Mending Fences (16 page)

“I’m sure you did.”

Where did that attitude come from? “Curran, what’s going on?”

He took a step closer to her. “I know who you are now, Victoria. I remember you.”

Sooner rather than later. Oh, God. Later had come.

“You were different then,” Curran said. “Bleached blonde. Glasses. Professional, very quiet. I might not’ve remembered you at all, but Kelli, being the good little sister, kept scrapbooks. Every article, every mention of my name ever written.”

The scrapbooks. She’d talked with Kelli over those books, she’d flipped through one. And another held her article. “I thought about telling you, so many times—”

His voice sharpened. “But you didn’t, did you? Now I’m left wondering if you’d ever have told me at all. I have to believe you wouldn’t have until the new article comes out.”

She had thought of writing a piece about him, hadn’t she? Until he kissed her that first night, after he brought Chinese takeout over.

Curran stepped toward her again, close enough to touch her. He reached a hand up to her face and fear flashed cold through her stomach. She cursed herself for trembling, but old responses died hard.

He paused for a moment, something she couldn’t read flickering in his hard green eyes. Then he brushed the backs of his gloved fingers gently down her cheek. His jaw ticked and she got the distinct impression he was fighting with himself.

“It’s the kiss that doesn’t fit into the equation,” he said, rough emotion in his voice. “Obviously you recognized me when we met over Peg-leg’s fence adventure. But I’d like to think the kiss at the club was pure.”

Yeah, the kiss was pure all right. Pure fantasy. Heat rose in her cheeks and when she dropped her gaze from his, he swore.

He paced away from her then turned back. “None of it was real. You knew me on Halloween, didn’t you?”

He’d apparently seen the truth in her reaction, so she’d better fess up. “Yes. Your voice gave you away.”

“I should have known. It was rather convenient how you ended up house-sitting down the lane from my home. Took a while for you to track me down, but you managed. I owe you a round of applause for your resourcefulness.”

Victoria clenched her fists.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
She concentrated on his words.

“The only other thing I can’t make fit is why you haven’t slept with me. You never explained, you just said no. The nearest I can figure is you had too much pride to stoop quite that low for a story.”

Anger fused into the hurt pressing on her heart as she connected exactly where he was going with all of this. “You think I was just playing you? That going out with you, kissing you, is all about a story?”

“An exclusive story worth a healthy amount of money, I’m sure. Tell me, just how much am I worth in print these days?”

Her anger boiled over, sweeping her pain away. “How can you stand there and accuse me of being some sort of media prostitute?”

“You’re right; prostitute is too harsh considering you refused sex. I’ll settle for unethical tease.”

She shifted her stance, mentally measuring the time it would take to get through the door and lock it behind her if she needed to escape. She should let it go, but he’d scratched her fragile pride and the strength to stand up for herself surged in her veins.

“How dare you! I’ve spent years earning a solid reputation as a writer. You think I’d risk it to write a piece without your consent and cooperation? I can’t believe you think I’d toss my ethics aside that easily. You want the truth, fine. I’ll give you the truth. Yeah, when we ran into each other over Peg, I thought about asking you for an interview. I thought about it for twenty-four hours, until you kissed me again. An article was no longer an option at that point.”

His brow creased and confusion lit his eyes. “Then what were you hiding? Why not just tell me about the Pieron interview?”

She spread her arms wide. “This is why! You never hid your dislike for the press, Curran. If I’d told you that first day when we talked at your house, you’d have kicked me off your property.”

The heat of her anger kept her tears at bay, but the tingle in her face told her they wouldn’t stay away much longer. “I should have told you, but I was afraid of this very reaction. Dating you was something I didn’t want to lose. So I struggled to tell you and couldn’t do it.”

He released a mirthless laugh. “Uh-huh. And Brindle’s. Explain the club to me.”

She tapped her index finger against his chest. “Hey, you approached me on Halloween, remember? Yeah, I recognized you. And you know what? I wanted to kiss you. I was dying to find out what you were really like. I never in a million years expected to run into you again.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “What am I supposed to make of all this?”

Victoria’s anger peaked. “You’ve already drawn your conclusions. You stormed over here armed with what you thought you knew, wanting to play judge, jury and firing squad. So I suggest you take your damned self-centered ego off my porch, Curran. If you can’t recognize something sincere and real, if you can’t see it when it’s right in front of you, then I want you gone. Get out of my life and don’t ever darken my doorstep again.”

Victoria marched into the house and slammed the door behind her. She threw the deadbolt, then held her breath, listening. He cursed and slammed his fist against the door once. Finally, she heard an engine turn over. A moment later, the truck rumbled away down the road.

In the silence that followed, she sank to the floor and wept.

After a while, her brain overrode her emotions.
I’m acting like such a girl.

Grateful not even Sassy was there to witness her meltdown, Victoria pulled herself to her feet and trudged to the bathroom. She splashed her face with water. It didn’t accomplish all that much in the way of soothing her red, puffy eyes, but she felt a little better.

Funny that she reacted so strongly to all of this. She’d known it would end, she’d expected it soon. Heavens, she’d even thought it would end because of that old article. It shouldn’t have surprised her.

She’d apparently given Curran Shaw more of her heart than she thought. Now she’d relearned one of more important lessons of her life. Letting a man into her world led to pain. Well, she wouldn’t be doing that again any time soon, would she?

* * * *

Curran slammed the door of his truck and stormed across the yard to the pasture fence. Peg-leg gave a snort as he approached and lumbered over to meet him, but he wasn’t in any mood to pet the beast.

He pulled the cigarettes he’d picked up at the convenience store out of his pocket and ripped off the plastic wrap.

The barn door slammed open and Rob approached at a dead run. “Uncle Curran, can you saddle Sparkler for me? I wanna ride.”

Curran pulled the cigarette from his lips and tucked it into his pocket, but not in time. Rob skidded to a stop, his eyes widening into saucers. “Oh, man, are you gonna be in trouble!”

“Rob, you don’t need to tell your mother—”

His plea came too late. His nephew was already running across the snow to his house.

Curran swore and returned the cigarette to his lips. Peg snorted at him when he flicked his new lighter. He growled back at the bison. “Shut the hell up, Peg. I’m already going to hear it from Kel, I don’t need it from you, too.”

Peg’s eyes rolled and he let out a long bawl. Curran leaned against the fence, slowly releasing the smoke from his lungs.

How the hell did Victoria do that? How did he go over to confront her and end up being the one who got dumped? She’d jerked control of the situation right through his fingers and turned it around on him.

Peg butted the fence rail and rolled his eyes again. Curran pointed at the bison with his cigarette. “Don’t look at me like that, mate. You weren’t there, you’re not entitled to have an opinion.”

He pushed away from the fence and started pacing along the line. When he’d smoked halfway down his second cigarette, Kelli cleared her throat behind him.

He waited, but she kept her silence. He glared at her over his shoulder. “What?”

“Did you give her a chance to explain?”

“Pardon me? Nothing about falling back into the clutches of my addiction?”

Kelli crossed her arms and nailed him with one of her stern mom stares. “You know how I feel about it, but I can’t exactly punish you. If you want to kill yourself with those things, that’s your business. Just don’t you do it around your nephew.”

She stepped closer to him, her expression softening. “Now then, did you really talk to her, or did you just shove the article in her face and walk away?”

Curran dropped the cigarette butt into the snow. “She admitted she’d considered writing about me again.”

Kelli’s mouth hung open. “She said that?”

“She also claimed she decided against it after I started seeing her.”

“I told you so!”

He glared at her. “Don’t.”

“What else happened?”

He kicked at the snow, sending a flurry in Peg’s direction. The bison snorted and shied away from the fence. “She said I can’t see something real when it’s right in front of my face.”

“Well, can you?”

“Thanks, Kel. Whose side are you on?”

She stepped closer to him and patted his shoulder. “I’m on yours, Curran. But I want to see you happy, and I think you’re going to regret letting her go.”

He turned away and crossed his arms over the top fence rail. “I won’t regret it. It wasn’t honest. It wasn’t real.”

Kelli heaved a sigh. “Okay, if you say so. I won’t bring it up again.”

He listened to her footsteps crunch across the snow, until the sound grew too faint. He stretched out his hand toward Peg-leg and waggled his fingers, offering a scratch. “Come on, Peg. Come over here.”

Peg snorted and walked away.

“Fine, you bastard, be that way.”

She’d kept secrets from him. She’d lied to him. Just like Amanda.

Only getting rid of Amanda didn’t fill a corner of his heart with an intense ache.

Curran tapped another cigarette out of the pack and slid deeper into the only thing he ever allowed to get the best of him.

* * * *

On Friday afternoon, Victoria yanked herself out of a deep, writing-induced haze when she finally processed that the doorbell had rung.

It was probably Mara. Who else would be visiting? That’s all she needed right now, when the only things going right in her life were extra writing jobs lining up: Mara’s preternatural perkiness.

She opened the door to a woman stepping off the porch. “Kelli?”

Curran’s sister looked back over her shoulder, a smile tugging at her lips. “I—I’m sorry, did I disturb you?”

Aware that she looked like she just crawled out of bed, in her T-shirt, flannel pants, and bare feet, Victoria shook her head and leaned against the doorjamb. “I was writing. It took me a while to register the sound of the doorbell.”

“Oh, good.” Kelli grasped the hem of her long purple parka with her fingers, looking every bit as awkward as Victoria felt.

She pushed the door open a bit wider. “Come in. Would you like a cup of tea or something?”

Kelli managed a smile. “I’d love a cuppa, thanks.”

She stepped into the house and Victoria closed the door behind her, then took her coat to hang in the closet. Kelli followed her through the entry and into the kitchen.

Victoria waved Kelli into the great room while she filled a teapot and placed it on a burner. She joined the other woman on the couch.

Kelli said, “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

Victoria set her elbows on her knees, balanced her chin on her fists. “Does it have anything to do with Curran?”

“Only a little, but let’s get it out of the way.” Kelli drew a deep breath. “Curran has convinced himself that everything about your relationship was a sham.”

Victoria grimaced, the constant ache behind her heart intensifying. “Figures.”

Kelli reached out, patted her hand. “I think he’s wrong. I spent enough time with you two to see your feelings for him.”

Victoria looked away, unable to halt the shudder passing through her as the hurt sharpened. “Can we not talk about this?”

“Right, sorry.”

The tension twining between them grew uncomfortable. Finally, Kelli cleared her throat and said, “Look, Victoria, I really came to say I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and…goodness, I feel like a little girl back in primary school. It was so much easier to make friends back then because you could just waltz up to another girl and say, wanna be friends, mate?”

Victoria’s brows rose and her eyes widened at the surprise. Did she interpret that correctly? “You want to be friends, Kelli? Even after this disaster between your brother and me?”

Kelli waved off the question. “Vic, if Curran wants to cause himself strife, so be it, okay? We can agree not to discuss him, if you wish.” She leaned forward and grasped one of Victoria’s hands. “You’re heaps of fun to be around, and I think we discovered at the lodge that we can really talk to each other. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a true girlfriend in so long, I’d forgotten what it was like.”