Can't Buy Me Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  In fact, staring at herself in the mirror, she was well aware that she needed to believe them.

  She needed a man to give her worth.

  She met her own eyes, so dark in the ghostly face in the mirror.

  “I hate you,” she breathed.

  Someone rattled the door and she jumped, dropped her phone into the sink, and swore, blinking back acidic tears.

  “Just a second,” she called. Using the cream hand towels, she dried off her phone and swung open the door.

  Only to find Tara Jean, like the Spanish Inquisition with a boob job, waiting for her.

  Instinctively, Tara Jean stepped back, because for all her silk shells and knee-length skirts, Victoria looked like a nuclear bomb about to go off.

  “It’s all yours,” Victoria said, trying to slide past Tara Jean. Tara Jean sidestepped in her way, and Victoria reared back as if she had been slapped.

  And people call me dramatic, Tara thought.

  “He’s not coming,” Victoria hissed like a cornered cat. “He had to leave town. Are you happy?”

  Tara shook her head, sympathy nearly swamping her. “No. I’m not.”

  “Oh, stop pretending like you care about me, or my family. No one is going to marry you and make you rich anymore. You can drop the act.”

  “I don’t want to fight,” Tara Jean said, feeling as if she were negotiating with a crazed gunman. “I just … I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Bullshit.” The curse was surprising. Guttural. And then, much to Tara’s surprise, Victoria pushed her, a sharp jab to the shoulder. The woman’s eyes opened wide and then … she did it again. Hard enough to hurt a little. “You don’t care about me.”

  Well, well, well, thought Tara Jean. Though it had been a while since she’d been in a hair-pulling catfight, it might just be what Victoria needed.

  In fact, Tara Jean would put money on it.

  She pulled off her earrings. She’d learned the hard way about big hoops.

  “What are you doing?” Victoria asked as Tara Jean braced herself against the wall to kick off her shoes.

  “Getting ready to fight. Isn’t that what you want? I’d lose the necklace if I were you. Those pearls are going to be a bitch to find once I snap the string.”

  “I’m not going to fight you.” Victoria channeled the aghast queen pretty well, and Tara smiled.

  “You sure? Because I think you could use it.”

  “You have no idea what I need,” Victoria said, and Tara sobered. This wasn’t funny, and a fight—just like screwing around with Luc—wasn’t going to change that.

  “I do,” Tara Jean said. “I know you don’t want to believe that, but I do. And I think, down under those pearls and the uptight hairdo—” Victoria put her hand to the loose bun at the back of her neck—“you know it, too.”

  Victoria opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out and sensing weakness, Tara Jean pushed ahead.

  “Whatever Dennis has told you,” she said, “or made you believe, it’s a lie. It’s what he does. He lies.”

  Victoria’s cheeks went white and then bright red, and in a heartbeat she knew what Dennis had made Victoria believe.

  That she was beautiful. Womanly. Desired.

  “You guys okay?” It was Luc coming around the corner at the worst possible time and Victoria went on the attack, like a wounded, cornered badger.

  “What the hell is she even doing here?” Victoria asked Luc, pointing at Tara.

  “I didn’t know there was a guest list.”

  “And you want to fuck her.”

  Oh! Tara Jean would have applauded if it wouldn’t have made things worse. It seemed Victoria was finding some backbone under that ugly cashmere sweater.

  Honestly, it was June in Texas—who was that woman dressing for?

  “Vicks?” Luc stepped toward her, but Victoria slapped his hand away.

  “You are just like Dad.”

  Luc’s head snapped backward and Tara held her breath, knowing that wasn’t an insult he would let slide.

  “That’s not true. And you know it.”

  “Are you going to deny that you want to fuck her?”

  “Okay,” Tara said. “This is getting a little—”

  “I like Tara Jean,” Luc answered as if she weren’t actually speaking, and Tara’s mouth shut so hard her teeth clicked. “I like her a lot, and if you gave her a chance you would like her too.”

  “I doubt it. I don’t have a dick.”

  Tara Jean went back to slipping off her shoes. Now, she was the one who needed a fight.

  “Stop.” Luc held out his hands—a bad referee between a wounded badger and a wounded slut. “Just … stop.”

  “Dad’s dead, Luc,” Victoria snapped. “He can’t see you chasing after his would-be-wife, he can’t see you killing yourself on the ice or bossing me around—”

  “I know that,” Luc insisted.

  “I don’t think you do, because you’re still waiting for that guy to give you a reaction. Or his approval. And it’s not going to happen!”

  “Yeah, and what are you waiting for?” Luc asked back. “Another man to come along and screw up your life even worse?”

  “Luc,” Tara said, stepping in where she knew she wasn’t wanted, but just might be needed. “I think she gets the point.”

  Victoria’s eyes darted between Luc and Tara Jean and slowly she smiled, and Tara realized too late what this looked like. What she looked like.

  “If you were waiting for a woman to screw up yours, I think you found her,” Victoria said, snide and superior.

  And right.

  Victoria stomped off, her head held high, and Tara had to give the woman points for her exit.

  “You all right?” Luc asked.

  “The day I can’t handle your skinny sister is the day they put me in my grave.”

  “I don’t know, she was pretty pissed, wasn’t she?” His lips curled up in a soft smile, utterly at odds with the insults his sister had thrown at him.

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “Anger has to be an improvement, doesn’t it? Over depression? And desperation? Over lying down and playing dead every time someone recognizes her and hates her for crimes she didn’t commit? Anger is better.”

  Tara couldn’t help but admire Luc’s brain. His empathy. His too-big heart. He saw things for what they really were, past the lies people told and the walls they put up. Lord knows, most of the time when he turned those handsome hazel eyes on her they felt like a spotlight she had no hope of hiding from.

  “Probably,” she agreed. Anger had kept her warm on many a cold night.

  His regard grew familiar, intimate, and she realized how small this corner was. How dim. How little effort it would take to believe the rest of the house, the whole world was gone.

  And it was just them.

  He was so close she could smell the beer he must have drunk on his breath. She’d smelled beer on a hundred men’s breath. And somehow it was always sour, the smell of a bad decision.

  But Luc smelled sweet. Intoxicating.

  “You like me, huh?” she asked, relaxing into the shadows. Relaxing into the way this man made her feel.

  His hand landed on the wall beside her head, his body close enough that she could feel the heat of him. The smell of him, beer and spices, soap and that little something extra that was all him. She wanted to investigate that smell, trace it back to its origins.

  “I think I’ve made that clear.”

  He didn’t ease closer, just left that distance between them, and she wanted to arch toward him. Pull him flush against her body—and she could have done that a month ago, but now she found herself lacking the courage. Unbelievably, she felt shy. Unsure of her welcome.

  She played with the collar of his golf shirt, her finger brushing the hot skin of his neck, and her body woke up with a hum, a long, slow purr of pleasure.

  When he leaned down, she closed her eyes, her body thrumming
, pulled taut on a wire of expectation.

  “I’m not used to begging.” He breathed against her skin and her breath left in a whoosh, leaving her empty, waiting to be filled.

  By him.

  “You don’t have to beg.” She nearly laughed. She was ready to beg; she was ready to do whatever this man wanted.

  His fingers left the wall, feathered across her collarbone, then his thumb traced her ear. He breathed a kiss across her cheek. Her lips. She sighed, reached for him, and he was gone—a wind she couldn’t catch. She smiled, her eyes fluttering shut. This felt like falling backwards into a dream. Some kind of fantasy. A game for someone younger, far more innocent than she.

  “It seems I do.” The air between them, the inches that separated them, was thick. Flush with restraint. Ripe with illicit possibility.

  “You’ve pushed me away too often, Tara, for me to accept this at face value.” His thumb traced her eyebrows, her hairline.

  “You want to know if my intentions are honorable?”

  “I want to know if this is just a game for you. A chance to fuck with my head.”

  Oh, oh she hated that that was what he thought, but of course he did. What else could he think?

  She put her hands against his cheeks, feeling the rough scrape of his beard, the hard clench of his muscles. In the dark room his eyes shimmered.

  “My intention is to get into your pants.” She couldn’t resist the sudden sweetness of his smile, so she kissed him, a hard smack. “I won’t push you away again, Luc. I don’t have the strength. I like you. A lot.”

  His chuckle against her ear lit fires along her body, small pockets of heat that breathed to life in her neck, her breasts, between her legs, and her blood began to hum, carrying the fire across her skin. All she could do was stand there, inches from him, and burn.

  He leaned closer, his chest meeting her breasts, and she gasped, melting hard against him. His big, hot hands curled around the small of her back, making her feel delicate, a feather on a breeze. Finally, in the dark, in the heated shadows, she found his mouth.

  And it was like the answer to a question she didn’t know she needed answered. Curling her hands into the silk of his hair, she held onto him and opened her mouth, licking his lips. Taking her time to taste him, to chart the contours of his mouth, the delicate arch of his lips, the hard ridge of his teeth.

  The kisses were long and slow, open-mouthed and consuming. As if they had all the time in the world to just stand here and kiss. It was somehow both innocent and the best kind of sinful.

  He stepped forward, pushing her against the wall, his fingers cupping her head as if he was holding her still so he could just taste her. Just eat her. One kiss rolled into the next.

  It was the sexiest thing she’d ever been a part of, this endless kiss. Her skin opened up to his and it was as if their clothes had melted and she felt him along her bones, in her blood.

  Her fingers traced the rigid muscles of his back, marveling at the strength that made him so different. So delicious. She wanted to lay him out and taste every inch of him, every muscle and sinew.

  She wanted to lay him down and make snow angels on all that skin.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked against her lips, and she shook her head.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Is it dirty? Because if it’s dirty, I’d really like to hear it.”

  Standing on tiptoe, she whispered some choice filth in his ear and he groaned, pulling her closer into the bow of his body, and she wished she could just stay there. Stay there forever, caught in this web of lust and affection.

  But as the kisses became less languorous and more consuming, lust outweighed affection and soon she was pushing herself into him, grinding the hottest of her hot spots against his body, searching for the relief she knew he could so spectacularly give her.

  Her fingers found the soft, sensitive skin just under the hem of his shirt, the muscles that flexed and jumped at her touch, and she curved her hands under his belt, over the hard curves of his professional-athlete ass.

  A muffled curse split the darkness just before the overhead lights flipped on, and Tara leapt away from Luc as if he were suddenly made of bees.

  Eli, his hand frozen on the light switch, stood in the opposite doorway, the formal dining room table dressed to the nines between them.

  “Eli … ah, what are you doing?” To her great embarrassment, her voice squeaked.

  Luc didn’t help matters by laughing.

  “Ruby called my cell, said there was an extra steak.”

  “There is!” she cried. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Calm down, Tara,” Luc said. “He just caught us kissing. We weren’t robbing the place.”

  Eli’s eyes, full of accusation, sliced through Tara, right to Luc. Luc’s laughter stopped on a dime, and the room exploded with tension.

  “If you have a problem, Eli—” Luc pushed away from Tara, stepping toward Eli, and Tara put a hand on his chest, felt his heart thunder under her palm.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  It took a moment but finally he smiled, lifted her hand from his chest, and kissed the palm.

  “I’d better go check on those steaks.”

  The hush that settled over the dining room as Luc left was weighty, but she shook it off.

  “It was just a kiss—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Tara.”

  “All right, I had my hands down his pants.”

  His eyes shamed her, because he was just worried. When so many people didn’t think of her twice, Eli was worried.

  “I’m okay, Eli. Honestly.”

  “He’s a Baker—”

  “Not all of them are bad, Eli. Luc … Luc is a good guy.”

  “He’s going to leave. Once this farce of a will is done, he’s out of here.”

  “And you think that bothers me?” she asked, surprised at the way he must think of her. “You think I’ve got plans past next week?”

  He blew a long breath out of his nose, sounding like one of the Anguses. “I’m just worried about you, Tara.”

  Her heart melted a little. “And that is about the sweetest thing, Eli. But I don’t need worrying.”

  He grunted, and she didn’t know if that grunt meant agreement or that he thought she was full of shit, but he stepped around the table and headed toward the kitchen, where the scent of grilling meat was beginning to waft in from the patio grill.

  Falling in step behind him, she had to marvel at the strange turn her life had taken. After a lifetime of taking care of herself, of fending off the wolves on her own, she suddenly had a hockey player and a cowboy standing up to defend her long-gone honor.

  It was enough to make a girl giddy.

  “Jacob!” Luc yelled, walking through the barn into the empty arena. It had been a long night, and he’d spent most of it staring up at the ceiling telling himself that Tara had to come to him. He’d chased her enough.

  But she never came.

  “Come on, buddy, it’s time to go!”

  He paused, waiting for movement, waiting for the kid to sneeze, but there was nothing but silence and the cry of barn swallows.

  Frustrated and running late, he headed back through the barn.

  From the corner of his eye, Luc saw Eli step into the barn and stop, staring at him down the long middle aisle.

  In the back of his head, the spaghetti western music started up.

  “Hey, Eli.” Luc walked down the hallway, ready to bite this particular problem off at the root. He didn’t need an overprotective cowboy with a grudge against the Bakers messing up his sex life.

  “Luc.” Eli brusquely dropped the saddlebag he carried over the low open door of the stable.

  “About last night—”

  “Tara’s a big girl. She made it clear it was none of my business.”

  Oh. Luc felt like he’d shaken off his gloves for nothing. “Good.”

  “But this ranch is my business.” Eli’s
smile held no affection, and very little humor. It was the anti-smile. “I’m holding an auction for the Angus herd.”

  “You’re selling it?” Luc asked, startled.

  “I am. Beginning of September.”

  Eli stood there, shoulders squared, as if daring Luc to oppose him. “All right,” he said with a shrug.

  “And I want to buy back my family’s land.” The guy was carrying a hundred-year-old generational grudge, as if the wounds were fresh. The bitterness was poisonous and Luc wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Look, Eli, I have no interest in keeping your land.”

  “Really? Then you’ll have no problem selling it to me.”

  All the land. Some of it. He didn’t care. “It’s yours.” Luc shook his head. “I think with the exception of the house and Tara’s studio—”

  “I want it all.”

  Now, Luc could give a shit about the ranch, but the tone in Eli’s voice put every single battle instinct on edge and he found himself wanting to fight for the sake of fighting.

  “This land was my family’s,” Eli said. “From the very beginning.”

  “And your family lost it or sold it for nothing—from the very beginning.”

  “And I’m going to get it back. I’ll take care of Tara. And the ranch. All of it. When you go back to your life, there’s no reason for you to come back here.”

  “Is this about Tara?” Luc had no idea where this animosity was coming from, because it felt jealous and protective.

  “No, Luc, it’s about the damn ranch. Once this land is rid of all of you I can start again. Fresh.”

  Luc gaped at the man in front of him. The man who had worked year after year for Lyle Baker, playing the part of loyal employee. Practically a family member.

  “All these years, I always thought my dad would have been happier with you as a son. But you were just biding your time until you could get back the land?”

  “I didn’t like him, Luc. Maybe not as much as you didn’t like him, but not by much. The man took advantage of my father at the worst time of his life.”

  “That sounds like Lyle.”

  Suddenly, Luc wanted nothing more than to be free of the past, of his father’s machinations, of this man’s bitterness. Other than Tara, there was nothing here for him. And Eli knew it—was counting on it.