by Leslie Kelly
He knew his sister-in-law. She was very interested, but knew him well enough not to start hitting him with questions. Because she knew he’d never answer them. “We’re old friends.”
She snorted. “But apparently you were more than that before she left town.” Shaking her head, she tsked, then gave him a wicked smile. “Who’dve thought it of good girl Emma Jean Frasier. And you.”
He took a second to close his window and get out of the car. When she still waited, expectantly, he gave her a pointed look. “Yeah, who’da thought it? But then, or now, what happens between me and Emma Jean is nobody’s business.”
Daneen merely nodded, obviously realizing she was pushing too hard. “Be careful. You know there are some wild rumors floating around about her.” The expectant sparkle in her eyes told him she was dying to tell all she knew.
“Yeah, I know. They’re pure bull. I’d like to find out how they got started.” Then he narrowed his eyes. “I’d also like to talk to your boss about a few things. Emma came to town under the impression she still owned the land where the new club is being built and I’ve been looking into the records for her.”
That reminded him of the papers he’d dropped the previous evening. He’d meant to grab them on his way out, but had completely forgotten. Considering how distracting his visit had been, he couldn’t be too hard on himself.
Daneen’s brow shot up in unfeigned surprise. “You’re kidding! I don’t see how she couldn’t know about the lot. Jimbo’s been working with the new owners for more than a year.” Then she looked past him, again toward where Emma had parked her car. “Wow. She looks good.”
Daneen’s comment surprised him, since he knew how much she and Emma disliked one another. Then he realized she wasn’t talking about Emma. No, his ex-sister-in-law was entirely focused on the other woman who’d been in Emma’s convertible. The one he’d barely even noticed since no other female seemed to exist whenever Emma Jean Frasier was around.
“My God, is that Claire?” he asked, his jaw dropping open when he finally took a good look at the woman in black.
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure she’d show up since she walked out on her husband.” Daneen whistled. “She’s obviously out to show him what he’s missing.”
He hadn’t heard the full story of Claire’s unexpected arrival on Emma’s doorstep the night before, but Daneen’s comment came as no surprise. The suitcases had been a dead giveaway about problems in Deveaux land.
So much for true love and great marriage. The next time he saw Virg and Minnie, he was going to make them swear to never break up. It was too frigging depressing for the rest of the loveless suckers to watch the few lucky ones fall apart.
He was glad for Claire in one respect, though. The town of Joyful had grown used to seeing her in ratty sweatpants and T-shirts. Now she wore one of the slinkiest black dresses he’d ever seen. There was no baggy fabric to cover up the few extra pounds she’d obviously put on since having her kid. No, she was flaunting what she had, and damn if she didn’t look fantastic—in a buxom, Mae West sort of way—while doing it.
“Ready to go in?” Daneen asked, giving him a cheerful smile. Daneen looked younger, prettier when she smiled, without the hard, angry look she often wore. He attributed her good mood to the fact that she was about to waltz back into her high school element, where she’d once reigned supreme.
“Sure,” he said, locking his door and dropping his keys in the pocket of his sport coat.
“You look very yummy tonight,” Daneen murmured as she walked beside him. “I just might have to be your bodyguard to keep all the horny Joyful women off your back.”
He didn’t imagine a man’s back was where a horny woman typically wanted to be. But he wasn’t about to argue the point with her.
Johnny truly didn’t think about how it looked for the two of them to be walking to the front door together. They’d arrived at the same time, parked near each other. It was natural for them to fall into step together.
Obviously Emma didn’t see it that way.
She and Claire had come around from behind a large van parked between Emma’s convertible and the entrance. They reached the sidewalk as Johnny and Daneen came around the other side of the van.
Emma’s face went pale, and her eyes round. And he suddenly realized what this looked like. Taking one step to the side, to distance himself from Daneen, he met Emma’s stare without flinching. He hoped.
Then he crossed his own arms in front of his chest and focused on the one woman who wasn’t glaring daggers at him. Claire. “Girl, you look downright scrumptious tonight.”
Claire’s bright smile almost made it worth the uncomfortable moment. “Why sir, I declare, you could turn a girl’s head. Emma and I went shopping.”
“Tim’s gonna have to beat off other men with a stick.”
“Or just beat off, since I have no intention of going home with him tonight,” she replied with a saucy toss of her head.
He almost choked. Coming from any other woman but Claire, and he would have. But this was the girl who’d responded with a resounding, “Eat me,” when another kid had accused her of being white trash back in junior high. As someone whose family ranked even lower than white trash on the socioeconomic scale of Joyful society, Johnny had found himself liking Claire ever since.
“Why do I suddenly feel sorry for Tim?”
“Because you have a penis and those tend to stick together?”
“Disgusting.”
She chuckled. “I meant those people tend to stick together.”
Finally, Johnny worked up the nerve to turn his attention to Emma, who stood quietly beside her friend. She looked torn. Ready to commit murder on him, but also staring at her friend with a look of approval and warmth. He had the feeling Emma’d had something to do with Claire’s transformation tonight.
God, she looked beautiful. His gut clenched and his heart picked up its pace in his chest as he thought about what they’d been doing round about this time the previous night.
Going absolutely insane.
“Hello, Em.”
She looked up at him and met his even stare. “Johnny.”
“You’re beautiful,” he admitted, the words low and thick, meant only for her ears but obviously overheard by her friend.
Before she could reply, Claire cleared her throat and tapped him on the shoulder. “I gotta say, boy, you look nice, too. I like the outfit. But, uh, I think you probably looked better in what you had on at Emma’s last night right before I showed up.”
She scrunched up her brow in thought as Emma and Johnny both shot her looks that told her to shut up. Then she grinned. “Oh, yeah, now I remember, I think it was nothin’?”
Johnny closed his eyes as he practically heard Daneen’s spine snap straight. Shaking his head in half-amusement, half-dismay, he didn’t even turn around to watch his ex-sister-in-law walk into the hotel without another glance for any of them.
“Oh, right, so she knows you’re just brotherly, huh?” Emma snapped. “In case you didn’t notice, your date went inside without you.”
He gave Claire a look and without a word, she scooted away, leaving them alone. Emma appeared ready to follow her, but Johnny stopped her by putting one hand on her shoulder. “We showed up at the same time. Separately. By coincidence.”
Nibbling her lip, she stared at him as if gauging the truth of his words.
“That’s her blue car right next to mine,” he added, tilting his head toward the parking lot. “No matter what you might think of me, there’s no way in hell I’da shown up here tonight with Daneen after what happened between us yesterday.”
She looked around, as if making sure no one was within earshot. Then she frowned. “What did happen between us yesterday, Johnny?”
A wicked smile crossed his lips before he could prevent it.
“I mean after that. I thought I knew, but something seemed…different when you left.”
So she’d picked up on his mood change. Not s
urprising, really. Forcing nonchalance, he shrugged. “Everything was fine. We went a little crazy, Claire interrupted. I left. End of story.”
“What if Claire hadn’t interrupted?”
Then we’d still be naked in your house and I’d be breaking world records for the number of times a man can get it up in a twenty-four-hour period.
“She did” was all he said.
Emma stiffened slightly, then gave him a brief nod. The tilt of her chin told him she was going for bravado. The tiny quiver of her lips said she couldn’t quite manage it.
“Look,” he said, unable to leave things this way, “it was wild. Incredible. But it didn’t mean anything more than a great time. For either of us.”
He was going to join the Screen Actor’s Guild, because he’d just pulled off one amazing performance.
Finally, the lip thing stopped as her mouth drew into a tight line. “Fine. You’re right,” she bit out. Then she turned toward the door. “Claire will be waiting.”
“Emma…”
She’d already started to walk toward the entrance, and didn’t even pause as he softly said her name. It was only after she’d gone inside, the glass door swinging silently shut behind her, that he admitted, “I lied. It meant something.”
CLAIRE DIDN’T KNOW when that sassy, foul-mouthed creature had taken over her body, but she couldn’t bring herself to much care. She liked her.
It felt good to be bad. Good to be shocking. Good to have a guy like Johnny Walker—or some of the other men she saw every day who now stared at her like she was a complete stranger—give her appreciative looks. God, it’d been a long time since she’d felt like this.
Attractive. Desirable. Sexy.
Too bad not one of the guys making her feel that way was the one she was in love with.
Standing near the bar in the crowded banquet room where the reunion was underway, she nursed a glass of wine. Three guys she’d graduated with had come up to chat. All three of them probably had walked past her a dozen times on the street in the past year and had never given her the time of day.
Men. Bizarre how they went to pieces over women’s breasts. All except her husband. She had the feeling he viewed them as pure milk-producing udders. Maybe she’d greet him with a “moo” if he showed up.
Watching over Emma’s shoulder, Claire paid close attention to the door. Each new arrival made her tense a little, though she knew he might not come at all. This wasn’t his reunion. He hadn’t moved to Joyful until after Claire had graduated high school. Considering how mad he probably was at her for leaving, she suspected he might stay away.
She still couldn’t believe she’d packed up and walked out yesterday. Wow. He’d been surprised. Stunned. Nice wifies didn’t do such things.
Claire wasn’t a fool. She’d been fully prepared for Tim to be upset about her going back to work. She’d been holding her breath all week, waiting for Eve to say something to her daddy about going to day care. But for some reason, her daughter hadn’t. In fact, she’d been awfully quiet about it the two times she’d gone. Claire very much feared her daughter was learning a hard lesson: she really wasn’t the center of the universe.
Eve’s silence had stretched things out, until Claire was going crazy. That was why she’d asked Tim to come home from work early Friday, while Eve was at Claire’s mother’s. They needed to talk things out.
She’d talked. He’d listened. At the end of her explanation, when she’d waited for him to ask reasonable questions or voice reasonable concerns, he’d done the unthinkable. He’d practically accused her of not loving their daughter, or him. Then he’d stalked out, slamming the front door so hard their wedding picture had fallen off the wall in the living room.
It had seemed like an omen.
So she’d gone to her room, packed a bag, grabbed some of Eve’s things and left. She could have gone to her mother’s, but she’d gone to Emma instead. Emma, who’d faced the worst this town had to offer and had still come back here with her head up high. In spite of the rumors.
The rumors…She’d really meant to tip Emma off about them, since someone was sure to say something odd tonight. Then again, it wasn’t the easiest topic to bring up. Hopefully it’d died a natural death, anyway, and Claire could fill her in on it late tonight when they gorged on ice cream after the reunion.
“So did your mom say whether Tim has called again?” Emma asked.
“No, not since the first time.”
Her mother said he’d called last night to make sure she was okay, but he hadn’t come looking for her. Hadn’t gone all Brando on her and stood in the middle of the street screaming her name. Not that “Claa-aire” would have sounded quite as good as “Stel-la.” But it would have been nice to think he cared when she was coming home. At the very least she’d expected him to call to ask how to operate the stinkin’ microwave.
So maybe he won’t show up tonight. Maybe he didn’t miss her at all. Maybe he’d already decided he was better off. Maybe he did know how to heat up a frozen dinner. Maybe…
Oh boy…no maybe. She saw him walking through the door of the room, recognizing his sandy-blond head anywhere.
“He’s here,” she hissed.
Emma didn’t even flinch, she just continued to sip her martini, cool as could be. “Oh? Be sure to give me a proper introduction, if you start speaking to him again.”
Claire continued to watch her husband as he nodded some hellos, and scanned the crowd. His eyes moved right past her not once but three times. “He doesn’t even recognize me, the jerk.”
Then he did. Tim’s hazel eyes widened and he stopped talking to Joe Brown, their neighbor. Joe followed Tim’s stare, did a double-take of his own, then gave Claire an obvious wink.
When Joe nudged Tim to approach his wife, Claire had had enough. “He has to be pushed over here to talk to me,” she whispered. “Boy I wish I had somebody to drag onto the dance floor.”
She gave a frantic look around, saw no male bodies close enough to do any good, and almost groaned. Tim was within ten feet now.
Finally, stiffening her jaw, she grabbed Emma’s drink out of her hand. “Come on.”
Emma snickered. “We’re not going to do the pathetic two girls dancing together thing, are we? I mean, we used to make fun of girls who did that in high school.”
Claire didn’t care. She strong-armed her friend out to the middle of the small parquet dance floor, where a deejay stood alone, sorting through CD’s and looking completely bored.
She supposed she and Emma made quite a picture, two snazzily dressed women alone on the dance floor, doing their white-girls-can’t-dance moves to Hootie and the Blowfish while the rest of their former classmates looked on.
“Can I cut in?”
She’d braced herself for Tim. Not Johnny. Yet that’s who stood there, giving Claire a look of understanding and sympathy, before shifting his gaze to Emma.
When she saw who stood behind Johnny, she understood why.
“Hello, Tim.”
He didn’t say a word, merely stared at her. She stopped dancing, hardly noticing as Johnny led Emma away. Her friend gave her a reassuring glance over her shoulder before she left.
“You look amazing,” Tim finally said, his voice sounding shaky.
“Thank you.”
She ran her hand across her chest, as if smoothing her dress. He didn’t need the prompting to focus on the low neckline; he’d been less than discreet about staring her up and down.
Finally he frowned. “Don’t you think you need to put on a sweater or something?”
“I’m not cold.”
He looked so darned uncomfortable, so uncertain, and unhappy. Claire’s heart clenched a little. Then she reminded herself of what was at stake. Her future. Her happiness. Her marriage. Everything. If she couldn’t make him see that they needed to work together to find a solution to satisfy them both, they were doomed to fail.
Claire had come out of her box. She didn’t think a crowbar and a ch
isel were going to be able to shut her back in. Tim had to make her believe he could still love the girl he’d married. Not the one he and motherhood and life had made her become.
“Want to dance?” she asked when the song changed to something slow and mellow.
Giving her a relieved nod, he tugged her into his arms, pressing his cheek into her hair. “God, you feel so good.”
He couldn’t have feigned the emotion in his voice. And Claire began to feel hope bubbling up inside her.
“Almost as good as the hug and butterfly kisses I got from Eve when I stopped by your mama’s house to see her on my way here tonight.”
And just like that, the hope bubbles popped.
EMMA DIDN’T KNOW exactly when she became aware of the strange whispers and looks. But within a couple of hours of her arrival, she began to feel like she was missing something. Like a big joke had been told and she was the only one who hadn’t gotten the punch line.
The evening had been going okay. She’d recognized several faces, and engaged some former friends in conversation. Still, people hadn’t reacted as she’d expected. Nobody shrieked and hugged her. Nobody chatted a mile a minute, asking her where she’d been and if she was married or why she’d come back.
This was Joyful, so she knew better than to expect any former football stars to come back as women. The crowd seemed pretty much the standard. Geeks who were now computer programmers. Beefy jocks turned truck drivers who liked to relive their glory years. Lots of high school sweethearts who’d gotten married, bought a tract house, had a kid or two—or six—and never dreamed about leaving town. She could have predicted it.
But she’d expected at least a few people to seem genuinely happy to see her again. So far, they weren’t.
It’s Johnny. She cursed the luck that had brought him here tonight. Because with the two of them both present, there was absolutely no chance of anyone forgetting about prom night.
She almost told them all to get a life. Really, what was the big hairy deal about two teenagers doing what millions of other teenagers did on prom night? It was only because he’d been the brother of her boyfriend that her situation was the least bit unique. And it still didn’t seem nearly important enough to warrant the arched brows and the strange looks she’d gotten tonight. Two blondes whose names she couldn’t remember had made some weird comment about how “demure” her dress was, then giggled as they walked away. And then there were the obnoxious pickup lines a couple of former classmates had used on her.