by Sara Orwig
She dreaded going through the divorce. It would be another wrenching, painful loss, but it was inevitable. They had tried to stay married, but it didn’t work and just hurt more as time passed.
She got busy painting, a routine chore that left her thoughts free. And Tom filled them. Before Maverick’s email, she’d thought she was beginning to achieve some peace. She’d been adjusting to life without Tom, as well as the realization that he would be out of her life for good when they divorced. Life on the ranch, which she had loved in so many ways, would also be gone. But she was beginning to find a life for herself as a photographer. She had made the move from the ranch to Royal. Now she had been thrown a curveball when Tom came to stay with her. They were flirting, laughing together—something that didn’t happen after they lost Ryan. A week ago she wouldn’t have guessed that they could be this relaxed together again. Maybe it was because they had lost everything they’d once had between them. Now the worst had happened and she didn’t feel as tense. Maybe she had worried too much about disappointing Tom, and the fear was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was fun to tease and flirt again. She missed what she’d once had with Tom.
Whatever the reasons, working with him on the house now reminded her of old times together when they could flirt and kiss and laugh. It was also going to hurt a lot more to tell him goodbye after being here together.
It was almost midnight when they settled in the rocking chairs on the porch. Tom had his cold beer and she had her raspberry tea and they sat quietly rocking.
“I remember when Uncle Woody would come out here and mow the lawn. He’d wave to anyone who passed and talk to neighbors who walked by.”
“Your uncle was a friendly man. I liked him. When you and I dated, sometimes he gave me a look and I wondered if he was going to tell me to get lost and leave you alone.”
“No. Uncle Woody liked you and thought you were good for me.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
“I’m glad he didn’t know about our divorce. I think losing Ryan is what—” She paused, because she hadn’t ever voiced aloud her theory about her uncle’s death. Tears threatened and she was grateful for the dark.
“Was what?” Tom asked and his voice had changed, deepened and become serious.
“I think he just died of a broken heart. He wasn’t well, but he wasn’t that ill. He had a heart problem, but when Ryan died, part of Uncle Woody died and there was never a time I saw him after that when he didn’t cry over Ryan. It broke his heart. So I lost them both.”
Tom sat in silence and she wondered what was going through his mind. She wiped her eyes, gradually regaining her composure.
“I’m going for a walk around the place. I have my phone if you want me,” he said tersely. Then he faded into the darkness.
* * *
Tom walked around the property, staying in shadows, moving without making noise and taking his time.
Emily’s revelation about her uncle’s death hurt. Tom had no doubt that Woody had blamed him for his failure to save Ryan. He felt equally certain Woody had blamed Tom for Emily’s unhappiness. He was just one more person who was important to Tom that he had failed.
He finally decided to rejoin Emily on the porch or just sit there alone if she had gone inside. But when he got back to the front of the house, she was still there. He climbed the steps to sit by her.
“You’re back. This is nice, Tom. I’ll miss us out here together when you go,” she said quietly.
“Maybe I’ll come visit and we can sit and talk. I like this, too. This is peaceful, and I can always hope I might get a kiss or two or get you to sit on my lap.”
“No,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice. “After our divorce, you’ll go out, fall in love and marry again. You’ll have a family, because that is what you were meant for. You’re wonderful with kids. You and I will go our separate ways and our marriage will just be memories that fade into oblivion.” She stood. “I’m going inside.”
He came to his feet swiftly and wrapped his arms around her to kiss her, a hard, possessive kiss that took only seconds before she responded.
When he slipped his hand beneath her shirt and caressed her, she moaned softly, holding him until she suddenly stepped away.
“I can’t go there. We’ll just hurt each other more. I’ve disappointed you in the past and I don’t see any future. Making love just binds us together for more heartache. I’m going in.” She swept past him and he let her go.
She didn’t want him in her life. He had failed her, disappointed her, hurt her. He needed to let her go and keep his distance and hope they caught Maverick soon. He couldn’t live under the same roof with her much longer without making love, and he had no doubt that he could get her to agree, but afterward, their relationship might be worse than ever because that wasn’t what Emily wanted. She wanted him out of her life. She was moving to Royal, taking up photography, finding a new life for herself, and he should do the same. He should find happiness with someone he hadn’t failed and hurt and disappointed.
He stepped off the porch to circle around the big yard, wishing he could catch the troll and end his worries about Emily once and for all.
Six
Monday morning they drove the short distance to the Texas Cattleman’s Club for the emergency meeting about Maverick.
Tom parked and they walked together toward the front door. Emily looked at the dark stone-and-wood clubhouse. In recent years, the TCC had voted to include women. It still hurt to walk in the front door and see the children’s center where she had taken Ryan occasionally.
She waited while Tom checked his black Stetson. He wore a tan sport coat, a white dress shirt open at the throat and dark jeans, and just looking at him, her heart beat faster.
He turned and his gaze swept over her, and for another moment, she forgot everyone around them and saw only Tom. She took a deep breath. She would soon be divorced from him. Their marriage was over. Life was changing, and it was difficult to worry about Maverick when she had lost Ryan and now was losing Tom. Their happy marriage had been gone a long time, though, even if the past few days with him had reminded her of how it used to be.
Looking back now, she realized she had made a big mistake with Tom in being so desperate to get pregnant. That had made her tense and nervous on top of the grief they both dealt with daily.
Now she realized she had driven Tom away. For the past few days, she hadn’t had her old worries about her inability to get pregnant, and she was relaxed with him.
At the time she hadn’t realized what a mistake she’d made with him, and now it was too late to undo it.
“You look pretty,” he said when he walked up to her. He leaned close to speak in her ear. “When you get home, take your hair down.”
She smiled at him as she reached up, unfastened the clip that held her hair and shook her head. Her wavy, honey-brown hair fell around her face and on her shoulders.
“I like that,” he said softly. He took her arm. “Let’s get a seat.” He turned and she walked beside him. They went through the foyer lined with oil paintings of past members. The motto of the club from its early days—Loyalty, Justice and Peace—was emblazoned on the wall in big letters for all to see.
They went past a lounge, and Emily saw a boar’s head hanging above a credenza that held a crystal decanter on a silver tray. Some members wanted the stuffed animal heads removed. But they’d had been fascinating to Ryan, and as far as Emily was concerned, they could stay because other little kids might find them just as interesting.
She and Tom greeted friends as they walked through the club. Taking in her surroundings, she couldn’t believe the club was more than a hundred years old. It had been founded around 1910 by Henry “Tex” Langley and other local ranchers. Tex wouldn’t recognize a lot of things about the club now, particularly that women
had been accepted as members, which had resulted in a child-care center where the billiard room once was.
They finally arrived at the large meeting room and settled in near the back. She had an eerie feeling when she thought about how Tom had said Maverick might be present at the meeting. As the room began to fill, she wasn’t surprised to see the mean girl trio, Cecelia, Simone and Naomi, arrive and take seats near the front. Could the three women be behind the emails and blackmail? That was the rumor. But Emily couldn’t imagine them doing something that wicked and then coming to this meeting. They were members of the TCC and had had background checks, friends in the club and people to vouch for them. They might be snooty, but she didn’t think any one of them would do something criminal. She’d heard that Maverick blackmailed Brandee Lawless. And why would they have come after her, sending her that photo of Tom with the Valentines? How would they have even gotten such a photo?
“There’s Nathan,” Tom said and she glanced around the room. Sheriff Battle stood to one side, leaning against the wall, looking as if he wasn’t paying attention, but she knew he probably wasn’t missing anything that was happening in the big room.
At the stroke of the hour, Case appeared. Whenever she saw him, he looked in a hurry. Often he talked fast. His brown suit matched his short dark brown hair, and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.
“Good morning and thanks for coming,” he said, holding a mike and stepping out from behind a podium they had set up for him.
People in the audience answered with an enthusiastic, “Good morning.”
“Everyone here knows why we’re having this meeting. We have a problem in Royal. Someone going by the name of Maverick is harassing and blackmailing people using social media and email. We need to put a stop to it.” Case paused to allow for applause.
“I’d like to form a TCC committee to investigate, coordinating with the sheriff to back up his department’s work. We’re not law enforcement—just a group of concerned club members, citizens of Royal, who will make a big effort to keep their eyes and ears open for anything that might aid Sheriff Battle. You can sign up at the door and you’ll be notified when we’ll have our first meeting.
“Also, Chelsea Hunt has asked if she may speak. She has some ideas of her own that should help. Chelsea, why don’t you come up here?”
Wearing head-turning designer jeans with a tucked-in white silk shirt and a leather vest, Chelsea walked up to join Case, amid more applause. Her high-heeled ankle boots made Chelsea appear to be the same height as the club president.
“Here comes the tech genius. She’ll get things moving,” Tom said quietly as he applauded. Emily knew that Chelsea was considered the cyber expert in Royal, so she was a good one to have at the meeting.
“I’m glad all of you are here today. I’m fully committed to the TCC’s grassroots investigation into these cyber attacks. I’ll have a tablet here at the front, so when the meeting is over, if you have computer skills and want to help me with the technical aspects of the investigation, please sign up. There has to be a way to find Maverick. There will be a trail of some sort, and I think if we pool resources, we can trace these messages.”
Everyone applauded again and Chelsea thanked Case and sat down.
Tom stood and Case turned to him. “Tom?”
“I think we need to get word out to citizens in Royal. If they get a message from Maverick, they need to let Sheriff Battle know, even if there’s blackmail involved. We can’t do anything if we don’t know who Maverick is targeting.”
“I think we can all work on getting that message out,” Case said, nodding. “Thanks.” Tom sat back down.
Emily wondered how many people already knew she had received an email. She knew Tom and Nathan would only tell people on a need-to-know basis, so she suspected that not many were aware of her situation.
“Simone,” Case said, recognizing Simone Parker, one of the mean girls triumvirate. There was instant quiet. Simone’s striking looks, her blue eyes and long black hair usually commanded everyone’s attention.
“I think we should have another meeting here in a month so the committee can bring the rest of us up-to-date on what’s been done. The more informed TCC members are, the better we can deal with what’s happening.”
“We can do that,” Case said. “If there are things Sheriff Battle thinks should not be made public, then they won’t be, but otherwise, we’ll meet again next month. Unless Maverick is caught in the meantime.”
As Emily listened to the other speakers’ suggestions, she looked over the club members in attendance. Once again she couldn’t help wondering if the troll was in the audience.
How would they ever catch Maverick? What had she done to make herself a target of this troll? She still couldn’t imagine someone being so angry with her that they would send that nasty message with the picture.
Finally, the meeting was over and Tom left her side to sign up for the committee. When he was done, he found Emily and took her arm to lead her out. His touch was as electrifying as ever. Why did he have that effect on her after all they had been through?
“I hope that meeting helped,” she said as they drove back to her house. “Tom, shouldn’t you go back to the ranch and check on things?”
“I will later this week. I talk to Gus several times a day and I’m available. This isn’t the first time I’ve been away from there, and it hasn’t been long yet. We’re just getting started on this. It may take a long time to catch this Maverick character, but I have high hopes in Chelsea. If I were the troll and had Chelsea after me, I would be worried. Nathan, too. Nathan is quiet and easygoing, but he’s tough and he doesn’t miss a thing.”
“I hope they can discover something soon,” she said, wondering if living with Tom much longer would make it even more difficult to part again.
“I hope so, too,” he said, but he didn’t sound too happy about it.
“Stop at the grocery and let’s pick up what we need to make sandwiches for lunch. It’s a pretty day and we can eat on the porch. I don’t even have a table.”
“Take some furniture from the house at the ranch. The guys will move it for you. Just tell me or Gus what you want.”
“Thank you. There are a few things I’d like, but in general, I don’t want to move much from the ranch. Your cook likes Snowball so much, I may leave him with her because he likes the ranch.”
“That’s fine with me.”
They bought groceries and when they were back in the car, he turned to her. “Why don’t you buy a bed while I’m with you—”
She started laughing. “You’ve always been a little more subtle in your approach than this. Getting tired of your sleeping bag, or do you think you’re going to coax me into bed?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Now that’s a thought. I might give that one a try. Seriously, I suggested a bed because I can help you get it moved where you want it. You can get one delivered and set up, but they aren’t going to move it around while you make up your mind where you would like it. As I recall on the last bed, I moved it until I wanted to put wheels on it.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” she said, knowing he was teasing her. “When I get a bed, I’ll probably go to Dallas or Midland. Though Royal has a good furniture store, so I suppose we can look here.”
“Good. Let’s look on the way back to the house. You can wait a few more minutes for lunch, I’m sure.”
“Okay. We’ll get a bed, Tom, but I still think you have at least one other motive besides helping me move it around,” she said, watching him drive and wishing they could be like this all the time.
He smiled. “I might. We’ll see if you object.”
“You usually get what you want,” she said, wanting to reach over and touch him just to have a physical connection. At one time she wouldn’t have hesitated, but again, those t
imes were over.
“That’s interesting. Why do you think I get my way?”
“It’s your good looks, your charm, your incredibly sexy body and your seductive ways, of course,” she said in a sultry voice, teasing him.
“I may wreck the car. Now I know you need to hurry up and buy that bed.”
“Don’t rush me.”
“I wouldn’t think of rushing you to bed. This is something that will take some testing and touching to see if it feels right,” he drawled in an exaggeratedly husky voice.
“Stop it,” she said, smiling. “I never, ever guessed you and I would go shopping for a bed again.”
“Life’s full of surprises, and this is a damn fine one.”
“I agree,” she said, turning toward him as much as her seat belt would allow. “This is like our lives used to be.”
“I told you before and I’ll tell you again—we can still enjoy each other even though there are some terrible times behind us and some rough times up ahead.”
“I’ve made big mistakes, and I can’t undo them. But I’m glad you forgave me for the mistake I made believing Maverick’s message. I’m thankful for that.”
“We’ve both made mistakes,” he said, suddenly serious, and she wondered what he felt he had done wrong. “Here we are,” he said, stopping to park in the shade in front of the furniture store. He stepped out of the car and the moment for discussing their past was gone.
They shopped for almost an hour before she finally pointed to a fruitwood four-poster with a high, intricately carved headboard.
“I like this four-poster. And I like that sleigh bed. What do you think?” she asked, too aware that his opinion didn’t matter because she would not be sharing the bed with him.
