Chapter 12
Jonnie
I went home and slept for a couple of hours, because I just couldn’t stand myself any longer. The burning behind my eyes, the ache in my muscles… it should have been romantic, but it was just brutal. I couldn’t even lift my bag when it was time to carry it down to my car. I ended up leaving behind a dozen papers I should have graded tonight that I knew I never would have gotten around to, anyway.
I showered, a little reluctant to wash away the little bit of Hank that still remained on my skin. I wondered if he was as exhausted as I was. I wondered if he was pissed at me after catching sight of me and Paul together. I wished he hadn’t run off the way he had. I would have loved to introduce him to Paul, to show my intellectual ex what a real man looked like. The two of them were as different as night and day. Maybe Paul would finally begin to understand me if he had met Hank.
What would Hank would think of Paul? Would he be surprised that I once believed I could marry a man like that? Or would he be proud of me for coming to my senses and living the life I wanted instead of the life my parents wanted for me? I didn’t know Hank well enough right now to figure that one out, but I hoped he would be proud of me. I hoped he’d be proud that I’d chosen him over someone like Paul. And I hoped he would see that my past posed no threat to our future.
We were going to have a future.
The doorbell rang precisely at seven. I was actually on the phone with Mrs. Karl, Justin’s mother. She was making excuse after excuse why she couldn’t come speak to me at the school tomorrow.
“Is Justin having problems?” she asked for the third time.
“No, ma’am. This is more about my concerns over what might be going on in the home.”
“Things are fine at home.”
“Have you noticed the bruise on your son’s face, Mrs. Karl?”
There was a slight pause. “That happened at football practice,” she said, her tone not quite making it believable. I pictured the little bird of a woman, standing at her kitchen window, anxiously watching for her husband’s truck. I knew the look of panic on her face. I’d seen it when I visited with her before.
I nodded to Paul as I let him into my living room, the phone still pressed to my ear.
“Mrs. Karl, I think it’s very important that you and I speak. Justin has a real chance to go to college. I’d hate to let anything going on at home to stand in his way.”
“So would I. But my husband doesn’t like for me to speak to his teachers without him present.”
“Bring him along.”
“Oh, no, you can’t expect me to interrupt his work day for this!”
“Mrs. Karl, I will expect to see you tomorrow in my classroom at five.”
She didn’t argue again. She sighed and whispered, “Okay.”
I disconnected the call and gestured to Paul with the cell. “Sorry. Parent of one of my students.”
“No problem.” He held up a bouquet of roses he’d been holding behind his back. “These are for you.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“My mother always taught me not to take a woman out to dinner without first presenting her with a gift.”
I inclined my head. “Your mother is a true southern belle.”
“She is, isn’t she?”
Paul knew I disliked his mother, and that I had a problem with my own mother’s southern belle charm. The smile on his face was a little ironic as I took the flowers and carried them to the kitchen, setting them in a drinking glass full of water. I turned to find him standing close behind me, his eyes soft with old emotions.
“I’ve missed you, Jonelle. I know that’s the last thing you want to hear, but it’s the truth. I didn’t realize just how much until now.”
“Paul…”
“I know you’re seeing someone else. I’m not asking for us to get back together. I’m just…” He smiled this crooked, charming smile that always made my heart beat a little faster. “Can’t we be friends? Call each other once in a while?”
I hesitated a little, not eager to upset him. But I wasn’t eager to get myself trapped in something I didn’t want with a spur of the moment lie, either.
“You’re a part of a life I left behind in Texas, Paul.”
“I know. But you didn’t have to leave everything behind, did you?”
“I kind of did, yeah.”
I moved around him, walking to the little kitchen table I’d bought at a garage sale and imagining what my mother would think of such a thing. She’d call it trash, suggesting that it would look better in a homeless shelter than her daughter’s home. But, again, that’s what she said about the ten-thousand-dollar antique baroque period desk I’d bought for my dorm room. She never did like my taste in furniture.
“You know how unhappy I was there. You know how miserable my mother made me.”
“I do. But I also know how happy we were together. At least, I always believed we were.”
“We were. At first.”
“Ow,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest even as he smiled that charming smile again. Growing serious, he came to me and took my hands, touching the finger that once sported his three-carat diamond engagement ring. “I loved you more than anything I’d ever loved.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to make you happy.”
“But you wouldn’t have run off with me.”
“You never gave me the chance, Jonelle.”
I pulled away at the sound of my given name. “But you never really knew me,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “If you did, you would know I hate that name. You would know that I hate everything that woman gave to me, everything she ever said to me.”
“That’s your mother. Not me.”
“It’s one in the same. You grew up in that world, and you’ve fully embraced everything about it! You work in my dad’s law firm, have a condo in your father’s latest architectural masterpiece. Your mother and mine probably still go to that stupid book club together that’s more of a gossip fest than an intellectual meeting of the minds! It’s all the same, all the things I’ve always hated about that life!”
“And it’s better here? Working for some teeny school district, teaching the children of cowboys?”
He said that word cowboy like it tasted nasty in his mouth. In that moment, I saw what Hank saw when I acted surprised that he’d been in the army. I felt his anger and shame all wrapped up together, felt the hurt that was the foul center. I hated myself for making him feel that way.
“I love it here, Paul. I love the people, the community. I love that they have a huge picnic every Fourth of July and the entire town comes out for it. I love that the children look at me with bright, intelligent eyes, waiting to be taught something profound, to learn something I once took for granted in my privileged upbringing. I love that I make a difference here, that I can really help these kids change their lives instead of sitting on an overstuffed couch, drinking at eleven o’clock in the morning, gossiping about which husband is cheating on which unsuspecting wife.”
He studied my face for a long moment, a wild ride of emotions crossing his handsome features. And then his gaze moved around the room, taking in everything from the bouquet of flowers he’d brought me to the gold and blue wallpaper to the low table with the scratches across the surface. He nodded slowly as he looked, his brow slightly furrowed.
“You’re right,” he said. “I never knew you. I assumed this was just a rebellion, that you’d eventually come back, and we’d get on with our lives. But I can see now that that is not what is going on here.” His eyes moved over my face, and I saw real grief in him. “I thought I’d come here like a knight in shining armor, riding my white horse—or, more accurately, your father’s private jet—and rescue you from this mistake you’ve made. But I can see now that’s not going to happen.”
“It’s not.”
He came to me and rested his hands on my crossed arms. “I only wish you’d been more ho
nest with me before. Or I’d listened closer.”
“I wish you had listened closer.”
A self-deprecating smile touched his lips. “I love you, Jonnie,” he said softly. “I really wish I was the kind of guy who could sweep you off your feet.”
“I love you, too, Paul. Just, not like that.”
He inclined his head. “Then that makes what I came here to tell you so much harder.”
“What could be harder than all this?”
He touched the side of my face. “Your father. His cancer has come back.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“It’s metastasized to his lungs, his liver, his bones. Doctors say he only has a few more months.”
“Oh, Mother must be—”
“He hasn’t told her yet. He wanted you to be there to help him do it.”
I shook my head. More manipulation. That was the only thing my parents understood. How to manipulate everyone.
“So, he thought you’d come up here and find me miserable, too. He thought you’d convince me to come back to the life I left behind.”
“He did.”
I shook my head again, so angry I could hardly catch my breath. I turned to march out of the room, but Paul caught me and pulled me back around.
“He’s dying, Jonnie. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means he’ll be manipulating me until the day he dies!”
“Maybe it’s not about you anymore.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. What kind of a person was I that I was angry with a dying man? I lowered my head in shame, and Paul pulled me close to him.
“We set him straight about you, about us. But you have to go home and say goodbye. You’ll regret it the rest of your life if you don’t.”
I nodded. He was right.
“We’ll go to dinner, figure out our next step.”
I nodded again. “Okay.”
He was my dad. He had been the most important man in my life for most of my life. It wouldn’t kill me to say goodbye.
Seeing my mom, on the other hand…
Chapter 13
Hank
Sutherland looked more beautiful than I had the right to see. She was wearing a dress—I believe this was probably the first time I’d ever seen her in a dress—that hugged her full hips and narrow thighs. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she led the way into the crowded restaurant. Midnight didn’t have any real restaurants, to be honest. This place was several miles to the south, a simple Italian place just outside of Casper. It was one of a few sit down, a waiter brings your food, sort of places within driving distance of Midnight, but that was rumored to change soon.
“I have to admit,” Sutherland had said in the car as we pulled into the parking lot, “I don’t like the proposed changes coming to Midnight with all these wealthy people suddenly deciding it’s a great place to get away from their busy lives. But I would like to have a nice restaurant, a four-star kind of place, to come to town. I like the idea of dressing up from time to time.”
I had to admit, I liked that idea, too. There was nothing like a beautiful woman all dressed to the nines in a tight dress, smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world.
I hadn’t seen Sutherland this relaxed, this absolutely beautiful, since Mitchell died.
We were escorted to our table off to the left of the main dining room. The place was packed, local ranchers and some of those wealthy tourists Sutherland had mentioned taking up the other tables. I sat with my back to the front of the restaurant, focusing on Sutherland and nothing more.
Jonnie had her secret friend she was hugging in her classroom. I could have my secrets, too. Not that I’d ever have romantic feelings for Sutherland. But no one else in the room needed to know that, and it felt good being with the most beautiful woman there.
Sutherland looked around the room, her gaze pausing here and there. She knew some of the ranchers and raised her hand in greeting to those who noticed her presence—which was most of them. As she was doing that, she leaned close to me over the table and whispered, “Isn’t that Ricky Schroder over there? God, I loved him in Silver Spoons! Do you remember those old reruns?”
I shook my head. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“And there? Is that…” She gasped a little. “That’s Bodhi Archer!”
I did know that name. I tried to be casual in my glance, but that was hard to do when everyone in the room seemed to be doing the same sort of neck craning movement, trying to catch sight of the dark man in the back of the restaurant, seated at the best table in the room. Close enough to the kitchen to get his food hotter and quicker than anyone else, but far enough away that the noise of the service didn’t disrupt his evening. It was him, Bodhi Archer. He was an actor from New Zealand who was currently starring in a series of exceedingly popular sci-fi movies about a future world where humans had developed super powers and were at war with creatures from Mars that looked shockingly like humans.
I had to listen to a five-minute recitation on his many qualities from Cassidy just yesterday afternoon; he had a new movie out she was trying to convince me to take her to see.
“What in the world is he doing here?!” Sutherland asked, reaching over and grabbing my wrist.
I hated to break it to her, but I thought I knew why he was there. I’d overheard a rumor that he was the leading candidate to buy out the Circle B, the ranch that bordered MidKnight on the south side. The Reynolds were supposed to sign the papers last week and leave the ranch by the end of the month. We’d already seen moving trucks over there while running the fences early in the morning.
Sutherland shook her head. “Elizabeth will kill me when she finds out she missed seeing him here tonight.”
She was smiling. Sutherland so rarely smiled that I hated to break her heart with the reality that that man was soon to be our neighbor. And there was no telling what kind of a ranch owner he would be. Some of the people who had bought out the ranches in the area had turned right around and sold them to developers. There were more rumors, stories that big developers were planning on building luxury resorts and high rise apartment buildings in the area to encourage more tourism.
It made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
“I suppose we’ll start seeing more of this sort of thing as more ranches fail.”
Sutherland’s smile abruptly disappeared. “I suppose you’re right.”
She sighed as the waiter came over and took our orders. He returned promptly with the bottle of wine I ordered, pouring for us before he left the table once more. Sutherland picked up her glass and studied its contents.
“I never much cared for wine until a few years ago, when Ash brought me an expensive bottle of Moscato. It was so sweet and so… I don’t know. But now I love wine.”
I smiled. “Good. We should all have at least one vice, or the world will find us too tediously perfect.”
She laughed. “Thank you.” She sipped the wine and then studied me over the rim. “I hate to talk business in such a beautiful place…”
“But…”
She inclined her head slightly. “Ash called this morning. He’s sending us many, many candidates in a week or two that he thinks could fill our need for operatives here at the new Gray Wolf office. He wants you to be part of the selection committee.”
“We have a committee?”
There was laughter in her voice. “Yeah. Me, you, and Kirkland. Maybe Mabel, too.”
“No kidding?”
“Ash thinks we should all agree on who we select to limit personality conflicts later down the road. He says that’s a very important part of running a security firm like Gray Wolf.”
“Good to know.”
She shrugged. “I’m a rancher’s wife. I don’t know the first thing about hiring a bunch of guys to run security for a firm that doesn’t even feel like mine.”
“You know more than you think. You did a hell of a job in Afghanistan, running those s
urveillance missions.”
She tilted her head, studying her wine glass before taking another sip. “Maybe,” she said softly. “But that was the military. They taught us until we could plan those missions in our sleep. This? It’s all so new to me.”
“Me too.”
She nodded. “I’m seriously thinking I should ask Ash if Kirkland could just run the whole thing himself. I mean, he seems competent, and he keeps telling me how happy he is to be up here in Wyoming. And Mabel? She’s already resolved half a dozen issues with the suppliers on the ranch. You know that feed that was mildewed? She convinced the supplier that it was partially their fault and talked them into giving us a huge discount on the new delivery. If not for her, we’d be out thousands of dollars!”
“That’s pretty amazing,” I said, feeling guilty that I didn’t have those kinds of skills weighing on my shoulders. I hated that she had to rely on strangers. “I’m glad she’s helped you out.”
“She’s…” Sutherland shook her head. “I don’t know what to say about her. I was doing a little research before they arrived and discovered that she owns this pornographic website. So, I thought, this is going to be a woman I would never spend time with given other circumstances. But then she comes into the house, dressed like a hippie and so shy that she seemed like a whole different person from what her job and her clothes suggested about her. And the way she looks at Kirkland…” She sighed again. “I remember what it felt like when Mitchell looked at me that way. The two of them are so lucky to have each other.”
“You really like her.”
“Yeah, I do. She’s just… I think a lot of her choices have to do with the fact that she grew up in a very conservative family and an extremely conservative church. She wants to be free and to shock people, but she’s still so stuck in those conservative mannerisms, you know?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Our childhoods really screw us up. I never really realized it until now.”
I studied the curve of Sutherland’s jaw, the frown lines that Mitchell once told me were the things that drew him to her the most.
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