Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Call Me Irresistible

She stood there, not saying a word, just listening.

“I wish I could say I realized how much I loved you as soon as you left town, but I was too busy being mad at you for bailing on me. I don’t have a lot of practice being mad, so it took me a while to understand that the person I was really mad at was myself. I was so pigheaded and stupid. And afraid. Everything has always come so easy for me, but nothing about you was easy. The things you made me feel. The way you forced me to look at myself.” He could barely breathe. “I love you, Meg. I want to marry you. I want to sleep with you every night, make love with you, have kids. I want to fight together and work together and—just be together. Now are you going to keep standing there, staring at me, or could you put me out of my misery and say you still love me, at least a little?”

She stared at him. Eyes steady. Unsmiling. “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

She walked away and left him standing alone in the rain.

He dropped the umbrella, stumbled over to the wet railing, and curled his fingers around the cold metal. His eyes stung. He’d never felt so empty or so alone. As he stared out into the harbor, he wondered what he could have said that would have convinced her. Nothing. He was too late. Meg had no patience for procrastinators. She’d cut her losses and moved on.

“Okay, I’ve thought it over,” she said from behind him. “What are you offering?”

He spun around, his heart in his throat, rain splashing his face. “Uh . . . My love?”

“Got that part. What else?”

She looked fierce and strong and absolutely enchanting. Wet spiky lashes framed her eyes, which didn’t seem either blue or green now, but a rain-soft gray. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a flame, her mouth a promise waiting to be claimed. His heart raced. “What do you want?”

“The church.”

“Are you planning to live there again?”

“Maybe.”

“Then, no, you can’t have it.”

She appeared to think it over. He waited, the sound of his blood rushing in his ears.

“How about the rest of your worldly possessions?” she said.

“Yours.”

“I don’t want them.”

“I know.” Something bloomed inside his chest, something warm and full of hope.

She squinted up at him, rain dripping from the tip of her nose. “I only have to see your mother once a year. At Halloween.”

“You might want to rethink that. She’s the one who secretly put up the cash so you won the contest.”

He’d finally thrown her off balance. “Your mother?” she said. “Not you?”

He had to lock his elbows to keep from embracing her. “I was still in my mad phase. She thinks you’re— I’m going to quote her. She thinks you’re ‘magnificent.’ ”

“Interesting. Okay, how about this for a deal breaker?”

“There won’t be any deal breakers.”

“That’s what you think.” For the first time she looked unsure. “Are you . . . willing to live someplace other than Wynette?”

He should have seen this coming, but he hadn’t. Of course she wouldn’t want to move back to Wynette after everything that had happened to her there. But what about his family, his friends, his roots, which stretched so deep into that rocky soil he’d become part of it?

He gazed into the face of this woman who’d claimed his soul. “All right,” he said. “I’ll give up Wynette. We can move anywhere you want.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about? I didn’t mean forever. Jeez, are you crazy? Wynette’s home. But I’m serious about getting my degree, so we’re going to need a place in Austin, assuming I get into U.T.”

“Oh, God, you’ll get in.” His voice cracked again. “I’ll build you a palace. Wherever you want.”

She finally looked as dewy-eyed as he felt. “You’d really give up Wynette for me?”

“I’d give up my life for you.”

“Okay, you’re seriously starting to freak me out.” But she didn’t say it like she was freaked out. She said it like she was really happy.

He looked deep into her eyes, wanting her to know exactly how serious he was. “Nothing is more important to me than you.”

“I love you, Teddy Beaudine.” She finally spoke the words he’d been waiting to hear. And then, with a happy whoop, she threw herself at his chest, plastering her wet, cold body against his; burying her wet, cold face in his neck; touching her wet, warm lips to his ear. “We’ll work out our lovemaking problems later,” she whispered.

Oh, no. She wasn’t getting ahead of him that easily. “By damn, we’ll work them out now.”

“You’re on.”

This time she was the one dragging him. They raced back to the limo. He gave the driver a quick set of directions, then kissed Meg breathless as they rode the few short blocks to the Battery Park Ritz. They dashed into the lobby with no luggage and rainwater dripping from their clothes. Soon they were locked behind the door of a warm, dry room that looked out over the dark, rainy harbor.

“Will you marry me, Meg Koranda?” he said as he pulled her into the bathroom.

“Definitely. But I’m keeping my last name just to piss off your mother.”

“Excellent. Now take off your clothes.”

She did, and he did, hopping on one foot, holding on to each other, getting tangled in shirtsleeves and wet denim legs. He turned on the water in the roomy shower stall. She jumped in ahead of him, leaned against the marble tiles, and opened her legs. “Let me see if you can use your powers for evil instead of good.”

He laughed and joined her. He picked her up in his arms, kissing her, loving her, wanting her as he’d never wanted anyone. After what had happened that ugly day at the landfill, he promised himself he’d never again lose control with her, but the sight of her, the feel of her against him, made him forget everything he knew about the right way to make love to a woman. This wasn’t any woman. This was Meg. His funny, beautiful, irresistible love. And, oh God, he nearly drowned her.

His brain finally cleared. He was still inside her, and she was looking up at him from the floor of the shower, a grin like spangled sunshine spread over her mouth. “Go ahead and apologize,” she said. “I know you want to.”

It would take him a hundred years to understand this woman.

She pushed him over, reached up to slam off the water with the flat of her hand, and gave him a look that was full of sin. “Now it’s my turn.”

He didn’t have the strength to resist.

When they finally made it out of the shower, they bundled themselves in robes, dried each other’s hair, and rushed toward the bed. Just before they got there, he went to the window to close the drapes.

The rain had stopped, and in the distance the Lady of the Harbor gazed back at him. He could feel her smiling.

Meg refused to marry Ted until she got her degree. “Boy geniuses deserve to marry college graduates,” she told him.

“This boy genius deserves to marry the woman he loves right now instead of waiting till she gets a diploma.” But despite his grumbling, he understood how important this was to her, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

Life in Wynette was dull without Meg, and everybody wanted her back, but despite numerous phone calls and occasional drop-in visits from various residents to her tiny apartment in Austin, she wouldn’t set foot inside the city limits until her wedding. “I’d be tempting fate if I came back before I had to,” she told the members of the library’s rebuilding committee when they showed up at her door with a Rubbermaid pitcher of Birdie’s mojitos and a half-empty bag of tortilla chips. “You know I’ll get into trouble with somebody as soon as I hit town.”

Kayla, who cut calories by eating only the broken chips, dug through the bag. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. People went out of their way, right from the very beginning, to make you feel welcome.”

Lady Emma sighed.

Shelby poked Zoey. “It’s because Meg’s a Yankee. Yankees don’t appreciate southern hospitality.”

“That’s for sure.” Torie licked the salt off her fingers. “Plus, they steal our men when we’re not paying attention.”

Meg rolled her eyes, drained her mojito, then kicked them all out so she could finish her paper on eutrophication. After that, she dashed off to supervise the undergraduate art major she’d hired to help fill the orders that continued to come in from New York. Over the outraged protests of Ted, his parents, her parents, her brothers, the library committee, and the rest of Wynette, she was still paying her own expenses, although she’d relaxed her principles long enough to accept Ted’s engagement present of a shiny red Prius.

“You gave me a car,” she said to him, “and all I have for you is this lousy money clip.”

But Ted loved his money clip, which she’d fashioned from a rare Greek medallion of Gaia, the goddess of the earth.

Ted wasn’t able to spend nearly as much time in Austin as they’d originally planned, and even though they talked several times a day, they desperately missed being together. But he needed to stay close to Wynette. The group of carefully selected investors he’d been assembling to build the golf resort had finally come together. The members included his father, Kenny, Skeet, Dex O’Connor, a couple of well-known touring pros, and a few Texas businessmen, none of them involved in plumbing. Amazingly, Spence Skipjack had resurfaced all full of bluster about putting the “misunderstanding” behind them. Ted told him there was no misunderstanding, and he should stick to making toilets.

Ted had maintained controlling interest in the resort so he could build it exactly as he envisioned. He was jubilant about the project but overworked, and with construction scheduled to begin soon after their wedding, it would only get worse. Although he frequently talked about how much he needed someone who shared both his vision and his trust working at his side, it wasn’t until Kenny drove to Austin and cornered Meg for a private conversation that she realized the person Ted wanted working with him was herself.

“He knows how much going back to school for your master’s degree means to you,” Kenny said. “That’s why he won’t ask you.”

It didn’t take Meg more than five seconds to decide her master’s degree could wait. Working with the man she loved on a project like this was her dream job.

Ted was jubilant when she asked if she could work with him. They talked for hours about their future and the legacy they intended to build together. Instead of poisoned land, they’d create places where all families, not just wealthy ones, could gather to have a picnic or throw a ball—places where kids would be able to catch fireflies, listen to birds sing, and fish in clean, unpolluted water.

She ended up scheduling her wedding for exactly one year, minus one day, from the date Ted was to have walked Lucy down the aisle, a decision Francesca hotly protested. She was still complaining about it when Meg—diploma finally in her possession—returned to Wynette three days before the ceremony.

While Ted raced into town to unveil a new display at the reopened library, Meg plopped onto a counter stool in her future mother-in-law’s kitchen for breakfast. Francesca passed a toasted bagel across the counter. “It’s not as if you didn’t have plenty of dates to choose from,” she said. “Honestly, Meg, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were trying to jinx the whole thing.”

“Just the opposite.” Meg slathered blackberry jam over her bagel. “I like the symbolism of bright new lives arising from the tragic ashes of the past.”

“You’re as odd as Teddy,” Francesca said in exasperation. “I can’t believe it took me so long to realize how perfect the two of you are for each other.”

Meg grinned.

Dallie looked up from his coffee mug. “People round here like that she’s a little odd, Francie. It makes her fit in better.”

“She’s more’n a little odd,” Skeet said from behind his newspaper. “Hugged me yesterday for no reason at all. ’Bout gave me a heart attack.”

Dallie nodded. “She’s strange that way.”

“Sitting right here,” Meg reminded them.

But Skeet and Dallie had moved on to discuss which of them was better suited to give her golf lessons, disregarding the fact that Meg had already chosen Torie.

Francesca once again tried to get Meg to spill the details about her wedding gown, but Meg refused to talk. “You’ll see it when everybody else does.”

“I don’t understand why you let Kayla see it, but not me.”