“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.”
CHAPTER NINE
“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 beau
ty 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?”
“No. Just please have Miles call me when he gets in.”
“Will do.” She shut the door, and Tiffany walked back to the car, convinced that the boy would never get the message.
“Friendly,” J.D. observed sarcastically.
“She doesn’t like me. Or Stephen.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Not that I know of, but I don’t take it personally. She doesn’t get along with many people. Her husband, Ray, is a guy who hires on at local ranches, and he’s been in and out of jail since he was nineteen. Right now he’s out, but no one thinks it’ll last.”
“You know a lot for a newcomer to Bittersweet.”
“It’s a small town. Everyone has his nose in everyone else’s business. I hear it all day long—down at the insurance office or when I’m having coffee down at Millie’s or, if all else fails, from my renters.”
They drove toward town as the stars winked in the dark sky. Tiffany leaned her arm out the open window and tried to imagine where her son had gone. Was he with Miles, and more importantly, was he safe? Oh, dear God, she prayed, please, let him be all right.
“I have an idea,” J.D. ventured as he slid her a glance.
“About Stephen?”
“Mmm.” He drove through town but didn’t head toward her house. “Remember this morning at breakfast? Stephen seemed pretty determined to go to the Cawthorne wedding.”
She felt her shoulders sag as she remembered the conversation about her father. “It was just talk.”
“Was it?” J.D. asked as they passed the post office.
“It’s his new thing—try to argue Mom into a corner.”
“Or he could have been serious.”
“Why?”
J.D. lifted a shoulder. “Curiosity. Or a need to connect with his mother’s family. Who knows?”
Tiffany didn’t want to believe that Stephen would openly defy her. Not this way. “He…he wouldn’t have gone to the wedding. No way. Same goes for the reception.”
“A few days ago you were certain he knew nothing about Isaac Wells’s disappearance. Now you’re not so sure.”
“He must be somewhere else.” She didn’t want to believe that her boy would lie so blatantly—especially about this—and yet, she couldn’t overlook any possibility. Staring out the bug-spattered windshield, she realized that J.D. wasn’t listening to her arguments anyway. He was driving out of town in the direction of Cawthorne Acres, John’s ranch. The thought hit her like the proverbial ton of bricks. “You’re not really going to take me to the wedding reception, are you?”
He lifted a dark brow. “Seems as if you were invited.”
“I know, but—”
“We’ll just see if anyone’s seen Stephen.”
“No!” She was emphatic.
“Got any better ideas?”
She wanted to come up with something—anything other than her estranged father’s wedding—but she couldn’t. Her stomach twisted into tight little knots. “All right, we’ll check,” she finally conceded because she couldn’t think of another place Stephen would have gone. “Discreetly,” she said, hating the thought. “We’ll inquire discreetly. I don’t want to cause a stir.” Then she looked down at her attire. Jeans and a short-sleeved blouse. Everyone else would be dressed to the nines for the wedding. Not that it mattered. She’d suffer any kind of humility, just as long as Stephen was okay.
“There won’t be a stir,” J.D. assured her as he slowed at the lane leading to John Cawthorne’s place. The gate was open, and the curved sign that spanned the lane read Cawthorne Acres. A black ribbon of asphalt sliced between moon-washed fields of cut hay. In the pasture on one side of the road a few bales had yet to be hauled to the barns. They stood like unmoving, rectangular sentinels in the dry stubble. On the other side of the lane, long-legged foals romped and bucked around a small herd of serene older horses. Silvery moonlight played upon their white markings, making them appear ghostlike.
At the end of the lane, the ranch house and grounds were ablaze with lights.
Tiffany’s stomach tightened, and her fingers curled into fists of anxiety as she saw dozens of cars parked in the lot between the house and barns. More vehicles had been directed into one of the fields while still others were parked along one side of the lane.
Dear God, what am I doing here? she thought as J.D. eased his Jeep behind a sports car nearly a hundred yards from the house. You’re only here to find your son. Nothing more. Remember that.
“It’s now or never,” J.D. said, and Tiffany steeled herself. She climbed out of the Cherokee and was hit by the strains of “The Anniversary Waltz” being played by a small dance band. The notes carried on a breeze tinged with the scents of cut grass and honeysuckle. A faint odor of cigarette smoke wafted through the summer air, and the hum of conversation grew louder as they approached the single-story house.
Millions of tiny white lights decorated the trees and fence line, as if it were the Christmas holidays instead of the beginning of August.
Guests, dressed in everything from silk and diamonds to denim and rhinestones, wandered the grounds. But no Stephen. “This is insane,” Tiffany muttered under her breath as she followed a path that led behind the house. Rounding the corner by the back porch, she nearly slammed into a woman walking in the other direction.
“You decided to come after all!” Bliss, dressed in a shimmery silver-blue dress, smiled widely. Her blond hair was pulled into a French braid and her eyes sparkled as brightly as the thousands of tiny bulbs. Beside her was a tall man with light brown eyes and sun-streaked blond hair. His hand was placed firmly in the middle of Bliss’s back.
“I don’t know if you’ve met Mason,” Bliss said. “My fiancé, Mason Lafferty. This is Tiffany Santini, my half sister.”
Somehow, despite the worry congealing her insides, Tiffany managed to make the appropriate noises as well as introduce J.D. as her brother-in-law and explain why they’d shown up. “We decided to come here because I’m worried sick about Stephen, and he isn’t at any of his friends’ houses. No one knows where he is, but he was interested in coming to the wedding today, and I thought... I mean, J.D. thought he might have shown up here.”
Bliss’s smile had slowly given way to a frown of concern. Tiny lines of anxiety etched her forehead. “I wish I could help out, but I don’t remember seeing him,” she said, looking to Mason for support.
“Don’t ask me, I’ve never met him.” Mason glanced around the crowd that had collected around the rim of a temporary dance floor in the backyard. “There are a lot of kids here, though.”
“It’s true.” Bliss’s eyes clouded with genuine worry. “There were a few boys about Stephen’s age at the ceremony, and more here.” Her gaze swept the area. “But it’s easy to
get lost in this place.”
Tiffany’s stomach, already tense, tightened another notch. “You don’t mind if we look around?”
“Of course not. Dad will be thrilled that you’re here,” Bliss said.
“Not if he found out I came here because I lost his grandson.” Why did her tongue still trip over the word?
Bliss nodded. “But you should let him know. He does care about you and your kids. I know that sounds weird, considering all that’s gone on and how he dealt with you in the past, but I’ve seen firsthand the pain he’s been going through, the struggles. He would want to help find Stephen, and he’d be mad as a hornet if we didn’t let him know Stephen was missing.”
Tiffany’s heart was drumming, her pride dissipating by the minute. “I’ll take all the help I can get,” she said fervently. When J.D. had suggested coming to this party, she’d been reticent, but a part of her had hoped that she would locate her rebellious son, stay long enough not to offend anyone, then hightail it back to her house. Now, all she wanted was to find Stephen.
“He’s not here,” she whispered to J.D.
“We don’t know that yet.”
Again, Tiffany searched the faces of the people talking in small clusters. She recognized a few of the townspeople, and several of the kids, but she didn’t see any sign of her son. Music filtered through the throng. On the dance floor Brynnie, dressed in a lacy creamy-white gown that showed off her ample cleavage, smiled radiantly up at her new husband. Her flame-colored hair was pinned in curls to her crown and decorated with tiny rosebuds and sprigs of baby’s breath. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, merriment fairly oozing from her expression.
For a second Tiffany forgot her worries and watched as John Cawthorne twirled his bride around the makeshift floor, dancing as if he were a man twenty years younger, a man who didn’t fear another heart attack or facing the Grim Reaper. Dressed in a gray tuxedo, he swirled and dipped, causing Brynnie to laugh out loud.