Healed with a Kiss. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ look at Logan. Because she didn’t, she wondered if he was deliberately not looking at her, either. But still she sensed he shared her admittedly cynical reaction to the update.

      “Anyway,” Liberty continued, “I had an idea for my wedding theme...”

      Logan made a low sound that Alexis interpreted as a swallowed groan. Kinley shot him a quick, stern look before saying encouragingly to the bride-to-be, “What’s your idea, Liberty?”

      “Well, my fiancé...” She giggled at the word, proving how new it still was to her, and flashed her ring in the late-afternoon sun. “My fiancé went to school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and now he’s this huge New Orleans Saints fan. You know, football?”

      Kinley nodded. Alexis swallowed, as this was the first she’d heard of a possible theme for the wedding she’d been hired only a couple days earlier to organize. Already she suspected what theme Liberty was considering, and she was proved right when the young woman blurted, “Mardi Gras! We can have beads and masks and lots of streamers and colored lights and balloons and stuff. Maybe some green and yellow and purple curtains hanging on the gazebo. And you know what would be really cool? Some of those big papier-mâché heads scattered around the gardens. Ooh, and maybe Steve and I could arrive on a Mardi Gras float that really moves, like pulled by a tractor or horses or something.”

      This time Alexis couldn’t resist looking at Logan. He gazed back at her with a scowl that made it clear he expected her to rein in her client before she started asking for wrought-iron balconies and a steamboat.

      Before Alexis could speak, Liberty’s mother gave a laugh and patted her daughter’s shoulder. “Take it down a notch there, sweetie. You’re getting carried away.”

      Sharon shook her head indulgently as she looked at the others. “Liberty tends to go overboard when she lets her enthusiasm get away with her. She’s just so bright and creative, it’s hard to contain it sometimes.”

      “New Orleans and Mardi Gras are both very workable themes,” Kinley told them gently. “I’m sure Alexis can help you come up with some beautiful and feasible ideas.”

      “Of course,” Alexis assured them all. “I’ve organized Mardi Gras parties before. This would be my first Mardi Gras wedding, but we can definitely work with the theme.”

      “We’ll have to think about this a bit more,” Sharon said. “Just yesterday she was talking about a Japanese theme. We’ll consult with her fiancé and come up with a final choice and then we’ll call you for another appointment, Alexis.”

      “Yes, of course.”

      Sharon looked at her watch. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we really must be going. We’re having dinner with her fiancé’s parents this evening and we need to change. No need to walk us to our car. Thank you for the lovely tour, Kinley. It’s going to be the perfect spot for my daughter’s wedding, no matter what theme she chooses. Nice to meet you, Logan.”

      Mother and daughter hurried away, climbing the terraced steps to the side lawn and disappearing around the building. Liberty was still babbling about oversize decorations as her voice faded into the distance.

      Logan barely waited until the pair was out of earshot. Hands on his hips beneath his jacket, he glared at both Kinley and Alexis. “Mardi Gras floats? Are you freaking kidding me? Or maybe she’ll go back to her original Japanese idea and expect me to cut all the trees down to bonsai size and convert the gazebo into a pagoda. What the hell is wrong with just having a Blue Ridge Mountain theme, since that’s where they’re having their damn wedding?”

      “Most of the weddings I organize are simple and elegant, highlighting the natural surroundings and simply using color combinations as theme,” Alexis retorted coolly. What was wrong with her, anyway? Even as she was a bit annoyed by his attitude, she still found him incredibly appealing standing there all windblown and grouchy.

      “Hmph.” He turned his attention to Kinley. “And you. You just keep encouraging them, telling them we can pull off any cockamamy idea they come up with. I know you want to close the deals, but seriously, Kinley, you’ve got to cut back on some of these big-theme affairs before you bite off more than I can chew.”

      Kinley drew herself up stiffly, making an almost visible effort to speak in a professional tone when probably she would have liked to snap back at her brother, and very likely would have had Alexis not been standing there. She spoke pointedly to Alexis. “My brother doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in your future business, even for your more imaginative clients. We’re happy to work with them as much as we can, aren’t we, Logan?”

      He merely grunted. Alexis bit her lip against a smile, avoiding his gaze.

      “I have work to do,” he said. “Alexis, nice to see you, as always.”

      “You, too, Logan,” she replied politely. She made herself turn without watching him walk away, even though she loved watching him move in his sauntering, sexy way.

      Kinley laughed ruefully and shook her head. “Sorry about that. My brother is in another one of his moods today.”

      “Yes, I noticed.” And then, because that sounded perhaps as if she knew Logan a bit too well, she added quickly, “I have a brother, too. I recognize the signs.”

      “Older or younger?”

      “Younger.”

      “Are you close?”

      “No, not particularly,” Alexis replied candidly.

      Kinley didn’t seem to know quite what to say to that, so she merely nodded. Alexis changed the subject to the couple who were considering the inn for their vows renewal ceremony. They would be arriving shortly to look around, and Alexis had no doubt Kinley would charm them with her usual skill.

      She and Kinley talked mostly about business during their meetings, though they had strayed into somewhat more personal topics occasionally, usually when chatting about the history of Bride Mountain Inn. Through those casual conversations, Alexis knew a bit of Logan’s family circumstances, but she didn’t know how he felt about them. Facts, but no deep feelings, as suited a breezy affair. She and his sisters were on a very friendly basis, but she wouldn’t call them her friends, exactly. Not the sharing-confidences-over-drinks or shopping-for-shoes-together type of friendship she had with Paloma, anyway. She thought they could be, but she was the one who’d maintained a slight distance between them.

      She suspected Logan was the reason for her reticence. It was difficult enough carrying on a secret affair with him while working fairly often with his sisters; it would be much harder if she and Kinley and Bonnie spent even more time together away from their professional interactions. Not to mention that the more connected she became to his sisters, the stronger the ties between her and Logan became—and the more awkward it would be when it inevitably ended.

      She and Logan had agreed that whatever happened between them, their work and their personal lives would remain entirely separate. On the job, they would be civil—his idea of civil, anyway—focused on optimal end results for both of them, even after they mutually agreed that the off-the-job affair had run its course. Completely rational and sensible.

      Mentally crossing her fingers that the whole thing wouldn’t crash down around them despite their efforts not to become too emotionally attached, she forced herself to put Logan out of her mind and concentrate on her meeting with his sister.

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