His smartphone rang, and he grabbed it from the holster on his belt.
Did he finally have that closure now? Had this conversation accomplished anything but dredging up old pains and maybe even some new ones?
The question lingered in his mind as he read the ID on his phone’s screen.
He’d made arrangements to go to a “final planning meeting” that Lianna Hurst was throwing tonight in her three-story Tuscan-style villa for a Helping Hand Foundation barbecue tomorrow. Everything about the charity event was already finalized, but Davis knew that Lianna was more interested in having a private session with him than anything else, and he’d accepted the invitation before Violet had appeared out of the blue yesterday.
“You can answer your phone if you want,” Violet said, as it rang again. Her voice was unsteady, and it weakened him.
But he didn’t need weakness of any kind.
He put the ringer on silent, sliding the phone back into its holster. Maybe he should go to Lianna’s and forget about how he should’ve just kept his mouth shut tonight.
He hadn’t noticed when their waitress had brought them drinks, but he took out his wallet and left way more money on the table than the bill would require.
“Something’s come up,” he said brusquely.
“Oh.” Violet glanced at her Cherry Coke, as if yearning for just a sip, but then Davis wondered if there was more to her expression.
Had they finally been getting somewhere? Was he wrong about leaving?
Ridiculous, he thought, getting out of the booth. There was no where with Violet. He had to remember that.
“You have a ride back to your place?” he asked. “Because I can—”
“I’ll go home with my parents. They’re still at the restaurant.”
“I’ll walk you there.”
They passed the old men at the counter with their chess game, and Violet didn’t say a word. Not until they went out the glass door with the tinkling bell and into the summer night, with its soupy air and cinder-hued sky.
“I can make it to the saloon on my own,” she said.
“Of course you can. But I’m still going with you.”
“These aren’t the mean streets of L.A.”
She was being very Violet—reacting to his mood, standing up for herself because of his sudden coolness. He almost smiled at her spit and vinegar, but it didn’t seem like good timing.
They walked in scorched silence past the jewelry store, which was even now run by Judah Whitefeather. He didn’t see them while he arranged his best turquoise pieces in a display case. Ahead of them, the hotel loomed, with its balcony and the ghosts of a 1930s gentleman and a good-time girl that were said to haunt it.
So many things in this town…haunted.
Along the way, everyone but the few tourists present were giving them strange looks. Stunned looks, actually, because no one would’ve ever predicted that they would see Davis Jackson and Violet Osborne together again. Their breakup had been well-known, the fallout barely there—a story quickly forgotten.
As Violet stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of her family’s restaurant, Davis thoughtlessly reached out a hand to help her up.
The second he made contact with the bare skin of her arm, an explosion rocked him, and he was sure she felt it, too, because she pulled away just as rapidly as she had last night. He let go quickly—reluctantly.
It just seemed so right to touch her.
“Good night, Davis,” she said, already heading toward the swinging front doors where the sounds of a jukebox wove through the air.
“Good night, Violet,” he said, although he suspected she didn’t even hear him as she disappeared into the noise of the bar and grill, leaving him in the shadows.
* * *
After Davis pulled the Aston Martin into his car barn—which gleamed with everything from vintage Bentleys and Ferraris to new Jaguars and Maseratis—he stalked toward his mansion.
Most of the time, it was easy to appreciate how the moonlight slanted off the man-made pond that fronted the 14,000-square-foot abode that he’d purchased with dividends he’d made off investments from his trust fund. The mansion was constructed of stone, high windows and balconies. Lloyd Callum, his personal assistant, called it his “Fortress of Solitude” in a light tone, although Davis sure felt the solitude tonight.
Off in the distance, he heard a truck’s engine roaring, probably some hands who were driving away from the nearby stables. Davis thought of going over there, just to see if there was any hay that needed moving or horses that could use some attention. Work never hurt when it came time to clear his head, and maybe the guys would be up for some beer and socializing.
But he actually wasn’t feeling all that sociable or fun. Going to Lianna Hurst’s hadn’t been very appealing in the end, and he’d texted her about not coming to her planning session. Not even the playthings in his mansion—a media room full of collectible video games, TVs and foosball tables, as well as the Romanesque pool out back—tempted him.
He’d never really thought much about why he’d built this oversize house and stocked it with such amusements. Not until now. Had he been that bored? Hell—had he been trying to fill himself up because there wasn’t anyone like Violet around to chase away the emptiness?
He entered his front door and, like the prescient wonder Lloyd always seemed to be, the right-hand man met him in the foyer, there to take Davis’s suit jacket.
Davis gave it over, saying, “You know this isn’t in your job description.”
“You were probably going to toss it over some sofa or chair, and then it’ll just have to be cleaned up,” Lloyd said. He had a faint East Coast accent to go along with his slicked-back dark hair and laugh-line-rimmed eyes, although Davis had never been able to pin his employee down to any particular area of the U.S.
“Davis,” he said, stopping him. “You should know that you’ve got company in your lounge. Your mother’s been waiting for an hour.”
Aw, hell.
Davis unbuttoned his collar. He didn’t have to guess why his mother was paying a visit.
He went to the lounge, with its graceful stag-horn chandelier, a fireplace with an artful iron screen, leather furniture, high rafters and long windows that overlooked the pond and the deepening Texas night.
His mom was standing in front of one of the windows with her back to him, an etched crystal glass in hand. Her silhouette was cigarette-slim, garbed in a white suit, her bleached blond hair done up in a chignon.
“So she’s back,” Mom said just before she turned around.
Davis went ahead and made himself a drink from the minibar—whiskey, straight up. “It must’ve killed you to have been out of town yesterday when Violet showed up. You probably would’ve been at the Welcome To St. Valentine sign to block her way in.”
“I did no such thing when she paid sly visits to her family before now.”
Davis hadn’t known about any previous visits to St. Valentine from Violet, although it made sense. She had always been a family girl. But it pinched at him to realize that she’d probably been avoiding him during those trips, just as much as she was avoiding most other people in town.
He took a drink, waiting for his
mom to say what she had really come here to say.
She didn’t disappoint. “Why on earth would you have her working in the Recorder office?”
“You’re the eyes and ears of this town, Mom. Surely you caught last night’s gossip about the Tony Amati look-alike.”
“Yes.” She wore an amused little grin. “He checked in to the St. Valentine Hotel.”
“The look-alike?”
“I believe his name’s Jared Colton. He’s taken quite a liking to your favorite diner, too. He was there for breakfast and lunch.”
Davis just held his glass, almost in awe of his mom’s resources. These days she lived most of the time in Houston, running the natural gas operation, and he had no idea how she still kept her ear to the ground so efficiently from that distance.
Then again, she’d always been controlling. When she’d become the head of his dad’s natural gas business and the mine after his death, she’d taken to them like a swan to water; she’d even brought Davis up to run the family enterprises one day. But he’d chosen to go in his own direction, to a journalism degree and then the job in Chicago. And when he’d returned to St. Valentine because of the kaolin mine story, she’d hoped that he was here to finally don his family mantle. He’d surprised her again, finding his own place in the community instead after he’d spearheaded the mine closure.
As he’d started his personal campaign to help St. Valentine’s economy recover, their relationship had gradually improved, although things sure hadn’t been perfect.
The years had allowed him to somewhat come to terms with what she’d done by lying to Violet, but now that his first love was back…
“Vi’s working on a story.” He wasn’t going to explain more than that.
She sighed, the ice in her glass clinking as she walked away from the window and came to the minibar, refilling her dose of B&B. “You’re reeling her in with a freelance job, aren’t you?”
Yes. “No.”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Davis—whether you’re out for a night of sweet revenge with her or a…God forbid, I don’t even want to imagine that you might be thinking of taking up where you left off with her.”
“Either way, it’s none of your business, just as it wasn’t fifteen years ago.”
“You were a boy fifteen years ago, and if I hadn’t stepped in—”
“I would have what, Mom? Been happily married to Violet? Have a family with her?”
His mom lowered her drink, the corners of her lipstick-red mouth drawn down. “Do you really think that’s what would have come out of it, Davis?”
“We’ll never know.”
She set her glass on the minibar. “People change over the course of a lifetime. You both would’ve changed, even from the time you were teenagers to now. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high in this country? Because people marry before they’re ready.”
Sometimes he couldn’t decide if his mom had become the ultimate realist after his dad’s death or just a cynic. “I had done my changing with Violet.”
This conversation was about as comfortable and useful as the one he’d had with Violet earlier, and he walked toward the door.
“Davis—”
“Don’t,” he said, halting. “You overstepped your boundaries once. Don’t do it again. Not when we’ve come this far with each other.”
Her tone lowered, contrite now. “I just don’t want to be telling you ‘I told you so’ in a few months.”
“You won’t have to.” He held up a finger, emphasizing his next comment. “Violet and I are only working together, and it’ll be no more than that.”
Even the bullet of his last words sounded hollow as he walked out of the lounge.
* * *
The weekend crowd had come out for the annual Helping Hand barbecue that was being held to raise money for mining families who continued to struggle after the kaolin operation closure. Some of the families had never recovered, especially after the national economy had taken its own plunge, but it could never be said that St. Valentine didn’t try their best to aid their own.
Although the Osbornes weren’t exactly flush with cash themselves, they habitually attended the community-based functions that included both former miners and wealthier citizens, and today was no exception.
“I always take advantage of a day off,” Mom said as she linked arms with Violet. They strolled toward the town square, from where the aroma of barbecue wafted.
Dad kept looking back toward the saloon. He hated it when his employees took over.
Violet pulled him along, too. It felt good to be braced by her parents. She fully expected Davis to be at the barbecue, and she knew that there was probably no way to avoid him. But how long could she do that, anyway? Sure, last night had gotten awkward, with that conversation about what could’ve been, but she was still working on the Amati story with him. They were grown-ups. They could handle it.
A few teenagers had been recruited to be on “burro duty,” keeping the legacy animals away from the barbecue area. Everyone else milled around the grassy expanse of town square, with its gazebo, benches and leafy trees. It was already getting hot, and there were a variety of sun hats shading heads, fans being fluttered in front of faces. Umbrellas had been raised over picnic benches, too, and misters had been placed in strategic locations.
“The Helping Hands think of everything,” Mom said. She stuffed their donation envelope into the slit on a tall basket waiting near the entrance to the community area. “I’ll bet Davis sprung for the misters and umbrellas himself.”
As Violet had said last night, it was obvious Davis loved this town. Something like pride welled in her, but she didn’t know why. She had no emotional stake in Davis.
Before she could investigate that thought too thoroughly, Mom greeted a table full of ladies from the Blue Belle Club. The elderly, elite socialites, who were clearly on “their” side of the barbecue, said hellos to Mom and Dad, although they acted as one would to waiters—polite but uninterested. They merely inspected Violet.
Dad muttered something gruff that Violet couldn’t quite hear. But then he spotted a group of friends across the square, near the smoke-laced grills. They were former miners—a crowd that had supported Dad in reporting the mine conditions and causing Davis’s investigation.
Luckily, most of the workers who’d despised Dad for his so-called betrayal were off in the natural gas fields near Houston now, and their families stayed to their own side of the barbecue, too.
Dad’s buddies waved to him, and he returned the gesture.
“Go on over,” Violet said. “We’ll be fine.”
Mom agreed, sending Dad to his friends as she stood by Violet.
“The same goes for you,” Violet said. “I see some old high school friends I want to visit with.”
Friends was probably being generous, since a couple of them had been on her newspaper staff, but Violet hadn’t kept in touch with them. Too bad her best friend from school, Rita Niles, was out of town. It would’ve made the social scene here much easier.
An amiable voice saved her. “Well, look here. Just who I’ve been waiting for!”
It was Wiley, and he was in his full silver-haired glory, with a plastic cup in hand. He waved it around, i
ndicating the festivities. “Isn’t it exactly how our town founder would’ve wanted it? Everybody helping each other.”
True enough. From her research, Violet at least knew that after Tony Amati retired from the Texas Rangers in the late 1920s, he’d bought land near the spot where St. Valentine would be founded, and it had produced oil. He’d used that money to support families after the town’s establishment and during all the hard times, especially on his ranch, where he employed everyone he could.
The property had been sold off and converted into apartments years ago; otherwise Violet would’ve already gone there to poke around.
Mom nodded toward a far table, where her bunko club sat. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Wiley said. “Right, Vi?”
“Right.” She kissed Mom. “Have fun.”
And she was off, leaving Violet with her former mentor, who wasted no time in steering her toward the gazebo, in spite of all the stares—and the way everyone looked at each other afterward, as if they were rolling their eyes. Giving each other the “why is she even bothering to show herself?” faces.
Too late, she saw Davis in the middle of the structure, looking into an open box and frowning. He was dressed casually again—a Western shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, old and faded jeans that seemed to mold to his long legs. But he was still every inch a reminder of money and how it had once divided them.
“I believe a woman’s touch is required here,” Wiley said.
Violet almost skidded to a stop until Wiley laughed.
“Trust me,” he said.
He led her up the steps, and the moment Davis saw her, his blue eyes lit up.
It shocked her, as if she’d touched an exposed wire. Emotion sizzled through her—light, electric and dangerous.
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