by Brenda Novak
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“What?”
He sighed. “Nothing. What did you want to tell me? Something exciting about your mother.”
He didn’t make it sound too exciting. “She wants to introduce me to my sister.”
“That’s good.”
David was altogether too reserved, as though he was holding back. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” she asked, frowning.
“Fine. Just tired and a little frustrated. I’m pretty behind here at work.”
“It’s my fault for keeping you in Florence so long. I’m sorry.”
“It was my decision to stay. I didn’t bring this up to make you feel responsible. Besides, I really enjoyed the time with Allie.”
Normally he would have said “with you and Allie.” Gabrielle heard a phone ringing in the background and another voice saying he had a call. “Do you have to go?” she asked.
“No, I’ll call whoever it is back.” Briefly he covered the phone again, then returned to their conversation. “Did your mother say what was going on in her life that she’d abandon her own child?”
Gabrielle explained the whole visit, down to the goodbyes she, Naomi and Hal had exchanged at the door, when her mother had gone into her pantry and brought out a jar of pickle relish, some strawberry preserves and a loaf of homemade bread she insisted Gabrielle take home with her.
“I just finished a piece of toast from the loaf she gave me. Isn’t that weird?” she asked. “Yesterday I hadn’t spoken to her in twenty-five years, and today I’m eating her bread.”
David didn’t comment. “When do you meet your sister?”
“They’re going to call her, see when she can come down. She just passed the bar exam to become an attorney.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Mesa. Her name’s Lindy. Isn’t that a pretty name?”
“I hope they’re not setting you up for a fall, Gabby.”
“Setting me up for a fall?”
“I don’t want you to be disappointed if…if they don’t ultimately embrace you as family.”
Gabrielle didn’t really expect them to embrace her as family. She was taking one day at a time, and this day she was proud of herself. The only person disappointing her right now was David. Why wasn’t he more excited? She’d finally done what he’d been telling her she needed to do ever since the investigator had located her mother. She’d expected him to be happier about it. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked.
“There’s nothing wrong.”
Gabrielle picked up the remote and snapped on the television. “Okay, I’d better go,” she said, hoping to get off the phone before he completely destroyed her euphoria.
“Wait, I want to talk to you about something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Sergeant Hansen called me today.”
“He what?” She snapped off the television.
“You heard me.”
“What did he want with you?”
“He asked me some very strange questions.”
Gabrielle’s muscles went taut, and the last vestiges of her good mood slipped away. “Like…”
“Like whether or not you and Tucker knew each other before you moved to Florence.”
Gabrielle jumped to her feet, startling Allie so badly she nearly fell over. “That’s crazy! Of course we didn’t know each other. What did you tell him?”
“The truth. That you wouldn’t have had any opportunity to know Tucker until you moved to Florence with the grand aspiration of becoming a corrections officer.”
The grand aspiration of becoming a corrections officer…. Gabrielle hated it when David got sarcastic. He was generally supportive and upbeat, which led her straight back to the feeling that something was wrong. “Let’s have it,” she said. “What’s going on with you?”
“You’re the one who’s been acting strange, Gabby. I was so afraid I’d lost you when you didn’t come home after going into the desert. And then, when you survived, I thought we’d been granted a second chance to make things right between us. I thought I’d be able to reach you, that you’d realize our family is the most important thing in this world. Instead, you throw up defenses that haven’t been there in months. It’s like you went into the desert as one person—the Gabby I used to know—and came out another.”
Part of what David said was true. Their family was the most precious thing in the world. So why was she the weak link? The guilt caused by her shortcomings weighed heavily on Gabrielle, yet she still faced the same problem. She couldn’t go back to David because she wasn’t in love with him. “I’m the same person, David—”
“You’re not acting like it. You’ve been almost…secretive. And then I get this call from Hansen who tells me…”
“What?” she prompted when he seemed to lose steam.
“Who tells me he thinks you have some kind of romantic interest in the convict you went after, that the fight you mentioned breaking up wasn’t anything more than a little scuffle between inmates, a scuffle Hansen couldn’t have stopped any sooner than he did.”
“That’s a lie!” Gabrielle said, equally enraged at Hansen for trying to turn David against her and at David for allowing him to succeed. “You know how I met Tucker. You know everything that happened at the prison that day. I told you when you called me that night.”
“But do I know everything that happened afterward?”
Gabrielle pressed a fist to her forehead. Her movements were odd enough to be noticed by Allie, who knocked her blocks onto the floor in her hurry to come over and pat Gabrielle. “Ma, ma, ma,” she said, but the world outside Gabrielle’s head seemed to exist in another dimension. She could barely feel her daughter’s hand.
“I went into the desert to keep Tucker from dying of dehydration,” she said. “I was trying to save a man’s life. It’s that simple. I’ll admit it was an issue of professional pride at first, but that wasn’t enough to keep me following him for more than a few hours, not in that heat.”
“So you’re saying there’s nothing to what Hansen is intimating. You were just being a good Samaritan.”
Gabrielle couldn’t claim that, not after everything she’d done. “Hansen is trying to discredit me for obvious reasons,” she said instead.
“I wouldn’t have believed him, Gabby, not in a million years. You’ve never given me any reason to distrust you in the past. But today, in the paper, there’s a picture of Randall Tucker.”
“There’s been a dozen pictures,” she said tentatively.
“I know. But after Hansen’s call, I really looked at this one. And I have to admit there’s a resemblance to that hiker I met at the egg ranch.”
Oh, God, what did she say now? “That picture probably resembles a thousand different men, David. It’s so distorted, how can you tell anything from that?”
“I can’t, but add that to what Hansen’s been saying and the fact that you’ve changed, and…I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“You’re worrying about nothing, David. I’m never going to see Tucker again, anyway. Right?”
The ensuing silence lasted so long, Gabrielle wished she could bite off her tongue for saying what she’d just said. Her conscience was getting the best of her, trying to come out with the truth. Only she couldn’t tell the truth. She had to put what had happened and how she felt about it behind her, for everyone’s sake.
“I wish that had been a denial,” he said softly.
“David, I don’t know what you want me to say. If you want me to tell you I admire Tucker, okay, I do. He’s so different from what Hansen makes him out to be. I know you’d like him, too, if only—”
“He’s a freakin’ murderer! God, Gabby, would you listen to yourself? No wonder Hansen thinks what he does.”
Gabrielle thought of those tender moments in the church when she’d tried to comfort Tucker and he’d fought her, at first, then ended up crying like a brokenhearted litt
le boy. Those tears had been sincere, evidence of pain far deeper than most men ever experience. But she had no way of convincing others, no way to prove that Tucker wasn’t what Hansen said he was. David, especially, wouldn’t be happy to hear she believed in Tucker’s innocence, not because of any solid proof but because her intuition told her so.
“I think I’d better go,” she said.
“Wait. That was him, wasn’t it? The hiker was Randall Tucker.”
“No. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” She hung up before things could get any worse and sat staring down at Allie, almost oblivious to the fact that her daughter had just smeared the gooey cookie she still clutched on Gabrielle’s leg.
“Your dad’s my best friend,” Gabrielle told her above the chug of the swamp cooler. “He always will be.”
If only that was enough.
GABRIELLE FINISHED bathing Allie, rocked her to sleep and placed her gently in her crib. Then she looked around, wondering what to do next. She’d been having trouble sleeping lately and didn’t want to go to bed. Neither did she want to turn on the television. She was afraid she’d see something about Tucker that would upset her, some interview of Crumb giving his opinion on the terrible danger Landon was in. Or worse—Tucker’s capture.
She thought of her conversation with David. The phone had rung several times since she’d hung up with him, but she hadn’t answered it. She didn’t want to talk to David again, any more than she wanted to risk trying to sleep or watch TV. He knew she’d let Tucker go that day at the egg ranch. She doubted he’d do anything with the information; he was too loyal, and it was now in the past. But she didn’t want to deal with any more probing questions, didn’t want to try to explain her emotions. They were too complex, and what she felt didn’t matter anyway, because Tucker couldn’t be part of her life.
So she started cleaning. After she’d finished the two bathrooms, she washed down the cupboards in the kitchen, scrubbed the fridge and organized the closet in the hall. By the time she’d rearranged the clothes in her drawers, she thought she might be tired enough to fall into a dreamless sleep. But on her way to bed she couldn’t help pausing when she saw the newspaper article she’d read earlier laying on her bedroom dresser. Carrying it with her, she propped up a few pillows and sank down to look at the face of the man she couldn’t forget, the face David had recognized.
Tucker’s eyes stared back at her, hard and unyielding, from what must have been his mug shot. She’d seen him look better, even unshowered and unshaved, which worked to their advantage. Anyone trying to identify him from this photo would have a difficult time. David hadn’t even made the connection at first. But it was him. She could tell by the slight flare of his nostrils, the heart-shaped arch on his top lip, his high forehead.
Closing her eyes, she remembered how his hands had felt on her body, the passion he’d incited in her when she’d realized that his need was as raw and powerful as her own. Her pulse quickened now, just imagining it. She wanted Randall Tucker more than any man she’d ever known. She loved him. But she had to forget him. They didn’t have a chance….
Gabrielle tossed the newspaper aside, then pulled off the tank top and cutoffs she’d been wearing, turned off the light and climbed into bed dressed only in her panties. She’d never been much for nightgowns—she hated the way they twisted around her legs during the night—and with David gone and the weather so oppressive, there seemed little point in wearing anything.
Her sheets felt cool against her skin and smelled of fabric softener, but she still found it impossible to relax, to get comfortable. All evening, she’d purposely tried not to think about Hansen and what he’d told David. She’d tried to focus on the memory of seeing her mother and the hope of soon meeting her sister. But now David’s voice seemed to intrude on the silence, and Hansen’s face, the bleary-eyed way he’d looked last week when he’d parked in front of her house, wouldn’t disappear from her mind.
That was him, wasn’t it? The hiker was Randall Tucker…. He tells me he thinks you have some kind of romantic interest in the convict…. You’ve been almost…secretive…. I don’t know what to think anymore.
Well, that made two of them. She’d known David for ten years and had never been able to conjure up the kind of desire she’d felt for Tucker after only three days. Why? Why couldn’t she fall in love with the person she was supposed to be in love with?
The answer never came, but she must have drifted into a restless sleep. When she woke again, it was nearly three o’clock. She squinted at the glowing numerals of her alarm clock, wondering what had awakened her. Then she heard something that made her blood curdle. Footsteps. In the hall.
Remembering her last confrontation with Hansen, she slipped out of bed, pulling the sheet with her for cover. Surely he wouldn’t have broken into her home. Surely he wouldn’t take his vendetta against her that far….
But she wasn’t completely convinced. Part of her believed Hansen would do whatever he thought he could get away with. Why would a sexy little thing like you prefer prison trash to a real man? he’d asked. Did he plan to show her what his version of a real man was like?
Whoever had entered her house was moving too cautiously to be David. After their earlier conversation, she wouldn’t put it past her ex-husband to show up unexpectedly. He had a key and usually just let himself in. But he knew his way around the trailer. He had no reason to move so slowly.
She could hear breathing now. The sound sent panic ripping through her. Someone stood right outside her door, and Allie was at the other end of the trailer. How was she going to grab her baby and get them both out safely?
Heart pounding, Gabrielle glanced around her room, looking for a weapon. The handgun she’d bought for target practice was on the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard, which made it pretty inaccessible. She didn’t have time to decide on an alternative before the door clicked and started to open.
Instinctively, she grabbed the lamp to use as a club. She hadn’t even raised it over her head, however, when she recognized the person stepping through the doorway. It was Tucker. He hadn’t shaved for a few days—she could tell even in the dark—but he’d had his hair cropped short and his hand was in a cast.
Gabrielle didn’t move or speak. She wasn’t sure she could.
His eyes found her immediately. He straightened, waiting for her reaction.
“How’d you get in?” she asked in a shaking voice.
“The lock on the back door wasn’t up to much,” he said.
The entire door wasn’t up to much. But she’d never imagined anyone wanting to break into a mobile home that looked as though it housed so few valuables. Especially in Florence, where the risk of running into a corrections officer was far greater than that of surprising a little old lady.
“What are you doing here?” Because of the dark, her sleeping baby and an irrational fear that Hansen, wherever he was, might overhear her, she kept her voice to a whisper.
Tucker didn’t answer. He just stared at her, and Gabrielle felt a rush of poignant longing. She wanted to cross the room and throw herself into his arms, to feel his mouth crush hers, to let her hands wander over his body to assure herself that he was still whole and unhurt.
But she wasn’t sure how he’d react. He’d done nothing to encourage her.
“Tucker?”
“I had no choice,” he said.
Not the most romantic answer. Thank goodness she hadn’t thrown herself at him. “How did you get here?”
“I drove.”
“Tell me your car’s not out front.” She moved to peek through the blinds on her window, fearing she might see Hansen parked at the curb, jotting down the license plate number of Tucker’s vehicle.
“I’m not an idiot, Gabrielle.”
She liked the sound of her name on his lips, but she wasn’t sure exactly why he’d finally decided to use it. “I didn’t say you were,” she said, but she checked the street, anyway. He didn’t know Hansen was wise to them. He d
idn’t know that David had made the connection, too.
Everything looked just as it did every other night. Still, the memory of her sergeant’s visit left a lump of fear in Gabrielle’s stomach, and seeing the empty street did little to relieve it. What if he came back? Found Tucker in her house?
“It isn’t safe here,” she said.
Tucker’s palm rasped over his whiskers as he stroked his chin. It wasn’t difficult to tell he was exhausted. Gabrielle wondered how long he’d been up, what he’d had to do to survive, and if he’d had anything to eat. “Do you want me to go?” he asked.
“No! Yes. Wait…” She rubbed her left temple. “I don’t know. What do you need?”
“A safe place for Landon while I check out a few things.”
He wanted Landon to stay with her? There had to be a better place.
“But the prison’s only a stone’s throw away!” She peered out the window again. Nothing had changed—the street was still empty of unwanted visitors—but that didn’t mean it would stay that way.
“I know where I am,” he said softly. His eyes dipped to the cleavage revealed by the sheet she’d wrapped around her, and Gabrielle’s knees went weak. But it was the somber note in his voice that really got to her. Tucker was a man who’d stopped trusting, a man who believed he could rely only on himself, and yet he’d come to her for help. How could she turn him away?
“You should be heading to Mexico or somewhere,” she said.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Probably. But—”
“What?”
“I owe it to myself to answer the questions that keep nagging me. To clear my name.”
“You’re too stubborn for your own good,” she said. “David recognized you from that picture in the paper today.”
“I knew he’d figure it out eventually. Can you trust him not to say anything?”
“I can trust him, but Hansen’s a different story, and he’s been acting strange. He—” She almost said he suspected the truth about her feelings for Tucker, but caught herself just in time. Tucker already had enough to deal with. Caring for someone besides Landon was the last thing he needed at the moment. She didn’t want to declare herself in the face of all that.
