Riding High

by Stacy Finz

  “Maybe I didn’t explain it well,” she said. “These would simply be women who are financially struggling . . . single mothers, widows, and divorcees.”

  “It would certainly be easy enough to do criminal background checks,” Flynn interjected.

  “Not really,” Rhys said. “People can change their names and use bogus social security numbers. Come on, Flynn, you know that better than anyone.”

  “The way I understand it, it would be more like a women’s shelter than a halfway house, right, Gia?” Lucky asked.

  “I don’t know if I would call it a women’s shelter exactly. It’ll be a farm and they’ll be the workers . . . like your ranch hands.”

  “Some of my ranch hands have lived on the property for generations,” Clay said. “New ones come with reliable references.”

  This wasn’t going well at all. Gia had expected possible resistance but not open hostility.

  “Look, Gia doesn’t want to bring bad or dangerous people onto her property,” Flynn interjected. “She lives here, remember? She’s trying to do a good deed. Up until recently she helped millions of television viewers and self-help readers take charge of their personal finances. She wants to do the same thing, only on a more intimate level.”

  “Or maybe she wants to change public sentiment about her . . . get her own reality show, because that’s what this sounds like to me,” Clay said, and she heard someone gasp. “Sorry, Gia, I’m a straight shooter and this scheme of yours reeks of gimmickry . . . something for you to use to save face. I’m not saying you were involved in that Ponzi scheme, but there’s no question you’ve fallen from public grace. You’re not going to turn our community into a sideshow to resurrect yourself. Not if I can help it.”

  “I’m with Clay,” Rhys said. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt . . . say your motives are good. But I don’t see Nugget as the appropriate place for a women’s shelter.” He rose and so did everyone else.

  Tawny glanced at Gia and squeezed her lips flat. If Gia read her right she was trying to say she was sorry. Well, why hadn’t she spoken up? “Thank you for having us.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Maddy echoed.

  “You’re welcome.” Gia stood next to Annie as Flynn walked them out. When she was sure they’d left the house, she said, “That went even worse than I expected.”

  Annie made a hushing gesture with her finger. “Flynn’s talking to them.”

  They both strained to listen. Gia couldn’t hear anything, but they were out there a while. Annie moved closer to the foyer but shook her head.

  “Maybe he’ll talk them into coming around,” she said.

  “I doubt it.” Gia picked up one of the trays and started for the kitchen. “They don’t like me much.”

  Annie grabbed a handful of glasses and followed Gia. “I wouldn’t take it personally. Country people are always afraid of change. You need to let the idea sink in for a while and then reapproach them . . . maybe after we get the trees planted.

  Gia heard Flynn come back in. “We’re in the kitchen,” she called.

  He walked in like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Gia.”

  She sighed. “I should’ve expected it, though the reality show idea had never crossed my mind. Clay’s creative, I’ll give him that.”

  “Clay was extremely disrespectful and I plan on letting him know that I didn’t appreciate it.” He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Gia felt his muscles bunch in anger.

  Through the corner of her eye she saw Annie slip out of the room.

  “Don’t risk your friendship with him over me, Flynn. They have a right to be concerned . . . to be suspicious.”

  “Yep. But they don’t have a right to be assholes. And Clay was an asshole tonight. I promise you, he and I will be having further words in private.”

  “I don’t want you to do that,” she said. “These are my neighbors and I want us to get along. It doesn’t mean I’m giving up on my program. If there’s a will there’s a way, right?”

  “Honestly, Gia, I don’t know that they can stop you. As your attorney I could look into it, though it’s not my area of law.”

  She turned around to face him and reached up to put her hands on his shoulders. “Let’s wait, okay? I have enough enemies right now.”

  “It’s up to you. If it’s any consolation I thought you were great out there.”

  Not great enough obviously. “Thanks. You staying the night?”

  “Yeah.” His eyes wandered down her dress and his gaze simmered. “Despite it being a very bad idea.”

  Chapter 15

  Clay put his arm around Emily as they all walked back to their homes together. She’d been awfully quiet at the meeting. And lately she hadn’t been herself. Weepy one moment, manic the next. The sharp mood swings left him at a loss, especially because she was usually so even-keeled. Not like his late ex-wife, who was a shipwreck.

  Clay had tried to discuss the behavior changes with Emily, but she’d dismissed his concerns, accusing him of imagining it.

  It was a nice night: still light enough to see and not cool enough for anything more than a light jacket or sweater. When they got far away enough from Gia’s house, Lucky was the first to speak. “I understand your concern, Clay, I really do, but it sounds to me like Gia wants to do a good thing.”

  “You and Rhys jumped all over her,” Maddy said. “You were openly hostile.”

  “We didn’t jump on her, nor were we hostile,” Rhys replied. “It’s my job to look out for the town and that’s what I did.”

  “Outside, I thought Flynn was gonna hit you,” Lucky told Clay.

  Flynn had been so pissed Clay thought he’d seen steam coming out of his ears. “He’s my friend. But it’s clear she’s dragging him around by his di . . .”

  “Clay!” Emily stopped short.

  He held up his hands. “Sorry.” But it was the damned truth. What the hell was Flynn getting involved for? How would he like it if a halfway house went up next door to his folks’ property?

  They continued walking until they came to the fork in the road that curved off to Lucky and Tawny’s cowboy camp.

  “I don’t want to go against you guys,” Lucky said. “You’re my friends and my neighbors, but I’d like to know more about her program before I give a definitive no. My mother could’ve used the kind of help Gia’s talking about. And it wasn’t that long ago that Tawny struggled with being a single mom with a sick child while trying to hold her business together. So despite whatever Gia’s motives are, I’m sympathetic to the cause.” He looked at his wife and she smiled at him with pride.

  Clay worried that Gia’s proposal might divide neighbors and he didn’t like that. They were a cohesive group who depended on each other in tough times. He didn’t want this to turn into a war between them, but he also didn’t want the tranquility of his bucolic community to be shaken.

  “I say the six of us meet”—Lucky circled his hand around their small group—“and come up with a bunch of questions for her to address. Then we’ll see if we’re satisfied.”

  “I have to think about more than just us,” Rhys reiterated. “I have to think about the whole community.”

  Clay had already made up his mind. He didn’t want a damn women’s shelter anywhere in the vicinity, but he also didn’t want to brush off Lucky.

  “We can meet at our house next weekend,” he said. “In the meantime, I’d like to research the zoning restrictions. What Gia’s talking about may not even be legal.”

  “All she’d have to say is that these women are farmhands.” Rhys looked at Clay pointedly. “If that’s illegal both you and Lucky are in big trouble.”

  Except Gia had already made it known that these women would be here specifically for her program. Clay had a lot of clout in this town and he wouldn’t shy away from using it.

  “If push came to shove, she could certainly challenge my cowboy camp.” Lucky rubbed a hand o
ver his chin. “You don’t know that my guests don’t have criminal backgrounds.”

  “Not the same thing,” Rhys said. “Under the zoning you’re allowed to run an agritourism business. But like I said, there are a lot of ways she can manipulate this.”

  “We on for next weekend, then?” Clay wanted to get Emily home. She seemed agitated. Maybe she didn’t feel well.

  “Yes,” the group said in unison.

  Lucky and Tawny took the fork to their ranch and the rest of them cut across Clay’s field and hiked to the house. Ordinarily, Emily would’ve invited the Shepards in, but there was nothing normal about her these days. Rhys and Maddy waved goodbye and took off toward their house, which was only a quarter mile away.

  Both the boys were out—Cody at a sleepover and Justin on a date—and the house was eerily quiet. Clay turned on the lights, took Emily’s purse from her, put it on the hall table, and wrapped her in his arms.

  “You okay?” he asked against her lips as he kissed her.

  She pulled away and sighed. “You behaved abhorrently. We were guests in Gia’s home. She went to a lot of trouble to make us comfortable.. . . Oh, Clay.”

  “You want a shelter next door? I want my family to be safe, Emily. I don’t know what kinds of people will be staying there.”

  “You could’ve been more diplomatic about voicing those objections instead of accusing Gia of using this as a publicity stunt.” Emily walked into the living room, plopped onto the couch, and took off her shoes with a groan.

  Clay sat next to her, pulled her feet into his lap, and began rubbing them. “I think it is a publicity stunt and I tell it like it is.”

  “Well I found your telling it like it is embarrassing . . . and insulting. Lucky’s right. Who cares what her reasons are for doing it? If it helps women in trouble get back on their feet again . . . why would you be against something like that?”

  “You can’t possibly want this thing?” He was getting angry. Emily of all people should be leery after the hell she’d been through with her daughter. It had been more than seven years and they still didn’t know who had abducted Hope or whether she was even still alive.

  “I don’t know enough about it. She never got to finish after you went off the way you did. And Flynn . . . I’ve never seen him so angry.”

  “Flynn will get over it. He’s a smart guy who’s spent most of his career in law enforcement. He should know better than to get involved with a woman like Gia Treadwell. Her lawyer?” He snorted. “He wants to get in her pants is what he wants.”

  Emily shook her head. “You sound like a jackass when you say things like that.”

  He supposed he did, but it was the truth. All he had to do was look at Flynn and see infatuation written on his friend’s face. The man had it bad. “I just don’t understand why he’s representing her, Em.”

  “Probably because he thinks she’s innocent and thinks it’s awful that she’s being used as a scapegoat. I follow the news, Clay. If they’d had even an iota of evidence that Gia was involved in all those financial shenanigans, she would’ve been arrested by now. I know what it’s like to be her . . . to have everyone impugn your character.”

  When Hope went missing the police immediately looked at Emily and her then-husband. They’d made Emily take a polygraph. Not only had she had to grapple with her daughter’s abduction but she’d had to deal with being the key suspect in the case.

  “I’m not saying she’s guilty, Emily. But I don’t like her proposal. This is our home . . . Justin and Cody’s home. I don’t want it disrupted. I’m all for Gia’s Christmas tree farm and the hay she wants to grow, but I don’t want a rehab center next door.”

  “Do you know how classist you sound?” Emily pulled her feet away and sat up. Her face had gone a little green.

  “You okay?”

  She jumped up and ran to the bathroom. Clay followed. Behind the door he could hear her throwing up and went in to hold her hair back. When she was finished he washed her face.

  “Stomach flu?” he asked, tucking her head against his chest. “Want me to get you some ginger ale?”

  “I’m okay. I just need to sit down.”

  They went back into the living room and she cuddled next to him while he stroked her hair.

  “You think it might’ve been something you ate?” He’d noticed she hadn’t had anything at Gia’s house.

  “No,” she said. “Back to Gia’s residential program. I want you to give it more thought, Clay. If she can guarantee that all the participants have been fully vetted . . . no criminal history . . . I don’t see what the big deal is. Will you promise me that you won’t dismiss it out of hand?”

  “I’ve got you and the boys to think about, Emily. If anything happened to you . . .”

  “No one understands that better than I do. The boys may not be mine biologically, but I love them like my own. Just promise me.”

  “Why’s this so important to you?”

  “Because if it hadn’t been for you and this ranch, I’d be one of those women. There are all kinds of circumstances that can lay a person low, Clay.” He knew Hope’s kidnapping had left Emily an empty shell.

  “I’ll promise on one condition,” he said and kissed the top of her head. “You have to tell me what’s been bothering you these last couple of weeks. I’ve never seen you so . . . emotional.” He hesitated to use the word, knowing women didn’t like it.

  Emily looked up at him. “Will you also promise to apologize to Gia and Flynn?”

  “I didn’t do anything to Flynn.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You offended the woman he cares about. I don’t know if they’re romantic, but Flynn is clearly her friend . . . and her lawyer.”

  “According to everyone in town, they’re doing it fifty ways to Sunday.”

  “You believe everything you hear in town?” She smacked his arm.

  Clay laughed and pulled her into his lap. “I can see you’re feeling better.”

  “A little bit, but I could use that ginger ale.”

  “At your service,” he said and lifted her up and put her back down so he could go to the kitchen. Before he left he fluffed a throw pillow and stuck it behind her head. “Sit tight and when I come back you’ll tell me what’s been upsetting you.”

  In the kitchen he found a bottle in the pantry, filled a glass with ice, and took a second to admire the room. It used to be dated, with chipped tiles and old linoleum, but he’d kept it that way as an ode to his late parents. Emily had wanted to remodel it, but he’d fought her, fearing modern updates would erase the past. Because he’d give her the moon and the stars if she wanted them—and because she was the cook—she’d won. But she’d preserved some of the old, mixing it with the new, making the room the heart of the house. And it wasn’t just the kitchen. She’d brought love into every corner of their lives.

  Whatever was going on with her . . . with them, he’d go to the ends of the earth to fix it. He’d promised himself that after Hope he would do his damnedest to never let anything hurt her again.

  Grabbing the bottle of ginger ale and the glass, he returned to the living room to find Emily curled up on the couch, sound asleep. He put the soda on the table and tucked her in with a throw blanket from one of the chairs. Whatever she had must’ve hit her hard. If she still felt sick in the morning he’d take her to the clinic in Glory Junction.

  In the meantime, he wanted to clean the bathroom before Emily woke up. He opened the window to air out the room. Under the sink he found cleaning supplies and scrubbed the toilet, sink, and floor where Emily had gotten sick. He was getting ready to empty the trash when something caught his eye. The tip of a toothbrush peeked out from under a wad of tissue. Clay had never seen one with a digital display before so he fished the plastic stick out of the garbage to take a closer look.

  It wasn’t a toothbrush. The words on the display said, “Pregnant.”

  Pregnant. He stared at the stick a few seconds, stunned.

  �
�Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered aloud, letting the news sink in.

  But why the hell hadn’t his wife told him?

  * * *

  Flynn heard Gia moving around downstairs. For such a well-built house, noise traveled. Either that or he was hyper tuned in to her. More likely the later. He wondered if she was having trouble sleeping.

  The meeting had gone piss-poor. No doubt that had made Gia restless. For him it was the goddamn dress and thong she’d had on. Just the thought of her firm ass cheek in his hand had made him hard. By now she’d probably changed into those pajama shorts and thin tank she wore to bed.

  “Ah, Jesus,” he groaned and rolled over. At this rate it’d be a long night.

  He shut his eyes, tried to sleep, even counted sheep. That was when he could’ve sworn he smelled Gia’s perfume wafting under his door and got up to check the hallway. Nothing. He got back in bed, shoved an extra pillow under his head, and stared up at the ceiling fan, hoping the whir of the blades would lull him into dreamland.

  About four in the morning he bolted up from a half sleep. A noise came from outside the house, like a faint clanging of metal. He got up, went to the window, and pulled the drapes aside, but it was too dark to make anything out. Not even shadows. He was about to ignore it when he heard more noise coming from the direction of the garbage cans.

  “Goddamn it.” He tugged on his pants, shirt, and boots.

  It was probably just raccoons or a bear. Best to chase off whatever it was before it made a mess. He reached inside his duffel for his Glock. A mama bear could get mean if she traveled with a cub.

  He went down the stairs—quiet as he could, not to wake up Gia—through the kitchen, switched on the outdoor lights, and exited through the mudroom door. Something rustled near the wooden trash-bin enclosure. Then two heads popped up, clearly startled by the sudden flood of light. One of them looked directly into the muzzle of Flynn’s pistol.