Jax was up really early the next morning, after a bizarre sleep in which he was haunted by a cherubic, winged little boy chasing him around relentlessly with a heart shaped bow and arrow. Add to that his having slept on the couch instead of his amazingly comfortable bed, and his not having a good sleep was understandable.

     He noticed that Brenda, however, was sleeping soundly and in extreme comfort in the bed looking ever like the angelic young goddess even in her slumber.

     “I’ll bet she slept like a baby,” Jax remarked as he rubbed his aching shoulders and headed for the shower.

     He got dressed in a casual blue suit with a white shirt and silver-blue tie and headed downstairs. He had a plan as to how to keep his distance from his alluring young bride until they took off for the French Riviera in four days, and he was going to recruit his family into helping him, without them realizing it of course. First he offered to take Jerry’s place on an overnight business trip with their father to Marina Del Rey which took care of one night. The following day he hardly saw Brenda because Justin held an all-day rehearsal of his play and when Brenda finally returned she was pooped. Too pooped to argue with him about sleeping arrangements. So she slept in his room and he slept in hers. Two days down two to go. The third day all the women of the house went on a shopping spree that lasted half the day and Jax and Jerry ended up at the office hashing out a hard-fought partnership with Sony Electronics that ended at 3 a.m. with faxed, signed contracts from Japan. The Jacks brothers had been so beat that Jax had suggested they just sleep at the office apartment on the top floor, so for three nights straight Brenda had not seen Jax and she was starting to figure out that he was doing this intentionally, so she was determined not to let him get away with it for a fourth night.

     Wednesday morning when Jax and Jerry came home the family was gathered round the table having a noisy breakfast.

     “There are my hard working little beavers,” Lady Jane said. “Sit down and eat something, you two.”

     Jax could not take his eyes off of Brenda. He had barely seen her for three days and the sight of her dressed in a short yellow dress with a criss-cross cut out on both sides was like an infusion of the sunshine. He was going towards her to sit down next to her when she suddenly got up and raced over to him, as the family watched. The happiness in her hazel eyes at the sight of him touched his heart in a whole new way and he didn’t do anything to deter her exuberant, pasion-filled kiss of greeting, and boy was it ever good. In fact, afterwards, he wasn’t sure if he could make himself stay away from her for another night as he had been doing.

     “Well thank God somebody’s happy to see you,” Justin said pouring syrup over his pancakes.

     Inspired by Jax and Brenda’s exciting display of spontaneous passion, JoAnna got up and gave Jerry a kiss of greeting too and then, feeling playful, Juliet leaned across and gave Devon a kiss, Justin followed her playful lead and gave Halle a kiss and as everyone began to chuckle at what was happening, Jane stood up and said. “Well now I’m not going to have you frisky young turks showing me up!” and she got up and walked over to where John was sitting and gave her husband a big smooch on the lips as everyone cracked up.

     Brenda loved this! She loved this amazing family and how loving they were and how much fun they were and how happy they were. She loved being a part of them and she loved being married to Jax and she was so excited about their honeymoon on the French Riviera tomorrow. She was positive that it would be a turning point for them, even though, honestly she felt that every day was a turning point for them.

     She felt closer to Jax every single day, every single minute of every single day. And even though he had intentionally been trying to avoid her for the past three days, the way he had kissed her just now and held her so close let her know that he had missed her as much as she had missed him.

     As the family got back to eating, the women gabbed about Brenda and Jax’s French Riviera plans and Jane was telling Brenda about some places they simply had to go to. She also told Brenda not to allow Jax to consume all their time with his wild friends and their fun and crazy antics and endless social gatherings. “Leave plenty of time for romance,” Jane said which had Jax rubbing his temples.

     Justin gave Jax an enigmatic sort of smirk/smile. “Hey,” he said, “guess where Halle and I took Brenda last night?”

     Jax hadn’t a clue.

     “We took her to Alistair’s Auction House by the Riverwalk,” Justin told him. “Apparently she’s gotten these decorating notions in her head for your wing of the house?”

     Oh yeah,” Jax said with a roll of his eyes.

     Justin laughed. “Well you should see what she got,” he said with a teasing grin.

     “What?” Jax asked.

     “Oh I wouldn’t dare ruin the surprise,” Justin said with that same ‘I know something you don’t know’ grin.

     “Well am I going to want to kill her?”

     “I think you’re far too fond of her to entertain acts of homicide, Jax.”

     “Well am I going to want to kill myself?” he asked, imagining with dread what Brenda had done to his wing.

     Justin just laughed, enjoying Jax’s dilemma. “All I will tell you is that it’s all very prophetic,” Justin said mysteriously as he reached for a banana.

     Of course Jax had had enough of the teasing, He had to see what Brenda had done. So Justin was not at all surprised when Jax excused himself to go upstairs. Brenda popped up and scrambled to follow him.

     “I have something to show you!” she said excitedly.

     Jax tried to be excited for her even though he was secretly terrified of what she had possibly done.

     As they reached the top of the stairs, so far everything looked normal. She lead him past the bedroom, past the bathrooms . . .

     “Which room do you spend the most time in?” she asked him as they headed towards the study.

     “Probably the study,” he said.

     She smiled as if pleased with herself. “That’s what I thought. Come on.”

     She took his hand and lead him into the study where the first thing he noticed was the great multi-colored Pakistani rug that was now on the gray tiled floor. Then he noticed the new desk blotters which had double J’s on the four solid brass corners, which he loved. Then he noticed a picture hanging above the desk closer to the bay window. It was a 18th century painting of handsome, rakish pirates making mischief on the high seas, and Jax’s grin let her know how much he liked it.

     “This is great!” Jax said giving her an impulsive hug. What had his brother been going on about downstairs? There was nothing up here that Jax didn’t like.

     And then he saw it.

     By the bookshelf. To the right of it. On the mahogany side table. Basking in the glow of the shifting sunlight. A four foot statue of the winged one himself. Cupid. Tilted at an angle, arrow with heart-shaped tip poised in shoot mode, devious little smile on his cherubic little face. His eyebrows raised mischievously, his eyes seeming to be directly on Jax, his arrow seeming to be aimed directly at Jax’s heart.

     Jax took a step back and Brenda looked at him curiously. “Something wrong?”

     “W..what is that?” he asked.

     Brenda smiled. “Oh, isn’t it cool?! It’s a statue of cupid and it belonged to Luciano Pavarotti -- can you believe that? That’s why I put it here next to that picture of Venice that you have so we can get that whole Italian theme going. Don’t you just love it?” she said looking oh so pleased with herself and rather oblivious to the spacy look in Jax’s gorgeous eyes. Everybody wanted it,” she continued, “but I think the auctioneer sort of liked me so he did that going, going, gone thing really fast so that no one else could outbid me,” she said with a cute little smile. “I did have to pay a lot for it though, but Justin said he’d cover it. He’s so sweet.”

     Sweet. Yeah he was so sweet that Justin. Jax could not stop staring suspiciously at the little love god who had been haunting his dreams for the past three nights straight. It was bad enough that he had to pass the statue of cupid that was outside along with the other mythology figures that lined the driveway, now it was right here in his study. Now he’d have to look at the damn thing every time he was in here and be reminded of the thing.

     “Don’t you like it?” Brenda asked, unable to figure out that expression on his face.

     “Ummmm . . .” he said and then thankfully they were interrupted by Niles who informed them that there was a gentleman downstairs, a Mr. Brad Hawkins, who wished to see them both.

     “Brad who?” Jax asked.

     “Oh, that’s my father’s insurance agent,” Brenda explained. “He’s the one responsible for the insurance money my father was having held in trust for me until I was 25. He must be here to talk about the check,” she said.

     They went downstairs to the first level living room where Mr. Hawkins, a man with very bland features and an expression of perpetual boredom was awaiting them.

     “Good morning, Mr. Jacks, Brenda,” he said shaking both of their hands as they were all seated. “I’m here to tell you that there has been a problem with issuing you your father’s money,” he said.

     “What kind of a problem?” Jax asked.

     “Well, it seems that our insurance company has reason to believe that. . how shall I put this . . .that your marriage is a matter of convenience only. A means for Brenda to get her hands on this money before her 25th birthday. Your stepmother, who was trustee of the money has some serious doubts about this speedy marriage of yours, Brenda and quite frankly we tend to agree with her. Therefore we have taken steps to protect ourselves from any fraudulent intent on your part. You won’t be getting the money until our investigator is satisfied that this marriage is legitimate.”

     “Investigator?” Brenda asked.

     “That’s right. We have an investigator, Douglas Hamlish, who will be overseeing this matter for us. You’ll be meeting him within a day. To accommodate our investigation I will have to ask that he be allowed to stay here in the house for 30 days to observe you and make a determination as to the legitimacy or fraudulence of this marriage. I should inform you both that in case you reject our request for him to stay in this house, we are already in the process of obtaining a court order mandating that he be able to stay here for the specified period for the specific purpose of verifying the validity of your union. We’d like to get this over with quickly so this shall all be done with haste. Oh, and another thing, we have been advised that the two of you were planning to leave the country tomorrow. I’m sorry to tell you that you won’t be able to do that. We’ve obtained a court order preventing you from leaving the country until this matter has been settled.” he said. :You’ll be receiving legal notification of this later this afternoon from an officer of the court.”

     “I don’t believe this!” Brenda said. “You mean I can’t even go on my own honeymoon?!”

     “Not for thirty days.” Mr. Hawkins told her.

     “Why would you think that our marriage is fraudulent?” Jax asked curiously.

     “Well quite frankly, Mr. Jacks, the circumstances are suspicious. Brenda had known you for less than a week before you were wed. The wedding was very clandestine and secretive without notification of either of your families, and it occurred on the very same day that Brenda’s legal guardian showed up at your home to confront her on the matter of her lying about being at school for the summer. And lastly, we got a very specific tip from what we consider to be an extremely reliable source.”

     Iris, of course, Jax and Brenda both thought.

     “So how is this investigator of yours supposed to prove that we didn’t get married for any reason other than the fact that we wanted to?” Jax asked.

     “Mr. Hamlish has his ways, Mr. Jacks. We have every confidence in him and his ability to decipher the truth of the matter. I’m sorry to have to dump this all on you both so early in the morning, but I trust this will all be settled within the allotted period of time and then you may go back to your everyday lives. Mr. Hamlish will be here only to observe the two of you and your daily lives and other than that he will not be in anyone’s way, you have my word. Now, do either of you have any questions?”

     Brenda looked very annoyed. “Yeah, I have a question. Why are you doing this?”

     “At the request of my insurance company. They’re very concerned about what motivated this sudden marriage on your part. Believe me I have no choice but to validate this for them to their satisfaction before they will issue you one thin dime.”

     “Fine. You know what? I don’t even need the money now,” she said. “My family has tons of it so why don’t you just keep it and we can forget the whole thing?”

     Jax looked at her. She had said her family - meaning his family. Did she really think of them all as one unit now? That was sort of nice. And of course he would give her anything she wanted, so she was right , she didn’t need the money.

     “I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that, Brenda. If indeed this is some manner of fraud then my company does intend to prosecute you for it.”

     “You’ll lose,” Jax said.

     “In all likelihood,” Mr. Hawkins agreed. “I’m familiar with the attorneys that your family has on retainer and I’m sure your wife would not spend one hour in jail. But we can’t simply overlook it, if it’s a case of fraud. Insurance fraud is a serious thing and win or lose we will prosecute.” he turned to Brenda, “ You may not go to jail but the judge can dissolve the fraudulent marriage and you will then once again be single and 19 years old and therefore your stepmother will once again be your legal guardian.”

     THAT was Brenda’s worse nightmare and Jax knew this.

     “Of course if we find no case of fraud then this will all be quickly behind us and you will not only have your new lives together to look forward to, but also your check as well as the permanent severance of any legal guardianship your stepmother has over you. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to get some things in order before I go back to New York. Mr. Hamlish will be here tomorrow. Should I expect you to accommodate him or shall I follow through with the court order?”

     “We’ll accommodate him, don’t worry,” Jax said.

     “Thank you for being so understanding about this. I’m sure the timing could not be worse, but we have to take these accusations about your marriage seriously considering the circumstances. Good day.”

     When he left Brenda was furious.

     “That woman!!” she yelled.

     “Calm down, Brenda.”

     “You know, she told me she would make sure my days as your wife were numbered. I should have known she would pull something like this! I just . . .I haven’t been hassled by her for days so I thought that maybe it was all behind me, but noooooo!”

     “Brenda, calm down.”

     “And now she’s going to ruin my honeymoon and some strange man is going to be living here with us for a month spying on us! Waiting for us to do something that’ll make him try to put me in jail!”

     “Okay, stop,” Jax said taking her by the shoulders. “I will never let you go to jail, of all places, don’t you know that? You don’t have to worry about any of this. We can handle this. It’s not a big deal.”

     Brenda rose an eyebrow. “Oh it isn’t? You do realize that with this man living here you and I will have to share a bedroom now Jax. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

     She was right, of course.

     “We’ll . . . manage . . .somehow. . .” he said sitting on the arm of the sofa and looking thoughtful.

     Brenda paced and pouted, really upset at this disruption in her honeymoon plans. She had been counting on that honeymoon to take her and Jax into that all important next step in their relationship and solidify what she felt was a really awesome bond forming between then, and now everything was ruined! As she was pacing by him he grabbed a hold of her hand to stop her.

     “I really think we can handle this. There’s no reason to panic.”

     “I’m not panicking, Jax. I’m mad.” Then she looked at him and sat down on his lap, leaning her head against his.

     “Why do these things always happen to me?” she asked wistfully.

     She looked so sad. He stroked her face with his fingers. “What can I do to make you smile?” he asked.

     “I want a honeymoon,” she said into his shirt.

     “Anything but that,” he said.

     “You promised we could have one, Jax.”

     “I know, I know. But you heard what that guy Hawkins said. We can’t leave the country for a month.”

     Brenda slid out of his arms and went over to the window and moped. “This is the pits,” she sighed dramatically, obviously really disappointed.

     “I’ll make it up to you,” Jax promised her.

     Brenda smiled even though she didn’t feel like smiling. “Okay,” she said gloomily and then she headed towards the door. “I think I’m going to finish my breakfast.”

     “All right. Hey, I love what you did with the study, Venus. Really,” Jax said, desperate to cheer her up. He was disturbed by how much her sadness affected him.

     She gave him another wistful little smile. “Really? I thought maybe you would be mad at me for redecorating it. I mean since I didn’t really ask your permission or anything . . .”

     “No I’m not mad at all. I really like it.” he told her. “Thank you for doing that for me.”

     “You’re welcome,” she said as she went out into the hallway.

     “Brenda, are you sure that you’re okay?” Jax asked.

     “Sure. I’m fine,” she said unconvincingly. And he knew he had to do something to get his crazy, potentially irritating, full of life Brenda back and get rid of this disappointed, unhappy girl who had taken her place.

     At noon Brenda and Juliet were on the front porch swing drinking lemonade, watching the butterflies flutter about Lady Jane’s fragrant flowers and bemoaning Iris’ uncanny ability to always find ways of ruining Brenda’s life. They were interrupted when a messenger came up the front porch and hand delivered Brenda an envelope.

     “You’ll have to sign for this miss,” he told her.

     Brenda sighed with irritation as she took the envelope. “It’s probably that stupid court order saying that Jax and I can’t go to the French Riviera,” she said in disgust as she scribbled her signature: Brenda Barrett Jacks, on the form and the messenger tipped his hat at her and left.

     “Oh Bren, don’t be so gloomy. It’s only for a month. Then you guys can go anywhere you want to.”

     “How do I know Jax will still even want me a month from now?” Brenda lamented.

     Juliet looked at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

     Brenda ripped open the envelope angrily, and found a vanilla colored envelope embossed with raised gold lettering with her name on it.

     “Well that doesn’t look like it’s from the courts,” Juliet observed with interest. “It looks like an invitation.”

     Brenda opened it up and indeed it was an invitation on gorgeous, expensive stationary. The raised gold letters said: You are cordially invited for a day of wining and dining, fun, relaxation and surprises. Please RSVP as soon as you read this. Oh, and even though this will only last 24 hours, you can call this a honeymoon is you want to. Sincerely yours, Jasper (don’t you ever call me that) Jacks.

     Brenda squealed in delight as Juliet laughed at her friends sudden surge of happiness after being so gloomy all morning long. Brenda raced upstairs calling for Jax looking for him, but not finding him.

     “Niles, have you seen Jax?” she asked cheerily.

     Niles smiled at her glad that her natural exuberant personality was back and the moping, wistful looking teenager was gone.

     “I believe I saw him by the garage,” Niles told her.

     “Thanks!” she said running back down the stairs and outside. She went over to the ten car garage and saw # 8 was open. She went there and found Jax, dressed in blue jeans and a black Hilfiger sports shirt wheeling the coolest looking black Yamaha motorcycle she had ever seen out into the driveway.

     “Hi!” she said upon seeing him.

     “Well hi,” he said smiling at her. “What are you so happy about?”

     “You!” she said laughing as she hugged him. “I got your invitation, Mr. Don’t you call me Jasper Jacks. And this is my RSVP,” she said kissing him with the typical Brenda fervor.

     Mmm. He could get use to those kind of RSVP’s, he thought as he kissed her back with equal enthusiasm.

     “I’ll take that as a yes.” he said said.

     “A definite yes,” she said as she kissed him again. “So what’s with the bike. Were you going for a ride?”

     “No, I was waiting for you. We’re going for a ride.”

     “You're taking me on your motorcycle? Oh how cool! I’ve never been on one of these before,” she said excitedly and it was as if the gloomy girl had never existed.

     “Well then you’ll love it. Here, hold this,” he said handing her a helmet as he took another one from off the garage shelf and placed it on the back of the bike momentarily. He cocked his head and looked at her. “Are you wearing anything under that dress?”

     “JAX!” she said laughing.

     He grinned. “No, I mean, shorts, Brenda. Shorts. Are you wearing shorts under that dress?”

     She nodded and then lifted her dress so he could see that indeed she wore black spandex workout shorts beneath her short yellow dress.

     “Okay,” he said. “Come here.”

     He took the helmet from her as she approached him and he placed it gently on her head, fastening the strap securely below her neck. He then helped her up onto the passenger seat of the bike and then he put on his own helmet and got on the bike himself. He was about to tell her to hold on when he felt her arms eagerly slip around his waist.

     “Where are we going?” she asked, sounding excited, her hands purposefully sort of roaming about the area of his perfect abs.

     “It’s a secret,” he insisted. “Are you ready?”

     “Ready.”

     “You sure? Are you holding on tight, because I don’t want to lose you.”

     “I don’t want to lose you either,” she said.

     He tried to figure out exactly how she meant that as he kicked up the kickstand and they zoomed down the driveway, destination unknown. Well, unknown to Brenda, but Jax knew exactly where he was taking her. And although this entire outing had been against his better judgement given his very passionate tendencies towards her, he knew he would have done just about anything to get that sadness out of her eyes and see the return of those dimples. It made him wonder what was happening to him anyway?! As if in response to his silent question, the infuriating thing started up in his heart again, and coincidentally it happened, just as he and Brenda passed the smiling chiseled marble statue of an aiming cupid on their way out of the front gate . . .