No wonder she had pushed him away after that stunning kiss. The last thing she probably had any energy for or interest in was a new relationship, despite the attraction that simmered between them. He wished, more than anything, that she had trusted him enough to confide a few of her troubles to him. He couldn’t have eased her burden, but sometimes the sharing of it offered its own comfort.
“You’re not going to tell, right?” Destry asked anxiously. “You promised. Not my dad, not Aunt Caidy, not anybody.”
He forced a smile for his niece through the ache in his heart. “What would I tell? I don’t know a single thing except that Genie still likes apples.”
She smiled back, nudging his shoulder with her head much the way his horse did when she was happy with him. What a great kid, he thought. At an age when most kids were completely egocentric, thinking the entire world should bow to their demands, Des was willing to give up all her Christmas presents to help her friend.
Becca should know how much Gabi’s friends cared about her. Perhaps that would help lift her spirits.
Chapter Eight
She was not a crafty person. So what was she doing the week before Christmas with knitting needles and a skein of yarn, trying to fumble her way through making a scarf and hat set for Gabi?
This was completely stupid, an exercise in frustration. She was trying only because Donna Archuleta loved to knit and always brought a bag with needles and yarn and her latest project to work on during her rare downtime at the diner. Becca had made the mistake of asking her about it one morning and the next thing she knew, Donna had brought her a spare pair of needles and yarn and had taught her a few basic stitches.
With the zeal of a true devotee, Donna had insisted this would help Becca deal with the stress of moving and the holidays and starting a new job. Those were the stresses Donna knew about. For obvious reasons, Becca hadn’t told Donna about the strain of working to fill the requirements for reciprocal bar admission to practice law in Idaho or the inherent difficulties of trying to be a parental figure to a girl she hadn’t known a few months ago.
She dropped a stitch, her fourth in about an hour. Donna made it seem so effortless but Becca mostly found it a pain in the neck. She was determined to finish it, though, mostly to prove she could.
After fifteen more minutes, she dropped another stitch. Rats. She dug out the crochet hook and tried fixing it with the technique Donna had explained, but it was frustrating business.
Though it was just past nine, she knew she ought to be in bed. She had enjoyed the day off but had to be at The Gulch at six-thirty for the breakfast shift, another day of standing on her achy feet and pouring coffee. A few more moments, she told herself.
Christmas was only a week away and she regretted she didn’t have more presents for Gabi, or the endless budget to buy them. A homemade matching scarf and beanie set was pretty tame as far as gifts went, but maybe it would help cheer Gabi out of her moodiness. The yarn had been free from Donna, so all she needed to spend on this was her time and aggravation.
She frowned up the stairs. Her sister had gone to bed an hour earlier, claiming exhaustion. Becca wasn’t buying it. Something was definitely going on with the girl. She hadn’t exhibited any signs of sickness or laid claim to any further stomachaches, but all weekend she had been acting strangely. Giddy one moment—as if she knew a secret no one else did—then morose and defeated the next. She seemed to have lost her appetite, too, and hadn’t even seemed to enjoy making more cookies.
Becca had done her best to finesse the truth out of her sister but apparently her persuasive skills were on the rusty side. Gabi insisted everything was fine, that school was going well, that she was coming to enjoy her new friends. Her efforts to dig deeper than that with her sister earned her nothing. Apparently she was as lousy at parenting as she was at knitting. She sighed again. Okay, she wasn’t that bad at knitting. She held up the scarf under the light. The crochet-hook trick had helped, though the yarn pulled a little more tightly in that area. Just like taking care of Gabi, she was doing her best. The job might not be perfect but she was trying, right?
She picked up the needles again and had finished another row when she heard a quiet rapping on the door. The hands on the carved mantel clock showed 9:20 p.m. Who on earth would be dropping in this late? Though this was Pine Gulch and not one of the bad neighborhoods in Phoenix, she was still wary. She was a single woman, alone here with her “daughter,” and everyone who came into The Gulch probably knew it.
She set the knitting on the table beside her chair and moved to the door cautiously, wishing she had an extra set of needles so she could wield one as a weapon. Since she had only the one—the crochet hook had that unfortunate, well, hook that didn’t seem particularly deadly—she picked up an umbrella from the stand behind the door. She wasn’t going to let anybody hurt Gabi on her watch.
After a careful peek through the curtain on the old-fashioned door, she dropped the umbrella back in the stand, though her nerves weren’t eased in the slightest to find the police chief standing on her doorstep.
As she reached for the doorknob, she had one of those random flashbacks of sneaking out the back door of a rented dive somewhere in Arkansas and slipping away through an alley while the police hammered on the front.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong here, she reminded herself. Trace was a friend, of sorts—the closest thing, anyway, she had to a friend here in Pine Gulch besides Donna Archuleta.
She opened the door and shivered at the blast of cold air. It was snowing again, drat it. That was the first thing she noticed. Then she picked up the tension in his shoulders, the tight set to his mouth. He was obviously upset about something.
“May I come in?” he asked after she greeted him.
All her self-protective instincts urged her to make some polite excuse and slam the door. It’s not a good time. I just started a bath. I have to stir a pot of gravy on the stove. I’m in the middle of brain surgery. Anything to keep at bay these dangerous feelings she was beginning to have for this dangerous man.
She remembered their kiss of a few days earlier, the heat of his mouth, the wild jumble of sensations twisting her insides. All weekend, she had tried to put those moments out of her mind but the memory of being in his arms would flash into her head at the oddest moments, like song lyrics she couldn’t shake.
She was many things but she wasn’t a coward. “Of course.” She opened the door wide enough for him to step into the warmth of her living room. Little snow crystals had settled in his dark hair and they gleamed under her entry light.
“Sorry to barge in like this. You were probably in the middle of something.”
“Not really. Nothing productive, anyway. I was trying to knit a scarf for Gabi.”
“That sounds productive.”
“Not when you’re as lousy at it as I am. I’m glad for the break.” That much was true, anyway.
“Please, come in. Can I get you something?”
“No. I’m fine. Thank you.” He gazed at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Scratch that. I’m not fine. I’m in a dilemma and I’m not sure how to deal with it.”
And he was coming to her for advice? She wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
“I need to talk to you about something, but I gave my word to a C.I.—confidential informant—that I wouldn’t reveal this information,” he went on. “I keep my word, Becca.”
“I’m sure you do,” she answered. Everything she had come to know about Trace indicated he was a man of honor who would protect anyone who placed her trust in him.
Much to her surprise and further confusion, he reached out and gripped her fingers in his, cool from the night air. “On the other hand, I wouldn’t be betraying any confidences or revealing any new information to you, obviously. How could I be, when you know all this already, right?”
Did she? Because right now all she knew was confusion and concern and the insane urge to stand here all night simply holding his ha
nd.
“I’m just going to come right out and say it. I’m so sorry for everything. Why didn’t you tell me?”
A tiny flicker of unease stirred in her stomach. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific. Why didn’t I tell you what?”
“Everything. About Gabi.”
That unease grew to genuine foreboding. Somehow he must have discovered Gabi wasn’t her daughter but her sister and that she had no formal guardianship of her. How? Had Gabi told someone at school, perhaps his niece? Did everyone in town know? Was he there to take Gabi away?
Wait. Don’t panic. Not yet. To her surprise, he didn’t seem condemning about her lies, merely sympathetic. She never would have expected such sanguinity from him.
She drew in a breath and slid her hand away from his and tucked it in the front pocket of her hoodie. “How did you … um … find out about Gabi?”
He smiled but it seemed oddly sad around the edges. “I can’t tell you that. My C.I., remember? Look, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Obviously you’re a very private person and I understand and can respect that. But if you need anything, even just a shoulder, I’m here. How long have you been dealing with this on your own?”
It felt like forever. She thought of those terrible early weeks after Monica ran off when Gabi had been lost and frightened, grimly determined her mother was going to show up again any minute now. Becca had been furious with her mother, of course, for abandoning her child that way without a word … and then she realized Monica had forged her name on several checks and withdrew nearly all her savings.
This was all before the forged mortgage paperwork had begun to show up and she realized how deeply her mother had entrenched Becca in her latest deception. It was the latest betrayal in a lifetime of them. Becca was a real-estate attorney. Monica had to know that even the slightest whiff of mortgage fraud could lead to disbarment.
Fortunately, the senior partners at her firm had trusted her when she explained the situation. They had helped her clean up the mess, though it had taken the rest of her savings and all her equity in her town house, all while she was also dealing with a damaged nine-year-old girl who didn’t want to be with her.
Tears burned behind her eyelids. She was so very tired of carrying the weight of this by herself. She longed to share even a tiny portion of the burden with someone else for a few moments.
“About four months,” she finally admitted.
“But this can be fixed, right?” His eyes were dark with sympathy and something else, almost like sorrow. She frowned. Something was wrong here. His reaction seemed far disproportionate to the situation.
“I don’t see how,” she said warily. “If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.”
“Well, won’t the surgery help?”
She stared at him, confused all over again. That unease bloomed again in her stomach. “I’m sorry. Back up the truck here. What surgery are you talking about?”
“Gabrielle’s surgery. For her heart condition.”
She blinked, feeling as if she’d stepped off a ledge somewhere into an alternate universe. “Gabi has a heart condition?”
The sorrow in his eyes seemed to cloud over, like fog tendrils snaking through trees, giving way to a confusion that matched her own. Silence stretched between them and he finally sat down heavily on her grandfather’s sagging old sofa. “Doesn’t she?”
“No. Why on earth would you think so?”
His features seemed to harden. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because my niece is asking for money in lieu of presents for Christmas this year so she can give the money to Gabi so you can afford her heart surgery.”
That unease now exploded into full-blown panic and her stomach roiled. Gabi, what have you done?
“I’m sure there’s some misunderstanding.” Please, God, let there be some misunderstanding. “Gabi doesn’t have a heart condition, I promise. She’s perfectly healthy.”
If anything, he looked even harder, like chiseled stone. “Explain to me, then, why my niece is asking for money this year instead of Christmas presents to pay for an unnecessary surgery for your daughter?”
Because Gabi had been fed a steady diet of schemes and cons by their mother and the sweet taste of the grift flowed through her veins. She didn’t know whether to be more sad for her sister or for her victims.
“I can’t answer that,” she said grimly. “But I promise you, I’ll find out.”
“According to Destry, there are five other girls at Pine Gulch Elementary who also want to give up their Christmas this year to help your daughter.”
Nausea churned through her. They were going to be in so much trouble. Oh, Gabi. How could you do this?
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how to wade through these treacherous waters. Her face flamed and she was very much afraid she was going to be sick. She was exhausted suddenly. How many times had she been in this position, forced to make excuses—mostly to herself—for the people in her life? She had thought she was being so healthy and strong after cutting ties with her mother when she was barely sixteen. Those years had been terribly difficult, but the peace and serenity, the hard-fought security, had been worth the sacrifices.
Now here she was again in the same situation, and this time couldn’t just walk away from her sister. Gabi didn’t have anyone else.
“Gabi can be … overdramatic. She is also prone to, um, exaggeration. She might have started a story and gotten carried away.”
His gaze narrowed. “Destry said she’s dying.”
Darn you, Gabi. They had to live in Pine Gulch. Her sister had to go to school now with these little girls she’d tried to con. Becca had to work at the café, where she was bound to encounter the little marks’ angry parents.
Monica should have taught her one of the most basic rules of grifting: only an ill bird fouls its own nest.
“She’s not dying, I promise,” she assured Trace. Though by the time Becca was through with her, she might wish otherwise.
“I guess I’m going to have to take your word for it. I have to tell you, this whole thing seems really strange to me. I just can’t see your average nine-year-old girl making up a story like this on her own.”
And just like that, suspicion now swung back to her. She must have put Gabi up to it. What other explanation could there be? They were both in on it, planning to collect their ill-gotten gains by playing on the sympathetic instincts of gullible locals and then ditch Pine Gulch. It was a likely scenario, one she might have come up with herself.
She should have expected it, since the same thing had been happening her entire life.
Despite her frustration with her sister for shoving Becca into the firing line, thrusting her into this miserable position once more, she was aware of a vague feeling of hurt. Trace had kissed her. He had seemed determined to forge a friendship with her despite all her back-off signals and had urged her to give this attraction between them a chance. Yet he was very quick to jump to conclusions at the first sign of trouble.
It was irrational, she knew. The man shouldn’t trust her. She had been lying about Gabi and her relationship to the girl since the moment she and Trace met. She had absolutely no right to feel hurt.
“Gabi is not your average nine-year-old,” she said as calmly as she could muster.
“Has she made up a story like this before?”
Hundreds of times. She sighed. Gabi probably had been telling lies since she could talk. The girl deserved a normal life, but Becca didn’t have the first idea how to convince her she wouldn’t find one unless she shed all the bad habits of her first nine years.
“She has a vivid imagination.” She picked her words carefully. “Sometimes it can get her into trouble. I’m sorry, Trace. I’ll talk to her. I’ll make sure she clears this whole thing up tomorrow at school, I promise.”
“Destry has been really upset about this. I think this is the reason she has been acting so strangely the last f
ew weeks, not eating and not showing much interest in her usual activities. She’s a compassionate little girl and thinking Gabi was dying has shaken her up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same with the other girls.
“It was cruel of Gabi to play on their sympathies. Cruel and wrong. I absolutely agree. I will make sure she comes clean, I promise.”
“Is she sleeping now?”
“Yes. And to be honest with you, I should be, too. I have to work an early shift in the morning.” She rose, hoping he would take the hint. Coping with all the complicated layers of her attraction to him was beyond her capabilities right now when she needed to deal with this latest stress that no amount of knitting in the world could ever ease.
To her relief he stood, as well.
“She’s really not dying.” He said the words as both a statement and a question and Becca shook her head.
“She’s fine, Trace.”
“I’m glad for that, at least. It ripped my guts out to think of you having to cope with that kind of pain and worry by yourself.”
She had plenty of pain and worry, just not that particular pain and worry. This was a very good reminder that life could always seem worse. At least she and Gabi were both healthy.
“Thank you for coming to tell me, Trace.” She opened the door for him. “I’ll deal with Gabi, you can be sure.”
He looked as if he wanted to say something more but he finally nodded. “Good night, then,” he said and walked out into the cold night air.
After she closed the door behind him, Becca leaned against it, her emotions in turmoil. This was her fault. She had sensed something was up with Gabi even before her sister came home from school pretending to be sick the previous Friday. Instead of confronting it head-on and worming the truth from her sister, she had opted to ignore her instincts, ignore the whole situation. Because she had chosen the path of least resistance, Gabi’s lies had now tangled them both up into a mess she didn’t know how to escape.
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