Big Sky

by Kitty Thomas

  Big Sky

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Big Sky

  by: Kitty Thomas

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2012 Kitty Thomas

  all rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Publisher's Note:

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contact burlesquepress@gmail.com

  DISCLAIMER

  This work is a work of fiction and is intended for a mature, adult audience. Do not try this at home.

  Chapter One

  Veronica rolled over to the unimpressive view outside her window: another building far too close to her own. On the mornings when she woke abruptly, it felt as if the building might collide with hers, as if the concrete sidewalks and asphalt roads were a rumbling sea that would toss the buildings to and fro, annihilating anyone in its path.

  She stumbled to the kitchen and poured a cup of burnt coffee then went back to the window in an attempt to glimpse the tiny bit of sky she could see from just the right angle. The morning was dreary and overcast—one of those days where the sky would share its contempt for the world by being bleak but unproductive. It would be a day without sun or rain, just an unending and depressing blob of gray.

  It was possible the angst was less from the weather and more from the pile of bills on the kitchen counter. Veronica Cason was a Big Deal ad executive. Yes, that’s in capital letters, thank you. As a Big Deal she should be in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park. But Veronica had always lived outside her means. Extravagantly outside them. It didn’t matter how much those means were, she’d never seen a credit card she couldn’t max out, and she had a rainbow of them that fluttered out of her wallet in a fan of spending power.

  She’d started in a penthouse, and when her credit bills had swelled to a wave that would otherwise swallow her, she’d downshifted into a tiny apartment with no sky. And this was where she’d stayed for the past five years while she’d tried to curb her overspending without success. After all, it took more work and more money to make an ugly apartment habitable. These were justifiable expenditures. A raise could be on the horizon, then perhaps she could finally dig out of the collection call nightmare.

  The interest rates on some of the cards were so criminal that if she only paid the minimum, she’d continue to owe more than she started out with—her debt climbing higher with each passing year. She could consolidate, but that was most of her paycheck, leaving her on Ramen noodles, which she didn’t need. Though her finances were a wreck, she did mange self control in her diet. After all, she thought it was pointless to buy stylish clothes in the big girl sizes. When she felt the urge for ice cream, she just bought another dress and pair of Manolo Blahniks. Fat or destitute were the only options her mind would consider, and cardboard box felt more encouraging than size fourteen.

  A piece of paper glared from the pile, a bright orange rectangle, a corner of which peeked out from the sea of perfunctory white and light blue. It was an eviction notice from her landlord. Mr. Tuttle had become clever—or so he thought—with his increasingly bright warning notices: pink to neon green, to yellow, to finally orange when he’d dropped the hammer and given her thirty days to get out. That had been twenty-seven days ago.

  But it was fine. She had a plan. She’d just use her next paycheck to secure another crappy apartment. She’d get on eBay and start selling off all the ridiculous things she’d acquired. The seriousness of the situation had finally struck home. Her denial had run out only moments before her lease. She had nobody but herself, and she’d systematically sabotaged her security. She could have determined why, but a shrink was a luxury she couldn’t afford right now—even with a co-pay.

  Her father had left when she was six, and her mother had moved to Rome without a forwarding address. She couldn’t ask friends for help. Anyone who could be defined loosely as a friend, she worked with, and she couldn’t let them know where she lived now—let alone the fact that she was about to be homeless on a six-figure salary. It was too ludicrous and humiliating. Going back to bed and waiting for the building next door to collide and crush her was beginning to sound like an appealing option.

  Veronica put the cup on the counter. Screw this shit. She was going out for breakfast.

  ***

  The diner across the street from Brampton and Simmons Advertising Agency had an inexpensive breakfast that Veronica wouldn’t feel as guilty about putting on her credit card. She reached out for the door, but a large, tanned hand—no tiny sliver of sky for him—got there first.

  “Let me get that for you, ma’am.”

  Veronica looked up, annoyed to see what looked like the Marlboro man, complete with a cowboy hat, holding the door for her.

  “Do you live in a corn field? I can open my own damned doors.” Had it been a business man in a suit, and had she been carrying something big and heavy, she wouldn’t have protested, but they were far from Little House on the Prairie, and she wasn’t too feeble to open a door.

  He raised an eyebrow. Not amused. Not angry. Just... observant. Creepy. He was attractive in a sun-worn way, but the assessing look he gave her made her want to crawl under a table and hide. Or maybe that was just her life.

  She glared at him and finally he took a step back, his hands raised in the air as if he were an outlaw caught without his gun. She rolled her eyes and went inside.

  It was a seat-yourself sort of place, so Veronica took a spot by the window. But there was no view.. The monolithic buildings rose out of the ground like oppressive guardians, with only a small bit of gray sky visible between her office building and the building next door.

  She ordered scrambled eggs and hot tea and tried not to stare at the Marlboro man who had seated himself a few booths down where he could watch her.

  The act unnerved her. She felt stalked, but she’d pulled out the feminist annoyance at not being treated like an equal who could open her own doors. Scurrying like a mouse to a corner booth out of his line of sight would seem to make light of her independence. Instead, she pulled out her smart phone to check her email.

  Five minutes later, the bell over the door dinged, and in walked Sandy Mitchell. At best, the woman was a frenemy. They worked together—if one could call their constant battlefield behavior working together.

  “Ronnie!” She smiled and waved with the fake brightness that was her calling card. Her modus operandi was to kill with kindness. She looked smart in an aquamarine suit that brought out her impossibly blue-green eyes. Without invitation, she sat across from Veronica and flipped her blonde hair. At least she was mostly blocking the Marlboro man now. Or at least she was serving as a distraction—something else to look at besides tanned, muscular arms, tight jeans, and cowboy boots.

  “Just coffee for me, thanks,” she told the waitress when she arrived with the eggs and tea.

  Sandy pulled out a small,
pink laptop when they were alone again. “Did you come up with a slogan for the Waterson account?”

  No, the stress of being evicted put a damper on my creative skills.

  “Several,” Veronica lied, not willing to let Sandy see the cards she didn’t have to play.

  “Great! Can I see them?”

  Nice try.

  “Did you come up with any?” Veronica deflected.

  “Only five, but I’m not sure they’ll like any of them.”

  Like hell she wasn’t sure. Sandy liked to play the defenseless kitten routine, which every man in the office ate up like slow-roasted pulled pork at a BBQ stand. If Mr. Marlboro had opened the door for her, she would have batted her eyelashes, melted into girl-goo, and made a date with him for after work. They’d be fucking by seven-thirty on the dot. She’d no doubt pull the I never do this with strangers routine by eight. He’d be out the door by nine, in plenty of time for her beauty sleep so she could be perfect again by morning. Sandy Mitchell? Not a feminist.

  Veronica glanced over to Mr. Marlboro’s table. He’d ordered enough food for a small army. It might take him an hour to get through the pancakes, sausage, biscuits, eggs, bacon, and milk surrounding him. It was a heart attack waiting to happen, but he was in such good shape he could probably fend it off with brute strength. She forced herself to look away before she could determine if he had a milk mustache.

  Sandy dropped her voice an octave and leaned forward in the less-than-subtle way she did. “Did you see the hot guy over there?”

  Of course Sandy would zero in on any eligible-for-copulating male within a mile radius. Veronica feigned confusion.

  “You know... the cowboy.” She whispered the word cowboy. “He could ride me any day.”

  Veronica choked a little on her eggs. She took a sip of tea and composed herself. “Oh, the Neanderthal who thinks women are too frail to open doors? Yeah, he’s a peach.”

  Sandy rolled her eyes and flipped her hair again, turning briefly to give him an obvious once-over and no doubt a come-hither smile, but Marlboro Man’s eyes were on Veronica, still cataloging and assessing. He was probably a serial killer.

  “Why do you hate men so much?” Sandy hissed when she turned back around.

  “I don’t hate men. I just expect to be treated like a human being and not some fragile doll. I’m not some pet or lesser being. Would he have opened the door for another man?”

  She shrugged. “Who cares? He’s pretty. If you didn’t overanalyze the wrong things, you could have a boyfriend by now.”

  “Oh right. Because landing a man is one of the life goals of every female. It was in the woman manual I was sent at puberty.”

  “It is unless you’re a lesbian. Are you a lesbian?” Sandy pulled her jacket closed to hide the girls a little, as if Veronica would leap across the table and dive head first into her cleavage.

  “No. I’m not a lesbian. When I find an enlightened man who respects me as an equal, I’ll think about letting one into my life. I have a vibrator for God’s sake.”

  The waitress came back with Sandy’s coffee and a check for Veronica.

  “Oh, please. No straight woman wants equality in the bedroom. They want a dominant alpha male to throw them down and growl and grunt a little.”

  “Classy. And could you please keep your voice down?”

  But the Marlboro man had heard. There was that eyebrow again. Veronica stared at the small bit of eggs left on her plate, wondering if he was aware of the warm flush that had come to her cheeks at Sandy’s description. What one fantasized about and what one was willing to actually do could be continents apart. Everybody knew that, with the exception of Sandy Mitchell.

  ***

  The morning meeting was a disaster—for everyone but Sandy, who would most likely receive Veronica’s office and a raise after this.

  “Ms. Cason, you’ve been off for months now. You weren’t prepared for the meeting. I was going to let you take the lead on the Waterson account, but you gave me nothing.”

  Normally Joe called her Ronnie like everybody else. He only pulled out the formal Ms. Cason when he was disappointed with her. Something in his demeanor grated on every indignant cell in her body—like he was being condescending because she was a woman, and he’d been proven right on her incompetence.

  “I’m sorry. All right? I’ve got some personal stuff going on.” The quasi-apology took all her willpower to muster.

  “What personal stuff?”

  If she told Joe her financial situation, he might feel some pity and help her out, but either way it would be all over the office by noon.

  “Never mind.”

  “I’m going to have to let you go, Ronnie.” Now it was the more personal form of address, the name to soften the blow and make him sound like a good guy who was simply left with no other alternatives.

  If it had been Sandy, she would have collapsed into tears and begged. She would have sandwiched some flirting in there somewhere, and she would have walked out with a better office. But Veronica couldn’t bring herself to play the helpless girl card. It offended everything inside her. She turned and headed for her office.

  Her boss’s voice stopped her. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “What should I say, Joe? I already said I was sorry. I’m not delving into my personal life with you. I’m not going to grovel or cry or scream at you like some petulant child. You’ve made your decision. I’m going to pack my desk if you don’t mind.”

  “Give me anything, Ronnie. Any indication that things will get better, here. You’re brilliant when you want to be, but you isolate yourself. I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”

  “I didn’t ask for help. Are you firing me or not?”

  “You’ve left me no choice.”

  “What about unemployment? Are you going to put it down that I was laid off or fired?”

  “You know Human Resources won’t let me say you were laid off. They watch that stuff more closely now.”

  “Fine.”

  Thirty minutes later, she was sitting on the marble slab that encircled the fountain in front of Brampton and Simmons. With her back to the building and her box of things in her hands—a fake plant, a book, and a handful of nice fountain pens—it was finally safe to cry. Since the sky had betrayed her again, opening to allow rain to pour down, she could do it with a small amount of privacy even in public.

  She was so lost in her own misery that she didn’t realize she wasn’t alone until the dark brown cowboy boots were only a few inches away from her.

  She scooted away. “What do you want?”

  “Lose your job?”

  “Well, look at the box and the pathetic girl crying in the rain. Figure it out, genius.”

  “You’re rude.”

  “Another brilliant observation,” she said. “You’ll make it great in the big city.”

  The rain came down harder. The cowboy stood tall and steady in the downpour as if he were part of the elements and silly things like weather couldn’t touch him.

  “Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

  Had he been lurking and waiting for her? “Why? Do you get off on being yelled at?” Just what she needed. One of those freaks.

  In answer, he offered a hand to help her stand. It was a public place. And anyway, if he killed her, that might be a step up from the current situation. She had no idea what she was going to do. She’d considered bankruptcy—assuming she could afford the fees to file. But that was out now. It would make it that much harder to find another job, if anybody in the industry even wanted her now. She’d hopped from job to job over the past few years burning bridges with abandon. There might not be any left for her to walk across.

  Veronica threw her box of things in the trash on the way to the diner. None of it had sentimental value, and it was all ruined anyway. She tried not to wince or scream at him as he led her inside, his hand resting at the small of her back like he was calling dibs on her and wanted to warn away all oth
er males.

  There were no other males in the diner—just the cook, whose name she didn’t know.

  A familiar waitress came out and led them to a booth. “Oh sweetie, you look like a drowned sewer rat.”

  “Thanks,” Veronica said.

  “Let me get you a towel to dry off.”

  Marlboro man looked somewhat drenched himself, but she didn’t offer him a towel, nor did he seem to care for one. It was possible Veronica was a lot more pathetic-looking than she thought.

  “I’m Luke,” he said, after he’d ordered them some coffee and Veronica was seated in the booth with a towel wrapped around her.

  There was a long pause where she couldn’t think what to say. He probably wasn’t going to kill her in the middle of the diner.

  “Ronnie, is it? Is that short for something?” he finally asked. He must have heard Sandy say her name that morning.

  “V-Veronica.” It was the chill from the rain that had made her stutter. Or that was the story she was going with. She couldn’t bring herself to be nasty to him again after he’d bought her a cup of coffee. This was the kind of thinking that got women lured into the middle of nowhere and killed.

  “The reason I brought you in for coffee is that I have a ranch in Vermont. I could always use another hand out there.”

  She looked up, startled. He really did plan to lure her to the middle of nowhere. With the way he’d watched her earlier that morning with Sandy, there was no way in hell. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “It’s not advertising with a slick office, but it comes with room and board.”

  Images of being kept prisoner by him in some barn filled her head. She tried not to be aroused by those images. Now wasn’t the time for those thoughts. It wouldn’t play out like her fantasies. He was just so attractive, it was hard not to think those thoughts.