She cleared her throat as he turned back and headed back to the garage, coming out with a wrench.
“So, you’re taking Vanessa to Kelly’s wedding?”
He paused from tugging on something inside the engine with the wrench. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah. Problem?”
“Why would you? She doesn’t even know Kelly or Luke, does she?”
“Invitation includes a date, doesn’t it?”
“But Vanessa?”
Scott grinned as he leaned back under the hood of the car. “Yes, Vanessa. She bugged me to go, she was interested because Kelly is so famous and all. I had no one better to take, so why not?”
“Yeah, why not? Great.”
Scott looked over at her. “You should put that passion you feel toward Vanessa into finding yourself a hobby. Try karate or something.”
“Real funny. Just promise you won’t let her do anything stupid or embarrassing.”
“I don’t have to promise that, she won’t. The only person she truly misbehaves around is you. Somehow you bring it out in her.”
“Well, that’s certainly not my fault now, is it?”
Scott laughed. “You might have some fault in it. But let’s agree we disagree about Vanessa, okay?”
“You totally don’t see her for what she is. But okay, we’ll agree we disagree. Anyways, I wondered if you’d care if I asked Angie to come with me today. I’m a bridesmaid, and the bridal party is getting ready at my shop. I thought she might like coming to the wedding. She’s totally fascinated by Kelly, so it might be fun for her.”
Scott rested a hand on the side of the car as he studied her over the engine. “Sure. I don’t care. That’s nice of you to include her. But you could have asked her mother.”
“Vanessa would have said no just to spite me.”
He smiled, shaking his head. “You’re almost worth having around just to see the cat fight between you two.”
Sarah glared at him as she turned around. Over her shoulder she said, “Yeah, well, what would make it worth having Vanessa around? It would take far more than that for most normal people.”
Back inside the house, Sarah picked up Vanessa’s newspaper. It was an hour before Angie finally made an appearance. She was thrilled with Sarah’s plan. She ran off to get dressed. Sarah threw on casual clothes. There was no reason to get ready because the bridal party was meeting at three o’clock to primp the afternoon away. She couldn’t wait.
Scott was still working on his car when she walked up. He ran his eyes over the length of her as he straightened and leaned a hip into the car door. He whistled at her.
“Why did you just whistle at me?” She was in casual jeans, and a simple T-shirt with a logo of a flower on it. Her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail.
“Looking like that I could almost see hitting on you.”
“Like this? What do you mean?”
Almost see hitting on her?
Why did the wording make her want to flinch? Why was it only
almost
?
He waved his hand toward her. “Usually you’re starched and pressed as if off to a board meeting. I’ve never seen you look casual before. It’s a good look for you.”
Sarah was flabbergasted and confused. He liked her looking like this? What was wrong with how she normally dressed? She ran a business, so she dressed professionally, neat, classy, and sophisticated. She had to. She needed to be taken seriously. He had a problem with that? With being professional? Successful? Sure. Why would he like her looking like that? She was sure he’d prefer women looking obvious. Something more in tune with the easy girls he usually consorted with. She sniffed.
Which made him flash his teeth at her in a grin. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m not hitting on you. I was just commenting.”
Panties in a twist? Her? Who said things like that? She wasn’t the kind of woman who had ever been told something like that. And why was Scott so adamant he couldn’t hit on her? What was so wrong with her? She was reasonably attractive, independent, relatively successful in her chosen profession and single. Why couldn’t he even think about hitting on her? He, who had a different woman every few days. Why wasn’t she good enough for him?
“Yeah, this from the guy whose going on a date with Vanessa today. Why would my panties do anything over you? Dream on. Now, we need to get to my shop to get ready, if you wouldn’t mind taking us. Angie said she’d be right out.”
Scott straightened off the fender of his car, smiling at her. She had a feeling the glint of humor in his eyes was over hearing her use the word panties. As if she was too prissy to utter the word. He stepped out of the garage wearing a sweatshirt, and to her disappointment, a hat over the hair she had been staring at off and on all morning. She started to turn toward his truck he parked in front of the house.
He had keys in his hand which he jiggled as he came up to her. “We’ll take the car.”
“What car? That doesn’t look drive-able yet.”
“No, but my Mustang is.”
“You have another car?”
“The truck is a work truck, Sarah, not all I got.”
“Oh,” she said surprised. She was used to the truck. She kind of liked the truck. She felt comfortable in the truck. It reminded her of him, kind of cocky and manly. She followed him as he went to the side of the house, where under a carport, was a black vintage Mustang gleaming with polish. Another of his creations? He got in and started the car, it roared to life, idling with thunder-like noise. She was impressed. The car was spotless, almost obsessively clean. She opened the passenger door and pushed the seat forward so Cookie could pile inside.
“Oh, no. The dog doesn’t ride in here,” Scott called after her, nearly panicked.
She twisted her head around. “What do you mean? Cookie can’t come?”
“No. Not in this car, she knows that.”
“So, you’re just going to leave her here?”
“I don’t take Cookie everywhere I go. Anytime I’ve seen you it was in my truck, after work. You didn’t seriously think I took that out, did you? Or the dog. Believe me nothing says hot on a date like a man with his panting, smelly, retriever sidekick.”
“Well, that’s great to know, but we’re not on a date. Why can’t she come?” Cookie’s big brown eyes were staring up at Sarah as if she understood their argument. Her heart tugged. They couldn’t just leave her there. Cookie always seemed to look as if she thought she was being left forever when someone walked away.
“I don’t let her in this car. Do you know what her claws would do? Her hair? No way.” He almost convulsed in horror.
Sarah glared at him as she crossed her arms over her stomach. “That’s so stupid. It’s just a car. And it’s Cookie we’re talking about, not some random mutt. I’m not getting into that car if Cookie isn’t.”
He stared at her, jaw locked. “You’re freaking serious?”
“Yes. I’m serious. And I should think you wouldn’t be so heartless to your own pet.”
Scott rolled his eyes heavenward as he got out of the car. “So you’d insist on my work truck so my dog can come with us to drive you home?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m insisting on.”
He shook his head as if he’d been told the moon had developed orange spots. “
Okay
, I finally admit, I don’t know you. The dog means that much to you?”
“Quit calling her
the dog
, as if she’s some chicken running around here pecking at your feet. This is Cookie we’re talking about. The greatest, sweetest dog ever, who has abandonment issues. And you want to hurt her feelings just to keep your car clean?”
“Well, put that way, we wouldn’t want to make the dog’s abandonment issues worse,” he said. She caught the dry tone of his voice. She chose to ignore it.
“What?” she snapped as he walked to his truck, his gaze on her.
“You. You’re kind of a contradiction sometimes.”
She started to answer but Angie walked up just then. “Ah man, why can’t we take the cool car? The truck rattles.”
“Because Sarah doesn’t want to mess with Cookie’s emotional balance,” Scott said, as he got into the truck. Cookie jumped happily into the truck bed. Sarah waited for Angie to get in.
“What?” Angie grumbled, as she noticed Sarah. “Oh no. If you want to take this scrap metal, you sit in the middle. It’s freaking uncomfortable. Especially when packing a bowling ball.”
Sarah hadn’t given that a thought. She groaned. Here she was squished next to Scott again. He seemed to notice what she was thinking. He smiled and winked. She suppressed a groan. Would he quit smiling at her? And quit being so funny and cute? Especially while she was squished next to him. Sarah crossed her arms over her chest, and all this for the sake of the dog she just might love.
****
Scott pulled across the street from Sarah’s shop. As they got closer, Sarah nearly moaned out loud. There parked before her shop was a big, black Hummer. There was only one person in her life that drove such a vehicle.
Not now. Not right now
. But there he was, standing before his monstrous vehicle: Brett Carlton. Her date for tonight’s wedding.
“I hate those things,” Scott said. She glanced at him, he was nodding toward the Hummer. “They’re big, and lack style. They seem to cry out mid-life crisis or—”
“Or virility issues. I totally agree,” Sarah interrupted, still unsmiling.
Brett stepped around the hood, as Angie gasped, and screeched. Brett glanced into the truck and recognized Sarah. He started to wave with a smile of acknowledgment.
“That’s Brett Carlton.
Brett Carlton
. Are you serious? I’m going to just die,” Angie exclaimed, her eyes huge, hair for once forgotten and flipped back off her face.
Scott’s gaze followed Angie’s fingers pointing at Brett. “That is him, isn’t it?”
Sarah cleared her throat. “Uh, yes. He’s here for Kelly’s wedding. They’re good friends.”
Angie screeched even louder. “You know him? He isn’t waiting for you, is he?”
She nearly put her hands up to cover her ears from Angie’s screeches and “oh my Gods” that she kept peeling out with. “He probably is.”
Sarah looked down at her hands. Scott whipped his head down to look at her.
“You know him? You can introduce me to him?” Angie asked nearly hyperventilating.
“Yes. I know him.”
Brett came over to the passenger side of the truck. He grinned at Sarah, a breathtaking smile that graced more than a dozen movies as leading man. Brett Carlton was a legend in Hollywood. He was a good actor, as well as one of the sexiest men alive, according to the headlines, not Sarah.
She first met him when she went to Los Angeles, to visit Kelly, back when Kelly lived there. Brett and Kelly were longtime friends. Brett had been going through a very painful and public divorce. Kelly and he were low key friends. He used to hang out at her condo a lot, more for the comfortable privacy than anything. He and Kelly had never had a thing going. And so she had met him. She’d been as stupidly star struck as Angie was acting.
But eventually she’d gotten used to him. Got over who he was and that his face was on movies she found on HBO or in the magazines she browsed. And he liked her because she’d gotten over her star struck stupidity fast. They had become friends over those visits to L.A. Once Kelly moved back to Seaclusion, Brett came to see Kelly sometimes. And in one of those visits things between them had heated up. They’d kissed a few times, and thought about maybe dating. But Brett got busy on another movie, and she was busy here so nothing had come of it. Other than he had agreed on being her date for the wedding.
Sarah could feel Scott’s heated gaze on her, waiting for her to say more. But she didn’t want to say anything more. She stared harder at her hands in her lap. Angie opened the door and got out, Sarah followed quickly, until she was being embraced by Brett as he smiled and said the usual banal greetings.
Sarah glanced at Scott who did not get out of his truck. He didn’t seem as interested in meeting Brett as Angie was. He stared at Sarah for a moment, at Brett, and then kind of waved as he put his truck into gear and drove off. Leaving Sarah feeling bereft that he was gone.
Which was stupid because here was a movie star. A famous, sexy, rich actor nearly wooing her, and yet she was staring after a battered white truck as if it had just pulled away with her heart. Sarah shook her head and turned back introducing Brett to Angie who was nearly hyperventilating as they shook hands. Sarah spent the next hour settling Brett in and letting Angie get over her star struck wonder. She tried really hard to be glad he was there.
****
Sarah’s Secrets
soon became an explosion of clothes, make-up, and accessories as Kelly, Cassie, and Sarah primped for the wedding. It was the most fun Sarah had in months. Angie stood around for a while in awe of Kelly, and still recovering from her shock over meeting Brett, who was now in Sarah’s apartment getting cleaned up, as all men were banished from the shop. Finally, at Sarah’s prompting, Angie came forward and began answering questions and comments. She was almost happy looking, except for the every once in a while, glance at her stomach.
Sarah got herself ready as Kelly, Cassie, and Angie chatted. Once ready she began to fuss with invoices on her desk. She finally got around to dialing the store’s voice mail. The first message came on from her mother telling her to have fun at the wedding and call her with the details. Next was Brett, confirming what time he’d arrive. The next five messages came on and Sarah’s blood seemed to stop moving in her veins. Her heart started throbbing in her chest.
First the heavy breathing, then more breathing and the same raspy voice from before saying, “Sarah, where are you?” Then the next, “Sarah, I’m waiting, where are you tonight?” and the fourth, “Sarah, I’m still waiting, and getting mad, where are you?” and finally, “I’ve been watching for you all night, why aren’t you home? Come on, Sarah, where are you hiding?”
Oh God, she hadn’t been hysterical staying at Scott’s house. Scott had been right. There had been someone watching for her, at her home, at this very shop. Chills stole over her skin, and through her heart. This had gone from scary to dangerous.
But who was there to tell? Sarah glanced discreetly at her friends. It was Kelly’s wedding day, she was beaming and so was Cassie. She couldn’t tell them now of all times. And Angie was exclaiming over Kelly’s bouquet, there was no question of burdening Angie with this.