by Anne Martin
“Do you? Comprehension of a paradigm of irrationality like yourself is utterly beyond the realm of possibility.”
She shook her head. “You don’t need to understand me. I don’t understand me, how are you supposed to? No, it’s therapy I want. Both of us could use some therapy.”
I leaned forward, trying to see her eyes. I was checking to see if she was lying. No, I wanted to look into her eyes and drown in them. I couldn’t ever tell if she was lying, but apparently, she couldn’t either. Was I supposed to take comfort in that?
I relaxed back against the old white leather seat. Her car was in excellent shape. “What kind of therapy? Retail therapy? Buying things doesn’t do it for me.”
“Mere accumulation of material goods doesn’t make your little-rich-boy heart pitter-patter? Color me stunned. I want a wedding. A big one at that house, the one you’re so fired up to get rid of. I want a big wedding and I want all your nasty ex-girlfriends who couldn’t get you on your knees to see me in that white dress with you all handsome and sober while I throw it all in your face. I know, it’s a wild fantasy, but I have the deed and you need a sponsor.”
I swallowed hard and ran my hand over my face. “I’m not sure I’m following. You want to throw what in my face? Sponsorship? Are we talking about saddles? I don’t sell saddles, I mean manufacture, I mean, actually we probably do, but I’m not in charge of that kind of representation. I could probably connect you to someone who could…”
She smacked my stomach and I almost threw up again. “You’re a gambling addict, just like my precious daddy, well not exactly since he was a successful gambler. I’m going to sponsor you and help you overcome it while you help me plan the wedding of a lifetime and show the Dallas snobs that I’m not some gold-digging whore.” She exhaled and kind of slumped down. “Saying it out loud makes it sound pathetic. Never mind.”
I grabbed her arm. Her skin was cool from the rush of wind, silken smooth and soft. “You want to help me overcome my gambling addiction? Sorry, why? Don’t you hate me?”
She shot me a look and then glanced down at my hand. I pulled it away and she rubbed her arm where I’d touched it, one hand on the wheel. “It’s been years. I don’t care enough about you to hate you, but I still have some psychological issues, you know, the fear of rejection and the feeling of inferiority. Maybe I’ll just get a shrink. I should be married and settled down by now, but I’m still, you know…” She waved a hand around like that explained things.
“Single?”
She nodded. “Single. Afraid of getting too close to men.”
“So, you want to marry me?”
She shot me a look like that was ridiculous, which it was. “I wouldn’t actually marry you. You know that part where the priest says, ‘Do you, Jessie Strait, take Jackson Dewitt to be your husband, to have and to hold, ‘til death do you part?’ Well, that’s when I’d say, ‘I’ve reconsidered. Sorry, honey, you’re too dull to tie myself down to for the rest of my life,’ and then the whole world would see that I’m not the one…” She laughed, but it was nervous.
She didn’t want the world to think that she was the one who was rejected? She left me without a word after I’d found out that she’d been lying about absolutely everything for years. I didn’t throw her away like my father assumed I would, no, I’d offered her as much as I could give, even though the rumors about her were vicious. If she hadn’t been sleeping with me, she’d probably been sleeping with someone. It had all been her long game, give the rich boy that kind of sweet intimacy and then deny me for years until I broke and married her, because the sweet little lady wanted to wait until marriage. She would have had me too, my family be damned, if the background checks on her hadn’t revealed a complete and total blank.
I still knew next to nothing about the woman sitting next to me, other than that she’d been the love of my life.
I opened my mouth to tell her that there was no way in this life or the next that I’d ever dim the glorious heritage that was my grandmother’s manor by performing a fake wedding whose entire purpose was to humiliate myself and my family.
“Jessie Strait, I accept.”
Chapter 5
The clouds broke near Albuquerque. The rain came down hard while I leaned over the steering wheel, wipers going full blast while I searched for a motel. The rain shouldn’t last long, but I’d been driving for hours, and been up all night the night before beating Jackson at poker. I wasn’t letting Jackson drive my car. I pulled into the parking lot of Motel 8. I found a spot on the end and went to the trunk to pull out the tarp. Jackson helped me stake it down over the car and held up the plastic while I mopped up the seats.
When I straightened up, I was right up against him, his t-shirt plastered to his chest. For a gambler, he’d kept good muscle tone. Actually, he was larger and stronger than I remembered. He’d filled out well. Very well.
I stepped back and crossed my arms while I stared at his chest. “I’m getting a room. I need to rest up for the last leg, and obviously we can’t drive in this.”
He cleared his throat. “Okay. Do you want me to stay with the car? I saw an advertisement for slots in the lobby. Do you have some change?”
I sighed and ran a hand through my tangled and matted hair. It would take hours to get it into any semblance of order. “Forget it. You’ve made your last bet, Jackson.”
He raised his eyebrows while his lips twitched. “You’re not suggesting that we share a room, are you, Miss Strait? Your reputation might get tarnished.”
I shook my head tightly as water ran down my face. This was seeming more and more impossible all the time. Maybe it was a bad dream. A very, very bad dream. I grabbed his hand and dragged him across the parking lot to the lobby. “I’d have to have a reputation for it to be ruined.”
“Are you referring to your total lack of actual identity or the fact that Jezabel is known as a man-eating flirt?”
“I have an identity. I’m Jessie Strait.”
“You have no birth records.”
“I was born in Monaco.”
“And you call yourself a Texan. Are you serious about Monaco?”
I shot a glance at him. “I told you that my daddy was a gambler. Monte Carlo is my birth city. My mother had me in a hotel. It’s not as though I asked to not have any birth records.”
He stared at me and then held the door open. I walked through, dripping on the greige tile floor. The whole place was old, but not filthy. I walked straight to the counter and smiled at the girl. “Hi. I saw the lot wasn’t full. What’s the best deal you can give me?”
“You just won thousands of dollars, and you’re haggling?” Jackson whispered over my shoulder.
I shivered as his warm breath skimmed over my cheek and down my neck. I shot him a glare. “You have to stop thinking of money like it’s something you have because it’s in your wallet. It’s a river that is ever flowing away from you. You can ride the river, but it takes a lot of paddling to stay afloat. There isn’t anything passive about money. You’re either making it or it’s making you.”
He frowned. “This is your sponsorship? I know about money. I know all about money.”
Ooh, did I hurt his pride? Rich boy thinks he knows everything because he was born to wealth. No. He couldn’t understand money until he’d seen its underbelly and felt its teeth.
I smiled sweetly and patted his chest. I could feel the rapid pounding of his heart beneath the wet fabric. “Of course you do. You know how to spend it. I know how to save it. If you learn to save it, you can save yourself. So, deal?” I said, turning to the girl at the counter.
A half hour later, I sat on one bed in a short cotton robe with the hair dryer, trying to dry the pockets of my shorts. It wasn’t anything close to road trip attire. I’d have to stop somewhere to go shopping once the rain let up. We’d get dinner too.
The bathroom door opened and Jackson came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. He draped his jeans and t-shirt over the dresse
r while I stared at the play of muscles in the golden lamplight.
“With the way you’re looking at me, you’d think you’d never seen a man in a towel before.” He shot me a look with those brown eyes.
I redirected the hair dryer back at the shorts. “I can’t recall.”
The bed bounced as he sat next to me. “You can’t recall?”
I scooted away from him and scowled at my shorts. Why did I think so many studs on the pockets was a good idea? “We’re going shopping as soon as the rain lets up.”
“Are you sure we should? We need to save every penny.”
“You need to save every penny. I’m going to spend an exorbitant sum on a wedding that serves no purpose other than psychological.”
“Maybe a therapist would be cheaper, but it definitely wouldn’t be as irrational. You keep sliding away from me. And you’re blushing. It’s nice to see that you still have freckles.”
I looked up at him and he was so close, so warm and strong and everything I’d wanted with my whole heart and soul. I slammed my hands against his chest, sending him tumbling to the floor. I stood up over him. “Jackson Dewitt, you shouldn’t think that because I let you seduce me when I was young and naïve, it’s going to happen again. It’s not, no matter how crazy you make me. I’m not the same girl you knew.”
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “Jessie, if you stand there letting me look up your robe, I’m going to have a very difficult time comprehending the magnitude of your indignity.”
I gasped and jumped away from him, stumbled on his hand and fell down, hitting my head on the edge of the bed.
We both lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He was shaking as if laughing, and I was fighting back tears. Also, the whole thing was ridiculous. I started crying and then laughing, and the next thing I knew, Jackson had pulled me onto his lap while he leaned against the bed, grinning at me like we were having a misadventure together, like the time we were marooned on an island during spring break, or the time we’d rented a car with a faulty gas gauge, or the time he’d tried to do laundry in my apartment and the whole thing had overflowed into the kitchen.
I leaned forward until our noses brushed. A shock of static electricity hit me the moment before I landed on the floor, Jackson scrambling to his feet away from me.
“Now I can look up your towel,” I said.
He stepped away from me, but cautiously, holding onto his towel before he went to the window and peered out. “The rain’s staying steady. You should take a nap until it clears.”
I licked my lips and climbed off the floor and onto the bed closest to the bathroom. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you’re afraid of kissing a girl.”
He shot me a look as bereft of humor as it had been full a moment before. “You’re not a girl.”
I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat before I rallied with my best Jezabel smile. “You’re right to be afraid. I’m a man-eater.”
“Oh, I know, but you don’t look like it. You look like a bambi, all big eyes and soft sweetness.”
I frowned at him. “No, I don’t. I have a sequined bra for a shirt. I look nothing like an innocent anything.”
He tilted his head as he stared at me. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to look hardened and failing, or trying to look like you’re trying to look hard. I didn’t get my degree in Criminal forensics.”
I threw a pillow at him. “I’m not a criminal. At least not yet. If you wake me up before the rain ends, I will be. Throw back the pillow.”
He held it in his arms while he stared at me, finally shaking his head as he brought the pillow over. He fluffed it and put it down, folding over the sheet for me. “Sweet dreams, bambi.”
I grabbed the front of his towel while I glared at him. “Bambi is a stripper name. Let’s make one thing very clear. I have never, ever, ever let anyone touch me for money.”
“That’s the irony, isn’t it? We want to sexualize innocence, to obtain the untouchable, to hold what’s gone even as we try to touch it. Let me be clear. I am wearing nothing under this towel. I have nothing against being paid or paying for certain activities. If you remove my towel, I’m charging you the going rates.”
I stared at him. “What do you know about the going rates? Do you hire strippers?”
“You’re automatically assuming that I’m not a stripper? That’s so sexist of you. You think that just because I was born to wealth I don’t have a work ethic? How do you know that my chosen profession isn’t that of a noble stripper?”
I rolled my eyes and let go of his towel. “I forgot how ridiculous you could be. I used to find it charming.”
“How do you know I’m not serious about being a stripper? Have you been stalking me or something?”
“I’ve been living in Vegas. I know male strippers.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you? Do you eat them too, or only the ones you take for free?”
I slid under the sheet and snuggled down into the pillow. I stared up at him, without my makeup, without my mask. “You’re a gambler. Being a stripper would be several steps up from that.”
“And being born to wealth? Being a billionaire?”
I smiled at him and reached out to touch his hand. “That’s several steps down from gambling, but fortunately, your gambling vice has evicted you from the worser fate. Sh. I’m sleeping.” I closed my eyes and for a second felt him staring at me before sleep dragged me down. I was exhausted, and crazy as it was, having him stand over me was more comforting than terrifying, other than how terrifying it was that I still found his presence a comfort instead of a threat.
Chapter 6
Jessie Strait was sleeping in a cheap hotel bed across from me, completely at my mercy. My emotions had run the whole gamut in the last twenty-four hours. Make that six hours. Several times.
I didn’t usually pass out in bars. Scratch that. I’d never passed out in a bar. I’d never woken up in a hard top convertible Cadillac or been shot at while enduring the world’s worst hangover. I should have stayed away from her town. I’d actually agreed to her dream wedding, minus the actual marriage. I’d gone completely insane.
I left the room. I needed to walk, to move the thoughts through my head instead of spiraling tighter and tighter around the figure in the bed until I hovered over her like a stalker. I wanted to hurt her, not caress her. I nodded to myself as I pulled a twenty out of my wallet to pay for the razors and toothbrushes in the motel lobby.
Seeing Jessie in a robe without makeup, sleeping so sweet and innocent made me question everything. I couldn’t go through all that. She’d cost me years of mental health already. But closure was something I could use. What if I took her back to that house, fixed all those memories, got her out of my system and actually got cured from my heartache instead of patching it with band-aids?
For a second with her on my lap, rough terry robe in my hands, her face so close to mine, I’d forgotten how much she’d hurt me. I’d only wanted, needed, ached for the sweet girl who hadn’t ever existed.
What did she really want? What was her game if she was still playing? Why had she disappeared like that, leaving behind everyone and everything she’d worked for? Could I play this game, being close to her without letting her back into my heart? I tapped the leg of my damp jeans as I headed back to the room. I wasn’t the kind to back down from a challenge or a dare. A gamble like this? Playing for hearts? It was irresistible even if she was the better player. She’d had a head start, but I’d made up for lost time.
That evening, we ate barbeque ribs after shopping at a big box store for generic jeans and t-shirts. Somehow she looked even better in the jean jacket and white t-shirt than the skimpy sequined top. She paid for my clothes, even chose out my boxer briefs, like my tastes hadn’t changed in the last decade.
Back at the motel, she pulled on the hideously ugly nightgown and slipped back into her bed.
I cleared my throat as I stared at the lump under the brown blanket. �
�You didn’t get me a nightshirt.”
“You sleep in your boxers.”
“I don’t feel comfortable like that with a woman.”
“So keep your pants on. What do you think, that I’m going to jump you in the middle of the night? Scouts honor, I’ll respect your virtue.” She snorted and leaned up on her elbows to study me.
“You did girl scouts?”
She cocked her head. “Did I? I think I did for a year or something. We settled down near Midland that year.” Her smile faded and her eyes grew distant, like she saw something sad she didn’t want to remember.
“So, I can trust you? One year in girl scouts is enough to instill respect for the opposite gender?”
She sighed, her chest rising and falling beneath the hideous baby blue beribboned thing. “It’s not going to happen. I should have gotten you some exercise clothes or something. Do you want me to run out right now? They’re open until midnight.”
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
She sighed again and threw her legs over the side of the bed. “Come on, then, gambler. You’re not allowed alone for at least thirty-six hours.”
“Did I agree to that? I don’t have a problem.”
“You’re broke. You’ve lost all of your fancy resort houses and your bank accounts are empty. The only thing you have is the house. Scratch that. I have that until you give me my dream wedding. I’d say you have a few problems.” She pulled on her jeans and her boots without putting on a shirt then headed out, dressed in that incredibly ugly nightgown.
“Don’t you need a shirt or undergarments or something?” I asked, trailing her out.
She shook her head, keys jangling from her hand. She was seriously going to fetch me some pajamas because my modesty might be compromised. How absurd.
“These breasts require permanent support. Once I get rid of them, I’m burning my entire collection of bras.”
“Get rid of?” Were we talking about the same thing?
“I have an appointment in a few weeks with my doctor. He’s going to remove the enhancements and check my breast tissue for growths.”
