Tall Cool One (19 page)

“Outside,” he said easily. “Where’s my girl?”

“Mees Poppy is upstairs in suite, sir. Baby shower yesterday was beeg success.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ll just head up and see her. Thanks, Svetlana.”

“You are most welcome.” The maid beamed her appreciation that her boss remembered her name.

Jackson bounded the wide stairs two at a time. He was anxious to see his bride of six weeks. No need to worry about his luggage. The help would bring it in, unpack it, sort his clothes, have them laundered, and put them away.

He passed through the master suite sitting room—as big as the living room in the modest Ohio wood frame house where he’d spent his youth—where a fire burned cozily in the fireplace. And then into the master bedroom, where he found Poppy on the mahogany-and-red-velvet chaise that Harry Schnaper had shipped in from Milan.

A wet washcloth covered her forehead. Sitting next to her on the chaise was Dee. He’d known Dee since she and Sam had gone to preschool together in Brentwood.

“Oh, Jackson.” Poppy roused herself enough to offer a wan smile and a limp hand.

“My God, what’s wrong?” Jackson cried, hurrying to her side.

“Nothing, sweetie, just a headache. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.” She made space for him on the chaise. He sat beside her, moved the washcloth, and kissed her damp forehead. “How bad is the headache? Do you need to see a doctor? And Dee, don’t you belong in school? Are you waiting for Sam?”

Jackson saw Poppy and Dee exchange an unreadable look. “Poppy asked me to stay with her,” Dee explained. “I made some chamomile tea. Ming Tsu is coming from the Alternative Medicine Center in Malibu to do reflexology. I’m sure that’s all that Poppy needs.”

Jackson took Poppy’s hand. “That’s good. You remember we’re doing
Leno
tonight.”

“Of course,” Poppy replied. “Roberto Cavalli designed the most fabulous maternity dress for me. I just hope Alber Elbaz at Lanvin doesn’t get pissed because I asked him first, but his idea was just so—”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Jackson interrupted. He cared very much that the women in his family looked good, but he also had no patience for fashionista drivel. “And Sam’s ready, too?”

Poppy and Dee traded another look.

“What?” Jackson asked. “Don’t tell me—she’s planning on wearing leather chaps?”

Poppy bit her lower lip. “Um, I don’t know, exactly.”

“Then find out.”

“There’s a teensy little problem,” Dee chimed in.

“Which is?”

Dee shrugged a helpless-little-girl shrug. “Sam isn’t here.”

Jackson didn’t understand. “Well, then call her.”

“We did,” Poppy said. “A bunch of times. But it goes right through to voice mail. We left a million messages.”

Jackson looked disgruntled. “So where is she?”

Poppy bit her lower lip. “That’s the problem, sweetie. She wasn’t at the baby shower. We haven’t seen her at all. The Jeep is gone, too.”

“How can she not have been at the baby shower?” Jackson asked, incredulous.

“
You
know Sam,” Dee said. “She probably tried on a million outfits and decided she looked awful in all of them, due to her low self-esteem. So she didn’t show up. I feel terrible about this.”

“It’s not your fault.” Jackson rubbed his chin. His first thought was the family’s appearance on Jay Leno’s show that night.
Dammit, Sam better not fuck it up.

“Are you saying she didn’t come home last night at all?”

“No,” Dee replied. “I kept checking her room.”

“But she’s stayed out all night before, sweetie,” Poppy reminded Jackson. “Like if she’s with Cammie or something.”

This was true, he realized. Dee and Poppy were probably right: Sam had tried on a million outfits for the shower yesterday, decided she was fat, and blown it off. Then she’d spent the night drinking in one of the clubs she went to all the time. Maybe she hadn’t made it back to the main house after that.

“Have you checked the guest houses?”

Dee nodded. “Empty.”

“How about Cammie?”

“She wasn’t there, either,” Dee reported.

Shit. There went his second option.

Jackson rose. “Track her down for me, okay, Dee? You know who her friends are.”

Dee nodded.

“Because we’re live at eight-thirty at NBC in Burbank. She
has
to be there
.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Poppy assured him, reaching for his hand. “She couldn’t possibly forget. I don’t think.”

“Find her, Dee,” Jackson repeated.

He was already thinking of the jokes that Jay would make if he and Poppy showed up at the studio without Sam. Hell, Leno could do his whole monologue at their expense. It didn’t matter that they were friends—it was Leno’s job to be funny.

Jackson kissed Poppy’s hand by way of disengaging and strode from the room. Why couldn’t a man come home to the bosom of his family and just relax for once, goddammit. But no. It was always something. Where the hell was his daughter?

A Date

C
ammie had plans.

The night before, she and Adam had come home from Coachella too tired and grungy to think about fooling around. But when Adam rang her doorbell before school the next morning and Cammie answered, her father had already left for work. Her stepsister, Mia, was off to her school in the valley; her stepmother, Patrice, was at an early morning shoot for an indie film in which she’d agreed to play a cameo; and the staff didn’t arrive for another hour.

The house was empty. She couldn’t have planned it better herself.

“Interesting outfit for school,” Adam observed, taking in her red silk kimono.

She put a finger through his belt loop. “How about a shower?”

“How about school?”

Cammie smiled knowingly. “College tour. We went to the Claremont Colleges and got back late.”

“Ah, yes, the official Beverly Hills High School second-semester-senior-year skip-your-classes mantra,” Adam said, laughing. “Repeat after me. College tour. College tour.”

“Exactly.” Cammie coaxed him inside. “If you don’t use it at least once every two weeks, the guidance counselor calls your house.”

“Anyone else here?”

Cammie shook her head.

Adam grinned. “God, I love being a senior.”

“I know something you’re going to love even more.” She led him upstairs to her pink-and-white splendiferous bedroom and then into the gold-and-marble bathroom with a heated floor for chilly mornings. She turned on the two-spigot shower, then took off his shirt and then his undershirt. As steam filled the bathroom, he dropped his jeans.

“You don’t have a sprinkler system in here, I hope,” he teased.

“Nope,” Cammie said. “We can make it as hot as we want.”

Down went his boxers. Off went her kimono. Then once they were inside the glass door, they kissed under the pulsing water until they were both breathless.

What was that thing they played whenever the president of the United States walked into a room or something? “Hail to the Chief”? Cammie felt like singing it at the top of her lungs. Because he was definitely standing at attention. Then they were out of the shower, down on the thick rug outside the stall, and—finally!—they were going to—

“Cammie? Cammie!”

Shit, shit, shit.

Cammie recognized the voice. The bathroom door swung open.

“Oops,” Dee squeaked, staring down at them with either complete embarrassment or intense interest, Cammie couldn’t tell which.

“Don’t say oops, Dee. Say good-bye,” Cammie ordered as Adam scrambled to toss her a fluffy gold bath towel.

“But it’s important,” Dee insisted. She sneaked a quick look at Adam, who was fastening a matching towel around his waist. “I swear, I’ll only look at you guys from the neck up.”

“Your timing sucks,” Cammie declared.

Dee shrugged. “I’m really sorry. But honest to God, it’s a crisis.”

“Couldn’t you have called?”

“No one answered. Has either of you seen Sam?”

Adam shook his head as Cammie glared at her. “That’s the crisis? You want to know if we’ve seen Sam? Wait downstairs. We’re busy. We’ll be down in . . . an hour.”

Cammie knew that if Adam was truly a virgin, she was being optimistic, but what the hell.

“No, you don’t understand,” Dee pleaded, her saucer eyes growing luminous. She sat on a brocade stool in the corner of the bathroom. “Remember when Sam didn’t show up for Poppy’s shower? Well, no one has seen or heard from her since before then.”

“Did you call Anna?” Adam asked.

Dee nodded. “Her cell, like a zillion times. And we’ve tried Sam’s cell a zillion times, too. No answer.”

“Well, if neither of them answers, it’s a good sign. They’re probably together with their cells off,” Cammie declared. “That’s not exactly rocket science.”

“Okay, maybe,” Dee responded. “But where? Jackson and Poppy and Sam are supposed to be on
Leno
tonight. Poppy’s a wreck. It could be bad for the baby.”

“If Poppy’s a wreck, it’s only because she thinks it could make her look bad on national TV.” Cammie dropped the towel to the floor, found her kimono, and slipped it back on. “Same goes for Jackson.”

“Well, it doesn’t go for me,” Dee insisted. “You and Sam are my best friends. Other than Poppy.”

Cammie could see that Dee was genuinely worried. She decided to take some of the sting out of her voice. “I’m sure they’re fine, Dee, really. My guess is they’re off having a blast somewhere and they just don’t want anyone bothering them.”

Dee nibbled on her lower lip. “Maybe.”

“Can’t say I blame them,” Adam added pointedly.

“Well, if you hear—” Dee began.

“You’ll be the first to know,” Cammie promised.

“’Kay, thanks.” Dee hugged Cammie. Then she hugged Adam, too—for a little too long, Cammie thought—and scampered out.

Cammie turned to Adam and started to shed her kimono. “Where were we?”

“¡Hola, Señorita Cammie! Usted está en casa?”

Cammie gritted her teeth in frustration and tied her kimono again. “Crap. It’s the housekeeper. Here early.”

“Um . . . all good things come to those who wait?” Adam asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“I was thinking more: The early bird gets the worm,” Cammie said, giggling at her own twisted humor. When Adam laughed with her, she gave him a big hug. “How can I not be into a guy who laughs at a line that gross?”

He tilted her chin up to him. “Did I tell you yet today how great you are?”

She smiled up at him. “You just did.”

Sam hated how she looked in her tennis dress, even if it was Lilly Pulitzer. But she vowed not to dwell on the negative. She was still in Las Casitas paradise. She wasn’t going to bring herself down with Beverly Hills–think.

When she got to the resort tennis shop, she was told the head pro—a former ranked player from England—would be back shortly. Would she like to select a racket, perhaps a Wilson H6 Hammer, the same model Serena Williams used? Sam nodded. If it was good enough for Serena, it was good enough for her.

“Hello, Samantha. Ready to hit?”

Sam turned toward the voice that came from the doorway. Only it wasn’t the pro, despite his British accent. It was the guy who had joined them at breakfast this morning, the same guy who’d seen her naked on the beach the night before. What was his name again? Sam didn’t recall. But whatever it was, decked out for tennis and carrying several rackets in a Yamaha tennis bag, he looked positively sizzling.

“You’re not the real pro,” Sam said accusingly. “And where’d you find out my real name? A friend in the office?”

“Your friend, Anna. I’m Eduardo, if you forgot. You must have known I wouldn’t believe you are really Mary Pop—”

“And you must have figured out if I told you I was Mary Poppins, there was a good reason,” Sam shot back. She knew she was being overly bitchy. But she also knew that a guy this fine who’d already seen her in her birthday suit could not possibly be interested in her. There had to be an ulterior motive.

“The pro’s been detained,” Eduardo explained. “Can I warm you up?”

Sam frowned. “How do you know that the pro’s been detained?”

“I asked.”

Sam put her hands on her hips. “You asked?”

“Correct.”

As Sam considered, Eduardo held open the door to the pro shop. Well, why not? A few minutes of warm-up with this guy and hopefully he’d blow his cover. Though when she gave him a nod, his smile did light up the shop. Maybe he was being genuine with her. He’d have to be a pretty amazing actor to fake that kind of joy.

Sam followed him out to one of the resort’s immaculate grass courts, picked up some new balls from an instructor’s basket near the net, and went back to the baseline.

Though she liked the game, had taken a lot of lessons when she was younger, and had a private hard court out behind her father’s mansion, Sam didn’t play much tennis. She’d never been particularly good at it. So it seemed a miracle that she was able to return nearly all of Eduardo’s balls, on both the forehand and backhand sides. It felt great, running around the court, smacking her shots with confidence, inhaling fresh ocean air instead of the polluted Los Angeles variety. She didn’t realize until she was ready to quit that the pro hadn’t showed up at all.

“Let’s call it,” she said to Eduardo after she’d ripped a dazzling forehand past him at the net.

“Good idea.” Eduardo flipped the two balls in his pocket toward the rear fence and wiped his brow with the bottom of his shirt. Sam was charmed by this earthy gesture. “You gave me a workout.”

“Where’d you learn to play like that?” she asked, realizing that he’d barely made an unforced error during their time on the court.

“Lima.” He opened the door in the chain-link fence and ushered her off the court.

“Lima?” she echoed. “As in Peru?”

“Exactly. Are you in a hurry?”

She and Anna were still going shopping in La Trinidad. But that was two hours from now. “Not really,” she admitted.

Eduardo smiled. “I was hoping that would be your answer. Do you like surprises?”

“Depends.”

The snort of a horse—no, two horses—from behind the tennis pro shop got Sam’s attention. Then a young man who worked for the resort came into view, leading two gorgeous bay horses, saddled up.