Sunrise

  “Yes, very well.” Wilma smiled at the woman. “Thank you.”

  When the woman turned and left the room, Wilma lowered her voice and leaned across the table. “Renting this room for today was a good idea. She’ll tell everyone in the kitchen you’re here. Mark my words, someone will leak this to the press, and they’ll all have you getting married at the Indianapolis Hyatt.”

  “Then why are we here?” Frustration colored Dayne’s words. “I thought we’re aiming for something secret?”

  “We’re doing this on purpose.” Wilma allowed a quick laugh as though she was proud of what she was pulling off. “Indianapolis is close enough to Bloomington, close enough to a major airport. The Hyatt has beautiful banquet rooms, and since it’s out of Southern California, you’ll never have the numbers of photographers that you’d have in LA.” She patted the table between them. “This is option one.”

  “Here?” Katy was surprised. This wasn’t the sort of place they’d ever considered for the wedding. “Will people believe us?”

  “Coming from the viewpoint of a tabloid, a more remote place than Indiana doesn’t exist. This hotel has a traditional feel and enough glamour to fit the bill.” Wilma turned the pages of her book to the calendar section again. “We’ll ask the banquet manager to keep things quiet, and we’ll tell her we’d like to book a room for—” she moved her pen over the small squares—“April 22. We’ll book the most beautiful room they have and pay the woman handsomely for letting us meet here. We’ll have a hefty cancellation fee, but it’s a small price to pay for the diversion.”

  “I love that you’ve got this all figured out.” Dayne grinned. “What about option two?”

  “Now that might be a tough one.” She narrowed her eyes, as if the next tier of the plan was going to take her most brilliant work. She turned her attention to Katy. “Tell me about these friends of yours, the place where you’re living.”

  Katy swallowed. The entire elaborate ordeal felt like it was taking on a life of its own. But Jenny had already offered her house, so letting the conversation take this direction seemed fine. She told Wilma that the Flanigans’ house was seven thousand square feet and had huge areas for entertaining.

  “Would you like to be married there?”

  “Yes, but . . .” Katy looked at Dayne, then back at Wilma. “I thought you said Bloomington would be hard.”

  “It will be. If you want privacy, it’s out of the question. But to make the plan believable, it needs to feel like the kind of place where you’d consider getting married. That way you can talk about it with family and friends as if maybe—just maybe—you might hold the event there.”

  Katy released Dayne’s hand and leaned her forearms on the table. This was getting uncomfortable. “Lie to them, too?”

  “No.” Wilma seemed to sense that lying didn’t come easily for her. “Only hint that this might be where the wedding will be staged. And then—” an intensity filled her face—“pick one or at the most two people who could help make it seem like a wedding might actually take place there. Remember, your close friends and family will think it’s a secret, a surprise. Any hints you give about having a wedding at the house where you live will be good-natured red herrings.”

  So Katy could tell Jenny and Jim Flanigan that she and Dayne would be dropping hints that the wedding might be at their house. To help play along, Jenny and Jim could talk about ordering a truckload of folding chairs or getting the yard ready for a big event. People would see this and think that, hey, maybe the wedding was going to be at the Flanigans’.

  That way if someone got wind of the happenings and leaked the information to the press, there would be no damage done. Because option three was something no one would know about until the day of the wedding.

  “Now for option three . . .” Wilma’s eyes sparkled. “Think outside the box. The West Virginia mountains, a lodge in the Canadian Rockies, the Caribbean. Somewhere meaningful.” She paused. “Somewhere half a day’s flight from Bloomington where your guests could fly in, stay for a few days, and witness your wedding.”

  Katy felt her eyes glaze over. She looked at the blank wall in front of her. Wilma was saying that the wedding could be anywhere they wanted. A beach or a mountain hideaway, someplace in the United States or a different country. How crazy was that? She looked at Dayne. “Any ideas?”

  His expression was empty for a few seconds, but then his features changed and his eyes lit up. “Mexico. That would mean a lot.” He gazed at Katy, beyond the surface to the deepest part of her soul. “I gave my life to Christ in Mexico.” His voice grew soft, as if he’d forgotten about Wilma. “It was there that God told me to go back home and marry you.” A soft glow fell over his face, and it was as if they were alone in the room. “What do you think? A beach somewhere in Mexico?”

  Tears nipped at the corners of Katy’s eyes. “Bob lives in Mexico too. He and his family would feel very comfortable there.”

  Dayne covered her hands with his before turning back to Wilma. “I love it. Now we need a beach.”

  “Let’s take a look.” Wilma pulled out a laptop from her bag and powered it up. As she did, there was another knock at the door.

  Directed by the banquet manager, a staff member wheeled in a cart. From it he served a chicken Caesar salad to each of them. As the waiter served Dayne’s plate, he grinned. “It’s nice to have you here, Mr. Matthews.”

  “Thank you.” Dayne returned the smile.

  Before the staff left, Wilma stood and approached the banquet manager. “Please advise your staff again. In planning this event we need the utmost confidentiality.”

  “Yes, madam.” The woman practically bowed. “We’ll do everything we can to see that no one knows you’re here or that you’re planning a dinner with us.”

  A dinner. Katy smiled to herself. When the staff was gone, she looked at Wilma. “Is that what you told her? That you were planning a dinner?”

  “Yes.” Wilma sat back down and spread her napkin across her lap. She looked proud of herself. “I said I was planning a dinner to honor two special people, clients of mine.”

  “The manager didn’t know it was me until she came in earlier.” Dayne seemed like he was enjoying himself, caught up in the scheming. “Brilliant. I love it.”

  They finished eating their salads while Wilma found an online map of Mexico. “A straight shot would take you to Cancún.” She drew an imaginary line from Bloomington south. “I’d guess you could be there in less than four hours by jet.”

  “You’re saying . . . have the guests meet at the airport? And then take them to Cancún?”

  “Right.” Wilma had her game face on now. She seemed more serious, and the details were coming faster than before. “The guests learn about the date in time to make plans, and then they get their forty-eight hour notice to meet at the Indianapolis airport to fly to Cancún. We tell them what to bring—black tie, evening attire, bathing suits, that kind of thing.”

  Katy sat back against her chair and exhaled. Hollywood people might be used to these sorts of surprise weddings, the kind where you board a mystery jet for a destination you didn’t know about until that hour. But what about the families from CKT? She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, Dayne was watching her.

  “It’s a lot, huh?”

  “Yes.” She looked at Wilma. “Sorry. It sounds wonderful. I’m just not sure . . .”

  Wilma tapped her fingers on the table between them. “Don’t worry about a thing. That’s my job. It’s why you hired me.”

  Katy wanted to say that she hadn’t hired her. Dayne had taken care of that. In fact, in less time than it took to have lunch, the entire wedding had begun to feel complicated and dramatically out of hand. She faced Dayne. “What do you think?”

  The calm in his eyes told her the answer before he opened his mouth. “Like Wilma said, she’ll take care of everything.” The ends of his mouth turned upward. “What about Cancún?”

  Wilma was busy
finding images from that stretch of beach. “The entire Mayan Riviera is amazing. I know a small five-star resort half an hour south of the airport in Cancún.” She went on about how she could make a phone call and reserve the entire place for the weekend of the wedding. “We’d fly the guests in on Thursday night. You could have dinners or parties and a rehearsal on Friday and the wedding on Saturday. Guests would fly home midday Sunday.”

  Katy opened her eyes wide. It sounded like something from a fantasy. Of course, this was the life Dayne led, and it was something she needed to get used to.

  Wilma was asking whether the idea was something they liked, something they could be excited about. “I won’t make the call unless you want Mexico.”

  “Well—” Dayne breathed out, but it sounded more like a laugh—“can we get back to you? Maybe in a few days?”

  Wilma looked like a party girl with a popped balloon. She found a smile and closed her laptop. “Of course.” She handed her card to Dayne. “You know where to reach me.”

  They talked another few minutes about the Celebrity Life interview. Katy agreed that Wilma should go ahead and schedule the interview. The only thing they had on their schedules for the next few weeks was furniture shopping. A trip to Los Angeles would work out fine, especially for a few days.

  Even so, as they left the meeting, Dayne seemed edgy again. Wilma was parked out front, so they separated in the hallway. Dayne took the lead toward the rear exit and stopped in the doorway with the door partially opened. There were only a few cars in the back lot and not a sign of the press.

  Dayne took Katy’s hand, and they hurried to her car. “The hotel manager must really want our business.”

  “That . . .” Katy waited while he opened her door. She slid in, and when he was beside her she snapped her seat belt in place. “Or there aren’t enough photographers in Indianapolis to get someone out here that quickly.”

  Dayne locked the doors, grabbed the wheel, and hung his head. “Why do I feel like I’m constantly having to apologize?”

  “Hey . . .” She was still reeling from the meeting with Wilma, but Dayne had more at stake. Even though she’d spent every day after his accident praying and dreading the possibilities, she’d also had longer to forgive. Now she needed to be careful how she reacted to the wedding plans. Otherwise his anger toward the press would consume him.

  Dayne turned just enough to see her. Then he gestured toward the back entrance of the hotel. “All that running around and plotting and having options . . . it’s because of the paparazzi. Same as my accident.” He flexed the muscles in his jaw and stared straight ahead. “It isn’t fair.”

  “No.” Katy silently prayed for the right words. “But we have options here.”

  “Like what?”

  “A smaller wedding.” She took hold of his arm. “I don’t need a big wedding. We can have a party later with the CKT families. If it’s just us, the Baxters, my parents, and the Flanigans, I’ll be fine.”

  His expression told her how much the situation was affecting him. “You want a big wedding. I heard you tell Ashley the other night after dinner.”

  “But I could forget the idea—” her voice fell a notch—“if that’s what you wanted.”

  “It wouldn’t help.” Dayne leaned back and let his hands fall to his lap. “Without Wilma’s plotting, the paparazzi will find us. Like you said, if we keep running, they’ll have more reason to chase us.”

  “Exactly.” Katy was convincing herself as much as him. “So we let her walk us through it, and we pray for privacy.” Her tone sounded more upbeat. “That’s all we can do, Dayne.”

  “In there, I was actually starting to like the idea of a wedding with a hundred and fifty guests being flown secretly to Cancún.” He laughed, but his tone held no humor. “Then I started thinking about flying to LA and having a formal magazine interview while trying to pull off a secret where if one person leaks the wrong information, the whole thing goes up in smoke.” He met her eyes and held them. “All of a sudden I could think only one thing.”

  “What?”

  “That you were crazy to ever say yes.” Dayne framed her face with his hand, his fingers barely touching her skin. “You deserve a big wedding, Katy.”

  “All I want is you.” She’d been feeling the swirling rush of everything that lay ahead, but here—with her heart melting from Dayne’s touch—she didn’t care about the details. Let Wilma handle them. “These are the happiest days of my life. Wilma can make the plans, and we’ll go along for the ride.”

  He clenched his jaw and studied her. “I need you, Katy.” He brought his other hand up to her face, holding her like she was a great and priceless treasure. “If the planning gets me all . . . I don’t know, all tied up, say something to remind me that we’ll get through it.”

  Katy laughed and looped her arm around his neck. They would play nice with the press, granting the interview, and they would help each other through the tricky times—when the extent of their planning seemed downright ludicrous. She tenderly pressed her cheek to his. This close she could smell his cologne, his shampoo. His nearness was intoxicating. “Hey, I know what I’ll say. And whenever I say it, you have to promise to let go of the anger.” She drew back and touched the spot over his heart. “Otherwise it’ll eat you up in here.”

  He smiled at her. The passion in his eyes was just below the surface. “‘Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ That verse is always coming up.” He ran his thumb lightly along her brow. “So what’s the code word?”

  “That’s easy.” She rubbed her nose against his. “Wilma.”

  They both laughed, and Katy straightened back into her seat.

  Dayne started the engine, and the rest of the way home they didn’t talk once about paparazzi or pending trips to Los Angeles or the idea of having three options just to pull off a private wedding. They didn’t mention a private jet or keeping secrets or how they would survive between now and March 18.

  Instead they talked about the Baxter grandkids, about the bird with the hurt wing and Dayne’s father catching it in the box as though he were a pro at the job, about his sisters’ ideas for a wedding shower and Luke’s excitement over his new job. And all the while they reminded each other how extraordinary life had become, how wonderful it was that they wouldn’t just share Thanksgiving weekend together with the Baxter family . . . his family.

  But an entire lifetime.

  In her years of being a coach’s wife, Jenny Flanigan had on occasion seen a football player cry. When Jim’s star NFL running back blew out his knee in a career-ending injury and when a veteran tight end was traded after ten years of service. But she had never seen a player so completely broken as Cody Coleman.

  He had been released from the hospital Sunday morning, and he’d slept most of that day. During that time, Jenny and Jim explained to their kids that Cody was out of danger for now. “But he has a drinking problem.” Jim’s tone was very serious. “We’ll talk about it with him, try to figure out a way to help him.”

  “Will he still live here?” Justin looked worried.

  Jenny’s heart hurt for her kids—all of them. They’d been talking about whether Cody would have to leave because of his bad choices. Even Bailey had asked about it.

  “He’ll stay as long as he’s willing to get help for his drinking.” Jim seemed as devastated as the kids. “Drinking is a choice, and if Cody won’t get help, he’ll need to find somewhere else to live. Let’s pray it works out, okay? Maybe we can learn something from this.”

  “Yeah, like never drink when you’re in high school.” Ricky nodded, his expression deeply serious. He looked at his brothers for approval, and they responded with a round of affirmations.

  At dinnertime, Jenny had heard Jim talk to Cody from his bedroom door. “Time for dinner.”

  From inside the room came Cody’s groggy voice. “I’m not that hungry.”

  “I don’t care if you eat, but I’d like you to come to dinner.” Jim sounded gruff. ??
?And by Tuesday or Wednesday, you need to get back to school.”

  Cody’s words were muted, but from her spot in the kitchen, Jenny could hear his response. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.”

  Relief filled Jenny. She wanted this to be a turning point for Cody, not a point of separation.

  Everyone sat down to this year’s final meal of leftover turkey, potatoes, and peas. Cody was subdued and clearly embarrassed, and for the most part, he avoided eye contact. The kids, probably sensing that Cody didn’t want to talk, made conversation among themselves.

  Only Ricky mentioned the incident. During a lull, he looked at Cody. “We prayed for you.” The look in his tender young eyes was part hurt, part gratitude. Jenny watched her youngest son. He felt betrayed, angry that Cody would drink again after telling Jenny and Jim he wouldn’t. For a minute it looked like Ricky might ask why Cody did it, why he drank himself nearly to death. But instead he turned his attention back to his dinner, and the topic didn’t come up the rest of the meal.

  When they were done eating and the kids had cleared their plates and left the room, Jim focused on Cody. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cody was still dragging his fork through what was left of the little bit of food he’d taken.

  “Look at me when I talk to you.” Jim sounded like the coach he sometimes was on the field when the team was down two touchdowns with time running out.

  Jenny kept her mouth shut. Jim knew better than she did how to handle this.

  Cody lifted his gaze. “Sorry.”

  Jim rested his elbows on the table. “Why don’t you tell me what happened that night.”

  “Sir . . .” Cody swallowed, clearly struggling. “I wonder if we could . . . if we could have this talk on Wednesday night.”

  Jim looked suspicious. “Why Wednesday?”

  “What I did was stupid; I need time to think about it.”