Operation Prince Charming

by Phyllis Bourne

  “Didn’t think so,” Hunter said, perversely grateful to see the smug smile wiped off Pete’s face at the mention of Sandy’s name. “Since you’ve made it common knowledge, I might as well clue her in.”

  “Don’t!” Pete’s tone held a touch of pleading.

  They rounded a thicket of bushes signaling the half-mile mark, and Hunter kicked up the pace. “Last time I ate dinner at your place, didn’t she mention how your barbaric table manners were rubbing off on your sons?”

  “Come on, Hunt. You tell Sandy and she’ll have me and my boys over at that school before you can say no elbows on the table,” he said. “You wouldn’t do that to your godsons, would you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just too good to keep to myself,” he taunted.

  “Okay, you made your point. I promise not to tell another soul.”

  Hunter nodded as he ducked to avoid a lowhanging tree branch. Lulled by the steady beat of his heart pumping and his sneakers slapping the ground, his mind drifted. He glanced over at a mother lifting her toddler up to the water fountain for a drink.

  By now, he’d thought he and Erica would have been married and talking kids. At the rate they were going, he wondered if he ever would propose.

  “So, what made you go through with it?” Pete broke the silence. “Last week you were fed up with her wannabe act, then yesterday you sign up for charm school.”

  How could he explain it to his friend, when he wasn’t sure himself? All he knew was he was tired of coming home to his empty town house. At thirty-five, he was ready to give up his bachelorhood for the kind of family life Pete enjoyed. Yet after investing two years in his relationship with Erica, he wasn’t eager to start over with someone new.

  “The more I fight Erica on this socialite business, the more she digs in her heels,” he said. “So I’ve decided to go along with it, until she can get it out of her system.”

  “How long do you think that will take?”

  “I don’t think it will be much longer. She’s been at it for months and isn’t any closer to getting in with them,” he said. “Honestly, I doubt she ever will. She may have cash, but lacks an old-money pedigree.”

  “Then why bother with the manners brushup?”

  “Erica and I had a good thing going before the money. Let’s just say I owe her some effort and patience.”

  “Yeah, Erica used to be a great gal, but now…” Pete shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, man.”

  “You can tell me.”

  Pete heaved a sigh. “Sandy saw her yesterday at that fancy new restaurant downtown, when she was taking her mother out for a birthday lunch. She said she went over to Erica’s table to say hello, and she acted like she barely knew her.”

  Hunter’s mind flashed to Erica’s comment about dumping deadweight, and he wondered if Sandy was one of her causalties. He opened his mouth to say something in her defense, but closed it. He couldn’t defend the inexcusable.

  “She and Sandy go back to nursing school. They’ve been friends a long time,” Pete said.

  Hunter swiped at the sweat rolling down his face with his forearm. “I don’t like the way she’s been acting either, but like I told you, I’m trying to be patient.”

  “I’m not sure her friends will be as understanding as you.”

  “It hasn’t been easy,” Hunter admitted.

  “Erica’s lucky. Another guy might only be with her for the money,” Pete said. “I still can’t believe you turned down the new Mercedes she’d bought for you.”

  “I don’t want her money. If and when I get a Benz, I’ll be the one buying it.”

  “But that was one sweet ride.”

  Hunter thought back to the sleek black luxury car he’d refused. “Working this job shows me enough of how low some people will sink to get their hands on things that don’t belong to them.”

  “Amen.”

  “Speaking of work, anything new?”

  “Got a call from Morrison. Two new residential break-ins, same as the rest.”

  Frustration washed over Hunter at more houses being robbed by a suspect or suspects they always seemed to be one step behind. “Damn, I’ll be glad when we catch these ass—”

  “Whoa!” Pete interrupted. “Now, that doesn’t sound very charming. Looks like you may need to stay after class.”

  Images of Ali Spencer and her pink pelican-print dress floated through his mind. For some reason, staying after school didn’t seem so bad.

  Ali inhaled the curls of steam rising from the china teapot, hoping the fragrant scent of jasmine would put her aunt in a compromising mood.

  “Do you have time for tea?” She stood at the threshold of the older woman’s office holding a silver tray, already knowing the answer to the question. No matter the temperature, her Anglophile aunt never turned down hot tea.

  Rachel Spencer Holmes looked up from the paperwork scattered across the antique desk that had once belonged to Ali’s great-great-great-grandmother. She was dressed in a starched gray suit accessorized with pearls at her ears and around her slim neck. Despite the unseasonably warm spring weather and the building’s lack of central air-conditioning, the olderwoman looked as she always did. Impeccable.

  Her aunt’s penetrating brown eyes darted from the tray to Ali’s face and back again.

  “Of course, dear.”

  Beckoning Ali inside, she tidied up the papers she’d been reviewing and tucked them into a drawer.

  Ali set the tray on top of the weathered walnut desk. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from mentioning the untouched laptop at the opposite end. Using it would have helped her aunt accomplish the work more efficiently, but she’d stubbornly refused.

  Baby steps, Ali reminded herself as she poured hot tea into the delicate, hand-painted cups. She moved a Queen Anne chair from across the room and seated herself on the other side of the desk. She’d drag this antiquated school and Aunt Rachel into the twenty-first century, she thought, sitting down, one baby step at a time.

  “Oh my, another colorful ensemble.” Her aunt squinted at Ali’s pink seashell-print skirt and matching pink blouse. “I practically need sunglasses to look at you.”

  It wasn’t the first time Aunt Rachel had pointed out her vibrant fashion choices. The bold colors of her Lilly Pulitzer–dominated wardrobe, which had flown under the radar in south Florida’s lush tropical landscape, stood out like a pink elephant here in Nashville.

  “I’m not buying new clothes, Auntie,” Ali said, not that she could afford to these days anyway.

  Fortunately, her aunt changed the subject.

  “Impressive spread, Alison,” she said, surveying the offerings on the desk. Pure delight brightened her sixty-nine-year-old, still-unlined face. “Jasmine tea, macaroons, strawberry scones, cream puffs. All of my favorites.”

  Her aunt bit into a cream puff and her eyes rolled heavenward. “Scrumptious,” she said, and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a starched linen napkin from the tray.

  “I remember you serving high tea every afternoon when Dad dumped me off on you for the summer.”

  “Don’t be silly,” her aunt said. “I loved having you. If John hadn’t brought you, I would have come down to Florida and picked you up myself.”

  Ali sipped her tea. Back then, she hadn’t wanted to leave her widowed father alone, but he’d insisted. After she’d lost her mother at four years old, he’d thought his tomboy of a daughter would benefit from his older sister’s feminine influence.

  Ali did. The summers she’d spent with her aunt and at the school eventually helped her snag a position at a major metropolitan newspaper after college. While the South Florida Beacon hadn’t been interested in hiring a green reporter fresh out of journalism school, they’d had an opening for a Miss Manners–type to pen a weekly column.

  Ali’s take on infusing life’s frantic pace with genteel elegance rapidly became a reader favorite, and her column was bumped up to twice weekly.
Over the years, she parlayed the column’s popularity into a series of books.

  Her column was being considered for syndication, and she was in negotiations to host a local lifestyle television show, when everything went horribly wrong.

  Now Ali was back where she started, at her aunt’s school. Only now it was literally crumbling down around them.

  Her aunt stirred a packet of sugar substitute into her tea, before taking a sip. The spoon clinked softly against the gold-rimmed cup, arousing Ali from her thoughts.

  “I stopped by the hardware store to pick up a few tools and materials. Now I can get started on some of these repairs,” she said, figuring she’d start with an easy topic.

  Her aunt nodded, but appeared more interested in selecting another treat.

  “Oh, and I took your appointment with Mr. Coleman yesterday,” Ali said.

  “Thanks again for meeting with him. When Celia called to tell me she’d fallen, I had to go check on her,” her aunt said. “So, how did it go?”

  “He enrolled, but I’m going to be handling his instruction if you don’t mind,” Ali said, leaving out that he’d been adamant she do so.

  “Are you sure? I was hoping for another crack at Hunter Coleman.”

  Ali put down her teacup. “You know him?”

  “I haven’t seen him since he was six, and I kicked both him and his brother out of my class. I called their mother and told her to come pick up those two hellions immediately.”

  “What did they do?”

  Aunt Rachel shook her head. “Nearly tore the place apart, so they could get out of my class and go play baseball.”

  Ali helped herself to a scone. Now she understood why Hunter had insisted on her being his teacher instead of her aunt.

  “Detective Coleman is only available evenings,” Ali said. “It’ll be easier if I just stay after the boys’ class.”

  Aunt Rachel nodded her approval and then focused her keen eyes on Ali. “So, what do you really want to talk to me about, dear?”

  Ali exhaled, looking from the bakery-fresh treats to the older woman’s stern face. So much for softening her up with sweets, she thought.

  “I’d like you to reconsider the high-tech manners for children class,” she said firmly.

  She watched her aunt’s lips tighten and wondered how she managed to get her next sip of tea past them.

  “High tech and manners are an oxymoron,” Aunt Rachel finally said. Her dulcet tone, sweeter than any cream puff, disguised her bullheadedness. “There’s no such thing.”

  “That’s exactly why we should offer this class. How can we expect kids to grow into adults who turn off their cell phones at restaurants or don’t stop midconversation to check their e-mail if they don’t know any better?”

  “Cell phones, PDAs, MP3s, and the rest of those techno gadgets are just noisy nuisances.”

  “Maybe, but they’re here to stay,” Ali said. “The school has to change with the times.”

  The corners of her aunt’s mouth turned down in a full-fledged frown. “Four generations of Spencer women have run this school for over a hundred years. They steered it through two world wars, Jim Crow, the Depression, and the civil rights movement.”

  Instinctively, Ali looked up at the portraits lining the wall behind her aunt. They ranged from brown-tinged sepia and black-and-white likenesses of the grandmothers she’d never known to the color likeness of her aunt.

  “Soon it will be your turn. Then you can do what you want. Until then—”

  Ali cut her off. “Auntie, you know I’m only here temporarily. Once I get the school profitable and this old building back in shape, I’m leaving.”

  “For where? Did you get a job offer you haven’t told me about?”

  “No, but you need to get the idea of me staying here and taking over the school out of your mind.”

  “Fine.” Her aunt sniffed. “So stop trying to change everything. I refuse to relax the Spencer standards.”

  Ali bit into a scone to take the edge off her frustration, but it failed to soothe her. She hadn’t thought much about the school until her aunt’s call four months ago.

  The request for help had come at a time when Ali had needed something to focus on besides the humiliation of her failed marriage and career. Nashville had sounded like as good a place as any to lick her wounds and plot her comeback.

  Before she’d return to her real life, she was determined to make her family’s history-steeped etiquette school relevant and profitable in today’s world. If her aunt would only cooperate.

  “I admit, I’ve made a lot of changes since I’ve arrived,” Ali said finally, “but I don’t believe any of them compromise our standards.”

  Her aunt shook her head. “It’s too much change. Too fast. I think we should wait out all this high-tech nonsense,” she countered. “Good manners never go out of style.”

  “You have to admit the princess tea parties and after-school program piqued more interest in the school. Both are nearly half-full.” Ali defended the two classes she’d recently added.

  “Hmmph,” her aunt snorted. “With all the giggles and laughter, it sounds like they’re doing more playing than learning.”

  Ali didn’t take the bait. She wouldn’t allow herself to be pulled into another debate on teaching styles.

  “So, do I have your permission to give the Techno Manners class a try?”

  Her aunt waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll think about it.”

  It was a gesture that usually silenced Ali, but not this time. She thought about the school’s growing stack of bills and the repairs that needed doing around the older building, and she continued to push.

  “It’s time to stop sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to return to the way we want them to be and do something.” Otherwise there wouldn’t be any Spencer school, she thought.

  Her aunt put the macaroon she’d raised to her lips back on the plate, and raised her eyes to meet Ali’s gaze. “Isn’t that exactly what I’ve been telling you for weeks?”

  Here we go, Ali thought.

  “We’re not talking about me,” Ali replied. She knew where her aunt was steering this conversation and she didn’t like it.

  “Have you given my suggestion any consideration since you promised to think it over?” her aunt asked, oblivious of Ali’s protest.

  “I’m not ready to date. It’s too soon.”

  Her aunt sipped her tea. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a divorcée, not a widow. Besides, your divorce has been final for almost a year.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but there isn’t a man alive I’d be interested in going out with.” Ali braced herself for the wave of bitterness usually accompanying the statement, but it didn’t come. Instead, her mind conjured up images of Hunter Coleman.

  She closed her eyes briefly to banish her handsome new student from her thoughts and focused on bringing up an image of his girlfriend instead.

  “Did you hear what I said, dear?”

  “Sorry, no.” Ali straightened in her chair.

  “I was telling you about Celia’s nephew, Edward. You remember Celia?” the older woman continued, not waiting for an answer. “He’s divorced too, and Celia thinks you two would hit it off. Then there’s also a nice single man from church—”

  “Thanks, Aunt Rachel, but no,” Ali said firmly, hoping to stop her matchmaking before it got started.

  “Well, you don’t have to get so snippy about it.” Her aunt sniffed. “You want me to be open to your suggestions, but you refuse to extend me the same courtesy.”

  “That’s unfair. I’m talking business, and you’re trying to interfere in my personal life.”

  “What personal life?” her aunt asked. “You spend all of your time here.”

  “So do you,” Ali countered.

  “That’s why I’m pushing you so hard to get back into the dating world, so you don’t end up like me. Looking back, I wish I’d listened to friends who’d encouraged me to date aga
in after your uncle died,” she said. “It’s hard growing old alone.”

  Ali averted her eyes from the regret lurking in her aunt’s gaze.

  “No,” she said.

  “One date, Alison. Just one little date.”

  “No.”

  “How about if I agree to let you start your high-tech etiquette class? On a trial basis, of course.”

  Ali dropped the smooth manners her aunt had drummed into her since childhood. “Let me get this straight.” She leaned forward in her chair. “The only way I get the class is if I let you pimp me out?”

  Her aunt’s lips curved into a sweet smile. “I don’t consider asking you to go on an innocent blind date ‘pimping,’ but yes, that’s the gist of it.”

  Ali exhaled a long, exasperated breath. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  “That’s wonderful, dear.” Her aunt clasped her hands together. “You won’t regret it. When you meet Edward, you’ll be thanking your old aunt.”

  Ali groaned inwardly. Somehow she doubted it.

  Chapter Three

  Ali spread the damask linen tablecloth over the rickety table.

  It still wobbled a bit, despite the book she’d wedged underneath the leg. But like everything else around the ancient school, it would have to do.

  Fortunately, she’d brought the bulk of her table accoutrements with her to Nashville. The last time she’d used them had been for a dinner party she and Brian had hosted with a guest list that included Florida’s lieutenant governor and several important local dignitaries. Now the platinum-rimmed ivory plates would simply create a good representation of the formal table settings Hunter Coleman would likely encounter when he was out with his rich girlfriend.

  His girlfriend.

  Ali would do good to remember the fact.

  Not that his relationship status mattered. Her own life was in such disarray, the last thing she needed in it was a man.

  Pulling back the cardboard flaps on the carton containing her wedding china, Ali remembered the concerned look on Aunt Rachel’s face when she’d brought it to the school. Her aunt had asked several times if she was sure she wanted to use the expensive, once-special plates.