The girl jerked her head in Cade’s direction. “I heard what he said about those pictures and taking me back. So I had to leave Mia’s.” Tears bubbled up in her eyes again. “Not for me, for all of you.” She looked at all the women. “I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
As Aggie returned to the dining area, Rachel said, “I mean, you’re the only ones who ever acted like you really love me, and all I did was cause you problems.”
Aggie crossed to her. “You didn’t cause us problems.”
“Yes, I did. You and Leanne? You left your husbands. And Mia might get arrested, because . . .” she sniffed then cried harder. “Because you stuck out your necks for me.”
Leanne blinked back tears of her own as she folded the girl into her arms.
“That’s what you do for people you care about, honey,” Mia said. “Stick out your neck to help them.” She met Cade’s warm gaze and held it.
“I made that up about having a real mom and dad,” Rachel sobbed. “I don’t even remember them. I’m sorry I lied.”
Leanne hugged her tighter. “It’s okay, Rachel. We all avoid the truth sometimes.” She looked across at Eddie. “We all make mistakes.”
Rachel held fast to Leanne and murmured, “I’m afraid.”
“It’ll be okay.” Leanne stepped back, lifted Rachel’s chin. “Just do what Cade says. He’ll take care of you.” She pushed Rachel’s hair back from her face. “Why don’t you tell him what you told us?”
Over a breakfast of sweet rolls, milk, and coffee, Rachel told Cade about Pam Underhill’s abuse, then Leanne relayed what the attorney had said. Taking notes, Cade questioned the girl about her life with the Underhills and took down the names of her witnesses.
While they talked, Mia watched Leanne leave them and lead Eddie across the room to another table. They pulled out two chairs and sat facing one another, their knees touching. As Leanne started to talk, Mia held her breath. Soon, Eddie spoke quietly, too. After several minutes of discussion, he pulled Leanne onto his lap. Over his shoulder, she blinked shining eyes at Mia.
When Mia turned away, she saw that Aggie and Roy had moved to another nearby table. She overheard their conversation.
“Aggie girl, I’m . . .” Roy cleared his throat.
“You’re what, Roy?” Aggie’s voice didn’t waver.
He coughed. “I’m . . .”
Aggie crossed her arms. “Yes?”
“Damn it, woman.” Roy’s face flamed. “I’m sorry. There. I said it.”
“You sure did, sugar.” Leaning across the table, Aggie kissed her husband’s ruddy, beard-stubbled cheek. “Now maybe it won’t be as hard for you to spit out the other six or so apologies you need to make around town so that I can come home.”
Puffing up, Roy rumbled, “You mean to tell me—”
“Starting with Buck Miller,” Aggie interrupted, lifting her chin. “And ending with poor Wayne Muncy over at the church.”
When the clock struck six, Cade pushed away from the table, stood and cleared his throat. “It’s time to go, Rachel.”
Rachel stood and faced the women. “Thank you.” Tears streamed down her face again. “If you hadn’t found me, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me.”
Mia smiled. “You did as much for us as we did for you, honey.” She glanced at the other two women. “More, really.”
Aggie laughed through her tears. “Why, sugar, just look at me!” She swept a hand down her front. “Thanks to you, I’m a whole new woman!”
Rachel hugged each of them and, when she came to Leanne, she didn’t let go. “I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered.
Leanne pressed her lips together tightly, fighting her emotions in an obvious effort to stay strong for Rachel’s sake. “You won’t go through this alone, Rachel. I’ll come see you just as soon as they’ll let me. I promise.” She looked toward Eddie. Their eyes met. He nodded and smiled. “Eddie and I will both come.”
At Cade’s gentle urging, Leanne and Rachel stepped apart. Leanne held the girl’s gaze. “I love you,” she said clearly, as if she wanted to make certain Rachel had no doubts about what she’d heard.
Every ounce of fear drained from the girl’s face. She smiled then said in a choked voice, “I love you, too.”
Holding Rachel by the arm, Cade led her to the door then paused to look back at Mia. His eyes told her everything she needed to know.
For the first time in a long while, Mia felt certain that everything would turn out fine. Rachel would be okay. So would Leanne and Aggie.
And so would she.
Chapter 19
Rachel slept during most of the forty-five minute drive to Amarillo, giving Cade plenty of time to think. Though it was a Saturday morning, he had managed to reach Lynn Fellowes, Rachel’s caseworker, by cell phone, and she had agreed to meet him at her office.
He decided the best approach to take with the woman was the one he had always used in the past: honesty. If the caseworker were a reasonable person, Rachel’s story about her life with the Underhills would urge her to follow up the girl’s claims by tracking down Lacy and Paula Oberman to get their testimony.
Cade would vouch for Mia’s character, as well as for Aggie’s and Leanne’s. He would urge Miss Fellowes to speak with them, too, before deciding how to proceed. He hoped that, after meeting them and hearing what they had to say, the woman would realize they’d had good intentions, that they didn’t deserve any legal reprimand, and that Rachel deserved another chance.
Just before they reached the city limits, Rachel stirred. Cade waited until she seemed fully awake then said, “Mia believes in you, Rachel. So I will, too.” He looked from her to the road and cleared his throat. “But I’m not going to lie to Miss Fellowes, and I don’t want you to, either. I’d like to see you make a fresh start. If you tell the truth, I’ll do whatever I can to help you stay out of a placement facility.”
“Thanks,” she said, sitting straighter, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “I won’t lie to her.”
“Good. Because if you mess up this chance, you won’t get any more help from me. From here on out, you’re going to have to show me and everyone else that you’re ready to change your ways.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I will.”
“You’ll do whatever your caseworker says?”
“Yes, but—”
“No ‘buts.’ No backtalk, either. No attempts to run away again. And if they do place you with another family, no skipping school or drinking or doing drugs.”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “I’d never take drugs.”
“Good girl. And no more stealing. Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll be good.” When he eyed her long enough to make her squirm, she added, “I mean it. Really.”
“Let’s hope so. I’m holding you to it. Just toe the line and be honest and everything will eventually work out for the best.” He focused on the road.
After a long stretch of silence, Rachel asked, “You think they might let me live with Leanne? She needs me. She and Eddie don’t have any kids.”
“I’m not sure that’s an option.” When her lower lip quivered slightly, Cade added, “We’ll just have to see.”
Lynn Fellowes already waited for them when they arrived at her office. Cade summed her up with a glance. Late thirties. No-nonsense mousy-brown hair, pulled straight back from her face. Stern eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Black pantsuit and sensible, low-heeled shoes. This woman was no pushover. He and Rachel might have some tough convincing to do.
Cade told her where Rachel had spent the past week, how she had run off last night when he came for her, about finding her this morning asleep in the back room of Betty’s Beauty Shop.
Rachel filled in the rest when the caseworker questioned her. She tied up all the loose ends, explaining that she and the Underhills had fought and they locked her out, how she took money from their car glove compartment, how she’d hitched a ride with a trucker with no particular de
stination in mind. Rachel admitted to stealing from Jesse’s Boutique and Mack’s Grocery and told how Leanne, Aggie, and Mia had insisted she reimburse them. She explained that they loaned her the money then put her to work baking for the coffee shop and doing laundry. “It didn’t feel like work, though,” she admitted. “It was fun, and I learned a lot.” Her eyes filled as she added, “Leanne was teaching me to sew, too. I guess we might not ever finish making my halter tops now, though.”
The caseworker looked perplexed. “Didn’t you and the women know it was only a matter of time before you were discovered?”
“I guess I was, like, pretending I could stay there forever with them. I mean, it felt like home . . . like I belonged.” Rachel blinked rapidly. “I never thought I could love somebody so fast, but I love all of them, and I think they all love me, too. They told me they’d have to turn me over to Sheriff Sloan sooner or later, but I think they were as afraid as me, so they just put it off.”
She stared down at her hands, popped her knuckles, one by one. “They didn’t treat me like everyone else does, you know?” Her voice quivered. “I kept hoping some miracle would happen or you and everybody else would forget about me and I’d get to stay.”
Cade watched Miss Fellowes. Her unrelenting façade had slipped and, behind it, he glimpsed compassion. She was touched by Rachel’s emotionally raw honesty, by her vulnerability and her obvious hunger to love and be loved.
The caseworker seemed to sense that he studied her. She met his gaze then quickly averted hers, covering her sympathy with professionalism again.
At Cade’s request, Rachel told the woman about the Underhills’ abuse while she lived with them. When the girl turned away from Cade to expose the few faint bruises still visible on her backside, Lynn Fellowes’ eyes lifted to his and, this time, she didn’t look away. In that silent exchange, Cade saw that Rachel had gained a fierce ally.
Rachel named Lacy and Paula Oberman as witnesses to Pam Underhill’s abuse, and the caseworker jotted down the information.
When they finished, and Miss Fellowes led Rachel from the room, the girl paused at the door and glanced back at Cade. “Tell them all thanks again,” she said. “And tell Leanne I’m waiting for her.”
Her wide, dark eyes seemed to say I’m counting on you. Maybe that shouldn’t matter to him, but it did. He felt an enormous responsibility toward her. Now Cade understood why Mia, Leanne, and Aggie had risked so much to protect the child. In the space of only a few hours, the girl had managed to find his soft spot.
On the drive home, Cade couldn’t block out that image of Rachel walking away from him. So small and vulnerable. So fearful. So trusting of him.
Back in Muddy Creek, he headed straight to Jesse’s Boutique, then to Mack’s Grocery. He explained the situation and encouraged them not to press charges. They both agreed. Recently, they had received cash in the mail from her, they said, along with notes of apology for the thefts. They figured that was enough.
It was near closing time when he finally made it to the coffee shop. He found Mia pulling the red-checkered cloths from the tabletops. Aggie had gone home. Leanne rattled around in the kitchen.
Mia’s face paled when he walked in. “It’s done?”
He nodded. “I’ll stay in touch with the people handling her case and give you a daily report.”
Leanne pushed through the swinging doors, her eyes tired and concerned. “How was she?”
“A little scared, but okay. She said for me to tell both of you thanks. Aggie, too. She told her caseworker she loves all of you.”
They both teared up and Cade added to Leanne, “She told me to tell you she’d be waiting for you to come see her.”
Leanne swiped at her eyes with her fingertips. “Eddie and I will go right now if you think they’ll let us in.”
“Why don’t you wait until morning and give her caseworker a call? She looks and acts like a hard case, but after seeing those bruises, I think she’s on our side one hundred percent.”
Mia lowered herself into the nearest chair, a tablecloth bunched up in her lap. “What about us? Leanne, Aggie, and me.”
Cade settled across the table from her and took off his hat. “What about you?”
“Are we in trouble?”
“I put in a good word for you. I’m sure Lynn Fellowes will want to talk to all of you. The police might, too. But, like I said, now that they know Rachel was abused, I think they’ll focus most of their attention on the Underhills, not you three.”
Mia tilted her head to one side and smiled. “Thanks for all you’ve done, Cade.”
“It’s all good. Don’t worry about it. Like I told Rachel, if we all tell the truth, everything will eventually work out for the best. I really believe that.” He took her hand. “Have supper with me tonight.”
“Aren’t you tired of my company?”
He hoped his lingering look set her straight about that.
Mia blushed. “Sure. I’d love to.”
Behind the counter, Leanne fanned her face and headed toward the back. “My, my. It’s getting awful hot in here.”
“Aggie still staying at your place?” Cade asked when Leanne stepped out of earshot.
“Nope. Roy spent the afternoon making rounds and eating crow.”
“I would’ve paid good money to see that.” With a laugh, he nodded toward the back room. “What about Leanne and Eddie?”
“They made up, too. They want to see about becoming Rachel’s foster parents.”
Cade knew how happy that would make Rachel. He was a little surprised at how happy it made him, too. “In that case, I’ll go with them tomorrow to see Lynn Fellowes and make introductions,” he said.
“Great idea.”
He thumped his hat. “Where do you want to eat tonight?”
The light in her eyes warmed him all the way to his toes. “How about my place? I make the best chicken fried steak in town.”
Sometimes wishes came true, Cade thought. This one had taken its sweet time.
He decided it had been well worth the wait.
Chapter 20
Two Months Later
March brought the usual topsy-turvy Texas Panhandle Spring to Muddy Creek. Warm, windy and sunny one day, overcast with snow flurries the next, rain the day after that. Life in the little town returned to normal in other ways, too.
With a few changes.
After the state renewed their foster parent credentials, Leanne and Eddie brought Rachel home. She started school and the threesome settled in together, eager to become a family. They spent their first few weekends decorating Rachel’s bedroom. At Rachel’s request, Eddie painted each wall a different color—purple, pink, blue, and yellow—while Leanne and Rachel sewed a bedspread and dust ruffle, as well as curtains for the windows. They squeezed in shopping trips for a new school wardrobe, during which Leanne couldn’t resist buying herself a few new funky items of clothing, as well.
When the room was finished and Rachel’s closet stuffed with clothes, she started working a couple of hours after school every day and on Saturday mornings at the Brewed Awakening.
Meanwhile, Aggie informed Roy that, come May, she’d be flying to Massachusetts to attend their twin granddaughters’ high school graduation, whether he liked it or not. Money saved from her coffee shop wages would buy two plane tickets. Roy was welcome to join her, Aggie said, but with or without him, she would be boarding a plane.
Roy gruffly owned up to a white-knuckle terror of flying that, before, he had been too embarrassed to admit. Still, he agreed to face his fear and go along for the ride. He wasn’t about to let her travel alone. Aggie’s new red hair and recent loss of ten pounds made her resemble Shirley MacLaine. Men would be “hittin’” on her “left and right,” Roy insisted.
As for Mia, she spent more and more time with Cade, and less time involved in mental conversations with Dan. Her husband had embraced life. He would not have wanted her to stop living because he died; she knew that.
&
nbsp; But, though Dan was gone, Christy still lived.
Mia also knew that her life would never be truly complete until her daughter was part of it again. So she made calls that were never returned and wrote letters that didn’t garner responses.
Mia persisted, prayed, and learned to be patient.
When the ten o’clock news ended, Cade turned off the television and Mia snuggled closer to him. They lay stretched out, side by side on the couch, Cade’s front against her back, his arms around her. “I hate to break this up, but if I’m going to get up at the crack of dawn and go to work, I’d better head home for some shut-eye.”
“Stay over tonight, okay?” Mia sounded half asleep already. “It’s supposed to get cold again.” Her bare toes wiggled against his ankle.
“So I’m only a bed warmer to you now, is that it?”
The throaty texture of her laughter made him forget about sleep. “I can think of worse things to be,” she said.
“You’ve got that right.” Cade nuzzled her neck. Like alone in bed without you. “If I stay, the whole town will be abuzz about us tomorrow. You okay with that?”
“Your truck’s in the garage.”
“That’s never fooled Buck Miller before. Or Aubrey Ricketts. I’d have to leave your house before four-thirty in the morning to slip past him.”
Mia yawned. “Let them talk. I don’t care anymore.”
Cade smiled. Without suspicions and secrets between them, their relationship had quickly blossomed into something they’d both hoped for, but hadn’t dared to expect—love. A second chance at happiness. They had been cautious at first. But when life handed you a gift, you took it and held on tight.
Mia told him, time and again, his love was enough, all she needed to be content the rest of her life.
Cade knew better.
Though she never mentioned it, he knew she had tried every night for the past month to reach Christy by phone. Christy never answered or returned the calls. Mia wrote countless letters to her daughter’s last known address in New York City. Since the letters didn’t come back in the mail, Cade assumed the girl received them, but she didn’t write back.
The Red Hat Society's Acting Their Age Page 20