Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance (23 page)

“Actually, I’m under a duty of
candor
toward the court,” she retorted. “And I think I was being extremely candid.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him fold his arms across his chest, presumably squelching the urge to strangle her.

Elise grinned to herself. What a great weekend. She’d even been able to sleep in his bed, which shocked her. He was warm and solid, and when she’d woken up from a bad dream he’d cuddled her until she fell back asleep. She got a thrill just thinking about it.

This recreational drug thing was working out great. The sex—well, the sex was better than great. He was a quick study—she never had to tell him anything twice. Together they were inventive and thorough, a good combination.

But this—the teasing and joking around—was nearly as good as the sex. She hadn’t been bored once over the weekend, and she thought for sure she’d need to whip out a notepad and draft some deposition prep to fill the time. She never needed to.

The best part was going back to their own lives during the week. She was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed. She reviewed her schedule for the week, which was light by work standards, but she had the Voy deposition in ten days that almost certainly would be a bear. She should get a head start on the preparations for—

“I had fun this weekend,” Jack said.

Huh? Elise didn’t want to take her eyes off the road, but he sounded wistful. “Me too,” she agreed lightly.

“It’s always hard to leave,” he added.

She recalled their conversation about his childhood visits to Eagles Mere. He’d made it sound like happiness personified, but to her ears it had seemed very sad—a series of relationships interrupted when each year’s playmate grew too old or left.

This must have been the first weekend in years that he’d had a playmate around all the time. Good God, they’d even played Monopoly before going to bed. Admittedly it was strip Monopoly with rents payable in either money or clothing, but still…

She’d waited too long to respond to his comment. Time to change the subject. Work, of course. “Tell me about the trial.”

“You know I can’t talk on an ongoing legal matter before the court.”

What a freaking straight arrow. “Okay, so don’t tell me anything substantive. Tell me about the experience. Are you enjoying it, or do you find yourself wanting to leap over the bench, wrench the exhibit out of the guy’s hand and show the jury how a cross-examination is really supposed to go?”

“Would I rather be arguing the case? I don’t think so. Admittedly, counsel for defendant is an idiot—that’s off the record, by the way—but it’s actually nice to be impartial. I’m enjoying seeing both sides of the argument.”

She kept him talking about his job until they got to the Schuylkill, which was predictably clogged on a summer Sunday afternoon. He shut up then and she maneuvered through the traffic in comfortable silence.

When they’d parked by her house, Jack got her bag out of the back of the car. “Will I see you before next Saturday?”

That was a toughie. On the one hand, she knew it would be delightful to see—and touch—him before the weekend. On the other hand, it felt like a slippery slope straight to a bad end. She couldn’t explain it. Just a gut feeling of danger, like driving along a highway where the guard rails were conspicuously missing.

She gave him a swift kiss. “You’re on trial, and I have a deposition to prep for. Better not.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her more thoroughly, reminding her of everything they did in Eagles Mere and making her long for more. His fingers slid through her hair, caressing her scalp lightly. Finally, he straightened and smiled at her. “If you change your mind, you know where I’ll be.”

Tempting. Painfully tempting. Frankly, she was having a hard time not clinging to him, or dragging him inside for more of that wonderful drug. They didn’t call it willpower for nothing, and she prided herself on being able to say no.

“Call me with details for the graduation, okay?” Another peck and she was in the door before she could change her mind.

Elise was just about to go to bed that evening when her mother called.

“Hi, Peggy.”

She imagined her mother rolling her eyes at her daughter’s refusal to call her “Mom,” but after fifteen years, that battle wasn’t worth waging again.

“Sweetheart. I called you yesterday, but you didn’t pick up.”

Shit. Elise was so floaty after leaving Jack she hadn’t checked her voice mail. “Sorry. I was busy.”

“At two in the morning?”

“You called here at two in the morning?” What possible reason could Peggy…? Oh. “Please don’t check up on me.”

“Fine. I’m rude. I think you’re rude for not calling me and making me track you down. Regardless of which of us wins the award for rudeness, where were you last night?”

Elise carried the phone into the living room and sank onto the sofa. “I was staying with a friend.”

“Well, it wasn’t Christine because I called her.” Peggy said smugly.

“Not at two in the morning you didn’t. Jeez,” Elise protested. “Isn’t it enough that you have my secretary reporting to you like some double agent? Now you have to disturb my friends?”

“Kim doesn’t tell me anything. She’s still too impressed that you got her mortgage refinanced.” Her mother made that sound like a bad thing.

Elise had to explain again. “Look, you live on the other side of the country. I visit, maybe not as often as you’d like, but I do. It’s true, I don’t share the intimate details of my life with you but I don’t with anyone so you shouldn’t take it personally.”

She waited for her mother’s plaintive, “I just want you to be happy” speech, but Peggy decided to throw a curveball. “Are you going to ruin your life the way you ruined mine?”

Elise shook her head. “How did I ruin your life?”

Peggy’s words slurred slightly, suggesting she’d been drinking, or crying, or both. “Every single time Tom looked at your big, wide, ‘I want my dad’ eyes, he saw his own kids. It was because of you that he went back to his wife.”

Elise couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You think I ruined your love affair because I couldn’t keep my shit together? Jesus. I was seven years old.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t make the mistakes I made. I should be Exhibit A for doing things differently.”

Well, that was a new tack. “Uh, let’s look at Exhibit A, then, and see which of your mistakes I should avoid repeating. You got married young, had me, met some married professor, fell in love and followed him to Eugene where he finally decided he wasn’t leaving his wife for you. What part of that scenario am I repeating? Because I’d say I’m doing a great job of avoiding all of it.”

“Except you’re alone, Elise. You’re just as alone as I am.”

“Right, but unlike you, I never expected anything else. So I’m happy where you weren’t.” Elise tried to keep her tone civil and reasonable, but that note of bitterness was bleeding through. How did her mother make her furious in such a short amount of time?

“El…” Peggy made the nickname sound plaintive.

What were Elise’s options? Try to reason with her mother, who was presumably grieving Tom? Or rehash old history to no great effect? “Mom, I’m sorry you’re sad about Tom, but it’s late and I need to get to bed.” Elise hung up and disconnected the phone. She’d deal with the voice mails in the morning.

As usual, it felt great climbing into her bed, made just the way she liked it. Until she reached for Jack and discovered that being alone no longer comforted her.

The morning of the commencement, Jack met Stacy and Bill at their Ritz-Carlton suite for breakfast. His sister wasted no time asking the question.

“Who is she? When you said you’d have a guest after all, I was stunned.”

Jack turned to his brother-in-law. “Hi, Bill.”

“Hey, Jack. Nice work on the judgeship.” Bill retreated to his chair, already surrounded by the
New York Times.
He went back to the crossword, his half-moon glasses perched on his nose.

So much for using Bill to run interference on Stacy’s cross-examination. Jack turned back to Stacy. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with her name, and work from there.”

“Elise Carroll, early thirties, about five foot seven, blue eyes, light hair, no visible tattoos or scars.”

Stacy grimaced. “Do we have to pick out her mug shot?”

“Just stating the facts, Sis. Ask me what you really want to know.”

“How did you meet? Why is she the first woman you’ve brought to a family event? Do you plan on marrying her?”

“In court, because I want her to meet you, and yes.”

Stacy goggled at his last answer. Jack gave her a level look. He’d refined his frosty stare as a prosecutor when he’d needed to break shaky alibis. He found it effective now for suppressing the pretensions of hack lawyers in his court.

Unfortunately, Stacy was immune to the Blackjack icy indifference. She glared at him, her eyes narrowing. He knew that look and it didn’t bode well for him.

“Do you want me to tell her about the time I caught you—?” Stacy raised an eyebrow.

Wow. She might be in her fifties, but she’d lost none of the older sister’s deft hand at intimidation. She had him cornered. Of course he knew embarrassing things about her, but she wouldn’t care if he shouted them out in the street.

Show no weakness
just didn’t apply with sisters.

Jack helped himself to coffee and took a seat. “Order breakfast and I’ll tell you all about it.”

When he was done with the story of the
Everton
hearing, Stacy had flopped back in her chair and even Bill looked up from the crossword.

“Love at first sight?” Stacy asked, her voice thin and squeaky.

“It happens.” Jack struggled not to sound testy. Why was everyone convinced this couldn’t happen even after he told them it had?

“Happened to me,” Bill offered unexpectedly.

“What?” Stacy’s voice was close to being audible only to dogs.

“I saw you at that senior mixer and I knew.”

“William Pembroke, you have never told me that.”

“Well, based on how you’re reacting now with your brother, can you blame me? You’d have laughed yourself silly. You were Stacy McIntyre, related to a movie star, and you were not shy about letting people know it. In a word, you were a bitch. But I knew I’d fallen for you.”

Jack was agog. He turned to Bill. “I thought you guys met at a museum function when you were an associate.”

Bill Pembroke was a solid sort of guy, a superb lawyer, but not the star in any room. Jack knew from experience that Bill could reason his way around the thorniest legal problem, then deliver the answer in a monotone. Unsexy, but a very suitable demeanor for a tax lawyer.

Bill looked boyish and even coy as he explained, “I didn’t say we met at school, just that I fell in love with her then. I waited until circumstances were more, shall we say, propitious. We had a couple friends in common, so I kept track of how she was doing while I got established at the firm.” He turned to Stacy. “When I knew you’d broken off your engagement, I got myself on the guest list for that reception for the Hogarth exhibit.”

Stacy’s jaw went slack. Jack was really enjoying this.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this, sweetheart?” she asked her husband.

“Too empowering,” Bill said.

She shook her head in confusion, like a dog shedding water. She looked at Jack as though he might have the answer. Jack just shrugged. He wanted to hear more—Bill’s reasoning could be helpful in his own situation with Elise.

“What does ‘too empowering’ mean?” Stacy demanded.

Bill rubbed the top of his head, which was shiny and pink. It was a familiar gesture. Bill’s scalp looked well-polished, probably the result of being married to Stacy and having twin daughters.

“You’d never have gone out with me if you’d thought I was the kind of guy who took one look and swooned at your feet. I had to play my cards close to my chest to get and keep your interest.”

“Wow.” It was a red-letter day when someone managed to reduce Stacy McIntyre Pembroke to a single syllable.