Once More, At Midnight
Wendy Warren
Mills & Boon Cherish
The best, the absolute wisest thing Lilah could do for herself would be to stay away.
She had a life – two lives – to put back in order. And standing so close to him now, thinking things she prayed her face would not reveal, Lilah felt a traitorous bloom of red creep up her neck.
“I’m planning a large party in September,” he said smoothly. “If you’re here in the fall, be sure to drop by and help us celebrate.”
Say something, a voice inside her urged. “What will you be celebrating?”
A satisfied smile crawled leisurely, easily across Gus’s handsome face. He looked every inch the contented man, every inch the success, proof that America was still the land of self-made men and second chances. “My marriage.”
In memory of Chauncie Bella, my sweet, sweet
dog. Thank you for fourteen love-filled years and
for showing me it is possible never to have an
unkind moment. Walks won’t be the same
without you, wonderful friend.
My thanks and love to the friends, old and new,
whose presence and care helped so much during
Chauncie’s illness – Lainee, Cathy, Denise and
Dan, Maggie, Rob and Jen, and the staffs of
Powell Blvd Veterinary Clinic, Housecalls
for Pets and Dove Lewis.
There are angels everywhere.
WENDY WARREN
lives with her husband and daughter in the beautiful Pacific Northwest of America. Their house was previously owned by a woman named Cinderella, who bequeathed them a garden full of flowers they try desperately (and occasionally successfully) not to kill, and a pink General Electric oven, circa 1958, that makes the kitchen look like an I Love Lucy repeat.
A two-time recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA
Award, Wendy loves to read and write the kind of books that remind her of the old movies she grew up watching with her mum – stories about decent people looking for the love that can make an ordinary life heroic. When not writing, she likes to take long walks, hide out in bookshops with her friends and sneak tofu into her husband’s dinner. If you’d like a tofu recipe – and who wouldn’t – visit her at www.wendywarren-author.com.
Dear Reader,
Several years ago, my husband planned our first road trip. For a week we visited the graves of every outlaw who had died between Oregon and North Dakota. By the time we reached Deadwood, I threatened to fly home. I’m glad I didn’t, because in North Dakota we stayed in a tiny, delightful town surrounded by fields of wild mustard, acres of whispering barley and choke cherries that showed up in everything, including pies, preserves and sweets. The people were kind and idiosyncratic and wonderful. I began my book, Dakota Bride, on the drive home. In Once More, At Midnight I revisit the town of Kalamoose and the Owens sisters, Nettie, Sara and Lilah. It’s Lilah’s turn to fall in love. I hope you’ll have as much fun in Kalamoose as I do. By the way, if you ever drive from Oregon to North Dakota, skip the graves and see the Tetons!
Wendy Warren
Once More, At Midnight
WENDY WARREN
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
“It’s-too-hot-This-place-smells-I’m-hungry-I-have-to- pee-You-drive-too-slow.”
It’s incredible, Lilah Owens thought, fingers curling around the steering wheel of her old Pontiac. The kid can complain without punctuation.
She looked at her passenger, trying to be patient, because the eleven-year-old had been through a lot in the past several weeks.
Then again, so had Lilah. That, coupled with the fact that she was also hot, hungry and had to pee, tended to blunt her compassion. She took a deep breath, as deep as if she were about to belt a song, and answered back, “If-you’re-so-hot-suck-on-some-ice-We-just-drove-past-a-sheep-ranch-so-what-do-you-expect-You-ate-an-entire-bag-of-Funyuns-five-minutes-ago-You-can-pee-when-we-get-where-we’re-going-And-this-car-is-moving-as-fast-as-she-can-If-you-don’t-like-it-get-out-and-walk.”
She felt fairly pleased with herself until her passenger’s small fingers reached for the door handle and tugged. True to form, her stubborn Sunfire did not give in easily. Eventually, though, the rusty car relented and the door swung open. On the highway. At the Pontiac’stop speed of forty miles per hour.
“Are you crazy?!” Lilah lunged across Sabrina’s thankfully seat-belted body to grab for the door. She caught the handle on the first try, pulled with all her might and managed to shut them in tight again, locking the door for good measure. “Never do that again,” she said, glaring at Bree with fury and disbelief. “Do you want to get us killed?”
Bree shrugged with apparent lack of concern.
Lilah tried to breathe past the pounding of her heart and wondered, not for the first time, if they would actually survive this road trip. The tension had mounted with each mile they’d traveled from California to North Dakota.
Looking out the windshield, she dropped her usual cynicism and for a moment allowed herself to imagine there was a heaven somewhere behind the blindingly hot summer sun.
I know, I promised to act like a mother, Gracie…. Silently, Lilah spoke to the friend who had passed on a month earlier and, who, if there was a heaven, certainly deserved to be there. But I may kick Sabrina out of the car myself.
Grace McKuen had been a perfect friend. Perfect in every way, except in her estimation of Lilah’s ability to take care of a child. Four months ago, Grace had discovered that her body was rejecting her second kidney transplant. A month later she and her daughter, Sabrina, had moved in with Lilah. Two months after that, Gracie was gone, and Lilah Owens, singleton, had become, Lilah Owens, instant mother. Add hot water and stir. Now she knew what she’d merely guessed at before: motherhood was only slightly less daunting than skydiving without a parachute.
“I saw a sign that said ‘gas and food, two miles,” ’ Bree insisted, still using the tone of voice that made Lilah want to open the door and step out of the car herself. “That was probably a mile and ninety-nine one hundredths ago, so like it would kill you to think of someone else for five seconds?”
Lilah brought a smile—the sweetest one she could muster—to her face. Perhaps if she pretended she was Florence Henderson on The Brady Bunch she could respond without doing Bree harm. “I told you, Sabrina—” you little pisher “—I lived in this area for seventeen years. The only gas station on this road closed in 1989. So, you’ll have to wait until—”
“Oh, big wow, you lived here seventeen years,” Bree interrupted. “You’re way older since then. They could have built, like, a nuclear sub station by now.”
“So,” Lilah continued, “you may have misread the sign.”
“As i-i-i-f. If I misread the sign, what’s that?” She pointed, and Lilah followed the direction of the skinny arm, mostly so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact.
She squinted.
Ohmigod.
On their side of the quiet two-lane highway, no more than fifty yards ahead, was a large sign that read Union Gas and Minimart. A gas station and a minimart? Lilah gaped. On a highway that led to a string of towns so small and insignificant they hadn’t appeared on a map since Custer whupped Sitting Bull?
She shook her head. Well, crud. Now she would have to deal with a rude, angry, right preteen. “Okay. We’ll stop for a bathroom break,” she conceded, adding in a mutter, “I can’t believe someone put a minimart out here. Everything will go stale inside of a year.”
“Maybe they sell food to kids whose guardians aren’t trying to starve and torture them. I have to pee-ee!”
Gritting her teeth, Lilah pressed the accelerator. Even though her own bladder was crying for relief, she would have kept going if it were up to her. Her sister’s house was perhaps a half hour down the road, and Lilah wanted to get there soon.
Now.
Yesterday.
More than a potty break, she needed the comfort of sisterly arms, a commiserating smile and someone who knew her well enough to understand that unexpected motherhood had thrown her into a panic worthy of a Valium drip.
Turning into a station that boasted two bays of shiny new pumps, Lilah pulled alongside a handsome structure designed to resemble an old-fashioned general market. The minimart had a wood exterior and a window painted in block letters that read Free Ice Water and Restrooms Inside.
Parking, she attempted a tone of good cheer, as if stopping had been her idea all along. There had to be some way to get along with an angry eleven-year-old. “So, okay! Let’s check out that bathroom and then—”
Bree was out of the car and pushing open the store’s glass door before Lilah could unbuckle her seat belt. Sighing, she hauled her stiff body out of the car feeling still more defeated. Note to self: Save tone of good cheer for someone who gives a flip.
She grabbed her purse, shaking off the food wrappers Bree had thrown into the backseat despite the plastic bag Lilah had given her for garbage. Carrying what she could, she dumped the empty bags and drink containers into a trash can at the front of the store.
Lilah had spent the past decade in Los Angeles going on acting auditions and waiting tables while she hoped for the big break that still hadn’t come. In retrospect it was excellent preparation for motherhood; God knew she was used to rejection and feelings of inadequacy. Even so, those years in L.A. were a piece of cake compared to the past month with Bree.
Shoving her sunglasses atop blond hair that, sadly, had not seen a stylist in six months, Lilah followed her charge into the store then blinked in surprise at the attractive and well-stocked market.
A young woman she recognized immediately as Lakota Indian sat on a stool behind the counter. “Hi,” the girl greeted, white teeth gleaming in contrast to her dark skin and hair. “Do you need gas?”
“No, thanks,” Lilah declined, noting that Bree was already disappearing into the restroom at the rear of the store. Since that appeared to be the only women’s restroom, Lilah hovered by the cashier. Lord, she was tired.
“The cookies are fresh if you’re hungry, and we have iced lattes.”
Lilah looked at the girl, who pointed to a highly polished cappuccino machine. A drink menu sat on the counter. She didn’t want to be rude, but she felt her first genuine chuckle in weeks coming on. Iced lattes? In Kalamoose?
Born and raised just a few miles from here, Lilah considered her hometown to be a dead ringer for Mayberry, R.F.D., except that Mayberry was more hip. As far as she’d been able to tell on her infrequent visits home, the only thing that had changed in Kalamoose in the dozen and a half years since she’d made her escape were the heads of lettuce at Hertzog’s Grocery, and rumor had it that a few of those were still the originals.
Now someone had opened a gas station that served lattes? That someone was a little out of the loop.
Passing on the coffee drink, Lilah ventured, “Your sign mentioned ice water?”
Apparently unfazed that her only customers had stopped in to use the john and bum a free beverage, the clerk nodded pleasantly. “All the way in the back. Cups are next to the cooler. Help yourself.”
Lilah reached the water as Bree emerged from the restroom.
“Do they have hot dogs?” the girl asked before she’d truly acknowledged Lilah’s presence.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, then I want a Coke.”
“Negative, Commander. You’ve had so much sugar and caffeine on this trip you could have flown to North Dakota.” When Bree looked like she was about to protest—loudly—Lilah decided she’d had enough. Pointing, she said, “There’s a water cooler right there. Have all the ice water you can hold, but don’t start with me. My sister Nettie is a fabulous cook. You can drink and gorge yourself into a stupor after we arrive, but from now until then no more anything.”
“I’m gonna look at the magazines.” Shrugging as if the matter was no longer of any interest to her, Bree put her hands in the pockets of her low-slung jeans and slouched off.
Lilah sighed heavily and downed a cup of water, wishing it were a stiff tequila. She ducked briefly into the restroom and emerged to discover Bree in the candy aisle, about to shoplift a Carmello bar.
“Stop!” Hissing, Lilah grabbed the candy the girl had been about to tuck into the waistband of her jeans, beneath her T-shirt. “What do you think you’re doing? Now you’re a thief? What is the matter with you?”
Careful not to crush the candy bar in her tensed fist, Lilah closed her eyes and tried to collect herself. She’s only eleven. She just lost the only mother she’s ever known. She’s acting out. The only cool you can keep is your own.
“Bree.” Lilah began again by greatly modifying her tone. She looked directly into the rebellious hazel eyes. “Grace…your mother…was the most honest woman I’ve ever met. She wanted nothing but the best for you. How do you think she’d feel if she saw you trying to shoplift?”
Bree shrugged with classic impenetrable sedition. “Not as bad as she’d feel if she knew you wouldn’t buy it for me.”
The last of Lilah’s anger deflated like a popped balloon. With no job, she’d been trying to carefully budget their cash. Yesterday she had limited the between-meal treats to three a day. Today, at Bree’s insistence that she was going through a growth spurt and needed extra calories, Lilah had amended the limit to six. She didn’t know what was right anymore.
“Look, Bree…” Clutching the candy bar in a death grip, she took a stab at reason and compassion. “I know this is a really, really difficult time for you. I wasn’t much older than you are now when my mother died. It’s awful, and it’s probably not going to get a whole lot better right away. At least, it didn’t for me. But if you could just give me a chance here, I bet you and I…you know…I bet we could be friends.”
Bree rolled her eyes. Frustration rocketed up Lilah’s body. Maybe she ought to buy the candy. Maybe she ought to buy a lot of candy and eat most of it herself.
Suddenly she noticed a bulge in Bree’s pocket, a bulge that had not been there before. Disappointment sucked her heart to the pit of her stomach.
“Did you take anything besides the Carmello?”
Bree responded with a stone-faced stare.
Lilah raised both hands. “Cut me a break! One of my sisters is the sheriff of Kalamoose. She will freak if she hears you picked up a rock from the playground without asking, much less that you tried to pinch half the chocolate in town.” Bree remained impassive. “My sister, Sara, is very, very scary.”
Following a prolonged stare down, which resulted in absolutely nothing, Lilah held out her hand. “Give me whatever is in your pocket. Please.” Her request was met with crossed arms and a bite-me glare. Instantly, Lilah realized she had to win this battle or risk losing the war.
Trying not to attract the clerk’s notice, she moved quickly toward Bree, ending up in a brief wrestling match until she was able to pull a Baby Ruth, a packet of M&M’s and a box of Junior Mints from the girl’s baggy pants pocket. Torn between triumph and dismay, she was about to return the candy to its proper place when Bree took off.
Lilah followed, but Bree was faster, and the element of surprise was on her side. Lilah hadn’t made it past the chips before Bree was through the door. Throwing her entire body into the effort to catch up, Lilah ran smack into a barrier at the end of the aisle.
“Oof!” She grabbed him to steady herself.
Big, steel-vise hands gripped her shoulders as she rebounded off the chest of a man who stood a good six inches taller than her own five foot eight. Beautifully cut from exquisite material, the suit she clutched to keep herself upright was as out of place in a North Dakota minimart as the Hope diamond in a box of Cracker Jack. Catching a whiff of expensive cologne, Lilah looked up, a hasty apology ready on her lips.
It died the moment she saw his face.
No. Way.
Winter-gray eyes scanned her without betraying a flicker of the surprise he must have felt. Recognition, but not pleasure, lent a curve to his lips.
“Leaving so soon?”
The timbre of his voice had remained the same, though his diction emerged more crisply than she recalled.
Gus Hoffman.
It had been a dozen years since they’d stood face-to-face. Lilah had been only seventeen then, but Gus had no trouble placing her; it showed in his gaze, in the crystal sharpness that made his eyes look like quartz. And judging by his stone-cold expression, he remembered all the less-than-fond details of their farewell.
When Lilah remained frozen, Gus calmly released her shoulders and removed her hands from his jacket. Save for the sardonic quirk, his face was an implacable mask that made her feel cold despite the wicked heat. He’d always been good at that—shutting out anyone he didn’t trust.
Twelve years earlier she had wondered if she would ever see Gus Hoffman again and had decided, No. Not a chance in this lifetime. Gus had been forced out of Kalamoose against his will, but he had always hated it here. When he’d left, the bitterness had run so deep she’d been sure he would disappear for good.
Now, standing in front of him over a decade later, Lilah felt as if a herd of elephants was stampeding through her chest. She almost forgot why she’d been racing up the aisle until she realized Bree had run out to the car. She knew she had to follow and was about to say so when Gus informed her in a tone so supercilious she was sure he’d practiced it, “I don’t encourage running through the aisles of my store.”
A fresh shock wave rolled through her. “Your store?”
Gus’s only response was a raised golden-brown eyebrow. “I don’t encourage running,” he repeated calmly, “and I don’t tolerate stealing.”
It took a moment to realize he had just accused her of theft. It took another moment to remember that she had a squashed Carmello bar in her right fist.
Standing before a Gus Hoffman who looked like the cover of GQ magazine was odd enough; hearing him sound like a high school principal accusing her of misconduct was positively surreal. Years ago, he’d been the boy from the extreme wrong side of the tracks. His family had been the butt of unkind jokes and whispered accusations. His own attitude had done little to transform community opinion, and there’d been a time when only her family had given him a break. Yet here he was, suggesting she was a thief. She had never committed a crime; he could hardly say the same. Though she owed him an apology that was a dozen years old, she felt her temper rise.
“I don’t condone stealing, either,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I never have.” Her not-so-subtle emphasis on I was a conscious jab, and the thunderous lowering of his eyebrows told her he got the point.
When her gaze shifted to the glass door behind him, he turned and nodded to his cashier. “Get the girl.”
Apprehension made Lilah’s skin clammy. “No! We’re in a hurry.” Unimpressed, Gus gestured to his employee, who headed outside to get Bree. Lilah felt her chest squeeze. Not five minutes back in town and she was already courting calamity.
Calling on all her acting skills, Lilah effected the breezy mocking tone that used to come naturally. “What is this? An episode of NYPDBlue? ‘Get the girl,” ’ she mimicked. “Jeez, Gus, you’re making a big deal out of nothing. I know this situation looks a little funny, but you of all people ought to understand mistaken impressions. Bree was running to the car to get her money, because I said I wouldn’t buy any more sugar,” she fibbed. She raised her hands. “That’s it. No biggie.”
The glass door opened, and Bree entered, steered by Gus’s employee. The eleven-year-old looked belligerent but worried and frightened, too, when she made eye contact with Lilah, as if she feared her guardian had ratted her out.
Lilah felt the stirrings of real compassion, along with a rumble of nerves that made her queasy. Bree’s sandy blond hair was mussed from the car ride, her clothes were wrinkled and spotted with food stains and she looked plain miserable. Anyone taking note of her would be sure to have questions for Lilah, beginning with “What are you doing with a kid?”
The last thing Lilah wanted to do right now was answer questions about Bree. Or about what she’d done with her life the past twelve years. The second to last thing she wanted to do was let Gus Hoffman intimidate her in front of Bree.
With the single goal of getting back in her car and on the road uppermost in her mind, Lilah raised the broken, not to mention sweaty, candy bar in her hand. “You know, I think I will buy this. There are so many studies now about the benefits of chocolate, who am I to argue with scientific evidence?”
She looked over Gus’s shoulder, to where Sabrina was standing very still. “Never mind about raiding your piggy bank, honey. Auntie Lilah will buy the snacks.”
From the corner of her eye, she watched Gus’s expression subtly register the term auntie. Reaching toward a rack, she snagged a large bag of baked potato chips and forced herself to casually study the ingredients. “Hmm. Low in fat and full of potassium. We’ll take these, too.” She smiled. “Come on, Bree.”
The moment she stepped past Gus, she shot Bree a look that said, Do not screw with me now.
Willing at last to follow Lilah’s lead, the child nodded.
Commanding herself to stand tall, to walk as if she’d spent the past four days shopping in Neiman Marcus rather than riding in a sweltering car while she panicked about the complicated quagmire her life had become, Lilah headed to the cash register.
It had long been her habit to bolster her self-confidence by tending to every detail of her appearance. Now she was acutely aware that her makeup had melted in the heat, her khaki shorts and sleeveless white top were wrinkled from the long drive and she hadn’t had a manicure in months and months.
She recalled the first time she’d met Gus. Only ten, she’d already started dressing to mimic the current month’s cover of Seventeen magazine. Gus, on the other hand, had looked like he worked on a farm and hadn’t changed his clothes in a week. Streaked with dirt and smelling like sheep, he’d covered his dirty body with ripped pants and a T-shirt that was stained, too large and nearly worn through in spots.
How times had changed.
There were so many things she could have asked him: How’ve you been? How did the boy I knew turn into the man standing before me? Have you ever considered forgiving me?
She kept quiet, feeling his gaze spear her back as she placed the food on the counter then fished loose change from the bottom of her purse. She expected the clerk to resume her place, but instead Gus strode to the register, rang up the candy bar and chips and took the money she set down. He dropped her purchases and the receipt into a paper bag and handed them to her. He never took his eyes off her, and he never smiled. The stern angles of his face and sculpted jaw betrayed the Lakota half of his heritage. Clear gray eyes and hair the color of maple sugar, both bequeathed by his German ancestors, might have softened his looks, if not for the stark mistrust in his expression.
Lilah was beyond careful when she took the bag. She didn’t want to so much as graze his pinky. She just wanted to get out of there.
Backing away from the counter, she made the mistake of looking up and saw that Gus had transferred his gaze briefly to Bree. He looked at the girl then back at Lilah and his stare was assessing.
The horrible nerves that seemed never to leave her now kicked into overdrive. Run, run, run, they warned, but Lilah had never been good with exits, and sure enough she began to muck up this one.
“Well, Nettie is waiting for us, and we’re running late as it is.” She kept moving toward Bree, but the silence intimidated her. “The store looks great,” she offered in parting. “Good candy selection. And lattes—that’s what I call one-stop shopping. Best of luck.”
Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she grabbed Bree’s skinny arm and dragged her out the door.
“What’s wrong with you?” the girl mumbled as Lilah hauled her to the car.
“Buckle your seat belt.” Jamming the key in the ignition and resisting a worried glance in the rearview mirror, Lilah peeled away from the station as fast as she could.
“Are you always so mental around guys?”
Leaning as far over her knees as her seat belt would allow, Bree gaped at Lilah. “You were, like, practically a retard in there.”
“Don’t say ‘retard.” ’ Lilah glanced from her passenger to the speedometer and consciously slowed her aging vehicle. Not that the car could ever speed, but Lilah was shaking so badly she feared a strong breeze could wrest the wheel from her hands. “That’s horribly rude.”
“Okay. I can’t believe I’m going to spend my formative years with someone who acts like a dork. How am I supposed to learn anything?” Bree complained with classic adolescent drama, but for the first time in ages, she seemed almost cheerful.
If you learn anything from me at all, learn from my mistakes, Lilah wanted to say, but didn’t. Craving freedom from conversation, she put a tape of Broadway melodies in the cassette player.
Bree listened to the music for a full two seconds then asked, “Are you always so mental around guys?”
Lilah gritted her teeth. “Yes.”
“Oh.” Bree scratched at a scab on her elbow. “Me, too.” Punching the eject button on the stereo, she pulled out the Broadway tape and replaced it with Coldplay.
Lilah glanced over. At another time she would have followed the thread of this conversation, used it to establish rapport with Bree, but right now it simply wasn’t in her. Even though they were headed away from Gus, Lilah’s stomach rumbled so violently she thought she might have to stop the car.
Why hadn’t one of her sisters mentioned that Gus had returned? As the owner of a brand-new gas station, Gus must have been in town a while, and no one had said a word to her.
Wiping her brow, Lilah tried to comfort herself with the supposition that if her sisters hadn’t mentioned Gus then perhaps they didn’t remember that she had once been hot and heavy with the least-likely-to-succeed boy in all of Kalamoose county. At that thought, she felt her stomach unclench a little.
If they hadn’t mentioned Gus then clearly they didn’t suspect she’d left town in part to get away from him.
And, if her sisters had not mentioned Gus’s return—in a designer suit—then surely they had no idea that when he’d been escorted from Kalamoose twelve years ago—in handcuffs—Lilah had been at least partly responsible for the act that had sent him to prison.
Chapter Two
If a man wore a suit in the middle of summer it was either because his job compelled him to or because he trusted himself not to sweat.
Gus Hoffman could wear anything he wanted to work; he was his own boss. He wore the suit because it commanded respect, because it said that he was serious about his business and his place in the community, and because these days he didn’t sweat unless he was working out.
He had learned to use his mind to govern his body, his actions and his reactions. He’d learned the powerful art of self-control.
Lilah Owens had just shot that to hell.
Tension made Gus’s voice tight as he spoke to the young woman he’d hired to manage his store. “The daily audits look good, Crystal. I’ll stop in again tomorrow. Call if you need anything before then.”
Crystal nodded. Following his lead, she said nothing about the incident that had just occurred.
“We’ll be fine here.” Crystal was composed by nature, and she was Lakota; she read Gus well enough to know when to converse and when not to.
With a nod in return, he left the minimart. Squinting in the sun, he walked around the building to the open garage, where he’d parked his car, and raised a hand in acknowledgement to Crystal’s cousin Jim, also Lakota, who toiled over the clutch of a Ford pickup and worked the pumps.
The gas station was pulling a decent business in gas and repair work and more business would be coming Gus’s way; he was certain of it. He liked risks, but he didn’t gamble unnecessarily. He’d come back to North Dakota with plans, not only for the station, but for Kalamoose.
Twelve years ago he’d left town with his head hung low, carrying shame and frustration that had dogged him most of his life. He’d owned nothing, had dropped out of school and alienated anyone who might have helped him.
And he’d left town hating Lilah Owens the same way he’d loved her—ferociously, blindly, passionately.
Starting the engine of a Lexus SC, he put the convertible in Reverse, pulled out of the garage and jammed on a pair of hundred-and-fifty-dollar sunglasses to block the glare.
The shock on Lilah’s face when she’d realized he owned the gas station had filled him with satisfaction—and churning resentment. She hadn’t expected him to amount to crap, had she?
Gunning the car’s engine, Gus headed for the highway, toward nowhere in particular.
It had been a long while since he’d craved danger and speed; apparently Lilah still had a deleterious affect on his judgment. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about her for long.
He had learned to manage his thoughts the way he managed his businesses: by allotting time only to that which would bring success and by turning away from distractions.
Starting his mental clock, he decided to allot Lilah two minutes. That would be enough time to assess his feelings.
First, he reminded himself that seeing her again should have come as no surprise, no jolt at all. When he’d returned to Kalamoose, he had accepted as fact that she would be back to visit her sisters some day and that he might run into her. He’d looked forward to the meeting, to showing her he’d moved on—and up—without her love, without her support, without any of the things he’d once believed he needed in order to breathe.
He could live, he’d since learned, without a lot of things. And Lilah Owens was one of them.
Thirty seconds down; a minute and a half to go….
He briefly allowed himself to relive that first moment of seeing her again. She’d been wrestling with a kid who was obviously shoplifting. He could have stepped in—he’d just exited his office when the tussle began—but he’d hung back, taken the opportunity to let his revved senses calm and to study the woman he’d known he would see again one day. Without the perfectly chosen, perfectly pressed clothes she had once favored, without the makeup, without the soft teenage perfection, Lilah was still—
He swore and pressed the gas pedal.
The golden girl of Kal High was still built like every man’s fantasy. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept well, but she still had cat eyes—golden-green and blazing—and lips full enough to make most men eschew common sense.
Easing off the pedal when the speedometer hit eighty-five, Gus wondered about the kid. He knew nothing about children, but guessed the girl to be a young teen, or nearly so. She was tall, belligerent and looked a little like Lilah’s older sister, Sara, with whom Gus had never hit it off. Could be Sara’s kid, he supposed, or maybe the younger one’s—Nettie’s. He’d heard she’d married and lived part time in Kalamoose, part time in New York. Beyond that meager information about the Owenses, he had studiously avoided all gossip.
He’d already dismissed the likelihood that the girl was Lilah’s daughter. The tussle over the candy had been awkward, as if they weren’t used to touching. There was no familial spark.
Another thirty seconds down. Don’t waste any more time on the kid.
For his last minute of reflection on Lilah Owens, Gus decided to remember the most important part of their relationship: She had betrayed him. In one unforgettable moment she had cut out the heart he had discovered only by loving her.
For a long, long time, Gus had wished a similar pain befell her. He’d hoped she would fall in love, learn to trust and let herself need someone who would throw it all back in her face.
For a long time, hatred had kept him alive but stupid. He’d made piss-poor choices and asinine mistakes.
Finally he’d realized hatred held a person in the gutter, but that righteous fury could be a powerful motivator. That’s when he began to fight the right way.
He’d battled for opportunities he’d never have hoped for in the past. He’d swallowed his pride—and his arrogance—and worked with integrity when he thought a menial task would lead to something more. He learned how to conform, or at least to give the appearance of doing so when it would benefit him. He’d sought mentors and when they’d advised him, he’d listened.
Over the years, Gus had become more than anyone had ever imagined he would be. More, even, than he’d dared hope to become.
His passion had served him. And once it had, he’d let it go.
Somewhere along the line, he’d stopped picturing Lilah with every job he’d taken, every bank account he’d opened. There had come a time when he’d tried on a thousand-dollar suit and sought his own approval, not hers, in the mirror. In that moment he had known that he was ready to move on personally, not just professionally. He’d finally been able to start living and would eventually try his hand at loving. He’d moved past caring what Lilah Owens felt or thought about, or whether she’d ever regretted her actions….
Until fifteen minutes ago.
“Let me get this straight: The kid’s mother gives you—a woman she hasn’t seen in years—custody of her kid, and you have no choice in the matter?”
Seated behind her broad oak desk, dressed in her sheriff’s uniform, red hair slicked back into an honest-to-God, old-fashioned bun, Sara Owens looked and sounded more like a suspicious law enforcement agent than the warm, supportive sister Lilah needed right now.
“Keep your voice down,” Lilah cautioned, glancing to the jail cells Bree was presently investigating. At least the fact that Sara worked in a jail had scored points with the chronically unimpressed preteen. Sara had given her permission to nose around and that bought Lilah a few minutes to try to explain her current situation to her sister. “Of course I had a choice in the matter. You can’t force someone to take a child.”
“So?” Sara raised her hands. “Why do you still have her?”
Glancing toward the cells, Lilah wondered which details to relay and which to leave out. She hadn’t had the chutzpah to tell anyone the whole story. Not yet.
“I’m going to raise her.”
Sara put her head in her hands.
Lilah’s stomach burned. This was why she had been hoping to tell Nettie first. Nettie was gentle. Nettie was polite. Nettie was the youngest sister, but among the three of them she was the only one who had ever possessed a modicum of maternal instincts. When their parents died, it had been Nettie who’d assumed the role of nurturer and caretaker. Although Lilah and Sara were older and should have been the ones taking care of their baby sis, they had learned to rely on Nettie for their emotional needs, for reminders to complete their homework and for edible meals. Looking back, they had taken her for granted.
After driving across several states with Bree and then seeing Gus Hoffman, Lilah needed Nettie’s comfort and her levelheaded advice more than ever. She’d driven straight to Nettie’s from the gas station, but the house had been locked up tight. On her own, Lilah would have stayed put and waited. Bree, on the other hand, had started complaining about the heat and the threat of starvation, so Lilah had reluctantly come to the sheriff’s station.
Standing before Sara’s narrowed green eyes and their eagle-sharp scrutiny made Lilah remember why she’d rarely trusted Sara with her secrets, even when they were both kids. Sara’s world was black and white. Actions were either right or wrong, good or bad; you did something or you didn’t do it—case closed, end of story, next case. Lilah had never understood that.
Picking her way carefully over the rocky terrain of explanations, she attempted to answer Sara without provoking a cross-examination.
“Grace was my best friend when I first got to L.A. She was the receptionist at the first acting agency I signed with, and she took me under her wing and told me who I could trust and who to steer clear from. She saved my butt lots of times. I owed her any help I could give her.”
Sara squinted as if she were in pain. It made her look like Robert De Niro. “She helped you with your acting stuff, so you think you should take her kid?”
Lilah told herself not to get defensive, but she was exhausted and couldn’t stop thinking about Gus—two conditions guaranteed to put her on edge. And the way Sara said “your acting stuff” reminded her that in her older sister’s eyes she’d failed in just about every area of her life.
“I’m not going to let Sabrina down,” she said, “and you know what? You’re not going to understand this, so just drop it, Sara.”
Sara leaned over her desk, cheeks turning as red as her hair. “I’m not going to understand it? Why?” She splayed a big-boned hand on her chest. “Are you implying that I would let someone down? That I’m not reliable?”
“Geesh, Sara, no—”
“I sure as hell hope not, because as I recall I’m not the one who moved fifteen hundred miles from my family so I could be on the New Dating Game.”
“Oh, that’s it!” Lilah stood and knocked over a half-dead aloe vera plant as she swung her purse onto her shoulder. “Do you have Nettie’s cell number?”
“What for?”
“Because I’m hungry, and I want her recipe for bread pudding.” Lilah reached for the phone on Sara’s desk and held it up, waiting for the number. “She wasn’t home, and I would like to see a friendly face after driving across half the country, so just give me the number.”
Sara rose, too, stabbing her index finger into her own chest. “I’m friendly. I’m one of the friendliest damned people you’ll ever meet.”
“That’s right. Ask anyone.” A rough voice and booted footsteps forestalled a comment from Lilah, who turned to see that Nick Brady, a farmer with property that adjoined Sara’s land, had entered the jail. He walked toward them with an ironic quirk on his handsome lips and a lazy roll in his gait.
Lilah would have greeted her old girlhood neighbor if Sara hadn’t grumbled, “Don’t you ever knock?”
“To enter a public building? Not often.” Nick’s half-hooded eyes mocked her ungently. “Besides, you’re so friendly.” He turned to Lilah and offered a smile. “Good to see you back home. You’re as beautiful as ever.”
She wasn’t, but Lilah knew the comment was intended more to infuriate Sara than to compliment the recipient, so she smiled. “I can always count on your charm to see past my flaws, Nick. How’ve you been?” They shared a brief embrace.
“Fine as always.” He nodded toward one of the open cells on the other side of the small, old-fashioned jailhouse. “I see you’ve got company.”
“That’s Bree,” Lilah said. “She’s with me.”
Nick, being Nick, did not press for more information. He simply nodded. “You planning to be in town awhile?”
“Indefinitely.”
Sara’s auburn brows jacked up.
Taking a moment to eyeball his old nemesis and her shocked expression, Nick commented to Lilah, “Chase had to go to New York on business, so Nettie took Colin to see the sights. I assume she didn’t know you’d be here, or she’d never have left. I suppose that means you’re staying at Sara’s?”
The sisters looked at each other with expressions approaching horror. Sara lived in their old family home, and Lilah had stayed there for brief visits, but always with Nettie present to run interference.
“How long will Chase and Nettie be gone?” she asked weakly.
Nick rolled his large shoulders. “Hard to say. Chase told me he wants to surprise Colin with a trip to Disney World.’ Course, you know Nettie. If she knows you’re here, she’ll hightail it back.”
Lilah’s heart sank. She understood what Nick was telling her. If you call, you’ll ruin their trip. Her baby sister had been through so much pain before she’d met Chase Reynolds and his young son. She was married now and happy again. She deserved every carefree moment she could grab with her family.
Lilah stared at Sara, who stared back. Nick’s wry smile mocked them both. “Well, I’ll leave you two to sort out the sleeping arrangements.” He turned toward Sara, who eyed him ferociously. She hated to be made fun of and Nick always managed to do it without saying a word.
Plopping her fisted hands on hips as slender as a teen’s, she groused, “Why the devil are you here, Nick?”
“To tell you that Kurt Karpoun and Sam Henning are fighting again over that strip of land between their places. I saw Kurt sitting on his roof with a rifle full of buckshot.”
Sara swore. “Well, why didn’t you say so as soon as you came in?” Marching to the door, she grabbed her hat off a rack and jammed it on her head. Drawn by their voices, Bree meandered toward Lilah.
“Are we gonna eat or not?” she demanded, sparing only a single dismissive glance in Sara’s direction and no acknowledgement at all for Nick. “You said we’d eat when we got here. Or did you mean when we got to a real town, with, like, an actual mall?”
Lip curled in disgust, Sara dug into her pants pocket. “Polite little thing, isn’t she?” Withdrawing a set of keys, she tossed them to Lilah. “There’s food at my place. You can take your old room and put Miss Teenage America in Nettie’s.”
“I’m not a teenager yet,” Bree said.
“Did I sound like accuracy was my point?”
Bree didn’t know what to make of that, so she resorted to the classic eye roll.
Lilah thought of the balance in her checking account and decided she couldn’t afford to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if the horse did know how to say “I told you so” in five languages.
“Thanks very much, Sara.” Making a bigger effort, she asked, “Are you going to be home for dinner?”
“Doesn’t look like it.” She waved a hand. “Just help yourselves to whatever. See you later.” Swinging open the door, she headed into the evening sun.
“Suppose I’d better follow her,” Nick said, but without much urgency. “When she’s in a bad mood, your sister’s apt to light more fires than she puts out.”
“And yet you’re still hanging around,” Lilah said, curious and feeling an affection for Nick, who had been their next-door neighbor and adopted big brother for years. Sara found Nick utterly infuriating, and vice versa.
He shrugged an eyebrow noncommittally. “It’s a small town. I feel better when I know where the ticking bomb is.” Smiling, he tipped his head. “We’ll grab a coffee soon.”
“That’d be nice.”
Nick followed Sara outside and Bree moved a few steps closer to Lilah. “Who was he, an old boyfriend or something?” True to the perspective of youth, she emphasized “old.” Lilah could have pointed out that she was only twenty-nine, but since she felt ancient these days, she buried her ego.
“Come on,” she said, “we’ll go to Sara’s, and I’ll feed you so you won’t have to complain to the child welfare people.”
Chapter Three
A quick tour of Sara’s kitchen revealed that peanut butter cups, nacho cheese tortilla chips, two jars of bean dip and several cereal boxes—all offering a toy inside—were her idea of “food.”
“That’s not dinner!” Bree protested, echoing Lilah’s sentiments exactly, so they got back in the car and headed to the only restaurant in town.
Ernie’s Diner was dotted with locals when they entered at half past five. Lilah had changed clothes and repaired her makeup quite deliberately. She was now thoroughly overdressed as she led her charge to a booth all the way in the back of the restaurant.
After scanning the pink plastic menu, she decided on a dinner salad for a dollar ninety-five, because before they’d left the house she’d tallied her checkbook again, hoping she’d added it up incorrectly the first four times. They weren’t broke—yet—but she needed a job and she needed it fast.
“I have to go to the restroom. Will you order for me? Thousand Island on the side,” she told Bree as she scooted off the cracked and taped leather of the aged booth.
Bree shrugged, her nose already buried in a tattered copy of The Hobbit.
With a deep breath for courage, Lilah picked her way to the front of the restaurant on high-heeled white-and-gold sandals, the hem of a filmy white sundress swirling around her knees. Shaking back her hair, which she’d brushed and left loose, she reached into her large straw bag for the gift she’d brought Ernie, the owner of the diner—a signed and framed headshot of George Clooney. She’d been supplying Ernie with autographed studio photos for years. He’d hung them all around the restaurant.
The pictures were easy enough to acquire; Lilah simply wrote a letter requesting an autographed eight-by-ten—like any other fan. To Ernie and his regular customers, however, the Hollywood memorabilia was proof that Lilah had hit the big time. They believed she knew all the stars whose photos she acquired. Lilah of course had never disabused them of the idea. Now she hoped to make Ernie’s unmerited awe work in her favor.
In addition to the money left in her account, there remained a couple thousand dollars in a savings account Grace had left for Bree. Lilah was determined not to touch that money, no matter what. Bree needed to know there was something from her mother. Grace had been so worried. Lilah had performed her best acting job to date when she’d tried to assure her friend that their finances were fine. In fact, she’d lost her waitressing job for taking too much time off when Grace was ill. Lying to a dying woman—Lilah wasn’t sure whether she’d committed her first act of mercy or sunk to a new low. The devoted mother had died assuming there was more.
For years Lilah had lied about her acting credits, simply by claiming that she had some good ones. She hoped that if she told Ernie she wanted a temporary waitress position so she could “research a role for the theater,” he might hire her, and she wouldn’t have to admit she was almost thirty, that her bank account ran on fumes and that by most standards, especially her own, she was a big fat flop.
Reaching the cash register, Lilah glanced around the restaurant, spotting Mrs. Kay, the organist at Kalamoose First Baptist Church, along with several diners who were strangers to her, and she saw a waitress she didn’t recognize…but no Ernie.
The waitress, a ringer for a young Natalie Wood, approached the register. Lilah wondered vaguely if Ernie had hired the girl knowing her looks would be good for business. Fresh and glowing with no sign yet of age or disillusionment. Lilah remembered when people had hired her based on youth and beauty alone.
Feeling a lifetime older than the flawless child before her, she fought to dredge up the smile that had made her Miss Kalamoose Creamery 1990-1992 and asked to see Ernie.
The girl stared at her blankly. “Ernie?” Wrinkling her pert nose, she cocked her head. “Um, a guy named Elmer comes in around five most nights for the chicken-fried steak. Do you mean him?”
Gorgeous, Lilah amended her first impression, but thick as a post. “Nooo, I mean Ernie the owner,” she clarified, aiming her thumb over her shoulder. “The one whose name is on the sign out front.”
For a long moment, the girl gazed at Lilah with a little furrow between her dark eyebrows. “I didn’t know there was a real Ernie. I thought it was just a name. You know, like Burger King.”
“You mean, like Carl’s Junior?”
“Is he real, too?”
“I think so. Anyway, I know Ernie is real, so is he around? In the back, perhaps?”
Suddenly the furrow cleared. “Oh, yeah, the owner’s in back.” A bell dinged in the kitchen. “That’s my order. I’ve gotta go. Back in a sec.” She disappeared before Lilah could remind her to send Ernie out.
Sighing, Lilah turned and walked to the wall of publicity photos Ernie had hung by the front door. Gazing idly at the pictures while she waited, she leaned forward suddenly as she recognized the first picture she’d ever sent home. This one wasn’t a headshot; it was a reprint of a photo taken on the set of the only movie she’d ever done: Attack Girls From Planet Venus. The snapshot showed her and several other wanna-be starlets in scanty, strategically ripped silver attire. Lilah stood on the far right. Beneath her likeness she had written To Ernie, I’ll always love your milk shakes best. XOXO, Lilah. Then she’d drawn a star instead of her last name.
Lilah shook her head. She didn’t draw stars anymore. No one ever asked for her autograph, anyway.
“I didn’t see that movie. The locals tell me it’s a classic.”
The deep voice, low and slow and sardonic, made Lilah’s heart jump to her throat. She whirled around to find Gus standing mere inches behind her. Looming several inches taller and wider than she, he gazed over her head at the photograph then down again at her and raised an eyebrow with perfect irony.
“Was there a sequel?”
His presence seemed to surround Lilah, to press in on her, though there was a good foot and a half of air between them.
She stood dry-mouthed and thick-tongued as Gus’s prairie-winter eyes lowered slowly from the photo to her face. Not sure what to expect from him, she felt a thin, sharp stab of anxiety as their gazes met and held. In all the years she’d known him, she had never stood this close without feeling the almost electric energy that pulsed between them. It had been there ever since they’d both hit puberty. Today was no different.
When she’d pictured him over the years—and she’d be lying through her teeth to claim that she hadn’t—she had sometimes imagined him still in love with her and unable to mask the longing and youthful hunger that smoldered in his gaze. Once upon a time being with Gus had made her feel more special than she’d felt anyplace else.
Then there were the times in the past few years when Lilah could not picture Gus except as he’d looked the last time she saw him—with his eyes spitting sparks of fury and bitterness that had burned her soul.
Today if his eyes were a true indication of his feelings, he was long past the fury and resentment. Past the adolescent lust, too. In front of her was a man whose emotions were under his own control, and he looked at her with decided neutrality.
“The movie,” he murmured, nudging her focus. “Was there ever a sequel?”
“I hope not.”
He laughed at that. Easily. It was a sound she had not heard often from him. Even in their happiest moments and even though they’d almost always been alone together, away from the townspeople he’d mistrusted, Gus had rarely laughed. She remembered wanting him to, wanting to be the one to elicit a guffaw or two. Though she’d rarely been successful, she had challenged his control in other ways….
“So, what brings you back to town, Lilah?” The rich baritone, much deeper than she recalled, wrapped around her name. “Taking a break from the bright lights and big city?”
She looked for sarcasm and found none, but felt embarrassed nonetheless. Gus had no way of knowing that the brightest light she’d worked under in years was the plate warmer at Jerry’s Deli. “My family is here,” she said, striving for a matter-of-fact inflection, but to her own ears she sounded defensive. “I’ve been back many times over the years. Have you?”
She already knew the answer to that question, of course. She’d looked for him, listened for some clue to his whereabouts on most of those early visits home. But the only person in town who had ever kept tabs on Gus had been Uncle Harm, and he’d never spoken of Gus again after the time he’d called California to tell Lilah that Gus had been sentenced to one year in prison.
“My family left the area years ago,” Gus told her dispassionately. “I had no reason to come back until recently.”
No reason. Meaning she had not been a good enough reason. Lilah had always wondered if he’d ever looked her up.
Guess now I have an answer. Unwillingly, she felt hurt. As badly as they’d ended, she’d Googled him on the Internet lots of times, always warning herself to do nothing if his name came up, but never quite certain how she would react.
“Why are you back in town?” she asked. In high school, nine-tenths of their conversations had centered not on if but rather on when they planned to make their permanent escapes.
“I’m building my home and business here.”
“You’re going to stay…in Kalamoose?” Surprise teemed with the ramifications this news posed, and Lilah felt dizzy.
God really does have a sense of humor.
With her mind a jumble of oh, no’s and what now’s, Lilah felt an almost desperate desire to rush back to the table, tell Bree they were going to dine on Sara’s Cap’n Crunch after all and get the heck out of here so she could think.
Gus did weird things to her common sense—like obliterate it, entirely. It didn’t matter how wrong they were for each other, how overcomplicated and flat-out painful her life had become because she hadn’t been able to keep her adolescent hands off him; he was like a drug—she was forever yearning for him, even when her mind should have been on something, or perhaps somebody, else.
She forced herself to admit, albeit silently, that for the past twelve years she had unconsciously pasted Gus’s countenance over the face of every man to whom she’d tried to get close. She’d had other lovers, two with whom she’d honestly tried to make a relationship work. But she had never been able to give herself wholly, and she had not understood why…until the night she’d realized that the arms she’d felt holding her, the hands she’d imagined caressing her, belonged to Gus and not to the man she was actually with. Bone-deep loneliness had dogged her for years; in that moment she’d understood why—and why the embrace of a lover had been no defense against it.
The best, the absolute wisest thing Lilah could do for herself would be to stay out of Gus’s sight line. She had a life—two lives now—to put in order. Nothing good would come of continued contact with a man whose very presence had always ruined her ability to think.
She’d made too many mistakes in her relationship with Gus to believe they could pick up where they’d left off, and standing so close to him now, thinking things she prayed her face would not reveal, Lilah felt a traitorous bloom of red creep up her neck. She was trying to think of a polite way to excuse herself, to buy a little time so she could regroup before she saw him again, when he surprised her once more.
“I’m planning a large party in September,” he said smoothly. It was a comment so utterly uncharacteristic of him, Lilah wasn’t sure she heard correctly. In high school, he had never gone to a party, much less thrown one.
Now he gazed down at the girl who used to be his party and said with detached ease, “If you’re here in the fall, be sure to drop by and help us celebrate.”
September. Two months away. Lilah was no longer certain she should plan to stay in Kalamoose two weeks much less two months. Between her eyebrows, her head began to throb.
Say something, a voice inside urged. With her tongue feeling too thick to fit her mouth, she forced herself to ask, “What will you be celebrating?”
A satisfied smile crawled leisurely across Gus’s handsome face. He looked every inch the contented man and every inch a success—proof that America was still the land of self-made men and second chances—when he answered.
“My marriage.”
Whomp. Satisfaction hit Gus like a sock to the solar plexus. Confirmation, validation…retaliation. You name it, he felt it. And it felt fine.
He’d waited twelve years to see Lilah Owens swallow a bite, just a bite, of the shock and pain she’d fed him. The fact that their relationship was over a decade old and that her choices then could be blamed on youth and immaturity didn’t appease his anger. He was surprised the resentment still burned so brightly all these years later.
He’d had a counselor once—in prison—who had helped him work on the concepts of forgiveness and letting go. After his initial resistance to everything the man had to say, Gus had learned a few things. Unfortunately none of the lessons he’d taken with him managed to completely obliterate his resentment. Nonetheless, even he was surprised by the degree of gratification he felt when Lilah registered the news that he was going to be married.
First, shock sparked in the gray-green eyes. Then the arched golden eyebrows pinched as if the news disturbed her. Gus watched her and had to work hard to keep his own expression under control when jealousy streaked across her face, briefly but unmistakably. He hadn’t known he could still affect her. God help him, but the knowledge was rewarding.
Still beautiful, Lilah was close to thirty. One of the single secretaries at his office in Chicago had celebrated her thirtieth birthday on a Friday and by Monday had begun reacting to every marriage announcement with near suicidal grief. Perhaps Lilah was the same.
He’d already noted her bare ring finger. Some women chose not to wear a wedding ring, but he doubted Lilah Owens would be one of them. He imagined she would wear a rock the size of Gibraltar. She had never been quiet, never blended in. That had been his goal in school: to be so unremarkable that no one would pay attention to the son of the least respectable family in town.
He’d once thought Lilah wanted to keep their relationship a secret because, like him, she’d thought it was a special thing, too important to expose to the judgments of a bigoted town. He’d trusted her, one hundred percent.
Unbidden came the memory of the nights he’d lain awake in the barn where he’d often slept as a kid, gazing through the dark at the bare rafters and planning how to buy Lilah an engagement ring. He’d spent hours wondering if a ruby might be less expensive than a diamond, wondering how to get the money and where to buy a gem. In retrospect, nothing more than a fantasy for a kid who didn’t have a mattress to sleep on.
He could buy Lilah a hundred rings now, he thought as he stared at her, a blood-red, passionate ruby or a diamond whose white brilliance set it forever apart from the pale. But now it didn’t matter, not for her.
Schooling his features to reflect dispassion, he said, “What can I do for you, Lilah?”
“C-congratulations.”
They spoke over each other then hesitated and did it again.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“Nikki said you asked to speak to me,” Gus said. “What about?”
Lilah looked genuinely confused. “Nikki?” She glanced to the dining room. “The waitress?” Shaking her head, she corrected, “I asked to speak with Ernie.”
Gus scratched his temple and tried to appreciate the irony. So Lilah hadn’t sought him out? And here he’d been enjoying the indecency of power.
“Nikki said you wanted to speak to the owner,” he told her, putting two and two together for both of them. “She obviously thought you meant me. I bought the diner from Ernie a month ago.” This time he tried to keep the pride and challenge out of his voice. It finally began to sink in that standing here, hoping to inspire envy with news of his new home and wife-to-be was not only immature, it was hardly fair to his fiancée.
“If you need to speak with Ernie,” he said with a customer-service politeness he had seldom exercised, “I’m sure we can help with that.”
Lilah felt her heart lurch, indecisive and arrhythmic. She wasn’t sure her exhausted body could take any more surprises than she’d already had today. “This is your business? The diner? I thought the gas station—”
“Also mine.”
She tried to smile, to look as if she were pleased, but her face felt stiff, as if she’d overdosed on BOTOX. She knew she should be happy for Gus; he had apparently succeeded in the areas of life she had somehow managed to bungle—career and romance. But every new nugget of information he revealed complicated her situation more and more. Rather than being happy, she felt more scared, more lost, more alone by the second.
“Do you have Ernie’s home number?” Gus broke into her thoughts. “I’m sure he’d enjoy hearing from you,” Gus said with all the personalization of a cruise director pairing people up for a square-dance class. “Or if you prefer, he comes in for breakfast most mornings. You could catch him then.”
And risk seeing Gus again before she had a chance to think…or take a large valium? “That’s not necessary. Thanks, anyway. I only stopped in to…to give him this.” She thrust the wrapped publicity photo out to Gus. “It’s more for the diner. It’s another photo. You’re welcome to it.” She made a face. “Or if you’re going to change the decor, perhaps you could pass it to Ernie next time you see him.”
She began to back up toward the booth where she’d left Bree. So much for a job at the only restaurant in town. Lilah decided swiftly and definitively that she’d made a mistake—another one—by coming home. Bree didn’t like it here, anyway…not that Bree was going to like any place without Grace.
“I’ve got to get back to my—” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “To…Bree.”
Instantly, Gus’s eyes shifted to the booth where Bree sat with her head still bent over her book. Lilah cursed herself for calling attention to the girl. Pointing her out would only invite questions and more conversation.
“Well, good to see you again, Gus,” she said, trying hard to convey the dispassion he seemed able to portray quite easily. “Best of luck with everything.”
To underscore her nonchalance, she managed a classic hair flip when she turned away. The one she’d perfected in high school. The flip that said I’m confident, I’m free, nothin’s botherin’me. To reinforce the image, she made herself swing around one last time, flashing a smile she didn’t feel. “Is the chicken-fried steak still the best in North Dakota?”
Gus nodded. “Everything’s the same.”
Not hardly, Lilah thought, but she nodded, turned and walked back to the booth, where she intended to encourage Sabrina to eat without chewing so they could get the hell out of here.
Chapter Four
“Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four…”
Lilah pushed coins across the scarred butcher-block table in Sara’s kitchen. She counted all the way to forty-eight dollars, looked at the money sitting in front of her and slumped until her cheek rested on the old pine.
The heavy thump of her heart and steady march of black hands across a cow-shaped kitchen clock provided the only background music to the impending disaster that had become her life.
It was ten minutes to 12:00 a.m. Between sips of hot cocoa laced with Irish Crème Liqueur, Lilah had counted and recounted every crumpled dollar bill and every sticky piece of change she’d scrounged from the bottom of her purse. She’d have to make another with-drawal from her checking account soon.
Groaning, she pounded a fist on the table—just once, because she was exhausted.
When Grace was sick, Lilah had asked her coworkers to sub for her so many times that eventually the manager had hired someone else. Then there had been the enticing dinners she had bought from the gourmet market to tempt Grace to eat, and the aromatherapy candles and food supplements and Chinese herbal remedies and organic potions and all the other ways Lilah had fought to keep Grace alive, to pretend they actually had some power in an ultimately powerless position.
Lilah’s bank account had dwindled, and she hadn’t been able to catch up. Still, she would learn how to cook cardboard boxes before she’d spend what was left of Grace’s savings. She’d counted on getting a job at Ernie’s. Jobs were not plentiful in rural North Dakota.
“I’m screwed. I’m just screwed,” she said, shaking her head as she pushed away from the kitchen table.
She’d gone to bed around nine—before, thank goodness, Sara had come home from her final patrol of the night. Lilah simply hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, not until she’d had at least a little rest and could make some sense of her situation. Unfortunately, she hadn’t slept a wink, and her situation wasn’t looking any more sensible at 12:00 a.m. than it had when she’d gotten home from the diner.
Heaving her exhausted body out of the chair, she shuffled to the pantry, wondering if Sara had any Scooter Pies. May as well ditch the diet she’d been on for the past twelve years. Her career was dead, her romantic life was a non-issue, and when everyone discovered the lie she had been living with for more than a decade, it was possible that no one, not even her own sisters, would want to speak to her.
Settling for a handful of Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries, she ate over the sink, listening to her teeth grind the cereal and watching pink Crunch Berry crumbs dapple the scratched porcelain basin. When she finished, she stared through the window at the high half moon. She’d come home for comfort.
She’d come home hoping that her sisters—and she figured Nettie was her best bet—would see that taking care of Bree was wearing her nerves down to nubs. Look at you, her baby sister would say, you’re exhausted. This is too much for someone who is not used to children. Let me help.
The thought that had brought transient relief on the drive to North Dakota now turned the cereal sour in her stomach.
Standing still, Lilah covered her face with her hands. She wasn’t the one who had died, wasn’t the one who had slipped unwillingly away from a daughter she’d raised and nurtured and needed like a star needs the night to shine. Yet here she was, filled with worry, feeling sorry for herself and wanting someone to rescue her.
When she saw Gus at the restaurant and heard that he was building a home and a business in Kalamoose, there had been a part of her that thought—for a split second—that perhaps fate had decided they were not through after all. Perhaps that angry boy who had been all wrong for her at seventeen, but whom she had never been able to forget, was going to be her knight in shining armor now that they were both adults.
Maybe, she’d thought before he’d mentioned a fiancée, everything that’s happened was supposed to bring us together again.
Turning on the faucet, Lilah splashed her face with cold water. “You have become a poor excuse for a woman with a brain,” she muttered.
Twisting the squeaky knob again and drying her hands on the dishtowel Sara left draped over the faucet, Lilah braced her arms against the sink and hung her head. Gus Hoffman had spent the past twelve years creating a life that would give him contentment while she had morphed from a girl who had planned to conquer the world into a woman who wished someone would rescue her.
Pathetic.
All night she’d been fighting the memory of his expression as he told her he was getting married. He’d looked proud, but more importantly, satisfied. In the past, albeit the distant past, he had looked that way only when he was with her.
Hot and restless, she pulled at the neck of her tank top then reached over the sink to open the window and let in some air. Grunting, she pushed ineffectively at the frame until she realized that Sara had installed some funky new lock.
Dang Sara and her security measures. This is Kalamoose, not freaking L.A.
The thought had barely formed in her brain when she saw a shadow through the window. The shadow of a person standing in their yard.
At 12:00 a.m.
Lilah’s first impulse was to yell for her sister, but she didn’t want to alarm Bree, and she felt a sudden surge of adrenaline that told her to fight, not flee. She lived in Los Angeles, for crying out loud; she’d had her car broken into three times. She could deal with one small-town Peeping Tom.
Racing barefoot to the kitchen door, she grabbed the battered baseball bat that had stood sentinel for years—ever since Sara had placed it there to threaten the raccoons that routinely made a mess of their garbage cans.
Dousing the lights, Lilah peeked through the curtain covering the kitchen door window. The helpful moon bathed the person in the yard in an eerie glow, outlining the silhouette of a rather large man. Clearly, he’d seen her through the window. Now that she’d turned off the lights, he appeared to be waiting, though for what she had no idea. He stood stock-still, neither approaching the house nor turning to leave before he was caught.
The arrogance, Lilah thought and then immediately was struck by a rush of déjà vu so strong she felt transported to another time. Another time…but the very same place.
Unlatching Sara’s collection of dead bolts, she turned the knob on the kitchen door and stepped outside. Cool air bathed her bare legs and whispered softly around her shoulders and arms. Still clutching the bat, she shivered.
I know this moment. She’d lived it thirteen summers ago, though without the baseball bat that time. Just sixteen, awake with the thrill of secret love, she had flown outside under the light of this very moon to her lover’s arms. She recognized him now, thought he’d thrown no stones at her window and showed no intention of running eagerly across the lawn to meet her halfway.
Tonight Gus merely watched her as she descended the porch steps and walked toward him slowly, feeling vaguely as if she’d fallen asleep at the table and was dreaming this whole thing.
She walked until she saw his face clearly, stopping a few feet away.
His eyes roamed down her body, taking in the loose, mussed hair, sleeveless nightshirt, bare legs. Then his gaze wandered up again while hers traveled over a muscular frame dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. They studied each other unabashedly, like naked lovers viewing their partners for the first time.
She felt the old heady recklessness that had pumped her full of life every time Gus met her at night—despite rules, despite curfews, despite being too young to deal with any consequences. The struggle to suppress the feeling seemed, rather, to inflame them more. For a moment, she wanted to forget everything, every excellent reason for keeping her distance from him now, and simply fall into a wordless kiss.
The idea that she might be willing to ignore the fact that he had a fiancée repulsed her. She had been a lot of things—selfish, dishonest, shallow at times—but she had never yet been an adulteress.
“You’re trespassing,” she informed Gus in a voice roughened by suppressed emotion.
He glanced to the makeshift weapon in her hand. “You’ve got a bat and a sister who’s the sheriff—you want me gone, do something about it.”
“What are you doing here?”
A long moment passed before Gus answered. She wasn’t sure he was going to respond at all, but then he smiled, and in that second he looked like the old Gus—cocky, irreverent, bad.
“The same thing all ex-cons do, Lilah,” he said in a silky voice intended to travel no farther than her ears. He took three lazy steps toward her, and the glint in his eyes was positively sinful. “I’m returning to the scene of my crime.”
“What crime would that be?” Lilah said, her heart beating against her chest as she strove to appear calmer than she felt. “I thought your crime was drag racing along Main Street.”
“You mean when I crashed my car into Old Man Hertzog’s grocery?” Gus leaned indolently against the doorframe. He crossed his arms, as relaxed as if they chatted about old times every night around midnight. “Not the crime to which I refer,” he said, a corner of his mouth hooking into a half smile. “I’m talking about the crime that happened a couple years earlier than that. The crime of falling for the sheriff’s niece.”
“It’s almost midnight,” she protested, mindful of Sara and Bree asleep—she hoped—upstairs. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I was never supposed to be here. Didn’t bother you before.”
“Seems like stating the obvious to say we’ve both changed since then.” She tugged at the hem of her tank top, ineffectively trying to make it stretch past the short tap pants she slept in during the summer. “What do you want?”
In lieu of answering, he poked his head over hers and looked around the kitchen. “Invite me in, Lilah. Do you know I’ve never seen the inside of this house before?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? Afraid I won’t like the decor?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come in this late,” she clarified tightly. “My sister…”
The gray eyes she used to get lost in so easily narrowed and turned cold. “Never liked me,” he finished for her. The relaxed smile around his lips tensed—not much, but enough for her to notice. “I have my own shower at home now, and my clothes are almost always clean. I don’t think I’ll offend anyone.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it!” Her face felt hot, but the bare wood of Sara’s kitchen floor sent a chill through her bones.
There was no point in contending that she’d never been offended by him, not by his clothes or his family or by any of the other things that had shamed him in his youth. There was no point, because it wasn’t true.
The first time she’d seen Gus, she’d been curious and a little scared. At the age of ten, she’d moved with her sisters from Seattle, Washington, to Kalamoose, North Dakota. The girls’ parents had died in a plane crash on their way home from a second honeymoon. Up to that time, the Owens sisters had lived a sheltered, gentle life. Raised by parents who had loved each other and adored their children, Lilah and her sisters had had no reason to expect anything but the joy to which they were accustomed. Lilah wasn’t sure about Nettie or Sara, but the accident that took her parents’ lives had changed something in her, something deep and crucial.
She wasn’t sure she could articulate the change even now, as an adult; she certainly hadn’t been able to do it as a child. All she knew was that her parents had left full of happiness, that they’d expected the best from life and had suffered the worst; they’d been torn from their kids, and at some point before they’d died there must have been a moment, a cruel and heartaching moment, when together they’d known, they’d never see their girls again.
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