Long Time Coming

The scent of flowers and fruit filled the space. He recalled the Aerosmith classic hit, “Dude Looks Like A Lady.” He may not have looked like a lady, but he sure smelled like one. The first thing he had to do when he returned to his apartment was take a shower using his own bath gel.

Micah completed his shower, toweled off, extinguished all of the candles and carefully made his way out of the bathroom. He repeated the action, blowing out the candles in the alcove. He managed to get into bed without bumping into chairs or tables.

The moment he pulled back the duvet and the sheet everything about Tessa came rushing back. Her scent clung to the linen. He recalled her flyaway hairstyle and bohemian style of dress, things that were incongruous to her very controlled personality.

He lay in the darkened room, listening to the sound of his own breathing, when he heard a noise. Sitting up, all of his senses on full alert, Micah saw the outline of Tessa’s body in the beam of light coming from the flashlight where she’d opened the door.

A grin split his face. “Are you coming to join me?”

“I just came to check on you.”

“I’m glad you did, because I forgot to tell you that I’m afraid of the dark.” Tessa laughed softly, the sound sending a myriad of emotions racing through Micah.

“I can’t help you there, buddy. But if it would make you feel better, I’ll leave the flashlight with you.”

He patted the mattress beside him. “Come sit with me a while.”

“Aren’t you sleepy?”

“No. I’m too wound up to sleep.”

Tessa walked into the bedroom. “So am I.” She approached the bed. “Move over.” He shifted and she crawled atop the sheet beside him. She didn’t know if he was naked under the sheet and she wasn’t anxious to find out. Placing the flashlight in the space separating her from Micah, she leaned over and sniffed him. “You smell like a woman.”

Folding his arms under his head, Micah chuckled softly. “I’ll put up with smelling like a woman only if I don’t turn into one.”

“What’s wrong with being a woman?” There was no mistaking the censure in her tone.

“There’s nothing wrong with being one, but I like being a man, thank you very much.”

Shifting slightly, Tessa stared at Micah. “Why?”

“Because we can belch, scratch and adjust ourselves with impunity—because that’s what men do.”

She scrunched up her nose. “That’s disgusting, Micah.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“It’s true because that’s what society has permitted men to do. Meanwhile if a woman chooses to breast-feed her baby in public—and even if no one can see her breast or nipple—she’s rebuked and castigated for something that is the most natural thing in the world. And some of those same narrow-minded people will go to the zoo and see animal mothers nursing their babies and claim it’s so cute.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Tessa. I’m not a sexist. How did you get into the wedding business?” he asked, deftly steering away from the controversial topic of differences between male and female.

“I’m second-generation wedding business. My mother is a wedding dress designer, and my father and uncles own and operate a catering hall in Mount Vernon. My sister, cousin and I set up Signature Bridals four years ago. I’m the coordinator, my cousin Faith’s specialty is wedding cakes and my older sister Simone is a floral designer.”

“You come highly recommended, because when Bridget attended the Jadya Fyles-Ashton Cooper wedding in Bryant Park she couldn’t stop talking about how spectacular everything was.”

Tessa had addressed the invitations for the Fyles-Cooper wedding, and because there had been so many invited guests she’d hadn’t remembered Bridget Sanborn’s name until Bridget called to tell her that she wanted Signature Bridals to coordinate her upcoming wedding.

“It took more than a year of planning to pull their wedding together. What helped was that Jadya knew exactly what she wanted from the onset.”

“What about Ashton?”

“The prospective grooms usually adopt a hands-off attitude. It’s the brides who become the Bridezillas.”

“How do you handle them when they go ballistic?”

“It varies from bride to bride. You’ll get an up-close-and-personal view when I deal with your sister.”

“Bridget is a pussycat.”

Tessa snorted delicately. “Don’t forget that a cat also has claws. I usually can tell within fifteen minutes of meeting a prospective bride what I’m up against.”

“Have you ever turned anyone down?”

There came a pause. “Yes. There was one woman who punched out one of her bridesmaids because she refused to agree on a color that was totally wrong for her complexion.”

“What did you do?”

“I gave her back her deposit, tore up her contract and told her to find another wedding coordinator. I wasn’t willing to run the risk of her hitting me if something I said or did offended her.”

“What did she say?”

“She cried and pleaded, but I wouldn’t change my mind.”

“You’re tough, aren’t you?”

There was another pause before Tessa said, “I’m all business when it comes to business.”

“What happens when it’s not business?” Micah asked.

Tessa smiled. “I’m a pussycat.”

“A pussycat with claws?” he teased.

She wrinkled her nose. “But of course.”

Tessa entertained Micah with stories about some of the more bizarre weddings she’d coordinated that made him laugh and/or speechless. It was after one when her voice faded and she closed her eyes. She never knew when Micah turned off the flashlight, pulled the duvet up over her shoulders and draped an arm over her waist.

Tessa woke hours later to see light coming through the silk-lined drapes and the space next to her empty. She stared at the impression on the pillow beside her own.

It was the first time she’d shared her bed with a man who hadn’t made love to her. A knowing smile tilted the corners of her mouth.

Unknowingly Micah Sanborn had earned a seal of approval from Theresa Anais Whitfield.

He was a man she knew she could trust.

Chapter 4

Micah drove from downtown Brooklyn to Staten Island in record time. The trip that would’ve normally taken anywhere between twenty and thirty minutes, depending upon the flow of traffic, was accomplished in ten.