One Hot Summer by Melissa Cutler Page B

an exhale, she smiled, triumphant. “Mmm. Chief Garrity, I love knowing how much that bothered you.”
    The huskiness in her voice stripped him of all control. Done fighting the urge to drink his fill of her, he tore his gaze from the horizon, but all he caught was her trademark sashay as she left him in her dust and walked into the tent.
    Whistling under his breath, he spun away from the reception and started back toward his truck. Time for him to get the hell out of California’s orbit before he lost his careful control and fell into rank with the groomsmen trailing behind her like a pack of fools.

 
    Chapter Five
    Thursday evening, Remedy dropped into a chair in Alex’s office, which shared a wall with her own on the south side of the resort’s main building. She hadn’t yet forgiven him for hanging her out to dry with Micah the previous weekend, but she decided that rather than confront Alex about fire code compliances that were now her responsibility anyway, she’d take away the lesson about paying more attention to those kinds of details in the weddings she executed and never again give Micah Garrity a reason to make her feel two inches tall.
    â€œTell me this weekend’s weddings are going to be easier than the rehearsal I just attended. No, scratch that, the rehearsal I just refereed.”
    Alex looked at her over a pair of thick-rimmed reading glasses. “Bride troubles?”
    â€œNo. MOB troubles. All of a sudden she’s in a panic that her daughter’s wedding isn’t going to be special enough for her precious baby girl.”
    â€œWell, bless her heart,” Alex said, his words dripping with a perfect blend of condescension and dismissal.
    So far, that was Remedy’s favorite Texas saying. She could listen to it said in a wry drawl all day long. Would she ever be Texas enough to get away with tossing out bless your heart grenades the way Alex and Litzy and Skeeter did? One could dream, though Remedy had the sinking feeling that she’d forever be an outsider in Dulcet.
    â€œSometimes I want to sit the brides and their mothers down,” she said. “I’d tell them, ‘I’m sorry to break this to you, but I’ve thrown forty other weddings that were identical to yours, and that’s just this year alone. This is as special as it gets.’”
    â€œI wish. Especially with this family. You’ve already gotten a taste of their unique brand of dysfunction. Last summer, they held a wedding here for their eldest daughter and it was a scene. Not the worst we’ve had, but close. Oh, and they’re drinkers, too. Every last one of them. For tomorrow’s wedding we’ve ordered four times the usual order of tequila.”
    Remedy groaned. Tequila shots were a wedding planner’s worst nightmare. Sometime between Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” and Pee-wee Herman’s table dance, it seeped into the collective American consciousness that tequila shots equaled an insta-party. Combine that with an inhibition-lowering event like a wedding and throw in a bunch of people who weren’t big drinkers in their everyday lives and even the most wealthy, conservative demographic could devolve into a tequila-fueled, hedonistic hot mess.
    â€œDysfunctional family drama and rowdy tequila drinkers? Fantastic.” She flipped through Alex and Carina’s meticulous notes on that weekend’s BEOs. “Are we ready with everything we can control?”
    â€œDefinitely. Including extra security that will be on hand until three a.m. both weekend mornings,” Alex said.
    â€œJudging by the room reservation block to wedding guest ratio, it looks like almost all the guests are staying at the resort. At least we won’t have to worry about drunk drivers.”
    â€œThat’s a very good thing.” Alex stifled a yawn. “I suggest we all go home and get a good night’s sleep, because