by Robyn Carr
Those steely eyes softened. “Sophie B. Jones. How’ve you been?”
“Just terrific. This is Sinclair. Sinclair Riker.” The bartender nodded and Sin nodded back. “Where’s Oggie?” All during the short drive up there, she had babbled away about the wonderful Oggie Jones, patriarch of the Jones Gang, the sweetest, wisest, most delightfully eccentric old man in the whole world.
Jared twitched a thumb in the direction of a green curtain strung along the back wall. “The old man’s playing poker. Not to be disturbed—for a while, anyway. Why don’t you two grab a couple of stools and have a beer on the house?”
Sophie considered, then shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll show Sinclair around town now and then take him swimming. We’ll come back later.” Just then a tall, pretty woman with strawberry-blond hair emerged through the door behind the bar. “Eden!” Sophie smiled wide in greeting.
“Hello, Sophie B. It’s good to see you.”
Sophie made the introductions. Eden was Jared’s wife and helped him run the bar and the restaurant next door. She shook hands with Sin, and then asked, “So, can you two hang around for dinner?”
Sophie looked at Sin. He gave her a fine-with-me shrug.
“Around seven? We’ll throw some steaks on the grill and open a bottle of wine.”
“We’d love it.”
“I’ll invite the old man, too,” Jared said. “As soon as he gets through cheating at poker.”
“That would be terrific.”
“Do you remember how to get to our place?”
Sophie said she did, then she grabbed Sin’s hand again and dragged him out into the sunlight.
They trooped up and down Main Street. They went in Fletcher Gold Sales, where Sophie introduced him to Sam Fletcher, who was married to the remarkable Oggie’s only daughter, Delilah. They stopped at Wish-book, the gift and sundries shop, which was run by Evie Jones Riggins, Oggie’s niece. They even peeked in at the counter of the garage and exchanged greetings with Patrick Jones, Oggie’s third son—the others being Jack Roper, the sheriff’s deputy, who was illegitimate, but still very much a part of the family, Jared, the bartender, and Brendan, who drove a big rig for a living. Each of them was married, and most of them had children.
Sophie rattled off names and relationships as if she’d known every one of them for her whole life. Sin smiled and shook people’s hands and tried to keep the names straight. He also wondered why the hell he was enjoying himself so much, wandering around this tiny town, meeting strangers he was never likely to see again.
But then all he had to do was glance at the woman beside him and it all came clear. Her pleasure was infectious. She adored these people and he couldn’t help liking them, too.
They used the rest rooms at the garage to change into their swimsuits. Then they got back in his rental car. She directed him down a street called Bullfinch Lane, across a bridge to the other side of the river.
“This is Sweetbriar Park. Just pull in there.”
He parked the car and then she led him along a path that finally opened up to a sandy beach at the river’s edge. There, in the shade of the oaks that grew near the sand, two women sat in fold-up lawn chairs. Out in the bright sunlight, a number of children of varying ages made castles of sand and splashed in the shallows. Across the gleaming water, several older kids sunned themselves on the rocks.
Sin felt a sharp stab of disappointment. He’d imagined they might actually manage a little time alone.
No such luck. Right away, one of the women looked their way and waved. “Sophie B.! Hello!”
Sophie dragged him over and introduced him to Regina Jones, Patrick’s wife, and also to Amy Jones, who was married to Brendan, the truck driver. The older kids on the other side of the river dived in and swam across, to be introduced, as well.
Finally, after he’d met Regina’s stepdaughters and their teenage girlfriends, admired several life-jacketed toddlers and said hello to two boys named Pete and Mark, who were also related to Joneses in some way he didn’t quite catch, he was allowed to spread his towel in the warm sand.
Sophie yanked off the big beach shirt she’d worn over her cute blue suit and tossed it to the ground. “Last one in’s a claim jumper!” She raced for the water’s edge and dived in so quickly, he’d lost the game before he even realized he was playing it.
He took off and hit the water fast. Damn, he’d forgotten how cold the Yuba could be! She was halfway to the big rocks on the opposite bank, swimming in strong, even strokes across the current, before he caught up with her. He seized her ankle and gave it a tug.
She went under. Five seconds later, she came up sputtering. “No fair!” She tried to splash him.
He caught her arm and reeled her in closer—though not as close as he’d have liked to. After all, there were those two Jones women and all those little Joneses sitting back there in the sand.
“Sinclair!” She faked outrage, wriggling and squirming—and laughing in spite of herself.
He’d lost hold of her ankle, but he kept a firm grip on her arm. “So I’m a claim jumper, am I?”
She batted her water-soaked eyelashes. “If the shoe fits—”
“You cheated.”
“No, you just weren’t fast enough.”
“You have to say ‘go,’ or it doesn’t count.”
She stuck out her tongue at him as the current tugged at them, trying to pull them along.
“That does it.” He put his other hand on her head and pushed. She went under—and reached out and pulled him down along with her. They wrestled in the cold water, air bubbles bouncing all around them, her long hair snaking and swirling, caressing his shoulder, floating against his cheek.
Finally they both shot to the surface, gulping in air—and laughing. His hand held her waist, hers was pressed against his heart.
“Oh, Sinclair…” Her eyes went tender.
Like a bright light popping on in a dark room, the knowledge came to him: he was happy. Happy. Splashing in the icy water of the Yuba with Sophie, acting like a silly kid, while all those Joneses watched from the bank.
He moved forward, treading water, holding them both in place though the current kept trying to carry them down. “Sophie.” Their lips met, cold and wet on the surface, so warm underneath. He pulled back.
She said, “I can’t help it. I have to say it—I love you, Sinclair.”
He kept treading water, thinking of all the lies he’d told, of the kind of man she thought he was and the man he really was. Of how this could never last. The truth would find them soon.
“Sophie, I—”
And then Regina Jones started screaming.
“Anthea, my God! Anthea!”
Sin turned just in time to see the orange life jacket and the small dark head of one of the toddlers, bouncing along toward the rapids a hundred yards downstream.
Chapter 8
Sin and Sophie struck out as one, swimming fast down the center of the stream. Sin was vaguely aware of the others on the bank, but they didn’t have the chance he and Sophie did, with the strong power of the current beneath them, pushing them along. The others in the shallows would have to swim out to get the river’s aid.
Within twenty feet, they left the depths behind. The river flattened out and the streambed came up to meet them. They ran with their feet and swam with their hands until the water level dropped so low there was nothing they could do but stumble along, falling on the slippery rocks beneath their feet, gaining an unstable purchase and then surging forward once more.
Ahead of them, the life jacket bobbed, the little head going facedown, popping upright again, then floating back, so the tiny nose pointed at the blue sky above. Sin could hear the crying now—and the choking each time the small head went down and came up again.
Sin shoved at the rocks with his legs, pushing himself onward, leaving Sophie behind.
Luck shined on him in the form of two boulders sticking out above the surface with several dead branches wedged betw
een them. The orange life jacket got stuck in the eddy created by the rocks and the debris. For several blessed seconds, the child swirled in a circle, the life jacket almost catching on a tree branch, the child sputtering and choking, gone past crying now.
But it couldn’t last. Too soon, the relentless current had its way. The little body spun on out of the eddy and went tumbling downstream once more.
By then, though, Sin had come within a few feet. He shoved again with his legs, lunging forward. By some miracle, he caught a strap that trailed off the back of the life jacket. He gave a yank and then he had the child around the waist.
He got the little body onto his shoulder just as he lost his footing—his legs went straight out in front of him and he rolled along on his rear end for several more yards, his feet scrambling for purchase again as he struggled to keep his burden above the water.
And then he felt Sophie’s hand, grabbing his swim trunks from behind. He stopped rushing downstream and immediately wedged his feet in behind a couple of rocks to hold him there. He looked back. She had herself braced firmly against the rocks, as well.
“Give me Anthea,” she instructed. “You’re stronger than me. You can pull us all back to the bank.”
He handed the child over. Sophie hoisted her to one shoulder and then held out her hand. They didn’t get three steps before the others met them in the middle of the stream with the water rushing fast all around. They made a chain and passed the little girl, who’d started choking and coughing again, back to the safety of her mother’s arms.
On the beach, one of Regina’s stepdaughters—the younger one, Marnie—was crying. “I turned around. It was just for a minute. And then she was gone. Oh, Anthy…” She spoke to the toddler, who sat on her mother’s shoulder by then, looking soggy but otherwise all right, sucking furiously on her thumb. “Anthy, I’m so sorry.…”
In answer, Anthea pulled her thumb from her mouth and offered it to Marnie.
“No, thanks,” Marnie said, smiling through her tears—and then she was reaching out for her stepmother, “Gina, I know I said I’d watch her. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.…”
Somehow Regina managed to embrace her stepdaughter with one arm while she held the smaller child cradled in the other. “It’s all right,” Regina soothed the older girl. “She’s safe. She’s all right.” She looked up, caught Sin’s eye. “Thanks to you.”
A grateful chorus of agreement went up, from all those other Joneses. Sophie still held his hand. She gave it a squeeze. He glanced into her shining eyes—and for one, brief, impossible moment, he saw the man she thought he was reflected there.
That night, Regina and Patrick and their daughters joined them for steaks at Jared and Eden’s house. The story of Anthea’s rescue was recounted more than once—by Marnie first, and then by Regina when old Oggie Jones arrived and demanded to hear it, too.
Later, after dinner, feeling a little uncomfortable with all the praise and gratitude the Joneses kept showering on him, Sin wandered outside alone. He found a place at the railing of Jared’s deck and stood staring out at the pines, thinking that soon he’d go in and find Sophie so they could be on their way.
“I guess you showed up in town just when we needed you.” The rough voice of Oggie Jones came from beside him. Odd. The old man walked with a cane that announced his appearance wherever he went—yet Sin hadn’t heard him approach.
Sin turned his head and met the old man’s strange small eyes. “It was mostly luck.”
“Luck don’t mean squat if a man doesn’t act fast.” Those too-wise eyes seemed to bore right down into him. “You acted fast. And this family thanks you for it.”
“Anyone else would have done the same thing.”
“But could anyone else have done the same thing?”
What was that supposed to mean? Sin didn’t think he needed to know. “It worked out all right.” He felt ready and willing to drop the subject for good. “That’s what matters.”
The old man let out a low, amused cackle of a laugh. “Good point. And how about for you?”
“What?”
“How’s it working out for you?”
Sin faced him squarely. “Are you getting at something here?”
“What do you think, Mr. Sinclair Riker?”
Sin noted the emphasis on the first half of his name and felt the skin along his shoulder blades tighten. No one here knew him as Sin.
He recalled that gray sedan. Someone had decided to have him followed. Could this strange character who thought of himself as Sophie’s uncle be that someone? Coldly he suggested, “I think if there’s something you want to say to me, you had better say it outright.”
The old man pondered that suggestion, then grunted. “Son, you don’t know me at all.” He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and began peeling the cellophane wrapper off. Sin watched those gnarled hands rumple the wrapper and tuck it away in another pocket. “Sophie B. tells me that you are the Sinclair Riker whose family once owned the ranch where she lives now.”
“That’s right.”
Oggie bit the end off the cigar and spat it over his shoulder, beyond the deck. “And how long you stayin’ in our beautiful county?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where you livin’ now, anyway?”
“Los Angeles.”
“And you’re here to buy property, Sophie B. says. Is that so?”
“Possibly.”
The old man cackled some more. Out in the trees, an owl hooted. Sin looked toward the sound—and away from whatever those wise eyes thought they knew. He heard the hiss of a match striking, saw the quick flare of light in his side vision. And then the smell of smoke wafted his way.
The rough voice spoke again. “When a man falls in love, it changes everything. Changes him. You know what I mean?”
Sin faced Sophie’s “uncle” once more, but said nothing. Wherever the old man was headed with this gambit, Sin felt certain he could get there all on his own.
Oggie studied the burning end of his cigar. “Let me tell you a little story.”
“If I said no, would it matter?”
“Hell, no.” He flicked his ash. “You listenin’?”
Sin shrugged.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Oggie leaned against the railing, sucked in smoke and blew it out. “I come here, to North Magdalene, when I was thirty-five, a footloose gamblin’ man. I saw my wife-to-be the first day I walked into town. I knew she would be mine the minute I laid eyes on her. What I didn’t realize until later was that I would be hers, as well.
“Beautiful Bathsheba…” Oggie gestured grandly. The red end of the cigar made bright trails through the darkness. “…the empress of my heart.” He shook his head. “She’s been gone for nigh on thirty years now. But in here—” He tapped his chest with the heel of his hand. “In here, she lives on. Because of her, I am the man you see before you now. Because of her, I put down roots. And those roots go deep, deep as if I had been born in these parts. Because of her, I got…commitments.” He said the word with reverence. Then he turned from the night to look at Sin again. “And because of her, I just might go on forever—meddlin’ where people wish to hell I’d get lost.” He let out another of those low cackles, and leaned in closer to Sin. “That is what you’re thinkin’, ain’t it? That you wish to hell I’d mind my own business.”
Sin couldn’t help smiling. “You don’t strike me as a man likely to be affected by what other people think.”
The old man thought that was funny. He cackled again, louder this time.
Sin added, “And love may have changed you. But I am not you.”
The old man thought that was really funny. He threw back his head and brayed at the moon.
Watching him, Sin felt the tension that had coiled inside him fade away to nothing at all. Oggie Jones was just a sentimental old character who liked to hear himself talk. He knew no more about Sin than anyone else did. And the odds were very small that he’d hired som
e P.I. to follow Sin around.
And even if he had, what could he have found out? The name of Sin’s hotel, the health club he visited—and that he’d been spending his nights in the slim, soft arms of Sophie B. Jones.
The hotel and the health club meant nothing. And anyone who saw him with Sophie could have figured out the rest.
The old man puffed on his cigar awhile longer. The smoke trailed toward the moon. At last, he said, “It’s after ten. I’ll bet you want to get goin’.”
“Yes. We should probably be on our way.”
“Well, come on, then. Let’s go inside and find that woman of yours.”
“Did you like my adopted family?” Sophie asked as they drove the twisting road back to the Mountain Star.
“Yes,” he said honestly. “I liked them.”
“I’m glad.” She leaned across the console and rested her head on his shoulder. “What did you think of Oggie?”
He recalled those wise eyes, that cackling laugh. “He’s one of a kind.”
She lifted her head, brushed a hand against his shoulder. “I just love him.”
“I gathered.”
She sighed. “I know he rubs some people the wrong way. But I think he really cares. I think he would do anything for the people he loves.”
Sin felt for her hand, brought it to his lips, then had to let go to negotiate the next sharp turn. “I think you’re right.”
“You do?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes front to watch the road. She settled her head on his shoulder again.
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
By the time he pulled into the drive that led up to the Mountain Star, she had dropped off to sleep. She didn’t stir as he parked the car, or when he turned the key and the engine went quiet.
“Sophie…” he whispered.
She moved a little, made a small, sleepy sound of protest, then snuggled against his shoulder as if it were her pillow for the night.
“Sophie, we’re here.”
She said something unintelligible, and finally lifted her head. “I went to sleep.”
“No kidding.”
She yawned and stretched.