by Alyssa Kress
I'm going toward Palmwood, he thought, but his foot didn't falter on the accelerator. No, not even as a wave of fear washed over him.
Fear was not empty. And not being empty was good.
Squinting at the pavement zooming past him, Roy kept driving.
~~~
He wasn't answering his cell phone. That, even more than watching him walk away from the biggest poker game in the world, really worried Valerie.
He may not have wanted to talk to Valerie, but he'd have kept open the channel of communication. He'd make sure she could contact him in case of emergency. There was the baby to consider. Roy would never let down the baby.
"Come on, come on," she muttered into the phone as she sat behind her desk in her family room. She'd muttered this many times over the course of the afternoon as she'd listened to Roy's phone ring and ring and ring. Eventually his pre-recorded voice would come on the line and gruffly invite her to leave a message. Valerie had already left six. None had been returned.
She rested her forehead in one hand and tapped the fingers of her other hand on the surface of her desk. What if Roy wasn't answering his phone because he couldn't answer? What if he'd left the poker game because he'd suddenly taken ill? Very ill?
God.
Valerie closed her eyes and willed her heart to slow down. Roy was only thirty-five years old. As far as she'd ever seen he was in excellent physical condition. It was highly unlikely he was having a stroke or a heart attack — the two dire medical emergencies that rose horrifically to mind.
But that didn't stop her stomach from shriveling into a small ball. If anything had happened to him —
It was coming home to her how deeply she loved him. It was a forever, no conditions, type of love. So much for protecting herself. So much for sending him away. Fat lot of good that was doing either one of them.
Meanwhile, she heard Roy's recording come on the line, sounding faraway and tinny. "If you'd like to leave a message," he said, "go ahead."
Valerie took a deep breath. "Roy — Roy, will you call me, for God's sake? I — " She stopped herself as the words that wanted to come out of her mouth nearly did. Revealing words. And then, as she had six times already, she went ahead and said them anyway. "I — I love you and I'm so worried about you."
She set the phone down quickly, her hand trembling. Her eyes went to the clock sitting on the far corner of her desk. Six twenty-five. Six-and-a-half hours since he'd walked out of the big poker tournament. Where, oh where, could he be?
~~~
Roy drove and drove, circling Palmwood on various highways until just before the car ran out of gas. With the gauge reading a millimeter from the bottom, Roy pulled the car over, crunching dead leaves near the curb as he rolled to a stop across the street from Valerie's house.
He turned the key in the ignition and felt the motor shudder off.
Now, what?
His heart was pounding. He knew what he wanted to do. Why else was he here, if he didn't want to go up and knock on her door?
But, jeez, it was a terrible gamble. Rock-bottom odds. Everything he'd ever learned in his life militated against exposing himself in any such way. He'd be begging.
Cautiously, Roy turned to look at her house. The lights were on, both downstairs and upstairs. He could see a cozy yellow glow through the curtains of her bedroom window.
Meanwhile, his heart went thump, thump, thump.
Oh, he knew what he wanted to do, all right, but the fear inside him was like a living thing, holding him down. He could only sit there. Thump, thump, thump. Buzz.
Buzz? Roy's brows drew together. That sounded like — his cell phone, set on vibrate. Glancing toward the passenger seat, he both saw and heard the phone go off again.
Roy stared at his phone and told himself no. No, it wasn't Valerie calling him. It had been two months since they'd last seen or spoken to each other. There was no way she'd be calling now.
It could be Kenny, Roy decided, or even Isaac. They must have heard about him punting the World Series, and might even be worried. Without daring to look at the phone's screen, he picked it up and said, "Hello?"
"Roy!" It was Valerie's voice, sounding — sounding — Well, Roy wasn't sure how it sounded, his heart was suddenly pounding so hard it was filling his ears. "Roy, thank God you finally answered! I've been so — You walked out. I saw you, on TV, you just walked out. And I haven't been able to get a hold of you all day."
She'd been trying to reach him all day? Is that what she'd said? The blood was rushing through Roy so powerfully now his mind felt scrambled.
"Oh." His voice sounding strange and faraway. "I'm sorry. I had the phone set to vibrate." And he hadn't been able to hear it go off over the motor of the car. He'd had no idea that Valerie had been trying to call him all day. The idea expanded in his brain, exciting and confusing him. "You were watching the World Series?" he thought to ask.
"Well, I — Not until you left. Someone told me. And then I saw it. You just walked out. Roy, are you all right? Where are you? What happened?"
The concern in her voice was unmistakable, even in Roy's dazed state. Maybe it was stupid, but he could feel a layer of balm fall over his fear.
"I'm fine," Roy told her, perhaps ill-advisedly. Her concern — it felt awfully good.
Fortunately, she wasn't done with it. "But you walked out," she argued. "You never walk out — at least that's what it says in all the books that mention you."
Roy felt his lips curve as more balm pacified his fear. She'd read about him. "A lot of things have changed since those books were written." Then he blinked. What? He'd just said way too much. His heart went thump, thump, thump again.
Valerie went silent. "Oh," she said. Half question.
This was the moment. Roy knew it. This was his chance. She'd made it possible by calling, by showing some concern. Now it was up to him to let her know...how he really felt.
Adrenaline pumped through him. Roy recognized the sensation. It went with putting all his chips into a pot. Going all in. Taking the chance of going broke — or raking everything in.
His whole life he'd learned to keep his feelings and needs to himself. Refusing responsibility had really meant refusing emotional ties. Refusing to need. Refusing to feel the pain, ever again, of rejection.
But recently he'd been figuring out that refusing emotional ties also meant accepting emptiness. And he didn't think he could stand the emptiness any longer.
It was worth anything, even the risk of rejection, to pull himself out of the emptiness.
Roy took a deep breath. His voice came out hoarse, only a little louder than a whisper, but at least he was talking. "The first night we met I told you how I felt about poker...but I didn't tell you all of it."
Valerie paused. "Oh?"
Roy took another breath. This was going around the subject the long way, but he was working up to the hard stuff. "I started playing poker because I was good at it. Really good. It was the only thing I knew for sure I was good at because I made a lot of money doing it. The money proved I was good. Nobody could contradict the money."
He stopped and tried to gather his thoughts, to put this as honestly as possible. "I...think I used that feeling of success to cover up what a failure I felt like otherwise."
Valerie made a small sound but Roy wasn't about to stop for an argument now. "My father made me feel that way, not on purpose I don't think." Roy frowned as he considered the novel idea. "He...was probably a lot like me."
Yes, and the suddenly acknowledged notion eased Roy's frown into a laugh. "Yeah, he was a lot like me. He didn't like to admit he loved anybody. Maybe he'd loved my mother and maybe that had ended up hurting him when she died so young. Maybe that's why he never let himself love me, I don't know."
Roy's heart was still thumping but he was on a roll now, so he kept talking. "So poker was, well, whatever it was for me, but it isn't any more. It's not doing it for me any more, Valerie. Because...because I know what it is to have y
ou in my life, I guess. Or because I can imagine what it would be like if we were really together, for good. I love you." God, that had come out much easier than he'd thought it would. "I love you," Roy repeated and squeezed his eyes shut. "Baby or no baby, I want to be with you, to live with you. I just love you."
And that was it, there was no more. He sat with his eyes closed, concentrating on any sound that might come out of his phone. There was none. She wasn't saying a word. She was not in any way responding to this, his last possible play.
Finally, he did hear her. Hoarsely, she asked, "Where are you?"
Oh, what the hell. "Across the street from your house."
There was another silence. "I don't believe it," she then snapped.
"You don't believe it?" Roy's eyes flew open. "Look out your window." Christ.
"I — Well...okay." She sounded put-upon.
Roy took the phone from his ear and stared at it. He'd just laid it all on the line for her, put his soul on a platter, and she was feeling put-upon?
Then from the corner of his eye he saw the front door of her house swing open. He turned. Valerie stood in the open doorway, visible only in silhouette. Roy could see she was wearing something soft and flowing.
His whole body stirred at the sight of her. Emotion was like an ocean wave crashing over and nearly crushing him, but his arm moved. His hand fumbled with the lock on the door. He managed to get it open. Somehow, he scrambled out of the car and stood to face her.
She didn't move. Neither did he. He'd never felt less certain of the outcome of a bet. But, oddly, he was okay with that. Standing there looking at Valerie, wanting Valerie, and, most importantly, having told her all of it, made him feel okay. Made him feel, in fact, full.
Then Valerie started to move. Roy could only stand there, stupefied, as she came down the steps and across her front lawn.
Walking softly, almost gingerly, Valerie stepped off the curb and crossed the untrafficked street. As she came under the street lamp in front of his car, he could see her expression was uncertain.
By the rear door of his car she came to a stop. Her fine brows drew together. "Let me get this straight. You left the biggest poker game in the world...because you wanted to see me?"
Well, hell, hadn't he said so? Feeling rather annoyed, Roy opened his arms. "Here I am."
"Yes." But she sounded disbelieving, as if what was right before her eyes was not proof enough. Roy's sense of annoyance climbed.
"You did it because of me," she repeated, and stared at him with her dark, soft eyes. "And the money for Nicky's operation. Was that — ? Did you do that — ?"
Hell. "You weren't supposed to find out about that."
"Well, I did. So was it? For me?"
Roy knew he sounded disgusted. "I felt bad for the kid, but yeah, I did it for you."
She drew in a deep breath and widened her eyes. "Oh, Roy," she said, low. "Then I must be — I really am your femme fatale."
He laughed. "If you want to call it that."
"Oh, Roy," she whispered, and walked right at him.
He opened his arms just in time. She came to rest against him with satisfying reality, the curves and the warmth and the soul, not to mention a fascinating hard roundness that pressed into his lower abdomen. Roy drew in a deep breath and squeezed as hard as he dared without suffocating the poor woman. He felt the rush, magnified about a thousand times, of making the big play, the one that wins the game.
"I love you, Roy. Oh, I love you, too. Please, please come home and live with me." Then she pushed her nose against his shoulder and just held him tight.
Roy had thought he'd felt full before, but now realized he hadn't known the meaning of the word. This was full. This was complete. Yes, this was a fullness that wasn't going to drain away in a few minutes.
Buzzing with the fullness, overbrimming in fact, Roy kissed the top of her head. "Yes," he told her. "I'm coming home to live with you. For good, Valerie. I'm coming home for good."
EPILOGUE
"Here, you want to hold her?"
The baby had passed from the arms of Kenny, grinning widely, to Cherise, smiling mysteriously, and back to her mother. After gazing rapturously down at the little bundle, wrapped in a fluffy pink blanket with a lacy princess theme, Valerie held her out toward her husband.
"Again?" Sitting beside Valerie in her bed at the hospital where Diana Meredith Beaujovais had been born two hours before, Roy looked distinctly uneasy.
"You can handle it, tough guy. Here."
"Well...okay." Gingerly, like he was taking hold of a package of TNT, Roy accepted the sleeping infant. He looked down at the baby with a gaze of such undisguised adoration that Valerie couldn't help grinning. The wolf was looking a lot like a pussycat.
"We'd better take off," Cherise said.
"We had?" Kenny queried.
Still smiling, Cherise gave him a vigorous dig in the ribs.
"Oh, yeah," Kenny said. "We've got to, uh — Definitely somewhere important we have to go, so coincidentally you and Roy can have some privacy." He winked.
Cherise rolled her eyes. "Subtlety and Kenny do not work in the same sentence."
"Not even close," Kenny agreed, and put his arm around Cherise's waist.
Valerie laughed. Roy was still too engrossed with his daughter to offer a thing to the conversation. Valerie waved as Cherise and Kenny left, then turned back to Roy.
Their life since Roy had come to move in with her, as a real husband, had settled into a varied routine. Every two weeks Roy went to Las Vegas for a few days to play poker. The lion's share of his profits went into the new medical aid foundation they'd established, a more formal version of the one he'd set up for Nicky.
Then eighteen hours ago, Valerie had gone into labor. Roy had already informed Valerie that he would be staying home every minute of every day from now on, a proposal she sincerely expected — and hoped — he would tire of within a month.
Now Valerie gazed at her daughter and released a beatific sigh. "There she is." The baby was, without a doubt, the most beautiful child Valerie had ever seen, and she had seen quite a few. Teasingly, she nudged Roy's shoulder. "The reason you and I are even together."
Slowly, Roy raised his eyes to give Valerie a very odd look.
"Oh, I'm not complaining," Valerie assured him. "But it is true."
Returning his gaze to the baby, Roy grimaced. "Not exactly."
Now Valerie gave him the odd look. "No?"
Roy cleared his throat. "Uh, we would have gotten together, even without the baby."
This was an astonishing announcement. "We would?"
Roy cuddled the baby close against his chest and looked warily at Valerie. "Remember that night you came to the Mandalay to tell me you were pregnant?"
As if she could forget. "Yes."
"Um...do you happen to remember I was carrying my laptop that night?"
As a matter of fact, she did. She remembered every detail of the night Roy had proposed. "What about your laptop?" Valerie now asked.
"Well..." Roy looked deeply down at his daughter. "In the sleep mode on that computer I had a web page listing all the pediatric clinics in the town of Palmwood. I, uh, figured I'd be able to track you down with that."
Valerie stared at him. "You were going to track me down?"
"You better believe it."
Valerie was utterly flabbergasted. He'd intended to find her, after their one first night. It had been special to him, too. "Oh," she said aloud.
"Hey." Roy smiled at her. "I keep telling you, you're my femme fatale."
"...Right." And she was, finally, starting to believe it.
"After Diana now, of course," Roy amended.
"Of course." Valerie squinted. "I want a copy of that web page."
"What?"
"Hey, you still have a tape of all seven messages I left you the day of the World Series of Poker." In all seven of which she'd declared her love.
"Oh..." Roy looked sheepish. "That's tru
e, but you don't need proof that I love you."
"And you do?" Valerie laughed.
Roy joined her.
Valerie looked at him, with the two happy crescents creasing his cheeks and knew beyond a doubt that this wolf belonged to her.
At that moment, Diana frowned her tiny little face and sneezed. It was the cutest wispy breath of a thing. Both Roy and Valerie turned to look at her and sighed.
"We're really a family, now, aren't we?" Roy said.
"We are," Valerie agreed. "We really are."
The End
About the Author
Alyssa Kress completed her first novel at age six, an unlikely romance between a lion and a jackal. Despite earning two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and spending nearly a decade in the construction industry, she's yet to see her feet stay firmly on the ground. She now lives in Southern California, together with her husband and two children.
You can learn more about Alyssa Kress and her other novels at http://www.alyssakress.com.
Other books by Alyssa Kress on Amazon:
Marriage by Mistake
The Heart Heist
The Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way
Asking For It
Love and the Millionairess
Preview of Your Scheming Heart
The man in the long overcoat was definitely following her.
He'd been on her tail like a tick on a dog ever since Sabrina had left the airport gift shop. From there she'd ambled through the cafeteria, taken a long powder in the ladies' room, and even visited the ticket lines.
He'd shadowed her every step.
Sabrina hoped he wasn't a cop.
Stopping outside the duty-free shop, she stared at the ivy leaves and fake snow painted on the glass store window, evidence it was winter in Miami. The man was behind her, reflected green and red in the glass. He was pretending to leaf through postcards in the shop across the corridor. There was a furtive, embarrassed manner about the way he took one card at a time, studied it, and then replaced it on the rack.
