by Debbie Mason
Sadie rubbed her head, staring at him and her daughter. “She’s jealous. She’s decided you belong to her, and Lord help the person that gets in her way.”
“I don’t think she’s jealous. Maybe just a little territorial.” He grimaced when Michaela planted her mouth on his cheek and sucked. “I think she might be more hungry than jealous. She’s eating my face.”
“I figured it out.”
“Umm, I think I did. I just told you she’s hungry, remember?”
She waved her hand. “Not about that. I figured out why she’s so attached to you. It’s your cologne. Scent is powerful in creating memories. She remembers yours from the night she was born. You were the one who comforted her that night, not me.”
“Wait a sec,” he said, taking in her crossed arms. She wore a form-fitting long-sleeved black T-shirt with black leggings. “Are you mad at me?”
“No…Okay, maybe a little. But only because I want her to love me like she loves you.” Keeping an eye on her daughter, she took a hesitant step toward him.
“Uh, Sadie, what are you doing?” he asked when she began rubbing her head on his chest. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” He nearly swallowed his tongue when she took advantage of her daughter sucking on his face by doing a full body rub against him. “Sadie, you need to stop.” Before he embarrassed himself.
“There. Now let’s see if it worked.” She stepped back and held out her arms. “Give her to me.”
“Sure.” He tried to pry Michaela off him. “I might need some help here.” She was climbing him like he was a tree, her tiny but strong fingers fisted in his hair. He held back a groan when Sadie did as he asked, pressing against him while trying to free Michaela’s hands from his hair.
“Come on, baby. Let go of Michael’s hair. You’re going to make him cry. Pretend you’re crying.”
“Babies don’t develop empathy until they’re two, Sadie. I’m not pretending I’m crying. Just—”
She stepped back, her hands falling to her sides. “How do you know they don’t? Do you have children? You aren’t married, are you?”
“No to both your questions. I’ve been reading about child development, that’s all.” His face warmed at the admission. Sadie and the baby had been on his mind a lot in those first few weeks. In an odd way, reading baby books gave him a connection to them. He liked knowing what stages Michaela would be going through. He supposed it helped him to feel close to them.
Sadie’s shoulders slumped. “It’s not your cologne at all. You love her, and she knows you do.”
“She knows you love her too, Sadie.”
“Sometimes I’m not sure that I do.” She looked away, obviously embarrassed. “And just like she senses you love her, she senses that…” She shook her head as if willing the words away. “I’ve dreamed about having a baby ever since I was a little girl. When I hit my late twenties, I started to worry I’d never be a mommy. It’s the one thing I wanted more than anything else. And now that I am…It’s nothing like I imagined. I can’t do anything right.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You’ve had a lot to deal with on your own. It’s not easy being a single parent.”
She gave him a weak smile. “You sound like you speak from experience.”
“In a way, I guess I do. I never knew my father. My mother raised me and my brother on her own.” Until she gave up on herself, and on them. Sadie didn’t need to know that though.
“You turned out pretty well. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.”
He wondered if she’d still think that when she eventually learned the truth. “You can tell me to mind my own business if you want, but why haven’t you let your friends help? From what Bliss at the bakery said, you have plenty of people who would love to lend you a hand.”
She gestured at the half-opened boxes littering the kitchen and living room floor. “And let them see this? All I’d need is for it to get around town how badly I’m failing at motherhood.”
“You let me in, and I don’t see a woman who’s failing.” He finally managed to pry Michaela’s fingers from his hair and repositioned her on his hip. “I see a woman who could use a hand unpacking a few boxes, that’s all.” He didn’t think now was the time to mention everything else she had yet to deal with. Little steps at a time were probably all she could manage at the moment. “I don’t mind helping out, you know. You can sit at the table and eat your brownies and educate me on the flora and fauna of Highland Falls while I unpack. No.” He held up his hand when she went to object. “You’d actually be doing me a favor. There’s nothing I like more than organizing a space.” It was the absolute truth. The mess was giving him a headache.
He walked over to the playpen in front of the patio doors that had been open this morning, relieved to see they were now shut and locked. As he bent to put Michaela into the playpen, she dug her fingers into his arms, letting loose an ear-piercing scream. “Okay, so that’s not going to work.”
Sadie smiled as she bit into a brownie. “Here,” she said around it, wiping her chocolate-coated fingers on her T-shirt before reaching for something on top of the box.
He stared at the smears of chocolate, wondering if she even realized what she’d done.
She walked over. “Put her in here.” He did as she suggested, fitting the baby’s legs in the holes of the striped fabric. “Now hold out your arms.” She slid the straps over his arms, placing them on his shoulders. Once she’d fastened the strap at his back, she patted his arm and leaned in to kiss Michaela’s cheek. Sadie drew back and cocked her head. “That’s my phone. I better grab it.”
“I don’t hear anything,” he said to her retreating back. He shrugged when she didn’t respond and looked down at the baby. “Okay, you be a good girl for me, sweetheart, and we can have this place shipshape in no time.”
He bent down to pick up a handful of clothes off the couch, and Michaela gurgled around a smile. Perfect, she thought it was a game. By the time Sadie returned, he had the couch and coffee table cleared of clothes and bedding.
“Sorry about that. It was Abby. I did what you suggested and told her the truth. She called Mallory, exactly like I knew she would. They want to meet up tonight.”
“Now? It’s almost ten o’clock.”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes as she walked to the entryway and slipped on a pair of sneakers. “It’s the only time Mallory can make it. She has five boys and a full-time job. Once Abby gets an idea in her head, she won’t sleep until we come up with a plan. I promise, I won’t be long.” She was out the door before he could stop her.
It didn’t mean he didn’t try. He ran to the entryway, grabbing the door just before it closed behind her. She must have run down the walkway to the SUV because she was already sliding behind the wheel. “Sadie, wait. What am I supposed to do with Michaela?”
“Bottles are in the fridge, diapers and onesies on her changing table. First door on the left,” she said in response to what she must have assumed was a blank look instead of a panicked one.
“Sadie, I’ve never changed a diaper before.” And he didn’t want to learn now. Either she didn’t hear him or she was ignoring him, because she started up the SUV’s engine, waved, and backed out of the driveway.
Chase retrieved his cell phone from his pocket. He’d been had. “Hey, Chief, Chase Roberts here. Is your wife at home with you?”
“Yeah. She just went to bed. Why?”
“This is going to sound odd, but would you mind checking that she’s in bed and not sneaking out a window?”
“What’s going on?”
As he relayed what Sadie had told him and his own suspicions, the creak of floorboards and then the sound of a door opening came through the phone. “Honey, did Abby mention anything about meeting with Sadie when you talked to her tonight?” Gabe sighed. “Thanks. No, everything’s okay. I have to go out for a bit. I shouldn’t be long.” A door closed and floorboards once again creaked before the chief came back on the line. “Soun
ds like you’re right, and Sadie’s meeting with Elijah. I’ll head over your way, see if I can spot her SUV.”
“Thanks, Gabe. I’ll call Nate. Knowing him, he probably put a tracker on Sadie’s car.”
Chapter Twelve
Sadie tried to put her daughter and Michael out of her head as she shut off the engine a couple hundred yards from the cottage. But the image of his handsome face smiling at her daughter, who gurgled up at him from where she was strapped to his chest, wasn’t easily dismissed. Her feelings for him even less so. It wasn’t only her daughter who was entranced by the man. And just like Michaela’s feelings for him, Sadie didn’t know where her own came from or why.
She couldn’t just put it down to him being with her the night Michaela was born. Eddie had been there too, and she didn’t fantasize about him. Or rub against him, she thought with a sigh. Not one of her best moments.
Then again, she hadn’t had many best moments these past three months. Admittedly, if she’d had any at all, the two people she was trying not to think about played starring roles. And she’d left them and that cozy family scene to traipse through the woods in the dark of night to meet with her brother, who’d caused her no end of heartache. She could only imagine what Michael would think if he knew the truth.
The last thing she wanted was to lie to him but she didn’t feel like she had a choice. He would have stopped her if he’d known what she was up to. Tried to stop her, she amended. Because there wasn’t a reason he could come up with that she hadn’t already thought of herself. It was a risk she had to take. For her grandmother’s sake, not her brother’s.
Elijah was waiting for her at the big rock they used to chip away at as kids, positive the ridges that sparkled and shone were bands of gold. Even back then, her brother was looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.
She leaned across the console to retrieve her hiking boots and flashlight off the passenger seat. She had put them in the car long before Michael had arrived so they’d be ready for her to sneak off into the night. He’d have no idea how much she would have preferred to stay at the cottage with him and Michaela.
With the flashlight on her lap, Sadie opened the driver’s-side door and swung her legs around. She slipped off her sneakers and then pulled on the well-worn hiking boots, listening to the crickets in the meadow, the bullfrogs down by the creek, and the yip of the coyotes in the woods.
She sat for a minute, taking it all in, the melodic sounds of spring, the sweet scent of the flowers in the meadow. The last thing she’d wanted was to come home to Highland Falls. So far everything, other than Michael, had proven she’d been right to make a life in Charlotte instead of here. But this—the sights and sounds and the beauty of this place she’d called home. She hadn’t known how much she’d missed it until that moment.
An owl hooted from a tree across the road, pulling her out of her reverie. She grabbed her windbreaker and her black canvas backpack and got out of the SUV. Old habits die hard, she thought as she put on the dark, lightweight jacket and then slid the straps of the heavy backpack she’d filled for her brother over her shoulders. She was still looking after him. She supposed she couldn’t be mad at her grandmother for doing the same. But she was furious at her brother for putting Agnes at risk, physically and financially.
She shut the door of the SUV, harder than was smart. Sound carried out here. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself. The situation her brother had dragged them into was dangerous.
She put her hand in the pocket of her jacket, closing her fingers around the gun. It gave her a measure of comfort. She knew how to use it. Her brother didn’t. But Sadie fully intended that he’d be a half-decent shot before the night was out.
The quarter moon shining down from the star-littered sky didn’t do much to light her way through the meadow. She turned on the flashlight, keeping the beam low to the ground. She kept her ears open, listening for sounds that didn’t belong as she walked into the woods.
In the distance, she thought she heard the crunch of tires on gravel and turned, scanning the long, winding dirt road. No car lights, no other sounds. She waited a few seconds longer before continuing on the long-remembered trail to the big rock. A branch snapped, bringing her head up. She moved the beam of light through the trees. There was nothing there. Except she couldn’t shake the feeling something or someone was watching her.
You’re sleep-deprived, she reminded herself. Still, she shut off the flashlight and crouched down, letting her eyes adjust. There was a rustle of leaves. Something small, maybe a snake. The thought made her smile. She hadn’t educated Michael on the flora and fauna of Highland Falls as promised. She’d make it up to him. In the short time she’d known him, she had a lot to make up to him for. After tonight, she’d have even more.
As she straightened from the crouch, she saw a faint glow of light through the trees. She sniffed the air and sighed. Elijah. He’d started a campfire. She turned on her flashlight, once again keeping the beam low to the ground, close to her feet. Ferns erased the path she and her brother had tromped along all those years ago. They’d been close back then but time had erased the bond they shared just as easily as the ferns had erased the path.
She saw him before he saw her. His hands were cupped above the small flame, tiny embers floating around his head, turning the chestnut-colored hair they shared to red.
“If someone is looking for you, you’ve made it easy for them to find you, Elijah.” It worried her that she’d gotten this close without him being aware of her presence.
His head shot up, the fear she saw on his face turning to relief. He stood, wiping his palms on his jeans. They were worn and torn.
“You came,” he said. “I didn’t think you would.”
She opened her mouth to tell him she’d come for their grandmother, not for him. It was the truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. He looked young, and scared. The expression on his face was similar to the one he’d worn the night they realized their parents weren’t coming back for them.
She slid the backpack off her shoulders. “I don’t know why. I’ve always kept my word to you.”
He nodded, dragging a hand down the side of his face. “I messed up, Sadie. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Honest, I didn’t. I just wanted to make a few extra bucks. I thought I could make a go of Highland Tours. All I needed was to come up with a few thousand until I made a name for myself.”
“That’s what you told me when I gave you two thousand dollars, Elijah.” Money she’d been saving to buy a place of her own. She’d invested so much of her hard-earned money into her brother’s schemes that there’d never been anything left to make her own dreams come true. That had been the last time, she’d promised herself then. It was a promise she meant to keep.
“I know, I know. But it wasn’t enough. I told you it wouldn’t be.”
“So you tried doubling it by gambling online. And lost it all,” she guessed. Although knowing her brother as well as she did, it was an educated guess. And apparently she’d guessed correctly, given the dejected slump of his shoulders.
“If you just came to remind me that I’m a screwup, you might as well go. I know I am.”
She tossed him the backpack. “There’s a change of clothes, a jacket, some food, and two hundred dollars. It’s all I can spare. Don’t ask Granny for any more money, Elijah. She’s broke.”
His eyes glistened in the firelight. “I didn’t know how bad it was. She said the store was doing well. You have to know I wouldn’t have taken it from her if I’d known.”
Sadie wanted to believe him, but she didn’t. “Now you do, so I don’t want to see your girlfriend in the store begging for cash. I’ll be there with Granny from now on.”
“Don’t blame Payton. She didn’t know where to turn. She’s pregnant. We’re having a baby, Sadie.” He smiled, like she should be happy about the news.
“Congratulations. I have a baby, you know. Her name’s Michaela.”
“Right, yeah.” He winced and then gave her a quiet smile. “You always wanted to be a mom. I bet you’re a great one.”
It would probably cheer him up to hear how spectacularly she was failing at motherhood. He’d always thought life came easily to her. “Why am I here, Elijah? What do you need from me?”
“Do you have to say it like that, Sadie? Don’t you think I feel bad enough? I tried to get out of it. I tried to do the right thing.”
“You agreed to distribute drugs and then you decided to keep some for yourself. How, in your mind, does that equate to doing the right thing?”
“You don’t know the whole story.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I thought you’d help me.”
“Don’t pull your woe-is-me act, Elijah. Just give it to me straight. Where are the drugs?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not—”
“I was scared. I wanted out, and once you’re in, you’re in. The only way you get out is in a body bag. So I thought I could make a deal. They let me out, and I give them their cocaine back.” He looked away and mumbled something.
“What did you just say?”
“I got wasted. I was scared and panicked and started drinking and smoking a little weed. I don’t remember what I did with the drugs.” He nodded at a shovel leaning against the rock. “I thought it might be here but it’s not.” His voice cracked. “I don’t know what to do. They’re after me, Sadie. I told Granny I was in trouble, but it’s worse than that. They want me dead. I know too much.”
She searched his face. He wasn’t lying. “From where I’m standing, you have only one choice to make, and that’s to go to the police. Gabe is a friend of mine. He’s a good guy. We’ll—”
“No. You don’t understand, Sadie. I can’t go to the police. I already did, and that man is dead because of me.”
A chill tiptoed down her spine. “What do you mean?”