White Picket Fences

by Tara Taylor Quinn

Still, that was a damn good reason, wasn’t it? He’d lost one woman to Barbara Sharp. Dawn had chosen Barbara over him, and now it seemed Randi was going to do the same thing; just the details were different. With Dawn, it had been Barbara’s bed over his. With Randi, it was Barbara’s money over his. He had no idea how to explain what he was feeling so Randi could understand, but it made a twisted kind of sense to him.

  Right or wrong, it was how he felt. Period.

  Zack reached for Randi’s hand and held it lightly. “I’m asking you, sincerely, to reconsider this,” he said, trying to say with his eyes what he couldn’t seem to get out in words.

  She squeezed his fingers, her own eyes beseeching, and then let him go. “I can’t, Zack.”

  He stood up slowly, pulled on the shorts he’d taken off earlier, then sank down on the end of the bed. “Nothing’s been set in motion yet, has it?” he clarified.

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not that you can’t, but that you won’t.”

  Another brick wall. Just like the one he’d come up against when he’d asked Dawn what he could do to save their marriage. She’d never given him a chance. What was it about this Sharp woman that garnered such loyalty from those around her?

  Zack didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life fighting whatever it was.

  “You’re wrong,” Randi said suddenly, dropping her pillow as she got up and slipped a pair of sweat shorts over her panties.

  She looked so damned sexy he ached. It was an ache that would go unassuaged.

  He swallowed. “In what way?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I have to go to Barbara.”

  There it was again. Running off to Barbara. It was as though she was some sort of witch, casting spells on otherwise sensible women.

  “Not you, too,” he said, the sting of rejection in his voice. He no longer even knew what he was saying—or feeling. Only that life had become so mixed up he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. What mattered and what didn’t. And after seeing Dawn tonight, seeing how peaceful she looked with her companion, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  And there was the crux of his problem. The axis upon which his entire world had spun was completely and permanently skewed.

  NOT YOU, TOO. The words rang in Randi’s mind, but she refused to give ear to them, to allow them to affect her. Using a lifetime’s worth of skill, she pushed them away, as she’d done with every piece of hurtful press, every bit of snide gossip, every jealous remark she’d been dealt in her life. Sliding her feet slowly into a pair of white running shoes, carefully tying the laces, she said, “I have to go to Barbara for professional reasons, Zack, but for private ones, too.”

  His head shot up and then he, too, stood, hands on his hips as he faced her. He was so big, so imposing, so frighteningly important to her.

  But Randi didn’t let anyone intimidate her. She never had. She stood up to challenges and to threats. It was all she knew. The way that had seen her through, kept her on her feet when the storms blew in, and got her standing again whenever she was knocked down.

  After looking at her for long silent minutes, he turned to go.

  “We’re not done yet,” Randi said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  He turned back to her. Didn’t say anything, but he was still there, and that said a lot.

  This was hard for him. She understood that. Understood it so well, she could practically feel the confusion and pain she saw in his eyes.

  “You’re the main reason I have to go to her, Zack,” she said.

  “I am?”

  Randi swallowed. Nodded. Wrapped her arms around her middle, wishing she was wearing more than the translucent white tank top.

  “You’re never going to be any good to either one of us if you don’t learn to have faith in yourself again,” she said, hoping he could hear the depth of her feelings for him behind her words. Feelings she’d only discovered that evening, that scared the hell out of her. Feelings she couldn’t tell him about. Not with things the way they were now. Not until he’d worked through the insecurities that could destroy him.

  “I’ll thank you not to analyze my psyche until you’re qualified to do so,” he said.

  Randi choked back the painful lump in her throat. He was so proud. So strong. So much a man in every good sense of the word—if only he could let down his guard enough to recognize that.

  “Okay, how’s this?” she said. “I need you to have enough faith in me to allow me to go to Barbara and not have it affect us at all.”

  Standing there, one foot in the room, one foot out the door, Zack looked at her, his eyes sad, resigned.

  “I can hardly expect you to understand something I don’t understand myself,” he said.

  “I do understand.” Probably better than he did. Which was part of the problem. He was just too caught up in it all; he couldn’t see clearly.

  “If you understood, you’d take my money just because you’re choosing me over her,” he said. Then he swore. “And that sounds incredibly selfish.”

  She smiled sadly. “It does, but I can’t blame you for feeling this way.”

  “You said that giving Barbara the opportunity to fund a scholarship would help her, that it’s one of the reasons you want to extend the invitation.”

  “Right.”

  “Wanting to help your friend is part of who you are, part of the woman I care about.”

  Was she getting through to him, then? Randi held her breath as he continued.

  “But don’t you see that I need your help, too?” He ran a hand through his hair, obviously frustrated.

  “That, in this instance, you’re the only one who can help me? There are other ways for Barbara to improve her image. There’s no other way for me to know that I come first. Especially where that woman is concerned.”

  Randi’s breath eased painfully out of her lungs. She hadn’t gotten through at all.

  “I’ve known Barbara for most of my life, Zack,” she said dryly. “If I was going to choose her, I’d have done so before now. It’s you I can’t get enough of.”

  He waved her declaration away. “This isn’t about sex, it’s about one person’s influence over another.”

  “No, it isn’t.” She shook her head. “It’s about faith, Zack.” She had to try again, because if she couldn’t explain this, there was nothing left to say.

  “I need to know that you’re secure enough about yourself, and about me, for this not to matter. Because why should it matter? If it’s not going to affect either one of us—and how could a basketball scholarship do that—then why should it make any difference?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, meeting her gaze, his eyes narrowed. “But it does.”

  “Because you still care about Dawn?” It hurt to even say the words. “Because you hate Barbara for taking—and keeping—what you want?”

  She’d suspected for a while that was part of the answer. Had tried to talk to him about it once before.

  “No,” he said. Not too quickly. And without much emotion. Leaving her in no doubt that at least he knew his own mind. “I loved Dawn, would have been happy living the rest of my life with her. But that was before I met you.”

  His eyes narrowed even more as he looked straight at her, hiding nothing. Randi’s heart was pounding.

  “What I felt for Dawn was like a cool steady stream, while the feelings you evoke are more like an ocean raging in a storm.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

  But she was sure that his feelings for Dawn weren’t an issue.

  “So what if you’d met me while you were still married to Dawn?”

  “I would never have known how you’d make me feel.”

  “Can you really say that? We sure as hell didn’t choose to feel any of the things we’re feeling.”

  The conversation was growing odder by the minute. Were they on the verge of breaking up? Or confessing a love neither of them r
eally wanted?

  “When I was married, there was a line I didn’t cross. A man might look once. But if he’s married, or otherwise committed, an honorable man doesn’t look twice.”

  “You’d have stayed away from me,” she translated.

  He nodded.

  “If you’d been married, I could have gotten out of the pet-therapy thing.”

  “Probably.”

  Not that it mattered now. She was just stalling. Afraid to let him walk out that door.

  “Zack, until you have faith in me, in yourself, in us, we don’t have a hope in hell of even getting close to what you and Dawn shared.” She forced herself to say what she knew she had to. “I could give in to you now, prove that you come first, but where would that get us? Only as far as the next time your insecurities reared up. I’ll spend my whole life proving something that isn’t real in the first place if it isn’t taken on faith.”

  He lowered his head. “You’re going to Barbara for the money.”

  Randi couldn’t bear to be so separated from him. She walked over, placed her hands on his chest, taking comfort from the strong beating of his heart. “I’m asking you to let me go,” she whispered. “To know, inside yourself, that it isn’t going to matter to us if I do.” She met and held his gaze, pleading with everything inside her. “I need you to trust me.”

  “And I need to know that you care enough to understand. That being right or winning isn’t what matters as much as putting the other person first.”

  She stepped back. Beaten. “And are you putting me first?” she asked him quietly.

  “What do you call handing over enough money to put a girl through four years at a prestigious college? You win either way, Randi.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t. At the moment, I lose either way. If I take Barbara’s money I lose you, and if I give in to you, I lose us. Until you can see that, there’s nothing more to say.”

  His head reeled back. “You mean it?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She had no choice.

  Zack turned and walked out the door without a backward glance.

  Standing by her living-room window, watching him drive away, Randi was barely aware of the tears streaming down her face. They felt as though they’d been there forever. Or at least for the ten years they’d been waiting to fall.

  Waiting for her to fall.

  She was alone. And aching. And scared to death.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  INSECURITIES, MY ASS. Zack went for a layup, sank the basket and grabbed his own rebound. In spite of the fact that he was supposed to turn the ball over to Ben.

  “What’s with you this morning, man?” Ben asked, running the ball down the court. Drops of sweat ran in rivulets down his face and beneath the neck of his T-shirt.

  It was Sunday afternoon and they were at the elementary/junior high laying rubber on the deserted concrete court. Zack had survived two days without Randi and he was doing just fine.

  He didn’t want another woman who wouldn’t give him a chance.

  Or, at least, he wouldn’t want her—just as soon as he could exercise her from his system. It was happening. It would happen. And then he’d be whole. And free.

  This time he planned to stay that way.

  Stealing the ball from Ben halfway up the court, Zack returned it for a jump shot that would have won him a place in the NBA if he’d been that good when the scouts had looked at him during college.

  “Time out,” Ben gasped, catching up to him. He grabbed the ball from Zack and held it with both hands. “I’m not taking another step on this court until you tell me what the hell is eating you.”

  “Nothing. I couldn’t be better,” Zack said, breathing hard. “Don’t blame me because you’re letting married life make you soft.”

  “You’ve got the devil in your eyes, man,” Ben told him. “I don’t like what’s going on with you.”

  Insecurities, my ass, Zack thought again. He could take on anybody. Anything. He was wiping the floor with a man who was four years younger and probably had more natural talent for basketball than Zack had ever had.

  “You’re imagining things,” Zack insisted.

  Ben shot him the ball with a quick flick of both wrists, landing it expertly, and not lightly, against Zack’s stomach. “Have it your way,” he said. “But until you get things under control, game’s over.”

  Okay, that was fine, too. Zack had a cold bottle of beer waiting for him at home. Along with the rest of the twenty-four he’d loaded in the refrigerator this morning. To replace the twelve-pack he’d made it through yesterday.

  He’d have a beer and bring Sammie over to throw the Frisbee in the field. She’d play with him.

  And she wouldn’t let him down, either. Not ever.

  “You coming to the party at the Montfords the end of the month?” Ben asked when the two men reached their vehicles.

  “I was planning on it. Can’t let Cassie face the town at her former in-laws’ house alone.”

  Getting into his truck, Ben stopped. Frowned. “Cassie? Aren’t you coming with Randi?”

  “No,” Zack said. He and Randi had never even discussed the party.

  Of course, the invitation hadn’t come until yesterday.

  Eyes suddenly filled with understanding, Ben nodded, got in his truck and rolled down the window. “Work it out with her, man,” he said as he drove off.

  Zack watched the truck disappear down the street and turn the corner, cursing his friend. Didn’t Ben know he would already have done that if he could?

  “I’M SO SORRY about the other night….”

  “I’m sorry about the way we ran out the other night….”

  Barbara and Randi both spoke at once as they approached each other from opposite ends of the food court in Fashion Square Mall in Scottsdale, where they’d decided to meet for lunch. The place was an old favorite. As teenagers, they used to slip away to the upscale mall whenever things got overwhelming, for a few hours of just being normal kids. They’d walk around, look at all the girls coming and going in the latest fashions, giggling, wearing way too much makeup, flirting with the boys they professed to hate. She and Barbara would talk about how glad they were to be spared all that foolishness. And they’d eat greasy, bad-for-them steak sandwiches, usually splitting an order of fries.

  Without any discussion, they walked to the steak-sandwich place, getting in line. Only three people ahead of them. But then, it was a Tuesday afternoon. Not the mall’s busiest day.

  Barbara, dressed in golf shorts and a polo shirt bearing the emblem of one of her sponsors, smiled as a fan hurried toward her. She signed an autograph and then slipped in between Randi and the pillar next to her, blocking herself from further approaches.

  “Sorry,” Randi said, “I guess coming here for old times’ sake wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Barbara said. “I wanted to come here, too. But I was surprised you could get away in the middle of the day.”

  “It’s spring break,” Randi said. “I’m on vacation.”

  A vacation she’d been hoping to spend with Zack. That hadn’t happened, but at least her white picket fence had been put up the day before.

  It was going to start making her feel better very soon.

  “I really am sorry about the other night,” Barbara said, looking sideways at Randi.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” Randi told her. “It was good enough for Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” she said. “Or Candid Camera. Hell—” she went on with her nonsense because anything else would hurt too much “—we could write a script for daytime television.”

  With one searching glance, Barbara swore. “He was a jerk about it. The man’s a jerk. I just knew it. He hurt you.”

  “No!” Randi said, though she wasn’t sure how many of Barbara’s accusations she was protesting.

  “He’s not a jerk, Barbara. He’s a good man. One of the best. Caring and honorable. Sexy as hell—not tha
t you’d care about that,” she added with a grin, keeping things manageable as always.

  Barbara didn’t share her humor. “Dawn cried off and on all weekend.”

  So had Randi. But nobody was going to know that.

  “He’s just confused, Barbara,” Randi said, moving up in line as the person in front of them stepped up to the register. “And he has a right to be. It’s not every day a man walks into his bedroom to find out his wife’s a lesbian.”

  Barbara was silent, although the stiff lines of her face showed her tension. She hadn’t escaped from any of this unscathed, as Zack seemed to believe.

  “Dawn still regrets the way she told him, just dropping it in his lap out of the blue like that.”

  “I think that’s part of what’s making it so difficult for him to move on,” Randi said, feeling guilty for doing just what Zack had said she would—and just what he hadn’t wanted her to do: talk to his ex-wife’s lover about him. “If only he’d had some time to feel they’d tried, a chance to understand, to be a part of the decision. It’s so hard when something happens and you can claim absolutely no control.”

  Barbara nodded. “Like your accident,” she said softly, her eyes sympathetic.

  Well, yeah. Maybe. Randi hadn’t really thought about it.

  It was time to order. Randi focused on the issue at hand. Steak with no onions on white bread. And her own order of fries.

  “All I know,” Barbara said as they found a table and sat down with their trays, “is that Dawn won’t be happy until they get this resolved. She misses Zack. He was her best friend for a lot of years. And like you, she says he’s the greatest guy she’s ever met.”

  If Randi hadn’t seen the love—the need—in Dawn’s eyes as she’d looked to Barbara for strength the other night, she might have been jealous. As it was, she felt a strange sort of kinship with Zack’s ex-wife. They both knew what a treasure he was. And were both mourning the loss of him in their lives.

  “He recently told me that she packed up all his stuff, put it in storage for him.”

  “Did he also tell you he hasn’t touched a stitch of it?”

  “Yes. He said it’s been there almost a year. That she cleared out the house all by herself.”