Can't Buy Me Love (10 page)

But what could she do? Fix his head? Turn back time?

If only.

Telling her would only cause her grief.

“You look beautiful,” he said, making her smile and distracting her from her concern. “Like a dove.”

She ran a hand down the front of her cool gray suit. “You’re drunk,” she accused without any heat.

“You’re right. But you’re still the most beautiful woman I know.”

“It kills me that you’re wasting all this charm on your mother.”

“He’s only charming when he’s drunk,” Victoria chimed in. She smiled, swift and careful, and affection cooled his anger. Beat back his uglier emotions.

“She’s right,” he said with a wink.

His mother still watched him, her blue eyes piercing beneath her dramatic silver hair. The bone structure he’d inherited, the sleek nose, sharp cheekbones, and high forehead, made her look aristocratic. As if she were only a few steps down the bloodline from royalty.

She was sixty-two and he couldn’t look at her without thinking about her being twenty-four when she had him, married to a man almost double her age, stranded down here on this ranch. They’d divorced months after he was born, so he never knew his parents married. Couldn’t imagine what that was like.

“Why’d you marry him?” he asked.

She blinked in surprise and then quickly hid it under all her still waters. “I was pregnant. And he was … persuasive.”

“Did he hurt you? Is that how he persuaded you?”

Luc understood the beauty people saw when they looked at his mother. He recognized it. But when he looked at her, all he ever saw was the woman who made him a dog costume for Halloween when he was five and a cat costume for herself, and let him chase her through their ritzy Montreal neighborhood.

Four years in a row.

It was hard for her to be at his every game, but when she said she was going to be there, he’d look up from center ice and see her in her spot, three rows up from the visitor’s net.

She slapped another kid’s mother once. He wasn’t sure why; she’d never told him the story. But in front of all the other parents, Celeste Baker had backhanded some hockey mom.

This woman was his champion. And it killed him that she had ever suffered under Lyle Baker’s “love.”

“He never … treated me that way. It seems he saved all of that for you children when I wasn’t here to stop him.” Her eyes flickered over his shoulder to Victoria and Jacob.

“Did you love him?” he asked, unable to see it. Nothing in Lyle Baker inspired love. Respect, maybe, if you didn’t spend too much time with him. But not love.

Not from a woman like Celeste.

“That’s so hard to believe?”

He laughed and stared at the bottom of his cut-glass tumbler, wishing he had some ice. All this warm booze was drying him out.

“He was a hard man, but for a while … it was good. When I found out how you were treated …”

The glass caught the light, sending prisms across his legs. They’d never talked about this. And twenty years later it still seemed like a secret he should keep from her. “That’s why you sent me to hockey camp that summer? You found out?”

“I heard you at night, talking in your bed. I knew what you wanted to do to him and … well, it wasn’t hard to put it together. Why didn’t you tell me? All those years?”

He shrugged. Pride, maybe. Crying to his mom seemed like it would only make things worse.

“It’s a million years ago now.”

“Luc.”
She touched his hand where he rubbed his forehead. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m fine,” he said, desperate to change the subject. “Ready to be gone and at the beck and call of all your charitable whims.” The long level look she gave him indicated she wasn’t fooled. But wouldn’t push the issue. Now.

“You’ve been blessed, Luc. The least you can do is donate some signed hockey pucks to a few worthy causes.”

“So I’m told,” he said. “Thank you for keeping my karma in working order.”

Her laugh was deep, that startling bark so at odds with her elegance. “It takes more than a few silent auction donations to do that, my son. In fact, I have joined the board for Sick Kids Hospital—”

Victoria’s head snapped up. That charity had been a favorite of hers and she’d been on the board until they asked her to leave.

“I’m sensing there will be more than signed hockey pucks in my future.”

“We’ll talk about it once we’re done with this current mess,” Celeste said.

“They’re reading the will this afternoon,” Victoria said, pressing back Jacob’s wild dark curls that were springing up in the humidity.

Luc tucked his phone back in his pocket. The old man was dead; his career was hanging by a thread. It was time to go home.

“Fine,” he said. “But after that I’m leaving.”

Victoria nodded, not looking at him.

“Can we go with you?” Jacob asked, and Luc felt bad for the kid. He really did.

But Victoria shook her head. “We’re going to stay a little longer.”

“Why?” Celeste asked, and Luc inwardly cringed. His
gracious mother turned into Godzilla around Victoria. Their mutual tension fed off each other, like that of rabid cats, making both of them act like idiots. It had been going on for so long that neither of them knew how to break the pattern.

Victoria braced herself and looked Celeste in the eye—a show of maturity it had taken her years to accomplish. “We have nowhere else to go,” she said.

“Nonsense,” Celeste said. “You’re staying with Luc.”

“That’s not our home.”

Celeste’s eyebrows rose. “And this is?”

“Mom,” he whispered. “It’s Vicks’s choice.”

She opened her mouth, but Luc stared at her hard and finally she nodded. “Of course,” she said, gracious at last, but far too late.

He’d spent most of his life trying to convince his sister that Celeste didn’t hate her. It never seemed to work.

All of Celeste’s cool and imperial efforts to befriend Vicks came off as disapproval and only made things worse. He caught Celeste’s eye, and she seemed to be asking him to help smooth the rocky road between her and her husband’s mistress’s child.

But some things were beyond even the Ice Man’s ability to control. He grabbed his whiskey.

“I’ll see you in the den for the will reading,” he said, then went back to his room to make some calls.

An hour later, without his suit coat and tie, Luc walked into the den, and judging by the looks his mother and sister gave him, he was late.

Celeste and Victoria sat on the deep couch with the carved antelope armrests. His mother looked ridiculous sitting next to the serape thrown over the back of the couch, like serving champagne with beans.

A tall, thin man who looked vaguely familiar stood in the front of the room, by Lyle’s big desk.

“I’m Randy Jenkins,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Your father’s lawyer.”

“Great,” Luc said, shaking the man’s hand. He had a good buzz going, and this whole scene felt fuzzy. In a very pleasant way. If you were going to the reading of your father’s will, might as well do it drunk.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Jenkins asked, a sly smile on his thin lips.

“Should I?”

“I competed against you in the peewee circuit when we were kids.”

Oh God. Randy Jenkins. Honestly, this day could not get worse
.

“Of course, good to see you, Randy.”

Randy had not just competed against Luc in those peewee rodeo competitions, he’d slaughtered him. Not that it was hard. Kids in wheelchairs outwrangled him.

“A pleasure to see you,” Randy said. “I’ve been an avid fan of yours since you played for the Hurricanes.”

“Never would have pegged you as a hockey fan,” Luc said.

Randy shrugged. “We’ve all got our surprises. And I have to say, these rumors about Toronto trading some folks to Dallas for Lashenko are pretty interesting. Particularly if it’s you. We could use your experience on the team. Your leadership.” His gray eyes twinkled behind his glasses, and Luc had the sinking feeling that the whole damn hockey world was thinking the same thing. This trade made sense. Farm out the old guy, bring in the hotshot. The math was pretty fucking simple. “I had hoped you might be willing to substantiate those rumors.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Luc practically barked. Jenkins pushed his thin glasses up higher on his nose.

“Then who do you think they’ll trade? Billy Wilkins?”

“Billy’s hurt. He’s out the first half of the season no matter where he goes.”

The never-pleasant early-afternoon hangover began to burn through his buzz. To say nothing of his manners.

Normally, he could talk hockey all day, but somehow doing it with Randy Jenkins seemed wrong.

“Look, Luc, I don’t suppose I could have an autograph for my son. He’s a young player with some skill—”

Luc looked over at his mother and sister, sitting so straight their backs were miles from the sofa. Eli Turnbull stood in the back, totally unreadable. “I don’t think this is the time.”

“Right.” Randy waved a hand between them. “Of course, my apologies.”

“But later,” Luc said, a small peace offering. “No problem.”

Randy nodded and sat down behind the desk, then started flipping through papers.

Luc headed over to the bar in the corner next to Eli.

“Have a drink, Eli.” He checked the ice bucket, hoping for the best, only to be disappointed. “Is there no ice in Texas?”

“It’s one in the afternoon, Luc.”

“The ice only comes out at night?”

Eli’s lip twitched, which Luc understood to be a clear indication the man was ready to drink. “Whiskey?” he asked, smiling at the cowboy. It was a stretch to say they’d grown up together, but there had been that one March break when they’d taken one of his dad’s bottles of Wild Turkey behind the barn and gotten drunker than any two kids should. He’d woken up with a black eye, no shoes, and a hangover like the fist of God squeezing his brain. “Like the old days?”

“We didn’t have old days.” Eli was back to being stone-faced. Luc always knew that guy was no fun.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Luc poured himself two fingers of whiskey and then, because it was a long walk to the empty club chairs, he added a third. And then he poured an equal amount in another tumbler and left it for Eli.

Just in case.

“Now that Luc is here, we just need Tara Jean,” Jenkins said.

Luc paused before sitting in one of the club chairs. “Why?”

“She’s named in the will.”

“Oh Lyle, you son of a bitch,” Celeste muttered.

“I don’t think she’s still here,” Luc said.

“She’s in the greenhouse,” Eli said. His voice sounded like it had been dragged down a long gravel road.

“She wasn’t at the funeral,” Victoria said. “Or the wake.”

Eli shrugged. “She’s been in the greenhouse.”

Luc sighed and stood. His motor revved at the thought of going toe-to-toe with Tara Jean again.

“I’ll go get her.”

He stepped to the door, but Eli got there before him and stood in his way.

Luc blinked. The cowboy moved fast.

“She’s grieving,” Eli said, his green eyes sizing Luc up. Luc couldn’t help it, he snorted. The loss of her fortune, maybe. Eli shook his head. “She is, and you make things worse for her and we’ll have words.”

Words. That was cowboy for
I’ll put my fist in your face
.

“Don’t worry.” Luc clapped a hand on the smaller man’s shoulders. “She’ll survive.”

Luc brushed past Eli and through the sliding glass door at the back of the room. The top of the greenhouse
was visible over the lilacs that were going brown in the sun.

What the hell was she doing in the greenhouse?

She didn’t seem the amateur horticulturist type.

He took another sip of his drink and rounded the corner. Through the glass walls he caught sight of a couple of people standing around.

A party?

He had to laugh. That girl had brass balls the size of watermelons.

The arched wooden door to the greenhouse was warped and stood slightly cracked. It didn’t take much to push it open.

There were no plants. And the people were actually headless dummies. All of them wearing leather. Weird.

A long table marched down the center of the room, T-ed by a rack of clothes. Leather clothes. At the other end of the table was a desk.

“Sorry,” he said to the woman sitting there, hunched over paperwork. “But I’m looking—”

The woman looked up. Her face was red and splotchy, as though she was in the middle of an allergic reaction. Her eyes were obliterated by puffiness. A ponytail made a valiant effort to keep stringy blond hair in place, but most of it fell into the woman’s face.

She wore an old flannel shirt, held together by one button. Under that, there was a man’s white tank top, covered in brown and black spots.

It took a second, because he was drunk and because never, ever in his life did he expect a professional gold digger to be seen in public looking so terrible, but when the penny dropped, he laughed.

And couldn’t stop.

“Tara Jean Sweet,” he said, “you look like shit.”