Waiting for Your Love (Echoes of the Heart) (4 page)

“It’s not you.” He didn’t really think that’s what she meant, did he? “I’m just trying to spare you the embarrassment.”

And
her
the sheer torture of being with him at her mother’s house, pretending that they cared romantically for each other.

He cocked his head, studying her as if he were formulating a plan of attack. “If it would help keep your mom off your back, I wouldn’t be embarrassed taking Don’s place. Still, I’d never find a last-minute sitter.”

“We’ll keep him,” Bethany and Mike said over each other, grinning at Clair like they’d just done her a huge favor.

“Is this your plan
to distract Mom from the rodent you’re sneaking into her party? Showing up with a hot babe on your arm?”

“Don’t start, Ra.” Clair gifted her sister with her fiercest resting bitch face.

She gave Buster’s tiny head a gentle pat back down into her purse. She gritted her teeth when the toy poodle bolted up again like a jack-in-the box and fired off a sassy, “Hands off, girl!” bark.

Conrad flashed an easy smile. “Good to see you, Rachael. You’re looking lovely as always.”

Clair jabbed him with her elbow.

Unfazed, he plucked the creatively groomed poodle—Seriously, how many pompoms could be clipped onto one tiny body?—from the Louis Vuitton Neverfull tote Buster’s owner used as a pet carrier. Because a little tyrant who could never be left alone, not even for a minute, had to travel in style.

“Come on, buddy,” Conrad said. “It was a long trip over. Let’s go see a man about a dog.”

He dropped a kiss on Clair’s temple before heading off, all long legs and masculine confidence for miles. No matter that his canine copilot was sporting a purple-and-green argyle vest. Or how hard Clair was trying
not
to read romantic overtones into Conrad agreeing to the insanity of playing her adoring date for the barbecue.

She lifted her hand to cover the skin tingling in the wake of his kiss.

“Really?” Clair’s sister asked. “What are you doing here with the two of them?”

“Buster’s owner PAWSMatched me in a panic an hour ago,” Clair explained, avoiding the topic of Conrad entirely. “She’s rushing to her mother’s last-minute—where Felix the cat lies in wait. Buster and Felix are mortal enemies, so the little dear can’t go with. And Buster needs to be fawned over twenty-four/seven, or he spirals into a depression.”

Rachel shook her head in either amazement or passive-aggressive judgment. Clair couldn’t tell which anymore. They’d been close all their lives, but they were sisters, and very different people. And lately Ra’s commentary on Clair’s life choices had started to read a tad bit resentful.

“You’ve made a career,” her sister said, “out of being at the beck and call of the pampered, neurotic, and overindulged.”

“I’ve had plenty of practice. We were raised by a woman with a chronic superiority complex.”

Rachael snorted.

“Besides,” Clair added, “domesticated pets are conditioned to be dependent and needy. It’s not their fault when an owner goes too far. And I don’t mind being there for them at a moment’s notice.”

“I bet you don’t mind the lucrative boost to your income stream, either, after rolling out the first virtual Uber-for-pets app.”

Whether or not Rachael meant the compliment to be sincere, Clair beamed with pride.

She’d designed, developed and watched the PAWSMatch app become an instant hit with existing and new clients almost as soon as she’d flipped the switch. While her sister seemed more discontent by the day with devoting her every waking hour to cultivating the picture-perfect domestic bliss she’d created with her husband, Glenn, who was a rising star at their father’s bank.

Rachel jutted her chin in the direction of Conrad’s retreat. “Tell me he’s not letting that rat pee on Mom’s impatiens.”

“Conrad knows how to make an entrance.”

“The man had better be formulating an escape plan. Let Babs catch wind of you cozying up to testosterone like that, a man with Conrad’s pedigree and credentials, and she’ll be monogramming towels with both your initials on them.”

“We’re just friends.” If Clair kept repeating that mantra to herself, she’d survive today unscathed.

“So you invited him to a family party, smack-dab under our mother’s nose?”

“Only to get her off my back by letting her temporarily think there’s more between us.”

“If it’s all for show, why was Conrad answering your phone first thing this morning?”

Rachael laughed at Clair’s eye roll.

Of course Ra had heard. By now everyone at the picnic had likely heard.

“I’ll come clean before I fly out tomorrow,” Clair insisted. “Before I skip town for two days, I’ll say Conny and I realized we’d made a mistake and want things to go back to the way they’ve always been.”

Friends forever.

“I’m not sure this guy’s gonna be as easy to shake off Mom’s radar as the rest. An hour ago I heard Babs bullying the caterer into making a last-minute menu change. German potato salad from scratch. Because Conrad’s mom said it’s his favorite.”

Clair felt the blood drain from her denial-riddled brain. “She’s called his mother already?”

Julianna Lancaster was out of town for the holiday weekend and had begged off attending the barbecue. Clair had taken comfort in knowing Conrad’s mother wouldn’t be in the line of fire.

Rachael sipped from a cut-glass flute of lemonade. “She and Mom are meeting for tea next week. To have a nice, long, neighborly visit.”

“Oh, God, Ra.”

“Exactly.”

Barbara Summerville didn’t
do
tea simply to while away a slow afternoon. Tea meant…

“She’s campaigning.” Clair snatched her sister’s drink and chugged it, wishing there were something stronger in the glass than lemon juice, water and a pound of sugar. “But Conrad’s only here to—”

“Throw Mom off the scent?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Good.” Rachael crossed her arms under the perfect breasts her perfect banker husband had paid to have lifted and separated by the perfect surgeon in New York, after Ra had delivered her twins. “I wouldn’t want you to wake up one day and find yourself ten years entrenched in a situation you don’t know how to dig yourself out of.”

Like your marriage?
Clair didn’t ask.

Their mother had orchestrated the right introduction between Rachael and ten-years-her-senior Glenn Boroughs. Barbara had then progressed to coaching Ra through making just the right impression on the fabulously wealthy Boroughs family, as well as Glenn’s friends and business associates at the bank. And then, once the most perfect proposal of all proposals had been secured during a romantic wine tour around Napa, Barbara had staged the flashiest wedding Chandlerville had ever seen.

Within two years she’d received her reward: two beautiful grandbabies to see after with the same devotion and expertise.

No doubt about it, Clair thought.

Rachael’s marriage was as ideal as their parents’. On the surface, anyway. Which was all Barbara Summerville seemed to focus on these days.

They watched their mother cross the sea of people milling about her manicured lawn. She approached Conrad, who’d plucked Buster out of the flower bed. Barbara greeted Clair’s
date
with an effusive hug. Then, curse her, she tickled Buster under his chin—and the woman loathed dogs.

Rachael gave Clair a side-hug of commiseration before heading off. “Good luck.”

Ra’s rising third graders, Robbie and Rosie, ran up to their mom. They were dressed like an ad for Ralph Lauren Kids. The three of them joined Barbara and Conrad. The kids immediately demanded to hold and gush over an appreciative Buster. Rachael, her hair as dark and shiny as her children’s, smiled, watching Barbara slip her arm through Conrad’s.

Conrad laughed at something. His gaze skimmed the yard teeming with Clair’s relations. When his attention snagged on her and held, she gasped.

It was as if last night’s lightning had waited until broad, sunny daylight to zap her. And by the looks of the lazy smile on Conny’s face, he’d noticed her reaction. Her mouth went dry as desert sand. As if another one of his kisses might be the only way to quench her thirst.

She shook her head.

Knock it off!

He was just helping out a friend in need, the same way she’d always be there for him.

He extricated Buster from her niece and nephew, snuggling the ridiculously groomed poodle against his chest. Slipping his other hand in the side pocket of his pressed khakis, he headed Clair’s way.

“We should go,” she insisted when he was close enough to hear her whisper, and for Buster to insist on jumping back into his carrier.

Conrad’s smile made Clair’s head pound. Her hangover was getting absolutely
zero
time off for good behavior.

“Your mother just invited me to stay for drinks after the barbecue,” he said.

“She’s set on making us a couple, Conrad. For
real
, Rachael thinks. Babs’s meddling in my relationships has been a pain in the past, but it was relatively harmless. I have the sinking suspicion she’s fighting with live ammo this time.”

He smoothed a wisp of hair away from Clair’s cheek. His thumb brushed her top lip.

“You
really
have to stop doing that,” she warned him.

He was only playing his part in his role as her date. But the soft, adoring way he gazed down at her very nearly had Clair drooling. The man was entirely too good at making her and everyone else believe she was the center of his universe.

He shrugged. “What does it matter what Barbara thinks at the barbecue? You’ll make her understand tomorrow. It’s not as if you’ve never broken up with a guy before.”

“I’ve seen her like this, with Rachael and Glenn.” Clair pasted on a smile for their audience, while trying to convey horror with her eyes. “She’s on the hunt.”

“So, I’m prey?” Conrad playfully scratched the side of his chin. “Kinda makes me feel manly.”

“It’s not funny. Don’t you get it? Because of whatever my mother’s told them, no fewer than a dozen people who used to diaper my bottom are staring at us right now. For all I know, Babs has already picked a wedding date and invited them. I miscalculated how desperate she is to marry me off to a local guy who’ll settle me down in a Chandlerville zip code, before…”

Conrad’s expression lost its teasing sparkle. The way it had once or twice over the last couple of weeks—when Clair had pulled back from telling him about PetClub’s interest in merging ALL PAWS, PAWSMatch and Clair into their operation.

He uncurled her fingers from the fists she’d made. When he kissed her palm, every emotion but need drained from her body. There was a molten spark in his gaze that she tried to believe was just for show. But she could only stare in awe as his hands settled on her shoulders, on either side of her sundress straps. Then he swept her up to her toes.

Oh, my God.

She gripped his forearms for balance—and to keep herself from kissing those lips she’d been obsessing about since that morning.

“Why does it feel,” he asked, “as if you’re pulling away from me more every day?”

“I…I’m right here.” Right there in his arms, where she’d been that morning in her dreams. “But what’s the point of egging my mother on?”

“Maybe she’s not the only who believes there’s something between us besides putting on a show for your kinfolk.”

“Wh-what?”

Clair glanced around them. She caught a flurry of heads pivoting quickly in the other direction. Her family was genetically incapable of subtlety.

“Is it really that shocking an idea?” Conrad asked. “Folks here seem to think we’d be a good fit. Bethany and Mike enjoyed helping us fake hook up.” And he didn’t sound the least bit fazed by the notion. “Why not lean into it a little and really give everyone something to talk about?”

“Because…”

Her heart was breaking open, pooling between them and begging him to stop, not to tease her, not about this. She tried to wrench away, but she couldn’t move. He wouldn’t let her go.

“Because,” she said, “we’re talking about you and me.”

“And you and me—dating—would be a bad thing?”

“If it’s not real, if we let things go too far and then realize after it’s too lake that we’ll never be able to go back to the way things were, yes!”

“Wow.” His eyes crinkled in their corners as he smiled. “You’ve given the idea a lot of thought for someone who’s supposed to be shocked.”

She swallowed, caught. But didn’t he get it? “Do you really want to mess with what we have? You’re my best friend in the world, Conny.”

Except it was a would-be lover gazing down at her now, his expression transformed with the same need she felt, and the same trepidation.

Suddenly, he wasn’t playing any more than she was.

“What do you want, Clair? For no reason I can think of, you’ve been dodging me for a while now. And I keep asking myself why. Maybe it’s because of how much we’re both working. But I can’t help wondering if you’ve been feeling this”—he grazed her cheek with the knuckles of his left hand—“
spark
between us, too.”

“Spark?” she sputtered.

“Look at what happened in my Jeep this morning.”

“But…”

She shook her head.

This morning had been a blip. A non-event. A sleep-induced fantasy played out when neither of them had been awake enough to do the sensible thing and back off. She’d spent the hours since convincing herself that she could navigate the barbecue with Conrad—and not desperately need to be right back here, in his arms.

“This morning was…” she tried again. “We were dreaming together. I mean, in the same place. It wasn’t real.”

“Wasn’t it?”

He led her away from her family, to where they’d be less likely to be overheard. He dropped his hands to his sides, leaving her free to get away.