Once Upon a Time in Bliss

by Sophie Oak

  “See that it stays that way.” He brushed his lips against hers. “Is it wrong that I feel weird grabbing my pants?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. You should always be naked.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, we’re going to have to negotiate that, baby. Be good.”

  He walked out, picking up his bag as he left and grabbing his clothes. She couldn’t help but watch as he walked away, his backside on perfect display.

  “That is a very attractive man.”

  “Mom!”

  Her mother shrugged. “I’m old, honey, not dead. He’s got a very lovely physique. It’s obvious that your Henry believes in working out.”

  The door closed behind him, and Nell sat down on the edge of the lounger. It was as good a time as any to have this discussion with her mother. The last thing she wanted was for her mom to get the idea that this thing with Henry was going to last. “I really like him.”

  Her mom frowned. “I think it’s more than like, Nell. You’re sleeping with him.”

  Was there no privacy anywhere? “How does everyone know that?”

  “Callie saw him whisking you away last night. She said it was very romantic. Did he really carry you down the hall like you weighed less than a feather, dear?”

  “Callie!”

  Callie turned, wincing. “Gossip is my only flaw. And it really was quite lovely, though I just thought you would make out with him. I wouldn’t have told your mom if I actually thought you were sleeping with him. Please don’t protest me.”

  And it had probably made Callie think about everything she’d lost. “I think I can forgive you. Besides, I hear you’re going to be the one to wax Roy Ferguson.”

  Callie nodded. “He’s really tired of the Squatchers hunting him. They send out mating calls and everything. How do they know the mating call of a Sasquatch if they’ve never actually seen one? It makes a person think.” Callie shook her head. “I’m going to need more wax. We’ll be back in a minute.”

  Callie left with her mom, and Bill nodded as he followed them.

  “I wish I could help more, but I’m so tired these days.” Her mother lay back. She looked weary, but there was a secretive smile on her face.

  “It’s the chemotherapy.” Nell held her mom’s hand. “When this round is over, you’ll feel better.”

  “No, love. I stopped the chemo about a month ago.”

  Nell stopped. She’d thought Pam was driving her into Alamosa for treatments all this time. “Mom! How could you do that?”

  “Because it’s time.” There was a weak squeeze to her hand as her mom gripped her fingers. “Don’t be angry with me, sweetheart. There’s a time to fight and there’s a time to go out with grace. If we hadn’t found this place, if I wasn’t sure you would be all right, I would still be fighting. But I can rest now, Nell. I can go and see your father again. I’ve been so far from home.”

  Nell’s heart threatened to break. The thought of losing her mother was almost unimaginable, but she’d been in pain for so long, and not just a physical pain. “Do you honestly believe you’ll see him again?”

  Clear brown eyes held her own. “Oh, yes. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy. It’s been nice being here in Bliss, but they put me in the same category as Mel with his aliens. They think there’s something wrong with my brain or that I had a loss that I just couldn’t accept, but I know my truth. Honey, there are more worlds out there than you can imagine. This world is just one. This time is just one. My husband is waiting for me. He’s my soul mate. We didn’t get our chance in this life, but there will be another. I have faith.”

  “Mom, I don’t understand how you can believe that. You have no evidence that we get another chance. What if we just die and this is all there is?” She didn’t want to believe that, but faced with the reality of her mother’s passing, fear threatened to take hold, fear that this was really all that existed, that the great mystery of life could be solved with a resounding blank space of nothingness.

  “That’s why they call it faith, Eleanor. If we had the answers, there would be no reason to believe. Do you remember when you were young and I took you to see that one play everyone raved about?”

  Nell groaned. “Peter Pan. How could I forget? You tried to tell the actors that they had everything wrong and that they didn’t know the difference between a pixie and a faery.”

  “Well, they were using the wrong names. It was a bit insulting. Humans like to be called the proper names. Why wouldn’t they think a pixie would? Tinker Bell was obviously a pixie, right down to the fact that she can hold a mean grudge.” She shook her head. “I’m getting away from my point. I remember watching you when the little pixie was dying.”

  Nell smiled at the memory. “They told everyone if we clapped hard enough she would come back to life.”

  “If you believed enough. It’s an object lesson. You have to have faith, Nell. You have to believe. Maybe things won’t turn out the way you thought they would. Maybe your dreams won’t all come true, but if you have faith and put good things out into the world, then you’ve done your job. Be patient, my love. These things tend to work out in the end. Even if it takes a few lifetimes.” She laid her head against the lounger, a long sigh coming from her chest. “Death is nothing to be afraid of. It’s merely a doorway to the next phase. And when you take that door one day, your father and I will be waiting on the other side. We’ll be together again. We’re always together. That’s been the joy of my life.”

  Nell held her mother’s hand and tried not to cry. No amount of faith would keep her mother here. No amount of faith would keep Henry here.

  “If he’s your soul mate, you’ll find each other.” Her mother had always known what she was thinking. She’d never been able to hide. “And I’m not gone, yet. We still have some time, but Nell, no more treatments. I want to enjoy the time I have left with you. I want to make some precious memories.”

  She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “I want that, too.”

  Her mom reached up, brushing away her tears. “And don’t count that man out yet. He obviously has some decisions to make. I believe he’ll come around in the end. Happily ever afters run in our family.”

  Nell frowned. “I thought war and thieving uncles run in our family.”

  Moira waved that off. “That was just a blip on the map. It will sort itself out in the end. We Finns always find our happiness. Sometimes we have to fight for it, though.”

  The doors opened again and Callie walked through, carrying an even bigger tub than before. “I’ve got to get this heated. Nell, will you go and let the pedicurist in? She’s at the gate, but she needs to be buzzed in. And hurry. We don’t want to lose her. She’s the only one at Polly’s who’s willing to touch hobbit feet as they call them.”

  “Hobbits.” Her mother huffed. “She should try trimming an ogre’s toenails. Sometimes the damn toenails fight back.”

  Callie laughed, and her mother was off talking about all sorts of creatures. Nell went for the door. She glanced back and saw her mother smiling.

  Despite everything, her mother believed things would work out. Maybe it was time for Nell to believe, too. She grabbed her robe. Normally she wouldn’t bother, but it was awfully cold outside. She slipped her phone into her pocket. Henry might call. He’d only been gone for twenty minutes or so and she already missed him. She slipped on her boots because there was a lot of snow between here and the gate.

  She jogged outside, following the tracks Henry’s truck had made in the snow. She was really going to have to get him into a better vehicle. Snow fell as she raced to the gate. She could see Kelly Hansen’s compact had made it up the mountain. Kelly was Polly’s oldest daughter and seemed to be following her mother into the beauty business.

  Nell hit the button and the gate began to swing open, but Kelly’s car stayed where it was, not moving. Kelly’s face stared out the front window, her hands on the steering wheel.

  Was something wrong? Kelly had trouble with mild epilepsy
in the past. Was she having a seizure? Nell ran out, trying to remember what she should do. The driver’s side window was open.

  Kelly’s hands were shaking, her face a stark white. “Nell, I’m so sorry.”

  A man sat up from the back seat. There was a nasty-looking gun in his hand, and he pointed it straight at Kelly’s eighteen-year-old head. Kelly was just a baby, but Warren Lyle was a full-grown man. The former CEO of Lyle Waste Management Systems sneered her way.

  “Get in the car or we’ll see what the back of this kid’s head looks like.”

  Well, at least she knew who had broken into her cabin now.

  Kelly muffled a cry.

  “Why don’t you let her go?” Nell asked, her heart pounding in her chest. The grounds were completely empty. Everyone was inside. An eerie silence filled the yard around her.

  Lyle placed the gun right against Kelly’s head, the metal butting her forward. “You have three seconds or I’ll just kill the both of you right here.”

  “Please, Nell. Please help me.” Tears poured down Kelly’s cheeks.

  Help me. Two words guaranteed to bring Nell Finn running.

  Two words that might get her killed this time.

  Nell calmly got into the car.

  Chapter Nine

  Bishop sighed as he sat down at the “Internet Café.” He really shouldn’t have expected more. Night was falling and the Bear Creek Lounge and Internet Café was filling up. Luckily, the crowd seemed way more interested in a beer than in checking their e-mail since the Café portion of the place consisted of one small table and a wretchedly slow dial-up.

  He bet the Stark kid had better access.

  “Hey, it’s Henry, isn’t it?” A familiar redhead walked up wearing black slacks and a white shirt. She had a tray of drinks balanced on her hand.

  Holly, the lonely heart. A man really couldn’t blend into the background in a town this small. “Henry Flanders. Nice to see you again.”

  Holly flushed prettily. She was a lovely woman, but she just couldn’t compare to his Nell. “Sorry about hitting on you at Hell on Wheels. I didn’t know you were involved with Nell. I really like Nell. I wouldn’t try to come between the two of you. She’s so nice. Well, until you forget to recycle and then, boy, can that girl give you a lecture.”

  He’d already decided on how to handle that particular problem. When Nell got mouthy with him, he would just shove his cock between her lips and the problem would be solved. Or maybe a ball gag. She would look awfully cute in full bondage. “It’s okay. I’m only here for another week or so. Maybe two. I plan on spending all my time with Nell.”

  Holly nodded. “I’m glad. And I can’t thank you enough for helping out with the whole bar fight thing. Max has too much fun with stuff like that, if you ask me. He would have taken forever to end it. We were lucky you were there because that Laura girl was in some pain. I don’t know why a woman who just recently had surgery would go hitchhiking across the country, but she really doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  Bishop didn’t want to talk about it either, but Holly could come in handy. “Hey, is there any way to boost this signal? It’s awfully slow.”

  Holly groaned. “Yeah, it gets that way when my boss uses up the signal to watch Internet porn!”

  A bald head popped up from behind the bar. “Don’t tell Anne. She gets real mad about that.”

  Holly’s eyes rolled. “I won’t mention it if you’ll get back to work. We’re filling up in here, Lonnie. I need two Manhattans and that fellow over there was asking about a martimmy. I think he means martini, but he has a weird accent. And stay off the Internet. We have a paying customer.”

  Lonnie immediately started pulling down bar glasses and bottles of liquor.

  “It should work better now. How about a Scotch? Lonnie keeps a fifteen-year around for Stef Talbot, but he won’t miss a couple of fingers.”

  Finally, civilization. And it didn’t hurt that it belonged to Talbot. “Make it three fingers and I’ll forget all about your boss’s porn problem.”

  She winked and walked away. Sure enough, the speed picked up. Thank god. He’d read the dossiers Seth had put together, but he wanted to look these asswipes up himself. Sometimes there were things out there that didn’t fit into a twenty-year-old’s version of a file.

  It didn’t take too long before he’d completely discounted Jim McDonald. McDonald ran a company that had gone under when Nell had proven that the small restaurant chain named Tasty and Healthy actually used lard as a regular ingredient. McDonald had been embarrassed on network television and had vowed revenge on the group that had taken him down, but Seth had neglected to look at the asshole’s personal page. His wife gave birth to a new baby the very day Nell’s place had been broken into. There were pictures of the former CEO holding the tiny girl.

  So it came down to Mickey Camden and Warren Lyle.

  Camden previously had run a small pharmaceutical firm. Nell had decided the lab animals needed their freedom. It should have been a simple open-and-shut case with Nell going to jail for breaking and entering, but while she was freeing the rabbits and monkeys, she also discovered that Camden was trafficking drugs for a cartel.

  Camden was awaiting trial. Nell had paid a small fine.

  He was going to beat her ass for that. She’d gone in alone. Anything could have happened to her.

  Camden was one to watch. Lyle, too. Lyle’s firm specialized in storing nuclear waste. They handled everything from biomedical nuclear waste to large energy firms. Nell had managed to prove they were cutting corners and the EPA had taken his ass down. Lyle’s wife had left him.

  Two people. Seth was damn good. He’d looked through Nell’s computer. Without Seth’s program, he would still be going through the hundreds of protests Nell had participated in or organized over the years. Now he only had to deal with two assholes. He needed to figure out where they were.

  But he needed better Internet. He couldn’t hack anything with this piece of crap. And it slowed down again. He glanced up. Lonnie had disappeared behind the bar again.

  An odd pinging sound zinged through the air. Bishop looked back and a man in a trucker hat was walking through the lounge area with a small handheld device that was pinging and lighting up as he waved it around.

  Bishop packed up Nell’s computer and pulled out his cell. He’d gotten Seth’s number from an e-mail. He quickly texted the kid with the two names he was concerned about.

  Lyle and Camden. Run their credit cards. I’ll be at your place in twenty.

  He moved over to the bar. He could really use that drink. Holly set the Scotch in front of him. Maybe it would be thirty minutes. He could take his time. Nell was very likely getting her toes painted by some naked person. Bishop took a long sniff of the perfectly oaky liquor and gave a silent prayer of thanks that Stef Talbot had excellent taste in Scotch. He took a nice sip, the flavor familiar and comforting.

  Like Nell. When he closed his eyes, he could still taste her on his tongue, still smell the spicy scent of her arousal, feel that soft skin pressing against his.

  “Could I get a beer?” a deep voice asked. Bishop felt someone move into the seat beside him.

  Lonnie grabbed a longneck from the cooler and quickly popped the top. “Fred. How’s it going?”

  A man in a Western shirt with pearl snaps sat on the barstool beside him. Bishop quickly estimated his age, status, and likely field of employment. Gray hair peeked from beneath a cowboy hat that had seen a lot of wear, but the shirt was of excellent quality and the watch around his wrist was easily worth a couple grand. He was around sixty-five, had some money, and worked in the sun if the deep lines on his face were any indication. He likely owned a ranch.

  “I’m getting by, Lonnie. That’s all I can ask right now.”

  The barkeeper frowned, concern obvious on his face. “I heard a rumor that Noah might be getting married.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I sincerely hope my son gets his head out of his
ass before he does something he shouldn’t.” The rancher took a long drag off his beer. “I don’t think this would be happening if my Ellen was still alive.”

  Lonnie patted the bar in front of him. “Yeah. I still miss her. How’s Brian doing?”

  A long sigh came from the cowboy. “He’s comfortable. That’s all we can hope for now.”

  “If there’s anything Anne and I can do to help, let us know. I’m going to go grab you some pretzels. I keep the kind you like in the back.”

  Maybe Lonnie wasn’t such an ass. Bishop sipped his Scotch and wondered where he would be at this time next year. Colombia? Argentina? Would they move him to the Middle East? Fuck, he might not even be alive next year.

  Who would be watching after Nell?

  “You got any kids?”

  Bishop nearly cringed. Damn. The last thing he wanted was to get into a discussion with a complete stranger. “Nope.”

  The cowboy sighed. “Well, you’re still damn young, son. One day you will have kids and, let me tell you, you need to remember that they will drive you to drink.” He chuckled. “I will say that it was easier when my boys were little. All they wanted was a taste of whatever their momma was cooking and for their dads to play some ball with them.”

  “Dads?” He couldn’t help it. He knew he shouldn’t ask, but it just came out.

  “Fred Glen.” He held out a hand.

  Bishop shook it. “Henry Flanders.”

  “Well, Henry, I own a ranch. I was married and had a son. James. My wife was killed in a car accident when Jamie was just a toddler. My best friend had a kid, too. Noah. Brian’s wife left him and he came to live out on the G with us. That’s where we met our Ellen.”

  Was he saying what Bishop thought he was saying? “You shared her?”