Page 67 of No Kind of Hero
“I thought Blake was going to be more involved with the group,” Michelle said. “Blake Orbison,” she told Hunter. “At the Resort, of course. At first he seemed so enthusiastic. He made averygenerous donation. It’s been a real disappointment that he hasn’t come to the last two events. Yes, he still contributes, but sometimes the best present is your presence, as they say.”
“Maybe he was busy,” Melody said, and Evan didn’t miss the smile she hid daintily behind her napkin, or the way she accidentally brushed Hunter’ hand with her own.
“You interest me strangely,” Hunter said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Orbison yet, and I sure would like to. That’s one of the reasons I’m in Wild Horse, if I’m going to put it on the table, but the guy runs around more than I do. If I could get on the same page with him, that’d make my investment decision a whole lot easier. Golf, now. Golf would be good.” He asked the older men, “Do either of you ever go out with him? That’s a sweet course he’s built, and if we could play a casual eighteen holes, I’ll bet I’d know a whole lot more at the end of it. I’m sure I’d lose, but I’m prepared to give it up for the cause.”
“Blake has his own social life,” Melody said. “For now, anyway.”
“He can be hard to track down where you might expect him to be,” Candy agreed. “Making your money in sports must be so different from making it in business. You tend to run in different circles right from the beginning. That’s certainly what we’ve seen with Blake. But then—a locker room is a democratic place, socioeconomically speaking.”
Gracie, who’d been making some warning noises, picked this moment to start fussing, and Evan was just as glad to pick her up.
Women could be poison. Why the hell didn’t they just come out and say it? If you duked it out in the parking lot, at least you’d know who’d won, and the wounds would heal quicker, too. He focused on thinking that, because thinking anything else wasn’t going to help him right now. And he still wasn’t even sure helikedOrbison. He bounced Gracie on his knee, started on his salad, and breathed.
Beth hadn’t been eating for quite a while. She hadn’t been talking, either, but she did now. “What Melody and Candy are referring to,” she told Hunter, “is that Blake’s living with Dakota Savage. He spends most of his time with her and her stepfather Russell when he’s here, and Dakota and Russell don’t belong to the Friends of the Lake. But as it happens,” she went on, ignoring what Evan was pretty sure was a kick on her ankle from her mother, “you’re lucky tonight after all, because Evan is Dakota’s partner in their painting business. Her stepfather Russell is the ‘M’ in that ‘M&O.’”
“There we go,” Hunter said, not losing a bit of his good humor. Like he’d read all the undercurrents, and they were fine by him. Because why not? “I knew I had an ulterior motive tonight. Small towns and their two degrees of separation, huh? They’re not always the ones you’d expect.”
“Dakota and Blake are babysitting Gracie tonight, in fact,” Beth said. “So if you’re interested in getting to Blake, Evan probably knows him better than anybody here.”
Gracie was getting louder. Evan got up from the table and jiggled her some. That cold just wouldn’t go away, and it was still making her cranky. Or maybe she was picking it up from him.
“Really?” Melody said. She looked at her mother, then back at Beth. “Sorry. It’s always so confusing. I would have assumed . . .”
Beth was opening her mouth, but Evan had had enough. Gracie had quieted down, but he didn’t sit. He still had a few bites of filet mignon on his plate, and he still had most of his second beer left, too. The sun was low, the clouds tinged with pink, the lake glowing silvery blue, the temperature that just-right cooling off after a hot day. It was all beautiful and perfect, except it wasn’t. He asked Melody, “What’s confusing you? Maybe I can help you out.”
“Why don’t you hand me that gorgeous baby, Evan, and finish your dinner,” Michelle put in, which showed at least that she had better manners than the Farnsworth women. But then, herdoghad better manners than the Farnsworths.
Nobody paid her any attention. Evan didn’t lose his temper, not anymore. His fuse was long. It had to be. But when it came to Dakota? That was another story. He could feel that last quarter-inch of fuse burning through.
Melody shrugged, looked at Hunter from under her lashes, and said, “I’m sure it seems silly to you, but people talk in small towns. They’ve noticed that Dakota doesn’t seem to be doing any house painting anymore, but who can blame her? When somebody like Blake Orbison comes along, most women would quit the day job, if they didn’t have professional ambitions. Personally, I can’t imagine, but everybody’s different, I suppose.”
“That’s true, honey,” Candy said. “But there’s not as much a person can do without a college degree these days. You can’t blame Dakota for that.”
“For what?” Evan asked. “What are we blaming her for exactly? For dumping me and snagging Blake, is that the idea? Or for quitting her job and becoming a sugar baby? You might want to ask Blake how all that went down. You could even ask Dakota, if you’re all that curious. Or you could decide it’s none of your business, and that talking like that makes you look exactly the same as it did in high school.” He looked at Hunter, who he’d swear was nothing but amused, like Wild Horse was putting on a show for his benefit. “Thing about small towns is—you can’t hide. Everybody’s known you since kindergarten.”
“Or in Dakota’s case,” Candy put in, leaping to the defense of her daughter, who was looking like she couldn’t believe her ears, “since high school. Michelle and I both used to tell our daughters, ‘You’ll never know how important a reputation is until you lose it.’ Luckily, they never did.”
Michelle was trying to say something, but Evan was done. “You’re right,” he said. “Melody’s got the same reputation now that she’s had all along. Congratulations.” He said to Michelle, “Gracie’s letting me know that it’s time to go. Thank you for dinner, but I’m going to eat and run.” Beth had started to get up, and he told her, “You stay and finish your dinner. I’ll talk to you later.”
He picked up Gracie’s car seat and headed for the door. He hadn’t wanted to come, and he’d been right. They’d all just sat there and let it happen. Beth. Her mother, and her father. Like it was normal to shame the people who didn’t fit, who would never fit. Normal to make those little comments, to smile those little smiles. Well, it wasn’t normal to him, and he was gone. Now they could talk abouthim.
It was dim in the house with evening closing in. As he walked through that over-the-top living room and the piano that nobody normal could have owned because it required too much space, tiny lights went on at the baseboard. Motion sensing. The same thing up the stairs, down the hall. Apparently being rich meant never being in the dark.
The hell with it.
Then he was in Beth’s bedroom again, had Gracie’s bag and her in her seat, even as she set up a wail and fought him. “Just hang on,” he told her, struggling to get her arms through the car seat’s straps and fasten her in. “You’re going to have to scream until we get out of here. I’m about to scream myself, tell you the truth. Two minutes.”
He got her in and stood up, and there Beth was in the doorway. Her chest heaving in her blue dress, her silver hair shining in the dim light like a . . . a unicorn. Something too polished, too perfect. Not real. That made him madder than ever, at himself this time. What had he been thinking? This was nine years ago all over again, like he hadn’t learned a single damn thing.
“You said you wanted my help,” he told her over the sound of Gracie’s wails. “But I can’t help with this.” He pushed past her and was down the stairs again, the lights winking on ahead of him and off behind him like they were shoving him out the door.
Fine. He was happy to go.
“Evan,” Beth said. “Hang on. Wait.”
“No,” he said, putting Gracie in the van and fastening her in, then slamming her door and opening his. “I’m thirty seconds away from . . . I need to be gone.”
The last thing he saw as he pulled out was Beth in his rearview mirror. Standing in the middle of her parents’ circular drive in her pretty dress, her hands lifting out from her sides, then falling against her thighs. Rich. Sad. Hopeless.
