Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 53349 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53349 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
“Well,” Nate began, “Jenn’s outdone herself as usual. And it’s nice to see she went with a couple of my suggestions.” He smiled in what he hoped was an easygoing kind of way and then added, “This is going to be dinner for me tonight.”
“Well, you know I can’t keep away from Jenn’s baking,” Tamara joked.
“And that too,” Liz agreed, before walking over to talk with Jenn, leaving Nate and Tamara alone.
Nate reached out to touch Tamara’s hand, just briefly. He didn’t try to hold it, because their friends might notice, but he wanted her to know that he was thinking about her. Just that brief touch was enough for them to smile at each other knowingly.
Chapter Fourteen
Work on the wedding continued over the next couple of days, and things were coming together. Jenn was preparing the final batches of food for the wedding. The wedding cake, already baked, was sitting in the walk-in fridge, waiting to be frosted. Travis had assembled the plans for the various security details—and there were a lot of them between airport runs, booking limos, and keeping the Married in Malibu site clear. A few fans had been seen trying to camp out in hopes of seeing their hero, Zach, live and in-person, but Travis moved them along. Amy had finished one sitting with the happy couple, and the final portrait was almost done. It was special and unique and included Japanese touches of gold. Kate had buckets of flowers in her fridges for the bouquet, centerpieces, and for the beautiful hanging arrangement. The venue looked impressive and magical thanks to Meg’s efforts. No one had seen the wedding dress except Liz and Meg, and they were ecstatic.
While everyone else was focused on Friday’s wedding, Liz was up in her office working on the next one, because the business could never just stop. A couple of times a day, Liz would walk around the venue and the offices and check on the team. She told everyone how thrilled she was with the creativity and hard work that was going into making this one of their most impressive weddings ever. Nate was overjoyed that Liz thought things were going well. His professional reputation was riding on this wedding going off without a hitch.
On Wednesday, Tamara was in the shop, filling coffee orders in the quiet of the late afternoon. Normally, she could do this in her sleep, but today she wasn’t doing a very good job. The physical side of her work usually came to her automatically—adjusting the controls on her antique espresso machine with a deft touch, steaming the milk, adding syrups, knocking out coffee grounds. On any other day, she was the best in the business.
Today, however, she’d already messed up three orders. That had to be some kind of record for her and really not the sort of record she wanted to set. Even the teens had noticed, although they didn’t say a word. Again and again, she’d get partway through an order and then find herself thinking about Nate.
“Oh, not again,” Tamara said to herself. Realizing there was no point in wasting more coffee, she asked one of her helpers to make a double cappuccino, extra dry, with soy milk.
Since it was almost time to close for the day, she asked the teens to put the pastries away, hang the Closed sign, and then gave them permission to leave early. She stepped out the back door to try to clear her head and then walked around to the front of the shop and stood there, hoping the view of the ocean would calm her. Unfortunately, that also meant looking toward Married in Malibu.
She knew why she had been messing up. Something had been bothering her for the past couple of days. At first, she tried to ignore it, but by Wednesday, that was no longer an option. She had to face facts. She had not seen or heard from Nate since he dropped her off on Monday morning. Actually, she had seen him at the tasting on Monday evening, but that didn’t count. It was the longest she’d gone without seeing Nate in forever.
On top of everything else, she’d also been plagued by thoughts of her ex—that loser, Brad. It hadn’t made any sense until now. Back then, she’d known something was up with Brad, but he’d always said everything was okay. Then he began being unavailable, always busy either with work or sports, and eventually it turned out that he’d been dating her best friend, Stacy. That had been the worst time in her life. It had shaken her self-confidence to the core, and it had taken her years to get over it. Now, she was afraid it was happening all over again.
Nate had been busy this week—or so he’d predicted on Monday. He hadn’t come by for one darn coffee. He hadn’t even sent her a text. This was feeling horribly familiar to Tamara. Was Nate being busy a way for him to say that he didn’t want her anymore? She felt sick to her stomach. How could this be happening again? Was it because she’d said she needed time to think? She hadn’t meant for him to keep his distance.