Rainier Drive (Cedar Cove #6)(51)

Teri shrugged. She’d been feeling depressed for the last few days and didn’t want to talk about it. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Bobby Polgar since he’d rolled into Cedar Cove in that stretch limo with his driver, James. Apparently Bobby had never learned to drive. He’d come to see her again, and after that, he’d been calling her every day.

“Is it Bobby Polgar?” Rachel asked, keeping her voice low so as not to attract attention from the other girls or their clients.

Teri nearly dropped her Diet Coke. “How’d you know?”

Rachel’s smile was shrewd. “How many years have we worked together?” She didn’t wait for a response. “In all that time, I’ve never seen you this…subdued.”

“He calls me every night.” The crazy part was that Bobby phoned at exactly seven, Pacific Daylight Time, regardless of where he was. Not one minute before or one minute after, always precisely at seven. The man got around, too. Just last week he’d been in China and the week before that he’d been somewhere in Europe. Prague, if she recalled correctly. His home was in New York City, although she doubted he was there even twenty percent of the time. He always seemed to be on the road. She hadn’t figured out what he did in all those exotic locations once the chess match was over. When he called, he asked her ordinary questions about her day. To be fair, she asked him pretty much the same kind of thing. Mostly she wanted to know where he was calling from. If he was in his hotel at the time, he’d describe whatever he could see from his window. He told her about his chess matches in terms that were light years beyond her understanding. She told him about her customers and how many color jobs, perms or haircuts she’d worked on, the conversations she’d had and what she was reading.

“You like him, don’t you?” Rachel asked, peeling a banana and taking a bite.

“No!” Teri declared.

“You don’t?”

“I’ve been waiting all my life to fall in love,” Teri muttered, and it was true. Rachel knew about all the losers Teri had been involved with through the years. After she’d graduated from beauty school, she’d been too stupid to know any better. She seemed to learn life’s lessons the hard way. Once a guy had emptied her entire bank account, and she’d had no one to blame but herself. She’d actually given him her ATM card and her PIN number! Given it to him because he needed twenty bucks and she had a perm going and couldn’t leave. Talk about stupid. Only it wasn’t twenty bucks he’d walked away with. Instead he’d taken the maximum amount, which happened to be exactly what she’d had in her savings.

Then there was Ray. She’d made the mistake of letting him move in with her. It was only until he got a few things straightened out financially, he’d claimed, and then they’d be married. What a joke. Within a week he’d “lost” his job, and she found herself supporting him. It took six months and a sheriff’s deputy to get him out of her apartment.

Her history with men was abysmal. Her judgment was bad, just like her mother’s. Teri no longer trusted herself when it came to men, and she didn’t understand why Bobby Polgar seemed to be so fascinated with her.

“I told him not to phone me again,” she said. She’d come to look forward to those ridiculous phone calls from Bobby, but she had absolutely nothing in common with him.

“Has he called since?”

“No.” For two nights Teri had sat by the phone, waiting. Hoping he’d call despite her demand. Wishing he would.

“Oh, Teri,” Rachel said, with a resigned sigh. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

“Damn straight I am!”

“And yet you were the first person who told me I shouldn’t let the fact that Nate’s father is a congressman keep me from loving Nate.”

“It’s different with you,” Teri argued. “You’re much smarter than me. You never let a loser move in with you and suck you dry.”

“That doesn’t make me smart.”

Teri snorted softly. “It does in my book.” She didn’t mention her mother. Rachel’s mother had died when she was young and she’d been raised by an aunt. Teri’s mother had married four or five times. Maybe it was six; Teri had lost count. She had a couple of siblings she’d practically raised herself. Her half sister, Christie, was married to a drunk and going through a divorce.

Her half brother, Johnny, was seven years younger and in college, and he was staying there if she had anything to say about it. She helped him with tuition and routinely checked on him to be sure he was studying and his marks were good. That kid was graduating and doing something decent with his life if she had to kill him to make it happen.

“I don’t know what Bobby sees in me anyway,” she said, and popped another French fry in her mouth. She barely had a high-school education. Okay, a GED, but she was top of her class in beauty school. In the looks department, she was all right, she supposed. Average attractive. Her hair color changed depending on her mood. Currently it was black and short, but she was thinking about bleaching it.

“I know why Bobby likes you,” Rachel said. “You’re a breath of fresh air to him, and you’re different from everyone else he knows.” She grinned. “He’s probably never met anyone like you.”