HWY 550 (Rock Point Book 3)

by Freya Barker

  Trinny is their babysitter. When we first moved to Durango seven months ago I wasn’t too sure about the blue-haired, nose ring toting teen who popped across the street when she saw us moving in to offer her services. I tried her out, and have since come to like her a whole lot. Despite what appearances might have suggested, the girl is responsible, gets along famously with both my boys, and she’s wicked smart. She’s been here after school every day since. When Mason was struggling a bit starting Grade seven at the new school, she jumped in to help him with homework after school and continues to tutor him in math.

  The problem is Mason seems to have developed a serious crush on the seventeen-year old, and given he’s only twelve, I foresee heartbreak in his future. It’s been almost a year and a half since my wife, Jennifer, died, and the boys lost their mother. It was hardest for Mason to adjust, but since Trinny started coming to our house, I’ve seen an improvement in him. I’m just afraid too much of his happier demeanor is hung up on her. She’ll be going to college come September and although she’s staying local, I’m sure she’ll have better things to do than hang out with a couple of preteen kids.

  This is why I’m hesitant when he asks if she can come on our trip to Telluride on Wednesday. We used to hit the slopes a lot when we lived in Denver, but haven’t gone out since Jenny died. The boys have spring break and I’ve taken the day off. My first real vacation day since starting as the city’s new chief of police, and I’m looking forward to strapping on my snowboard. It’s been too long.

  “Dad?” he prompts.

  “Yeah Mase, I’m thinking about it.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad. Trinny said she’s never been to Telluride, she’s just been to Hesperus.”

  The Hesperus Ski Area is just half an hour west of town and popular with the locals, which is one of the reasons why I opted for Telluride. It’s a two hour drive, but at least I can be anonymous there. I never realized my new job would come with so much public exposure. In Denver I was just a face among many, but in this much smaller community, a lot of folks seem to know who I am.

  “All right, Bud, but keep in mind she may have other plans and I probably should check with her mom too.”

  I’ve never really met Trinny’s mom. I’ve seen her, it’d be hard not too, with them living diagonally across the road from us. I can see their front door from mine, but other than an occasional wave from driveway to driveway, there hasn’t been any interaction. I certainly didn’t encourage it.

  In the months after Jenny’s death, I became somewhat allergic to single moms. Every morning when I’d drop the boys off at school, there’d be one or another lying in wait, determined to ‘comfort’ me. My biggest mistake was accepting a coffee invitation one morning when I was feeling particularly down, from the mother of one of Ryder’s play buddies. She’d been a friend of Jenny’s and she seemed understanding when I broke down at her kitchen table. It quickly went from her comforting me, to zipping up my pants and beelining it out of her house.

  It was obvious the next morning at the school drop off that she thought it might be the start of something, when it clearly did not hold the same meaning for me. I haven’t been a monk since Jenny’s death, but I’ve certainly been a bit more discerning about the few encounters I’ve had since. No single moms.

  “Trinny!!” Ryder darts for the front door when he spots her coming up the drive.

  “Morning!”

  I grab my lunch and a bottle of water and start shrugging on my coat. “Hey Trinny. Before I run off to work, the boys and I were wondering if you wanted to come to Telluride for the day on Wednesday? Unless you have something else going on?”

  “Please Trinny!” This from Ryder, who is hopping up and down.

  Mason on the other hand suddenly seems disinterested when he adds, “Yeah, should be decent snow up there.” He doesn’t fool me for a damn second though, that look is still in his eyes when he glances up at her, before looking away. The boy is sold.

  “Man, I’d love to. Never been up there.”

  “We’ll have to check with your mom, though. I should probably talk to her myself.”

  “I’m seventeen,” she says, a little disgruntled.

  “I realize that, which is fine when you make decisions about babysitting right across the street, or sticking close to town with friends, but heading into the mountains with someone your mother doesn’t even know? She may want a little reassurance.”

  I see from the look on her face that I got my point across. “Fair enough. Need her digits?”

  “Please.”

  I enter the information in my phone and am about to head out when Trinny calls after me.

  “Mr. B? Is it okay if the boys and I bake chocolate chip cookies today? I brought the stuff.” She holds up the plastic bag she brought in with her.

  “Please, Dad?”

  Both boys seem eager: little heathens putting on their most angelic faces, complete with praying hands. I grin at their antics and give in easily.

  “Fine, just don’t burn down my house. And not until Ryder practices his piano.” I tuck my phone in my pocket, zip up my coat and pull open the door, the cold air hitting me in the face. It’s been pretty brutal. As an afterthought I call over my shoulder, “Clean up after yourselves!”

  “Yes, sir,” three voices ring out as I pull the door shut behind me.

  OLLIE

  Christ, this woman is raising my blood pressure.

  I’ve been on the phone for half an hour with Katherine Carey, matriarch of the very affluent Carey family and financier of the commemorative garden project I’m working on. Technically I’m working with and for the city, who have a plethora of boards who have to approve of my plans for the garden, but not even all of them combined are as difficult to deal with as this woman.

  Even though I’m self-employed as a landscape architect, a lot of my contracts are through the city of Durango. I landed my first one about five years ago, when they put a tender out for a small green belt in a new division north of the college and I came in with the lowest bid. From there I’ve had at least twelve more, now making up the bulk of my business. I still maintain private contracts, and in the winter supplement with snow removal—I have a plow I attach to my F150 every winter—but my work for the city is my bread and butter.

  Which is why I have to put up with Katherine Carey.

  “I understand you like Bougainvillia, Katherine, and I agree, they are gorgeous, but they don’t suit our climate here at all. They’d last one summer before we’d have to replace them all.”

  This isn’t the first time we’ve been over this. Last week she called about Frangipani, which is indigenous to Central America. She just came home a few weeks ago from a two month stay at the family’s winter residence in Panama. I wonder what tropical plant she’s coming with next week.

  It takes me another fifteen minutes to get her off the phone and focus on my design. I just get back in the groove when my phone rings again. Thinking it’s Katherine again, I drop my head in my hands and take in a deep breath before picking it up. It’s not her though, it’s a number I don’t recognize but the area code is all too familiar. Shit.

  “Hello?”

  “Ollie?”

  The last thing I expect to hear is my brother’s voice—perhaps notification that he’s met his maker, something I’ve secretly been afraid of the past seventeen years since I last saw him—but not his own voice. I’m surprised I can still tell it’s him.

  “Chris, what the fuck are you doing? ”

  “Listen, I know I—”

  “I don’t want to know, Chris. I told you, no contact whatsoever. We agreed, goddammit—for Trinny’s sake.”

  “Jesus, Ollie, I’m in trouble here.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I bite off. “You chose this life. You knew what you were getting into, but I didn’t, Chris. I had no idea who I was dealing with. I’ll never forgive you for that. You don’t get to call me now trouble has found you. You made your bed. I
have one priority in life and she is all I care about. I don’t know how you found it, but lose this number, Christian.”

  Without giving him a chance to respond I end the call and promptly burst into tears. Jesus. I haven’t cried in years. Damn him.

  Angry at myself for caring, I kick back my chair and head into the kitchen looking for a distraction. I find it in the sink. Two days of dishes and I can’t even blame it on Trinny, she’s been home late the last couple of days from her job babysitting across the street. No, this mess is all me, I’ve always been a shit housekeeper.

  I fill the sink and quickly hand wash the dishes. I have a dishwasher, but it’s been broken for the last year and a half. I repurposed it to store my Tupperware and some of my large platters.

  Not yet cooled off sufficiently to focus on work, I move on to the laundry next. I’m just coming down the stairs with a laundry basket piled high, when my damn phone rings again. I dump the basket in the hallway and march over to my drawing table where I’d dropped my phone.

  “What now?” I snap hearing only silence on the other side. “Hello?”

  “Am I speaking to Trinny’s mom?”

  “This is she. Who is this?” I try to ignore the small shiver of awareness at the soft, deep voice on the other end of the line. Whoever it is has one of those voices you want to listen to all damn day long—like Morgan Freeman.

  “Joe Benedetti. Your daughter babysits—”

  “Oh shit, you’re my neighbor. I’m so sorry. You caught me at a bad time.” I’m instantly flustered realizing who he is. Trinny has been filling my ear with how awesome the guy is. Also, I have eyes, I’ve seen him. Matching that voice with the tall silver fox across the street is a treat for the senses.

  “I can call back.”

  “No, no. It’s fine, ignore me.” Smooth, Rizzo, smooth. I roll my eyes at my social clumsiness. At least I haven’t dropped one of my customary F-bombs. Yet.

  “Okay...uh, on Wednesday I’m taking my boys up to Telluride and they asked Trinny to come. I said I’d have to check with you first.”

  “Sure, if she wants to go it’s fine by me. She’s seventeen, she basically sets her own schedule.”

  My words are met with a pregnant silence, before he finally responds. “I figured you’d want to know if your daughter is getting in the car with a strange man.”

  Judgment is dripping from his voice and the hair on my neck goes up. I have to bite my tongue not to snap at him, and instead return with a saccharine sweet voice. “I trust my daughter, Mr. Benedetti. I would’ve considered her safe enough with the city’s chief of police.”

  I know who he is. The buzz of a new chief had gone around town before he even moved in across the street. The rest I learned from Trinny who talks about the family she babysits for all the time. It didn’t take me long to find out from her he’s a widow, I know he’s originally from Denver, and I know he’s adores his kids, at least according to Trinny.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—”

  “That I knew who you were? You don’t think I’d let my daughter babysit for just anyone, do you? Also, I know my daughter, Mr. Benedetti—she has her head on straight.”

  “It’s Joe, and Mrs. Rizzo, I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “Yes, you did, but that’s okay. I’m grateful you’re looking out for her. And it’s Ms. Rizzo, but I much prefer Ollie.”

  “Ollie?”

  “Short for Olivia.”

  “I see. Well, Ollie, just so you know, I’m planning to head out around seven Wednesday morning, so—”

  “I’ll make sure she’s up.”

  I hear a deep sigh on the other end. “Does anyone ever get to finish a sentence around you?”

  “Rarely,” I tell him honestly, shrugging my shoulders. It’s not the first time I’ve been told this. I’m impatient, I know this, but time is short and I don’t like to waste it beating around the bush.

  “I’m getting that,” he says dryly, making me chuckle. Perhaps the man isn’t quite the stiff he comes across as. “You wouldn’t happen to be interested in a day on the slopes, would you?” he suddenly asks, taking me aback.

  “Alas, work beckons, but I appreciate the offer.”

  With a brief goodbye, I end the call and drop down in my chair, rubbing the palm of my hand hard over my right knee where the edge of my prosthesis sometimes rubs.

  Covering Ollie

  Coming May 14, 2019

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  WRITING MAY BE A SOLITARY exercise, but there is an entire team of people needed to turn my scribbles into a novel.

  The first person to clap eyes on my words is Joanne Thompson, who is with me from the moment my first chapter is written. She’s also the last person to iron out any final wrinkles and has become indispensible to me.

  The moment I type THE END, the book is off for two rounds of editing at the hands of someone else whom I absolutely cannot do without, Karen Hrdlicka.

  I would be lost without both these amazing women. They make me look good.

  I was blessed with a fabulous team of Beta readers for this book; Pam Buchanan, Deb Blake, Debbie Bishop, and Nancy Huddleston. They took time over the holidays to read HWY 550 and give me feedback in between rounds of editing.

  Next the book is sent to formatting, and I’m so lucky to have found a spot on CP Smith’s schedule. She turns my book into a thing of beauty!

  My thanks and love to all of these incredible women.

  Buoni Amici Press—Debra Presley and Drue Hoffman—thank you so much for your guidance, patience, and your invaluable set of marketing tools (since I lack those!).

  SBR Media—my agent and at times guardian angel Stephanie Phillips—thank you for your ongoing belief in me, your constant support, your awesome negotiating skills, and your steadfast encouragement in our almost daily chats and long phone calls. I absolutely adore you!

  Thank you to all the bloggers who were willing to take a chance on me, and those who have stuck with me through the years.

  And finally, a big thank you to all my readers—where would I be without you? There is nothing more gratifying to me than to hear I have somehow managed to brighten your day or touch your hearts

  Love you all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FREYA BARKER INSPIRES with her stories about 'real’ people, perhaps less than perfect, each struggling to find their own slice of happy, but just as deserving of romance, thrills and chills, and some hot, sizzling sex in their lives.

  Recipient of the RomCon “Reader’s Choice” Award for best first book, “Slim To None,” Freya has hit the ground running. She loves nothing more than to meet and mingle with her readers, whether it be online or in person at one of the signings she attends.

  Freya spins story after story with an endless supply of bruised and dented characters, vying for attention!

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  ALSO BY FREYA BARKER

  ON CALL SERIES:

  BURNING FOR AUTUMN

  COVERING OLLIE

  (May 14, 2019)

  ROCK POINT SERIES:

  KEEPING 6

  CABIN 12

  HWY 550

  10-CODE

  (Coming soon!)

  NORTHERN LIGHTS COLLECTION:

  A CHANGE OF TIDE

  A CHANGE OF VIEW

  A CHANGE OF PACE

  SNAPSHOT SERIES:

  SHUTTER SPEED

  FREEZE FRAME

  IDEAL IMAGE

  PICTURE PERFECT

  (coming soon!)

  PORTLAND, ME, NOVELS:

  FROM DUST
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  CRUEL WATER

  THROUGH FIRE

  STILL AIR

  CEDAR TREE SERIES:

  SLIM TO NONE

  HUNDRED TO ONE

  AGAINST ME

  CLEAN LINES

  UPPER HAND

  LIKE ARROWS

  HEAD START