LITMIR.BIZ

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beverage service before the wedding, so when people approached, Silver guided them toward the building where the ceremony would take place.

      “Do you always have to do that?” Drew asked. “Fend off those looking to get drunk early?”

      “Not all the time, but it happens. As for getting drunk, we do our best to prevent that. There are things to look for.”

      “I know. I’ve been reading up on being a bartender.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “No doubles, no two drinks at a time. If you think someone’s having too much, give them water and suggest they eat. At an event like this where there are likely to be parents paying or at least contributing, getting help can be useful, unless the person drinking too much is the parent.”

      Silver raised her eyebrows. “You have been doing your homework.”

      “I told you I would.” He moved toward her. “Silver, I’m serious about being a partner in the company. I don’t want to take over and I don’t want to run things. I want to be a part of the business. A minority partner.”

      “Barely,” she grumbled, trying to ignore the faint hunger that seemed to be growing inside of her. “You want a practically even split.”

      “What do you want?”

      To have enough money that she didn’t need anyone—not even Drew. But as that was unlikely to happen...

      She thought about what he was offering her and how much she wanted to grow the business. She thought about all the weddings and parties she had to turn down and how much she really liked what she did.

      “I want a sixty-forty split,” she said, bracing herself for instant regret. There wasn’t any. Instead she felt a sense of relief and anticipation. Drew had him some fine-looking trailers.

      For a second he didn’t say anything, then slowly, he started to smile. “Sixty-forty. I’m assuming you’re the sixty.”

      “You would be correct.”

      Their gazes locked. For a second she felt the same flutter in her stomach that had always accompanied her Drew-time. She firmly squashed the sensation, reminding herself that had been a million years ago. They were totally different people now.

      He flashed her a grin, then held out his hand. “Done. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the paperwork and get it to you this week. We need to figure out what we want to do with the trailers. They’re in great shape and have so much potential.”

      They shook hands. She ignored the tingles when they touched.

      “I already have plans,” she told him. “I’ve been working on them for a while. You can look them over and we can talk about them.”

      “This is going to be great,” he told her. “You have a strong business plan and plenty of experience. I have a fresh eye and lots of contacts. We’re going to be a good team.”

      “We are.”

      Renee hurried out of the building and waved at her. Silver waved back.

      “That means the ceremony is nearly over,” Silver told Drew. “Get ready for the crowd. The first rush is always the big one.”

      While Drew opened bottles of champagne, she filled the stainless core of the beverage dispenser with ice and put on the cap. Once it was secure, she set the beverage dispenser on the cart by the bar before carefully pouring in the Sangria mixture. She poured ice into the galvanized tubs and added bottles of beer. Drew had already brought out three pitchers of the honeydew mixture.

      She set two large trays on top of the bar. “You start filling the wineglasses with Sangria,” she told him. “I’ll take care of the mimosas.”

      After filling one tray with champagne flutes, she poured in the honeydew mixture and topped it with champagne. By the time they’d filled a tray with each drink, there was a crowd of people walking toward them.

      Silver smiled as the first guests approached. “Good evening. We have two signature drinks today, along with beer. The honeydew mimosa is really delicious, if you’d like to try that.”

      “I’ll take a beer,” the man said.

      “I want the mimosa.”

      Drew pulled a beer out of the ice, wiped the bottle, then used a bottle opener to pop off the cap. Silver handed a flute to the woman and the beer to the man before turning to the next couple.

      She calculated the number of people waiting and figured they would have a twenty-minute rush then a steady stream for the next two hours. Things would slow down after that.

      She and Drew worked well together. When the mimosas got low, he handled the guests while she poured more. It was only when the initial crowd had dwindled that she realized she’d forgotten to tell Drew one very important thing—that she had a relationship with their daughter and that Autumn would be coming to town.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      MONDAY MORNINGS SILVER usually slept in late. Weekends were always busy with two or three bookings. This past weekend, there had been a wedding Sunday afternoon—this after the Saturday night event. The beach wedding had gone until two in the morning while the Sunday afternoon wedding hadn’t ended until nearly ten at night. But despite the opportunity to stay in bed, she’d awakened at dawn.

      She knew that Drew was the reason she hadn’t been able to indulge in her Monday morning ritual. Between the new partnership, Leigh’s upcoming wedding and the reality of Autumn, she had too much on her mind.

      She got up and decided to take advantage of her extra time by cleaning her loft apartment. Then she placed her orders for the upcoming weekend and tried to figure out what to take to the girlfriend lunch.

      Nearly every Monday or Tuesday she and her friends met for lunch. In a town where weddings dominated the calendar, the locals treated Monday and Tuesday as their weekend. Silver and her friends rotated hosting duties for their lunch. Whoever hosted provided the entrée while everyone else brought another dish. Silver was toying with the idea of making a salad when she realized she had a couple of leftover honeydew melons.

      She cut them up, then pureed them with ice but didn’t add any sugar. She put the sealed container into a cooler along with a few cans of lemon-lime soda, plastic glasses and spoons. Before she left for the lunch, she called in an order to her favorite Mexican restaurant. She picked up chips, salsa, guacamole and a dozen chicken taquitos, then drove out to the animal preserve.

      In addition to being a wedding destination town, Happily Inc was the proud home of one of the most awarded recycling centers in the country. Theirs was a town that recycled and composted in earnest. There were even competitions where residents on different blocks tried to have the least amount of trash each week.

      The owners of the Happily Inc Landfill and Recycling Center had also purchased hundreds of adjoining acres where they’d started an animal preserve. The nonpredatory residents—zebras, gazelles, a water buffalo and a new-to-them herd of giraffes grazed, played and added a charming element to the already-quirky town.

      Carol Lund-Mitchell ran the animal preserve. Her father and uncle owned the landfill and the surrounding land, and she took care of the animals. When it was Carol’s turn to host and the weather was nice, they ate outside in the preserve.

      Silver followed another small pickup into the parking area by the main office, then waved as Bethany climbed out.

      “Tell me you didn’t bring salad,” the pretty blonde called as she lifted a bakery bag off the seat next to her. “I’m very stressed these days and in desperate need of sugar and carbs.”

      “I brought both.”

      “That’s why I love you.” Bethany laughed. “Pallas texted to say she was bringing Renee to lunch today.”

      “I

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