Prologue #2
kids in a freaking dorm. It should take longer for a nearly thirty-year-old man
to pack all of his belongings. A couple pairs of jeans, underwear, and socks.
His cell phone that only worked half the time when they could afford service.
He slid the most important thing in his pack and picked it
up. His sketchbook. He didn’t have access to clay out here, and no one would
let him use the welding materials for anything but work, so drawing was his
only refuge.
He followed Shane out into the frigid night after slipping
on his coat and exiting the bunkhouse as quietly as possible.
The truth of the matter was he didn’t like Kingman Ranch.
There was a heaviness to the place that seeped into his work. It wasn’t like
Bliss, where everything had an aura of beauty around it. He had an entire
sketchpad devoted to Bliss. Over the years they’d been several times, and every
visit yielded work. At first they’d been erotic sketches of the lovers he and
Shane shared, and portraits of Stef Talbot in his element. Those early works
had been lush and blatantly sexual, as if that was the only thing on his mind
at the time.
Except for one. One sketch of the most beautiful woman he’d
ever seen. The one who sometimes haunted his dreams. Golden brown hair and blue
eyes, the wind had caressed her like a lover, blowing her hair across her
cheeks as she’d turned toward him. Time felt like it stopped in that moment,
but it hadn’t. Years had passed, but he could still call up the vision.
He’d seen her so long ago at one of those festivals that
seemed to happen once a month in Bliss.
Lately when he visited Talbot, he found himself sketching
things like the old couple at Stella’s Café who held hands while they drank
their coffee. A new mom with her baby and two husbands watching them with a
glow in their eyes he worried he would never understand. A mangy dog who wagged
that tail like the world was a wonderful place.
He found none of that here. Everything at this ranch was
coated in a darkness he hadn’t been able to explain to his brother.
Looked like he’d figured it out himself.
He followed Shane as they moved toward the long driveway
where all the trucks were parked. Most of the hands didn’t have their own
trucks, but Shane wouldn’t let them be without a car. Hence them spending
everything they had on that old piece of crap they were driving now. “All
right, we’re out. Want to tell me why we’re skulking away without a last
paycheck?” A thought occurred to him. “Damn it, Shane. Tell me you didn’t sleep
with one of Kingman’s daughters.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Shane’s libido got them in
trouble, though usually he talked Bay into joining whichever forbidden fruit he
was pursuing that month. Not that he would touch one of the Kingman girls. They
were lovely and colder than the Wyoming winter they were currently walking
through.
Snow clung to Shane’s hair as they made it to the truck and
tossed their paltry possessions in the back. “No. I think they’re running guns,
and I accidently saw a shipment. I overheard Dennis and Andy talking about
taking me out tomorrow. They were going to kill you, too.”
Fuck. He stood there watching his brother climb into the
cab.
This was serious, and they were in trouble. Or Shane was way
overreacting. That was the likeliest reason. Leaving wouldn’t cause too much
trouble except for the lack of a paycheck. It was two weeks until Christmas.
Not a lot of people were hiring at this time of year. He hopped in beside his
brother and closed the door as quietly as he could.
Shane started the truck but left the lights off. He turned
Bay’s way. “You’re not going to fight me? Tell me I’m overreacting?”
Bay shrugged. “I never liked this place anyway. But, Shane,
we have to work. It’s not like we have a place to stay. We got enough cash for
a couple of nights at a cheap motel, but that’s about it. I don’t know what you
heard, but I do know something’s not right here. It’s like that time that we
stayed at the artist commune and it turned out to be a cult. I get those vibes,
but with less tofu and more violence.”
Shane huffed out a groan. “Damn, but we’re dumb.” He started
to pull the truck around the drive, going slowly so the sound of tires on
gravel didn’t wake up anyone in the bunkhouse. Across the way, the lights were
off at the foreman’s house. His brother had been smart and waited until he was
sure everyone would be asleep since they had to move the herd early the next
morning. “We have to get out of Wyoming. We should head south. There’s probably
work in Texas.”
Bay had to be careful about this. “That sounds good.” He
watched the big house as they drove by. There were a few lights on, but
Kingman’s house was far enough away he wasn’t worried they would hear them.
“Maybe we can stop at Stef’s. I’ve got a couple of ideas I’d like to work on,
and you know he said we could use the guesthouse whenever I needed a break.”
Stef Talbot had “discovered” him as an artist, and the man
had been an excellent mentor. Oh, Bay knew Stef viewed him as something of an
enigma, but he was still kind to them, offering them room and board and a space
in his studio to work.
Shane sighed. “And what would I do? I assume we’re staying
for Christmas. I can’t sit on my ass and watch you sculpt and paint.”
Shane didn’t understand him either, but it didn’t matter.
Shane was…more than his brother. He was the odd other half of his soul. He
couldn’t function without Shane. Didn’t even want to try. It had driven his
mother crazy, but even from an early age he’d recognized the importance of
Shane. “We’ll find something. It’s a couple of weeks. Nothing more. I’m sure
there’s some seasonal jobs we can do. I just…I need to work for a while.”
It had been building for months, the need to spend days with
his hands in clay or chipping away at wood or marble to find the treasure
hidden underneath, the one only his eyes could see until he uncovered it.
“All right then. But only until we’re back on our feet,”
Shane said.
Bay nodded.
When they made it to the highway, Shane turned on the lights
and headed south.
To Bliss.
* * * *
Manhattan, NY
Five months later
Brooke Harper sat on the sofa and sniffled.
“I can’t believe it.”
Her roommate sat across from her, and Brooke realized there
was not an ounce of sympathy in her eyes. It might be the colored contacts that
somehow hid the empathy, but Brooke doubted it. Ami had never been empathetic,
but shouldn’t this be the one case where the sisterhood stuck together?
“I don’t see why not.” Nope, not an ounce of sympathy. “You
called human resources on your boss. You told them he stole your designs and
presented them as his own.”
Yes, that summed up the situation neatly. “He did.”
Ami sighed, a world-weary sound that matched her ennui
aesthetic. “They all do. I told you it’s how it works. If you wanted things to
be fair, you should have picked another industry.”
“He got a massive bonus for my work,” Brooke pointed out.
Her boss led the design team at House of Bianchi, an
up-and-coming design firm. They’d gotten their first big buy from Macy’s, and
it was all from Brooke’s fall leisurewear line. She’d been deeply influenced by
her trip home for the holidays a few months before. She had designed some
skiwear and sweaters and whole outfits inspired by the horse ranch her brothers
and sister-in-law ran. Cowboy chic, she’d called it. She kept it on her laptop
because she hadn’t thought it was ready yet.
Mark Hallway hadn’t cared. He’d explained that the laptop
was the company’s, and so were her designs. She hadn’t even known he’d stolen
them, changed a couple of the fabrics and patterns, and put his name on them
until one morning two weeks before. The company had a big presentation of the
fall line with the announcement that they’d made the Macy’s sale and were close
to inking distribution deals with several European store lines. She’d sat in
stunned silence, not moving even when they’d brought the champagne out.
That champagne should have been for her.
Keep your mouth shut and I’ll make sure you get to go to
Milan this year.
If only that had been all he told her to do.
It was some Devil Wears Prada bullshit, and she
wasn’t taking it.
Not that it seemed like she had much of a choice now. The
human resources lady had pointed out all the places in her contract that stated
plainly any designs belonged to the company. It was on the laptop they provided
for her, and clearly she’d done much of the design work during office hours, so
it belonged to the House of Bianchi. The woman had been somewhat sympathetic
but clear. Mark was more important than she was. He was influential, and she
was nobody. She had only been working at Bianchi for a couple of years, and all
she had under her belt were some accessories for lesser lines.
Ami shrugged. “Everyone knows when you’re a junior designer
you keep your mouth shut and do your job.”
“No.” She wasn’t completely na?ve. “Everyone knows the boss
will take most of the credit for the work, but the designer’s name should be
somewhere. He should have given me some credit and introduced me to the owners.
Instead, he told me I was lucky he thought I had something worth putting his
name on and maybe if I…”
She didn’t even want to say it. She could still feel the
humiliation, the opening in the pit of her stomach. She’d felt so small in that
moment, like nothing she did would ever matter. Like if she wanted to move up
she would have to pay for it with her body, and that would take something from
her soul.
Ami’s lips quirked up. “Not gay, huh? They’re the worst. So
did he offer you a promotion if you let him in your panties?”
He’d told her if she gave him a blow job then and there,
that he’d think about mentioning her helping him with the designs in the Vogue
interview he was doing at the end of the week.