Calling His Bluff

Only in Vegas…

It has to be Vegas’s glitzy, seductive atmosphere that made Sarah Tyler trade her straitlaced persona for that of a cardsharp in a red halter dress and heels. But when the Chicago vet wakes up next to her longtime crush—with a ring on her finger—she knows she’s in serious trouble.

Fifteen years ago, Sarah was madly in love with JD Damico, her brother’s best friend. She didn’t expect to ever see him again…until the bad-boy-turned-Hollywood-photographer persuaded her to accompany him to the city of sin for a whirlwind weekend. Now Sarah thinks they’re lawful husband and wife. Only, JD isn’t a stick-around kind of guy. Worse, he no longer believes in happy endings. Or does he?

Book 3 of The Tylers

Calling His Bluff

Amy Jo Cousins

Mills and Boon E Contemporary Romance

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication

For my sister, without whom my wardrobe would be all black, my musical education would have stopped in the ’90s and my adventures would be far less awesome. I know you scratched “I haet Amy” inside the closet door in our room twenty-five years ago, but I loved you even when you couldn’t spell. You’re my own personal rock star, Kelly. Can’t imagine life being nearly this much fun without you.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

After the second drug deal went down on the corner, with the dealer shooting hard looks her way in between casual reaches into the open window of cars that were too nice for this shitty neighborhood, Sarah’s freak-out reached epic proportions.

And J.D. still wasn’t answering the door.

She gave it fifteen seconds before she became a statistic on a news graphic about how even the cold winter weather didn’t have a suppressant effect on the violence in Chicago’s less-gentrified neighborhoods.

“Dead meat. That’s what he is.” Sarah clenched her jaw tight to stop herself from grinding her molars together. She fisted her hands at her sides and bounced a little on the balls of her feet, toes sore already in spiky high heels. She glanced back at the corner. The dealer slouched toward her, skullcap pulled low over his eyebrows. “As soon as he answers the door, I’m going to kill him.”

She stabbed a finger at the cracked plastic button of the doorbell buzzer and then pounded again on the solid steel door. Her left hand drifted down toward the nylon medical bag resting at her hip, her constant companion. Maybe she should grab a scalpel, just in case. She could find it in an instant in the precise order of her bag, even one-handed and in the dark.

And why wasn’t he answering the damn door?

“Open up before I get mugged!” she shouted at the door.

And this was the last time she’d listen to Christopher Robin Tyler. She imagined with pleasure the feel of her brother’s thick neck throttled between her hands.

If she ended up as body parts found in a Dumpster, she was going to haunt her brother forever and do nothing but call him by the two names Tyler had stopped answering to years ago.

“You’re corpse number two, Christopher Robin. I swear it.” She shook her head as she heard her brother’s words echoing in her ears. This time, she could hear the slickness of a con in his voice in the message he’d left guilting her into this crazy trip. “Remember J.D.? Didn’t you always like him? He’s back in town and his cat is dying or something. You gotta go see him right away. Like now.” Yeah, right.

Remember J.D.? Sometimes it felt like she’d never gotten over the man, much less forgotten him, which was a sorry way to feel about a guy she’d never even kissed. Except for the one time…

And as soon as she was done murdering J.D., she was heading straight back to her brother’s pub to hunt her sibling down and kill him. Let Grace try to protect him. Her sister-in-law wasn’t standing after dark in the middle of this abandoned warehouse district west of the Loop in Chicago, dressed in a twelve-hundred-dollar suit that might as well have had Mug Me written across it in fluorescent letters. She loved Grace, but fair was fair. Her brother was a dead man.

He might at least have mentioned that her old crush was staying in a wasteland. She’d imagined J.D. inhabiting an upscale, fifty-story Lincoln Park condo building. In that scenario, the “I just ducked over from a cocktail party at that chic little place around the corner” excuse could have justified the Armani. God knows she wasn’t going to admit that she’d gotten desperate enough last week to click the “Will Attend” RSVP link in one of the urban professional speed-dating emails that kept arriving in her inbox with intimidating regularity. She’d obviously ended up on a mailing list for hopeless losers who were sucking black holes of relationship doom, attracting men who hid their wedding rings. Telling her brother she couldn’t help his best friend because she was on her way to be so fucking charming for sixty seconds at a time that the perfect man would fall in love with her across a tiny bistro table was a fast lane to eternal sibling torture. She’d bypassed the Loop and headed for the warehouse district with a sigh.

If she’d also gotten a little thrill out of the idea of J.D. seeing her at her polished best, Tyler didn’t need to know that, either.

Now she just looked like an idiot. Like an overdressed veterinarian suffering a breakdown from the idea of an old, unrequited flame wanting to see her.

An uneven thumping noise, muffled but audible, came through the door.

“At last,” she muttered, and then banged on the door again for good measure. “Get a move on, poky!” She smoothed nervous hands over her long, straight dark hair and felt her stomach twist again.

Fifteen years. That’s how long she’d gone without seeing the man she’d adored with the white-hot passion only a teenager can sustain. Fifteen years of dating the wrong men and wishing secretly, in the dark corners of her heart, that J.D. Damico would come back home and sweep her off her feet.

Hence the satisfaction of being in Armani.

The threat of imminent death was putting a crimp in her enthusiasm, however.

“What’s the holdup in there?” she called out.

An enormous clatter and crash of metal followed hard upon her words, sounding like a thousand steel toothpicks being dropped on the floor of the devil’s workshop. When the curses that followed threatened to rattle the door on its hinges, she was glad she couldn’t quite make out the words.

“Whoops.”

She smiled brightly and nodded as another SUV drifted over to the curb, pulling her stalker’s attention away from her. A reprieve from dismemberment. Lovely.

“I am going—” thump “—as fast—” thump, thump “—as I can.” The words rumbled through the door, halfway between a growl and a shout. On the last word, the door was yanked inward to fly on an arc that only stopped when it crashed into a brick wall. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Her apology died on her lips as she opened her mouth. The snotty comment had her snapping her jaws shut with an audible click. She took a deep breath and tried to remember that she’d been waiting for this moment for a long time. Waiting, too, for J.D. to see her at last as someone other than the gawky kid who tagged along after her brother all the time. In her fantasies, J.D. had been waiting for this moment, too.

Backlit as he was by a flickering yellow-gold glow, she couldn’t see J.D. clearly, but she could tell that he was on crutches and that a fiberglass cast covered one leg from the base of his toes to halfway up his thigh. He seemed to be wearing black sweatpants, the ragged edge of one chopped-off leg brushing against the top of the cast. A gray Chicago Cubs T-shirt covered heavily muscled shoulders and bunched up under his armpits where it caught on the cushioned pads of the crutches.

So much for him wanting to impress me. At least I know why he’s being obnoxious—he’s clumsy and in pain, not to mention freezing to death. Who wears a T-shirt in March in Chicago?

She’d have known him in an instant, even if he was dressed like someone she could’ve bumped into in her brother’s pub. She couldn’t stop smiling. She hoped she wasn’t going to throw up.

He stood in the doorway, staring at her blankly, eyes flickering from her face to her feet to her medical bag and back again.

She resisted the urge to run a hand over her hair or check to see if her fly was open. She’d been heading to a speed-dating event, for Christ’s sake. This was damn near as good as it got for her, appearance-wise. Maybe J.D. was stunned into silence by how much she’d changed.

She could break out a Sharpie and scribble e.e. cummings poetry and Edna St. Vincent Millay quotes on her pants, if that would help him remember who she was. Although it would be a crime to do that to this cashmere-wool blend.

As the moment stretched out, J.D. still staring at her wordlessly, teenage memories of overwhelming awkwardness thickening her tongue and tripping her feet came flooding back in a wave of heat and self-consciousness that she felt as a flush she knew was visible on her face. Fuck. This was exactly how it had happened in high school, too. One minute she was cool and easy with J.D., always happy when he would seek her out in a quiet moment and sit with her. The next minute she was excruciatingly aware of the thick curve of muscle wrapping his shoulder, and unable to speak in his presence.

If he didn’t say something, soon, it was possible she would dissolve into an actual puddle of goo and embarrassment on the sidewalk and never speak to him again.

His grin rescued her.

The white flash of teeth in that cocky smile beneath high, tanned cheekbones and dark shining eyes sparked memories of a skinny teenager who’d claimed there was Cherokee mixed with the Italian blood in his family.

“Hot damn,” he said, the slow grin spreading over his face. He grappled with his crutches, swinging over to rock her back in a fierce hug. “Sarah Tyler!” He pounded her back with one hand. She hung on and tried to keep him upright.

After a moment, he pushed her back and held her at arm’s length. “Holy shit, girl. You’re all growed up, aren’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. Yup, nothing like feeling twelve again. So much for J.D. seeing her as a competent and hopefully foxy adult woman.

“Get your ass in here, girl, and tell me why I haven’t seen you around Tyler’s place since I got back.”

So. The big reunion moment was over, she guessed. That was it? Tendrils of irritation crept into her attitude.

J.D. left her standing in the doorway and thumped off across the cavern of a room to the back corner. His dark hair was tied back in a stubby ponytail at the back of his neck. Oh, no. She shot off a quick prayer that he hadn’t turned into an artistic type. Sarah had always thought of J.D. as the rough-edged boy of her youth, a bruiser more than a finicky, flighty artiste, even as she’d read about his growing celebrity as a photographer. After spending a bit too much time at her brother’s North Side Chicago pub, she’d gotten over her romantic notions about dating artists or musicians easily enough. She’d learned to spot the type that would lecture her for three hours about Scorsese or the history of jazz. But based on the crowds of young women that inevitably gathered around the guys who painted or played or took pictures, she was atypical.

Artists, bah. Nothing but trouble, and you always had to foot the bill for their foolishness, too. Of course, she hadn’t fared any better with her most recent disastrous relationship choices, even if she’d very consciously tried to choose an ordinary, kind of boring, stable guy. One who never would’ve been caught dead in the chaos inexorably taking over this space. “Shut the door, will ya?” The words were more command than request.

“Yes, sir.” She flipped what she considered a properly respectful one-fingered salute at his retreating back.

She tried to slam the door; a nice loud bang would express her frustration at the anticlimactic nature of this fucking long-awaited reunion, thank you, but was surprised to find that she needed to throw her whole body weight into it to swing the door shut. It finally closed with an annoyingly soft click.

Heat blasted her like she’d stepped into a sauna. Sweat sprang out on the back of her neck and along her hairline almost instantly. She was not sweating through her Armani. No way.

She looked for somewhere to hang her coat. Someone had clearly begun converting a warehouse here. She saw more unidentifiable mechanical equipment lying around than she did furniture. But having started this project, it looked like the money had run out before getting a tenth of the way through. The pile of aluminum tubes against one wall explained the clattering crash from before, but it didn’t look promising as a coat rack. She draped her coat over her arm instead and headed into the cavern of a room, sweating in her pewter-gray suit.

She had always thought J.D. had done well with his photography. That he had more sense than the flighty artists she knew. Apparently not. Or maybe it was just his congenital inability to stop in one place for longer than six months. She could see it now. He’d have decided that moving back to his hometown sounded great, but now that he was here, the urge to hit the road again, just like he’d done fifteen years ago, would leave this long-term project abandoned for someone else to clean up.

The left half of the open room was obviously where civilization had attempted to regain a toehold. A kitchen area that looked as if it had been hammered out of galvanized steel stretched along one wall and a fireplace hearth big enough to roast an ox claimed the back, complete with a roaring fire. An enormous wood-plank table with benches and an oversized leather couch, all of the furniture equally worn and battle-scarred, anchored the room, running parallel to the walls. The rest of the walls were exposed brick and steel beams that radiated industrial cool. Also, actual coldness, she bet. She couldn’t even fathom what it cost him to keep a space this big warmer than an equatorial jungle in Chicago’s deep freeze.

Since teetering towers of boxes covered most of the table and bench setup, she dropped her stuff on the wide arm of the couch and flapped a hand at her face as she watched her long-lost love hunt through the kitchen cabinets for god knows what.

In the brighter light provided by metal-shaded lamps suspended from the ceiling on thick chains, not to mention the fierce glow of the fireplace, she could see him better. His thick, straight black hair looked almost reddish in the firelight, but she was sure that it would show blue-black in daylight.

He squatted down to peer into a cabinet under the sink, crutches leaning against the counter, his injured leg sticking out to one side as he bounced comfortably on the other heel. With his hands at the ready in front of him, J.D. looked like a baseball catcher, preparing to glove a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball.

Two minutes in his company and she was already remembering that half the time when she was around J.D. she’d have been tempted to wing a baseball at his fat head if one were to hand.

“So, where’ve you been hiding out these days? Still spending all your free time at the library? Sorry about the heat, by the way. The cat’s under the couch, if you wanna get on your hands and knees and take a look.”

Her head was spinning. No way was she going to mention that she actually did still volunteer for a shift or two a week, shelving books at her local branch, although she couldn’t be sure what would come out of her mouth if she opened it, since her brain was still caught on freeze-frame with images inspired by the “get on your hands and knees” thing.

Her dirty mind was as active as ever around J.D. Fifteen years hadn’t changed that at all. Good to know.

“Just working a lot.” And licking her wounds. She’d been ducking her family a little bit lately. Okay, a lot. But there were only so many times you could go back to that well and admit that you’d just figured out you’d been suckered by yet another guy who was some kind of compulsive liar who was going to end up on one of those daytime talk shows, throwing a folding chair at a psychotic ex.

“Well, thanks for the house call. No rush, but if you take it with you when you go, that’d be great.” Something rattled as he ducked his head into the cabinet. “Bet you still spend all your time rescuing scabby alley cats, don’t you? Nothing ever changes around here.”

He hadn’t even looked over his shoulder as he spoke to her.

She jerked back as if she’d been smacked. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Did he think she was some kind of loser who hadn’t changed since high school?

So much for fifteen years of fantasizing. “If you think I cancelled my plans and came all the way out here to relieve you of your sick cat…”

He stood, a pair of wine glasses precariously balanced in one hand.

“Got a hot date?” His voice rang with skepticism.

She clenched her teeth together. The last thing she wanted him to know was that she’d been on her way to an evening of relentlessly awkward conversations that would undoubtedly have left her feeling like a used-car salesman.

Deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t strangle the injured man.

“You know, you can always bring the cat by the clinic in the morning, Damico,” she said. “I don’t normally run a pickup and delivery service.” This wasn’t the kind of desperate to see her she’d hoped for.

“Hey, I’ll pay you to get that cat out of here,” he said, closing the cabinet. “No kidding.”

Pay her?

Pay her?

First embarrassed, now insulted. She cocked her hip and planted a hand on it.

“Don’t be an asshole. You’re practically family. I’m not going to charge you. Did hanging out with celebrities and bazillionaires in Hollywood rot your brain?”

“Easy, girl.”

“Don’t ‘easy’ me, Joey Damico. I expected more manners from the guy who rescued my bikini top when it came off after I did a high dive into the deep end of the pool.”

Great. Now she was thinking about him seeing her topless. She wondered if her face had actually turned purple yet. All of her reactions felt slightly off, as if she were both over- and underreacting at the same time. She wondered if she looked as strange as she felt, like her skin was made of broken mirror shards, reflecting a hundred different emotions at once.

J.D. wobbled on his crutches and for a second she thought he was going to topple. She sprinted to his side and braced him with a hand on his elbow.

“Whoa, watch the wine glasses,” J.D. said. “I was lucky to find these two.” Stepping back, she rescued the crossed stems of the glasses from his one-handed grip and caught the wine bottle that he’d clamped to his side with one elbow. “Ah, c’mon, Sarah. Share a glass with me.” She ducked her head as he reached up to tousle her hair in that infuriating, older-brother way he’d always had. In an instant, the vibe between them mellowed. Her shoulders relaxed and some of the stiffness left her spine. “And you know I could never stand that name. Just J.D., okay? Whenever someone calls me Joey, all I can hear is my mom shrieking my name out for the whole block to hear.”

She wrinkled her nose. Growing up, every neighborhood had them: the parents who embarrassed their kids because they were crazy or drunk or oblivious to social norms like putting on clothes before leaving the house. J.D.’s parents had managed to be all that and worse.

“Fine. One glass. How are your folks?” She didn’t really want to know. She wanted to know if he was dating anyone. Her brother had only given her the sketchiest of details about J.D.’s recent divorce.

“Dad’s horrifying the neighbors down in Florida, last I heard, with Mom following behind him to apologize. Some things really don’t change.” He grinned with his mouth shut, a twisted line that sank into bitterness. Bracing his hands on the crutch’s crossbars, he swung over to the couch and indicated with a toss of his chin as he passed it that she should drop the bottle and glasses on the end table. Then he changed the subject, lightening the mood once more.

“I saw your mom the other day at Tyler’s pub, looking fantastic as always.” J.D. had always worshipped the Tyler matriarch with the pure love of a boy whose own mother was a walking disaster. “She recognized me instantly, of course. But she could have warned me about you. I hardly recognized you when I opened the door. You grew up just fine, Sarah.” He winked at her. “Didn’t you have a crush on me at one point?”

She stuck out her tongue at him, pleased that she could take his teasing with barely a flutter of uneasy excitement, and went to search the kitchen for a corkscrew.

“Yeah, well, as a girl I was easily impressed. Remind me to beat up my brother for not keeping his mouth shut about it. And of course Mom recognized you—you were standing next to my brother. The terrible twosome, reunited. You’ll have to come to her birthday party next month.” She ducked her head, as if J.D. might be able to see on her face the dozen voice mails about party planning she’d ignored from her family. Although, he was probably the one person who’d understand wanting to avoid family for a while. “Ah ha,” she said after another moment of searching the cluttered drawer. She lifted the corkscrew in the air, and then strolled back to the couch, where J.D. had eased himself down onto the cushions.

No longer able to restrain her burning curiosity, she heard herself asking, “You got a new celebrity girlfriend we should put on the RSVP list?” Yeah, that was subtle. And sheesh, it was hot in here. Seriously. A drop of sweat trickled down her spine. No sweating in Armani, she reminded herself. Dropping the corkscrew in his lap, she headed off into the dimmer corner of the apartment. “Is there a bathroom back here somewhere? And maybe some beachwear for this sauna you’ve got going on?” she said. “I’m inappropriately dressed.”

He groaned and tilted his head back to rest on the high cushions of the couch. The light flickered around the edges of his profile, outlining the bump on his nose. It had been broken by a wild curveball thrown by her brother a dozen summers ago. “In the corner. Look in the closet for a T-shirt and shorts if you want. I keep workout clothes down here. Bedroom’s upstairs. And I never should have sent Tyler the picture from that magazine,” he called after her. “I go to one Hollywood premiere with the supporting actress and your brother tells everyone within a two-hundred-mile radius.”

She found the bathroom back by what looked like a weight room, barbells and weight plates stacked along the walls. She pushed the door halfway shut behind her and started to shuck off her clothes while she shouted back to him. “You could have knocked him over with a feather when the next picture he saw was your wedding picture. Same blonde, different slinky ten-thousand-dollar dress.” Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she hoped she could blame the flush in her cheeks on the heat of the fire.

“Get a grip, girl. You’re just two old friends sitting in front of a fire while drinking some wine.” She brushed a strand of long brown hair behind one ear and smiled at herself in the mirror. “Yeah, he’s an old friend who just happens to be a phenomenally hot man too injured to escape.”