“No. I just got here. You said this might be good for me.”
“You hate it.”
“Hate’s a strong word.” Zoey scanned the high ceilings and suddenly found it easier to breathe. “It’ll take some getting used to, that’s all.”
Mitch met her eyes. “Okay, how can I help you acclimate?”
“Get rid of the dead animals.”
“Huh?”
“The trophies.” She pointed to the mounted heads. “They’re gross, and they give me the creeps.”
“You had to hurt their feelings, didn’t you?”
“Stop it.” Spending time with her ex felt better than she cared to admit. In order to break the spell, she stared at the floor.
“Where should I put them?”
She’d always been attracted to his voice. That hadn’t changed. She raised her head and watched him unbutton his cuffs. “I don’t care. Anywhere, as long as they’re out of the house.”
Mitch rolled up his sleeves. “Done. Anything else?” His deep browns swirled like hot fudge, and she wanted to swim in them.
“Stay for coffee?”
“Sure.”
“I take it you know where to find everything?”
He nodded.
“I’m going up to change. Make yourself comfortable.”
She ascended the stairs, thinking about their past—lazy Sunday cookouts, dirt fights in the garden, bicycle rides along Lake Michigan. She tried to discount the memories, but warmness filled her heart, forcing her to acknowledge once, not too long ago, she and Mitch had had something authentic.
She’d met Mitch during a photo shoot in Utah. He had just gutted a neighborhood of deteriorated buildings and turned a huge profit. At the time she’d worked for Curtis Greer, a journalist with a moral bone to pick. Environmentalists claimed Mitch Hawthorne planned to bulldoze a corner of the forest and erect a small shopping center. Curtis chomped at the bit to get the story, but Mitch would neither admit nor deny the accusation.
Curtis headed his article, “Ain’t Mitch a Bitch!”
While Curtis conducted the interview, Zoey watched Mitch through the viewfinder. His smile was radiant and sincere, and his eyes were mindful, too mindful for money to be his motivation. Curtis grilled Mitch for a week, allowing Zoey to snap enough headshots to read Mr. Hawthorne’s deceiving personality. He withheld information. Based on her interpretation of his shimmering eyes, he had surprises planned.
She’d finally confronted him. “You’re not a jerk,” she said. “But what I can’t figure out is why you’re playing this game, leading Curtis on and letting half the town think you’re going to demolish a piece of heaven. Wouldn’t it be easier to tell the truth?”
His vibrant laugh and watchdog expression was how she knew she’d hit the nail.
“I’m having fun,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“I can think of a dozen other ways to have fun, and at least one way to have a blast.”
Mitch gazed clear into her soul. “I thought you’d never ask. What time should I pick you up?”
“Depends, are we grabbing a bite to eat first?”
They made love for two days, and on the third day Mitch greeted the public with an official announcement. Six months before Zoey and Curtis had arrived, Mitch’s mother passed, leaving him five hundred acres. His attorney had recently crossed the final T on clandestine paperwork, and the city learned Mitch had donated the acreage to wildlife conservationists. The forest would remain intact. Afterward he packed his bags and followed Zoey to Chicago.
Curtis renamed his article, “Mitch Madness—The Man Behind the Myth.”
Zoey refocused on the present. She walked into the bedroom, noticing the walnut furniture, seaweed-colored curtains and king-size sleigh bed. Rather chic for a crotchety old man who supposedly never answered the door without a loaded rifle. She’d heard he had rabbit and raccoon carcasses draped like wet dishrags around the property. His style preference didn’t reflect his primitive behavior. Nothing fit, even the suicide. Without admitting it out loud, she agreed with Dr. Selden. What eighty-year-old wealthy man hangs himself?
She inhaled, relieved Mitch had tidied her mess. Milo’s pictures were in place and her luggage was put away. What were her plans, she wondered. Today, tomorrow, for the rest of her life—a busy mind made her skin itch. She went to the nightstand and swallowed a couple of her favorite oblong pills, undressed, released her hair from the tie and slipped into a long apricot-colored satin robe. After being poked, punctured and taped, the soft fabric felt kind against her skin.
Zoey headed downstairs and then paused on the bottom step to get a look around. Her main concern was the removal of the deer heads, and they were gone. She gently massaged her forehead, trying to alleviate the wavy feeling in her brain. Mitch drank coffee near the dining table. He gazed out the window, and Zoey caught herself admiring the size of his hands. She walked toward him, eyes roving for the cup of tea she suspected he had fixed.
He turned and took quick but obvious notice of her clingy robe. “Feeling better?”
“Oh yeah.” She strolled into the kitchen and spotted her steamy drink next to the bottle of cough syrup near the microwave. She picked up the mug and took a sip.
“How’s your shoulder?” Mitch stepped closer.
“Fine.”
“And your throat?”
“Good.” She sipped again and added, “How are you?”
Mitch studied her pupils with a surgeon’s focus. He wordlessly accused her of popping pills.
“Yes, I took my meds,” she said. “My shoulder was killing me, and now it’s not. Okay?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” She moseyed into the dining area and stood next to the table. “Where’d you put the deer heads?”
He followed, sticky as fine cat hair. “In the garage.”
“Thanks.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and receded in thought for several seconds. He finally asked, “Are you happy?”
“No.”
“Why, then?”
“Why what?”
“Why the pills? The booze? Abandoning your career, your passion, if none of it helps your attitude?”
“Gee, I don’t know there’s this thing eating away at me. A ginormous thing. My fucking son died.”
“He’s my son too. Do you consider me at all in this?”
“Yeah, but you’re strong and I’m weak.” She slurped her tea and set the mug on the table.
“You’re one of the strongest people I know, Zoey.”
“Knew, Mitch, knew.”
He shook his head. “Do you miss me?”
“Sometimes.” She could smell his nectarous breath.
“I miss you bad.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and gave a single stroke to her neck with his knuckles.
Like a pebble dropped in a pond, his touch caused pleasurable tingles throughout her entire body. “You should go.” She acknowledged her toes.
“I should.” He lifted