Saying Yes To The Dress!. Сорейя Лейн

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СКАЧАТЬ she clarified with a half-truth. “I knew Allie’s faith in me was misplaced.”

      “Why would you say that?”

      “I’m just an unlikely choice for such a huge undertaking.”

      “So, why did she pick you, then?”

      “I hadn’t seen her, or even had a note from her, since she moved away from Moose Run.” Becky sighed and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Everyone in Moose Run claims to have been friends with Allison Anderson before she became Allie Ambrosia the movie star, but really they weren’t. Allison was lonely and different, and many of those people who now claim to have been friends with her were actually exceptionally intolerant of her eccentricities.

      “Her mom must have been one of the first internet daters. She came to Moose Run and moved in with Pierce Clemens, which anybody could have told her was a bad bet. Allie, with her body piercings and colorful hair and hippie skirts, was just way too exotic for Moose Run. She only lived there for two years, and she and I only had a nodding acquaintance for most of that time. We were in the same grade, but I was in advanced classes.”

      “That’s a surprise,” he teased drily.

      “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got an out-of-the-blue phone call from her a couple of weeks ago and she outlined her ambitious plans. She told me she was putting together a guest list of two hundred people and that she wanted it to be so much more than a wedding. She wants her guests to have an experience. The island was hers for an entire week after the wedding, and she wanted all the guests to stay and have fun, either relaxing or joining in on organized activities.

      “You know what she suggested for activities? Volleyball tournaments and wienie roasts around a campfire at night, maybe fireworks! You’re from there. Does that strike you as Hollywood?”

      “No,” he said. “Not at all. Hollywood would be Jet Skis during the day and designer dresses at night. It would be entertainment by Cirque and Shania and wine tasting and spa treatments on the beach.”

      “That’s what I thought. But she was adamant about what she wanted. I couldn’t help but think that Allie’s ideas of fun, despite this exotic island setting, are those of a girl who had been largely excluded from the teen cliques who went together to the Fourth of July activities. She seems, talking to her, to be more in sync with the small-town tastes of Moose Run than with lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

      “It actually makes me like her more,” he said reluctantly.

      “I asked her if what she wanted was like summer camp for adults, to make sure I was getting it right. She said—” Becky imitated the famous actress’s voice “—‘Exactly! I knew I could count on you to get it right.’”

      Drew chuckled at Becky’s imitation of Allie, which encouraged her to be even more foolish. She did both voices, as if she was reading for several parts in a play.

      “Allie, I’m not sure I’m up to this. My event company has become the go-to company for local weddings and anniversaries, but— ‘Of course you are up to it, do you think I don’t do my homework? You did that great party for the lawyer’s kid. Ponies!’

      “She said ponies with the same enthusiasm she said fireworks with,” Becky told Drew ruefully. “I think she actually wanted ponies. So I said, ‘Um...it would be hard to get ponies to an island—and how did you know that? About the party for Mr. Williams’s son?’ And she said, ‘I do my research. I’m not quite as flaky as the roles I get might make you think.’ Of course, I told her I never thought she was flaky, but she cut me off and told me she was sending a deposit. I tried to talk her out of it. I said a six-week timeline was way too short to throw together a wedding for two hundred people. I told her I would have to delegate all my current contracts to take it on. She just insisted. She said she would make it worth my while. I told her I just wasn’t sure, and she said she was, and that I was perfect for the job.”

      “You were trying to get out of the opportunity of a lifetime?” Drew weighed in, amused.

      “Was I ever. But then her lighthearted delivery kind of changed and she said I was the only reason she survived Moose Run at all. She asked me if I remembered the day we became friends.”

      “Did you?”

      “Pretty hard to forget. A nasty group of boys had her backed into the corner in that horrid place at the high school where we used to all go to smoke.

      “I mean, I didn’t go there to smoke. I was Moose Run High’s official Goody Two-shoes.”

      “No kidding,” he said drily. “Do not elbow my ribs again. They are seriously bruised.”

      They sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes. The sun demanded their stillness and their silence. The sunset was at its most glorious now, painting the sky around it in shades of orange and pink that were reflecting on a band on the ocean, that seemed to lead a pathway of light right to them. Then the sun was gone, leaving only an amazing pastel palette staining the sky.

      “Go on,” he said.

      Becky thought she was talking too much. Had they really drunk that whole bottle of wine between the two of them? Still, it felt nice to have someone to talk to, someone to listen.

      “I was taking a shortcut to the library—”

      “Naturally,” he said with dry amusement.

      “And I came across Bram Butler and his gang tormenting poor Allie. I told them to cut it out.

      “Allie remembers me really giving it to them. She told me that for a long time she has always thought of me as having the spirit of a gladiator.”

      “I’ll attest to that,” he said. “I have the bruises on my ribs to prove it.” And then his tone grew more serious. “And you never gave up in the water yesterday, either.”

      “That was because of you. Believe me, I am the little bookworm I told you I was earlier. I do not have the spirit of a gladiator.”

      Though she did have some kind of unexpected spirit of boldness that had made her, very uncharacteristically, rip off her clothes and go into the water.

      “How many guys were there?”

      “Hmm, it was years ago, but I think maybe four. No, five.”

      “What were they doing?”

      “They kind of had her backed up against a wall. She was quite frightened. I think that stupid Bram was trying to kiss her. He’s always been a jerk. He’s my second cousin.”

      “And you just waded right in there, with five high school guys being jerks? That seems brave.”

      She could not allow herself to bask in his admiration, particularly since it was undeserved.

      “I didn’t exactly wade right in there. I used the Moose Run magic words.”

      “Which were?”

      “Bram Butler, you stop it right now or I’ll tell your mother.”

      He burst out laughing, and then so did she. She noticed that it had gotten quite СКАЧАТЬ