Brown-Eyed Girl (Travis Family #4)(24)

Aside from making a hefty down payment on the warehouse in Montrose, I had never dropped so much money at one time in my life.

“Your new wardrobe is smoking hot,” Steven informed me as we left the store with bags in each hand.

“So is my credit card.”

He checked his messages. “We’re going to the optometrist now. After that, the salon.”

“Just out of curiosity, Steven… is there anything about my personal style that you do like?”

“Your eyebrows aren’t bad. And you have nice teeth.” As we drove away from the Galleria, Steven asked casually, “Are you ever going to tell me what happened with Joe Travis at the Kendrick wedding?”

“Nothing happened.”

“If that were true, you would have told me right away. But you haven’t said anything for a week and a half, which means something happened.”

“Okay,” I admitted. “You’re right. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine by me.” Steven found a soft-rock station on the radio and adjusted the volume.

After a couple of minutes, I burst out, “I slept with him.”

“Did you use protection?”

“Yes.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

After an uncomfortable hesitation, I admitted, “Yes.”

Steven lifted one hand from the wheel to high-five me.

“Wow,” I muttered, returning the high five. “No lectures about one-night stands?”

“Of course not. As long as you use a condom, there’s nothing wrong with commitment-free pleasure. That being said, I wouldn’t advise using someone as a f*ck-buddy. One of you always starts to have feelings. Expectations. Eventually someone gets hurt. So after the one-night stand, it’s better to pull the plug right away.”

“What if the other person asks to see you again?”

“I’m not a Magic Eight Ball.”

“You’re smart about these things,” I insisted. “Tell me – is there any chance of a relationship after you’ve had a one-night stand?”

Steven gave me a wry sideways glance. “Most of the time, a one-night stand means you’ve both already decided it wasn’t going to be serious in the first place.”

It was nine o’clock before Steven finally brought me back home. The stylist at Salon One had worked diligently on my hair for three hours, subjecting it to a regimen of relaxing chemicals, creams, and serums, heating and drying in between each step. She had proceeded to cut off eight inches, leaving me with a lob that fell to my shoulders in loose, silky waves. The salon’s cosmetician had done a mani-pedi in pale taupe, and while the polish was drying, she had shown me how to apply makeup. I had subsequently bought a small bag of cosmetics that had cost as much as my monthly car payment.

As it turned out, the salon visit was worth every penny. Steven, who had decided to have a rejuvenating facial during the last hour of my treatments, emerged just as my makeup was finished. His reaction was priceless. His jaw dropped, and he let out a disbelieving laugh.

“My God. Who the hell are you?”

I rolled my eyes and blushed, but Steven persisted, walking a full circle around me, finally pulling me into his arms for a rare embrace. “You’re gorgeous,” he murmured. “Now own it.”

Later, as we walked into the studio with a multitude of bags, Sofia came downstairs from her third-floor room. She was already dressed in pajamas and fuzzy slippers, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. She gave me a questioning look and shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“We’re bankrupt,” I informed her with a grin. “I spent all our money on hair and clothes.”

To my consternation, my sister’s eyes welled up. Erupting into a stream of fluid Spanish, she embraced me so tightly that I could hardly breathe.

“Is it bad?” I asked.

She began to laugh through her tears. “No, no, you’re so beautiful, Avery…”

Somehow, in the confusion of hugging and rejoicing, Sofia ended up kissing Steven on the cheek.

He went still at the innocent gesture, looking down at her with an odd, flummoxed expression. It lasted only a second before his face went carefully blank. Sofia didn’t seem to notice.

If I’d had any doubts about whether Steven felt something for my sister, I knew what a Magic 8 Ball would have said:

Signs point to yes.

Seven

The night of Hollis Warner’s art auction was humid and hot, the air pungent with wax myrtle and lantana. I pulled up to a valet stand beside a parking area filled with luxury vehicles, and a uniformed attendant helped me from the car. I was wearing the aqua beaded dress, its shortened hem now swirling around my knees. Thanks to Sofia’s help with my hair and makeup, I knew I had never looked better.

Live jazz drifted through the air like smoke as I walked into the Warner mansion, a southern colonial built on a two-acre lot in River Oaks. The home had been one of the original residences back when River Oaks had been established in the twenties. Hollis had nearly doubled the size of the historic building by adding a modern glass extension at the back, a showy but jarring combination. The outline of a huge white tent loomed behind the roof line.

A rush of chilled air surrounded me as I entered a spacious foyer with antique parquet floors. The mansion was already crowded, and the evening had just started. Assistant hostesses handed out catalogs of the artwork that would be up for auction later. “They’ll hold the dinner and auction in the tent¸” one of the hostesses told me, “but right now the house is open for viewing the artwork. The catalog describes the auction items, and lists where they’re located.”