by Beverly Bird
Hunter’s air left him again, riffling out of him this time. He raked his hands through his hair. “I can’t do this.”
Montague looked at his watch again impatiently. “I’ve got to go. Think it over and give me a call on Monday if you’re not already in residence at the Copper Rose.”
He walked away again. This time Hunter let him leave.
He followed more slowly, heading for his SUV in the parking lot across the street, feeling dazed. Pritch had been willing to let him back in a car next weekend. He’d driven down to see a doctor in Phoenix yesterday and had gotten a clean bill of health. It was already October first; he would have five weeks, five races, to scramble back into points contention. It was a long shot but it wouldn’t quite take a miracle. He could still do it.
If he tucked into one of Liv’s guest rooms for three months, his season was over.
He wanted to punch something.
“My money is on you flying off again,” said a familiar voice from behind him.
Hunter cued the remote to unlock his SUV and turned. Kiki Condor. How long had it been?
“Where’s your sidekick?” he asked shortly.
“What happened to ‘Hello, old friend, how have you been?’” She came up beside him and leaned her shoulder against his vehicle, crossing her arms over her chest. She hadn’t changed, Hunter thought. She had that ageless quality that so many Native American women shared when their lives weren’t riddled by poverty. Her black hair was still long and lustrous, her eyes were still deep and clear. She was still a knockout, Hunter thought.
In the beginning they had circled each other suspiciously and antagonistically. Kiki had been absolutely sure that Hunter would hurt Liv, and Hunter had been convinced beyond doubt that Kiki would do her best to turn Liv against him. Neither of those things had happened, and the three of them had ended up being the best of pals.
“Liv made a side trip to the rest room. I believe she’s going to be sick.”
“Good.” It gave him a sharp edge of satisfaction to know that Liv was as upset about this as he was.
“So what are you going to do?” Kiki asked again.
“I’ll win this eventually.” As Montague had said, no judge was going to prohibit him from contact with his child—assuming he wasn’t an ax murderer.
Hunter felt a tightening across his forehead—slick, hot tension. It would be best to head out to Charlotte tomorrow, he thought. Have Montague file the appeal. The Appellate Court could chew on it all off-season.
And they would probably come back with a decision sometime in mid-February, he realized, just when the new season was kicking off in Daytona.
“So Liv was right.” Kiki pushed off the vehicle in disgust. “You’ll fly away and come back when it suits you.”
“Wait a second,” Hunter said harshly, stung. “How did this get to be your business?”
“Vicky is my goddaughter.”
That stalled him. He realized he was glad. Then the heat across his forehead gripped tighter as images of the child danced in his mind’s eye.
“I’ll let Livie know what I decide,” he said gruffly. He reached for the door handle and got into the SUV, driving off hard, just as Liv came through the courthouse doors.
Liv was calmer when she caught up with Kiki—which was to say that her pulse hiccuped instead of rioted, and there was only a dull ache at her temples instead of a pounding. She narrowed her eyes on the SUV as it sped off. “Were you just talking to him?” she demanded.
“Yeah.” They fell into step together, heading toward Liv’s car.
“Some moral support you turned out to be.”
“You wanted me to stand up in court and beat my chest in angst over the decision?”
“You were just caught red-handed consorting with the enemy!”
“I was trying to figure out if I should clean out my room for him. We can’t cancel reservations.”
“No.” Liv’s footsteps stalled. “What did he say? Did he say he was going to do this?” Her voice rose.
“He evaded the issue.”
They stopped beside the battered BMW. Liv stared at the bumper. “Damn it. I really need to get this fixed.” It seemed safest to concentrate on the car. That didn’t make her heart flip over and spin.
Kiki wouldn’t be sidetracked. “I’d wait until he leaves town,” she advised. “Otherwise you’ll probably just end up having to do it twice.”
“He’s not going to miss the rest of the NASCAR season.” Liv had almost convinced herself of that in the time it took her to apologize and rehire her attorney and to catch up with her friend. “Hunter Hawk-Cole has never stayed in one place for ninety days in his whole sorry life.”
Kiki went on to her own car. “We’ll see.”
Hunter stopped at a liquor store on his way back to town and picked up a bottle of Remy. He’d thought of visiting the Spirit Room, but he knew he wasn’t fit for human company at the moment.
He knocked back a shot in his room and glared at the telephone as though it were somehow responsible for this nightmare. He could call Pritch and tell him that he would be staying in Jerome. Or he could go back to driving and let Liv win this.
He jerked out of his suit jacket, throwing it on the bed. Somehow he’d convinced himself that when he hit Charlotte at the beginning of the week, he’d have Victoria Rose in tow. The judge had been right about one thing—he hadn’t thought beyond that. He figured he’d have to bring her back to Livie eventually…but this would have been his time. A drop in the bucket after the eight long years when Liv had had the child to herself.
His turn.
He’d show her the cars, Hunter thought, give her a spin in one until she shrieked and giggled. But she wouldn’t be afraid. Not his kid, not his little girl with the devil in her eyes. They’d go from Martinsville to Talledega, and from Alabama they would swing through Phoenix then head back east to Atlanta. They’d live his life together for a while.
Hunter swore at the thought and sat down on the edge of the bed. Hard.
He would have established a link with his daughter, he realized, would have had a blast with her through the short remainder of the season, then he would have let her come back to her mother. And he would have visited whenever he could after that. He would have paid Liv back for all this, then he would have gotten on with his life. Because the NASCAR season was a long one—ten months, thirty-six races—and he had to be with his crew, working to strike that delicate balance between mechanics and serendipity. He’d go back to that because it was where he’d finally found peace after Livie had pushed him out of her life.
Words rolled through his head, things that had been said in court just hours ago.
Why is it necessary for him to live there?
Because he wants to be a father.
Suddenly he understood the way the judge had grinned to herself when she’d left the courtroom. And he understood why his skull had been tightening steadily ever since Kiki had faced him down. If his only motive was to pay Liv back, he wouldn’t be willing to live at her inn, he realized. The judge was going to find out just how much Victoria Rose mattered to him before she ruled and rocked the child’s life. She was going to find out how far he was willing to go to be a father.
“Ah, damn it.” Hunter rubbed his temples and shot to his feet again.
He’d taken several snapshots of Vicky that day at the riding academy, before Liv had arrived. He’d stopped off and bought one of those disposable cameras on his way to Mustang Ridge. Now he grabbed the packet of photos from his dresser drawer.
His favorite was her narrow-eyed look of pure betrayal when the mare had dumped her. No, he thought, flipping through them, his favorite was when she had gone nose-to-nose with the horse right afterward, her little jaw jutting as she faced the beast down. Then there was the one of Liv dragging her away, when she glanced back over her shoulder at him, grinning conspiratorially.
His heart shifted painfully. This really was his turn with h
er. It just wasn’t under the circumstances he’d asked for.
Hunter picked up the phone to call Pritch and kiss off the rest of his season.
Kiki made duckling l’orange for dinner. It was her idea of comfort food. Though she usually left the inn after tea, they occasionally shared dinner at the big butcher-block table in the kitchen.
When Liv felt reasonably steady again after some solitude in her room, she followed her nose downstairs to find Vicky. She knew her daughter would be helping Kiki.
“Ah,” she murmured, pushing through the door into the kitchen, sniffing deeply.
Vicky was crowding Kiki at the oven door. “You forgot the garnish,” she said accusingly.
“Move over, Chef Boyardee.” Kiki gave her an elbow. “If I put the oranges on while it was still roasting, they’d wilt.”
“That’s true.” Vicky nodded sagely and skittered out of the way. Then she saw her mother. “Kiki’s cooking for us!” Her joy told Liv what she thought of her own efforts—usually frozen entrees, take-out and sandwiches.
“Get the brandy,” Kiki said, lifting the duckling out of the oven.
“What for? Hunter’s not—” Liv broke off quickly, feeling the avid weight of her daughter’s watchful gaze.
“What’s the race guy got to do with dinner?” Vicky asked.
“Nothing to do with dinner and everything to do with brandy,” Kiki muttered under her breath. “Besides, we don’t have any wine. I didn’t have time to buy any, what with chasing all over the county today.”
Liv’s pulse started again gradually. She could protect Vicky from this until she heard from Hunter, she thought, until she got word that he was actually going to do this, to move in. Aside from a slip of the tongue, she was damned well determined to do just that.
She moved to the cupboard without answering.
“Take this while I serve up the rice and the salad,” Kiki said to Vicky, handing her the duckling platter. “Careful. Use the potholders. I kept the platter warm.”
“Duh. I’ve been helping you since I was born.” Vicky grabbed oven mitts and pulled them on at the same time a distant knocking sounded at the front of the inn.
“Got to be that writer,” Kiki complained. “How long has he been with us now?”
“Four weeks.” Ed Stern kept extending his stay and it had played hell with reservations. He was definitely working on something that had to do with Jerome, Liv thought again. And he was absentminded. He generally went out for a while right after tea and forgot his guest key on a regular basis.
“I’ll get it,” Vicky said, sliding the duckling platter gently onto the table. “I like him. He tells great stories.” She raced off, the oven mitts still on her hands.
“What kind of stories do you suppose he tells her?” Liv asked worriedly, watching her go.
Kiki shrugged and put the salad and the pilaf on the table. “All I can tell you is that Vicky hasn’t asked me what a brothel is yet so he must be minding his tongue.”
Liv brought the brandy to the table at the same time Vicky’s voice rolled excitedly down the hallway. “Mom! It’s Mr. Race Car Driver!”
The bottle slipped from Liv’s hand. Brandy spilled and spewed. Into the rice. Over the duckling. It pooled in the salad. She didn’t even bother to grab it up again as it chugged out its contents. She stood frozen.
Kiki recovered first to snatch the bottle before it emptied completely. “Uh-oh. Sounds like we’re going to need this.”
Liv grabbed her friend’s arm. Her fingers dug in like claws. “What’s he doing here?”
“I’d say he’s either moving in or he’s throwing in the towel.”
“Mom! Come here!” Vicky’s voice came again, more urgent this time. “He’s got a suitcase!”
Liv’s legs folded and she sat at the table. “The judge gave us seventy-two hours!”
Even Kiki looked a little pale. “Well, the sooner he moves in, the sooner it’ll all be over with, right?”
“I don’t want him to move in!”
“Neither do I, particularly, but I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about it short of blowing the place up.”
“Mom!” Vicky called again.
“I’ve got to take care of this.” Liv pushed to her feet and felt unsteady.
“I’ll get another plate,” Kiki said.
“No!”
Kiki paused in midmotion and lifted a brow at her.
“Woodingham said I had to let him sleep here,” Liv grated. “She didn’t say I had to eat with him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just a…a nonpaying guest.”
“Tell that to your daughter.”
Liv held the table for support. She was going to have to tell Vicky something now. The room spun.
She finally pushed off the table and headed for the hall. Vicky was nearly jumping up and down with excitement at the front door. Liv’s heart seized as she wondered what they had been talking about. She picked up her pace and put a hand on Vicky’s head when she reached her.
“Aunt Kiki needs you.”
“But—”
“The race car driver isn’t going anywhere. Yet. Go help Aunt Kiki.”
“Mom, everything was already on the table! What does she need help with?”
“There was a little spill.”
“I’ll just bet,” Hunter drawled.
“Shut up,” Liv said in a deceptively pleasant tone as Vicky left. When her daughter was gone, Liv took his arm and yanked him into the parlor. “Damn you! Have you never heard of a telephone?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked around without answering. “Nice place.”
“Don’t make yourself at home.”
He quirked a brow at her. “Ah, Livie, you’re going to make this a long three months.”
“Count on it. What did you say to Vicky just now?”
He brought his gaze back from all the brocade and the brass and the raw, dark wood. One wouldn’t have thought it would go together, he thought, but that was Liv. The bland, the blasé and the trite didn’t stand a with against her.
She’d even made that frou-frou skirt look good all those years ago.
But he didn’t want to remember that, and when his eyes fell on her face, everything else washed from his mind, anyway. She was white as a sheet.
“I didn’t tell her who I am,” he said finally. Then he left her to wander around the room.
Things stiffened inside Liv with every silver demitasse cup and candle snuffer he picked up to inspect. “Stop that.”
“Sorry. Guests can’t touch?”
“You’re not a guest,” she snapped.
“Probably more like your worst nightmare.”
“Finally. We agree on something.” Liv wondered if she was shaking with fury or fear. “Why are you doing this, Hunter?” She had never really believed he’d do it.
“Because if I don’t, someday you’ll tell Victoria Rose how I walked away rather than give this a chance.”
She heard the honesty ring in his tone. Liv deliberately softened her own. “I won’t tell her. I swear. Just go.”
“Livie, with all due respect, I gave up on believing you a long time ago.” He turned back to her. “I won’t hurt her that way.”
What was he saying? “You’re trying to make me believe that you’re doing this for her?”
He picked up a copper lion sitting on an end table, turned it over in his hands, put it back. “Maybe I’m doing it for me. I can’t stomach walking away from her. Don’t say it,” he said sharply, glancing back at her when she opened her mouth. “I didn’t walk away the first time. Let’s put that behind us right now. I didn’t know, and you told me to go.”
“Would it work if I did it again now?”
A corner of his mouth almost lifted into a grin. “No.”
Liv lowered herself gently onto the divan. She hugged herself. “You wouldn’t have done it then, either, if you had known the truth.”
“That’s why you didn’t te
ll me.”
She refused to respond. She supposed he could read the answer in her silence.
“Someday she’s going to be eighteen,” he said, starting to prowl again in that way he had. “She won’t stay small and complacent forever with whatever you’ve told her about me. As the years go by, she’ll ask you more and more and you’ll end up telling her that I had this chance and I walked away from it.” He turned back to her. “I’m not going to be that man.”
Liv covered her face with her hands.
So many years, she thought desperately. So many careful words. Making everything just so for Vicky. Arranging it neatly. And now he was going to blow everything wide open. She dropped her hands and stood again. “If she sheds one tear over you, I’ll kill you.”
“Duly noted. What’s for dinner?”
“Whatever you can scare up at a restaurant in town. You won’t be joining us. But I’ll make sure there’s a room available for you by nine o’clock.”
Liv left the parlor, her spine so straight and brittle she thought it crackled with her every move.
Chapter 7
T he duckling was delicious. Liv couldn’t swallow.
“He says he heard our place was better than the Connor,” Vicky chattered at the table. “That’s good, right? Word of mouth?”
“Word of mouth is good,” Liv agreed, forcing the words through her tight throat.
“Their kitchen is definitely inferior to ours,” Vicky decided, shoveling in rice pilaf.
“That’s because their chef doesn’t know an ion from his own—” Kiki broke off at Liv’s warning look. “Patootie,” she finished.
“Patootie!” Vicky put her fork down and laughed hard. “It sounds like something to eat! Patootie, potato-ie.”
“Just keep it to yourself that I said so,” Kiki warned. Her expression said that they already had one too many lawsuits going on in this household.
Liv moved her food around on her plate one more time, then she pushed her chair back abruptly and stood. She had to know if Hunter was still out there.