by Moriah Jovan
Even though she already had.
Vanessa thought about last night—was it just last night?—with Nash. She found comfort in her easy friendship with Nash, the sex an extension of that friendship, just another gesture, like a hug or a kiss on the cheek. She’d enjoyed what she’d had with Sebastian, what she had with Nash, and she had no need for anything more from either of them.
Eric, on the other hand—
Well, Eric she wanted with an intensity, an urgency, she didn’t understand and had never experienced, but she knew she wanted something entirely different from him:
A relationship.
Especially now, knowing this mythic figure had the same insecurities she did, that he wanted the same thing she did, as she watched him happily chat with a boy who had been the bane of his existence for twelve years.
Didn’t matter anyway. Life had gotten in the way and she just couldn’t see how something like that would work—four hours apart, a history that was less than stellar, two successful careers which would afford them no real opportunity to build on this fragile truce.
She was too old for this.
She sighed and faced reality: It wasn’t possible.
And so she wanted nothing. No taste of what could be when it couldn’t, no one-night stand with a man who meant much more to her than that. Nash and monogamous friendsex would suffice for however long it took him to gather his courage and go home to Melanie and Trixie, which probably wouldn’t be long now that he’d given voice to it.
At the first lull in the males’ conversation, when Vachel turned his attention to his food, Vanessa hesitantly asked, “So . . . what happened to you and your mother after you graduated from high school? You both just disappeared.”
“My mother moved to Oklahoma,” Eric said, “to live with our people, to participate in the tribe’s activities.”
“The Osage.”
Eric nodded.
“Do you talk to her?”
“Oh, sure. Couple times a week. Email. My mom’s really cool.”
“And you?”
He grinned. “I moved to Utah. Knox got me into Brigham Young University. He practically shoved me out of the plane over Provo and told me not to come back until I had a doctorate in something; he didn’t care what.”
“I take it you didn’t convert?”
“Oh, hell no. But he said I needed an attitude adjustment and he didn’t have time to kick my ass constantly. My only redeeming quality back then was that I actually bothered to go to school and do the work, get good grades—and he wanted to help me capitalize on that. So he sent me to the only school in the country guaranteed to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Vanessa looked at him, confused. “I don’t understand.”
Eric grimaced and began to poke at his food. “You know the rumors about me in high school? The partying, the girls, the drugs?”
She cast a quick glance at Vachel, who shrugged.
“Oh, believe me,” Eric said dryly, “he knows all about my history.”
Of course he would. Vanessa relaxed.
“And it’s all true. I couldn’t do any of that at BYU. I mean, I could’ve, but it took a lot of hard work to find out where the parties were if you weren’t an athlete. Plus, Knox made it worth Dirk’s while to be my nanny until I was fully assimilated.”
Vanessa feigned a grimace. “You poor thing.”
“Yeah. Had to cut my hair. Had to give up the cigarettes and drugs because it was just too easy to get caught. Getting liquor there isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially if you’re underage. It was difficult to find girls who’d, ah—”
She blinked because she couldn’t believe it. Was he blushing underneath that tan?
“Put out?” Vachel supplied with a smirk.
Vanessa gaped at the boy, but Eric traded a wry glance with him. “Yeah, that. It took a lot of effort when I managed to find one.” He shrugged. “Or maybe I didn’t know where to look. Anyway, I hated it and I bitched at Knox until he said, ‘Why the hell do you think I sent you there?’”
She gestured toward him and said, “Well, apparently you did actually assimilate, Mr. GQ Attorney.”
“I probably wouldn’t have made it, but two things happened my first semester that kicked my ass better than Knox could’ve.”
“Wait, let me guess. One of them was a girl.”
He laughed and she loved to see him laugh. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I met a really nice girl in my history class that I wanted to ask out. She was willing to be my friend but not date me and that— That was humiliating. I wasn’t used to the word ‘no’ from a girl and I didn’t understand the concept of a guy and a girl being just friends.” He stopped, then chuckled. “Well, I still don’t get that.”
Vanessa had to laugh, because she didn’t either.
“Anyway,” he continued, “Heather and I hung out at the library studying, and we ended up talking a lot. She made me look at what I wanted to do with my life, figure out what I was interested in and what I was good at. I figured out that I really like nice girls, and she made me understand what nice girls look for and want. They want a man with an education and class and refinement. A guy who’s not a dog, only out for one thing.”
“Like you were in high school.”
He looked to Vachel and pointed his fork at him. “Take note.”
Vachel snorted and Eric laughed. “So I decided to roll with it. I wasn’t getting out of it. It wasn’t going to change. I wasn’t going to be able to live the way I’d always lived and she made me think I really didn’t want to. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell Knox Hilliard that I refused to do this anymore.”
Vanessa pursed her lips, able to empathize with that completely.
“So what happened to that girl, Heather?”
“Oh, she went on a mission for the church. I never saw her again. She’s probably long married by now with six kids.”
“Ah. What was the second thing?”
He took a bite of food, and Vanessa waited. “My first political science class. It hit something in me, got me fired up. I hadn’t declared a major before I went; Knox said since I didn’t have much life experience, it was just best to sample a bunch of things and pick what interested me. And . . . political science hit the spot right off the bat. I woke up one day toward the end of the semester and I knew exactly what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and how I wanted to get there. I also knew I’d have to keep my life as squeaky clean as possible to have a chance to get anywhere important.”
Vanessa stared at him. “So . . . being the prosecutor is . . . ”
He nodded. “If I win on Tuesday, it’ll just be the next phase in my career. Just like I mapped it out.”
“What’s after that?”
“Attorney general. Then governor. Then the White House.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened a bit. He was so sure, so definite about it, as if just saying it would make it happen, and she didn’t doubt it would.
“I started blogging with Justice a couple of years ago, and I’ve got a pretty wide audience now—”
She knew that, because she couldn’t keep herself from visiting his blog.
. . . that’s when girls start getting stupid . . .
It hadn’t even taken sex to make Vanessa get stupid over Eric.
“—not too offended by the fact that a Libertarian might run as a Republican, as long as everybody’s clear on my opinions.”
“It’d change the face of the Republican party,” Vanessa murmured, hearing the excitement in his voice and knowing what his career plans meant for her.
“Exactly!” His face lit up in delight that she understood. “Are you—?”
“Libertarian,” she said shortly.
He cocked his head a bit. “You read me?”
“I, uh . . . I . . . don’t get online much,” she hedged. “I don’t have time.”
Fortunately, he took that at face value and continued, every enthusiastic word chipping away at
her. “Right now, while I’m campaigning for the prosecutor’s office, I’m also quietly campaigning for attorney general. The Republican party’s waiting until after this election to see if I’ve got the chops and then . . . we’ll see. If I win Tuesday, I’ll be on my way to Jefferson City.”
She nodded, her heart breaking, knowing without doubt that tonight was the end. “That’s— That’s wonderful. How is your campaigning going?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he replied, his brow furrowing. “My opponent is running on a platform of getting the crooked bastards out and cleaning up Chouteau County. Since I was part of the, ah, ‘conspiracy’ that kept Knox’s corrupt reputation intact, I’m a crooked bastard, too.” He gestured to Vachel, who had crossed his arms over his chest somewhere around the phrase “political science” and fallen asleep, his chin against his chest. “No matter how many times I say, ‘Look at the test results,’ or ‘Hello, blond hair,’ there are some people who aren’t going to believe I’m not his father. There are a lot of people who believe I raped Simone, and your mother— Well, she’s not a lightweight. She can be very persuasive when she wants to be and . . . she’s actively campaigning against me.”
“She’s very smart,” Vanessa whispered, looking down at her plate, sick to her stomach for a whole lot of reasons. “Clever. Manipulative, narcissistic. She can spin a complex lie and remember every detail. I don’t know whether she ends up believing her lies or not, but she can make people believe anything she wants.”
“And considering Knox’s reputation, it’s not a stretch to believe he might have thrown my trial. Then there’s Parley and that’s being called out, too. I worked for Knox, so there are people who believe that somehow I’m mixed up in that cover-up. To top all that off, what I write gets taken out of context and twisted.”
Vanessa pursed her lips. “My mother’s whole crowd knows I’m with you tonight. Is that going to hurt you?”
He shrugged. “Doubt it. They’ve done all the damage they can, I think.”
“What will you do if you lose Tuesday?”
“Go to work for Giselle’s husband while I run for attorney general.” Vanessa nodded. “Get into tort law, where the money is. I’ve never done that, so it’s kind of exciting to think of stretching that way. Whatever happens, I have options.” He gestured to her with his fork. “What about you?”
“Notre Dame,” she murmured. “Bachelor’s in entrepreneurship and then culinary school in New York.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “No, I know all that, thanks to Esquire. I meant Whittaker House. Resort, TV show, what next?”
“Golf course,” she answered slowly, as each word about their separate futures drove a bigger wedge between them. “I’m building a golf course.”
He stilled and looked at her. “You don’t sound too happy about that.”
Vanessa couldn’t help that Chef Granny Whittaker came to the fore to cover her, to hide the tender underbelly of her soul. She smiled brightly. “Oh, it’s not that. I just remembered I have another zoning meeting to go to next week. Those are always a fight, but the upcoming vote should tip things in my favor. I’ve been trying to get this zoned for . . . two years, I think.”
“You mean they didn’t want a golf course? Why?”
She took a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain. Almost everybody likes Whittaker House. It’s pretty, it employs people, it lets people show off their handcrafts and foods. The Conservation Department set up shop on the back corner of my property so they could help me with land management and run some experiments, and give the school kids wildlife demonstrations. Whittaker House brings money—good money—to the area. It takes the edge off the Ozarks hillbilly stereotype, but it still retains its small-town, cozy, homey feel.”
“And a golf course would make it more upscale and suburban.”
“Yes. There are a lot of people who moved to the Ozarks to get away from that. There are a lot of people who never left because they don’t want to be in suburbia. A golf course brings in a different kind of clientele and it’s too . . . ” She pursed her lips while she looked for the right word. “City slicker.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he said, then gestured to Vachel. “He always fall asleep that fast that often? He slept all the way down here and it’s not that far.”
“He has some issues,” Vanessa said quietly, looking at her nephew and thinking about the last year of small, hard-won victories. “Sleeping is one of the big ones.”
“Oh?”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened. That was the last thing she wanted to talk about.
“Okay,” he finally murmured. “But what’s with the kilt?”
She took a deep breath. “I was trying to find a way to draw him out as to his interests, and he let me know, in his roundabout way, that he might like to go to the highland games. I took him and he went completely bonkers for it.”
“And the name? No kid would pick that.”
“The man who sold me the land for Whittaker House is an old veteran. Korea. He was a prisoner of war and understood Vachel immediately.”
“Prisoner of war,” Eric murmured, looking down at the table and playing with his utensils. “PTSD?”
“Yes. Only ol’ Curtis—the veteran— He calls it shell shock. He told Vachel about a man he met in the work camp there, the bravest man Curtis had ever known. He swore to himself if he ever had a son, he’d name the baby after this man. But he never had any sons.”
“The man’s name was Vachel.”
“Yes.”
Eric sighed. “My golf partner, Bryce— He has PTSD.”
“Giselle’s husband.”
“You know Bryce, then?”
“Oh, yes. He likes my food. And he helps out with Vachel. Bryce is very gentle with him, teaches with stories and parables. Logic. Vachel is the same age one of Bryce’s sons would have been if he’d lived. Giselle says it helps Bryce as much as it helps Vachel.”
“What about Knox?”
Vanessa paused. “Knox hasn’t been around enough the last year to be anything but a . . . hammer.”
“That’s what he does best.”
“Well, sometimes it’s the only thing that works. So, between Curtis, the highland games, and Bryce, Vachel got a name and a decent collection of male role models who all expected him to be a man. I couldn’t have wished for more. I think he has one pair of jeans and he wears buckskins to go fishing and hunting.”
Eric started. “He hunts?”
“Almost every day.”
“You go with him?”
“I won’t hunt if I don’t have to. Curtis taught Vachel how—Bryce, too, actually—and goes with him if he’s going out for big game or fowl. Otherwise, he traps and fishes. The conservation rangers let him know what game he can and can’t take on any given day, how much, where they want him to hunt if they need extra help.”
“That’s incredible. If I didn’t know that was Junior, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Well,” Vanessa murmured, “he has a long way to go yet. I think letting him indulge his idiosyncrasies helps him better than trying to fit him in a box. He’s around men who’re strong and honorable, who aren’t weak like my father. He’s around women who are kind and thoughtful. It’s been an eye-opening experience for him.”
Eric nodded.
A waiter came by to clear their table. “A nice grappa, please,” Vanessa murmured. “Three sorbets.”
“Coffee. Black.”
She smiled. “No frou-frou coffees, huh?”
“Absolutely not, and I’d normally ask for tequila, but I’m driving. And speaking of that, what’s with the Prowler?”
She speared him with a look. “What’s with the vintage Corvette?”
“Okay, okay, you got me. If ‘How do you like me now?’ would fit on a vanity plate, I’d get it.”
She smiled. “Mine would say, ‘Took the trailer park out of the girl.’”
Once their drinks arrived, Eric said, “Vanessa,” in
a hesitant tone that made Vanessa’s heart clench. “Is there any possible way we could see each other?”
She looked down at her glass and thought for a moment, then raised her head. “I don’t think so, Eric. I have my life. It’s in Mansfield and it needs me and my expertise. It is me. You— You’re . . . going to be in Jeff City, and then Washington—I have no doubt about that. You’re working hard for it, doing everything right. I . . . I just don’t see how it would work. I don’t want to be friends with benefits, don’t want to try for a long-distance relationship, and I will not be a booty call.”
He nodded slowly and she could feel the disappointment that flowed through him, and Vanessa, well, she wanted to curl up and sob.
She nudged Vachel until he awakened enough to eat the sorbet that had arrived with the digestif and coffee.
“Palate cleanser,” she murmured at Eric’s look. “I’m trying to teach him how to eat well.”
“Oh, what the hell,” Eric murmured and dug into his sorbet.
“Roll it around on your tongue,” she instructed. “Let it melt; don’t just swallow it.” Eric tilted his head to stare at her with a smirk, and she felt the heat in her cheeks.
Too soon they finished and left. Vachel climbed into the back seat, and Eric handed Vanessa in without a word.
Neither of them spoke until they’d gotten through downtown and headed north over the Broadway bridge, Vanessa watching out the window as the scenery swept back, all wrapped up in the bitter and the sweet.
“Vanessa . . . ”
“Eric, please don’t. I— I would have a hard time with a relationship between us,” she said softly, praying Vachel couldn’t hear. “I would never know if, when you look at me, you’re seeing me or—well, any one of the roles I play for the public.”
Pause. “All right,” he sighed.
The rest of the ride was silent, though Eric took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. She looked at him sharply, able to see his face clearly as they passed under a street light.
“Relax.”
She tried, but it was difficult to do so when each caress of his thumb on the back of her hand made her catch her breath. It had never been this intense, so erotic that holding hands could make her ache to be naked with him.
