by Nella Tyler
A pregnancy. Sending him thinly veiled threats in text messages.
The baby is yours and the baby is going to have a father.
Brecken had never hated anybody in his life; he didn't want to be carrying around that kind of emotion, but Alyson was making it extremely difficult. He was learning how to hate. He was willing to contemplate things he never contemplated before. He didn't want to go there, didn't want to cross that line, but God, what was he supposed to do? She could bring him down. The fact that she would go down with him didn't seem to make a bit of difference to her. He felt like he was on the Titanic. No way out.
He had originally planned to stay the night in Bolivia and catch his plane back to the States early the following morning, but all he wanted to do was get the hell away from here. He notified his security guy and then called his pilot. He wanted to take off within the hour. It would be a scramble, but they could do it.
He wanted to go home to Boston and put the dirty streets of Bolivia behind him. He wanted to get that distasteful feeling out of his mouth after meeting with the colonel and his cronies. Had he got himself too deep this time?
*
By the time Brecken returned to Boston, he felt exhausted, physically and emotionally. It was afternoon when he landed, but he told Cynthia to take the rest of the day off. Without a word, she nodded, saved what she was working on at her computer, and then grabbed her purse out of a desk drawer.
“Have a good evening, Brecken," she said as she headed away from her desk and toward the elevator.
Brecken mumbled a reply and then headed into his office, closing the door softly behind him. Here was where he felt safe. Here was where he felt most in control. Still, uncertainties niggled at the edges of his consciousness. He had to tread carefully. He was involved in some precarious business dealings. The kind of dealings where one side could easily bring the other side down. Was it getting to be too much for him? While he certainly didn't doubt his motives, he was beginning to feel the strain.
Issues with Alyson weren’t helping any. Then, he thought of Heather. She was a breath of fresh air. It wasn't like she was naïve. She was just a nice person who made him feel better. He didn't know her at all, but she seemed to be the complete opposite of Alyson, so in his book, she got high marks. She didn't seem to be impressed by him or his money whatsoever, another refreshing aspect of her character. As he thought of Heather, he thought about her fear when she'd come into the office to tell him about the photograph and the phone call. He frowned, ignored the hardening of his dick when he thought of her, and picked up his phone. He punched in an extension.
When a voice answered on the other end, he spoke. "What did you find?"
He wasn't at all happy to learn that his security checks had found no signs of hacking into Heather's office computer. Those guys could track anything. That could only mean one thing. They were dealing with a pro or a team of them. Untraceable, at least for now. He frowned, wondering who he knew in his circle of acquaintances, friend or foe, had such skills.
At the same time, he had to remember that hackers could be found everywhere. They were found in small towns, schools, and businesses throughout the country, and the world. In his heyday, hackers were to be feared. Today, they seemed to be a dime a dozen and got younger and younger every year.
He shook his head and thought about an old movie he had seen. He remembered a comment by one of the characters. Maybe he was getting too old for this shit. He shook his head, tried to focus on several tasks that he needed to deal with. Some of them could've waited until tomorrow, but he had nothing better to do right now anyway, so he tackled them.
The next time he looked at the clock, it was going on eight o’clock. He couldn't get his thoughts off of Heather. He decided he would call her, ostensibly to give her an update on the status of things at work, even though he knew that was not the reason he was calling her.
He wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice. To his surprise, he realized that he missed her. How could he miss someone he had just met, spent less than four or five hours with? Was that even possible? Still, he remembered the feel of her in his arms as he had tried to comfort her the other day. She was soft and squishy in all the right places. Her hair smelled like lavender. Her breasts were firm and plump. His dick rose to attention. What the hell?
He dialed Heather’s cell phone number. After three rings, he was about to hang up when she answered in a breathless voice.
"Hello?"
He heard laughter in the background.
"You busy?"
"Oh," she said. "I didn't even look to see who was calling. It is everything all right, Brecken?"
Her voice was like a soothing balm to his nerves. He placed his elbow on the desk and leaned his head on his hand, smiling. "You haven’t received any more suspicious phone calls, have you?"
"No, but I've kept my phone turned off for most of the days since I've been here. I just check my call logs in the evening, but I haven’t seen any unusual numbers or received any voicemails." She paused. "I hope you haven’t been trying to get a hold of me. Have you returned from your business trip?"
"Yes, earlier this afternoon."
"Have your security people determined how my computer was hacked?"
"Not yet," he sighed. "Look, Heather, they're working on it, and we'll have it resolved in a day or two. In the meantime, what would you think about me coming up to visit?" She said nothing for a moment and he wondered if he had overstepped his bounds, at least in her eyes.
"You mean to New Hampshire? To my parents’ house?"
He caught her uncertainty and rolled with it. "To New Hampshire, yes. To your parent’s house? No. There are hotels up there somewhere, aren't there?"
She laughed. "Of course, there are!"
The sound of her laughter lifted his spirits. "I'm going to be completely honest with you, Heather," he said. Might as well throw it out there, see whether it stuck or bounced back and hit me square between the eyes, he thought. "There's something about you that attracts me. To be brutally honest, I… I just… Well, I miss you." he spat it out, probably rushing, but he needed to say it.
After several seconds, she replied. He could've sworn he heard the smile in her voice.
"I feel the same way," she admitted. "I'll tell you what. My parents are otherwise occupied tomorrow, but I can meet you at a hotel of your choosing. I would invite you to the house, but my parents… They wouldn't understand, Brecken."
"I understand," he said, meaning it. He could imagine how this would look to her parents. She had just come to work for him a little over a week ago and already he was chasing her? Is that what he was doing? He wasn't sure.
"If you can stay a day or two, I would love to show you around the area, give you a taste of what life outside of the city is like. Not that you don't know. You’ve probably been everywhere in the world, so New Hampshire, at least this part of it, may seem a little outdated and old-fashioned to you-"
"I've never been to New Hampshire, Heather," he admitted. “I would enjoy nothing more than get to know you, your home, and your state a little better. I'll fly up tomorrow, get settled, and then give you a call, let you know where I'm staying. Will that work?"
That'll work," she said.
With that, they said their goodbyes. To Brecken’s surprise, he felt a little nervous, almost like a schoolboy asking someone to the prom. Since when was he nervous about anything, business aside? When it came to romance, he was more than experienced. He had taken out, dated, and slept with women all over the world. He had no lack of confidence when it came to his sexual prowess, but after Alyson, he had seriously begun to doubt his own ability to use rational judgment and not just his dick when it came to relationships.
Besides, he didn't know where this…whatever it was…with Heather would go, but she was a distraction. A pleasant distraction. What with everything going on with Alyson and his business, he didn't know if he was ready to step into another relationship. For now, he
would keep it superficial. No promises, no strings. Before he slept with her, and he had no doubt that he would, he would make sure that she was fully aware of that fact. He wasn't about to repeat the same mistake he had made with Alyson.
*
The next morning, flying up to New Hampshire in his jet, Brecken found himself strangely nervous, but not a bad way – not in a way he had felt nervous about going down to Bolivia. This was a totally different kind of nervous. He wondered if Heather was on pins and needles, too. How could not she be? She was meeting her boss, outside of work, again.
After his jet landed at the municipal airport in Manchester, he told his pilot to enjoy a day or two off. He would call when he needed to fly back to Boston. Then, walking into the airport proper, Brecken approached the rental car desk. Several people he passed stared at him. He got stared at wherever he went. He didn't think that anybody here would recognize him, so wasn't too alarmed, but nevertheless kept his guard up. You could never be too careful.
He decided to drive a rental car from Manchester to the small town of Peterborough, following Heather's suggestion when he had spoken to her again last evening that he would find a number of comfortable lodgings at any point along the highway.
She told him that towns in New Hampshire were spaced roughly seven miles apart or so, most of those founded in colonial times. They were spaced that way due to convenience and travel by coach. Interesting. She had recommended a bed and breakfast a short distance out of downtown – a renovated farmhouse. He drove along the route Heather had suggested to get to Peterborough, finding himself relaxing with every mile that passed. It was beautiful out here, no doubt about it. While he considered himself a purebred city boy, he certainly didn't mind getting away from it all once in a while. He had never been up to New Hampshire and had not realized how gorgeous it was. He shoved thoughts of Bolivia out of his head.
In only a short time, he pulled up in front of a colonial-style building called Mabel's Bed and Breakfast. The former farmhouse wasn't an old, dilapidated building, but newly renovated, yet still quaint and attractive. Deep maroon trim and window shutters offset the white paint on the structure. A small covered porch looked warm and inviting with a chair swing. So cozy, and he didn’t mean that in a sarcastic way. Four evenly spaced windows took up one half of the two-story farmhouse, and above that was a double dormer window for what was obviously a converted room from what used to be the attic space.
Brecken parked along the curb and got out of his car. The air smelled like wet leaves and the rich scent of earth. He inhaled deeply and slowly walked up to the front door, thinking he had stepped back in time, to a simpler time and place. Potted plants hung from the eaves. The stained glass front door was solid oak and inviting.
He was in luck. A room was available. This early in the year, few people were out and about, the owner of the establishment informed him with a smile as she took him up to the upstairs attic room. She told him it would be warmer up there. Most of her guests came during the fall season, when thousands of visitors from around the country came to look at the colors.
The owner of the bed and breakfast was a nice older woman, and yet Brecken found himself impatient to be shown his room and left alone. He shook his head. He wasn't used to such a laid-back style of living. Maybe he needed more practice at it. Maybe he really needed to mellow. But you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks overnight.
He followed the older woman up a very narrow staircase and toward the attic room. At first, he thought it would be too closed and stuffy for his taste, but when she opened the door and stepped back, allowing him to enter the room, he was pleasantly surprised.
Who needed five-star accommodations when you had such a comfortable, warm, inviting space? A comfortable looking bed to lay your head at night? The room wasn't fancy, but pleased him immensely. The full-sized bed in one corner was covered with an inviting quilt and fluffy pillows encased in white pillowcases. There was a bedside table with an old-fashioned lamp. Under the dormer windows stood a small antique secretary desk. A small armoire stood in the corner between the secretary desk and the wall. An old trunk, with another quilt neatly folded on top, was situated on the other side of the secretary. The wooden floor, which also looked old, was covered with a beautiful tapestry rug decorated with maple leafs in varying fall colors.
The room didn't have a TV or radio. It did have a telephone, one of those old-fashioned rotary dial phones. He turned her. "Does the phone work?"
She nodded and smiled. "It does, although I found that most of my guests use their cell phones. But it works if you need it." She paused. "As you can see, there's no television or radio. We can bring one up for you if you wish, but again, we find that most of the guests here come to escape and to enjoy the best Mother Nature has to offer."
Odd, but pleasantly surprising. "I won’t need a television or a radio. If I need to catch the news, I’ll get it in my car." He did look around the room. "However, will I be able to check my computer up here? Do you have wireless?"
"Yes, we're fully modernized. The wireless access code is in the drawer of the secretary. I'm warning you, though, that sometimes the Internet can be spotty and wireless can dip in and out depending on the weather."
He smiled. "That's okay, is there a Starbucks or anything in town that also offers wireless, just in case?"
"No Starbucks, but there is a coffee shop that does provide wireless access, as well as a library and a McDonald's. The weather should be all right, though. We don't have any early spring storms forecast."
"No worries, ma'am-"
"So polite," she said, shaking her head. "My name is Mabel, and my husband is John. You can stay as long as you wish. You'll likely find one of us around most times of the day."
She gestured outside the room. "There's a small bathroom just outside your door and across the hall," the older woman explained. "You have the attic space all to yourself so you don't have to worry about privacy. If you need more towels or anything, just let me know."
Brecken turned to her with a smile. "This is lovely," he said, meaning it. "I know I'll be fine. Thank you for your hospitality."
She smiled up at him and then gestured that she was going downstairs. "You make yourself comfortable.” She dug into her pocket and retrieved two keys. “This small key is for the door to your room here. The larger key is for the front door downstairs. All I ask is that if you go in or out after ten o'clock, please do so quietly." She gestured again. "My husband and I sleep downstairs near the kitchen."
"I’ll keep that in mind," he said. He was unsure how long he would be staying. It probably depended on how he got along with Heather or if any pressing business matters required his attention down in Boston. He wished he could totally unplug, go off grid for a few days, but in his business, that was unheard of.
"Well, you have a good rest of your afternoon and evening. Breakfast is served downstairs from six o’clock until eight o’clock in the morning. The works. I hope you enjoy your stay here."
"I'm sure I will," he said, closing the door gently as the older woman left the room. He turned around, nodded his head in satisfaction, and then placed his overnight bag and computer case on the bed. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Heather's number.
"Hi, Brecken," she said as soon she picked up the phone. "Where are you?"
He smiled. "Hello, Heather. I’m at Mabel's Bed and Breakfast."
" Do you want me to come by after you've settled in? I can give you a tour of the area."
"Not much settling in to do," he commented. "If it's convenient, I'm ready for a tour if you are."
She laughed. "I doubt there's much I can show you that you haven't seen somewhere," she commented. “I'm sure you've been in pretty rustic locations around the world."
He said nothing, wanting her to go on. He loved the sound of her voice.
"You being a jet setter and all, I can imagine there are not many places you haven’t been." She paused. "Then again, you
said you've never been to New Hampshire, which kind of surprises me."
"Really?" he asked, sitting down on the bed. The mattress was so comfortable that he resisted the urge to lie down. "I've never been to Vermont, either. Or Maine.”
"Seriously?" she gasped. "Well then, you're in for a treat. Give me about thirty minutes and I'll be by, okay? Oh… and I hope you're not wearing a suit?"
"No suit today, Heather," he said. "I'm wearing khakis, loafers, and a polo."
"Did you happen to bring hiking shoes?"
He laughed. "Am I going to need them?"
"They might come in handy. We can stop by the shoe store in town. I have a beautiful location I want to show you, but it's kind of rocky and loafers might not be the best idea."
"Okay, we can stop by and get a pair of hiking shoes and anything else you think I might need for my stay."
She laughed and agreed. "Okay, I’ll be over in just a bit. I'll bring some cookies for Mabel that my mom made. She'll appreciate that."
"You know Mabel and her husband, John?" he asked, surprised.
"I know just about everybody in the county," she replied, as if surprised by the question. "I grew up here. Everyone knows everyone else, and I have to warn you, everyone knows everyone's business, too!"
He laughed. "Okay, I'll be ready. I have the attic room."
"All right, I’ll see you soon."
*
True to her word, Heather arrived about thirty minutes later. He was surprised that he filled the time waiting just thinking about her. He had an overwhelming desire to kiss her, and no doubt certainly something more, if she allowed it. If he had been reading her correctly, he knew she found him attractive. It was the way she looked at him not only during their interview, but during the past week when they had worked together.
People could pretty well disguise their expressions and emotions, but Heather had not been able to disguise the way her pupils dilated every time she saw him. He could take that to mean any number of things, but he would like to think it was because she was sexually attracted to him.