One Night in Weaver... Page 17

  “I certainly wish I could.” Vivian smiled suddenly. “Ah, look. Seth found us a table.”

  Naturally. It seemed he could accomplish anything he set his mind to.

  He took Vivian’s arm again and escorted her slowly toward the table that the hostess had miraculously produced. Judging by the wide-eyed expression on the girl’s face as she looked at Seth, it wasn’t hard to guess there’d been no need for any financial incentive. All he’d needed to do was smile.

  He helped Vivian with her chair and leaned over. “You’re getting your way right now, Vivian.” His Texas drawl seemed more pronounced than ever. “But after we’re done, you are going to see a doctor. No arguments. Got that?”

  Vivian sent Hayley an arch look. “Of course, dear,” she said. “Anything you say.”

  * * *

  The hospital, ignoring her slew of imperious protests, admitted Vivian.

  “Tests.” She spit out the word like a curse as she sat in her hospital bed wearing a blue dotted gown that swamped her narrow shoulders. “I had plenty of tests with my own doctors.”

  “Yet you mentioned none of them to me,” Hayley pointed out. “For six...no, seven months now, not one word.”

  “There was no point. My doctors in Pittsburgh couldn’t do anything about this tumor growing inside my head. If they can’t, nobody can. Now go on.” She waved her hands at Hayley and Seth. “Take her home, Seth. I don’t need the two of you hovering over me looking like you’re afraid I’ll die if you blink.” She closed her eyes, resting her head back against the pillows propped behind her. “I detest hovering.”

  “We’ll come back in the morning,” Seth said, seeming to miss the quick glance Hayley couldn’t help giving him. “Don’t give the doctors here too hard a time, hmm?”

  Vivian pressed her lips together. “We’ll see.” She opened her eyes. “And don’t tell Montrose I’m here. The man will have a hissy fit.”

  Despite everything, Hayley couldn’t help but smile a little over hearing the word “hissy” come out of her grandmother’s mouth. “He’ll be worried when you don’t come back tonight.”

  “Tell him I’m out finding husband number five. He’ll believe that.” She closed her eyes again. “Go.”

  “She’ll be fine,” the middle-aged nurse who’d been standing nearby assured them. “We’ll look after your grandmother.”

  “Thanks.”

  Seth nudged Hayley into the corridor outside Vivian’s private room and wrapped his arms around her.

  Hayley held on to him. “All this time she’s been sick and I didn’t know. How could I not know?”

  “The important thing is that you know now.” He kissed her forehead. “Come on. I’ve had drill sergeants who were less intimidating than Vivian.”

  “I doubt you’re afraid of anything.” She let him turn her toward the exit.

  “I’m not real thrilled about snakes.”

  She raised her eyebrows, smiling a little. “My brother Arch had a pet snake when we were kids.”

  Seth grimaced. “No accounting for taste.”

  “We didn’t have dogs or cats because Meredith’s allergic to them.”

  “That does explain your skill with a dog leash,” he said dryly. “But a snake was the solution?” He shook his head.

  “For Archer it was.” She waved as they passed a nurse she knew, coming on for her night shift. “I had fish. The Trips had a turtle.”

  “And Rosalind?”

  “She had a dog. She didn’t live with us full-time. She just came once a month for the weekend. The rest of the time she was with her dad, Malcolm, in Cheyenne.” They left the antiseptic brightness of the hospital building for the dark Weaver night. “You didn’t have a chance to bring back your truck from Braden.”

  “Guess I’ll have to make do with driving your granny’s hunk o’ junk.” He smiled. “For tonight, anyway. Wanna make out in the back? The headliner has lights in it that look like stars.”

  “I noticed.” She chewed the inside of her cheek. Weaver had plenty of stars in the sky. The real kind.

  “Not the response I was looking for, Doc.” He settled his hand on the small of her back as they crossed the parking lot toward the vehicle that looked like a gleaming jewel sitting among a field of pickup trucks.

  “She wants to leave it all to me,” Hayley admitted abruptly. “All of it. She even changed her will.”

  His hand slid away from her back. “I see.”

  “I don’t want any of it.” She gestured at the extravagant car in front of them. “Not even a car with a starry-lit back seat.”

  “Then don’t take it.”

  Hayley threw out her arm toward the hospital. “You’ve seen what she’s like. She’s going to get her way somehow. According to my father, money ruled her life and ruined theirs. She lost her Arthur. Now I find out she has a brain tumor. Considering all that, it’s perfectly understandable that she’d want to mend her relationship with her sons. But that doesn’t change the years that came before.” She shook her head. “I don’t want that burden. Not any of it.”

  “You wouldn’t let money change you, Doc.”

  “How do you know?” she challenged. “How can any of us know what—” she waved her hand at the vehicle “—that does to a person? That car’s worth more than most people make in a year. In two years. Three. And she acquired it at the snap of her fingers.”

  “Because I know you. You’re already smart. Already beautiful. You were out of my league from the get-go and money’s not—”

  Her head reared back. “What do you mean out of your league?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The point—”

  “It does matter.”

  He frowned slightly. “You really want to get into this now?”

  “Get into?” She felt something yawning open inside her. “I think we are already there.”

  His shoulders rose and fell and his hands went to his hips. “You’re Dr. Hayley Templeton,” he said evenly. “I can’t even claim to be a security guard. Don’t know if I even want the job Tristan says I still do have. You’ve got a Ph-freaking-D and I’m a former army grunt who didn’t even stick it out to retirement. I’ve got only what the army taught me. From the start, you’ve been so far out of my league, we’re not even playing in the same universe.”

  She breathed carefully, but it was no use. The words just flooded out of her. “I can’t believe we’re back to that. After everything that’s happened, we’re back to that. I don’t care if you’re a security guard! Or if you’re an intelligence analyst or the next Double-Oh-Seven! And no amount of money is going to change that.” Realization swept over her. “Oh. Right. I’m not the one with a problem about what you do. You’re the one with a problem about me. Better yet, with a problem about you.”

  He didn’t deny it. Didn’t do anything but stand there, watching her with his inscrutable eyes.

  “I just keep reading more into things than I should with you. I wanted to believe everything that’s happened meant something...more.” She’d wanted to believe the way he’d touched her meant something more.

  “It did mean something.”

  “Finishing the mission where Jason was concerned?” Aching inside, she stared into his face. “Were you really hoping he’d give you a reason to shoot him? To picture your father’s partner’s face in place of Jason’s when you pulled the trigger?” She knew the words were unforgiveable even as she said them. Which just proved that she had more of Vivian in her than she thought.

  “Hayley—”

  “Don’t.” It was too much on top of too much. Vivian. Jason. Knowing she was in love while he’d just been doing his job. “I should have paid more attention to your words early on. ‘We both wanted to get laid.’”

  His jaw looked tight. “You know it�
��s more than that.”

  “Do I? I’m in love with you, Seth.” Saying the words shouldn’t have hurt so much. “I. Love. You. Not what you do. Not how much education you had or didn’t have or how many zeroes are on your paycheck. You.”

  She gestured at the car. “You should drive it while you can.” Her voice felt raw. “You could even be Grandmother’s chauffeur. It might suit your misguided perception about yourself better than any other career ever could.” She turned on her heel and started walking.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.” She didn’t look back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Here.” A wrinkled hand with diamonds on nearly every finger appeared in Seth’s side vision and set a long-neck bottle of beer in front of him. “You look like you’re in need of another.”

  Seth looked from the two empties in front of him to Vivian. “Last time I saw you, you were in a hospital bed complaining about having tests.” And followed on the heels of that, Hayley had washed her hands of him.

  A week later and he was still feeling run through.

  “And the results were what I said they would be. So it was a complete waste of time.”

  She didn’t ask if he minded company.

  Which he did.

  She just commandeered the barstool next to him.

  “This is an atrocious place.” She plucked a bar napkin from the basket in front of them and unfolded it on the scarred bar top before placing her handbag on it.

  “Yup.” She’d given him a cold beer, so he twisted off the cap and pitched it onto the floor where it could mingle with dozens of others just like it. “Don’t think I’d be real welcome at Colbys these days.” Casey was back at work after his honeymoon. He’d been showing unusual tact, all things considered. Seth doubted his wife, Hayley’s best friend and Colbys’ owner, would be so forgiving.

  “Hmm.” Vivian pushed an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts off to the side. “Aren’t there no-smoking laws?”

  “Does it look like they care?” He gave a pointed look around the dive bar. Jojo’s was located as far out on the edge of Weaver as it was possible to get. “What are you doing here, Vivian? How’d you find me?” He gave her a sharp look. “Is Hayley okay?”

  “Yes to the last. Money to the second. And if you don’t know the answer to the first, maybe you’re not smart enough for my granddaughter after all.”

  “Nice way with the sweet talk.”

  “Oh, you want sweet talk.” Vivian looked amused. “Men never change. The older I get the more I realize that.” She thumped her hand twice on the bar to get the bartender’s attention. “You there. I’ll have a Tom Collins.”

  The bartender grunted. “Told you already, lady. We got beer, whiskey and gin. Mixin’ ’em together in a glass is as fancy as it gets.”

  Vivian sent Seth a look. “I should open a proper club. Montrose needs a challenge.”

  “You’d go out of business in a week. Especially with Montrose.”

  “You’ve never even met him.”

  “Didn’t need to. Hayley told me enough.” Just saying her name felt like poking at a broken bone with a sharp stick.

  “Whiskey,” she told the bartender. “Neat.”

  She waited until the heavy-bearded man slid the glass across the bar to her. “Save me from the Wild West,” she muttered and plucked another napkin from the basket. She worked it around the rim of the glass before taking a sip and grimacing. “My father liked whiskey.” She lifted the glass again and tossed back the rest. Then she shuddered once and set the glass down, waving her finger over it.

  Looking grumpy, the bartender retrieved the glass and prepared her another.

  “Should you be drinking like that?”

  “Because I have a tumor squatting in my head?”

  Seth almost caught himself smiling. “Yes.”

  “Seems like as good a time as any to me.” She wiped the rim of the fresh drink but didn’t down it in one fell swoop this time. “It hasn’t gotten worse,” she explained. “It’s the same miserable, itty-bitty size that it was a year ago in Pittsburgh. If I’m lucky enough to join dear Arthur tomorrow, it’s only going to be if I walk in front of a bus. Thank you for asking.”

  He gave her a look that she ignored.

  “Hayley’s miserable.”

  “I’m not discussing her with you, Vivian.”

  “We’re not having a discussion. I’m informing you that she is miserable. Not that she says anything, of course. But I can see it in her eyes. I thought you were a smart man, Seth.”

  “Smart enough not to repeat my pop’s mistakes.” He started to tap out a cigarette from the pack beside him but stopped. Smoking in front of a woman her age, with a brain tumor no less, was disgusting. He never should have started back up. He’d had the habit kicked once he’d left the service, only indulging on rare occasions.

  Like that first night with Hayley, when she’d had to delicately snore off her cosmopolitans in his bed.

  He shoved the smoke back into the pack and lifted the beer again.

  “He chose a woman out of his reach, too,” he said.

  “Oh, yes. Roberta Tierney,” Vivian mused, lifting her glass to study the contents in the light and ignoring the narrow-eyed look he suddenly gave her. “Of Tierney Textiles before they were taken over years ago by Forco.” She swirled the contents of her glass a few times. “Did you know that Jake Forrest, who used to run Forco, lives right here in Weaver?” She shook her head. “Voluntarily goes from running one of the largest textile firms in the country, raising and running thoroughbreds as a hobby, to living out here. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand what the appeal is here.” She laughed lightly and patted his arm. “Of course, we know I’ll never live to be a hundred.”

  “Vivian.”

  She stopped patting. Her fingertips stabbed into his arm and she gave him a steely look. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out everything I could about you before giving my seal of approval?”

  “I’ll give you points for fast work, but I don’t give a flip about your approval,” he said flatly. “Stay out of my business.”

  “Hayley is my business,” she retorted.

  “Is that the tack you took with her father? No wonder he’s your biggest fan.”

  “I do like you,” Vivian murmured. Her pointed fingernails retreated and she patted his arm again. “You’re not afraid to speak your mind. And I like that. Reminds me of dear Arthur.”

  “Was that his first name? Dear?”

  The wrinkles around her eyes deepened and she let out a laugh that sounded a little rusty. “My dear Arthur had a sense of humor, too. I had four husbands,” she mused. “I loved two of them. The first. And the last.”

  “I’m sure you’re enjoying your trip down memory lane, but I’m a little busy here.”

  “Of course you are, dear. Drinking and smoking are fine pursuits.”

  He exhaled and gave her another look that she blithely ignored. “How did you find out about the Tierneys?”

  “Money, my dear.” She sipped the whiskey. “I have a very good attorney, to whom I pay very good money, who is very good at such matters. It wasn’t difficult. You had a birth certificate, after all, with all of the lines duly completed. Made things quite easy for Stewart this time, actually.” She slid Seth a look. “You must not know anything about Hayley if you’re comparing my granddaughter to the woman who abandoned you.”

  “I’m not comparing Hayley to anyone.”

  “Then you’re comparing yourself to your father.” She sipped again. “That was a sad business. The way he died.”

  “Should I suspect that Hayley told you about it, or is that courtesy of more of your money?”

  “Hayley has told me nothing. She’
d be furious if she knew I was here.”

  He stared ahead at the dusty wood paneling on the wall on the other side of the bar. “So why are you here?”

  “Because I want her to be happy,” Vivian said simply. “I haven’t accomplished anything that I came to Weaver to do. Neither Carter nor David are speaking to me. Nothing new there, of course. They’ve had years of practice. As for trying to make amends for my other sins—” She broke off and shook her head. “I want her to be happy,” she said again.

  “That makes two of us.” He sucked on the beer even though he’d lost the taste for it.

  “Then what are you doing alone in this dreadful place?”

  He set the beer bottle down carefully. “What do I have to offer her?”

  “What is it that you think you need to offer her?”

  “The world. Which is a little outta the budget on my salary.” He found himself pulling out another cigarette and muttered an oath. He squeezed the pack, breaking the cigarettes inside, and pitched it into the overflowing trash can on the other side of the bar.

  “Take some advice from an old woman,” Vivian said. “Don’t try giving someone the world. It never works out.” She polished off the rest of her drink. “The only thing that works is giving them your heart. And that doesn’t cost a dime.” Her voice was tart, but he saw the softness in her brown eyes as she lifted her handbag off the bar to extract some cash. “I learned that from dear Arthur. He was a public school teacher. And he was the love of my life.”

  She dropped the money on the bar and stood, but as soon as she took a step, she seemed to stumble a little and he caught her shoulders. “You’re not going to faint, are you?”

  “Just too many peanut shells thrown on the floor,” she said.

  There were plenty of shells, it was true. They crunched under Seth’s boots with every step he took, but he still kept hold of her arm, walking her outside the stale building. The Phantom was parked in the dirt parking lot. “You shouldn’t be driving.”