“I’m working on it. Tell me if I start screwing this up, okay?”

“Absolutely.” Her phone rang. “And there we have the opening bell. I’ll see you later. Good morning, Sarah. How’s the bride today?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EMMA’S LILIES SCENTED THE AIR AND BLOOMED IN SUMMER COLORS of brilliant scarlet and buttery yellow, bright, hard-candy pink and blinding white. The bride, who’d considered a mis-scheduled manicure a disaster on the morning of July fifth, posed radiantly for Mac while Parker dealt with a groomsman’s misplaced vest and tie.

After checking to see no emergencies required her attention or assistance, Laurel carried the cake’s centerpiece—a sugar vase she’d molded from a hexagon bowl and filled with miniature lilies.

Emma’s lilies had nothing on hers, Laurel thought—in execution or time spent. She’d embossed gum paste with a rolling pin covered with textured grosgrain ribbon, then meticulously cut out each individual petal. The result, once the stems had been wired and dipped in thinned royal icing, was both charming and elegant.

In the Ballroom, she ignored the buzz and hum of setup and studied the cake. More textured petals adorned each tier—a circular dance of those strong colors. More scattered over the cake board in what she considered a pretty and organic touch.

As she lifted the topper out of the box, someone knocked over a chair with a crash. She never blinked.

That’s what Del noticed. The noise, the shouts, the movement might not have existed. He watched her center the bowl of flowers on the top tier, step back to check the positioning, then take one of her tools out of the box to run a line—no, pipe, he corrected. He knew that much. She piped a couple of perfect lines, like a base on the bowl, around it with hands steady as a surgeon’s.

She circled the table again, nodded.

“Looks great.”

“Oh.” She took a step back. “I didn’t know you were here. Or going to be here.”

“It was the only way I could figure out how to have a Saturday night date with you.”

“That’s nice.”

He brushed his thumb over her cheek.

“Do I have icing on my face?”

“No. It’s just your face. How many flowers on that?”

“About fifty.”

He glanced around at the arrangements. “It looks like you and Em matched petal for petal.”

“We worked at it. Well, so far everything’s going smooth, so I might be able to—”

“Code Red!” Emma shouted in her earbud.

“Crap. Where?”

“Great Hall. We need everybody.”

“I’m on my way. Code Red,” she told Del as she rushed for the stairs. “My own fault. I said everything was going smooth. I know better than to say that.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know yet.” She hit the second-floor landing from one wing as Parker charged in from the other.