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She drew in a breath and rubbed Bobby’s back, comforted by the steady sound of his breathing. She’d landed in a safe place for the moment. The edges of the sky were just starting to brighten through the window, but she didn’t have to deal with her day just yet. She could sleep again.
There were more murmurs next door. A hall door opened and closed. A toilet flushed. Then silence again.
Surprisingly enough, she did drop back to sleep.
* * *
“Good morning!” Gina walked into the kitchen the next morning with Bobby on her hip. He’d woken up hungry, and she’d nursed him and fed him her last jar of baby food. It was time to figure out her next step.
“Hey.” Lacey’s voice sounded unenthusiastic. She wore scrubs and sat with a cup of coffee in front of her. Her eyes were puffy and underlined by dark shadows.
No wonder, given last night’s drama.
Lacey obviously wasn’t going to make conversation, so Gina soldiered on. “Thank you so much for giving me and Bobby a place to sleep last night.”
“Sure.” Lacey glanced up from her newspaper and then went back to reading an article on the local news page.
“You headed to work?” Gina asked. “What do you do?”
The woman tried to smile, but it was obviously an effort. “I’m a CNA. Certified Nursing Assistant. And yeah, I leave in half an hour.” A large orange cat wove its way between her legs and then jumped into her lap, and she ran her hands over it as if for comfort.
“You want me to fix you breakfast?”
That made Lacey look up. “What?”
“I’m a pretty good cook. If you’re going to work, you need more than coffee.”
Lacey let out a reluctant chuckle. “Is that so, Mom?”
Buck walked into the room, stretching and yawning hugely. He wore a plain, snug-fitting white T-shirt and faded jeans.
Gina swallowed hard. Okay. Yeah. He was handsome. At least, if you didn’t look into the abyss that seemed to live permanently behind his eyes.
“How’s everyone this morning?” he asked in a forced, cheerful tone.
Lacey pointed at Gina with her coffee cup. “She offered to cook breakfast.”
“Sounds good to me,” Buck said. “I’ve got comp time at the clinic from last night, so I’m gonna work on the house today. Could use some fuel, for sure.”
Lacey waved a hand toward the refrigerator and stove. “Knock yourself out,” she said to Gina.
Gina shifted Bobby and walked over to Lacey. “Any chance you could hold him? His name’s Bobby, by the way.”
Lacey scooted away so fast that the chair leg scraped along the freshly polished wood floor, leaving a raw scratch. “No, thanks. I... My hands are full with Mr. Whiskers.”
Buck was there in a fraction of a second, concern all over his face. “I’ll take him.”
Gina cocked her head at the two of them, curious. She’d never met a woman who wasn’t charmed by her son, especially when he was newly fed and changed, cooing and smiling.
Buck, on the other hand, held Bobby like a pro, bouncing him on his knee and tickling his tummy to make him laugh.
Gina rummaged in the refrigerator and found eggs, some Havarti cheese and green onions. It was enough to make a good-tasting scramble. Thick slices of bread went alongside, and she found some apples to cut up as a garnish.
When she placed the plates in front of the two of them a few minutes later, they both looked surprised, and when Lacey tasted the eggs, she actually smiled. “Not bad.”
“I like to cook.” Gina cleared her throat. “Is there any work you need done today? I have to find a way to get some gas out to my car, but other than that, I’d love to spend a few hours working around here in exchange for your letting me stay last night.”
Lacey waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. This breakfast is payment enough.”
“Truth is,” Gina said, her face heating, “I might need to impose on you for another night. So we could consider it advance payment.”
The other woman studied her thoughtfully. “Can you handle an honest answer?”
“Of course.”
“I have a hard time trusting someone who can’t afford a hotel but can afford shoes like that.” She gestured at Gina’s designer loafers.
Gina looked down at the soft leather and felt a moment’s shallow regret. She wouldn’t be wearing shoes like this anymore, that was for sure.
“She could work this morning while I’m here,” Buck interjected. “We need cleanup help, and anyone could do that. And this afternoon, she can work on getting her car and whatever else she needs to do.”
Gina gripped the edge of her chair for courage. Asking for favors wasn’t her favorite thing, not by a long shot, and she hated pushy people in general. But for Bobby, she’d do whatever was necessary. “What do you think about our staying tonight?”
Lacey’s jaw hardened. “I’m not going to throw you out into the street right away,” she said, “but you need to figure things out. Surely there’s people you can call, things you can do. I don’t want this to become permanent. The last thing either Buck or I needs is a stranger with a baby around here. You’re poison to us right now.”
Gina recoiled, shocked by the harsh words.
Buck held up a hand. “Lacey—”
“What? You know that’s why you had a nightmare last night. Because she looks like Ivana and she’s got a kid. It’s too much for either of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Gina said, her heart going out to them. Underneath Lacey’s brusque exterior was real pain that kept peeking through.
As for Buck, he’d looked down at his plate, but the set of his shoulders told her he wasn’t happy. Something had happened to him, maybe to both of them, and Gina couldn’t help wondering about it.
“I’ll help this morning, if you’ll allow it,” she said, “and then work on doing what I can this afternoon with my car so I can move on. Maybe there’s a police officer who can run me out to where it is. I’ll need to take some gas.”
And she’d need to rely on God, because twenty dollars wasn’t going to buy much gas or baby food, and it was all she had.
* * *
Buck heaved a sigh as he put the last stroke of paint on the breakfast-room wall. Having Gina here was even more difficult than he’d expected.
She worked hard, that was for sure. She’d single-handedly cleaned one of the guest rooms that had been finished but a mess. Carried out vinyl sheeting and masking tape, swept up nails, scrubbed the floor on her hands and knees, polished the bathroom fixtures to a shine. Now she was removing the tape from the area he’d painted yesterday.
The only time she stopped working was when Bobby cried. Then she’d slip off, he assumed to nurse the baby or to change his diaper. She’d put together a makeshift playpen from a blanket and pillows, and he crawled around it and batted at a couple of toys she had in her diaper bag.
She was resourceful, able to compartmentalize in a way few women he’d known could do. Certainly, in a way Ivana hadn’t been able to do.
Unfortunately, in other ways, it was way too much like having Ivana around. Some of their best times had been working around the house together with the baby nearby. They’d felt like a happy family then.
So having Gina and Bobby here now brought back good memories, but alongside them, a keen, aching awareness of all he’d lost. All he’d thrown away, really.
He shook himself out of that line of thought. He had a mission, and he needed to stick to it. Find out what you can about her, Lacey had told him.
He was curious enough that the job didn’t rankle. Not only would they find out whether she could be trusted to stay in their house another night, but he could maybe get rid of the crazy impression that this woman was just like Ivana.
“Do you want me to help with the trim?” She came in now, a little out of breath, with Bobby on her hip. “Or I could work on the kitchen cabinets. I noticed they need cleaning out.”
“I’d stay out of Lacey’s stuff. You’d better work on the cabinets in here. Do you know how to use a screwdriver?”
“Sure.”
She set Bobby up in the corner of this room and went to work washing the cabinet fronts, removing the handles, humming a wordless tune.
It was a little too domestic for him. “So, how are you gonna punt here?” he asked, his voice coming out rougher than he’d intended. “You got a plan?”
She looked up, and her eyes were dark with some emotion he couldn’t name. “I thought I’d try the churches in town first,” she said. “Where I lived before, some of the churches had programs for homeless families. Just until I can get on my feet and figure out what to do next.” She paused. “I’d prefer finding work, but I don’t know what’s available.”
So she thought of herself as homeless. That suggested she wasn’t just traveling from point A to point B. Something else was wrong. And it was weird, because she did have that rich-girl look to her. Her clothes were stylish and new, her haircut and manicure expensive looking. But she also looked scared.
“Not sure if you’ll find anything formal around here, but the churches are big on outreach. I can take you to ours. And then...you mentioned talking to the police about your car?”
“They’ll want to get it off the road as much as I do.” She frowned. “I just hope they won’t put my name in some kind of system.”
“You hiding from someone?” he asked mildly.
Her eyebrows went together and her eyes hooded. “I... Yeah. You could say that.”
“Boyfriend? Husband?”
She shook her head. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
That figured. A woman as pretty as she was had to have a partner, and Bobby had a father. Had someone abused her? “I’m not asking you to tell me everything, but I can help you better if I know your situation.”
Her cheeks flushed with what looked like embarrassment. “Thanks.” She wasn’t saying more, obviously.
“Where were you headed, originally?” he pushed on as he finished painting the crown molding.
She didn’t answer, so he repeated the question.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Anywhere. It didn’t matter. I just had to leave.” She studied the cupboard she was sanding, one of the old-fashioned and charming parts of the breakfast room, according to Lacey. “I wouldn’t mind finding a place to settle for a while. As long as it was safe.”
Not here, not here. He didn’t need any complications in Rescue River, and this woman seemed like a complication. “Safe from what?”
She shook her head. “Too long of a story.” Her voice sounded tense.
“Okay, then, what would you like to work at? What are you shooting for, jobwise?”
“My line of work was being a housewife, but obviously I need to find something else.”
Hmm. From the little she’d told him, he’d guess she’d been abused. And the last thing he and Lacey needed around here was an angry husband looking for his wife and child. She didn’t show any bruises, but maybe they were hidden. “What are you good at?”
“Organizing things. Raising kids. Planning parties.” She shrugged. “The type of thing housewives do.”
He’d have said that housewives washed dishes and cooked meals. He had a feeling about what kind of housewife she’d been—not an ordinary one. With that breakfast she’d cooked, he could imagine her catering to some wealthy husband, giving brunches for country-club ladies.
So it was very interesting that she’d run away.
* * *
Gina was bone tired after her short, broken sleep and a morning of physical work, and stressed out about the eleven messages she’d found on her phone, her in-laws demanding that she return Bobby to them immediately. Of course she’d disabled the GPS on her smartphone, but she was still worried her in-laws could somehow find her.
But Buck had offered to drive her around and, tired or not, she needed to seize the opportunity. Once she had her vehicle nearby with some gas in it, she’d feel better. She’d have an escape route and she wouldn’t be quite so dependent on the kindness of strangers.
When she went out to Buck’s truck, he was leaning in through the rear door, adjusting something.
“Wow, where’d you get a car seat? That’s wonderful!”
He cleared his throat. “It was sitting around here.” He reached out and took Bobby from her arms without meeting her eyes, then settled him into the infant seat and expertly adjusted the straps.
Mr. Tough Guy continued to surprise her.
They stopped first at the grocery store, a small, homey market a quarter the size of the superstore she’d shopped at back home. The aroma of rotisserie chicken filled the air, and bushels of produce, labeled as locally grown, stood in rows just inside the front door. Gina held Bobby in his sling, facing out so he could see the people passing by, which he loved. Buck waved to a cashier and pounded a bagger on the back as they walked toward the baby aisle.
When they got there, she picked out six jars of the cheapest baby food available. She looked over at the diapers and bit her lip, hoping the single one remaining in the diaper bag would last until she got to the box in the SUV.
Buck held a plastic basket for their purchases and studied the shelves. “Look at this stuff. Turkey with pears. What self-respecting baby would eat that?”
“I know. We used to see the weirdest baby food at World Gourmet. Avocado risotto, vanilla bean with spinach...” But that was a lifetime ago, when she’d been able to shop at the most expensive healthy foods emporium in her California town.
“Buck Armstrong, is that you?” came a woman’s husky voice.
They both turned. There in the food aisle of the Star Market was the most beautiful woman Gina had ever seen. Tall, super skinny, with high cheekbones and long shiny stick-straight black hair.
A little intimidated by the woman’s breathtaking looks, Gina could only offer a smile.
“Amy Franklin?” Buck reached out and hugged the woman, then held her shoulders to look at her, a genuine smile on his face. “It’s been a lot of years. Welcome home!”
“It’s nice to be back. Kind of.” The woman wrinkled her nose. “And this must be your wife and baby! I heard you’d married. He’s adorable!” She reached out to tickle Bobby’s chin.
“No, I’m not—”
“No, this isn’t—”
They both broke off. Bobby reached out to grab for the woman’s gold necklace.
“No, sweetie.” Gina loosened his fingers from the shiny chain and took a step back. “I’m just a friend he’s helping,” she said to the woman.
