by Unknown
“Have you been drinking?”
Her breath hitched, and she backed out of his hold. That’s what he’d been thinking about, while she’d been fantasizing about him kissing her?
“A little. So what?” she bristled. She frowned at him when he studied her with a disconcerting, narrowed stare before he turned to press his keycard in the lock. She held her breath.
“You never were much of a drinker, that’s all.” He swung open the door. “You always said the adrenaline was enough for you.”
God damn it. When am I going to outgrow this stupid childhood infatuation?
“Things change. Besides, we’re in Beverly Hills,” she muttered flippantly as she followed him into the suite. “A long way away from the quarter-pipe jump at Squaw, or climbing Donner Summit. How else are we supposed to get a rush around here except from a bottle?”
Esme steeled herself at the rough, elementally sexual sound of his laughter. He whipped off his suit jacket in a fluid motion and threw it on the bed. She averted her gaze at the vision of him loosening his tie. He wore a charcoal colored suit that looked as if it’d been professionally tailored to fit his long, lean body. He looked fantastic in it.
She dared a glance back at him, and saw that he was distractedly unfastening the top button on his white dress shirt, exposing his throat. He wasn’t tan presently, but Jude’s skin could soak up the sun even more spectacularly than Thor’s could. He spent most of their childhood summer days with his shirt off. She used to daily appreciate the vision of his half naked body. She hadn’t understood until she was older how fortunate she was to see that beautiful body with so much regularity.
He raked his hand through his near-black hair. A feeling of resentment swelled up in her. No, it wasn’t resentment, she realized. It was that old, ugly ache.
It was unfair: Jude’s hair. When he was younger, he’d worn it long and careless. It’d been the crown of his rebel status. He’d been rock-star ready the second he climbed out of bed and ran his hand through the thick, waving silk. She recalled one sunny spring afternoon at the village skateboard park, watching him take off to attempt his first Cabellerial—a particularly hard trick. A small, worshipful audience, including Esme, had surrounded him. She envisioned it perfectly still, the way his longish hair had spun in the air as he twisted three hundred and sixty degrees, and how it swooshed down around his fierce face as he landed his board with the firm, fluid grace of a born athlete. Jude defined the boarder term steezy. He made his tricks look easy, and he did it with style.
He’d been fourteen years old that summer afternoon, and Esme twelve. It’d been the first time she recalled feeling that ache swell so tight in her chest, it’d felt like she couldn’t breathe.
His hair was beautiful still, the gleam and luster of the dark strands somehow belying the conservative style he now wore.
It suddenly hit her full force that she was alone with Jude in a hotel room, of all places. She’d seen him at family gatherings and holidays throughout the years, although more and more, they often missed holidays at Tahoe due to work. And even when they both were in Tahoe Shores, they were rarely alone. The last time they’d been together had been two years ago. That occasion had been sickeningly sober, though. Sexual craving—or an annoyingly chronic infatuation— had been the last thing on Esme’s mind.
“We really were adrenaline junkies, growing up,” Jude was saying. “I’m surprised we didn’t become addicted to something else.”
“We did. Work,” she reminded him. She tossed her purse on the made bed and sauntered over to the minibar. “I hope the United States government is generous enough to pay for its employee’s liquor bill,” she said, opening the door and peering inside. After a moment, she realized he hadn’t responded. She looked over her shoulder, brushing her long hair out of her face. Her breath stuck. He was staring at her leather-covered ass with frank male appreciation. Her sexual awareness of him, not to mention her subsequent anxiety, soared.
He blinked and shifted on his feet.
“Uh…liquor on expense reports is frowned upon, so I pay for that personally. Actually, I’ll have a double. Help yourself to the same,” he said gruffly, starting to tug on his tie again.
“Such the gentlemen.” She snagged four mini bottles of Scotch and stood. His gaze flashed over to her. He’d heard the sarcasm in her tone. He frowned slightly and shook his head.
“Sorry about that,” he said grudgingly, coming up next to her to retrieve a couple glasses from the shelf above the minibar. He glanced down at her lower half, and she knew he was talking about being caught staring at her ass. “You’re something in those pants.” His slight frown making her think it might or might not be a compliment. “I’m not surprised they’re selling like—how’d you put it? Fashion crack?”
She followed him over to a small seating area with a couch and a coffee table. She plopped down next to him, praying that she seemed as casual as when they were teenagers watching the X-Files or Babylon 5 together in the Lodge’s cavernous basement.
“Thanks. I think.”
She filled his glass first, then hers. She raised her drink. Their gazes met over the rims as they clinked their glasses together. What they were toasting to, she had no idea. She took a healthy swallow, needing the burn of the liquor to calm her nerves after what she’d read in his eyes just now. That particular glint was typically reserved for the girls who had flocked around him when he was teenager.
Among the Esterbrook girls, that glance had always been reserved for Esme’s older sister, Sadie.
“I’m just not used to you looking at me that way,” she said through a tight, Scotch-scored throat. He gave her a sharp glance. Damn. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. The Scotch was weakening, not hardening her.
“Every guy in Nevada and California looked at you that way any chance they got. I’d be damned if I was going to join the drooling crowd. Your ego was already the size of Mount Whitney as it was,” he said, leaning back and putting a foot on the coffee table. She was glad to hear the lightness to his tone.
And yet she wasn’t, too. When will he ever take me seriously?
Part of her wanted that edgy gleam of hunger back in his eyes. The other part cringed from the inevitable pain of dancing too close to the flame of Jude. She’d been burned by that fire before.
“How are things going in that department for you?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you seeing anyone? Anyone special, I mean?”
“You know me. They’re all special,” she muttered before taking a healthy swallow of Scotch.
His grunt sounded dismissive. “Special. That’s one way to describe some of the guys you’ve dated.”
Given her track record, Esme couldn’t retort. No matter how much she wanted to, given Jude’s smugness.
“What about you?” she asked, turning on her hip and facing him more fully. “I suppose you’re seeing some former supermodel who’s now a neurosurgeon or something.”
His gaze slid over to her. She couldn’t decide if his smile was calm or cocky. “You realize that you sound like you’re describing your mother?”
She took another sip through tight lips. “Or Sadie. Isn’t that what you were thinking?” she asked, unable to entirely keep the bitterness out of her tone.
God, the alcohol really was making her stupid and petty. She usually avoided bringing up Sadie when she was alone with Jude.
She carried a bit of a chip on her shoulder when it came to that topic.
Esme’s mother had been a successful international Swiss-American model when she’d met Clive Esterbrook, Esme’s father. It’d be bad enough, to have to measure up to a disgustingly gorgeous mother all the time. But Ilsa Esterbrook had to make matters worse by also being kind and brilliant. She’d graduated from Brown with a degree in mathematics when she was only twenty, and went on to get a master’s at the University of Zurich. She spoke four languages, while Esme had never truly mastered a second one. Wh
at’s more, Ilsa had been a full partner with her husband in developing their successful business, Environmental Innovations. Esme loved her mother like mad. But measuring up to her?
Not even a remote possibility.
Instead of being intimidated by their mother, like Esme had been, her sister Sadie had just decided to become even more perfect than Ilsa Esterbrook.
“I wasn’t thinking about Sadie, actually, but I see your point,” Jude mused. “How is she, by the way?”
“Sadie?”
“Your mom,” he corrected quietly.
His sudden serious manner and searching gaze made it feel like liquid lead had suddenly been poured into her stomach. He was referring to her father’s heart attack and death. It’d been a horrible shock and blow to all of the Esterbrooks—to the entire Bear Clan.
The Bear Clan is what they jokingly called a group including the Esterbrook family, the Beckett family, Stephen Jackson—who was Joe Beckett’s physical therapist and live-in caretaker—and their friend, Mat DaRosa. The designation came from a particularly momentous event they had all shared one spring afternoon twenty-two years ago, involving Esme secretly luring an adorable bear cub into a makeshift den in the Esterbrook garage. Of course, the cub’s mother had been furious about the kidnapping of her baby. All of the people in the Esterbrook house at the time had been held captive by a pacing and threatening Mamma Bear. The authorities had been contacted about the intimidating bear and the ten people entrapped by her, the number including a very pregnant Ilsa Esterbrook.
Unfortunately, that had been the moment that Ursula, Esme’s little sister, had decided to make her appearance in the world. In the end, Ursula had to be delivered in the Esterbrook house by the now famous and much celebrated efforts of Esme’s dad and Stephen Jackson.
It was a pivotal event in their family history, one that Esme never ceased taking crap for, and one for which her sister had been named. Ursula: the little girl who had definitely been born under the influence of the bear.
The whole Bear Clan had been decimated by the death of Clive Esterbrook, but her mother had been clobbered worst of all, of course. Esme’s parents had been inseparable. Her dad had only been fifty-eight when he had died. They’d learned after his heart attack that he had a congenital heart defect that had never been detected until it was too late.
“Mom’s okay. I think,” Esme told Jude.
“No changes in her circumstances?” Jude asked with what Esme recognized as uncharacteristic delicacy. He was really trying to be tactful and understanding, and she appreciated that. Even if this conversation was making her uncomfortable.
“Nothing unusual. I saw her a few weeks ago. I was there for the Labor Day weekend. Ursa and Sadie were there, too. You know Sadie is filming in Vietnam right now?” She studied him closely. Did Jude track Sadie’s movements? But he didn’t respond to her question. Instead, he looked preoccupied by something. Distant.
Esme was left in the dark. As usual.
“And of course, Stephen looks in on Mom almost every day,” Esme continued lamely.
“And that’s all right with you?”
“All right?” Esme asked, confused. “Of course it’s all right. I don’t know what we would have done if it weren’t for Stephen and your grandpa being next door at the Lodge. Mom’s so lucky—we all are—to have such good friends nearby. Mat is great about popping in or taking Mom out to lunch, even though I’ll bet Shelly wishes he wouldn’t,” she added, giving Jude a significant glance. Jude and Mat DaRosa had been friends for almost as long as Esme and Jude had been. She and Jude shared a common opinion of Mat’s pretty, but jealous and sometimes spiteful wife, Shelly.
She sensed Jude’s worry. He always had been fond of her mother. Especially before he reached adolescence, the orphan in him seemed to hunger for Ilsa Esterbrook’s maternal warmth. It struck Esme for the first time just how concerned he was.
“Mom didn’t seem that bad, Jude. Honest,” Esme added gently. “There were times when I was there over Labor Day she even seemed happy. Z surprised us by showing up. Did I say?” They called Jude’s badass, black sheep, but extremely talented older brother only by his first initial.
“Yeah, Stephen mentioned Z came by. He and Grandpa Joe were relieved to see him. He’s been annoyingly evasive lately, ever since he got out of rehab. How did you think he was?”
“Sober. No outstanding warrants for his arrest, that I heard of anyway,” she said, recognizing the thrust of his question. “Actually, he seemed really good, with one notable exception. Ursa and him got in this weird little spat one night at dinner. Don’t worry, it was nothing serious,” she said quickly when he sat up slightly and his expression darkened in concern.
Z was known for being fun and easygoing most of the time, but he did have a temper. Grandpa Joe, Jude and Stephen had all gone through some very hard times with Z in the past five years. After a substance abuse rehab stay and a four-month stint in the local jail, Z had fled to the Sierra foothills of California. He was living like some primitive mountain man, his gleaming, custom made motorcycles his one concession to technology. They all hoped Z’s hardships were mostly behind him. But nobody really knew what he was doing or how he lived his life these days, and Z certainly wasn’t volunteering to fill in the blanks.
Jude rolled his eyes and sagged back on the couch. “Only Z could manage to get in a fight with Ursa. I mean, we’re talking about a woman whose life goal since she’s been nine years old is to open up a home for needy and troubled kids by the time she was thirty. We all used to patronize her when she talked about it, but she’s well on the path to accomplishing her goal, and she’s only twenty-two. Ursa’s a saint…or the closest thing to one I’ve ever met.”
“Maybe that’s what set Z off. It’s been known to happen,” she said, hating herself a little for her snarky tone. She loved Ursa to death. But it really did suck, being the middle sister between a stunning, talented Hollywood actress and a beautiful, selfless sweetheart.
“Do you worry Z is involved with the Dark Psychles?” she asked Jude after a pause. It was a question she’d wondered about, ever since she’d heard the rumors flying around during Z’s trial and sentencing for assault.
“No. Absolutely not. Z’s a loner, you know that. It’s one of his worst characteristics, but it saved him in this case. He’d never join a gang. Emory Martin, that guy who pressed charges against Z for assault, was a Psychle though. Those guys are bad news,” Jude muttered. The Dark Psychles were a rough motorcycle gang whose members were often being arrested for various crimes.
“That’s a relief,” Esme said.
“Yeah. How’ve you been, Es?” he asked, and she knew intuitively he was asking about the aftermath of her father’s death.
“I’m fine. I just work, and try not to think about it. Did you know it was two years ago yesterday that he passed? Sometimes, it still doesn’t seem real that he’s gone.”
Jude stared into space and unhurriedly took a sip of his drink. She watched him as though she were in a comfortable trance, the heavy, warm feeling of the alcohol penetrating her brain.
“I know what you mean,” he finally said. “Part of you is always existing in that moment when you realized you’d never see him again…Never talk to him again. How can something as elemental as breathing be gone? It can’t. Your mind can’t fully accept it. Your spirit. Something can’t.”
“Still?” she asked in a small voice, sadness and dread creeping into her awareness. “You still can’t fully accept that your parents are gone?”
He glanced sideways at her. “Mostly I do. I’m thirty years old. Still…it’s impossible to completely override the little fuck in there,” he said, pointing at his chest. He smiled that hard, slashing smile she knew all too well, and emptied his glass.
Esme exhaled, feeling deflated. Despondent. This time, she felt the pain all the way to her bones.
Jude abruptly leaned over and pressed his mouth to her cheek.
She clappe
d her palm to her face.
“What did you do that for?” she asked incredulously when she’d sufficiently regained her voice.
Chapter Three
Her question kept echoing in her brain. Jude had leaned back on the couch. She’d question whether he’d kissed her at all, but the imprint of his warm, firm lips still tingled on her skin.
“I don’t know why I did it.” He seemed genuinely puzzled by his action, but also somber. “You looked so small there for a second. So sad.”
“You’re familiar with the feeling, I guess.”
He shook his head resolutely. “Not familiar with you suffering. I thought you’d go on gliding through life for years to come. Untouched. I didn’t realize until your dad’s funeral how much I wanted that. For you and your sisters and your mom and dad to remain in that…that golden, fucking little cocoon you all always seemed to live in over there.”
“You seemed to like coming over to that fucking little cocoon, morning, noon and night when you were a kid,” she said, stung.
“Of course I did. The Esterbrook house was the best place in the world. Still might be,” he said evenly, unaffected by her defensive tone.
“I can never figure out if you resent me or love me, Jude.”
Her voice shook when she spoke. For a few seconds, her stark, humiliating confession seemed to hang and vibrate in the charged air between them. She couldn’t believe she’d said it. He looked pretty damn disbelieving himself for a moment. Then he smiled.
“Hell, you know the answer to that.”
And she did, Esme realized. Or at least she thought she did. The answer was both. She knew it, because she loved and resented him, too.
Of course, she resented him for a different reason than Jude did her. He begrudged her, imagining she led the life of an adored princess.
While she resented him for not loving her the way he had Sadie.
He uncoiled his long body and stood, holding up his empty glass. “I have a plan. Let’s get drunk. I’ll call room service for a bottle of Scotch. And how about some music? It’s getting a little depressing around here.”
