Yours for the Taking Page 15

  “Okay.” Ben held her waist and tugged her closer but she put her hands on his chest and stood firm.

  “And just a warning, cowboy. You had better think twice before you ever accuse me of something again. I don’t like it.”

  Ben tugged her closer still; she left her forearms resting on his chest, separating them. “I didn’t accuse you.”

  Gina gave him a little shove; he didn’t move a millimeter. “Yeah, right. When you use the word conspire, no matter how you slice it, it’s an accusation. I’m giving you a pass this time, but this is no baseball game. You’re not gonna get three strikes with me. If you want to put an end to all this marriage bullshit, fine. I’ll hop the first bus home and have my lawyer call yours. If not, then you live up to your end of the deal and let me live up to mine.” Gina stepped away and went to finish unpacking.

  Ben followed her out. “I said I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t know what to do with him. No matter where she went, he was in her way. He either had his body crowded close to hers, or he was touching her as if he did it unconsciously. The whole touchy-feely thing was a little disconcerting, not to mention arousing.

  “Your threat is unnecessary.”

  That threw a wet blanket over the warm and fuzzy feeling she’d been fighting. She poked him in the chest to get his attention. “Make no mistake, Ben. That wasn’t a threat.”

  ***

  Ben glanced at Gina who was doing a good job of pretending to ignore him as he drove down Castle Rock Road to the sporting goods store. Normally he’d have walked down the hill, but with Gina wearing those boots, he wasn’t sure she’d make it. Besides, Ben planned to buy too much to carry. He checked his watch, pulled his cell off his belt, and dialed Delbert in Three Whores Bend.

  “Yeah?”

  “Del, it’s Ben. How’s it going up there?”

  “Good, are you coming up?”

  “I’m thinkin’ about it.” The tricky thing about Delbert was ascertaining his state of sobriety. He could be three sheets to the wind and sound as if he were sober as a judge—well, a judge that wasn’t Trapper. Ben wiped the thought of Trapper out of his head. That was just one more headache Ben didn’t want to think about or see anywhere near Gina. “Is the bridge passable?”

  “It was about a month ago when I made my last trip to town for liquor.”

  “Are you sober enough to make a run to the bridge in the next hour or so?”

  “Have you ever known me not to be sober enough?”

  “Del, do you really want me to answer that?”

  “No. Okay. I’ll take a run down to the bridge. I was at the bar all night and no one said nothin’ about the bridge being out. Of course, no one was there who actually uses the bridge that often. You should have seen Twyla doing shots. She took her teeth out and left them on the bar. I tell ya, if that woman was twenty years younger—”

  God, the last thing Ben wanted to think about was Twyla with no teeth. It was bad enough thinking about her at all. “Call me in the next hour and I’ll stop at the liquor store on the way.”

  “You got it, Benji.”

  Ben disconnected the call and pulled into a parking spot. “Are you ready to shop?”

  “I don’t know why you insist on buying me clothes when mine are just fine. I’ve walked all over New York in these boots. If they can make it there, they’ll make it anywhere. I’m sure they can handle a mountain or two.”

  “Yeah, Sinatra probably said that before he ever saw any real mountains. If you don’t want to break an ankle, you’ll get a good pair of hiking boots with decent support.”

  “Do they have any with at least a four-inch heel?”

  Ben took the key out of the ignition and couldn’t help but smile. No matter how irritated he was with Gina, she could always make him laugh and make him hot, even when she threatened him. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then I can’t wear them. I’ve been wearing high heels since I was old enough to swipe them from the Salvation Army. If I don’t wear heels, I’m going to rip my calf muscles.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “My calf muscles are shortened. Think about it. It makes sense.”

  Ben got out of the car and walked around to open the door for her. “Let’s buy a pair and you can try wearing them. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Gina raised an eyebrow. She was right—that’s not all he’d ask of her. If she was trying to make him feel guilty, it wasn’t working. She looked him up and down before she shrugged. “Fine, if you want to waste your money, that’s your prerogative.”

  “You’re right, it is.” It always came down to dollars and cents with Gina. It didn’t matter whose, she hated to see anyone’s money wasted. She walked ahead of him to the door and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her ass. It would be a real shame to cover that with baggy pants, unfortunately, that’s probably what he was about to do. They entered the store and Ben felt as if he had to literally push Gina ahead of him.

  She pointed at the rack in front of her. “If you think I’m going to wear any of that stuff, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  He put his arm around her and led her to a rack of convertible cargo pants. “What size are you?”

  “Depending on the cut, between a one and a four; but I’m not wearing those.”

  Ben pulled out three pairs in her sizes. “Just try them on.” He picked out a few shirts off the rack, gauging her size and added them to the pile.

  “God, I’ve died and gone to wardrobe hell.”

  Ben shook his head and handed her the pile of clothes. “The dressing rooms are over there. Why don’t you get started and I’ll grab a couple pairs of hiking boots. What size shoe do you wear?”

  Gina blew her bangs out of her eyes and looked over at the shoe wall. “A seven. What is it? Do they have some strange law in this state that makes it illegal to use any color but brown and tan?”

  Ben gave her a nudge toward the dressing rooms. “You’ll have to ask Trapper about that. He’s the judge.”

  Gina huffed across the store and slammed the dressing room door shut behind her.

  He asked the sales clerk to get several pairs of hiking boots in Gina’s size as well as a half dozen pair of woolen socks. A pair of pants flew over the door. “Did they fit?”

  “No, they fell off me. I’ll try the smaller size.”

  A minute later she stepped out and Ben couldn’t believe his eyes. He hardly noticed her. Gina blended into the woodwork. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she looked ill. “Are you okay?” All the color had drained out of her face. “Are you sick?”

  Gina rolled her eyes. “No, I just look as if I’ve been dead three weeks in this color.”

  He couldn’t deny it. She looked like hell. Not only that, but that hot little body of hers disappeared under all that cloth. She looked as if she was about twelve years old. God, it made him feel like a dirty old man. “Okay, you’re right.”

  “I told you so.”

  “We’re still taking the pants, but we’ll forego the shirts and buy you a couple of jackets to wear over the shirts you brought.”

  Gina smiled with relief as she rubbed her hands together. “Sure, let’s hit the mall. You do have one of those around here, don’t you?”

  “Yes, we have a mall with stores and everything, but I was talking about those polar fleece jackets.” He pointed to a round rack beside her. “They have some blue ones. Is that okay?”

  Gone was the smile as she turned and stomped into the dressing room to change. “As if you really care what I think. Like I said, you can buy whatever you want. That doesn’t mean I’m going to wear it.”

  She shut the door as he leaned against the wall beside it. “If you get cold enough you will. Believe me.”

  Gina threw the ugly shirt she’d had on over the top of the dressing room door and it landed on his head. “Ben, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s almost summer.”

  Ben reached over the door, waiting for the han
ger. “Not in the mountains, it’s not.”

  She placed three of them in his hand. “It’s almost summer everywhere in the northern hemisphere.”

  “Yeah, you go ahead and believe that if it makes you feel better.” He hung up a shirt and stuck it under his arm. “I’m just going to make sure you have the right clothes when reality hits.”

  Gina came out of the dressing room looking like herself again. “Where are you taking me, anyway?”

  “To the ranch in Three Whores Bend.” Ben walked back to hang the shirts on the racks.

  “Did you just say whores? As in whores on Seventh Avenue?”

  He put his hand on her lower back leading her to the boots. “Yup. There’s nothing wrong with your hearing.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  “I’m not sure if I should tell you until we get up there. I don’t want you to change your mind about coming.” He handed Gina one of the boots he’d chosen for her.

  “I have a choice?”

  Ben shot her a warning look and caught her teasing grin.

  She passed the boot between her hands. “How much do these boots weigh? Wearing them will be like having cinder blocks tied to my feet. The Cosa Nostra could save a lot of time if they threw people in the East River wearing these.”

  “They weigh about two pounds, they’re hardly cinder blocks. Once you break them in, they’re like wearing bedroom slippers. Come on, let’s try them on.”

  Gina backed away from him. “I don’t see you trying anything on.”

  “I have a good pair of hiking boots. You don’t.”

  “I have several good pairs of boots. Just not ugly ones.”

  “Gina, would you please sit down?” He pointed to a chair. “I’m going to buy you boots so you might as well stop arguing.”

  “Only if you tell me about Three Whores Bend.”

  “Fine,” he muttered as she sat. He threw her a pair of socks. “Put these on.”

  When she did, he took the chair beside her and tried to figure out what exactly to tell her. She began lacing the boots the wrong way. He took them from her and did it correctly, moving over to the seat across from her.

  “Three Whores Bend was on a trail that ran between two mining towns back in the late nineteenth century. The whores would make the trip from the mine in Atlanta, across the pass to get to the mine in Rocky Bar every payday.”

  “Makes sense, you gotta follow the money.”

  “Exactly.” He pulled her sock up tight, making sure there was no loose material and helped her step into the boot. He took her booted foot, stuck it between his knees, and finished lacing it. “So one day in May, the three whores, Dutch Em, Annie, and Ann, headed toward Rocky Bar and a freak spring blizzard hit. Two of them froze to death just outside what is now Three Whores Bend. Annie had her dog with her. The dog kept her warm enough that she only lost her leg.”

  Gina’s eyes went wide. “They froze to death? What, they couldn’t start a fire?”

  “I guess not.” He helped her into the other boot and continued. “When the men found them, they had to cut Annie’s leg off and get Dutch Em and Ann back to Atlanta for burial. They carried Annie down and the others built a toboggan and laid Dutch Em and Ann’s bodies on it like logs, tied them to the sled, and headed down the pass.”

  “Those poor women. You know, that doesn’t happen in New York.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Right. Anyway, the guys were going down the pass. Sliding the bodies down on the toboggan wasn’t such an easy thing to do. The trail follows the river and is really steep. They were slogging through four feet of snow and ice. The story goes that close to where the country club is, at a sharp bend in the river, the trail went right, the toboggan went left, and the whores flew over the cliff and into the river. They never found the bodies. From that day forward, that area was known as Three Whores Bend.” Ben finished tying her boots and set her foot down.

  Gina didn’t move. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  Ben stood and pulled her out of her chair. He’d forgotten how short she was without heels. The boots probably added another couple of inches to her height, but it wasn’t the four or five he was used to. “Nope, that’s the God’s honest truth. One of Annie’s customers made her a makeshift wooden leg; they called her Peg Leg Annie after that. It’s even on her gravestone. A few years ago, I found an old miner’s diary. He was one of the men who brought the women down to Atlanta. I can show it to you when we get home.”

  “Sheesh, what a story.”

  She was acting awfully upset about two women who died over a hundred years before. He took her hand and stepped away from the chair. “How do the boots feel?”

  “What?” She looked down and stared at her feet as if she’d forgotten she even had them on. “They’re fine.”

  “I picked out a couple others that would work. If you hate them less, we can try them on. The ones you have on are the best, though.”

  “Can we just go? Shopping is no fun when I don’t get anything I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Other than condoms, nothing comes to mind.”

  “I need to pick up a few things at the liquor store for Del and there’s a drugstore right down the street.”

  “Can I take these boots off before we go?”

  “Yeah, sit down. I can take care of that for you.” Ben expected her to say she’d do it herself; instead, she just sat and held up her booted foot.

  “Fine, take them off.”

  Chapter 10

  When they returned to the house, Ben said he was going to pack for their trip to Three Whores Bend. He was a lot more eager to leave Boise than Gina was. She hoped the name of the town wasn’t a bad omen. She’d seen firsthand what happened to whores, but when she asked to hear the story, she expected it to be a comedy, not a tragedy. What a total psych-out that had turned out to be. At least she knew they had a country club, so the place couldn’t be all that bad. She hoped not anyway. She wasn’t sure she’d fit in at a country club, but she’d pulled off her first dinner at Tavern on the Green so it shouldn’t be too much worse than that.

  Gina decided to spend a little time exploring the house. So far, all she’d seen was Ben’s bedroom, the hallway, Joe’s office, and the kitchen. All the rooms were nice, but not extraordinary. She would have thought a guy worth seven billion dollars would live in a castle. Not Joe Walsh. No, he was as down-to-earth as they came.

  When Ben took her through the front door into the foyer, she couldn’t believe what she found. There were three, three-quarter life-sized statues of geishas and two horses made of what looked like ivory inlaid with beautiful stones she figured had to be jewels. After all, why would somebody glue plastic on ivory? The statues were stunning, etched, and bejeweled. Gorgeous. She’d never seen anything like them, not even at any of the museums she and Tina always visited whenever they had time.

  The house itself was huge. When she saw it in the daylight, she realized how very large it was. It stood like a sentry on the top of a foothill overlooking the city of Boise. It had beautiful views from every window. Last night, after Ben had fallen asleep, Gina stared out at the lights of the city for what seemed like hours before she could stop thinking about her search for Rafael, and quiet her mind enough to finally curl up next to Ben and sleep.

  The fact that she used to be an independent woman and now she was kept bothered her more than she thought it would, and she had expected it to bother her a lot. She kept telling herself that finding Rafael would be worth the mess her life had become since she met Ben. Still, there was no telling how long it would take to find him, or if she even could.

  The thought of marrying for money had her riding the sharp edge of panic. Now that she and Ben were having sex, everything had gotten worse. Somehow not sleeping with him meant she hadn’t crossed the line in the sand that separated her from her mother. It made her feel less like a whore. Last night had changed that. And to make her even more uncomfortable, eve
r since last night, she’d caught Ben looking at her as if he were trying to read her mind. For his sake, she hoped he was unsuccessful. He wouldn’t like what he found there. Hell, she wished she could take a mental vacation from it herself. She was a total hypocrite. She’d always looked down at her mother and now was following in her footsteps. She just hoped it was worth it.

  Gina explored the front rooms of the house and found what looked like priceless works of art everywhere. She stared at a small Monet in the dining room, and she was sure it wasn’t a reproduction from the Frick Museum.

  “Taking inventory?”

  Gina turned to find Kate taking her measure like a brawler fishing for her next victim. “Excuse me?”

  “Ben told me all about your plan. I know why you married him.”

  Gina crossed her arms to keep from fidgeting. “Because he asked?”

  Kate took a step toward her. “Because he’s paying you.”

  Gina smiled; she liked Kate even if the woman hated her. “When you’re right, you’re right. I’m not going to belabor the point.”

  “If you hurt him, you’re going to have to answer to me.”

  Gina stood her ground. “I’m not going to hurt Ben. We have a contract, he gets what he wants, I get what we agreed to. Nothing more.”

  “Do you know he proposed to Karma first? He only asked you because she refused him.”

  Gina didn’t let her astonishment show. She was getting so good at hiding her emotions, she sometimes wondered if she had any emotions at all. “I guess that’s her loss, and by the way you’re talking, yours too. I’m sorry if she let you down. I met her last night. She was really nice.”

  “She didn’t let me down. I don’t want anything from Ben or Joe Walsh. But I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let you take them for a ride. I wish Karma had married Ben. Anything would have been better than marrying a total stranger who’s just doing it to pad her bank account.”