Thank God my strapless bra was padded.
“It’s my understanding this party is PG rated. Some drinking. The likelihood of a buffoon or two over-imbibing, because there’s always the likelihood of a buffoon over-imbibing. If we’re lucky, perhaps they’ll make a lowkey scene that we can enjoy, but they’ll regret in the office in a couple of days. However, you two keep staring at each other like that…” Heddy began. “We’ll just say we’ve already hit NC-17.”
I tore my gaze from Judge, pulled myself together and turned to Heddy so he had a side view and hopefully the sense that I’d dismissed him.
“Let me guess, that’s Judge,” she deduced.
The instant she said his name, my mind conjured the image I’d recently relished of him in deep indigo jeans and a black crewneck, a pair of cognac oxfords on his feet. His longish-on-the-top, light brown hair was swept back, but the fact it had a tendency to curl in big waves was not controlled.
And his stubble that was just perhaps a week or two from being defined as a beard was sublime.
I’d forgotten (purposefully, and with no small amount of effort) how attractive he was.
I now very much remembered.
God.
I took a sip of my champagne to cool the burn.
Heddy cut into my (I had to admit) fevered reverie.
“Remind me again what’s wrong with him?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for me to answer. “Because, not to be surface-oriented, but he looks close to pretty damned perfect from here.”
“He’s a rake,” I stated.
Her brows rose even as her eyes twinkled. “That bad? A rake?”
“Well,” I mumbled, “I don’t know if he’s a rake. I’m just using my rather substantial understanding of the opposite sex to make that determination.”
“Do tell, my lovely,” Heddy encouraged. “What makes a rake?”
“He’s an audacious flirt,” I supplied.
Although she was still very amused (very), she also now looked confused.
“Flirt?” she asked. “I thought you two got in a huge fight.”
Damn it.
He hadn’t flirted our first meeting, exactly.
He had flirted our second meeting, definitely.
The one no one knew about.
“You can flirt and fight at the same time,” I decreed, then started making things up. “It’s part of what makes a rake.”
“I see,” she muttered, visibly fighting a smile.
“Whatever, is he coming over here?” I asked.
She glanced to the side, then she said, “No.”
No?
“Well then…” Hmm. “Good,” I stated.
“Mm-hmm, good. As women have known for nigh on a couple of centuries, they gotta steer clear of those rakes,” she declared. “Then again, for nigh on eternity, they’ve been running to those rakes in droves. Which, I don’t know, I’m not up on the fine points of rakishness, but I think that’s how they become rakes.”
Due to the fact I found anyone who was cleverer than me to be maddening, I glared at her.
She just grinned at me.
“Oh…my…God,” Sasha whispered, coming up to us and crowding in. “The guys told me Judge is here. They pointed him out. And…wow.”
I do not care my sister finds him attractive, I told myself. I do not care that she’s stunningly beautiful, lively, and sweet, and that he will not miss any of that. I do not care that I made myself clear the last time I saw him, and he obviously absorbed what I said so he will keep to himself and allow me to do the same. I do not care that this opens things up to him possibly flirting with Sasha. I do not care that he was standing alone with his friend, without a woman near him. I do not care about any of this.
I do not.
(I did.)
“Fortunately, he has manners and is steering clear,” I declared.
“Yes, fortunately,” Heddy agreed, making no attempt to hide she didn’t mean either word.
“I don’t think it’s fortunate, he’s gorgeous,” Sasha said.
“I need more champagne, do either of you need a drink?” I asked.
“I’m good,” Heddy answered.
“You need—” Sasha started, staring at my half-full glass and looking confused.
“Toodles for now,” I interrupted her, giving an index-finger wave, then headed back to the bar, gulping down the champagne I had left along the way.
So, apparently, earlier, I was wrong.
There were times when chugging champagne was appropriate.
And now was one of them.
Chapter 5
The Dance
Chloe
For most of the time that my family had been living in Phoenix after they moved from LA, I’d been in France.
Even though I’d been in Arizona awhile, for a relative newbie, it sneaks up on you. As such, I had not had the experience I needed to understand that, in the summer, Arizona was sweltering hot. In the late fall and early spring, Arizona was sheer perfection. In the winter, during the day, it was heaven.
But at night, it was damned cold.
Go up to Prescott, it was colder.
Up here in the mountains where Bowie lived, freezing.
And as such, mountains plus freezing meant there could be snow.
And there was.
A beautiful blanket of pristine, white, holiday snow covering the earth and tufting the pines.
It was gorgeous by day, breathtaking by moonlight, but I had not taken this into account when I’d packed.
Of course, I had a poofy parka that I kept up here for times when I needed it.
But I’d consider boiling oil poured over my skin before I put it over this outfit.
This made it fortunate I’d brought my alabaster pashmina, which was wide and long and warm.
Even so, it was doing very little to keep the chill at bay as I stood outside on Duncan’s back veranda, standing at the railing, staring at the moonlight gilding the lake and casting ornamental shadows of the crested pines across a bed of blue-white.
I was there because I needed to escape.
This wasn’t because Judge had so far (for hours) completely avoided me.
I’d noted (because, regrettably, I’d looked) that he’d talked to Sully (several times). To Gage (also several times.) To Duncan and Mom (once, for what seemed like an excruciatingly long time). I even saw Sully introducing him to Matt and Sasha.
He didn’t get anywhere near me.
I did not care.
(I cared.)
No, what drove me out into the biting air was something else.
I kept my body facing the railing as I slightly turned my head and slid my eyes into the room.
And saw Mom laughing with Beth and Heddy, and I hated it about me, but I breathed a little sigh of relief that she was thus, one of the few times Bowie wasn’t at her side.
Bowie.
At her side.
I closed my eyes tight and heard my sister’s hissed words of not ten minutes before, another reason I was out in the cold, literally and figuratively.
“It’s none of your business, Chloe. I mean, seriously, do you think for a second that Mom is fired up about you getting in his face? She doesn’t need Dad and Matt not talking and you and Matt not talking either. Stop being so damned nosy and even more freaking bossy. Leave him alone.”