“What can I get for you?” Taylor wanted to mix their drinks and move them on. She’d never wanted to meet Hilary. Never wanted to know whom Brek had chosen after her. The pain of seeing the two of them together was physically debilitating. She could barely breathe. Every muscle in her body ached from holding herself so stiffly.
“Scotch for Daddy and Stuart,” Hilary requested with a sweet smile. “I’ll have a vodka gimlet, and Brek will have . . .” Her expression went blank.
Taylor waited for the woman to say, “Club soda with citrus.” Hilary never did. Her puckered brow indicated that she couldn’t remember what her fiancé drank. Stryke looked concerned as well.
During Brek’s time with her, Taylor knew he hadn’t indulged during baseball season. He’d kept his body at a high-performance level. She wondered whether he drank now or still abstained. She stood quietly, awaiting his order.
“Club soda and citrus,” he finally said.
Taylor exhaled her relief over his choice. She was glad some things hadn’t changed.
Across the bar, Hilary hooked her arm through Brek’s. She looked up at him with her big brown eyes. “Did we decide on a restaurant for dinner? Daddy thought the Prime Club might be nice, but Stuart and I prefer Chesapeake Landing. I’m in the mood for seafood. How about you?”
Stryke shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s an early night.”
Taylor caught Hilary’s pout. “I respect your curfew; I just wish you could stay up past eleven on occasion.”
“Maybe I could,” he agreed, “in the right circumstances.”
Memories hit Taylor hard. She’d always looked forward to his curfew. She and Stryke would strip and race for bed. Neither had slept until the early morning hours, yet he’d still gotten up with the alarm.
Closing her mind to what once had been and would never be again, Taylor set the three alchoholic drinks on the bar, then poured club soda for Brek. She squeezed fresh lemon and lime wedges into the soda, then floated several orange slices on top.
“Another Bud, sweetheart.” Sloan held up his beer glass as Hilary and Stryke picked up their drinks.
Her fingertips damp, Taylor lost her grip on the glass Sloan passed to her. It slipped through her hand. At any other time, she could have caught the glass before it hit the floor; her reflexes were that sharp. Not today, however. Her muscles froze, and she watched as the glass hit the slate tile near her right foot and shattered loudly.
“She’s barefoot,” she heard Sloan say.
She damn sure was. Flecks of blood now patterned her toes. She stepped back, only to feel splinters of glass bite into the ball of her foot.
Angry with herself for being so clumsy, she searched behind the bar for a broom and dustpan. Locating them on a bottom shelf beneath a lemonade pitcher, she quickly bent to clean up the mess.
Pairs of low biker boots, gray suede pumps, and leather loafers rounded the end of the bar as she worked.
“You’re bleeding; I’ll finish up.” Sloan hunkered down beside her and took the broom and dustpan right out of her hands.
“It’s nothing.” She tried to wave Sloan off.
“Glass in your foot is something. You don’t need an infection.” The statement came from Brek, without any inflection of concern.
Emotionally drained, Taylor straightened. “I’m fine. Just fine.” Her knee, swollen and sore, suddenly popped. Her leg buckled and she pitched forward.
It was Stryke who reached for her.
Stryke who caught her.
Stryke whose hands curved about her hips and kept her upright.
Stryke who lifted and swung her over the remaining shards of glass before she could cut herself further.
Stryke who then stepped back and let her limp toward the powder room. Alone.
Taylor set her shoulders and straightened her spine, a physical warning to those gathered not to follow her.
“Should I help her?”
Hilary’s question had Taylor limping a little faster. No matter her good intentions, the very last thing Taylor needed was Brek’s fiancée playing nurse.
She made it to the powder room below the staircase and closed the door. The scents of lemon potpourri and lavender bath soaps soothed her, fragrances that would always remind Taylor of Addie.
Suddenly tired, she leaned against the jamb and closed her eyes. Brek’s arrival at Addie’s party with Hilary was a real killer. Did he hate her so much he wanted to publicly humiliate her, as she’d once humiliated him on their wedding day?
Placing her hand over her heart, Taylor wished she could push back the pain. She’d never have believed her chest could hurt so much. She felt vulnerable. Totally lost. Completely crushed.
And very much alone.
A knock on the door brought her heart to her throat. “Taylor, it’s Hilary Talbott. I’m coming in.”
A push on the door nudged Taylor forward. Hilary peered in. “Let’s clean your foot.”
Don’t be nice to me. Taylor opened her eyes, her gaze unfocused. “I can manage on my own.” Her voice sounded out-of-body.
Hilary glanced down at Taylor’s toes. “There’s a lot of blood.”
“Superficial cuts,” Taylor assured her. “They look worse than they are.”
“Let me be the judge.” Hilary stepped fully into the powder room and motioned toward a stool covered in yellow satin. “Sit down, please.”
Hilary had come to care for Taylor. Only outright rudeness would send her away.
Taylor sank down on the stool.
Hilary then proceeded to study the contents of the medicine cabinet. She set out a bottle of peroxide, a magnifying glass, a pair of tweezers, several cotton balls, and a tube of Neosporin, along with three large Band-Aids.
“What can I hand you first?” Hilary asked.
Taylor slowly slid off her toe rings, crossed her right foot over her left knee, and examined the cuts. They were worse than she’d originally thought. Deeply embedded glass poked from the ball of her foot. Fine splinters stabbed her toes. It would take some time to doctor her foot. toes. It would take some time to doctor “Tweezers,” she finally managed.
Hilary quietly handed them to her.
The silence held as Hilary watched Taylor work on her foot. Every time Taylor blew out a breath and looked up, she met Hilary’s stare.
A rather intense stare, for a woman known to be shy. Taylor sensed that Hilary was sizing her up.