So this is Gretchen. She is worse than my worst nightmares. If this woman is a sales vice president, I am a rocket scientist. I can see her particular qualifications spilling precipitously out of her plunging neckline. And so can every other man in the room. A sparkling diamond necklace bisects her two best assets. My diamond necklace. I am spitting mad. Matt, how can you do this to me? My newfound marital bliss begins to disintegrate before my eyes. I make some insincere welcoming noises and step over to massage Matt’s other arm, determining to fight fire with fire.
“Matt, darling, sorry to take you away from important business, but the kids are ready to cut the cake, and they need us for pictures. You go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”
I think it is about time I brush up on my German.
“Auf Wiedersehen, girlfriend!” I warn Gretchen after Matt is out of hearing range. “Stay out of my business or I’ll scratch your smug eyes out.” Translate that, you oversexed pit viper. Then I walk off to take back possession of my husband.
“Should I be losing any sleep over Bavarian Barbie Dream Whore?” I whisper to Matt snidely as I glance over my shoulder at Gretchen, whose eyes are shooting daggers at me.
“Not unless it’s because I’m keeping you up all night,” Matt replies. “Does that mean you’re jealous?”
“Of course I’m jealous.”
“It’s about damn time.”
“You think I’m kidding? Stay away from her, schatz,” I snarl. “She’s messing with you, in case you haven’t picked up on the signals.”
“Oh, I’ve picked up on them.” Matt laughs. “They’re hard to miss.”
“Are we still talking about signals here?” I joke. “She looks highly explosive.”
“Can’t argue with that. But so far, I’ve managed to resist the temptation.”
“You’re teasing me, aren’t you,” I say, tugging on my bottom lip. Matt smiles.
“Does she have a brain underneath all that—equipment?” I gesture in Gretchen’s direction.
“Quite a big one, actually,” Matt says. “Looks can be deceiving, and women can be so bitchy to each other.”
“Well, I guess you work with her, so you have to continue seeing her, right?” I pout.
“You can trust me, Julie, honey. You know you can.” No grief about how he can’t trust me. No throwing anything back in my face. He has truly forgiven me.
“I know,” I say quietly, lifting his hand to my lips for a kiss.
“But, really, you don’t have anything to worry about,” he assures me.
As we walk over to where the cake is displayed, I notice that Josh could care less about the cake. He can’t keep his eyes or his hands off Zandy.
“Did you ever look at me that way?” I ask Matt.
“I’m looking at you that way right now,” Matt smiles, as he links his hand with mine and kisses my lips softly. “Do you think it’s appropriate for the parents of the groom to skip out early?”
“Probably not.” I laugh. “But it’s tempting. Do you remember our wedding day?”
“Yeah. I practically had to drag you down the aisle, kicking and screaming, and into my bed.”
“I was so scared that night, Matt, so confused. I resisted you every step of the way. And all you did was love me in return.”
“I know, honey. You’re so passionate about so many things—jewelry, Stones, your old boyfriend, or at least the memory of him. I just wanted you to feel that way about me for a change.”
“Love isn’t always about unbridled passion,” I say, remembering Little Jon’s words. “You were always there for me. I love you so much, Matt. I never realized just how much until I almost lost you.” I snuggle up against him.
“And I love you, Julie.”
“You taught our son how to love, too,” I marvel. “That’s the greatest gift you could have given him.”
“Now I have a gift for you,” Matt says.
“Can’t it wait until after the reception?” I smirk. Since we’d worked out our problems, Matt and I have been going at it like a couple of rutting rabbits. Sometimes we get lucky and hit the daily double, in a not-too-shabby attempt to shatter my brother and sister-in-law’s shagging record.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Julie. It’s not that kind of gift.” Matt laughs, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m saving that for later. Here,” he says, handing me a beautifully-wrapped box from Stones. “This is for you to open now.”
“For me?” I ask, confused.
“Who else would it be for?”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Our son is getting married. Does there have to be an occasion for a man to give a gift to the woman he loves?”
I hurriedly rip off the wrapping paper, before Matt can change his mind, and open the box. I can’t believe my eyes. Oh, God. It is the most magnificent diamond necklace I’ve ever seen. A perfect, multi-carat, single teardrop stone fashioned in an antique platinum setting. It overpowers Gretchen’s necklace or even the emerald medallion in its brilliance and classic simplicity. It must have cost Matt a fortune. My eyes start to tear. “Matt, it takes my breath away.”
“You take my breath away,” Matt says softly. “Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it. But I thought that—”
“You thought what?” he asks evenly.
I thought the necklace was for Gretchen is what I thought. “I mean, my mother told me months ago that you had bought a diamond necklace—”
“Your mother never met a secret she could keep, did she?” Matt laughs.
“And when you never gave it to me—and then tonight, when I saw Gretchen wearing—so I thought—Oh, Matt, you know what I thought.”
“Sweetheart, I haven’t given you any significant jewelry since your wedding ring. I know you can get your own anytime you want to, at the shop. And you were never without that emerald necklace that Manny’s mother gave you.”
“Matt, I’m so sorry. I know you don’t think jewelry is important.”
“But you do, honey. Your brother told me you planned to give Zandy your emerald medallion. It must have been hard for you to part with it. I know how much it meant to you, and, well, I wanted to give you something nice to replace it, so you’d know how much you mean to me.”
“Oh, honey, I don’t need a necklace for that.” I grab on to Matt and don’t let go.
“Should I take it back?” he teases.
“Don’t you dare. Put it on me, honey. I want to wear it right now.” Matt lifts the necklace from the box and places it around my neck. I hold the diamond while he attaches the clasp. Then he rubs the back of my neck before he places a tender kiss there.
“Sweetheart, I will never take it off, ever. I don’t think I could love you any more than I love you right this minute. I love you so much it hurts.”
He smiles, and I can tell he is pleased by my reaction. But he has more news.
“The renovations on the Palm Coast condo are almost finished,” Matt says. “I want to make Florida our permanent home. That way we’ll be closer to your family and to Natalie, and it will be easier for you to get to Stones if you want to help out on occasion.”
“But you always said you’d be bored living in Palm Coast.” I, on the other hand, could be content to join the Hammock Palms Civic Association, attend the annual covered dish dinners and beach barbecues, and get into all the local issues affecting the barrier island—zoning, water supply, ordinances to protect the native tree canopies. At this stage in my life, the peace, solitude, and brightness of living in a luxury condo on the beach in a small town appeals to me. In fact, it all sounds heavenly. I think that living in Palm Coast at this time in my life is exactly what I need. And as an added bonus, everyone in Palm Coast is at least two decades older than me.
“What about the sharks?” I warn. “Isn’t Palm Coast the shark-bite capital of the world?”
“That’s Ponce Inlet,” he corrects.
“What’s to stop them from swimming a f
ew miles down the coast?”
“We live on the water, not in it,” Matt reminds me.
“But what about your job? You can’t work in Palm Coast. You still have a year left on your contract. And what about Gretchen?”
“I worked it out. I’ve already let my board of directors know that I’m retiring early. That’s why Gretchen flew in. She’s going to take over for me.”
Have I been too harsh and too quick to judge Gretchen? I don’t think that pretty poacher’s motives are entirely innocent.
“We don’t need any more money,” Matt is saying. “I need the time to start taking better care of you.”
“You hate the beach,” I stammer, stunned that Matt would give up everything for me when I should be the one to give up something important for him. But his actions shouldn’t come as a shock. He has been making sacrifices for me throughout our marriage. I am not going to let him make another one. And I start to tell him so.
“But I love you,” he replies before I can speak. “And anyway, after the hurricane, there’s not much of a beach left. It’s all been washed away. But we’ll get it back.”
I sigh and snuggle closer to Matt, into the space that is meant just for me, knowing he is talking about more than an eroded stretch of sand. Knowing I have the rest of my life to make it up to him and that we will work it all out together.
A word about the author...
Marilyn Baron, a public relations consultant in Atlanta, is a PRO member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and Georgia Romance Writers (GRW), and winner of the GRW 2009 Chapter Service Award, a former GRW board member and past editor of the chapter’s online newsletter. She also belongs to Marketing for Romance Writers and The Atlanta Writers Club. For The Wild Rose Press, Inc., she writes humorous women’s fiction (Significant Others, Stones), historicals/romantic thrillers (Under the Moon Gate and Destiny: A Bermuda Love Story), and Romantic Suspense with paranormal elements (Sixth Sense, Homecoming Homicides). She has also written in a variety of other genres. She graduated from The University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism (Public Relations sequence) and a minor in Creative Writing. Born in Miami, Florida, Marilyn lives in Roswell, Georgia, with her husband, and they have two daughters.
Marilyn says: “What’s unique about my writing? I try to inject humor into everything I write. I like to laugh and my readers do too. I tend to feature older heroines, because, let’s face it, we’re not getting any younger. I love to travel. I studied in Florence, Italy, for six months in my junior year of college and still love Italy and Italian food. Part of my novel Stones is set in Florence. I also love jewelry, which is why the jewelry store Stones plays such a prominent role in the book. And I’m planning a wedding for one of my daughters, so I can relate to Julie. I’m looking forward to my next release with The Wild Rose Press, Murder on the Repositioning Cruise, Book Three of the Psychic Crystal Mystery series.”
Visit Marilyn’s Web site at
www.marilynbaron.com and her blog at
http://www.petitfoursandhottamales.com/
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