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him through what must be devastating news.
    “Aye,” Ainsley agreed. So far she’d been civil since meeting up outside of his office. I was certain the civility would drop as soon as we were alone because she couldn’t be any happier about this situation than I was.
    “I don’t understand,” Gaylord repeated for the third time. “How, when, how?”
    “They’re on their way to South America right now. We’re here in their place.” I tried not to let my exasperation show. I was stuck doing this and even I wasn’t as disbelieving as he seemed to be.
    “But you couldn’t possibly, most certainly not, this is highly unusual.” He managed to snap his fingers this time and both assistants appeared beside him. They took one look at their boss and dropped into seats flanking him, pulling out notebooks.
    “I’m sure this isn’t what you’re used to.” I tried to ease the news for him. He seemed to be taking it harder than we were.
    “But the decisions!” he said without one trace of a lisp.
    I felt a smile pull at my mouth. It took shocking news for him to drop what I assumed had to be an act. “We’re going to handle those.”
    “But it’s not your wedding,” he insisted.
    “We know that,” Ainsley gentled him through the hard news.
    “How can you possibly?” His eyes shot to both of his assistants. They seemed as perplexed as he was.
    “What’s your real name?” I asked to jar him out of the cycle he seemed to be in.
    “Huh?” Even his posh accent failed him on that one. No lisp, no posh accent, we were getting down to the real guy here.
    “Your name. Garth, Gavin, Garrett? It’s not Gaylord.”
    “How do you know?” one of his assistants jumped in.
    I slid my eyes to the prettier assistant. “I read people.”
    “You can’t know,” the other assistant said.
    “Gary,” he admitted.
    I nodded and tried to keep my smile from flaring. “It’s nice to meet you, Gary. The act isn’t necessary with us. We’re all under a tremendous amount of pressure on this date, so let’s just get through it as real as possible. Okay?”
    He shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it an act. It makes everyone more comfortable. Women expect me to be over the top and men are more comfortable with that because I spend a lot of time with the brides.”
    “I understand, but Dallas and Colin aren’t like that. And we’ve got a mess on our hands here.”
    “I just don’t see how we can pull this off.”
    “We’re not thrilled either,” I included Ainsley even though I wasn’t sure that was how she felt.
    “You understand that these decisions come with monetary outlays that can’t be recovered.”
    “Yes.”
    “That anything you decide can’t be undone, not at this late date?”
    “We get it, Gary.” I glanced at Ainsley again. She must have been angry with her cousin when he dropped the news on her. Had she told him he was crazy? That she couldn’t possibly make these decisions for him? To even ask this of her was preposterous?
    “You’ve got flowers tomorrow,” Gary told us. “Caterers the next day. Table settings the following.” His words seemed to trip over themselves.
    “We’ll be there,” Ainsley said.
    “Has she even decided on colors?”
    “Yellow and silver,” I said as Ainsley said, “Blue, green, and purple.”
    “Um,” Gary murmured as he looked between us.
    “What?” I said to Ainsley.
    Her surprise mirrored mine. “That’s our family tartan. Colin must have said.”
    “Dallas doesn’t know anything about it.”
    “You can’t even agree on the colors,” Gary wailed.
    “Excuse us a moment,” I said. He glanced at me then nodded to his two assistants as they left the room. I looked at Ainsley and tried for reasonable. “This is unbearable. I get that.”
    “Do ya?” A twinkle returned to her eyes. “That’s a first.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “We were once in an untenable situation that you made us endure for a year.”
    “Oh, please.”