by Nan Comargue
Lila sniffed. “I still don’t think she’s dangerous.”
There was less conviction in her words than when she had made the same statement several weeks ago. The kind of person who could spend time making a half dozen phone calls every day to someone who wanted nothing to do with her made her uneasy.
“If her focus is you, she’s dangerous enough,” Cahal commented. He paused for a full minute before saying, “I saw her at the game last night.”
Lila drew away from his comforting shelter. “Last night? In Buffalo?”
“Yeah.” His eyes focused on a spot above her head. “As far as I know, it’s the first time she’s followed the team on the road. According to our security detail, she’s attended every home game the team has played and all of the practices that happen to be open to the public. I’ve filed for a restraining order.”
It was an outcome she knew he had tried to avoid. A court case would mean publicity of the kind Cahal hated, salacious and career defining in the worst possible sense.
“I’m sorry.” The mention of a restraining order brought home the seriousness of his situation. Their situation.
“This restraining order will cover you as well.” His gaze found her again and a tight frown marred his beautiful mouth. “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”
“It was a less painful solution,” Lila recalled, finding herself justifying his actions. “If it had worked and Victoria had returned to Chicago, everyone would have been happy.”
“Then you would be free to marry Jarrett.”
In spite of the surge of unwilling sympathy, Lila clamped her lips down against informing him of the true circumstances of her relationship with Jack Jarrett. The other man’s ghost was still an effective wall against her tumultuous feelings for her husband and with few defenses left, she was forced to cling to that one.
Cahal watched her face closely as he added, “Or Chris.”
Lila flushed, calling herself every kind of fool for believing she could hide anything from him.
“You were right about your cousin.”
The frown deepened into a grimace. “Believe me, that offers no comfort. What happened?”
But Lila merely shook her head. She wasn’t ready to tell that story quite yet.
“What happens with the security detail now?”
He accepted the change in topic with a narrowed look. “Nothing. They stay in place until Victoria leaves.”
“Or until you get that restraining order,” she suggested, anxious to call off the bodyguards dogging her every move. The feeling of being shadowed everywhere she went was almost as bad as the idea of Victoria Brantford lurking in the bushes.
A swift shake of the head dashed her hopes. “No doubt the local police are efficient but they can always use a helping hand to enforce the court’s measures. Better to err on the side of caution.”
Someone in the distance called his name.
“I have to go now. Stay with Brian and Mike.”
She accepted another kiss, this one aimed at her forehead. “Like I have a choice.”
• • •
Cahal wanted her to stay with his father, three hours west of the city, but Lila had no intention of interrupting George Wallace’s life with his new spouse and children and she doubted that George would be eager to put his family in harm’s way.
Lila remained in the city, forming a solid nucleus around which her husband and his hired security guards circled like uncertain moths.
The anonymous calls ceased but, of course, they had seized her cellular phone, presenting her with a new one the next day. Though it was state-of-the-art and slim enough to slide into the front of a pair of jeans, no one had thought of loading her old saved phone numbers into the new phone and Lila spent a painstaking hour doing just that, her old address book in one hand and an instruction manual for the new cell phone in the other.
She left Jack’s number off of the new phone.
Lila took on all of the overtime the library could offer and heading into the Christmas season, with stories and signings and the annual visit from Santa to be organized, there was plenty of work. The evenings and weekends stretched out longer. The library offered those shifts to part-time employees, retired people and students, and Lila couldn’t infringe on these schedules. Hanging around the library outside of her working time would be viewed as strange.
The only other outlet for her restless energy was the Wives and Girlfriends where Cathy and other women greeted her.
Lila couldn’t fault the women for being suspicious. Aside from her sudden switch in roles, from Jack Jarrett’s girlfriend to Cahal Wallace’s wife, she was also guilty of being the spouse of the highest paid and most famous member of the team, a position guaranteed to create some amount of turmoil and jealousy.
• • •
“What about the marketing of the party?” someone asked, taking advantage of Cathy’s brief silence. “Are we doing a radio campaign or television commercials as well?”
Everyone looked at Lila.
“Well,” she said, “in Chicago we always sold out with a good solid radio campaign and some Internet and print advertising on the official websites and so on. Of course, the radio campaign should include every one of the players doing a guest appearance on at least one of the local shows, preferably during the morning hour. Most people pay the greatest attention to those shows.”
The women swiveled their heads to look back to Cathy.
“That sounds like a good idea,” the blonde woman agreed. “We don’t have the budget for a television campaign. But are Internet ads necessary?”
“Not ads,” Lila corrected. “Announcements on the local community websites and on the team’s official site as well as the individual players’ websites. The key is not to go overboard. This event is still fairly select — the prices we charge for the dinner itself is mostly out of the average fan’s price range — and we want to keep up that aura of exclusivity.”
Cathy’s brows arched. “Oh, do we?”
Knowing how these groups worked, Lila backed down. “That is, I thought you mentioned something like that when we spoke the other day, Cath. It made a lot of sense.”
The other woman again took firm control of the meeting. With the last of the jobs delegated among the spouses, the only issue to be determined was the prizes to be given out.
“A date is still a great hook,” one of the women suggested. “What’s a bigger draw than a private dinner a deux with one of the most famous athletes in the world?”
“They should come home to see one of our family dinners,” another wife muttered. “Four kids, one of them invariably sick, a dog-tired husband and an exciting menu of tuna casserole and frozen vegetables.”
“You know, you can cook those vegetables before you serve them,” Nadia Ivanov laughed before turning back to the first woman. “I agree with Diane. A bachelor auction may be impossible with our team list, but one date wouldn’t be offensive.”
They were thinking, of course, of the team’s owners, the ultimate arbitrators of any decision concerning the franchise.
“One date is fine.” Cathy made the final decision. “But with which player?”
The women ran down the line-up. An amazing twenty-five players were married. Another handful were living in common-law unions or in long-term relationships with their girlfriends.
“Two players?” The wives were incredulous. “That’s all we have to work with?”
The two names weren’t very promising either.
“Karpetsky is an antisocial troll,” Nadia pronounced. “He wouldn’t agree to take part in a million years and even if he did, we would probably end up having to give the poor woman who won her money back once the date was finished.”
“That leaves … uh … Jack Jarrett.”
Most of the women made a desperate attempt to fix their eyes on something other than Lila.
Forcing a laugh, she said, “Don’t rule him out on my account. Why don’
t we ask Jack to participate? I know he won’t turn down a charity.”
“He is attractive,” Cathy mused aloud, “in a rugged outdoorsy kind of way. Not gorgeous but definitely not the worst the team has to offer. He’s popular — ”
“With the male fans,” someone else pointed out.
“And he stays out of trouble off the ice,” Cathy finished.
“Except for this latest predicament” must have been the unspoken addition each woman made to herself, although the media with its characteristic fickleness had failed to play up that angle of Cahal Wallace’s reconciliation with his wife. On the sports and gossip pages, the story was a mixture between a fairy tale and a romantic film with no hint of soap opera melodrama.
As the final decision was made to name Jack Jarrett as the headline attraction of the Christmas charity event, Lila’s new cell phone rang.
She couldn’t help switching it on, waiting to hear the familiar silence that signaled a crank call. When the bodyguard had handed it to her earlier, she hadn’t even wanted to take it, afraid of the small electronic device as if it had the power to hurt her.
“Hello?”
Instead of static silence, dim shuffling sounds signaled an unknown listener on the other end. About to hang up, Lila heard her own name, repeated in a long drawn-out squeal, over and over again.
“Leave me alone!” she shouted before clicking the phone off and throwing it onto the chair beside her.
A new phone, a new number, yet it was the same old problem with a slight twist. The caller taunted her this time, perhaps mocking her need to switch numbers and highlighting the ease with which they had managed to track her down.
Everyone was staring.
“What’s the matter?” Cathy asked in a creditably even tone. “Prank call?”
“Yes,” Lila said.
The other woman moved closer as she reached for a glass on the low center table. “How long has that been going on?”
There seemed to be no harm in saying, “A few weeks.”
“I’ve been getting them, too,” Cathy shocked her by saying. “For the last few days at least. I think they’re from that Victoria woman who came to our meeting two months ago. She … said things.”
Lila’s training at the hands of her bodyguards kicked into high gear. “What kind of things? Did she make any threats?”
Although the blonde woman nibbled on the end of a celery stick, it was obvious that the action was meant to be casual rather than being naturally so.
“Not really. Well, not specifically what you would call a threat. She said that we would be sorry for choosing you over her, that Cahal loved her and not you, and we would see the truth one day.”
Cathy paused to put down the half-eaten crudité. “It’s strange because she never said any names, just you and her and him but I was sure it was Victoria and the way she spoke about choosing one person over the other made it plain.”
“Did you call the police?”
The other woman looked astonished. “The police? What for?”
“Those were threats, Cath, and you have a duty — ”
Cathy Monahan spoke right over Lila. “I have a duty to mind my own business and I suggest you do the same. I’m not saying I wouldn’t contact the police if I were in your shoes but I’m not. I don’t want to antagonize the woman. I just called the phone company and told them to add the call block feature to my line. Next time Victoria calls, I’ll just block her number.”
Nadia was frowning. “The woman can call from anywhere,” she pointed out. “A friend’s phone, a pay phone, it doesn’t matter. Blocking one number won’t accomplish anything.”
Neither would changing her phone number, as Lila could have told them.
Cathy smiled as if she had known it. “We’ve all met Victoria. She doesn’t seem like the dangerous type to me. She’s just a little depressed over losing her boyfriend and who wouldn’t be in those circumstances?”
It was amazing to Lila to see how she could be painted as the home wrecker for reuniting with her own spouse.
“We’ve known Lila for months,” Nadia commented, “and we don’t know Victoria aside from one meeting. If we’re choosing who to listen to and believe, then I’m going with Lila.”
As childish as the statement was, Lila felt a surge of affection for the former gymnast. Her stance was satisfying clear.
“It’s not a question of choosing sides,” Cathy insisted, adding, “Victoria’s father is one of the owners of the Chicago team.”
Nadia nodded. “Oh, now I get it. I suppose if she was the daughter of the Chicago team’s janitor, you would be taking out a restraining order against her.”
This time the other woman didn’t offer a denial. For every hockey player, no matter how rich or famous, the owner of the team pulled the strings and with trades an ever-present possibility, you never knew what team you would be playing for next year.
Lila’s cell phone buzzed again, the sound it made muted by the cushions of the chair it lay upon. The other women stared at it and then at her, waiting to see what she would do.
Unwilling to brand herself a coward, she took up the phone, treating it as if it contained a detonator ready to explode at any time.
Her shoulders relaxed when she saw that it was an incoming email rather than a telephone call. She clicked the phone off, not bothering to check who the message was from. Nothing important ever came through her personal email account.
“It’s nothing,” she told the waiting women. “It’s not her.”
While some members of the group made a determined effort to put matters back on casual footing, Nadia was still stuck on the previous topic.
“How is your husband treating this situation?” she asked of Lila. “I mean, instead of lying low, your faces have been plastered all over the city for the past several weeks. With a security threat such as a stalker to face, now may not be the best time to launch a publicity campaign.”
It was difficult to explain that the publicity and the security issue were interwoven without admitting the truth about her marriage, something Lila found was hard to contemplate.
“I disagree,” Cathy Monahan said. “I think the picture of a happily married couple could go a long way to convince an obsessed fan.”
“It hasn’t so far,” her friend countered.
Nadia was right. Cahal’s idea had failed. Victoria appeared to be spurred on by the publicity, angered by the false images Lila and Cahal presented to the world. Lila was afraid of what would happen once the story went public, as it was sure to do when Cahal’s restraining order was disclosed.
“Well, I don’t see what’s so bad about a few phone calls,” Cathy huffed. “The poor woman.”
“The poor woman has gone to the trouble of getting my unlisted phone number,” Lila informed her in a voice that let some of her anger show. “This is my second number in as many months and she managed to get this one in less than a day. Yes, Victoria Brantford is wealthy and comes from a powerful family. That also gives her unlimited time and resources to harass me.”
Cathy’s face twisted. “And you’re just a poor little librarian from the wrong side of town, right? That’s a lie. I read that you and Cahal Wallace grew up together. You had your claws in him from the minute he started making money and you don’t even know how lucky you are?”
“Lucky how?” One of the other wives wanted to know.
The blonde woman flung the speaker an exasperated glance. “Lila’s known her husband from since before he was rich and famous. She never had to deal with people calling her a gold-digger or a groupie. She never had to put up with the suspicions of family members and agents and even teammates who all wondered why she was with a hockey player — whether it was for the money or the man.”
The speech made a mockery of everything Lila had been through during the course of her marriage, all of the arguments and sacrifices she was once ready to make for the sake of her husband’s career.
“No,�
� she said, “I only had to contend with my life being turned upside down after my marriage, with a husband who was never there and an empty house surrounding me.”
“We all have to deal with that,” Cathy told her.
Lila carefully got to her feet. “Maybe I’m not as good at dealing with the pressures of being a hockey wife. A teenage romance never prepared me for this life and in the end I couldn’t take it.”
A long silence was broken by Nadia’s cool accented voice.
“But you did go back,” she pointed out. “You decided that you would rather be with the man you love than without him.”
Lila nearly choked on her answer. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
The other woman’s dark eyes were astute. “And now you are regretting your decision?”
Lila smiled. “What decision?”
• • •
She shouldn’t have spoken, of course; she should have kept her mouth shut and taken Cathy Monahan’s criticism. What did it matter anyway? Her marriage wasn’t real and the decisions Cathy seemed to think she had made weren’t permanent.
Shivering, Lila glanced again up and down the deserted street. Leaving the meeting early, she forgot to call for a ride until she was already walking up the driveway and rather than go back into the lionesses’ den, she resigned herself to waiting outside for her bodyguards to pick her up.
The night was fine and clear, milder than the last few days and with no bracing winds to make the already low temperature feel even more frigid. Almost an autumnal night, in fact.
Pacing to keep the blood flowing, Lila reached the shrubbery at the end of the paved driveway for a second time when she saw the movement in the darkness. It was a quick furtive action but in the absence of any wind, she felt as well as heard it. The thick mesh of pine needles made a crisp rustling noise.
A cat, she told herself, or a raccoon. Nothing to panic over. Probably nothing at all.
Her phone buzzed impatiently and she almost screamed at the small sound. A few pounding heartbeats later, she expelled a breathy laugh in a rush. She was getting paranoid.