Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
E ver since Kyle had insisted on doing the crappiest work in the bar—without complaint and without pay—Scarlett had felt warm inside. And now, as he sat at the bar sipping on a glass of water with a wedge of lemon, she followed the directions that Al had given her about how to cash out the drawers. The last customers had left; the outer doors were locked; most of the lights were off; Kyle had touched up the bathrooms as promised; and, finally, the servers had finished their work and left, leaving Scarlett to finish her closing duties.
Because Al had already closed out Denise’s drawer, Scarlett only had to close out hers and then run some reports before locking the drawer and leaving the paperwork on his desk in the office. His instructions, written on a piece of paper, were perfect, easy to follow step by step. She’d asked if he wanted her to actually cash it out, doing whatever kind of report was needed so she could pull out the earnings and only leave the drawer’s starting bank, but Al said he’d do it in the morning.
When she looked up, waiting as a long receipt spat out of the little printer beside the register, Kyle grinned at her. He said, “Hey, about earlier…”
“What?”
“When I kind of freaked you out by playing rough… talking rough.”
Oh…yes. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten—but she believed there had been nothing truly sinister underneath his words and expression. Still, could she be sure? “Yeah?”
“I don’t ever want you to be… afraid of me.”
She laughed. “I’m not. I just, uh, startled.”
“Okay, well I don’t want to startle you, either. I want you to feel relaxed and comfortable—and happy around me. So I wanted to ask a weird question.”
Scarlett removed the receipt as Al had instructed and then began tapping on the screen again, following his instructions. “Go ahead.” Being distracted might make this potentially uneasy conversation easier.
“What was it that, uh, triggered you? Was it what I said? How I said it? How I looked?”
She hadn’t really thought about it—and she couldn’t while she processed the instructions. “I don’t know.” After she finished tapping the screen, once more instructing it to print the closing paperwork for the entire bar for the day, she considered his question. Then she looked him in those beautiful azure eyes and nearly found herself lost in the sincerity and kindness she saw. Had she ever known a man, other than her father, who’d looked at her with such compassion?
“I guess maybe it was just because I wasn’t expecting it—or maybe it was all of the above working in combination. But I really don’t know.”
“I just don’t want to do it again.”
Although the printer was done spitting out the paper, she held her gaze on this man—someone several months ago she’d pegged as a typical guy, but who seemed to have more depth than the ocean.
It made her want to get to know him far better.
“Kyle…I promise, it’s me , not you. Please don’t feel like you have to walk on eggshells around me. I think…I think I just need time. You know? The farther I get away from my past, the better I can cope with the present.”
“Yeah. That makes total sense. In fact, I’d say you sound a lot like my shrink.”
“I do?” Grinning again, Scarlett locked the drawer with one of the keys on the ring. “Give me just a second. I need to run this stuff to Al’s office really quick.” As she did, she felt a jolt of excitement. What had Kyle planned this evening? Monday night had been full of surprises, so she figured tonight would be no different. And she was used to staying up late, thanks to the job, so she’d have plenty of energy for whatever adventure awaited.
More than that, she knew in her heart, based on what he’d just said, that Kyle was nothing like her ex. If he was, he deserved an Academy Award.
After placing the paperwork on Al’s desk, she grabbed her coat off one of the hooks and then closed the door behind her, locking it as her boss had instructed. Then she bounced back out into the main room and rushed over to the bar. After washing her and Kyle’s glasses, she said, “Ready!” Then she put on her coat. “Do you have a coat here?”
His sheepish expression melted her heart. “I left it in my car. I was overheated when I took my guitar back to my car and we loaded up everything else…and I didn’t bother dragging it back.”
“Where’d you park?”
“On Fourth Street—just at the end of the block.”
Although that wasn’t too far, it would be a chilly walk. But he hadn’t seemed to get as cold as she had on their date the other night, so maybe he could handle it better. When they got to the door, she flipped off several switches, leaving on a few select lights as Al had instructed. As they exited the doors, Scarlett had the key ready to lock the front—but she was distracted by the snow falling outside. It was beautiful, highlighted by the streetlamps as it flurried to the ground in almost straight lines at a diagonal, thanks to the biting wind.
After locking the doors and pulling on them to make sure they were secure as Al had asked, her thoughts spilled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “It’s beautiful out here, but whatever you had planned for tonight might be better for another time.” She couldn’t read Kyle’s eyes and just kept going. “When’s the next time you’re not working?”
“No idea. Now is my best answer.” His grin elicited a smile on her own face.
“Then why don’t you just come up to my apartment for a while? I could make some coffee before you have to head home.”
The snow was starting to stick to his hair and, although he wasn’t shivering without his jacket, Scarlett felt colder just looking at him in that t-shirt. He said, “Maybe I should just head on home. My car’s okay in the snow but not great. The more snow that sticks to the road, the more I slide. I need to buy new tires.”
Scarlett’s heart clenched, because she heard all the words he hadn’t said. New tires could be expensive; she knew that from experience. That compassion combined with feeling like she’d wrecked his evening, not to mention her desire to spend more time with him caused her to say, “You can crash at my place if you want.” Even in the muted light, she could read something in his eyes—but she didn’t see desire or an immediate assumption that she was inviting him into her bed—and that simply confirmed her belief that Kyle was a genuinely good guy.
She wasn’t good at spotting them…but this time, she was positive she had.
But he didn’t say anything. It was as if he was at war with himself, struggling to say the right thing.
So she added, “You didn’t go home earlier because you stuck around to help me.”
Finally, his tongue was loose, but the tight tone told her the cold was getting to him. “No. I mean…that wasn’t the only reason.”
“I don’t want to worry about you on the road. Just come in. My couch is pretty comfy. I’ve napped on it a time or two. Or you could sleep on the bed and I could sleep on the couch. It doesn’t matter. But I’m freezing watching you out here without a coat and I want you to be safe. I don’t want to worry about if you’ll make it home okay.”
Without a word, Kyle simply nodded, letting her take his hand, guiding him to the door a few yards away leading to her upstairs apartment. Even in that cold, his hand felt warm and protective, assuring her that this was not as stupid a move as part of her brain was trying to insist.
Scarlett brought two mismatched cups of hot cocoa across the room to where Kyle stood in the tiny living room area in front of the bookcase. He was glancing at the handful of books she’d picked up at the quaint used bookstore a block away and Goodwill, a few novels, DIY books, one cookbook, and her mother’s family Bible.
Or so she thought.
When she handed him the mug, he asked, “Is that you in that picture?”
Ah. He hadn’t been looking at the books. Instead, he’d been examining the one picture, a 5 x 7 in a plain frame, one of the few things she’d brought with her when she’d escaped to Silver City. “Yeah.”
It was a photo from long ago, back when she’d had both her parents, a time when she was happy and had felt loved…not knowing that her life was about to change forever.
“You had red hair when you were a kid.”
If only he knew…the red hair was still there, but it was nothing a bottle couldn’t cover. “Yeah.”
“Is that your mom and dad?”
“It is.” Her nerves began to settle a bit because, even though he was asking questions about things she’d been trying to hide, she realized she didn’t mind if he knew a little.
“Did they name you Scarlett because of your hair?”
Now, however, had to come the lie. “Yep.” The truth was they’d had her name picked out long before she’d exited the womb…a name Kyle didn’t know. Her real name.
Grinning, he finally looked her in the eyes again. “They didn’t know you’d grow up to be a cute little Tinker Bell. Otherwise, they might have named you something different.”
“Drink your cocoa, smarty-pants.”
“How old were you when that picture was taken?”
She tried not to think about it too much, because her father’s death was the first of many losses. Her grandparents—all of them—had passed when she’d been much younger, too little to really understand what any of it meant. Before she’d come along, her parents had been married for a long time and had tried for over a decade to have a child. Her mother had had a series of miscarriages and they’d finally given up, deciding a child wasn’t in the cards for them. Each failed pregnancy was more painful than the last, and then they actively prevented conception. It wasn’t until her mother was going through perimenopause and her periods had stopped coming regularly that her father quit using condoms—and then her mother got pregnant. But she didn’t know she was pregnant at first because of irregular periods that came farther and farther apart. Due to the symptoms of perimenopause, she didn’t recognize any of the pregnancy symptoms. She’d had a couple of weeks of nausea and simply thought she was coming down with something. The breast tenderness and lack of periods she attributed to the change of life.
It wasn’t until her belly started pooching that she wondered…and she took a test to confirm it. But she didn’t say a word to her husband for weeks, because she was sure the child would eventually miscarry.
When her belly grew even more, Scarlett’s father couldn’t help but notice—and that was when her mother finally went to the doctor and discovered that Scarlett had made it past the point any of her other pregnancies had.
Her parents had always called her their miracle child .
And here she was, thinking about the good times again…but eventually they always reminded her of how much she’d lost. She blinked away the tears before she spoke.
“It was right after my thirteenth birthday. We were on a road trip, camping and sightseeing in Colorado. We were getting ready to ride the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and my dad asked someone to take a picture of us.” It was the last picture of the three of them they’d ever had taken.
“You said you lost both your parents, right?”
Scarlett’s emotions and the thoughts she held to keep her rational and aloof warred with each other inside her—but she was tired of the fight, tired of the superficial relationships she had here in Silver City. Sure, she had Marin in Pueblo, but it wasn’t the same as someone who could hug you, someone you could connect to face-to-face.
And that someone had become Kyle over the past few months.
“Do you want to sit down?” she asked.
“Uh, sure.”
As they moved toward the couch, Scarlett said, “To answer your question, yeah. Different times but both my parents are gone.”
Kyle didn’t sit. “I’m sorry.” His eyes said far more than his words, indicating he was hesitant about prying.
“No, it’s okay.” Kyle’s expression was full of sorrow and regret but he said nothing. When she sat on the couch, it had the effect she’d been hoping it would, because he didn’t hesitate to join her. Already, she could feel comforting, protective waves coming off him, urging her to continue. “My dad died a couple of months after that picture was taken. He was a long-haul truck driver and he died on the road. It was like the perfect storm.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to.” Scarlett could feel her brow wrinkle as she dropped her eyes to her hands—because, even though she wanted to tell Kyle about it, she didn’t think she’d be able to do it without crying. “He was driving over Red Mountain Pass. Oddly enough, that’s really close to where we’d been camping that summer. But he was driving over it in the fall and it was raining, so the roads were a little icy. Another semi was going down one side and my dad was driving up, and the other semi slid into his lane, probably driving too fast. They said they believed my dad was trying to avoid hitting the other truck by braking. Have you ever been over that pass?”
“No.”
“My mom and I went there to see where he died. On one side, there’s a sheer drop off and no guard rails. On the other side, there’s a rock wall. The other driver not only slid into dad’s lane but his trailer fell on its side and kept sliding, causing my dad’s truck to go over the edge. His truck caught on fire too. Just—” Scarlett’s throat constricted as the tears started dropping into her lap, and she placed her cocoa on the tiny coffee table to avoid crying into it.
Kyle didn’t say a word. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight. Instinctively, he’d known what she needed. After her tears slowed and she was able to speak again, she said, “It wasn’t until the year before that my dad had switched from being a short-haul trucker to long-haul. Short hauls let him be closer to home all the time, and he wanted to not be gone as much, especially when I was little. But when I got older, my mom and dad wanted to buy a nicer home and be able to support my activities—like sports and music and stuff. So he switched back to driving long-haul. He made lots better money, but he’d be gone for weeks at a time. That’s why we took that vacation in August, so we could have some good family time.”
Again, Kyle was silent, but he rubbed her back with his hand, comforting her more than he could possibly know.
When Scarlett spoke again, her voice was steadier. “I’m really glad we did that, though. We had the best time.”
“You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”
“No. It was just me.” She could see the question in his eyes…the one about her mother. “My mom died when I was nineteen. Colon cancer.” Sitting up, Scarlett wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, noticing the mascara and eyeliner smudges, grateful that Kyle’s t-shirt was black so none of the evidence she’s surely left would show. As hard as her father’s death had been, her mother’s was more recent and, thus, less scarred over. And she’d often wondered if she wouldn’t have wound up with Tommy if not for it.
“She’d finally emerged from the heavy cloud that she’d been living under after my dad died. Don’t get me wrong. She was still a wonderful mother, but I could tell how lonely and sad she was, and I don’t know how much comfort I was to her. She said I was, but once I was a senior in high school, I was interested in activities and friends and boys. Anyway, thanks to my dad, my mom didn’t have to worry about getting a different job. He had enough life insurance to pay for all the funeral stuff and she paid off her car. The rest she put into savings to cover months when we were short…which was pretty often. But she was a cashier at King Soopers, so she made enough money to pay the bills and have health insurance, all that stuff. But she didn’t go to the doctor like she should have. She started losing weight and wasn’t feeling well—and she didn’t look very well, either. After graduation, I worked part-time, but I was home more—and I finally begged her to go to the doctor. There was no denying something was seriously wrong.”
Scarlett’s throat was dry, so she reached over for her cocoa and took a sip. The warmth felt good going down and, as a montage of her mother’s last year of life flashed in the projection screen in her mind, she fought back tears. Closing her eyes, she let out a long slow breath between pursed lips before forcing out the rest of the words. “Even that was an ordeal. She hadn’t had a doctor for so long that she had to find one who was taking new patients—and, when she finally found one, she had to wait two months for an appointment. By that point, seeing how miserable she felt, I asked her to go to urgent care. Every time, she’d tell me, ‘I’ll be fine.’ I don’t know what she and her doctor discussed, but I do know he ordered some tests, including a colonoscopy—which my mother refused to do at first. When she did…that’s when they told her she had cancer.”
Again, Scarlett couldn’t hold the tears back anymore, reliving that painful time in her life. The problem wasn’t necessarily the cancer in her colon but that it had metastasized, spreading to various other parts of her body—so surgery wasn’t an option, but they threw everything else at her that they could: chemotherapy, radiation, and other treatments Scarlett couldn’t remember the names of. She hoped against hope that her mother would survive, but now she could look back with clarity: part of her mother had died years earlier with her dad—and she’d stuck around long enough for Scarlett to reach adulthood.
“They treated it, of course. It wasn’t long before she couldn’t work anymore. She just didn’t have the energy or health for it. I started taking her to a lot of her appointments for chemo and radiation—which is why I ended up in food service. I could take her home, make sure she was as comfortable as possible, and then go into work, make decent tips and then come home, ready to do it again.” But her mother hadn’t fought to live. And she found herself telling Kyle about it.
“One morning, I brought her some coffee and toast, about the only thing she’d eat by that point. And she flat-out told me she wasn’t afraid to die.” That was when she knew her mother had given up. “It wasn’t long after that that she started sleeping more and more, only waking when I got her up to go to her appointments or to eat. And then she’d get confused about things—like one time, she asked where my dad was. And as much as I loved her and missed her,” Scarlett spat out, her voice breaking again, “it was almost a relief when she passed…because those last few months, she wasn’t herself anymore.”
The tears began falling like rain again, and Kyle once more pulled her close. This time, the torrent couldn’t be stopped, and his warmth told her it was okay. When, after some time, she stopped sobbing and silence fell like a blanket over her apartment, Kyle simply continued holding her, and hearing his heart against her ear and his steady breathing comforted her more than he could have imagined.
Finally, she sat up. “I need to blow my nose. Just a sec.” Walking through her bedroom, she went into the tiny bathroom and pulled several squares of tissue off the toilet paper roll. Then she dared a glance in the mirror and saw that almost all of her makeup had been cried off, so she turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face. Then, wiping off the smudges with her towel hanging next to the door, she took a long breath and walked back into the living room.
“Sorry about that,” she said. Kyle, now standing and looking out the window, turned to look at her.
“Don’t apologize. It’s okay.” As she got closer, she could feel his warmth, both inside and out. “It’s really coming down out there. Thanks again for letting me stay here.”
“Yeah, of course. Uh…do you want me to make some hot cocoa since my emotional onslaught took so long? Or I can make coffee if you want.”
“Nah. The cocoa still tastes good. Maybe we could microwave it.”
Scarlett smiled, a sensation that felt so good after what had just transpired. “I don’t have a microwave.”
“ Don’t have a microwave? That seems un-American or something.”
She laughed, grateful for the opportunity. “Seriously, I can make some fresh.”
“No, I’m okay. But I should probably let you get some sleep.”
“Not yet—unless you’re tired. I’ve been dominating the conversation. I want to hear all about you and your family.”
The shadow that crossed over Kyle’s face was brief, but she’d caught it nonetheless. “I don’t think I’m in a good place to talk about my blood family…but I can tell you all about my band family if that sounds all right.”
“Okay.”
When they sat back down again, Kyle’s face was once more relaxed and friendly, her earlier question seemingly forgotten. “How familiar are you with the people in my band?”
“Well, you guys have been playing at Tequilaville enough that I recognize their faces—but I don’t know remember their names. I remember Wolf.”
“A little harder to forget.”
“Yeah. And if I saw their faces, I could tell you what instrument they play.”
“I can help you put names to the faces. The band started out with me, my brother Liam, and Hayley—and it didn’t take long for us to recruit Pedro and Adrian. I’m sure I don’t have to point out who Hayley is, but Adrian is our drummer and Pedro plays bass.”
Scarlett said, “That’s the long guitar, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, I think I can picture them all in my head—if I can remember their names. Hayley, Adrian, Pedro—and you mentioned your brother. He’s not the old guy, is he?”
“No, that’s Wolf. Liam died last year and we almost quit playing…thanks to me mostly. But then we wound up bringing Wolf on board. He plays lead guitar. And have you met Kyle, the other guitarist?”
Scarlett smiled, appreciating the humor. “Maybe? I’m not sure.”
“Let me introduce the two of you. Tink, this is Kyle. Kyle, meet the most beautiful girl at Tequilaville.”
Scarlett almost blushed—but she knew how he felt about her…and she felt the same way about him. The more time she spent with him, the more attracted she was to him, inside and out. “I know it might be a sensitive topic…but you said your brother died last year. What happened? If you want to talk about it.” Immediately, she regretted asking as she saw in her mind a couple of puzzle pieces fitting together. Kyle had mentioned more than once that he was in therapy—for mental health issues—and she realized now that it could have something to do with losing a sibling at such a young age.
“Liam was my older brother, but we were close in age. He was…like a genius ahead of his time. And, um, he had— we had—or no. We didn’t exactly have the easiest time growing up. But we were close. We have a little sister too. Anyway, um, my mom did the best she could, but—”
Scarlett’s heart ached for him. It was clearly a struggle for him to talk about the subject, so she placed a hand on his and interrupted him. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“It’s hard, but…Liam was important to me, almost like a father figure. I looked up to him and, um…” He grew silent for a bit, but Scarlett didn’t want to press him. Instead, she just lightly squeezed his hand, like a hug. “I’ll tell you about what happened to him some other time. My therapist says I have survivor guilt.”
Although she remained calm, Scarlett’s senses heightened, because even though she didn’t know exactly what that was, her mind was already racing. Maybe they were driving and got in a wreck—Kyle lived and his brother died. Again, her heart cramped, wishing she could hug his pain away—much like he’d done with her earlier.
“Anyway,” Kyle said, looking up and swiping at his face with his free hand, “that’s why we recruited Wolf. I didn’t like the idea at first. Hayley knew he was a guitarist—I didn’t—and he blew us away with how talented he is. He can play old rock, all kinds of metal genres, you name it. And he can write some good shit too. Intent to Murder might have figured out how to go on after we lost Liam, but I was not in a good head space. Like, not at all, and I was pissed at first that we were considering bringing Wolf on board.”
“Partly because he was replacing your brother?”
Kyle nodded. “Mostly because of that. But Wolf blew us all away with his abilities. And, more than that, he’s been kind of like a…I don’t want to say leader , and father figure isn’t quite right, either. Mentor maybe? I don’t know. All I know is he turned out to be exactly what we needed.”
“He and Hayley seem to…are they dating?”
“Yeah. Well, more than that. They live together.” Kyle looked down and turned his hand over so he could hold Scarlett’s in his. She loved how big and strong his hand felt against hers, and she looked back up and smiled at Kyle. He said, “That’s probably something I need to tell you about.”
“What?”
“Hayley and me. We were boyfriend and girlfriend for a long time. Seriously long. We started dating in high school and when her mom and dad kicked her out, she came to live with my family. We lived together for a long time, up until last year.”
“Oh.” Was that awkward or weird? Scarlett didn’t think so, because clearly both of them had moved on. Remaining friends and continuing to work together—although that would never have been possible for Scarlett and her ex—didn’t seem so strange for two emotionally stable people.
As if he could read her mind, Kyle added, “We’re good friends now, but neither of us want to try to get back together. Hayley would tell you our last couple of years together were ‘toxic.’ And she’s right. We fought all the time—and I was so…angry. I took a lot of that out on her.”
“But you’re still friends, right?”
“Yeah. I hope that doesn’t weird you out.”
“No.” Scarlett smiled. “That actually tells me a lot about your values. You already said your band is your family—and I think that kind of affirms it.”
“I’m not kidding about that, either. We spend holidays together—and, I mean, we do lots with each other. Pedro, Adrian, and I rent a house together—and Pedro and Adrian’s sister are dating. We don’t just spend time with each other practicing and playing shows. We genuinely like each other, and now that we’ve worked through all our issues—mostly mine —we’ve really gelled into a solid family. I don’t know any other way to put it. And those guys put up with my shit and still loved me in spite of it. They’re more than just friends. They really are my family.”
Scarlett couldn’t help but notice what he was leaving out. His last two sentences said it all. If the band members were his family…then his thoughts about his blood family, the ones he didn’t want to talk about, must not have been good.
It also made her realize what a huge hole she had in her own life.
“If you want,” he said, “I can introduce you to everybody next time we play.”
“I’d like that.”
“What’s weird about me and Hayley—if you’d asked me two years ago about our relationship, I would have told you we were gonna be together forever. It wasn’t until we broke up and I started going to therapy that I realized how wrong we were for each other. Neither of us was happy. You’d think we would have recognized that as a sign—but I remember Hayley one time saying her mom had told her something like the madder she got at her boyfriend, the more she knew they were meant to be together. But I know that’s bullshit, and Hayley does too.”
Scarlett nodded, because Kyle’s words were making her ponder her last relationship—very toxic , to use the word he’d said. Only toxic was an understatement.
She also hoped Kyle wasn’t overemphasizing that he and Hayley were over in a “he protests too much” sort of way.
His next words removed all doubt. “Hayley has found a man who’s perfect for her—and, with time and distance and a lot of time spent with my therapist, I now know the kind of woman who’s right for me.” The way his expression changed made her heart beat harder, because her subconscious was picking up on subtle signals that her conscious brain hadn’t quite figured out. “And I’m looking right at her.”
Part of her wanted to protest…because what he knew of her was a carefully curated history, little bits here and there that she’d felt comfortable sharing, but he had no idea about all that had transpired in her life in the last few years—and, if he knew, he might turn around and run.
The rest of her, though…the part that was beginning to fall for Kyle Horton, the gorgeous man in front of her, with all his virtues and faults, his triumphs and sorrows, was scanning his deep blue eyes, trying to read them, even as her mouth started to water. At first, she didn’t register that he was looking at her lips as his face moved closer to hers. When their eyes connected, he was just a breath away…and then his lips melted into hers. Unlike their first kiss, this one felt less chaste, but it was likely all in her mind. His tongue managed to stir every single feminine emotion inside her, and her muscles grew taut, her nerves became tingly, her brain lit up.
Her lady bits woke up.
When his lips left hers, she begrudgingly opened her eyes. His voice, husky and sexy, caressed her ears, but the words were not what she’d wanted to hear. “We both need to get some sleep. Do you have a blanket I could use here?”
“I’m not sleepy. And I’m thinking maybe you could sleep in my room.”
“I don’t want to kick you out of your bed.”
After that kiss, Kyle was acting so gentlemanly—an assurance that her insistence was okay. “You won’t be. I think we could both sleep in my room.” With that, she stood, taking his hands in hers. “After a while.”
His eyes finally registered exactly what she was saying—and he stood and followed her into the bedroom.