They’d barely sat down when an attractive woman in a svelte black dress appeared. She set a tray on the low table between them. “Shall I bring your usual, Mr. Stanton?” She directed the question to Gage, but her eyes slid over Archer.
“As soon as possible, Theresa. Thanks.”
Theresa immediately glided away and Gage reached for one of the fancy little appetizers on the tray she’d left. He popped it in his mouth and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He extracted one and rolled it between his fingers as if he were savoring the feel of it.
Archer had yet to see his old friend actually light up one of the cigarettes he always carried. “You’re not that worried about the guest ranch, are you? We can bring in an expert to consult. I’ve already been looking into some of the more successful outfits out there. There’s a place called Angel River near the Wyoming-Montana border that’s been winning awards for years with rates just as high or higher than some of your resorts. Pretty swell setup. Definitely not all sleeping on straw beds and shoveling manure. And if you can talk Jed and April into adding a smaller winter resort at the summit as well—” He spread his hands, wordlessly.
“I know I’m not going to lose money with you watching out for things,” Gage said a little drily. Then he rubbed his forehead like there was a pain there. “Noah’s in rehab again.”
Understanding hit. Noah was Gage’s younger brother and he’d been in and out of treatment for years. “Thought he’d been doing pretty well.”
“So did I.” Gage held up the cigarette and eyed it expressionlessly for a moment before slipping it back inside the pack that he pocketed once more. He rubbed his forehead again. “I don’t know what to do about him,” he admitted.
“Maybe don’t do anything,” Archer suggested bluntly. “He’s a grown man.”
“He’s a spoiled kid in a grown man’s body,” Gage corrected wearily. “All he has ever cared about is himself.” He fell silent while Theresa delivered their drinks. When she disappeared again, he looked at Archer. “Thought you and Theresa weren’t seeing each other anymore.”
“We aren’t.” He sipped the scotch and it hit the back of his throat with welcome warmth.
“She’s sure giving you the looks.”
“Is she?” Archer hadn’t really noticed. He sank deeper into the thick cushions of his chair. Gage never did anything halfway. Everything he surrounded himself with was first-rate.
He was also one of the hardest-working fools Archer had ever known.
Gage had been raised by a single mom who’d worked for a pharmaceutical magnate. If he’d ever known his father, he’d never said. He’d earned every bit of success he had, whereas his little half brother, Noah, had never had to work for a single thing thanks to being the only child of that pharmaceutical magnate.
Money. It could bring out the best in people. So often, though, it brought out the worst.
Archer looked up at the inky sky. Thought about Nell. About the night he’d brought her home from The Wet Bar.
The only reason he’d put her in the guest room bed was because she’d been drunk enough to climb into his bed, first.
It would have been way too easy to take advantage of that situation.
If he were honest with himself, he very nearly had.
Only the ringing of his phone had brought him to his senses. He’d dragged Nell’s arms from around his neck. Somehow managed to button her back into her clothes and literally dumped her into the guest room. The only reason she’d stayed there was because she’d finally, mercifully passed out.
When—if—he was going to go down that rabbit hole with Nell again, he wanted her fully aware that she’d chosen to go down it with him, too.
“My grandmother’s having a party on Friday,” he told Gage abruptly. Before Archer had phoned Nell, Vivian had called him specifically to let him know she expected him to be there regardless of how much rearranging of his schedule it might entail.
It wasn’t the first time it had dawned on him that he was surrounded by a lot of strong-willed women with expectations where he was concerned.
“It’s for that library project of hers,” he went on, “but if the mountain ends up under Weaver control—and my hunch is that it’s leaning that way—it’d be an opportunity for you to start making some connections with the locals.”
Gage was shaking his head. “That’s what I’ve got you for.”
It wasn’t the first time Gage had avoided going to Weaver. Archer knew it couldn’t be because of Gage’s ex-wife, Jane, who lived there. Gage had staked Jane in her purchase of a local bar and grill and admitted more than once that they were far happier with each other’s company as exes than they’d ever been during the few years they’d been married more than a decade earlier.
“I already know the power players in Weaver,” Archer countered. “That’s not the point. They’re going to want to know you. Know who they’ll be inviting into their world. Once all the dust is settled about the mountain, what you do on it is going to change things for that town, and they all know it. Tourism is a whole new ball of wax for that area.”
“Then I’ll do the meetings I need to do.” Gage’s lips twisted a little. “But what I don’t need to do is crash your grandmother’s party. I’ve already donated money to her library deal.”
“Afraid she’ll ask you for more?”
Gage’s expression finally lightened. “Now you’ve got it.”
Theresa returned and leaned close to Gage, murmuring in his ear. He didn’t react, but when she was gone again, he slammed back the rest of his drink and stood. “Ever think about finding an island where the only things to worry about are which hammock makes for the most comfortable nap?”
Archer shook his head. “Nope.” Still, he was the man’s attorney. If there was a problem that needed his expertise, it was his responsibility to handle it. “Anything I can help with?”
“Just business,” Gage dismissed. “Stay and enjoy yourself,” he said before he strode away.
“I plan to,” Archer murmured. He popped three of the little fancy crackers into his mouth and pulled out his phone. It wasn’t often he voluntarily called his stepsister. She was definitely a strong-willed woman, but when it came to Archer, Rosalind’s only expectation was that he stay out of her way.
But he had enough scotch warming his belly to blunt the edge.
Amazingly, she answered on the fourth ring. “Archer.” Her voice was cool. “I’m in the middle of something, so this better be important.”
“What’s going on between you and Nell?”
He could hear the very loud irritation in her silence. “I have nothing to say to you about that,” she finally said, in what he considered an alarmingly polite way. She usually told him to do the physically impossible before she’d hang up on him.
Which meant there was something more going on than a simple parting of the ways. “She’s living in a third-rate motel in Weaver, Ros. You saying you don’t care about that?”
“I don’t care about that,” she echoed flatly. “So you can go f—”
“Now, now, now,” he cut her off. “Don’t say anything you might really mean.” He poked through the delicacies displayed on the tray. “You know every time we speak, I have to remind myself that you carry Meredith’s genes in you, because the older we get, the only ones you show are the ones you got from your dad.”
“What do you want me to say, Archer?” She actually sounded pained. “There’s nothing I can do to help her. Nell chose her side.”
“And I’m asking you why! Why are there sides when you’ve been friends for better than twenty years? I know Martin’s at the root of whatever it is.” Ros, ironically enough, was a stickler for fairness. At least where people beyond her own family were concerned. She wouldn’t stoop to spreading rumors and innuendo about an enemy, much less Nell. Whereas those tactics were exact
ly what Martin would do, even to his own family.
The fact that Meredith hadn’t been able to keep custody of Ros when she’d managed to escape him was proof of that.
His stepsister’s silence turned stony. It was all too easy to picture the face that went along with it.
He exhaled wearily. “I’m not your enemy, kiddo. No more so now than when we were young.” When he was being raised with his sisters by her mom and his dad—a boisterous, secure and happy family—and she was stuck alone with Martin. Even then, he’d known she was envious, just as he’d known she’d blamed Meredith for that situation more than she’d ever blamed her father. Such was the effectiveness of Martin Pastore’s manipulations. “You can talk to me if you’ve got a probl—”
“Goodbye, Archer,” she cut him off, and hung up on him.
Theresa chose that moment to sit down on the arm of his chair and trail her fingertip along his forearm. “You’re looking a little lonely sitting out here, Archer.”
He slowly looked up from the swirling screensaver that had appeared on his phone to her face. “Then I’d better do something about that.” He finished off his drink and gave her a pat on the arm as if he were her uncle before standing and making his own exit.
He kept his own apartment in the city not far from Gage’s building. After he’d retrieved his files from Gage’s office, he stopped at his place and grabbed a few more files that he added to the box he kept in his truck. He left a message for Jennifer, who ran his office with far more skill than he’d ever shown, and was on the highway thirty minutes after leaving Theresa.
It was well after midnight when he reached Braden. He considered driving through to Weaver and the Cozy Night. But if he went to Nell now and forcibly removed her from that particular hole-in-the-wall, she’d think he was just as crazy as he felt.
It was the only reason why he turned off the highway when he reached the narrow road that led to his house. He drove between the stone pillars of the gate he never closed and soon after, he was home, walking through the darkened rooms until he reached his bedroom.
He tossed himself down on the bed still fully dressed and closed his eyes, happy to fall into familiar dreams where Nell never pushed him away.
* * *
The cat food bowl was empty again.
Nell propped her hands on her hips and looked around, but all she saw were the same things that she’d seen the day before. Only this time, she was seeing it through the beams of her car headlights.
Vivian had kept her busy that afternoon. And that evening.
Which meant that the scrubby brush now looked more gray than green. The boulders were nothing more than black shadows and the wildflowers were only an occasional flash of yellow if the breeze sent them swaying at the right angle to catch her headlights.
All cats were nocturnal, weren’t they?
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” she called softly, feeling a little foolish. Any stray who was out here coming around to eat food off the top of a stone pillar was probably not the kind of feline that’d come at a call.
She peered beyond the beams of light, but saw nothing more than before.
She tipped the cat food bag from her back seat over the bowl. It wasn’t a very large bag and she would need to buy more soon because it was going to be empty in a couple of days. With the bowl full again, she stood on her toes to return it to its usual spot.
When she went back down on her heels, she glanced around again, then went stock-still at a tall shape in the distance out of range of the headlights.
No cat stood that tall.
Her heart shot up into her throat and she felt entirely incapable of movement while every monster movie she’d ever seen whizzed through her mind.
She was the worst sort of monster movie victim. The kind whom she and Ros had always yelled at at the movies for showing their stupidity so clearly. For not turning and at least trying to escape.
The shape grew larger and she felt sweat crawl down her spine. The thick paper of the cat food bag crinkled loudly when her fingers tightened on it. The bag wasn’t much of a weapon, but if she threw it at the beast—it obviously couldn’t be a monster movie one, but who knew what sort of animals besides stray kitties came out after dark?—maybe it would be warning enough to send it off in another direction.
She bounced on the toes of her low-heeled pumps, hearing her heart pound inside her head, and when the shape gained yet a little more substance, she balled up the bag as tightly as she could and launched it wildly in the air. Then she raced back to her car, practically diving headfirst inside it.
She yanked the door closed and shoved the car into Reverse, backing away from the pillars in preparation of turning around. Whatever was out there—mountain lion or worse—was welcome to the kibble.
Nell would buy another bag and make sure she didn’t come out here again except when it was still light.
She shifted out of Reverse and started to turn the car, but the shape was barreling toward her and when it crossed her headlights, she realized that it wasn’t an animal at all.
It was Archer.
She shoved the car into Park and launched out of the car, barreling right back toward him. She reached the pillars at the same time that he did, and shoved her hands against the solid plane of his chest.
The fact that he was laughing infuriated her even more.
“You’re supposed to be in Denver! You scared the peanuts out of me!” She went to shove him again, but he was leaning over, hands on his thighs as he laughed even harder.
“I thought you were a bear or something!” She kicked at the ground, which was covered with the kibble that had sprayed out of the bag when she’d thrown it.
He closed his hand over her shoulder, holding her in place. His face was pale in the headlights but the broad smile on his face was brilliant. “And you what? Thought you’d ward off the bear with kitty kibble?”
She kicked more nuggets of said kitty kibble over his legs. Now that her silly panic was assuaged, she didn’t want to acknowledge the smile struggling to get free. “I thought you were out of town,” she repeated.
“I was.” He was still cupping her shoulder and when he turned and gestured with his other hand into the darkness beyond the headlights, his arm just seemed to naturally slide around her shoulders altogether. “My truck’s parked right over there. How’d you miss it?”
She shrugged his arm off before too many of her cells could remember how much they liked the contact. “Maybe because I was concentrating on feeding a cat that I don’t even believe exists!” She let out a loud breath and tugged at the hem of her blouse that had escaped her waistband. “But now you’re back, which means I am off that particular hook.” She started marching back to her car.
“Oh, come on, Nell.” Archer followed her. “Relax. Come on up to the house at least. I was just about to put a steak on the grill when I saw your headlights.” He caught her hand as she reached for the door.
“It’s late and I have things to do.” She ignored the warmth streaking up her arm.
“What things? Fighting moths?”
She let out a frustrated sound. “It doesn’t matter what things!”
“Then whatever they are can wait.” He squeezed her hand slightly. Cajoling. “Come on. You can fill me in on Vivian’s project. I worry about her.”
The sound she let out then was nothing but pure scoff. “Vivian’s the last person you need to worry about. She runs circles around everyone.”
“Yeah.” His thumb brushed a small, distracting circle over the back of her hand. “But she also has an inoperable brain tumor, so humor me.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate. “I... What?”
“She wouldn’t appreciate me telling you, either. She prefers to choose who, and when, she shares that information with so try not to throw me under the bus next time y
ou see her.”
No longer in the line of the headlights, all she had to see him by was the light from inside her car and the proliferation of stars punctuating the sky overhead. She peered hard at him. “You’re not joking.”
“Not about that.”
She let out a long, long breath. “A tumor.”
“Yes, a tumor. Fortunately, it’s small and hasn’t caused any bad episodes in over a year, but there are no guarantees. It’s a situation that could turn on a dime. Anytime. Anywhere. She has tests every few months, monitoring it.”
Nell finally tugged her hand away from him and ducked into the car. She turned off the engine and it ticked softly in the sudden silence.
Her mother had died of a brain aneurysm.
No warning. No preparation.
She closed her eyes for a moment. The car engine ticked twice more.
Then she straightened again, closed the door and faced him. “I hope you have two steaks, because I haven’t had a chance to eat all day.”
Chapter Seven
“Could have pulled your car up to the house,” Archer told her for the third time when they reached the house after a fair piece of walking. “It would have saved you walking all that way in those plain Jane grandma shoes of yours.”
She huffed. She’d chosen the shoes because they were leather with chunky heels of a sensible height that worked perfectly for an associate lawyer who usually was racing from one courtroom to another. She’d owned them for years and had already had them resoled. Twice. “If I were wearing shoes like your grandmother wears, I would have.” So far, Nell hadn’t seen Vivian wear the same shoes twice. They were all quite high-heeled, and they all screamed “designer.”
“Yeah, she does like her shoes, doesn’t she?” He took two steps in one as he vaulted up the wood stairs near the corner of the house.
She’d seen the structure only from a distance up to now, of course. She still hadn’t seen a guesthouse at all, which made her think he’d made that up just to yank her chain.
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