by Nancy Bush
Movement caught her eye, and she saw that Layla, who’d headed downstairs, had returned, this time trying to stay out of the way of the trays of pear tarte tatin and blue cheese. Kate’s stomach awakened, but she squelched her appetite. Not if she intended to keep wearing this dress. She hadn’t eaten her meal. She sure as hell wasn’t going to start with dessert.
Though she knew Abbott would consider it a transgression, she set down her napkin and got to her feet, working her way to where Layla had stopped near the top of the stairs.
“You need to get out of the way,” Kate told her, gesturing to the members of the waitstaff who were ducking about with their trays.
“Don’t worry. I’m about to head out,” she said.
“You’re not leaving yet.” Kate glanced at her father-in-law, appearing to hold the crowd in thrall. Abbott was most comfortable when he was on stage in front of hundreds of people.
“I think I’ve done enough hosting to satisfy my father,” Layla said in a flat voice. She almost acted as if her father’s edicts were Kate’s fault, somehow. For the love of Pete, she just couldn’t win with Lyle’s sisters.
“We should still make a unified showing.”
“You can handle it, Kate.”
Kate heard the condescension and burned inside. “Well, it’s not my fault John got sick.”
“No one said it was. I’ll wait till Dad’s finished speaking, then I’ll tell him that I’m leaving.”
Layla headed down the stairs, keeping to one side to avoid one of the young women who was carefully bringing up a tray of drinks.
Frustrated, Kate determinedly made her way back to Lyle’s side. She saw he had his cell phone out, though he wasn’t looking at it. That would piss off Abbott in a way neither of them could afford.
“Put that away,” she said, sotto voce, as she took her seat.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked.
“Trying to talk Layla out of leaving.”
“She’s grossed out like the rest of the women.”
“People are grossed out?” Kate’s heart clutched with concern.
“Some can’t eat.” He threw a glance to a woman at a table about three over from them. She was as still as a statue and very, very thin. The plate in front of her looked like it hadn’t been touched, though as Kate watched, the woman moved bits of salmon around with her fork.
“Anorexia,” Kate said.
“What?”
“Well, look at her. If she’s grossed out, it’s just a convenient excuse for her not to eat.”
“She’s got nice boobs,” Lyle observed.
“Those can be bought,” Kate snapped. She wanted to slap him upside the head. He was such a man sometimes! Honestly, it was hell being the only grown-up all the time.
Abbott had finished, and now a heavyset woman wearing a denim jacket decorated with rhinestones and a straw cowboy hat, its band made of peacock feathers, had taken his place and was telling them all about the recent travails of the Gorge and the measures they were all taking to improve its viability once more. Kate listened to the drone, but it was just words, words, words, blah, blah, blah.
She let herself fall into a kind of self-imposed fugue to keep herself from being bored to death and heard the ripple of a joke sliding from attendee to attendee, something about a man losing his gorge while trying to save the Gorge. John ... she realized. This then, was what they would all remember from the benefit.
Lyle heard the joke and snickered. She almost kicked him under the table.
Could the night be worse? she asked herself.
* * *
September stopped by the restroom and thoroughly washed her hands before heading back to the dining area, where she spied Jake, who signaled her to their table. He was standing by her chair as she wended her way toward him, and he guided her to a seat next to William Ogden. He was on her right, and on her left was the woman in the diamond choker.
Jake seated himself across from her and behind him, directly in September’s line of vision, she could see Jerome Wolfe helping a young woman in a black dress with diamond-shape cutouts running between her breasts to her waist to a chair. She’d stumbled, and now she clung onto his arm for dear life. Clearly, she’d had a few too many. Behind them, a woman was speaking at a podium, her cheery voice reminding them all to have a wonderful time and get ready to bid, bid, bid on the items in the oral auction.
“Everything okay?” Jake asked September.
“Yeah.”
The woman in the choker assured her, “We were just served, so the food’s still hot. Sometimes it pays to be seated away from the action.” She didn’t look like she felt that way, however.
“Were you with the sick man?” Ogden asked her.
“Uh, yes. He and his wife are on their way to a doctor now, I believe.”
“Food poisoning?” The woman held a hand to her chest. “Should we be eating?” This was a moot point; her plate was clean.
September picked up her fork. “I think we’re okay. And, well, I’m starved,” she said, and that, apparently, relaxed them a little.
She glanced over the rail to see another of Abbott’s children—Layla, she believed—standing in the massive foyer, alone.
Chapter Fifteen
Layla felt a headache coming on. Could be a rager if she didn’t get herself under control. She would have liked to blame it on the fact that she’d had a glass of champagne, maybe a glass and a half, but it had more to do with her tense arguments with Neil, and that she hadn’t eaten enough to sustain herself today.
Her mind went to the auto accident that had left her barren and had taken another woman’s life. Just like it always did when she felt low and a little out of control. She couldn’t completely dissuade herself of the guilt, but it was at these times that she did her best painting, a strange development resulting from that terrible event. She felt like painting now. Getting out of here. Running away.
But she would have to literally run; she had no way home.
She heard the oral auction begin. Dessert had been served. Speeches were over. Time to break out the pocketbooks.
Did she want to stick around to see what her painting went for? No. Definitely not. She just wanted to go home. Kate and Lyle were the most likely candidates to give her a ride, but they would stay to the bitter end. Same with her father.
You could ask Neil.
Ha, ha. You’re just so funny, Layla.
She wandered toward the kitchen but was met by the Asian server who guarded the door like a sentry. “Chef wants no one in the kitchen but staff.”
Layla nodded and moved away. Fine; she didn’t care anyway. Aimless, she strolled across the grand entry, listening to the rapid-fire patter of the auctioneer. She reached the door to the cloakroom and pushed it open, and was immediately hit by the sharp, head-clearing scents of chemical products. The cleaning staff had left the room spotless.
She felt almost envious that Lucy had gotten to leave early.
She stood in the cloakroom for a good twenty minutes. The din of noise from the guests was a low roar of talk and laughter, which was lifting by degrees as the night wore on. She could hear the auctioneer. Whatever was being currently auctioned off was creating a wave of raucous conversation that almost sounded like shouting. The volume of the crowd was becoming ever louder, a by-product of the temporary deafness that occurred when people overimbibed.
She walked back into the foyer and was hit by a wave of noise.
“. . . going once, going twice . . . sold for twelve thousand dollars!” the auctioneer screeched to be heard.
The noise level fell off. Dropped into a collective gasp.
Holy guacamole . . . not her painting . . . not purchased by Neil! Did he think he could buy her off this way?
No . . . He’d offered her thirty thousand. Thirty thousand! He clearly thought she had a case, was a threat to his plans. What did he think she could do?
“Thank you, Mr. Wolfe,” the auctioneer declared
to a rousing handclapping.
Wolfe? Wolfe?
Then her father’s voice through the microphone. “Layla? Where are you? Come on up and thank Jerome for his generous gift to the Friends of the Columbia River Gorge. . . .”
* * *
It was Neil Layla saw first as she mounted the stairs to the gallery, a smile pinned on her face. A sick smile, she suspected, though she tried hard to appear grateful and happy. Neil seemed a bit shaken. By the sale of her painting to Wolfe, or something else? She realized he’d been one of the bidders in a lively back-and-forth she’d nearly blocked while she was in the cloakroom. So, he’d battled with Jerome Wolfe for her painting.
What did either of them hope to achieve?
Wolfe was regarding her with lazy amusement as she greeted him. She shook his hand, the diners all watching, then the last item was placed up for bid, a trip to a donor’s vacation home on Hawaii, the Big Island. As the bidders began again, Wolfe inclined his head to the hallway leading away from the gallery toward the west bedrooms. Thankfully, the corridor was empty; no guests to overhear them, the hum of conversation barely audible.
“Why did you pay that much?” she asked as she followed him.
“Why shouldn’t I? You don’t think it’s worth it?”
Word games. Just like Neil. Layla answered flatly, “No.”
“You’re denigrating your own work. Why, I’d—”
“Shut up. Excuse me for saying it, but shut ... up.”
Surprised, he stared at her, silver eyebrows twin peaks over dark eyes.
Layla held up her hands. “Do you want my support in the sale? Buying my painting isn’t going to change my opinion.”
“Maybe I paid too much.”
“You did. I just said so.”
He leaned back a little, assessing her. “They said you were the easy one.”
“Who are they?” she bristled.
“I was told Lucy was the tough one.”
“My father or brother, or both? Doesn’t matter. You’re wasting your time trying to curry favor with either one of us. Lucy and I don’t want you buying Stonehenge. We want to keep it in the family.”
“There’s nothing I can do to sway you?”
He was a little smoother than Neil, but they were cut from the same cloth. She said with a shrug, “You don’t have to quit trying, of course. Up to you.”
“What if I said I enjoy your company?”
“All five minutes of it that we’ve had?”
“More than five minutes, at the table. And I do enjoy your company.”
“Okay. Fine. That enjoyment’s about to come to an end.” She glanced back the way they’d come. The event was beginning to break up and she would be able to say her good-byes to her father, collect her coat, and leave.
“Maybe we could extend it?”
She was growing really tired of his banter, clearly something that usually worked for him. But then she considered. “You came here alone?”
“My date canceled at the last minute.”
“So there’s room in your car for a passenger?”
“Maybe.”
“I could use a ride home.”
He looked pleased. “Will giving you a ride help my case?”
“No.” If she hadn’t been so desperate to leave, she would have walked away right then. The prospect of several captive hours with the man wasn’t something she looked forward to. But . . . “You’ll have the entire trip to try to convince me.”
His slow smile was fitting. So like his name: wolfish.
“I’m going to find my father. I’ll meet you in the entry.”
She nearly ran into Neil and Courtney as she left Wolfe and walked back toward the crowd. Courtney was being shunned by Neil. He was really icing her out. Because of her bomb about being pregnant? Or maybe that she was so excited she couldn’t be trusted to keep their secret. Her words had made Layla realize Courtney and Neil had selected a male embryo to assure they were getting a boy. When had all this come down? It hadn’t been that many months since Neil and Layla were still considered a couple.
Unless he’d been seeing Courtney, planning this, at the same time he was dating Layla.
Naomi’s words flitted across her mind. Courtney being very interested in Neil and Layla’s coming baby.
“There you are,” Neil said, his gaze moving past Layla to where Jerome was coming up behind her.
Jerome said, “Sorry about outbidding you.”
Courtney answered, “Oh, Neil wasn’t serious. He was just trying to run you up!”
“That right?” Wolfe asked Neil.
Neil was almost apoplectic, furious with Courtney. Layla felt a small glow of happiness. Schadenfreude. There was something to be said for feeling joy at someone else’s expense.
“I think your father’s looking for you,” Neil said to Layla, his jaw vise tight.
“I’ll go tell him good-bye.”
And because she could, she shot a glance back toward Jerome Wolfe and said, “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Take your time,” he said expansively, looking at Neil. “My chariot awaits. . . .”
Neil gamely tried to hide his stunned reaction, but Courtney just gaped at Layla, the flash of competitive anger in her gaze saying clearer than words how she felt about Layla leaving with Jerome Wolfe.
* * *
“Jesus Christ, Lucy. I’m not going in there.”
“Come on, John,” Lucy muttered, fighting her growing anger.
“I’m fine!”
“You’re not fine. You’re sick. You’ve been sick all over the floor this whole ride.”
She’d pulled beneath the emergency room portico at Laurelton General. Now she yanked on the emergency brake and glared at him, torn between real concern and frustration. She didn’t know what to do for him. His stubbornness had no place here.
“I just want to go home and go to bed. Is that so impossible for you to do?”
“It’s possible. But why won’t you let someone look at you, now that we’re here?”
“No one else came down with food poisoning,” he said, referring to the fact that recent texts from Abbott and Kate had revealed that, at least so far, no one else was sick.
“It could be something else,” Lucy said.
“It’s probably the fucking norovirus. That’s what it feels like. Why should I go in there and infect everyone else?” He glared back at her, pale and sweating.
“Fine. But all I know to do is give you lots of fluids and Aleve or ibuprofen or something.”
“Good enough,” he grunted.
One of the emergency room staff, a male nurse or orderly, came out the door and looked at her. Lucy heard a distant siren and realized she was in the way. The man called to her, “Are you bringing someone in?”
She rolled down the window. “No. I’ll move my car.” She sent the window back up and pulled through the portico and back onto the street.
John sighed heavily. “I’m going to sue that fucking caterer.”
“So, it’s not the norovirus.”
He leaned his head against the window and coughed.
You should be nicer. He’s really sick.
“Or maybe you did this. You and your bartender boyfriend.”
“Oh, John.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
* * *
Layla’s buoyant mood lasted for about ten minutes into the ride inside Jerome Wolfe’s charcoal Mercedes before she started feeling both awkward and weary. He’d paid far too much for her painting and she didn’t know how to feel about that. And she wasn’t going to change her mind about Stonehenge, so she’d really cadged a ride from him on false pretenses. And it hadn’t helped that when she’d said good-bye to her father, Abbott had been so clearly delighted that she was leaving with him. He was reading far too much into it, and Layla hadn’t been able to set him straight with Wolfe standing right there.
“I really appreciate this,” she said now,
for about the third time.
“My pleasure,” he said, also for about the third time. But then he slid her a look and said, “I’ll find a way to get payment back.”
“For the ride?”
“For the ride ... and the painting. I did overpay, didn’t I?” He slid her a grin.
“I told you you did. But it’s for a good cause.”
“I wanted that prick, Grassley, to sweat. For all his supposed money, he’s a cheap son of a bitch.”
“You bought the painting to show him up?”
“Well, like you said, it’s for a good cause. Also, maybe this’ll give you a little more ... I don’t know, cachet, as an artist. Overspending could be good for you.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she said.
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“If I pay enough for your work, and then talk you up among the people I know, some of them pretty heavy hitters in the local art scene, it’ll make a difference.”
Layla dropped her gaze from his, her heart starting a slow drumbeat. She didn’t like his words or his tone.
“You don’t think so?” he asked.
“I prefer to think someone would appreciate my work on its own merits.”
“You do have nice . . . merits.” Again, that sideways glance.
Layla had been propositioned enough times to recognize the beginnings of a pass. A pretty heavy-handed one. “Does that line actually work for you?”
“First time I’ve tried it.”
“Well, I—” She sucked in a surprised breath when he dropped a hand to her jean-clad knee and ran it up the inside of her thigh. She clamped her legs together and grabbed his hand before it reached her crotch, but just barely. Mutely, she stared at him, hoping she looked angry and determined instead of horrified.
He kept his hand where it was, held by hers.
“I don’t like Neil, but he said you were a good lay . . . Lay . . . la . . .” he whispered.
Her pulse jumped. No. That was a lie. Had to be. Neil would do many things, but she didn’t think spilling their sex life to the likes of Jerome Wolfe was one of them.
“I think you’d better move your hand,” said Layla.