Chapter 37
THEO
Ever since I’d gotten back, I’d been feeling a little like I was visiting a museum exhibit dedicated to my former life. Here we have a Westwood in his natural habitat. Observe as he answers emails and dies quietly inside.
I sat in my office and looked out at a view most people would kill for, at a desk big enough for a small airplane to use as a runway, while working on client profiles that would give any Wall Street guy a raging boner, and yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t meant to be here.
Which was ridiculous.
This was literally what I’d been born to do. Dad had taught us how to assess risk before we’d even begun to develop emotional intelligence and our offices had practically been assigned at birth. My exact role might not have been pre-decided the same way as Alex’s, but that had never mattered.
Westwood and Sons had always been my future, irrespective of what I would wind up doing here.
I finally brought my gaze back to my computer and tried to get excited about the acquisition Zach had sent my way.
It was a good one, the company involved a large, family-owned enterprise, and I’d even get to work with Colin since it was in manufacturing, but no matter how hard I tried to motivate myself, I just didn’t feel that spark inside.
A knock sounded against my open office door, followed immediately by Alex walking in. I looked up at him and arched an eyebrow. “If it isn’t our fearless leader. To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from on high?”
He held up a piece of paper pinched between two fingers. “This is confirmation of your reservation at La Table Royale. You’re taking Belle there on Saturday night.”
“Right.” I took the slip of paper when he handed it to me, shoving it in my pocket without even looking at it. “Who is she again?”
“Only the daughter of one of our top clients. We talked about this. Belle Thurston of Thurston Security Solutions.”
“Oh. Yeah. The internet people.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Those internet people own a cyber security company worth billions. She’s smart, blonde, and from the sounds of things, pretty fun to be around. Her dad mentioned that she even has a motorcycle.”
“That so?” I asked flatly. “Wow. Imagine that.”
Alex ignored my lack of enthusiasm. “Just give it a chance, Theo. You never know.”
Only, I did know, but I nodded anyway. “Sure. I’ll be there.”
“Excellent.” He grinned, bracing his hands against the chair opposite my desk as he leaned over. “This is a match I feel really good about. I wouldn’t be sending you on this date otherwise. Seriously. I’m not trying to make your life difficult. Belle could be the one for you.”
“Yeah. Okay.” If her name had been Raquel and she’d been a mechanic, she would’ve been the one for me, but Belle whose family was in security didn’t sound nearly as promising.
Even so, I waited until Alex left before I shook my head at myself. None of this was his fault. Belle probably did seem like a good match to him, but I’d been a mess since I’d gotten back.
I was sleeping in my old room at the house, but I felt more like a guest than a resident. I walked around those halls like a visitor these days, only there for a short amount of time.
Everyone else had found their place in life and here I was, still wandering around looking for mine. In a nutshell, my time home had truly sucked so far. There was no elegant way to phrase it.
These had been some of the loneliest weeks of my life—even if I had been surrounded by family and people who loved me.
Every morning when I woke up, for just a split second, I’d forget that I wasn’t in Arizona anymore and I was happy.
I was burning for news from there, desperate to know if Raquel and Avery had saved the shop and if Clyde was doing okay.
I worried about Frieda and the maintenance I hadn’t gotten around to.
My loyalty card for the hardware store was gathering dust in my wallet, but I hadn’t even taken it out yet.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to just chuck it away, and instead, I was carrying it around like some kind of talisman.
Most of all, however, I thought about Raquel. I missed her something awful and I wanted to call her so badly, even if just to hear her voice, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I swiveled toward the window again.
Severing all ties with her felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I knew it was better this way, for both of us, but shit. This cold-turkey stuff was hard.
Almost every night, I lay awake, scrolling through the pictures I had of her on my phone, and honestly, I’d almost cried a few times. I’d never known it could hurt this badly to lose someone who was still alive.
That was probably the worst part. Raquel was still out there, living her life, only a phone call away, but I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t be with her. It was fucking awful.
If I knew how to play the guitar, I’d have written a dozen sad country songs about her. As it was, however, I was just sad. Nothing musical or country about it.
I spun back to my computer, but a notification popped up on my phone, so I reached for that instead of getting back to work. As soon as I saw the alert waiting for me, I froze. A hundred thousand dollars had just left one of my accounts.
Realization hit just moments later. Raquel had finally cashed the check. Thank God.
I felt a slow grin creep across my lips as my head dropped forward, my hands coming up on autopilot to scrub across my face. She finally cashed it. Hell yeah.
All this time, I’d been so worried about her, Avery, Clyde, and Quartz Pass Autobody, but the money being withdrawn told me she was moving forward. It was a massive relief.
In fact, it made me feel better than anything else these last couple weeks, because even though I was sitting in a glass tower thousands of miles away, I knew she was using that money for something important.
A few hours later, I was still relishing the relief when my phone rang and Frieda’s name popped up on my screen. I grinned as I picked up, wondering if she was going to try to find a way to boss me around despite all the states between us.
“Hey, Frieda,” I said. “This is a surprise.”
“Theodore.”
I sighed. “Nobody calls me that unless I’m in trouble.”
“Who says you’re not?”
“Fair enough.” I leaned back in my chair, my eyes on the city I was suddenly wishing more than ever had been a desert. “How are you?”
“Terrible.”
Alarm swept through me, my chest constricting with worry. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“You left without finishing your to-do list,” she said as if it should’ve been obvious. “How the hell am I supposed to get up on a ladder? I’ll break a hip.”
I smiled as the worry eased. “Yeah, that’s probably not the best idea.”
“The gutters on the east side of the motel still need to be painted,” she said. “Are you coming back, or am I going to have to do it myself?”
“Don’t do it yourself,” I said immediately, but I wouldn’t put it past her to attempt it anyway. “I can’t really drive across the country to come paint gutters for a weekend. I’m sure there’s someone else in town who can help.”
“Why is it that your generation doesn’t know what it means to take pride in your work?” She let out a heavy sigh. “Leaving things halfway done is not how we used to operate in my day.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be,” she said, but then launched into town gossip without even pausing to take a breath. “Mrs. Delgado’s grandson got engaged. They’re having the reception at the cafe. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
She didn’t wait for me to respond. “Harvey finally convinced Eric at the hardware store to expand their gardening section. They’re trying to get Randy to help with the new fencing that needs to be constructed, but you know Randy.”
“He’s still complaining every day about wanting to retire, but not actually retiring?”
“Exactly. He says he can’t commit to the project because he doesn’t know if the business is still going to be running by the time they need the fencing.”
“When do they need it?”
“Next week.”
I chuckled. “Wow.”
For the next few minutes, I closed my eyes, pretending I was sitting on the porch with her while she talked. I could practically smell the cigarette smoke hanging in the air.
“Avery is still refusing help at every turn.”
My eyes snapped open. “What do you mean? They haven’t sorted that out yet?”
She snorted. “Not even close. They’re getting nowhere with the bank, so he’s been trying to talk to investors, but they won’t touch the shop. They say Quartz Pass is slowly dying because young people won’t stay. I told him to remind them that they can’t stay if no one will invest in the town.”
She blew out a heavy breath I suspected had been filled with smoke, then jumped right back in.
“It’s a vicious cycle, I guess. No one will invest because young people are leaving, but young people are leaving because no one will invest, and without investment, they can’t make a living in towns like ours. ”
“Yeah.”
“Small towns are becoming a breed of the past, Theo,” she insisted fiercely.
“Do you know I read the other day that most big cities in the world are experiencing housing crises? Housing crises. What a crock. We got plenty of housing here in Quartz Pass. Places big enough that your bed and your toilet are in separate rooms, but nope. People flock to the cities for work because they can’t get it here, and their toilets are right next to their beds. It’s ludicrous.”
“Right.”
As she talked for at least another ten minutes, I muttered a one-word response every so often, but I wasn’t really listening anymore. The gears in my head were turning too fast, renewed worry about Raquel, Avery, and the shop invading my blood and too many thoughts suddenly rattling around my mind.
“—and Raquel is starting her own contracting business.” I snapped back into the conversation immediately, straightening up as she kept going. “The motel is going to be her first client. She’s going to remodel the rooms for me. Bring them into this century.”
I nearly fell out of my chair, but at the same time, I suddenly knew exactly what she was using that money for, and I’d been right. It was important.
Investors might think that Quartz Pass was a dying town, but not my girl. She was going to give it all she had, and despite the odds being stacked against her, I knew she was going to make a success of it.