Wild Card (Wild At Heart Series Book 3)

by Christine Hartmann

  “It’s time for your dance.” Faye shoved her and Mal toward the open space in front of the tables.

  Bree cast a longing glance at the empty tablecloth. No DJ was evident, but the music suddenly switched to a romantic song from the 1970s, something, she guessed, likely to have been one of Faye’s favorites when she was growing up. Mal wrapped an arm around her and shuffled across the carpeted floor. Spasmodic clapping issued from here and there in the large room above the hum of conversation. Bree’s stiletto heels caught in the pile and she had to periodically yank them free, giving her motions a jerky, spasticity appearance.

  She leaned close to Mal’s ear. “We’re going to need a wooden dance floor for the wedding.”

  A particularly strong carpet fiber strand snagged her shoe. In rescuing it, she accidentally kneed Mal in the groin. He released her and doubled over, his fists clenched at his thighs in a desperate attempt not to clutch at his privates. The room erupted in laughter. Even those who didn’t witness the incident were soon told and joined in the mirth. Bree, unable to hold back her own amusement, chuckled and rubbed Mal’s back.

  “Are you okay, darling?” She covered her mouth, trying not to smudge her makeup.

  Mal slowly righted himself, his face pale. He threw the audience a sheepish grin and hobbled to the microphone, Bree following. “We are actually a better fit than that.” A few cheers erupted, along with shouts of encouragement. He paused between sentences. “We appreciate your coming. Enjoy the dancing. Watch out for those knees.” After the laughter, the dance area slowly filled with older couples whose footwear was more amenable to the floor covering.

  Mal limped in the direction of the restrooms. Bree returned to their table alone. Faye and Soumil were off schmoozing, the siblings had disappeared, and the only other person left was Juli. When Bree sat down, the older woman moved and took the chair beside her.

  “I should have saved you some of my dinner.” She pulled a basket with a forlorn, dry piece of Indian bread in it toward Bree.

  Bree examined the bread and closed the cloth back over it. “I’m sure someone will bring me something.”

  The grandmother cocked her head at the dancers and smiled at Bree. “They should be playing Elvis.”

  Bree laughed. “Faye could have gotten one of your Elvis impersonators to come.”

  “Oh, that would not be possible. Tonight is the contest. They would all be busy.”

  A waiter deposited two laden plates on the table, one for Bree and one for Mal. Bree talked between bites. “I’m sorry you have to miss it.”

  “Nothing to worry. Ryder was texting me an Internet website location.” She reached in her purse. “It is discussing about many contests.” She pushed and scrolled on her phone.

  Bree slowly put down her fork. “You’re…texting with Ryder?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “When did he send you the website?”

  The old woman’s eyes scrutinized the screen. “That is being exactly twelve twenty-eight this afternoon.” She looked up, blinking. “So accurate.”

  Bree fiddled with her napkin and chewed on the inside of her lip. “So…that’s when Mal’s sisters and I were at the shopping mall.”

  “Yes.” She held the phone out to Bree.

  Bree hesitated but then took the phone and read.

  Ryder: Too bad about the contest timing. How’s prep for tonight’s party going?

  Juli: Only I am here. Shopping mall is calling girls.

  Ryder: Bree too?

  Juli: Yes. Girls shopping. Parents planning. Grandmother taking nap.

  This was followed by a sleeping face emoji.

  Ryder: Mal went with the girls?

  Juli: Mal is planning.

  Ryder: Sleep well.

  Juli: Please be wishing me dreams of Elvis.

  Bree slid the phone back across the table, her eyes focused on the room’s far wall. After a moment of silence, she picked up her fork and moved the food around her plate, trying to keep her voice neutral. “Do you text a lot with Ryder? Tell him what you’re up to during the day.”

  The wrinkled fingers, slightly bent with arthritis, closed around the phone. “It’s sometimes being lonely in my room.”

  Bree thought of the small room allotted to Mal’s grandmother, how when they picked her up, she was often sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the armchair, flipping through a magazine or staring at the TV. She was certain Mal’s parents didn’t include her in activities that didn’t involve the rest of the family. And while the rest of the family had roommates, she had none. Of course she jumped at the chance to text with Ryder. Bree stabbed a piece of chicken. And, of course, Ryder jumped at the chance to spy on me.

  Chapter 17

  In their suite after the party, Mal threw himself fully clothed diagonally across the bed. He pulled a pillow over his head. Bree untied his shoes and wrenched them off his feet. She grabbed him by the ankles and slid his legs until he was lying relatively straight on his side. The pillow moved and half his face appeared.

  “Come to bed.” His hand flapped in midair, trying to grab her.

  She evaded his attempts. “Not yet. I’m going to pack so I don’t have to do it in the morning.”

  Mal removed the pillow, sat up, struggled out of his jacket, and tossed it to her. He flopped back, as though the effort had exhausted him.

  Bree knelt by the edge of the bed. “Unzip me, would you?” She felt his cold hands fumble with the zipper and then undo her bra. “Hey, I was planning on keeping that on.” She scooted the sagging shoulder straps back into position.

  Mal laughed up at her. “I’m trying to help you pack.”

  Bree smiled. “Unless you want me arrested for indecent exposure tomorrow, I’m going to need at least one bra that stays outside the suitcase.” She stepped out of her dress but re-fastened the bra closure. Wearing her bra and tummy shaper, she dragged their baggage out of the closet.

  When, a few minutes later, gentle snoring issued from the bed, she propped her cell phone on the dresser and broadcast one of her favorite playlists at low volume. Her feet and hips kept time with the music as she folded blouses and skirts, depositing them in layers in a suitcase. At the party, she eschewed dancing after the incident with Mal’s crotch, with the exception of one slow dance with Soumil in her bare feet, where his warm hand had encircled her waist and fingers with proper decorum.

  Bree was surprised by his dexterity as he guided her carefully around the floor.

  “Have you enjoyed yourself?” His large brown eyes glanced at her face before flitting away to resume contemplation of the far wall.

  She bit her lip. “Everybody seems to be having a great time.” Her eyes roamed across the still packed dance floor. “Whoever is in charge of the music certainly has their finger on the pulse of this guest list.”

  Soumil blushed, his cheeks darkening. “It was I.”

  Bree lost time with the music and stepped on his foot. “You chose the music?” Soumil lifted his arm and she twirled underneath it, while her mouth hung open in surprise. “You’re a man of hidden talents.”

  The corner of his mouth edged up for an instant. “You have to know your customers if you want to build a solid business. It’s all about marketing.”

  “So you really are marketing your business here?” Bree whistled softly. “Strangely enough, I’m not insulted. I’m impressed.”

  Soumil dipped her, leaning forward and supporting her back in a gesture that was both practiced and effortless. “Please don’t misunderstand. This party is about you and Mal. What I am marketing is the two of you. I’m drumming up support for your future happiness, making sure Mal has the contacts he needs to succeed, and advertising how special our family is because it can attract someone like you.”

  A warmth rose in Bree’s chest. She squeezed his shoulder. “That’s beautiful.”

  “In this family, sometimes you have to look for meaning behind words and actions. Things aren’t always what
they appear on the surface.”

  The bedroom’s top dresser drawer screeched as she opened it. Bree peeped at her fiancé, but he didn’t stir. She pulled out handfuls of underwear, piling them on the dresser. Her fingers searched the crevices at the back and encountered something silky but hard. She drew it out and unwrapped a pair of her panties tangled around a silver cell phone. She dropped the unfamiliar cell phone between the piles and stared at it.

  She spoke softly as she pulled on a loose top and her only pair of shorts. “I’ve got to go downstairs to the lost and found. Somebody left their phone in a drawer. They’re probably looking for it and going crazy.”

  ***

  Toward morning, Bree woke almost every hour, unable to sleep deeply, worried her alarm would fail and prevent her from driving the family to the airport. When she dozed, her mind wandered through scenes of dropping Mal and his family off, of driving alone through the desert and getting a flat tire with no other car in sight, and of drifting through Venice with Ryder in a gondola on a receding tide with no way to steer the boat. This final image erased all fantasies about sleeping soundly from her mind. An hour before she had planned to get up, she nudged the covers aside and slipped into the bathroom. By the time Mal awoke, she was dressed and had the suitcases lined up in front of the door. She sat sideways in the bedroom armchair, dangling her legs over the arm rest, kicking them back and forth through the air.

  Mal kissed her on the forehead as he passed on his way to the bathroom. “You look nervous.”

  She smiled. “Just antsy.”

  He failed to shut the door behind him and his morning explosions and expulsions propelled her into the living room. She stood at the window, nose pressed against the glass, feet spread-eagled, arms bent at the elbow like goalposts. The city below crawled slowly from its Sunday morning bed. Helicopters circled a neighborhood in the distance, hovering low, predatory and expectant. Buildings threw long shadows across empty streets that until a few hours ago had pulsed with action and light. A few pedestrians peppered the sidewalks, like ticks searching for food on a hairless dog.

  “I’m going to miss that window.” The bedroom doorway framed Mal in his underwear. “You look like you’re about to do a bungee jump.”

  Bree pried herself reluctantly from the glass. “It makes me feel like I could fly.”

  Mal retreated into the bedroom, but she could still hear his voice. “Flying’s not like that. It’s more like sitting in a big, slow bus.” She heard him zipper his pants. “If you’re not near a window, you don’t even know you’re moving.” His dark haired head poked around the corner of the door frame and peered at her quizzically. “I didn’t mean to go on about it.”

  Bree threw the city one more glance and pulled her pink phone from her purse. “It’s almost time. Meet me at the elevators. I’ll make sure everyone else is ready.”

  Walking down the hall, she hummed an old camp song. Gathering people for an outing always awakened memories of the summer after sophomore year in high school, when she and Stephanie volunteered as counselors at a rural day camp for children who would otherwise have spent the school vacation in the city. Stephanie called it their “summer spent herding sheep.” The camp was located on a defunct strawberry farm, with acres of overgrown, dry grassy fields, a trickle of a river, an Olympic size concrete swimming pool surrounded by a creaking chain link fence, and an enormous wooden barn with swings hung from rafters, a small stage built in one corner, and ladders to an expansive loft where children sat on a railingless edge during sing-alongs, their sneakered feet swaying far above the counselors’ heads, making Bree dizzy with fright. She was much happier on solid ground, racing after a wandering stray who had not heard—or pretended not to hear—the injunction to gather at the picnic tables under the cluster of broad oaks. On fiercely sunny afternoons when everyone retreated to the shade and relative coolness of the barn, she would entreat her colleagues to halt the steady flow of small bodies that clambered up the ladders to the loft, her arms wrapped around the children in her charge, holding them back, ignoring their pleas. “One mistake and somebody could fall,” she would remind the young faces that stared after their friends with longing.

  The merciless preteen camp attendees quickly nicknamed Bree’s group the Bottom Feeders, reducing some of her more vulnerable kids to tears. After a few weeks of sobbing, fights, and attempted mutinies where one part of the group tried to distract her while the others dashed for the ladders, Bree shifted tactics, realizing that no single person could physically prevent fifteen children from climbing to dangerous heights. She decided to teach them to love the ground. She checked out library books on sharks and distributed them the next day during free time.

  “When someone calls you a name because you’re different, you have to embrace it and forge your own meaning.” She held up a picture of a great white cruising, unconcerned, through Australian waters. “From now on, when they say bottom feeder.” She bared her teeth and commanded all her children to do the same. “You think shark.” That summer, every child in her group passed the swimming test and together they became the only group to enter the pool united and unafraid. They called themselves The Sharks.

  In the hotel, she knocked on Mal’s sisters’ room first, then gathered Grandma from in front of the TV. Faye emerged just as Mal shut the door to their suite, pulling his suitcase behind him.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  Faye narrowed her eyes and whispered. “He woke up in a bad mood, Lord help us.”

  From inside the room, Soumil’s voice boomed. “For goodness sake, Faye, don’t keep blaming it on a mood.”

  Mal and his siblings froze. Even their breathing seemed to stop. The hallway felt as though all the air had been sucked out of it. After a momentary pause, Juli pushed past Faye. “Let me talk with him.”

  Bree felt suddenly out of place. “How about I go get the car and meet you at the front entrance?” She didn’t wait for a response but dragged her large carry-on and garment bag down the hall at a trot, feeling as though she were leaving the scene of an accident. In another family, Soumil’s comment wouldn’t have raised a single eyebrow. In Mal’s family, it sent shivers down her spine.

  In the garage, she stepped out of the elevator and hesitated, trying to remember where she parked the car. She pushed the remote and followed the familiar beep, her thoughts still very much on the drama being enacted on the twenty-sixth floor. She flung her suitcase into the back and hauled herself into the driver’s seat. Her foot pushed the break and she was about to put the key in the ignition when the passenger door flew open. She yelped as a man hurled himself into the seat. He punched the door lock button and held it down with a dirty finger while his left hand waved a glinting, metal object in her face.

  “Give me my phone.” His voice was harsh and raspy.

  Bree stared at the crumpled blade the man wielded. Her heart raced. All she could think of was the edge of that blade cutting a vital artery or organ. She didn’t care if she emerged with wounds. As long as she emerged.

  “Don’t move.” The knife jerked forward. She evaded it by sliding back in her seat until her head rested against the window.

  “I won’t.” She stared at the man, at the flecks of food caught in the deep stubble on his chin, the aviator sunglasses, his short but greasy hair. He reeked, filling the car with the odor of an abandoned public restroom. While her mind focused on the blade, her hand inched to the door.

  “Give me my phone. That’s all I want.” He wiggled the knife.

  Bree nodded. Her eyes flicked to her purse. “My phone’s in there. My wallet. Take it all. Just let me go.” Her fingers slowly tapped along the arm rest, searching for the door handle.

  “Give it to me.”

  She pushed the purse toward him with her free hand.

  “Get the phone.”

  She held her breath to get her breathing under control. Her hand scrambled in the deep pocket and she lifted her pink cell phone.

  The ma
n’s face, which a moment ago she would have described as dark with fury, fell deeper into rage, as though into a black abyss. Only his sunglasses flashed frighteningly in the reflected light. “Not that. My phone.”

  Bree glanced at what she was holding. Her eyebrows drew together. “This is the only phone I have.”

  “What did you do with the one you found in the car?”

  Bree racked her brain, but it was like trying to walk a straight line after four martinis. Everything was unbalanced. He wanted a phone. But he didn’t want her phone. He said she found something in the car. But she hadn’t found anything. She hadn’t even looked. It was like her world and his existed on separate planes. She took a halting breath.

  Maybe, she thought, she should enter his plane. “What did your phone look like?”

  His lips parted, revealing not the chipped yellow teeth she was expecting but rather a row of flawless white. “Silver. No case.” The words hissed through the immaculate incisors.

  Silver? No case? Where had she seen a phone like that recently?

  She willed herself to appear more relaxed. “I forgot. I found it. I brought it to the front desk.” Behind her, the fingers that clasped the door handle relaxed their grip. If she could get him out of the car, it would make more sense to drive away.

  He ran the blade of the crude knife along the edge of the steering wheel, slicing the plastic cover. “When?”

  Bree bit her lip. “Last night. I took it to the lost and found. I’m sure they’ll give it to you when you describe it.” Bree hoped her tone hid the skepticism she felt about a front desk clerk handing this man anything.