Borrowing Trouble

by Mae Wood

  Bitsy waved her hand at Gabe and he stopped the hairdryer. “Pull up your hair so I can see them.” I piled my hair on top my head and slowly turned my face from side to side so that she could view them. “Excellent. Just perfect. There is a ruby velvet box they go in. Make sure to put them in the safe in Trip’s study when you get home.”

  Is she giving these to Trip? Or to me? “Um, Bitsy?”

  “Before you protest, they never felt like mine, either. Benefits of marrying a family with just a son, I suppose. I haven’t worn them in years. They look beautiful on you. Just enjoy them and keep them safe for your little girl, okay?”

  “Bitsy, really.”

  “Don’t make it harder than it is,” she snapped, cutting off further discussion. She waved her hand again and Gabe resumed his work. We hardly spoke to each other as Gabe finished with her hair and started on mine. He pulled my hair up into an intricate bun accented with tiny braids. Bitsy’s sleek silver bob flawlessly grazed her chin.

  When I emerged from Trip’s bathroom with my makeup done, I found him pushing mother of pearl studs through his tux shirt. “Hello, beautiful,” he called, quickly fastening the matching cufflinks. “About ready to go?”

  “You going to wear some pants with that shirt?” I gestured toward his red plaid boxers.

  “I thought you might appreciate the easy access afforded by this ensemble.” He wiggled his hips suggestively and cocked an eyebrow.

  “You. I have no words.”

  “I know, I know. Hands to myself this evening. I will be the perfect gentleman. It’s going to be hard.”

  “I’ll take care of you when we get home,” I replied waving towards the bulge in his boxers.

  “Actually I wasn’t talking about that for once. I mean it will be difficult not to touch you. You are gorgeous.” He crossed the room and kissed me, cupping a hand under my chin. “These are pretty,” he said, touching one of the earrings.

  “And they are apparently yours or Jimmy’s or some other Brannon’s. Your mom has given them to me or you, I’m really not sure, for safekeeping.”

  He nodded solemnly, completing his dressing. “She likes you, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “And I love you.”

  “I know.”

  “Need help with your dress?”

  “No, I can manage.”

  “Okay, I’m going to get something and will be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

  I slipped into the kelly green dress, which did look stunning on me. I fastened the silver sandals on my feet and looked into the cheval mirror that stood in a corner.

  Wow. I look like a modern day princess.

  In the mirror I saw Trip reenter the room and my breath hitched at the sight of my real Prince Charming. I turned around as he walked slowly toward me.

  “Marisa,” he exhaled, taking my hand. “I do love you. And I will love you forever.” He lowered himself to one knee. “I know I did this before, but I also know you deserve better. Will you please do me the honor of letting me be your husband?”

  “Absolutely. You didn’t have to do this. I told you I liked it the first time.”

  “I keep telling you there is a difference between what I have to do and what I want to do and what you deserve. Hold on, I’m not done yet.”

  He fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a black velvet ring box. “You have Grangran’s, which I want you to have, but I also want you to have your own.” He opened the box to reveal an emerald cut diamond set on a simple platinum band. “Lucky number seven, right?”

  I nodded. He took my left hand and slipped it on. “There,” he said, kissing it in place. “I talked with Mom and I asked if I could get you something for you to wear tonight as a present because your birthday is next week. She suggested a bracelet, but when I went to the jewelry store with my dad this afternoon, I got this instead.”

  “Your dad helped pick this out?”

  “No, but he did ask why I was changing my mind about Grangran’s ring, so I told him the whole story.”

  “You told him the whole story? About you proposing in your birthday suit?”

  “Of course not, but I did tell him about pinning you and how you didn’t want to hear the rest of my dirty limerick.”

  “And what did he think about that?”

  “He laughed. Said I really had found my match.”

  “Okay, then confession time.” Trip peered at me.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No, I love it. How many girls get two engagement rings?”

  “What do you have to confess then?”

  “Well, I’ve been wearing the first one on a chain around my neck but under my clothes all week and when I was putting on my shoes after my pedicure yesterday, it fell out of my dress and your mom saw it. She knows.”

  “Explains the earrings.”

  “Yes, but we haven’t talked about it. You still need to tell her. She needs to hear it from you.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  After a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a tray of finger sandwiches, and many smiles, we climbed into the limo that Bitsy had George arrange to head to the Brooks Museum. When we arrived at the white marble Beaux Arts building, the world seemed grand and impossibly perfect. As Trip guided me through the building, my eyes swept across Reniors and Gainsboroughs, over the florals and décor that Bitsy had so lovingly supervised, because I only had eyes for the man whose arm I was gracing. I was buoyant. I shook hands, accepted many happy wishes, and watched with delight as Trip noticed my name, in addition to my firm’s name, on a list of donors who’d given at least ten-thousand dollars to St. Jude.

  “Why did you do that?” he inquired, full of awe.

  “Well, the firm gave because you are a client. I gave because it seemed the best way to make up for the dress and the shoes. But I did it because I love you and I don’t want any family to lose their Caroline.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  I shrugged. “Yes, it is, but you know what I make, so it won’t break me, and I have it on good authority that I might be getting a significant pay raise soon.”

  His blue eyes lit up. “Oh, do you?”

  “What’s the current offer?”

  “What was my last offer? Two-fifty, four weeks of vacation, bring your assistant with a twenty-five percent raise for her?”

  I grinned at my savvy businessman, polished in his tux. “You do realize you just bid against yourself?”

  “It’s entirely self-interested, I assure you. Would you like to dance?”

  “Oh, and he dances, too?”

  “Believe it or not, ballroom dance was one of the many, many activities Mom sent me to.”

  I laughed, imagining a recalcitrant and lanky pre-teen Tip nervously shuffling around a dance studio. “I learned all of my dancing skills while drunk at college,” I confessed.

  “Just follow my lead,” he said, offering me his hand. He held me close on the black and white checked floor, so that our bodies were nearly touching. We danced smoothly and slowly, as the acoustic band played Stars Fell on Alabama, an old standard designed for a romantic dance.

  After I found his rhythm, I whispered to him. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot,” he said with a nod.

  “So, what’s the real story on Erica getting drunk? She told me that she was flirting heavily with Bert.”

  “I wasn’t there, so I can’t speak to it. I will tell you what I know, though. Bert texted me and asked if Runner Girl’s friend was fair game. I knew y’all had been in for dinner earlier, so I thought he might mean Erica. I told him if he meant Erica, then absolutely not and if she was drunk, then someone needed to get her home safe. That’s all I know.”

  “Thank you,” I said, planting a firm kiss right on his lips in the middle of the dance floor, not caring if anyone saw.

  “Nothing to it. Like I said, not my story.”

  “She said that she was really embarrassed when you s
howed up at her house that Saturday morning.”

  “She was. I didn’t mention the bit that I know Bert was asking about her. I just indicated that I knew she’d gotten wasted at my restaurant. Nothing to be sheepish about there. Happens to a lot of folks. Normally we call cabs for folks, but that didn’t seem like the best solution.”

  “Now we all know and won’t talk about it. She told Josh.”

  “I’m glad they’re better. That night that I had her taken home from the restaurant, I sent him an email telling him that he needed to get his ass home.”

  I missed a step and nearly toppled over, saving myself by clutching onto his strong shoulder. “You did what?”

  “Come on, if you think I’m going to have dinner with the Erica and Marisa show for the next fifty years without Josh, you’re insane.”

  “You are serious,” I marveled.

  I’m going to marry this man. For real. Forever.

  “Yes, you two get out of control.”

  “No, I mean about us.”

  “The two proposals and two engagement rings didn’t clue you in? I love teasing you, but I’m not teasing about this. Never been more serious about anything in my life.” He dragged my hand to the center of his chest with both of his.

  The band transitioned to a new song, which I tried to place, but couldn’t do it until Trip began humming sweetly into my ear, pulling me flush to him, cheek to cheek, thigh to thigh, as the band’s singer began.

  Neil Young. Harvest Moon. I sighed and sank into him, leaving the entire world behind us. “I love this song,” I admitted softly in his ear. He kept humming as I followed his steps around the dance floor.

  “Me, too. The airline was playing it during deplaning on every leg to and from London. And when I heard it, more than anything, I needed to be home with you. I do love you with my whole heart, Runner Girl. I mean it.”

  Epilogue

  Trip

  I padded into the bedroom barefoot bearing a large mug of hot milky coffee. “Hey, beautiful,” I said softly, as she burrowed her face into an overstuffed down pillow.

  She looks so soft and fuckable in the mornings.

  “The car will be here in a few hours. I’ve got breakfast started.”

  She rolled over, smiled sleepily, and my heart, as well as my dick, leapt. I leaned over to give her a peck on the lips. “Breakfast is in ten minutes.”

  “No yogurt and granola this morning?” she asked playfully, referring to my admittedly overboard effort to please her the first time we’d shared breakfast together.

  “Nope. I’m cooking for you and it’s a surprise. Just give me ten minutes before you come into the kitchen. Enjoy your coffee.”

  She took the mug from my outstretched hands and wrapped her long fingers around it, savoring the warmth. The cool breeze off the ocean poured through the open windows. “Can I at least sit on the porch or will that ruin the pancake surprise?”

  “Hey! How did you know it was pancakes?” I asked with feigned disbelief.

  “Because you’ve made pancakes each time we’ve come down to St. George. I’m not complaining.” She grinned into the coffee cup. I picked up a pillow and lobbed it towards her head before sticking out my tongue and retreating to the kitchen.

  From the kitchen window, I watched her settle into an Adirondack chair, wrapped in the white bathrobe she kept at the cabin. She sipped her coffee and relaxed.

  I hummed to myself, making sure the bacon didn’t burn. When I was sure she was settled in, I grabbed a hammer from the kitchen’s junk drawer and walked quickly to my suitcase and pulled out a tissue wrapped package.

  In the cabin’s lone hallway, I found the spot and started driving a nail into the white-painted wooden walls.

  She’ll hear this. She’ll come in.

  I heard the sliding door squeak open.

  “Trip, what are you doing?”

  I watched her make her way down the hall.

  Like a ship at full sail. Shakespeare is right about so much.

  “Making it official.”

  Her rounder face lit up with a solid laugh. “Pretty sure we made it official months ago. No backsies. Especially not now.”

  “Don’t worry about that. You’re stuck with me,” I said holding up my left hand and pointing to my gold wedding band. “And I’m not giving Libby away until her wedding day.”

  I made contact with the nail a final time and hung up the picture of our families from our wedding, cattycorner from a snapshot I’d taken of her sprawled on the pavement when I’d worn her out cycling during our first trip to the island a year ago.

  We had married Easter weekend on St. George with only close friends and our parents to celebrate with us. My mom refused to plan a wedding in a month, especially when Marisa was in trial.

  She’d gotten us a defense verdict, truly pulling a rabbit out of her hat. My current offer to her was well north of a half mil a year. The figure didn’t really matter. It is all our money anyway and we both knew that. One day I’ll figure out what it takes to get her in the office next to mine.

  Mom made it until June. Just a few weeks after Marisa surprised me with a positive pregnancy test when I’d gotten back from a Sunday morning ride with the guys. I’d never seen Mom happier than when we told her we were expecting.

  And I’ve never seen Marisa happier. When the sonogram tech told us we were having a girl, Marisa had started crying right on the exam table. “Elizabeth, like your mom. She’ll be Elizabeth and we’ll call her Libby.” With her words, she broke me. She fucking ruined me. I am a lucky bastard.

  Thank you for reading Borrowing Trouble!

  So, what did you think about it?

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  The heatwave in Memphis continues. . .

  Spend some time with our favorite Memphis restauranteur Bert Forsythe, as he fends off Pig & Barley’s wine rep. He’s convinced she’s only there to sell the restaurant wine and that flirting is part of her job, part of her job where she truly excels. Will he see what’s right in front of him? Or will he be blinded by his own misconceptions?

  Look for it Spring 2016!

  About the author

  Mae Wood is a Memphian at heart. She lives in the Southeastern United States. She loves literary fiction, historical fiction, and, of course, romance novels. Mae is a mommy, a bookworm, and a lawyer, in that order. Mae has been a writer since childhood, mainly focusing on short stories and essays.

  Her inspiration for the Brannon family comes in part from her time as a live-in nanny for a branch of the Rockefeller family.

  Mae would like to thank her husband and her BFFs, who served as sounding boards throughout the writing process, and whose support and love does not waver.

  She loves hearing from readers and adores reviews, emails, and comments!

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  Contact Mae at MaeWoodWrites@gmail.com

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