A Father's Quest

by Debra Salonen

  “Are you suggesting I’m crazy?”

  As Remy waited for Jonas’s answer she seethed. He knew her well enough to not make those kinds of comments.

  “Absolutely not. I know crazy.” He paused. “But you are slightly cracked.”

  Remy couldn’t say for certain whose scowl gave way to a smile first, but a second later they were both laughing. And a second after that, kissing.

  She wanted to blame the Kraken—or the intensity of the situation—but she wasn’t a liar. She’d been thinking about kissing him from the moment he showed up on her doorstep.

  He broke it off first. “Damn. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that.”

  “Me, too,” she said, touching her fingers to her lips. She’d kissed a dozen boys and men over the years but not a single one had left the sort of impression on her mouth that Jonas Galloway had.

  Dear Reader,

  I didn’t set out to write a nine-book series. In fact, the very idea probably would have left me paralyzed with writer’s block. But here we are at the ninth and final story in the Spotlight on Sentinel Pass series. In my proposal, I told my editor, oh, so casually, “And Remy’s story will probably lead us away from the Black Hills.”

  That sounded logical and relatively simple in theory. But saying goodbye to my Sentinel Pass family hasn’t been easy. Luckily, I really liked Remy when I met her in her sister Jessie’s book, Return to the Black Hills. I wanted to tell her story, and it was clear her roots—and her heart—were in Louisiana.

  When you meet Jonas Galloway, you’ll understand why. He’s the guy who got away—or rather was driven away by an outrageous and hurtful lie. Remy is poised to reinvent herself, and is determined to find a way to break free of the past and live her life fully. The last thing she wants or needs is a living, breathing ghost from her past showing up on her front porch to ask for her help in finding his missing daughter, Birdie. Help Remy can’t give him because to do so would prove once and for all that she’s a fake and fraud or, worse, that she’s become her mother—a woman who wasted her life waiting for a man she could never have. But Jonas refuses to take no for an answer. His daughter is in trouble and he’ll risk everything—even the love he’s tried most of his life to deny—to find her.

  In researching Remy’s so-called gift—a facility for interpreting dreams—I learned a lot about lucid dreaming. Two websites in particular—dreammoods.com and lucidity.com—were helpful in understanding the brain’s processing of dreams and attributing certain meanings and symbolism to dreams. The brain is a fascinating, complex and relatively unmapped frontier.

  Dream on!

  Debra Salonen

  A Father’s Quest

  Debra Salonen

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Debra Salonen is a firm believer that dreams do come true…if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to make them happen. For Debra, her dream of getting published became a reality after she consulted a psychic. A coincidence? Perhaps, but the psychic also predicted that Debra would live to be eightysomething, she’d be healthy and happy and have grandchildren she would adore. Like Debra, you’ll have to wait awhile to find out about the eighty years part of the prediction, but the rest is…well, a dream come true. Visit her online at www.DebraSalonen.com.

  Books by Debra Salonen

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  1196—A COWBOY SUMMER

  1238—CALEB’S CHRISTMAS WISH

  1279—HIS REAL FATHER

  1386—A BABY ON THE WAY

  1392—WHO NEEDS CUPID? “The Max Factor”

  1434—LOVE, BY GEORGE

  1452—BETTING ON SANTA

  1492—BABY BY CONTRACT#

  1516—HIS BROTHER’S SECRET#

  1540—DADDY BY SURPRISE#

  1564—PICTURE-PERFECT MOM#

  1588—FINDING THEIR SON#

  1633—UNTIL HE MET RACHEL#

  1662—THE GOOD PROVIDER#

  1698—RETURN TO THE BLACK HILLS#

  SIGNATURE SELECT SAGA

  BETTING ON GRACE

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  I114—ONE DADDY TOO MANY

  1126—BRINGING BABY HOME

  1139—THE QUIET CHILD

  For Malte, Rya and Daisy—my inspiration and then some.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  BIRDIE GALLOWAY WAS good at hiding. None of the other kids were half as good as her. That meant when it was her turn to hide, the others would search and search and search but not find her. Then they’d give up and go play some other game without letting her know the game was over. She hated that. She told them they were lazy, but they were little kids. They didn’t listen.

  Birdie was seven and a half. Six months older than David, the kid closest to her in age. His mother was Brother Thom’s most special friend. Birdie’s mother wanted to be that special, but she wasn’t. She was only a friend. Like all the other GoodFriends who traveled with Brother Thom.

  Mommy called them gypsies because the Friends all drove motor homes or pulled campers behind their trucks. When she and her mother first joined the group, there were a lot of trailers. Now, there were only two.

  “Hard times,” Mommy said. “Fewer donations. Less money for gas. Less of Thom to go around.”

  Birdie wasn’t sure what that meant but she knew they were eating more cereal and beans now than when she and Mommy first ran away from home.

  That’s not what Mommy called what they were doing. Mommy said they left their apartment in Memphis to answer God’s call. Birdie didn’t like thinking about God. He was big and scary. Birdie didn’t want God to call. The only person she wanted to talk to was her daddy, but the more they drove around, the more afraid Birdie was that Daddy might never be able to find her.

  Mommy said they didn’t need Daddy anymore because they had Brother Thom and the Good Lord. But Birdie didn’t like Brother Thom. He never looked her in the eye the way her daddy did. He never picked her up or carried her piggyback. And he was the reason they were driving around so much. So he could spread the good word. But sometimes he said bad words. She’d heard him.

  He was also the reason she wasn’t able to go to school. She missed school almost as much as she missed her daddy. Some days she was so sad it hurt to breathe. She’d play hide-and-seek alone so she could cry without anybody telling her to grow up or shut up or pray for forgiveness.

  The GoodFriends spent a lot of time praying for forgiveness. Her mommy, too.

  She turned her head to the side to listen for the other children. She should have known they’d never look under the motor home. Their mothers didn’t let them play near the vehicles, because some kid supposedly got run over before Birdie and her mother joined the Friends.

  Birdie’s mother didn’t tell her where not to play. Mommy was sick again. Not throw-up sick; sad-in-her-head sick. She didn’t pay much attention to Birdie when she was sad-in-the-head sick, so Birdie could play any place she wanted.

  But being under the motor home was getting boring. She yawned and was about to crawl out of her hidey-hole when suddenly the floor above her moved with a loud thud, thud, thud. A man’s footsteps.

  Her hea
rt started to beat faster. This was Brother Thom’s motor home. The one he shared with David’s mom, and sometimes one or two of the other ladies. Her mommy visited him here every once in a while, but not lately. A fact that made her mother sad. Mommy had been crying a lot lately, and nobody told her to shut up and pray for forgiveness.

  Birdie knew she’d be in big trouble if someone heard her—especially Brother Thom. And she was certain he could hear her, since she could hear the musical jingle of his phone followed by his voice—a voice that reached to the very back of the big Sunday meetings tent without him needing a microphone. Mommy said that would have made him seem too common.

  “What is it with you people? What part of I don’t have the money don’t you get?”

  Birdie closed her eyes to listen better. She knew it was wrong to listen to private conversations, but Birdie did it anyway. Her daddy once told her, “You have to listen to what people mean, Birdie. Not just what they say.”

  “Listen, asshole. I’ve sold everything we own. What am I supposed to do? Sell the children?”

  Birdie swallowed hard. Her hands trembled and she nearly lost her grip on the dirty metal thing she was holding to keep from falling.

  “Yeah,” Brother Thom said with a laugh. Not a happy-sounding laugh. “Well, if I thought I could get enough to be worth the bother, I might consider it. Even God wouldn’t fault me for dumping Cheryl. She barely lifts a finger around here. All she does is read the Bible and cry. She stopped taking her meds because she’s convinced God will heal her…through me, of course.”

  Cheryl was Birdie’s mommy’s name. She believed Brother Thom was the SecondComing. Whatever that meant.

  “And that kid of hers,” he added with a tone that made tears well up in Birdie’s eyes. “Don’t get me started. She’s like a ghost, always hanging in the background, watching and listening. A redheaded ghost.”

  Birdie couldn’t hold on to the metal bar anymore. She slipped to the ground but didn’t move until she heard Brother Thom leave. She watched him walk to the cooking tent, where the mothers spent their afternoons.

  She rolled out from under the trailer and raced into the bushes at the edge of the clearing. She didn’t go far. Mommy said the woods were full of alligators and poisonous snakes. Birdie crawled under a bush and curled into a tight ball, trying her best to keep her sobs as quiet as possible. But one word wouldn’t stay silent.

  “Daddy.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  REMY BOUCHARD STRETCHED with the sweet pleasure of awakening in her own bed. A cool Louisiana breeze drifted through her window, carrying the scent of magnolias and the sputtering hum of a neighbor’s mower. She smiled even before she opened her eyes to the rich magenta hue of her ceiling.

  “Home,” she murmured, with a contented sigh.

  Not that the past few weeks hadn’t been an adventure she’d always remember. The Black Hills of South Dakota had left a mark on her heart, and with her twin sister, Jessie, relocating there, Remy knew she’d return to the area soon.

  But not too soon.

  First, she needed to figure out exactly what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She’d left Louisiana a few weeks earlier intending to use the time and distance to get some perspective on her life. She was thirty-two years old, unmarried, unemployed, un…everything. And the worst part of all was she had no idea what she wanted to accomplish.

  She’d had dreams once. A long time ago. She’d planned to marry the love of her life, settle right here in Baylorville to be near her mother and sisters, raise a family and become a teacher. A normal life. That’s all she’d ever craved.

  Normal. Like that was even possible, given my family.

  She sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes and hopped out of bed. Her toes curled up from contact with the chilly wood surface. She’d let her sisters take whatever possessions of their mother’s they wanted after Mama passed. Someone must have wanted the throw rug that had always been beside the bed.

  “Are you finally awake, sleepyhead?” a voice called from somewhere on the first floor. Jessie. Her sister. Her twin.

  “I’m awake, but I’m not coming down until I smell the coffee percolating,” Remy hollered back. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to brew real Louisiana coffee.”

  The best thing about Jessie was she’d never dodged a challenge in her life.

  But given the lateness of the hour—good heavens, it was after eight—there was a chance the coffee was already made and transferred to the thermal carafe Mama had kept filled most every day of her life. A life that had ended some ten months earlier.

  Tiptoeing to the closet, Remy threw open the double doors and stepped inside. This was the only closet of decent size in the house. Mama had speculated that it was originally planned as a nursery, but since the lone window was a tiny, nonfunctioning oval with leaded glass, Remy had her doubts.

  There were two smaller bedrooms and one bath on the second floor. The 1940s–era home wasn’t a true New Orleans’s shotgun because it had a second floor, but Baylorville wasn’t N’Awlins, either. The quiet hamlet was made up of an old downtown with a few surviving businesses, such as Marlene’s House of Beauty and a newly renamed Dollar Shoppe, which replaced the old Five and Ten. There was also a school and the post office. Outside town was Catfish Haven, which was, perhaps, Baylorville’s only claim to fame. All in all, the town was nothing fancy—that’s what New Orleans, some forty-odd miles to the southeast, was for.

  She pulled her Donna Karan nightgown over her head and folded it neatly before putting it away in the chest of drawers.

  “Is this fast enough for you?”

  The smell of chicory beat Jessie through the door.

  Remy popped her head out of the closet. “Wow. Your ankle must be a whole lot better if you can climb the stairs, carrying two cups.”

  “It’s amazing what really good painkillers can do,” Jessie responded. “But I already had my coffee with Cade and Shiloh before they took off to rent a truck, so I only had to carry one cup. Where do you want this?”

  Remy quickly pulled on a pair of panties. “Set it on the dresser while I get presentable.”

  Jessie made a raspberry. “Presentable. That’s so Mama. As long as we all looked presentable, people wouldn’t know we were eating grits and greens instead of steak.”

  “You like grits,” Remy reminded her, fastening her bra. She grabbed the first thing she spotted in her closet. A simple, scoop-neck dress. The gauzy material was a muted floral print that was both feminine and pretty. She’d loved it once.

  After slipping it over her head, she turned sideways to study her reflection in the full-length mirror as she buttoned the small, pearl-like buttons of the bodice.

  “Does this make me look fey?”

  “Fey? What the…fey is that?” Jessie grinned at her own wit. She was dressed in capri-length black yoga pants and an oversize Girlz On Fire T-shirt.

  “You know. Odd. Different. A bit off.”

  Jessie hobbled to the bed with a pronounced limp. She plumped up a couple of pillows against the head-board, then sat and swung her leg around to rest her Ace-bandaged ankle on the cushioned softness of the white, eyelet comforter.

  “The dress is fine. It’s not something I’d wear, but it looks like you.” She pointed at the cup she’d left on the nightstand. “Better drink that while it’s hot. I added cocoa and steamed milk, the way you like it.”

  “Yum. Thanks.”

  “No problem. It’s the least I could do for the hospitality. Now, tell me what’s going on with you. What’s this fey thing about?”

  Remy took a sip before answering. “Perfect,” she declared, sitting opposite her sister at the foot of the bed. She wasn’t sure how to express her current sense of self-doubt without sounding like a complainer, or—worse—making Jessie feel somehow responsible for this sudden onset of ennui because Jessie’s life, by comparison, was so full of promise.

  “So…” she said, curling her foot under he
r so she could lean forward a bit. “Here’s the deal. You know I’m happy for you and Cade, right?”

  “Of course. You’ve told me about a million times since you got here and you keep trying to palm off furniture on me—a sure sign of love in our family,”

  “You’re going to be glad I did. Someday. When you have more kids to pass these antiques down to, but that’s not my point. The fact that you’ve found your significant other and are setting forth on the road to happily-ever-after—”

  “In our rented moving van, towing Yota.” Yota was the nickname affectionately given to the beloved Toyota Land Cruiser Jessie had owned since high school.

  Remy brushed aside the comment. “With your lovely future stepdaughter and a new dog. Perfect. My point exactly. All of that makes my life look pretty pathetic by comparison.”

  Jessie opened her eyes wide with surprise. “Really? Is that what you think? Wow. I was so wrapped up in everything going on in my life, I never even considered…damn. I’m sorry for being so self-absorbed, Rem. What can I do?”

  Remy rolled her eyes. “Nothing. This is why I haven’t said anything to you, Jess. You should be self-absorbed. You’re in love and you’re moving forward in your life and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t want you to worry about me or fixate on how to fix things here when you’re in South Dakota.”

  Jessie’s furrowed brow told Remy her sister wasn’t jumping at the chance to distance herself from this announcement, so she decided to spell out her plans a bit more clearly. Well, as clearly as possible, given the fact she wasn’t certain what her life would look like in the future—near or distant.

  “I plan to make some changes. Career, for sure. I love working with the elderly, but nursing homes aren’t exactly the most happening place, you know,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.