just when I finally got your number? No wonder you’re glad Ken ran off with Racy Racine. You’re still in love with Durango.”
“I was never in love with him,” Abby denied, but her heart skipped a beat at her denunciation. “It was all teenage angst and hormones.”
“Okay, then you’re hot for him because he’s the one you let get away.”
“I’m not hot for him, dammit. It’s just a stupid fantasy.”
“Ooh, watch out,” Tess teased. “Or you’ll start sneezing again. Sure you don’t want a shot of tequila?”
“Liquor is not the answer.”
“Then what is?”
Abby doubled her arms across her chest. “I don’t know.”
“I do.”
She shot Tess a sideways glance. “Well?”
“You gotta get it out of your system.”
“Get what out of my system?”
“Durango.”
Abby snorted. “Please.”
“I’m serious. When he left town, you were left wondering what it would have been like if you two had hooked up. And you’re probably still feeling guilty for hurting him the way you did, even though we both know you had no real choice.”
“I couldn’t have gone with him, Tess. I was only seventeen and my father was livid.”
“I agree completely, but you’ve apparently spent the last ten years spinning this mental fantasy about him that no guy would be able to live up to, especially someone as dull as Ken. Ideally, the best way to exorcise the Durango demon would be to find the delectable Mr. Creed and screw his brains out.”
“He’s probably happily married with a backyard full of cute kids who possess those same mesmerizing dark eyes.”
“No he’s not.”
Abby frowned and her pulse quickened. “How do you know that?”
“I saw an article on him in Arizona magazine a couple of months back. He’s doing some kind of Outward Bound charity work for disaffected youths, and the reporter made a point of saying he was a very eligible bachelor.”
Abby covered her ears with her hands. She didn’t want to hear any more. “Let’s not talk about him.”
“Okay, forget Durango. Then go find a surrogate and screw his brains out instead. Any wild, black-sheep bad boy should do the trick.”
Abby’s heart hitched.
Tess’s wacky solution actually made some sense. She was concerned about these incessant midnight fantasies she couldn’t seem to shake. Obsessive fantasies that bothered her far more than she cared to admit.
She didn’t want to feel this way. She wanted to free her mind of Durango so that the next time she found a stable, calm, sensible man she could give herself to him heart, mind and soul, the way she hadn’t been able to give herself to Ken.
“I’m just not gutsy enough for a rowdy fling. You know me, Tess. I have to do a thorough consumer investigation before I change toothpastes. Can you actually see me hopping into bed with the first good-looking guy who nods my way?”
“Uh-oh,” Tess warned. “Speaking of bed hopping, here comes Cassandra.”
Abby sighed and watched her mother, who was wearing a skintight miniskirt and three-inch heels, take mincing steps across the playground toward them, a glass of champagne clutched in one hand, a skinny dark brown clove cigarette in the other.
“Well, at least she’s minus the boy toy,” Tess observed.
“Thank God for small favors.”
“You know what?” Tess said, springing up off the swing as Abby’s mother drew closer. “I think I’m going to call your travel agent about cashing in your honeymoon tickets to Aruba. We could take off tonight on an exciting adventure. Vegas, New Orleans, Miami. Let’s cut loose. Whaddaya say?”
“I’d say you’re just running off so you won’t have to talk to Cassandra,” Abby accused.
“Well, there is that.” Tess grinned. “Want me to leave the tequila? You might need it.”
“She’d probably just drink the entire thing.”
“Good point.” Tess tucked the bottle under her arm. “The tequila stays with me.”
Tess and Cassandra gave each other fake smiles as they passed. For some reason her best friend and her mother rubbed each other the wrong way. Abby had never said anything to either one of them, but she’d always figured their animosity toward each other stemmed from the fact that they were two peas in a pod, both of them flamboyant, impulsive and audacious.
“Hi, sweetie.” Her mother, smelling of her signature honeysuckle cologne and the clove cigarette, plunked down on the swing Tess had just vacated.
“Hello, Cassandra.”
She reached over and gently touched Abby’s shoulder. “You can call me Mom today, if you want.”
Abby shook her head. After her mother had left her father, she’d insisted Abby call her Cassandra so the guys she dated wouldn’t know she was old enough to have an eight-year-old daughter. As Abby grew older, Cassandra raided her closet for hip clothes and flirted with Abby’s boyfriends.
All except for Durango. Abby had never introduced him to her mother.
“How you holdin’ up?” Cassandra polished off her champagne and then set the flute on top of the adjoining slide.
“I’m doing okay.”
“Your father seems to be having a rough time of it. He’s apologizing to the guests like he’s the one who did something wrong.”
“Ken was his campaign manager and now he’s going to have to fire him. That’s causing him grief. Plus, Daddy feels responsible because he was the one who got us together and he really likes Ken.”
“Yeah well, birds of a feather,” her mother muttered.
“Please, don’t even go there.”
“You’re right. No need to get petty, but I’m betting your father lost the sticker price of a showroom BMW on this failed shindig. And I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and pretend he’s more worried about you than how this is going to reflect on him with the voting public.”
Abby poked her tongue against the inside of her cheek. She’d had years of practice mediating truces and cease-fires between her parents. That skill had actually been excellent training for her job as a public relations specialist for a large nonprofit organization and she’d learned her lessons well. She refused to rise to Cassandra’s dangling bait.
