Macy’s life felt completely different now that Deacon and Fran Banks were in town. The air was softer. The sun was shinier. Everything Southern that she’d grown up with took on a fresh appeal, thanks to Fran’s marveling. Like grits. Macy had a sudden, new affection for them. They were corn—corn ground down to tiny white specks that together tasted amazing with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of salt!
She had no idea she’d been in a rut at all until the Bankses came along.
In the bubble bath last night, after she’d given Fran the coconut cake, she decided she’d been like a sad, rusted bicycle that had been chained to a tree so many years that the chain was embedded in the tree bark. And someone had come along with a big chainsaw—a really loud one—and cut through the chain, or maybe even the tree.
That description might be a little extreme, but it was how Macy felt. She was moving again. Forward.
The next morning, she walked out her front door after breakfast with Oscar on her arm in his tote bag. Deacon’s contract had been pushed through her mailbox onto the wooden planks of her piazza. There was some kind of tan stain on it. She sniffed. Bourbon. He must have read it at a bar and signed it in a drunken stupor.
Even so, she was happy. The way he’d skipped out on them last night at dinner, she’d had her doubts he’d go through with their business arrangement. So had his aunt.
“I don’t know why he’s so skittish about settling down,” Aunt Fran had said over a gorgeous roast beef. “But he made it very clear to all of us tonight that he plays by his own rules. I’m sorry, Celia and Macy, that he abandoned us.”
“He doesn’t need to settle down,” George had said, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. “The world is Deacon’s oyster. More wine, ladies?”
George had been a highlight of the evening, even if Celia was still her cold self. Macy didn’t care, though. Oh … that was a lie. She did care. She still felt horribly guilty about Celia’s breakup. But what could she do? Celia had moved on. The offending gentleman had moved on. So had Macy.
But at least the night wasn’t a total bust. She’d met Fran, who was challenging and fun, and George. Already she felt as if she’d made two new good friends, and they were right next door.
So was Deacon. For Macy’s own sake, she needed to get to work on finding him dates—and maybe his soulmate—as fast as possible. He was a terrible temptation. George and Fran told her stories last night of all the women who’d thrown themselves at Deacon because of his charm and had their hearts broken.
Macy had long since passed her bad-boy phase. She was proud of that fact. Yet last night, getting ready for bed, tipsy from the delicious shiraz, she wondered where he’d gone. She’d even peeked out the window when she turned off the light at eleven thirty to see if she could see through one of the windows on Fran’s piazza into her living room, which was still well lit.
And then she realized that she was spying, and that it was an awful thing for a good neighbor to do.
So now she shut her sidewalk front door behind her and started her walk to work, saying in her head, I’m a professional, I’m a professional, in time with her steps. Oscar, meanwhile, stuck his head out of his carrier bag and sniffed the salty sea air flowing over the Battery wall.
“Psssst!”
She looked back and up. There was George, leaning over Fran’s piazza railing, his head almost blocked by the green, waving fronds of a tall palmetto tree.
“Good morning!” Macy called to him.
He was thin, wiry, of indeterminate age—somewhere between thirty and forty-five, she guessed—and fond of colorful clothing. Today he wore a golden-yellow kerchief wrapped around his head, and the same large gold ring in his left ear that he’d worn last night. He’d donned another pair of flowing silk pants, Wedgwood blue (they’d been scarlet the evening before). His shirt was an ivory silk with voluminous sleeves.
Last night she’d discovered that he lived in a fifth-floor walkup in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan and commuted by subway to Aunt Fran’s penthouse on Central Park every morning, preparing her breakfast at nine and leaving at seven each evening after cooking her supper.
“Deacon’s hung over,” he said. The gusty sea breeze almost stole away his words.
“I guessed that.” She held up the contract. “It smells like bourbon.”
George chuckled. “Maybe you can find some Southern belles who’ll set him back on his heels. Fran says she needs a challenge—well, Deacon does even more. Take it from me.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Macy called up to him and readjusted her tote bag. Oscar hated when she dawdled and was squirming.
Fifteen minutes later at her office, she started working on creating a master list of thoroughly vetted dates for Deacon. It shouldn’t be hard, but it was.
“First, the ideal candidate has to meet his requirements,” she told Ella and Greer.
“Which are?” Greer was poised at the whiteboard in Two Love Lane’s conference room with her favorite purple marker.
“She should be striking, sophisticated, and an excellent conversationalist,” Macy said. “And she shouldn’t be seeking real romance. Which means she’ll be satisfied with a fun date with an emotionally unavailable out-of-towner.”
“Our clients are all about emotional availability,” said Ella, “so we need to go outside our office files to find these women.”
Macy agreed. “Let’s look at our own personal contacts.”
“To our phones,” Miss Thing announced like a military commander in charge of a campaign.
So they sat for fifteen minutes scrolling through their phones and scribbling down potential prospects. In the end, they had eight names. Greer wrote them on the whiteboard.
It was time to dive in and make some calls.
In the end, four women out of the eight called were okay with a fun date that led nowhere.
“I love all four of these ladies,” Macy said. “We know them personally. We can vouch for each of them having their own special qualities.”
“They’ll have fun,” Greer predicted. “And who knows? Maybe sparks will fly.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.” Macy high-fived everyone then picked Oscar up and kissed the top of his head, which he pretended to hate. “We’re on our way,” she told her furry friend.
And she was glad. She was having too many naughty thoughts about Deacon as it was. Let some other woman think them instead.
* * *
Later that night, when Macy got home, Fran’s piazza was empty, but pale blue light streamed from the living room windows. Someone was watching television. Company would be nice, and Macy was tempted to go over, but she really needed a good night’s sleep.
“Macy?”
Her heart stopped for a flash of a second. It was Deacon. He must have just come outside. She looked up and felt warm all over at the sight of him. Caught in the soft glow of a gas lamp burning by the front door of Fran’s house, he was such a pleasure to look at, especially with that lazy smile. “Hi,” she eked out.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, although her throat felt a little tight. She wasn’t sure why. Fatigue, probably. And the stress of worrying—just a tad—about how she was going to find him a soulmate when she couldn’t stop daydreaming about him herself.
“Come on over,” he said. “We’re just about to have some more of that coconut cake. It’s really good.”
“I’m so glad. But I”—she couldn’t think—“I need to go to bed.”
There was a pause. “Okay.”
“Hey”—she strove to sound excited—“we compiled a master list of fabulous women you can take out.”
“Uh-huh.” He sounded wary.
“Remember you’re doing this for Fran.”
“I know.”
“You’ll have a good time. I’m sure of it.” And she was.
“Right.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “Come for breakfast tomorrow. I can fill you in.”
“What time?” He perked up a little.
“Eight?”
“See you then.” He smiled.
She liked the dimple that appeared in his left cheek. “Good night.” Her keys jangled in the lock as she practically forced the fake piazza door open.
While she unlocked her front door, she wondered what had happened to professional Macy. She was still frazzled when she fed Oscar and had a bowl of leftover turkey soup she’d made the day before. So she took a soothing bath, and while she was in it, got lost in a fabulous novel by Dorothea Benton Frank, whose stories about Charleston always made her laugh, and sometimes cry, but in a good way.
Even so, when she pulled the plug and watched the bubbles go down the drain, something was still a little off.
“Let’s go.” She unceremoniously scooped Oscar up from one of his favorite watching places—the top of the toilet lid, which she’d covered in a hideous shag carpet material for the cat’s comfort. “You’re sleeping with me tonight.”
He didn’t object. He was too smart for that. He waited until she’d arranged a fuzzy lap quilt decorated with a snowy scene for him on the other side of the double bed and slid beneath the sheets herself before he bolted.
“Don’t you know it’s almost Christmas?” she called to him. “You’re supposed to be extra nice! Especially with everything that’s going on!”
Oscar was there when it all started—the day Deacon Banks had shown up in her office. She adjusted her pillow several times and tried to sleep, but it was a long time coming. Just the thought of Deacon sent warm, longing feelings through her. She imagined them making love in her bed. It was the best fantasy ever. It didn’t matter that she had an agenda for him, that he was her client. She was crushing in a big way for the first time in ages.
But she knew she couldn’t just have a fling and walk away. She had a life that she cherished and wanted to protect.