THE NEXT NIGHT, with no time to waste and without a word to my mother, I made my way to Blair House. India said I should come over that evening at seven. Her father would be there. Guaranteed.
I (along with everyone else in Willow Creek) knew that Hunter Blair was divorced. His young wife, clearly aspiring to the cliché, had run off to Hollywood as soon as she had given birth to India. What was not so cliché was that she had given up all rights to India in order to gain her freedom, then hadn’t tried to regain any of said rights when she tired of not making it in the movie business and remarried and started a new family not five minutes away in South Willow Creek.
Hunter had never remarried and lived with his daughter in the Willows of Willow Creek, a prestigious gated community that admitted no one but the very wealthy, their servants, and expected guests.
I arrived at the entrance gate where I was grilled like a common criminal by a short man in a uniform. He returned to his guardhouse, called what I assumed was the Blair home, then returned. “They espetting you.”
He then wrote down my license plate number, filled out a form, placed it inside my windshield, told me where to go (ha-ha), then sent me on my way.
The winding streets and lanes of the Willows were carved into the rolling hills of Central Texas, covered with willow, cedar, pecan, and live oak trees draped in Spanish moss. Willow Creek is as sophisticated as Dallas, but has maintained the lovely charm that Austin had before the state capital filled with the sort of new politicians who treated politics as a sport.
I drove up the cobbled length of Blue Willow Lane, made a right as instructed onto Weeping Willow Drive, and thought I would indeed weep when I came to the Blairs’ home and found a great many cars and half a dozen valets. Clearly there was some sort of event going on inside.
“Welcome,” the uniformed young valet said. “You’re a little late, but if you hurry no one will notice.”
No wonder India was certain her father would be home. Yet again, she had manipulated me. The girl was good.
Frankly, I would have turned around and departed had it not been for the fact that I had already been announced and would not want it to look as if I would flee from anything. So I exited the Volvo, and hoped the St. John knit top and skirt I had appropriated from Savannah’s closet was suitable attire.
I rang the bell and the door was immediately opened by a butler.
“I am Miss Cushing, here to see Mr. Blair.”
India swept into the foyer. She was still in high bitch mode, and her cornflower-blue eyes sparkled with triumph.
“Ingenious way to get you here, don’t you think?” she said.
I might have scowled.
“Whatever. This was the only way to get you in front of him. He is like always busy.”
“India,” I said as kindly as I could. “I really don’t think this is a good idea, or that it will work.” The latter being the more important issue. “I’ll call him in the morning.”
“Yeah, right. Like you have the time. Hello. Clock ticking, and all that.”
Irritating as she was, she wasn’t wrong.
She made a disparaging noise in her throat. “I mean, really, just meet him now.”
Not waiting for an answer, she pulled me through a magnificent foyer, my sensible heels clicking on the marble floor, into a grand room. Let me just say that the house was spectacular. I entered what I realized was a rotunda, the ceiling two to three stories high, with a dome made of glazed glass, a contemporary chandelier hanging from the center. A mezzanine of sorts ran around the perimeter, overlooking the grand space. Whoever built the house was a master.
However, the furnishings were not so grand. Not that they weren’t expensive. Clearly the man had spent a small fortune on antiques. But not one of them went with the stunningly modern palatial home of marble, glass, steel, and granite.
The pieces were a mishmash of boxy Early American, delicately curved Louis XV, Chippendale, and Shaker. Hooked rugs and Aubussons ran together with the congruity of frozen waffles and fine bars of French chocolate. Mass-produced reproductions hung next to what I was sure was an original Rembrandt.
Fortunately, given the gold accent buttons on the St. John, I didn’t look too out of place among the glittery set attending the event. After a quick scan, I knew there wasn’t a respectable old name in the crowd, but they all looked to have plenty of money. The men were in their forties and fifties, their wives in their twenties and thirties. Early thirties. Even given the tender years of the women, I also could tell there was enough Botox in the room to poison a small country, tanned faces frozen in their perfection, only the eyes and smiles registering any emotion.
The only woman in the room who appeared normal was Nikki Grout, wife of Howard Grout. We had gone to school together forever, though given my predilection for advanced mathematics and studying we had never hung out together. She was more Frede Ware’s type, and well, look at the trouble she got herself into.
The good news was that Nikki, even decked out in feathers and paint-on clothes, was sweet as sweet could be.
“Carlisle?” she practically hollered across the rotunda. “Is that you?”
She clipped across the marble floor, her heels echoing like machine-gun fire.
“Good Lord, how are you?” she cried, pulling me into a full bear hug. When she set me at arm’s length, she added, “Don’t you look just as pretty as pretty can be.”
Nikki was from the old school that believed, If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.
“Thank you, Nikki. How are you?”
“Just grand. Better than grand. My Howard is just wonderful, though I am adjusting to him working in an office now rather than at home.” She giggled guiltily. “Though it is kinda fun to surprise him, ya know, when he comes home.”
I thought of Janice and her advice to Savannah. I fought back a cringe, gave her another hug, then went in search of India’s father.
I scanned the room (not looking for Jack), found India, then saw an older woman who gained my attention. She was sixty-five if she was a day, with far too much makeup on (even by Texas standards) and bustled around the room acting as hostess. Could this be Hunter Blair’s official or unofficial hostess? Somehow she looked familiar.
While Hunter was Jack’s older brother, there was a big age difference, though Hunter wasn’t close to sixty-five. The woman couldn’t be a second wife.
The woman bustled up to India and me.
“India,” she twittered. “Who is this?”
“Gramma, this is Miss Wainwright Cushing,” India said with importance.
The woman peered at me, then said, “Carlisle? Is that you?”
I looked closer and realized it was Jack’s mother. I remembered then my mother’s scoffing explanation over the phone about a year ago regarding how Gertrude Blair had restyled and colored her hair, been to a plastic surgeon, dabbled in Botox and who knows what else. My mother made it clear she didn’t approve of unnatural forms of beauty enhancement. I didn’t point out she had been coloring her hair since I had been in third grade.
“You know her?” India said.
“Well, yes, sweetie. I know Carlisle. She’s a friend of your uncle Jack’s.”
India glanced back and forth between us. “You are?”
“Friend” hardly seemed the right word.
“Oh, my,” the woman twittered even more, pressing her hand to her ample chest. “I’m not sure you should be here, dear.”
And she wasn’t talking to India.
I’m not sure what else she would have said or done, but I was saved (relatively speaking) when Hunter Blair headed our way.
I suspected it was him the second I saw him. He was shorter than I expected (isn’t everyone?), but it was hard to mistake the wiry man. His face was craggy from years in the punishing oil fields where he had made his fortune, and he looked meaner than a sleeping bear poked in winter.
Until recently, Hunter hadn’t spent that much time in Willow Creek, given his job as a wildcat oil fighter. He had made millions with his oil-fighting company, and traveled the world putting out fires in places that had always been dangerous but were deadly now.
As I understood it, the Hunter lore had it that he had gone to the oil fields as soon as he graduated from high school, and excelled. Perhaps it’s because I have a bit of poet underneath the lawyer in me, but I’d say Hunter felt that fighting raging oil fires in death traps was easier than fighting the demons of being dirt poor and from the wrong side of the tracks in a town like Willow Creek.
Who knows. Hunter was good at what he did, made a fortune, and made his little brother stay in school, go to college, and eventually get his law degree. I knew for a fact that Jack felt equal parts frustration and admiration for his brother.
I received confirmation that the man was Hunter himself when he saw me standing there, no doubt looking guilty, and approached. Now, you’d think that a host of a party would be, maybe, gracious. Not this guy. He walked over, stopped, looked me up and down, and said, “Who the hell are you?”
My horror movie—worthy deb ball party duties were getting more horrifying by the second. I wanted out of there bad.
“Nobody,” I said, turning on my heel, determined to leave the house, leave Willow Creek, return to Boston, and say, Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you, Phillip, whether my mother approves or not.
But India caught my arm. “Daddy, this is Miss Carlisle Wainwright Cushing.” India seemed to change, smiling at her father like a dreamy-eyed grade-schooler. “I invited her to have dinner with us.”
He looked suspicious, then even more so when I said, “Dinner? Really, I can’t intrude.”
“Then why are you here if not to eat?”
Direct. To the point. No messing around.
Fine. I’d play it his way.
I pulled up General Patton. “Actually, I’m here because your daughter would like to make her debut at the Hundredth Annual Willow Creek Symphony Association Debutante Ball. I am here to extend an invitation to you and your family to participate.”
India groaned since she had specifically said I should “sort of ease into it.” I had been in the courtroom long enough to take this man’s measure. “Easing into” wasn’t a part of his vocabulary much less was it anything he would respect.
The man’s first response was confusion. “The debutante ball?” Then shock, before his craggy face broke out in a glower.
His mother looked at me with speculation, then at her granddaughter who literally held her breath. After a second, Gertie Blair tutted. “Now, Hunter, don’t get that look about you,” his mother said. “It’s an honor to be asked.”
“It’s an honor for me to fork over a pantload of money?”
“Daddy,” India pleaded.
“Don’t daddy me. I didn’t raise you to be a citified snob.”
I must have raised my brow because Hunter gave me a look of the not-nice variety. And might I add that up close, he was pure grit and spit and a “look” could turn cream to butter in an instant.
“Debutante balls are for sissies,” he said.
“Fine,” India huffed. “Then call me a sissy. I am going to be a debutante. If I have to, I’ll use my trust fund money to pay for it.”
“You don’t have access to your trust fund.” Check.
“I will in three months.” And mate.
More glowering, an impasse of sorts, until Hunter Blair raised what I could tell was a triumphant brow. “Even I know debutantes have to be escorted by their father. Seems a mite embarrassing having to make your debut all alone.” Again, check.
But he had raised his daughter in his image. One of India’s perfect brows arched, the adoring daughter gone. “Just so you know, Daddy, a girl only has to be escorted by a male relative.”
Daddy’s brows slammed together.
“I bet Uncle Jacky will escort me if you won’t.”
Daddy’s heart wasn’t the only one to stop in the room at the mention of Uncle Jacky. Mine did a cartwheel, especially when I heard his voice.
“What kind of trouble are you stirring up this time, Indie?”
We all turned to find Jack entering the foyer, slapping the butler on the back. “Good to see you, old man.”
“Mr. Jack,” the man said with fatherly pride.
He wore a black, three-button suit with a not-quite-royal-blue shirt with barely black buttons marching up the center, the top button undone, and no tie in sight. His dark hair was racked back and I don’t think I need to spell out just how amazing he looked.
He walked up to us, gave his mother a big hug, all but lifting her off the black and white marble tiles, for which the woman squealed with delight. “Oh, Jacky, you bad boy.” Though it was clear she adored her youngest son.
Jack followed up by giving India a sternly teasing scowl. “I can tell by the look in those beautiful blue eyes of yours that you are causing trouble.” Then he hugged her too. “Good girl.”
He shook his brother’s hand. “Not sure what you two are arguing about, big brother, but I’d think you would have learned just to give in early and avoid all the hassle. You know your little girl is going to get her way eventually.” At which point he laughed, though Hunter decidedly did not.
Then Jack turned. As had become the norm, his smile flatlined when he looked at me. His expression was a mix of ice and heat, and I felt blood rush up from my toes to my cheeks. What I wanted to do was run, more specifically, run like my hair was on fire, as fast and as far away as possible. But given my status as cool, calm, and collected woman, I stood my ground.
“I am here at India’s request,” I blurted without being asked.
So much for cool, calm, and collected.
One dark brow rose, the corner of his mouth crooking. “This should be good.”
“India wants to be a debutante,” their mother explained.
In short order, his niece and mother filled Jack in on the details, with Hunter Blair adding his not so flattering commentary along the way.
This back-and-forth went on for a bit more, gaining everyone’s attention. Not that the Blair clan appeared to care since they only got louder and louder until even Hunter couldn’t ignore the growing quiet as people turned to stare.
“Time to eat,” the man barked angrily.
The crowd scurried to the dining room in an ostentatious wave of jewelry, elaborately coiffed hair, and designer clothes, led by the host himself, India marching away toward the stairway with a mutinous scowl. I started to leave, but Jack stopped me.
“You’ve made this mess, I suspect it’s only fair you stay to see it through to the end. Don’t you want to know if Hunter will give in and let his daughter be a… what did he call it? A pantywaist sissy girl?”
His amusement made my teeth grind. “He already said no.”
He tsked. “Now, now, Miss Cushing. I thought you were made of sterner stuff than that. Besides, clearly you don’t know anything about how India works.”
Actually, I did. I was there, wasn’t I?
“Come on,” he said. “Dinner’s getting cold.”
Which is how I ended up at Hunter Blair’s dinner party of twenty-two, now twenty-three, seated next to none other than the host’s little brother.
As has already been established, the house was filled with expensive, if ill-matched, antiques. The dining room table was no exception. At a mere glance, I would say the table was a delicately beautiful antique Queen Anne piece, extended to its max and laden with the gaudiest display of silver, gold, crystal, and china I had ever seen.
With Jack sitting so close, my skin tingled like an idiotic schoolgirl’s, so much so that I hardly noticed that the other guests had to scoot down to accommodate me. Jack sat back, his legs crossed casually at the knee as he spoke to the woman on his left. I pretty much forgot all about India and debutantes and found myself staring at his hands; I might have been remembering how they had touched me in the Foley Building. The probability that my breath caught was high. I was so engrossed that I didn’t notice when Jack turned to me until it was too late.
“Relax,” he said.
My head shot up. “What?”
“I said relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
He tilted his head. “You’re a lot of things, but relaxed isn’t one of them.” He turned just a hair. “Listen, if you want Hunter to say yes to this deb thing, you have to work it. He’s a businessman, sell him on the idea.”
I had been staring at the tablecloth. At this, I glanced up. “How does anyone sell Hunter Blair on anything?”
He studied me, his fingers idly turning the stem of his wine glass. He’d always had the ability to alternately make me love him then hate him. I had loved him the instant he sat down next to me in that math class. But he had undone me as well, changing the course of my life forever when I finally gave in to everything I had felt for Jack Blair. Dramatic, I know, but that didn’t make it any less true.
Fortunately, I was long over him, over any foolish infatuations that made me act Not Like Me.
He shrugged. “I have no doubt that that brain of yours can figure out a way to convince my brother to do what you want.” He ran his gaze over me. “Though maybe not when you’re wearing your mother’s clothes. Those two never did get along.”
I sat up straight. “These are not my mother’s clothes.”
“Okay, Savannah’s.”
He had me there, but I saw no reason to confirm his suspicions. “What, he’s like you and prefers stiletto heels and spandex pants?”
Jack chuckled. “It’s a start. Hell, you show up looking like that and I’ll convince him for you.”
Which made me laugh. God, how I hated the way he could charm me even when I was fast telling myself to stay clear.
Thankfully, a man across the table asked Jack a question, forcing him to look away.
Course after course of the meal was served, Hunter’s mother chatting up a storm, telling the group the origins of this piece of furniture and that piece of silver and all but stating the price of each. My mother would have been appalled.
I was a little queasy when they served the main course. I am all for beef; I’m a Texan after all. But the steak that stared up at me was so rare I was afraid it might bite back when I stuck my knife in it.
The entire meal was like that, an odd mix of gastronomic delights and trailer-park delicacies. During the first course, they served pâté along with sausage rolls that I suspected were made from a tube of Pillsbury crescent rolls and Jimmy Dean sausage.
I ignored the discussion among the guests (and Jack) and forced myself to “sell” Hunter Blair on the deb ball. With no help for it, I turned to my host who sat on my right at the head of the table, and said, “I really think a girl of India’s caliber would be a great asset to the debutante ball. And she would reap a lifetime of benefit from it as well.”
He grunted. “My India has everything she needs. And she has my mother to show her the ropes of being a lady.”
I glanced down the length of the table, peeking through the tall silver candelabras and multiple centerpieces, along with the bloody steaks. “Your mother is a lovely woman, and clearly she is interested in the finer graces of life.” Interested in and excelling at being two completely separate kettle of fish. “Becoming a debutante would simply be icing on the cake.”
“My daughter doesn’t need any more cake.”
Over the length of the eight-course meal, I came at the problem from every direction. And none of them worked. For a second Hunter gave me such an irritated scowl that I thought he would tell me to leave.
It was during dessert, an actually delicious concoction of chocolate and cream soufflé, when India’s grandmother leaped up, the tablecloth caught in her ornate belt of turquoise and jewels, tipping the stemware and candelabras over like dominos. Everyone watched in shock, unable to move, until the last candelabra fell and the tablecloth burst into flames. You’ve never seen twenty-three adults scramble backward so quickly in your life.
“Oh, my,” India’s grandmother said.
Oh, my, was right.
After a few obligatory offers to help, the group practically trampled over one another to escape to the relative safety outside… or get to the phone lines to report in on Hunter Blair’s disastrous dinner.
Hunter Blair looked as if he wanted to murder someone. Jack was busy putting out the fire.
“Oh, Hunter,” his mother said with a quaver. “I’m so sorry.”
Then she ran from the room. India and the servants had raced in.
India looked her father in the eye, and said, “Yeah, right, you know how to deal with society.”
She flipped her hair and walked out.
Servants hopped to, helping Jack with the fire. Hunter Blair still hadn’t moved.
“Well, then, I’ll just be going,” I said, thinking I could tiptoe away. Maybe a year off for the symphony event wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Miss Cushing.”
Hunter Blair’s voice shuddered through the room.
I didn’t really want to stop; in fact, I told myself not just to run, but run like hell. I didn’t need any more trouble, and this family spelled nothing but.
I turned back. “Yes, Mr. Blair?”
“I accept the invitation.”
“Invitation?”
Yes, I was being dense, intentionally. But my mind raced with how to get out of what was promising to be an even bigger mess than the former conductor caught in a dress. Standing there with Hunter glaring at me, India poised at the bottom of the stairs, not to mention Jack looking on with streaks of ash on his face like some kind of warrior, I felt far too tangled up with Blairs. On the other hand, in reality I was far too tangled up with the debutante ball. I had a family history to save and a grandmother whom I hoped I could make proud.
“India will be a debutante at your fancy party,” Hunter clarified.
India leaped up and down, then got control of herself. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said, racing across the foyer and throwing her arms around the bear of a man.
What was odd was that the man didn’t hug her back. He pulled away with a curse and strode from the hall. At first India looked hurt. But then the India I had come to know and not love returned.
“Then it’s settled,” she stated coldly, and headed up the stairs like a queen.
I had gotten what I came for and had no interest in getting involved in any further Blair family drama. I had enough family drama of my own.
“Very good. I’ll get back to you with the details,” I said, then fled.
For the record, I could feel Jack staring at my back as I disappeared into the cool Central Texas night.