by Alice Sharpe
“You been awake long?” he mumbled.
“Not long.”
If he looked half as worn out and beat up as she did, they were in trouble. What they were going through was a more personal battle than anything he’d ever faced aboard ship in the navy, its outcome just as unpredictable as any war.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He rubbed his eyes and covered a yawn with a fist. “About ten miles past the place I should have stopped last night because my eyes kept drifting shut. It’s a county park of some kind. There are no official rest stops off these little highways we’re using. Let me walk around a bit and wash my face and we can get going.”
“I’ll join you,” she said.
As she moved around the truck, he noticed the way her hand brushed her stomach and that made him notice the slight bump against her clothes. He looked away so she wouldn’t see him staring.
They stretched their legs by walking down to a small river, used the minimal restrooms to freshen up, and met back at the truck a few minutes later, where they both stood for a moment, letting the sun bathe their faces.
“Are you hungry?” he said.
“Not really.”
“I could use coffee.”
“Simon, how far are we from Storm Creek?”
“A couple of hours. But I forgot to look up Thunder Lodge last night at the library, and that could be way outside of town. We need to hit another computer.”
She nodded briefly. “If you look for additional references to the man you think is my father, are you likely to find them?”
“Absolutely.”
“Could you find enough to know for sure this Starling you’ve found is really my dad?”
“I think so. If I can find an article that includes information about his family, it might mention you.”
“What’s this man’s first name?”
“Tyler.”
“And Susan,” she said, tossing the word out as though it had been sitting on the edge of her tongue waiting to take flight. “Susan,” she repeated.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“So the Tyler—”
“I don’t know about Tyler, I just know Susan and I didn’t even know I knew that until thirty seconds ago. But that could help, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then we need to drive until we get to a city large enough to have a library.”
“Okay,” he said, and with this as their plan, they both got back into the truck.
“How’s your back?” she asked him as he slid in behind the wheel.
“Not too bad. How are all your aches and wounds?”
“Not too bad,” she said, and they smiled at each other.
The winding road out of the park was bordered by blossoming fruit trees. It was a windy day, so there were drifts of pale petals floating in the air, almost like snow. Simon darted glances Ella’s way, but she seemed introverted this morning.
He’d seen her that way before, of course, and as they hit the highway again, he thought back to the times she’d grown distant and tried to relate them to a common thread. The last time had been at his parents’ house where they’d gone for his father’s sixtieth birthday party. His father had been delighted with Ella’s gift of homemade cashew brittle and he’d spontaneously hugged her. Ella had withdrawn almost at once, pulling into herself, retreating.
That had been the moment Simon had begun to seriously contemplate the possibility that Ella didn’t fit into his life very well, that for over a year, he’d been fitting himself into hers but there hadn’t been much give-and-take.
And now he knew she had a thing about fathers, a difficult past with hers that had probably made the spontaneous show of affection from his dad unbearably uncomfortable.
Was that when she’d begun to get even more secretive? Had she made up her mind that night to drive him away or had Carl paid her a visit or had seeing his dad made her remember her own? Maybe she’d called him when she returned home, maybe that’s what set all this in motion.
Face it. If Tyler Starling was her father, he was a crook and a murderer.
How did Simon tell Ella this and yet how did he let her keep risking her life for such a man? Undoubtedly, she had unresolved feelings about him and if her memories were progressing from the distant past to the present, sooner or later she would stumble across her true feelings. Was it better for her to discover that on her own?
How did he know?
And there was another thing that stung him more than he liked to admit and that was that she hadn’t trusted him enough to talk about her past. It was pretty clear Carl Baxter knew about her dad—so why hadn’t she told Simon? Was it an indication of how little she thought he could handle? Was it because he was a cop?
“Sure you don’t want anything to eat?” he said. She glanced at him with a little of the old uneasiness flickering behind her blue irises. “Are you feeling okay?” he added.
“I feel fine,” she said so quickly the words tumbled together.
“Your stomach isn’t bothering you?”
“No,” she said firmly, and looked out the window.
He turned his attention to the road.
Boy, the old Ella was coming back with a vengeance. He smiled to himself, kind of glad. The sweeter version had been just that—more compliant, easier to talk to, sweeter. But this was his Ella. Kind of touchy.
Wait a second.
He glanced her way again. Her hand was hovering near her stomach area.
Suddenly he understood why she was acting different. She knew. She’d figured it out and she didn’t want to tell him.
She knew or suspected she was pregnant, so she was going to pretend she felt no nausea and everything was fine so she didn’t have to discuss it.
Yeah, well, he hadn’t exactly been up front with her, had he? And did he want to talk about a baby with her, a baby he was hoping was his, when he’d sworn he’d never met her before a few days ago?
Uh, no.
“Aren’t you going to stop for coffee?” she said as they rolled by signs announcing Coeur d’Alene.
“No. We’ll bypass this city. Too big. Look at the map and see if there’s a smaller town nearby. With Internet connection, it doesn’t really matter how big a library is anymore.”
She wrangled with the map for a few minutes. “Several miles ahead. Off to the left, a little place called Sellers. We ought to be there right around the time the library opens.”
Eventually, they pulled off into Sellers, a town with a wholesome if isolated feel to it. While Simon filled the gas tank, Ella asked the attendant for directions to the library.
This time it was a new building, spacious with room to grow. Skylights overhead let in dappled sun; comfortable chairs held reading patrons. There was a whole bank of computers with several unused this time of day. The reference librarian studied Simon’s driver’s license for a few moments before allowing them both the use of a computer.
“You look up Thunder Lodge, I’ll find out about Tyler Starling,” Simon said. He noticed Ella took a machine angled so she couldn’t see his screen. Her reluctance to know the truth about her father left him a little confused, but he let that go as he reconnected with the site he’d searched the night before.
It was a Chicago newspaper and the headlines were huge. Starling Steals Money and Runs. Simon quickly reread what he’d seen the night before, this time following links to other sites and articles detailing the depth of Starling’s depravity, the manhunt, the condemnations from fellow officers right up to the commissioner, all repeating over and over again that Tyler Starling betrayed the public trust. He was a thief, a criminal, a murderer, and he would stand trial. Justice would be served.
He was never caught.
Looking for references to Tyler Starling’s family, Simon kept searching. He about fell off his chair when he saw the man’s wife’s name: Susan. The children weren’t named, but there were two of them, a boy of twenty and a g
irl of twelve at the time of the scandal.
He connected with another site that turned out to be an obituary for Susan Starling dated four years later. There was a graveside photo in a following article. It revealed a very pale young girl standing next to an ornate headstone.
The girl stood alone.
Short brown hair as she had now, blue eyes. Ella.
Younger, yes. But Ella.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped, peering up to see Ella looking down at him. “I need some change to make copies of the directions to Thunder…”
Her voice trailed off as something of what he’d just seen must have registered on his face. Her gaze dipped down to the screen. Simon fought the urge to hit the keys that would send the photograph into cyberspace.
As he sat there pinned between the computer and Ella, she read the caption under the photo aloud.
“Eleanor Starling visits her mother’s grave.”
Sensing her shock, Simon turned the swivel chair in time to catch her, wincing when her arm fell against his back. She was chalky white as she sat on his lap, her eyes filling with tears.
“She used to hit me,” Ella said, and Simon swore he heard a young girl speaking and not this beautiful, strong woman. He put his arms around her. “She was mean.”
“I’m sorry,” Simon said. He hit a key to send the photo away, unsure what to do next. They needed the printouts if they were to make the meeting in a timely manner, but maybe she’d give it up now. Maybe now that she remembered a mother who abused her, she would recall the crimes her father had run from and decide to hell with him.
“Do you still want to get directions?” he asked softly.
She stared into his eyes for a moment, then nodded.
“Can you stand?”
She stood quickly as if to prove her resiliency. He got to his feet, ready to grab her if she ran.
He had the feeling she’d been running for the better part of sixteen years.
Chapter Twelve
“Do you want to talk about it?” Simon asked.
She shook her head. She didn’t know what to say; she couldn’t even dredge up an emotion past sadness. The beatings had happened, but it was as though they’d happened to someone else or to characters in a book.
“I’m sorry, Ella.”
She nodded, still too shocked by the realization that her mother had abused her to process Simon’s remarks. She knew she had to snap out of it, but while her brain had been blank to the point of distraction for days, it was now filled with fleeting images too hazy to decipher. And voices! Urgent whispers banged against each other. She put a hand on either side of her head and closed her eyes.
She knew she should be brave enough to ask Simon the rest of what he knew. About her father. About her mother’s death. Instead she wanted to open the truck door and fling herself away from him, away from the voices, away from everything.
“Ella,” Simon said. “Ella!”
She unclasped her head and opened her eyes.
“I’m taking you back to Blue Mountain,” he said. “You’re not going through this anymore.”
“I have to,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “Trust me, your father isn’t worth it.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” she said softly. Simon’s voice seemed to have stilled the others in her head and she silently pleaded with him to keep talking.
He cast her an impatient glance. “How can you say that?”
“Because it doesn’t. I have to see this through. For my mother. For my father. Hell, as far as I know, for my dead brother.”
“What if I told you your father is wanted for murder?”
She swallowed hard and tried to think clearly. She finally said, “He’s still my father. He helped me when I was little. I adored him and now he needs me.”
“And you still want to help him even though he’s wanted for murder?”
“Was he convicted?”
“He never stood trial. He ran away from the law and away from your family.”
“It doesn’t change anything. My father is the one real thing in my life. I’m here to save him, I know that in my heart. That’s about all I know.” She paused for a second before adding, “Why are you here, Simon?”
“Because of you,” he said slowly. They were on a small road, the countryside around them growing increasingly wooded and remote.
“That’s what you keep saying,” she said. “But it doesn’t really make much sense. You’re risking everything for me. Why would you do that?”
He was silent for over a mile until he finally cleared his throat, looking at her briefly before he began speaking, then keeping his gaze on the road where it needed to be.
“Do you remember me telling you about the woman I loved?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I didn’t mention how quickly it happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“How quickly I fell for her. Almost immediately, in fact. I’m like that with women. No second-guessing, no ifs and ands, I just know.”
“Wait a second,” she said slowly. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve fallen in love with me?”
That earned her another quick glance. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, yes.”
“And that’s why you’re risking life and limb and career.”
“It makes me sound like an idiot when you put it that way,” he said.
“How would you put it, then?”
He thought for a second before saying, “I guess I’m an idiot.”
She smiled at his profile. She didn’t believe him, not for a single moment. Her hands had settled on her abdomen as they were so likely to do lately, as though she knew without proof there was a life growing inside her. She couldn’t tell Simon about the baby, especially when she wasn’t positive there even was one, and yet the possibility of that child was the reason she had to see her father.
Anyway, Simon was keeping secrets of his own. There was more going on here than he wanted to say, but he’d already told her about his cousin’s warnings to let her come to these conclusions herself, so she decided to let him off the hook.
If nothing else, the exchange of words had cleared the voices and images out of her head, and she sat back now, taking a deep breath.
“What did you find out about Thunder Lodge?” Simon asked.
Happy to move along to a different subject, as well, she paraphrased the printout.
“Thunder Lodge was a privately owned campground back in the fifties. Some kind of legal hassle between warring heirs closed it down and it never truly recovered. Now only a few of the buildings are kept up and rented out during the summer for private functions. There’s a river there and a waterfall called, guess what?”
“Thunder Falls?”
“Very good. ‘Peaceful, remote, tranquil and serene’ are a few of the adjectives they use.” Peaceful and serene. The words sounded like impossible dreams.
“How far is it from the Canadian border?” Simon queried.
“It’s actually right on it. There’s a border crossing in a nearby town, but I gather Thunder Falls forms a natural barrier.” She paused for a second before adding, “It sounds like an awfully remote place to meet, doesn’t it?”
“Very. But your father is a man on the run.”
“I get the feeling this is it, though, you know what I mean? I can’t imagine we’re coming all the way up here just to go farther.”
“We can’t go to Canada,” he said as they entered the city limits of another small town. “We don’t have passports.” He stopped to pull on the knit hat. One glance in the mirror alarmed him—the beard was too long, too noticeable.
“We need to stop,” he said. They had three hours to reach Thunder Lodge, which was only twenty miles away now. They hadn’t eaten all day and both of them needed to be ready for whatever came next.
Once again they rented a cheap motel room, then walked half a block to a deli, where S
imon bought and consumed a pastrami on rye and Ella picked at a grape and feta salad. Then they walked back to the motel, her stride finally strong again, keeping up with his. He wasn’t sure how Ella was feeling about him right now, but he knew how he felt about her and it was disconcerting.
He didn’t want to feel anything for her. He knew he cared about her welfare and that of the baby, but caring for her as a woman, as his woman, well, that was just plain nuts. The fact was, however, he was growing increasingly aware of her again, just as he had been the first time he fell in love with her.
He told himself to knock it off and keep his mind on the mess they were in. It would all be over in a couple of hours.
But once inside the room, she pulled her tunic over her head, revealing a skintight white T-shirt with a deep-scooped neck. The knit hugged her breasts and rose and fell as she breathed. Seemingly oblivious of what the sight of her half dressed did to him, she sat on the side of the bed and took off her shoes and socks, revealing trim ankles he knew all too well evolved into long, curved legs and from there to a body that was ripe and soft and lean at the same time.
He found himself itching to help her undress, curious what her naked belly looked like with a budding pregnancy cradled within. He wanted to lay his hand on her bare skin, over the developing child he hoped was his…
“I’ll take the first shower,” he said abruptly, and closed the door behind himself. Snap out of it! First he shaved off the beard, then climbed into the shower, cringing for a few seconds as the spray hit his back. Afterward, he emerged into the bedroom to find Ella ready with bandages and antibiotics.
She wore the T-shirt with her sweatpants, and though she was fully clothed, naked images of her ran rampant in his head.
“Sit down,” she said, gesturing at the bed, and he did so. She climbed onto the mattress behind him, perched on her knees. Her touch started fires wherever her fingers lingered as she checked the wounds on his back. When she leaned forward, her hair brushed the side of his face, her breath warmed his skin, her breasts pressed against his bare arm.
“Most of your wounds were superficial,” she said. “I’m just going to bandage two or three.”
