This Time in Timberline

by Jennifer Morey

  This Time in Timberline

  Jennifer Morey

  Copyright © 2012, Jennifer Morey

  CHAPTER ONE

  Pastor John's voice droned an affecting eulogy in the chilly mountain air. Fine, dry soil drifted up in a gentle breeze from patches of dormant grass. Sub-zero winter had lost its grip to early spring. The foothill that proffered the cemetery gave the dead a fantastic view of snow-capped peaks and the postcard charm of Timberline, Colorado below. Utah Pieper could have been standing on a movie set, as surreal as this funeral seemed. But it this was no movie.

  "Within your wounds hide me. Let me never be separated from you. From the power of darkness defend me. In the hour of my death, call me and bid me come to you..."

  Utah closed her eyes behind the dark shield of her sunglasses. When she could open them again, she didn't listen to the pastor. Sheldon from Screws Garage watched her from the other side of her mother's casket, a grim set to his narrow-jawed mouth. His wife stood next to him, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, the drooping skin under her chin wiggling a little. Tori, Lulu, and Melva stood next to her, their husbands in a line behind them. Lulu sent Utah a shaky smile. All four women didn't work and were regulars at the Over Easy Café, the local gathering place for bored housewives, thanks to the café's creator, Megan Monroe. If it wasn't for the gossip, Utah was sure the little café would have gone out of business by now. The food was greasy and unoriginal.

  She could almost hear the group of women sitting at a round table with steaming cups of coffee and runny plates of eggs in front of them.

  Did you hear?

  It's disgusting.

  How could she do it?

  She's so pretty. What a waste.

  Timberline hadn't embraced her mother when she and her daughter had moved here, either. She was a single mom with a jaded past and that had been enough to rouse the buzz of speculation.

  It hadn't taken long for her mother to prove just how wonderful she was. One of a kind. Never afraid to be herself. Integrity. Love. Joy in simple things. She possessed the most unique ability to make a celebration out of even the stupidest moments, no matter how incredible the odds or obstacles. She never dwelled on the negative. There was always something positive to be found in any situation. Reaction was a personal choice. That was Mom.

  Utah was the same way. Her mother had taught her well. The hens who hung out at the Over Easy didn't know she was made of more than all their squawking. She may have run from Timberline as an eighteen year old, but a college education and a job at a golf course had served her well. The bad luck that fueled all the gossip were completely different.

  She spotted Ellie standing next to a man close to her advanced age. Her mother's neighbor. Utah had grown up with her wise guidance. It was poignant evidence that not everyone here judged her. She'd come back to town in the aftermath of a scandalous affair, and so far no one had given her a chance to tell her side of the story. Just like her mother.

  The resemblance was uncanny.

  The fact that everyone had shown up today was oddly comforting. They'd all loved her mother. Too bad Utah wasn't sticking around to prove them all wrong just like her mother had done. She'd planned to go home in a week or two, but the longer she was here, the more she contemplated staying.

  There was really nothing left for her in Denver anymore. Some clothes and a house that was too big for her. Bad press and all her friends from college had moved out of state. She'd have her mother's house here, and Timberline. Screw the gossip.

  Utah twisted her back with a grimace. Her muscles ached from being stiff for so long. She let out a pent-up sigh. Would this funeral ever end?

  Roanne Caliway leaned closer to her side. "You all right?"

  "My mother hated funerals," Utah said, which would be enough to tell her best friend she wasn't all right.

  "Almost over, sweetie." Roanne smiled, green eyes hidden behind sunglasses and red hair up in a messy bun. She gave Utah's hand a squeeze.

  Squeezing back along with a deliberate, answering smile, Utah started to face the casket again when she caught sight of someone. A man. There was something....

  Nothing could have prepared her for the impact of recognition. Mason Briggs stood next to his father, towering over everyone else at the funeral and looking right at her. His face showed signs of stubble even though he was freshly shaven. There was only so much testosterone a man could shave off. She couldn't see the brilliance of his green eyes from here but saw them clearly in her mind. A sea of green that had drowned more than her common sense on the hood of his '69 convertible Mustang. His dark brown hair wasn't as long as it had been when he was nineteen, but it wasn't short, either.

  He stood with his hands behind him, tall and big and more imposing than she remembered. He'd filled out since she'd last seen him, grown into a man. He looked good and she hated him for that. Today of all days.

  Mason Briggs showing up at her mother's funeral was another shock she could add to her expanding list. Why had he even bothered? For his father? Probably. Andy had been close to her mother. The gossip grind said they were about to move in together and for once it was true. It had caused quite a stir, since Andy was the town sheriff and every single, middle-aged woman's dream of a man. An older version of his son.

  The minister approached and handed Utah a cross. Guilt weighed on her like a rusty iron ball still attached from her church-repenting youth for not paying attention. She slipped her hand from Roanne's and took the cross while he finished his eulogy.

  "My condolences, Miss Pieper. Mamie was an extraordinary woman and we'll all miss her," he finally said.

  Utah felt her lower lip quiver with a persistent rush of tears. She could only nod. Mamie was so close to Mommy. As a child she'd thought Mommy was her mother's real name.

  Roanne rubbed Utah's back, and she was grateful for the wordless encouragement. She wanted to lean into it, let someone else carry the burden for a while. But she couldn't do that. She had to be strong, keep pushing ahead. Life had taught her that much so far.

  The first person approached in a line that had formed. The cross gave Utah something to grip while the people of Timberline paid their respects. The distraction helped ease the jarring surprise of seeing Mason for the first time in fifteen years, but did nothing about her humming nerves when Andy appeared with his son beside him. The resemblance between them was striking, both handsome, Andy an older version of Mason.

  "Utah," Andy said. The set of his mouth told her he fought a fair amount of grief himself. "If there's anything I can do...."

  "Thanks for being the one to tell me what happened." She didn't know what she would have done if the call had come from her father. Probably follow in her mother's footsteps and have an aneurysm of her own. It would have been the thing to drive her over the edge.

  "I'm just sorry I couldn't tell you in person," Andy said. "You're like a daughter to me, Utah."

  "I feel the same about you," she managed to say.

  Mason's presence was like a front loader idling too close in the mud. She wouldn't be able to get her feet unstuck before it ran her over. She couldn't stop herself from looking at him. Thank goodness for the dark sunglasses that hid the true state of her eyes.

  "Utah," he said her name with all the overtures of unspoken condolences rolled into his deep tone. Now that he was close, she could see every detail of those green eyes. They penetrated her with familiarity she didn't want to feel.

  "Thanks for coming, Mason." Good. She sounded polite but unaffected. Like a golf announcer.

  "Why don't you come by for dinner some night," Andy said. "Will you be staying long?"

  "Indefinitely," she heard herself say.

  "Let's have dinn
er, then. We can catch up."

  Would Mason be there? She couldn't say no to Andy. "That would be nice."

  Andy nodded once and Roanne gave him a hug before he started to move on. Mason didn't follow as Utah hoped. But neither did he say anything. Just stood there looking at her.

  What could he say after leaving her all those years ago without so much as a Merry Christmas between then and now? Her heart ached with old pain. He was her first everything. Her first date. Her first kiss. Her first orgasm, clumsy as that had been. Seeing him again brought it all back. The teenage crush. Long nights spent flirting. The summer she'd never forget, particularly the night before he left and broke her sixteen-year-old heart.

  Soft murmurs spread through the line of people waiting to express their regrets and sympathies. No doubt new rumors would spring from this encounter. Utah's young love for the reckless and untamable Briggs kid had spread all over town. Megan was older now, but she'd learned the tricks of the gossip trade at an early age. Utah was sure there'd be exaggerated stories about how she and Mason were hooking up again.

  "I heard you're doing some kind of special ops in the Army," Utah said to break the long silence.

  In the line, she caught a glimpse of Tori leaning toward Lulu to say something.

  "I'm part of a group under Army Special Operations Command."

  Utah nodded, resisting the urge to lift an eyebrow, wanting to ask more questions but curbing her curiosity. She'd heard he was Delta but she doubted he'd admit that. It didn't matter. He hadn't felt like keeping in touch and that's all she needed to know.

  "I heard you're a golf pro," he said, a grin pushing up one side of his sexy mouth. "I never did see why you liked that game so much."

  "I'm a food and beverage manager at a Denver golf course." She paused as she caught herself. "At least I was until I quit."

  His grin grew less genuine and she wondered if he'd already heard the rumors starting up in Timberline. They could talk all they wanted. She refused to crumble.

  "Are you staying at your mother's?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  Utah fidgeted her hands, still holding the cross. Lord, this was awkward. The entire town may as well be watching her memory of them on the hood of his Mustang right along with her.

  She cleared her throat. "Are you going to Burl's?" She'd planned the after-funeral gathering there because her mother wanted it that way. Burl's BBQ had ample outdoor seating and the best smoked barbeque in a hundred-mile radius. Her mother wanted the last party in her honor to be cheerful. As if that were possible.

  "Yeah. I'll see you there, Utah." He gave a nod to Roanne. "Roanne. Good to see you again."

  "Mason," Roanne replied politely.

  He turned and strode away. Utah was relieved when she had to turn to the next mourner.

  Once she got through this, she'd be poised on the green, the first hole of her life before her. She'd swing hard. Make it to the second hole. Maybe once she reached the eighteenth, things would start to look up for her. She'd have a new future and no one could bad-mouth or hurt her ever again.

  ###

  She was more gorgeous than he remembered. Mason Briggs climbed into the passenger side of his father's Diesel Ford pickup truck and couldn't stop thinking about Utah. She looked good. Slim-hipped and fit. No longer the budding teenager from his memory. She was all woman now.

  He'd have thought the raging hormones of their youth would have had time to cool, but, damn, seeing her again stirred all the old feelings. Leaving her had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done, and it had taken a long time to let go. But he had. And as the years went by, he'd thought of her less and less. His dad gave him an occasional update, though. That always came with an ache in his chest because the news was never good. He avoided thinking about what else might make him ache.

  Utah hadn't had an easy time of things after he left. He would have gone to her after he found out her father was sent to prison for embezzlement, but he'd been on assignment in the Middle East. He'd have come back to beat the shit out of the asshole she married, too. Or kill him. It would have been hard not to kill the guy. He'd beaten her and stolen her money before she divorced him. That time he'd been in South America.

  Then there was the latest news.

  He looked over at his father. "You think it's true about Utah and that old man?"

  Andy pulled off to the side of the road across from Burl's BBQ. "Not the way Megan tells it. Mamie told me what really happened."

  A mother could have a biased opinion. He'd gotten online and read some news reports, and they weren't flattering. After her divorce, she'd moved in with an old man named Arthur Brentwood, and that had led to a quick marriage. Was it rebound? The real thing? Or had Utah done what the papers said and married for money? There was a stepson who claimed she conned Brentwood into signing a new will. She'd played him from the start. Utah denied any wrong-doing. But she'd also lost everything with her first marriage. Had all her bad luck made her crack?

  Stepping out of the truck, he walked beside his father to cross the street. Other funeral-goers parked and made their way to Burl's. He stepped with his dad onto the grassy area around a small wood-sided building. Pine trees provided shade for a scattering of tables.

  "What did Mamie tell you about Utah?" Mason couldn't resist asking as he stopped near the first table.

  "That an old man who played golf on a regular basis struck up a friendship with her and left her almost everything he owned when he died. His family tried to fight her for it, but the will was ironclad. According to Mamie, it was never more than a close friendship."

  "They were married, right?"

  His dad nodded. "She had nowhere else to go. Mamie said they slept in their own rooms on different levels of the house."

  Mason grunted. Why get married, then? "You believe that?" Utah might have glossed the truth for her mother. Why would a man leave the bulk of his wealth to someone outside the family, someone he'd only been with for a year before dying?

  "You know I do."

  Mason wasn't so sure. His father was in love with Mamie. Maybe he'd believe anything she said.

  He remembered the first time he saw Utah. He was sixteen and she was thirteen. She'd put her long, dark hair in a ponytail and it had sprung out the back of a baseball cap. Her white T-shirt was dirty and lay flat over her developing chest. She was tall for her age. He'd been walking home from his after-school job at Screws Garage when he noticed three boys teasing her. They'd taken her bike and were riding it in circles in the school parking lot. In Timberline, kids went to the same school. The classes were organized by age groups and segregated in different areas of the building.

  "Get off my bike!" he heard the girl yell.

  The boys only laughed and kept riding in circles around her. She ran up to the boys and tried to grab hold of the handle bars. One of the boys pushed her chest and she stumbled back and fell on her rear.

  That's when Mason had veered toward her. Nobody touched a girl like that with him around and got away with it. His mom had died when he was young but he remembered the way his dad had treated her. The only way a man should treat a woman.

  "Hey," he called to get their attention. The boys glanced at him then continued to laugh and look at the girl, who was now crying and holding her scraped hand.

  Mason marched faster, furious the punks could laugh at the girl's injury. "Get off that goddamn bike or I'll crush your skulls on the pavement!"

  The boys stopped laughing and now gave him their full attention. They were younger by three years and Mason was not a small guy.

  The boy on the back of the bike jumped off. "We were just playing around."

  The boy in the middle stopped the bike and eyed Mason warily.

  "She's a little crybaby. Leave us alone," the one on the handle bars sneered.

  Mason reached the bike and grabbed the boy on the handle bars. Pulling him off the bike, he sent him sprawling to the pavement.

  Next, he face
d the remaining boy on the bike. "Get off."

  The boy hurried to comply, laying the bike down. The one who'd first gotten off turned and ran.

  The boy Mason threw from the bike charged from behind, but Mason expected something like that. He turned just in time to punch him in the nose. The punk landed on the pavement again.

  "Asshole," the other kid said, but he started to walk away.

  The punk held his bleeding nose and crawled to his feet. "This isn't over. I'm gonna get you for this."

  "Go near this girl again and I'll put you in the hospital," Mason said, pointing at the girl.

  The boy wiped blood from below his nose, but with one last glare, he turned to follow his friends.

  Mason faced the girl. She stared up at him with big, deep blue eyes, still holding her hand.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  She started to climb to her feet, awkward with one hand. Mason held her upper arm and helped her. She stood before him, still staring up at him with those stunning eyes.

  Looking down, he saw the scrapes on her palm and grimaced. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

  He picked up the bike from where the kid had let it fall and started walking. The girl kept up beside him.

  "Where do you live?" he asked.

  "Down the street. The last one on the corner across from the trailer park."

  He guided the bike as they walked, glancing at her. "What's your name?"

  "Utah Pieper."

  He'd heard a family by that name had recently moved to Timberline. He'd also heard the parents were divorced and it was just a mother and daughter. The town hadn't been kind with all the talk, but that was typical for around here.

  "Mason Briggs." He smiled. "Are you from Utah?"

  She laughed. "I was born there, but my grandparents were from Timberline."

  They walked in silence for a while.

  "Thank you," she said at last. "For helping me, I mean."

  "Sure thing."

  "You been here long?"

  "My whole life. Can't wait to leave."

  She sighed dreamily. "Take me with you."