Page 15 of Desire
Chapter Six
Nine hours after the front-desk clerk assured me the roads were clear, I arrived at another hotel in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The valet parked my car, and I stepped on the elevator after booking a suite with a jetted tub for the night. I needed a long bath. I could’veforced myself to drive all the way to Chattanooga, but my eyes and brain had taken me as far as I could go on a snowy day of road closures and slowdowns due to traffic accidents. Plus, I didn’t want to arrive in the city too exhausted to do more research and planning. I also had my regular work to dive into. On the way there, I’d let a number of calls go to voice mail, never checking to seewho was trying to contact me. Deep down, I hoped one of the callers was Jasper, apologizing and expressing his devoted love.
I stared at the lit numbers on the elevator panel and counted up to the eleventh floor. I was still trying to make myself cry over Jasper leaving without a kiss and an appropriate goodbye. Maybe if I cried, I could promptly make a decision to never think about himagain. Even during the long drive, I had tried to make myself weep. Instead, as one mile had given way to the next, I found myself struggling to stay awake.
The elevator doors slid open, and I fought the urge to picture Jasper standing in the hallway, waiting to kiss me. But no one was there, and not a peep could be heard as I dragged myself up the carpeted corridor.
As soon as Ientered my room, I turned on my MacBook Pro and set it on top of the bed. Then I stripped out of my clothes, including my underwear, wrapped myself in the complimentary fluffy white robe, and slid my feet into the slippers. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and fought the urge to take a warm bath before working. I knew if I lay in the water, my exhaustion would turn into sleepiness, and I had tostay awake for a while.
After wrapping my hair in a messy bun on top of my head, I cuddled up against the headboard with my computer and logged into my hot spot. My search alerts dinged once I was connected to the Internet, notifying me of recent news.
One story was about Jasper Christmas and Christmas Industries Incorporated.
“How in the hell…” I muttered. Then I rememberedI had set the alert at Bryn’s request while engaged in my initial investigation. For a moment, I questioned why I was even continuing the exploration into the Christmases’ past. Jasper never explained why they all had different mothers. I could understand why Amelia and Randolph had kept the truth of Bryn, Asher, and Spencer’s parentage a secret, but then I couldn’t. They were a family who traveledthrough veiled hallways in their creepy mansion. Spencer got off on beating his prostitute girlfriend for fun, and Asher enjoyed the humiliation of being cheated on. They were not the sort of people who needed to be lied to in order to keep up appearances. They were a powerful and duplicitous family with enough secrets to fill a stadium.
“So why not tell Asher, Spencer, and Bryn the truth?”I whispered.
The Christmases had secrets beneath secrets and then a million more beneath those. That was why I continued pursuing the investigation. My natural inclination to be inquisitive wouldn’t let me drop it. And for that reason, I clicked the link to the news story about Jasper Christmas. I started reading about how he had used a special clause to dissolve the entire board of directorsat Christmas Industries Incorporated. According to the bylaw, he had seven days to replace each member, or previous members could resume their seats. He’d also fired sixteen executives, all of whom had previously burdened the company with sexual harassment lawsuits that were settled in arbitration. There was a quote from Jasper, who stated that he vowed to change the culture of Christmas Industries.He sounded like a man who had no intentions of abandoning the family business. Then he mentioned his fiancée, Julia Valentine, would be taking over as vice president of communications.
I felt as if a solid ball of cement formed in my heart as I read on. Jasper went on to say that he and Julia had been dating for nearly a year and that they planned to marry in the spring.
I closedmy eyes, took a deep breath, and pressed my hand over my queasy belly. I could’ve thrown up. And just like that, the pain of rejection rose to the surface. My tears started to fall. My sobbing began slowly then increased in intensity. There was a lesson to be learned. However, at the moment, I had no idea what that was.
A jolt of reality hit me. I sat on the side of the bed. It was timeto be the person I was before the day I’d stepped into the Christmas mansion. I forced myself to smile and rose to my feet. First, I ordered dinner through room service, an Angus beef burger and garden salad. I finally checked my voice mail, no longer hoping Jasper had called to beg for forgiveness. Most calls were from editors wanting to know what I’d been working on lately or pitching possiblestories of interest they wanted me to look into. Three of the messages were a moment of silence before the call ended. For some reason, I felt Jasper on the other end of the line, or maybe it was wishful thinking.
My ex-boss, Rachel Givens, had called four times. “I have an offer you can’t refuse. Call me,” she said in her first message.
“Holly, why haven’t you returned my call?”she sang in her second message. “Call me.”
The next two were in the same vein as the first two.
Hearing her voice made me smile and firmly grounded me in the life I’d had before allowing Jasper Christmas to ruin it. I decided to call Rachel first thing in the morning. I felt back to myself after room service dropped off my dinner. I ate, bathed, then did some preliminary researchon a few possible articles to pitch to Rachel when we spoke the next day. The hours ticked by, and by the time I yawned, I had selected three promising news items to dig into deeper. With Jasper Christmas on my mind, I finally fell asleep.
The morning went by fast.My alarm played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” one of my favorite rise-and-shine theme songs when I was working. I made a cup of coffee in the hotel’s K-Cup coffee maker. It was terrible, so I picked up another cup of coffee at the Starbucks in the lobby along with a breakfast sandwich and two bottled waters before hitting the road.
That was two hours ago, and now I was staring at a small house in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that reminded me of one of the many hovels my parents had moved us into years ago. Snow sat heavily on what appeared to be a weak roof. Dead trees lined the rusted fence. Just for a moment, I saw my eight-year-old self shivering on the old porch, happy to freeze my ass off rather than be inside withmy parents yelling at each other about not having enough money and how it was all my father’s fault.
“Be a man!” my mother would scream.
“Be a woman!” my father would yell back.
She would throw things at him until he got tired of dodging shit that wasn’t even hers to break. Then he would race right past me, and the next time I would see him, which was often days later, hewould be drunk but have a wad of new money, and that made my mother happier.
That memory felt like pure hell, which was probably why I didn’t want to leave the warmth and security of my vehicle to go knock on the door to see if anyone lived in the house. A black film covered the windows, so I couldn’t tell if the lights were on inside. My instincts told me the house was abandoned. Surely,Kylie had seen the house before she’d urged me to take the trip. Perhaps she had seen some activity that wasn’t visible today.
“Let’s get to it, Holls,” I muttered and grabbed my coat. It was time to rally.
Bundled up and ready to mingle with the cold, I stepped one foot out of the vehicle, careful not to slip on snow.
I walked carefully to the front gate and pushed it open,moving the snow out of the way. The sidewalk hadn’t been shoveled. Either my intuition was right, and the house was abandoned, or the caretakers were the negligent type. Regardless, I chose to move forward with the task at hand. My feet sank into the snow as I made my way to the front door and knocked on the tattered screen.
“Can I help you?” a female voice called in a regional accent.
Startled, I quickly turned to see a stout woman standing between my vehicle and the gate.
“A family named the Greers used to live here,” I said, walking toward her.
The woman nodded. “But they don’t live there anymore, thank the Lord. Why? Is one of them in trouble or something?”
