She took a bite, and sighed.
“Oh, this is so good. So many blueberries. And is that a little lemon? Just like—”
He smiled.
“Yeah, just like those old muffins of Mom’s. I got her to dig up the recipe. I made them this morning.”
Margot almost dropped the muffin.
“You made these? Since when do you bake?”
He laughed.
“Since this morning, that’s when.” He shrugged. “Or, okay, since a few days ago—I had to make a test batch just so I didn’t ruin these, which was a good idea, since I did indeed mess up the first batch. These are pretty good, I think. You like them?”
Margot reached into the box and took another.
“Like them? I might eat all of them.”
Elliot looked both pleased and embarrassed.
“You can have as many as you want, though I’m warning you, Finn may fight you for them.”
They went into the barn, double-checked all of the wine—which was all exactly as it should be—and then Margot looked around. At the barn, the winemaking equipment on the far side, the barrels in the back, and then, outside, the beautifully landscaped grounds, thanks to Pete. They didn’t look manicured— that’s not what anyone had wanted—but they were full of greenery, shrubs, flowers, and other pollinators. And the raised beds that Elliot had built on the path from the winery building to the lawn looked perfect, all full of fragrant herbs.
She smiled as she looked at everything. It looked like a small, flourishing, beautiful winery. It looked just how she’d imagined. Better than she’d imagined.
“It looks good today,” Elliot said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It does.”
She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the winery, in the gorgeous morning light. She wished she’d been able to hire a photographer for today, to get good pictures for brochures and social media, but she’d pushed up against her budget as it was. She should have prioritized that, though. Oh well.
“There you both are,” Taylor said, walking from the winery to them. “Are we ready to start setting up?”
“We are,” Margot said. “Thanks for getting here so early, Taylor. Elliot made muffins.”
Taylor looked from her to Elliot.
“Elliot made muffins?”
He held out the shoebox.
“What a banner day.” Taylor grabbed a muffin. She turned to Margot. “What’s the first thing on that list of yours, boss? Tables or signs?”
Margot took the last sip of her coffee.
“Tables. Let’s do those first, then signs. Then . . . everything else.”
The next few hours flew by, with setup and extra staff arriving and the food vendors making last-minute calls to her with questions and more RSVPs coming in every time she looked at her phone.
Margot looked around the lawn. The pizza guy was here and setting up, Sydney and Charlie were at the table for the Barrel, and the taco women were at their station. But where was the guy with the tiny cheeseburgers?
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Missed call, from an unfamiliar number. She checked her voice mail. And then she took a long, deep breath.
She went to find Taylor.
“Hey—the burger guy isn’t coming. His power went out last night, all of the meat spoiled. Let’s take down his table and put some seating for guests over there, before anyone gets here.”
“Okay,” Taylor said. “Want me to fix the menus and print new ones out?”
This was why she adored Taylor—she never panicked about anything.
“Thank you, that would be fantastic.”
When Taylor came back, Margot took the stack of menus from her and set them in the barn.
“Hey. Can you hold down the fort for like”—she looked at her watch—“ten minutes? I have to change and put some makeup on.”
Taylor waved her away.
“Make it fifteen. I’ve got this.”
Margot glared at Taylor.
“Are you saying that I look so bad right now that ten minutes isn’t enough to fix this?”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, okay?” Taylor grinned at her. “Go.”
Margot went.
She jumped into the tiny shower in the winery bathroom, showered faster than she ever had, and pulled on the red sundress she’d bought just for the party. She’d almost worn black—it made more sense for a day when she’d probably be moving stuff around and spilling things everywhere. But she knew that people would be pointing her out all day from a distance—at least, if all went well they would—and so she decided to take a lesson from Queen Elizabeth and wear a color that made her easy to spot in a crowd.
She laughed at herself. Was she literally thinking of herself as a queen? No, but look, despite the many problems of the monarchy, the woman had some good ideas, okay? Plus, that would be a good fantasy, if today went poorly—she could just pretend she was on some royal holiday somewhere.
No, she couldn’t think like that. Today wasn’t going to go poorly. Today was going to be great.
However, today was also going to be far too hot and frantic for a lot of makeup. She swiped on a few coats of waterproof mascara, put her longest-wearing red lipstick on, and called it a day. She put the final touches on her hair, sprayed it with an enormous amount of hairspray, and checked her phone. Twelve minutes. Not bad. That meant people would start arriving . . . any minute now.
She smiled at herself in the mirror to make sure there was no lipstick on her teeth, and then she took a deep breath. It was showtime.
When she walked back out toward the lawn, the first person she saw, walking toward her with a huge smile on his face, was Luke.
“You’re here early!” she said. “I didn’t expect you here until later.” She wanted to reach for him, but she didn’t. Not here. She and Luke had been together for almost a month now, and she was going to have to tell Elliot about it sometime, but she didn’t want him to find out like this. Not today especially.
He beamed at her, but he didn’t reach for her, either.
“Avery called to see if she could get a ride here, since her car was in the shop, and we thought it would be best to get here early, to get parking.”
It wasn’t until then that she noticed Avery was with him. Margot smiled at her.
“Hi, Avery,” she said. “Thanks so much for all of your advice for the party. You’re on the list, you know. This is on me.”
“Thanks, Margot, but it was my pleasure,” Avery said. “I can’t wait to see what you put together.” Then Avery looked from her to Luke, and smiled indulgently at them. “You two are so cute.”
Margot blushed. Luke grinned.
“I . . . um—”
Avery laughed.
“I’m not going to embarrass you anymore—if I do, this one will murder me,” she said, pointing at Luke.
Luke nodded.
“It’s true, I will.”
Margot laughed at both of them.
“Come this way and get some wine, both of you.”
Luke walked next to her, and Avery dropped a few steps behind. After they’d walked for a few seconds, he leaned down and whispered in Margot’s ear.
“You look beautiful.”
She blushed again.
“Thank you.” She touched his hand, just for a second. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” he said.
Her cheeks got hot again, and she looked away from him as they turned the corner to the back lawn. Taylor was walking right toward them. Margot took a step away from Luke.
“There you are, Margot. Luke!” She grabbed him and gave him a hug. “We miss you around here, you know.”
He grinned at her.
“I miss this place. I fully expect you to start ordering me to wash glasses and pour wine today, just out of habit.”
Taylor laughed.
“I never ordered you around! Well . . . not exactly.”
Luke burst out laughing.
“Oh, really? What do you call it, then?”
Taylor turned to Margot.
“Do you see this, Margot? Do you see how he’s talking to me, now that I’m not in charge of him anymore?”
Margot grinned. Luke wiggled his eyebrows at her, where Taylor couldn’t see.
“I do see that,” she said. “I always knew this one was trouble. Remember, Elliot hired him, not me.”
They all laughed, Luke and Avery a little harder than Taylor.
“You were looking for me, Taylor?” Margot asked.
“Right—the pizza guy says he has to start a little later than scheduled, but I know that you had a whole plan.”
“Okay. I’ll go talk to him.” Margot turned to Luke and Avery. “Taylor, can you make sure these two get some wine?”
“Absolutely,” Taylor said.
Margot made her way across the lawn to the pizza guy.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Margot Noble—you were looking for me?”
He nodded.
“I’m going to need thirty extra minutes to get the oven hot enough—sorry for the delay.”
He didn’t sound particularly apologetic, but what could she do?
She took a few deep breaths. This was fine. This would be fine. She’d known this wouldn’t go exactly according to her plan; she’d built in some wiggle room for everything. This was no big deal.
“Okay, thanks for letting me know,” she said. “Let the staff here know if you need anything, or if you have any questions for me, they’ll find me.” She smiled at him. “Can I bring you a glass of wine?”
He nodded to her.