Anne swallowed two pills with a big gulp of the water with no ice. “I can’t tell you. It’ll make Forbes mad.”
Why would Forbes care how one of Anne’s clients paid for a dress?
“Please tell me you’re not letting her take it out of your final fee.” Forbes’s voice had a growl to it that didn’t sit well with George. How Anne conducted her business was just that—her own business. Yet who was he to step between her and her cousin?
“If I don’t tell you, will you let the matter drop?” She sounded tired—defeated.
“Anne, the contract you sign with your clients is as much for your protection as it is for theirs. I drew it up specifically to make sure that if something went awry, you would still be paid. The more you do this, the more people are going to hear and take advantage of you.”
She rested her fists against the edge of the table. George wished there was some way he could help. Without knowing her any better than he did, he wasn’t sure if she would see any action or words on his part as support or as butting in.
“Forbes, I know for you, as a lawyer, this is going to be hard to understand. My client’s happiness matters more to me than if I get paid next Saturday or if I get paid in miniscule installments for the next six months. It’s not as if I’m hurting for income now like I was a few years ago. This girl is a nursing student who works part-time as a waitress.” As she talked, her voice got softer, her words faster. “She’s already spent more money on the wedding than I advised because she’s trying to make both mothers happy, even though they’ve refused to pay for anything. What should I tell her, Forbes? What?” She shrugged and held her hands up toward him. “Should I tell her she should just wear her next-best dress? Maybe see if she can borrow a friend’s old wedding gown? Tell me. You apparently know better than I do how to run my business.”
Stunned silence filled the room. Jason and Rafe stared at Anne, mouths agape. Jenn dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her napkin, moved to emotion either by Anne’s story or by the conflict between her cousin and older brother. Meredith glared daggers at Forbes. George suppressed a smile, proud of Anne for taking a stand.
Forbes cleared his throat. “Anne, I apologize. It’s not my place to lecture you on how you run your business. I know if you wanted legal advice, you’d come to me. I just don’t want to see you lose that business because you let clients overspend their budgets and then not pay you.”
“I have never had a client not pay me everything due, including my fee. Sometimes it just takes longer.” She rested her hand on her cousin’s arm. “How do you think I got as successful as I am? Not because I was a hardnose about people paying me every penny the moment I thought it should be paid. My brides recommend me to their friends because I’m willing to work with them and do what it takes to make their weddings the most joyous events of their lives. I’m so sad for this young woman because the happiness that she should be feeling this week has been overwhelmed by the fact that she made an error in judgment and her dress was ruined. Forbes, what if it were Mere or Jenn or Marci or Tiffani? I can be a blessing to this girl, show her the true generosity of Christ’s love, and maintain my integrity and my conscience. We’ve already worked out a payment plan that she can afford.”
Forbes rested his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her close to kiss her temple. “I am so happy you never decided to become a criminal defense lawyer.”
Lafitte’s Landing echoed with the hushed tones of student workers late Thursday afternoon. Anne dropped her duffel bag on the floor just inside the main ballroom. Her cousins Kevin, Jonathan, and Bryan and several of their friends approached her.
“Thanks for coming, guys. Here’s the deal. Within the next couple of hours, I expect several deliveries of large items. I’ll need y’all to help unload the trucks and bring everything in. Once it’s all here, then we’ll worry about where it goes. Any questions?”
“Yeah—what time’s dinner?” Bryan elbowed one of his friends and winked.
“Pizza. Six o’clock. On me.” Even though she was paying them to be here, college boys couldn’t go but an hour or two without eating. Instant gratification to keep them happy until they received their paychecks next week. “Oh, and there’s a big ice chest full of sodas in my car if one of you will go out and get that.”
Footsteps reverberated from the tiled entry. She tingled from blond hair to pedicured toenails. George strolled in, twirling his key ring around one finger. How could she not have noticed his muscular physique before? His snug, heather gray T-shirt clung to the contours of his shoulders, chest, and upper arms as if he should be on a TV commercial for exercise equipment. His worn-in jeans looked like they’d been tailored to fit. He’d had his hair trimmed since she last saw him, and his milk chocolate eyes sparkled when their gazes met. He had no right to look so utterly sensuous when she was trying to maintain a safe emotional distance.
“Hello! Delivery!”
Anne jerked out of her trance at the shout from the opposite end of the building. She grinned at George. “Looks like you timed your arrival perfectly.”
His forced frown couldn’t quite draw down the corners of his perfectly shaped lips. “And here I’d hoped I’d missed all the manual labor and would be able to stand back and direct.”
“Nope. That’s my job.” With a sweeping motion of her arm, she invited him to join the boys, who trooped toward the service entrance. “What was it you said earlier this morning on the phone about doing whatever I need you to do?”
“You thought I was serious?” He tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked from heel to toe.
That dangerous grin of his nearly dismantled her resolve. “ ‘Deadly serious,’ if I recall correctly.”
His laughter filled the cavernous room…and her heart. “You’ve got me there. I’d best go see where I can lend a hand, then.”
To keep from watching him walk across the room, she turned to her bag and withdrew several CDs. She’d gotten keys to everything in the building from Meredith, including the cabinet containing the sound system components. She dropped five discs into the CD changer, switched on the surround sound, and enveloped the hall with the classic tunes and sultry vocals of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, Bing Crosby, and Nat King Cole.
“Annie, these are so cool.” Jonathan and three of his buddies grasped the corners of an enormous board. She’d gone through thousands of stock photos of Mardi Gras to find images that would add ambience. Each had been enlarged, cut into four pieces, and mounted to twelve-feet-wide-by-eight-feet-high boards and would cover the walnut paneling of the room, stacked two high.
“They should be numbered on the back, so put the face against the wall.” She directed them toward the far corner as George and the other three boys carried in another.
“What’s this music?” one of the boys asked, but a sound pelting from her three cousins stopped him from further comment.
“Guys, I’ll tell you what I’ve told these three.” Anne put her arm around the shoulder of the boy who’d asked and drew the others in with her gaze. “If you really want to woo a woman, don’t play any of that hip-hop, R&B junk. Show her you have style. That you appreciate the finer things in life—like the classics. This is the most romantic music in the world. And it’s a lot easier to dance to.”
“Don’t laugh,” Jonathan chimed in. “It really works. How d’you think I got Kelli to go out with me?”
Anne laughed with them as they trooped out to bring in the next two boards. She pulled out the diagrams she’d composed with the designer, along with her measuring tape.
“Looking for a carpenter?” A woman about ten years Anne’s elder entered, juggling two-by-fours more than twice her height.
“Hey, Pamela! The pictures look fantastic.” Anne reached for the end of the boards. “I’ll help you bring the rest of this in.”
“Nah, Trevor came with me to help. You just get to marking where everything goes, and I’ll get to work on these brackets.”
Following the measurements on the chart, Pamela and her husband installed the mounting boards, which would be removed and the holes filled and stained to match the paneling afterward. They used an impressive arsenal of power tools and laser levels that shot a line all the way down the length of the room. Anne took the thumbnail printout of the pictures around and slapped the corresponding panel numbers up where she wanted them, using the high-tech tools of a Magic Marker and sticky notes.
She hummed along with the music, singing when she didn’t have to concentrate so hard.
The rented ironwork arrived as the last of the mural boards were unloaded. “Just stack those up there in
