Claiming The One (Meadowview Heat 3; The Meadowview Series 3)

by Rochelle French

  She cast a glance at the clock. Ten-thirty at night. God—what was she supposed to do here? What did he expect of her?

  “I…I can’t, Hunter. This isn’t my issue. She has adoptive parents—a mother, a father. Let them handle this.”

  A heavy sigh on the other end of the line met her statement. “She doesn’t have a mother, Liz. Only a dad who remarried recently. Her dad and his new wife are expecting a baby and left her behind while they went on some extended trip.”

  Liz’s head went light. “What do you mean, she doesn’t have a mother?” How could her daughter not have a mother? She’d been told a loving family had adopted Hope.

  “According to Abbie—”

  “Who?”

  She could hear Hunter blow out a breath, the way he used to when he was frustrated. “That’s our daughter’s name. Abbie. She says her mother left when she was young. Her dad raised her.”

  Her heart shoved its way up into her throat. Hope had no mother? “Alone?”

  “Yeah, from what she said. He was a single dad until about a year ago. He met his current wife, married her, and got her pregnant. Abbie says he forgot about her along the way. She feels alone and unloved, which is why she’s running to us.”

  Thoughts swam messily about in her head, churned into chaos by the incoming information. “How does she know where to go? How on earth would she know who we are?”

  “She hacked into the agency’s database and found her birth certificate. I guess the agency had my current contact information and the letter I’d written her scanned into the system. She emailed me and…well, I emailed back. We’ve been communicating for a little while.”

  Her thoughts spun. Why would the adoption agency have Hunter’s contact information? Why would Hunter email their daughter? How had Hope come to be named Abbie?

  “Liz, you have to come back to Meadowview.”

  Claws scratched at her belly from the inside. Return to Meadowview? Meet her daughter? Face what might have been? She couldn’t. Couldn’t open herself up to that pain again.

  Hunter interrupted her thoughts, saying, “All I’m asking is for you to be here when she shows up. Help me calm the kid until her dad gets here and can usher her back home.”

  Until her father could take her back? “No…” Liz moaned. A memory of a squalling bundle of energy with carrot-colored hair wrapped tight in her arms charged through her mind. Followed by the memory of sobbing uncontrollably as she handed the baby to a waiting nurse and the clanging gates of steel that had slammed shut over her heart.

  Hunter expected her to meet their daughter, then turn around and hand her over again? The warm flush of emotional tension gave way as dread clutched at her, hard and tight and cold.

  “I have a charity event to organize.” She worked hard to control her voice, to keep the quivers jolting her body from coming out in her voice. “I’m not coming to Meadowview to help you out of a mess you got yourself into. You shouldn’t have communicated with her. You should have kept everything the way it was.”

  “Goddamn you, Liz.” Hunter’s voice increased in intensity, growing harsher with each word. “You’re just the same, aren’t you? Always thinking about yourself. This kid needs us. She’s reaching out to us.”

  “To you,” she snapped. “She’s reaching out to you.”

  Hunter’s silence spoke louder than any words he could utter. Waves of dizziness swamped Liz and she sagged back into her pillows, the phone still held tight to her ear.

  When he spoke, his voice seemed to carry the weight of the world. “Liz,” he said, “she’s only thirteen. She stole her dad’s car, her stepmom’s credit card, and she’s driving halfway across the country to find us. God knows what could happen to her on the road. The least we can do is be there when she arrives. Make sure she gets back to her family safely. You may not care, but I can’t stand the thought of our baby in danger.”

  The call ended, leaving Liz staring blankly at the frescoed ceiling, her gut churning with distress and indecision. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  The next morning, in the kitchen where she’d grown up, Liz dumped a large spoonful of Holiday Bliss nondairy creamer in a mug of steaming coffee. She stirred the coffee until the last of the powdered creamer disappeared. The scent of sugar cookies wafted over her. She set the too-hot mug down on the countertop and looked around Tina’s kitchen, dimly lit by the early morning sun. She should have been back ages ago to clear out Tina’s stuff from the house. She’d used Gerald as an excuse, she knew. But coming back home held few fond memories.

  She rolled up the sleeves of her white cotton blouse and placed her elbows on the cracked Formica counter. Leaning forward, she stared out the kitchen window into the back yard, and took a sip of coffee. Wow—yummy. A smile stole over her face. No wonder Tina had stocked up on the stuff. It probably was filled with all sorts of preservatives and laden with fat, but the scent and taste were…well, like a Christmas cookie all wrapped up in coffee.

  The hell with counting calories. She needed comfort food.

  Or, comfort coffee, as it were. There was little food in the house. Liz had rummaged about, but all she’d found were a few granola bars on the far side of their expiration date that she’d tossed in the garbage. So much for breakfast.

  She stretched, then tucked the blouse back neatly under the waistband of her floral-patterned cotton skirt. A yawn drew her attention to her sleepless night. After Hunter’s call the night before, she’d surprised herself by getting out of bed, dressing, and packing a few items. After scribbling Gerald a note, she’d driven the three hours to Meadowview.

  Arriving in the dead of night and with adrenaline still pumping in her veins, she’d set about cleaning the place, finally calling it quits around four in the morning. She’d slept on her bed, under the same quilt on which she and Hunter her had almost made love less than seventy-two hours earlier. The same quilt they’d made love on and under all those years ago, too.

  Though to tell the truth, had they gone all the way a few days ago, it could hardly have been called making love.

  Funny, but as much as Meadowview thought of her as a sleaze, she’d had sex with only a handful of men. Mentally, she ticked them off, tapping the counter with a fingertip. Hunter; a couple of college boyfriends; her first husband who she’d married on a whim and divorced almost immediately. That was it.

  In high school, when the rumors had first started flying, she’d tried to stick up for herself, tried to tell people she had only slept with Hunter. No one had believed her. Especially when half the football team claimed to have “bagged” her. That bunch of ego-laden boys hadn’t had the balls enough to admit they were still virgins and instead, each claimed they’d banged Liz Pritchard. That Liz Pritchard would pull her panties down at the drop of a hat.

  Once labeled, breaking free had been impossible. She’d been placed in the slut box. It didn’t matter that she’d gotten straight A’s, hadn’t drunk alcohol, had never done drugs, and had worked at the library on the weekends all through high school. People saw what they’d been told to see.

  And they’d been told that Liz Pritchard was a no-good whore. A slut.

  It didn’t matter what the word meant—it mattered how it was delivered. Women should be able to own their sexuality, she figured, not have it thrown at them like something to be ashamed of. But people had used the word to debase her, and instead of letting them see how deeply the cuts had carved in her psyche, she’d defied them all and had embraced her scarlet letter like Hester Prynne.

  Outside, a doe stepped out of the brush that lined the back of the yard, drawing Liz’s attention back to the present. The doe held still, casting her gaze from side to side. Satisfied with the lack of danger, she flicked her tail and wandered farther into the yard, dropping her head to graze at the few tufts of green grass that remained from the dry summer. Behind her, with over-large ears swiveling on its head, keenly aware of its surroundings, stepped a speckled fawn.

&nb
sp; Liz smiled, her heart warmed by the sight. Deer rarely showed up in town. But 35 Nightingale Lane backed up to Elderberry Creek, so sometimes she and Tina had been able to see wildlife in the back yard. The deer typically kept to the wilderness outside of town. This year, however, was the fourth year of a drought. Liz had noticed how dry the forest appeared both times she’d come into town. No wonder the deer were in town.

  The fawn jumped, most likely frightened by a noise. His mother raised her head, ears swiveling to the right and left. As one, both deer turned and bounded out of the yard and back into the woods.

  Liz was engulfed by a wave of emotion. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out the emotion behind the hollow sensation in her chest. Pain of some sort. An uncomfortable, disconcerting feeling. She wished she had someone she could really talk to. Even Tina had been there for a while, before the bottle had become everything. Tears threatened behind her eyes. God, she was so damned alone now. So friggin’ lonely.

  Realization dawned. Loneliness—that was it. Tough, strong, independent Liz Pritchard was lonely.

  She gave a sharp, brittle laugh. No wonder she hadn’t recognized the feeling—she’d always been alone, and by choice. Even with Gerald she remained alone. She needed him not for emotional, sentimental reasons, but because he could give her what she lacked and needed the most: a good reputation. So what had changed? Why feel lonely now?

  Liz sifted through her memories. The last time she could remember feeling this sharp stab of loneliness was the day her daughter was born. Learning that Hunter wouldn’t come, then realizing she had to let her daughter go, had ripped her open, left her raw. With Hunter, she’d felt loved, wanted, needed. Part of something.

  Her parents certainly hadn’t given her any reason to feel part of anything, much less a family. The summer when she was seven, her father hooked up with a carnival worker at the summer fair and left to be a carnie, grabbing tickets from kids and shoving the brats onto rides that made them puke. Liz never heard from him after that.

  She grimaced. She hated her dad for that, for making her life a damned cliché. She never talked about it, because it sounded so ludicrous. And she’d never ridden on another carnival ride again.

  And Tina—Liz swiped her brow. Tina was another story altogether. She never got over Liz’s father leaving them. She had turned to alcohol as a means of escape. But in running away from the pain, she’d also run away from her daughter. Liz had a roof over her head, yes, and food on the table, but had ended up raising herself.

  Making mistake after mistake along the way. Like getting knocked up in high school.

  The sensation swept through over her again, like wisps of cold vapor. Loneliness. She bit her lips, wondering what could have triggered the reaction. Then she knew.

  Hope.

  No, Abbie.

  Her daughter had been renamed Abbie.

  Fear gripped her in its icy claws. She gagged, and set the coffee mug down on the counter. She would see her daughter today. If Abbie did what her father and Hunter thought she’d do—drive to Meadowview from Salt Lake City—the girl would be here this afternoon. And Liz would have to turn around and look back. Look back at what once had been.

  She dumped the rest of the now too-sweet coffee down the drain and rinsed the mug, then set it on the rubber-coated dish drainer. She picked up her keychain off the kitchen table, and with heavy limbs and a heavier heart, stumbled out of the kitchen.

  She wanted to leave. Wanted to walk out the door, get in her car and drive away. But instead, she headed up the stairs to the attic, one heavy step at a time, the key to a deadbolt in her hand.

  Time to face what she’d stuffed away for years, whether she wanted to or not.

  * * *

  Hunter strode quickly from the B&B to 35 Nightingale Lane, following the pathway along the creek. Robins chattered overhead, out to find their breakfast. Abbie’s father had called earlier to let Hunter know his wife’s credit card had been used at a few gas stations on I-80 in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, and at a hotel in Salt Lake City last night. Abbie was on her way to Meadowview—to 35 Nightingale Lane, to be precise—and Hunter intended to be there when she arrived. She’d probably show up much later in the afternoon, but he wanted to make Liz’s old home as welcoming for the teenager as he could. Since Liz refused to come, he supposed it wouldn’t matter if he broke in to wait for the girl.

  It still got to him that Liz wouldn’t have anything to do with their daughter, the child they’d once conceived out of love. Liz had made the choice to get rid of the baby, but that had been years ago. Surely now that they were grown adults, no longer teenagers scared out of their wits, things could change.

  He jumped over a narrow point in the creek, griping when the heel of his boot dipped in the water. The mud sucked at it, then released, the way he wished his mind would release the ghosts of the past.

  He swung low to avoid a branch and tore off a leaf, crunching the brown vegetation in the palm of his hand. He recognized signs of a pervasive drought: dead pine needle bunches on the trees, brown instead of green leaves on the underbrush, green grass only along the edges of the wide but slow-moving creek. Dead leaves on oak trees. Tinder for forest fires.

  Fires in these parts could be intense and often deadly, Hunter knew from experience. Forest fires around Meadowview had given him an early training, one he’d fallen back on after college. He’d volunteered during high school as part of a Teen Fire Corps, assisting the wildland firefighters with their efforts during firestorms that clawed their way through massive amounts of vegetation, charring trees, destroying homes. Costing lives.

  But working with the men and women who risked their lives on a daily basis to combat the flames had engendered in him a drive to fight fires. It was a drive that had consumed the last ten years of his life. He’d hopped from wildfire to wildfire, never turning down an opportunity to fight the flames.

  Until now. Until Abbie’s email. Three fires burned along the western US, one at the Okanogan National Forest in Washington, another in the foothills outside Sacramento, and a smaller fire in the national forest about fifty miles from Meadowview. He’d been stationed at the larger blaze in Washington, but he’d left the job anyway, with his fire chief’s blessing. His fire crew would have to do without him. He had a daughter to find.

  The trail ended a block from Liz’s house. There, the town pathway gave way to dense underbrush and blackberry bushes. He left the path and made his way to the sidewalk. Turning the corner, he was surprised to see Liz’s big Mercedes parked in front of the house.

  She’d come.

  His heart did a funny lurching thing, revving up his pulse. Liz had washed her hands clean of Abbie. So why’d she come back? Why had she decided to meet their child?

  More importantly, why did he care? And why in the hell did he feel like he used to in high school when he would sneak over to Liz’s house at night, climb up the oak tree, and crawl through the window? He shook his head, as if trying to shake the memories out. Almost-sex with Liz the other day had apparently stirred up thoughts that should have stayed below the surface.

  As he neared Liz’s house, his stride increased in length and speed and he had to resist the urge to bound up the front porch stairs. He wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans, and then knocked.

  The door swung open with an eerie creak. He stood there for a moment, fist raised in the air, cocked to knock again. “Liz?” he called out.

  Silence.

  He pushed the door open further and took a step inside. “Liz? You in here? It’s Hunter.” He cocked his head, listening to signs of life. The house stood silent, but he caught the faint scent of freshly brewed coffee. He strode in to find an empty downstairs. Taking the stairs two at a time, he combed the second floor. Both Liz and Tina’s rooms showed no signs of life, although a wet toothbrush sat on the chipped enamel sink in the bathroom, along with a damp towel. She’d arrived the night before, then. His brow softened. She had most likely taken o
ff for Meadowview right after he’d called her.

  Maybe Liz cared more than she let on.

  Hunter cranked open the bathroom window and stuck his head out, looking in the back yard, but still saw no sign of Liz. Where the hell was she? With him hollering her name and clomping about her house, she surely would have answered by now, even if it was to tell him to shut up and get the hell out.

  Unless she’d conked her head on something and was lying somewhere knocked out.

  Fear edged its way into his consciousness, which pissed him off. He didn’t want to be worried for Liz. He didn’t want to be excited to see her, didn’t want to get turned on at the memory of her, didn’t want to care. She’d caused enough pain in his life. She didn’t deserve his concern.

  He swore as he jogged up the cramped stairwell to the attic, and pushed open the door. A quick scan told him Liz wasn’t in the empty space. Footprints in the dust showed that she’d been in the attic, though, and recently. The door to a closet in the corner hung partially open, a padlock dangling from the lock. Hunter stepped with care on the creaking floorboards and tugged the door open. He found a grungy string and tugged, turning on a bare light bulb overhead.

  And then stared.

  At first, he didn’t understand what he was looking at. An antique cradle with a baby blanket and one of those pink knit caps newborns wear sat in the middle of the space. A tiny hospital bracelet lay on top. Pictures torn out of magazines of different redheaded girls, ranging in age from infants to toddlers, pre-teens to teens, were plastered all over the walls. The word “HOPE” was stenciled, painted, and drawn multiple times on the walls between the pictures of the magazine girls.

  Between photos of Liz and him.

  “What the hell?” he said into the emptiness.