“Interesting.”
“Great. Now can we talk about Disneyland?”
Her son was the brightest and best part of her life, she thought as she stared into his dark brown eyes. He had her smile, but everything else came from his father. As if her DNA hadn’t been strong enough to overpower his.
Tyler was smart, funny, warm and caring. He had dozens of friends, an easygoing disposition and plans to be an architect when he grew up. She knew that everyone said the early teen years were the worst with boys. That by thirteen or fourteen, he would be making her life hell. But that was a problem for another time. Today, Tyler was her world.
A world that had just been shifted off its axis and was tumbling freely through space.
“Disneyland sounds like fun,” she agreed. “I’ll talk to Jason’s mom. If they want to take you and you want to go, then we’ll arrange it.”
His grin widened. Then he glanced toward the back of the vehicle.
“Whoa, are we going somewhere? Road trip?”
She pulled into traffic, heading toward I-80. She would take it east, until she turned off to drive into Fool’s Gold.
“Sort of,” she said and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
Over the years, she’d done her best not to lie to her son. Not about her past or his father. For the most part, she’d simply told him there were questions she wouldn’t answer. At four or five, he’d been easily distracted. At eight, he’d been determined to find out the truth. Now he asked less, probably because he knew he couldn’t wear her down. But she knew he wondered.
“I got an e-mail today,” she announced. “You remember I told you that I have a brother?”
“Uh-huh. Roy. We don’t ever see him.”
“I know. He’s a lot older and he left when I was twelve. I woke up one morning and he was gone. I never saw him again.”
She still remembered her mother’s sobs, made thicker and louder by the alcohol lingering in her system. From that moment on, her mother spent her life waiting for Roy to return. Nothing else had mattered, certainly not Liz.
Liz had left town shortly after graduating high school. She’d phoned home once, a few weeks later, saying she thought she should check in and tell her mother where she was.
“Don’t bother calling again,” had been the woman’s only response before hanging up the phone.
“So Uncle Roy e-mailed you?”
“Not exactly.” Liz didn’t know how much to reveal. Telling the truth was one thing, but sharing details was another. “He’s, um, in some trouble and I have to help. He has two girls. Your cousins. Melissa is fourteen and Abby is your age.”
“I have cousins? You didn’t tell me about cousins.”
“I didn’t know about them until today.”
“But they’re family.”
True enough, she thought. And the word family implied caring and connection. Maybe in most places, but not in the Sutton household. At least not until Liz had had Tyler. She’d done everything she could think of to break the cycle of neglect. She’d been determined to be a warm, loving mother, to offer her child a safe haven.
“I didn’t know where Roy was,” she said. “He never got in touch with me after he left.” For six years, she’d waited, hoping he would come get her and take her away. Until he’d walked out, he’d always taken care of her. Been a buffer between her and her mother. Protected her from the worst of it.
By the time she’d been old enough to go looking, she told herself she no longer cared.
“Do they know we’re coming?” Tyler asked. “Do they know about me?”
“Not yet, but they will. We’re going to stay with them for a couple of weeks.” She didn’t mention the fact that Roy was in prison. Time enough for that later. Nor did she discuss the possibility of the girls living with them permanently. Maybe other family could take care of them.
“I grew up in a small town called Fool’s Gold,” she said. “It’s in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.”
“Do they get snow?” he asked eagerly. Because at age eleven, seeing snow was about the best it could be.
She laughed. “Probably not in June, but yes, they get snow. There’s lots to do there. Hiking, swimming. There’s a river and a lake.”
“We could go camping.”
She made a noncommittal noise in her throat, mostly because the thought of camping ranked right up there with being awake during open-heart surgery. Not even thinking about it was pleasant. But then she wasn’t an eleven-year-old boy. She hadn’t been fascinated by worms and dirt and play cars and plastic guns, either.
More traits she knew he got from his father. Which was another problem. Not the traits, the man himself. Odds were Ethan was still in Fool’s Gold. The one place he’d asked her not to be. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her or his kid around.
Well, he was just going to have to get over it, she told herself. This was an emergency. She wouldn’t make a big deal about Tyler being in town and she certainly wouldn’t tell her son about his father. Not when Ethan had rejected them both so completely.
She would deal with the girls and get out as quickly as possible. If she happened to run into Ethan, she would be pleasant and distant. Nothing more. Because after all this time and all the ways he’d managed to hurt her, there was no way she would ever be vulnerable to him again. She’d learned her lesson. Fool me once and all that.
She gripped the steering wheel tighter and glanced at her nav system screen. It showed the way to her destination and she was counting on the little device to guide her back home when she was done.
* * *
ETHAN HENDRIX STOOD BY THE barricades between the crowd and the cyclists. The sun was hot, the spectators loud. The noise of a race was specific and not something he would ever forget. There’d been a time when he’d planned on seeing the world on the racing circuit. A long time ago, he thought, remembering the feel of the wind, the sensation of muscles burning as he dug for the will to win.
Winning had come easily. Maybe too easily. He’d gotten careless during a race. At fifty miles an hour, balanced on skinny wheels and a lightweight frame, mistakes could be deadly. In his case, he’d been left with a few broken bones and a permanent limp. For anyone else, it would have been considered lucky. For him, the injury had kept him from ever racing again.
Now, ten years later, he watched the cyclists speed past. He spotted his friend Josh, still making up time from his late start, and wondered What if. But he didn’t have a whole lot of energy for the subject. Everything was different now and he was good with that.
He turned away from the race, ready to return to his office, when he spotted a woman in the crowd. For a second he thought he’d imagined her, that he was putting beautiful features he would never forget onto the face of someone else. There was no way Liz Sutton was back in Fool’s Gold.
Instinctively he moved closer, but the road with the barricades was between them. The redhead looked up again, this time facing him. She removed her sunglasses and he saw her wide green eyes, the full mouth. From this distance he couldn’t see the freckles on her nose, but he knew they were there. He even knew how many.
He swore softly. Liz was back. Except on the back cover of her books, he hadn’t seen her in over a decade. As of five seconds ago, he would have told anyone who asked that he’d forgotten her, had gotten over her. She was his past.
She looked away then, as if searching for someone. Obviously not him, he thought, then grinned. Liz back in Fool’s Gold. Who would have thought?
He eased his way through the crowd. He might not be able to find her now, but he had a feeling he knew where she would be later. He would meet her there and welcome her home. It was the least he could do.
* * *
LIZ KEPT A TIGHT HOLD ON Tyler’s hand on their way to the local grocery store. The crowd around the bike race was big and seemed to be growing. She’d been foolish to think she could find two girls she’d never met in the throng of tou
rists. It wasn’t as if she even knew what they looked like.
She pointed toward a vendor selling shaved iced and bought Tyler his favorite flavor. Blueberry.
All around them, groups of people laughed and talked about the race. She heard something about a new bike racing school and a new hospital being built. Changes, she thought. Fool’s Gold had changed in the past ten years.
But not enough for her to forget. Despite having to detour around blocked roads, she easily found her way down side streets, and back toward the house where she’d grown up.
“You lived here before you went to San Francisco?” Tyler asked.
“Uh-huh. I grew up here.”
“With my grandma Sutton?”
“Yes.”
“She’s dead now.”
He spoke the words as information, because that’s all they were to him. He’d never met Liz’s mother.
When Liz had first left town at eighteen, running away with a broken heart, she’d found her way to the city by the bay, had struggled to find work and a place to stay in a glorified shelter. Then she’d found out she was pregnant.
Her first instinct had been to go home, but that initial phone call had made her wary. Over the next year, she’d phoned home twice. Both times her mother had made it clear her daughter was no longer a part of her life. The rejection had hurt but hadn’t been much of a surprise. Her mother had also taken great delight in telling her that no, Ethan Hendrix never called or asked about her.
When the woman died four years ago, Liz hadn’t cried, though she felt regret over the relationship they never had.
Now, as she crossed a quiet street, she found herself in her old neighborhood. The houses were modest, two- and three-bedroom homes with small porches and aging paint. A few gleamed like bright flowers in an abandoned garden, as if the neighborhood was on the verge of being desirable again.
The worst house on the street sat in the middle. An eyesore of peeling paint and missing roof shingles. The yard was more weeds than plants or lawn, the windows were filthy. Plywood filled the space where one was missing.
She used the key she’d found under the front mat to let them in. She’d already done a brief tour of the house, to see if the girls were there. Judging from the school books piled on the dirty kitchen table and the clothes on the girls’ bedroom floors, she would guess summer break hadn’t started yet.
Now she walked through to the kitchen with tonight’s meal. Half the cabinets were gone, as if someone had started remodeling then changed his mind. The refrigerator worked, but was empty. There was no food in the pantry in the corner. There were a few potato chip wrappers in the trash and one small apple on the counter.
She didn’t know what to think. Based on her niece’s letter, the girls had been on their own for a few weeks. Ever since their stepmom had taken off. With their father in jail and no other family around, shouldn’t the state step in? Where were social services?
She had more questions, but figured she would deal with them later. It was after four. The girls should get home soon. Once they’d all met, she would get more food in the house and figure out what was going on.
“Mom?” Tyler called from the living room. “May I watch TV?”
“Until your cousins get here.”
Peggy had already called to confirm she’d paid all the amounts due on the utility bills and that everything should be working. Liz could see there was electricity. She turned on the faucet and water gushed out, which was a plus. Seconds later, she heard the sound of cartoons, which meant there was cable. Modern life as she knew it had been restored.
She walked back to the front of the house and took the stairs to the second floor. She made her way straight to the master. It was the only room with family photos. A wedding picture of a much older Roy standing next to a chubby blonde had been placed on the battered dresser. There were a couple of school pictures of the girls. Liz moved closer and studied them, looking for features that would be familiar.
Melissa seemed to have Roy’s smile. Abby had Liz’s eyes and freckles. They were both redheads, Melissa blessed with a soft auburn color. Abby was all carrot-top, which looked totally adorable. Although Liz had a feeling the eleven-year-old wouldn’t appreciate her unique coloring for a long time.
She turned away from the photos to look at the room. The bed was unmade, the dresser drawers open and empty. In the surprisingly large closet, only men’s clothes hung. A couple of boxes were filled with socks and underwear—most likely placed there by Roy’s wife.
Memories crowded around, filling the space. They poked at her as she moved back into the hallway, then into the bedroom that had been hers, making her remember things she’d tried so hard to forget.
She heard echoes of her mother yelling, inhaled the smell of alcohol. She remembered the low voices of the men who had come and gone. Most of her mother’s “friends” had stayed out of Liz’s way, but a few had watched her with an intensity that had made her uncomfortable.
She went into the room that had been hers. The wall color was different. The faded yellow had been replaced with a pale lavender. While the walls were freshly painted, the baseboards and trim had been sanded, but not finished. In the bathroom across the hall, the floor had been pulled up, exposing sheets of plywood below. She’d noticed a framed room off the back, sitting on a poured foundation. So many half-started projects that gave the already old and battered house the air of being wounded.
Easily changed, she told herself. A good contractor could have this place fixed in a few weeks. Or maybe the old house should simply be torn down and left for dead.
She shook off the morose thoughts. She’d been here all of an hour and already the place was getting to her. She had to remember she had a great life in San Francisco. Work she loved, a beautiful home, an amazing son. She’d left Fool’s Gold over a decade ago. She was a different person today. Older. Stronger. Able to deal with a few memories. It wasn’t as if she was settling here permanently. She would find out what was going on, then either take the girls to wherever they were going to live, or pack them up and bring them back to her place. A couple weeks, she told herself. Three at most.
She went downstairs and heard the sound of excited voices. There were racing footsteps on the porch, then the front door flew open.
Two girls stood there, the taller and older one looking both scared and relieved, while the younger hung back shyly.
“Aunt Liz?” Melissa, the fourteen-year-old, asked tentatively.
Liz smiled at them both and nodded. “Hi. I hope it’s okay that I let myself in. The key was right where—”
The rest of what she was going to say got squeezed out of her as both girls raced to her and hugged her hard, holding on as if they would never let go.
CHAPTER TWO
LIZ HUGGED THEM BACK, recognizing the relief and desperation in their embrace. They were too young to have been left on their own. What had Roy’s wife been thinking?
She mentally added that question to the growing list she would deal with later. For now she wanted the girls to feel safe and get them fed.
“You’re really here,” Melissa said, looking at her. “Really?”
“Yes. I got your e-mail this morning and came right away.”
Melissa, thin and nearly as tall as Liz, drew in a breath. “I’m really glad. I was trying so hard to make it okay, but I couldn’t. The money Bettina left us ran out really fast.”
Abby, a little shorter and also thin, bit her lower lip. “Are you our aunt?”
“I am. Your dad’s my brother.”
“You’re famous.”
Liz laughed. “Not really.”
“But you have books in the library. I’ve seen ’em.” Abby glanced at her sister. “I don’t read them because Melissa says they’ll give me bad dreams.”
Liz reached out and touched the girl’s cheek. “I think she’s right. But maybe when you’re older.”
“Or you could write a book for girls my age.”
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“Something to think about.” She looked past the girls and saw Tyler standing in the doorway to the hall. “Girls, you have a cousin. My son Tyler is with me. Tyler, these are your cousins, Melissa and Abby.”
The girls turned. Tyler smiled.
“Hi,” he said, sounding more curious than uneasy.
“Hi,” the girls responded together.
“Tyler’s eleven,” Liz told them. “His last day of school was today.”
Melissa wrinkled her nose. “We have to go until Friday. Then we’re off for the summer.”
A fact that would make life easier, Liz thought. If she ended up taking the girls back to San Francisco, she wouldn’t have to worry about pulling them out of school.
Abby turned back to her. “Where’s Tyler’s dad, Aunt Liz?”
Not a question Liz wanted to deal with right now. She saw her son’s expression sharpen, as if hoping she would share some information. Not likely, she thought, wishing things had been different and Ethan had at least wanted to be a small part of his son’s life.
“Not with us,” Liz stated lightly. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen and get you two something to eat? I picked up a cooked chicken and some salads on the way into town. Then we’ll get to know each other a little and you can tell me what’s been going on.”
She had more to say, but both girls ran into the kitchen, as if desperate for food. Based on how they’d been living, they probably were.
She served them each a large portion of the chicken, along with coleslaw and potato salad.
The girls fell on the food, practically shoving it in their mouths. Liz poured the milk she’d bought and they gulped two glasses each. As she watched them devour the meal, she felt herself getting angry. How could Roy’s wife have simply abandoned the girls like that? What kind of heartless cow left two kids on their own? The least she could have done was phone social services on her way out of town.
She decided she would find out all she could about Bettina then kill off a character just like her in her next book. The death would be grisly, she promised herself. Slow and painful.
Tyler watched the girls wide-eyed, but didn’t say anything. He seemed to sense they’d been hungry for a long time, which was sad but probably a good lesson for him. Not everyone got to have three meals a day.
Susan Mallery Fool's Gold Series Volume One: Chasing PerfectAlmost PerfectSister of the BrideFinding Perfect Page 28