by Amelia Rose
“That’s what I told him,” Alyssa said as she took the menu from him. She was smiling again, and he joined in as Melissa stepped out from behind the counter and led them to the back of the room. “In fact,” she continued, “I never would have even found this place if it weren’t for Woody. This is a really neat set up you have here.”
“Here’s your regular table.” Melissa said motioning to the table that was closest to the kitchen door. And then she turned to Alyssa and flashed a thousand watt smile, “And thank you! I really wanted to do something completely different with my restaurant so I decided to combine the idea of home cooking with a traditional café.” She looked at Woody and slapped him on the shoulder. “Most of the locals thought I was crazy, but it’s worked out well enough!”
Someone else walked in the door, and Melissa excused herself to see to them. As soon as she was gone and they had ordered, Alyssa set in on him with the questions.
“What happened? How did he find her? Is everything okay?” she asked in rapid fire succession. He could tell by the pinched look on her face that she had been holding back as long as she could. If the situation weren’t so serious he might have chuckled a little at her outburst.
“This is the story as I understand it,” Woody started. “I’m sure you know more about the beginning than I do, so why don’t you fill me in on that, and I will tell you what happened afterward.”
Alyssa studied him for a moment and then nodded her approval, letting out her breath in one long sigh before beginning.
“Clara has a stalker. She doesn’t know who he is, she’s never seen him. He has been playing a game of cat and mouse with her for months, shutting off her electricity and freezing her bank accounts. It had started getting more and more personal, and that’s why she was heading to my house. I’m someone so far in her past that he shouldn’t know about me. Plus, I don’t have much connection with the outside world since I’m one of those ‘reclusive writer types’ so we thought she might be able to stay there off the grid and start to get her life back together.”
When she spoke, she moved her hands through the air and he noticed that there was a slight indention on her ring finger where a ring had recently sat. Although he tucked this information away for later, he decided not to bring it up now.
“Clara was on her way to your house then when her radiator in that old truck blew up?” he asked.
“Yes. The truck was her brother’s. She was hoping it would make this trip without any problems, but I guess it was just too much to ask of the old thing.”
“It almost made it, and that’s saying something for a truck with that many years and that many miles on it,” Woody replied proudly.
“I guess so,” Alyssa answered. “Now it’s your turn. Spill.”
“Well my brother Shad is the one who found Clara on the side of the road and he brought her truck in to get it fixed up,” Woody started. “Since it was on a weekend, he offered her the use of one of the farmhand apartments.”
“Okay, so that was on Friday?” she asked.
“Late Friday night,” Woody reciprocated. “Then a freak electrical storm came through on Saturday and knocked out the power. The guy came in posing as an electric company worker and tried to kidnap Clara. Shad stopped him and our sister Melinda arrested him.”
“That’s a very simplistic view of what happened,” Alyssa answered dryly.
“I’m a pretty simplistic guy,” admitted Woody. “If you worry too much about the details, you’ll end up getting lost in them. All I needed to know was that they were safe. The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of everything else doesn’t seem to matter.”
“I don’t think I have ever looked at life that way before, “ Alyssa said as her blue eyes looked at him with a haunted edge to them. He knew from experience that there was a sense of loss and conflict there which had lasted for years. There was a moment of silence while the waiter set their food down.
When they were once again alone at the table, Woody continued his thoughts. “If you worry your whole life about the big picture, I think you miss everything else that’s going on around you. Right now, this moment is king.”
“I like that…” she said before they started eating.
*
As soon as lunch was finished, Woody drove Alyssa out to the farm where she got to see Clara for the first time in years. When the Volkswagen pulled up in the driveway, Alyssa spotted a blonde woman running down the dirt path to greet them. Alyssa had expected someone a lot less exuberant. However, the woman who was running at her was fresh faced and happy.
“Alyssa!” Clara exclaimed as she threw open the door to the Thing and pulled Alyssa into a tight hug before the car had even stopped rolling. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Same here,” Alyssa told her, pulling back from the hug to look into her friend’s face. “I gotta say though, Stanhope agrees with you.”
Clara reached up and pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at the same time. “Really?”
At that moment a taller version of Woody stepped up behind Clara and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Shad, Woody’s brother. I’m glad that you found his shop safely.”
Then he put his hand on Clara’s shoulder and looked into her eyes with such a tender look that a warm blush instantly colored Clara’s cheeks. Alyssa knew then that it wasn’t the town that had been good to her, but rather this man who had put a smile on her face.
“Yeah, although I’m sure that my sneaking in and accosting him about Clara probably wasn’t what she had in mind when she sent me the letter,” Alyssa replied, smiling as Woody rounded the front of the car to join in on the conversation.
“Ah, that was nothing. You were just worried.” Woody said as they started walking back to the house.
“It sounds like I had a right to be,” Alyssa said turning to look at Clara. “Are you okay?”
“I’m much better now that I know he’s safely behind bars. He has a name and a face now, something I can combat instead of just swinging at shadows.”
Alyssa nodded. She understood completely how relieved Clara must feel to be able to put a face to her fears. Right after the car accident she didn’t know who had caused the wreck that had taken her husband and son from her because they had left the scene. When the police did find them, it was so hard to see that the monster she had hated blindly for months, the demon whose unknown face haunted her waking and restless nights, was nothing more than a middle aged soccer mom who had ran a red light because she was too busy trying to text and drive.
She also knew having someone to blame did not always make it easier to fight, but that was a different story. A hand rested on her shoulder, causing Alyssa to jump a little. She looked up to see that Clara was studying her. “Are you okay?”
Alyssa forced a smile. “Me? I’m fine. You guys are the two who were attacked,” She said as she looked over at Shad and the bruises that had darkened his arms and cheek.
Clara looked at her knowingly, but then decided not to pursue the conversation any longer.
Just then a large black and white SUV pulled up in the driveway with the words “Sheriff” written on the side. A woman got out and started to walk over to them. She had the same sharp eyes and strong jaw line as her brothers, but on her it looked beautiful. Not even having her dark auburn hair pulled back into a severe bun could lessen how stunning she was.
“How are you guys doing today?” she asked as she approached Clara and Shad. For a moment, Alyssa had the distinct impression that Melinda was ignoring her on purpose and then judging her reaction.
“We’re doing well, Melinda,” Shad told her and then immediately turned to Alyssa. “Have you met Clara’s childhood friend, Alyssa yet?”
Melinda turned her gaze on Alyssa, and she felt the weight of its judgment. After a moment she answered. “No, I haven’t. Hello, Alyssa. Sorry that you had to come to Stanhope on such a bad note.” When she extended her hand, Alyssa took it in her own and made sure to
return a firm grip. When she did Melinda smiled in response. She may have just met Melinda, but one thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t ever want to be on her bad side.
“Do you feel ready to give your formal statement?” Melinda asked, turning back to Shad and Clara.
“Yeah,” Shad said, “I want to get this over with.”
“It would probably be good to move this inside then.” Melinda told them. When they went to go inside Woody put his hand on the small of Alyssa’s back, and she felt the heat and electricity pour out of him even through the fabric. Before she realized what she was doing she found herself leaning back into his hand as they walked up the stairs and into the house.
Chapter 3
It had been a long day by the time Woody led Alyssa into the Slice and Suds. Even though he had heard about the things that the stalker had done to Clara, he hadn’t realized the extent of what that had meant to her life.
They went to a corner booth away from a lot of the noise. After Woody ordered a pitcher of beer and a pizza, he turned to Alyssa.
“I don’t think I realized how much of our lives are susceptible to hacking,” admitted Woody. “Hearing what that guy did, makes me want to completely disconnect from the outside world.”
“Aren’t you already?” Alyssa asked.
Woody thought about that for a moment and then laughed. “That’s very true. If I had a problem with my electric bill I could just go downtown and straighten it out. I’m not a nameless person. That can be good or bad depending on your point of view.”
“Bad?” Alyssa asked as she poured her first cup of beer.
“Yeah, “Woody confided. “If you’re a teenager trying not to get caught doing something you shouldn’t, it can be a bad thing.” He smiled and leaned over the table when he spoke as if he were unveiling a great secret to her. When he did that, she took a deep breath, his cologne lingering in her nostrils causing her stomach to clench with an unexpected surge of desire. She fought that urge down and leaned back in her chair.
To cover her uneasiness, Alyssa barked out a quick loud laugh that was so loud a few people turned back to look at them. Woody started laughing as well.
“I hadn’t even thought of it that way.” Alyssa mused. There was a twinkle in her eyes when she said this, and he found himself going out of his way to make her smile even more. Before he realized it, he was telling her stories of the three of them when they were growing up and getting into all kinds of trouble.
“…and then Shad bet Melinda that she and her friends couldn’t catch the mare and ride her bareback in the pasture in the middle of the night.” He was mid-story when they polished off the first pitcher of beer and he motioned to the server to order another one.
“Did they?” she asked, her eyebrow elevated in curiosity as she leaned over the table.
“Well, Melinda wasn’t about to give up without a fight, so she and her friends went out into the pasture and waited by the fence. The mare kept circling closer and closer, but they could never coax her all the way to them.” He poured them both another glass of beer before continuing. “But instead of giving up, she launched herself from the fence onto the mare’s back at a distance of about ten feet.”
“So she made the bet?”
“Technically, I guess.” He answered cryptically.
“Technically?” Alyssa turned her head slightly while shooting him a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”
“Melinda did manage to cling onto the old mare for thirty seconds, which was the time on the original bet. However, when she fell off she landed on some rocks and cacti and had to be taken to the hospital.”
“Oh that’s horrible!” Alyssa exclaimed. “Was she okay?”
“Yeah, she broke her leg, but it was nothing that could keep Melinda down. No, what was worse was the trouble Shad got into when Dad found out what happened.”
“He probably caught a lot of slack for being the older brother.” Alyssa observed. She thought about how lonely her childhood without siblings had been by comparison. There was Clara’s family, but it wasn’t the same. There was no one there to lean on, depend on, or get in trouble with. She had longed for a big family for as long as she could remember.
Woody smiled a little. “He did. But he also did a lot for us since Mom was gone and Dad was always working the farm.”
“Where was your mom?” Alyssa asked.
“She died.” He answered, and the openness and smile that had been on his face a moment before suddenly tightened and the corners of his lips dropped.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have intruded.” When she spoke he saw that she started rubbing her thumb along the indentation in her ring finger. Her discomfort in the situation translating immediately to her need to instinctively reach for comfort from her missing ring.
“It’s not a problem. It happened a long time ago.” He gulped down the last of his beer and poured another.
He had almost told her that he had been the reason his mom died, that she hadn’t been able to survive his birth and that in order for him to live she had to die. These were the thoughts that haunted him, the ones that he had never given voice to, not even to Shad. Now, however, he found himself wanting to tell this woman whom he’d only met this morning about his mother’s death. Instead he found himself searching for a way to change the subject.
“Do you play pool?” he asked as he looked across the room and realized that one of the tables was open.
She smiled and looked over her shoulder. “I played some when I was younger.”
Woody stood up and helped Alyssa out of her seat. He had never been able to resist a woman who knew her way around a pool table.
While he was setting up the balls in the rack she rounded the edge of the table and chalked up her cue. “You do know your way around the table.” He commented as he took the chalk from her, his fingers resting calmly in her palm for a moment before he rounded the table. “Your break,” he told her.
Alyssa flipped her hair over her shoulder, leaned down over the table, and sank two solids on the break.
Woody smiled at her, relieved to see her finally beginning to break out of her shell.
*
Three games of pool later, they were walking across the parking lot. Alyssa stumbled on the pavement and started to trip when Woody reached out and steadied her with a hand against her shoulders.
“My car’s still at your shop,” she told him, giggling as he opened the door to the car. He’d pretty much stopped drinking when they’d started playing pool, but she hadn’t. She had been torn between the fact that she really liked spending time with Woody, and the guilt she felt for forgetting about Kyle.
Now, even though the night was winding down and they were leaving the bar, she found that she didn’t want to let this moment go. It was most likely the beer that was clouding her judgment, but she didn’t want to wake up tomorrow to be the same old Alyssa. Tonight she felt different, tonight she felt alive. She was determined to hold onto that as long as she could.
“I was just going to take you to the farm,” Woody stated. “Clara said they had a room set up for you to stay in.” He told her as he helped her up into the seat. His arm was warm against her skin, and she felt her flesh light up under his touch as she snuggled down into him.
When he turned around to help her up into the seat, she found herself looking deep into his eyes. They were dark green in the moonlight, but she could sense that there were secrets there that were as haunted as her own. She suddenly wanted to once again share her life with someone, to experience an embrace that was more than just a memory.
He put his hand up, cupped her cheek and used his thumb to wipe away a single tear that had slid from the corner of her eye when she wasn’t paying attention.
“Why are you crying?” He asked as his thumb travelled over her lips, and she sighed as he leaned down to kiss her.
As soon as his lips touched hers she could feel the electricity flowing through her. A spir
al of excitement curled up from the apex of her thighs and spread through her entire body. She slipped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, deepening the kiss.
Her senses burst into life, and she could suddenly hear everything from the crickets chirping, to the hum of the neon lights overhead. She could smell his cologne and the thick wet air, and she could feel his heartbeat as it thumped steadily under her fingertips when she placed her hand on his chest.
He leaned into her and she found herself pressed against the car, his body molding into hers. There was something dark and primal she had avoided for years resting in her and she could feel it begging to escape. When his mouth left hers and began a trail of kisses down her jaw and neck it left little flames in each contact area.
His free hand slid from her shoulder down to her hip, and she gasped when his hand pushed aside her blouse and the sensitive flesh of her abdomen came into contact with his rough fingertips. He planted a kiss on her collarbone and then once again kissed her, deeper this time, more intense than before. She wove her fingers through his hair and pulled him even closer, trying to quench the fire which was beginning to rage inside of her. It had been so long since she’d experienced desire that she was having trouble remembering how to deal with the flames which threatened to now consume her.
When she pulled up into the kiss a loud crack of thunder and lightning flared across the sky, followed immediately by a downpour of rain. At first she didn’t move, afraid to lose the connection. But the rain was so thick, that he broke off the kiss and ushered her into the car.
As soon as he closed the door behind her, the guilt and the worry crept in.
What have you done? She wondered. You barely know this man. But maybe the most nagging one was the voice asking, How could you just forget about Kyle?
Perhaps it was because that voice had the largest ring of truth to it, but she ducked her head down and stared at her hands, avoiding any further contact with Woody as they drove to the farm in silence.
