Authors: Brenda Novak
“Not at all.”
He waved to Dexter, who returned the wave and drove off. “Then maybe you can talk her into going out with me.”
“Why would I need to talk her into that? You’ve already asked—and she turned you down?”
“It’s a little more complicated than you might expect.” He told her about Eve’s invitation to dinner, and how often she’d been coming by the station.
“Cheyenne’s a very loyal person, Joe. I don’t think she’ll relent, not if there’s a chance of hurting Eve.”
“But I’m not interested in Eve. And I’ve never led her to believe otherwise. I accepted her dinner invitation but knew almost immediately that she wasn’t my type. I didn’t kiss her or touch her. It doesn’t seem fair that she’s standing in the way.”
“I get that, but…” She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “It’s a tough situation. You’re asking Chey to risk losing her best friend. I don’t have to tell you what her life was like growing up, or why she feels so bonded to Eve.”
“No, but Eve’s gone for another week. I don’t see why I can’t get to know Cheyenne. Maybe the attraction will fizzle before Eve even comes back. I’d like to explore the possibilities, see if there’s anything there.”
“Right. Okay.” She paused again, as if thinking it through. Then she said, “I’ll do what I can to help.”
The bell over the door jingled. Twelve-year-old Shelley Brown, who walked over from her house a block down the street practically every day, entered the store and headed down the candy aisle.
Joe gave her a welcoming smile before turning away and lowering his voice. “Which means what? You’re going to
call
her?”
“I’m going to have
Eve
call her—and give her blessing.”
“Eve’s on a cruise. You won’t be able to reach her.”
“I will if I call the boat.”
He grinned, even though she couldn’t see him. “I think the power of being Mrs. Simon O’Neal is going to your head.”
“I can’t say I don’t enjoy the fringe benefits of having a powerful husband.”
“You’re spoiled,” he teased.
“At least I’m good to my big brother. Give me a couple of days.”
* * *
Dylan couldn’t think of anything except Cheyenne. The shop was the busiest it’d ever been—there were always more collisions in the winter, due to the wet roads—but he kept looking at the clock, wishing the time would go faster. He wanted to see her again, even though he wasn’t sure she’d be interested in seeing him. She openly admitted that her heart belonged to Joe, and Dylan could certainly understand why she’d be attracted to him. Although they didn’t socialize, he and Joe referred business to each other quite often, worked on a lot of the same cars. Joe or one of his mechanics did the engine work; Dylan or one of his brothers did the bodywork. Joe seemed like a decent guy, a
respectable
candidate.
“What’s wrong with you today, man?” Aaron’s paint mask was hanging around his neck as he came into the office from the warehouse section in back.
Dylan glanced up from his computer. He was pricing parts so he could prepare bids for the three vehicles that’d been towed into his front lot this morning. Or at least he was pricing when he could focus. For the past few seconds, he’d just been staring at the screen. “What do you mean?”
“I stood right there in the doorway, talking to you.”
Dylan hadn’t heard a thing. He’d been too preoccupied. “I’m tired,” he said by way of excuse.
“You went to bed before we did.”
But his brothers had probably gotten more sleep. “Tossed and turned.”
Among other things,
he added silently and covered a yawn. “What do you need?”
“We’ve got a problem with the paint on Hal’s Suburban.”
“What kind of problem?”
“It’s grainy. Don’t know what’s going on.”
“The surface must not have been clean and smooth to begin with.”
“Mack did the prep work. And he’s the best collision-repair technician we’ve got. Isn’t that what you always say?”
“He’s good.”
“He’s also your pet, which hardly makes you an objective judge. But in this case, you’re right. The grainy paint isn’t his fault.”
Dylan heard the jab in those words. Aaron had long been jealous of Mack. But Dylan didn’t want to get into it. They’d already had an argument this morning over a job Aaron had to redo because it didn’t meet Dylan’s standards. “If it’s not the prep work, there must be dust in the paint booth. Which one are you in today?”
“The big one, but I used it yesterday, too, with perfect results.”
“So did you check the sprayer?”
“Everyone knows better than to put chemicals in the sprayer. I think we just got a bad batch of paint.”
Dylan pressed his fingers to his temples. This was the last thing they needed when they were so backed up. “Fine. I’ll call the supplier.”
“You should call Hal, too. He won’t be happy to hear we’ve got a problem. He needs his Suburban.”
Dylan already knew they were under pressure, trying to get everyone’s car fixed before Christmas. “That reminds me…how are we coming on Murphy’s Cadillac? We’ll have to discount the price if we don’t get it done on time, and we’re not making much to begin with.” That was Dylan’s fault. After the number of years he’d been running Amos Auto Body, he rarely underbid a job. But he’d gotten some bad information on the parts needed to fix the Caddie, and it was his policy not to go back on the customer.
“Rod’s dealing with Murphy’s car. You’ll have to check with him.” He dropped some change in the soda machine, took a Pepsi and walked out.
Once he was gone, Dylan crossed the lobby and stood by the door his brother had just used. He could see Aaron through the small window, talking to Grady, who was at the sanding station. Aaron wasn’t looking good these days. The weight seemed to be falling off him. He was staying up all night and coming to work stoned, which was why, Dylan figured, he’d screwed up that other job.
Dylan had already threatened Carl Inera, the guy he suspected of supplying Aaron. Carl was so scared of Dylan he jumped every time Dylan saw him. Carl also swore up and down that he hadn’t sold Aaron so much as a ten-dollar bag of pot in months.
But Aaron had to be getting his dope from somewhere.
Dylan feared it was Presley.
The phone pealed, and he caught it on the fourth ring. “Amos Auto Body.”
“Dylan? This is Joe, over at the Gas-N-Go.”
Dylan stiffened, even though he’d never had that kind of reaction to Joe before. “What’s up?”
“We’ve finished replacing the wiring harness on Beverly Hansen’s BMW. How should we get it back to you? Do you want me to have it towed over, or did you want to pick it up on the flatbed?”
“I’ll send Rod with the flatbed,” he said.
“Perfect. I appreciate the business.”
Dylan wanted to ask him if he was seeing anyone. He couldn’t help hoping that a girlfriend would make Cheyenne forget about Joe. But they weren’t good enough friends for such a personal question. And he knew, even if Joe
was
dating someone else, it might not make a difference. Cheyenne had it in her mind that Joe was the one she wanted, and she wasn’t about to consider other options. Dylan couldn’t see her ever giving him a shot. He and Joe were too different. “I’ll get you paid.”
“I know you will.”
After they hung up, Dylan almost called Cheyenne. He’d been tempted to do so all day, just to hear her voice, to ask if maybe she’d like to grab a bite to eat with him later.
But if she didn’t even want her sister or his brothers to know they were seeing each other, he doubted she’d be willing to go out in public. So he ignored the impulse and got back to work.
15
“M
om?” Cheyenne leaned close to her mother’s bed.
Anita opened her eyes. The painkiller Cheyenne had given her a few minutes earlier had taken effect but hadn’t yet dragged her into a sleepy stupor. For the moment, she could think and speak almost normally.
Cheyenne wanted to take advantage of that opportunity. “Can we talk?”
“I don’t like the tone of your voice,” Anita responded, but she sounded more strident than she had in a few days.
“Why not?”
“Because I can tell you’re gonna badger me about the same old stuff. It’s getting old, Chey. There isn’t anything more I can tell you.”
“I don’t believe that, Mom. I want you to try, once again, to remember where I was born. That isn’t asking too much. You know Presley was born in San Diego, right? She could track down her birth certificate, couldn’t she?”
Lines of impatience created deep grooves in Anita’s forehead. “Where is Presley?”
“It’s midnight. She’s at work. You know that. She won’t be home until morning.”
“She’s left me to your mercies?”
“She always leaves you to my mercies. So don’t act as if that’s unusual. Anyway, it doesn’t have to be this hard,” Cheyenne said. “Just answer the question.”
“Your friends are already on the cruise. It’s too late for you to go. So why are you at me for your damn birth certificate
again?
”
Cheyenne examined the face of the woman who’d raised her, searching for some sign of weakening resolve or evidence that she was hiding something. “Because I want to find out before it’s too late to ask!”
Her mother’s eyelids slid closed. Fading out was her way of avoiding a confrontation. Cheyenne had tried to talk to her about this again and again, especially after Anita got sick. Tonight it felt as futile as ever. She was defeated before she even started. But time was getting short. She couldn’t continue to let Anita put her off or she might never learn the answers.
The problem was, she couldn’t
force
Anita to talk. Particularly since her memories of the blonde woman and the canopy bed and the pretty dolls could be merely the wishful imaginings of a girl desperate to escape a harsher reality. Maybe she’d made up the place where she had nice clothes and plenty of food, where she felt loved and safe and happy. It was possible. Anita had accused her of that before. And Presley didn’t remember anyone like the woman she described.
“Mom! You’re still awake. You can answer me.”
“I have answered you!” Her eyes flew open. “I’ve told you time and time again, you were born in Wyoming. Where do you think I got your name?”
She might have gotten the name from Wyoming. But Cheyenne wasn’t born there. She’d written to every county in the state. Each clerk had responded with a letter stating that no female Caucasian child of her age, with the name Cheyenne Christensen, was on the rolls. “It wasn’t Wyoming. I’ve checked.”
Anita didn’t have her false teeth in today. Unless she was eating, she hardly ever wore them anymore. The dentist who’d created them had done a decent job—he donated one afternoon a week to pro bono work for the poor—but she’d had them a long time and hadn’t taken any better care of them than her real teeth. Because of her sunken mouth and the ravages of cancer, she looked seventy-five instead of fifty-five. “Someone else knows more than your own mother does?”
“Wyoming shows no record of me having been born there.”
“Then the records are screwed up. That happens sometimes.”
“Or you were too drunk to realize where you were when you went into labor.” That had happened, too—monumental events occurring when her mother wasn’t in a position to remember them.
“I’ve never pretended to be a saint.” She shrugged. “If you’d rather blame it on me, go ahead. I’m too sick to stand up for myself.”
Cheyenne curved her fingernails into her palms. “Don’t start playing the martyr. I just want the truth.
Please.
”
“I’d tell you if I could, but I can’t, so you might as well accept it. I don’t know what else to say, except that we don’t always get what we want.”
Cheyenne came to her feet. “I deserve a few basic facts about my own life. Wanting to know where I was born is
not
being selfish.”
“It isn’t? What about your sister?”
“What about her?” They were nearly shouting, but Cheyenne couldn’t bring herself to care.
“All you can talk about is some blonde woman and a fancy house where
you
had a fancy bedroom and all kinds of toys. She isn’t part of that picture. Neither am I. It’s like you’ve imagined a place where we don’t exist. How do you think that makes
us
feel? I know you don’t care about me, but what about her?”
Her mother had hit her where she was most vulnerable, disarming her, as intended. That was how Anita always won these arguments—by making Cheyenne feel as if she was being egotistical, or delusional, or callous toward her sister.
Maybe Anita was right. Maybe she was all those things and worse. She’d spent the past two nights having sex with Dylan Amos, hadn’t she? She knew he wasn’t the type of man she wanted, that she could never settle for someone who reminded her so much of everything she’d rather forget. Yet she was eager to go back to him, to let him convince her that her happiness wasn’t as immaterial as it sometimes felt.
“Never mind,” she said, and stalked out of the room. She shouldn’t leave her mother alone in the house. But she couldn’t force herself to stay. Dylan had given her a taste of freedom, a way to cope with the hurt and anger. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
Promising her usual responsible self that she wouldn’t be gone long, she grabbed her coat and hurried out the door.
Fortunately, he lived just down the street.
* * *
After Cheyenne called his cell phone, Dylan met her at his front door. He did so quietly, without speaking, because his brothers were at home asleep. It was the middle of the week. She felt bad about waking him. He got up early and worked hard and, thanks to her, he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in three days. But when she whispered that she could go back home if he was too tired to see her, he simply hooked his arm around her neck and guided her into his bedroom. It wasn’t until they’d made desperate, frantic love that he asked her if something was wrong.
“No, nothing.” She was lying on her back, still trying to catch her breath, and so was he. The last thing she wanted to think about was what he’d just helped her forget.
He drew a deep breath; she heard him exhale. “There’s
something
different about you tonight.”
“I was upset. That’s all.”
“I could tell. About what?”
The physical outlet he’d made possible had siphoned off the worst of it. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Is it your mother?”
She laid her head on his chest so she could listen to his heart. It was still beating faster than normal. She’d been more aggressive tonight, demanded more intensity and stamina than before, which he’d wordlessly provided. “Do we have to talk about it?”
His fingers slipped through her hair. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“I just…just let me feel you, okay?” She kissed his chest. “That’s all.”
“I’m right here.”
Solid. Warm. Responsive. She couldn’t complain about how Dylan made love. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing it better. He touched her with just the right amount of confidence and familiarity, was especially sensitive to the give-and-take that made it mutually rewarding and was willing to bestow pleasure even in nonsexual ways. Tenderness seemed to come more naturally to him than she’d ever dreamed it would. Besides all that, she liked the smell of him, the sound of his voice, the fact that he could make her feel so darn
content.
“Where did you park?” he asked.
“In front.”
“Why didn’t you pull behind the barn?”
“Because I can’t stay. Presley’s at work.”
“I should’ve come to your house.”
“No, I needed to get out.”
“But…can you do that? I mean…with your mom the way she is?”
“It should be okay if I’m not gone too long.”
He let her lie on him for several more minutes. Then, when she got up, he did, too. She assumed he was going to use the bathroom, but he dug something out of the pocket of his jeans and held it out to her.
It was too dark to see clearly. They hadn’t turned on any lights. “What’s this?” she whispered.
“A key.” He put it in her hand. “That way you can come over whenever you want.”
She shook her head and gave it back. “No, sorry. I can’t accept that.”
He stood there, watching her. He seemed completely unconcerned with his own nudity, but then, he didn’t have any reason to be self-conscious. She’d just left Dylan’s bed and already she wanted to touch him again, to climb back under the covers and go to sleep with him instead of returning to the reality of her own life.
“Why not?” he asked.
She’d offended him. She could hear the hurt pride in his voice. “I’m not the type to—to keep doing this,” she explained.
“Doing
what?
”
“Running off in the middle of the night to have sex with—” she tried to come up an ending to that statement that wouldn’t be unkind “—with some guy I’ve never even gone out with.”
“We could fix that,” he said. “I could take you to dinner.”
She thought of all the people who might see them together, and how quickly the news would spread. This was Dylan. Everyone would assume she was sleeping with him—and they’d be right.
She wasn’t ready to deal with the backlash that would cause, not when there was already so much going on in her life. Every person she knew—except maybe Presley, who’d finally feel vindicated—would tell her she was a fool to get involved with a man like this. He’d cheat on her, break her heart, offer none of the safety and security she’d been searching for her whole life.
Her friends, when they returned, would think she’d lost her mind.
“It’s hard for me to find time for…for dating with my mother so sick.”
He said nothing. No doubt he’d read her response for the excuse it was. So she added a weak, “But…I’ll call you if I get the chance.”
No response. She’d been getting dressed as they spoke. He just watched her pull on her sweater and shoes and didn’t try to stop her when she hurried past him without so much as a goodbye kiss.
* * *
He was done with her, Dylan decided. It was stupid to let Cheyenne keep coming over. He couldn’t believe he’d actually been willing to give her a key to his house!
He’d always been too impetuous. But his heart was a difficult thing to subdue. And besides that, he wasn’t sure how much of her behavior to ascribe to the hell she was enduring. He kept thinking she just needed more time to sort out her thoughts and feelings, to get to know him and realize he could give her everything Joe could.
Even if she never came to regard him that highly, she’d have to recognize the spark between them, wouldn’t she? He’d never experienced this sort of chemistry with anyone else. When they made love, it was like…
He didn’t even know how to describe it.
She sensed the same thing he did. He could feel her shake when she touched him, hear her sigh and gasp. Mechanical sex wasn’t like that. He’d had enough experience to tell the difference, but she hadn’t. Maybe she thought making love was like this with any partner. He’d told her that other guys could give her the same thrill—but only because he wanted her to choose him for more reason than that.
“Dylan, what are you doing in the flower section?”
Blinking, he shifted his attention from the roses he’d been contemplating to Mack, who’d gone to pick up some hamburger. He’d said he’d get the buns and a few deli items and that they’d meet up at the register, but then he’d noticed the small flower section.
He’d never paused here before. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it now. Maybe he
wanted
to buy Cheyenne flowers but he wouldn’t be foolish enough to do it. She didn’t want that kind of thing from him; she wanted it from Joe.
“Nothing.” Embarrassed by the impulse, he turned away.
His little brother was looking at him like he’d gone crazy. “Where’re the buns?”
Dylan rubbed his face. “I’m on my way.”
“You’re not yourself these days,” Mack complained. “What’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked as they headed to the deli section together.
Mack sent him a worried glance. “You’re preoccupied, quiet.”
He supposed that was true. He’d finally found someone he really wanted in his life. And he was sure that—just like the mother he’d prayed to keep, and the father he’d tried so hard to reclaim from alcohol—he was destined to lose her, too.
* * *
Cheyenne didn’t let herself go to Dylan’s that night or the night after. She worked all day at the B and B Wednesday and Thursday, watched her mother and tried to keep herself occupied with videos and computer games. She was afraid he’d call her and knew she’d go see him if he did, but the phone never rang. Maybe that was why, on Friday, after Riley and Jacob left, she broke down and called him from the office.
Her heart seemed lodged in her throat by the time he answered. Her emotions were such a mixture of embarrassment and chagrin over her wanton behavior, disappointment that she didn’t seem to be the person she’d always thought she was, and desire to return to his bed that she couldn’t seem to get her bearings anymore. She felt pulled apart, restless. Most of all, she wanted to come out of this tailspin knowing they were friends, that he didn’t hate her. Regardless of his reputation, she liked Dylan; there was no denying that.
He picked up but didn’t give her a chance to speak. “Damn, do I need to educate you in everything?”
“Excuse me?” she replied, taken aback.
“It’s only eight o’clock. Booty calls are supposed to happen later. Otherwise, word might get out that you’ve lowered your standards enough to sleep with me.”
Cringing, she opened her mouth to respond, but he’d already hung up. She should’ve called him before. She needed to explain that she was trying to get back to the Cheyenne Christensen she recognized, that her behavior had very little to do with him. He had to be wondering what the heck he’d done wrong. After spending three nights in a row together—that last night she’d nearly torn off his clothes—she’d rejected the key he’d offered her and then he’d heard nothing.