A Man For Marley

by Arianna Hart

  “I was talking to this guy, he wants to get into the racing biz now that it’s starting to get popular with you Yankees.”

  “Watch it Rick, up here you’re the one who’s out numbered.”

  “Would you listen to me already? This guy, he wants to get his name out there, but he doesn’t want to spend the money to sponsor a team. So I hear about him through the grapevine and pitch my idea to him. He can sponsor you, get you in on the ground floor, and as you grow, so will his advertising. That’s why he wants to see you race, to see what he’s buying.”

  “What’s the catch?” Hunter asked.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Rick said innocently.

  “Don’t try to snow me, Rick. I know you, there’s always a catch.”

  “Well, there might be some promotional appearances, autograph signings, commercials, things like that,” Rick mumbled.

  “No way! I’m a driver, not a pitch man!”

  “All the big drivers do it,” Rick said, slapping his hands on the bar for emphasis.

  “Not me.”

  Marley silently breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t leaving yet. She went back to her office and rested her head against the door. How much longer did they have?

  —

  Hunter listened as Rick went on and on about this sponsor and all the things he could do for him. The idea had appeal.

  “But Rick, I can’t leave the bar until after Christmas or I don’t get a dime,” Hunter explained for the tenth time.

  “Don’t you see man, if you can hook this sponsor then you won’t need the money. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t rather be on the track than spinning your wheels here in this dive.”

  “Hey, man, this place has been in my family for generations, show some respect.”

  “Sorry, but you can’t deny that you’d rather be racing.”

  “You’re right about that,” Hunter didn’t argue with him.

  “Listen, why don’t you meet with this guy and see what he has to offer, then you can make your decision? What harm can it do to listen?” Rick leaned over the bar, pleading his case.

  “I don’t know,” Hunter hedged “Man, this is the break we’ve been looking for. This is your big chance! With some money behind you you’ll be on the pro circuit in no time.”

  “All right, set up a meeting with him and I’ll go, but I’m not promising anything,” Hunter said.

  “I already have a meeting set up with him for Friday. We’ll take my car and meet him at his office in Connecticut,” Rick said smugly.

  “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I knew you’d see this for the golden opportunity it is. I’ll pick you up Friday morning.”

  Hunter walked Rick to the door, then looked around for Marley. He tried the office and saw her sitting at the desk shuffling papers.

  “Whatcha doing? You don’t normally do paperwork in the middle of a shift,” Hunter didn’t like the walled off look on her face.

  “I just wanted to check on an order. Is your friend gone?”

  Hunter could hear the sneer in her voice.

  “Rick, yeah, he went back to his hotel. You don’t have to worry about him hitting on you again, he knows the score.” Hunter thought maybe she was offended by Rick’s attempts to pick her up.

  “I can take care of unwanted attention all by myself, thank you. I don’t need you to mark your territory to keep me safe.”

  “Is that why you look so mad? Because I didn’t want Rick hitting on you?” Hunter asked as he crossed the room to her. Didn’t she understand he didn’t want someone like Rick in the same room as her, let alone talking to her. Rick was a good agent, but when it came to women his behavior left a lot to be desired.

  “I’m not mad. I didn’t like you talking about me like I was a piece of meat, but I marked it down to retro-male ignorance.”

  “Mar, you are obviously upset about something. You get more and more sarcastic with every sentence. Come on, tell me what’s bothering you,” Hunter said as he moved behind the desk and began rubbing her shoulders.

  “I’m worried about you taking off and losing the bar to some hay seed cousin in Iowa who doesn’t give a damn about it, okay?” she snarled.

  “I’m not going to take off, I told Rick I couldn’t do that race in New Hampshire. Is this about the sponsor?”

  “No, this is about you not holding up your end of the bargain.” Marley pushed herself away from Hunter and the desk and stalked to the mini-fridge.

  “I told you, I won’t do anything to jeopardize the bar. Just because I’m meeting with this guy doesn’t mean I’m going to just take off and leave you in the lurch.” Hunter followed her around the room, trying to see her face. Was she only worried about the bar, or was it something else?

  “I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with a sponsor that was going to make you do commercials?”

  “So you were listening. Well, Rick explained it to me a little bit, and I’m willing to hear what this guy has to offer.”

  “Oh, Rick explained it, did he? Next thing Rick will be ‘explaining’ to you how you have to drive in the next race.”

  “I make my own decisions. I’m just going to explore all my options. Mar, this could be my big chance, my chance to make all my dreams come true. Why can’t you support me in it?”

  “Because by making your dreams come true you’ll be destroying mine. All I’ve ever wanted was a place to call my own, and people to care for me. You pointed out that this bar contains most of the people in my life who care for me, and O’Malley’s is the only place I’ve ever lived in long enough to call my own. I can’t lose it.”

  “You aren’t going to lose it, I promise. I’m not leaving, I swear. You know I love you Marley. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  “You won’t mean to, but it’ll happen anyway, you won’t be able to help yourself.”

  “Marley, I’m not like all the men in your life, and you’re not your mother! Get it through your head that things can be different this time. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. You want me to cancel the meeting?” Hunter stormed over to the desk and picked up the phone. “I’ll call Rick right now and tell him the deal is off, just say the word.”

  “I can’t be your conscience. You have to make your own decisions. If I tell you not to go to the meeting you will hold it against me for the rest of my life. You have to do what you have to do, and so do I.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hunter asked, a cold knot of fear forming in his belly.

  “It means that for right now I need to protect myself. I’d appreciate it if you kept to yourself until after your meeting,” Marley whispered, her voice hoarse.

  Hunter felt the cold knot expanding in his stomach and rising into his chest. “So this is it? You’re kicking me to the curb because I won’t do what you want and settle down in a little house in the ‘burbs?”

  “No, I just need to take care of me, just like you’re going to take care of yourself,” Marley said softly refusing to look him in the eye.

  “I thought you loved me?”

  “I do.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it. Just because I won’t do things your way I’m cut off.”

  “That isn’t true. I’m letting you make your own decisions without my interference. I don’t want to influence your decision.”

  “I love you. How can that not influence my decisions?”

  “Because you have to follow your dreams, and so do I. I didn’t have any illusions about that Hunter. I knew you’d be leaving, I just didn’t expect it to mean so much. If you’ll excuse me, I have to get the bar stocked for tonight. You don’t have to come back, I’m sure you’ll want to spend some time with your friend while he’s in town,” Marley spoke, but still wouldn’t look at him.

  “Sure thing, boss,” Hunter said sarcastically as he walked out the door.

  Chapter Eighteen

 
Marley was so relived it was Friday. She had been tiptoeing around Hunter for the last three days and the tension was getting to her. He’d tried two more times to convince her that he was just going to listen to what this guy had to say, but she didn’t want to hear it.

  The bed she’d been sleeping in for the last eight years suddenly seemed too big without Hunter’s huge frame taking up most of the room. Her body missed his touch, but only half as much as her heart missed him. If this was a taste of what life was going to be like when he left for good, she was in big trouble.

  Marley took the cowardly way out and hid in her room. She didn’t know what time the meeting was, but knew he had to drive a few hours into Connecticut. Around noon she felt the vibrations from Hunter’s door opening and closing. Her ears straining, she heard his quiet footsteps stop outside her door.

  Her breath held in anticipation. She dithered over what to do if he knocked. Should she chuck all her pride and beg him not to go? Should she tell him not to bother to come back and make a clean break of it?

  Her heart pounded in indecision, but all for naught as he moved on down the hall without knocking.

  She peeked out the window and watched him get into a miniscule, red, sports car. She thought she saw him glance up at her window but couldn’t tell from her angle. Feeling dejected and sorry for herself, she went downstairs and got the bar ready to open.

  As soon as she unlocked the front door old Tom came in for his daily pint of Guinness and a willing audience for his stories.

  “Thought I saw Himself tearing off down the street like hell bent for leather. You two still scrapping?” the old Mick asked while Marley built his pint.

  “We’re not scrapping, we just have different plans, different goals, that’s all,” Marley said, feeling a lump start to form in her throat.

  “And there is no way for those plans to mesh?”

  “Tom, he wants to hop around the country going from race to race to make it to the big time, where he will race even more. I want to graduate from college, settle down and have a family.”

  “Oh, so you’re ready to start popping out babies now are ya?” he asked his thickening Irish brogue giving her a hint to his irritation. He always carried a hint of the old country in his speech, but when his anger got aroused, his accent became more pronounced.

  “Well, not right now, no. But someday I want them, and I want them to have a house that they come home to every day. I don’t want to have my kids wondering where they’re going to be when they wake up in the morning.”

  “So you think young O’Malley can’t give you that home?”

  “No, I don’t. He wants to be a racecar driver, and that’s that. He’ll probably get an offer he can’t refuse today and that will be the end of it. I’ll have to work for the new owner, if he even lets me stay here,” Marley said morosely.

  “Now you’re putting the cart before the horse my girl. Don’t you think? Who’s to say you can’t settle down with O’Malley after you’ve seen a bit of this grand country?”

  “Tom, you don’t understand, I don’t want to live like that. I spent my whole life living out of a suitcase, never knowing who was going to be in our apartment when I came home from school, or even if we’d still have a place to stay. I don’t want to live like that again. I want stability.”

  “Isn’t spending every day with the same person stable enough for you? Now don’t get yourself in a tizzy, I know what your mam was like. I’ve known you since you were bussing tables no older than wee Johnny. I’ve watched you make something of yourself with hard work and stubbornness. Don’t let that stubborn streak, or the fear of turning into something you’re not, make you miss out on the chance of a lifetime.” Having said his peace, the old man leaned back and took his time filling his pipe.

  “When did you get to be so smart?” Marley asked him.

  “When I left Ireland, I left behind my own true love. Told her I needed to see the world instead of the same ten acres of land I’d lived on all my life. She wanted to stay at home and start a family. I swore I wouldn’t be tied down so young.”

  “So you left?”

  “Yes, I did, and when I saw my sights and came home, she had two boys and a wee girl just the spitting image of herself.”

  “Why didn’t she wait for you to come back?”

  “Well, I asked her that myself. She told me she would have waited till doomsday for me, but I never asked.”

  “Oh, Tom, how sad for you.”

  “Well, it was a long time ago, but I learned a lesson then that I’m passing on to you now. I was too headstrong and stubborn to ask her to wait for me. When she said she wanted to settle down, I thought she meant right then. She would have waited a few years had I only asked.”

  “That is quite a story, but the situations are a little different,” Marley said not wanting to hurt his feelings.

  “Poppycock! It all boils down to the same thing. If you love the man, then you’ll go with him and make wherever you land home. In a few years you’ll both be ready to settle down or my name is Thomas Padrick O’Casey!” He thumped his pipe on the bar to emphasize his point.

  Marley turned her back on the fuming Irishman and thought about what he said. If Hunter was willing to wait until she graduated in December, why couldn’t she travel with him for a few years? She’d never seen anything outside of the five boroughs of New York in her life. And the seedier sections of those boroughs at that.

  She was only twenty-four; she had plenty of time before her biological clock started ticking. She thought about life without Hunter in it. Yes, she’d have the stability of waking up in the same place every night, but what good was that without happiness and love?

  Sure she had gotten along without Hunter in her life before, and she could again, but did she want to?

  That was easy, no! She remembered a cross-stitch picture that hung in Seamus’ house; it said, “Home is where the heart is”. Her heart was with Hunter, and if that meant her home was in racetracks around the country, so be it. As soon as he got back from his meeting she’d tell him that she’d follow him to Timbuktu if that meant she could be with him.

  Now she just had to wait for him to get home without losing her courage.

  Marley asked Oscar to cover the bar while she ran upstairs to make herself a little more presentable when Hunter came back.

  “You know, Tom, that was a great little story you told Marley,” Oscar said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “What are you implying there, me boy?” Tom asked, a twinkle in his still bright, blue, eyes.

  “I’m not implying anything. It was the perfect tale for the situation. Too bad there wasn’t a single grain of truth in it.”

  “That’s not true, I did leave my first love in Ireland,” Tom said, chuckling while he puffed on his pipe.

  “Right. Didn’t you come to America when you were nine years old?” Oscar raised his eyebrow dubiously.

  “Yes I did, and before I left, I declared my true love for sweet Molly McFee.”

  —

  “Ah, this is more like it,” Rick said when they cleared the city limits and the highway stretched out in front of them. “Open road and light traffic, what more could you ask for?”

  “Oh, I can think of a few things,” Hunter said, looking out the window at the scenery speeding by.

  “I’m sure you can my man, and in a few short hours they could all be yours.”

  “I doubt that Rick,” Hunter said wryly. A few hours wasn’t going to convince Marley to give up her dreams of stability and follow him around the country.

  “You’ll see. I talked to this guy yesterday; he is hot to get into the racing business. I’ve got him primed and ready for you. After a few minutes with your golden boy looks and charm, he’ll be eating out of your hand. You’ll be able to name your price,” Rick said excitedly.

  Hunter wondered how high a price he was willing to pay.

  “It will be great man! We can get you one of those
big R.V.s with the fold out beds for all the hotties we’ll get along the way. Man, after you do a few appearances and some commercials they’ll be lining up to get into your bed. You’ll be able to have a different babe every night. With a sponsor we’ll be able to go to the best races, you’ll be on a different track every week! Man this is it! The good life is calling us!”

  Why didn’t it sound so good to him anymore? The thought of a different girl in every city seemed depressing to him now. He liked exploring every facet of Marley’s body, knowing what turned her on and what sent her over the edge. Trying to anticipate what she was going to do next to turn his knees to jelly was part of the excitement of being with her.

  Hunter shook off his mood. All of Marley’s talk about settling down was getting to him. This was his chance for the big time. After all his hard work he was finally going to get his shot, and he wasn’t going to let her put doubts in his head now. He’d listen to what this sponsor had to say and see if he liked the offer.

  Rick brought the low-slung Mustang to a screeching halt in front of a huge office building. The grounds were meticulously manicured, and the glass windows of the building gleamed in the summer sun.

  Boxwood bushes in front spelled out a familiar logo.

  Hunter couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “This is it? Doesn’t this company make toilet paper?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry about it, it’s not like they are going to t.p. your car or anything,” Rick assured him, his quick grin a little to bright.

  No wonder Rick had been so evasive about mentioning the name of the company. It was too late to worry about it now, best to go in with an open mind. His mother used to tell him that before he did anything he didn’t want to do, Hunter remembered.

  He shook off those thoughts too. This was no time to get distracted by the past; his future was straight ahead of him.

  Rick opened the door to a palatial office and told the buxom secretary manning the desk he had an appointment with Mr. Ross. After a wait of a few minutes she told them they could go in. Hunter recognized the power play for what it was and gritted his teeth. He hated playing games.