Hunger's Mate (5 page)

“Thank you,” he replied after the few seconds of analyzing. “I'm very happy to be here.”

“And we're thrilled to have someone of your caliber working here with us.

“We'll make a pit stop in HR, get all your paperwork filled out and your ID badge issued, then I'll take you up to Mr. Rudger and you can get started.”

“That sounds great,” he replied just as they made the left turn toward the elevators. “I cannot wait to get to work.”

*   *   *

The black Camry Jewel drove was only two years old, one of her first purchases in the years she'd been at Perryville. The older-model sedan she'd driven up to the resort on her very first day had long since served its purpose and she'd finally felt safe enough to start laying down some roots. Initially, she'd thought something as menial as the credit check would lead to unwanted questions or worse, visitors, but the process had gone very smoothly. A few hours later, she'd been driving her new car back to the resort. From that point on she'd gathered the courage to do other things, such as apply for credit cards and even shop online. Nothing had happened and nobody had come looking for her. She'd still kept a low profile at Perryville and steered clear of the trappings of social networks. Landing the position with the administration here had been a huge stroke of luck and she worked really hard to keep that position. It was only on these specific days that she hated the life she'd carefully arranged for herself, hated the restrictions she had no choice but to live by.

“Well, hello, Miss Jenner. You're right on time as usual.”

Gail, the evening attendant at Sunset Brooke Convalescent Home greeted her.

“Hi, Gail, how are you?” Jewel asked as she always did once she entered the one-level compound that housed almost sixty elderly tenants.

Located near Red Rock Canyon, just outside of Sedona on a privately owned patch of land, Sunset Brooke was run by a nonprofit organization that provided support to Native American tribes and intertribal groups interested in protective management and native-controlled land conservancies. Her father's somewhat distorted relation to the Sinagua Indians was his passage to stay at the home for half the normal price, as Red Rock was reputedly the home of this mysterious tribe before what is now known as the Great Abandonment. Jewel thought it ironic that this sacred land would hide her father from the very men his ancestors had left their home to avoid.

“Not complaining,” Gail replied. “Not complaining at all. Every day is a new blessing.”

Jewel believed that, so she smiled at Gail and took off the large framed sunglasses she always wore when she came here. Wisps of the long, bone-straight hair from the wig she wore caught on her heavily glossed lips and she pushed them away.

“Is he out on the patio?”

Gail nodded. “As usual. You know he loves his sunsets.”

Jewel chuckled. “Yes, I know. I'll just go out and say hello.”

“Right on schedule the two of you are,” the older woman said, her gaze intent. She wore white, the frothy material wrapping around her body from her ankles up to her neck. Draped over her shoulders was a colorful wrap with intricate designs that swirled in circles to form what to Jewel looked like an eye. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled tight at the nape of her neck into a neat bun while the burnt-orange complexion of her skin looked only slightly weathered.

“He likes routine,” was Jewel's only reply to the woman's comment.

If she thought Gail was looking at her a little strangely this evening, it was most likely because she was tired. A large wedding had arrived at the resort today so she'd spent the majority of the day going around making sure everything was perfectly set up for the rich snobbish bride and her thirty-two-person ensemble that she called a bridal party. Guests of the wedding had just begun arriving as she'd left. The front-desk staffers were already stressed beyond measure after checking in the bridal party. Jewel figured by the time she returned to the resort some of them might be ready to quit or strangle a guest, or possibly both.

So she didn't think too much of the way Gail watched her walk down the hallway, toward the patio doors. She didn't notice how quiet it was in the facility today; normally, she would have seen at least two other residents moving along the red-tiled hallways or at least another staff member. Instead, Jewel just continued walking, anxious to get out onto the patio, to sit down, and talk to someone who knew exactly who she was and why they were in this place at all.

He was sitting in a lounge chair, the top of his head as shiny as a marble, slippers more than three years old, tattered and tired, on his feet. His spindly legs were crossed at the ankles, plaid shorts and a butter-yellow dress shirt his attire for the day. He always wore dress shirts as if he expected to one day get up and go to the office, as he'd done all his life, before he'd fallen ill.

“Hi, Daddy,” Jewel said, coming around the chair and leaning over to kiss his weathered cheek.

He smelled like Old Spice and gingerbread and she smiled with the memory that came as easily as her next breath. Avis Montgomery always baked gingerbread for Sunday dessert. In the cookie jar that sat in the middle of the kitchen table right alongside the salt, pepper, and sugar bowl, were gingerbread cookies. In the early years they were homemade, then they were store bought. Thurgood Montgomery ate them all just the same.

Old Spice was a birthday gift, a Christmas gift, and a Father's Day gift, every year since she'd been five—the first time Avis had given her that white bottle to wrap and tag herself. Jewel had been so proud when Thurgood had opened that bottle on Christmas morning, so happy when he'd picked her up, swinging her in the air, telling her how much he loved her and the gift she'd given him. As she sat in the chair next to him, now, she almost wept. Almost.

“Is that you, baby girl?” he asked, just like he always did.

“It's me, Daddy.” She reached over, putting her hand on top of his where it lay on the arm of the lounger. “I came to watch the sunset with you.”

“Beautiful, ain't it? Like a pot of melting gold. I watch it every day just like Avis and I used to do.”

Jewel nodded. She remembered her parents lounging on the back porch watching the sunset, every day. They would sit in these old wooden Adirondack chairs her father had made himself, holding hands and talking about all the colors in the sky as the sun set. Afterward they'd come inside and her mother would get her father a glass of milk and a couple of cookies from the cookie jar. He'd sit and eat and watch television while her mother helped her at the kitchen table with her homework. Jewel's chest tightened and she hung her head low, strands of jet-black hair curtaining her face.

“That color there, that glistening gold,” Thurgood continued to talk. “That's the color in your eyes. I remember the first time they put you in my arms. You was all wrinkled and squirming around like you couldn't get comfortable. Then you opened your eyes and I said to Avis, I said, ‘This girl's got gold in her eyes.'” He chuckled then, a raspy sound that echoed throughout his frail body, and Jewel did her best to laugh with him.

“Let me see your eyes, baby girl?” he asked. “Let me match the colors again. Avis always liked to do that.”

She had, Jewel thought. Both of them had because they'd been so proud of her, so proud of their only daughter. Whatever attributes she had were the best in their eyes, whatever faults were immediately dismissed. She hated that now they wouldn't be able to dismiss the things she'd had to do and what she'd subsequently become.

Jewel moved over to the lounge chair where her father lay. She sat on the edge, taking deep breaths as she prepared to do one of the most painful things in her life. With shaking fingers she removed the thick dark glasses Thurgood wore. She blinked once, holding her eyes closed for a few seconds, begging for strength to do this just one more time. Then she opened her eyes and stared into her father's blank and glassy orbs.

“See, Daddy? You can see the gold now,” she said, daring her voice to crack.

Thurgood blinked and his thin lips lifted into a full smile. “Beautiful, baby girl. Just beautiful,” he told her.

She looked away then, hating the lie that was their life. Hating that her father was completely blind, a result of his diabetes, and that he was in this home, thousands of miles away from the house he'd paid for after forty years of hard work at that factory. She hated that he couldn't sit on his own back porch the way he used to before her mother died, hated that she sat in front of him, once every week, wearing a wig and contact lenses to protect them both, and lied to him every time she opened her mouth to speak.

In short, Jewel hated herself, every second of this new life she'd had no choice but to build for them.

*   *   *

Two hours later when she pulled up at the back entrance of Perryville, Jewel felt worse than she had when she'd left the resort earlier. The feeling was a combination of the time spent with her father and the eerie sensation that she was being followed.

She had taken the long route back to the resort because the moment she stepped out of the nursing home facility doors, the feeling that she was not alone enveloped her. As she'd moved to her car she'd been flanked by a wariness that hadn't ceased, even when she'd looked around the entire parking lot and saw no one. Making sure her glasses were in place and her wig was on straight, she'd climbed into her car, started the engine, and drove.

Ten minutes after turning onto the main highway she'd spotted a dark sedan two cars behind her. Half an hour later the same sedan was still a couple of cars back. With sweating palms she'd made the appropriate detours, winding in and out of traffic as much as possible, even stopping at a diner where she sat nursing a cup of coffee for an additional half hour. When she left she hadn't seen the black sedan.

Still, she drove a roundabout route back to the resort and parked in a different spot than she was used to when she returned. Sitting in her car a few minutes longer than necessary, Jewel tried to calm her nerves. She hadn't seen the sedan for the last twenty or so miles and wanted to convince herself that she'd lost the tail, but didn't dare.

When sitting in her car in the dark parking lot was beginning to make her just as nervous as realizing someone had been following her, she finally stepped out, locked her car doors, and began to walk toward the building.

That's when she heard it.

Footsteps.

They were behind her and so she moved faster, not quite running but almost. The footsteps continued, picking up speed with her. She began to run and was just about to reach for the back door when she thought someone touched her back. Stopping abruptly to turn around, her ankles twisted and the next thing she knew, she was falling.

And then she wasn't.

She was being held in strong arms, her body instantly reacting to the closeness of this male, warmth spreading quickly throughout, settling cozily in her center. She blinked and before she could open her eyes to confirm her suspicions, he spoke.

“Whoa, there. What's got you so spooked?”

Her heart was hammering in her chest. When she did open her eyes all she could see were his, calm and soothing. She felt him holding her up, his fingers splayed over her arm and her waist. For a minute Jewel just wanted to sigh into his embrace, to take a second just to let the fear that had been strangling her these last couple of hours settle and dissipate. But she couldn't do that, not here, not while he was holding her and looking at her with such concern.

She shook her head. “Sorry, just lost my balance for a second. I'm fine.” She talked while righting herself and scooting back out of his embrace. Her body instantly chilled and she folded her arms over her chest to keep the shiver away. “I'm fine,” she stated once more for good measure.

He nodded like he might have believed her, but the moment he spoke, she knew differently.

“You're shaking. A few seconds ago you were running like a serial killer was after you. And I'll bet every dime in my wallet that if I take another step closer you'll probably scream to high heaven,” Ezra stated plainly.

Jewel closed her eyes, thankful that she was close enough to the wall to lean back. “Okay, fine might be an overstatement,” she admitted, then closed her mouth and continued the attempts to steady her breathing.

“What happened?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“You're lying,” he accused.

She lifted her head and glared at him. “You're rude.”

He closed the distance between them and in the span of a second or so she was trapped—exactly what she did not want to be with this specific male, or with anybody for that matter. “I repeat, you're lying. And not only about what just happened, but about so much more.”

His words trailed off as he lifted a finger to the long strands of hair hanging at her shoulders. Crap. She was still wearing the wig and if she didn't have the shield of her sunglasses he'd see that her eyes were also a different color. Never wanting anything she did or any trouble she encountered to touch her father again, she'd decided when she came to Perryville that the Jewel Jenner that worked here on a daily basis would not be the same as the one who visited her father in the nursing home. Sure, they had her name, but she used a P.O. box instead of her actual address, so if anyone ever questioned the same name there would be other things to throw them off track. She hated that this was how she had to live now, but it was what it was.

As for Ezra being here right now, it was problematic. He'd only ever seen her in the red curly wig and the green contacts. This black wig, sunglasses, and padding she added around her midsection and buttocks, she kept in her car because she only needed them when she went to visit her father. What she definitely did not need right now were his questions about any of that.