The Royal Wager

by Kristi Gold

  For the remaining five workdays, Tori would prepare for the article’s release the following Monday. That left the weekend open to do what she had to do. Come Saturday night, she would return home to face her past…and her future.

  Ten

  I love him as much as any man could love his son….

  For the third time in the past half-hour, Mitch read the words in total disbelief. He’d received the advance copy that morning by courier and he realized Tori had probably sent it. Yet she hadn’t enclosed a note or an explanation. In fact, he hadn’t heard a thing from her since she’d left.

  “Smart girl, that Tori,” Buck said from the desk chair in the den while he surfed the Internet. “She made you look like a saint in that story.”

  Mitch had no argument about the content of the article… until he’d come upon the quote from his father near the end. He tossed the pages aside and leaned his head back on the tattered sofa. “She didn’t have to go to him for his opinion.”

  Buck swiveled the chair away from the monitor and glared. “Didn’t you read what your daddy said? He’s proud of you, thinks you’re a good man and—”

  “I read it, Buck.”

  “But you ain’t paying attention.”

  He knew his grandfather well enough to know he wouldn’t let it go until he’d had his say. Well, Mitch intended to have his say, too. “Why shouldn’t I believe this isn’t just another ploy to win over his constituency?”

  “Because he never needed you for that before. And he’s about to take his bow. He’s not running again.”

  “He hasn’t confirmed that yet. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Believe it. He told me it’s so.”

  Mitch straightened, every muscle in his body taut with both shock and fury. “When did you speak with him?”

  Buck shrugged. “Last Sunday, like I’ve done almost every Sunday for the past fifteen years. He calls me to check on you since you won’t give him the time of day.”

  Obviously everyone he cared about was bent on subterfuge. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Probably because of the way you’re reacting right now.”

  “And you didn’t think I had a right to know or any say-so in the matter?”

  “No. I can say whatever I please to whoever I please. I didn’t live almost eighty years to have a wet-behind-the-ears grandson telling me otherwise.”

  Overcome by blinding anger, Mitch swept the article off the couch with his forearm. “And I don’t appreciate you going behind my back.”

  Buck bolted from the chair and stood over Mitch, the fires of hell in his rheumy eyes. “You listen here, young man. You might not respect your daddy, but you will respect me. You’ve been mule stubborn for much too long. If I can forgive him, then you can, too. She was my daughter, for God’s sake.”

  “And she was my mother! Tell me one good reason why I should forgive him for not bothering to be at her deathbed, then marrying another woman before his first wife was barely cold in her grave?”

  Buck yanked the magazine from the floor and jabbed a finger at the page. “The reason’s right here, plain as the nose on your face. He loves you.”

  Mitch didn’t need this. He didn’t want to deal with it. For two solid weeks, he’d done nothing but think about Tori, the loss eating at his insides like rust. Now she’d betrayed him by talking with his father when she’d known all along how he felt about that. “Good for good old Dad. Might have been nice if he’d said it to me in person instead of in print for the world to see.”

  Now Buck tossed the magazine onto the couch. “Good God, Gus. Don’t you remember him telling you every time he left you here in the summer? He said it until you got too big for your britches and quit listening.”

  “And he quit listening to me a long time ago. He didn’t listen when I asked him—begged him—to stay when Mom was sick. He ran off to serve his country, as always. We weren’t important enough for him to stick around for any length of time.”

  “You were important to him, Gus. And it was tough on him, leaving you behind to deal with your mama’s sickness. But he tried to get back that night. He didn’t know she was going to pass before he made it here. None of us knew.”

  Mitch felt incredibly tired at the moment. Too tired to rehash old recriminations. “We’ve been through this before.”

  Buck snatched his decrepit straw hat from his head and crushed it in his hands. “And we’ll keep going through it until you get it through your hard head. Your daddy has never stopped loving you, even when you turned your back on him, just like you turned your back on Tori.”

  Where the hell had that come from? “This has nothing to do with her.”

  “It has everything to do with her. You’re making the same mistakes. Just like you won’t admit you love your daddy, you won’t admit that you love her either.”

  Mitch’s gut burned and he closed his eyes against the pounding in his temples, the truth of that statement digging at his heart. “You’re crazy, old man.”

  “I might be crazy, but you’re a coward.”

  Mitch’s eyes snapped open. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. You’re a coward. A yellow, lily-livered coward.”

  “I’m not afraid of her.”

  “You’re afraid of your feelings for her, dammit,” he hissed. “Admit it to me. You love that girl, otherwise you wouldn’t be moping around here, biting anyone’s head off if they come within fifty feet of you. You’re so sick in love you can’t even think straight. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Rand, you would’ve shipped sperm instead of software to that college in Idaho.”

  He would spend years trying to live down that mistake and no telling how many more. “Let it go, Buck.”

  “Not until you say it.”

  This time Mitch vaulted from his seat. “I said let it go.”

  “I’m going to stand here until you say it, or I die in my tracks, whichever comes first. You know I will.”

  “Okay, I love her!” Mitch blurted. “Are you happy now?”

  Buck’s grin looked victorious. “Nope. Not until you tell her.”

  Mitch paced the room, restless with the admission and the knowledge that he’d blown it with Tori. “I haven’t heard a word from her in two weeks. The day she left, I told her I wanted to see her again, but she refused.”

  “Maybe that’s because you didn’t offer her more than a quick tumble every now and then. That don’t set too well with the womenfolk.”

  Mitch stopped at the shelf and faced Buck again. “What am I supposed to offer her?”

  “Marriage.”

  “You are crazy. We’ve only known each other a short time.” Yet Mitch felt as if he’d known her for years. She certainly knew him better than any woman ever had. She knew him better than any living soul.

  “That don’t matter, Gus. Why, I met your grandmother on a blind date one weekend and we got married the next, before I shipped off to the army. Your mama went down to college in Austin, met your daddy her second year, then married him two months later. You came along about ten months after that.”

  “That’s you and my parents, not me. I prefer to wait a little longer before I decide something that will affect the rest of my life.”

  “You’ve waited too long as it is. It’s time to grow up, Gus. Be a man. Commit to something other than this place cause it won’t keep you warm in the winter. Have a few babies, too. I’d like some great-grandkids hanging around before I get too old to take them fishing by the creek.”

  Mitch held up his hands, palms forward. “Whoa! You’re getting way ahead of yourself. I haven’t said I’m going to propose, not to mention Tori’s not even speaking to me.”

  “She will, as long as you say the right thing,” Buck said with certainty. “By the way, me and Eula are going to get married in the next week or two, so I’ll move in with her. That’ll give you and Tori this place all to yourself.”

  A banner day for bizarre n
ews, Mitch decided. “You’re serious?”

  “Yep. Eula’s a good moral woman and I got to buy the package before I get the goods.”

  “You’re marrying her so you can have sex?”

  Buck chuckled. “I’m marrying her because I love the woman. Sex at my age is just topping on the cake.”

  Despite Mitch’s determination not to, he laughed. “Congratulations, Gramps. I hope like hell you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do.” Buck pointed a bony finger at him. “And if you call me Gramps again, I’ll take you down a notch or two. I also expect to be saying congratulations to you real soon. Maybe we can have a double wedding.”

  Buck’s senility had obviously set in. “No thanks. If I decide to get married, I want my own service. And that’s a big if.” Mitch couldn’t believe the words had left his mouth with such ease. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering something as insane as proposing to Tori. Now he was getting ahead of himself. First, he had to find her and then convince her to talk to him. That could prove to be an enormous challenge. One he was ready to undertake. Now.

  He started to leave the room before Buck called to him, “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  Mitch stopped at the open door and faced his grandfather. “I’m going to go pack a bag so I can head to Dallas.”

  “She won’t be there, Mitch.”

  Mitch turned to find Bob standing in the hall, baseball cap in hand. “How do you know?”

  “She called Stella yesterday and said she was coming here tonight. We’re supposed to meet her at Sadler’s around 8 p.m. because she’s driving in.”

  “Did she say why she was coming back?”

  “You know women, boss. Stella only told me what she thought I needed to know. But I have a sneakin’ suspicion she wanted me to pass the information on to you so you’ll show up.”

  “I might just do that.” No might about it. He’d be there and nothing would stop him, not even the case of cold feet threatening to work its way beneath his boots.

  In a little over eight hours, Mitch would grab some courage and lay it on the line. In eight hours, he’d finally see Tori again, this time in person instead of in his dreams. Eight hours seemed like a helluva long time to wait.

  He guessed if he’d waited half his life to find a woman like her, he could wait a few more hours.

  “He’s not coming.”

  Stella patted Tori’s hand from across the same table they’d occupied the first night she’d met Mitch, only tonight, Janie and Brianne had been replaced by the now-absent Bobby. “Sure he’s coming, sweetie,” Stella said. “It’s only been an hour.”

  An hour that had seemed like a millennium to Tori. “Now tell me again what Bobby said to him?”

  Stella rolled her eyes. “He told him to meet us here at eight, and Mitch said he would be glad to.”

  “Are you sure that’s all Bobby told him? He didn’t say anything about me being here?”

  “As far as I know, that’s all he said. But you know how men are. They don’t go into great detail unless it involves sex or sports. If you want, you can ask Bobby as soon as he gets back from the restroom.”

  As if Bobby would really tell Tori if he’d slipped up and mentioned her appearance. She rested her cheek on her palm and glanced around the crowded bar. If Mitch happened to come in, she would have a hard time seeing him immediately among the local masses. And if he had wandered in earlier and seen her, he might have left before he’d been discovered. That just made her plain depressed.

  “I’ve got an idea on how you can pass the time, Tori,” Stella said.

  Cry? That’s exactly what Tori wanted to do at the moment. Her roller-coaster emotions were threatening to leave the track for the umpteenth time in a week. “Maybe count Carl’s chest hairs spilling out from his T-shirt?”

  Stella yanked the spiral lock of hair Tori had been twisting like an old-time washing machine wringer. “You should sing. You know you want to.”

  Oh, sure. Like she really had something to sing about. “No, thanks. And might I remind you, it’s Saturday night. Karaoke’s on Friday.”

  “Carl would probably make an exception. You were really popular the last time you performed. Besides, it would help you to relax.”

  Tori let go a mirthless laugh. “Singing in front of a jam-packed room is not my idea of relaxing, especially in my nervous state.”

  At that moment, Bobby returned to the table, saving Tori from having to further argue the no-singing point with her best friend. For once, she was glad to see Stella’s other half.

  He hitched up his pants, yanked back his chair and dropped into it. “I don’t think he’s coming, girls.”

  Tori was no longer glad to see Bobby Lehman, even if she did agree with him. “I just said the same thing a minute ago.”

  “You want Bobby to go call him, Tori?” Stella asked.

  Frustrated, Tori slapped one palm on the table, rattling Bobby’s beer bottle and startling the couple. “I feel like I’ve been thrust back into high school study hall when everyone passes notes. I should’ve just gone out to the ranch and taken my chances instead of coming here.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Stella asked.

  Good question. “I guess I thought this was a more neutral place, in case he decided to slug me for sticking his dad’s quote in the story.”

  Stella looked mortified. “Mitch would never hit a woman, Tori.”

  “I know that. I meant in case he wants to give me a large piece of his mind.” He already owned a large piece of her heart.

  Bobby streaked a hand over his square jaw. “Yeah. He wasn’t too thrilled about that.”

  Panic gripped Tori. “You talked to him about it?”

  “I kind of overheard him talking to Buck. He’ll get over it eventually.”

  Eventually. Maybe by the time their child turned twenty-one, if she ever had the opportunity to tell him about the baby. “I wouldn’t bet on it. He tends to hold grudges.” One of the few faults Tori had discovered, but a major one, especially if he turned his resentment on her.

  So far nothing was going as planned for Tori tonight. And it only got worse when Carl tapped the microphone and said, “Listen up, people. By special request, you’re about to enjoy an encore performance by Tori Barnett doing a little Patsy Cline number! Get up here, little lady, and sing!”

  Tori now understood the whole grudge thing. “Stella, if you weren’t in such a delicate state, I’d ask you into the parking lot.”

  She had the gall to laugh. “Oh I’m so sure, Tori, since you’re so tough.”

  Tori didn’t felt tough at all. In fact, she felt fragile and frightened, void of confidence in her singing or anything else, for that matter.

  The chanting commenced, rumbling through the crowd until Tori was forced to stand and answer their pleas. On her way to the stage, she gave Stella a look that said this was not over.

  While Carl put on the music, Tori adjusted the microphone and cleared her throat. If she’d known what Stella had been up to, she would have requested another song. But it was too late to even consider that as the intro began to play.

  Tori admitted the song was very appropriate. After she told Mitch about the baby—if she had the chance to tell Mitch—she might only have her sweet dreams of him, forced to start her life anew without his support or the prospect of his love. At least she would have a special reminder in her child, hopefully the best part of them both.

  When her cue came, Tori belted out the lyrics as if she had all the strength the world. Sang as if her life depended on the act. And cried despite her efforts to avoid that very thing.

  She closed her eyes, willing her voice to remain steady as the tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the red sweater she’d worn the first night she’d met her stubborn cowboy. She didn’t bother to brush them away, didn’t care who might notice.

  This might have been her mother’s favorite song, but right now Tori sang to Mitch Warner—wherever h
e might be.

  Standing back at the corner of the crowded bar, Mitch watched Tori give another heartfelt performance. She wore the same clothes and sang the same song from that first night he’d laid eyes on her. But this time, the feelings she stirred deep within him had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with his love for her. He wasn’t accustomed to having his control sabotaged by emotions, yet he had no will left to fight it. He was totally unarmed and ready to surrender. From now on, she would call all the shots.

  Several patrons greeted him, but he didn’t respond beyond an occasional nod. He moved closer to the stage to get a better look, concerned when he thought he saw moisture dampening her flushed cheeks. Yet her voice remained clear, almost reverent, and now that he knew this had been her mother’s favorite, he assumed that was the reason for the tears. But she hadn’t cried before, and that led him to believe it could be more than bittersweet memories causing her turmoil.

  Seeing her standing there in the spotlight, her sorrow bared for everyone to see, he wanted to go to her and hold her, protect her, yet he had no call to interrupt at the moment. He wasn’t even sure she would welcome the intrusion. But when her voice faltered and she stopped before the song’s end, he elbowed his way through the muttering crowd, practically shoving several people aside, strode to the stage and caught her hand in his.

  She opened her eyes and stared at him, as if she didn’t quite believe he was real. When she didn’t move, he clasped her waist, pulled her from the platform and into his arms.

  They held each other as the music continued, danced as they had that first night together, clung to each other, this time driven by a closeness they’d established during their time together, not chemistry. Mitch recognized their relationship went far beyond desire. Far beyond anything he’d ever expected.

  When the original version of the song began to play, several couples drifted onto the dance floor. Mitch didn’t care if the whole town decided to three-step. He couldn’t imagine letting Tori go, not yet. Not until he felt her continued tears bleeding through his shirt, where her cheek rested against his chest.