by Cara Colter
"There is a God," he muttered, and took it out. He lifted the lid, and inspected the intricate and frosty crystals that had formed on the surface. He knew trying it was the act of a desperate man, but he got a spoon, and hazarded chipping into the ice cream. He tasted, paused, smiled.
He wandered into his living room and sat on the sofa. It was expensive black leather, not particularly comfortable. Tonight it felt cold to lean his bare back against it. He had a chrome and glass coffee table, which he put his feet up on.
"Decorations by Harley," he decided, looking around critically. Maybe he hadn't ever really put his penchant for motorcycles behind him. This was what being tired did—made a man's mind go places it didn't generally go.
And tonight his apartment seemed to him a lonely place. Without personality and without soul.
Not to mention cold.
Abruptly, he got up, feeling as if he was being pulled by a magnet. He went down the narrow stairs to the office below. There was only ash left from Holly's fire, so he carefully rebuilt it, enjoying the ritual of shaving kindling, lighting the match, blowing the embers to life, feeding in progressively larger wood. He liked his fires man-sized, not like those little piddly things she lit.
By the time he had the fire roaring, his ice cream was nearly melted, but he settled himself on her sofa, the afghan over it warming his bare back, and sighed with something that dangerously approached contentment. It was cozy down here.
But difficult as hell not to think about her when it was all her little touches that made this room so much nicer than the one directly above it.
The truth was he couldn't believe Holly Lamb had told him she'd think about allowing him to escort her to the Coltons' dance. That was almost a no.
From her. Miss Mousey.
What had he expected? The truth? He'd expected her to fall all over herself saying yes, because that's what women, in his experience, did.
Women with a hell of a lot more on the go than her. Looks. Sophistication. Polish. Great bodies.
He did not look at this assessment in the light of being conceited, it was just his experience of reality. He asked women out, they said yes. Women liked him. Beautiful women liked him. It had driven his roommates in college crazy, before they'd begun to twist it to their advantage.
"Invite Fallon along. He's a babe magnet. Great leftovers."
He'd come to take it somewhat for granted. Sometimes it even irritated him, how persistent some women could be once he'd shown the tiniest bit of interest.
The truth was that Blake always harbored the thought that the interest of the coeds would have waned fairly quickly if they'd known the whole story. If they'd had any idea how often, before his sixteenth birthday, he'd had his hands cuffed behind his back.
Only Joe and Meredith, and a few really good friends like Rafe knew. Rory now, too, since he had run a mandatory background check on all the staff at the ranch when the water system had been contaminated.
Rory had been amazed. "Mr. Straight-A-don't-leave-the-hair-in-the-hairbrush-in-my-bathroom stole motorcycles? Who would have guessed?"
"Believe it or not," Blake had said drily, "those experiences have helped me do my job here a hell of a lot more than the MBA."
But something must have flickered in his face, because Rory had added hastily, "Don't worry. It's a juvenile record. It's sealed."
Of course, it had come unsealed quickly enough when the FBI wanted it.
No sir, Blake hadn't let any of that side of himself show at college. Not even to his roommate. He didn't even drink, for fear that that wild side was just waiting to get back out, betray those who had taken a chance and believed in him.
He let some of it show now, on select occasions, when he used his own dark history to get past the defenses of kids who knew some of those same feelings: the dread of hearing those words: "Get your hands up where I can see them." Or "Get on your face now." Or "Up against the wall. Spread 'em." Kids who knew the feeling of manacles too tight, the pat-down, the lonely, hopeless click of the cell door locking.
Once, when he'd been about fifteen, he'd taken a stolen bike on a wild ride up the coast, and made it all the way to Washington State before he got caught. On probation already, he'd been flown back to California under escort on a regularly scheduled commercial flight. He still felt sick when he thought of the look on the stewardess's face, the young mother across the aisle keeping her wide-eyed toddler away from him, the indifference of the sheriff who wouldn't even remove the cuffs to let him eat the meal. His first time ever in an airplane. Scared and defiant and humiliated.
Once you had those kinds of experiences, they were a part of you forever.
No, the girls who had followed him around campus, and phoned him and fallen all over themselves to say yes if he asked them to go for a coffee, or a game of pool, or anything else, hadn't ever suspected that side of him. No, instead they'd actually looked at him with their dreams of picket fences and golden retrievers and strollers dancing in their eyes.
For some reason, his mind went directly to Holly. He thought of coming into the office to find her holding that boy today. A boy who looked like he hadn't had a bath in a few weeks and who had just finished holding a knife to her throat. Loving him anyway. Seeing his heart. Not the least bit concerned about that boy's past.
Of course, she was not in the same league as the kind of girls who had chased him around campus. She was that fade-into-the-background kind of girl. The kind that hid in the study carrels at the library and walked around with huge stacks of books covering her chest. No form-fitting sweaters, cute little skirts that twitched when she walked, no practiced coy looks, or pouting lips. No skipping classes to ride around in patched-together convertibles, no getting a little tipsy and giggly as those first beers passed over virgin lips.
Virgin lips.
Now he was wondering, very inappropriately, if she was a virgin.
Was he suddenly intrigued by his little secretary because she was the first woman he could ever remember not falling all over herself to say yes to him?
Oh, no, she who looked like she had never been on a date in her entire life had looked him up and down coolly and said with great composure, she would think about going out with him. What was her expectation? That tomorrow he was going to ask her if she'd thought about it and what her answer was? That he was going to beg her? That he was going to think of nothing else until he had her answer?
The sad truth was he hadn't been thinking of much else.
Maybe she preferred nerds.
Was that a possibility? That a nerd could be preferred over him? Someone like the little banker who had just moved into town? Glasses, bow tie, three-piece suits, polished black shoes.
No memories of cell doors closing, of course.
He was crumpling his empty Häagen-Dazs container in his bare hands, crushing it actually. The container had really done nothing to deserve such violence. He threw it in the fire and watched morosely as it took flame.
Not that she'd been a complete Miss Mouse this afternoon. When the anger had flashed in her eyes, he had realized they were the most astonishing shade of green. He'd realized, behind those glasses, her eyes were large and shaped like almonds. He'd realized—
Every muscle in his body bunched up as he heard the handle on the outer door tried.
He froze for a second, and then leapt panther-light to his feet. He hoped it was whoever had poisoned the water. He hoped to God it was. He had a lot of frustration built up inside of him, and it had been a long, long time since he had been in a situation where it would be socially acceptable to vent a bit of it by crashing his fist into a face.
The door swung open, and he didn't know which of them was more surprised.
"Oh," Holly said, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was you. I saw the fire flickering from my window, and I thought I better come check. You know, I thought whoever poisoned the water might be in here—"
"So you just flew right over to check? By yourself?"<
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Her hair was down. He'd never seen it down before. It was long and smooth and touched her shoulders. In the firelight, it looked like honey in a jar, with sun streaming through it.
It was almost enough to diffuse the annoyance he felt with her. Still he had to ask. "What the hell did you think you were going to do if you had come across an arsonist lighting the place on fire?"
"Oh, you know," she said, "after you've wrestled a knife from a junior assailant you feel ready for anything."
The remark totally disarmed him.
Then, from behind her back, she pulled a baseball bat. It was so incongruous, the thought of her going after anyone with a bat, that he laughed. And then she laughed, too.
Their eyes met and held, but she looked away first.
"Well, good night," she said, and turned swiftly back into the night.
"Wait, Holly, come in for a second."
She stopped, threw him a questioning look over her shoulder.
"Uh, I just wondered if you were having trouble sleeping."
She held his gaze, and took one small step back into the room. What was so different about her? The hair, of course, but something else.
"A bit," she admitted. "The ranch seems so empty, so wrong, somehow. Everything feels spooky. And I can't figure out if I'm being paranoid when every snapping twig seems like a bogeyman, or if I'm being realistic. Somehow I needed to come over here and face my fear, instead of shivering, terrified, behind the door in my cabin."
He hadn't thought of her being frightened on the empty ranch at night. In the office she seemed so competent, so in control. It occurred to him maybe he should have thought that a woman by herself in the vicinity where a despicable crime had been committed—a crime that could have easily killed many, many people—would most likely be afraid. Terrified.
"Maybe you should move to town."
She looked offended.
"Do you want some cocoa?" he asked, suddenly Mr. Sensitive. Better late than never.
She hesitated, while he wondered what the hell he was doing. He had just told Joe this afternoon that his behavior had to be exemplary in every way. He doubted if that included entertaining a woman who worked for him, who was under his authority, in front of his fire after midnight. When he was bare-chested, and the top snap of his jeans undone.
Trying not to draw attention to himself, relying on the dimness of the room, he reached down and snapped the rivet shut. Naturally, it sounded like a gun going off.
Was she blushing? Was there anyone left in this world who was that innocent? It was really hard to tell, since the light from the fire flickered and leapt and died and then leapt again. He bet she was a virgin.
Still, he excused himself, he'd offered her cocoa. That was quite different than offering her coffee spiked with Kahlua or a shot of Jack Daniels. His plan was to offer her a bit of company and comfort, not to seduce her.
"Sure," she said after a moment, "a cup of cocoa would be nice."
Having put forward the invitation, he suddenly wondered if he had cocoa, and doubted it. He suspected she'd read his mind, because a small smile played across her lips.
"I'll just run across to the kitchen building and get some," he said.
"There's hot chocolate here. I keep it for the kids. Do you want me to put the kettle on, while you, um, go find a shirt?"
She was embarrassed that he didn't have a shirt on, which he supposed was ample evidence there were people left who were that innocent.
She moved into the room, avoiding looking at his naked chest, and he realized what was so different about her tonight. She was wearing blue jeans, not a skirt. And a red sweatshirt that had the Hopechest letters and logo emblazoned across the front of it.
He had always hated the name Hopechest for the ranch. He thought it far too feminine, and didn't like the picture that formed in his mind of an eager young woman stacking linens and ornaments and china in a chest, her head full of completely unrealistic and romantic notions.
He thought the kind of kids who wound up here had a different take on life than that. Radically different.
But the name was historical, given to the ranch by the first blushing bride who had lived here in the late eighteen hundreds. And who had probably died of cholera or in childbirth or something equally gritty.
Still, history was history, and the Board had unanimously vetoed his suggestion to rename the ranch the Hopechest Ranch, even though he had so persuasively pointed out it would only mean a change in one letter, and he didn't mind doing it by hand on his own business cards and stationery.
It was Holly who had changed his mind about the name.
He'd been mumbling his various complaints and dissatisfactions about it one day, and she had stopped him short.
"It's a perfect name," she'd said firmly. "A hope chest isn't just about getting married. It's about hopes and dreams and a belief in the future. A good future. It's about beginning to put the things away that you need to make that future become a reality. Isn't that exactly what this ranch is about? Teaching these kids the skills they need so that they can believe in the future, begin to harbor hopes and dreams for themselves that they never dared to harbor before?"
And he'd had no answer, and found himself not minding the name so much since then.
Now, seeing it emblazoned across her chest, it seemed like it could be given another twist on hope, altogether. He was sure his prim secretary would have slapped his face if he'd shared that with her. The sweatshirt, the little bow from her pajamas peeking over the V, showed him the surprising fact that Holly Lamb was quite curvy.
The jeans, too, hugged her slender legs and caressed the curve of a thigh and hip he had never noticed before. She turned at the fire and bent over it, picked up the poker.
Now how had she managed to hide that asset from him for eight months? Somehow he reined in his thoughts and headed up his stairs at a dead gallop.
When he came back down, she was curled up on the couch, her feet tucked under her, her hands wrapped around a mug, gazing at the fire.
"Your hot chocolate is over here," she said, gesturing toward the end table on the other side of the sofa.
One couch. Two of them. Perhaps it would be safer to sit in one of the wing chairs that flanked the fireplace. But his mind refused to process the directive. It was preoccupied by the question of her innocence or lack thereof.
He sat down on the other end of the couch, and made himself look at the fire instead of her. Mostly. Every now and then he'd take a quick peek.
No glasses tonight. Was that an incredible cheekbone or a trick of light? And how could her eyes be gold? This afternoon he'd sworn they were green.
"How come you can't sleep?" she asked.
"I've had problems with insomnia ever since it happened. The water. I lie awake at night and torture myself with what-ifs. What if I had reacted more slowly? More quickly? What if I caught whoever did it? What if I don't catch whoever did it?"
She just nodded. She didn't try to solve it. She didn't giggle or toss her hair over her shoulder. She just was.
And he realized, suddenly, he didn't feel as lonely as he had ten minutes ago.
"Have you thought about going to the dance?" he heard himself asking. No, it couldn't be him. He had vowed he wasn't saying one more word about that stupid dance. Vowed.
She turned and looked at him, full in the face.
It was the firelight that had made him ask again, he realized. It was playing all kinds of tricks with her plain features, playing tricks with his mind.
"Yes," she said.
He ordered himself not to pursue it. Let her come to him. His mind mutinied, disobeyed his orders blithely. "Yes, you've thought about it, or yes, you are going to go with me?"
She looked back at the fire. She looked very composed. For a minute he thought she was going to make him pursue it again.
But then he saw the small pulse beating in the hollow of her throat, and it reminded him of a frightened rabbit.
He knew frightened things. He knew one false move and they bounded away. He sat very still.
She said, finally, "Both. Yes to both."
And he felt the oddest sensation—happiness.
Five
Holly looked at the document she was keying with dismay. She, the world's most notorious perfectionist, was making mistakes. All kinds of mistakes. Two names jumped out at her that were spelled incorrectly. In paragraph four she had transposed numbers. She never transposed numbers.
Of course, the typos were the least of her errors, easily wiped out with a quick backspace or delete.
Her other mistakes were less easy to fix.
Starting with the mistake of asking her mother for a little help in the makeup department. She'd told her mother she would take the weekend and go there, to her mother's upscale condo in San Francisco, but the rapidity with which that offer was refused clued Holly in that there was probably a new man in residence. She could just guess: graying hair, distinguished fit and, of course, fabulously wealthy.
Totally unaware that her youthful-looking mother had a twenty-seven-year-old daughter.
And under all that polish he'd be a jerk, just like the last one. And the one before that. He'd have a secret penchant for the bottle, or a mistress stashed in every major city across the U.S.A. and Canada.
Now, because of that teeny mistake—asking her mother for help—her mother was coming here for the weekend, arriving tomorrow, Saturday, morning.
Here. Where she'd laugh at Holly's cabin, sneeze at her cat, make embarrassing eyes at Blake if he had the misfortune to be around, and worst of all endlessly bemoan the bone structure and looks that Holly had not inherited from her.
What moment of insanity had made her call her mother? Oh, yes. Looking at the makeup job she had attempted on herself, in preparation for saying yes, as if Blake Fallon had asked her to marry him, and not to a simple dance. That "yes" was another in the chain of mistakes that she was not able to fix.
But while her mother might be a pain, when it came down to it, Rose Lamb Jones Andover Bennet knew everything there was to know about making a woman look beautiful. Even if that woman was the daughter she had called Plain Jane to her face all her life.
