Page 121 of Tate
“Your mother agreed to be VP? You’re kidding. What about President Jackson?”
“He was leading in the polls, and the party put their heads together and decided he had a better chance. But yeah, she’d been planning it since before Vegas. In fact, the rumor about the Bryant League, even if it wasn’t true, helped turn the tide her direction. Made her both sympathetic and tough and gave her abase with her new party. And her female voters have come over with her, so…it’s a strong ticket.”
“Oh my, who are you?” Laughter from Kelsey’s end of the phone and with everything inside her, Glo wanted to be with her, curled up on the leather sofa of the Marshall home.
“I don’t know,” Glo said, the words just rushing out. “I…oh, Kels, I made a terrible mistake. Tate asked me to go with him and I said no.”
A hiss at the end of the phone. “Oh boy.”
“Poor man stood there practically letting his heart bleed on the floor, and I…I did nothing. My mother was standing there telling me how much she needed me and I…I even asked him to stay and…”
“Your mother fired him.”
“I know. Iknow.But it was David all over again, though. Me begging him to stay, him walking away. And I just…I got angry. I couldn’t believe after all his promises that he was just…justleaving.” She sighed. “I should have gone with him. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“I do. All your life you’ve wanted your mother to choose you. And suddenly she does, and you’re going to throw that away?”
“For Tate. The man who would protect me with his life, and I just stood there and shook my head.”
“For Tate, the man who has a scary past that shows up in Vegas hotel rooms. I know that wasn’t his fault, but Tate has a lot of skeletons. The kind that gets people he cares about hurt.”
She closed her eyes. “Don’t say that.”
“His girlfriend was killed because of a choice he made.”
She swallowed. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, honey. I’m just giving you a brutal dose of reality.”
“Feel free to take it down a notch.”
“How about this. I like Tate. A lot. He’s a Marshall. And I do think he’d die for you, Glo.”
“That’s not making it better.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s just…he asked me who I was. Accused me of being all things to all people.”
“You are. You show up in people’s lives, you stick around, you are who they need you to be. Tate needed someone who believed in him, despite his scars. And that was you, Glo.”
She still believed in him. “He believed in me too. He liked the Glo I was, with the leather and the tattoos and the sappy country songs.”
Kelsey’s voice turned soft. “She was my favorite too.”
Tate’s words at the door, softly spoken, tunneled in and drew blood.Wow. Did I read that wrong.
No, Tate you didn’t.
But maybe Glo didn’t know who she was if she didn’t have the Belles and her sister and her mother…and Tate.
“I guess the question is—is loving Tate worth the trouble he brings?” Kelsey asked.
“You sound like a country song.”
Laughter. “Listen. I’m not really talking about Tate’s past, or even life, but rather…the trouble with love is that it’s always going to involve risk. You putting yourself out there, not knowing if you’ll be loved in return.”
“That sounds like something you said in Vegas when you talked me into singing my song. Which started this entire fiasco.”
