“Don’t pay him any attention, kiddo.” Gran hugged Lizzie like she hadn’t seen her just about an hour ago. “We need to talk. I’ve got some interesting news for you.”
“Won’t you join us for breakfast?”
“I just ate, but I could use another cup of coffee and it would fun to break the news in front of Paul.”
Paul was already seated and working on his first cup of coffee when they made it inside so he scooted over to let Lizzie sit by him and Gran joined them on the other side of the booth.
After he placed their orders Gran said, “I had a very interesting conversation with William over breakfast this morning. Too bad y’all just missed him. I know he would have loved to have seen Lizzie.”
“Way to break kayfabe there, Glenda. My daughter can’t be seen in public with my opponent the day of our big match.”
“I was kayfabing before you were even thought of.” Gran sat down her mug and fixed him with a stare that would have made any other man beg for mercy. “Is kayfabe your excuse for all the lies you fed to Billy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop trying to work me Paul. William told me everything." Gran shook her head. “You should have known that Billy was going to talk to him about it eventually.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Lizzie asked.
“Do you want to come clean now?” Gran shot her Daddy another one of those icy glares. “Or do I have to be the one to tell Lizzie the reason Billy left.”
“Would one of you just tell me what’s going on?”
“Billy’s on the card tonight,” he said like it wasn’t a big deal. “William got him booked on this loop with him.”
The orange juice soured in Lizzie’s mouth. Her stomach churned and her throat went dry. So that was why he wanted her to bring Richard to the show.
“And?” Gran drummed her fingers on the table.
“I think there was some type of misunderstanding with me and Billy. He took something I said the wrong way.”
“Exactly what other way was he supposed to take it?”
“Please lower your voice,” Paul said, still not the least bit rattled by Gran’s anger.
“Tell her the damn truth. Tell her how you ran off Billy.”
He smiled as the waitress sat down his plate of egg whites. “More coffee, please hon.”
To further annoy Gran, he poured syrup over Lizzie’s pancakes just like he used to do for her when she was a little girl.
“She’s twenty-three years old. Stop treating her like a child.”
He cut into Lizzie’s pancakes, taking a big bite for himself then sipped on his coffee like Gran wasn’t even there.
“Paul told Billy that he was his father. Billy ran away because he thought he had fallen in love with his own half-sister.”
Lizzie’s glass crashed to the table sending orange juice splattering across the black Formica.
“How could you do that to him… to us?”
“I was just trying to protect you.” He tried to hug her but she stiffened and edged away from him. “He’s too much like me. I didn’t want you to wind up like your mother.”
Gran took the towel from the waitress, shooing her away. She wiped up the sticky remains of juice and handed Lizzie the stack of napkins. Lizzie was too shocked to care that her lap had gotten soaked by the run off.
Her daddy wiped up the rest of the mess with his free hand and then tried to pull her closer against him. “I’m so sorry Pumpkin. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did.” Lizzie took the napkin away from him and wrung it into a ball letting the soppy wetness ooze through her fingers.
“Why can’t any of you realize I’m only trying to look out for you? I can’t let you wind up like Lois, trapped in a miserable marriage.”
“The big difference here is that Billy is not you and Lizzie is certainly not her mother.” Gran reached across the table and wiped at Lizzie’s hand with her napkin. “Lois never loved you, Paul. She married you because she was afraid to come out of the closet and own up to her sexuality. If she ever loved anyone, it was Dinera, not you.”
“So you’re telling me my wife, the woman I was married to for twenty years too long, the bitch that was banging that tennis pro, Lois was a lesbian?”
“You really had no idea?” Gran asked in astonishment.
“Not a clue.”
As usual her daddy had somehow managed to turn the conversation around to make everything all about him.
“Did you have an affair with Billy’s mother?” Lizzie asked.
“In his dreams maybe,” Gran said. “When Billy was conceived, BJ was in Europe and your Daddy was right here in Georgia. There’s no way in hell he’s Billy’s father.”
There was also no way in hell that Lizzie was going to sit there and listen to any more of his lies. Never mind that she already done five miles, all she could think about was pounding some more pavement. She wanted to run until her head stopped spinning or it was spinning so hard she wouldn’t be able to stand straight.
Chapter 41
“Be there in a minute, hon,” Elena called from the other side of the door.
“Sure sounds like she’s looking forward to seeing you,” Billy said to Vlad.
“Good thing, seeing as we drove all night.”
“Hey ba… baby brother!” Elena flew into Vlad’s arms.
“Oh, my goodness, what are you doing here?” She said ushering them into a kitchen that smelled like a taste of heaven. “I thought you were Allan. He’s supposed to come by to pick me up. I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner for him and the boys at the fire house.”
“Didn’t you get my letter?”
She rummaged through a basket by the door. “Yeah, here it is. I just hadn’t gotten around to opening it yet. It’s been a really busy week.”
“Me and Billy got two weeks of bookings around here before we head on down to New Orleans to start working for William.”
“So who’s your friend?” She gave Franny an intense onceover.
“This is my new bride Francine Benson now Kafelnikov… Franny.”
“You got married?” She punched his arm. “How could you do that without me getting to meet her first?”
“Her brothers wouldn’t let me bring her with me without us getting hitched first.” Vlad ruffled her hair, “Don’t you start on me when I ain’t even had a chance to check out this Allan dude that’s done swept you off your feet.”
“You aren’t pregnant are you?” Elena’s eyes shot to Franny’s pudgy belly.
“As far as I know, it’s all just fat.” Poor Franny eased closer to Vlad for security. “I know I must look a mess seeing as how we’ve been driving for days.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I was just looking out for my baby brother, that’s all.” She offered Franny a hand and then pulled her into a warm hug. “Welcome to the family. If you’re alright by Vlad, you’re alright by me.”
“Where’s your roommate?” Vlad asked the big question. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting Lizzie.”
“She’s with Paul. They run together just about every morning.” Elena gave Billy a look that struck fear in his heart. “Have a seat Billy. We need to talk before she gets back.”
“We sure do,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
“As for you two, I’m sure you’d like to freshen up. Come on.” She led then towards the stairs. “That’s my room on the left and the bathroom is across the hall. There should be clean towels in the linen closet. Just make yourselves at home.”
She checked the turkey roasting in the oven and opened the cabinet to pull out two cups. “You want some coffee? I already got some water boiling for my tea.”
“That would be great.”
She grabbed a chair to climb up to the top shelf of one of the other cabinets to retrieve a box. “Your Granny’s mugs. I put them up so Lizzie wouldn’t be reminded of you every time she wanted
a cup of cocoa.”
“How is she?”
“Just fine, no thanks to you taking off with William’s woman.”
“That night, the night I left, Paul told me he was my father.” Billy just threw it out there with no further explanation.
“No shit?” Elena collapsed into the chair across from him. “Lizzie’s your sister? Well, that explains a whole hell of a lot.”
“He lied to me. Paul made the whole thing up to get me to leave.”
“Imagine that, Paul Bryson not telling the truth. That fucking snake in the grass.”
“I want to make things right with Lizzie. I still love her more than anything else in the whole world.”
“Then you got here just in the nick of time. She’s been seeing someone else, but I don’t think she’s all that into him, at least not yet.”
“What do I need to do to win her back? Just name it and I’ll do it.”
“You can start by not being so damn gullible, you big goof.” She swatted the back of his head. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should have been a man and went to talk to Lizzie before taking off running with your tail between your legs?”
“Hindsight is 20/20, what can I do now?”
“Stop staring at my chest and look at my face when you talk to me.” She swatted his chin hard enough to make Billy guess that Allan of hers much sure have some thick skin. “You’re going to have to learn to start keeping your pants zipped. Going off to screw another girl every time you and Lizzie have a problem is not going to cut it anymore.”
Billy hadn’t even realized he’d been looking at her boobs. Maybe she should start wearing bigger sweaters if she didn’t want men looking there. Or maybe he was just a pig. Either way, she was right, he was going to have to get it together to get Lizzie back.
“Make yourself useful and get this turkey out of the oven for me.”
He hefted what must have been a thirty pound bird onto the counter.
“Now, give me the lowdown on my new sister-in-law.”
“Franny?”
“How many other girls has Vlad married?”
“Just the one, I reckon. She’s a nice enough girl. He met her at that bar we used to live over.”
“That place must have been a dive if she was dancing there.”
“How’d you know she was a stripper?”
“I’ve got my sources.” She laughed. “You two aren’t the only boys to work for Vic George. I’ve been keeping tabs on Vlad ever since he left home for the first time.”
“Vlad really loves her and as far as I’ve seen she treats him good.”
“She better or she’ll have me to deal with me and if I ever hear tell of you screwing around on Lizzie, you’ll be answering to me too. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had so don’t even think about breaking her heart again.”
“I’ll behave. I promise.” Billy held up both hands in submission.
“She’s coming back here to meet me to go to the matches. Do you want to wait here for her or go down to the firehouse with us?”
“Paul’s letting her go to the matches?” That one threw Billy for a loop.
“It was his idea to have his family there to see him win the world title tonight.”
“Would it be alright for me to just wait here? I’m beat after all that driving.”
“Her bedroom is upstairs at the end of the hall. Go on and get some rest. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”
***
Billy gave Vlad the car keys, took a nice long shower and crawled into Lizzie’s bed. All the coffee in the world couldn’t have kept him up as worn out as he was. Or so he thought. He buried his face in her pillow, breathing in the gentle traces of her lavender shampoo, hoping more than anything he would wake up to see that red hair of hers tucked against his chin, her body pulled close. His Lizzie back in his arms.
***
Lizzie didn’t know who she was more upset with, her daddy for making up such a horrible lie or Billy for believing him, or herself for still caring about either one of them. No matter what he had thought, it still wasn’t any excuse for Billy to have run off the way he did.
The only thing she knew to do was keep on running right to the point of exhaustion. By the time she climbed the stairs to the bathroom her calves were screaming.
Too hell with all of them!
She took a Valium and ran a hot bath. It would serve them both right for her to sleep right through the matches. If she was going to hit the after Thanksgiving sales with Gran in the morning, she was going to need some rest. After a nice long soak, she popped another Valium before grabbing a towel to dry off. A damp towel… yuck.
The hamper was overflowing with towels. Elena and Allan must have had some fun before taking the turkey to the firehouse. She felt a little stab of jealousy that Elena was having fun with him instead of her. Maybe Daddy had every right to worry that she was going to turn out like her lesbian mother. She wondered if her mother and Dinera had been lovers. Or if she had pined away for Dinera in silent misery, afraid to tell her how she really felt.
“No more lies,” Lizzie said to her own image in the mirror. “I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore.”
She opened her bedroom door and was so stunned that she didn’t care that her towel fell to the floor. A tuff of dark hair stuck out from under the huge bump in the middle of her bed. There was a man under those covers. And not just any man. She knew who it was just from the back of his head.
“Billy!”
Lizzie’s voice was music to his ears. His name on her lips sounded so wonderful he didn’t want to wake up.
“Billy Dalton, what the hell are you doing in my bed?”
Her anger turned his dream into a nightmare.
“Billy!”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and rolled over, coming back from la-la land to find Lizzie right there in front of him as naked as the day she was born. At least he thought it was Lizzie. This girl had short blond hair and a rock hard little body. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes to get a better look.
Yep, it was Lizzie alright. A pissed off, very blond, mean looking Lizzie.
“What happened to your pretty red curls?”
“I got a haircut.”
“Why did you go and do that?”
Her hand struck his cheek with a resounding pop and they both reacted with “Oohs.”
Lizzie had gone and smacked him so hard it had left her own hand stinging.
“Get out!” She screamed. “Get out of my house and out of my life!”
“Whoa, simmer down and let’s talk this out.”
“Talk. Now you want to talk.” She picked up his clothes and hurled them towards the bed. “You should have come back to that hotel room and talked to me seven months ago.”
“Lizzie, I-”
“I know, Gran told me everything. She’s the ONLY one who tells me the truth.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry.”
“You might not be his son, but I swear you’re just like him. And I don’t mean that as any type of compliment.”
“Come on Lizzie.”
“Don’t you laugh at me.”
He couldn’t help it. She was so ridiculously hot he couldn’t take her anger seriously. She was just so cute all fired up, standing there butt naked with her hands on her hips. Her face as red as her hair used to be. If he stood to try to get his pants on she was going to see what she was doing to him, and right at that moment he didn’t think she would be too happy about it.
“I never stopped loving you, not for one second.”
“Then why did you go to Odessa. Were you thinking of me when you made love to her?”
“It wasn’t about love making, it was just sex. Truth be told, I was thinking of you ever single damn time I was with any other girl the whole time I’ve been gone.”
“How romantic,” she said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
“Even when I still thought you were my sister, I was thinking
about you every time I was anywhere near another girl. What kinda pervert does that make me? Fantasizing about the girl I thought was my own sister.”
“If that’s your idea of sweet talk, you need to go back to traveling with my daddy.”
“If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything, whatever it takes to win you back. I love you Lizzie.”
She sniffled and he saw the tears leaking from her eyes. "I love you, too.”
“Baby, don’t cry.”
She flew into his arms, knocking him back against the pillows.
Chapter 42
“Look at Gran go.” Lizzie couldn’t believe the way her seventy something year old grandmother could still move in the ring.
“I bet she could still take both those girls,” Elena agreed.
The ladies match was so entertaining that Elena and Lizzie both stood and cheered when Gran made the three count and raised Penny Banner’s hand as the winner.
Just as they settled back into their seats, Billy and Vlad made their way through the dimly lit aisle to the special section where the wrestler’s families sat.
“What did ya think of my match?” Billy asked after giving Lizzie a big wet kiss.
“I don’t think Mr. Anderson is so nice anymore. I thought he was going to rip your arm off in there.”
Billy laughed. “Actually they went easy on us compared to the way Gene usually stretches the new guys.”
Vlad grinned. “I still can’t believe we ‘rassled the Andersons in The Charlotte Coliseum on Thanksgiving night.”
“And you got your butt whipped,” Elena added.
“I thought he did real good,” Franny said as she scooted past them to take a seat beside of Vlad.
Elena had gone out of her way to include Vlad’s new wife in their conversations but she hadn’t said much or acted like she wanted to be friends with them. Whatever Vlad must have seen in her, it couldn’t have been her looks or her reclusive personality.
The building went dark for a minute and then the white light of a spotlight beamed down on her daddy. His smile actually looked sincere as he waved to the crowd, taking his time making his way down the aisle towards the ring to bask in the fan’s adoration.
Desire Page 28
