Even me.
Chapter Sixteen
Wednesday
Harper tried to call him three times.
He didn’t bother answering.
She sent about fifteen text messages.
He deleted them before reading.
He didn’t care.
There wasn’t anything she could say that would make him want to talk to her again.
The only thing that was burned into his memory was that she’d been in Steven Knight’s arms saying, “We did it!”
She’d screwed him royally, in all the ways.
He hurled his coffee mug across his small office, and it shattered on the floor.
The sound wasn’t as satisfying as he’d hoped. Didn’t matter, this wouldn’t be his office much longer--it would be Steven Knight’s. Likely the bastard would tear out Marty’s office and combine the two into one large one.
He can fucking have it.
Because Chris refused to work here with that bastard. He’d rather give him the whole thing and walk away than work for him and watch the company he built get turned into another lawn factory with no personal touch.
The bastard delighted in taking things away from Chris. He had since school.
And now, under the guise of a “mystery investor” he’d taken the last thing Chris had to be proud of.
And he’d gotten Harper in on it as well.
How the bastard knew Harper, he didn’t know. Didn’t care, at this point.
The only thing he’d wondered about was if Harper had done it for the money, or if she’d been with Knight all along.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. His thoughts went round and round, it sounded like a damn soap opera. One that he was fucking tired of watching.
“Boy, what is the matter with you?” Auntie Gladys asked as she stormed into his office.
Chris froze, shocked that she stood in the doorway. Hell, he was shocked she even knew his business address.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his frustration disappearing as he guided her toward the nearest chair.
She glared at the box on his desk. “What are you doing?” She tapped the box with her cane.
“Packing my stuff.”
“What for?”
“Because this won’t be mine anymore.” He threw stuff into the box. “Fucking Knight set me up. Him and Harper set this whole ‘secret investor’ thing up--”
She wheeled that cane around and bopped him upside the head.
“Ouch!”
“Watch your mouth.” She slapped a manila envelope on the desk. He didn’t realize she’d had anything in her hands aside from the cane that he was considering tossing into the wood-chipper.
He rubbed his head. “Sorry.”
“Now listen here, boy.” She waggled her finger in his face. “You are far too stubborn for your own damn good. If you would answer your cell phone once in a while you would know what was going on.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Check it.”
He pulled out his phone, and saw that he had more texts from Harper. And some voice mail. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
She raised her eyebrow. “You should.” She thrust the envelope at him.
He opened the packet. It was the proposal that he and Harper put together. And a check.
Signed by her…
“Auntie Gladys?” he whispered, stunned.
“I don’t know who that Knight man is, but he’s not your investor. It’s me.” She stood, wobbling a bit as she rose. “You should have come to me first.”
He shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around what this meant.
What all of it meant.
“How?” he managed to whisper.
“I knew you’d never ask for help from the family, and when Harper told me--”
“Harper asked for help?”
She hit him with her cane again. “Of course not! She just told me in the hospital about what was going on.” She shook her head. “I figured the rest out myself and Lancaster owed me a favor.”
He shook his head again. “I… I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it boy. Now get going. You have some things to do, I gather.”
“Yeah. I do.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Well, I’m sorry,” Jennifer said as she picked up a piece of cheese off the little snack tray she’d brought over.
I shrugged as I sipped on my wine. “Don’t be. This wasn’t your fault.” I guessed my eyes weren’t as puffy as they were yesterday, and for that I was thankful. Either that, or I’m getting really good at the makeup.
Because, yeah. There’d been tears.
I glanced around my living room. Several of the knick-knacks were gone, thrown in fits of frustration. After all, the jerk wouldn’t even answer my repeated texts and phone calls.
Seriously. He thought I’d set him up.
What a douche.
And to think I’d been falling for him. As much as I cried, I must have been falling a lot harder than I realized.
“It kinda was my fault,” Jennifer said. “After all, I goaded you into trying to hook up with the guy. Who would have guessed he would have been such an asshole?”
“I kinda thought he would be,” Lindsay said as she picked up a cracker. “After all, he had that look.”
“What look?”
“The super hot, good looking, I’m-better-than-you look.”
I blinked. “I seem to remember you goading me just as much as she did.”
“Huh,” she said, her mouth full of crackers. “Did you bake a cake?”
I couldn’t help laughing. I needed this tonight. I had given my friends the rundown of what had happened with me and Chris, and they had shown up, each with a bottle of wine. Jennifer also brought crackers and cheese.
And I had been baking.
“Better Than Sex Cake is in the kitchen.”
“I can’t imagine anything being better than sex,” Jennifer said.
“You haven’t had this cake,” I replied.
“How much have you eaten?” Lindsay asked, eyebrow raised.
She knew me too well. “This might be the second one I’ve baked in the last two days.” While this made everyone laugh, I really did make, and eat, one yesterday.
Knocking at my front door cut the laughter.
“Are you expecting someone else?” Jennifer asked.
I shook my head as I padded over to the front door. I glanced through the peephole, but all I could see was a baseball cap and a plant.
“Looks like a delivery guy,” I muttered as I opened the door.
“Uh-oh, Chris is sending you flowers,” Jennifer said.
“I doubt it. He knows about me and plants. Besides, I doubt he’d bother.” I opened the door. “Yes?”
I should have looked closer at the delivery guy.
Because it wasn’t just any guy--Chris stood there with a large, very healthy fern in his hands.
I started to shut the door.
“Harper, wait.”
I pulled the door back open, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jennifer and Lindsay moving closer to intervene if I needed it.
“What Chris?” I crossed my arms.
“This is for you.” He handed me the beautiful green plant.
I blinked. “You know I kill plants.”
He looked down, pushed his glasses up his nose, then met my gaze. “You killed the last one. Doesn’t mean you can’t try again.”
I took the plant out of his hands. “It could end badly again.”
“And it could work out great. If you are willing to risk it.”
I was pretty sure we weren’t talking about the plant anymore. “What if things didn’t change? I don’t do anything wrong. They just sort of die.”
“I could help you.”
“How?”
“By showing you that it really is easy. If you’ll let me.”
I glanced over my shoulder at my friends who were pic
king up their purses and slipping back on their shoes. “What are you all doing?”
“I think we need to go,” Lindsay said.
“Yeah, I have a thing I forgot about,” Jennifer said.
“What thing?” I asked.
“That thing.” She put her hand on Lindsay’s arm. “Yeah, you were going to help me with that thing.”
“Right,” I muttered as they sort of pushed their way out the door around Chris.
Jennifer hovered. “She doesn’t give second chances very often. Don’t screw it up.”
Chris nodded and met my gaze. “I hope she’ll give me one.”
I waited until they both were in their cars before I let him inside. “Is that what this is about? A second chance?”
He nodded. “I don’t deserve it.”
“No, you don’t.” I paced. “You didn’t even let me explain, Chris. I did everything for you. I really did. I worked my ass off trying to help you.”
“I’m an asshole. I know it. I assumed the worst, and I was wrong.”
“You’re right, you were.”
“I let my prejudices against Knight color my thinking.”
“You assumed I fucked you over. You didn’t even let me defend myself. How do I know that the next time--”
“Will there be a next time?”
That was the million dollar question. “Should there be?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way about anyone, Harper. When I saw you in his arms, grinning like a fool, I didn’t want to know anything, it was all there. He’d fucked me over again.”
“Again?” I asked.
Chris shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The fact that I cared and I was wrong, it ripped me in two.” He met my gaze. “I’d lost everything. The two things I wasn’t ever going to lose were gone. Like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“I didn’t take your business.”
“Just my heart.”
Damn him for hitting me with that one.
I turned away because I wasn’t sure what I could say to that. How did I answer it? Because he’d taken my heart as well, and I wasn’t sure I was going to let him back in. Part of me wanted to run into his arms and tell him it was going to be okay, and we could go on and be happy and all that stuff.
The other part of me wanted to smack him. And maybe I should, just on general principle.
But something dawned on me. “Why are you wearing a hat, Chris? Not once since I’ve met you, have I seen you wear a hat.”
He pulled it off.
I winced when I saw the bruise on his brow. “What happened?”
“Auntie Gladys happened.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. She hit me in the head with her cane.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s the secret investor, Harper. She is the one who bailed me out.”
My eyes widened. “Oh my god. That sneaky little--”
“Exactly,” Chris said. He’d stepped to my side, and his hand, rough and calloused, touched mine.
And know what? I liked those callouses.
I didn’t know where this was going. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to get off the train just yet. “Look, you’re going to have to work your ass off to prove to me that this is worth it.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously. I mean work. I want the front yard done, and the back yard. And you’re going to have to come over here and water this fern. Because I can’t be held responsible.”
He smirked. “Deal.” He pulled me tight against him, and I slipped off his glasses and stared into those blue eyes.
I stroked his cheek, feeling the stubble along his jaw. “And Chris?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not the only one who’s falling hard.”
“Good.”
And then he kissed me.
Damn. The man had the touch…
The End
About the Author
Living the dangerous double life as a mommy and a writer of seven novels, Candice Gilmer hides in her office, writing paranormal and contemporary romances, only to emerge when a kid screams.
www.candicegilmer.com
Foxheart
by J.S. Hope
Can an unexpected visitor vanquish the demons that lurk in the darkness of a lonely man’s soul?
Foxheart
September 1989
The sunlight was just starting to peek through the trees into the clearing when the stag stepped into view. It was a magnificent buck by anyone’s standards; ten points, and a good 160 pounds. It was the undisputed king of this particular forest. The deer paused at the edge of the meadow, head back, cautious, sniffing the air for scents carried by the breeze that didn’t belong, and then, seemingly satisfied, took several steps forward before bending its head to graze on the clover growing at its feet.
Peace reigned over the valley.
At least for a moment, but it wouldn’t last.
The shot rang out like a thunderclap, echoing off the high peaks in the distance. The buck collapsed, its legs betraying it, and was dead long before the echo faded into silence.
Satisfied that the shot had been true and the buck wasn’t going to get up, Michael Goodfellow set his rifle aside, unfurled his 6’ 2” frame from the cramped position he’d occupied since before the sun had come up, and stretched his long limbs. The weathered pocket at the front of the rock outcropping atop the ridgeline hadn’t been the most comfortable, but it had provided the concealment he needed as well as an almost unobstructed view of the meadow several hundred yards below him. He’d picked the location during a scout a few days before after finding deer scat in the meadow and had returned a few hours before sunrise that morning to set up shop. He was a patient man. He needed to be in his line of work. He’d come prepared to stay in that position – comfortable or not – for several days in order to secure what he needed, but fate had been kind and sent him the animal before the cramps set in.
It was only the first week of September, but this far north the air was already turning colder and it wouldn’t be long before the first snow of the season was upon him. Goodfellow’s supply stores were getting low and while he could get much of what he needed on his monthly trip into Pontresina, or more locally in Laret or San Spiert, that still meant coming down from the mountains. He wasn’t a fool. Having extra food on hand could mean the difference between life and death if the weather turned ugly even this early in the season. Salted and cured, the deer would last through the winter and provide a good two weeks of solid nourishment in a pinch. Combined with what he already had stored away, that should be enough.
The prospect of facing a long, harsh winter by himself didn’t bother Michael. The exact opposite, in fact. There was contentment in solitude, being alone with his own thoughts, being free of the past he’d barely survived. It had been three years since he’d retreated from the world in an effort to save himself from the guilt that haunted him. For three years he had made a home for himself there in the forests of southern Switzerland, right on the Italian border with only stone and trees for company. The nearest town was a week’s hike to the east in good weather, longer if he took the quad because of the rock falls and build up of scree on the slopes that meant he had to go around certain peaks instead of over them. His place away from the world was nearly impossible to reach, on foot or by quad, in winter months. The harsh cold and swirling snow banked up in treacherous drifts while the ice beneath the surface made each step treacherous. That was fine with him. The solitude allowed him to focus on the here and now, to forget about who he had been, at least on the good days. It was useful, too, on the bad ones, because it allowed him drink himself into oblivion without worrying about what might happen to those unfortunates around him when his rage and grief became too much for him to contain.
It was a testament to Goodfellow’s ability to lie to himself that he thought the former outnumbered the la
ter by a wide margin. The reality was less appealing. More appalling.
Movement at the edge of his vision, on the skirts of the clearing, caught his attention.
He swung the rifle back up, peering through the scope.
For a moment he thought the deer had somehow miraculously survived the shot – a real miracle, given his skill with a rifle – but as the scope moved across the creature’s body he saw with relief that it hadn’t moved. It had to be something else, then.
He panned the barrel back and forth, searching in the low light for whatever it was that had caught his eye. He trusted his instincts. Despite the fact that he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary he didn’t once think that he might have imagined it. Something had caused the disturbance and flurry of motion even if he couldn’t see it now.
His patience was rewarded when he caught a flash of reddish-orange moving amidst the greenery near the tree-line. He focused in for a better look.
It was a fox.
The animal crept along at the edge of the meadow, slipping in and out of view as it moved through the tall grass. He followed it with the rifle, his finger automatically slipping into position against the trigger guard as he waited for the right moment. The Unertl scope that he was using brought the creature sharply into focus; he could have counted its whiskers if he wanted to. It was larger than any fox he’d ever seen and its coat was luxuriously thick and rich. He’d never had fox meat before, but he couldn’t imagine it would be all that different from any other game animal, and he knew the pelt could be put to a number of uses. Everything tastes like chicken, he thought and grinned.
The fox paused, as if sensing his gaze, and then looked up toward the outcropping of rock where Michael crouched.
For the silence between heartbeats the animal seemed to look right at him. Goose-bumps chased up the ladder of Michael’s spine in response. As a sniper – first with the LAPD and then with the Marines – he’d seen more than his fair share of targets do exactly the same thing and knew that the fox couldn’t really see him – the sensation was nothing more than an artifact of catching the animal’s gaze through the scope, not some sixth sense – but it was oddly unnerving.
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