Can't Hurry Love (20 page)

His smile when he looked back down at her put her at ease—for some reason she knew he wouldn’t have let her do that if someone else was watching. As if he unconsciously knew where her lines were drawn.

And suddenly this moment, separated by glass and steel, was more intimate than anything they’d done two nights before. She lifted her hand to the window, where his hand was still pressed, pink and flat.

Touch deferred
, she thought.

“Drive safe,” she heard him say, muffled through the glass.

He walked around his truck and got in. She watched him start it, then brace his hand across the back of the bench seat to turn around. When he saw her watching, he lifted his fingers in a wave and pulled away.

With her underwear in his pocket.

A week later and Victoria couldn’t take it anymore. Every time she heard a truck roll over the gravel outside she was convinced it was Eli, and she just about had a heart attack.

Thursday morning Victoria saw Amy’s truck pull into the parking area and she raced out the front door to catch her.

“Amy!” Victoria skidded to a halt just as Amy turned to face her. “You have to tell him. You have to tell Eli you’re here.”

“I will,” Amy sighed.

“I’ve heard that for a week.” All she could think about was his hand against that glass window, the way he gave her everything she wanted before she knew she wanted it. And the way he looked at her while he did it.

And she was
lying
to him. It made her sick thinking about it.

“What am I supposed to say to him, Victoria?” Amy asked.

“I don’t care anymore.” She bounced on her toes. “I just want you to tell him.”

“Every day I wake up and I think, today is the day I’m just going to drive down there and let it happen. And then I get here and I realize all over again how …” She shook her head. “How much he must hate me. How much I deserve to have him hate me.”

“You’re chicken?”

Amy’s lips lifted in a tired smile. “Bawk bawk.”

This whole situation would be easier if Victoria didn’t like Amy. It wasn’t just the good work she was doing and the work ethic she possessed. The woman was funny and smart—in a different life, they might have been friends. Maybe they were. Victoria didn’t know anymore, the whole damn thing was such a mess.

“But don’t you think you need to do something?”

Before I have a heart attack. Before he finds out I’m lying to him and hates me as much as he hates you?

“I am doing something. I’m getting you a deal on your hot tubs.”

Jacob stepped out the front door, carrying his shoes. He waved at Victoria with his whole arm. Seven years old and he loved her with his entire body. Eli had probably once loved Amy that way.

With that thought, the world shifted.

“Do you have other kids?” Victoria asked, leaning against the hot metal door of Amy’s truck. Jacob sat down to put on his shoes.

Instead of answering, Amy uncorked her blueprint case and unrolled the fragile blue paper across the front of her truck, weighing down the edges with tape measures.

“I guess that’s none of my business.”

“You’re right.”

“How about other family?”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Just making conversation with my trusted architect.” She grinned, and Amy took off her glasses as though she were laying down arms, surrendering her sword.

“No, I don’t have any other kids. Gavin started working for me when he was pretty young, and he’s about the closest I have to family now.”

“That’s too bad. Eli could use a little brother or sister.”

“You say that like he’s eight.”

“In a lot of ways he is.”
And whose fault is that?
She didn’t say the words, but they were there, between them. Amy’s face went still, as loud a sign of pain as a scream, and Victoria hardened her heart.

Jacob ran down the steps, grinning at her, his big backpack flopping against his back. Her heart hurt with love for him. And she couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t continue to lie to Eli, who had already gotten hurt more than anyone should.

“You have one more day, Amy. You tell Eli, or I will.”

Eli opened the brown bag and spread the food out across his father’s hospital table. Uncle John grabbed his grease-stained paper carton of fried rice and a plastic spoon and sat back in his chair.

His dad’s bed was empty; the old man was getting physical therapy down the hall.

“You’re looking awful dressed up for a Thursday night,” Eli said, taking in his uncle’s clean red shirt with its pearl buttons. His good white Stetson sat on the table by the window.

“Just got back from Galveston. Had to impress some folks.” He waggled his bushy eyebrows and Eli smiled.

“How was your meeting?” Eli sat down in a chair next to his father’s bed and cracked open his carton of lo mein.

Green onions again, crap! How many times does a guy have to ask for no onions?

“Good. We’re gonna start drilling outside of Galveston at the end of October. I’ll be down there a chunk of time. Till the New Year, at least.”

They ate quietly for a few minutes, Uncle John using
that spoon as a shovel and showering his shirt with rice and bits of egg.

For some stupid reason, Eli could not stop thinking about Victoria. Not just the sex, though that had kept him preoccupied for over a week. But the way she’d described that damn spa. The way she saw it.

Victoria had a vision and it impressed the hell out of him.

Or maybe it was the sex; he couldn’t tell anymore.

Either way, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

But as he picked aside the mini-corn-cob things he hated, he thought about that money she needed. He could tell Uncle John that Victoria wanted to sell him five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of land and John would hand that money over without blinking.

But Eli didn’t want that land. Not anymore. A month of being his own man and he was happier than he’d been in years. Hell, maybe his whole life.

“What’s on your mind, Eli?” John asked, watching him across Mark’s empty hospital bed.

“Victoria sold me that land across the river.”

John put down the Chinese food. “I thought you said she wasn’t ever going to sell you any land.”

“Guess I was wrong.”

“She going to sell you any more?”

Eli shook his head. “I got all the land I need.”

John stared at him for a moment and then swore under his breath. Eli tried not to let it get to him. He’d let his father down enough over the years—it was about time his uncle started getting disappointed in him, too.

They ate for a while in silence, waiting for Mark to be brought back, watching the shadows grow across the room.

“Heard something crazy the other day,” John said.

Eli grunted around a mouth full of noodles.

“There’s some work being done over at the Crooked Creek. Big work.”

Eli’s heart pounded once, hard in his chest. Lying to his uncle was new to him, and not easy. So, instead of revealing his knowledge, he kept his mouth full and shrugged.

“You know anything about that?”

“I got fired,” he said after he swallowed. Sorting through the noodles for a piece of chicken became very important. Paramount in his life. “Not much reason to go back.”

He thought of Victoria in the car looking up at him, her hand pressed to the window. He’d felt her through the glass and steel. He tucked the memory away someplace safe, where his uncle’s knowing eyes would never find it.

“I suppose not,” Uncle John said. “That woman, that whole family, is trouble, son. You remember that.”

“Don’t worry.” He smiled into his lo mein. “I remember plenty.”

By Friday, the brunt of the demolition had been done. The whole west wing of the house—the dining room, den, living room, TV room, and four unused bedrooms—had been stripped down to studs.

Victoria and Amy walked through the space, delineating rooms and walls.

“We’ll have a men’s locker room here.” Victoria pivoted in a small corner. “Women’s over there, with showers and a steam room.”

“Five treatment rooms,” Amy added, pointing along the wide hallway where the bedrooms had been. “If you want to add that other room, then we’ll need to take down the far wall.” It was a decision that needed to be made, and Victoria wished that Celeste were here. She
had a better gut for the questions that would impact the future, not just their bank account.

“No,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t regret it. “I think we’re good with five.”

Amy nodded as if the decision had been a wise one, and Victoria felt better.

“I’m going to need more money,” Amy said.

“I know.” Victoria sighed. “I’ll talk to Celeste.” Celeste had wanted to put off calling Luc until it was completely necessary. And they’d reached that point.

“I can’t believe how fast you guys did this,” Victoria said, stepping through what used to be the dining room wall.

“Tearing it down is easy,” Amy said. “Tomorrow we’ll get the frame up, and after that, the trades will come in to rewire and plumb. That process is going to take a lot longer, and it’s going to seem like nothing is getting done, but you have to trust the process.”

Amy arched a ginger eyebrow and Victoria nodded like a good student. “Trust the process, got it. But when you say a while … what exactly are you talking about?”

“A project this size, all our guys on it, it’s going to be six to eight weeks. It’s going to get trickier with your saunas and mud baths.”

“Okay, but you still think we’ll be all right for the New Year’s opening?”

“It’s the beginning of October now, so if everything goes according to plan, we should be okay.”

Everything had gone so well, Victoria didn’t even want to think about the plan not working. Plans were already in motion for the opening-night party.

“What could go wrong?” she asked.

“Tori!” a voice yelled from the front door, and Victoria’s heart stopped in her chest. Only one person called her that. Icy prickles of panic ran over her skin, settling in her bones.

“Who is that?” Amy asked.

In an instant Victoria lost her illusions. The lies she’d told herself to keep the guilt at bay vanished and she smacked headfirst into what a huge mistake she’d made by not telling Eli about Amy. Believing foolishly that Amy would do as she said and that Victoria didn’t owe Eli the truth was about to destroy them all.

“Your son,” she whispered, and Amy’s face went white.

chapter

14

Eli pushed aside
the plastic sheeting and stepped into the kitchen, just as Victoria stepped in from what used to be the dining room.

Truthfully, he felt foolish being here. Not that he didn’t have logical reasons, but the real reason had nothing to do with logic—he wanted to see her.

And because of that he found it hard to look at her, choosing instead to take careful note of the studs revealed by all the demolition.

“You didn’t waste any time, did you?” He kicked at a nail in the pine subflooring and couldn’t believe that it had only been a month since he’d been in here. So much had changed.

“What are you doing here?”

He blinked at her tone, surprised by her panic. Especially since he’d been so excited to see her. “I’m picking up the breeding equipment.”

She stepped forward, her arms extended as if he were a spooked cow and she needed to herd him out of danger. Which was weird, but he got distracted by those jeans she was wearing again. And a green T-shirt that made her blue eyes glow.

“How about you let me deliver it to you?” She smiled, but it was false—everything about her seemed false—a light turned up too bright. “Tonight.”

“You need a truck,” he said, sidestepping her outstretched
arm, suspicious. The woman was a terrible liar. “Why don’t you show me around real quick? Let me see this vision of yours.”

Her look was so pained, so horrified, that he instinctively reached out to touch her, to smooth the panic on her face, but she grabbed his hand, squeezing his fingers. “What’s going on, Tori?”

When she closed her eyes, he was struck by the absurd impulse to brush his lips over the feathery lashes, the thin blue veins in her eyelids.

“I’ve been a coward.”

He laughed, and her eyes opened.

“I think you’ve been pretty gutsy.” He kissed her knuckles, reeling her in so he could get to those eyelashes. “What you did in the car isn’t for the faint of heart.”

There was movement behind Tori, and another person entered the kitchen. A tall woman in canvas work pants with a long red braid over her shoulder. He stepped back, sheepish. Tori didn’t want to make out with some guy in front of a contractor. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Why don’t we go on outside.”

He turned his back on the woman, but Tori didn’t move. She stared up at him as if waiting for something to happen. Something bad.

“Eli?” The woman, the redhead, spoke and Eli stopped, his body, his blood and muscles, the bones that held him up, all twitching at the sound. Like a memory. A half-forgotten dream.

Eli? Time to come in for dinner
.

Eli? Can you come over and help me with this horse?

Eli? Who is my favorite little boy?

No
, he thought, pushing away the thought, the dark demon,
that’s crazy
.

“I’m so sorry,” Tori whispered beside him and the ground under his feet went soft. His knees buckled and he put a hand up against what was left of a kitchen wall.

Don’t be sorry
. He resisted the tide, fought with every muscle the pull of the truth.
Don’t. Don’t do this to me. Don’t let this be happening
.

“Look at me, Eli,” the woman said. “Please … just … look at me.”

Stiffly, his body uncooperative, his brain in cloudy denial, he turned to face the woman. The stranger. With red hair.

And his eyes.

“No.” He said it this time. The word falling into the silence of the room, shattering it into a thousand pieces that cut and tore at him.

His mother. That was his mother right there.