"You werenot," Tiffany said. "You were absolutely not. You were incredibly calm for somebody whose wedding venue just got destroyed. I'm so sorry about it."
"It's okay. It's fine," Charlee said with an emphatic nod that suggested she might even mean it. "The truth is, what matters is we'll get married, and whether we do that at the pub or in the gazebo isn't that important. It took me a minute to remember that, but now that I do, it's okay. Okay?"
Tiffany smiled. "Okay. Now, I'm sorry, but were they all actually, like, 3d printed from the same model or something?" She gestured at Steve, his brothers, and their father, which made Charlee laugh.
"You should have seen Bill the first time I met him. He was bundled up and looked three times bigger than he actually is. So he's thebigone," as if there weren't a stunning number of big men in the room anyway. "He's really funny and sweet, but super, super stressed these days and it's making him into Mr. Grouchy Responsibility Guy. They run a brewery in Renaissance, Colorado—do you know it? Yeah, me either, except Steve moved out here from there a few years ago—and they're having a hard time with the business right now. Their dad just retired, see, and it's all on Bill, and, you know. Stress. You do know! You own your business, right?"
At Tiffany's nod, Charlee nodded enthusiastically too. "Yeah, so you do know. It's a lot, even with a partner, and his brothers aren'treallypartners. I mean, they're great, they definitely do their part, but they're not the money guys, you know?"
"Ollie's a money guy," Tiffany said. "Has Bill talked to him?"
"You know what, I don't know, but he should. Good thinking. I'll suggest it. Anyway, and you know Steve, right? The other two are the younger ones, Jon and Laurie. Laurie's the one with the braid right now. They're not twins, but they play them on TV. Or at least at the Renaissance festivals they do. So what do you think of Ollie?"
"He's amazing." The words slipped out before Tiffany could even consider them. "I'm sure that sounds ridiculous. I just met him. But he'samazing. It's like he instantly got me and knew how to step up to help me. That does sound crazy."
"It doesn't. That's how I felt when I met Steve, so I get it. But that means I should definitely let you go back to him instead of introducing you to a million cousins."
Tiffany smiled at her. "Charlee? I really am sorry about the gazebo."
To her surprise, the other woman gave her a quick hug. "It was an accident and I'm glad your guy is okay. The rest of it, well, I've seen how much work you got done today. We can always fix the paint job in the photos with editing software, if it comes to it."
"Now why didn't I think of that?" Tiffany went back to Ollie, smiling. Knowing Charlee wasn't mad at her helped the rest of the evening go well, although she mixed up Jon and Laurie at least twice and never did get most other peoples' names at all. It didn't matter, she told herself: she wasn't likely toseeany of these people again after the playground job was done.
Or Ollie, once the wedding was over. She'd learned he had plans to fly out to Renaissance, Colorado with the cousins andvisit them for a while, then travel around the States, seeing tourist attractions before heading back to Australia.
Those were obvious, fun things to do, if you were visiting the other side of the world, and for some reason, the very idea of him leaving made Tiffany's heart hurt. It wasn't like she could blow off her job and follow him around, though.
So she'd better make the most of what time she had.
CHAPTER 14
It was late, probably ten or eleven at night, when Tiffany came to take his hand and led Ollie out of the party. "No one will notice we're gone," she promised with a smile, but he thought he probably wouldn't mind if she'd announced their departure with a brass band and a front-page ad in the Times. They slipped out, and to his surprise, Tiffany led him across the town square toward the construction site. "You said you'd always wanted to drive one, right?"
At the moment, Ollie couldn't remember anything coherent he'd ever said in his life. On the other hand, he didn't think much of anybodyhadn'twanted to drive big equipment, so he made an agreeable noise, which seemed to be about as much as he could manage. After a minute, though, he did scrape together enough brain cells to whisper, "Won't it be loud, starting those up in the middle of the night?"
Tiffany gave him a positively melting gaze over her shoulder. "Maybe we'll have to find something else to turn on, instead."
The only thing that stopped Ollie from tripping over his own feet was the koala goinghomina hominahomina!in his head.
Where do you even pick up things like that?he asked it, neither wanting nor expecting an answer.
Fortunately for him, the koala didn't have one. Less fortunately, it kept up a sort of…not really R-rated commentary in his head, Ollie thought. More like a particularly embarrassing teenage boy's level of PG-13. Ollie tried very hard to ignore it as he followed Tiffany's pale form across the square and through the safety fence, which she locked again behind them.
His heart rate spiked again. Taking him into the construction area was intriguing enough. Making sure the metaphorical door was locked behind them seemed really promising, and also, to his mild surprise, a little nerve-wracking. People could be watching!
That said, the squarewasempty of people at this time of night. Furthermore, it was still avery largesquare. Anything that happened in the dark behind the safety-mesh-laced fencing really wasn't likely to be seen.
Ollie still couldn't quite believe that there was any chance of anything actually happening. Tiffany was probably just going to let him sit in one of the big construction equipment machines and pretend to push its buttons.
His koala stared at him. It didn't even say anything. It just stared at him, full of anare you kidding?vibe that made Ollie want to blush.
When it thought Ollie had suffered under the weight of its stare long enough, it said,You better pushherbuttons, mate,and then shut up and turned its back on him, mentally speaking. That was okay, because in front of him, Tiffany was climbing up the treads of a bulldozer like she was still in her steel-toed boots and work jeans, not clogs and averyshort skirt. A breeze lifted the skirtnot quite enough, and Ollie bit his lower lip against a groan.
She turned once she was up in the dozer cab, grabbed a handle inside the door, and leaned out to offer him a hand and a shot of her cleavage. "Coming up?"
Ollie muttered, "Already there," and although he hadn't meant for her to hear him, she split a wide grin as she took his hand and helped him up into the cab. She wasstrong, Ollie realized. He'd known it from watching her work all day, but he hadn't expected the obvious ease with which she moved his weight around.
The cab was both larger than he expected, and much, much smaller, with the two of them in it. Even Tiffany couldn't stand up straight, but Ollie felt like he was bending double. Which had the advantage of putting his nose very near that cleavage he'd just gotten a chance to admire, but it wasn't comfortable at all.
