The Brazen (Calamity Montana)

TWO MONTHS LATER . . .

“Tell me this is the last one, Steve.”

“This is the last one.”

“Thank God.” After this, there’d be no more of Grandpa’s requests from the grave.

He chuckled and stood from his chair, picking up the wool coat he’d draped over the back. “Sure is cold out today.”

“It is.” I steepled my hands in front of my chin, my mind not on the weather. “It’s been months since his death. He told you to wait this long?”

Steve nodded. “He was very clear in his wishes.”

“What if I had already trashed everything in the cabin by now?”

He shrugged on his wool coat. “Did you?”

“No.”

“Then I guess Gabriel assumed you wouldn’t.”

The bastard had probably known I’d avoid everything about that property. Which I had.

“May I ask . . . when did he do all of this? When did he add in these demands? It had to have been recently.” If it had been done years ago, he wouldn’t have had to force me to the cabin. Because that was exactly what these requests were doing. The ashes. Now this. Even in death, Grandpa was still pulling my strings.

“About three months before he passed.”

Three months.

A month after my divorce.

In a way, it was like he’d known he would die sooner rather than later. Though probably not in a plane crash. But the only reason he would have added this level of detail to his last requests was he’d known that I would never have spoken to him again.

Whether by accident or age, my relationship with him had ended the day he’d betrayed me. He’d been dead to me already.

Was this his way of punishing me after his death? His way of coercing me into doing what he damn well would have known I didn’t want to do?

“I don’t understand any of this.” I sighed, then stood and walked around my desk, escorting Steve to the door.

“Your grandfather was a complicated man,” he said. “But he always had his reasons.”

“This must have been to torture me.”

He grinned. “Spend a week up there. Clear out his things. You were going to sell it anyway, right?”

“As soon as the time limit has passed and I’m clear from the club’s stipulations.”

“Then you’d have to do it anyway.”

“I was going to pay someone to clear it out.”

“You still could. He’s gone, Pierce. He can’t make you do anything.”

I frowned. We both knew that wasn’t actually true. Just like I hadn’t ignored his wishes to invite Kerrigan and scatter his ashes, I wouldn’t ignore the letter Steve had delivered today either.

“Thanks.” I shook his hand and opened the door as he nodded and headed down the hallway. Then I returned to my desk and picked up Grandpa’s letter.

“What the hell are you doing, old man?” I touched the paper, taking in the familiar handwriting. I’d opened it and immediately recognized the tiny script. It was strange to see it again. Even stranger to feel so much from a few short sentences.

PIERCE,

As you know, the cabin is yours. I’d like you to be the one who clears out my personal belongings. Not your mother or a member of the staff. You.

Grandpa

READING those words was like a blow to the chest. In typical Gabriel Barlowe fashion, he’d skipped the sentiments. No hello. No sincerely. No emotion, just orders.

I hated that I missed him.

In the past two months, I’d done my best to not think of Grandpa and the destruction he’d brought to my life. Instead, I’d done everything in my power to erase him.

Merging Barlowe Capital with Grays Peak and incorporating his portfolio into mine was nearly complete. There were growing pains since my company had doubled overnight, but my executive team was ironing those out. Every client had been notified. Employees had been moved under my umbrella. We were all working from a single letterhead.

With one exception.

Kerrigan Hale.

Hers was the only account from Barlowe’s portfolio that hadn’t been assigned to a member of my team. Instead, I’d kept her to myself.

It. I’d kept it to myself.

I’d been telling myself for two months that the reason was because she wasn’t a long-term client. If Kerrigan didn’t pay, I’d delegate and let an account manager seize the necessary assets.

Lies. Excuses. The real reason wasn’t one I was going to admit, even to myself.

Every day, I waited for an email to appear in my inbox. Every day, I wondered if she’d call. In the past two months, Kerrigan had all but vanished.

Which should have made it easier to forget about her. Why couldn’t I forget about her? Why was it her face that popped into my mind during my sleepless nights?

Her voice. Her smile. Her eyes, the color of the most exquisite chocolate. That chestnut hair and her slender body. Kerrigan Hale was the ghost who haunted my wet dreams.

My cell phone rang and I picked it up, hoping to see a familiar Montana phone number. Instead, the screen read Cal Stark.

“Hey,” I answered with a smile. My best friend didn’t call often during football season.

“I need to get out of Tennessee.”

I chuckled. “You’re a free agent after next season. Maybe the Broncos need a new quarterback. Move back to Denver.”

He groaned. “They’ve got that hotshot kid they recruited from Michigan.”

“Seattle? You crushed them on Sunday. They need some tenured talent.”

“Maybe. But their GM is cheap, and I don’t want to take a pay cut.”

Cal’s contract with Tennessee was for $39 million a year. He was the second-highest-paid quarterback in the league.

But a pay cut would not only bruise his ego, it would mess with Cal’s retirement plans. Another couple of years and he’d walk away from football with money to last for generations if he was smart.

And though Cal had a reputation for being an asshole, he was very, very smart.

“I just want to be done with this season,” he said. “We’re only halfway through and I’m already tired.”

“Maybe you should retire.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Football has been my life for a long time. But damn I’m sick of Nashville. I went to the store today, popped in to get some steaks. Should have sent my assistant but he’s about to get fired and I didn’t want to talk to him. So I just went myself. Ten minutes. Fifteen, tops. Got mobbed with photographers and people wanting autographs. One guy came up to me, decked out head-to-toe in Packers gear, and told me exactly how I screwed up in the game they won against us in the preseason. People around us videoed the whole thing on their phones so I just had to stand there and listen.”

“You really think that’ll change if you move to a new city?”

“No,” he muttered. “Maybe I should retire.”

“You can come work for me. Nellie was telling me she needs an assistant.”

He barked a laugh. “Not for every dollar to your name.”

I laughed too.

Nellie and Cal had a hate-hate relationship. Putting them in the same room together always ended with a screaming fight.

This spring, I’d made the mistake of telling Cal that I was heading to Hawaii for a week. I’d needed to clear my head after the divorce. He’d decided to fly over as a surprise and join me. Except Nellie had come along too, both of them wanting to offer moral support.

The house I owned there was seven thousand square feet and the two of them could have easily avoided crossing paths. Instead, they’d woken me from a dead sleep and I’d had to break up a fight at three o’clock in the morning.

Cal had left early the next day. Nellie had informed me that if I ever let Cal sleep under the same roof as her, she’d never speak to me again. To this day, neither of them would tell me what that fight had been about.

Or why when I’d broken up the fight, Cal had been wearing only boxers and Nellie had been in a robe.

“What else is new?” he asked.

“Work. I’ve got to go to Montana again.”

“More shit with Gabriel?”

I picked up the letter, scanning it once more. “He requested that I go through his belongings at the mountain house.”

“He was a bastard, Pierce. Say fuck it, sell that place, and move on with your life. If you want a mountain house, build one in Colorado.”

Cal wasn’t wrong. But now my curiosity was in play and damn it, Grandpa had probably counted on that too. What exactly had he left at the cabin?

“You’ve got a game tomorrow, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’re at home so I can sleep in my own bed.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Nellie knocked on the door, then peeked her head inside. “Pierce? Oh, sorry.”

I waved her in and held up a finger for her to wait. “I’d better let you go, Cal.”

Nellie’s lip curled as she came to the desk.

“Nellie’s here,” I said. “She says hello.”

Nellie flipped me off.

“Gotta go.” Cal hung up.

I grinned and set the phone down as Nellie took a chair across from my desk.

“Why are you friends with him?” she asked.

“Cal’s not that bad.”

She scoffed. “He’s deplorable.”

Cal was just . . . Cal. He was arrogant and bold. He was naturally talented and extremely competitive, which made him a star athlete. But he had a nasty temper that he occasionally let loose, especially after losing a game. More than once he’d blown a fuse on camera, so his reputation wasn’t the best.

But the two of us had been friends since high school.

Cal worked hard and always had my back. He’d gone to Harvard with me for college, and though he’d been recruited to play football, he’d taken the opportunity to earn a world-class education in business.

He gave millions to charity. He loved his mother fiercely. He was a good man, but Nellie, like the rest of the world, didn’t see that version of Cal.

He didn’t let people see that version.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Jasmine called. Again.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to call her back?”

“I sent her a text last week.”

Nellie scowled. “Pierce, we need to talk about this.”

“Not yet. Please?” I sent her a pleading glance. I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

“Soon,” she warned.

“Soon.” I had a little more time. “Anything else?”

“Your noon meeting needed to reschedule so you’ve got an hour free that I’m stealing so we can go through some contracts. I’ll order us lunch. What do you feel like?”

“Whatever you want.” I shrugged, then handed over the letter from Grandpa. “Read this first.”

Her eyes were wide by the time she read the last line. “I don’t understand this. It’s been months, and this feels . . . cruel. I don’t think you should go. Not after what happened. He’s gone and doesn’t get to order you around. Not anymore. My advice is to tear this up, sell that cabin and be done with him.”

If only Nellie knew how much she and Cal had in common. They both usually gave me the same advice.

“No, I’m going to go.”

“Why?”

“Steve said this was the last request. Maybe there’s something important he stashed in his office up there. Something to do with Barlowe. I don’t know. But if I don’t go . . .”

“You’ll feel guilty.”

I nodded. “I don’t want anything hanging over my head. Not where he’s concerned.”

“Understandable.”

“I’ll head to the cabin and sort through his things. There can’t be much. And when I leave there, I’ll be done with everything in Montana.”

Nellie arched an eyebrow. “Even Kerrigan?”

I opened my mouth to say yes but the word wouldn’t come off my tongue.

Nellie’s expression was the definition of smug.

It was impossible to hide anything from her. She knew I hadn’t handed Kerrigan’s contract off to an account manager. She also knew that I’d been keeping an eye on real estate in Calamity—she’d caught an open browser window on my monitor weeks ago.

Kerrigan had put the farmhouse on the market. So far, she’d dropped the price twice, yet there didn’t appear to be any movement. One half of her duplex had been rented but the other still appeared in the weekly classifieds along with the studio apartment above The Refinery.

I assumed Nellie was still talking to her on a regular basis but hadn’t let myself ask. The number of times Kerrigan Hale crossed my mind each day was no one’s problem but my own.

Yet she hadn’t reached out. She also hadn’t sent a payment. There’d been no emails begging for an audience. No calls asking for another extension. I’d stalked her social media accounts a week ago, curiosity besting me late one night.

In every photo of herself at the gym, Kerrigan wore a smile. A beautiful, sparkling smile I couldn’t seem to get out of my head.

Maybe if she hadn’t told me how she’d met Grandpa. Maybe if she hadn’t spoken about him with such admiration and respect. Maybe if I hadn’t felt a semblance of that affection myself, I would have been able to let her go.

It didn’t really matter. Kerrigan’s loan was coming due, and it was time to let it go. To let all of it go.

“How miserable is my calendar next week?”

Nellie winced. “Miserable.”

“Clear it anyway.” It would be a train wreck when I came back, but I wanted this done. “Let’s get through as much as we can today. Then I’ll head out tomorrow.”

“Do you want to fly or drive?”

“Drive.”

I’d take this one last trip.

And bid farewell to Montana.

“YOU’RE HERE for the week, correct?”

“Yes, just the week,” I told the cabin’s caretaker.

“Very good.” He nodded. “I’m glad you made it before the storm. It’s blowing in hard.”

I glanced past him to the windows and the cloud-covered sky. It was nearly dark already and it was only four. “I’m glad I made it too.”

When I’d hit a blizzard in Wyoming, I’d almost considered turning back.

“If the snow gets bad, the roads will be awful,” he said. “I’d recommend staying close to home. But we’ve loaded the fridge and the pantry. I can always come over on the snowmobile if you need anything else. We keep plenty on hand for the whole club and there aren’t many people here this week.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Sullivan. Please call me or the club office if you need anything at all.”

“Appreciated.” I escorted him to the door, then closed it as he headed out into the cold.

I shivered and walked to the fireplace, holding out my hands to the flames. A chill had burrowed under my skin and even though I’d been inside for thirty minutes, I couldn’t seem to get warm.

The scent of wood, ash and furniture polish clung to the air. A cleaning crew had swept through the place after Nellie’s call yesterday, alerting them I was headed up. I hoped that soup was part of the foodstuffs they’d left for me because I didn’t have the energy to cook.

I didn’t have the energy for much.

Last night, after a grueling day of work to prepare for a week I really couldn’t afford to take off, I’d retreated to the penthouse around midnight to pack and sleep for a few hours. Then because of the weather report, I’d woken around three to hit the road.

Maybe it was just the lack of sleep, but I hadn’t felt great all day. After thirteen hours on the road, a slow trip thanks to the storm in Wyoming, I felt more like roadkill than a road warrior.

There were emails and phone calls to return, but all I wanted was to sleep. But instead, I went to the state-of-the-art kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee. The sooner I got this trip over with, the better.

With a hot mug in hand, I forced myself up the stairs and down the hallway to the master bedroom. Grandpa’s bedroom. I’d avoided this room the last time I’d come here, choosing to sleep in the guest suite. Of all the rooms, the master would be the worst to go through. And I might as well get it over with.

Not much could make this day worse.

The closet was empty except for a red ski coat he must have left behind. I tugged it from the hanger—it could be the start to my donate pile. The bathroom was empty except for some stocked toiletries that the club crew had brought over this morning. They had an outdated list because bottles of women’s shampoo and conditioner were on the counter.

Dismissing them both, I went to the nightstand, where there was only one photo. I swiped it up and stalked out of the room, flipping off the lights. Then I took the photo to the garbage can in the kitchen and tossed it inside.

That photo should have been thrown out months ago. “Fucking bastard.”

This whole trip was a mistake. It truly was his way of torturing me. Keeping that photo, forcing me to toss it out, was sadistic.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, my head beginning to throb at the temples. Then I took a long gulp of coffee, still feeling cold.

One room for today was enough. I dumped out the rest of my coffee and walked out of the kitchen for the living room, planning on sitting down and watching Cal’s game. Then I was going to bed.

I was nearly at the couch when the doorbell rang.

“Ugh,” I groaned and made my way to the door, not feeling like putting on a happy face for the club staff. I yanked the door open, a blast of cold wind hitting me in the face. I blinked and swatted at the snow blowing my way, only to find that it wasn’t the caretaker on my stoop.

It was Kerrigan.

“Hi,” she said.

Her cheeks were flushed. Her nose was rosy, and behind her, the storm raged over the mountains.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nellie said you’d be here.”

Christ. These women were testing my sanity.

Another gust of wind blew Kerrigan’s chestnut hair around her face and I stretched forward, taking her by the elbow and tugging her inside, shutting out the storm.

She stomped her boots on the rug. “I’m going to make this quick.”

“Your loan is due tomorrow.” Why was that the first thing out of my mouth? Maybe to remind myself that she was strictly a professional acquaintance so I wouldn’t do something stupid like kiss her again.

“I have a check.” She dove into her handbag, pulling out a folded piece of paper and thrusting it into my hand. “Here.”

I opened it and looked at the amount. Forty thousand, six hundred twenty-three dollars.

“That’s not everything,” she said.

“Not even close.” It came out sharper than I’d meant, and the look of sheer humiliation on Kerrigan’s face was my punishment.

“That’s what I have,” she said. “It’s a dent. A little dent, but a dent all the same. And I have a plan to discuss with you.”

“And you couldn’t have done it over the phone or email?”

“The last time I tried that tactic, you ignored me for thirty days. I’m sticking with what works.”

“So you just show up at my house?”

“Desperate times, Mr. Sullivan.” She raised her chin and put on a brave face. I’d seen the same the day I’d tossed Grandpa’s ashes into the wind and she’d stood her ground, making me listen. I was glad I had.

Kerrigan opened her mouth to tell me whatever it was she was going to tell me.

But before she could speak, the power went out.