She glanced at Reed and wondered if he could be the type of man to take Kyle away from here, from the people who loved him

Too complicated. Too scary.

In a perfect world, she’d ask Reed what he thought about the possibility Kyle was Jesse’s and what they should do about it. In her dream, he’d tell her it would be great to have a nephew and maybe the boy would come visit when he was older, say eighteen and a half. In the meantime, he’d busy himself setting up a college fund.

That could happen. Maybe Reed Maxwell was a good man, a fine man. He certainly looked fine. The dark knit of his shirt stretched across muscle that nearly begged to be touched. His face cleanly shaven did the same for kisses.

Heaven help her, she needed to make her mind go someplace else.

Dear Reader,

When you read my books, I feel like a real storyteller. Thank you for that!

The past has been harsh with Abby Fairchild and Reed Maxwell. What they don’t know—at first—is they can help each other mend what’s broken about their lives and brighten their future.

I hope you enjoy Abby and Reed’s story and that you have fun meeting more of the residents of the fictional town of St. Adelbert. Some of these characters will help Abby and Reed and some will hinder, but together these people offer color, heart and a sense of belonging.

Also get a peek at how Maude DeVane and Guy Daley—He Calls Her Doc—are doing. Hint: Maude has gained several “good” pounds.

I’d love to hear from you. Visit my website at www.marybrady.net or write to me at mary@marybrady.net.

Enjoy,

Mary Brady

Promise to a Boy
Mary Brady

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Brady lives in the Midwest and considers road trips into the rest of the continent to be a necessary part of life. When she’s not out exploring, she helps run a manufacturing company and has a great time living with her handsome husband, her super son and one cheeky little bird.

To my husband and son who appreciate me on many levels and on most days.

Acknowledgements

To my critique group: Denise Cychosz, Pamela Ford, Victoria Hinshaw, Laura Iding, Laura Scott and Donna Smith who freely offer their wisdom and encouragement.

To the people of Montana who have allowed me to build a fictional town in their beautiful state.

And last, but never least, to Kathryn Lye, my editor who helps me focus on giving my readers the best story.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU’RE NOT ANGELINA Fairbanks.”

“I knew that.” Abby Fairbanks smiled at the man who had rung her front doorbell—insistently—interrupting an excellent game of Candy Land with her nephew. She brushed a clump of dark curls out of her eyes so she could get a better look at the tall and sullen stranger.

He studied a photo in his hand and then looked at her again. His dark brown eyes gave nothing away, but his frown deepened. “This is supposed to be the address of A. Fairbanks who moved here from Denver. Is Angelina here?”

Abby reached out and tipped the edge of the photo so she could see the image. It was Lena all right, from a few years ago when they lived in Denver, and it looked as if it had been taken at one of the parties during which her sister had partaken of more than one mood-altering substance.

She looked up at him and gave him a long steady not-quite glare.

“I guess that would depend on who you are.” And what you want with my sister, mister. He didn’t look like the law, thankfully, because Lena had cleaned up her act.

The man eyed her suspiciously.

Abby fingered a button at the V of her flowered Henley-style shirt and then tugged down the edge of the hem that must have flipped up when she sat on the floor playing with five-year-old Kyle. When she realized these twitchy actions probably made her look less confident than she wanted to look, she put one hand on the doorknob and stood up straighter.

“What do you mean, it depends on who I am?” he asked.

The man’s rumpled blue-and-white-striped dress shirt had a small drop of something red—ketchup hopefully—on the front of it, and the quilted leather bomber jacket he wore looked high fashion, or rather…well, she’d think girlie if he didn’t look so hot in it. Whoever he was, he had traveled far away from home.

“Montana’s a big state and St. Adelbert is a small out-of-the-way town. We don’t get many strangers here, especially on our doorsteps. It makes us cautious.” Abby hoped the nudge acted like a warning shot fired over his head.

“It’s important that I speak with Angelina. Is she here or not?” He widened his stance to look more intimidating. He didn’t need to. His muscular body and deep frown were enough for that.

Abby suddenly felt something she hadn’t felt since she moved back to the small town of St. Adelbert.

Fear.

What if there was something in Lena’s past she didn’t know about, something bad enough to have some city man chase her down?

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, sweetie,” she called over her shoulder to her nephew, who no doubt was already getting anxious to continue their game. Then she stepped out onto the dull gray porch badly in need of paint and pulled the door closed behind her. She was safe outside. In a town this size, where everyone loved to know everyone else’s business, all she needed to do was call loudly and at least three neighbors with weapons of some sort would converge. Even if it was just one of the gray-haired women across the street with a cast-iron skillet.

The man stepped back toward the wooden railing. His short dark hair looked as if it got the tender loving care of a city barber, no, make that a stylist. His nails were neat and his skin, probably a pale shade before he left home, had been cast with a pink tinge from exposure to the harsh mountain sun.

Things could go any which way. She could push and he could push back harder. She took a deep breath and decided the best thing to do was to keep things light, until he did something to actually threaten her or hers.

“If you’re a bill collector, she’s out of the country. If you’re the police, she didn’t do it. If you’re a suitor…” Which Abby definitely knew he was not. Her sister would have told her about any hotties she had on hold. “She said I should stand in for her.”

She gave him an impeccably polite smile, hoping that last little bit would scare him off. It would most men who preferred her pretty, vivacious sister, with the flowing auburn hair and bright blue eyes.

His dark brows pulled together. He must be trying to figure out which of the options he was. She almost chuckled, but stayed silent. Let him fill the void.

A few long seconds passed. This man wasn’t a very good void filler because he just stared back at her.

She held her smile.

He didn’t smile at all.

“Where is she?” he finally asked.

Before Abby could respond, the door behind her flew open. She spun and bent over her five-year-old nephew, putting her body between the man and the child. The boy looked up at her with his big blue eyes, her sister’s eyes. “Aunt Abby, can we finish our game now?”

She put her hand on his blond head, curly hair like hers, not straight like his mother’s. “Go back inside, Kyle sweetie.”

“Who’s out there?” Kyle tried to see around her, but the big city had taught her caution on the border of paranoia, and where Kyle was concerned, everyone was to be suspected first. Trust needed to be well earned.

Abby physically turned Kyle around and pushed him gently into the house. “I’ll be in very soon. Why don’t you pour us each a glass of milk, and I’ll get cookies down when I come in.”

“Yippee, cookies,” the five-year-old shouted as he ran toward the kitchen at the back of the house. A cookie bribe. The bad-aunt police should be after her any minute.

“And pick up your toys,” she called after him and then slowly pulled the berry-colored front door closed again. When she turned back to the stranger, he suddenly seemed taller, stronger, and she needed him away from the house, away from Kyle. She stepped off the porch and down onto the sidewalk bordered with unruly wildflowers.

“I’m Angelina’s sister. Who are you and what do you want with her?” she asked as he descended the steps.

“My name is Reed Maxwell.” He didn’t offer his hand. She probably didn’t look as if she would accept the offer.

“Maxwell as in Jesse Maxwell’s relative?” One of the rich snobs? One of a bunch of people who didn’t care about anyone except themselves? Those were the kinds of things the man who rented the living quarters above her garage had said about his family.

“Jesse’s brother.”

“Of course you are. He has a picture of your family, though it’s several years old.” Like about a decade or so. The brothers in the photo were gangly teens. This one had definitely developed a man’s body. “Jesse hasn’t changed much.”

Reed Maxwell nodded. “I wanted to ask Angelina if she knows where he is. According to what I found out in Denver, she knew Jesse when they lived there.” The words sounded like an accusation. Maybe Jesse was right. Snobs.

Light. Keep it light, she reminded herself. “He…um…said none of his family gives…well, he said something about…a rat’s ass, about…none of his family giving one…sorry…about him.”

The man smiled and brought one hand up to rest on his hip under the lower edge of his jacket.

Of all the things Abby expected from him, a big grin was not it. Some of the tiredness lifted from his face, brightening his whole appearance and making him—well—yummy.

“What,” she asked, jerking her wandering mind away from thoughts of yummy, “are you smiling about?”

“I know I’m on the right track. The ‘rat’s ass’ hyper-bole would be the kind of thing Jesse would say about us.” He put the photo in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “And he’s probably right for the most part, but I do need to speak with Angelina or Jesse if you know where he is.”

“Angelina’s not here. Neither is Jesse.”

“Jesse was here? In St. Adelbert?”

For almost a year. How could a family not know where one of their own was for that long? “He lived, lives above my garage in the apartment there.”

“With your sister.”

“Angelina doesn’t live here.”

“So, do you know where Jesse is or when he’ll be back?”

Her shoulders drooped when she thought of her tenant. “I wish I knew. He just sort of disappears sometimes. He’s been gone for over two months this time.”

“And that’s different?” Reed Maxwell shifted one foot up onto the lower step. Dress shoes, those slim, well-fitting ones that spoke of money—with laces and everything—and a scuff on the toe of one. A very long way from home. Chicago, more precisely, a rich suburb north of Chicago according to Jesse.

“I haven’t heard anything from him,” she explained. “Not that he usually calls and he never writes, but I thought since he’s gone so long he would have let me know he’s all right. Has he called you in the past couple months?”

The man shook his head thoughtfully as he rubbed his fingertips along his jawline where a long day’s worth of dark whiskers grew. “Are you sure Jesse and Angelina aren’t together somewhere?”

“Angelina is out of the country. Jesse said he was going hiking in Utah, but that was only supposed to be for a couple weeks.”

“And you didn’t think to contact his family.” His grin had long since left and the tiredness returned.

I hope you’re not this rude when you’re well rested. “I sent a letter two weeks ago to an address I found in his things. I haven’t heard a peep in response.”

“Even though you believed we didn’t give a—care?”

“Make up your mind, please. I should write. I shouldn’t have written. Jesse’s a friend of my sister. She’s worried and so am I. I did talk it over with the sheriff.”

“And?”

“Well, the last time Jesse went missing for almost a month and I was about to go file a missing person’s report, he showed up. I told him about it and he got really sad, asked me never to do that. So this time the sheriff said to give Jesse time. I was going to wait till I heard from his family before I did anything, um, rash. For all I knew he was home in Illinois.”

The man looked out over the mountains rising beyond the town. Then he looked back at her and almost drilled through her with his dark eyes. “I’d like to check out his apartment.”

She involuntarily took a step back, her heel coming down in a clump of white yarrow releasing the stringent, musty smell of the injured plant.

“I don’t think I can let you in without Jesse’s permission,” she said as she stepped forward to take back the ground she had given.

He must have realized he was coming on strong, because he put up a hand in a conciliatory gesture, an uncalloused hand that had never held a rope or the reins of a workhorse. “I don’t mean to cause trouble. I’d just like to find my brother. How much back rent does he owe you?”

“Why do you think he owes money?”

“Some things don’t usually change much over time.”

“Three months.” And the edge of financial oblivion lived a constant threat right under her toes as compounding interest worked heavily against her. The last three weeks…

“I’ll pay the three months and I’ll pay for next month. Will that buy me entrance?” He reached in his pocket for his wallet. Not a wallet, a money clip, of course.

She couldn’t meet his probing gaze without a chance to think. She turned away to study an old red pickup passing slowly in the street. She had no idea how she planned to find the mortgage payment due three weeks ago, and her SUV was also late for an oil change. The house needed work and Kyle needed clothes that would fit, and soon. School started next month.

“It feels mercenary,” she said quietly. Or worse, she thought. Their mother had said again and again that taking money from a man without good reason was wrong. On top of a winning personality, Delanna Fairbanks did have some morals. “With Jesse missing.”

“And you need the money.”

She swung back to face him. “What makes you think I need…”

He pointed at the sagging corner of the porch roof.

Abby pushed the blowing curls from her face again.

“My sister promised to live here and to pay rent.” Now Abby had only the income from her nurse’s job at the town’s one medical clinic. “And Jesse was never very good at paying rent on time.”

She could turn him down, or because she had always cared for Kyle and seen to his needs, she could swallow her pride and do what needed to be done.

“You can get Jesse to pay me back,” he offered.

She looked into his eyes and thought she saw a hint of amusement. They both knew Jesse wasn’t going to pay his brother back.

“Okay,” she said, feeling as if she was betraying Jesse while Jesse’s brother peeled hundred-dollar bills off the wad without even asking what she charged.

When she took the cash she realized it was more than she thought. “This is too much.”

“I’m sure Jesse has cost you more than what I’ve given you.”

She found herself smiling. “He does have a way of making his problems seem like mine. And he has such an innocent way of doing it.”

The man’s expression lightened again. Maybe he was remembering the delightful, funny way his brother had of being irresponsible.

“Um, the door’s not locked,” she said. “You can let yourself in.”

“So I could have walked in and you’d have had to get the sheriff to stop me if you didn’t like it.”

“You could probably walk into many places here in St. Adelbert—” he gave her a skeptical look and she continued “—but you would not want to cross our Sheriff Potts.”

He nodded and turned toward the garage located on the other side of her side yard.

Abby watched his confident stride. He walked as if he were used to getting what he wanted. He probably never disappeared for weeks at a time and never in his life let his hair and beard grow long like Jesse’s—though he might look good with longer hair. In fact, he’d make a great wild mountain man. She imagined him wearing buckskin pants and maybe one of those shirts made of rough cloth with an open V-neck, open down to his navel. Instead, even a bit disheveled, he looked sleek, smooth and, she’d wager, was totally out of his element in Montana. Wild mountain man…

Ridiculous. He probably followed rules and regulations all day long. Heck, he probably made those rules, but was he really a snob who didn’t give a rat’s behind about his brother? He must care a little. He was in St. Adelbert searching for him.

Abby let herself back into the house. He could check the apartment and then there would be nothing to keep him here. He’d go to Utah. Maybe he’d find Jesse and let her know. She liked Jesse. It was more like she had a younger brother as well as a younger sister when Jesse and Lena were around.

She wondered, as she picked up a pair of Hot Wheels cars, if there was anything in Jesse’s apartment to find. Jesse may be a wayward fellow, but he always seemed so open, a no-secrets kind of guy. And she’d never found anything odd or even telling lying around when she tidied his apartment and put away his clean laundry. Jesse Maxwell had no secrets that she knew of anyway.

REED HURRIED UP THE STEPS to Jesse’s apartment two at a time. He had been trying to find his brother for six weeks, first on the internet and by phone, and last week he started in person, and now he had a real lead.

The apartment door opened into a kitchen, with a dining and a living room area as one continuous room, one continuous small room. He could see a bedroom and bathroom through the open door off to the left.

Everything was in order and clean. Not a thing out of place. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but neatness was not it.

So not like the drop-it-anywhere Jesse he had known. The place was as orderly as his own condo, and he couldn’t imagine living any other way. Jesse could and did. Helter-skelter best described the life the Jesse he knew led. Maybe miracles did happen.

Reed pulled out his mobile phone and ran his finger across the screen to boot it up. Two bars. Good enough.

He needed to speak to his business partner. Corporate investing seemed to go better when his and Denny’s complementary brains studied the deals together. Denny looked at things more from the people angle and Reed from the logistics side. Together they understood better than most the motivations and financial implications of buying businesses and real estate for their business clients.

But right now, Denny was also working on a personal issue for Reed.

Reed placed the call.

“You found civilization. Impressive,” Denny said instead of hello.

Reed laughed. “I wear my battery out checking for service.”

“Find anything out there, and where is there anyway?”

“I’m in St. Adelbert, Montana. Cheery little burg buried in the mountains where my brother has an apartment.”

“But no pay dirt?” Denny was perceptive.

Reed looked around and then decided the bedroom might be the best place to start searching. As he neared the bookcase along one wall, he stopped for a moment. On the top shelf sat the photo of him and Jesse with their parents Abby had mentioned. That Jesse had it was a wonder. That he displayed it made him think Jesse might not hate his family as much as he pretended.

“Reed?”

Reed moved on. “But—he’s not here. Hasn’t been for a while, a couple months.”

“Then you won’t want to hear that your mother has been in again asking if you found anything.”

“I wear out the rest of my battery listening to her voice mails.” He opened the top drawer of the beat-up old dresser and picked up a paltry pile of cancelled checks from the local bank.

“I told your mother I’d call her if I heard anything from you.”

“Thanks, I know it won’t stop her from coming into the office and I promise I’ll make that up to you some day.” The checks were mostly to Abigail Fairbanks in nice, neat penmanship, only the signature was Jesse’s. The memo lines said rent, cleaning and laundry. That explained why the apartment was so neat.

“Don’t think I haven’t got things figured out, buddy.” Denny’s tone held a mock challenge.

“What’s that?” Reed played innocent.

“Your mother is the reason you went out there instead of hiring someone else to do the legwork.”

Reed gave a gruff sound that probably passed for laughter. “Might have been. I need you to see what you can find on Abigail Fairbanks. She’s renting an apartment to Jesse.” He gave Denny the address listed on Abby’s checks and then moved around the things inside the drawer to look under them. A few pairs of new underwear and some unmated socks, one with a hole in the toe. Nothing else.

“Related to Angelina? Oh, and I know it’s a little late, but I found Angelina. She’s in the army. Apparently, she was given a strong recommendation by a judge to find some meaning in her life.”

“Sounds like Jesse’s type. Abigail is Angelina’s sister.” Angelina was apparently a wild woman. He wondered what Abby was like. Her mass of dark curly hair, warm brown eyes, snug-fitting flowered shirt with its seductive V of buttons and jeans said she had a figure that probably drew a crowd of men. People in Denver had been happy to regale him with stories about Angelina, whom they called Lena. None of the neighbors knew much about Abby, not even her name.

“From what I can tell, Angelina hasn’t been in any trouble since she left for Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

She’s in the Middle East right now.”

“Do they have any other siblings?”

“Not that I’ve found.”

“Angelina might have a child. A little boy came to the door when I was talking to the sister. He called her Aunt Abby and she called him Kyle.”

Denny laughed. “Are you sure the child is a boy? Many gender related names are crossing over to the other side these days.”

Reed made an exasperated sound. “Who am I to know? I’ve paid so little attention to kids in my life, it could have been either, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell even if I had seen the kid’s face.”

Denny shuffled papers. “Wait. I think I have info about a child, but the sources, apparently a bit on the drugged-out iffy side, said—yeah.” The paper shuffling stopped. “They thought the kid was a little boy and might even have belonged to the sister. They rarely saw him. The sister took care of him anyway.”

Reed pulled on the handles of the second drawer. The drawer stuck, but when he pulled harder it opened only to contain a very old pair of jeans and a couple T-shirts, each with a rude saying.

“Maybe the kid lives with the aunt because Angelina isn’t mother material.” Much like Reed’s own family. One brother stayed and made something out of himself, turned the family misfortune around. The other brother couldn’t be bothered with responsibility, family or otherwise, and just disappeared into the West. And then there was their mother…

“There’s more.” Denny rustled more papers. “Seems to be some confusion because they are both A. Fairbanks.”

“Go on.” The next two drawers were empty. Again a reflection of his brother’s life.

“Apparently their Denver departure was rather abrupt and it might have had to do with the sister and not Angelina.”

Reed put his free hand flat on the dresser top. “Any details?”

“I’ll see what I can find out. I assume you don’t want me to tell your mother anything.”

“That’d be correct. Thanks, Denny.”

Reed hung up and crossed the room to where a wood-framed picture sat on the bedside table. The photo was of Jesse, Angelina, a toddler and Abby and it looked to be a few years old. Abby looked serious and the others were grinning. The kid was probably the child on “Aunt” Abby’s porch. He picked up the snapshot. The boy looked familiar, but maybe that was because all kids looked the same to him, they just had different colored hair.

He placed the picture back on the table and continued searching. There was nothing in the bathroom except a dry, cracked bar of soap and a neatly folded towel. On top of the refrigerator in a basket was an old letter from their mother ranting and raving in the tone of a chronic alcoholic. This would be the address Abby had used. It was their summerhouse in the Chain of Lakes area and no one was there this year. The letter would probably arrive in Evanston soon and the housekeeper would forward it to Reed’s office in Chicago with any other mail that might upset his mother and contribute to a relapse into the bottle.

Where the hell are you, Jesse?

ABBY TOSSED TOYS INTO the wooden “pirates treasure” box while Kyle ran to get a new game, undoubtedly leaving another mess on the floor outside the game cabinet as he tried to decide which one. There was nothing left of the cookies but crumbs and Kyle had beaten her at most of their half dozen games of Candy Land.

All the time they played, she wondered if she had done the right thing, letting Jesse’s brother into the apartment. Legally, she supposed the apartment wasn’t Jesse’s anymore. He hadn’t paid the rent due before he left, he kept meaning to and now his brother had.

Maybe Reed would find something she didn’t know about and get a clue as to where Jesse had gone after Utah. A stab of dread hit her as she thought of something happening to Jesse.

She picked up a picture of the four of them. It had been taken at the zoo in Denver and she’d had a copy made for Jesse. They were so young in the picture. Lena had just turned eighteen when Kyle was born and he was barely two in the picture.

Abby always wondered about Jesse and Angelina, how their relationship went.

“Is Mommy scared?” Kyle stood, holding the Shoots and Ladders game.

Abby put the picture back and smiled at Kyle’s sweet face.

“Maybe she is sometimes.” She handed the photo of his mother in uniform to Kyle and he left a kiss print on her face where he’d placed so many others. “But she’s in a place where there are a lot of people to make friends with. I bet she misses you a lot, though.”

“She left her bunny slippers. Do you think she misses them?”

On Kyle’s feet were large pink bunnies with floppy ears and black button noses.

“I think they look great on you,” she said, and smiled.

He grinned and then his expression grew serious enough to wrinkle his forehead. “I’d be scared.”

What did she say to that? She couldn’t tell him not to be scared, but she could listen.

“You’d be scared?”

“If I had to go and live with strangers.”

She reached for him and pulled him into a hug. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry too much about that, you rascally rabbit slipper wearer. You’ve got me and your grandma here.”

She tweaked his nose and he grinned again.

“Do you promise, Aunt Abby?”

“I promise,” she said with as much animation as she could stuff into her tone.

The doorbell rang. In the reflection in the hallway mirror, Abby could see Reed Maxwell silhouetted in the sheer lace curtained window of her front door.

“Is that the man again?” Kyle wiggled out of her arms. “Can I see him this time?”

“I want you to stay in the house. I don’t really know this man. He’s a stranger.” And he’s poking and prying. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know how he found out that Lena and Jesse were friends. And if he found that out, how much else did he know? And what did he plan to do with that knowledge?

“We don’t like strangers. Do we?” he said in a serious little-boy tone.

Abby tugged one of his blond curls. “We want to be safe around strangers. That means you stay inside right now. I’ll put a DVD in if you want.”

“Land Before Time. Land Before Time.”

She popped in the kid dinosaur DVD as the bell rang again.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Please stay here.”

He gave her a half nod, already holding the remote control in anticipation of the movie starting.

Ah, if life were that simple.

Now all she had to do was send Jesse’s nosy brother away and she could watch the movie with Kyle. She should clean the bathroom and address a few cobwebs, but she wanted to spend as much of her day off with her young nephew as she could. Being a nurse at the only clinic in St. Adelbert didn’t leave her much free time.

Abby opened the door and this time stepped out onto the porch to greet Jesse’s brother. “Did you find anything that would help?”

“There’s not much there.”

“Rolling stone and all that. It’s too bad he’s not here. If you had come in the spring…”

He seemed as if he was trying to decide something. Maybe he just wanted to make sure he asked all his questions before he got back in his rental car and left town.

“I’ll give you my phone number and if you think of anything else, you can call me. Anytime.” Abby felt an urgent need to reassure him and send him on his way.

His brow furrowed.

“I don’t mean… I mean I’m not trying to get rid of you,” she hurried to say and then to prove her point she sat down on the top step and invited him to sit. His brother was missing, after all. There had to be some middle ground between the bum’s rush and trying to keep Kyle’s and her little world undisturbed.

He declined to sit, but descended and put one foot on the lower step as he had earlier. He was tall, and sitting, she did feel at a disadvantage. Maybe that was good. Let him think he had the upper hand.

“Do you know where in Utah he went hiking?”

“There are several parks—Zion, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and more—but he didn’t name one specifically.”

“Do you know if he went hiking alone?”

“He usually did. He said it gave him the space to think.”

“Was there anyone else in town Jesse was friends with?”

“Maybe, but he didn’t confide in me. Like I said, he and Lena were friends. She lived in the house with me for a little while.”

He nodded toward the house. “Is that little boy Angelina’s child?”

Abby turned to see Kyle peering out the window beside the door.

CHAPTER TWO

ABBY FOUGHT BACK THE sudden sensation of panic, an immobilizing dread that had first started when she had been trapped on a dark night by reporters. She had thought she’d banished the feeling forever. She swallowed and quickly stuffed it into the bad memory file where it belonged.

Kyle waved at her. The boy had to move the plant and stand on his tiptoes to see out the lowest window in the column beside the door, his nose pressed on the glass probably leaving a mark. She motioned him away and he disappeared from view.

When she turned back, the thoughtful look on the man’s face appalled her. There were no reasons for him to be interested in her sister’s child—none she could possibly acknowledge anyway.

Abby suddenly didn’t want to talk to Reed Maxwell anymore. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about her sister’s child, except her sister. Her mission in life right now was to protect that little boy. She’d been doing it since before he was born and she’d do it as long as necessary, forever if she had to. The best way to do that was to send Jesse’s brother back to Chicago.

The sooner he left the better, because there were questions she had asked her sister about Kyle and hadn’t gotten any satisfactory answers, answers about Kyle and Jesse. It hadn’t seemed very important before, but with Lena so far away and this man here asking questions, she recognized how little control she might actually have over what happened to Kyle.

Reed Maxwell had to go. Now. Because he was be ginning to make the safe town of St. Adelbert not seem so snug anymore.

“If you leave me a contact number, I’ll email my sister again about Jesse, and I’ll call you and let you know what she says, and if I hear anything from Jesse, I’ll call.” She sounded flustered. She knew she did. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

He half turned away and then turned back. “I thought, until I can be sure I’ve found out everything I can from the people here about where Jesse might be, I’d stay in Jesse’s apartment for a few days.”

“Stay in Jesse’s apartment? You want to stay here in St. Adelbert?” A wrenching, gut-level protest flashed through Abby. This man could not stay in town. There could be no good reason for him to stay. There was nothing for him here.

He stared steadily, silently. Unsure she could say any more without sounding like a crazed shrew, she did the same.

The adrenaline rush and the late-afternoon’s cool breeze made her skin prickle. She couldn’t have him digging into Kyle’s past, her past, and if he stayed, he might do just that—until he discovered things he did not need to know.

“If there’s a chance I can find something out about Jesse by staying here for a couple of days, I’m going to stay.”

She watched his face for some kind of hope that he was kidding, pulling her leg. City Man Invades Small Montana Town a Hoax. Ha ha! We always gotta have hope, her mother would say. But there had been no give in his words, and now no relenting in the expression on his face.

The bottom of her world gave way a bit.

Okay, then. She made herself relax and smile. “If I can do anything to help, let me know.” She had to keep him from discovering for himself the things about her sister and Kyle that Lena would never clarify, but that could no longer be ignored or treated lightly.

Was Jesse Kyle’s father? If he was, did Jesse know or even suspect?

Pudgy-cheeked and blond, Kyle was nothing like the dark and lanky Jesse and if Lena had not wanted to tell anyone, Abby had known it wasn’t any of her business. It wasn’t until her sister went into the army leaving Kyle in her care that she had admitted she should have insisted on concrete, believable answers, but pinning down her younger sister was like holding fog in the palm of her hand.

Jesse’s brother climbed the steps and sat down beside her. She stayed where she was, refusing to give an inch.

With the tip of her fingernail she flicked off a chip of the peeling gray paint. The flake landed with a tiny click on the sidewalk below.

Maybe Reed thought she was being friendly. The niggling of dread threading through her thoughts told her it was more likely he could see through her facade.

He knew she wanted to send him over the mountains never to come back again, and in protest, he was staking a claim.

She held her ground.

“I have this mother, you see,” he said quietly and then fell silent. He didn’t seem to be expecting her to comment. Instead, he gazed intently out over the neighborhood.

Abby sat silently. Let him ponder. It was a dirty trick to bring his mother into this. She didn’t want to hear about his mother. She didn’t want to think of Jesse’s family, have them become human beings and not just the miserable caricatures Jesse had sketched and then dismissed.

What did a man from the flatlands see when he looked out over the neighborhood? Did he see the houses, the white clapboard, the stone and the log-cabin wannabees, all stout enough to withstand heavy snows and each sheltering a family with their own story? Did he see the trees, some as old or older than the town and each planted by the wind, the squirrels, or human hands?

Surely he had to see the mountains in the distance, hazy and ancient, and some would say full of mystery and lore. Always mountains. Beautiful mountains that kept the rest of the world at bay—most of the time.

How had this day gone from playing Candy Land to feeling as if she had been hurled off the top of the Gumdrop Mountains?

Instead of pressing her for information she did not really have, Jesse’s brother’s broad shoulders drooped.

She wanted to reach out and comfort him.

She scrunched her hands into fists. Always the nurse. She could not comfort the whole world and especially not this man—the one who could be the enemy. Kyle came first. She needed to protect him. I’d be scared… If I had to go and live with strangers. Kyle’s words chilled her.

What if it came to that? What if Reed Maxwell came for his brother and settled for a boy who might be his nephew? What if he knew for sure about Kyle’s heritage and had come for his nephew in the first place?

No matter what, he couldn’t just take Kyle away without cause.

What if he had cause? What if he knew why she had fled back to St. Adelbert?

Abby cringed, but then she put the thought away. She had to. She was getting ahead of herself. It could be Jesse was not Kyle’s father at all, and her sister just kept the man close because she liked having a fan club. That was not at all beyond her sister, but if Abby believed that, maybe she believed the moon was made of green cheese, too.

Reed had a missing brother and he had a mother, who probably missed her son. Nursing had taught Abby almost everyone had feelings for one of their own.

Whatever Jesse and Lena did was not this man’s fault nor his mother’s, and what lived in Abby’s past was Abby’s alone. She couldn’t tell Reed he had a nephew because she didn’t know if he did, and it would be unfair to give him and his mother that kind of hope.

Nor could she feel good about sending him away. Again, there had to be a balance point somewhere between the compassionate human being she should be to this man and the vigilant protector she felt she had to be when it came to Kyle.

She bowed her head. “Jesse hires me to do his cleaning and laundry. I just cleaned his apartment and washed the sheets again a couple days ago. I can repeat the cleaning and do the laundry before Jesse gets home.”

“I can pay you, better than Jesse did.” The man didn’t pull his gaze from the horizon. “Hell, Jesse could pay you better than he did.”

“You’ve already paid me enough.” She tucked her fingers under her thighs. “Tell me about your mother.”

“A piece of work.”

“She must miss Jesse if she sent you looking for him.”

He gave a short bark of laughter at that. “My business partner accuses me of coming out here to look for Jesse so I could get away from my mother. He might be right.”

“You ran away from your mother?”

“I know how this sounds, but she used to be a nice, tidy drunk who never bothered anyone.”

Abby turned and leaned her back against the decorative post so she could see him better. The look of regret on his face said he wasn’t kidding about his mother, either.

“Jesse didn’t talk about your mother much, not specifically, or any of you. He seemed content to think of all of you as some distant, vaguely related people, and he didn’t seem to need to have any of you in his life.”

“I don’t think any of us can blame him for that, but last year our mother sobered up, and eventually she realized she’d been drunk almost her whole marriage, for sure most of the time her sons were growing up.”

“That must have been hard on you and your brother.” As dear and funny as her mother was, Abby knew what it was like to be ignored by a parent.

“When we were younger it was hard. Once we were old enough, it seemed like an advantage. We mainly got our way, any car we wanted, parties at the house, apartments of our own at too young an age.”

“What about your father?” Since she had hardly known her own before he ran away, Abby found herself wondering about other people’s fathers and how they related to them.

“He’s probably exactly as Jesse described him. He was either gone or negotiating with someone and couldn’t be bothered with his family.”

“Ouch.”

“Kids can survive a lot.”

“Jesse said he was cut off from the family because he didn’t conform.” She wanted to say to their idea of what a human being should be. She might be prying, but if Kyle’s happiness depended on her knowing what kind of people Jesse’s family were, then she had to dig.

“I suppose, in a way he was. Jesse was cut off from a paycheck he wasn’t willing to work for. He has a trust fund he never touches and prefers to do his own thing, be his own man. My rebellious brother, the cliché.”

“That is so Jesse. He tries hard to be different from his family, or his idea of what his family is like or what any family might be like. Sometimes he could be a real pain and sometimes he’s just cute.” Abby smiled at the thought. “As long as he was free to move about, without any real entanglement, he seemed happy.”

“Our mother wants to see him. I suspect she wants absolution or something. She wants the family she never really noticed before. Maybe she finally deserves her family, her children and who knows, maybe grandchildren some day.”

Abby didn’t know what to say to that. His brother was funny and often irresponsible and now he was missing. A dread grew inside her. If Jesse was Kyle’s father, what would his family do? They had money. Money often spoke louder than signed papers. Would they try to take the boy, take him to Chicago and make him live, afraid, among strangers?

Abby wanted to shriek at her runaway imagination.

But she needed to consider all the possibilities, not let herself be blindsided, not again. She wouldn’t let Kyle down and she wouldn’t let Lena down now that her sister was trying so hard to reform in the army, to grow up. And Abby knew she couldn’t do anything to keep Reed from looking for his brother, but she couldn’t sit here any longer catastrophizing, either.

“I hope Jesse comes back soon, for your mother’s sake.”

“She’d appreciate it.”

“Well, I have things to do,” Abby told him, pushing up from the step. Things that didn’t involve getting to know this man or his history or encouraging him to hang around St. Adelbert.

Or taking a chance on spilling things she didn’t know if she believed herself, like Jesse and Lena possibly having a child together.

REED STUDIED THE WOMAN standing over him. Her riot of dark brown curls swept along her jawline and somehow seemed perfect for the angles of her face. She was attractive in a natural, unmade-up fashion. Her figure was tantalizing. But her eyes struck him the most. They flashed light brown, almost yellow like the color he imagined a mountain lioness’s eyes to be.

He stood and faced her. He had no business noticing her eyes. “Thanks for your time.”

“I hope your mother gets to say whatever she needs to say to Jesse.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered you with my mother. I have no idea why I did. Tired, I guess. I was in Denver yesterday.”

“You drove through the night from Denver? You are tired.”

“I suppose I look pretty bad.” He brushed his hair back. There was a little extra to push around, as he was a couple weeks past his usual cut. “I slept somewhere in Wyoming, but not long.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say you look bad, but you do look tired. I wish I had answers for you, but I truly have no idea where Jesse might hike in Utah or where he might have gone after he left.”

He could see the unsaid “if” in her eyes. He believed her. She was skittish and protective of the boy, but there was an open honesty in the way she presented herself, something missing from most women in his life, for that matter, most of the people in his world. Something that must have made him feel compelled to spill out his history to her. Yeah, he was tired.

“I have a few things to do, too, people to talk to. I found a couple uncashed checks and paycheck stubs in Jesse’s apartment. I guess I’ll start with those people.”

“You might want to get some sleep first.”

The door to the house popped open, and they both turned to see the boy come charging out like a small bull.

“Aunt Abby. Aunt Abby!” he called in the high-pitched tenor of a small child.

“You rascal. Is the movie done already?” she asked as the boy stopped just before crashing into her. She leaned over and scooped him into her arms and stood. He grinned ear to ear and when he did, a big dimple showed in one cheek.

Reed hadn’t missed the look of alarm on the woman’s face when the boy opened the door. He hadn’t missed the look of love, either, as she clasped him in her arms.

“Gramma’s on the phone and she said to go out and tell you to stop ’gnoring her.”

She shot a look at Reed and rolled her eyes. “I have to go. I have a mother, too.”

“Ask her if I can come to her house, please, please, please,” the boy said with one small hand pressed to her cheek as Abby carried him up to the door. She turned and gave Reed an uncertain wave before disappearing into the house.

He couldn’t help but wonder if she were for real.

She seemed so, well, nice, and she could carry a forty-five-pound child as if he weighed five pounds and she seemed to enjoy it. Definitely not like most women in his life.

He headed back to the apartment to retrieve the ad dresses he should have brought with him. Very tired.

The sooner he found Jesse, the better. If he brought his brother back home for their mother to apologize to, his part would be finished. He could get back to running his business. His partner could feel as if he had a partner again.

Abby Fairbanks thought his brother was cute. He hadn’t thought of Jesse as cute—ever. He was only two years older than Jesse, and had missed being aware of Jesse’s cute stage, maybe because he was too young himself at the time.

Who would know? Some long-gone nanny?

Reed thought of the smiling face of the little boy who had come running out of the house. The boy was cute also, not that Reed usually noticed such things; kids didn’t play much of a role in his life. When the boy had come out onto the porch, grinning, he had that same familiar look about him. Though all little blond kids looked alike to him, this one was definitely the kid in the picture on Jesse’s bedside table.

ABBY SENT KYLE TO TALK to his grandmother for a couple minutes while she wrung her hands, gnashed her teeth and wondered. How far should she have pushed her sister to find out if Jesse was Kyle’s father? More important, would Kyle gain anything by knowing right now who his father was?

And then there was her mother’s latest crisis—finding a husband, preferably one for her daughter and one for herself. There was always some urgent necessity in her mother’s life. Usually Abby felt like the only sane adult member of her family. Today, even that was iffy.

One thing she agreed upon with her mother was the light Kyle had brought into their lives. Her mother turned uncharacteristically responsible when Kyle was around. If Delanna Fairbanks kept it up, she might actually figure out she was all right by herself just the way she was, and so was Abby.

Kyle giggled in the other room. Abby sighed. She had to talk to her mother sooner or later.

When she went into the living room the phone was missing from its usual spot on the low wooden table beside the window. She didn’t see Kyle, but the chocolate-colored thermal drapes, which had been pulled back to let in the summer light, fluttered in the still indoor air.

She sneaked up and called softly into the fabric. “Boo.”

Kyle squealed with delight and pulled the curtain away from his face. “Aunt Abby, you got me. Bye, Gramma. Here.” He shoved the phone at her and tore off for wherever it was a boy went when the adult in charge was busy on the telephone.

“Finish picking up your toys,” she called after him and then said into the phone, “Hi, Mom. I didn’t give a single thought to going out with you and the undertaker guys.”

“Liar, liar.” Her mother laughed on the other end. “You’ve been doing nothing but thinking of ways to turn me down. The Fullers are such nice men and I think they prefer to be called funeral directors.”

“Yeah, well. There’s always hope you’ll come to your senses and realize I’m old enough to choose my own dates.”

“You might be old enough, honey, but you’re not willing enough. Anyway, that’s not why I called.”

“Thank God!” Abby perched on the arm of the chair by the window.

“I’ll be thanking God when you’re not an old maid anymore.”

“Gee, Mom, I love you, too. Why did you call if it wasn’t to point out my shortcomings?”

“Oh, I called about that, too.”

“Mother.”

“Lighten up, Abbs. I called to badger you into letting Kyle come and stay with his beloved grandmother for a few days.”

“Beloved grandmother—that would be you I take it?”

“You’re a very funny child. I know it’s weird, but I love being his Gramma.”

“He’s that kind of kid.”

“So, can he come?”

Abby knew this would happen one day. He already stayed with his grandmother while Abby worked and if she ever had a life, her mother offered to take him all evening. Even all night, her mother had said with a sly grin. Kyle did love his grandmother. He took to her the first time he met her and she might be where he inherited his charm.

“How about Saturday, the day after tomorrow? He has a birthday party to go to in the morning and I’ll bring him over afterward.” Abby purposely kept the anxiety out of her tone. Letting go was hard, but she had to do it eventually. They probably wouldn’t let her room with him in college.

“Hallelujah and praise the Lord,” her mother almost shouted into the phone. “Saturday would be great.”

“And, Mom, you’ll probably hear soon enough, but Jesse’s brother is in town.”

“Well, that is a surprise. Talk about a dysfunctional family. If what Jesse said is true, they make us seem sort of normal. Is he looking to see if Jesse left any money behind for him?”

Abby thought of the expensive, if rumpled, clothing Jesse’s brother wore.

“I don’t think so, and I’m not so sure Jesse was right about his family, at least not all of them. The brother seems to be, well, normal.”

“Does he know where Jesse might have gone?”

“No. Apparently they haven’t heard from Jesse in over a year.”

“Yup. We’re the normal ones.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“So what’s the brother like and what’s his name?”

“His name is Reed Maxwell and he’s tall, dark, handsome. Not my type.”

“You’re killing me here, kid. What’s not to like about this one?”

“Hmm, let’s see. He lives in Chicago and I don’t know much about him for starters.” Except that he’s sexy and…never mind.

“Is he too rich for you or something?”

“He might be.” He might also be Kyle’s uncle. That would stop her mother cold.

“Why’s he here in St. Adelbert?”

“He seems to be truly concerned about his mother. She wants to see Jesse badly.” For reasons her mother didn’t need to know. What Reed told her didn’t seem to be appropriate grapevine fodder.

“So the mother loves her kids, and they might not be so bad after all. Are you done dodging my question about the undertakers?”

“I thought they were funeral directors, and you haven’t worn me down enough.” At least she had dropped the subject of Reed Maxwell.

“A mother wants better for her children.” The tenor of her mother’s voice dropped and so did Abby’s desire to be flippant about the subject. Her mother did want better for Lena and her.

“I am grateful for that,” Abby said.

“Grateful enough to go out to dinner with me?”

“And?”

Her mother sighed in an exaggerated manner.

“And Kenny Fuller and his son, Travis. Come on, Abby. I think becoming a nurse turned you into a fuddy-duddy.”

“Let’s see. You mean since I learned how to take care of myself and didn’t need a mother to get dates for me?”

“Stop that. All right, if you really must know. I can’t get Kenny to ask me out and I’m afraid he’ll say no if I ask him. This valley is so small, I can’t waste a chance like that. But if I tell him that we can get the two of you to go out if we go along, he’ll say yes. He has to—you’re a great catch.”

“Mother!” Abby found herself comparing Travis Fuller to Reed Maxwell and her enthusiasm for the double date diminished even more.

“Yeah, Mother, that’s me. Kenny’s a nice, respectable man. Both of them are, and if he gives me a chance, he’ll find out I’m a different woman than I was when we first lived here.”

“You’re a good woman, Mom. You always were.”

“You have to say that. You’re my kid. Have you heard from Lena?”

“Not since the email I got last week. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” It had actually been twelve days and Abby wondered if it was time to escalate to worry. “And I’ll drop Kyle off in the morning tomorrow as usual and pick him up when I’m finished at the clinic.”

“I’ll see you, and maybe I’ll get a date planned while you’re at work then.”

“Don’t do it on my account.”

“Goodbye, you ungrateful child.”

“Bye, Mom.”

Abby put the handset in the cradle, sat back and folded her arms across her chest.

She wanted to ask her mother if Lena had ever talked about Kyle’s father, but knew it would do no good. If Lena had said anything, their mother would have said it didn’t matter or it wasn’t important. That’s what she had always told them when they asked, demanded, or even begged her to tell them about their father. He packed up and left when Abby was six and Lena was a toddler. The last thing Abby remembered about her father was him yelling at her mother about having to spend too much money on a kid for Christmas, more specifically, the doll Abby had to have.

She thought about Reed and Jesse’s parents. She at least had one good one, not perfect, but good.

After a few moments, she turned an ear to the house. Quiet. Way too quiet.

“Kyle?” When he didn’t answer, she called louder. Still no answer. He had to be outside.

She stopped at the kitchen window and looked out into the yard. Reed Maxwell stood on the top landing of the apartment stairs, watching something below. A perplexed, contemplative look skewed his features.

Abby leaned closer to the window to see what he was looking at. A deer? A flock of wild turkeys? A bear?

Whatever it was, it was out there with Kyle.

CHAPTER THREE

ABBY FLEW OUT THE BACK door without another thought and stopped abruptly on the back porch. No deer or turkeys or bears. No fascinating or dangerous wildlife at all. In the shade of the tree, in the sandbox, Kyle sat pouring sand into his big yellow dump truck.

Abby studied Reed on the landing outside the garage apartment. The look of speculation on his face suddenly made sense.

He knew.

Reed Maxwell knew or at least suspected Kyle might be his nephew. He acknowledged her presence with a nod and then glanced down at his phone.

Abby wanted to tear across the yard, grab Kyle and run as fast and as far away as she could, but she stayed where she was, holding her breath. If she overreacted now she might stir up something that was best left untouched. Maybe he didn’t suspect anything about Kyle and Jesse, but a strong reaction from her might start Reed on a path he might otherwise not have thought to tread.

She figured he had gone on his fact-finding mission in St. Adelbert, although it wouldn’t have done any good. If any of the townspeople knew anything, they would have spoken up, if not to her, then to the sheriff, and Sheriff Potts would have told her.

What if Jesse’s brother pressed her for information about Kyle? Could she lie? Tell him she had no ideas about Jesse and Kyle?

Kyle played on, oblivious to both adults.

What she would not do was run. She had run in the past—more than once—from St. Adelbert to the big city. When the big city beat her down, she ran back to the small town, dragging her sister and Kyle with her. Her sister in turn convinced Jesse to come to the St. Adelbert Valley where the four of them lived for a short while in a loose family-like structure.

Abby had even bought this house in an attempt to anchor them all here, for all the good it had done. If St. Adelbert wasn’t safe, where in the world was?

She chanced a glance at Reed.

Backlit clouds played at the tops of the mountains behind him as the sun had already begun making its way down into late-afternoon sky. He lowered his phone and reached up to push his hair back. He seemed to be trying to make a decision. To get closer to Kyle for a better look? Snap his picture? To grab the boy and make a run back to Chicago?

His phone rang. He gave it a look of distaste, and then he thumbed the screen, stepped back inside the apartment and closed the door.

Abby huffed out a breath of relief and Kyle filled his dump truck with more sand. He was a dear child, the perfect mix of sweet and rambunctious. Imagining life without him in it, even for a little while, had her rubbing the ache in her chest.

“Kyle, sweetie,” she called and when he looked up, “come on in. We’ll go get a present for Angus’s birthday party.”

Kyle jumped up, flinging sand from his clothes.

“Is it today?” His voice squealed with the glee of a five-year-old anticipating his best friend’s birthday party.

“No. Today’s Thursday and the party is Saturday. Can you figure out how long that is?”

His face scrunched up and he silently began to mouth the days of the week as he held up successive fingers. His face lit. “Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Three days.”

Abby knew in Kyle time that was correct.

His life was simple, gloriously simple, and she hoped she could keep it that way. Hoped she could keep her promise to Lena to “keep my boy safe while I’m gone.”

“’S’go!” He grabbed her hand with a sandy one of his own.

IN THE APARTMENT ABOVE the garage, Reed held his phone a few inches away from his ear while Maxwell and Anderson’s newest and possibly most lucrative client vented.

“I don’t see how they can say they’ll sell that piece of land to us and then say they won’t.” His client’s voice blasted. It was dinnertime in Chicago. Why wasn’t this man at home bothering his help?

With part of his brain Reed listened, knowing it wasn’t, as the man said, about the property. It never was. It was about power and who would have the upper hand. The other half of his brain, in the meantime, tried to sort out the possibilities about his brother and the boy playing in the sandbox. When he saw Kyle hunched over the dump truck looking determined, the familiarity about the boy clicked inside his head. His look and his mannerisms reminded him of Jesse as a child.

Reed pinched the bridge of his nose as the client went on about what he kept referring to as the “untenable position.” It didn’t seem to make a difference what nationality, what business, or what deal, the stakes in their purest form were about who would keep or gain the power and the control.

“There is always a solution,” Reed assured the man.

“We need to meet in person, if not tonight, then tomorrow morning.”

“I’m not in Chicago right now.”

“What do you expect me to do? I’m going…” And the rant continued.

Grow up first and second, go learn not to parry a feint. The seller wasn’t really retracting the offer. He was pretending to attack his opponent’s position, pretending being the key word. They might as well be princes fencing for the fair maiden’s honor. It was no different.

“Denny Anderson already has you penciled into his calendar,” Reed said when the man took a breath. “He thought he might need some one-on-one with you tomorrow. I’ll have him call you in the morning.”

Mollified, the man thanked Reed for his time, and, he wheezed out, “prompt attention to the details.”

Denny had warned him about the tenuous situation the land deal was in, because their private investigator had dug deeper than people usually did and found the seller had title question on the land involved in the prospective sale. The bluster was a delay tactic.

Almost down to the minute Denny had predicted when the seller would seem to renege and their client, the buyer, would be calling in a panic and had assured Reed he’d see the man.

He was lucky to be in business with Denny, who thrived on converting the ridiculous to the sane.

Reed tucked his phone into his pocket and snagged Jesse’s paychecks and stubs from the kitchen table where he had left them. The good people of St. Adelbert who had hired his brother were out there waiting to talk to him.

And now it might all be more complicated. Was it possible Jesse was a father?

More likely Reed was so tired, he was inventing things in his head. Surely Jesse wouldn’t have gone off for two months and left his son behind. Surely Abby would have said something about Kyle being his nephew. His head ached.

He looked at the top stub in his hand. The address read “Miller’s Hardware Store” on Main St. in St. Adelbert. Small town advantage. No GPS needed.

He yawned and looked over at the welcoming bed with the sheets Abby had washed. Abby, witty, attractive, maybe sexy if she weren’t trying so hard to be…what…nonchalant? He yawned again. Suddenly grilling the town’s merchants right this second lost its appeal.

Abby was right. Sleep was definitely a good idea, maybe not even a choice, but only for the next few minutes, a power nap. The last thing he could do was waste time. If he talked to people today, he could be on a plane for Chicago tomorrow morning and be back in the office by late afternoon.

He stretched out on the bed. He had no idea if Kyle and Jesse were related, but he couldn’t help thinking a grandchild would soothe his mother’s conscience. Maybe even give her the strength and courage to get outside herself and give up her downward spiral once and for all. Get her off his back. He was sure he was going to hell for thinking such a thing about his mother, and he was a bad, bad person to wish his mother on a small child.

He called Denny and left a message about the client. Then he yawned, rolled over on his side and inhaled the fresh smell of the linens. Abby must have hung the sheets on the line outside. He vaguely remembered one of the nannies having done the same thing routinely in his family’s backyard, despite how the flapping scandalized his mother.

He let his eyelids close for a five-minute nap.

“CARRIE, YOU OLD CREEPFACE, aren’t you ever home?” Abby left the identical message for her friend in Denver as her friend had left her—only the names were changed—and smiled as she hung up the phone. Carrie was a dear and the only person in Denver she still carried on a friendship with.

With no one to talk to, Abby washed the dinner dishes. From time to time, she peered out the kitchen window into the near darkness. The apartment above her garage, the paid-for apartment above her garage, was dark and stayed dark all the time she was washing and drying. She had been able to keep Kyle from being too curious about the man by shamelessly distracting him with a shopping trip and a long visit to the nearby park. He was safely asleep now, as apparently was the man upstairs. Thank goodness.

She put the last dish in the cupboard and pulled the whole-grain bread she had made out of the oven, placing it on the rack to cool. Then she went in to the back room to turn on the computer. Her sister wasn’t online and was probably asleep somewhere. She wanted to yell at her sister for being irresponsible, for leaving Kyle in such a precarious position.

If Jesse was Kyle’s father, and if Jesse never came back, the boy would never get to know his father. If Jesse wasn’t his father, Kyle might never know the other side of his family. Ever. She knew what that was like. Her father’s relatives had never contacted her and Lena after their father left.

Or the other side of Kyle’s family, no matter who they were, might take him away.

The thought of giving up Kyle tore at her, and not just because it would leave her alone in the world with only a mother who kept trying to take husband-hunting to new levels and a sister on the other side of a very large ocean. Kyle was five and he didn’t deserve to have his world ripped apart because of the adults surrounding him.

Sanity got the better of her and she sent off a cheery email to Lena about their mother and the Fuller men and told Lena she’d save Travis Fuller for her if she wanted him. She asked again about Jesse’s possible whereabouts and signed off. She would do anything she could to keep her sister safe, even if that meant doing what she had to do at home and keeping quiet about the problems.

What would the older brother do for the younger brother? How far would he go?

THE NEXT DAY, AFTER HAVING slept in, Reed called his partner, Denny, who gave him a proper amount of harassment for missing their usual early-morning call. He’d told Reed all had been quiet from his mother so far, and that Abby Fairbanks was a nurse who worked at the medical clinic in downtown St. Adelbert. The Avery Clinic named after its now retired founder. The only clinic in town, so it wouldn’t be hard to find. He wondered if her leaving Denver had anything to do with a nursing job.

After a shower and shave Reed jumped into the rental car and headed out to find the people whose names and addresses were on the paychecks and stubs Jesse had left behind.

He wound the rental car through the neighborhoods and pulled to a stop at Main Street. The town was roughly linear and flanked by mountains and deep green forests. A small shallow river flowing through the town dictated any bends in the streets, a river he suspected that was neither small nor shallow when the snow in the mountains melted in the spring and early summer.

To the right on Main Street sat a Chevron station, a miniature trading post-style meant to attract tourists. He turned left onto Main Street in front of the post office, equally Old West-looking. Past the post office and disrupting the linear flow was the town square with businesses around the perimeter.

But it was Alice’s Diner down the street past the square with its white paint and bright blue trim that caught his eye, more correctly, it caught his stomach, which growled loudly. Since he was soon going to need more than the mountain air to keep his coffee-addicted eyelids open, a big breakfast suddenly seemed like a great idea.

He pulled to the curb beside the diner. It was possible someone in there knew something about Jesse’s whereabouts.

“Mornin’, darlin’,” a waitress with a lot of black hair, a white frilly apron and a name tag that said Vala greeted him as he stepped inside. “Seat yerself wherever you want.”

Reed did so and turned his coffee cup right side up. A moment later the same waitress filled the heavy old mug with coffee and handed him a menu.

“I’ll be back in two shakes to take your order.”

It was almost ten-thirty on a Friday morning and only two other tables were occupied. Each of the eight diners, four at a table, had a cup of coffee in front of them and a platter of sweet rolls in the middle of their respective tables, a midmorning snack. Breakfast for them had probably been hours ago.

All were gray-haired, if they had hair, and each studied him in their own way. There were a few smiles, one from a woman whose checked apron covered half her denim skirt. A frowning man, a real cowboy type, looked really old, maybe late eighties, and had a deep tan on the lower two-thirds of his face, while his forehead was much lighter. Two other women—sisters? twins?—dressed alike except for their individual color theme, glanced at each other and at him and then grinned broadly.

Reed gave a simple wave. Some waved back, others nodded, and then they all turned back to their conversations. Well, at least they didn’t chuck coffee mugs at his head. Not all small towns were receptive to strangers.

After Vala took his order Reed stood, and with coffee cup in hand approached the closest table. The occupants shifted their gazes up to him, and three of them picked up their own coffee cups so as to be equally armed. He smiled at that.

“You’re Jesse Maxwell’s brother,” the aproned woman said.

So much for wondering if they knew who he was. “I’m Reed Maxwell.”

“The guy at Abby’s place,” said one of the near-twin women.

“Sit down,” a big, grizzly bearded guy said, and they all shifted their chairs until there was a space for him. Highly unusual human behavior if you compared it to the near stranger-phobia he was used to in the big cities he frequented. He liked this friendly behavior. It was—nice, he thought as he sat down.

“And don’t let them get to you. They talk about all of us,” the grizzly guy continued, and then he peeked over his shoulder and grinned at the women.

The women at the other table and grizzly guy all laughed together, like people who didn’t always need words to communicate. Like old friends.

“I’m looking for my brother and I thought I’d ask around in here if anyone has heard anything about where he is or where he planned to go.”

The phone near the cash register jangled and the waitress hurried to answer it.

“You one of them Chicago folk, too?” asked the grizzly guy. “I’m Fred Nivens, by the way. I own the auto repair shop and tow truck in town. Jesse worked for me—”

“Fred, it’s for you,” Vala, the waitress, called from across the diner. “And you better hurry up.”

Fred leaped up so fast the pleasant-looking man next to him had to make a grab for Fred’s chair to keep it from flopping backward to the floor.

“Hi, I’m Bessie Graywolf,” the woman with the checked apron said as she pushed the plate of sweet rolls toward him. “Don’t mind Fred. Some emergency or other is always happening at his place.”

Over near the cash register, the man spoken of was gesturing emphatically as he talked into the phone.

“Nice to meet you, Bessie,” Reed said as he turned his attention to her.

Fred returned to the table a moment later, but only to grab his hat.

“What’s the matter, Fred? That guy from Jersey set the place on fire?”

Fred’s eyes just got bigger. “I gotta go.”

“Poor Fred. If it’s not one thing it’s the next with that darned shop of his,” one of the women at the other table said as Fred rushed out the door.

Bessie leaned toward Reed in a conspiratorial manner. “Jesse only worked for Fred one month. Something about no auto aptitude, according to Fred.”

“Did my brother cause trouble in town?”

Instead of shifting looks, the table broke out in grins.

“That boy is a dear,” the woman across the table said.

Good. If the townspeople liked Jesse, it might be easier to get information.

“Now,” Bessie said, “go on and have a sweet roll.”

When Reed’s stomach accepted her offer of a sweet roll with a loud growl, Bessie laughed and pushed the platter closer.

The roll was warm with some sort of dark jam inside and Bessie pointed at the couple on the other side of the table and continued. “This is Rachel and Jim Taylor, they own Taylor’s Drug Store. Over there is Curly Martin from the Squat D Ranch.” The old rancher gave a quick nod of acknowledgment.

She continued, also naming the local funeral director, and the pair of similarly dressed women who ran the boardinghouse, which incidentally had no boarders right now. The pair gave him extra bright smiles and he wondered what that might be about. Reed listened to the names and bits of information and put them away where he could draw on them when he needed. He greeted them with smiles, stood and shook offered hands and then relaxed down onto the seat of his chair. Every one of them seemed, if not entirely warm and fuzzy, at least cordial.

“We all knew Jesse. He sort of wandered in and out of our lives,” Bessie said as she signaled Vala for more coffee all around.

“He was such a card,” one of the women who were probably sisters said, and Reed was sorry to say he had forgotten which was Cora and which was Ethel.

“Is that bad or good?” he asked.

The sisters laughed and together said, “Both.”

“He’d forget he was supposed to do a job for us and then he came and did it and then insisted we weren’t supposed to pay him, cause he said it was a mitzvah, whatever that is.”

“I think he meant he was doing a good deed,” Reed replied.

“Yup, he was a card,” Cora or Ethel said. “Remember that dog he tried to adopt and the dog just wanted to run around free and not belong to anybody?”

Both tables of people laughed and Reed got the feeling no one was laughing at Jesse, just about the story.

“I didn’t know whether to feel sorrier for Jesse or the dog,” the old rancher Curly Martin called out from the other table and then guffawed until he coughed and one of the sisters had to pound him on the back.

The waitress poured coffee all around and when she brought his breakfast, she brought his flatware and water from the table where he had originally sat.

“Thanks, everyone. I appreciate your Jesse tales. I just hope they aren’t too exaggerated.”

Several of them chuckled and the rest grinned and Reed continued. “I’m trying to find out where he might have gone and I wondered if he said anything to any of you, or if you’d heard anything.”

Many heads shook.

“You’re best bet for information might be John Miller over at the hardware store. Working there was the last real job Jesse had before he left,” one of the sisters said.

“Do you need him for anything in particular or are you juss lookin’?” Curly asked. The drilling look of inquisition he gave Reed seemed contagious and soon they were all looking at him as if he were going to fore-close on all their homes.

Sometimes there was nothing that would suit better than the truth. “Our mother needs to see him.”

Bessie Graywolf pinched her lips together and shook her head slowly. “I know that one—my daughter, been gone over a year.”

Reed looked directly at Bessie.

“Sorry, Bessie,” he said and was surprised to realize he actually meant it.

As his reward for acknowledging Bessie’s pain, seven expressions lightened collectively. In some circles, mothers carried a lot of weight.

“Any other suggestions?” Reed asked.

“You might ask at the sheriff’s office,” Jim Taylor offered. “He fished with a couple of the deputies.”

A couple more names were mentioned, but they were “out of town anyway.” Reed shoveled food into his mouth as he listened and nodded his thanks.

The door to the diner opened and a big, blond young cowboy strode in with his hat in his hand.

“Baylor!” Several of them greeted the young cowboy as if he were an anticipated family member. Bessie motioned Baylor to Fred’s empty chair. “Reed Max well, this is Baylor Doyle. The Doyles own the Shadow Range Ranch and Bay is one of our very own volunteer firefighters.”

Baylor’s eyebrows drew together as he studied Reed. “Jesse’s brother. The one staying with Abby.”

Reed recognized the challenge and decided it would be best to sidestep it. “Abby was nice enough to let me stay in my brother’s apartment for a couple of days.”

Baylor nodded at the people in general. “I can’t stay.

Just came for some coffee.”

“I thought you were moving outta town, boy,” Curly called from the other table.

“Soon, Curly, soon, you old buzzard,” Baylor responded affectionately.

As if on cue, Vala set a to-go cup in front of Baylor who handed her a few dollars, snatched a sweet roll and stood with the roll balanced on top of the coffee and his hat in his other hand. “Abby is good people,” he said to Reed and strode out the door.

“Baylor’s right about Abby,” Bessie said and chortled. “And I wouldn’t cross him if I were you.”

“Warning noted.” He studied each of them and they all seemed serious.

“And they’re watching.” Bessie jerked a thumb at the other table.

The pair of women waved. “Hi, neighbor. We live across the street from Abby.”

“Good to know.” Reed finished off the last few bites of his breakfast.

“Yup, your best bet today is to head down to the hardware store.” Bessie chased sweet roll crumbs from her apron with a sweep of her hand.

“You’ve all been very helpful.” Reed passed out his business cards, paid his bill and tipped Vala for every darlin’, honey and sweetie pie because he could and because no one in the coffee shops in Chicago’s Loop used endearments like that. Then he bid them all thanks and goodbye. When he stepped outside the sun had warmed the day to toasty and the sky was the biggest and the bluest he’d ever seen.

He took a big breath of the clean air just for the novelty of it. He’d be back to pollution soon enough.

The people of St. Adelbert had drawn him a picture of Jesse. They liked his brother, foibles and all. For some reason that meant a lot to Reed. Could just be that he was glad he wasn’t hunting for some reckless brother who didn’t deserve to be found. Could be he was remembering how much he and Jesse had loved and depended on each other as kids and was missing his brother.

He stepped off the curb. The redbrick building called Avery Clinic sat perched back from the roadway across the street. A sheriff’s squad car parked under the awning at the front entrance was the only outward sign of life at the clinic. Must be a slow day. Might be a good opportunity to go in and ask the people there about Jesse. Abby might be there since her car was gone when he’d got up, but he was less sure about Abby since he started wondering about Kyle and Jesse. Did she have a secret the town didn’t know about?

He strode up the ramp and at the top, the glass-and-aluminum doors popped open allowing him entrance. There must be a parking lot out back somewhere because inside, the clinic was hopping. In the waiting room off to the side were several adults and three very loud children. One of the men was trying and failing to control the kids. One elderly woman sat rocking back and forth as if all the noise and activity was soothing to her. If Reed had to guess, he’d say she had turned off her hearing aid. A child’s shouting and screaming came from the treatment area beyond the closed double doors.

A side door opened and another family poured in to raise the clamor to chaos. A man in scrubs emerged from the treatment area and intercepted the new arrivals. He spoke with the parents and with the injured child. Then he asked them to add themselves to the crowd in the waiting room.

Two firefighters, probably volunteers like Baylor Doyle, the cowboy he’d just met in the diner, strode out of the patient treatment area and hurried out toward the door. Two of the boys from the waiting room chased after them and their father hurried after them.

A woman at the reception desk looked up and gave Reed a large PR smile. “May I help you?”

“Maybe, Arlene,” he said, using the name on the tag on her blue uniform.

“I’m Reed, Jesse Maxwell’s brother.”

The receptionist nodded and furrowed her brow as if she already knew who he was, but was willing to let him spin his own tale or even hang by his own rope.

“Is Abby Fairbanks here?”

He looked up when the double doors to the patient treatment area popped open. Abby emerged accompanied by the sheriff, the very big sheriff. Tall and broad, who made Reed, who didn’t consider himself so, feel small. The man’s gaze took Reed in. An eagle would have nothing on this man.

“There she is.” The receptionist nodded toward Abby and her, for all intents and purposes, bodyguard.

Reed smiled and Abby gave him a tentative smile in return.

The radio on the sheriff’s belt squawked. He hefted it to his mouth. “Sheriff Potts,” he said as he walked back inside the treatment area, probably for privacy.

“Hello, Abby.”

“Reed, is there something wrong?”

“Can we talk for a second?”

She nodded and without speaking led him through the doors, across an open area with two treatment rooms on either side and finally down a quieter corridor with exam rooms and offices.

“Now, what can I do for you?”

The sheriff poked his head inside the hallway. He looked at Abby, and studied Reed for another long moment, and then said to Abby, “I’ve got to go. We’ll have to talk later or tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Sheriff Potts.”

He gave her a one finger salute to the brim of his sheriff’s hat and gave Reed another sizing-up, then hurried away. Reed tried not to feel paranoid, but this was one of those times when he knew he was a long way from Chicago. These people could circle the wagons and he’d get nothing from them.

Abby turned to him and repeated, “Now, what can I do for you, Reed?”

She gave him a pleasant therapeutic smile and he realized he was meeting nurse Abby. That smile made him believe she could fix anything, anything at all.

“I was over at the diner and I thought I’d stop in.”

A woman, a tech her tag said, in dark blue scrubs walked by, gave Reed the once-over and turned to wink broadly at Abby. Abby waved her off.

“You were at the diner,” Abby prompted.

“I met a bunch of the nice townsfolk, but they didn’t have much in the way of information about Jesse.”

“Well, I—”

“I don’t want anything on my arm.” A child’s plaintive shout came from one of the treatment rooms they had passed earlier. A murmuring female voice tried to convince the child otherwise.

“Nurse Abby, we need you.” The woman who had winked earlier called out to her.

Abby turned to Reed. “Can you wait a minute?”

He held a hand out indicating by all means and she walked away quickly, quietly and disappeared into the nearby treatment room.

Reed followed, hanging back a bit in the hallway. He might gain some insight into the woman if he could see “Nurse Abby” at work.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I DON’T WANT A CAST.”

Reed watched as Abby sat down beside the boy, but not close enough so that he might try to scoot away, and then she ignored him.

“I don’t. I don’t.” The red-haired, freckled-face boy of about Kyle’s age sat holding one forearm in his other hand. An ice pack sat on top of the arm.

“Yeah,” Abby said without looking at him. “I don’t like it when people treat me special, either.”

The boy frowned but didn’t say anything to that.

She ignored him again and fiddled with the stethoscope around her neck as if it held great interest.

“It’s icky,” she spoke again. “Having people do my chores for me.”

“Wadda ya mean?” The boy blew at the hair drooping in his eyes so he wouldn’t have to use a hand to push the lock aside.

The boy’s mother stood in the corner biting her lips so she wouldn’t grin. Reed knew how she felt. He found himself doing the same thing.

“Well, you wouldn’t be able to do dishes—at all—for at least a week, maybe longer, and then maybe badly enough that your mother would take over and send you out to play. Making your bed would be out for a while, too. I hate it when that happens. I want to make my bed every day. Twice if I take a nap.”

The wheels inside the boy’s head were turning.

“And the colors. Did you see the colors? Looks like a bag of Starburst candy in there.” She pointed at the almost neon colors of the cast samples. Nice tack, Reed thought. The boy probably didn’t even notice the change from the negative to the positive.

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