Chapter 1 – Happy Birthday to Me
74 Hours
(10:00 p.m. Friday)
The night I died wasn’t a regular night. It was the eve of my thirtieth birthday and I sat, all alone, in a nightclub nursing a big-ass martini I couldn’t afford.
I know, sad, right? Stick with me; it gets worse.
From my stool at the long mahogany bar I had a perfect view of the other patrons in the mirror. If I shifted slightly, my own reflection would come into view. Believe me, I wasn’t one of those vain people who tried to catch a glimpse of herself in every store window. I knew my limitations. Despite the extensive effort I had put into my appearance tonight, I still fell painfully short of the nightclub’s other clientele.
I didn’t have to see my reflection to know my face was paler than usual, and, despite a very 1980s effort with hot rollers, my brown hair hung limply down my back. My eyes—moss or emerald green, depending on my mood—were the only parts of myself that I truly loved. They were so caked in eyeliner and mascara that I doubted someone standing right in front of me could determine the color. Besides changing shades with my moods, they almost take over my narrow face when I’m nervous. Tonight, they were probably as big as saucers.
Speaking of big, in the bottom corner of the mirror I could just make out the reflection of the rim of my big-ass martini sitting on the bar in front of me. I had nursed it for the better part of an hour due to 1) my indifference toward hard liquor—give me a crisp Texas pinot grigio any day, 2) the outrageous cost of said big-ass martini, and 3) my lack of funds. For someone who had been subsisting on ramen noodles at thirteen cents per package (if I bought them in bulk at Walmart), an eighteen-dollar drink was quite the splurge.
For the third time in almost as many minutes, the burly, hairy, not to mention stinky guy sitting on the next barstool bumped me with his elbow. He fit in here even less than I did, and frankly, his hulking presence and constant bumping were making me nervous.
I considered moving to a different stool, but a quick review of the open barstools convinced me to hold my current location, even if it meant sitting next to big, hairy, and stinky. The other options didn’t give me the mirror, and I needed its reflection to scope out the crowd for possibilities without having to turn and face them. I was a woman on a mission, albeit an excruciatingly shy woman with not a few reservations about said mission.
Ah, the mission. I still haven’t explained why I was sitting at the bar of The Perch, a very posh nightclub located in the equally posh Dragonfly Hotel in Big D (Dallas, for those of you who aren’t from around here).
I had booked a room upstairs for the night, at the risk of maxing out my credit card, and its key was tucked safely in my minuscule sateen purse. The purse sat innocently on my lap, but cross my heart and hope to die, I could feel the key burning a hole through the material. Maybe it had branded an A, as in a scarlet A, on my leg.
The scarlet A reference should give you a clue as to the main objective of my mission. Tomorrow I would turn thirty. The BIG 3-0. Tonight I was facing down the end of my twenties, determined to get some living in during these last hours. In fact, I hoped the living would carry into the early hours of my thirtieth year.
If I had known, sitting on that barstool, determined to escape my pitiful shell for just a few hours, what awaited me when I was dead . . . let’s just say I would have run like crazy the few blocks to The Madam (my old Victorian house, which I was renovating into a wine bar and dog park), barred the door, and hidden under my bed for a week.
Although . . . maybe not. It’s funny now that I think about it: I had to die to start really living.
But again, I digress. Back to the mission. It was a fairly simple plan, or at least I thought it was. I was looking for a one-night stand.
Don’t judge.
You see, I had led a relatively safe and incredibly boring life for my first twenty-nine years. It’s a tale as old as time: I was the small-town Texas girl who married her high school sweetheart. The story veered off track, literally, when a tractor accident widowed me at twenty-seven. My life could have been the inspiration for a sappy country song. Jad—my heart still pulled at the thought of him—was the only man I’d ever been with. You know, WITH.
Moving on had proved difficult, but I hoped that having one crazy night completely outside my comfort zone might be the catalyst to launch me into the life I wanted. A life without fear. A life where I not only dreamed big dreams but lived them. A life without regrets. Well, that last one was a pretty tall order, but a girl could hope, right?
So, in summary, I was a twenty-nine-year-old widow, sitting there with her big-ass martini that she could only afford one more of, trying to work up the courage to troll the bar for some stranger to help her ring in the BIG 3-0.
Happy birthday to me.
Giving one last, longing look at my fellow patrons in the mirror, I gulped half of my martini for courage, returned the glass to the bar, then slowly swiveled my barstool to face the rest of the nightclub.
The Perch wasn’t my idea of a meat market, although Owen Carter, the web designer for my soon-to-be-opened business, had assured me it was. I had imagined a dance floor, flashing lights, and crowds of sweaty people wriggling to techno music. Instead, leather sofas and cushy chairs gave it the feeling of an upscale Starbucks. A speakeasy, this was not. Rather than reassuring me with its sophistication, The Perch made me feel even worse about my mission—dirty, somehow.
The notion that I had crossed the enemy’s line and was operating in their territory was as hard to shake as the feeling that I was cheating on The Madam by taking a room at the attached hotel. But I could help none of that. The Perch was the closest club to The Madam, and just because the owners of the Dragonfly Hotel were trying to torpedo my business opening didn’t mean that I shouldn’t be here.
Big and stinky’s elbow jostled me out of my reverie. Luckily, my glass sat safely on the bar or I would have been wearing my martini like perfume. If my drink hadn’t been so expensive, I would have ‘accidentally’ spilled it on him. Gin would have been an immense improvement on the wet-dog and body-odor smells wafting from him, topped off with a considerable dose of cheap cologne. He probably thought the cologne masked the other smells.
I looked him up and down, mainly to put off making eye contact with the other patrons. He was huge in both height and girth, and not in an attractive way. His jeans and T-shirt were ill-fitting and decidedly rumpled, and his forehead had a sheen of sweat.
Sympathy for his obvious discomfort welled up inside me. It lasted just about as long as it took him to bump me again when he waved for the bartender. I glared indignantly at him. The bastard hadn’t apologized once. I decided to ignore him and get back to looking for Mr. Right Now.
My gaze slid slowly across the dark throng of twenty- and early thirty-somethings in their business suits and little black dresses, or LBDs as the magazines called them. They lounged indiscriminately on the leather sofas or stood in small groups, each one looking more affluent, more attractive, and more at ease than the next.
My slow scan screeched to a halt as I met dark eyes staring intently at me. I shivered at the uncanny feeling that they weren’t just staring at me but into me, then I broke eye contact to take in the rest of him.
Holy Mama! He sat on one of the sofas but he still looked tall, or maybe that was just wishful thinking. I like them tall. His dark hair matched his eyes and, while longer than I usually liked on a guy, on him it worked. Boy, did it work. His light skin was a dramatic contrast to his hair and eyes. His dark suit fit like it was made for him, and even this Target shopper could recognize that it probably was.
My lips parted and I sighed involuntarily, thinking of all the things I would let HIM do to me. Unfortunately, I knew I was safe because he wasn’t looking at me. Men like that didn’t look at girls like me. I could drool, uh, dream, though.
He raised his drink to me in a silent salute. Oh, God! He had caught me staring. I dropped my gaze to the floor, and red flooded my face. Wait! The bar was behind me. He must have been signaling the bartender he needed another drink. I almost slumped from relief. Or disappointment.
I stole a quick glance back at him. He was still looking in my direction. I peeked over my right shoulder to see if the bartender had noticed tall, pale, and handsome trying to get his attention. The bartender was at the other end of the bar.
I reached behind me for my drink and took a quick sip, looking up from beneath my lashes to see if he was still looking in my direction. He was! Unfortunately, in my surprise and excitement the sip became a gulp, and the gin burned its way down my throat. I gave a few small coughs and struggled to keep them from turning into a full-blown fit.
When I recovered, my eyes watery and burning, I glanced up to find him still watching me, now with a slight smile. Mortification battled with amazement. What now? The burning gin had emboldened me.
While I mulled over my next move, a pale, delicate hand cupped his cheek and turned his head away from me, breaking our eye contact. The hand belonged to the woman who sat on the couch next to him. She was quite possibly the most stunning creature I had ever seen. I call her a creature because she was so beautiful, she seemed otherworldly. She was so white she almost glowed, as if made from purest alabaster. The minuscule red dress she wore was the same shade as her flowing hair. So much for redheads not wearing red.
She left her hand on his face, staking her claim. They made such a stunning match I couldn’t stop staring.
Oh crap! Crap, crap, crap! Her gaze had turned on me, and unhappy didn’t even begin to describe her expression.
I decided a trip to the powder room was in order; anything to escape the daggers her eyes were throwing at me. I considered the half-full martini I had nursed for the better part of an hour. The bartender was busy at the far end of the bar, ogling the cleavage of a very Dallas-type girl—big hair, big boobs, and dark tan. I didn’t think my barely C cups (on a good day) were enough to drag his attention away from those triple Ds long enough to tell him not to throw away my drink while I was gone. I looked to my left. Big, dark, and stinky was definitely not an option for a drink protector.
Maybe a little buzz was what I needed to move my mission along. I took a deep breath and finished my martini in four big swallows, trying not to grimace and shudder.
On the way to the powder room, I peeked over to where tall, pale, and gorgeous sat with the redhead. Only he was no longer there. She was sitting by herself, staring at me and looking really pissed.
That was when I nearly mowed somebody down. The somebody had excellent reflexes, his hands on my arms abruptly halting my forward motion before I slammed into him. Damn! My eyes were level with his broad chest, and it was a body that I wouldn’t have minded experiencing full contact with.
“Hello, are you okay?” he asked. The deep voice washed over me like warm caramel covering a scoop of ice cream.
“Aaarrrhhh.” The power of coherent speech abandoned me when I raised my eyes from his chest to his face. It was Mr. Tall, Pale, and Handsome. I slid my eyes over to the redhead. She looked even more pissed off than before. When I looked back up at him, his lips twitched in humor. Amusement made him more attractive. Amusement at me, which I should have taken offense to, but I couldn’t. He was just so beautiful.
“I’m surprised to see you here.” His voice, not only the sound but the slight accent, something Slavic maybe, distracted me momentarily from his words. “Surprised, but happy and encouraged by your presence. Of course, if you had responded to any of my calls or letters, I would have been happy to set up an official tour of my property.”
Stupidly I stared at him, my brain fuzzy from the martini. Pieces slowly came together in my mind, and the picture they formed wasn’t pretty.
“Mrs. Thompson? Laramie Thompson?” he asked. At my slow nod he continued, “Marek Cerny. CEO of Cerny Enterprises. We have been trying to contact you, but . . . never mind. It is good that you are here now.”
Caught! I looked down, breaking eye contact until I could decide how to respond. My gaze focused on my shoes, the cheap black pumps from Target. I had to leave. What had I been thinking? I didn’t belong here.
“Mr. Cerny . . .” I trailed off as I looked up at him, only to see that I no longer held his attention. He was scanning the room as if trying to spot someone, and he was . . . sniffing? Judging from his face, he had gotten a whiff of something offensive.
Please, God, just let me die. The odor from big and stinky must have transferred to me during the many bumps. My humiliation was complete. Or so I thought.
“Don’t leave The Perch,” said Marek with alarming intensity, his eyes meeting and holding mine.
Once again, pinned by his gaze, I could only nod stupidly. After a quick motion to the redhead, he pushed past me and headed towards the bar. I looked to see what had attracted his attention but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Big, hairy, and stinky was no longer on his barstool, but he wasn’t my concern.
Marek Cerny was my concern. I had been avoiding letters, emails, and phone calls from him and a Grace O’Malley for months. I didn’t intend to deal with them on my night out, so I headed for the club’s exit, only to stumble over an end table before I’d made it three feet. The table rocked precariously and I mumbled an apology to it. What was happening to me? A few healthy sips of gin, coupled with an attractive man, and I was stumbling into and apologizing to inanimate objects? I had to get out of here. But first, a stop at the club’s bathroom to regroup seemed in order.
I entered the bathroom and thought for a minute that someone else was in there before I realized it was my own fuzzy reflection in the full-length mirror. I had been slightly plump all my life. What polite country people described as big-boned. After Jad’s death, the weight had just melted off me. So far, knock on wood, I hadn’t gained it back. It had been two years, but I still didn’t recognize the thin person who looked back at me. My dress hung on me loosely, as I couldn’t seem to bring myself to buy clothes in my new size.
I didn’t really need to use the facilities, so to speak, but as long as I was there I might as well. Never waste an opportunity to pee, I thought, and a small giggle surprised me. I’m not sure why that was funny. Just like I wasn’t sure why walking had become such a challenge.
I made it into a stall and maneuvered my dress and tiny sexy underwear, bought specifically for this occasion, into the proper peeing position. Another thing I couldn’t get used to was not needing Spanx. The benefits of your husband dying young, I thought with another small giggle. I gasped when I realized where my thoughts had gone, and tears filled my eyes. I would gladly be big-boned for the rest of my life to have Jad back. Wouldn’t I? I mean, we’d had our problems, but he was the love of my life. Right?
I leaned my head back to keep the tears from running down my face and ruining the free makeover I had gotten at the Clinique counter. I dabbed furiously at my eyes with a piece of toilet paper. It was the good stuff, at least two-ply. I should ask the manager what kind it was so I could stock it when I opened my business, The Whine Barrel. I had decided to name it that since it combined my two loves, wine and dogs. Then I remembered that I might never open The Whine Barrel, and I would probably lose my house in the process. I welled up again. Pull yourself together, Laramie.
I was trying to push up from the toilet seat when I heard the tap, tap, tap of high heels. The sound galvanized me into action. I didn’t want to be caught crying in a toilet stall on my birthday. How pitiful was that?
I arranged my clothing, flushed, and left the safety of the stall. Dang, it! The other occupant of the bathroom was none other than the stunning creature who had been with Marek Cerny.
She had to be Grace O’Malley, Cerny’s right-hand man, er, woman, if rumors were correct. Her glorious red hair and porcelain skin practically screamed, “I’m Irish.” I wasn’t entirely sure, though. Cerny Enterprises garnered an obscene amount of press coverage that included constant gushing over both Cerny and O’Malley’s business acumen. The articles always included pictures of their properties, managers, and employees, but never of them.
She leaned close to the mirror and reapplied lipstick in the same bold shade of red as her hair and dress, her eyes still focused on my reflection. I felt trapped, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk out of the bathroom without washing my hands. I mean, come on. What would she think of me?
I stepped up to the sink and went through the motions. Turn on the water, wet hands, get soap, rub hands with soap and water for at least twenty seconds. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand . . .
“Would you be all right?” the stunning creature asked with a small frown. Like Cerny—Marek, I thought dreamily—she had only a slight accent. But where his accent had seemed Eastern European, hers had an Irish lilt. Or maybe all that red hair was making me fanciful.
My whimsy quickly turned to horror at the thought that maybe I had been counting out loud as I washed my hands.
“I’m fine,” I replied, deliberately enunciating my words. What the hell, I might as well go for broke. “Are you having a good time tonight?”
Grace O’Malley turned to face me. She seemed to consider her response carefully. “I cannot say that I am. Marek seems quite distracted, and I need his mind fully on the business at hand.”
Taking The Madam away from me, I thought, but I stammered out inanely, “That’s too bad.”
I turned to throw my crumpled paper towel into the trash bin, swayed again, and almost lost my balance. Grace’s sudden grip on my arm kept me from falling. She was strong, her hands icy on my warm arms. Cold hands, warm heart, I mused, giggling to myself again.
After reassuring herself that I was steady, she released my arm. “Leaving would be in your best interest. You don’t belong here, especially not in this condition.”
I wanted to be offended by the “You don’t belong here” statement, but wasn’t it precisely what I had been saying to myself all night? To my mortification, once again my eyes filled with tears.
Grace heaved a very put-upon sigh.
“Jaysus! Why does everyone have to be so sensitive? Look, this is not the place for you, especially when you are in no fit condition. You couldn’t look after yourself if your life depended on it. Which it might.”
The last part she said partially under her breath. I heard it, but I couldn’t process it. A loud sniffle was my inadequate response. She softened a fraction and sighed.
“My name is Grace, and I’ll get you home. You’ll come to no harm with me.”
I sniffed again, stared at the floor and mumbled, “Thank you, but I’m staying here tonight. I have a room.”
Grace gave me a hard look and then nodded.
“That’ll do. I’ll walk you to your room.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I mumbled to the floor. “I’m going now. Thank you.”
