Material Girl (43 page)

“You'd think,” he said and draped his arms over the railing.

“What if it doesn't get better? Will you go back to New York?”

Dad sighed, adjusted his hat. “I don't know. Your mom has some eastern doctor lined up. They do some mumbo-jumbo deal where they supposedly treat the whole you, and cure the cancer while they're at it. I figure it's worth a shot at this point.”

The sound of dejection in his voice was like acid on Robin's heart. “Don't give up, Dad,” she muttered helplessly.

He squinted up at her on the rail and reached out, covering her hand with his. “I'm not going to give up, Robbie. I'm going to fight this with everything I have. I have too much left to do.” He patted her hand, shifted his gaze back to the riders again. “I just hope you don't make it any harder on me,” he said, his hand slipping away from hers.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I want to talk to you about this guy.”

Her gut contracted; Robin swiped at the moisture beneath her eyes, steeling herself against his assault. How strange,

she thought, that her body seemed to react defensively so naturally. But then, Dad had never been an easy man to deal with. She had been steeling herself against one thing or another for as long as she could remember, and swallowed down a lump now. “What about him?”

“He's not right for you.”

No surprise there. They'd had this conversation a dozen times in her life about a dozen different guys. “Dad… you don't even know him.”

“Oh yes, I do—I know what kind of guy he is. I know what he wants.”

“No, you don't—”

“Robin, don't be an idiot,” he said angrily. 'That man is after your money, sure as I am standing here."

“Don't insult me!” she said, just as angrily, and jumped off the fence. “Christ, do you think I am so stupid I don't know when someone is trying to take advantage of me?”

“In a word? Yes.”

“Oh, t hank s a million, Dad. Nice vote of confidence. Again.”

“For God's sake, Robbie,” he said, his voice a little gentler, “I'm not saying you are stupid. But you have a tendency to think with your heart, not your mind. Anyway, I don't know why you'd be that interested in a guy like him when you have someone like Evan Iverson wanting you.”

“Oh my God!” she cried. “I don't want to be with Evan! He's your choice, not mine! You told me to make my own way, Dad. and that is what I am doing.”

“I told you to take some time to discover what is important in life, to stop and smell the roses. I did not tell you to take up with some broke handyman!”

“Well pardon me. You didn't tell me I had to be with who you chose! For some stupid, asinine reason, I thought that for once in my life, at least this choice would be mine!”

“Oh, stop with the whining!” he said angrily, gripping the rail. "The Lear name is a powerful one. There is an awful lot of money tied up behind that name, and I'll be damned if I am going to see you robbed blind because you

got the hots for some construction worker! Grow up, Robin!"

Furious anger blinded her. No matter how much she tried to care for this man, he seemed to knock her down at every opportunity, and Robin had had enough. He might be a powerful man, but he was a prick. And Jake—well, regardless of who he was or where he came from, Jake would never do that to her. Jake would hold her up on a pedestal, treat her with respect. Maybe that was what she had been searching for. Respect. Acceptance. She suddenly realized that was worth far more to her than her father's money.

Robin squeezed through the railing, started walking toward the Jeep.

“Wait a minute! Where are you going?” Dad demanded.

“Home! I've had enough of your criticism, Dad! I'm not your window dressing anymore! I am not going to be some doll you can pose however you want!”

“Robin Elaine, stop right where you are!” he bellowed.

She stopped. Debated. And slowly turned around. Over Dad's shoulder, she could see the three riders had come to a halt, too, were looking back at her and Dad. “If you walk out of here with that man, you can kiss your inheritance good-bye. I'm not playing around here. You go, and that's final.”

He might as well have kicked her in the gut. Every word snatched her breath like a sucker punch. What had she done? Fallen in love? That was her crime? The very idea, the very thought that she might give up everything the Lear name brought her because she loved… loved (it was love, wasn't it?) was unbelievable. And strangely liberating.

She stared at her father, keenly aware that for the first time in her life, she was going to do what she wanted to do and not try to please him. She smiled. “Okay, Dad, have it your way. You keep it, every last cent. I don't want even a dime. You want me to make my way in this world? Then I'll do it—I'll start at the very bottom if I have to, because there is nothing you can say, no threat you can make to force me to give him up. Buy yourself another ornament.”

With that, she turned on her heel and went striding to the

house to pack her things, almost laughing at the sound of her father calling her back.

Aaron watched them leave from the windows of the master suite, wondering if the nausea he felt this time was from the drugs or from losing his firstborn. Stubborn little fool. Yeah, but she'd come back. She always did. She'd say, I was wrong, Dad, you were right. Stubborn, but able to own up to it when she was wrong. And she was wrong about this, dead wrong.

She'd come back.

He just hoped it wasn't too late.

As the Mercedes rounded the corner up the drive in a cloud of caliche dust, a door slammed behind him.

“You asshole. You never change, do you?” Bonnie seethed.

Aaron winced, turned halfway to look at her. She was standing in the foyer of the master suite, her legs apart, her hands braced against her hips. He could almost see the steam coming out of her ears and fire out of her nose.

“How… dare you?” she barely managed to get out.

“How dare I? How dare I try and help my daughter with my last dying breath?”

“Fuck that, Aaron. I'm not going to stand here and listen to your dying bullshit,” she said and marched forward to the dresser, yanked open the top drawer, and started jerking out various articles of underclothes, tossing them on the bed.

“What are you doing?” he asked, gingerly lowering himself to a chair.

“Leaving.”

A flame of panic raced up his spine. “Y-you can't leave.”

“Like hell I can't.”

“Jesus Christ, Bonnie! Stop it!” he said sternly, but she stared fiercely at him, daring him to try to stop her before she turned on her heel and marched to the closet. Aaron struggled to his feet. “So you're just going to march out of here because Robin doesn't like what I told her?” he asked incredulously.

Bonnie stopped what she was doing, slowly turned to look at him, and he was shocked to see that she was crying, tears streaming down her face. “How dare you judge that man, Aaron? He is kind, he is considerate, he is… is obviously and wildly in love with our daughter! What do you find so objectionable?”

“I don't find anything about him—he's not even worth my consideration. Evan is a much better choice for her—”

"She didn't choose Evan! Why can't you get that through your head?'

“Get real! She doesn't know what she wants!”

“YES, SHE DOES!” Bonnie shouted to the rafters. “She wants Jake! When are you going to learn? She did what you told her, she went her own way, and you still manage to find fault! You can't let go of their lives, why should you expect them to do for themselves? To live for themselves?”

So that was it. Aaron shook his head, sighed heavily. “Bon-bon, he doesn't have the means—”

“What means? Money? Is that the yardstick by which you measure everything? Well, you have money, Aaron, and it hasn't made you a better person!”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“It means,” she said, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks, “that you were that young man once. You didn't have a dime to your name when you asked me to go to Dallas with you. My father despised you for it, remember? But you promised me—” A sob choked her; she looked helplessly at the ceiling. “You promised me what you didn't have in money you would make up in love, tenfold. You promised.”

Aaron sank helplessly onto the massive four-poster bed, staring at Bonnie, rudely reminded of a vow he hadn't thought of in years. But oh God, but he remembered it now, just as clearly as if he had made it yesterday. The two of them, lying on a quilt in the backyard of that little house, looking up at the stars. You see those stars, Bon-bon? I love you all the way to those stars and back. Look up there and see how high we can dream.… “I gave you everything,”

he said, knowing the moment the words escaped his mouth how empty they were.

Bonnie looked at him with an expression so hurtful that he inwardly cringed.

She pulled a bag out of the closet, stuffed several things into it, and as Aaron watched, picked it up and walked to the door.

“Don't go, Bonnie, please! I need you,” he said helplessly.

Bonnie paused, her hand on the doorknob. “I know, Aaron,” she said. “And the sad thing is, I need you, too. I always have. But you haven't changed and… and I tried, I really did. But I just can't do this.”

And she walked out the door, leaving him on the edge of the bed, another wave of nausea filling his throat, mixing with the acrid taste of his tears.

The drive from Comfort to Houston was interminably long and silent. From the back seat of Robin's Mercedes, Cole attempted to talk about the weekend, particularly the horses and Rebecca, but didn't get much response from the front seat where Robin and Jake rode in frosty silence, and finally giving up, popped his Walkman on his head.

The frostiness stemmed from an argument Jake and Robin had over leaving in the first place. Robin had expected Jake to be outraged at her father with her, but instead he surprised her by urging her to stay, to work things out with her dad. “He's a sick man. He's got a lot on his mind.”

“He's sick all right,” she had muttered. She wanted to leave right away, to go home to her empty house and her empty life and just sleep because she was so damn exhausted from a lifetime of trying to please her father.

“He just wants what is best for you, Robin—you can't fault him for that,” Jake continued as Robin angrily stuffed her bag.

“He doesn't know what is best for me!” she snapped. “He doesn't know me at all! I'm just another fixture to him, like a car or a boat—”

She broke off, tears welling in her eyes again. Jake came up behind her, slipped his hand around her stomach and pulled her back into his chest. “He's right, you know. Not about my being after your money, I don't mean that. But he's right that I can't provide for you in the same way he has. At least not yet, and maybe never. He knows it. And you're his daughter. He wants the very best for you. I would, too, if I were in his shoes.”

“God, Jake,” she said, wrenching free of his arm, “you can't seem to get it through your head that I don't need anyone to provide for me!”

“Oh, really? So you are willing to give up all this?” Jake asked, sweeping his arm to the house around him. “You've lived in the lap of luxury for a long time. Do you think you can just turn your back on it? Because that is what you are about to do.”

“Stop,” she said, choking on a sob. “Stop defending him. Stop pretending that money is so goddamned important.”

“Stop pretending that it's not,” he quietly countered.

Robin sniffed, wiped her nose with a used tissue, then methodically finished packing her bag while Jake watched. When she finished, she hoisted it over her shoulder. “Are you coming?” she asked, looking at the door.

They left before the dinner hour with only Rebecca on hand to say good-bye. Dad was who knew where and Mom was furious with her for leaving. Rebecca's expression was grim; she hugged Robin tightly to her, said she would call her later. “He's a pain in the ass, I know, Robbie. But he doesn't mean to hurt you.”

“Huh—that's strange, because he's a goddammed expert at it.”

“Just get some space and think about it,” Rebecca said, then turned a kind smile to Jake. “It was really nice to get to meet you,” she said, and Robin had the distinct impression Rebecca did not think she would ever see him again. She leaned over, waved at Cole in the backseat. 'Take care of yourself, Cole!"

“Say bye to F ranni e for me!” he called, his young mind still on horses.

As they drove away—Jake insisted on driving, which left Robin to stare morosely out the window at the ranch house—Robin half expected, half hoped Dad would come out on the veranda and wave her back.

He did not.

She tried to grapple with the myriad emotions that besieged her as they sped down I-10. Anger, frustration—a hurt so deep that she felt like she was drowning in it. A sharply real, palpable fear that she would never see her father again, that he would die despising her. With her forehead against the cool glass of the window, and Jake's hand comforting on her knee, Robin tried to make sense of it all. Not that there was any hope of that, how could there be? Her father's constant criticism was so unfair—she had never, in a long and prominent line of boyfriends, had a serious, heartfelt relationship with anyone. Never. And now that she did (she did, didn't she?), it was with the wrong man? Jake's life was so far beneath the lofty Lears' as to make him untrustworthy? And why hadn't she ever noticed how harshly her father judged everyone?

Maybe because she did the same thing? Jesus God, was she like him? Robin stole a glance at Jake from the corner of her eye. A startling, sickening thought, that perhaps she was just like her father. Maybe she couldn't separate a man's essence from his circumstance. It wasn't like she had given Jake the benefit of the doubt when she first met him. Had it not been for his good looks, she probably never would have spoken to him. She probably would not have looked at him at all until she wrote him a check, and only then to see if he was scamming her. The rest of the time she probably would have looked right past him, just like Mia looked right past him and Lucy and everyone else she met that did not travel in their elite social circles.