Smoke Signals (27 page)

I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be sitting with Tallie and her baby, because now those other women would associate Tallie with their assumptions about me.

I was just about to say as much when an older woman stopped to speak with them for a few minutes before she turned and stared at me. She nodded in my direction and said something to them. They said something in response, and then she came over to sit with us.

She was in her mid-fifties, by my guess. Her blond hair and conservative gray dress suit and baby-pink satin shell made her look like she’d stepped straight out of the eighties. She nodded at Tallie and Arianne but held out a hand for me to shake. The most unnatural looking smile I’d ever seen was plastered on her face.

“I haven’t met you yet,” she said as I took her hand warily. She had a really heavy accent, much like Tallie’s, only her voice was so sugary sweet that it made me feel sick. This couldn’t bode well. “The girls over there said you’re married to our Mr. Chambers?”

I tried to pry my hand free, but she wouldn’t let it go. My eyes strayed down to an ornate gold cross hanging from a chain around her neck. It was big enough to draw notice but not big enough to be gaudy.

Immediately, I felt uncomfortable. Anytime someone religious found out about my work in porn, it was never good. What had those women told her about me? And what was she planning to do with that information?

Tallie put a hand on my shoulder, as though she could sense my discomfort. “Mrs. Jernigan, this is Razor’s wife, Tori. Tori, Mrs. J is the team owner’s wife. Mr. J is the pastor at New Hope Fellowship Church, and they’re the ones who brought the NHL to Tulsa.”

A preacher’s wife. She was either going to try to save my soul or tell me exactly what she thought I needed to do with my sinful self. I tried harder to take my hand back. No use. She only held on tighter.

“Tori, is it?” Mrs. Jernigan said, almost too sweetly. “Not Viktoriya?”

“My name is Viktoriya, yes,” I replied guardedly.

“I wondered if maybe you and I could have a few minutes alone together?” She sent a pointed expression in Tallie and Arianne’s direction and tugged on my hand so I’d follow.

I gave Tallie a panicked look.

“Oh, but Mrs. J,” Tallie said, and somehow her Southern accent got even thicker than normal. “Tori’s English isn’t always so good. Sometimes she needs me to interpret for her.”

It took a Herculean effort not to snort in laughter at the lie she’d come up with, but I appreciated the effort even if my friend couldn’t speak a word of my language.

“You speak Russian, Tallie?” the woman asked. “How did I not know that?”

Tallie waved a hand, like it was no big deal. “I took a couple of semesters at OU. Anyway, I think you two should just stay here, in case Tori needs some help.”

“What we need to discuss is really something that ought to be kept private,” the minister’s wife insisted.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. Tallie can hear.” At this point, I knew what the woman was going on about. Tallie would surely learn about my past one way or another. She might as well hear about it now. “Arianne, too.” Why bother trying to hide it from anyone? For that matter, we might as well wave everyone else over to listen in.

The older woman scowled, but Tallie just gave her a determined nod, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Viktoriya,” Mrs. Jernigan finally said, her voice stern, holding tight to my hand and sitting back in her seat, “it appears some of the other players’ wives are under the assumption that you’ve been working in…well, in the pornography industry.”

“Yes. I did porn.”

As a credit to both Tallie and Arianne, neither gave any outward reaction to the news.

Mrs. Jernigan blinked at me a few times, as though she’d been expecting me to deny it. “So they were correct?” she sputtered.

“Yes. I did porn before—”

“I’m sure you’ll understand, then, that my husband and I are going to have to ask you to avoid any and all team functions. Tom is a minister, you see, and a very prominent one, at that. We can’t be associated—”

“Pardon me, Mrs. J,” Tallie cut in with an edge to her tone that I’d never heard before. “But Tori said she did porn in the past. She’s not doing it now. I can attest to that, since I’ve spent a lot of time with her over the last few months. And even if she still was, I can’t see how it matters since she’s Razor’s wife. She’s married to a member of this team, so she should be just as involved as any of the rest of us.”

“But it’s all about the association,” the minister’s wife said, as if that was explanation enough. And honestly, I got the impression that she truly thought it was the only justification required for kicking me out of this aspect of Razor’s life.

What would the immigration people think if I never stepped into this part of his world? It would be one more knock against me, one more bit of proof that our marriage wasn’t a true marriage. Panic clawed at my lungs. I had to get out of there.

But Tallie kept her hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay put. “Aren’t Christians supposed to love everyone?
Judge not, that you not be judged
.”

“Now, Tallie, you know me better than to think I’m judging—”

“
Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone
,” she cut in. “Have you lived a perfectly sin-free life, Mrs. J? Have you never made a mistake? Aren’t we supposed to welcome everyone with open arms and love them all the same, no matter what they’ve been through or what they’ve done, as Jesus did for us? Mrs. J, you know I love you and respect you. You and Mr. J have been in my life for as long as I can remember, but you shouldn’t go shooting your mouth off before you load your brain.” Tallie pried my hand free from the minister’s wife, then took her baby back from Arianne and stood up. “Come on, Tori. We’re heading down to our seats to watch the game.”

I gathered up my purse and her diaper bag and followed her in a daze. When we got to our seats in the arena, she gave me a look full of irritation, rolling her eyes.

“That woman! Good gravy, the nerve of her.”

“Why did you say that to her?” I asked.

“Because she had no business saying what she did to you. I’m sorry she treated you like that, and I wish I could say that was the last of the hypocrisy you’ll encounter living here, but I’m sure it’s not. This ain’t my first rodeo as far as that’s concerned. We’re deep in the Bible belt, and some people are just opinionated, bigoted jerks.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thank you.” It was an odd sensation to have a friend who would defend me like that.

“I don’t care what she says about you staying away. Don’t listen to her on that. If you want to come, then come. Lord knows Razor wants you here.”

Did he? Did he
really
want me to be part of his life in this way, or was he just inviting me along so that we could satisfy the interviewer about how we were intertwining our lives? I wasn’t positive. I knew where I stood on the matter, but Razor and I hadn’t really talked about it. I gave Tallie a humming sound as a response, letting her interpret it as she would.

She gave me a look, one eyebrow raised. Not a judging sort of look. Just curious. “So it’s true? You really did porn?”

“I really did porn. You want…” I stopped and shook my head, stomach churning.

“What?” she demanded.

“You want to stop being my friend?”

“Not a chance,” she said, as serious as I’d ever heard her. “You’re more scandalous than I am. All the drama with me and Hunter finally blew over, but still. You never know when someone’s gonna come along and raise another stink about things from the past. I’m latching on to you and not letting go.”

The lights went down and war drums started, so loud it startled me. I jumped in my seat, and Harper started crying as two giant totem poles lowered to the ice from somewhere up in the rafters, lit up by spotlights.

“Sorry,” Tallie said. “I forgot to warn you about that. It’ll happen any time the T-Birds score, too, only minus the totem poles and fog and shit.” She bounced the baby in her arms. “Hopefully tonight, they won’t score much. I don’t fancy the thought of them waking Harper up from a nap, you know? But don’t tell them I said that.”

“Won’t tell,” I promised, my mind racing.

Razor and I needed to talk, to truly talk about exactly what we both felt and wanted out of our relationship. And we needed to do it before the interview.

I needed to know where he stood. Because if he didn’t want what I did—if he was still only doing this in order to help me out with my residency status—maybe it would be best to let them deport me. If they were going to send me away, I needed it to happen before he claimed more of my heart than he already owned. I just didn’t know how to convince him of that.

The guys took the ice, skating out between the poles amid a bunch of fog. Apparently there were fog machines inside the two enormous poles. Most of the players headed to the bench, but a few stayed out at center ice for all the pre-game rituals. Razor was one of them. He turned to scan the crowd until he found me. He waved, and I thought I caught a smile, but it was difficult to tell with his helmet and visor blocking his face. The PA announcer instructed us to rise and remove our caps for the national anthem.

The whole time, I focused on my husband. As much as I wished it were different, my stomach had fluttered when I first caught sight of him out there, and the flutters had only intensified when he’d sought me out. I was an absolute mess.

I should have tried harder to keep my distance from Razor, even though we’d married. I shouldn’t have allowed him to see my pain, and not just the physical pain. Once he’d recognized my weaknesses, he’d used them to work his way into my heart, and now I was more vulnerable than ever before.

Because I loved him.

And I was terrified I would lose him.

The immigration interview was scheduled for a week after Razor’s mother left. She was due to arrive in a few days. That meant I had less than three weeks to decide what to do and how to go about answering the interviewer’s questions.

I didn’t know if I could handle being forced to leave Razor behind. Somehow, I’d kept myself together with glue and duct tape over the years, but I didn’t think my usual tricks would be enough this time.

The puck dropped, and the game began, but it couldn’t compete with the game playing out in my mind.

“MAYBE I SHOULD
wait in car,” Tori said, her nerves shining through in the way she was clutching her purse to her chest and nibbling on her lower lip. She didn’t do the purse-clutching thing as much anymore. It usually only came out when she was scared about something, like meeting my mother. The lip nibbling was something I doubted she would ever stop doing. I didn’t mind that part, other than it being a sign of her discomfort. It made me think of nibbling on her lip…or on another set of her lips.

Not something I needed to be thinking about when we were moments away from having my mother with us. “There’s no telling how long it’ll take for her luggage to come. I don’t want you waiting out here. Besides, she’s going to want to meet you right away.”

We were still about five minutes away from the airport, but with every minute that passed, the anxiety eating Tori alive from the inside became more pronounced, clogging the air in my car.

“But she wants to see you first. Alone is better.”

“Better for who?” I almost laughed when I asked, but I wasn’t sure she’d see the humor in the situation. “If you don’t come with me, she’ll think I’m hiding you away. Like I’m ashamed of you or something. I’m not ashamed of you.”

In the last few days, I’d been making a greater effort to be sure everyone in my life knew it, too. Tori hadn’t said a word to me about the move Mrs. Jernigan had tried to pull on her before the game the other night, but Hunter had filled me in. Tallie had been so upset by it that she hadn’t let him get a wink of sleep that night, railing about not only Mrs. J’s hypocrisy but the cattiness of some of the other WAGs. It made my blood boil, too, but I couldn’t lay into the team owner’s wife. All I could do right now was damage control.