Wild Card (Wild At Heart Series Book 3)

by Christine Hartmann

  In the garage, Greenwood closed his eyes and exhaled, slowly relaxing the rubber spirals until his focus returned and his hands were again flooded with blood. With these breaks to regain his equilibrium, assembling one knife took almost an hour.

  ***

  The stillness of their Noe Valley mansion at night always calmed Abigayle. When she and Griff were first married, she delighted in his roaming the expansive halls, breaking into her bar exam studies with his gentle question, “Mrs. Greenwood, isn’t it time to come to bed?” Later, the silence carried the breathing of sleeping babies through open doors. It hushed the incessant clamor of cell phones, muted the San Francisco hum, and lulled her brain from law firm and parenting overdrive into, if not serenity, then at least acceptance. But more recently, the quiet in the wee hours served to normalize the stupor of her marriage.

  At some point, whether Griff came home at six in the evening or stayed away until four in the morning ceased to matter. They interacted through their children, because of them, and around them, but never anymore despite them or over them. It was as though the darkness of the night seeped into their days. The unsure, overwhelmed man she married gradually morphed into an irritable, arrogant chief executive with an administrative assistant turnover rate that rivaled the throughput of an assembly line. Early on, she worried their careers pushed them apart and hoped the children would cement them together. But after a while she understood that something darker lay at the root of their troubles. The separate bedrooms they had drifted into were simply a physical manifestation of their cold tangle of unexpressed resentments and fears. When she was honest with herself, she wasn’t even sure who Griff was anymore.

  She reclined in the middle of the king size bed, her bare legs shifting between the maroon silk sheets, her torso bolstered by oversize pillows. A lap desk propped a sleek silver notebook computer on her thighs. Her eyes flicked periodically to the closed bedroom door.

  She rubbed her eyebrows and smiled at the Asian woman who wore purple metal glasses and looked up at her from the screen. “Insomnia. I’m used to it. What time is it there?”

  “Seven tomorrow evening.” The woman grinned. “I like being ahead of the curve.”

  Abigayle folded her hands around the back of her neck. “I never saw this coming.”

  “You’re the only one who didn’t.” The face on the screen stared unblinking.

  Abigayle plucked at the sheets. “And they won’t come after me?”

  The woman shook her head. “You’re not the one they want.”

  “What if they never find him? What if he knew and ran away?”

  The woman shrugged and tucked a pen behind her ear. “All the better for everyone concerned, perhaps.” The sound of paper shuffling crackled through the laptop speakers. “Start signing the paperwork. And for God’s sake, get some sleep. I arrive the day after tomorrow. Then we’ll get the ball rolling in earnest.”

  “What if he calls me?”

  The woman arched an eyebrow. “Abigayle, sometimes I have a hard time believing you’re a divorce lawyer.”

  Abigayle sniffed. “It’s different from the inside.”

  “That’s why I’m single. Marriage is a fucking mess, from the wedding planning right through to the divorce.”

  A tear dropped from Abigayle’s eye onto the keyboard.

  “Don’t you have some Xanax lying around? Take a pill and get through. See you Saturday.” The screen went black.

  Abigayle shut the computer. She tucked her hair into her ponytail and slid off the bed. Her baby blue satin nightgown rippled around her long legs as she walked to the bathroom, where she shuffled through a small collection of prescription bottles, reading the labels. Not finding what she wanted, she slipped on a pair of Birkenstock sandals, wandered down the hall, and paused at the door to the master bedroom suite. Her fingers fiddled with the handle, as though she’d forgotten how to open it. She pushed it ajar. The rumpled bed looked as though someone had been sleeping on top of the duvet, not under it. On the nightstand at her former side of the bed, objects lay exactly as she had left them over a year ago, the outdated fashion magazine and upside down TV remote lying alongside a half-empty shatterproof glass water bottle and a sliver-framed photograph.

  She approached and lifted the frame. Her fingers stroked the glass under which her and Griff’s faces shone, red cheeked, with zinc oxide smeared noses, above the children’s grins, with chairlifts in the background along with the lopsided smirk of a teenage ski instructor. Lake Tahoe. The last vacation Griff organized for the family. The final time he left work completely behind. Her face smiled back at her, relaxed and carefree in a way she hadn’t seen in the mirror for a long time. Her son looked into the camera with eyes that transmitted contentment and joy even through goggles. Her daughter grinned in a way that indicated she’d momentarily forgotten that being seen with her parents was embarrassing at best and, at worst, threatening to life as she knew it. Abigayle held the picture closer. That morning was the last time she and Griff made love. Hours before Justin broke his leg on the intermediate slope and was transported back to San Francisco in a helicopter. Months before she began to question why every picture from that holiday included the ski instructor.

  She replaced the photograph and turned her back on the bed. In the bathroom that was lit from recessed ceiling bulbs and a hidden fluorescent strip behind the contour of an enormous mirror, she rummaged through cabinets and drawers, digging with eyes half closed. What was she looking for again? All at once, she snatched her hand back from a drawer as though it had bitten her. She blinked. Her eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth curled down. Slowly, her hand reentered the drawer and emerged clutching a fistful of condoms.

  She hurled them at the mirror and they scattered, flapping lazily into the sink, behind the soap dispenser, and in a scatterplot pattern across the white marble counter top. The sobs burst from her chest like the rapid fire of a gun. She sank to the floor and rested her head against the cold gray tiles, one hand pressed to her belly. The other covered her eyes. “I tied my tubes for you.”

  Minutes later, she scooped a few condoms into her hand and, on her way out of the room, flung them onto the bed. “Have your fun. I’m not playing this game anymore.”

  She climbed back into her own bed as though she’d climbed fifty flights of stairs to reach it and switched off the lights. “From now on, Griff, you’re on your goddamned own.”

  ***

  At the same time that evening, Mal fell laughing through the door of their hotel suite. “She thinks Ryder’s a real angel.” He tripped over his own shoes and fell against the light switch. “Get it? Angel investor.” He bent over howling, holding his sides, and lurched to the sofa.

  Bree dropped the room key on the minibar and rubbed her temples. “She was so tired she got confused.”

  He held his arms out to her.

  Bree rifled through the bar refrigerator and handed him a personal size water bottle. “How much did you drink before I found you, honey?”

  Mal unscrewed the cap and tossed it behind him. “What’s an angel investor?”

  Bree retrieved the small piece of plastic from under an armchair and placed it on an end table. “Someone with too much money.” She reached behind her for her dress zipper. “I’m going to change.”

  Mal patted his lap. “Come sit here.” He leered at her. “I’ll help you with your zipper if you help me with mine.”

  Bree perched herself on the arm rest nearest him and crossed her arms, smiling. “Drink that first.”

  He gazed at the small bottle with dismay. “It’ll make me pee.”

  Bree ran her fingers through his hair. “It’ll save you from a hangover.”

  Mal took a sip and almost spat it out when his laughter resumed. “An angel.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I have to tell Ryder when I see him.”

  Bree bit her lip and swallowed before she answered. She had tried, ever since they left the nightclub with J
uli, to push the incident with Ryder farther and farther into the back of her mind, hoping to lock it into a box she would never have to open again. But Mal wouldn’t stop talking about him.

  Ryder met her eyes questioningly before they left the bar, but she laughed in his face at a joke that wasn’t funny, mortified, and wishing she would never see him again. The entire night swung between extremes: the intoxication of the dance floor, the humiliation of the kiss, the relief of escape, the horror of potential exposure, the ignominious retreat from the seam, and now Mal’s obsession with everything Ryder. When was the last time she had stood on solid ground? She could hardly remember.

  Mal shook his head as though trying to steer clear of cobwebs. He tipped the bottle, drained it, and passed it to her. “Now come here, gorgeous.”

  Bree shifted to his lap and twined her arms around his neck. “You didn’t turn out so badly.” She kissed his nose and nibbled on his earlobe.

  Mal nuzzled his face into her neck, tickling her with his stubble. “I’m no comparison to you, Bree.”

  She laughed, pushing him back from her and meeting his alcohol hazed eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “When I saw you out on the dance floor with Ryder…”

  The hair on Bree’s arms rose. She held her breath.

  “…I said to myself, ‘Mal, you’re the luckiest guy here. You have a beautiful, smart fiancée who dances like Beyoncé.’”

  Bree’s fingers caressed his lips. Gratitude and relief melted into her like a draft of sweet nectar. This was the man she loved, the one who focused on her strengths and would always take her side. The one whose sticky whiskey breath smelled sweet and familiar. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the accustomed contours of his face, the mole on his chin, his long eyelashes, his thick eyebrows and perfect nose. Her tongue caressed his earlobes, sucked on his neck, avoiding his mouth. One kiss on the mouth tonight was all she could handle.

  His hands explored her in familiar ways, cupping her breasts and kissing her nipples through her dress, massaging her buttocks, losing themselves in the tangles of her hair. He unzipped her and slipped the pink lycra from her shoulders, burying his face in her chest, showering her with tiny kisses that made her shiver.

  Mal looked up, his face intent. “The window.”

  This was, she knew from experience, a statement of the only place Mal could imagine making love in this moment. To ask him to do it elsewhere would snap his spell. She had gently prodded many times as to why he avoided a bed, preferring the floor, a chair, a bathtub, a table, a wall, anything except the one place designed to make lovemaking comfortable. He never answered. But as her eyes roved to the massive sheet of glass, she knew she couldn’t participate in the way he wanted her to. For one, she thought, that glass would never hold the two of them.

  She pointed to the sofa. “How about here?”

  He strained to lift her off him and stand.

  She twisted off him and to her knees. “How about you against the glass and me like this, okay?”

  His eyes focused on her with concern. “Want you to feel how much I love you.”

  She ran her hands over the bulge in his pants. “Don’t worry. I feel it.”

  She stepped out of her dress and led him to the window in her underwear. He looked back at the city and suddenly reeled. “Long way down.”

  Bree led him by the hand into the bedroom. He looked at the bed with disappointment. She gave him a soft push. He flopped onto it, eyes half-closed. “Make it up to you.”

  Bree slipped into the other room and downed two ibuprofen with a bottle of water. When she returned and slipped into bed, he rolled over to face her, eyes closed.

  “You’re the hottest.” He paused and she thought he’d fallen asleep. Then his eyes half opened. “Woman in Vegas.”

  She stared through the bedroom window at the twinkling, shimmering city. “I’m not, Mal.” She closed her eyes. “But I promise to try to make you never stop thinking it.”

  Chapter 13

  Bree’s phone pinged from the nightstand at ten the next morning, waking her and Mal, who shifted in bed and thrust a pillow over his head. She wiped hair from her face and lifted the phone.

  Celine: The best show in Vegas…about to start.

  A photo showed Celine and K-Rao holding formal wear on hangers against a backdrop of reddish canyon hills.

  Bree: Sweet. Hiking in heels?

  Celine texted back a photo of dusty hiking shoes and formerly white anklet shocks turned orange.

  Celine: No wedding’s worth a broken ankle. See you at reception?

  Bree: We’ll try.

  Celine: Lone Star throws a great barbeque.

  Bree slipped out of bed. In the bathroom, hot water from the large rain shower rolled over her. She closed her eyes and breathed in the mingled scents of chlorine and verbena body wash. Only a few hours ago we were still in the nightclub. She dispelled the thought and concentrated on the reflection of her naked body in the anti-fog circle of the bathroom mirror.

  No magazine would ever use me for a lingerie ad, not even to appeal to heavy women. She scrutinized herself. There were bumps where, she thought, no one should have them, and lumps and curves that drew attention to indentations and stretch marks on body parts she wished she could cover permanently with clothing. Why Mal found her sexy, she didn’t understand.

  She stepped out of the shower and toweled her hair, still turning this way and that in the mirror. With the right clothing and makeup, she thought, she minimized the deficits. She didn’t turn heads, but it could be worse.

  When she was using the blow dryer, Mal’s hand poked through the door clutching her phone. She turned off the machine.

  “Did I wake you?”

  He shook his head. “Someone’s texting.” His voice croaked.

  She took the phone and nudged the door open. She watched Mal leave the bedroom, return with two bottles of water, and crawl back under the sheets with a groan. She wrapped a towel around herself and tiptoed into the living room. From her purse, she extracted a bottle of ibuprofen liquid gels, tapped two into her palm, and slunk back to the bedroom. She lifted Mal’s limp hand from the covers, laid the two pills inside it, and closed his fingers over them. “Take these when you’re up for it.” She kissed him on the wrist.

  “Thanks.” The mumble came from under a pillow.

  “Want me to tell your mom you’re not feeling well?”

  The sheets undulated. “What time is it?”

  Bree glanced at the bedside clock. “Ten.”

  Mal rolled on his side. “I’ll be up and dressed by eleven.”

  She chose her clothes, a gray skort and a flowing rose-print blouse and dressed in the bathroom. As she brushed the final touches to her hair, she cocked her head. Something in the mirror looked off. Her hands. What was wrong with them?

  “Oh my God.” Her gaze dropped to her left hand. The finger where her engagement ring usually rested was bare. She scanned the counter. The thudding in her ears was violent. Her eyes and then her fingers methodically swept the counter. She overturned the wastepaper basket. She crawled on hands and knees, lifted every receptacle and towel, and used a washcloth to sweep the floor. Nothing.

  She hoisted herself to the toilet seat and sat trying to remember details from the night before. Her hands felt cold and she jammed them between her legs. She remembered it catching on the refrigerator door when she got Mal the water bottle. What about after that? They stood by the window. Then she’d helped Mal to bed.

  She dashed to the living room. Her dress still lay in a heap by the sofa. She felt it, lifted it, and gently shook it, but nothing fell to the floor. Her mouth was dry. Her feet retraced their steps to the bedroom and she stood at the entrance, hands on her hips. She rubbed the top of the nightstand and the dresser. She fell to her knees again and crawled across the floor. Her fingers felt in the crevices and pockets of each item of clothing in the closet. She stood all her shoes on end.

&nb
sp; Mal shifted in the bed. “What time is it?”

  Bree glanced at the bedside clock. “Ten-forty.”

  Mal heaved himself to a sitting position, the pillow flopping from his face onto his lap. “Shower.” He swung his legs out of bed, shuffled naked to the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

  Bree got off the floor and threw herself on the bed facedown, her heart thudding. She redid her previous search exactly, inch by inch, hoping she had missed something. All she found was a spool of dental floss under the bed and a business card behind the coffee maker. A knock from the other room stopped her with her hand on the dresser.

  She trudged to the hallway door. Her face sank when she spied Faye through the peephole. She undid the lock.

  “I wanted to let you two sleep in.” Faye swept past her and glanced around the living room.

  Bree let out a breath, thankful that exhibit A of what took place the night before was no longer lying on the floor near the sofa. She followed Faye into the room, squeezing her hands behind her back. Her bare finger pulsed its loss like a homing beacon.

  Faye cocked an ear in the direction of the bedroom and inspected Bree. “You kept Mal up late?”

  Bree tugged reflexively at the hem of her shirt.

  Faye’s eyes focused on Bree’s hands and flashed as she bent slightly forward for a closer look, the large golden cross around her neck glinting accusingly. “You’re not wearing your engagement ring.”

  Bree snatched her hand out of view again.

  Faye straightened and locked her eyes onto Bree’s. “Are you breaking up?”

  Bree blinked. Was that eagerness she heard in Faye’s tone? Or do I still look guilty? She shook her head. “Of course not. We were tired last night.” She waved her arm in the general direction of the window. “I must’ve put it down somewhere.” She walked to the mini bar and lifted the ice bucket. “I was looking for it when you knocked.”