Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars

by Patti Ann Colt

  She parked down the block and walked the distance in the cold, coughing and feeling a tightening in her lungs and ignoring it. She slowed at the sidewalk and listened to the music pounding from the house. Should she knock or just walk in?

  The question was taken away when she got to the door and it popped open, as if someone had been designated to be the doorman.

  “Well, hello,” squeaked a kid who looked about ten, but was probably fourteen or fifteen. “Welcome to Tanner’s party. You look familiar?”

  “I should. I’m here for Carlee.”

  “Carlee who? Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Carlee. The twelve-year-old who came with Tanner.”

  “Oh, her. Who are you?” The kid kept staring at her and she could see him sorting through options. She wasn’t in the mood to enlighten him.

  Instead of answering him, she stepped up the porch and pushed past the kid and into the house. The house reeked of burned food, alcohol and pot. Disgusted, Leia began a room by room search, breaking up the couple kissing in the doorway, shifting past several people dancing in the living room. No Carlee.

  She snagged a girl with blonde cheerleader looks. “Where’s Tanner?”

  “Hey, I know you.” She gave Leia a drunken grin.

  Leia gave her a nasty grin. “Hey, I don’t care. Where’s Tanner?”

  “Upstairs I think, with goo-goo eyed girl.”

  Leia hissed in frustration and moved back the way she’d come. In the entryway, she looked up the stairs. Carlee was standing at the top of the stairs with a lanky kid with brown hair and killer green eyes with his hands massaging her shoulders. Carlee had a glass in her hand and glazed look in her eye.

  Leia marched up the stairs. While Carlee’s mouth was in an “ooh”, her face set with a deer-in-the-headlights look, Leia jerked the drink out of her hand and took a sniff.

  Whiskey. Great.

  “Hi, I’m Tanner. You’re Leia Shae. I’m your biggest fan.” His eyes slid to her boobs, further disgusting her.

  Leia leaned into his face. “You are so dead meat, especially when Sheriff Murphy, her father, talks to your mother.”

  The boy paled, the grin sliding off his face. He dropped his arm from around Carlee’s shoulder, as if that would help the situation. Leia shoved the glass into his hand and grabbed Carlee’s arm.

  “I don’t want to go with you.” She tried to jerk her arm away.

  “Tough.” Leia had a serious mad on and didn’t release her.

  The music had shut off and several kids had congregated at the bottom of the stairs to watch.

  She pulled Carlee down the stairs and then paused to look back at Tanner. “Don’t ever talk to her again, you understand? As soon as I get to my car, I’m calling the sheriff’s office. Put the alcohol away and get these kids sobered up.”

  Carlee twisted in her arm and almost freed herself. “I can walk by myself.”

  “Fine.” She released her arm. “But you go to the car. Go directly there and get in.”

  Carlee crossed her arms and flounced ahead of her, head down.

  Tanner had come down the stairs. “You’re not anything like I thought.”

  She sneered at him. “That’s what happens when you believe everything you read.”

  She skirted around the other kids and followed Carlee down the icy walk to the car, relieved to note that the girl had done as she asked. Arms still crossed, she sat in the car with a mulish mad on.

  Leia took her time, not anxious for the drive back and figuring Carlee needed time to stew before she let her have it. She reached the car and slid into the driver’s seat then fastened her seatbelt.

  Carlee glared at her, but she decided to ignore her for a bit. She picked up her cell phone and called Beau. He answered on the first ring.

  “I’ve got her. I’m on the way back home.”

  “I’ll meet you at the house. I was able to reach Zach. Judge’s secretary is in one of my skiing classes.”

  “Okay. Do me a favor and call the sheriff’s office and report a party at this address.”

  “How many kids?”

  “About two dozen, if I saw all of them, and alcohol.”

  Beau sighed in disgust. “All right. I’ll call it in. See you at the house.”

  “He’ll never talk to me again.” Carlee’s eyes had lost the glazed look and shone with all the fervor a twelve-year-old could muster.

  Leia started the engine before answering her. “That’s the idea, kiddo.”

  Tears flooded Carlee’s eyes, but Leia hardened her emotions. She put the car in gear and backed out of the driveway, taking the drive home slow and easy.

  After several miles, when she thought she could calmly talk about the subject, she ventured into the silence. “He’s four years older than you and so were most of his friends.”

  Carlee’s position hadn’t changed and she didn’t so much as turn her head, but stared straight out the windshield. “It’s not that much.”

  “It’s a lot. The fact that you have no idea how far over your head you were says everything.” She turned on to Main, sighing in relief at the bare roads. She sped up a bit.

  Carlee turned slightly to glare. “A cute boy asked me to a party. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “A cute boy, four years older, underage, drinking with friends, no adult present and you didn’t ask your dad first. There is something wrong with that. Underage drinking is against the law.”

  “So is drinking and driving and my Dad arrested you.”

  Leia took the hit, let the hurt settle and then quietly answered her. “I mixed alcohol with cold medication and had a severe allergic reaction. You know the charges were dropped. At any rate, I wasn’t twelve-years-old drinking with an older boy.”

  Carlee huffed, her face turning a mottled red. “Nobody cares. It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’re wrong. You’re dad cares. Your uncles. Your Aunt Fiona. I care. I came after you didn’t I?”

  “Right. My mom bailed and my dad would rather spend time with you. That’s caring.”

  “You’re wrong.” Leia hurt for the girl, but tried to tamp it down. Sympathy wasn’t what was needed here.

  “I’m not. He’s either working or taking care of you.”

  “Temporary circumstances and you know it. Your dad has done nothing but make sacrifices and be there for you. Look at what you do have, not what you think you don’t. This pouting like a five-year old when things don’t go your way is tiresome. If you expect us to allow you to make your own decisions, that better stop. Your parents have lives. I have a life. We live it. We love you, but you don’t get to pull out this poor me act every time something isn’t exactly to your liking. Do you understand?” She pulled into the driveway behind Beau’s car. She put the car in park and sighed. Zach’s sheriff’s unit was parked at the curb, too. How did she explain her screw up to him?

  Tears started down Carlee’s cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. Tanner only invited me because he wanted to meet you! It wasn’t because he liked me!”

  Leia battled with the remorse. “I’m sorry, honey. I know that’s not what you wanted.”

  “Don’t call me, honey. You don’t know anything!” She opened the car door and quick-stepped up the driveway. Zach and Beau were walking down to meet them, but Carlee detoured and went up the walk to the front door to avoid them. Leia got out of the car and slammed her door.

  “Carlee, come back here,” Zach ordered. She ignored him and slammed into the house.

  “Let her go, Zach.” Leia slowly started toward the two men. “She needs to cry this off.”

  Zach loomed over her, anger and anxiety radiating off his tall frame like heat from an air vent. “Let’s go in the house.”

  She followed them up the driveway and into the back door to the kitchen. She refused an offer of hot chocolate and kept her coat on. She didn’t deserve the hospitality. She pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

  “What happened?”r />
  She laid out the facts, not even trying to make excuses. “I was dealing with a problem in L.A. I figured she was just sleeping in and I didn’t pay attention for several hours. I saw a note on the door and came over to see what it was and to check on her. She wasn’t here. She’d left without telling me.”

  Zach sat down across from her at the table. She looked around the room, looked everywhere but at Zach. Beau leaned against the counter near the door. She remembered the first time she’d sat in this kitchen and mourned the loss of the sense of homey family.

  “Go on.”

  Leia took a deep breath, looked Zach directly in the eye and recited the details without stopping, adding their conversation from the car. Zach’s mood went from angry to molten. A bright flush flashed across his cheekbones, his eyes growing hard.

  “What’s this kid’s name again?” The words uttered through a clenched jaw made Leia shudder just like she had the first time she’d looked into his eyes and realized she was under arrest.

  “Tanner Douglas. Apparently, he invited her because he wanted to meet me.” She threw out that last bit, needing to be the one to tell Zach so Carlee didn’t have to. It was the one fact that weighed on her, working on conscience like a sliver in a wound.

  Her fault. Her fault. Her fault.

  Would Tanner have left Carlee alone if Leia hadn’t been in the picture? The Jeopardy answer to that question was: “What is yes?”

  Zach was silent for a long moment, studying her face. His expression gave her no idea what he was thinking and again she was reminded about the many things she was on the outside of in his life.

  “Beau, can you go check on Carlee? You’re probably the only one she’ll answer the door for.”

  He looked first at Leia, then at Zach and shrugged. “Sure.”

  They both listened to Beau’s booted feet on the stairs. She refused to back down and kept her eyes on Zach’s.

  He finally spoke. “This can’t happen again. I won’t put Carlee at risk like this.”

  She closed her eyes and searched for her strength. “Define this.”

  “Us. You and me. It was special, we both know that. But it is hurting Carlee and I won’t have that.” He shoved away from the table and moved to the stove.

  “Carlee’s not a baby anymore, Zach. There’s protecting her and then there’s babying her.” She was hot, desperately needing to loosen her coat, yet feeling like a block of ice was forming in her chest.

  He turned to her, his face tight and controlled. “What does that mean?”

  “You can’t protect her your whole life and if she wants to ski competitively she is going to have to figure out how to handle these social things without you.”

  “A social thing? This boy convinces my daughter to lie and sneak out, knowing damn well she’s not even in high school, then pours her alcohol when both aren’t old enough to drink, all because he wants to meet you and I’m not supposed to protect her? I don’t want her to wonder if every friend is only using her to get to you.”

  His words were like shrapnel, tearing and ripping and hurting like hell.

  “Is that all I am then? A star? I’m not your friend, her friend. I’m not someone who belongs in your life?”

  “I have to protect Carlee.”

  So they were back around to that. She rose from her chair and straightened her coat. “You know, Zach, I think you’re protecting you, not her. Ever since we slept together, you’ve been…”

  She hesitated over the description until settling on one that was nowhere near what he’d done. “Withdrawn.”

  “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Of course it is. I love you.”

  He flinched.

  Her heart cracked, searing pain making it hard to draw a breath. “But that’s not what you want to hear, is it? You’d have to step outside Carlee, outside your family, outside this town and risk. You don’t love me enough to do it. Or maybe you don’t love me at all. Maybe I was just a means to scratch an itch.”

  “That wasn’t what it was.”

  “Really? I wanted to believe that wasn’t what it was. Wanted it so bad. But it isn’t going to happen, is it? I was living a fantasy that you had no intention of fulfilling.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. Carlee needs me.”

  “What about what I need? What about what Zach needs? Or maybe Zach doesn’t know what he needs. Isn’t that closer to the truth?”

  Leia carefully pushed in the chair, holding herself together by the smallest thread. She walked to the door and gave Zach one last look, fighting desperately against flinging herself into his arms and begging. But she wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that. “I don’t know who the bigger fool is, you or me?”

  The snap of the door shutting behind her, the bite of the cold air, the oncoming darkness—all were bits of reality that only sharpened the deepening hurt. “The bigger fool was me. For believing I could have something so far out of reach.”

  She trudged to her car and drove across the street and into her garage. She reached up and hit the switch to close the garage, turned off the vehicle and sat in the cold darkness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Leia forced herself off her bed at the sound of the doorbell. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose, not daring to look in a mirror and see what her two hour crying jag had done to her face. The bell pealed again and she put a skip in her step to get the door, praying it was Zach with a “what was I thinking” apology.

  The day had darkened, and she turned on the lights in the living room and threw open the door. A camera flashed in her face.

  “Leia Shae. Can you confirm you are just out of rehab and this is your house?” Heidi Bowers shoved a microphone in her face.

  Fury shot through her, mostly at herself. She’d gotten complacent, thinking she was safe. She should have checked the peephole. “No comment. Get off my property or I’ll call the sheriff.”

  The woman smirked at her. “Might let you do that. I hear he lives across the street. How does it feel to be in such proximity to the man who arrested you? You might as well talk to me, honey. I’ll be fair.”

  Leia snorted, her gut coated in dread. Like she believed that. “No thanks. I’ll pass.” She backed up and shut the door in the reporter’s face.

  “Word is your manager is robbing you blind. Last chance for a talk.” Heidi shouted from outside.

  She froze with her back to the door. “Thanks for the gossip. No thanks,” she yelled through the door.

  What in the hell was going on? Heidi might be a shark in a fish tank, but there was always a thread of truth in her reporting. This was the second time she’d questioned her financial stability. That meant she had a source and she knew something Leia didn’t.

  That burned.

  On top of worry about all that, her conversation with Zach and Carlee was pricking at her heart. She wanted to throw things or just lie down and sob again. But she couldn’t.

  She reached behind her and locked the door, then checked the kitchen door and set the security alarm. She yanked the drapes shut across the front of the house and went to the phone.

  She stood for a moment and chewed her lip, tempted beyond reason to call Zach and ask him to come over and deal with the news van that still sat at the curb. Instead, she dialed Mark Banning.

  When he answered, she chose short and sweet words. “I’m outed.”

  She heard mumbling in the background and things quieted. Banning cleared his throat. “Who? How?”

  She gave a moment’s consideration to what she’d interrupted, then couldn’t hold the problems in any longer. “Heidi Bowers. Spouting something about my manager ruining me. What is going on?”

  “I’m just the hired gun, Leia. You’re going to have to find those answers yourself. You want me to bring the jet to Denver?”

  She hesitated, torn between conflicting wants and needs. “I hate to interrupt your New Year’s.”

  “It’s why I’m on the pa
yroll. I can be there tomorrow. Keep the doors locked.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.” She hung up and went to the hall closet to yank out a suitcase. She stopped to go peek out the large window in the dining room that faced the street. The news van was gone. That didn’t mean Heidi wasn’t waiting somewhere to ambush her again. That just made her plain damn mad. Not here. Not now.

  Zach’s lights were on, both up and downstairs. Gads, she felt like she was giving up and running; not her mode of operation.

  She loved Zach, loved Carlee. If she had enough time, she could wait out the two of them, prove she wasn’t the risk they both seemed to think she was.

  She turned a circle and walked the room, tracing her finger over every item she’d personally selected and not wanting to leave.

  Except she’d just run out of time.

  This life she was living was what she’d asked for, what she’d worked for, what she’d made a success off. The gossip was one thing, but the money rumors were enough to raise some ugly suspicions. Returning was an imperative she could no longer ignore.

  She paced, she packed, she fussed. She watched the lights go out across the street. She waited, like a fool, for Zach to walk over to say goodnight. Why he would after what he’d said, she didn’t know, but her heart begged, only to be denied.

  Morning came with little sleep and a skiff of new snow. She flicked on the television, caught a brief video on her short visit with Heidi at the door over her coffee and turned the set off in a pique.

  More rumors and innuendo.

  She packed her car and considered whether to ask Zach to watch her house as he had in the past, but she refused to call him. Moody with helplessness and frustration, she stopped at Grannie Dunn’s and asked her to keep an eye out and to call Beau with any problems.

  She drove a slow and steady pace toward Denver with the radio off. She wasn’t kidding herself. With Cale refusing to provide her financial information, it wasn’t like she would walk into the office and get any more cooperation from him than she had in the past.

  Her future was all about doing business different, doing personal different. She never wanted to be that unhappy woman Zach arrested last spring again. She needed help, someone she could get professional advice from, someone not connected to her who didn’t remember who she was, but would listen to what she wanted for the future.