Bootscootin' Blahniks (16 page)

Was there anything Kat couldn’t do? The only role she didn’t fit was the image of a farmer’s wife. But by making her thirty-year marriage to Zayne’s dad work, she’d also booted that contradiction in the ass. Although Roxy had been convinced she’d find several failing points when Zayne had set-up her and his mom as co-workers, the woman just didn’t possess any qualities Roxy couldn’t tolerate.

With her Bulgari gliding past the three-minute mark, Roxy removed the linen napkin from her lap, brushing off the stray fibers inconveniently stuck to her skirt. She scooted to the outside of the booth. Just as her bandaged, Ugg-booted foot hit the aisle, Kat rushed toward their table as if she was running from paparazzi.

“So sorry for the delay, Dear.” Kat sashayed into her side of the booth in a frenzied huff. “I ran into a few of the girls from the Belle Meade Preservation Society and filled them in about your fabulous fall line. We really should consider doing the fashion show for their autumn gala. I wanted to say yes as soon as they asked, but remembered it was your decision, not mine.”

Kat patted her napkin to her forehead, dabbing at the dampness glistening on her skin in the restaurant’s soft lighting. She pulled the neck of her shirt away from her chest, using the spun silk as a fan against her faltered breathing. Even the woven lavender fibers flapping against her neck didn’t add color to her pale face.

“We’ll discuss the autumn gala later. Are you all right? It’s certainly not warm in here. In fact, if it weren’t for the wine, I’d be frozen stiff. But you’re clammy and damn near hyperventilating.” Roxy leaned across the table, encouraging Kat, by up-close-and-personal scrutiny, to spill whatever condition she was desperately, unsuccessfully trying to hide.

“I’ll be fine.” Kat emptied the last of the Pinot Grigio into her glass and smoothed the tablecloth with her salon-perfect hands. She focused her attention on the wine’s canary yellow bottle instead of her dinner companion.

Roxy knew the look. She’d worn it herself in the man-eating, Manhattan socialite circles her family swam in.
Should I confide
?
Or shouldn’t I
?
I’ve held it in this long
.
Why feed the sharks
?
I’ll get through this obstacle alone
. L
ike I always do
.

If she’d pegged Kat correctly, Roxy thought, the only difference was that Kat wouldn’t make an appointment with a therapist. ‘Course, Roxy wouldn’t have either, come to think of it, if she’d had the power back then to live according to her own mind. Therapists were her father’s idea, not hers. She, like Kat, would prefer to release and catch her own life rafts.

“Okay. I’ll be blunt,” Roxy said, shoring up for the storm approaching. She pressed her back firm against their booth’s leather-padded bench. Pulling back her shoulders, chest uplifted, she prepared to drag Kat out of her secret cocoon. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve got an illness you’re denying because (a) you don’t want to worry Zayne and (b)…”

Roxy paused to recompose her hit, thinking she’d probably be safer spouting off to Tony Soprano.

“Well, go ahead know-it-all,” Kat encouraged her.

Faced with Kat’s melancholy resignation instead of the sharp scolding she’d expected, Roxy softened her edge. “Or (b), you’re in denial.”

There
.
She’d said her piece
.

She knew she’d forced the woman into a corner on a personal topic she had no business approaching. But what choice did she have? Kat needed help whether she wanted it or not. How could she be foolish and refuse?

Roxy pumped herself up for the hailstorm brewing in Kat’s eyes. Each deep breath Roxy stole from the thick air weighing heavy on her conscience, she decided the woman across from her may not be near as acceptable to have around when she’d been challenged. Kat McDonald wasn’t wearing melancholy well at all. Piss and vinegar was a much better look for her.

Maybe if Roxy had befriended her first, Kat could have accepted Roxy’s brevity. But the two of them had barely made it past acquaintance level. Lousy timing perhaps, Roxy thought. But she’d never claimed to have patience. It wasn’t a virtue in the Vaughn genes.

“All right, Roxy. You win.” Kat re-pressed the table linens with her hands, applying enough pressure her knuckles turned from red to white. “I’ve got to talk to someone about this who won’t share it with the Belle Meade set. You’ll do. You haven’t made any friends to gossip with, and I would imagine your upbringing taught you the value of appearances.”

Roxy wanted to respond to the friendless upbringing part but Kat’s fierce hazel eyes held her motionless. Eyes a shade lighter than her son’s but with the same passionate fire.

“This goes no further than you and I. Got it?” Kat’s eyes narrowed, commanding Roxy’s promise.

“Fine. But I don’t think that’s fair to Zayne.” Roxy crossed her arms, attempting to suffocate the fear filling her lungs. She forced herself to exhale in short, punchy intervals.

“You haven’t as yet endeared yourself to my son or me to concern yourself with his welfare,” Kat said without hesitation. “Not that I might not approve of you…eventually. My critique’s still out.”

“Fair enough.” Roxy heard herself respond with casual confidence, although she couldn’t force the muscles knotting in her chest to lighten-up.

She had to give Kat credit for making her own deals. The woman was tough on multiple levels. That she’d chosen to let Roxy into her field of influence seemed like an accomplishment Roxy could build on. To have a savvy person like Kat believe in her designs and confide in her personally felt foreign but good. Unwanted when Zayne had originally forced it on her. Oddly okay, now that it had happened.
Damn, she was overdue for a stint on a therapist’s couch
even though she probably didn’t really need one
.

Kat took a less-than-graceful-sized sip from her wine glass.

“Wine’s good for me,” she said, polishing off what was left. “Okay. I’ve got a small glitch in my health. Actually…it’s my heart.”

Roxy folded then refolded her napkin, consciously forbidding her hands to shake. “So how big is this glitch?”

“The doctors are still working on that. I have an appointment a week from Wednesday with a specialist. I’ll know more then.”

“Would you like me to go with you?” Roxy wasn’t sure what part of her that came from, but it felt right.

“Yes. That would be nice. Thank you.” Kat reached for the check in an unassuming manner as if she’d been discussing the weather rather than her dire health.

“I can get that.” Roxy got her bag off the floor underneath the table, rummaging through it for cash.

“No. It’s on me.” Kat slipped her American Express into the pocket at the top of the waiter’s portfolio. “But when I come into Raeve tomorrow, I’d love a coffee and a brown-bagged breakfast like you had this morning.”

“You got it,” Roxy promised, thrilled with receiving the amount much easier on her budget.

“While we eat, we can go over all my ideas for Raeve as well as the details you’ll need to know for the autumn gala.” Kat’s innocent smile didn’t come close to covering up her smug win.

“I knew there was a catch to being your confidant.” Roxy swung the straps of her bag onto her shoulder while Kat signed her charge slip.

“That way, we’ll be ready for Damian. He’s coming in to look things over Friday afternoon. Then we’ll call the Belle Meade girls back to set a date for the gala.” Kat rose from the booth but then reached back for the edge of the table. She took a minute to steady herself and catch her breath.

Roxy latched onto Kat’s arm with a protective grasp she was unprepared to examine. How could one day have crushed the ice between them?

“There, there. I’m not an invalid yet.” Kat patted Roxy’s hand like a mother coddling a wayward child. “I just get a little dizzy when I move too fast.”

“Then maybe you should slow down,” Roxy hissed in a haughty whisper.

“Well played, my dear.” Kat took Roxy’s elbow, power-pinching the skin to bone, as if she were handling the same unruly child in an attempt to squelch an ugly public scene.

“Smile, Dear. People are watching.” Kat led Roxy through the crowded restaurant.

“Let’s hope so.” Roxy raised her brows and ever so regally tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“That’s my girl.” Kat winked as she stepped out the door.

Roxy exited behind her in the most dignified limp her ankle wrap would allow.

Holistic healing. That’s what spa therapy was all about, Roxy thought, as she soaked in her Jacuzzi tub later that evening.
And damn did she need a nice long soak
.

Her mother’s masseuse had taught Roxy as a young girl that certain remedies were used specifically to tame a woman’s inner bitch. Evidently the same formulas didn’t work to whittle away worrywarts.

No product Roxy had for her home-remedy spa treatment relieved the tension she’d taken-on tonight or calmed her mind or enlivened her spirit. In the aftermath of Kat’s admission of heart trouble, Roxy was an emotionally disheveled disaster. Even her homemade cucumber mask failed to draw out her anxiety-amplified imperfections.

She’d dumped oatmeal, lavender and sea salts into her bath. And used every avocado, lemon and honey body scrub she’d excavated from her bathroom cabinet. Despite the mocha hazelnut candles she’d lit and placed around the tub and the spring water she’d infused with fresh fruit slices, rejuvenation rejected her. As if she was the one in need of a stress test, her heart palpitated with wild fluctuations.

Unable to relax after her bath, she abandoned the idea of sleep all together. She slipped her feet into her sequined oriental silk slippers, tied the sash on the gorgeous cobalt blue kimono her father had brought her from Korea and padded across her bedroom. With each step, she tried to force her body to silence the turmoil bubbling under the surface of her skin.

She despised secrets. Probably because she’d kept too many growing up a Vaughn. Starting that path in Nashville was treacherous ground she wasn’t sure she could walk.

Unlatching the French doors leading off her suite, she stepped out onto her balcony. The warm southern night wrapped around her, caressing her restless spirit. Breathing in spring azaleas and solitude, Roxy let her soul listen for the answers it needed.

She’d called fear by its rightful name and moved out of Manhattan. A place she’d been too afraid to live her dreams. A place where she’d been stymied by the secrets she was expected to keep. A place filled with the crazymakers and wet blankets Julia Cameron taught were blocks to an artist’s creative power.

Raised on the mantra ‘what will the neighbors think,’ Roxy hadn’t, until recently, made peace with her inner artist child. Her wise but unruly alter ego now screamed ‘fuck the neighbors.’ And ’til tonight, she’d been listening.

Business thrived on solid ground. So her father preached. A perceived or actual crack in the foundation could crumble a house at any time, he’d always reminded her. Case in point…only secrets had insured the stability and survival of the Vaughn’s upper east-side condominium and the family within its hallowed walls.

Her parents covered up the family cracks, plastering the truth with feigned perfection to keep their home at the top of the social order.

Roxy moved her hands up and down her chilled arms, hoping the external friction would dissolve the goose bumps originating from deep within her tortured soul.

Kat had been dangerously accurate in her assumption Roxy knew the importance of and how to keep-up healthy and happy appearances. But that didn’t mean she liked it. Roxy knew the artist’s way and recognized a block when it presented itself…professionally at least. Kat was just as blocked as she was. And if she weren’t careful, she’d end up alone, like Roxy, to face her fears.

Zayne deserved the truth. Lying to him, even in thought, twisted Roxy’s insides. He deserved better. He may irritate her more than she could appreciate or find amusing, but he’d never betray her. He was honest and annoyingly upfront and more honorable than any human being she knew with a Y chromosome.

Maybe she could hint at his mom’s poor health, subtly encouraging him to figure out the details on his own. He
had
gotten on her about her eating and trying to work both Raeve and the saloon. So he was astute enough to know something wasn’t gelling, Roxy schemed. Yes. That’s exactly what she’d do. Starting when she saw him for dance practice Wednesday evening.

She’d spent enough time with therapists. She knew their methods as well as she knew how to fit fabric to a model. She’d just push Zayne in the direction he needed to go to discover the truth.

Little nudges of knowledge. Tiny, tailored tucks, all but invisible. Subtle thoughts and questions he could build on.
Hell
. She might even show him pictures, kind of like a Rorschach test for cowboys. He was smart. He’d catch on. If not, Roxy would knock the sense into him brick-by-brick.

Three weeks from Friday, she’d also have back-up, she thought. Audrey and Jules were due in town for the summer. Thinking about their arrival brought a smile in the midst of her anxiety hayride. She’d missed them more than she’d thought she would. And apparently, according to Kat’s not-so-pleasant reminder, it showed that Roxy traveled posse-less in Nashville.

Roxy wasn’t any good at the acquaintance thing so hadn’t bothered getting to know the new people she’d met, except for the McDonalds. Acquaintances meant more nosy neighbors whose thinking patterns became additional burdens to overcome. Roxy only needed Audrey and Jules, who’d stopped judging her in eighth grade when she’d taken their defense and told off York Prep It-Girl Sierra Hampton Meiers.

Sierra — using her family’s cash flow to establish her worth to society — was a girl who’d never be more than her “girl money”. She’d forever be playing-up her looks, focused on the boy toy gracing her arm, instead of picking up a dinner check to assert her buying power. Everything in her life, including her men, would always be charged to her daddy.

Of course it had taken Roxy a whole summer of therapy to be taught that the Girl Money concept should be considered empowering for an It-Girl of her economic status. Luckily, Roxy had always bucked the ‘shoulds’ of any discipline.