A Family Kind of Gal (19 page)

“We used to call it tobacco juice,” Tiffany said, hauling her daughter into her arms.

“It's icky!” Tears rolled down her eyes.

“Come on, let's clean you up, then get something to eat.”

For once her daughter didn't protest, and after a bath, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and glass of milk, she settled down to watch television. Tiffany started dinner by cooking pasta for a salad and mixing the dressing in the blender. J.D. stopped his work for a bottle of cold beer, then continued to work outside, fixing a leaning handrail and several window latches. Exhausted from a long day, Christina dropped off in her chair, and rather than rouse her for dinner, Tiffany carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed.

After she'd picked up a few scattered toys in Christina's room, Tiffany finished making the salad and checked the time. Stephen was already half an hour late, and she was a little nervous. The kid always pushed her and was forever ten or fifteen minutes late, but a half hour was longer than usual.

“Don't borrow trouble,” she told herself as she tossed shrimp, green onions and artichokes into the pasta salad, then turned on the oven to preheat. Stephen would be home soon. After all, he'd mislaid his watch a few weeks back. He'd probably just lost track of time.

Chiding herself for being a worrywart, she glanced up the drive as she walked outside to the corner of the house where J.D., wrench in hand, was fixing a broken outdoor faucet. The handle had fallen apart, and he was replacing the worn piece with a new one.

“You don't have to do all this, you know,” she said. “It's not part of the rental agreement.”

“Just wait till you get my bill.”

“Oh, right. And how much will that be?”

His eyes glinted wickedly. “Well, Ms. Santini, we're not talking dollars and cents, you know.”

“No?”

“Uh-uh. I was thinking more along the lines of a trade. Tit for tat. I scratch your back, you scratch mine...”

She laughed. “I don't even want to know what you're thinking.”

“It's twisted,” he teased.

“Mmm. Sounds interesting.”

“If you only knew.” He winked at her, then turned his attention back to the task at hand. Setting his jaw, he gave a final tug on the wrench and twisted on the faucet. For the first time in months water spewed out of the tap and didn't spray at odd angles from the spigot.

“You're a natural,” she said with a laugh.

“If you think this is good, just wait until you see me sink my teeth into a double valve, if there is such a thing.”

At the sound of tires crunching on gravel, they both looked toward the street. Tiffany thought Stephen might have found a ride home, but her son wasn't anywhere in sight. She began to worry a little more.

A Dodge pickup that had seen better days rolled into the drive, and the man behind the wheel, a lanky stranger, climbed down from the cab. Tall and slow-moving, he crossed the expanse of grass and approached them. “You in charge?” he asked J.D.

“Not usually.”

The man, his hair a dark shade of blond, nodded toward the Apartment for Rent sign in the front yard. “I'm lookin' for a place to stay for a few months.”

“I'm Tiffany Santini, and this is my brother-in-law, J.D.” She offered her hand. “This is my place,” she said and noticed J.D.'s mouth tighten a bit.

“Luke Gates.”

He shook her hand, then offered his to J.D., who hadn't smiled since the pickup had stopped in the drive. Obviously Jay had reservations about the stranger who looked like he was more comfortable in a saddle than in the bucket seat of a truck.

Tiffany sized him up. His clothes were clean but worn, pride kept his spine straight, and his eyes, she thought, had seen more than their share of pain. Crow's-feet fanned from his eyes, and calluses on his hands suggested that he wasn't afraid of hard work. “I've got two units available, one in the basement of the main house, the other over the old carriage house. I ask for first and last month's rent, a security deposit, cleaning deposit and references.”

“I imagine you do.” His smile was slow, and his west Texas drawl nearly imperceptible. “Got both. Let's see the one over the carriage house.”

“This way.”

J.D.'s limp had nearly disappeared as he followed them around the house, then went back to work cleaning a patch of asphalt on the far side of the garage. He'd already told Tiffany he thought it would be a good place to hang a basketball hoop for Stephen. “A boy needs something to do when he's got time on his hands. He can shoot baskets, hit a tennis ball against a wall, or work out with a punching bag, but you need to give him something to do here, preferably something that he can do alone or with his friends, so that they'll hang out at the house. Assuming that's what you want.”

“I'd rather have them where I can see them than at someone else's place.”

“Good point.”

They'd settled on the hoop.

Luke Gates nodded as he walked into the upper unit of the carriage house, though, Tiffany suspected, he'd decided to rent it before seeing the patina on the hardwood floors, the red brick of the fireplace or the single bedroom. She guessed he'd made up his mind before he'd even parked his truck.

Luke signed the papers in her kitchen, offered her a list of references and paid the rent and deposits with cash. Crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.

This wasn't the first time she'd been given currency up front, since renters who hadn't yet opened local bank accounts sometimes had enough cash on them, but it always made her a little wary. Never would she carry that amount of money in her purse, but Luke acted as if it was natural, and he intended to move in that very night.

“So where're you from?” J.D. asked as they walked outside to the spot where Luke's truck was parked.

“All over.”

“You must've started out somewhere.”

“Yep.”

“But not from around here,” J.D. prodded.

“Nope. Texas. A little town east of El Paso.” With an enigmatic smile, he climbed into his truck, ground the gears and backed out of the shady drive.

“I don't trust him,” J.D. said once the truck had rounded the corner, leaving a trail of smelly blue exhaust in its wake. They stood on the porch together as the shadows of evening began to stretch across the parched grass.

“You don't trust anyone,” she observed, but understood what J.D. was saying; Luke was the kind of man who made people edgy, not so much by what he said as by what he didn't say—a man who didn't give out much information but took in a whole lot.

“Not true.” One side of J.D.'s mouth lifted, and Tiffany's heart skipped a silly little beat. As easily as if he'd done it a thousand times before, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “But people have to earn my trust, and it takes time.”

“Does it?”

His face was so close to hers that she noticed the webbing of colors—blue and green—beneath the gray of his eyes. “Yep. A long time.” He kissed her then, and her insides melted. His lips were firm and warm. So damned inviting. She and he were becoming familiar—way too familiar—and the feel of him, of his hands locked behind the small of her back, was a sensation she didn't want to give up. Ever.

When he lifted his head, she smiled, sighed, then rested her head against his shoulder. “James Dean Santini, what in the world am I going to do with you?” she asked as the moon began to rise.

“Good question. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

“They say that great minds think alike.”

“Do they?” he asked, his voice deep, his gaze so intense that she had to look away, at anything. She chose her watch and felt a frisson of dread. “Stephen's so much later than usual.”

“He's a thirteen-year-old boy.”

“I know, I know, and he's chronically pushing his curfew back, but not by more than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”

“He'll show up.” J.D. was confident. Always.

“I hope so.”

He folded her into his arms again and kissed her temple. “Worrying isn't going to help.”

She knew it but couldn't help the edge of concern that nagged at her. Lately Stephen had been getting into more and more trouble. It wasn't the pack of cigarettes she'd found in his room that bothered her, but this business with Isaac Wells and the fight with Miles Dean the other day. Not to mention his general bad attitude.

“It'll be all right,” J.D. promised, as if reading her mind.

“I hope you're right.”

Somewhere not too far away church bells tolled, the chimes ringing through the town and echoing off the surrounding hills. Tiffany lifted her head and sighed.

“Something else is bothering you,” J.D. said, touching her chin with one finger.

“Hear that?” The melodic bells continued to peal, and Tiffany's heart squeezed painfully.

“Late service?”

“Nope.” She rubbed her arms as if to ward off a chill. “I think my father just got married.”

“I
've called everywhere,” Tiffany said, hanging up the kitchen telephone and leaning heavily against the wall. “He's gone.”

“We'll find him,” J.D. insisted. “Ask Mrs. Ellingsworth to watch Christina, and we'll start looking for him.”

“Where?”

“You tell me.”

Don't panic. He's fine. He's got to be.
With trembling fingers she dialed Ellie's number and tried to remain calm as the telephone rang. When the older woman answered, Tiffany explained what was going on.

“I'll be up in a second,” Ellie said without hesitation. “Now don't you worry.”

If only that was possible. These days, worry seemed to be Tiffany's middle name.

True to her word, Ellie was at the back door within minutes and bustling them both outside. “You know how boys are, never can keep track of time. My Charlie, he was the worst. Gave me every gray hair on my head, I swear.” But the concern in her eyes betrayed her. She, too, was upset.

“It's so unlike Stephen to be this late,” Tiffany said, once they were in J.D.'s Jeep and driving through the narrow streets and alleys of Bittersweet. Dusk had given way to the deeper shades of evening, and a few street lamps had begun to glow.

“Relax.” J.D. patted her knee as he shifted down. “Let's start with the obvious. Tell me where his friends live.”

“Okay. Let's think. He said he was with Sam—Sam Prescott—but when I called over there, no one answered.”

“Where does Sam live?”

“On the outskirts of town, to the north, near the water tower.”

J.D. maneuvered his Jeep through town, past the park and shopping mall to a residential district. The Prescotts resided in a log cabin that had been in the family for generations. The house was dark, the porch light burning when Tiffany hurried up the front path to the door. She rapped firmly on the old oak panels, then jabbed at the doorbell, but though the buzzer went off inside, no one answered.

“Something's really wrong,” she said, spying Sam's ten-speed chained to a post supporting the roof of the porch and his skateboard left near the steps. “If Sam were with Stephen he'd be on his bike or skateboard.”

“You think.”

“I know.” Though the evening was warm, she felt a chill deep in her soul and rubbed her arms where goose bumps had taken hold. Where was Stephen? Thoughts of injury, kidnapping or worse skated through her mind. She noticed the uneaten bowl of cat food and two rolled newspapers left on the front porch, as if no one had been home for a couple of days. “It's possible the Prescotts are out of town,” she admitted.

J.D.'s expression hardened as he, too, noticed the signs of inactivity at the house. “Looks that way, doesn't it?”

“So Stephen lied,” she said, disheartened. Ever since Philip's death, her son had become more secretive, and he'd started lying about the time of Isaac Wells's disappearance. “I think we should go over to the Deans' house. They live in a mobile home about two miles up the road.”

J.D. didn't waste any time. He drove unerringly to the Dean property and pulled into a weed-choked drive. Two disabled cars sat rusting by a vegetable garden surrounded by a high chicken-wire fence to keep out the deer. Besides the mobile home, there were a shed and a lean-to barn by which a skinny horse stood, flicking flies with his tail and trying to find any blade of grass in the small paddock.

Tiffany was out of the Jeep before it stopped. She hurried up a couple of weathered steps, nearly banged her head on a hanging pot overflowing with dying geraniums and pounded on the door. Vera Dean, Miles and Laddy's mother, opened it a second later. She was tall and thin, with a fading beauty that matched her worn-off lipstick, short, shaggy blond hair and tanned skin stretched taut over high cheekbones. She looked as tired as a plow horse after a day in the fields, and her smile, friendly at first, fell as she recognized Tiffany.

“Hi, Vera. I'm sorry to stop by unannounced, but I'm looking for Stephen,” Tiffany said. “He's missing, and I thought he might have come here.”

“After the fight he had with Miles?” Vera shook her head and reached into the pocket of her jeans for a leather case that held a pack of cigarettes. “No way.”

“You're sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Tiffany wasn't convinced the woman was telling the truth. “Could I talk to Miles?”

Vera unclasped the case and stared at J.D., looking him up and down as he stood on the step behind Tiffany. “Miles isn't here.”

Warning bells clanged in her mind. Both boys, known to get into trouble together, were missing. “Do you know where he is?”

“Miles?” She let out a throaty laugh. “Nope. That boy's just like his old man. Never around when you need him. But I'll let him know you dropped by.” She shook out a long, slim cigarette and held it between two fingers. “Anything else?”