Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(34)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Sarah turned to the closed ballroom doors. “Did you know that paramedic?”

“Yeah,” Quentin acknowledged. “When the Cheatin’ Hearts hit the big time, I was working at the hospital.”

She murmured, “That explains your cavalier attitude toward IVs.”

Lost in thought, he looked through Sarah. “Did he say queen to king two?” He swore. Then he focused on her again. “We’ve had a chess game going for three years.”

He moved past her to pull out the chairs for their last opponents, Sarah’s mother and Beulah. Sarah’s mother asked, “So, enjoying this geriatric excitement?” as Quentin scooted her up to the table.

“You mean sitting around playing bridge for kicks, right?” Sarah said reproachfully. “I know you’re not making a joke about that poor woman.”

“I suppose I’m inured,” her mother said. “It happens so often. It happened to my partner at the Fort Custer Regional Duplicate Bridge Tournament in Kalamazoo last year.”

Beulah eyed Sarah’s mother uneasily.

Sarah exclaimed, “Oh my God, Mom! What did you do when she died?”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, sweetie. It’s not polite. I was able to find another partner by the afternoon session.”

Quentin made a noise, about to burst into laughter. He covered it by clearing his throat.

“It’s because you’re all so sedentary,” Sarah told her mother. “You need to get your butts off these extremely uncomfortable chairs and go for a jog.”

“Sarah,” her mother scolded scathingly.

Sarah realized what she’d said. “Butt is not a curse word,” she defended herself. Remembering an argument with her mother from fifteen years before, she added, “And neither is snot.”

Playfully her mother reached over to cover one of Quentin’s ears. “Please don’t use that kind of language around me, even to make a point,” she said. “Your marathon isn’t the answer to everything.”

“Neither is bridge.”

Quentin was dummy on this hand, appropriately enough. He laid down his cards for Sarah to choose from and watched her intently as she played. Sometimes he scrutinized Sarah’s face, then her mother’s, then hers, fascinated or—if he shared Sarah’s opinion—alarmed at the likeness.

Sarah was able to contain herself while she controlled the cards, but when she finished and the bidding began for the next hand, she couldn’t stand it. She hardly ever sat still for this long. Just one more hand. Hyped from her run that morning, she tapped her feet under the table.

“Don’t fidget, sweetie,” her mother said as Beulah, the dummy for this hand, left the table. Sarah had noticed during the session that Beulah seemed to take a break from Sarah’s mother every time she was dummy, which didn’t surprise Sarah in the least.

“Don’t scold, Mom,” Sarah said. “It doesn’t become you.” Then, as she watched her mother rearrange Beulah’s cards to her liking with busy efficiency, she asked, “Has Beulah done any better this session?”

“Beulah,” her mother said derisively, “just took me to four with only five points in her hand, as you can see, and we’re vulnerable.”

“Maybe you should play poker instead of bridge,” Quentin suggested, the first words he’d spoken other than bridge bids since Sarah’s mother sat down. “Poker and bridge are a lot alike. Your poker face would come in handy. And you wouldn’t have to count on anybody but yourself.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” her mother said dismissively, studying her cards.

Quentin said, “Of course, poker’s more of a man’s game.”

Sitting back in her chair with an amused smile and one eyebrow arched, Sarah’s mother examined Quentin like a tiger looking over a piece of meat. “Is it, now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said guilelessly.

Sarah’s mother leaned toward the table again and began to play the hand. “Perhaps it’s you who needs to play bridge instead of poker. If your whole life is poker, playing the game isn’t fun.”

Quentin shot Sarah an alarmed look. Sarah shrugged. Her mother liked to scare people.

Her mother scared Quentin again at the end of the session when she asked him to accompany her to the teller machine in the lobby as her bodyguard. She asked Sarah to get them a table for dinner in the restaurant. Clearly this was a ploy to grill or threaten Quentin alone, but Sarah knew that attempts to dissuade her mother weren’t worth the effort. She moved to a table in the restaurant and waited obediently.

Quentin looked stricken when they returned, but he managed to pull out the chair for Sarah’s mother before informing Sarah that he’d be waiting for her at the bar.

“Won’t you join us for dinner?” Sarah’s mother asked, sounding genuinely disappointed.

“Oh, no, ma’am,” he said. “I already et.” He actually said et. “I’m sorry you missed the barbecue I grilled up earlier.”

“You were supposed to be working on my album,” Sarah said.

“I did that, too. I was multi—” He ran out of words.

“Multitasking?” Sarah suggested.

“You amaze me with your book learning.” He leaned down to kiss her lips softly, then held her gaze with his green eyes for a few seconds, giving her strength, before crossing the room and easing onto a barstool.

Sarah didn’t blame him. It could be that he’d already eaten, or that he wanted to give her time alone with her mother. Most likely, fifteen minutes of Sarah and her mother sparring was all he could stand. Sarah knew the feeling.

“Happy early birthday, sweetie,” her mother said, passing her five hundred-dollar bills under the table, as if she was afraid they’d be mugged in the hotel restaurant. Sarah tried to accept the gift graciously. She didn’t mention that she still had three thousand dollars in poker winnings in her bag.

They chatted for a few minutes about relatives, and Sarah’s lying, cheating, soon-to-be-ex-husband, and Wendy, whom Sarah’s mother had met several times and disapproved of as “brazen.” But Sarah’s mother had nothing but praise for Quentin.

“Such a gentleman,” she said between dainty sips of she-crab bisque. “And so handsome. If only we could get him out of that faded T-shirt.” She glanced up at Sarah. “So to speak.”

“He’s not exactly the corporate mogul you always said you wanted for me, Mom,” Sarah pointed out. “And he’s very talented, but he doesn’t seem all that bright. This is one of those times you’d be telling your bridge friends, ‘Thank goodness intelligence descends through the mother.’ ”