“Because I was screwing everything up! That’s … that’s what I do, Eli. I fail.”
It hurt him to see her so twisted around, pulled sideways by these people being here. “Kick them out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m serious. You don’t need them. They’re ruining this experience for you.”
“They’re paying guests.”
“They’re asshats, remember? You don’t owe them anything!”
Something ignited in her eyes and she sat up straighter. She sat all the way up. “I knew he was doing something wrong, he was making too much money, too easily—”
“Hindsight is twenty/twenty, Tori. Give yourself a break.”
“I don’t get a break, Eli! I don’t deserve one.”
“Bullshit.” He flew across the room, fed up with this nonsense. Standing over her, he felt himself pulled in two by hope and worry. “That is the most self-sacrificing nonsense I have ever heard in my life. And I know self-sacrificing. I know it really well, spent most of my life doing it. And you know where it gets you? Alone. Fired, actually. And so damn sick of yourself you can’t stand it anymore.”
He pulled her up from the chair, feeling all her wires pulled too tight. “You know,” he smiled, “I realize now why you kept your legs crossed until I forgave you.”
“Because I did something awful to you—”
“Because all you think about is forgiveness. Because you’re obsessed with guilt. So you married an asshole who stole from people and made your life miserable. It’s not your fault. Get over it so you can move on with your life.”
“That’s really easy for you to say.”
“Yep. You know what’s hard for me to say? My mom left me when I was eight with a drunk dad who didn’t love me half as much as I loved him. And that’s not my fault.”
She blinked at him, her eyes old in her face, her body small in his hands. “I’m really, really good at handling the shit life hands out, Tori. I’m an A student in managing it. But before you, that’s all I had. And you brought me into this life of yours, your son and this wild idea, and it was all so good. It was happy, and I want it back, not just for me, but for you. You deserve to be happy, you’ve worked hard for it. So don’t let those people take it away from you. Don’t let them push you aside.”
He knew she didn’t believe him—he could feel it in her body, in the distance between them that he couldn’t stand—so he pulled her closer, as close as he could, until he felt her heartbeat against his.
Her glass went down on the table with a small thunk and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his lips to hers. She tasted like grief, like desperation, like a woman with her fingers in all the cracks, and part of him wanted to leave, wanted to get to higher ground, because the woman kissing him didn’t love him the way he loved her.
Or didn’t have the courage to claim it.
And he couldn’t save her.
Still, he wrapped his arms around her with a groan, lifting her against his body, pressing her against the erection at his hips. She sighed and wiggled closer, splitting her legs to wrap them around his waist.
Yes
, he thought, something dark and needy rising in his blood. If she wouldn’t have him any other way, she’d have him like this. He took three steps toward the wall, pressing her there, holding her with his hips, and she groaned, throwing her head back.
He kissed her neck, his hands cupping her breasts, filling his palms with the beauty and reality of her. She arched against him, throwing gasoline on this reckless fire between them.
He fumbled with his pants, with hers, pushing aside fabric until he felt the heat of her, sank his fingers into the wet of her.
Her frantic breaths burned his skin, filled his head until all he heard was their heartbeats. Pushing down his pants, he shifted his hips and thrust into her.
She pushed against his shoulders, finding leverage to move her hips against him, up every time he pushed in, and the friction was hot, too hot, and it felt so good, the kind of heat he could live in.
His orgasm barreled down on him.
He gripped her hips harder, shifting her so he hit her clit with every thrust and he felt her frenzy rise, her agonized pleasure. And he managed to hold off until he knew she was coming, her body locked around his, her mouth open in a scream.
He erupted, pouring himself into her. All his love. All his worry. All his fear that she’d never love him back.
They stood there, chests heaving, bodies stuck to the wall. He closed his eyes and wished things were different.
“If … if you don’t love me, Victoria, I gotta walk away. I thought I could love you enough for the two of
us. But if you won’t even stand up for yourself, when are you ever going to stand up for me? For us?”
He kissed her neck, felt her shake against him, unsure if it was the cold or tears or fear that locked her muscles.
“I’ll help out here the next few days, but then … maybe I need to go.”
Say something
, he thought, pressing his head to hers, as if he could force the words out of her.
“I’m sorry, Eli,” she breathed.
His skin, his chest pulled flat, and he couldn’t suck in a breath. Couldn’t pull away from this pain—he had to just ride it out, like that strawberry mare down in Mexico. He held on and let himself get hurt.
Finally, he pulled away, tucking himself into his pants, trying not to feel the slick heat of her on his body.
Something felt wrong.
Yeah, idiot
, he thought,
it’s your heart breaking
.
But then reality stampeded back and his hands froze on his pants.
Shit
.
“I didn’t use a condom.”
chapter
26
Victoria, looking like
a ghost, like a shadow of herself, stepped into the kitchen on Saturday morning and slid the party planning binder onto the stainless-steel counter.
Celeste had thought when she volunteered to take on the soulless monsters that were Victoria’s old friends from New York that Victoria would agree, that within a day she’d realize what a fool she was to let these women get the better of her and she’d come out swinging, setting things right, and Celeste could stop pretending to care about Renee’s every little problem.
But it was Saturday and it hadn’t happened.
Things around this ranch had only gotten worse. And it wasn’t because she was waiting on Renee and her unquenchable thirst. Victoria didn’t look like a woman who ran a spa, she looked like a woman in desperate need of one.
And Eli, well, it was plenty obvious the poor man was nursing a broken heart; luckily, it just made that stoic cowboy persona he had going for him more attractive. Those women from New York were infatuated.
She wondered what Victoria would do if Celeste told her about what Renee said about Eli’s butt.
“A little lipstick wouldn’t kill you,” Celeste said, trying to get a rise out of the girl, but Victoria just ignored her.
“Are we ready for the party tonight?” Ruby asked, wiping her hands off on a towel.
“No, actually,” Victoria said. “We’ve got Eli leading a trail ride up to the North Pasture with most of the guests and most of the hands. Celeste—”
“Is being treated like a dog by your snobby friends. Honestly, Victoria, what did you ever see in them?” Celeste said, sipping her tea.
“They were all that was available, I suppose,” she said, flipping open the binder. “With everyone so busy, we’re going to need a few more hands. Some muscle to set up for the party.”
“Luc—” Celeste said.
“He and Tara had to catch a later flight from Toronto. They won’t be here until tonight.”
“Who are you going to call?” Ruby asked.
“Gavin,” Celeste said, caught off guard that she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t missed him. That she hadn’t thought about him a hundred times a day.
“Do you want me to call him?” Victoria asked. “Or do you want to?”
Me! Me!
“Why would I want to?” Celeste asked, arching a perfectly trained eyebrow.
Ruby muttered something in Spanish and turned back around to the sink and the carrots she was peeling.
“I just thought you might.”
Celeste tilted her head. “And what do you think about Eli?”
Victoria flinched.
Ah
, Celeste thought,
a reaction
.
“It was never going to work out between us,” Victoria said, pushing her hair behind her ears like a nervous thirteen-year-old girl.
“Did he know that?” Celeste asked.
Victoria cleared her throat. “He does now.”
Celeste’s heart hurt for Eli, who’d been suckered in by the chimera of the person Victoria had become these last few months, having no idea that under pressure, the strong, independent woman would disappear like a popped bubble.
“You’re a coward,” Celeste said.
“Yes, I am. It’s the one thing I’m good at.” Victoria picked up her binder, tucking it under her arm. “I have to go pick up liquor. Call Gavin. We need him.”
And with that, she left.
Celeste stared out the bright blue square of window over the sink and calmed her racing heart. She had a reason to call Gavin. An excuse. And after the stress of the last week, the gerbils weren’t just panicked, they were manic. And she’d gotten used to it. It was as if that gerbil she’d been afraid of had moved into her brain, procreated, and built a gerbil city.
“I’m starved,” Celeste said and Ruby spun, her face alight. “Really, really hungry. Honestly, I’ve never been this hungry.”
“Well, I have just what you need.”
Ten minutes later Ruby slid a bowl of something fragrant and warm in front of her and without a second thought, without even looking at what she was eating, Celeste dug in.
Cheese. Eggs. Sour cream. Delicious.
She glanced down and realized it was exactly the same thing she’d given to Victoria months ago when the woman began taking over the ranch.
Courage food, apparently.
She was going to call Gavin. She wanted to call Gavin. She ached to hear the sound of his voice, even if it was telling her to get lost.
Celeste put a little hot sauce on the eggs and thought
about what she was going to say:
Gavin, can you please come back here? Gavin, I need you. I’ll pay you whatever you want—just … please … help me
.
Holding her breath, she picked up her cell phone and hit the speed dial that went right to Gavin’s cell.
“Gavin Svenson.”
“Hi … ah, Gavin?” She closed her eyes, wished herself in a deep dark hole with nothing but eggs and cheese and no cell phones.
“That’s me.”
“It’s Celeste.”
“Hi.” She tried to read warmth in that voice, but it was impossible. He was an arctic ice cap. At night. “Everything all right?”
“No. Well, I mean, yes. There aren’t any problems with the spa, except … I need your help.”
“Mine?”
“Yes.” Watching Ruby’s back at the sink she explained the situation as best she could without getting too detailed. “I know it’s beneath your pay scale, but I’m desperate and there’s no one here to help me set up for this party and … I need you.”
He was silent for a moment and then he chuckled, the warm sound bouncing through the air waves to slide down her back like the stroke of a finger. “How in the world can I say no? Celeste Baker needs me.”
She closed her eyes, clinging to the strange intimacy. “Is it safe to say that I need Thomas, too?”
I do. I do. I need you both
. She was so damn tired of her cold life. Her loneliness that no amount of friendship with Ruby and Victoria could fill.
“We’ll clear off our schedules and get there in two hours.”
Celeste hung up. Those gerbils were drunk on champagne, doing silly things in her stomach, making a mess of her ordered life.
“The cavalry’s coming,” she said, trying to appear as composed as possible. But one glace at Ruby’s face and Celeste knew she wasn’t buying it for a minute.
“Girl, you in a heap of trouble.”
And wasn’t that the truth. On so many levels.
At three in the afternoon on Saturday, Eli collapsed into one of the wooden deck chairs on the front porch. He wasn’t going to move for a week. Not one week. His feet hurt. His back was killing him, and he hadn’t talked so much … ever. In his life. About useless shit.
Small talk.
Three days since the greenhouse. Three days of Victoria not looking at him.
Luckily, he’d been working himself to the bone for her and was too damn tired to be worried or sad. But, oddly enough, he still had plenty of energy to be pissed off.
She could be pregnant, right now, with his baby, a baby he couldn’t want more, and she still didn’t have the courage to lift her head. To look him in the eye and say “We’re in this together.”
The front door opened, and much to Eli’s surprise Gavin, the Viking contractor, walked out, his son behind him. Eli felt oddly compelled to hide, but Gavin had already noticed him, sitting in the shade of the porch.
“Go on and get the rest of the lights, Thomas,” Gavin said, and much to Eli’s horror, the older man started walking toward Eli.
Thomas shot Eli a poisonous look from his dark eyes and hit the steps to do what his father had asked.
He really hoped Gavin wasn’t interested in fighting, because the shape he was in, Eli was just going to sit there and get punched.
“You look beat.” Gavin leaned up against the railing, stretching his legs out like he was getting ready for a good chat.
Eli nodded.
“Quite a scene around here,” Gavin said. “Heard you’ve been busy.”
“What are you doing here?” Eli asked. What little small talk he’d been born with had been used up.
“Helping Celeste set up for that big party tonight.”
Eli groaned, planting his hands on the arms of his chair, trying to coax his muscles into a standing position. He’d totally forgotten about the party. Celeste and Victoria must be frantic.
Or not. He couldn’t tell a single thing about Victoria anymore.
“I got it, man,” Gavin said, holding out his hand. “Thomas and I can set up tables. Hang the lights.”