Oh God.
“What should I do about the colonel?” George couldn’t stop talking. “Pull him aside and tell him outright that a diminutive Yankee television personality has the hots for him?”
“Aunt Fran would hate our interfering. And so would he. No, we have to make it so he’s intrigued somehow.”
“Tonight she told him everything she knew about nineteenth-century artillery.”
“What does she know about that?”
“Next to nothing. She thought she was trying to upstage him, but you and I both know she actually wanted to impress him. Listening to her recite from The Encyclopedia of Cannons was as boring as watching Kardashian women discuss shopping. Or salads. They’re always eating salads.”
“George, get back on track. Did the colonel like what Aunt Fran had to say?”
“He couldn’t hear a damned word. He left his hearing aid at home.”
Deacon couldn’t help laughing. He was walking past a garden that even at night in the winter was stunning. Maybe it was the statues illuminated from below, or the perfectly manicured topiaries, or the shadowed brick wall. It exuded mystery and elegance, and he had a sudden yearning for Macy, the most elegant woman of his acquaintance—when she wanted to be. She was a mystery all the time, he decided, feeling slightly bitter about it.
But who was he kidding? Deep inside, he loved that about her. Life was never dull around Macy. He missed her terribly.
“Old people are adorable, aren’t they?” George chuckled. “The worst part is we can’t strategize with your aunt about this crush as long as she won’t admit she has one.”
“Maybe she’ll talk to Celia.”
“No. Fran is persona non grata with Celia at the moment.”
“Why?”
“Today they were at some Christmas luncheon on the Isle of Palms held by an elite book club, members only, but the president made an exception for Fran since Celia begged. So they were discussing the latest thriller by some well-known guy, and Fran said over her shrimp salad that she thought this author was a jackass. She’d had him on her TV show once, and he was rude to her crew, and she couldn’t wait to get him off the set.”
“Okay, so?”
“So his wife is a member of the book club. She was sitting right across from Fran.”
“No way. He lives in Charleston?”
“Yes. A lot of writers do, actually. And CEOs of big corporations in New York. They fly down on the weekends.”
“Poor Aunt Fran. Such bad luck.”
“Deacon, she knew he lives in Charleston!”
He groaned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“She couldn’t have known his wife was there, though. Let’s give her that.”
“Sure,” George said. “But you don’t diss locals when you’re a guest or a newcomer—or both, as she was.”
“Okay, but we both know what she was thinking. She was trying to find a way to connect. That story was her ‘in.’”
“I get it. But they saw it as her showing off. And being rude. And she’d have gotten the same reaction in New York. It’s not just a Southern thing. People object to loudmouths. And harsh as that term is, that’s what Fran is.”
“She’s made millions off that mouth.” Deacon wished he knew what to do. “But she’s not perfect. And if she says the guy was an asshole, I believe her. She’s reliable that way.”
She’d called Deacon one the other night, as a matter of fact, for messing things up with Macy.
“Well, the wife was none too happy,” George said, “and Celia was caught in the middle. She told Fran she was taking a few days off from socializing with her and that Fran had better think long and hard about how many party invitations she wants to receive here.”
“Great.”
George sighed. “Don’t worry too much. She’ll rally.”
“She always does.” Deacon turned the corner and saw George standing on the condo balcony, lit up with soft white Christmas lights. A dog snout poked through the railing. That was no doubt stinky Bubbles, and she’d better stay there for a while.
George waved. “I guess we can get off the phone now. I’ll have a bourbon waiting. Cigars too.”
“Maybe skip the cigars.”
“You’re going to invite Macy over, right?”
“No. Get over it.”
“She can sit downwind.”
“She hates me.” And Deacon clicked off before George could agree.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Can you come over? It’s a love emergency. And not about Deacon.
The text from George showed up exactly when Macy was about to step out of her clothes into her pajamas. It got her in the deeply personal, naked soul space where she admitted to herself—and no one else—that she was so crazy about Deacon, the rest of her life was going to suck without him in it. She needed to make her bedroom a no-cell-phone zone, she decided, a place of total peace where she could go and not think about her dark, miserable future.
“Oh, who am I kidding?” she told Oscar. “I’ll be thinking about him anyway.”
Oscar turned around and showed her his bottom, his tail high in the air.
I’m pretty tired, she texted George. Sorry.
I know you think D’s into Penelope. But he’s not. He’s only seeing her to please you, George texted.
Oscar was sitting at her window, looking out at the moon and harbor.
But Penelope is awesome, she texted back to George. Maybe it’s meant to be.
Oscar’s tail whipped slowly back and forth, but he wouldn’t look at her. He could tell she was a liar. She wanted Deacon—
For herself!
But only when she was a silly fool, half-dressed and standing in a moonbeam. At all other times, she was logical. And professional.
That’s bullshit talk, George texted back.
It was. She had to stop lying to herself.
We need your help with Fran and Colonel Block, George added in a new text. Especially now that Fran offended a bunch of Celia’s friends. Everyone loves the colonel. Go figure. The man is impossible!
Macy couldn’t help laughing. Is this really a love emergency?
YES!!!! George wrote back.
Hmmm, all caps. Lots of exclamation points.
Ok, I’ll help, she texted him.
Just put up with Deacon, ok? He insists on being involved, George texted.
Ok, she wrote. Oscar leapt down from his porch and left the room, disgusted by her wishy-washiness, she was sure.
We’re on the piazza now, George texted. Open your window.
Wow, she could hear them laughing. They must have just come out. She wished she felt like laughing. Deacon had a lot of nerve to be so carefree.
She raised her window. A cloud of steam formed in front of her mouth. “Hello,” she said in a serious tone.
The guys’ laughter stopped.
“Hi.” Deacon was bundled up in his Patagonia jacket.
“Lean out a little further.” George beckoned her with his cigar-holding hand, an arc of red flashing through the night. He wore a Burberry scarf over a cape. All he needed was a Sherlock Holmes hat. He got close to the rail himself and told her the situation between Fran and Colonel Block in detail.
She was acutely aware that Deacon stood there saying nothing, but she pretended not to notice him.
“So what should we do?” George asked her.
“Boot camp for lovers,” she said. “But you have to go for it one hundred percent. You can’t be soft on either one of them.”
“What the hell?” George put out his cigar on a plate.
Deacon dug his hands deeper into his jacket pockets.
“We employ it only on rare occasions at Two Love Lane,” Macy said, “but I’m thinking the colonel and Fran are the perfect candidates for it. It’s an uncomfortable way to wake two people up who might be made for each other but don’t want to acknowledge their feelings or aren’t sure how to make a move.”
“I’m in.” Deacon was being just as somber and boring as she was. Both of them were probably annoying George no end.
“I am so in,” said George, chuckling.
Twenty minutes later, they were at the colonel’s around the corner. Somehow on the way over, Macy and Deacon had declared a truce. They weren’t exactly talking to each other, but since she was giving directions to both him and George, there was a semblance of normalcy between them.
“We need to leave it on his piazza,” Macy whispered to her crew of two. “But someone will have to get inside the grounds.” The spiked wrought iron fence was ten feet tall and flanked by two brick pillars.
Deacon peeked into the bag she’d brought. “This is terrible. If someone ever gave it to me, I’d seriously run in the opposite direction.”
“Which is precisely the point.” She couldn’t help a devious chuckle.
“He’ll never forget who sent it to him.” George chortled like a naughty schoolboy.
“Bingo,” she said. “But on the off chance that he likes it—because a rare few people do—we still have step two.” She handed George the thing that would set the whole boot camp experience in motion.
“Wish me luck.” George lifted the bag up and down. “It weighs a ton. If I drop it on my toe, it’ll break my whole foot.”
“Seriously,” she said happily, “it would. Deacon, please give him a lift.”
“You’re both crazy.” Deacon paused. “And I like it.”
She refused to say thank you. “You’ll do great,” she assured George instead, and kissed his cheek. “Is the note still attached?”
“Yep.” George put his foot in Deacon’s hand and was boosted to the top of the brick pillar with his booty slung over his shoulder in a bag. He slid down on the other side until his feet made contact with the porch railing.
“Careful,” Deacon warned him from the gate, then sidled closer to Macy and said, “Why didn’t we wait until morning and just knock on his door?”
She ignored the thrill that went through her at his proximity. “Because I like George. I wanted him to have some adventure in Charleston so he could go back home to Manhattan and tell the story.”
Deacon shook his head. “You’re a strangely thoughtful person. What about a story for me?”
She shot him a droll look.
“Right. I’ve had my story. And I probably shouldn’t talk about it.”
That story was much too hot—and painful—to handle. She conveniently moved on. “We do have another reason we’re dropping this off tonight. The note I left attached to it tells the colonel to go to your house for breakfast.”
“It could have said lunch.”
“No, it has to be breakfast,” she said. “An early breakfast. And I know the colonel gets up early. I’ve run by his house at five and seen his lights on. He gets the paper, so he must come outside to pick it up. So he should get the note in time.”
“Why breakfast, though?”
“In boot camp, you get up early. You’re raw at that time of day. No time to put on your usual layers of identity. You’re just you.”
“I’d like to see you at that time of day. How about I pop over and wake you up one morning?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“A little.”
“We’re not on joking terms anymore, remember? But let me just say, in your dreams you’ll pop over.”
“My Christmas dreams.” He was wicked.
“You’re going out with Penelope.”
“We’re friends,” he said.
“That’s good. She’s very nice.”
“Yes, she is.”
Macy felt a pang of anxiety at that.
“But back to Operation Boot Camp,” he said. “Tell me more. Because I’m assuming I’m going to have to get up early too, to make sure it happens.”
“You will,” Macy said. “And you’ll see first-hand how much Fran likes the colonel, based on how much she’s willing to throw off the covers and get out of bed when she hears that doorbell and finds out he’s downstairs.”
“She can always take a nap later.”
But Macy wasn’t fooled. If she wasn’t done with him, she would think it cute how worried Deacon was about his perfectly independent and resourceful relative. “She’ll be fine,” she assured him.
“She’ll hate not having a chance to put on makeup.” He wouldn’t give up.
That was sweet. But she wouldn’t get sucked in by his apparently soft heart. “Do recruits put on mascara and blush at boot camp before they work out at sunrise?”
He lofted a brow and looked vaguely like Chris Pine playing Captain Kirk. She nearly swooned but managed to hold it together. “I always appreciate a good rhetorical question,” he said. “But new military recruits also aren’t in their late fifties and former TV personalities.”
“Not having time to fuss will work to Fran’s advantage,” Macy assured him. “She’ll look more approachable when she’s not all dolled up.”
“If the colonel sees her in her bathrobe, she’ll have a fit.”
“Make sure he does.”
“You’re tough.”
She laughed softly. “Not tough. Just goal-oriented. We want these two to snap out of their stubborn fog, right?”
He gripped the wrought iron fence with his left hand and peered through at George. “I bought her that bathrobe fifteen years ago, and she refuses to let me get her a new one.”
They watched George tiptoe back toward them as if he were trying to complete a spy mission without being shot. He navigated the porch rail, pulled himself up on the pillar, like a giant brown moth in that cape of his, and slid back down on their side of the fence.
“Mission accomplished,” he told them triumphantly, his cheeks bright red from the cold, and maybe the exertion too.
“Great job!” Macy fist-bumped him because a high-five might have been too loud.
“I have to say you’re evil.” George wore a Cheshire cat grin. “You even got a label on that thing that says ‘Fruitcakes by Fran.’”
Macy lifted and dropped her shoulder like a boss. “She’ll get over it. Eventually.”
“Who ever knew fruitcake could become a weapon of sorts?” Deacon took her elbow and they crossed a street. Every time he touched her, a zing! went through her body, charging her sexual batteries to the max.
If she were a true professional, she’d locate the off switch. But she had no idea where it was. Every fiber of her being responded to his touch.
“That letter was pretty outrageous.” George couldn’t keep the delight out of his voice.
She pounced on the chance to stop thinking about Deacon. “Dear Colonel,” she quoted from the note, which was still in her head, “I have something on my mind I’d like to discuss with you. Nothing worrisome. But it would mean the world to me to see you at breakfast tomorrow at oh-six-thirty sharp. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the fruitcake I made especially for you. Warm regards, Fran Banks.”
“What does Fran want to tell him?” George asked her.
Macy had to be honest. “I don’t know, but the colonel will be very flattered. I can just see him racing over there to find out. She’ll come up with something on her mind. Hopefully, something good.”
Deacon shot her a skeptical look. “She’s more likely to say, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Aunt Fran doesn’t beat around the bush. If she’s thrown off-kilter, she corrects things fast.”
“She’ll be mad as a hornet and call foul if”—Macy raised an index finger—“if she doesn’t have that crush on him. She won’t give two hoots about how awkward the situation would make the colonel feel. Because she got used, pranked, or whatever you want to call it.”
“But if she’s crazy about him,” George said excitedly, “once she realizes she’s been set up somehow, she’ll play along. She won’t want to hurt his feelings. Or embarrass herself.”
“Or lose her chance to
win points with him,” Macy clarified. “We’ll see how motivated she is to turn the fruitcake and early breakfast situation to her advantage.”
“But if it goes poorly,” Deacon said, “be prepared. The proverbial you-know-what will hit the fan.”
“But if it goes well,” Macy reminded him, “she’ll be so fluttery and happy, it won’t even occur to her to call you two out.”
“You mean call out the three of us,” Deacon said. “All for one, and one for all, right?”
She wanted to, but she wouldn’t smile at him. “Okay, so I’m the so-called mastermind. Later on, I’ll take credit for that, if they start dating. Meanwhile, we’re taking a little risk.”
“I like how you say ‘little,’” George said. “This is Fran Banks, who makes celebrities and world leaders cry and never takes the blame.”
“Thank you.” Deacon reached out and squeezed the fingers of her right hand—only for a second—and she reveled in the sensation, in the hot-pink, flowers-and-balloons, impulsive part of her brain, where her logical self didn’t come out and play.
And then she quietly put a few inches between them.
“So when do I have breakfast on the table?” George was practically skipping with glee.
“Six thirty sharp,” Macy told him, “and please make sure the table looks amazing.”
“No problem. I’ll put out the best silver and china. I’ve got gorgeous hothouse yellow roses ready to be put in a vase tomorrow morning.”
“Serve something plain and tasteless, preferably,” she advised Fran’s right-hand man.
George laughed. “You’re killing me.”
“This is boot camp.” Macy put on her best stern military persona. “Shock and awe is involved. I suspect the curmudgeonly colonel will rise to the occasion. For him, adversity builds character. Let’s see how Fran does.”
“Yes, Sergeant.” George saluted her. “I’ll make watery cream of wheat. With lumps in it.”
“Excellent.” She tried hard not to notice how perfect Deacon’s profile was. “And the coffee should be ghastly. Cold, or too strong, or something to make them wince.”
“You’ve got to make a secret pot for the kitchen staff,” Deacon warned George.
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