Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2) (41 page)

Grant gave a stiff smile. “It’s all right. I’m just relieved you’re okay.”

“
Pfft!”
Mrs. Beacon made an inelegant noise from the tablet. “Barely! No thanks to that son of mine. He nearly blew up my next grandchild with his foolishness! Where is he anyway?”

“He’s in with Vamp—Valerie,” Liz said.

Carter spoke to the tablet. “Don’t blame John, Mrs. Beacon. The fire was my fault. Some lights I hung on the shed for Liz must have shorted out.”

“Those smiley-face lights you gave Liz last week?” said Bailey. “Bummer. Those were cute.”

Grant tilted his head in confusion. He looked at Liz. “I thought you said those belonged to your parents?”

Liz swallowed, a shiver of unease trickling over her. “It’s really not important whose they were. I mean, thank goodness we’re all okay, right? Who wants to head out? I don’t know about you all, but I could use some dinner!”

Carter looked to Grant. “She told you they were her parents’ lights?”

Sweat started to bead on Liz’s forehead. She could feel it running into the bandage over her eye as she stepped between the two men. “I don’t remember what was said. Grant was proposing, and…” She waved her hands vaguely and tried to smile through the gauze holding half her face immobile. “Does it matter now? The important thing is—”

“They aren’t around to assault anyone else’s sensibilities,” Grant finished for her. “Liz, no one with
taste
blames you for pulling them down.”

Carter stilled and looked to Liz. “Wait.
You pulled them down
?”

“I may have adjusted them,” she murmured.

“A good hard
yanking
adjustment,” muttered Grant.

Liz shot him a one-eyed glare.

“Why? Why would—?” Carter began, but before she could think of a reasonable reply, because, let’s face it, the truth wasn’t going to help the situation, his expression changed. “On second thought. Don’t answer that.” He turned to Grant. “She’s all yours.”

“What?” Liz stared at Carter’s retreating back in disbelief. “Carter, wait! Let me explain!”

He stopped, turned and raised one dark eyebrow. “What’s to explain, Liz? This isn’t hard to figure out.
Christ!
I’m not as stupid as you think.”

“What are you talking about? Who said you were stupid?”

“Stupid enough to believe we had something worthwhile going.  But how could we, when nothing has changed? You still think you’re better than the rest of us schmucks who never left Sugar Falls.” He choked out a hard, humorless laugh. “I’m sorry I’m so far beneath you.”

“
What?
You were never beneath me!”

“Oh. Right. Except for that one time you were on top,” he murmured, and the cold innuendo coupled with the hurt look in his eyes had the blood rushing from her head.

He looked up and down her tattered dress and battered form. “I’m sorry I’m not good enough for the new and improved Liz Beacon. But you know what? This is
me,
Liz. I’m a college drop-out. I don’t care what other people think. I don’t wear fancy suits or eat organic crap or pre-plan my every move like one of your master plan to-do lists.
This
is who I am. And unlike
some
people, I’m not embarrassed by that.”

“I’m not embarrassed by… I admire you!”

“
Bullshit
. You tore them down!
You
caused the fire! And what’s worse is you were going to let everyone, including
me
, believe it was my fault!” He shook his head. “Fuck this. I’m sick of being everyone’s fall guy. You want me to live up to my potential? How is that even possible when the first suspect for every crime committed in this goddamn town is
me?”

“Carter, I—”

“Save it. You’re no different than the rest of them.”

“How can you say that? When have I judged you that way?”

His lips were a taut line. “Did you hear I’d been kicked out of the fire department? The rumors about why?”

“Well, yes, Trish may have mentioned…”

“Did you believe the rumors were true?”

Her expression must have told him the truth, because he swore again under his breath and turned toward the door again. “To be fair,” she called after him, “you never did have a squeaky clean reputation. I mean, you were the high school bad boy! I saw you smoke cigarettes… You wore a
leather jacket!”

He stopped, his back to her. “That was my father’s jacket,” he said so quietly she almost couldn’t hear. He turned. “And maybe my reputation was less about the truth and more about what other people wanted to believe.”

She shook her head. How dare he judge her this way! What had
she
done? “You told me yourself you used to go drinking at the quarry and skinny dipping in Miller Brook!”

“So did ninety-nine percent of the rest of the teenagers in this town.”

“But they outgrew it! They became responsible adults.” Okay, only some of them, but they weren’t talking about Dan or John… “
You
still have beer bottles on the floor of your pickup! I mean… Dammit! What am I supposed to think?”

“That I recycle?”

“You see? When you make jokes like that, I don’t think I even know you!” But then she watched him and realized with sickening awareness that he wasn’t joking at all. Oh my God. He wasn’t.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do.”

“Then help me,” she said, something hot and desperate firing inside her. “Don’t shut me out…”

“Liz, you took something I gave you and
blew up your parents’ house with it.
I think we’re done.”

“Done? Do you hear yourself? Carter, they were
just
lights…”

“And I’m just another guy that will never be perfect enough for the perfect Liz Beacon.”

“I never once said you weren’t perfect!”

“No, you said it in a hundred different ways. But don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a pill I can take to fix it.”

She stared at him in shock.
This couldn’t be happening!
“I never meant—”

“You know the ironic part of all this?” His mouth twisted in anything but humor. “I came to your house tonight to tell you… to tell you…”

She felt the blood rush from her head then roar back again. “That you love me?” she whispered.

She shivered, her emotions raw and exposed, battered and bruised, and the only man who had the power to make it all right stood before her. She waited and prayed he could see she wasn’t trying to be perfect, wasn’t trying to make
him
perfect. She was only ever trying to be good enough. But…

“
Love you?
” he asked. “Liz, love is going out of your way to make someone else happy no matter what it costs you.  Love is going into a burning building knowing it might take
your
life, too.” And suddenly he grabbed her arms, his fingers tight and hot on her skin. “It’s throwing yourself over someone and begging a God you were never sure you believed in to protect that person, because now that you’ve finally found them—
again!
—you can’t bear to lose them…”

Tears began to slide down her face, and her bandaged eye started to ache. Her heart pounded hard and fast and eagerly inside her.
He
did
love her!

“But more than anything,” he continued, his voice hoarse with emotion, “love is knowing yourself enough to recognize when another person knows, appreciates and accepts the
real
you…”

“Yes,” she whispered.
“Yes!”

He let her go abruptly and stepped away. “But this isn’t love,” he said, gesturing to the space between them.

She felt as if she’d been thrown to the ground. Again.

“I know who I am,” he said. “But who’s the
real
Liz Beacon? Or should I say,
Beth
? Do you even know? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

He shut his eyes and sucked in a long breath, his fingers flexing in his pocket.

“By the way,” he said, “I bought you these.”

Then he threw a package of Twizzlers at her feet. And left.

CHAPTER FIFTY
____________________

“
E
W.
T
HEY WERE RIGHT. It does look worse the next morning.” Bailey lifted her chocolate chip cookie in salute as Liz pushed open the kitchen door.

Liz had taken off the bulky eye patch and left it upstairs, although she still had a couple of butterfly bandages over the gash in her eyebrow. She touched her cheek gingerly.

In the end, she hadn’t been able to face anyone after Carter walked out. Thankfully, Bailey had whisked her away from prying eyes, probing questions and would-be fiancés, threatening anyone who might challenge the plan with a thwack of a Snickers bar. She’d taken Liz home, cleaned her up, fed her take-out Chinese, and crashed on the couch without another word except to come in every hour on the hour and ask her how many fingers she was holding up.

Liz had lain alone in her room, staring blindly at the ceiling. Thinking.

It had been Carter. It had been Carter all along. Valerie said the bottle picked Dan, but Liz
knew
it was Carter in the pantry that night. She
knew
it. Just as she
knew
he wasn’t involved in any illegal drug use.

She knew, because she didn’t need proof to know what was in her heart.

She loved him.

And, he, by some miracle, loved her.

Or
did
.

Bailey gestured toward Liz’s face, pulling her out of her thoughts. “So, how does it feel?”

“How does it look?”

“Awful.”

“That’s how it feels.” Liz pulled a mug from the cupboard and filled it with coffee. She didn’t bother with cream or sugar.

“Can I get you anything?” Bailey asked.

“Have you learned to cook?”

“No.”

“Then toast will be fine.”

“Do you like it burnt or raw?”

“Burnt, please.”

Bailey set to work slicing bread and popping it in the toaster oven then proceeded to ignore it as she went in search of supplies in the fridge.

“Hello? Anybody home?”

Bailey met Liz’s gaze over the fridge door. “You better get used to it. She’s going to be your sister-in-law.”

Liz groaned into her coffee. “How did life get so messed up?”

“I’m letting myself in!” Valerie announced from the front door. Her heels clicked on the floors as she made her way to the kitchen. She thumped the door open, a bright pink cast on her left arm. “I have news!”

“What happened to you?” Liz asked. “I thought you just needed stitches!”

“Oh,” Val pursed her lips at her cast and shrugged, “apparently they think I fractured something, too. But, enough about that, I have news!”

“You’ve cast an evil spell on Liz’s brother?”

Valerie sniffed. “Your toast is burning.”

“
Done!”
Bailey pulled the smoking slices out and slathered them with butter.

“No,” Val said, to Bailey’s earlier question. She pulled some papers out of her purse. “As of fifteen minutes ago, I have a signed Purchase & Sale agreement on this house!”

“Already?” Liz asked, pulling the document forward.

“
Eh!
” Val snatched it back again. “You can’t see it. Confidential and all that. But your folks are thrilled. It’s just barely over their target price, but I can’t promise holding out for more will pan out. They are pleased as punch with their new future daughter-in-law.”

Valerie tucked the contract back into her purse. “Well, can’t stay. Have an engagement ring to show off and houses to sell, so
ta-ta!
”

“Sold.”  Liz said dully as she took a bite of burnt toast. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

“What are you going to do now?” asked Bailey.

Resolutely ignoring the hollow ache in her chest, she shrugged. “Go home.”

L
IZ PACKED HER SUITCASE, zipped it shut and set it by the bedroom door. With the house under contract, she was done with what she’d come to do.

“Ready when you are, Eddie.”

Eddie sat on the windowsill and stared at her. It had become his favorite spot.

“You’ll have to find a new favorite spot, Ed. Because, we’re going home.”

And, home wasn’t here anymore.

Half an hour later, Trish was driving her to the airport.

“I need to make a stop before we leave town,” Liz said. “Take a right here.”