Actually, telling Clint Eastwood that she’d wanted to pursue a career in wedding planning was a big fat lie. When the dot-com she’d been working for went belly up, she’d tried to get another job in the tech industry, along with everyone else and all their mothers—it felt like hundreds were competing for the same few openings.
Weeks went by without a nibble, and her unemployment status at last led to her greatest humiliation yet—having to move home with Mom and Dad. But she hadn’t had a choice—she couldn’t pay her rent and she couldn’t pay her credit card bills, which were, she was embarrassed to note, pretty damn high. Honestly, she’d not realized how large she’d been living on her humongous dot-com salary before the company tanked.
So after about three weeks with Mom and Dad, when Marnie was contemplating living under a bridge on the Santa Monica Freeway, she’d seen the ad for the wedding planner certification class.
Wedding planner. The term had sort of circled around and tickled her thoughts for a while. It actually sounded fun. Who didn’t like a wedding?
So she’d taken the class. At the very least, it got her out of the house and away from the TV, and Mom and Dad, and Mom’s book club. And though she’d never really envisioned herself a wedding planner, once she got into it, she was sucked in by all the beautiful white dresses and lovely cakes and flowers and fancy china—not to mention all the fabulous high-heeled shoes.
And she suppressed a shudder of delight just thinking about the sparkly wedding shoes Olivia Dagwood would wear on her third walk down the aisle. Or was it her fourth? She’d have to check E! Online.
For your enticement, a sample from the Cedar Spring Series, available now in print and in ebook format. This sample is taken from Summer of Two Wishes:
The first time two U.S. Army Casualty Notification Officers came looking for Macy, it was to tell her that her husband Finn had died in Afghanistan.
Suicide bomber, the taller officer said. Nothing left but a half-burned dog tag.
Macy didn’t remember much after that, except that she was getting groceries out of the car when they’d arrived, and the taller officer’s eyes were the exact shade of the head of iceberg lettuce that had rolled away when she’d dropped the bag.
Three years later, when the third Casualty Notification Officer came to see Macy, she would remember Finn’s black lab, Milo, racing in between the tables they’d set up on the lawn, pausing to shake the river water from his coat and spraying the pristine white linen table cloths. She’d remember thinking don’t panic, don’t panic, over and over again as she stared at those dirty brown spots on the tablecloths.
Everything else would be a blur.
The officer found Macy at her Aunt Laru’s limestone ranch house just outside of Cedar Springs, in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin. It was a beautiful spread, forty acres of rolling hills covered in live oaks, cedar, and blooming cactus on the banks of the Pedernales River.
Laru Friedenberg had married and divorced three times before the age of forty-five. The marriages had left her a little bit jaded and a little bit wealthy, and when Laru learned Macy was hosting a luncheon, she’d insisted that Macy host it at her house. The luncheon was a fundraiser to benefit a non-profit organization, Project Lifeline. Macy and a friend had founded the charity to help families of soldiers who’d been wounded or killed with financial aid or services. The organization was a success thus far, and Laru was eager to help.
“I didn’t put up with Randy King for six years to sit and look at this view by myself,” Laru had said with a flip of her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder. “Have the luncheon here, Macy. A pretty setting and plenty of liquor will open up those wallets faster than the devil in a white suit.”
As it was June and not yet miserably hot, Macy had decided to have it on the grassy riverbank and had set up three large round tables beneath the twisted limbs of the live oaks. She’d dressed the tables in linen, littered them with rose petals and rose centerpieces, and set them with fine china from Laru’s second marriage. She’d enlisted Laru to make batches of her signature white and red sangria, and had food catered from Three Sisters, which specialized in “discriminating palettes.”
“If by discriminating they refer to gals who won’t pass over a single morsel that isn’t nailed down, then I think we’ve got the right caterer,” Laru quipped.
The day was overcast and a slight breeze was coming up off the river. An hour before the guests were due to arrive, Laru insisted on tightening the halter of the pink sundress Macy had found on sale for the occasion. “You look so cute!” she said at last, her hands on her waist. “Very hostessy. Has Wyatt seen you in that?”
“Not yet,” Macy said as she donned the pearl earrings and necklace he’d given her. He was always giving her gifts: Pearls. An iPhone. A boat.
“Best make sure he doesn’t see you until after the luncheon. He’s likely to tear it right off your body.”
“Laru!” Macy said with a laugh.