The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass by Maisey Yates

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN GRIFFINWOKEUPMonday morning, he had the realization that today would be different than the one before it.

And that was strange.

He didn’t really look forward to things. And he wasn’t sure that he could say he was looking forward to this. Mostly, it was a strange mixture of alarm and anticipation. It was just knowing that the day wouldn’t stretch on until it ended with nothing interrupting it. Knowing that another person would be sharing his space. Space that had been sacred ground since he’d moved in.

But he went out, and he worked on the house until the sun started to make his shoulders feel blistered, and he stripped his white undershirt off and wiped his face with it before shoving it in the back pocket of his jeans and heading toward the house, his stomach growling.

Her car was there. Gleaming in the late afternoon light. He had moved the log yesterday so she wouldn’t have to hike up to the cabin the next time she arrived. It seemed the least he could do.

He walked up the steps and pushed the door open, and stopped when he saw her, down on her hands and knees on the floor, scrubbing vigorously. Her dark hair was hanging limp in her face, her brow gleaming with sweat. She was wearing a plain gray T-shirt that showed nothing of her body, and a skirt that fell down past her knees, and he didn’t know why he was frozen there watching her work.

Maybe it was just the strangeness of having her there. It sure as hell couldn’t be anything else.

She straightened, clambering to her feet, her eyes wide. Her mouth went slack, then dropped open.

“Hi,” he said.

“Oh” was her response. She was staring at him. Or more accurately, at his chest.

Right. He’d taken his shirt off.

Which, he could see was maybe not the best move in context with the situation. But he had kind of forgotten how to do the whole people thing.

He stomped over to his dresser, which was pushed up against the wall, opened the top drawer and grabbed a black T-shirt out of it. He shrugged it on over his head. “Thanks for coming,” he said.

She was still staring at him.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “It is what we agreed on.”

“We didn’t agree on a time.”

“No,” she said tentatively. “We didn’t. That is true. But I thought... Well, since I don’t have a key to the bakery, or anything like that.”

“Give me your address,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he said. “Give me your address and I will have it mailed to you.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Anyway. I figured since I didn’t have anything to do at the bakery today I would come and get a head start on getting whatever needed to be done here...done.”

“Enterprising. I admire it.”

Of course, doing anything around this place was essentially a lost cause. It was dirt on dirt. Not that he cared. It was rustic. It was basically camping, and that was just fine with him. He’d tried.

He had tried to stay in the Bay Area. Had tried to continue to run his business in San Francisco, living in an apartment there. But there was no normal. And nothing had gotten better. So a couple of years ago he had come to Gold Valley. It had always been the plan, after all, so it made sense that he would follow that plan. And about six months into ruminating at the top of the mountain he had come to the conclusion that the house still needed to be built.

Even if it wouldn’t be for its original intent.

Anyway. It gave him something to do.

And as far as the cabin went, he didn’t mind it. Not in the least.

“I did bring food,” she said, indicating a picnic basket sitting on the kitchen counter.

“You said you didn’t have electricity?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“How do you...refrigeration?”

“Icebox,” he said. “In the most literal sense of that word.”

“Oh. Good to know. That seems...rustic.”

He looked around the room. “Did you have the idea that I wasn’t rustic?”

“No. I guess not.”

Two days in a row he had talked to another person. It was strange.

He grunted. “Don’t stop cleaning on my account.”

“No,” she said, scrambling back down to the floor. He nearly smiled. Nearly. Instead, he walked over to where that picnic basket sat and opened the top. There was a platter of fruit and cheese inside, artfully arranged. There was also a sandwich, made on what looked to be a homemade baguette, with little jars containing mayonnaise and mustard on the side.

There was also a small bottle of wine, and a bottle of beer. And he was starving.

He opened them up, pulling the plastic wrap off the top of the platter and digging straight into the cheese. Flavor. So different from what he’d been making on the stove top in this place. What he learned was that you could take TV dinners, dump them into a pot frozen and make something edible. He had gotten well acquainted with cut up hot dogs and baked beans. Had eaten a fair amount of canned chili.

It had been a long time since he’d had something like this. Something that had intense texture and flavor. Different kinds of cheese were a strange human luxury. The time and effort that must have gone into figuring out you could get a different result from letting milk age in a slightly different fashion from another batch of milk was one of those things he’d never wondered about before. Who had discovered that? Who had perfected it?

And to what end?

The nutritional value had to be the same.

It was just for taste. Just for pleasure.

Eating this cheese was just for pleasure.

Having been deprived of pleasure of any kind for the last five years, it was a revelation he hadn’t expected. And it made him all the more eager to dig in to the sandwich. He took one of the small knives that she had included in the basket and slathered mustard on the inside of the baguette. There was also ham, and yet more cheese inside. He put a generous helping of mayonnaise in there as well. And he groaned, audibly, when he took his first bite. And didn’t bother to hide it.

“I brought extra,” she said. “It’s just still in the car in a few different cases because I wasn’t sure how you were going to store it. But I’m glad that I did.”

“Thanks,” he replied.

“You are out... Working?”

He nodded in the affirmative, but didn’t offer any details.

“It must be lonely up here,” she said.

“I live here by choice,” he said. “It’s quiet up here. Not lonely. That’s the difference between enforced solitude and chosen solitude, I would imagine.”

“Oh. I guess so.” She shifted uncomfortably, then rose up off the ground. “I’m finished with the floor. I... Do you have extra blankets?”

“Yeah,” he said. “One set.”

“Could you direct me to them? I will... I’ll bring these home, and wash them at my place. Then I can bring them back to you.”

He lifted a shoulder. “No need. The creek works just fine when I get around to washing.”

“No,” she said. “I will take them, and I will give them a legitimate wash. That’s what we are trading for. And I’m showing you what kind of worker I am. And what kind of quality customers can expect from me. If I cut corners with you, then what would I be showing you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I have a feeling it matters more to you than it does to me.”

“Well, I’m used to that,” she said, the comment cryptic enough. And maybe some people would have been curious about what she meant by it. About the underlying truth in it. But he wasn’t. He didn’t much care.

With industrious movements she crossed the room and went toward his bed, yanking the sheets off, and the blanket.

“The extras are under the bed,” he said. She paused, the handful of bedding in her arms, then looked down skeptically.

“I’m half afraid I might find a live weasel under there.”

“I call him Frank,” he said. “But he only eats every other day. And even then, he doesn’t eat brunettes.”

He thought he might have even seen amusement glittering in those green brown eyes, and it surprised him. Mostly because he hadn’t remembered that he could be amusing. Hadn’t felt the desire to be in so long it was like a lost art.

But at one time, Griffin Chance had been known for being entertaining. Had commanded whole rooms at parties, and had conducted business meetings with authority. Had spoken at any number of charity events. People were easy. They always had been.

Until they weren’t.

“Seriously,” she said, walking to the door and dumping the blankets by it. “No weasels?”

“Not a one.”

She got down onto the floor again, and reached beneath the bed, looking at him the entire time, as if he was going to pay if she encountered a small mammal or creepy crawly of some kind.

“I’ve learned to live with the nature,” he said.

“How so?”

“There are spiders in here,” he said. “Nothing you can do about it. Ants. Lizards. The occasional scorpion.” She leaped back from the bed. “Why don’t I get that?”

He crossed the space and reached down for the blankets, grabbed them and shook them out, finding nary a scorpion, before setting them onto the mattress.

“And you just...live with all of it.”

“Hey, I chose to move to the woods. They didn’t choose to have me here. So yes, I live with it. I live with it because it’s the most tolerable place I’ve found to live. So, a few spiders don’t really bother me.”

“I live on a ranch,” she said.

That simple statement made something in his chest turn.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I’m not really... It’s not really my thing. But you know, I grew up in ranching. I live with my brother and his wife.” She frowned. “Sorry. You didn’t ask.”

But he found he was suddenly curious. And she was in his domain, so if he wanted to know, why couldn’t he just know? “Go on. I like to know a little something about the people who are in my house. Which in this case is just you. And has only ever been you. So you might as well go ahead.”

“I want to open the bakery because I spent all of my life taking care of my siblings. Being part of a big family is like that.” She bit her lip like she was holding something back. “Anyway. They’re all married now. My brother is running the ranch, and he’s married and they have a baby. My sister—the one who isn’t a police officer—loves ranching. It’s in her blood. And she and her fiancé also live on the property and do the rest of the work. I used to cook and clean, but now my sister-in-law does that. And now it feels so much like her house. It’s just all different than it was. And I don’t really have a place. But anyway. There are a lot of spiders on a ranch, believe me. And I never got used to them.”

“There’s an apartment above the bakery,” he said. He had just been going over the specs of that particular building, because he actually did have a file on it, chucked under the couch, which would make Lucinda crazy. But his business manager had accepted the fact that if she wanted him to keep information, it was going to have to be analog, because up here he didn’t have internet of any kind.

Another thing the Griffin Chance he’d once been would never have believed he might not care about.

But he didn’t. Didn’t miss it. Didn’t want it.

But that meant he had files. Actual physical files about his various interests.

“Really?”

“I imagine I could rent it out separate to the bakery, to someone else. You’re basically robbing me blind, Iris. But, that sounds like a lot of extra work. If you need a place to stay...”

“I... I hadn’t even considered that.”

She looked completely bowled over by the thought. By the offer. And it gratified him. He really didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he should want to offer it to her. Why he should care. It was just that she had spoken of the way that she no longer fit with her family, and there was something familiar about that to him.

He knew what it was like to simply not fit anymore. To walk the same streets he had always walked, going to the same halls that he’d gone into for years, and they were the same, but he was different. And it was just too painful.

Too much of a reminder.

Sometimes new scenery was the best and most important thing you could have.

“That seems awfully nice of you. You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

He nearly spit out the bite of sandwich that was in his mouth. “Am I a serial killer? How did I get from being nice to being a serial killer?”

“My brother was concerned that you might be a serial killer.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. I guess that’s a good question for a brother to ask.”

Guilt stabbed him. Because he was a brother. He was a brother, and he hadn’t reached out to his sister in a long time. Hadn’t reached out to anyone in his family.

“Well, are you? Because I would love to be able to answer him in the affirmative that you’re not.”

“No,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. “I’m not.”

“Well then, that’s very nice of you, and I will think about it. It just... I wasn’t really considering getting quite that much independence all at once. But... If I lived above the bakery, it would be so much easier to get all my work done.”

“I’m sure it would be. Plus, solitude,” he said.

“You’re a big fan of solitude, aren’t you?”

He considered that. “Not specifically. But I find it...about the easiest thing.”

“You don’t seem to have too much trouble talking to me.”

“I’ve been saving up for this conversation for a number of years. Probably by tomorrow I won’t have anything left to say.”

“Well, I live in a house full of people. So there’s no saving up conversations. But I don’t mind. My family really is wonderful. We all had to... Really take care of each other.”

Now this was territory he didn’t want to get into. He didn’t want to talk about family. He didn’t want to think about it. No way in the world.

He finished eating while she finished tidying, and then he carried his blankets out to her car. In trade, she handed him one of the two giant insulated bags she was holding. “Your stove works, right? Your oven?”

“Wood fire. So it works as long as there’s a flame.”

“Some of these need the oven. There’s soup, which you can do on the stove top. And bread. There’s also meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Some roast chicken, green beans, rolls and salad. And this one has cake.”

She handed him the second insulated bag. “And cookies. And I also put slices of millionaire bar in there. I made them for my brother-in-law. I figured he didn’t need all of them.”

“That seems excessive,” he said.

“When do you think you’ll need more?” she asked.

“I’m not really sure,” he said.

He shouldn’t be hungry. He had just stuffed himself with more food than he’d had in recent memory. But the prospect of eating everything she just said made his stomach growl.

It was weird.

How suddenly his hunger had been awoken. How something he hadn’t felt in a long time had reared its head when he was reminded how good things could taste. He had forced himself to eat all this time. It had been all he could do to choke food down. And now there was this. Now there was her.

And that first taste of chocolate chip cookie had reminded him of how different it could be.

“How about I check back in with you tomorrow? You know, since I won’t quite have everything with the bakery up and running yet.”

“Sounds good. And that key will be on its way to you.”

“Right. My address.”

She reached into the car, and the loose skirt she was wearing blew up against her legs, outlining them. They were longer than they looked, considering she was so small. The thin fabric was tight against her bottom, and he couldn’t help but notice the round, pert shape.

He blinked, feeling like he was in a haze. Feeling like he just had an out-of-body experience.

She grabbed a small pad with sticky notes on it, scribbled the address and held it out to him, stuck to her finger. He took it, without touching her skin. “Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

She regarded him for a moment, and looked like she might say something else. But then didn’t. “See you tomorrow,” she said.

Then she got back into the car, put it in Reverse and drove away. He stared down at the address stuck to his finger.

And he watched as her car faded into the distance. He went back into the cabin, and grabbed his cell phone. Then he went to the trail just behind the house, past the stables that were just behind the cabin, and in much better shape than his own dwelling. Where he found the rock. That stuck up just a little bit higher than everything else and put him at just the right angle to make a call.

As soon as he got there, his phone vibrated, four voice mails showing up.

He bit back a curse.

He didn’t listen to any of them, instead he just called Lucinda. “I need you to mail keys to my new tenant,” he said. He didn’t bother to ask how she was, say how he was or give any kind of introduction. Then he explained the situation, and how he was bartering with Iris for rent.

“Are you insane?” Lucinda asked.

He looked around, at the stern silence of the towering pine trees all around him, the narrow wedge of blue sky and the needle covered dirt down below. His dirty, weathered boots on the boulder he was standing on. Doing a balancing act while he made a phone call to his business manager.

“Hell yes,” he said. “But that’s not a recent development.”

“That is prime real estate. It’s why you gave me permission to invest your money in it. And I don’t want it turning into an albatross. For you or for me.”

“I don’t care. She made a case for it. I think the business will do well. Plus, she cooks for me.”

There was a long silence. “She cooks for you?”

“As part of the trade,” he said.

“Right,” she said.

“Anyway. It’s my building. You might manage things, but you’re not the boss.”

“I’ve basically been the boss for five years, Griffin.”

“But you still aren’t,” he said.

“Fair enough. Do what you want. Give me the address and I’ll mail the keys.”

He rattled it off, and then quickly ended the phone call. Then he stared down at the voice mails. He hesitated for a moment, then started to play the first one. It was Iris. Asking about the property.

The next was just Lucinda, calling to tell him that there’d been an inquiry about the property, and asking what he wanted to do about it. It was over a week old now. Well, those problems had been self solving.

Then there was another one, two weeks old. He grimaced. And played it.

Griffin, it’s Mallory. I’m just calling to make sure you’re still alive. I really wish that you would keep in touch better. Mom and Dad want to make sure you’re doing okay. But they don’t want to pressure you. I think you could do with a little pressuring. He clicked the voice mail that had come a week before it.

Griffin, it’s Mallory. I was just calling to wish you happy birthday. And tell you that I love you. I guess you don’t have to call me back. It had been his birthday.

He hadn’t really remembered. But then, it didn’t really matter what time of year it was. He didn’t mark it by number dates on the calendar. He marked it by the way the air felt. By how long the sun stayed in the sky, how early it rose. By whether or not the underlying feeling in the air was crisp with a sharp bite, or if the coolness had an overlay of warmth that seemed to coat your skin. That was how he could tell the changing of the seasons. He didn’t need anything half so literal as a calendar.

Poor Mallory.

He did feel guilty. But he also wasn’t in the mood to deal with his sister when she was mad at him, and given how mad she was in the last message, she was going to be even madder when he actually did call.

He would wait for another time. Maybe until he went down into town, which he did have to do sometimes. He couldn’t get everything delivered.

Though, with Iris, he was a lot closer to being able to get everything delivered.

He shrugged off the guilt, and it rolled off his shoulders easily as he stepped off the rock and headed back toward the cabin.

Guilt was easy to shift from where it sat on the mountain of grief that rested on him. A mountain he didn’t have the strength to move.

A mountain he wasn’t sure he wanted to move.

Guilt. Hunger. Everything had to contend with that. And none of it could ever be quite so crushing as that real burden that he carried.

He might feel bad for his sister. But not enough to change anything.

And if that made him an ass, so be it.

He was a whole lot of things he didn’t want to be.

Not being nice was the least of them.