Flirting With Disaster (31 page)

Carly hunkered down. “Hi, Henry. Come on out, okay?” When the boy didn’t move, she tried a different tactic. “Come out, or I’ll tell Caleb later, and he’ll be so disappointed in you.”

Henry emerged immediately. He wouldn’t risk his surrogate father’s disappointment, even for the joys of crawling around on the floor under the skirts of a bunch of dresses.

Jamie dropped the diaper bag on the floor in a corner and carefully set Isadora down beside it. “Play with us, buddy,” he said. He knelt and pulled a toy from the diaper bag. “You can show Dora how these rings stack on the cone.” Henry went to him, pleased to be able to show off for the baby.

“Ow!” Ellen said.

“Sorry!” the shop owner replied. “Is that—That’s Jamie, isn’t it?”

Ellen sighed. “He’s my brother.”

“Oh, I know. I saw you in the paper a while back with that man who—Hey, is that who you’re marrying, that guy with the left hook?”

“Yes.”

“Lucky duck,” the woman said. “He’s a hunk. If he’s half as good in bed as he is good-looking, you’re going to—”

Katie put up a hand. “Stop, please. He’s
my
brother.”

The woman was briefly nonplussed. Then she clucked her tongue, giving each of them a once-over. “Some families get all the good genes.”

“What’d I miss?” Carly asked, dumping her purse and her coat on the ground.

“Just a lot of Henry misbehaving,” Ellen said. “Your dress is back there in the changing room. Get it on, and then when you come out, you can help me grill Katie about her love life.”

“Katie has a love life?” Carly smiled. “It’s about time. I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks for that,” Katie said, watching Carly go. “Really looking forward to our special girl-bonding session.”

“You’d better give me some good intel,” Ellen said with a smirk. “I’m on assignment. Caleb told me if I don’t find out what’s going on with you and Sean, he’s not coming over tonight. He’s just going to camp out at you guys’ house until you show up to take a shower or something, and then he’ll lock you in and make you talk.”

“That might have worked if you hadn’t just told me about it in advance.”

“It’s not going to be necessary. You’re going to tell me everything I want to know. I have lawyerly ways.”

“I’m so scared.”

“As you should be.”

“Where’s Amber?” Katie asked. Her older sister was the other bridesmaid.

“She came in for her fitting yesterday. She had something to do this morning for one of the boys. Judo lesson, maybe?”

Katie hadn’t seen Amber in a while. She needed to call her, ask how the boys and Tony were doing. She didn’t want to be a bad sister. But she had so many other things on her mind. Chiefly, at the moment, the fact that Judah had dropped off the face of the earth. Somehow, he’d managed to disappear without his security team noticing, and Paul had called Sean at five o’clock this morning with a frantic request for help.

Beside him in bed, Katie overheard the call, and she and Sean had immediately gotten to work. All day, Sean had been on the computer, and she’d been doing whatever he told her to do—making calls, tracking down information, and, when she ran out of other ideas, scouring the fan profiles in his database in the hope of finding some filter, some clue, that would reveal what had happened to Judah. She kept hoping he would call her—or call somebody. Sean was monitoring her phone just in case, and he’d figured out a way to track the GPS in Judah’s cell,
but either Judah had ditched his phone or he’d turned it off, because they weren’t getting anything.

It wasn’t a good time to be standing still, getting pinned into a gown while Ellen gave her the third degree.

Carly emerged in a black cocktail-style dress with spaghetti straps, knee-length like Katie’s but tight all the way down. Jamie wolf-whistled, his face lit with genuine appreciation. He’d picked a poor moment to look away from Henry, though. The mention of judo had inspired Henry to show off his karate kicks, and when Jamie looked away, Henry kicked him in the nuts.

Jamie collapsed on the carpet. Dora grinned her gummy grin while Henry hovered over his limp body, saying, “Uncle Jamie? Uncle Jamie?”

“Poor Jamie,” Ellen said. “You all right?”

He gave her the finger.

“He’s all right,” Ellen said. Carly started to laugh, and then Ellen joined her, and they didn’t stop until they had tears in their eyes and the seamstresses had to give up and wait for them to stop clutching their stomachs and helplessly hanging onto one another’s bare shoulders.

“Ohhh,” Carly said after a long while, wiping the tears away with one knuckle. “That was worth the price of admission right there.”

“Be nice to your uncle, sweetie,” Ellen called. “Take it easy on him, or he won’t buy you ice cream.”

At the mention of ice cream, Henry forgot about Jamie’s distress and began jumping around and peppering him with questions. Jamie shot his sister a look that said, quite clearly,
You’re a bitch, and I hate you
.

“Have fun,” Ellen said. “We should be done in half an hour or so.”

A few minutes later, Jamie had gathered up the troops and hobbled out of the shop, headed for the Friendly’s down the road to provide ice cream in the dead of winter to a boy too young to care that it wasn’t seasonally appropriate and a baby too young to eat it.

The older seamstress craned her head to watch him disappear through the shop window. When she brought her attention back to the dress, the other women were all staring.

“What?” she asked around a mouth full of pins. “Your man has an ass on him.”

“I know,” Carly said smugly. “I taught him to cook, too.”

That made even Katie smile. Only the teenage seamstress remained unmoved, obviously
mortified by her mother’s bawdy humor.

Katie’s phone chirped, and she leaned down to scoop it off the floor, clutching the strapless bodice of the dress to her chest to keep it from taking a dive.

It was a text from Judah.
R u there? Need 2 talk 2 u
. The relief that flooded through her told her how worried she’d been that he’d never call her again. That he was dead somewhere, felled by the candlestick in the conservatory or the rope in the green room, and she’d have to feel guilty about it for the rest of her life.

She texted back quickly,
Where r u?

“Is that him?” Ellen asked.

Carly chimed in. “Who’s ‘him’? Nobody ever tells me anything.”

“Sean Owens,” Ellen told her. “He works for Caleb.”

“The blond one?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“He’s yummy!” Carly said, fanning herself dramatically. “Nicely done, Katie. Is he any good in bed?”

“None of your business.”

“She’s turning pink,” Ellen observed.

“I am not.”

“She is,” Ellen said to Carly. “With their dark complexion, you have to know where to look, but Caleb blushes just the same. Tips of his ears and the base of his throat. You embarrassed her.”

“The question is, did I embarrass her because he’s terrible in bed or because he’s superb?”

“Stand up straight,” the shop owner said to Carly. “I’m going to zip you.”

“I apologize in advance for my boobs. Dora’s on a nursing strike, and they are
ginormous
. Also, they hurt like a bitch, so don’t poke me, please. I do this reflexive slapping thing when I get poked in the boob. It isn’t pretty.”

“Oh, I know,” the owner said. She pointed to her daughter. “When I was breast-feeding her, my tits were like warheads. Every time my husband tried to touch them, I was like, ‘Don’t go there, honey, not unless you want to find out what a nuclear holocaust feels like.’ ”

“Mom!” the girl said, aghast, and Carly laughed until she had to wipe the tears away from
her eyes with the back of her hand.

“So are you going to be in here next?” the owner asked Katie. “I don’t see a ring on your finger yet. Is this guy The One?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be tight-lipped and efficient, like a tailor in the movies?” Katie asked.

“You must be thinking of the other bridal shop,” she said. “Though I’ll tell you what, for all her airs? That woman’s a real whore.”

Carly snorted, and Ellen said, “I knew I liked you. ’Fess up, Katie. Is Sean The One? Caleb says he’s a great guy.”

“He didn’t say that,” Katie replied. She knew her brother. He’d never be so effusive.

“Okay, so I believe his actual words were, ‘If he weren’t sleeping with my sister, I might like him.’ ”

“But from Caleb, that’s high praise,” Carly said, sounding impressed.

Katie’s phone chirped in her hand. Judah again.
Nowhere. Call me when U can. I have gay-man probs 2 discuss
.

Katie smiled, relieved he was safe—and pleased that he was using his phone. Sean should be able to track him now.

“Is it him again? He’s sending you adorable texts, isn’t he?” Carly asked.

“No. It’s Judah.”

“Judah Pratt?”

“You know Judah Pratt?” the shop owner asked.

“Yeah,” Katie admitted. “He’s a friend.”

“You ladies want to go out for a drink sometime? Maybe you can introduce me to George Clooney.”

That cracked them up all over again, but Katie didn’t join in the mirth. She glanced at Ellen, not liking the determined set to her mouth. The inquisition was just getting started.

Best to cut off Ellen’s question-and-answer session before it got rolling. Her future sister-in-law browbeat record company executives for a living, and she had a killer reputation in the music industry as an advocate for artists in contract negotiations. In full lawyer mode, she was a force to behold.

“Let’s not get too excited, okay?” she said. “It’s just a casual thing.”

“According to who?” Ellen asked.

“According to me.”

“Is it casual for him, too? Because—”

“I know where you’re going with this.” Ellen had considered her relationship with Caleb casual, too, but Caleb had disagreed, and it hadn’t taken him long to bring Ellen around to his way of thinking. “It’s not the same situation at all. Sean isn’t sticking around. He’s going back to California, and that’ll be that.”

“When?” Ellen asked.

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? Not tomorrow. Probably not next week. But sometime, after they wrapped up the case? Definitely.

At least, that was the plan. It seemed as though very little about Sean’s return to Camelot had gone the way he’d planned it.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s in California?” Carly asked.

“He has a company there.”

“So what’s he doing in Camelot?”

“His mom died. He came back to take care of the estate stuff.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” mumbled the shop owner around her pins. “Who was his mom?”

“Jenny Owens. She taught English at the high school.”

“Sure, I knew her,” she said. “Turn around, honey.” Katie did a slow three-sixty, and the woman pulled the pins from her mouth and pinned the tuck her daughter had made in a few more places. “Great teacher. Strange lady, though. This is her boy she was always talking about? Some kind of genius computer guy?”

Katie nodded.

“But she died back in the summer, didn’t she? Why’s he still around?”

Because as soon as he walked into his mother’s house, his feet got stuck, and he doesn’t know how to leave
.

Because if he doesn’t figure out how to deal with his guilt, he’ll never be able to move on with his life
.

Because he’s a complete mess, but he’s a man, and therefore stubborn and terrible at feelings, and he has no idea
.

Katie didn’t think any of those answers were going to work.

“What’s he doing working for Caleb?” Carly asked.

“They met at the pub one night, and Caleb offered him a job. I think Sean only took it because he’s one of those people who can’t stand to be idle. He was here, so he figured he might as well be doing something.”

“Want to hear my theory?” Ellen asked.

“No.”

“I think he’s sticking around because of you.”

Katie shook her head, denying the possibility even as it made her heart race. “We’ve only been together for a couple of weeks.”

“Caleb told me ages ago that Sean had a thing for you. Months and months ago.”

“Oh, that’s cute!” Carly said. “He’s been pining. I love it when guys pine. Especially big, manly ones. It’s so emasculating.”

“He wasn’t pining. He’s just been dealing with some issues. Settling his mom’s affairs. He’s the executor, and … look, this isn’t as romantic as you guys keep trying to make it sound, okay? We’re hooking up. Then he’s leaving. No church bells. Car maintenance.”

Shit
. She hadn’t meant to say that last part. Ellen was going to nail her for it.

Sure enough, Ellen turned to pin her with an eagle-eyed look. “Car maintenance?”

Katie cleared her throat. “Like a tune-up.”

“Or an oil change,” Ellen said.

“Yes.” Katie folded her hands at her waist and looked out the front window. How long did it take to pin a dress, anyway?

“So you’re just basically swapping body fluids with this guy, is that what you’re saying?”

Katie looked to the side. The teenager’s cheeks had gone scarlet. She looked more mortified than Katie felt, which was saying something. “Don’t tell Caleb I said that. Please.”

“Why not, if that’s all it is? There’s nothing wrong with it. Consensual sex is healthy. Especially considering everything that happened with Levi, it’s probably a good thing.”

“Absolutely,” Carly agreed. “No-strings is awesome. You get laid, you get dressed, you go home and watch a movie. God, I remember what that was like. Somebody remind me why I wanted to be a mother, please.”

“Genetic programming,” Ellen said.

“Right.”

“But we’re past all that when it comes to sex,” Ellen said. “A hundred years of feminism, and now it’s the age of the tune-up. That’s great, Katie.”

Katie looked down at the floor, steeped in something more than embarrassment. Something like … disappointment.

She knew the exact size and shape of the palms of his hands. The way his nose wrinkled up on the side when he smiled really big. The way he kissed, the way he moved inside her.

He wasn’t nothing to her, and she hated herself for pretending he was.