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Grinning, he went back to the drink that had already given him a cheerful glow. He had to be careful imbibing alcohol since the medications he took could be affected by the booze, but one more sip wouldn’t hurt. Not when his hands trembled to touch that sweet woman wrapped in silk like an early Christmas present with his name on the tag.
When Judy reappeared, her hair had been pulled back to show the face of a goddess. He didn’t know what Beatrice got paid, but she’d be getting a handsome tip from him. Judy’s face looked ethereal, glowing with excitement and a sort of radiance he’d never known cosmetics could create. Perhaps it wasn’t cosmetics, though. Perhaps it was the glow of excitement making Judy look delicious and not quite angelic.
“Well?” she said, turning a circle, making his mouth water.
“Bewitching siren,” he said, rising, giving Gigi a nod as she blew him a kiss and slipped from the room. He approached Judy, spun her into his arms and kissed those soft pink lips.
She melted against him, raising her elegant hands to frame his face.
Breaking the kiss, his gaze connected with hers. “What are you doing to me?”
“Exactly what you’re doing to me,” she breathed, smoothing the hair across his forehead before sliding her hand to his jaw. “This is like a fairy tale. The Malcolm Henrys of the world don’t take the Judy Poches of the world to the ball. It scares me.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “The world is wrong. I’m not worthy of you, sweet woman. I’m a hard-nosed cuss of a man who has waded through sin, vice, and greed to reach a new shore to find an angel waiting for him. Please don’t run away.”
Her answer was to kiss him. Wonder flowed through him, and he felt the way he had long, long ago with a girl he’d met, loved, and left behind to marry the “right” woman. The emotion was as addictive as cocaine, this rush of exhilaration, this euphoria he wanted to tie himself to and ride until he was tossed into the grave.
“Let’s go,” Judy murmured against his lips. “We’re late for the ball.”
“It’s a benefit gala,” he said, nipping the delicate skin at Judy’s neck.
“To me, it will be a ball and I’m not leaving one of these gorgeous shoes behind, neither.” She kicked up an iridescent sandal with a gold heel.
“If you do, I know where to find you.” He winked. “So, let’s go to your ball, Judy.”
She pulled a matching blinking nose from her bag and pulled it on. “Let’s.”
12
BRENNANCOULDN’TSTOPlaughing—his stomach felt sucked against the seat of the tilt-a-whirl car and the world whipped by in a blur of color and twinkling lights. The only thing clear at that moment was the giggling woman next to him and the thrill of remembering a time when life was worry-free.
“Oh, my goodness,” Mary Paige shrieked, clinging to the metal handrail as the car took a sudden hard spin.
“This is awesome,” he said, laughing at the way she squeezed those pretty brown eyes closed and braced herself for the next spin, which came quick and hard, twisting his gut and making him laugh.
Finally, after several minutes, the ride slowed, and their car rocked from side to side before settling.
Mary Paige opened her eyes.
“You’re not going to hurl, are you?”
She shook her head. “Though it would serve you right. Everyone thinks we’re nuts climbing on this ride in these clothes.”
Glancing around the new car with the purple, green and gold Mardi Gras colors, Brennan was reminded of an aged car with cracked red vinyl seats and black spots of ancient gum on the plate-metal floor—one he’d ridden with his father and Brielle. This time the memory didn’t hurt, it merely gave him a warm glow as if his impish, silly sister would have approved of climbing aboard in dress-up clothes. “I like irony.”
“Do you?” Mary Paige cocked her head. “Because this seems way outside your comfort zone. Never in a million years would I have expected a fuddy-dud like you to like carnival rides. Spur of the moment, too, I might add.”
An older man wearing stained khakis and a T-shirt, with an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips, lifted the metal bar. “If I’d known there was a party, I’d a wornmytux,” he drawled in a heavy New Orleans accent.
Mary Paige smiled. “Who needs a good reason to dress up, right?”
The guy didn’t say anything. She shrugged as she hitched up her dress and tried to climb from the still swinging car.
“Here.” Brennan extended a hand toward her, eyeing the greased axle beneath her shoes. Mary Paige wasn’t the most graceful of women, and she needed that dress to stay intact and her bottom to remain grease-free.
“Thanks,” she said, taking his hand as he tugged her a little too hard. Her heel caught on the edge, and she stumbled into him. But he was ready—or maybe he’d subconsciously planned it—and caught her against his chest.
She raised those pretty eyes, and there was nothing left to do but kiss her.
