Addicted to Love

by Addicted to Love (lit)

  “That meddlesome woman? What’s her problem?”

  “She thinks Valentine pushes an unrealistic view of romance,” Rex said. “There’s a lot of people in town who agree with her.”

  Kelvin snorted. “Are you really that clueless?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Without that supposedly unrealistic view of romance, this town wouldn’t even exist.”

  The phone picked that moment to ring.

  They both jumped. Rex looked grateful as he reached for it. “Mayor’s office, Rex Brownleigh speaking.”

  He pressed the hold button and shot Kelvin a look. “It’s Amusement Corp.”

  Kelvin did a jig all the way into his office. He closed the door, counted to ten, and then picked up the extension. “Mayor Wentworth here.”

  “Mayor, Jackson Traynor, Amusement Corp.”

  “Jack. How are things?”

  “Just fine. I want to apologize for not getting back to you sooner.”

  “I’ve been so busy I hadn’t noticed,” Kelvin lied smoothly. “I hope you’re calling with good news for Valentine.”

  “Um, that’s the reason for my delay.”

  Jackson Traynor’s tone of voice had Kelvin’s testicles drawing up tight.

  “We ran your proposal past our research team and there were some concerns.”

  “What kind of concerns?” Kelvin had spent ten years preparing that proposal. It was spotless.

  “Are you aware that Valentine’s town charter prevents the construction of a project of this size without seventy-five percent approval from the taxpayers?”

  “Is that what has you worried?” Relief pushed out his fear.

  “Frankly, yes. We loved your proposal, but your remote location is a strike against you and we can’t commit to this project until you have a bond election.”

  “I can guarantee the votes. My family brought tourism to this town. The constituents will do whatever I want.”

  “We did a straw poll while we were in town and you don’t have as much of a lock on the town as you might think you do.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Your approval rating is only forty percent. Apparently a lot of people in Valentine are thinking about voting for your opponent.”

  Giada Vito. Kelvin narrowed his eyes. “I’ll get those votes. I’ll get that bond election passed.”

  “I really hope that you do, Mayor, because we’re gung ho on your project. But we’re looking at another property site outside Tyler and we can’t finance both. You have until November to pass this bond,” Traynor said. “Otherwise you lose out.”

  Kelvin hung up the phone feeling at once elated and belligerent. Between them, Giada Vito and Rachael Henderson were trying to hijack his town and he’d be damned if he was going to let them get away with it.

  RACHAEL GOT A copy of her wedding video from Tish, who’d taped the ceremony. In between dishing up meals at the senior citizen center as part of her community service, she spent her spare time at Rex’s house creating her YouTube montage.

  Making the video was a painful experience, but useful in helping her overcome any lingering attachment she had to Trace — and hopefully to romantic love. Every time she watched the moment where her supposedly idyllic life crumbled, her resolve to forsake romance strengthened.

  Idealizing men and marriage was not the road to happiness.

  There she was in her wedding dress walking down the aisle on her father’s arm. A traditional church wedding with all the trimmings. She’d planned it since she was a child. Making scrapbooks of it and gathering items for her hope chest. Doves and candles. Orchids and white roses. A soprano soloist warbling “A Forever Kind of Love.” Six bridesmaids. Her sister Hannah’s adorable three-year-old daughter as flower girl. The works.

  It was the most perfect of wedding ceremonies.

  Until the critical moment when the pastor asked, “Does anyone have any objections to the union of this man to this woman?”

  It must have been cosmic timing.

  In the hushed momentary silence of the church came the distinctive ringing of a cell phone.

  With a clutch in her throat, Rachael recalled the fateful moment. The irritation she’d felt over the sheer rudeness of the guest who hadn’t thought to silence their cell phone before entering the chapel.

  “Speak now,” the pastor said on the video. “Or forever hold your peace.”

  Rachael remembered beaming up at Trace, wishing the minister would hurry up and get to the good part. The part where he pronounced them husband and wife and they would walk hand in hand into their happily-ever-after.

  But that moment never came.

  “Here it comes,” Rex said, timing the sequence of events for the video. “Wait for it, wait for it . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . ”

  “Since no one has any obj —”

  “Stop the wedding,” Trace Hoolihan’s agent, Bob Boscoe, said, shooting to his feet.

  Every single time Rachael saw it, a sick feeling rose inside her. Hand to her stomach, she took a deep breath and forced herself to watch, even though she desperately wanted to close her eyes. Aversion therapy.

  The minister looked startled. Every gaze in the place turned to stare at Boscoe.

  Except for Rachael’s.

  As if caught in a surreal dream, the on-camera Rachael just kept smiling — denying reality, determined that she was going to live the dream even if no one else was cooperating.

  It was scary sad.

  Rachael cringed and squirmed in Rex’s rolling swivel chair, parked beside the bank of computers lining his living room wall. Rex was at the keyboard, making adjustments to the color, sounds, dimensions. Enhancing and enlarging. Splicing and merging. He clicked the mouse, zooming in on Boscoe’s face.

  “What is the nature of your objection?” asked the minister.

  “Trace,” Boscoe said, pushing aside the guests as he headed toward the altar waving his cell phone. “You’ve just had an offer from the Chicago Bears. They want you in as first-string wide receiver.”

  Rachael saw it happen all over again as, deep in her soul, she felt the moment she’d lost him. The pure joy on Trace’s face as he let out a whoop, stepped away from Rachael and into Boscoe’s embrace.

  A heartbeat passed.

  She relived the taste of bile spilling into her mouth. Experienced all over again the bone-crunching disbelief of shattered dreams. She smelled the cloying scent of too many flowers. Heard the shocked intake of the spectators’ collective breaths.

  “Trace?” Rachael’s trembling on-camera voice whispered tentatively. Her eyes were wide, the smile on her face slipping. “What’s going on?”

  She was so pathetic.

  Self-loathing took hold of her and she had to close her eyes and breathe deeply to fight off the nausea. She’d seen the video six times since the wedding and every single time it still clipped her hard.

  “I’m going to Chicago,” Trace crowed.

  Not we’re going to Chicago, but I’m going to Chicago.

  “But what does this mean?” Her voice rose. On-screen she was blinking rapidly, swallowing repeatedly.

  “I’m sorry, Rachael,” Trace said, looking contrite. “But this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get back into the game. The wedding is off.”

  The church had erupted. People scrambled to their feet, surging the altar, most of them rushing to congratulate Trace.

  And there she stood in the midst of it all, buffeted around like foam on the ocean. She saw Delaney step forward to wrap an arm around her shoulder. On-camera, her face went deathly white and she looked as if she was going to faint.

  It wasn’t the anger or disappointment or hurt that upset Rachael the most. Rather it was her wimpy reaction that made her want to reach out and slap her own silly face.

  How could she have been so gullible, so naive, so trusting?

  “Idiot,” she muttered.

  “Fool for love,” Rex said.

  “Just
plain fool. I can’t believe the way I twisted myself around for his affection.”

  Awkwardly, Rex patted her shoulder. “It’s okay. This is therapeutic. You’ve got the proof of your mistake right in front of you and we can all learn something from it.”

  He was right.

  “Hey,” Rex said. “Look what I did since the last time you were here. This ought to make you feel better.”

  With a few finger strokes to the keyboard, Trace’s head morphed into that of a jackass. He turned to the camera and brayed.

  Rachael burst out laughing.

  “Thatta girl.” Rex chuckled along with her. “It gets better. Watch this.”

  He changed computer monitors and switched from her actual wedding video to the one he’d created for YouTube. The music began. It wasn’t the music from her wedding, but rather “Love Stinks” by the J. Geils Band.

  “Once upon a time,” came Rex’s deep-throated voice-over, “there was a beautiful young girl from Valentine, Texas, born on Valentine’s Day, who’d been taught to believe truly, madly, deeply in the romantic myth of finding her Prince Charming and living happily ever after.”

  On-screen, Rachael appeared on her father’s arm walking through the door of the chapel, looking radiant in her wedding gown, beaming brightly, the beautiful floral bouquet clutched in her hand. The picture of dreams come true.

  “She thought she’d found the perfect man.”

  The shot cut to Trace standing at the altar looking ultracool and impossibly gorgeous with his thick mane of blond hair swept back off his forehead and his lantern jaw thrust forward. The traditional black tuxedo fit him like a fantasy, the pink rosebud boutonniere at his lapel a promise of everlasting love.

  “Ha!” came Rex’s voice-over.

  “Love stinks!” shouted the J. Geils Band.

  A camera shot showed the packed church. On the front pew Rachael’s mother sat beside her father, both looking grim-faced, just moments before Rachael’s entire world fell in. She should have seen the signs that her parents’ marriage was on rocky ground. Why hadn’t she seen the signs?

  “Rose-colored glasses hide a lot of flaws,” Rex’s voice-over said.

  The camera swung back to Rachael coming up the aisle, her gaze fixed on Trace’s face. A rose-colored lens covered everything with a soft, dreamy filter. The shot dissolved with clueless Rachael stepping up to the altar.

  “And then she was betrayed by the thing she held most dear,” Rex’s taped voice continued.

  “Love stinks.”

  The sound of a beating heart galloping faster and faster as she watched the painful scene again of Bob Boscoe jumping up to announce the deal with the Chicago Bears.

  Trace had known all along Boscoe was working on the deal. He had to have known. She’d been his backup plan if the Chicago Bears hadn’t picked up his contract. It was only then that it occurred to Rachael that Trace might have been marrying her for her daddy’s money.

  She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her before. Maybe because money didn’t matter much to her. She’d been born and raised with it and she supposed she took it for granted. What she valued was love and romance.

  “Dodged a bullet,” Rex said and turned down the volume on the video.

  “Huh?” Rachael blinked.

  “You’ve got that ‘woe-is-me’ look in your eyes,” he said. “Just imagine if the Chicago Bears hadn’t done you a huge favor and lured Trace away. How long would it have been before you realized what a huge mistake you’d made?”

  “Twenty-seven years?” She posed the question thinking of her parents’ marriage.

  The J. Geils Band kept right on singing.

  On-screen, Trace was breaking her heart all over again, and then literally turning into a jackass compliments of Rex’s moviemaker program. He’d also spliced in a clip of Trace’s Entertainment Tonight interview, proving most everything he’d told the reporter about Rachael was a bald-faced lie.

  Then came the pitch for Romanceaholics Anonymous.

  “Single, lonely, looking for love in all the wrong places?” Rex asked on the audio. “Has an addiction to romance caused your life to spiral out of control? Don’t make the same mistakes Rachael did. Keep your heart safe. Stop spending your life on a roller coaster of expectation looking for Mr. or Ms. Right. Stay sane. Get help now. Join Romanceaholics Anonymous. For more information, call . . . ” And then Rachael’s cell phone number flashed across the screen.

  Rex pushed back in his chair and slid her a look. “What do you think? You ready to upload it to YouTube?”

  He was right. It was the perfect revenge.

  “Upload it,” she said.

  “There’s no going back.”

  “I know. That’s the point. I need to seal the deal, because even after all he’s put me through, if Trace were to call up, apologize, and beg me to take him back, I can’t promise that I wouldn’t.”

  “Stay strong,” Rex said. He did his magic with the keyboard and the next thing Rachael knew, it was too late to turn back. There her video was on the YouTube queue. Trace Hoolihan Ditches Bride at the Altar.

  “Wanna watch it again?”

  “Sure.”

  Rex clicked the button straight from YouTube.

  As the video clip played out, and Rachael realized that hundreds, possibly thousands of people would see this and know the truth, something strange happened to her. She didn’t feel scared or nervous or as if she wanted to take it all back. Gone were any doubts or uncertainties she might have had about her inner motives.

  She felt empowered. She felt as if she was finally taking charge of her life. She felt as if she owned the world.

  Chapter Nine

  July melted into the dog days of August. With the increased heat came an increase in crime. The fistfights at Leroy’s grew more frequent. Brody’s dinner was interrupted twice to mediate domestic disputes at the Love Line trailer court. And three times, Enid and Astrid Pope had called him over to their house the next block over because someone kept peeling the red glitter hearts off their white picket fence.

  Brody had to consider whether it was the same culprit who’d vandalized the parking meters, but then he found Maisy playing with the glitter hearts in question and he made her take them back to the elderly ladies and apologize.

  The rise in crime was a yearly pattern, but even so, the normally quiet town had seemed edgier and more restless since Rachael had come home to Valentine and started Romanceaholics Anonymous. From the patrons at Higgy’s Diner to the customers at Audie’s Hardware to the old men who played checkers in Bristo Park, the town was buzzing with both gossip and opinions.

  Kelvin’s “decision” to remove the parking meters around the courthouse went over big with his constituents, just as Brody had predicted. Brody had analyzed the tool markings and he’d been correct: A pipe cutter the same diameter as the one stolen from Audie’s Hardware had been used to behead the meters, but he wasn’t any closer to discovering who’d done the deed than he had been the day it happened. He was hoping the vandal was satisfied with beheading the parking meters and he or she was done with their crime spree.

  Brody was sitting in his office ordering supplies when Jamie called to him from the dispatch desk.

  “Sheriff, come here. You gotta see this.”

  He got up and sauntered into the next room to find Jamie’s eyes glued to the computer screen, listening to the sound of the J. Geils Band singing “Love Stinks.”

  “What are you looking at?”

  Jamie crooked a finger at him. “YouTube.”

  Curious, he moved behind the dispatcher to see what had so captivated her attention. What he saw simultaneously stirred his sympathy, amused him, and concerned him. There was Rachael getting dumped on her wedding day,

  Damn it, Rachael, what are you thinking?

  Here she was stirring up trouble again. While he couldn’t blame her for wanting to get even with the jerk who’d dumped her at the altar, she didn’t seem to
realize the problems she was making for herself. Put the woman in a cage with a sleeping lion and she’d poke it with a stick.

  “I love it,” Jamie said. “Down with romance. I think I’m going to attend the next meeting of Romanceaholics Anonymous and show her my support.”

  Brody groaned. Things were getting way out of hand. He had to go talk to her, ask her to take the video off YouTube before lookie-loos and reporters started showing up in Valentine.

  He was halfway to the front door when the call came through.

  “Sheriff’s office,” Jamie answered over the speaker phone. “How may I direct your call?”

  “It’s Selina Henderson. Tell Sheriff Carlton someone’s vandalized my daughter’s car right in our driveway.”

  Brody’s eyes met Jamie’s. “Tell her I’m on my way.”

  Five minutes later, he pulled onto Market Street and caught sight of Rachael’s jaunty pink VW Bug, now savagely graffitied with militant slogans in angry black paint. valentine — love it or leave it. romance isn’t the problem, you are. But the one that chilled his blood was get out of town, bitch, or suffer the consequences.

  Rachael stood there, arms wrapped around her chest, cradling herself. She looked so damned vulnerable. A feeling he’d never felt before and couldn’t identify pressed down on him. A strange sensation tingled his upper lip and a sudden heaviness pulled at the back of his spine.

  He got out of the car, his hand riding near the gun at his hip. He realized with a start he’d willingly shoot anyone who tried to hurt her.

  She took one look at him and relief flooded her face. “Brody,” she said simply, and the sound of his name on her tongue unraveled something inside him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her. He was here on official business. His inappropriate impulses had no place in this conversation.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  He fisted his hands to keep from touching her. God, how he wanted to touch her.

  “Do you have any idea when this could have happened?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I came outside to get the newspaper and saw it. I suppose I should have expected something like this. A lot of people don’t want to see Valentine change. The nail that sticks up is the one that gets hit.”