Always The Wedding Planner, Never The Bride Part 9

Just as she turned back in hopes of painting the picture for Andy, Sherilyn spotted the large ball of fur at the sliding gla.s.s door, and she jumped.

"What's wrong?" Andy asked, stalking toward her from the kitchen.

She nodded toward the door, and Lola gasped. "What in the world is that?"

"It's a dog," Sherilyn replied. "He was hiding in the trees in the backyard."

"Oh, he should have stayed there," she said, wrinkling up her nose and shaking her head.

Sherilyn chuckled, but Andy hurried toward the door and slid it open. "Don't say that," he said, rubbing the dog's neck.

"He's lost."

Lola raised an eyebrow at Sherilyn and clicked her tongue.

"Not anymore. Sorry, sweetie."

The drive back to Vanessa Drummond's house confirmed Lola's suspicion. Sherilyn drove while Andy sat in the back seat, the large, once-white beast draped over his lap.

It's okay, she told herself. It's only temporary.

Surely, she could count on Andy's mother to put the kibosh on things the instant her son came walking into her pristine home with Big Foot in tow.

"What is that noise he's making, Andy?"

"Ah, man! It's in my shoe."

"What's in your shoe? . . . Oh, and what is that smell?"

"He's apparently not used to riding in a car."

This was Andy's explanation for the dog vomit that ran down his pant leg and into his shoe.

"Thanks so much for coming, everyone! Just take a seat around the table and Fee will pour you some tea."

Sherilyn sat down at the foot of the table on one of the counter-height stools around the stainless steel worktable in Emma's kitchen, Madeline to her left and Pearl to her right.

"You met Norma Jean," Madeline noted, and Norma smiled at her. "Have you met Georgiann?"

"I have not."

The older of the two women on the other side of Madeline offered her hand. "This is Georgiann Markinson. Georgiann, meet Sherilyn Caine."

"I'm so happy to meet you," Georgiann told her. "Emma has been singing your praises for weeks on end."

As Emma pulled a stool over to the far end of the table and angled it next to Fee, Norma whispered, "I can't wait to work with you, Sherilyn. Welcome."

"Thank you," she mouthed in reply.

"So Pearl arranged for us to meet a friend of hers last week," Emma announced, and the group of women shifted to give her their full attention. "This woman was amazing, wasn't she, Fee?" She paused long enough for Fee to nod before continuing. "Cynthia Starkey. She's been studying and creating recipes for English tea for more than thirty years. Well, she came and spent two days with us and shared her expertise so that we can improve upon the tea room menu."

"Before I met Cyn," Fee told them, "I was like, dude, why fix what ain't broken, right? But an hour with her, and Emma had me right on board."

"I don't know if everyone here had the chance to see the write-up a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday Journal?"

"I meant to congratulate you both," Susannah Littlefield said from her seat beside Pearl. "Jackson showed it to me that Monday morning."

"They wrote that, in the short time we've been here, we've emerged as Atlanta's Best in tea rooms!" Emma said straight to Sherilyn.

"That's wonderful!"

"So anyway, Fee and I met with Cynthia, and I think we've developed some pretty great additions to the menu. We didn't go to all the trouble of setting it up in the courtyard with full china and linens-"

"What, we're not worth the trouble?" Norma teased.

"We've already mastered presentation," Fee told them. "We want to see if you think we've mastered your taste buds."

Norma grinned. "Fair enough."

"On the platters by Sherilyn and Madeline, you'll find our savories," Emma told them as Fee pa.s.sed out small plates and sterling silver forks. "We'd like to choose something from these as an addition to the current menu. There are three new possibilities with tea sandwiches; goat cheese and watercress, smoked salmon and cranberry jelly on pumpernickel, and chicken curry. If you could try one of each, we'd like you to help us decide which one to add."

Sherilyn had never been a big fan of goat cheese, but she tried one of them anyway. The heavy base of curry on the chicken might overpower the other flavors on the menu. But the smoked salmon- "Oh!" Madeline exclaimed. "The salmon. Absolutely the salmon!"

Nods all around confirmed the choice.

"The curry is a little powerful," Susannah chimed in.

"But the salmon!" Georgiann declared, and Pearl gave an emphatic nod.

"Yep," said Sherilyn. "The salmon. Without a doubt. The cranberries are a great surprise."

"Excellent! Now the next platter has tidbits that are also savory, but a little different from your typical tea sandwich. We have a new take on our Scotch eggs, and a little sausage, spinach and gorgonzola popover, as well as this one; apricot, ham and cream cheese on a rye crisp."

Sherilyn reached for the Scotch egg immediately. She'd tasted Emma's current recipe just that week, and she was anxious to weigh the differences. Rosemary popped out at her right away, and she liked it, but not as well as the original recipe.

"Try this," Madeline urged, and she dropped a miniature popover on Sherilyn's plate. "It's luscious." Sherilyn bit off half of the appetizer. The moment the warm gorgonzola hit her tongue, she raised the second half into the air and waved it at Emma.

"That's one vote for the spinach and gorgonzola," Fee pointed out and, with that, every hand in the room raised in confirmation.

"All-righty then," Fee joked. "I think we have our savories."

"Ooh, let's try the sweets," Norma suggested, and laughter wafted through the kitchen like a song.

Sherilyn had spent much of her life devoid of family connection, even to some extent when her dad was still alive. Meeting Emma in college had changed all that. She always seemed to make friends so easily, and being around her brought people into Sherilyn's life by default. Gavin and Avery and Emma's Aunt Sophie, for instance, were the greatest gift of all, next to Emma herself. They'd embraced her into the Travis family without pause, and she'd come to think of them, Gavin in particular, as if she'd known them her entire life.

When she returned to Chicago and left Emma and her world behind, she'd often felt as if the city was a large cavernous bucket in which she rattled around like a lone metal pellet. Eventually, she made a friend or two, and she met Andy completely by chance when he was a groomsman at one of her weddings. Her world had begun to round out again.

But now- She scanned the faces in the room.

Madeline with the shape of her brother's face . . . Georgiann with his stoic smile . . . Norma with those kind eyes of his; their family connection was undeniable.

Pearl leaned over toward Susannah, and the two of them shared a laugh. Emma and Fee stood at the other end of the table, ringmasters of their small domain, and Emma's unmistakable joy warmed Sherilyn to the core.

Once again, she had Emma to thank for finding herself immersed in that feeling of family. She'd lured Sherilyn to The Tanglewood with the dangling carrot of a tailor-made job; but looking around her now, she realized it was almost certain to become far more.

Hidden inside the wooded acreage of the Henry Jones Park existed a smaller world about which Sherilyn knew nothing at all. Brook Run was just one of thousands of similar ent.i.ties across America where dog owners came with their pets and released them into the wild.

Well, maybe not into the wild exactly. But they did send them running leashless into a fenced area, dogs only, where the animals could frolic and bark and sniff one another's behinds. Sherilyn found the whole thing rather bizarre, and she wondered how she'd never known about such things.

"One of the PTs at the center told me about this place," Andy explained as he stood at the fence, leash in hand. "He brings his dog here all the time."

His dog. That implied that this very hairy creature leaning against the fence might be Andy's dog. Which would eventually make him Sherilyn's dog, and this realization fell upon her in about two and a half seconds.

She placed her hand on Andy's arm. "I'm not really a dog person, Andy."

"Oh, I know. But that's just because you've never had one."

"No, I don't really think that's why. I've really just never been-"

"Come on, boy," Andy interrupted, squatting down next to the animal, just the fence between them. "Go on in and make some friends. I know it's scary but, after what you've been through, I'm thinking you can conquer this. What do you think, huh?"

The terrified dog c.o.c.ked its head back and looked into Andy's eyes for support.

"You can do it."

He didn't seem convinced, and he pressed his entire furry body against the fence, leaning toward Andy. As he stared at Andy, he seemed to be asking, "Why??"

Sherilyn had to admit that this looked like a very different dog than the one she'd first met in the backyard of the home she hoped to occupy one day. It turned out that its fur was white and gray, rather than the dark beige and brown that untold days out on his own had created. The veterinarian who checked him out found there was no microchip implant to tell Andy anything about his newfound friend also had a groomer on staff who took the dog's matted clumps of yuck and turned them into brushed, brightened fur. Three hundred dollars later, the dog came out of the clinic with an apparent new home, and looking a little like a glamorous character in a canine shampoo commercial.

"Maybe if we don't watch him," Andy suggested as he stood up. Placing an arm around Sherilyn's shoulder, they turned their backs to the fence and stood there, waiting. For what, she wasn't entirely certain; a surge of doggie bravery perhaps or a shameful walk out into the yard in response to two grown humans ignoring him?

An incessant yip-yip-yipping caused them both to turn around again to find a brazen little ball of brownish fluff jumping and poking the sheepdog with its teeny front paws. "C'mon," it seemed to be inciting. "You want a piece o'me?" To which the answer was a silent-yet-resounding, "Not at all."

"Look, Henry," Andy pointed out. "A potential friend. Go on and run around with her."

"Henry?" Sherilyn gawked at Andy, one hand raised as if she could pluck the word right out of the air. "You named him?"

"Oh, yeah. I thought I'd call him Henry. What do you think?"

"That depends. Why would you name him again? I mean, he probably already has a name."

"But we don't know what it is."

"He doesn't need another name, Andy. He needs to find his owners."

"Everybody deserves a name," he replied. "What am I supposed to call him? 'Hey, you'?"

"This would imply that you're planning on calling him often?"

Andy angled his gaze away from Henry and grinned at her.

"I think we should keep him, Sherilyn."

She sighed. "Andy, I told you. I'm not-"

"-a dog person," he finished for her. "I know. But he's a great dog. Can't you give it a try?"

There was ten minutes of back and forth between them- running from how he probably belonged to someone in the neighborhood to how much work a dog of that size would be to a repeat of the "I'm just not a dog person" defense. Then Sherilyn watched Andy deliver his friend from the confines of the fence, and she silently followed them back toward the car.

A dog? Really?

She slipped behind the wheel and turned over the ignition as Andy and Henry got comfortable in the back seat behind her. She pulled the gear into reverse, stepped on the gas and- "Ohh, Hen-ry," Andy said with a groan. "Sherilyn, will you hand me the paper towels?"

"Are you joking? We haven't even left the parking lot!"

"Honey. The paper towels?"

She picked up the roll they'd tossed to the pa.s.senger seat in preparation for just such an event and handed it over her shoulder to Andy. Once he engaged in the cleanup process, Sherilyn tugged at the front of her blouse, pulled it up over her nose, and shifted into drive.

Spinach & Gorgonzola Sausage Pies 1 bag fresh spinach (about three bunches) 3 to 4 tablespoons b.u.t.ter (melted) 1 teaspoon olive oil 1 chopped onion pound ground sausage (browned, finely crumbled, and drained) 5 ounces gorgonzola cheese (crumbled) 3 ounces ricotta cheese cup grated Parmesan cheese teaspoon basil teaspoon oregano Salt and pepper to taste 12 sheets of phyllo pastry Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Trim the stems from the spinach. Wash in cold water and drain.

Chop spinach into very small pieces and steam for about six minutes until leaves wilt.

Drain again, squeezing out all of the excess water from the spinach.

In a skillet, heat the b.u.t.ter and olive oil until melted, and saute the onion until tender.

Remove from heat and add spinach, sausage, cheeses, and seasonings.

Place three sheets of phyllo at a time (keeping the others covered to avoid drying).

Brush each sheet with b.u.t.ter/olive oil mixture and layer.

Cut into thirds, lengthwise.

Spoon small dollop of filling on an angle at the end of each strip. Avoid overstuffing.

Fold the pastry to enclose, making a triangle. Fold again, upward to make another triangle. Repeat until reaching the end of the strip.

Use the b.u.t.ter mixture to seal the end, and brush the top lightly with the b.u.t.ter.

Grease two baking sheets and place triangles on them.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.