Читать книгу The Prodigal Bride - Beth Cornelison - Страница 7

Zoey gaped at the thug who’d crushed her cell phone under his boot heel when she’d threatened to call the police. The guy wasn’t scary in the traditional sense—in fact she’d call him more goofy-looking than intimidating. He had a zigzag buzz cut and a pierced eyebrow that added to his trying-too-hard-to-look-tough appearance. No, what bothered Zoey were his arms, specifically the tracks of needle marks up and down his skin. If he was high, he could be dangerously unpredictable.

With a jerk on the cord, he disabled the motel room’s landline, as well.

How could Derek have done business with these cretins? And how could she convince them that she had no more money than Derek did to pay off Derek’s debts?

“You don’t want to call the cops, ‘cause that would piss me off. And I’m not someone you want pissed at you.” He aimed a finger at her and narrowed his eyes to slits. “It’s real simple. Either tell us where Derek is or give us the twenty grand he owes us.”

Zoey choked. “Twenty grand? He told me it was just a couple thousand!”

The guy who’d stomped her cell phone jammed his face in hers. “Your boyfriend lied. And the price goes up every day he’s late payin’. Interest, you know.”

His breath smelled of cinnamon gum, and Zoey pulled a face. What should have been a refreshing scent turned her stomach coming from him. “Look, Derek and I split up. Your beef with him is not my problem. I don’t have any money. He stole it all from me, so—”

A stinging smack landed on her cheek, and she gasped in shock and pain.

Mr. Cinnamon-Breath shook out the fingers in his hand. A hissing-snake tattoo on his forearm seemed to writhe as his muscles flexed. “I told you not to piss me off.”

Zoey raised her chin defiantly. He was ticking her off, too. “I don’t have—”

He grabbed her wrist and jerked her close. “Derek told us you came from money. You can get that twenty thou and a whole lot more from your family.”

A chill slithered through her. Dread knotted her gut knowing this guy would likely extort any sum of cash he could from her through fear and intimidation. Her family’s money. She couldn’t let this guy’s menace hurt her family. Squaring her shoulders, she dug deep for the courage to stand up to this bully. “My family disowned me two years ago when I hooked up with Derek. They won’t give me a cent.” She waved a hand toward the dingy motel room bed. “Do you think I’d be living like this if I had a cash flow from my parents?”

“You got credit cards, don’t you?”

“I, uh—” Her gaze darted to her purse and back, her spirits rising. Her emergency credit card! After getting in a load of debt in high school, from which her parents had had to bail her out, Zoey had sworn off credit cards, cut them up. Except for one. The emergency Visa. Well, this was an emergency, right?

Except the thug’s gaze moved to her purse, too. Uh-oh.

“Hey, Viper, a cop just pulled in up at the front office,” his cohort said from the door. “Time to go.”

Viper—his moniker no doubt the reason for his tat, or vice versa—stiffened and snapped his gaze toward the door with a grumbled curse. Returning his narrowed glare to Zoey, Viper backed toward the door. “You seem like a smart girl. Use those smarts to come up with my money. Meantime, we’ll just take this.” He grabbed her wallet—with the emergency credit card and what little cash she had—and stormed out without closing the door.

Hiccuping a half sob, Zoey slid to the floor. She touched her throbbing cheek and shivered. Cheesy theatrics or not, Viper and his cronies scared her. She had no doubt they’d return, and they’d hurt her if she didn’t come up with the money they wanted.

She could, of course, still go to the cops. But how much evidence could she give them? What could the cops really do? This was Las Vegas, for crying out loud. Loan sharks had to be as common and pesky as flies in this town. The cops might swat at one, but another would buzz around a few minutes later, until the police accepted them as part of the landscape.

Dragging herself to her feet, she staggered to the door and slammed it shut. After throwing the feeble security lock and latching the chain, she stumbled to the bed and curled into a ball. She wanted to call Gage back, tell him what had happened, but her phone was in pieces thanks to Viper’s boot, the room phone disabled.

She tried to push aside the jitters Viper and his pals had stirred. She had to figure out what to do, how to get herself out of her circumstances. Without money, she couldn’t even buy a bus ticket home. She was stranded in Vegas. Her phone was ruined. She had no job, no boyfriend. And she was pregnant.

Her dire straits pressed down on her, nearly suffocating her. When tears pricked her sinuses, she closed her eyes as, like Dorothy in Oz, she dreamed of home. Of Lagniappe. Her family.

As much as she wanted to call her parents or her sisters for help, her pride wouldn’t let her. She’d been a disappointment to her overachieving family most of her life. The black-sheep sister. The daughter with the penchant for trouble. She couldn’t bear the thought of telling them how royally she’d screwed up again, especially because her father had predicted Derek would lead her to ruin.

Her returning to Lagniappe penniless, unwed and pregnant would cause whispers in her parents’ social circle that would haunt them for years. She’d hurt her family enough with her rebellion, her stubbornness, her rash decisions to last them a lifetime. No. Asking her family to bail her out again was not an option.

Her gaze drifted to the broken pieces of her phone, and a deep, caring voice filtered through her memory. Okay, don’t worry. We’ll figure this out together.

Gage. Her heart squeezed as her best friend’s face swam in her mind’s eye. His crooked smile, his puppy-dog brown eyes and scarred chin, courtesy of his abusive father. Gage had been her best friend since eighth-grade drama class. She’d taken drama because it gave her a creative outlet. He had been in the class because of a scheduling mix-up. But his handiness with tools and woodcraft proved valuable in building sets, so he’d stayed in the class.

Zoey, ever the extrovert, had struck up a conversation with the quiet, gangly stagehand and been drawn to his quirky sense of humor. Later, as their friendship deepened and bonds of trust formed, she’d learned his humor was a shield that hid a home life she wouldn’t wish on her enemies. The Bancroft home had become Gage’s sanctuary, his escape when his home life was at its toughest, and Gage had become Zoey’s safe harbor when she felt adrift, struggling to live up to the high-water mark her sisters set and always falling short. When her wanderlust after graduation had grown wearisome, she’d returned home and found Gage waiting for her, willing to forgive her rash disappearance from his life after one life-changing night that had shaken her to the core …

Gage shrugged his shoulder in an uncomfortable contortion to keep his cell phone against his ear, waiting for the bank representative to take him off hold, while he poured a bowl of raisin bran for Pet and doused it with milk.

Pet curled her lip in disdain. “What’s that?”

“Supper. Eat.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You haven’t tried it.” He shoved the milk back into the refrigerator and shifted his cell to a more comfortable position. Elevator music droned in his ear.

As soon as it was clear Zoey wasn’t going to answer her cell, Gage had called the police department in Las Vegas, hoping to send the cavalry to her rescue. But not having an address to give them, there was nothing they could do. Plan B meant finding Zoey himself. Whatever it took. And fast.

“It has raisins. I’m ‘lergic to raisins.”

“You’re not allergic to raisins.”

“Am so.”

“Are not. Eat.”

“I don’t want this. I want chicken nuggets,” Pet grumbled and poked out her lower lip.

Gage gritted his teeth and battled down his growing frustration. He refused to lose his temper with Pet. She wasn’t the reason for his agitation or the acid gnawing his stomach. His worry over Zoey and his inability to get in touch with her was his chief aggravation at the moment.

“We’re out of chicken nuggets, and I’m not making mac and cheese again. You need vitamins.” He tapped the cereal box. “See here? This says it’s fortified with vitamins. It’s healthy.”

“Ice cream’s healthy. It has milk.”

“You can’t—”

“Sir?” the bank employee said as she came back on the line. “We’re not allowed to disclose private financial information, even to family members. I’m sorry.”

Shooting his niece a warning look, Gage aimed a finger at the bowl of raisin bran as he paced out of the kitchen. “But this is an emergency. I’m not looking for account numbers or balance information, I just need to know where Zoey Bancroft might have made ATM withdrawals or credit-card purchases in the past couple days. Are there any motel charges?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give out that information.”

Gage pinched the bridge of his nose. He was losing valuable time arguing bank policy with the woman. “All right, all right. Thanks anyway.” Thanks for nothing.

He thumbed the disconnect key, and his shoulders sagged. He was getting nowhere, while somewhere in Las Vegas, Zoey was alone, pregnant, broke and quite possibly in danger.

He had to act. He couldn’t sit here and wait for word from her that might never come. Already nearly an hour had passed since her call.

Riley Sinclair owed him a couple days from the last time Gage had covered Riley’s shifts at the fire station. If he could—

“Yuck!” Pet shouted from the kitchen. “Raisins are gross!”

Damn. Even if he could get the time off, what was he supposed to do with Pet?

Another firefighter at the station, Cal Walters, had referred him to a babysitter that he used on the days he worked. Because his schedule at the fire station meant he was gone overnight, his sitter, Rani Ogatini, was used to extended stays with Pet.

“Uncle Gage!”

He pulled his address book out of a stack of bills on his desk and flipped through it, looking for Rani’s number. “We don’t have anything else until we go to the store. Eat the cereal.”

Pet gave a theatrical groan of discontent. Drama queen. Like someone else he knew.

Except this time. He’d heard real fear, real misery, real desperation in Zoey’s voice when she’d called.

Zoey needed him. Now. Time to act.

Punching Rani’s number into his cell, Gage set his plan in motion.

Zoey curled into a ball on the bed at the emergency shelter and tried to shut out the noise from the street. She’d cried so much in the past twenty-four hours that she’d wondered if her contacts might float away. Then she’d be blind as a bat on top of everything else. Her stomach growled, even though she’d had breakfast in the shelter’s dining hall. The baby apparently needed to be fed every two hours or her hunger and nausea returned. She’d gone out earlier today looking for a job—anything she could do for a few weeks, until she could earn enough money to get back to Lagniappe—but found nothing. She’d called to have her Visa account canceled so that Viper couldn’t run up charges on it, and because of her shaky credit history, a new account would take up to three business days to be approved. She was flat-broke until then.

Knowing Viper could come back to the motel room at any time and knowing she needed food and shelter, for her baby if nothing else, she’d swallowed her pride and headed to the address for an emergency-aid shelter she’d seen at a bus stop. Per the rules of the shelter, she could stay only two nights before finding another place to stay. But for at least one more day she had a place to regroup, a base from which she could look for work and a kitchen where she could get a hot meal. A charity shelter felt like a last resort, but because of her baby, she knew she needed nourishing meals and safe housing. She had that here. For now.

When she thought of going home, her tail between her legs, hoping her father would forgive her foolishness, a bubble of wounded pride swelled in her chest. Admitting she’d been wrong about Derek hurt. Letting her family see how low she’d sunk grated. But like the prodigal son of the Bible, if she didn’t find a job soon, she’d have to dig up some humility and face the I-told-you-sos. For her baby.

The last thing she wanted was to hurt her family. She hated the idea that her recklessness would bring shame to the Bancroft name and give her parents more reason to be disappointed with her. If she had other options, she’d jump on them. But she was at a dead end.

Her pregnancy reared its head with seesawing nausea, and she wrapped her arm around her middle and groaned. “Please, little one, Mommy’s got enough to deal with without you making me sick.” How could she be hungry and nauseous at the same time? Yet she was.

A loud pounding on her room’s door reverberated off the thin walls. Zoey sat up, holding her breath, her heart racing.

“Zoey?” a male voice called.

She froze. It sounded like—

Rolling off the bed and clambering to her feet, Zoey raced to the door and tore it open. Without hesitation, she launched herself at the man standing across the threshold.

“Gage!” Tears of joy flooded her eyes as she wrapped a tight hug around his shoulders—shoulders far broader than she remembered. In high school, he’d been downright spindly.

He stumbled back a step before catching his balance. “Oh, thank God, Zee! Are you all right? You’re not hurt or sick or—”

He squeezed her tighter, and she felt the shudder that raced through him. Wiggling free of his zealous embrace, she nodded and swiped at the moisture in her eyes. “I’m so glad to see you! I would have called you this morning, but they have some kind of block on the house phone so you can’t call long distance, and that cretin Viper smashed my cell phone,” she gushed without taking a breath. “I didn’t have enough money for a meal, much less a bus ticket home, so I had no choice but to come here. I’ve been so alone. So scared. But now …” Excitement spiked in her again. “Now you’re here and … ohmigod, I’m so glad to see you! But …” she paused and blinked her confusion, “… h-how did you find me here?”

Gage flashed his crooked grin and chuckled. “Take a breath, Zee. You’re gonna pass out if you don’t breathe between paragraphs.”

She soft-punched his arm, then took a hard look at him. He had a couple of days’ growth of dark brown beard. His mahogany eyes were rimmed with red. Lines of fatigue creased his face, and hair that hadn’t seen scissors in too long curled in rumpled disarray. He’d never looked better to her. In fact, he looked … sexy. She shook off the unexpected reaction and opted for the safer, familiar ribbing that had served her so well in high school.

“Jeez, Gage, you look like crap.”

He arched an eyebrow and grunted. “Gee, thanks.” He took her elbow and guided her inside, closing the door and frowning when he saw the dingy room. “You’ve been living here?”

“Only for the last day. Since Derek pilfered all my money for his gambling debts, free is all I can afford.” She crossed her arms over her chest and swallowed hard to loosen the knot of emotion in her throat. “I know what you’re thinking. Oh, how the mighty Bancroft princess has fallen.”

He stepped closer and brushed a tangled wisp of her hair behind her ear. “That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking it’s a good thing I came after you. I was thinking how grateful I am that you’re safe. That piece of conversation I overheard with the guy I can only assume was this Viper you mentioned scared the bejeezus out of me. For all I knew, you’d been beaten and were lying bleeding to death somewhere.”

Almost of its own volition, her hand lifted to her eye where Viper’s slap had left a small bruise. Mistake. Gage narrowed his gaze and pulled her closer to the bathroom light.

“Gage, it’s nothing. Don’t—”

He tensed, his mouth firming to a taut line. “Son of a—! He did hit you, didn’t he?”

“Gage, chill. I’m okay.”

Jamming a hand in his hair, he turned to stalk toward the bed where he dropped heavily onto the mattress. “It’s not okay, and you know it. A man never has the right to hit a woman.” His face paled, and his gaze shot back to hers. “Especially not a pregnant woman. Are you … Is it—”

She grinned at his obvious discomfort with her pregnancy. “If my morning sickness is any indication, the baby’s fine. And for the record, morning sickness is a grossly erroneous term. I’m sick all day. All. Day. Especially when I don’t eat.”

Gage dragged a hand down his stubbled cheeks, and the scratchy sound of his beard abrading his palms sent a tingle down her spine. Had his jaw always been that square? Zoey tilted her head and studied him. No, he definitely had a more masculine cut to his cheeks and chin now. And his exercise regimen with the fire department had helped his chest and shoulders fill out. Her breath caught in her lungs. Sexy filtered through her mind again before she could stem the absurd thought. This was Gage, for Pete’s sake.

He lowered his brow in a scowl. “Stop looking at me like that. I know I look like crap. You told me that already. But I haven’t slept in more than forty-three hours.”

Zoey straightened. “What? Why not?”

He made a face that said the answer should have been obvious. “Like I was going to sleep before I found you. After driving through the night to get here, I spent the last twenty-two hours visiting every damn motel in Sin City with your picture, trying to track you down. When I explained the situation to one desk clerk, she suggested I try the shelters, too … which is what led me here.”

A warm fuzzy feeling flooded her chest. “You mean you drove out here with no idea where I was and have been flashing my mug shot around all day to find me?”

He gave a casual shrug.

More tears pricked her eyes. Damn, but pregnancy made her emotional. “That is so Daniel Day Lewis from Last of the Mohicans. ‘Stay alive, whatever may occur. I will find you!’”

He snorted. “Whatever.”

Zoey laughed and rushed to his side, throwing her arms around him and pressing a kiss to his bristly cheek. “My hero!”

He scoff-laughed. “Give me a break.”

“You know that is my favorite movie of all time. You can’t tell me that scene didn’t come to you during the whole drive out here or anytime during your motel search.”

“No, Zee. It didn’t.” He faced her, his eyes a shade darker than normal. Under his piercing stare, her stomach performed a giddy flip-flop. “I was way too preoccupied with wondering if I would be too late to help you, deciding what to do once I found you, what to do if I didn’t find you …”

She squeezed his hand between hers and gave him her brightest smile. “You are the dearest, sweetest guy ever. I’m so lucky you’re my friend.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he shifted his gaze away. “Yeah, well …”

Shoving to her feet, Zoey tugged his arm and hauled him off the bed. “Speaking of which … if you want to help me, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to take me to the nearest restaurant that has cheeseburgers and buy me lunch. I’m famished!”

Gage rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Yeah, okay. But then can I nap for a while? I think I could sleep for a week.”

“Yes. You can sleep when we get back,” she said with a laugh. “Whatever you want. I’m so glad to see you, I’d French-kiss Wayne Newton if you asked me to.”

Gage staggered toward the door with a groan. “Please, don’t. I’m really tired of seeing you hook up with guys who are all wrong for you.”

Gage watched Zoey wolf down a cheeseburger and fries, and he listened patiently as she filled him in on the details of how Derek the Ass had used her and left her stranded.

“How am I supposed to face my family?” Her voice warbled as she dragged a French fry through mustard—that habit still turned his stomach—and sent him a look of misery. “My dad all but disowned me. My sisters have their perfect lives with men who actually love them, and my mom will want to fuss over me like I’m some errant child who can do nothing but mess things up,” she scoffed. “And maybe that’s who I am. The family screwup. The problem child. I can’t blame them for being ashamed of me.”

Gage sat straighter and scowled at her. “Your family is not ashamed of you, Zee. They love you, no matter what.” Just like I do. He bit his tongue. He’d almost said the last aloud. And wouldn’t that send her running for the hills, screaming?

“Maybe before. But this time … I really messed up. I’m knocked up and broke. Not a lot to be proud of there. My dad was right about Derek. So how do I go home with any dignity at all?”

“Well, maybe you don’t.” He jabbed at the ice in his glass with his straw, watching her expression carefully. “Maybe you go home with humility and a lesson learned.”

“If I didn’t have to put my baby’s needs first, I’d stay here and work as a topless cocktail waitress in some dive rather than be a burden and humiliation to my family.”

Gage knew her well enough to know she wasn’t serious, but he still pictured her delivering drinks topless … and his libido kicked hard. Then he imagined the grubby drunks she’d be serving ogling her, and his blood pressure spiked.

She gave a humorless laugh. “Can’t you just see that? Me, pregnant out to here—” she held her hand a foot from her belly “—and serving drinks topless?”

Gage gritted his teeth. “Not gonna happen, Zee. I won’t let it.”

She slumped back in the booth, and he mentally prepared to deliver the speech he’d prepared on his twenty-five-hour drive from Lagniappe. He rubbed his scratchy eyes, wondering if he ought to wait until he’d slept to launch into this discussion.

The very real possibility that she’d hate his idea and turn it down stirred a drumbeat of caution in his chest. The last time they’d taken their friendship in a new direction, he’d nearly lost her. Her rejection had cut a wide, deep swath that still ached on days like today. The plan he’d devised was risky, but he’d take the chance of getting hurt again if it would help Zoey.

He’d do anything for Zee, even put his heart on the line.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked, nodding toward his half-eaten pizza. The other half sat like a rock in his gut.

“I’m not hungry. I ate earlier.” Gage shoved his napkin under the edge of his plate and took a deep breath. “I have an idea, but before you answer me, I want you to hear me out. Okay?”

She wrinkled her nose as she munched a French fry, a mannerism he remembered from high school that meant she was skeptical but curious. “Okay. What?”

He pressed his palms on the table and met her gaze. Her bright jade eyes held such open trust and affection that he almost balked. What if he screwed this up and she got hurt?

“I’ve been thinking about your situation—and mine—and I think we can help each other.”

More nose scrunching. “Help each other how?”

“What if there was a way for you to go back to Lagniappe and face your family with your head high and your future secure?”

She arched a copper eyebrow and propped her elbows on the table. “I’m listening.”

“I need help with Pet.”

“Pet?”

“Elaine’s daughter. I told you about her, right?”

Zoey tipped her head. “Yeah. I thought her name was Magnolia or something.”

“Petunia. We call her Pet because Petunia is just … well, a ridiculous name. I have custody of her while Elaine deals with her alcohol problem.”

Zoey’s eyes widened. “You’re raising a baby? By yourself? Since when?”

“Well, she’s not a baby anymore. She’s five, but she’s still a handful. And yes, I’m doing it alone—well, except for the babysitter who watches her while I’m at the fire station. I’ve had Pet since August, so … about a month now.”

Zoey flopped back in the booth, grinning broadly. “You’re a father!”

He raised a hand and shook his head. “I’m an uncle just trying to help out.”

“Gage, that’s so … awesome. If I said I was proud of you, would you take it the right way? ‘Cause you must be the best brother ever to raise Pet for Elaine.”

He held up a hand. “This isn’t permanent. Just until Elaine gets her act together and can be the parent she should be.”

Combing her thick hair back from her face, Zoey shook her head. “Like that will ever happen. Elaine’s way too much like your mom. I’d be surprised if she ever gets her life in any shape to take care of a kid. Not without serious counseling.”

Gage’s gut tightened. Zoey’s brutal honesty cut close to the truth. She’d seen his family, up close and personal, throughout high school. After Zoey had nursed Gage’s injuries from one of his dad’s beatings in eighth grade, he’d seen no point in hiding the ugly truth from her. His family put the dys in dysfunctional. His parents might be gone now—his mother succumbing to illness right after he finished high school, his father killed in a car-versus-tree wreck just last year—but their warped legacy lived on. Zoey’s family, the hours, days, weeks he’d taken refuge in their pool house, had been his saving grace throughout his troubled youth.

Gage cleared his throat. “Yeah, well … that’s why Elaine’s in a clinic now, drying out. We’ll see if it sticks.”

“Okay, so back to your idea. This will save my pride, give me a future, give you help with Pet and—” She grinned. “What, cure cancer? How do you figure to do all that?”

Gage reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small box he’d brought with him from home.

Lifting the lid on the jewelry box, he showed her the small emerald ring. Emerald to match her eyes. What a sap he was.

Zoey goggled at the ring. “Leapin’ lizards! Gage?”

“So we’re in Vegas, right? Marry me, Zee.”