Can't Buy Me Love (23 page)

From the far end of the greenhouse, under the cutting table in the darkest shadows, she heard a muffled giggle.

Oh no
, she thought, picking up the toy.
No freaking way! Not the kid on top of everything else
.

She stomped down the center aisle, fanning her ruined shirt away from the scalded skin beneath it until she got
to the table. She waited a second, and in the silence she heard the faint wheeze of an inhaler.

She crouched, and there in the darkness she saw a flash of pale skin, a cheek, and one big wide eye before the boy shifted back into the shadows, rustling paper as he went.

“I can hear you, you know,” she sighed.

Another thump and a box fell forward, spilling empty Starburst wrappers over her feet.

Son of a bitch!

“Hi.” His fingers lifted in a little wave.

“Get the hell out of there.”

He crawled out, knocking over another box as he went. Zippers flew everywhere.

“You think this is funny?” She shook the whoopee cushion at him.

“Uh … yeah?”

“Well, it’s not. What if I had sat down while I was on the phone?”

The boy had the good sense to wince. “I guess that wouldn’t have been funny.”

“No, it wouldn’t have. And you’ve been eating my candy.”

“I got hungry,” he whispered. He took a quick puff off his inhaler and she refused to listen to the voices in her head screaming “bully!”

“Where’s your momma?” she asked.

“Probably looking for me.”

“Well, let’s go find her.”

“But you know, I was thinking, maybe I could help you around here or something. I could …” He shrugged, looking like an earnest dark-haired Opie. “Do whatever you needed. Clean up, or—”

“I don’t need any help around here,” she said, cold as ice.

“Oh. You sure? Because I really hate dance classes.”

His smile, lopsided and toothy, was endearing. More endearing actually than she could stand, the way he stood there with his young, new heart right there on his face, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, hold him close, protect that tender heart from the dangers of the world. Dangers like her.

Such innocence only reminded her of her own ruin. How far she’d fallen.

“Absolutely. Let’s find your mom.”

She took off for the door, stepping out into the white-hot early June sunshine. Like glue, the heat put all the fragile pieces of her act back together.

Luc came down the front steps of the house and the boy ran over to him, slipping his hand into his uncle’s. And she forced herself to stand up straight and look Luc in the eye, brushing aside the memory of his hands on her body. Her hands on his body. Pretending it was all nothing.

“What’s going on?” Luc asked, his hand curved around Jacob’s shoulder, and her body shook in memory and shame.

“Keep the kid away from the greenhouse,” Tara Jean snapped.

“Was he causing trouble?”

She pushed the whoopee cushion against his chest.

Luc laughed and Tara Jean felt herself turn red. “It’s not funny, Luc. Keep the kid away from me.”

No good could
come of following her. He knew that.

He should wait for a better moment. A moment not quite so aggressive. But if he waited for a moment without the fireworks, he had no doubt that he’d be waiting a long time.

The way she’d treated Jacob was concerning, but whatever her reasons for playing the bitch, he was invested enough to listen.

To try and figure her out.

He stepped into the greenhouse only to find her crouched on the floor, her skirt hiked up to reveal the long, muscled length of her leg.

His blood pumped harder and he realized in that moment that what he liked most about Tara Jean was the challenge of her. The fight of her. She gave him nothing that he didn’t work for. And he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

He watched as she swept the wrappers into the garbage can and then picked up the bag of spilled candy.

“What do you want?” That she refused to look at him wasn’t a surprise.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” Luc stayed calm, trying not to take offense. Trying not to get his own temper engaged.

“The kid.” She stood and put an orange candy in her mouth. “You guys need to watch him better.”

He glanced around her pristine workshop. “Did he damage something? Break anything?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She tried to step past him toward her desk, but he got in her way.

“You scared him, and I’d like to know why.”

He could see the skin around her eye twitch and he leaned closer, trying to get her to look at him. To see him. The man who had held her while she crashed through orgasm after orgasm. The man whom she’d talked to, really talked to, about her past and her life.

Because she was acting like he was nothing.

“The boy’s not welcome here.”

“You know, he’s just a kid and he’s all alone—”

“Not my problem, Luc.”

“Then what is?” As soon as the challenge came out of his mouth, he regretted it, because engaging in a fight wasn’t what he wanted. He’d lose her in a fight.

“Is this about Saturday night?” he asked.

“No, Luc. Not everything is about sex.”

“Saturday night wasn’t even about sex.”

“You signed up to be used, Luc.”

He laughed, and she bristled. “Honey, I’d be nothing but happy if you’d used me for sex. If you’d turned around and told me you were done with me and I should go on my merry way, I would have gone. But something else happened, Tara. And I was—”

“It had been a while, that’s all.”

He didn’t believe her, not for a minute, but he nodded anyway and she jerked away, cutting the other way around the table.

“Tara. Look at me.”

She didn’t and he waited her out, waited and waited, wondering if she was such a coward, until finally she
sighed like a put-out teenager and tossed her long hair over her shoulder.

“What?”

“I’m … in.” He held out his hands, as if showing her he had no hidden agenda. No weapons formed against her. “I’m interested. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not interested in using you. I like you. And … I’d like to like you more. Know you more.”

For a moment it was as if she were frozen, unblinking, as if his words had done something to her, shorted out all electrical activity, and he had hope. Hope that she’d turn toward him rather than away.

“That’s a bad idea.” She crouched to pick up a box of spilled zippers and the moment shattered. He sucked in a quick breath, struggling for recovery.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not interested in knowing anything else about you.” She threw zippers into the box as if they’d grown legs and were trying to escape. “You bore me, with your privilege and your daddy issues. Who gives a shit about an old hockey player who is too stupid to know when he should retire?”

It wasn’t as bad as the Gilcot hit, but he felt it. A rippling pain radiating from his stomach. And the killer was that he hadn’t seen it coming.

“Is this … is this you?” Luc asked, and she looked right at him, her eyes the color of already gone. Of who gives a shit. “I mean, every time I turn around I have no idea who I’m going to get. The flirt, or the woman who tries to help me, or the—”

“The bitch,” she interrupted. “The bitch is me, Luc. All the way down. So mind your own business, keep the kid away, and leave me the hell alone.”

She watched his jaw, the fine muscles there pulsing and relaxing, and she could only imagine what he was forcing himself not to say. She bit her own tongue to keep herself from taking the words back, because throwing this man away with both hands was surprisingly hard.

Surprisingly painful.

“I … I won’t be back, Tara,” he said, and she nodded at his words. She knew that, she’d hit him where he hurt, and Luc had enough pride not to sniff around where he wasn’t wanted.

“Well, you’re slow, but you ain’t stupid, are you?”

God, she sounded exactly like her mother.

She could feel all his efforts to get past her act like crowbars, she knew that stupidly, she’d let down her guard a few million times too many with this man, and he knew the routes and paths, the secret entrances into her head.

But not anymore. Not after the other night.

Dennis was back and she needed to be strong. And liking this man, letting him remind her of how lonely she was, how scared, how hungry she could be for affection—it would only make her weak.

She knew how vulnerable that could make someone; she’d preyed on those weaknesses in other people.

“Fine,” he said and walked away. Just like she wanted. And he didn’t look back, not once, as if he knew what a coward she was, how she could never be as honest with him as he’d been with her. As if he knew she simply wasn’t worth the effort.

He left and took her every chance at being better with him.

The silence he left behind was too thick and she couldn’t breathe. Her heart fluttered in her chest, unpredictable and erratic. She saw silvery spots at the corner of her vision.

It was a panic attack. She knew that, used to get them all the time when she’d first come out to the ranch. She’d wake up at night in a cold sweat, hyperventilating—which wasn’t exactly comfortable with broken ribs—convinced that Dennis was coming in through the window.

To take her back to her old life.

Luc didn’t know what he was asking for. Wanting to know her? Please, it was ridiculous. If he knew … well, if he knew, it wouldn’t be an issue anymore, would it?

It’s for the best
, the demon whispered.
He’s not for the likes of you
.

There was no arguing with the demon. Searching for a little comfort, she unwrapped a cherry Starburst. Usually her favorite. But it tasted like ash in her mouth.

The flavor of regret.

Luc got in his truck and left. He still had a few hours before the ice was his, but he’d find something to do. Something far away from the ranch. Maybe he’d help out with the peewees who had the ice before him. Teaching a bunch of screaming kids to stay on their skates would keep his mind off Tara.

The road to Dallas was familiar at this point, a well-worn path between the ranch and the ice arena, and he followed it, his mind twisting itself around Tara.

The rejection was one thing, and it stung. But it wasn’t real. He’d never seen such bullshit in his life as what Tara Jean had just tossed out at him. And maybe he would have believed it, but Saturday night he had seen the truth of Tara Jean. Felt the truth, and it had nothing to do with his fingers inside her body, or the thick, wet heat of her pleasure.

It was in the set of her shoulders before she ran away. The trembling of her fingers against his chest before she kissed him.

She liked him all right. She liked him a lot. But she was a coward.

“Fuck it,” he breathed and grabbed his cell phone, punching speed dial even as he lifted the phone to his ear. He needed a friend. He needed a reminder of who he was and what was important. He needed hockey. And luckily, there was a guy in his life who embodied it.

“Hey, Luc,” Billy said as he answered. “Did you just hear?”

“Hear what?” Luc asked.

“The Lashenko trade?”

Fucking Beckett, the guy hadn’t answered his phone this morning and then Luc had gotten distracted by Tara.

See
, he thought,
see what distractions do? They fuck you up
.

Luc sat back against the seat, bracing himself for the hit.

“I’m going to Dallas?” Luc asked.

“No.” Billy took a deep breath. “Our first draft pick, Svetka, Collins.”

“Collins? There goes our net—”

“And me.”

Without Billy it will be open season on you
.

That was the doctor’s warning. That was actually common knowledge. And Luc had disregarded it because next year, he and Billy were supposed to be on the ice together. They were supposed to hoist that cup over their heads together.

Billy made sure nothing happened to Luc. Billy took every hit meant for Luc. Without him, Luc would have a giant target on his back and while they might get another defenseman who’d try to play and work as hard as Billy, it was doubtful.