It was a joke to all of them. An outrageous victory parade because they knew they’d won... They had the media, every major environmental group and logic on their side. How could the BLM and Renewable Reliance put windmills around a town that generated its own power?
Ed had called her about five minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, while she was standing in the city council chambers looking helplessly out over the sea of people, all waving signs and singing “We Shall Overcome.” He told her Renewable Reliance had canceled the contract with their PR firm. And they were canceling their lease with the BLM. They were giving up on the wind project in Benson.
Tess had left the city council chambers by a back door and returned to her cottage to pack. A couple hours later, Slaid had called—she’d hung up on him.
All evening she’d been inundated with calls from the media, requests for interviews from the many reporters who’d shown up in Benson to cover the rally. She’d turned off her phone; she had nothing to say. The image of her pale face up in front of the crowd in the council chambers, trying futilely to call everyone to order, played over and over on the news, so she’d turned off the TV, as well.
She’d never felt like such a failure. She’d come to this town so confident, her biggest worry how to endure the minutes until she could push the project through and head back home to San Francisco. Instead she’d lost control of the project and failed at love.
The sky was getting lighter. She took a deep breath and started the engine. Thankfully, Benson was such a small town that it took only a few moments of driving before it disappeared from her rearview mirror.
* * *
SHE’D EXPECTED ED to be mad, but she’d never thought he’d fire her. Except he didn’t call it that. He’d suggested they “part ways, professionally” and promised a good recommendation, and to never let on that he’d asked her to leave.
Tess stared around her quiet apartment, remembering his words yesterday—a jumble of mixed metaphors. He said she’d gotten distracted, missed the clues, fumbled the pass, taken her eye off the ball.
Somehow he’d heard about her relationship with Slaid. Now that he was the famous sunshine mayor, video footage had appeared on the internet of them kissing at Devin’s game. Their relationship had become news fodder. The sunshine mayor had not only scored a victory for his town, he’d scored with his opponent, as well.
As words like unprofessional and incompetent rolled off his tongue, Ed had toyed with the paperwork on his desk—already prepared. Her firing was a done deal before she’d even set foot back in the office.
Maybe it was time for a change. She’d look for a job with a public relations firm that dealt only with clients in nice cities with good hotels. No small-town energy projects ever again. They were far too dangerous for her career and her heart.
The truth was, she might be furious at Slaid, but she missed him. She missed Devin, and she even missed that funny little shabby-chic cottage. She missed Wendy the mustang and Slaid’s ranch and—she couldn’t believe she was admitting this—the silent and majestic beauty of the mountains.
She looked around her apartment, clutching a cup of tea that she’d considered dosing with a dollop of Scotch. But even she had rules against drinking first thing in the morning.
Everything about her apartment looked the same as always, but it felt different. As if something homey and alive was missing. Tess studied the sleek, modern furnishings she’d always loved. Shiny surfaces, no clutter, everything efficient and sculptural. An image of Slaid’s living room pieced itself together in her tired mind. The rustic, faded pillows. The bulletin board in his dining room covered in photos and football schedules. His house was modern, too, but it looked as if people actually lived there.
Suppressing the tears that came way too quickly these days, Tess stood abruptly and pulled her purse and coat out of the closet. She might not be able to fix her heart, but she could redecorate.
* * *
EIGHT HOURS OF shopping in Union Square hadn’t taken the hurt feelings away—it should have. Tess held firm beliefs in the powers of retail therapy. But her shopping bags lay empty on her apartment floor, her newly purchased throw pillows, vases, and knickknacks were distributed and her home still felt empty. She flopped on her sofa and picked up one of her new pillows, hugging it to her stomach, trying to relieve the turmoil inside.
Outside her huge windows was the view that made the elevator ride to her thirtieth-floor apartment worthwhile. An enormous cargo ship was going under the Bay Bridge, making its slow and steady way through the bay toward the ocean, with Treasure Island rising just behind it. It was gorgeous, and yet she didn’t feel her usual mix of pride and excitement at the view she was able to afford.
She wished her thoughts would just behave, but ever since she’d left Benson, she realized just how closed-off and shallow her life was. She’d built up a material fortress around herself. This expensive apartment, her chic furniture, her perfect wardrobe, had provided her with comfort before. But now, sitting here alone, without Slaid and Devin, they didn’t mean much.
And it occurred to her that she’d been hiding in this apartment, staring at this view, for years now. Hiding while other people made new friends, fell in love, got married, had kids. Hiding while her own child grew up somewhere else, possibly wondering why she had never made contact.
Tess stood up, went to her bedroom and reached under the bed. She had to stretch as far as she could, but she managed to reach the box she was looking for. She stayed where she was on the floor and opened it up.
Inside was a photo, faded and battered, of her sixteen-year-old self in a hospital gown, holding her newborn baby with panic in her eyes. The social worker had snapped it all those years ago. Tess stared at the photo, tears thickening. With blurry vision she groped in the box until she found the key.
She walked back into her hallway and pulled on her coat again, putting the key in the pocket. She grabbed the huge tote bag she used for groceries and left before she could think too much about where she was going. But she knew in her heart that this was the real errand she needed to run today. The real place she needed to go, that just might have the power to fix what shopping could not.
* * *
THE POST OFFICE was dark at this time of day. It was past business hours. But the lobby was open and Tess walked the endless rows of mailboxes, looking for hers.
The nice couple who’d adopted her son had handed her the key to the mailbox here fourteen years ago, promising they’d keep the box open for her until Adam turned eighteen. She’d kept the key hidden, never checked the PO Box once in all these years. She just didn’t have the courage to know the boy she’d given birth to, or the family who’d made him their own.
Her first thought, when she found her mailbox, was that it was big. It was on the bottom row and was about the size of a file cabinet drawer. She knelt down and somehow got the key in with her shaking fingers. The moment the door opened, letters tumbled out, spilling onto the floor in a giant pile of unopened opportunities.
She sat there, loading them slowly into her tote bag, tears pouring down her face—fourteen years’ worth of tears, soaking her cheeks. As she fumbled through her purse for a tissue, a big hand came down and offered her one. She glanced up into the kindly face of the security guard and mumbled a snuffly thank-you as she took it from him.
“Is there anyone you can call, ma’am?” he asked.
Tess blindly nodded and groped for her phone. She opened it and brought her contacts up to the screen, scrolling through without thinking, searching frantically for Jenna’s number.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“SO ALL THESE YEARS, you’ve never told us any of this.” Jenna sat down next to Tess on the couch and put an arm around her shoulders.
It was a statement, more than a question, but Tess answered, “Yes.” She leaned her head on Jenna’s shoulder, feeling completely wrung out and relieved. “Thank you for taking care of me all night.”
“I’m just glad you let me. I can’t believe you’ve kept this stuff inside all these years. I wish I’d known what you were dealing with.”
“Well, I think that’s just it. I haven’t been dealing with it.” Tess stared out at the view, the midday sun lighting up the bay.
Samantha took her hand and squeezed it. She’d arrived about half an hour ago, early enough in the day to prepare for her baby shower tomorrow. They’d planned to spend today shopping and decorating, but so far all they’d done was sit on Tess’s couch while an anxious Jenna tried to explain why Tess was such a wreck.
“Tess, I’m so sorry if I have anything to do with all of this.”
“You mean me falling apart?”
“Jack and I funded a lot of the solar panels.”
“I know,” Tess said. “Slaid told me.”
“We didn’t know what else to do. It seemed as if Renewable Reliance was using their connections to block us at every step. And I was afraid to tell you.”
“It’s okay.” Tess could hear the distress in Samantha’s voice. “I mean, I was hurt when I found out, but now I get it. It’s your town. And now I’m glad you did what you had to do to preserve it. I was just working for a company that ended up firing me anyway.”
“They’re idiots. They should be giving you a medal for how hard you worked for them.” Samantha paused, then reached out and took hold of Tess’s hand. “Okay, so I’m trying to catch up on everything else,” she said gently. “Jenna told me over the phone that you went to the post office last night to get letters that had been piling up for the past fourteen years? From the adoptive parents of a baby you had when you were sixteen?”
“Yup.” Tess sighed, strangely grateful that the information was finally out there.
“And then you called Jenna,” Samantha continued. “And she brought you home and you cried all night.”
“And slept late,” Jenna added.
“And ate donuts,” Tess said, feeling guilty about the calories already.
“I’ve never ever seen you this upset,” Samantha said. “Do you want to tell us more about what’s going on?”
“I told Slaid, and now he hates me.”
“Well, then, he’s an idiot, too, and I’m sorry I encouraged you to date him.” Samantha said. “I could never hate you, Tess.”
“Me, neither,” Jenna said. “Unless... You’re not a murderer or anything, right?”
Tess giggled, just like Jenna had intended. And then she told them. Haltingly at first, then with relief and shaky emotion, she finally told her two best friends her story. From her life with her parents, to her life in foster care, to her troubles in school and her pregnancy. She described her years of working full time to finish college. And her friends just listened, asking a question here and there, but mostly just watching her, wide-eyed.
And finally she got to the end. Graduate school. “And that’s when I met you two. Jenna, remember, we met in an exercise class at the USF gym? You were teaching it and...”
“You were my most dedicated student. I remember.” Jenna smiled.
“And, Samantha, we met in that economics class.”
“But I can’t believe you never told us anything about yourself.” Samantha paused. “Wait...you told me your parents lived on a farm in New England! You even told Jack that story on Halloween!”
“And you told me that your mom was afraid of flying and that’s why they never visited,” Jenna added.
“I lied,” Tess admitted. “I lied about so much. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want anyone to know the truth. I thought you’d see me differently. That you’d feel sorry for me or think I was damaged or something. Slaid did.”
“We won’t. We don’t.” Jenna leaned forward to look at Samantha. “Do we, Sam?”
“We love you,” Samantha answered simply. “We’d love you the same way no matter what your story is.”
“Even if you knew that up until my eighteenth birthday my name was Theresa Cooper?”
“Really?” They both leaned forward then to look at her, fascinated. Tess looked back and forth from one to the other, relieved to see only curiosity and acceptance in their expressions. No pity. No judgment.
“How cool!” Jenna said. “No offense to Theresa, but I like Tess Cole better. Way more glamorous.”
“I wonder what name I’d choose if I was going to name myself,” Samantha said.
Tess couldn’t believe it. All these years she’d thought they’d look down on her for her past, and here they were so...normal about it.
“Something that sounds good with Baron...” Samantha mused.
“Jacqueline?” Jenna offered. “Then you could be Jack and Jacqueline Baron.”
“Perfect!” Samantha and Jenna both burst out laughing, and even Tess had to smile at their goofiness.
“So is this why I barely saw you in Benson?” Samantha was serious now. “Because me having a baby is hard for you?”
Trust Samantha to get right to the very uncomfortable point. “It sounds so selfish when you say it out loud. I am truly happy for you, Sam, but when I’m around all this baby stuff it reminds me of when I was pregnant, and all the guilt I have for walking away from my baby comes flooding back.”
“You were a kid when you had him,” Jenna said gently.
“But I’ve been a grown-up for years now. I should have at least read some of these.” She pointed to the tote bag, overflowing with letters.
“What do you want to do about them now?” Jenna asked.
Anxiety pitted Tess’s stomach and suddenly the donuts she’d eaten seemed like an even worse idea. “I don’t know. Read them?”
“Would it help if Jenna and I at least put them in order for you?” Samantha offered. “We could look at the postmarks and organize them from the first ones to the most recent.”
Tess looked at Jenna and they smiled. Samantha loved to organize. “Why not?” Tess answered. “It might help.”
So she curled up under a blanket on the couch while her best friends stacked the letters into neat piles by year, and when there were fourteen piles on her coffee table, they each gave her a kiss and announced they were going off to buy favors for the baby shower and would return in a few hours with good things to eat and a jumbo-size box of tissues, just in case.
When her apartment door shut behind them, the silence was deafening.
Tess stared at the letters for a long time. Each one had the potential to put one more crack into the armor she’d so carefully constructed around herself over the years. That many cracks would surely cause her to break. But the alternative, of pretending Adam had never happened, or that giving him up didn’t hurt, was no longer an option. She’d just have to trust that if she completely fell apart, Jenna and Samantha would figure out a way to put her back together.
She decided to start with the most recent letters. If she saw pictures of baby Adam it might just bring up all that old pain and she wouldn’t have the courage to go on. She reached over and took the first envelope off the “most recent” pile, flopped back onto the couch and opened it with shaking hands. A letter came out and with it a school portrait of a handsome teenager with slightly shaggy, sandy blonde hair. He had a huge smile that was slightly self-conscious. His dark blue eyes were her own. Tears threatened to spill, but Tess swiped them away and forced herself to set the photo aside and read the letter. It was written on a plain piece of notebook paper, and it took Tess a moment to realize that it was Adam himself who’d written it, not his parents.
Dear Theresa,
Here is my sophomore-year school picture. I hope you like it. I made the swim team this year and I did well in the first couple meets. My grades are good so far, though geometry is kind of hard to get the hang of. My whole family is doing well, Mom and Dad say to send their love, and my little brother, Cameron, who is a total pain right now, says hi.
Hope all is well with you,
Adam
His signature scrawled across the bottom o
f the page.
And that was it. Maybe he’d learned just to keep it short and sweet after years of writing to her and getting no answer.
And then the tears came. Again. Tess had no idea that the human body was capable of pumping out such vast quantities of salt water. She cried for all the years she’d missed, all the times he might have felt disappointed or sad that she hadn’t reached out, and she cried for the other possibility, that maybe he didn’t really care that she hadn’t. That she’d made herself that insignificant in his life.
* * *
WHEN JENNA AND Samantha got back, Tess was puffy eyed and she’d used up all her tissues, but she’d also made it through most of the letters. Her friends quietly joined her on the couch for hugs and cracked the label on the excellent Scotch they’d brought with them. Tess sipped the potent drink in silence, not trusting herself to say anything. Samantha and Jenna just chatted idly about their shopping trip, respecting her need to pull herself together.
Tess hated how quivery her voice was when she finally spoke. “Thanks for the Scotch, guys, and the letter organizing and, well, everything.”
“I’m so glad you finally told us,” Jenna said softly. “I wish you’d said something years ago.”
“You’re our friend, Tess. We love you. Please don’t ever feel like you have to lie about who you are.”
They sat in silence, and Tess pondered her friends’ words, feeling guilty that she’d so casually invented stories about her past for so long.
Convincing the Rancher Page 24