Wild Man Creek Read online

  “I thought I was covering for you,” she said. “I just didn’t want to put you in a difficult position because of a choice I made.”

  When she clasped her mentor’s hand, he held on. “This is so unlike you. My biggest worry about you was that you had no life—this job took everything you had and more! What was it about him, Jill?” Harry asked softly. “How did he get you to take chances like this?”

  She laughed without humor. Kurt had had obvious flaws, but she overlooked them because no one’s perfect. He was cute and seemed thoughtful, but he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. If he hadn’t pursued her, she might not have noticed him! She just shook her head pathetically. Was it because he was the only man she’d had time for? No wonder office romances flourished. They were convenient! “You might not believe this, Harry, but he had to invest a lot of time to get me to take a chance on him. And maybe it all boiled down to that—he was relentless and I was lonely. If he wins this battle, you’ll be getting one lousy Corporate Communications exec. He can barely tie his shoes or make a phone call without leadership. You’re going to have to fire him.”

  “I’m sure he’s figured all that out,” Harry said.

  “God, I’m sorry,” she said. “Harry, I’m sorry. I feel like such a fool!”

  Despite her better judgment, Jill tried to contact Kurt. He did not answer his cell or his door, and after she’d left about fourteen voice mails in a barely controlled voice she realized she was only making her situation worse. Wasn’t the plot clear? He’d benefit from her hysteria! She’d look guiltier! She made herself stop.

  Jill met with a lawyer who contacted Harry, the head of HR and the BSS General Counsel. She had turned over a backup of her personal hard drive and her company computer, along with her cell phone and the contents of her desk. Since she had not been trying to set up a sting, her evidence against Kurt was just not there. But, if nothing else, Jill’s legal counsel should be able to keep the investigation in the company at the HR level and not let it get as far as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or a civil court.

  A week turned into two and Jillian was nearly jumping out of her skin. She was getting cabin fever, holed up in her San Jose town house with nothing to do but surf the internet on her new laptop.

  And then Harry called.

  “It’s looking good for our side,” he said. “By far the most damaging case against you is going to be the testimony of two employees who believe they witnessed harassment—two employees who shall remain nameless. And, to be fair, if he was manipulative enough, they might just think that’s what they saw.”

  “Right,” she replied with sarcasm. There were only fifteen employees in Corporate Communications; she could guess exactly who the women were. Both older than Jillian by a good fifteen years, they tended to sparkle stupidly whenever Kurt was around.

  “What I’d like you to do is step out of the fight, Jillian. Rather than a resignation, I’d like you to take a leave of absence. At least three months. I’m going to put someone else in the position you’d be vacating—I’m going to bring in a consultant. Kurt will get his vested options and, unsurprisingly, he’s agreed to a confidentiality agreement.”

  “Unsurprisingly?”

  Harry laughed. “He doesn’t want his complaint against his supervisor to follow him any more than you’d like it to follow you. I’m telling you—he’s going to be moving along. And I’m not done looking into his past.” Harry lowered his voice and said, “You never told him what you’re worth, did you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so. It’s not something I talk about. Why?”

  “Because if you had, he’d never settle this easily. He’s getting a nice option package, but it’s nothing by comparison to what you’ve made in ten years. He should have taken the time to read old prospectuses, or stolen a look at your portfolio.”

  Jillian had a clever financial planner; she’d engaged her services after her first modest bonus. Together they decided that twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week was enough time to give one company. It made no sense to sit on the stock and options, so Jillian exercised or sold them and invested her money elsewhere. While she made more and more money from BSS, her planner made more and more in other investments.

  The money hadn’t mattered to her as much as the job—or as much as Harry’s vision and faith in her.

  “What am I supposed to do for three months?” Jill exclaimed.

  “I don’t know. Take a breather. You have plenty of money. Take a trip or a few classes or something. Unwind and let this fade—take some time to think about where you want to go. Don’t leap into anything—I know you love to be spontaneous! Try to learn to relax and enjoy life—get your strength back. I’d venture to say that in a few months he’ll be out of here and there’s nothing in our settlement preventing you from coming back if you feel like it. There’s also nothing preventing you from making a change. You have your life back, Jillian. Think about that.” She had thought about that. It terrified her. She longed for the days they worked till 4:00 a.m., snarfing down cold pizza and Red Bull to keep going, putting together a public offering, or preparing for a board meeting with a critical vote the following morning. She loved the deadlines, the crush to bring up the company profits before the quarterly report, the chilling fear and excitement of the audits, the gatherings of the suits to put together the prospectus. It was Jillian who was the PR guru, who put the spin on the company’s viability to the Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the brokers, the public. It was Jill who scrambled and took all Harry’s hard work and vision to the finish line with him.

  She wasn’t sure how to slow down and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to.

  Despite Harry’s instructions about confidentiality, Jill shared her current predicament with her one trusted intimate, her sister and best friend, Kelly. Kelly was a busy sous-chef in a five-star San Francisco restaurant, and their time together was limited, but they talked and texted daily. The greatest comfort in her secret dialogue with her sister was that Kelly wanted to kill Kurt—metaphorically anyway.

  “Kurt better never try to have a meal in my restaurant,” Kelly said hatefully.

  “I’m sure he knows better,” Jill replied. “He’s figured everything else out.”

  “I’m just saying… I know how to make it look like an accident….”

  “Shush, for all I know he’s recording my phone!” Jill took a breath. “And now, having realized that’s actually a possibility, you have to let him live.”

  “Bummer,” Kelly said. “He’s a pig. I never liked him. Did I tell you that?”

  “No, you did like him! He charmed you, too, which makes us equally stupid. Ah, God, what happened to me? I mean, I’m no Einstein but I’ve never been so naive! Truthfully? I didn’t think he was smart enough to do something like this!”

  “You’re impulsive,” Kelly said. “You always have been. You see something you want and you just go for it.”

  “I wasn’t that impulsive,” Jill argued. “He courted me for a long time before… Oh never mind. Harry was right—even if I fought and won, it would become public, and his accusation would taint me for a long, long time!”

  “Here’s my biggest question.” Kelly asked, “How could he get one over on everyone and yet be such a dud in PR? Isn’t that good PR? Knowing how to put a good spin on things, sell things, convince people they want what they don’t even know they want?”

  “In a nutshell,” Jill said wearily. “He should have applied as much energy to his job.”

  “Well—you helped build the little empire that is BSS,” Kelly said. “And it didn’t turn out the way you wanted, but you made a ton of money and your money made a ton of money. A whole bunch of software and dot-com corporations sputtered out, but yours did great. You should be able to get anything you want! Let’s think ahead for a sec. What’s your first, best idea?”

  “I’m taking Harry’s advice. A little t
ime off,” she said. “Then I’ll rethink the next job….”

  “That surprises me. My little sister would usually hit the ground running! In spite of Kurt’s efforts to wipe you out, your reputation is sterling. If anyone calls Harry for a recommendation, it’ll glow! You can go just about anywhere you—”

  Jillian’s voice was so soft Kelly barely heard it. “But I’m still too wounded.”

  Kelly was silent for a moment. “Oh, baby…”

  “You know what I felt so guilty about while I was seeing Kurt? I worried that he cared far more for me than I did for him! But all the while he was loving me, he was plotting how he could really screw me.”

  “He’s a bastard….”

  “I’ve never had trust issues before,” Jillian said very quietly. “I always had good instincts about who couldn’t be trusted. I could always tell the minute I met someone if I could trust them, and I was seldom wrong. But now…”

  “You just need a little time,” Kelly said.

  “Now,” she repeated, “I’ll never trust another man. If I do, it’ll be a miracle.”

  There was silence between them.

  “I’m taking off for a while, Kell,” Jillian said. “A vacation, some peace and quiet, a break in the action. Harry’s right—I owe it to myself to think.”

  “Where will you go?” Kelly asked. “Do you need me with you?”

  Jillian chuckled at the offer. “I know you can’t leave work. No, I’m going to make this trip solo. I don’t know where I’m going yet but don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I just need a little time to absorb this whole situation. A little time to heal.”

  Kelly sighed into the phone. Then she said, “Seriously, he better never look for a meal in my restaurant because I do want him dead. And I hope he got that on tape!”

  One

  It gave Jillian a sense of relief to pack a few bags, lock up her small town house in San Jose and just drive away. Nothing could make a woman want to run for her life like being used and betrayed by a man.

  To appease Kelly, she drove only as far as San Francisco for her first leg of an unknown trip. That night she had dinner in her sister’s restaurant. It was so hard to get a table in the five-star restaurant where Kelly was the head sous-chef that those people willing to wait usually stood around the bar for two hours after checking in with the maître d’, and that was if they had a reservation. The chef de cuisine was a man named Durant, known only by one name, and he was regionally famous. But Jillian was seated immediately, and at an excellent, semiprivate table. Then she was served every specialty the restaurant had by the best of the waitstaff. Kelly must have called in a lot of favors to make it happen.

  After dinner, Jill drove over to Kelly’s small San Francisco flat where she planned to stay the night. Kelly didn’t get home from the restaurant until well after one in the morning, so the girls had their chance to visit over a late breakfast together. Kelly asked, “What now?”

  “Many possibilities,” Jill said. “Maybe Tahoe. I’ve never been to Sun Valley, Idaho. The point is not where I’m going so much as just driving. Watching the miles stack up in the rearview mirror—figuratively and literally putting things behind me. I’ll stay in big, comfortable, anonymous hotels or resorts, relax, eat good food, watch all the movies I’ve missed over the past ten years and do many, many bookstore prowls. Before I go back to the grind I’m going to see if I can remember what having a life was like.”

  “You have your phone, of course?”

  Jillian laughed. “Yes. I’ll keep it charged in the car, but I’m not taking calls from anyone except you and Harry.”

  “Will you do something for me?” Kelly asked. “Will you please just text me in the morning every day and let me know where you are? And can we talk before I start work in the kitchen? Just so I know you’re all right?”

  Jillian was so far from all right it was almost laughable. She felt like an utter nutcase. Her attention span and focus were so disturbed that driving was probably not a great idea. But traveling by air to a vacation spot like Hawaii or Cancun, or being held prisoner on a cruise ship were so unappealing that she rejected those ideas immediately. She wanted her feet on the ground; she wanted to get her mental awareness back. She felt almost as if she didn’t know herself anymore. The inside of her car, alone, made total sense to her. There she could think, undisturbed, and try to get things in perspective.

  But she put on a brave face. “You bet,” she said to her sister. Then she smiled. “If you call, I’ll answer if I have a signal.”

  Right after they said their goodbyes Kelly left for work and Jillian got in her car and immediately drove east. She was halfway to Lake Tahoe when she remembered the vacation she’d taken with Kelly and two girlfriends the previous autumn. They’d driven to Vancouver—which was an excellent option for right now—but on the way home they’d stopped off at some dinky little town in the mountains—she couldn’t even remember the name. While they were there they’d wandered into an estate sale and the old house where it was held reminded her of the house she and Kelly had grown up in with their great-grandmother. Nostalgia had flooded her and she’d become almost teary with remembering, even though the two houses had very little in common. The other image that came to mind were the little cabins along a river where they’d stayed for a couple of days—nice little cabins, remote yet comfortable. They had left the windows open at night and slept to the sounds of nature, the river rushing by, the wind whistling and humming through the huge pines, the quacks, caws, honks and calls of wildlife. They’d put their feet in the icy river last fall, watching trout jump and turning leaves flutter into the water. It had been lovely. Soothing.

  With those thoughts in mind, Jill made a turn and headed north. She’d go up through Napa—that would point her in the right direction. Those little cabins weren’t like a motor lodge or Holiday Inn, not the kind of place you could show up at midnight asking for a room. It was owned and run by a guy named Luke and his young wife; they lived on the property.

  Jill spent the second night on the road at a little roadside inn in Windsor, probably halfway to her destination. First thing in the morning, she headed north again. Even a phone call to Kelly hadn’t produced the exact name of the town, but Jillian knew roughly where it was.

  A couple hundred miles and a few wrong turns led Jill to a remote intersection in Northern California where she saw a couple of guys had parked their pickups at odd angles. They were clearly just passing the time. She pulled up alongside. “Hi, guys,” she said. “There’s a little town back in here somewhere. I had dinner at a place called Jack’s—I think—and there are some cabins along a river run by a guy named—”

  One of the men pulled his hat off his head and smoothed his thinning hair over his freckled scalp. “Luke Riordan owns those cabins in Virgin River. Luke and Shelby.”

  “Yeah!” she said. “That’s it! Virgin River! I must’ve missed the turn, never saw the sign.”

  The other guy laughed. “Ain’t no sign. You didn’t miss it by much,” he said. “Up 36 a quarter mile. It’s a left. But to get to Luke’s you’re gonna wanna go another left after ’bout another mile and a half up that hill. Then you’ll go down again, then around a curve at the bottom of the mountain. Your second left ain’t marked, but there’s a dead sequoia stretched out by the side of the road right where you turn. Big mother. Then you’ll prolly see the river. Take that road along the river to the cabins. Ain’t far.”

  She laughed. It might’ve been one of her first belly laughs in a couple of weeks! Yeah, she remembered the dead tree, the up, down and around of the road. “I remember now—I remember the dead tree. Thanks. Thanks so much!”

  Off she drove in the direction of the first left and then the dead tree, laughing as she went. She was laughing at how different it was! She might as well have traveled to a different country—these people were as removed from iPhones and iPads and daily stock reports and board of director meetings as she was from fly-fishing and campin
g. And now that she’d seized on this idea and spontaneously found herself in Virgin River, of all places, she realized hardly anything in her baggage was going to be right for this kind of break. Thinking she might end up at some hotel resort in a place like Sun Valley she’d packed her country club casual—clothes she had on hand for corporate events or company picnics. She had linen slacks, a couple of stylish but casual dresses, wraparound skirts, sweater sets, that sort of thing. Low heels; lots of low heels. She had exactly one pair of Nike walking shoes and two sweat suits, and they both had designer labels.

  As she recalled, Virgin River was very rugged, not to mention cooler. And boy, was it wet! It was early March; it had been drizzling on and off all day. It was a little bleak—except for the new green growth on the trees and the eruptions of plant life all along the side of the road.

  Also muddy! Her pretty little Lexus Hybrid was splattered and filthy.

  Jill followed the road along the river and when she came into the cabin compound she saw that Luke was on top of one of the cabins doing a little roof repair. He turned toward her as she pulled in. She stopped the car, got out and waved at him.

  He smiled before climbing down his ladder. “Hi,” he said when he got to the bottom. He grabbed a rag out of his back pocket to wipe off his hands.

  “Any chance you remember me, Luke?” she asked him. “I came up here last fall with my sister and girlfriends. We spent a couple of days in one of your cabins. You invited us to the estate sale—that old woman’s house.”

  He laughed. “Sure I remember you, but I don’t remember your name.”

  “Oh—sorry. I’m Jill. Jillian Matlock. I apologize. I didn’t even call ahead. I just thought if you had a vacancy…”