When Chaz opened the hotel room door after lunch, he expected to see Dad in hip waders, ready to spend the afternoon fly-fishing. Instead, the man wore khakis and a bright green polo shirt. A polo shirt was something he’d never seen Dad in before. Were it not for the familiar boots under the khakis, Chaz might have had to look twice to see if it really was Dad.
“Change of plans,” Dad said, stating the obvious with an apologetic smile. “So you’re gonna want to change your clothes.”
Chaz had been looking forward to a few hours of peaceful fly-fishing. This morning’s ridiculous standoff with the pretty-but-annoying baker had put him in an irritated mood, and he was looking forward to some quiet companionship. The sport was one of the things he enjoyed most with his father—it always fed both their spirits. And since Wyatt had never possessed the patience required of a fisherman, it had been something unique to the relationship between Chaz and his dad.
Something he clearly wasn’t going to get to do today.
“I’m not dressing like that,” he said, trying—but not necessarily succeeding—to keep his voice light and teasing as he motioned Dad into the room.
Hank puffed up his chest at his uncharacteristic attire. “Pauline bought these for me.”
I could have guessed that, Chaz thought sourly as he closed the door. He opted instead to strive for a reluctant compliment. “Very spiffy.” Leery of the new agenda for the afternoon, he asked, “So we’re going someplace else instead of fishing?”
“Okay by you?” Dad asked.
The earnest look on Dad’s face made it impossible for Chaz to say anything but “Sure. As long as I don’t have to put on a tie or anything.”
“I should check, but I don’t think so.”
You don’t think so? Chaz swallowed his annoyance. He hadn’t packed a tie. Dad hated ties. Why should he even need to check if they were doing something requiring a tie?
Then again, Chaz hadn’t expected to be here at all. There seemed to be no logical reason why Dad invited him on this wedding planning trip. Dad had to know he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of leaving the ranch in Wyatt’s care. Wyatt could barely run the ranch for an hour on his own. Chaz couldn’t fathom how he’d handle the five days they were here in Matrimony Valley to firm up wedding plans and for Hank and Pauline to attend a wedding of a friend of Pauline’s. It’s pointless for me to be here. Why did I ever let Dad talk me into coming?
“Pauline is taking all of us to the Biltmore this afternoon,” Dad pronounced. “It’s a big fancy estate over by Asheville. Wedding’s mostly nailed down, so we can do a bit of sightseeing before that nice steak dinner I promised you.”
Chaz picked those three sentences apart. “Wedding’s mostly nailed down” meant that choices had already been made, and his mission to salvage at least some of this event for his dad with any degree of male dignity was probably all but gone. “Big fancy estate” sounded like nothing he’d find interesting or a remotely fair trade-off for time spent fishing with his father. Most worrisome of all, “All of us” meant that not only was he expected to go on this fussy field trip, but it was also likely Yvonne would be coming, as well.
“You want to go visit some fancy house?” Chaz asked, swallowing back “instead of going fishing?”
“Pauline’s all excited about it.” Dad scratched his chin as if, like Chaz, he wasn’t quite sure what the allure of walking all around someone else’s property was. “I’m gonna need you along so I don’t drown in girl talk.”
So Yvonne was going. He still didn’t know what to make of that woman. His mind kept replaying their conversation. His brain kept bringing up the picture of her eyeing him like she had him all figured out—bright eyes blazing, chin raised in defiance, hands planted on curvy hips. Under other circumstances, he might have found her amusing, even attractive. But here, she was just another of the army of people who seemed to be trying to marry Dad off as fast as possible.
A rebellious part of him hoped Wyatt would do what Wyatt always did—end up knee-deep in some sort of ranch problem. Maybe he could play that into necessitating the next flight to Colorado.
His sense of loyalty won out, however, and he managed a flat-sounding “No problem.”
Dad forced a grin. “I want you to spend time with Pauline. Get to know her better.”
Dad was trying so hard to make this work. While Chaz had tried to hide his resistance to this new relationship, Dad’s forced grin told him he hadn’t quite succeeded. Dad wanted him to bubble over with enthusiasm, to look at this whirlwind courtship as an exhilarating launch. They’d met online, for crying out loud. Even if it was a Christian seniors dating site, could anything like that really be trusted? To Chaz the whole thing smacked of a leap off a dangerously high cliff. “Give me a few minutes to change.”
Ten minutes later, he found himself walking down Aisle Avenue with Dad. As he passed all the wedding-named shops—the Love in Bloom Flower Shop, the Sweet Hearts Ice Cream Parlor and even the Catch Your Match fishing outfitters he’d optimistically stopped in to purchase a few new flies that now would get no use—Chaz felt his spirits fall. The whole idea of this wedding had bothered him from the first, and Dad’s obvious hope that coming here would curb his resistance was a losing proposition.
As if their unappealing destination wasn’t bad enough, a white van with the words Bliss Bakery painted on the side in swirly letters sat parked in front of the bakery. Yvonne and Pauline stood waiting beside it.
“Yvonne decided this’d be the best car to take all of us,” Hank explained at Chaz’s gape of surprise.
“No kidding,” Chaz said, unable to come up with a better response.
“It’s one of those convertible numbers where the rear seats and cargo bay can be switched around,” Hank pressed.
As it turned out, the vehicle was surprisingly comfortable—if you didn’t pay attention to how Hank and Pauline snuggled in the back seat as if he and Yvonne were dropping them off at the junior prom.
The mountain roads made for tricky driving, and more than once Chaz fought the urge to grab tighter hold of his armrest. Even under good circumstances, he was a terrible passenger, always preferring being behind the wheel. More than once Yvonne gave him a look when he tensed up over how she took a turn or checked the mirror before she changed lanes. Cut me some slack. I’m way out of my depth here, he wanted to yell, but clamped his mouth shut.
Forty tense minutes later, he, Dad, Pauline and Yvonne got out of the van to stare at the biggest house Chaz had ever seen. Mansion really was the right word for the place. It was practically a castle, with monstrous manicured lawns and acres of formal gardens.
And the rooms. Of course they had to tour the rooms. It seemed as if they went on forever, each one fancier than the last. He counted twenty-four chairs at the dining room table just off a fireplace that looked big enough to roast an entire steer. The oohs and aahs around him told Chaz some people clearly thought the tour was fascinating. He just wasn’t one of them.
“The estate does over two hundred weddings a year,” Yvonne offered as they walked through yet another ballroom-looking space. She kept rubbing one eye as if it were bothering her. “I’d consider myself hitting the big time if I got to do even one of them.”
“Could you do it?” he wondered aloud. “Do a cake for something as big as this place holds?” The sheer size of any party held here probably needed a whole team of bakers.
She sighed. “Not yet. But I’d