Addicted to Love Read online

  “Hey, you’ll get no argument from me. I’m anti-romance. Always have been, always will be.”

  “I used to think you were coldhearted when it came to male-female relationships,” Rachael said. “But I see now you were right and everyone else is off their rocker.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Men suck.”

  Behind her, Brody cleared his throat.

  Well, too darn bad if he got his feelings hurt. Men did suck. They pursued you like gangbusters, promising you the moon and the stars and happily-ever-after. Promises they had absolutely no intention of keeping once you succumbed to their pursuit and gave them your heart. Cruel bastards. Every last one of them.

  “Listen, Jilly, I desperately need your help.”

  “Anything; you know that.”

  “I need you to come bail me out of the Jeff Davis County Jail.”

  “What?” Jillian sounded stunned. “You? You’re in jail?”

  “I got arrested.”

  “What for?”

  “Vandalizing gigantic lips.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ll see what I’m talking about when you get here.”

  “Get where? Where is Jeff Davis County?”

  “Valentine.”

  “Your hometown?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is that, exactly?”

  “This is the part that makes the favor really huge. Valentine is seriously in the middle of nowhere. Over four hundred miles from Houston. It’s the only town in Jeff Davis County. We don’t have a real airport, just a private airstrip. You’ll have to drive. I’m being arraigned at ten in the morning.”

  Her friend hesitated but only for a fraction of a second. “I’ll have to rearrange my schedule, but I’ll be there. It sounds like you could use a good lawyer.” Jillian was an ace Houston prosecutor. She’d rip the mayor’s case to shreds and have Rachael out of there in no time.

  “Thank you so much; you have no idea how much I appreciate this. I know what an imposition it —”

  “Hush. What are friends for?”

  “You’re the best,” she whispered.

  “Now, are you sure you don’t want me to let your parents at least know you’re okay?”

  Rachael paused, guilt warring with anger. “You can tell them you heard from me and that I’m all right, but please, Jilly, whatever you do, don’t tell them I’m in Valentine. Don’t tell them I got arrested. I need time to think this all through and figure out what I’m going to do next.”

  “I can respect that.”

  “Thank you,” Rachael whispered.

  “I’ll be there in time for your court appearance,” Jillian replied, then said good-bye and hung up.

  Rachael cradled the telephone receiver then turned in the swivel chair to meet Brody’s eyes. He was watching her the way a cat would watch a caged bird. Did they teach those unnerving looks in sheriff school? Or was this something he’d picked up on his own? A dubious gift from Baghdad, perhaps?

  His gaze drilled into hers and a radiant wave of energy zapped from him to her. Fanciful, she told herself, struggling to deny the heat simmering inside her. She’d had these feelings before, mistaken them for something more than sexual attraction. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She would admit it. She was sexually attracted to him.

  Big deal. That’s all it was. Hormones. Chemistry. It meant absolutely nothing. She was not going to start imagining the cute little cottage and the white picket fence and two kids in the yard.

  She’d be much better served to imagine them naked, rolling around in his bed, having hot, sweaty sex. After that, she’d visualize herself getting up, getting dressed, and walking away without a backward glance.

  WHILE RACHAEL WAS cooling her heels in the Jeff Davis County Jail, Selina Henderson paced her hotel room at the Houston Four Seasons, trying for the fiftieth time to contact her daughter’s cell phone. But just as it had the other forty-nine times, the call went to voice mail. Instead of issuing yet another plea for Rachael to call her back, Selina hung up and threw the phone across the room.

  “Dammit all,” she screamed and knotted her fingernails into her palms.

  Anger had replaced guilt and concern. She was mad. Furious, in fact. Yes, Rachael had been hurt. She understood that. But this refusal to answer her phone or call her mother back was bordering on childishness.

  However, the real object of Selina’s fury wasn’t her erstwhile daughter, but rather her soon-to-be ex-husband. She gritted her teeth. How could Michael have let it slip that they were getting divorced not ten minutes before that ridiculous Trace Hoolihan ran out on his wedding to Rachael?

  She and Michael had driven to Houston together, agreeing not to tell Rachael about their split until she’d returned from her honeymoon. Agreeing for this one day to put up a united front. Selina had been so disgusted with Michael for going back on their agreement that she hadn’t even been able to talk to him about their daughter.

  So here she was on the verge of ending a twenty-seven-year marriage. All alone in a hotel room in a big city where she knew no one, and she had absolutely no idea where her daughter might have gone after being dumped at the altar on her wedding day.

  Love, romance, marriage. Bah — fucking — humbug.

  She flung herself across the bed she hadn’t slept in. She’d been awake all night, thinking, planning, worrying, regretting, hating, loving, and hurting. The urge to cry was there, but honestly, she was cried out. Exhaustion permeated her bones. She was tired of fighting. Tired of pretending. Tired of trying to convince herself there was such a thing as happily-ever-after.

  It was a myth.

  Selina stared up at the ceiling textured with arty swirls. Forty-five years old, almost single and starting all over again. How had this happened? Once upon a time she’d loved Michael with an emotion so strong and fierce and true it scared her. Where had that foolish, lovesick girl gone?

  It was a rhetorical question. She knew the answer.

  The first tiny piece of doubt had taken root on her own wedding day when she’d discovered that her new husband had spent the night before their wedding with another woman. Her flaw had been that she’d loved him so much she’d chosen to believe his story that nothing had happened. That he’d gone out with his high school sweetheart, Vivian Cole, for old time’s sake and nothing more.

  God, she’d been such an idiot.

  Selina closed her eyes. The swirly ceiling patterns were making her dizzy. Purposefully, she pushed away thoughts of Michael and the failure of her marriage. Her time had come and gone. This was about Rachael. What was she going to do about her daughter?

  She wished she could hold Rachael in her arms and tell her not to grieve too hard over losing Trace. Tell her she’d been lucky to dodge a bullet. But she knew none of that would comfort her. As much as she might want to protect her daughter, she knew this was ultimately something she had to work out for herself.

  And that thought left Selina feeling lonelier than ever.

  Her stomach grumbled and she realized she hadn’t eaten anything since the morning before. Food might be the last thing on her mind, but the hunger pains were annoying.

  She reached for the telephone to call room service, but simply didn’t have the energy to punch the button. Slumping back against the pillow, she pondered her next move.

  Where did she go from here?

  She’d been born and raised in Valentine. She was a small-town girl with roots that stretched across the Texas-Mexico border. She was simple, earthy. She’d liked gardening and raising her babies and cooking hearty comfort foods and taking care of Michael.

  Scratch that last part.

  Michael was no longer her concern.

  And her kids were grown. No one to cook for anymore.

  A sudden, frightening realization took hold of Selina. She didn’t know who she was, now that she was no longer the mother of young children or the wife of one of Valentine’s most prom
inent and wealthiest citizens. She had no purpose.

  It was a horrifying feeling, this sense of uselessness.

  A tiny terrified part of her whispered, Go back to Michael, tell him you made a mistake. Tell him you forgive him for Vivian.

  But that would be so easy to do. She’d been tamping it down, denying her feelings, denying the truth of twenty-seven years. She simply couldn’t do it any longer.

  So these were her choices? Continue to live a lie or fade away into old age all alone?

  No!

  Another part of her, a stronger part of her, the part of her she’d hidden away the day she married Michael, protested. Enough was enough. She would find a way out of this. She was only forty-five. There was still time left to decide who she was going to be for the rest of her life.

  She was on the verge of something monumental. She could feel it. The only thing holding her back right now was Rachael. Once she knew where her daughter was, that she was safe and going to be okay, then Selina could let go.

  Until then, her daughter was her main concern.

  After that, all bets were off.

  The thought made her feel better. Deal with Rachael first, pick up the pieces of my life second. It sounded like a plan. Selina liked plans.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Startled, Selina sat up in bed. “Who is it?” she called out.

  “Room Service.”

  “I didn’t order room service.”

  “This is room 321.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t order room service.”

  “Someone ordered it for you.”

  Oh bother, Selina thought and got out of bed. She padded to the door and looked out through the peephole at the young man in a Four Seasons uniform, holding something clutched behind his back. She put the chain on and opened the door. “What is it? What are you holding behind your back?”

  “These, ma’am.” The young man revealed a slender vase filled with three pink roses in full bloom.

  Immediately, she knew who they were from. She didn’t want to take them, but the kid was already thrusting them at her.

  From the time they were married, whenever Michael sent her flowers — which had been surprisingly often — he sent three pink roses in full bloom, never buds. Pink, he said, for the purity of her soul. Three because it was his lucky number and she was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him. Full bloom to show how full his heart was with love for her.

  She used to find the gesture exceedingly romantic. Now, in light of everything that had happened between them, she found it hopelessly corny and manipulative.

  Even so, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from taking the chain off the door and reaching for the flowers. The young man scooted away and Selina took the roses inside her room. She shut the door, set the roses on the table, and perched on a chair beside them.

  She stared at the roses. The cloying scent filled her nostrils and caused her head to ache. She thought about her husband and how she’d suppressed her fears, doubts, and emotions. Recalled how foolish she’d been over the years. Remembered all the dumb things she had taught her daughters about love and romance.

  Then slowly, petal by petal, Selina disassembled the roses and ate them.

  Chapter Three

  From the CD player, the Rolling Stones were telling Michael Henderson that he couldn’t always get what he wanted as he drove the Porsche he’d purchased that morning down the lonely stretch of highway leading west toward Valentine. Michael certainly didn’t need Mick Jagger’s advice on that score. Not only had he not gotten what he thought he wanted, he’d screwed up the thing he needed most.

  His marriage.

  He’d lost Selina for good.

  After Vivian had shown up at Rachael’s wedding yesterday, he was certain he had no chance of winning his wife back. Selina hadn’t acknowledged the roses he’d sent to her hotel room that morning. But he really hadn’t expected her to. Over the years, the romantic gestures he’d doled out had impressed her less and less. It seemed there was nothing he could do to convince his wife he loved her. Had always loved her. In spite of the fact he could be a stupid ass sometimes.

  So why are you going home? Why not stay in Houston and fight for her? whispered a voice at the back of his mind.

  “Because sometimes a man just gets tired of being discounted and disregarded,” Michael muttered. No matter how hard he tried to make up for the past, it never seemed to be enough for Selina.

  After twenty-seven years of marriage, was he finally done trying to please her?

  The thought caused his heart to skip a couple of beats. No, he wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. He just needed a break. Needed some time to think, to adopt a whole new life strategy.

  Just as his daughter did.

  He knew Rachael was okay. She was just pissed off at him and her mother and hurt over Trace Hoolihan’s betrayal. He understood. She needed her space. Selina, on the other hand, didn’t get it.

  Overall, Michael wasn’t a worrier, and while Rachael wasn’t particularly sensible, she was a good girl. Other than her numerous failed love relationships, she’d never given him and Selina a moment’s worry.

  Michael tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and pressed harder on the accelerator. When had he first begun losing his wife?

  After Rachael was born he’d noticed a change. From wife to mother, he’d told himself. It was inevitable. Hadn’t his own father warned him that’s what happened to a marriage? Kids took over.

  He’d tried his damnedest to keep the romance going. Flowers sent simply because he loved her. Jewelry slipped unexpectedly into the pocket of her housecoat. He’d arranged impromptu getaways just for the two of them. Nannies hired, housekeepers retained, all to cut down on her workload so they’d have more time together. He’d given her an unlimited expense account, encouraged her to pamper herself with spa dates and nights out with her friends. But no matter how hard he tried, she hadn’t seemed to appreciate a bit of it. In fact, the more he gave her, the more distant she became.

  He’d thought things would improve when the girls went off to college, when the nest was empty and they had the house to themselves. He imagined them golfing together, taking a trip around the world, maybe even building a getaway cottage on the Gulf of Mexico. But that wasn’t the way it turned out.

  She hated golfing, didn’t want to travel, and she was afraid of hurricanes. No matter what he suggested, she nixed it. Gradually, he ended up hanging out with his friends and she hung out with hers, until it seemed there wasn’t any point in staying married. Except he still loved her desperately.

  Truth was he’d been lonely. Starved for attention from his wife and hungry for her company. Was it any wonder that he’d answered flirtatious Vivian’s e-mail in kind the fateful day it appeared in his in-box?

  From the corner of his eye he caught a flash of red in his rearview mirror. A low-slung crimson Jaguar came out of nowhere, zipping into the passing lane.

  In this part of the country it was rare enough to see an expensive foreign-made sports car. Most of the vehicles on the road to Valentine were farm trucks or pickups, with an occasional SUV, minivan, or compact car thrown into the mix. There was Giada Vito’s green Fiat, but this powerful machine was no Fiat.

  Jeff Davis County was not a particularly wealthy part of Texas, although once upon a time, in his granddaddy’s day, there’d been a cache of oil hidden in the ground. But those days were long gone. There were only a handful of people in town who could afford an expensive sports car, and thanks to his granddaddy’s planning, foresight, and wise investing, and the fact that they’d found plenty of Texas crude beneath the Hendersons’ peanut farm, Michael was one of them.

  The Jaguar pulled alongside the Porsche.

  His masculine competitive streak had Michael speeding up for no good reason other than that he liked the singing strum of adrenaline racing through his veins.

  The Jaguar sped up, too.

  He peere
d into the driver’s-side mirror, trying to see the face of his challenger, but the windows were tinted so darkly he couldn’t even make out if the driver was young or old, male or female.

  It’s probably some other middle-aged fart going through a life crisis.

  The Jag blew past him and eased back into the lane in front of him, jauntily tooting its horn in the process.

  “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be.” He jammed his right foot all the way to the floor.

  The Porsche, happy to be given the gas, leaped forward so fast Michael’s head thumped back against the headrest.

  The race was on.

  His heart pumped faster than it had pumped in years. His pulse throbbed in his throat. In his ears. In his groin. His gaze was glued to the Jag’s taillights as he slipped into the passing lane.

  “Upstart,” he yelled, shooting past the Jag.

  On the radio, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” had reached a crescendo. The guitars were wailing and Mick was singing and Michael was driving like he’d never driven before.

  He felt utterly, completely alive.

  And the Valentine city limits lay just ahead.

  His hometown. The place where he’d been born, grown up, married the love of his life, raised two daughters. The place where he would most likely die.

  The bleakness of that thought hit him all at once and he suddenly felt like the oldest fool on the planet. What the hell was he doing drag-racing a stranger on the highway? Someone could get hurt. Killed.

  He let off the accelerator.

  The Jag passed him again.

  Michael let it go, his attention snagged by the welcome to valentine, texas, romance capital of the usa sign. The sign that had been erected back in the 1950s after the oil had dried up and the town was desperate for revenue. Turning Valentine into a tourist destination had seemed foolhardy to many at the time, but it had been the brainchild of Kelvin Wentworth II and his scheme had unexpectedly saved the town.

  But what socked Michael in the gut was the sight of those bright scarlet lips — they had dominated the Valentine landscape for his entire life — gone all dark and gothic black.