Need You

by Stacy Finz

  “I was actually thinking of partnering with Garner Adventure to beta test them, perhaps have some of the guides wear the gear and let me know how to improve the design,” Delaney said.

  “Seriously? That’s awesome. But are you sure? No offense to my husband’s family’s company, but it’s got to be small potatoes for someone like you.”

  “At the risk of sounding extremely corporate, I think it would be good for my brand to work with a small, family-run operation in the middle of adventure paradise. It would make the clothing more authentic, rather than fashion wear made to look sporty, don’t you think?”

  “When you put it that way, yeah, I do,” Hannah said. “It’s smart marketing. Hey, why don’t you do a big fashion show debuting the line at Garner Adventure? How fun would that be? You could even have the Garner brothers and the other guides model the clothes.”

  “I don’t know. This is just a sideline . . . something to keep me occupied.” Although the idea appealed to her and could be the answer to fashion week. She’d need more than the athletic wear, though.

  “Keep it in mind,” Hannah said. “And I’ll help any way I can.”

  Delaney was still mulling Hannah’s suggestion over at the grocery store a few hours later. So much so that she wheeled her cart around as if in a daze, returning to the produce aisle a number of times for salad makings without putting anything in her basket.

  That’s when she saw Colt over by the cold beverages, pulling a six-pack from one of the refrigerators. She waved and he waved back. After a few minutes of her just standing there he finally came over.

  “How you doing?” he asked.

  “Good, you?”

  “Good.”

  For God’s sake, you’d think they’d just met each other even though only hours ago, they’d been as intimate as two people could be.

  “I better get going.” He did that head bob thing, and she watched him slip away as stealthily as a cat burglar. Colt Garner was trying to avoid her; she was positive of it.

  “You can’t just sleep with me and then run away,” she muttered, knocking things off shelves with her cart in a mad dash up and down the lanes to hunt him down and give him a piece of her mind. But the man had disappeared. Poof. Gone. Clearly he’d left without even buying his damn beer.

  And then it occurred to her that she was acting desperate. Worse: pathetic. They’d hooked up, had a one-night stand. He probably had tons of them—badge bunnies, band groupies. He was a walking chick magnet. And here she was chasing after him in the feminine hygiene aisle like a lovesick lunatic. Where was her dignity, her self-respect? She was freaking Delaney Scott, designer to celebrities, rock stars, and British royals.

  This was all Robert’s fault. If he hadn’t told her how frigid and unattractive she’d become, hadn’t shocked her with his creepy proposal to spice up their marriage, she wouldn’t be throwing herself at a man who would rather go without food than have to face her in the safe confines of a supermarket.

  She paid for her groceries, loaded them into the back of her Tesla, and drove home, vowing to kick him out of the easement space if he’d dared to park there.

  * * *

  Colt felt like a heel for ditching her. It hadn’t been his intention, but it seemed easier to flee than have the awkward postcoital conversation in a goddamned grocery store.

  His stomach growled and his refrigerator was empty. He called Old Glory for takeout and swung by the bar on his way home. A nice quiet evening in—without the mayor chewing his ass or the watch commander getting him out of bed, or his brothers bugging him to take their shifts at GA—was exactly what he had in mind. And if the stars aligned he might actually get it.

  “You wouldn’t sell me a six-pack, would you?” Colt asked over the noise of the jukebox and a heated game of darts as he waited at the bar for someone to bring out his order.

  Boden took a moment to consider it. “I can’t sell alcohol to leave the premises. But I can give you a six-pack.”

  “Nah, that’s all right.” As the police chief he shouldn’t take free stuff, though he wasn’t such a stickler when Boden wanted him to taste a new brew on tap. He chalked that up to them both being craft beer buffs.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I think I have a couple of bottles at home.”

  “Hey”—Boden pulled him aside, away from prying eyes and ears—“you hearing any weird rumors about Pond?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know exactly, just snatches of conversation from a few council members who were in having lunch on Friday. What got my attention was they stopped talking as soon as they saw me hovering. That doesn’t usually happen to bartenders.... There’s an unspoken privilege. We’re lawyers and therapists, rolled into one.”

  Colt remembered something Ben had alluded to and wondered if it had anything to do with what Boden had heard.

  “My sense was that they were looking into something,” Boden continued. “I’m speculating that it may have had something to do with you, but I didn’t hear your name mentioned. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

  Colt didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem right to tell the local barkeep to spy on city council members, but knowing Boden, he’d have Colt’s back regardless. His food came out of the kitchen and he left, tempted to call Rita and do some digging, but rejected the idea. It was unfair to put Rita on the spot and would make him sound paranoid. Screw Pond.

  He pulled his truck into the garage. Tomorrow he worked and would be driving the cruiser. Besides, Delaney had taken the easement spot. Again, he felt crappy about his shitty behavior back at the store, though it probably hadn’t bothered her. He figured she’d just been scratching an itch with him anyway. What could she possibly want with a small-town cop who was about to lose his job?

  He unpacked his burger and fries, found an AleSmith Speedway Stout hiding in the back of his fridge, and ate in front of the TV. A few times he gazed out the window at Delaney’s second story and noted the light on in her studio. She had the shade up and the window open. There was nothing good on television, just old movies and a repeat of a Giants game he’d already seen. He threw away his wrappers and went upstairs to get his guitar.

  Back in the living room his fingers automatically began strumming “Galway Girl.” Halfway through the song his conscience got the better of him. He walked over to Delaney’s and rang the bell.

  The sun had started to set and reds and blues streaked the clear mountain sky like paintbrush strokes. There was nothing like the Sierra in summer. All puffy clouds, white-capped peaks, and cascading waterfalls from the melted snow. The smell of pine thick in the air and carpets of freshly bloomed Tehachapi tarweed signaling that the season was nearly over.

  It took so long for her to answer the door that Colt had started to walk away.

  “Hi,” she said, leaning against the jam.

  He felt a jolt in his chest, like his engine had just been jump-started. “Want to go for a drive ... look at the wildflowers?” It would be dark in less than an hour and he sounded like an imbecile.

  “Now?”

  He lifted his shoulders as if to say why not?

  “Okay.” She sounded hesitant.

  “I’ll get my truck.” He didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind and took off for his house to get his keys.

  By the time he pulled down the driveway, she’d slung a handbag over her shoulder and a light jacket over her arm. He leaned across the truck cab and opened the passenger door. God, he was a masochist. Hadn’t he learned from his last mistake?

  He headed for the Arbuckle Trail, a meandering country road right out of town where Garner Adventure led nature tours. A viewing point offered sweeping vistas of the Glory River Valley and the surrounding Sierra mountains. He parked in the small lot and shut off the ignition. There was no one else there and for a moment he stared off into the distance.

  “I’m sorry about before at the grocery store,” he finally said. “I like you,
Delaney. But you’re leaving and . . .”

  “And you don’t do long distance.”

  No, once she left, she wouldn’t do small town. There’d be no place for him in her big-city world. “It doesn’t work.”

  “It seems a bit premature in our relationship to be worried about it, don’t you think?” she said.

  “So we continue to sleep together and hope that by the time you go we’re bored with each other, is that what you’re proposing?” Because it was a piss-poor idea.

  “I’m proposing that we see where it goes,” she replied.

  He turned to look at her. “I guess I’m a nice distraction.”

  She reeled back as if he’d slapped her. “Do you know how insulting that is? I’m not Lisa. The woman clearly did a number on you, but Robert did one on me and I’m still willing to try again ... find the right person.”

  “What did he do to you that was so terrible?”

  “You mean in addition to stealing my name?”

  Colt understood the violation of that more than she could imagine. “Lisa stole my song.” He couldn’t believe he’d just blurted that out.

  “What?” She sat there, slack jawed. “What do you mean she stole your song?”

  “‘Crazy about You.’ I wrote it . . . the lyrics, the music. It’s my song.”

  “And she told people she wrote it?”

  She’d done more than tell people; she’d given herself songwriter credit on the goddamn record. Colt felt the same sharp metallic taste of bitterness on his tongue as he had the first time he heard the song played on the radio. The DJ had said, “That’s Lisa Laredo’s newest single.” No mention of him at all.

  “I think she must’ve been desperate. She’d just come off the hit from the movie and her manager and record label expected her to come out with another one. But she hadn’t written anything in more than a year. The movie theme had been a fluke.”

  “My God, Colt. I don’t know much about the music industry, but that song is a huge hit. It had to have made her a fortune. Please tell me you’re getting royalties.”

  “Delaney, my name’s not on it. All this time, she’s passed the song off as her own. She never even asked, just took it, and had it published under her name.”

  “Do you not have a way to prove that it’s your song?”

  “The entire town knows I wrote that song. I wrote it about her.”

  “You need to go to court, Colt. What she did ... she shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. You’re entitled to the proceeds.”

  He leaned his head against the back of the seat, sorry that he ever brought it up. “I don’t give a shit about the money.” Colt knew it made him sound like a chump.

  She scrutinized him until he felt like he was under a microscope. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”

  “In love with her?” He snorted. “That ship sailed when she stole my song.”

  “Then why won’t you fight her for it?”

  “Why? What purpose would it serve? I wrote the song about a woman I thought I knew, who I thought I loved. It turned out she wasn’t any of the things I thought she was. I’d never perform the song again, so let her have it. Let her live with the fact that she’s a fraud and a thief and that a whole town knows it.”

  “Then why hasn’t anyone said anything?”

  “Who should they tell?” TJ had begged to go to the press, but unless Colt hired lawyers and filed a lawsuit, a random accusation would make his brother look like a crazy person, or at the very least someone who wanted fifteen minutes of fame. “I’m over it, Delaney.”

  “Are you? Because you don’t seem like it. It makes me so angry, Colt. You’re so amazingly talented and she’s getting the credit. I want to . . . punch her.”

  “I’m over it, Delaney, but thank you for being outraged on my behalf.” He pointed outside. “It’s too dark now to see the flowers. It’s the end of the season, not much time left.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, and turned her head to stare out the window. “Next time.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That I like you, that I’d like to see where this”—she waved her hand between them—“goes. But you have trust issues. And now I know why.”

  She was right. “You don’t?”

  “Have trust issues?” She pondered it for a while. “I have issues but not so much about trust. Robert worked his ass off to make the business a success. He deserves his share. Not necessarily my name, but that was a judge’s decision to make.”

  “Then what kind of issues?” When she clammed up, he said, “I told you mine.”

  “Someday, maybe, but not tonight.”

  He figured that her ex-husband had had an affair. He’d probably run off with someone younger and made Delaney question her sex appeal, which was absurd because Colt had never met a sexier woman.

  “I should get back to work,” she said.

  According to his dashboard, it was almost nine. “This late? You must’ve come up with something.”

  She didn’t answer at first, then said, “A fleece shirt for bouldering, kayaking trunks, and a ski jacket.”

  “Seriously?”

  She gave a long explanation about how the sports stuff was a sideline, just something to keep her busy until she found her inspiration again. But the way her face lit up when she talked about the designs told a different story. He thought she dug it.

  “Would you mind looking at my sketches, letting me know what I can improve? I was thinking that I’d make up some samples and let you and your brothers test them for me.”

  “Yeah, sure. If they’re anything like your cargos, TJ’s gonna harangue you to sell them out of GA.”

  “I’m actually considering it. Hannah even suggested I do a fashion show there.”

  Colt registered surprise. “A fashion show, huh? Yeah, that would be weird.”

  “Not so weird. Hot models.” She lifted her chin and held eye contact with him.

  Colt stared back. “No one hotter than you.” He reached out to touch her, but she pulled away.

  “You’re doing it again, saying one thing and doing another. Think about what I said, Colt. I’d like to try this but the ball is in your court. You’ve got to decide what you want. Either we’re going to date and get to know each other or we’re not.”

  Colt wasn’t a big fan of ultimatums. But Delaney was right; it wasn’t fair to toy with a person’s emotions. He knew what he’d wind up doing because at the end of the day he was a weakling. But he still had to sleep on it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “How soon can we get these?” With a gleam in his eye, TJ stared down at the samples Delaney had laid on his desk. A dozen different pieces in all.

  “Not so fast. First I want you, Colt, Josh, and Win to wear them when you take groups out, see how they work on the job.”

  “Delaney, it’s seventy degrees out.” He picked up the ski jacket. “We won’t get snow for another month or two.”

  “You can at least try the rash guards, dry suits, board shorts, and the climbing pants.”

  “I can already tell you that they’re fantastic. We’ll sell a bunch.”

  She’d worked a week making the samples and had even hired a couple of local seamstresses who’d come highly recommended. “Don’t get carried away, TJ. I don’t have any experience designing adventure wear and I don’t want my name on something unless it’s perfect.”

  “What about the fashion show? Hannah says you’re down with it being at Garner Adventure.” TJ’s ambition amused Delaney. He had zero interest in fashion or fashion shows but smelled publicity for his family’s company. Frankly, Garner Adventure was lucky to have him at the helm because he was one hell of a businessman.

  “Let’s take one thing at a time. First I want to know how the pieces perform. I read somewhere that North Face employs professional athletes to take its products on more than two-dozen trips a year for testing.”

  TJ nodded. “We know
a few guys on their staff. Are you trying to be North Face?”

  “No. But I want the clothes to be as functional as they are attractive otherwise what’s the point?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “We’ll start beta testing ASAP.”

  “And, TJ, we want to keep this hush-hush. I’ll determine when and where we do the announcement. Understood?” It felt new to Delaney to be running her own show, but at the same time, good. Empowering.

  TJ smiled. “Understood. I suppose you have a publicity team.”

  Her publicity team had stayed with Delaney Scott and Robert. But the team’s expertise was couture and prêt-à-porter, not an outdoor lifestyle brand. She had tasked Karen with interviewing agencies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Delaney wanted to make sure the world knew that she wasn’t deserting high fashion. The way she wanted to spin it was that in addition to the made-to-measure clothes, the ready-to-wear, the shoes, and the handbags, she was branching out into adventure wear. The right PR firm would know how to sell it. According to her research, outdoor apparel was a four-billion-dollar industry with 143 million Americans participating in adventure activities a year. She wasn’t the only high-fashion designer trying to break in to the lucrative market. In fact, she didn’t know why Robert hadn’t proposed it years ago. She already had her shoe and handbag designers focusing on après-ski boots and accessories.

  “I’m working on it,” she told TJ. “Don’t worry, Garner Adventure will be a big part of the narrative. As soon as we choose a firm I’ll need background on GA. I really want to play up that it’s a family business and that every piece was designed to the specifications of professional adventure guides. I was even thinking we can name the clothes after each one of you.”

  “What am I?” Colt stood in the doorway, his hands gripping the top of the frame, his muscles straining under his navy blue uniform shirt. His dark hair was tousled, like he’d run his fingers through it a few too many times.