by Tess Oliver
“I will, but they’ll be the choices that are right for me. They might not necessarily line up with the choices you and Mom want me to make.”
He sighed, and it was definitely a sigh of irritation. “Your mother has a nice dinner planned. We’ll talk more then. I’ll let you get settled in.” He gazed at me with that kind, fatherly expression that I used to love to see over the breakfast and dinner table when he was asking me how my day had gone. “It’s good to have you home, Rylan.”
“It’s good to be home, Dad.” He walked out.
The second he closed the door I phoned Becky.
“Did you change your mind about tonight?”
“I think so, Becky. Just like you so eloquently stated, the bandage needs to come off.”
Chapter 7
Kellan
Dawson slapped down his hand, a full house, queens full. “I don’t just have lady luck on my side tonight. She’s down on her knees given me a fucking blow job with her lucky damn lips.” He embraced the pile of chips in the center of the table and swept them toward him.
“I think I’ll go drown myself in beer,” Tommy huffed as he pushed his folded hand toward Roland, the dealer for the night. The other two players were bikers from the next town, Browning. It was a town that was economically parallel to the south side of Bluefield only instead of mining it was logging. A motorcycle club sort of ran the town of Browning so a lot of the town’s revenue was made in less than reputable ways. A lot of the MC members took part in The Hole’s gambling scene and fight club.
“Come on, Huck, you can’t quit now,” Dawson complained.
“Tired of giving you my money, Dawz.”
Tommy, or Huck as we called him, had been folding every hand. The nickname came from his real name, Thomas Sawyer, named after his dad and not the famous literary character. Two days after Tommy’s tenth birthday, his dad slipped on some ice. He slid headfirst onto a pile of wood and died of a broken neck. Thomas Sr., a good dad as far as dads went, had survived a major roof fall and a mine explosion, but the ice outside his back door proved lethal. By the time Tommy Jr. had reached his fourteenth birthday, he’d fallen in and out of trouble so much, he was far more of a Huck Finn than a Tom Sawyer. The nickname stuck.
In a desperate attempt to tame her out of control son, Tommy’s mom married Sam, a man who was as mean as he was big. Her good intentions backfired. Sam became abusive, and one day, Tommy, trying to defend his mom, hit Sam so fucking hard in the face, Sam dropped into a coma for a week. Tommy spent some months in a foster home and came back with an even sharper edge than he’d left with. But the hard work and responsibility that came with adulthood had taken some of the anger and temper out of him. Sometimes it seemed that a lot of the Huck Finn spirit was gone too. A life filled with wrong turns and shitty luck did that to a guy.
The crowd in the barroom sounded thick and drunk. Someone had cranked up the music, and the drumbeats pounding through the speakers were shaking the thin walls of the back room. The naked light bulbs strung up over the round table, the only light in the room, vibrated in rhythm with Aerosmith.
Sasha sat on my thigh and wrapped her hand around my neck. Sasha lived with her ninety-year-old grandfather near the outskirts of town, just a few miles away from our cabin. She spent most of her nights hanging around The Hole. Occasionally, the owner, Scott, had work for her, but tonight she was watching the poker game, drinking wine and eating up our bowl of peanuts.
She peered down at me through heavy mascara and made a point of pressing her tits against my cheek. “Just figured since Dawson has lady luck sipping at his cock, you might need me sitting on your lap.”
“Long as you bring me a good hand, darlin’, you can sit here all fucking night.” I picked up the five cards Roland had dealt me. So far, adding Sasha to my lap hadn’t helped much. I was heading down the same path to loserdom as Tommy tonight.
Dawson tossed three chips onto the pot. “Guess Andi really likes her new job at that city hospital.”
Dawson had grown up with three sisters, including Andi, his twin. Andi had spent so much time fixing our cuts and bruises as teens that she’d decided to become a nurse. The topic of Dawson’s twin sister made Tommy sit up straight in his chair. Tommy had loved Andi since he was old enough to notice girls. But Andi had always had her sights and dreams set on a career and a life away from the coal mine. Tommy had never graduated high school, and the miner’s life was all he knew. A gnarly case of asthma kept him above ground though. He worked at the conveyor belt filling coal into the train cars. There was still plenty of irritating float dust, but it was diluted by more fresh air.
“Good for Andi. They’re lucky to have her.” I dropped two cards, signaling Roland that I needed two new ones. My hand was looking up. Dawson laid down three with a look of disgust. It seemed lady luck had taken her lips elsewhere.
“Guess that means she’ll be staying in the city,” Tommy said, bringing the topic back to Andi.
“She’s still commuting for now. She met some young doctor, and I think she’s been dating him.” Occasionally Dawson could be a completely unthinking dick.
I peered over the tops of my cards at Tommy. His jaw was clenched tight enough to crack a walnut open. I slid my boot across and kicked Dawson’s foot. His face snapped up. I discretely inclined my head in Tommy’s direction. Dawson got the clue, but the damage had been done.
Tommy grunted and threw down his hand. “Holy shit, it’s like these fucking cards are conspiring against me tonight.” He slumped back in his chair and slung back the rest of his beer. The news of Andi taking up with a doctor was going to put him in a bad mood for the rest of the night.
Sasha wiggled her ass on my thigh and reached across to the bowl of peanuts. “There is nothing sadder than seeing Huck have a bad night.”
Tommy looked up at her. “Yeah? Maybe you should do something to put a smile on my face.”
Sasha shrugged. “Maybe I should.”
I was staring at three jacks, and the other faces at the table were looking disappointed. Roland folded. It was just me and the two bikers from Browning. They’d hardly spoken two words the entire game, and when they did speak, it was only to each other. It was like that with the Browning people. They came and drank the beer, gambled and occasionally left with a Bluefield woman, but they never mixed. They stayed to themselves. We were sort of like two opposing countries participating in an organized truce. But we rarely ventured over to the bar on their side of the mountain, mostly because it made The Hole look like a five star resort.
We showed our cards, and I’d won handily with my three jacks. I swept the chips into my meager pile and tightened my arm around Sasha’s waist. “Let Huck pout for awhile longer, darlin’. That was the first good hand I’ve had all night.”
Chapter 8
Rylan
As bleak as the interior of The Hole looked, the crowd inside was cheery and boisterous. A loud chorus of giggling drowned out Becky’s story about the grumpy old customer in the pharmacy who nearly got her fired.
I leaned closer to Becky. “Some of these people don’t look old enough to be in here.”
“Eighteen to twenty-year-olds are allowed in, but they get branded with a glow in the dark pink stamp on their hand to make sure they don’t drink or gamble.” Becky had added some questionable blonde streaks to her long brunette bangs. She rolled her blue eyes at the twittering teenage girls behind us. “God, were we ever that silly?”
I tapped my chin. “Hmm, let me think—yes, yes we were. And then some.”
On our way to the bar counter, we attracted what I felt was an inordinate amount of attention. Faces, some slightly familiar, others not, turned and stared unabashedly.
I found myself ducking down a bit behind Becky. “Jeez, do I have something between my teeth or what?” I muttered behind B
ecky’s back.
“Nope. They just don’t see too many Highlanders in here, especially not Highlanders like Rylan Merritt.”
I was relieved to squeeze up to the bar counter and face away from prying eyes. “I’ll bet they don’t even know who I am anymore. I’ve been gone a long time.”
Becky waved her fingers at the bartender, a slender woman with red dreadlocks and pretty skin. “Hey, Molly, can we get two house beers?” Becky rested her arm on the counter and glanced back into the barroom. “I’d say they know exactly who you are. And most probably haven’t forgotten that you were once with Kellan. Kellan has quite the reputation on this side of town. Some of it good. Some that lands a little more on the side of notorious. Especially when it comes to women. Seemed he couldn’t pull his heart back into one piece after you left.”
I was thankful for the beer and took a big gulp. “Becky, you’ve dreamed up some romantic fantasy about what Kellan and I had. His heart wasn’t broken. It was indifferent.”
She shook her head but, thankfully, decided to switch subjects. Although the new one wasn’t much better. “I guess you’ll need a job to keep from going stir crazy in this town. I heard Abbie needs help at the ice cream shop,” she said behind a smile.
“You won’t be laughing when I’m standing behind the counter using the cute little sample spoons to help myself to every flavor ice cream in the shop. Besides, I might just get desperate enough. I’ve been out of work for awhile, and I don’t think I’ll be able to live at home for too long without going nuts. My mom has filled my bedroom with her high tech exercise equipment. Something tells me I’m going to wake up at six in the morning tomorrow and see my mom in her designer workout gear, jogging on her treadmill and sipping a mocha latte.”
Becky picked up her glass. “Can’t even imagine my mom getting on a treadmill.”
From where we stood, I could see the entire room. No sign of the one face I’d been preparing myself to see. I had no way to gauge what my reaction would be when I saw Kellan but a few different scenes, some sad, some hilarious and some complicated had gone through my mind.
“Here’s a juicy tidbit,” Becky said between sips of beer. “Scott mentioned that Jason Meade has a gambling addiction. He’s placing wagers he can’t afford all over the place, and his dad is completely in the dark about it.”
“Sounds like some of his ugly, mean karma is catching up to him. That guy used to show up wherever I was at school. Drove me nuts.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about the big crush he had on you. Yeesh, who would want that jerk near. He’s just as mean as ever. Scott stopped hanging out with him long ago. Jason’s one of the supervisors at the mine. Naturally. His dad had to do something to keep him out of trouble. The miners hate him.”
“Just like in high school. Some things never change.” Most of the gobs of gossip Becky had promised were dull tales about people we’d gone to high school with. But there was really only one person I wanted to hear about. “Is Kellan still living with his mom?”
Becky wiped some foam off her lip with her pinky. “He moved out with Dawson and Tommy. They rented that old cabin at the end of town. You know, the one owned by that guy everyone called Oscar, like the grouchy Muppet. That place was a wreck, but I will admit, they’ve put some work into it and it looks a lot better. Or, at least, it doesn’t look like it will be falling down around their ears anymore.” She perked up. “Oh, Scotty just walked into his office. I’ve got to go talk to him a second.”
“That’s fine. I need to find the ladies’ room.”
She waved her fingers toward a doorway. “Right down that hall. And just a warning—it’s not exactly The Ritz in there.”
I made a point of looking around the room. The ceiling was patched in so many different places, there was more patch than ceiling. The furniture was mismatched and rusty but still charming in a funky, yard sale kind of way. “Apparently Scott used all his decorator’s budget on the bar and didn’t leave any for the restrooms.”
“Still a smartass,” Becky said. “Thank goodness.” She leaned over for a quick hug. “So glad you’re back, Ry.” She scooted through the bar patrons to the office.
I carved a path toward the dark hallway at the far end of the bar. Obviously, lighting hadn’t been high on Scott’s decorating budget either. There were three doors and no signs on any of them. I put my hand on the first doorknob and turned. I pushed the door open and realized instantly it was not the bathroom. A group of men were sitting around a poker table, and a woman with white blonde hair was sitting on the lap of one player. They all looked up in surprise.
“Sorry, thought this was—”
A face peered around the platinum blonde’s large chest. For a brief second, it felt as if the splintery floor beneath my feet had given way. I clutched the doorknob tighter to keep upright.
“Lanie.” Hearing the deep, rich voice, still completely familiar after all these years, call me by the nickname made my knees weaken more.
“Excuse me,” I said on a fast breath and spun out of the room.
A girl opened a door at the end of the hallway. I raced toward it. She scooted out of my way with a scowl. I smacked my hands against the door before it shut and slid inside. There were two empty stalls. One girl was just finishing up applying lipstick in a cracked mirror hanging over a stained sink. Before I could catch my breath or slow my heart, cool air ushered into the bathroom as the door swung open.
I didn’t need the shock on the lipstick girl’s face or the size of the shadow looming over me to know that Kellan Braddock had followed me into the women’s restroom.
“You done, Chelsea?” Kellan asked.
The girl pushed her lipstick into her bag and left the bathroom with a disgusted huff.
I wrapped my arms around myself, took a deep breath and turned to face him. Another deeper, more frantic breath followed. He’d filled out. He’d grown up. And I still couldn’t catch a decent breath. The handsome face that I knew by memory was filled with the same intense emotion that had gripped me too.
“Lanie,” he uttered the first word, a repeat of my nickname, the same two syllables that had just about dropped me to my knees in the card room.
I finally managed to loosen my throat enough to speak. “I must have gone through a hundred scenarios about the first time we saw each other again.” My voice wavered but there was nothing I could do, short of sealing my mouth shut, that would iron out the tremble. “But stupidly, the one where you had a woman wrapped around you was not one of them. My ignorance, I suppose. Or maybe a little dose of self-preservation.” I tended to babble on when I was nervous, and I was definitely that. Or maybe I just hadn’t expected to get so shaken from seeing him.
Kellan stepped closer. His throat moved as if he was swallowing back all the words he’d saved for this moment. “Sasha is just a friend.”
“That’s all right. You have nothing to explain.” I looked around at the shabby bathroom. “Guess I wasn’t expecting our first reunion to be here either.” A thick silence followed. We stared at each other as if we were still trying to decide whether the moment was real.
“Sorry to hear about your wedding being called off.” His gaze dropped to the dirty tile floor. His long black lashes reminded me of the younger, less hardened looking Kellan, who I woke up thinking about every morning. He lifted his face, and a glint of that cocksure smile returned. “Who the fuck am I kidding? I’m not sorry at all. Far as I’m concerned, there’s no one good enough for you, Lanie.”
He stepped closer. I took a step back. My bottom smacked into the edge of the sink. “I’m really good at picking men, it seems. Again, you don’t owe me an explanation, and I’ll probably regret admitting this, Kellan, but just know that I wasn’t just heartbroken when I left Bluefield. I was shattered.”
His blue eyes flickered with an intensity that
I couldn’t define. It wasn’t anger or hurt. It was something deeper, more profound. It seemed he badly wanted to tell me something. But he stayed quiet. And I was slightly relieved. I wasn’t looking for any seven-year-old confessions. I was just trying to lift some of the pressure from my heart, a heaviness that had been there for a long time.
“Lanie, the way it ended.” He shook his head. “It’s complicated.”
Two girls were talking animatedly as they pushed open the door. They both looked wide eyed at Kellan.
The petite brunette slid between us. “Damn, Kellan, can’t you two find a back room or something?”
“I’ve got to go.” I pushed past him and out the door. I squeezed through the crowded barroom and caught a glimpse of Becky coming out of the office. Her face flattened some as she saw me coming toward her.
“Shit, Ry, what happened? Too long a line?” Then she caught sight of something behind me. “Oh, never mind. Got it.”
I grabbed her hand but didn’t look back through the bar. I’d seen him. The bandage was off, and the damn wound hadn’t healed at all. He still had no real explanation for breaking my heart. Although, maybe the explanation was more obvious and far less romantic than I’d imagined. Kellan loved women and they loved him. I was certainly not enough to hold his heart. Or anyone’s, for that matter. Chase was proof of that. “Becky, please, I have to get out of here. This was a mistake.”
“All right. I’ll admit you look a lot more shaken than I’d expected.” She gripped my hand tighter, and we navigated the quickest path to the door.
Chapter 9
Kellan
The porch creaked as I walked across it and sat on the top step. Even without turning on the heat, it was warmer inside the cabin, but I’d needed to clear my head. I spent most of my waking hours inside dark, cramped spaces and crowded bars. Sometimes, I craved the wide open space and fresh air like a drug addict craved heroin. And tonight, I’d needed it more than ever. Tonight, my one true temptation, the one craving that could never be satisfied, had returned. And the longing was as fierce as ever. I’d left the poker game and the bar and headed back home, no longer wanting to be around people or music or light. Seeing Rylan had brought back every second of our last night together. Rylan had left town believing that I’d ditched her on the gym roof. My silence afterward had only compounded that conclusion. I’d wanted to tell her, to let her know what had really happened, but I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want her to know the lengths her dad had gone through to make sure I stayed away from his daughter. She loved her dad. It would only break her heart more to know. And it was in the past. No fucking reason to stay in the past, far as I was concerned.
