by Rachel Hauck
“Yes, Mr. Hobbs.” She sat up straight when the president of Drapper Clothing answered. “My name’s Susanna Truitt. I’m a landscape architect on St. Simons Island, Georgia.”
“If you’re calling about the landscape project, the bidding closed two days ago.”
“Yes sir, I realize that, but I’d heard Remington had withdrawn, so I thought—”
“Do you know how many bids we received? One less will expedite our decision.”
Susanna jumped to her feet, pushing her chair into the rusty, old deep cooler circa 1960. “I’ll do it pro bono.”
“Pro bono?” He laughed. But not the kind that warmed a desperate girl’s heart. “Have you seen the plans? We’re building a multimillion-dollar factory and offices.”
“Yes sir.” Her friend from the Atlanta-based Remington & Co. had called last night with a tip on the job with the words “multimillion-dollar project.” No more. No less. “The design work I’ll do pro bono. I’ll bring a top-notch crew up to Atlanta and get the project done in half the time of most firms. You pay labor for the crew and materials.”
Silence. Then a long sigh. “Why would we hire you, Miss—”
“Truitt. Susanna Truitt.”
“—when we can afford the best?”
“I’m the best, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. You just don’t know it yet.” Oh, wow, hello bold and brash, pull up a chair and join the conversation. Desperation made a confident business partner.
“I’m not sure I know how to respond, Miss Truitt.” No laughter this time. No amusement.
“Mr. Hobbs, listen, I can do this. I don’t mind working for free to prove myself to you. I know you have plans for another factory.” Thank you, Forbes. “With plans for a few brick-and-mortar stores. I want to be your landscape architect.”
“Miss Truitt, I admire your spirit, but we have a formal process in place to choose our vendors. I think I’ll stick with the plan for now.”
“Mr. Hobbs, I totally understand.” Susanna walked to the edge of the garage and stuck her flip-flopped foot into the edge of the sun. “I’m a by-the-plan girl myself. But I’ve recently learned life is rather dull if we don’t leap, take a chance once in a while. Trust our gut.”
“How’d that work for you, Miss Truitt?”
“If you must know, stinky. I got my heart broken twice in five months, but if I had to do it again, I would. And that’s a monumental confession for me. Join me, Mr. Hobbs, let go, change the plan”—she lowered the receiver below her chin and steadied her voice—“discovering what else is out there, even if it’s just a new piece of you, is worth it.”
He didn’t answer, but sighed. Susanna leaned against the faded, barn-red wall of the garage, hooking her fingers into her jeans pockets. Come on, Mr. Hobbs. Take a chance.
She pictured the founder and CEO at his desk, angled back in his chair, decked out in a pullover and khakis, his fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose, asking himself why his assistant passed along a call from a crazy lady. “Like I said, Miss Truitt. I admire your spirit. But—”
The most humiliating word in the human language. But.
“Our processes and plans work fine for us. We’re a growing company. I can’t start leaping without looking now.”
“But isn’t that how you got to where you are now? Leaping? Taking chances?”
“Yes, but there’s a time and place. Hiring an overeager landscape architect right now is not one of them.” He added a few kind words about hanging in there, how a girl with her gumption was sure to go far. When he said good-bye, Susanna returned to her desk with the wind chasing her, flitting her papers and twisting her hair.
She pressed her fingers against her eyes and shoved the bubbles of tears back into their bottle.
“Can I buy you a Diet Coke?”
Susanna raised her eyes to see Gage walking through the wide garage door, a cold soda bottle swinging from his hand.
“Didn’t your mama teach you not to sneak up on people?” She took the offered Coke and twisted off the cap.
“Sneak? The garage door is wide open. Didn’t you hear my truck?” Gage pointed to his vehicle parked in a glob of light as he walked behind her desk to perch on the old cooler.
“I was busy. Working.” Susanna stooped to pick up the papers the wind rustled off her desk.
“I can see.” Gage motioned to her screen. “Solitaire is time consuming.”
“Did you come here to torment me? Isn’t there a kitten to harass somewhere?”
“How long have you been in these luxury quarters?”
“Two months.”
He whistled. “Any business?”
“Noneya.”
“Noneya?” His laugh drew her smile to the surface. “What are we, in third grade?” He swigged his co-cola with casual swagger. “None ya business?”
“Mrs. Caller. Okay … I took a job with Mrs. Caller.”
Gage guffawed, slapped his thigh with his free hand, then covered his laugh with his fist. “I didn’t realize you were that destitute.”
“Destitute? She’s a fine, good paying—” Oh who was she kidding? Susanna laughed, then moaned, cradling her head in her hands. “I’ve changed her spring garden plans ten times. Ten times. In two weeks. I’ve already lost money and we’ve not even started.”
“Ten times? Girl, I’m impressed. There was a time when even one change sent you up the wall. And now look at you … set up in this fancy office … your own internet cable …” He angled back to tap the blue cable hooked to her computer.
She smacked his hand. “Leave it alone. I just got it all working.” Then she rocked back in her chair with another moan. “I’m trying here, Gage.”
“What happened to the prince?”
“He became a king.”
Once Avery posted her entire coronation adventure on Facebook, all of the island knew the truth about Nate Kenneth. The paper ran a story quoting the indomitable Mrs. Butler, “Unlike the Truitt girls, I was trying to be discreet. Let my dear cousin visit the island in peace.”
Dear cousin, my eye … She wanted him all to herself.
She peered into Gage’s mahogany eyes. So very different from Nathaniel’s light blue irises that matched the hue of the winter mountaintops.
“And?” he said.
“There’s no and, Gage. He became king, went on with his life. I’m going on with mine.”
He bent to see her face, his gaze narrowed at her. “With Mrs. Caller?”
“Yes, with Mrs. Caller.” Susanna’s stomach rumbled, and she had a sudden urge for chocolate. “She’s going to give me an extra hundred dollars for all my troubles.”
Gage laughed way too easily, way too loud. “Susanna, end this misery and come back to work for me.”
“You have that fancy landscape architect, remember. Miss La-di-da.”
“I fired her.”
“You’re kidding.” It was her turn to down her co-cola with a casual swagger. “We’re a mess, you and me.”
“Yep, you and me.” A pink hue tinted his high, lean cheeks. “I was thinking we could be a mess together. At work.” He walked to the cooler, pretending to be interested in the rusty old thing. “Outside of work.” He rapped on the cooler lid. “This thing work?”
“It’s full of Diet Coke and barbecue sauce.” Outside of work? She regarded him from under her tipped brow. “I–I d–don’t know. I–I mean, Daddy went to all the trouble to string the internet cable across the lawn. I got a fan.” She pointed overhead. “And the fridge.”
He stared at the daylight framed by the garage door. “You’ll start at your old salary plus ten percent. I’ll give you a bonus on all jobs you do. You can have fifty percent of any clients you bring in as long as you make a profit.” He finally looked back at her.
“If I could bring in clients, I wouldn’t need to work for you, Gage.”
“I have the reputation. Well, building one. You just need to get some jobs going, Suz. Build some momentum. You’
ll be in high demand.” He picked at the wrapping on his soda bottle. “As for the other thing, we can take it slow, you know, see how it goes. Adam’s moved on, the prince is a king, and suddenly I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have the prettiest girl I’ve ever known sitting in front of me. Available.” He held her gaze for only a moment. “She makes me think of a field after a spring rain.”
“Gage.” That was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her. And by far the most poetic. She didn’t know he had it in him. And she sympathized with him in that moment, putting himself out there, laying his heart on the line. She admired him for it. But she was powerless to do anything about it. “I can’t work for you and date you.”
“Then you’re fired.”
“I’m not even hired yet.” She walked over, gave his arm a friendly tug. “I think I’d best just stay here in my old garage.” Hear what I’m saying, friend.
“I’ll treat you right.”
“I remember in eleventh grade you brought flowers to Willa Lund every day until she said yes to your homecoming invitation. You were persistent.” Susanna patted his shoulder. “Every girl wanted to be your girlfriend.”
“But I wanted you. Before Adam even knew you existed.”
She peered up at him. “You never said a word.”
He shrugged. “Too chicken to talk to you, let alone ask you out. What would I do if you said no?” Gage snatched her hand. “Come work for me. We’ll be Stone & Truitt, powerhouse Southern firm. All business, above board, strictly professional. If, over time, something more happens, then”—he skipped his booted foot over the cracked concrete floor—“we’ll see where that leads. You’re a great landscape architect. But no one is going to find that out as long as you’re working in an old garage.”
This wasn’t the plan. Broken heart. Detached garage office. Faltered career. Ex-boyfriend. Prince. King. Gage Stone. “Let me think about it, okay? I’ll call you.”
He gave her a somber nod, then smiled. “Don’t let Mrs. Caller make too many changes. She’s just lonely, Susanna. Rich, but lonely.”
“I know.” She liked Mrs. Caller. Susanna had a lot in common with the old Georgia belle.
She walked Gage to the edge of the garage, then waved as he fired up his truck and backed down the drive. “Don’t drive over my cable.”
Back at her desk, Susanna finished her Diet Coke and fielded his invitation, rather invitations plural, tossing them around in her heart.
Could she date Gage? It had been two months since the coronation, and she’d not heard boo from Nate. But she thought of him every day.
She was waiting for a ripple of news that he’d proposed to Lady Genevieve or some Brighton lady. Or news that a resolution to the entail had been discovered.
Reaching to her track pad, she surfed the web for the Brighton papers. Last time she looked, Lady Genevieve was wooing Hessenberg schoolchildren. Predictions of a royal wedding flourished.
Gage’s offer of love reminded her how much she missed Nathaniel. How she loved him. Heaven help her, she loved a man who lived four thousand miles away.
She played their few private moments together over and over in her mind like humming a favorite song. But the images had begun to wear thin, lose their impact on her heart. Her memory of his fine, pristine voice was starting to fade and on occasion sound a lot like Daddy’s Southern twang.
When the Liberty Press unfolded on her screen, Susanna braced herself as she forayed into Brighton’s world.
She half closed her eyes and clenched her stomach, expecting to see a big ol’ honking headline:
ENGAGED!
Then, then, she could truly let go and convince her heart it was time to move on. He wasn’t coming for her. They were the wrong people at the wrong time. Or maybe the right people at the wrong time. But wrong definitely factored into the whole equation.
But there was no ENGAGED! headline. She exhaled, then heated with frustration. Come on, Nate, get it over with. Propose already.
But why was she thinking of Nate? A man, a nice man, a handsome man, a successful man wanted her. She didn’t love Gage, but she could learn to love him, right? After all, love was a choice, wasn’t it?
Susanna shoved away from her desk and pressed the heel of her hands to her forehead. Eight months after she’d prayed with Nathaniel on Christ Church grounds, she still had nothing.
“Lord, is this what you have for me? Gage? Do I move? Stay on the island? Can you please get Nathaniel out of my heart?”
She mimed pulling him out of her chest. Mimed tossing away the largeness sensation she carried with her every day.
She thought of the green lawn of Christ Church. God had something for her. She just knew it. So how was she to stumble upon it? How did she live day-to-day trusting him to be in charge of the outcome?
Grabbing her purse, she started for her car. She stopped and gasped when she saw the gold Louboutins she’d tossed to the back of her closet when she returned from Brighton sitting on the edge of the garage floor, glittering in the sunlight.
“Aurora!” Susanna picked up the shoes and ran onto the lawn. “Where are you? Aurora. Come back here. You’ve got to stop this. How did you get into my closet?” Mama! She probably let her in.
The homeless woman streaked across the lawn from the back porch toward the woods behind the house, waving her hands in the air. “The prince is coming.”
“Aurora, please, stop bringing me …”—Susanna offered the Louboutins to the breeze—“shoes. No more talk of princes.”
“The prince is coming.” She paused on the edge of the woods, her bleached hair glinting like spun silk.
“Come back here. I know you’re not crazy. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“He’s coming. Chase no other loves. Chase no other loves.”
“Oh my gosh, you make no sense. Aurora, he’s not coming. He’s not. It’s been too long. He doesn’t love me.” The words rang out, hard, cold, frozen in the warm island air and for a fast instant, her heart’s eye could see the words. Feel the reality.
Maybe now she could move on with her life.
May
He was nervous. More than any time he could remember in the past. More than on his January coronation day when a surreal calm steadied him the entire time.
But this? If he crashed and burned, he’d not get another chance.
Most days, his confidence rode high. After all, he walked in his destiny, one he’d accepted as ordained by God. Not men.
But today, he presented the Senate House and Commons House his own Order of Council. The first brought by a sitting royal in a hundred and two years.
Waiting for Henry in the briefing quarters, he tapped his jacket pocket. The small box bounced against his hip. Queen Anne-Marie’s ring.
Dashing out this morning, he remembered he’d tucked it away on his fireplace mantel and snatched it up, slipping it into his pocket. Lord Thomas Winthrop, who had designed the ring, was known for his devotion to Queen Anne-Marie. Nathaniel wanted to carry that heritage with him into the chamber. Then, perchance, on his way to the car, he remembered the queen’s formal name.
HRH Queen Anne-Marie Victoria Karoline Susanna.
He was smiling when Henry entered. “Well, you look confident.”
“Actually, I’m a bit nervous. I was smiling at something I remembered … a bit of serendipity. Otherwise, I’m turning with nerves.” He flicked his gaze toward the sounds beyond the ornate paneled room. With no windows, he’d lost track of the minutes passing.
“You’ll do fine. They’re coming in now for the joint session.” Henry paused at the bourbon cabinet. “Care for a nip?” He raised a glass.
“When have you ever seen me take a nip?”
Henry chuckled. “Well said, Your Majesty.” He glanced at his hands. “No notes?”
“I memorized it. I didn’t want to come off stuffy.” He shook off his nervous tension through his fingertips. “I want to be sincere.”
Nathaniel
’s presentation today would not only impact him but the generations to come. Generations over which he would have no control. Just as his forefathers had no control over him but trusted their king, yes, theirs, to make correct decisions during his hour in Brighton history.
“You are always sincere, Nathaniel. You’ll do fine. You’ve made dozens of speeches in your short career.”
“None so important as this one.” Now he wished he had printed out his speech for today’s session. This one meant so much. What if he fumbled his points? He turned to Henry. “Do you have the official Order of Council prepared?”
“I do.” Henry finished his shot of bourbon and set his glass on a service tray. “Nathaniel, the members understand the Crown does not take this privilege lightly.”
“I’d feel better if this were not solely for my own gain. If I were bringing some kind of passion before them on behalf of the people. Instead I want something that only regards me and mine.”
“Then give it your all.” Henry patted him on the shoulder. “Your ancestors and the Parliament didn’t seem bothered by restricting you and yours two hundred years ago when they imposed the Marriage Act.”