Can't Buy Me Love (17 page)

But when the silence stretched on she glanced up at him, saw him staring at the road. The bluebells were gone, replaced by hardscrabble sage and dirt.

“And Dad just took a liking to how you read the Sports page? Offered to bring you to his home so you could do it full time?”

She gaped at him slightly, realizing he was angry with his father on her behalf. Amazing! That was a first for her and she didn’t quite know how to respond.

“There was nothing sordid about it, Luc. He was lonely. And dying. He was worried about what would happen to Baker Leather once he was gone. I didn’t have any other job prospects, so when he offered me a chance to come out and learn the business, I took it.”

“You have a lot of experience designing leather skirts?”

“I told him I did.” He shot her a wicked look and she rolled her eyes. Honestly, he was years too late with the sarcasm. “He knew I was lying. Believe what you want, he was kind to me.”

“Kind.” Luc shook his head as if the word didn’t make any sense. She waited for some other vicious comment or look from him, ready to defend Lyle against his son’s hate, but he stared out the window as if the scrub brush were a threat that needed to be watched.

From the bag at her feet, she pulled out a tissue and pressed it to the bead of blood on her pinky, the red seeping across the white like a poison. She watched and wondered if she was the poison or the thing being poisoned, which was a ridiculous thing to wonder, so she crumpled up the tissue and threw it into her bag.

“Hey Luc,” she said. “If … if you have questions about me, just ask. No need for private investigators.”

She stared at him, as earnest and naked as she’d been in years. She already had Dennis to worry about. She
didn’t want to worry about some P.I. digging through her secrets and carrying them back to Luc.

“I don’t intend to have him do any more digging.”

“Thank you.”

The silence stretched, cracks formed, the past lurked, and Tara had no desire to slip into those horrible places.

“So, Luc, what do you do besides hockey?”

“You’re joking.”

“No, surely you’ve got some kind of charity. Isn’t that what you rich people do? Give your money away so you don’t feel so guilty?”

He laughed a little as if they were sharing some inside joke. The sun came out from behind a cloud and he put his shades back on, and she felt as if he were hiding. “My mother takes care of my karma.”

“Okay. But you have to have a hobby. You breed dogs? Knit? Play bridge?”

“Does trying to keep my star center out of jail count?”

“No. Well, maybe. Is he often in jail?”

“Often enough.”

“All right, that’s half a hobby. What else?”

“That’s it, Tara. I play hockey, work out, and try to keep Gates out of jail.”

“And I thought my life was boring.” She laughed, she couldn’t help it; honestly, what a cliché.

“Why is that funny?” he asked, the smile gone. “I love what I do. I don’t want to think about anything else. I don’t need anything else.”

The ferocity surprised her; the hair on her arms stood on end in a sudden prickly awareness. She should let it go, like a scab that wasn’t quite ready to come off.

But she couldn’t help herself.

“No wife? No little Lucs carrying hockey sticks and wearing miniature suits?”

“No wife,” he said. “No family.”

“Friends?”

“I have my team, Tara. They’re all I need.”

“Fair enough,” she said, slightly chagrined by his honesty. And at the same time a little sad for him. If he’d been a footnote in his father’s life, he was doing the same to everything in his own life that didn’t involve being on the ice.

“What about you?” he asked.

“No wife for me either,” she said, backing up and away from the thin intimacy they’d built, the fragile bridge between them.

“Where are your friends?”

“He just died.”

The easiness between them scattered like crows after a gunshot.

His mouth shut so hard she heard his back teeth click, and she wished she’d never started this conversation. Wished she’d never gotten in this car. They should have driven separately. Or, better yet, Luc should have acted like a reasonable adult rather than a jerk and just taken care of his inheritance when he was supposed to.

“The private investigator told me you grew up in Arkansas.”

She twisted her body toward the window, giving him every signal to shut the hell up.

“Where?”

“Does it matter?”

He glanced at her. Her distorted body reflected back at her in his slick sunglasses. “I’m not passing judgment.”

“A trailer.” She stared out her window. “In the middle of nowhere.”

Her cell phone beeped and she fumbled in her bag for it. Another email from her Nigerian prince, but Luc didn’t need to know that.

“Excuse me, but I need to do a little work.”

“Tara Jean,” he said after a long moment. “If you’re angry about what happened in the arena—”

“I don’t care about what happened in the arena.” She didn’t bother looking up from her cell phone.

She could feel his gaze on her, as if it were his large, hot hands. And she wanted to scream because she was smarter than this. Savvy to the wayward temptation of a handsome man’s grin. What she was a sucker for, though, was his quiet and startling interest in
her
. If kissing him was a mistake, then liking him was a disaster.

The rest of the drive passed without a word between them until Luc asked for directions to the lawyer’s office.

Once Tara had hand delivered Luc to a very pleased Randy Jenkins, she headed out into Uptown and got herself an iced coffee and, because that drive was harder than she’d thought it would be, a donut.

With sprinkles.

Because sometimes a girl needed her crutch.

She sat on a bench off McKinley, outside the lawyer’s office, and watched the world stroll by.

“Well, well, well,” a voice purred over her shoulder. Her heart collapsed in her chest and she choked on her breath, drowning in panic.

Run!
the Demon screamed.

Desperate, her eyes searched the faces of the men walking past, praying one of them would see the danger she was in.

“If it isn’t sweet Jane Simmons … oh, wait, that’s not you anymore, is it? It took me a while to track you down, Tara Jean. I have to say, I don’t much like the new name. Makes you sound like a stripper.”

“How the hell did you find me here?” Her voice cracked to pieces in panic.

“I’ve been watching that ranch for about a week. You don’t leave the place, except to go home. And your apartment has got all those locks, Jane, honestly. Someone would think you were scared of something.” His smile showed every tooth. “This is the first chance I’ve had to catch you alone.”

He sat beside her, a thin man, handsome to her once, terribly handsome, with his aging high-school-football-star looks. Brown hair with a hint of gold, bright white teeth, a dimpled smile. Those eyelashes that stretched for miles. It was all a façade hiding ugliness so profound it had destroyed her life.

The donut she’d eaten began to crawl up her throat.
Get up!
The Demon screamed.
Get up right now!

Every muscle tensed to stand.

“Hey now, honey.” Dennis put a hand over hers and she yanked it free, repulsed by his touch.

“Don’t touch me,” she said through her teeth.

“Fine.” He dropped the act, but slid in closer. “But don’t go running off. We have some things to talk about.”

She would have vomited on him if her body weren’t frozen.

“You’ve been busy since I’ve been gone.” He stretched his arm across the bench, as if they were just two people chatting. “Luc Baker, that’s a hell of a mark.”

“Luc is not a mark,” she said, finding her voice and a new source of fear. Luc getting swirled into these waters was not something she wanted to consider. Ever.

“His sister, then?” Dennis asked, and ice rolled down her spine. “The stick lady, what’s her name? Victoria?”

While Dennis had been watching her, he’d been watching the whole Baker family. And of course he’d assume the worst.

Suddenly, she felt her strength return like a cold wind coming down from the mountains. This man was a
worm and he was dangerous, but he couldn’t hurt her in front of all these people. And she wasn’t timid Jane Simmons anymore. She wasn’t this man’s doormat. Not anymore. Not ever again.

“Go away.” Her voice was metal and steel and it rang out in the sunshine. “Honestly, move on, Dennis. You and I are done.”

“Come on, now, baby. Do you think I’m just going to let you go? We made real money—”

“No.” She shook her head, resolute in this of all things. “I’m not doing that anymore.”

“Right,” he drawled, clearly not believing her. “Fine. But you owe me some money. From that last geezer.”

“There is no money, Dennis. I gave it back.” She smiled slightly, pleased to have thwarted him, to have taken something he wanted and tossed it away where he could never get it.

“Now, Jane.” His fingers reached for her cheek and she jerked from his touch. “Last time you told me that line, you got hurt.”

“You beat the shit out of me, Dennis,” she snapped. “Put me in the hospital. I’d say we’re even.”

“Even? That was ten grand—”

“Look at me, Dennis, I’m not doing that anymore. It’s over. There’s no money.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze and not back down.

You don’t scare me
, she thought,
not anymore
. He couldn’t hurt her on this crowded street, not really, and she wasn’t about to let him back into her life. It was as if her own strength had sealed up the cracks where he’d always found entrance.

He was so little, sitting there in his second-hand clothes.

“You’ve gone clean.” He nodded his head, as if he was in total approval, but she knew better. He’d taught her better. “That’s admirable.”

“Stay away from me, Dennis,” she said. “I’ve got a new life.”

He lurched toward her, his hands clenching her wrist so hard the bones rubbed, and she gasped at the sudden pain. “You got shit, Jane. A woman like you wants to believe you can do better. But you can’t. You’re good for one thing, and it’s best when it’s dirty.”

She didn’t realize she was on her feet, blinking in shock, until he switched his grip on her hand, as if they were shaking hands. No one watching would think it was a manacle holding her to the past, keeping her in the filth.

“Tara Jean?”

She stiffened in panic. Luc. It was Luc behind her.

Dennis stood, smiling like a salesman, and she wondered if Luc saw that or if he only saw the charm.

So many people only saw the charm until it was too late.

But Luc was frowning down at Dennis from his professional-athlete height. Worry in his eyes. She didn’t need Luc curious, or worried, or involved in her situation with Dennis in any way.

So she put on a big, bright happy smile. “Luc, this is an old friend of mine. Dennis. Dennis Murphy.”

“Luc Baker,” Dennis said, holding out his hand. “I’m a huge fan.”

Luc’s giant paw swallowed the smaller man’s hand and Luc glanced over to Tara. She smiled, hoping—praying actually—that it was convincing.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and Tara took a deep breath.

“Well, Dennis, it was good to catch up,” she said. “Best of luck to you.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, turn some screw, slide some blade between her ribs, but she pulled Luc close, putting her arm through his, insinuating
that this big, giant professional athlete at her side would squash Dennis like a bug if she wanted. If she just said the word.

Dennis closed his mouth.

Giddy and light-headed, she leaned on Luc’s arm as they walked back to the car, feeling as if she’d just fought the devil.

And won.

Tara was good
, Luc would grant her that. She was calm and cool sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV. She didn’t fidget, she didn’t
seem
in anyway disturbed.

But she was one unsettled woman.

Maybe it was the total stillness of her, the way she didn’t play with her hair or cross her legs over and over again, the way she had on the drive to Dallas. A girly, strawberry-scented tornado in the front seat determined to distract him from the road.

Now, she just stared out the front window, her face blank.

Eerily blank.

“Who was that guy?” Luc asked.

“Dennis?” Her smile was a work of art, nostalgic as if the name were attached to fond memories.

But he didn’t believe her. Not for a moment.

He nodded, watching her and the road in equal measure.

“An old friend from before I started working for your father.”

“What’s he do?”

“A little bit of everything.” She waved her hand, like it was all nothing. “Real estate, investments; he’s a jack-of-all-trades.”

“Did you date?”

Now she looked at him, her blue eyes carefully blank. “Does it matter?”

“I guess not, you just seem …” He shrugged. “Ruffled.”