Diary of an Engaged Wedding Planner (Tales Behind the Veils Book 3) Read online

  Diary of an

  Engaged

  Wedding Planner

  VIOLET HOWE

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, events, and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  www.violethowe.com

  Cover Design: Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.

  www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  Published by Charbar Productions, LLC

  (e-v1)

  Copyright © 2016 Violet Howe/LM Howe/Charbar Productions, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9964968-5-8

  For Bonnie.

  For lifelong friendship.

  For unconditional love & acceptance.

  For unwavering support & understanding.

  For laughter & tears.

  Here’s to security blankets.

  Acknowledgments

  I feel like this list grows with every book. I am so blessed to have such a huge support system. Many people I have thanked before, and they still have my gratitude and appreciation. Specifically for this book, I'd like to offer my sincerest thanks to:

  Bonnie and Sandy: For all the reasons you already know and a few you may not realize.

  Lesley: Thanks for continuing to be my audience, through rain, snow, sleet and children.

  Heather: I don’t know there will ever be a book I publish that I don’t need to thank Heather. You’re like my guru. I think I’m going to put a poster of you on my wall. Here’s to Tina and Amy.

  Beth: You are such a bright spot in my life, and I enjoy you so much. Thanks for being such a great sounding board and creative reference. Oh, not to mention, a pretty awesome friend.

  Donna, Lisa, and Melissa: Thank you for your careful eyes and detail to attention.

  Annie: You are the best! Thanks for everything, especially your patience on this one!

  Alexis: I’m so glad we met! You inspire me and uplift me, and you also make me laugh. Thanks for your support, your encouragement, and your willingness to share your knowledge and your friends.

  My Knight & Dr. Smooth: This was the hardest labor & delivery yet, and I can’t thank you guys enough for being so supportive, so patient, so forgiving, and so loving. My biggest dream is to make you both proud.

  And finally to the best street team ever, the Ultra Violets! I am so honored to have your support and your input. Thanks for taking the ride with me!

  June

  Saturday, June 7th

  I want to go on record as saying I told them it was a bad idea.

  They didn’t listen to me. Obviously. If they had, I wouldn’t have been standing there, dripping all over the restaurant carpet. Seaweed tangled in my hair, green and brown sludge smeared over my once-white dress, and blood oozing from cuts on my knees and hands where I’d crawled across the rocks to get out of the water. I looked like something the cat drug up and the kittens wouldn’t have.

  Of all the weddings for a bride to request that everyone wear white.

  Thank the Lord above I’d opted for granny panties this morning and not a thong. Something told me that spending all day on a yacht might pose a wind and water wardrobe risk. Of course, had I known that risk would involve full submersion in Tampa Bay, I’d have worn a swimsuit underneath my dress.

  I must say, the life jacket didn’t make much of a fashion statement, but it did at least cover my boobs and bra. Below the jacket, the water had plastered the thin white material to my skin and made the dress pretty much transparent. Granny panties ain’t pretty, but they do provide full coverage.

  My hat’s off to the poor restaurant manager. He actually maintained eye contact for most of the conversation with only a few downward glances. I wish I could say the same for the restaurant patrons who sat there gaping openmouthed in their fancy dresses and suits.

  If only Reverend White had actually read his itinerary and realized we wouldn’t be docking until after the reception ended. Preacher Man had booked another ceremony just two hours after the yacht wedding, so he needed to get back on land pronto.

  Bringing the boat back in would have compromised the entire event schedule, so together, Lillian and the boat’s captain came up with the brilliant solution that I would drive Preacher Man back to the dock on a Jet Ski.

  Never mind that I’d only driven one once before, and that was on a calm lake with Cabe sitting right behind me telling me what to do. Nothing like the busy traffic and waves I encountered today. Not to mention how unladylike it is to straddle a personal watercraft in a short dress, especially when escorting a man of the cloth.

  My protests fell on deaf ears, though. Lillian wasn’t going to hike her British arse up on a motorized ski to drive Preacher Man back to shore, and none of the crew could be spared to make the trek.

  “See that white building in the distance?” The captain pointed to a minuscule white dot on the far horizon. “The dock is just to the left of that. Head straight for it and then turn and head straight back. You’ll be able to find us, no problem.”

  Yeah, right. No problem. Except that no one had checked the fuel level before we departed. Preacher Man and I were halfway to our destination when the engine suddenly cut off.

  No coughing.

  No sputtering.

  Just one minute we were flying across the waves, and the next we were stopped, bobbing up and down in the middle of the bay.

  “What happened?” Reverend White asked.

  “It stopped.” I stated the obvious as I jiggled the key and mashed every button I could find.

  “Did you try turning it off and back on?”

  I nodded but then tried again, just in case.

  “Is there a power switch, or only a key?” He leaned around me just as the waves from a nearby boat hit us, throwing him against my shoulder and nearly unseating us both.

  “Whoa!” The Reverend threw both arms around my waist in an effort to stay onboard. The black garment bag between us slid toward the water, and he quickly let go of me to catch it.

  I tried the key again, but the engine didn’t even attempt to make a noise.

  “The lights on the handlebar thing come on, so I don’t think it’s the battery,” I said, trying to sound more knowledgeable than I felt.

  Preacher Man leaned around me again, this time with one hand firmly on my shoulder and the other hand tightly clenching the garment bag. “Maybe it’s out of gas? Open the gas cap,” he said.

  I unscrewed the lid on the gas tank between my legs, struggling to keep my dress from giving out a crotch shot. Black nothingness stared back at me from the depths of the tank. “It’s possible,” I said. “I can’t really tell.”

  Two Jet Skis roared by, close enough to nearly turn us over as their wake hit us. I dropped the gas cap in my haste to grab the handles, but luckily it landed beside my foot on the running board. I had just bent to pick it up when another wave hit us, and my head bashed into the left handlebar as my body lurched forward. Preacher Man slammed into my back, grabbing onto me for dear life before regaining his balance and sitting upright.

  “We obviously can’t just sit here. We gotta do something,” I said as another wave knocked us all cattywampus.

  Preacher Man unzipped his black garment bag and dug around
to find his phone beneath the folds of his robe. He couldn’t get a signal, though, so he put the phone back in the bag and held it up to zip it just as a large boat passed by. I braced for the boat’s wake, but Preacher Man had one hand holding up the garment bag and the other on the zipper. The wave knocked him off balance and he toppled sideways, dropping the bag in the water as he struggled to hold onto me.

  “My bag!” He half-stood behind me, leaning precariously over the edge to fish the garment bag from the water before it sank. He dove in without hesitation, gripping the black plastic bag and holding it as high as possible above his head as he treaded water. I took the bag from him and slung it sopping wet across the back of the seat.

  “Is it waterproof?” I asked.

  “I’ll find out soon. How should I proceed?” He looked up at me from the water, and then back toward the seat behind me.

  Visions of him toppling both of us in the water played out in my head as I threw my hands up in protest. “No! Don’t even try it. You’ll turn it over for sure!”

  “Well, what do you suggest? You want me to swim to shore?”

  Weighing the options of me being thrown in the water against him swimming, I leaned heavily in favor of staying dry, but Reverend White didn’t strike me as the athletic type. I looked toward the shore in the distance and knew he’d never make it. Hell, I didn’t even think I could make it, and he had a good fifty pounds on me.

  We tried for several minutes to get him onboard—pushing, pulling, tugging, praying—but nothing worked. Any time he put his weight on one side to lift out of the water, it would lurch that direction and nearly pitch me over. At one point I stood with all my weight on the opposite side from him, but solid as I am, my mass was no match for a soaking wet Reverend White pulling up out of the water.

  The poor man gasped and heaved, red-faced and exhausted from the effort. “It’s no use. I can’t get back on.”

  Water-goers zipped past us in all directions, but no one so much as glanced our way. I waved my arms overhead to try and signal distress, but evidently we were invisible.

  “Okay, we seem to be drifting toward that bridge, so I’m thinking if you hold onto the side and I try to paddle somehow, the current will carry us that way.”

  The Reverend nodded as he wiped his hand across his face, the top of his shiny, bare head already turning pink in the blistering sun. “I’ll try to push and you steer.”

  While I appreciated his gallant offer, I could see the man was clearly struggling to breathe. I think the life jacket was the only thing keeping him afloat. No way did he have the stamina to push me anywhere.

  “Maybe I could paddle with my life jacket.” I unsnapped the cumbersome orange jacket and extended the largest piece toward the water.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Reverend White said. “You’re not supposed to take that off. It’s a law. If you’re on a watercraft, you’re supposed to wear the life jacket.”

  I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of his comment. “Well, if some marine patrol officer wants to stop and give me a ticket, I’d happily pay it just to be off this thing and somewhere dry.”

  I caught sight of a boat approaching and waved the bright orange life jacket as I yelled to catch their attention. No use. They flew past, leaving behind a wake large enough to tip us over.

  “Watch out!” I grabbed both handlebars, my wrist threaded through my life jacket so it hung there, useless but within reach. The wave rocked the craft hard to the left, directly into Preacher Man, who grunted and disappeared under the water.

  Panic set in quick, and I nearly dove in after him. The last thing I needed on my karma record was killing a preacher. Not that it’s okay to kill anybody, but I’m thinking a preacher’s got to be pretty high on the list of points deducted.

  He popped right back up—Thank the Lord—coughing and spitting as his life jacket bobbed around his ears.

  “Are you okay?”

  His eyes met mine with a glare that conveyed choice words, but he simply cleared his throat and spit them away with the foam in his mouth. “What are we going to do? We can’t stay here. We’re quite literally sitting ducks. You mentioned paddling for shore?”

  I tried to use the life jacket again, but I might as well have been trailing my fingers in the water. The cold, hard truth settled over me even as I resisted it, certain I could find another way. In the end, only one solution existed. I had to get in the water so we could both push the stupid thing to shore.

  The sun blazed down hot, but its heat in no way prepared me for the chill of the water as I let go of the handlebar and plunged in. Wet cold took my breath as the water flooded through the thin layers of my dress. I kicked hard at first, panicked to stay afloat in such deep water, but soon I relaxed and allowed the life jacket and the waves to carry me.

  It took us an eternity to reach the bridge. Every time we looked up, it seemed further away. The current, the waves, and the wind nudged us sideways pretty much every other kick-stroke. My legs ached and my muscles burned, unaccustomed as they were to any real physical exertion. My lips stung from licking them too often under the constant assault from the sun and salt water. The life jacket chafed my skin under my arms and around my neck.

  I had begun to wonder if we’d ever reach shore. I did a mental recall of any movie I’d ever seen regarding shipwrecks or being stranded at sea, hoping some kernel of survival wisdom would come to mind.

  All I could remember was Tom Hanks sporting a massive beard and being fixated on a volleyball and some dude named Pi sleeping under psychedelic stars in a boat with a tiger. Neither of which helped my present situation.

  Then, just when I thought I may end up a statistic in my own Poseidon adventure, we reached shallow water. I kicked hard, encouraged by the sight of the bridge getting closer. Big mistake. Slimy, cold tentacles wrapped around my foot and calf. I kicked with all my might as I yelped and shoved away, certain a piranha or shark had taken my leg in one bite. I think it’s possible I may have even levitated above the water for a minute, but I don’t know for sure because Preacher Man couldn’t see me from his side.

  He poked his sun-reddened bald head around with eyes wide as he yelled, “What happened?”

  Embarrassment warmed my cheeks even as the sun burned them. “Seaweed,” I said as I gingerly put my feet back down. “Sorry. It freaked me out.”

  It got worse the closer we got to shore. The tall stalks reached almost to the surface, tangling in my feet and legs and wrapping around my waist like tentacled creatures engulfing me and pulling me under. My kicks increased in intensity as I fought imaginary monsters, and the Jet Ski got heavier as the water shallowed out and our exhaustion intensified.

  If I had been directing our disaster movie, I would have had a white sandy beach with swaying palm trees to welcome us ashore so we could lie down and catch our breaths.

  Instead, we encountered a virtual barricade of sharp rocks lying in wait under the bridge. We’d both stubbed our toes and split our shins before we realized how far into the water they extended. I clung to one of the larger rocks, too tired to lift myself up out of the water. Preacher Man climbed onto the barricade and past me, but his heaving chest showed his state of exhaustion and revealed the redness of his face was in part due to exertion and not just sunburn.

  I prayed he wouldn’t pass out because there was no way I had the energy to run up the hill and get help. Plus, I needed his help to get the useless tub of metal out of the water.

  “How are we going to get it past the rocks?” I asked in his general direction, squinting from the prolonged exposure to the constant glare of the sun combined with the ever-present splash of salt water.

  “I don’t really care,” Preacher Man said as he spat sea foam. “He sent us out on faulty equipment, and he can deal with it however he chooses. I have a wedding to get to.”

  I almost laughed at the curtness of this gentle man who had never so much as raised his voice or said a cross word in my presence. I guess ou
r adventure had pushed him to his limits. Then, when he realized the black garment bag was no longer laying across the seat where he’d left it, it pushed him farther.

  He kicked at the rocks and then picked up an empty bottle and threw it. The poor man probably came as close to cursing as he ever had in his life. I crawled further up onto the rocks to where I could stand and scan the lake with my blurry eyes, but the water had certainly claimed his bag. Who knew when it slid off? We had both been so focused on reaching the shore that neither of us had seen it fall.

  “My keys! My phone! My robe! This is a disaster. My watch is filled with water. I have no idea what time it is. I’m probably already too late for the next wedding, and I have no way to call them or get to them.” He plopped down on a flat rock and removed his sopping wet canvas sneakers and socks to reveal stark white feet, wrinkled and puckered.

  “We can’t just leave it in the water. We have to try to get it on the rocks somehow and go for help.” I stared at the Jet Ski with contempt. I think I was trying to convince myself as much as Reverend White.

  It took a bit of searching, but I found a low point in the rocks that I thought we could leverage the machine against enough to get it up out of the water. The amount of effort it took was Herculean, and we both collapsed on the rocks when we finally had the damned thing banked enough so it couldn’t float away.

  What a pair we made as we hobbled up to the highway above. The cuts on our arms and legs made us look like we’d been juggling knives. Unsuccessfully. Reverend White had put his wet shoes back on without the soaked socks, and his feet were already starting to blister. I had sliced my right foot open on one of the jagged rocks, the pain of which had made me curse with complete abandon and disregard of Preacher Man’s presence. He’d simply looked at me with understanding and asked if I was okay.