custard dishes. “I gave her your number, I hope that’s okay?”
“Sure. Not that she’d ever call me.” The first bite of Jell-O melted soothingly against her tongue, reminding her of the last dessert she’d eaten. As well as the lazy, sexy, South Carolina accent of the man who had bought it for her.
Her mother was giving her a pained look. So Dana smiled and said, “Speaking of the store, I started looking at possible sites for the new location today.”
“Well, it’s about time! A body can’t hardly breathe in that itty-bitty place y’all are in now. Find anything?”
Yeah. Trouble. “Not yet.”
“That’s okay, you will, honey. You just have to keep looking.”
A twinge of either aggravation or acid reflux spurted through Dana as she stared hard at her spoon. And how long, exactly, was she supposed to keep looking? She thought back to how she’d spent weeks searching for the perfect prom dress, finally finding one she absolutely loved in some little shop in the mall. Except … the neckline was too low. And it was red. With a full skirt. And all those sparklies …
So she’d kept looking. And looking. Until, by the time she finally realized that was the only dress she really wanted, it was gone. So she’d had to settle for something she hadn’t liked nearly as much because she’d dithered so long.
Because she’d believed herself unworthy of something so perfect.
She nearly choked on her Jell-O.
She was still doing it, wasn’t she? Refusing to even try something on because of some preconceived notion that it wouldn’t work. And maybe it wouldn’t, once she got it on (she stifled a snort at the double entrendre). God knew she’d left plenty of clothes hanging in dressing rooms over the years. But at least she owed it to herself to try, for crying out loud—
“Dana, honey? Why are you frowning so hard?”
Dana blinked herself back from la-la land and smiled for her mother, even as fried chicken and potato salad tumble-dried in her stomach.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, thinking, Damn straight I have a lot to offer.
And absolutely nothing to lose.
Chapter Three
C.J. clattered his keys and cell phone onto the Mexican-tiled kitchen countertop flanking a professional-grade cooktop he never used, gratefully yielding to the house’s deep, benign silence. His briefcase thumped onto the stone floor as he glanced at the message machine: nada. Good. However, since his cleaning lady, Guadalupe, only came twice a week, his cereal bowl greeted him where he’d left it more than twelve hours earlier, bits of dried corn flakes plastered to the sides, a half cup of cold, murky coffee keeping it company. He tossed the dregs into the stainless steel sink, splattering his shirt in the process, aggravating the vague irritability clinging to him like seaweed.
C.J. yanked open the dishwasher and rammed the dishes inside, then grabbed a beer from the Sub-Zero fridge. Moments later, he stood on his flagstone patio, his gaze skating over the infinity pool, its mirrored surface reflecting the cloudless, almost iridescent early evening sky, then across the pristinely kept golf course dotted with fuzzy young pines and delicate ash trees beyond. And backdropping it all, the rough-cut Sandia Mountains, bloodred in the sunset’s last hurrah. A light, dry breeze shivered the water’s surface, soothing C.J. through his shirt. He took a pull of his beer and thought, glowering, What more could I possibly want?
Other than dinner magically waiting for him, maybe.
And not having to make a certain phone call this evening.
Back inside, a couple of touches to assorted wall panels instantaneously produced both cool air and even cooler jazz. Damn house was smarter than he was, C. J. thought grumpily, continuing on to the master suite at the back of the house.
From the middle of the king-size bed, a yard-long slash of gray surveyed him—upside down—through heavy-lidded yellow eyes. The cat pushed out a half-assed meow that ended in a yawn huge enough to turn the thing inside out.
“Don’t let me disturb your rest,” C.J. said as he tossed the day’s dress duds into the leather club chair in the corner, adding to the mountain of clothes already there, waiting to be hauled to the cleaners. He’d barely tugged on a soft T-shirt, a pair of worn jeans, when he felt a grapefruit-sized head butt his shin.
“Nice try, fuzzbutt, but you’ve still got food in your dish, I looked. Which is more than I can say for myself. Unless you want to make this phone call for me?”
The cat flicked his tail in disgust and trotted away, and C. J. mused about how he wouldn’t mind having a tail to flick in disgust himself, right about now.
He rolled his shoulders as he returned to the kitchen, his aching muscles a testament to the fact that too many years of twelve- and fourteen-hour days were beginning to take their toll. Still, work was what he did. Who he was. Besides, what was the alternative? Watching reality TV for hours on end? He glanced at the microwave clock. Eight-thirty-two. Two hours later in Charleston. If he put this off long enough, he’d miss his father’s birthday altogether. A tempting, if unrealistic, thought. “Forgetting” the occasion would only add fuel to the implacable fire of bitterness and resentment lodged between them.
The cat writhed around his ankles, startling him. The house was beginning to cool off. C.J., however, was not.
Eight-thirty-six. Frosted air teased his shoulders as he opened the freezer, yanked out a microwaveable dinner. He peeled back the corner and stuck it in the zapper. Fifteen minutes. More than enough time.
He snatched his cell off the counter, hesitated another moment, then dialed. His father answered on the first ring, his voice bombastic, irritable, condemning the caller for having interrupted whatever he’d been doing. “Turner here!”
“Dad. Happy birthday.”
A moment of silence followed. Then: “That you, Cameron?”
“Who else would it be? Unless I have a half brother you forgot to mention.”
Again, brittle silence stretched between them. Ah, yes—one did not joke with Cameron James Turner, Sr.
“Wondered if you were going to remember.”
“Of course I remembered.” Although he hadn’t sent a card. Hadn’t in years, since Hallmark didn’t make one that said Thanks for never being there for me.
“Well,” his father said. “It got so late.”
“I just walked in the door. Long day.”
That merited a grunt, but nothing more. Then, “Business good?”
“Fine.”
“Growing?”
“Steadily.”
“Glad to hear it,” his father said, but perfunctorily, without any glow of pride. Not surprising, considering how small potatoes his father obviously considered a four-person real estate agency. In Albuquerque. C.J. glanced
