Page 31 of Chasing I Do
“Thank you.”
“You have a big enough heart to give me a second chance. I’m not going to blow this.”
He’d gone to the park with the intention of being the spokesperson for his family. But after two seconds with these two ladies, Gage knew he was in deep.
He’d somehow gone from being the defender of the Eastons to the protector of the Kincaids. Which left him torn between two families—both with different agendas.
“And you drove all this way to make sure they were kept separate?”
“Yup. I’d drive to New York and back if it meant seeing you smile like that.”
“New York is a long drive for a smile.” Her lips tilted up even more, shy like, as if she were liking the banter.
“That’s some smile.” His eyes fell to her lips, full and glossy, and damn near perfect. “And when it’s aimed at me, I end up saying things that I shouldn’t.”
“Who said I was aiming it at you? Maybe I was just smiling and you happened to step in front of me.”
“Pink, I know when you’re smiling, and when you’re smiling at me.” He leaned in, and, in that tone that usually had women melting like putty, said, “there’s a difference.”
“Why do you insist on calling me Pink? I never wear pink.”
He grinned. “You did that first day I met you.”
“I wore a blue top.”
“I wasn’t commenting on the color of your top.” When she didn’t even blink, he flashed his trademark grin, the one that had been passed down from Easton father to Easton son. “That black skirt of yours was awfully short, and when you bent over to grab my pencil for me...”
Her mouth gaped open. “You dropped it like five times.”
“Seven,” he said, remembering every single time.
“Men.” She snorted. And although her expression gave nothing away, he could tell she felt it. That undeniable heat that went from zero to surface-of-the-sun whenever they were within sparing distance.
“But if you don’t like Pink, I can always come up with something different.” Gage held his car keys out and made a big show of dropping them. “Whoops, look at that, I dropped my keys and I can’t get them because my hands are full.”
She took the wedding album and gave athat’s the best you got?smile.
“Hey, it worked before.” He picked up the keys. “Now, how about we go inside and get to that meeting of ours?”
“Right. Explain to me again why the woman, whose wedding was so important I had to uproot my life, couldn’t make a mandatory meeting, which she agreed to?” Darcy asked warily.
“It’s just this meeting,” Gage said. “And I offered to drop off the contract and her book, which, if you flip through, you’ll see the woman has dedicated a good ten thousand hours to planning the perfect day.”
Darcy opened the book, and with a glare that could have blistered paint, flipped to the first page—which Gage still didn’t understand. It was sketches of hair styles, rudimentary and definitely old fashioned. It made no sense. But Miss Planner didn’t bat an eye, just mumbled, “interesting,” and flipped to the next page.
Which was even more confusing. Pictures of wedding tents, cut from magazines, not a single one of them even remotely similar. To everyone else they would look like a jumble of ideas and fabric swatches, but to Darcy they must have made sense, because she looked up and said, “She has a very clear idea of what she wants.”
“You got all of that from magazine pages and stick figures?”
“Just like you can read a contract and know what everyone’s really looking for in the deal, I can look at these pictures and decipher what Stephanie really wants.”
Gage looked over her shoulder at a photo that showed some kind of giant circus tent, with dozens of white branched trees covered in twinkle lights, and silver globes hanging from the ceiling. “What, a stuffy wedding?”
“No, to feel cherished.” Darcy’s eyes lit with warmth and yearning, and those instincts that had caused Gage trouble in the past, kicked in. He wanted to tell her she deserved to be cherished too, but before he could say a word, she was closing the book and looking antsy. “I’ll study these and give her a call on Monday. That will give me a chance to put a presentation together.”
Gage shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, that’s it?”
Darcy looked at Fancy, who was standing on the dashboard, making a picture with his tongue on the front windshield. “That’s it.”
