by Aubree Lane
“After you left, I started watching decorating shows on television to get a feel for your work. I guess my creative juices started flowing. That reminds me, I’d like to talk to you about my house sometime soon.”
Annie wondered what Lena was going to say when she asked her to pitch all the ideas she came up with last summer and hire Phoebe for the job.
“Congratulations,” Lena said giving Annie a quick hug. Then she asked softly but still loud enough for Terence to hear. “You’re going to tell me about the proposal later on, right?”
Annie caught Terence’s eye and chuckled.
Chapter 16
Marissa pitched her phone on David’s desk and announced, “He did it.”
“Who did what?” he replied, barely feigning interest in what his wife was saying.
Marissa marched over and took the papers he was busy sorting out of his hands. “David, this is important. I need your undivided attention.”
He pointed at the papers she had just grabbed. “So does that.” David knew that look, Marissa was not about to be swayed, so he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk. “Fine, go ahead. I’m all yours.”
“Terence asked Annie to marry him.”
David rolled his eyes. “That’s what couldn’t wait? Everyone knew that was going to happen sooner or later.”
Marissa tossed the papers in David’s face. “You can be so irritating. Don’t you want to hear how he proposed?”
He leaned down and picked up the papers that had fallen to the floor. “Annie is your friend, not mine. Why would I want to hear all the gory details?”
Marissa leaned against the edge of his desk and smiled. “You care about Annie and you know it. And because, my dear husband, he fumbled it worse than you.”
That did it. Marissa had gone too far. “Are you complaining about my proposal?”
“Oh please, it was horrible.”
David got up and faced his wife. “I’ll let you in on a secret only men are supposed to know about.” He leaned in close and whispered, “We do it on purpose. The more pathetic, the better. Then all those nurturing feelings women have, take over. The unsuspecting woman gets the overwhelming urge to take care of the poor sap, then wham-o, he has her just where he wants her.”
Marissa rolled her eyes. “Wham-o?” she asked, not believing his line of crap for a moment. “And I didn’t know you considered yourself a poor sap?”
David pulled Marissa to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “Honey, I was so in love with you I would have done anything to get you to marry me, including acting like a tongue-tied puppy.”
“Poor sap, tongue-tied puppy, what’s next?”
“Happily married. Like I said, it works every time. So now that you have my attention, go ahead and tell me what happened.”
Marissa smiled. “They were in bed and―”
“You can stop right there,” he interrupted. “They are not ready to get married.”
“How can you say that?”
“They haven’t figured out the difference between love and sex.”
“And I suppose that you, being the all-knowing guru on the subject, have.”
David laughed and hugged her a little tighter. “Why yes, as a matter of fact, this all-knowing guru is quite well informed.”
“Please enlighten me, All Great One,” she laughed sarcastically. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
He regained his composure and began, “As you well know, most men and quite a few women would kill for some really good sex.”
She nodded, wondering where this was leading.
He held up his index finger, looked deeply into her eyes, and said solemnly, “But love is something you would die for.”
Marissa melted in his arms. “How long have you known that?”
“It took a while for my brains to catch up with my hormones. I probably didn’t catch on until Jack was born. When I saw him come out of you, and after I got over the gross stuff, I felt―” he shook his head, unable to find the right words. “I can’t describe it, but I knew I would do anything for the both of you, and that the two of you made my life complete.” A single tear formed in his eye. “Pretty corny, huh?”
The tear spilled out onto his cheek, and Marissa reached up and lovingly brushed it away. “You know, every time I start thinking you’re a pig, you go say something like that and make me fall in love with you all over again.”
He took his time kissing her, first her neck, then her ear, her nose, and finally her mouth. When he finished, Marissa looked at him in a way that made his life worth living.
If Terence and Annie had a fraction of what he and Marissa had, then they were very, very lucky.
And, he noted to himself, the poor sap had won out once again.
Chapter 17
The following day, Annie tried to catch up on some much needed sleep. Just down the road from Terence’s house she stretched out on the sand. She listened to the waves as they gently lapped against the shore and the happy sounds of Terence and Erika as they explored a tide pool. The big orange towel she laid upon clashed with her pink bikini, but Annie was too tired to care. She just wanted to sleep. Safely doused in sun block SPF 30, the kind that doesn’t hurt the environment, she closed her eyes while Erika and Terence played in the ocean.
The previous day had been both exciting and exhausting. She woke up engaged, then she watched cartoons with Erika for hours, and she met the entire Javier family, which consisted of an aunt, two uncles, a smattering of cousins and all their many children.
The bulk of the other guests at the luau were Lena’s in-laws. After her husband passed away, his family made it their mission to make sure she was taken care of. To Lena this was both a curse and a blessing. Then, since Terence and Lena’s husband had been good friends, that mission also extended to him and Erika, and last night they kindly welcomed Annie in to the fold.
Annie wasn’t sure how to react about having such a large and instant family, but after a few glasses of Lena’s homemade Jumby Brew, and the warm welcome she received, it wasn’t long before she felt as if she were one of them and that she’d known them her entire life, even if their names tended to elude her.
It had been a joyful evening. Everyone was boisterous, good-natured, and full of well wishes for the happy couple. They all ate, drank, and danced too much. Annie wouldn’t have been surprised if Lena woke up this morning and found a few stragglers still sleeping it off on her beach.
A shadow passed overhead, and a few droplets of water plopped onto her belly. She raised her sunglasses and found Terence standing over her.
“I’m glad you’re not asleep yet.” His wet body shimmered in the sun as he spread his towel out on the sand next to her.
Shivers went down her spine, and Annie wished they were alone on a private beach somewhere far away from any prying eyes. She reached out and touched his leg. “You’re beautiful.”
His eyes twinkled. “Monday I’m going to ask Lena to come over and be Erika’s Learning Coach for the day so you and I can hop on the boat and go skinny dipping in this private little cove I know about.” He leaned over and smudged her sunglasses with his nose when he kissed her.
Annie let out a drowsy sigh, happy that they were on the same page. “Just skinny dipping?”
“Well, one thing can lead to another,” he grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “We’ll just have to see what comes up.”
Terence shook water from his hair, and a layer of sea water and sand was added to the smudge on her shades.
Terence plucked the glasses off her face and attempted to clean them with the edge of his towel. “I know you can tread water, but how well can you swim?”
The fact they didn’t know each other very well was becoming more evident with each conversation. Annie planned on having a lot of fun discovering all of his idiosyncrasies. She snatched her glasses back and placed them on her face. “Like a fish,” she replied. “I was on the high school swim team all f
our years.”
He kissed her navel and a small moan slipped from her lips.
“But were you any good?”
She pushed his head away. “I can whoop your butt, mister!”
He laughed and looked up to check on Erika playing in the tide pools. “Lena called a while ago, she’s bringing dinner over. I think she wants to talk to you about her house.” He glanced out toward the road and sighed. “Brace yourself. It looks as if Miss Murphy is about to join us.”
Annie looked over her shoulder. “Erika’s tutor?”
Coming towards them carrying a beach chair and an umbrella was a tiny woman with long blond hair and a rock hard body. Her flesh-colored mesh bikini left nothing to the imagination and from a distance, the girl appeared to be nude.
Annie raised her eyebrows and cocked her head towards Terence. “Does she always dress that way when she’s working?”
“She’s not scheduled to work today. She must have forgotten. Mike was supposed to drop by, so I left a note on the door telling him where we were. I guess Miss Murphy saw the note and took it as an invitation.” He gave Annie a smile that could melt the coldest of hearts and then he apologized.
Annie scratched her head. “Are you always going to do that?”
“Do what?” he asked innocently.
“Smile that sexy smile so I don’t get mad.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to get away with it forever, but for as long as it works, I plan on keeping it in my arsenal.”
“What will you do then?”
He shot her the same smile. “Find something else that works. I don’t ever want you to be mad at me. It gets in the way of all the good stuff we got going on.”
Annie looked at him sideways, but Miss Murphy was too close to carry the conversation any further. “Here she is. Try not to drool. I’d hate to have to mess up those pretty little eyes of yours,” she threatened.
Before Terence could reply, Annie stood up and held her hand out to the sexy little teacher. “You must be Miss Murphy,” she said graciously. “I am Mr. Javier’s fiancée, Annie Harper.” In that one statement, Annie marked her territory and warned Miss Murphy off.
The teacher’s eyes grew wide with the news, but a second later she regained her composure, dumped all her paraphernalia in the sand, and took Annie’s hand. “Mandy. Please, call me Mandy. Congratulations on your engagement.”
Mandy Murphy? Annie thought. More like Barbie Doll.
“I saw your note on the door,” Miss Murphy explained. “I thought it might be fun to instruct Erika down here for a change. Our last session didn’t go well, and I thought a change of scenery might do her some good. I hope that’s all right with you, Terence.”
Terence shrugged. “I’ll go get her.”
He got up and jogged towards Erika.
Annie wished she’d thrown a shirt over Terence’s chest and wrapped his butt up in a towel when she saw how Mandy’s eyes watched his glistening muscles ripple their way down the beach.
So much for the subtle approach.
“He’s got it going on doesn’t he, Mandy?” Annie about choked when she said her name out loud, but continued on, “You can look, but you can’t touch.”
Miss Mandy Murphy feigned surprise and fumbled with an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I was actually thinking about Erika’s lesson. I don’t have any designs on Terence.”
Terence referred to the girl formally as Miss Murphy. Miss Murphy called him by his first name, and blurred the lines between a personal and professional relationship. The inference was not lost on Annie, and she knew Mandy was trouble.
Terence and Erika were walking, much more slowly than Annie would have preferred, back towards them, but it gave Annie one more opportunity to nip this problem in the bud. “That man is the love of my life, and I can’t wait to become his wife,” she gushed dreamily as they watched their approach. “Here’s Erika, you can run along now and do your tutoring thing.”
Annie cringed when she heard how patronizing she just sounded. Erika said she was a good teacher, and Annie should not have belittled her. It made her feel like a schoolyard bully. “Miss Murphy,” she called out after the young woman, “sorry about that last crack. I’m suffering from jet lag and too much alcohol.”
Mandy turned and smiled. Her grin was laced with a copious amount of insincerity. “And a pretty large dose of insecurity as well. I wonder why?” Then the scantily clad teacher headed down the beach to meet Erika, leaving Annie seething in the sand behind her.
Great, Annie thought. The first time I take the high road and apologize for my bad behavior, I get slammed.
She learned her lesson. No more fanning the flames. It wasn’t possible for Miss Murphy to put a wedge between her and Terence. He wasn’t interested. Annie didn’t need to get involved. Terence was a big boy and he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.
• • •
“I tried to warn you,” Lena told Annie as she uncovered the leftovers from the previous night’s feast. “That girl is a sly one. She’ll take a simple comment or situation and spin it to her advantage. You should hear the things she’s been spreading about her relationship with Terence.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Annie said, sampling the plate of raw vegetables Lena set out before her. “She’ll figure it out soon enough and go pick on someone else.”
Lena laughed. “Sure she will, after your third or fourth kid.”
Terence walked in on the last part of their conversation. He kissed Annie’s cheek. “We’re going to have four kids?”
Annie grabbed her stomach. “I hope not! One or two at the most. We were discussing Miss Murphy.”
He leaned over Annie’s shoulder and grabbed a handful of pulled pork. “Why don’t I just fire her?”
“Good idea. Send her packing,” Lena chimed in.
Terence looked at Annie. “Say the word and it’s done.”
Annie looked in his eyes. All she saw was that damn high road in front of her again. Why was she suddenly obsessed with doing the right thing? And wouldn’t you know it, out of her mouth came, “Of course not, Erika likes her and that’s all that matters.”
Terence shot her a dubious look. “Okay, let me know if you can’t handle it.” He grabbed some more of the pork and walked out of the back door.
Lena shook her head and chuckled. “Girl, that’s going to come back and bite you in the butt.”
Annie let out a sigh, “Probably.”
Lena’s rolling laughter spilled forth, and Annie saw just how stupid she had been. Terence had offered to get rid of one of the potential problems in their relationship and she turned him down.
Several minutes later when Lena was able to speak again she asked, “Shall I change the subject?”
“I would be eternally grateful.”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you about my house, but you’ve been avoiding the subject. You’re not going to take the job, are you?”
Annie smiled and sat down. “No. As a matter of fact, I think you should trash all the ideas I gave you last summer. I’ve been in a bad place professionally, and you need to start fresh with a new set of eyes.”
“But I loved your drawings,” Lena protested.
“I like them, too, but they aren’t you. That’s the kind of stuff I do for people like Mrs. Barrington. She has a ton of money, which she doesn’t know what to do with, so every few years she redecorates. It makes people like me rich, but it’s frivolous.”
“You’re rich?”
“No, I’m not rich.” Annie was over selling and probably putting Lena down in the process, so she started over. “I think my assistant, Phoebe, should be the lead designer on your project. She has more tricks up her sleeve than I ever had. She can pinch a penny so tight it cries. She’s smart and down to earth. She is also the quirkiest person I have ever met, and you will absolutely love her.”
Lena touched Annie’s hand to silence her. “Annie,” she said seriou
sly, “my husband was gay, not me.”
Annie’s eyes flew open wide, and the only sound she could vocalize was, “Huh?”
Lena began to snicker. “Sorry, I thought you were trying to fix me up.”
Annie felt the need to repeat herself. “Huh?”
Lena threw her head back and the rich sound of her amusement could be heard all the way across the ocean. “Oh Annie, you crack me up.”
“Well, I’m glad I can be the source of your perpetual enjoyment,” she said, wondering what the heck had just transpired.
Lena wiped her eyes. “When you started spouting all your assistant’s virtues, I assumed you were trying to fix us up.”
“And I would do that because...why?”
“Because you heard my late husband was gay and that he died of AIDS. I thought you jumped to the conclusion that I was gay, too.”
Annie sat back dumbfounded. “I didn’t know anything about that. I was just trying to convince you to hire Phoebe instead of me.”
Lena gave Annie a little nod. “Okay, I’ll hire her.”
A million questions swirled through Annie’s head. At the top of the list was why would someone as beautiful as Lena knowingly marry a gay man? But Phoebe was waiting for Annie to call and give her the go ahead, and since decorating was a much safer subject than her future sister-in-law’s sexuality, Annie decided to get back to the original subject. “So it’s settled. I can call Phoebe?”
“Sure, give her a call.”
Then Annie couldn’t resist. “And you’re not gay.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’m glad we have that settled.”
• • •
The phone rang just as Annie was leaving to pick Phoebe up at the airport. She was the only one at home. Terence was out running on the beach and Miss Murphy had taken Erika down there, too, for a little ten-minute break. Annie suspected Miss Murphy had ulterior motives but opted not to confront the tutoring little weasel.
