Sam sank back on her heels, and her shoulders slumped.
Jake dropped to his haunches, inches from her outthrust hand, filling the mouth of the tiny cave, trapping them inside, brawny hands draped lightly on his angular knees. The harsh beam of his flashlight glittered on the cave’s wet walls.
Her teeth chattered. Sam stared at him grimly. He looked back at her from under the soggy brim of a delapidated fedora, which gave him a jaunty, old-fashioned look in contrast to the rugged coat and jeans. There might not have been a flicker of movement inside him, not even a heartbeat.
Jake gazed back at her with hidden wonder. She was swamped with acres of coat cloth and a sagging brown skirt that puddled around her kneeling body like a tent. A tight knit cap made her face stand out in soft contrast, with wisps of honey-blond hair slicked to her cheeks and forehead.
She looked righteous and fierce, bone-tired and shaky. She looked glorious. “You know I can always find you,” he said. He sounded furious, but there was a raw tremor in his voice. “For God’s sake, is this better than coming to me for help?”
“Yes.” Her hands wavered and dropped into her lap. He reached toward her, but she pulled back. He looked wounded. His hand clenched, and he brought it back to his knee. “Don’t ask any questions,” Sam begged. Charlotte, ashamed and afraid, had sworn her to secrecy about the reason for their escape. That small dignity was all Sam could give her.
And Sam knew, with tormented certainty, that their only hope was to get as far away as possible. She couldn’t let Jake go with them. If they were caught …
“We’re leaving town,” she said with absurd composure, as if announcing a party. “If you could just point us in the direction of the Stecoe road, in the morning we’ll move on.”
His mouth dropped open. He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “By morning you’ll be two blond-haired chunks of ice. And if you think I’m going to let you stay here—or let you go on your merry way—your brain must already be full of icicles.”
She hadn’t expected him to agree. She wanted so badly to take his face between her hands and kiss him for risking his own hide to find them, and for caring. But that selfishness would have sealed his intentions. “We’re not going back with you, and you can’t come with us,” she said.
He looked at her as if he could eat them both alive and spit them out without blinking. “You’ve got your aunt’s nerves.”
Sam felt a dreary sense of impending doom. “All I ask,” she said slowly, her voice steadier than her sinking hopes, “is that you forget you found us.”
He flicked his hand out again. Suddenly one of hers was captured in his big, warm grip. Her stiff fingers convulsed helplessly, and the stupid nailfile dropped to the snowy floor of the cave without a sound. The sound of defeat—silence.
Jake didn’t know what to say. He was flooded with too many emotions—her emotions. Anger, fear, love. She was determined not to show any of it. Her feelings welled up inside him like a hot tide, until he didn’t know whether they were her feelings or his own. “You’re doing this for Charlotte,” he said. “Somebody hurt her. Alexandra is part of it. But you and me—we can fight back. Don’t give up on us. Crawl out of this hole and come with me.”
Sam gazed at him, gritting her teeth to keep them from clicking like castanets. “We can’t go back. We can’t stay anywhere near here. She’d only find us if we did. Charlotte would get hauled back to Highview, and I … well, I’m a fugitive now. You can’t change that fact.”
His grip on her hand was firm but painless; his fingers pressed into her palm without moving. There was a look in his eyes she couldn’t quite decipher. Maybe some apology in that hypnotizing intensity. “You’re not even a little guilty about it either. She owed you and Charlotte plenty, and you know it. What? What did she do to Charlotte?”
“Don’t try to guess how I feel. You always do that, but not this time.” She tugged her arm back. To her immense relief, he released her hand. The urge to touch her again was like a fire inside him. One more second and he’d have glimpsed a clue to her thoughts.
But he would never tell her he was a freak of nature, right up there with two-headed snakes and the Elephant Man. The only secret he would ever keep from her, because the fear that she wouldn’t believe, that she would be repulsed, was more than he could bear to test.
“Get out of the cave,” he ordered. “You’ve got no choice. I’m taking you to the Cove. It’s not very far. Maybe you wanted me to find you. Well, I did, and we’ll deal with this problem together. Whether you think that’s the best thing or not.”
He saw that fact sink into her, weighing her down, as if the mountain had begun squeezing on her shoulders. Tears glittered in her eyes, and she looked away quickly, squinting. She swallowed hard. “If you make us go back, there’s no hope at all.”
“I won’t let her hurt you or Charlotte.” His voice was suddenly soft and hoarse. “Trust me. We’ll think of something. But I’m not letting you go. Not this time. Not ever again.”
Tears slid down her cheeks, and when she looked at him finally, her eyes were dull and grieving. “She’ll hurt you too.”
He inhaled sharply. “No, she won’t.” The only tactic that made sense, at the moment, was stubborn command. “Come out of there.” He made it sound like a heartless order. “Or I’ll drag you both out.”
Over her shoulder she said to her sister in a voice that was low and raw, “I’m sorry. He’s like the mountains—I can’t move him. I let you down.”
Charlotte bowed her head. “No, you didn’t. You’re the only one who’s never done that.”
Jake watched with silent turmoil as they crawled out stiffly and staggered to their feet. He reached out to help, but both of them pulled back, staring at him angrily. Samantha tilted her head back and looked at him with tired fury. His flashlight illuminated the snow settling on her upturned face, little delicate flakes clinging to her lashes and cheeks, that resolute mouth clamped tight as a vise. She was swamped with clothes—the floppy coat, a long, full skirt, the collars of three different-colored sweaters bulging out between the coat’s labels. Charlotte was shorter, flashier, dressed like a cut-rate stormtrooper.
Annie Hall and a stormtrooper. It made him feel worse that they had been hiding in one of the caves where ancestors of his had starved and frozen when the army was rounding up Cherokees. He felt those ghosts. But he reminded himself that some of the people had survived, held on, prospered finally. With the help of the pioneer Vanderveers, they had managed to keep the Cove. It had come down to him through them. Raincrows and Vanderveers. Now Samantha—a Vanderveer by distant association, if nothing else—had tried to find safety here.
“Sammie, we can’t go back,” Charlotte cried suddenly, losing control. She backed away, sweeping an arm toward the looming forest spreading out around them. “Run. Let’s run.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Jake said. “I’ll track you down like rabbits.”
Samantha snagged her by one arm, then hugged her. “He’d probably skin us too.” Charlotte cried silently, head bent to her sister’s. Samantha stared at him bitterly over her sister’s head. “We’ll think of something,” she said firmly. “I’m not giving up.” Samantha held his gaze, the expression in her eyes like blue ice. “I’m not giving up,” she repeated. “I’m the only one around here with a clear head. The only one who doesn’t depend on miracles.”
Her pain was twisted together with his, and with a terrible understanding that finding Samantha was a sign of some kind, that he needed her in some way that was as selfish as wanting to breathe. For now he knew only that he had to hold on to her.
“Why won’t you listen to me?” she asked, her voice a groan. “Why do you believe in miracles?”
He turned away from her. “Can’t help myself.” That was true, but there was more, that childhood superstition that Granny Raincrow had engrained in him. It came back with a potent force. Nothing else mattered. Jake clenched his fists.
>
I won’t give her back to a ravenmocker.
Chapter
Seventeen
Don’t tell them. Please, don’t tell them. Each time Sam looked at her sister she saw that plea in her eyes. The dilemma made Sam sick at her stomach. Wrapped in blankets, she and Charlotte sat on the hearth of the Raincrows’ fireplace, but the seductive heat of the fire couldn’t penetrate the cold anxiety in Sam’s muscles.
Jake’s mother hovered over them with maternal alarm, dabbing at their damp hair with a towel. His father stood by a window, watching with a grim, puzzled expression, and Ellie Raincrow hunched on the edge of a chair she’d pulled near the hearth, her long legs and loafers tucked behind the chair’s legs, her quiet green eyes boring into them. Jake, melted snow puddling beneath his hiking boots onto a colorful rug, roamed the big, comfortably shabby living room like a caged tiger, and each time he passed near Sam he managed to brush the fingers of one hand over her shoulder, a gesture of concern that made her chest ache with a tangle of emotions she couldn’t risk.
She and Charlotte had landed in the middle of a well-meaning and inescapable clan. A mother, a doctor, a doctor-in-training, and Jake—whose mission in life was to find lost souls, whether they wanted to be found or not. Four people imbued with innate compassion and a long-simmering contempt for Aunt Alex. People who would fight her on Charlotte’s behalf if Sam told them the truth.
But the Raincrows couldn’t do anything about it. They didn’t know Aunt Alex the way Sam did. Aunt Alex wasn’t just manipulative, she was ruthless. Sam couldn’t let them be hurt.
“Please, just take us to the bus station at Stecoe Gap,” Sam said again. “No one ever has to know we were here. Just help us get that far, before it’s too late.”
“I told you that’s not an option,” Jake said gruffly. She met his apologetic but angry gaze. Sam fought for control and said as calmly as she could, “Then Charlotte and I will end up back at Highview, and there won’t be a thing you can do to stop it.” Charlotte moaned and Sam quickly put a reassuring arm around her. Her head rising with weary defiance, Sam added softly, “The next time we leave, I won’t make any mistakes.”
Jake flinched.
Mrs. Raincrow wrung the towel between her hands and dropped to the hearth beside her. “You don’t have to explain to me that you felt trapped by your aunt, and you were unhappy.” She glanced at Jake sadly, then back at Sam. “But something god-awful must have happened to make you take this chance. Can’t you trust us enough to tell us why you ran?”
Before Sam could answer, Charlotte blurted out, “Aunt Alex … she told me I had to let my second holes grow together.” Charlotte nodded wildly, as if that strange excuse were indisputably sufficient. Sam’s heart sank.
“What second holes?” Ellie asked, arching a black brow. “I don’t recall my professors discussing extra holes in anatomy class.”
“Earrings.” Charlotte’s face turned bright pink. She pointed at the two pairs of flamboyant silver stars swinging from her ears. “She said too many earrings look trashy. But Mom never thought so. She said I had panache.”
“Charlotte,” Sam whispered in warning.
Dr. Raincrow cleared his throat. “Somehow, I doubt Sam would have taken you on the lam just to preserve your fashion style.”
Charlotte stared at the floor and chewed her lip. Sam pulled her closer sympathetically. “What difference does it make why we left?” Sam asked everyone hoarsely. She couldn’t keep from looking at Jake. He had halted his circuit of the room near the center, and gazed down at her with an agonized expression. “Maybe I lost my nerve,” she told him. “I was afraid I’d become what Aunt Alex wanted me to become. Just like her. Someone you’d hate.” Slowly, Jake shook his head. She looked away, her throat aching. “So I took the cowardly way out. I ran. Something I was raised to never do. My dad was killed trying to bring a coward back.”
“That dog won’t hunt,” Jake said. “You’d have hung on and fought no matter how bad it was for you. I know you left for Charlotte’s sake. You’ve got to tell me why.”
“Will everyone stop talking about me as if I’m an undercooked omelet?” Charlotte cried. She turned toward Sam, defeat clouding her eyes. “It was all my fault. I’ll say anything she wants me to say. But you can’t go back with me. You stole from her, Sammie.”
Everyone but Jake stared at Sam in shock. Mrs. Raincrow stiffened. “What?” She looked at Jake reproachfully. “Did you know about this?”
“No,” Sam interjected.
“Yes,” he said. Sam slumped. She wanted to shake him. She wanted to kiss him. “I know she took a piece of Alexandra’s jewelry,” he continued. “She needed something she could sell. But stealing from a thief isn’t stealing.”
“I agree,” Ellie said darkly.
Sam reached into her skirt pocket. She pulled Aunt Alex’s necklace and pendant out. “I doubt she’ll look at the situation the way y’all do.”
Mrs. Raincrow held out a hand. “May I?”
“Don’t touch it,” Ellie and Jake said in unison. Their mother gave them a startled look. They traded an uncomfortable gaze. “Anything that belongs to Alexandra is bad luck,” Jake explained, frowning.
“Including Charlotte and me,” Sam added. She dejectedly placed the necklace on her palm. Mrs. Raincrow grimaced. “A whore’s prize.” That remark reduced everyone to silence. She dropped the necklace on the hearth and wiped her hands on her trousers. “We’ll bury it in the backyard. Alexandra may insist you took it, but she won’t have any proof.”
Sam stared at her hopefully. Ellie suddenly moved to the hearth beside Charlotte. Sam swiveled to watch. Her eyes strangely intent, Jake’s sister took one of Charlotte’s hands between both of hers. Charlotte seemed hypnotized; she looked at Ellie with wary awe. The eerie concentration on Ellie’s face grew more intense. Slowly, she ran a hand up Charlotte’s right arm, probing. Her eyes narrowed. Surprise and disgust curled her mouth into a grimace. The unfathomable look in her eyes sent shivers down Sam’s spine. Sam suddenly recalled what Dr. Raincrow had said about Ellie’s intuition. Her breath stalled. No, no, she protested silently, and reached over to pull Charlotte’s arm out of Ellie’s grasp.
“You had bruises,” Ellie said, staring into Charlotte’s dazed face. “Your hands—this hand, I mean—is still a little sore. Your arm too.”
Charlotte made a frightened sound and drew back from her. “I tripped on a rug. Fell down.”
“I wonder if … someone knocked you down.” Now Ellie’s eyes were clear and sharp, prying into Charlotte’s. Charlotte trembled. Sam waited with breathless dread. She wanted Charlotte to talk, but wouldn’t force her. Charlotte pivoted desperately and looked at Sam. “Sammie, what should I do?” Her voice was ragged. “Do you want me to—”
“I promised you,” Sam said. “It’s up to you.”
“I think,” Ellie continued, “you’re afraid of someone there. Hmmm. Alexandra? Maybe, but she tends to get what she wants without beating people up. Orrin? No, he relies on charm. But Tim”—her eyes glittered—“Tim nearly twisted my arm off once.”
Something in that confession broke through Charlotte’s humiliation. She looked at Sam wearily. “Tell them what happened. I get sick just thinking about it.” She put her face in her hands and hunched over.
Her heart in her throat, Sam stared into space and quietly explained what Tim had done and how Aunt Alex had reacted when she heard. When she finished she looked at Jake apologetically. Fury and sorrow gleamed in his eyes. The same expression was on the others’ faces as well. Even Dr. Raincrow had a deadly poise about him. “This is grounds for legal intervention,” he said. “It’s child abuse.”
Sarah Raincrow seemed on the brink of violence. She pounded one leg with her fist. “We’ll get a lawyer.”
“I don’t need a lawyer,” Jake said. “I need to get my hands on Tim.”
Sam jumped up and ran to him. “That’s exactly what I was afraid of. Don’t you understand? Any of
you?” She wound a hand in his shirt but turned to look at the others frantically. “I’ve thought through the options over and over. What if I go to the authorities and insist my sister has been mauled by our own cousin? What if the social services bigwigs drag their feet and worry about humiliating the lieutenant-governor—so they refuse to believe Charlotte? What if they do believe her and take her away? Put her in a foster home or—oh, God—some state institution for teenagers?”
“Marry me,” Jake said. “And we’ll … we’ll adopt Charlotte.”
Her hand convulsed in his shirt. She curled her fingers into the material and against the hard wall of his chest, a quick, adoring caress. But she looked up at him sadly. “It doesn’t work that way.”
He shuddered. “Then it’s settled. We’ll disappear and take Charlotte with us.” Sam’s gasp echoed the small cries of astonishment from his family, and Charlotte. His expression was set. “I’m good at finding people. I can be just as good at not being found.”
For the first time, tears slid down Sam’s face. “I can’t let you do that. I’m not going to turn you into a … an outlaw who’s accused of kidnapping my sister. Because that’s probably what Aunt Alex would have you charged with if we were caught.”
He took her by the shoulders. “I’m telling you we won’t get caught. You don’t want Charlotte to go back to Alexandra’s. Nothing is more important to you than that.”
“Doing what’s good for you is as important.”
“Then do what I’m asking. Because the only thing that can hurt me is losing you.”
Sam strangled on the terrible choice—Charlotte’s safety versus Jake’s. One loyalty against the other. He saw the torment in her face and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and holding her in a desperate, compelling embrace.
Charlotte was suddenly beside them, crying. Sam reached for her, but she stepped back and looked at everyone frantically. “I’m going to throw up. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Down the hall, on the left,” Mrs. Raincrow said, shoving her hands through her hair and rising quickly.
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