Chapter 19
Kristy sat with Ariel at the table in the conference room at the complex, waiting for the committee to enter. What a difference a few weeks could make, Kristy thought, as she skimmed her project timeline and took in the black checkmarks. With ten days to go, she couldn’t let anything slip through the cracks. This was too important for her, for Ariel, for Marcia.
“I can’t wait to get into the venue and begin setting up,” Ariel said as she arranged the drawings of the event setup in front of her. They would be sharing the schematics with the committee today.
“Not until the day before, unfortunately. And then it’s going to be a mad scramble, all hands on deck.” Pat McEvy had been adamant that nothing could go in beforehand because the venue was being used for some type of jamboree celebration and wouldn’t be cleared out until then.
“Is Marcia going to make it?”
“When I spoke with her earlier today, she said she wants to be here, but her doctor doesn’t want her to drive yet, and she can’t lift anything heavy, like a suitcase, so she’s going to video conference with us.”
Ariel raised her eyebrows. “That should be fun—not. Because if she doesn’t like something, we won’t have time to change it.”
Kristy reached over and patted Ariel’s arm. “She’s going to love everything. We’ve been keeping her in the loop, so she really shouldn’t be surprised.”
“You forget. This is my first assignment. And the stories you’ve told me don’t exactly inspire confidence that all will be well.”
“She’s been much more mellow since her heart problems.” Which was the truth.
“Leopards don’t change their spots.”
Kristy shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it, so we will just have to deal as best we can.”
“Speaking of being more mellow, you’ve been downright cheery and relaxed despite the impending date of this gala. I’m thinking a certain red-haired cowboy is to thank.” Ariel winked. Annoying. “Things seem to be going well.”
“No complaints. What about you and Mel?” She’d try to change the subject. Things with Rusty were still new and amazing, and she wanted to protect that feeling as long as she could.
“You aren’t getting away that easily. Are you still bent on keeping things casual?”
Was she? Since that night in the cabin, she wasn’t so certain she could. When she’d seen him on the ground, her concern was palpable. It drove home the point that she cared about him. A lot. She enjoyed being with him. He was thoughtful, considerate, caring. He’d put a lot of effort into making that cabin comfortable. For her. And he was an experienced and generous lover—just like her mother had predicted.
“I’m taking my lead from him. And Mel?” She’d try again.
“He’s fun and pretty amenable to just about everything, so no complaints either.”
“Well, seems we’re both settling into Gillette just fine.”
The door opened, and Lexi appeared in the doorway, Rusty behind her.
“What’s Rusty doing here?” Ariel asked.
Kristy felt her cheeks heat. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s taking Cort McClane’s place on the committee.”
“To spy on us?” Ariel whispered as Rusty nodded in their direction, pulling out a chair at the far end of the table.
“No. He asked if I was okay with it. If not him, they might have assigned someone else not quite as friendly, so I agreed.” Kristy rose and extended her hand to Lexi, who shook it. Kristy nodded at Rusty. It was nice to see a friendly face. And she was certain he would be a friend.
“I hope you’re right,” Ariel said as she rose to shake Lexi’s hand.
With that, several other committee members filed in and took their seats around the table after shaking hands with Kristy and Ariel.
Kristy counted nine members, including the two executive chairs, who had lent their names to the fundraiser, while the committee did all the work.
“Showtime,” Kristy whispered before she began the meeting.
Kristy updated the committee on the various vendor contracts, announcing, among other things, the awarding of the flower arrangements to Flowers by June and passing around a picture of the proposed centerpiece. “Not only is it creative and in keeping with the theme, Flowers by June also came in with the most competitive bid.”
“Lovely,” said Laurie Mathews, who, with her husband, was the official co-chair of the event. “June does the best.”
Lexi thanked her for the compliment, and Rusty looked pleased as well.
“There is one problem,” Laurie said. “I just learned that the radio personality who was going to do me a personal favor by narrating the video to be shown at the fundraiser has come down with laryngitis. I guess it’s a professional hazard. We need someone else, and I haven’t a clue who to get now.”
Kristy was about to say that she would explore some talent agencies, when Rusty raised his hand. Like a schoolboy. For some reason, that warmed Kristy’s heart. “Rusty, are you volunteering?” His deep bass voice would certainly work, but narration was also a skill.
“Not likely,” he boomed. “But since Greta Hutchins is going to be part of our bail-out-of-jail event, what about asking her? She’s done commercial work.”
Rusty to the rescue. “We can certainly ask.”
“I love it. I’m sure she can do it, but will she volunteer it? We only have limited funds,” Laurie said.
“I’ll ask her,” Lexi responded. “Or rather, I’ll have my mother-in-law ask her. That way we can also see if her contract would allow it.”
Kristy sat down with a sigh. “See. Rusty already is being helpful,” she whispered to Ariel.
“We’ll see.”
***
Just as Rusty, along with Cort and Lexi, was about to down some of his mother’s beef stew after a day doing ranch work, his cell rang.
He was startled to see the ID of his former commander. No one ignored the commander, so he walked into the living area and answered the call, not sure what to expect. And the conversation was unexpected.
“Who was that, son?” his mother asked after he returned, as she put down her spoon, having cleared her plate while he’d been on the phone. “You seemed surprised.”
Rusty sat back in his seat at the table. “I don’t get a call from my former commander every day.” In fact, he hadn’t gotten one since he’d left the service.
“Your former commander? From the air force? What did he want?”
Lexi leaned in. “I hope they are not trying to recruit you again.”
“Something like that. He’s wants me to come work at the air force training center in Cheyenne as a civilian instructor and train new recruits in pararescue.”
“Cheyenne?” His mom clasped her hands together. “That’s so far.”
Said the woman who had moved to New Mexico.
“It’s the same state at least.”
His mom shook her head. “I just mean that you’d have to move. And you don’t know anyone in Cheyenne.”
“I didn’t know anyone in any of the places I was deployed. That’s not a consideration.” At all. But leaving Kristy would be a consideration. Just when things were getting started.
“What did you tell him?” Lexi asked.
“That I’d think about it.” No one told his ex-commander no without having put some thought behind it. While Rusty was no longer in the military, the respect for authority that had been instilled in him during years of service was still there.
“Why didn’t you tell him you were going to enter the police force here?” his mother asked.
“Because I still haven’t heard from them.”
“But surely you will, and you’ll get in. And you don’t want to go to Cheyenne, do you?” His mother was rubbing her hands together, as if she were putting on lotion or something.
He didn’t want to leave Kristy. The relationship was new. Things were going well. He had hope for the first time in his life. She hadn’t shied away from him after witnessing one of his nightmares. She actually seemed to care about him.
She hadn’t rescinded her “keep it casual” stance, but he hadn’t told her he was interested in more yet either. He needed time to see how things played out before he dove head first into the sea of romance. “No.”
“Good. It will be better being here with the rest of your siblings. I mean, we’d never see you then.”
His mother had a way of making him feel ten years old. “If I did go to Cheyenne, we’d work it out. You didn’t see much of me for ten years. Cheyenne is not as far as the Middle East.”
“But you’re not going, so we’ve nothing to work out. Now, did you get a tux for Boots and Bells yet?”
“On my list.”
“I contacted the rental shop and gave them sizes for both Cort and Rusty,” Lexi said. “I just hope things go well. For Kristy’s sake and mine. I may not be the chair, but I’ve done so much to make this happen that I feel like I might as well be.”
Rusty had to wonder whether, when it was over, Kristy would stay in Gillette or head back to Cheyenne. She said a lot hinged on how well the gala went. If she went back, his commander’s offer would look a lot more attractive.
They’d offered him a civilian training job when he’d first left the air force. He’d wanted to be in the action, not training others to be in the action, so he’d turned it down. Apparently they were hurting for instructors and, according to his commander, Rusty’s name had risen to the top of the list of people they wanted.
He still wanted to be in the middle of the action. He was tough. Physically and mentally, as he’d proven time and again. But lately he’d come to question whether being in the action was good for the nightmares that still haunted him.
Standing outside her office, Rusty texted her. While his news was ballooning his insides, he wanted to be respectful of her time. It was only days away from the gala, and he hadn’t seen her since their tryst at the cabin, because she’d been so busy.
But she was the person he most wanted to share his news with. To know she would wait for him while he went through the academy. Because he wasn’t sure of her reaction. Their relationship was untested. And he wasn’t even sure she considered what they had an actual relationship yet.
He scanned her reply, which was to come up to the office.
He bounded up the stairwell two steps at a time. Reaching the office door, he swung it open and, not waiting for it to close, headed to her door. He didn’t knock. She was expecting him, after all.
As the door opened, she was standing alone behind her disheveled desk. A sure sign that things were hectic.
She stood there in her pink T-shirt and denim jeans and smiled, waiting for him to say something.
His heart was drumming, his body humming. “I’m in. It’s official.”
She darted from behind the desk, stood before him, placed a hand on each side of his face, and kissed him. It was a no-holds-barred kiss that matched the joy he felt. When she stepped back, he rested his hands on her hips. She laid her hands on his shoulders.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said. “When do you have to report?”
“The academy starts right after Labor Day.” He hesitated a second, but he needed to be sure she understood. “It’s three months of training. I’ll only be home on weekends.” When she’d likely have client events to organize.
“We’ll make it work.”
Music to his ears. “I like your attitude, Miss Winslow.”
“I think we should celebrate. At my place.” Her hands traveled from his shoulders to cradle his face, again. “Ariel is going to be out late tonight dancing.” Her smile was filled with promise.
“So we could do some dancing of our own.” He went in for another kiss, when her cell phone rang.
She held up a hand. “That’s Lexi.”
His sister always did have lousy timing.
Kristy answered it, holding the phone to her ear and stepping out of his embrace. “Great. Thank you so much.”
When the call ended, she stepped right back into his arms.
“It’s confirmed. Greta Hutchins is going to be our film narrator. I owe you and your family a lot.”
Stetson would love to know that. He’d been trying to track Greta down, but the email he had for her was no longer working, and he didn’t have her phone number.
“I’ve got a lot of ways you can repay me.” Rusty figured it was a good time to make his request. “There’s one thing you could do for me. Actually, for a friend of mine.”
“Name it.” A relaxed smile was on her face.
“You might be sorry you said that.”
***
Greta looked down at the script she had asked to review, as Kristy and Ariel stood outside the sound booth of the compact sound studio tucked away in a suburban mall. The sound engineer was doing a sound check, and Greta was adjusting her headphones and mic, approaching this little narration like the professional she was.
“So what do you think?” Kristy asked Ariel.
“She’s beautiful,” Ariel said. “That dark hair, alabaster skin, big brown eyes, perfectly symmetrical face.”
It was hard not to gawk at Greta as she read her lines, stopping now and then to discuss something with the sound engineer. She had a luminescent beauty and the most amazing hair that tumbled around her face and down her back and chest in graceful waves.
“It was nice of her to agree on short notice.”
“It was nice of her to agree to be in the auction too.”
“I wonder what her story is?”
“You mean why she’s back home and so available?”
Kristy nodded. “I would think someone like her would be kept more than busy with work.”
“Maybe she needed a break.”
Kristy shrugged. “I’m going to need a break after this gala.”
“You and Rusty should go off for a nice long weekend.”
“We have the Bruger anniversary to put together.”
“It’s going to seem like a letdown after doing this.”
“At least Marcia is pleased that we have a few of these events booked. Gillette is likely in our future.”
Ariel smiled. “We’ll have to renegotiate the lease.”
“Let’s get through this first.” Kristy waved an arm. “Lots of things could go wrong between now and Saturday.”
“Don’t be a Debbie Downer, Kristy. This little hiccup is going to come out better than if we had the original guy. Donors will love it.” Ariel placed her hands on her hips. “By the way, didn’t you promise to fill me in on Stetson’s connection with Greta.”
Kristy shrugged. It seemed such a romantic but private story, since things hadn’t exactly worked out for Stetson. “When she was a teenager, Stetson rescued her from a house fire. And from then on, he’s been smitten. But from what I understand, they haven’t been in communication with each other since that time, mainly because shortly afterward she went to New York to fulfill her dream of becoming a model.”
“Wow.”
Ariel had barely gotten the exclamation out when through the sound studio’s doors walked Rusty’s friend Stetson. He stopped just inside the doorway and stared at the person in the booth, as if neither Kristy nor Ariel existed.
“What’s he doing here?” Ariel asked.
“Rusty asked if Stetson could come and watch her record, as a favor.”
Ariel waved her fingers at Stetson, who acknowledged her by waving back before returning his gaze to Greta.
“Definitely can’t compete with her.” Ariel sighed.
“You can compete with anybody. It’s just, Cupid’s arrow seems to have struck Stetson long before you were on the scene.”
“I guess.”
Greta continued her work in the sound booth without acknowledging Stetson or the presence of Kristy or Ariel, for that matter.
“Do you think she sees him?”
“I think she’s just very professional. She’s working now.”
It took quite a while for Greta to finish, but Stetson continued to stand inside the doorway, not moving except to breathe, as if afraid to break a spell. When it was over and the sound technician was satisfied, Greta emerged from the booth.
Though Kristy was five foot, nine inches, Greta’s height made Kristy feel small. She could only imagine what Ariel felt like standing next to Greta. Even in a plain denim skirt and camisole top with strappy sandals on her feet, Greta looked sleek, elegant, stunning.
“You ladies will let me know what you think. If I need to overdub some things, call me, but your audio guy seemed pleased.”
“Thank you, Greta. This truly is above and beyond.”
“I’m happy to help. When we lost our house in a fire, the foundation was there to help. Finding us accommodations, helping cover some of the expenses, collecting clothing, helping my parents navigate the insurance claim process. We lost it all. But with the foundation’s help, my parents got back on their feet much faster, and by the time I left for New York, their new house was being built. I have much to thank them for.”
“I didn’t realize. That’s really wonderful to know.”
“If that’s it, there’s someone I’d like to say hello to.” She nodded in Stetson’s direction.
“Nothing else,” Kristy said.
With a becoming smile, Greta strode over on her long legs to where Stetson stood. Kristy couldn’t hear what was being said, but Stetson and Greta exchanged a few words and then she walked through the doorway.
Stetson’s expression was that of a puppy dog looking after his master. He waved to the ladies as he followed Greta out.
“What do you make of that?” Ariel asked.
“That Stetson is way more interested in her than she is in him. I mean, it looked friendly but certainly not… amorous.”
“You think there is any hope for me?”
Kristy patted her friend on the back. “No, dear cuz. I think he has it bad.”
Kristy’s cell phone rang just as she and Ariel were directing the crew where to put the dance floor in the cavernous convention space. The walls were already festooned with the cornstalk paper Ariel had ordered. Her cousin had been right. It set the mood and tone for the whole event. Fun, festive, fanciful.
She glanced at the ID, expecting it to be Marcia, but it was her mother. Odd for her mother to call her in the middle of the day. She usually waited until nighttime, knowing Kristy was working.
“Mom, is everything all right?”
Ariel craned her neck to look at the ID.
“Yes,” her mother said. “And no.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I was out to dinner with your father…”
“You went out with Dad?” Her parents’ divorce hadn’t been exactly amicable, though in the last few years they had started speaking to each other, which had made holiday planning, at least, a little easier.
“That’s not material. But he let slip that he was going to your gala. He asked if I wanted to join him.”
Kristy needed a moment to process that information. The beats of her heart sped up as she contemplated what exactly that would mean.
“Dad is coming here?”
Ariel’s eyebrows pushed up. “Here?”
Kristy waved for Ariel to be quiet.
“Yes. He thinks he’s being supportive,” her mother answered. “Frankly, I’m not sure this isn’t about him testing the waters for a run for the governorship.”
“Which isn’t for two years yet.” What was her father thinking? Certainly not about her.
“He’s bringing people with him, but I don’t know who. That should help with the fundraising.”
Why didn’t she know this? Why hadn’t she been curious enough to check the guest list? Because she had so much else to attend to.
“Are you coming?” Having her mother there might help. Or not? Kristy was so taken back by the news she didn’t know what would help.
“I’m in the middle of a major project. Renovation of an old Victorian for a very wealthy client. But if you want me to come, I will.”
“No, Mom. I was just curious.” She took a deep breath, hoping her rapidly beating heart wouldn’t devolve into a full-blown panic attack. “Thank you for the heads-up.” No telling how she would have responded if she’d suddenly seen her father walk into the event.
“He wants to surprise you because he doesn’t want you to get nervous ahead of time, but I thought you would want to be forewarned.” Her mother sounded a little unsure as to whether she should have called.
“Absolutely. You did the right thing, Mom.”
“It’s going to be a big success, Kristy. Your father being there is not going to mean anything one way or the other. You do good work and that is going to come through. Your plans are wonderful.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“And just so you know, I filled your father in about Rusty.”
Just great. “Did you have to?”
“We were just talking. He hadn’t told me yet that he was going to the event. Call me on Sunday to tell me the glowing reviews.”
“Sure.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Ariel grabbed Kristy’s arm as she clicked off the call. “Your father is coming to the gala?”
Kristy could only nod.