It might be the hardest thing he’d ever attempted. Fear hijacked his lungs, but he squeezed in a deep breath.
He’d make it happen. VJ was worth it.
“You should know better than to cross me,” she said, and that was as close to an admission of guilt as he’d get. Her eyes narrowed. “She’s a nobody. She’ll never fit into our world.”
“Then I’ll put my creative energy into finding a way to fit into hers. Oh, to be clear, we’re through. Finally, completely and forever. Your cab’s here.”
Without another word, he escorted one of the world’s most beautiful and glamorous women out the door and locked it behind her. He had a lot of work to do before he could earn his happily-ever-after.
Somehow, he had to figure out a way to give VJ back the belief in it.
Thirteen
VJ hopped into Bobby Junior’s ancient truck, slammed the door and stared straight ahead at the sun rising along the horizon in an inferno of heartbreaking colors. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Sorry.” Her brother rested a work-roughened hand on the steering wheel. He started the truck and pulled out of Pamela Sue’s driveway to make the long trek to the hospital where Daddy lay recovering. “I don’t mean to.”
She sighed. This was why she’d waited until this morning to ask Bobby Junior to take her to see Daddy. She’d needed a day to collect herself. A girl could only have so many illusions shattered in a week and losing the one where her oldest brother was still a hero might be the straw.
“You’re dying to ask me about it. Go ahead. What do you want to know? How many times Kris and I had sex?”
Fourteen. Counting the times they’d done...other stuff. Get over it. She couldn’t let the memories unwind or she’d blubber like a housewife watching talk shows.
“No!” Reddening, he shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about that.” He signaled to turn onto Little Crooked Creek Road and cleared his throat. “I have three kids. I know how they got here. It’s different when it’s my little sister.”
“So, the lurid details are what you wanted to ask about.”
It took a full five minutes before he responded. “Jamie...she wondered about the tattoo. Did you really get one?”
“You want me to come over tonight and show it to her? Show the kids?”
“VJ.” Bobby Junior frowned, looking a lot like Daddy, and chomped on the ever-present gum he’d traded for chewing tobacco after the birth of his first kid. “You took off with a stranger and ran around all over Dallas, getting photographed and talked about on the news. People are curious. You ask a lot if you expect them not to be.”
The folks in Little Crooked Creek could pass judgment with the best of the internet piranhas. Day before yesterday, VJ stepped off the bus and huddled on a bench to wait for Pamela Sue, only to glimpse Mrs. Pritchett caning across the street to avoid VJ. Two weeks ago, they’d shared a pew in church. VJ had held the hymnal for the eighty-year-old woman since her arthritis flared up in the August heat.
“Well, I’m sorry I caused such a ruckus trying to have a life.” She laced her arms across her chest but it didn’t bandage the hurt. “You can say it. I got what I deserved. I let a guy have the milk without buying the cow and then he left to go back to his real life in Hollywood. Can’t expect to grow an oak tree with okra seeds, right?”
Kris’s business card was burning a hole in her pocket. He’d written his cell-phone number on the back in swirly numerals and left it on the coffee table of their—his—hotel room. No message, no indication of why. He’d probably left it accidentally. With no intention of pulling it out until she could write him a check, she’d tucked it into her bag. As a memento of what happened in real life when she forgot that fairy tales were for books.
“That’s not what I was going to say.” His back stiffened, pulling away from the cracked bench seat. “Daddy was bad after you left. Worse than normal. Went off on a tear, throwing furniture around. Mrs. Johnson called the sheriff when he drove through her flowerbed at midnight. I had to pick him up, still drunk, from the clink.”
Bobby Junior’s quiet condemnation dug into her stomach with claws. She’d walked out on her responsibilities. Lots of people had to deal with parents and life and real hardships. They didn’t leave. “I guess that’s my fault, too, same as the heart attack.”
“Daddy’s heart attack wasn’t your fault. Yeah, he got a shock seeing you on TV and hearing the things people were saying. But the doctor said it was the stress of Mama and a year of hard drinking. I would have told you that if you’d come around instead of hiding out at Pamela Sue’s.”