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“How are my two favorite girls doing?” he slurred into the phone.
“We’re fine. Where are you, Jack?” Maggie frowned.
“Hey, Ruby … Where the hell am I?” he yelled out into the room. After a brief pause, he responded, “Ala-fuckin’-bama? How the hell did I get here?” Maggie could hear the room erupt into even louder laughter.
“Prosper’s here, Jack,” Maggie told him. “He’s been here a couple of weeks, and he’s been helping out while waiting for you to come home. When are you coming home, Jack?”
“What you say, Maggie? My man, Prosper? He there? Sonofabitch, put him on the goddamn phone. I’ve missed the big old bastard.” Jack belched into the receiver.
“He’s asleep. We’re all asleep, Jack,” Maggie told him. “When are you coming home?”
“Well, tell that motherfucker, Prosper, hello from his brother, Jack. Tell him I’m headed down to Mississippi. Gonna be camping in that place right off the Gulf Coast if he wants to meet up. Gonna stop and wire you some money first. Know how I got that? That’s a funny fucking story, but right now I gotta go, darlin’. I got no more damn change left for this piece-of-shit phone. Gonna wire the money to the Stop and Go Mart. I’ll see ya when I see ya, darlin’.”
“Jack, don’t hang up … Jack? Jack? Jack!” Maggie called out desperately, but he was gone.
She slammed the phone down on the receiver hard. Then she picked it up and slammed it again and again, over and over. She slammed it until a big, strong, and steady hand was laid over hers.
“Put down the phone, honey,” Prosper said gently. He waited until Maggie released the death grip she had on the receiver.
“That was Jack.”
“Yeah, I got that. Where is he?”
“According to Jack, he’s in ‘Ala-fuckin’-bama.’” She snorted.
“So he was lit when he called?’
“Oh yeah, drunk as a skunk, and apparently he’s into something ’cause he’s wiring me money. He’s never done that before.” Maggie chewed down on her lip in thought. “This can’t be good. I told him you were here. He said he’ll be in Mississippi in a few days … said you’d know the place. Campground on the Gulf or something? He said to tell you if you want to meet up with him, that’s where he’ll be.”
Prosper just shook his head. “Fucking guy,” he muttered.
And Maggie couldn’t have agreed more.
Maggie left early in the morning to do some errands and then spent the rest of the day inside cleaning. Prosper was under strict orders not to enter the house and intrude on her list of duties. Since it turned out that the rewiring job had been a bitch to work on, he was grateful when Maggie brought lunch to him instead of having him clean up and go sit at the table.
Now the sun was lowering in the sky and Maggie had called out from the porch steps to let him know dinner was ready. Prosper washed up quickly in the industrial sink and changed into the clean clothes he kept in the barn so he wouldn’t track oil into Maggie’s kitchen. The newly setting sun had left streaks of crimson in the sky and the air had cooled down nicely. Prosper was glad he was done for the day and looked forward to enjoying a cold beer and whatever Maggie had made for supper.
He lifted an eyebrow in surprise to find the kitchen transformed with candlelight, fresh flowers, and soft music floating from the ancient radio Maggie kept on the kitchen counter. The table itself was set with a veritable feast: pork chops filled thick with apple stuffing, fresh green beans tossed with slivered almonds, beefsteak tomato salad, mounds of fluffy white potatoes, and a round loaf of warm bread.
Maggie stood looking at him from across the room. She had on a white sundress and her long dark hair was free from the usual ponytail. Hammered silver earrings dangled from her delicate lobes, a thin chain circled her wrist. Her feet were bare, her eyes were shining, and her smile was huge.
She held a chocolate layer cake in her hands with too many candles to count and was singing that song to him … Prosper took a quick look over her shoulder at the calendar and whistled softly.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Happy Birthday, Prosper,” Maggie said softly. Then with pride she waved at the table. “I made everything myself … well, except the bread. I even made the cake. I know it’s a little lopsided—”
“Lopsided?” Prosper cocked his head from extreme left to extreme right. “You mean ’cause one side is about a foot shorter than the other?”
She shook her head and laughed at him while she put the cake on the counter. “I hope you’re hungry.” She gestured again at the food on the table.
In answer, Prosper sat down and began to pile his dish high with the food Maggie had prepared. He was deeply touched that she had remembered his birthday and gone to so much trouble to make it memorable. Not that every moment with her wasn’t etched deep into his mind anyhow, but the extra care she had taken with her appearance blew him away. And the sick bastard that he was, when he looked at Maggie with that pretty, new dress on, all he could think of was taking it off her.
Prosper had been bottling up his feelings and his attraction towards her for too long now, and he knew he was coming real close to losing that battle. It was as if a long-locked door had suddenly been thrown wide open, releasing a flood gate of yearning. All of the feeling and the longing, and all of the holding back came crashing together in a rushing tide and threatened to blow Prosper away.
He barely made it through dinner with keeping his hands to himself, but when Maggie put that cake in front of him and bent down to kiss him on the cheek, he became undone. In one swift motion, he pulled her onto his lap and turned to catch her mouth. Then Prosper gave Maggie a long, sweet, slow kiss that was sure to make her toes curl, her head spin, and her heart beat out of her chest.
When he finally pulled his lips away from hers, Prosper talked low into Maggie’s ear and said, “Dance with me.”
