For the Love of His Life (11 page)

“Tom? I’m waiting…”

“Yes, I know. But I’m kind of uncomfortable telling you what happened with my wife sitting across the table from me. Oh well…”

Veronica took another sip of her coffee and waited.

“See Raul was drinking doubles to try to kill the pain of running with you two days in a row, along with all of the other exercising he’s doing to try to get ripped again. Like he was in
Avengers
.”

“Yes, I know he was hurting. But he told me not to go easy on him…that he could take it.”

“Now he knows better. Anyway, he was pounding them down hard and fast and getting kind of wobbly, so he didn’t get up to shoot pool or anything else except to pee. He was minding his own business…if all of my customers did that, bartending would be a whole lot easier.”

“Okay, so he was trying to get drunk as quickly as possible. Then what? He started hitting on some biker babe?”

“No, Ronnie, nothing like that. The door slammed open and in walked this big group of bikers. I’ve never seen so much black leather, chains and tattooed skin in one place. They started moving the furniture around to make themselves a long table and they were draining pitchers of beer quicker than I could fill them. The tall redhead with the huge knockers started making trouble with everyone she talked to. She chased out all of my regulars by being nasty and insulting. No one wanted to stick around to be her next target. They even took over the pool table and the dart boards. I figured it was going to be a long night before I’d be able to close up. Then she started talking real loud about wanting to track down Raul. She said finding him was the whole reason they were there. She said that she was gonna give him the…ahem…BJ of his life. He was on his sixth drink by then and probably barely able to stand up. He was giving me the eye, letting me know not to give him away, so I didn’t. No one else in the place did either. But she kept on looking closely at all of the men until she found him.”

“So he wasn’t the one to start the trouble?”

“Aw, hell no. She turned his barstool around and got up on his lap and started grinding on him. She told him that she wasn’t leaving until she got what she wanted from him. She said that if he wouldn’t…um…have sex with her in the bar, they could do it in the bathroom or out in the parking lot. Or in the limo that she figured he’d have waiting for him outside. He kept telling her that he was tired and aching, and way too drunk to be the man she wanted him to be. She told him she had brought enough coke with her to get an army hard. He told her that he’d be glad to satisfy her some other night, but that he wasn’t up for it. Then she got really mad and told her gang they needed to tie him up and see if he really was too drunk to get it up. If he was able, she’d climb on and do him. If he wasn’t able, she’d let the gang beat the crap out of him for disappointing her.”

“Wow,” Veronica said slowly, “I never thought about the downside of being that famous. Did he run out to get away from her?”

Tom snorted. “Run? Ronnie, he could barely walk by then. I pulled out my rifle and clicked the safety off, told him to leave and the rest of them to leave him alone. He staggered out as fast as he could and I heard Jake squealing the tires as he tore out of there. Some of the bikers raced out after him, including the ginger babe. I don’t know what happened after that, but I kept on pouring pitchers for them until some guy poked his head back in the door a while later and barked out that they were leaving. Then they all threw some money on the table and left. That’s all I know.”

Veronica shook her head, “Phew! Now I’ve got to tell Gram-Marie this and hope that she changes her mind and lets Raul stay. She wants me to call Jared and tell him that she’s throwing his star out on his ass, then she wants me to be the one to do it.”

“Good luck with that. Marie always was stubborn and being an old woman now hasn’t softened her much.”

“Yeah, I know. Okay, thanks for the info. Next time you come on up to the resort, the pie’s on me.” She thought for a minute. “I don’t mean literally, of course, so get your mind out of that gutter right now.”

Tom chuckled. “Understood you the first time, Ronnie. You just let me know when you make sour cherry again and I’ll be up to collect.”

Veronica hung up the phone and sat thinking about what she had just learned.
That seems so unlike him, to turn down any female. Maybe I have been pushing him too hard if he’s in that much pain.
She looked at her watch.
Only ten…west coast is two hours earlier, so it’s only eight out in La-La land. Jared probably won’t be awake yet. Guess I’d better go and try to wake the big guy up and see if I can get him sober enough to apologize to Gram-Marie. Then I’ll get Jared on the speaker phone and see if we can’t all learn to get along.

Her lips curled up as she imagined how pissed the biker chick must have been when Raul turned her down. She hummed to herself as she got into her car and headed towards the resort.

Chapter Nine

Raul was having the dream about his father again. This time the tall dark man with long black hair was chasing him while riding a Harley
. He was on a smaller motorcycle and having trouble staying on the road as they drove through hairpin turns with huge drop-offs on either side of the mountain. He looked up in horror as the Harley pulled up even with him then swerved, forcing him off the road. He was air-borne for a second, then began to plummet down to the jagged rocks below…

He sat up suddenly and the change in altitude made his stomach lurch as if he really was falling off a cliff. He pushed himself off the bed and barely made it to the bathroom in time for a bout of projectile vomiting. He leaned his forehead weakly against the sink afterward, enjoying the coolness of the porcelain.

I’ve got to go lie back down! I think I’m done barfing. ¡Dios mio! Did I even eat anything, or did I just drink? I don’t remember…

He stumbled weakly back over to the bed and fell onto it, realizing that he was on top of the covers, but too exhausted to do anything about it.

My head! It’s going to explode!

He ground his teeth against the blinding pain of the pounding, but that just made his face hurt.

The pounding! It’s probably just my blood pulsing through my brain, but it’s so loud! Make it stop! Stop pounding!

Miraculously the pounding stopped. He heard a key opening the door of the cabin and turned his head towards the sound, but the bright sunlight blinded him and he moaned in pain, turning his head quickly to face the wall.

“Yeah, I figured you’d be in this kind of shape,” Veronica said matter-of-factly as she strode in carrying a small cloth bag. She smelled of sunshine and the outdoors and Raul was dismayed to discover that even his nose hurt.

“Just kill me now,” he groaned, putting the back of one hand over his eyes.

“Sorry, dude. This time you have to face the havoc you wrought last night. Probably not the first or the last time, but this is gonna be a tough one.”

She put a plastic glass full of ice cubes on the side table next to the bed and he heard the impossibly loud noise of a can being opened, before she poured the liquid onto the ice. The popping sounds let him know it was soda of some kind. He agonized over how loud that was too.

“I’ve got some pain pills for you.” She sat on the side of the bed and pulled his hand back.

He had to fight the nausea that roiled through him at the slight movement of the mattress under her weight. He moaned again.

“Come on, take it like a man. Swallow the pills and drink the coke.”

“No! No coke! I don’t wanna do any coke!”

Veronica snickered. “Not
that
kind of coke. You need something on your stomach and cola is the best thing to settle it down.”

Reluctantly he raised his head and opened his lips to let her push the pills into his mouth. She held the glass and he took a quick sip, then another, before flopping back down onto the pillow, groaning in pain.

Veronica sniffed experimentally. “I guess you already puked up some of last night’s over-indulgence, huh? I’m going to open the window, so get your eyes ready for a little light.”

He put his hand over his eyes again and heard the squeal of the sash as she pushed the window open. There was a cool breeze and he inhaled deeply.

“See? You’ll be better in no time!”

“Just let me die in peace.” His tongue was uncomfortably large in his mouth but he tried to speak clearly. “Where did you put that soda?”

He heard the sound of a chair being pulled over to the side of the bed and was thankful she must have realized it was better to sit beside him
not
on the mattress. He felt the glass being pressed to his lips again and raised his head again just long enough to take another sip.

“We need to talk, Raul. You got into some serious trouble last night and now Gram-Marie wants to throw you out on your ass. Do you remember anything that happened last night?”

He felt the room beginning to spin around and took some deep breaths.

“No,” he said, gritting his teeth from the effort to control the nausea that threatened to overtake him again.

Veronica sighed. “Okay, is there anything at all you do remember?”

Raul tried to force his thoughts to obey him, but the noisy blood pounding and the spinning made it difficult to think.

“Uh…I went to the bar…Crossroads, I think.” He forced the words out, took another deep breath, then tried again. “I needed to get drunk enough for the pain to go away so I could sleep.”

“Yeah, about that…”

He felt her press something cool and wet onto his forehead. “What’s that?”

“It’s a frozen washcloth. It will make your head hurt a little less until the pills kick in,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ve been pushing you too hard. I think we need to take it a little slower on our runs until you feel up to challenging yourself again. You didn’t get out of shape in two days, so I should have known that you wouldn’t be able to get back into shape in two days.”

“But I told you I could do it. I’m the one who insisted that you take me on your normal runs…”

“Yes, but I’m the one who knows better. I used to do personal training when I was in college. I was on the track team and it was better money than I could have made as a waitress. I’ve helped lots of people get back into shape, but never by pushing them so hard at the beginning.”

She sighed softly as she reached over to turn the washcloth so the cooler side would be on his forehead again. He reached his hand up to cover hers for an instant.

“It’s my fault. I can be an arrogant prick sometimes. You’ve been so nice to me and I’ve never thanked you for it…”

Veronica looked into his eyes for a minute, surprised at the honesty she could see before another wave of pain washed over him and he closed his eyes in an effort to endure it.

She sat back and watched him. “You’re right. You can be a prick. But we promised Jared you could stay here until he had the film crew and the actors’ trailers up here. He’s putting a lot of his heart and soul into getting this movie made, and I don’t want to be responsible for jinxing things by going back on that promise. So we have to figure out how you can apologize to Gram-Marie in such a way that she will forgive you for endangering Jake, even though that wasn’t your doing and you don’t even remember it.”

‘Wait…Jake is in danger? What kind? How? And I’m involved?” His brain was hurting with the stress of trying to remember.

Veronica shook her head. “No, he’s not in danger
now
. But last night a group of bikers rode their Harleys after you because their head bimbo wanted to fuck you and you turned her down. I wish I’d have been there to see her face when you said no! That was probably the first and only time you’ve ever turned down free pussy.”

Raul lay still for a moment before replying quietly. “I didn’t know you knew words like that. And considering they are coming from your lips they are even more insulting. Is that really what you think of me?”

“Oh come on, Raul! You as much as told me yourself that you work hard at keeping your name in the tabloids. And the whole reason Jared sent you up here was that you missed an important planning meeting with him because you were in a hotel room with two women, fucking, drinking and snorting coke. Then you crashed your car and tried to bribe the police officers, telling them you’d get them in your next big movie if they just took you to the meeting you’d already blown. You called him instead of your lawyer because you figured he would get you out faster. Then you told him that you couldn’t find your watch and lost track of time, and the only reason you left the hotel room was that you ran out of condoms.”

Raul felt even more ill as he listened to her words. The pain seemed to be coming from his stomach, but he didn’t just feel nauseated anymore. He felt ashamed.

“Jared told you all of that?”

“Yeah. We’ve always been tight since we’re so close in age. When he’d come up here for the summer, I was the one he wanted to hang out with. I taught him how to paddle a canoe and a kayak. I taught him how to swim in a lake; and I taught him how to find the best places to set up your tent. He used to tell me that if we weren’t cousins, he’d want to marry me. He’s a sweetie.”