He smiled at her. “It was nothing, babe.”
Her green eyes clouded. “It looked like something.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for that. She was just upset.” His cell phone rang and he took it out, then smiled. “Lauri. I was just thinking about calling her.” He punched the talk button. “Hey, sis, how’s school?”
Lauri’s voice was high with excitement. “Great, just great. But even better, Kade, I got a job! It’s working for the top accounting firm in the UP. And I’m getting paid really well. No need to worry about your baby sister anymore. I can take care of myself from now on.”
A pang squeezed in the region of his heart. “I never minded taking care of my baby sister. I kind of liked it, in fact.”
“I’m grateful, too, but my life is changing for the better. No more pinching pennies. As soon as I get paid, I’m buying a different car. This old rattletrap is about to fall apart.”
At least that would be one financial burden he wouldn’t have to carry. His thoughts went to the grant application. The lies he’d told on it gnawed at him.
The chatter around the café faded to a distant hum. Bree knew this was her problem, not Kade’s. He’d just been comforting Jenna. His kindness was one of the things that had drawn her from the beginning. She sipped her coffee, which had grown lukewarm. Was that happening to her marriage? Was the passion between them fading to a humdrum routine?
She dared a peek at her husband. He picked at his smoked fish with an absent expression. This was Kade, not some stranger. He’d never do anything to hurt her.
“Honey, I’m tired. Could we go home?” she asked.
He glanced up with worry in his eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just ready for a nap.”
Kade looked at Davy. “While Mom’s napping, you and I will go make a snowman.”
“Yay!”
Kade reached over and picked up Olivia in her carrier. She was wide-awake and looking around with big eyes.
Bree slipped her coat on and followed her husband and son into the driving wind. The fine day had turned more frigid. The sun slipped behind the gathering snow clouds, and a cold front blew from the northwest, bringing moisture from the lake. Kade held her hand so she wouldn’t slip on icy patches. The sense that he cherished her calmed those nagging doubts.
The truck was like an icebox when she slid across the frozen seat. Davy got in the club seat behind her and she heard his seat belt snap into place. He was good at remembering to buckle up. Kade secured the baby in the middle of the backseat while she fastened her own seat belt.
Kade drove slowly out of town, and Bree stared out the window at the frozen landscape. As they rounded the curve out to the lighthouse, she saw the man in the biker gear along the side of the road. He was beside a white truck. Her heart jumped to her throat, and she strained to see him better.
“You should probably stop and help him,” she told Kade, pointing to the stranded man.
“Yeah, you’re right.” He eased the truck to the side of the road. “I’ll leave the truck running so you’ll stay warm.” Kade got out and went to talk to the man.
Bree watched them through the window. The man had taken his glasses off, and she caught her breath again at the sight of his profile—so much like Rob’s it was scary. But this guy had dark hair and a dark beard. Rob’s were light brown that turned blond in the summer.
Then the man smiled at Kade, and her breath froze in her throat. That crooked smile. She stared harder, and the guy turned and looked straight at her.
Rob. It was Rob.
The certainty coalesced in her head, her heart. She couldn’t breathe past the constriction in her lungs. When she stared harder, she became less certain. Didn’t they say everyone had a twin somewhere?
Was she totally going crazy?
It was all she could do to swallow the fear in her throat. She watched Kade go around to the back and retrieve his gas can. He poured some into the biker’s truck, and moments later, the big vehicle roared to life. The man drove off as Kade returned.
“Who-who was that?” she asked, trying hard to keep her voice steady.
“Said his name was Quinn Matilla.”
“From around here?”
“He didn’t say, but his accent sounded like it.” Kade dropped the transmission into drive and continued on down the road. He glanced at her as he pulled into their driveway. “You okay?”
“Fine. He just reminded me . . . of someone.”
“Who?”
She put her finger to her lips and mouthed, “Later.”
But she doubted he’d remember later, and she wasn’t about to bring it up. Often enough over the years, he’d seemed insecure about whether she’d truly gotten over Rob’s death. And judging from her reaction today, she wondered the same.
A thump hit the back of her seat. “Don’t kick the seat,” she told her son.
“Mom, did you find Olivia’s mommy?” Davy asked in a voice that was too nonchalant.
She twisted around to stare at him. His gaze was locked on Olivia. “Not yet, honey.”
“You found her in the woods, just like me,” he said.
She’d hoped those memories of his being lost had faded. “Yes, that’s right. I’m trying to find her mommy and daddy though.”
“Mother didn’t try to find you.”
The woman who had found Davy, Rachel Marks, had made no attempt to find Davy’s family. She’d kept him for a year, and it was only because of Samson that Bree found her son again. And God, of course. Mostly God.
“No. No, she didn’t. And that was wrong.” Olivia began to cry, a thin wail that told Bree she was still half asleep.
Davy took her hand. “She’s crying for her mommy,” he said. “I hope God hears her. Grammy says God always hears. Do you think he hears Olivia?”
“I’m sure he does,” Bree said, her eyes filling with tears. She hadn’t been looking at the situation through Olivia’s eyes, only through her own need for a baby. Whose cry would God answer?
Kade parked and got the baby out of the back. Olivia’s cry was ramping up. Bree took Davy’s hand and went to the lighthouse. The baby was wailing by the time they stepped into the house. She took the carrier from Kade and lifted the baby from it.
“So much for a peaceful afternoon,” he said. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’ll be all right. She sounds hungry.” Bree tossed her coat at him, and he caught it and took it with his to the closet. She kicked off her boots and went on into the living room.
“There, there,” Bree crooned, cradling the infant. Olivia gave a small hiccup and began to quiet immediately. Bree grabbed a bottle and put it in the warmer.
Kade followed her. “I saw you talking to Mason. Has he found anything about her parents?”
“Nothing.” She hesitated, then told him of her suspicions of a baby ring. “I think maybe she’s Ellie’s baby.”
“What about the parents who adopted her? Why did they never get her? And how do we find them?”
“I don’t know. I hope we don’t find them,” she said. “I want to keep her, Kade.”
He pressed his lips together. “Bree, we’ll have our own baby.”
“I want this baby. I love her.”
“I was afraid this would happen,” he muttered. “You have to give her up. For one thing, we can’t afford a child right now.”
“We’re doing okay,” she said.
“Have you noticed how much formula and diapers are costing us? We haven’t gotten the first payment from CPS yet either, and it’s all coming out of our pocket.”
Was this turning into an argument? She’d thought Kade would be on board with the idea of adopting her. “I thought you loved her too,” she said, her lips trembling.
His voice softened. “Babe, she’s not ours. Someone is desperately looking for her.”
“You don’t know that!” She removed the bottle from the warmer and stormed back to the living room. The phone ra
ng. Glancing at the caller ID, she saw it was Naomi. She composed herself and answered it. “Hey girl, what’s up?”
“I’m not sure. We stopped over to get that sled, and I saw some guy in biker gear walking in your backyard.”
The guy had come here? Her pulse ratcheted up a notch. “What was he doing?”
“Just standing out back. Looking at the water, then turning and looking at the house.”
Ice moved through Bree’s veins. What did this mean? Rob was dead. She’d overseen the removal of his body from the crash site into the graveyard here in town. Of course he was dead. If he were alive, wouldn’t he have come back to her?
“Did you speak to him?” she whispered.
“No. He saw us and ran off around the other side of the house. Donovan ran after him, but he got away before Donovan reached him.”
“Maybe he was just admiring the lighthouse.” People did all the time. They stopped and asked to come in like it was some kind of tourist attraction. Surely that was it. She hung up the phone, her hands still trembling.
She took the warmed bottle and popped it into Olivia’s rosebud mouth. The baby began to suck. Her eyes closed. Bree had to keep Olivia. It was impossible to think of her life without this little girl. Bree fed her, then laid her in the bassinet, grabbed a throw, and curled up on the sofa. Kade and Davy clattered down the steps as they ran outside, where they shouted and laughed.
Alone for a few minutes, she went to the bookshelf and dug out a photo album. She’d put it on a low shelf so Davy could look at it whenever he wanted, but Bree hadn’t seen him going through it in over a year. She probably hadn’t looked at it since she married Kade.
She carried the book back to the sofa and flipped it open. Her younger self smiled at the camera. Dressed in a soft white wedding gown, she’d been impossibly young and happy. She hadn’t known then what the future would hold.
She flipped the pages and stopped at the close-up of Rob. His eyes crinkled at the corners from his face-splitting smile. That crooked smile she’d seen fifteen minutes ago. Bree swallowed hard and told herself again it had to be her imagination.
Why had the biker come here if it was all in her head? Until she’d heard Naomi’s news, she’d been able to convince herself he was a lookalike.
She closed the book and went to the back door. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she stepped out and stared at the man’s footprints tracked there in the snow for all the world to see.
A dark blob caught her eye. Paulie, their resident cardinal, sat on it. She didn’t have any shoes on, so she stepped back inside and slid her feet into Crocs, then went back out. As she neared the item, it registered. A pipe. His pipe. She stumbled and nearly fell but caught herself.
She didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want her world to crumble around her, but she forced her feet to move closer until she stood looking down at the evidence in the snow.
Pipe tobacco littered the white snow, but her gaze was frozen on the pipe. She knew that pipe well. Paulie tipped his head and sang out. He pecked at her fingers when she moved her hand toward the pipe. “Go away, Paulie,” she said, shooing him away.
She reached down and picked it up. The bowl was an eagle’s head, carved by Rob’s grandfather. Anu had given it to him when her father died, and it was Rob’s most prized possession. He would never have left it behind on purpose.
The biker couldn’t be Rob. Someone was messing with her head. She put her hand to her cheek and moaned.
12
THIS HAD BEEN GOING ON LONG ENOUGH. QUINN DIALED his mark’s number and listened to the ring. When the man answered, he let the silence hold a moment. “Hello?” the man said again. “Is anyone there?”
“I’ve seen no announcement in the news yet,” Quinn said, his voice a growl. “You need more incentive?”
“I-I thought the money was what you wanted,” the guy stammered.
Quinn frowned. “Money?”
A confused silence ensued. “Your partner asked for cash. I delivered it. Aren’t we square now?”
“Money? How much?”
“Half a million dollars. I’ve been waiting on you to call and tell me where the exchange will be.”
That double-crosser. Quinn literally saw red. This was no oversight. “The money was not what we agreed to,” he said. “When the announcement hits the papers, you’ll get the baby back.”
“Bu-but . . .”
Quinn clicked his phone off. He hadn’t been offered his cut. What was his partner trying to pull? And was this the reason none of his calls had been returned?
The hum of the digital clock mingled with Kade’s snores. Bree lay with her eyes wide and unfocused. Her internal vision replayed the man she’d seen by the truck. The shape of the face, the mouth. The shoulders. Plus his pipe in the backyard.
Her eyes burned. Samson rose from his bed on the floor beside her. His cold nose nudged her hand. She rolled toward him and ran her hand over his silky fur for comfort. He always sensed when she was distressed. He pushed forward and nuzzled her neck. His hot breath gave her goose bumps, but breathing his good doggy scent calmed her.
This situation couldn’t be what it seemed. She wasn’t ready to swallow something so outrageous. She knew Rob. He would never have walked away and left Davy in the woods alone. Never. He’d adored his son.
What if it is Rob?
The question wouldn’t let her alone. The thought of such a terrible possibility made her struggle to pull enough air into her lungs. She rolled away from Samson and faced Kade’s broad back. The warmth of his body encompassed her. The threat of losing each other, or—even worse—of not being really married to each other would traumatize them both.
What would she do if Rob were alive?
She flung her arm over her eyes. Thinking about it was driving her crazy. She sat up and slipped out of bed. The baby still slept in the bassinet, so she padded down the hall to Davy’s room. Samson followed her. Davy had managed to tangle the bedding into a wad at the foot of the bed. The room smelled of oranges, and she stepped on two orange peels by his bed. She straightened out the covers, pulling them up over him. Watching him a moment in the moonlight, she imagined his elation if Rob were to walk in the door.
After touching his warm cheek, she backed out of the room and went downstairs. Maybe a cup of chamomile tea would help. The wood floor was cool against her bare feet. The living room still held the aroma of the apple spice candle she’d burned earlier, and it made the tea sound even better. She went to the kitchen to put the kettle on the stove and turned the flame to high while she got out the tea bag and a cup. Her stomach rumbled, and she decided to have a piece of the chocolate cake she’d baked yesterday.
Samson followed her with his tail wagging. At least someone cared that she was awake. Kade hadn’t budged when she got out of bed. The kettle began to hiss and steam. She removed it before it could start shrieking. As she poured the hot water over the tea bag, she glanced up. A light bobbed in the backyard.
Bree’s pulse galloped, and she quickly flipped off the light. Peering through the window, she saw nothing, but Samson’s ears perked up, and he went to the door. He whined and gazed up at her with expectation in his eyes.
He wasn’t barking. Her alarm ebbed. She glanced at the clock on the stove. Midnight. Who would be out there at that hour?
Rob.
Why the thought rushed to mind she had no idea. What a crazy idea. She stared at the door. Samson whined at her knee, and she put her hand on his head. “It’s okay, boy.” Maybe there was nothing out there at all. Just an animal.
She squared her shoulders. The least she could do was check it out. The doorknob was cold under her fingers. She threw the dead bolt and opened the back door. As she did, she heard a creak from overhead. She quickly shut the door again.
She couldn’t talk to Kade about this yet.
Kade walked to the door of the bedroom in his pajama bottoms and T-shirt. He looked at the clock. Just after midnight. She was p
robably downstairs. Since her miscarriage, she often couldn’t sleep.
Pausing in the hall, he listened. The house was silent. Both kids still slept. He walked to the top of the stairs and saw Bree coming up. “You okay, babe?”
She lifted a cup of steaming liquid in the air. “I thought chamomile might help me sleep.”
“I heard Olivia grumble a little like she was going to wake up.”
“I’d better check on her.” She came on up the stairs and passed by him to hurry to the bassinet.
Her sweet scent wafted behind her to his nose. Since the baby had come into the house, she didn’t have much attention to spare for him. And maybe it was best that way. He didn’t want her to notice how worried he was about his job. This new revelation that she wanted to keep Olivia depressed him more. He hated to disappoint her in anything, but he didn’t see how they could do this.
He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of milk. Heat from the kettle where she’d fixed her tea radiated from the stove. Samson stayed on his heels. “No milk for you, big guy,” Kade said. “How about a treat?” He got out the bag of venison treats. Samson took it with gentle care from Kade’s fingers. “Good boy.”
He rubbed the dog’s head, then took a swallow of cold milk. It had barely hit his stomach when he saw Samson go to the door and whine. “I’m surprised your mom didn’t let you out.” He unlocked the back door, and Samson leaped out.
As the dog dashed past him, Kade saw a flashlight bobbing along the snowy ground in the glow of moonlight. He saw Samson run to a shadowy figure. Surprise held Kade still and mute.
“Hey, Sam,” a muted male voice said. “You remember me, huh?” The dark figure bent over the dog. “You seen my pipe?”
Kade stiffened and stepped out onto the back deck. Who would be in their backyard at midnight? He squinted in the dark. “Who’s there?”
The flashlight jerked, then began to move along the snow faster before winking out. Kade leaped into a snow bank. The frigid snow hit his bare feet, then he plunged thigh high into the icy stuff. He winced at the cold burn.
Cry in the Night Page 11
