by Mary Leo
His voice was steady and without emotion. It almost seemed rehearsed, practiced, as if he was talking to a stranger. A razor-sharp tingling slid down her spine and for a moment she second-guessed his character. Maybe she didn’t really know this man as well as she thought she did.
“Then I’ll be sure to hand it to her myself, if all it contains is your sympathies.”
Chuck bristled. “Why would there be anything else?”
She picked up the envelope and slid her fingers over the edges of the creamy white paper, then trailed a finger over the Circle Starr brand embossed on the back.
“Well,” she said, looking over at him as he sipped his coffee from a heavy blue mug, “when I first arrived, you told me something about a child who needed to know you were his real dad, but we haven’t spoken about it since.”
“I’ve been busy. I told you it could wait.” He placed his cup on the table, avoiding eye contact with her. She immediately knew he was hedging.
“This letter wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would it? Because if it did, and you didn’t tell me, I would no longer trust anything you said.”
He stared right at her, emerald green eyes showing no expression. “It’s just my heartfelt condolences to a woman who is grieving the loss of her husband.”
Their eyes locked for what seemed like minutes. The tingling along her spine increased until she watched a warm smile break out on his face, broadcasting the Chuck she knew and loved. She relaxed and the sharp tingling sensation disappeared. She took a few swallows of her coffee, the hot liquid relaxing her throat, and her mind. She told herself she’d overreacted, probably due to everything else that was going on in her life. She tossed him a grin and said, “I’ll need all the details, time, location . . .”
Chuck stood with his coffee cup in hand. Downed what was left of it, then placed the cup back down on the table. “Kaya will fill you in with everything you’ll need to know. I have to go. Already late for a meeting with a couple members of the City Council.”
“When can we sit down and talk about your child?” Avery was not about to let him off the hook just because he was running late for yet another meeting. She pictured a young girl or boy who needed to know about Chuck, needed to meet him and spend time with him. After all, Chuck Starr was a great guy, when you could pin him down.
“Soon,” he said, without candor.
“That’s not a specific time. I only deal in specifics.”
He placed his mug on the table next to an empty plate. He hadn’t eaten anything and Kaya had outdone herself that morning with scrambled eggs, fresh croissants, cherry tarts, potatoes, and sliced mixed fruit. “Tonight, after the memorial. I’ll be home for dinner.”
“I’ll tell Kaya so she can make one of your favorites.”
“Fine,” he said, then turned on his boot heel and walked out.
“Fine,” Avery mumbled to herself, wishing she had a lack of morals that would allow her to steam open the envelope.
THERE WAS SOMETHING about a memorial that frightened Avery, and she had always tried her best to avoid attending them. No matter how positively the family of the dearly departed tried to spin the event, it still smacked of sadness and loss. Whenever Avery had felt an obligation to attend, she’d snuck out once she’d made her presence known to the family members. This memorial luncheon would certainly prove no different, and she intended to deliver the envelope, then disappear immediately afterward.
She’d driven over to town on a road she’d remembered from her childhood, a shortcut of sorts that had taken her past Bell House, a beautiful three-story brick building, surrounded by lush grounds that housed the mentally challenged. When she was a kid, it had a metal fence surrounding it, but now it was completely gone. A testament to improved conditions for its inhabitants or maybe Bell House had been turned into a nursery or a restaurant or someone’s private residence. Although, Avery couldn’t understand how anyone could live in a house with that kind of history. During the nineties, when many of the bigger institutions were closing down, horror stories emerged of the terrible abuse that had gone on inside those institutions. Even Avery’s mom seemed to be aware of the abuse and had visibly shivered each time they’d driven by Bell House. Avery remembered it clearly.
The shortcut also brought Avery past the latest home developments. There were several square miles of two-story homes that were already inhabited, and more homes were in the process of going up for the workers in the oil industry that Chuck had spearheaded in this part of Arizona.
She didn’t know how some of the older residents were handling the expansion of their once sleepy town, but Avery, for one, didn’t much like it.
The memorial took place at what seemed to be the only sizeable restaurant for miles, Old Town Inn. She’d parked her car a block away along the curb so she didn’t have to meet up with any mourners in the parking lot and explain how she knew the dearly departed . . . which she did not. She had also arrived about an hour late, after the meal had undoubtedly been served so she wouldn’t have to sit and chat with anyone about Reese Harrington Cooper Sr., a man she knew nothing about.
As she came closer to the restaurant, she realized she would have to pass the Olympic Theater, a movie theater that was now abandoned and boarded up. A torrent of memories threatened to cause her already prickly disposition to spiral deeper into darkness, so she quickly picked up her pace. She ignored the shiver that crept up her spine and, instead, concentrated on her plan to get in and out of the memorial in less than ten minutes and to relegate the theater to her past, and bury the painful memories attached to it once again.
When she walked into the private dining room at the rear of the restaurant, she unwittingly drew some attention to herself. She’d worn her hair up under an elegant large brimmed black hat, thinking she’d blend in. Plus, she’d worn the plainest black dress she owned, along with black heels. Unfortunately, blending in was not the case by the looks of everyone in the room, because all-out western wear—that included cowboy boots and hats—seemed to be the prerequisite attire. Details that both Chuck and Kaya had neglected to tell her.
So be it, she told herself while making her way into the crowded, boisterous room as various friends of the family greeted her with a cordial nod and a welcoming smile. There had to be at least a couple hundred people in attendance, possibly the majority of the residents of Wild Cross, Arizona. Fortunately, most of them were involved in a conversation, so no one approached her. Some of the guests remained seated at round tables that were draped in white tablecloths, while other people stood together in small groups, holding drinks in their hands. Children of all ages dotted the large room with their smiling faces, their laughter rising above the din of conversation. Older folks seemed to delight in conversations with friends or acquaintances they probably hadn’t seen in a while, while other guests sat in twos or threes heavily involved in dialogue.
Some tears had been shed, no doubt, the small open tissue boxes on the tables were evidence of that, but from what Avery could gather, everyone seemed to be in better spirits than what she had expected. She thought perhaps cowboys and their families had a different perspective on death that she hadn’t experienced before. For one thing, not one person wore anything formal, and black seemed to be the exception rather than the rule.
A rather large framed photo of whom Avery could only assume was the now deceased Reese Harrington Cooper Sr. sat on a small round table at the front of the room. Other photos depicting happier times surrounded it. The cowboy in the main picture wore his Western hat high on his head, his white hair billowing out the sides, and a beaming smile lit up his entire face. His picture portrayed a hardworking cowboy with kind eyes. Someone Avery would have liked to have known, someone like Chuck Starr, a family friend, no doubt, though what Chuck had said about his presence not being appreciated there still puzzled her.
She couldn’t begin to pick out which of the folks was the cowboy’s widow, Catherine, or Cathy as Chuck had referr
ed to her, but when she spotted a lone man with thick chestnut hair, dressed in jeans, boots, and a black shirt, leaning on a railing out on the deserted back patio that overlooked the distant rolling green hills, something about him looked very familiar. Plus, he appeared as though he was hurting, really hurting from the loss of Reese Harrington Cooper Sr. Avery knew something about that kind of hurt and made the decision to join him, hoping she might be able to cheer him up a bit and in turn he could point her in Catherine’s direction.
She ordered two shots of Jameson from a fidgety male bartender wearing a white shirt and black pants, standing behind a portable bar in the back corner near the open doors that led outside. On a hunch, she asked him for a cigarette.
“This is a non-smoking facility,” he told her with authority.
“I bet it is, but maybe I could sneak one out on the patio?” She turned on a wealth of charm, hoping he was a smoker who couldn’t resist a fellow smoker in need.
“Who is that?” She nodded her head in the direction of the grieving man out on the patio. “Do you know him?”
The bartender threw her a quizzical look. “Everybody knows he’s Reese Cooper Jr.” He leaned in closer to her. “I heard he’s taking the loss real hard. Are you a friend of his sister, Shiloh?”
Her heart wept for Reese Jr. He truly looked grief-stricken.
“Not exactly. How about that cigarette?”
He looked around, pulled out a pack from his pants pocket, and quickly flipped a few cigs up from the crinkled package, and held it out to her. “Don’t let anyone know I gave this to you, okay? I might get in trouble.”
She tipped him five dollars, and grabbed the bummed smoke, along with a new book of matches he just happened to have, and her drinks. “It’ll be our little secret,” she told him in a confirming whisper.
He nodded, then straightened up and looked forward, as if she had already left his station.
Avery sashayed out the door, stood a few feet from the man in black, placed her drinks on the wide railing, and lit her cigarette, drawing in the rich smoke deep into her lungs. It felt wonderful. She hadn’t had a cigarette in months. She exhaled in his direction, and held the burning vice out for him. He briefly gazed over at it, looking as if her offer had pulled him away from thoughts he regretted having.
“Thanks,” he said with a crack in his baritone voice, not really looking at her. “But . . . I don’t smoke anymore.”
She’d had a feeling this rugged cowboy was once a smoker.
“Neither do I.” She continued to offer the cigarette, knowing that the scent of the smoke might lure him back to its sinful ways.
He focused on the cigarette for a moment, then his gaze finally traveled up to her face and lingered there for an awkward few seconds as if he was working hard to place where he’d seen her before. “They say once you start again, you won’t be able to stop.”
“You’re a big boy,” she teased. “I’m sure you can handle the conflict.”
“Can you?”
She liked the sound of his voice as it rumbled over her in deep, dark tones, like the drone of a foghorn warning a sailor approaching a treacherous shoreline.
She took a long drag, filling her lungs with the wicked addiction, then slowly exhaling, she said, “We’ll make a pact . . . one cigarette.”
He grinned, looking sly and devious. “Just this once.”
It was during that moment when she noticed his deep green eyes, so green that emeralds faded in comparison. She’d never seen eyes so heavy with color. She found herself getting lost in his intense gaze. And, once again, she had the strangest sensation she had looked into those eyes before . . . how could that be?
And then something sparked within those amazing eyes . . . an awareness or some kind of recognition . . . but that couldn’t be . . . and then the spark disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
He took the cigarette from her hand. With a deliberate movement, he placed it between his lips and inhaled deeply, trapping the white smoke inside his body for what seemed like minutes, then let it out in a slow, stream of gossamer beauty. This man lured her like no other, causing her to wish she’d been that puff of smoke, going deep within him, learning all that he was, tasting his lips and his mouth on the way down.
“You’re catching me at my most vulnerable moment,” he said, then returned the cigarette.
“Mine too. I hate memorials. No matter how they’re cloaked, there’s nothing but pain and hurt associated with the event.”
She took a long drag off the cigarette, getting a chill as her lips encircled the very spot where his lips had just been. She could almost taste him as she squeezed her lips around the small source of pure pleasure.
“Sounds like you’ve seen your share.” He was facing her now, watching as she inhaled then exhaled the smoke through parted blood-red lips, her lipstick staining the tip of the cigarette.
“My mom died when I was ten,” she told him, “and my dad chose not to have a memorial for her. It was better that way. Easier to let go.” Rarely, if ever, did she talk about her mom to anyone. She kept that pain close, not wanting to invite questions that only led to patronizing attempts at misplaced comfort. For some reason, though, it felt right to confide in this man.
“Sorry. That must have been hard for you to deal with, especially that young when you needed your mom the most.”
His words sounded sincere, as if he truly meant them, as if he cared about her and the pain she’d endured with the loss of her mom. She’d never met anyone who identified with her so easily, so thoroughly. Like they knew each other or had some kind of connection.
“She was a horrible mom. Beat me every night before I went to bed, and starved me most of the time,” she said, straight out lying. While her mom had been, at times, quite absentminded and, at other times, downright neglectful, though not in a serious way, her mom had been the kindest and most loving woman Avery had ever known. She still thought of her every day even though it had been almost twenty years.
As she handed him the cigarette, she turned away this time, not wanting to be tempted into getting lost in his intense eyes.
“That’s horrible. No child should be treated like that.”
She hesitated for a few seconds, then turned back to him, grinning. “The beating and starvation part was a lie. I just said it to get your attention off your own sorrow, but my mom did, in fact, die, so I absolutely know what you’re feeling right now . . . pure emptiness.”
A feeling Avery had never admitted to anyone. A feeling she still felt, deep down inside, where she tried her best never to go.
“That and guilt.” He said it without looking at her.
She shuddered in deep empathy for this man who sorely missed his father. Her mom had died that first summer when they’d come out to visit Chuck at his ranch. Though her dad never really told her the details of her mom’s death or her burial, Avery somehow had the impression her mom was buried outside of Wild Cross, but never knew exactly where . . . still didn’t. For a while, Avery had asked about her mom and cried herself to sleep every night over missing her. Her dad would do his best to comfort her, but he never really talked about her mom or shared any stories. At first, she didn’t understand, but as she grew older, she chalked his silence up to his own pain. She had assumed he’d been trying to somehow shield her from the terrible loss.
Once they moved to Phoenix from Denver, Avery stopped asking questions and had decided never to cry about her mom again. She’d been almost twelve when she’d made that decision, on her birthday. From that moment on, Avery locked all her grief away and instead focused on keeping her dad happy. It was easier on both of them.
“That’s normal,” she told him. “It’s one of the five stages of grief. We all go through them.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me. It doesn’t help much, though.”
“Grief takes time to accept. It’s a mind game with no rules.”
“I was never very good at gam
es.”
“Then you’ll have to go extra easy on yourself. This one can break you.”
He bellied up to the railing and turned to her, his voice low and soft. “Have we met? I feel as though I know you from somewhere, but can’t quite place you.”
She shook her head. “We’ve never met.” Still, she couldn’t help feeling the same way. He seemed very familiar.
“Did you know my dad?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think so. But I know about loss, and losing a parent at any age rips us apart. It’s possibly the single most crushing event we have to endure. No matter how they die, we blame ourselves for not having been able to stop it. But we don’t have that kind of power. I choose to believe it was simply their time to go. My mom was the kindest, sweetest person I’ve ever known. I miss her every day, and I know I always will.”
His gaze intensified as he drank her in like a man who’d been thirsty for a woman’s attention. “Who are you?” he whispered, his tone filled with concern.
She picked up the two glasses of Jameson and offered him one. “Avery Templeton.”
He reached out and took the glass from her, touching her fingers as he pulled the encased liquid from her hand, lingering for a moment, sliding his course fingers over her silky-smooth skin. His virile touch roamed through her body tormenting her senses, exploding passions, claiming her as his own. All with one touch.
“And I suppose you don’t drink either?” His lips parted with a warm smile.
“Not often enough,” she said, her voice husky, unable to control the visceral reaction that now consumed her. She’d always known when to walk away from a perilous situation, how close to get to the edge, when to disappear, but this was different. She found herself being drawn to the cliffs and craving the swirling water below. There was something about this man that both tempted her and made her want to run from him.
“Are you here to corrupt me, Avery Templeton?” His eyes lit up with the wide grin that stretched his perfectly shaped lips. Never had she wanted to kiss a man more than at that moment.