The Run Around

by Bernadette Franklin

  Nineteen

  One day, I would admit I spoiled my pets rotten.

  On Friday night, I drove to Juliette’s house and braced for the battle of a lifetime over the issue of my dress. I pulled into her driveway, parked my car, and gathered the courage to face off against the wickedly nice and energetic designer. Over the months, I’d taught the animals the routine, and they both waited for me to open their door, leash them, and unclip their seatbelt harnesses before they tumbled out of the vehicle to go on their next adventure.

  According to Edgar Allan Paw’s tail, he expected the best of adventures and a lot of treats.

  One day, I would admit I spoiled my pets rotten.

  Before I made it halfway up the sidewalk, Juliette bounced out her door, hopped down the steps, and kissed my cheeks. “Fredrick warned me you’d threatened to call me about your dress.”

  That man lived to vex me. “As you can see, I am not calling you about the dress.”

  She laughed. “I wisely didn’t mention he hadn’t barred you from texting or showing up in person, although I’ll make sure he’s educated on the errors of his ways, as you’re not someone to give up so easily.”

  That I wasn’t. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “I’m not bothered. You’re a good person, and good people worry about things like this. Come on in and set the beasts loose. I put a litter pan down for Lenore in the entry, so she’ll be able to figure out where it is without help. I’ve learned that it’s just wise to prepare the necessary things for any sort of pets clients might bring over.”

  I followed her into her home, and once she closed the front door, I released my pets and let them wander as they wanted. As expected, Lenore followed Edgar Allan Paw, who found the living room rug to be a tolerable place for a nap. Mr. Carter glanced up from the book he read and waved. “Good evening, Hope. If you’re going to help her empty her closet, go after the boots. She’s hoarding them again.”

  “It’s not my fault my employees do not acknowledge my genius for boots.”

  “You only need so many styles of classic black boot, Juliette. You do not need a thousand variations of a singular boot style. If you’re going to insist on playing with black boots, add more designs to the stitch work.”

  “But then they wouldn’t be classic.”

  “Six months, Juliette. No more black boots unless they’re a whole new design that can be distinguished from the many other variants of classic black boots you’ve convinced your employees to sell over the years.”

  “Cruel!”

  “Juliette.”

  “You’re still cruel. You’re siding with those meanies.”

  Mr. Carter shook his head and stared at me. “Hope, there’s nothing wrong with your dress. It’s beautiful, and it’s not your fault there are biased people who forget they can’t think you’re prettier because they like you more than they like the bride.” Mr. Carter frowned. “Have I covered the fine points yet? It would be a shame if I had to interrupt my reading to continue setting people straight tonight.”

  “You’re still in lawyer mode,” Juliette complained.

  “Well, I am a lawyer, and I only got home about ten minutes ago to find out my wife was planning on holding a wedding planner hostage for the entire weekend.”

  My eyes widened. “Wait. What? The entire weekend?”

  “Oh, right. I set the guest bedroom up for you, and I’ve picked some beautiful clothes to dress you in this weekend. Kidnapped victims get to keep the clothes I give them to wear. I even got everything you need for your pets. It took me a little work to get to your landlord and figure out what they eat and if they needed any medications, but I triumphed.”

  I lifted my hand and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Maybe you should be planning this wedding rather than me.”

  “Nobody on this sweet Earth could afford my rate to plan that disaster. Frankly, you need to charge them quadruple for doing it.”

  “Quadruple of zero is still zero, Juliette. I’m doing it as a favor to Rick.”

  Both of the Carters stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. To be fair, I likely had.

  “What did you do to owe him a favor like that?” Juliette rested her hands on her hips and glowered at me. “You can’t let them get away with that. It’s worse than murder, especially considering how much of a nightmare they’re putting you through.”

  “I wouldn’t quite say they’re putting me through a nightmare,” I protested.

  “I would. Fredrick is very up front about how the planning is going.”

  “I volunteered to do it.”

  “And you should be paid for your hard work. How many hours, precisely, have you spent on that wedding?”

  “I’ve been doing it in the evenings and on days off.”

  “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paid for it.”

  “But I volunteered.”

  “Still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paid for it.”

  Mr. Carter sighed and set his book aside. “Obviously, I need to remain in lawyer mode. I will make a few phone calls, and I will return with a proper payment offer for your work. They can afford to pay you properly for your work, Hope. And while I realize Fredrick is a friend, that doesn’t mean he should take advantage of that work.”

  “It’s not taking advantage if I volunteered!”

  “It’s taking advantage,” the pair chorused.

  “But Fredrick—”

  Juliette raised her hand, and I snapped my teeth together. “Fredrick would have assumed his cousin would be paying the bill for your work, as she has been the one handling the payments although her groom is likewise contributing to the effort. Edward wouldn’t have figured out the planner needs to be paid, and Elizabeth would have assumed Fredrick would be handling your pay. It’s a simple miscommunication that my lawyer of a husband can resolve within a few minutes. Get her a fair rate, darling. Fair does not mean rob them blind however much you think Hope deserves to be paid millions for putting up with that disaster of a wedding.”

  “I’ll get it sorted. Since you’re insisting on kidnapping her, you have to feed her dinner, make sure she has everything she needs, and quietly do whatever it is you wanted to do with her for the weekend.”

  “Dress her up, obviously. It’s not my fault my client cancelled this weekend because of an emergency. I need something to do, or I will become bored, and because I had an appointment this weekend, you decided to cram in some overtime.”

  “I’m cramming in overtime because I want to enjoy the cruise without work getting in the way. That is how this works. I have several large projects I need to be finished before we leave.”

  Juliette pouted. “That’s not fair.”

  “It is fair. That’s how this works, and pouting isn’t going to change that. I already caved and agreed you could kidnap Hope for the weekend. You still have to obey the rules. If she wants to go home, you need to let her go home. If someone else wants to take her home, you can wage war with them, but no property damage. Behave yourself. And yes, you will be expected to take all of your medications on time because it keeps your brain from staying broken. I will recruit Hope to help with your medications if you decide against using your alarms again.”

  “Dictator!”

  “When it comes to your health, yes. I am, indeed, a cruel dictator who will not accept no for an answer. Hope, she’s already had her medication for this evening, but I’ll leave a list of times and what she needs so you can keep an eye on her. She becomes quite the handful when she’s off her medications, and she’s been notoriously bad about it the past few weeks.”

  “I’ll keep her in line,” I promised.

  “I wish you the best of luck with that.”

  “Well, if she wants me to stay and pose for her, and continue the argument about the dress, she needs to take her medications. Otherwise, I’ll have to attend to something at home, and that would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?”

  Juliette slumped her shoulders. “
She’s as cruel as you are.”

  “Go have your argument over the dress while I take care of the bill for the wedding planning. Hope, I’ll negotiate an appropriate rate for you for the level of work you’re doing. It’s not the first time I’ve had to help a planner out on a high-end wedding, so I have a pretty good idea of what you should be paid for this.”

  As I couldn’t see a way to reject his help without turning myself into an asshole, I surrendered with a quiet sigh. “Thank you, Mr. Carter.”

  “Have fun, and take however many pairs of boots you can get your hands on. After this weekend, you deserve them, and she really does not need that many pairs of black boots eating away space in her closet. You can keep three pairs for emergencies in her size, babe.”

  “Three?” Juliette wailed. “Why only three?”

  “Because you do not need to keep twenty pairs of black boots in every size in the closet.”

  That sounded like a ridiculous number of boots, and I wondered how any one closet could fit them all. “But how do they all fit?”

  “They fit?” Mr. Carter asked before rolling his eyes and striding out of the room and disappearing down the hallway.

  “They really don’t fit,” Juliette confessed. “It’s my fault because I submitted a lot of different designs all at once, and we do one pair in all sizes for each design to make sure we see how they wear. I’ve also been working on designs for women with wide calves, and I have a few for women with narrow calves, too. It’s a lot of boots. And they’re all black, because I was trying to design the perfect boot. But they accepted five of the designs for upcoming releases.”

  “Out of how many?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “And they’re all black boots?”

  “They’re all black.”

  “You could just change the color of the leather and use the designs for different colors. They don’t need to all be black.”

  “They took two to make into red and some other colors, but they’re all of a more classic design, and they yelled at me. They want me to use more bling. But I don’t want to use more bling. I want to make the perfect classic boot.”

  After months of planning a wedding, I began the tedious work of solving the first problem, which involved the woman’s fixation on the perfect black boot. “For every five designs of different shoes with bling or whatever other criteria your employees need, you may make one new black boot design. That way, you are still working on your other work and can still try to make the perfect black boot. Everyone is happy that way.”

  Juliette considered me, her eyes narrowing. “Three.”

  “Five.”

  “You’re not going to budge, are you?”

  “I am absolutely not going to budge. I’ve gotten so used to telling rich people no that I can do this all weekend without even having to think about it.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Fine. Five.”

  “If you complain about it, I’ll up the number to ten.”

  “I’ll behave.”

  With that problem out of the way, I wrinkled my nose. “Now, to deal with the problem of my dress.”

  “Your dress isn’t a problem, the bride has seen the dress, and she agrees it is perfect for you and wants you to wear it. The bride likes her dress, and she has confirmed the design. The groom likes his suit design. Nobody else gets a say at the wedding, so everything is going to plan and on schedule. You don’t get to whine because you’re getting a pretty dress.”

  “I’m sure the dress is pretty, but it can’t be prettier than the bride’s.”

  “It’s not prettier than the bride’s. They’re equally pretty dresses designed specifically for the woman wearing them. If you put a supermodel in a dress and have her strut her stuff, the dress will appear to be prettier on the supermodel than it does on the average woman who may also wear the same dress. You’re the one who is making the dress stunning. The bride is the one who is making her dress beautiful, too. Now, you should just accept that you’re going to be beautiful in your dress, as I enjoy making beautiful things for beautiful people. I could put you in just about anything and have you look pretty.”

  “A potato sack.”

  “Marilyn Monroe did that. She was gorgeous in the potato sack. You would likewise be gorgeous. That said, I’m not making a dress like that, as I don’t have any canvas potato sacks in stock, nor do I particularly feel like making one or finding one. You’ll just have to deal with the dress I’ve designed and made. As I’ve heard about the disasters you’ve been dealing with as part of the wedding planning, I am also going to make you a cocktail dress for the reception. Every woman needs a black cocktail dress, and I’ve decided that I’m making yours. That’s why you’re being kidnapped this weekend, as the perfect cocktail dress takes time to design. I have brought home a selection of cocktail dress styles I’ll need you to try on so I get a better eye for what dresses work best for your figure. You’re a challenge, and I need a challenge.”

  “I’m a challenge? How so?”

  “You can wear numerous styles, and I’m not sure which one will look the best until I put you in them. I’ll design the cocktail dress based on which prototype fits your figure best.”

  “Okay. Is that the only reason you’re kidnapping me?”

  “I’m putting some serious thought into making Fredrick rescue you and grovel for daring to forget you deserve a paycheck.”

  Mr. Carter marched into the living room and pointed at his wife. “You will do no such thing!”

  “Why are you eavesdropping when you’re on the phone? Don’t eavesdrop. It’s rude.”

  “While I’m an evil lawyer, you’re the devil of the design world, and I’m onto your trickery, woman.”

  “I was only going to make him come get her and apologize in person.”

  “Juliette.”

  Juliette wrinkled her nose at her husband. “You’re on the phone, deal with the person on the phone, not with me.”

  “Fredrick is on the phone, and he is laughing. As you’re shrieking worse than a banshee, he can easily hear you. He wants to know why you’re kidnapping Hope.”

  After stomping her foot, Juliette stole the phone from her husband. “Keep her amused. Don’t let her escape while I deal with this man.” She headed off down the hallway and began muttering something I couldn’t hear.

  The Carters redefined weird, and I found I enjoyed their special brand of crazy. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Carter.”

  “You’re not an inconvenience. The instant her work called that her weekend client had canceled because of a family emergency, I realized I would have my hands full with her. Your text gave me an easy solution to my problem, as I do need to get work done this weekend. Basically, I’m hiring you to babysit her, and I’m paying you in boots and whatever other clothes she forces on you.”

  Considering how much her clothes cost, I made off like a bandit for doing some babysitting of an adult woman. “That seems fair.”

  “That it does. I told Fredrick that someone had overlooked paying the wedding planner, and he started snarling curses and promised he’d take care of it, so that’s dealt with. As I thought, he’d assumed Elizabeth would have been on top of it, as all he did was hook her up with you after you’d done a good job on your brother’s wedding with an intractable bride.”

  “She’s still intractable, and there are still issues,” I muttered.

  “What sort of issues?”

  Crap. I bowed my head and sighed. “Please don’t let this spread around, but I’m fairly certain she played my brother to help pay off her mother’s debts. Fredrick had looked into it, but I’d thought something was fishy considering how everything except the venue had gone wrong. There was only a wedding because I made so many contingency plans. Now there are problems between Amy’s parents, and it’s a mess. But it’s not all bad. I think Amy and my brother are working on having a legitimate marriage, even if I do think she started out trying to use him.”

  �
��People can do awful things in the name of love, and sometimes, that love is a daughter for her mother. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” I admitted. “Unless she comes knocking at my door and brings trouble with her, I don’t think it’s worth creating even more problems because of it. My brother knows she lost all the deposits, and he knows I made other arrangements. After Elizabeth’s wedding, I’ll be working triple time paying back all the favors I called in, but that’s on me. I made the offers to secure the backups. I have backups lined up for this wedding, too, but it’s less of an issue since we’re renting a cruise liner, I’m the only one with direct access to the vendors, and the bride put an end to most of the nagging.”

  “Does that make you happy?”

  I took my time considering that. “Generally, yes. I don’t want to create more trouble, my brother will have to handle any problems with his wife on his own, and I gave him the invoices of the lost contracts, so he knows they were lost and that I made arrangements for backups. Amy’s parents are having their problems, and the only thing I’m guilty of is preventing Amy’s mother from having access to her thoroughbride again for yet another wedding. And honestly? If she hadn’t married Mat, I figured she would’ve lost it all anyway. Even men who like challenges would be aware that someone with so many counts of running from the altar will be a problem. And the only reason she hadn’t run from the altar from my brother was because I threatened her with mass humiliation.”

  “I have a hard time imagining you humiliating anyone.”

  “I had invested in an eighty-pound ball and chain, I had it painted white, and the bridesmaids were willing to help me haul her to the altar with it. She wouldn’t have been going anywhere with that thing manacled around her ankle.”

  “Okay. That surprises me. I thought marriage to my wife for so many years had made me immune to such things, but I had not thought you were the type to invest in a literal ball and chain.”

  “I thought that was what it would take to get them married, and Mat really wanted to marry her.”

  Mr. Carter chuckled, and he glanced over his shoulder. “She might be a while talking to Fredrick. She quite likes him, and they’re probably arguing over your status as a kidnapping victim. She’ll either try to kidnap him or taunt him into trying to rescue you.”