Half Empty

by Catherine Bybee

  They found the lake, which was hidden by a stretch of trees at the far end of the manicured portion of his property. “It’s beautiful.” And quiet, which was nice, considering the buzz of noise up at the house.

  He pointed out the cattle grazing on the hillside behind the lake.

  “Because cattle,” she said with a laugh.

  “When in Texas.” He laughed with her.

  He walked them up to an old log cabin. “This has been here since before the previous owners.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. I had it cleaned up and the roof repaired, but kept it original. No running water, no electricity.”

  He opened the door, and inside, someone had set a table for two.

  “What are you up to?” she teased.

  “Tomorrow I have to share you, but tonight I thought this would be better.”

  Relief, knowing she wouldn’t have to sit across from Vicki, had her smiling. “First date worthy.”

  “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  He moved inside and reached for the bottle of wine on the table. He’d already pulled the cork. “You liked red, if I remember right.”

  “And you like beer.”

  “Yes, but I’m not so redneck that I don’t enjoy wine once in a while.”

  She doubted that.

  “I do. I’ve even been wine tasting.”

  “Oh, really? Where?”

  “Uhm . . .” He blinked. “Napa.”

  “What wine did you like the best?” she quizzed.

  “Expensive.” He lifted the bottle of wine. “So if I spend a lot on the bottle, it’s got to be good, right?”

  “Not really, but that’s okay. There might be something I can teach you.” Wade making an effort to please her placed several coins in his goodwill jar.

  “I like the sound of that.” He handed her a glass and poured one for himself.

  “To first dates.”

  “First dates after we’ve shared private planes and hotels in disaster zones together.” She clicked her glass to his.

  She sipped and lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “This is actually pretty good.”

  Wade puffed out his chest.

  “See, expensive equals good.”

  Trina lifted the bottle to see the label and bit her lip. “Wade?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you consider expensive?”

  He looked away. “I don’t want to tell you what I spent. Ruins the whole feeling I’m trying to create.”

  She stopped him with a glare.

  He shuffled his feet. “Wanna eat?”

  “Wade?”

  “A couple hundred dollars, I think,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  She placed the bottle down, sipped the wine. “If you paid two hundred dollars for this bottle of wine, I’d be careful of anyone trying to sell you beachfront property in Kansas.”

  “There isn’t beachfro—” His charming smile fell. “Jeb said it was good,” he confessed.

  She started to interrupt but he kept going.

  “But I have been wine tasting, in San Francisco . . . which is technically Napa . . . ish.”

  Damn, he was charming. Like a kid wiping his mouth clean of chocolate after being caught in the cookie jar.

  It felt fabulous to have someone care enough to try so hard.

  “Don’t hold it against me. I wanted to impress you.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Really?” He stopped shuffling.

  “I am. I don’t know why you’re trying so hard.”

  He put the glass of wine down. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been busting my nuts just to get you here. Now that you are, I don’t want to blow it with the wrong wine or my mom doing her best iceberg interpretation.”

  She set her wine next to his. “You can’t control your mother or how she’s acting, and if you don’t know about wine, it isn’t a deal breaker. I’m here, whether I should or shouldn’t be.”

  “You definitely should be.”

  Again with the charm.

  He stared, his gaze moving to her lips.

  Would he . . .

  Wouldn’t he . . .

  “We should eat.” He looked away.

  Her heart dropped. “Or you could kiss me.”

  Apparently Wade didn’t have to be told twice.

  Two steps and he pulled her into his arms and didn’t give her a chance to say she was kidding. Not that she was.

  His lips were on hers like an exclamation point, his hand to the back of her head. It was as if he was shocked to be there, until he wrapped his arm around her waist and softened his hold.

  With every ounce of breath, he moved into their kiss and let her know that this was something he was good at. It wasn’t wine, it wasn’t controlling his mother . . . it was seduction.

  He moved slowly, like there wasn’t a care in the world other than letting her feel their lips mingle, his tongue ask permission and then take possession. He was smooth, unhurried as he sparked fire under her skin.

  This was good, probably too good.

  He changed his angle, explored deeper.

  And he held her. As if he never wanted to let her go.

  She wasn’t sure how long they kissed or if the lack of oxygen broke it off or the sound of a distant animal brought them around. But when Wade’s lips left hers, he’d left a little of himself behind.

  “Wow,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “I’m happy to hear you say that.” His eyes peered into hers. “I want to take this slow, and I’ve never wanted to take anything like this slow before in my life.”

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  He took a conscious step back and pulled out her chair. “Let’s eat.”

  He couldn’t sleep.

  The memory of her lips, the taste of her heart . . . and she was one door away.

  “No.”

  He had to say the word out loud to stop him from walking the few steps to her room. Wade Thomas was good at a number of things . . . singing, charmin’, seducing . . . and making older women wish they could turn back the clock . . . but he sucked at waiting. Holding back for Trina put him, and his body, in the most uncomfortable position he’d been in for a mighty long time.

  What kind of masochist was he that he welcomed the feeling? If it wasn’t pitch-black outside, he’d saddle up Black Star and take the stallion for a ride. He probably wouldn’t survive it, but it would match the burning he felt all over.

  He had it bad.

  The woman had found a way under his skin, and he had no intention of scratching that itch to make it go away.

  He’d written enough love songs to identify what was going on inside of him. This wasn’t lust, although that was part of his needs . . . no, Trina was more. The part of a song that brings meaning to the chorus. She hadn’t looked off in the distance once since she’d been there, which gave him hope she wasn’t considering her late husband. In fact, it was her that initiated their first kiss.

  He smiled into the memory.

  Sweet . . . tasty, and a hint of spice.

  His thoughts made his body tighten even more.

  “Go to sleep, Thomas . . . that ain’t gonna happen tonight,” he whispered into the night, to himself.

  He rolled onto his side and forced his eyes closed.

  All he saw was Trina.

  It wasn’t hot.

  The breeze flowing into her second floor guest room cooled the space without an artificial air conditioner, but she still couldn’t stop the steam oozing from her skin.

  It was a line . . . it had to be a line. No one said they wanted to take things slow unless they were about to call the whole thing off. Only Wade hadn’t done that. He’d held her hand throughout their dinner and told her about how he had dreamed one day of owning a cattle ranch. He’d read a book when he was a kid about a man following his dreams, one prize steer at a time. He’d told her that owning as much land as he did in Texas alm
ost required him to either have cattle or an oil field. He would leave the oil to her.

  And they talked.

  Wade Thomas, famous singer that he was, started out poor. More so than she had. Her parents had both worked hard to put her and her older sister through school. High school! Trina had put herself through a few years of community college and eventually worked her way into a job with the airlines. She’d met Samantha on a chance flight, where she’d learned about Alliance, and next thing Trina knew, she was married to Fedor Petrov and standing in a graveyard.

  So why was she in Wade Thomas’s home, wishing he didn’t want to take it slow?

  Trina flipped her pillow over, pounded it a few times with her fist, and growled.

  The East Coast wasn’t a place Avery ever wanted to live.

  A night of tossing and turning due to the deafening silence left her comatose throughout the next morning.

  How Trina thought she could endure this for almost two years of her contracted marital life, Avery didn’t know. Who was she to pass judgment? At least Fedor liked cool tones and open space. Bernie had been all about dark wood and hunter green on the walls.

  Still, Bernie lived in a place close to other people, where she could walk outside and see them.

  All Avery noticed was a stray cat that ducked under the shrubs the second she approached.

  Stupid cat.

  Avery held her cup of coffee as if it were the answer to life, and crossed through the space between the main house and Fedor’s office. Most homes like this had interior offices, but not Fedor Petrov’s. He had to have a separate space, as if it would make a difference in his eventual outcome. Like what, sharing your space with your family, your wife, would make your wealth half of what you could accomplish in a separate space? Lotta good that did when you offed yourself.

  Avery cautioned herself on her thoughts as she clenched her coffee and crossed the lawn.

  Trina was avoiding the room, putting off the last memory she had until the bitter end. To Avery, it was just another room in a massive house that needed a set of eyes to see what held value and what could go at a garage sale for pennies on the dollar.

  It was just stuff.

  A dead rich man’s stuff.

  She opened the locked door, expecting a ghost to jump out.

  Instead, she smelled paint and new carpet.

  The large office had a desk in the center, minus the chair. There were two chairs positioned in front of the desk for visitors, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. Large windows were hidden behind floor to ceiling drapes, which Avery opened. She forced one of the windows up and moved to another one on the other side to capture a breeze and push out the stale air.

  “Okay, dead guy, let’s see what you have hiding in here.”

  She didn’t start with the desk, which might seem like the obvious place. She started at the top shelf in the office. There were plenty of books, none of which looked very old or valuable. Still, she climbed a sliding ladder and removed a handful and set them on the empty desktop. Someone had gone through the effort of dusting the room, making Avery’s job spider free, which she was incredibly thankful for.

  She flipped through the books, making sure there weren’t any papers, or money, stuck within the pages. As she went through each shelf, she stacked the books against a bare wall and reached for another. The third shelf over revealed a locked safe behind the books. Instead of a dial combination, this safe was locked with a key.

  She rifled through the desk in search of a key. Strangely, the middle drawer was completely empty. The left top drawer held neatly placed pens, and not the Bic kind . . . no, these were of the Montblanc variety. Avery pushed the books she’d stacked on the desk aside and lined up the pens. One was so impressive she stopped rummaging and spun the thing between her fingers. Diamonds, tiny bits of glitter sparkled. “Just sitting in a drawer,” she said to herself. All the Petrov treasures hidden in plain sight. Apparently it worked, since the pricey stuff didn’t disappear by the sticky fingers of the staff hired to clean the vacant home. Or maybe the staff didn’t think someone was stupid enough to leave valuables lying around.

  Avery didn’t so much as leave a twenty-dollar bill on the counter when the cleaning ladies were due at her condo. Perhaps there was a lesson in Petrov’s thinking.

  She set the pen aside and kept searching for a key.

  Nothing.

  She dropped to her knees to look on the underside. It wasn’t uncommon to have hidden doors in desks, especially if the desk was as ornate and heavy as the one she was probing.

  She considered running her fingers along the edges that she couldn’t see, but she doubted the maids had dusted away the cobwebs. Making do without a flashlight, Avery used a lamp and plugged it in close to the desk before climbing back underneath.

  The desk had been cleaned on the underside, at least at some point. She peered closer when she noticed a color difference in the pattern of the wood. “How can someone spill liquid on the underside of a desk?” Avery no sooner asked the question to the universe when her mind cleared and she realized what she was looking at.

  A cold chill raced up her spine and had her scrambling out from under the desk and to her feet.

  Apparently the cleaning crew missed a few spots after they removed Fedor’s body.

  Avery scrambled into the office bathroom and scrubbed her hands. Even then, she looked at the soap dispenser and wondered if the last person to use it was a dead guy.

  Yeah, she was officially creeped out.

  She gathered up the pens and left the office with a slam of the door.

  The rest could wait until Trina came back, and even then, maybe they should elicit someone with a stronger backbone to deal with that room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Trina had frequented enough Texas barbeques to know the event wasn’t a formal affair. She donned a pair of tight jeans and a button-up silk blouse. Her cowboy boots were at home, so her two-inch wedges would have to do. A hat would have been overkill, not that she had one.

  She spent a little extra time messing with her hair and added another layer of eyeliner to help her best feature pop out. Even though it had taken her some time to fall asleep the night before, she still felt more rested than she had in a couple of weeks. Being in the Hamptons home had placed more stress on her shoulders than she’d thought it would.

  Thinking about New York prompted her to give Avery a quick call.

  She answered on the second ring.

  “Hey . . . how is Texas?”

  “Am I on a speakerphone?”

  “I’m in the car on the way into the city.”

  “I thought that wasn’t until this afternoon?” Trina glanced at the clock on the wall: it was just after nine in Texas, and ten in New York.

  “I found some pens in Fedor’s desk that I’m taking in to have checked out before I go to the watch guy.”

  Trina stepped out onto the balcony of her room. “You went into the office.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t think you wanted to tackle it. Actually, I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll leave out the details. Let’s just say the cleaning crew didn’t do a perfect job . . . after.”

  Trina squeezed her eyes shut. “No.”

  “Yes. No worries. After a little mental breakdown, I’m all good and en route to Manhattan.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Has Cindy called back? I’ll have her bring in a better crew.”

  “I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “I’ll try calling her again.”

  “How is the party?” Avery asked.

  “It hasn’t started yet.”

  “And Wade?” she said his name like it hurt.

  “Give the guy a break, Avery. He’s being a complete gentleman.” She paused. “His mom doesn’t like me, though.”

  “What? How can any mom not like you? You’re perfect. Sweet, beautiful . . . no
t to mention the zillion dollar part.”

  Avery was good for Trina’s ego. “Sweet and beautiful wasn’t a winning point, and I doubt she knows about Everson Oil. Doesn’t matter, I’m here for Wade, not her.”

  “Thanks for cutting me off, asshole!” Avery shouted. “Sorry. Everyone complains about LA drivers, but they hold nothing on these nutjobs.”

  Trina laughed. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m on my way to Houston.”

  “Still planning on coming back here on Monday?”

  “Yeah, we have the art auction people coming. Reed is sending one of their guys out to keep an eye on things Monday, too.” Reed was part of the security firm that worked with Alliance and many of their rich clients. They monitored the security system at her ranch in Texas and had wired the Hamptons home as well. Although, the camera system in New York was limited to the front and back doors and a burglar alarm. No need for them to go overboard when no one was living there.

  “Perfect. Maybe we can get whoever shows up to do some of the dirty work in the office if we can’t get ahold of your maid.”

  “Thanks for the visual.”

  “Sorry. Okay, I’m going. This drive requires my full attention.”

  “Talk tomorrow.”

  “Ciao.” Avery hung up.

  Trina went ahead and plugged her phone in by her bed before she left the room.

  She found Wade in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hands.

  “I thought I slept late,” he said when he saw her.

  “I was up at five,” she teased. “I’m still not sleeping right since Italy.”

  “I tossed and turned a lot myself.” His eyes traveled her frame and he grinned. “Good morning.”

  She stepped closer.

  With a sly smile, she reached for his cup and tilted it to her lips. “Mmm.”

  He chuckled. “I can get you your own.”

  Trina shook her head. “Yours tastes better.” It felt good to flirt.

  Wade reached for his cup and moved it aside. He stepped even closer and lifted her chin with one finger. “Good morning, little lady.”

  She licked her lips. “Good morning.”

  He kissed her, just like the night before . . . slowly, sweetly. The taste of coffee on his lips and the scent of the soap he used was a lethal combination.