Can't Buy Me Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Look, there’s nothing I can do for a few more months,” Luc said. “My hands are tied by that will.”

  “When they are untied I want the land.”

  “My sister is planning on staying at the ranch—”

  “She can pay rent.”

  Luc laughed. “Honestly, Eli, you can’t be serious. Pay rent?”

  “Those are my terms.”

  “I haven’t even sold you the damn land yet.”

  “Your family has no interest in this place. If your sister is looking for a quiet place to hide out, she’s welcome to do it here. For a small fee, probably much smaller than she’d pay anywhere else. I’ve been paying rent on my family’s home for twenty years.”

  Luc did the quick math. “Since your mom left?”

  “Since Dad started drinking and had to sell the land to Lyle in order to pay his debts.”

  “Oh Christ, Eli, I had no idea—”

  “Why would you? You had a life of your own. A career. The old man drove you away. Just like he drove off everyone else.”

  “Except you.”

  “And Tara Jean.”

  There it was, the wellspring of Eli’s protectiveness toward Tara; Eli didn’t think Luc deserved her.

  He clearly didn’t know the whole truth about the woman he was defending. As soon as the ugly thought entered his head, his stomach twisted. That wasn’t how he saw her.

  Was it?

  “You’re going to leave, Luc,” Eli said as if reading Luc’s mind. “Don’t hurt her any more than she’s already been hurt.”

  “What do you think?” Jacob asked, lifting up the page of sketch paper he’d been drawing on.

  “Is it a dog?” Tara asked.

  “A horse!”

  Tara winced. “Horses have longer legs.” Reaching over his shoulder to grab one of her wax pencils, she accidentally knocked over the cup. Pencils spilled across the drafting table and he scurried to pick them up.

  “I’ll get them,” he cried and carefully, as if defusing a bomb, she reached out and touched his shoulder, the fragile bird bones of his shoulder.

  “It’s all right.”

  He’d been coming to her studio every day since last Tuesday, and as hard as she thought it might be to hang out with this kid—any kid—after years of thinking of them as one step up from nuclear waste, it wasn’t.

  It was a joy.

  “So? Are you a good artist?” he asked, as they chased pencils across the floor.

  “I like art.” She shrugged, not quite sure how to answer such a question. “I always liked to draw.”

  He nodded like a puppy, his hair flopping like ears, his eyes shining with the most pure and simple affection. It was addicting, that affection. Better than candy. “I’d love to draw all day.”

  “That part is fun.”

  “Then you’re lucky, aren’t you?” he asked, blinking his big, wide eyes at her.

  Lucky? The word was like ancient Arabic. Something she needed translated to understand.

  “I think you’re lucky,” he said, handing her the wax pencils like a bouquet of flowers.

  “Jacob?”

  Tara nearly dropped the pencils and stepped away from the boy, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “Hey, Uncle Luc,” Jacob called in greeting, spinning around on his stool to face Luc where he stood in the doorway to her studio, backlit by bright sunshine.

  Watching Luc walk toward Jacob, his body so lean and powerful, a work of art underneath a gray T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts, she wished they were alone.

  First she’d strip him, exorcise this lust that had been eating her brain since he’d stepped onto the ranch, and then … then she’d draw him. All those curves and planes, the strength and grace.

  She’d never done that before—sketched someone—but she wanted to sketch him.

  Maybe she was more of an artist than she thought.

  Or maybe she just needed to get laid.

  Luc’s eyes blazed as if he could read her mind.

  “You ready to go?” Luc asked, and Jacob shook his head.

  “Uncle Luc,” the boy whined, “I hate Saturday morning craft club.”

  “Sorry, kiddo, but your mom signed you up—”

  “Mom’s at the lawyers, she won’t know if I don’t go. I can stay here and hang out with Tara!”

  Tara blushed at his enthusiasm, suffused with pleasure, like a sugar rush that didn’t crash.

  “It’s fine with me,” she said. “He’s drawing, that’s all. It’s sort of like craft club. I can get out the glue gun and the bedazzler.”

  “Bedazzler?”

  “Just one of the tricks of my trade.”

  “Well, as enticing as a bedazzler might be, my sister will have my head if she comes back and finds Jacob here.”

  “But Uncle Luc—”

  “How about we go to the arena. You can skate with the peewees.”

  “The peewees?” Jacob gasped as if Luc had offered to let him suit up with the Olympic team.

  “Sure thing. Head on inside and get cleaned up—we’re leaving in ten.”

  Jacob was a blur running out the door, all thoughts of Tara and the bedazzler clearly stomped into the dirt by the prospect of a hockey arena.

  “I can’t believe something called peewees beats bedazzling.”

  “I can’t believe there’s something called bedazzling.”

  He touched her ponytail where it sat, a fat curl on her shoulder. “I waited for you last night,” he said.

  “I waited for you!” she laughed, and he smiled.

  “You know what we need?” he asked, leaning against her drafting table, as if it were normal. As if standing here and flirting was something they’d done a thousand times. His hands in her hair felt so good and she tilted her head up to get more. More of his touch. More of him.

  “Ten minutes and a flat surface?”

  He choked on a laugh. “A date.”

  And just like that, her delight in the moment crashed and burned. Dates, in her experience, felt like a business transaction. Dinner for sex. The better the dinner, the better the show she had to put on. “I don’t like dates.”

  “That,” he kissed her nose, “is because you’ve never been on one with me.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “I’ve been known to show a girl a good time. You like horror movies?”

  “No.”

  “Mini-golf?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Go-carts?”

  “Are you sixteen?”

  “All-you-can-eat buffets? We can go dutch.” This man in front of her, with the smile and the warmth, the twinkle in his beautiful eyes, was an utter departure from the Ice Man. A different man. And she felt, oddly—and perhaps that was his goal—like she was the only woman to ever see him like this.

  Jacob was right—she was lucky.

  “How about dinner at The Ritz?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m really going to have to put out now, aren’t I?”

  The teasing faded from his expression, and his hand left her shoulder, but his eyes didn’t leave her face. “I don’t think of you that way. I swear I don’t.”

  She wondered, briefly, whether he was trying to convince himself or her. But the thought felt treasonous; he’d been nothing but good to her.

  “That’s all right. I think of you like that.” He didn’t laugh, and she tilted her head. “Luc—”

  “You know I’m leaving, right?” The question blew her back in her stool. “When the season starts, I’m leaving. I’ll sell the land to Eli and I won’t be back.”

  Laughter bubbled out of her throat before she could stop it. “It’s one of the things I like best about you, Luc. You don’t need to worry that I’m planning our pig-roast wedding.”

  “I just don’t want to hurt you, Tara.”

  He was so earnest, so sweet in his concern, and she pressed her lips to his. “I’m very tough.”

  H
is lips lingered over hers, his tongue licking at the crease and she let him in, falling right back into lust, as if the hours since the last time they’d kissed him hadn’t happened.

  The blaring honk of a car horn pulled them apart. “Jacob,” Luc said, kissing her nose. “You’d better go.”

  “I was surprised to find him in here.”

  “He’s been coming by. He likes to draw.”

  “Last week you didn’t want him in your workshop, and now you’re inviting him in for arts and crafts? What changed?”

  Everything. Absolutely everything, but she didn’t know how to say that without sounding crazy. Without somehow ruining the magic that had suddenly appeared in her life.

  “I’m not … I’m not good with kids. But I’m trying.”

  “Are you scared of him?” Luc asked, all too knowing.

  “Maybe. Yes.”

  “Well, he is terrifying. All that asthma. Lucky for you I’ve saved you from the seven-year-old.” He walked across her workshop and paused at the door as if he was about to say something else. She wondered, poised on the tips of her hope, if he was going to ask her to come with him. Because she wanted to go. Her work was done, the samples shipped off. She wanted to play hookie.

  “Do you want to come—”

  “Yes.” She grabbed her purse and stood.

  He blinked at her sudden agreement. “You’ll, ah … need a coat.”

  “It’s a hundred degrees outside.”

  “It’s an ice arena. Trust me. I don’t want you to get cold.” She grabbed a coat from the rack behind her desk, wondering how he made such a simple statement sound like a line from a love song. “You know they have flat surfaces at the arena and I bet I could find us ten minutes.”

  Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she breezed past him. “I’m holding out for The Ritz.” She put the old swing back in her walk, knowing just how she looked in tight denim, and his chuckle was like music to her ears.

  chapter

  22

  “Good practice, guys,” Luc said, and all the little kids cheered, half of them falling on the ice at the effort. Luc laughed, hoisting them up by their pads.

  Jacob wasn’t one of them. The kid was rock solid on his skates. He wasn’t fast, he had no idea how to hold a stick, but he could stay on his blades, and that put him slightly ahead of the class.

  “Great job, buddy,” Tara said as she awkwardly helped Jacob off the ice and onto the mats leading back to the changing rooms.

  Luc would be lying if he said he wasn’t totally turned on by the sight of Tara Jean in a hockey arena. She wore this white breezy top under a denim coat and when she leaned over he could see the tops of her breasts, and while that was hot, what was really killing him was the smile on her face. It illuminated her, and in her joy she was a different person.

  “Can you help me with my pads?” Jacob asked.

  “Who? Me?” Tara asked, glancing up at Luc as if the boy had asked her to help him rob a bank.

  “You just pull,” Luc said. “It’s not that hard.”

  “Oh … well, okay. I can help you.” Jacob wobbled his way across the mats toward the dressing room. Tara turned to follow, but Luc couldn’t let her go without a kiss.

  A quick press of cold lips and colder cheeks. A hot swipe of tongue. Perfect.

  “There are kids present, Baker,” she chastised, kissing him quickly and then turning to follow Jacob, taking his hand as they went down the stairs.

  Billy, in a suit with the tie pulled askew, stood against the bleachers watching.

  “Shut it,” Luc said, unable to suppress a smile.

  “It’s good to see you happy, that’s all.”

  “How’d the meeting go?” Luc asked. His friend had had a breakfast meeting with the Dallas brass and then gone to check out his new condo before meeting Luc at the rink.

  “Fine,” he sighed, catching a kid by the shoulder pads when the boy looked like he was about to go down. “They’re talking about team building and everyone knows I’ve only got a few years left. By the time the team builds enough to get a playoff spot I’ll be out to pasture.”

  “You don’t know that,” Luc said, but Billy was probably right.

  “Come on, look at us,” Billy said. “If we were smarter, we’d be getting out.”

  “I never claimed to be smart,” Luc said, and Billy smiled, but both of them knew they were skating into overtime.

  “Hey!” He heard the scrape of skates over ice and knew Tyler was behind him. All the peewees were off the ice. “You ready, Mr. Baker?”

  “Your protégé awaits,” Billy said, and Luc tried not to roll his eyes. The kid was impatient and oftentimes rude. Talented, yes. But the longer he worked with the kid, the more the attitude came out. And now there was too much attitude for it to be any fun.

  Maybe that was why he liked the peewees. No attitude.

  But Tara Jean was going to be sitting up in those stands and he was going to skate that kid into the ice.

  Not that he was showing off or anything.

  “You mind taking Jacob home?” Luc asked, realigning some tape on his stick and carefully avoiding looking at Billy.

  “The kid cramping your style?”

  “I just … it would be nice to have some time alone with her. Dinner. A movie or something. Something normal.”

  Billy nodded. “Unless you want me to get out there and teach Tyler some lessons. He’s getting a little too comfortable with the cheap shots.”

  “I got it.” Luc pushed off the boards.

  “Whoa, where are your pads?” Billy asked. “Your helmet.”

  Luc smiled, his skates biting into the ice. “It’s just some drills, Billy. I think I can handle it.”

  Tara Jean walked back into the arena after getting Jacob strapped into the back of Billy’s Jeep and sat down in the empty bleachers, shivering in her light coat.

  Billy had offered to give her a ride home, his scarred lip twisting in a knowing smile, and Tara Jean had declined, a blush climbing her cheeks.

  A blush. Her. Tara Jean Sweet.

  All because Luc had rigged it so they could have some time alone.

  Dinner at The Ritz sounded good. Sounded perfect right about now.

  She watched Luc on the ice with a young man. They were working some drills, and she could hear Luc’s voice correcting the boy as he skated down the ice. Luc kept getting in the kid’s way, taking the puck like it was candy.

  She smiled when Luc laughed. The young man didn’t like that, his voice rose in anger, but Luc kept laughing. The kid started skating harder, steam all but rising from his skates.

  But Luc was always just ahead of him.

  “Tara Jean.”

  The world dropped away. The voice in her ear was the last one she had expected to hear, and for a second it didn’t register. It didn’t make any sense.

  Dennis stepped over the bleacher to sit beside her.

  Shocked, unable to force herself into motion, she gaped at him. The man was frayed around the edges, his polish long gone. His beard was coming in, making him look like a weasel. The dark shadow under his bloodshot eye hinted at an aging shiner.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Her hands fumbled as she pulled her phone out of her purse. “I have a protection order. You can’t be here.”

  With one hand he grabbed her phone, tossing it a few bleachers down as if it were nothing. As if her protection order were nothing.

  She stood and opened her mouth to scream, but Dennis reached up and grabbed her by the back of her hair. “Your fucking protection order is the least of my problems, bitch. I need that money.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He clenched his fist, pulling all the fine hair at her nape, and she couldn’t swallow the cry of pain.

  “Do you think I’m kidding?” he asked, nearly spitting in her face. “Do you think this is a joke? I need that money.”

  “You won’t get it. Luc—”

  “Yeah, Luc. Your dickwad boy
friend’s got someone following me asking questions about us.”

  For a second she went numb—the pain in her head, the fear in her heart—and for a heartbeat she felt nothing. “What?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned. “Not so tough right now, are you? Listen, if I get dragged down without that money, I’m taking you with me. I will ruin you, Jane. And I’ll ruin that family. Get me that money.”

  “Let go of me,” she said through her teeth and the second he let go of her hair she leapt to her feet, getting as much distance between them as she could.

  On the ice, Luc was skating her way, watching the younger man skating to his left, but at her movement he lifted his head. For a moment he seemed to smile, but then Dennis stood up beside her and Luc’s smile vanished, replaced by the intensity and hate she hadn’t seen since he first arrived at the ranch. Luc dropped his stick and shook off his gloves, running toward the boards, no doubt ready to climb up there in his ice skates to take Dennis’s head off.

  But on the ice, the young man Luc was skating with shook off his gloves, misinterpreting Luc’s aggression.

  “Fine,” the boy yelled, “let’s go, old man.”

  Luc turned his head just as the young man rammed him into the boards. There was a scuffle, a fleshy thud, and then they both fell to the ice, the boards blocking her view.

  Dennis pushed her, knocking her down hard on her hip, and she scrambled back up, reaching for his shirt as he leapt over the bleachers.

  “I’ll find you,” Dennis sneered, looking at her over his shoulder.

  Dennis cleared the last bleacher and sprinted down the hallway toward the stairs that led to the parking lot.

  Damn it! she thought, rubbing her elbow where it had banged into the hard wooden benches.

  “Help!” someone yelled and she whirled toward the ice. The young man was on his feet, his helmet gone, red hair sticking up on his head in thick, wild clumps, his face white with panic. “I need help!”

  Panic ballooned in her chest at the sight of Luc’s legs on the ice, his upper body still blocked by the boards.

  He wasn’t moving.

  chapter

  23