Читать книгу Calling His Bluff - Amy Cousins Jo - Страница 8

“Buster, you aren’t even one of my main problems.” Sarah waved her hand languidly in the air. She wondered if she’d see sparkles trailing from her fingertips if she drank a third glass of champagne before the plane landed. Maybe it took something quite a bit stronger than champagne for that to happen? What did it matter? Life with the rich and famous was good.

Besides, she’d decided even before getting on the private plane that she didn’t want any explanations from J.D. Not now, not ever. No kissing, no explanations. That was why she kept on cutting him off whenever he tried to mention their kiss. She didn’t care to hear, in greater detail than before, about how sorry he was for her or how he’d meant to call her if only he hadn’t been busy with his wife. She’d use J.D. for this free ride out to Vegas, her favorite place to escape, for the weekend and then forget about him the minute they got back to Chicago. She’d already laid down her ground rules for this junket.

Vegas had a dramatically negative impact on her good judgment. The tattoo she’d gotten on one of her trips there was a rather tame example of the impulsive decisions she made there. Rules were necessary.

“You know, flying on a private jet really is a lot nicer than coach,” she announced. J.D.’s friend had loaned them the plane for the quick hop, and Sarah had already purchased her one-way ticket for the return flight. J.D. could glower all he wanted, she was not going to get dragged into a conversation about the kiss. “How much does it cost to charter one of these babies, anyway?”

“I don’t know, twenty grand?”

She frowned and took another sip of champagne. Swished it around in her mouth some. “Well, I don’t know if it’s twenty-thousand-bucks nicer. This ain’t Dom we’re being served.”

“Actually, it is. Sarah—”

“New York Times or People?” She pulled copies of both out of her med bag, which sat at her feet. After the one time she’d been caught off guard in an emergency, trying without an intubation kit to get alcohol into the stomach of a pup that had swallowed antifreeze before it killed him, she’d made a new rule: never leave home without the bag. Thank god this wasn’t a commercial flight where they wouldn’t have let her bring liquids in a carry on. She’d have to check it on the way home, but it was worth the hassle. “I stocked up on both at the terminal bookstore. You never know when the movie might turn out to be a snoozer.”

“I’m sure there’s a whole library of films, Sarah. But I think we should talk—”

“Really? Do you think they have anything with a good car chase?” Sheesh. Ignoring him was like trying to shake a terrier. She kept on kicking and kicking him away, but he kept coming back for more, nipping at her ankles every time she took her eyes off him for a moment. They were somewhere over the Rockies, she thought. She’d been warned that there might be some turbulence over the mountains. If she didn’t find a way to shut him up, she was going to have to spend the rest of the flight chattering like an idiot to keep him from getting a word in edgewise.

When slipping on her headphones and pretending to listen to music didn’t deter him, she resigned herself to soaring the rest of the way to Las Vegas with her eyes closed. She swigged the last of her champagne with a grand flourish and then waited a couple of minutes before yawning and wondering out loud why two glasses had made her so sleepy. Giving a big stretch and one last yawn for verisimilitude, she reclined her seat until it wouldn’t go back any farther and closed her eyes. She would console herself with fantasies of meeting U2 and convincing one of those lovely Irish gents to fall madly in love with her. Bono was married, she thought, but surely one of the other band members had to be single. The Edge or Adam Clayton or, or…darn it, she could never remember the fourth guy’s name.

She heard J.D.’s seat creak as he leaned back next to her. Too bad they were barely speaking to each other, much less romantically involved. It was probably fun as hell to make out on a private plane.

Larry Mullen! That was the fourth guy’s name! Was he married?

The rustling noises of J.D. settling himself more comfortably in the seat next to her finally eased into relative silence. Bored with her fantasies already, she dared to crack an eye open and sneak a glance at him. She caught him rubbing the heel of his palm against his thigh. Leg cramps again, she’d bet.

It was a shame really, about the wife. He was just so lovely to look at. All thickly muscled limbs and darkly forged features. Funny. Because she could look at Spencer, her sister Addy’s husband, and see dispassionately what a good-looking man he was. Tall and long and lean, throwing off an aura of whiplike strength and intensity. He was attractive, definitely. But when she turned her thoughts to J.D… J.D. with the bunching weightlifter muscles, J.D. with the wicked cheekbones and half-hidden grin and speculative glint in his eye that didn’t say, “I wonder what it would be like to know that woman on an intellectual level,” J.D. with the pirate’s long hair and the poet’s mouth, J.D. just, hmm…

Yum.

And, purr.

A giggle slipped out and she shut her eyes in a panic. When she thought the coast was clear, she peeked again. Safe. He was still napping.

If only his good looks weren’t matched by an equally fine ability to make her feel like an awkward teenager all over again. It had been bad enough to feel like an alien species the first time around, waiting for her boobs to grow in and the braces to finish straightening her teeth, all the while watching the older and oh-so-handsome Joey Damico charm and disarm older girls who needed the bras they wore and were past the terrible pimples of adolescence. No doubt nothing much had changed for him—women, she was sure, still fell at his feet with swooning regularity. But things had changed for her. She was a grown woman, sure of herself and fully aware that she was at least cute, with a possible upgrade to foxy if she put the time in on her hair and makeup. Of course, his wife had been asked to pose for Playboy.

Nothing like a nude pictorial to make a girl feel intimidated. Classier, yes, but intimidated nonetheless.

She closed her eyes. Better to remove temptation from sight. She was doing just fine so far in her unspoken vow to stop thinking of J.D. as a potential…well, anything, and return to treating him like the old childhood chum he was.

Return to.

Who was she fooling? At no point in her life had she thought of J.D. with anything other than lust in her heart. Even if at first she’d only been lusting for a chance to hold his hand. She huffed out a breath and shook her head.

Foolishness.

It had been made clear to her long ago that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, but Sarah Tyler would never be the kind of woman who could hold the attention of a man like J.D.

* * *

“So I’m not your main problem? What is?”

Sarah answered without thinking, which made this the first time he’d managed to get an uncalculated answer out of her in the past two hours. He spread his legs and settled a little deeper into his seat, trying to get comfortable on the plane.

“Convincing my brother that I’m not gonna sleep with you in Vegas.”

Sarah had always been easy to catch off guard as a kid. It had taken two glasses of champagne to achieve the same feat now that she was an adult.

Not that he’d had any luck whatsoever in getting her to listen to his attempt to explain the kiss. He’d meant to tell her that there’d just been something in that moment, leftover heat from the fire maybe, a certain look in her eyes. Something that had made it impossible for him to let her walk away.

Now, he couldn’t imagine what had possessed him. Maybe too many painkillers?

“You’re not going to sleep with me? Then why the hell did I invite you?”

Her eyes flew open.

It sure was fun to tease her, though.

“Ha ha ha. Very funny,” she said and threw herself back into her own seat. “You remember the ground rules.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And they are?”

“Really?”

Silence.

He ticked the rules off on his fingers, one by one. “No kissing.” The glance he shot her was pure sin wrapped in a red velvet ribbon. “I didn’t actually agree to follow any of these rules, you know.” She raised an eyebrow, and he scowled back. “I didn’t know what I was agreeing to when I said we’d do whatever you wanted. Yeah, yeah, rule number two: no salsa. That was confusing. At first, I thought you had something against Mexican food, and I was going to scrap this whole trip. A woman who doesn’t dig jalapeños isn’t worth knowing—”

“Let’s focus here, shall we?” She broke in. Clearly, it was important to keep the rules at the forefront. “The waltz and the cha-cha—”

“Are allowed, I get it. But no salsa.”

“I have issues with salsa. It’s safer to avoid it completely.”

He pictured Sarah stomping on his foot and flushing with embarrassment and was almost tempted to make one of the dance clubs on the Strip their first stop. Of course, given the continued weakness of his leg, it was more likely that he’d be watching from the sidelines, nursing a drink. Which might be the safer way to go, actually.

“Noted. And finally, under no circumstances, no matter how much you beg—which is difficult to imagine, mind you, since I can hardly picture you even saying please at the moment—am I to let you within twenty yards of a high-stakes poker game.”

J.D. looked at Sarah. Her long, sleek dark hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. She was wearing cream khakis, a white turtleneck and a tailored black velvet jacket that seemed to have invisible little hooks up the front, since he couldn’t see buttons or a zipper. Black lace-up flats. A little lip gloss, maybe. She looked very nice, clean and conservatively stylish.

Not exactly like a woman who had issues with salsa dancing and high-stakes poker. He couldn’t imagine that he’d have a hard time following her rules. Maybe bringing her with him was enough of an apology. He could drop her off by the pool and go find that up-and-coming actress from the last film he’d documented. The one who kept asking him to show her his darkroom as if digital had never happened, what was her name…something Italian, Donatella…

Beatrice, which she pronounced in the Italian way, Bay-ah-tree-chay. Despite knowing no more Italian than ciao. Beatrice from Boise, with a body that was putting some L.A. plastic surgeon’s kid through college. Her number was still in his cell phone, he’d bet. Although he’d need to make sure to “forget” his camera, if he wanted to avoid being asked to shoot porn photos.

A harrumph broke into his fantasy of stripping Signorina Beatrice out of her Juicy Couture faster than she could say, “I really admire your art.” Sarah was glaring at him with a look that would have done his battleship of a third-grade teacher proud. What the hell were they talking about?

Right, poker.

“Don’t worry, slick. No tournament poker action for you.” Maybe he rolled his eyes just a little.

“I’m serious, Damico.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve been to Vegas before. You don’t know what I’m like.”

He mirrored her gesture, kicking his feet up on the low table in front of them. “Tell me this, Ms. Tyler. What kind of stakes did you bring with you?”

“For the weekend?”

“Yeah.”

She grimaced and looked pained. “Three hundred.”

“Dollars?”

“No, pesos. Of course dollars.”

“What are you gonna do? Play the quarter slots all weekend?” He meant to be insulting. Only a fool thought three hundred bucks would last for three days of gambling in Sin City.

She shrugged him off and turned back to her magazine. He might have heard her mutter under her breath, “I’m going to try, anyway.”

The captain came over the PA system to announce that they’d be landing shortly. J.D. was past regretting his impulsive invitation to Sarah and actively planning how he could avoid spending the whole weekend babysitting her. At least getting out of Chicago would mean he’d be away from Lana for a few days. Despite being shacked up in the ritziest hotel Michigan Avenue had to offer, she still found excuses to come by his apartment almost every day. A few Lana-free days in Vegas would be a relief. Sarah was packing up her magazines and snacks in that bag she clutched to her side like a security blanket, with a special pocket for every little item. She’d probably clean up her own trash for the flight attendant.

Ms. Obey the Rules. He’d have to bring her to the awards ceremony, since he’d invited her, but otherwise she could park herself poolside for the weekend for all he cared.

No kissing. No salsa. No big money poker.

Piece of cake.

* * *

By the time they were checking in at the Bellagio, standing under a canopy of Chihuly blown-glass flowers, he was ready to throttle the woman.

Not that she wasn’t being nice. Oh, no. You could never meet anyone nicer than Sarah Tyler, her little act seemed to be proclaiming. Pleasant and helpful and so chatty that he could hardly get a word in edgewise. But this Sarah was running the show, and she had no intention of allowing any uncomfortable topics of conversation to pop up of which she did not approve.

And he’d remembered her as such an easygoing girl.

Not so much these days, it seemed.

He’d never forgotten Sarah, the same way that he’d always remembered the smell of her mother baking peanut butter cookies, the kind with the grid scored on top by the tines of a fork. Visceral memories. The Tylers had subtly taken him in, never pushy or condescending, but always there with a casual invitation to stay for dinner or come by early for breakfast on the way to school. For a year, for the worst year, when his dad was spiraling out of control and his mom was focused on trying to save him, J.D. had practically lived with the Tylers. He’d stop at his family’s house occasionally, for clean clothes or to reconfirm his continued existence and good health, but home had become the Tylers’ house.

And although he and Tyler were best buddies, there was also no avoiding the Tyler daughters. The Tyler women, as they took to calling themselves shortly after puberty overtook Maxie, the youngest.

Addy was the bossy one, the older sister who was more than happy to have a second younger brother to order around. Maxie was creativity personified, a never-ending stream of crazy ideas, strange clothes, weird hats and goofball plans. And Sarah…well, Sarah was the calm in the eye of the storm.

Tyler was his brother-in-arms, his coconspirator in everything from concealing mirrors on the high school grounds—it was a surprisingly scientific effort to use the principles of light refraction to peek into the girls’ locker room—to cutting school to attend the Chicago Cubs’ home opener every spring, a tradition adopted by Tyler’s father as a boy, which they’d heard about and were determined to continue. In his first true act of courage, J.D., who still considered the sight of blood a personal affront and a deliberate attempt to make him nauseous, stabbed his index finger with a distressingly dull penknife when he was ten years old to become blood brothers with his best friend, Christopher Robin Tyler.

He’d made Tyler confess to his real name before agreeing to the bloodletting. It seemed a fair bargain and was useful for a lifetime’s worth of blackmail material. Tyler was his best friend, his brother. But when J.D. had been angry and frustrated at the world, as only a young man can be, he would wander the Tyler household, looking for the quiet slim girl with long dark hair, hoping to round a corner of the staircase and find her sitting on the steps with a hardcover book in her lap. She was always so focused that he could take a dozen pictures of her before she noticed him. Then she’d look up with an open smile and a ready hello