Blaze

by Dale Mayer

  That had her slowing down. By the time they finished, she sat back, rubbed her tummy and said, “Okay, I feel much better now.”

  “Food does that,” he said. “Now, let’s clean up the kitchen. I’ll take a trip into town to talk to Scott.”

  “Good enough. Blyth will be here soon, since we have all this stuff to do.”

  He looked around and said, “I don’t understand where the stuff is.” He rinsed his plate and loaded it into her dishwasher. “By the way, I did look but couldn’t see any tracks from the dog on the lawn. Still, I think it’s possible from the tracks on the other side that Solo is hanging around your place.” Finishing wiping the counter, he turned and said, “So where is the ‘stuff’ to do?”

  “Come this way, and I’ll show you.” She led him through the first floor to almost a ballroom-size room. Not quite, of course, but it had lots of tables, and it was filled with boxes.

  He nodded. “This is a great space for what you need to do.”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “This was my grandmother’s house. I’ve always loved it.”

  “And it’s yours now?” he asked.

  “You’ll hear the rumors anyway,” she said, “so I might as well tell you up front. I inherited a lot of money and the house from my grandmother.”

  “Good,” he said. “It’s not like she could take it with her.”

  With that, she laughed out loud. “So true,” she said. “You sound like Grandma. She taught me to be frugal, to save for a rainy day, that money is a tool, not the end goal. But my mother and two sisters, although they got an inheritance from my grandmother, they didn’t get anything like what I got,” she confessed. “There are definitely still some hard feelings.”

  “Is your mother her daughter?”

  Camilla shook her head. “No, Grandma was her mother-in-law. And they never got along.”

  “Well, that she got something is amazing,” he said.

  “Yeah, I think it was more done as an insult than anything. My sisters each got several hundred thousand, but, compared to what I got, they decided they were severely gypped. My mother was very much on their side. They tried hard to get me to hand over the spoils of my inheritance and took me to court over it, but, in the end, I won. My grandmother had left a letter explaining exactly why she had given us these unequal shares in her estate, and the court sided with my grandmother’s wishes.”

  “Good,” he said forcibly. “It’s unfair to take away somebody’s final wishes like that and to have the court decide on a different division of assets.”

  “Well, as the outcome of that,” she said drily, “I might have gotten the house and money, but I lost my sisters and mother.”

  He looked at her steadily for a long moment and then said, “If that’s all it took, you didn’t have them to begin with.” And, with that note, he leaned over, dropped a kiss on her forehead and walked out.

  Chapter 7

  She reached her fingers to her forehead, wondering at the kiss. Was it just to make her feel better? Because any mention of that court case was terrifying. She’d gone through hell and high water, had even wanted to hand it all over to her family, but her lawyer had been totally against it. He’d also been her grandmother’s lawyer and understood why her grandmother hadn’t wanted the others to have as much.

  “You can’t do that,” her lawyer had said firmly. “These are your grandmother’s wishes, and I understand and totally agree with her.”

  “But my sisters aren’t that bad,” she’d cried out.

  “And they aren’t that good either,” he’d said in the same tone. “You’re the one who came over and visited her all the time. You’re the one who spent weekends with her. You’re the one who took her around shopping, took her to the doctors. You’re the one who looked after her.”

  “But my sisters would have if they’d known I would get this kind of money,” she protested.

  “Exactly,” he said. “Because they would have done it in order to get the money. You didn’t know about the money, and you did it anyway.” Then he’d handed her that letter from her grandmother explaining her final wishes. That had ended the argument and had brought Camilla to tears many times since. It was a letter full of love, a letter full of joy and caring and gratitude. Camilla had kept that letter. When she had low days and days where she wanted to scream at the world, she took out the letter and read it and held it close to her heart. If nothing else, her grandmother had understood her, had seen how alone in the family she was, how isolated and how so very unlike the rest of her family she was.

  Camilla had lost her father when she was fourteen. The memories hurt even today. Her parents had been in a bitter divorce just prior to his death. And that had overshadowed a lot of the loss and grief. Not on her side because she’d been completely overwhelmed with her father’s death. She’d even talked to her father about splitting off from her sisters and moving in with him before that. It had been part of the plan from the beginning, but she hadn’t told her mother.

  With her father’s death, it had been more than a loss—it had been, in a way, abandonment, and Camilla knew that was so unfair. How could one feel abandoned when a person died? Her father hadn’t wanted to die; her father hadn’t committed suicide and left her alone. No, he had died in a car accident coming home late at night. A drunk driver had hit him.

  Her mother had crowed about not having to lose out now through asset division in a divorce and probably getting more money from the old bat now too. And to think a lot of her grandmother’s disgust and dislike of the family had come from the death of her own son and what had happened in the immediate aftermath. As the arguing had intensified, Camilla had just stopped talking to her mother and her sisters about the subject. Because really, sometimes it was the best thing to do.

  So much in life needed to be improved upon, and it was all Camilla could do to look after herself and to try to keep a bright smile on her face sometimes, especially right after the loss of her father. But even now the mention of her family was enough to make her shudder. Two years ago, following the final resolution of the lawsuit over Grandma’s estate, Camilla had been planning to leave town, when her mother and sisters announced they were heading West. As soon as that happened, Camilla determined she would stay. The opposite coast was perfect for her. Okay, Kentucky wasn’t quite the East Coast, but it was a long way away from the West Coast. And her family.

  As she sat down again in her breakfast nook, looking at the broken French door in front of her, Blyth walked in the kitchen area. “Hey, what happened to your back door? Are you okay?”

  Camilla nodded. “Last night somebody threw a rock into the window at the recreation center, and then early, early this morning they did the same thing here. No, I don’t know that it was the same person. I just don’t know why it would be different people.”

  Blyth frowned as she tried to track that information. And then she nodded. “No, you’re right. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And it’s too darn bad,” she said, “but what are you doing about the center? Is the window being fixed?” She could only hope that was the end of the vandalism. How bad it could escalate was guaranteed to keep her awake for many nights to come.

  “Yes, Donnie is getting Scott in there today to replace the glass. In the meantime, we have our hands full getting ready for tomorrow.”

  “And let’s not forget the fact,” Blyth said, “you must get your own door fixed.”

  “Blaze has gone to talk to Scott about it.”

  “Blaze, huh?” Blyth said with a quick grin. “Getting close with him, are you?”

  “No, at least not the way you’re thinking. But we did eat dinner at Mama Mia’s last night. He’s a nice man, and I like him,” Camilla admitted. She got up, walked toward the big preparation room and said, “Let’s get this set up. We’ve got probably a good six hours’ worth of work here.”

  “You may say that,” Blyth said, “but honestly it ends up being a hell of a lot more than six hour
s.”

  “I know. So let’s get started.”

  After that, it was hard to imagine how fast the hours went by. By the time they had all of the individual table decorations done, the napkins neatly folded with the silverware wrapped inside, everything ready to lay out on the tables with the respective tablecloths, they started in on the head table. And that in itself was a whole lot more difficult.

  “Fresh flowers from the florist, our adorned candles, a couple big centerpieces,” Camilla said to Blyth. She looked around. “And where are those missing boxes?”

  “We’ve got two more over here,” Blyth said. “But it doesn’t look like enough, does it?”

  “It has to be. We need to make sure this is all perfect now. Then we can just recreate it on Sunday.” And that was what they did.

  When Camilla heard an odd noise in the kitchen, she froze, looked over at Blyth, who appeared oblivious. Walking slowly to the kitchen area, she peered around the corner. Instead of somebody throwing more rocks, it was Blaze. He was fitting a new piece of glass into the midsection of her door.

  “You found a piece of glass,” she cried in delight.

  He looked over at her and nodded. “I peeked in on you, but you guys were discussing something to do with flowers and candles,” he said. “It was way over my head. I stepped back out to deal with what I knew I could handle.”

  She chuckled. “You know what? I hate to be sexist, but this is a typical reason why we end up with the roles we do.”

  “If you want to come and put this glass in the door, be my guest,” he said with a big grin.

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not, but I will put on coffee.” She walked over and started the coffee as he worked. “Scott didn’t have a problem giving you some glass?”

  “I took it as payment,” he said. “He needed a hand to replace the glass at the center, so I went with him to help out, and then I took this piece of glass here so we could fix your door.”

  “Wow,” she said in astonishment. “That’s really nice of you. I can pay for the glass, you know?”

  “Not necessary,” he said. “Seriously. I mean, it’s just a bit of glass.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not just a bit of glass. It’s much more. It’s the thought.”

  “Sure,” he said, “so it’s a thought of glass.” And then he chuckled. “I’m happy to help.” He looked over to see Blyth standing there. He smiled at her. “Hi.”

  “Hi, I’m Blyth,” she said. “So, you’re the new man in her life.”

  Camilla stiffened and gasped out loud.

  Blyth sent her a sidelong look before addressing Blaze. “You know how many dates I’ve tried to set her up on, and yet she keeps refusing? And here, all of a sudden, you arrive in town and take her out to an Italian restaurant. Makes my efforts look really shitty.”

  “How did you know about Mama Mia’s? Besides you just suggested the wrong guys or the wrong timing,” Blaze said with a chuckle. “Do you always embarrass her like this?”

  “Absolutely. I have spies to keep me informed to maximize the embarrassment,” Blyth said with a grin. “She needs to relax more.”

  “If you say so,” Camilla said. “Honestly your suggestions have been terrible.”

  “Hardly,” Blyth said, “these are good guys.”

  “Sure,” Camilla said, “but they’re your friends. They’re not my friends.”

  “They could be,” Blyth said. “Just open yourself up to the possibility.”

  Camilla caught Blaze’s grin and rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever,” she said. “Anyway, thank you, Blaze, very much for thinking about this, and I’m delighted to hear that you guys fixed the center’s window as well.”

  “We did that this morning first thing, then we had to go back and see if we could find some glass for this,” he said, “and everything he had precut was too thick. We had to find something in the back. We wanted tempered glass, but we couldn’t find that, so until you’re ready to replace the whole thing, we’ll just go with this.”

  “Tempered?”

  “Stronger, used for windows, so, if people fall against them, they don’t fall out.”

  “Oh,” she said, frowning. “In that case, maybe I need to replace the door.”

  “Not for a while,” he said. “Not unless you need to. This will be fine for years.”

  She sighed happily. “Well, that is good news, indeed. Okay, and coffee is almost done whenever you’re ready.”

  “Why don’t we try to get our stuff finished too,” Blyth said, “and then I can leave for the day.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The two women hurried back into the room, leaving Blaze to work on the door on his own.

  He smiled as they laughed. It was such a female move. Most guys he knew would ask if he needed help, but most women he knew wouldn’t have thought that as they had no idea what he was doing. That was why he’d stayed to help Scott, because keeping glass centered where it needed to go while fitting it into the frame could be awkward. Of course, they’d used suction cups, but the center’s window pane in particular had to be done on a ladder, and it was much better if one man was inside and one was outside.

  Blaze figured he’d be able to do this one on his own, but it was proving to be a bit of a challenge. He opened the door and straddled it, using suction cups on either side to line up the new pane. Finally he got it to slide into the top of the frame, and he raised the glass panel ever-so-slightly to get the bottom of the frame tucked under the bottom edge of the glass. Adjusting it and locking it in and all together was the next step.

  As he worked, he could hear the two women, not too far away, sorting through the last of their decorations. He couldn’t imagine spending days making things like they were, folding fancy napkin shapes. That was so far away from his realm of what he considered normal work. But still, to each their own. Once he was done with his glass pane repair, he stepped back and smiled.

  Hearing something, he looked up to see Camilla walking toward him, her face paler than normal. She held out her cell phone so he could see the text. It read Leave him alone.

  He looked at it, frowned and said, “Do you know that person, that number?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Somebody really has it in for one of us,” he said, straightening up. He wrote down the number. “We need to tell the sheriff. He should be able to track that number.”

  Still pale, she phoned the sheriff and told him what she had just received. When she hung up, she said, “He said he’ll check into it.”

  “Good,” Blaze said. “Chances are it’ll be a prepaid phone and already ditched.”

  “So, untraceable then?”

  “Yep, disposable all the way,” he said cheerfully.

  She stared at him, her hands on her hips. “Why aren’t you worried about this?”

  He mimicked her pose and said, “It’s not that I’m not worried, but I’m not going to worry about it. Something is going on. We’ll take precautions, and this asshole will show his hand at some point.”

  “Okay, so a couple messages and a couple rocks are not that much to be worried about?” she asked.

  “Wrong,” he said. “It’s a lot to be worried about. Particularly the speed between events.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “A rock late last night, a rock early this morning, followed by an email, and now a phone text. So somebody has done a lot of homework or knows you very well and has sent all this very quickly. It’s been, what? Three, four hours since you received that first message?” He checked his watch. “No, I guess it’s been more like eight hours since you received that email this morning. And that came in about an hour after the rock, and the rock early this morning was on the heels of last night’s rock. So I suspect you’ll hear from them one more time today.”

  She stared at him, and her jaw dropped.

  Chapter 8

  “How is that okay?” she cried out. “If I’m t
o hear from this person again, I’d just as soon he does it right now while you’re here.”

  Blyth appeared by her side and nodded, a grim look on her face.

  “I would too,” he said. He turned to look at the glass door he’d just fixed. “This is, at least, back to normal.”

  She walked over and marveled. “I don’t know how you did that so fast, but I really appreciate it.”

  “Well, it’s a fake barrier between you and the outside world. Just remember that.”

  “Remember what?”

  “It’s only glass,” he said gently. “And it will break again if this person is serious about coming into the house.”

  Her stomach caved. “Do you think that’s what’s next?” She was proud of the fact her voice was strong and had not faded away into panic, which was how she actually felt.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not sure about that. I’m also worried about your Mustang.”

  “Why my car?”

  “Because it’s accessible,” he said, motioning to the other side of the house. “You haven’t put it in the garage. When you’re driving around town, you leave it parked outside too, with the top down, and all kinds of things could happen to it.”

  “I never thought of that.” She gave a hard shake of her head. “I don’t want to think about it,” she said firmly. “You could get crazy paranoid if you start down that road.”

  Again Blyth nodded, content to listen in on their conversation.

  “Absolutely you can,” he said. “For the moment, this guy isn’t dangerous, but he’s escalated very, very quickly.”

  “And I was thinking he had de-escalated,” she said, “because he went from rocks to sending text messages.”

  “He went from rocks to stalking,” he said. “I get that a rock through the window seems more violent than sending you a text message, but the text message says he knows you. Otherwise, how did he get your number?”

  She gripped her phone hard as she considered his words. “I hadn’t even thought that through.”