Stay (Dunham series #2) (23 page)

“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.

It was hard to let go of his hand once they got to
the motel, but she had to. Vachel dragged himself up to their room,
fell on his bed, and immediately began snoring. Then Eric gently
caught her hand again and led her outside.

She had no time to say or do anything before Eric
wrapped his arms around her, his hand in her hair, and kissed
her—deeply, as if his entire future rode on this one kiss. His
mouth opened hers and his tongue invited hers to play.

Nothing had prepared her for the wave of pure
emotion that surged through her. Desire and passion she knew well;
this . . . was a whole different animal, so foreign to her, so . .
. rich and broad and deep.

Vanessa slid her hands around his ribs, under his
suit coat, and splayed her hands out on his back. Her fingers
brushed the metal of a handgun tucked in his waistband and it only
heightened the feeling of foreignness, of . . . addiction, perhaps.
She could taste the lemon on his tongue, smell his expensive
cologne, feel his hard body and harder arousal pressed against her,
hear his ragged breathing. If she opened her eyes, she knew she
would see that magnificently carved face she had carried around in
her memory for more than a year.

Finally the kisses got lighter, sweeter, less
intense.

“The nice, pretty lady at Chouteau Elementary,” he
murmured against her mouth. “That’s who I see. That’s who I want to
get to know.”

Her eyelids fluttered open to see him watching her
as they kissed.

“The woman who took in an abused kid and lets him
hunt and dress in kilts, the woman who slapped her mother because
she deserved it,” he continued, his voice raspy, jagged. “The one
who was nice to a dinosaur of a reporter nobody likes. That’s who I
see, who I want to talk to.” His hand swept down her torso,
shoulder to waist, then back up again and he cupped her
lace-and-silk-covered breast. His thumb stroked her bare skin where
her blouse parted. “Talk, kiss, talk some more, make love. Slow.
Easy. All night.”

Attainable.

Vanessa shivered with wanting, her body prepared for
a full night of love—and she considered it, what he was offering
her. She had gone from a thirteen-year-old girl who just wanted a
peck on the cheek (maybe even the lips) from the badass of Chouteau
County High School to a twenty-eight-year-old woman who wanted so
much more from the Chouteau County prosecutor.

Unattainable.

“I want to,” she finally breathed, ragged, after
many moments of staring into his eyes, feeling one hand making love
to her breast and the other to her buttocks. “You know I do. But I
can’t. Logistics. Timing. Thirteen-year-old boy. It would be
completely irresponsible.”

He swallowed. “I know. You’re right. When do you
leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. I have so much to do . . . I
can’t possibly stay any longer.”

“I want to come see you.”

“Eric—”

He kissed her and she fell into him once again. It
was a long moment before he spoke again. “Vanessa, give me a
chance, please. I know—” He put his finger against her mouth when
she opened it. “I
know
. Different lives. Competing goals.
Opposite career paths. Two hundred and fifty miles. I get that, but
. . . I don’t want to live with ‘what if.’ I want to know if we
wouldn’t make it. I want to know if we could’ve, but decided not to
for whatever reason. I definitely want to know if we can and then
try our best. I want the chance to fall in love with you. Give me
that, Vanessa.
Please
.”

Vanessa nearly wept with longing, and she nodded,
almost too eagerly. “Yes,” she whispered. “I want that, too.”

* * * * *

21: First Rung on the Ladder

Eric stopped at the threshold of his office on
Wednesday morning and took a long, bleary-eyed look at it. He’d
only been in it for fifteen months—

—and it was his for another four years, if he wanted
to stay that long. The election for attorney general was in two
years, and he’d begin his campaign

in earnest this weekend.

“You’re going to be worthless today,” Connelly said
too loudly, making Eric wince. “Where’d you go last night after the
party?”

“Westport,” Eric said, his chest swelling in spite
of his hangover because he’d done
two
jobs well.
“Kelly’s.”

“You should have stayed home today. You look like
shit.”

Oh, no. Not after crushing his opponent at the polls
and then drinking “Ford-slash-King Midas” under the table.

Though normally assiduous about tracking his
investments—especially in this economy—Eric had for weeks used his
campaigning to avoid sitting down with Sebastian to rearrange his
portfolio. He simply couldn’t stomach looking at the man with that
painting in his head and knowing . . .

Last night, though, in the Chouteau City VFW
Hall—with the Jelardes, the Kenards, the Taights, Annie and the new
boyfriend she’d dragged down from Omaha, all the prosecutors and
county employees turned out to wait for election results—Sebastian
had cornered him.

“Eric, you’re bleeding money. We
have
to have
a sit-down to get this straightened out. I need to have your
signatures on some of this shit, because I can’t move it around on
my own like you seem to think I can. If you want me to do that, I
will, but I gotta have your John Hancock.”

The full force of Eric’s jealousy hit him in the
sternum.
Unattainable.
Not only had he not expected it, but
he thought himself above such pettiness. It still took everything
he had not to plow his fist into Ford’s face right then for having
had the temerity to be Vanessa’s first lover and, moreover, paint
her and make their relationship clear to the world—except Eric
could kill a man with one punch, and that wouldn’t look good on
election night. Possibly not any other night, either.

“Yeah, hey, can we do this by email or something?
I’m really busy.”

Sebastian studied him for a long moment, then said
abruptly, “You got a problem with me?”

“No problem. Busy, like I said. It’s good to be busy
right now, right?”

Annie poked her head into the conversation and said,
“Vanessa Whittaker. That’s his problem with you.”

Sebastian’s mouth dropped open.

“Annie . . . ” Eric ground out, glaring at her.

“Eric, zip it,” she snapped. “In case you forgot,
some of those accounts are ones we hold jointly and I need you to
quit jacking around. I didn’t come down here to congratulate you. I
came down here to light a fire under you since you’d rather avoid
Sebastian than stop losing money. I’m not going to tolerate another
percentage point drop, and if that means I have to be the big bad
bitch who lets the cat out of the bag, I’m okay with that.”

Eric thought his head would explode, but Sebastian
sighed, closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said,
“Okay, look. I don’t know what the hell’s going on and I don’t
care. We’ll go have a beer tomorrow, hash this out like men, get
Annie’s money out from under your issues, and then we can all get
on with making bank.”

“My
issues
?”

“Shut up,” Sebastian snapped. “Forget tomorrow.
Tonight. Kelly’s. One o’clock or I’ll come looking for you.”

The impending meeting dimmed any enjoyment Eric
might have gleaned from the election-night festivities, yet he
showed up at the appointed place and time. He saw Sebastian’s black
Ferrari turn into the lot across from the Westport bar, and Eric
followed him in to park thirty feet away.

Other than his flirtation with imprisonment, Eric
didn’t remember ever feeling so out of control or powerless in his
life. It broke his martial discipline: His spirit deserted him,
unable to quell his mounting illogical rage, leaving his body to do
what came instinctively when rational men descended to animals,
fighting over territory.