TWO

 

 

After two full weeks away from her law firm, relaxing into ranch life on the Circle Starr—after Chuck’s continued insistence that he’d decided to put his legal matter on the back burner for now—Avery was finally settling into a groove.

But today was different.

This morning, over muffins and coffee, Chuck had asked her to attend a memorial luncheon that afternoon for an old nemesis of his, Reese Harrington Cooper Sr., and personally deliver his condolences to the widow, Catherine. Chuck wouldn’t go into the details, but he assured Avery that his presence at the memorial would cause a dust-up that he would rather avoid.

“If it’s possible, I’d like you to place this letter into her hands only,” Chuck said while taking a seat across from Avery at the breakfast table, holding a letter-size envelope in his right hand. His voice had a severity to it she’d never heard before.

Up until that moment, Avery had rarely seen Chuck due to what he’d said were ranch commitments and business meetings for his oil company. She’d essentially lived at the ranch house alone except for the house manager, who spent eight hours a day cleaning, cooking and generally taking care of anything that came her way. Chuck typically came home around midnight, ate a cold plate Kaya would prepare at dinner, and except for one or two late mornings, was gone before Avery sat down for breakfast. Today seemed to be one of the exceptions.

“I’ll see what I can do, but you should know I’m not too keen on attending a memorial service. Just not something I’m very good at.”

“That’s fine. Normally, I would attend myself. Just not sure that would be a good idea. It’s important that Cathy gets this letter. I’m counting on you to make sure it happens.”

Avery’s radar immediately triggered.

“I’ll do my best, but why all the urgency? Why not just drop it in the mail?” She wondered if there was more to the letter than mere words of sympathy.

Avery knew when a person was withholding details from working with her clients and from cross-examining witnesses in a courtroom. Chuck’s demeanor spoke volumes. He was hiding something, and he intended to keep on hiding it, despite their lifelong friendship.

He casually slid the envelope to her across the white table. It stopped just short of hitting her plate. “I only want to make sure she gets it is all. She’ll have a lot going on today and I don’t want my letter to get lost. It’s important to me.”

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 referred 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 games.”

“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.

She pulled her gaze away from him for an instant, and instead stared out at the mountainous view in front of her. Wild Cross bordered green-forested mountains on one side, and the dry, red-clay desert on the other. The deck faced the lush mountainside.

“If that’s what it takes to help get you through this day, then yes.” She continued to eye the surrounding hills, needing a distraction from her intense attraction to him. “Otherwise, I’m here to deliver a letter from a friend to Catherine Cooper. Is she your mom?”

She turned back to him, now more able to control her erratic emotions. He drank down his whiskey in one gulp and handed her the empty glass. His face reflected the soothing powers of the seduction of alcohol. He seemed less intense, less sad, almost as if her job here was nearly complete, and she’d managed to distract him from his pain . . . all good.

“She is, but first I’d like to know if you’ve corrupted the ‘friend’ who gave you the letter as well?”

“He’s already corrupted and doesn’t need my help in that category. You’re my target at the moment.”

He took another long drag on their shared cigarette, then slowly blew out the smoke, as if contemplating the situation. “Is this corruption thing an occupation of yours, or merely an afterthought?”

It frightened her that he somehow knew how her mind worked.

“Believe me, nothing I ever do is an afterthought. I’m a highly calculating woman.”

“So you designed this encounter? But I don’t even know you.”

His eyes, encircled by thick long eyelashes, burned through her. He was clean-shaven, kept his hair short and layered against his scalp. A strong chin, a perfectly shaped nose . . . but two significant lines across his forehead told her that he’d been carrying a heavy emotional burden for some time.

Whatever it was, she wanted to help lift it from his shoulders. She didn’t understand why or how, but there seemed to be a strong bond between them, a bond that had begun long before they’d met.

“But that’s where you’re wrong. We’re old souls,” she said, then took a last drag on their cigarette, crushed it out, pulled the letter out of her purse and handed it to him.

He took it.

“Then you know me. We’ve met before . . . in a different way,” he said, though he looked as though he was holding back details.

She had no idea what he was talking about, but the connection between them was unmistakable. Maybe they had met before, but it seemed impossible that she could ever forget the moment.

“I don’t know if we’ve met or not . . . I can’t seem to remember if we have. The bartender told me who you were. I was told to deliver that letter directly to your mom, but I don’t want to bother her. If you could do the honors, I would be forever in your debt.”

“Is that a promise?”

She couldn’t help the grin that tugged on her lips. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

She knew she would be seeing more of Reese Cooper, she just didn’t know when or how, and now was not the time to try for answers. Instead, she abruptly turned and headed for the door, pulling her hat off as she went, allowing her hair to cascade down her back.

“Wait!” he called. “How will I find you?”

She heard him call to her and for a brief moment she turned to face him. It was at that moment when everything became clear, when she knew for certain whom she’d been flirting with, whom she’d been desperate for. It was right there all along in his emerald eyes.

She immediately turned back around and headed for the exit as fast as her legs would take her. There had been something about Reese that had captivated her right from the beginning, something she couldn’t dismiss, something that, if she allowed it, had the potential to change the course of both their lives, and now she knew why . . . Reese Cooper Jr. was, in fact, Chuck Starr’s biological son.

 

 

REESE JUST ABOUT fell to his knees as he watched Avery Templeton walk away. He’d known from the first moment he’d seen her haunting face, that glint of red hair tucked under her hat, that not only was she the woman he’d seen on the trail the day his dad collapsed, but she was the woman from his dreams who had sung to him when he was a child . . . the woman he was meant to love.

She seemed to feel it too.

The realization frightened him like no other. He had tried his best to crush the concept before it took root, but he’d been powerless against its force. Was she real or had he just dreamed her?

The guilt and grief he’d been feeling over the loss of his dad had colored his every waking moment for the past two weeks. He’d tried his best to get through each day without weeping like a kid, but the tears fell like rain when he least expected them. He hadn’t been able to work, or to think properly. Until Avery had walked up to him, deliciously distracting him, he’d felt lost and out of control, as if he could never again be the man his father had raised him to be.

Somehow, in their brief encounter, Avery had managed to restore his confidence. He felt whole again.

Reese blamed himself for his dad’s untimely death, for not having insisted he not come on the cattle drive, for allowing Chuck Starr to confront him that day out by the fence, for not paying more attention to his dad’s health, for not being a better son.

Guilt plagued him like a chronic disease, with no relief until he saw Avery walking towards him on the deck. At once he’d felt calm, almost relieved of his guilt. As if a tide of compassion had begun to wash over him.

Reese had wanted Avery to stay, wanted to thank her for being there when he needed her most, but he didn’t quite know what to say. He’d called out to her, but when she released her hair from that haughty hat, an all-consuming fire raged through him. He knew he needed to let her go or his ordered life would never be the same again.

“Reese, there you are,” his mom called as she came towards him from the open doorway. She was dressed in a gray blouse, dark blue jeans, and her best spit-shined cowgirl boots. His mom still wore a size six and was proud of how good she looked in a pair of jeans. Her graying hair was pulled back, showing off a pair of long silver earrings that his dad had given her this last Christmas. She always wore a little eye makeup and a richly-colored lipstick. Catherine Virginia Cooper had been born a natural beauty, and that hadn’t changed since she crossed the early-sixties mark with her last birthday. His dad had referred to her as his “fetching wife,” and her friends described her as ruggedly stunning. As she aged, her face had taken on some of the ravages of Arizona sunshine, but she’d never lost her inherent beauty.

“Yes. Sorry. Needed a little downtime,” he told her, reluctantly shaking Avery from his thoughts.

“That’s fine, but people are beginning to leave. Maybe you should come on inside. They’ll want to say good-bye to you.”

She gazed down at the letter with her name written across the front, and her face paled as laughter floated out through the open doorway.

“Mom, are you all right?” He put an arm around her waist to steady her. She’d had a tough time over the last couple of weeks, and he worried about her health. Getting her to eat had been a concern, and her loose-fitting clothing reflected her lack of calories. He thought that now perhaps she might be experiencing low blood sugar and needed food or something sweet to stabilize her. “Can I get you some juice or candy?”

“I’m fine. Was he here?” Her voice sounded thin and shallow, almost as if she were afraid of something. She gazed around the empty patio.

“Who?”

“That envelope. Was he here?”

Reese held up the envelope. “You know who sent this?”

“I recognize the writing. Where is he? Did he say anything? Did he want to talk to you? I was afraid this was going to happen. Did he go back inside?” She strained to see through the open doorway.

“Mom, I don’t know who you’re talking about. A woman delivered this. She said she was delivering it for a friend. She never said if that friend was a man or woman.”

“Where is she now? Who was she?” A soft breeze swept over them and Reese picked up his mom’s perfume. She always smelled sweet, like daffodils in spring.

“She just left, but her name is Avery Templeton. I’m sure you don’t know her. I only saw her . . . well, she said she’s visiting a friend.”

He didn’t want to tell his mom about his dreams of her or seeing Avery on the trail the day his dad collapsed. His mom looked at him as her eyes softened and she pulled away, now able to stand on her own two feet. As he watched her, he could tell she was building up to her normal feisty self, getting ready to fight the bull that had reappeared in her kitchen. Ready to ward off any threat that might be approaching.

He looked at the handwriting on the front of the letter more closely, thinking he might recognize the scribble like his mom had, but he didn’t. Then he flipped it over and stared for a moment as his eyes and mind came to terms with the embossed brand on the flap.

At first, it was as if he couldn’t see it, couldn’t quite make it out. As if a film lay over it, concealing the truth. Then it became clear, like a beacon in the night, a thick circle with a star emblazoned over it. Chuck Starr’s brand. The envelope addressed to his mom . . . the envelope the woman he was meant to love had just delivered, a message from his father’s enemy.

Suddenly the guilt he’d been feeling threatened to strangle him.

“If you cared about your dad at all . . .” his mother began, then paused. “If you care about me, your brothers and sister, and our ranch, you’ll burn that letter and promise me you’ll never see that woman again.”