by Codi Gary
After watching him leave, Ellie hissed, “Holy hell, that man wants you.”
Val snorted as she passed, making her way to the phone up front so she could have Mrs. Wilson pick up her cat. “Really? How could you tell when you were busy pushing your boobs into his arm?”
Ellie squealed behind her. “And you’re jealous.”
“No, I’m not. I just don’t know why you have to throw yourself at every man you see.” Val grabbed the phone and dialed, wishing her sister would take the hint.
“Come on, I was just making a point,” Ellie whispered, hopping up to sit on the table. “That sexy man—who looks like he could give a woman a long, solid night of the hot and heavy kind—wants to give it to you hard.”
“Jesus, Ellie—”
“Hello,” Mrs. Wilson answered the telephone.
“Hi, Mrs. Wilson, it’s Valerie,” Val said, pointing toward the door. Unfazed by her obvious irritation, Ellie started whistling. “I just wanted to call to let you know I couldn’t groom Sweet Pea, so you’ll have to bring him back another day. And please, don’t forget to sedate him.”
Mrs. Wilson started to argue. “Really, Valerie, he’s all of ten pounds. Can’t you just put him in one of those cat bags or something?”
Val, already burning with irritation, snapped, “Mrs. Wilson, your cat, when not sedated, is a biter, and I do not want to go to the hospital because you can’t comply with my policy. Either he comes in sedated or you need to find another groomer.” Taking a calming breath, Val continued in a kinder tone, “It’s for his safety as well. If I get bit and go to the emergency room, I have to report what happened, and Sweet Pea gets a black mark on his record. Too many instances and they might deem him dangerous. We both know he’s not a bad cat; he just doesn’t like being groomed.”
There was a deep sigh. “I just don’t know what to do with the little dickens. It’s true he takes exception to being brushed, but I assumed it was just because I’m the one doing it and he knows how to get around me. I’m sorry he was such a stinker and I promise I’ll be better about remembering his sedative.”
Mrs. Wilson’s apology seemed sincere, but Val hung up the phone betting the argument wasn’t over. Ellie’s whistling had stopped, but she was still grinning at Val like a simpleton.
“You seem tense, sis,” Ellie teased, hopping off the table. “You know what the cure is for that, right?”
“Bite me,” Val snapped.
“Close, but I don’t think it’s me you want doing the biting. Besides, I’m your sister. Perv.”
Ellie walked out of the room and Val wished she had something to throw at her retreating back.
Sometimes, the thought of being an only child had its appeal.
Chapter Six
* * *
JUST AFTER FIVE, Val finally sent home her last client, the Ericksons’ golden retriever, who had rolled in a fresh cow pie and had been in need of a severe hose down. A half an hour of clean up and she was locking up the salon. She grabbed her jacket and walked the short distance to her house, wrapping her scarf over her nose and mouth as the freezing wind hit her in the face. The trek was fast, and she opened the back door of the house, sucking in a deep breath as the warmth surrounded her. A wiggling Gus greeted her.
“Hey, Gus-Man, did you miss me? Huh?”
He barked and stopped to paw her leg, his jaw wide open like he was smiling at her.
“I’m hungry; how about you?” Heading to the kitchen, she grabbed a steam bag of soybeans from the freezer and popped them in the microwave as she shrugged out of her jacket. She’d have a little snack and head to the grocery store. Maybe this time she’d avoid hostile encounters and adorable newborns long enough to grab some more meals. With Ellie in residence, the contents of her fridge were going to deplete faster than normal.
Bending down to grab Gus’s food dish, she prepared his half-and-half mix of dry dog food and canned. The smell wasn’t the most pleasant, but Gus was worth it.
“There she is! My favorite sister.” Ellie glided into the room, and Val gave her a skeptical look.
“What have you done?”
“Moi? Nothing! Why would you think I’d done something?” Ellie asked as she sat down at the kitchen table, crossing her legs and innocently batting her eyelashes at Val.
Val knew without a doubt that her sister had definitely done something.
“Ellie,” she said slowly, putting Gus’s bowl back on the floor and washing her hands, “what did you do?” Ellie tapped her perfectly manicured fingers on the table, grating on Val’s nerves. “Ellie,” she growled, drying her hands on a towel and taking a step toward her.
“I called Daddy.”
Val’s suspicions intensified. “Why?”
“I was just thinking about that matchmaking thing—”
“No,” Val whispered, her hands curling into claws.
“And how we haven’t gone somewhere together in so long—”
“No.”
“And Daddy thought it was a great idea when I suggested we both go—”
“No!” Val leaped toward her sister, but Ellie must have anticipated her move. She ran, with Val chasing after her as Gus barked and snorted behind them.
“I DON’T CARE what you have to do, but you need to take this charge off. My little sister stole my credit card to make this reservation!” Val felt like she was screaming, she was so beyond pissed off. It had taken a half nelson and some very creative threats against Ellie’s designer leather jacket, but she’d managed to get her sister to confess that she had not only conspired with their father but had stolen Val’s credit card to make a nonrefundable hotel reservation.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s nothing I can do. The reservation was made in good faith and this festival is very popular—”
“If it’s so popular, then why the hell isn’t it easier to cancel? People should be lining up around the block to get this reservation.” Val debated reining in her temper and attempting to catch a few flies with honey, but she was just so steamed. Whatever Ellie had been thinking, she was in for a world of hurt.
“Yes, but we’re just one day away from check in and we require seventy-two hours’ notice. It would be unlikely that we could fill your slot.”
“But she just made the reservation today!”
“Actually, ma’am, this reservation has been in place for several weeks. It’s the second reservation she paid for today.”
“Wait, second reservation? Who’s the first reservation for?” Val had a feeling she already knew.
“The first reservation is for Valerie Willis, made with the MasterCard ending in 3214.”
“Was the name on the card Edward Willis?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Val was having some serious thoughts about patricide. He’d made her a reservation weeks before he’d even asked her about it. Was he really that confident she was going to do whatever he asked?
Well, he’d better be prepared to eat his money, because she wasn’t going.
“So, there was only one reservation made today with my Visa,” Val said, shooting her sister a withering look.
“Yes, for an Eleanor Willis.”
Val counted to twelve and still wanted to kill her sister. “Okay, well, how about just canceling that reservation, since it was made today with a stolen credit card?”
“Please hold.”
Val looked toward the doorway where Ellie stood, looking a little rumpled from their wrestling match, and pointed at her. “If I can’t get this thing taken off my card, you’re paying it off, every fucking cent.”
“I was just trying to help you get a little somethin’-somethin’.”
Val took a pillow and hurled it at her sister as the desk clerk came back on the line. “Ma’am, my supervisor said we can reverse the one reservation with a twenty-five percent penalty.”
“But she just . . . You know what? Fine. Cancel that reservation, please.”
Val finished up the phone call and the clerk
offered to mail her a receipt. Writing down the remaining charge, she hung up the phone and handed the piece of paper to Ellie. “This is what you owe me. Since you don’t have access to your trust yet, you can either try your luck with Dad or find a job.”
Ellie looked at the paper and spluttered, “But—”
Val ignored her sister’s protests and grabbed her coat off the hook. There was one more meddling person who needed to understand that there were boundaries one did not cross.
She was done being manipulated.
STANDING ON THE front porch of her childhood home, Val was awash with the memories of good and bad times, although with the mood she was in, the worst ones seemed to be at the forefront of her brain. She burst through the front door and hollered, “Dad!”
Theresa, the family housekeeper of twenty years, came running down the stairs of the refurbished farmhouse and scolded, “Valerie May, keep your voice down. Your father is working and asked not to be disturbed.”
“I don’t care what he’s doing, I want to talk to him. Dad!” Val rushed toward his office, leaving the sound of Theresa’s protests behind her. As she threw the door open, Edward Willis raised his piercing dark eyes, frowning at her.
“Daughter. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Kyle Jenner sat across from her father and gave her one of his slimy smiles. Her father had asked Kyle to join his law firm after college, though she’d always wondered why he hadn’t joined a large firm in the city instead of the small potatoes of Willis and Associates. Kyle was handsome in a metrosexual way, with blond hair gelled to the point of looking fake. His cool, pale blue eyes and Cupid’s-bow mouth should’ve made him look like a sexy cherub, but Val knew better. He was like one of those frogs in the Amazon: beautiful to look at, but when you got too close, he was toxic.
Kyle had been a pig since the minute they’d met, but it wasn’t until her freshman year in college that she’d learned what he was capable of.
“Hello, Valerie,” Kyle said, standing up and smoothing his tie. He held his hand out to her and added, “You’re looking well.”
“Fuck you, Kyle.”
The asshole had the audacity to look amused.
“Valerie, apologize,” her father barked, and Val snorted.
Kyle’s grin spread. “It’s all right, Ed. I should give you two some privacy. We can go over these briefs later.”
Kyle gathered up his papers and briefcase, and when he turned to pass Val, he brushed against her. She reacted instantly, pushing him so hard, he fell back into the bookshelf against the wall and knocked something off, the sound of glass breaking ringing through the otherwise silent room.
Val was disappointed that nothing fell on top of his head.
“That’s enough! What has gotten into you?”
Val ignored her father, her attention on Kyle’s furious face. Straightening up, he left the room without touching her again, and when she faced her father, he snapped, “Why is it every time you run into Kyle, you break something?”
Val looked dispassionately at the bookcase and saw Kyle had knocked one of her father’s frames onto the floor. She picked it up and flipped it over, the broken glass inside distorting her mother’s face in a group shot. Her heart contracted, and she hoped the photo wasn’t scratched.
She handed it to him. “Sorry, but he provokes me.”
“How? He is always polite and respectful—”
“You really don’t see it? He knows I can’t stand the sight of him, and then he rubs up against me like a cat marking its territory.”
“He did nothing of the sort,” her father said, shaking his head. “I just don’t understand why you can’t put your differences aside and—”
“You know why. I’ve told you why. What I don’t understand is how you can believe him over me.”
It was a constant point of contention between the two of them. Where Kyle Jenner was concerned, her father was blind. Even after she’d told him what he’d done to Natalie, her college roommate, her father hadn’t believed it. Val thought it had less to do with actually believing Kyle and more to do with the power and influence Kyle’s father held.
“He was never charged with a crime and I like to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Just because he wasn’t charged doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,” Val argued, pointing at her chest. “I saw him do it.”
“If that were true, we wouldn’t continuously have this conversation, would we?”
But she had seen something; she’d just been too late to do anything about it.
When she’d met Natalie the first day of school, she’d been a beautiful girl from North Dakota who wanted to experience everything college had to offer. Val had liked her, and they’d just started to become friends when they’d bumped into Kyle, who was a junior, on campus.
Val hadn’t liked the way he’d looked at Natalie, but when he’d invited them to a party, Natalie had been determined to go. Val had wanted to stick together, but the minute they got there, Kyle attached himself to Natalie. After a few drinks, Val tried to get Natalie to leave, but she’d wanted to stay.
Val lost track of her and when she went looking for her, she’d come upon a bunch of guys standing outside a door, snapping pictures. When they finally let her through, Kyle had been coming out of the room with his hair mussed. He’d zipped his pants and smirked at her. “She’s all yours.”
The coldness in his voice still haunted her.
Inside, Natalie lay on a bed with her shirt open and her skirt up. When Val had turned on the light, she’d winced but hadn’t moved.
Val had called an ambulance and gone to the hospital with her. After she’d had her stomach pumped of the excess alcohol, they’d done a rape kit exam, and Val had been sure Natalie would press charges, especially when her parents had shown up. But a week later, she’d come back from class to find Natalie packing her bags.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. My parents think it’s for the best,” she’d said as she zipped her suitcase.
“But—”
She’d tried to talk her out of going, but Natalie had left, and Val had been forced to see Kyle’s smug face on campus too often for comfort. She’d assumed that Kyle’s father had paid off Natalie and her parents, and it still irked her that the jerk seemed invincible.
“Are you going to explain why you burst into my office or should I guess?”
Her dad’s sarcastic tone broke through her deep thoughts as he leaned back from his desk, his mouth twisted in amusement.
That small, mocking smile reminded her of why she was there. “You had no right to drag Ellie into your meddling.”
Edward’s expression remained calm and the smile didn’t budge. “I did no such thing. Your sister suggested she go with you to the festival and I agreed,” he said, standing slowly. “Apparently, she’s as worried about you as I am.”
Val snorted. “You aren’t worried about me. You just want me within your spectrum of control again ’cause you think I might be useful. Not fucking happening.”
Edward’s smile melted and he came around the desk until he stood toe-to-toe with her. He wasn’t a big man by any means, but when his temper was on the edge of exploding, he could be intimidating.
The only thing worse than his wrath was when his eyes took on the unholy glint that said he’d outmaneuvered someone. And now, like a switch had been flipped, he relaxed, and that look paralyzed her with apprehension.
“I’ve tried reasoning with you, but since you find doing your father this one simple favor so difficult, let me be clear: if you don’t do this for me, I will cut Eleanor off.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to go ahead, but she couldn’t. Her sister was going to get through this rough patch and figure out what she wanted to do with her life, and that money would give her the leg up she would need. After what Caroline had gone through when she left . . . well, it might have made her stronger and more determined to succeed in the l
ong run, but Val knew the choices she’d made along the way still haunted her.
Despite the ice in his tone, Val scoffed, “You wouldn’t.”
“After the stunts she’s pulled the last few months alone, you bet I would. I had already debated doing so, but since this would kill two birds with one stone, I’d say the ball’s in your court.”
“I can’t believe you would be that cold.”
“Cold? Hell, I’m trying to teach the girl discipline. She acts like she can do what she likes, and damn me for waiting so long to correct her assumption. I lost control of Caroline, and God knows you’ve made your share of mistakes—”
“Like marrying the man you practically shoved down my throat—”
“Cole could have given you everything if you had just—”
“Don’t you dare say it—”
“Enough!” he boomed, and her mouth snapped closed, although she couldn’t stop her body from shaking. The man could push her buttons like no one else.
“I will keep Eleanor’s trust intact as long as you do this. Am I really asking so much? It’s one weekend, Valerie. Can’t the dogs’ and cats’ baths wait a few days?”
One weekend my ass. Taking a calming breath, Val said, “I’ll go if you promise this is the last time. No more good press, no more manipulation.”
“As long as you behave yourself,” Edward said, tapping her cheek. “And come back with some good romantic prospects, will you? If you can actually find a worthy candidate, all the better for my future . . . and yours, of course.”
She jerked her cheek back and glared. “No, Dad. I’ll go to this thing and I’ll mingle and play the dutiful daughter, but that’s it. This is the last favor.”
Her father stroked his chin, as if weighing her seriousness, before holding out his hand. “Agreed.”
Chapter Seven
* * *
“OH, YOU HAVE to go. Please go!”
Justin sat across from Jared in Jensen’s Diner and shook his head as Jared choked with laughter. Who knew the loss of Brad Paisley tickets would be the cause of so much mirth? Or maybe it was the matchmaking weekend that had tickled Jared’s funny bone.
