Before I could push open the swinging door to the kitchen, it sprang toward me. I barely jumped out of the way before the door opened wide and an explosion of color poured through.
“When did you say Mr. Sanders will be back?” A woman wearing a hot-pink fedora on top of her light pink hair strutted through the formal living room on three-, no, four-inch heels.
Morty followed. “Any minute. Let me give him a call and find out where he’s at.”
I cleared my throat, not quite able to speak yet from my close call with the door.
Morty and Pinkie turned toward me. Morty’s face immediately relaxed. His shoulders slumped slightly and a smile of relief drifted over his mouth. “Oh, Zina. Meet Ms. Chyna. She’s here to talk to Alex about the wedding.”
My gaze bounced back and forth between Morty’s relieved grin and the expectant look on Pinkie’s face. No, not Pinkie. Chyna. This was Chyna of wedding planner fame. Why in the world would she be standing in the front room of the Phillips House? She lived in California. LA, if I remembered correctly. That was over a thousand miles away. Yet, for some reason, I knew deep down that the petite woman with the shocking-pink hair was none other than the infamous wedding planner.
“Zina?” Chyna reached a hand toward me. “Are you helping Alex with the wedding?”
“Um, yes.” Instinctively, I took her hand. “I mean, no.”
“Well, which is it?” Chyna let her hand fall, then reached into the small clutch she’d tucked under her arm and sprayed something on her palm. “No offense, I’ve heard the allergies here are awful so I’m taking every precaution.”
“No offense taken.” Did she seriously feel the need to sanitize her hands after a simple handshake? I struggled not to react to Chyna’s sudden appearance. All I could think about was the state of the warehouse. How would Alex handle it? Surely Chyna would want to check in on the penguins. My mind raced trying to come up with either an explanation for why the penguins were sharing their space or a solution to how to hide the dogs.
Before I could come up with anything, the man in question sauntered down the stairs.
“You know, I think maybe I need an appetizer this afternoon and then we can finish up the main course later on tonight. What do you say about—” He stopped in his tracks as he noticed the three of us watching his approach. “What’s going on?”
“Alex, meet Chyna. The wedding planner from LA you’ve been working with.” I sounded like a robot, even to my own ears.
Chyna offered her freshly sanitized hand. “Mr. Sanders, it’s nice to meet you.”
Alex took her hand in his, but his gaze searched for me. What did he expect me to do? I gave a slight shrug and tilted my head toward the front door, trying to signal that I was going to head to the warehouse.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. What do we owe the pleasure of this visit to?” He put his hands on his hips as Chyna pulled out the sanitizer and repeated the process of covering every square millimeter of her palm with the gel.
“I wanted to make sure we’re on track for this wedding, so I took a red-eye to come check for myself.”
“Well, that explains the early hour.” Alex glanced at his watch. I could have told him it was just after seven. Too damn early to be entertaining an unwanted out-of-state visitor. “I wish you’d given us some notice. We would have been better prepared?—”
“That’s why I didn’t call ahead.” Chyna waved a hand in the air. The smell of artificial lemons wafted over to irritate my nose. “I don’t want you to prepare. I need to make sure you’re prepared without having to prepare.”
Alex nodded like that made sense. Clear as mud. Mud that had been stepped in by a herd of Herefords and baked dry by the Texas sun.
“My flight leaves at two so I’d like to cut through the niceties and examine the venue. Can you lead the way?” She moved her gaze from Alex to the front door.
“Certainly.” He glanced to me.
I lifted my shoulders, looking for guidance.
Alex pulled the door open and held it open for Chyna. She passed through first, giving us a moment to whisper between us.
“Hell, what do we do about the dogs?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. If we’d had some warning . . .”
“I know.” Alex’s hand gripped my shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you go do the breakfast routine and see if you can move some of them to the back while I stall her out front?”
I nodded. We’d constructed a temporary fence around a patch of grass behind the warehouse since we couldn’t keep taking the dogs out on leashes. I could get most of the dogs outside while Alex took Chyna inside. It was worth a shot. Maybe the only shot we had to avoid her canceling the whole thing.
While Alex led Chyna around the porch, talking about the history of the building and property, I made my way to the warehouse.
“Wait up.” Morty ambled after me.
