His to Cherish Read online

  About His to Cherish

  Book 3 - final installment in the Smoke & Curves series

  ********************

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  His to Cherish

  Flipping switches.

  Were I asked to characterize my "relationship" with Collin Stark, those two words would succinctly wrap it up. From the interrogation in his office, to the hotel suite in Dubai, to the medical suite deep in the hotel's bowels, Collin had flipped switches inside me that I either didn't know I had or thought I had long ago shut off.

  Naturally, other words came to mind: complicated, heart breaking, sublime...

  One-sided.

  "Deep in thought?"

  I looked up from my computer monitor to find Reed Henley, my manager, staring at me over the top of my cubicle wall. Only nominally my manager, Reed could have found me playing Minesweeper or shopping on eBay and it wouldn't have made a difference. I had no real duties at the South Florida data farm Trent Kane had dumped me at after my return from Dubai.

  Sure, I tried to create my own duties. Every day I looked for something to analyze of interest to Stark International. I was, after all, now a data analytics specialist -- the type of job I had studied for in my master's program.

  I dumped one unsolicited report after another on Reed's desk, each study more voluminous than its predecessor. As far as I knew, they all went unread. I wasn't here to work, after all. I was here to collect twice my prior salary and drive a company car between work and my trendy, rent-free townhouse.

  Truth was, Reed wasn't my manager, he was my handler -- a fact evident by all the pictures in his office of him as a much younger man with Collin Stark and Trent Kane, the three of them in Army combat gear.

  I acknowledged Reed with a side glance and a short answer as I returned to the report I had been typing up. "No more than usual."

  His fingers strummed along the top of the cubicle wall. "You weren't at the barbecue Saturday."

  "No." One of the many switches flipped since meeting Collin, I had lost the ability to be pleasant to Reed. I could muster smiles for Kelly, the intern who delivered mail, and Max, who worked security at the front desk. I could speak in full sentences to almost anyone in the office who bothered talking to me, but not Reed.

  The strumming turned to tapping. "Max brought his wife."

  Saying nothing, I pushed at the right edge of my monitor, turning it a little so that my head would be forced to follow and he couldn't see the well of tears building. Mentioning Max and, more so, his wife who had just completed her last cycle of chemotherapy, was low, even for one of Stark's oldest buddies.

  "You know there's a Thursday happy hour--"

  Grabbing my coffee mug, I stood and walked from the cubicle. I couldn't understand Reed's recent attempts to integrate me into the office social scene. Someone at Stark International had deemed me unfit to do real work, whether for security reasons or perceived competency, yet Reed suddenly expected me to mill with the herd, a drink or hot dog in hand, and act like I was one of them.

  Entering the coffee station, I rinsed my mug and asked myself yet again why I still worked at Stark International. Not Collin's reason why, but my own. The only thing clear in my mind was Collin's complete rejection of me. The doubled salary and excessive fringe benefits were merely the coin of his guilt.

  Why had I stayed? He had exiled me to a friendless location to mourn the miscarriage alone--

  Don't go there, Mia.

  I swallowed down a hot gulp of fresh coffee, letting the pain in my mouth and throat replace the one burning through my heart. The medical staff and Kane had tried to convince me after I awoke to find Stark gone for good that the nurse had misspoken, that her English was bad. She tried to convince me herself, but her eyes told the truth.

  I swung, sometimes by the day, more often by the hour, between believing the lie and knowing the truth. I wanted to believe the lie, not because it cast Collin in a better light, but because the truth was too painful.

  I had lost something more important to me than a lover.

  I had lost a baby.

  When I wallowed in that fact, I tried to tell myself the loss was for the better. Why would Stark accept the child any more than he accepted me? And if he did, he had all the power in the world to keep the baby from me. It would have been heartbreak stacked on heartbreak.

  As ineffective as the argument was, I couldn't shake it, couldn't find anything better to replace it. I walked the idea round and round inside my skull until the pendulum swung back to it all being a lie. There had been no baby.

  Swallowing down more coffee, I stepped into the hall that ran from reception to the open floor of cubicles. My desk was down the main aisle and I could see that Reed hadn't moved far. Likely, he wasn't waiting for my return, but I would have to pass him anyway.

  Catching a building wave of voices from reception, I followed my ear to waste a few more minutes in the hope Reed would finally go back to his office, or at least another row on the floor.

  Seven bodies, plus the receptionist, filled the waiting area. All of them wore employee badges and had gathered in front of the big screen television that ran a news channel throughout the work day.

  "Damn, I wish I could have a secretary like that."

  The comment originated with a red-haired young man who had made the striking choice of a chartreuse dress shirt and a red tie for the day. His name escaped me but I vaguely remembered that he was a spreadsheet jockey of some sort. He didn't analyze data, just helped arranged it for those of us who did. Or, in my case, those of us who pretended we did.

  Dismissing him, I looked to the screen and the woman who had provoked his remark. Blonde, statuesque although sitting down, she looked like she belonged on a runway. I read the news tape at the bottom of the screen to learn that the station was covering a Miami security conference. When I looked up, the woman had leaned forward, her manicured nails lightly indenting a dress jacket as her fingers wrapped around a masculine shoulder. Her red lips whispered into a well-shaped ear surrounded by short black curls.

  Collin Stark...

  Another male spreadsheet jockey elbowed the redhead. "I hear his last one was ancient."

  Mentally correcting the man, I shook my head as I spun on one heel. Collin Stark's last secretary was fat and stupid beyond measure. Stupid to place her heart in his hands, stupid to accept his blood money, stupid to think he might yet show up.

  Returning to the coffee station, I absently rinsed the mug and placed it in the dishwasher. From there, I returned to my desk, logged back into my computer with numb fingers, input my hours for the day then logged out and powered down. I didn't glance around my desk or look in the drawers. Four months into working at the office, I hadn't brought in a single picture or plant. Nothing personal occupied my cube.

  From the supply room, I grabbed a padded envelope and deposited my security badge, car keys and company phone inside. In black marker, I wrote Reed's name on the outside. Exiting the building, I stopped at security and handed the envelope to Max.

  Too numb to cry, I managed a smile. "I'm sorry I missed seeing Clara Saturday."

  "She asked about you." His face lit up at the mention of his wife. "Docs say a few more weeks and she'll be back to cooking up a storm like she always did on Sundays. You've got a standing invitation, beautiful."

  A little less numb than I thought, I took a deep breath before responding. "I'd like that."

  I jerked my thumb at the
front doors and offered the last smile Max would ever get from me. "Few errands to run."

  With that, I quietly left the employ of Stark International.

  Half a city block from the office building, I stepped into a mobile phone store and purchased a prepaid phone. I used it to call a cab. By the time the driver dropped me at the doorstep of my company townhouse, I had an evening flight to the Martin County, North Carolina, airport booked.

  Like my office, nothing in the townhouse belonged to me. The furniture had been there when I arrived, as had the linens, dishes and cookware. I had added nothing personal. My life of the last four months fit into three suitcases and a carry-on.

  At the airport, I stopped by the business kiosk. Securing another padded envelope, I dropped my house keys inside then added postage and Reed's name, the office address below it. Heading toward security, I felt another switch flip.

  Game over.

  ********************

  I spent the night in a cheap motel near the airport, an equally cheap rental car parked outside the room. As hard as walking away from Stark International had been, I had a tougher day ahead of me and wanted to start fresh in the morning.

  More than six years had passed since I last stepped foot in Keeling. I had left at the beginning of my twentieth year after scraping enough money, grants and loans together to graduate from the county community college. My reason for hanging around had vanished with my mother's death shortly after I graduated high school. The horse farm that had been in the family for three generations passed to my stepfather, a small life estate in the guesthouse the only provision my mother had made for me in her will.

  Stunned, I had lived in the guesthouse those two years and watched the horses slowly disappear, bought by new owners as I struggled to make my tuition payments. Leaving with my associate's degree, I had promised myself I would never return.

  Easiest to break -- those promises we make to ourselves. Quitting Stark and his company, I couldn't think of any other place to regroup. When the airline's booking agent asked my destination, the answer had been automatic. Once uttered, I was embarrassed to change it. So, a little past ten thirty the following morning, I pulled to a stop in front of the house I had grown up in.

  The trees that canopied the drive had hidden the lawn from view. Stepping from the small Mazda, I surveyed the landscape to find that more than a season had passed without anyone taking care of the grounds.

  I stepped onto the porch, heart pounding in my chest. Dust covered the wooden boards, spiderwebs filled the corners and the paint beneath my shoes had cracked and peeled. Raising the brass knocker on the front door, a dreadful realization went through my head.

  If the main house looked this bad, in what condition would I find the guesthouse?

  The door jerked opened before I could release the knocker. My fingers twisted and I bit back a pained cry as I met the bleary gaze of my stepfather. It took a few seconds for him to recognize me. I knew the instant it happened because he snorted. Looking past my shoulder, he eyed the rental and offered another snort.

  "I need the keys to the guesthouse, Evan."

  His attention returned to me. He studied my clothes, his expression disappointed as he looked for jewelry or a watch. He wanted to know how much he could squeeze me for. Between the plain clothes I had intentionally selected for this meeting and bottom of the barrel car rental, his prospects weren't looking too good and he knew it.

  The door slammed in my face.

  I waited, seething on the inside while keeping a placid expression aimed at the door. If he didn't return with the keys, I would have to visit the county clerk's office and get a copy of the will. Then I would have to sweet talk the clerk into helping me figure out which form I needed to file to force Evan to let me onto the property. Better to wait a few minutes or even hours for his foul morning mood to pass than to hastily start a legal process that would have him digging in.

  Surprisingly, the door opened ten minutes after it closed. He held a set of keys in one hand, the other hand palm up and thrust in my face. "Gonna need the first month's electricity in advance."

  Opening my purse, I pulled out my wallet.

  "Three hundred should--"

  "You're not getting that much." I removed a hundred in twenties and offered it to him. "I'll have the utility out here to put in a separate box before the week is up."

  He spit at the ground, a thick glob of phlegm landing a few inches from my low-heeled pumps. Taking the money, he handed me the keys. What should have provoked at least some small measure of relief brought a sense of unease as a sour grin puckered Evan's mouth and he spit again.

  "Welcome home, little girl."

  "Home" was as inaccurate as "little girl." The farm had stopped being my home years before I moved away from Keeling, all because of the man standing in front of me.

  Ignoring the slow crawl of disgust down my spine, I offered a flat smile and returned to the car. Navigating the potholes dotting the dirt lane that ran through the property from the main house, past the stables to the guesthouse, I figured at least three years had elapsed since the last time Evan had graded the lane.

  Pulling in view of my old/new home, all but the worst of my fears materialized.

  Bushes that had been no higher than my knees when I left six-plus years before towered above my head, their thick branches and foliage likely the only reason the windows on the old place remained intact. If only the same could be said for the roof over the garage. A heavy branch from an untrimmed pine tree had punched a hole in the roof. If the door between the garage and the house had been opened after my departure, I likely would have a family of raccoons inside, squirrels and possum at the very least.

  I walked the perimeter, both to examine the rest of the exterior and to find a sizable branch I could wield as a club in case I did find wildlife inside. My heart sank a little lower on the backside. The windows were whole, but part of the roof sagged above the corner bedroom. Thankfully, it was the second bedroom and I had left it empty.

  Branch in hand, I returned to the front, removed a newly purchased flashlight from my trunk and opened the door. The flashlight threw the thinnest of beams into the dark living room. Heart running wild in my chest, I moved through the space to reach the curtains on the double wide windows. I pulled the drawstring, releasing a little sunshine and six years' worth of dust into the atmosphere.

  Turning, I examined the furniture, relieved to find the sheets I had placed over the couch and side chairs in place and undisturbed -- a good sign no critters had made their way in from the garage. I moved from the front room into the kitchen. The rod and curtains fell into the empty sink when I tried to open them. I made a mental note to add a screwdriver and an electric drill to my shopping list as I walked toward the door that opened onto the garage.

  I didn't want to open the door, but I wanted electricity and the breaker was in the garage. Lord only knew what waited in that space.

  Feral things waited.

  Stopping, I laughed at my sudden cowardice.

  Feral things -- really? I had been in a limo that had a bomb explode alongside it. I had been in Collin Stark's arms and I had just told the meanest damn bastard in the entire county he couldn't extort three hundred dollars from me. How afraid could I be over a momma raccoon?

  I turned the inside lock, grabbed the handle and threw the door open, bracing for an inward rush of vermin. When nothing came at me, I knocked the branch back and forth in the doorway, letting it bounce off the frame a few times to wake any creatures.

  Satisfied with the continued silence, I crossed the garage and flipped the breaker switch then double-timed it back into the kitchen and relocked the door. I turned on the ceiling light, the bulb's filament popping. Thankfully, I had come prepared for such an event, having stopped on the drive in to pick up basics like lightbulbs, matches, candles, and toilet paper, among a few other items.

  Reaching the refrigerator, I plugged it in, set the temperature and c
losed the doors that had been blocked open. Back in the living room, I tried the ceiling light, another set of filaments popping. I decided to retrieve the box of bulbs from the car and change them before venturing into the rest of the house. If I needed to beat a hasty retreat from the bathroom or bedrooms, shrieking like the girl I was, I didn't want to trip over the furniture in the shadowy living room.

  I replaced the lights as I went, living room and kitchen first, then the hallway, then the bathroom, where I propped my branch against the door from the inside and took my first pee in my old/new home. I flushed with trepidation, the toilet gasping and gurgling as it refilled. The pipes were the same when I turned the bathroom sink on to wash my hands. Rust-filled water spurted against the porcelain for a good thirty seconds before it was clear enough to put my hands under the faucet.

  Finding the water cold as ice, I reminded myself to check the electric water heater in the utility closet after I looked at the two bedrooms. It hadn't had time to heat the water since I flipped the breaker switch, but I needed to make sure it was safe to keep running. Mice could have chewed through the cord or any number of other things could have happened in six years.

  The master bedroom had weathered my absence in the same fashion as the front of the house -- dusty, with no working lightbulb, but otherwise intact. My nose told me something was wrong with the spare bedroom the instant I opened the door. With the smell of mold assaulting me, I cast the flashlight up at the ceiling. A water stain covered a third of the area. Moving the beam down the wall, my heart shriveled in my chest.

  I had left the room completely empty six years ago. With a life estate left to me under my mother's will, no one else had a right to use the space. Yet "someone" had brought in boxes and trunks. The writing on the labels belonged to a dead hand -- my mother's.

  Reading the descriptions, I could guess at the contents. "SJ Oak/Cit" had to be pictures and other mementos from my father's years at Oakridge Military Academy and at college in South Carolina.

  Its weight pushed down a water-warped box marked "Wedding." My mother had married Evan in the Caribbean, just the two of them while I stayed with my maternal grandmother. Whatever pictures they had taken, the volume wouldn't fill a box, meaning the decaying contents were more memories of my father left to rot.