“We’ve got a pile of cow manure the size of a leprechaun’s kingdom over by the storage sheds. Jennings says he has big plans for our next venture.”
Peterson shook his head, a smile playing at his lips. “I’ve never understood why you hang on to that man and his crazy farm. I mean, c’mon Mikey—you’re living in a single wide growing lentils.”
“First of all, it’s an Airstream. They’re very collectible.”
Michael took a heavy drink, the bitterness of the beer giving him a moment’s pause. He hadn’t yet mentioned to any of the guys that he was pulling himself out of the Top Warrior Race and possibly the Highland Games for as long in the foreseeable future as he cared to look. They were going to find out, obviously, when he dropped an incredibly spiteful Rachel in their midst, hopefully clad in nothing more than bicycle shorts and a sports bra.
But he owed them more explanation than that.
“And the farm, well, a man’s got to do something with his life,” Michael continued. “I’m not like you, Peterson. I don’t have the kids and the wife on the way. I can’t keep up the Highland Games forever, and there’s got to be something else to hang my shorts on at the end of the day.”
“Your hat,” Peterson interjected, looking up from his glass.
“I’m not wearing one.”
“The expression, Mikey. It’s something to hang your hat on at the end of the day.”
“Well, that’s dumb. I’m not wearing a hat, and I’ve almost always got my shorts handy,” he insisted with a grin. It still amazed him when his friends thought he really was that thick. They were so damn easy to rile up.
Peterson shook his head. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with you sometimes.”
Michael let the insult fly over his head. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. Tomorrow night, you’re going to accept Rachel Hewitt as my replacement for the Top Warrior Race. And you—all of you—are going to be gracious about it.”
Peterson’s glass hit the table, the dark brew sloshing over the edges. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, my friend, I’m not. I know you think I blew it big time by telling Rachel about our Master Plan, but she’s not all bad. You’re still in one piece, I’m still in one piece—from where I’m sitting, the sun is snorting rose petals. In fact, I think what you and Rachel really need is to spend some time together.”
“Time together?”
“Voilà! I deliver.” Michael held up his glass in a one-sided toast. “Here’s your chance.”
“You’re not going to do it with us?”
He shook his head. “I told you. I’m hanging my shorts up, like a dog meeting its maker. You know, off to that big, open farmland in the sky?”
He poured another glass of beer and took a long, heavy pull, ignoring Peterson’s mouth hanging wide open.
“My big, open farmland just happens to be full of shit and lentils. That’s my life now, bro. Shit and lentils.”
Which wouldn’t have been so depressing if it wasn’t so true.
On his way out of the bar, Michael noticed the woman sitting on one of the barstools, her perfectly crossed legs, smooth and long and extending for miles, a clear indication she didn’t belong here. This was a man hole, a sports dive that even the hardiest of sports fans shunned unless they had a love of greasy food and greasier men.
In his experience, women came here only when they were past caring about things like chivalry, when they wore enough makeup to hide the last two decades of their lives. This woman was drinking an actual beer and seemed intent on the Seattle Sounders soccer game playing on the overhead flatscreen.
“What’s the score?” Michael asked congenially, pulling his jacket over his arms and reaching for his keys.
She turned around on the stool with an otherworldly kind of grace. Older than Michael had first suspected, she was nevertheless as out of place as a condom in a nunnery. Immaculate hair and cold, steely eyes only confirmed it.
“Twelve-zero,” she replied smoothly.
Michael hid his chuckle by pretending to fuss with the zipper on his jacket. There was no way that woman was actually paying attention to the game. He was as big a Sounders fan as they came, but there was no way they were skunking Portland by that much.
“Listen,” he said. “If you want some advice, you may want to find another bar to finish out your night. This place can get pretty rough after ten.”
Those cool eyes appraised him. Normally, he’d be able to walk away with some indication of how well—or how lacking—they found him. Not so here.
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Michael shrugged and pulled open the door, his oxygen levels immediately increasing tenfold with the evening air.
“Can I give you some advice back?” she called after him.
He turned.
“Don’t back down. If you really want a woman, keep pushing even when it seems like the worst thing you could do.”
Another woman unable to resist the O’Leary charm. Just as he was about to politely demur, she hopped off the stool and nodded at the bartender before slipping out the back door.
“Who the hell was that, Stan?” Michael asked, watching her leave.
“Don’t ask me. But she seemed mighty intent on you boys all night.”
“Both of us?”
The bartender scratched his chin and paused. “You, actually. Most of the time she was looking at you, a big ol’ smile on her face.”
Michael winked and nodded. It was good to know he still had his game—even if he wasn’t playing it anymore.
Chapter Seventeen
Passing Fair
Indira popped open the champagne and poured it liberally into three tall flutes, each one boasting no more than a quarter inch of orange juice.
“Mom, I don’t think this technically qualifies as a breakfast food,” Rachel said, picking it up and eyeing the slightly cloudy mimosa warily. Her mother, never one to back down from a challenge, reached over and plopped a chunk of fresh pineapple into the glass.
“There. It’s a whole food group now.”
Molly laughed and raised her glass. “To dress rehearsals and family breakfasts.”
With a sigh, Rachel added her own crystalline clink to the family moment. It had been a tradition to enjoy a little morning relaxation before the dress rehearsal for as long as Rachel could remember. She had to have been eight the first time she sipped champagne, fascinated by the caramel-colored drink and bubbles rising to the surface.
That had been the first of many disappointments involving alcohol.
“You’re coming tomorrow, right, Mom?” Molly asked, playing with the stem of her glass.
Rachel couldn’t watch. She fished her pineapple out with a little plastic sword and chewed on it, averting her eyes.
“Oh, darling, you know I’d love to, but—”
There it was, the litany of excuses, each one more outlandish as the words flowed out of her mother’s mouth. The amount of perfume the women in the audience had a tendency to wear gave her migraines. The last time she’d seen Antony and Cleopatra had been in London, and she hated to sully her memories of it with an X-rated show, even if it did feature her beloved dears. She was on a diet and had to be in bed by six o’clock or her metabolism would rupture.
“But this is nice, right, darling? Our little ritual?” Indira refilled their glasses, not even bothering with the orange juice this time.
“Yeah, Mom. It’s great.” Molly’s smile was bright and brave, but Rachel caught the quiver of her lips. She had to get them out of there.
“You know what? I’m going for a run this morning, or I think my metabolism might rupture too. Do you want to join me, Molly?” Rachel emptied her drink into the sink, taking the liberty to do the same with her sister’s.
Molly was no runner, but she immediately brightened. “Yes. Yes, I think that’s an excellent idea.”
Indira waved them off with a benign smile, clearly as happy to se
e them go as they were to leave. No matter how hard Rachel tried to be generous with their mother, she couldn’t help but feel that they were re-enacting the story of Snow White every day of their lives. Instead of reveling in the fact that her daughters had chosen to follow in her footsteps, she watched them through some distorted mirror, loathing every bright spot, begrudging them every success.
“You should come with me for real,” Rachel suggested as she changed into her running clothes. “I have to take it easy this morning anyway. Tonight is the practice with your behemoth boyfriend, and I have the sinking suspicion they plan to murder me with chin-ups.”
Molly jumped onto the bed and let herself sink into the piles of pillows Rachel had carefully stacked there. “I can’t believe you’re actually going through with that. I doubt Michael would hold you to the promise you made.”
Rachel doubted it too, which was precisely why she was going through with it. Nothing motivated her more than someone expecting her to fall and fail.
She’d go be his damn warrior. She’d go be the best damn warrior he’d ever seen.
To Molly, though, she just shrugged and turned her focus to tying her shoe. “You want me to get to know Eric. I’m getting to know him in all his mud-rolling glory.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Molly chewing thoughtfully on her lip. Trying not to let her interest show, she asked lightly, “Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?”
“Not exactly.” Molly put on a bright smile. “He’s just been kind of distracted lately, you know? And for a little while there, I thought he was going to—”
Rachel felt a sudden chill. She’d half thought Michael was making up the proposal stuff just to mess with her. “You thought he was going to what?”
But Molly shook it off. “Oh, nothing. I think maybe I saw things as more serious than they actually are. But you know men—one step forward, two steps back.”
Rachel certainly knew that man. And all other scumbags like him, willing to toy with a woman’s affections like they meant nothing.
Which reminded her…she needed to check in with Nora. Other than a brief text message letting her know she was getting started on the case soon, things had been eerily silent on that front. It wasn’t that she thought her friend would keep the truth from her, but Nora might feel compelled to soften the blow. She was one of the only people in the world who knew just how hard it was for Rachel to trust anyone in Molly’s life. Or her own.
“Well, I’ll see you at rehearsal, then, yeah?” Rachel sprang to her feet and did a few stretches. “What are you going to do this morning?”
Molly paused. “Not much. Are you running at the cemetery?”
“Probably.” Rachel strove to keep her tone light.
“Give her my love, okay?”
Rachel leaned over and gave her sister’s cheek a kiss. A splash of salty water hit the top of her lip as she pulled away. That tiny tear, the only one Molly allowed, was enough to strengthen every last one of Rachel’s resolves. There was still too much emotion in that big heart of her sister’s. It needed protecting.
“Will do, Molly,” Rachel replied thickly. “And stay away from Mom if you can. I think she might try to tie you up and keep you from showing up for the rehearsal, like Kathy Bates in Misery.”
Molly’s laugh was mostly forced, and Rachel felt her sister’s sadness lingering on her lips as she set out for her jog.
The morning air, damp and fresh, partially refreshed her and cleared the mimosa fog from her brain. But she didn’t stop at Baby Hewitt’s grave and she didn’t take it easy.
Rachel would choose exhaustion over emotion every time.
She couldn’t stop staring at his ass.
Every step Michael O’Leary took across the stage was a swagger, a combination of manliness and purpose that worked on her as some sort of hypnosis. He moved his hips like a silver-screen cowboy, a Clint Eastwood daguerreotype in a short leather-plated skirt and nothing else. How on earth was she supposed to remember all her lines?
The costume Mary had created for him was something Gerard Butler would go to battle in, but filled in with Michael’s own chiseled abs and a pair of sandals that wrapped around his calves like a woman’s greedy hands. Each line of his stomach was molded as if of clay, a map of perfect twists and turns leading downward. And when he turned or bent over, it was as though her eyes glued themselves to his haunches, hoping for a peek at what was going on under there.
Her own costume wasn’t half bad either, with low-cut folds of opaque white cotton swathing over a gold lamé two-piece, a slit in the leg going almost all the way up to her crotch. It was a beautiful costume, but she couldn’t swagger or bend or do any of that ridiculous mock swordplay Michael threatened Larson with. Her headpiece had to weigh fifteen pounds at least, and her body was still recovering from her out-and-out sprint that morning. It was all she could do to keep from toppling headfirst to the floor.
“So, Cleo, what do you think?” Michael preened as he drew close. “Do I look like I’m going to go kick some Greek ass or what?”
“You look good, and you know it,” she said grudgingly. “But the question is, can you pull off the rest of it? You know—the actual acting?”
He laughed and flashed his teeth. “Even if I can’t, do you think the crowds will care? Maybe they’ll be happy with the gun show instead.”
As Rachel groaned, fully aware of what was coming, he flexed his arms and kissed the curve of each biceps.
“I swear, you get more and more classy each time I see you.”
“I’ll admit, I might have slipped Mary a fifty in hopes she’d do justice to my manly physique,” he joked. His eyes twinkled, and he reached out to adjust the hair-and-hat-in-one affixed to her head with about sixty bobby pins. “If I slip her another fifty, do you think she’ll let you come to practice tonight in the little gold bikini you’ve got going on under there?”
In true Michael form, he didn’t attempt to mask his perusal of her body, his eyes roaming appreciatively over every inch of her. She would not react. She would not let him see how much it affected her.
“Oh, get over yourself,” Rachel said, trying not to wriggle around to give him a better look. “It’s never going to happen. Not me in a gold bikini, and certainly not you enjoying it. If you ask me, what you really need is a woman with zero self-esteem and no intellect to speak of.”
“But I like you,” he said simply.
Mule. Mule, mule, mule. She formed a kind of chant inside her head, forcing herself to focus on all the things about him that made her want to scream. And not in that guttural, wanton, delicious way she couldn’t seem to get out of her head—or her body.
Fortunately, Molly chose that moment to ask about some last-minute details. Despite a heavy layer of stage makeup—though not, Rachel knew, as heavy as her own—it was easy to see that her sister had spent the better part of the morning crying.
Rachel steeled herself against the sadness in the red-rimmed eyes. For Molly, tears were good. They were constructive. They were the slow but steady realization that she was making a mistake. With any luck, the relationship with Eric would end before Rachel had to resort to underhanded means. Then she wouldn’t have to play the cruel older sister. She could just be the sister, the one to hold her and promise it would all be okay.
“Well, ladies. Break a leg—that’s what you say, isn’t it?”
Molly beamed and grabbed Michael’s arm. “You’re going to be great. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, I’m not,” he said, puffed with his own vainglory. He put a hand on the hilt of his sword and stood tall, far too much like a true Roman sentinel for Rachel’s peace of mind. “But same to you. You two look spectacular. Is Peterson here, by the way?”
Molly’s face darkened. “I haven’t seen him yet, but I know they’re hoping he can run point on security. He should be here.”
There was a heavy note of accusation in her voice. Before Rachel could ask about it, Dominic entered onto the scene, hold
ing a clipboard and a megaphone and looking like he was ready to murder the next person who didn’t jump when he asked.
“All right, people,” he announced. “Here we go. Let’s take it from the top.”
Everyone scrambled to their places. At least, everyone except Michael. He sauntered, all eyes in the place watching the flip and flop of those tiny skirt panels bouncing off the backs of his generously muscular thighs.
While his back was turned, Rachel lifted a hand and yanked on the neckline of her gown, not stopping until the tops of her breasts visibly swelled over the bikini and out into the audience. The heavy gold-and-turquoise necklace gave them a perfect frame, and for good measure, she went ahead and hiked up part of her skirt and tucked it into the waistband so her entire thigh flashed with the super exfoliated and spray-tanned smoothness that had cost her the better part of the previous week’s salary.
If Michael was going to treat the patrons to a gun show, she wasn’t going to be far behind. Never in her entire career on the stage had she been less beautiful than her male lead. And damn it all to purgatory and back, she wasn’t about to start now.
In the end, Michael was glad Rachel hadn’t opted to wear the bikini to practice.
For one, it started raining about an hour before they were all scheduled to be out on the field, the cold, stinging pellets like shards of ice on bare skin. Though, come to think of it, that might not have been so bad. In his fantasies, a cold, wet woman equaled erect nipples and a need for a warm male body to do something about them.
The real problem was just how much fun the guys were having rolling her over the ground, lifting her up over the biggest hurdles and putting their greedy hands everywhere. Even in her sensible sweatpants and T-shirt, it was too much. She was soaked to the skin, her wet hair stuck to her face, her wet clothes stuck everywhere else.
And all while Michael stood on the sidelines, blowing his whistle by himself.
The men—Julian, McClellan, Nick and Peterson—trailed behind Rachel as they finished a sprint in which she took the clear lead.
The World is a Stage Page 18