“You’re under my roof.”
“What’s all the ruckus?” Her mother makes her way down the hallway, squinting at us.
“Mom! He threatened Blake with a shotgun! He said he’d ground me!” Winona cries, pointing an accusing finger at her dad.
“Well…he is your father. He’s the man of the house.” Her mother shrugs, then yawns and stretches. Then she smiles sleepily at Winona. “Not much I can do about it. Shall we go back to bed now?”
“That does it!” Winona stamps her foot like a toddler. She’s trying to look fierce, but the bunny slippers aren’t helping. “Blake, pack your bags! I will meet you by the front door in five minutes. And I’m calling a cab.”
Good thing, since for the first time in my adult life, I am without a cell phone.
I pull on my clothes faster than I’ve ever done in my life. Minutes later, we’re standing on the front porch, with our suitcases side by side.
Her parents stand in the living room behind us, not saying a word. Winona’s father is still holding onto the shotgun. The cab pulls up front and comes to a stop.
Winona, fuming, heads down the steps, and as I pick up our suitcases, I hear her mother say in a low, amused voice, “I told you it would work.”
“You’re right, dear.” Her father chuckles. “You’re always right.”
“Thanks for your hospitality!” I call out to them, and hurry to load our suitcases into the back seat of the cab.
“I am so sorry that my dad threatened you with a shotgun,” Winona says in dismay as we’re driving away. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t actually have used it. Probably.”
“That’s reassuring.”
She snuggles up against me, warm and sleepy, and all is right with the world. “Also. My bookmark.”
“What about your bookmark? Did you leave it behind? We can go back and get it.” I wince as I say that. I am ninety-nine percent sure that Winona’s dad was just posturing because he was plotting with her mom to make sure we got back together, but…crazy country dad had a shotgun.
“No, no. You helped an old lady walk across the street. That was my last bookmark requirement. Remember?”
It comes back to me in a rush. Considerate. Loves dogs. Walks old ladies across the street. Loves me no matter what I look like. I hear her voice in my head, reciting the words in her light, sweet southern voice.
Happiness floods my veins, and I flash her a triumphant grin. “So what you’re saying is, I’m your dream man?”
She stifles a laugh, her eyes shining with happiness. “At the risk of feeding your dangerously over-inflated ego…maybe.”
“I do love you no matter what you look like. Right now, for instance. You do realize you forgot to change?”
Winona looks down in dismay at her teddy bear pajamas, then she reaches up and pats her curlers. She touches her face, with the dried-on mask.
“Oh heck. I can’t believe it. I Win–”
“Nope!” I won’t let her say it. I won’t let her use her own name as an insult.
I lean forward and press my lips against hers in a hungry kiss. With a low, heated moan, her lips part and she winds her arms around my neck, and we forget about the curlers and the cab driver and everything else in the universe that’s not Winona and Blake.
Epilogue
Winona
“Home again, home again,” I sing. I’m feeling ever so chic as the limo glides towards Blake’s house. Ten days in Paris will do that to you.
When we drove to the airport in Georgia, I thought we’d go straight home to New York. Instead, Blake had us flown by private jet to the Four Seasons in Paris, where we met up with Thérèse and Henry.
And Henry was smiling. Not that small, sardonic smile that tugs at his mouth from time to time. A big, soppy, lovebird smile. He held Thérèse’s hand and looked at her like a shy schoolboy as we strode down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. And he whispered in her ear, and she giggled. The most elegant woman I’ve ever laid eyes on giggled.
We had ten whole days of vacation bliss. The best restaurant food I’ve ever tasted. Visits to museums and theatres and the countryside. Blake limited himself to two hours of work a day, and I could hardly begrudge him that. He’s writing everything down in a paper planner these days, and he has a regular old analog watch.
His housekeeper, Marta, sent us daily updates on Xena, with photographs of her lounging on cushy dog beds and taking long walks in Central Park.
He left one of the board members, Earl Dempsey, in charge while he was gone. His uncle has been forced out of Hudson’s and most of his property has been seized. He’ll be lucky if he avoids jail, but in a way, the rest of his life will be like a prison. He’s lost everything he valued; his social standing, his mansions, his country club membership, his yacht and his fleet of cars.
Now, Henry and Thérèse are in a limo, heading back to Henry’s apartment, and Blake and I are returning to Blake’s home – except, as we pull up, I see that it’s not his home anymore.
I’m greeted by an astonishing sight. There’s an enormous banner stretched across the front of the house. Workers are carrying racks of clothing and boxes up the steps.
I roll down the window and squint up at the sign.
Hudson’s Second Act. Grand opening October First!
The limo pulls over by the curb, and we both climb out.
“What the whatty-what?” I gape up at it. “What is Hudson’s Second Act?”
He grins triumphantly. “This is something that’s been rattling around in the back of my head ever since you told me your parents had to save up a whole year just to buy one toy from us when you were little. They shouldn’t have had to do that. I want our goods to be accessible to everyone. This is a consignment store, featuring our second-hand clothes and furniture and toys, a line of more affordable items, and also scratch-and-dents. Fifty percent of the profits go to the Kitchen Krew and other neighborhood nonprofits. I’m planning on opening up several more of these, after we take the company public. I’m thinking Chicago and Los Angeles to start.”
“This…” I take a step back, struggling to find words. “This is incredible.”
“But wait, there’s more.”
I stifle a laugh. “You’d better not be throwing in a free set of steak knives.”
“I have purchased all the space in the building above Nico’s Pizzeria. It’s going to serve as the official neighborhood headquarters for the Kitchen Krew. I’m helping Clarita form a nonprofit, of which she will be director. It took a lot of wheedling and begging on my part to get her to even talk to me, but she finally came around. There’s a sewing and crafts room, where your gang can do your alterations and plot world domination or whatever it is you do for your weekly stich-and-bitches. Just don’t tell me; I need plausible deniability. There’s an afterschool sports center, and a day-care center for low and moderate income families. There’s also a paintball range where Jorge and his friends will doubtless be spending a lot of time, because I’m an idiot and I’m actually moving him up from water pistols to even more destructive toys. Ariel’s going to work at the daycare center part time.”