Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance

by Braden, Magdalen

  Christine flopped into one of Elise’s client chairs. “You? First Friday? Gallery openings and the wine-and-cheese crowd? I smell a judge behind this.”

  Elise felt herself flush. “He won an extra date.” She wasn’t sure about two “romantic” dates in one weekend, especially if they were going to be like the evening at Dave & Buster’s.

  “How did he manage to win that—playing strip moot court?” Christine pulled her hair back and wound it into a chignon before letting it go. “Hey, I like that idea. ‘May it please the court…’” Christine said in an extra-sexy voice. And then in a lower tone, “‘Counselor, that precedent was overturned last year. Take off your blouse.’ You should play that with him.”

  Elise shook her head. “Nope. He says he gets enough people trying hard to please him in court. It’s not sexy for him.”

  “Too bad. It sounds like fun. Anyway, how did he win an extra date?”

  Elise reconsidered her shoes. Was she sure she could manage an evening wearing them? Might get painful.

  “Elise?”

  “Right. Well, he correctly guessed the color of my new bra and panty set. By touch.”

  “Clever guy.” Christine’s eyes were wide. “I’m impressed.”

  Elise glanced at Christine’s smile. Maybe introducing them would work. “So come along with us. You’ll love him. He’s very debonair,” she coaxed.

  Christine hesitated, frowning.

  Elise said, “Just for the First Friday part. We’re going to dinner after that.” Of course, if Jack fell for Christine, Elise could let them have the reservation. She’d grab a taxi and get out of these high heels.

  “Meet the infamous Blackjack McIntyre? Yeah, okay. When are you leaving?”

  The phone rang. Elise checked—the mail room. “Perfect timing.” Suddenly she felt uneasy at the idea of Jack’s reaction to her bringing someone. Too late now… “The copies must be ready. Go get your stuff. I’ll call Jack.”

  Elise talked him into meeting her at a specific gallery on North 3rd Street. She neglected to mention that she was bringing Christine.

  When she and Christine got there, Jack was already in the well-lit gallery. Elise paused to point him out through the plate-glass windows. He had on one of his beautifully tailored suits. Such a shame those got covered up by a generic judicial robe.

  “Yummy,” Christine said.

  While they watched, a gorgeous woman with a flirty cinnamon bob came over to Jack, put her hand on his sleeve, looked up at him from beneath her artfully wispy bangs, and smiled. Yummy, indeed.

  Watching the redhead flirt with Jack, Elise grimaced at the flash of irritation heating her gut. The whole idea was to get Jack off her back. Who cared if it was Christine or some strange forty-year-old? “Yeah, I know. Yummy. C’mon, let’s go in.”

  Elise walked straight over to Jack, who smiled that stunning Blackjack smile at her. His smile dimmed to polite interest when she introduced Christine. The redhead sized up the competition—Christine in particular—and disappeared into the crowd.

  Jack was too good a politician to reveal his reaction to having Christine sprung on him. His courteous demeanor could mask anything from lust to fury. Still, they seemed happy making small talk, so Elise murmured something about getting some wine and left them to it.

  Her unease at having seen the redhead with Jack lingered. She could still see the harpy’s painted talons on Jack’s sleeve and her come-to-me smile. All sexually suggestive. Had the woman recognized him from TV, or did she routinely hit on good-looking men?

  This angry anxiety was uncharted territory for Elise. She checked over her shoulder. Jack and Christine were still chatting. They looked good together, like gold and onyx. Hopefully they were hitting it off.

  Elise resumed her inspection of the artwork, which seemed to be mixed-media. Large canvasses with strips of polished chrome bisecting acrylic paint. She didn’t like them much, but the pieces had an in-your-face energy.

  “What do you think?” Jack murmured in her ear.

  Elise’s entire body contracted with desire at the sound of his voice. Just physiology, silly. Simply her body’s memory of their night together. She inhaled his scent as she struggled to keep her voice level. “A bit strident for my taste.”

  She could feel his breath alongside her head. His shoulders were close behind her—not touching, but his body heat warmed her.

  “There’s so much energy,” he remarked. “You can almost feel the thrust of the artist’s passion.”

  Elise smothered a laugh, turning it into a cough. “It’s so hard, though. There’s no softness here. Isn’t it better when there’s something warm and cushioning to receive that strength and energy?”

  Jack was making a noise in her ear, a growl or maybe a purr. It made her insides puddle. Elise realized she’d been staring at the same painting—swathes of yellow and red with a huge line of shiny chrome across the top—for ten minutes. Time and careful consideration were not making a difference. It was ugly.

  Where was Christine? Elise looked around. Christine was chatting with a lanky dude who looked half asleep or all stoned.

  “Your friend is very beautiful,” Jack said.

  She turned to grin at him. “Isn’t she? And such a great lawyer. She’s mostly in the bankruptcy courthouse, but that’s not too far away.”

  His eyes glinted dangerously. “Not too far away for what?”

  Elise didn’t like the frosty steel in his voice. “Oh, I was just thinking you could ask her to lunch some time.”

  “Where did you get the impression that I wanted or needed you to fix me up with your friend?” His voice got so quiet—not a whisper, but low—that she strained to hear him over the noise in the gallery.

  “I really can’t think why you’re annoyed. You’re single. She’s single. I thought she might be your type.”

  “I’m unmarried. I am not, however, available.”

  Elise crossed her arms. “That’s just semantics. What you want me to acknowledge is that I have some prior claim on you and I’m not going to do it. You signed on for the package deal, and that includes my efforts to present you with uh, alternatives.”

  “Elise. I hesitate to reduce this to the level of first-year contract law, but I think you can see that bringing an additional woman—specifically one you hope I’ll be attracted to—on one of our romantic dates violates the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”

  Damn him. No one had ever made her as crazy mad as he did just by being right. She was about to blast him with her temper when she caught the look on his face. His eyes were bright and a small, secret smile tweaked the corners of his mouth.

  He was amused. She frowned. Worse, he was charmed. Hell. She hadn’t foreseen this result. He was supposed to get bored with her, not think her delightful. And fighting with him wasn’t going to drive him away. If anything, he seemed to relish their skirmishes.

  Time for a tactical retreat. She relaxed her fists, then reached up and patted him on the cheek. She tried to make the gesture as amicable as possible.

  “You’re right. I was wrong. I’ll let Christine know we’re going, okay?” She turned to look for Christine’s bright blonde hair.

  Jack grabbed her arm. “I swear, when I keel over from apoplexy, you’d better feel guilty.”

  “Look on the bright side, Judge—death would vitiate our contract.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jack’s head was still reeling as he watched Elise walk over to her friend. How could she think he’d fall for someone like that? He could admire the woman’s good looks, but they did nothing for him. Statuesque and blonde was like sun glare compared to his moonlight girl.

  He’d scuttled his original plan to wander through more galleries when Elise rejoined him. Instead, he took her hand—she wasn’t escaping this date—and headed straight to Amada. He kept their conversation light, mostly local legal gossip. They were early for their reservation, but he was a regular there, so he and Elise
didn’t wait long for a table.

  “It’s a tapas menu,” Jack said after the waitress took their drink orders. “We share everything, so it’s nice to get a mix of items. Would you like me to suggest some dishes?”

  Elise leaned back at his offer. “That would be lovely. Order whatever you think would be good.”

  “You’re really not much of a foodie, are you?”

  “I like to eat but I also like not having to think about it, plan for it, prepare it, or worry about it.”

  He studied the menu as he considered this. The rituals of food—another thing they didn’t have in common. He’d spent a considerable time planning tomorrow’s menu, and would be quite happy to spend the day shopping and cooking. It relaxed him. Not something he was going to tell her, though.

  Her lack of interest in food gave him an idea for one of their sex dates, though. He filed it away and got back to the question he’d wanted to ask as soon as they’d left the gallery. “Why did you bring your friend along tonight?”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “I already confessed to that breach of the contract,” she said slowly. She seemed guarded, like she expected him to raise all those contractual objections again.

  “I’m not talking about the rules. I want to know your reasoning. Why did you think I’d want to date another woman, or specifically your friend Kristin?”

  Elise looked sulky. “Christine. Christine Pennington. She’s my best friend at the firm.”

  “I thought dating your best friend’s boyfriend was a serious offense in the world of women’s relationships.” Jack watched her carefully as she played with her napkin, folding it up and then smoothing it out again. She fascinated him. Figuring out how her mind worked was like unraveling yarn.

  “That prohibition would only apply if you were my boyfriend.”

  “The fact that we’re sleeping together doesn’t qualify?”

  She looked up at him, startled. “Interesting. I hadn’t considered that perspective.” She took a sip of her drink. “I’ll admit it, Jack—I mostly think of you as a problem to be solved. Having you fall in love with Christine is a tidy solution.”

  Jack’s head jerked back. He’d lost sight of how wide the distance was between his goal and Elise’s. He wanted to marry her. She wanted to get rid of him.

  She held up a hand. “Wait. Before you jump down my throat, you should know that in the world of women’s relationships, as you put it, I was really paying you a huge compliment. I would never palm shoddy goods off on my best friend.”

  And the insults just keep coming…

  Jack concentrated on the table settings. He hardly knew how to begin parsing this logic. He shifted his cutlery slightly, arranging it so the handles were in a tidy row.

  Finally he looked up. “Thank you for the compliment. I think.”

  She was angled away from him, gazing over at the street door. “But you’re right. I should have thought about what would happen if you and Christine had hit it off, especially now that you and I’ve had sex.” She looked so solemn that he found himself softening. He’d been very angry back at the gallery. Relaxed now, he could see the humor in the situation. Wooing this woman was a roller coaster ride, that was for sure.

  “Okay. Help me out here,” he said. “I get it that you don’t want me courting you, to use an old-fashioned expression.”

  She nodded cheerfully. “Just sex.”

  He sighed. She wasn’t capable of thinking one thing but saying another. He trusted her—which was good, but bad as well because it meant she wasn’t playing games. He had to believe she really didn’t want a romantic relationship with him. He mentally dismissed that last point—it didn’t serve his purposes at all. It wasn’t his job to remove himself from her sight. She knew how to do that all on her own.

  “As you say. Just sex. So why bring along a honey trap?”

  “What’s a honey trap?”

  “In spy craft, it’s a sexy woman used to seduce a field agent into divulging secrets. In this case, your friend was supposed to be a distraction. What I can’t understand is why you even thought it might work. Can you really imagine I have energy for anyone other than you?”

  She frowned. “It wasn’t supposed to be a case of me plus Christine. More like you’d fall madly in love with her and leave me alone.”

  Jack laughed. “Trust me, when it comes to falling madly in love, once is enough for me. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

  “C’mon, Jack.”

  Elise’s look implored him to understand it from her perspective, but he didn’t. He couldn’t imagine why she thought her logic was glaringly obvious. “Okay, explain it to me.”

  “You have to accept that I can’t believe you’re in love with me. Not because I have low self-esteem, which I don’t, but because I don’t believe love works that way. Maybe you can feel lust at first sight. It’s well known that men rate women by their looks first. Then why wouldn’t you pick Christine? She’s almost laughably stunning. I’ve seen men’s eyes glaze over when they see her. It’s like they lose fifty IQ points on the spot. I keep expecting them to drool.”

  Now he really was confused. He leaned toward her. “You don’t have low self-esteem, but you believe she’s prettier than you are? That makes no sense.”

  “Jack. She’s a ten. You’re a ten. You guys match. On a good day, I’m maybe a seven. I try to stick to the five-to-eight range in the men I date.”

  “A ten? Like that movie with whatsername running on the beach in slow motion?” Jack struggled to understand this. “And isn’t it sexist and demeaning to reduce people to scores?”

  Elise sighed. Before she could explain, the first plates of food arrived. The waitress identified everything and left them with a brief nod.

  For someone who didn’t obsess about food, Elise looked at everything with keen interest, hardly indifferent to it as an art form. She tried the warm goat cheese drizzled with honey and closed her eyes.

  “Good?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. Really good.” Very slowly, she licked her fork clean. Her pleasure was sensual and contagious. Suddenly he was much happier with this date—and he hadn’t even tried the food.

  “Okay, so explain this seven-ten nonsense to me,” Jack said.

  “Silly. Seven-ten is a split in bowling.” She wiped her fingers on her napkin. “Look, it’s not a competition. It’s just been my experience that good-looking people want to date good-looking people. And if the pictures of you in the local glossy magazines are anything to go by, you date seriously good-looking women. Tens, if you will.”

  “Well, if they’re tens, then you’re an eleven,” he said. “Because I think you’re better-looking than they are.”

  Elise’s expression of impatience said it all.

  “You don’t believe me?” At her look, Jack waved her off. “Withdrawn. I can see you don’t believe me. But I’m telling you the truth. Why would I lie?”

  “That’s the one question I don’t have the answer for,” she said. “My current theory is new-judge jitters.”

  “What?”

  “Of course I don’t think you’re deliberately telling me something you know to be false. The way I see it, though, you must be confused, and it’s causing you to interpret this situation between us as ‘the L-word.’”

  She used air-quotes for the emotion formerly known as “love.”

  She continued, “So I’ve asked myself the same thing. Why do you persist in this crazy idea that you’re—that you’ve fallen for me? And now you tell me that I’m better-looking than the news anchor, for example? You have to see how incredible that sounds to me.” She went back to eating.

  Jack pressed on his temples to quell the tension building in his head, then ran his hands through his hair. Elise was beautiful. Maybe he hadn’t thought that immediately. Maybe he’d a momentary sense that she wasn’t the prettiest woman he’d seen, but he couldn’t see it now. She was startlingly lovely. Her eyes were a deep, clear blue, she had
perfect skin, her lips were cherry-pink and deliciously soft. And they really were that color—he’d kissed off her lipstick on more than one occasion.

  Her best feature, though, was her hair. It was an unusual color, not quite blonde but definitely not the gray of old age. He’d played with it, very gingerly, while she slept on Saturday night. It curled a little, at the ends, where it nestled against her neck. Even in the dark of her bedroom, it seemed to glow. It reminded him of something specific. Moonlight, sure, but some specific moonlight. It had taken him a long time to dredge the memory from childhood—the shimmer of moonlight on Eagles Mere Lake on cloudless summer nights when he’d been unable to sleep.

  Had her moonlight hair kept him from sleeping last Saturday? Was that what triggered a sleep-deprived compulsion to propose marriage?

  “Okay. Maybe I didn’t fall in love with you,” he said to appease her. “Maybe I just fell in love with your hair.”

  She put a hand up to check that her hair was still the same, pulling a lock forward to stare at. “It’s unusual, I’ll grant you. But lovable? Really? Mostly I just get asked stupid questions about it.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “When did I go prematurely gray? What color was it originally? Did I go gray overnight after a hideous fright? That kind of thing.”

  “What do you tell them?” He sipped his wine, watching her face reflect her impatience with people’s questions.

  “Early twenties, light brown, and no.”

  “I love your hair.”

  “So I gather.” She grinned. “And you know what? I find your hair very sexy.” She leaned toward him, ready to confide. “In fact, I have a favor to ask.”

  This could either be very good for him, or very bad. He was a little afraid to find out which.

  He bent forward. “What?”

  “Will you let your hair grow?” She added swiftly, “Just a little. Maybe go an extra month without getting it cut, and then tell your barber to leave it a teeny bit longer?”

  The idea was crazy. He’d had the same haircut since high school. Any longer and his hair started to think about going all curly, like one of those black lambs.