He wanted it to be a big moment and he didn't want her to discover it while he was standing there holding her suitcase or when the waiter was there bringing the food...but on the other hand, he wasn't much for making speeches...and he didn't want to sound awkward and dumb. He could just hear himself. "Uh...Ronni...like, ya know...like, do you wanta...like...get married or sumthin?"

He had changed his mind about it half a dozen times. Because he wanted to do it right. Everything else was perfect. He knew that for sure. He'd put a lot of time and effort into this.

The idea first came to him when they were out on his boat. Ronni was telling him about vacations from her childhood, how they had spent two weeks at Brookhaven Lodge for a couple of summer. It was a big resort on the shores of Lake Michigan. She described the place vividly, telling great stories of summer fun.

"I want to go back there some day and stay in Rose Cottage," she said wistfully.

The lodge, it turned out, had most of the rooms in a big, central building, but scattered throughout the extensive grounds were eight cottages...small houses really.

"We were pretty well off," said Ronni, "but there was no way we could afford one of the cottages. I asked both years, ‘Can we stay in Rose Cottage this year? It's the smallest.' But we never did."

Nick decided that he would propose to Ronni in Rose Cottage at Brookhaven Lodge on the shores of Lake Michigan. He got his P.A., Mary Kemp, working on it. He chose the beginning of June. He had a week off before he was meeting the guys for another stab at getting an album together. The weather should be good then, nice and warm, but not too hot. It would be too cold to swim in the lake but there were three heated outdoor pools and one indoors.

Nick arranged to have Rose Cottage for the whole week. He figured that, after he proposed, they could spend a few days planning the wedding, getting all their thoughts together about what they wanted before Jane Carter and Miranda Howell got their fingers on it.

He also wanted to have a week of privacy before the news was made public...because he knew how it would be received by his fans. Nick wasn't being cocky about it, but realistic. He had spent over a decade watching girls scream, cry and even faint in his presence. News of any publicized girlfriends had been met with hysteria and horror and sometimes even hatred. To say that a significant portion of teenage America would go into mourning was not an understatement. Nick wanted to get engaged and then get married quickly, so that the furor could be over and done with.

He looked at his watch. 4:00. She should be arriving in Chicago right about now. O'Hare was the closest airport to the Lodge. A limo was waiting to drive her in comfort for the three hours it would take to complete the journey. Nick had had the car stocked with flowers and Ronni's favorite snacks and soft drinks. Wine and champagne would be saved for later. Supper was going to be delivered to the cottage at 8:00. In just under five hours, Nick was going to be an engaged man.

At 4:30 his cell phone rang. Probably Ronni calling from the limo. Probably trying to get more clues. He had kept the whole thing a secret. He told her they were going on vacation for a week, but he wouldn't tell her where. He told her what time to be ready. A limo would pick her up. Subterfuge wasn't his best thing. He didn't like lying and playing games, but he figured this time that the end justified the means.

Ronni, on the other hand, loved playing games. She did it all the time to him. She didn't care for it so much when he did it to her. She tried to wheedle the information out of him.

"What kind of clothes should I pack?"

"Think early summer in New England," he said. Then, after a pause, "Or Seattle."

"Will I need any foreign currency?"

"No, I'll pay for everything."

"Why can't we travel together?"

"I've got some business in New York and you've got that audition here. It's just easier if we meet in the middle."

Nick really did have meetings in New York and it really was easier if they just met at the Lodge, but his true reason was that he wanted to get there before her and make sure everything was perfect in Rose Cottage.

Rose Cottage was not at all what he expected. First of all, there were no roses. It was a white building, a small house, set in a grove of trees. There were flower beds on either side of the front door and also bordering the white stone pathway that led to the house. There were petunias and pansies and marigolds. There were small shrubs and even some ivy climbing the side of the house. But not a rose in sight.

Until he opened the door. Then his brain was assaulted by them. The furniture, the drapes, even the carpets were patterned with dark green leaves and deep pink roses. The furniture in the living room was English country cottage style, two overstuffed armchairs and a love seat.

In the corner by the window was a pine table and chairs. The chairs were ladder-back colonial style with padded seat cushions that matched the curtains and the upholstery. A matching pine sideboard stood on the opposite wall. Even the paintings on the walls were landscapes of country gardens.

There were two bedrooms where the rose motif continued unabated. The larger bedroom was done in darker furniture and yellow roses for the curtains, wallpaper and linens. The smaller bedroom was in pale pink with more pine furniture.

Nick wondered if Ronni had ever been the inside the house as a child or if she had just gazed longingly at the outside and imagined what was behind the white stucco walls. She seemed more of a leather, metal and glass person these days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He picked up his phone.

"Hello, Baby," he said in a very sexy voice.

"Um...Mr. Carter, this is Domenic. I was given your number. I work for Towne Car Service. I'm to pick up a fare at O'Hare Airport."

"Yes, that's right," said Nick. "Veronica Howell."

"Flight 389 out of LAX?" queried Domenic.

"Right," said Nick. "Arriving at 4:00. What's the matter? Was the flight delayed?"

"No, the flight arrived on time, but...um...the young lady...Ms. Howell...she wasn't on it."

"What? What happened?"

Nick was saying this more to himself than to the limo driver, but Domenic felt compelled to answer anyway.

"I don't know, Sir. I waited until all the passengers were gone. I was holding up my sign and I'd been told to look for a..."

"...gorgeous blonde," filled in Nick.

"Yeah," said Domenic. He'd watched until the last passenger had gone through. Then he'd gone to a counter and had her paged. After that, he'd gone to an airline rep and tried to find out if he'd somehow missed her. The airline didn't want to share information with a lowly chauffeur, but Domenic persisted until the airline rep took pity on him. Seat 9B had been vacant. Ms. Howell had not made the flight.

"Maybe she took a later flight," suggested Nick.

"I thought that too," said Domenic, glad that Nick agreed with his line of thought. I had her paged after the next four flights landed. Nothing, sir. I'm just...um...wondering, what you want me to do now."

Nick's mind was in a whirl. Where was she?

"Sir?"

"Um...give me ten minutes and then call me back," said Nick. He disconnected and phoned Ronni's cell. If she was in the air, her phone would be turned off, but otherwise... There was no answer. He paced the floor and tried not to worry. His phone rang and he snatched it up.

"Hello!"

"Mr. Carter?" It was Domenic again.

"Hi, Domenic. Anything?"

"Another flight arrived. She isn't on it. That's the last flight from L.A. for three hours."

Nick sighed. "I tried her cell but it must be turned off. She always answers. If she's on that flight..."

Domenic didn't care where she was. He got paid by the hour. And quite frankly, cooling his heels at O'Hare was a much better gig than driving through rush hour in Chicago. Same hourly rate, less traffic.

"Twenty minutes more," said Nick. "And give me your number there."

Nick pulled a pen and a small pad of paper out of a drawer in the sideboard. Dominic recited his number. "Okay," said Nick, "I'm going to make some calls. Call back in twenty if you don't hear from me first."

"Yes, Sir," said Domenic, feeling very glad that he was not Mr. Carter.

Nick paced the floor and punched buttons on the phone. No answer. Try again. No answer. No answer at his house or on her cell. He didn't know what to do. He felt stranded, out of his element, all alone in chintz-covered Rose Cottage in the back of the freakin' Brookhaven Beyond on the stupid shores of stupid Lake Michigan.

Where was she? Why hadn't she made the flight? Was she okay? Why hadn't she called?

All the arrangements were in place, he knew that. He'd talked to Mary after he arrived this afternoon. Everything was taken care of on her end. He thought about calling her, asking her to contact the limo service in L.A., see if they could shed some light. But he didn't want to cause a big fuss over nothing. He also knew that Mary didn't like Ronni all that much. She had never said anything to him, but Nick could feel the atmosphere change when the two women were in the room together. In the four months, Nick and Ronni had been dating, Mary had grown more and more distant. Instead of the laughing, joking atmosphere of previous times, now it was all business. All Nick's business.

Nick knew that the problem lay with Ronni's attitude toward Mary. She treated her like a servant, which she kind of was, Nick guessed. But she was Nick's servant, not Ronni's.

It started with little things...Ronni asking her to make an appointment with the hairdresser...that was the first time that Nick remembered. Mary had asked in a frosty tone if Ronni knew the phone number. Ronni said, sure, and reeled it off. Mary smiled sweetly and slid her cell phone across the table to her. Then she turned back to Nick. "Now back to business," she had said crisply, turning her back on Ronni and freezing her out of the conversation.

Boy, had Nick heard about that later! He sat on the sofa and watched Ronni pace up and down, waving her hands and ranting.

"Who does she think she is? That was just plain rude, what she did."

Nick nodded in appropriate places, but he didn't say anything. Mary was invaluable to him and there was no way he was getting rid of her. But his relationship with Ronni was progressing to the point where decisions about living arrangements were about to be made.

"It was just a simple phone call, after all," raved Ronni.

If it was so simple, why couldn't you do it yourself? wondered Nick.

"Mary works for me," said Nick after Ronni finally wound down. "It wouldn't really have been her place to do something for you..." He didn't like the look on Ronni's face. "...like...um...you know ...before she did my stuff."

Eventually, Ronni was mollified. But she didn't give up. A few weeks later, she was virtually living at Nick's house. She sat in on every meeting. She had Nick tell Mary the things she wanted done and smiled in satisfaction at the look on the older woman's face as she made notes. The smile disappeared when Mary would arrive the next day with all the completed items crossed off the list. The incomplete ones...sorry, didn't have time for that, I'll try and get to it today...those items were always Ronni's. When she complained to Nick, he just sighed and said patiently, "Well, why don't you do it yourself? You have lots of time."

Ronni did have lots of time. Her acting career wasn't going anywhere. She had given up waitressing at Nick's request. He wanted to spend time with her at night. During the day, she went on auditions or read scripts, while he was taking care of business. Real business. Money business. He was taking control of his own finances.

The entertainment world had been shocked a number of times over the years by supposedly well-off stars ending up bankrupt because of mismanagement of funds, either by stupidity on the part of their financial advisors or by outright theft. After the most recent one, Nick began to realize that he didn't have any idea how much he was worth, where it was invested, how much tax he paid, etc. He talked it over with Howie who informed Nick that he knew all the answers to those questions about his own finances and he was surprised that Nick did not.

Nick set up an appointment with his accountant, Robert Evans, and took Howie along. Howie asked questions and Nick sat there feeling stupid. Not only did he not know the answers, he didn't even understand half the questions.

But the accountant did and answered them openly and honestly. He showed Howie the books, at Nick's request.

"Is there some kind of problem?" asked Robert, after awhile. He didn't feel like he was being raked over the coals or anything, but... Nick had never shown any interest in these matters before. In fact, any attempt by Robert to go into detail had been met with a wave of the hand and a ‘yeah, yeah, whatever'. Nope, no problem, shrugged Nick. I just gotta learn some stuff.

After the meeting, Howie assured Nick that everything was in order, but suggested that Nick might like to take a little more interest in his own life.

"I guess it's the grown up thing to do. I'm not so good at that," laughed Nick. But he did it. He wasn't making an album or a movie at the moment and he wasn't on tour, so what the hell...he had time on his hands, might as well learn something. What he learned was that he enjoyed it...discussing figures and investments, tax write-offs and portfolios.

It opened his eyes to a few things. First, it made him hate Jive Records even more for the way they continually tried to weasel out of paying Nick and the others what they deserved by inflating "costs" and subtracting them from the "profits" owed to the boys. He also learned that some of his practices were downright foolhardy and he started to change his ways. He didn't become a miser or anything, he just put a little more thought into his lifestyle and reorganized his priorities.

And one of his biggest priorities became his relationship with Ronni.