Chapter 2 #3
She tugged the zipper on her coat up and down a few inches. “Probably because I’m petty,” she confessed.
“No.” He fought a smile. “Why did working here become necessity?”
“Oh.” Her straight white teeth pinched her lower lip. “Long story short, we need the money. For the business and taxes and stuff.”
“What about all your expansion plans? Just a couple weeks ago you had sledding tours listed.”
“You looked me up?”
He smiled now. “I couldn’t come back to Deadwood and not look you up. I wanted to see you.” Although seeing her had been the exact opposite of his actual intent on this trip, he would always want to see Evie.
“It was BYOS.”
“Bring Your Own Sled?” She nodded. “So?”
She sighed and did the thing with the zipper again. “That’s my problem, Wyatt. I just wanted to tell you about this.” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “It’s only winters. If I had another option, I wouldn’t be here. But I don’t want to lose the business.”
“That bad?”
Her gaze dropped to the patterned carpet between them and she shrugged. “It’s only winters,” she repeated.
Before he could overthink it, he caught her hand and placed it on the open door. “Hold this.” Swiveling around and darting into the room, he grabbed his coat. “Your shift is over?”
She nodded.
“The snow’s been getting heavier,” he reminded her. “Are the roads clear enough to get home?”
Another bob of her chin.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“For old time’s sake?” She cocked her head, skeptical.
The doubt in her gaze hollowed him out and regrets flooded into the void.
When they’d been together, she’d trusted him completely.
And he’d thrown away that precious gift with a shameful carelessness.
And now she was here trying to explain her actions, decisions he guessed she’d been forced to make.
He didn’t deserve her. And she didn’t deserve to be used by him, Cordell, the FBI or anyone else.
“Something like that.” He didn’t touch her as they walked to the elevator. It felt wrong, as if a joint was out of place. Present, but not functioning properly. In the past they held hands at every opportunity. “Are you even sure you can make it home tonight?”
“And back again in the morning,” she quipped. “Tomorrow night could be a different story.”
They stepped into the car when it arrived, suspending conversation with other guests around.
“I appreciate your concern,” she said as they walked toward the retail section of the resort.
“But I lost the right to have an opinion about your life and choices,” he finished for her. “A situation I regret,” he added. “Since we seem to be sharing.” The lighting had been dialed down, but all of the stores they passed were open. “Does anything in this place ever close?”
“Of course.” She pointed to a subtle sign near the door of the next store. “The hours are posted, though it strikes me as hypocritical since there isn’t a single clock anywhere in the guest areas.”
“I guess everyone has a phone or smart watch.” And he just realized he’d left both of his devices upstairs in the room.
“True.” She turned down a short hallway toward an exit sign and he followed. “The employee lot is this way.”
It was a part of the casino he hadn’t explored. Cordell demanded reports on security, not general employee habits. Wyatt figured the FBI had eyes on every casino entrance, so he kept his focus limited to his role.
On the other side of the doors, the world was coated with white. “Maybe you should stay over,” he said. “It’s already piling up.”
“You sound like a tourist,” she joked.
“I feel like one after all this time.”
“Well then I recommend a winter walk led by Cottonwood Adventures to get familiar with the area again. Once the storm passes.”
He’d love to spend more time with Evie if she’d allow it. “Seriously?”
“I wish.” There was a razor-sharp edge on each word. “Believe me, I’d rather be guiding tours.”
“Even in this weather?” he asked.
“Yes.” She paused a few paces from the automatic door and the guard standing by. Zipping up her coat, she adjusted her scarf and pulled on gloves. “You’re familiar with snow-mania. This storm can’t possibly be as bad as they’re saying,” she grumbled. “It’ll blow itself out before it gets to us.”
He hoped she was right, if only so he could be done with Cordell and his crew. “You’ll take precautions though?” he asked, buttoning his coat.
“I’m not an idiot.” She tugged her hood up over her hair. “Are you staying or getting out ahead of it?”
He couldn’t tell her he was planning to be part of a different problem for the casino.
“I’ll be here a few days.” He tugged his gloves over his hands.
Her eyebrows arched. “Why?”
“Business.” It wasn’t a lie, though even the truth left a bitter taste on his tongue. “Let’s go.”
A burst of cold air lashed them as the doors parted and, experts at bad weather, they leaned into it.
Most women would fuss or squeal. Despite the scarf, he knew Evie’s lips curved into a smile.
Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks rose a fraction.
She was meant for the outdoors. When they were much younger, he’d had fanciful thoughts about her being some sort of woodland fairy.
He’d never been dumb enough to voice the bizarre thought, but it hit him again right now.
This was Evie at her best and in her element, regardless of weather conditions. She had a faultless sense of direction and unparalleled courage. They used to joke you could send her up a creek without a paddle and she’d smile the whole way.
Naturally, her car was parked at the end of a row, well away from the building. She pressed the button on the key fob and the lights flashed as the doors unlocked. Neither of them moved.
“You didn’t have to walk me all the way out.”
“Of course I did.” The air had enough bite to make it uncomfortable to talk and he needed to convince her to go home and stay there. “You’ll need some help clearing the windows.” He owed her more than a few kind gestures. He owed her explanations.
She seemed to sense it. Maybe eleven years didn’t amount to a permanent divide after all. “Get in and talk while the car warms up.”
He didn’t need an engraved invitation. Hustling around the car, he slid into the passenger seat. She drove a crossover that hadn’t been new in some time. He imagined it handled the terrain and demands of the outdoor business well.
She started the engine and turned on the defrosters for the front and rear. The fan labored and whined and he wondered if it was up to the task. When she picked up a snow brush from behind her seat, he took it from her. “Let me.”
“It’s not just winters,” she blurted.
He pulled the door closed, watching her.
She tugged the scarf away from her face. “We’re about one season away from losing everything. Dealing poker is the only way to keep us going until spring. I’ve worked up some private tours and ala carte contracts, but the salary and tips are the bread and butter right now.”
His stomach dropped at her mention of private tours.
Did the FBI misinterpret Cordell and Evie working out fees for a private tour?
It made sense. Evie wasn’t a thief, no matter how dire things were with Cottonwood.
If that was the case, Cordell wasn’t looking for a snowy landscape for the perfect picture.
More likely that snake was hoping to prevent Wyatt’s double-cross.
“Ala carte? What about your plans for year-round events?”
She let her head fall back against the seat. “A kid’s plan,” she said.
“That’s your father talking.” Wyatt remembered brainstorming with Evie about all sorts of improvements and innovations that would appeal to the next generation of adventuring customers.
“You’re not wrong,” she said. “Neither is he. Winter excursions require winter gear and equipment. Dale Cotton doesn’t subscribe to the ‘takes money to make money’ theory. We both had to step up. He restores furniture and I found a job that pays.”
Wyatt hated that Evie was sacrificing herself. “Wow.” Eleven years ago her working in any capacity at the casinos would’ve broken their friendship. He was a different man now.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze on the snow blowing across the glow of light from the parking lamp overhead.
“Don’t be. You have good plans for Cottonwood Adventures. If this is what it takes, consider it a phase.” But why did the universe have to plant her here, in the casino targeted for a big robbery. A robbery he was knotted up in.
“You must hate me.”
“Please.” He snorted. “The opposite seems more likely.” Her reaction to him earlier was plenty of proof. “You were fuming from the moment you recognized me.”
She punched his shoulder. Hard. Confirming his assessment. “You left without a word. Not one letter or phone call.” She rubbed her reddening nose. “I had to hear everything from the paper.”
It would’ve been easier if she’d shouted at him.
The aching emotion in her quiet voice was too much.
“I had to leave.” Unlike her, he didn’t have a good explanation for his choices.
At the time, he’d thought not saying goodbye to his best friend was the only way to go through with it.
Staying wasn’t an option and leaving wasn’t all that he’d hoped for.
“What did you hear in the paper?” He regretted the question immediately. He wasn’t fishing for compliments, he was supposed to be getting her out of harm’s way without tipping her off.
“Local boy joins the Army and becomes a hero, that kind of thing,” she replied.
“I’m surprised they bothered.” Uneasy, he adjusted the vent shooting hot air at him. “My branch of the Jameson family tree wasn’t exactly popular.” His mother had gambled the family into such a deep hole they’d lost the house and everything that had once been good inside it.
Evie had been his lifeline, his last tether to a better reality. Evie’s father had talked to him about enlisting, about creating a fresh start and building a foundation his mother couldn’t touch.
It was go… or be consumed by her weakness.
There were nights—plenty of them that first year—when he wondered if Dale had ever told Evie about those talks, about the advice that pushed Wyatt out of Deadwood toward a better life.
Probably not. Dale would’ve expected Wyatt to explain and he’d never found the words.
Evie’s place was here. For a time, Wyatt had been convinced his place was here, by her side, helping her take Cottonwood Adventures to the next level.
“You were my best friend, Wyatt.” Her voice was barely audible over the blowing fans and he wondered if she meant for him to hear the words at all.
“My heart broke over you. I…I don’t think I can go have coffee or a drink because deep down a part of me wants to forget the last eleven years of silence.
” She sucked in a breath and bit her lip.
On the exhale she faced him. “For as long as you’re in town, can we just pretend we don’t know each other? ”
“Evie—” It would be safer for her and yet, he resisted. He couldn’t just ignore what might be his only chance to make up for his mistakes.
“I mean it,” she said. “Eleven years is a lot of time and distance. We’re different people now, really. You’ve been all over the world and I’ve been right here. Call me a coward, but I’ll only get hurt if I try to reconnect with you right now.”
She was no coward. Just the opposite. “I should tell you—”
She cut him off. “Don’t tell me anything. Just be yourself, be the town hero. Do whatever you’re here to do, just do it well away from me.”
If he’d been surprised to see her dealing poker, he was absolutely shocked now.
What she proposed was for the best on several levels.
With the storm coming in, and the robbery in the offing, staying away from her simplified everything.
This way Cordell couldn’t drag her into his plans. “You’re sure that’s what you want?”
“It is.”
How could he argue with her? She deserved to dictate terms now when he’d never given her a shot before. “You’ll go home and ride out the storm there?”
“That’s the plan,” she replied.
A plan that kept her away from the casino without him blowing his cover by telling her the whole sordid tale. Agent Pickering could get herself out to the Cotton place if she wanted clarity about Evie and Cordell.
“Promise me you’ll stay home through the storm?”
She ran her gloved hands over the steering wheel, not meeting his gaze. “I promise.”
He gripped the door handle. “I loved you, Evie. We were only kids, but still. I know I hurt you, the way I left, but I’ve never wanted anything less than the best for you. I swear it.”