Page 8 of The Tryst

Kat sighs wistfully. “It broke my heart when she left. She was like a sister to all of us. But maybe this is a chance to reconnect.”

I love Kat’s idealism but from what I just witnessed, Holland doesn’t want anything to do with Shelbyville and that probably includes the Blackburns. Take away her bitterness against me, her time with my family seems like eons ago. She has a new life in a new country. She’s moved on.

I thought I had moved on too, but seeing her again makes me think otherwise. I’m not sure what I hope to accomplish, but I know I’m not going to let her leave without at least getting five minutes of her precious time so I can genuinely apologize and hopefully repair the friendship we had.

CHAPTER 4

Holland

The printshop lookseven worse than I remember. Dust clings to every surface, and the equipment looks worn. I never liked working here. My dad forced me to come in three times a week once I was old enough to drive and used my horse riding as leverage to get me to commit.

“If you want to ride horses,” he’d growl when I voiced dissent, “you’ll put in the hours at the shop.”

I hated every minute of it, but I loved horses more than I loathed working with him. The constant berating followed by bouts of silence that had me walking on eggshells often left my nerves frayed at the end of my shift, so there’s a lot of dark feelings associated with this place. I don’t know if I would have liked it had my father been something other than an unloving tyrant, but now I’ll never know.

I inspect all the machines—wide-format printers, a digital press, laminators, the binding machine, the folding machine, the heat press—all of it looking like it’s on its last leg. I doubt he did the necessary maintenance because my dad was cheap and routinely cut corners.

The shop itself is practically inhospitable. The walls are yellowed with age, the flooring is warped and all the casings and window sills have wood rot. The place smells of ink and neglect.

I sit at my father’s old desk, sifting through the disorganized mess of records. He kept some information on the computer and some in paper files, but none of it is in any logicalorder. Transactions are half-recorded and customer orders are missing. It’s a complete and utter mess and my head throbs as I try to make sense of it all.

How am I supposed to clean this up and put it in some kind of shape for my mom to run? The truth is, even if I could, I don’t think she has the ability. She never worked in the shop or held a job and it would take me weeks to explain this all to her.

It’s been a bitter pill to swallow coming back home. My relationship with my mom is complex and I don’t know that I understand it fully. On the one hand, she always made excuses for Dad’s alcoholism and behavior. She’d try to shield me sometimes but more often than not, she’d take his side. She was afraid to leave him because she didn’t know how to take care of herself.

As an adult now looking back with mature eyes, I can see she was in preservation mode all those times she chose not to stand against him, but that bit of learned wisdom within me doesn’t compensate for growing up in a household where no one was on my side.

On the other hand, she has tried in the only way she knows how to maintain a tenuous tie with me. After I left for good, we talked weekly and she always seemed interested in school and then my work life. She never tried to force me to have a relationship with my dad and respected the walls that I had erected over time between us.

And now?

Now, she’s just a scared, lost woman who doesn’t know how to survive without my dad and I don’t know if I can help her. The fact that I have to clean up this mess both saddens and angers me, but I can’t just abandon her.

The business phone rings and I ignore it, letting the voicemail I’d programmed yesterday answer. I left a short message that we’re closed for renovations and hope to reopensoon, although I don’t know if that’s true at this point. I invited callers to leave messages with the promise of a return call, but I’ll handle those later today.

There’s a knock out front on the glass and I ignore that too. I’ve got a Closed sign on the door and sooner or later, they’ll get the hint. I’d left the lights off on purpose so there’d be no mistaking that Rhodes Printing, in fact, is not open for business at this time.

The knocking continues, more insistently, and I sigh with frustration. Looking at my watch, I see that Petey Byers isn’t due here for another half hour but maybe he’s early. I push away from the desk and head to the front. I make it no more than three steps before I halt in my tracks—Trey is standing on the other side of the dirty streaked door. His hands are cupped around his face as he peers in, and when his eyes land on me, he raises a hand in greeting.

I absolutely hate that my pulse quickens at seeing him and I mentally chastise myself. It’s not fair that he’s even more gorgeous at thirty-three than he was eleven years ago. There’s something about a man filling out a little in the face, plus he’s put on some brawn. Of course, he’s still got the Blackburn beauty with the raven hair and green eyes, absolutely magnetic, and it doesn’t hurt that he wears his hair long like he did way back when. It brushes the collar of his shirt, and I know how soft that hair feels, just as I know how that five o’clock shadow chafes in all the right ways.

“Get a grip, Holland,” I mutter to myself and stride angrily across the store. I twist the latch and throw open the door. “What do you want?”

“I want to help,” he says.

“I told you I don’t need—”

Trey pushes past me into the store, immediately walking the perimeter of the outer lobby. He points to the east wall. “You’vegot water damage over here, and that wood rot by the windows will need fixing.” He then kicks at a warped floorboard. “All of this has to come up. You can see whatever was leaking ran the whole length of the store.”

“I said I don’t need your help,” I repeat, frustration mounting.

“Tough shit,” he replies, meeting my gaze with determination. “You’re going to take it. It’s the fastest way to get it done so you can run back to Zurich, right? Plus, I talked to Petey, who is quite busy at a job over in Lexington, and told him I’d handle it.”

I clench my fists in anger, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. “Interfere much?”

“Just a little,” he says, holding his index finger and thumb an inch apart.

“Fine,” I growl, throwing my arms up in frustration. “Knock yourself out. I’ll pay you back for the supplies.”

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