Hidden in a Heartbeat (A Place Called Home, Book 3)

by Patricia McLinn

  “We’re not even to Casper. If we stop this often along the way, we won’t be there till midnight.”

  “That’s why we’re driving down a day ahead.”

  “Don’t know why you couldn’t have flown, anyhow,” he grumbled.

  “We’ve been through that – I want to spend this time with Emily. It’s important.”

  He muttered a curse; Marti either didn’t hear it or decided to let it go this time. The next opportunity, he exited from the interstate and pulled into a service station.

  “Might as well fill up as long as we’re here,” he grumbled, as Marti unhooked Emily and headed off to the ladies’ room.

  As Luke took the printed receipt from the machine, Rebecca popped out of the passenger door, and glared at him across the width of the truck bed.

  “You can just quit blaming me for this awkward situation, Luke Chandler.”

  “Didn’t say a word.”

  “As if you needed to! Everybody talks about how you don’t say much, but you get your point across just fine.” It didn’t sound like a compliment. “I want it real clear that this wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t my idea to come.”

  “Didn’t say it was.”

  “You didn’t have to say it. You never have to say. I can see it, even with that wretched hat on. Anybody with two eyes and half a brain can see it.”

  The woman didn’t know dangerous from a donut. She might be thinking now that she’d dodged a bullet when he’d walked away from her bed and her willingness that early morning last week, but she was walking a hell of a lot closer to the edge now. No woman from back East with enough rules to measure from here to China and back, was going to start talking about his hat.

  “What,” he said in a tone that could stop stampeding cattle, “about my hat.”

  It didn’t stop her.

  “It hides your eyes – as if you didn’t know it. As if that wasn’t why you wore it all the time, like a shield. Leaving – ”

  “It’s no damned – ”

  “ – it on – ”

  “Shield!”

  “ – in the car and – ”

  “Truck – it’s a truck.”

  Her face intent, she waved away both his protests with one distracted hand. “But you’ve been coming through loud and clear, Luke, never fear. You don’t need words and I don’t need to see your face to know you didn’t want me along on this trip. And all I’m saying is, I didn’t want to come, either.”

  He could believe that. But believing it and conceding it had a good stretch of country between them.

  “You’re here.”

  She pulled her bottom lip in, her top teeth just visible. How would if feel for those teeth to tug at his lip. Or maybe his ear. Nibble across his –

  “I’m here because Marti asked me to come along.”

  Jerked away from his other thoughts, he was testy. “You ever heard of no?”

  She flushed, quick and painful to watch. She’d clearly thought he’d been referring to last week.

  “Marti’s a client.” Any inclination to clear up Rebecca’s misunderstanding, to erase her embarrassment, vanished at her words, stiff with being spoken through firm lips over a raised chin. “I know you consider it beneath you to consider how other people view you, I prefer to remain on good terms with my clients. So when Marti said she hoped I would be free to take this trip, I didn’t feel I was in a position to say no, especially since – ”

  That bottom lip disappeared again. This time, his libido unloaded both barrels at him – the image of her teeth on his flesh combined with the memory of the taste and feel of her bottom lip when he’d toyed with it, kissing and sucking, and –

  “Especially since what?” He cleared his throat.

  She shot him a snooty look. She didn’t want to answer. But she didn’t back down. As least not with him.

  “Especially since she’d already ascertained from Vince that I didn’t have pressing obligations for the period of time encompassed by this trip.”

  He rested one forearm on the roof of the truck and his opposite foot on the frame of the door. “She ascertained that, did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guess the only thing to do is make the best of a bad situation, then.”

  “Yes.” The angle of her chin upped another degree.

  For some reason, his mood took a turn for the better. “Just remember ...”

  She took the bait he dangled. “What?”

  “I’ll stop for Emily, I’m not stopping for you – since I know you wouldn’t want Marti to think poorly of you by holding us up.”

  “How considerate of you.”

  “Yeah, it is.” He patted his open palm on the truck roof. Waiting until she’d started to head the direction Marti and Emily had taken to add, “And one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t crowd me.”

  Just before he ducked his head into the truck, he had the satisfaction of seeing her coolness crack into a glare.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Well, this has been a real pleasant way to start this trip to China.”

  Rebecca searched Marti’s face for a sign of sarcasm. There’d been none in her voice.

  The best Rebecca could say for the past twenty-four hours of driving to Denver, a restaurant dinner for the four of them (with only two talking), a night in a motel not far from the airport (Marti and Emily in one room, her and Luke each in a separate room), the trip to the airport, then this breakfast (a repeat of dinner) at a restaurant just outside the security lines was that there had been no more harsh words. There had been few words of any description between her and Luke.

  “Now, Emily, how’d you like to go for a walk with Luke? Mama wants to talk to Rebecca, okay?”

  “Okay,” the girl agreed readily, smiling up at the man. “C’mon, Luke.”

  His eyes narrowed – in suspicion at Marti? – before he took off with his young friend. He put out his hand, and Emily took it immediately.

  Rebecca felt as if that strong grasp squeezed her heart, and not nearly as gently as he treated Emily’s hand. It had nothing to do with the reality of the man. It was simply a conditioned, emotional response to the image of a rough male being tender to a small child. It was exactly like tearing up at a greeting card commercial.

  Beside her in the restaurant booth, Marti sighed.

  “She’s going to have some real adjusting to do when I bring the baby home.”

  It was the first worry of any sort Rebecca had heard Marti express. “I’m sure everyone has doubts ...”

  “Oh, this isn’t doubt. It’s reality. Emily’s used to being the center of my universe, and close to that with Luke. She’s going to have some adjusting to do, that’s all. It’s natural.” She chuckled. “Course, natural isn’t always easy.”

  The memory of the little girl’s hand holding up Rebecca’s hair to show that someone else had hair like her own, flashed into Rebecca’s mind. Just as Rebecca had when she was a child, Emily faced the growing recognition that she looked different from her family, and that definitely wasn’t easy.

  Marti turned and placed a hand on Rebecca’s arm.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Me?” About looking different from those around her, and how that felt when the realization spread across a child’s mind? No. Those had been her own thoughts, not Marti’s meaning.

  “Yes, I’m hoping you’ll help Luke while I’m gone. He’d never admit it but he’s worried about taking care of Emily on his own. It’ll be good for him, but he’s going to need help.”

  Rebecca stiffened. Did Marti have some reason to think Rebecca would be spending time with Luke on any basis other than professional? Had she heard something? Had he – ?

  “Kendra and Ellyn will be there for him and Emily, but with you on the scene, so to speak, starting on the computer software, I thought I’d mention it to you, too.”

  Well, that should teach her to read something personal i
nto Marti’s comment. Here she had the opening she’d been waiting for. The moment to bring up her need for access to the records while Marti was gone. Instead, she was getting all tied up in knots about what Marti knew, or what she thought she knew.

  “I’d be happy to do what I can. Although I suspect that will be very little. Emily’s such a sweet girl and I see ...” Some of myself in her. No, she wasn’t going to reveal that bit of personal history. She should get back to the topic of her work.

  She opened her mouth to do just that, but what came out was, “What do you tell Emily?”

  “About what?”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “How ‘bout letting me decide after I hear the question.” Marti smiled. “Tell Emily about just having a mom and not a dad? About being adopted? About her biological parents? There’re a lot of things I could be telling Emily about that might interest you, give me a clue, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca couldn’t stop an answering smile, though it faded quickly. “I guess all of those, but mostly I was thinking about what you tell her about...what she sees in the mirror...dark hair, dark eyes, different features.

  “I tell her they’re beautiful. But that she has a responsibility to fuel that beauty from inside.”

  “That won’t be what people see when they look at her. They’ll see that she’s different.” Bitterness – her words were flavored with it, tasted of it. Where had all this come from?

  “I hope I’ve been teaching her – and keep teaching her that it doesn’t matter what people see.”

  “That’s a wonderful ideal, and within the protective cocoon of Far Hills Ranch, that’s probably true. The outside world isn’t that easy. Once she’s grown ...”

  Marti shook her head. “It’s still not what other people see or even what she sees in the mirror that matters. None of that is what makes her the person she is. What makes somebody the person they are is what they see when they look out at the world, not what the world sees when it looks in.”

  It was a nice philosophy, and maybe it even worked for someone living in Wyoming, where there weren’t all that many people looking in in the first place. Especially for a woman who knew who she was and where she came from. But in the world Rebecca had lived in before falling down the rabbit hole that had brought her to be sitting in the Denver airport talking to Marti this way, what people

  thought of you defined you. And changing that definition took constant, careful attention to what you said and what you did. That was something her grandmother had made clear from her earliest days.

  “Mama! Mama, Luke said he’d get me a hot pretzel if you say okay.”

  Emily dashed up to Marti, with Luke following.

  “Unless this walk’s been long enough,” he said.

  “No, that’s okay. You can get her a pretzel, Luke. Emily, remember to say thank you.”

  “Thank you, Luke.”

  “Not til I give it to you, Em. Don’t give out your thank yous until your chicken’s hatched.”

  “Huh?” But the little girl didn’t wait for explanations. She took Luke’s big hand in both of hers and tuggedr. “This way, remember?”

  “I remember.” Emily said something else to him they couldn’t hear, and he looked down at her and smiled.

  Rebecca’s conditioned response formed another lump in her throat. She was going to swear off greeting card ads.

  “That man should have children of his own. Should have a ranch of his own, too, the damn stubborn fool. And – ” From a mutter, Marti’s voice shifted to one hundred percent determined. “He should have a good woman he loves to desperation, and who returns the favor.”

  Marti fixed her eyes on Rebecca.

  Rebecca tried a chuckle. It sounded deformed. “Luke wouldn’t agree. He likes his life the way it is – solo.”

  Marti’s wave dismissed Luke’s right to run his own life. “He’s a fool. Man like that needs love in his life. Needs a woman by his side. Just like you need a man to love you and be by your side.”

  This shift to a frontal attack caught Rebecca by surprise, and she spoke before her mind caught up. “I’d have thought you’d be the last one to say that, Marti. You’ve done just fine without a man by your side.”

  If biting her tongue could have pulled the words back, Rebecca would have bitten hard enough to risk stitches. But, rather than either the righteous indignation her comment deserved, or the shuttered look of someone who’d had a sore point probed, Marti’s face displayed an unmistakable blush.

  “I have done just fine. That doesn’t mean that I don’t see that being in love and being loved back could make things even better. Until death do us part has a nice ring to it to my ear.”

  “That sort of love doesn’t exist.”

  Rebecca felt a bit like a lab specimen that had caught the scientist’s full attention, as Marti asked, “How about your mother and father?”

  No amusement softened Rebecca’s dry laugh. “Your example proves my point.”

  “There must have been something between them or they – ”

  “Or they wouldn’t have conceived me? Hardly. It doesn’t take many courses on human sexuality to realize that. My mother almost certainly would have said she loved him, right up to the end. And look what it got her – a lover who deserted her when she was pregnant, an ignominious return to her family, and then a slide into the bottle. If that’s what love does, no thank you,”

  Marti’s silence at the end of this diatribe made Rebecca acutely aware of how shrill she’d sounded.

  “I didn’t mean to burden you, Marti, with – ”

  Marti waved off the stumbling words. “Let me get this straight, you think your parents had a sort of fling, and as soon as your father found out your mother was pregnant, he walked out?”

  “I shouldn’t have – ”

  “No time for that now. My flight’s going to be called soon. We don’t have much time. Yes or no?”

  The other woman’s urgency took her aback, but Rebecca had no hesitation in saying, “Yes.”

  Marti gave one gusty sigh, then began quickly shuffling the large envelopes in her lap. “This changes things. I’d intended to simply start you off with the journal until I returned, but – ” Marti broke off to look at the clock. “I need to get to the gate. There isn’t any more time.”

  “I don’t – ”

  “Hush, and listen. You’re going to have to adjust your thinking. The timeline and who did what and – There they are.”

  Rebecca followed her gaze to where Luke was striding toward them holding Emily, one of her arms hooked around his neck. Her smile widened as she spotted Marti.

  “I’m going to spend this last little time with Emily. You take these, and look through them.” She put the envelopes into Rebecca’s hands, which automatically closed around them. “They should explain most of it, and when I get back, we’ll have a nice long talk.”

  “Mama! I ate the whole thing. It was sooooo good.”

  Marti held out her arms and Emily went into them. Mother and daughter moved a few steps away, their intimacy, connection and love creating a zone of privacy amid the hubbub.

  With tears in her eyes but a determinedly cheerful voice, Marti told Emily good-bye and that she loved her. Then Marti entered the line to go through the security checkpoint.

  Rebecca felt Emily’s small hand grasp hers.

  “Let’s go,” Luke growled. “We’ve got a long drive back.”

  “Not yet.” She tightened her hold on Emily’s hand.

  Crouching to Emily’s level, Rebecca listened to the girl prattle on about the planes, the sky, the pretzel Luke had bought her and how Matthew didn’t get to eat a pretzel or come to an airport.

  Rebecca’s gaze snagged on Luke, standing just beyond Emily. He was glaring. If he were anyone else she might have thought he was jealous that the little girl who knew him so much better had taken her hand at this emotional moment. She dismissed that thought before it even fully formed
. So what was his problem?

  “Wave bye-bye Mama, Emily,” she said, as Marti passed through security, waved one last time, then headed out of sight.

  “Mama?” the girl repeated with a frown.

  She shifted, trying to see the spot where Marti had last been in sight better. “Nooooooo,” she said on a soft, drawn-out breath. “No, bye-bye, Mama!” she wailed in a reversion to more childish talk. She pressed her palms against the window as if she could reach out and draw Marti back. Then she erupted in howls that should have brought the ceiling down on them.

  Sympathy and horror welled in Rebecca, with guilt running a close third.

  She tried to draw Emily into her arms. The five-year-old stiff-armed her with no abate to the volume of her cries. Rebecca could only pat her on the back and shoulder.

  A glance around confirmed that everyone was staring at the scene, and most of the stares were decidedly annoyed.

  “Shh, Emily. Hush,” Rebecca urged. “Don’t cry. Your Mama’s coming back. She won’t be happy if she heard you were crying.”

  “Don’t tell her that.”

  Luke’s growled order would have suited a grizzly bear. Emily turned to it like a choir of angels, throwing herself against his legs. He picked her up and held her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his shoulder, sobbing noisily.

  Without even looking at Rebecca, he turned and started back against the tide of departing passengers.

  She felt like part of an unwelcome parade, as others gave the wailing child a wide berth. As tempted as she was to leave a gap between herself and Luke and his high-volume charge, she matched her pace to Luke’s long but seemingly unhurried strides. Her cheeks felt prickly with the heat of embarrassment at the stares they drew.

  They had nearly reached the exit, when a cultured voice sliced through Emily’s sobs.

  “Rebecca? Rebecca Dahlgren.”

  For one weak second, Rebecca closed her eyes against reality. Where was a good, wide, deep sinkhole when you desperately needed it? The next second she opened her eyes and faced Claudia Bretton-Smith, her grandmother’s bitterest rival, and closest ally against people who were not “one of us.”