Smoke pulled in to the square at the resort. He'd been surprised that Austin had called him back so quickly. Seemed like this might be a much quicker and easier purchase than he'd thought. The most interesting part of the conversation had been that the family who owned the parcel to the south was named Walton. That was Ben's name. Smoke had kept thinking about Ben since Friday night. He'd wanted to check in with him, see how he was doing, but they weren't exactly best buds or anything. Wanting to buy the land gave him the perfect excuse to seek Ben out.

He wandered into the bar, but there was no sign of him there. “Hi. What can I do for you?” The girl behind the bar was smiling, batting unnaturally long lashes at him.

As he looked her over, Smoke registered that not so long ago he would have been settling at the bar for some serious flirting—’til her shift was over. He smiled at her, grateful that she was reminding him how empty and meaningless that all seemed since he'd met Laura. “You can tell me where Ben is.”

“Sorry, he's not working tonight. You'll have to make do with me.” There went the eyelashes again, the classic flick of the shoulder length hair. All the standard come-ons.

“No thanks. Can you tell me where I'll find him?”

Her face fell. “Probably in his apartment.”

“Thanks.” Smoke turned around and left.

“Ben! You home?” He'd been knocking on the door for a couple of minutes now. Maybe he wasn't here. No, he definitely heard movement in there. “Open up, bud.” He heard footsteps and then the door opened.

“Jesus! You look like shit!”

Ben shrugged. “Nice to see you too. What do you want, or did you just come to insult me?”

Smoke held up a six pack with a grin. “Thought I'd stop by to see if you want a beer.”

Ben looked at the beer, then back at Smoke. He thought it over then brought both hands up and rubbed them over his face. “Sure. Come on in.”

Smoke followed him inside. The place was immaculate. He'd been half expecting to find a drunk Ben sprawled in the middle of leftover takeout boxes and empty beer bottles. That wasn't the case at all.

“Want to take it outside?” asked Ben.

Smoke nodded and followed him out onto a balcony right above the water. “It's a great apartment.”

“Thanks. It's useful. It keeps me in the middle of things. I'm always right here when I'm needed.”

“Yeah, wouldn't that be a good reason to live somewhere else, though?”

“Maybe. If I had any sense...or a life! Are they cold?” He jerked his chin towards the beers Smoke was still carrying.

“Not stinging, I just picked 'em up at the store. We can maybe stand one, if you stick the rest in the freezer while we do.”

Ben smiled. “Great minds!” He took two bottles out and went inside with the rest. “I would say don't let me forget about them, but I don't think they'll be in there long enough to freeze.”

“I doubt it.”

Ben came back out, sat down, and popped the top off his beer. “This is a first. I mean it's good to see you and everything, but what are you doing here, Smoke?”

Smoke wondered himself. He wasn't normally the type for social visits. “Whatever the other night was about, it obviously got to you. I haven't seen you around since. I wanted to make sure you're okay. I kept putting it off. I didn't want to barge in where I'm not wanted. Like you say, I've never come knocking before, but today I got the excuse to come talk to you about buying some land. So, if you want me to butt out, we can just talk about that and have a beer. If you do want to talk about anything else...” He shrugged. “I'm here.”

Ben looked him over. “You know, I wasn't sure about you at first.”

Smoke laughed. “I could tell.”

Ben nodded. “But you're alright, Smoke.”

Smoke was surprised how much that meant to him. He nodded back, but said nothing.

“Thanks for making the offer, but I really don't want to talk about it. There's nothing to talk about. It just brought up memories of something, someone, a long time ago. It threw me cos it was so unexpected. I've spent the last couple of days trying to put it all back in the box. Talking about it would only keep it alive and....” Ben rubbed his hands over his face again before looking out at the lake, then looking back at Smoke. “All I want to do is forget.”

Smoke nodded again.

“So. That leaves you wanting to talk about buying land, right?”

“Yeah. You know I've been looking at the house up on Cottonwood Creek? I want to buy the place, but I want to be sure that any new development around Four Mile doesn't end up spreading as far as my doorstep.”

“Wow! So you want to buy the strip in between?”

“Yep.”

“Joe and I had decided we wouldn't sell it for exactly that reason—so that it can't be built on. That's why it wasn't part of the Four Mile deal. The guys will stay within reasonable limits, but there are bound to be folk with their eye on the ball who want to capitalize on a new community. Someone would build stores, a gas station or even second tier housing for those who want to be out there, but can't afford what Phoenix builds.”

“I know. That's why I can't risk buying the house without buying that land as well.”

Ben looked at him. “I just told you, we agreed not to sell it in order to make sure it doesn't get built on.”

“Which would mean you had an unusable piece of land sitting on your hands doing nothing but cost you taxes every year. Whereas if you sell it to me, you'll have some cash in hand and be done. I'll be happy to work out covenants as part of the sale if you want. Don't worry, I'm not trying to pull a fast one and start building a gas station out there myself. I just prefer to control my own environment. While it's nice to know you would keep the place as it is, it doesn't seem fair to ask that. I should pay you for it. I'll give you my guarantee, in the form of covenants or whatever, that I will keep it the way it is.”

“Fair enough. Let me talk to Joe.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

Ben looked puzzled. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“How can you afford to even think about buying the house on Cottonwood and our acreage? And more to the point, why would you want to? Last time we talked you were asking about renting it out if you changed your mind about living here. You hardly need—what will it be, six hundred acres total?—to make it rentable.”

Smoke blew out a big sigh, wondering now whether he'd come here because he thought Ben needed to talk, or because he needed to himself. “No, I don't need all that land, but if I'm going to live there, I want it. I don't know, Ben. Maybe I'm just getting old or something, but the idea of living here...of settling here, appeals to me. But if I do it, it's partly because I love the country and the open space. And let's just say I can afford it. In fact it'll be a cash deal.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “You do realize that raises more questions than it answers?”

Smoke laughed. “I do and this way I make you ask instead of getting into a major info dump!”

Ben laughed with him. “Okay, so first off, back to my original question. How can you afford it?”

Smoke had already decided that since he was going to be living here, becoming one of the gang, they probably should all know who he was. Jack and Pete knew, of course, and he'd already given Laura the bare bones. “My family is what you could call wealthy. I didn't stick around and go into the family business, but I did sell part of my interest and made some investments that turned out pretty well. I'm not surviving on a pilot's salary. I own the plane and another one like it. The guys lease from me.”

“Cool. What's the family business?”

Out of all of them, Ben would understand, once he made the connection. He was in the industry, he must already know the story. “Do you have a wine rack?”

Ben gave him an odd look. “Sure, why?”

Smoke stood up. “Show me?”

Ben led him back inside and into the kitchen. “Right there.” He pointed at the wine rack on the counter, then dumped their beer bottles in the trash and pulled two more from the freezer. He handed one to Smoke, who was going through the bottles in the rack.

“This should give it away.” He held up a bottle of the same red blend he'd had at Laura's place.

Ben's eyes grew wide. “You're kidding me?”

Smoke shook his head. “I kid you not.”

“So, Smoke Hamilton, the pilot, is the son of Hamilton Groves Wines? Shit, Smoke! You could buy the entire frigging town, let alone Cottonwood Creek, right?”

Smoke shrugged.

“So, hang on. Your dad is the Cole Hamilton? And your brother is Cameron?”

He nodded, wondering how much Ben knew, waiting to see if he would piece it together.

Ben was squinting his eyes, apparently trying to remember details. “Then that makes you Cole Hamilton Jr.? The one that...?” He raised his eyebrows at Smoke now. “You know what they said about you?”

Of course he did.

“I always wondered what the real story was. I met Anabel Groves a couple of times at tourism fairs.” He gave Smoke a questioning look. “She was beautiful.”

Smoke nodded. “She still is, from what I hear. On the outside, at least.”

“Was she as psycho as she seemed?”

That took Smoke by surprise. He'd always thought she'd had everyone else fooled, just as much as she had him—and his family. “A whole lot more than what she seemed. Yeah.”

Ben shook his head. “Wow! I'm guessing you weren't really in rehab after all the scandal?”

Smoke shook his head. “No. But I agreed to go along with the story. It was better for everyone that way.”

“Do you want to tell me what really happened? There were all kinds of rumors flying around for months.”

Want to? No. Smoke didn't want to even think about it. Like Ben, he'd rather just forget, but part of him needed to. Like Pete had said, it was time for him to finally get over shit. He'd discovered that talking about it was cathartic somehow. “Some of the rumors were true. I did beat the crap out of the guy I found her with in Malibu. I'm not proud of that, but....”

Ben simply nodded, waiting for him to go on.

“You know the industry, so I'm sure you know that our engagement was perfect publicity and the perfect match for the Hamilton and Groves companies coming together. Our families had been friends forever. Anabel and I had dated on and off since high school. It was always expected that we would end up together. I'd never really questioned that. What I questioned was the expectation that I would go into the business. I had no interest. Cam was the one that loved all that, I just loved to fly. But since I'm the oldest the expectation was there. Anabel expected it too. And she hated me flying. She wanted to be married to the head of the new Hamilton Groves enterprise.”

Smoke stared out at the water for a long moment. Remembering all the fights, all the manipulating she'd done to try to shape his life into what she wanted it to be.”

Ben said nothing. Giving him the time to continue or not, as he chose.

Apparently he did need to talk about it. “She told me she was pregnant. So I asked her to marry me.” He shrugged. “I wasn't even sure I wanted to be with her at all by then, but it was too late. You do the decent thing, right? After all the big fuss and announcements, after the engagement had been tied in to the whole publicity campaign about Hamilton Groves, she told me she'd lost the baby. I was devastated. I was hardly ready to be a father, but I'd gotten used to the idea, you know?”

Ben nodded, but still said nothing.

“I know now that she'd never been pregnant at all. But I didn't know that then. She thought she had me trapped, that there was too much on the line for both our families for me to walk away. She thought I was suckered and would have to marry her at that point. And I would have, too. If I wasn't a jealous, possessive jerk. She said she needed some time alone, to recover, come to terms with the loss. That she was going to stay at a friend's Malibu beach house. I offered to go with her, but she didn't want me along. The first time she went I thought I understood. Then she got over the so-called miscarriage real quick, and kept going back to Malibu. It was odd, but it seemed to be keeping her happy. She was still after me all the time about flying, though. She wanted me to give it up, to be around for her when she wanted me. She hated that I worked weekends. She hated when I had to change our plans and go fly. I thought her little Malibu trips were some kind of vengeance, as if she wanted me to feel the same about her going off and doing her own thing. I didn't, I was glad she'd found something she enjoyed doing that didn't involve me being responsible for her happiness. At least I was glad, ’til my little sister told me that Anabel was going down there to spend time with a guy. I kind of lost it.”

“I can see why,” said Ben.

“I flew down there. Found them out by the pool, messing around. I almost killed the guy, Ben. She actually fucking laughed in my face! She honestly believed I was still going to marry her. That I had no choice, because of the business. She wanted the status, she wanted me. She even told me, right there to my face that since I wasn't prepared to make her the center of my world, she'd need to have other 'friends' too.  She knew I was a jealous bastard and she thought she could play on it. She found out she couldn't.

“I called the whole thing off. It nearly cost the merger, but she twisted everyone, including my family, into believing a bunch of horseshit. I went along with it—let them lay all the blame on me, say I'd gone into rehab. I took off. It seemed their business was more important to them than their son. They were disappointed in me that I wasn't stepping up to run it. It just seemed best for everyone that I disappear. My folks got the merger they wanted, my brother got to run the business like he wanted, Anabel got the sympathy and attention she wanted, was viewed as having had a lucky escape from marrying the useless heir to the Hamilton fortune.”

“How was it best for you though, Smoke?”

Smoke gave a short laugh. “It set me free. It allowed me to make my own way in the world and not be a part of Hamilton Groves. It taught me that to be what a woman wanted I'd have to stop being who I am. So I learned that it's best to keep moving. And that when it comes to a woman it's best to give her what she wants in bed and not stick around long enough for her to want anything else. It was all for the best.”

Ben nodded. “I guess so. But now you're talking about making this place a base, not keeping moving. And you you've stuck around Laura for a quite a while now. What's the deal?”

“I don't know yet. All I know is I want to stick around to see what it might be. She's the first woman I've ever met who seems to get me. She understands how much I love to fly. She doesn't want to ground me so that I'll spend time with her. In fact she's as likely to fly away as I am. She doesn't want to be grounded herself. I just don't know yet. All I know is that I'm prepared to take the risk of finding out.”

“I can see that. You two are good together.”

“I hope so, thanks Ben. But what about you? I came here to give you the chance to talk, instead all I've done is talk myself.”

“That's okay. You took my mind off my own stuff for a while. That's better than talking about it.”

“Are still going to go to the fundraiser?”

Ben shook his head vigorously. “No. Like I said. I'll probably end up needing to be here anyway. It sounds like you're moving on, Smoke. You're ready to put the past behind you, right?”

“Yeah. I guess I am, and it feels good. You might want to try it, too?”

Ben gave him a sad smile. “I might want to, bud. But I'm not ready to. But it's different, for me the past is the happiest place I've ever been. That's why I don't want to let it go.”