Every Second Counts (13 page)

Leah reached for the cordless phone and ran her finger down the list of speed dials taped next to it on the desk. “I’ll call—”

“That’s right, baby. I’m a bad girl. You need to punish me.”

Leah growled and slammed the phone down. “That’s not kids up there.”

Bridgette laughed. “You recognize the ‘bad girl’?”

A loud slap and squeal, then a low murmur. “I have. I’ve been a very bad girl.”

Bridgette choked back a laugh and shook her head at the breathy declaration.

“I should have guessed,” Leah said, shaking her head, too. “That’s Alexandra. I swear that slut will jump anything that’s breathing.”

“I’m surprised Skyler lets someone like that around with all the kids here in the afternoons.”

“The only good thing I can say about her is that she has a strict nineteen-or-older rule, and her husband’s a significant donor to the Parker Foundation. As long as the bitch keeps her hands off the kids, Skyler, and Tory, whatever else she does isn’t my business.”

A rapid series of slaps and squeals had them both covering their mouths to stifle their laughter.

“Damn, I wish I had a recorder on me,” Leah said. “Sounds like she’s getting exactly what she deserves.”

The slapping slowed as the squeals became whimpers, then finally stopped, and Bridgette turned back to her sketch. What she saw when she looked at the blank paper, however, wasn’t horses. She shifted in her chair. She was having difficulty seeing anything other than a woman stretched over the lap of a lover, her pale buttocks marked with red handprints.

She snuck a sideways glance at Leah, glad to see she wasn’t the only one flushed and shifting in her seat. She took a deep breath and scanned the drawings she had taped on the wall in an effort to fill her thoughts with horses instead of what was going on overhead. Leah began typing on her laptop, and the familiar sound helped Bridgette refocus.

Then the squeaking started. Random at first, then a steady rhythm. Throaty moans. Definitely Alexandra. Deep murmurs. Not Alexandra.

Leah clicked her mouse a few times and soft music drifted from her laptop to cover the noise. She resumed typing, and Bridgette began to draw.

“Harder, fuck me harder. Yes. Pound my pussy with that big thing. That’s it.” A second of quiet, low murmurs, then slapping, but less sharp.
Smack, smack, smack
joined the
bump, bump, bump
of the bed against the wall.

The moaning grew louder, joined by growls and grunts. The sexual symphony drowned out Leah’s soft music.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Leah grabbed a broom that was propped in the corner and used the handle end to thump loudly against the ceiling. “Hold it down up there,” she yelled.

“Oh, God, oh, God. I’m coming, I’m coming. Don’t stop.” Alexandra’s scream was shrill.

Bridgette gathered her things. “I’m sorry, Leah, but I can’t work with that racket. My concentration is totally blown.”

“Yeah. Mine, too.” Leah began shutting down her laptop.

“Why don’t we meet at my loft tomorrow afternoon and start work on a storyboard?”

“Sounds good. I’ll try to have an outline and maybe some rough dialogue ready.”

Leah was locking the office door when footsteps and voices sounded from the stairway.

“Sorry to hurry off, but I’ve got to go shopping this afternoon before I make nice with some of my husband’s business clients tonight. I hate these dinners, but he pays the bills so I have to play the dutiful wife.”

“Not a problem. I promised to meet Jess at the pool again to help her with her exercises.”

Bridgette froze at the sound of the second voice. Ryder? What was she doing here?
An injury. She’s a professional rider…I told Sky to call her up and insist she come here to rehab.
Crap. She flashed back to the woman riding the white stallion. Of course. That’s why Ryder had seemed familiar when she saw her in the art gallery. She was wearing the same tight black T-shirt, just as she was now.

“God. I’m glad Edward never wanted children. I don’t think I could stand to be pregnant. It’s so disgusting,” Alexandra said.

“Jess is beautiful—” Ryder stopped as they emerged from the stairway.

“Bridgette.” Her face flushed a deep red as she stared at them. “Someone was banging—”

“That would be me.” Leah’s voice dripped sarcasm. “We were trying to work in the office, but your bad girl’s little punishment session made it impossible to concentrate.”

“She’s not my…I didn’t know anyone else was here,” Ryder said weakly, her eyes begging Bridgette to understand. “Fuck. It was just a one-time thing.”

Alexandra looked from Ryder to Bridgette. “Oops. Have I been poaching again?” Her sugar-sweet smile was insincere. “Sorry.”

She stood on the toes to kiss Ryder’s cheek and run her fingers through Ryder’s hair. “I’m going to have a hard time forgetting you, stud, especially every time I sit down tonight.”

She hurled Bridgette an arrogant look. “You lesbians really should keep a tighter rein on your butches.” She laughed. “But then, that would spoil my fun, wouldn’t it? Toodles, ladies.”

“Bitch.” Leah’s growl bounced off Alexandra’s back as she left.

Ryder took a step toward Bridgette. “I didn’t—”

Leah moved between them in a protective stance and glared at Ryder. “Obviously you did. We, unfortunately, had front-row seats.”

“I have to go,” Bridgette said, turning away. She was tossing her art bag into the passenger seat of her car when Leah caught up to her.

“It’s just a guess, but I get the impression you two know each other.”

“Yes.”

Leah was a friend, but she didn’t feel like sharing right now. She was burning with jealousy, but she had no right, no claim. She had sent Ryder away. She had walked away from other women before. She hadn’t blinked an eye when Tory chose Leah over her. So why did she feel so wounded this time? She and Tory had actually dated. She and Ryder had a one-night stand. There was nothing between them. At least that’s what she’d told Ryder. That’s what she’d told herself.

“Are you two dating?”

“No.” Bridgette’s laugh was a harsh bark, even to her own ears. “We had a fling. She posed as a model for one of my art classes.”

Leah looked thoughtful. “Appears like it was more than a fling. You both seem upset.”

“We had fun. That was it.” She slammed the car door and walked around to the driver’s side. She needed to leave, to be alone to stuff her emotions back into the dark prison where she’d guarded them the past few years.

But she also knew that Tory was a friend of Ryder’s and it wasn’t fair to let Leah think Ryder had broken any promises. “I was the one who told her one night was all there was between us. I’m just irritated that we couldn’t get more done. I love working on the books with you, but I’ve got a lot of things to do for the auction, too.”

“I might be able to help you with that. I have some media contacts that could generate some publicity for the event.”

“That would be wonderful, Leah. We can talk about it tomorrow. Around two o’clock?”

“See you then.”

Ryder stood in the shadows of the barn entrance and watched Bridgette drive away. She frowned when Leah spotted her and sauntered over.

“Well, Romeo, you managed to screw that up royally.”

“What’d she say?” Even though Bridgette had refused to be with her again, she was always on the edge, sometimes at the center, of Ryder’s thoughts. “She hates me, doesn’t she?”

Leah studied her and Ryder shifted restlessly under her scrutiny.

“She’s upset that we weren’t able to get much done. She’s got a lot of demands on her time right now, and your rather vocal tryst with Alexandra wasted the afternoon for her.”

Ryder hung her head. “What’d she tell you about us?”

“She said you had a one-night stand. Was it more than that?”

She stared down the empty driveway. “No. I guess that was it.”

Bridgette slammed the door and dropped her bag at her feet. She stood in the middle of the loft, filled with uncertainty. She’d never felt so discombobulated.

Mentally exhausted, she wanted to lie down on her bed and close her eyes to shut out the world. But the touch of silk sheets would only conjure visions of Ryder hovering over her, fierce yet tender, taking and at the same time filling her. No. She wouldn’t go to the bedroom.

She felt rudderless.

She’d traveled the world most of her life, as a child with her parents and often alone as an adult. She had no answer when people would ask, “Where’re you from?” Even then, she’d never felt adrift. Her safe place, her home base, was the tranquil center that she could find within herself whenever, wherever she simply sat down and meditated on being still.

Her balcony was her favorite place to meditate. A tall glass of wine and the sound of the stream trickling below might restore her calm. But her gaze fell on the wine rack and all she could see was the missing bottle she had shared with Ryder while she paged through the sketchpad. No. She could not be still. Not while her center was a tornado of twisting, churning emotions.

Then it came to her, a vision so pure and sharp that her fingers twitched with urgency.

Three hours later, the clay figure of a Grecian woman warrior had taken shape, and Bridgette began to carefully tool the details of a full-face helmet, a flowing cape, and a lean, toned physique. If she couldn’t push the thoughts out of her head, then she would let them flow through her artist’s hands.

Those hands were beginning to cramp now, after hours of frantic work. The sculpture wasn’t completely finished, but she sat back and considered what she had created. Though the figure stood at ease, her subtle shaping of the muscles gave the distinct impression of coiled, barely restrained power. It was good. Very good. Probably the best work she’d done in years.

Her stormy emotions had calmed, and she put down her sculpting knife to stretch her arms overhead. She was hungry. Ravenous, actually. She had two hours before she had to meet with the auction committee on campus, so she decided to clean up and have a sandwich and latte at her favorite coffee shop downtown.

*

Bridgette put in her order and turned to search for an empty table in the busy coffee shop. All were filled, so she glanced at the back area where a short couch and several overstuffed chairs clustered around a coffee table. All seats were taken, but one of the two wingback chairs flanking a small table in the corner of the room was open. She glanced at the other chair, startled when Ryder met her gaze.

Bridgette had turned to request her order to go when a man at the front of the store stood to leave. Relieved that the table was on the other side of the room, she intentionally settled in a chair that put her back to Ryder. Still, she could feel Ryder’s eyes on her, and her cheeks flushed hot as she flashed back to the spanking and moaning that had filtered down through the ceiling of the barn office.

She didn’t want to think about that. She needed a distraction. While she waited for her food, she pulled out her notes to compile the agenda for the evening meeting.

“Turkey and cheese on wheat with cucumbers and sprouts and an iced Red Eye?”

“Yes, that’s mine.” Bridgette moved her papers aside and looked up as Ryder slid the dinner order on the table.

“I intercepted your waitress. I would have figured you for a chai latte kind of girl.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

“I’m willing to learn if you give me a chance. I could use another friend.”

“You don’t seem to have any trouble finding new friends.”

Ryder flushed. She looked down at the table and cleared her throat. “I’ll understand if you tell me to get lost again. I just wanted apologize for earlier.”

She sipped her coffee and stared at Ryder. “You don’t owe me an apology. What you do isn’t any of my business.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your work.”

But not sorry that we overheard the details of you fucking that woman? Not sorry that just last night, you were begging me to sleep with you?
She was angrier at her surprising and irrational jealousy than at Ryder’s behavior. She had no claim, no right.

The ringing of her phone stopped her retort and she glanced at the caller ID. “I have to take this.”

Instead of leaving, Ryder sat in the chair across from her.

“Hello?”

“William Blanchard here, Bridgette. I know you have a committee meeting tonight and I wanted to give you that name I mentioned last week. Eleanor White’s granddaughter?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I forgot to come by and get the phone number.”

“I believe you may know the people she is staying with.”

“Really? Well, that should make things easier. Hold on a second while I get a pen.” She pushed her food aside and pulled her auction notes in front of her to write down the name. “Go ahead. Yes. I’m sorry. Can you spell it for me? At the equestrian center? I was just there this morning. I’ll phone right after my meeting. Yes. Thank you.”

She ended the call. Ryder was looking at her curiously.

“Is someone besides you visiting Jess and Skyler?”

“No. Who are you expecting?”

“William must have his information wrong. We’re trying to get in touch with Eleanor White’s granddaughter. Somebody told him she was staying at the equestrian center. Her name is Marci…” She looked down to check her note.

“Ridenhouer,” Ryder said, her voice flat.

Her earlier anger evaporated and she wanted to laugh at the comically sour expression on Ryder’s face. “You know her?”

“I
am
her. At least, I was. The first thing most kids do when they turn eighteen is register to vote. I went to the courthouse to have my name changed.”

“Marci isn’t that bad.” She couldn’t stop her smile.

“Do I look like a Marci to you?”

“No. I’d have to say Marc fits you much better.”

“Thank you.” Ryder’s expression softened. “I’ve missed your smile,” she said quietly.

Bridgette looked down at the table. “This is awkward.”

“Smiling?”