Taming the Moguls (10 page)

They stared at one another over the glass
counter. Patrick picked up the container of food. “Why don’t we
both spend some time thinking on it?”

“Nothing to think about,” Tommy said.

Patrick remained silent and walked out of the
store. The file sat like a smoking gun on the counter.

Chapter 19

“I don’t know why I let you drag me here,”
Kevin shouted over the music blasting from the jukebox. “I hate
this place.”

“You act like an old married man,” Lyle
said.

“I am.” Kevin looked around at the dingy bar.
The tables were sticky, the floor was disgusting, and the music was
too loud. Nothing had changed since he’d been there on his bachelor
party.

“Lighten up. You’ve been moping around the
cabin for too long. Besides, you always promised to take me here
when I turned twenty-one.”

“You’re not twenty-one anymore. Why don’t I
buy you a burger at the Dairy Barn and we’ll call it even?”

“No way. We’ve never done the bar thing, not
just the two of us, anyway. You owe me.” Lyle poked Kevin in the
chest. “You’re just grumpy from a lack of sex.”

“How do you know I’m not having sex?”

“You’ve been living with me for a week. You
come home every night, shower, talk to your wife on the phone,
watch TV, and go to bed. Alone.”

“How would you know? If you’re not locked in
your room with the hot neighbor, you’re at her house.”

Lyle flashed a smug smile. “That’s why I’m
not grumpy.”

“I can’t believe she gave you a pass to come
out tonight.” Kevin took a sip of beer. “I thought you two were
connected at the hip.”

“Swivel around a little, and that’s where
we’re connected.”

“You kiss Mom with that mouth?” Kevin asked.
Lyle cackled like a little boy. “You’re no fun to be around when
you’re ridiculously happy.”

“If you’d make up with Shi, you’d be happy,
too.”

“We have made up. Sort of.”

“Then why aren’t you living together?” Lyle
asked. “I’m not complaining. We can’t squeeze another person in the
cabin, but we would if we had to. So why aren’t we?”

“I’m not sure.” Kevin picked at the label on
his beer bottle. “I want to be with her. I love her, and I miss
her.”

“But?”

“But I need to get back on my feet before we
can be together again. I don’t know how to explain why I feel this
way, and trust me, she’s not happy about it, but I know if we lived
together right now, things wouldn’t change. We’d do nothing but
fight.”

“Okay, I get that. Sort of. But why no
sex?”

Kevin could only smile at his brother’s
rookie question. “You’re having a lot of sex right now,
correct?”

“Yeah, so?”

“After you have sex, is there anything Erica
could ask of you that you’d refuse?”

Lyle pursed his lips and glanced across the
room. “Nope. Can’t think of anything.”

“That’s why. Women have that power over men.
It doesn’t go away no matter how many times you have sex.”

“She’s here,” Lyle said.

“Erica?”

“No.” Lyle pointed over Kevin’s shoulder.
“Shiloh’s here.”

Kevin twisted around, gripped the back of his
chair, and blinked. Twice. His wife and her two best friends from
high school sauntered toward a booth along the back wall. Kevin
ground his teeth when every male head in the bar turned to watch
them move. Shiloh wore his favorite pair of jeans with heeled boots
and a pretty white sweater. The sight of her looking so young and
fresh made his mouth water. Before he knew what he was doing, his
feet hit the floor. He walked over to their booth. He could tell by
the way her eyes widened that she hadn’t expected to see him.

“Kevin? What are you doing here?”

“Having a beer with Lyle.” He jerked his head
toward Lyle’s table. “What are you doing here?”

“Melody and Tanna dragged me out of the
house.”

“You look really good for being dragged.”

She ducked her head and looked at him from
beneath her lashes. “Thank you.”

“You want to join us?” Melody asked.

Kevin glanced back at Lyle. As much as he
wanted to spend time with his wife, he couldn’t ditch his brother.
“I’d better not.”

Tanna leaned her elbows on the table. “Lyle
can come, too.”

Kevin knew Lyle wouldn’t go anywhere near
Tanna after her embarrassing attempts to get his attention in high
school. “That’s okay. Shi, can I talk to you for a second?”

She actually looked at her girlfriends before
mumbling, “Okay.”

He held her hand after helping her up from
the booth, and led her through the half-empty tables, and out the
main entrance. When they stepped around the corner, the music
disappeared by half. “I want you to be careful tonight.”

Her brow creased. “What do you think is going
to happen?”

“You’re out with two single women. In a
bar.”

“You’re out with a single guy. In a bar.”

“That’s different,” he said.

“No, it’s not.”

He grabbed her arm when she tried to walk
past him. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” she said. “Maybe
you should be.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he
demanded.

“I don’t know, Kevin. I’m married, but my
husband doesn’t want me. He’s at a bar with his brother. He’ll go
home—not with me—and sleep on his brother’s couch or floor or
wherever it is you’re sleeping. I’ll have a few drinks and go home
to my parents’ house. Alone. Lonely. Frustrated. I don’t know what
you’re trying to prove, but at least in high school you’d sneak
over every once in a while.”

The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You want
me to sneak into your parents’ house?”

She hadn’t expected him to call her bluff. “I
wouldn’t kick you out if you did.”

His whole body sobered. “It wouldn’t change
anything.”

“Yes, it would.” She turned around and caged
him against the wall. “We’d both feel a whole lot better.”

He yanked her around so their positions were
reversed and ground his hips into hers. “I shouldn’t want you like
this. I shouldn’t need you so damn much.”

“But you do. And so do I.” She linked her
fingers behind his neck and dragged his lips to hers. “Let’s go.
Nobody’ll care if we disappear. I need you, Kevin.”

Their bodies met and melded, jean against
jean, heart against heart. She wore a perfume he hadn’t smelled
since high school. It brought him back and took him under with the
same frenzied pace she set with her lips. He would have taken her
against the wall if Lyle hadn’t walked out and snorted. “Some
things never change.”

Kevin pulled back slowly, never taking his
eyes from hers. “I’ve got to go.”

Shiloh shoved her fists against his chest.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”

He caught his jacket when Lyle tossed it at
his face. Kevin jerked his arms inside and stared at his gorgeous
wife, her chest heaving against her crossed arms. “Unlock your
window.” With a wink, he strolled toward his brother’s car.

The cold air brought back the doubts. She was
doing it again, drawing him in like a drug. He could handle it, he
told himself as he climbed inside the SUV. He wouldn’t spend the
night in her father’s house. He’d just go and have a little fun
like he used to before life got complicated.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lyle
asked.

Kevin blew out a breath as he stared out the
window. “I have no idea.”

Chapter 20

Tommy had thought about leaving the file
where Patrick left it, but then anyone could walk inside Golden
Mountain Sports and read Gretchen’s life story. And possibly his.
How deep had Patrick’s investigator dug?

So Tommy had scooped up the file and stuck it
in his bag. He wouldn’t deal with it at work. He had inventory to
order for both the restaurant and the ski shop and a waitress to
interview. Real life—real responsibilities—came before everything
else. No matter how much he wanted to know about her child and,
even though he felt damned to hell, the quiet divorce. He’d buried
Gretchen, and his misery over losing her, for ten years. The least
he could do was set it aside for a few hours and get through the
day. By the time he pulled into his drive that night, his bag—the
file—felt like a beating heart in the car seat beside him.

He tossed his bag onto the foyer table,
walked into the kitchen, and opened a beer. He took his time
pouring it into a frosted mug before retrieving the file and
setting it on the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair, took
another sip, and flipped the file open. Gretchen’s picture was
first, a head shot from Holcomb. Her half smile, a shadow of her
dimples just beginning to blossom in her cheeks, her eyes so
serious and staring into his had his fist clenching in his lap. By
God, he wanted her. He’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted
Gretchen. He loosened his grip and set the picture face down.

The next sheet read like a resume. Her date
of birth, her parents’ names, and next to her mother’s was the word
deceased and the year she died. Her father was listed as the
retired president of Bickford University in Illinois. Tommy felt
relieved to discover his mother’s name hadn’t made it into the
report.

The date of Gretchen and Ryan’s marriage made
him narrow his eyes and think back to when he’d first heard of the
nuptials. His mother had thrown it in his face when he kept asking
if she knew where Gretchen was and why she’d moved off campus. What
he’d desperately wanted to know was why she’d left without a word.
He’d been so worried when her roommate said she’d moved out. He
couldn’t understand why she left so suddenly and why she hadn’t
told him. Of course, by then she wasn’t speaking to him at all. On
a deep breath, he pushed the memories aside and continued reading.
Another date caught his attention. Son, Alexander Edward, born just
shy of eight months to the date of their marriage.

She was pregnant when they’d married.

A detail his mother had neglected to mention.
A detail she must have known.

Tommy sat back and closed his eyes while his
brain tried to sort through the events chronicled in the file. He
obsessed about the details. How long had she been cheating on him
with Ryan Lowry? The dates listed didn’t answer the question but
explained the outcome. How could Gretchen have been so certain the
boy was Ryan’s? She and Tommy had been burning up the sheets since
the moment they’d given in to passion. She’d married Lowry, but
could the boy have been Tommy’s?

He flipped through the papers and found what
he was looking for: a picture of Alex Lowry in a local newspaper
article about him winning the second grade spelling bee. He was the
spitting image of his father, legendary Chicago quarterback, Ryan
Lowry.

Tommy stood so fast the chair tumbled and
crashed onto the tile floor. Tommy didn’t even notice. He stalked
into the den and stopped by the wall of windows to stare at the
woods under the glow of the moon. How had she found time to be with
Lowry when every second Tommy wasn’t at practice, they’d been
together?

They’d been so careful with birth control.
Gretchen had even insisted he use a condom the first time when
they’d been so overcome with desire he couldn’t have told her his
name. Of course, he couldn’t blame her. He’d spent the first two
years of college trying to exorcise Gretchen from his mind by
sleeping with every woman on campus.

Ryan Lowry was no different. He’d amassed
quite an impressive collection of notches on his bedpost by the
time he married Gretchen. Why hadn’t she insisted he use a
condom?

Damn it, what difference did it make? They
had sex, she got pregnant, they got married. And Tommy was left in
the dark to start over with a broken heart. The pain felt so sharp,
so new, so real he wanted to run into the woods and howl at the
moon like the coyotes. No wonder he’d fled school and home and
everything before settling in the valley where his father had made
a life and a family. His father’s passing had finally shocked him
out of his depression and forced him to get on with his life.

How dare she do this to him again? How dare
Gretchen waltz back into his world and make him feel again? He
didn’t want to feel anything—not anger, not pity, and certainly not
the stirrings of the most potent attraction he’d ever felt. Damn
her.

Chapter 21

Shiloh stomped back to her friends and
scooted into the booth.

“What happened?” Melody asked.

Shiloh tipped the beer to her lips and took a
fortifying sip. “Kevin’s got me so frustrated.”

“What did he do now?” Tanna asked.

“He says we can’t live together and we can’t
have sex. I’ve thrown myself at him twice now, but…He just told me
to keep my window unlocked. So does that mean he’s going to sneak
over like he used to so we can have sex?” She closed her eyes and
dropped her head onto Tanna’s shoulder. “I’m so confused.”

Melody asked, “What man doesn’t want to have
sex?”

“I know, right?” Shiloh lifted her shoulders.
“We were about to go at it outside before his stupid brother
interrupted, as usual.”

“Lyle still single?” Tanna asked.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. Urgh! This
is just so frustrating. How much longer am I going to have to live
with my parents? I feel like a child again. Mama’s making my meals
and doing my laundry. I just sit around all day feeling sorry for
myself. I quit my job in Denver. I’ve got to go back and get my
stuff because I only threw, like, three outfits into my bag when I
left. The thought of going back to Denver alone…”

“Are you going to let him in?” Melody asked.
“If he comes over and tries to climb in your window?”

“I shouldn’t, but damn it, I can’t go much
longer. It’s been weeks.”