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Innocent Foxes: A Novel
Torey Hayden
From bestselling author Torey Hayden comes a moving novel of loss and redemption.Abundance, Montana, once a lively mining town in the days of the wild west, is now not much more than a ghost town. Local girl, Dixie, a struggling single mother who has just lost her baby, tries to make ends meet while her feckless boyfriend Billy drifts from one job to another, always believing his next moneymaking scheme will be the winner.Above them in the magnificent mountains surrounding Abundance, jaded Hollywood actor Spencer Scott conceals himself from the paparazzi on the ranch that has been his pristine sanctuary until the arrival of his obnoxious, nine-year-old son.Then Billy puts into motion a plan almost too appalling to contemplate, and from which there is no escape. As all four are forced to confront the brutal reality of the Montana mountains, so too are they forced to face their damaged lives in this poignant novel.
Torey Hayden
Innocent Foxes
A novel
Contents
Title Page (#ue895e669-3568-52e5-8ff9-357e1e8572a7)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
About the Author
Also by Torey Hayden
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher (#ufe6e75f2-6694-58bd-91d3-d91df76400e0)
Chapter One
Three days after Jamie Lee died, Dixie almost got run down by a movie star. It was a deep, warm-as-breath August evening and Dixie was walking down Seventh Street on her way back from getting a loaf of bread and a jar of mayonnaise at the Kwik-Way. She’d just crossed over at the corner by the United Methodist Church when the pick-up truck appeared, careering wildly down the middle of the road. Abruptly it swerved, mounted the kerb and came straight at her. Dixie screamed and ran for safety up the steps of the church. Brakes squealed and then there was a slithery hiss of rubber on grass before the final jarring crunch as the truck came to rest against a brick pillar at the base of the steps.
Three men were crammed into the cab of the pick-up and they all roared with laughter. In fact, they seemed to be laughing so hard that at first they found it hard to get the doors open. When the driver finally emerged, Dixie recognized him immediately. Spencer Scott.
‘You almost killed me!’ she shrieked, and burst into tears.
The door opened on the passenger side and the others spilled out. They were all canyon folk. They were all drunk too and seemed to find the idea of running her over hilarious.
Dixie couldn’t stop crying long enough to speak. It was their laughter that did it. That, and Jamie Lee and everything. She’d been coping pretty well over this last week, but this was just the last straw.
‘You aren’t hurt, are you?’ Spencer Scott managed to ask, when he’d finally caught his breath from laughing.
‘You near enough scared the life out of me, that’s what,’ Dixie sobbed.
He rooted in the pocket of his jeans and produced a red bandana handkerchief, the kind that tourists buy because they think it looks Western. He offered it to her.
What was she supposed to do with that? She was hardly going to get snot on a movie star’s handkerchief.
‘It’s clean,’ he said with an edge of annoyance.
Well, of course it was clean. Did he think she’d assume he would carry a dirty handkerchief? Oh dear Jesus, why did she have to be bawling in front of Spencer Scott, of all people?
Beyond him, the other two men were checking for damage to the pick-up. One climbed into the driver’s seat, backed it up a little, got out again and examined the dented grille.
Spencer Scott smiled. ‘I’m sorry we frightened you. No hard feelings?’
For the first time Dixie dared to lift her head enough to look at him properly. He was only an arm’s length away and she could see everything about him. He looked better in person than on the screen, if that was possible. Older and wrinklier, but Dixie liked that. His California-perfect features looked more manly when a bit of living showed. The only surprise was that he was so short. She’d heard that about him from other folks who’d been up close to him, but she still hadn’t expected she’d be taller.
‘Come on, Spence,’ one of the men called. ‘It’s OK. Nothing’s happened.’
He turned to go.
‘Hey!’ Dixie cried. ‘Something did too happen! You nearly hit me! And look at what you done to that pillar. You’re drunk. You shouldn’t be in a car. You can’t just drive off. We need to call the police.’
Spencer Scott smiled disarmingly, his handsome face focusing only on her. ‘We don’t need the police,’ he said chummily. ‘This isn’t anything really.’
‘It is to me! And it will be to the United Methodist Church too. They don’t got money to spend fixing what some drunk driver does,’ Dixie replied.
His eyes were just as blue as in the pictures and they twinkled when he smiled. ‘The police have more important matters to worry about. We don’t want to keep them from solving real crimes, do we?’
‘But you almost killed me! You could’ve, you know. If you’d been coming any faster …’
Still the smile, still the twinkly blue eyes that had looked at all those beautiful Hollywood actresses and were now looking only at her. ‘But you’re all right, aren’t you?’ he said. His voice had the warm certainty of a Jedi knight using the Force. ‘You aren’t hurt.’ Then without warning, he clasped Dixie’s hand and kissed it. ‘And you will forgive me for frightening you, yes?’
Without even intending to, Dixie nodded.
‘And I’ll let you keep the handkerchief.’
When Dixie got home with the groceries, she didn’t say anything about Spencer Scott to Billy. He was watching TV and the last thing he’d want was to be interrupted by talk about the canyon folk. Instead, Dixie put the groceries in the kitchen and then went upstairs to finish packing away Jamie Lee’s stuff.
It was amazing the number of things a baby could acquire in just nine months. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Dixie folded up each T-shirt and little pair of overalls before laying them carefully into the cardboard box. She paused over the tiny grey jogging shoes. It had been silly to buy them for a baby too young to walk and they’d cost way too much for something just for show, but Dixie had loved to see Jamie Lee wearing them. She brought them up to her face, cupping them in her hands, hoping to find Jamie’s scent lingering, but she smelled only rubber, glue and canvas. Kissing them tenderly, she laid them in the box with the other things.
Mama had told her to get rid of it all. She’d said to pick one or two things to remember Jamie Lee by and then send the rest of it to the Rescue Mission. Dixie didn’t want to do that. Giving Jamie Lee’s stuff away so soon would make her feel like she was trying to get rid of Jamie Lee’s memory as well. Besides, what other mother would want to dress her little boy in a dead baby’s clothes?
Billy wandered up the stairs and into the bedroom. Pulling off his boots, he stretched out on his side of the bed. ‘You shouldn’t be up here, Dix, if all it’s going to do is make you cry.’
‘I got to cry sometime, Billy. He was my little baby.’
‘Yeah, but he was going to die anyway, wasn’t he? You always knew that.’
‘We’re all going to die anyway, Billy, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when it happens.’ Pulling the tissue box off the bedside table, Dixie took one out to wipe her eyes.
‘Come here,’ Billy said and reached out his arms. ‘You need cuddling.’
Dixie lay down beside him. ‘Know what really breaks my heart?’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘That we can’t afford to get him a proper coffin.’
‘The one he’s got looks good, Dix.’
‘I remember seeing this picture once in National Geographic. There was a baby girl laid out in this white wooden coffin. It was so pretty. She looked like a sweet little angel lying there. Not dead at all. She had her head on this satin pillow and ribbons in her hair. That’s what I wish we had for Jamie Lee.’
‘Jamie Lee wouldn’t want no ribbons in his hair, Dix.’
Dixie sighed. ‘I didn’t mean that part. I meant the white wood coffin. I want Jamie Lee to look nice. Like a little angel. Pure-like, you know?’
Billy let go of her and turned over on his back. Putting his hands behind his head, he fixed his gaze on the sloping ceiling over the bed and didn’t say anything more.
Dixie glanced over. ‘You heard anything on that railroad job yet?’
Billy just kept staring at the ceiling. ‘Actually I’m thinking I won’t go down there,’ he said at last. ‘They’re taking on men at the sawmill and I was thinking tomorrow I’ll go check that out instead.’
‘I don’t like thinking of you working around all them dangerous saws. And railroad work’s more steady-like. It’ll pay more over the long run.’
Billy didn’t answer.
Dixie sat back up. There was a little knitted duck that Leola had made for Jamie Lee over on the bedside table. Reaching out, Dixie picked it up. She’d intended to put it in the box with Jamie Lee’s clothes, but putting it away had made her feel too sad. Holding it in her lap, she stared at it.
‘The thing is,’ Billy said, ‘I only need work till I get enough money for horses, Dix. Once I got those horses, I can start up my guide business. So, the way I reckon it, if I can get on at the sawmill and work a couple of months, I’ll have enough for a small string of horses by Fall. That’s when all the hunters come, so it’ll be a great time to start up.’
