by Home Fires
Lifting her cell from the simple bedside stand, she pressed the appropriate digits and waited hopelessly. The phone rang the usual four times. She closed her eyes, ready to leave another message, but someone answered. A tiny voice.
“Hello?”
Linette sucked in a breath, gripping the phone until her fingers ached. “Lila? Is that you?”
“Who’s this?”
Tears sprang into her eyes. Tears from Heartless Hartman. How many people would have sworn it couldn’t happen? “Lila.” It was hard to say the name out loud. “Is your mommy there?”
There was a moment of silence, then, “I can whistle. Do you want to hear?”
She felt her mouth twitch, felt herself swallow. “Yes. I do. I really do.”
The noise she made sounded like a little leak of air leaving a tiny hose.
“Lily bird.” The voice in the background was soft, quiet, coming from another corner of the house. Linette held her breath. “What are you doing, honey? Are you … Oh no …” she said and chuckled.
Linette gripped her cell tighter and prayed for strength as she heard the phone being taken from the child.
“I’m sorry.” Maybe there was still a hint of little girl in the woman’s voice. Or maybe Linette simply wanted to believe that. “Lila just loves the phone. Who is this, please?”
“Heidi?” Linette’s voice almost failed her completely, making the sound scratchy and inhospitable. “This is your mother.”
There was a moment of silence. “I don’t have a mother,” she said. “Haven’t for thirty years.”
“Heidi, please, I’m sorry. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I didn’t want to leave you destitute like my father—”
“You were doing what was best for you,” she said, and hung up.
Linette sat immobile before sliding the phone shut and exhaling carefully. Across the rustic room, a mirror was framed in deep-grained barn wood. The woman in the looking glass appeared old and worn. Exhausted and beaten. But her gaze fell to the leather lead she had dragged from the trash can behind the house.
Stepping out of bed, she raised her chin and shoved the memory of her abandoned daughter behind her. She had become an expert at that. Lifting a padded envelope from the dresser, she addressed it to Detective Leonard Alderman. There were still a few people who owed her favors. In a moment, she had shoved the leather strap inside.
“So if I get the fiber from Colt’s mom, I can learn to spin and knit over the winter.” Emily put a hand to her abdomen. Fear blossomed as pain knifed across her abdomen. Braxton Hicks contractions, she told herself, and breathed through them. “Come spring I’ll be able to make all of Karma’s clothes myself.” Since deciding the baby was a girl, she had begun with names back at the beginning of the alphabet. So far, Cosima was her favorite.
“Alpaca diapers?” Casie asked. She was leaning back in the kitchen chair, one foot tucked beneath her as she nursed a cup of coffee.
“I said clothes,” Emily repeated. “Not diapers.”
“So you’re going to use disposables?” Sophie mused.
Emily turned on Sophie with a start. “Are you flipping? Cloth costs less than a fourth as much as disposable and that’s not even considering the environmental impact. If—” It wasn’t until she saw the sparkle in Sophie’s eyes that she realized she’d been played.
She rolled her eyes. “What about you, Linny? Which do you prefer?”
No one spoke. Emily glanced to her left, but the older woman’s gaze was distant as she stared out the window.
“Linny?”
“What?”
“I was just wondering if you used cloth or disposable diapers when Elizabeth was a baby.”
“Oh, I …” Her face looked pale and drawn. “You know what? I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll go lie down for a while.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Of course. I’ll see you later,” she said and left. The screen door slammed behind her.
“What was that about?” Emily asked.
Sophie shrugged.
Casie scowled. “Do you think she’s not feeling well?”
“She’s got to feel better than I do,” Em said and pressed a hand to her ribs.
“What’s wrong?” Casie immediately sounded worried.
Emily shrugged, conflicted. She’d wanted a family of her own since the day she was old enough to understand what it meant to be alone. True, she hadn’t expected it to be like this exactly, but the thought of having someone to share blood with, to share life with, had always been a need nestled so deep inside her that it could barely be separated from the beat of her heart. But the fear was becoming overwhelming. Fear punctuated by glaring self-doubt and throbbing inadequacies.
“Em?”
“I’m fine,” she said, pressing harder on a rogue heel that seemed to be trying to jam its way between her ribs. I just …” she began, but just then a knock sounded on the door.
“I got it,” Sophie said and hurried into the foyer.
In a moment she was back. They stared at her, waiting for an explanation.
“Oh,” she said, realizing their interest. Glancing up momentarily, she sank back into her chair. “It’s just Colt.”
“Geez, Soph,” Colt said, stepping into the kitchen. “You’re making me blush.” Ignoring Casie, he turned toward Emily. “You got any more of that coffee?”
“Sure,” she said and watched her two favorite people in the world pointedly avoid each other. What the hell was their problem now?
“Well …” Casie carefully settled her coffee mug on the counter. “I better get that gate built,” she said, and brushing past Colt, deftly escaped from the people who loved her most.
Despite its inauspicious beginnings, the day hadn’t been a total bust, Casie thought. She was almost finished with the arena gate she was determined to build herself. Potential guests called from Washington State: a mother and her two daughters who were looking for some girl time. Emily whipped up some sort of green-bean concoction that made life worth living, and there was still time after supper to begin halterbreaking the new baby.
In fact, she and Sophie were doing just that, urging the little one out of the stall behind his momma while Emily made ridiculous suggestions, when Philip Jaegar stepped into the barn.
Casie felt her heart jerk nervously as he strode toward them. He was dressed in a pair of high-priced blue jeans and loafers imported from a more romantic part of the world. “Mr. Jaegar! We weren’t expecting you.” She glanced at his daughter. She looked a little pale. It was a pretty good bet that she hadn’t mentioned her sojourn into felony.
“Daddy.” The girl blinked, knuckles white against the newborn foal’s lead rope. “What are you doing here?”
He laughed. Philip Jaegar was nothing if not charismatic. “Can’t I stop by to see my favorite daughter now and then?”
“Sure. I mean …” She skimmed her gaze to Casie. Her wild-eyed glance did nothing to settle Casie’s stomach. “It’s great to see you.”
“Really?” He reared back a little, faking shock before his handsome face broke into another smile. “You short on cash or is the world just coming to an end?”
“No. No.” She shook her head, glossy hair shining in the overhead lights. “Of course not.”
“Who’s this?” he asked, nodding to the foal as he took an additional step toward the newborn.
“He’s, um …” Sophie glanced at Casie again. “He’s …” She licked her lips.
“He’s the Lazy’s newest addition,” Emily said.
“Yeah?” He stepped closer. Casie tightened her grip on Freedom’s lead rope when she fidgeted a little.
“Is that a new mare then?”
“New?” Casie said, and though she tried to avoid shifting her gaze to Emily, she couldn’t seem to help herself.
And Em didn’t fail her.
“Strangest thing,” the girl said, stepping casually into the breach. “We found her in the sheep
pasture.”
“What?” He reared back on his well-shod feet again. “You mean, she just appeared?”
“Like a phantom horse,” Emily said, gathering steam. “It was surreal. I was the first one up in the morning because I’d set caramel rolls out to rise the night before and I wanted to see how they were doing. If you let them go too long they’ll fall, and with this climate change debacle I was afraid they’d get too warm. Anyway, when I looked out the kitchen window, there she was, running across the pasture. At first I thought I was still dreaming. I mean, I have the strangest dreams. You can’t imagine what a miniature person does to your REM when it’s cavorting on your bladder. Once I dreamed I was skiing naked in the Amazon jungle. Tarzan was there and … Well, never mind. Anyway, when I finally realized I wasn’t dreaming, I woke up Casie and Soph.”
Jaegar blinked as if just awakening himself. “And she was pregnant?”
Emily shrugged. “Everybody’s doing it,” she said and stroked her belly.
He laughed, thoroughly distracted. “So you don’t even know who they belong to?” he asked, glancing at his daughter.
She stared back at him, not speaking. Maybe Soph’s lying ability was as abysmal as Casie’s.
“We’re not sure,” Emily said, yanking up the verbal slack once again. “We think she might have escaped from a kill truck or something.”
“A kill truck?”
“Unwanted horses,” she said. “They haul them up to Canada for slaughter.”
“No,” Jaegar said, scowling. “I mean, I know the practice exists. But who would do something like that to such a beautiful animal?” Although he admired the equine pair, Casie noticed that he was careful not to venture any closer. “It wouldn’t even make sense. Why breed her if they’re just going to slaughter her? At least they would have waited until the colt was born. Right?”
No one spoke. You could cut the tension with a pocketknife. He shifted his gaze from one to the other. Lies seemed to be in short supply.
“Have you called around?” he asked. “It must be one of your neighbors’.”
Emily glanced from one to the other as if waiting for them to pull their verbal weight. They didn’t. She was carrying the proverbial load alone.
“I put flyers up in town, of course. I mean …” She shook her head. “They don’t exactly pop. They’re just made by hand since we don’t have a printer. Living in the dark ages definitely has its disadvantages.”
“And no one has called?” he asked, turning back to his daughter finally.
She managed a shrug and a scowl. It looked like the extent of her abilities.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put an ad in the lost and found for you if you’ll just give me her stats.”
“That’s …” Casie felt her stomach knot up and her knees go weak. “That’s not necessary.”
He shook his head. “It’s no problem. Assurant Realty gives the paper a lot of business. They’ll probably cut me a deal. In fact …” He snapped his cell from the front pocket of his perfectly pressed jeans. “I’ll call them right now. What would you like me to—”
“I stole her!” Sophie breathed the words.
Jaegar’s brows rose, his mouth formed a soundless O, before he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as if thinking very hard.
“What?” he asked.
No one spoke.
He chuckled a little as if waiting for the punch line, then turned expectantly toward Casie.
“I’ve, um …” Her voice was barely audible to her own ears. “I’ve been trying to contact you.”
The barn went silent for two seconds before Emily stepped back into the breach. “I think Sophie is speaking figuratively. I mean—”
“She was being abused,” Sophie said. “Confined to a tie stall for months at a time. No exercise. Not enough water. Raped. Neglected …”
“You stole her!” Jaegar’s voice exploded like a nuclear bomb.
“There was nothing else I could do!” Sophie snapped. All hope of being appeasing had disappeared from her voice. “She was pregnant, exploited for her … for her urine … for God’s sake. It should be a crime. It is a crime if you ask—”
“What the hell is she talking about?” Jaegar turned on Casie like a caged bear.
It took everything Casie had not to back away. “We’ll return her to the rightful owner,” she said. “We just … wanted to make sure she had the foal safely, and now that we—”
“You stole her?”
Sophie shook her head. “Casie didn’t—”
“It’s my fault,” Casie said. “I should have—”
“You’re damn right it’s your fault!” He swept his hand through the air as if cutting any lingering cords between them. “First she ends up in the hospital because of some juvenile delinquent and now—”
“Ty’s not a delinquent.”
“Listen, young lady,” he said, turning on his daughter with a snarl. “I’ve tried my best to give you everything you—” he began, but she laughed out loud. The foal jumped, but she held him steady without glancing back.
“To give me what?” she asked. “Things? Possessions?”
“I’ve given you everything,” he snapped.
“Yeah?” She laughed. “How about your time? How about honesty? How about a mother?”
“A …” He shook his head. His cheeks had reddened a little. “Listen, I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Amber but—”
“Amber?” She spat the name out like poison. “Are you kidding me?”
“She’s a very nice woman.”
“Woman! Woman? She’s barely older than this foal.”
“Well, at least she wouldn’t …” He waved a hand wildly, including the farm and a dozen other things he seemed unable to articulate. “At least she’s not a horse thief.”
Sophie pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “That’s because she was too busy getting liposuction to care about anything as significant as another life.”
“Are you—” He shook his head in disbelief, then turned abruptly on Casie. “What have you done?”
“I …” She had no idea what to say.
“I brought my daughter here thinking you’d be a good influence on her. Thinking, foolishly, I see, that you would make her into a decent human being, not—”
“Is that what you think?” Sophie rasped. “You think I’m not even decent?”
He scowled, ran splayed fingers through his perfectly frosted hair. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She laughed. “No wonder you don’t want me living with you. You think I’m some kind of depraved—”
“I do want you living with me. In fact …” He raised his brows, squared his jaw. “I insist on it.”
She snorted and shook her head, but he persisted.
“Get in the car,” he ordered.
Her eyes got wide. “What?”
“Get in the car! Right now.”
“No!”
He turned to Casie again, eyes snapping with anger. “You tell her.”
“What?”
“Make her come with me.”
She took a stumbling step back, shaking her head. “I can’t do that.”
“Then I’ll call child protection and tell them you’re abusing minors.”
The air had left Casie’s lungs with a hiss of disbelief. The barn went quiet, and into that silence, Sophie dropped her bomb.
“And I’ll call Mother,” she said.
They turned toward her in unison. The anger in his eyes had banked down to dark embers. The flush had disappeared from his cheeks.
“What?” He barely breathed the word.
She raised her chin a little. “I’m sure she’d like to know about the valuables you had stashed away at the time of the divorce.”
He glanced at Casie, face pale. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the twenty thousand dollars in precious metals you didn’t declare during the divorce
proceedings.”
He shook his head and took a step toward her.
“I’ve got Mom on speed dial,” she said. “I bet she’s got her attorney on hers.”
“You’re mistaken,” he said.
“Then it won’t hurt to tell her about them,” she said and pulled the phone from her pocket.
He stared at her a full five seconds, then turned abruptly on his imported heel and left.
CHAPTER 26
“Did I tell you that alpaca fiber is twenty times warmer than wool?” Emily asked. She was just taking a bacon-and-apple quiche from the oven. Comfort wafted from the steaming dish, curling around her worn oven mitts, easing the tension of the trio of women seated around the table. Still, no one spoke. It had been approximately twenty-four hours since the Philip Jaegar episode. Perhaps, during that time, Sophie had come to accept the fact that Freedom would have to be returned to her former owner. Hell, maybe Linette knew, too, but if she realized the truth surrounding the mare’s strange appearance at the Lazy Windmill, she’d kept it to herself. Instead, she was sipping coffee, deeply immersed in her own thoughts.
“It’s also one-hundred-percent natural and extremely sustainable even though—”
The sound of tires on gravel stopped her words. Every eye snapped to the window. Sophie jerked to her feet, nearly tipping her fresh-squeezed apple juice as she hurried to look out.
Casie tried to wrangle in her angst, but it gnawed at her like a bad-tempered hound. Her breathlessness was probably caused by panic. After all, there was no telling who was going to show up on her front porch. Maybe the police with a warrant for her arrest, or someone to inform them that the world was about to come to an end. But maybe, just maybe, it was her last conversation with Colt that kept her most sleepless and jittery of all. “Who is it?”
Linette glanced up. “Perhaps Ty caught a ride this morning. He said he was going to hand graze Angel first thing today.”
“It’s not Ty,” Sophie said.