She's All That: Club 3, Book 3

by Cathryn Cade

  “Sara.”

  She plopped into her chair, fiddling with her ponytail again. “No shopping.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night instead. We can talk about why I want you along this weekend.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She could do dinner with a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Even if he was just a friend. And she would like to know what she was walking into before they arrived. Why he needed backup. Because he seemed pretty together to her, all master of his particular universe. If things didn’t go his way, he just unleashed The Look.

  Worked on her.

  She should have remembered that. At ten o’clock the next evening, Sara sat in a stylist’s chair at Nouveau Riche, a small and exclusive salon and spa in downtown Portland, while a friendly, chic Asian-American woman put the finishing touches on Sara’s new hairdo.

  She stared in the mirror, still wondering how she’d been bulldozed into this. Her gaze cut left, finding the answer lounging in a chair where he could watch the proceedings. Trace, clad in a peach golf shirt, khaki shorts and leather slip-on shoes, winked at her over his copy of Golf Digest.

  She frowned at him, but honestly? She looked darned good. And it was all his doing.

  Her hair had been trimmed, layered just enough to give her long bangs and take out some of the weight in her long tresses, freeing an incipient wave. The style made her eyes look bigger and highlighted her angled cheekbones, softening her squarish jaw. It was the cut she would’ve gotten herself if she’d thought of it.

  She almost looked good enough to stand beside him, or Kai, and hold her share of the spotlight.

  And on a rack in the front of the store hung two garment bags and three shopping bags, all with the classy Nordstrom’s department store label.

  They’d begun the evening at Palomino, a trendy restaurant that served the best mojitos Sara had ever tasted. She’d had two with a plate of excellent fish tacos. He’d spent their dinner charming her, making her laugh and telling her just enough about his stepfather’s efforts to suck Trace into his business dealings to fill her with a determination to do all she could to help Trace stay free of the man.

  Then he’d spirited her off to Pioneer Square, and somehow she’d found herself shopping for and trying on not only a slinky little cream silk cocktail dress covered with seed pearls, but casual clothing as well. Since he had excellent taste, she gave in to the temptation of the beautiful fabrics and styles that were Nordstrom’s, and decided maybe it was time she had a few new things. She quickly calculated her credit card balance and the cost of the things he indicated he liked on her, and decided if she didn’t eat out for a month or buy coffee, she could do it.

  But when she pulled out her credit card at the checkout counter, she discovered that he not only had an account but that the transaction was already finished.

  He’d also made a purchase of his own. He wouldn’t tell her what was in the second garment bag.

  “You’ll find out when we get there,” he said, leaning over to brush a kiss on her cheek. This preoccupied her so that instead of arguing, she did what she’d been doing all evening, watching him in mingled bemusement and aggravation.

  From Nordstrom’s, he’d whisked her off, not to the parking garage but to this salon.

  Now the stylist stepped back, beaming. “There. What do you think?”

  “I love it,” Sara said honestly. “Thank you so much for fitting me in this late.”

  The stylist shrugged. “Fashion emergency. Besides, Trace is my stockbroker. He makes me money, I treat him right.”

  Trace rose to give the diminutive woman a hug. “And you’re the best stylist in Portland, Mei Su. Thank you.”

  Sara rose, lifting her small purse. “I’m paying for this.”

  “Already taken care of,” Mei Su said emphatically. “Thank you for coming. Please come back.”

  Sara smiled politely. Right, like she could afford this place on her salary. She’d bet this haircut had cost well over a hundred dollars, not something she was prepared to pay every six weeks.

  Trace let her carry one of the shopping bags up the street to the Smart Park garage. It was still warm even as dusk settled in the concrete canyon between the tall buildings, and along with the old-fashioned streetlamps, lights twinkled in store windows and in fairy lights strung in the lime trees planted along the sidewalks. The cars and delivery trucks zipping past had their headlights on.

  “I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman,” she muttered as they packed her loot in Trace’s trunk. “Is it okay if your parents find out I’m just a PE teacher? Wouldn’t want to embarrass them by revealing that I sweat for a living.” She tried to moderate the tone in which she asked this, but he evidently wasn’t fooled.

  Trace opened her car door and looked down at her as she stood waiting to get in. He shook his head, a line between his brows. “Is that why you’re so prickly? You think I’m trying to bring you up to measure?”

  “Aside from the fact you shouldn’t be buying me clothes and expensive haircuts,” she shot back. “Yeah. Maybe.” It was certainly part of it.

  “I think they can withstand the shock of my dating a teacher,” he said dryly. “Sara, my point in all of this is I don’t want you to feel at a disadvantage. Some of mother’s friends and the wives that will be there spend the equivalent of my yearly salary on their clothing and accessories.”

  “Oh.” She thought about this. “So you’re not ashamed to be seen with me?”

  For the second time since she’d met him, Trace looked angry. Not as enraged as he had when Kevin had attacked her, but he was angry. It emanated from him in a chilly wave, his gaze diamond hard, his beautiful mouth tight. “Is that what you think of me, Red? That I’m so shallow I’d demand you dress up to please my family?”

  Her gaze dropped to his chest, where she studied the placket of his dress shirt, unbuttoned to below his collarbone. A few curls of dark blond dusted his skin there. Defying the urge to press her face there and beg him to forgive her, Sara swallowed. Her delicious dinner was a lump in her belly.

  “I don’t really know you that well—” she began.

  “Bullshit,” he interrupted. “You do, and you know it. Look at me.”

  She looked up, meeting his stormy gaze. Her breath sighed out, the painful lump dissipating, replaced by a new, coiling tension. One hand braced on the car door, he placed the other on the roof, caging her within his arms, so close she could feel his heat but not touching her. She couldn’t have moved to save her life.

  “You know me, Sara,” he said, his voice a quiet lash, curling about her, holding her enwrapped. “Don’t you? We’ve spent time together, we’ve talked, and we’ve worked out together. We handled a crisis together.”

  Well, he’d handled it. She’d been a mess. But he was right. Certainty settled in her like a calming touch, warm and sweet. She did know him. He was the man who had saved her, spent the night at her side, reassured her when she woke, and spent the next weeks keeping in touch with her, not expecting anything in return but that she accepted him as part of her life.

  She nodded. “Yes, Trace.”

  The warmth in his gaze, the relaxation of his face was all the approbation she needed, enough to fill her with a fizz of pleasure and relief. Slowly, he leaned closer, so that if she moved just a little, their mouths would meet and she could feel those lips on hers.

  She shivered with excitement and a rush of longing so intense it rocked her on her feet. Blindly, she reached out for support and found his hand on the car door.

  Her eyes flew open—when had she closed them?—to find him watching her, not missing an iota of her reaction. Her cheeks heated, but she held his gaze, determined not to look down. And when he smiled at her, it felt as if he’d handed her the key to a treasure trove.

  “Good,” he said gently. “Now get in the car, Red.”

  Disappointment swamped her. She drew her lips in, licking the bottom one with a last look at his mouth, now cu
rved up in a smile. Dammit, all that buildup and no kiss?

  He reached up and brushed back a strand of hair from her cheek, then tapped the tip of her nose gently with his forefinger. “Red. Get in.”

  She got into the car.

  “I’ll pick you up at four Friday afternoon, if that’s all right,” he said as he drove down the spiraling ramp to the street.

  “That works,” she agreed. If he could act like nothing had just happened there, so could she. “I’m usually home from school by then. We start at seven in the morning.”

  He paid the attendant, and they drove out onto the street. “I’m usually in the office by then too. The markets open early on the East Coast.”

  She surveyed the other vehicles jammed around them, two lanes creeping both ways along the concrete canyon. “I’m glad I don’t have to drive this every day.”

  “I’m used to it. I’ve listened to some good books on tape. Tom Clancy, John Flanagan.”

  Her head whipped around, and she grinned delightedly. “John Flanagan? You like the Ranger’s Apprentice series?”

  “Love it. I know it was written for kids, but it’s good.”

  She nodded. “I’ve read them all. One of my students was reading the first book instead of doing his health assignment. I took it away and ended up reading it for an hour after school.”

  “Sometimes I ride in on the MAX,” he said. “Then I can read a paperback. But most days I go to the gym after work, so I need a car. I have quite a collection of books on CD. You’re welcome to go through it anytime.”

  “Thank you,” she said, touched. She’d been listening to a series on CD herself, but she wasn’t about to mention it to him. It was an erotic romance series, and extremely hot. She’d caught herself imagining Trace in the hero’s place more than once. She pressed her thighs together to quell the pulse at this memory.

  The light turned green, and they eased ahead.

  “So tell me about your parents’ place,” she said to distract herself from squirming in her seat. “Did you grow up in this home?”

  “No. My dad made his money in timber, but we lived pretty simply. He built the big house for my mother a few years before he died. I was already in college.”

  “Oh, where?”

  “Started at Portland State, moved on to U of Oregon. Masters in business. And you?”

  “Oregon State. Teacher prep program, masters in PE and Health.” On a scholarship partially funded by the Salvation Army, because she lived with a single parent with no reliable income.

  He cast her a wicked glance. “See you stuck to your roots. Beaver who lives in Beaverton.”

  “And I suppose you live near a pond, Duck,” she shot back.

  “Do, as a matter of fact. Like you, I invested in a condo. Mine’s in Sherwood.”

  “Only smart thing I did after the divorce,” she said. She should, in retrospect, have insisted Jason sell his souped-up Harley, which she’d helped pay for. That would have bought her some nicer furniture.

  “You got out of a relationship that wasn’t working, didn’t you?” he asked. “That’s the main thing.”

  She nodded. He was not wrong.

  The Lexus swooped up a steep ramp between a delivery truck and a Volkswagen Bus, and they merged onto 26, headed west up the Zoo hill.

  “Trace. You know I still don’t feel comfortable about you spending money on me,” she said into the quiet as he drove, quickly but skillfully. “You shouldn’t be buying me things.”

  “Why?”

  She looked at him. He sat relaxed, the picture of success—with an edge. His gaze as he glanced over at her was inquiring, but it was in no way diffident or apologetic. He’d made up his mind before he even picked her up how the evening would go, it had gone his way, and he was matter-of-fact about this. He was leaving the onus of objection entirely on her.

  “Well, it’s not like we’re…dating,” she said. Or anything else, really. They were kind of friends, she supposed. That was nice. She needed to be satisfied with that. That was safe.

  “No. And maybe we never will,” he agreed. “But right now, I’m the one who needs help. And you agreed to do so, on short notice. I appreciate that.”

  She huffed out a breath, frustrated and maybe a little hurt that he’d agreed so quickly that tonight wasn’t a date, and that he wasn’t going to be asking her on one anytime soon.

  She squeezed her hand into a fist on her thigh. That was what she wanted, for them to keep it casual… Wasn’t it?

  He reached over and laid his hand over hers, squeezing gently. “Sara. Let it go. I can afford this. I could afford to do it every week if I wanted to, without really noticing.”

  “Well, I couldn’t,” she said, trying to ignore how good his hand felt, his fingers now entangled with hers. “You know, I don’t care about your money. It’s nice, but I’d like you just as much if you drove a beat-up old car like that.”

  She waved her free hand at a junker putting along in the slow lane, with rusted fenders and smoke billowing from the tailpipe.

  Trace looked over at the other car and raised one brow. “Babe.”

  Sara tipped her head down, giggling. It was impossible to picture him driving a rolling wreck like that.

  “Glad you don’t care about money,” he said when she’d quieted. “I guessed that about you.”

  “Because I don’t wear diamonds to work out?” she joked, remembering a few of the gym clients.

  He squeezed her hand again and let go to grasp the steering wheel with both hands as he changed lanes. She liked watching him drive, so competent and confident.

  “That’s part of it. Your place too. It’s comfortable but…” He shrugged. “Not fancy.”

  “I think funky is the word you’re searching for,” she said dryly. “Which describes the way I grew up. My mom is, um…kind of a hippy.”

  He grinned, clearly not put off by this. “She is? What’s she like?”

  Sara shrugged. “I look like her, except her hair is silver. And she still wears tie-dye and things with lots of beading, which she does herself. She lives in a little house out in Forest Grove, with a big yard, all of which is a garden of some kind. Veggies, herbs, berries, fruit. Possibly…a few other things in the greenhouse. Not sure if that’s still going on.”

  Trace looked entertained and not disgusted, so Sara went on. “She was pretty sick this spring, some kind of bug that just kept getting worse, but she’s into holistic medicine so she wouldn’t go to the hospital. She took herbs and stuff, so it took her longer to get well. She’s… I don’t know, she’s just my mom.”

  He nodded. “What about your dad? He around?”

  She shook her head. “No. He died when I was twenty. He hadn’t lived with us for years. He lived with some other people on a little farm, sold wood carvings at farm markets and craft fairs.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Heart. He was a lot older than Mom and didn’t take very good care of himself. Probably never went to the doctor in his life.” She looked at him. “He used to steal money when he came to visit us. From my Mom, and from me.”

  His jaw tightened. “Shit, that’s low. Sorry you had to put up with that from the man who should’ve been looking out for you.”

  “Thanks.” His words, although several years after the fact, made her feel better about her admission. “He was charming, you know? I always ended up forgiving him. Mostly. Because I wanted him to come back. He was my dad.”

  “Yeah. I get it.” He reached for her hand again, enfolded it in his. That felt even better.

  “Is your dad still around?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No. He died ten years ago this winter. Pancreatic cancer. No time to prepare, look for a cure, nothing. Just got sick and next thing we knew…he was gone. My mom fell apart.”

  She turned her hand under his, holding on. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, honey. He was a good man and a great dad. Your mom okay now? She have enough to live o
n and everything?”

  She nodded. “She’s fine, really. She gets social security, and she sells her organic jams and jellies and pesto for outrageous prices. You cannot believe what people will pay for a little bit of fruit and sugar that’s packaged well.”

  “Oh yeah, I can. My mother is one of them. Good for your mom. Gouge those rich folks, power to the people.” His eyes were twinkling.

  Sara rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Right. Sadie would love you.”

  “That’s your mom, Sadie?”

  “Uh-huh. What’s your mother’s name?”

  “Frances. Frances and Harrison Hardy.” His voice was so devoid of feeling that Sara cast him a troubled look.

  She was learning to read him. He didn’t like one or both of them. Something about his relationship with them was why he wanted her along for the weekend. The tautness of his profile discouraged her from asking for more information just now.

  Besides, how did you ask someone if they disliked their mother? That kind of question was tackier than tie-dyed parachute pants. Sadie might drive her to distraction sometimes, but Sara loved her and knew that it was returned, wholeheartedly.

  But Sara had a lot to learn about Trace. She knew he was a successful man, that he was a good friend, that he was—heaven help her—a dom. That they had a shared interest in fitness, outdoor and indoor sports, and now in reading.

  She just wasn’t sure any of this was enough to get her through a weekend with his wealthy, dysfunctional family. They sounded as bad as Kai’s family, just in a different way. She wondered if Trace’s mother knew he was a dom, or involved in Club 3. She guessed not.

  She’d be out of her depth with his family, but considering how he’d rescued her, if this was what he wanted, she’d do it.

  Chapter Eight

  Trace’s mother and stepfather lived in the type of large, ostentatious home Sara’s mom called disparagingly a “McMansion”. High on a hillside overlooking the two-lane highway south out of Oregon City, the house was a three-story marvel of brick, white pillars and fancy landscaping. Even the driveway, a long curve up from the highway, was bordered meticulously with manicured shrubs in beds of bark.