Calling His Bluff (30 page)

After a couple of weeks of struggling to get out of bed in the morning while masquerading
as an actual human being for the rest of the world, getting a sixty-year-old woman
to show up in a bar at eight o’clock on a Saturday night seemed like a manageable
challenge.

Sarah didn’t believe in over-complicating matters. She told her mother that she wanted
to take her out for a one-on-one dinner before the whole family got wrapped up in
birthday excitement. She said she’d been feeling sort of blue lately and a little
Mom time was just the thing to cheer her up.

It certainly had the ring of truth to it.

Crap.

As soon as that thought floated through her brain, Sarah decided she’d had quite enough
of the worn-out doormat thing. Seriously. Even
she
couldn’t take any more of her own misery.

Done with the mad. Check.

What about the sad? Hell, yes.

She couldn’t shut it off like a light switch, although that was a superhero power
she would pay serious cash to have, but she could choose to set those feelings aside
and remember all the things she quite liked about her life—the career she loved, guinea
pig–devouring pythons and vomiting cats aside, her fabulous and supportive family,
and her darkly humorous certainty that the next guy absolutely
had
to be a better choice than the ones who’d come before.

The magical transformation to foxy was a little more labor-intensive without the stylists
she’d hired in Vegas, but she was sure she could pull it off pretty well nonetheless.
When her little sister dropped off the flat iron she’d asked to borrow, along with
a makeup case the size of a Samsonite carry-on that she hadn’t asked for, Maxie tried
to worm the reason behind this sudden attitude change out of her—Sarah hadn’t swiped
so much as a Chapstick across her lips in weeks—but Sarah wasn’t talking. She needed
to do this on her own this time. She’d had all the family support a girl could ask
for, but it was time to stop making safe bets. It was past time to take a few chances.

She excavated deep in the back of her closet and pulled out the garment bag from the
Bellagio. Neither dress had seen the light of day since her return from Vegas, and
honestly, both were too over the top for tonight. She hooked the zippered bag over
the back of her closet door and left it open, facing the rows of black, gray and navy
trousers and jackets that made up the bulk of her wardrobe. She’d decide after her
shower.

Twenty minutes later, steamy warm and slicked up with mango sugar body butter, she
dropped her short pewter robe to the floor and slipped the sewn-in hanger straps of
the red halter dress off the padded hanger.

No sense going for subtle. This was a statement-making night and this dress certainly
made a statement.

She stepped into the short skirt and slicked the bodice up her torso, lifting both
hands behind her neck to tie the straps at her nape. Giving her shoulders a shimmy
to settle everything in place, she turned and faced the full-length mirror in the
corner.

“Sarah Tyler rejoins the living.”

She grabbed her ridiculously tiny purse and belted on a black silk trench coat that
hid the dress entirely, giving the distinct impression that she might be naked underneath
it.

Time to hit the road.

* * *

Her mother was a little surprised by the stretch limo, but happy to have an unexpected
adventure. The amount of bare leg her daughter had on display did provoke a slow blink
and a cocked head. Sarah just smiled.

“Coming out of hibernation, are we?”

“We are.”

Susannah leaned forward and patted her knee.

“Good.”

The story was that she needed to stop by Tyler’s pub to drop off J.D.’s keys before
they headed downtown for dinner at Spiaggia, the ultimate splurge. Sarah was irked
that she couldn’t find a way to avoid bringing J.D. into the conversation, even for
one night, but at least it had the ring of truth to it. Those keys had been burning
a hole in her purse for weeks now.

When the limo pulled up outside the pub, she asked the driver to throw on his hazards
and wait for them for half an hour or so.

“C’mon, Mom. Our reservation isn’t until 7:30. Let’s get your son to buy us a drink.”

The mullion windows at the front of the pub were blocked from the inside by something
large and white. A smart move on her brother’s part, seeing as fifty of Susannah’s
nearest and dearest were packed into the bar. Sarah fought hard to keep the grin off
her face as they picked their way up the icy sidewalk to the front door.

“I keep telling Tyler he should add a fireplace. We get chilly nights up through June.
A fire would be lovely on a night like tonight,” her mother said over her shoulder
as they entered through the temporary fabric and plastic vestibule and pulled the
heavy wooden door open.

“Pretty sure he’d burn the place down,” Sarah joked. She managed to keep her mother’s
back to the room by the simple expedient of turning Susannah toward her as she helped
remove her coat. She could see everyone, her family, their friends, waiting quietly
behind them, bouncing in place with the last seconds of contained excitement.

When she spun her mother around and gave her a gentle push into the silent room, she
was still laughing.

The place exploded around them.

“Surprise!”

The gleeful cheer was followed by a blast of confetti and swiftly rising balloons.
After a moment’s hesitation, Susannah stepped into the waiting crowd. Her hands were
pressed to her cheeks and a tear or two was spilling over. Her smile was a million
miles wide.

Sarah hung back, happily surveying the chaos before her. And then she noticed what
Tyler had used to block the windows and her heart stuttered in her chest as her stomach
did a slow, sensual tumble.

J.D.’s photographs. She’d recognize his work anywhere. Dozens of images had been blown
up to poster size and beyond and were hanging all over the bar. Pictures of her mother—by
herself or with one of her children or a friend—were on display everywhere, with smaller
framed pictures on the tabletops.

Jesus, there was even one of her mother with her father. Who had gone digging through
the boxes of old photos at her mom’s house for that one?

Sarah realized that she was crying as she spun slowly in place, her breath catching
at each new sight. There was Susannah showing a ten-year-old Christopher Robin how
to stand in a proper batter’s stance. And there was one of her mother with her little
sister, both of them lying on their backs in what had to be their backyard, pointing
up at the sky, where Maxie could always spot more imaginary animals than anyone else.
She had never even
seen
some of these photos.

More recent pictures were mixed in, too. Susannah in the white apron and chef’s hat
she wore on the occasional night when she still helped out in the pub’s kitchen, pointing
a soup ladle threateningly at the photographer through the pass-through from the kitchen.
A picture from a dinner at her mom’s home, her mother framed by flickering tall candles
as she lifted a wine glass and shook her head, laughing.

It was brilliant. It was gorgeous. And it was obvious from these photographs that
J.D. felt all the love in the world for her mother. Her heart hurt with happiness,
knowing that he’d been thinking of them even from California. He had remembered.
Of course
he had. And she was included in that love. It might not be what she’d hoped for,
but it was still love. And for that she was glad.

After another minute, Tyler’s slow wave from behind the bar caught her eye. She couldn’t
hear a word over the loud chatter and the music that had come pouring out of the speakers
shortly after their arrival. The soundtrack to
The Big Chill,
it sounded like. Their mother’s favorite.

She gave her brother two big thumbs up.

He nodded and smiled back, hands working the taps fast and furious as the party kicked
into high gear. She hadn’t even figured out who all was there since the pub was so
crowded, but she planned on working her way through the room in what would undoubtedly
be a blizzard of hugs. She noticed that Tyler was jerking his head toward the back
of the room and giving her significant looks.

No way. She was absolutely not going to tend bar in this dress. She’d be flashing
the room every time she bent over a beer cooler.

Tyler kept pointing his chin at the far end of the bar, eyes narrowing threateningly.

She stalked back there, giving quick smiles to those she passed and mouthing “Be right
back!” at a bunch more. She’d read her brother the riot act at the wait station and
grab a Diet Coke off the soda gun while she was at it.

Halfway there, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Directly opposite the middle of the bar, a cluster of photographs hung on the wall.
A picture of Susannah was situated in the middle, and pictures of her children surrounded
it like the petals of a flower. All were black-and-white images, and each captured
its subject with such perfect clarity that even a stranger would know everything about
their family from these pictures. Susannah’s grace and rock solid love for her family.
Addy’s refusal to bend an inch and her heart full of secret dreams. Maxie’s chameleon
changeability reined in by her control freak love of command. Tyler’s bullish determination
and bedrock compassion.

And Sarah.

She didn’t know when he’d taken the photograph. It was so tightly focused on her face
that she couldn’t get any hints from what she was wearing or where she was. Just her
face, her straight hair tucked starkly behind her ears. She wasn’t smiling, but something
about her eyes suggested that she was about to.

It was simple, even a little plain. There was nothing obvious or woman-on-display
about her in the picture. But she was beautiful. And happy. And he’d seen right into
her soul.

Damn. Now she really needed a napkin, before she cried all her make up off.

Everyone blurred a little as she spun and kept moving through the crowd. She needed
a minute, just one damn minute to herself at the end of the bar. Pull it together,
girl. She blinked as the curved brass rails designating the wait station came into
focus through her tears and there was some jerk standing in her way. Tall and broad,
with dark fucking hair in a stubby ponytail and even half-blind with tears she would
know that silhouette anywhere.

J.D. turned and she jumped on him, arms wrapped around his neck, breasts smashed against
his chest as she crushed her mouth to his, and his hands—oh, thank god—slid up the
bare skin of her back to lock over her shoulders as she tried to inhale him with her
mouth. She couldn’t stop kissing him as the heat exploded in her belly.

He couldn’t let go of her, either, apparently. She felt him growing hard against her
and one of his hands dragged down her back, over her ass in that miniscule skirt,
and down her thigh.

The pulse of sound from the crowd dipped for a moment and she realized that they were
in a public bar.

A bar filled with her family and friends. With her mother, for god’s sake.

She gave one last lingering suck to his bottom lip and dropped her head back to look
up at him. His eyes were dark and half-lidded, his lips wet as he licked where her
mouth had just been.

Jesus. That was hot.

She slid her leg off him and stood on two feet again, leaving her arms wrapped around
his neck. J.D. settled his hands on her hips.

“I was pretty goddamn pissed at you, Damico.”

He nodded. “You were right to be.” A pause. Then a quiet question of intensity. “Was?”

She waited for a moment to feel it in her bones. Imagined that her face at that moment
looked almost exactly like the picture he’d taken of her that hung on the wall.

She nodded back.

“Was.”

The slow smile born on his face was like the sun rising over the lake. The last of
the dark night was fading away in the west. His fingers tightened on her hips.

“The plan was to come home and talk you into forgiving me. After a lot of groveling
and explaining and some serious time on my knees, begging for mercy.”

She bit her lip to keep from grinning. Hitched her hips up against him.

“I’m feeling pretty merciless.”

Heat flared in his eyes. He tugged her even closer between his legs.

“I’ll struggle through.”

Before he could dip his head down and capture her mouth again, she stopped him with
a pointed look.

“I am assuming the Lana problem is no longer a problem.”

He laughed shortly. “You’re assuming correctly.”

Yeah, she was gonna need more details than that. He shook his head and kept talking.

“I hooked her up with Ben like she asked. Man, I hope that’s not the end of that friendship.
But I made her sign every frigging piece of paper in our divorce file. Twice. She
is out of our lives for good.”

She tapped a finger against her own mouth. Almost there.

“I was sure it was going to show up in the gossip rags sooner or later.”

J.D. exhaled a deep breath.

“Yeah, that.” Sarah kept her eyes locked on him. “We kind of just…have to trust her.”
Sarah’s snort wasn’t exactly ladylike and he loved her for it. “She really doesn’t
want this coming out, either, so I think we’re okay.”

Okay. She didn’t know if she could actually trust Lana not to resort to cheap scandalous
publicity if things got tough for her again in Hollywood, but they’d deal with that
if it ever happened. And she and J.D. would need to spend about a bazillion hours
talking, making sure that each of them understood exactly how
not
to make the other person feel like crap.

Later.

Because right now? Right now she wanted this man naked and on the nearest flat, horizontal
surface available. Her mother would never miss her.

Everything else she could live with.