The Girl with the Golden Spurs

Lizzy drew more quick breaths as Vanilla began to clap excitedly. The invitation, like the lingerie stacked in containers in her closet, threatened Lizzy in some strange way.

She grabbed it, intending to wad it up, only to have Vanilla reach for it, too, squealing delightedly as she began to nibble on it and bat her long lashes up at her aunt. Tug-of-war was a favorite game of hers and Cole’s.

Cole… Lizzy’s heart thumped in her throat again as she remembered how changed he seemed when she’d last been home. Surprisingly, he and Daddy were actually working together without much of their former friction. Cole had even ridden along with her and her father when her dad had shown her the new state-of-the-art hunting camps and bragged about their corporate clients. Her dad had credited Cole with obtaining the leases.

“No, darling,” Lizzy admonished gently, prying the card from her tiny fingers. “Nasty. Garbage.” She chucked the wet invitation into the trash can even as she was swept with a guilty feeling for doing so.

Again, she told herself that she and Bryce were perfect together. Bryce was from the country. She was from the country, but they’d both craved more excitement, so they’d escaped to the city.

He was from Indiana, a dull farm where nothing ever happened. She was from a huge ranch in south Texas with a fabled history that was like a kingdom unto itself where too much happened. Like all kingdoms, its challenges ruled its owners more than the owners ran the kingdom.

People like her father and mother and Cole were obsessed with land, with its being more than land; obsessed with duties and loyalties to the land and to each other. Lizzy knew that somehow the land had ruined her parents’ lives and maybe her sister’s. She was terrified it would consume her, too.

She hoped New York was far enough away for her to be safe from its pull. She loved being able to lose herself in crowds. Here, she could be a nobody or a somebody. Here, nobody was jealous of her. She could be whatever she wanted to be. She wasn’t destined to be anything. Here, the name, Kemble, meant nothing.

Holding the baby, who was watching her face expectantly, Lizzy sagged still a moment longer against the wall in her entryway. Her weary gaze took in the cardboard books, stuffed rattles and bottles scattered about the floor of the living room and second bedroom, as well as her own closed bedroom door.

Vanilla smiled at Lizzy and clapped her hands together again to divert her.

“You’re glad to be home, aren’t you, precious? You want to get down and crawl.”

Lizzy cuddled her closer and brought her cheek against the baby’s. How was it that Vanilla, her precious little niece, was already such a true little soul mate? Why couldn’t Bryce just enjoy her, too?

“But why didn’t you ask me?” Bryce had said during that phone call she’d made from Texas to tell him her baby-sitting plans.

“Because I knew you’d understand. Mother can’t face the divorce. She needs to pack. It’s only for a month.”

“A baby—for a whole damn month! Why can’t her father… What the hell’s his name?”

“Cole… Knight…”

“Right. Why can’t Knight do his part for once?”

“I told you…he was hurt in the plane crash. He’s not himself—He doesn’t remember…her.” She’d hated the way her throat had closed when she tried to talk about Cole. “This is something I have to do.”

“Well, maybe I don’t!” Bryce had banged the phone down.

She’d been terrified until he’d called back and apologized. “It’s just that I wanted you all to myself—like before. Like the first night.”

Like the first night. She was embarrassed by that memory. Until that night she hadn’t known how lonely she’d been away from home, nor how desperate she’d felt to connect with someone…anyone. She’d been like a cat in heat, wanting Bryce. Not that she’d given into her need that first night.

But he’d known. “You want it bad, baby. As bad as I do,” he’d said as they reached the front door to her apartment building. “Let me come up.”

Later, several weeks later, when she’d finally let him, she’d wanted him with the same ferocity as that first night. She’d let him make love to her again and again, seeking something from his male body, warmth, love, a sense of belonging… something to make her feel she belonged here…and yet…

She remembered getting up alone afterward, going to the window, staring out into the night for hours, listening to the city that never slept, still wanting…something…as she’d listened to him snore. When he’d awakened that morning, he’d wanted her again, and she’d given herself too enthusiastically, wanting to prove—what? That it had all meant something? That he really was as perfect as she wanted to believe?

Suddenly something heavy crashed in her bedroom.

Bryce? Had he ignored the buzzer when she’d rung from the street? Hadn’t he heard her come into the apartment? Why hadn’t he come out?

Frowning, she walked to her bedroom door and pushed it open.

His eyes wide and startled looking, Bryce gaped at her from the middle of her bedroom. Behind him two big black suitcases lay open on top of her new glittery, orange Indian bedspread. Empty plastic containers that had previously held Bryce’s ties and cuff links, along with all that lingerie that she’d stored on her highest shelves, littered her Oriental carpet.

She gasped. When her gaze flew to a black garter belt lying by the bed, Bryce, who was usually calm, tensed. Hostile, bright gray eyes flicked over the baby. Then he flushed and sighed heavily, clamping his lips shut determined to say nothing. She drew in a breath.

So, it was up to her, she who could never speak up at meetings. Her throat went dry, and the first words seemed to stick there. “Y—you’re not leaving—”

“Don’t start in on me— Look, I’m sorry— I hoped to avoid this—”

So, it was over. Just like that.

The realization slammed through her before she stopped all thought. Vaguely she was aware of Vanilla clinging even as the baby’s bottom lip swelled in infantile disdain for this tense, cruel giant.

If only she, Lizzy, could feel such instinctive disdain at Bryce’s betrayal, but she felt—if you could call it feeling—only paralyzing numbness and inadequacy. He was abandoning her just as her father had abandoned her mother.

Lizzy was bleeding to death, only the blood was invisible. Their perfect life together was over. She had tried so hard. Too hard maybe.

“Where are you going?” she finally whispered, not wanting to have this conversation in front of the baby.

Bryce was dragging his designer Italian suits out of her closet. For no reason at all she saw Cole, his face white, beneath a brilliant azure sky on that awful long-ago afternoon when she’d broken up with him.

Cole didn’t matter.

Bryce stared at her and the baby and then hurled his suits on the floor with such violence Vanilla hid her face against Lizzy’s throat. When the baby peeped at him again, her bottom lip was huge and her big blue eyes suspicious.

“Is it the baby?” Lizzy whispered.

Bryce slammed the lid of his suitcase down.

“It’s only half-full,” she said when he made no answer.

Suitcase latches clicked. “Do you think I can pack—now? With you here?”

She kept her voice low so as not to frighten Vanilla. “Is it because I don’t want to go to the party? Because I don’t dress sexy…because I don’t wear that…that lingerie?”

When Vanilla began to whimper, Lizzy soothed her. “It’s all right, darling. It’s all right.” She swayed back and forth with the baby resting on her hip.

“Hell, yes, it’s the party. You tore up the first invitation. It’s a lot of things.” He glared. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

Like the beginning of all relationships, theirs had been mysterious and wonderful, so wonderful they hadn’t asked questions. They’d met in a bar. She’d been out with girlfriends one Thursday night. Everybody had been talking to everybody, but the place had been loud and crowded, and Lizzy, who wasn’t any better in crowds than she was at business meetings at work, hadn’t felt like talking to anybody.

Until she’d noticed Bryce watching her.

He’d joined their table. He’d been as cool and confident as she’d been riddled with self-doubt. Her friend Amanda had known one of his friends from Princeton. Then somebody had said something funny. Bryce and she had both laughed when nobody else had—as if it were their own private joke. And she didn’t get jokes usually.

He’d bought her a drink. Their hands had touched accidentally. She’d felt a spark. He’d gone still at the exact moment she’d yanked her hand from his.