“Well, then you need to wait. If there’s even a ghost of a chance that you and Jase can resolve this, and make a new start—”
“I’m tired of playing the fool,” Katie interrupted. “What if it’s true, what this woman says? What if Jase is still involved with her?”
“Have you asked him about it?”
Katie was silent.
“Have you?” Hallie pressed. Across the aisle, Kiera and Kiley were still chattering away, caught up in an exchange of their own, and paying no attention to the adult drama unfolding at the other table.
“There just hasn’t been a good time,” Katie fretted. “Jase and I strike sparks whenever we get together. He’s jealous, because Chance and I are good friends and—”
Hallie said nothing.
Katie’s cheeks glowed with a faint tinge of pink. “Not that there’s anything more to it,” she said. “Chance and I were an item in high school, and then we broke up. There’s never been anybody for me but Jase.”
Hallie hoped her relief didn’t show. Her body was still buzzing from Chance’s attentions the night before, and she definitely had feelings for the man, even though their relationship, if that’s what it was, was on a greased track to nowhere. Still, if she’d learned that Chance and Katie really were involved, she’d have been devastated, as little sense as that made.
“You need to talk to him,” Hallie said. “Maybe the two of you could go away somewhere for a couple of days.”
Katie’s eyes lit up. “I guess I could close the bookstore briefly, and my mother would keep the girls.”
Hallie spread her hands and smiled. “There you have it.”
“What if he tells me he loves this other woman?”
“Then at least you’ll know the truth,” Hallie said.
Katie nodded. “I’m going in and wash my face.” She laid a bill on the table. “Here’s my half of the check.” With that, she was scurrying back to the rest room, purse in hand.
Hallie waited until Katie was out of sight, then took Margaret’s business card out of her skirt pocket and studied it. Her mother’s old friend was in real estate, and she lived in Colorado Springs.
She let out a long breath and then slowly tore the card into confetti.
Kiera and Kiley finished their shared cheeseburger and glasses of milk, crossed the aisle, and squeezed in beside Hallie.
“Did you like that lady?” Kiera asked.
“You said you were going to call her,” Kiley pointed out.
Who needed a conscience, Hallie wondered, when they had seven-year-old twins watching their every move. “I was just being polite,” she said, at once defiant and ashamed.
“How come Katie was crying?” This was Kiera.
Kiley rolled her eyes. “She’s not going to tell you,” she said. “It’s a grown-up secret.”
Hallie was spared from making a comment on that by the arrival of the hostess, bringing the check. Hallie settled up, left a tip on the table, and headed for the Jeep. By the time she’d unlocked the door on the driver’s side, Katie was back, red-eyed, but smiling bravely.
“There’s another story-time at the bookstore this afternoon,” she said, addressing Kiera and Kiley. “Would you girls like to join us?”
“Can we?” Kiera asked, as Hallie opened the back doors, helping her daughters to scramble in and snap their seat belts.
“Please?” Kiley added.
Hallie chuckled. “Yes, already!” she said, but she was thinking back to her conversation with Doris that morning, at the consignment shop. Bear had been in prison, the woman had said, convicted of murder. Apparently, a good many people saw the crime as justifiable, or so Doris had implied, but Hallie’s children spent a lot of time at the café, as did she. She had to know whether or not Bear represented a threat. She couldn’t ask Katie, with the twins right there, and she couldn’t work up the courage to approach Bear himself— pardon me, she imagined herself saying, but I heard you were a murderer and I was just wondering if my children and I are safe around you —nor did she want to question Madge or Jase. Madge, after all, was Bear’s sister, and might be defensive. She was uneasy around Jase, for the simple reason that he was a cop, and might have some connection, however remote, with Joel or someone in the Phoenix Police Department.
Everyone else in Primrose Creek seemed to like and trust Bear. For the time being, she would follow their lead.
10
W hen Hallie stopped by Jessie’s place to change her clothes—she didn’t want Chance to think she’d dressed up to impress him—she was only mildly surprised to find that his truck was parked in front of the barn. She shut off the Jeep and, after a moment’s hesitation—the pull of him was strong—hurried into the house to change out of her going-to-town outfit and into jeans and a fleece top. When she reached the barn, she’d gotten her racing heart under some semblance of control, though her stomach was doing small leaps.
Chance was busy grooming Sweet Pea, the big gelding, with a stiff-bristled brush. The memory of the night before, imprinted on her cells for all time, shimmered through her, and even as she told herself she mustn’t ever let it happen again, an elemental, aching need rose within her. She fought it down.
The wry look in his eyes assured her that he knew what she was thinking, and that mortified her. She felt her face go hot.
“Where are the kids?” he asked, coming out of Sweet Pea’s stall and setting the brush aside.
She knew she ought to take a step back, but she’d grown roots, it seemed. “In town,” she said weakly. “They’re with Katie, at the bookstore.”
“Good,” he said, and now, all of a sudden, he looked rueful. “We need to talk.”
“About last night?” She was filled with dread. Did he regret what they’d done? It was one thing for her to be remorseful, but quite another for him.
He sighed, and though his expression was still mostly solemn, there was a sparkle in his eyes. “About Jessie. She’s on her way home.”
“Oh,” she said. It came as a shock, even though Jessie had certainly mentioned the possibility. She’d also said she’d be home only briefly, before going out on another gallery tour, which meant she’d still need a house-sitter. Nevertheless, the reminder that she and the girls were essentially homeless left her feeling bereft. “When—when will she be here? I need to vacuum—”
He came to her, took her hands in his. “Hallie,” he said. “Hold on a minute. I don’t think she’s planning to hold an inspection. I just didn’t want you to be taken by surprise, that’s all. Doc Whitman is picking Jessie up at the airport in Reno sometime tonight.”
Only when Hallie sat down on a hay bale did she realize Chance had maneuvered her into it. He crouched in front of her, still holding her hands.
“What’s going on?” he asked reasonably. Quietly.
Hallie shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said.
Chance didn’t look as if he believed her.
She remembered her original intention. “I wanted to ask you about something. Today, a woman told me that Bear was in prison for murder. Is that true?”
Chance’s jawline tightened. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s true.”
Hallie sucked in a breath, let it out slowly. “He k-killed someone, with a crowbar?”
“Madge’s first husband,” he said, calm as you please.
Hallie stared at him, stunned.
Chance sat beside her on the hay bale, still holding one of her hands, and stared into the shadows of the barn. The scent of dried sweet grass came to her. “Seth—that was Madge’s husband—had beaten her up pretty badly. She was in the hospital, in fact, and the doctors weren’t sure she’d ever regain consciousness. Bear lost it, and he found Seth before the cops did. The story was, Seth came at him with the crowbar, bad-mouthing Madge the whole time. Bear got the crowbar away, and next thing he knew, his brother-in-law was lying at his feet, dead. He shouldn’t have handled things that way, but most folks tended to sympathize more with Bear than S
eth. On account of Madge being hurt and everything.”
Hallie ached, picturing the tragedies, one after the other—Madge, suffering at the hands of a man who had promised to love her. Seth, dead. Bear, spending fifteen years of his life behind bars. She put a hand to her mouth, thinking she’d be sick. “Oh, God,” she whispered.
Chance put an arm around her waist, held her loosely, but close against his side. He smelled good, felt good.
She barely kept herself from resting her head on his shoulder. God knew where that would have led. “Poor Madge. Poor Bear.”
“They’ve made the best of things,” Chance said. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, turned her head, looked into his eyes. “I guess I should have asked Bear, but—”
“I can understand why you wouldn’t,” Chance said. His arm was still around her, and she didn’t want him to move away.
Just then, they heard the sound of a car engine, a door shutting.
Kiley appeared in the doorway of the barn, fuming, closely followed by her sister. Katie was behind them, looking rueful. “Kiera called me Ugly-Buggly Booger Face!” Kiley burst out.
“I’m afraid there’s trouble in paradise,” Katie said. “They got into it in the car.”
Hallie stood, suppressed a smile, gave her daughters a stern look and an exasperated sigh, her hands resting on her hips. Chance was beside her.
“What’s this?” Hallie demanded of her children.
“She is an Ugly-Buggly Booger Face!” Kiera insisted. Kiera, usually the more manageable of the pair, looked downright recalcitrant.
Kate, standing behind the children, could afford to smile. “Well, I guess I’d better be getting back to town,” she said. “Hi, Chance.”
“Thank you for bringing them home, Katie,” Hallie said, still looking at Kiera and Kiley. “As for you two—”
“I’ll walk you back to your car,” Chance told Katie, and then they were both gone.
“What’s going on here?” Hallie asked her daughters.
“She—” Kiley began again.
Hallie held up a hand. “I know, I know. Kiera called you a name. How did it get started?”
Both kids clammed up, though they wouldn’t look at each other. Their lips were rolled inward and their eyes were narrowed.
Great, Hallie reflected. Jessie would arrive in a few hours, and be greeted by two angst-ridden seven-year-olds. What a fine impression that would make. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said. “In the meantime, I would like you both to go out there and apologize to Mrs. Stratton for arguing in her car. Then you will go inside, get your spelling books, and work on your lessons before supper.”
The twins turned on their heels, in almost perfect syncopation, and headed for the barn door. “Big Baby Butt Face,” one of them murmured.
“Tattle-tale,” replied the other.
Hallie rolled her eyes, followed them out, and supervised the apology. Chance, who had been talking quietly with Katie, smiled and squired the girls into the house.
“Sorry,” Hallie said to her friend. “They can be bratniks.”
Katie, already behind the wheel, chuckled. “I know—I have two of my own.”
“Have you spoken with Jase?”
Katie sighed, and her hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel. The engine was running, heater cranked. “I paged him. He’s been pretty busy with this cougar thing.”
“He’ll be in touch,” Hallie said gently. “Keep the faith.”
Katie nodded, good-byes were exchanged, and then Katie drove away, and Hallie went inside the house.
The girls were at the table, poring over their library spelling books as though they’d been at it for hours. Chance was at the sink, running water into the coffeepot.
“I was an underachiever, compared to these two,” he confided, when Hallie stood facing him, shaken by his presence and at the same time wanting him to stay and stay. “Since when are ‘laborious’ and ‘retinue’ second grade spelling words?”
Hallie just shrugged.
Chance reached out, hooked a finger in the waistband of her jeans, and tugged her playfully into his arms. He chuckled when she blushed.
She pulled back, though her heart was hammering in her throat and a slow heat was building between her hip bones. If she wasn’t careful around this man, she thought, she’d end up in a segment on one of those TV reality shows, a case of spontaneous human combustion. She went into the living room, started picking up, straightening, fluffing sofa pillows.
“Last night was good, Chance,” she said, very quietly, and without looking at him, “but it was also a little premature. We hardly know each other.”
He sighed. “All right,” he said. “We’ll step back a little. But don’t expect me to pretend it never happened, because I can’t.”
“We didn’t even use protection,” she fretted, barely whispering, but meeting his unwavering gaze. “That was really stupid.”
“It was a little sudden,” Chance allowed. “But I don’t have any diseases, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Neither do I, but we’d be fools to take each other’s word for something like that at this stage, wouldn’t we?”
He let the comment pass, since there was no denying it. Unprotected sex was for idiots. “Next time, we’ll be ready,” he said, and he sounded damnably sure that there would be a next time. “Do you think you could have gotten pregnant?”
She felt a rush of sweet sadness, and shrugged. When she’d told Joel she was expecting the twins, he’d said they couldn’t afford children, and asked her to get an abortion. She braced herself for a similar reaction from Chance, who was, after all, a virtual stranger and not a husband, doting or otherwise. “Maybe, maybe not. I’m not very regular, so it’s hard to tell.”
Chance surprised her by putting out a hand to cup her chin, gazing down into her face for a long moment, and then placing a light kiss on the tip of her nose. “If there is a child,” he said gruffly, “I want to know, Hallie. I want to be part of his or her life, whatever happens between you and me.”
She blinked. “You do?”
A light danced in his eyes. “Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “If I ever get that lucky, I might even break down and buy a lottery ticket.”
Hallie didn’t know what to say. In fact, she was afraid she’d cry if she tried to speak at all. Suddenly, she was reminded of Lou, seeking her out after he and her mother were married, telling her he was a lucky man, getting a beautiful wife and a daughter, all in the same day.
Chance smiled and ran the backs of his fingers down her cheeks. “Maybe one of these days, you’ll trust me enough to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
Hallie felt a delicious tension, drawing her insides taut. She was flushed, not just in her face, but from her hairline to her feet, and it was literally all she could do to keep herself from telling Chance everything. She remembered, though, that she was leaving Primrose Creek, sooner or later, and lowered her head. “I’m just passing through, Chance,” she reminded him, when she was able to meet his eyes again, some moments later. “What’s the point in exchanging a lot of confidences?”
He frowned. “What was the point of last night?” he asked.
She lifted her chin, trying to find level ground. She pretended she hadn’t heard the question. “Will you stay for supper?” she heard herself ask, and was astounded. Jessie would be back that night; she had cleaning to do, plans to make.
He grinned, as if he were reading her mind. “I’d like that,” he said. “Are you a good cook?”
“If only you knew,” she said, and sighed a little.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “If only I knew.”
She went around him, headed for the kitchen. Took a package of chicken out of the freezer compartment above the refrigerator. “Peel some potatoes,” she instructed and, to her surprise, Chance did as he was told.
Later, when the four of them, Chance and Hallie and the twins, were seate
d around the kitchen table, enjoying fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans from Jessie’s pantry, he told her about the McQuarry Bible and the various genealogy projects Jessie was working on, among other things.
After supper, he cleared the table and did the dishes while Hallie went through the upstairs like a cyclone, dusting, changing sheets, putting fresh towels in Jessie’s bathroom. The twins, grumbling, went back to their mom-imposed spelling lesson.
Presently, Hallie came downstairs again, helped herself to a cup of Chance’s coffee, and went over her daughters’ work. They’d done a good job, and she told them so, but when she sent them to bed early, because of their earlier row in Katie’s car, the little faces looking back at her were dark with impending rebellion. Hallie stood her ground and, in the end, the twins excused themselves and slogged up the back stairs like a pair of slaves headed for the salt mines.
Chance was smiling when she looked at him. “They’re quite a pair,” he said.
“Quite,” Hallie agreed.
“Why don’t you enroll them in school in Primrose Creek, instead of teaching them yourself?”
She set her hands on her hips. “Sometimes—no, most times—you ask too many questions, Chance Qualtrough.”
“Part of my charm,” he replied, unruffled.
“I have my reasons,” she said, flustered.
“I’ll just bet you do.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not going to drive me off by picking a fight, Hallie,” he said. “So give it up.”
She sat down at the table with a plop, holding her coffee mug in both hands.
“You’re beautiful when you’re being put-upon,” he teased. He took in her face, breasts and hips in an impudent sweep of his eyes. “But then, you’re pretty hot the rest of the time, too.”
“Go home, Chance,” she said, but she didn’t mean it, and he obviously knew.
“And leave you to face Jessie by yourself?” he asked, with mock horror. “No way.” He turned to get the coffeepot from the counter, and she picked up the dish towel lying on the table and flicked his tight cowboy butt with it, then was appalled with herself. What had she been thinking?
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