by JoAnn Ross
She hadn’t gotten scratched in, what? A month? Six weeks?
“It’s no big deal.”
“He likes children,” she said. “I’ve had card-making parties here at the house and he’s always been a perfect gentleman.”
Mac looked skeptical. Then he glanced over at Pirate, who hissed a warning, which didn’t exactly help his cause.
“I’d better get going.”
Oh, great. Her herculean grumpy cat was chasing off her boyfriend. And wasn’t that just the perfect way to cap off a perfect night?
He kissed her again, quick this time, but it still made her toes curl.
“I’ll tell Emma you’re coming. You’ll make her day.”
This time it was Annie who stood in the doorway, watching as he drove away. Then she went back into the kitchen and glared at Pirate, who merely stared back with a total lack of interest.
“You were a very bad boy,” she chided, even as she got out the can of gourmet salmon.
His only response was a big yawn to show her how unimpressed he was with her annoyance. Then, with his tail up like a big gray-striped victory flag, he strolled over to the counter and began noisily demanding his meal.
“Ingrate,” she muttered, even as her heart went out to him, remembering how, until Charity had saved him, he’d been forced to fight seagulls for food on the beach.
He’d been a stray. Just like her. And also like her, he came with baggage. Which, she thought, as she watched him attack the bowl of food, made them two of a kind.
47
They ended up having breakfast in Emma’s bedroom, where she held court, eating her scrambled eggs and drinking her milk from, unsurprisingly, a Disney Princess plate and glass set.
Mac’s father had added smoked salmon and chives to the adults’ eggs, which had Annie thinking about that smoked salmon pizza she’d been planning to serve Mac for his seduction lunch.
Not that he’d needed any seduction. And he’d certainly not needed any oysters. She realized she was smiling to herself when Mac caught her eye and winked.
It was too, too easy for him to affect her. He could make her hot with a simple look. Then again, she thought, as she slowly licked a bit of the cream cheese off her English muffin and watched the flare of heat in his gaze, she could do the same thing to him.
And wasn’t that amazing?
After complimenting Emma on the two scrapbook pages she’d completed with Mac and Boyd’s help, including a carefully hand-printed accounting of the drama she’d been through since the wrist she’d broken wasn’t on her good hand, Annie promised to see her on the Fourth and left.
“So, I guess you’ll be working all during the Matchmaking Fair,” he said as he opened her car door for her.
“It should be a busy day. The oyster-shucking contest is right down Harborview at the pier. Which is within walking distance of us.”
“Nothing says romance like putting on rubber gloves and shucking a mess of oysters,” he said.
“Still, with a hundred-dollar prize, they’ve gotten a lot of contestants.”
“You know there’s a dance,” he said as she slid into the driver’s seat.
“We have a poster in the window.” She buckled her seat belt.
“So, want to go?”
“I hadn’t even thought about it.”
Which was true. The last dance she’d attended had been at the tony Belle Haven Country Club in Alexandria, where she’d been required to smile like a Stepford wife while Owen deftly worked the room like an old-time evangelical preacher at a tent revival.
“Don’t you have to work?”
“I’m taking the weekend off. Cody, the morning drive-time guy, is getting married and they’re saving up to buy a house, so he jumped at the chance to get the extra hours by taking my shift for the next three nights.”
“We have three nights? All night? Together?”
“Well, unless you get tired of me or your cat kills me first, yeah. . . . So, you want to go to the red, white, and blue prom with me?”
“Since I’ve never been to a prom, how could I possibly turn that invitation down?”
“Okay, I didn’t do the prom thing in high school, either. I was pretty much a nerd and it took until after I graduated for the rest of me to grow up to my radio voice. But how could you have never been to a prom? What, were the guys at your school blind? Or just terminally stupid?”
“Schools. And let’s just say I was choosy.” She smiled. “And I choose you.”
“Handy,” he said, ducking into the car to give her another of those quick, lethal kisses that could set her head to spinning. “Since I choose you back.”
• • •
“I’ve got to go shopping at lunch today,” Annie told Kim as they opened up the shop. “I promise to be quick. Do you think you’ll be able to handle things?”
“The oyster shucking isn’t until noon, so that should be fine. . . . So, how was he?”
“How was who?”
“Midnight Mac.”
“I assume he’s fine,” Annie said, busying herself with straightening a stack of paper printed with candy hearts, just in case someone did get lucky during the fair and wanted to memorialize the event.
“Just fine?”
Annie sighed and turned back toward her. “What are people saying?”
“Only that he was seen driving back to town from your house this morning. And that your car was parked outside his grandfather’s house a little bit later. And there’s no point in trying to lie your way out of it because one, you’re a terrible liar, two, you’re glowing like you really got some action last night, and three, to anyone who knows what they’re looking for, you’ve got a pink beard scrape down the side of your neck.” Kim grinned wickedly. “And, I suspect, in a few other more interesting places.”
Annie thought she was saved from answering when her phone rang. Until she noticed the caller ID.
It was Sedona, calling to make a lunch date. “If you’re willing to have a quick takeout from one of the festival food booths, because I have a dress to buy. Yes, for the prom . . . I mean the dance.
“Yes, with Mac, and now, as much as you know I’d love to share all the intimate details, I’ve got customers.”
She turned off the phone.
“Can we just get to work?” she asked, turning the sign on the front door to OPEN with more force than necessary.
Kim saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”
48
Sedona, organized as always, had thought to call ahead to the Dancing Deer Two, so when she and Annie arrived, Doris and Dottie, the elderly twin sisters who owned the boutique, already had a selection of dresses pulled for Annie to try on.
Two minutes after their arrival, Charity and Maddy showed up. Followed by Kara, who, from her uniform and the gun and handcuffs worn on her hip, was technically on duty.
“What, does Sedona have everyone in town on speed dial?” Annie asked.
“No way are we going to miss your first date,” Kara said. “Although I was engaged to Jared in high school, since he was at boot camp, he asked Sax to take me to the prom. That was the day I’d discovered I was pregnant. I wanted to stay home, but after I cried all over Sax, he talked me into going and I actually had a good time.” Her eyes turned reminiscent. “That was the first time he kissed me.”
“To cheer her up,” Maddy said. “They weren’t the sex bunnies they are now.”
Instead of denying it, Kara merely laughed, giving credence to Maddy’s teasing accusation.
“With your coloring, I’d go for winter tones,” Doris, who herself preferred muted earth tones, suggested, getting right down to business.
“Oh, sister,” the pleasantly plump Dottie, who tended toward cheerful pastel shades, complained. “That doesn’t exactly say summer.”
“There’s a reason they call it basic black, sister,” Doris pointed out, a bit stiffly, Annie thought.
Which had her mind returning to the dozen black
designer evening gowns she’d donated to Goodwill when she’d left the Fairfax mansion where Owen was now living with wife number four. Who, being a blond size double-naught, couldn’t have worn them anyway.
“You know, dear,” Dottie said, “I was thinking of that red sundress you bought a while back. That looked lovely with your dark hair and pale coloring.”
“Yes, it did,” Sedona agreed.
“It was one of Dottie’s better choices.” Even Doris agreed with that opinion.
Annie thought about the way Mac had not only noticed the stoplight-red dress, but commented on it. Saying he’d wanted to stop and bite her thigh.
“Do you have anything like that? But a bit more formal?”
“I pulled it from the rack the instant Sedona called,” Dottie said. “Let me run and get it.”
She was back in a moment with a scarlet silk chiffon gown. Simply cut, strapless, with a skirt that flowed in a straight, fluid column, it was, Annie thought, as she tried it on in the dressing room, perfect. Except for one thing.
“That side slit’s awfully high,” she pointed out when she showed it to the others.
“Like the guy hasn’t seen a lot more,” Sedona said dryly. “It’s a showstopper.”
“Agreed,” Maddy said. “You’ve got to get it. It’s got your name written all over it.”
“And I’ve got the perfect jewelry for it.” Charity reached into her bag and pulled out a black velvet case. “My mother, God love her, gave it to me before she took off on that around-the-world cruise with my latest, and seemingly forever-after, stepfather. Apparently she’s simplifying her life, seeming to forget that I’d have nowhere to possibly wear such a necklace in this town.”
Opening the case, Annie drew in a sharp breath as she looked down at the diamond necklace that must have cost nearly as much as her house.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Oh, you must,” both Doris and Dottie said at the same time.
“It’s perfect,” Dottie said on a sigh. “You’ll look like a fairy princess.”
“And it would also go well with basic black,” Doris said with her typical practicality. “Although I do have to agree with my sister that red is a more patriotic color for this particular holiday.”
“My mother got it from one of her husbands,” Charity said. “Number five, a self-proclaimed Russian count. So, it’s not as if there’s any sentimental value attached to it. And besides, as Mom found out when she went to sell it to some estate jeweler, those aren’t really diamonds, just very good CZs. So, essentially, they’re as phony as the guy’s title. But they are admittedly gorgeous.
“Turn around,” she said. “And let me fasten it on you so you can see.”
Lifting her hair, Annie let Charity fasten the necklace at the nape of her neck. The tiers of faux diamonds cascaded down like falling rain. Moving in the political circles she had, Annie had seen some serious bling. But nothing that began to equal this.
“I can’t,” she said weakly, feeling her resolve dissolve like a sand castle at high tide as she studied herself in the mirror. The sane, new, self-made Annie reminded herself that she’d left the life of sparkly jewelry and formal designer gowns far behind her. These days she tended toward sundresses and jeans, and if she did wear jewelry, it was usually Claire Templeton’s simple but lovely sea glass work that the sisters sold here in the store.
“This isn’t the same as it was back east,” Sedona said. She might not be psychic like her hippie mother supposedly was, but she was very good at sensing what her friends were thinking.
“You’re going to be among friends, people who’ll be thrilled to see you looking so happy. And while I count myself fortunate never to have met your ex, from what you’ve shared, Mac Culhane is nothing like him.”
“No,” Annie agreed. “He’s the polar opposite.” In every way.
“Consider it your coming-out party,” Maddy suggested.
“Coming out of your shell,” Charity added. “Maddy and I have been there, done the breakup thing, though I was a runaway bride who escaped on my wedding day, so I didn’t have to live through a messy divorce. But we know of what we speak. You need this, Annie.”
“You deserve it,” Maddy said.
“A special moment to remember.” Kara pressed her case.
“And,” Charity said, “believe me, there’s a lot to be said for watching a grown man swallow his tongue.”
Even Doris laughed at that idea.
“I give up.” Caving, as she always seemed to do where Mac Culhane was involved, Annie handed over her credit card, thinking she could always live on cereal and cottage cheese for the next month to pay for the dress. Along with the strappy satin sandals and the ridiculously scanty underwear Dottie convinced her she had to have to go with it.
49
Feeling like the high school radio club nerd he’d once been, picking up the head cheerleader for the prom, Mac climbed the porch of Annie’s house and rang the bell.
Then felt as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus with a baseball bat when she opened the door.
“She was right,” he said.
She tilted her head. She’d piled all those curls up in some complex, yet appealingly messy style that had them looking as if they would come tumbling free if he just pulled out a few of those sparkly pins.
“Who?”
“Kara.”
“You’ve talked with Kara?”
“Yeah. At Bon Temps. She was in there when I stopped by to ask Sax what kind of flowers to get you.”
“You got me flowers?” It could have been a trick of the porch light, but he thought he saw her eyes glisten a bit at that idea.
“Yeah. Damn. I left them in the car.” He jerked his head toward his dad’s Prius, which he’d borrowed so she wouldn’t have to go to the dance all glammed up in a pickup truck. “I’ll be right back.”
“That’s not—”
He was back down the steps, reaching into the backseat before she could finish what she’d intended to say. “You may fool everyone else into thinking you’re Midnight Mac,” he muttered to himself as he retrieved the clear plastic florist’s box. “But once a nerd, always a nerd.”
“Here,” he said as he returned to the door.
“Oh.” She breathed out a soft, pleased breath that sent a cool wave of relief rushing over him. “You bought me Gardenias.”
“Sax said they’re traditional, and I guess he’d know. Seeing how he took Kara to their prom.”
“I heard about that. So what did Kara say?”
“That I’d swallow my tongue when I saw you.” He drank in the sight of her, looking like a red flame with a mile-long stretch of bare leg revealed by that slit in the side. “Which is true. But while I’m being real honest here, I’ve got to admit that I’m no doctor, but I think every bit of blood in my head has just flowed south.”
She glanced down. Tilted her head again. And laughed.
“If you think you’re going to get me out of this dress—”
“Oh, I most definitely plan to,” he assured her. “After I show off my girl to every guy in Shelter Bay. And then, when I get you home, I’m going to make slow love to you. All night long. While you’re wearing nothing but that necklace. And those do-me red shoes.”
“Well, you did bring me flowers,” she said, opening the box and holding it out to him to fasten them onto her wrist.
“A lot of the boxes the florist was making up were carnations. With a few roses,” he said. “But I told him I needed the gardenias. Not just because Sax says they’re traditional. But because they remind me of your skin.”
“Okay.” She sighed, which had her breasts rising in an intriguing way above that scarlet-as-sin strapless neckline. Then, dammit all to pieces, he watched her take a shawl thing down from a hook by the front door and wrap it around her shoulders, across the front of the mouthwateringly hot dress. “That just earned you the necklace-and-stiletto sex thing.”
“How long does
this dance last?” he said as they drove into town.
“The way I’m feeling right now,” she admitted, “I doubt we’ll be staying around for the after-prom breakfast.”
He reached across the console and put his hand on her thigh, bared by the slit, which was conveniently on the left side of the dress.
“Thank God.”
50
Annie had never been part of the popular crowd in any of the many schools she’d attended. Nor had she felt as if she fit in with any particular group during her college days.
After that humiliating freshman year, she’d settled down and applied herself to her studies, waitressing at a local coffee shop and working part-time at a bookstore to help pay her bills and student loans.
But as soon as she and Mac walked into the gym of Shelter Bay High School, which had been decorated for the Matchmaking Fair dance with lots of sparkly hearts, red, pink, and white balloons, and pink crepe paper, she was greeted by the many people that she’d become friends with since moving to Shelter Bay.
Sax and Kara were there, Kara looking nothing at all like a cop in a white Grecian-style gown. They were seated at a table with Charity and her photographer husband, Gabe, Maddy and Lucas, and Cole and Kelli Douchett, who was showing a faint baby bump beneath her pink dress.
Annie remembered that the youngest Douchett brother, J.T., who taught history at Coastal Community College, was spending the summer in Ireland with his Irish movie star/screenwriter bride.
“We saved you guys a spot,” Kara said after waving them over. “And, wow, I could spot that dress the second you walked in,” she told Annie.
“Along with every guy in the place,” Mac said, as he held one of the two remaining chairs out for her. Once she was seated, he took the chair next to her and put his arm around her bare shoulder.
“Good idea,” Lucas said. “Claim her now before anybody else gets ideas.”
“She just happens to be sitting right here,” Maddy told her husband. “Meaning she can hear you.”
