The Girl with the Golden Spurs (5 page)

Work had been tough lately, and she and Bryce had been at their worst. Bryce, who never watched television, had sullenly slumped in his chair every night, watching sitcoms he normally despised, ignoring everybody.

She dropped her briefcase, the diaper bag and her purse onto the oak floor in the entryway. Lizzy drew a breath, but the air in the apartment felt dense and stifling.

Lizzy didn’t like the new little fears tearing at her any more than she liked thinking about her mom. Lizzy blamed herself for what had happened to her parents. If she hadn’t abandoned them in her quest for a perfect life here, if she’d taken an interest in all Daddy had tried to teach her, maybe they wouldn’t be on the verge of divorce.

She frowned. Her life here
was
perfect. Or rather it was
going to be—so she told herself every morning when she lay awake beside Bryce, their bodies apart on their separate sides of the big bed. She would lie there, doing her affirmations, listening to the city sounds outside her window. After the Texas quiet, even noises like sirens and the clatter of garbage trucks were delightful to Lizzy because they reminded her she was really here—in New York.

She’d escaped. She had a glamorous exciting life and the perfect man to share it with.

Why couldn’t she forget about the invitation? Because she didn’t understand what it could be doing there—again—on top of a week’s worth of mail on her small doorside table.

The same identical invitation had come last week. It was for a Halloween party tomorrow night. She hadn’t known the person who’d sent it, so she’d torn it up without showing it to Bryce. And what was wrong with that?

Okay, so the thing had been addressed to Bryce, too. But she was the one who did her mail promptly while he left his for months. People had to call him, to demand money or ask him if he was coming to some event, before he would fly at his stack, agitated and accusatory that he had to deal with it. Someone had obviously called him about the invitation and re-sent the thing.

No way was she going to a party like that!

Lizzy felt a fresh stab of guilt as she considered Bryce. The party-giver must be a friend of his. Was Bryce now sulking as he had after she’d told him about the baby?

“Your family,” he’d said in a tone of complaint when she’d called from Texas to tell him she was bringing Vanilla back with her.

“Yes, my family,” she’d agreed. “There’s nothing I can do about them.”

“You were down there for two months after Mia died.”

“When you meet them you’ll understand.”

But would he? She’d been attracted to Bryce because he was so different than they were. He didn’t have to dominate everybody in a room. Average in both height and build, he was quiet, reserved and contained. He didn’t make demands on her all the time.

Except about the lingerie
.

Lizzy drew more quick breaths as Vanilla began to clap excitedly. The invitation, like the lingerie stacked in containers in her closet, threatened Lizzy in some strange way.

She grabbed it, intending to wad it up, only to have Vanilla reach for it, too, squealing delightedly as she began to nibble on it and bat her long lashes up at her aunt. Tug-of-war was a favorite game of hers and Cole’s.

Cole
… Lizzy’s heart thumped in her throat again as she remembered how changed he seemed when she’d last been home. Surprisingly, he and Daddy were actually working together without much of their former friction. Cole had even ridden along with her and her father when her dad had shown her the new state-of-the-art hunting camps and bragged about their corporate clients. Her dad had credited Cole with obtaining the leases.

“No, darling,” Lizzy admonished gently, prying the card from her tiny fingers. “Nasty. Garbage.” She chucked the wet invitation into the trash can even as she was swept with a guilty feeling for doing so.

Again, she told herself that she and Bryce were perfect together. Bryce was from the country. She was from the country, but they’d both craved more excitement, so they’d escaped to
the city
.

He was from Indiana, a dull farm where nothing ever happened. She was from a huge ranch in south Texas with a fabled history that was like a kingdom unto itself where too much happened. Like all kingdoms, its challenges ruled its owners more than the owners ran the kingdom.

People like her father and mother and Cole were obsessed with land, with its being
more
than land; obsessed with duties and loyalties to the land and to each other. Lizzy knew that somehow the land had ruined her parents’ lives and maybe her sister’s. She was terrified it would consume her, too.

She hoped New York was far enough away for her to be safe from its pull. She loved being able to lose herself in crowds. Here, she could be a nobody or a somebody. Here, nobody was jealous of her. She could be whatever she wanted to be. She wasn’t destined to be anything. Here, the name, Kemble, meant nothing.

Holding the baby, who was watching her face expectantly, Lizzy sagged still a moment longer against the wall in her entryway. Her weary gaze took in the cardboard books, stuffed rattles and bottles scattered about the floor of the living room and second bedroom, as well as her own closed bedroom door.

Vanilla smiled at Lizzy and clapped her hands together again to divert her.

“You’re glad to be home, aren’t you, precious? You want to get down and crawl.”

Lizzy cuddled her closer and brought her cheek against the baby’s. How was it that Vanilla, her precious little niece, was already such a true little soul mate? Why couldn’t Bryce just enjoy her, too?

“But why didn’t you ask me?” Bryce had said during that phone call she’d made from Texas to tell him her baby-sitting plans.

“Because I knew you’d understand. Mother can’t face the divorce. She needs to pack. It’s only for a month.”

“A baby—for a whole damn month! Why can’t her father… What the hell’s his name?”

“Cole… Knight…”

“Right. Why can’t Knight do his part for once?”

“I told you…he was hurt in the plane crash. He’s not himself—He doesn’t remember…her.” She’d hated the way her throat had closed when she tried to talk about Cole. “This is something I have to do.”

“Well, maybe I don’t!” Bryce had banged the phone down.

She’d been terrified until he’d called back and apologized. “It’s just that I wanted you all to myself—like before. Like the first night.”

Like the first night
. She was embarrassed by that memory. Until that night she hadn’t known how lonely she’d been away from home, nor how desperate she’d felt to connect with someone…anyone. She’d been like a cat in heat, wanting Bryce. Not that she’d given into her need that first night.

But he’d known. “You want it bad, baby. As bad as I do,” he’d said as they reached the front door to her apartment building. “Let me come up.”

Later, several weeks later, when she’d finally let him, she’d wanted him with the same ferocity as that first night. She’d let him make love to her again and again, seeking something from his male body, warmth, love, a sense of belonging… something to make her feel she belonged here…and yet…

She remembered getting up alone afterward, going to the window, staring out into the night for hours, listening to the city that never slept, still wanting…something…as she’d listened to him snore. When he’d awakened that morning, he’d wanted her again, and she’d given herself too enthusiastically, wanting to prove—what? That it had all meant something? That he really was as perfect as she wanted to believe?

Suddenly something heavy crashed in her bedroom.

Bryce? Had he ignored the buzzer when she’d rung from the street? Hadn’t he heard her come into the apartment? Why hadn’t he come out?

Frowning, she walked to her bedroom door and pushed it open.

His eyes wide and startled looking, Bryce gaped at her from the middle of her bedroom. Behind him two big black suitcases lay open on top of her new glittery, orange Indian bedspread. Empty plastic containers that had previously held Bryce’s ties and cuff links, along with all that lingerie that she’d stored on her highest shelves, littered her Oriental carpet.

She gasped. When her gaze flew to a black garter belt lying by the bed, Bryce, who was usually calm, tensed. Hostile, bright gray eyes flicked over the baby. Then he flushed and sighed heavily, clamping his lips shut determined to say nothing. She drew in a breath.

So, it was up to her, she who could never speak up at meetings. Her throat went dry, and the first words seemed to stick there. “Y—you’re not leaving—”

“Don’t start in on me— Look, I’m sorry— I hoped to avoid this—”

So, it was over. Just like that.

The realization slammed through her before she stopped all thought. Vaguely she was aware of Vanilla clinging even as the baby’s bottom lip swelled in infantile disdain for this tense, cruel giant.

If only she, Lizzy, could feel such instinctive disdain at Bryce’s betrayal, but she felt—if you could call it feeling—only paralyzing numbness and inadequacy. He was abandoning her just as her father had abandoned her mother.

Lizzy was bleeding to death, only the blood was invisible. Their perfect life together was over. She had tried so hard.
Too hard maybe
.

“Where are you going?” she finally whispered, not wanting to have this conversation in front of the baby.

Bryce was dragging his designer Italian suits out of her closet. For no reason at all she saw Cole, his face white, beneath a brilliant azure sky on that awful long-ago afternoon when she’d broken up with him.

Cole didn’t matter.

Bryce stared at her and the baby and then hurled his suits on the floor with such violence Vanilla hid her face against Lizzy’s throat. When the baby peeped at him again, her bottom lip was huge and her big blue eyes suspicious.

“Is it the baby?” Lizzy whispered.

Bryce slammed the lid of his suitcase down.

“It’s only half-full,” she said when he made no answer.

Suitcase latches clicked. “Do you think I can pack—
now? With you here?
”

She kept her voice low so as not to frighten Vanilla. “Is it because I don’t want to go to the party? Because I don’t dress sexy…because I don’t wear that…that lingerie?”

When Vanilla began to whimper, Lizzy soothed her. “It’s all right, darling. It’s all right.” She swayed back and forth with the baby resting on her hip.

“Hell, yes, it’s the party. You tore up the first invitation. It’s a lot of things.” He glared. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

Like the beginning of all relationships, theirs had been mysterious and wonderful, so wonderful they hadn’t asked questions. They’d met in a bar. She’d been out with girlfriends one Thursday night. Everybody had been talking to everybody, but the place had been loud and crowded, and Lizzy, who wasn’t any better in crowds than she was at business meetings at work, hadn’t felt like talking to anybody.

Until she’d noticed Bryce watching her.

He’d joined their table. He’d been as cool and confident
as she’d been riddled with self-doubt. Her friend Amanda had known one of his friends from Princeton. Then somebody had said something funny. Bryce and she had both laughed when nobody else had—as if it were their own private joke. And she didn’t get jokes usually.

He’d bought her a drink. Their hands had touched accidentally. She’d felt a spark. He’d gone still at the exact moment she’d yanked her hand from his.

When relationships end, women no longer want the mystery.
They want answers. Why is that?

Nothing was ending. This was a mistake. If they could only talk or have sex, they would sort it all out. But they hadn’t had sex. Not for a while.

She stared at the red tie dripping from his closed suitcase. “I—I want to know what’s wrong.”

“When we met, you were so exciting. You even dressed differently.”

“And now I’m boring?”

His gray eyes drilled Vanilla. “I’m going to that party—alone.”

“Because I’m boring?”

“You never wanted to talk about it before. Why now?”

“When the baby leaves— When Walker leaves—”

“I thought you were wild…free…exciting. But you have this whole family thing.”

“They’re in Texas.”

“They call all the time. Not to mention half your tribe is living with us.”

“So—you think I’m boring—in bed and out of it.” Careful to keep her voice low, she stroked the baby’s hair.

“Don’t make me say things I don’t want to say.” He looked past her. “I’ll come back for my things later—when you’re calmer.”

“I am calm.” She measured out the words very carefully,
her eyes glued to the point of the red tie sticking out of his suitcase.

“But your eyes are wild.”

You said you wanted wild
.

From the bed he picked up a dark rectangular object about the size of a book. Carrying his black suitcase with the red tie flapping, he strode toward her only to stop and place the rectangular object on the dresser next to where she was standing. “I found this in your brother’s things.”

“You went through Walker’s things?”

“I was packing, looking for my stuff stored in his bedroom.” He stopped. “Oh…” His eyes changed, and he let the word hang ominously. “Nell called, too.” His smug expression filled her with dread.

She froze. “Nell?”

“I told her I wouldn’t be here to give you her message, so she called back and left a voice mail for you.” He swallowed.

“You listened to it, didn’t you? You’re leaving me, and you listened to
my
—”

“Maybe now isn’t the time to listen to her message.”

“What does that mean?”

“Wait until you’ve had a good night’s sleep. That’s all. Don’t watch that video, either…not until you’re feeling stronger.”

“Video?” Too much was being thrown at her. Vaguely Lizzy realized the black rectangular object he’d placed on the dresser was a VCR tape.

“I’m strong!”

Bryce stalked past her with his bags, his long legs carrying him through the apartment to the entryway, out the door. When his footsteps thudded down the stairs, Vanilla looked at her, a tentative smile beginning at the edges of her cherubic mouth. Then the doors three floors below boomed shut behind him, and Vanilla clapped.