Can't Buy Me Love (42 page)

“Can we come with you?” Jacob asked, and Victoria turned to her son.

“You want to go to a hospital?”

“Are there kids there?” he asked. “Because I’ve got some Captain Underpants books I can bring them. And we could play checkers. Remember, Mom? When people would come in and do that with me?”

Tara Jean could feel Victoria’s pride like the heat from a stove and she took a step away before getting scorched. Victoria stroked her son’s hair. “Go and get them,” she whispered and the boy took off like a shot, leaving the two of them alone.

“He’s a special boy,” Tara Jean said to fill the silence.

“Thank you. My special boy asked me what a prostitute was yesterday. Any idea why?”

“No clue.” Tara Jean almost laughed, but then Victoria turned to her, eyeing her shrewdly.

“You’re hurting my brother, you know,” Victoria said, and Tara Jean started down the steps, running from the conversation as if it were a hive of bees.

“Thanks for the shoes. I’ll see you at the hospital—”

“We’re more than our mistakes,” Victoria said, and Tara Jean jerked at the words, as if they were bullets entering her chest. “More than our past. We can be more than the things we let define us.”

“What are you going to be?” Tara Jean asked, feeling petulant and scared, naked and shivering in the sun. Because she wanted this to be true. In the darkest, loneliest part of her night, she prayed that this was true.

She could be more than the trailer, her sixteenth birthday, Dennis, the old men she made victims when all they wanted was a friend.

Victoria shrugged. “No idea. And I’m scared to death. But each morning I wake up excited. Happy.”

“Happy.” The word was a foreign treat and tasted like ginger and spices, cherries and everything delicious and real after a diet of everything false.

“If Luc made you happy, Tara,” Victoria said, “you should talk to him. See him. He’s … he’s a little lost right now.”

“I can’t be a substitute for hockey. I mean when he realizes he’s made a mistake grabbing onto me—”

“My brother is no dummy.” Victoria was a tiny but staunch defender. “And neither are you, and I would think—lord knows I would hope—that the chance to be happy, really happy, might outweigh the risks of being wrong.”

“But you hate me.”

“You’re growing on me.”

Tara Jean stood there wondering how in the world she’d found such odd friends. When she’d never had any.

“I’m not that brave, Victoria.” It took a long moment, but Victoria shrugged. “Could have fooled me.”

Jacob raced back out of the house, carrying a stack of books and a book bag that slammed and banged against his bum as he ran. In some kind of fog, Tara Jean watched Victoria and Jacob climb into their car.

“We’ll see you at the hospital?” Victoria asked, and numb, Tara Jean nodded.

Could have fooled me
.

Tara Jean smiled, laughter bubbling out of her. The volcano with a changed purpose—her fear turned to incredulous joy. Surprised glee.

For the first time, in perhaps her whole life, she wasn’t fooling anyone.

Not anymore.

The August press conference was dull. Even as the center of attention, Luc was bored out of his mind. The conference room at the Royal York was like a gray box. Gray walls, gray table. A sea of blah.

The vipers were all well-behaved. Even Addie looked bored.

A month since leaving the ranch and this was his life now.

He was supposed to be announcing his agreement to join the coaching staff for the Cavaliers. The brass had found a way to keep him around after all, just as Billy had predicted. He was going to be Lashenko’s babysitter.

No one believed him when he said he was a shitty babysitter.

He leaned toward Beckett, who gleamed gold in all the gray. Luc would bet money the man dyed his hair to look like money.

Dunbar, the general manager, prattled on about his hope that Luc would always have a home with the Cavaliers.

Home
, he thought. Thinking of Tara, her hair in the sunlight. The dust of Crooked Creek on her hot-pink cowboy boots. His whole family had defected to Tara’s side and he was glad for it. Glad that she wasn’t alone on that ranch with just her ghosts.

But being glad didn’t make him happy. It made him sour.

“I need a drink,” he murmured in his agent’s ear.

Beckett reeled back. “It’s ten a.m.”

“So?”

“Come on, man, whatever strange trip you’re on these days, let’s just keep it together until the cameras go home.”

“I’m bored.”

“Yeah? And I’ve got ulcers with your name on them.” Beckett turned to face him, his minted face reflecting all sorts of worry and pity. “Do you want this?”

“No.”

“Well, too bad.” Beckett surged to his feet. “It’s what you’ve got.” He turned his sparkling visage to the lights and cameras and Luc sat back in his chair, trying not to scowl.

Trying not to think of Tara Jean’s skin on his. Her breath in his ear. The strawberry scent of her.

In the back, there was a commotion behind the camera crew. A camera light swerved across the ceiling when a cameraman stepped forward, letting someone pass him against the wall at his back.

Billy probably, he thought. His friend had called earlier to get the information about the press conference because he was in town getting his stuff set to move to Dallas.

He sat up a little straighter, happy to see his friend’s miserable face. Billy would have a drink with him.

But it wasn’t Billy’s ruined face that cleared Addie’s shoulders to the left of the podium. It was Tara Jean’s perfection. Her button nose, the wheat of her hair, the lush curve of her lips.

Static buzzed in his ears, a vast sizzling expectation, an awed and hopeful wonder.

Her eyes went wide at the scene in front of her and she stepped back as if to shrink into the wall, as if to leave, and he leapt to his feet.

Beckett and every cameraman swiveled to face him.

“Luc?” Beckett’s mouth smiled while his eyes shot daggers. “You want to make your statement.”

Luc didn’t say anything, he stared at Tara Jean, the hesitancy and hope in her beautiful blue eyes.

She’s here
, his heart pounded.
She’s here
, and her smile, the slow curve of it, promised him a home.

He smiled back, feeling brand new. The boredom fell away, the ennui, the worry and anger. And he stood there, on fire with love. A flame of hope.

Her shoulders shook with laughter and tears filled her eyes and he smiled harder. Burned brighter.

“Luc?” Beckett said through his teeth. “You want to talk about how glad you are to be staying in Toronto—”

“I don’t think so,” he said, and Tara Jean slowly shook her head.

“Nope.” He turned to the crowd, “Not staying.”

The room erupted and Tara Jean held her fingers up to her smiling lips, a gesture so sweet and girlish, joy and love blasted through him.

“Sorry,” he said to Beckett. “I’m going to go get something better.”

He jumped off the dais, ignoring the questions, the flashbulbs, the mayhem he left in his wake. He got close to Tara Jean and she reached out a hand, clasping his in a grip so strong and true it was as if she clutched his heart.

Shouldering past the boldest of the reporters, he made his way to the door.

“Ice Man!” One voice cut through the cacophony, Addie, standing on a chair. “Who is she?”

The Tara Jean he looked at was familiar but at the same time wholly different. She wore a gauzy loose blue blouse with a tank top beneath it, a pair of jeans, and sandals. Her hair lay in sleek lines down her back, straight and sophisticated.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

They made it out to the hallway and Luc broke into a run, pulling Tara Jean behind him, turning corners, rounding bends, taking the stairs until finally, they got to the swimming pool.

He used his key card to get them into the empty cavernous room, filled with humidity and the scent of chlorine.

“I don’t think they’ll find us here,” Luc said, glancing through the windows before pulling a privacy shade over the door.

In the humidity the tips of her hair curled, a small glimpse of the woman he knew in Texas.

“What are you doing here?” He was suddenly at a loss for words, and he laughed at his embarrassment. “I mean …”

“I have something I need to say,” she told him and he stilled, ready to listen to whatever it was. “I’m sorry for turning you away. I’m sorry for the problems I brought into your life—”

“Tara …”

“Let me finish. I’m sorry for Dennis. And for being too scared to believe that you loved me. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry you got shot and that you lost your career. But …” she shook her head, “I’m not sorry for pretending to marry your father, because he brought you to me. I’m not sorry for sleeping with you, because you made me feel good and beautiful after years of feeling ugly inside and out. I’m not sorry …” Her voice broke and for a moment she looked down at her feet, her hair sweeping across her cheek in a curtain, hiding her from him. He itched to push that hair back, to look into her eyes, but this was her moment and the best thing he could do was let her fight through it herself.

“I’m not sorry I love you,” she said, shaking back her hair, lifting her eyes to his with fierce pride. “Which no doubt will cause you plenty of problems in the future. Which I’m not going to apologize for, either.”

“I don’t want your apologies,” he told her.

“Sometimes it feels like that’s all I have.” He started to deny that, but she put her hand to his chest, stilling him.

“And I’m working on that,” she said and took a deep breath. “I’m working on me. For the first time in my life, I’m working on me.”

“I’m glad. You deserve it.”

She nodded and chewed her lips. “I thought I would wait, that I would come to you with maybe the Nordstrom deal, or a new line of items for the stores. But I realized if you had the courage to love me without hockey telling you what you were worth, I could come to you the same way. Determining my own worth. I’m worth loving, Luc. And I want you to love me.”

Tears burned behind his eyes, and with a foot between them, filled with his pride in her, his respect for her, he let those tears fall, unchecked.

“I love you, Tara Jean Sweet.”

“I love you, too, Ice Man.”

“That’s … that’s not me anymore. I … don’t know what I’m going to do now. I don’t think anyone is going to offer me a coaching job after that little stunt I pulled in the press conference.”

“Did you want to coach?”

“Not really.”

“Well, you’re in luck, Luc. I need a male model for a new line I’m designing and you would be perfect for the job.”

“Boots?”

“Nope.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Pants?”

“Thongs. For men. Very uncomfortable.”

“Well, as long as the pay is good.”

“Oh,” she slid into his arms as if she’d never been gone, “it’s very good.”

She howled with laughter and he joined her. The sound of their happiness echoed, endlessly, endlessly surrounding them, lifting them toward a future bright with promise.

Desperate to know
what happens next at Crooked Creek?
Crazy for cowboys?

You won’t want to miss

the story of Victoria’s
second chance at life and love
.
Read on for a sneak peek!

Victoria Schulman was
hugging his horse.

If that wasn’t enough to piss a man off, Eli Turnbull didn’t know what was. That she was doing it in one of those fussy satin shirts only made it worse.

The woman was tiny, a paisley-covered speck against his horse’s wide black head. Eli had some inclination to worry about Victoria—about her thinness, and the dark circles under her eyes—but he ignored it.

And he felt bad bullying a woman who clearly needed not only a good meal but someone to take care of her. But every time he tried to be nice—thinking about honey versus vinegar and all that shit—something about her would just make him crazy.