by Naomi Niles
“We don’t live together. He doesn’t have a key. I’m only guessing that he came back to try to heal the argument. I’m so sorry. I would’ve never hurt him in a million years. I truly thought with all this going on in town that this was an intruder coming in to rob or to harm us.”
The deputy nodded and said, “Why don’t we go inside and have a seat so I can get some more details from you?”
I nodded and as the ambulance attendants loaded Blake onto a gurney and wheeled him toward the ambulance, I went inside with the sheriff’s deputy. I told him everything I knew, repeating it over and over again.
“Is there anyone else at home?”
“Yes, my son is upstairs, as is his nanny.”
“Would you call them down so that I may speak with them?”
“Of course.”
I did as he asked, and one at a time he spoke to Kirk and to Sarah while I sat shaking on the sofa in the living room.
“Please? May I go to the hospital to be with Blake?”
“Yes, ma’am. This appears to be a clear case of mistaken breaking and entering. He should not have been coming in through your window. And you should’ve probably waited a bit longer before you took a shot. I have everything I need for now but you will hear from us again tomorrow. Please don’t leave town in the meantime; if you do, check with us first.”
I nodded and ran upstairs to change my clothes. As I came down, I looked to Sarah and could see she was visibly shaken. “It’s okay, Sarah. Why don’t you and Kirk go into the family room and put something on television? Take blankets and pillows and a snack in. The both of you will relax and fall back asleep. Do you think you’re okay? Do you need to see a doctor?”
“No, I think were both just a bit shook up. I’ll look after him, Meli. You go on to the hospital and look after Blake.”
I didn’t waste any time arguing. I gave Kirk a quick hug, picked up my bag and hurried out to the car, heading toward the hospital.
When I arrived, Kirk was in the emergency room. Since I wasn’t legally immediate family, they wouldn’t let me in to see him. I even tried telling them that he was my fiancé. Their rules were strict however and they forced me to stay in the waiting room. I felt so helpless. There was absolutely nothing I could to.
It was almost three hours later before a doctor entered the emergency room and called for the family of Blake Temple. I leapt to my feet and he motioned me into a small consultation room. “I’m not able to tell you any details other than Mr. Temple will survive,” he said. “We consider his condition serious but stable.”
“Thank God. When can I see him?”
“He will be under observation for the time being in our ICU. You should check with the hospital desk for further updates regarding when he’s transferred to a private room. At that point you may visit according to normal visiting hours.” He left the room, closing the door with a hard pull as though he were disgusted with me.
I couldn’t blame him. I had done the unforgivable: I had hurt the man I loved. The shock was beginning to wear off and tears were streaming down my face. I went out to my car and drove home, shaking and filled with guilty regret. The others were asleep when I arrived home. I went up to my room, lay down across the bed on top of the covers, and from sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep.
Blake was still in the ICU when I telephoned the next morning, but by the afternoon he had been transferred to a private room. I hurried to the hospital, intent upon seeing him. I asked at the front desk for his room number.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Temple has requested no visitors for the time being.”
I staggered backward at these words. He had obviously left these orders intended solely for me. Of course he knew no one else would know what happened or that he was even in the hospital. I left the hospital with a black cloud hanging over my head. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than how misguided my intentions had been. I had planned to help him, when in return I may have may well ended his career forever.
That next day I kept calling the hospital, hoping his directions had changed. I vacillated between trying to focus on work, but the sorrow and regret of what had happened kept bringing me back. Finally, that afternoon I called the hospital and pretended I was florist calling for Blake’s room number. With that information, I headed back down there and simply walked through the emergency entrance to the bank of elevators. I wrote went up to his floor and headed toward his room. The door was only open a couple of inches, so I pushed on it gently to go inside.
Blake was lying in the bed, a massive bandage around his upper thigh. He was pale, and I knew he had probably lost a great deal of blood. “Blake?”
He looked up at me and a frown blackened his face. “You need to leave, now.”
“Blake, you don’t understand. I thought you were a burglar.”
“How convenient.”
“Blake, I swear it’s true. What did you think would happen by coming into my window?”
“I was coming back to straighten things out,” he said. “I never expected to find a raging mad woman.”
“I guessed that now, but at the time I was scared to death. I thought you had gone. I am so very, very sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, sister,” came the words from the corner of the room.
“I swiveled my head and there sat Jill in a chair. Her face held a look of contempt, and my own turned to a look of jealousy. Why was she here?
“Blake doesn’t need your kind of help,” she told me in a cold voice. “I’m here now. I’ll take care of him. You go home and don’t come back.”
I looked to Blake and I could see multiple emotions crossing his face. However, his words sealed the deal. “Go home, Meli. I’ve got this.”
I nodded slowly, tears attempting to wash the guilt from my face. I slowly turned and walked out of the room and down the hall. All I could think of was that he had called me Meli.
And the image my own sister, my Jill whom I had always protected, always looked after. There she was, sitting in the room of the man I loved and claiming him for herself. I knew he needed to be away from me in order to find himself again, but I had never expected him to find himself with her.
Chapter 20
Blake
I lay in the hospital bed, steeped with anger. I had come to find Silver, and was willing to change my life in order to be with her and our son. Not only did she reject me, but she made sure I would never come back again, and in more than one way.
The bullet had torn into the muscle of my thigh. The doctors told me that the muscle had been destroyed, complicated by the fact that I had had so many muscle injuries in that leg in the past. I was also not as young as I used to be. The combination would keep me from a comeback. I had nothing now.
Jill sat in the corner, a smirk on her face. I saw it then. She was jealous of her sister. Silver had gone on and done things with her life and raised her from their childhood beginnings. Jill, on the other hand, had followed in her mother’s footsteps and was destined for the streets. She wanted what Silver had, and would do anything in order to get that. That included me.
For the time being, I would keep Jill around. I would need help at home, after all, and she needed a place to live. She would earn her keep for once, and then I would find a way to set her on her own.
Silver’s betrayal tore at me in a way that the doctors could never put back together. I staggered beneath the realization that despite the happiness of the previous two days, I would not have my family with me. She had seen to that. I didn’t know what happened that last evening. The woman I loved had suddenly turned into a cold, calculating witch. She punched me with every verbal fist in her arsenal, and I had no idea what I did to deserve that. I really was trying so hard.
I would go back to Dallas for the time being. I’d have to make some hard decisions about my life. Silver had been my goal for so long, and in the last couple days adding my son to that, seemed to be the pot at the end of the rainbow. That was all behind me
now.
The doctors kept me in the hospital for another week, releasing me to physical therapy which they arranged for me to take back in Dallas. Jill drove us home; the ride was long and very quiet. She still didn’t know what to say, how to make it apparent to me that she wanted to be with me. I knew this, and I gave her no opportunity to speak up about it. As much as it hurt to be rejected by Silver, I did not want to get involved with her sister.
We set up the physical therapy and Jill drove me into town every day. The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I worked hard, as that would let me quell the demon was inside of me. I might not be able to ride again, but that wouldn’t stop me from doing something different. I only had to make up my mind what that would be.
I spent most afternoons out by the pool. It was where I remembered her; where we had been the closest. I sat for long hours and thought about her, what she and my son were doing at that moment. I imagined that she had looked for a new location for restaurant. I realized that I might never see her, or Kirk again.
That was when a cold resolve began in the pit of my stomach. Silver may have decided she didn’t want me in her life, but I had yet to decide that I didn’t want my son in my life. He was my son, after all. I was entitled to see him.
I gave some thought to the restaurant that Silver had built. Perhaps there was something in that line for me. After all, my name did carry a reputation and beef was what every good Texan ate. I went into the bank where I’d been doing business for so many years. I proposed a business plan to them and received financing. I began my search for an existing restaurant that I could convert, or lot where I could build a new one.
I finally found the ideal situation. Not far from the arena there was an old railroad yard. It had long before been disconnected from the main trunk, although there were still a half-dozen railroad cars abandoned there. They were cattle cars and not at all luxurious, but they were exactly what I needed. I sat down with an architect and we designed a restaurant that utilized the cattle cars as the front façade of the building. I applied for a liquor license and began searching for the best beef supplier I could find. I named the restaurant The Cattle Car, and my idea was to advertise heavily at the rodeos. I would also set up a series of fans on the roof that would blow the fragrance of grilling beef for quite a distance, hopefully all the way to the arena. I knew the smell of grilled beef would be welcomed in a place where the stronger odors came from the animal barns. I hoped that those who attended the events would consider my restaurant the destination afterwards.
It worked just exactly the way I knew it would. The only thing I changed was I added my name, calling it Blake Temple’s Cattle Car. I staffed it with beautiful young women in short skirts, low-buttoned, western shirts and western hats. There was straw on the floor and the booths looked like rodeo pens; the tables a version of a gate topped with glass.
It was an overnight success, and I barely had to spend any money at all to publicize it. It was so successful that I began looking for second location. It only made sense to repeat the formula as it worked the first time, so I looked in cities along the circuit. I built a second in Kansas City, a third in Oklahoma City, and a fourth in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I told myself that wasn’t deliberate; it was simply another city on the circuit, but I knew better.
With each new restaurant came yet another challenge. I repeated the same formula that I had used in Dallas and it was faultless, however my life had become all about restaurant management and that was hardly where I had intended to go. It nearly choked me to stay locked in an office all day. So I looked around and hired a general manager who took my place. He went from restaurant to restaurant, overseeing the staff, the food supplies, the construction, and the interior design of each unit. Eventually I franchised and new restaurants with my name on them sprang up over half the United States. It was an explosive growth, taking place over a very brief period of time.
And yet I still was not content. That was going to change.
Chapter 21
Meli
I went back to my solitary, quiet life with Kirk and there was always Sarah on the perimeter. Marie and I got together from time to time and she would pat my hand and make soft soothing sounds. She, better than anyone, I suppose could see the sadness in my face. Blake was the only man for me, and he was the father of my child. There simply was no one else who could take his place.
I had watched him through the news reports, the social media, and finally the day came when I saw a restaurant with his name on the sign. That’s when I knew it was truly over. He had found himself again, and no longer needed me. On one hand, I rejoiced; he had again found himself and was successful in his own right. On the other hand, I wanted him in our life, and I knew now that that would never happen.
Kirk asked about Blake from time to time, and it was difficult to explain why his father had so suddenly popped into our lives and as suddenly popped out again. No one else asked me about him; they seemed to know that the topic was taboo.
I had begun to become accustomed to being on our own, without the concept of having him in our life. That was the day everything changed.
* * *
I had just finished visiting all my cafés. It had been a long and tiring trip, and it seemed to get worse is I got closer to the end. I realized why once I arrived home. Somewhere along the way I had contracted a virus and my head was throbbing as I paced around the house. I knew I had a fever and was very glad that Sarah was still around. Kirk had begun school, half days in kindergarten. I had come down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of hot tea before returning to bed.
There was a knock at the front door. I was in my robe and slippers and certainly not fit for company but there seemed little choice. I open the door and there stood a man in a flimsy suit whose hair could have seen a haircut.
“May I help you?” I asked him.
“Are you Melanie Christian?” he asked.
I nodded, pushing my hair behind my ears and setting down my cup of tea. I didn’t want to invite him in, and wondered why he was there. “Yes, I am.”
“Ms. Christian, this is for you.” He held out an envelope which I then accepted. Turning around he called out over his shoulder, “Have a nice day.”
It must’ve been the cold that prevented me from thinking straight. I stood there like an idiot with the envelope in my hand trying to figure out what he was there for. Had I just won the Publishers Clearinghouse? I closed the door, picked up my tea, and wandered into the living room to read it. I took a sip from the steaming cup and set it down as I opened the envelope. What I read then would change the rest of my life.
Blake was suing me for partial custody of Kirk.
Every mother’s instinct came alive in me in that moment, and I was enraged. I no longer felt the virus, I no longer felt anything but abject terror. I felt as though I would pass out.
“Sarah!” I called to her.
She must’ve heard the urgency in my voice because I heard her feet pounding down the stairs.
“What’s wrong?” I could hear that same tone she used with Kirk when she was concerned but trying to be calm so as not to over excite him.
“Read this,” I handed the papers to her.
She began to read, and as she did, the import of the words forced her to plop down onto the sofa. “To tell you the truth, I was a little afraid this might be coming at some point. Although, I thought he would’ve done it in the beginning when he first learned about Kirk.”
I nodded mutely.
“Obviously this is upsetting to you. Are you willing to let him see Kirk?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you expected this, but I thought we were past this point, too. My God. I don’t want to put Kirk through this. He’s finally started school now, and enjoying a little bit of himself in the real world. I really don’t know what to do.”
I was staggering beneath the implications of the legal papers. Blake had blindsided me; I had trusted him but it see
med he hadn’t accepted my explanation of the accident and was now out to hurt me.
I telephoned Marie. “He knows about Kirk and he wants to take him away from me. All that I feared over these past years has come to pass.”
“Did you not expect he would want a relationship with his own son?” her voice chided me, reminding me that I was accustomed to getting my own way.
“Yes, I knew he might and that’s why I kept Kirk a secret.”
“Poor, Meli … you must learn that you cannot control others as you wish you could. Your son deserves to know his father as well.”
“Why do you have to be so sensible?” I lamented. “You always know what to say to make me feel guilty.”
“Not trying to make you feel guilty; just trying to bring things into perspective for you. The guilt, you make for yourself.”
I knew she had a point and yet it didn’t feel good to own it. Truth never did. “So, what do I do?”
“You do what any mother would do. You do what is best for the child, and in this case, Kirk’s father is not a bad man and will give balance to his life. I think it’s a very good thing, my dear.”
“Marie, you do know how to put a positive light on things, that’s for sure! Well, I’ll have to figure this all out. I guess I won’t fight Blake, but I will need some guarantees. After all, for him to have visitation means that Kirk will be going to another state. That’s a separate jurisdiction and I’ll have to check with my attorney to see how that could affect my rights to keep him here and in school.”
“It will all work out. After all, you do not hate Blake; you are hurt because he chose to distrust you. You must admit that shooting him is cause for him to consider your motives.”
“I suppose. How are things at the café? I’m opening another one soon and wondered if you would be interested in being my assistant?”
“I have Louis to consider, my dear. I’m fine where I’m at.”
“I get that. Well, I couldn’t help trying.”
“You always have me here; always a place to come home to.”
