by Susan Arden
“I’m not losing at darts tonight. So don’t even try giving me the evil eye.” Rory poured her a mug of beer. “Here. I’ll let you get warmed up and then we’ll start shots. Every time the Devils score?”
“You’re on, little brother.” Cory smiled over at him. Since middle school, Rory had left her in the dust as far as height was concerned. He was well over six-foot and she’d have to wear stilts to look him in the eye.
“Still sorry I’m older,” he said.
“But not wiser,” she retorted. She glanced around the bar, waved and smiled until she saw Ashley, then promptly averted her gaze. Turning back to the table, she grabbed a handful of peanuts. Gillian passed her the mug that Rory had poured. “I can sure use this,” Cory muttered.
Seated on the other side of Stephen, Gillian leaned around him to whisper, “Hey, anything going down regarding the summer?”
Cory shook her head at the thought of Mr. Bennett. So far, only Gillian actually knew how big a pest one billionaire could be. “No more deliveries or messages. I’m hoping he just gave up.”
Gillian grimaced. “Let’s cross our fingers. You know you’ve got options if not.”
Stomping feet and hooting and hollering commenced the moment the Devils were spotted coming onto the field. Cory waved her cowgirl hat. “He’s all mine!”
“To another McLemore romance,” Matt said, raising his hand. “Put it here.”
“I’m so proud of him,” she sang out and high-fived everyone at the table.
“You ought to be. Girl, look at him. Did he just mouth ‘Baby, I love you’?” Carolina asked, then elbowed her softly.
“Maybe.” Cory could feel her cheeks turn all shades of red. “I love you too,” she whispered back and picked up her mug of cold beer. “Everyone, raise your glass to my man, Brett Gold, number 88.”
Halftime came and Cory sat glued to her seat, cracking open peanut shell after peanut shell, and popping the nuts into her mouth.
“Hey, your phone is vibrating,” Stephen said, shaking her shoulder.
“Shoot,” she exhaled, reaching for her bag in a hurry. “It might be Brett.”
Her cell stopped vibrating. It wasn’t a missed call but a text message. She pressed her screen and scrunched up her brows, glimpsing down at the photograph of Brett between two women. The tag line read “hot chicks flank tight end.” She didn’t recognize the telephone number and pursed her lips.
Stephen leaned over. “What’s the problem?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, shutting off the screen and lowering her phone.
“Bull. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“More like nonsense. Should have changed my telephone number when I had the chance.” She pushed her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.
“Want one of us to screen your phone calls?” he asked.
She blew out a sigh. “I’m a big girl, and this is my problem. Thanks. I’d better learn how to deal with this stupidity. Time for a restroom break.”
“Me too,” Carolina said. “I’ve downed a gallon of water and need to hit the lady’s room.”
“I’m in.” Gillian pushed back as Stephen stood up, taking hold of his fiancée’s chair. All her brothers were standing as they started to leave the table. Stephen touched Gillian’s face, then bent his head and kissed his fiancée on the lips. Cory looked down at her engagement ring, twisted it back and forth, wishing she could see Brett so freaking soon.
Inside the restroom, Cory washed her hands standing next to Gillian at the sink.
“You sure everything is fine?” Gillian uncapped a tube of lip gloss and ran the wand over her lips as she met Cory’s eyes in the mirror.
“Yeah. Just a lot of work, and I’m tired.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Carolina said, drying her hands. “What the hell was that on your cellphone?”
“Huh?” She knew her sister-in-law might have seen the photograph.
A cloud of color suffused Carolina’s face. “Don’t you huh us, Cory McLemore. If we have to, we’ll let your brothers know someone is making your life impossible. Let me see that message.”
Cory rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing.”
“Hand. It. Over.” Carolina stood with her hands on her hips and Gillian joined her, blocking the bathroom door, brows drawn tight.
“You know all we have to do is tell those men out there, and this is going to start a ruckus," Gillian said.
“Don’t. They have more important things to do than chaperone me in life.”
“I disagree,” Gillian said.
Cory shook her head and dug out her cellphone. She pressed the icon for messages and then handed her phone over to Gillian’s outstretched palm.
“Dammit,” Carolina said.
“What the hell?” Gillian’s gaze locked on to hers. “How many of these messages do you get?”
“Too many.” Cory felt her eyes begin to well and she blinked away the stinging, unwilling to return to the table with a tearstained face and have her brothers start to question what was going on.
“So on top of the sex-crazed mogul, you have to deal with this crap as well?” Gillian asked.
Carolina was about to say something, then swung her gaze back to Gillian. “What did you just say?”
“Cory, tell her. Or let me.” Gillian came toward her with outstretched arms. Cory hugged her, closing her eyes, then stepped back and took a deep breath.
“I’ve just had a super stressful semester.”
Carolina went to the door, locked it, and then came forward with an embrace for Cory. “Start talking.”
After unloading the details, starting with the night she’d mistakenly met Ryder Bennett at the hotel bar, moving to the barrage of flowers and messages he continued to send, and finishing with the text messages she received about Brett, including the occasional photograph of him with other women, Cory felt hollow. As though she’d dumped all the extra weight she’d been carrying around and she could finally breath a bit better.
Carolina listened intently, then spoke after a second of silence. “Okay. First, you need to get your house in order. Set limits with this Bennett dude and seriously, you won’t be happy until you do. Cory, a huge university isn’t known for being in need of funding and I hope doesn’t pimp out its students. Tell your advisor. If she doesn’t know this is going on, she can’t help you.” Carolina stopped and scowled down at the cellphone screen. “And this junk…I think it means you’re going to have to get used to switching your cell number. Maybe that’s what people who are in the limelight do, and you just need to get the 4-1-1 on how other girlfriends or wives deal with this kind of stuff. Do you know anyone you can ask?”
“I met the wife of Colin Jones. She’s really down-to-earth,” Cory said softly.
“Call her and find out what goes on. Promise me.” Carolina said, then hugged her again.
Someone pounded on the door. It wasn’t the first time since they’d begun talking, but this time the person refused to go away. “Sounds like a bathroom emergency,” Cory said. “We’d better exit before somebody calls the Fire Marshal.”
When Carolina opened the door, a woman’s voice filled the bathroom. “Jesus H. Christ! You all had no right to commandeer the bathroom!”
“Sorry. It’s open now.” Carolina winked back at Cory. “You’ve got a couple of minutes, and then we’re bringing reinforcements.”
“Go on,” Cory said, waving them off.
Cory wet a paper towel with cold water and dabbed the skin under her eyes. The door opened and she let her hand drop to the counter.
“Hello,” Ashley said, entering the restroom. “Finished with your little meeting?”
“What do you want?” Cory asked, unwilling to let on that her cousin’s sudden appearance had any effect on her.
Ashley looked around. “This is the ladies’ room, and it was closed for quite a while.”
“You’ve been known to use the men’s room from time to time,” Cory retorted, thinking about how Gillian had taken care of her bullying cousin.
“But not tonight.” Ashley smiled, coming over to the sink.
Ever since Dallas, Gillian had taken the gloves off with Ashley the second she’d attempted the same crap with her. When Ashley tried to be “helpful” by sharing photographs of Stephen with other women, Gillian threatened to kick her ass if she so much as did it twice. It was a side of Gillian that Cory had never seen before. Apparently, all it took was one idiot with a big mouth.
That was her mistake. She should have taken swift action and kicked her cousin’s posterior back in Dallas.
Cory turned toward Ashley and crossed to stand right in front of her. “You’re full of it.”
“Cory, what’s gotten into you?”
“You try anything again, and I swear the cat fight that’ll result will have Vegas laying down bets on how many times I can whup you.”
“This time it’s different.” Ashley swallowed and stepped to the side, eyeing Cory. She removed her purse from her shoulder. “I don’t scare that easy. Not when I’m in the right.”
“In the right? So you admit that all those other times you were, what…just being a witch?”
“Look, I may have gotten my wires crossed,” Ashley said, taking out a folded piece of paper. “Not this time. These aren’t images copied from the Internet. It’s a real photograph. Look at it or not. I don’t care if you throw it away. But you should know what you’re marrying, before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER 30
Cory stared at the photograph and bit her lip to keep from coming undone. This had to be a mistake. Brett wouldn’t do that to her. Really? Then why was she checking up on him by driving all the way from Annona to Dallas without calling?
She confirmed the GPS directions again. Something was off. She didn’t remember taking a turn here on this tiny road. She must not have remembered correctly. She’d only been to Brett’s house once before. No. The GPS definitely said to turn here. She gunned the engine, holding onto the shaking steering wheel as her car jostled over the uneven gravel path, and within a minute, she was facing the back of a barn.
“Figures this is where I’d end up,” she grumbled.
There wasn’t a place for her to drive her car around. Someone had put up a fence that prevented anyone from driving from the back pasture to the front of the barn. Luckily, she was wearing boots and hadn’t opted for stilettos. She took her jacket out and slipped it on while her eyes traced the fast-fading blue sky overlaid with tawny golden clouds edged in pink hues. On any other day, it would be considered a gorgeous sunset painted for lovers. But not today. This was a terrible way to end the day.
Her chest clenched. God, she should get back in her car, return to the main road, and phone Brett—like a sane person—and tell him she’d decided to surprise him. Not creep around his barn on the way to spy on him. That lucid thought lasted one second as she recalled him seated in the back of a car with two women on the way to the game. One woman had her hand on his leg...
Cory curled her fists and walked toward the footpath on the side of the barn. One of Brett’s dogs barked and she held out her hand and whistled. It was the female, Crash. The dog flattened its ears and trotted over to her.
“I hope your owner will be happy to see me,” she whispered.
She stood and continued her jaunt to the front of the barn. She brought her hand up to shield her eyes as the sun cut across the field at that time of day. About twenty yards and she’d be at the back of his house. She spotted his car parked outside the garage.
“Oh jeez,” she breathed out. Not too late to get back to the car and call him like a normal acting person.
He could help her navigate how to get to the driveway at the front of the house where she could unload the groceries she’d bought in defiance of what Ashley had purported. She could always go with her plan of making a surprise Cajun crawfish meal. Brett’s favorite, or the one he talked about eating when he was younger and had traveled to New Orleans with his mother. Trotting forward, she faltered when she heard the lilting pitch of a woman’s voice. Her stomach plummeted. No. This couldn’t really be happening. Her idiot cousin was not right. Brett was injured…
She walked as though in a trance in which her heartbeat battered inside her body. Each beat pounded against her ribs as though any second her heart might thrash its way out of her chest. Up ahead, behind a six-foot privacy fence, lay his patio. She’d admired the free-form rock design of his pool when he brought her here before as an invited guest. His patio remained hidden from view on this side of the wooden fence, and prevented her from capitalizing on her fears. Her shoes felt like each was fashioned from a cinder block as she approached the gate. A couple more inches and she’d be there.
Curling her fingers around the handle on the gate, it moved. Not much, but enough for a small slice of space, and she pressed her forehead to the fence as it became apparent she’d not heard one woman’s voice. At this close range, she distinguished two women’s voices. Laughter, and then incoherent words. She eased open the gate and stood there slack-jawed at the sight of two women in bathing suits and seated in the hot tub. Kissing! Not just a peck on the cheek but full-fledged going to town. They came up for air, then laughed and hugged. The women seemed to settle down and sunk lower within the steaming water so that only the tops of their heads were visible.
Cory didn’t know what to do. Announce herself? Walk forward? If the ground could open up and swallow her, she wished it would. She stopped wondering about her next move when Brett appeared at the patio doors. He hobbled out on crutches. The moment he noticed her, his eyes widened, and then he smiled.
Smiled?
He had to be on something strong to make him think this was humorous. “Brett. Really? Is this funny?”
“Hey, baby! What a wonderful surprise,” he said, and began moving in her direction.
“I don’t believe you! Are you crazy?” she yelled in a strangled voice.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Bolting for the gate, she didn’t hear whatever else he tried to say over the hammering of her heartbeat. She exited the patio and slammed the gate, yet she froze while the scene repeatedly replayed in her head. Those were the women in the photograph. Her chest heaved and her eyes stung.
“Cory, wait a minute!” Brett called, coming closer.
You need to get going! She sped over the paved walking path, tears streaming down her face. After hearing Brett call her name again, she began to run at full speed. Heading toward the barn, tendrils of her hair stuck to her face but she didn’t care. Thoughts of Brett with those women blinded her and had her mind spinning with the photograph that Ashley had dared her to dispute.
Her footsteps came down haphazardly as she ran without paying attention to where she was going. Until the toe of her boot caught on something and she felt the spike of adrenaline hit her bloodstream. Her ankle twisted and she tottered forward, her balance lost. She slammed onto the cold, damp ground with a muted thud.
For a few seconds she laid there, the breath knocked from her body. Dizzying pain weighed upon her. She groaned, fighting the desire to scream and cry and throw something. Anything. She raked her fingers into dirt and grass where she’d come down on her shoulder and hip, and pulled her fingers free. Mud covered her hands that she balled into fists.
She looked around and realized she was on the other side of the barn, hidden from the back of Brett’s house. She stared at the scrape on her knee and the droplets of blood running down her leg. She felt a sort of blind numbness blanket her body, the overriding hurt of her broken heart squashed her senses, except for her racing pulse, throbbing in her temples.
Pushing off the ground, she took a step. Only then did she feel the sharp jab of pain in her leg. Each step toward her car was more painful than the last. Finally, she reached the door and sh
e pulled it open. Once inside, she started the engine and gripped the steering wheel. Then another round of tears came and she bowed her head. Her shoulders shook as she cried over the steering wheel, unable to understand why Brett would be smiling.
She pressed speed dial on her phone. “Tell me I’m crazy. That this makes no sense.”
“Corinth, are you alright?” Stephen asked. “What has got you going? You’re not going to ask me to come and fetch you again?”
“No. I drove myself,” she replied, shaking as she held onto the phone.
She relayed to Stephen the entire series of events, and even backtracked to add in Ashley and the photograph. On several tries, he interrupted her, but she told him to please let her finish.
“Cory McLemore, will you come up for air and stop for a minute?” His voice blasted from the phone.
“You—,” she began, the held the phone off her cheek.
Stephen’s high-pitched whistle pierced her eardrum. “Quit while you’re ahead. You’ve done it again.”
“What? What, exactly, have I done?” she asked.
“You’re going to feel truly stupid.”
Cory stormed, “But—” Her brother cut her off.
“Corinth!” Stephen’s voice rose. “Settle the hell down and listen. Sure, you might have had cause with the photo. I’ll give you that. If I saw Gillian with two men in a photograph and then in a hot tub, I’d be upset. And yeah, that phone fiasco is a bitch. No joke—you two need to work out a system of how to reach each other. I doubt that I’m not telling you anything new.
“See. So how is it that I’m wrong?” she screeched.
“For starters, no one could get a hold of you.” In a blink, her brother lowered his voice, snagging her focus. “Brett’s been calling Dad today. Dad’s been trying to reach you. We all have. Those women are his physical therapists and they’re married. To each other. Newlyweds. They’re not there to shack up with him. But no one could reach you to tell you a darn thing since you keep your cellphone off.”
