How weird was that?
He seemed to like it and his letters were filled with stories about all the people that worked there and the regulars who came in, especially the lady who owned it, India Savage (but, according to Uncle Tex, folks called her Indy).
In his letters, I could tell that Uncle Tex liked everyone, especially Indy (and, lately, another girl named Jet). He said Indy had “spunk” and Uncle Tex liked spunk. He also liked mettle, which he told me Jet had, even though (he said) she didn’t know it. Lastly, he liked sass which he said another girl he worked with, Ally, had (apparently, in abundance). In his letters, I could also tell that this Indy person had kind of adopted Uncle Tex and that it was changing him, for the good.
So, I worked Denver into my plan, thinking maybe this Indy had performed some magic and Uncle Tex wouldn’t close the door in my face (like he did with my Grams when she tried to visit all those times, and with my Mom, when she and my aunts went with Grams all those times). Therefore, I decided to add a second agenda item to my plan, getting Uncle Tex back to the family: killing two birds with one stone.
* * * * *
It was a Sunday in early October when I arrived. I saw, for the first time, Denver’s big, blue skies that went on forever and the Front Range spreading across the west making the words “purple mountain majesties” a reality to me. Even with the sun, there was a nip in the air.
I arrived early in the morning, got a hotel room (with cash, I didn’t want Billy to find me just yet), showered and did myself up. It was, to my thinking, a special occasion, meeting Uncle Tex for the first time and furthermore, I loved clothes (well, I loved designer clothes). Mom said I wore my designer threads like armor. Dad said if they were armor, they weren’t working because they acted more like a magnet.
Anyhoo.
I wore my hair to just above my shoulders and got it cut at a place that cost a fortune so that it was all soft waves and little flippies at the ends. I did up my face and put on a charcoal gray wool, to-the-knee skirt that fit like a second skin, cupped my ass, straight at the front and flicked out in kick-pleats at the backs of my knees. I wore this with a black, figure-skimming, wool turtleneck sweater and a pair of gorgeous, spike-heeled black boots that cost so much money that I feared Billy was going to have a seizure when he saw the price on the side of the box. At my ears, I put in a pair of diamond studs that Billy bought me, likely with dirty money but they were diamonds and he didn’t often help with the rent, so I kept them. On my wrist, I put on my silver Raymond Weil watch with its mother-of-pearl face and finished the ensemble with my black, Lalique glass ring.
I couldn’t afford all this, not with taking care of Billy and me. To feed my passion for labels, I saved and trolled for all my treasures, carefully hoarding money or trawling nearly new shops (not to mention, I was addicted to online auction sites) for other people’s glamorous cast-offs. I did it as a hobby. I did it because I loved nice things and lately, I did it to remind myself of the life I’d left behind when I let myself fall in love with Billy. This also served as a reminder of why I had to find a way to get rid of him.
I spritzed with Boucheron, threw my little Fendi bag over my shoulder (bought for a third of its retail price, never used, from a soon-to-be divorcee at her pre-divorce yard sale), programmed the address in the sat nav and headed to Uncle Tex’s house.
He wasn’t home.
I was surprised, it was Sunday and, for years, Uncle Tex had never left his block. Now he had a job but I didn’t reckon he was to the point of gallivanting around Denver.
Though, in his latest letters, it sounded like he was doing a fair amount of gallivanting.
I waited for a while and he didn’t come home. So, I went to a phone booth, looked up Fortnum’s bookstore and programmed the address in my sat nav.
I found a parking spot on Broadway and walked up to the door, which opened at the corner of Bayaud and Broadway. It looked like a cool store, hip but not in a trendy way, in the way that only long-standing, cool-ass establishments could be hip, that is to say, naturally.
Then, I walked into the store.
And I loved it immediately. It smelled musty from what looked like acres of disorganized books shelved, from what I could see, willy-nilly at the back of the store.
I loved to read, loved books, libraries and bookstores and this, I could tell right away, was one of the best.
The front of the store was made up of the book counter to the left, on the right was a big espresso counter and all through the middle were tables and chairs, armchairs and comfy couches with low tables on which to set coffees.
I’d stopped when I’d entered and then my breath left me when I scanned the couches.
Sitting on the couches, all drinking coffee, were a bunch of men. Not just any men. It looked like GQ was having a convention and all the best looking guys had decided to have a coffee at Fortnum’s before going to seminars on how to cope with being really, unbelievably, fucking gorgeous.
There were five of them; two looked a lot alike, like they were brothers. But, of the lot, it was only the one with the whisky-colored eyes that got my attention. They were all looking at me, but the minute my eyes hit Whisky, I felt light-headed and had to stand stock still or I’d have fallen over in a dead faint.
I knew what it was, it had happened before when I saw Billy, that fatal attraction. But either it had been a long time or I didn’t remember how huge the feeling was because it hit me like a freight train and I was thrown for a loop.
To cover this, I looked away and tried to walk calmly up to the espresso counter where a female version of Whisky was serving and was her own, feminine brand of gorgeous. She was watching the guys then she looked at me, grinning like something was deeply amusing.
“Can I help?” she asked.
I’d forgotten why I was there, looking for my Uncle Tex, so I did what anyone would do when confronted with an espresso machine, I ordered a skinny latte with caramel syrup.
“Gotcha,” she said then went to work on my drink and I realized I was holding on to the counter for dear life and utilizing all the powers I had not to look back toward the couches to see if Whisky was still checking me out.
Please, God, let Whisky still be checking me out, I thought.
Then I gave my head a firm shake to get rid of my idiot thoughts. I needed Whisky to be checking me out like I needed someone to drill a hole in my head, which was to say, not at all.
A fantastic redheaded woman, who I knew from Uncle Tex’s descriptions had to be Indy, walked behind the counter.
She smiled at me.
I smiled back, and, as Whisky was no longer in my line of sight (although I could actually feel him in the room), I remembered why I was there. I opened my mouth to say something to her when the bell over the door went.
“I’m not speaking to you,” a woman said in a voice that was both angry and obviously full of shit and I turned to see who had come in.
It was like Fortnum’s was For Gorgeous People Only. They needed a sign so normal people wouldn’t wander in unwittingly and develop immediate inferiority complexes.
A tremendously handsome, tall Mexican man with a very pretty blonde woman was entering, obviously in the middle of a light-hearted tiff. I knew this because I’d watched my parents have millions of them.
“You’re so full of shit,” he said what I had thought and grinned at her like this was a lovable trait.
“What’s shakin’?” the brunette behind the counter asked the couple.
“I’ll tell you what’s not shakin’, I’m not moving in with Eddie,” the blonde said, glaring at the man at her side.
Holy cow!
I stared.
Tex had told me about Jet, and how Jet had a crush on Eddie and how Eddie was trying to capture Jet’s attention but, even though she had a crush on him, Jet was having none of it. That was in one of my last letters, I’d received it only a few weeks ago.
Now they were talking about moving in together.
Boy, Eddie was a fast one.
“You are,” Eddie retorted, still looking down at Jet.
“Eddie won’t let me work at Smithie’s. Or I should say, Eddie thinks he won’t let me work at Smithie’s,” Jet said.
“I think you should let her work at Smithie’s.” This came from the couches. I braved a look at them, wondering what Smithie’s was. The comment came from a Native American guy with shiny black hair pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck, cheekbones and eyelashes to die for and a shit-eating grin on his face.
I also noticed Whisky was no longer looking at me but smiling and winking at Jet.
I felt my heart contract.
I tore my eyes away and saw Eddie was raising his brows to Jet like some point had been made.
It was a weird feeling, knowing these people and not knowing them at the same time.
“I thought you were moved in with Eddie?” Indy asked and I turned around to look at her.
“It was temporary,” Jet said. She caught my gaze swinging back to her and she gave me a small smile before she stomped behind the counter (the stomping was obviously all show, still, I could appreciate that she was good at it, my Mom would have given her a high five for form and execution).
This left me looking at Eddie. He noticed me and his black gaze shifted the length of me. I immediately got the strange sense that he did not like what he saw. Not that every guy who looked at me, especially guys who were obviously very with pretty girls, had the instant hots for me, but still, it was strange. It made me feel wrong, like I was invading, not wanted and not welcome.
I got this sense because his eyes, which were liquid with warmth and tenderness when he looked at Jet, turned completely blank when they locked on me and Eddie didn’t strike me as a blank kind of guy.
Then he turned, completely dismissing me and walked to the couches.
I also turned, feeling funny about his reaction. I shook it off, put my back to the couches (because I needed to focus and another glance at Whisky would make me lose that focus, I knew this like I knew my favorite designer was Armani) and I faced the espresso counter
The redhead, brunette and blonde were all talking behind the big coffee machine, looking like the Witches of Eastwick, but prettier and scarier. Since the redhead was Indy and the blonde was Jet, that left the brunette as Ally. Which meant, from what I knew from Uncle Tex’s letters because she was most definitely related to the brothers at the couches, Whisky was either Lee (which would be bad as I knew he was with Indy) or Hank (which would be bad because Tex told me Hank was a cop and thus not likely ever to be interested in the likes of me, a gangster moll or whatever I was).
“I think you should move in with Eddie,” Ally was saying, finishing up my drink.
“I’m trying to break up with him,” Jet said.
I gasped, because even if he dismissed me, who in their right minds would break up with Eddie? He was gorgeous.
They all looked to me.
“Don’t worry,” Jet assured me with another smile. She was pretty normally, but her smile made her spectacular. “I already tried to break up with him, but it didn’t take.”
“Here’s your coffee,” Ally said, handing me a paper cup.
I took it and set it on the counter. “What do I owe you?”
She told me, I gave her the money and then she leaned forward and said, “What did you mean, you know the feeling? Do you have a boyfriend you can’t get rid of? I know it’s nosy but I’m asking ‘cause my brother’s sitting over there and he’s been staring at you since the moment you walked in the door like he wants to rip your fancy-ass clothes off.”
I bit my lip and just stopped myself from looking over my shoulder toward the couches.
I was right, this was Ally and since Indy was standing there, and Ally wasn’t likely to point out that Indy’s boyfriend Lee wanted to rip my clothes off, then we were talking about Hank.
Unattached (as far as I knew) but still a cop.
I didn’t question the fact that Ally would say something like this about her brother to me. She seemed the kind of girl who called them like she saw them.
I leaned forward and made my first mistake of many that were to come. “Are we talking about Whisky?” I whispered, mainly because I couldn’t help myself.
“Whisky?” Indy leaned in.
“The one with the whisky-colored eyes,” I answered.
Indy smiled at the other two, then all three smiled at me.
“That’s him,” Indy said.
“Are you Indy?” I asked, just to be sure.
She blinked, her face registering surprise.
“Yes,” she answered. “Do I know you?”
“I’m looking for Tex MacMillan. He says he works here.”
Her face changed and I could see she was shifting straight into mother hen mode.
Yep, I was right, this had to be Indy.
But it was Jet who responded to me. “Who wants to know?” she asked, also, I noted, in mother hen mode.
I looked at Whisky’s sister. She was not in mother hen mode, she’d rocketed straight to lioness mode ready to tear me limb from limb if I gave even a hint that I was there for anything but a happy purpose.
I decided it was best to tell them quickly that it was a happy purpose (sort of, they didn’t need to know about Billy).
“I’m Roxanne Logan. Tex is my uncle.”
The two hens and the lioness disappeared instantly as three mouths dropped open and they stared in frank astonishment at me.
Then, Whisky’s sister shouted so loud I could actually feel all the male eyes at the couch area swiveling to look, “You have got to be fuckin’ shittin’ me!” Then, for some bizarre reason, she threw her head back and laughed. Both Indy and Jet were laughing too. Indy, so much, she wrapped her hands around her middle and leaned over a bit.
“I don’t believe it!” Jet yelled.
What in the fuck?
I stared at them like they’d lost their minds, which I feared they had, when Ally turned to the couches and shouted, “You are not going to believe who this is.”
“No, don’t… ” I said to her and I looked out the corner of my eyes to the couches and saw they were all watching me, most especially Whisky, or Hank, his eyes somehow managing to look both alert and lazy and I felt the dizziness hit me again and I quickly looked away.
The bell over the door went just as Ally announced, “This is Roxanne, fucking Tex’s niece!”
I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath and put my hand on the counter.
“Roxie?”
It was said in a soft boom. I’d never heard a soft boom but that was the only way to describe it.
I opened my eyes and turned and stared at an older version of my brother Gil (an older version with a wild-ass beard). He was nearly as tall as he was wide (which made him humongous), barrel-chested, blond-headed with dark blue eyes and a russet beard. He was wearing a flannel shirt, a pair of jeans and there was a very pretty older woman at his side, leaning heavily into him, holding on to him with one arm while the other arm dangled strangely.
“Uncle Tex?” I asked quietly, but knew it was him and I felt tears come up my throat. As usual, I couldn’t control them. Even though I tried to swallow them, they filled my eyes and started sliding down my cheeks.
“Jesus Jones! Roxie!” Tex gently disengaged from the woman who stood somewhat unsteadily on her two feet with a nod to him and a smile at me and then he took two gigantic strides towards me.
I put my hands up to give him a hug but they glanced off his massive chest. To my shock, he bent low, grabbing me around my thighs, just above my knees and he lifted me up and swung me around in a full circle. “Roxanne Giselle Logan, the most beautiful fuckin’ girl in the whole fuckin’ world!” he boomed, full on this time.
My nose started stinging and I sucked both my lips in to control the tears but it was too late, I was crying flat out. “Uncle Tex,” I laughed through my tears, holding
on to his shoulders, “Put me down.”
He did and I landed hard on my high-heeled boots. He put his big hands on either side of my head, yanked me forward and planted a kiss on top of my hair. Then he shoved me back, keeping his hands where they were and he stared at me for a long time.
Then, his eyes grew soft, and even a little misty, and his voice went back to the low boom when he said, “Fuckin’ A, girl, you look exactly like your mother.”
I held on to his arms.
“That’s what Dad says,” I told him.
Uncle Tex kept staring.
“Fuckin’ A,” he whispered and, to my total and complete mortification, I made one of those loud, crying hiccoughs.
He let go of my head and engulfed me in a hug. I put my arms around him, closed my eyes and pressed my cheek to his chest.
It would seem Uncle Tex wasn’t going to close the door on me and I felt like I’d been blessed. I let out a deep breath and allowed myself a private smile through my tears.
He held me for a long time and I held him right back.
“I’d look forward to your letters every month. I would never have made it through prison if it wasn’t for you, Roxie darlin’. Never,” he said softly to me but his voice was still loud.
I just nodded my head against his chest, tears flowing freely now. I was incapable of controlling it and no longer wanted to. What he said meant the world to me and that he had the courage to say it meant even more.
“Been waitin’ a long time, Roxie, to give you a hug. A long, fuckin’ time.”
My arms spasmed around him and I held on tight.
“Me too,” I whispered, his arms pulled me deeper into him and he squeezed the breath out of my lungs.
I opened my eyes and looked straight into Whisky’s (I couldn’t think of him as Hank, not yet, right then he had to be just Whisky to me). He was still watching me, leaned back in the couch, the sole of one of his booted feet resting on the edge of a table. But now his expression was different, the laziness was long gone and his eyes were totally alert.
“Uncle Tex,” I started, still looking at Whisky, in fact, entirely unable to tear my eyes from his, “I… can’t… breathe.”