There were no posters on Hayes’s wall. Nor any of his personal things lying around. He’d cleared that out long ago when he’d left town, left the ranch, left his sisters. And he’d never come back after going to Hollywood to be an actor. Still, Sunny thought she should give Ryan a warning.
“It’s possible you’ll find some old Playboy magazines stashed in here,” she said. That got his attention. Of course, it did. Ryan was sixteen after all. “The most likely place is the bathroom.” She tipped her head toward the en suite. “If you find any, hide them again. Bernice will have a hissy fit if she sees them.”
Ryan made a sound of agreement and looked around the room before his gaze came back to her. “You want me to get you a glass of water so you can take your pain meds?”
She smiled, feeling the warmth of his concern brush away some of the mopey cobwebs. “No, thanks. But I’m going to grab a nap before lunch. You’ll be okay on your own?”
He returned the smile. “I can unpack, search for porn. That’s plenty to keep me busy.”
That humor was why she loved him. Why she wanted to make sure Hugh’s “me time” didn’t screw him up six ways to Sunday.
Drawing in a long breath, Sunny made her way back down the hall toward her room. She had one thing on her mind. Well, two actually. Meds and sleep. Since she’d need that water for the meds, she stopped by the hall bathroom to get a glass. She opened the door.
And froze.
Because the room wasn’t empty.
There on the floor, the girl sat, wedged between the bathtub and the toilet. It would have been hard to recognize that tear-streaked face, but Sunny had no trouble recalling the cowboy boots.
The pink-tasseled ones.
“Please don’t tell anyone I’m here,” the girl blurted out in a whisper. And with that, Kinsley burst into more tears.
CHAPTER THREE
SHAW DROVE HIS truck at a snail’s pace. And looked. He kept his eyes peeled to the sides of the road, the woods, pastures—heck, even the ditches. There was no sign of Kinsley.
Just how far could a purse-stealing teenager get in less than two hours?
Apparently pretty far, since Shaw hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her.
And he’d looked hard, too. First in the barns and the immediate area of the ranch house. When he hadn’t spotted her, he’d called in a few hands to help with the search. There were no missing horses, no missing vehicles, either, so that meant Kinsley had walked out on her own booted feet or else she was hiding somewhere.
When Shaw didn’t spot her on the road, he continued to drive into town. If Kinsley had made it this far, then it meant she had even more places to hide, in the shops and alleys. Of course, no local was just going to ignore a girl who looked like Kinsley. Nope. Once folks eyed her outfit, they would notice that she had Marty’s looks and would call Shaw or his siblings.
So far though, there’d been no such calls.
There wasn’t a bus or taxi service in Lone Star Ridge so leaving by those methods was out, but the girl could try hitchhiking again. Shaw didn’t like the idea of her doing that, though maybe it meant she was heading home. In case that’s what she’d done, he tried calling her mother again, using the number that Leyton had given him. The call went straight to voice mail, just as his three other calls had.
As the ones to Marty had, too.
Of course, Shaw hadn’t expected anything else from his quick-zippered dad, but since Kinsley’s mom had filed a missing person’s report, he’d figured she would have her phone right next to her, waiting to hear news about her daughter.
Shaw slowed to a stop when he saw Leyton on the sidewalk outside the police department. His brother was pacing while he talked on the phone. Maybe he had some good news. But when Shaw lowered the window on the passenger’s side, Leyton just shook his head.
“No one knows where she is,” Leyton relayed. “But there have been a couple of sightings. From what I can piece together, she walked through town and was heading west.”
Well, at least they had something. Not much of something because “west” covered a lot of territory, but it meant Kinsley wasn’t hiding out at the ranch. Of course, if she had been doing that, at least she was safe.
Shaw cursed the concern he felt, but there was no way to avoid it. It didn’t matter that Kinsley had stolen from his mom and was almost certainly a general pain in the ass. She was still a kid. One who needed to be home with her mother in San Antonio.
“Let me know if you hear anything,” Shaw told his brother. “I’ll keep looking for her.”
Shaw got a jolt of hope the moment he pulled away from the curb because his phone rang. The hope faded and his curiosity ballooned when he saw what was on the screen.
Unknown caller.
He took the call using hands free, and Sunny’s voice poured through his truck. “Shaw,” she said, not so silky and smooth this time. “Kinsley’s here at Em’s. She’s stuck between the tub and toilet, but other than that, she’s okay.”
Of all the things Shaw had anticipated Sunny might say, that hadn’t been one of them. Not just the part about Kinsley’s being stuck, either, but the entire explanation.
“How the hell did she get there?” he asked, already doing a U-turn to head that way.
“I think she walked. I just found her in the upstairs bathroom. Heaven knows how she got past Bernice.”
Yeah, that was a good question that Shaw had an answer for. Obviously, Kinsley was sneaky, because she’d managed to lift Lenore’s purse and leave the ranch without anyone there laying eyes on her. And it wasn’t as if Kinsley blended in with the surroundings.
“Oh, good,” Sunny said a moment later. “Ryan managed to get her unwedged. Her backpack was caught on something.”
Shaw ignored that and went with his next question. “Did she say why she went to Em’s?”
“Not really, but I gather she asked somebody in town where I’d gone, and she got directions. At least I think that’s what she said. It’s been hard for her to talk what with her crying so hard.”
Great. Tears. Whenever possible, Shaw liked to avoid those and the emotions that went along with them.
“I’ll be there in a few,” Shaw told her, and he hung up so he could call Leyton. “She’s at Em’s,” he said the moment his brother answered. “Try to get in touch with her mother to let her know.”
Shaw figured he’d have his hands full with Kinsley. No need to add a distraught mother to his to-do list.
When Shaw pulled up in front of Em’s house, he got confirmation of his “hands full” prediction. Bernice was waiting on the porch, and he didn’t think it was his imagination that the woman was scowling even more than usual.
“Your sister’s upstairs.” Bernice said sister as if it was an unidentified fungus. “Any idea when your father’s going to stop procreating?”
“That’s a question for the ages.” As long as Marty was drawing breath, he could and likely would reproduce.
Bernice didn’t invite him in, though Em certainly did when Shaw stepped into the foyer. The woman hugged him, poking him with the binoculars she was holding. “Good. Glad you’re here. You can fix things.”
The woman had a gallon of faith in him when Shaw didn’t have an ounce of such confidence in himself. He wasn’t reasonably sure he could fix anything, but at least the girl had been located and wasn’t in a vehicle with a serial killer.
“Maybe you can fix things with Sunny, too,” Em continued, following him up the stairs. “You don’t happen to know what’s wrong with her, do you?”
That stopped Shaw in midstep. “Something’s wrong with Sunny?”
Without hesitation, Em nodded. “Something more than the breakup with that slicker-than-a-slop-jar ex-fiancé of hers. Sorry,” she quickly added. “I shouldn’t bad-mouth that pile of malarkey in case his boy hears.”
&n
bsp; Em whispered that last part, or rather her version of a whisper, which meant folks in Oklahoma could have still heard it. “His boy?” Though Shaw didn’t like adding another question to this conversation when what he really wanted was to get back to the part about Sunny and something being wrong.
“Ryan,” Em supplied. “He’s sixteen and the ex’s son, but the ex doesn’t want to spend time with his own boy ’cause he’s boo-hooing over his broken heart too much to remember he’s got a kid who needs him.” She shook her head, obviously in disgust. “Sunny brought Ryan here with her...to work out whatever was troubling her.”
So, the guy he’d seen with Sunny earlier was her ex-boyfriend’s kid. For reasons Shaw didn’t want to explore right now, that made him feel marginally better. Then more than marginally worse. A bad breakup and a teenager could definitely be the reasons for feeling troubled. Plus, there was another possibility.
“You think Sunshine’s giving Sunny some problems?” Shaw asked.
Em huffed, and her mouth tightened. “Maybe. My daughter has a knack for trying to bleed as much money from her kids as possible. That makes her even worse than her worthless malarkey of an ex-husband.”
Shaw couldn’t argue that. Willard had walked out on the family after Little Cowgirls had been canceled and the big bucks had stopped flowing in. Sunshine, on the other hand, had exploited their triplets, trying to earn as much money off them as possible. Still, that was the norm and not something that would give Sunny any concern out of the ordinary.
If you’d spent your entire life around a particularly sucky leech, then it wasn’t much of an uproar when the leech surfaced again.
“Sunshine came to see me about a month ago,” Em went on.
That got his attention because it was a rare thing for Sunshine to come to town without word spreading. “How much money did she want?” He didn’t bother speculating about any other possibility for a visit.
“Plenty more than I was willing to give her. She whined and cried when I said I’d only pony up a thousand and that she had to consider it a loan. She finally agreed and took it. Then, she spent the night, probably figuring she’d convince me to give her more, but I didn’t cave.”
Good, but it would have been better if Em had flat out refused to give her a dime. From what Em had said over the years, Sunny and her sisters had cut their mother off; obviously Em hadn’t done that. Sunshine might not have gotten the bucks that she wanted on this latest visit, but the dribble of cash from Em would bring Sunshine back for more.
Em gave him a motherly pat on the back. “Do some poking and figure out what’s eating away at Sunny. Oh, and do the same for the girl, too, of course. Bernice got a look at her and said she was one of Marty’s.”
“Yep,” he verified, which made Kinsley one of his, too. His problem anyway. One that he hoped he could fix by driving her home to her mother.
Shaw started up the stairs again. Em didn’t follow, proving that she was indeed a wise woman not to involve herself in this any more than she already was. Besides, Em clearly had her own worries what with Sunny.
Since Shaw had been in Em’s house too many times to count, he knew his way to the bathroom. He immediately spotted Ryan sitting on the floor outside the door.
“They’re in there,” the boy volunteered. “Crying.”
Judging by the way the kid’s forehead bunched up, he felt the same about a weeping female as Shaw did. “Sunny, too?”
The boy nodded but offered no further explanation.
“You’re Ryan?” Shaw asked, and when he got another nod, he added, “I’m Shaw Jameson.”
“Yeah. The bloody kisser,” Ryan muttered.
Well, that was better than how most folks described it. Usually there was a “sore nuts” remark. Before Shaw knocked on the bathroom door, he took a moment to try to clear up something.
“Is anything wrong with Sunny?” Shaw asked. “Em seems to think there might be.”
Deer in the headlights. That was the look on the boy’s face, and he swallowed hard. “Sunny’s okay,” he said without a whole lot of conviction.
Well, hell. Something was wrong, and he might or might not have to do something about it. First things first, though. He needed to deal with his crying half sister.
Shaw rapped on the bathroom door and listened. No audible sobs, thank goodness, but he knew from his experience with a kid sister that sometimes silent tears were worse. Several moments later, Sunny opened the door, and he saw that Ryan had been right. Her face was splotchy, her eyes red, and she swiped a fresh tear off her cheek.
“What the heck did Kinsley say or do to make you cry?” Shaw whispered.
Sunny shook her head, still wiping her eyes and waving off the question at the same time. “Nothing really. I just got weepy when she did. I’m a little overly emotional, I guess.”
Well, along with Ryan’s weak “Sunny’s okay,” that was a big-assed red flag, proving that Em had been right to voice concern. Sunny wasn’t the overly emotional sort. Or at least she hadn’t been before this latest breakup.
Sunny stepped back, fully opening the door so he could see Kinsley. The girl was sitting on the floor, and there were wads of what were no doubt tear-dampened toilet paper dropped around her like a weird mushroom garden.
Shaw received a jolt of fear when she lifted her face because at first he thought she’d been bruised. Then he realized they were not bruises but streaks of mascara. Clearly the girl hadn’t gone for the waterproof variety.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Kinsley said immediately.
There wasn’t nearly as much snarl in her voice as there had been at the ranch, and some of the defiant body language was gone, too. Of course, it was hard to look badass while practically cowering on the floor and with a face that looked like a revival of the rock band Kiss.
Shaw took cautious steps closer, the way he would approach a spooked calf. He knew what to murmur in a hushed voice to a calf. You’re all right, girl...boy...or it for undetermined sex. He tried that with Kinsley, making certain he inserted “girl,” and he got a dagger-sharp glare from her.
“I’m not all right,” she insisted, which brought on some fresh tears. “My whole life has been a lie, and I’m not the person I thought I was.”
“Sometimes, that’s better than being the person you actually are,” Shaw said, thinking of his father. But, judging from the way Sunny’s head whipped up and her gaze met his, that wasn’t the way to go here. “Probably not in your case,” he amended.
Shaw sat down on the edge of the tub, wishing that Sunny would give him some guidance. Considering she had two sisters, she could likely soothe better than a cowboy who tried to avoid shit like this. As if reading his mind, Sunny shrugged. Then, she winced.
Yeah, winced.
He was certain he hadn’t mistaken that, and it was the kind of wince a person made from pain.
Hell.
That nearly got Shaw focusing on her, but there was no way he could ignore Kinsley’s sobs. “I know things look pretty bad right now,” he told the girl. “But I’m sure we can work this out.”
“How?” Kinsley challenged. “By making my bio-dad want me enough to call me or come and see me?”
“Marty doesn’t call or come to see me, either,” Shaw pointed out, and at least that didn’t earn him another whipped-up-head look from Sunny. “This probably isn’t what you’re going to want to hear, but no one is ever going to accuse Marty of being father of the year. Well, not unless that’s judged by the sheer number of offspring,” he added under his breath.
“Shaw’s right,” Sunny piped in. “Marty’s not worth crying over. You said you had a stepfather—”
“He left,” Kinsley interrupted, snapping out the words. “He left my mom and left me, too. I wondered why he didn’t bother trying to see me and now I know. I’m not his. I’m nobody’s unles
s you count a bio-dad butt hole singer with too many kids.”
“You have your mom,” Shaw reminded her.
That was a reminder for himself, too, and he took out his phone again to call Aurora Rubio. Still no answer. The moment he’d finished leaving another voice mail, Leyton called.
“I’ll step out in the hall to take this,” Shaw said, doing just that. Ryan wasn’t there, but the boy was peering out of the room that used to belong to Sunny’s brother, Hayes.
“Please tell me Aurora Rubio’s on the way here,” Shaw said to Leyton.
“Sorry. I haven’t been able to reach her, but someone finally answered Marty’s phone. Not Marty,” Leyton added quickly. “The woman introduced herself to me as his girlfriend. Her name is Carmen Sibley, and she said Marty and she had been together a whole two weeks.”
For Marty, that could be considered a long-term relationship. “Why didn’t Marty answer his own phone?” Shaw asked.
“Because Carmen said Marty left it behind when he went out to jam with friends. Yesterday,” Leyton emphasized. “Carmen didn’t know where he was, but she was sure he’d be back.”
Shaw wouldn’t lay odds on that, and judging from Leyton’s huff, neither would he.
“Carmen lives in Tulsa,” Leyton went on. “So, at least we have a recent last location for Marty. I’ve reached out to his manager and asked him to check and see if there’s any sign of him. Maybe something will turn up.” He paused a moment. “How’s the girl?”
“Crying,” Shaw provided, and he felt the brotherly comradery with Leyton’s groan.
“You want me to send in Cait?” Leyton asked.
Shaw debated that for a moment. Their sister, Cait, was a deputy who worked for Leyton along with doing more than her share to run the ranch. She was good at training horses and dealing with the often stupid crimes that happened in a small town, but Shaw thought his sister was already tapped out when it came to dealing with situations like Kinsley’s. Still, he’d hold Cait in reserve.
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