Always the Designer, Never the Bride (37 page)

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "You know," she admitted with a smile, "I didn't expect to miss him this much, in fact, but I really do."

"There, there," the woman said, and she reached across the table and consoled her with a pat to Audrey's hand. "He won't be away for long."

"I'm afraid he will, Sophie. He's gone home to Santa Fe. He has a life there."

"Nonsense." She grinned at Audrey as she plucked another cookie from the plate. "That's not home. It's just one stop on the road back to you."

A little flutter inside her chest drove Audrey's hand to her heart.

"You might help him along though," Sophie advised. "You might give him a little incentive to put the pedal to the metal."

"Like what?" She felt silly for asking, but not silly enough not to wait with hope for the answer.

"A man who wanders just needs a little purpose. He's like a bumble bee. He'll light if the right flower calls his name."

Audrey giggled and squeezed the woman's hand. "You're a very uplifting person, Sophie. I'm glad to know you."

"Well, we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other even better," she declared. "I've seen all of your movies, you know."

"My . . . movies?"

"Aunt Soph, what are you doing?" Emma asked, scurrying toward the table, shaking her head. "Audrey, I'm sorry. I got tied up on the phone."

"It's fine," she said. "Your aunt has been giving me some wonderful advice."

"Look, Emma Rae. It's Carole Lombard, right here in Jackson's hotel."

Emma grinned and took Sophie's hand into hers and kissed it. "I think Miss Lombard was having some private time, Aunt Soph. Let's go visit Jackson and leave her to her coffee, shall we?"

"Jackson? Oh, yes. I'd like to see Jackson."

Sophie braced herself on Emma's arm to get up from the table, and she wobbled slightly on her feet. Turning back toward Audrey, she beamed.

"Clark will come back to you, dear. He never could stay away from you for long. Remember what he said? He trusts you, and he knows you wouldn't even know how to think about letting him down."

Audrey glanced at Emma.

"Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. We just saw a piece about them on AMC last week."

"Give him a reason to come home. He'll come back to you."

Emma shrugged and gave Audrey a crooked little smile. "Come on, Aunt Soph. Let's get upstairs and see Jackson before his next meeting."

"Take care," Audrey told them. "And thanks for the advice, Sophie."

"Anytime, dear."

"Do you think she's right? Maybe all J. R. needs is a little incentive?"

"Oh, Kat, I don't know," Audrey replied with a chuckle.

"Well, you'd like to have him back, wouldn't you?"

"Of course she would," Carly piped up from the kitchen. "Do you mind if I get pineapple and ham?"

"On pizza?" Audrey exclaimed. "You hate Hawaiian pizza!"

"I know. I always did. But it sounds so good to me right now."

Kat and Audrey exchanged grins.

"We've moved into a house with a walking trunk of hormones."

"Oh, Aud! What a thing to say."

"You know, I'll bet Russell could get him to come back," Kat suggested.

"To what?" Audrey cried. "I told you—and I'm sorry, Kat, I really am—but I'm just not feeling this deal with Lisette."

"Stop it. It's fine. Besides, Russell says he knows someone who might be able to help me get my own line going."

"Are you serious?"

"We'll see how it goes. But you're making the right decision for you, Audrey. I get that, and there's no hard feelings."

"Thank you, Kat. It would have been so great to keep you right by my side, but I'm really happy for you. Meanwhile . . . I don't know."

"If you could have one door open for you, what would it be?" Kat suggested, drawing her feet underneath her on the chair.

"I've already put so much time and energy into my own design business. Aside from that paying off at last?"

"Right. Anything else that would make you feel happy and fulfilled. Would you want to design for someone else who is already established?"

"Well, yeah," she admitted. "If he wasn't such a tragic human being, being taken in with House of LaMont would have been a great opportunity. But he's such—"

"A snake," Kat completed for her, and they exchanged a smile.

"I couldn't work for someone like him and be happy. But in a perfect world, where he would be a normal human, I could make my mark with his dollars and brand behind me."

After a gap of throbbing silence, Kat finally broke it. "Something is going to turn up for you, Audrey. I just know it. We're all praying for you, and I just know there's something around the corner."

"Yeah?" She tilted her head and tried to smile again. "Any idea when?"

"None at all."

The three of them shared a desperate kind of amusement, the kind of laughter friends often share when one of their lives heads over a cliff and no one knows what to do or say.

"Meanwhile, I have no idea what's going to become of me or where I'll—"

"I told you," Carly said as she plunked down on the chair across from her, "you'll be here. You said yourself you can't afford to keep things going in New York City. Kat will be here because of Russell. I'm here, and
I'm pregnant!"

"Which you have made abundantly clear by mentioning it every thirty-six seconds in the last two days."

"Where else would you go to regroup? Here. And if J. R. were here too . . ."

Audrey raised her hand to try to cut Carly off before she could continue.

"I'm just saying, it might help if you reached out to him, Aud."

"So you're suggesting I somehow lure J. R. back to Atlanta— after him clearly telling me he has no desire whatsoever to relocate here, by the way—so that he'll be around on the off chance that the next opportunity I find will keep me here too?"

Carly pulled a face at Kat. "She makes everything so dramatic."

"Look who you're telling."

Carly crossed the kitchen with the phone to her ear. "Yes, I'd like to order a large Hawaiian."

Audrey and Kat both jumped, startled as Carly pulled open one of the cabinets and yanked on the door several times until the top hinge gave way.

"Caroline! What are you doing?"

"Some cheesy bread too," she told the person on the other end of the phone line. "A large order. And could we get some of that chocolate lava cake I saw on your commercial?" Pulling a butter knife from the drawer, she bent down to the floor and used it to begin prying up one of the linoleum tiles. "Forty minutes? Any chance you could put a rush on it? Hungry pregnant lady on the phone . . . Thank you so much!"

"Carly, what on earth—"

"Shh," she said as she returned to the table and sat down.

Audrey frowned at Kat. "She's lost her mind."

"Apparently."

"You know what would be so good right now, Aud? Gooey pretzels!"

"Oh yeah. She's pregnant," Audrey said with a giggle.

As Carly began to dial once again, Audrey reached out for the phone and missed. Carly beamed as she pressed the handset to her ear.

"Hey, J. R.," she said, and when Audrey gasped, Carly jumped from the chair and crossed to the doorway. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, no." Audrey cringed and dropped her head into her hands.

Suppressing laughter, Kat whispered, "This is going to get so good."

"I hate to bother you with this, I really do. But I'm just about going out of my mind. You've got three women in one house that is literally falling apart around us. I just about knocked myself out five minutes ago when the cabinet door came right off the hinges. Not one of us has skills with a hammer or a screwdriver, and the place is a hazard, J. R. Are you sure you can't come back to Atlanta for a while once you finish up whatever you're working on? I wouldn't ask except that Devon always kept things in such great shape, and I'm overwhelmed with planning for the baby. I mean, I need to get the office converted to a nursery, and I don't think you're supposed to paint when you're pregnant, are you? . . . See, I didn't think so."

Carly held Audrey and Kat captivated, and she hung up the phone a few minutes later with a triumphant smile. "He's going to see what he can work out."

"Caroline. You are evil."

"I am not evil. I am inventive."

As she dialed yet again, Audrey flew to her feet.

"Step away from the phone, Caroline!"

"Don't worry. Just one more call, then the pizza will be here." Carly turned sideways in the chair, crossed her legs, and smiled. "Sherilyn. Hey, it's Carly. Listen, I need your help with something. A little project I'm working on."

Granny Beatrice's Gooey Pretzels

About half a 12-ounce bag of semi-sweet or

milk chocolate chips

1 bag rod-shaped pretzels

Various toppings, such as:

Chocolate sprinkles

Crushed pecans

Ground walnuts

Shredded coconut

Cinnamon and sugar mixture

Melt chocolate chips and pour into a tall container,

such as a glass.

Prepare several plates, each with a thin layer of selected

toppings.

Dip each pretzel in the chocolate.

Roll the pretzel in the desired toppings.

Munch!

16

N
o joke, mate. I want to hire you."

J. R. tilted his head against the phone, took a swig from his cold coffee, and grimaced. "Hire me."

"Yeah. I'm closing on the house way sooner than expected, and it needs all kinds of work around the grounds, and I need a shelving unit built in too. I have these awesome plans for it, but you know I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to all that."

"And you want me to come and build you some shelves."

"Rightie. And help me get it fit for human habitation so Kit- Kat will want to come over and won't feel like she's trapped in some bachelor money pit."

J. R. sat there, weighing Russell's words. "Why don't you hire a contractor?"

"Because I don't want some Joe I don't know telling me what I should do. I want you doing that."

He laughed. "Since when?"

"C'mon, mate. This is new territory for me, settling and making roots. I'm in my thirties, and I've never owned anything bigger than a Hummer! This is a big deal for me. I need your help."

First Carly, and now Russell?

Call waiting beeped in, and J. R. sighed. "I've got another call. I'll get back to you in a bit."

"Don't leave me hanging now."

"Hello?"

"J. R., how are you? It's Jackson Drake."

"Jackson," he exclaimed. "I'm good, man. How about you?"

"Well, I'm much better since I just learned that you have some experience as a builder."

"I'm in carpentry. But I only worked with a builder for a few summers when I needed the extra income. How did you know about that?"

"Here's the deal, J. R. I'm hoping maybe there's a lull in Harley restoration for a few months. If you're interested, we're doing some construction here at the hotel, and I could really use someone to oversee things for me. Make sure I'm not being taken for a ride."