by Zoe Dawson
“Not bad. Lacy was so funny at lunch, I blew milk out of my nose.”
“Oh, no, embarrassment city.”
“Nah, Lacy’s cute twin brothers, I can never tell them apart, each gave me a ten. So, that was pretty cool, but J.J. gave me an eleven.”
“That’s right. J.J. got into NC State. The last time I talked to his dad, he was so proud. I guess they had a debate about him going out for football. J.J. is a grounded kid.”
“He’s dreamy, Mom. Have you seen his eyes? So blue. He’s so nice, too. Calls me Red and makes me laugh.”
“I guess he is cute to young girls. I will agree he’s a handsome boy. Speaking of handsome boys, how is your brother doing?”
There was silence over the connection. Her voice was subdued when she finally answered. “He helped me with my math homework. Gosh, Mom. He is so smart. Then, he ate very little, did his chores, lifted weights, and went to his room. He’s been there since.”
“What happened?”
“He was his jerky self and I tried to be understanding, but it didn’t matter. Everything I say seems to set him off.”
“It’s not just you, Cheyenne. It’s anything. He’s still hurting.”
“I guess I thought once the anniversary of Dad’s death passed it would be easier.”
A lump formed in Trinity’s throat. Cheyenne had weathered her father’s death with courage and grace. It wasn’t that she hadn’t mourned or that it hadn’t been difficult for her, but her daughter was one of those positive people that worked through things very well. There was pain and sadness, times when her fourteen-year-old daughter climbed into her mom’s bed and snuggled with her, tears on her cheeks. But Brooks had been there, experienced his father’s death up close, and he was still struggling to recover.
Therapy had been something Trinity had insisted they attend. Cheyenne had opened up, but Brooks had remained closed and guarded. His anger palatable. Trinity wondered what thoughts her son was harboring, what was causing this anger. But every time she tried to get him to share, go deep, he refused.
“We’ll do the best we can, honey. Brooks has to come to terms with this in his own heart and head.”
“It’s not easy, Mom,” she said softly. “I know that, but we love him and he treats us so…meanly.”
“Did you say that to him tonight?”
“Yes, and he got defensive, closed up like he usually does, and stormed off.”
Trinity sighed, deciding that she would have to try to talk to him again.
“We have to keep loving him, though. I know he loves us deep down and someday, he’s going to need us when he finally crashes,” Cheyenne said.
A tear slipped down Trinity’s cheek and she brushed it away. “You are a special person, honey.”
“Thanks, I love you. Good night.”
“ ’Night. I will be home in about half an hour.”
With her phone clutched in her hand, her emotions overcame her and she walked to the window. It was cold now. The end of November bringing a heavy chill. The snow on the Rockies had expanded and frigid temperatures gripped the area in the beginnings of winter. Her heart felt empty and hollow. Cold and abandoned. The only warm spot her daughter and son. Even with his struggle in acceptance of his father’s death, he was a support, continued doing what was expected of him. But there was so much anger in him.
She looked to the center of town and her whole body stiffened. Was that…it was. A red/orange glow coming from the clinic. As she watched, flames erupted, engulfing the roof in fire as black smoke billowed into the crisp air.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. The whole town could go. She pressed the number for Marshall Buck, the volunteer fire chief as well as the sheriff of Laurel Falls. Then she called Reese.
“Hello,” he rasped into the phone, his voice edged with sleep.
“The clinic is on fire,” she said instantly.
“Marshall…”
“Already called him. Hurry, Reese. I don’t see Anzu or Eden.”
“On my way.” His voice was calm with an undercurrent of urgency.
Trinity grabbed her coat and headed out of the town hall at a sprint. The cold hit her like a wall when she got to the street. Without stopping, she sucked in a quick frigid breath and pelted down the street. Almost there, she saw Reese, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans and boots running full out, his brother Trace right behind him, Rafferty bringing up the rear. As soon as Reese hit the front door, he rammed his shoulder against it. The wood splintered. She could hear that he was shouting, “Anzu! Eden!”
Trace went to follow him and Rafferty protested. They all had a quick, heated debate before Trace backed off.
Trinity shouted his name as she reached the house. The sound of glass breaking made her duck. The heat from the fire lashed her like a furnace. The roar like a freight train bearing down, popping and crackling. It was the fuel being consumed that made the noise, fire itself was dead quiet. Reese had run into that?
Sirens sounded down the street as several trucks pulled up all at once along with EMS. Reece came out of the house with a limp Anzu.
Depositing her into Trace’s arms, Reese headed for the house again, Trace shouting at him, Rafferty trying to stop him. Trace swore and immediately ran for EMS, who were already exiting the vehicle. People were running everywhere, out to the back, hooking up hoses in the front, some disappearing into the house. She recognized several of the town’s volunteer firefighters, a man who owned his own ranch and often brought produce for Henry to sell at the store, Jimmy who worked for Trace at Black’s, and Moose from the Feed and Grain. She was proud of them as they moved like a well-oiled machine. The general store had hauled out packets of bottled water and townspeople were ready to pass them out to firefighters.
As soon as the hose was hooked up, a stream of water hit the house with a sizzling sound, the pumper shooting water into the upper story.
Trinity watched the front door, praying. Reese emerged, carrying Eden unconscious over his shoulder. He stumbled, coughing and gagging as one of the EMS guys broke off and ran to him. Trace was also there, helping as Eden was taken from him. Oxygen masks were set over both their noses and mouths.
Trace supported his sooty and burned brother to the truck.
Everyone had come out. Lights blazed, people supporting their neighbors. Her heart was beating so hard, but so full of the outpouring of care from these people.
She walked over to the EMS truck. Reese was breathing deep, his gaze on Eden as the EMS worked over her, shaking his head when Trace asked him how he was doing. His eyes were anxious as someone draped a blanket over his shoulders.
Eden coughed and then started to fight, calling Anzu’s name, thrashing. She tried to sit up. Anzu, who was huddled close to Reese, pushed away from him and ran to her. As soon as she saw Anzu’s face and heard her voice, she relaxed.
They hugged each other. Eden searched the crowd around them until she locked eyes with Reese. With tears filling her eyes, she held his for several moments, gratitude in her expression as she clutched her daughter. Tears making tracks on her sooty cheeks, she mouthed the words, Thank you.
He breathed an audible sigh of relief into the mask and his shoulders slumped as he leaned hard against the side of the truck.
After talking with Marshall and making sure everything was okay and the fire was completely contained and finally out, Trinity drove home thinking how wonderful it was that all those people had responded, pitched in to help those in need. That was what Laurel Falls was all about and she never wanted to live anywhere else. No matter how hard her parents were angling for her to move to D.C. now that Ron was gone. What they couldn’t get was that Laurel Falls was her home, not just somewhere she’d landed after college.
It was way past one a.m. when Trinity walked into the house. The promised peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the chips were on the counter and she smiled softly. Thank God Anzu and Eden were okay. Smoke inhalation and superficial burns for the tw
o women, and the same for Reese, but his burns were a bit more severe. He was being treated in Kalispell. The general store had been saved, the wall facing the clinic blistered and scorched. But the clinic and the empty building next door were a total loss.
Eden and Anzu were staying with Chet and his wife for the night. Once they got some sleep, Eden would have to assess the damage. The clinic…all that equipment that Eden had worked so hard to procure now blackened debris. She had insurance, but the loss of her home had to be difficult to take. An inspector from Kalispell would be on scene in the morning to investigate what had started the fire. As mayor it was her job to figure out how to make sure the doctor was in and available.
Up in the shower, Trinity washed off the soot. Feeling much better after getting clean, she dried her hair.
She had to get some sleep. Other than taking care of her children, managing her grief and the upkeep of the ranch, and handling their Charolais cows used mostly for breeding purposes, the town was her life. Two of their own had suffered a loss, but they would rebuild. That was a given.
She slipped into bed, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. Reaching out to the empty pillow, her heart bereft, her fingers closed around the cotton and she sighed softly. Unbidden, Greg Chambers’s face appeared in her mind, how he’d looked that night at Eden’s get-together. A cosmopolitan man, a man who so didn’t fit in this town with his Armani suits and his silk ties. But she had to admit way deep down inside that she felt a spark from him. It was involuntary and guilt sucker punched her right in the heart.
Such an impossibility. She’d have a better chance of flying to the moon, not that she wanted a chance. Caught off guard, grief closed in and took hold. She forgot how it rushed up on her. Breathing around it, she closed her eyes, pushed away the loneliness and the sorrow. Grief would just have to take a backseat.
—
Greg Chambers rubbed the back of his neck and loosened his tie. The little clock on his laptop read 2:05. He’d been working hard since six a.m. the previous morning. The campaign was important with a lucrative client who would cement his list. It was a yogurt brand and he’d been spinning his wheels.
He automatically thought about coffee to keep himself awake. Coffee made him think of Rafferty and how she had actually preferred a small town to New York City. He didn’t get it. Probably never would.
Laurel Falls had claimed her somehow.
The only bright spot there was that delectable mayor. Trinity. Probably married. He wondered if she was happy. Feeling disgruntled, he focused once more on his laptop. He spun some more ideas, but nothing was working.
His thoughts went back to her. He’d never seen such red hair and had to wonder if it was natural. Small town, probably was natural. She didn’t dress small town. She dressed…okay…she was damned sexy. It was futile. Really, he was in New York City and she was halfway across the country in a small dying town. So not happening. Not that he thought it would, so why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
Her hair reminded him of fire and how it would feel to be burned. To get in deep enough with a woman to actually get burned.
The ad campaign might be tanking, but she was firing up his imagination. His lids feeling heavy, he leaned his head back against his leather office chair, eyes closing.
She had some creamy skin going on, too. He’d only brushed her softness with the tips of his fingers when he’d helped with her coat. It only enticed him to want to feel her with the palm of his hand and smooth it over her.
The ad campaign forgotten, he imagined what it would be like to kiss her mouth. Those full lips, pink and beckoning.
He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten from his office to the tropics, but that’s where they were. Beach, sand, water…he needed someone who took him for what he was more than whoever he turned out to be.
“I think we’re setting a record.”
“What kind of record,” he said as if he knew her, had already been intimate with her.
“The most hours for doing absolutely nothing. You know, Greg, you work too hard.” She placed his hands on her waist. “How does that feel?” she said, her eyes sparkling like diamonds.
“Damned amazing.”
She laughed and it was beautiful, like sunshine and water, like sugar and sex. “Not my skin or my body.”
“What?” he said, his brain had turned to mush with the feel of her hot flesh beneath his hands.
“Oh, I’ve lost him,” she said with a sultry laugh and pushed on his chest, taking her time as she slowly took him down into the warm sand, his chest now a cushion for her so, so soft skin with all those curves and dips and tantalizing valleys. “Slowing down. How does that feel?”
He was in stimulation overload and his brain wobbled like Jell-O. It wasn’t this woman’s body he found so fascinating. It was everything about her.
The cinnamon bikini was nothing but strings with four triangles of material straining over delectable anatomy. How was he supposed to focus on slowing down when all he wanted to do was speed up?
Her flaming hair settled around them, changing to fluid ocean, and they were floating in burning waves as the water flickered against his body. He was being consumed.
She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Does anyone love you?”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t know.” Was there a woman anywhere who could love him? Really love him?
She kissed his lips and the side of his face, and ran her fingers through his hair, and every act of tenderness made him want her all the more. “You don’t know,” she said sadly, and it felt as if she was fading, turning into smoke. But when her mouth settled against his, she felt more like fire. “There could be, but you’re so, so busy.” She kissed him like it mattered and his heart twisted so hard, he woke up with a soft cry.
The phone buzzing registered on his groggy brain, the computer screen long since in sleep mode was black. Finally the door to his office opened and his assistant Maria said, “Mr. Chambers? She said you were probably asleep at your desk.”
He tried to focus, but the dream was like pink cotton candy layered over his brain. “Who?” he said, rubbing his eyes, disappointed that the dream hadn’t been real.
“Ms. Hamilton. She said she tried to call you on your cellphone, but there was no answer.”
“Okay. I’m awake,” he said.
“Really, Mr. Chambers, you should slow down.” She clicked her tongue as she stood there looking crisp and efficient in her blue suit, her hair swept up. “You’re going to burn yourself out working so hard.”
Her words echoed his dream and he said, “Thanks, Maria.” He had no idea where that whole thing had come from.
“Ms. Hamilton is on line 1. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll contact you if all hell breaks loose.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, saluting her.
She didn’t crack a smile, but shook her head as she left and closed the door behind her.
He pushed the correct line and said, “It’s eight o’clock. Don’t you have something better to do, like run your little inn?” he grumbled.
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the office chair?”
“I have a campaign that I’m drawing a blank on, so I’m cranky. Ignore me. How are you doing?”
“I miss you all, but I’m so happy.”
Her voice glowed, if that was possible. What was he thinking? With Raff anything was possible. “How’s the inn coming? That town sure could use one.”
“Great.”
“What else are you working on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you, Raff. You always have a rabbit in your hat.”
“You mean like I’m hoping to convince the town council to approve zoning to put in a hotel to draw in more people, that I’ve already sold the idea to my dad, and the draw of tourists will help me to revitalize this town? That kind of little rabbit thing?”
“Yeah, that little ol’ bitty thing, but it sounds more like a wh
ole rabbit warren to me. Just one word of advice.”
“You mean stick-in-the-mud grumbling.”
“I mean advice. Don’t get your hopes up. There’s often a lot of pushback from a town when they feel there is too much change coming, even when they want it.” Trinity, that cinnamon bikini and her warm soft lips, flashed into his mind, his body going haywire with just the thought of her. Rafferty started talking, but his mind was in a sea of fire, floating with the weight of her on top of him.
“…you to come here and help me out.”
His attention snapped back to the conversation. “What? What did you just say?”
“I said, I need you to come here and help me out. I can’t do this alone, and you with your savvy ad brain, can certainly help me come up with a plan.”
He closed his eyes, the part of him that wanted to see Trinity again jumping to attention, the other part of him that was dedicated to maintaining his business putting on the brakes, and the memory of how easily he could get lost in her scaring the crap out of him. She was probably married.
“I don’t know. I’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do, new clients to wow, old clients to pacify, and clients out there I haven’t snagged yet. I’m not sure—”
“Cool your jets. I’m not going to push you. I just really need your help.”
They said their goodbyes. Without even bothering to fix his tie, he grabbed his suit coat off the back of the chair and shrugged into it. Feeling rumpled and out of sorts, he headed for the door and waved to Maria as he passed.
She gave him a pitying look, which he ignored. Down in his car, he thought about how much Rafferty had been there for him.
She was family now. Treasured by his Aunt Susan, who hadn’t wanted anything from him, and he’d started out needing everything from her, but when it was all said and done, his little family was what mattered to him most. Susan had been there like no other person had ever been and she would be disappointed in him. Even if he was skeptical about that run-down ghost town ever becoming prosperous again, Rafferty believed in it. Susan would expect him to support her soon-to-be stepdaughter.