Impeccable Timing
By Helen Adams
“Oh, God. Oh, no!”
“Mr. Jackson?” Ezra
queried, concerned by Nathan’s frantic tone, and even more so by the fact that
the man was suddenly thumping his forehead against the surface of his desk.
Nathan moaned. “I thought I had another week! Time just got away from me while we were
working on the McGruder bust. How could
this have happened?”
“What’s happened?”
Ezra demanded, rising from his own desk and crossing over to Nathan, as did the
rest of the men.
“Today’s the
fifteenth! It's my fifth wedding anniversary!”
“And you forgot,”
Ezra summarized.
Nathan’s pitiful
groan was answer enough.
“House keys.” Ezra
held out his hand, palm up. Confused,
Nathan handed them over, only to see the key ring tossed toward Vin as Ezra
ordered, “Black suit, blue silk tie.”
“Got it,” the Texan
replied, spinning on his heel.
Noticing Nathan’s
brown suede shoes, Ezra called out, “Vin!”
The other man stopped with his hand on the door. “Black socks and the Florsheim loafers as
well.”
Vin did not move,
only repeating, “Florsheim?”
Ezra sighed and held
up his own left foot, encased in a well polished and fitted black leather
shoe. “Just find whatever looks most
like these.”
Giving him a
thumbs-up, Vin was out the door.
Chucking his
cell-phone at JD, Ezra told him, “Speed dial 4, reservation for two, my
account.”
“On it,” JD told him.
Fishing a card from
his wallet, Ezra flipped it to Josiah.
“Juliet’s on Fifth, and I believe a tasteful but extravagant display is
appropriate in this instance.”
“Definitely,” Josiah
agreed. Turning to Nathan, he asked,
“Roses?”
“Carnations are her
favorite,” he replied, stunned by the maelstrom of activity going on around
him.
Ezra and Josiah
exchanged a nod. “Some of each,” Josiah
decided, picking up his phone, then laying it back in its cradle and grabbing
his coat. “Since this is an emergency,
I’d better go down and get it personally.”
Within seconds,
everyone had pitched in to help. Chris
had volunteered to arrange for a limousine to pick up Nathan at work and
chauffeur him and his wife for the evening.
Buck, who had a practiced eye, departed to select an appropriate jewelry
purchase, again on Ezra’s personal account.
Ezra himself handled
the booking of an exclusive hotel suite, complete with champagne and romantic
appetizers. JD, having finished with the
dinner reservations, went online and – conferring with Nathan on preferred
style and sizes - ordered a new dress and shoes from a local boutique to be
gathered by Nathan on his way to meet his wife.
Lastly, Ezra called
to confer with one of Rain’s colleagues, requesting that she be kept busy until
Nathan arrived to pick her up. A request
to which the woman gleefully agreed, wishing with a sigh that her husband was
half as romantic as Rain’s.
“There,” Ezra said,
laying down the phone with a look of smug satisfaction. “Your lady should be most pleased with you
tonight, Mr. Jackson. And of course,
given the short notice, I will be more than happy to pick up the twins and baby-sit
for you. That is, assuming you don’t
mind your children spending the night at my home?”
“I’ll call the
daycare and let ‘em know,” Nathan said faintly, blinking slowly and looking as
though he had been pole-axed.
“Excellent,” Ezra
replied. Then, he frowned. "They aren't still in that
distressing stage of throwing whatever food appears before them, are
they?"
"No, they seem
to have dropped that when they turned three last month." Suddenly
coming back to his senses, Nathan rose and clasped Ezra’s hand in both of his,
shaking it heartily. “Man, Ezra, I don’t
know how to thank you.”
Ezra shrugged.
"Think nothing of it."
"But I
do," he said sincerely, amazed by what had transpired. His anniversary had gone from a complete
disaster to fairy-tale perfection in the space of fifteen minutes. “I just don’t know what to say. Let me know how much I owe you. I promise I’ll pay you back.”
Ezra gave him a sly
wink. “You may consider it a favor. Or, if you prefer, an opportunity to repay
you for the fine, and largely uncompensated, medical care you have provided on
many occasions.” Freeing his hand from
Nathan’s grasp, he waved it in airy dismissal and turned back to his computer,
saying lightly, “Have fun.”
Nathan grinned. Those commercials were right. There was a cost to nearly everything in
life, but good friends were priceless.
The
End
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