Chapter 20
Bill hobbled up the sidewalk, one arm around his dad’s shoulders for support. Mom brought up the rear, carrying his crutches and a vase of flowers that wilted more by the minute. When they got close to Bill’s front door, it became apparent that their double-wide conf ig-uration wasn’t going to fit through the opening.
Eyeing their dilemma, Mom said, “Let William go in first, David.”
Dad halted. “Maybe I should go first.”
“Turn sideways,” said Mom, revising her instructions.
Bill turned left and Dad right.
“Ow!” Dad’s hand flew to his nose.
“Sorry, Dad. You okay?”
“Not that sideways!” Mom shook her head. “You two are the biggest klutzes I ever saw.”
“Hey,” said Sake from where she stood, just inside.
Bill’s eyes grew wide at the outfit she sported for his homecoming: another one of her miniskirts paired with over-the-knee socks exposing a sweet twelve inches of thigh. When she bent over to whisk away the doormat so he wouldn’t trip on it, the view almost gave him a coronary, on top of everything else.
“Welcome to life with the Diamonds,” Bill said with a grin. “I hope you’re ready for this.”
Behind him and his entourage, she released the door from its spring and it drifted shut.
Bill looked around at his place. This would be his new office until his driving leg healed. Technically, his desk was at the real estate office, along with some file cabinets full of closed transactions and zoning maps lining the walls. But he spent most of his working hours driving between sites and to meetings, with everything he needed to work his important deals right there at his fingertips. Now, his beloved car sat crumpled up in some junkyard. “Pleated like an accordion,” the cops had told Dad when he’d gone to the station to pick up what they’d been able to salvage, adding that the driver was lucky to be alive. Mom had scolded Dad for repeating that part to Bill.
That must the box, there on the coffee table. The corner of his briefcase stuck out of it, along with some other familiar-looking odds and ends.
His spirits sank a little lower. You couldn’t sell real estate from an easy chair. It was all about being in the field. He was going to miss ferrying prospective buyers around the valley, scouting out new locations, and lunching with colleagues to keep abreast of the latest industry goings-on. But with a cast covering both his ankle and knee joints, fixing his right leg at a sixty-degree angle, Bill could barely get into a car, let alone drive one. He wouldn’t even have a new phone until Dad had a chance to run to the electronics store for him.
While Mom and Dad got him situated in his recliner, Sake stood off to the side holding a throw pillow at the ready in case he needed extra elevation for his leg.
“What smells so good?”
“I made you some banana muffins for lunch,” said Sake.
“Banana muffins. I don’t know when’s the last time I had banana muffins,” said Dad.
“Billy likes piroshky best,” said Mom. “They’ve always been his favorite, ever since he was a little boy.”
“Pir-osh-ky?” Sake stuttered.
“Piroshky. Not the savory ones, the sweet kind. The ones with apples.”
“I like banana muffins just fine, Mom.”
“I’ll make you some piroshky tomorrow.”
“I don’t need all those sweets while I’m recuperating. I’ll blow up again like a balloon.”
“Billy used to be fat,” Mom explained to Sake.
“Mom!”
“For Chrissake, Rachel. Not in front of—” A girl? His girl? Dad wasn’t sure what Sake was to Bill. But then, neither was Bill.
Mom shot back, “Don’t blame me. I’m not the one who made you banana muffins.”
“What’s on TV?” Dad sat down on the sectional and picked up the remote. Some dark dystopian drama with futuristic characters came on.
“Look at those tattoos, wouldja,” said Dad.
Bill caught Sake tugging her sleeves down over her kanji tats. He wondered again what they stood for. Then the oven timer went off and she went to finish her baking.
Dad changed the channel again.
An update now on the investigation of a helicopter crash that occurred last month at the Domaine St. Pierre winery. The FAA and the NTSB are deciding whether to fine Xavier St. Pierre, or even suspend his pilot’s license, because his flight log cannot be located. Regulations require pilots to log the departure and arrival times and other pertinent information for every flight.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the majority of owner/pilot crashes are the result of pilot error or, in some cases, blatant disregard of basic safety procedures....
All heads turned toward Sake, frozen in front of the open oven door holding a muffin tin with one mitted hand, eyes glued to the TV screen.
“Hey, Dad, is the game on?”
“What game?”
“Any game.”
After a final fussing over by Mom, his parents finally left, promising to be back later to check on him. Bill called Sake out of the kitchen, where she was rinsing plates.
“Sorry about my mom. She means well.”
Sake came and perched on the edge of the couch. “She liked my muffins, surprise.”
Bill chuckled. “How many’d she scarf down?”
“Two or three.” She shrugged. “Who’s counting?”
“At least, with Mom, you’ll always know where you stand.”
She smiled thinly.
“Hey. There’s something I want to say to you.”
He opened his mouth to explain, but something didn’t feel right. She was too far away, over there on the couch. “Come here.” He reached for her.
She rose and slinked toward him, though there was nothing contrived about Sake’s feline walk. She couldn’t help it, she was sexy.
Bill kissed the back of her hand. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me,” he said, peering up at where she stood next to his recliner. “Keeping me company in the hospital. The muffins. Everything.”
“It’s nothing.”
“No. It’s something.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
“Maybe.” His guilt made him shrink inside. Maybe not, if I happened to be busy with Deb. “All the same . . . thanks.”
“You taught me to drive.”
“Kudos again on passing your test. How much did you have to bribe him—the officer?”
She took back her hand to give his upper arm a slap. “I did you proud, Bill Diamond! Until I tapped the brick wall with Meri’s Benz at the end.” She smiled broadly. “Guess he liked me or something.”
She was kidding, but that was probably close to the truth. No wonder the guy had passed her. He was probably as in love with her as—
She took a step back toward the couch. Bill lunged to recapture her hand, suddenly possessive. He tangled his fingers with hers.
“It’s like some crazy role-reversal. Now you’re the one who’s stuck at home, and I’m the one driving and working. I have a whole new routine since you’ve been in the hospital.”
He made an ironic face. “Best-laid plans, and all that.”
Regretfully, he let her slip out of reach. “So tell me what you’ve been up to. I got nothing but time.”
She sat facing him, leaning forward, hands clasped loosely between her knees. “I’ve been getting up before dawn to go to work at Mon Rêve from six-thirty to one, then as soon as I get off I hurry back here to look for Taylor.” The light in her eyes dimmed at the mention of her dog.
“I’m really sorry about her getting out.”
“Your mom said Taylor slipped right between her feet. But then, this was never her home to begin with.” She touched the inner corner of her eye with a fingertip. “I moved her bowls of food and water outside by the door in case she comes back sometime when I’m not here.”
“We’ll keep her dishes out there. And now that I’m here, I’ll keep a sharp eye out for her, too.”
“You need a ride somewhere, I’ll take you. Anything. Just name it.”
Bill’s lips slid into an honest grin. “I appreciate that.”
But without a real estate license, she couldn’t show prospective buyers his listings. She couldn’t go on walk-throughs for him.
Commercial clients were notoriously impatient. Typically they were already successful in their own fields. They pushed themselves relentlessly and they expected the same amount of effort from the people they paid commissions to. It wasn’t personal, it was just business.
“Finish what you were saying about your daily routine.”
“I’ve been circling from work, to your apartment, to the hospital until you fall asleep, then back to the winery.”
“How are things going at Domaine St. Pierre?”
“Papa was pretty chill the night Taylor went missing. I looked for her till it got too dark, then I crashed here. Not that there wasn’t any push-back. He made it clear that that night was an exception. It’s ridiculous for a woman my age to be told what she can and can’t do, especially when half the time Papa’s not around anyway. But all those hidden cameras and staff at the mansion? Like San Quentin.”
Bill laughed. “Most people would think they’d died and gone to heaven if they were sentenced to life in Domaine St. Pierre.” He looked at her closely. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, but what about that news report? Might your dad really face a fine or lose his pilot’s license?”
She sighed. “Who knows? That’s his problem. I have enough of my own.”
“What about your sisters? Any progress there?”
She struck a pose. “Why didn’t you tell me Meri quit school?”
“Didn’t know I was supposed to. Does it matter?”
“Hells to the yes, it matters! Here I was thinking they were bulletproof all this time, then to find out one of them isn’t.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you—nobody’s perfect.”
“Nobody except them. Well, the rest of them.”
“I’ll bet if you look hard enough, you’ll come across flaws in the others, too.”
“I’ll take that bet.”
She made him smile, in spite of himself. She always had.
“How’s the job going?”
At that, her face lit up. “That place is on point. They have six full-time chefs working there, and all their equipment is state of the art, and their raspberry croissants sell out before ten o’clock—” Bill chuckled and she caught herself, pinkening at her childish enthusiasm.
But Bill loved seeing her glow. “I’m proud of you, Sake. You’re on your way.”
He shifted his leg a centimeter to relieve the stiffness and winced.
“You hurting?”
“Naw.”
But Sake was right. The balance of power had definitely shifted.
“Don’t lie. I’ll get you your pills. Your mama left them on the counter.”
She returned with his meds and a fresh glass of water.
“You need another pillow?” Without waiting for a reply, she brought one over from the couch.
Bill leaned forward so she could tuck it behind his head.
“There,” she said, plumping it up for him.
The scent of her, standing there close enough to touch, triggered a sudden, primitive urge to spring from his seat and prove he was still a man in the way that really counted.
Peering up into her face, he dropped his left arm over the recliner’s armrest, the backs of his fingers dragging a lazy trail up the outside of her thigh.
She stood still and wary as a cat.
His inhalations deepened, stabbing at his damaged lung like the point of a knife. He ignored the pain.
Not only had he lost his common sense, he’d turned into a masochist.
His palm opened to cup the back of her leg, stroking slowly up and down between where her knee sock ended and her hem began. Risking that his brazenness might make her spring away from him at any moment.
Sake’s irises melted into black disks.
The deep rumble of his own voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ears when he said, “You’re lucky I can’t get out of this chair.” No wonder masochism was so popular, if it felt this good.
Now her chest was rising and falling visibly, too.
Bill let his hand travel higher, up under her skirt. Now he could feel the warm, smooth skin of her inner thigh with his fingertips. Any higher, and his thumb should be grazing the edge of her panties where her rear end curved outward.
His leg might be broken in two places, but his man parts were ready for launch.
“Am I?” she interrupted his flight of imagination. “Lucky?”
She chose that moment to step out of range. But just before she was out of arm’s length he lunged out playfully with his finger to flick up her hem.
Agh! He let his head loll back on his pillow. One small step for her, one giant let-down for him.
What had Sake done to him? The old Bill Diamond would never have acted so brash.
Sake retrieved her bag and keys from the kitchen and returned to say good-bye, this time keeping a safe distance. She peered down at him with a cool smile.
Before, Sake had come onto him. He’d shunned her advances twice, once when she’d done a striptease right here in this very room, and again when he’d told her he wasn’t interested, in the car, minutes before his wreck. Now, who was putting the moves on whom? Payback was proving to be hell.
To expel his built-up frustration, Bill took a lung-busting breath, which brought on a coughing spasm.
Sake’s aloofness disappeared immediately. She flew to his side. “You okay?”
His cough sputtered out. “You better stay. I’m not long for this world.” He grinned salaciously.
She pulled a face. “Seriously. You’ll be okay here by yourself?”
“No worries,” he said, feigning a casual air while shifting his hips within the confines of the recliner. He grabbed the pillow from behind his neck and plopped it onto his lap.
“The ’rents’ll be around to check on me. Can’t help themselves. Had to put up a fight to convince them to let me stay here instead of their house while I’m recuperating. The only thing that won them over was that my room at their place is upstairs. Here, everything’s on the first floor.”
“You’ll call me if you need anything.” With gratifying reluctance, she headed toward the door.
She was leaving. And he was helpless to go after her. He scrambled for the right words that would bring her back.
“Will you come back after work tomorrow?”
She stopped with her hand poised on the knob. “Are you asking me to?”
“I’m asking.”
That brought back her Cheshire cat smile. “Then I will.”