Page 94 of Brazen Mistakes

It’s not like I’m drowning in female friends right now. Or any friends at all. “Sure?”

The seamstress has me take off my shoes, and she measures from my shoulder to the ground, then from my waist to the ground, around my waist, chest, and hips, then tells me to go change into the pants I need hemmed. Weird.

Summer’s coming out in the stunning blue gown she chose, and once again, I’m struck by how adorably gorgeous she is. Like a chipmunk and an ice queen had a baby. “Hi, Mag,” she says, sweeping onto the pedestal.

“The usual, Summer?” the seamstress asks.

“The last one was perfect. It only took me minutes to remove the stitches, but the hem stayed the whole night, no issues whatsoever.”

The seamstress grins at that cryptic compliment. “You always make it worth our time in the long run, so none of us mind bending the rules foryou.”

“And I appreciate that fact more than you could know,” Summer counters, before stilling so the seamstress can get to work.

Walker releases my buttons and ties, his cool fingers brushing along the curve of my spine, a whisper of a kiss falling on my bare shoulder. “I know this isn’t the dress you wanted, but you look beautiful in it, Clara.”

“Thanks.” I turn, pressing a kiss to his lips before slipping behind the curtain.

Trying to shimmy out of it without poking myself with any pins proves to be a challenge. Only two scrape me, and neither of them draw blood, so I figure I’m winning at something today.

Summer finishes quickly, and the pants take less time than the dress, so it’s not long before we’re back in street clothes and heading out.

When Summer goes to the checkout, she returns the exact same dress she just left in the capable hands of the seamstress. She had two of them? The attendant says nothing, but moves the return value of the dress from the card it was initially purchased on to a different card entirely, both women acting like this is something they’ve done before.

Credit card fraud? Is that how she gets the money?

No. I haven’t figured it out yet.

But I will. This problem is one of the few things on my list that I could feasibly knock off with just a little effort.

We share pleasant if meaningless conversation as we walk her to her car, a deep blue Porsche that looks built for a racetrack instead of a Midwest winter afternoon.

The engine roars to life as she waves, the car zipping down the street at what has to be twice the legal limit.

Which only leaves one question: where does Summer Jones get all her money?

Chapter 35

Jansen

Waking up to a furious Trips and worried Walker did nothing to help with the constant buzz under my skin. RJ’s gray face after coming back with Clara from the dojo, then having her swooped away by Walker, well, it didn’t help either.

What’s a guy gotta do to hold his girl in his arms, breathe in her floral scent, and try to make the electricity that lives under his skin calm the fuck down?

But no Clara means no cuddles, no sex, no easy relief.

Meditation is my first attempt at distraction.

I fail.

I try tai chi.

I fail at that too.

Desperate, I try to talk RJ into going to the climbing gym with me (damn buddy rule and all that), but he’s neck deep into digging through online bank accounts, no space in hispersonality for anything but fury and calculation. And Trips hates climbing. He says he’s too big to be any good at it, so I don’t even bother asking him.

Which leaves me going from room to room with a stapler, sealing the middle of every window curtain with a metallicchunk-chunkbefore grabbing some painter’s tape from the toolbox to stick the edges against the wall.

No way am I going to be unwelcome in my own home. Bryce can stalk all he wants, but I’m going to make sure there are no more gaps in the fabric for him to peer through.

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