SHE TRIED NOT TO DWELL ON IT. A PUNISHING SCHEDULE OF summer weddings helped keep her from thinking about what she’d done, at least for four out of every five minutes. Then again, so much of her work was solitary, and gave her entirely too much time to think and to ask herself how she could have done something so incredibly stupid.

He’d deserved it, of course. And it had been a long time coming. But when she came right down to the nitty, just who had she punished with that kiss except herself?

Because now it wasn’t merely theory or speculation. Now she knew how it would feel, how she would feel, if she let herself go—just for a minute—with Del. She’d never be able to convince herself again that kissing him in reality would fall far short of kissing him in her imagination.

She’d bought the ticket, and she’d rung the bell. No way to ask for a refund.

If he hadn’t made her so mad, she thought as she scurried to help with the turnover in the brief window between the two Saturday events. Del being infuriatingly Del with his “Why don’t you do it this way,” “Why aren’t you eating a real meal”—then, then reaching for his big, fat wallet as if ...

And that wasn’t fair; she had to admit it. She’d poked, pushed, prodded. She’d been primed for a fight.

She assembled the centerpiece on the graceful top tier of the white and gold cake she called Gilded Dreams. She considered it one of her more fanciful cakes with its silklike layered overskirt and coiled rosettes.

Not her particular taste either, she mused, and arranged some of the extra rosettes around the base, scattered over the sparkling gold tablecloth. Probably because she wasn’t a dreamer or especially fanciful.

A pragmatist was what she was, she thought. Reality-steeped. She wasn’t a romantic like Emma, or as free-flowing as Mac, or as optimistic as Parker.

At the bottom of it, she dealt in formulas, didn’t she? She could experiment with amounts and ingredients, but at the end of it she had to accept that certain components simply didn’t mix. Insisting on stirring the incompatible together ended up making an unpalatable mess. When that happened, the only thing to do was chalk it up to a mistake and move on.

“Gorgeous.” Taking a quick and approving survey of the cake, Emma set her hamper down. “I’ve got the candles and the table flowers.” She tipped her wrist to angle her watch before letting out a brief whew. “We’re right on schedule. Everything’s dressed, in and out, and Mac’s about done with the preceremony shots.”