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Abby knew in Kyle time that was correct.
His life was simple, gloriously simple, and she hoped she could keep it that way. Hoped she could keep her promise to Lena to “keep my boy safe while I’m gone.”
“’S’go!” He grabbed her hand with a sandy one of his own.
IN THE APARTMENT ABOVE the garage, Reed held his phone a few inches away from his ear while Maxwell and Anderson’s newest and possibly most lucrative client vented.
“I don’t see how they can say they’ll sell that piece of land to us and then say they won’t.” His client’s voice blasted. It was dinnertime in Chicago. Why wasn’t this man at home bothering his help?
With part of his brain Reed listened, knowing it wasn’t, as the man said, about the property. It never was. It was about power and who would have the upper hand. The other half of his brain, in the meantime, tried to sort out the possibilities about his brother and the boy playing in the sandbox. When he saw Kyle hunched over the dump truck looking determined, the familiarity about the boy clicked inside his head. His look and his mannerisms reminded him of Jesse as a child.
Reed pinched the bridge of his nose as the client went on about what he kept referring to as the “untenable position.” It didn’t seem to make a difference what nationality, what business, or what deal, the stakes in their purest form were about who would keep or gain the power and the control.
“There is always a solution,” Reed assured the man.
“We need to meet in person, if not tonight, then tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not in Chicago right now.”
“What do you expect me to do? I’m going…” And the rant continued.
Grow up first and second, go learn not to parry a feint. The seller wasn’t really retracting the offer. He was pretending to attack his opponent’s position, pretending being the key word. They might as well be princes fencing for the fair maiden’s honor. It was no different.
“Denny Anderson already has you penciled into his calendar,” Reed said when the man took a breath. “He thought he might need some one-on-one with you tomorrow. I’ll have him call you in the morning.”
Mollified, the man thanked Reed for his time, and, he wheezed out, “prompt attention to the details.”
Denny had warned him about the tenuous situation the land deal was in, because their private investigator had dug deeper than people usually did and found the seller had title question on the land involved in the prospective sale. The bluster was a delay tactic.
Almost down to the minute Denny had predicted when the seller would seem to renege and their client, the buyer, would be calling in a panic and had assured Reed he’d see the man.
He was lucky to be in business with Denny, who thrived on converting the ridiculous to the sane.
Reed tucked his phone into his pocket and snagged Jesse’s paychecks and stubs from the kitchen table where he had left them. The good people of St. Adelbert who had hired his brother were out there waiting to talk to him.
And now it might all be more complicated. Was it possible Jesse was a father?
More likely Reed was so tired, he was inventing things in his head. Surely Jesse wouldn’t have gone off for two months and left his son behind. Surely Abby would have said something about Kyle being his nephew. His head ached.
He looked at the top stub in his hand. The address read “Miller’s Hardware Store” on Main St. in St. Adelbert. Small town advantage. No GPS needed.
He yawned and looked over at the welcoming bed with the sheets Abby had washed. Abby, witty, attractive, maybe sexy if she weren’t trying so hard to be…what…nonchalant? He yawned again. Suddenly grilling the town’s merchants right this second lost its appeal.
Abby was right. Sleep was definitely a good idea, maybe not even a choice, but only for the next few minutes, a power nap. The last thing he could do was waste time. If he talked to people today, he could be on a plane for Chicago tomorrow morning and be back in the office by late afternoon.
He stretched out on the bed. He had no idea if Kyle and Jesse were related, but he couldn’t help thinking a grandchild would soothe his mother’s conscience. Maybe even give her the strength and courage to get outside herself and give up her downward spiral once and for all. Get her off his back. He was sure he was going to hell for thinking such a thing about his mother, and he was a bad, bad person to wish his mother on a small child.
He called Denny and left a message about the client. Then he yawned, rolled over on his side and inhaled the fresh smell of the linens. Abby must have hung the sheets on the line outside. He vaguely remembered one of the nannies having done the same thing routinely in his family’s backyard, despite how the flapping scandalized his mother.
He let his eyelids close for a five-minute nap.
“CARRIE, YOU OLD CREEPFACE, aren’t you ever home?” Abby left the identical message for her friend in Denver as her friend had left her—only the names were changed—and smiled as she hung up the phone. Carrie was a dear and the only person in Denver she still carried on a friendship with.
With no one to talk to, Abby washed the dinner dishes. From time to time, she peered out the kitchen window into the near darkness. The apartment above her garage, the paid-for apartment above her garage, was dark and stayed dark all the time she was washing and drying. She had been able to keep Kyle from being too curious about the man by shamelessly distracting him with a shopping trip and a long visit to the nearby park. He was safely asleep now, as apparently was the man upstairs. Thank goodness.
She put the last dish in the cupboard and pulled the whole-grain bread she had made out of the oven, placing it on the rack to cool. Then she went in to the back room to turn on the computer. Her sister wasn’t online and was probably asleep somewhere. She wanted to yell at her sister for being irresponsible, for leaving Kyle in such a precarious position.
If Jesse was Kyle’s father, and if Jesse never came back, the boy would never get to know his father. If Jesse wasn’t his father, Kyle might never know the other side of his family. Ever. She knew what that was like. Her father’s relatives had never contacted her and Lena after their father left.
Or the other side of Kyle’s family, no matter who they were, might take him away.
The thought of giving up Kyle tore at her, and not just because it would leave her alone in the world with only a mother who kept trying to take husband-hunting to new levels and a sister on the other side of a very large ocean. Kyle was five and he didn’t deserve to have his world ripped apart because of the adults surrounding him.
Sanity got the better of her and she sent off a cheery email to Lena about their mother and the Fuller men and told Lena she’d save Travis Fuller for her if she wanted him. She asked again about Jesse’s possible whereabouts and signed off. She would do anything she could to keep her sister safe, even if that meant doing what she had to do at home and keeping quiet about the problems.
What would the older brother do for the younger brother? How far would he go?
THE NEXT DAY, AFTER HAVING slept in, Reed called his partner, Denny, who gave him a proper amount of harassment for missing their usual early-morning call. He’d told Reed all had been quiet from his mother so far, and that Abby Fairbanks was a nurse who worked at the medical clinic in downtown St. Adelbert. The Avery Clinic named after its now retired founder. The only clinic in town, so it wouldn’t be hard to find. He wondered if her leaving Denver had anything to do with a nursing job.
After a shower and shave Reed jumped into the rental car and headed out to find the people whose names and addresses were on the paychecks and stubs Jesse had left behind.
He wound the rental car through the neighborhoods and pulled to a stop at Main Street. The town was roughly linear and flanked by mountains and deep green forests. A small shallow river flowing through the town dictated any bends in the streets, a river he suspected that was neither small nor shallow when the snow in the mountains melted in the spring and early summer.
To the right on Main Street sat a Chevron station, a miniature trading post-style meant to attract tourists. He turned left onto Main Street in front of the post office, equally Old West-looking. Past the post office and disrupting the linear flow was the town square with businesses around the perimeter.
But it was Alice’s Diner down the street past the square with its white paint and bright blue trim that caught his eye, more correctly, it caught his stomach, which growled loudly. Since he was soon going to need more than the mountain air to keep his coffee-addicted eyelids open, a big breakfast suddenly seemed like a great idea.
He pulled to the curb beside the diner. It was possible someone in there knew something about Jesse’s whereabouts.
“Mornin’, darlin’,” a waitress with a lot of black hair, a white frilly apron and a name tag that said Vala greeted him as he stepped inside. “Seat yerself wherever you want.”
Reed did so and turned his coffee cup right side up. A moment later the same waitress filled the heavy old mug with coffee and handed him a menu.
“I’ll be back in two shakes to take your order.”
It was almost ten-thirty on a Friday morning and only two other tables were occupied. Each of the eight diners, four at a table, had a cup of coffee in front of them and a platter of sweet rolls in the middle of their respective tables, a midmorning snack. Breakfast for them had probably been hours ago.
All were gray-haired, if they had hair, and each studied him in their own way. There were a few smiles, one from a woman whose checked apron covered half her denim skirt. A frowning man, a real cowboy type, looked really old, maybe late eighties, and had a deep tan on the lower two-thirds of his face, while his forehead was much lighter. Two other women—sisters? twins?—dressed alike except for their individual color theme, glanced at each other and at him and then grinned broadly.
Reed gave a simple wave. Some waved back, others nodded, and then they all turned back to their conversations. Well, at least they didn’t chuck coffee mugs at his head. Not all small towns were receptive to strangers.
After Vala took his order Reed stood, and with coffee cup in hand approached the closest table. The occupants shifted their gazes up to him, and three of them picked up their own coffee cups so as to be equally armed. He smiled at that.
“You’re Jesse Maxwell’s brother,” the aproned woman said.
So much for wondering if they knew who he was. “I’m Reed Maxwell.”
“The guy at Abby’s place,” said one of the near-twin women.
“Sit down,” a big, grizzly bearded guy said, and they all shifted their chairs until there was a space for him. Highly unusual human behavior if you compared it to the near stranger-phobia he was used to in the big cities he frequented. He liked this friendly behavior. It was—nice, he thought as he sat down.
“And don’t let them get to you. They talk about all of us,” the grizzly guy continued, and then he peeked over his shoulder and grinned at the women.
The women at the other table and grizzly guy all laughed together, like people who didn’t always need words to communicate. Like old friends.
“I’m looking for my brother and I thought I’d ask around in here if anyone has heard anything about where he is or where he planned to go.”
The phone near the cash register jangled and the waitress hurried to answer it.
“You one of them Chicago folk, too?” asked the grizzly guy. “I’m Fred Nivens, by the way. I own the auto repair shop and tow truck in town. Jesse worked for me—”
“Fred, it’s for you,” Vala, the waitress, called from across the diner. “And you better hurry up.”
Fred leaped up so fast the pleasant-looking man next to him had to make a grab for Fred’s chair to keep it from flopping backward to the floor.
“Hi, I’m Bessie Graywolf,” the woman with the checked apron said as she pushed the plate of sweet rolls toward him. “Don’t mind Fred. Some emergency or other is always happening at his place.”
Over near the cash register, the man spoken of was gesturing emphatically as he talked into the phone.
“Nice to meet you, Bessie,” Reed said as he turned his attention to her.
Fred returned to the table a moment later, but only to grab his hat.
“What’s the matter, Fred? That guy from Jersey set the place on fire?”
Fred’s eyes just got bigger. “I gotta go.”
“Poor Fred. If it’s not one thing it’s the next with that darned shop of his,” one of the women at the other table said as Fred rushed out the door.
Bessie leaned toward Reed in a conspiratorial manner. “Jesse only worked for Fred one month. Something about no auto aptitude, according to Fred.”
“Did my brother cause trouble in town?”
Instead of shifting looks, the table broke out in grins.
“That boy is a dear,” the woman across the table said.
Good. If the townspeople liked Jesse, it might be easier to get information.
“Now,” Bessie said, “go on and have a sweet roll.”
When Reed’s stomach accepted her offer of a sweet roll with a loud growl, Bessie laughed and pushed the platter closer.
The roll was warm with some sort of dark jam inside and Bessie pointed at the couple on the other side of the table and continued. “This is Rachel and Jim Taylor, they own Taylor’s Drug Store. Over there is Curly Martin from the Squat D Ranch.” The old rancher gave a quick nod of acknowledgment.
She continued, also naming the local funeral director, and the pair of similarly dressed women who ran the boardinghouse, which incidentally had no boarders right now. The pair gave him extra bright smiles and he wondered what that might be about. Reed listened to the names and bits of information and put them away where he could draw on them when he needed. He greeted them with smiles, stood and shook offered hands and then relaxed down onto the seat of his chair. Every one of them seemed, if not entirely warm and fuzzy, at least cordial.
“We all knew Jesse. He sort of wandered in and out of our lives,” Bessie said as she signaled Vala for more coffee all around.
“He was such a card,” one of the women who were probably sisters said, and Reed was sorry to say he had forgotten which was Cora and which was Ethel.
“Is that bad or good?” he asked.
The sisters laughed and together said, “Both.”
“He’d forget he was supposed to do a job for us and then he came and did it and then insisted we weren’t supposed to pay him, cause he said it was a mitzvah, whatever that is.”
“I think he meant he was doing a good deed,” Reed replied.
“Yup, he was a card,” Cora or Ethel said. “Remember that dog he tried to adopt and the dog just wanted to run around free and not belong to anybody?”
Both tables of people laughed and Reed got the feeling no one was laughing at Jesse, just about the story.
“I didn’t know whether to feel sorrier for Jesse or the dog,” the old rancher Curly Martin called out from the other table and then guffawed until he coughed and one of the sisters had to pound him on the back.
The waitress poured coffee all around and when she brought his breakfast, she brought his flatware and water from the table where he had originally sat.
“Thanks, everyone. I appreciate your Jesse tales. I just hope they aren’t too exaggerated.”
Several of them chuckled and the rest grinned and Reed continued. “I’m trying to find out where he might have gone and I wondered if he said anything to any of you, or if you’d heard anything.”
Many heads shook.
“You’re best bet for information might be John Miller over at the hardware store. Working there was the last real job Jesse had before he left,” one of the sisters said.
“Do you need him for anything in particular or are you juss lookin’?” Curly asked. The drilling look of inquisition he gave Reed seemed contagious and soon they were all looking at him as if he were going to fore-close on all their homes.
Sometimes there was nothing that would suit better than the truth. “Our mother needs to see him.”
Bessie Graywolf pinched her lips together and shook her head slowly. “I know that one—my daughter, been gone over a year.”
Reed looked directly at Bessie.
“Sorry, Bessie,” he said and was surprised to realize he actually meant it.
As his reward for acknowledging Bessie’s pain, seven expressions lightened collectively. In some circles, mothers carried a lot of weight.
“Any other suggestions?” Reed asked.
“You might ask at the sheriff’s office,” Jim Taylor offered. “He fished with a couple of the deputies.”
A couple more names were mentioned, but they were “out of town anyway.” Reed shoveled food into his mouth as he listened and nodded his thanks.
The door to the diner opened and a big, blond young cowboy strode in with his hat in his hand.
“Baylor!” Several of them greeted the young cowboy as if he were an anticipated family member. Bessie motioned Baylor to Fred’s empty chair. “Reed Max well, this is Baylor Doyle. The Doyles own the Shadow Range Ranch and Bay is one of our very own volunteer firefighters.”
Baylor’s eyebrows drew together as he studied Reed. “Jesse’s brother. The one staying with Abby.”
