He was interested. I grew in his opinion just then, and I felt knowledgeable, like I had something useful to share.
“You’ve been to New York.” Not a question.
I nodded. “More places to work in the summer. Not so great in the winter.”
“Is that why you came to Nashville?”
I couldn’t get too personal with anyone, but I could share my dreams. Those were mine, and I hadn’t had anyone to share them with since Debbie. “I’m working my way toward Chicago. I want to go to the Art Institute when I turn eighteen.”
He considered that, sat on the bench. “Why don’t you just go there now?”
“I’ve got a steady gig with the Western wear store.” Debbie had set up everything before she died, so I could renew my permit and keep working until my eighteenth birthday.
Until I was safe.
“I can’t apply until I’m ready to graduate high school, anyway,” I added.
“Yeah, I hear that. My grandmother didn’t want me to take any time off after graduation. I’m going to college. But right now my music is more important.”
I didn’t understand that. “You can’t do both?”
School was everything. The whole reason Papa had brought Mama here when they found out they would have me. Things hadn’t been so easy in Colombia. I would have thought Kyle understood.
He told me he had been born in Puerto Rico and come to the States by way of Greece, where his grandparents lived, then New York where he had some cousins. And Florida, but I didn’t know who lived there. He hadn’t told me about his parents.
Maybe school was important to me because I had important plans. But Kyle sounded like he had some pretty big plans, too.
“Right now I just want to write songs,” he said. “And make money. I’m looking for a real job.”
“You making money when you perform? I have no clue what street musicians average, but I can earn anything. Some days I sell nothing. Other days I make a hundred bucks. It’s crazy.”
“Drawing a bunch of cartoons?”
“They’re called caricatures.”
The dimple made an appearance, which told me he was teasing. “Okay, so you’re in Nashville for a while.”
“That’s the plan. Still have a bunch of classes before I can graduate.” I could have been done, but I’d chosen to take advanced placement classes, which were a lot more work.
Debbie had told me to take them because they counted for college credit and were free. She was the queen of free—had been the queen of free. I wanted to harden against that pain when I thought of her, but I felt soft inside. Like wet chalk.
“So are you going to come to my gig?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “But you’re going to have to tell me where this place is.”
“I can show you. What time will you finish working today? They have a coffeehouse at the venue. And a skate park, too, if you’re into that.”
“A skate park? Is that the church place over on Fourth?”
He looked a little uncomfortable. “Yeah, but it’s not too church-y. I’ve been doing open mic night since I got here. They’ve got some people who start things off by preaching, but all you have to do is say ‘Amen.’ No big deal. Since I’m not old enough to get into a bar yet, my options are limited.”
“Amen.”
He smiled. “You won’t have to do anything church-y. I promise.”
“I can handle it,” I said. “I’ve been to church before.”
“Cool.” He stared at me and smiled as if I had given him a present and he wanted to give me one back. “So, you want to go for coffee after work? Then you can tell me how to get a hold of you since you haven’t given me your phone number yet.”
Emphasis on the yet. And even though I’d had tons of practice dodging this kind of personal question, I found myself stupidly unprepared when I admitted, “I don’t have a phone.”
“Really?”
I shrugged lamely.
“I thought you wouldn’t give me your number because you didn’t know me.”
Even though he thought I was blowing him off, he’d kept coming to find me. I liked that. A lot. And I knew right then that if I’d had a phone number, I would have given it to him.
CHAPTER TEN
COURTNEY FINALLY TRACKED down Araceli’s old neighbor. No phone number, but a physical address that was the most recent she could find. She glanced at the time displayed in the lower corner of the notebook computer screen.
11:11 a.m.
“Make a wish,” she could hear her mom say her in memory.
They would always stop whatever they were doing, close their eyes and hold their breath. They would wish as hard as they could—and still did if they were together—during this magical time when, for a tiny span of breathless seconds, the world seemed filled with endless possibilities.
Courtney closed her eyes. She held her breath and wished with every ounce of hope from a lifetime of wish-making that two missing young girls would be found alive and not too much worse for wear.
Please, please, please...
Her wish was undeniably a tall order, but when she opened her eyes, the display read 11:12 a.m. The moment had passed. The magic was gone. But her hope rekindled for a while longer.
She glanced over her shoulder at Marc, still seated at the kitchen table poring through printouts from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which had been so instrumental in helping to reunite kids with their families after the hurricane.
Maybe her wish should have been that she wouldn’t go all soft inside every time she looked at the man.
Another tall order.
She had hoped that all this time they’d been spending together would make her feel more comfortable around him. She wouldn’t have been interested in Marc DiLeo even if her entire world hadn’t come crashing down. By all accounts, the man was a player. When he wasn’t convalescing, he traveled nonstop with his work. He obviously didn’t value family. By her account, Marc was a miserable bastard and unnecessarily rude. Demanding, too.
Courtney had learned that firsthand as they worked together day after day from morning until night, researching everyone who had been involved in Araceli’s life. There was absolutely no reason why she hadn’t already become immune to this man.
If anything, she was more aware of him. He couldn’t shift around in the chair, take a drink or make a phone call without her pulse speeding up and her gaze riveting to him.
She was desperate. True. She needed Marc to tell her where to look to find the answers she needed about Araceli. Also true. But there was something inexplicably reassuring about his presence that defied every rational explanation.
“I have the most recent address for the neighbor who took in Araceli after her mother was deported.” She dragged her gaze to the clock on the wall beyond his head, a distraction from the sight of him. Marc leaned back in the chair and ran a hand through his hair, showcasing his chiseled profile and luring her gaze right back to him. Personality aside, the man was a visual treat. No denying that, whether she liked it or not.
“I thought the utility company didn’t have a record of her after the building was condemned.”
“They didn’t. I tried a few other places.”
“Good work.” He sounded pleased, but he was hurting, too.
She’d learned to identify the signs. The constant shifting of position. The way he ran his hand through his hair, and the tiny frown lines between his brow deepened. Add the bruised circles around his eyes that suggested he hadn’t slept well, and Courtney knew the long hours of searching were taking a toll.
She felt bad, would have felt worse if not for her own struggle not to notice everything about him. “Just another day on the job.”
�
�How’s that? You work with foster kids. Shouldn’t foster homes be stable environments?”
“They should be, but kids don’t usually go into foster care unless they come from unstable environments. And even though custodial guardianship may change, kids don’t automatically lose contact with their families or loved ones. Except in situations that involve abuse, we try to keep up communication with people who are important. Those families can often lack resources.”
A mild understatement. All too many didn’t have landlines or even cell phones. Since Courtney was responsible for overseeing communication between her kids and their loved ones, she had no choice but to be creative to keep records as accurate as possible. She generally managed, evidenced by the fact she was on a first-name basis with so many of her kids’ schools. She was the go-to girl when administration needed contact information; since addresses and phone numbers changed so fast, families often didn’t bother updating emergency cards.
“You’re a gold mine for dealing with kids. I’ll give you that,” Marc admitted. “The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is turning up solid information.”
Everything inside bloomed beneath his praise, at the approval in his voice. A thrill of pleasure, for heaven’s sake. A thrill.
Courtney should not care what Marc thought. Not about her abilities. Not about her. They were working on a common goal. Of course she would help in whatever way she could.
“Their database and media presence were invaluable after the hurricane.” Propping her feet up on the arm of a nearby chair, she forced herself to sound matter-of-fact, unaffected. “I can’t tell you how many families they helped reunite. If it wasn’t for the NCMEC, I’d still be looking for one of my kids. Jamal wasn’t with his foster family during the evacuations. He made it to the convention center in Austin, but Red Cross lost track of him there. NCMEC put his information up, and he contacted me through them.”
“Where was he?”
“San Diego. He’d caught up with some acquaintances from the neighborhood and wound up living with them in a donated apartment. I’d have never found him.”
Even after all these years, the memories were vivid. Fear hadn’t been the worst part, because everyone had known the hurricane would eventually pass. But the powerlessness to control the devastation of peoples’ lives had been far worse than the physical effects. Levees and houses could be rebuilt, but peoples’ lives weren’t always so easy to fix.
Marc embodied that realization. He sat there, uncomfortable from sitting in a way he probably had never noticed before. One incident and his life changed so dramatically. A simple reality with far-reaching consequences.
Was that the conflict she saw in him?
She recognized people who were struggling. “My job can be challenging on a normal day,” she admitted. “You have no idea how many kids live with parents and siblings who don’t have the same last names. Sometimes parents were never married. Sometimes they divorced and remarried. Sometimes they have kids with different fathers.”
People struggling. Many fighting for something better, or just to find some balance, to get back to normal.
Was that what Marc struggled to do? And why, oh, why did she care so much? No matter how much she told herself not to. She shouldn’t be interested, shouldn’t analyze every tight-lipped revelation, trying to understand him.
Trying to make excuses for his rudeness. Because that’s exactly what she was doing, Courtney realized. She was trying to rationalize the man’s behavior and find the loving and funny DiLeo center that must be inside him. Why? To make herself feel better about responding to him?
“I deal with people who can afford to hide their paper trail,” he said, “so I know what to look for. This... Well, this is different.” He scanned the table and the documents spread out there. “We’ll go see the old neighbor. I want to hear what she has to say before we tackle Atlanta.”
Something in his voice made tackle sound physical. Courtney wondered if he was thinking about travel. As far as she knew, he hadn’t ventured much past Mama’s house since the accident. Now, because of her, he’d not only left his home, but hadn’t been back since.
An answer to a prayer? Or had she complicated his life and forced him to struggle harder? She had complicated her own life with her preoccupation with him. That much she knew. But there was more. An urgency to know whether she was helping or hurting Marc with this search, whether she was an answer to a prayer or just one more complication in his struggle.
Why? The question nagged at her. Because she wanted to believe that deep down inside this man’s alleged marshmallow center was a part that wanted someone to care about him. Even though every single thing Courtney had heard about him—had seen with her own eyes—indicated otherwise?
God, she really was lame.
“I think we should go see the neighbor now.” Marc stacked printouts and moved them to the edge of the table, completely unaware of her inner turmoil. “Probably stand a good time of catching her since it’s the weekend.”
“Do you think we have time before dinner?”
Leaning his head back, Marc shot her a sidelong glance that made the turmoil evaporate beneath a physical wave of awareness that had her heart pounding fast. Ugh. So lame.
“What dinner?” he asked.
“It’s Sunday, Marc. Your mother expects us.”
“I didn’t commit to dinner.”
“It’s Sunday, Marc. Your mother expects us,” Courtney repeated.
He just stared.
Stubborn? Harley hadn’t been kidding. So what broken part of Courtney responded to this ridiculous behavior? Something had to be wrong with her. “You haven’t seen anyone but Nic all week.” And that was only because he’d dropped by under the pretense of discussing the tux fitting to make sure Marc was still alive. “Your mother was nice enough to call with an official invitation.”
“She called you. Not me.”
“She called you, too, but you haven’t picked up her calls. She told me.”
“That’s because I’m on vacation from family.” He gazed at her with those melting eyes, as if he might will her to cooperate. “I don’t live around here and haven’t for a long time. I’m used to peace and quiet. A week hasn’t been enough time to recover from three months of being held hostage.”
“Marc.” She exhaled his name on a long breath, determined to get a grip on herself. “A vacation, really? I can’t imagine what more you could want in a family.”
“Quiet would work for starters. I vibrate after ten minutes in that house.”
Dragging her feet off the chair arm, she stood and pulled out the paper tray on the printer, buying time, dodging that look on his face that was demanding she understand and promising he wouldn’t back down until she did. This man was so used to getting his way. No wonder she was defenseless against him.
“You’ve got one of the best families,” she reminded him. “Not everyone is so lucky.”
“Which reminds me...” He let his words trail off until Courtney turned around again. “I haven’t seen much of your family. Anything deep and dark you want to confess? I’m curious about why you spend so much time with mine and not your own.”
“Deep and dark?” She rolled her eyes. “Um, no. My family happens to be as wonderful as yours. Just a lot quieter.”
“Then why don’t we go there for dinner?”
Reaching for a ream of paper, she could feel his gaze on her. All the way down to her deep, dark places. “I’m dodging my family. Well, most of them. My brother and Harley are onto me.”
“You’re dodging your family, but you’re taking me to task for dodging mine. Do I have that right?”
“Not even close.”
His gaze glinted. “How’s that?”
“Honestly, Marc.” She couldn’t hold back an exasper
ated sigh. Could the man really be this obtuse? And shouldn’t that discourage her reactions to him? Nowhere in her life plan did she ever consider becoming involved with a stubborn, rude, obtuse man. “I live here. I’m not just in town for a visit. I’ve earned the right to dodge them because I’m involved with them all the time.”
“How does that make any sense?” He sounded surprised, and Courtney liked that she got a reaction. He was so unmoved most of the time, so distant. Let him see what it felt like to engage for once, since he was so busy sucking her in against her will.
“It makes all the sense in the world. I don’t want them worrying about me. Not right now. Everyone has their hands full. Mac and Harley are worried about the baby. My parents are worried about the baby and my grandfather.”
“What’s wrong with your grandfather?”
“He’s old.” She set paper into the tray, so grateful for a distraction. “My parents and the housekeeper make sure someone is with him all the time, but he needs more help than they can provide. He doesn’t agree, unfortunately, and refuses to let them hire a caregiver.”
“Can’t blame him. Who wants a babysitter?”
There was so much in such a simple statement. When she faced Marc again, she found his expression inscrutable, as if he’d already shut down and distanced himself from any emotion. Asking for help didn’t come easily for many people, especially strong, independent men like her grandfather and Marc DiLeo. She could understand that.
He dismissed her by sitting up and grabbing a notebook. “Tell my mother we’re busy and can’t make it.”
“I’m not lying to your mother. If you don’t want to go to dinner, then tell her.”
“It’s not a lie. We’re busy.”
“My brother and niece will be there. I’m going. I want to get there early enough to help your mother get dinner on the table. And I’ve still got to swing by a store to pick up something to bring. I can come back and pick you up after dinner if you want to visit Araceli’s old neighbor then.”
Love In Plain Sight Page 11
