It’d taken me three hours of combing through seventeen websites to find them.
But as was my wont when I had something I desired, I put the time needed into the endeavor, and I got it.
My shoes were, obviously…everything.
“Coming?” Sasha asked as she moved by me.
“Be right down,” I replied, reaching for my peachy-pink lip stain which was almost a neutral, but not quite because…understated with jewelry and makeup, the outfit packed an even bigger punch.
“Cannot wait to see this Judge guy,” she said as she and the boys moved to the door to follow Bowie out. “I’ve been to the store like…a bazillion times to try to catch a glimpse. He’s elusive.”
“I saw him a couple of days ago having breakfast at Zeke’s,” Sul said.
“Ohmigod, why didn’t you say?” Sasha cried.
Their voices were fading down the hall, and I was putting an unnecessary layer of stain on my lips, since I’d already applied the first one and it was called stain for a reason.
I was doing this allowing myself a moment to feel the fact that the truth of it was…
I did not want to go down there.
No matter what I said, I did not want to see Judge.
Why?
Especially when I was looking this fabulous?
Because I’d let him in.
I’d shared things with him I wasn’t even admitting to myself.
In fact, when I’d shared these things, I couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth, because I hadn’t allowed myself to consciously think of them.
The double why…
As in, why did I do this?
I did it because he was handsome, and he was funny, and he was flirty, and he didn’t take any of my shit.
I did it also because he had warm brown eyes I could stare into for days and an easy smile that made me feel that ease, down deep, a place he shouldn’t be when I barely knew him.
But the last thing I needed was some hookup with one of Bowie’s employees that was never going to last, making future nights like tonight awkward for everybody.
Specifically, Mom and Bowie.
They needed no awkwardness.
They needed no troubles.
They needed smooth sailing.
Because after the downright rotten, heinous, traitorous shit Uncle Corey put them through, they’d earned it.
And they deserved it.
So far, it seemed, so good.
We all got along, even Matt dug Bowie, and Matt was a loner. Sometimes you just never knew with him. But he openly liked Bowie.
Also, Dad and Bowie got on with each other. They weren’t best buds, but they could share space amicably. Which was useful, since Mom and Dad were still the best of friends and none of us wanted one of those ugly situations where they had to share us between them so we never got to have both of them together.
All of us together.
Dad hadn’t come up for tonight, which would just be weird, but he’d been around the entirety of Christmas and it’d all been good.
Last, Mom and Bowie were just…happy.
Pretty much all my life I’d seen Mom that way (and I didn’t think too long about that).
But I got the impression from the boys and Bowie (not to mention Harvey, Bowie’s best friend) that wasn’t de rigueur with Duncan “Bowie” Holloway.
He was a great guy. Outside of my dad, the best.
I was glad he finally had that happiness.
At the same time, it haunted me.
So no, I didn’t need any entanglements with the resident player at River Rain Outdoor Stores Corporate Headquarters. Even if he did something cute, like run a program for kids to get them out into nature.
But Duncan had these parties every year, and he liked throwing them. I could tell by the way Mom shared how he’d been prepping for it, refreshing the evergreen boughs of their Christmas decorations, cooking with Bettina, their housekeeper, lugging in trays and boxes of catering and decorating stuff.
Hell, I’d done a walkthrough before I’d come up to start getting ready and the place was decked out.
The motif was pinecones, cream candles, copious strings of miniature LED lights threaded through winter greenery, and juniper-colored cloth napkins (Bowie was a famous environmentalist, even the glasses for beer were real glass, definitely not a paper napkin or a piece of plastic in sight).
Still, it was Bowie’s brand of festive, and it said a lot about him that he’d have the seventy employees he employed in his Arizona stores into his own home for a big bash on New Year’s, doing this every New Year’s Eve.
It was very Bowie.
And I couldn’t hide in my (and Sasha’s) bedroom because a handsome man who’d probably brought a fresh-faced, bubbly mountain girl as a date was downstairs.
I had to get down there.
My stain had dried, and I looked amazing, so I had no further excuses not to be down there.
So I slicked on the gloss over the stain, dropped the tube in my evening bag embossed with swoops of pearls (and I did have my phone, I went nowhere without it), and I threw one more glance at myself in the mirror.
Divine.
I headed out.
In a fairy tale, he would have been at the foot of the stairs, catching my eye the moment I appeared at the top of them and staring at me while I drifted down as if he was having difficulties not falling at my feet the minute I cleared the last step.
Up until a couple of years ago, I could convincingly make the argument my entire life was a fairy tale.
But I’d learned.
No life was a fairy tale.
I descended the stairs and cleared the growing crowd in Bowie’s massive entryway with its crowning mezzanine and hit the great room.
I then wasted no time going to one of the two bars Bowie had set up that had a bartender who could make mixed drinks and pour chilled glasses of champagne and craft beer from a tap (there were hammered copper tubs stationed around the space filled with bottles of beer, if you preferred, as well as small blue bottles of a local company’s sparkling water, so if you liked, you could also help yourself).
I got my flute of champagne and floated away from the bar, took a sip, and above the rim of my glass, surveyed the candlelit, festive-LED-lit, lights-on-dim, soft-rock-coming-from-the-Sonos space.
And I saw it was a party in the mountains given by a mountain man.
But it sure was pretty.
I also saw that, apparently, Judge wasn’t keen on meeting the famous Imogen Swan, because he wasn’t one of the first to arrive.
“Green Acres is apparently the place to be.”
This was uttered directly into my ear from behind.
I turned, looked up and saw my handsome brother standing there.
The blood one.
Matthew.
“It’s good you, Mom and Sash are all in to cover the whole satin and sequins front so the locals didn’t have to concern themselves with that,” he continued to tease.
I gave my brother an eye roll and searched for Mom.
I found her standing in the curve of Bowie’s arm at the entryway to the great room. She was smiling at some guests and wearing a striking red satin dress that left one shoulder bare, had a billowing balloon sleeve on the other, and came down to an angle hem that ended above the knee at one side and kissed her ankle on the other.
It was the perfect dress for her.
(Said me, who selected it.)
Although we were far from the only ones who put in an effort—some of the men were wearing sports jackets, one I saw in a suit (though, no tie), and the women had definitely gussied up—the Hollywood faction was not hard to spot.
“She is who she is, I am who I am, and Sasha did the best she could do,” I returned. “At least we can count our lucky stars our baby sister doesn’t have flowers in her hair.”
Matt smirked and lifted his scotch and soda to his lips, doing his own scan of the crowd as he did so.
Once he’d swallowed his sip, he said, “I like her new style. I think it suits her.”
I gave the only response I could give.
I harumphed.
He chuckled and looked at me. “She’s finding her way, Coco. And I think it’s a good thing she’s out from under his shadow.”
I felt my spine straighten at this.
Because when he said “his,” he meant Dad’s.
It was true, growing up, Sash and Dad were two peas in a pod, both the most active, athletic, competitive ones (Matt slid in at number three of that bunch, though Mom and I didn’t compete), and for Sasha, all of that was gone.
As mentioned, it concerned me, including Sasha losing the entirety of her drive, which was something she rode, if memory served, since kindergarten.
But even if they weren’t my favorite things back in the day, I missed the sweaters and tailored skirts and chino shorts and blue oxford button-downs she used to wear.
Mostly, though, I missed Sasha having focus.
Aim.
Goals.
And even more than that (far more than that), I missed Matt and Dad getting along, respecting each other and openly loving each other.
Something, since even before the divorce, when we came to know that things were going wrong with Mom and Dad’s marriage, they did not.
Or at least Matt didn’t.
“Matt—” I started.
He cut me off, his face going hard as he did. “We are absolutely, one hundred percent not talking about that.”
I turned to face him fully. “Can you absolutely, one hundred percent give me a time when we will talk about this? Considering the fact I’ve brought it up repeatedly for over a year and you keep putting me off.”
He tried to dismiss it by saying, “It is what it is.”
“It is, indeed, that.” I couldn’t keep the snap out of my voice. That said, I didn’t really try. “Going back to the fact that what happened between Mom and Dad happened.”
“Chloe—”
“And Mom has moved on from it.”
“Chlo—”
“But regardless, it is hardly your place to make her keep paying for Dad hurting her the way he did. Furthermore, it’s hardly your place to keep him paying for it when he’s already lost everything.”
“He hasn’t lost you or Sash, or as you said, Mom,” Matt bit out.
“If you think he isn’t in agony that she’s rekindled her first love and is happy beyond measure, then you are not nearly as intelligent as I thought,” I bit back. “He is. He’s writhing with it. He doesn’t need this ongoing, and ludicrous, and unnecessary, and just plain hurtful estrangement with his son carrying on and on and on.”
“He cheated on her,” he growled.
My heart pitched.
“I’m aware of that.” I gritted between my teeth. “He made a huge mistake. He’s human.”
Matt shook his head. “It’s my thing with Dad, and it has nothing to do with you.”
“You’re wrong about that too,” I clipped.
“Well, way to go,” he drawled. “You’ve shown your face at Duncan’s party for five minutes, and you’ve ruined it for me.”
I felt utterly no guilt.
“You need to get over yourself,” I advised.
“And you need to go fuck yourself,” he retorted.
I blinked, because Matt could be stubborn, and remote, and brutally honest.
But he was never a jerk.
He prowled away, and I immediately turned my attention in the direction of Mom, who I hoped did not witness the tenseness of that exchange, only to see she was engaged with talking to someone.
But Bowie was watching me closely.
I pasted a jaunty smile on my face and lifted my flute.
He returned my smile, but I could tell he didn’t buy my jauntiness.
Damn.
“I like my ass, as fat as it is, and God granted me a good head of hair, but you in that outfit makes me grieve the loss of my perky tits.”
Heddy, a longtime friend of Mom’s who serendipitously lived in Prescott, had sidled up beside me.
She used to be in the acting biz.
Now, she worked in a title office, had two boyfriends she refused to commit to (and they were all down with that, having their freedom but also having company when they felt like it), and three dogs.
She had a smart mouth and the ability to tease relentlessly.
So obviously, I adored her.
“If I hear you call your ass fat again, I’ll stop speaking to you for a year,” I sniffed.
“Couldn’t have that,” she replied, grinning up at me.
“And it’s not fat, it’s curvaceous,” I noted.
“I stand corrected,” she said.
“You certainly do,” I retorted, lifting my glass to take a sip, intending to restart our conversation by saying hello and telling her she looked cute when I felt something tickle along the side of my neck, a sensation that made my gaze wander the room.
When it did, I saw Judge was there, across the space, standing next to the other bar set up in the corner by the fireplace (which was now burning merrily away).
He had a sturdy glass filled with beer in his hand and a smile on his face as he listened to an extortionately handsome, built man who was standing with him.
As if it had a physical touch, the minute my gaze hit him, Judge Oakley’s eyes swung to me.
And fixed on me.
And he stared.
And stared.
And drat it all, I felt my skin heat, because the look on his face said he saw white satin for about five seconds before his imagination chucked my outfit, and now he saw something entirely different.
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
Chasing Serenity Page 7