Hidden Summit
Page 8
“What about your families?” Leslie asked. “Won’t they want some kind of wedding?”
“That’s just it—our families are gone now and it’s just us. I think our friends will help us celebrate the new house with a housewarming, but we want to go off alone for the rest.”
Families gone…that turned over in Conner’s head a bit. His family was gone temporarily, but he’d get them back. At least until Katie met someone who would take over as husband and the boys’ father, and then it would be time for her to make a new life. And while they were very close, it wasn’t as though Conner told her everything that was happening in his life. Back in the day, if he dated, he didn’t run the details by his sister. He was more likely to mention it after the fact. Even with his wife, Katie hadn’t met Samantha until they were talking about marriage.
But somehow the idea that he might never tell Katie about Leslie ate at him. Bothered him. Leslie was the kind of girl you showed off to your family.
“You’re very quiet,” Leslie pointed out to him.
He chewed and swallowed. “Good cookies,” he said. Then he gave enough of a smile to cover his discomfort. When he looked at her, his cheeks felt warm. He hoped he wasn’t blushing like a boy.
He went back to work with Dan and conversation focused only on the work they were doing. Below the chatter, Conner thought about his next move—he was helpless in fighting the idea. Finally he decided—he was going to ask Leslie when she had that yoga class again because he might drop by that coffee shop at about the same time. They could sit on those girlie chairs and talk, without Dan or any other crew coming around. Maybe they could talk without her hating him. That would be a start.
He looked at his watch. It was four. They’d be knocking off soon, and he didn’t want to miss her if she quit and went home. “I’m going to walk over to the office,” he told Dan. “I have a question for Leslie.”
“Take your time,” Dan said.
But as Conner walked out of the construction, he saw a car pull up. It was a shiny black late-model Cadillac with Oregon plates, which pulled up to the trailer and parked next to Leslie’s SUV. A good-looking man in a wool coat and shiny shoes got out. He looked around, saw Conner in the front doorway, took in his surroundings and entered the trailer.
Conner had a very good idea who that might be. He wouldn’t barge in on them, but he wasn’t going far. He leaned against the porch post of the house in progress, near enough to rescue her if needed.
A half hour later, Dan joined him outside with his lunch pail. “You didn’t get far.”
“A guy went into the office,” Conner said. “He’s got Oregon plates,” he added, indicating the car. Not a construction worker’s car, that was for sure. “He might be here to see Leslie, so I’m waiting until he leaves.”
“He could be here to see Paul,” Dan said. “He could be a buyer or potential buyer.”
“Then he’d have an appointment and Paul would be here.”
Dan grinned. “You’re not just another pretty face, are you, Conner? Want me to wait with you?”
Way to go low-profile, Conner chided himself. “No, thanks. I can take him.”
Dan just laughed. “Then close up when you’re done, will you?”
“Absolutely.”
Leslie was nearly finished with the payroll books on the computer when she heard the door to the trailer open. She was used to crews coming and going, to Paul popping in now and then. But then she heard, “Leslie?”
She dropped her head on the desk. God. No.
“Leslie?”
She took a deep breath, pushed back her chair and stood up. She moved to the doorway of her office and looked down the long hall. There he was. Shit! “Greg, what are you doing here?” she said more patiently than she felt.
“Well, what do you think I’m doing here? You ran out on me with no forwarding address. You changed your cell number!”
She walked down the hall toward him, shaking her head. “Greg, we’ve been divorced over a year. You’re remarried. Your new wife is pregnant. I didn’t run out on you—I moved. I no longer have a relationship with you.”
“Now see, that’s just crazy! Of course we have a relationship, a very important one, just a different one than we had a couple of years ago.”
It was exactly this kind of talk that had pushed her over the edge. And while it used to just break her heart, she’d had enough. “Are you insane?” she demanded. “Are you seriously nuts? Because it’s different all right—I don’t like you anymore, don’t you get that? I don’t want to be in touch with you. I don’t want us to be friends. You wanted a new life, a different life. Go home! Wallow in it.”
Now he was doing the head-shaking. “Leslie, what’s happened to you? We’re going to have to work on that. We’re much too civilized to have hard feelings like this between us after all the good years we’ve had. We’re going to get past the misunderstandings and forge a new, stronger friendship. I care about you. You’re very important to me. Very important!”
She stared at him in disbelief that had become common for her when faced with Greg. “This is why I moved. Because you need medication. Listen to me carefully,” she said, stepping toward him. “You cheated on me. You left me. You somehow conned me out of my half of our community property, you remarried and your new wife is pregnant with the baby you didn’t want to have with me. If everyone in my life cared about me that much I would be the most pathetic creature on the face of the earth.”
“The way you look at things,” he muttered disparagingly.
“How did you find me?”
“I asked everyone we knew. Your parents wouldn’t tell me, your old boss wouldn’t tell me—”
“And did they tell you why they wouldn’t tell you? I asked them not to. It’s because of conversations like this one that I moved! So, who told?”
“One of the crew for Haggerty’s said he heard you went to work for Paul in Virgin River.”
“And you drove down here?” she asked, astonished. “Why didn’t you just call the site?”
“I want you to look me in the eye, Leslie, and tell me we can’t ever be on good terms. Because it kills me to think you hate me.”
She took another step toward him. “We can be on good terms, Greg,” she said with more confidence than she’d had even a few weeks ago. “As long as I never have to talk to you or see your face again. Now go home and leave me alone.”
“I want to make this right, because I—”
“I know. Because you care about me. You’re too late to make it right. You made your choice and I made mine and I’m done.”
“I wish there was some way I could make you understand. Everything changed in an instant. I became a different man with different needs, with different expectations. It was a transition, Leslie. It wasn’t something I thought about or planned. It was as if—”
In a second he was going to say, I’d never been in love like this before. He’d said it to her before, and she could still feel the ache. “Go. Leave!”
“Now, Leslie, listen to reason....”
She marched over to the kitchen sink, pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall, freed the hose and aimed it at him.
“Okay, now you’re acting unbalanced,” he said.
“If you don’t get in your car and head for Grants Pass immediately, I’m going to mess up your pretty cashmere coat. And your perfect hair!”
“Now look—”
She fired at his shiny John Lobbs.
“Hey!” he yelled, jumping back.
“Seriously, on the count of three. One, two—”
“You’ve lost it, Leslie,” he said, but he was backing toward the door. “You’ve never acted like this. I’m worried about you.”
“Then give me a real wide berth,” she advised. “Three!”
He nearly fell out the door.
Conner watched as Paul Haggerty was just pulling up to the trailer. Greg Adams was standing behind his car, trunk open, cleaning his shoes with a rag he’d pulled off his golf clubs. Paul screeched to a stop and jumped out of the truck. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t find Leslie anywhere in Grants Pass, and I heard she came to work for you, so I drove down,” he said impatiently. He showed Paul his golf towel. “She shot at me with the fire extinguisher!”
Paul rocked back on his heels and laughed. He tilted his head back and bellowed. Paul was much taller and stronger than Greg. And at the moment, much happier. “Did she now?”
“What’s going on here? Why would she do that?”
“Because, shit for brains, she’d like you to disappear and leave her alone. I’m sure she’d like to stuff you in a hole, but since that isn’t going to happen, second choice is you go home to your new wife and leave her the hell alone. You get that?”
Greg slammed his trunk closed. “What is the matter with everyone? I’m trying to be a gentleman! Leslie was my wife for eight years! I want to be sure she’s taken care of!”
“Best way to do that is to skip the cheating part,” Paul sagely advised.
“I wish I could find a way to explain about that. My whole life changed in a second and it was like… Oh, never mind, what’s done is done. I’m tired of saying that I’m sorry as all hell and would change it if I could, but some things just happen. Right now all I care about is that Leslie and I can be on civil terms. That’s very important to me.”
Paul got in his face, which meant he had to look down a little. “You better hear this, Adams. Pay attention. Go away and leave the girl alone. Copy? Now I’m going in my office and if she’s upset or crying I’m going to hunt you down and beat the shit outta you.”
Greg stiffened indignantly. “Threats, Paul. People get in trouble for talk like that.”
“If I have to drive all the way to Grants Pass,” Paul added. “Get outta here.”
Then Paul went to the trailer, opened the door and stepped up. Before the door closed Conner heard him yell, “Don’t shoot!”
Conner chuckled and went into the new construction to gather up his belongings and lock up.
Yeah, there were things about this place to like.
The showdown with the ex put Conner in a very social mood, and he went to Jack’s Bar. He happened to run into Paul Haggerty, which was just perfect. Since Paul had seen Conner standing in the doorway of the house in progress, Conner asked after Leslie. “I didn’t have any details,” Conner said. “But the idea of this guy I’d never seen before going into that trailer where Leslie was alone, well, I decided to stick around to be sure everything was all right.”
“Thanks for that, Conner. Around here it just doesn’t occur to me we have to be watchful. I guess I forget there are people around we shouldn’t trust.” It didn’t take Paul long to spill the basics of Leslie’s story, not knowing Conner heard it. “That was her ex-husband and he’s one of the reasons she preferred working in Virgin River to staying in Grants Pass, which has always been her home. He just won’t go away quietly.”
Jack put a beer on the bar for Paul. “Shot him but he just won’t die?” he asked.
“Something like that. But I ran him off and checked on Les. She was a little pissed, but fine.” He grinned. “She turned the fire extinguisher on him.”
“No kidding?” Jack asked with a laugh. “I knew I liked her.”
During the course of the conversation, Paul mentioned that he’d rented Leslie a little house he’d fixed up and it was just a couple of blocks from the bar. And then, beer done, it was time for Paul to get home to dinner.
“That’s just it—our families are gone now and it’s just us. I think our friends will help us celebrate the new house with a housewarming, but we want to go off alone for the rest.”
Families gone…that turned over in Conner’s head a bit. His family was gone temporarily, but he’d get them back. At least until Katie met someone who would take over as husband and the boys’ father, and then it would be time for her to make a new life. And while they were very close, it wasn’t as though Conner told her everything that was happening in his life. Back in the day, if he dated, he didn’t run the details by his sister. He was more likely to mention it after the fact. Even with his wife, Katie hadn’t met Samantha until they were talking about marriage.
But somehow the idea that he might never tell Katie about Leslie ate at him. Bothered him. Leslie was the kind of girl you showed off to your family.
“You’re very quiet,” Leslie pointed out to him.
He chewed and swallowed. “Good cookies,” he said. Then he gave enough of a smile to cover his discomfort. When he looked at her, his cheeks felt warm. He hoped he wasn’t blushing like a boy.
He went back to work with Dan and conversation focused only on the work they were doing. Below the chatter, Conner thought about his next move—he was helpless in fighting the idea. Finally he decided—he was going to ask Leslie when she had that yoga class again because he might drop by that coffee shop at about the same time. They could sit on those girlie chairs and talk, without Dan or any other crew coming around. Maybe they could talk without her hating him. That would be a start.
He looked at his watch. It was four. They’d be knocking off soon, and he didn’t want to miss her if she quit and went home. “I’m going to walk over to the office,” he told Dan. “I have a question for Leslie.”
“Take your time,” Dan said.
But as Conner walked out of the construction, he saw a car pull up. It was a shiny black late-model Cadillac with Oregon plates, which pulled up to the trailer and parked next to Leslie’s SUV. A good-looking man in a wool coat and shiny shoes got out. He looked around, saw Conner in the front doorway, took in his surroundings and entered the trailer.
Conner had a very good idea who that might be. He wouldn’t barge in on them, but he wasn’t going far. He leaned against the porch post of the house in progress, near enough to rescue her if needed.
A half hour later, Dan joined him outside with his lunch pail. “You didn’t get far.”
“A guy went into the office,” Conner said. “He’s got Oregon plates,” he added, indicating the car. Not a construction worker’s car, that was for sure. “He might be here to see Leslie, so I’m waiting until he leaves.”
“He could be here to see Paul,” Dan said. “He could be a buyer or potential buyer.”
“Then he’d have an appointment and Paul would be here.”
Dan grinned. “You’re not just another pretty face, are you, Conner? Want me to wait with you?”
Way to go low-profile, Conner chided himself. “No, thanks. I can take him.”
Dan just laughed. “Then close up when you’re done, will you?”
“Absolutely.”
Leslie was nearly finished with the payroll books on the computer when she heard the door to the trailer open. She was used to crews coming and going, to Paul popping in now and then. But then she heard, “Leslie?”
She dropped her head on the desk. God. No.
“Leslie?”
She took a deep breath, pushed back her chair and stood up. She moved to the doorway of her office and looked down the long hall. There he was. Shit! “Greg, what are you doing here?” she said more patiently than she felt.
“Well, what do you think I’m doing here? You ran out on me with no forwarding address. You changed your cell number!”
She walked down the hall toward him, shaking her head. “Greg, we’ve been divorced over a year. You’re remarried. Your new wife is pregnant. I didn’t run out on you—I moved. I no longer have a relationship with you.”
“Now see, that’s just crazy! Of course we have a relationship, a very important one, just a different one than we had a couple of years ago.”
It was exactly this kind of talk that had pushed her over the edge. And while it used to just break her heart, she’d had enough. “Are you insane?” she demanded. “Are you seriously nuts? Because it’s different all right—I don’t like you anymore, don’t you get that? I don’t want to be in touch with you. I don’t want us to be friends. You wanted a new life, a different life. Go home! Wallow in it.”
Now he was doing the head-shaking. “Leslie, what’s happened to you? We’re going to have to work on that. We’re much too civilized to have hard feelings like this between us after all the good years we’ve had. We’re going to get past the misunderstandings and forge a new, stronger friendship. I care about you. You’re very important to me. Very important!”
She stared at him in disbelief that had become common for her when faced with Greg. “This is why I moved. Because you need medication. Listen to me carefully,” she said, stepping toward him. “You cheated on me. You left me. You somehow conned me out of my half of our community property, you remarried and your new wife is pregnant with the baby you didn’t want to have with me. If everyone in my life cared about me that much I would be the most pathetic creature on the face of the earth.”
“The way you look at things,” he muttered disparagingly.
“How did you find me?”
“I asked everyone we knew. Your parents wouldn’t tell me, your old boss wouldn’t tell me—”
“And did they tell you why they wouldn’t tell you? I asked them not to. It’s because of conversations like this one that I moved! So, who told?”
“One of the crew for Haggerty’s said he heard you went to work for Paul in Virgin River.”
“And you drove down here?” she asked, astonished. “Why didn’t you just call the site?”
“I want you to look me in the eye, Leslie, and tell me we can’t ever be on good terms. Because it kills me to think you hate me.”
She took another step toward him. “We can be on good terms, Greg,” she said with more confidence than she’d had even a few weeks ago. “As long as I never have to talk to you or see your face again. Now go home and leave me alone.”
“I want to make this right, because I—”
“I know. Because you care about me. You’re too late to make it right. You made your choice and I made mine and I’m done.”
“I wish there was some way I could make you understand. Everything changed in an instant. I became a different man with different needs, with different expectations. It was a transition, Leslie. It wasn’t something I thought about or planned. It was as if—”
In a second he was going to say, I’d never been in love like this before. He’d said it to her before, and she could still feel the ache. “Go. Leave!”
“Now, Leslie, listen to reason....”
She marched over to the kitchen sink, pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall, freed the hose and aimed it at him.
“Okay, now you’re acting unbalanced,” he said.
“If you don’t get in your car and head for Grants Pass immediately, I’m going to mess up your pretty cashmere coat. And your perfect hair!”
“Now look—”
She fired at his shiny John Lobbs.
“Hey!” he yelled, jumping back.
“Seriously, on the count of three. One, two—”
“You’ve lost it, Leslie,” he said, but he was backing toward the door. “You’ve never acted like this. I’m worried about you.”
“Then give me a real wide berth,” she advised. “Three!”
He nearly fell out the door.
Conner watched as Paul Haggerty was just pulling up to the trailer. Greg Adams was standing behind his car, trunk open, cleaning his shoes with a rag he’d pulled off his golf clubs. Paul screeched to a stop and jumped out of the truck. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t find Leslie anywhere in Grants Pass, and I heard she came to work for you, so I drove down,” he said impatiently. He showed Paul his golf towel. “She shot at me with the fire extinguisher!”
Paul rocked back on his heels and laughed. He tilted his head back and bellowed. Paul was much taller and stronger than Greg. And at the moment, much happier. “Did she now?”
“What’s going on here? Why would she do that?”
“Because, shit for brains, she’d like you to disappear and leave her alone. I’m sure she’d like to stuff you in a hole, but since that isn’t going to happen, second choice is you go home to your new wife and leave her the hell alone. You get that?”
Greg slammed his trunk closed. “What is the matter with everyone? I’m trying to be a gentleman! Leslie was my wife for eight years! I want to be sure she’s taken care of!”
“Best way to do that is to skip the cheating part,” Paul sagely advised.
“I wish I could find a way to explain about that. My whole life changed in a second and it was like… Oh, never mind, what’s done is done. I’m tired of saying that I’m sorry as all hell and would change it if I could, but some things just happen. Right now all I care about is that Leslie and I can be on civil terms. That’s very important to me.”
Paul got in his face, which meant he had to look down a little. “You better hear this, Adams. Pay attention. Go away and leave the girl alone. Copy? Now I’m going in my office and if she’s upset or crying I’m going to hunt you down and beat the shit outta you.”
Greg stiffened indignantly. “Threats, Paul. People get in trouble for talk like that.”
“If I have to drive all the way to Grants Pass,” Paul added. “Get outta here.”
Then Paul went to the trailer, opened the door and stepped up. Before the door closed Conner heard him yell, “Don’t shoot!”
Conner chuckled and went into the new construction to gather up his belongings and lock up.
Yeah, there were things about this place to like.
The showdown with the ex put Conner in a very social mood, and he went to Jack’s Bar. He happened to run into Paul Haggerty, which was just perfect. Since Paul had seen Conner standing in the doorway of the house in progress, Conner asked after Leslie. “I didn’t have any details,” Conner said. “But the idea of this guy I’d never seen before going into that trailer where Leslie was alone, well, I decided to stick around to be sure everything was all right.”
“Thanks for that, Conner. Around here it just doesn’t occur to me we have to be watchful. I guess I forget there are people around we shouldn’t trust.” It didn’t take Paul long to spill the basics of Leslie’s story, not knowing Conner heard it. “That was her ex-husband and he’s one of the reasons she preferred working in Virgin River to staying in Grants Pass, which has always been her home. He just won’t go away quietly.”
Jack put a beer on the bar for Paul. “Shot him but he just won’t die?” he asked.
“Something like that. But I ran him off and checked on Les. She was a little pissed, but fine.” He grinned. “She turned the fire extinguisher on him.”
“No kidding?” Jack asked with a laugh. “I knew I liked her.”
During the course of the conversation, Paul mentioned that he’d rented Leslie a little house he’d fixed up and it was just a couple of blocks from the bar. And then, beer done, it was time for Paul to get home to dinner.
