Finding Stefanie

by Susan May Warren

  Lincoln easily remembered the day his life had derailed and, more recently, the moment with Stefanie when he thought he heard it clicking back into place.

  He set the script aside and picked up another one.

  “Finding any good ones?” He had his door open and was surprised to see Karen standing at the door, a basket of his laundry on her hip. She had her hair up, and when she wore it high, with wisps curling around her face, she looked much younger than her thirty-plus years that Lincoln imagined. But of course, Lincoln didn’t ask. The few times he tried to inquire about her life, her family, she’d retreated into silence, and he wasn’t so thickheaded that he couldn’t figure out that she wasn’t the chatty type.

  “A few. There’s a lot of talent out there.”

  “I’ve always wanted to write a screenplay, maybe be a filmmaker.”

  He thumbed through the pages of the screenplay in front of him. “Why don’t you try it? You never know what you can do if you don’t give it a shot.”

  His words seemed to encourage her, and she smiled. “By the way, I found this on your office floor. I wasn’t sure if it was something you needed.” She held up a piece of paper. Lincoln recognized it as the aerial map of the Big K he’d copied before he took Stefanie on the picnic. “No, I have others. Thanks.”

  “Could I keep it? Just in case I might want to go exploring someday, if that’s okay?”

  Lincoln nodded, and as Karen left, he looked back down at the script in his hand. It pulled him in, but he decided it was more of a Hallmark movie than a Lincoln Cash project. He became so absorbed that he didn’t notice how the shadows edged the room. His attention was jerked away when he heard what sounded like a gunshot.

  He was on his feet faster than he would’ve thought possible. No, not a gunshot. A backfire. Lincoln looked out his window and spotted Gideon standing under the open hood of his car. The kid didn’t look happy.

  Shadows ringed the hall; the kitchen was dark. Either Karen had already prepared his dinner and put it in the refrigerator or he was flying solo tonight. The smallest itch of irritation nudged him as he flung open the door and limped outside.

  Lincoln motored down the hill on his four-wheeler and stopped beside Gideon’s car. “What’s up?”

  “I think the distributor cap is cracked.”

  “Will it start?”

  Gideon shut the hood and wiped his hands on his jeans. “I guess I’m walking home.”

  “I’ll give you a lift,” Lincoln said. “My keys are in my truck.”

  But the truck wouldn’t turn over. It gave the smallest rev of life but refused to catch.

  “Sounds like your battery’s dead,” Gideon said, jumping out.

  “This is a brand-new truck.” Lincoln popped the hood, but aside from knowing how to hotwire a car from his days in Dallas, he was about as useless under the hood as a monkey with a socket wrench.

  “Everything looks fine to me,” Gideon said, staring into the tangle of hoses. He closed the hood. “Thanks anyway.”

  “We’ll take the four-wheeler,” Lincoln said. “Hop on the back.”

  Gideon sat behind him, holding on to the back of the seat. The sun had fallen to the edge of the western rim, the slightest sizzle of heat remaining in the day. Shadows washed the gullies, darkened the grassland as Lincoln drove Gideon to the Silver Buckle. He flipped on his light as night crested over them, the hum of the motor drowning out any conversation.

  When headlights appeared behind him, Lincoln moved to one side, giving the car berth. It passed them, kicking up dirt.

  Lincoln was pulling back to the middle when he heard, rather than saw, the next vehicle. He glanced behind him.

  A truck. He edged over, but the vehicle followed. Lincoln lifted his arm, waving at the vehicle to pass.

  He heard the truck accelerate a second before it slammed into the four-wheeler. What—?

  The machine skidded toward the ditch as Lincoln squeezed the brakes.

  The truck hit him again. Lincoln had a second of instinct as the machine hurtled into the gully on the side of the road. “Jump, Gideon!” He sprang off the careening machine, tucked, and landed in the grass.

  For a long moment Lincoln lay there, breathing hard, listening to his heartbeat in his chest. Had someone really just tried to run them off the road?

  The four-wheeler lay upended in the ditch, motor running.

  Gideon. Lincoln opened his mouth to call the boy’s name, but he couldn’t move. It was as if his limbs had been staked to the ground, and a blinding pain moved up his arms, his legs. Something unseen now weighted his chest. He couldn’t . . . breathe. Couldn’t . . .

  Gideon!

  Darkness splintered his vision.

  Help!

  This could not be happening again. Gideon staggered to his feet, trying to orient himself, blinking back the strobes of white light that cut through his eyes.

  The world spun and he felt woozy. He bent over, holding his pounding head in his hands.

  Something hummed right behind his ears, hurting. He sank to his knees in the cool grass. His hands felt wet and he wiped them on his pants.

  The four-wheeler. A pickup . . .

  “Lincoln!” Gideon scrabbled along the ditch, separating shadow from fear. The machine lay upside down, the motor still running. Gideon stumbled past it.

  Lincoln’s body was jerking, ferocious and violent, thrashing and thumping on the ground.

  Gideon stood over him, panic slicing off his breath. “Oh . . . uh . . .” He held his hands out, trying to remember what they said in school about seizures. Put a pencil in his mouth—no, no pencil. Hold him down . . . or a pillow? Gideon shucked off his thermal shirt and tried to shove it under Lincoln’s head. He stepped back.

  And then, because he didn’t know what else to do, because inside he knew that somehow he’d be blamed again, because he’d tried so hard to make everything right and now it had all gone horribly wrong, he ran.

  Lights were on at the Silver Buckle. He raced for the house with everything inside him. Ran until his breath scorched his lungs, until his legs turned to rubber, until his eyes started to tear. Ran from the old fear that had, despite his dodging, despite his hard work, found him.

  Gideon burst into the house. “Help!” He braced his hands on the kitchen table, hauling in breaths.

  Piper and Nick were in the kitchen, and Nick bounded to his feet.

  “Lincoln . . . he . . . accident . . . hurt . . .” Gideon backed toward the door, beckoning Nick to follow him outside.

  Nick grabbed Gideon by the arm as he reached the porch.

  Gideon harbored a healthy fear of Nick, not because he’d been unkind but because everything that shimmered off Nick screamed protector, and he just reminded Gideon too much of a prison guard. Now he froze.

  “You’re bleeding, kid.”

  For the first time, Gideon looked at his hands. Blood pressed into the creases, the pores. His knees went out from under him.

  “Piper, bring a towel!”

  Gideon’s head started to spin. He reached for the porch rail and missed.

  Nick caught him. “Take it easy.” He grabbed the towel from Piper’s hand and pressed it against Gideon’s forehead.

  The urge to throw up rushed over Gideon. He groaned.

  “Stay here,” Nick told him, then motioned for Piper to hold the towel. “I’ll find Lincoln.”

  “Wait. Lincoln’s hurt. He’s having a seizure or something. Call 911.”

  Phillips was a town of pickups. Everyone worth his salt owned at least a half-ton, usually a Ford. Which meant that, according to Gideon’s description, almost everyone could be a suspect, even if they narrowed it down to a dark-colored pickup—a description that Nick the former cop challenged out of the gate, thanks to the starless night.

  It didn’t help that Lincoln had decided not to report the attack. Stefanie couldn’t decide if that frustrated her or made her profoundly grateful. Any attention on Gideon would only alert Soc
ial Services and fracture the delicate peace they’d all found at the Silver Buckle.

  But it didn’t stop Stefanie from doing some sleuthing on her own. She decided it might be better to start with a narrower approach—a list of candidates who might want to hurt Lincoln.

  Barring the nonfans she’d found on the Internet—mainly men who were tired of the macho persona and told him to get a life—Stefanie racked her brain for someone closer to home who might want to hurt him.

  She’d scraped up only one name and felt sick for even thinking it. But JB Denton did have a pickup, a mean streak, and an old-fashioned way of thinking that said Stefanie was his girl. Could she have been the cause of Gideon’s cut and Lincoln’s concussion?

  Thankfully, by the time Nick had arrived on the scene, Lincoln had been sitting up—disoriented, yes, but aware of his surroundings. He’d called his own doctor, who’d flown in from Hollywood, and then he’d barricaded himself in his ranch.

  Now Lincoln had been avoiding Stefanie for over a week. She knew it was personal because Gideon had no problem getting through those electric gates he’d installed at the foot of his drive. Maybe Lincoln had given him the code. However, every time she called to request entrance, his housekeeper/pit bull, Karen, told Stefanie he was resting.

  Resting, her eye. Avoiding her, more like. Stefanie tried to tell herself that it was about the accident and not because he’d been offended by her assumptions at the picnic, that he’d expected more from her than she would give. But it felt like something had changed between them.

  At the time, she’d thought it was a good change.

  Apparently she read people a whole lot worse than she read horses.

  But Stefanie hadn’t been born with even the tiniest amount of quit in her. Even if it got her kicked in the teeth and despite her inner flagman warning her off, she’d finally had it.

  The sun seemed to agree with everyone but her this morning, hiding behind a wash of clouds that in every other state would hint at rain. Coward.

  Gideon had been using her truck to drive back and forth to the Big K, but today Stefanie waited until he had finished his cereal before she grabbed her keys off the hook and marched out to the porch. Gideon said nothing as she led the way to the truck, but just to save on trouble, she gave him a just-try-and-stop-me look as she scooted in behind the wheel.

  This morning, Gideon had tied a bandanna over his head instead of wearing his baseball cap. He was starting to get a farmer’s tan on his arms and today wore a short-sleeved shirt with a GetRowdy emblem on the front—one that Rafe had left behind.

  Gideon had said little since the accident—other than giving Nick a rundown of the events—but Stefanie knew his cut and Lincoln’s seizure had scared him. Macey mentioned something about an accident before but stopped when Gideon gave her a stony look from across the room.

  Now he stared out the passenger window, in a half slouch that she supposed he hoped screamed, suit yourself.

  But she knew better. Gideon had suddenly decided to become Lincoln’s bodyguard because he’d clammed up when he returned home every night. Even to Nick and Piper’s best cop and journalist ploys.

  Yep, Lincoln was avoiding her and had enlisted reinforcements.

  A meadowlark took flight as she turned off the road and into the Big K. She noticed that above the drive, someone had erected a new sign, along with fancy electric gadgetry.

  Spotlight Ranch.

  So, Lincoln had renamed the place. A pang of sadness went through her as she realized the transformation was complete. The Big K was gone. Lincoln Cash had changed everything.

  Even the way she thought about herself. He made her believe that she was beautiful and worthy and had the right to be in the arms of a man like him, whose dazzling smile was hers alone. He’d looked her in the eyes and without words told her that he might even be falling in love with her.

  And that gave her the courage to announce into the security speaker box that she was bringing Gideon to work.

  The gate opened.

  Stefanie drove Gideon up to the corral, where he hopped out and slammed the door without saying a word to her. His Chevy Impala sat on the side of the yard, awaiting the arrival of a new distributor cap.

  She turned off the truck, got out, and debated.

  “He’s in the theater.” Gideon had stopped halfway to the barn. He wore misery on his face. “Don’t tell him I told you.”

  “The theater?”

  Gideon jerked his chin toward the old barn, now with a fresh coat of appropriately red paint. And new weathered doors with iron hinges. The picture of the perfect ranch building.

  “Thanks,” she said, but he turned away and slouched toward the horse barn, looking like he’d just sold out his best friend.

  Hmm. Why would he automatically assume that Lincoln was in the theater? Unless that had been his hideout for the last week.

  She opened the door to the barn, and the smell of new construction—carpet and wood and flooring—rushed over her. The place was dark. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light of the foyer, which looked like an old-fashioned theater entrance. The marquee over the doors was lit, blank but awaiting the name of the movie showing. Framed movie posters—Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars—ringed the room, bracketing the two red-painted doors.

  She’d entered a new world. The world of entertainment and fantasy. The world of Lincoln Cash.

  Voices curled out from under the doors as she crept forward and opened them.

  Voices . . . and music and laughter. A movie played on a giant screen at the front of the room. She didn’t recognize the movie, but she knew the face on the screen, the devilishly handsome smile, the precisely groomed two-day stubble, the blond hair that hung just below his ears. Oh, boy, did Lincoln Cash look good twenty feet tall.

  Plush movie seats ran in rows of ten—maybe ten on each side toward the front. Darkness bathed the room, yet as she stood there, scanning the rows, she saw no one. “Linc?”

  No one responded.

  Apparently Gideon had guessed wrong about Lincoln’s whereabouts.

  Stefanie turned to leave and spotted him. Sitting in the back row at the far corner. Watching his movie.

  Her eyes had adjusted, and with everything inside her she wanted to cry. He looked really rough. His beard hadn’t been trimmed in days and now ran toward the side of scraggly. He wore a rumpled T-shirt and a pair of jeans and had his bare feet propped up on the arm of the seat in front of him.

  He didn’t even look at her as she scooted in beside him. “Go away, Stefanie.”

  His voice didn’t change inflection. She could have been the maid for all the passion he put into the way his eyes finally flicked over at her.

  On the screen, Lincoln was engaged in a fast action chase. The comparison with the sullen man in the dark rocked her.

  “No. I don’t think I will.” She sat and put her feet up next to his. “Why have you been avoiding me since the accident? I was thinking it might have been JB. If so, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that JB could be so . . . possessive.”

  “It wasn’t one of your old boyfriends who did this.”

  Stefanie ignored the stab of indignation she felt. Why not? Because JB had nothing to be jealous of? She kept her voice tight. “Then who was it?”

  “An ex-girlfriend drove me and Gideon off the road. I have a private investigator who’s taking care of it, and she won’t be bothering us. . . . You don’t have to worry about Gideon.”

  An ex-girlfriend? “Who would follow you here to Montana?” Besides, it wasn’t only Gideon she was worried about.

  “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. She got what she wanted—my life is over.”

  “You’re being a little overdramatic, don’t you think?” She was unable to keep the absurdity of his words from leeching out through her voice.

  Lincoln shrugged.

  Why did she have the eerie feeling that he wasn’t referring to the accident or even
the movie? that he was really talking about his life? She injected a light tone into her voice. “I thought you didn’t watch your movies.”

  “I hate them.” His voice didn’t sound at all kidding.

  “And yet, here you are.”

  “I don’t want you here.”

  She glanced at him, refusing to be offended. “We don’t always get what we want. I don’t know what’s eating at you, but friends don’t let friends watch Cash movies alone. What’s happening?”

  “You don’t want to be with me, Stef. I’m not good company.”

  “Sure you are. Look, you’re just about ready to—yes, I think that girl on the screen must think you’re excellent company.” In fact, watching him wrap his arms around the brunette made her stomach curl in a way that had everything to do with personal experience. She watched it like someone might watch a traffic accident, eyes wide. For a second, she even forgot that he was there.

  “He’s not real.”

  “Oh, I think he is,” Stefanie said. She most definitely knew what it felt like to be kissed like the woman on the screen. Which made her staying right here, next to him in the dark theater, a certainty.

  “No. What you see is a fake. There is no such thing as Lincoln Cash. He doesn’t exist.”

  Something about his voice, the derision at the end of his last statement, made her turn. He didn’t wear even a hint of a smile.

  Now she was really worried. She touched his arm, took his hand. It was sweaty. She ran her other hand down his face, leaning close to kiss him.

  He pulled away. “What are you doing?”

  What was she doing? “Listen, I agree that I thought Lincoln Cash was some sort of dream, but when I got up close, I found that, yep, you were pretty real.” She smiled, wrinkling her nose. “And today, not smelling so good.”

  He had an icy look in his eyes.

  Apparently his sense of humor had vanished too. “I think maybe you hit your head harder than we thought on that road, because maybe you’re right—I don’t recognize the Lincoln Cash I see in front of me. The one I know is just as charming and sweet and strong and—”