On the Doorstep

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Naomi stuck out her lip. “But even police detectives get time off for Wednesday night prayer meeting.”

“I’ll have plenty of time off when Gabriel’s mother has been located.” He looked at Pilar to let her know that the message was for her. No matter what she was hiding or how badly he felt for her for having made this difficult discovery, he still had a job to do. With or without her help, he was going to solve this case.

Pilar made a show of studying her watch, but he was pretty sure she’d received the message.

Naomi cleared her throat. “At least let me get you some dinner.” She turned back to Pilar. “You, too. It won’t take me a minute to whip up a big pot of chili.”

“That’s okay,” Zach and Pilar chorused and then shot glances at each other.

She was chewing her lower lip to keep from laughing, so he spoke for the both of them. “Thank you for the offer, but can we take a rain check?”

Naomi’s sly grin suggested she was as aware as anyone of her cooking weakness. “Okay, it’s a date. The kids will love having the both of you to dinner.”

Date? He started. Why did he feel as if he’d just been swindled? He opened his mouth to object and caught Pilar’s profile in his peripheral vision. Her mouth was open to say something, too.

Their minister’s wife stopped the both of them with a wave of her hand. “I’ll let you know when. I’ll see you out now.”

Only a few minutes later, he was buckling the seat belt of his sedan and wondering at how easily Naomi had dismissed them. It was probably for the best, he thought, as he watched Pilar climb into her red coupe. He needed to avoid distractions if he was going to solve this case, and Pilar had become one.

Even now his thoughts flicked to the scene between Pilar and Gabriel when she’d whispered promises that she would keep him safe. Strange how he could almost see a better world when looking at it through Pilar’s eyes. He saw hope, even though life had given him every reason to doubt.

He shook his head to dismiss the image now, as he had when he’d witnessed it. Some police detective he’d turned out to be. He’d been so entranced watching Pilar and her tiny charge that if Naomi hadn’t announced his presence, he might have gone right on watching without thinking once about the case.

Pilar was a distraction, all right, one that neither he nor the case could afford. He wished she would just tell him what she knew so he could steer clear of her until the investigation was complete. Even after that, if he had any sense.

No one who brought out such conflicting feelings in him could be good for his life—work or otherwise. Part of him wanted to lock her in a holding cell until she told him what he wanted to know. The other, more dangerous part of him wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right.

Pilar peered into the oval window in the Starlight Diner’s front door before she pulled it open. Sure enough, Anne had already commandeered their usual booth and was sitting on one of its bright blue vinyl seats studying a menu she should have known by heart. In fact, the names Pilar Estes, Anne Smith, Meg Talbot Kierney and Rachel Noble all should have been engraved on the table’s Formica top as many years as they’d been coming to the Starlight for Sunday brunch.

“Hey, Pilar,” Anne called as her golden blond head came up and she set aside the menu. She would order her usual double bacon cheeseburger and fries when the waitress came anyway, and, as usual, she wouldn’t pack an ounce on her slender frame.

“Hi.” Pilar slid past the chrome counter, the upholstered bar stools and the black-and-white stills of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, pausing only to salute a picture of James Dean from Giant before she reached the booth.

“Glad to see you didn’t forget to say hello to our Jimmy Dean,” Anne said, glancing past her friend to the glass front door. “You’re the first one here from the church crowd.” She said it with laughter in her voice that almost masked the hurt.

As she slid across the smooth vinyl that caught her skirt and twisted it, Pilar studied her friend. Sunday brunches had probably become strange for Anne these last few months. Before, she’d had Meg and Rachel to help her stake a claim on their regular table, with only Pilar arriving after church. Now Meg and her new husband, Jared, were members of Chestnut Grove, and Rachel had been attending services with her fiancé, Eli Cavanaugh, most often snuggling Rachel’s adopted baby sister, Gracie, between them.

Anne probably felt a little jealous over Meg and Rachel finding love. Thoughts like that even had crossed Pilar’s mind a time or two. But did Anne also feel resentful over their new church involvement? Did she wonder if she was missing something the rest of them had found?

“Good afternoon, ladies,” waitress Miranda Jones said as she carried a heavy food tray to a table at the opposite end of the diner. “Be right with you.”

“No rush. We’re still waiting.”

“I know,” Miranda said over her shoulder, the tight twist that held her dark brown hair bobbing with her nod. “Two more friends.”

Anne returned Pilar’s sad look when their gazes caught. They were still getting used to Miranda waiting on them, wearing a pink apron that matched Sandra Lange’s except for the missing script S at the shoulder.

Usually the diner owner made a point of waiting on “the Sunday four,” as she called them herself. Now their friend was battling breast cancer and had taken several weeks off while she underwent chemotherapy. Without closing her eyes, Pilar said another quick prayer for Sandra’s recovery.

“How’d you get here so fast, Miss Pilar?” Meg called as she pushed through the door, shoving her sunglasses into her curly red hair. “Did you sneak out before the youth minister’s benediction?”