Holding Out For A Hero

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “Would you believe she doesn’t want anything to do with a rich guy?”

  “Then marry the lady, Tanner. She sounds like a perfect candidate for that prenuptial agreement we have gathering dust in the files.”

  “Right.” Tanner felt an unexplainable twinge at the thought of asking Dori to sign the agreement. But he’d sworn never to marry anyone unless they agreed to leave his business alone in the event of a divorce. Romance was one thing. Business was another. He wouldn’t try to control Dori with the power of his wealth, but he certainly didn’t want to be vulnerable to having his business chopped in half if everything went sour. After all, this was the nineties. People started out with great hopes, but in the end, one in three marriages ended in divorce.

  Yet somehow the thought of that prenuptial agreement depressed the hell out of him. It was insurance, and he definitely wanted it. Any man in his position would expect that sort of cooperation from the woman he intended to marry. Dori didn’t want money, anyway, so she’d probably gladly sign away her rights to his fortune. Gladly sign away, if she agreed to marry him in the first place, once she found out his financial status.

  Tanner thought about the love in Dori’s eyes when he’d caressed her the night before and was sure they could overcome this little problem between them. Then he considered the disdain in her expression when she talked about the evils of money, and his confidence evaporated.

  13

  IN ALLHER YEARS of working at the Double Nickel, Dori had never known Crystal Devaney to set foot in the place. Yet in the middle of the afternoon, Crystal’s blue Caddy pulled up in front of the café. The car didn’t look any more comfortable in a lot full of pickups than Crystal did in her green linen suit as she pushed through the door of the Double Nickel and stood looking around at truckers in Western shirts and baseball caps. Men such as these provided Crystal with her designer clothes and late-model luxury cars, but she’d stayed as removed from their labor as a princess ignoring the duties of her stable boys.

  As Dori watched, coffee carafe in hand, Crystal hesitated and finally made her way to a stool at the far end of the counter. Dori concluded that Crystal had made this pilgrimage to talk to her, a possibility Dori met with mixed emotions. She saw a woman struggling to build a life in the face of training that had doomed her to heart-break, yet Crystal had worked harder than anyone to deprive Dori of her son once the divorce had become official.

  And Crystal continued to connive to get what she wanted. Just the day before she’d tried to bribe Tanner. Dori tempered her natural compassion with that reminder as she set the carafe on a burner and approached Crystal, an order pad in her hand.

  “May I help you with something, Crystal?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  Dori cast an eye over her customers. Nobody seemed desperately in need of attention, so she drew closer to her ex-mother-in-law. “It’s no good, you know. I just can’t see myself going back to Jimmy.”

  Crystal picked up a sugar packet and tore the corner off. She poured the sugar in a neat pyramid on the counter. “You’re a stubborn girl, Dori Mae.” She glanced up from the pile of sugar. “But you’re in over your head. When I failed with your boyfriend, I turned the matter over to James.”

  Dori should have expected it. Crystal always resorted to her husband’s power when the going got tough. “So that’s when he dug out that old ordinance and set the sheriff’s department on us.”

  Crystal trained her green-eyed gaze on Dori. “James can use the information he has to make a case for immoral conduct. He will if he has to, and he’ll eliminate your visitation rights completely.”

  “Even you and James wouldn’t do that to Little Jim.” Dori prayed it was true.

  “It would be very sad, but how long can L.J. live torn between two worlds? James says maybe it’s better to cut it off clean.”

  Dori felt very cold. “Is that what you think, Crystal? You’re a mother. You still sneak money to your daughter. James wanted to cut that off clean after she left for L.A., but you couldn’t do it, any more than I could have. You continue to care for Libby, even if James doesn’t.”

  “James cares.” Crystal flattened the sugar pyramid with deliberate motions of her forefinger. “But he’s practical, too.” She glanced up. “If you’re not afraid of losing visitation with Little Jim, think of your boyfriend.”

  “He’s already been beaten up. What’s left? Surely James wouldn’t stoop to murder.”

  “Economic murder,” Crystal said quietly. “I heard him talking to Jimmy Jr. He’s already started contacting people around the state. He could have your young man blackballed so he won’t be able to get a construction job in the entire state of Texas. I could still stop that from happening, but you’d have to agree to send him out of town today. Within the hour.”

  Dori’s insides turned to jelly. Blackballed. What an ugly concept.

  “And a man with a bad record in Texas might have a tough time getting a job wherever he goes. Reputations follow people around, you know,” Crystal added for good measure.

  The fight went out of Dori. It seemed that whenever she tried to fix the mistake she’d made in marrying Jimmy, someone she loved ended up getting hurt. Little Jim was petrified of reprisals, and Tanner wasn’t afraid, but he darn well should be. He’d been very brave until now, but he hadn’t been faced with unemployment. That should change his tune.

  “Tell him to leave by five this afternoon,” Crystal said. “James won’t put out the word if he’s gone by five.”

  “Did James send you to tell me that?”

  “I offered to go. James said it would do no good, that the two of you were bent on self-destruction, but I thought differently. I wanted you both to have a chance to change your minds before James rolled over you.”

  Dori looked into her eyes. “I’ll tell him to leave. I don’t know if he will.”

  “Why can’t you just give in and come back?” Crystal asked, clearly perplexed by Dori’s behavior.

  “Because I don’t want to end up like you,” Dori said. Then she carefully wiped up the spilled sugar.

  DORI TRIED TANNER several times at the Prairie Schooner and was told by Elmer that the line was busy. The concept of Tanner tying up the phone lines gave Dori pause. She wondered if he was calling family members to get support for his position or to ask advice. He’d presented himself as such a lone wolf that the idea of him gathering wisdom from friends and relatives altered her concept of Tanner Jones.

  Finally at four-thirty she managed to get through. “James Devaney is prepared to blackball you if you don’t leave town by five tonight,” she said. “I believe he can do it. You’ll never work construction in Texas again.”

  To her amazement he laughed. “That’s what he thinks,” Tanner said. “Bring him on.”

  “You’re being completely foolish.” She heard the note of hysteria in her voice but there wasn’t much she could do about it. The man she’d come to love in the past few days was about to commit financial suicide, and she couldn’t bear to watch. “If you can’t earn a living, we won’t have enough money to fight for custody of Little Jim,” she reminded him. Desperation drove her to cruelty. “I don’t want a man who can’t hold up his end.”

  “I’ll hold it up, Dori.”

  “You don’t know what you’re facing. If you love me, you’ll leave town right now. Do it for me, if you won’t do it for yourself.”

  There was a long silence on the other end.

  “Tanner, are you there?” she asked at last.

  “Dori, I’m not leaving town before our date tonight. When we have a chance to talk, you’ll understand.”

  “But by that time you’ll be dead in the water!”

  “The White Ranger doesn’t give up that easily,” he said softly.

  “What?” She felt a sob lodge in her throat. “Listen, you crazy guy. Cartoons are not real life. You’ve proved that you’re a hero. Now ride out of here, okay?”

  “See you
at the end of your shift, Dori.”

  “Tanner—” She replaced the receiver when she realized he was no longer at the other end.

  By eight that night the café was buzzing and Dori raced from booths to counter, taking care of the crowd as country tunes blasted from the jukebox.

  The cook shoved an order across the pass-through. “When you deliver that, somebody’s waiting by the back door for you,” he said. “Better hurry.”

  A wave of misery engulfed her as she took the plate and carried it to a booth. Tanner had decided to leave, after all, but he’d waited too long. James Devaney’s spies would have informed him that Tanner had missed the five o’clock deadline. After delivering the order, she hurried through the kitchen and out the back door of the café, expecting to see Tanner’s truck parked there.

  Instead, she discovered James Devaney leaning against the fender of his black Cadillac. She recoiled as if she’d caught sight of a rattlesnake. The stench of garbage from a nearby Dumpster was highly appropriate, she thought.

  “Hello, Dori Mae.” He sounded almost friendly.

  “What are you doing here?”

  James folded his arms across his chest. He looked extremely pleased with himself. “I just received a piece of information that I thought you might be interested in hearing.”

  “I suppose all the big construction companies in the state have agreed never to hire Tanner Jones again.” She shook her head. “You have a funny way of trying to win me over, James.”

  “Crystal tells me you have a strange aversion to men with money.”

  Dori clenched her fists at her sides. “You and Jimmy have taught me that rich men are into power. I have this thing about keeping my independence.”

  “So you’re looking for someone poor, then?”

  Dori’s laugh was bitter. “I know what comes next. You’ve made certain Tanner will be extremely poor, haven’t you? Well, let me tell you something. Tanner will survive. You may have messed him up temporarily, but you haven’t broken his spirit. He’s twice the man you’ll ever be, and he’ll be fine.”

  James stroked his chin as he gazed at her. “I imagine he will survive. As the owner of one of the most successful construction companies in East Texas, he should continue to do very well.”

  AT NINE-THIRTY that night Tanner pulled into Dori’s driveway. He’d borrowed Elmer and Beatrice’s picnic basket and stocked it with wine, cold cuts and cheese for a picnic out on some star-spangled country road. He figured they’d eat in the back of the pickup, and the blanket he’d brought along could serve for the other activity he had in mind for tonight.

  The simple and inexpensive meal was only one way he planned to demonstrate how little he cared for the trappings of a monied existence. Yet he had to convince Dori that wealth could be used for a good cause, namely to restore Little Jim to her. But first he wanted to make love to her and reestablish the bond between them.

  He parked the truck, but before he could climb out, Dori came out the front door and walked quickly toward the truck. He was gratified that she’d been watching for him and was apparently eager to spend the rest of the evening in his company, but he was surprised that she hadn’t changed out of her waitressing uniform. Leaping from the cab, he came around to open the passenger door for her.

  His smile of welcome faded at the expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”

  She flung him a look of utter loathing. “The only reason I’m getting into this truck with you is because I might start shouting, and I don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”

  “Dori, what—”

  “Get in and drive, Tanner. Go out somewhere in the fields, where nobody can hear us.”

  He closed her door and came around to the driver’s seat. Only one thing could have created this level of rage in her. Dammit to hell. “You found out, didn’t you?” he asked as he closed his door.

  “I don’t want to talk about it here.”

  She had found out. He was certain of it. This was the risk he’d taken by not telling her earlier, but he’d been so close to the right moment. So damn close. He drove the rattletrap old truck out of her subdivision and headed for open cotton fields while she sat fuming beside him. A couple of times he glanced at her rigid profile and cursed softly to himself.

  Finally, he swung the truck onto a dirt road that ran off to the left from the two-lane blacktop. He cut the motor and cracked the window, letting in the scent of freshly turned earth and the chirp of crickets. He turned to her.

  She, however, did not turn toward him. Instead, she stared out the bug-spattered windshield. “The thing I can’t figure out is why you pretended to be poor in the first place. You had no way of knowing that was so important to me.”

  “I’d planned to tell you all that tonight.”

  She faced him then, her eyes shining with tears. “Oh, were you? Why should I believe that?” Her voice rose a notch. “Why should I believe anything you say, come to think of it?”

  “Because I love you.” It was one of two aces he held.

  “Don’t, Tanner.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Love is about honesty, not lies!”

  He reached for her, but she pulled away. That hurt more than anything. If he couldn’t hold her close while he explained this, she wouldn’t buy it. She’d trumped one of his aces.

  “Whose truck is this, anyway?” she asked, swiping the tears from her cheeks.

  “It belongs to one of my employees.”

  “This was all a deliberate plan, wasn’t it? To pretend to be a hand-to-mouth construction worker?”

  “Yes.” He thought how much she looked like the picture she’d sent him, her brown eyes wide and vulnerable, her full lips slightly parted. He’d never wanted her more than at this moment. Yet he didn’t dare touch her.

  “Why did you pretend all that?” she asked.

  He sighed. “Because I wanted to make sure the woman I married wanted me and not my money.”

  “Oh, Tanner.” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe everything has turned out this way.”

  Frustration roughened his voice. “You wouldn’t have given me the time of day if I’d been honest!”

  “No, and we both would have saved a lot of effort!” She sent him a withering glance. “Lying never works out, Tanner.”

  “I didn’t like the lying part, either, and I would have told you sooner, but you kept raving about the evils of money.”

  “It is evil.”

  “No, it’s not. Just because you’ve had one bad experience—”

  “Which made me look around, and see how the world works. Money separates people, putting them on different levels. Now I understand why you asked me about being a waitress. That would hardly be appropriate for your wife, would it?”

  “Dori, if you wanted to work as an elephant trainer after we’re married, I wouldn’t stop you.”

  “But you see, we won’t be getting married.”

  He’d tried to prepare himself for her rejection during the drive out here, but it still hit him like an iron girder in the gut. “Please don’t say that. At least listen to what—”

  “Save your breath, Tanner. I won’t put myself in that position again, where the man has all the power and I have none.”

  He wanted to grab her and kiss her until she listened to reason, but he gripped the steering wheel instead. “That’s bull. I won’t tell you what to do any more than a poor man would. Just because you had that experience with Jimmy, don’t lump all rich men in together. That’s not fair.”

  Her brown gaze softened a fraction. “I know you’re not like Jimmy. You wouldn’t mean to throw your weight around, but it would happen, just the same. If you’re bringing all that money into the family, then your doings would automatically become more important than mine. When I was married to Jimmy we had visitors at the Devaneys, couples in the same income bracket as Crystal and James, and it was always the same. The women were coddled, patted on the head and dismissed like children.”
>
  He hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand “I wouldn’t do that, dammit!”

  “Oh, wouldn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “If we got married, where would we live?”

  “Somewhere near Dallas. I mean, that’s where my business…” He paused as he realized what he was saying. She didn’t even have to point it out. She’d talked about how much she loved the Texas plains, and yet he’d ignored her needs because it would be very inconvenient to live in Los Lobos and try to conduct business in Dallas.

  “That’s only the beginning, Tanner. You’ll just assume those decisions are yours to make, because after all, you own this big successful company. I don’t even blame you for feeling that way. I just don’t want to be the little wife tucked away at home.”

  Which is exactly what he wanted, if he were completely honest with himself. The thought made him very uncomfortable. Desperate to turn events in his favor, he hauled out his other ace. “I could use my money to get Little Jim back.”

  She took a long, shaky breath. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of that.”

  “I thought that was your original goal.”

  “It was.”

  “Then what’s the problem? I have lawyers who can make mincemeat of the Devaneys. Marry me and they’ll be at your disposal.”

  She gazed down at her hands that were clenched tightly in her lap. “Oh, but you do tempt me, Mr. Jones.”

  Hope flared and he covered her hands with one of his. “Be tempted, Dori. I promise to make you the happiest woman in the world.”

  When she looked up the sadness in her eyes took his breath away. “I thought you didn’t want a woman who married you for your money,” she said.

  He stared at her.

  “That’s what I’d be doing, Tanner. And believe me, I’ve considered it. Missing Little Jim like I do, I’ll admit that sometimes I’ve thought about going back to Jimmy just to get my son back. And now I could marry you for the same reason. I wish I could do that. But I can’t.”