“Excuse me?” Was he putting out feelers in a roundabout way to see if she could handle a casual fling?
“Isn’t that why you called?” He sounded confused.
So why had she called him? “No!”
“Okay, but you were the one who mentioned Victoria’s Secret and tasseled pasties.”
Guilty as charged. And she was regretting her faux pas more with each passing second. “You thought I called to proposition you?”
“Did you?”
“No. . . . No . . . absolutely not,” Rachael sputtered. “And I can’t believe your arrogance. Why on earth would you think I would have an affair with you?”
“You said you wanted to learn how to separate love from sex. I thought —”
“Think again, Sheriff Egotistical.”
He laughed.
Laughed!
Rachael’s blood boiled. “I wouldn’t have an affair with you if you were the last man on earth.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, “because I think we could have great sex together.”
AFTER HER ILL-FATED midnight phone call to Brody, Rachael’s life went from bad to worse.
Her cell phone kept ringing with inquiries from people wanting to know how to join Romanceaholics Anonymous and/or praising her for the YouTube video. Rex called, all excited, to tell her that Trace Hoolihan Ditches Bride was officially the twentieth most internationally downloaded video of the day, but then he couldn’t understand why the news did not make her happy.
“Great,” Rachael muttered darkly. “Now I’m an international laughingstock.”
“You’re an international celebrity is what you are,” Rex said.
Rachael snorted. She didn’t want to be a star. She just wanted to stop falling blindly in love. And she wanted to go back to Houston and get on with her life. She had a week left on her community service sentence and then she was headed home. School restarted in two weeks and she’d have to start searching for a new apartment since she’d given hers up when she and Trace got engaged. Jillian had already told Rachael she could come and stay with her until she found somewhere suitable to live.
By the end of her day delivering meals on wheels she pulled her VW Bug — which she’d had repainted after the graffiti incident — into Mrs. Potter’s driveway, and told herself she was not going to look across the street to see if Brody was home.
She looked.
And there he was.
Outside. Shirtless. Pushing his lawn mower across the plush Saint Augustine.
Their eyes met.
Brody raised a hand.
Rachael ducked her head and raced inside the house. I told you not to look, she scolded herself, but that didn’t stop her heart from beating too fast. Good thing she was leaving town soon.
She found Selina in the kitchen making enchiladas. That was a positive sign. Her mother hadn’t been eating.
“Smells good,” she said, coming over to drop a kiss on her mother’s cheek.
“Someone from Country Day called while you were out,” Selina said. “I wrote the contact information on the notepad.” She pointed with the tip of her paring knife to the message center by the phone.
Rachael bustled over to look at the note. Mr. Sears called, he’d like a call back ASAP. A cell phone number followed. Mr. Sears was the principal of Country Day where Rachael was employed as a kindergarten teacher.
“Must be something about the upcoming school year,” Rachael said, picking up the phone and simultaneously kicking off her sandals.
She punched in the numbers, listened to it ring.
“Hello, Mr. Sears?” she said when the man answered. “This is Rachael Henderson.”
“Rachael,” Mr. Sears said, his voice sounding clipped and serious. “We need to talk.”
Something about the principal’s tone sent up warning flags. “Yes, sir.”
“There was an emergency meeting of the school board last night,” he said.
“Emergency meeting?”
“It’s come to our attention that you’ve encountered a bit of controversy over the summer.”
“Controversy?” she echoed, feeling blindsided. “The emergency school board meeting was about me?”
“Well, more specifically, about that video you posted on YouTube,” Mr. Sears said.
“Yes?”
“The board feels that it’s not only inappropriate for one of our faculty members to produce such content, but we’re afraid the attention will be detrimental to Country Day.”
“Are you asking me to pull the video from YouTube?” Honestly, after all the crank phone calls she kept getting, she was ready to have Rex yank it off the Internet.
“I’m afraid it’s gone beyond that. Someone from your hometown notified us that you’d been arrested for vandalism.”
Rachael felt a harsh stab of betrayal. Could it have been Brody? But why would he do that? Why would anyone? “Someone from Valentine called you?”
“Yes. Is it true?”
“The charges were a misdemeanor, and I —”
“Nevertheless, in light of your behavior,” Mr. Sears interrupted, “the school board has decided to cancel your contract for the upcoming school year.”
She felt at once both furious and terrified. A trickle of sweat ran down Rachael’s neck and dropped cold into her cleavage. She’d just lost her job because someone in her hometown didn’t like what she was doing. “You have no legal right to cancel my contract.”
“Read your contract, Miss Henderson. We have every right to protect the students from a teacher with a criminal record.”
Criminal record! All she’d done was paint a sign black.
“Mr. Sears, surely there’s something I can do to change the school board’s mind. You simply can’t fire me. I love those kids, I love my job, I love —”
“You should have thought about that before you vandalized a billboard,” the principal said, cutting her off. “I’m sorry, Rachael, but the decision is irrevocable.”
ACROSS TOWN, KELVIN Wentworth received a phone call.
“It’s done,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “She’s been fired from her job.”
Kelvin smiled. “Good work.”
“Are you sure it was such a smart move? I mean, now that she’s out of a job, she’s free to stay in town and devote all her time to stirring up anti-Valentine sentiment. And causing problems for your reelection campaign.”
Kelvin snorted.
“Don’t underestimate her. She’s already done a lot of damage.”
“You’ve knocked the pins out from under her with this one,” Kelvin assured the man he’d coerced into doing his dirty work. “She’ll have to concentrate on finding a job. In the meantime, I’ll be winning the election.”
Plus sealing the deal with Amusement Corp.
Kelvin smiled. At last everything was falling into place, and he wasn’t about to let some snippet of a girl with starry-eyed dreams stand in his way.
MICHAEL HENDERSON HUNG up the phone feeling dirtier than he’d ever felt in his life. He’d just betrayed his daughter to his lifelong rival. He was a complete and utter bastard. No wonder Selina had left him.
“But it’s for the best,” he told himself. Sometimes a father had to hurt his children in order to ultimately save them. He had to do this for Rachael’s sake. He’d had no other choice.
Remorse ate him. Did you have any other choice?
No, he didn’t. Agreeing to help Kelvin was the only way he could get Rachael to stop her anti-romance campaign. And dropping the romance campaign was the only way she was ever going to find the love she truly deserved. And it was the only way he could win his wife back. Besides, Country Day would have found out about her arrest for vandalism sooner or later and it was better that Rachael lose her job before school started rather than after.
You did the right thing.
Still, he couldn’t help feeling devious and underhanded. He was so terribly, terribly ashamed of what he’d do
ne but his motivation came from the heart. This was what he must do to help her. It was a father’s cross to bear. Like when he’d had to hold her down for an injection when she was a screaming four-year-old with an appendix that had burst and she needed emergency surgery. Watching her suffer had been like cutting off his right arm. He felt exactly the same way now.
What’s Selina going to think when she finds out you got Rachael fired?
“She’s not going to find out,” he muttered under his breath. “And neither is Rachael.”
Because if Selina found out what he’d done, he knew she wouldn’t understand. And she wouldn’t forgive.
Before he had time to brood over that, the doorbell rang.
Michael frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He walked to the front door, his footsteps echoing loudly in the house, which now felt so empty without Selina in it. He squinted through the peephole and saw Vivian standing on the doorstep in a raincoat.
Immediately, he knew what was beneath that raincoat.
Absolutely nothing.
It was a game they’d played when they were in high school. She’d wait until his parents were gone and come to this very door in her raincoat. She’d ring the bell and say —
“Girl Scout cookies. Get your sweet treats here,” Vivian called out.
Michael gulped, closed his eyes, and shrank back from the door. What had he done?
She rang the bell again.
Go away.
The bell chimed a third time.
What the hell, Henderson, are you a man or a mouse? Open the door and tell her you’re not interested.
But what if Selina didn’t take him back? What if there really was no hope of repairing his ripped marriage? Didn’t he deserve something good in his life?
Vivian is not good and you know it. You’ve been down this road with her before. Sure, she’s sexy as hell, but she’s nothing but trouble.
He had to take a stand. He’d cruised by for so many years on his money and his looks. He’d taken Selina for granted and he’d hurt her, and instead of being contrite about answering Vivian’s e-mail, he’d been defensive. He’d accused her of being jealous and petty. He’d been in the wrong. And he’d wanted her back more than he wanted to breathe. That was the only reason he’d done what he’d done to Rachael. To repair his damaged family.
Michael took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and went for the door. Then quietly, emotionlessly, he told Vivian what he should have told her when she’d sent him that e-mail three months ago: “The only sweet treats I’m interested in belong to my wife.”
Chapter Eleven
Faced with no job and an uncertain future, Rachael spent the rest of the next month trying to decide what she was going to do with her life. The heat of August ebbed into the slightly less-scorching heat of September. Football season started and along with it, a constant reminder of how well Trace was doing with the Chicago Bears while she was languishing jobless in Valentine.
Rachael had completed her court-ordered community service shortly after losing her job. She’d done her best to avoid Brody, and for the most part she’d succeeded. He’d raise a hand in greeting now and then if he spied her from across the street, or when he saw her in town. And she would wave back, but that was as far as things went.
The one area of her life where things were going well was with Romanceaholics Anonymous. Due to the popular demand generated by the YouTube video, Rex had helped her start her own Web site, and she’d created a blog devoted to debunking romantic myths. She’d also started several Romanceaholics chapters in surrounding towns.
But while it was emotionally satisfying, her anti-romance crusade wasn’t generating any income. Selina had told her not to worry about money, that she’d take care of Rachael’s expenses while she went through her metamorphosis, but the truth was she needed something to bolster her self-esteem.
Then one bright afternoon in late September, she came home from setting up a new chapter of Romanceaholics Anonymous in a neighboring town to find a black Lincoln Town Car parked outside Mrs. Potter’s house.
Something bad has happened.
The thought seized hold of her and wouldn’t let go. Her legs felt leaden as she trod up the sidewalk to the front door. Her heart flipped up into her throat. What else could go wrong?
She found her mother in the living room having coffee with a sharply dressed woman in her late thirties. The visitor wore a tailored suit that hadn’t come off any department store rack, drop-dead stilettos, and an expensive, big-city coif. She looked decidedly out of place perched on an aged sofa with a hand-crocheted afghan stretched across the back.
“Here she is,” her mother said brightly. It looked as if she’d been having trouble holding up her end of the conversation with the sleek creature on the sofa.
The woman settled her cup and saucer onto the scarred coffee table and rose to her feet, her right hand extended. “Hello, I’m Maggie Lawford. The entertainment editor for Texas Monthly.”
“Rachael Henderson,” she said.
“I know.” Maggie Lawford’s eyes sparkled.
“What are you doing in Valentine?”
“I’m here to see you. You’re the talk of the Internet. My guess is that you’re averaging ten thousand blog hits a day. Is that number in the ballpark?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to ask my Web guy.” Rachael tucked her bottom lip up between her front teeth. “Really? I’m actually on your radar?”
“Not just on my radar, but in my magazine.”
“Excuse me?”
Maggie smiled. “I’m here to offer you a job.”
“You drove all the way from Austin to offer me a job?”
“That,” Maggie said, “and to see Valentine for myself. It’s everything you describe in your blog and more.”
Rachael’s trepidation vanished and she felt a sense of anticipation that equaled the thrill she experienced whenever she encountered a potential love interest. She hadn’t known that anything other than romance could make her feel this way — giddy, breathless, hopeful.
“It’s so exciting,” Selina said.
Rachael agreed with her mother, but facing her romanceaholism had taught her a few things. Just as she shouldn’t romanticize a man, she had no business romanticizing a job, either. “Exactly what would the position entail?”
“Why don’t we have a seat?” Maggie invited, settling onto the sofa again and crossing her chic legs. She patted the cushion. “Relax.”
Rachael eased down beside the other woman and tried to restrain the surge of enthusiasm pushing against her chest. Don’t look too eager. “What kind of job?”
“We’d like for you to write a monthly column.”
It took everything she had inside her not to squeal out loud. She wanted to say, Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. But those were the words she’d used when Trace asked her to marry him. She was done impulsively riding the wave of excitement. She amazed herself by saying, “A monthly column is quite a commitment.”
Brody, she thought, would be so proud of her. Immediately, she wondered why she was thinking about him.
“You’d be well compensated,” Maggie said smoothly. She named a figure that was almost twice Rachael’s salary at Country Day.
It was all she could do to keep from breaking out in a grin. “I’d have to relocate to Austin?”
“Actually, we want you to stay right here in Valentine. Keep your finger on the pulse of America’s heartbeat. We can do everything through e-mail.”
Hmm, something to think about. She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay in Valentine. “What would the column be about?”
“Same thing you’re doing on your blog. Raising questions about love and romance. Debunking romantic myths. Highlighting examples of what real love is. Show how movies, music, and the media create false illusions when it comes to courtship and marriage. Draw on stories from Romanceaholics Anonymous.”
“Those stories are confidential,” Rachae
l said.
“Fictionalize them,” Maggie said smoothly. “Or convince people to go on the record.”
Rachael frowned. “Wouldn’t that be taking advantage of people’s foibles and vulnerabilities?”
“Aren’t you already doing that with your Web site?”
“Not specifically. So far, I’ve only skewered myself and my ex-fiancé.”
“Ah, yes.” Maggie smiled. “Trace Hoolihan.”
Something unpleasant occurred to her. “That’s why you’re offering me this job, isn’t it? Not because of my Web site, but because Trace is high-profile and that will bring readers to my column.”
“That’s part of the reason, I won’t deny it. But you underestimate yourself, Rachael. You’re quite the writer. We admire your creativity and your spunk. You didn’t take rejection lying down. You fought back. Painted that billboard. Posted that video on YouTube. Plus you know how to hit right at the center of your readers’ emotions.”
Stroke to the old ego. She had to hand it to Maggie Lawford. The woman was a good persuader.
“I do?”
“Come on. You know you’re special.”
It was flattery, but she fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. “If I decide to do this, I won’t use stories from the people in my Romanceaholics meetings. Even fictionalized. It’s unethical. They’ve put their trust in me and I won’t betray them.”
“That’s fine,” Maggie said without missing a beat. “Do the stories of the people whose names are on the Walk of Flames sidewalk on Main Street. Not all of them could have had a happily-ever-after ending.”
Rachael looked to Selina to get her take on this. Her mother lifted her shoulders, held up her hands in a whatever-you-think-is-best gesture. “You only want to tell the stories of romances that have gone bad?”
“Conflict sells,” Maggie said. “Happily-ever-after might be sweet to live, but romance without any bumps in the road is boring to read. Start with the love-gone-wrong tales. When you run out of those, we’ll reevaluate.”
Rachael considered it. “What are you thinking of calling the column?”
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