Wild Card (Wild At Heart Series Book 3)

by Christine Hartmann

  Lone Star bowed to Grace. “Follow my lady love.”

  Grace flipped her long hair under a floppy brimmed sun hat. “I’m cooking on a front burner today.”

  Celine’s eyebrows arched and she shook her head. “Got to get you out of El Paso more often, girl. You sound more Texan than he does.”

  She and Grace loped ahead, leaving K-Rao and Lone Star behind discussing the merits of electronic and paper maps. Celine quizzed Grace on the location for the next day’s wedding. Grace pointed at a striped mound that rose in the land before the larger hills in the distance and explained that it hid a small natural amphitheater that she and Lone Star had decided was perfect.

  Celine shook a finger at her friend. “Remember when you were prepping for your Pacific Crest Trail hike and I kept giving you all those books and you never read them? Don’t you think maybe you’re doing the same thing here?”

  “Avoiding reality?” Grace wiped the sweat from her brow with a light blue bandanna.

  “Letting the romance of the idea carry you away. You are seriously going to schlep to that hill wearing a wedding dress?” Celine whistled through her teeth dismissively. “You’ll have armpit stains and red dirt kicked up your back. Sister, that’s not how I want to look in my wedding photos.”

  Grace’s eyes twinkled. She gestured to the small pack on her back. “My wrinkle free dress is going in there.”

  Celine slowed her pace. “So only your guests are going to look like crap?”

  Grace laughed. “Lone Star’s best man is bringing a baby stroller rigged up with a rod to hold garment bags. Your dress will be chauffeured to the location.”

  Celine shrugged. “Make sure that stroller has room for wet wipes and a makeup kit. And if the photographer takes pictures of me before I’m dressed, I’m going to bust his camera.”

  “I’ll warn her.”

  The two women arrived at Grace and Lone Star’s rental car a few minutes ahead of the men. Celine pulled Grace to the far side of the vehicle and told her about K-Rao’s proposal.

  “At least I think it was.” She squirmed out of her hydration pack and twirled it in front of her.

  Grace regarded her with large, serious eyes. “Did you say yes?”

  Celine hooked the pack on one finger and slung it over her shoulder. “I told him I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “You think he’s serious?”

  Celine pursed her lips. “About something like that, K-Rao couldn’t joke.”

  Grace opened the back passenger door, sat on the seat, and undid dusty gaiters from her hiking shoes. She glanced up at Celine. “You don’t look very happy.”

  Celine looked into the distance. “It’s going to make deciding what happens next a hell of a lot more complicated.”

  Lone Star poked his head from around the back of the car. “You ladies decent?”

  Grace tossed him the gaiters. He caught them and jabbed K-Rao with an elbow. “You should have been aiming at this guy.” He suspended the dirty nylon sock covers between thumb and forefinger. “A thru-hiker’s gaiters are a lucky omen.”

  K-Rao snatched the gaiters. “I’ll hold on to these.” He turned to Celine and reached for her hand.

  Celine evaded his grasp and hopped into the back seat. “I could use a drink, and we could all use a party.”

  ***

  While a laughing couple strolled past him, Greenwood leaned deep into the trunk of his car, positioned his legs in front of the license plate, and held a child’s tennis racquet in front of his face. When they disappeared into the elevator, he resumed digging through the cavernous interior, throwing tennis balls, children’s sports gear, and an assortment of towels and picnic paraphernalia into various corners. In the depths of a small duffel stuffed to its limit with smelly soccer uniforms, his fingers massaged crinkled plastic and tugged a soiled convenience store bag into the dull light of late afternoon. After inspecting it for holes, he thrust it into a pocket and slammed the trunk shut. He glared at the white SUV, which, thanks to the exit of a few tired gamblers parked in a prime location, stood in the garage only ten yards from his own.

  His nose wrinkled. “Making me use a bag as a toilet.” He slid into the back seat. “You’ll fucking pay for this, Brianna Acosta.”

  Minutes later, with the bag tightly tied and back in the trunk, he wiped his hands furiously with a fast food chain napkin. It shredded under the onslaught, showering his slacks and the leather seat with white confetti. He lifted his phone and scrolled through the past hour’s voicemails, reading their transcribed contents and muttering. After deleting his administrative assistant’s bi-hourly update that referred him to emails on his work phone, a message from the marketing director, the general counsel’s request for a return call, and an unctuous request for an informational interview from the cousin of his college roommate, a single remaining call stared up at him from the screen.

  “What does she mean, ‘It can’t go on’?” He reclined in the seat and set the phone on his stomach. “She’s taking charge?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to imagine Abigayle’s face as she opened one of the magazines. Had she been puzzled, frightened, or outraged? Was her message simply venting? Or were the magazines the last push she needed to take him to court? His hands turned cold and he tucked them inside his waistband. A minute later, he pulled them out and his thumbs flew across the screen, trolling the Internet for the hundredth time for stories about his company and himself. His eyes focused on the terms reassuringly grayed out in strikethrough text: investigation, police, warrant, abuse. The YouTube video at the top of the list beckoned to him. He closed his eyes and mouthed the words of the one-and-a-half-minute story about a lonely young boy, lost until he found the perfect playmate. That lonely boy was Paulo. The playmate was Greenwood’s company’s new action series soldier.

  But behind Greenwood’s closed eyes, in the stale and slightly putrid air of the car, in the garage hundreds of miles from his home, Paulo’s perfect playmate was not the soldier. It was Greenwood.

  ***

  The tween-aged girl hip-checked her younger brother from his spot in front of the eighty-inch TV screen and jerked the virtual reality goggles from his hands while glancing at her mother’s back. When her brother protested, she clamped her fingers over his mouth and whispered something in his ear. His shoulders dropped and he threw himself onto the corner of the L-shaped red suede sofa.

  The girl shouted into the dining room. “Tell Daddy to bring home a special edition Walter the Walrus.”

  Abigayle’s face peered through a hutch. “Why don’t you ask him yourself, Gretchen?”

  Gretchen poised the goggles over her face. “The last time I saw him was…” She shut her eyes and counted on fingers shiny with dark green manicure, “Saturday. He picked me up from tennis.” She shoved the visor down and fumbled on the coffee table for the remote.

  Her brother ambled into the kitchen and stood next to his mother, who was sorting paperwork on the long counter. “One of her friends has cancer.”

  Abigayle’s fingers halted, poised over a stack of spiral binders. She stared at her son.

  “She has blue keemia and wants the walrus.” He climbed on a stool and sat, legs dangling, his expression questioning. “What’s blue keemia?”

  Abygale blinked, her glance shifting from the papers to Justin and back again. She sighed and twisted away from the counter, meeting his eyes. “Leukemia. It’s a kind of blood cancer.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Buddy, what gives you that idea?” She cradled his chin in her hand and shook it gently back and forth.

  The boy’s blue eyes bored into hers. “Is it why Daddy’s not here?”

  His mother took off her glasses, placing them carefully on the marble, and rubbed her eyebrows. She wheeled on the heels of a pair of alligator pumps and strode to the kitchen sink, where she gazed out the window past the black and white pebbles of a Zen rock garden and elaborate hedges shaped to resemble the San F
rancisco skyline.

  “Mommy?” The boy squirmed off the stool and tugged at her silk blouse. A tear rolled down his smooth cheek.

  She turned to face him, rubbing the streaks from her own cheeks, and lifted him with a grunt onto the counter so his face was level with hers. “There is something wrong with Daddy. But it’s not leukemia.”

  Chapter 11

  The zipper of Bree’s new sleeveless pink dress caught on the waistband of her shaping wear and no matter how she contorted herself to free it, it stayed put. She called Mal into the bathroom. He yanked while she watched her jiggling image in the mirror.

  “It’s a little tight, isn’t it?” She gasped as he hauled it past the obstruction and the fabric slithered shut, compressing her ribs and chest. She tested a few breaths carefully, straining against the Lycra, listening for signs of ripping seams.

  Mal gave her behind a squeeze. “Open or closed?” He pointed to the second button on his checked dress shirt.

  Bree fingered the white undershirt that peeped from beneath the pale blue and green pattern. “It could get really hot.”

  Mal scowled. “I hate being cold.”

  Bree smiled gently. “It’s a club, darling, with dancing. I give you permission to drag me to the floor whenever you’re feeling chilly.” She embraced him from the side, wiggling her hips against his.

  Mal laughed and pushed her away. “Don’t start now.” He untucked his shirt and slipped it over his head. “Grandma’s waiting.”

  Bree smiled. In line for the buffet dinner earlier that evening, she whispered her idea of going to a nightclub to Mal and his sister, explaining she’d met a friend from high school in the lobby the night before who’d invited them to go with his sisters. Wouldn’t it be fun? The twins pounced on the idea sotto voce while Val protested in hissed tones that it wasn’t appropriate to split up the family. Amy, meanwhile, sulked because she wasn’t old enough to go. When the dinner ended, lines were drawn. The twins were coming. Val would take Amy to a show, and Juli, the grandmother, would go to bed early. At least that was how Bree understood it until Juli grabbed her arm in front of the dessert sideboard.

  “Many years before, I was going, you know.” The older woman ladled a spoonful of fresh fruit onto her plate.

  Bree stopped scooping, tiramisu dripping from her spatula. “To bed early?”

  “Dancing.”

  Bree used tongs to transfer two chocolate chip cookies to the corner of her laden dish. “You went to nightclubs?” She tried to imagine the demure Juli in a sari under disco lights.

  “I was taking many dancing classes. I was quite good.” Her brown eyes sparkled and she rocked her head in the beguiling way Bree enjoyed watching.

  Because the Patel family table was visible from where they stood, Bree pulled Juli closer to the soup line, where they were partly hidden by an enormous bread display that rivaled that of Parisian bakeries. She balanced her plate on one hand and put the other on her hip. “I have no problem with your coming.” She grinned. “But I’m not sure you know what you’re getting into. These places are really loud. And it’s not just women dancing. There are…” Her mind searched for an explanation of the suggestive moves on contemporary dance floors. Her eyes narrowed. “Have you seen young people dancing?”

  “I’ve seen my granddaughters. They are sometimes practicing in the house.” She wiggled her shoulders underneath her flowing, light green shift.

  “So you’ve never seen young men and women…This is really embarrassing.” Bree grit her teeth and glanced around them. She quickly gyrated her hips, mimicking thrusting movements, and cocked her head. “Know what I mean?”

  The grandmother nodded. “I’m a seventy-year-old woman with children.”

  Bree blushed. “So you’re okay with seeing stuff like that in public?”

  The old woman regarded her seriously. “No one will be trying that with me, yes?”

  Bree’s eyes shone with amusement. She shifted her dish and patted Juli on the arm. “Not with you. And not with me.”

  An hour later, with Mal, the twins, and Juli in tow, Bree hailed a minivan taxicab. Inside, she texted Ryder.

  Bree: I’m bringing Mal’s grandmother.

  Ryder: Sweet.

  Bree: Can we get a quieter booth? Is there such a thing?

  Ryder: Leave it to me.

  Under the nightclub’s neon flashing lights, Mal escorted the four women up numerous escalators to the entrance, where a dauntingly long line snaked along a path outlined by velvet corded posts. He herded them in to the back of the line and yelled to Bree in the already deafening din. “Did you say he was inside already?”

  Bree jumped when a hand clamped on her shoulder. She turned to see Ryder beaming at her.

  “So glad you came.” His voice rose easily above the din without degrading into a shout. He undid the velvet cord near them and ushered them out of line.

  Side-by-side, Mal and Ryder looked their high school parts, Ryder every bit the ex-football player and Mal the ex-cross-country star. Ryder was taller, with broader shoulders and muscles that filled out his clothing without any ostentation. Mal’s untucked shirt billowed slightly around his spare frame. Bree noted that while Ryder looked like a country singer in a Tex-Mex restaurant, he now looked like a Hollywood celebrity, blending in perfectly with the young, pulsing crowd. Bree positioned her dress folds more flatteringly over her hips and quietly blessed the spandex contracting her middle like an unrelenting boa constrictor. She had no desire to look like his charity case. She peeped at herself in one of the ubiquitous mirrors and sucked in her tummy.

  Ryder guided them to the entrance and, with a slight nod at the enormous gentleman standing guard at the door, into the vibrating interior. Bree felt Juli’s hand slip into hers. She squeezed it. The twins glanced back at Bree with eyes and smiles larger and more genuine than Bree had yet seen. She nodded to herself. She had done right to bring everyone here. Ryder knew how to show people a good time.

  Popular dance music thundered from speakers embedded in the walls, ceilings, and floors. Conversation was impossible. Bree peeked at the grandmother she was leading through the crowd. The wrinkled face bobbed above a black sweater and slacks Bree had chosen and registered both surprise and awe as she was jostled by the throng of expensively clad youths. Ryder pointed upstairs, indicating an escalator at the side of the gigantic hall.

  Pink, purple, and blue spotlights roamed the dance floor, where the crowd was so thick that it was difficult to see where one set of movement ended and the next began. Ryder led them between the dance floor and a wall of lit glass that separated the dancers from two rows of leather couches and marble tables jammed with people and drinks. When a tall man with an exquisite tan, gold jewelry, and a skintight black T-shirt bounced off Juli and proceeded on his way without apology, Bree bent down and shouted into the old woman’s ear. “Are you okay with this?”

  Juli rocked her head enthusiastically and wiggled her thin shoulders in time to the music. Bree laughed. She needn’t have worried, she guessed. There was no indication that the all-but-fornicating dancers on the floor shocked this woman.

  They finally reached the bank of escalators lined with dark purple fluorescent lighting. Bree searched for an exit sign and wondered how the building passed the fire marshal’s inspection. When the moving stairway deposited them on the floor above, Bree exhaled as though she released from a pressure cooker. After spending time on the floor below, the space in which they now moved seemed almost unnervingly still. Juli released her hand. Bree could hear the gushing chatter of the twins. Ryder called to them and motioned a table where two blonde women sat with wide martini glasses filled with a sea blue liquid.

  Two benches faced a table that was situated perpendicular to another tall glass wall. Below stretched an expansive view of the Vegas Strip. After Ryder introduced his sisters and everyone slid into place, Bree found herself sitting between Mal and Ryder, with Juli on Ryder’s right and the four young women across fr
om them, already far past introductions and engaged in animated conversation.

  Bree leaned back into the soft leather. “This is heaven.” Mal leaned into her and put his arm around her shoulders.

  “My mom would flip if she saw what was going on down there.”

  Bree put her hand on his knee. “She’s having a great time with your dad going through the menu one last time. I promise.”

  Mal squeezed her to him. “Why can’t I stop talking about her?”

  Bree tickled his knee and turned to Ryder, keeping her voice light and playful. “I feel like you should be sitting next to Mal. I know more about you than I care to. But you don’t know each other.”

  Ryder leaned forward and flashed Mal a grin. “Dude, all you need to know about me is that my plan for tonight is to get these ladies drinks and then get them dancing.”

  A waitress in a golden halter top and sequined shorts arrived to take their orders. While Mal reviewed the menu, Bree leaned closer and cupped her hand to his ear. “Don’t forget to ask Ryder how much we owe him.”

  Ryder waved at the waitress, who reacted to the gesture by leaning halfway across the table to stare into Ryder’s eyes. Ryder pointed to himself. “Everything’s on me tonight. Do you think you can help make that happen?” The woman looked as though she would jump into his lap to cement the arrangement.

  Bree kicked Mal under the table. He looked at her quizzically.

  “We should chip in.” She glanced at Ryder and hoped her whisper hadn’t carried.

  Mal shrugged. “That’s what he did at the entrance. I didn’t have a chance. He seemed to know everybody.”

  “I don’t want to take his charity.”

  Mal shrugged again. “Didn’t you say he was loaded? I don’t think he thinks about it like that.”

  After the drinks arrived, Bree found herself sweating despite the cool night air. Sitting between Mal and Ryder was even more uncomfortable than she had anticipated. She had pictured the two men standing in a corner, talking guy talk while she hung out with the twins and carefully introduced Juli to the realities of modern nightlife. Instead, the four young women across from her were swigging their drinks, showing every intention of abandoning their elderly relatives for the youthful action one story below. Ryder maintained an intense, running dialogue with Juli and seemed to be teaching her how to text. And Mal pulled into himself in a way that he often did in a crowd. His arm was still draped across her shoulders, but there was no life in it. When the four young women slid off the bench and waved their goodbyes, Bree felt an upheaval in the pit of her stomach. No way am I going to be left alone with Ryder.