She pulled her fingers from his and moved a few steps away from him, almost as if she regretted her decision to let him touch her.
“Heya,” the trucker said as he stepped down from the cab. His hair was long and unkempt, and as he looked at them, he ran his fingers through the greasy mess. “You guys need help?” he asked, his voice flecked with a Canadian accent even though his rig had Montana plates.
Waylon had forgotten about Montana and its unspoken pay-it-forward code. If someone was broken down on the side of a road like this, there was always someone willing to help. The system came from the days of the pioneers. Not much had changed from those days, because in the dead of winter, in a place like this, it might be hours—if not days—before a person ran into someone else. In such a barren world, a single act of kindness could sometimes be the difference between life and death.
“We’re good,” Waylon said, trying his best to make himself smile at the well-intentioned interloper.
The trucker didn’t stop; instead, he turned to Christina. “Are you okay, miss?”
Christina’s eyes widened with surprise at the man’s implied assumption that she might be here against her will. “I’m...I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
The guy dropped his hand. Until now Waylon hadn’t noticed he was hiding a bat behind his leg.
Did this guy really think he was the kind of guy who would bring a girl out here to the middle of nowhere against her will? Or had the guy been around the world enough to jump to that kind of conclusion?
In a strange way, he was glad there were still guys out there like this trucker, men who were willing to come to the aid of a woman they didn’t know. It gave him a little bit of hope for mankind.
“Army?” the trucker asked, motioning toward him.
“Huh?” Waylon glanced down at his clothes, half expecting to see his ACUs, but he was wearing jeans and a red plaid shirt. “Hoo-ah.”
“I could tell from the look of ya. I can’t believe they let you out of the desert playground.”
“Ha,” Waylon answered with a dry laugh. “Let me guess, you’re a jarhead?”
“Some of us were born to be real men.” The guy laughed, the sound high and tight.
Christina glanced over at him, like she was trying to figure out what she was supposed to be doing while they chided each other.
“Sorry,” Waylon said, motioning toward her. “This is my...” Dang, what did he call her? His former sister-in-law, his friend or his girlfriend? “This is my friend Christina. And, buddy, you are?”
The guy shook her hand. “I’m Daryl, Daryl Bucket,” the man said, his voice flecked with a Canadian accent.
“Nice to meet you, Daryl,” Christina said. “Thanks for stopping. That was noble of you. Let’s chalk one up for the marines.” She gave Waylon a teasing glance.
“Hey, now, you can’t really give him a point. I traveled all the way across the country for this.” He laughed.
She smiled, giving him a soft look that made it clear she was just joking around.
He turned to Daryl. “But really, that was something, man. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. I forgot how selfless people around here can be.”
“It ain’t no thing.” Daryl waved them off. “About a week ago I ran across a girl around here who was down on her luck. This is a hell of a spot for bad things to happen.”
“You found a girl here a week ago?” All of Waylon’s MP senses kicked into high gear. “What did she look like?”
The guy shrugged. “Average height, kind of skinny, dark haired. Nice enough lady.”
“Did you catch her name?”
Daryl frowned as though he were trying to pull the name from somewhere deep in his thoughts. “Can’t say that I did. I don’t recall her giving it, though I think I asked.”
The woman’s description vaguely matched Alli’s. Was it possible this guy had some connection to her?
“She was pulled over right here,” Daryl continued, motioning toward the small pullout.
“Do you remember what kind of car she was driving?”
Daryl nodded. “Oh, yeah, it was a black Hyundai. Couple of years old. My ex-wife bought one just like it right before she and I split.”
Waylon tried to play it cool, but his mind was buzzing.
“Did the lady tell you why she was pulled over?”
Daryl scratched his head. “She said she had a flat tire. I offered to change it for her, but she said she didn’t have a spare and told me not to bother. Instead, she asked if I would give her a ride.”
“To Canada?” Christina asked.
Daryl shook his head. “Nah, she wanted to go to some little town a ways south.”
“Remember the town?”
“Of course I do, I live there. Moved to the place just after my divorce,” Daryl said with a nod. “Lucky for her I was headed back home.”
“Where do you call home?” Waylon pressed.
“It’s a place called Mystery. You know it?”
Waylon looked over at Christina, and she gave him the nod that said she was thinking the same thing he was—they had just found the break they needed. They were one step closer to finding Alli, one step closer to going back to a life where the last thing they could have would be each other.
He stared at her blue eyes, taking them in like it was the last time he would really be able to look at her. She’d never be his, no matter how much he hoped for things to be different.
Chapter Seven
At least there was some kind of good news. Finally. Her sister was alive. Or at least Alli had been alive when Daryl had found her. Only the fates knew if she was still alive and kicking, or what was going on in her mind, but for the first time in a week, the sick feeling in Christina’s stomach lessened.
Though when the trucker had told them he’d taken Alli back to Mystery, she wasn’t sure if she was furious or relieved. How could her sister have run away only to come back the same day? She must have been running purely for show, but why? Why had she come back to town? Moreover, had she been watching them at the ranch?
There had been so many whispers about her sister still being a danger to the residents of the ranch and the town, but until now Christina had brushed them aside. Alli had wanted to kill Bianca and Monica because they had stood in the way of her relationship with William, but that didn’t make her a threat to the rest of the population.
But maybe she had her sister all wrong. Maybe Alli was far more dangerous than she had assumed. Maybe Alli really had lost her mind like some people thought. Maybe she really did want to go on some kind of murderous rampage—or perhaps she had some kind of hit list. It was impossible to know until they found her.
Even though it was her sister, the thought of Alli lurking in the shadows as she waited to take her next victim made Christina’s skin crawl. Alli had been having so many issues, most circulating around her tumultuous relationships with men, and most recently William Poe. Maybe that was why she had come back—to watch William. Or was it possible she had something else in mind for the man, something more sinister?
Alli had always been the kind to hold a grudge.
Even though Christina hated the guy, she wasn’t sure she could resist the urge to tell William that his life might be in danger. He had a right to know. She tried to tell herself it was unlikely, but with how strangely Alli had been acting before her disappearance, it was hard to tell what exactly her sister was thinking.
Christina sighed, watching the road as she and Waylon drove back toward the ranch.
“It’ll all be okay.” Waylon rested his hand palm up on the bench seat, waiting for her to slip her hand into his.
She stared at his fingers. With everything going on with Daryl, she had nearly forgotten about their moment, yet as she recalled
the feeling of her hand in his, a warmth rose up from her core. There had been something so right about the feel of their entwined fingers.
In the still of the Montana roadside, she had even been able to feel his heartbeat, fast and erratic, as though he had been as anxious as she was. He was a beautiful specimen of a man. She had never thought of herself as ugly or unworthy, but there was no reason he should be nervous around her, a woman with no game and even less sexual acumen.
“I hope everything will be okay. I hope we can find her,” she said, almost unaware of her words as she moved her trembling hand ever so slowly toward his waiting fingers.
It was funny how when she didn’t have time to think about their actions, she had taken his hand and just lived in the moment. It had been unquestionably right to stand there, holding him. Yet, now that there was a chance to think of all the things that stood in their way, and all the reasons that they shouldn’t be together, she wasn’t sure that letting the wants of her body overrule the needs of her life was the right choice.
If they became anything more than acquaintances, she could only imagine what the rumor mill of Mystery would have to say. She wasn’t a person who was overly consumed by what others thought or her image, but even a simple act like going to the grocery store would be met with whispers and poorly masked jabs at their choice to be together, as he had once been her sister’s husband.
She could just have him for a few days. No one would have to know what went on between them—that was, as long as she could keep her head and her heart separate. She could enjoy his sexy body without the weight of worrying about the future. She’d never done the whole one-night-stand thing, but at her age it didn’t seem like such a taboo. Perhaps she could even be empowered by living in a world where she could have sex just to have sex.
Throughout her life, her heart had only gotten in the way. This time she could just ignore it.
She smiled as she moved the last few inches and slipped her fingers between his.
It already felt good to do a little living.
Waylon squeezed her fingers. The action was small, but it ran through her entire being.
“I...” She wasn’t sure of what to say, or if she should tell him that she wanted this to be a no-strings type of thing.
“Alli is going to be all right. Now that we know she’s alive, I’m sure we will find her,” he said, going down an entirely different line of thinking.
She considered moving the conversation back to what she needed to say, but she stopped herself. It was better just to leave some things unspoken. Maybe that was what Waylon was thinking, too. He had to understand anything that came to be between them had a limited shelf life.
“Wait.” She paused, letting what he’d said sink in. “You thought she was dead?”
Waylon’s fingers tightened for a moment. “Well, she hasn’t been seen in a week and no one has heard from her. You would have thought, with all the police and law enforcement involvement, if she was out there somewhere, someone would have at least reported seeing her by now. The only tips Wyatt has gotten so far are from a few folks who also reported seeing Elvis at the grocery store.”
Alli couldn’t be dead. Oh, the thought had crossed her mind. She just hadn’t given it any room to grow. It just wasn’t possible. Sure, some people would call her refusal to think about the possibility denial, but Alli being dead didn’t even make logical sense—who would have wanted to kill her? Bianca’s family hadn’t taken the news of her death and Alli’s involvement well, especially her mother, Carla, but not even she seemed like the type who would try to murder out of revenge or anger.
No. Alli had to be alive.
“She just dropped her car,” Christina argued. “She didn’t want anyone to find her. Really, it was smart.”
“Sure,” Waylon said with a slight nod. “It was smart. She could travel with truckers, get lost in a sea of faces as she moved around the states. But there are a couple of things wrong with the idea. First, if she was going to drop her car and come back to Mystery, why would she have stopped at the little gas station and purchased enough gas to keep going for hours? And I’m still not sure how and if the note and the bullet we found are related.”
He was right. It didn’t make sense. “Maybe she wrote the note before everything fell apart and someone shot out the tire after she left the car. Who knows?” Christina said, trying to quell the fears that were rising within her about Alli’s well-being.
“You’re right, I don’t understand your sister. And I really don’t understand why she would have run away only to come back to Mystery.”
“Maybe she just couldn’t leave—” She stopped before she said Winnie’s name aloud. “I think we need to get back to Mystery, fast.” Her thoughts raced to Winnie and the possible implications Alli’s return to the town could have on the child’s safety.
“Why?” he asked, pressing down hard on the accelerator without waiting for her answer. “What are you thinking?”
She shook her head. She had to tell him. If she did, maybe he wouldn’t question things too much. And even if he did, she didn’t have to answer him.
“Winnie... Winnie is Alli’s daughter. I think she may be coming back to get her.”
“Wait. She’s Alli’s daughter?” He jerked his foot off the gas pedal and stared over at her. “What? She couldn’t get pregnant.”
The way he said pregnant made it sound like some kind of expletive.
“She could and she did. And if Alli’s come back, it’s probably for Winnie.”
He turned away from her and stared out toward the road as he stepped back on the gas. He sat in silence for a moment, just as she had feared he would. “So, how old is Winnie?”
Christina considered lying for a brief moment, but nothing good would come from it. “She’s two.”
His fingers moved on the wheel as though he were counting backward on them. He shook his head and gave a sigh of relief that made the knot that she didn’t know was in her stomach loosen.
“She’s two...so who’s the father?”
Several of her own brand of expletives rolled through Christina’s mind.
“I... She... You know Alli,” she said, her voice as weak as her resolve. She should tell him. Now. He had asked her point-blank.
“She’d been seeing Poe, right?” Waylon asked. “You think he could be the girl’s father?”
“No. She had Winnie before she started sleeping with him.”
She hated being in this position. She hated this, but it wasn’t just her choice to make to tell him. She and Eloise had agreed it would be better to break the news when everyone was there. If she let it slip now, Waylon would be so angry, and his mother wouldn’t be there to defend herself. She had to protect Eloise by keeping the secret a little bit longer—Eloise was the closest person she had to a mother. It was only because of her that she wasn’t living in some dank apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. She owed her everything—and that included her loyalty.
Yet that didn’t mean she felt good about omitting the truth.
There was no right answer. There was only here and now, and what needed to happen.
“If Alli gets her hands on her daughter, we’ll never see her again. We need to keep Winnie safe. She needs to be protected.”
“If Alli was going to take her, why would she have waited this long?”
He made a good point. “We really haven’t left her alone. Someone is always with her.”
“Even at night?” he asked with a raise of the brow.
Christina looked down at her hands. “Winnie has been sleeping with me ever since her mother disappeared. She’s been having some abandonment issues and hasn’t let us out of her sight.”
“Oh, I see,” he said as though he was suddenly reminded that Winnie was just a child, with childish needs. As
Mystery came into view, he took in a long breath. “Do you really think Winnie’s in danger? If she is, maybe it’s best if I take care of her.”
“You?” She didn’t mean it to come out like it did, with an air of shock and revulsion, but there was no taking it back.
From the look on Waylon’s face, he was surprised and far more annoyed than she had intended for him to be.
“I just mean you have a lot on your plate already. The last thing you need while you’re here is to have to take care of a child. The best thing you can do to keep Winnie out of Alli’s hands is to make sure that you find her before she gets a chance to do something unspeakable.” She paused. “Besides, Winnie is safe at the ranch.”
He glanced over at her. “First, that’s the first place Alli’s going to come looking for the girl when and if she comes to get her. So we can’t leave her there. Second, Alli may not even know I’m here. That gives us a little bit of an advantage when it comes to keeping the girl safe. She won’t look for her with me. And third, I don’t know who you think I am, but I swear I’m not some monster with kids. I like kids. Just because I don’t have any doesn’t mean I’m completely inexperienced. Remember, I was in foster care for a long time. And when I was growing up, my mom and dad regularly took in foster kids that I helped care for.”
“Having your own kids, or the sole care of a child, is totally different. You aren’t ready.” Her voice cracked like a whip, and she wished for a second time that she had better control of her tone.
He sucked in his breath. “You’re right,” he said, giving her an assessing glance. “I know it’s different. And I know by what you are saying, and by the way you are saying it, it’s probably coming from a place of deep hurt and pain—I know about your parents—but you can trust me.”
“We can’t fight about this. We just need to find Winnie. She can go with Wyatt and Gwen,” Christina said, not giving an inch.
She could trust a lot of things—the sun dawned in the east, the wind blew and time would always pass—yet she hadn’t ever trusted a man. Not really. She wasn’t about to start now, not when her niece’s life could possibly be hanging in the balance.
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