For His Pleasure: The Boxed Set, Books 1-6 (For His Pleasure, For His Taking, For His Keeping, For His Honor, For His Trust, For His Forever) (43 page)

After all, the word around town and in all the gossip sites was that Red had lit off for unknown territories; they had him looking like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Bearded, perhaps wearing nothing but shorts and a tattered old t-shirt, stumbling about on some faraway beach and drinking Coronas, eating clams, getting that beer belly he’d always sworn he’d never get.

If Red were in such a place, doing those things, then perhaps it would disturb him to know that back home he had a pregnant ex-fiancé who desperately wanted to have a word with him. Or maybe not. Maybe Red had specifically run away in order to never again be confronted with a needy chick asking something of him that he could not give.

But even if he was trying to get away from her entirely, Nicole knew she had to have this conversation with him, even if it was the very last one. It was her duty to tell him she was pregnant with his baby, and then it would be up to Red whether he wanted to shirk his obligations or not.

How can I get in touch with him? She wondered.

Nobody seemed to know where he was, his work email was nonfunctional since he was no longer at the company, and she couldn’t get past the front gate of his house.

If only she knew some of his friends or family members that might have spoken with him recently, someone who might have a sense of where he’d be staying right now.

His mother was a nightmare, and Nicole doubted they’d spoken at all since he kicked her out of the house. Even if they had somehow talked since that horrible day, Nicole doubted that mean old crab would tell her anything helpful. She’d probably just take the chance to throw in a few of her vicious digs about why Nicole wasn’t worth her son’s time.

Pacing back and forth in the kitchen, chewing her bottom lip, Nicole suddenly thought of Red’s younger brother, Jeb. Jeb had been nice to her and they’d even had a pretty warm conversation the very last time she’d spoken to him.

She didn’t have his number, but she knew his name and also knew he had a family practice just outside of Chicago.

Nicole ran to her laptop and quickly did a Google search for Jeb Jameson, family practice, Chicago. A website came up that she knew had to be his. Her heart racing with excitement but also fear—if Jeb didn’t know how to reach Red than she would be at a total dead end—Nicole picked up her phone and quickly made the call before she could second-guess herself.

A moment later, a friendly sounding woman picked up. “Jameson Family Medical Group,” she said perkily.

“I need to speak with Doctor Jameson,” Nicole said, trying to steady her voice.

“Are you a patient, ma’am?”

She debated lying. But what would be the point of that? Instead, Nicole said: “I’m a friend of Dr. Jameson’s brother, Red. There’s been an emergency and I need to speak with Dr. Jameson as soon as possible.”

“Oh.” The woman sounded confused momentarily. “Can I get your name please?”

“Nicole Masters.”

“Let me go check and see if the doctor is available. Hold one moment.”

After a brief click, the muzak started up and Nicole waited, chewing on her lower lip and circling her kitchen, sometimes walking heel to toe, sometimes on her tiptoes. She was thrumming with energy, nervous, trying to allow herself some hope even though she knew this was a long shot at best.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Jeb picked up the line. “Nicole, what’s happened? Is my brother okay?”

Instantly, she felt horrible for saying it was an emergency and frightening him.

“I think so,” she said. “I don’t know for sure.”

“Tell me what’s happened.”

“Well, you know that he got fired from his company and then he sort of disappeared on everyone.”

Jeb sighed heavily into the phone. “I know. I haven’t heard from him either.”

Nicole’s heart sank. “The thing is, I really need to talk to him. It’s something very, very important that he’d want to know about. But I can’t find a way to reach him.”

“When’s the last time you spoke to him?”

“The same morning you left. He sent me away and that was it.” She tried to hold back her tears but they were about to break through. Especially now that it looked just as hopeless as ever for her to get in touch with him.

“Well, he certainly hasn’t been in contact with me. As you saw, we didn’t leave things on the best of terms.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that, Jeb.”

“Is there something I can help with, Nicole? Are you okay?”

She let out a shake exhalation. She so badly wanted to share her news with someone, and Jeb was a doctor, he’d understand. But she couldn’t tell Jeb before his brother even knew. “I’m okay. But I do need to find him. Is there anywhere he might be, anything you can think of—someone I can call?”

“Nobody I know personally. Red has always played it close to the vest. There’s no one I can think of to call that would know where Red is. You’d have been the one that came to mind, but clearly he’s treated you badly as well.”

“I just…I wonder if there’s a place that he might retreat to. Maybe somewhere away from the media,” she said. “Some people say he’s on a tropical island with a new face, drinking and fishing and living like a beach bum.” Nicole tried to laugh.

“You know, there is a place, come to think of it.”

Nicole’s face lit up. “There is?”

“I have no idea if he still even owns it, so take this for what it’s worth.”

“Anything, anything!” She cried, grabbing a pen and piece of paper. “Tell me.”

“A few years back, he took me for a weekend getaway to this tiny little ramshackle cabin out in the middle of nowhere.”

She felt the shorthairs on the back of her neck stand up as he said it—knew that this must be the place. “Where exactly was it?”

“Somewhere in Vermont. Let me think…” he hummed. “I think the town was Bristol. Bristol, Vermont.”

“If you were me, how would you find the cabin again?” she asked him. “Do you know what road its on?”

“God, it was so long ago.” He thought for a while. “It was way off the beaten track, but I do remember that there was a beautiful lake close by, and a little farm that had apple picking and that sort of thing. It was called Beaumont Farms, I believe.”

Nicole wrote everything down as fast as she could. “There can’t be too many cabins in that area, right?”

“Right.” He didn’t sound as excited as her. “Nicole, please don’t take this the wrong way.”

“I won’t,” she said, anxious now.

“Just be careful with your expectations. Like I said, I don’t even know if Red still owns that cabin. And even if he does, that’s just one place he happened to bring me years ago. He’s a very wealthy man who could just as easily have flown to Australia and be doing a walkabout right now.”

She nodded. “I know, I know.”

“If you’re lucky enough to find him, the chances are low that he’ll greet you with the kind of reception you’re hoping for. I know my brother, and if he’s trying to get away from all his pressures and disappointments—then I imagine you might be the very last person he wants to see right now.”

Nicole nodded but couldn’t bring herself to respond to his comments. They hurt.

She was scared, pregnant and alone. And now one of the people who knew Red best was telling her that this was a fool’s errand.

“If you need to call me for anything,” Jeb said, “just let me know.” And then he gave her his personal cell number, once again asking her to call him for anything, at any time.

Grateful for his kindness, Nicole thanked him profusely before they got off the phone.

Once she’d hung up, Nicole studied the piece of paper with her chicken scratches on it. It looked like pure desperation; nothing on that paper would lead her to Red.

Vermont. Beaumont Farms. Cabin near a lake.

This was all she had, her only hopes of finding the man she loved, the man who’d left her, a rich man who had the ability to fly anywhere in the world on a whim. What were the chances he’d gone to this one place—this silly shack stuck out in the middle of nowhere?

Nicole decided she was going to find out.

***

Packing a small overnight bag with toiletries and some clothes, Nicole left a brief note for Danielle saying that she was going home to her parents’ house for a day or two.

This was another lie in a steadily growing list, but who was really keeping track anyway?

After leaving her apartment, Nicole went to the nearest Hertz location, and rented a red Ford Fiesta.

It was a five-hour drive to Bristol, Vermont. The day was warm and dry, the sky blue and almost cloudless. Nicole missed driving—in New York, there was little reason to have a car, and flying down the road at her own speed made her feel a little more in control.

She kept her windows down, put some cheesy pop music on, and sang along with the songs—even the ones she hardly knew.

It was important to get to Vermont as early in the day as possible, so Nicole stopped only once at a rest stop, where she got a couple of cheeseburgers from McDonalds and went to the bathroom.

Finally, she was just a few miles outside of Bristol. The landscape had changed to one that was very familiar to her from her childhood in upstate New York. She was used to seeing long stretches of farmland, trees, barns and tiny houses, pickup trucks parked in the driveways.

Once she entered Bristol, Nicole felt a pang in her chest. It was a beautiful little town, like something from a Norman Rockwell painting.

The first thing she thought when she drove down quaint little Main Street with its Cup a Joe café, and Danny’s Barber Shop with the spinning pole out front:
This would be a wonderful place to start a family.

And then the tears were in her eyes and Nicole let them stream down her cheeks.

She was being silly again, but her hormones were probably going crazy after all.

She pulled into the tiny little two-pump gas station and a girl that looked around seventeen or eighteen with strawberry-blond hair, jeans and a halter top, came over to the car. “Hi,” she said to Nicole with a simple smile.

Nicole noticed the girl had one of those tribal tattoos on her left bicep.

“Hi. Could you fill up the tank with regular, please?”

“Sure.” The girl started the pump and then stood beside it, whistling an unrecognizable tune, until the tank was full. She put the nozzle back in the pump and came over to the window. “That’ll be twenty two, thirty.”

Nicole gave her twenty-five bucks. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks! Much appreciated,” the girl said.

“Do you happen to know how I can get to Beauford Farms from here?” Nicole asked her.

“Sure,” the girl said. “Keep on going up Main Street, when you hit the third light from here—you go left on Dawson Street. Follow that all the way down to the end. Then you go right on Wilmington Road. And then you’ll see the signs.”

“Would you happen to know of a small cabin right around that area, near the lake?”

The girl laughed. “Sorry, there’s got to be at least a dozen cabins that fit that description,” she said.

“Oh, okay. Thanks again!” Nicole said, her heart sinking. A dozen cabins? Would she even be able to find them all? And then even if she did—what would she do? Would she walk up to each and every cabin, knock and hope that Red would come to the door?

Still, she tried not to let herself get discouraged. She had about two or three more hours of daylight and maybe she’d get lucky. If not, she’d have to find the nearest motel to hole up in and start looking again in the morning.

A few minutes later, she arrived at Beauford Farms and a store that sold all kinds of stuff; canned jams, apple cider donuts, fresh produce grown on the premises.

There was a sprightly white-haired lady standing next to a register. She greeted Nicole with a very friendly smile and asked if she could help her find anything.

“Actually, yes. But not something in this store.”

The older woman’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Oh?”

Nicole began describing the cabin and its possible location, but the woman stopped her mid-description. “Hold on a sec. Let me get my husband, he knows everything within fifty miles of here.” And she waddled off to a door that led to a back room.

A moment later, she reappeared with her husband, a tall man—though the years seemed to have bent him over. He wore brown slacks, suspenders, and an off-white collared shirt. His whole body was browned from years toiling in the sun, but his light blue eyes were kind. “My wife says you’re looking for someone in a nearby cabin.”

Nicole went through all the details she knew about the place from what Jeb had told her—which admittedly wasn’t much.

The old man nodded. When she was through talking, he shook his head. “There are a few cabins it could be. A lot of cabins by the lake, and a few that border this farmland too. Could even be one or two I don’t know about.”

“Maybe you’ve met the man who’s staying there?” Nicole said, grasping at straws now. “He’s definitely not from around here. He’s in his early thirties, curly dark hair, kind of exotic looking—“

Suddenly the old man’s eyes lit up in recognition and he clapped his hands. “Oh, shoot—I know exactly who you mean. I must be losing my mind after all, I should have thought of him right away.”

Nicole’s heart was galloping again, practically pounding through her chest.

The old man continued. “He came in here about a week ago and asked about getting himself a fishing license. We talked a little about that, I gave him the lay of the land. He seemed to be growing a new beard.” The old man chuckled about that. “He kept scratching at it like it was bugging him.”

“And he told you where he’s staying?”

“I’m sorry, us old folks get sidetracked too easily,” he said, putting a gnarled old hand on her shoulder. “Yes, he mentioned that his cabin’s over near our apple trees, just on the outskirts of our farm. I can show you how to get there.”

“Thank you so much,” Nicole gushed.

“Glad we could help.”

Nicole and the old man went outside the store and he told her how to get to the cabin. It was just back up the road about half a mile, and then she was to turn right onto an unmarked dirt road next to the big red barn.