Can't Buy Me Love (24 page)

Guaranteed increased odds of future damaging concussions …

What happens if I get knocked out again?
he thought. The specter of the drooling early-onset Alzheimer linebackers rolled through his head, a chill of premonition sliding down his spine.

But he shook it off and pulled over to the side of the road.

“You all right?” he asked his friend. Ten years together and it was over. Just like that.

“I don’t love it,” Billy answered. “But I’m still playing.”

“How is the knee?”

“Doc cleared me to skate. Down and back and some figure eights. Nothing fancy.”

“What about the vipers?”

Billy blew out a breath. “They’re killing me, man.”

“I got an arena down here in Dallas. Empty ice. A couple hours a day …”

“I’ll be there tonight,” Billy said.

“No distractions.”

“Just ice,” Billy said and hung up.

It was going to be bittersweet to skate with Billy again. This was the end for them. Billy in Dallas. He shook his head, trying to imagine the locker room without him. Trying to imagine the kid they’d try to replace Billy with. He was going to be surrounded by kids, he realized, feeling empty. Talented kids ready to play their hearts out, but kids nonetheless.

Retire. Get out while you’re ahead
. The doctor’s warnings rang loud in his head, a bell freshly rung.

And for a moment, solid and real, he couldn’t push the thought away—the game was dangerous for him now. Without Billy there to take those hits … every brawler in the league would be gunning for him.

But I’m good
, he reminded himself.
I’m the best. And without Billy, I’ll just have to be better. Develop eyes in the back of my head, play more defensively. No more
prima donna, untouchable crap; it’s time to play hockey like I used to
.

Luc closed his phone and realized he had a message. From Beckett.

For the first time since walking into Tara’s studio, he felt his legs under him.

This was what he needed. The full and total commitment of all his energy on what mattered. Hockey.

He put the car in drive and got back up onto the road, and then he called Beckett.

And Tara Jean was forgotten.

Victoria tried to
act casual, as if coming into Bimbo Barbie’s workshop out of curiosity was a perfectly normal thing for her to do. Which it wasn’t, and from the slack-jawed look on Tara Jean’s face, she knew it too. Victoria had been on the ranch for a month and hadn’t stepped foot in the place.

“Hi,” Victoria said, smiling slightly, wiping her sweaty hands against the twill of her walking shorts.

“Hi,” Tara said. “Are you here because of your son?”

“What about my son?” The foundation of courage she’d had to build just to walk into the greenhouse faltered slightly.

“He’s been sneaking around my workshop.” Tara leaned back from her desk. “And I don’t like it.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she said, and Tara nodded. But she wasn’t in here because of Jacob … Well she was in a way. In a big-picture kind of way.

Do it
, she told herself,
just do it. Just open your mouth and ask
. But instead she got very interested in looking at the leather items hanging on the rack near the back.

“Is this … is this for the leather stores?”

“No.” Tara rolled her eyes. “They’re for the cows. Of course they’re for the stores.”

Victoria pressed the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. Being mocked by a woman like Tara Jean Sweet was pretty much the bottom of a deep, deep barrel and her
pride, or what was left of it, reared up in defense. Victoria was surprised to feel the thin mantle of cool superiority that settled over her shoulders, like in the good old days, and she relished it. Tied the edges together in a saucy knot and turned to face Tara, one eyebrow raised.

“Do you just do clothes for strippers?”

“What is with you people?” Tara asked. “Anyone who wears leather must take it off for money?”

“Something like that,” Victoria said; she found a certain comfort in snobbery. Lord knows she’d used it like an all-purpose weapon back when her life was normal. A blunt instrument to beat everyone around her into submission.

She gave Tara one of her most enigmatic and superior smiles. That it worked and Tara dropped her eyes for a second gave her a shot of victory. A thrill she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Is there something you wanted?” Tara asked. She wore a white wraparound shirt, splattered with coffee, and a blue linen skirt. She almost looked … normal.

Victoria glanced down at her hands, her ring finger that was so naked without her wedding band and engagement ring, both of which she’d given to the lawyers to sell. For a while she’d been glad to lose that identity. Joel Schulman’s wife—it had been a necklace of boulders around her neck, drowning her. Drowning Jacob.

But she’d learned this last year that she had no identity with that naked ring finger. Not one that would provide for her son. Not one that would bring them any security.

Wedding bands—to some extent—were security.

And the way Dennis had looked at her. Appreciative and respectful. Warm. The way his eyes had clung to her face, checked out her naked fingers—those looks sometimes led to wedding rings.

And for the first time in a year, she’d felt something in return.

Worth.

But sometimes those looks led to more heartbreak, and frankly, she’d had her fill.

The smart thing would be to delete Dennis’s number, punched into her cell phone with his own fingers.

Saturday night when he’d gone off with Tara Jean, Victoria had sat on the verandah, counting stars and trying to convince herself that he wasn’t in there screwing Bimbo Barbie while she stood in the moonlight like a fool. But when he’d come out of that greenhouse, he saw her and walked over, radiating a kind of male confidence that turned her insides to putty. This was a man who could care for a woman. Provide for her. And her son.

After putting his number in her phone, he’d told her he was staying at the Four Seasons in Dallas and to call anytime she was in town.

She’d called him last night, and the flirtation had been … healing. Exciting.

And in the cool light of day, she wondered again about heartbreak.

“Yes,” she blurted, too loud, too awkward. Everything she didn’t want to be.

“Spit it out, Victoria,” Tara Jean sighed. “I don’t want to play games.”

No games. Perfect. She dropped the smile. “Tell me about Dennis.”

“Why?” Tara nearly barked.

“We share some interests,” she said, walking along the long table in the middle of the workshop, her fingers running over the edge. “And he’s a handsome man.” She shrugged. “I’m curious, that’s all.”

“You have nothing in common with Dennis.” Tara’s tone was an essay in wounded pride.

Oh my
, Victoria thought,
this woman is jealous
.

“I thought the two of you were just friends. Or is that just on his side?”

Tara was breathing hard through her nose, her lovely face blotchy and red. Angry Tara Jean wasn’t pretty. Victoria’s beleagured pride clapped like a little girl at a birthday party.

“Dennis is bad news, Victoria,” she said and then, surprisingly, she ran a hand over her face, pressed her fingers against her eyes for a moment. Victoria realized she was witness to a very private meltdown, and she felt an unwanted twinge of kinship. As a woman who’d had too many private meltdowns made public, she knew how painful it was to have such moments observed.

“Tara?”

When Tara dropped her hands, Bimbo Barbie was gone. It was as if a mask had come off, revealing sharper bones, brighter eyes. The excess was missing and Tara Jean was stripped down to the framework.

“Is this about money?” asked this sharper version of Tara.

“Of course not,” Victoria lied, and badly.

“Because Dennis doesn’t have any.”

“Of course he does. He’s working on a real estate deal.”

Tara Jean laughed and it felt like a knife, wielded against both of them. Victoria’s feminine power began to cringe, sulking into the dark corners it had come from. “There will never be any money. Not for Dennis. Trust me, Victoria, you’re better off staying far, far away from him.”

Victoria lifted her chin, refusing to believe that the man she’d met was lying to her. She’d married a liar, a very, very good one, and no one would be able to fool her again.

“Perhaps you’re just jealous,” she said, but Tara was shaking her head before the words even left her mouth.

“He’s a friend of mine, Victoria.” She put a hand to her chest, covering the coffee stain there. “Do you honestly want to date a friend of mine? Have your son around a man who is just like me?”

“He’s not like you. He’s nothing like you.”

“He’s a chameleon. He shows you what you want to see and you want to see a wealthy man, a kind man, with an eye toward family. The kind of man who could take care of you. He’s playing you, Victoria.”

She shook her head, refusing to believe this woman. This liar. Victoria had gone through hell and come out the other side intact. With her son. She deserved some luck. She deserved some kindness, and she wasn’t about to let this woman take it away.

“It was a mistake to come here.” Victoria turned for the door.

“Look, Victoria,” Tara said. “I don’t know your whole situation but I know that Lyle tied you up in the same knot he’s got the rest of us in, and if you need money—”

Victoria shook her head, not interested in Tara Jean’s solution. It had been a stupid idea to come here and even more stupid to stay, to let this woman’s poison anywhere near her.

“Victoria, wait.” Tara Jean edged around the desk and stepped in front of Victoria, keeping her from the door. They were the same height now, Victoria in her ballet slippers, Tara Jean in her ridiculous stripper shoes, and Victoria got a good look in Tara Jean’s eyes. And what she saw there confused her.

Compassion.

“I can hire you to be a small model for the final fitting of the winter line,” she said. “It’s not a lot of money, but
it’s some. And it would be yours. Not given to you. Not tied to a man. You’d earn it on your own.”

Victoria blinked at Tara Jean and after a moment, Tara Jean smiled.

“What … what do you think?”

“I think you’re ridiculous.” Victoria reached for the door, but once again Tara Jean got in the way.

“You can determine your worth, Victoria,” she said. “Right now, you can say yes and do the job. Straight up. No strings, no rings, no men, no humiliation, no asking for permission, none of it—”

“What the hell do you know?” Victoria asked through her teeth, feeling as if she were turning to ice and stone. How did this … whore know her so well? How did Tara Jean get to look at Victoria and see her secrets and tear her apart? In what world could this be okay?

“I’m sorry I came in here,” Victoria said, and after a moment Tara Jean rushed aside and Victoria rushed out the door.

“The offer stands.” Tara Jean’s words followed her up to the big house like a dog she couldn’t shake off.

That night Tara sat up in bed and glanced over at the clock, its green numbers glowing in the dark. Midnight. She’d been tossing and turning for two hours.

The same freaking questions played over and over in her head like a hamster in a squeaky wheel: Was Victoria going to listen to her and stay away from Dennis? What would happen when she gave Dennis the two hundred grand? Did she really think he’d go away? Was this just the price she had to pay for everything she’d done in her past?

She hung her head and sighed before tossing the blankets off her legs and standing up. The flannel shirt slid
down to her knees and she kicked around under her bed until she found her bunny slippers.

If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well find what was left of that ice cream.

The dark hallway was cool, the navy runner plush under her bare feet, and she followed it toward the kitchen. The family all slept on the other side of the house. It was just she and Ruby on this side, so it was strange that the door to the second bedroom was shut.

Jacob
, she thought, and she had to give the kid points for persistence. The kid seemed truly invested in driving his mother all the way into crazy. No one in the family did things halfway.

She opened the door, ready to drag him back to the other wing, but the bed was empty. A small duffle bag sat on top of it.

Her blood froze in her veins.

Would Dennis send Carl? At the thought, her skin tried to crawl right off her body. Carl, who had helped Dennis beat the crap out of her four years ago. Carl, who always brought a small duffle bag filled with a change of clothes in case things got too messy.

Why would he send Carl? The thought was a high-pitched scream in the middle of her head. But it wasn’t as if Dennis was rational. And he was still mad that she’d left him the way she had, running away in the night before he could get the money she’d given back to Mr. Dickow.