Closer to You (A Haven, Montana Novel)

by Jill Sanders

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I was impressed at how everyone handled themselves,” she added.

  “You’ve got to be careful. A dig site can be very dangerous,” Trent said.

  “So I saw this morning,” she said.

  Trent stood as the waitress delivered her sandwich and Mr. Burnett’s soup. “I’ll let you get back to your lunch.” He nodded toward her boss, then laid a hand gently on her shoulder and squeezed.

  She knew he was trying to tell her good-bye, which hurt almost as much as the thought of not seeing Tyler again. Not saying good-bye to him. Not having him in her life.

  “What about that brother? Trent,” Mr. Burnett said, watching Trent walk over and lean against the counter to pay.

  “What about him?” she asked, her eyes following his.

  “What can you tell me about his personal life?”

  She almost laughed, but then shook her head. “Not much. As far as I know, none of the brothers have much of a personal life at the moment. They’re focused on keeping their father’s legacy alive.”

  That thought made her very proud to know the family. They were so unlike anyone she’d ever done business with before. Most people had a price tag. The McGowans didn’t.

  Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry.

  Tyler stewed in his office. He didn’t know how long he stood there, at the window, watching the empty parking lot. He listened to his messages and his frustration grew.

  Someone had put sugar in the tractor’s gas tank. Which, according to the mechanic, would cost almost a thousand dollars to clean up. He left a message for Rea to call their insurance company and file a claim on the tractor and let them know ahead of time about the incident today. Of course, he’d need to file a police report on the damage to the tractor. Which meant making another trip down to the station. He wanted to talk to them about Brian anyway. Maybe see if he could get a copy of the report Brian had supposedly filed about the stolen snuff box. It just seemed too convenient.

  He drove down to the small hospital and waited with Rea, his mother, Glenn’s family, and with some of the other employees to hear something about Glenn. They had taken him into surgery to try and save his leg—the damage was much more than a simple break. After about an hour, Tyler knew he needed to get back to the office. He bought a round of coffee for his men and asked them to call as soon as Glenn was out of surgery.

  When he walked out of the hospital, he was greeted by a small but loud group of protesters. They waved signs and shouted at him as he made his way to his truck. Obviously, the news of the accident had spread quickly through town.

  By the time he drove across town, his head was splitting. He swung by the station and filed the report on the tractor, then stood around while Mike made a photocopy of the report in which Brian claimed that his car had been broken into and the list of items that had been stolen. Including the silver snuff box.

  In a foul mood when he got back to the trailer, he honked at the more than two dozen protesters who now blocked the road. He slowly made his way through people shouting at him while holding signs saying how dangerous oil drilling was. Some shouted that the accident was all his fault and he should be ashamed.

  There were even news vans parked just outside the gated parking lot on the public road.

  When he finally parked, he noticed Rea’s car was still in the lot. She’d had a big bouquet of flowers for Glenn delivered to the hospital; he’d seen them arrive with the company logo on the card. She was always thinking of things like that. One of the main reasons he—and his father before him—made sure she was happy with the job.

  He’d taken Kristen’s advice and had ordered Rea a new office chair for the trailer, and he was having a local company piece together two new computer systems for her. One for their downtown office and one for the trailer.

  Walking into the trailer, ignoring the shouts from the street, he gave her an update on Glenn, then went and sat behind his desk and stared at his blank computer screen until his brother walked in.

  “You need a shower,” Trent said, sitting down across from him.

  “Fuck off,” he growled.

  Trent’s eyebrows shot up in question. “We’re not playing very nice.”

  “Fuck off,” he said again. He didn’t care if he was in a sour mood. Hell, he didn’t give a shit about much at this point.

  “I stopped by the hospital.”

  Tyler’s pulse sped up, anticipating bad news.

  “No change since you were there. Trey is hanging out until Glenn’s out of surgery.”

  He sighed and ran his hands through his dirty hair. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  “What exactly did happen?”

  “Damn if I know. I heard a pop, then the whole thing exploded.” He remembered the sounds. Remembered how concerned he’d been for Kristen once he realized she’d been standing up there a few minutes before.

  “Is this sour mood because of the accident, the protesters, or because Kristen’s boss is in town?”

  He was about to tell his brother to fuck off again, but Trent held up his hand.

  “Yeah, I know . . . Fuck off.” Trent sighed. “I’ll have the guys look into what happened.”

  “Get someone out there ASAP.” He flipped on his computer. “Damned if I’ll let something like this happen again.”

  “We’ve never had anything like this before,” Trent added. “Could it be a worker issue?”

  “There’s always a chance of employee error.” He rolled his shoulders. “Whatever the case, I want to know as quick as possible. Until then, no one touches a thing out there.”

  “I’ll put security on the site. And I’ll add more here since it looks like this crowd is going to be camping out.” Trent nodded toward the window and the protesters, then typed a few things into his phone. “I ran into Kristen at the diner.”

  Tyler was about to tell him where to stick his smirk but stopped himself.

  “You’ve got it bad, bro. You’d better not waste too much more time. Who knows how long she’ll be in town now.”

  Tyler leaned his head back and shut his eyes. “Damn it. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Tell her how you feel,” Trent said.

  Tyler laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Why not? What have you got to lose?”

  Everything, he thought, but he kept his mouth shut.

  Just then Rea knocked on his door. “Any word from the hospital?”

  Tyler shook his head. “No.” He sighed.

  “Do you have a moment? I was hoping to speak to you about those invoices.”

  He waved her in and she sat next to Trent, who started to get up, but she put her hand on his arm. “Stay, this involves you too.”

  “What’s going on?” Trent asked.

  “While Kristen was looking over our books, looking for a reason JB was so interested in us, she found some invoices from NewField that haven’t been paid yet. Normally, I would hold onto the invoices for a ninety-day grace period. You know, keep sending them as late notices.” Tyler nodded in agreement. “That was your father’s standard practice, but these . . .” She opened her folder. “Kristen found these that had been marked paid, but when we tried to match them to our accounts, we don’t show payment was ever made.”

  “How is that possible?” Tyler asked, looking over the stack of invoices Rea handed him.

  “I don’t know. The accounting firm we work with sends me reports weekly so I can match payments with invoices. So, I looked further into this and it appears that several of the larger payments from NewField associated with these invoices were rejected or there was a charge-back. Now, our bank normally would have notified us, but I guess since your father passed . . .”

  Tyler groaned. “I’ve had a few messages from the bank. I didn’t think anything about it because I checked the balance and we were okay.”

  The room was silent for a moment while Tyler looked through everything. “What’s the total?”

>   “At this point, their payments are behind in the mid tens of thousands. But if we keep doing business with them, it won’t take long for them to sink us,” Rea said.

  “Damn.” Tyler slammed down the folder. “Have you called them?”

  Rea nodded. “I was told that they would be sending us a check.”

  “But?” Tyler asked.

  “We haven’t received anything.”

  “I’ll call them.” Tyler reached for the phone and wondered if the day could get any worse.

  By the time he parked in front of the Wet Spot, he was in an even fouler mood. As he made his way toward the front of the building, he spotted Darla out front with a redheaded woman whose name he could never remember. He wished there was a different entrance to his place, then thought about moving out to his land and pitching a tent. Anything would be better than being accosted daily. Why did they allow the girls to stand out front and smoke so close to the door? Wasn’t there some law against it?

  “Hey there, Tyler. It looks like you’ve had a hard day,” Darla purred as she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him in place. She knew he was too much of a gentleman to push her away. “Why don’t you come on inside? I’ll give you that dance I owe you.”

  She didn’t owe him anything. He figured it was her way of getting her hands back on him and crawling back in his bed. That thought caused his skin to crawl. Not that she wasn’t attractive, but he’d found that his taste in women had changed over the past few weeks to something with a lot more class.

  “Can’t tonight.” He started prying her hands away from him, then heard a car door slam and looked over to see Kristen marching toward them.

  “Tyler, I need to talk to you,” she said, her eyes heating as she looked Darla up and down.

  Guilt shot through him and he dropped his hands from Darla’s arms, which she took as an opportunity to wrap herself further around him like a snake.

  “Do you mind?” Kristen took a step closer. “We have business to discuss.”

  “I bet you do,” Darla’s redheaded friend said under her breath, causing Kristen to glare at her. “What?” The redhead shrugged. “Everyone in town knows what kind of business you two have been doing since she came into town.”

  Darla snickered and tightened her hold on Tyler, almost choking him. Stepping back and reaching up, he eased her arms from his neck. Then without saying anything, he walked over to the door and opened it for Kristen.

  He followed her up the dark stairs and she waited silently as he unlocked his apartment door. Then stood back and watched her walk in and move to the windows. He was thankful his place overlooked the back of the building. Not only did he have a nice view of the mountains during the day, but he didn’t have to look down at the front of the building and the people that came and went at the Spot.

  “Would you mind if I jumped through a shower?” he asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders and he started toward the bathroom, but then turned on him. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “What?” That stopped him. “Tomorrow?” He felt his heart kick in his chest.

  She nodded. “I thought you ought to know.”

  “Why so soon?” he asked after he found his voice again.

  “Mr. Burnett says he doesn’t want to waste any more time here. I think he found the accommodations at the hotel a little . . . unpleasant. Soon after checking in, he let me know that we’d be heading to Helena to fly out as soon as possible.” She sighed and met his eyes. “Before checking into the hotel, he received a call.” Her gaze moved away from his face to her feet. “He seemed very upset and tried to catch a flight tonight, but nothing was available.” She looked back up at him. “Whatever the call was, the result was the decision to pull both of us out of Montana as quickly as possible.”

  Tyler was rooted in the spot. He didn’t know what to say. His brother’s words flashed in his mind over and over—tell her how you feel—but somehow, he couldn’t get his tongue to move.

  Then she moved across the room and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I thought we’d have more time together,” she said softly.

  “Me too.” His hands went up to her hips.

  “I’d hoped . . . things would be different.”

  He dipped down and covered her lips with his. The kiss spoke everything he couldn’t. When he pulled back, he noticed that he’d left a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “I need a shower.” He dropped his hands. “Let me shower.”

  She smiled, but there was a sadness in it. “I could use one too.”

  He took her hand and tugged her into the bathroom, their clothes ending up in a pile on the tile floor. The water was too cold to begin with, but as it ran hot the shower doors fogged up with the steam and the heat of their bodies.

  He took her against the shower wall, holding her body tightly against his own. He didn’t ever want to lose that moment. He tried to hold onto the feeling of being so close, to keep the memory forever.

  He carried her to the bedroom and laid her gently on his bed. Then spent his time drying her wet skin with a towel.

  When she responded again to his touch, he did what he could to please them both. His fingers and mouth roamed over every soft spot, every beautiful curve she had. Then he slid into her and realized that she was everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he’d ever dreamed of.

  How was he supposed to let her go?

  Where would he find the strength to tell her how he felt?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kristen stood at the baggage claim and waited for her luggage. Mr. Burnett had only had a carry-on and had left her almost half an hour earlier. As the luggage circled in front of her, she thought about Tyler.

  She’d crawled out of his bed early yesterday morning and crept around, pulling on her clothes in the dark. She’d left him without even writing a note or saying good-bye. It hurt too much. She hadn’t trusted herself to let go.

  But she knew she had to. Her life was here, she thought as she looked around the busy airport. The city was where she’d only ever felt like she belonged.

  Up until a small town in Montana had melted her heart. She shook that thought from her mind and reached down to grab her luggage. Instead of hiring a mover, she stacked the two cases and pulled them through the airport herself.

  By the time she reached the curb in front of the taxi stations, she was winded.

  It took her no time at all to get through the line for a cab, and as the older man put her luggage in the truck, he rattled off questions.

  “Is this your first time in the city?” he asked.

  “No, I live here,” she said absently. She watched a shocked look cross the man’s face, then his eyes moved down to her clothes. Everything about her screamed tourist, down to her mud-covered boots.

  She’d taken one of Tyler’s button-up shirts while dressing in the dark, and wore it now.

  She looked like a mountain woman and realized she didn’t care.

  By the time she let herself into her apartment, she was too tired to even unpack. She dropped the bags just inside the door and looked around her space.

  One entire wall was windows. The large room consisted of living room, dining room, and kitchen all in one. The one bedroom and bathroom were just through the French-style doors. It was small, but it was all hers, down to the Surya Milan rugs. It had taken her years to get the place just right. She’d picked out every single piece in it like she’d picked out her wardrobe.

  Seeing it now, after time away, she recognized that it was as much of a showpiece as she was for JB.

  She walked over and stood, looking out the window. She was only on the fourth floor, so the view wasn’t that great, but still, if she craned her neck just right, she could see the park a few blocks away.

  The place felt hollow.

  She hated it.

  Turning away, she tugged off her boots and tossed them in the closet, then moved into her bedroom, threw herself on her bed, and cried.

 
When she woke several hours later, her phone was ringing in the other room. She raced, half-awake, and stumbled in the dark to find it. Scattering the contents of her purse, she answered without looking at the screen.

  “So, are you back?” Her mother’s voice woke her further.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I fell asleep and forgot to call you.”

  “I suspected as much. I’m just happy you’re home.”

  She started to say me too, but stopped herself. She wasn’t happy to be home. She’d left something very important in Montana and wondered how long it would take to replace it. If she could.

  “Are you okay?” her mom asked.

  “Yeah, I’m just tired.”

  “I’m a few blocks away. I can pick up some takeout and be there if you want.”

  Her stomach growled loudly and she sighed. Maybe having company was just what she needed. “I’m going to hop in the shower, use your key.”

  “See you in a few.”

  After hanging up, Kristen tugged both suitcases into her room and left them unopened in her massive walk-in closet. The closet had been the reason she’d purchased the apartment in the first place. It was easily as large as her bedroom and filled with all the wonderful gadgets any woman would swoon over.

  Since she’d taken her time buying her wardrobe, and since many of her carefully chosen pieces had been destroyed and left behind in Montana, the massive space appeared empty.

  Tossing off her clothes, she climbed into her glass shower and sat down on the tile seat as the hot water soothed away her sorrow.

  When she finally climbed out, she heard her mother moving around in her living room and quickly pulled on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top, then doubled back and pulled on Tyler’s button-up over that. Its sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and smelled so much like him, she buried her head into the soft cotton and inhaled a few times.

  The second she stepped out into her living room, her mother set her plate down, moved across the floor, and enclosed her in her arms.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, holding her close.

  Kristen hadn’t meant to cry. Really. But between sobs, she got out as much as she could. “I think I screwed up,” she said. “I left him without telling him anything.”