his seat, senses enmeshed in the spicy fragrance of her perfume. “Think more ‘big picture,’ Sara.”
“What? Most brides think clothes are a very important part of wedding. Wedding gowns, tuxedos.” She chuckled at his huff of distaste and continued.
But the more she listed, the more Cade felt like a man drowning. Sara must have noticed because she finally paused.
“It’s a lot to handle,” she said, her voice softening. “Maybe you need to rethink this idea.”
Maybe he did. Nothing about organizing Karen’s wedding seemed as simple as it had back on the ranch. But that didn’t mean Cade was giving up.
“I need a little time to wrap my mind around the details, that’s all.”
“Take all the time you need. I better get back to work.”
While Sara dabbed her lips on a napkin, Cade tossed some money on the table, then led the way outside, holding her arm until she pulled it away.
He checked the sidewalk, expecting to see Reese.
“I guess your brother had to leave.”
“Yeah. Probably to give his report.”
“Report?” He didn’t understand that comment, or what had drained the sparkle from her eyes, but the Woodward family wasn’t his business. “Because Reese isn’t here, I’ll walk you back to the store.”
“Thanks, but I can manage without you or my brother to guide me. I’ve been finding my own way around L.A. for a while now.” Hostility leeched through the sour words.
“I don’t doubt you can.” Cade hadn’t sensed tension between sister and brother earlier, which made him even more curious about the Woodwards, especially about Sara. “I have to walk there anyway. My car’s parked across from the store.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” She walked beside him in a mincing pace, almost falling flat on her face when her heel caught in a sidewalk crack. She recovered quickly, tossed him a smile. “I thought all cowboys drove trucks?”
“I don’t bring my truck into town unless I’m hauling something. Too many bad drivers ready to dent it. And, yes, all the stories about ranchers treating their trucks like babies are true. Hey!” Cade grabbed her just in time and held on until Sara had regained her balance again. “Are those things comfortable?”
“Not in the least,” Sara told him, fingers pressing into his arm as she righted herself. “But Katie insists they’re the only appropriate footwear for my work at Woodwards. I usually work in sneakers and jeans.”
“I imagine you look very nice in those, too.” A sense of loss suffused him when her arm slid out from his. “Oh, we’re here already.”
“Whenever you want to talk again, stop in.” Sara’s eyes lost their brooding, lightened to a rich cocoa. “We’ll do our best to help. But I think you should wait and talk to Karen. Then listen. She might have other reasons for wanting to elope.”
“Like what?” Cade resented the inference that he didn’t know exactly how Karen thought. His baby sister was an open book to him.
“Talk to her. She’ll tell you.”
“Will you be here if I come back?”
“I don’t know.” An internal struggle turned her eyes a shade of bittersweet. “Probably.”
The expressionless gaze she’d first assumed at the store, the “mask” look that hid her emotions, slid into place. He disliked it intensely.
“Well, thanks for coffee and the croissants.” Sara’s clear natural glow reminded Cade of the foothills of his ranch where mountain springs tumbled down in a rush of sparkling droplets chased by sunbeams. Her orange scarf was like a mountain lily.
Cade blinked. Loneliness was definitely affecting him.
“You’ve given me a lot of wedding details to think about. What if we meet tomorrow?”
Sara’s eyes widened with surprise.
“You mean, you still want me to work with you, even though I’m not staying?”
“You have an original perspective. Karen would like that.” His sister’s penchant for the uncommon had often been a source of contention between them.
“You must miss her a lot.”
Cade hadn’t realized how much until he met Sara.
“Karen hasn’t lived at home full-time for ages, but when she did, life was good. With my sister around there was always something going on. She enriched my life, made it fun. I miss that. I miss her.”
Sara went very still. Her face tilted upward as she studied him. Cade stood immobile under her scrutiny, waiting for the question he saw reflected in her eyes. But she didn’t ask.
So suddenly it made him catch his breath, her face altered, her voice emerged warm and generous.
“I’m just the substitute at Woodwards, so I don’t have any regular clients, which means I have a lot of free time. I could meet you whenever you like to brainstorm something wonderful for Karen’s wedding.”
Cade wasn’t about to waste his opportunity.
“I have to be in town tomorrow morning for some business. Could you meet me at Cartier’s Café at noon?”
“Cartier’s? Sure. But Woodwards has lots of—” Sara blinked, then waggled a finger at him, eyes twinkling. “You’re trying to avoid going back into the store, aren’t you?”
“If at all possible,” he admitted honestly. “How did you guess?”
“Your face. Lots of men find the environment a little—overpowering. The family has been trying to get Winnie to scale back, at least in reception.”
“But?”
Sara shrugged.
“Granny Winnie is an incurable romantic, that’s how she got started in this business. Yards of tulle, tons of hearts and flowers—it’s been a part of her world for so long I doubt she could envision Woodwards any other way now.”
“Why should she?” Cade tilted his head back to study the ivory stone facade of the building. “Her way obviously works. I was told Weddings by Woodwards assisted with more than four hundred weddings last year.”
“And each of them was absolutely perfect. That’s my family.” There it was again, that proud but irritated tone. “How did you choose Woodwards, Cade?”
“I talked to some friends of Karen who told me that if I wanted a spectacular wedding, Weddings by Woodwards was the only way.”
“I see.” Sara’s eyes narrowed. She made a notation on her pad, then lifted her head, brown eyes narrowed. “These friends—are they good friends? The kind of friends your sister would ask to be her attendants if she were planning her own wedding?”
Cade slowly nodded. Sara Woodward may have been out of the family business for a while, but she caught on to his line of thinking faster than the ranch foreman who’d been working for him for ten years.
“Exactly that kind of friend,” he told her.
She grinned, her eyes dancing.
“Now we’re cooking. Tonight I want you to write down everything you can think of about Karen. Bring your notes and her album tomorrow. That will give us a place to start.”
“Okay.”
Sara was easy to talk to. Cade surprised himself by prattling on and on about how much he wanted his sister to come home, how he worried about her safety, fussed about her future happiness.
When Sara’s attention slipped from him, Cade turned, saw a diminutive figure in black in the display