clean up pretty well yourself.”
“When you told me this was going to be a big wedding, I had no idea you meant everyone who’s anyone in Bonneterre would be here. I think I saw the mayor arriving as I pulled in the parking lot.”
“Anne’s worked with him on several events.” As had Meredith. “That’s why the reception is invitation only— and even still, we expect almost three hundred guests there.” She turned and glanced into the sanctuary. The room that seated more than one thousand looked like it was getting pretty full.
“I should probably go in and find a seat, huh?” Ward came up behind her and rested his hands on her waist.
By turning around to face him again, she dislodged his hands, uncomfortable with such a possessive touch from someone she wasn’t sure she liked
Ward gave her a cocky grin. “At least I know I’ll be able to find you easily in all this crowd. You’re the prettiest girl here.”
She tried so hard to get her heart to flutter or her stomach to flip-flop at his flirting, but ... nothing. “Aww, just what every maid of honor needs to hear.” She patted his arm. “Now, go. I’ve already been gone too long, I’m sure.” She grabbed her skirt and hurried back to the bridal suite.
Anne directed Meredith to join the rest of the women for photos, discussing them with the photographer as if she were the wedding planner, not the bride. Everyone laughed when the photographer had to remind Anne that she needed to be in the picture.
After a few posed shots as well as several candid shots of them all laughing again, Anne sent Mamere and Aunt Maggie out to be seated.
Meredith shifted her weight from foot to foot as Anne calmly made one final check to ensure everything was ready. Certainly with just Meredith and Jenn as attendants, she didn’t have much to organize. But an aura of peace surrounded her, no doubt from her years of experience planning other people’s weddings. Meredith hoped if she ever got married, she could be so annoyingly serene.
A knock on the door jarred all three of them. Uncle Errol stuck his head in. “You girls ready?”
Meredith’s throat tried to swell closed again. Anne retrieved her bouquet and a large silver picture frame. Meredith took a few deep breaths and followed Jenn down the hall and back into the lobbylike foyer behind the sanctuary. Jason was just taking Aunt Maggie, the foster mother of the bride, down the aisle.
One tear escaped and trailed down Meredith’s cheek when Anne handed the framed photo of her parents to Whitt, her oldest foster brother, to carry down the aisle and place on the pew beside Aunt Maggie.
Jason and Whitt came back to man the doors. Anne motioned a red-eyed, sniffling Jenn to go down the aisle.
Meredith turned to Anne. “I’m so happy for you that I think my heart might explode.”
Anne blinked rapidly a few times, and her lips quivered. “Please don’t do that—it’ll make such a mess.” They both laughed. “And thank you. But you need to go, now. And don’t walk as slowly as you did last night, please.”
“All right, all right. Good grief, I’m going.” Meredith winked at her cousin, grateful that Anne had lightened the mood.
Though more than a thousand people crowded the sanctuary, Meredith had never felt more alone, walking down that aisle. At the other end stood George; his brother, Henry; and Forbes. But though Forbes nodded at her, they weren’t waiting for her. They were waiting for Anne.
Then she saw him. As soon as she got to the front and turned to face the crowd, his face was the only one she could clearly see. In the back row, on an outside aisle, Major O’Hara smiled and gave her a quick thumbs- up.
Meredith couldn’t help grinning like a fool—but fortunately, the doors at the back opened, the organ fanfare at the beginning of the march Anne had chosen started, and the congregation stood to watch Anne Hawthorne come down the aisle on her uncle’s arm.
The wedding planner’s wedding.
Across from Meredith, George Laurence’s brown eyes stayed glued to his bride, his sharp but handsome profile reflecting the joy on Anne’s face.
The happiness Meredith had been afraid would burst her heart did—and flooded her entire being with joy that made her want to sit down and weep. Her gaze broke away from Anne and George, now separated only by Uncle Errol, as the pastor began the ceremony in prayer.
Before she closed her eyes and bowed her head, Meredith stole one more glance at Major and witnessed him sneaking out the side door. No doubt to go back over to Lafitte’s Landing to finish everything for the reception.
Meredith joined everyone else in a prayer posture.
Major sneaked one last glance through the small, cross-shaped window in the door at the back of the sanctuary. Meredith stood in profile to him, looking at her cousin with such emotion, Major wanted to charge up there and beg Pastor Kinnard to make it a double wedding.
But Major hadn’t missed the sight of Ward Breaux greeting Meredith in this very foyer before the ceremony. Major had had his doubts about how serious Meredith was getting with the contractor, but wasn’t inviting someone to a wedding a sure sign that things were going beyond the “seeing each other” stage? He backed away from the door, needing to get to Lafitte’s Landing to finish setup—and needing to get away from Meredith.
He shrugged out of his suit coat and removed his tie and tossed them in the passenger seat. He grabbed his phone and quick-dialed Steven.
“Anything I need to pick up on my way back?” he asked his second-in-command.
“No, Chef. But you are on your way back?” Steven’s harried tone set off warning bells for Major.
“Yeah. I’m headed that way now.”
Ten minutes later, he pulled into the narrow service lot behind Lafitte’s. Once inside, he changed into his utilitarian work smock. He’d put his presentation jacket on after the cooking was finished and when he would step out of the kitchen to watch his friend and colleague cut her wedding cake—which his staff had picked up from Aunt Maggie’s house that morning along with the chocolate groom’s cake frosted and decorated to resemble George’s omnipresent PDA.
“Why hasn’t plating started yet?” Major called over the din of work in the large kitchen. He walked over to Steven, the only one from whom he expected an answer.
“The trays all had to be rewashed, Chef. They’re drying them now.” Major glanced at his watch, then looked around, knowing he’d drawn everyone’s attention upon his entrance. “The wedding ceremony will end in less than ten minutes, which means we can expect guests to start arriving in about twenty to thirty. I want cold hors d’oeuvres and canapés on the buffet tables in no more than fifteen minutes; passed hot hors d’oeuvres ready for the servers in twenty.”
“Yes, Chef,” his staff called.
“This is Anne Hawthorne’s wedding reception, folks. I know most of you weren’t working here when she was the event planner for B-G, but you do know how much business she brings the company—and that she’s Mr. and Mrs. Guidry’s niece. So let’s make this perfect beyond her expectations.”
“Yes, Chef!”
He slipped into the staff break room off the kitchen and changed shirts, then plugged in the earpiece that connected him with everything happening outside the kitchen.
“Lori, this is Major. I’m back. How’s everything front-side?”
“Fine. Two of my staff showed up late, so we got off to a later start than I wanted, but everything’s fine now.”
“Good. First guests should be here in about fifteen. Did you and Jana brief the servers?”
“We did. No one is to approach Mr. Ballantine any differently than any other guest—no asking for autographs and stuff like that.”
