Above It All (Eureka, Colorado Book 4) (Contemporary Romance)

by Cindy Myers

  He almost—but not quite—smiled. “I thought I was supposed to be the suspicious one.”

  “I just don’t understand what you want from me.” She twisted her hands in her lap, sure he could sense her agitation, and helpless to hide it.

  He looked out the windshield, his big hands resting loosely atop the steering wheel. “Maybe I just want to spend some time with you, in a way I thought would be more relaxing—less threatening, maybe—than asking you on a date. Away from prying eyes or agendas.” He looked at her at last, some of the haughtiness gone out of his eyes. “Just two friends, going for a drive to enjoy the beautiful day and the scenery.”

  His words should have relaxed her, but she felt as if every nerve was knotted too tightly for mere reassuring words to undo. “Head up County Road Three,” she said. “It’s the right turn just before you get to the Idlewilde.”

  He shifted into gear and began the slow drive through town. “Did you ever think of paving these streets?” he asked, as he steered around a pothole.

  “Some people think the dirt streets add to our quaint, rural charm,” she said.

  “Probably not anyone who has to drive them on a regular basis.”

  “People are surprisingly resistant to change. Even if we had the money in our budget—which we don’t—I’m not sure we could convince a majority of the voters that we need to pave the streets.”

  “I hear the Lucky Lady Mine is earning the town money.”

  “Not as much as you’d think. We have a lot of capital costs up front.”

  “You could always make a donation to the town coffers if Gerald Pershing turns out to be dead and you inherit his money.”

  She hugged her arms across her chest to ward off a sudden chill. “I don’t see why Gerald would have left me his money. I can’t believe that’s even true.”

  “I saw a copy of the will. Your name was there, along with your address here in Eureka.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better.” Strangers thousands of miles away apparently knew about a relationship she only wanted to forget.

  “Seems to me that kind of money could make a big difference in your life,” he said.

  “I already have everything I need.”

  “Not many people can say that.”

  But it was true. She’d never been a woman who coveted clothes or collected shoes or jewelry. Her house was old, but she had made it her own, and she was comfortable there. She didn’t need a new car or cosmetic surgery or anything else money could buy. She didn’t even have a desire to travel. “I guess that’s one advantage of living where the nearest mall is two hours away and television reception is spotty, at best,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I could live like that.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and flipped on his blinker to make the right turn onto County Road Three.

  “I wouldn’t want to live any other way,” she said. “Everything I love is here in Eureka.”

  “I don’t think pizza delivery, paved roads, and decent Internet service would ruin your little rural idyll,” he said.

  “Maybe not. And in time I’m sure we’ll have all those things. But my point is that money isn’t going to make me any happier than I already am. Take the next right.”

  He did as she directed and they bumped onto a much rougher, narrower road. “Where, exactly, are we going?” he asked as he wrestled the big truck around a boulder in the road.

  “A place that belongs to a friend of mine. It has beautiful views, and it will tell you a lot about the people who are drawn to this area.”

  “Hmmmph.” He said nothing more as they drove five slow miles farther up the mountain. Lucille gripped the armrest to steady herself, and noted how much rougher the road up here had become with disuse. Not that it had ever been a busy thoroughfare, but the neglect was one more example of the changes coming to the area, whether the old-timers like her approved or not.

  She leaned forward to better get her bearings. “Take the drive on the left up here. Just past that little blue spruce.”

  He slowed the truck to a crawl, then swung into the rocky drive that headed almost straight up the slope. “You’re just trying to get me up here and scare me,” he said.

  “I would hope it takes more than a steep mountain road to scare you.”

  He made no answer as they followed the drive around a curve and a cabin came into view. Lucille smiled: This, at least, hadn’t changed. Someone, probably Jameso, had trimmed the weeds back from the cabin’s foundation, and a fresh load of kindling filled the old washtub by the door, ready for the next visitor to make a fire.

  Duke parked the truck on the only level spot in sight and shut off the engine. He studied the cabin, with its rusting metal roof and assortment of windows, no two the same size. A porch extended across the front of the structure, and beneath it steel braces secured the whole building to the mountain. “Who lives here?” he asked.

  “It belonged to a man named Jake Murphy.” She opened the door and climbed out. “Come up on the porch and I’ll tell you about him.”

  He followed her up the rock-lined walkway to the porch. She felt along the top of the door for the key, then used it to unlock the door. “Even if you use a key, it’s breaking and entering,” Duke said.

  “The cabin belongs to Maggie Clark.” Lucille shoved on the door to open it. “She won’t care that we’re here, though if it makes you feel any better, I will tell her about this visit the next time I see her.”

  He followed her into the front room. Though he was behind her and she couldn’t see his face, she knew the moment he registered the view. She heard the sharp intake of his breath and felt him go still. A wall of large windows along one side of the room revealed a vast expanse of blue sky, puffy clouds floating by close enough to touch, like cotton batting ripped from an old quilt by a playful kitten. The effect was of being suspended in space, or looking out from the world’s tallest tree house.

  After a long moment in which the only sound was of their breathing, Duke said, “Waking up to that view every morning could make a man question his sanity,” he said. He moved into the room to stand beside her, one hand on the back of a love seat upholstered in green suede. “Who was this Jake Murphy?”

  “Jake was Maggie’s father, but before that he was an important part of the community, which is strange, really, considering he was sort of a recluse. He lived up here, with no running water and no electricity, year-round, for more than fifteen years.”

  “So what was he, some kind of rural wise man? A guru or something?”

  She laughed. “Jake was definitely not a guru. He was a drinker and a fighter. He had a mean streak, and he liked to thwart convention and authority. But he could also be incredibly generous. He defended the underdog. When some bigot burned down Janelle and Danielle’s chicken house, Jake built them a new one. And he let it be known that anyone who tried that kind of thing again would have him to answer to. If anyone needed help, they could count on Jake to provide it. He made the town his family.”

  “But you said Maggie was his family,” Duke said.

  “That’s right. And that’s one of the ugly things in his life. It shocked some of us, really, when we found out Jake had walked out on Maggie and her mom when Maggie was only three days old. He hadn’t had any contact with her since.”

  “But he left her the cabin.”

  “Not just the cabin, but the French Mistress Mine and everything else he owned. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to get her established here.”

  He moved past her into the cabin, and examined the stack of books on a table by the love seat, and a collection of colored bottles arranged on a shelf by the wood stove. “Why did you bring me up here? Do you really want me to think that this hermit alcoholic with a split personality is a typical resident of Eureka?”

  “There is no typical Eureka resident,” Lucille said. “But Jake represents a certain type of person who finds a home here. He was running from a past he didn’t lik
e or didn’t want to face. He was hiding—not necessarily from a crime, but from himself. He wanted to be a part of a family, but only on his own terms. He valued independence over community, and was willing to suffer a certain amount of deprivation in order to keep his distance from others.”

  His eyes met hers, probing again. “Are you trying to tell me you’re like Jake?”

  “We had things in common.” She shifted her gaze to the windows, and the vertigo-inducing expanse of sky. “I’ve learned not to rely on others. I like being independent, even if it means I miss out on some things.”

  “You can be in a relationship with someone else and still be independent,” he said.

  “Can you?” She regarded him coolly. “Maybe men can. I’m not sure women, or at least women of my generation, can. I don’t know if it’s some nurturing gene hardwired into our brains, or some animal instinct that bows to a man’s superior physical strength that compels us to put our own needs behind our partner’s, or to rush to compromise if he raises objections. Some of us are better than others at holding on to our sense of self.”

  “So you’d rather be alone than let anyone close?” He closed the distance between them in four strides, standing so near to her that a deep breath would have made the tips of her breasts brush against his chest.

  She fought the urge to step back, and lifted her chin to look into his eyes. “I’ve been single a long time and I always did better on my own,” she said. “Maybe men need women more than women need men.”

  “Don’t you want love?” he asked.

  The weight of that word rested like a stone in her belly. “I do, but it seems that relationships always come with conditions—having to compromise part of yourself to be with someone else.”

  “Men compromise, too,” he said. “Maybe that makes you a better person.”

  “And maybe it doesn’t.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.” He rested his hand on her shoulder, the fingers open, not grasping. Still, the weight of that touch—emotional, if not physical—threatened to buckle her knees. “I like strong, independent women,” he said. “I like you.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about you.” It surprised her how easy the words were to say, now that she’d started to let them flow. It was as if honesty had a momentum and drive all its own. “There’s physical attraction,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m the kind of person who can be with someone just for the sex. And after Gerald . . .” She shrugged, lifting his hand, but it remained on her, a steadying buttress like the supports under this house.

  “He was just one man,” Duke said.

  “I know that. But the two of you feel as if you’re cut from the same mold.”

  His fingers squeezed a little then. “Are you saying I’m a swindler and a cheat?”

  “No, but you have that same macho confidence. You know you’re attractive and you’re comfortable with women’s attention. I don’t know that I can compete with that kind of confidence.”

  “I’m not asking you to compete. I’m not asking you for anything. Just your company. However much of it you want to give.” He bent, as if to kiss her, but she turned her head away.

  “You can’t push everyone away,” he whispered, his lips against her ear.

  “I only need to hold them at arm’s length,” she said.

  “Your arms are going to get tired one day.”

  “Maybe they will. Or maybe I’ll get stronger. Or I’ll learn how to be myself and be with someone else at the same time.” She turned and left the cabin, and left him standing, staring after her. She felt his gaze on her, a physical touch as light as the brush of a feather, and as heavy as the granite that made up this mountain.

  Chapter 10

  Shelly tiptoed into the library, looking around her warily. Midmorning on a Tuesday, the building was silent except for the whisper of turning pages from an older man who’d settled into one of the armchairs to read a magazine. Unlike the modern glass-and-stone structures in the city, the Eureka library reminded Shelly of the book-lined refuges of her childhood, with the same tantalizing aroma of floor polish and old papers.

  She would lose herself weekdays after school and Saturday afternoons, making a nest on the floor between the stacks, safe behind a wall of books. For the span of those stolen hours, she was safe from the outside world, cut off from the people who demanded details she couldn’t remember about her exile underground, or those who looked upon her as a living, breathing miracle. They called her Baby Shelly even when she was a teenager, and wanted to touch her or to have their picture taken with her, or to get her autograph. They asked her for money or they begged her to pray for them. And if she said no or tried to turn away from them, they called her greedy or ungrateful or worse. Only behind the pages of books could she shut out their demands and name-calling. The library had been the first place she felt truly safe.

  “Hello, Shelly.”

  She let out a whoop and jumped six inches off the floor, almost dropping the folder she carried.

  Sharon stared at her. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

  “No, it’s all right.” Shelly held her hand to her chest, as if that would still her furiously pounding heart. “I was looking for Cassie. She’s not here, is she?”

  “She left half an hour ago for her appointment at the beauty shop.”

  Shelly nodded. Every Tuesday at ten, Cassie had a shampoo, trim, and set at Maxi’s Cuts. While she was under the dryer was probably the safest time of any to venture into the library. “I needed to use the copy machine for the historical society minutes,” Shelly said. “Then I thought I could just leave them for her.”

  “Good idea.” Sharon led the way to the copy machine at the back of the office. “If she sees you, she’ll go on another rant about the Founders’ Pageant. She’s decided it isn’t enough to draw in the local crowd; she wants to be world famous.”

  Shelly winced. If only Cassie knew that world fame wasn’t all adulation and roses. Strangers you’d never even met wanted to know the intimate details of your life, and were quick to scrutinize, criticize, and gossip. For every person who had sent a nice card or letter or check to Shelly and her family, there had been two more who felt the need to write or call to catalogue their faults or condemn them to hell. Sandy and Danny had been able to shrug off those people as crackpots, but Shelly couldn’t help feeling bullied by their words.

  “I guess she told you she wants me to take a bigger part in the play,” she said as Sharon switched on the copy machine.

  Sharon gave her a sympathetic look. “I take it you weren’t so crazy about the idea?”

  “The last thing I want is a bunch of people flooding into town to gawk at Baby Shelly, all grown up.”

  “I guess the public can be pretty cruel,” Sharon said. “I read the headlines on those tabloids at the checkout counter and I always feel sorry for the celebrities. I’d hate someone digging into my life like that.”

  Shelly could have hugged her; Sharon was the first person who’d expressed an inkling of understanding. “It’s not just the public scrutiny,” she said. “Once the word gets out, my family is going to know where I am. I mean, Mindy already found me. And it’s not that I don’t love my sister—I do. But my parents . . .” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. How to explain about Sandy and Danny? She wanted to believe that somewhere down inside they loved her, simply because she was their child. But all the evidence pointed to them loving her image, and the attention and money she could bring them, not Shelly herself.

  “I haven’t spoken to my mother or father in ten years,” Sharon said. “Jameso’s been estranged from them longer than that. Not all parents are good parents.”

  Shelly stared at her. “I had no idea.”

  Sharon shrugged. “My dad didn’t believe in sparing the rod, and my mom never said a word against him. I married a guy when I was fifteen, just to get away from my dad. Joe turned out to be just as controlling, in his own way, t
hough he never raised a hand against me. So I’m one person, at least, who doesn’t judge a person who decides she’s better off without the family who raised her.”

  “Wow. I . . . I appreciate your telling me.” She slid the first page of the minutes onto the glass of the copier, trying to control the trembling in her fingers. Her parents had never physically harmed her. They never even spoke harshly to her. They just never listened to her, never considered what she wanted or felt or hoped for. She felt like a puppet or a doll that they dressed up and fawned over, but never thought of as anything more than a possession or tool.

  “We didn’t have a TV when I was a kid,” Sharon said. “My parents were fundamentalist types who thought television and movies were tools of the devil. So I don’t know much about the whole Baby Shelly thing, except it must have been pretty frightening for a kid that little to be trapped underground that way. So I can see why you wouldn’t want to relive that over and over for other people’s entertainment.”

  Shelly pressed the buttons to make six copies of the minutes—one for each member of the Historical Society Board. Funny how, though it was the event that had led to all the other strife in her life and the break with her family, she never thought much about the ordeal that had made her famous. Over the years, coached by her mom, she’d developed a pat story to deliver to the press, a story that felt like lines from a play, and not anything that had really happened to her.

  Even that aspect of the whole Baby Shelly legend had angered her—that no one cared how she really felt. They only wanted to hear the story that played on their emotions. The story of a terrified little girl who soldiered on bravely, holding on to the faith that someone would save her. “The weird thing was, after the first day, I wasn’t that scared,” she said. “It was like . . . I don’t know how to describe it, but this calm settled over me. I wandered around down there a little, and found a puddle to drink out of, then I just lay down and slept. When they pulled me out and all those people and lights and cameras were trained on me—that was a lot more frightening than being underground. It sounds crazy, but I felt more trapped by all of them than I did in that cavern.”