but the rest of it I can handle on my own. You are now free to commence canyoning with your movie star friends."

"That's great," Eli said, and lifted a glass in a victory toast. "But they're not my friends."

"Why not? Don't tell me
they
get under your skin! They're really nice people."

What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her—she wouldn't be around them long enough to watch them morph into assholes. Besides, a beaming Marnie was lifting her glass in a toast.

'To me," she said. "I am a kick-ass wedding planner!"

"And modest, too."

She laughed. "Let's toast to no more surprises."

"I'll definitely drink to that," Eli readily agreed. "Speaking of which… what's the lighting going to set us back?"

"About fifty thousand," Marnie said cheerfully. "But don't worry! I'm working on a final budget. We can squeeze everything in. Even the arch."

"I don't think you've factored in the costs of transportation," he warned her.

"Oh, but don't you?" she asked pertly. "As a matter of fact, Cooper is helping me with that." Obviously pleased with herself, she sipped her wine and then beamed at him so brightly that he could feel it all the way to his toes. "
Cooper
is very helpful. And very good with numbers."

Coop was good with nice long legs. Eli made a mental note to give him a call later and tell him to keep his mitts off the wedding planner.

"So what's for dinner? I'm
starving
."

The girl was not shy. Eli liked that. "How about salmon?"

"
Oooh
, salmon!"

He laughed. "I'll take that as an okay." You never had to guess what Marnie was thinking. Now Trish… he was always trying to guess what she was thinking. He used to have the feeling that she was doing the actress thing and practicing different moods and expressions on him, because he never knew which way the wind was blowing. Marnie? It was always blowing, that was for sure, and he smiled to himself as he walked to the fridge and started to pull stuff out.

She got quiet, which was very unusual, and he glanced over his shoulder to see what she was doing. She had pulled out a scrapbook he'd been working with and was studying the photos. T.A. made scrapbooks of their stunts so they'd have an idea of what the stunt setups looked like. When they were in the planning stages of a new script, they looked back to the things they'd done for ideas and tips.

"Wow," she said, pointing at a picture. "That's huge."

The only bad thing about the scrapbook was that there were lots of pictures of him in there doing something extreme. Eli couldn't stand it—he moved to the bar and leaned over to have a look. "Oh yeah, that," he said, and walked back to the counter next to the fridge.

"Oh yeah, that?
What
that?"

"Vin Diesel movie. It was pretty intense." It had been more than intense. He'd almost killed himself on that set, flying through the air in futuristic war gear and slamming into a brick wall instead of landing on the hay bales like he was supposed to have done. He'd gotten a nasty concussion for it.

"What's your favorite stunt?" she asked as she flipped through the pictures.

He thought about that for a minute. "I guess the
Matrix
films," he said.

"Really?" She looked up. "You did
those
?'

"You look surprised."

"I am, I think," she said, looking thoughtful. "I mean, I know you're a stunt coordinator. I know you do extreme sports. It's obvious just looking at you that you're athletic—"