*Cole

I wake up and the spot next to me is empty and cold. I rub my hands down my face, cursing.

I had hoped to have her here with me still this morning, for at least one more time together before we go our separate ways. She was amazing. What the hell was going on in her life that made her sit alone at a bar and nervous as a deer with a ten-point rack in hunting season?

My gut seizes up. That hunting image might be closer to the truth than I hope. Damn it. She was scared. I replay the scene in the bar as she scanned the room, played with her glass of beer, and cast quick looks in my direction for an eternity before she wandered my direction at the pool table. Shit.

The question is, should I do something about it or not? She set the rules last night, and she said no names and nothing past one night. Except...

Cole.

She said my name. She knows me.

But that doesn't mean I can betray my promise—never tell anyone she was here with me. On the other hand, she didn't make me promise not to try and find her without betraying that trust. Groaning in frustration, I lurch out of bed and head for the bathroom to take a shower. I don't need this complication. I am here to take care of my uncle's will, and today will be shitty enough without other problems. Then I have to leave and go back home. I can't afford any extra time away from my shop.

I run the water and step into the stream while it's cold to wake myself up. Scrubbing the icy water through my hair, I repeat all the repair orders I have deadlines on. The water is warm before I reach the end of the list.

I can't stay in town chasing after a woman who doesn't want to be chased. She's a big girl and can handle herself.

Unless she can't.

Fuck.

She isn't a problem I have to solve—she's a human being who might need help. I soap myself up, regretful that I'm somehow washing her away. I feel like I know her better than myself. At least, I feel like I know her better than from what we shared last night. I shut off the water and grab a towel.

Do I know her? She's about my age, if she grew up here, I might have run into her before. Hell, she might have sat behind me in Geometry. I slept straight through that class, every single day, so she could have been right next to me and I simply don't remember.

School was such hell for me, I've blocked most of it. No. It wasn't school that was hell, it was home and that carried over into school.

Today is going to be rough. It might even get ugly. I tie the towel around my waist and go the sink to brush my teeth. Today was going to bad, and I had to concentrate. I couldn't allow any emotions to make me do something I'd regret.

I won't give them the pleasure of seeing me react to anything they throw, and there never were any bigger shit slingers than my mom and her husband. I swore it when I left the first time, and I am swearing again this morning—I won't let them see anything from me but calm.

I lean on the sink, staring at my foggy reflection. I think it's time for a new promise, this one to myself. After I've taken care of what I came here for, I'll find my brunette.

I'll find her and make her mine.

***

At the lawyer's office in the town's square, I hug my uncle's girlfriend as soon as she introduces herself. We've never met, but I've heard plenty about Roberta from the occasional phone call. Nothing Uncle Pete ever said prepared me to meet her face to face though. This fifty-something woman is a wild-cat, a 'no holds barred, zero fucks to give about anyone's opinion on the propriety of her behavior' woman. Her bleached hair is tipped in turquoise blue and she's dressed for an afternoon on the beach, a peek-a-boo sun dress, sandals, big straw hat and sunglasses included. Glitzy jewelry decorates ears, fingers, wrists, and ankles, her lips are cherry red and huge breasts shoved up to her neck with a black bra, which I can see through her dress. She seems to have on some cheeky shorts, but I tried not to stare so I can't be sure.

At nearly sixty, she still rocks it, though. I have to hand it to my uncle. Despite being single for most of his life, he went out of it having a good time, by the looks of things.

I take the seat opposite her at the table and she goes back to cradling the ceramic jar filled with Uncle Pete's ashes possessively.

A few seconds later, I understand why.

The lawyer walks in with my mother and her husband, Leroy. She stomps promptly over to Roberta, a scowl a mile wide on her face. The years have not been kind to my mother, but my mother hasn't ever been kind to anyone or anything in her life, so I can't be bothered to care about her health. Leroy glares at me and grabs a chair.

"I don't know who you think you are," my mother hisses at Roberta, "to make arrangements in my brother's name. As if you are all that mattered in his life. I'm his family, his flesh and blood. I've talked to my preacher, and we'll be having the ceremony next Tuesday."

Roberta tips her glasses to look at my mother over them. "You can do whatever the hell you want, honey. I don't give two twigs what you're doing Tuesday."

"Hand over the ashes. I can't believe he chose to be cremated. I don't believe it, in fact. I think you arranged this to save on money for a funeral, you cheap whore."

I jump to her defense, hackles raised. But Roberta starts to laugh, genuinely amused.

"Oh, sweety, you aren't still sore about that little thing I had with Eddie, are you? After all these years. The first time doesn't even count, he wasn't officially dating you at that point."

"Don't you dare call him Eddie. I called him Eddie! I was his wife, and you were nothing but a low-life home-breaker."

I'm not sure if I should interrupt and tell my mother to sit down, but Roberta tsks, shaking her head.

"All the women called him Eddie, Maureen, and you know it." She flicks a glance my way, pulling the sunglasses lower. "Sorry to talk about your daddy like that, but it's the truth. The man got around town. I'm surprised there's not more you running around. You got his...good looks, you know."

I cough. Well, having half siblings wasn't something I'd ever thought about before, but it would be possible. It doesn't bother me to hear about my father sleeping around. It used to, but I've accepted who he was as well as the fact that he killed himself in a motorcycle accident when I was a toddler. That's who he was. A reckless, thoughtless lady's man.

I've lived my whole life learning to accept him and at the same time to be completely different. It hasn't worked out quite how I've wanted. Partial success is better than nothing, though.

"Give me my brother's ashes, woman," my mother hisses.

Roberta fixes her sunglasses and wraps her arms around the jar. "He said if you really wanted them, I should throw a handful of him in your face. It would be the most contact you've had since you kicked out your only child on the streets to starve when the boy was sixteen. You found out Pete took him in and you called him up to cuss him out for his generosity for ten minutes straight."

This time the lawyer coughs to interrupt them. I'm disappointed. It might have turned into a cat-fight with my uncle's ashes flying around the room and my mother getting her ass whooped by a sexy, scantily clad middle-aged woman.

I relax in my seat. It could still happen. The day had only just begun.

"We are here to discuss the will and testament of Peter Huffman. I'd like to confirm that all parties are present and that the will was drawn up in good faith and health and was notarized by my colleague..."

I tune out the specifics. There is some legal stuff, dates and then he lays out who gets what.

"Cole Danielson, your uncle leaves you his 2016 Road Trek 210, class B, to pick up as is at your earliest convenience. Roberta Mae, you are to have the house and entire property—"

"Entire property and the house, I don't think so!" my mother interrupts. She stands up to point her finger. Leroy copies her, sputtering with anger.

"Please do not interrupt the reading of the will," the lawyer drones, unfazed. "The house and land property, all belongings inside go to Roberta Mae, except for..." He pauses to fix his narrowed eyes on Leroy and my mother. "Except for one family painting, in acrylics, painted in 1973, of the deceased and his younger sibling Maureen and their parents."

"What?" she asked, sagging.

"You are to have the hand painted portrait of the family from 1973."

"That's it? That's all he's leaving me? I'm his sister!"

Roberta snorts and pats the jar. "He knew exactly who you are."

"But I hate that painting." His mother's face crumples in bewildered incomprehension as she processes the fact that being a horrible person has consequences.

"We will protest this will in court," Leroy says quietly. "This woman clearly influenced our brother at a time when he was sick and weak, and I hardly believe their short-term relationship entitles her to keep such a valuable, family-owned piece of property. That house was built by my wife's grandfather. This will not stand."

I clench my fist at his words our brother. Leroy was an asshole to Pete since before my mother and he were married.

"The will is clear and binding—" the lawyer starts to say.

"This short-term relationship lasted for twelve years and your brother, as you call him, put a goddammed ring on it two months before he passed away. I kept my maiden name." Roberta flashes a huge, sparkling ring of red, white and blue, which I had assumed was costume jewelry. But by the anger mounting in Leroy's face, and the tendons popping in his neck, I now realize those rocks on her finger are real.

God, I loved Uncle Pete. He knew how to make a statement, and he chose just the woman to help him make it.

"We'll see you in court." Leroy stands and motions curtly for my mother to do the same.

"You know my address for when you send the summons." Roberta smiles and waggles her fingers at them as they go.

I stand. My first job of the day is done.

"One last item is in the will," the lawyer calls. They pause at the door, practically drooling. There was still a load of cash in the bank, Uncle Pete had been notoriously hard-working and thrifty. "Cole Danielson, you also inherit, as a girlfriend, the recently widowed Roberta Mae, should she approve."

I stagger slightly in place, coughing. "I'm sorry, what?" Did I just inherit my uncle's wife as a girlfriend?

"You inherit Roberta Mae as your girlfriend, should she approve of the situation," the lawyer says. He keeps a straight face, but, after glancing another time at Roberta in her peek-a-boo dress, loosens his tie.

Roberta bounces in place, and squeaks at the same time as my mother and Leroy storm away.

"Oh, I approve," she says and leans forward across the table. She takes my hand. "I very much approve. So, pick me up at seven tonight for dinner?"