by Stacy Finz
“Where’s your house, Nate?” she asked.
He lifted his chin and pointed to the house next door, annoyed. “I guess everyone wants on the golf course.”
“Why does Griffin have your keys?” Harlee asked, knowing that Nate’s house closed weeks ago.
“There was some work that still needed to be done as part of the sales agreement.” Nate wandered around the front rooms, taking in Sam’s touches. “That Colin’s table and chairs?”
Harlee nodded. “Colin’s in the master, assembling one of his beds.”
Nate seemed to know the floor plan, because he headed to the back of the house to the bedroom and popped his head in the door. “Hey, Colin.”
Colin looked up from what he was doing and grunted a hello. “Help me with the mattress, would you?”
Nate slipped in and started taking the plastic off the mattress while Colin piled his tools in the corner. Together, they hefted the bed onto the frame and stood back to look at it.
Harlee popped her head inside and said, “It’s fantastic.” Initially, she’d feared that the large bed might dwarf the room, but it fit beautifully. Sam had already put the dresser kitty-corner to the bathroom, and Colin got the nightstand out of the walk-in closet and placed it next to the bed.
“You have any of these without the canopies?” Nate gave the bed frame a shake to test its sturdiness. “I’m sleeping on an air mattress.”
“I’ve got a four-poster with your name on it,” Colin said. “You up from San Francisco for the week?”
“Yep. I thought I’d break in the new pad and spend some time with Lilly.”
“She’s a pretty girl,” Colin said. “Your place look like this?”
“Similar floor plan, but my furniture consists of a lawn chair, a card table, and a bed that leaks air. Will you deliver and set mine up too?”
“Yep,” Colin said. “But you’ve got to get your own mattress.”
“It’s a deal. Come by the inn and I’ll write you a check.”
Sam wedged her way into the room and Harlee feared that Colin might be feeling a little hemmed in. She caught his eye and he must’ve read her concern, because he nodded a silent signal that he was okay.
“It’s fabulous,” Sam squealed.
She scurried into the walk-in closet and came out with bags of bedding and matching throw pillows. This time Nate did roll his eyes.
“I’ve got to get going,” he said.
“Griffin left your keys on the new hall tree,” Sam said. “He had to get to the Gas and Go for an appointment.”
“All right.” Before Nate left, he said, “Maddy is taking the day off tomorrow for a doctor’s appointment. Make sure you’re on time.”
Sam straightened from putting the mattress cover on the bed. “I’m always on time.”
“Good. Then there shouldn’t be a problem.” Nate avoided her glare and turned to Colin and Harlee. “See you guys.”
Sam waited until she was sure Nate had left and said, “I don’t know what I did to that man, but he sure doesn’t like me.”
Harlee had to wonder herself. Nate didn’t seem rude by nature, but humiliating Sam like that . . .
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Colin said, clearly trying to downplay Nate’s behavior. “Nate’s a good guy, but sometimes he comes off a little strong. It probably comes from running so many hotels. But Maddy is the one in charge of the inn and she’s good people.”
Colin wrapped his arm around Harlee. “I hope you enjoy your new furniture. The place looks great. But I’ve got to get my girl home now and make her dinner.”
If Harlee was more than halfway to loving him before, she was all the way now.
Wyatt wanted a haircut and Darla wanted to throw him out of her shop. But business was business. It wouldn’t do her any good to refuse service to one of Nugget’s finest. For that reason she plastered a smile on her face and led him to the shampoo bowl.
“Uh, I just washed my hair this morning,” he said.
“I’m not a barber, Wyatt. I’m a stylist. We cut hair wet.”
“All right then.” He sat there, his body tight as a bowstring, as she rubbed shampoo into his scalp.
“Relax, Wyatt. Most people enjoy this.”
“I’m enjoying it.” And sure enough, in his lap was proof.
“You’re disgusting, Wyatt.”
“You told me to relax and enjoy it.” He grinned, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“Does your little blond girlfriend know that you’re popping boners all over town?”
“Not all over town. Only in your shop, Darla. And what little blond girlfriend? You’re the last blond girlfriend I’ve had.” He stared up at her pink hair. “Why do you do that?”
“What?” Oops. She accidentally sprayed his face with the hose. How unprofessional.
He grabbed a towel off the shampoo bar and wiped suds out of his eyes. “You’ve got the prettiest hair. Why do you need to dye it all those crazy colors?”
“Because I like to and that’s reason enough for me. So who’s the blonde you’re always groping on the square?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darla.”
She wrapped his head in a turban, made sure to knot it extra tight, and guided him back to her chair. “What do you want? A crew cut?”
He stared back at her in the mirror. “Just an inch off.”
She had a good mind to shave him bald, but he really did have nice hair. Thick and shiny with a little bit of curl. She cleaned up his neckline, rounding out his tapered nape, and snipped around his ears, careful to keep his natural arch. Otherwise poor Wyatt would look like Dumbo.
“Tessa?”
“No, I’m Darla.”
“I’ve been racking my brain over who you’re talking about. Is Tessa who you saw me with?”
“I don’t know her name, Wyatt.” I just know that she’s skinny and drives a station wagon. “Volvo.”
Wyatt grinned. “Yeah, that’s her. She’s not my girlfriend and I definitely wasn’t groping her.”
“Well, it looked that way to me. You want it thinned out?”
“A little, yeah. Tessa’s my best friend’s wife.”
Darla lowered the chair a smidge and busted out her thinning shears. “Uh-huh. There’s like a million country-western songs about men doing their best friends’ wives. Why should you be any different?”
“Ah, that’s just low, Darla. When have you ever known me to be a cheat?”
“You’ve got me there,” she said, snipping away. “When I knew you, you were a runner, not a cheater. When the going got rough, Wyatt Lambert got going.”
The room went so quiet that Darla could almost hear wisps of Wyatt’s hair hitting the floor.
“I screwed up, Darla. Not a day goes by when I don’t regret it.”
“Really? You ever think about picking up the phone and saying, ‘Darla, I’m sorry I ran out on you during the lowest point of your life?’ ” She watched him in the mirror drop his eyes. “I guess not.”
“I was eighteen years old, Darla.”
“Did you pick up the phone when you were twenty? How about twenty-four? No, you waited until I came back to town, when you’d have to see me every day.”
“It was wrong,” he said. “But sometimes, when you don’t know how to right a wrong, you don’t do anything at all. It’s not an excuse. It sucks. And I’d do anything to go back in time and do right by you. Anything.”
She flipped on the blow dryer as much to tune him out as to dry his hair. After she finished, Darla blew warm air over his neck to get rid of the loose hairs and turned his chair around so he could see the back of his head with a hand mirror. “All done,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s the thing, Darla. I don’t think we are. Not by a long shot.” He slapped a couple of bills down on her workstation, grabbed his jacket, and left.
Pleased with the progress on Sophie and Mariah’s house, Colin cut out early Friday, swung by McCreedy Ranch
to check out the new appliances Emily had ordered, and stopped at the Nugget Market on his way home to pick up dog food and fixings for dinner. He sat in his truck, watching the entrance of the grocery store for about twenty minutes, waiting for a pack of customers to thin out before going inside. For the most part the market only got really busy in summer, when tourists flocked to the Sierra to take advantage of the great outdoors. But today it seemed to Colin that every person in Nugget had come to do their last-minute weekend shopping.
He hadn’t returned to the acupuncturist since before Christmas, feeling that the whole ordeal had been a waste of time. Harlee had already begun looking into other possible cures for Colin’s demophobia and wasn’t likely to give up until he could handle a sold-out sports arena. The woman could be crazy determined when she got her mind stuck on something.
With the holidays behind them, she’d ramped up her job search and Colin knew it was only a matter of time before she’d leave Nugget to go off to a big metropolitan newspaper somewhere. Colin was good at compartmentalizing. He’d had to be to survive prison life. But now he wondered whether he’d be able to simply file Harlee away in the “short-lived winter romance” box. Then again, what choice did he have? He couldn’t keep her from chasing her dream and he couldn’t go with her.
Colin wheeled his cart down the dairy aisle when he almost collided with Griffin, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
Griffin bobbed his head in greeting. “What up?”
“I got nothin’. You?”
“Nothing.” Griffin shook his head.
Colin wanted to say, “Then how come you look like shit?” But it wasn’t like they were pals or anything. Griffin was an okay guy. That is when he wasn’t hanging around with Harlee. Even though Colin knew they were just friends, because Harlee befriended everyone she met, it rankled him to no end that they sometimes trucked together. At least Darla always seemed to be with them. The gruesome threesome.
“Want to get a beer?” Griffin asked.
That knocked Colin for a loop. He didn’t think anyone in Nugget had asked him that before. Not because people here weren’t sociable, but Colin had made sure to steer clear of those kinds of invitations. Everyone knew he was a loner. Besides, he didn’t drink. He looked at Griffin again—assessed him the best he could without staring. Bloodshot eyes. Crazy hair. Wrinkled clothes that looked like he’d slept in them. Colin wondered if the guy had gone on a bender.
“My milk will go bad,” he said, indicating the jug in his cart, which he hadn’t even paid for yet. Griffin absently nodded his head, like he was lost, defeated, or both, making Colin feel guilty. “You want to come over to my place? I’ll grab a six-pack.”
“Sounds good.” Griffin perked up, put his mozzarella sticks back in the case, and followed Colin to the refrigerated beer section of the store.
“You like any of these?” Colin didn’t know what the hell the guy drank.
“Whatever. Any of ’em will work.”
Colin grabbed some Sierra Nevada, stuck it in his cart, and headed to the checkout stand. “You want a ride or are you okay to drive?”
Griffin looked at him funny. “I’m fine to drive. I’ll meet you there.”
Twenty minutes later they sat in Colin’s living room next to a raging fire with Max on his back, begging for belly scratches. Griffin popped the top off of one of the beers and stretched his legs until he was slumped down on the couch.
“You got any chips?” he asked.
Colin went into the kitchen, found a bag of pretzels Harlee had left behind in the cupboard, and tossed them to Griffin. “Best I can do.” He grabbed a glass of water and sprawled out on a leather recliner.
“Where’s Harlee?” Griffin asked.
“Working.” She’d been hired to do a background check on an alpaca farmer in Redding. So far he’d come up clean. Colin expected she’d be over in a couple of hours. They’d make dinner together. It had become their thing. A nice thing. A thing he looked forward to like he did his next breath.
“Can you believe some of the dudes she runs?” Griffin laughed. “The crap these guys lie about, or worse, leave out. ‘Hey, babe, forgot to mention that I’m married.’ ”
Or worse, Colin thought. Hey, babe, forgot to mention that I’m an ex-con. I did time for murdering an entire family. Yeah, time to change the subject. Griffin’s next sentence saved him the trouble.
“Lina dumped me.”
Ah, hence the dishevelment. “Sorry,” Colin said, because what else do you say? She was a bitch anyway? Lina was actually a very sweet girl, girl being the operative word.
“She’s dating some RA in her dorm.”
Colin must’ve looked flummoxed, because Griff said, “Resident adviser. I had no idea either. Never lived in a dorm. Never even went to college. You?”
Yeah, he’d lived in a dorm, with sociopaths and crazies. “Nope.”
“Really? You seem like an educated type.”
“Self-taught,” Colin said, which was true. Lots of time to read and study in the joint. “You okay with it? The breakup, I mean.”
“Yeah. Sure. No big deal.”
“So, you’re pretty broken up about it is what you’re trying to say.”
Griffin coughed up something dry in his throat. “Yeah.” He looked down at his feet. “I love her, but she’s too young. This guy, this RA, he’s age appropriate. And he’s there and I’m here.”
“There’s that,” Colin said. He felt totally ill equipped to have this conversation and wondered why Griff hadn’t unloaded on the women—Harlee or Darla. They’d know exactly the right things to say. “Maybe this dude is just a temporary infatuation.”
“Nah, I was the temporary infatuation. He’s probably the real deal.”
Colin found it interesting that a guy as wealthy as Griffin Parks could be insecure. Then again, Griff had only recently come into his money. His estranged father was Native American, entitling Griffin to a percentage of the tribe’s earnings. It just so happened that the tribe owned the most lucrative casino/resort in California.
“She is really young,” Colin said.
“Yep. I wanted us to wait a year before we were an official couple—give her time to grow up a little. She didn’t want to wait anymore. Said she wanted to start her life, whatever that means.”
“She’s eighteen years old, Griff. You’re what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six.”
Colin cringed. “Even at nineteen, she’d be too young for you. Give her a few more years. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.” When the hell had he become so philosophical?
“You’re probably right,” Griffin said, looking about as optimistic as a guy hoping for a stay of execution on his way to the gas chamber.
“I’ll call Harlee and you can stay for dinner.” Colin couldn’t believe he was actually entertaining, but he felt sorry for the guy. And Griff had helped Colin when he’d gotten sick. He pretty much helped everyone. The least Colin could do was pay it forward. “You like veggie burgers?”
Griffin eyed Colin’s glass of water. “Are you like a health-food nut?”
Colin guessed he sort of was. After living years on the “spread,” layers of ramen mixed in with anything from the prison store—potato chips, jerky, canned meat—he’d become very conscientious about what he put into his body. “What, you don’t like veggie burgers?”
“I like beef ones better,” Griffin said. “But I’m down with it. I could use the company.”
While Colin called Harlee, Griffin walked around the front room, taking in the view from the huge picture windows. The now empty pretzel bag sat on the coffee table. Colin scooped it up and threw it in the kitchen trash.
When he got off the phone, Griffin said, “I can’t believe you built this place. It’s effing genius, dude.”
Given that Griffin lived in a log mansion in Sierra Heights, it was a nice compliment. “Thanks. Harlee will be over in about thirty. She’s got a few things to tie up.”
“You guys are pretty serious, huh?”
“We’re together,” Colin said, hoping to leave it at that.
“The two of you have a nice thing going. And at least Harlee’s your age.” He regarded Colin for a few seconds and smirked. “Well, close enough.”
“I’m thirty-one and she’s twenty-eight, a three-year difference. Not like you and Shirley Temple.”
“Hey, Lina’s mature for her age.”
“Okay,” Colin said. “If you say so.”
Griffin got another beer from the kitchen. “What will you do when she finds another newspaper job?”
He’d let her go and give thanks for the best thing that ever happened to him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” How was that for a cliché?
“Sounds like that opening at USA Today could be promising,” Griffin said, crouching down in front of the fire to rub Max’s belly.
USA Today? This was the first Colin had heard of any job there. Wasn’t that paper based in New York? Why didn’t he know about this?
“Could be,” he said.
“I guess it helps to have friends there,” Griffin said. “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know, right?”
“Yep.” Why the hell hadn’t Harlee told him? That’s what Colin wanted to know.
Chapter 19
“I still don’t understand why you told Griffin about USA Today, but not me.”
Ever since Griffin had left after dinner, Colin and Harlee had been going round in circles on the USA Today job. She didn’t get why it was such a big deal.
“The position has already been filled, Colin. There was no reason to tell you, since it’s not happening.”
The truth was Harlee had gotten herself pretty excited about the job. A friend of a friend had been acting as her intermediary and seemed to think Harlee would be a slam dunk. Apparently that person didn’t have enough juice in the organization to know that upper management already had their eye on someone else. It happened all the time. Usually in the newspaper industry when a position got posted it was already filled. Management was just following protocol. But it hadn’t stopped Harlee from getting her hopes up and feeling like a loser when it didn’t come to fruition.