Love Is Nuts (3 Tales) Read online

  “Escape?” she mouthed, evidently realizing the need for secrecy. She caught on fast.

  Or maybe not.

  “Yeah, sure.” Her gaze darkened with sad cynicism, wistful and scornful at once. “I should’ve known you’d find a way out, Romeo.”

  “Horse hockey,” Angelica would have said (if she knew) – which she didn’t (he hoped). And neither did Mona. But Danny couldn’t risk explaining the plan now. He wrapped a towel around his hips while Mona re-anchored her towel sarong-style; then he handed her purse to her and steered her through the suite toward freedom – depending on your definition of freedom, that was.

  Did it mean playing the field, having multiple ever-changing choices? Or landing at last on one field, one solid choice, and putting down roots. The first way, he knew from experience, gave you an ephemeral sense of freedom, a temporary rush, like a bird soaring high in the air. But even birds had to land sometime…build nests…

  Maybe it was time for him to land, too? Willingly and without regrets? That way led to freedom of the soul, he’d heard. But from who? Or should that be whom? Grammar had never been his strong suit. Neither was philosophy, for that matter.

  Good God, where were all these concepts coming from anyway? He’d never been a deep thinker before. He suddenly wondered if all the spirit guides hovering about had been surreptitiously guiding him.

  So, okay, maybe he’d inherited some of his grandmother’s abilities; maybe he was a little psychic, too. Angelica said everyone was, but most repressed it. Danny was willing to believe that now. He’d always had fleeting visions, heard whispers in his head. But he’d never listened to them before. Maybe the prospect of fatherhood had shocked him into a deeper awareness. Or maybe in that simple decisive act of kicking open the door to confront Mona, he’d kicked down some barriers inside himself as well.

  And maybe he was just finally starting to grow up!

  He halted briefly in front of the exit. “Hey, Gran,” he called, “Mona wants a hot soak to unwind.” The honest truth, right? Nothing suspicious there. “We’re going to check out the Jacuzzi in the Skyclad Court. Okay?”

  “Of course. What a nice idea.” Angelica beamed a sunny smile from the entrance to the balcony, her caftan billowing about her in the warm breeze. “You two run along and enjoy yourselves. It’s lovely to see you beginning to relax with each other.” She paused a moment, brows raised in mild speculation. “You are relaxing, aren’t you?”

  Danny pasted his most congenial grin on his face. “That’s what the hot tub is for.”

  Before anyone could say anything else, he hustled Mona out of the suite and down the hall to the elevator.

  She hugged herself, hanging on to her purse and her makeshift sarong with a death grip. “I feel so conspicuous.”

  “Why?” This was a seasonal warm weather resort. “Mona, people prance around here in Speedos and string bikinis. In bath towels we’re almost overdressed.”

  As if to prove his point, the elevator doors slid open to display a testosterone-endowed trio of sun-and-fun types in swim trunks. The middle one leered at Mona as the elevator descended.

  “Heading to the hot tub? Maybe we’ll see you there.” He winked.

  Danny resisted the urge to slug him. “Not if I see you first.”

  That ended that conversation.

  The doors slid open again at the ground floor, and he rushed Mona through the blossom-bedecked lobby with its decorative accents of ancient Greek art (the naughty kind), through the exit, and into the sunshine and fresh air.

  “You didn’t have to be so rude,” she fussed. “He was just trying to be friendly.”

  “But with my wife, damn it.”

  Well, she would be within the hour.

  If his plan worked.

  And if she agreed to it.

  Which suddenly looked doubtful.

  Mona skidded up short. “Your what?”

  Danny’s recent resolve started to wither under her stare. In all his newfound self-awareness, the grand revelation of how much Mona meant to him, he’d forgotten one thing. That he didn’t mean much to her.

  “You don’t love me, and frankly I don’t love you either.” She’d said it straight to his face back at that stupid tearoom. If his grandmother hadn’t taken charge, they might never have progressed from there to here. Mona had agreed to marry him only because she was pregnant. Because she had to.

  But, hell, she’d been wrong about his feelings. Did he dare hope she was wrong about hers, too?

  “My wife,” he repeated, searching her eyes for some sign she liked the sound of that phrase. He knew he did. “Mona, I want to marry you.”

  Her gaze went wary. Now she apparently viewed him not only as selfish and callous, but also insane.

  “What happened to our great escape?” she hissed.

  “Shh, don’t look now, sweetheart, but we’re in the middle of it.” Also in the middle of a busy resort with dozens of people strolling around, any of which might be the undercover agents Angelica had hired to watch them. “C’mon, keep walking. Act casual.”

  “No” – she dug in her heels – “not until you explain exactly what’s going on. First you want to escape marriage. Then you don’t. Then you do again? Danny, this makes no sense. You make no sense. And…and…” The wary gaze misted with tears. “You’ve never called me sweetheart before!”

  He hadn’t? Shame on him.

  “Well, get used to it, sweetheart, because you’re going to be hearing it a lot from now on.”

  And to punctuate it, he pulled her hard against his chest and kissed her long and deep – kissed her breathless – kissed her until flames crackled and he smelled smoke.

  The hell with the watchers. Let them take pictures! Seriously, he should have done this sooner. He kissed so much better than he verbalized.

  “Anything else you need to know?” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Oh, you…you…” She collapsed in his arms, sobbing on his shoulder.

  But at least she wasn’t racing for the nearest restroom. He was starting to make some progress.

  “Mona, I don’t want to escape marrying you. I just don’t want the wedding.”

  She made a strangling noise in her throat.

  Um, right, that hadn’t come out quite the way he’d intended. He tried again.

  “I mean that big crazy Babble deal.”

  “Babylonian,” she corrected with a sniffle.

  “Whatever. That’s what I want to escape. And I thought you did, too.”

  “I do.” She burrowed in closer, wrapping arms around his neck.

  Wow, he was on a roll.

  “Then let’s elope, sweetheart. Today. Now.”

  “Elope?” She began to cry again.

  He tightened the embrace, locking them firmly together. “Yeah. There’s a walk-in wedding chapel here, right across from the Skyclad Court.” One could imagine it did a brisk business in that location. “In minutes I can make you mine.” No muss, no fuss, and clothing optional. “How about it?”

  The sobs paused on a trembling breath. “Don’t you need to bring a marriage license for places like that?”

  Not a yes, but not a no either. She was considering it.

  Danny took heart. “I guess. But we’ve already got ours.” Angelica had made sure of that.

  “Yeah, but it’s back at the Karma Suite.”

  “Nope, I put it in your purse before we left.”

  Mona stiffened slightly in his hold. “You really did plan to elope, didn’t you?” She pushed back to meet his eyes. “Danny, I…I might have misjudged you.”

  He wished.

  “No, sweetheart, you saw me for what I was.” With the emphasis on was. “It was wrong how I acted before – and I’m damn sure not proud of it now. I want to make it right. I want to make a fresh start. With you. Do you think you can give me another chance? Please? Maybe we don’t exactly love each other – yet – but we can work on it. We know we’re good together in bed.
We can build on that, can’t we?”

  She lowered her gaze, pulling the shutters down over her thoughts. Danny couldn’t see into her eyes, but he suddenly saw through them – saw what she did the way she saw it.

  Another psychic insight?

  Memories like movie images filled his mind. Mona’s memories, not his, and the change of perspective made a difference. He saw a fast-forward seduction by a reckless Romeo who’d swept Juliet off her feet – then dropped her – nights of long hot loving that had ended with a short cold goodbye. No wonder she didn’t dare trust him.

  “Romeo oughta be horsewhipped,” he muttered to himself.

  “What?” Her gaze flashed back to his. The look in her eyes softened. “Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly do right by you either. I should have told you myself I was pregnant. You had a right to know, for godssake. It wasn’t fair to let you find out the way you did. But” – she swallowed, hard – “I was afraid you’d think I did it deliberately to trap you into marrying me.”

  “Hell, I’d marry you even if you weren’t having my baby!” He yanked her back into a tight hug. “But I’m glad you are. In fact, I hope we have a lot more. I, um, like kids,” he confessed a little sheepishly. “I think I’m going to like being a dad.”

  “Oh, Danny…”

  Yep, she was bawling all over him again. Good thing he was wearing a towel.

  “I like kids, too!” she wailed. “I’ve always wanted a big family!”

  “Then that’s something else we can build on.” Making love and making babies. The two things did seem to go together. “C’mon, sweetheart, what do you say?”

  Danny himself was out of words. If Mona didn’t answer yes, he’d have to kiss her into a stupor and carry her to the chapel before she regained her senses. An enticing idea actually. He half hoped she’d say no.

  “Yes!” she yelled.

  Oh, what the hell…

  He kissed her anyway.

  * * * *

  Lounging in the luxurious Karma Suite, a cell phone in her hand, Angelica chuckled. She’d hired the Sharpe Security & Surveillance team for show, so to speak, not because they were especially good at their job – which they weren’t.

  The agency’s owner, Mr. Sharpe (a misnomer if ever she’d heard one), was on the other end of her phone, nervously explaining how Danny and Mona had just walked out of the walk-in wedding chapel, looking immensely pleased with themselves.

  Big surprise. Angelica had already heard this news from Great-Uncle Guido, the grump of the Other Side. But she’d seen it even earlier – back when she’d first dreamed of Danny’s marriage. Good Lord, that’s why she’d chosen this resort. Because its very convenient little chapel matched the one in her vision. But she couldn’t have told Danny and Mona that. If she had arranged the chapel wedding, they’d have balked at it out of pure stubbornness. So she’d arranged the dreaded “Nuptials of Babylon” instead, to give them something worse to balk at.

  Heh, heh.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Sharpe, you’ll still be paid in full,” she assured him.

  A sigh of relief sounded. “That’s real nice of you, Mrs. D’Leon – and much appreciated – considering we botched it. Y’see, we weren’t watching the chapel too close. We figured that was the last place those two would head for.”

  He apologized profusely for letting them “escape.”

  “Horse hockey,” Angelica said. “They escaped straight into each other’s arms – exactly what I wanted them to do.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sharpe cleared his throat. “No disrespect intended, ma’am, but if you wanted ’em to ditch your wedding plans, why’d you hire me and my team to keep ’em corralled till the big day?”

  “To give them something to ditch besides each other, of course. Something to make them join forces – to open up and start communicating. Nothing brings people together like facing a common foe.”

  She chuckled again.

  “You mean the whole thing was a setup?” Sharpe chuckled, too. “Remind me never to play poker with you, Mrs. D’Leon. You are one very smart lady.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sharpe, but not really. I just…see a lot, that’s all.” She ended the call and sat back, thinking.

  Angelica had four children and enough grandkids for a baseball team, but Danny had always tugged hardest on her heartstrings. She’d raised him after his parents’ ugly divorce and probably spoiled him, trying to make a sad little boy smile again. They were close, he and she, despite all the drama of his youth, or maybe because of it. The little boy had become a rebellious teen who grew into a reckless young man, and she’d often worried about him. But no more. She knew him better than he knew himself, had understood the reason for his wild behavior, even when he hadn’t. To Danny, love had been the one risk he didn’t dare take, so he’d run like the devil from it.

  Lucky for him, it caught him anyway.

  She gazed off into space. In her mind’s eye, Angelica saw a long happy life ahead for Danny and Mona – and she always saw things correctly.

  Well…almost always.

  Her granddaughter Sophia baffled both the inner and outer senses. Sophia was her cousin Danny’s polar opposite, a brilliant girl but a hopeless romantic who believed in love at first sight and soul mates. She penned poetry, devoured classic literature, and knew exactly the man she wanted.

  Lord Byron.

  Not the original, of course – he’d been dead for too long – but Sophia was convinced he had a modern-day twin around somewhere. She just couldn’t find him, and she’d been looking for months now.

  Neither could Angelica, though God knew she’d been looking, too, searching with psychic sight. Why did she keep drawing a blank? There had to be someone out there for Sophia. Angelica sensed him even if she couldn’t see him. Maybe not a Lord Byron, but—

  Her cell phone buzzed.

  Half in a trance, she stared at the caller ID.

  Byron Sharpe?

  Close enough!

  Honestly, she should have considered him before. No doubt she would have if she hadn’t been busy with Danny and Mona. But they were well on their way to happiness now, so she could devote full attention to this new development.

  Rapid-fire images scrolled through her mind. Why, they could proceed with Saturday’s wedding as planned – only with a different couple in the lead roles. It hadn’t been cancelled yet, and Sophia, unlike Danny, would adore it. She thrived on theatrics, and wouldn’t mind the short notice, believing as she did in love at first sight. So would Byron Sharpe once he saw Sophia D’Leon.

  Oh yes, this could work. A tender poet and a tough PI… Sophia and Sharpe were perfect for one another. Like Beauty and the Beast.

  Angelica felt confirmation chills up and down her spine. With so much already in place, all she had to do was introduce the two and let nature take its course.

  And if nature hesitated, she could always give it a little nudge in the right direction.

  She smiled as she answered the call. “Yes, Byron?”

  It took him a moment to respond. She’d never used his first name before. It apparently knocked him off balance.

  Good.

  “Um…yeah. Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. D’Leon, but—”

  “Please, call me Angelica.”

  “Sure” – he coughed – “whatever you say. I, um, was just wondering if we should pack up now that you don’t need us anymore.”

  “Certainly not. You may send the rest of your team home, if you wish, but since I’m paying the full fee, I expect you, at least, to remain here the full amount of time for which you were hired. I’m sure I can find…another job for you to do.”

  “Uh-huh. Like what, ma’am, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

  Poor boy, he did sound suspicious, didn’t he? Probably thought the wealthy old widow was about to proposition him. How amusing. She was, of course, but not the way he feared.

  “Oh, nothing difficult. I’ve decided to go ahead with Saturday’s festivities – as a p
arty perhaps. It’s rather too late to cancel the whole thing, what with three hundred guests on the way. One of them, my granddaughter Sophia, is arriving early, in fact. This evening. She’s a gorgeous girl, quite stunning – and quite rich, naturally, being one of my heirs. I’m worried she’ll attract too many lascivious advances in a place like this.”

  “So, um…you want me to be her bodyguard?”

  Now he sounded excited, like he could scarcely believe his luck.

  “Precisely. I want you to stay close by her side and keep the wolves at bay, so to speak.”

  “Sure thing!” His breathing quickened. Good Lord, he practically panted into the phone.

  Angelica smiled again. It was just as she’d suspected – foreseen – Sharpe was something of a wolf himself, and a mercenary one, but that was all right. Lust and the love of money could lead to deeper love. The important thing was that she’d stirred his interest along with his libido. Fate and Romance could handle it from there.

  “No need to worry, ma’am. I’ll take real good care of her!”

  “I’m certain you will.” Still smiling, Angelica cut the connection and laid her cell phone aside, gazing off into the future.

  Such a beautiful thing, young love.

  =========

  <<<>>>

  II.

  Seducing Sophia

  (Rated PG-13)

  Head in the clouds and feet on a plush pink carpet, Sophia entered the Karma Suite of the Aphrodite Ashram-Hotel in the “Elysian Fields of Love” luxury resort. The name sort of said it all.

  A “crackpot place,” her cousin Danny had called it – but he would, of course. Danny had always been the rebel-without-a-pause type with no sense of romance or whimsy, no poetry in his soul. He’d never believed in true love the way she did. Danny had chased skirts while Sophia chased rainbows.