The Run Around

by Bernadette Franklin

  I raised a brow. “Why would he try to rescue me?”

  “He’s stubborn. I’ve grown accustomed to being surrounded by stubborn people. My wife is very stubborn.”

  That she was. “Should I be apologizing for the inconvenience now?”

  “Only if he invades and refuses to leave until Juliette has finished with your design and fittings. She just decided you’re getting the time because she didn’t have any easy clients she wanted to bump up to take the slot. If Fredrick annoys her, she’ll just send him a bill, tell him she would have done it on the house if he hadn’t annoyed her, and keep battling with him until she’s satisfied.”

  “I’m concerned for Rick’s wallet.”

  “He can afford it.”

  I figured, although I believed he could afford it through hard work and building his own businesses rather than using family funds. “I have trouble believing anyone can afford her prices,” I muttered.

  “Her affordable line of clothing has been doing exceptionally well. Per item, the profits aren’t all that much, but in volume, her company is making a fortune. They’re still in the testing phase, but that’s part of why she’s been designing so many boots. She’s trying to make an environmentally friendly vegan option for faux leather boots. It’s a challenge, as the plastics used in boots aren’t recyclable at current, and the biodegradable plastics aren’t suitable for footwear yet. She’s toying around with a material made of plant fibers with a coating of biodegradable plastics. If she can get the fiber base to work well, she can set up a facility to renew the biodegradable plastic coating for customers as needed. She needs the plastics to last a minimum of twelve months of hard use before she’s willing to sign off on that, though. If it works, it’ll be an excellent alternative. She doesn’t like non-recyclable plastics, and a lot of shoe material, while vegan, is destructive if it’s thrown away. And since the recycling challenges bar the materials from being reused, she doesn’t like it. It’s a challenge for her, and she needs a challenge.”

  “That sounds really cool, though.”

  “It is, but it’s a going to drive her crazier than she already is.”

  “That sounds like a problem.”

  “It won’t be too bad, and the affordable line will pay for the research and development. If she cracks a good formula for a biodegradable shoe with a year lifespan or longer, with a renewable coating, it’ll be a money maker. A lot of people are concerned about their carbon footprints now. That’s part of why she does so much of her work locally. It cuts down on a lot of her company’s carbon footprint. She does still have some leathers sourced from overseas, but she tacks on a surcharge for environmental charities when she uses them. She gets as many supplies as possible from close to home.”

  “And for her, it’s not about the money,” I guessed.

  “Precisely.”

  “And this whole kidnapping thing?”

  “She gets lonely when I have to work weekends, so she plans a weekend design fest with her favorite clients. There wasn’t enough time to schedule a new client, so she took advantage of your text. It’ll be all right. She’ll let you go home if you ask, so don’t worry.”

  “It’s just a little weird,” I admitted.

  “Since when is something my wife does not weird?”

  “Good point.”

  Juliette walked into the living room with a wrinkled nose. “Hope? He’s being mean and wants to talk to you.”

  I took the phone, put it to my ear, and said, “Hello?”

  “How did she get you in her clutches? She’ll never let you go now, and I’ll have to come over. Then she’ll end up with another pet human to do with as she pleases. You’ve doomed us both to captivity.”

  His plaintive whine amused me. “Apparently, I’m getting a little black dress, and as she views you as a guilty party, she’s making you pay for it.”

  Rick fell quiet. “Could you repeat that?”

  “I’m getting a little black dress, and as she views you as a guilty party, she’s making you pay for it.”

  “How little are we talking about?”

  As that was a good question, I regarded the fashion design through narrowed eyes. “How little is the black dress, Juliette?”

  “If you want a nightie, I can have one made free of charge to go with the dress. The little black dress will likely need a slip, so that part can be particularly little if you’d like. The perfect little black dress also comes with the perfect lingerie. It’s a rule. I just made it up. The little black dress can be as little as you’re comfortable with.”

  I giggled. “Which part of the little black dress are we talking about, Rick? Apparently, there’s little, and there’s also particularly little.”

  “I’ll be over in an hour. Don’t let her steal your clothes.” Rick hung up on me, and I rolled my eyes at his reaction.

  Shaking my head, I returned the phone to Mr. Carter. “Apparently, he’ll be over in an hour. He thinks you’re going to steal my clothes.”

  Juliette snickered. “Well, yes. You told him you’d be prancing around in basically nothing. He knows how fittings work, and he knows what a little black dress is. It works out well enough. I’ve an extra guest bedroom, and your dogs will enjoy keeping each other company, as I can’t imagine he’ll leave his puppy home alone. What’s an extra body in the kidnapping count? I’ll be extra amused this weekend, babe. I can dress them both up.”

  Mr. Carter returned his phone to his pocket. “Good. Remember, you need to eat, they need to eat, and I will be expecting you to take your medication right on time, even if you need to interrupt a modeling session to do it. I will recruit both to make sure you take them.”

  “Dictator!”

  “As I am a most benevolent dictator, if you don’t miss any of your doses by the end of Sunday, I’ll take you out for fast food.”

  Juliette sucked in a breath, and her eyes widened. “You promise?”

  Mr. Carter smiled at his wife. “I’ll even tell your doctor I used it as a bribe for good behavior and negotiate fast food for good behavior as a more common occurrence.”

  “You’re evil.”

  “I am. Now, be good and get her changed however you want before he arrives. He said an hour, which means he’ll probably be here in forty-five minutes, ready to rescue his wedding planner only to fall into your clutches.”

  “I’m so good at luring young men into my lair and refusing to let them leave. It’s a talent.” Juliette rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be so much fun. How is our cookie stash doing? I feel he’s going to need cookies to accept his cruel containment as my guest for the weekend.”

  “You know full well Chloe bribed you with an entire batch to make sure she got a weekend alone with Julian and the baby.”

  “I don’t see what she has against free babysitting!”

  “She doesn’t have anything against free babysitting. She just wants to take our son off somewhere with their little one and have some fun. It’s much harder for them to have a family outing when you’re stealing the little one. We’ve talked about this before.”

  “I know, I know. And they don’t need any more clothes until next year.”

  “Chloe promised she would take pictures, so you’ll have to amuse yourself with Hope and Fredrick. Remember, you do need to let them leave if they genuinely want to go home. Other than that, do whatever they’ll allow you to do.”

  “I’ll behave. For the most part.”

  According to Mr. Carter’s expression, he had his doubts. “Hope, if she gives you any problems, call me.”

  “But you’ll be working.”

  He heaved a sigh. “I see she’s already gotten to you. It may be too late. Try not to let Fredrick likewise fall into her clutches.”

  I laughed. “I’ll try to prevent him from falling into her clutches.”

  “Well, I tried. Have fun. I’m going to read my book from the safety of my study. Try not to damage the house, Juliette. You’re dressing them
up. You’re not renovating the place.”

  “Your rules cramp my style.”

  “My rules make sure we don’t have to spend the night in a hotel until a repairman can fix what you broke. Try to behave, Juliette.” Mr. Carter kissed his wife before heading deeper into the house to escape the insanity.

  “Well, we have forty-five minutes. Let’s toss you in a cocktail dress and work some magic on Fredrick.”

  “How is me wearing a cocktail dress working some magic on him?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Twenty

  Sleep is a requirement, Rick.

  It took Rick fifty minutes to show up, and Annabel Lee led the way, dragging her owner to the front door. From my place near the window, wearing one of the seven little black dresses Juliette had me try on, he took the tired from a long day at work thing a little too far. One jump from his dog might knock him flat and keep him there. “He looks exhausted.”

  “He works hard for the money, and like my husband, he has to get everything ready to take a week off for the cruise. A lot of his business ventures are doing well, so he doesn’t want to abandon them at a bad time. That said, it will be an early bedtime for him for sure.” Juliette bounced to the door and opened it before he could reach for the doorbell. “Come on in and set your puppy loose. Her best friend and his cat are in the living room sleeping off their hard day at work.”

  Rick unclipped Annabel Lee’s leash, and sure enough, she bounded to Edgar Allan Paw, woke him up, and gave him a rather thorough tongue bath before turning her attention to my overgrown cat.

  As Lenore seemed to enjoy the dog’s attentions, I left them alone. “Sleep is a requirement, Rick.”

  He grimaced. “There was a work emergency in the middle of the night, so my day started early. It’s resolved, but today was less than ideal. I’m really sorry. I had no idea Elizabeth hadn’t handled your payment or given you a proper contract. She’s usually on the ball when it comes to that sort of thing.”

  I waved him off. “And I had volunteered to do the wedding as a favor and didn’t expect any payment at all. Am I the only one who doesn’t have a problem with this?”

  “Yes,” they replied.

  Oh, well. I should have known better. “Well, I am not upset over this, I went in not expecting payment, and with a few exceptions, I’ve been enjoying the work. I already thought getting one of Juliette’s dresses was overkill for the work I’m putting in.”

  Juliette grinned at me. “You have no idea how much a wedding planner typically charges for an event like this, do you?”

  “Why would I? I’m not rich, and I don’t care what rich people want to do with their money. I mean, I know how much work my brother’s wedding was to plan, especially when I had to account for his bride’s running tendencies, but it wasn’t that bad.”

  Rick glanced at Juliette. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?”

  “Oh, I want to fully enjoy her expression, so you should totally be the one to tell her what your family typically spends on a wedding planner.”

  Rick scowled, drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a heavy sigh. “My family is made of clusters of demons and demonesses with a few devils tossed in for good measure. We pay the wedding planner a hundred thousand to put up with our bullshit, and depending on how well the planning goes and the event itself, we also tip. Worse, the various clusters of demons and demonesses will individually tip. We had one wedding planner get tipped by every family for putting up with us at our worst. That there was a wedding at all in that case was well worth the amount he took home with him.”

  “Tell her what the tip is,” Juliette prompted.

  Rick heaved another sigh. “Up to twenty percent of the entire wedding’s fee.”

  My mouth dropped open, as I had seen the insane bills for everything from chartered jet flights to get the family to the United States, the cost of the cruise, the catering bill, the cost to give the catering crew rooms aboard the cruise liner, and the various fees to use the brand-new ship on its maiden voyage. “And each family did this?”

  “It was an awful wedding, and everyone was that grateful it happened at all. We’re monsters at times, but we’re monsters who recognize we’re monsters. That’s something, right?”

  “Maybe you should tell your family they should try a little harder not to be monsters, although that explains a lot. They’re expecting me to earn that paycheck. I’m still telling them no. I really don’t care how much they want to pay me, but the answer is still no. Elizabeth’s wedding is not up for negotiation.”

  “If all wedding planners went that route, we’d have easier weddings every time, but they’re all afraid of being fired.”

  “I really don’t care if I’m fired, but I wish Elizabeth luck finding someone who can take care of this with only a couple of months before her wedding date.”

  Rick grinned. “I told my mother that, and she was horrified at the idea she might actually scare off a wedding planner from being overly nice. I told her she should keep being nice, just not to ask anything of you, because you’ll have to tell her no, and that makes you sad.”

  “I don’t suppose that you can use that logic on your aunt, could you?”

  “If only. I took a more direct route. I told her I’d chuck her overboard if she upset or scared you off during the wedding. I also gave her an outlet.”

  Alarm bells rang in my head. “An outlet?”

  “I was solving a few problems with one stone. That the stone happens to be my aunt, well, I would feel guilty if it wasn’t deserved.”

  “What did you do, Rick?”

  “I pointed her at Amy and her parents.”

  My eyes widened, and I sucked in a breath. “You didn’t.”

  “I may have accidentally sent her a copy of the invoices from Mat’s wedding along with the various bargains you’d struck to make sure Mat’s wedding went well, and then I may have accidentally made some commentary about my concern our rather productive wedding planner might become stressed if Amy’s family were to become upset over the probable use of lost deposits to pay back a debt. Aunt Carolina loves setting wayward Americans straight, and while she tends to drive wedding planners up the wall, losing one because of an outsider is unacceptable. I’m expecting trouble.”

  I groaned and bowed my head. “Really, Rick? Why would you do that?”

  “It was the only way I could make sure Amy’s problems stayed Amy’s problems rather than becoming your problems. Or, more accurately that her mother’s problems stay her mother’s problems. Considering the evidence that Amy had used the same staff for the wedding with the same loss of deposits because she’d run from the altar, it could become a severe issue quickly. Compared to the other weddings, Mat’s was pretty cheap.”

  I frowned. “Amy didn’t want it too expensive.”

  “That’s probably because she actually wanted to marry him. That’s my guess at least. So if she kept the wedding on the fairly cheap side, the losses were relatively mitigated. Comparatively, it was a cheap wedding. Ironically, it was the nicest of her weddings. But I believe she thought about running because of the general fear of retribution. You weren’t accepting no for an answer, and I think she knew it.”

  I lifted my head at that. “Really?”

  “Really. I suspect Amy’s mother pressured her into it. She owed a lot of money, and if she could get that money using Amy, I could see it happening. It’s a common enough ploy among the rich and famous. Hell, my family has been guilty of that crap more times than I care to count. Elizabeth refuses to play that game, as it turns out she genuinely loves Edward. I won’t play that game, either.”

  “Thus the subterfuge about who you’re interested in. Have you told anyone yet, or will it remain a great secret of the universe?”

  Juliette snickered. “I know.”

  Of course she did. “That’s because you’re really good at cornering people and making them share their secrets,” I muttered.

  “I really
am. So, Fredrick. How do you like this little black dress? I’m debating on the style, but this one is conservative enough she has the freedom to bend over without offering everyone a show of her lingerie, but it’s modern enough to satisfy the nitwits who think women should show off their legs.”

  “I was concerned when Hope mentioned particularly little, but it’s a very pretty dress. Is it for sale?”

  “It’s in the fall line for this year, and it’ll be coming out just after the wedding. I figure I can make a riff off this basic design, match it with a nice pair of knee-high boots, and send her on a mission to kick ass.”

  “It’s a cocktail party, Juliette. High heels, not knee-highs.”

  “Don’t you ruin my fun with rules.”

  “That’s the party dress code.”

  As I’d been expecting to discuss the wedding, I’d loaded the actual rules onto my phone, which I referenced. “There’s no shoe requirement for the cocktail party or the reception beyond a ban on flip flops and bare feet. Business casual is the requirement for all dinner functions with the exception of the gala on the last night of the cruise, which is formal. I will be hiding in my cabin for the formal dinner party.”

  “No, you won’t,” Fredrick and Juliette replied.

  I scowled. “I don’t have any formal wear, and it’s an optional gala.” Flagging that one as optional had been intentional so I could avoid attending.

  “You will have a proper gown, and you’re going.” Juliette rubbed her hands together. “Fredrick, don’t let her escape. I was not aware I needed to provide formal wear for the wedding planner, so we are going to have our work cut out for us this weekend. Darling? Darling? I need you, my darling!”

  A weary Mr. Carter came into the living room. “What’s wrong now?”

  “She doesn’t have a formal dress for the gala the last night of the cruise. Nobody told me she didn’t have a formal dress.”