Calling His Bluff

by Amy Jo Cousins

  Sarah dropped her head until the cold edge of her plate pressed against her forehead. So. Many. Problems. Where to begin?

  “What does my brother have to do with me and J.D.?” she demanded after one problem in particular wriggled its way to the top of the pile and she sat up again. “What was ‘supposed to’ happen?”

  “Nothing. We just wanted to see if he could find out how you were doing.”

  “So, you did what exactly? Told J.D. to bang me for information about my personal life?”

  The humiliation was stinging hot and strong behind her eyes, but she knew she’d crossed a line when Grace snapped at her. “No. We asked him to talk to you. You know, since it’s been months since you’ve talked to us.”

  “I have not—” she managed to get out before being drowned out.

  “Oh, please!”

  “You have so—”

  “Four months.” The final word came from Maxie, who placed her palms flat on the table as she made the pronouncement in a prissy voice. Her little sister possessed an almost freakish memory for details. “It’s been four months of you texting us at the last minute and saying that you won’t be coming after all. Sarah, nobody has that many last-minute emergencies at work.”

  Feeling a bit like the subject of a police interrogation, with three pairs of eyes drilling into her, she sat back in her chair. How to explain?

  “I just needed a break, you know?” She looked around the table, hoping to find understanding.

  “But from us? We’re your family, lady.”

  She answered Addy as honestly as she could.

  “I know, and I love you all, but I was just so fucking embarrassed after Ron. Who makes this many crappy choices in a row? And it’s not that I don’t appreciate your support. Your offer to stick pins under his fingernails was greatly appreciated, Grace,” she said, referring to the most recent ex who’d turned out to be married.

  “Married men who cheat are not protected by the Geneva convention.” Her sister-in-law raised her glass, already over her anger.

  “But I just didn’t want to think about any of that. It makes me feel like shit. It was easier somehow to be around people who don’t know me quite so well as you guys do.”

  “Hence, J.D.,” Maxie said and nodded.

  “Maybe. But as it turns out, he knows me quite a bit better than I thought,” she answered ruefully, thinking of all the moments when he’d read her mind as effortlessly as the women at this table could.

  “Well, he certainly knows you now.” Maxie wiggled her eyebrows in a bad Groucho Marx impression. “And I ain’t talkin’ about on an intellectual level, baby.”

  “Yes, he does.” She smiled with satisfaction, and settled in to relate all the details.

  Okay, not exactly all the details. As she described their weekend in Vegas—the jaw-dropping look on J.D.’s face the first time he’d seen her in the little red dress, the poker, the encounter with J.D.’s ex, the pageantry of the awards show, the constant nerve-jangling, never-ending sexual tension—she was well aware of the fact that she was holding back one crucial piece of information.

  Hey, she’d showed up to lunch, hadn’t she? If she didn’t get around to mentioning that the hot, hot man who’d jumped her in the back of a taxicab was now her hot, hot husband, who could blame her?

  They would understand later, right?

  Yeah. Not a chance.

  Pushing all thoughts of trashy drive-through weddings to the back of her mind, she reached for her glass of ice water.

  “I’m telling you, we’re lucky we didn’t get pulled aside by security,” she said after taking a big swallow. “You know they have cameras in those elevators.”

  She glided over certain details and brushed her hand occasionally over the pocket of her suit coat where the elegant ruby ring she’d removed from her finger was hidden. But she was glad, as it turned out, to talk about something that had been puzzling her all weekend.

  “We keep on getting into the same stupid little fight, over and over again. Every time I tell him I just want to keep this under the table for right now—” she looked up to a burst of laughter from all three women. “Right. You guys don’t count. You’re my diary. Anyway, J.D. gets this…hurt look on his face.”

  Silence fell over the group like a blanket. Addy, Maxie and Grace traded looks and then satisfied nods.

  “What?” she demanded of them. “Hot sex, a reasonably attractive dinner date, no expectations. Isn’t this supposed to be every guy’s dream?”

  Again with the looks and nods. It was like watching a bunch of mimes debate politics.

  “Somebody say something or I’m not letting any of you share my crème brûlée,” she threatened. They all opened their mouths at once, but it was Grace, sitting between Addy and Maxie, who spoke.

  “It sounds like maybe you hurt his feelings.”

  She couldn’t have been more shocked if Grace had jumped up on the table and started performing a striptease.

  “Hurt his feelings? This is J.D. we’re talking about, remember? Mr. ‘Leave town and drop back in every couple of years to say hi’? Mr. ‘I don’t know where I’m headed next, I’ll send you a postcard when I get there’?” She could tell from the looks on their faces that none of them would be offering their support. “I’m just trying to save him from the thousand and one questions he’s gonna get from our brother, not to mention Mom, if it gets out that we did something this crazy!”

  “What’s so crazy about it? You’re two consenting adults.”

  She almost forgot for a moment that they didn’t know about the drunken, late-night nuptials. Fumbling her recovery, she sputtered out an answer to Addy. “Well, don’t you think Mom would find it a little rash that I flew off to Vegas and hopped in the sack with a guy I barely know?”

  Addy set her knife and fork neatly to the side of her plate. Her hands free, she ticked off her arguments.

  “One, you’ve known him since you were kids. Two, Mom’s not an idiot. She didn’t think you were just holding hands and taking romantic walks on the beach with your other boyfriends.”

  “And three—” Maxie took up the torch “—I’m pretty sure she understands impulsive decisions. She got pregnant and ran off with a man her family didn’t approve of. She’d understand this.”

  “But…” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Turning to look at each of them in turn, she searched for someone who agreed with her and found no takers.

  “Hey, I married a man I didn’t know to get my hands on a dead woman’s house,” Addy said and lifted her palms to the sky. “Thank you, Aunt Adeline.”

  “Lied about my name and who I was to get a job under the table at your brother’s pub and hide out from my family. And then slept with the boss.” Grace grinned at her.

  Everyone turned to Maxie.

  “Don’t look at me,” she protested. “I’m the baby, I haven’t had my drama yet.”

  “Ouch!”

  “That’s right, she just call us old ladies.”

  Sarah overrode their escalating insults. “But each of you, Mom included, ended up married to the love of your life.” I’ve already done that but without the love part, she refrained from adding. “I can’t just jump into this, hoping that’s going to happen to me, too.”

  It was the youthful, hope-filled voice of Maxie that answered her.

  “Why not? Maybe it is. Maybe you should just jump.”

  * * *

  Maybe you should just jump.

  The words still echoed through Sarah’s head hours later as she hauled her suitcase up the stairs to the apartment she rented on the top floor of an old gingerbread Victorian house. Her North Side neighborhood was quiet at night. She unlocked her door, entered the hall and dropped her keys in a wooden bowl that sat on a tiny table by the door for just that purpose. Her limbs felt heavy, as if she were moving underwater. The long day had stripped her to the bone, particularly since she’d unexpectedly needed to put down one of her favorite
dogs, leaving both her and the owner devastated. She shucked off her hat, gloves, scarf, boots and coat, abandoning them all in the hall.

  Padding into the kitchen, intent on a cup of tea and a nice, brainless evening with a romance novel, maybe one of those Regency historicals with all the hot sex, she yawned and reminded herself that she’d promised to call J.D. at some point this evening.

  Maybe she’d get lucky and connect to his voice mail. She just needed a night to herself, some time to let all the drama settle down. To try and figure out, calmly and rationally, what she was going to do.

  In the kitchen, she peered into the hopelessly bare refrigerator and sighed. Nothing. Delivery it was. She’d just change first before making the pizza versus Thai judgment call.

  When the doorbell rang, she jogged down the stairs in a pair of yoga pants and a University of Illinois sweatshirt. She really needed to get her landlord to install an intercom system.

  The silhouette she could make out through the small high window in the door at the bottom of the stairs had her slowing to a halt halfway down.

  What was that plan she’d had for a night of calm, rational thinking all by herself?

  The light on the front porch limned the strong angles of J.D.’s face against the dark winter night as he turned toward the opening door, one hand behind his back, the other holding something over his shoulder. His collar was raised against the cold and his breath hung in visible puffs when he spoke.

  “I come bearing gifts.” The white paper sacks he handed her were heavy and oozing delicious smells of meat and melted cheese. “Burritos.” He swung a garment bag in front of her and lifted it for her approval. “And ball gowns.”

  She stepped aside as he brushed past her and headed up the wooden stairs.

  “Make yourself at home, please.” She extended the invitation to the now vacant porch and shut the door with a little more force than necessary.

  At the top of the stairs, she watched as he hung the bag containing her dresses on the coat rack before removing his wet, snowy shoes and placing them on the mat near the door. She’d left her own boots in a puddle of melting snow in the middle of the floor. Keeping her arms at her sides, she held herself still as he wrapped her in a quick embrace and kissed her. She caught herself stiffening reflexively and tried to relax.

  Words echoed in her head from what had turned out to be a very informative lunch.

  The phrase “that wasn’t what he was supposed to do with you” being chief among them.

  “I like your place,” he said, giving her shoulders a quick squeeze.

  “You haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Well, I like you, and you haven’t demonstrated any glaring errors of bad taste yet, so I’m willing to make the leap. Kitchen?” He retrieved the bags from her and headed in the direction she indicated.

  “Why is everyone so big on jumping these days?” she wondered out loud as she trailed behind him.

  In the kitchen, she found him rummaging through her cabinets. She’d always loved her apartment. The two tiny bedrooms were situated under the eaves, and the ceilings sloped down in a charming, cozy fashion. The hardwood floors and stairways creaked with age and the old tub in her bathroom had claw feet. But suddenly, with J.D. standing on the worn linoleum floor and banging the chipped cabinet doors made of pressed particleboard, what she thought of as old and charming seemed shabby and worn. She thought of his place, the modern sleekness of it, the money it had taken to create that, and flashed immediately back to Vegas. To the awkward, out-of-her league feeling she’d had a hard time shaking as they walked into the ballroom full of Hollywood people at the Bellagio.

  Ignoring the memory of how easily J.D. had set her at ease in that crowd, she combined her self-consciousness with some lingering annoyance at being manipulated and jumped right into grilling him about what she’d learned earlier.

  “So, I had an interesting lunch today with my sisters. Your name came up. Any little secrets you want to let me in on?”

  From the look on his face, you would have thought she’d caught him with his hands in the till. She drove the point home.

  “C’mon, time to fess up.”

  J.D. took a deep breath.

  Chapter Nine

  He was busted.

  Flat-out, stone-cold busted.

  For a moment, the surge of adrenaline through his veins was almost painful. His pulse pounded in his ears and he knew that Sarah hadn’t missed his initial flinch. It was time for damage control.

  But how the fuck could she have figured it out? He’d been mostly up front with Tyler this morning, in a calculated bid to make him complicit in the next stage of J.D.’s plan to lay siege to Sarah, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about their marriage, or non-marriage, as it were. J.D. was a practical man and he knew it would be difficult to operate at his romantic best if his leg was rebroken. Or he sported a couple of black eyes.

  It didn’t take him more than a couple of seconds to realize that she couldn’t possibly be talking about his big lie. He forced his breath to slow.

  Time to find out what, exactly, Sarah wanted him to own up to.

  “I wanted to confess,” he said and continued to set plates and glasses on the counter. He deliberately avoided looking at her as she stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms folded across her chest. “I confess that you were so damn hot in that dress that I’m tempted to ask you to put it on while we stuff ourselves with burritos suizos con pollo or carne, your choice.”

  “J.D.” Her tone warned that she would brook no foolishness.

  “Hush. Confession is good for the soul,” he continued mildly and plated the enormous burritos, piling rice and refried beans high on each dish. Even from across the room, he heard the loud growl of Sarah’s stomach. He looked up to flash her a conspiratorial grin as she pressed a hand to her belly and blushed.

  He carried the plates over to the small table for two positioned under a window that peered out into what was probably the backyard, now an inky puddle of night. Pulling out a chair, he invited her to sit.

  “I confess that I came here without calling first because I didn’t want you to have a chance to tell me to stay away, and that my plan is to feed you until you fall into a stupor and are unable to resist my wicked charms.”

  With a snort, she stalked over to him and jerked up his shirtsleeves. Smacking his forearms none too gently, she pointed at the half-healed scratches that were still visible on his skin.

  “Would you like to confess how you acquired these, perhaps? If I’d had a little more composure when talking to the ‘ladies—” she made sarcastic air quotes “—in your ‘hood, I’d have figured it out before now, you know.”

  He held himself still as relief washed over him, laughing out loud to release some of the tension.

  Then he realized he would still have to tell her the truth sooner rather than later, and the slow churn of acid in his stomach started up again.

  “Which one of my conspirators cracked under pressure?” he asked after he collected himself, still holding out the chair for her.

  “Grace.” She gave in and sat, brandishing her fork and knife at the food in front of her as if to say, don’t give me any trouble. “Although it wasn’t so much cracking under pressure as it was bragging.”

  “Bragging? How so?”

  To his surprise, she blushed again and ducked her eyes.

  “She claims that right before I showed up at the pub that afternoon, she was about to tell you that what I needed was…was,” she pressed her lips together and looked, if it was possible, even more uncomfortable, “‘a good sweaty wrestle between the sheets,’ were, I believe, her exact words.”

  J.D. knew that if he grinned he was a dead man.

  * * *

  Sarah braced herself for J.D.’s laughter. Instead, he dropped a casual hand on her leg. The long, lean muscles of her thigh tensed beneath his fingers. She told herself to stop flinching when he touched her.

  “It’s nice th
at she thinks I’m good for you, but I didn’t need anyone to give me ideas about you, Sarah. I started having ideas all by myself the moment you stepped out of the bathroom wearing my shorts and T-shirt.”

  His hand slid up and down her thigh, his palm raising heat with the friction, but his fingertips didn’t touch her. She felt the ghost-like traces of them anyway, skimming the seam that ran up her inner thigh.

  “Well, that’s certainly a surprise,” she said and was immediately embarrassed enough to shove a forkful of chicken, cheese, ranchero sauce and tomatoes into her mouth. She needed to stop herself before anything even more embarrassing came out.

  J.D. raised his eyebrows at her.

  “You didn’t seem to be very interested in me,” she heard herself saying.

  Seriously? Could she not control herself even a little bit? She doubted his glamorous ex trolled for compliments.

  He took a bite of burrito and chewed slowly while staring at her. After he swallowed, he raised one finger.

  “First, I did kiss you that night.”

  “As a joke!”

  He leaned back in his chair and slid his legs forward to tangle with hers. His knee pressed against her thigh.

  “Second, I invited you to Vegas.”

  “And tried to ditch me as soon as we arrived.”

  Why was she participating in this conversation? The last thing she wanted was to have a long talk about how she wasn’t good enough for a man like J.D.

  “I like to think I made up for that brief moment of insanity later.” J.D. grinned and his eyes narrowed and Sarah knew he was thinking of the taxi. And the elevator. And the suite. She blushed and felt herself shiver. “Besides, don’t you like surprises?”

  She snorted in disbelief. “No woman likes surprises, J.D.” He opened his mouth to argue with her, but she shot him down before he got the first word out. Patting the back of his hand, she said, “We pretend that we do so that we don’t hurt your feelings, but deep down we’re really wishing you had let us in on the secret ahead of time. So we could have brushed our hair and touched up our lipstick. Or shaved our legs. The only woman I know who likes a surprise is my mother, and even she—wait. That’s it!”