Open Heart (3 page)

Annabeth knocked on the door of Vicky Thompson’s private staff apartment. She heard footsteps inside and the door opened. Phil Dobson was standing there, strong and broad and handsome.

“Well, hey Annabeth.” His green eyes blazed down at her. “How you doing?”

“Good. You?”

He ushered her in. “Busy in here.”

She looked around at all the packing boxes, the stacks and piles of things all over the place. “Vicky and Sonia are moving?”

“Yep.” He looked delighted. “They’re moving in with me.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. My house isn’t huge, mind you, but I have more than enough space for a bedroom for Sonia. We’ll be fine there.”

“I’m so glad.”

“Me too.” He smiled, his battered face sweet and soft. “We’ll be having a housewarming party in about six weeks, after we do all the renovations and stuff, so I hope you’ll come. I mean, if you can drive in to Clarity from Denver.”

“Um. Sure.”

“Great. So, what can I do for you, hon?”

“I was hoping to talk to Vicky.”

“She’s not here, I’m afraid. She’s in Colorado Springs at the shelter.”

“Oh, right.” It hadn’t occurred to her that Vicky might be doing her community service at the shelter for battered women and children this morning. “How’s that going?”

“Good. Really good.”

“She doesn’t find it… upsetting? It doesn’t trigger her?”

Phil’s face clouded. “A bit, sometimes. But she’s tough. We get through it.”

Annabeth nodded. She was sure that when Vicky was taken back to all those years trapped in a violent marriage, Phil was right there pulling her back to now. She thought about Vicky’s six-year-old daughter, another casualty and survivor of Carl Thompson. Vicky had kidnapped Sonia and given her to Vicky’s mother for safekeeping and then Vicky had run to Open Skies, looking for a new start, a better future for her and Sonia. An experience like that had to leave some scar or hurt on the little girl.

“And Sonia? How’s she doing?”

Phil’s face broke in to a huge smile. “Great. That girl is bright and smart and funny and just so damn sweet. She’s a joy, Annabeth. Truly.”

“God, I’m so glad. I was worried she’d have a hard time adjusting to all this.”

“Yeah, me too. I really thought she’d be scared of
me
, you know. Her father hurt her, and she was skittish around men. But we took it slow and now she’s all about the hugs and the cuddles. Kisses my nose when I leave for work in the morning.” He grinned. “Most precious damn thing that happens to me all day, I swear.”

Once again, Annabeth felt tears in her eyes.

Phil saw them and looked concerned. “Hey, you OK, hon?”

“Oh, sure. I am. That’s just so beautiful.”

“So, why did you need to talk to Vicky?”

“Oh. Oh, right.” Annabeth wiped her tears away. “Would you give her this for me?” She handed Phil a box. “It’s a gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yeah. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow, and I wanted to give this to her.”

“So soon? I thought you were here longer.”

“No. I’m checking out early.”

“Oh. Well, sure, hon. I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“Thanks. And – and can you just tell her one thing?”

“Of course.”

“Tell her that I admire her so much for what she’s done… her building up a whole new life. She’s strong and amazing and I want the best of everything for her.”

Puzzled, Phil looked down at her. “OK.”

“And please tell her that this gift is special… that my husband Cam gave it to me when I beat cancer. It symbolizes strength and triumph and new beginnings and I can’t think of anybody better to have it.” She held Phil’s gaze. “You’ll tell her?”

“I – I will.”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Phil.”

“Goodbye, Annabeth.” He shut the door behind her.

OK. That was weird. Why do I feel so uneasy about all of that?

Chapter Three

Eric came back from his hike sore and tired, but happy. He’d never seen anything like the mountains around Open Skies, and he was officially in love with them. He’d always considered himself a Texas boy, but now he was wondering about that.

The wild flowers in the Rocky Mountains were stunning, and so different from the plants and blossoms that he saw in the heat and warmth of Texas. Vibrant and tough, the mountain flowers thrived and gloried in the air and wind and sun. They would dig down in to a rock crevice and just take root and bloom there – literally spring forth out of that hardness. Some were deceptively delicate, and he thought maybe he liked these the best… the true hidden nature of the flower hidden by an unassuming exterior. Beautiful to look at; difficult to hurt. Adaptable and smart and damn near impossible to kill.

He saw Annabeth sitting on her porch with a cup of tea and her laptop. Her hair was golden and glowing in the early sunset, her face fresh and softly pink. He smiled at her, noticing her long legs and shapely breasts.

“Hey,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“OK. You?”

“Good.”

He gestured at her computer. “You doing some writing?”

“No, just checking the comments on my last blog post.”

“Oh, yeah? You got a few?”

She laughed. “Almost eight hundred.”

“What?” Even for her, that was a lot.

“Yeah. I wrote a post saying that I’m finishing my third book, and so I have lots of people excited about that.”

Count me among them.

“That’s great.”

“Yeah.” She scrolled down a bit. “These people – they really pulled me through some hard stuff, especially in the early days.”

“I can imagine.” Eric remembered the raw pain in her first posts. They were like screams of torment across his computer screen; he could actually
feel
her grief and confusion about what happened to Cam reaching out to him.

Those first posts were what made him want to follow her in her journey. Eric knew it was illogical, but he had some deep need to know that the wife of the man whose heart he had received was doing better. Every day he logged on to her blog and every day his heart ached for her, even as he felt gratitude for his second chance.

When Annabeth’s writing became cautiously more positive and upbeat, he had almost danced around his apartment in relief. When she wrote about meeting friends for dinner and being able to look at babies again, he had actually cried. And when she got her first book deal, he’d waited eagerly for the book to be published and he’d been at the store before it even opened on the day of delivery. He sat down with her book and didn’t stand up again until he had finished it. He read the last page with deep joy in his heart. He knew that she was going to be OK, eventually.

When he found out that she always came to Open Skies to do her editing and revising, he started to imagine meeting her, for real. It was just a game at first. He casually toyed with the idea, just pretended. But when she announced on her blog that she was just a few months away from finishing the third book, he knew she’d be here. And the day that her post went up that she’d be away at her retreat, rewriting and editing for print, he stopped playing.

Eric picked up the phone and he called Open Skies. He booked a cabin for a month. He got there early and he waited for Annabeth Wheeler to come. The day that she moved in to the cabin across from his was surreal: he could hardly believe that the woman whose words he had absorbed in to himself, just taken in like water and air, was
there
.

And now here she sat, her beautiful face sweet and calm. She was stunning, all the more so because he knew what she’d been through. He felt a jolt of attraction to her and it took his breath away.

Annabeth stared right back at him, admiring his body and face. Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Maybe you want to come over for some dinner? It’s not going to be much… just some pasta. But if you’re free?”

“Uh, sure. I mean, I’d love to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll get cleaned up and be by in ninety minutes or so. Is that OK?”

“Perfect.”

He nodded and walked in to his cabin. Annabeth watched him go, noticing his broad back and amazing ass.

OK, what the hell are you doing?

Even as she asked herself the question, she already knew the answer. The answer was that she needed to do one last thing in this life, one last life-affirming thing. She had to be close to a man, and at this point, any man would do. Eric was ideal: handsome and healthy and so amazingly
alive
.

She needed him to make her feel alive, too. Just for a little while. She had decided that tomorrow night, on the third anniversary of her husband’s death, she would take the sleeping pills and drink her wine. Tomorrow, she and Cam would be together again.

She had spent most of the day going around Open Skies, saying goodbye to everyone that she saw. She cleaned up the cabin; she packed most of her things. She started to write her goodbye note, but she was stuck… how to make sure that Julie and Jake and Mattie and all the rest of them didn’t blame themselves for this? They hadn’t noticed anything was wrong because she had made damn sure that they didn’t know that anything was wrong. And if they did notice anything, she was sure it was so minor that it could easily be passed off as her feeling sad on the impending anniversary of Cam’s death. That was normal. Even expected.

The one thing that she was avoiding looking at directly was who was going to find her body. What was that going to do to that person? In the end, she decided to leave a note in Jake or Phil’s box at the main building tomorrow night after-hours, late enough that they wouldn’t get it until the next morning. Until it was all over. She thought they’d be two of the best people to be first upon the scene. They were tough men, with deep reserves of strength. They’d be able to handle it.

Shaking off her thoughts, Annabeth went in to the cabin and got dressed, found her car keys. She had to make a run in to Clarity for some supplies.

**

Eric was downing his third glass of water when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the name on the display and grinned when he saw that it was Ian.

“Hey man,” he said. “How’re things back home?”

“Good,” his brother said. “You OK out there?”

“Yep.”

Never one to beat around the bush, Ian launched right in: “Have you met her yet?”

“Yeah. Yesterday.”

Ian was silent for a few seconds. He didn’t support what his younger brother was doing but he was still trying damned hard to understand it.

“OK,” Ian said. “And?”

“And we had lunch. Talked.”

“What did you talk about?”

Eric shrugged. “Travel and movies. Our jobs… she talked about her husband a tiny bit. I told her about changing careers after I got shot.”

“So you broached the very subject that I told you not to broach.”

“Come on, man,” Eric said. “I obviously didn’t go in to specifics.”

“Alright, alright.” Ian reminded himself to be patient. “So, what’s she like in person, then?”

Eric leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Smart. Funny. Interesting.”

Ian had seen Annabeth’s picture on her blog and the back covers of her books, and he knew full well that she was his brother’s type. “And how does she look?”

“Beautiful,” Eric said. “Just – stunning.”

Shit. That’s exactly what I was afraid of. OK, little brother, time to come home before things start heading down that very path I want you to avoid.

“OK, so,” Ian said. “You’ve met her. Mission accomplished. High fives all around. Are you coming back tomorrow?”

“Uh, no,” Eric said.

Ian closed his eyes. “So, when?”

“I’m not totally sure yet.”

“Eric –”

“Ian. I’m fine. OK? I just – I just want to talk to her a little bit more. That’s all.”

Worry passed over Ian like a wave. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I want to get to know her. Just a bit.”

“Eric, the plan was to lay eyes on her and that’s all. Right? Casual hi and some casual chatting and then you’re supposed to get the hell away from her.”

“And that will happen, Ian. I’ll be home soon.”

“OK.” Ian didn’t sound even slightly convinced.

“Really, man. I swear.”

Ian sighed. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Fine. So what are you up to tonight?”

Eric hesitated.

“Eric? What?”

“I…ummmm… I’m going to Annabeth’s place for dinner.”

Silence.

“You what?”

“She invited me for dinner.”

“Eric.” Ian’s voice was tight and low. “You be careful, you hear me? Very, very careful. What you’re playing around with here… it’s no fucking game. We’re talking about a woman who would be devastated if she knew about you. You hear me?”

Eric was quiet. “Yes. I do.”

“And I’m worried about you too, little bro. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt, Ian. Nobody will.”

“I’m not so sure about that, man. I’m not so sure at all.”

**

Eric stood in the shower, letting the hot water run over his body. After the talk with Ian, he was having second thoughts about accepting Annabeth’s dinner invitation.

When he had decided to come out to Open Skies to meet her, he had planned to just make contact. Say hello, shake her hand, maybe have a coffee. He just felt some deep and inexplicable need to meet the woman… but he never intended to get to know her, or spend any real amount of time with her. Certainly never tell her who he was.

What he hadn’t counted on was his intense interest in her. She was beautiful, amazingly so, and the thought of spending an evening with her, alone in her cabin, terrified him. It felt like a date. Worse, he wanted it to
be
a date. A sleep-over kind of date.

For the first time in almost three years, Eric realized – too late – that he had feelings for Annabeth. He turned that over in his mind, and knew that it wasn’t actually as odd as it may appear, even if you considered that they had really only just met yesterday. He felt like he knew her… he had come to know her and like her through her words. Her blog, her books. He admired her, he found her warm and compassionate and touchingly funny. He thought she was something so brave and stunning and now he was going over for dinner.

Oh, Christ. What have I done?

He got out of the shower and started to get dressed. He looked at his own face in the mirror, demanding total honesty. What were his intentions here?

Eric was a good man, and when he cared about someone, he’d take a bullet before letting them get hurt. That was how he’d been shot in the first place, after all. He dove in front of his partner and saved her life, and he had done it without any hesitation and he had never regretted it. He’d do it again, no question.

So. He knew now that he was attracted to Annabeth, that by reading her vulnerable and powerful words over and over for three years, he had developed some feelings for her. OK. Fine. But he wasn’t about to let her get hurt, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to hurt her.

Dinner it was. That’s all.

He ran his hands through his dark hair, trying to get it to lie flat. He met his own eyes in the mirror.

Dinner, Eric. That’s all.

**

He showed up at her door with mountain wildflowers. That was when Annabeth decided that he was indeed the perfect man to have sex with on her last night.

Eric handed her the brilliant red blossoms and she stared down at them.

“They’re beautiful,” she said. She touched the petals, admiring the odd combination of rounded and spiky edges. “What are they?”

“Scarlet paintbrushes,” Eric said.

“Wow. They are actually shaped exactly like paintbrushes, aren’t they?”

“Uh-huh.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you.”

He gazed down at her and thought how stunning that smile was. “You’re welcome.”

“Sit down, OK? Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Please.”

He stepped in to her cabin and looked around. Her work area was huge and sprawling, he noticed, with papers and books spread all over the table near the back windows. She must have finished her most recent book while staring up at the mountains looming overhead.

Annabeth went to the kitchen and found a vase. She put the flowers on the counter, next to the dining room table. “Gorgeous.”

“So how’s the writing going?” he asked, sitting down on the sofa.

“All done,” she said.

Eric studied her, a bit puzzled that she didn’t look happier about it. “That’s good, right?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s just – it’s a bit hard to adjust after a book is finished. You spend so much time working on it and it gets all your focus for months and then suddenly… it’s just done. It can feel a bit empty for the first few days after.”

“So, I guess tonight is a celebration too, right?” He stood up when she brought him his wine. “We can celebrate your book being finished.”

A shadow passed over her face as she touched her wine glass to his. “Sure. We can do that. Celebrate the end of the book.”

She went back to the kitchen and he watched her, a feeling of disquiet settling in to his chest. Something was very wrong here.

Despite his lack of passion for it, Eric had actually been a good cop. He had excelled at interrogation, especially. He had a knack for profiling, for knowing when people were telling the truth, for being able to coax people to tell him more than they wanted to. He was no psychologist, but he was tough and good at reading people, and he always trusted his gut. Right now, his gut was hollering at him. Time to test the waters here, gently.

“Annabeth?”

“Yes?”

“You said something yesterday… can I ask you about it?”

“Sure.” She stirred the pasta sauce absently.

“You said that your husband died three years ago tomorrow…”

She went very still. “Yes.”

“Have you got something special planned for tomorrow? To commemorate it?”