Brown-Eyed Girl (Travis Family #4)(34)

“Your feelings are important,” I said. “And so are your opinions. I’m trying to get a sense of how much involvement you’ll want in the wedding-planning process. Some men prefer to take part in every decision, whereas others —”

“Not me,” he said flatly. “I’ll leave all that to Bethany and Hollis. Not that I’d have a choice, anyway. But what I don’t want is for the wedding to turn into something…” He paused, trying to think of the right word.

“Una paletada hortera,” Sofia supplied. At our questioning glances, she said, “There’s not really a phrase for it in English… the best translation is ‘a shovelful of tacky.’”

Ryan laughed, the flash of humor and warmth transforming his face. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

“All right, then,” I said. “During the planning process, I’ll give you updates as things are decided. If there’s something you don’t like, I’ll shut it down. There may be a couple of things we’ll have to compromise on, but overall, the wedding will be elegant. And it will not turn into The Hollis Warner Show.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said feelingly. He looked at his watch. “If that’s it for now —”

“Wait, what about the proposal?” I asked.

A slight frown crossed his brow. “I’ll probably propose to Bethany next weekend.”

“Yes, but do you know how you’re going to do it?”

“I’ll get a ring and take her out to dinner.” His frown deepened as he saw my expression. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing at all. But you could do it in a more imaginative way. We could come up with something cute and fairly easy.”

“I’m not good at cute,” Ryan said.

“Take her to Padre Island,” Sofia suggested. “Stay at a beachside villa for a night. The next morning, the two of you could go for a walk on the beach…”

“And you’ll pretend to find a message in a bottle,” I said, brainstorming.

“No, no,” Sofia interrupted, “not a bottle… a sand castle. We’ll hire some professional sand sculptors to do it —”

“Based off a sketch that Ryan’s provided,” I said. “He’s an architect – he can design a special sand castle for Bethany.”

“Perfect,” Sofia exclaimed, and we high-fived each other.

Ryan had been glancing back and forth between us as if he were attending a tennis match.

“Then you’ll get down on one knee and propose,” I continued, “and —”

“Do I have to take a knee when I ask her?” Ryan asked.

“No, but it’s traditional.”

Ryan rubbed the lower half of his jaw, clearly not liking the idea.

“Men used to kneel when they were being knighted,” Sofia pointed out.

“Or beheaded,” Ryan said darkly.

“Kneeling will look nicer for the pictures,” I said.

“Pictures?” Ryan’s brows lifted. “You want me to propose to Bethany with camera guys there?”

“One photographer,” I said hastily. “You’ll hardly notice him. We’ll camouflage him.”

“We’ll hide him in a sand dune,” Sofia added.

Frowning, Ryan raked his hand through the close-cut layers of his brown hair, the light picking out glints of mahogany.

I looked at Sofia. “Never mind. A camera at the proposal sounds like a shovelful of tacky to me.”

Ryan lowered his head, but not before I saw a reluctant smile emerge. “Damn it,” I heard him mutter.

“What?”

“Suggesting you as the wedding planner is turning out to be the first nice thing Hollis has ever done for me. Which means I might have to thank her.”

“You answered,” Joe said later that night in a tone of mild surprise.

I smiled, leaning back against the pillows with my cell phone in hand. “You told me to.”

“Where are you right now?”

“In bed.”

“Should I call another time?”

“No, I’m not sleeping, I always sit in bed and do some reading at the end of the day.”

“What do you like to read?”

I glanced at the pile of candy-colored novels on the nightstand and replied with self-conscious amusement, “Love stories. The kind with the happy endings.”

“Do you ever get tired of knowing how the book’s going to end?”

“No, that’s the best part. Happily-ever-afters are hard to come by in real life, even in the wedding business. But at least I can count on one in a book.”

“I’ve seen some great marriages in real life.”

“They don’t stay that way, though. Every marriage starts as a happy ending, and then it turns into a marriage.”

“How did someone who doesn’t believe in happily-ever-after end up as a wedding planner?”

I told him about my first job after graduating in fashion design, how I’d apprenticed under a New York designer for a bridal fashion label, managing the sample room, learning to analyze sales reports, developing relationships with buyers. I had worked on a few of my own designs and had even won a prize as an emerging designer. But when I’d tried to start my own label, it had never gotten off the ground. No one had shown any enthusiasm for backing me.