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8
I stared up at Sonny’s ceiling and let out a satisfied sigh.
It might sound silly, but I like to think of myself as a free spirit. Okay, I know I’m not like Vivi. Few are. But I will take on an adventure here and there. Let’s say I’m a free spirit with a five-year plan. I’m old-fashioned. I’m the girl who loves to have my hand kissed on meeting a new gentleman. And I have always believed I was born in the wrong decade. That was one of the things that first bonded Vivi and me. We loved anything from the turn of the century through the 1940s. When we played dress-up as children in my grandmother Meridee’s basement, we loved to put on her dresses and listen to her old standards, like Cole Porter or Gershwin, before adding several long strings of pearls to our costumes. Then we’d dance. This love of all things vintage is what inspired Vivi’s wedding planning, and the entire reception was set to have a ragtime theme.
Yes, I was old-fashioned, but I now had proof I was also a girl who could live on the fly. I could be unexpected. I was lying in bed, not in my own house...and not even by myself. And I was wearing a policeman’s uniform! Well, I had been wearing it. The shirt’s current whereabouts remained unknown, but it was definitely my new favorite article of clothing.
I lay snuggled up next to Sonny, completely satisfied and utterly mussed, my appetite roaring.
“I’m starved,” I said. “Let’s have dessert.”
“I just had dessert,” Sonny said. “But I think I know just the thing for you, baby. You still love pound cake?” He remembered from our junior-high days.
“You know it,” I said, not knowing what he was planning. It was 2:00 a.m. and I mean, really, was he gonna bake a pound cake right this second?
That would be a yes.
Sonny sauntered into the kitchen, fastening his pants as he walked.
The kitchen was small but well-appointed with marble counters and dark oak cabinets to go with the craftsman style of the rest of the house.
There was a farmhouse apron-front sink in porcelain-white with a sprayer nozzle faucet. The oversized island held an array of cookbooks on the shelves underneath and had an additional sink for vegetables. Was Sonny a chef? Sure looked like it with that setup. I found that really sexy.
Sonny had prepared a dinner for me but we never got around to it. He wrapped up the steaks he had thawed and slid them back into the fridge. Then, he covered the potatoes and green beans and put them next to the steaks.
“I’m so sorry I messed up your dinner plans,” I said.
“Are you kidding? That was the best dinner I’ve had in years. It was delicious,” he said, and winked at me.
Sonny wiped the countertops down, then opened the stainless-steel fridge and pulled out several sticks of butter and a carton of eggs.
“Don’t tell me you can make pound cake from scratch, too, on top of your many other talents.” I sauntered around the kitchen, teasing him now that I was back in his shirt and barefooted.
“I can if you let me concentrate.”
Outside, it was raining a steady drizzle, and the massive kitchen window was streaked with the sudden condensation. Sonny had the cake in the oven in minutes. He had thrown in a can of 7-Up instead of milk. Meridee made it that way, too.
“Okay, Officer,” he said to me, “we got about an hour with nothing to do. Need to make an arrest?”
Sonny put his wrists together and held them in front of me as if to say, Cuff me.
“Yes, sir. I do need to make an arrest. I’ve heard you’ve been a very bad boy.”
He lifted me up onto the cool marble of the island and pressed me against him. “I intend to be a lot worse,” he whispered.
He moved against me as I sat on the countertop, my legs wrapped around him tightly. Heat surged through my body as he kissed me. He slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me up into him, passionately kissing my neck, causing chills to join the heat.
The showers outside grew heavy, hitting the window harder until it sounded like it was coming down in torrents, adding a little music and rhythm to our passion. Sonny carried me to the couch, my legs still wrapped around his waist, and we made love with the sounds of the storm all around us. Afterward, Sonny looked down at me and smiled.
“I do love you, Blake. So much.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
“I think I’m hooked,” he said, kissing my nose.
“I know I am.”
“Let’s go have a drink on the porch.”
I knew he wanted to talk. And I liked that.
We stopped by the hallway closet for blankets and went outside to the porch swing. Sonny wrapped us tightly together in cozy cotton quilts I was sure his grandmother must’ve made. It made the cuddling even better.
“I’ve had fun with you tonight, baby,” Sonny said, snuggling closer. “I enjoy being with you more than I can say. I always have. When I’m with you, I feel like I can come up for air, you know?” He let out a sigh. “You just make me happy, that’s all.”
I was melting in a cool rainstorm. I gazed up at him.
Sonny was being serious and that was a rare occurrence. He was a playful person. He found the fun and funny in almost every situation. But in this moment, his deeper side was coming out. I relaxed into him, feeling the wonder of what was happening between us.
He kissed my forehead and pushed my mussed hair from my face, his fingertips caressing my cheeks. With a gentle touch, he lifted my mouth to his and kissed me softly. His lips were warm in the wet chill of the rainy night.
“Sonny,” I said, pulling away and looking at him, “I want to stay here with you.”
“Of course. I sure didn’t plan on having you home in this,” he said, referring to the downpour.
I bit my lip, hesitating. “No, I mean I want to stay here, like...move in with you.”
He was terrifyingly silent.
I died inside. Oh, good, Blake, here you go, jumping the gun with your incessant planning and thinking ahead. Embarrassed, I tried to get up. I couldn’t believe I’d just blurted that out! Here we were having a beautiful night together, and now I’d ruined it by proposing the next step in our relationship that, by his stunned silence, I was sure Sonny wasn’t ready for.
But before I could make it inside, he grabbed my hand and pulled me back down beside him. He cradled his hands around my face. “Oh, baby, I would love that. I thought you weren’t ready. That’s the only reason I haven’t asked. I don’t want to push you, but I can’t imagine anything more special than finally waking up with you beside me after all these years.” Sonny was genuinely excited at this prospect, and nothing could have made me happier.
At that moment, I knew in my heart I would never go back to live in the house with Harry again. He had moved out the first few nights after the big breakup, but he’d recently moved back for the duration of the campaign. We had separate rooms and avoided all extraneous contact with each other, so the living arrangements were totally for show. Even still, it was a difficult setup. Though our divorce wasn’t final, living with Harry felt sort of like a betrayal of Sonny. Here was this man who was giving me the most honest, true and deepest love I’d ever known, and I was forcing us to keep it a dirty secret while I played house with my soon-to-be ex.
Vivi now had her own full life with Lewis and Arthur at the plantation, so I couldn’t just barge in on her home. But I never wanted to live alone. I wasn’t even sure I could, and everything inside me let me know that living with Sonny was where I wanted to be.
I was so out of my comfort zone, but I knew it was what I wanted. “It will have to be after the campaign because I promised, but being with you feels so right. What do you think?”
“You seriously need to ask?” He was grinning as he pulled me into him. “To be able to go to sleep with you in my bed and wake up every mornin’ with you next to me has been a fantasy of mine for longer than I can remember. I’m here and ready, whenever you are.” He kissed me. “Actually, I’m not so sure about the sleepin’ part, but I know you’ll be in bed with me.”
A damn of emotion broke inside and it was all I could do to hide my tears of joy. I would remember this moment forever. The soaking rain, the night air, the front porch swing and resting in Sonny’s embrace. Nothing had ever felt so right.
9
I woke up at Sonny’s happy and rested. He had already left for the day and in his spot next to me was a note and a magnolia blossom.
Good morning, beautiful. Thank you for making my dreams come true. I finally woke up next to my angel. I love you, S.
I wobbled to the shower with a smile on my face.
It was already a scorcher by ten o’clock, but I wouldn’t have missed this day for anything. Lewis and Vivi would be in full socializing swing as the ground breaking and renovations at the station got underway. The mayor and Kitty and all of the media would be there, including Dallas Dubois—brazen reporter, ruthless attention-seeker and, of course, my ex-stepsister.
I ran over to Vivi’s to pick her up for the event and we rode over to the mansion together, dreading the soaring temperatures outside the air-conditioned car.
The heat was hardly bearable as I set my red sling-backs onto the dirt road near the side of the dilapidated Brooks Mansion. The historic old house had been placed on Alabama’s Places in Peril list for a reason. It needed saving. Lewis was our town’s official knight in shining armor for doing just that.
Too bad he couldn’t do something about the weather. My makeup was already melting and I had only been out of the car for two seconds.
Vivi was so excited as she struggled to get out of the passenger seat, looking anything but graceful in her navy blue sleeveless maternity pantsuit, her baby belly leading the way. She spread her legs in an unladylike squat and just heaved herself out.
I watched her, smiling, and shut my door. Although I wasn’t looking forward to that part of being pregnant, for the first time in my life I started to wonder what it would be like to carry the baby of the man you loved.
Harry had never inspired such thoughts. Probably because my having his baby would have taken the spotlight off him, except if he needed us to make his campaign poster look better. But I wondered what it would be like with Sonny.
Vivi waddled over to my side of the car. “Did you see Lewis standing over there, shaking hands with everybody? He makes anything sexy. I gave him that crimson tie today, and he smiled so big, his dimples were deep enough to swim in.”
“Lewis looks fantastic,” I agreed. “And you, little momma, have never been more beautiful.”
I gave Vivi a hug, careful not to mess her updo, not sure that even Aqua Net was up to today’s soaring temperatures. I squeezed her hand for reassurance, and then we walked toward the gazebo where Lewis was standing with the mayor.
“Lewis surely is in his element today,” I noted.
“He has come such a long way, Blake. I love him so much my heart’s filled to bursting. I’m thrilled to be standing next to him, watching as all his dreams come true.”
“Can I use that?” Dallas appeared right behind us, following us like a snake in the grass. She was a long-legged bottle-blonde, wearing a hot-pink Calvin Klein skirt, sleeveless low-cut blouse and six-inch white stilettos that dug like pointy little daggers into the red dirt.
“Oh, my good God, Dallas, put a sock in it already!” Vivi, being pregnant in August in the Deep South, had even less patience than usual. “I wasn’t talking to you or your microphone, and no, you may not use that.”
The looks Dallas shot Vivi were a lot like pointy little daggers, too. She did not like being put off. The trouble with Dallas was that, even when she meant well, she came off pushy, demanding and downright rude. She had a lot to learn about class and manners, and she often didn’t care who she had to step on to get a good story. The career woman in me respected her obvious dedication and passion, but she needed to learn there were better—and kinder—ways to make your way to the top.
“Vivi isn’t feeling well right now,” I interjected. “Can you give her a minute or two? I’ll let you know when she can give you a blurb for your story.”
“Blake, it’s not a blurb,” Dallas said, taking offense. It was impossible to have a civil conversation with this woman.
“I don’t care what it is,” Vivi snapped. “You’re not getting it now. I am going over to see my Lewis. It’s his day, after all. If and when I am ever ready to talk to you, I will let you know. Thank you for backing off.”
Dallas fumed. “Fine. I’ll be right over there.” She gestured to her photographer, setting up the shot just outside the tents. Local newspaper reporters were also setting up their equipment, along with a couple of other news radio stations.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Vivi muttered as she picked up the pace and walked in a hasty beeline toward her fiancé. I raced after her, my heels spiking into the ground. Why are we all wearing high heels in red dirt?
“That woman gets on my last nerve,” Vivi growled. “She is, without a doubt, the most brazen person I have ever known. She was actually eavesdropping on us while we walked. We could have been sayin’ anything and she would have gotten it on tape. Low, low, low. She is just pure ol’ dee low.”
“I know,” I commiserated. “She is lurking everywhere these days. But that’s all the more reason to stay on her good side.”
I thought of last night, kissing Sonny on the porch, then making love in his big bed, while the stars shone in the window. What would she do with that kind of juicy tidbit? I shuddered. One of the last times I’d seen her, she’d been on my patio, giving my husband, Harry, a taste of her right breast—all in the name of getting information and some high-profile publicity. I had chased her out of my backyard like a homicidal maniac, and though we’d been playing nice, I was afraid she was out for revenge.
She wasn’t the type of woman who was a girlfriend. Even when she’d been my stepsister, years ago, she’d never had any close friends. My mother married her father when Dallas was only fourteen and I was sixteen. We were friends for about a day and then Dallas started her competition with me—for everyone’s attention. She backstabbed me at school and worked double time to steal my clothes and my boyfriends.
Kitty, my mother, and her father divorced about ten years later, but Dallas and I have never given up the battle. I’ve always wanted to see the good in her—and Meridee, for one, has always insisted it’s in there—but we’ve never been able to move past our teenage rivalries no matter how hard I’ve tried. And Vivi, it was clear, had given up trying.
In the crowd, I saw my man standing there with Bonita. My heart skipped. I wanted to run to him, but not with all the cameras around, and definitely not with Miss Dallas Dubois there. As long as I kept my cool, I knew I could talk to him without much attention since he was there with Bonita. Plus, we were now working on a case together. So we could at least have a conversation without Dallas thinking she had a story.
I caught his attention and waved at him and Bonita. They waved back as Vivi and I headed for Lewis and the mayor, Charlie Wynn. He was a former captain in the navy. He looked like Jeff Bridges, always had a cigar in his mouth and threw the best tailgating parties on the quad I had ever seen.
Everyone liked him—especially my mother, who’d started dating him a few weeks ago. So far, it seemed like a good match, though Kitty seemed to think most men matched her well enough. She had been married four times, last I counted, and if she had her way, the mayor would be number five.
Vivi and I made our way over to the men.
“Hey, you two,” I said, reaching out to hug Lewis first, then the mayor. “What an exciting day for you and all of Tuscaloosa.”
Lewis looked radiant. “Blake, so glad you could make it. Yes, it’s gonna be a big ol’ day. A new beginning. Opening my own station has been a dream of mine for a long time. This place is my baby, and today is kinda like a birth, you know?”
Mayor Charlie reached over and hugged Vivi. “Seems like there’s a lotta that goin’ around these days.”
“Speaking of new beginnings,” Vivi said, “with this heat today, I may have my ‘new beginning’ before I’m ready. I’m gonna have one of those iced teas they’re serving for the media before I melt away.”
We all followed Vivi to the media tent. We grabbed a couple of iced teas and then went to check out the grounds, which had been cleaned up considerably since Lewis took over the Brooks Mansion, though there was still a lot to do. Dr. Brooks himself had built the house in 1837 and it sat almost in the geographical center of Tuscaloosa.
The Brooks Mansion was an unusual mix of architecture, Italianate and Greek revival. Most of the property around it had been sold off over the years in an attempt to keep the house intact. The building looked a bit shaky, but the good, solid bones were there.
All that was left outside was the gazebo and the huge oak and magnolia trees shading the side yard. The stone sidewalk was still overgrown with weeds and the front porch was starting to fall in, but the beveled glass around the front door glistened in the hot summer sun, bending the light and creating rainbow prisms streaming down the old steps. The mansion’s magic was still there. It had potential and Lewis saw that. He and the old house were kindred spirits.
The dedication would happen momentarily, and people were drifting toward the seats and claiming spots in the nearly two-hundred-year-old rotunda. The four of us made our way to the front and took our seats.
Lewis slipped his arm around Vivi’s back and pulled her into him. I was filled with such joy for Vivi. They looked good together. Happy. Just genuinely happy. They had found what we all are really looking for—true love—the real thing. Vivi’s belief in Lewis, and her love for him, was all encompassing. She was proud of her man.
I looked at Vivi and she was just covered in Bellerina dust. A little invention from our Sassy Belle club days, Bellerina dust simply means us belles may look like pretty little powder puffs on the outside, but deep down that secret dust transforms us into bulldozers, able to be strong for our friends and families when they need us. Yes, underneath all that lipstick and Aqua Net, in her heart—where it matters, a Sassy Belle can handle anything. And we always have each other’s backs. Always. Today, Vivi was the perfect example of that for sure.
“Goodness, Lewis, this is amazing,” I said. “I am so proud for you.”
He grinned. He knew I meant it.
“I couldn’t be happier with the way things have gone,” he said, squeezing Vivi.
She kissed his cheek. “I always knew my Lewis was somethin’ else.”
“That’s the understatement of the year, Miss Vivi,” Mayor Charlie spoke up. “Lewis has done so much good in such a short amount of time, bringin’ this town’s attention to the importance of preservin’ one of its most beautiful antebellum mansions and makin’ plans for a great sports radio station. I’m fixin’ to see if I can adopt him myself. Ever’body oughtta have a Lewis Heart or two in their family.”
“Thank you, Mayor, I just wanted to do right by the town I love so much and make this woman proud to call me hers,” Lewis said, looking at Vivi.
“Okay, it’s time for the dedication,” Mayor Charlie said. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” He winked at Lewis and patted Vivi on the arm.
With determined, proud smiles, Lewis and the mayor made their way to the front steps of the Brooks Mansion, where a small entourage of local media had gathered. Dallas was there with her posse, plus some of the Birmingham TV stations and a few radio reporters. This was just the dedication, not the grand opening, but it would still make the evening news.
The mayor approached the crowd of reporters with his trademark swagger. He stepped up on the bottom step and faced the media, grinning.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank y’all so much for comin’ out today as we put to bed, once and for all, the fate of this grand old place. She has been on the Alabama Places in Peril list for so long, I can’t remember her any other way. Many options for her uncertain future have made headlines over the years. Threats to mow her down, rebuild her, replace her and build something else on these hallowed grounds have been the subject of years and years of debate and countless court battles. But I am here today proud to tell you all that this ol’ lady is tough like the stuff she comes from. She’s part of the very roots of this great town of Tuscaloosa, and she ain’t goin’ nowhere. My good friend has saved her from a near certain demise as a future shopping center.” He gestured toward Lewis. “Lewis, may I say from all of us here in Tuscaloosa, you have made us very proud.”
