Slap Shot(16)

I pushed my plate away. “No, not at all, it just sort of happened.”

“How?”

I stared at the waterfall. There was no way I was going to give him the full story. The fact that I’d grown up with losers for parents and happily adopted the status of a runaway at sixteen was not something I was proud of. Neither were the years I’d spent working in a seedy downtown gentlemen’s club, earning a living dancing and spending my wages partying. I was wild during that time, I was out of control. Until one day I’d walked away and never looked back. Thank goodness I had. If I hadn’t, well, it didn’t bear thinking about where I might be now.

“I came into some money,” I said. “Not loads, but it was enough to allow me six months off to try out a new venture.” I looked back at him, trying to banish memories of spinning around the poles and having money poked into my underwear.

“And so you decided event planning was the way to go?”

“Why not? The clients paid up front and there was no initial outlay except for a couple of ads, time and calls. I’m well organized and I know what people need to have a good time.”

His black brows rose and his lips parted as if he were about to speak.

“I know what makes a great event,” I said sternly.

He chuckled and his head bobbed slightly.

“It roller-coastered, word of mouth spread and before I knew it I was getting bookings while I was actually at an event.”

“Wow, that’s impressive.”

“It kept me busy. I’d only been at it three months when I leased my offices on Tremblant Street and hired Maddie.”

“And you haven’t looked back since.”

“No.” I definitely hadn’t looked back to that awful morning when I’d woken with a man sleeping next to me whose name I couldn’t recall and whose face I didn’t recognize. That in itself was bad enough, and thank goodness I’d tested clean at the STD clinic, but the fifty thousand dollars, the stash of white powder and the loaded gun on the bedside table had completely freaked me out. Five minutes later, staggering out of the stinking room, the sweat of a drug dealer slick on my body and my intimate parts sore and swollen, I’d decided there had to be change. I could not live my life that way another day. There had to be more out there for Dana Wilcox.

“So how did you come into the money? Lotto win?”

“I told you. I’m not a gambling lady.” I smiled and was rewarded with a return grin that showed off his dimples. “I was down on my luck and, as if fate had been saving herself for me, an elderly uncle who lived up in Calgary went and left me eighty thousand dollars. Turned out he’d met me once when I was about three and always held a soft spot. Poor old devil, I can’t remember him. He was on my mother’s side and she’d had a fallout with her family years ago.”

“Eighty thousand, a good amount to start fresh.”

“Well it’s not like the money you’ve made or anything, but it paid the deposit on the house, got me a car, and like I say, meant I could live while I tried out Best Laid Plans.”

“Cheers,” he said, raising his glass to mine. “Here’s to Best Laid Plans, a wonderful and successful venture.”

“And here is to old Uncle Toby,” I said. “And the fact he had a soft spot for the naughty three-year-old who once jumped all over his couch and drank his pop.”

Rick took a sip of his drink. “You want to go jump in my pool?”

“We’ve just eaten.”

“You finished half an hour ago and I don’t mean anything strenuous, a paddle and a sit in the spa.”

I glanced at the water. It was dark now and the spotlights beneath the large fronds of the plants made them glow magically. The water frothed white at the base of the waterfall and in the large round spa. The pale blue pool shimmered and sparkled and above the almost invisible mesh a large, cream moon hung in a velvet sky.

“I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“There’s some in there.” Rick nodded at a wooden door set against the main house.

“What, you keep a stash of swimsuits for unprepared women you invite over?”

His brow pulled low and his eyes narrowed. “No, not at all, I ordered them from a local store and they arrived this afternoon. For you.”

My heart did a stupid little flip. “You didn’t.”

“Why would I lie?”

“But, but you don’t know my size.”

He held up his hands, made an hourglass shape and grinned. “Let’s just say it’s a gift. Size four, yeah?”

What could I say, he was right. “Okay, a quick dip, but only if one of the swimsuits fits.”