Sugar Ellie

by Sarah Hegger

  With her back still to him, she sighed. “Again, I must ask why?”

  “Because I have never forgotten you. You were my everything, and the end to our story has never been written.”

  She turned, her expression strained. “I cannot think. I don’t believe I am yet over the shock of seeing you standing on the sidewalk outside my house.” She gave a tight little laugh. “You have barely changed, you know?”

  “I think you’ll find I am much changed,” he said.

  “But you look nearly the same.” She studied his face. “Actually, that’s a lie. You have only gotten handsomer with age.”

  That was definitely a good sign, and Cole closed the distance between them. “Look, I know this is a shock. I don’t expect you to say or do anything now. Take some time and think, but while you’re doing that, know that I am more sorry than I can say for hurting you. If you decide you want nothing more to do with me, I’ll accept that, but if you give me a chance, I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.”

  Cole left shortly after. The meeting had gone as well as he could expect. The weight of his next visit still pressed on him and made it impossible to relax.

  Elegant brick exterior peering down at him, his childhood home looked nearly identical. Excect the oak in the front of the house was much taller and stouter now, and the door had been painted a cheery blue.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, like he had as a boy, he took a moment to breathe before he knocked.

  Time stretched slowly as he waited for someone to answer. Finally, the handle turned, and the door opened.

  Expecting to see the old family butler, he was nonplussed by the shorter, younger man standing and looking at him politely. “May I help you?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Is my moth—is Mrs. Mansfield in?”

  “I shall enquire.” He inclined his head. “Who may I say is calling?”

  “Tell her…” He hesitated and then spurred forward. “Tell her Cole Mansfield would very much like to see her.”

  The man showed no reaction to his name, but after asking Cole to wait, closed the door.

  Cole cursed himself for being all kinds of a fool. He should have written, sent a fucking telegram, for God’s sake. His mother might not believe the butler or get the shock of her life.

  The door wrenched open and Brett stood in the doorway.

  “Jesus!” Brett looked at him from top to toe. “I couldn’t believe it when Mellor told us you were at the door.”

  “It’s me.” Cole took in the changes the years had wrought to his older brother. He’d grown muscular and heavyset in his thirties, looking more like their paternal grandfather. “How are you, Brett?”

  “Are you serious?” Brett scowled at him. “After all this time, you show up on my doorstep and expect what?”

  “You’re right.” Cole didn’t want to fight with Brett. They’d never gotten on as younger men, but this could be a new beginning. “I should have written, or at least sent a telegram. I didn’t really think this through past seeing everyone again.”

  “What a surprise.” Brett folded his arms. “Cole didn’t think things through before he acted. Nice to know you haven’t changed.”

  But he had changed. More than he could say. “I’d like to see Mother. And you. May I come in?”

  “You think because he’s dead you can have free run of this house?” Brett shook his head, the cold censure of his face so reminiscent of their father.

  “We both know he wouldn’t have let me in the house,” Cole said. His father had told him to go away and stay away, and Cole had believed him. Quentin Mansfield had not made idle threats or said things he didn’t mean. It was a pity that most of what he meant and said was cruel and ugly. “The question is, will you, Brett? Will you let me in the house?”

  “No.” Brett relished the word. “You’re not welcome here or anywhere the family is. You’re not part of us anymore, and we’ve gotten on fine without you.” He started closing the door. “Go away, Cole. Crawl back into whatever hovel you’ve been living in and stay there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ellie spent her morning lounging in her hotel room, trying not to fret about Cole. Other than Cole’s house in Denver, she’d never seen such luxury. Gas lights and a water closet, plus a bath she could fill from her bathroom.

  She spent a good fifteen minutes turning the water on and off again, just because she could. A shared sitting room sat between her bedroom and Cole’s, and she unearthed some books and a pack of cards. They kept her entertained for a while. Cole hadn’t said when he would be back.

  At noon, she ordered lunch to be brought up and ate it looking at the bustling street outside her window. There were an awful lot of people in an all-fired hurry out there. She didn’t know how she was ever going to find her place among them.

  After lunch, she read a book until Cole walked into their sitting room. The pensive look on his face made her heart sink. She’d been bouncing between what she wished for Cole all morning. Her selfish heart wanted things to go badly with Victoria, because her heart tried to convince her brain that if Victoria rejected him, he would come back to her. Most of her wanted him to have what he desired.

  She stood and went to him. “It didn’t go well?”

  “Ellie.” His expression gentled and he brushed her cheek with his fingers. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  And didn’t that set her stupid heart off again. Hiding her reaction from him, she poured him a glass off whisky from the decanters and gave it to him.

  He smiled his thanks as he took the whisky, shrugged out of his coat and draped it over a chair.

  Ellie thought about pouring one for herself but resisted. For both their sakes, she needed to keep her defenses up around him. Already all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and love him until he lost that hollowness in his eyes.

  “I saw Victoria.” He lowered himself into a chair by the fire. Putting his head back, he closed his eyes and stretched his legs out in front of him. “She looked…well. Beautiful.”

  It was what she had wished for him. There was no reason for the pang his words caused. “And?”

  “I’m not sure.” He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “I told her I was back, that I was sorry and left it to her if she wanted contact with me again.”

  “Is that where you were all morning?”

  “For some of the time.” He held out his hand to her. “I also went to see my mother.”

  Ellie slid her hand into his and squeezed. “Was she happy to see you?”

  “I don’t know.” He tugged her closer to his chair. “I couldn’t get past my brother.” His laugh held a wry edge. “My brother, it should be noted, was not in the least happy to see me.”

  The cause of his upset became clear. Ellie ached to hold him, touch him, comfort him. She settled for squeezing his hand. “Give him time. It must have been quite a shock to see you after all this time.”

  “Brett doesn’t need time.” He kissed her knuckles then turned her hand over and kissed her palm. “He hated me when we were boys, and his feelings haven’t changed.

  Ellie eased her hand out of his and curled her fingers over the warm tingling where his mouth had been. “So your mother might not even know you’re back?”

  “I don’t know.” He downed his whisky and stood and poured himself another. “Maybe she does and feels the same about seeing me as Brett does.”

  “And maybe she doesn’t.” Ellie hated to see him defeated. “You did all of this, came all this way, don’t give up on her before you know for sure.”

  “You’re right.” He put his glass down. The sultry heat in his eyes called to her, a song of want her body answered instantly. “What are you doing standing all the way over there?”

  “Maintaining a safe distance.” She locked her knees to stop herself from closing the gap between them and giving him the most elemental comfort of all. How she felt about him was irrelevant, and she would no
t allow her brain to unfurl that thought yet. When he was with his Victoria and she was on her own again, then she would think back to this man and how much he’d meant to her, would always mean to her. “I’m sorry about your brother, Cole. I don’t have much luck with brothers either.”

  He stopped in front of her. “No, you don’t.” His eyes went molten as they caressed her face and then slid down her body. “I know we said we would go our separate ways in New York, but I think we should reconsider.”

  His kiss landed as a gentle touch of his mouth to hers.

  For a moment, Ellie allowed herself that much. She closed her eyes and sank into his kiss. His sandalwood and leather scent, she drew deep into her lungs, letting it settle there. This small taste of him would have to last her a long time. Fighting every instinct and desire she had, she ended the kiss and stepped back. “Our time together was incredible.” From somewhere she dredged up a smile. “I could never have dreamed of such a wonderful love affair, but for both our sakes, it needs to end now.”

  He studied her face for a long silent moment, and then said, “If that’s what you want, Ellie, that’s how it will be.”

  What she wanted didn’t come into it. Ellie could write him a book on how much she didn’t want it that way, but the truth she couldn’t deny was that when all was said and done, she was the only one who really wanted things to be different.

  Cole stayed long enough to share a whisky with her, and then went off to see his business manager. He didn’t say why, and Ellie didn’t ask. She wasn’t entitled to ask him questions like that. Those were questions for a wife.

  She busied herself improving her widow gowns until a knock on the door interrupted her.

  Opening the door, she found an older woman standing outside dressed in the most beautiful plum colored dress Ellie had ever seen. “Good afternoon.”

  “Oh.” The woman blinked at her and frowned at the door. “I thought this was Mr. Mansfield’s room.”

  It was the eyes that gave her away. The same burnished gold as Cole’s. He also got his fine bone structure from his mother. “Are you Mrs. Mansfield?”

  “Why, yes, I am.” She looked relieved. Beneath a black hat with a wonderful plume, she looked pale and anxious. “Is Cole…Mr. Mans—is my son here?”

  “Not at the moment.” Ellie opened the door wider. “But he will be soon if you’d like to come in and wait for him.” She was so relieved to be right that his mother wouldn’t have refused to see him. “Please stay and wait for him. He so wants to see you.”

  Mrs. Mansfield studied her and then entered the sitting room. “I take it you know my son well.”

  “As well as any.” Ellie was relieved she was dressed in her respectable widow’s garb. The way Cole’s mother was looking at her promised probing questions on the way. “Cole keeps to himself a lot, but I journeyed here from Denver with him.”

  “Denver?” She made a stifled sound, half sob and half laugh. “Is that where he’s been all this time?”

  “I don’t know about all the time.” Ellie ached for the way Mrs. Mansfield held her pain close and tried not to show it. “I know he did well for himself in Denver. As a respectable businessman.”

  Mrs. Mansfield smiled, but it held the weight of her sadness. “If you know my son well, then you know he is not always respectable.”

  “Maybe not.” Ellie didn’t want his mama thinking bad of him. “But he’s a good man, and a generous and kind one. I got into some bother, and Cole rescued me. That’s the reason he brought me to New York.”

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Mansfield motioned a chair. “May I?”

  Where the hell were her manners? “Of course.” Ellie rushed to pull the dress she was working on off the chair so Mrs. Mansfield could sit. Then she tried to tidy up her sewing paraphernalia.

  “You sew?” Mrs. Mansfield tilted her head in a gesture so reminiscent of Cole, Ellie stared at her for a moment.

  “Er…yes.” Ellie folded her dress over her arm. “That is, not this one. Well, I am making it better, but it was readymade.” And would her mouth stop flapping?

  Folding her hands on her lap, Mrs. Mansfield looked about the sitting room. “Might I ask a favor, Mrs…”

  “Pierce.” Of course a widow was a missus first. “Ellie Pierce, but I prefer to be called Ellie.” Actually she liked Cole calling her Sugar in his deep, smooth drawl best of all, but she wasn’t going to share that with his mother.

  “Ellie, then.” She inclined her head. “I’m not sure how much you know of Cole’s history.”

  “I know he left here under a cloud,” she said. “I also know he’s spent the last twelve years desperate to get back and prove he’s changed.”

  Mrs. Mansfield pressed her lips together and stared down at her hands. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Could you tell me about him?”

  “Eh?” Ellie wasn’t sure what the woman was really asking. “You’re his mother. You know him better than I.”

  “I know the boy.” She pressed her gloved fingers to her lips and blinked rapidly. “And I knew him as a wild young man, but the Cole you know is a stranger to me.”

  They seemed to be straying into some dark waters, and so Ellie said, “Shouldn’t you wait for Cole to tell you.”

  “I should, yes.” Her voice shook. “But I haven’t seen my son in twelve years, Ellie, and I would like to know more about the man I will meet.”

  “All right.” Ellie kind of understood what she wanted. She hesitated, wondering where to start.

  “How did he live?” Mrs. Mansfield provided the starting point. “His father threw him out with nothing more than the money in his pockets. Why not start there?” The anger in Mrs. Mansfield voice spoke of a wound still festering. Ellie took hope from Mrs. Mansfield sounding like she violently disagreed with her husband’s decision.

  “Well, and I can only tell you what he told me because I wasn’t there.”

  Mrs. Mansfield nodded.

  “He said he went to the station and bought a ticket for as far as his money would take him.”

  Mrs. Mansfield made a soft noise of distress. “For the first time I am glad he didn’t have more money on him.”

  “Mostly he played cards at first.”

  “Gambling?”

  Ellie really didn’t want to create a bad impression. “Well, yes, but the west is a different place from New York. You have to do—”

  “Ellie.” Mrs. Mansfield leaned forward and patted her hand. “I’m not here to judge his decisions. I want to know him. I want to somehow bridge the gap of all these years.”

  “All right then.” Ellie took the seat opposite her. “They call him Cole Whisky Mansfield,” she said. “On account of his eyes. Eyes like yours, I see, and also on account of his habit of insisting on the finest whisky wherever he drinks regularly.”

  “That sounds like my Cole.” Mrs. Mansfield chuckled. “Cole Whisky Mansfield? I like it.”

  “He’s known as having the devil’s own luck with the cards and the…” Ellie didn’t want to finish that.

  “Ladies?” Mrs. Mansfield raised a finely sculpted dark brow.

  “Er…yes.” Ellie felt all kinds of stupid now. “But there aren’t that many I would call ladies out west.”

  “Except for you?”

  “Er…no.” But she wasn’t going to get into that. “Out west, you need to be able to look after yourself, and Cole also has a reputation for being a fast gun.”

  “Fast gun?” Mrs. Mansfield blinked at her. “Are you saying my son is a gunfighter. Like one of those men in those dreadful dime novels?”

  Ellie hadn’t read one of those. “Not really.” She searched for a way to put it that wouldn’t have his mother running away in horror. “The west is tough, and you need to be tough to survive. Anybody who made their living on cards needed to be able to defend themselves from sore losers.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Mansfield sharp gaze did indeed see, and possibly more than Ellie intended her to. “Tell me more.”<
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  “I only found out a few days ago that he’d been taking the money from his gambling and investing it. He’s a legitimate businessman now.”

  “Are you and he…close?”

  Well shoot, she should have expected that. “We’re friends.” Ellie stressed the word friends. “I met Cole some years back when he was passing through our town. We got to chatting every time he came through.” Then she thought of something his mother ought to be proud of. “Every time he came through, he would bring me a book.”

  She smiled. “Do you like to read?”

  “Ellie loves to read.” Cole spoke from the doorway. “Good evening, Mother.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Cole was in serious danger of bawling like a baby. There was something about seeing one’s mother that cut the toughest bastard down to his short pants.

  Downstairs, the clerk had informed him of his visitor. Heart pounding, he had climbed there, knowing it could only be one of two women: his mother or Victoria.

  He’d stood at the door for a few minutes as she spoke to Ellie, just looking at her. The years had touched her kindly and she was the same beautiful mother he remembered.

  “Cole.” She shot to her feet and looked at him. For a moment she went pale and then burst into tears. “My darling, Cole.”

  And now Cole did choke up as she wrapped him in a hug redolent of all the scents and experiences of his childhood, her floral perfume that she still wore, the rustle of silk as she put her arms around him.

  Her head barely reached his shoulder, and somehow, he’d remembered her as taller.

  It was a long time before either of them could speak, and then his mother pushed away far enough to see him and cupped his face in her palms. “My beautiful boy.” Her eyes filled anew with tears. “I thought I’d never see you again. I’m so sorry.” She crumpled, and he had to help her into a chair. “I should never have let him send you away. I should have found you. I tried, darling, I tried but—”

  “Mother.” He crouched at her feet and took her hands. “I’m the one who’s to blame for being sent away.”