Butterface(13)

Oh, she was definitely going to regret going straight into that pose without a warm-up first, but it was totally worth it for the stunned look on Ford’s face when she put both feet back on the ground. She had a feeling it wasn’t very often that he got that fish-out-on-dry-land gobsmacked look. Victory is mine.

“There’s no way in hell my body is ever going to do that,” he said, his voice raspier than it had been moments before.

“You never know.” She shrugged. “Come to a few yoga classes and you might surprise yourself.”

The doorbell bonged. The plumber. She was going to owe Huey his weight in cannoli for getting out here so quick. She started toward the foyer, but Ford’s voice stopped her.

“I’m gonna have my gun, Gina. It’s part of my job, but you won’t see it.”

She stood in the doorway but didn’t turn around. She didn’t like guns. Hated them. But he had a point. The story about someone coming back to clean up after Grandpa was suspicious, but if it was on the level…

“Fine,” she managed to get out through clenched teeth. “But I don’t see it. Ever.”

“Not unless you’re in danger.”

Now she did turn around. Ford was standing by the sink looking like a model but in well-fitting jeans instead of…briefs. Yep, he was totally a briefs guy. They were probably white and saggy tighty whiteys and OMG she couldn’t even lie to herself about it, judging by just how low his jeans were riding this morning, making her imagine those V lines that made smart people do very dumb things, she liked to think that he didn’t have any underwear on.

Focus, Regina! You’re about to tell him off. Remember?

Oh yeah. That. Questionable threat story. Cop sniffing around. All thoughts of Ford’s undies—or lack of them—faded to the background.

She crossed her arms and gave him what she hoped was a snarky smile. “And we don’t really expect me to be in any real danger, now do we?”

One eyebrow went up before he mirrored her posture. “Like you said, you never know. That’s why it’s important to be flexible.”

The doorbell rang again. Huey was a good guy, but he wasn’t going to wait forever on her front porch with its creaky boards that dipped and shimmied even when a squirrel ran across them. Letting Ford have the last word grated, especially when they were her words, but she wanted to take a shower today and that wasn’t happening until Huey worked his magic. After shooting her uninvited if totally hot guest one last dirty look, she strode out of the kitchen and answered the front door.

They would pick this conversation up later, though. She hadn’t missed the way his gaze had shifted away from hers in that last second.

Ford was definitely hiding something.





Chapter Seven

Donna Taylor and Scott Drake were the sweetest couple, but Gina was going to kill them, and considering that there was a cop just outside her door, that would be equally bad for her business and her determination not to be a Luca that ended up behind bars.

“I don’t know. The pink is so pretty but I love yellow.” Donna looked up, her big blue eyes filled with a silent plea for help. “I just can’t make up my mind. Scott, honey, what do you think?”

Scott glanced down at the envelopes—not the actual invitations, just the envelopes they’d come in, and got a deer in the headlights look.

It had been like this with every decision—every decision—these two had to make as part of the wedding planning. Oh sure, Gina had dealt with brides who changed their minds, control freak mothers, and soon-to-be grooms who showed up drunk, but nothing like Donna and Scott, who wanted to make every decision themselves but spent hours analyzing each and every choice. How these two had actually managed to make up their minds enough to get engaged was a mystery to Gina.

Luckily, after five years of dealing with the chaos of wedding planning, she knew exactly how to steer the happy couple so they made forward progress. Gina let out a breath and framed herself in the big bay window that looked out over the Victorian’s backyard—the one that someday would be the perfect location for intimate weddings—and turned her attention to Donna and Scott as they looked between the envelope samples as if the fate of the free world was at stake.

She had no more than opened her mouth, though, when the door between the front room and the foyer opened up, revealing her not-exactly-invited house guest in all of his tight-fitting-jeans glory.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” said the man who’d just opened up the door to her at-home office without knocking. “But it sounds like you might be having a little trouble.” This part came through while he was looking right at Gina before he looked over at the couple. “Maybe I can help.”

Donna’s shoulders sagged with relief. Scott seemed to grow an inch or two from not being the only one with a Y chromosome in the room. As for her? It took just about everything Gina had not to let her Sicilian out. What in the hell did he think he was doing, walking in on a client meeting like this? It was beyond very not okay.

“Ford, can I have a word with you out in the hall?” she asked, digging her nails into the palm of her hand to help keep her voice steady.

“Before you do,” Donna said, batting her eyelashes at Ford, despite the fact the man who’d put a gigantic ring on it was sitting right next to her. “Can I ask you one question?”

Ford’s gaze ping-ponged between Donna and Scott and then he slid on his uber-neutral cop face. To anyone not paying attention, he would have looked completely together and in control. However, from her spot by the window, Gina got a good look at him in profile, and there was no missing that as he held his hands behind his back in an at-attention stance, he was tapping out a fast beat on his thumb. That little tell of nervousness shouldn’t have cooled her annoyance at his butt-in-ski ways, but who was she kidding? The fact that he rushed in—requested or not—to try to help was kind of endearing.

Donna held up the envelopes. “Which color makes you think of eternal bliss?”

Ford blinked. He blinked again. His finger tapping on his thumb went into overdrive. Gina wasn’t rooting for him, not after he’d barged in on her business, but she had to admit if only to herself that she was pulling for him. He could do this. He could make the whole thing right with one word. Pink or yellow, it didn’t matter.

He cleared his throat.

Gina held her breath.

The thumb symphony stopped, and he said, “They’re both really nice.”

Donna’s hopeful expression crumbled back into indecisiveness. Gina, however, wasn’t confused at all. She was going to have to be one more in a long line of Lucas who found out how they looked in an orange jumpsuit.

“Can I speak to you out in the hallway now?” she asked, but the timbre of her voice perfectly detailed that this was not a request.

She didn’t wait for an answer, just shot a quick smile in her clients’ general direction and strode out into the hallway. She waited by the door until Ford walked through, but as soon as he did, she closed it behind him and got within whispering distance but stayed out of touching distance because, even as annoyed as she was, the urge to do that was just under the surface.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

One eyebrow went up in the universal sign of male superiority. “Helping?”

“Is that what you call it?” Her entire body felt hot and tight at the same time. “Funny, I’d call it interfering with my business and making my job even harder.”

Ford snorted, a dismissive sound that told her exactly what he thought of her business. “Come on, I’ve been listening to her waffle for half an hour. I figured she just needed a push.”

Of course he did. Wedding planning was just simple women’s work, after all. Not something that needed experience and education.

“And you came by this idea from your vast experience as a wedding planner?”

Something in her voice must have alerted him to the very vital mistake he’d made. “No, but—”

“Oh,” she interrupted. “It was from your degree in hospitality and unpaid internships with some of the most demanding wedding planners in Harbor City?”

Seriously, those days had been fourteen-hour hells of grunt work and abuse.

“No, but—”

She verbally plowed forward, shoving his mealy explanation to the curb. “The only other thing I can think of is that because you have a dick you think that means you know all the answers to anything, whether you have experience in that area or have been working with a set of clients for months and know how to slowly maneuver them one way or another because if you don’t do it a certain way, they get stuck in a loop of indecision?”

Ford kept his mouth shut. Good to know he had a sense of self-preservation.

“Look, this may seem like just a silly job to you from the outside, but it’s serious. People pin a lot of hopes and dreams on their wedding day. Being a wedding planner is about organization, psychology, negotiation, and crisis management. Do not think for a second that coming in uninvited and thinking you could do my job without even an idea about what it entails was the right thing to do.”

She inhaled a deep breath, ready to launch into another wave of words. It wasn’t just Ford who didn’t take her seriously. Her brothers didn’t, either. What they didn’t realize was that she was a small business owner who always found a way to make what sometimes seemed like the impossible happen. Her job was a challenge every day, and even though it drove her a little batty sometimes, she loved it.