“Surprise, Victoria!”
After dinner that night, Celeste volunteered to take dessert out to Renee and her table. It was something they were doing with all the tables—a personal touch, which now felt like personal torture.
“You handle the other tables,” Victoria said. The five other reservations were all women from the area. And they were showing signs of frustration over the table full of kids and husbands. The kids were whiney, the husbands surfing the Net on their phones, and the women were drinking too much, being too loud.
They were a cancer, and it was spreading through the dining room.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” Celeste said, reaching out as if to catch her.
“I’m fine,” she lied, dodging her hand. Nothing could penetrate the thin veneer of ice she’d developed in order to push her body through this ordeal. And Celeste’s
kindness would melt it all, leave her naked and shivering, vulnerable to Renee and all that hate.
She’d stood inside the kitchen door, watching them through the crack every time a server came and went with a tray of food. But she couldn’t hide forever. Sooner or later she’d need to face these women.
Victoria put the last of the mousse on the tray and let the server pick it up, leading her out of the kitchen.
Victoria paused at the door, searching through her memory bank, her inner stash of good things, for something to give her strength, something to make her smile in the face of all their animosity.
Her son’s hugs, Celeste’s respect—neither seemed strong enough to help her weather the ordeal ahead.
Eli saying, “I love you.”
She didn’t want to use that memory, didn’t want to need his love, but the thought lifted her like a lifeboat and she hit the door.
“There she is,” Renee said, leaning back in her chair. Her cheeks were bright, a sure sign she’d had too many martinis. Elizabeth, beside her, looked a little dazed from trying to keep up. “Our gracious proprietress.”
“Hello, I hope everyone enjoyed their meal,” Victoria said, with a smile that split the skin of her face as if she were a rotten tomato. She helped Tanya, the server, set the dishes down one by one in front of everyone, avoiding Bill, who always got a little grabby after having too much to drink.
“Passable,” Renee said, her smile wide, her voice carrying to the other guests. “A little simple for a spa, I thought.”
“Victoria,” Jamie whispered, putting a hand on her arm. “I could use a little more water, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Renee loved that, and beside her Elizabeth snickered. “Me too,” she said, slurring her words.
“Yes, water for the table.” Renee spread her arm, her eyes stabbing Victoria right through the heart. “And clear some of these glasses, would you? I promise,” she cooed, “we’ll leave you a good tip.”
She remembered Eli’s touch, the heat of his breath against the nape of her neck. “Not a problem.”
“I’ll get it,” the server murmured, and Victoria wanted to kiss her feet.
“I had no idea you had such an interesting family history, Victoria,” Renee said. “When I saw your picture on the website, I tell you, it just about made me fall over. Makes me wonder if Joel knew. Could you imagine him out here, riding horses? Busting broncos?”
The men said nothing, turning stone-faced, polishing off their drinks with one swallow. These men had considered Joel a friend and he’d robbed them.
I’m sorry
, she thought for the millionth time. But her apologies had never gotten her anywhere with these people.
“It was my father’s ranch,” she said. “The running of it was left to me in his will.”
She was fudging all kinds of truth, but she wasn’t about to tell these people that she was penniless and living on the ranch at her brother’s behest. “And since I didn’t know a single thing about raising cattle or horses, I decided that with its location and beauty it would be the perfect spa.”
“Yes, you always did love spas, didn’t you?” Renee asked. Victoria stared at her, longing to spitefully remind her of all the weekends they’d spent together, wrapped in towels, gossiping beside pools. She wanted to remind Renee of how at Canyon Ranch she’d cried in Victoria’s arms after the miscarriages and again after her husband’s affair.
Renee looked away as if finally she remembered too, and Victoria stood a little taller in her cheap boots.
“You always liked the mud,” Jamie said, smiling.
“Like a pig,” Elizabeth sneered.
The table froze, even the kids stared, and someone gasped.
Me
, she realized, sick to her stomach.
I gasped
.
Elizabeth must have stepped over some line Renee had established, because she got the evil eye from her lord and master.
“I think perhaps Elizabeth has had enough,” Renee said through her teeth to Elizabeth’s husband.
Gary, who was used to this—both his wife’s public drunkenness and being bossed around by Renee—sighed and gathered his sloppy wife from the table, leading her through the dining room to their room.
Victoria could feel the eye of every guest charting their progress. She could only imagine what the feedback cards would say.
“Where’s Jacob?” Renee asked, and Liam finally looked up from his video game.
“He’s at camp,” she said.
“Sleepaway camp?” Renee asked, her plucked-to-shit eyebrows so high up on her forehead that they vanished into her bangs. “That’s not like you. Aren’t you worried he’ll catch something?”
“He’s much stronger than he was last year,” she said.
And so am I. But where is that strength now? Where is it when I need it so badly?
These women, the past they brought back, brought her to her knees.
“But still.” Jamie leaned in. “Wouldn’t you just feel sick if something happened?”
Yes
, she thought, panic immediately running through her system like lightning.
I would. I would feel terrible. I should never have sent him. What a mistake I made!
Her old self was waking up from whatever dream
state she’d been in, and Victoria struggled to knock her back out.
“It’s fine,” she said, forcing herself to remember that she actually believed that. “He’s fine.”
Jamie shrugged as if she had her doubts and Victoria took a deep breath, wondering where all the oxygen had gone.
“I was looking forward to a couple rounds of golf,” Bill said.
She sucked a breath through her teeth. There was no golf course attached to the spa. They’d made that clear in all the promotional materials. Of course, they’d also made it clear that it was an adults-only spa.
Renee knew all too well how a spa experience could be ruined for every other guest.
“The nearest course is south quite a ways, but if you have rental cars—”
“We took a limo from the airport, Victoria,” Renee said as if she were a child.
Great. Wonderful
.
“That’s not a problem; we’ll be able to get you there.”
Somehow. Three men and all their golf clubs. It would be a tight fit in the Cadillac. And they all frowned at her as if they knew that.
“Well, like I said, we’re delighted you’re here and if there are any problems, be sure to let me know.”
She turned to leave, ready to find some dark corner to grow back her shell, but Renee grabbed her wrist, her fingernails digging into Victoria’s skin.
“You don’t get to have this,” Renee hissed in her ear. “You don’t get to walk away from what you did. I will ruin you like you ruined us.”
Victoria was frozen, paralyzed by guilt and fear and the terrible reality that Renee wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t right, but she wasn’t totally wrong.
“Is there a problem?” Celeste asked, coming to the table with a serene smile on her face, the perfect hostess.
Renee dropped Victoria’s hand but the damage was done. The old wounds were opened and the poison had filled her blood.
Yes
, Victoria thought,
I am the problem. I have always been the problem
.
chapter
24
Eli parked his
truck out front of the ranch like he always did. Ruby’s phone message had been cryptic and he’d gotten back there as fast as he could. But he’d been a hundred miles away at Los Camillos, where he’d been hired to train some rodeo studs while he waited for his mares to give birth.
Climbing up the steps, he was struck as he always was by how they’d managed to turn such an ugly building into something so arresting. So positively beautiful.
But that was the power of Victoria. Look what she’d done to him. He felt totally transformed by her. A new man stood on this porch.
At her urging, he’d called Uncle John in Galveston. Only left a message, but still, he’d reached out. Now they were playing phone tag. But he wouldn’t have called in the first place without Victoria.
The front door opened and she slipped out, his belt buckle at her waist gleaming in the twilight. He liked that on her. Liked it a lot.
“Hey, babe, what’s—”
“I need you to go home,” she said.
He blinked. “But Ruby said there was some kind of problem—”
“There isn’t.”
All right, he was no Sherlock Holmes, but Tori was
acting very strange and all his instincts went on high alert.
The word
love
hadn’t been discussed again in all the weeks they’d been practically living together, sleeping together, and working together, but it was there on his side and he had a strong suspicion she felt it, too.
“Are you okay?”
“Very busy. You … should just go on home.” She stepped down to the next step and put her hand on his chest. Even through his shirt it felt cold. He put his hand over hers to warm it, to touch her, to connect in some way with this stranger in front of him.
“I want you to stay away all week.”
Now he laughed. He was supposed to help them get ready for that big party on Saturday and then, well, he had a suit in his closet. Brand-new. And he’d been planning on stepping into that party looking pretty slick with her on his arm.
“I’m serious.”
“You’re crazy. Come on, babe, tell me what’s going on.”
Through the open door of the ranch he heard someone call her name. Victoria stiffened.
“Just go.”
“Not until you tell me why.” Something was way wrong and he wasn’t leaving until he knew what it was.
“Look at you!” she cried. “You’re filthy. You’ve got mud on your boots, under your nails. There’s … blood on your shirt, Eli. You smell like shit. You can’t just walk in here like it’s still your ranch.”
He stepped backwards off the porch, getting some distance from her wildness. Her uncontrolled hostility.
He glanced down at his hands, the dirt he’d never even noticed.
“Just go,” she said, and then vanished back into the house. He heard her laugh through the door and put his hands in his pockets.
Too late to hide them, painfully unaware that he had to.
Celeste watched Victoria rest her head against the front door and was torn right down the middle. Part of her felt awful for Victoria, for the way Renee and her friends were leaching the joy right out of what should be a fabulously successful weekend.
The other part of her wanted to shake Victoria until she saw reason.
Either way, one thing was very clear. Left to her own devices, Victoria would roll over and play dead for those women, and Celeste wasn’t having that.
This was her spa, too.
“All right.” Celeste stepped into the foyer and Victoria jerked herself upright. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head but we don’t have the time to figure it out.”
“What are you talking about?”
Celeste faltered for a moment when Victoria turned around. This was the old Victoria, wound too tight, pinched with insecurity and worry, plagued by the world’s poor opinion of her and her late husband. Bristling in defense of every single touch. No wonder she just kicked Eli off the ranch—in the face of that man’s love right now, she’d splinter.
“I’m handling the New York crowd,” Celeste said. “You handle the rest of the Saturday-night details.”
“Celeste, they came here for me.” Victoria sagged. “I can’t let you—”
Celeste laughed. “Please, Victoria, no one
lets
me do anything. I don’t give a shit who they’re here for; they’re not going to ruin this week, for any of our other guests or for you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” Celeste touched Victoria’s rigid shoulder,
which only got more tense under her palm. “A lot of people who should have protected you have treated you badly over the years, Victoria. I will no longer be one of them. I will also not let you or anyone else jeopardize this week. Am I being clear?”
Victoria felt she should argue. She should explain to Celeste that the shock of seeing the women had worn off and she was ready to get back to work, but she felt fractured, burned-out. And she could not pull the pieces of herself back together.
She was acting on fear—just look at how she’d treated Eli. Acting like she was embarrassed of him, when in all honesty she was embarrassed of herself. Of these old friends of hers. Of who she used to be. She didn’t want him to see her like this, broken down by their viciousness.
He’d been startled by her words, hurt, each pointed insult finding a home in that soft heart of his.
Well, I certainly don’t have to worry about that love problem anymore, do I?
Celeste was right; she wasn’t making any sense. Her every instinct was to isolate herself with Renee and the rest of them, to push Celeste and Eli and Ruby away so they wouldn’t be affected by her failures.
And that wasn’t going to work. They had a spa full of people.
“Okay,” she breathed, and inwardly she rejoiced. The coward in her was relieved. The old her, scared and insecure, was delighted to give up control. To go right back into hiding. “You’re right, I’m … I’m not making good decisions.”
“Victoria!” Renee’s voice echoed down the hallway, and Victoria’s stomach clenched into a thousand little knots.
“Go,” Celeste said. “Help Ruby in the kitchen; I’ve got this.”