Forsaken Trail

by Devney Perry

  “Why did you come all the way here?” she asked.

  “I own a plane. And I just . . . I couldn’t stay in Arizona. I couldn’t do this over the phone.”

  She tensed, studying my face. “I’m keeping this baby.”

  “Did you think I’d come here and ask you to have an abortion?”

  “Yes.”

  I flinched. She might as well have slapped me. “I would never do that.”

  “I don’t know you, Brody.” Aria’s voice gentled. “Not really. I just don’t know what to expect from you. But I don’t want to fight. I don’t have the energy for it. So please don’t take offense. I honestly don’t know why you’re here.”

  That was the thing with Aria, the reason her company was so refreshing. She didn’t want anything from me. She didn’t care about my money. She didn’t care about my business. She was simply honest. Sometimes, brutally so.

  Honesty, I could deliver.

  “I’m here because I want to be involved. With this—our, my—baby. I won’t forsake my child.”

  Aria blinked, her eyebrows coming together. “Seriously?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?” Did she really think I was such a cold monster? Probably. And I couldn’t blame her for it.

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she whispered.

  “Believe that I see how hard Clara works to raise August on her own. Believe that I don’t want my child growing up without me in his or her life. Please . . . don’t shut me out from this.”

  Now it was her turn to flinch. An expression of sheer annoyance, distinctly Aria, added fire to those tired eyes. “I would never do that.”

  The tension eased from my shoulders. “On the way here, I had some time to think.”

  “I can already tell I’m not going to like this.”

  A grin tugged at my mouth. “Hear me out.”

  She leaned back, sagging into the couch. She yawned and covered it up with her hand. “I’m listening.”

  “You live in Oregon.”

  “I do?”

  “Smart-ass,” I muttered. “I live in Arizona. Traveling back and forth isn’t going to work, for either of us. And I am guessing that you won’t want to be away from the baby for extended stretches of time.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Then one of us has to move.”

  “You mean me.” She sat straight, her spine stiffening. “My life is here, Brody. My work. My home. I’m not giving it all up to live in the desert.”

  The way she spat the last word made me pause. “What’s wrong with the desert?”

  “It’s a desert.”

  It was too much like California.

  Clara had once told me the reason she suspected Aria had run from Vegas to Oregon hadn’t been the fake people or the city life, but because she’d wanted to get away from anything that reminded her of life at the junkyard in Temecula.

  “You move here,” she said.

  “I can’t.” I held up my hand when she opened her mouth. “I can’t in the next year.”

  “After that?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Why a year?”

  I stood from the chair and stripped off my suit coat. If we were going to get into this, we might as well get comfortable. “Are you sure you don’t want dinner?”

  “I could eat. How about pizza?”

  Pizza. Not exactly something I ate much of. Ron normally prepared all my meals, tailoring them to my personal trainer’s specifications. Ron did not make pizza. And pizza sounded fucking awesome. “That would be great.”

  She pulled out her phone, quickly placing an order for delivery. Then she tucked it away and gave me her attention as I resumed my seat.

  “In less than a year, I’ll be thirty-five. My family’s company, Carmichael Communications, will become mine.”

  “It isn’t now?”

  “Only partly. At the moment, the majority of my shares are governed by a trust. My grandmother is the executor and acting owner. But the stipulations on my trust disappear on my birthday in November. Until then, I have to play her game. Otherwise she’ll sell the company from under me. She’ll sell it before I can sell it.”

  “Wait.” Aria held up a finger. “She wants to sell your company. But you want to sell your company. Spell it out for me, Carmichael. I’m too tired to read between the lines.”

  “It’s complicated.” In a word. “Grandmother likes control. Maybe she’s bluffing but maybe she’s not. Selling the company is her threat. It’s the reason she can demand I show up at a wedding.”

  “Ahh.” Aria nodded. “She’d sell it out of spite.”

  “Exactly. And in doing so, almost every employee would lose their job.”

  “They wouldn’t if you sold it?”

  I shook my head. “Not if I find the right buyer. Carmichael Communications is a small player in the scope of telecommunications companies, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some pull. If I sold or partnered with a larger company, we could turn it into something that might change the world.”

  There were innovative companies looking to acquire resources like the ones we had at Carmichael. Our research and development team had made some amazing tech in the area of satellite communications and internet capabilities.

  “How does all of this require you live in Arizona?”

  “We have a small R&D office in Welcome along with a data warehouse. I’ve moved my best employees out of Vegas to Arizona, where I can focus our efforts on the developments that position us for the big sale. If I leave Welcome, my grandmother will insist we shut the site down and move it all back to Vegas. I don’t want her to know what we’re doing. So far, I’ve managed to keep it quiet. It works because I’m there. She trusts that my incentives are to make the company flourish. After all, I’m inheriting it. That’s why my grandfather set it up that way in the first place.”

  Aria frowned. “Complicated. I’m not a fan of your grandmother.”

  “You and me both. But I have to play nice. It’s a game I can’t lose.”

  “I don’t play games.”

  No, she didn’t. “My grandmother is the most tenacious woman you’ll ever meet. Her greatest pleasure is control. Like I said, maybe she’s bluffing. But there are hundreds of employees, including your sister, who can’t take the chance that she’s not.”

  Aria closed her eyes. “What a mess.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “And your brother? Is he part of the mess too?”

  “He’s never worked at Carmichael. Probably because he never got along with my grandfather.”

  “But you did?”

  “In a way.” My relationship with Grandfather hadn’t been one of love and loyalty. He had been just as ruthless as Grandmother, probably why their marriage had lasted. He hadn’t liked Alastair because my brother was lazy and entitled.

  Aria blew out a long breath. “Arizona.”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask.” I leaned my elbows on my knees. I’d drop to them if need be. “Please. Consider it. I don’t . . . I don’t want my—our—child hating me because I wasn’t there.”

  There hadn’t been many times in my life when I’d needed a parent—I’d always been fairly self-sufficient and, after all, I’d had employees as my keepers. But there’d been a handful of times when I’d wanted a parent sitting in the auditorium, like my high school and college graduations. To this day, I resented them for their absence.

  I refused to be that kind of father.

  Aria’s gaze softened. Maybe she’d heard the truth in my words. She’d realized it was a confession of the life I’d lived. And there was sympathy in her eyes because her parents hadn’t been there either.

  “Let me think about it,” she said. “Let me see what kind of work I can find.”

  “You don’t—”

  She held up a hand. “I have to work.”

  “Then how about you run my flower shop?” The words spewed out before I could catch them. J
esus, Brody. What the hell was I thinking? The lie spun in front of my eyes, like a spider weaving a strand of silk, its legs moving faster and faster. The idea formed like a web, ready to trap Aria. For her own good.

  “What flower shop?” Her eyebrows creased together.

  “I just bought the local flower shop when the owners retired.” Lie. “I often buy businesses in Welcome.” That was true at least. If she talked to Clara, her sister would confirm it.

  When a local store was getting ready to close or the owners retire, as long as the finances made sense, I bought it. Not only were they usually good investments, but it ensured my town, my safe haven, thrived.

  I employed a business manager to oversee them all and gladly stayed silent. I owned three restaurants, two bars, an insurance agency, a salon and a gym.

  And now Welcome Floral.

  Not that the owners of Welcome Floral knew this. Hopefully they’d be willing to sell it to me on short notice for a ridiculous price. If they didn’t go for it, well . . . I’d think of something. As long as I got Aria to Welcome, the rest didn’t matter.

  “A year. Give me a year,” I begged. “After my birthday and after the baby is born, we can come up with a new plan.”

  “I won’t have this baby for months. Seven of them, I think. I haven’t been to the doctor yet. By the time that’s over and we get through a maternity leave, that should be close to your birthday. Why move? Why not just wait?”

  “Because I’d miss the pregnancy.”

  She blinked. “I didn’t think men cared about that.”

  “Devan didn’t care about that.” I spat the name. “I’m nothing like Devan.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Think about it. That’s all I ask. Consider it.” Please.

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Thanks,” I breathed and stood, pulling on my jacket. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “What about pizza?”

  “I’ll get dinner at the hotel.” My stomach was in too much of a knot to eat, even though pizza sounded delicious. But if I stayed, chances were Aria and I would find something to fight about. Best I get out and end this conversation on a good note.

  “You’re staying?”

  “Aren’t you going to Arizona tomorrow for Christmas?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “Might as well cancel your flight. There’s no point in flying commercial when I’m going to the same place.”

  She frowned, like she wanted to argue, but she’d been on my plane. It was nothing like flying commercial. “What time are we leaving?”

  “I’ll pick you up at ten.”

  “No, don’t. I’ll come to the hotel.”

  “All right.” I walked for the door, but before I touched the knob, I stopped and turned. “I know this probably seems strange, the urgency. Why I want to be there. I didn’t have a good father. And I vowed a long time ago not to make the same mistakes that he made.”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me, Brody.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Good night.”

  “Good night.” I took one last look at her face, memorizing the contours of her cheeks and the shape of her mouth.

  Her image had dulled some, since the wedding. Now it was fresh. Mesmerizing.

  Fuck, but I’d missed it.

  Without another word, I left, making it halfway down the block when I saw the pizza delivery car zooming up the road. As I strode down the sidewalk, I pulled out my phone and called Clara.

  “Did she kick you out yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you doing, Brody? You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. “Give it time to sink in. You two will figure it out. Long-distance parenting isn’t ideal, but it’s not impossible.”

  Long-distance parenting was not an option. “I need a favor. It’s going to require you hide some details from your sister.”

  “I don’t hide things from my sister.”

  “Do you want her to live in Arizona?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “Then that’s the price.”

  She hesitated. In the background, a cartoon played on the TV. “Tell me.”

  “Tomorrow morning, I need you to buy Welcome Floral.”

  “What? It’s not for sale.”

  “Everything is for sale.” A truth I believed to the marrow. “Make the Backers an offer they can’t refuse.”

  Chapter Eight

  Aria

  “You’re joking,” Mark said. “Right?”

  “I’m not.”

  “No.” His face fell. “You can’t leave.”

  In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen such sorrow on his face. And disappointment. I’d come in today to give my notice as head groundskeeper at The Gallaway. Mark had been in his office and I’d asked Andy if he had a moment. Better to tell them both at the same time.

  “But . . . why?” Andy asked, standing beside Mark’s desk. He had one hand on the surface, holding tight like he was about to faint.

  Telling them the truth, that I was pregnant, wasn’t an option. Not only did that seem cruel to Andy, but considering it was still early, I wasn’t sure if it was smart to make the announcement.

  Plus they’d ask questions about the father I wasn’t ready to answer.

  “I want to live closer to my sister and nephew. He’s getting older and I want to be a part of his life. Both their lives.” It wasn’t a lie. It was just one slice of the truth pie.

  Mark blinked, staring at me like this was some sort of hoax.

  “But . . .” Andy shook his head, like he was trying to rewind the last ten minutes.

  “I’m so grateful,” I told Mark. “You’ve given me the career of my dreams. Please know that I’m so very grateful. But I need to be closer to family. I’m lonely.”

  Understanding crossed his features. Mark had been single for as long as I’d known him. Aside from the occasional girlfriend, he lived a solitary life. But he had family in the area and he often spent time with his parents. He knew I was alone here and that I was desperately close to Clara.

  “How long can you stay?” he asked.

  “Two months?” That was six weeks longer than the standard notice, but I owed them a lot. And two months here would give me time to pack my condo.

  Last night, Brody had asked me for a year. Only a year. But in my heart, I felt the goodbye. When I left Oregon, I wouldn’t be moving back.

  “Could we work out an arrangement?” Andy asked. “More time off so you can travel. Expand your staff so you’re not so tied here during the season. Before you quit, let’s brainstorm.”

  I sighed. It came as no surprise that Andy had the energy for a debate, but I was simply too tired. And nauseous. Last night’s pizza was churning in my stomach. I wouldn’t make it through brainstorming without puking in Mark’s trash can.

  Mark and I had been through a lot over the years. We’d grown to know one another as friends, not just boss and employee. But puking in the owner and CEO’s trash can was crossing a line. I had minutes, not hours, before I’d need to hightail it to the bathroom.

  Besides, after staying up most of the night considering Brody’s proposal, any negotiation would be pointless.

  I’d made my decision.

  Mark must have seen the conviction on my face because he held up a hand to silence Andy. Then he gave me a sad smile. “Two months is very generous. We’ll take it.”

  “Thank you.” My shoulders slumped. So did Andy’s. “For everything. Thank you.”

  “You’ll always have a place here,” he said. “If Arizona doesn’t work out, come back to us.”

  “I appreciate that. I’ll put together a transition plan and make sure the staff is trained. We’re in good shape at the greenhouse.”

  “Don’t worry about that this week.” Mark waved it off. “Go to Arizona. Enjoy Christmas. We’ll pla
n when you return.”

  He really was the world’s best boss’s boss. I was going to miss Mark. I was going to miss The Gallaway. This job had been an anchor, keeping me grounded while I’d grown from a young woman into an adult.

  And now I was going to become a mother.

  I was to become the anchor.

  God, I hoped I had the strength.

  “Merry Christmas,” I told them both, then left them alone. I closed the door behind me, but not soon enough to miss Andy release a pained groan.

  Poor guy.

  I breathed deeply, something I hadn’t done all morning. Then the shaking set in and reality hit. It was done. I’d quit my job.

  The urge to cry came on so strong I struggled to blink the tears away as I walked down the hallway, making my way to the main floor. But there wasn’t time to cry. Because I had to puke.

  After a quick stop at the bathroom—at least I was getting used to the retching—I went to the lobby. Mark and Andy had been my first stop of the day. Brody was the second.

  “Hey,” I greeted the receptionist. “Could you ring a guest room for me?”

  “Sure. What’s the name?”

  “Bro—” The call wasn’t necessary. As I glanced over my shoulder, I spotted him in the lobby. “Oh. Never mind.”

  Brody stood in the center of the room, dressed in the same suit he’d worn last night, talking on the phone. He looked rumpled. His hair was damp and finger combed. His suit wasn’t its usual crisp. Still, he was the most handsome man to ever grace these halls.

  He’d come here without a bag, hadn’t he? The cold robot who loved money had cared enough and been freaked out enough to hop on a plane without so much as a toothbrush. He’d come here on a spur-of-the-moment decision because our lives were now different. Entwined.

  He’d rushed to my side and begged me not to cut him out of our kid’s life.

  Brody never stopped surprising me.

  It was endearing, seeing him as human, knowing he wasn’t abandoning me to single parenthood. His apology for the morning after the wedding had helped too.

  Hovering beside the reception counter, I waited until he hung up the phone. He let his arm drop, the device in his grip, but he stared at it like he wanted to throw it on the floor and walk away forever.