He was also the right kind of man. Not only did she admire his character, she liked him. If her situation were different, she’d seek out his company.
“What’s a nice guy like you doing living here in Indigo Springs all by yourself?” She blurted out the question uppermost in her mind.
He cocked his head, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Do you mean why am I single?”
“Never mind.” She tried to backtrack. “It’s none of my business.”
“I moved to Indigo Springs after my fiancée left me,” he said, staring at the hands in his lap instead of her. “We’d been dating for almost two years, living together for about half that time. One day I came home from work and all her things were gone.”
Jill tried to summon the willpower to dissuade him from confiding in her further and failed. There was too much about him she still wanted to know. “Didn’t you see it coming?”
“Nope.” His tone was self-deprecating. “She’s an interior designer. She’d talked about how cool it would be to work in New York City. I could never see myself living in a big city and told her so. I thought that was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“Not for her. She lives in Manhattan with her new husband. He’s an actor who does off-Broadway plays. They got married six months ago.”
“I sure am sorry,” Jill said.
“I’m not.” He shrugged, his half smile not reaching his eyes. “Well, not anymore. It hit me pretty hard at first. It’s probably even the reason I accepted the job in Indigo Springs. I can finally see it was for the best.”
“How so?”
“I found out she’d been planning to leave me for a month, yet she never let on. If she could keep that big of a secret from me, she wasn’t the person I thought she was.”
Jill understood exactly what he meant. For a relationship to work, the two people involved needed to be open and honest with each other. The way she’d tried to be with her boyfriend in Atlanta before he’d used her confidences to betray her.
The way she’d learned she could never be with anyone as long as she was on the run with her brother.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Dan said. “Sorry.”
“Not at all.” Another lie.
“I’m not sure why I told you all that.” He let out a breath and shook his head. “Maybe so you’d understand why I thought I wasn’t ready to date anyone.”
Yet he was now.
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t said so. Jill heard him loud and clear. Something had changed in the week and a half since the cookout, something that made him amenable to the idea of dating again.
Of dating her.
“Chris and I really should be going.” She scrambled to her feet so fast the blood rushed to her head. She fought the light-headedness and moved toward her brother, who was still crouched beside the goat. “Chris! Time to go.”
“Just a couple more minutes,” Chris called back.
“You heard me,” she said more sharply than she’d intended. “We need to go. Now.”
“Was it something I said?” Dan’s voice trailed her.
She turned to answer and found him standing just inches from her, tall and dark but not at all imposing. Because she wanted to move forward, she took a giant step backward.
How could she explain that keeping her distance was for his good as well as hers? Even if she could risk getting close to someone, it couldn’t be Dan. Not when she was even more secretive than his ex-fiancée.
“Oh, no. Not at all.” She smiled to punctuate her denial. “It’s just getting late, is all.”
“It’s nine o’clock,” he pointed out.
“Chris goes to sleep at nine-thirty.”
“Not in the summer.” Chris trudged up to them. “That’s only when we’re having school.” To Dan, he said, “We start at seven-thirty.”
“I thought classes at Indigo Springs Elementary started later than that,” Dan said.
“I don’t go to school there,” Chris said. “I do school with Jill.”
Yet another nugget of information Jill would rather Chris had kept to himself. “I homeschool him.”
Before Dan could even think about quizzing her over why a woman working multiple jobs didn’t send her brother to public school, she said, “We owe you a great big thank-you for helping us with Tinkerbell. Isn’t that right, Chris?”
“Yeah.” He cast another longing look at Tinkerbell. “Thank you, Dan.”
“Any time.” Dan spoke directly to her brother. “I’m going to reset Tinkerbell’s leg tomorrow. If you like, you can stop by the office and see her.”
“That’d be great!” Chris said, his mood instantly improved.
Her brother repeated that sentiment so many times on the brief walk back home that Jill accepted the inevitable. She might be able to avoid Dan, but she couldn’t keep her brother away from him.
“Do you think Dan will really let me help tomorrow?” Chris asked, chattering the way he often did when it was only the two of them. “He didn’t seem mad when I dropped the flashlight.”
“Of course he wasn’t mad.” Jill tamped down a surge of dismay that her brother was still wrestling with insecurities. “Everybody makes mistakes, honey. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”
“I’d try real hard not to do anything else wrong,” he said.
“Mistakes are normal,” she repeated. “Nobody tries to make one, but we all do.”
“Then you think he’ll let me help?” Chris actually skipped a few steps, something he hadn’t done even when she’d driven forty miles last weekend to a go-kart track. “That would be so cool.”
“You like Dan, don’t you?” she asked while she thought about how to introduce the next subject without dampening her brother’s excitement.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“I like him, too.” She took a deep breath, then glanced around even though the street was quiet and they were the only two people on the sidewalk. “But we need to be even more careful around the people we like. It’s important nobody knows we’re from Atlanta.”
Chris gasped and covered his mouth with his hand. “I said we were from Georgia! I’m sorry, Jill. I’m so stupid. I forgot.”
“You are not stupid.” She put her arm around him in a half hug. “You’re a smart, brave boy. Don’t you ever forget that.”
They walked a few more steps before he asked in a small, scared voice, “Are the police going to come get me and take me back?”
“No, of course not.” Her chest ached at his childish conclusion, which wasn’t as far-fetched as it should have been. “The police don’t have reason to suspect anything. It’s our job to keep it that way.”
“How?” he asked in a voice so quiet she hardly heard him.
“By being careful,” she said. “Remember what you’re supposed to say if anyone asks why you’re living with me?”
“I’m supposed to say it’s the best place for me.”
The answer was vague enough to dissuade further questions. “That’s right. But it’s best not to say anything at all about Georgia. Or South Carolina.”
Asking him not to talk about homeschooling would be piling it on too thick. She hadn’t enrolled Chris in public school in case the P.I. had a way of searching enrollment.
“Can you do that, Chris?” she asked.
He nodded silently, the enthusiasm he’d been brimming with a moment ago gone, his steps slower.
She hated having to remind her brother to be careful, even more than she regretted being the antithesis of the kind of woman Dan should date.
It couldn’t be helped, however. Their father was looking for Chris, and she would continue to do her damnedest to make sure he didn’t find him.
MARK JACOBI KEPT the edger in his hands steady on Wednesday morning. He ignored the sweat that trickled down his back and gathered around his work goggles as well as the dull pain in his heart that never completely went away.
He concentrated instead on trimming the grass around the circular driveway that was constructed from concrete pavers set in a fussy pattern. The pretentious driveway was one of the many reasons he shouldn’t have bought the property.
It led to a sprawling modern house with an elaborate entranceway, oversize bay windows and a backyard pool that came complete with a miniature waterfall. Everything about the house was too big, too ornate and too far away from his old neighborhood.
On the plus side, and this was a very big plus, living here made Arianne happy.
He was facing the general direction of the house, so he saw the garage door slide open, revealing his three-year-old Lexus and the new model Mercedes that Arianne drove.
She came into view, and for an instant he couldn’t breathe. She was fifteen years younger than his fifty-four, but could have easily passed for thirty. She wore a pale-pink-and-white sleeveless dress that showed off her golden tan and her long legs, made to look longer still by strappy high-heeled sandals. The honey highlights in her shoulder-length brown hair caught the sun as she came toward him.
Damn, his wife was a beautiful woman.
Her makeup, not that she needed any, was perfect. Pink lipstick that made her lips glisten and eye makeup that caused eyes she said were too small to appear larger.
She covered her ears, prompting him to stop staring and switch off the motor. The neighborhood went abruptly silent.
“Well, that’s better.” She tilted her head, her brows coming together as she surveyed him. He felt a bead of sweat slide down his face. “Are you sure about not hiring a lawn service? I hate that you’re spending a vacation day on yard work.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” he joked. The truth of the matter was that even with his six-figure salary they needed to save money somewhere with the rate of Arianne’s spending. Besides, he enjoyed working in the yard. Sometimes it even helped take his mind off Jill and Chris. “Speaking of which, you look fantastic. Where are you headed?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” She patted her already perfect hair into place. “There’s a charity luncheon for the women’s shelter at the Marriott.”
She probably had told him, but Arianne was always heading off to one function or another. It was hard to keep all of them straight.
“I’m going to stick around here,” Mark said, then lowered his voice even though there was no one else within sight. “That private investigator’s supposed to call.”
“He just did,” Arianne said. “That’s one of the things I came out here to tell you. You can call him back any time.”
Mark had to fight not to rush for the house, so eager was he for the man he’d hired to help him put things right again. “Why didn’t you get him to hold?”
“He doesn’t have any news.” Arianne’s voice was equally soft, and he felt his chest deflate into what was now a familiar ache. There’d been no breaks in the case since they’d narrowly missed intercepting Jill and Chris in South Carolina. “Although maybe that’s for the best.”
“The best?” Mark could barely believe he’d heard her correctly. “How could you say that?”
“Oh, that came out all wrong.” She bit her lower lip with her pretty, straight teeth. “All I meant is that Jill’s better with Chris than I’ll ever be. You know what a hard time he had warming up to me and how he tried his best to break us up.”
“He’s my son, Arianne,” Mark said firmly. “He belongs with me.”
“I know he does.” She touched her chest and sighed softly. “Never mind what I said. Of course you feel that way. It was awful of Jill to run off with him like that. I still don’t know what she was thinking.”
Mark remembered his disbelief when Ray Williams, the guy Jill had been dating, phoned to say she was planning to pick up Chris from summer camp and leave town. The nightmare hadn’t become real until a camp counselor confirmed his daughter had already come and gone.
“She was thinking she was protecting her brother.” No matter the trouble Jill had caused him, Mark still had a hard time faulting her.
“Chris doesn’t need protecting,” Arianne said, not for the first time.
“I know that, and you know that.” Mark didn’t have to add that the social worker who’d investigated the case knew it, too. “Chris can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”
“Jill must know he has a history of lying,” Arianne said, covering ground they’d gone over before.
Chris was a good kid, but he’d been crying wolf since his mother’s death. Mark had finally taken his son to a child psychologist, who explained that Chris was trying to get attention.
Mark loved his son and had tried his best to provide the attention he needed, but he was limited by the long hours he worked as a tax attorney.
“Jill and her brother have always been very close,” Mark said. “She has a blind spot where he’s concerned.”
“She has one with me, too,” Arianne said. “I wish she’d gotten to know me better so she could see how ridiculous those accusations are.”
“When all this is over,” Mark said, “we’ll make sure she gets that opportunity.”
Arianne gave him a tight smile. Jill and Chris had already been gone for almost a year. After that much time had passed, Arianne didn’t think they could all become one big happy family. Mark, however, believed in miracles.
“I need to go,” Arianne said, “but I’ll be home in plenty of time to get ready for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“We have tickets to the symphony. Remember?”
With everything else that had been going on, he hadn’t. He started to say he wasn’t in the mood, but he could tell how much she was looking forward to it.
“I’ll be ready,” he said.
“I’ll see you later, then.” She leaned forward to kiss him, careful not to sully her expensive clothes against his sweat.
Her lips were warm and soft.
She turned away, hurrying toward the Mercedes on her high heels, her backside swaying temptingly.
The age difference had stopped him from proposing. So had the fact that he was a single father who’d already been divorced once and widowed once. But he hadn’t been able to refuse when she’d asked him to marry her, especially because she knew he and Chris were a package deal. That had been two years ago and he’d felt like the luckiest man alive.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised when his luck had run out, yet he was.
It still seemed incredible that Jill could possibly believe Arianne had regularly locked Chris in a closet and threatened to kill him if he told anyone about it.
CHAPTER FIVE
“THAT WAS WAY COOL. Did you see me paddling the rapids? Whoosh! I was awesome! Didn’t you think I was awesome?”
A young boy about the same age as Chris ambushed Jill early on Wednesday afternoon when she exited the supply room at the warehouse-type building that housed Indigo River Rafters. The boy had been the most enthusiastic member of the group of white-water rafters Jill had led down the river.
Although the trip had ended thirty minutes before and most of the adventurers were already gone, the boy’s parents were at the counter paying for some souvenir T-shirts.
“I most certainly did think you were awesome,” Jill said. “You beat those rapids to a pulp!”
“They didn’t stand a chance,” he agreed, his head bobbing.
“Not a one,” she said.
She wasn’t about to diminish his pride by telling him summer was the tamest time of year for riding the rapids, aside from the special dam-release weekends when the water level was deliberately raised to give a boost to the fishing and rafting industries.
She’d explained as much to Chris, however, and he still insisted white water rafting was too scary. Her latent anger at her father’s new wife briefly bubbled to the surface. What Arianne had done to her brother’s psyche was criminal.
“Next time I want to go on one of those little boats like you had.” The boy was r
eferring to the single-person kayak Jill and the other guides used. “My parents were slowing me down.”
“Liam. We’re leaving!” the boy’s father called from across the shop.
“Bye!” Liam said, then dashed across the store, his arms extended from his sides, as though he were flying.
“Energetic little guy, isn’t he?” Annie Whitmore came around the counter and joined her, her blond hair stuffed into the twin of the Indigo River Rafters hat that Jill wore. “Probably runs his parents ragged. I wouldn’t have the stamina to keep up with him.”
Jill squashed the urge to tell Annie she wished Chris had half the boy’s energy. He had once upon a time, even though he’d never been the boisterous type. She couldn’t say anything of the sort, of course. It would bring up too many questions she couldn’t answer.
“Sure, you would,” Jill said. “You keep up with your daughter.”
“Lindsey is a fifteen-year-old girl who loves to listen to her iPod and text her friends. She only expends unusual amounts of energy at the mall.” Annie’s voice was indulgent, the same way it was whenever she talked about her daughter.
“Speaking of Lindsey,” Annie continued, “she was in here earlier and pointed out something mighty interesting.”
“What’s that?” Jill asked.
Annie marched over to the bulletin board near the exit and pointed to the notice Jill had posted that morning. “This. You can’t leave until you tell me what it’s about.”
“And here I thought that posting was self-explanatory,” Jill said.
“‘Found—Caramel-colored female goat. Approximately one year old and two feet tall.’” Annie read the notice, her hands balanced on her slim hips. “Girl, that only brings up more questions.”
“Only because you left out the important part.” Jill pointed with her index finger to the word her friend had skipped over. “It’s a pygmy goat.”
“That clears it right up,” Annie said. “I find a freakishly small goat myself every so often.”
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