The Cougar and the Cowboy

Will stood as she was leaving, “Wait, Allie. Don’t leave. I didn’t mean….”

She was already gone. He sat down and asked himself, ‘What the hell just happened?’

He paid the bill and went home still asking himself exactly how he screwed up the evening. ‘Did Allie believe I was going to ask her to come home with me? Hmmm, interesting. Maybe I should have. Perhaps she would have given me the number when we were in the middle of making love. Does the phrase Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, come to mind, Will? I’ll have to find Camille’s new phone number some other way or at least where she’s staying. It’s driving me crazy to not know and besides, I need to talk to her to get the combination to the safe. If she wasn’t so paranoid, she would have given me that long ago. Still no trust after all these years. How sad is that?’

His phone beeped. Caller ID told him it was Lorna. “Hello Beautiful. How’s sunny California?”

“It’s definitely sunny but it would be sunnier if you were here, Will. Have you decided when you’ll be able to come out? I don’t know how much longer the position will be open.”

“Why can’t I apply online? I’ve hit a bit of a snag here as far as leaving right now but I can send my resume and any other paperwork you need.”

“Of course, that’s possible but I think you’d make a much bigger impression in person, and besides, I want you here.” He could hear the poutiness in her voice.

“We would have a great time, Will. I could show you all my favorite places.” She laughed. “You know what I mean, right?”

When she heard him chuckle, she added, “Oh yes and my favorite places to visit and sightsee also.”

“I will continue to try to make arrangements on this end but coming there in the immediate future doesn’t seem like a very real possibility at this point. There’s some business I have to take care of here before I leave and I’m running into obstacles in that endeavor. If you could please send me the name of the person I need to contact, I’ll forward my resume to them. Also, I’ll let you know when I’m able to fly out. If the position is no longer available, I’ll have to live with that.”

They ended the call with Will having several thoughts going through his head. One was that he needed Camille’s phone number and the combination to the safe…now. The other one was questioning himself if he actually wanted to see Lorna again. She was a bit too pushy and crude, even for his taste in women.

His next course of action was to search Mavis’ Mag’s website and FB page. Perhaps there were clues to her whereabouts but he was highly doubtful. Where would she go for six months? Even if the magazine was paying, that long a stay could be quite expensive. Maybe she was living with a friend or relative. He dismissed that idea as soon as it was a conscious thought. Camille literally didn’t have any friends. At least none that were close enough to let her move in with them. She didn’t have any relatives, either, except her mother and they didn’t speak to each other. Another dead end…she seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

He went for a walk to try and clear his brain. There was something niggling at the periphery of his memory but he couldn’t recall it into his mind’s eye. It was something he’d seen her reading one evening before she went to bed. A travel brochure? Maybe. If so, what was the picture on the front? Mountains, evergreen trees, rocks, waterfalls…well, that narrowed it down to about one-thousand locations. ‘Think, Will, think. There was a name on the front with those pictures…what was it?’ He stood still and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will his visual memory into bringing it to the forefront of his brain. He didn’t care what the people passing him were thinking. This was important. Finally, he believed it had an M-something on the front.

‘Okay, we can eliminate Missouri as we don’t have that kind of mountain ranges here. Mississippi? No. Maryland? No. Massachusetts…possibly. Maine?... another possibility. Montana?... probably not. It was too rugged and unpopulated for Camille’s tastes.’ As he walked back home, he suddenly stopped dead still causing the person riding a bike behind him to nearly run over him.

“Hey,” the woman yelled as she pedaled past. “What’re you doing?”

“Sorry,” Will shouted at her retreating figure. “I just remembered something important.”

He grinned as he wen

t back to the townhouse. It might be far-fetched, but it was the most hope he’d had so far. Camille’s mother, Barbara, owned a home in Montana. What better place to hide for six months?

He took the steps two at a time on his way to Camille’s bedroom. He wasn’t positive what he was searching for exactly but there might be some correspondence of some kind or an address book or something with Barbara’s Montana address on it.

He rifled through the few papers Camille left on the desk. It was too bad she was such a neat and tidy person. She must have packed her address book too. He stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly in a circle. What was the one thing she always kept…seemingly for posterity? Receipts…they had laughed about it many times…her unwillingness to ever dispose of any receipts. She hung on to them long after they were of no importance any longer. He opened the top drawer of her dresser…hallelujah, maybe. There was the motherlode of receipts. Now to find the one from the Fedex office when she mailed her mother’s obligatory Christmas gift to the house in Montana. He remembered she said she was glad Barbara decided to spend a week there. The postage wouldn’t be as much as sending it to Paris.

It didn’t take long to find as Camille’s organizational skills had them arranged by month. Unfortunately, the paper had obviously gotten wet at some point. Will was swearing as he tried to read the obliterated address. However, the space with the recipient’s phone number was still visible…barely…but he thought he could read it. He wasn’t in the habit of praying but that’s what he was doing now…praying there was still a land line associated with that phone number. He realized most homes no longer had a land line but Barbara was the kind of person who would keep one even if she didn’t need it or didn’t live there.

***

Camille was choosing the shirt she would wear to go with Collier this evening. She wasn’t accustomed to jeans and the new ones were fairly stiff but since they fit her like her skin, they soon softened up and melded to her slim figure. Looking in the mirror to assess the overall effect, she jumped when she heard the phone on the nightstand in the spare bedroom ringing. She hadn’t believed it was working, but was left from when Barbara was there. She thought about ignoring it but decided it might be Collier, if he lost her cell phone number.

“Hello?”

“Hi Camille. It’s nice to hear your voice.”

CHAPTER 20

CAMILLE WAS SHOCKED enough she lost her voice for a minute. When she could regain it and control her temper and not let her first words be a string of expletives that would burn Will’s ears, she answered. “Hello, Will. I guess your magnetic personality has managed to charm my information out of Allie, hasn’t it?”

“No, no…that’s not true. Don’t blame Allie for this. Not that I didn’t try but she not only refused to give me your cell phone number but she told me to never contact her again.”

“Good for her. I’m sure there’s more to that story but please spare me the details. So if you couldn’t wheedle it out of Allie, how exactly did you find me and why? Why, Will? What on God’s green earth do you need from me? You don’t have the decency to give me some time alone?”

“Calm down, Camille. Don’t get your bloomers in a knot. Hear me out and you’ll be happy I have such awesome detective skills.”