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He opened a tube of salve and smeared it over the gash on her arm, then fastened it with a neat row of butterfly bandages and wrapped it in gauze.
“Are you allergic to any antibiotics?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
Dan hesitated, then gave her one of the tablets the doctor in Crystal Creek had prescribed for him recently when he cut his hand on some dirty barbed wire and developed a painful infection. He knew it wasn’t smart to use a prescription on another person, but this was an emergency. And, as fearful as she obviously was of being discovered, the woman was hardly going to agree to see a doctor, no matter how he pressured her.
By the time he finished bandaging her arm, she was drifting off to sleep, her wet head lolling drowsily.
“I need to get you a dryer for that hair,” he said.
“Hack it off,” she murmured.
“Beg your pardon?”
“I don’t want to bother with it. I’m too tired.” She looked up at him with bleary appeal. “Couldn’t we just get some scissors and cut it all off?”
“But I can’t—”
“Please,” she said, “it needs to be cut, anyway. God knows, I don’t care how it looks. Let’s just get rid of it.”
With some reluctance Dan got his scissors and razor comb from a drawer and cut her matted, tangled hair, trimming it neatly around her ears the same way he cut Chris’s.
He tossed the damp strands in the wastebasket, then toweled her hair so it stood up around her face in damp little spikes.
“It’s still wet,” he told her. “I’ll need to dry it before you go to bed.”
She examined herself ruefully in the mirror, touching the little spikes. “At least it won’t take long.”
She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the tub while Dan stood above her to blow-dry her hair. Now that it was short, it looked considerably darker than it had in the newspaper photograph. And the gamine cut was surprisingly attractive with her delicate features.
“You look nice,” he said.
She didn’t respond, just leaned back with her eyes closed.
“Do you still want something to eat?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not hungry anymore. Just…so tired.”
Dan helped her up and guided her into his bedroom, tucked her into the double bed and pulled the covers over her body. She looked up at him in exhausted silence, her features washed silver by the moonlight.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “So wonderful. Thank you.”
“Go to sleep,” he told her gruffly.
She snuggled down in the covers and he sat on the mattress beside her, trying to think.
There was no other empty bed in the little house. If he slept on the sofa and the kids found him there, they were certainly going to wonder why. Dan had no choice other than to share his bed with her.
He tidied the bathroom and disposed of the drying curls of hair, then returned to his bedroom, closed the door and slid under the covers next to his unexpected guest. Every nerve in his body was conscious of her slender body curled next to him, the clean sent of her hair and the soft sound of her breathing.
Hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling and wondered what could have happened to make this beautiful woman drive her car over a cliff. Who was after her, and why was she so afraid of the police?
Either the woman was mentally unbalanced or she was involved in something illegal. In either case he’d probably been a fool to bring her into his house. Again he thought of his children sleeping nearby and felt a chill of alarm.
But even though he’d caught the woman raiding his fridge, she hadn’t seemed like a crazy person or a criminal. Just a woman in pain, and Dan, who spent his life caring for children and animals, had a hard time not feeling sympathy for anybody who was hurt.
Still, he couldn’t take any chances with the safety of his kids. Until he knew what was going on here, he needed to get them away from the house.
Reluctantly, he decided to bundle them all up first thing in the morning and take them over to Mary and Bubba. They could stay a few days, help with the ostriches and have the run of Bubba’s sprawling ranch.
Dan’s uncle and his wife were always pleading with him to let them help look after the kids, but Dan resisted, stubbornly maintaining that the care of his children was his responsibility.
Now, maybe he’d take them up on their offer. Mary could take the kids to the school bus on Monday morning. By then he should know what was going on with Isabel Delgado, and why she’d turned up in his kitchen trying to steal his food.
Slipping noiselessly from the bed, Dan padded into the kitchen to retrieve the folded newspaper from the wastebasket. He switched on the back-porch light and read the article again, then stared for a long time at the woman’s face, her disarmingly lopsided smile and the expensive haircut he’d just demolished.
Finally he went back to his bedroom, carrying the paper, and tucked it away in the top drawer of his dresser. The woman was sleeping peacefully, her face innocent and sweet in the pale moonlight. When Dan settled next to her, she reached out her bandaged arm and touched his shoulder, nestling close to him.
The move was automatic and without seduction. Dan drew away from her gently, taking care not to hurt her injured arm. She smiled in her sleep, the same, crooked smile the newspaper photograph had caught.
He patted her shoulder, then rolled over and lay alone on his side of the bed, wide awake and troubled, wondering what in hell he was getting himself into.
CHAPTER FOUR
SOMETIMES WHEN ELLIE was deeply asleep, noises that were, in reality, happening around her somehow got into her dreams.
She lay in the darkness, only partially awake, and realized the same thing had just happened. She’d been dreaming about running through a dim cavern, where a bottomless river lapped at her feet and she was in constant danger of falling into the water.
Cody Pollock ran just behind her, his jeering young face exultant with triumph.
“I’ve got you now!” he shouted, reaching for her, so close that Ellie could see the inflamed pimples on his cheeks. “Now there’s just two choices, Gibson. You can come and play nice with me, or you can jump into that river. What’s it gonna be?”
In the background of her dream Ellie could hear the voices of other boys and girls who looked on and talked in muffled tones, enjoying her terror.
Frantically she tried to find some way out of the cavern, but she’d reached a blank wall and there was no escape. She saw Cody’s horrible face and cruel hands, then the dark, swollen river…
Sweating and whimpering with fear, Ellie awoke fully and lay staring at the window screens.
It was a dream, she told herself, hugging her thin body. Just a stupid dream. Cody Pollock was nowhere close to her. If he ever came to this farm and tried to hurt her, her father would kill him.
That was when she realized some of the noises from her nightmare were still going on, drifting to her from inside the little house. She could even see a dim light in the hallway, like that partially lit cavern in her dream. And she heard the distant sound of splashing, running water, along with her father’s deep voice and an occasional soft reply.
Ellie frowned, wondering what was happening, then relaxed.
Probably Chris had had one of her accidents, and Daddy was cleaning her up. When their mother had first gone away, Chris used to wet the bed all the time, but she was getting a lot better now and it hardly ever happened anymore.
In fact, Ellie thought drowsily, most of the bad stuff started happening two years ago, right after their mother left.
For one thing, Daddy was always upset about how messy the house was. And Chris had been so unhappy she hardly talked to anybody for a while. Only Josh hadn’t seemed bothered by their mother’s absence.
Of course, the baby had been only six months old when Annie Gibson left her family.
“I stayed long enough to have Josh,” Annie once told her eldest daughter, “though God knows I was getting pretty damned anxious to be out of there. But fair’s fair, and your daddy was always real good to me. If he wanted that baby so bad, well, I guess I just had to give him the baby once I went and let myself get pregnant. Didn’t I, Jelly-Belly?”
Ellie had wanted to ask her mother how she could have gotten pregnant when she didn’t love their father anymore, but it was so hard to talk with her about anything serious. Annie’s mind was always darting on to something else before you could even start to take in what she’d just told you.
“You should see my new show outfit,” Annie had told Ellie dreamily, smoothing her daughter’s dark curls. “It’s bright red suede, with fringes hanging down to here. It’s gorgeous, Ellie. I need to lose a few pounds to fit into it, though.”
“Mama, don’t you love us?” Ellie had asked, trying not to cry. “How could you leave me and Chris and a sweet little baby like Josh, and go off singing to a bunch of people you don’t even know?”
“Why, honey, of course I love you!” Annie gave one of her rich, booming laughs and gathered Ellie into a fragrant embrace. “But some women are just naturally cut out to be housewives, and I’m not one of them. I was born to be a star, kiddo.”
And it was true—Annie Gibson was trying very hard to be a star. Her stage name, which she’d invented all on her own, was Justyn Thyme, and she’d already been hired to sing at a couple of big conventions in Nashville, as well as lots of nightclubs. She was earning good money, enough to fly back to Texas and see her children several times a year, and she kept believing her big break was just around the corner.
For Annie’s sake, Ellie hoped it was, too.
She’d long since given up hope that her mother would come back to them if her music career failed. To tell the truth, Ellie wasn’t even sure she’d welcome her mother back for more than those brief visits when she swept in carrying presents and took them all out for treats.
Though Annie’s company was exciting, after a while Ellie got tired of her mother’s constant laughter and chatter and wanted some peace again, the nice feeling of the little farmhouse with just her and Daddy and Chris and Josh, looking after themselves.
Still, it was true bad things had started happening after Annie left them, including Cody Pollock picking on her.
He was a bad boy from Lampasas whose parents weren’t able to control him. When Cody was eleven, they sent him down to their cousin, June Pollock, who lived alone in one of the big old houses in Crystal Creek, since her daughter, Carlie, had gone off to Rice University to study marine biology.
June was a strong, quiet woman who’d worked most of her life as a hotel waitress and chambermaid. Everybody in town liked and respected her. No doubt Cody’s parents thought she could do something with their son.
And Cody hadn’t gotten into much real trouble since coming to Crystal Creek, but nobody knew how mercilessly he tormented Ellie Gibson. The older boy had spotted her almost two years ago when she was just ten years old, and tried to grab her legs when she was on a swing at the park.
Ellie had kicked him, giving him a nosebleed. After that, Cody never left her alone. He took every opportunity he could to trip her or knock her books out of her hands or jab her in the ribs when they passed in the hallways, and usually managed to do so without being seen. In fact, he was always careful not to be seen, especially by June, who had no stomach for bullies. Kinfolk or not, June would have dealt with Cody fast enough if she knew what was happening.
During the rare occasions Ellie ran into him alone, she was terrified. Though she tried not to give any sign of how she felt, it was almost as if Cody could smell her fear, like a dog does, and got some kind of cruel enjoyment out of it.
The situation had grown even worse when Ellie’s body began to mature over the past spring and summer. Cody was thirteen by now, with a pimply face and the shadow of a mustache, and his manner toward her had also changed. Now there was real menace about him, a leering expression in his eyes that frightened her more than ever. When Cody got close to her nowadays, he didn’t only jab her in the ribs, but also tried to grab her growing breasts, which, to Ellie’s dismay, were visible under her loose T-shirts.
Worst of all, he’d gotten his friends involved, a gang of four other rough boys who swaggered across the schoolyard and terrorized everybody with their coarse words and threats of violence.
Ellie was never safe from them. At any moment she could round a corner at school and find Cody and his friends blocking a hallway, keeping her from getting to her next class. Or she would see them in the park, crouching behind bushes to call insults at her, or deliberately jostling up against her on the street when she walked downtown to Wall’s Drugstore.
Ms. Osborne, the middle-school principal, held regular assemblies where she urged kids to report bullies if their lives were being made unpleasant.
Unpleasant, Ellie thought bitterly, scowling at the ceiling. What a stupid word.
Her life was hell, pure and simple. Going to school every day was like running a gauntlet with no idea if you’d ever emerge safely.
“Don’t be afraid to speak to your parents,” Ms. Osborne told the kids. “Your teachers here at school and your parents, working together, can keep you safe from bullies. And those who are threatening you will be punished.”
Ellie rolled over and buried her face in the pillow.
It sounded good, that big promise from the principal, but Ellie didn’t believe a word of it. Her home-room teacher, Mr. Kilmer, was a shy man who was probably every bit as terrified of Cody Pollock and his friends as she was.
Ellie’s father, of course, wasn’t scared of anybody. But Ellie would die of embarrassment if she told him the things those boys said to her and what Cody Pollock threatened to do to her.
Besides, what good would it do, anyhow? Her father couldn’t kill Cody or make him move away, and so the bullying would just go on. Probably it would be even worse because Cody would know she’d told on him.
But tonight, for the first time, Ellie could see the possibility of escape.
She thought about the miraculous fifty-dollar bill she’d found in the river. It was like a present from God, just the same way He’d sent baby Moses floating down the river to lodge in the bulrushes.
And that money was going to give Ellie a whole new life.
She knew fifty dollars wasn’t enough for what she wanted to do.
But she had more than sixty dollars already in her bank account, painstakingly saved over the last two years, mostly birthday and Christmas money from Mary and Bubba. And her father had assured her it was her own money, so she could take the whole amount out of the bank anytime she wanted to.
A hundred dollars was just about all she needed. Ellie tensed with excitement when she thought of having so much money.
Her plan was simple. She intended to go into town one day soon, when her father was busy with the haying and couldn’t pay much attention to her. Ellie would withdraw the money, buy a bus ticket and go to Nashville to live with her mother.
She knew, of course, that Annie didn’t want to be saddled with a twelve-year-old kid when her career was just starting to take off, but she could hardly turn away her own daughter. Besides, Ellie was determined to show how much help she could be. She’d clean Annie’s apartment and cook good meals for her when she came home after singing all night, and she’d never, ever be in the way. And soon Annie would be glad her daughter had come to live with her.
Dreamily, Ellie pictured their relationship in Nashville, a whole world away from Cody and his awful friends.
Of course, she didn’t want to stay with Annie forever, because she’d get too lonely for Daddy and Chris and Josh. Maybe after a while, when Cody Pollock got tired of waiting for her to show up and found somebody else to bully, she’d be able to come home to the farm.
Meanwhile the fifty-dollar bill lay safely in her dresser drawer, a magical promise of better days ahead.
Within the house, the distant sounds began to fade. She heard her father emptying the bathtub, talking to Chris as he got her ready to go back to bed. Then he came striding through the hallway to fetch something from the kitchen, looking big and hairy in his boxer shorts.
Cautiously Ellie raised herself on one elbow and saw him carrying a folded newspaper back to his room. He must be planning to read in bed.
She settled down under the covers, wondering what Nashville was like, imagining her mother’s look of amazement when Ellie turned up on her doorstep. “Hi there,” Ellie would say casually. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in.”
Or she could say, “Howdy, ma’am. I heard you’re a big country-music star and I thought maybe you needed a cook and housekeeper.”
Annie was going to like that, Ellie thought drowsily. She always loved being called a star.
As she drifted off to sleep, Ellie acknowledged that she wasn’t really sure how her mother would receive her. With Annie, you never really knew. It depended on her mood, on whether she was gaining or losing weight and what else was going on in her life at the time.
Still, putting up with her mother’s moods was a whole lot better than facing Cody Pollock and his friends every day.
With a final shiver of revulsion, Ellie fell asleep and darkness closed in on the house again.
ISABEL BLINKED in the warm glow of sunlight. She opened her eyes and saw a patchwork quilt over her body, a green wall hung with framed pictures of children, a dusty nightstand and a wicker basket on the floor, piled with laundry.
She had a moment of intense panic, unable to recall where she was or how she’d come to be here.
Breathing deeply, she forced herself to stay calm and concentrate. Like images from some hazy, badly made movie, she saw herself pushing the car over the cliff, then jumping down behind it. She recalled the jarring shock of her landing, the scratches and blood, the hunger and chill and wetness as she fought her way through the brush. And the endless day that followed, when the oppressive heat had emphasized her throbbing pain, hunger and relentless thirst.
