by Lucy Francis
Yeah, the kiss was pure all right. Pure fantasy. Heat rose in her cheeks and when she dropped her gaze from his, he swore.
He paced away from her then turned back. “None of it was real. You knew me on Halloween, didn’t you?”
He’d apparently seen the truth in her reaction, so she’d better fess up. “Yes. Your voice gave you away.”
“I should have known. It was rather convenient how you ended up house-sitting down the lane from my home. Took a while for you to track me down, but you managed. I owe you a round of applause for your resourcefulness.”
Victoria clenched her fists. Don’t cry, don’t cry. She concentrated on his words.
“The only other thing I can’t make fit is why you haven’t slept with me. You never explained, you just said no. The nearest I can figure is you had too much pride to stoop quite that low for a story.”
Anger fused into the hurt pressing on her heart as she connected exactly where he was going with all of this. “You think I was just playing you? That going out with you, kissing you, is all about a story?”
“An exclusive story worth a healthy amount of money, I’m sure. Tell me, just how much am I worth in print these days?”
Her anger boiled over, sweeping her pain away. “How can you stand there and accuse me of being some sort of media prostitute?”
“You’re right; prostitute is too harsh considering you refused sex. I’ll settle for unethical tease.”
She shifted her stance, mentally measuring the time it would take to get through the door and lock it behind her if she needed to escape. She should let it go, but he’d scratched her fragile pride and the strength to stand up for herself surged in her veins.
“How dare you! I’ve spent years earning a solid reputation as a writer. You think I’d risk it to write a piece without your consent and cooperation? I can’t believe you think I’d toss my ethics aside that easily. You want the truth, fine. I’ll give you the truth. Yeah, when we ran into each other over Peg, I thought about asking you for an interview. I thought about it for twenty-four hours, until you kissed me again. An article was no longer an option at that point.”
His brow creased and confusion lit his eyes. “Then what were you hiding? Why not just tell me about the Pieron interview?”
She spread her arms wide. “This is why! You never hid your dislike for the press, Curran. If I’d told you that first day when we talked at your house, you’d have kicked me off your property.”
The heat of her anger kept her tears at bay, but the tingle in her face told her they wouldn’t stay away much longer. “I should have told you, but I was afraid of this very reaction. Dating you was something I didn’t want to lose. So I struggled to tell you and couldn’t do it.”
He released a mirthless laugh. “Uh-huh. And Brindle’s. Explain the club to me.”
She tapped her index finger against his chest. “Hey, you approached me on Halloween, remember? Yeah, I recognized you. And you know what? I wanted to kiss you. I was dying to find out what you were really like. I never in a million years expected to run into you again.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “What am I supposed to make of all this?”
Victoria’s anger peaked. “You’ve already drawn your conclusions. You stormed over here armed with what you thought you knew, wanting to play judge, jury and firing squad. So I suggest you take your damned self-centered ego off my porch, Curran. If you can’t recognize something sincere and real, if you can’t see it when it’s right in front of you, then I want you gone. Get out of my life and don’t ever darken my doorstep again.”
Victoria marched into the house and slammed the door behind her. She threw the deadbolt, then held her breath, listening. He cursed and slammed his fist against the door once. Finally, she heard an engine turn over. A moment later, the truck rumbled away down the road.
In the silence that followed, she sank to the floor and wept.
After a while, her brain overrode her emotions. I’m acting like such a girl.
Grateful not even Sassy was there to witness her meltdown, Victoria pulled herself to her feet and trudged to the bathroom. She splashed her face with water. It didn’t accomplish all that much in the way of soothing her red, puffy eyes, but she felt a little better.
Funny that she reacted so strongly to all of this. She’d known it would end, she’d expected it soon. Heavens, she’d even thought it would end because of that old article. It shouldn’t have surprised her.
She’d apparently given Curran Shaw more of her heart than she thought. Now she’d relearned one of more important lessons of her life. Letting a man into her world led to pain. Well, she wouldn’t be doing that again any time soon, would she?
Curran slammed the door of his truck and stormed across the yard to the pasture fence. Peg-leg gave a snort as he approached and lumbered over to meet him, but he wasn’t in any mood to pet the beast.
He pulled the cigarettes he’d picked up at the convenience store out of his pocket and ripped off the plastic wrap.
The barn door slammed open and Rob approached at a dead run. “Uncle Curran, can you saddle Sparkler for me? I wanna ride.”
Curran pulled the cigarette from his lips and tucked it into his pocket, but not in time. Rob skidded to a stop, his eyes widening into saucers. “Oh, man, are you gonna be in trouble!”
“Rob, you don’t need to tell your mother—”
His plea came too late. His nephew was already running across the snow to his house.
Curran swore and returned the cigarette to his lips. Peg snorted at him when he flicked his new lighter. He growled back at the bison. “Shut the hell up, Peg. I’m already going to hear it from Kel, I don’t need it from you, too.”
Peg’s eyes rolled and he let out a long bawl. Curran leaned against the fence, slowly releasing the smoke from his lungs.
How the hell did Victoria do that? How did he go over to confront her and end up being the one who got dumped? She’d jerked control of the situation right through his fingers and turned it around on him.
Peg butted the fence rail and rolled his eyes again. Curran pointed at the bison with his cigarette. “Don’t look at me like that, mate. You weren’t there, you’re not entitled to have an opinion.”
He pushed away from the fence and started pacing along the line. When he’d smoked halfway down his second cigarette, Kelli cleared her throat behind him.
He waited, but she kept her silence. He glared at her over his shoulder. “What?”
“Did you give her a chance to explain?”
“Pardon me? Nothing about falling back into the clutches of my addiction?”
Kelli crossed her arms and nailed him with one of her stern mom stares. “You know how I feel about it, but I can’t exactly punish you. If you want to kill yourself with those things, that’s your business. Just don’t you do it around your nephew.”
She stepped closer to him, her expression softening. “Now then, did you really talk to her, or did you just shove the article in her face and walk away?”
Curran dropped the cigarette butt into the snow. “She admitted she’d considered writing about me again.”
Kelli’s mouth hung open. “She said that?”
“She also claimed she decided against it after I started seeing her.”
“I told you so!”
He glared at her. “Don’t.”
“What else happened?”
He kicked at the snow, sending a flurry in Peg’s direction. The bison snorted and shied away from the fence. “She said I can’t see something real when it’s right in front of my face.”
“Well, can you?”
“Thanks, Kel. Whose side are you on?”
She stepped closer to him and patted his shoulder. “I’m on yours, Curran. But I want to see you happy, and I think you’re going to regret letting her go.”
He turned away and crossed his arms over the top fence rail. “I won’t regret it. It wasn’t honest. It wasn’t re
al.”
Kelli heaved a sigh. “Okay, if you say so. I won’t bring it up again.”
He listened to her footsteps crunch across the snow, until the sound grew too faint. He stretched out his hand toward Peg-leg and waggled his fingers, offering a scratch. “Come on, Peg. Come over here.”
Peg snorted and walked away.
“Fine, you bastard, be that way.”
She’d kept secrets from him. She’d lied to him. Just like Amanda.
Only getting rid of Amanda didn’t fill a corner of his heart with an intense ache.
Curran tapped another cigarette out of the pack and slid deeper into the only thing he ever allowed to get the best of him.
On Friday afternoon, Victoria yanked herself out of a deep, writing-induced haze when she finally processed that the doorbell had rung.
It was probably Mara. Who else would be visiting? That’s all she needed right now, when the only things going right in her life were extra writing jobs lining up: Mara’s preternatural perkiness.
She opened the door to a woman stepping off the porch. “Kelli?”
Curran’s sister looked back over her shoulder, a smile tugging at her lips. “I—I’m sorry, did I disturb you?”
Aware that she looked like she just crawled out of bed, in her T-shirt, flannel pants, and bare feet, Victoria shook her head and leaned against the doorjamb. “I was writing. It took me a while to register the sound of the doorbell.”
“Oh, good.” Kelli grasped the hem of her long purple parka with her fingers, looking every bit as awkward as Victoria felt.
She pushed the door open a bit wider. “Come in. Would you like a cup of tea or something?”
Kelli managed a smile. “I’d love a cuppa, thanks.”
She stepped into the house and Victoria closed the door behind her, then took her coat to hang in the closet. Kelli followed her through the entry and into the kitchen.
Victoria waved Kelli into the great room while she filled a teapot and placed it on a burner. She joined the other woman on the couch.
Kelli said, “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”
Victoria set her elbows on her knees, balanced her chin on her fists. “Does it have anything to do with Curran?”
“Only a little, but let’s get it out of the way.” Kelli drew a deep breath. “Curran has convinced himself that everything about your relationship was a sham.”
Victoria grimaced, the constant ache behind her heart intensifying. “Figures.”
Kelli reached out, patted her hand. “I think he’s wrong. I spent enough time with you two to see your feelings for him.”
Victoria looked away, unable to halt the shudder passing through her as the hurt sharpened. “Can we not talk about this?”
“Right, sorry.”
The tension twining between them grew uncomfortable. Finally, Kelli cleared her throat and said, “Look, Victoria, I really came to say I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and…goodness, I feel like a little girl back in primary school. It was so much easier to make friends back then because you could just waltz up to another girl and say, wanna be friends, mate?”
Victoria’s brows rose and her eyes widened at the surprise. Did she interpret that correctly? “You want to be friends, Kelli? Even after this disaster between your brother and me?”
Kelli waved off the question. “Vic, if Curran wants to cause himself strife, so be it, okay? We can agree not to discuss him, if you wish.” She leaned forward and grasped one of Victoria’s hands. “You’re heaps of fun to be around, and I think we discovered at the lodge that we can really talk to each other. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a true girlfriend in so long, I’d forgotten what it was like.”
Victoria’s heart leapt, lighter than it had been in days. “Me, too! I haven’t had a close girlfriend since before Nate cut off all my outside acquaintances. And I like you, Kelli, I really do. I hadn’t realized how much I need another woman I can confide in until we started talking.”
Kelli laughed. “Oh, thank God. I was so terrified to talk to you. I was certain you’d turn me away.”
Victoria sobered somewhat. “You’re a braver soul than I for making the attempt. I wouldn’t have dared come out to your house.”
The teapot whistled, and Victoria went into the kitchen to make up a tray. She set the tray on the side table, started the teabags steeping, then folded her legs under her on the couch. “I’m a little surprised, though, Kelli. You’re such a nice, fun person, I expected you to have dozens of friends.”
The other woman shook her head. “The canyon is pretty sparsely populated. Only a few of these homes up here are year-round residences, and most are older couples or people with teenagers.”
“Aren’t you close to the mothers of Rob’s friends?”
“No, not really. Most of them have the perfect lives, perfect families—”
“Perfect hair.”
Kelli giggled. “Oh, you’ve met some of them? I don’t fit into that world. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to try.”
Victoria waved a hand at her friend. “My mother is the same way. I’m uncomfortable with anyone that perfect, because I am so very not. On that note, since you know how my imperfect life as altered in the past week, fill me in on yours. How is Jamie?”
Kelli sighed, wistfulness darkening her eyes. “He flew back to L.A. on Monday.”
“He flew back and…what, end of story?”
“I don’t know. He was very quiet Sunday after skiing. He dropped by on Monday before he left for the airport, gave me a kiss and said he’d call. That was it.”
“Is this typical Jamie behavior?”
Kelli lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “He has a reputation for being flighty with relationships. I knew that, I just sort of hoped I’d be different. The only woman he ever totally committed to was his wife, Alexa, and she died of leukemia just before their second anniversary.”
“Poor guy.” Victoria reached for the teacups, passing one to Kelli.
Kelli stirred a bit of sugar into her tea then leaned back. “I know I said I wasn’t expecting this thing with Jamie to go anywhere, but now that it clearly isn’t progressing, I’m—”
She coughed and blinked hard, but Victoria noticed the tears glimmering in her eyes. She gave Kelli’s arm a gentle squeeze.
Kelli’s laugh sounded somewhat forced. “This is what I don’t understand. I knew full well this was just a fun little fling, right? So why does it bother me that it might be over?”
Victoria nodded and sipped her tea. “Just because you expect the outcome doesn’t make it sting any less.”
“True. What’s strange, though, is the fear. On one hand, I’m afraid to care about Jamie, but on the other hand, I’m afraid to not care. I don’t know if I can take the misery of another relationship failure, but at the same time I’m afraid the perfect man is there for me, and I’ll pass him up out of fear he’ll be like Jonas.”
Now that she understood. “I know exactly how you feel.”
“Do you think men experience this much mental anguish over relationships?”
Victoria snorted. “Hell, no!”
She finished her tea then changed the subject. “Where is Rob today?”
“My brother, whom we shall not mention, took him to Salt Lake after school to check out the Children’s Museum. Hey, do you want to get some lunch? I was so nervous about coming here, I couldn’t eat this morning, and now I’m starved.”
In response to the suggestion, Victoria’s stomach growled. “Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten yet today. Let me throw on some shoes, and we’ll go.”
They laughed and ate and ended up talking most of the afternoon. When Victoria finally waved goodbye to Kelli and walked back into the house, she realized how much the anguish inside her had lifted, at least for a while. Hopefully, she helped ease Kelli’s misery in return.
Another thought occurred to her as she went to play with Sassy. As glad as she was for Kelli’s frien
dship, spending time at her house wasn’t an option. The last thing she wanted to do was run into Curran again. Ever.
Chapter Nine
Curran came into the house through the back door, pausing in the mud room to shed his coat and gloves. He kicked out of his boots and stripped off his wet, freezing jeans. He tossed the soaked denim into the utility sink, then grabbed a pair of black fleece pants from the shelf and pulled them on. Damn, he hated being so cold.
Peg-leg was possessed. That was the only explanation for the three fences the beast ripped down in as many days. How he managed to break off fence posts and go on walkabout without hurting himself again, Curran couldn’t figure.
He passed through the kitchen into the entertainment room, backtracking to the front door when the bell rang. A delivery for his sister—the Express guy said she wasn’t home. He signed for it, then set the box by the door and made his way to his recliner.
Three times since his blowup with Victoria, he’d ended up wading through hip-deep snow, wet and freezing his ass off. The worst part of mending those fences was the memories of her that surfaced and ate at him, killing him one bite at a time.
He thought about the way her eyes lit up when she laughed, and the way they glowed like gold after he kissed her. He missed the slips of paper with smiley faces drawn on them, spritzed with her perfume. She used to tuck them into his coat pocket, or into the cushion on the recliner, or in one of the cupboards, for him to discover long after she’d gone.
It took hours to shove the memories back down in the depths of his mind where they belonged, every time he had to repair a fence. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the damned bison was doing it to him on purpose.
Curran settled onto the recliner where he’d left the murder mystery he was reading. The warmth of the house soothed him, melting both cold and tension from his body. He re-read a page in his book to get back into the story. Shortly, he was fully engrossed in the characters.