Can't Buy Me Love (18 page)

Beneath the lushness, her laugh was decidedly tinny.

“Seeing him brought back a lot of old memories, that’s all.” She ran a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face, and then squared her shoulders as if she’d just shed some skin. “What did Jenkins have to say? Did he help you with ice time?”

It was a blatant change of subject and part of him resisted, wanting to pull the truth out of her like a bad tooth, but he realized it was pointless. He was leaving in five months, and maybe … well, after what he’d heard in the lawyer’s office, maybe she’d be leaving sooner.

“He was glad to help. He knows the manager of the rink where his son plays. Says she’ll help and be discreet.”

She smiled at him like a cat with a mouth full of cream, like a woman who owned the ground she stood on. And he couldn’t help but stare at her. Couldn’t help but want her.

“Thank you, Tara.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re not getting much of a salary.” Immediately the smile dropped from her face.

“You talked about me?”

“Baker Leather, mostly. You’re earning the same amount Lyle paid you four years ago. And forty thousand a year ain’t much.”

“Well, the company pays for my apartment and utilities.” She shook her head. “Why does any of this matter?”

“Because I can’t sell the land for a year while it’s in escrow, but I can liquidate the assets of the estate. And Baker Leather is an asset.”

“Why would you do that?” For the first time he saw
real panic in her face and it caught him flat-footed. He could only stare. “You said you didn’t care enough about the business to ruin it out of spite.”

Ah, the million-dollar question. Why was he doing this? She was like a hedgehog—rub her one way and you were fine, rub her the other and you got nothing but spikes stuck in your hand. He thought about how she’d bristled and shut down when he’d asked her where she was from.

She had a lot of secrets beneath those spikes.

“As forty-percent owner of the company, you could walk away with a big chunk of money if we liquidate,” he told her.

Her big blue eyes stared at him, unblinking. As though if she looked away for even a moment, he might yank the rug right out from beneath her.

“You could start over somewhere new. Put this place behind you.”

Her laughter was surprising, tired and sore, as if it had walked a long road to see the light of day.

“I’ve started fresh more times than I care to count, Luc.” Her beauty was suddenly threadbare, but what he saw beneath the glamour was infinitely more appealing. It was tough. And honest. “I have no interest in putting this place behind me.”

“But—”

“I understand you hate your father and I’m sure you have plenty of good reason, but he gave me the chance for a new life. And I want that life.”

He looked out across the highway, the black asphalt splitting the dirt and sage. Heat waves rose up off the road, the sun brutal and unforgiving. Not much lived out here, nothing that was pretty or fragile or easy, anyway.

But it was her life. Her choice. He truly didn’t care enough to try to influence her one way or another.

“All right then,” he said. “We won’t liquidate.”

“Why are you doing this? Offering to liquidate for my benefit? Because I won’t sleep with you out of gratitude. Or to keep you from changing your mind.”

“You’ve got a really dirty mind, Tara Jean.”

“You’re saying it never occurred to you to use this to leverage me into your bed.”

He laughed, stroking his chin, wishing with a palpable force that he could stroke her just as easily. But her spines were up.

“I’ve thought about you in my bed almost every minute since I met you,” he said. “And should you be so lucky as to sleep with me—”

“Lucky?” She scoffed and he turned to her, smiling slightly just to watch her bristle even more.

She was a gorgeous hedgehog, that was for sure. And fun to tease.

“Very. And there wouldn’t be any ulterior motives.”

“You’re a fool, Luc Baker.” She turned away, staring out the window at the desolate landscape she apparently wanted to call home.

“Yeah. You’re probably right.”

Jacob hated the ballet classes Victoria had signed him up for. But the sight of him in his black sweatpants and white T-shirt standing at the barre surrounded by girls in pink tutus so delighted Victoria, she had refused to switch him out of it.

“Excuse me,” a man whispered, and the sealed envelope from Webster and McGraw Law Offices in New York floated under her nose. “You dropped this.”

Victoria stared at the letter from the lawyers handling the civil case against her husband’s company. It had arrived this morning and she’d tucked it in her purse and
ignored it. Because she knew without opening it what it said.

We have not yet received your monthly expense report and your receipts
.

The ongoing aspect of her humiliation was having to submit a spending report to the prosecutors, who held her accountable for every penny.

Nobody cared that she’d had no idea what her husband was doing. Nobody believed her when she’d said there was no more money. She’d sold the houses and the furniture and given all the money to the prosecutors to distribute to the people who were bankrupted by Joel’s Ponzi scheme.

She was playing fair. Nice, even. Complying above and beyond.

But, still, every month she had to be held accountable. Her purchases scrutinized, down to the last tampon.

Reluctantly, she took the envelope, sparing a smile for the man standing next to her. And then did a subtle double take.

“No problem,” he said.

No
, she thought,
no problem at all
. Standing beside her was one of the most handsome men she’d seen in a long time. And he was smiling.

At her.

Brown hair, pretty blue eyes, and eyelashes that went on forever. And his smile … his smile was kind. His smile made her smile, and that was pretty damn rare in her life. She felt something tight and closed off and nearly dead in her soul opening up, reaching out.

“Do you mind if I …” he gestured to the seat next to her.

“Sure,” she said, tucking her bag under her seat. “Is your daughter taking ballet?”

“Niece,” he said, pushing the sides of his handsome gray suit jacket away from his hips as he sat. Armani.

Nice. His brown shoes were Cole Haan and his watch was Tag Heuer.

She summed him up in an instant and felt selfish and miserly, but her heart went pitter-patter at the sight of all that wealth.

“Abby is the blonde facing the wrong way.” He pointed through the glass to the little girl three down from Jacob who was staring out the window while everyone else was looking at the teacher. “We need to do more work on knowing left from right,” he sighed.

She laughed, and his attention made her blush like a peach.

An awkward-schoolgirl peach.

“And you?” he asked.

“Oh, I know my left from right.”

“No,” his eyes were kind and she got lost for a moment in those eyelashes, “which kid is yours?”

Her blush turned radioactive. Maybe if she wasn’t such a damn hermit she’d know how to talk to handsome strangers. “Oh, my son.” Jacob was the only boy, and his fierce frown was so cartoonish both Victoria and the man laughed. “I’m afraid he doesn’t like ballet.”

“Most boys don’t. My mom put me in violin lessons when I was your son’s age. All I wanted to do was play junior tackle.”

Her heart shuddered at the thought of Jacob in junior tackle.

“Are you from around here?” she asked.

“Nope. Arkansas. My sister moved here with her husband ten years ago. I have a lot of business in Dallas and I try to visit a few times a year.” He pulled up the fabric of his black pants and crossed his legs. The distance between his knee and her thigh was minuscule and she felt his warmth through her skirt. Awareness, prickly and foreign, made her sit up straighter in her chair, pulling her leg from the magnetic force of his.

She caught him looking at her hands, unsure of what he was doing until it dawned on her that he was checking for rings and it was so new, so strange, she clenched her fingers in her lap.

For a long moment she wanted to just curl up and die.

You never do anything right
, she berated herself.

“I’m sorry.” He ran a hand over his face. “I … I’m not good at this. Since my divorce … I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. There aren’t any rules for dating again. Do I just ask if you’re married? Or do I just wait until your husband walks in and I get my hopes crushed?”

She stared at her hands, her ears buzzing. How was this happening? Here? Now? He made her feel somehow young. As if the last year of her life were melting away under this man’s attention. “No rings,” she finally said, glancing sideways in time to see him smile.

“Are you from here?” he asked.

She shook her head. “My father died, and my son and I are spending the summer getting things in order.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your father.” His sympathy, while sweet and warm and comforting, made her uncomfortable, all too aware of the half-truths she’d been telling.

“Don’t be,” she said with a half-smile. “We weren’t close. Lyle Baker wasn’t close to anyone, really.”

“Lyle Baker? Lyle Baker died?” He blew out a long breath.

“Did you know him?”

He nodded slowly, his gaze unblinking, on his feet. “We did some real estate deals a few years ago. I knew he’d been sick … I can’t believe Old Man Baker is dead. He was such a force of nature.”

Victoria felt oddly like she should comfort this stranger, who was taking her father’s death with more honest grief than she’d been able to manufacture.

“Tell me—” He stopped, then lifted his hand, cutting himself off. “Never mind. I’m sorry, this is personal.”

“How about you ask and I’ll decide.”

“Did your father marry a woman named Tara Jean Sweet?”

“How do you know about her?”

“Well, last time I was in town that was the rumor, and I knew a girl in high school named Jane Simmons … she’d changed her name to Tara Jean Sweet and honestly, I can’t believe there are two women with a name like that.”

“They didn’t get married,” she said, trying not to mutter. Trying not to sound raw and angry at just the mention of the woman’s name. “He died first.”

“Is she blond? Real pretty?”

Victoria nodded and the man laughed, wiping a hand over an astonished face. “Wow. Small world, huh?”

“Were you good friends?”

His hesitation spoke volumes. “We grew up together, but she was … she was a troubled kid.”

Without a doubt they were talking about the same Tara Jean Sweet.

“She’s still at the ranch,” she said.

“I’ll have to stop by … if that’s all right?”

“Of course,” she said. She wasn’t sure what force was motivating her. The drugging nature of his smile, the length of his eyelashes, the price tag on that watch. She didn’t know and she wasn’t going to scrutinize it. In a life that was being scrutinized down to the last penny, she was going to—for once—act without thinking everything to death.

“Come on out tonight,” she said. “After class. My brother is picking us up here. You and Abby can follow us.”

“Oh, Abby’s mom is picking her up. But I would come … if you’re sure.”

She nodded, definitively, her smile so wide and real it nearly hurt to keep it.

“That would be great, thank you.” His eyes touched her face, wandered across her lips. “You have a beautiful smile,” he said, and she blushed with pleasure.

“My name is Victoria,” she said, leaving off her last name in case it should once again ruin everything.

“I’m very happy to meet you, Victoria.” His hand took hers and she felt the buzz and the thrill, the cloud of desire enter her bloodstream. “My name is Dennis.”

Saturday night, Tara Jean walked into the house looking for Ruby. She’d stuck close to the ranch, scared that Dennis might be waiting for her at her apartment if he hadn’t left town, but as the days passed it became more obvious that he’d moved on.

All week she’d been coming into the house long past dinner, avoiding the family and eating leftovers hunched over the sink. Trying not to see anyone. Well, trying not to see Luc, mostly.

But now, this small-sized model crisis was forcing her to face the dragons in their den.

It was dinnertime, but the formal dining room was empty, not even set for dinner. The kitchen was still, nothing bubbling away on the stove, no delicious smells wafting from the oven.

Very bizarre.

“Hello?” she yelled. Only silence answered.

She walked down dark hallways, past hushed rooms, and realized that the house used to be like this; just a few weeks ago, when it was only her and Ruby minding Lyle in turns. Eli joined them occasionally, but he usually slept in his house on the other side of the creek three miles away.

Funny how a family seemed to pad a house, fill its
empty spaces. Crowd into the corners. So when that family was gone the house seemed extra empty. Incomplete.

The TV was on in the den and she followed the sound of applause only to find Ruby and Celeste, eating tuna fish and green grapes, their feet propped up on the coffee table. Watching a dance show on the flat screen.

“Hi,” Ruby said, popping up when she saw Tara Jean. Guilty, as if she’d been caught consorting with the enemy.

“Where is everyone?” Tara asked, and Celeste finally turned to look at her. The elegant woman wore red yoga pants with a matching jacket, the color making her dramatic hair even more theatrical.

“Well, Luc found an ice rink in Dallas, and Victoria took Jacob to his dance class,” she said.

“Oh,” Tara Jean said, all the courage she’d mustered up to face the dragons in their den falling flat. The dragons were eating tuna and watching a dance show. That didn’t require much courage.

But Celeste was still staring at her like she had some fire to breathe. “My son tells me that you are a designer for Lyle’s little leather store.”

“The little leather store is actually a multimillion-dollar chain,” she said, prickling up probably just as Celeste intended.

“You still making cheap bags and thongs?”