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“You and Remy-”
“Boy, please. You’re not here for us.” She narrowed her eyes. “I got a bad feeling it has something to do with the rumor your momma was in town not long ago, looking for some gems.”
I stared into my mug, seeing my reflection in the black.
“There are no gems,” I said. “There probably never were. I’ve searched that house inside and out.”
“What about your momma? You telling me her being around wasn’t a draw?”
“That was part of it,” I said, sitting in a pool of sunshine, thoughts of my mother just floated through me instead of weighing me down.
I sucked down the coffee and shuddered as it jackknifed into my system.
“What you planning, boy?”
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had a bunch of things I wanted to say to my mother. I wanted answers to questions that kept me up nights. But I knew in my heart of hearts that it was fruitless. The questions about why she’d left me, Savannah and Carter would go unanswered, and frankly, it was about time I moved on. Stopped being a kid left on a doorstep by a mother who didn’t care about me.
“Truth is,” I said, unsure of why I was even talking about this. But that’s what booze and music and kissing the best woman I’d ever known got me—confused, weak. “I was lonely.”
“You?” Priscilla asked with a snort. “What about that girlfriend of yours? That French woman.”
“It didn’t work out.” I left it at that, the whole story too depressing to get into with the feel of Juliette branded back into the skin of my arms like a graft from the past.
“Well, I’m not sure what you expect,” Priscilla said, taking a sip of coffee. “You live in Las Vegas. In a hotel. I’ve never heard of anything so lonely in my life.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said, as though the past ten years of my life could be considered “a time.”
“Well, you’re here now,” she said, as if me being here meant something. And I wished it did.
I wanted to be here because this was my home.
Priscilla sat there, a hundred pounds of speculation and anticipation, and I just didn’t have the strength to wait her out.
“Okay, just say it,” I said.
“Juliette was here,” Priscilla said. “You got a death wish over that woman?”
I sighed. “I think so, yes.”
“It’s not funny. She’s police chief over in Bonne Terre.”
“That’s what I’m told,” I drawled.
“I would have thought that ten years ago you might have learned your lesson. A woman like that, she’s just—”
I held up my hand not interested in disparaging comments against Juliette, even if they were born out of loyalty to me. I thought she’d get over me in time. That after a few months away from me, a couple of handsome men to take her mind off her broken heart, she’d move on.
Her father, after all, had been right – she was far too good for me.
The anger wasn’t surprising. She deserved to be angry.
But the pain…the pain was still so real. So fresh. Like seeing me ripped a bandage off a wound that wasn’t healed.
“Trust me, I learned my lesson,” I said, trying to end the conversation.
“So what was last night?”
I sighed, tipping my head back, wishing there was some kind of answer to that question that made sense, that wasn’t locked up in the past and those old feelings for Juliette.
I love her, I thought but could never say. I always have.
“I have no idea.”
Priscilla’s eyes snapped and she uncrossed her legs, leaning forward, all but breathing fire.
“Then stay away, Tyler. Women like her…” She trailed off, and maybe it was the hangover or the peanut shell, but whatever it was, I was pissed.
“Women like her what?”
“She’s not for you.”
I nodded, my temper a bear coming out of hibernation. The likes of us. I’d been hearing that crap my whole damn life.
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked, my voice cutting through the haze of Priscilla’s cigarette. “Because I’m rich now, Priscilla. I mean, I’ve got way more money than the Tremblants ever did.”
“It’s not about money. It’s about blood. It’s about what people think.”
“Well, it’s not like Jasper Tremblant has been a model citizen his whole life,” I said, thinking about the night I left and Jasper’s role in the whole thing. “I don’t see him pumping huge amounts of money back into my community.”
I felt slimy tooting my own horn like that, but sometimes being the unsung hero got a little old, particularly when everyone around here still thought I was white trash. Selfish white trash.
“You’re right, that man’s got some wires crossed, that’s for sure. But I’m just saying—out in the world, you can be whoever you want. But here—” she arched her thin eyebrows “—you’re a Notorious O’Neill. The worst of them. And that’s all that woman is ever gonna see.”
