He leaned back in his seat. Gaps appeared in his shirt where the buttons strained to keep it closed over his stomach. “Sounds like your ex has been whispering in your ear.”
Kyra pushed her drink aside. “I can make up my own mind about things, and right now, I think this dinner is over.” She reached for her purse to get her wallet.
Mike leaned forward. “Come on, girl. We’re just talking. I wasn’t trying to make you get your panties in a wad.”
“Excuse you? I see why we only went on one date in our junior year. You’re very rude.” She tossed a few bills on the table and left. On the way to the door, she passed her server who was carrying another platter of ahi tostadas to Mike’s table. He looked at her in confusion.
“Leaving already?”
“Yes, but I left something for you on the table. Consider it my way of saying how sorry I am for you having to deal with that man. Good night.”
***
Cole stared at Kyra’s shocked face the next day. Her expression was priceless. “You want me to go riding with you?” she asked.
“Why not?” He observed her as she stood in the stables with him, computer tablet in one hand and a pair of horse’s reins in the other. A gentle eight year-old mare was attached to the reins. He personally chose it for Kyra, since he guessed she hadn’t gone riding in a while. “It’s a beautiful morning.”
“It rained all day yesterday,” she pointed out.
Only two things about yesterday stood out to Cole: what happened between him and Kyra, and her subsequent dinner outing with Mike. He’d forgotten about the rain, though it wasn’t an issue, anyhow. “The sun’s out. The ground’s fairly dry. Besides, you’ll be almost six feet off the ground.”
Kyra looked warily at the mare. Her eyes then traveled to the children in the other rows as they participated in various stages of saddling their horses. “I didn’t come to the center to play. I came to finish the last of the paperwork before I file it with city hall.”
“I read the last few pages. They require you to describe several of the children’s recreational activities. How can you do it right if you don’t take part in some of them yourself? You already got your boots on.” Cole noticed, to his delight, that she wore them almost every time she came out to the ranch. He was certain she wore them for practical reasons mostly, but he still liked seeing her in them. Today she had on very fitted jeans and a red and blue plaid shirt. “Like we tell the kids, being dressed properly is the first step. The next is being willing to get on a horse. You ready?”
“No, I’m not ready. I have a tablet in my hands.”
“Oscar can take it to my office for you.” Cole nodded to one of the ranch hands in the stable to approach. “I’m not going to let you stay cooped up in the building while we’re out enjoying the fresh air, Kyra.” He gently lifted her fingers from her prized electronic possession. If she was going to depart with either the reins or the tablet, he was going to make sure it was the item that had to be charged in an electrical outlet. “You might thank me later.”
She petted the horse’s velvety muzzle. “Before or after I’m covered in mosquito bites?”
“Don’t worry. I’m bringing along insect repellant.” Cole handed the tablet off to the ranch hand and went to a nearby stall to get his favorite horse. He lifted the flap of the saddlebag to see if what he put in there ten minutes ago was still inside. Good. He was eager to show it to Kyra.
He led his horse out of the stable. He moved to go inside again to help Kyra, but she did just fine on her own leading the mare outside. She gave him a bashful smile as her eyes darted away from the instructors and the children. “I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but my skinny jeans aren’t exactly the best choice for horseback riding. Think you could give me a boost into the saddle?”
Cole praised the manufacturer of her skinny jeans. He never understood how women could pour themselves into them, but they sure looked good once they had them on, especially Kyra. Her legs created a pair of long sinuous lines. He helped her into the saddle, all the while attempting not to focus on the shape of her body or the fact he was holding onto half of it.
He got on his own horse and waited for the instructors to get the kids moving. Once they were riding several paces ahead, he nudged his horse forward. “You remember the basics?” he asked Kyra.
“A little too late to be asking me, don’t you think?” She mimicked his movement in order to make her horse go forward. She soon caught up to him.
“You remember. See? You’re a natural.”
“You’re just flattering me so I’ll leave a good description on the paperwork,” she teased.
“If I wanted to be dishonest, I’d have thrown my money at the downtown lawyers.”
She shook her head playfully. “We’ve got to work on your attitude towards attorneys.”
“Being around you helps.”
A faint plum blush appeared on the tops of her cheeks. “You can’t always rely on me. I won’t be around for much longer. The realtor comes to the house next week to put up the sign.”
Cole didn’t want to hear about the house being put up for sale. It meant she would be leaving Misty Mesa again. Even though he knew her departure was close at hand, he wanted to make the most of the time they had remaining. It was one of the reasons why he wanted her to go horseback riding with him. The other reason sat nestled within the confines of his saddlebag.
They rode for ten minutes in silence. He allowed Kyra to observe the children riding ahead of them and to watch how the instructors guided them along the trail. It was necessary for her to see how the instructors taught the kids basic riding skills.
Kyra was the one who broke the silence between them. “I came home last night and noticed the porch swing was fixed.”
“I don’t like leaving things unfinished. After I cooled down, I turned the truck around to go back to your house.”
She looked at him from the side of her eye. He could tell she felt awkward about last night. He did, too. “Thank you. You know I wouldn’t have asked you to do it.”
“That’s why I returned. You hardly ever ask for help.”
“I let you help me into the saddle, didn’t I?”
“Only because you couldn’t find a stepstool in sight.”
She put a finger over her lips to hide the curve of her smile. “You know, Cole, I’d reach over and pinch you if I wasn’t worried about falling out of my saddle.”
Cole let the group get several more paces ahead of them. “So how was dinner last night?” His question elicited a groan from Kyra. “That bad?” He couldn’t say he wasn’t a little pleased to hear things didn’t go so well. “What did Mike do wrong?”
“You might have told me he was keenly interested in buying the youth center from you. It’s all he talked about besides how bad he thought the town was because people weren’t investing in megastores and nightclubs.”
“He said all of this over dinner?”
“No, over half a glass of wine. I left before I finished my appetizer. Like my mother would say, the man was ‘too much rude’.”
Cole laughed. “I always liked your mom. She was often caught off guard when she saw me driving you home in my pickup, but she smiled and frequently asked if I wanted to stay for dinner.”
Kyra looked down at the reins in her hands. “She did like you. So did my father. I wish I left a better impression with your parents. I know how things must have looked to them, watching their son go out with a party girl every Friday night.”
“We were both rebellious teenagers.”
She lifted up her gaze and sent him a polite smile. “You don’t have to cover for my old behavior. I did a lot of things in those days I’m not proud of. If I were a parent…” her voice trailed. She cleared her throat. “Well, if I had been in your parents’ place, I’d probably feel the exact same way they did.”
“But you don’t know how they felt. I want to show you something.” He stopped his horse.
&
nbsp; Kyra pulled on the reins to get her mare to stop walking. “We’re going to be left behind.”
“We’ll catch up. This is more important.” He reached into the saddlebag for a white envelope. The edges were slightly yellowed from age. He handed it to Kyra. “There’s a letter inside. My mother wrote it to me six months after I went off to Georgia Tech.”
Kyra removed the letter from the envelope and read it. Her eyes zipped left and right across the words in faded black ink. Then he saw her slow her pace. Her gaze rested in one spot for a while. “Your mother writes, ‘I’m sorry you and Kyra are no longer together. Your father and I knew nothing about the circumstances surrounding her recent decision to leave town. We thought she was a nice girl, and we saw her beginning to mature. You were maturing, too. Our hope was for you both to continue in that direction together. If you speak to Kyra, please ask her to accept our apologies for making her feel uncomfortable. We were wrong. We see how you two once felt about each other. We want you and her to have the best.’” Kyra blinked and read it over again silently, her lips mouthing a word or two every now and then.
Cole rested his hands on the pommel of the saddle. “You can see how my mother was stern even in her letters, but she wasn’t a liar. She meant every positive word in there about you.”
“I…maybe so. Maybe she did. It makes me feel better.” Kyra was fumbling for words. Cole wanted to know how she really felt. Was it a bad idea to let her read the letter?
She folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. She handed it to him. “How sweet of her to write you a letter while you were in college. It’s more personal than an email.”
Cole shook his head. “No, Kyra. My mother wasn’t writing letters to me because she preferred them over emails. I wasn’t speaking to my parents at the time. I was angry at them.”
She blinked. “For what?”
“I thought they were the reason why you stopped seeing me and wouldn’t return my calls. I thought it was about the baby, that they may have convinced you to…” He couldn’t say it.
“Convinced me to do what?” She pressed him to finish his sentence.
He didn’t want to finish the sentence. It still pained him to utter the words to describe what took place right after he left home. “To go through with it.”
***
Kyra’s lips parted. She sat frozen in the saddle as she stared at Cole. The warm sun hit her back but she felt chilled to the bone. Of all the things she expected to experience today on the ranch, this was by far the very last one. The old pain of her loss and the damaging rumors of abortion returned full force, seizing her lungs and wrapping around her throat. She drew a ragged breath to speak. “You lied to me, Cole. You told me you weren’t living in the past anymore, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. It’s all everyone in this town wants to do whenever they run into me.”
“Kyra, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I believe you do understand me, or at least you can see the pain I’m going through.” She felt the tears sting behind her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. Not now, not after what he said. The old rumors had more sway over him than anything happening in the present. He still acted and based his communication with her on them. “It’s been ten years. I’m tired of living with this shadow hanging over my head.” She tugged on one of the reins to make her horse turn around.
“Wait.” Cole reached out his hand.
“No. Please don’t try to stop me. I’m going home to finish the paperwork. It’ll be filed for you first thing on Monday morning. Then you and I won’t have anything more to say to each other.”
She turned the horse for the stables, refusing to look over her shoulder at Cole.
Chapter 7
Kyra glanced at the multiple missed calls on her phone. Cole tried to contact her Saturday night and again on Sunday. She listened to two of Cole’s voicemails asking her to return his calls. “Kyra, I’m sorry. We had a misunderstanding. I want to straighten this out. Give me a call when you get this.” On Sunday night, she fought the urge to hit the “call back” option on the touchscreen.
No, she told herself firmly while she went into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of instant coffee. She didn’t want to speak to Cole, but it had little to do with reading his mother’s letter. It had mostly to do with him and why he thought it was a good idea to mention her past pregnancy.
They had been getting along well since she first came to town. Maybe a little too well, as she allowed herself to rekindle her old feelings for him. But did those feelings ever truly go away? Kyra studied the area in front of the kitchen sink where she and Cole acted on their feelings. Those few moments of stolen kisses came very easily, as though their decade apart only served to heighten their need for each other.
Perhaps those kisses were exactly what made Cole want to pick up right where they left off. He needed to talk about the baby who never got to see the light of day. He needed closure.
A deep sadness washed over Kyra. And maybe, just maybe, closure was all Cole ever wanted. She poured the mediocre-tasting coffee down the sink. Tomorrow after she went down to city hall and filed the youth center’s accreditation paperwork, it would all be over. She could meet with the realtor, get the For Sale sign on the front lawn, and be out of town that same week
But what place was there for her to go? She didn’t have a job waiting for her in Chicago, no real friends. Most of the people in her social circle were those she met through networking for the firm. News of the scandal reached the local Chicago media last week, and not one person called to ask how she was doing. They wanted to distance themselves from her as much as possible so her mess couldn’t get on their fancy Italian leather shoes.
Kyra motioned her head in bitterness. “The more things change…”
She had to rebuild her life from scratch. Once again, she struggled with learning where to start.
***
City hall opened at nine sharp in the morning. After a quick trip to a public notary at the bank, Kyra walked into the city hall building and waited to go through security check. Once cleared, she carried her shoulder bag past the guards and went forward to the clerk’s office.
“I’m filing paperwork for the McCrea Youth Arts Center,” she informed the male clerk at the desk. He held up his index finger to signal for her to give him one minute. It was three before he looked up from the computer.
“Sorry. Had to enter something into the record system. Who’d you say you the file was from?”
“McCrea Youth Arts Center,” Kyra repeated. She set the stack of papers on the desk. “I’m the attorney who prepared it for them. I already sent the electronic file. This is the hard copy for your records. Everything’s signed and notarized.”
The clerk rubbed his eyes, slightly red from strain. “Did you go to Crestfield High?”
Kyra nodded, now used to being stopped and asked the same question over and over. “I’m Kyra Grayson. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you.”
“Name’s Seth Rockne. I had history class with you senior year.”
“Hi, Seth. You’ll have to excuse my bad memory. That class was at first period, and I slept through it almost every day of the school year.”
Seth laughed. “You said you’re a lawyer? Wow, I didn’t see that coming.”
Kyra took the high road and made light of his unintentionally offensive remark. “Neither did I. Funny how the world works, isn’t it?”
“Sure is.” He stamped the documents and scribbled something at the top. “I’ll put this into the system. The youth center should receive a notification from the county in about a week.”
Kyra thanked him and turned to leave. She saw a red-haired woman standing behind her, dressed in a short-sleeved dress, also toting a stack of papers in her arms. “Hi, Kyra, I’m Amy Nestler. I also went to Crestfield. You mind hanging around for a few minutes after I file these registration papers? I’d love to chat with you.”
“I’
ll be outside in the hallway.” Kyra walked out of the clerk’s office and waited by the door, where she tried to search her mind for any memories of the woman named Amy. A very vague image formed in her head of a teen version of her, decked out in black leather, dark lipstick, and several tattoos. Her hair was another color at the time. It was very dark brown or black, as Kyra recalled. Was the conservatively dressed woman inside the clerk’s office the same Amy?
The woman came out in the hallway, and Kyra got the answer to her unspoken question. She caught a glimpse of ink on Amy’s right arm when Amy lifted it to wave to her.
“I love it when I see people from my old high school,” the woman said. “I thought when my family moved to Lubbock in my junior year, I’d never see anyone from Misty Mesa again, but here I am.”
“It has been a long time, hasn’t it? Didn’t you used to have black hair?”
Amy nodded. “I had to nix the dye. The chemicals were frying my hair. Besides, tatted-up arms, raven locks, and goth lipstick don’t make the greatest impressions on a small-town jury when you present a case in court. I figured if I had to part with one of my signature looks, it’d be the hair. So I’m sweet little Amy Carrot Top.” Amy mimicked the accent of a southern belle. “With a heart and flames tattoo across my shoulders.”
Kyra smiled. “You’ve got a strong personality. The courtrooms need more women like you.”
“And you. I heard you tell Seth you were an attorney. You and I didn’t run with the same crowd in school, but from a distance, I could tell you were pretty feisty.”
Kyra grinned. “Thanks, but I was, you know, that girl.”
Amy shook her head in bewilderment. Then she patted the front portion of her coif, coiled and pinned in a World War II-esque victory roll. “What do you mean?” The two of them began walking out of city hall.
My Heart Lingers (A Hearts of Misty Mesa Story): BWWM Interracial Romance Page 6
