Chapter 10
I answer the incoming call from my brother. “Hey, Rhett.”
“Hey, Dally.” It’s a very old nickname only my brothers use.
I can hear the low whistle of the wind through the phone, and the slow clop of hoofbeats, which means my brother is already on a horse at six a.m., because Rhett has rearranged his entire life so he can ride a horse at six a.m. whenever the mood strikes him.
“What’s this about you taking a week off? ”
“News travels fast. How’s Montana?”
“Montana’s fine. How’s New Orleans and who is she?”
It’s a good question, and one I’m not sure how to answer. My silence lasts one beat too long, which is basically a full confession when it comes to my brother.
“There’s only one reason Mr. Wall Street Workaholic would take a week off.
” In the background of the call, the low moo of a cow and a far-off birdcall kick up a wave of childhood nostalgia.
They’re the sounds of the Paradise Valley doing what it always does, which is to exist in a peacefulness so complete it comes through a phone speaker like a reproach to everywhere else. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie. It’s too new. Too out of control and too fucking raw. I’m already half in love with a total stranger and I’m still not convinced there’s not a bloody hole in the middle of my chest.
Besides, there’s nothing to talk about yet.
There will be, and soon if I get my way, which I always do.
But not yet. The whole story involves me sitting at a bar for four hours inventing reasons to order things—a second beer, a bowl of gumbo, a cup of coffee I didn’t want—just to bask in her sublime glow and listen to her off-hand replies to the questions I was able to ask in the rare occasion she had a lull between customers.
Yes, she’s from New Orleans. Yes, the piano player is good.
His name’s Lenny. She knows him. He’s been playing here every Friday night for years.
Yes, that buttoned-up woman who goes against the grain of the place is the manager.
Yes, she guesses it is ironic she’s a bartender but never touches the stuff herself.
In an unguarded moment—once—she gave me an actual clue into what makes the angel tick. The devil’s poison has cost me too much. But then the forcefield was immediately back in place. Sorry, I’m busy tomorrow. And the day after that.
You work on Sunday? I pressed.
We don’t have days of rest when there are rowdy tourists in need of an overpriced stiff one.
I smiled without meaning to, and she looked at me differently for a few seconds after that, something shifting slightly in her outrageously light-filled eyes. But then another group of customers arrived and she was gone.
I’ve closed deals worth nine figures. I’ve negotiated with sharks whose entire professional identities are built around refusing to budge.
And I can say with certainty that the proudest I’ve ever felt was when sweet, saucy Amelie from New Orleans stopped everything else she was doing to meet my eyes with an expression that could have almost been described as beguiled for approximately four seconds.
Rhett isn’t about to let me off so easily. “Why so cagey? Did she turn you down?”
She fucking turned me down. How could she have done that? “It was nothing like that.”
Unfortunately, my brother knows me very well. He easily reads my bluff. “The famous heartbreaker Dallas Wilder actually got turned down? Holy shit.”
My brother has a knack for getting things out of me. “She didn’t turn me down. She was just distracted. She was working.”
He laughs. “Let me guess, now you’re fixated on getting her to say yes because no one’s ever said no to you before.”
My reply is surly. “I’m not fixated.” Okay, I’m insanely fixated. But not because she turned me down. It’s because I’ve never seen anyone look like that before. I didn’t know a person could be that fucking beautiful. “I’m just mildly … intrigued.”
“Shit,” he hoots. “This is worse than I thought.”
“I’m glad my misery can entertain you, bro.”
“Trust me, I need some entertaining. My days are overrun by cattle inventory and a ranch manager who insists on rearranging my systems—and then she looks at me like I’m the unreasonable one, so yes, I need some light relief.”
I smile despite myself. “Which systems is she rearranging?”
“All of them.” Dryly. Rhett has mentioned the new ranch manager with statistical frequency over the last two months, relentlessly complaining about her.
“So you still haven’t managed to win her over. I give it until Friday before she succumbs to your so-called charms.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about her thoroughly succumbing to my so-called charms day and night for the past month. But that would definitely be a mistake. We still have to work together. Then again, it might be worth it.”
Our father bought the Paradise Valley Ranch around twenty years ago with the determined optimism of a man who believed that eight thousand acres of Montana sky could fix a person.
He paid ten million dollars for it and presented it to our mother like a cure-all for her many problems. She lasted a week.
The mountains made her feel like the walls were closing in, she told us—which the rest of us found philosophically interesting given that the appeal was its total absence of walls.
She went back to Los Angeles and the ongoing drama-drenched production of being herself. Where she stayed until the drama literally drowned her.
Our father kept the ranch to use as an escape from his sorrow and, later, as a movie set. It was the backdrop to what turned out to be his two highest-grossing films.
His four sons were sent there for two months in the summers to learn how to “be a man.” A skill taught to us not by our father but by the ranch manager, a stereotypically-leathery, gruff cowboy named Hank Calloway.
Hank had managed the farm for the previous owners, and his father had managed the ranch for the owners before that. When Hank died last spring, his daughter Mia stepped up to the role.
We all wondered if a city girl was up to the job.
I remember meeting Mia a few times when we were kids, when she was a pig-tailed nine-year-old tomboy, but her parents divorced when she was very young and she and her two older sisters spent most of the year with her mother, in Seattle or Portland or one of those rain-soaked Pacific Northwest cities that has nothing to do with ranches.
Once Mia took over, it was Rhett—always the one of us who loved the ranch the most—who decided to spend some time there and check up on the new manager to make sure she knew what the hell she was doing.
If Rhett’s descriptions are any judge, she doesn’t. And if that’s true, the logical thing to do would be to politely let her go. It’s getting clearer by the day that Rhett’s holding back from doing that and now I know why.
I understand the feeling better than I did yesterday.
“So what’s your plan?” he asks. “Did you get this mystery girl’s number?”
“No. But I know where she works. She’s a bartender and she has another shift tonight.”
Another chuckle. “Not your usual type, then. Fuck, I would love to be a fly on that bar’s wall tonight.”
“It sounds to me like you’ve got your hands full, bro. Maybe you should concentrate on your own love life and stop worrying about mine.”
“Holy shit. Did my cynical-to-his-bones brother just uses the L word?”
“I was speaking metaphorically. Have fun wrangling the ranch manager. I’m hanging up on you now.”
“Wait, you didn’t even tell me her na—”
“Goodbye, Rhett.” I end the call.
The textured brick walls catch the morning sun and the amber glow of the lamplight from a lamp that’s still on.
Outside the open balcony door, the sunrise inks the sky in a gaudy lavender-to-orange radiance above the roofline, like it’s trying to match the showy vibe of the city itself and the street music already getting underway.
There’s a light tap on the door. I make sure my towel is more securely wrapped around my waist and open the door.
A young waitress is standing there with a wheeled tray, loaded with coffee, juice, platters of fruit, and powdered beignets.
Her face goes bright red. “Uh, Mr. Wilder? Your b-b-breakfast.”
“Thank you.” I open the door wider so she can wheel in the cart as I fish in my jacket pocket, hung over a chair, for a hundred-dollar bill, which I hand to the waitress.
She averts her eyes and stutters a thank you before hurrying out of the room.
I realize only after I close the door behind her that I’m still wet from my shower and it can’t be helped: the towel doesn’t entirely hide the fact that I’m still suffering from the effects of the little red-headed goddess that turned me down last night.
My cock is thick and doesn’t care if everyone knows it. Fuck it.
At the thought of Amelie, I feel an unfamiliar jangle of nerves.
What if she doesn’t show up tonight? What if I can’t find her?
But the terror at the thought is laced with uncut hope. I’m a man afraid of very little. I’m also a man with considerable resources.
Amelie is an unusual name. The Hotel Thibodeaux must have a staff list. I already know who the manager is. Now all I need to do is find out who owns it.
I start googling.
The first headline grabs my attention.
Hotel Thibodeaux Files for Bankruptcy
The passing of Theodore Thibodeaux III has thrown the New Orleans hallmark, the Hotel Thibodeaux, into disarray, so it would seem. The hotel — along with its substantial debts — was bequeathed to the daughter of the lively and infamous French Quarter personality “Theo III”.
Amelie Thibodeaux has since filed for bankruptcy. She is the only surviving heir of Theo III, as Theo’s wife Sabine (née Beauchamp of the Garden District Beauchamps) tragically passed away less than a week after their first and only child was born, twenty-two years ago.
The estate sale auction was held yesterday.
According to sources, the proceeds from what must be considered a treasure trove of New Orleans heirlooms made only a small dent in the several million-dollar debt Theo III reportedly racked up through a rampant addiction to gambling.
Also according to our sources, Amelie Thibodeaux was unaware of her father’s gambling habit until after he suffered a fatal heart attack in the Hotel Thibodeaux bar — and was, according to local musician and personal friend of Theo III, Lenny Fontaine, “dead before he even hit the floor.”
The young Thibodeaux heir and fourth-generation hotelier has been forced to put the hotel on the market.
Bargain hunters might get a deal, but estate agents warn that only those with deep pockets should make a bid for the 27-room landmark establishment, which also includes a bar and restaurant that once received a Michelin star in its long-ago heyday (and this reporter’s meal of Shrimp & Grits indicates that said heyday is well and truly over).
The Hotel Thibodeaux is in need of substantial upgrades and will require an investment upwards of tens of millions to restore to its former five-star glory.
The auction will be held at the hotel next Wednesday at 4 p.m.
Amelie Thibodeaux.
This information explains the bruise-like shadows under the angel’s eyes.
My poor little Amelie.
She’s exhausted.
She’s suffered heartbreak, betrayal and destitution, all at once.
But still, she’s loyal to the place.
Possibly because she has nowhere else to go.
Even so, there wasn’t a thing about her that would have suggested to me that she’s a victim. She doesn’t think of herself that way. She sees herself as a survivor, still carrying on the legacy of the place, even if it’s no longer hers.
But even lost little survivors need saviors.
She needs me.
My new obsession’s sharp teeth slice deeper into my heart.
I start making phone calls.