Page 141 of Even After This
He cringes. “What do you think she has planned?”
“She’ll assume we’re getting married in Dallas and have three venue options. One church, one arboretum, and one fancy hotel. There will be a binder.”
“A binder?”
“With tabs.” I pat his arms in conjunction with the two words. “She’ll have it planned, but she won’t have the deposits down, so we might have more time.”
“How long?”
“Forty-eight hours. Tops.”
He looks worried, so I say, “We have a secret weapon.”
He raises his eyebrows in question. I give him a minute to think it through, and we say at the same time, “Penelope.”
“We totally have a secret weapon,” he says with a confident grin. “How long do you think until Penelope has the real wedding planned?”
“I’m sure it’s already planned in her head. But she’s playing the long game. She’s probably waiting for us to take a few days,become miserable, then walk right into the realization that she could help.”
He draws me closer, and I wrap my arms around his neck. “Do you want to get married in Dallas?”
Nothing feels right about that. It’s not just that Steve and I got married in Dallas. It’s that my life isn’t there anymore. “No.” I stand on tiptoe and kiss him. Just because I can. “I want to get married here.”
He flashes me a smile and lowers his head to kiss me again, but Penelope opens the back door and walks out of the house. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but your presence is being requested in the dining room for the cutting of the engagement cake.”
Harlan releases me, bends to scoop up his Rocky head, and looks to Penelope. “If I find out you had anything to do with this costume, there will be words.”
Without batting an eye, Penelope says, “You won’t find a receipt for that costume anywhere in your accounts. Sometimes I do work for your fiancée’s nonprofit, but the work I do there is confidential.”
“I knew it,” he said, shaking his head.
A smile tugs at her lips, but she turns her attention to me. “Meredith, there are some lovely wildflowers at the edge of your property. I wondered if you wanted something like that for your wedding.”
Wildflowers from my property that butts up against Harlan’s family property. For our wedding. That sounds perfect.
Harlan shoots his eyes to me. She is totally about to be our secret-weapon wedding planner.
Penelope ducks back into the house. Harlan and I follow, but before he walks over the threshold, he turns to me, snakes his arm around my waist, draws me to him, and kisses me one last time. Then he says, “If you want me to wear Rocky’s costume to our wedding, I’m drawing the line.”
