He was silent for a moment and then he chuckled, the warm sound bouncing through the air waves to slide down her back like the stroke of a finger. “How in the world can I say no? Celeste Baker needs me.”
She closed her eyes, clinging to the strange intimacy. “Is it safe to say that I need Thomas, too?”
I do. I do. I need you both. She was so damn tired of her cold life. Her loneliness that no amount of friendship with Ruby and Victoria could fill.
“We’ll clear off our schedules and get there in two hours.”
Celeste hung up. Those gerbils were drunk on champagne, doing silly things in her stomach, making a mess of her ordered life.
“The cavalry’s coming,” she said, trying to appear as composed as possible. But one glace at Ruby’s face and Celeste knew she wasn’t buying it for a minute.
“Girl, you in a heap of trouble.”
And wasn’t that the truth. On so many levels.
At three in the afternoon on Saturday, Eli collapsed into one of the wooden deck chairs on the front porch. He wasn’t going to move for a week. Not one week. His feet hurt. His back was killing him, and he hadn’t talked so much … ever. In his life. About useless shit.
Small talk.
Three days since the greenhouse. Three days of Victoria not looking at him.
Luckily, he’d been working himself to the bone for her and was too damn tired to be worried or sad. But, oddly enough, he still had plenty of energy to be pissed off.
She could be pregnant, right now, with his baby, a baby he couldn’t want more, and she still didn’t have the courage to lift her head. To look him in the eye and say “We’re in this together.”
The front door opened, and much to Eli’s surprise Gavin, the Viking contractor, walked out, his son behind him. Eli felt oddly compelled to hide, but Gavin had already noticed him, sitting in the shade of the porch.
“Go on and get the rest of the lights, Thomas,” Gavin said, and much to Eli’s horror, the older man started walking toward Eli.
Thomas shot Eli a poisonous look from his dark eyes and hit the steps to do what his father had asked.
He really hoped Gavin wasn’t interested in fighting, because the shape he was in, Eli was just going to sit there and get punched.
“You look beat.” Gavin leaned up against the railing, stretching his legs out like he was getting ready for a good chat.
Eli nodded.
“Quite a scene around here,” Gavin said. “Heard you’ve been busy.”
“What are you doing here?” Eli asked. What little small talk he’d been born with had been used up.
“Helping Celeste set up for that big party tonight.”
Eli groaned, planting his hands on the arms of his chair, trying to coax his muscles into a standing position. He’d totally forgotten about the party. Celeste and Victoria must be frantic.
Or not. He couldn’t tell a single thing about Victoria anymore.
“I got it, man,” Gavin said, holding out his hand. “Thomas and I can set up tables. Hang the lights.”
“Not quite your job description.” Eli sagged back into his chair with relief.
“Yeah, well.” Gavin looked at the front door as though he expected his life to come walking through it. “Celeste called; I couldn’t say no.”
Celeste? And Gavin? Eli would have smiled if his mouth wasn’t sore from all the talking. Good for them.
“Well, thanks.”
Gavin stood, that smile fading, replaced by something worried. “I’m sorry about that fight—”
“I started it.” Eli lifted his hand and let it flop back in his lap. “I was an ass.”
“Yeah, but I’d been wanting to hit you for a long time. And not just because of the shit you were pulling in the yard.” He ran a hand across the white railing as if admiring his own craftsmanship. “Your mom is my friend. The best one I’ve got, and it sucked watching her get hurt like that.”
Maybe he was just too tired to fight, or maybe he didn’t care anymore. Either way, all the protestations—about how badly she’d hurt him—died on his tongue.
“I imagine it did.”
“She’s excited about coming out tonight. She wouldn’t say so, but she is.”
Eli was done with conversation. He’d hit his limit and he couldn’t lie and say he was excited to see her. So he said nothing, and after a moment Gavin nodded and walked down the steps to his truck to help his son gather up armfuls of white Christmas lights.
A few minutes later, Jacob came out and Eli groaned. “No more hikes, buddy. No football games. No trips to see the swans. I’m beat.”
Jacob’s jeans had a hole in the knee and he was covered in dust and dirt and suspicious brown smears from the baseball game in the high pasture. All the kids were, even some of the dads. Eli was too tired to care whether or not that mattered.
It was going to take an hour just to get this kid cleaned up for the party.
Jacob climbed onto the side arm of his wooden seat, leaning against Eli’s shoulder, tucking his feet in between Eli’s legs, like he’d been doing it all his life.
And Eli shifted and slid, lifted his arm to put it around the boy’s back so he didn’t fall off the chair. It wasn’t comfortable, but he wouldn’t change it.
For a moment he allowed himself to think about a kid of his own. A baby, growing right now in Victoria’s belly.
But then he pushed the thought away, because it was too sharp to touch, his longing too painful to bear.
“Thirsty?” Like an angel of mercy Jacob handed him a blue, ice-cold juice box. Not his drink of choice, but beggars can’t be choosers, and the fruit punch was a blast of sugar and flavor. He slurped it down, twisting the straw to get the juice in the corners.
“Go get some more of those, would you?” Eli asked, handing back the empty box, the straw cockeyed.
“All out.” Jacob sighed heavily, and Eli rubbed the knobs of the boy’s spine through his long-sleeved T-shirt.
“What’s wrong, kiddo?”
“My mom is acting funny.”
“I didn’t notice.” He tried not to be sarcastic, but there was just so much ugliness inside of him right now.
“Will you go talk to her? Make her act normal.” The boy’s eyes were very powerful and it was hard to say no, but in the end, his heart was as sore as the rest of his body. He tucked his arm around the boy again.
“Sorry, buddy,” he said. “She’s … she’s got to do this one on her own.”
He had done everything he could. The rest was up to her.
“You ready?” Thomas asked and Celeste smiled, despite the hurricane of nerves in her stomach. She didn’t really have time for this, but she’d been unable to say no to Thomas’s excitement.
“You’re good, Thomas,” she said, keeping her eyes shut as requested, “but they’re just lights.”
“Not anymore they’re not,” Gavin whispered, standing beside her.
“Pull the switch,” Thomas said in his best Dr. Frankenstein voice and Celeste felt warmth on her face, sensed light from behind her eyelids.
Gavin’s hand was a warm breeze across the skin of her shoulders and back.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered, and she did, looking right up into his Nordic blue eyes, the fierce features of his face. So handsome, her hand actually lifted to touch him.
“What do you think?” he asked, set against a blinking world of fairy lights. A galaxy of stars. White lights of all sizes filled the ceiling, reflected across the windows and into the darkness of the night outside.
“It’s magical,” she said. Better than she’d dreamed it could be.
“Never underestimate the power of white twinkle lights,” Thomas said, coming to stand beside them.
The rented cocktail tables were set up along the windows, draped in white linen, candles flickering on each of them. The buffet tables were set up. White-gloved waiters were getting their final instructions from Ruby, who wore an apron over a completely age
-inappropriate red flamenco-style dress.
They’d gone ten rounds over that dress and in the end Celeste had thrown up her hands. The woman would do what she wanted; she always did.
Guests were going to arrive within two hours. Everything was perfect.
Except Victoria.
Celeste wasn’t even sure where she was at this point.
“Wow, Maman!” Her son’s voice sent her spinning around, her heart in her throat.
“Luc!” she cried, climbing the steps to put her arms around her giant former-NHL-star son.
“Her son is Luc Baker?” Thomas asked, and Gavin shushed him.
Beside Luc was Tara Jean Sweet, his girlfriend, who was looking at the changes in the ranch with her mouth hanging open.
“Celeste,” she sighed. “Look at what you’ve done to this place! It’s amazing. I don’t … I don’t even recognize it.”
“I don’t even recognize you,” Celeste said, kissing the girl’s cheeks. When she first met her, Tara had worn leather skirts no bigger than Band-Aids with more attitude than one girl should have access to. Now she wore a silver cocktail dress that managed to be just the right side of respectable, but only just.
“Where’s Vicks?” Luc asked, his sharp eyes scanning the room, searching through the hired staff for signs of his sister.
“Maybe you can find her,” Celeste sighed.
“Is she lost?” Luc’s dark brows clashed over his eyes.
“You can say that again.”
Getting ready for this party, Eli had the bad feeling that he was getting dressed for his own funeral. He was putting on a suit and a tie just so Victoria could finish the job she was doing on his heart.
He’d hung around the ranch as long as he could, waiting for her, convincing himself that she was working through her feelings, getting her shit together so she could come over to him and say, “You know what, Eli, you’re right. I love you.”
But for some reason, sitting in his truck hours later, watching fancy people in fancy clothes walk in the front door of the Crooked Creek Ranch, his gut was telling him she was just too scared.
And in the end, he was going to have to walk away, because he had spent most of his life with a father who didn’t love him enough. And he wasn’t signing up for that shit again.
A small knock on his window spooked him and he jumped.
It was Amy, her long red hair piled up on her head.
“Sorry,” she mouthed, her smile shy.
His heart hammering, he opened the door and slid out of his truck. “You look handsome,” she said. The look in her eyes was all mother and it made him nervous, uncomfortable.
“Thanks.” He pulled on his collar, totally adrift. Utterly uncomfortable. “My shoes hurt.”
“Mine too.” She lifted the skirt of her navy dress with sequins at the waist that glittered in the light from the ranch. Her shoes were pointy. Very uncomfortable-looking. He stared at them instead of staring back at her. “Should we … should we go in?”
Together. That’s what she was thinking and he couldn’t stand her hope. Couldn’t stand her spending the rest of the night reading extra meaning into any exchange they might have.
“I don’t …” He blew out a long breath. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you. So you gotta stop waiting for that. You gotta stop … watching me like it’s the next thing I might say.” He wondered if he looked at Victoria like that. He probably did. He felt as though he’d been waiting to hear her say she loved him all his life.
Her face closed down and she nodded, as subdued as the dress she wore. “I know, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m just … happy to be here.”
“At the Crooked Creek? That’s gotta be a first,” he laughed, though it wasn’t all that funny.
She smiled too, lifting the thin strap of her purse higher on her shoulder. “It is. Look, Eli, I know I’m too late to be your mom. And it’s ridiculous to think we might be friends, but … I just want to know you. Know who you are. And maybe in time you might want to know me. That’s all.”
That’s all. Lord, months ago that would have seemed impossible. Maybe it still was. But with the renovation Victoria had done on his heart, nothing was what it had once been.
“I’ll see you in there,” she said, stepping away, her head held high, and why the hell not. She’d done the best she could. Maybe not in the past, but right now she was trying her hardest. Even he could see that.
“Hold up, Amy,” he said. “I hate walking into these things alone.”
chapter
27
In hindsight, the fact that Jacob got so sick after Joel’s suicide had allowed Victoria to compartmentalize. She hadn’t been forced to deal with her husband’s death because her son was busy fighting for his life. And over time, compartmentalizing became her greatest skill. Her one big achievement.
And she was putting it to good use with Eli and this party.
She didn’t have to think about how she was hurting him, or how she might be pregnant, because right now she had to wrap prosciutto around melon.
It was important, this melon. It was crucial.
It required every ounce of her energy because she could feel her worry and her panic and her pain over Eli pushing hard against the compartments she’d put them in.
She hoped Ruby had an endless supply of melon and prosciutto.
“Have you talked to Madelyn Cornish?” Celeste asked, stepping into the kitchen with an empty tray.
“No, not yet. Is she looking for me?”
“Yeah, she’s out there talking to Senator Phillips, so you’ve got some time. Ruby, Luc’s hockey friends are here, so let’s double the trays going out.”
“Got it,” Ruby said, opening her double-wide fridge to pull out more food.
Victoria took off the apron Ruby had given her and handed it to Celeste. Her black dress was sleeveless and tight, which had made her nervous, given all of the weight she’d gained, but it utterly changed the way she saw her own body.
In this dress she was curvy. Voluptuous, almost.
She’d bought the dress thinking about Eli, about how he’d love it. How he’d corner her in some dark room and slide his hands up under the skirt …
Well, she thought bitterly, you’ve taken care of that, haven’t you?
Sick of herself, she opened the kitchen doors and stepped into the full swing of her party. Hoping that the noise and heat and energy would fill her with some kind of emotion, something she could cling to, besides this vast nothingness that was drowning her.
Sixty guests mingled about—local friends they’d made and guests from the resort, along with Luc’s hockey friends, looking like a tribe of giants among the regular folks. Tara Jean had invited some people she knew from her leather design business. Higher-ups at Nordstrom and a couple of artists from Dallas, who gave the party a bohemian flair.
You did this, she thought, trying to force herself to feel something. Pride. Worry. Anything.
She just felt numb.
She asked one of the servers if he’d seen the stunning Dallas A.M. talk show host, and he directed her to the lounge.
At the door, holding a beer, stood one of the most terrifying men in America. Billy Wilkins. Billy had played hockey with Luc and was his very best friend.
He was huge—his shaved head plugged into wide shoulders that tapered down to a lean waist and long legs. Any beauty in his body was destroyed by the scar at the corner of his lip, which made a crooked path across his cheek to the bottom of his jaw. It pulled his lip sideways when he smiled, making him look like he was in pain.
Or about to murder someone.
His nose had been broken into a messy knob in the middle of his face. But his eyes were warm and when she looked into those brown eyes, she saw the sweet boy he once must have been.
“Hey, Vicks,” he said, using Luc’s nickname for her. “Quite a shindig you got here.”
“Thank you, Billy.” Affection filled
her. Billy, for all of his rough edges, was a sweetheart. He used to flirt with her, awkward as that was—but then, he flirted with everything in a skirt.
Imagine that confidence, she thought. Imagine that strength.
She’d had it, just a few days ago. Standing in the foyer with Celeste, she’d felt so good about herself, but now it was all gone. And she didn’t know how to get it back.
“I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Well, I’m in Dallas now, playing for the Mavericks, so I’m practically in the neighborhood.”
“Then I hope we see you around some more.”
He laughed. “I’m not much for facials and stuff.”
And wasn’t that the truth.
“Victoria!” a voice behind them cried, and both Victoria and Billy turned to see Madelyn Cornish practically running down the hall toward them. Beside her Billy sucked in a breath, and Victoria guessed it was because the woman was so breathtakingly beautiful. Not in that perfect way of Celeste’s, but in the messy, wild way of gypsies. Her brown hair curled extravagantly around her dark eyes and full red lips. A gauzy, sparkly scarf trailed behind her like pixie dust.
“Jesus Christ,” Billy muttered.
At the same time Madelyn Cornish stopped in her tracks, that wide smile draining slowly from her face. Her brown eyes locked on Billy.
“Hi, Maddy,” Billy whispered.
And after a long, speechless moment, Maddy turned around and ran the other way.
“What … was that?” Victoria asked.
“My ex-wife,” he muttered.
Celeste opened the desk drawer in the foyer and pulled out the small stash of safety pins.
“We’ll fix it, don’t worry,” she told Caitlyn, who was holding up the bodice of her lovely but clearly cheap blue dress, her face red with shame.
“I can’t believe that happened,” Caitlyn whispered. “Do you think anyone saw?”
“Probably.” Celeste smiled at the girl’s duress, stabbing the pin through the thick seam at the back of the strap. “But what’s a little wardrobe malfunction at a party?”
“You wanted tonight to be so elegant, and I go and flash everyone—”
Can't Hurry Love Page 29