The Stranger's Sin

by Darlene Gardner

  Kelly let out a short, amused breath as the pieces clicked together. “Chase Bradford, is this where teenagers come to park?”

  “Sure is.” He reached across the seat, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Why do you think I brought you here?”

  She felt her lips curve into a smile, the disappointment over the lack of progress in the search for Mandy temporarily forgotten. “To talk.”

  “Well, there’s that,” he said. “But can you blame a guy for having an ulterior motive?”

  She realized she couldn’t, not when she’d spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about kissing that guy again. Heat spread through her, the same way it had last night.

  Not more than a few hours ago, she’d chastised herself for letting thoughts of Chase distract her from looking for Mandy. But it was late and there was nothing else she could do tonight to further her goal.

  There wasn’t much she could do to resist Chase, either.

  “The only way I’d blame you is if you let a perfectly good parking spot go to waste.” She tried to make her voice light but it came out husky with need.

  He laughed anyway, meeting her halfway over the center console. His arms reached for her, his mouth fusing with hers. The passion was instantaneous as though they’d taken up at the exact moment their kiss had been interrupted the night before.

  She’d never get tired of kissing him, she thought as he slanted his mouth to deepen the kiss. His hair felt thick and soft beneath her fingers, and he smelled warm and wonderfully masculine. She detected a hint of whipped cream and thought of what a good sport he’d been at the pie-eating contest, of what a good father he was, of what a good man.

  She twined her arms around his neck, longing to be closer to him. She couldn’t remember any other kiss or any other man, because this kiss and this man transcended them all. If only…

  He pulled his mouth from hers, crying out in pain. “Ow.”

  She blinked, frustration warring with confusion. Confusion won. Had she bitten his lip? Pulled his hair? Poked his eye? “What’s wrong?”

  “The gear shift.” The wince in his voice was audible. “It just got me.”

  “Where? In the leg?”

  “No,” he said. “It was, uh, another one of my appendages.”

  His meaning dawned on her. A giggle escaped, quickly transforming into a full-bodied laugh.

  “You think that’s funny, do you?” he asked.

  “Sure do,” she choked out. “I always heard it was dangerous to let a guy take you parking. I never realized until now how dangerous.”

  “Very funny,” he said, but now he was laughing, too.

  “I thought so.”

  “Too bad Toby’s in the backseat,” he said, “or I’d try to talk you into crawling back there with me.”

  He was joking. Chase Bradford wouldn’t make love to a woman for the first time in the rear seat of a car. She knew that but put space between them anyway, straightening her sundress, smoothing her hair and hiding her frustration.

  “It’s probably a good thing he’s back there,” she said, “because I’m not the kind of woman who makes love and runs.”

  A pause, then, “Where would you be running to?”

  She almost said New York, but then realized that would be a lie. “I think I should leave Indigo Springs.”

  “What!” He angled his body toward hers and ran a hand through his short hair. “You said you didn’t have to be home anytime soon, right?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “So stay a few days. Wait to see if Helene Heffinger calls. What would it hurt?”

  Part of the sky lit up in a blue flash, the color of the fireworks mirroring Kelly’s mood. It made more sense to do as he said than to leave town, especially because the only place she could think to search for Mandy was Harrisburg, where Chase and Mandy had first met, but he had already looked there.

  Kelly had gotten the message very clearly tonight, however, that her continued presence in town could hurt Chase.

  “People are talking about us,” she said. “That’s why I stayed away from you at the festival. You still have Toby so they don’t know Mandy left you. Some of them probably think you’re cheating on her.”

  “I know that’s not true and so do you,” he argued.

  “What about DPW?”

  “What about it?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you afraid somebody will go to DPW and report that Mandy left you with a baby?”

  “I can’t see that happening,” he said, “but it’s a moot point. I plan to do that myself if I don’t find her soon.”

  The set of his mouth told Kelly he’d made up his mind on the subject and there was no use arguing with him, no matter how skewed his reasoning.

  “There’s no sense in giving your neighbors room to gossip,” she said. “At the very least, I should check into a hotel.”

  “It’s the Fourth of July weekend. Rooms are scarce.”

  “You’re telling me,” she said. “I called around earlier today and couldn’t find a vacancy until Tuesday.”

  Tuesday, just three days from now—and three days before her preliminary hearing.

  “Then stay with us until Tuesday.”

  “Why?” Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness in the Jeep. He was leaning slightly forward, his features pinched. “Why do you want me to stay so badly?”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. “Damned if I know. I just know that I do.”

  She was just as certain that she didn’t want to leave. Not yet. The reason, she acknowledged, was only partly because she had nowhere else to go and could see what she could find on a Mandy Johnson. She was becoming far too attached to Chase Bradford and his baby boy.

  “Okay,” she said softly, the one answer her heart wanted to give.

  As she uttered the agreement, she knew she couldn’t stay in Indigo Springs indefinitely. If she didn’t show up for her preliminary hearing on Friday, Chase would be unwittingly aiding and abetting a fugitive. Unless they came up with some leads soon, she had to think of Chase and leave.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “YOUR HEART’S FINE,” Dr. Ryan Whitmore told Charlie at the conclusion of his Monday-morning appointment, wheeling back his chair and making some notations in a chart. “You’ll be fine, too, as long as you stay away from spicy foods.”

  Charlie felt so weak with relief at the doctor’s pronouncement he doubted his legs would carry him off the examining table and out the door.

  He’d kept up an act all day Sunday, which he’d spent around the house with Kelly and Toby while Chase put in a very long day of work. He’d told Kelly so many of his jokes, he’d nearly exhausted his repertoire.

  “I knew it all along.” Charlie stalled for time to regain his equilibrium. “But wouldn’t you know it? The bachelor doctor is the first one to believe me.”

  “Bachelor doctor?” The young man looked up from the chart, discontent marring his handsome features. Charlie had heard Dr. Whitmore had been a three-sport athlete in high school and he still had the body to prove it. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “About a dozen places. So many I was hoping for advice on how to handle the ladies.”

  “Then you’ve come to the wrong place,” he doctor said. “I haven’t had a relationship that’s lasted more than two months since high school.”

  “Sounds like you let someone get away,” Charlie quipped.

  “You can’t lose someone you never had,” the doctor said, a wistful look touching his face. “But don’t ask me for advice. I can’t even handle it when my own sister lays a guilt trip on me. How do you think she got me to fill in for her?”

  “Good for her,” Charlie said. “If you can’t take advantage of a family member, who can you take advantage of?”

  Charlie left the examination room with the doctor’s soft chuckles sounding behind him, his legs having stopped trembling enough for him to check out at the reception desk.

  “Heard you gave eve
ryone quite a scare, Mr. Bradford.” Missy Cromartie, the ultrayoung receptionist, handed Charlie his receipt. “You stay out of the emergency room, you hear.”

  “I only went because I heard they had some good-looking nurses, but not one was as pretty as you.” He winked at her. “So I’m giving up the place.”

  Missy smiled, twin dimples appearing in her cheeks. “You stay out of our office, too. We don’t want to see you until next year at your physical.”

  “As much as I like looking at your face, Missy, I’m in favor of that.” He gave her a mock salute, then surveyed the empty waiting room. That was strange. Chase had driven him to his appointment so that Kelly would have a car since she was watching Toby, then insisted upon waiting. So where was he?

  Charlie turned back to Missy. “Do you know where my son is?”

  Her hands flew to her face. “Oh, yes, I forgot. He had some sort of work problem to deal with. I was supposed to tell you Mrs. Jessup will be here any minute to take you home.”

  Teresa?

  Charlie had barely processed the thought when Teresa entered the waiting room, dressed in another one of her summery business suits. Only someone who knew her well would be able to tell she wasn’t as cool and collected as she looked.

  “Hello, be—” He remembered in time that he couldn’t announce in public how beautiful he found her. “I mean, Te-resa.”

  She hurried over to him, placing a hand on his arm, appearing not even to notice his verbal slip. “What did the doctor say?”

  She was worried, he realized. Really worried even though he’d reassured her days ago that the appointment was nothing more than a precaution. The spat they’d had at the restaurant dimmed to nothing.

  He held his hands out at his sides, showman style. “The doc says I’m fine, the perfect specimen of health. How’s your granddaughter?”

  “She’s fine, too,” Teresa said. “Thankfully it was just a bump and not a concussion. But she’s so little, I can understand why Andrea panicked and called me.”

  Andrea, the younger of Teresa’s two adult daughters, had two daughters of her own, both of them under three. Her husband, a pilot for American Airlines, was frequently out of town.

  “Good thing she has you to call,” Charlie said. “I can’t think of a better person to turn to.”

  Missy got Teresa’s attention to tell her the blood work from her recent physical had come back and everything was fine. The interruption reminded Charlie their conversation wasn’t private. He waited while Teresa got a printout of her lab results, absurdly glad she wasn’t angry with him anymore.

  After they were in her car and she asked if he minded if she stopped by her house to let out the dog, his spirits rose even higher. They had to drive by her place en route to his, but he preferred to think that Teresa wanted to prolong their time together before she drove him home.

  “Fine by me,” he said. “Kelly’s with Toby.”

  “That’s what Chase said.” She drove as competently as she did everything else, her slim hands at the recommended position on the steering wheel, her eyes on the road. “How much longer will she be in town?”

  “At least for a few more days.”

  “I think Chase likes her,” Teresa said.

  “I think it’s more than that,” Charlie said. His son had been working around the clock since the festival, but Charlie had seen the two of them together enough to notice the attraction between them. “Hell, we’re all a little in love with her. Even Toby. We’ll be sad to see her go.”

  It didn’t take Teresa long to reach the spacious four-bedroom house where she’d raised her family and now lived alone. The interior was spotless but welcoming, the warm colors of the furniture and the walls creating a homey feel.

  “Thanks for coming to the doctor’s office to get me, by the way,” Charlie said when they were standing on her back porch, waiting for her dog to do his business.

  “You’re welcome.” She quirked an eyebrow. “But I couldn’t exactly say no when Chase called.”

  “You didn’t want to say no,” he said confidently. “I saw how worried you were at the doctor’s office.”

  She watched the dog instead of him. “You’re an old friend. Of course I don’t want anything less for you than perfect health.”

  She walked closer to the edge of the porch, calling out, “Come here, Sweet Thing.”

  It was a silly name for a dog, especially one that might do well in an ugly-dog competition. Part pug and part something else, Sweet Thing had a compact body and a wrinkled face complete with a short, squat nose.

  The dog waddled up the steps, its tongue lolling and tail wagging. Teresa crouched down and petted the dog, cooing, “You’re a good girl, Sweet Thing. Yes, you are.”

  Just like that, Charlie was transported ten years into the past. He vividly remembered Teresa flinging open the door, her red dress slightly soiled, her face flushed, her arms full of a funny-looking dog he’d never seen before.

  “Do you remember how Sweet Thing got her name?” Charlie asked.

  Teresa looked up, the present colliding with the past. “Of course I do. Bill and I had you and Emily over for dinner that night. That was the night I finally admitted I had a pet.”

  “That’s what happens when you keep feeding a stray.”

  “She knew she was mine before I did.” Teresa scratched the dog behind her ear. “You and Emily sure were surprised when I answered the door, holding a dog.”

  “Only because—no offense meant, Sweet Thing—she’ll never be offered a canine modeling contract.”

  “Emily was way more cool about it than you. She fell in love with her right away. Remember what she said?”

  Charlie nodded, then they both said in unison, “Where’d you find that sweet thing?”

  The two of them smiled at the shared memory, and in that moment Charlie felt as close to Teresa as he ever had. Then she broke eye contact, went into the house and the moment was gone.

  “Charlie, would you lock the sliding door for me?” She’d adopted a brisk tone. His guess was that she was trying to reestablish distance between them, and he couldn’t let that happen.

  He put the security bar in place and locked the door, then trailed her into the kitchen, where he planned to suggest she put on a pot of coffee so he could linger for a while.

  On the table was a community phone book opened to the Realtor section of the yellow pages. Red marker ink circled a display ad listing a popular real estate firm.

  The breath left his body, freezing his limbs. He was jumping to conclusions. Even if Teresa was selling her house, it didn’t necessarily mean she was leaving Indigo Springs. She could be downsizing. A four-bedroom house was far too large for one person.

  He made himself breathe again, determined to ask Teresa about the phone book in a calm, rational manner.

  She’d left her purse and keys on the kitchen counter. She picked them up, slung the purse strap over her shoulder and turned around. Her gaze ping-ponged from Charlie to the phone book and back again.

  “I wasn’t ready for you to see that,” she said.

  A chill settled over him. “Then you are selling your house?”

  “I’m thinking about it.” She inhaled as if the next words were hard for her to say. “Andrea wants me to move to Philadelphia to be closer to her and the kids. It makes sense. If I sell the house, I’ll be able to retire.”

  He felt like he’d been broadsided by a linebacker. “But what about us?”

  Her expression looked unutterably sad. “There is no us anymore, Charlie.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because I couldn’t tell Chase we’d been seeing each other when he asked if I knew where you were spending your time.”

  He tensed. Neither one of them had brought up Chase the other times they’d discussed the secrecy surrounding their relationship.

  “He’s the main reason you don’t want anyone to see us together, right?” Teresa asked.

  “
Yes.” Charlie was relieved to have it out in the open finally. “You know what Chase is like. You know how much he loved his mother.”

  Teresa nodded. “I know.”

  “Then you understand why I can’t tell him?”

  “I do,” she said. “So I expect you to understand why I’m considering moving. I’m too old to sneak around, Charlie. Maybe it’s time we both accepted that a romance between us isn’t meant to be.”

  “But we won’t have to sneak around forever,” he argued, “just until more time passes.”

  “How much time? Three months? Nine months? A year?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said helplessly.

  “I know you don’t.”

  They stood facing each other, barely three feet apart, but it felt as if an invisible wall was between them, signaling that they’d reached an impasse.

  “We’d better go,” Teresa said.

  Charlie nodded and accompanied her in silence to the car while he tried to think of an argument that would get her to reconsider moving.

  During the drive back to his house, though, for once he could think of absolutely nothing else to say.

  ONE YEAR IN PRISON. Eighteen months probation. Psychological counseling.

  Kelly disconnected her cell phone, the message Spencer Yates had left on her home answering machine still ringing in her ears. She hadn’t checked her messages in days, irrationally afraid Yates had somehow figured out she was missing and had violated attorney-client privilege by reporting her to the police.

  But as Saturday night blended into Sunday and then Monday with no word from Helene Heffinger, Kelly thought it best she know where her case stood.

  Yates might not know she’d left town, but he had sounded mightily annoyed that she hadn’t returned any of his phone calls. He demanded that she call him at once to talk about the plea bargain he’d worked out.

  Good news, he’d called it.

  “I managed to convince the DA you took the baby because you’re having trouble dealing with your infertility,” Yates said. “Luckily for you, he went for it.”