by Jane Blythe
How could she not want to repay him for that?
Abe was a good looking man. He had reddish-brown hair and a beard, which she’d never really found attractive before but thought suited Abe perfectly. He had tattoos on his arms, and from the looks of him he obviously worked out a lot.
She liked that.
It meant he was big and strong.
Someone who could take care of her.
And Meadow needed someone to take care of her.
Like he didn’t believe that she would stop with the constant apologies anytime soon, Abe released her arm and started walking. “This way. I’ll take you inside and introduce you to Maggie, and then I have to go to work.”
While she didn’t quite like the idea of him leaving her alone with a stranger she was glad that he’d be coming back for her later.
He would be coming back for her later, right?
He hadn’t changed his mind?
“Abe?” she asked as she fell into step beside him. “Are you coming back to pick me up later?”
“Yes,” he replied shortly.
Good.
Meadow gave an inward sigh of relief. Last night she had been unsure of her future, but Abe’s cabin was cute, the bed had been the softest she’d ever slept on, and she had stood in his shower until the water ran cold because she had felt comfortable enough there. Right now she needed a place where she felt safe and secure, so she could finally learn what it meant to live her own life and not somebody else’s.
Abe led her inside, and she wasn’t surprised to see that the inside of the building was as beautiful as the outside. She was going to love working here, but …
She was nervous as well.
She was twenty-four, but she hadn’t had a job since she was in high school and that had just been babysitting. She didn’t know anything about working in a restaurant. Meadow loved cooking, it was something she enjoyed and was good at, but this would be cooking for paying customers. What if they didn’t like her food? What if she couldn’t keep up? What if she let Abe down because she wasn’t what his friend was looking for in a cook?
“Morning, Abe,” a pretty brunette said as she walked toward them. The woman’s hair hung in soft waves down her back, she had chocolate brown eyes, a warm smile, and a quietly confident air, Meadow liked her already.
“Morning, Maggie,” he replied.
Maggie kissed his cheek then turned to her, smile still firmly in place. “You must be Meadow; I’m Maggie, a friend of Abe’s. He said that you were a great cook and he knew I’d been looking for someone to help out here with the breakfast and lunch rush.”
Abe had said that she was a great cook?
That was so sweet of him. She’d only cooked him one meal, just the vegetable pie last night. How had he picked up on her enjoyment for cooking from just that one moment?
Shy now and self-conscious as she worried about whether her skills would measure up to what Maggie was looking for, Meadow gave a small smile and then hovered anxiously from foot to foot. It was overwhelming to be around people again, it wasn’t the world she had lived in for so long, and she didn’t just have to be around them she had to work with them.
This was too much.
Meadow very may well have turned and literally run out of here, but Abe nudged her shoulder.
Right.
He had told his friend that she could do this job therefore she must do this job.
No matter how many doubts and insecurities she had, she would have to ignore them and do this job to the best of her ability.
“Hi,” she said to Maggie, “thank you for giving me this opportunity, I won’t let you down, I promise.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Maggie said, waving it off. “The kitchen opened at six-thirty, but we’re usually at our busiest by seven-thirty, so I’ll show you the kitchen, get you up to speed as best as I can, and then you can get to work. After the breakfast rush quietens down we can talk about a more permanent arrangement, shifts and things, get you to fill out some paperwork before we get ready for lunch.”
“See you later,” Abe said.
“Bye,” Maggie replied.
“Bye,” Meadow echoed, wishing that he could stay. But he couldn’t, he had a job to do, and so did she.
She would make him proud of her.
She had to, if she didn’t he might send her away and she needed him.
* * * * *
12:08 P.M.
“You got someplace else to be?”
Abe looked up, only half paying attention to what his cousin Julian had just said, his mind was stuck elsewhere today, and he was having trouble concentrating. “Huh?”
“I said, you got someplace else to be?” Julian repeated with exaggerated patience.
“No. Why?”
“Because you’re looking at your watch every five seconds,” Julian replied.
“Just a little distracted I guess,” he replied vaguely. He didn’t want to get into a discussion right now on the cause of that distraction. This was a small town, gossip central, and his family was close with his father’s brother’s family, so he knew that it was only a matter of time before Julian, his brothers, and all of River’s End knew that he had a houseguest. Still he wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.
“Oh, and why is that?” Julian asked, his hazel eyes twinkling merrily.
Abe groaned. “You know. How?”
“You called Aunt Tatiana asking about whether Dahlia left any clothes behind. She must have called Mrs. Henderson to find out what she had in stock at the boutique, she must have spoken with Mrs. DuVall because the art studio is right next to the boutique, who must have spoken with Mr. Caputto who always rides his bike down Main Street on his way to have breakfast at the hotel ever since his wife died last spring. He talked to Maggie who mentioned having a new employee to Fletcher when he stopped by to speak with the couple who were mugged early this morning, and Fletcher told me when he came in.” Julian was beaming like a kid on Christmas morning by the time he finished with his story.
Abe groaned again. Sometimes he really hated small-town life. You couldn’t do anything without it spreading like wildfire.
“So I’m guessing this has something to do with the noise outside the art gallery last night,” Julian continued. “Since you were vague in your text last night telling me it was nothing to worry about I’m assuming that this mystery woman you’re trying to keep under wraps is the noise in question.”
There was no point in trying to hide anything, the whole town would be talking about it by sunset, and it wasn’t like he was hiding Meadow away. She was working at the hotel, anyone who went there today would see her. “Her name is Meadow Smith.”
“Is she pretty?” his cousin teased.
“Yes,” he answered a little hesitantly.
“And she’s not a criminal or a psycho?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, from the way you’re constantly checking the time, I’m guessing it’s because you can’t wait to get back to her. So what’s the problem? Why did you sound all weird when you said she was pretty?”
“Because I think she’s in trouble.”
“Like the kind of trouble we deal in?”
“Yes.”
“Then help her out of trouble so there’s nothing standing in the way, then you can ask her out.”
Julian made it sound so simple.
Find out what had Meadow on the run, fix it, and then ask her out.
But it wasn’t that simple.
Meadow was pregnant, she saw him as her savior, and he wasn’t marriage material or savior material.
That spelled disaster.
And there was no way he was going to do that to Meadow.
“She’s pregnant,” he told Julian.
“Are you worried about the baby’s father coming back for her and his kid?” Julian asked.
“No. I’m worried that the baby’s father is the reason she’s on the run and sleeping
behind dumpsters.”
“You think whoever got her pregnant is dangerous?”
“I can’t think of any other reason she would be homeless at five months pregnant.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Julian said, looking thoughtful now. “Has she told you anything about him?”
“She hasn’t told me anything at all besides her name and her age.”
“Did you try running her name through the systems, see if it pops on anything?”
Abe just arched a brow. “I did that last night while she was sleeping. I didn’t get any hits.”
“If she won’t talk and you haven’t got hits in any databases then how are you going to find out what’s going on with her?” Julian asked.
Now that he didn’t have an answer to.
Yet.
But he would find a way to get the answers he wanted. He could be like a dog with a bone once he set his mind to something and ever since he’d found Meadow sleeping in that alley, his mind had been permanently stuck on her.
“They didn’t get a good look at him,” Fletcher Harris said as he breezed into his office. Fletcher was a few years younger than him and had been his youngest brother, Theo’s best friend ever since they were kids.
“The mugging case?” he asked, trying to push thoughts of Meadow out of the forefront of his mind so he could do his job.
“Yeah, that’s eight hits now, and we still don’t have anything on him,” Fletcher said, flopping down into the other chair at his desk. “And he’s starting to escalate. He didn’t hurt them badly, but he did rough them up a little, that’s the first time he’s done that.”
Just as he had suspected their mugger was progressing, no longer was he content with just holding unsuspecting tourists up at knifepoint to steal whatever cash they had on them. Now he had roughed a couple up, throwing them up against a wall, giving the man a black eye. How long before he got tired of that too? How long before he used the knife not just as a tool to scare his victims but to stab someone with? How long before he killed someone?
“You know what I was thinking?” Fletcher said thoughtfully.
“No, what?” Julian asked.
“So far, he’s only gone after tourists, no residents of the town have been mugged. I think that means that he’s a local,” Fletcher said.
The idea had occurred to him too, but this case was Fletcher’s and he didn’t want to step on his toes. Besides, he was confident that his deputy would figure things out on his own. He only hired people he trusted, and Fletcher had been practically a part of the family since they were kids, and he had served in the military beside his brother.
“You got someone specific in mind?” Abe asked.
“One person,” Fletcher replied, his blue eyes razor-sharp. “Dylan Rodriquez lost his job last summer, he had to move back in with his parents, his wife left him, took the kids, and since he lost his job and he can’t pay child support she’s not letting him see the kids.”
“Broke, lost his family, has to live with the parents, could lead him to need the cash and an outlet for his anger,” Julian agreed.
He agreed as well. They needed a place to start, and Dylan Rodriquez was as good a place as any. “Why don’t you start looking into him, ask around, see if he has alibis for any of the muggings and go from there.”
“On it.” Fletcher nodded, standing all energized and ready to end this case before anyone got seriously hurt. Fletcher paused at the door. “Oh, Abe, I forgot to ask. Is she pretty?” he asked, his blue eyes twinkling.
“Yes, now get out of here,” he said gruffly. He was trying to keep his mind off Meadow, but it seemed like both his deputies were determined to play matchmaker and try to set him up even though it was the last thing he wanted.
Fletcher chuckled and headed out of the room, Julian was smirking, and Abe was about to ask about the case his cousin was working on when his phone rang. One glance at the screen and his mind was right back to Meadow.
“I have to take this.”
“Sure,” Julian said as he followed Fletcher out of his office.
He picked up his phone and pressed answer. “Levi, you got my messages,” he said to his younger brother.
“No way I could miss them you left me like thirty,” Levi shot back.
“It was two,” he said. “And it was important.”
“Yeah I got that,” Levi said, and he could hear the smile in his brother’s voice. “So what’s so important? Does this have something to do with your guest?”
Did everyone know about Meadow? “How did you find out?”
“Mom. I stopped by with some fresh fish I caught when I went ice fishing yesterday, and she said you had called to ask if Dahlia left any clothes behind when she left. So what’s up with your guest?”
“I was wondering if you could stop by tonight and take a look at her.”
“Is she sick?”
“She’s pregnant. She said five months, and I’m worried that whoever got her pregnant was also abusing her and that’s why she ran. I was hoping you could check her out, make sure everything is okay with the baby, and also maybe see if she has any scars or anything that might give me some clues to what happened to her.”
“You know if she tells me anything in confidence I can’t tell you,” Levi warned. “You want me to do this then I’ll be her doctor and confidentiality comes into play.”
He knew that, and he knew he had no right to ask his brother to break his oath, and yet he was desperate, he didn’t know what else to do. Meadow needed help, and he was determined to give it to her.
* * * * *
5:26 P.M.
Meadow stared at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room.
It was nearly half-past five.
Abe was supposed to be here at five.
He wasn’t coming.
She was sure of it.
He’d decided that no one in their right mind wanted to deal with a homeless pregnant woman who was on the run from a sadistic sociopath.
Of course he was going to get out as quickly as he could.
The worst part was she couldn’t even blame him.
If their positions were reversed, she probably would have bolted as well. She was surprised he had stuck it out this long. Maybe he thought since he had gotten her a job that he had done his part, fulfilled his role as sheriff of River’s End, and now he could walk away without feeling like he had turned his back on someone in need.
She was on her own again.
No, not again, she had always been on her own, and she always would be.
Meadow didn’t know why she couldn’t seem to accept that.
It wasn’t like life hadn’t told her that repeatedly.
Oh wait, it had.
Over and over again, apparently she was a slow learner and couldn’t seem to get the message.
Loneliness was her curse to bear, and she’d better figure out a way to deal with it.
“Abe just pulled up outside, Meadow,” Maggie stuck her head into the living room and called out.
Abe.
He was here?
He hadn’t abandoned her?
With probably more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, Meadow bounded out of her chair and hurried through the grand living room of Maggie’s hotel, through the dining room and then the kitchen, then she stepped outside into the cold winter evening.
“Abe.” She smiled up at him.
“Miss me, sunshine?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly because she saw no reason to lie. Her answer obviously wasn’t what he was expecting, and he shifted uncomfortably. Abe didn’t like praise, she hadn’t even known him for twenty-four hours and yet she already knew that about him. She wondered why. What had happened to him that had made his heart so carefully guarded? She had been through more than enough to have her heart close its doors, lock them, and then throw away the key, but it hadn’t. She wanted love, she craved it, for Abe to have turned his back on the idea something bad must h
ave happened to him.
“Yes, well, I’m here now,” he said gruffly, already turning and heading back toward his truck.
“Were you working a case?” she asked, trailing after him. Meadow was intrigued by Abe’s job, while she liked him, and she liked how he made her feel safe, she wasn’t so stupid that she was going to blindly trust the first man she saw. She would wait a while, feel him out, get to know him, and then—maybe—if he turned out to be a good guy she might tell him what had happened to her and see if he could help her.
“Actually, we were,” he said as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“What was it?” she asked, climbing in beside him.
“We’ve had several muggings here in town, someone targeting tourists, I’d been concerned that sooner or later the guy would progress from mugging to assault, and last night he took the first step toward that.”
“Did he hurt someone?” She had thought that River’s End would be a quiet, peaceful place to build a life for her and her baby but it sounded like maybe it wasn’t. She knew that no place was perfect, and that any city or town, no matter how small, was bound to have crime, but still it made her feel uncomfortable.
“Not badly, and one of my deputies who was working the case interviewed a suspect today, and it turns out the guy is guilty.”
“So you got him,” she said with a smile, relaxing into her seat and looking out the window at the trees as they passed them by. She should have known that Abe wouldn’t let some criminal wander around his town.
“Well, Fletcher did,” he corrected, but it wasn’t a correction she needed. Abe was the sheriff, and she was sure he had played a part in apprehending this mugger.
“It’s so beautiful out here.” Tall trees loomed above them, some had slender branches, devoid of leaves, that seemed to glimmer in the moonlight, others were fir trees and their green boughs made the forest look so black. But not a scary black, she liked it out here, she’d never really spent much time outside the city, but she thought she would like living in this quaint little town.
“It is,” Abe agreed, and she heard a tranquility in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. He loved this place too. It was like a little piece of paradise, and she couldn’t wait to see it turned into a magical wintery wonderland when the snow came. There was just something about the snow that seemed to make everything beautiful. At least when the snow was fresh, then after a few days it just turned to gray, mushy slush, but before then it was perfect.