And Then You Fly Read online

  “You know it isn’t that simple. As for what you saw that night, there is always the possibility that it wasn’t what it seemed. I stand by what I said a minute ago, you and Jace care about each other, and you do need to talk.”

  Liv was grinning. Grinning!

  “You’ll see for herself soon enough. Whatever you’re imagining between Jace and I exists solely in your imagination.”

  “I’m not the only one who sees it Bree.”

  “Soon you’ll all realize there isn’t anything to see.” And when they did, maybe they’d stop pestering her about him.

  She hoped they weren’t doing the same thing to him.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” Bree heard Liv say. She wasn’t. “We’re going to a wonderful new place in town called the Sunflower. It’s a farm-to-table restaurant.”

  “Oh uh, I think I’ll just stay here, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind.” Liv pulled Bree back over to the table. “Sit.”

  Bree sat.

  “I’m not letting you hide out this weekend.”

  “Just because I don’t want to go to dinner doesn’t mean I’m hiding out.”

  “Does your mother let you get away with this crap? Because I can tell you, if I was spewing the bullshit you’re spewing right now, she’d be all over me about it.”

  Bree looked up at Liv, and saw she was smiling.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny—you with your idyllic life, married to a man who thinks you walk on water. And your grown, beautiful, also happily married daughter,” she waved her hands around. “Not to mention all this. It’s easy to cajole me when you have it all, isn’t it Liv? How about you leave me alone instead, and while you are, remember what the last couple of years have been like for me.”

  Bree’s eyes filled with tears and she wished she could take back every ridiculous word that just came out of her mouth, but it was too late.

  “I’m sorry Bree, but the last person who is going to indulge your self pity is me. I lived the life you’re living now for twenty years. I won’t sit back and watch you live it for half as long.”

  “It was different for you.”

  Liv raised her eyebrows. “Please elaborate.”

  “You had Renie.”

  “Ah, I see. I wasn’t all alone.”

  Bree stared out the window.

  “It changed for me, when Renie went to college. I suppose that is when I really started feeling sorry for myself. I was a forty-year-old woman with what looked like a very dull life ahead of me. That’s what your mother saw, a woman believing her life was over. Can you imagine the tragedy that would have been?”

  Bree nodded her head, but still hadn’t turned to look at Liv.

  “The only thing worse I can imagine is a twenty-seven-year-old woman believing her life is over, when really, it has barely begun.”

  “Let me ask you this. If Ben died today, would you start over? Would you put yourself out there honestly believing you were going to find someone else?”

  Liv didn’t answer right away. Instead she walked over to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine.

  “It would be very difficult to think I could find someone after Ben, you’re right about that. But on the outside looking in, I see things so differently. I understand your mother’s frustration with me, why she pushed me so hard to get back out there and live a life less isolated. Watching you, I want to grab you by the shoulders and shake some sense into you.”

  “I need more time,” Bree said quietly.

  Liv put her arm around Bree’s shoulder. “I know sweetheart. Just be careful how muchmore turns into.”

  The place they went for dinner wasn’t very big. When they walked in Bree wondered if they would have room to accommodate everyone in their party. When she overheard one of the owners welcome Liv and Ben, and then turn the open sign to closed, she realized theirs would be a private party.

  “They opened tonight just for us,” Liv explained. “They’re usually closed between mid-October and Thanksgiving.”

  “Nice of them,” Bree murmured.

  “It’s that kind of place,” Liv answered. “Crested Butte I mean. It’s one of the reasons I love it so much. No matter where we go, we know everyone, and they know us. It’s kind of like Monument.”

  Bree understood what Liv was saying, but didn’t necessarily love it the way she did. More often than not, Bree wished she could be anonymous, invisible even. She wanted to go to the grocery store, or out for a cup of coffee, and not have anyone recognize her, or start a conversation with her, or ask her how she was.

  “Where’s that handsome brother of yours tonight?” she overheard the pretty blonde who’d just walked in ask Tucker. The woman looked familiar, but Bree couldn’t place her.

  She wasn’t able to hear Tucker’s response, and was glad. Thank God Jace wasn’t there, and she didn’t have to endure the humiliation of seeing him with another woman. She turned around, and willed the evening to be over quickly so she could escape back to the privacy of Liv and Ben’s place.

  “Speak of the devil,” she heard Tucker say. She felt the cold air when the door opened.He was here.

  “How’s it feel to be off the road for a few days?” Bree heard Ben greet Jace. “If anyone’s earned it, you have.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m not workin’ any harder than anyone else,” Jace grunted.

  She couldn’t help herself, she had to turn around and look at him. Jace shrugged off his coat. Bree watched the pretty blonde lean in and whisper something in his ear. It made them both smile. Suddenly she realized where she knew the woman from. She was the one who had left with Jace that night at the Villa.

  She stood up, almost knocking the table over when she did. She stomped off toward the back of the restaurant where she hoped she’d find a back door. There would be cab service in Crested Butte, wouldn’t there?

  No luck on a back door, but there was a restroom she could hide out in for a little while at least, until someone else needed to use it.

  If only she hadn’t agreed to come to Crested Butte for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t as though she had other options, but the way she was feeling, staying home alone would’ve felt better than this did.

  Too soon she heard a soft rap on the door.

  “Bree, are you okay?”

  Damn. It would have to be Jace on the other side of the door.

  “Be right out,” she said softly, hoping that when she opened the door he would be back in the midst of his family, and had forgotten she was there. Instead, when she opened the door, he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of him.

  “Hi Jace.” She tried to scoot past him to let him have access to the restroom.

  “Hey wait,” he said, and grabbed her arm. “Where are you runnin’ off to so quick?”

  “I, uh, figured you were, uh, waiting to use the uh…”

  “No Bree,” he leaned in close to her. “I was waiting to say hello to you. You skedaddled back here so fast, I didn’t have a chance to speak to you when I came in.”

  “So, well, now you have. Shall we go back and join the others?” She tried to wrench her arm away from him, but he held on tight.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What Jace?”

  “Come here,” he pulled her back closer to him. “How about a hug for starters?”

  He hugged her, but she did not return his embrace.

  “It seems there’s someone else here anxious to hug you Jace. Why don’t you trap her in the hallway instead of me?”

  Rather than answer, he pulled her close again and covered her lips with his.

  Bree wanted to resist him, but it was impossible to. She’d never been able to resist him.

  “Oh, sorry—”

  Bree broke their kiss in time to see the blonde turn and walk in the other direction.

  “Bet you didn’t want her to see that.”

  Jace pulled back and looked into Bree’s eyes, but wouldn’t release hi
s grip on her. “What’s that mean?”

  “She’s been waiting for you to get here, and don’t think I missed the exchange between the two of you when you arrived.”

  “Sounds like somebody’s jealous,” he nuzzled her hair and breathed in deeply. “Bree,” he sighed.

  “Stop it.” She tried to push him away, but he was determined not to let her go.

  “Come here,” he said and pulled her around the corner, and out to the patio.

  “Oh sure, here’s the back door, I couldn’t have found it earlier,” she muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “An escape, a way out, so I didn’t have to witness the reunion between you and your hookup girl.” Her cheeks flushed as she said it.

  “My hookup girl? I thought you were my hookup girl.” He brushed his lips over hers. He had her backed up against the outside wall, his hands on either side of her. “Let’s see, the last time you and I were together we hooked up pretty good from what I remember.” Right before she let him know that was all he was good for.

  “I figured with both of us stayin’ up at Ben’s, it’d be a good opportunity for me to scratch any itches you might be feelin’.”

  He tried to kiss her again, but she managed to twist away from him. “Are you serious?”

  “You know me Bree, good ol’ cowboy ready and willin’ to take care of you. Somebody you don’t have to feel as though you need to have dinner with afterwards.”

  He saw her eyes fill with tears before she swung open the door and stormed back inside.

  He could hear the words coming out of his own mouth, and even he couldn’t believe he was saying them. What was wrong with him?

  He walked in behind her and tried to stop her before she got into the dining room, but he was too late. She grabbed her coat and was talking to her mother and Liv. He watched her walk out the front door, her father followed.

  “That was fast.” Billy stood in front of Jace. “Gotta be some kind of record. You weren’t here five minutes before you got her so mad she left.”

  “Leave me the hell alone Patterson.”

  “Yep, you got your ways I got mine. Course mine are workin’ a lot better than yours are. For example, take a look at that pretty girl,” Billy motioned to where Renie stood by the front window. “She’s carryin’ my baby, more than ready to welcome me into those warm arms every night.”

  “Shut up,” Jace answered.

  “Wanna know what I’d do?”

  “Not particularly, but I get the impression you’re gonna tell me anyway.”

  “Follow her.”

  Jace stood his ground.

  “Warm arms, every night, that’s what I got. Yep, I’m a lucky man.”

  “Bree isn’t interested in me. There’s the difference. No point in me chasing after somebody who isn’t interested in being caught.”

  “What’s going on?” Mark asked Bree when they got outside.

  “I’m not feeling very well Dad. Can I take your truck? Can you and mom ride home with someone else?”

  “Sure, but if you aren’t feeling well—”

  “Now Dad, please. Just give me the keys.” Bree could see Jace through the windows of the restaurant, he was talking to Billy, but there was still a chance he’d try to follow her. She had to be gone if he did.

  Her dad looked in the direction she was, reached into his pocket, and handed her his keys. “Turn left at the corner,” he pointed north on Elk Avenue. “It’s about halfway up the second block.”

  “Thanks,” she waved as she broke into a run in the direction he pointed her in.

  “Dammit,” Jace said when he got outside.

  Mark put his hand on his arm. “Let her go,” he said before he went back inside.

  He was too late, he had no idea which direction she’d gone.

  Bree swore when she saw the red flashing lights in the rear-view mirror. She always forgot about the ridiculous speed limit in downtown Crested Butte. Was it even possible to drive fifteen miles per hour? She had to have been going three times that fast.

  “License and registration,” the police officer said without looking at her when she rolled down the window. He glanced up just before she turned her head to dig through her purse.

  “Wait,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  This would be worse. Not only was she was speeding, she’d also been crying. He’d probably add public endangerment to her speeding ticket.

  “Ma’am, I asked you a question. Are you okay?”

  Bree wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “I’m okay. Sorry Officer, uh, Akerman. I…” What could she say? She’d just been propositioned by a man she’d already slept with, but the way he talked to her made her cry?

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m not going to write you a ticket tonight, but I don’t think you should be driving when you’re upset.”

  She brushed at her tears again, the ones that she couldn’t seem to stop, and opened the storage compartment between the two front seats. Her mom would have tissues stored in there, wouldn’t she?

  Bree found a pack, pulled one out and blew her nose. When she looked back at the policeman, he was smiling at her.

  “I’m about to take a break for dinner. Why don’t you join me?”

  “Uh, well—”

  “I could insist, you know, either have dinner with me, take a few minutes to collect yourself, or I’ll write the ticket after all, but that’s probably a federal crime. How ’bout you just join me, and neither one of us will get in trouble?” He winked at her.

  “You are a policeman. I mean that looks like an official police car,” she muttered.

  He pointed in the direction of Elk Avenue. “I’m gonna pull around your truck and park over there, behind that building. I’m hoping you’ll follow me, and have dinner with me. If not, I’ll understand.”

  Bree watched in the side mirror as he got back in the police car, turned off the swirling red lights, and drove the car in the direction he told her he was going to. She started the truck, and followed him.

  There were two open spots, so she pulled in next to him. She looked around to make sure there weren’t any “no parking” signs she’d be in violation of. When she opened her door, he was standing next to it.

  “Hope I didn’t startle you.” He held his hand out to help her out of the truck. “My name is Kaleb, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you. Bree Fox,” she took his hand and climbed out of the truck.

  “Hope this place is okay with you. Food is pretty good.”

  She looked up and saw they were going into a place called the Company Store. He noticed her looking at the sign.

  “It’s not that anymore,” he pointed. “It’s called the Secret Stash now. Pretty good pizzas, or salads if you’re, ya know, more health conscious.”

  The hostess led them to a booth. Kaleb excused himself just as she sat down. “Be right back,” he said.

  Bree studied the menu. The last thing she expected to be was hungry, but she was suddenly famished. She wondered what the people at the other tables would think when Kaleb came back, about her having dinner with a cop. She supposed they had to eat too, right?

  She almost didn’t notice him coming back, he’d changed his clothes. “Uh,” she started to say.

  “I wasn’t completely honest…” he looked so sheepish Bree couldn’t help but smile.

  “That doesn’t sound good coming from a policeman. I mean, are you a policeman?”

  “Yeah, I was honest about that part. It’s the dinner break part that wasn’t the complete truth. I’m actually done for the night. I thought if I told you that, it might scare you off.”

  “And you just happen to keep a change of clothes here at the restaurant? I have to admit, I’m beginning to get a little scared,” she laughed.

  He laughed too. “It isn’t lookin’ too good, is it? My sister owns this place, and I bartend sometimes. I keep a change of clothes here so I don’t have to drive home in between if t
ime is tight.”

  “Are you bartending tonight?”

  “Nope. I’m off the rest of the weekend actually. Policing and bartending.”

  “Oh.”

  “I just keep digging myself deeper, don’t I?”

  Bree laughed again. “You’re okay. I’m guessing just about everybody in here tonight knows you. Am I right about that?”

  “Maybe one or two don’t,” he smiled.

  “Nobody tried to catch my attention and warn me off while you were changing, so I suppose I’m safe enough.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve settled I pose no threat, tell me more about yourself Bree Fox.”

  They shared a pizza and a pitcher of beer. At first Bree was hesitant to have a drink, but Kaleb promised he’d get her back to the ranch. He’d have someone follow with her truck if necessary.

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Of course I do. Everybody knows the Flying R. Everybody knows the Rice family for that matter.”

  “My family and the Rice family are kind of intertwined. My sister is married to Tucker.”

  “Can’t say I know Tucker. I do know Matt, Will and Ben though.”

  “My mom and Ben’s wife are best friends. They have been since I was seven years old.”

  “You mean Liv? She’s great. Who’s your mom?”

  “Her name is Paige. Paige Cochran.”

  “And your dad is…Mark Cochran?”

  “That would be him.”

  “But you’re Bree Fox.” He reached over and touched her left hand.

  “I was married,” she began.

  Kaleb waited for her to continue.

  “My husband was killed in Afghanistan.”

  The expression on his face changed to one Bree was familiar with. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she answered. “I really don’t like to talk about it. If you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. I guess you’re in town for Thanksgiving. Big gathering over at the Flying R?”

  This time Bree’s expression changed. She didn’t want to talk about Thanksgiving either. Kaleb was going to quickly figure out he was the normal one between the two of them. Bree was a walking-talking hot mess.