His to Cherish (5 page)

I swore at myself because it hurt to look in the mirror. My first attempt to glam up since Dubai, I couldn't decide what reflected back at me.

Beautiful, not beautiful...

Ordinary? Ugly?

From my teens until I left Keeling, "ugly" had haunted me, Evan reinforcing the idea every time my mother turned her back on him. College and the few lovers I had taken before joining Stark International had moved the needle to "ordinary, but unremarkable." For one brief period in my life that ended with the bomb in Dubai, I could look in the mirror and find "beautiful." Within weeks of that event, I could only muster "pretty," which quickly devolved to "tidy."

In the guesthouse, minutes from leaving to meet Gillie, all I could see was a painful facade of cosmetics. At best, "ordinary" lurked beneath them. Any practiced eye could see past the make-up, just as I had in staring at my reflection. Stark's eye was practiced, Gillie's not so much.

Biting at my lip to force the tears away, I reminded myself that a facade was all I needed until Stark was gone. After that, I could approach the mirror in increments, with less pressure until my mental skin became as thick as the physical one.

I held onto that thought as I drove to the road house, parked and went inside. Gillie had already secured a booth. Spotting me at the door, he met me halfway across the empty dance floor, his hand lightly grasping my elbow as he led me to the booth and tucked me in on one side. Memories flashed of him back in high school two grades ahead of me. He had a girlfriend then and a beat-up truck. He would always open the door for her, tucking her in or offering a stabilizing hand if she were getting out.

Forgetting all the feminist propaganda I picked up in college, I smiled at him as he sat down. He grinned in return and I felt a blush heat my cheeks.

"I have to say, I was surprised to hear you came back to Keeling."

"I told myself I wouldn't." My smile lost its elasticity, the corners held up by sheer will. Gillie started to say something but the waitress stopped at the table to take our drink order and give us menus.

"So why did you?" he asked after she left, his gaze on me instead of the open menu in his hand.

I pretended to study the entrees, the print blurring. "Mr. Keppler says it's because there's been a James since before Keeling was founded."

Gillie snorted softly but didn't press me for an answer. "You keep in contact with Evan while you were gone?"

"Hell no!" The outburst heated my cheeks. I pressed my lips together, closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. Sawdust, steak, spilled beer... I took another breath, the scents repeating. Looking at Gillie, I offered an apologetic smile. "I wish not keeping in contact with him was still an option."

He nodded. "I can't say I'm at all comfortable with you being out there."

"I know." My head bobbed and then I looked away.

My gaze landed on the hostess as she escorted an incoming diner to our section. Obviously a man by the shape of his lower body, I didn't look any higher until he refused the table with a hand gesture and pointed at the booth that would put him directly in my line of sight.

Seeing him sit down, I inhaled sharply.

Collin Stark.

Gillie's hand landed gently on my forearm. "Something wrong?"

My head jerked back in his direction. I offered up a closed smile as I shook my head. "Cramp in my leg. Haven't worn these boots in four months."

He took a look under the table, his hand brushing against my calf as he pinched a little of my jeans and lifted for a better view. Releasing the fabric, he grinned. "Look like the kind you don't want to get dirty."

Seeing the grin back on Gillie's face, I forgot about Collin for half a second and smiled. "They are exactly those kind of boots!"

Gillie glanced over his shoulder, his gaze cutting across Collin to the dance floor covered in sawdust. "That mean I'm not getting you out there for a dance or two?"

"Uh, yeah." I nodded like a maniac. "That and about a dozen other reasons."

Facing me again, Gillie winked. "Don't be so sure, Miss James. I don't need a badge and a gun to be persuasive."

Heat shimmered from my cheeks down to the top of my breasts. I had no doubt Gillie could have charmed a hundred women onto that dance floor. Less than two years ago I would already have been out there with him, my arms around his neck, my hips pressing against his. Maybe another six months would find us in that position. But not tonight, not with Collin Stark just a few feet away, his presence reminding me how ordinary, tidy, and unremarkable I was.

Giving my arm a little squeeze, Gillie retreated as the waitress rescued me yet again.

I ordered first, my attention sliding toward Collin as Gillie ordered. Stark seemed to be completely unaware that I was in the same section of the restaurant, but I knew that couldn't be the case. Even in some Podunk North Carolina town, Collin was too security conscious. Within seconds of entering the restaurant, he would have noted all of the room's points of access and he would have scanned the crowd, his expert eye picking out anyone who looked like they could be trouble.

He would have seen me and he had rejected the booth that would have put him out of my line of sight. Even if he couldn't be bothered to look my way, he knew I was there and wanted me to see him.

Douchebag...

With the waitress gone, Gillie reached across the table with both hands to capture my wrists. My attention snapped back to him. My lips rolled at the urge to pull my hands into my lap, but I didn't move them.

He tilted his head, his gaze moving all along my face. "Do you think you're back for good, Mia?"

"Depends on how things go." I shrugged as much as I could with him holding my wrists. "I thought I would try to start a consulting business online. I need to stay at the guesthouse to conserve my savings while I do that."

His brows lifted, his mouth puckering. "Ambitious."

"Hardly," I snorted. "Particularly as I want to work with charities. They have to nickel and dime their service providers to death."

"I see." His thumbs rubbed at the inside of my wrists. "Guess with the free housing being crucial to your plan's success, I'll have to work extra hard to make sure Evan's walking the straight and narrow while you're there."

"He has an insanely huge mortgage on the place from a couple of years ago." My head dipped as I finally pulled my hands away and into my lap. "He could be living off that instead of doing something illegal."

"Let's hope so." Gillie's torso gave a little jerk to the left. Reaching down, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and glanced at it before catching my attention. "Sorry, give me a second."

I nodded as Gillie rose from the booth and walked toward the front of the restaurant. Alone, I tried to stare ahead of me, but a thirty-something female at the next booth met my gaze, her top lip curling up on one side.

I looked left, trying not to catch a glimpse of Collin but failing. This time he was looking at me -- sort of. His gaze seemed to be penetrating the table to where my hands still rested atop my thighs. I overlapped them, palm resting against palm, a thumb on one side of each wrist and the remaining fingers curling around the other. I squeezed at my wrists, forcing away the lingering sensation of Gillie having rubbed the flesh and the newer sensation of Collin's focus.

As if he had noticed the new tension in my body and new I was staring at him, Collin looked up, his blue eyes meeting and holding my green ones. I thought, in Dubai, that I had learned to read at least his basic mood, but his expression was one of impenetrable boredom. I would have welcomed genuine boredom. It was the emotions I had to guess at that tormented me.

Right -- so stop guessing, genius!

I forced myself to look away, first to where Gillie stood near the entrance talking on his cell phone then to the snarling female who had decided to go back to her food. As I waited, anger heated my body. For some unfathomable reason, Collin wanted to infect my date with Gillie and thereby ruin it. He didn't want me, had exhibited that first with his ejecting me from his life then with his immediate dismissal of my request to return to the home office.

I pressed my lips flat against one another to stop the quiver threatening, then took a sip of my water to disguise the flattened lips. I wouldn't let him ruin the evening -- or at least I would make sure that neither Gillie nor Collin knew it was ruined for me. Stark might have my insides dancing on the end of a marionette's strings, but it would be my secret.

I forced myself to think of pleasant things as Gillie finally made his way back to the table. I had to dig deep into my past. My father had died too young for me to have many memories of him. Whenever I tried, I only managed little flashes of a visual.

Rooting around, I remembered my first riding lesson at four, my mother clutching her pearls as the farm's foreman put me up on the saddle. Pushing forty, Ray had first pitched hay for my grandfather at the age of sixteen. He had insisted there would be no pony for a James child. My first ride was on the back of a sweet-tempered three-year-old mare named Corabelle. By the end of the month, I was riding every day, bossing gentle Corabelle around the pen under Ray's watchful eye.

Hold that thought, Mia. Hold it right there.

I had to hold it right there. Going forward would bring me to Evan firing Ray and six years later, Corabelle's passing.

Back it up, Mia.

I smiled as Gillie slid into the booth, my mind on the sugar cubes and apples I had bribed Corabelle with when first seeking her friendship.

"Sorry about that." He looked down at the table's surface, as if seeking my hands. I hadn't removed them from my lap.

"One of the dangers of having dinner with a deputy," he continued. "Sheriff calls, have to answer it."

I nodded in understanding. "I hope everything's okay -- everyone's safe."

He gave me a wry smile and a weird head shake before he explained. "He heard I was having dinner with Evan Morris's stepdaughter."

My mouth popped open. I had been in the restaurant less than ten minutes when the call came in. I looked around the road house, wondering who would have recognized me and felt compelled to snitch.

My gaze landed on Collin and immediately bounced away.

"Afraid I might have mentioned dinner on my way off shift to someone wondering why I was grinning like an idiot."

"Oh..." My stomach did a little flip at the admission. I wasn't sure why I felt pleasure at his statement. Hell, I didn't even know why he would grin like an idiot at the idea of having dinner with me -- maybe this was all about getting to Evan.

My right hand escaped the sanctuary beneath the table to fiddle with my silverware. "Is having dinner with Evan's stepdaughter a problem?"

His hand made it to the table's center line before I tucked mine back in my lap.

"Not if her name is Mia James," he smiled, ignoring my blatant evasion.

A plate landed on the table, saving me the embarrassment of asking him what his remark meant. I had left town six years ago at twenty. Even if I deserved my father's reputation, I hadn't shown anyone in town that I did.

"So..." Gillie started to peel apart the barbecue ribs he had ordered. "Tell me about this business."

"It doesn't exist yet." I laughed, my hand escaping once more to wave in the air. "I don't even have internet service yet. I have a prepaid phone..."

He looked up from the ribs and I felt, for a moment, like I was getting his cop stare, the one that meant it was time to cut the bullshit and confess.

"But you know what you want to do, right?"

My heart knocked a few times in my chest. The evening was pure rollercoaster. One minute I was thinking about Gillie's hands around my wrists, the next I was staring down Collin Stark, another minute later I was thinking about riding Corabelle just so I could have a smile on my face when Gillie returned to the table and, right at that second, I was looking into the unknown abyss of my future.

"I want to help people," I started. "But I think I have to invent the how."

Gillie tilted his head to study me, a fingertip absently against his lips as he sucked a drop of barbecue sauce away. He blinked, so slow my stomach did another weird little flip as his lids came back up, and then he nodded.

"You'll do it."

I swallowed, not so sure. The last year hadn't been a confidence booster.

"No, really." He tapped the table with one fingertip so I'd look at him. "You'll do it."

I swallowed again, then smiled. "If you want to lend me some of that confidence..."

He waved his hand in a broad gesture, his tongue darting out to catch a drop of sauce that lingered at the corner of his top lip. "All yours for the taking."

"Thanks."

Forgetting that the man responsible for my still broken heart sat six feet away, I reached across the table and squeezed Gillie's hand. By the time I remembered Collin's presence, he was gone and the waitress was clearing our dishes.

"Sure ya'll don't want dessert?" she asked, balancing our plates on one hand and checking her order book with the other.