Every Last Look

by Christa Wick

  Dipping my head, I tried to conceal the blush quickly fanning across my cheeks.

  “Oh, yeah, whoops,” he said, stretching his hand toward mine, palm-up. “So accustomed to eating alone or out with the guys that I’ve fallen out of the habit except for Sunday at my mother’s.”

  Just that quickly, his eyes were closed, his head lowered, and his broad shoulders humbled.

  Clearly he’d mistaken my reasons for having my head down. And evidently, he expected me to do the honors.

  “Um, thank you, Lord,” I started, my voice barely a whisper because I had never prayed out loud before or even intentionally inside my head. “…For this food we’re about to eat. And for…”

  I hesitated over the words. I really was a novice at this. The last plea I could remember directing up toward Heaven happened when I was around nine, looking in the mirror, tears streaking my face as I’d tried to bargain with God to keep my father from leaving.

  Or at least have him take me with him.

  Barrett offered a comforting squeeze, lending me his strength so I could keep going.

  “And thank you for putting Barrett Turk in my path,” I finished quickly, quietly.

  When I lifted my head, I was immediately snared by Barrett’s calming, green gaze, focused intently on me.

  “D-did you want to add anything?” I asked softly.

  Eyes still fixed on mine, he shook his head. “No need. You got us both covered with that one.”

  4

  Quinn

  Staring at the big house of wood and stone with its long porch that disappeared out of view and the cathedral-sized window of tinted glass, I had to push against my chin to keep my mouth from hanging open.

  “Your mom lives here? Is it like a retirement home with staff and a lot of residents?”

  Barrett laughed, the sound of his amusement filling the cab of my rental truck.

  “Mom is fifty-nine,” he continued, wiping tears from his eyes as his chuckling subsided. "And she is as healthy as a horse."

  “Let’s keep my question our little secret,” I said.

  “Alright, but the limit is three.”

  Unhooking my seatbelt, I turned in the seat to study his face.

  “The limit?”

  He nodded, his expression only half serious. “Daddy said only two secrets. Mama said women needed at least one more on account of how they confided amongst themselves more than men do. So they settled on three and that’s what they taught us. Friends can’t hold more than three secrets between them. More than that is bound to break the friendship or cause some other harm.”

  I brought my hand up to my mouth, the gesture itself secretive because I wanted to hide the pleased smile that Barrett already thought of me as a friend. I wanted to think of him that way, too, but I had a hard time trusting people—especially anyone being nice to me.

  “So, how exactly does this work? I mean, if we get to three and I want to tell you a fourth, do I have to call up your mom and confess?”

  “Nope, doesn’t matter if or how the secret comes out. It still counts as one of three.”

  My brows shot up. That was a tough rule.

  “Is there any wiggle room?” I asked.

  “Well, don’t call it a secret, silly,” Barrett teased. “Just say something like ‘let’s not mention…’”

  “Doesn’t that completely undercut the rule?”

  Grinning, he leaned in and threw me a wink that melted my panties. “Not at all, but I’m still completely free to mention it…as opposed to swearing to take it to my grave.”

  Deflecting his wink with a mock pout and a roll of my eyes, I opened the passenger door and stepped out. Barrett made quick time of unfastening his seatbelt and jogging around the truck, handing me the keys to the rental just as a woman around the age he had mentioned for his mother opened the screen door and walked onto the front porch.

  “Morning, Mama.”

  Coming down the steps, she smiled at me and then at her son.

  “Morning, Baby Bear.”

  I threw a side glance at Barrett just in time to catch a thin veneer of soft pink glossing his tanned cheeks. Clearly, mother and son had only reached an agreement about his childhood nickname at a level of “let’s not mention.”

  “You must be Quinn,” the woman said, offering her hand. “I’m Lindy. We all loved Jester dearly. I’m so sorry to hear of the fire.”

  I bobbed my head, my throat thick from the kindness the woman extended and from the sense of growing loss I felt over never meeting my granduncle. He must have been a good person because these good people thought so much of him. I couldn’t imagine any acquaintance of my mother genuinely trying to offer the comfort of condolences.

  “Mr. Cross called and said he needed to push the meeting to eleven, that gives us half an hour.” Lindy waved us onto the porch. “We’d best get inside before Leah finds a new distraction.”

  “Leah?”

  I kept the question simple and the delivery casual. I didn’t want to sound nosy and I wasn’t about to ask if it was a puppy and find out it was Barrett’s grandmother or something. It was bad enough suggesting his mom must be old enough for a retirement home. But I wasn’t used to houses this palatial being lived in by nice, normal people.

  “My granddaughter,” Lindy answered. “She turned three this summer. I thought she was a handful at two—”

  Stepping through the front door, Lindy gasped then growled.

  “Leah Grace Ballard!”

  Something clattered to the ground. I surreptitiously lifted onto my tiptoes to see what had caused the growl and the noise.

  A little angel with honey-colored hair sat on the floor, yarn coiled around her shoulders and head like she was a kitten on crack. Next to her on the floor, a wooden bowl held what was left of the skein.

  Instead of breaking into tears, the little girl shook her finger.

  “Inside voice, Gam-Gam.”

  “I’ll inside voice you, young lady.”

  Lindy marched toward the toddler. She bent down as if to pick the child up then turned around and tidied an oversized side chair.

  “Come here and bring the bowl.”

  The toddler obeyed, her expression warping from a mock scolding to absolute contrition.

  “Leah was helping.”

  Shaking her head, Lindy began to unravel the yarn from the child. “Did I ask for help?”

  Leah cupped her grandmother’s cheeks. “You don’t know how.”

  Barrett laughed, his body shaking with enough amusement that his shoulder brushed mine, the simple contact warming my skin like wildfire.

  “She’s got you there, Mama.”

  “Don’t encourage the child or I’ll suggest to Jake you mind her in the offseason.”

  “Barrett!”

  “What?” he chuckled at his niece. “Are you just now noticing me, Honey Bee?”

  She nodded, then pointed at me.

  Barrett settled his hand against the small of my back and invited me to approach the couch.

  “This is my friend Quinn. She’s from…”

  Rolling his lips, he stopped and looked at me.

  “Los Angeles,” I answered, my gaze darting to where Lindy was untangling the yarn from the child...or the child from the yarn.

  What did the woman think about her son bringing home a stray without even knowing where I was from?

  “That’s right,” he said, as if he had known but forgotten. “That’s where they make the movies, Honey Bee.”

  “Movie Town?”

  I nodded. It was a nicer name than I would ever give the valley.

  Leah clapped then made a half-twist, a turn, another half-twist and a quarter turn to slip completely free of the yarn. Lindy held up what looked like a spider’s web of the crisscrossing strings that had been tangled around the little girl.

  “Okay, Houdini, you got me stumped on that one.”

  Cupping her hand, Leah lifted it in the air and shook it back and fo
rth. Barrett leaned close to me and whispered in my ear—another bolt of electricity sizzling through me.

  “That’s Leah’s version of sign language for when she thinks someone is talking crazy.”

  “Houdini did magic,” Lindy explained to the child. “He was a magician.”

  “Leah is a fairy, not a magici…kan.”

  Free, the little girl barreled toward Barrett and me. He bent to scoop the toddler up, but she wrapped her hands around my wrist.

  “Show you playroom.”

  Sighing, Lindy took her scissors to the tangled strings.

  “If you haven’t been around toddlers much,” she joked. “You basically treat them like short, drunk tyrants.”

  Barrett glanced at his watch.

  “We’ve got a few minutes. Sage in her office?”

  Lindy nodded.

  Leah tugged.

  Mesmerized, I let the little girl lead me.

  Before we cleared the room, Lindy called after us.

  “We’ll have time to chat after the attorney, dear. I rounded up a few photo albums that I’m sure have some pictures of Jester in them.”

  I stopped and looked back, my nose suddenly stinging so hard I couldn’t stop blinking.

  “It’s alright, dear. You may not have known him, but, in a way, you will.”

  Nodding, I surrendered to Leah’s soft tugs.

  Passing out of the great room, we entered a long hallway. Leah released my wrist and sprinted ahead. She disappeared through a doorway then popped her head back into the hall, waving her hand for us to hurry up.

  “She’s adorable,” I whispered.

  “Don’t let her know,” Barrett whispered back. “If she finds out, we’ll never get her trained.”

  “I think the training is all over,” I laughed. “And she’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

  He shook his head, his denial almost as adorable as the toddler. Reaching the doorway Leah had disappeared through, he put a thick arm up and braced it against the frame, momentarily blocking me from entering.

  “What makes you think she has me trained?” he rasped.

  “The way your face is lit up, for starters.”

  His mouth did a little dance, shuffling back and forth between a pout and a smirk. At the same time, his gaze grew heavy, the eyelids sinking until they were at half-mast as he looked me over.

  “Is it lit up?” he rumbled.

  I nodded, my cheeks hurting from my fixed, involuntary smile, my eyes threatening to water again, this time from too much mirth.

  “It kind of feels lit up,” he said. “You might be onto something.”

  Stepping back, he waved me in. Leah was busy pulling stuffed animals from their chairs around a table. It looked like the motley gang had been having lunch, the table decked out with plates and glasses.

  A tall blonde, her hair a close shade to the little girl’s, appeared at the threshold of a door connecting the playroom to an office.

  “I see she rounded up some human test subjects.”

  “Funny, Sage,” Leah said, shaking her head and waving her cupped hand.

  Sage stepped into the room. Feeling the woman’s cool scrutiny, I forced myself to relax as Barrett made the introductions.

  “Sage is Leah’s aunt, twice over.”

  I offered a blank look.

  “My brother is Leah’s father,” Sage explained. “And I’m married to her mother’s brother. It’s only aberrant in a statistical sense.”

  Barrett leaned in, cupped his hand to my ear and whispered.

  “It’s been a little more than a year, but my sister Dawn and our father died in an accident. Leah does okay as long as we skip mentioning the dead part.”

  “Oh…”

  A cold fist wrapped itself around my throat before I could say anything else. Words would only be inadequate. The little girl had lost her mother—a great mother if she was anything like Barrett and Lindy Turk.

  I looked at the man who had already done so much for me and then at his sister-in-law. Mouth gaping like a fish yanked out of the water and onto the grass, I finally managed to scratch out another few words.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sage nodded, her smile warming, then walked into her office, the door remaining open.

  Leah grabbed my hand and walked over to the table where the stuffed animals had been sitting. The little girl turned to Barrett next, but he stepped out of reach.

  “I need to talk to Auntie Sage for a second. Whatever you’re cooking, make me a double portion.”

  She nodded and let him go, her attention quickly re-directing to a child’s vintage style dream kitchen in petal pink enamel. Pulling out a skillet, she grabbed a spatula perfectly sized for her small hands and slid a rubber fried egg into the pan. Then she grabbed a mixer and pretended to make up some batter.

  Without trying to eavesdrop, I heard Barrett talking to his sister-in-law.

  “I heard you might have a little glow around you.”

  Sage caught her breath in a backward hiss. “Want to tell me which someone can’t keep a secret?”

  Barrett chuckled, the warmth of the sound traveling down my spine and forcing my eyes shut. I really needed to get my head on straight. I needed his help. I didn't want my suddenly raging hormones to make a mess of everything.

  “Nothing was said," he assured her. "I just saw the crocheting pattern Mama tried to hide under her cushion. She only makes that one for Turk babies.”

  Sage exhaled and settled into her office chair. “We haven’t said anything because we don’t want the news to reach little ears until the first trimester is done.”

  “Well, you are glowing,” Barrett said.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched him lean over and kiss his sister-in-law on the cheek. I didn’t feel jealous, knew I had no right to, but there was a moment of envy when I wished it was my cheek he was kissing—and not because I was his pregnant sister-in-law.

  “Mmm…” he rumbled, patting his stomach as he returned to the playroom. “Eggs and pancakes. My favorite.”

  Getting on his knees, he opened up the pretend refrigerator.

  “Need some milk—oh, cupcakes!”

  “No, Barrett,” the toddler admonished. Wielding her spatula with precision, she steered his hand away from the pretend cupcakes and shooed him toward the table to sit with me.

  Before he could make it over, the phone in Sage’s office rang.

  “House line,” she said then picked it up. “Yep, I’ll tell them.”

  She put the phone down and leaned forward in her seat until she could see me and Barrett.

  “Attorney is here. Lindy said she’s taking him to the library for you. The equipment’s still set up in case you need to fax or print anything.”

  “Sorry, Honey Bee,” Barrett apologized as Leah came over with a plate stacked with rubber pancakes. “We have to go talk to a man about some land.”

  Sighing, Leah put the plate on the table and walked back to the stove, her delicate hand cupped and twisting above her head.

  5

  Barrett

  I entered the library in front of Mama and Quinn, my arrival coinciding with the exact moment Charles Cross, Esquire, moved his body and his coffee cup to the head of the long study table in the library. I didn’t bother hiding my smirk. There was never a chair at the head of the table. The man had moved that, as well. In the process, he had completely nullified whatever psychological bargaining power he had hoped to achieve.

  The smirk shifted to a thin, neutral line. This meeting was supposed to be about getting to the root of what Jester Carey wanted in terms of his land—hopefully with a resolution that best benefitted Quinn. But, if the meeting went south, I would find another way to help the young woman, preferably in a way that would keep her in Montana and not heading back to California.

  It would be hard to woo a woman in California when I was in Montana.

  Forcing my thoughts to stay in the present, I pulled out
a chair.

  “Here, Mama, why don't you take this one.”

  I had already convinced Quinn to let my mother sit in on the meeting. As a lifelong friend of Jester’s, she could speak as to his probable wishes in altering the terms of his will. She was also the majority shareholder of both the family’s cattle and timber operations. If she only wanted the family business to work with other businesses that didn’t use Cross as their attorney, the man would be down to defending parking tickets tourists picked up on their way to the nearby national parks.

  Leading Quinn around to the other side of the table, I sat her opposite Mama then took the seat next to her, my location furthest from Cross. Turning sideways in my chair, I rested one thick forearm on the table and the other along the back of Quinn’s chair, my fingers lightly touching her shoulder for support.

  Seeing everyone settled, Cross launched the first attack.

  “Now, I contacted the Trust Lands Management offices this morning. There’s little to no give on their side.”

  “Whom did you contact?” Mama asked, a brow raised as her gaze wandered from the man’s face to his wrinkled business jacket and back up.

  “Hank Dupree—”

  She cut him off with a snort followed by a flick of her finger granting him permission to continue talking.

  I hid my smile. Hank Dupree and Jester had locked horns a hundred times or more, Jester winning a good eighty percent of the time. More importantly, Hank was in Minerals Management for the Trust Division—and, even there, he wasn’t top dog. I didn’t know which was the bigger problem: Cross knowing or not knowing he wasn’t talking to the right person at the Trust Division.

  “Based on my conversation with Mr. Dupree,” the attorney continued. “Miss Whitaker must remain overnight for each of the ninety days.”

  “Now, Jester wrote that provision into his will when his cabin was still standing,” I objected.

  In replying, Cross looked at Quinn and ignored me.

  “Miss Whitaker, anyone who has been to that cabin knows it was hardly any kind of shelter. The plumbing was only for the sink and tub. Hot water was from a pot on a stove. He used an outside facility for…other plumbing needs. That ‘facility’ was nothing more than a hole in the ground with a narrow shack and a bench to sit on.”