Open Skies

by Marysol James

  Steve looked at her and knew what had just happened inside Julie. More than once in the time that they’d been dating, he’d seen that closed look on her face, usually when he asked about her childhood, or mother, or father. Julie Everett didn’t disclose much and her secrets went deep. They were buried under layers of stone and ice; Steve was sure that he’d never really known the real Julie. Even though she’d thawed and softened and agreed to marriage, Steve knew that she’d never really opened her heart to him. It made him feel isolated and alone, an outsider in his own relationship.

  The truth was that the engagement was a huge mistake. He’d known that as soon as she’d accepted and they’d started telling people. He should have called it off. But Steven Bryce wasn’t good at openly being the bad guy. The only child of a wealthy society couple, popular in high school, captain of the football team, a sorority boy, handed a banking job straight out of college by his father’s buddy from the tennis club, he had been indulged his whole life.

  Everyone had always, always done the dirty work for him when things got tough. His mother handled the teachers when they threatened to fail him for poor grades, his father called in his lawyers when that girl had started squealing about getting her drunk and forcing her to have sex at that party. His adoring female colleagues always covered for him when he dropped the ball at work, and quite a few even did his work when he complained about exhaustion after a night of partying. They were all happy enough to share his bed, as a thank you for their help.

  In short, Steve was not at all good at standing on his own two feet, or taking responsibility. But now here he was, caught by his fiancée, naked in bed with another woman. No way to hand this one off, or charm his way out of it, or deny or deflect. He’d have to figure out a way to muddle through somehow.

  “Julie,” he started, “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?” she asked. “Are you really?”

  She looked at him and he shivered. He’d expected her eyes to be cold and emotionless – he’d seen that before – but what he saw was actually worse. Those mint green eyes were just empty and soulless and dead. He suddenly understood that he’d just hurt her in some way that he didn’t know he was capable of; in a way that he didn’t know that she was even capable of being hurt. He knew in that moment that even though her best in the relationship hadn’t been good enough, she’d done her best. She’d tried, for him, and now she was shut down. He’d just delivered her a body blow, and he wasn’t sure that she’d recover.

  A strange emotion began to creep in to his chest, and he suddenly realised that it was shame. For one of the first times in his charmed, spoiled, self-absorbed life, he was actually ashamed of himself. And that made him furious.

  The words that spewed out of his mouth were the worst, most hurtful ones that he could have used. He attacked, accused her; berated and blamed her. It was over, he knew, so all that was left to do was make sure this anger went somewhere. She was there, so it all went on her. She’d have to do.

  Julie stood in silence as he raged. His words seemed to be coming from far away, from the bottom of a deep well, and she barely heard them. When he finally stopped talking, she focused on him again.

  “OK,” she said. “Now that you’ve got all that off your chest, you can get dressed and go now. Give me the key.”

  “With pleasure,” he snapped. He yanked the key of the keychain and threw it on the floor. “I’ll stay with Nadia.”

  “Well, aren’t you a classy bastard,” Julie said.

  He gave her a sulky look.

  “You’ll need to get your stuff out of here in the next week,” she said.

  “Fine.”

  He finished dressing, grabbed his phone and watch off the bedside table. He put on his jacket and stomped out through the living room.

  Julie stood in the bedroom, listening. The door slammed. She was alone.

  She took a deep breath and looked around the room, as if seeking an answer somewhere. Her eyes fell on the clock above the sink in the master bathroom: 12:13. She felt an overwhelming urge to laugh, to shriek, to throw things. In less than three hours, she’d discovered that she had a father, become the dubious owner of a ranch, effectively been fired, caught her fiancé cheating on her, and broken off her engagement. Her life was a disaster area.

  She called Tammy.

  **

  Tamara Jenkins was known for her temper. She’d lost jobs because of it, and had lost relationships because of it. One time, when a customer kept patting her ass as she poured his coffee, she dumped the whole pot all over his breakfast. When her slime ball boss fired her, she told him that the creep was lucky the coffee hadn’t gone over his scab-infested head. Not the big head, either.

  Another time, she found out that her boyfriend was seeing another woman on the side. She waited outside his house, and when she saw her boyfriend take the girl inside and saw the bedroom light go on and then off, she threw a rock through the front window. When the two of them had stumbled out on to the street, she soaked them both through with the garden hose.

  She had marched in to her boss’ office within thirty seconds of Julie’s call and taken the rest of the afternoon off, no excuses or explanations offered. When Reggie Carter meekly protested and Creepy Paul started spouting something about filling in a formal request for leave, she planted her high-heeled feet and told them that she was leaving now and she’d be back tomorrow morning. Maybe. She’d let them know. She turned and marched her leopard-print-short-skirted butt out to the parking garage, barely stopping to put her faux-leather jacket on over her too-tight red blouse.

  She showed up at Julie’s apartment at just past two o’clock on that horrible Monday in her friend’s life. She lugged bottles of wine and mix for Margaritas, and frozen pizzas and cartons of ice cream, and three bags of sour cream and onion chips and a gigantic KitKat bar. She used her own key to let herself in.

  Julie was sitting on the sofa staring at her hands.

  Tammy threw everything on the kitchen table and hurried over to Julie. She sat down but didn’t hug her; she wasn’t sure if Julie was ready to be touched yet.

  She studied her friend, looking for damage. Julie was often taken as cold and emotionless, and she worked hard to come across that way. She’d built her entire professional reputation on creating perfect spaces – she took wrecked buildings and bare rooms, and made them warm, comfortable, welcoming. She set each piece of furniture just so, in just the right place; she chose the perfect painting to balance the room; she selected colors that complemented each other. Julie had total control over every single professional space or home that she walked in to at work, and she made them all new and shiny and safe. She was a perfectionist, fussy about detail, and demanding as hell. Her colleagues respected her, but didn’t like her. They called her the Ice Queen, and joked that Steve probably had to shove her in to the deep freeze to thaw her out at the end of the day.

  But Tammy knew the truth. Julie had been through so much in her early life, and a lot of it had hurt her deeply; it had also made her as tough as hell in many ways. Her coldness was her defence, her armor. Without it, Julie would be a bubbling mess of emotions, all the time. She had learned early on to put the best, shiniest face on everything in her life, and after a while, Julie got smart and turned that in to a well-paid career. Masking flaws and presenting a perfect environment was what Julie was best at.

  Julie looked up at her. “My hand looks so weird without it.”

  Tammy looked down and saw that the massive diamond engagement ring was gone. “What’d you do with it?”

  Julie nodded at the bedroom. “Threw it off the balcony right after he left.”

  “You – what?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Julie. That was a nine-thousand-dollar ring.”

  “Yeah. I sent him an sms to try to find it before someone else does. Last I checked, he was rooting around down there in the garbage in the alley.”

  They looked at each other and started to lau
gh hysterically. Julie felt better for quite a while, as she laughed and laughed, but then something crossed inside of her and she found herself being hugged and rocked as she wept. It’s funny how close laughter and tears are, sometimes.

  **

  Four hours later, they had drunk all the wine and had decided that Margaritas were going to be a very good idea very soon. Tammy had sent Reggie a text saying that she wouldn’t be in the next day, after all. He’d meekly replied that was fine, and he hoped all was OK with her. She had also texted her boyfriend Marco, and told him not to expect to meet her for drinks after all.

  Julie was in the kitchen, struggling to read the small print on the pizza box. She closed one eye and cocked her head to the side, trying to focus. “It’s thirty minutes, right?”

  Tammy waved her hand. “We’ll take it out when we smell the cheese.”

  “OK.”

  Julie threw the pizzas in to the oven and cranked the temperature up to number five, however hot that was. She grabbed one of the bags of chips off the counter and slumped on the sofa next to Tammy, crunching loudly.

  Tammy struggled to a semi-vertical position. “OK, look. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed trashing the living hell out of that dickhead your ex-boss, and that even bigger dickhead your ex-fiancé. It’s been a blast. Much better than working. But, seriously Jules, what are you going to do?”

  Julie looked at Tammy grimly. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

  “Oh, God,” Tammy groaned. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Tammy looked at her friend. “OK, then. Time to crack open the tequila.” She struggled to her feet and went off to find the blender.

  “You are not wrong about that,” Julie said. “You go do that. I have to make a quick phone call.”

  **

  The next morning at just past ten o’clock, Julie sat in Lyle Hawkins’ office again. Her head hurt pretty badly and the light seemed far too bright, but she was steady on her feet. She was perfectly made-up and had on a stunning Pucci-pattern wrap dress and knee-high brown leather boots. Her red curls were pulled back from her heart-shaped face in a severe ponytail.

  Hawkins looked at her in astonishment. Yesterday’s phone call had caught him by surprise. The young lady had sounded drunk, and when she’d insisted on coming back to discuss the signing of the deed and ownership papers, he was sure that she’d come to her sense and cancel. But here she was: stunning, chic, composed. No sign of tiredness or illness. Hawkins decided that they must have had a bad connection when they spoke the day before, because there was no way that any woman could look so gorgeous after a serious bender.

  “Mr. Hawkins,” Julie said. “As I said on the phone, I have had some time to consider the terms of the will. I have decided that a visit to the ranch is not actually a bad thing. I want to see what it has in terms of assets, I want to go over the accounts with the financial team, and I want to consult some lawyers and property agents locally. They’ll have a good idea about a fair selling price, and what has to be done to speed up any kind of sale. I may well decide to tear the whole place down and sell off the horses and the property. That may net the biggest returns, in the end, far more perhaps than selling the hotel as-is. I’ll need some time to get professional estimates and assessments of both courses of action. And I want to do all of this as quickly as possible.”

  “I see.”

  “So, I’ll be flying out in three days’ time, on Friday afternoon, and landing in Denver at four o’clock. I’ll need someone to pick me up at the airport in Denver, and I’ll need a full list of staff names before I go.”

  “Yes, Ms. Everett. That can all be arranged.”

  “Thank you. So, what do I need to sign today? Right now?”

  He fumbled with the file in front of him. “Everything is here. Did you want to consult with a second lawyer?”

  “No need,” Julie said. “I went over these papers at eight o’clock this morning with an advisor.” Kyle Bennett was a trusted confidant of hers, and they had worked on many interior design contracts together. He’d looked over the deed and the will, and assured her that in six months, she’d be completely free to get rid of the ranch as she saw fit, and she’d be the sole beneficiary of any and all profits earned through the sale.

  Hawkins pushed the documents over to her and went out to get his partner, Sam Innis, to witness the signing of the forms. Within twenty minutes, everything was signed in triplicate and stamped and dated. Hands were shaken all around, and Julie Everett owned a horse ranch and hotel in Colorado.

  Innis nodded at her, and returned to his own office. Julie stood and picked up her purse, preparing to go. Hawkins couldn’t stop himself from asking one last question.

  “Ms. Everett?”

  She turned back. “Yes?”

  “May I inquire – that is, it’s not really my business, but I’m just wondering – I mean, you were so against accepting anything from Mr. Reid, so it just seems rather odd that you – not that there’s anything wrong with your decision, of course. That is…”

  She took pity on him and his discomfort. “You’d like to know why I changed my mind.”

  “Yes. If you don’t mind telling me, of course.”

  “I don’t mind.” She shrugged. “I changed my mind because my life circumstances have changed quite a bit since we last spoke, you see.”

  Hawkins did a double-take. “Ms. Everett. We just spoke yesterday.”

  “True. But kind of a lot has happened since then.”

  He looked down at her hand and saw that the huge engagement ring was gone. He blinked at her for a second, astonished. So, she and the young man had broken up? And now she was running to the mountains? Well. There were worse ways to get over a heartache, he supposed.

  Truthfully, Hawkins was quite relieved that Mr. Steven Bryce was out of the picture. The information that Warren Kowalski had turned up on him had not been encouraging. Mr. Reid had been particularly unhappy about Bryce’s lack of work ethic, and had worried about Julie’s long-term involvement with a man that Reid had considered little more than a trust-fund brat. He had been impressed by Julie’s ability to rise above her mother’s troubles, and to pursue her impressive academic achievements, and develop her design talent.

  Kowalski had also provided a significant amount of evidence that Bryce had been cheating on Julie for quite a while, and with a number of lovely young ladies. Some were from his office – like his current favorite, Nadia Bayliss – but he also enjoyed the company of women met in some of the city’s most expensive wine bars. A man like Kowalski had no trouble at all mingling with the rich and famous in the exclusive Manhattan social circle: he had many obvious signs of wealth and a genuine English accent, and was accepted in to that kind of setting without question. His all-access pass to the world of the pampered rich resulted in some very hands-on intelligence. Hawkins recalled, with some distaste, the photos that Kowalski had taken of Steven Bryce in a private booth, with his hand up a brunette’s skirt.

  Ms. Everett had definitely dodged a bullet, Hawkins thought as he smiled at her and extended his hand. “The best of luck to you, Ms. Everett. I am on retainer for all matters to do with Mr. Reid’s estate for another six months. If you require anything from me, anything at all, you should not hesitate to contact me. My services are at your disposal, at no cost to you whatsoever.”

  She took his hand, a bit touched at his courtly politeness. He was a stiff and formal man, and he had more hair on the backs of his hands and coming out of his ears than on his head, but he had a kindness in his eyes that she had missed yesterday. His grip was firm and he had a spring in his step that belied his years. When he smiled, he looked twenty years younger.

  She smiled back. “Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I will certainly do that.” She turned to go.

  Hawkins’ eye was caught by the large manila envelope on his desk. “Oh, Ms. Everett. Here are a few documents that arrived this morning, from our sister firm in Denver that handles the bulk of Op
en Skies’ legal matters. These are things that were determined and handled over the last week or so. Nothing for you to worry about, or sign, or anything like that. All these matters are settled. It’s just for your information.”

  Julie accepted the envelope and put it in her purse. “Thank you. I’ll take a look.”

  “The best of luck to you,” Hawkins said.

  “And to you, Mr. Hawkins.”

  Luck, I don’t need, she thought as she left the office. A quick sale and a ticket back to my real life in New York – that I’ll take.

  **

  “Good Lord, girl. Don’t you own even one pair of jeans?”

  Tammy looked at the towering pile of clothes on Julie’s bed and shook her head.

  “I have jeans!” Julie said indignantly, pulling out two pairs from the bottom of the heap. “Look!”

  Tammy eyed the labels on the back pockets. “Are those – Gucci jeans?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So. What’d those set you back?”

  “Umm. About seven hundred dollars.”

  “Seven hundred dollars for two pairs of jeans?”

  “Uh. No. Seven hundred each.”

  Tammy rolled her eyes. “And you’re just going to go gallivanting off through a horse field in jeans that cost more than my shopping budget for a whole season?”

  Julie shrugged. “Jeans are jeans.” She threw them in to her suitcase.

  “But what else do you have to wear?” Tammy pointed at the pile of clothes. “Your smart little suits aren’t any good, and all those evening dresses are a bit too fancy for hanging out on a ranch. Even your pyjamas and matching bathrobes are silk, Julie. I mean, do you even own a pair of flannel jammies?”

  “Of course not.”

  “T-shirts? Tank tops?”