Chasing Serenity Page 5

Too happy for his peace of mind.

  Yeah, he had that conflicting thought.

  Because the happiness involved her.

  She stopped at his side.

  Same perfume.

  Awesome graphic tee that had lines on the material that made up the back of a seated tiger.

  A tee he’d seen somewhere before.

  His eyes moved from her shirt to her face.

  “You into wildlife conservation?” he murmured.

  “No, I’m into very long fur coats, preferably made of baby seals, and bunnies used for cosmetic testing.”

  She was totally lying, and not only because Judge knew you got that tee for a donation to the WWF.

  So either she was into doing something, or someone she knew was, and she got the spoils.

  It might be door number two.

  But he hoped it wasn’t.

  “Mm-hmm,” he hummed.

  The line moved again, she turned to face forward, and they shuffled with it.

  “What’s your name?” he asked something at that point he pretty much needed to know.

  She looked up at him. “Judy Jetson.”

  Of course he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

  Christ, this woman was the shit.

  He chuckled again. “That’s not it.”

  “Pebbles Flintstone?” she asked, like he could confirm.

  He shook his head.

  She kept at it. “Ginger Grant.”

  “I think we’re getting closer.”

  She rolled her eyes and again faced forward.

  “What’s your name, doll?” he pushed.

  She tilted just her eyes up to him.

  Mm-hmm.

  He was getting the middle-of-the-afternoon fake eyelashes.

  They absolutely worked.

  “Chloe,” she told him.

  Chloe.

  Perfect.

  She was totally a Chloe.

  “Chloe?” he said. “That’s all I get?”

  “We’re not doing this, you know,” she declared.

  “Doing what?” he asked.

  She waved a hand between them. “This. You’re going to work for Duncan and I’m going to be Duncan’s friend and never the twain shall meet.”

  “I didn’t ask you to marry me,” he pointed out.

  The mess of hair on top of her head swayed with her reaction to his words and she suddenly became very focused on the line in front of them.

  “Christ, sorry, are you…into me?” he asked.

  But he knew.

  She was.

  Like she knew he was into her.

  She turned to face him fully and snapped, “Of course not. You’re very…” another round of looking him up and down, “you.”

  The guy in front of them coughed.

  “You’re also very…you,” he replied.

  “I am very, very me,” she drawled.

  Fucking shit, it was insane, he barely knew her, didn’t even know her last name.

  But he had a new need when it came to her.

  He needed to kiss her.

  Hard.

  “Yeah, you are,” he murmured.

  Her eyes rounded, but her mouth got soft, and again she turned and became fascinated with the line.

  “I’m getting a coffee on my way back to Phoenix,” she told the line. “Where I’m off to do my job and live my life because that’s where I do both.”

  “Good choice, not hitting a drive-through and instead going out of your way for Wild Iris.”

  She made a noise of assent.

  She then said, “I know what you do for River Rain. Duncan told me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So, you know, wandering the store, willy-nilly, preying on customers you think are overworking the staff is not your job. In fact, Bowie gave the impression that he didn’t have anyone with that job description.”

  “Bowie” was Duncan Holloway, his boss. People close to him called him that. Judge had no idea why, but Chloe using that name gave new meaning to who she was to Duncan.

  And Duncan might have given that impression, but he didn’t say dick to Judge about it. And Harvey gave Judge shit about their altercation, he didn’t sit him down and take a stripe out of him.

  So clearly, Duncan knew her well because he didn’t make a big deal out of something that wasn’t a big deal.

  “Breaks can get boring, and somebody’s gotta look after them,” he joked.

  “Huh,” she said.

  Yeah.

  She said “huh.”

  “Did you just say ‘huh’?” he asked.

  They advanced in the line, and her gaze tilted up to him again.

  “You can’t say ‘huh,’” she informed him. “It’s a noise, not a word.”

  “Did ‘huh’ just come out of your mouth?” he amended.

  She gave him her full face, and when he got it, he realized he would have paid her for it.

  “What of it?” she asked.

  “How old are you?” he asked back.

  “Old enough,” she dodged.

  “Eight-year-olds say ‘huh,’” he told her.

  “Excellent,” she returned. “The age to which I aspire acting until I die.”

  He busted out laughing.

  When he got it under control, she was glaring at him.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you,” he admitted.

  “Soak it in,” she advised. “Because my hope is, you won’t have another chance to do that.”

  She was so totally lying.

  Because she was so totally enjoying this as much as he was.

  He grinned at her.

  They made the front of the line.

  She ordered immediately.

  “Turmeric dirty chai, macadamia milk, iced.”

  Of course she knew exactly what she wanted.

  And it was complicated.

  The woman behind the counter looked to Judge.

  “It’s just me on this order,” Chloe said to her.

  “No, it isn’t,” Judge contradicted. “I’m buying for both of us.” And he was about to order, but Chloe spoke again.

  “I don’t let men who are a, not my friends or b, not my lovers buy things for me.”

  He shut his mouth and gave her a long look.

  Pink hit her cheeks.

  Which meant he gave her a huge smile at the same time wondering what else might make her blush.

  She looked back to the cashier. “Just the dirty chai.”

  “And a Mexican latte,” Judge added.

  Chloe turned to him again. “I’m not paying for yours.”

  “No, you’re not,” he agreed. “As I said, I’m paying for both, and we’re also not arguing about this because,” he tipped his head to the line that had formed behind them, “there’s eight people who want coffee, and they don’t need to listen to us bicker for fifteen minutes before they can put their order in.”

  “Yeah, as entertaining as you two are, we don’t need that,” someone behind them said.

  Judge was in danger of laughing again, but he didn’t because those brown eyes flashed, and that was so spectacular, he was glad he didn’t miss it.

  She looked to the cashier. “I have a much fuller understanding of the meaning of ‘crush the patriarchy…’” and with perfect timing she finished, “right now,” and with that, she and her pumps swanned to the side.

  Judge gave his name and paid for their drinks.

  When he moved to the area where people were loitering, waiting for their coffees, he came to a stop right at her side.

  And she didn’t delay querying, “You know what irks me?”

  “I know that question should probably have a modifier like ‘at this moment,’ or ‘right now,’ considering I’d guess a lot of things irk you.”

  She stared daggers at him for two long beats before she noted, “What irks me in this current moment is you being a gargantuan smartass.”

  In order not to miss anything, he grinned
instead of laughing.

  And he asked, “What irked you before I was a gargantuan smartass?”

  “Why did you emphasize ‘gargantuan?’” she asked in return.

  “I don’t think I’ve met a single soul who’s used that word in an everyday sentence.”

  “It’s a word you understand,” she noted.

  “Yup,” he agreed.

  “And you were, indeed, being a gargantuan smartass,” she went on.

  “I’ll cop to smartass. Gargantuan?” He shook his head.

  She rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  Yeah, he needed to kiss her.

  “So what irked you before I was a smartass?” he pressed.

  “Shall we say continued being a smartass?” she suggested.

  “Chloe, give it up,” he ordered.

  She did that.

  “She didn’t ask my name at the counter. Therefore, it irks me that the name ‘Judge’ is going to be written on my cup.”

  It was his turn to stare, though he didn’t do it with daggers. He did it with surprise.

  Because…what?

  “That irks you?” he inquired.

  “You’re annoying,” she sniffed.

  “You’re just now headed to Phoenix to do your job and live your life. What’s it matter my name is on the side of your coffee cup? You’re eventually gonna throw it away.”

  “Did you miss me sharing you’re annoying?”

  “I hope your eyes are going to be on the road, and not reading your coffee cup.”

  “You know, don’t think I don’t know this is all kinds of fun for you.”

  She was absolutely right.

  He just didn’t know why she said that.

  “I’m just—” he started.

  “Flirting with the woman who you, being all you are,” another eye-sweep of him, top to toe, “think is an easy get, but you also think she’s just a throwaway,” she finished.

  Hang on a second.

  Before he could speak, she kept going.

  “A bit of fun. Someone you can make a shitty comment to one day. And because you’re tall and hot and lanky and rustic and unpretentious and nature-loving and you have a noble job and a fabulous dimple, you also think the next day, you can see that woman and chat her up and maybe get a date that’ll lead to you getting laid.”

  He knew better than to date her.

  Still, he was one hundred percent angling for a date.

  But not just to get laid.

  He was fascinated by her, and even though he knew it would end up being no good for either of them, he wanted more.

  “Then,” she carried on, “you can tell your friends you hit that chick with the nice ass and the silly shoes. And in so doing, you don’t think even for a second that maybe that chick’s life has been turned on its head. That everything she knew is now gone. Everything she was certain of, everything that meant anything, everything that mattered has vanished. And she doesn’t know quite how to live in a world without those foundations steady under her magnificently shod feet. That maybe she’s looking for something to hold on to, something stable, not mercurial, like the whole world has suddenly become. Even if what she manages to hold on to is some new sense of self. But first, she has to find that. Which means, what she’s not looking for is some flirt who treats her like fair game, no matter how incredibly attractive he is.”

  Judge heard all the compliments.

  You bet he did.

  It was all the rest that was souring his gut.

  “So no, Judge,” she continued. “I’m a bit of fun for you, a girl from the city who’ll go back to the city, and you won’t have any strings tied to you. But I don’t want your name on my coffee cup. I want to go home and do my job and figure out how to live my life when up is down and a very serious wrong leads to a right that is very right, but it nevertheless breaks my heart, and anything that’s meaningful in the world is absolutely not how I know that world to be.”

  “Chloe,” he whispered, because he had no fucking clue what else to say.

  “So you should have let me pay, like I asked,” she stated. “Because now, I’m leaving. However, as you bought it, feel free to give my drink to someone else. I hope they enjoy the benefits of the turmeric. I’ve read more testing needs to be done, but I’ve found it’s fabulous for inflammation and mood. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m headed to a drive-through.”

  After she delivered that, she pulled her shades from her hair, perched them on her nose, and with steady, strong raps of her heels on the floor, she walked right out of the coffeehouse.

  And with no other choice, Judge watched her do it.

  * * *

  It wouldn’t be until the next day when he’d find out what was behind Chloe gutting him with that speech.

  And the person with this information would not be the person Judge would put money down on having said information.

  It started with a call.

  Not a text.

  Which was already a stunner.

  He’d known Rix years, and he didn’t know if the man had ever called him.

  Texted him at five in the morning with, Get your ass out of bed, it’s trail time approximately a thousand times.

  But not a call.

  Rix also didn’t bother with preliminaries, like “Hey.”

  He just said, “Did you see it?”

  “See what?”

  “That whole thing with Imogen Swan, Corey Szabo, and Duncan?”

  It was evening, and Judge had just finished a bison burger topped with homemade pimento cheese, some roasted fingerling potatoes, sautéed green beans and was now on his deck with a podcast, the sunset, his dog Zeke, and beer number two.

  “What whole thing with Imogen Swan, Corey Szabo, and Duncan?” he asked.

  Though the fact Duncan was mentioned in that mix was mildly interesting, it also wasn’t because Judge wasn’t a big gossip guy.

  He’d seen some of Imogen Swan’s movies, and practically every girlfriend he’d had had been superfans of hers. So he’d also seen most of the episodes of Rita’s Way, her big TV show from a few decades back that made her a household name.

  And everyone knew who Corey Szabo was, because everyone loved to hate him due to the fact he was richer than 99.999 percent of the population, and from all accounts, was also a huge dick.

  Further, Szabo was famously a friend of Swan’s and Swan’s husband, Tom Pierce, the only one of that crew Judge knew well because he was a big tennis fan, and he could make a case that Pierce was one of the best to ever play the game.

  And Judge, like nearly most sentient beings on the planet, knew that not long ago, shocking everyone, sitting alone in his twenty-million-dollar home outside LA, Corey Szabo had eaten a bullet.

  That had reverberated around the globe.

  The man who had everything took his own life.

  That didn’t only put the tech world, Wall Street, the gossip mill, and every computer engineer alive into a tailspin.

  It put Imogen Swan fans in one too.

  Because, not long before Szabo’s suicide, the impossible had happened.

  America’s favorite couple, the solid-as-a-rock pair, proved they weren’t that at all when Imogen Swan and Tom Pierce got a divorce.

  So even Judge couldn’t miss not only what Szabo had done, but also that everyone was on about how bad a year American’s Darling, Imogen Swan, was having.

  And having to publicly go through a divorce and sustain a blow like losing a close friend to suicide, even Judge, who barely watched TV and might occasionally see a movie, felt bad for the woman.

  Rix interrupted his thoughts by laying it out.

  “Szabo’s ex got on some gossip show and spilled about how Duncan and Imogen were a big thing back in the day. She even used the words ‘star-crossed lovers,’” Rix told him. “Totally into each other. Totally meant for each other. But Szabo, who was both their best friend, they’d all grown up together, broke them up. Lied about sleeping with her so D
uncan would break things off so Szabo could have her. It’s all over the store. It’s all over everywhere.”

  This was a surprise, mostly because Judge had never met anyone famous (well, at least, not after he was old enough to form coherent thoughts, and he didn’t count his father or grandfather as famous, because they were, but they were just family to Judge), much less knew someone who was best friends with two people who were two of the most famous people in the world.

  Of course, everyone knew Duncan Holloway, but Judge didn’t think of him as famous. He was just rich, and he was vocal about issues he held close to his heart. And in order to make a difference, he had to make the news, and he did.

  But he was nowhere near Imogen Swan’s and Corey Szabo’s league.

  “And some folks at the store did some googling, brother, and your girl in the shoe department…” Rix went on.

  At that, Judge took his feet from the railing as he sat up.

  “Yeah?” he prompted when Rix didn’t finish.

  “Her name is Chloe Pierce. She’s Imogen Swan’s oldest daughter.”

  Anything that’s meaningful in the world is absolutely not how I know that world to be.

  Well…

  Fuck.

  Chapter 3

  The Roses

  Corey

  Three years ago…

  Corey sat in the section beside them, front row, where Imogen told him to sit.

  It was not his preferred location.

  It wasn’t because he couldn’t watch her without being noticed doing it from his seat.

  He also wasn’t close to her. Couldn’t touch her knee or take her hand.

  She didn’t need him, though, and the truth was, Corey would never have the seat he preferred.

  This was because Genny had Tom, who as ever was right by her side.

  Her son Matt was on her other side, her two men, looking after her.

  On Matt’s opposite side, Sasha was practically draped on her brother. Boneless with grief.

  And everyone said Chloe was the dramatic one.

  Corey felt when they did, they didn’t pay enough attention to Sasha.

  Though, Corey assuaged his irritation at this seating arrangement by settling into the fact Imogen had been firm about him sitting right at the front. A place of honor.

  A member of the family.