The Perfect Ingredient (Dare Valley) (18 page)

“Her dad sounds like a major prick.”

Her first easy smile appeared on her face, and it felt good. “He is, and does ‘prick’ constitute a swear word?”

“Probably, but I think I’m just going to donate two grand to the Cuss Fund since I pretty much swore a blue-streak after I dropped you off.”

She could feel her eyebrows rise to her hairline. “That’s a lot of cursing.”

His eyes dimmed, and his smile faded. “I was pretty upset.”

It did something to her, knowing he’d been upset, knowing she could hurt him. Again. “You didn’t tell me how you bloodied your hands. I finally…ah…noticed them when we slowed things down the second time.”

Seeing his hands, she’d had a flash of Vince breaking her car window in a rage, his knuckles bleeding from the cuts. Then her mind had conjured up the image of Terrance’s knuckles all bruised and swollen after punching the guy at The Peacock.

“I didn’t put my boxing gloves on. I was too impatient to hit something, but let’s not detour from your story.”

Right. No need to talk about what had happened between them earlier. At least not yet. And she didn’t need to see this violent part of Terrance right now, because that timid little part of her was still scared of what he was capable of.

“Jane and I became inseparable,” she continued, smoothing the sheet over herself. “Jane had immaculate manners, of course, which helped this girl from the trailer park who didn’t know where a shrimp fork went. Heck, I didn’t even know there was a shrimp fork.”

“Sorry, I forgot to use them tonight,” he said dryly, his mouth curving into a smile.

She forced her gaze away from his bloody knuckles, trying not to think about whether she had dried blood in her hair. “I’m glad. I never saw the point, but anyway, Jane helped me fit in…and I helped her loosen up. You can’t imagine what her life was like, being a politician’s daughter.”

“I’m glad you two found each other.”

Jane was one of the greatest gifts of her life. She didn’t know what would have happened to her if they hadn’t met. “Me too.”

“What did you study at Harvard?” he asked in a upper crust accent.

“You need to roll your Rs more,” she suggested. “Jane and I majored in finance.”

“
Finance…
”

“They don’t have poker degrees there.”

“No, of course not.” His eyes narrowed, studying her. “I’m trying to imagine how you could go from finance to poker.”

What he was really saying was he couldn’t imagine how she’d gone from majoring in finance to becoming Vixen, and that knowledge squeezed her chest. God, this was going to be so hard. She hated to talk about Vince, and she felt more vulnerable now than when they’d been making love so slow and sweet—and she’d felt plenty vulnerable then.

Her hand fisted in the sheet. “It’s hard for me to talk about this.”

He traced her face and then leaned forward to kiss her again, all whisper-soft, soothing the dark edges inside her.

“You can trust me,” he said against her lips. “I swear to you I’ll never tell another soul.”

Her in-breath didn’t quite fill her chest, but it released some tension. “There was a…man…a guy I dated who went to Harvard. We went out a few times, but I broke things off.”

Her out-breath came out in a rush and then she couldn’t get more air. Suddenly all she could see was Vince’s face.

“I can’t breathe,” she said, sitting up and trying to gulp in oxygen. At this rate, she was going to hyperventilate.

His hands stroked her shoulders. “Shit. What can I do?”

She shook her head and closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing and Terrance’s gentle caresses until her panic subsided. She could do this. She wasn’t a victim.

“Okay, I think…” God, she was tired—all the emotions of the day were draining her. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not,” Terrance said, pulling her into his arms. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to tell me if it’s going to do this to you.”

She pressed her forehead to his chest, hearing the hoarseness in his voice. “That’s why I don’t like to talk about it, but I’m going to finish.”

“Let me at least get you a glass of water or something. Tea? Bourbon? I’ll give you anything.”

Oh, how that pledge was enough to help her firm up her resolve. She pushed away slightly. “He didn’t like me breaking things off, and he got violent. He started stalking me. Jane and I tried to stop him legally, but he had good lawyers. His family is big money, bigger than Jane’s. Right before graduation, he threatened to kill me if I went out with another man.”

“Jesus Christ,” he swore, his jaw hard now.

Everything in her shivered from the memories, her body shaking too, and Terrance reached for the comforter and wrapped it around her. Then he wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m here. He can’t hurt you. Not ever again.”

His pledge made her want to weep. “I…I told Jane that we needed…to get out of town. We went to Atlantic City to gamble. It always cleared our heads. That’s where we met Rhett.”

His hands made a gentle glide up and down her back. “Keep going.”

“We…ah…impressed him with our ability to see the players’ strategies. We might have been able to know who had what card, but I’m not admitting that.”

“Because you’re a freaking genius,” he tried to tease, but his voice was as hoarse as hers.

“Right. We’re poker geniuses.” The memories were getting better now, like the first patch of dawn’s rays shining in the dark night sky. “Rhett thought I was cute at first and tried to pick me up. You know Rhett, but all we wanted to do was talk poker once he told us he was a professional player. That’s when we knocked his socks off. We might have been trying to impress him, but don’t tell him that.”

She was finally able to fill her lungs with air, and it was oh so sweet. “Rhett offered us jobs as his scouts on the spot, and after Jane and I thought about it, we decided it would be a perfect escape for us. But we needed an act to…hide out.” Oh, how she hated that word, hated admitting that a man had made her hide. “That’s how Raven and Vixen were born. And Liz Parenti died. I…changed my legal name to Elizabeth Saunders.”

“Like two phoenixes rising from the ashes,” he mused as he edged back to gaze into her eyes. “I’m in awe of you. Of both of you.” He took her hand and drew it to his mouth, kissing the back of it.

The gesture was so gentle. How it warmed her heart. “Jane wanted to embarrass her family so she could be freed from their demands for her to join her father’s political machine, and Vixen was my chance to escape…”

She didn’t want to say his name, and her gaze rested on the bloody knuckles of the hands that held her. Part of her didn’t know if she could trust Terrance with that detail. It was the same reason she’d feared telling Rhett, who believed in old-fashioned justice—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Terrance had been raised on the streets. He’d already gotten into a fight over her for something minor compared to this.

“I understand why you were afraid to tell me now,” he said, and his jaw tensed. “You were trying to keep yourself safe.”

Safe. Yes, that’s the one thing she valued more than anything.

“So now that your real face is out there in the public as Rhett’s poker babe, are you worried this guy will recognize you? Is that why you had a bat by the door when I came by the other night?”

There was no way she was telling him about Ryan. He was only a trigger for her bigger fears. She still had nightmares about Vince, but the likelihood of Vince ever coming across her picture and recognizing her—unless he followed poker circles, which was unlikely—was a thousand to one. Plus her hair was so different from the dishwater brown she’d dyed it at Harvard, not to mention her clothes.

Jane was the only thing that tied her to that life, and so far, nothing had come from that.

“It’s still a fear, I won’t deny that, but it’s been a long time.”

He was silent a minute. “But you’re not sure. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a bat by the door.”

Again, her eyes flicked to his bloody knuckles. “The bat just makes me feel better. The thing at Harvard…really messed me up.” Her voice broke.

He rubbed the hand he was still holding. “Of course it would. It would mess up anyone. Elizabeth, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

She hung her head. Shame. Yes, she still felt that. Shame that she’d somehow done something to make Vince act like that. Shame that she couldn’t let it go and stop being afraid.

“I’ve been…edgier than usual since the Raven and Vixen thing came out. It was hard…but Jane needed to do it because she loved Matt, and I finally came around.”

Not that she’d jumped up and down about it or anything. Hard was a tame word for what her best friend had asked of her, but she would do anything for Jane.

“You’re one hell of a brave woman. I cared about you before, but right now… Come here.”

She rose on her knees in the center of the bed like he did. When he cupped her face between his hands, his green eyes glowing now, she felt her heart burst into a million pieces.

“I thought I might have loved Vixen. Before. But Elizabeth…well, she’s captured my heart in one evening.”

His words shocked her to the core.

“You…you…you…thought you loved me?”

“It was the only thing that made sense when you left.” This time he blew out a long breath. “I’d never been more upset in my life, which was saying a lot. When I came to Dare Valley to talk with Mac about the job last month, I went kinda crazy again when I realized you were the woman I’d run into at the coffee shop.”

She’d been really upset too, if crying a lot and eating tons of ice cream were any indication.

“I…loved you too,” she admitted in a whisper. “That’s one of the reasons why I left you like I did.”

He grew silent. His hands sneaked around his back, like he was hiding them, and then he held them up. “These…make you afraid, don’t they?”

Her eyes flew to his face.

“I should have washed them off earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt your story.”

No, it would have been awkward. She might not have been able to finish.

“You
were
scared of me after I got into it with that guy.” His out-breath sounded like it was forced from his lungs. “That’s the other reason why you left, wasn’t it?”

Who said honesty was easy? Her throat was laced with barb wire now. “Yes.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, like he was gathering himself. When he opened them, they shone with shame and vulnerability. “I would never hurt you.
Ever.”

“I know that.” When he tried to speak, she pressed her hand to his mouth. “I do. But violence scares me. It triggers something inside me. I’m working on it, but it’s still there.”

He lowered his head. “Let me go wash up.”

He took off for the bathroom, and she tucked the comforter around her more securely.

When he came back in, his body movements were much stiffer. He sat on the edge of the bed, like he was afraid to be close to her.

“I don’t want to trigger you. I’m sorry. More than I can say.”

The harshness in his voice had her reaching out her hand. “I know you are.”

“When you left, I told myself that I’d misread you. That it had only been fun for you.”

“No, it was more than fun. So much more.”

His hand squeezed hers. “For me too.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked. Even after making love to him again and telling him her story, she wasn’t sure what lay ahead.

“How about we just try and be together again—as we are—and see where it goes?”

As we are.
Those words gave her the peace she so rarely found. “I’ve…never really tried that before. My parents were…a disaster. I’m not sure I’ll be good at it.”

He nodded. “My mother was a wreck too. She died of a drug overdose when I was seventeen, and I don’t even know who my father was. Why don’t we just do what we’ve done with our lives?”

Her brow knit. “What do you mean?”

“Rise from the ashes of where we came from. Imagine something better and make it happen.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“This time let’s not hold anything back.” His smile came and went on his face like a flash of lightning. “I won’t bring any bloody knuckles to the party.”

She felt a smile tickle the corners of her mouth. “That would be nice and much easier on your hands.”

“I want this to work, Elizabeth. But I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us. If we’re going to do this, we need to be honest with each other.”

No secrets? They’re what had kept her going, what had kept her alive. “I’ll try, okay? Just be patient with me. Being…outted has been pretty hard for me, and I’m still adopting new ways to handle that.”

He kissed her softly on the lips. “How about this? Any secrets you can’t live without, you entrust to me. I’ll help you keep them safe. Keep you safe.”

That undid her. A tear streaked down her cheek suddenly. “Oh, Terrance.”

“Hey, now,” he said, kissing her tear away. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Being with him again, making love with him again, had opened her emotionally like the rivers running through the mountains, cutting away rock and earth until nothing stood in their way. The power of it scared her.

“You didn’t make me cry in a bad way. You’re making me think anything is possible.”

And that his feelings for her—their feelings for each other—were big enough to carry them through whatever might lie ahead.

His hand caressed the hair lying on her shoulder. “We’re both here again.
Together.
Doesn’t that tell you anything is possible?”

Yes, it did. And it made her wonder what else could evolve between them now that her secrets were out in the open.

Chapter 20

Terrance cut into the bison brisket he’d smoked with Colorado’s native cottonwood trees. His new menu for The Grand was coming together, and he was still exploring how to incorporate local flavors while being innovative. He’d added some pecan wood to the cottonwood to give the smoke a bit more flavor. Cottonwood alone was too light and delicate for the bison.

His staff clustered around him as he shaved off thin pieces for everyone to sample. When he tasted that paper-thin slice of meat, his eyes closed. “Sh—heck yeah. Now that’s going to sell like crazy.”