The Wedding Band
Page 14
He quit obsessing about unfamiliar feelings of domestic bliss and got back to basics—getting laid.
Meeting her warm eyes, he pinged his glass to hers. “It’s your vacation, sweetheart, you can indulge in all kinds of debauchery. I’m happy to help.”
“Your standards for debauchery are probably higher than mine.”
“One way to find out.”
She dropped her eyes to study her bubbles. “I’m not really a debauchery kind of girl.”
“I’ll show you the ropes.”
She chuckled. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.”
“Ma says it’s my defining personality trait.” He rolled out the dough. “She calls it stubbornness, but it’s all how you spin it.”
“She’s quite a woman.”
“Yes, she is. She likes you too, and believe me, she’s picky.”
“I picture her guarding her cubs like a lioness, keeping off the girls who would’ve snared you and Tana.”
He grinned, because it was true. “We weren’t always the fine catches we are today.”
“Trust me, Verna Presky’s kicking herself.”
He fed the dough through the pasta maker. “She called me a few months ago.”
“Why?”
“To ask if I’d be up to the ranch anytime soon.”
“And you said?”
“That I had a girlfriend.” He flicked a glance at her face. She was frowning. “Which was a bald-faced lie,” he went on, “proving I’m the weenie Em says I am.”
Christy chuckled, and he swore he heard relief there. “Wimpy, yes, but kinder than saying you’ve outgrown her.”
“I should’ve said she blew her chance with me twenty years ago, so why didn’t she go look up Earl Quigley and see how he made out for himself.”
That got a rich laugh. “Earl must’ve been some kind of stud to beat out Dakota Rain.”
“Old Earl was okay. But I happen to know his Ford dealership went belly up in the recession. Not that I take any satisfaction in it, you understand.”
“I’m sure.” A sarcastic smile curved her lips.
He wanted to bite it.
“How about you?” he said instead. “Who broke Christy Gray’s cold, hard heart?”
It must not have been as funny as the Earl and Verna story, because instead of answering, she set her glass on the counter and turned it in a small circle, spreading condensation in a widening ring.
“I wouldn’t call it a broken heart,” she said at last. “More of a disappointment.”
He dropped the pasta in boiling water and waited her out.
“He plays baseball,” she said at last.
“Dodgers?”
“Not anymore. He transferred to an East Coast team in April. And no, I’m not telling you his name.”
“Why not?” He was burning to know.
“Because he’s a public figure and I respect his privacy.”
No problem. Kota didn’t follow baseball, but Tana would know which Dodger was traded east last spring.
“Why didn’t he take you with him?” The guy must be six kinds of stupid.
“He asked. I just”—she shrugged—“didn’t care enough about him to go.”
Kota had trouble following. “So he asked you to go, and you decided not to because you didn’t care about him. How’s that disappointing?”
“Because I thought I cared about him. I wanted to care about him.”
“Oh.” He drained the pasta, drizzled it with garlic-infused olive oil, then tossed it with the tomatoes, basil, a sprinkle of salt, and a dash of black pepper, all while puzzling out why her story disturbed him.
He filled two bowls, she carried the Prosecco, and they settled on the porch at their usual table.
It should’ve been cozy, relaxed, but instead he was edgy. Something pricked at the back of his brain, a sharp little barb that caught on an old wound.
He twirled pasta but never raised it to his lips. He’d gone cold inside.
“What you’re telling me,” he said, “is you broke this guy’s heart. Ripped a big-ass hole in his chest and sent him off across country to suffer alone.”
She must have heard the bite in his tone, because she set down her fork. “He could’ve stayed. I would’ve married him.”
“Even though you didn’t love him?” The poor bastard. What could be worse than loving someone who didn’t give a rat’s ass about you?
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I told you, I thought I loved him.”
“And when you figured out you didn’t? You’d have ditched him.” Cold sweat ran a river down his spine. “He’d have woken up one morning to find you long gone. Because you cared more about yourself than about him.”
She reared back. “If he’d stayed, and if someday I realized I didn’t love him”—she aimed a finger at his nose—“which might never have happened because I might’ve fallen in love with him over time. But if I didn’t and our marriage fell apart, that would’ve torn me to pieces.”
“Boo fucking hoo.” He shoved his bowl away. “Poor little Christy, all torn to pieces.” He leaned in, snarling. “What about your kids? You’d ditch them too, wouldn’t you?”
She stood up, a tower of indignation. “Fuck. You.” She took her bowl and strode away.
He kicked the table, then caught the wobbling glasses before they upended. “Goddamn it.”
Cy abandoned the porch, disappearing around the corner of the house. Tri upped stakes and hopped off after Christy.
Kota’s lids burned. “Sure. Leave me here alone, why don’t you?” He glared at Christy’s empty chair as if he could torch it with his eyes.
“What the fuck?” he demanded of the world at large.
CHRIS PACED HER room like a tiger.
Dakota Rain, notorious for avoiding committed relationships, dared to judge her? To accuse her of leaving kids she didn’t even have yet?
Well, fuck him then. She owed him nothing.
Opening her laptop, she set her jaw. “I’ll give Reed a story, all right.”
Asshole’s Brother Ties the Knot
At the celebrity wedding of the century, gorgeous, talented, and kindhearted stars Montana Rain and Sasha Shay walked down the aisle wearing Armani (him) and Carolina Herrera (her).
Best man Dakota Rain—the coldhearted bastard known for squinting his way through such mindless moneymakers as Machine Gun Mayhem and Kill Everyone In Sight—packaged his muscle-bound physique in Tom Ford.
The groom’s egomaniacal brother also delivered the wedding toast, a tear-jerking tribute to the brothers’ tragic childhood, undoubtedly penned for him by someone capable of real feelings.
Crossing her arms, Chris stared at the screen. Reed would nix the headline. And the made-up movie titles. And most of the third paragraph. But otherwise not a bad start.
She closed the laptop and rolled her neck. The tension was back, as if Kota had never rubbed it away.
Tri tapped her ankle. She boosted him up to eye level. “Plead his case,” she warned him, “and you’re outta here.”
Tucking him under her arm, she walked to the window. Outside, the midday sun bleached the sand and shattered off the swells. It was no time to be on the beach, but there was Kota, arms hanging at his sides, looking out to sea.
Alone.
Against her will, her heart twisted. She knew about alone.
It sucked.
He reached up with both hands to push his fingers through his hair, a breathtaking move that spread his back in a wide V, tightened his cheeks, and showed off his powerful legs all at once.
No wonder he worked it into every film.
But now it wasn’t scripted. Now he was just a man alone on a beach, staring out to sea as men had done through the ages.<
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And like women through the ages, she longed to go and stand with him. To comfort and be comforted. To make him, and herself, feel not alone.
Stupid impulse. She turned her back on the window, went to the laptop again, and opened a different file.
Reporting Live from the War Zone, This Is Emma Case
A catchy title. And yet all she’d written so far were a few chapter headings. Vietnam. Bosnia. Somalia. Baghdad.
It wasn’t for lack of source material. She had Emma’s journals, all fifty of them. Miles of video. Thousands of photos. Hundreds of people to interview.
Her mother had cut a wide swath through the world. And yet, as usual, Chris stared at the blinking cursor, fingers frozen, while her own vivid memories invaded her senses. Open markets, fragrant and colorful. Narrow streets buzzing with foreign tongues.
With her intrepid mother, she’d traveled the world. Ridden camels, lived in tents, worn a burka for months. Played kickball with refugees and Scrabble with the daughter of a genocidal dictator.
Not your average childhood, and yet, except for summers with Zach, she was always with her mother. How many kids could say that? And if Emma was often absorbed by her work, she was also dynamic, brilliant, and determined that her daughter would be all that and more.
So why, when Chris sat down at her computer to pay tribute to Emma, did her fingers freeze up? Why couldn’t she begin to tell her mother’s amazing story?
As she often did when the words wouldn’t come, she turned to the photos. Organizing them by date gave the illusion of progress. So did adding short captions.
And sometimes, when a photo triggered a particular memory, she wrote more, a paragraph. Or even a story. Usually it was just a fictional vignette built around the moment captured in the photo.
But one photo cried out for more. She kept it in a file all its own.
Opening it now, staring at the bleak image of a shockingly thin girl wearing a scrap of red cloth, Chris was transported back to a dusty refugee camp somewhere in Africa. The sickening smell of too many people with too little sanitation swept over her like a hot wind. She heard the cries of hungry children.
In the photo, the round-eyed girl stared mutely at the camera. But Chris remembered vividly the girl’s spindly arm poking through a hole in the fence, reaching for the bread Chris held in her hand.
There was something about the girl, about the way she’d made Chris feel. They were about the same age, but their lives couldn’t have been more different. Chris left the camp forty-eight hours later. But that girl might have been there for a year. She might have died there.
Chris had given her the bread, then gotten more and given her that too. She’d felt fortunate, and it was at that moment that she’d truly become aware of the randomness of life, the fortuity that put her on one side of the fence and that hungry girl on the other.
For more than twenty years she’d wondered what happened to that girl. It nagged at her. Sometimes it kept her awake at night.
She’d long since accepted that she’d never know. But she’d imagined a thousand endings to the story. She’d written some of them down, fairy-tale endings to what was more likely a harrowing tale of struggle, starvation, possibly rape, even murder.
She’d written those endings to make herself feel better, but they were too simplistic. She wanted the tale to end happily, but more than that, she wanted it to be honest. A realistic depiction of what might have happened.
Unsettled, unsatisfied, she closed the file. Frivolous fantasies could wait. Emma’s story must be told.
And yet, when she shut down her computer an hour later, Chris still hadn’t written a word about her mother.
Chapter Fifteen
THE GOLF CART jounced over the trail at a blistering five miles an hour.
“We could walk faster,” grumbled Christy. She’d been cranky since she woke up from a nap.
Kota let the exaggeration float by. “Thanks again for coming with me.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m still plotting my revenge.”
“I said I was sorry.” Was he ever. Another sexless afternoon down the drain.
Her grumpy silence berated him all the way to the big house.
He parked next to the vast porch overlooking the bay. The dogs piled out. Cy went on patrol. Tri waited for Christy to pick him up.
Sasha appeared on the porch, all smiles. “I hope you’re hungry. Tana’s been cooking all day.” She kissed Kota’s cheek, then Christy’s, bubbling with pleasure. “There’s beer, wine, gin and tonics. Whatever you want.”
“Just water for me,” mumbled Christy, throwing a damper on things.
“Oh. Sure.” Sasha’s smile wavered. “Kota?”
“Hold that thought,” he said. “There’s something I forgot to tell Christy.” He got a good grip on her arm and hauled her back out to the golf cart.
“What?” she demanded.
“Here’s what.” He bored in. “Sasha’s throwing her first dinner party as a married lady, and you just sucked all the fun out of the air.”
She had the grace to look shamefaced. “Sorry. I’ll do better.”
“They’re good people. You might like them if you give them a chance.”
“I already like them,” she said. “That’s part of the problem.”
“What problem?”
She shook her head. “Ignore me, I’m still half asleep.”
“You don’t have to drink. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” She mustered a trooper’s smile. “I’ll be a good guest, I promise.”
He arched a skeptical brow. “After your whopper about taking your shirt off, your word’s no good around here.”
She laughed, and relief spread through his chest. He hated being on the outs with her.
Sasha met them on the porch with ice water. Christy drained it like she’d crossed the desert to get there. “Thanks, I was thirsty. A gin and tonic sounds good. Can I help?”
Kota gave her arm a grateful squeeze. “Get me one too, will you? I gotta see a man about a grill.”
Around the corner on the terrace, Tana faced off with a stainless-steel behemoth that could’ve swallowed a school bus without burping. He looked over at Kota. “This fucker’s complicated.”
“Pfft. How hard can it be?”
“You haven’t used it yet?”
“It’s a grill, man. Turn it on, cook the meat, and let’s eat.”
Tana pointed at it. “Go ahead. Turn it on.”
Ten minutes later they both had their noses in the manual when the ladies appeared with cold drinks.
“Is it hot yet?” Sasha asked. “Can we throw on the steaks?”
Silence.
Christy put a gin and tonic in Kota’s hand. “You’re stumped, aren’t you?”
“We’re not stumped. We just want to make the most of all the cool features.”
She strutted to the control panel and turned a few knobs, then graced them with a superior smirk.
Kota tossed the manual over his shoulder. “Tell me Zach has one.”
“Nope, but I’ve used one before.”
Probably the boyfriend’s. While she chatted with Sasha, he pulled Tana aside. “Who got traded off the Dodgers pre-season?”
Tana ran through a few names.
“Which ones went east?”
“Only Jason Pendergast. He’s playing third base for the Red Sox.”
Kota squinted, trying to call up a visual.
“Six-three,” said Tana, “one eighty, brown and brown. Scar through his right eyebrow.” He shrugged at Kota’s stare. “I met him once.”
“Good-looking?”
“Why? You thinking about switching teams?” Tana grinned at his punny.
“Har har. Christy was almost engaged to him.”
“Makes sense. He asked where I got Sasha’s ring.”
Poor schmuck.
While Tana went inside for the beef, Kota sipped his drink and checked out the view, two gorgeous women in summer dresses framed against the sparkling sea. In the background, Chopin played, a far cry from the raucous rock that pumped through the sound system pre-Sasha, when this terrace had teemed with hot babes.
Kota didn’t miss it like he’d thought he would.
He ambled over to join them.
“I’m trying to bribe Christy to sing for us,” Sasha told him. “I know I shouldn’t. I hate it when fans ask me to do lines from their favorite film.” Her musical laugh was endearing. “You know all about that, Kota. Nobody has more taglines than you.”
He squinted his deadliest squint and put razors in his drawl. “I can kill you now or I can kill you later. Either way, it’s gonna hurt.”
“Terror Train. I love that movie!”
“Sasha’s into body count,” he told Christy.
“Nobody does it better,” said Sasha. “And the muscles.” She eyerolled. “Wait’ll you walk down the street with him. People stop him constantly. ‘Flex for us, Dakota. Lemme see what you got.’ And in bars, forget it. Every biker wants to arm wrestle him.”
Christy grinned. “I beat him twice.”
“Tit?” Sasha nudged her. “Tana taught me about the tit.”
“Christy already knew.” Kota looped an arm over her shoulder. “She’s an expert on the tit.”
Cy wandered into their midst, bumping Sasha affectionately. She patted his rump, well away from his grisly noggin.
Then he poked at Christy, favoring her with his ragged grin. She grinned back at him and scratched his chin. And Kota’s heart got two sizes too big for his chest.
Even Ma had needed time to adjust to Cy. But Christy looked straight past his ruined face to his soul.
He couldn’t help himself, he pulled her in and hugged her hard, like she might float away if he let go.
What a woman.
She tapped his shoulder, mumbling something he couldn’t decipher. He loosened his grip an inch. She dragged air into her lungs.