Читать книгу Million Dollar Marriage - Maggie Shayne, Maggie Shayne - Страница 9

Red Rock High School

Valentine’s Day Dance, 1983

Holden Fortune was the man of her dreams. But he’d never give a girl like her a second glance. Lucinda Brightwater sat in a chair near the wall where it was dim and shadowy. She didn’t usually come to school dances. She didn’t know why she’d bothered coming to this one, unless it was just to torture herself, which was precisely what she was doing.

He was dancing now, his current girlfriend, Tiffany Lambert, wrapped tight in his arms as he moved her slowly around the floor. The glittering globe overhead reflected flashes of light on his honey-blond hair. He was so handsome, so athletic, so popular—easily the most popular boy in school, and that was only partially because he came from one of the richest families in Texas. Lucinda had loved him since fifth grade. But he’d barely noticed her.

She was plain. Her straight, dark hair wouldn’t do anything but hang there, no matter how she cut or sprayed or styled it. She wasn’t allowed to wear more than a hint of makeup, and if she’d tried dressing in the half tops and short skirts that were popular with the “in crowd,” her father would have gone into cardiac arrest. Besides all that, she was too smart. All brains and no beauty. A nerd. A geek.

Tiffany, on the other hand, was bleached to a sunshiny shade of blond and her hair was always perfect. Layers on the sides, fluffed up high on the top. Her skirts were short and flouncy, and she probably didn’t even own a shirt that came down as far as her navel. She wore several bracelets on each arm, huge gold earrings that shook when she moved, and enough makeup to sink a small ship. She knew how to send sidelong glances Holden’s way, how to giggle, how to flirt. All the things Lucinda had never been any good at. Oh, Tiffany was failing most of her classes, but Holden didn’t seem to care much about her grades. Lucinda knew perfectly well that Tiffany was well educated in…other areas. She was not an inexperienced virgin like Lucinda.

The music died down, and the couples on the floor parted and moved toward the sides of the decorated school gym, or toward the punch bowl, or sneaked off toward the exits hoping for a chance to slip outside, unseen by the chaperones.

Holden and Tiffany, however, stayed where they were. She was looking up at him, speaking very quickly, and then he was saying something back to her. He looked upset. Tiffany shook her head hard, side to side, earrings jangling. She turned away. Holden gripped her arm to pull her back, and she hauled off and slapped him. Hard.

Lucinda sucked in a loud gasp, jumping to her feet, a reflex action she didn’t even think about first. Tiffany stormed away from poor Holden without a backward glance, and Holden, looking wounded and shocked, stared after her. Then, a moment later, he seemed to shake himself. Turning away, he wandered off in the opposite direction, and vanished into a crowd.

Lucinda just stood there for a long time, hoping he’d emerge again. She was going to go over to him, ask him if he was okay. She would. She’d just drum up all of her courage and talk to him. She couldn’t believe Tiffany would break up with him that way, in front of half the school. No girl in her right mind would treat a guy like Holden that way. Lucinda certainly wouldn’t. If he were hers… She sighed and closed her eyes. Who was she kidding? It would never happen. Guys like Holden didn’t date girls like Lucinda. She might as well accept that and forget about him. In a few months he’d graduate, head off to college, and she’d probably never see him again.

Holden was good and pissed. It wasn’t enough that Tiffany Lambert had to be the first girl in history to ever dump him before he got around to dumping her, but she had to do it in front of everyone. And she’d slapped him!

He was furious when he stalked off into a corner, but the guys quickly surrounded him, slapping his shoulder and saying things like, “Who needs her anyway?” and “Hell, Holden, you can have any girl you want. What do you care?”

He agreed with all those sentiments, of course. And the liquor helped. Billy Martin had smuggled a bottle of Seagram’s into the gym, and he opened his coat to give Holden a peek. Holden nodded, and then they all sauntered off to the boys’ bathroom and passed the bottle around.

The more Holden drank, the angrier he got. And by the time he and the other boys staggered back into the gym, carefully avoiding any sharp-eyed chaperones, he was feeling the need for vengeance. Tiffany was standing in the corner talking to a bunch of her friends, most of whom Holden had slept with. He decided to make her jealous, remind her she wasn’t the only girl on the planet.

He scanned the chairs that lined the gym walls for a suitable dance partner, and then froze when his gaze fell on pretty little Lucinda Brightwater. His throat went dry. He licked his lips. Lucinda was…different. Quiet. Shy. Very deep and very intelligent. She wasn’t the kind of girl a guy like Holden should get himself involved with. She was not a giggling teen out for a good time. She was a lady. She reminded Holden a lot of his own mother, with her quiet grace and soft-spoken dignity.

And he reminded himself of his father. How many times had his dad told him how alike they were? Called him a chip off the old block? They even looked alike. And Cameron changed mistresses almost monthly, while Mary Ellen, Holden’s mother, somehow managed to forgive him every time. She was the saddest person Holden knew.

No. He didn’t belong with girls like Lucinda Brightwater. Nice girls. Sweet girls. Girls who would let him break their fragile hearts. He had convinced himself of that a long time ago. He’d stick to shallow, loose girls out for a good time, girls who wouldn’t take things too seriously. Girls who wouldn’t get hurt. Like Tiffany Lambert.

But tonight, he was drunk. And he was stinging from that slap and the public humiliation that went with it. And he was itching to show Tiffany that he didn’t need her, that he could have a real lady. One Tiffany could never measure up to. A flawless white rose of a girl almost too good to be touched.

Holden sucked in a breath, and managed to walk without staggering over to where Lucinda sat. Her raven hair hung over her shoulders, straight and gleaming. Dark eyes widened at his approach, and rose to stare into his. And her copper-toned skin seemed as smooth as satin.

“Would you dance with me, Lucy?” he asked. So far as he knew, no one ever called her Lucy. He thought of her that way, though. Secretly, he thought of her as Lucinda in the Sky. The only girl he knew who was completely beyond his reach, out of his league.

She nodded slowly, eyes dark and mysterious. Getting to her feet, she stepped closer to him. Holden put his arms around her waist and pulled her toward him. Not quite touching, not yet. Even with as much as he’d had to drink, he didn’t forget that she was a lady. Her hands linked together at the base of Holden’s neck, and she moved her feet with his.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

He looked down at her, nodded once. “You saw what happened, huh?”

“Everyone did.” She bit her lower lip. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Tiffany’s not.” He stumbled a little and pulled Lucy closer. Expecting her to pull away at once, Holden was a little surprised when instead, she hesitated, then lowered her head to his shoulder.

Her hair smelled good. He slid his arms more completely around her waist.

“So, is that why you’re dancing with me, Holden?” she asked softly. “To make Tiffany jealous?”

He frowned down at her, then stumbled again, would have fallen if she hadn’t held him, steadied him.

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Leaning up so close he thought she was going to kiss him, she sniffed instead. “You are. I can smell it on you. I should have known.” Taking herself out of his arms, she turned to walk away.

But then she stopped and faced him again. “You brought your car, didn’t you? The one your father gave you for your eighteenth birthday?”

He smiled slowly. So she wanted to ride in his Vette, did she? Somehow he hadn’t thought the car would hold the same appeal to a girl like Lucy that it did to the party girls he usually dated. But he was suddenly very glad. “Sure I did,” he said.

Lucy sighed, shaking her head. “There’s no way you can drive home. Come on. I’ll take you in my mom’s car, and you can come back for yours in the morning. Sober.”

Holden frowned, totally confused. “You don’t want to ride in the Vette?”

“I could care less about the Vette. I would feel pretty bad, though, if I got up in the morning and heard that you’d wrapped it around a pole and got yourself killed.”

“You would, huh?”

She looked away from him, and when she looked back her eyes were wider. “Crabtree is coming over here. Act sober for heaven’s sake!”

Holden plastered his most sober expression on his face, folded his arms and leaned back, thinking the wall would support him. Only there was nothing to lean back on, so he fell flat on his ass.

Ms. Crabtree glared down at him. “Have you been drinking again, Mr. Fortune?” Her hands went to her hips and she tapped her foot.

“Drinking? Who, me? No way…I wouldn’t even—”

“I can smell it from here, young man.” Ms. Crabtree shook her head. “I guess I’m going to have to call your father to come and get you. He won’t be amused by this latest example of your reckless behavior, Holden.”

“Ms. Crabtree, it isn’t Holden’s fault,” Lucy said quickly.

Crabtree looked at her, then frowned hard. No teacher in the history of the world had ever doubted a word Lucinda Brightwater said. They all seemed to think she was some kind of angel. She kept talking, and Holden thought maybe he agreed with them.

“Someone spiked the punch,” she went on. “Holden didn’t know about it until he’d already had several glasses.”

Crabtree’s face went from cold to wary. “Are you sure about this, Lucinda?”

“Positive. I—I heard someone talking about it in the girls’ room.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see who, and it wasn’t a voice I knew.”

Crabtree eyed the punch bowl, and her look changed again, to one of alarm. “Oh, my.”

“I didn’t have any of the punch, Ms. Crabtree,” Lucy went on. “And I’ll drive Holden home. There’s no need to call his father. He’d only blame you and the school for this anyway.”

The teacher looked up sharply, as if she hadn’t thought of that before, and then seemed thoughtful. “Are you sure you didn’t have any of the punch, dear?”

“I wouldn’t think of driving if I had, Ms. Crabtree,” she said, sounding like a saint.

“Of course you wouldn’t. All right, then. Get him home, and I’ll dump the punch down the drain and make a fresh batch.” She walked away muttering that she’d have to check every single student who planned to drive tonight before letting them leave.

Holden was still sitting on the gym floor. When Lucy reached down to help him up, he took her hand and let her, giving her a crooked smile. “I owe you one, Lucinda in the Sky.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You do.”

She felt so nervous she could barely keep her mom’s car on the road as she drove Holden toward his home. He wouldn’t invite her inside. She knew he wouldn’t. She would die if he did. But he wouldn’t.

The place was a mansion. Tall and stately. So elegant with its pristine white paint, gleaming black shutters, and two-story porch spanning the entire front of the place, its columns stretching from top to bottom. It was almost…presidential. In a very Texas kind of way.

She pulled into the paved, curving driveway. No lights glowed from inside the house, only outdoor lights shone. Twin rows of them, lining either side of the sidewalk from driveway to front porch. And more, gleaming from around back.

“Come in for a minute?” Holden asked.

Oh, God, he did ask. His voice was slurred and she knew better than to accept. She really did.

“Okay,” she said. She got out of the car and Holden took her arm. She wasn’t sure if he took it because he wanted to touch her, or because he needed to hold on for balance. But either way, they walked together up the sidewalk, toward the porch and the front door.

“Holden, your parents… Don’t you think you ought to go in the back way or something? If they see you like this…”

“They’re out,” he told her. “See? Dad’s Caddy isn’t here. There was some charity thing. Won’t be home for hours. And the kids—Logan and Eden—are spending the night at Uncle Ryan’s.”

“Oh.” Her throat was suddenly dry.

Holden led her across the wide porch, dug for a key under the doormat, and unlocked the massive doors. They were double, with stained-glass insets in a fan pattern, and complemented on either side by rectangular glass windows as tall as the doors themselves.

Opening one of the doors, Holden pulled her inside. “See? I told you.” He looked around the dark foyer, shrugged. “No one’s here. Come on.”

“Wh-where are we going?”

“My room.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she said.

Holden smiled in the darkness, and reached for a light switch. “Fine. The living room?”

When he flicked the lights on, things seemed less frightening to her.

“That would be better.” She relaxed and followed Holden along the massive foyer and through a wide, arching doorway into the living room. He promptly collapsed on a huge leather sofa that smelled so rich she couldn’t believe it. She sat down carefully beside him.

“I see you around school a lot,” he said, leaning his head back on the sofa, closing his eyes. “At football practice, or in the cafeteria. In the halls sometimes. Near my locker.”

She shrugged, and felt her face heat.

“You like me, don’t you, Lucy?”

When she didn’t answer, he opened his eyes, sat up a little.

“Don’t look so surprised. What, did you think I hadn’t noticed?”

“You never seem to notice me,” she replied, then bit her lip.

“God, you’re so stiff. Sit back, Lucy. Relax a little.”

Taking a deep breath, she leaned back, only to find his arm now encircled her shoulders. “It’s okay, you know. I like you, too. Always have.”

“You…you do?”

He smiled crookedly. And the next thing she knew he was turning her toward him, bending close, and kissing her. His kiss was wet and insistent; his tongue sloppy when he began sliding it in and out of her mouth. Was this the way it was supposed to be? He tasted like whatever sort of liquor he’d been drinking. Smelled like it, too. And within a moment, his hand was under her sweater, inside her bra, closing over her breast.

She pushed him away. “Holden…stop.”

Sitting up, blinking down at her, he stared for a long time. Then he shook his head. “Sorry. I…don’t know what I was thinking. You’re not that kind of girl.” He pressed a hand to his forehead as if trying to squeeze some sense into it. “I know better than to act like that with you.”

It was, she realized, her moment of truth. One of the most defining moments of her life. She was seventeen years old, and a virgin. And here was her chance to change that…with the only boy she would ever want in that way. The one chance she’d dreamed about, waited for. She would be Holden Fortune’s girl. He’d drive her to school, walk her to classes, sit with her at lunch, take her to dances…maybe even give her his class ring, something he hadn’t done with any of his other girlfriends.

She would never treat him the way they had. Never.

“Holden,” she said.

He lifted his head, bleary-eyed and unfocused.

“I could be that kind of girl…for you.”

His smile was slow and slightly crooked. “No, you couldn’t…”

She leaned up and pressed her lips to his again. This time when he put his tongue in her mouth, she touched it with hers. And when his hand slipped under her sweater she pressed herself against its touch.

Lifting his head away, his voice gruff, he whispered, “Let’s…let’s go up to my room.” He held out a hand. She got up, helped him to his feet, and then, with effort, up the stairs.

He started kissing her again before they even stumbled through his bedroom door. She fell backward, Holden still wrapped around her, and landed on the bed. It was fast, brief, messy, and not at all what she had expected. All so clinical. He didn’t hug her or hold her, caress her or kiss her. He shoved her panties down, and pushed up her skirt. Didn’t even take off his jeans. Just lowered them and—did it. It hurt at first, and then the pain eased, and it was all over.

But…it couldn’t be. Surely there was more to sex than…than that.

Holden lay on top of her, very still, breathing deeply and steadily. Lucinda shook him. “Holden?” He didn’t respond and tears welled up in her eyes. “Holden, please…”

He grumbled and rolled off her. A glance at his face made her realize that he was out cold, and no amount of shaking or pleading would wake him up. She dragged the stained sheet out from under him, wrapped herself in it, snatched up her clothes and ran into the bathroom attached to his bedroom, slamming the door behind her. It had been awful. Embarrassing, humiliating, and awful.

She cried for a few minutes. Then told herself to stop it. She’d wanted this. And…and it was worth it. Maybe. After all, being Holden Fortune’s girlfriend was all she’d dreamed about for a long time now. Well, almost all. She dreamed about being a doctor, too, ever since her mom died five years ago. Now, one of those dreams…had come true. Taking a breath, sighing deeply, she dried her tears, and turned on the water. By the time she got herself cleaned up and dressed, she was feeling a little bit better about what had happened between her and Holden tonight. There had been no tenderness…but that was only because he’d been drinking. Tomorrow, everything would be different. Tomorrow…

She crept back into the bedroom and bent over him to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek. “I love you, Holden Fortune,” she whispered. “I’ll love you forever.” Then she hurried through the huge house, back to the front door, all without meeting anyone, and drove home floating on a cloud. So what if it was a rather dark, ominous-looking cloud? It would look brighter tomorrow.

Holden didn’t call in the morning to offer her a ride to school. She’d expected him to, but she battled the disappointment by telling herself he might be sick from all that liquor and was maybe just sleeping it off.

But when she got off the bus at school, she looked up to see Holden’s shiny red Corvette pulling in. Both doors opened at once. Holden hopped out of one door, smiling. Tiffany Lambert came out the other door. They met in the front, and Holden put his arm around her.

Lucinda just stood there on the sidewalk, staring until there was too much moisture in her eyes to see through as the two of them walked toward her, arm in arm. She couldn’t move. The pain in her chest was too big, choking her. She could barely even breathe.

“Hey, Lucy,” Holden said.

Lucinda blinked the stinging tears from her eyes. She wanted to run. But instead she just stood there and said, “Hi.”

“Thanks for the ride home last night. You really pulled my fat out of the fire.”

“No problem,” she managed to choke out.

“I hope I wasn’t an idiot.”

She only frowned at him, not sure what to say, how to act.

“I mean, I was pretty wasted. I don’t remember a damn thing after getting into the car.”

She blinked, and rasped, “You…you don’t?”

“Total blackout,” he said. “Anyway, thanks. If you ever need a favor, you know who to ask, okay?”

She lowered her head as fresh tears came flooding from nowhere. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Come on, Holden. You promised me a doughnut in the cafeteria before homeroom,” Tiffany teased in that voice of hers that could make even the most mundane statement sound like a come-on. And then the two walked away.

Just walked away.

Lucinda ran for the nearest girls’ room, where she threw up. Then she just sank down onto the floor, pulled her knees to her chest, and cried.

She was still there when the school nurse came looking an hour later. She spent the rest of that day at home in bed, wondering if she would ever recover from the mess Holden Fortune had made of her heart.

It was several weeks later when she realized the damage Holden had done had not been to her heart alone. When she collapsed in agonizing pain and was rushed to the hospital, bleeding uncontrollably. When she awoke from emergency surgery, sore and groggy and confused. When the doctor told her the pregnancy had been ectopic—that the fetus had been growing in her fallopian tube, and the tube had ruptured. That one of her ovaries had had to be removed to save her life. That her chances of conceiving a child in the future were cut in half.

She lay there in the hospital bed, in pain, afraid, and for the most part, alone. Oh, her father was there, but he’d been distant since her mother had died. He asked no questions, demanded no explanations. Just stayed by her side, looking heartbroken.

And all the while, Lucinda thought, Holden was out there somewhere, driving around in his expensive car with his pretty girlfriend, spending his father’s money as if there were no tomorrow. That night with him had changed her life forever. But he was so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t even know it. He didn’t even remember….

She would hate Holden Fortune for as long as she lived.