Helen flopped onto her side, her face turned from Stacia. “Not funny,” she muttered. “Go back to sleep, you idiot. You’ve been dreaming.”
Stacia got out of bed, wincing when her feet touched the cold floor as she crossed to Helen’s bed, reaching down to grab her shoulders and give her a hard shake. “Listen, Helen,” she insisted.
Helen moaned and turned back to face her. The conflict between here and there with her sister still in her late teens in this time and long gone in the other, stirred Stacia’s mind unbearably. She choked down the feeling. “Tell me what you know about Terry Maxwell’s family.”
“Terry Maxwell? That little boy?”
She nodded, taking in her little sister’s beloved face, her heart aching for the time together that had been lost. “He came here with Mom’s friend and her little boy, the Jeffers.”
Helen, taking her cue from Stacia, went serious. “Messed up family. Terry and his mother were beaten up by their father. Most likely the older boy too.”
“Why doesn’t someone help them? Why isn’t it stopped?”
“Come on, Stacia, you know how it is. The mother depended on her husband to keep herself and the boys going. She’d lie to your face that she’d run into a door or fallen down the stairs. Poor thing was probably glad to die.”
“But the boys?”
“What can anybody do?” Helen pleaded. “They’re his sons.”
“And how does Nolan Jeffers come into this?”
Helen shrugged. “Doesn’t really. His mom tries to keep him away from them, but she says Terry keeps showing up at their house to play with Nolan and she doesn’t have the heart to turn him away. At least she can see he gets a good meal now and then. Nolan tries to look after Terry at school, too. The other kids pick on him.”
It was much as she’d thought. So Nolan had grown up trying to look after his friend and Bill and Terry Maxwell had no doubt been warped from years of their father’s abuse.
So who had really killed their father? And if it wasn’t Nolan why had he kept silent all those years in prison?
“You all right, Stacia?” Helen asked quietly, now seeming fully awake.
Stacia settled quietly back on to her own bed. “Sure, I’m fine.” Her mind was elsewhere, the words her sister spoke barely registered on her consciousness.
“But your nightmare, you said you were dreaming of my granddaughter?”
Stacia smiled. “I dreamed you had a fourteen-year-old granddaughter who reminded me a whole lot of you and yet was different as well. She was in danger and I was trying to keep her safe.”
Helen yawned. “I just have one question.”
“And what’s that?”
Helen rested her head dreamily on her pillow. “Who was her grandfather?”
Stacia laughed softly. “You’ll just have to figure that out for yourself,” she said, and turning away from Helen, willed herself once more into the future.
A loud knock sounded at the door just as Stacia slipped once more into Hart’s body. She watched as Serena calmly put her knitting down and went to open the door.
She saw a woman with light hair and commanding presence in the doorway, Alistair standing behind her.
“Mother,” the woman said, but she and Serena did not embrace. Her mother waved her inside and Alistair followed.
Funny, Hart thought, up until now she’d thought of her sister’s descendants as her own, but this woman cast a chill around her. Even though she must be Serena’s daughter and Bobbi’s mother, she felt no connection.
“My daughter, Dr. Stacie Hudson-Lawrence,” Serena introduced her. “Stacie, this is my good friend Hart Redhawk.”
Stacie nodded. “Sheriff Redhawk’s wife,” she said, than brushing all other thought aside frowned at her mother.
“I did the best I could,” Serena said, only mildly defensive, “but you know Bobbi. She has a mind of her own.” This last was said more in pride than reproof.
Alistair excused himself and left the three women alone. Hart got up to pull out a chair for the visitor and without seeming to really notice her, Dr. Lawrence sat down. “How could you let this happen, Mother? I’ve had to let down so many people to come here.”
As though Bobbi was not her daughter, but her mother’s, Hart thought. How strange? And yet she was obviously upset, obviously concerned.
Serena sat quietly in her own chair, not attempting to defend herself. “The sheriff is doing all he can to find her.”
Dr. Lawrence glanced at Hart as though if herself of the connection between her and the sheriff. “Surely, Mrs. Redhawk, you can see that entirely too much fuss is being made. My daughter is willful and her grandmother spoils her. It’s apparent to me that she has simply run away once again.”
Hart decided to let Serena deal with her daughter. Perhaps she was only clinging to this belief out of denial of the real danger her daughter could be in at this very moment. If it gave her comfort, more power to her.
The ringtone on her phone was a welcome interruption. She flipped it open and answered, “Hi, this is Hart.”
“Hart, this is Tommy. I know you are all tied up in this search for the missing girl, but could you spare me a minute. It’s really important.”
“Tommy.” She sighed. Hart’s older brother. Her brother now, left as almost a legacy by the other woman’s death. “Sure, Tommy. Are you here in the lodge?”
“In the lobby. I’ll wait for you here.”
She was almost glad of the interruption. “My brother needs to see me for a couple of minutes downstairs,” she told Serena. “Be right back.”
Serena nodded her understanding and Hart was glad to leave the room, allowing Serena and her daughter their own confrontation in privacy.
Not that the meeting ahead was one she was looking forward to. Trouble from Tommy always meant money problems. Her half-brother had an addiction to gambling and got himself into a world of trouble by risking money he couldn’t afford to lose at the local casinos. She had no doubt that once more he’d come to beg a loan from the money Hart had inherited through her mother’s family.
And she knew how hard it was to say no, even when she realized it wasn’t good for him to have her underwrite his dangerous addiction.
He was in the lobby, the big, round-faced man with the cotton-white hair, but he wasn’t alone. Mandy and Christy, his little daughters were with him.
Christy screamed with delight at the sight of her aunt, causing others in the room to stare as the two girls, as blonde as their dad, ran into her arms.
Hart felt no reservations about these two little girls. They might have been the real Hart’s relatives, but they were hers too and had treated her as a favorite ever since she’d come into their lives.
She settled herself in a big chair with Christy in her lap and the older Mandy seated on the wide arm at her right and listened as they told her all the latest happenings at school and among their friends. When the talk subsided a little, Tommy gave them each a couple of dollars and told them to go into the restaurant for ice cream cones while he talked to their aunt.
The grin faded from Hart’s face as she watched them scurry away and looked to Tommy’s face. He looked so sad, so worried. Why did he have to make life so hard for himself? It was difficult for her to understand this addiction that plagued his life.
They had as much privacy as was to be managed here with the only others remaining in the room over by the desk talking to the clerk. She waited for what he had to say.
She knew how hard this was for him. Usually his wife spoke for him, recognizing he’d rather do anything than ask his sister for help.
She had no wish to torture him. He might be a weak man or even a sick one, but she knew he was basically kind with many good qualities and total commitment to his family. Finally she had to speak. “Tommy, you told me you wouldn’t gamble anymore.”
“I mean what I said, but somehow, Hart, I just drift back into it and now Nikki’s saying she’ll leave me if I do
n’t get things straightened out. They’re threatening to take my truck and our house. We won’t have a home for the girls.”
She was caught. It would take someone wiser than she to solve Tommy’s problems. In the meantime all of Hart’s money was piled up somewhere and maybe she would have wanted Tommy to have as much of it as he wanted.
But she was guiltily aware that she was encouraging his addiction. Drat, but she didn’t have time right now to devote to this with Bobbi missing.
She made a quick decision with nothing like Solomon-type wisdom. “I’ll give you the money, Tommy, but you’ll have to put the house in Nikki’s name. That way, no matter how you mess up, she and the girls will have a home.”
He nodded, looking forlorn. “That’s more than fair, Hart.”
“Meet me at the bank at ten tomorrow morning,” she said, hoping she’d have found Bobbi by then and wouldn’t have anything more awful than Tommy’s financial affairs to worry about. “Bring the papers for the house.”
He nodded and got to his feet. “The truck will still belong to you,” she told him, offering what comfort she could. He nodded and started to walk away.
“Tommy, consider getting some kind of help. This doesn’t have to be a way of life.”
He nodded again without looking back at her and she
guessed he was only agreeing to please her and not because he had any conviction that help was possible.
Chapter Nineteen
She only had five minutes alone to try to seek out response from Bobbi before Alistair came looking for her. He looked tired and worried, but as always her heart jumped at the sight of him.
The distance between them made her sick and the idea that he might be gone from her life was beyond facing. Without Alistair, the future looked bleak.
But right now the distance between them seemed wide as the Grand Canyon.
“We need to talk,” he said abruptly.
Another scolding. “Yes,” she agreed, “I did say I’d dig Tommy out of trouble once more and I know how you feel about that. But what else can I do?”
“Tommy?” he asked, perplexed.
So that wasn’t what he wanted to talk to her about. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “So talk.” If it wasn’t Tommy he wanted to discuss, then it was the state of her mental health. That would be even more painful.
She heard the scraping as he moved another of the chairs nearer to her so they had some degree of privacy. He sat down and leaned close, taking her resisting hand in his own.
In spite of the fact that she hadn’t wanted him to hold her hand, she felt warmed and comforted by his grasp. Things had been so perfect between them at first, how could they have gone so miserably wrong? She only wished they could have stayed together in that bubble where their love had begun to bloom.
“Hart, I am not your enemy.”
She didn’t look at him. “I know that. But you won’t listen to me; you won’t believe in me.”
“I’ve been afraid something is wrong. That you need help.”
She swallowed hard, knowing that what they said to each other at this moment might be critical. She tried to choose her words carefully. “Remember that night in old Medicine Stick. For just an instant you were there with me. You saw the reality.”
Finally she allowed herself to look up into eyes that seemed to devour her. At first she’d been attracted to him by the way he looked, the essential strong male of him, but now it went deeper, past looks, voice, the impacting personality to the man deep inside. He was Alistair Redhawk and there was nobody in the world like him.
He leaned a little closer. “I can distrust the evidence of my own senses before the reason of the universe.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anything but what I see for myself.”
“But would you believe me, based on what I tell you I see?’
She considered thoughtfully, still holding his warm hand. “Yes, Alistair, I would,” she said, thinking that he should offer the same belief for what she’d told him.
“Then if I tell you that I see symptoms of delusion in your actions and words.”
Oops! Fried with her own words. She grinned. “Guess we have to agree to disagree.”
His exceptionally rare smile warmed her. “Always,” he said. “But not to abandon each other.”
She closed the distance between them, resting her face against him, luxuriating in the warm, manly scent of him. “The two of us” she agreed. “Even when we don’t see alike, we’re on the same side.”
“My love,” he whispered, raising her face to his intimate kiss.
“I’m so worried about Bobbi,” she whispered once their lips had parted. “I have no right to even a moment’s happiness when she’s in danger.”
“We’re doing everything we can to locate her. I predict we’ll find her by nightfall.”
She gave him another quick kiss. “I’m holding you to that, Sheriff.”
She watched him walk away without looking back, than sighed. Nothing was resolved, but yet everything was. No matter what, no matter how many misunderstandings, they would stick together.
The world seemed safer in its place in the heavens with that guarantee. No, not a guarantee, life didn’t offer that. But it was a promise they’d made to each other.
She went back to her room to find the deputy no longer at the door. Alistair had enough confidence in her to have given her freedom.
She would leave Serena to deal with her daughter and the official search for her granddaughter. She still had the keys to the second automobile Serena had leased and felt that now she had some control over the moments when she abandoned this body. She would drive the river area, looking for Bobbi, her phone at her side if her search was successful and she needed to call Alistair for help.
When Alistair got back to the lodge office, he found new information that turned his thinking upside down.
After confirming that the data given him was correct, he strode out to the lobby, looking for Hart, but she’d already gone. So he went up to her room, knocking on the door and calling, “Hart, its Alistair.”
Serena opened the door and past her, he saw Dr. Lawrence. “Do you have word about Bobbi?” the grandmother inquired anxiously.
He didn’t want to give her false hope, not even for an instant. “We haven’t found her, Serena, but we do have some new information.” He looked around. “Where’s Hart?”
A puzzled look crossed her face. “She’s with you, at least I thought she was.”
“Until about ten minutes ago. Didn’t she come back up here?”
Serena shook her head.
“What’s this new information about my daughter?” Stacie Lawrence asked, impatient with talk on any other subject. Even though he couldn’t blame her, he felt a little resentment at her commanding efficiency.
He would have liked to sit down. The hours without sleep were beginning to take a toll on mind and body and what he wanted to do was race right out of here and make sure Hart was all right. Since no one invited him to take a seat, he remained standing.
“You know we checked for fingerprints at Mrs. Harris’ cottage,” he addressed himself to Serena Hudson. She nodded.
“Prints were principally taken from five people.”
She nodded. “Not counting us?”
“Exactly. One looked to be from a child or younger person, possibly Bobbi. Another was a small, slim hand that could have been a woman, probably B.J. Harris herself. The other three matched records on file as Nolan Jeffers, Terry Maxwell and Bill Maxwell.”
“Jeffers?” Serena sounded startled. “The escaped criminal.”
“A criminal?” Stacie Lawrence snapped. “With my daughter? And where is this?”
“It’s only conjecture at this point,” Alistair said firmly, “but we’re following every lead.” He turned to leave.
“Who are the Maxwells?” Serena called after him.
“The two sons of the man Jeffers killed back in
1957,” he said and then went out the door, leaving Serena to explain to her daughter as much or as little as she cared about Hart’s theory of Bobbi’s capture.
Her voice followed him. “You owe your wife an apology, sheriff.”
Yeah, but first he had to find her.
Hart fought off a couple of waves that tried to send her back in time, saying aloud, “Not now. I can’t do it now,” and headed north from Medicine Stick, passing through Mountainside without stopped as she drove toward the river breaks.
It was raining again as this uncharacteristic pattern of wet weather hung over southwestern Oklahoma, the drops so heavy as to limit vision from Serena’s leased Lexus and to make the roads slippery and in spots were the drainage was poor, standing in water.
The phone’s ringtone sounded, the western tune that told her the person calling was her husband, but she didn’t respond, telling herself virtuously that it would be dangerous to talk while driving in these conditions.
And as ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ continued to hum, she determined to avoid the chance for Alistair to call her back. If she told him she was heading toward the river where Bobbi had told her she was being held captive, he would just get all het up again. She was preventing an argument by ignoring this call.
At the last little store before she would have to turn off the highway, she stopped to buy a large disposable cup of coffee and a sweet roll and then headed on, feeling a little nervous about heading off on the gravel road that would lead toward the river.
She used to know those back roads long ago. When she was a child her paternal grandparents had lived in what they’d called the river flats and with her granddad, she’d driven many a mile on those scenic, sandy little roads. Today she hoped that the sand would help keep her from getting stuck, providing more traction than the sticky red clay of the uplands.
The highway she left behind had been a graveled road in her childhood and followed a more rambling way, the graveled road had been only dirt, but the back roads that led down into the river country were much the same, narrow ribbons that sometimes ended at what had once been a residence, but where no trace of human habitation remained today.
Wakening the Past: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series Book 2) Page 12
