“Sorry,” Marlowe said as Laney melted back into the kitchen. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No. I mean, you’ve got the spaces reserved, you have the guests coming in, and that’s all taken care of. There’s not a whole lot you can do. I’m just having to continually liaise with Laney, the florist, rearrange all of the different decorations that we have for the ranch, and pull out a different set every couple of days when she says she actually wants a different theme than the one she decided on before. I think she’s doing this for fun,” he said, his tone fierce.
“What do you mean by that?” Cara asked.
“I mean that she used to torment me in high school, and she’s doing it now because she can’t stand that I’m not the same kid from the wrong side of the tracks anymore, but she wants to remind me of where I came from.”
“It would be pretty elaborate for her to make her whole wedding about you,” Marlowe said.
“Most things are about me,” Walker said, smiling, suddenly, convincingly, even though he was still vibrating with rage.
That was the terrifying thing about Walker. He was smooth like a shark. He could go from angry to charming in ten seconds, could convince anyone of anything.
She had thought of him, only recently, as being someone who wasn’t at all mysterious, and right then she wondered if she had misread that.
Right then, she wondered if anybody knew Walker at all.
Then she wondered if that was by design.
People handled trauma in all kinds of different ways. She knew that his life hadn’t been easy, none of the Grayson siblings had had it easy. Lila was a bit feral, Cody was guarded and protective, and Walker exuded charm.
So powerfully that he was a lot like the sun. You couldn’t look directly at him, and it made her wonder now who that was for.
She also felt strangely gouged by that realization, because she had to wonder if she did a similar thing.
Zane was intense, and that kept people at a distance. She was sweet and polite, and it was one reason that letting Jackson down, even the way that she had, had been so difficult, because she just wasn’t used to having to be direct with people. She was nice, she did her best to minimize conflict, and that had something to do with being exhausted, she knew. They made it so she didn’t have to take on any more than she already did, get deeper with people than she had the energy to, because she was always maxed out taking care of her mom.
But she was in a different space in her life now. She was doing different things.
She wanted to believe that this relationship with Zane was a great primer for figuring all that out. Because this was definitely deeper and more demanding than anything she’d ever had before.
She wasn’t as blindingly charming as Walker, probably because she wasn’t as good-looking, but very few people were.
Right then, she could see that the whole thing was a little bit hollow, and she knew she didn’t want that.
“Well, let me know if you need me to tap in. If you feel like you’re actually going to commit a murder, keep me up-to-date, because I would prefer to deal with a difficult bride than have to help you movea body.”
“It’s fine,” Walker said. “But I do sort of feel like she’s attempting to make me angry. You know, she wants to do a whole western theme, and that includes having me dressed as a rodeo cowboy, helping lead guests in on the back of my horse.”
“Wow. I’m not sure I would ask you to do that,” Marlowe said. “I mean, if I were her, and I thought that at my next wedding it would be to anyone except Cody.”
“Because you aren’t evil?”
“No. Because with the exception of your brother, I think the groom is going to fare poorly next to you, going full cowboy.”
“Better I go full cowboy than full serial killer.”
“Always.”
Walker put a lot of work into fixing the expression on his face before he turned and walked out of the dining room.
Marlowe shook her head. “These events are so complicated. I have to rope off so much of the resort for the wedding, and… Yes, it makes a ton of money, especially with a bride like Addison Carey who basically had us handle everything.”
“This is what I was saying, though. About Jackson. It just seems to me like the whole family is dramatic.”
“That’s what I’ve gathered. That they were sort of the VIPs of town, back when Cody and Walker were in high school.”
“Yeah. We know how that goes. You grow up in a small town, and people have opinions on who you are. If you want to escape it, you have to… I don’t know, move across the country.”
