Can't Buy Me Love (7 page)

Excuse me
, the demon muttered.
I’m right here
.

“What do you think, cow?” She looked into the beautiful bovine eyes of the candy addict she’d created. “Did I do the right thing?”

The cow lowed softly and blew a raspberry past big elastic lips.

“Yeah,” she whispered, her heart a clump of dirt in her chest, “probably not.”

Her skin broke out in goose bumps seconds before she heard someone coming up behind her. There was only one person on this ranch—hell, maybe in the world—that could give her skin a reason to wake up.

“I imagine you went in?” she asked when the footsteps stopped behind her. She knew, to the inch, how far away he was, her body doing the finite math between her flesh and his.

“Of course I went in.” His voice cool and filled to the brim with mocking superiority.

With Luc’s arrival, the cow shook her head, making her ears flop. The bovine equivalent of a hair toss.

Tara Jean rolled her eyes. Honestly, some women couldn’t get past a set of shoulders.

“So?” She turned on her heel. The sun was behind him, set against that blue eye-shadow sky. Judging by the scowl on his face there had been no deathbed revelation. His hate was rooted all the way down.

Plan Deathbed Reconciliation had not worked. Which was not surprising. It was a pretty crappy plan.

“Is he still breathing?” She cracked the hard shell of a red candy with her teeth.

His smile was the meanest thing she’d ever seen. And she’d been on the receiving end of some maliciousness in her life.

“Oh, stop,” she said, tired already of the theatrics. “You can’t scare me.”

Luc took another step closer, his beautiful calf-skin loafers covered in fine Texas dust, and all of her warning
signals and alarm bells clamored for her to step away. Out of reach. But she stood her ground.

“I’m only going to say this once.” Luc took off his sunglasses, revealing his daddy’s deep hazel eyes. Good God, the man was cold! She needed a sweater just to be this close to him. “You’re not going to marry my father.”

“Really?” she asked, playing her part without much conviction. “And why’s that?”

“Because I will make your life hell.”

“A will is a will. And you can argue he wasn’t in his right mind and all that stuff.” She waved her hand around as if she just couldn’t be bothered with the legalities of it all. “But there’s not a judge in this part of the world that will see it your way. And you know it.”

His narrowed eyes delighted her, sent her inner self soaring. Those sticks she poked at him had found their target.

“I don’t care about his money.” She snorted. People might say they didn’t care about money, but those people were liars. “I’m talking about your life.
Jane
.”

Her skin shrank. Her bravado cracked like that candy shell between her teeth.

Jane.

“How—”

“You think I’m stupid? As stupid as my father? I hired a private investigator—and you hid your tracks well, you really did. Tara Jean Sweet doesn’t exist. Not really. No phone. No address. My dad must pay you in cash, right? A couple hundreds on the bedside table?”

She clenched her fists, refusing to rise to his lame bait.

“But four years ago a woman named Jane Simmons was in the hospital at the same time as my father. A woman fitting your description.”

She knew she should have dyed her hair. If she were a
brunette, they probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.

“Changing my name isn’t against the law.”

“No. But my investigator isn’t finished yet. And the reporters haven’t even gotten started.”

Chewing her tongue, she forced herself to stay where she was. To stand her ground, because the only man in the world who believed in her had paid her to stand here and take Luc Baker’s shit.

“The reporters, particularly the Sports guys—they’re relentless. And they’re the ones who would be on you, because if you marry Lyle you’re stepping into my world, honey. You know what those parasites would do to a woman like you?” he asked. “They’ll dig up all your little secrets. Every inch of dirt and filth you keep hidden behind that smile.”

She swallowed. There was so much filth behind her smile, he had no idea.

“And I suppose you’ve got all that power?” she asked.

“One word,” he purred, managing to be both evil and seductive. “One press conference. One photo. I can ruin your life.”

Right. One photo. Anger settled in along her spine. Righteous fury on behalf of the man dying inside that ranch.

“Mr. Big Shot,” she cooed, inching closer even though it made her skin hurt. “All that power and you’d waste it on me?”

He started to smirk but she kept talking, using far less sugar and much more poison. “When you couldn’t be bothered five years ago to save your father’s company?”

That he looked confused ignited her own back-alley temper. “You don’t remember?” she asked.

“Remember what?”

“Your father meeting you in Houston, asking you to
wear his boots. Have your photo taken. One photo. As a favor.”

“You have no idea what you’re even talking about. We hadn’t spoken in years and he shows up at my hotel asking for favors. After the way that man treated my sister and me, he had no right to think I would wear his crappy boots.”

“He was desperate,” she said, through gritted teeth. “And you are his son.”

Immediately she knew she’d crossed some line.

But she had so many lines in her rearview mirror that another one wouldn’t change a thing.

“He had his first stroke after that meeting,” she told him, sharpening the sticks she’d carried for four long years on Lyle’s behalf. “The first of three that put him in the hospital a year later. In intensive care.”

She had the powerful feeling of being assessed. Measured. And she knew clear as day that she’d come up wanting in his eyes.

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it’s not going to work.”

He stood there, immoveable. A glacier of cold, hard purpose. It was rather familiar; she had, in fact, been trying to manipulate and placate a similar glacier for the last four years. But Lyle had a living, scheming heart under all that ice and enough fire to keep him alive long after doctors’ predictions. Luc seemed like he was ice to the core.

“You’re a lot like your daddy.”

She expected him to get angry. Braced herself for it. But he laughed. “You have no idea what I’m like.” He looked down at his watch. “I’m going to take my sister and nephew back home where they belong and I’m going to give you a week to pack up your lipstick and high heels and get the hell away from this family—”

“Or?” She looked down at the chipped paint on her
thumbnail. Honestly, was there a bigger lie in the world than “chip proof”?

He stepped closer, his suit jacket pressing against her hands, and she dropped them to her sides. Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t baited him. For a woman who was trying to just do her part and stay out of the way, she’d managed to position herself right out in front of the cannons.

“Listen,” he sneered. “You trash-eating—”

“Trash-eating?”

He blinked, stunned slightly off course, which had been the point.

“That’s a new one,” she said. “Truly. I had you pegged as a traditionalist. I expected ‘gold digger’ or even just ‘whore,’ but trash-eating? Really, if your opinion mattered even the slightest bit, that one might sting.”

“Marry him,” he said, breathing sparks and lightning bolts that burned through her bluster and scorched her throat, her skin, “and there won’t be a rock you can hide under.”

“Is there a problem here?” Eli, the ninja, appeared behind Luc, breaking the charged atmosphere. And Tara took a much needed step back, searching for clear air and distance, quickly gathering the ragged ends of her composure.

Trouble
, she thought,
this man is pure trouble for me
.

“No,” Luc answered, his eyes raking and then dismissing her. He glanced sideways at Eli and then did a double take. “Eli. I didn’t realize you were still on the ranch.”

“Where else would I be?” Eli asked, making it somehow seem like an insult, and she wanted to hug him. Buy them some team jerseys.

“I suppose you’re right.” Luc looked at Eli with warmth that was not only surprising, but slightly disarming.

Even Eli’s ninja-ness seemed to wilt. “But it’s good to see you. How’s your dad?”

Tara didn’t have the capacity for small talk, not after being threatened so effectively, so she turned back to the barbed-wire fence and took a few steps away from the two men.

The sugar-addict cow followed, and Tara opened her palm. The candy had melted into sticky red goo and she held out her hand for the cow to clean it.

Jane Simmons. She hadn’t heard that name in four years. Hadn’t thought of that girl since she buried her.

She heard Luc leave and her spine relaxed.

“You know these cows are on highly restricted and carefully monitored diets, don’t you?” Eli asked over her shoulder.

“This girl has a sweet tooth,” she said with a shrug. “What can you do?”

Eli touched her shoulder and she flinched, feeling brittle and sun-scorched.

“You okay?” he asked.

No
, she thought. She’d sold her soul one too many times. And it was getting a little threadbare.

“Right as rain,” she said, smiling brightly. She turned, making sure not to look Eli in the eye. “I better get to work, it’s a busy day. Sample sewing and all.”

“You’re not fooling anyone,” Eli said.

She wanted to laugh.

I’m fooling everyone
, she thought.

Luc couldn’t find
anyone. Not his sister. Not Jacob. Even Ruby was missing. Or maybe he just wasn’t looking in the right places. A whole new wing of the house had sprung up since he’d been here last and every time he thought he knew where he was going, he kept walking into the empty kitchen.

It was, no doubt, Bimbo Barbie’s work. Every one of Lyle’s mistresses and wives had put their mark on this house in some way. And it only made sense that Tara Jean’s contribution would turn it into a maze.

On his third trip through the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator door and found the big mustard-colored Tupperware pitcher, which in his youth always had sweet tea in it. Right now, choking on his frustration and the fine Texas dust, nothing sounded better.

The phone tucked into his front pocket buzzed and he pulled it out to see the display. Beckett Jones, his agent.

“Hey, Beckett,” he said, picking up the call.

“You watching ESPN?” Beckett asked.

“No. Should I be?” Fucking ESPN. Half the guys traded last year found out by watching ESPN.

“No,” Beckett said quickly. A little too quickly. “It’s just rumors right now, and you know how ESPN loves rumors.”

“What’s the rumor?” Luc asked.

“Three Cavaliers for Ivan Lashenko,” Beckett said.

“Lashenko?” He collapsed back against the counter and wiped off the cold, clammy sweat that had suddenly formed on his forehead with the sleeve of his expensive jacket.

Lashenko was the Russian phenom with the slap shot and the attitude. He was also the top-gun right wing for the Dallas Mavericks, the only standout on a dismal team. The Mavericks hadn’t even made the playoffs this year and without some serious changes, they wouldn’t make it next year either. Lashenko was the only currency they had, and he’d be a free agent in two years.

He and Lashenko were both right wings known for their finesse, stick handling, and slap shots. While Luc led the league in assists, Lashenko was the high point scorer, and more important, fifteen years younger.

Pray you don’t get traded
—those were Matthews’s words.

And now, the Cavaliers were going to trade Luc.

Without Billy.

They were taking him away from the dream team he’d helped create and the year he was meant to play.

He’d finish his career on a third-rate team, watching in some bar while his Cavaliers won the cup.

It was like being plunged into ice-cold blackness. He was lost. And hurt.

“I’ve got calls in to Dunbar,” Beckett said. Dunbar being the GM of the Cavaliers and keeper of all trade secrets. “I should know for sure soon. But I don’t think they’re going to trade you.”

“Because every team needs two star right wings?”

“When one is getting older, yeah,” Beckett said, pulling no punches. “You know, you haven’t told me what the doctor said after the Gilcot hit.”

“He said don’t get traded to Dallas!” Luc answered. And then, because he could see the end of his career
from the kitchen in his father’s house, he flipped the phone shut.

But the volcano of his anger was exploding with nowhere to go. The headache that pulsed behind his eyes splintered and fractured, slicing through his whole body.

Control it
, he demanded, asking something superhuman of himself. But in the end he failed. Just as he always did in his father’s house.

Boiling over, he turned, found the pitcher of tea, and hurled it against the wall.