Games We Play (12 page)

“Okay, then,” she said, shaking her head, a mixture of surprise, anger, and hurt running through her body. “Well, thanks. Glad you were satisfied,” she said, making her way to her golf cart. “I hope you get eaten by a bear or a lion or whatever there is lurking in the woods around here,” she said over her shoulder as she slid into the seat of her cart.

She had to turn around to get back to the clubhouse, and she headed straight for him as she came out of her turn. He jumped off the sidewalk to avoid getting run over. She would have found it funny if she weren’t so pissed.

God, it’s dark out here,
was her first thought as she made her way back, fuming.
Asshole
,
jerk
, and various other curse words ran through her mind too. She took another deep calming breath and looked around at the darkness all around her. Thankfully the cart had lights.

She pulled out the keys she’d taken from his gator and smiled wickedly. He’d have to walk back, the jackass, and it would take him a while. She hoped it took him all night. Not likely; he and his in-shape ass would probably run the whole way.

He’d just called her a gold digger
and
a thief. Was that what her aunt thought of her too? And after she’d made such a point of being truthful and up-front. That hurt more than anything LC, Cooper, or whatever his name was had said.
What the hell
, she thought, and she gave serious consideration to throwing the gator’s keys into some tall grass. Lucky for him, she left them on the steps of the clubhouse instead.

She pulled out of the parking lot, heading for her aunt’s home. What a jerk, and all those silly notions and thoughts about how he might be a nice, small-town guy.

Oh, but she’d thought that about LC, the golf-course maintenance man, not Barnabus Lee Cooper, the rich asshole. What was it about men with money that made them feel they could treat people any old which way? Another Houston who thought the world was his oyster and the women in his life should be happy to be there.

“Fuck it up and your ass is out of here,” she said out loud. That should be the warning that came with men like them. She was turning into the opposite of her mom. She wanted nothing to do with rich men; they were a useless bunch.

It wasn’t what he’d expected, but he should have known better, he realized, as he headed back to the gator, which he’d left less than twenty-five minutes ago, parked on hole number twelve. He’d had to leave it behind. Thanks to a little thing like a missing key. He’d hurt Kendall by assuming she was the same as Celeste and the many other women he’d dated. Tonight, it seems, he’d been wrong.

It was pitch black out here. He had one of his golf clubs in one hand, his flashlight in the other. He wasn’t afraid or anything, but a person could never be sure out here; open forest lay past the edges of the course, forest that belonged to the state park, and he had run into a stray something or other out here before.

Kendall had taken the damn key and left it on the steps leading to the trailer, which was nice of her, all things considered, and much nicer than he would have been if their roles had been reversed. No, he didn’t have anything else to do tonight besides walk back and forth between the clubhouse and hole twelve, angry at Kendall for taking his keys, but angrier at himself for his inability to distinguish a good woman from a bad one.

Yes, he’d shocked the professor, and that thought led him to other thoughts of her and what had almost happened between them. He recalled the expression of sincere hurt he’d seen on her face, made more striking by the tears that had started forming in her eyes at the end.

He was going to have to apologize, first thing, and he would. He only hoped that he could do it before Myra found out. Not that he was sorry he’d confronted her. It was his way, direct and to the point, and it was a by-product of his dealings with Celeste and the many who had followed. She was the start, the one most responsible for leading him down this path of distrust. He also knew it had been his decision to remain there.

As Luis had recommended, he should have asked the professor straightaway and not allowed other things like exceptional sex to come before his duty to Myra. He’d gotten sidetracked from the start, by her looks, by her body, and by the challenge she presented with her golfing skills. He’d been thinking about little else at the time, and apparently she’d felt the same way.

He took a deep breath of relief when he spotted the gator. He was finally back to where he’d started, almost an hour later. He put the key into the ignition, and of course it started right up. He was tired. It had been a busy day at the pub, and it would only get busier. Monday, Memorial Day, would probably be the most hectic of all.

He ran his hand through his hair. He was also responsible for getting the beer trailer to the park, the pub’s contribution to Coopersville’s Memorial Day festivities, and now he’d have to fit apologizing to Myra’s niece in there.

Why couldn’t life be simple, with everybody doing what they were supposed to do? Whatever happened to being honest? Straightforward. Whatever happened to loving people for themselves, not the amount of Benjamins they could offer or the color of their skin?

Where had that last bit of thought come from? It was the golf course. Being out here at night always brought back old memories of life with his father and that combined with his new interest in Kendall had him a little twisted. He shook his head, moving his mind away from those dark images and back to the professor. Yeah, he’d have to apologize. Big-time.

L
ater that night, back in the guest room of her aunt’s home, Kendall reached for her cell phone, hitting the button that would connect her to her sister.

“Hi,” Lark said, her voice a balm to Kendall’s bruised senses.

“I don’t think it was a good idea for me to come here after all,” Kendall said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. What was I thinking? Not everyone is Butch.”

“What happened? Is it Aunt Myra? Is she like Vivian after all? You sound really weird. Are you crying?”

“I did something that I never do, and now I know why I never do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Sleep with someone I just met.”

“Dang, Kendall, you haven’t been there but what? A day. Two days. Girl, who?”

“The owner of the Coopersville Brewpub, the one we thought was stealing from Aunt Myra.”

“Dang, Kendall, nothing like going to the source. Well, how was it?” Lark asked.

Kendall laughed. Leave it up to Lark to ask that question.

“It was good, better than good…Hell, I didn’t even know it could be that good.”

“See, told you to leave those professor and business types you think are so smart alone. So what’s the problem?”

“We met tonight, to…you know…again, and he accused me of being in town to steal from Aunt Myra.”

“Does he know her well?”

“Yes. He said that Myra had spoken to her closest friends about me, that she’d asked them to make sure I didn’t take advantage of her.”

“It sounds like Aunt Myra has some really good friends.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yeah, okay, sorry. Want me to come up there and kick his ass for you?”

“No.”

“Okay, so is that what has you so upset? I mean, if you were in his position or Aunt Myra’s, for that matter, you would probably feel the same way. No one has been to see her in what, twenty years? We talked about it ourselves before you left. That’s why we agreed that the best course would be for you to lay all your cards out on the table, right?”

“Yes.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. I did.”

“You think she believed you?”

“I did. But after listening to him tonight, maybe not,” Kendall said.

“Do you think he was lying?”

“No, but why would he say those things to me, about me, if Aunt Myra believes what I said?”

“I don’t know, maybe she hasn’t had a chance to call off her dogs yet.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Kendall said.

“No. That’s now why you called me,” Lark said.

“You’re right.”

“So, what else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“I can tell something else is bothering you.”

“He called me a gold digger,” she said.

“Ah…I see,” Lark said. That was the thing; both of them considered it a fate worse than death to be lumped into the same category as their mother.

“I am not a gold digger.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Sometimes I’d give anything to have a different mother,” she said.

“Never going to happen,” Lark said after being quiet for a few minutes. “If he’s worth anything, he’ll figure that out too. If you want to have some more sex with him, that is. I can’t believe it, my older, bordering-on-dull professor sister had a one-—no, make that
two-
—night stand.”

Kendall laughed. “I’m not dull, and it was only one night. We didn’t get very far tonight,” she said, chuckling now. Leave it to Lark to cheer her up.

“Good, huh?”

“
Amazing
,” Kendall said.

“Well, let’s play mad for a little while and see if he apologizes or tries to make it better. He might have believed you, and since you
are
going to be there for the summer and he is too, and he is
amazing
…” Lark said, mimicking her sister’s earlier use of the word, “…why not go all in? Really put Houston behind you. What do you have to lose?” Lark asked after their laughter simmered down.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You’re not a gold digger, and you’re not in town to steal your aunt’s money, and time will only prove you right,” Lark said.

“I know, and enough about me. How’s Dad?” Kendall asked, changing the subject.

“Great. I love it here, and he’s a really good man.…I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive Vivian for this, for keeping us away from him for so long,” Lark said.

“Give it time,” Kendall said.

“It won’t matter. But guess what?” Lark asked. Maybe a change of subject was in order.

“What?”

“I think Dad is coming around to the idea of expanding what I’ve started to call the family business,” she said.

Kendall sat back against the headboard of the bed, blew out a deep breath, and listened to her sister talk about all things cars. She sat there for a while, ’cause Lark could talk.

Saturday night

Kendall looked over at the clock. It was near eleven. After her call to Lark, she’d spent some time with her aunt before going to bed, listening to the list of things that needed doing for the Memorial Day celebration over at the park on Monday. No way would she bring up LC’s—Barnabus’s—comments. She wasn’t up for any more doubt…and she was sick of explaining herself. She’d had enough. She’d taken to calling him Barnabus. It seemed like an appropriate name for a rich jerk.

She had turned in at around ten thirty, and dozed off and on for the sum total of thirty minutes. She was awake now, and her mind had returned to Barnabus. She was torn between the memory of his hands skimming over her body, making her feel great, wanted, and the predicament that was her mother.

The only way to view her mother in any favorable light was to conclude that Vivian had been born in the wrong era. She would have been better suited to the days of Jane Austen, a time when women of certain means had very few options in life without a man, when hunting for men with money was the norm, and was even looked upon favorably.

She and Lark had somehow managed to escape most of her mother’s machinations. They’d been stuck with the learning how-to-catch-a-man part, but they’d totally avoided putting the learning to use in snagging said man.

Kendall had become a professor instead, which was way too much education for Vivian’s taste. Men don’t like them dumb, but they don’t want them supersmart either.

Kendall had chosen a passive-aggressive approach to living with her mother when she was younger. It helped that she’d spent her summers abroad. She’d stumbled upon that practice the first summer after high school, when the thought of hanging out with her mother for months on end was too much to bear. Her only regret was that she’d had to leave Lark behind. It had ended up working out for them both, though. Kendall had gone the way of academia, while Lark had kept busy and out of sight under the hood of some car.

Kendall felt like an idiot for falling for LC, and so quickly too. Maybe she should just give up on men, throw in the towel on her hopes of marriage and family. She stood up and headed to the kitchen for something to drink—a belt of scotch was what she really wanted. She grabbed her tablet, hoping to read or play one of her games if all else failed. She quietly made her way to the kitchen.

Not wanting to disturb her aunt, she chose a soda from the fridge instead of something warm like coffee or tea. Those were both moving-around-the-kitchen-and-making-noise activities. She made her way out to the back porch with her soda—stealthily, she hoped—and slid her butt into a chair. She opened her tablet and stared at it for a while, not really reading her book.

“Kendall, is that you?” Aunt Myra asked, standing in the doorway in her gown and robe, all pink and shiny satin, covered with light blue roses.

“It is,” she said.

“You couldn’t sleep?”

“No, ma’am. I could not.”

“You want some tea? I make a mean tea when I can’t fall asleep,” her aunt said. She turned around and went back inside, not waiting for Kendall’s response. “Come in and join me,” Myra called from the kitchen a few seconds later. Kendall complied and made her way inside, choosing to stand next to the refrigerator instead of taking a seat at the table. She didn’t really feel up to talking. She watched as her aunt moved about the kitchen.

“Is it that boy, that one you broke up with? Houston, I believe you said his name was. Is he the reason for your mood? I noticed how quiet you were earlier. Is everything alright?” she asked, turning the flame on underneath the teakettle, setting it to high.

“Yes, that’s his name, but no, it’s not him. I’m fine.”

“You are
not
fine. Something is bothering you. Are you having problems with your mother?”