Snowed In with Her Ex

“Really? Why was it in the pantry?”

He shrugged and put the plates down at two of the place settings near the fireplace. “It’s probably left over from the last time my stepbrother came with the kids. They were here at Christmas.”

They sat down together, the large stone hearth roaring with flames beside them and the picture window overlooking the valley opposite it. Ian found it unnerving that he couldn’t see anything except the bare branches of the trees in his yard below. The snow was still falling as hard as before.

With a shake of his head, he took a bite of his sandwich and groaned aloud. It was probably the best grilled cheese sandwich he’d ever had. The gruyere reminded him of a croque monsieur he’d enjoyed so much in France. “This tastes wonderful.”

“Thanks,” she said before tentatively sipping a spoonful of the hot soup. “I’m not much of a cook. It’ll probably be all downhill from here. Amelia won’t even let me help in the kitchen when she’s slammed.”

“Who is Amelia?”

“One of my business partners at From This Moment. She’s the caterer. You’d much rather be snowed in with her, I assure you. First-class cuisine all the way.”

Ian sincerely doubted that. He’d take Bree’s company and grilled cheese any day. “Does the wedding business take up all your time, or do you still have the opportunity to do the artistic photography you did back in school?”

A soft smile curled Bree’s lips. “I do. This year, I’ve done a black-and-white series called ‘The Other Side of Nashville.’ I wanted to show the parts that

most people don’t think of. There’s no country music, no cowboy boots. Just a collection of places I love and people who look less like Grand Ole Opry stars and more like middle America.”

That was the Bree he remembered. The one who hated posed pictures. “Are you doing a show? I thought I heard you talking on the phone to someone at the Whitman Gallery earlier today.”

“Yes.” She brushed a stray stand of blond hair behind her ear. “It’s the Sunday after next. I was supposed to have my last meeting with the curator tomorrow, but I obviously had to cancel. I’m going to meet with her as soon as I can get back to Nashville.”

“Is this your first show at the Whitman Gallery?”

“It’s my first show anywhere since college. And those hardly counted. I couldn’t really focus on my art the first few years after we started From This Moment. Even though we all had our specialties, we had to roll up our sleeves and do everything from setting up chairs to sweeping floors. We couldn’t afford to hire anyone to help us for a while. If I wasn’t taking pictures, there were a million other things to be done. The last year or so, that changed. That’s when I started my new collection.”

Ian appreciated her work ethic. As fresh meat at the record studio, he’d sorted mail, emptied trash, fetched sparkling water for the singers...anything and everything they asked of him. That was just what you had to do.

“So tell me about the business you guys have going. Judging by what you’ve said and the estimate I received, you all are doing quite well now.”

Bree chuckled. “Not all our weddings are on the same scale as yours. We have everything from week-long million-dollar extravaganzas to couples that elope in the garden with only their parents. Whatever a bride wants, we can make it happen.”

“How did you start all this?”

“I met the others when I transferred to UT. During our senior year, while we were trying to think of what we wanted to do with our lives, one of us came up with the idea of a wedding facility. A friend had gotten engaged and complained that it was hard to find the right kind of venue that wasn’t at a church or wasn’t a tacky, in-and-out kind of chapel. We spent months putting together our grand plan and trying to round up investors.”

“I can imagine it wasn’t cheap to get off the ground.”

“Oh, no. Even with some startup investments and money from my dad, we’re mortgaged to our eyeballs. The initial costs were astronomical, but that’s because you have to buy all the things you’ll use repeatedly over the years like chairs and tables and stemware. Once you’ve got it, though, you’ve got it, and our expenses have gone down over time. Like I said, it took several years of hard work, but we’ve managed to make a profit every year. The facility itself will take a long time to pay off, but that’s the nature of the business.”

“Did you buy a place and renovate it?”

“No. We bought land and built everything exactly the way we wanted it. Natalie had a vision of how it should be laid out, and there was nothing even close on the market. Having a dad in the construction business certainly helped there. I probably saw him more that year than I did all the years before it.”

Ian noticed the faint bitterness in her voice when she spoke. He knew her words earlier hadn’t been solely intended to antagonize him. She’d meant them. She knew what it was like to be the child of a busy, driven man. He never wanted to do that to a child, which is why he’d deliberately not married or started a family. Missy getting pregnant was a mistake. Until he held his child in his arms, it would be hard to think otherwise.

“So...care to tell me what’s going on with you and your pop star? It doesn’t exactly sound like you two are living the fairy tale the magazines are reporting.”

Ian sighed. “Can’t we talk more about your photography? It’s far less depressing.”

Bree set down her spoon and crossed her arms over her chest. “Come on, Ian. From what you told me earlier, seems like you need someone to talk to.”

He popped the last of his sandwich into his mouth and stood up. “Wine first,” he said, carrying his plate back into the kitchen. He opened the small wine chiller and perused the collection. A nice 1993 chardonnay ought to do the trick. “You want some?”

“Sure,” she said, following him in and putting her dishes into the dishwasher. By the time she turned around, he’d poured two generous glasses and had one held out to her.

“So, Missy and I...” he began as he took a sip and walked into the living room. Ian settled into the large leather chair by the fireplace. “Were never really Missy and I. I signed her to my label three years ago. She was one of my first. She was on the brink of hitting it big and I signed her just in time. I’ve made a fortune on her, don’t get me wrong, but she’s been a handful from the start.”