Bodice of Evidence (4 page)

“Hey, I'm ready,” I said as I slipped on my shoes.

He put his wineglass down on the coffee table and strode over. “You look beautiful.”

Why was it that whenever anyone said that to me I thought they were lying? I swallowed my protest. “Thanks.”

I opened the coat closet and pulled out his soft leather coat and my own princess-seamed black wool coat. “What were you looking at?”

He put on his coat and then helped me with mine. “You have a view of The Naked Truth.”

“I know.” I slipped my hands through the sleeves and then buttoned up my coat. “Kind of weird, right? Bobby picked this apartment.”

“I thought you two never lived together.” Gage reached the door handle first and opened it for me.

“We didn't. He went with me when I was apartment shopping. When he said this was his favorite of all that we looked at, I signed the lease. A week later I realized the
reason he liked it so much was that it was so close to his favorite bar.”

“Did you call him on it?” he asked as I locked up and we went out the front door.

“I did. He said that he thought it was a great idea. With the bar so close we'd never have to drink and drive.”

“Wow,” Gage said flatly, then took my elbow and helped me down the steps and over to his car. “Bobby's a real prince sometimes.”

“I know, right?” I lifted a corner of my mouth into a half smile. “I've been here going on five years now. It sort of grows on you.”

He opened my door for me. “Will it be hard for you to live so close to the bar now?”

“It's better than living with my mom and dad.” I climbed into the car and was happy to see Gage smile when I flashed a little leg getting in. “Don't you agree?”

“Yes.” He closed my door for me and went around the back to the driver's side.

The restaurant was an intimate little place that served gourmet local food. I took in the beautiful candles and the cozy atmosphere. “I didn't know you were a foodie.”

“Isn't everyone in Chicago a foodie?” Gage asked. “We do have some of the best restaurants in the United States.”

“Bobby preferred beer gardens to gourmet. I don't think he even knows what eating local means.”

“All you can eat from the grocery store salad bar?” Gage joined in the teasing.

I took his hand. “Let's not talk about Bobby anymore. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, his gaze soft. “I've been trying not to pry, but I have to know what happened this afternoon. Can you tell me or is it not dinner conversation?”

“It's definitely not romantic dinner conversation,” I said, and placed my free elbow on the table and rested my chin in my hand.

“Then I won't make you talk about it.” He squeezed my hand and ran his thumb softly across my knuckles. It was a soothing gesture.

“It's a little awkward, isn't it?” I leaned toward him and asked.

“What?”

“Dating you. I mean that in the best possible way. I'm so used to being around you that I want to tell you everything as if you were still my buddy.”

“I am your buddy.” He winked at me.

“No,” I said low enough for his ears only. “No, I certainly don't think about making out with my buddies.”

“And you're thinking about making out with me?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. His look had my heart beating fast and my voice sounding breathy.

“Good.” He sat back, breaking the sudden tension. “Let's think about that then.”

“Okay.”

The waiter came over, bringing the bottle of wine Gage had ordered and two wineglasses. The cork was pulled and Gage was asked to inspect it. At his okay, the waiter
poured a small amount of the red and offered the glass to Gage. He swirled it like a pro, sniffed it, and then took a small swig.

I watched in fascination as he swished it around in his mouth a moment then swallowed.

“Very good,” Gage said.

The waiter nodded and poured a small amount in both glasses. “Enjoy!”

“Really.” I leaned in to Gage so that my voice wouldn't carry. “You know about wine tasting?”

He smiled. “You really don't know me as well as you thought you did. Do you?”

“No.” I shook my head and picked up my glass. “But I look forward to finding out.”

“That's the spirit.” Gage lifted his glass. “Here's to us. The most interesting people we know.”

I laughed. “Hear, hear.” We touched glasses and I enjoyed the wine.

Dinner was a slow, relaxed affair with several courses. It was so strange to have dinner with a man and not have to worry about putting it on my business credit card. It was also different to tell him about my hopes and dreams and listen to his. Time flew by until we were the last people in the restaurant.

Gage paid the bill while I went to the ladies room. The restrooms were well appointed with soft candles and fresh flowers. I made a note. It would be a nice place to contact for Perfect Proposals. I could really see someone proposing here.

Gage drove me home. He parked in the lot and turned to me. “I had a great time.”

“Me, too.” My heart beat faster and I fidgeted with my purse. “Do you want to come in?”

His eyes glittered in the low light. I felt just a tiny bit daring. I'd never been with any other guy but Bobby, so I didn't know how these things went. Do you wait until the third date? Or was it that you had to know a guy ninety days? Either way, Gage wasn't exactly a stranger.

“I would love to come up, but it's probably best that we wait a little longer.”

“Oh.” I tried to hide my disappointment but it was tough. “You're right, of course.”

“How about I walk you to your door?”

“Okay.” I sounded like a pouty child.

Gage chuckled, reached over, and raised my chin with the crook of his index finger. “You are precious, Pepper Pomeroy.” He kissed me. It was a long and lingering kiss, and I would have continued it for the next ten years if he hadn't pulled away first.

We looked deeply into each other's eyes. The moment was interrupted by a loud knocking at the window on my side of the car.

Startled, I whirled and bumped my head on the rearview mirror and my left elbow on the stick shift.

“What?”

Bobby's face floated into view as he leaned down to peer in the window. “Pepper, get out here now!”

“What's he doing here?” Gage asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied.

Bobby banged on the window and tugged on the door handle. “I said, get out here now!”

It would have been easier to stay in the car and let Gage get out and fight with Bobby. But then I was never one to take the easy route. If a situation was going to be uncomfortable, I usually faced it head on. That way there was no blind side.
Right?

“What are you doing here, Bobby?” I asked as I stepped out into the crisp air. Gage came around the car to stand beside me.

“I'm finding my girl out with my supposed best friend.” Bobby spit out the sentence as if he could spit fire.

“Dude, you're drunk,” Gage said. “You need to take a step back.”

“No, you're the one who needs to take a step back.” Bobby shoved his finger into Gage's hard chest. “What the hell kind of friend are you anyway? Out with my fiancée.”

“We are not engaged,” I said. Anger rose up from my toes and burned my throat and cheeks. “You cheated on me for months, heck, years, for all I know. Go home, Bobby. My life is none of your business anymore.”

“We've been together since high school, Pepper.” Tears welled up in Bobby's eyes. “I got down on one knee.”

“I thought we settled this.” I sighed at the wreck of a man with whom I had spent so many years of my life.

“Yeah, that's before I saw you with this jerk.” Bobby's mood switched back to drunken anger. “How long have you been cheating on me? How could I have not seen this? Best friend, my eye. You've probably been sneaking around on me for years.”

Bobby moved until he was chest to chest with Gage and roared into Gage's face. Gage was a good man. He remained calm and stood his ground. The only sign of any emotion was the way he held his hands. If Bobby tried to strike, Gage was ready.

I'd never seen Bobby hit anyone. He wasn't that brave, but then again he was drunk. I stepped in and pushed Bobby back a few steps. “Just because you cheat, doesn't mean everyone does, Bobby.” I kept my voice deliberately even. “Where's Cindy? Is she next door waiting for you?”

I pointed across the street. Five years ago all I wanted was to make Bobby happy, and living close to his favorite watering hole was one of many things that Bobby liked about me. I had been so happy he'd wanted me close. What a fool I was.

You know, I always thought of myself as a strong and smart woman. Okay, awkward and uncoordinated also applied to me, but when it came to Bobby, all my smarts had gone out the window. Instead of demanding that he treat me right, I had done everything I could think of to make it
work—even spending countless nights at a bar when I hated the whole scene. It was a classic trap, I suppose. One I hoped not to fall into with Gage or any man ever again.

“Bobby, what's going on?” Cindy Anderson approached from the side of the parking lot closest to the bar. She tugged her light jacket close to her neck. Her blond hair lifted and blew in the breeze as if she were a heroine in a movie. Cindy was my polar opposite. She was petite and curvy. Her face was round with high cheekbones and large blue eyes. She wore curve-hugging skinny jeans and six-inch stiletto-heeled leather boots. I couldn't see what top she wore, but it was a safe bet that it was a tight-fitting tee that showed off enough cleavage to attract every man in the bar.

“This so-called best buddy of mine has been screwing around with my girl,” Bobby answered her. It was obvious from his expression that he didn't realize who he was talking to.

“What? No, honey.” Cindy wrapped her perfectly manicured hands around Bobby's bicep. “I'm not seeing Gage. Are we, Gage?” Confusion showed in her streetlight-illuminated face. “He's dating some other girl. What was her name again, Gage? Samantha or something, right?”

“He was in the car with Pepper.” Bobby narrowed his eyes and fisted his hands.

“Well, of course, he was, honey. They're friends. Aren't you, Pepper?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “We're friends.”

“See? So there's no need to get so upset.” She patted his arm. “I've got eyes for no one but you, baby.” She
kissed his cheek. “Come on, let's go back inside. Tony is running up the pool table and you're next to play.”

Just like that, Cindy had his attention, drawing him away from us and back to the bar.

“I'm sorry, baby,” Bobby said to Cindy. “I came out for a smoke and got distracted when I saw Gage's car in Pepper's lot.”

“It's okay, sweetie,” she said as they left the parking area and crossed the road. “I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere.”

“Wow,” I said as I watched her manipulate Bobby.

“Sorry about that,” Gage said, his expression grim. “Let me walk you to your door.”

I glanced one last time at the entrance of The Naked Truth. “I think it's time I found a new apartment.” I punched in the building key code and Gage held the door open for me. We made our way up three flights of stairs in the four-story walk-up.

“Don't let Bobby make you do anything you're not ready to do,” Gage advised. “He's all bluster. I can handle him.”

I lifted one side of my mouth in a half smile as I unlocked my apartment door. “Thanks, but I only moved here because that's what Bobby wanted. It's time I found a place where I want to live.” I turned to face Gage. He stood just outside the threshold of my door. His handsome face was filled with emotions I couldn't read.

The tension in the silence between us was electrifying. “Are you sure you don't want to come in?”

He reached up and smoothed a wayward lock of hair
behind my ear. “You've had a heck of a day.” He leaned in and planted a soft, sweet, closed-mouthed kiss on my lips. “As much as I want to come in, I'm going to stop right here and say good night.”

“Oh.” My disappointment showed in that single word.

“Your life without Bobby is too new.” He straightened. “Let's take this slow. I promise I'm not going anywhere. Okay?”

“Okay.” I felt stunned.

“Good night. Pepper.” Gage planted another lingering kiss on my mouth. “Call me if Bobby bothers you again.”

“Okay.” I felt like a parrot but my mind was somewhere around my toes.

He cupped my cheek. “You are a very special person, Pepper Pomeroy. I'll call you tomorrow. Good night.” Just like that Gage stepped back, shoved his hands in his coat pockets and walked down the hall to the top of the stairs. He paused but didn't turn around. “Sweet dreams, Pepper.”

“Good night, Gage.” I said, and closed the door as he headed down the stairs. I locked the door and leaned against it. My mouth tingled and my heart beat fast. I don't know if it was from the encounter with Bobby or the evening with Gage.

I decided to blame it on the evening with Gage.

*   *   *

The next morning, while I was looking at apartments for rent listed on the Internet, I received a phone call on my Perfect Proposals number.

“Perfect Proposals, this is Pepper Pomeroy, how can I help you?”

“Yes, I'm Alexander Bath. I was at the proposal you put together for Keith Emry. Well done by the way.” His voice was gravelly and he sounded like an older gentleman.

“Thank you, Mr. Bath,” I said, and grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. “How can I help you today?”

“I would like to hire you to help me propose to my girlfriend. We've been together ten years. I want to make this thing unforgettable. She deserves it for putting up with this old man for so long.” He laughed and you could hear the deep rattle of an ex-smoker.

“My fee list will depend on the type of proposal and the necessary planning. Are you looking for something over the top?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Over the top. I like that.”

“Good, because I specialize in unforgettable, over-the-top proposals. What did you have in mind?”

“I want to propose during a parachute jump.”

Okay, that caught my attention. “That certainly is over the top. Tell me why you want to propose while jumping out of a perfectly good airplane?”

That made him chuckle again. “I take it you've never jumped.”

“No,” I said with a smile and leaned back in my office chair. “I rather like keeping my feet on the ground.”

The sun shone into my windows in broad patches that warmed the wood floors and let me see the dust motes dance in the beams.

“You're not much of a risk taker, are you, then?”

I thought of the way I broke up with Bobby and started Perfect Proposals—both gutsy moves for a girl who could just as easily be living with her parents. “I'm getting better at it. Tell me about your girlfriend. Is she an adrenaline junkie?”

“It was actually Dominica who got me into parachute jumping. I'd turned thirty-five. I made a bucket list and parachuting was near the top of the list. Dominica was the jump instructor. She took me tandem with her, and the rest is history.”

“Wow, that's a great story.” I wrote as fast as I could. “So where is your favorite place to jump? What kinds of things would she like, such as hobbies or mementoes of your life together? Do you intend to propose in midair or just before you take the plunge? I'm thinking just before you take the plunge makes the most sense. Jumping off the plane hand in hand after she says yes and you put on the ring feels very symbolic to me. Wait, no, then your friends and family couldn't see.”

“Unless they jumped, too.” His voice was filled with laughter. “Yeah, no, that's never going to happen. My mother hates to fly.”

“She wouldn't go up for your engagement?”

“No, and worse, she'd kill me if my dad got to see me get engaged and she didn't.”

“Hmmm.” I tapped my pencil on my lips. “Maybe we could do a helmet camera.”

“Let's not put my family or Dominica's in the plane. It would spoil the surprise.”

“I can see that.” I nodded in agreement. “Let me ask a few more questions.”

“Sure, I'm open to brainstorming. You're the expert here.”

Alexander let me quiz him for an entire hour as I listed out the must-haves and maybes and “wouldn't it be cool to have . . .” ideas that came to me. I promised him a quote by the end of the day, and if he approved, I'd send him a contract to sign and return with the first third of the price as down payment. Breaking the invoicing into thirds was my father's idea. It ensured the client had skin in the game from the start. The second part of the invoice happened twenty-four hours prior to the proposal event, that way I had at least two-thirds of the money before the event in case the gentleman chickened out or the woman said no and the guy went home disappointed.

The saying
no
possibility was the trickiest part for Perfect Proposals. We hadn't had a woman say
no
yet, but that didn't mean that it couldn't happen. I had to figure in for the risk that the guy would get cold feet and call it off at the last minute, in which case my contract was written so that he owed me 100 percent of the deposits and my billable fees. There was also a full-page addendum detailing what happened if the woman said
no
. All liability was waived at that point. The last thing I needed was for someone to blame the event for the proposal recipient's negative response. My contract lawyer—who was also my uncle, Pete Pomeroy—said it would be too easy to blame me for a
no
when the question was popped.
In fact, he recommended that the couples be screened by a professional counselor before I put down my first deposit on the materials.

At this point in my new business, I did most of that screening by talking to the girl's friends and family, and if I had to, I would come up with a reason to interview the girl herself. I took my cue from those makeover shows, and trusted friends and family to let me in on the girl's life so I could see how she really felt.

Since I was in the business of surprises, it was sometimes hard to find the right balance to get the information I needed without ruining the surprise. If there was any question or doubt on my part, I had the prospective groom spend an hour with my counselor friend, Connie White, for evaluation, and then the prospective bride's best friends were brought in to screen as well. If a woman wasn't all that happy in a relationship, the girlfriends would know before the boyfriend ever found out.

It worked for me, and Connie liked the supplement to her income.

Doing an event like Alexander's proposed jump meant more time at an airport. When my sister's fiancé, Warren Evans, asked me to stage his proposal, it had been at an airport in his private jet. The proposal had gone swimmingly, but the memories weren't all good. I had found my first dead body in the executive airport. After finding the bridal shop salesperson dead yesterday, I was nervous about revisiting any place that reminded me of murder. I mean, what if there was another dead body? Or
worse, what if he expected me to jump out of the plane with them?

That made me wonder, would Cesar, my videographer, be willing to jump and record the entire drop? I'd have to call him and see.

I had reached for the phone when I got another call. The caller ID came up with the number of a current client, Mary Ketchum. I picked up on the second ring. “Perfect Proposals, this is Pepper Pomeroy, how can I help you?”