With no other distractions, she left her place at the bar and crossed the room to where Sherry, Tanya and another woman, a tall, slim brunette whose name Joey couldn’t immediately recall, sat waiting.
Sherry pulled out a vacant chair. “Take a load off.”
“Thank you,” Joey said and sat down. “I’m sorry, but you are…”
“Lauren,” the brunette supplied. “Tanya tells us you’re officially becoming a member tonight. Congratulations.”
“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Joey said. “I have to fulfill my obligation first.”
Tanya giggled. “I can’t wait to see what Lindsay has in store for you.”
Joey produced a mock shudder that felt all too real. “Neither can I,” she said dryly.
She glanced toward the doorway just as Brooke and Katie came into the bar. Reinforcements, she thought with equal measures of relief and apprehension. She pasted a smile on her face and hoped her sisters wouldn’t notice anything was amiss.
She waved Brooke and Katie over to join them. Tanya caught sight of Katie’s engagement ring, and thankfully the attention was all on Katie.
Brooke brought two chairs over from a vacant table and positioned them on each side of Joey. Brooke sat, then leaned close. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Joey lied and nearly choked on the guilt. “Long day is all.”
“You look tense.” Brooke picked up the glass in front of Joey and took a tentative sip. “You’re drinking soda?”
Joey shrugged. “A bad lunch,” she said, more truthfully. She took her soda away from Brooke and frowned. “Get your own.”
After all the oohs and aahs from the women at the table over the size of the rock Liam had put on Katie’s finger, her youngest sister plopped down in the other vacant chair. “You look like hell, Joey. What’s wrong?”
“Gee, thanks. You always wow Liam with that kind of charm? No wonder he proposed,” she said sarcastically.
“Don’t be pissy,” Katie said, then snagged Joey’s glass. She took a drink and wrinkled her nose. “God, that’s awful. Lindsay hire a new bartender or something?”
“It’s ginger ale,” Brooke said.
Concern filled Katie’s expression. “You aren’t nervous about tonight, are you?”
Joey let out an impatient sigh. “I’m not nervous. I’m not sick. And I’m not being pissy,” she complained. “I have an early appearance tomorrow, that okay with you?”
Katie frowned at her. “You are, too, pissy.”
One of Brooke’s eyebrows winged skyward. “I thought you said lunch didn’t agree with you.”
Joey let out a frustrated puff of breath and stood, prepared to leave. Brooke grabbed her arm and tugged her back down to her seat.
“What is wrong with you tonight?”
Joey looked at Brooke and for the first time in her life, didn’t know what to say to her sister. Coming here tonight was a mistake. She should have canceled, but she hadn’t wanted her sisters to think she was afraid of some silly dare. And Katie had been so looking forward to her joining the club, she hadn’t wanted to let her down.
Sherry snagged Katie’s attention again. Brooke leaned closer to Joey. “What is it?” Brooke prompted.
When Joey said nothing, Brooke added, “You’re scaring me.”
Joey shook her head. “Nothing.” She glanced around the table of women who were swapping dare stories with Katie. If she didn’t tell Brooke something, her sister would keep hounding her out of concern. She leaned closer to Brooke and spoke in a low tone so the others wouldn’t overhear her. “Sebastian and I had unprotected sex the other day.”
Brooke straightened. “That could be dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Joey said. “Since I’m right in the middle of my cycle.”
“That explains the ginger ale,” Brooke said, concern evident in her voice.
“I thought it wise. Until I know differently.”
“Good idea.” Brooke plucked a few cashews from the bowl on the table. “Try not to worry,” she said, popping a nut into her mouth. “At least until you actually have something to worry about.”
Joey managed a small smile for Brooke’s benefit. “One good thing. At least I don’t have to worry about a dare that includes naked skydiving.”
“For now,” Brooke said with a laugh, then flagged down a waitress to place a drink order.
Joey sat back and sipped her soda. She probably shouldn’t be worried about the dare. The way she figured it, naked skydiving would be the least of her problems.
Chapter 12
“First we recite the rules.”
With all the ceremony of a town crier, Lindsay stood before the rather large crowd, close to two dozen women, and pretended to unroll an ancient parchment. She held up the invisible rules in front of her and recited from memory.
“The members selected to accept their initiation dare have been approved by a majority of the membership present here tonight. Joey Winfield and Angela Barker,” Lindsay said, giving each woman a look of mock sternness. “Stand now before the full-fledged membership of Martinis and Bikinis and make your pledge.”
Angela stood first, a timid-looking creature, no bigger than a mite, as Reba might say, with translucent skin and pale green eyes. Try as she might, Joey just couldn’t picture Angela doing a pole dance in pasties.
“Ladies, raise your martinis and repeat after me.”
Katie and Brooke offered encouragement…by hauling Joey unceremoniously to her feet.
“All right, all right,” Joey muttered. She lifted her glass of ginger ale, which Brooke had quietly asked Denver to transfer to a martini glass.
“I, state your name,” Lindsay intoned.
“I, Angela Barker.”
“I, state your name,” Joey repeated with a smirk. Her attempt at humor got her a sharp look from Lindsay and a playful swat on the backside from Katie. She let out a sigh. “I, Joey Winfield.”
“Do hereby solemnly swear on all that is served in a martini glass…”
Joey repeated the same silly words that her sisters had sworn to uphold before her. She was doing this for them, she reminded herself. And for Lindsay. For their sisterhood—which she felt she was denigrating by not sharing their mother’s secret past with them.
“That once my dare is bestowed upon me, I will fulfill this most serious obligation,” Lindsay continued, “and that I shall allow nothing to prevent me from my quest.”
Joey and Angela finished their pledge to a round of applause and raucous cheers filled with lewd encouragement from the membership present. A full house tonight, too. Public humiliation was more Katie’s style than hers. Just her luck.
“Then by the completely nonimportant, useless authority vested in me by the members of Martinis and Bikinis, as your president, I hereby declare that Joey will receive the first dare this month.”
“Oh, joy,” Joey muttered.
“Joey, step forward and accept your destiny.”
That sounded so much more ominous to Joey than it should have. But, she stepped forward, anyway…once Brooke gave her a shove.
“Tanya, please bring forth the sacred box of dares,” Lindsay said in the same ridiculous tone she’d been using since the meeting began.
Since there were so many members present tonight, the usual round table had been dispensed with in place of two rows of chairs. Tanya rose from her front-row seat and retrieved a polished wooden box from a table draped with a black velvet cloth and carried it to Lindsay. She giggled as Joey approached to take her place before Lindsay and the sacred box of dares.
“No naked skydiving,” Joey told her eldest sister.
Lindsay smiled. “You will receive the dare that fate declares you were meant to receive.”
Not having much faith in fate, Joey was certain she was doomed. “I mean it,” Joey said sternly. “No naked skydiving.” She frowned. “For at least two more weeks.”
“Draw,” Lindsay said with a gentle laugh.
&n
bsp; “Do it, do it, do it,” the crowd of women began to chant when Joey hesitated.
She looked to Brooke and Katie, who were chanting along with the crowd. With a deep fortifying breath, she closed her eyes, shoved her hand inside the box and felt around. Her fingers brushed against two small scrolls, each secured with a velvet tie. Both parchments were identical in size and shape. She tapped one, then the other, then finally selected the scroll closest to her.
She slipped the velvet bow from the parchment and it slowly unrolled. Silently, she read the dare and frowned, confused. There was no declaration that required her to remove her clothes. No flashing a stranger on the Green Line, no pole dancing and no naked skydiving.
“Read it,” Katie called out above the din.
“The time for revealing secrets has come,” Joey read. “Open your heart to the ones closest to it.” She looked to Lindsay. “I don’t get it.”
Lindsay shrugged. “The sacred dares are meant to challenge. The universe has declared it so,” she answered cryptically. “Angela Barker, step forward and embrace your destiny.”
Joey rolled the parchment and secured it with the black velvet ribbon, then returned to her seat between Brooke and Katie. “I’m so disappointed,” Katie said. “Talk about lightweight.”
Joey shrugged, already dreading having to live up to her dare. She knew what it meant. At least to her. It meant she had no choice but to tell them about the notorious legacy left to them.
“She got the dare that was meant for her,” Brooke told Katie. “Although I have to agree with Katie. You sure there’s nothing on there about taking your clothes off in public?”
“Positive,” Joey said. She’d have rather stripped and strolled through the office reciting the Bill of Rights. Without pasties.
“Well, first dares can be tame,” Katie said. “Wasn’t one of Lauren’s first dares to seduce her new neighbor?”
“If you call that tame,” Brooke said, “and while I don’t think it’s fair after what I had to do, Joey’s is so obscure.”
Katie shrugged. “Maybe Lindsay is right. The universe decides which dare is meant for you.”
Joey took a long drink of her ginger ale. What she wanted to know was why it suddenly seemed as if the universe was out to get her.
* * *
According to the rules, Joey had one month to complete her dare. The way she figured it, that gave her thirty days to either find the right words to tell her sisters the truth about their mother, or find a way out of the dare. She supposed she could find a way to cheat, but that went so against her own personal moral code, she knew she’d never be able to pull it off.
She hit the button for the keyless entry of her car and slipped inside, firing up the engine and cranking up the heat. The mercury hovered below freezing and a light snow had started to fall. She fished her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Sebastian’s cell phone while she waited for the car to warm up before driving home.
“Hello?”
The sound of his voice warmed her. “Hey, there,” she said. The dread she’d been feeling since Reba’s bombshell began to fade slightly.
“Where are you?”
“Freezing my ass off in my car,” she said and shivered.
“You coming over?”
She wanted to, she really did. She’d love nothing more than to spend the night making love to Sebastian and forgetting everything that had happened today, but she couldn’t. “I can’t. I have a cat who tends to get persnickety if I leave her alone too much. You should see what she can do to a roll of toilet paper when she’s mad at me. It’s not pretty.”
He chuckled. “I’ll miss you.” He lowered his voice to a low, husky rumble of sound that increased her longing.
She bit her bottom lip and tapped her gloved fingers on the steering wheel. Background noise filtered through the phone. “Where are you?”
“Why? Are we going to have phone sex now?”
She smiled. “Not exactly.”
“I met up with an old buddy for a burger and a beer.”
“When you’re done, wanna meet me at my place?” She’d no doubt be interrogated by her grandmother if the Winfield matriarch happened to spot Sebastian’s SUV parked near the carriage house overnight, but that was just too bad, she thought rebelliously. Other than Carson, she’d never brought a man back to her place for the night. Even though she and Carson had been engaged, her grandmother had still given her the standard “Winfield girls don’t” lecture the one time Carson had stayed the night with her. After that particularly uncomfortable discussion, she hadn’t bothered to repeat the offense.
“You sure?” Sebastian asked.
More than ever. “You want the directions or not?”
“Shoot.”
She rattled off the address, but he said he’d use his GPS so she didn’t bother with the actual directions to her grandparents’ estate in Brookline. “Drive past the main house,” she told him, “and take the side road that cuts off from the driveway. Follow that until you reach what looks like stables, but it’s actually a garage. The carriage house will be on the left. You can’t miss it.”
“I should be there in about thirty.”
“See you then,” she said and disconnected the call. She tossed her cell back into her purse, then pulled away from the curb and headed toward home. Home. Where hopefully she could forget, at least for a while, that she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
* * *
Hunter signaled the waitress for the check. “This is where you blow me off, isn’t it? Some chippie calls and it’s see ya’ later, pal.”
Sebastian fished his wallet from his back pocket. “I got it,” he told Hunter. “And I’m not blowing you off. We’re done here.”
Joey was no chippie, either, but a high-class Boston Brahmin, information he chose to keep to himself for the time being. Hunter was, at best, what Sebastian would call a reverse snob. Southies didn’t mess around with Beacon Hill snobs. Period.
A pair of brunettes strolled past their table wearing painted-on jeans and welcoming smiles. “I could use another beer,” Hunter said, his attention zeroing in on the brunettes.
Sebastian dropped a couple of bills on the table. “No, you want to get laid.”
“Nothing wrong with a little sexual diversion now and then.” He leaned to the side and watched the brunettes from behind. “Now those are some nice genes.”
Sebastian chuckled. “Don’t you have to be on duty in the morning?”
Hunter let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yeah. And I’m getting a new partner tomorrow. Some chick who transferred from another precinct. Rumor has it she’s trouble.”
Hunter, a ten-year veteran of the Boston P.D., had lost his previous partner in a traffic stop gone bad three months ago. Luckily, Hunter hadn’t been wounded, but Sebastian knew all too well that not all scars were physical.
“By-the-book trouble?” Sebastian asked. “Or your kind of trouble?”
Hunter shifted his attention back to Sebastian, his expression turning to granite. “Not on the job. That’s not trouble, it’s a nightmare.”
Sebastian stood but didn’t comment. A guilty conscience, he wondered? What he and Joey were doing could turn into a nightmare, but that didn’t stop him from looking forward to seeing her again. Although once she learned about his conversation with the adjuster on the Gilson case this afternoon, he couldn’t help wonder if his nights with Joey in his bed could be numbered.
No, he thought. They were both professionals. Business was business and had nothing whatsoever to do with their personal relationship. Surely Joey would understand the difference.
“I hear she’s a rat,” Hunter said and stood as well.
“Who’s a rat?”
“The new chick,” Hunter said.
“Better keep your nose clean, then.”
“Hey, you know me.” Hunter shrugged into his jacket. “My nose is always clean.”
Sebastian had his doubts. Not that H
unter was a bad cop or even a cop on the take—his friend was too honorable for that—but he knew for a fact Hunter had once had a thing going with one of the dispatchers.
“Some of the guys won’t like having her in the house,” Hunter said. “They’ll make it rough for her. Which means I’ll be the one she rags on.”
Sebastian shrugged into his own jacket, then slapped his buddy on the shoulder. “You’re tough. You can handle it.”
“I guess,” Hunter said. “Somebody’s gotta do it. I just wish it wasn’t me, you know?”
Sebastian did know, but what he didn’t know was what to do about it. He considered telling Joey tonight that the client had authorized a settlement offer in the Gilson case, but thought better of it. Their relationship was complicated enough without him intentionally blurring the lines more than he already had.
Twenty minutes after leaving Buck’s Burger and Beer Shack in South Boston, he turned onto Oak Ridge Drive in Brookline. Once again he was reminded again of the socioeconomic differences between himself and Joey. As he searched for the address she’d given him, even under the darkness of night and with the light snow falling, he could see the homes in this area were nothing short of stately.
The feminine voice of the GPS intoned he was reaching his destination. He slowed, searching for the driveway, and spied fresh tire tracks in the snow. He made the right turn and drove past an enormous Georgian brick mansion, complete with six large white columns gracing the front. He followed Joey’s tire tracks to the side road she’d indicated to the carriage house, and parked his SUV next to her car.
The carriage house wasn’t small by any means, although it was understated compared to the big house he’d driven past. Off to the side he could make out what he supposed was a garden in warmer months, double the size of the backyard at Hunter’s folks’ place where he and his friend used to play when they were kids.
My Guilty Pleasure Page 12