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"I had to guess your size, Mr. Camacho," he said handing Isaac a plastic bag emblazoned with Hamilton University's logo on it, along with a second bag from a discount store. "If these don't fit let me know and I'll send Skye back again."
Albert hadn't said so, but there was no missing that Skye was a pageant champion in the making. She was tall, confident, and had a big smile no matter what—although it had shaken when she'd spotted Albert's bruised up face. If she didn't have at least five major sashes framed on her wall already, Tamara would eat the brand-new hot pink GO BULLDOGS! T-shirt Albert had handed her.
"Don't make that face." He waved his hand in a circular motion in her general direction. "You'll get wrinkles."
She shook her head. Somethings never changed. "Albert, I'm retired. I'm allowed to get wrinkles."
He arched an eyebrow at her, but it took work. Must be too soon after his last Botox treatment. Some people smoked. Some people ate an entire bag of Oreos in one sitting. Albert's addiction was perfect skin no matter what. Hell, who was she to judge? She was on the run from a megalomaniac, and anyway Albert was the best friend a washed-up beauty queen could ever have.
He pivoted on his bare feet and marched toward the bathroom. "Young lady, you’re coming with me. You're going to become a brunette, but don't worry. It's only temporary."
She started to follow but hesitated before walking out of the living room. Isaac stood in the middle of the room looking totally out of place in the room decorated in pageant memorabilia, from the chandelier with its tiny light-up tiaras to the framed covers of Pageant Monthly. With his worn cowboy boots and painted-on jeans, he looked ridiculous in Albert's living room…and close enough to perfect to make her breath catch.
"Do you think it's me?" He held up the neon green T-shirt with a growling bulldog on the front.
She laughed. "I don't think that shirt is anyone."
"Aw hell," he muttered as he pawed through the plastic bag. "There's boat shoes in here."
The last time she'd seen him out of his cowboy boots, they were both getting naked as fast as humanly possible. Heat sizzled its way up from her belly at the memory. With all that had gone on, thinking about Isaac naked and buried inside her should be the last thing she
should be thinking about. That she couldn't help but play that mental movie just went to show how selfish she was. Albert, Isaac, the B-Squad, even Skye, who she'd barely set eyes on—they were all coming to her rescue. The least she could do was not behave like a hormonal teenager with her first crush.
"I gotta go." The fact that she didn't want to go scared her enough to get her feet moving.
He nodded and shoved his long fingers through his dark hair. "Try to get a couple hours of sleep. We're heading out before dawn."
Chicken that she was, Tamara scurried out of the room like it had just caught fire.
Thirty minutes later she was sitting on the edge of Albert's garden tub, her hair slick with brown semi-permanent dye.
"Color from a box." Albert made a series of tsk-tsk noises and adjusted the plastic hair cap covering her wet strands. "It makes my heart hurt."
"Do you remember when I tried to dye it myself a week before the Miss Crystal Dream pageant?" Disaster didn't cover it. Her mother had been too mad to snipe at her—a first.
"Blue." Albert laughed, a deeper sound than one would expect from the tall, thin man in white who always managed to look pristine, even now with half his face bruised up. "A beauty queen with blue hair. Thank God for emergency hair stylists."
The stylist had had to strip the color out of her hair and start fresh. She'd smelled bleach in her sleep for weeks afterward. "I'd thought it would be more pastel blue and less electric blue."
He sat down on the vanity chair opposite her, his unlined face peaceful. "Things so seldom go exactly the way we plan."
Wasn't that the story of her life. She was supposed to be a trophy wife. She'd gotten close. She'd married Taz, but he hadn’t been on the hunt for a trophy wife. He hadn't realized it, but he'd been looking for love, and she wasn't made for that kind of commitment. And now she knew why. Because it hurt—not just her, but everyone around her.
"Albert, I'm so sorry about this. I never should have involved you."
"Involved me? I do believe you fought me tooth and acrylic nail to leave Essie here while you went down to Fort Worth."
"So I could blackmail Taz. Another brilliant plan."
"Not your best, I'll agree, but you were desperate and backed into a corner."
"And look how much bigger of a mess I've made." Albert was hurt. Isaac had almost been dragged into a gunfight. Essie was right back where she'd started. "I should have just taken Essie to another country and lived under a fake name."
"You knew as soon as you got Essie out of Redfin that Jarrod would never give up until he took her back. That's the real reason you went to Fort Worth with that cockamamie plan to get a million dollars from your ex-husband. Because you don't know how to just ask for help."
Was he right? Had she just been looking for an excuse to ask for help? She'd like to have said no, but there was more than a nugget of truth to what he said. Asking for help had never been on her list of talents. Hell, she'd been raised to believe that it did nothing but make you vulnerable to other people. In reality, it just brought trouble to innocent people's doors.
She clasped her hands together as tightly as she could, the pain helping to center her. "I asked for your help, and look what happened."
