His to Cherish (13 page)

"Why?" My questions were building in volume.

Inside voice, Mia. Don't let him see how much he's upsetting you!

Another long pause between my asking and his answering. His hands molded around his hips. He tilted his head, examining me from yet another angle. My cheeks heated and I turned my head so he couldn't see my face.

"I was hoping to live in it." He took the plastic bag that I had started filling a week ago with the contents of his ruined pockets. He shook the last items out, metal clinking on metal as keys hit coins and more. "The doctors say I have several months of rehab, so I decided to let Kane keep on running Stark for a while."

"You can rehab anywhere..." Turning, I glared at him. My eyes started to itch, but I would be damned if he would see me cry yet again. "You don't have to do it here."

Collin walked toward me, slow and deliberate. I sensed his intent a second too late. His hand curled around the back of my neck, neutralizing my capacity to retreat.

"Someone will buy the farm out from under you, baby." He took another step forward, his hand tugging me closer at the same time. "Why not me?"

"You have to ask?" My lungs shut down first, then my tongue as my lips uselessly parted and closed.

"Yeah, I have to. You haven't shut me out." His free hand came up to brush against my lips. "Not completely."

My mouth pressed flat, its thin line trembling. Neck bending, head tilting, Collin's lips zeroed in on the quiver.

I pushed him away, finding my voice at last.

"I have now."

Cherishing Mia

Mia left the guesthouse the same day she visited me in the hospital. I arrived at my hotel with a message from the security team Trent had left in place. My heart kicked around inside my chest until they got to the part that she had checked into the small motor lodge on the outskirts of Keeling. Filled with a few characters no better than the Cahill brothers and Morris, the location didn't please me, but I intended to have her out of there quickly with a team on her while she remained.

In the meantime, I had a house to refurbish. The bank gave me the keys while everything was still in escrow, so I could move in while the paperwork passed through the proper channels.

I made daily trips to Keppler's hardware store, sometimes twice a day. Green eyes flashed at me each time I visited, and more than once I expected Mia to march over to the aisle where the axes where shelved, grab one and bury it in my skull.

Mostly Keppler assisted me during my visits, the old man engaged in an uncomfortable dance of commerce and an almost paternal protectiveness of his sole employee. I asked for recommendations on contractors; he gave them to me. I loaded two carts with supplies; he pushed one out to the parking lot and helped me load the truck I had bought after leaving the hospital.

"Eating up a lot of gas by not making a list and all," he said in quiet reproach on the third day.

I just smiled a slow, fumbling smile in response and pointed at my head. "Not all clear, I guess."

The conversation didn't repeat, at least not out loud. But his expression spoke volumes, so did hers.

I replaced light fixtures, scrubbed floors, whitewashed walls. Sometimes my arms ached, sometimes my lungs. When all the papers were finally signed on both sides and I had the deed in hand, I brought someone in to clean the stables while I tracked down names -- starting with Ray Haynes, the farm's last foreman before Evan Morris took over.

For ten days I followed a similar pattern. A visit to see her, some new project serving as an excuse. Then I worked on the old place, made business calls that had nothing to do with Stark International, made another visit to the hardware store, then drove the lonely road home praying that she held out a little while longer and didn't run away from Keeling as she had done in Florida.

On the eleventh day, two large boxes were delivered to my door in the morning. I sorted through them, picking the most meaningful looking items to distill into a smaller box. As I sorted, I called the attorney I had retained for the purchase of the horse farm and scheduled an appointment for that day.

I left his office a few hours later, his clerk tasked with delivering the small box I had carried in with me and the sheets of paper I had signed while there to Mia.

With nothing left to do that mattered, I returned to the house and waited.

His to Cherish

I collapsed onto the battered mattress in my room at the Sweet Home Motor Lodge (& Bait Shop) and stared at the ceiling because I was tired and the television didn't work. Keppler hadn't worn me out. There had been little moving of stock, no copious errands to run. Instead, I had worn myself out waiting for the door to open and Collin Stark to walk in.

The pattern had become familiar since I moved out of the guesthouse. I would be fine until around ten in the morning, then I would start getting twitchy knowing Collin would soon appear. Once he did, I could relax for a couple of hours. Then I would get twitchy again because sometimes he made a second visit, sometimes he didn't.

Today, he hadn't visited at all, which meant I'd been increasingly twitchy from ten on. Part of me worried that he had hurt himself, that with all the paint and wood and fixtures he'd acquired every day of the week except when we were closed on Sunday, that he had finally pushed himself too hard after being shot and burnt. The rest of me shut down at the likeliest possibility -- he had decided whatever game he was playing wasn't worth it, that I wasn't worth it.

I rolled onto my side and stared at the bins I had brought from the guesthouse while I ignored the question of whether I welcomed that likely scenario. Every day he came in, I wished he hadn't. Each visit felt like he was removing chunks of my heart with a rusty ice cream scooper one scoop at a time.

Things weren't settled.

I hadn't shut him out at all.

Careful what you wish for...

I wrapped my arms around the pillow and read the labels on the bins. In addition to my clothes, they were all the items that had been salvageable from the spare room. I would have to go back at some point and remove the remaining bins that contained the ruined items -- or find someone to do it for me. I guess it didn't really matter. They and the house could fester until my life estate was up. I hadn't stepped foot in the guesthouse until my mother's death. It didn't hold any memories for me -- not any good ones, at least.

Those good memories had all been formed in the main house and stables. Stark owned those now, or soon would after all the paperwork went through. So the bins, their contents moldering, could stay, the roof could continue its slow collapse. No skin off my nose.

I had enough things to take care of. Like finding a place to live that didn't have "& Bait" in its name. Sniffling, I rolled onto my back again. Without the guesthouse, there was no reason to stay in the county or the state. Gillie hadn't gone cold on me, but he'd made it clear he wanted to keep his distance while Stark stuck around.

"Too much going on between you," he had said, followed by, "anything you need, tell me."

Yeah, like that wasn't a mixed message. I needed a shoulder to cry on. Not that I would have cried on it, but it would have been nice knowing it was there. With Gillie out of the picture, that left Keppler as my sole remaining connection to Keeling. With all the stuff Stark had been buying on a daily basis, that connection would soon be severed.

Not putting it past Stark to have formulated such a plan, I snorted. Finished with the laugh, I rubbed at my cheeks while I willed myself to move my legs and take a shower. Instead of using the hot plate to make ramen for dinner, I would go into the one restaurant in town that had wi-fi and begin the job search I should have started more than a week ago while I ate.

When I emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, my hair dry and a light coating of make-up on, I pulled the lid off one bin. Evan was dead. I didn't need to hide the fancy clothes any more. In fact, I needed the opposite, needed to stop being invisible or I would fail any interview I might possibly land.

I sorted through the clothes, divorcing each of them from the associations they held with Stark. Ignoring how long he had stared into my eyes the first time I wore it, I shook out the long-sleeved blouse in a georgette of cerulean blue over a silk shell. Pairing it with a full-length silk skirt, I suppressed the memory of how Collin's hand had possessed me under the skirt as the sun set over the Persian Gulf and I trembled in climax.

When I pulled out the expensive leather boots, the black as shiny and smooth as oil, I thought of Gillie at the roadhouse and not Stark.

I changed into the clothes then spent a few minutes in front of the cracked mirror above the dresser as I brushed my hair into submission. Finished, I ran my hands over the skirt, appreciating its texture. It was too nice for the little diner I was going to, too nice for a hardware store clerk, as well. The skirt alone was two weeks' pay before taxes. I should probably take half the outfits and find a boutique consignment shop in Raleigh. That would extend the cushion of time I had to find a job by months with enough left over to pay for a few plane tickets in case I needed to interview out of state.

Making a mental note to search for consignment shops in Raleigh when I was at the diner, I slid my laptop into the black leather attache Stark had given me in Dubai. Keys in one hand and reaching for the door handle, I jumped back with a little squeak as someone knocked.

I didn't open the door immediately. Instead, I went to the window that looked onto the parking spaces in front of the room and pulled the curtain aside. A young male in a business suit stood in front of my door. He carried a box with him that looked heavy from the way he kept shifting its weight. On top of that, a dark yellow envelope kept threatening to blow away each time he lifted his chin from it.

Deciding he wasn't there for strong arm robbery, I opened the door.

He took a second to look me over, his expression brightening when he saw the expensive clothes and all the other indicia that I wasn't a regular at the Sweet Home Motor Lodge.

"Miss Mia James?"

"Yes." I lifted my chin so I could surreptitiously stare at the box and envelope. Neither was marked. I frowned at the mystery. "Are those for me?"

He nodded. "But I need ID."

I rolled my eyes at him but opened the attache to pull out my driver's license.

"Hey," he smiled as he checked my bona fides, "You're just two years older than me."

And you, Junior, are at least a decade too young for me.

I smiled back if only to be polite. "Who is this from?"

He shrugged and I felt a moment's sympathy for him. He had either been instructed not to tell or someone had deemed him too unimportant to know.

"Well, thank you for delivering them." I reached for the box and envelope, then hesitated before I would have my hands full. "Should I...uh..."

Delivery boys generally didn't wear suits, so I wasn't sure if I should tip him. He caught the gist of my confusion and blushed before shaking his head vigorously.

"They're from the law firm I work at," he explained. "Just dropping them off on my way home."

Mention of a law firm surprised me. My fingers started to tingle as I placed a palm top and bottom of the box with its envelope and relieved him of his burden. Placing the box on a chair by the door, I immediately ripped the envelope open and pulled two pieces of paper out.

If Collin Stark was serving some kind of legal process to nullify my rights to the guesthouse, I would go mental on him. It didn't matter than an hour ago I had been ready to abandon those rights, I would not let him take them from me.

I stared down at the paper, the words making no sense. At the top it read
North Carolina Quitclaim Deed
. Collin's name filled the Grantor column, mine filled the Grantee. Below that, legalese on heirs and assigns and then:

WITNESSETH, that said Grantors, for and in consideration of the sum of ten dollars and other consideration to them in hand paid, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, have remised and released and by these presents do remise, release, and forever quitclaim into the Grantee and his heirs and assigns all right, title, claim, and interest of the said Grantors in and to a certain tract or parcel of land lying and being in the County of Martin and State of North Carolina, in Keeling Township, and more particularly described as follows:

I read the description of the horse farm, the papers starting to shake in my hand.

"Good news, I hope."

I looked up to find the young man staring at me, his gaze a mix of appreciation and confusion. My lips parted but I couldn't formulate an answer. I just shook my head, mumbled a good-bye and shut the door.

I slid down to sit on the floor, the six-hundred dollar silk skirt as forgotten as the aged-in grime underneath. I re-read the first and second page of the form then ran my fingers over the raised notary seal.

Collin Stark had spent over a million dollars to acquire the horse farm and almost two weeks and however many additional dollars making repairs and he had just assigned his entire interest to me. I looked at the clock and scowled at the time. Closing in on seven in the evening, it was too late to take the deed to the county clerk's and have it recorded.