Chapter 23 #2
He sure as hell hoped so because he needed that money. Payoffs and disappearances took stacks of cash.
“I’m sorry about that scene with Raylene and the others today,” she said.
“They love you and want to see you happy.” And the dark place inside him wanted to hunt down the man who would eventually make her that way and have a conversation with him. He would either beat the shit out of the guy or beg him to care for this woman the way she deserved.
But another thought had been burrowing in his brain since he’d made the decision to leave Prophecy. “What happens if one person gets prophecy boots but the other person, the soul mate, doesn’t for some reason?”
She raised her head, the pleasure of their lovemaking still soft in her eyes. “Are you saying you finally believe what we’ve been telling you?”
“I’m still letting it marinate.”
“Well, if one person puts on the boots and the other doesn’t, it’s what I guess you’d call unrequited. A one-sided relationship that’s not even really a relationship.”
“So that’s it? No chance for the first person to move on?”
“Oh, she can physically move on. There would be nothing keeping her from dating, maybe even marrying someone else. But it would never be true love.”
That was only a problem if Alex believed that the day Whit Maddox had drawn his daughter’s boots he’d also designed a pair for a complete a son-of-a-bitch, one who would leave her.
That was so farfetched, he couldn’t even believe he was thinking about it.
“I need to talk with you about something else.”
Her eyes narrowed and lost their softness. “Why am I getting a bad feeling about what you’re about to say?”
“Look,” he said, trying to scoot away a few inches to give them both some psychological distance, “I know I told you I’d stick around, be Wild Card’s resident artist, but I…I can’t.”
She pushed up, both palms flat on his chest, pinning him to the bed. “What do you mean you can’t? There isn’t any such thing. There’s only you choose not to.”
He forced his arms to remain at his body instead of wrapping around her, pulling her close, pulling her toward his heart, the way he wanted to. “Then I choose not to,” he said, deliberately using a flat tone.
“Is this what you do?” She shoved away, scrambled to the side of the bed to fish around on the floor for her clothes.
“You make promises and then just walk away from them? Have you ever realized how much you hurt people when you remove yourself from their lives without asking how they feel about it?”
He clenched his hands rather than touch her bare back. No way would she appreciate his hands on her right now.
She swung around, her face tight. “This is about Nicolás, isn’t it?”
“The details aren’t important.” God knew he didn’t want to share any more about his kid brother’s problems or what he planned to do about it.
He wanted her as far away from this shit as he could possibly get her.
Hell, he’d ship her off to Antarctica if he thought she’d go for it.
But her being in Prophecy and in the dark about what was happening would have to be good enough. “But it means I can’t stay.”
“What about the contract? If you win the competition, that’s a given. Hell—” she yanked on her clothes, “—that’s been a given from the start. You know and I know that I jerked you around with that whole competition thing. Delaney wants you.”
“What about you?” Jesus, what was he doing? Just making this whole thing worse. “Do you want me?”
And God help him, Alex had forgotten just how much meanness a Texas woman could pull over her like a fine fur coat.
But the look on Greer’s face was a jackslap of a reminder.
“Fuck you, Alex Villanueva.” She enunciated each word precisely, as though he might not understand her otherwise.
“I don’t mind a little uncomplicated sex now and again.
But that’s not what this has been between you and me.
Don’t tell me you thought it was, because that’s crap, and I don’t play emotional head games. ”
Which implied he did. “Greer, I—”
“Do you remember what just happened right here—” she flung a hand out toward the rumpled sheets, “—over the past hour?”
He wouldn’t forget tonight when he was ninety and couldn’t remember his own name.
“I told you I loved you.” She shoved her feet into her boots with a violence that pained him.
“Now, whether or not you wanted to hear it—or believe it—is another story. And before you say it was just some girlie orgasm-induced emotional outburst, let me go ahead and call bullshit. I don’t say things I don’t mean.
Even if I’m stupid and shortsighted enough to have those feelings for a man who doesn’t deserve them, much less accept them. ”
She looked at him, still naked without even a sheet to protect him from her scathing perusal, and her expression closed up. But her eyes couldn’t lie about her feelings—she’d flashed from pissed to heartsick.
She walked through the door and closed it calmly behind her, and Alex’s whole body shook with the need to yank the damn thing open and chase her down the stairs.
But a clean break was always the best break.
So he reached for his phone and dialed a San Antonio number he never thought he’d call again.
Eyes half-blinded by the pain in her heart, Greer stumbled down the stairs outside Alex’s apartment.
She cast a glance at her car, but something compelled her into the trees instead.
Hopefully her stomping footfalls would ward off any animals that might think she was a midnight snack waiting to happen.
When she emerged from the woods separating the barn from her dad’s small log cabin, she stopped, couldn’t take another step. Almost as if the house had some kind of barrier bubble around it.
But the bubble was around her. And it was filled with grief.
She forced herself to take steps across the yard. It hadn’t been easy to go inside when she’d chosen some furniture for Alex’s apartment, but she’d been able to keep her mind on the goal instead of the memories. Now she unlocked the front door and let the emptiness roll over her.
Daddy, I need you. I just want to curl up in your lap and have you tell me everything will turn out just fine. Either “This ain’t nothin’ for a stepper” or “Girl, I don’t care if it harelips the queen. You dust yourself off and get on your horse. You hear me?” will do fine.
Inside, she flipped on the hall light and made her way to the back bedroom, the one where her dad had spent too much time battling his arthritis and gout.
She and Cal had cleaned out most of his clothes months ago, but something important was still in his closet.
There, in the corner, were two pair of cowboy boots, and just looking at them made Greer’s chest ache.
How was it fair that her parents’ prophecy boots should outlive them?
Pieces of footwear made of leather and thread and wood.
Not people made of skin and bone and…
Greer slumped to the closet floor. Neither the boots nor the people were about actual construction. They were both about what they held inside them.
Life and fate and love.
She’d always assumed her parents’ boots fated them as soul mates, but she’d never actually tried to read them as she’d done with other peoples’, including Delaney’s and Cal’s. With gentle hands, she picked up one boot from each pair and cradled them in her lap.
Her dad’s boots were made of a brown leather worn butter-soft over the years, and her mother’s were a gentle yellow.
Closing her eyes, Greer smoothed her hands over the shafts, letting the textures of inlay and stitching soothe her.
She didn’t have to see them to know what they looked like.
The brown boots featured a West-Texas-type scene with prickly pear cactus, red rocky outcroppings, and even a rattlesnake ready to strike.
As a little girl, she’d been fascinated with that snake, which had tickled her dad to no end.
Said it meant she’d grow up to be a tough ol’ heifer.
She smiled at the memory. Only someone from Texas would take that as the compliment it was.
The yellow ones felt even softer under her fingers.
Interesting, since they hadn’t been worn since her mom died.
Then again, her dad would’ve never allowed them to age from lack of care.
Their shafts were a peaceful flock of cardinals, bluebirds, and doves, while the vamps were a bumpy contrast of ostrich hide.
Greer willed her heart rate—erratic since she left Alex’s—to steady and simply breathed, allowing the leather to speak to her through her fingertips.
A smile lifted her lips. Even if she hadn’t known her own parents, these boots would’ve told her they were a classic case of opposites attracting—a calm, nurturing woman and a driven, hard-headed man.
The sheer emotional bond between them rippled Greer’s skin and softened her own anxiety.
They reminded her that destiny wouldn’t be rushed, would only be revealed on its own schedule. Her being hurt and angry over Alex cutting her out had no bearing on the future. If they were soul mates, they would find their way back to each other.