A Colton Target

by Beverly Long

  He ignored the moaning and groaning, and when he was confident that they were all more or less ready, he motioned for them to follow him.

  “Where are the jumps?” a smaller kid named Tommy asked.

  “Just over that hill,” he said. That’s where they would also find a pristine bowl. Its shape, with its steep sides and narrow gut—similar to the cement structures that skateboarders salivated over—would keep them busy for hours. “I’ll demonstrate, and then you’ll all get your chance. You don’t have to feel pressured to do anything you’re not comfortable with, okay?”

  “Sounds like sex ed class.” This again from Isaac.

  That cracked the group up. A good-looking kid in the front named Josh looked at Blaine rather sheepishly. “Just ignore Isaac.”

  “You ready for this?” Blaine asked him.

  “I’m going to do them all,” Josh answered, his voice cracking at the end.

  Blaine appreciated his attitude. He’d been like that as a kid. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Matilda Deeds glanced at her watch. She’d arrived too early to pick Josh up from his lesson. But it had given her a chance to grab a latte at the coffee shop.

  She’d been at The Lodge a few times over the years. One could hardly live in Roaring Springs and not have been. Every time, she’d carefully checked her surroundings, anxious about running into Russ Colton, but thankfully she had never encountered him. In recent years, she’d heard that Decker was taking on a bigger role in the day-to-day operation of The Lodge, which made it even less likely that she’d see the elder Colton, but she remained vigilant.

  There was no sign of either Russ or Decker Colton today. This part of The Lodge was crazy busy with skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts trying to take advantage of the late-season snow. She took her coffee and settled at a small table in the corner of the room where the students would return following their class. About half of the other twenty tables were occupied, and conversation hummed in the air. A fire burned in the big stone fireplace at the far end of the room, and there was a tray of freshly baked cinnamon donuts on a table.

  She resisted, not wanting the extra ten pounds that she carried to turn into fifteen or twenty. Sighing, she leaned forward, resting her elbow on the table and her chin in the palm of her hand.

  Tilda supposed it was natural that she would think of Blaine Colton in this place. Not that she’d ever been here with him. The year they’d started dating, just weeks before prom night, there had been no late-season snow. And by the next fall, when the slopes were once again covered, Blaine had been long gone. Already done with basic training by that time. Happy to already go off to some dangerous, far off place, to serve his country.

  And she’d been dealing with her own issues. Alone.

  She’d done okay by most anyone’s standards. Her parents had helped, of course, once they’d come to terms with her situation. Both unskilled workers, they’d clung on to the dream of having their daughter become the first college graduate in the family. They hadn’t let her give up or give in. And Dorian Stoll had been a true friend.

  She checked her watch again and looked out the big window, searching the slopes. There he was. Her son, her pride and joy, all long legs and gangly arms. He was taller than many of the kids in his class but thin enough that he looked as if a good, strong wind might blow him away. He was with five other kids. They’d taken off their helmets and goggles and were carrying their snowboards under their arms. She recognized his best friend, Isaac.

  And there was a man, much taller, much broader, his head thrown back, as if he was laughing at something one of the kids had said. There was something so familiar about that motion, so unconsciously sexy, that she could feel her body heat up.

  Jeez. What the heck?

  She stood up but stayed where she was. At thirteen, Josh didn’t want his mother running up to him. When the door opened, in came a whiff of cold air, laughter and young excited voices. Another voice. Deeper.

  And she knew. Her knees felt weak.

  Josh turned to search the room. She managed to wave at him.

  The man turned. Followed Josh’s gaze. Settled on her.

  Blaine Colton. Still as handsome as ever. With that bold, confident look on his face, like he could take on the world. His dark brown hair was short, certainly shorter than he’d worn it in high school. It showed off his lean, strong features.

  His smile faded as he followed Josh across the room.

  “Tilda?” he said. His light brown eyes were very serious.

  She nodded. Wet her lips with her tongue. “I hadn’t heard that you were back.” If she had, there’d been no way that she’d have brought Josh to The Lodge.

  “Been in town just days,” he told her. He stood very still, very straight, his impossibly broad shoulders filling the space.

  She said nothing. Every word was potentially filled with peril.

  “Hey, you know my mom?” Josh asked, looking at Blaine. He sounded as if he thought that was cool.

  “Your mom,” Blaine repeated.

  She put her hand on Josh’s arm. “We need to get going.” She looked briefly at Blaine before turning to leave. “Good...uh...good to see you again.”

  “But—” Josh protested.

  She pulled him along with her, away from Blaine. “Don’t argue, Josh,” she said under her breath. “Just keep walking.”

  * * *

  Blaine made sure all the other kids got picked up, but he was moving on automatic. Tilda Deeds. What were the chances that he’d run into her here?

  He guessed it wasn’t all that odd. Had heard on one of his rare visits back to Roaring Springs over the past years that she’d married and had a child. He hadn’t asked for details. At the time, he’d told himself that it was because he didn’t care. But the news had unsettled him, and he’d never asked about her again. The idea of Tilda in bed with someone else, loving someone else, wasn’t a comfortable one.

  Was she still married? Somebody in his family would know.

  Her kid was cool. He’d said he was going to try everything, and he’d been true to his word. Funny, too. Once they were on the slope, he’d sparred back and forth with his friend Isaac and landed a couple zingers.

  In those few seconds that he’d seen mom and son side by side, he’d noticed the resemblance. Still thinking about Tilda, he walked to his brother’s office. Penny, now used to him, waved him in. He knocked sharply on Decker’s door.

  “Come in,” Decker said, still staring at his computer screen. But when he saw it was Blaine, he pushed his chair back and took a breath. “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Good. Just did a snowboarding class. Middle schoolers. All terrific kids and pretty darn good on their boards.” Blaine took a breath. “And crazy as it sounds, one of them was Tilda Deeds’s boy.”

  “That’s not so crazy. She’s a teacher at Roaring Springs High. English, I think.”

  They’d been in the same English class when they were seniors. She’d been smart. Always had a book with her, too. “What’s her husband do?”

  “He’s dead,” Decker said. “It’s been years. Shame. Dorian Stoll was a nice guy. He didn’t grow up in Roaring Springs but he always seemed to fit in.”

  “She’s a widow,” Blaine breathed, trying to get his head around that. She was so young. But then again, being in the military, he’d quickly learned that young people died, too.

  Decker stared at him, considering. “As I recall, you had a thing for her in high school. You wanted to marry her.”

  He’d told Decker but no one else. Had sworn his brother to secrecy. And had only given Decker half the story, leaving out the part that Tilda was pregnant because the two of them had agreed that was their secret for the time being. As he recalled, Decker had initially laughed at him for mentioning marriage but, once he’d re
alized Blaine was serious, had switched tactics, telling him he was a fool, that he needed to go to college and prepare himself to someday take his rightful place in the Colton Empire.

  Blaine had known even then that was an okay path for Decker but not for him.

  And when Tilda had lost the baby, and he’d been at loose ends, wanting only to leave Roaring Springs and the dysfunctional relationship between his parents and the incessant pressure from his father to join the family business, the army had offered endless possibilities. He’d left quickly, before anyone could stop him. And almost from the very beginning had realized that it had been a very good decision.

  “How old is her son?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” Decker said.

  There was no reason for Decker to know. And no real reason for Blaine to care. But the question nagged at him. How soon after he’d left had she jumped into another relationship? Had they dated for a long time before getting married?

  Had she been happy?

  Had she ever thought about Blaine and that, if things had gone differently, she’d have married him?

  He shook his head. Water. Over the bridge.

  “How’s staff housing?” Decker asked. “Missing Mom’s thousand-thread sheets?”

  Blaine smiled. “I’m just happy to have a bed, bro. Didn’t always have one of those, these last thirteen years.”

  “It’s good to have you back,” Decker said. “I worried...”

  His voice trailed off. Blaine knew what he’d fretted about. It was always harder on the ones left behind. That’s one of the reasons he’d been right to leave Tilda and to never look back. It had given her the freedom she deserved.

  And apparently, she’d run with it.

  Chapter 2

  Josh could not stop talking about his snowboarding lesson. He was thrilled that there was a teacher’s planning day on Tuesday, and he and his friends had already arranged to go back.

  There was no way that she wanted him to spend more time with Blaine. But she couldn’t say they didn’t have the money. Josh might have bought that excuse under other circumstances because he knew that their finances were sometimes tight, but the lessons had been a Christmas gift from her parents. They’d already been paid for.

  She could always tell him that there was no way to get him there because, as a teacher, she had to be at school that day even if he didn’t. But she knew that he’d get a ride with one of his many friends. Everybody liked Josh.

  He was outgoing and made friends easily.

  Like Blaine. Who had been one of the most popular kids in the senior class. Rich. Good-looking. Funny. Confident. She’d been over the moon when they’d started dating.

  And she’d been quite happy to lose her virginity to him on prom night.

  The surprise had been that he had also still been a virgin. And while it might not have been the smoothest of couplings, she’d felt that she could stay in his arms, against his warm, muscular body, forever. When he’d left her that night, she’d dreamed of all the possibilities.

  And then her dreams had turned into a nightmare when she’d missed her next period. Had waited ten days, never saying a word to anyone, before she went and purchased a home pregnancy test. She recalled sitting on the toilet, early on a Monday morning, both of her parents at work, and how she had cried and cried when she’d seen the positive result.

  Hadn’t told Blaine for another week, even though they’d had two more dates during that time. She could still remember his face when she finally worked up the courage.

  Disbelief.

  Sadness.

  And he’d left her house, offering no promises, only to return an hour later. They would get married, he told her. His child would have a father. He hadn’t told her that he loved her. Hadn’t said any of the words that might have reassured her that it was going to be okay. Instead, he’d been resolute, stone-faced.

  Accepting of the inevitable. But terribly disheartened by it.

  And then, a week later, she’d started spotting...

  “Mom!” Josh yelled.

  Jarred from her thoughts, she jumped, her hands briefly coming off the wheel. “What?” she asked.

  “You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, honey. I’m glad you had a good time.”

  “What was he like in high school?” he asked.

  She turned to look at her son, her bright, fun-loving son. “You know, I don’t really remember. But hey, let’s talk about the pizza we’re having tonight. Pepperoni or sausage?”

  “Pepperoni. You can get mushrooms on your half,” he added grudgingly.

  She and Josh had been sharing pizzas for a long time. Just the two of them, since Dorian’s death four years earlier. And they were doing just fine. Blaine Colton wasn’t going to mess that up.

  * * *

  Tilda knew that she wasn’t at her best the next day at school. She’d barely slept and had a nightmare where Josh had fallen into a cave and, when she tried to pull him out, his hands kept slipping away from hers. Until finally he disappeared altogether. She’d awakened at 3:00 a.m. and had never gotten back to sleep. Now, almost twelve hours later, facing her last class of the day, she was barely able to keep her head up.

  But she couldn’t let the students know that. This was senior English, and her most challenging student, Toby Turner, would sense her weakness. In that way, he was a bit like a predatory animal. In another way, he was simply an obnoxious eighteen-year-old who appeared to hate authority of any kind.

  “Hand forward your assignments,” she said, standing in front of the room. She waited as the students unzipped backpacks and rustled through papers, pulling out the three-page, double-spaced book report on George Orwell’s 1984. As papers started coming forward, she stood at the front of each row and collected them. It did not escape her attention that Toby Turner didn’t turn one in. She said nothing.

  When she dismissed class, she made sure she was standing near the front of Toby’s row. As he walked by, she quietly said, “Please stay for a minute.” She half expected that he might simply ignore the request, but once the room emptied, he was still there, leaning insolently against the chalkboard.

  “I didn’t see a paper from you,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  It drove her crazy. He had the ability. She was sure of that. But he was putting forth no effort. “You’re going to fail this class if you don’t turn in the work.”

  Now she didn’t even get a shrug. Just a blank stare.

  She took a breath. “Is there a reason that you didn’t turn in your assignment?”

  “Not any particular one,” he muttered.

  This behavior had started in mid-February, about five weeks into the semester. Here they were almost two months later, and he was running out of time to pull the grade up to passing. She’d taken the usual route. First she had posted a note to his parents on the school portal. When there had been no response, she’d tried to call the contact number in the school database. But it wasn’t correct—assuming, that is, that Toby wasn’t living in a Walmart in Denver. She’d then consulted with the school guidance counselor who, in turn, had met with Toby. The behavior hadn’t improved. Finally, after too many weeks had gone by, Tilda had gotten desperate enough to resort to old-school methodology and had mailed a hard-copy progress report to his home address, asking his parents to sign it and to contact her for a conference. The progress report had come back signed, but there’d been no effort on the part of his parents to meet with her.

  “I’ll accept it until the end of this week, knocking off a half letter grade for each day that it’s late,” she said.

  “Whatever. Are we done?”

  She held on to her temper. Barely. “Yes. You are excused.”

  He left, and she started gathering up her things. He
r head was down when she heard her door open. She looked up and smiled when she saw her friend from the classroom next door. Fellow teacher Raeann Johnson sank into a desk, her legs sprawled out, her head hanging back. “How many more days of school are there?” she asked.

  “Twenty-nine, but who’s counting?” Tilda said, doing her best to sound bored. She had a calendar at home, and every morning, she and Josh put an X through another day. She loved her job and he liked school well enough, but by this time of year, everybody was anxious for summer break.

  “What are you doing tonight? There’s no kids tomorrow. We could come in hungover.” Raeann was a big talker and a small drinker. One glass of wine put her over the edge.

  “Josh needs new jeans. I swear, he’s grown three inches this year.”

  “He’s such a cute kid. I hope mine grow up as nice.”

  Even though she and Raeann were the same age, both thirty-one, she had a thirteen-year-old and Raeann had twin boys who were nineteen months. Raeann had done everything the right way. Gone to college full-time, graduating in four years. Met a man there. Dated for three years before they got married. Bought a house with money they’d saved. Then had her kids.

  Tilda had done it all backwards. Had Josh, gotten married, gone to college part-time, finishing in six years, gotten a teaching job, and at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, become a widow.

  Raeann pushed herself out of the desk. “Okay. No wine for us. You go shopping, and I’ll try to keep my two from falling down the stairs or painting the walls with markers.”

  Tilda smiled, remembering those days. She’d loved it when Josh was a baby. He’d been such a happy kid, and she could hardly even remember him crying. Dorian had been super with him, too. Sometimes, Josh, just nine when Dorian had died, would mention something that he remembered doing with Dorian, but she never prompted those conversations. Didn’t want him thinking about the fact that he didn’t have a dad.