The doors opened and I led her down the hall to my suite. Housekeeping had left the lights on and music playing from my call to the hotel earlier. A large bouquet of deep red roses sat on a vase on the table.
Tricia gawked as she entered the room. While she admired the roses, I picked up the room phone and called down to the lobby.
“Good evening, Mr. Abernathy. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Connect me with Security, please.”
“Right away, sir.”
After a brief wait, a man’s familiar voice came on the line.
“Mr. Abernathy? This is Joseph, head of security.”
“Good, I was hoping you were on duty,” I said. I turned away from Tricia and lowered my voice. “There’s a man in the bar wearing sunglasses.”
“Yes, I saw him arrive earlier with a young woman.”
“She’s with me now. Take care of him. Scare the living shit out of him. I don’t want him bothering this young lady or any others again.”
I hung up the phone and walked over to Tricia, who was sitting on the couch looking uncomfortable. She smiled sweetly at me and pushed her small chest forward in what I guessed she thought was a sexy pose.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said.
“Why were you here with that scum?”
“What? Oh, you mean in the bar? Let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about how I can make you feel better.”
“I’ll cut to the chase, Tricia,” I said as I perched myself on the arm of the chair across from her. “I live in hotels. I haven’t had a place to call home in fifteen years. I see girls like you all the time, and every once in a while I bring one up to my room like I did with you. Right now, you have a choice to make. You either tell me what you’re doing with him, or you go back down and take a chance with another John.”
As she looked around the suite, I saw her eyes stop every so often as she took everything in. Her eyes settled back on me. She took a deep breath before speaking.
“If we’re being honest, you seem like a pretty straight up guy. And you gave me more money than I’ve ever seen. Most men would’ve started grabbing at me in the elevator.”
“I didn’t bring you up here for that.”
“Then why am I here?”
“To give you a chance. Listen, I’ve had a rough day. Tell me why you’re with that asshole and I’ll see what I can do to help you.”
“Only if you tell me about her,” she said, reaching over to touch my knee.
My eyes met hers and after our silent conversation, I knew I didn’t have to play dumb. She read me like an open book.
“You first,” I said.
“Maybe I do need that drink.”
“We both do.” In the freezer, I kept a bottle of Grey Goose that I pulled out and poured into a couple of glasses. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days. Order whatever you want from room service.”
“Anything?”
Before I could finish nodding, she grabbed the phone and pressed the button. As I set the glasses down on an end table, I heard her order enough to feed an army.
“There’s no way you can eat that much,” I said. I didn’t need her to answer, I had done this enough times before to know her story without hearing it. She wanted to bring the leftovers home.
She grinned and looked like a child, which angered me even more. I hoped Joseph would use his fists to get his point across on that lowlife.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she hung up the phone. “That man, Mr. Dunham, owns the building we live in. My father is a gambler, just not a very good one. He’s done what he could for us, but the best he could do was this apartment in the South End. When we couldn’t pay the rent, Mr. Dunham made me an offer.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t know any other way out. I’ve been working seven days a week wherever people will hire me, but it’s never enough. I’m the oldest of five and most of them are still in school, so they can’t help.”
I put my hand up to tell her to stop talking. I didn’t mean to make her cry. I found a box of tissues and handed it to her.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two. I should be in college or out on my own, but I can’t leave my brothers and sisters like that,” she sniffled.
“We have to get your family out of there.”
“We don’t have any place to go.”
“Call them. Tell them to pack whatever means the most to them and that a car will pick them up later. You’ll stay here for a few days until I find a home where all of you can live.”
“But we can’t afford anything,” she cried.
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“But then...” her voice trailed off and she looked down, afraid to ask her next question. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m opening an office in Canyon Cove. I need someone who lives here to run it. Someone I can trust.” Her gaze met mine again and I saw confusion spread across her face. “You’ve managed a household with four children and a gambling father. You’ve offered yourself in order to keep a roof over their head when you could have left them. I can’t train integrity like that.”
“But--”
“I’m not done. I’ll arrange for a house for your family to live in. A small deduction will come out of your salary to pay for it. In exchange, I expect you to manage my office here. What do you say?”
She eyed me suspiciously as she took a sip of her drink. “Tell me about her first.”
She surprised me. It made me feel that much better about my offer.
“Her name is Tara,” I said, leaning back in the chair. “I was going to propose to her tonight, but she didn’t want to see me.”
“What did you do?” she said, her voice full of accusation.
“I didn’t do anything. All I did was try kissing her.”
“You’re leaving something out.” Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s nothing really, but the last time we saw each other was fifteen years ago. She thinks I don’t know her anymore, but I do. I always have. I know her better than I know myself.”
“How can you? Have you been spying on her?”
I laughed. “No, of course not. Today was a chance meeting. Fate finally stepped in and brought us back together. I don’t want to go any longer without her.”
Now it was Tricia’s turn to laugh. “You’re an idiot, you know that? You can’t expect things to just go back where you left off. You need to woo her. Women want foreplay, and not just with sex, but with relationships too. Trust me on that.”
I was shocked that she felt so comfortable speaking to me like this. People rarely had the balls to talk back to me or tell me I was wrong.
“I think you and I will work well together,” I said.
“You really meant everything you said? About my family and the house? The job?”
“I don’t bullshit people. I meant every word.”
“Then I’ll take the job.” She stuck her hand out to me to shake, but then pulled it back at the last second. “But only on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“You let me help you get your girl back.”
I grabbed her hand and we shook. “It’s a deal.”
Tara
I was cleaning up around the cottage when I heard a soft knock on the door. The cottage was on the Boone’s property, not far from the main house. I could live wherever I wanted, but the small house had a coziness I adored so when they offered it to me to live, I accepted.
I didn’t need to look to see who was knocking. It could only be one of two people, Maya or Ashley. As I opened the door, Ashley started talking immediately.
“So tell me about this guy you call the love of your life,” Ashley said with a smile as she walked in.
“Well hello to you too,” I said. “Can’t we talk about something else?”
“No, I’ve never seen you light up the way you did when you said his name. Everything about you changed. You
have to tell me. I won’t take no for an answer.”
“You know, Xander is right. You are stubborn.”
“I’ve never said any differently. Now spill it.”
She tapped the table with an impatient look. I knew she wouldn’t let it drop just like I knew what her reaction would be.
“Mason was my first love, my first heartbreak, my first, well, not everything, but he made it feel like that.”
“Go on,” she said as she leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Everything, Tara. Every single detail. I’m your friend, you’re supposed to tell me all the sordid details.”
“Well, I don’t know about sordid, but we did have a lot of fun,” I said with a laugh. “Honestly, I can’t even tell you what it was about him. I mean I remember vividly the first day I saw him, what he was wearing, how I reacted to him. I think I remember feelings more than anything. He made me feel special and beautiful. I never felt like I had to be anyone other than myself with him. We were only together about eight months, but there was something about it that felt like it would never end, in a good way.”
“So what happened?” she asked.
“It ended.”
Ashley shot me a dirty look that made me burst out laughing.
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you everything. He left the ranch and took my heart with him. He had an invitation to go to Germany to learn more about some environmental something or other. He was only supposed to be gone for a few months, but he never came back. I never heard from him again.”
“Never? He just disappeared?”
“Well, he didn’t come back like he said he would, and he never called. I never heard from him while I was still down there and eventually I just couldn’t stay there anymore, so I left.”
It didn’t feel like it was me telling the story. I had lived through it so many times that I was numb. The slightest thing reminded me of Mason and when it did, I felt like I was taken back in time.
“You must have tried looking him up. Do you know what happened to him?”
“I’ve searched for him online but never really found much. Just mostly his business stuff like how he took over running Abernathy Ranch like his father always wanted him to. I’ve never found anything personal, not even a photo of him. I don’t know where he lives, if he ever got married, nothing. Sometimes I feel like he never existed. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean? Why not? He’s here. You just saw him.”
“And he asked me out on a date and then he kissed me so I cancelled it.”
“You did what? I thought you were excited to see him again.”
“I was, but everything felt too much like it did in the past.”
“But isn’t that good? You said you were crazy in love.”
“I was. And maybe I still am. But it’s not right. It was so long ago and we’re different people. I’ve changed and he has to see that.”
“I think there’s more to it than just that,” she said.
I thought about what happened when I pushed him away. The ache that had been there since he left came back and reminded me what felt wrong.
“I need to know what happened. I need him to tell me why he didn’t call, why he didn’t look for me.” I pushed aside my hurt and anger replaced it. “I waited for him and he didn't care enough to even call. I deserve better than that.”
Part One
A Chance to Remember
Chapter One
Tara
Present Day
October
Ashley and I were seated in Mirabella’s, the restaurant and pastry shop we met at for just about everything. The warm colors of the restaurant were accented with pumpkins, ghosts, and goblins for the upcoming holiday.
“I still can’t believe you cancelled on Mason at the last minute again,” Ashley said.
“You ever have that one guy you’ve never been able to stop thinking about?” I glanced over at Ashley as she sipped her coffee. She didn’t need to answer. “No, of course not, Xander was the one and only for you.”
“Excuse me?” Ashley said with a laugh. “We weren’t always together.”
“You had what? Weeks apart? I’m talking years, honey.” I shook my head. “For years, Mason has been on my mind like a song you can’t get out of your head, but worse.” I chuckled as I vainly tried to push away my sadness. “There was no one else like him back home in North Carolina or any other place else. Trust me, I’ve looked.”
“So then it’s good you’re going on that date with him.”
“No, it’s not,” I said as I lifted my hot chocolate to my lips.
The waitress came by and put down a plate of pastries between Ashley and I. I wanted one, but I couldn’t muster up the energy to reach for it. Everything was focused on remembering him.
“Then why not? How could it be a bad thing when you’ve been thinking about him for all this time?”
“Ashley, I’ve been thrown from a horse, kicked by a bucking stallion, but nothing in my life has hurt me more than Mason’s leaving. He might as well have ripped my beating heart out of my chest when he didn’t come back.”
“When did that happen?”
I sighed. “Fifteen years ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I last saw him. I still feel that pain as if it happened yesterday.”
I wrapped my fingers around the mug so the ceramic would warm them. With a soft laugh, I looked back at Ashley.
“Everything reminds me of him,” I said. “It always has. Even something as insignificant as this hot chocolate makes my mind drift over to him. All my memories of Mason are right here,” I said as I put my hand over my heart. “I can even remember the first time I ever saw him and feel that excitement as if it just happened.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
Ashley rested her chin on her hand, her eyes wide as she waited for my answer.
“No, it was anything but love,” I said with a laugh. “I hated him. And the fact that he was such a gorgeous man made me want to hate him even more.”
Fifteen Years Ago
“What do you mean I didn’t get the job?” I asked. “It’s still March, I thought they were announcing it at the beginning of April.”
Maddie Maguire and I were in the tack room cleaning up after a day of training. Her long brown ponytail swung as she shook her head.
“I heard old man Abernathy’s son is coming back home,” she said. “He wants him to learn the business from the ground up so instead of getting someone who deserves the job a chance, that Mason is getting the job.”
“Well, I’ll be damned if I’m just gonna stand here and take that. I’ve worked my ass off the past four years here in the hopes that I would get that job. I need that job.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to march right into that big house and give them a piece of my mind. They have no right to do this.”
“Listen, Tara, I know things have been hard at home since your dad had that heart attack, but you can’t just go in there and think that they will let you stay here if you go off on them like that.”
I shook my head as frustration consumed me. I couldn’t just stand there and let them give the job that I had worked so hard for to someone who didn’t deserve it.
Maddie’s brow was wrinkled with concern. She knew how short-tempered I was and she knew how bad things were at home. I needed this job to help support my family, but I needed to stand up for myself first and foremost.
“I promise I won’t lose it, but I need to go in there. I need to understand why I didn’t get the job and why they’re just handing it over to his son. Old man Abernathy is a reasonable man, I can’t believe he would just do this.”
“Have you ever been into the big house?” she asked.
“No, why?”
“Because you’ll never see anything else like it. The first time I went in there, I was overwhel
med.”
“Please, you know shit like that doesn’t bother me. It’s just money.”
“Not like this. Money doesn’t even begin to describe this.”
Maddie had a tendency to exaggerate at times, and I was sure this was one of those times. I could care less how much money the Abernathys had or how big their house was.
I hung up the final bridle and walked out of the tack room and through the barn without looking back. Even though it was the end of our work day, I knew Maddie well enough to know that she would wait around for me.
It had been four years since I first entered the gates of Abernathy Ranch, but this would be the first time I entered the main house. I followed the winding walkway through the field separating the barns and the stables to the main house.
Although I had seen the house hundreds of times, it had never looked as large as it did at that moment. I was suddenly very aware of my worn jeans, my blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, and the dirt under my fingernails after a long day of working with horses.
Abernathy Manor was a huge two-story stone mansion with tall, wood-framed gables. After the original house was destroyed in a fire fifty years ago, a new house was built years later on the remains of the original structure along with a nearby barn.
The mansion was a never-ending work in progress as Mrs. Abernathy continued to change and fix things in the house. She even added stained glass that she had collected on her trips to Italy. The result was that Abernathy Manor was an impressive combination between the old and the new.
Breathing in deep as I approached the house, I decided to follow the stone walkway around to the front. While no one had ever said so, it was common knowledge that anyone who worked at Abernathy Ranch was only welcomed in the house if they were invited.
While I knew Maddie would have opted for one of the back doors, there was no way I was going to lower myself to that. If I was going to make a fuss about not getting the job, then I was going to do it in the front door, not the back.
Won’t Fall Again Page 2