The Rent-A-Groom (9 page)

“Well,” her friend said finally, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure,” Gina answered on an uneven laugh, “but I don’t care. Race is so fine, you wouldn’t believe it—even I don’t believe it. And you should have seen Bradley’s face when he met him! He was dumbstruck. I mean literally. And he sounded so two-faced. I don’t know what I ever saw in him.”

“Praise be. At least some good seems to be coming of all this. But you won’t do anything silly like falling for this Race character, will you? I mean, you’ve had enough of men who aren’t exactly marriage material. The last thing you need is another one.”

Gina couldn’t help a quick laugh. “How do you know Race wouldn’t make an excellent husband? Stranger things have happened.”

“Don’t say that!” Diane’s tone was sharp. “You don’t know a thing about this person. I mean, a male model, for heaven’s sake!”

“He’s more than that,” Gina protested. She went on to tell her friend about the ranch.

“I don’t care if his spread covers half of Texas, it still doesn’t make him a good risk. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh, Diane, he’s a nice person, really he is.”

“I’m sure his mother would be happy to hear you say so, but that doesn’t make it right. You should get rid of him, pronto.”

“Well, I meant to, but we both seem to be at loose ends. It’s just one more afternoon.”

Diane made a sound that was both disgruntled and despairing. “Well, if you won’t, you won’t. At least be careful.”

“Diane,” Gina began, troubled by the other woman’s doubts and strictures.

“I’ve got to go. Corey was saying something just now about hooking up my computer to the stereo speakers, and now he’s entirely too quiet. But you take care of yourself, you hear? And don’t believe a word this Race character has to say, because you can bet your boots it doesn’t mean a thing!”

Gina ended the call, then sat staring at the cold gas logs inside the fireplace. It wasn’t like Diane to be so brusque or so edgy. She was usually the most laid-back of women, never in a hurry, infinitely tolerant of people’s little quirks and always ready to see the best in them. At the same time, she was open and plain-spoken to a fault.

Her friend had been most of those things this time, of course, yet something had been different. She had asked almost no questions about Race, for one thing. For another, she had condemned him sight unseen. And she really hadn’t wanted to talk about the whole thing except to issue warnings.

Something was wrong. What was it?

Gina realized, after a moment’s thought, that the short time she had known Diane was not enough for an educated guess at the problem. Diane was originally from the Dallas area; she spoke of it often and had actually stayed at the Glass Garden Hotel for her own honeymoon. Near Gina’s own age, Diane was a widow whose engineer husband, her childhood sweetheart, had been killed while working on an offshore oil rig. Diane had little family other than her young son. There was only an elderly aunt, a slightly older brother who was in politics, and a younger sister she worried about because she was mixed up in some kind of ultraconservative, high-achievement cult in California.

Gina’s own parents and siblings were country people who seldom left their Louisiana delta farmlands. Because she and Diane were both virtually alone, they had established an instant rapport. More than that, something had clicked between them in the way it sometimes did with two people; they simply liked each other on sight.

On the strength of that affection, Gina had somehow expected more alarm and concern from Diane, more of the kind of panic she had shown last night. It hadn’t been there. In some peculiar fashion, Gina felt cut off, even abandoned. It was disturbing.

It was also appalling, because she could think of only one reason Diane had stopped caring what happened to her. That reason was directly connected to Bradley Dillman. Yet if Diane had discovered it, then any number of other people could know about it also.

Any number. Including Race.

Yes, but how? And why would he care? He was a rancher and a part-time model.

Wasn’t he?

On the table beside her was the business card he had given her the night before, lying where she had put it before she called Diane the first time. Gina glanced at it, her gaze focusing on the number printed across the bottom. She looked at her phone again. Then she touched the numbers on her keypad.

The model agency seemed to be legitimate; the phone was ringing on the other end. Once, twice, three times. Nobody was going to answer.

Of course they weren’t going to answer. It was Sunday. She should have remembered.

She started to end the call. Abruptly, the fourth ring ended and there came the familiar hollow noise of a line open to an answering machine. Gina snatched the receiver back to her ear.

“Thank you for calling the Humane Society of Greater Dallas-Fort Worth. Please leave your message at the tone
—”

She had made a mistake; that had to be it. She broke the connection. She touched the numbers again.

Four rings. An answering machine. The same announcement.

She ended the call with a fast flick of her thumb. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears, see it vibrating the thick terry-cloth of her robe over her chest.

“Gina?” Race stepped through the door from the balcony that she had not heard him open. He came toward her with concern in his face. “Is something wrong?”

Everything was wrong. Every single thing in her life had turned out totally, impossibly, unforgivably wrong.

It wouldn’t do to say so, not now. She couldn’t afford to be that forthright. Or that honest.

Her gaze was open and vulnerable as she met the blue darkness of his eyes. She moistened her lips as she tried to find some answer that might satisfy him, at least for a little while. Then she had it.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just hate answering machines.”

:: Chapter Six ::

“Oh, my stars, was I ever embarrassed! I must have turned three shades of red. But such a man, honey! Not too many strip that well, I expect, though I shouldn’t be sayin’ such a thing. And makin’ his bed on the rug like that is so romantic, like in my favorite romance,
Desire Under the Stars
, where the hero sleeps on the floor for seventy-five whole pages. Oh, but then! Let’s just say he makes up for it.”

The maid rattled on while she cleaned the suite’s bathroom with quick, practiced motions. Gina glanced at her from the corners of her eyes as she applied mascara at the dressing table. Etta was quite a character, with her spun-sugar hairstyle, a pin on her breast pocket in the shape of a giant pewter heart, and a proprietary air as if she were straightening her own home. Her comments and snatched glances in Gina’s direction indicated curiosity, but were robbed of offense by their warmth and down-home frankness.

Gina had reached the makeup stage in her dressing when the maid checked the suite the second time. Since Race had gone downstairs to reserve a court for tennis and she would be leaving in a few minutes to join him, she had told Etta to go ahead with her job.

In a carefully offhand manner, Gina said, “The—uh, sleeping arrangement is only temporary.”

“I should hope so.” Etta gave her a quick grin as she polished the shower faucet. “You wouldn’t want to keep a man like that layin’ around on the floor too long. I noticed him bringin’ coffee up a while ago, too, you know. Now, I like a strong, take-charge type as well as any, but the man who sees to his woman’s comfort like that is something special.”

“You think so?” Gina reached for her lip gloss and applied it with more quickness than precision.

“You’d better believe it. Yes, and another thing. Heaven help me if I had been up to no good when I walked in on him earlier. I expect I’d still be picking myself up. Protecting his own, that’s what he was doing.”

“Oh, I don’t think it was anything quite that dramatic,” Gina said uneasily.

Etta stopped in the middle of hanging fresh towels to give her a straight look. “You didn’t see his face before he cottoned to who was comin’ in on him.”

No, nor the rest of him, either, Gina thought, which seemed a shame. “That’s all well and good, but some men just aren’t cut out to be married.”

“No, but this one will be one day. Oh!” Etta turned with a hand to her lips. “I shouldn’t have said that; now I’ve gone and done it. Tyrone—the concierge, you know—told me that you and this watch dog hero of yours don’t know each other too well. But he wasn’t gossiping. He just wanted me to keep an eye on you since he was worried he led you to do the wrong thing.”

“Because of his advice, you mean.” Gina could not be too surprised that Etta knew what was going on. It seemed typical.

“He’s a great one for solving guest’s special problems,” Etta allowed, lowering her voice to a confidential mutter. “That’s so long as it’s arranging for limos, having major jewelry delivered, or filling a Jacuzzi with champagne. But he can’t get it through his head that some things are not that easy.”

“I appreciate the concern, though it really isn’t a problem. A few hours more and that will be the end of it.”

Etta paused in her task of dumping the bedroom wastebasket. “You mean you’ll be leaving the hotel? I thought I had you down on my list for a week.”

“The gentleman will be leaving.”

“But why? What did he do?”

He had tricked her, betrayed her, mocked her, made her feel things she did not want or need. What had he not done?

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Gina answered as she zipped the few cosmetics she had used back into her bag. “It’s just that—some things don’t work out.”

“Don’t you like him?” the maid said, then gave a shake of her head. “Silly question, of course you do; what’s not to like? So what is it with you?”

“How do you know it’s me?”

“Don’t look to me like it’s him.” The words were positive. “Call me a hopeless romantic, but I say men don’t rise up like that to protect women they don’t care about. And they don’t swim laps like the devil is after them unless they got troubles on their minds or they’re trying to forget their manly frustrations.”

Manly frustrations.

“Maybe he has troubles, all right,” Gina said with a grim emphasis.

Etta tipped her head like a wise sparrow. “I see what it is. You just don’t trust him.”

“That about covers it.” Gina avoided the maid’s gaze as she ran a hairbrush through her hair.

“Now that’s a real bawler. I never saw a handsomer couple than you two. There’s got to be something somebody can do.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Gina reached for a headband, holding it in her hands a blind instant as depression washed over her. Then she pushed the band in place with determination and gave a final glance in the mirror at her aqua T-shirt and turquoise shorts. She looked neat and cool, if not particularly exciting or glamorous. Her steps firm, she headed toward the door.

The maid shook her head as she watched her go, but the expression on her piquant face was thoughtful.

A pair of peacocks strutted and screamed outside the fence of the tennis court when Gina reached it. Race was waiting at the gate. Sunlight made a golden sheen in his hair and slanted across his features to reveal his barely controlled impatience. He was not alone.

Bradley and Sandra, in spiffy, regulation tennis whites, stood next to him. Bradley glanced around as Gina approached, flashing a cocksure grin.