Of Objects and Obsessions

Chapter 1

1

Shaun listened to the buzzing and tried to ignore the persistence of it. Peeling open one eyelid, he waited for the time on his alarm clock to come into focus. 6:00 AM. His eye closed, and he searched his fuzzy memory for a reason to answer his cell phone. There were two deputies on call. He reasoned the odds to be very low an emergency would have occurred in which they would need him to respond. And since he had the 911 app, if there was a call, he would receive a different alert. Sam was safe in Durango, with Rutgers gone and Cole deciding that ten years was enough time to be apart from Sam, his self-induced version of penance for allowing Rutgers to get his hands on Sam years ago, now over. There apparently was no forgiveness needed, from his sister’s perspective, since she agreed to marry the only man she has ever loved. Ethan was back home on the Preserve, most likely still tucked in bed with his pregnant other sister, Carli. It couldn’t be his father, who was taken suddenly from their lives. And Darla, even if she hadn’t met a similar fate as Bear Tanner, hadn’t contacted him since his twenty-first birthday. The last girlfriend he had was happily dating one of the employees from the Preserve.

With a groan, he reached out and took his phone from the nightstand. “Hello,” he mumbled into it, not bothering to look at the screen and the number displayed.

“Shaun? Hey, this is a reminder call that you were going to come over and help move the furniture and pack the boxes stacked in Bear’s office so there would be room for the new marketing and PR person that Carli hired. Ms. Casey and her son are due to arrive this afternoon. Ethan has official FBI work to do, and J.J. is at Si—” Zach stopped himself in time. He didn’t know how Shaun was handling his ex-girlfriend and J.J. being together, but it wasn’t Zach’s place to share the fact that J.J. spent the night at Sissy’s a couple of times a week. “Well, he’s out, too, and it’s just me and Alyssa to take care of the stock and get breakfast on the table. You know there’s always extra, if that might entice you to come over a little early. I know you don’t do much at the Preserve… dang it, that came out wrong. What I mean is—”

Shaun groaned again. “Be there in an hour.”

He didn’t know, or care, if he hung up on Zach. The pounding in his head had kept time with Zach’s voice and dissipated his brain fog. Rolling out of bed and grabbing his running shorts from the floor was a coordinated move that anyone who knew the amount of whiskey he had consumed the night before wouldn’t have thought was possible. Exiting the bathroom, he headed for the kitchen. There wasn’t much in the fridge, and only a moment of indecision between the bottle of beer and a sports drink. He snatched the container of purple liquid from the shelf and made his way to the workout room.

Swallowing half the contents of the bottle before setting it on the treadmill’s console, he rotated his arms, freeing up the stiffness in his left one. His collarbone had mended from the break, but the slightly atrophied muscles in his shoulder didn’t care to be worked as hard as he pushed them. Stepping on the belt, he programmed the machine, then glanced at his reflection in the window.

The shaggy blonde hair would look better when groomed. If he let his beard grow out, he would be a younger version of Bear Tanner. The rough edges of his father’s facial features were smoothed by Darla’s genetic contribution. The slap of his running shoes on the treadmill matched the thrumming in his head. From the outside, he had the fit body of an athlete. On the inside, the alcohol ate away at what the guilt and grief had left behind.

His receptionist, Ester, said he was looking haggard, so he had taken a few of his vacation days and worked on the house. He pressed the button on the controls and increased the speed.

Welcoming the sheen of perspiration, he tried to turn his thoughts away from anything that would give him reason to drink. Glancing around the workout room, a humorous laugh echoed against the empty walls. This house, which he built with his own hands, was supposed to be finished by the Tanner Team, he and his father. That was now an impossibility. The stiffness in his shoulder reminded him of yet another time that he failed. In his mind, his badge appeared, floated there briefly in his thoughts, and then vanished. The brass star was an attempt to make up for the horrendous ordeal that Samantha lived through when she was seventeen. He couldn’t protect her then, and he failed to keep her safe from that same evil several weeks ago.

When his thoughts traveled to the funeral Sam had planned for Darla, their mother, only the taste of bitterness could be identified. Darla had abandoned the family on his first day of kindergarten. To his six-year-old mind, it was his fault. There was plenty of fodder for the guilt that seemed part of him, though the grief over his father’s death had taken up residence in the small black corners of his soul.

Increasing the incline, he pushed himself harder. Was there a speed and angle that would eradicate these emotions he couldn’t shake? It was partially because of this that he didn’t feel worthy to offer himself to Sissy. It shouldn’t be her lot in life to try and heal his brokenness. She was too good to be hitched to someone with his issues. They had dated off and on since high school. She knew him better than anyone in town. He had caught Zach’s slip on the phone. J.J. was a good guy, and Sissy certainly deserved someone more like the Preserve manager rather than the town sheriff.

The buzzer sounded, and the machine decreased in speed, the front lowering itself to a zero incline. He slowed to a walk and swallowed the last of the sports drink. Once the treadmill turned off, he headed back to his room, wondering what it would take to have these ghosts vacate his life for good.

In the hours he had spent on the road, and alone in hotel rooms, he had decided to put an end to the shitstorm his life had become. He needed to return to where it began. That wasn’t California, home of his political career and campaign office, the wife who knew more than what was good for her, and the string of women that had once serviced him, but to Wyoming. There was no revenge he could exact on Darla Tanner. Her funeral was several weeks ago. The rest of the Tanner family, however, would pay for all that was kept from him.

Raised to believe that if he wanted something, it was his right to take it. He used that characteristic in situations every chance he could. He wanted to play baseball, so he got rid of the varsity first baseman by causing a career-ending accident. When he decided to run for public office, his platform was split between telling the constituents he understood their concerns and would address them once in office and rattling the closet skeletons of those he was running against. For most instances in his life, the belief that what he wanted could be his if he took it by any means available to him had fed his arrogance and sense of entitlement.

There were business partners who were furious over the loss of their investment when he was unable to convince landowners to sell their property. With the reports the media had in the papers and broadcasts on television, he could never return to real estate, politics, or law, and he may not even be a free citizen if Shaun Tanner could make the charges stick. Any associates he had that came with his marriage to Rose had blacklisted him. The money she had given him on the pre-paid credit card was running low. A used car dealership in Cheyenne or Laramie would give him cash for his current ride, along with a nondescript vehicle. For what he planned to do, he needed anonymity, at least until the end. And it was only then that he would reveal himself. It was part of evening the score. The Tanners had cost him his life. Nothing but theirs in return would satisfy him.

Before he was forced to let go of the people who worked for him in his campaign office, he was able to discover it was Shaun Tanner who had gotten to Rose, questioned her regarding his whereabouts, his finances, and his contacts. The set-up Rose conducted with Crystal wouldn’t have occurred if Bear Tanner had sold his properties, and if Shaun hadn’t linked the ranch troubles back to him. With the loss of Rose’s social circle and her wealth, the White House was out of his grasp. He would start with Shaun, then take care of Carli, something Darla had been incapable of doing. By then, there would be no one left to protect Samantha. Hell, he would get rid of Cole Branson just for being a pain in his ass and preventing Alice Branson from selling the JAR-C. Perhaps a car accident would take care of both of them at one time.

He pulled into a restaurant parking lot outside of Denver. A late breakfast as he perused the Colorado newspaper would give him an opportunity to see what was happening in the world, and to plan where to stay. He couldn’t use his regular cell phone, since Rose cancelled his line. Luckily, he was able to record a few important numbers before the battery died. Spending money on a prepaid phone instead of a charger for a phone he couldn’t use at least gave him a way of contacting people he thought might help him. The hired man from Durango had not answered when he called, nor had the man returned his messages.

The waitress approached the table with his credit card. “Thanks, Mr. Worthington. Have a nice day.”

The ex-Councilman nodded and signed the credit receipt. Whatever day it would be, however long it would take, his mind would not rest until the Tanners made up for his losses.