The Red Hat Society's Acting Their Age (2 page)
“It’s too big for a mouse.” Aggie’s voice wavered, sounding more like a piccolo than a flute or a drum.
Leanne groaned. “Okay,
mice
.”
Reddening, Aggie thrust out her jaw. “Tell me this, smarty pants. How many mice would it take to move a step ladder? I swear I heard it scrape across the floor a minute ago.”
“Rats, then.” Leanne shook out her long mane of bottle-blonde hair, then went to hang her coat next to Aggie’s on the rack beside the back door. “Or even a possum.”
Mia put her purse aside, took off her mittens and stuffed them into her coat pocket before handing it to Leanne to hang. “It’s okay, Aggie. We’ll call Dale, like Leanne said.”
The tube shook harder. Aggie shuddered, her face as pale as a winter sun. “You know how I hate rodents.”
Shaking her head, Leanne asked, “What’re you plannin’ to do? Shoot it with icing and send it into a sugar coma?”
Mia walked past Aggie and reached for the storage room door handle. “Come on, let’s take a look.”
“Oh, Lord.” Whimpering, Aggie kept the tube poised to squirt.
“No one would ever believe you live on a farm, Ag,” Leanne said with a sigh.
The hinges squeaked as Mia pushed the door wide, letting the light from behind seep into the storage room. Blinking, she scanned the small, crowded area stacked high with supplies. As she stepped in, she heard a gasp in the far right corner, a sharp intake of breath.
“Turn on the light, Leanne,” Mia whispered. Her heart ticked like an over-wound clock as she peered toward the shadowy corner from where the sound had come. The bare bulb overhead flared, illuminating a pale, frightened face with dark, hollow smudges for eyes. The eyes stared back at Mia.
Aggie screeched, and Mia felt something hit her back.
Icing
.
“Sorry,” Aggie murmured. “My finger hit the trigger.”
Ignoring the ooze beneath her left shoulder blade, Mia concentrated on the girl crouched on the floor in the corner, hugging dirty, torn, blue-jean-covered knees to her chest. “Hello, there.” Mia reached out a hand.
Cringing, the girl scrambled to her feet, her eyeliner-smeared, sleepy brown eyes too big for her face; her short, dark-rooted, white-blonde hair flattened to her head on one side and stuck out in spikes on the other. She appeared too young for makeup and bleached hair. Twelve, maybe. Thirteen at the most. A kaleidoscope of emotions flashed across her face then quickly disappeared behind a stony mask.
“Heavens,” Aggie whispered.
Leanne moved up beside Mia as the skinny, shivering girl pressed closer to the wall. “We have a rat, all right. A packrat.” She pointed to the nest at the girl’s feet: a man’s down jacket, a well-worn backpack, two tablecloths bunched into a makeshift bed. A scatter of crumpled paper muffin cups surrounded an empty Brewed Awakening mug. “A packrat with an appetite.”
Mia detected a hint of concern in Leanne’s tone.
The girl’s chin lifted as she blinked the sleep from her eyes then narrowed them into defiance. Mia took another step toward her. “What’s your name?”
No answer.
“How’d you get in here?” Leanne crossed her arms, one cowboy boot tapping out her impatience. “You better check the safe, Aggie. Make sure our little packrat isn’t a thief, too.”
“No one could crack that thing,” Aggie scoffed.
“Are you okay?” Mia asked the girl in a careful voice. No use frightening her more than she was already.
“You would’a been smarter to break in to the beauty shop down the street,” Leanne said. “Betty hates a cold shop in the mornings. She leaves the heater running full blast all night.”
Aggie squeezed in on Mia’s other side. “Talk to us, sugar. We don’t want to hurt you. But we can’t help you, either, if you won’t tell us who you are.”
When the front bell jingled, the girl jumped, her gaze darting toward the door.
“Well, damn,” Leanne huffed. “Don’t people know by now we’re not open this early?” She called, “Just a sec!” then backed out of the storage room for a moment before poking her head back in. “It’s the sheriff. I swear, Mia, the man gets earlier every day.” Her half-grin brimmed with insinuation. “Guess he can’t stand not seeing your smiling face first thing in the morning.”
For once, Mia welcomed Sheriff Cade Sloan’s daily visit, instead of dreading it. She’d known him most of her life, did the sports booster club thing and PTA with him and his ex-wife, Jill, before they divorced. Years back, she and Dan had even socialized with them some. Then, a couple of months ago, Cade started flirting. Now, just the sight of him made her as nervous and self-conscious as a girl at her first school dance. Especially since Leanne and Aggie insisted he had a “thing” for her.
Mia wasn’t convinced of that. Like Leanne, Cade was a tease and always had been. At one time or another, every woman in town had been the recipient of his playful joking. Now it was her turn, that was all.
But the looks he gave her lately still made her heart skip a beat. Though she’d never admit it to Leanne or Aggie, Mia feared
she
was the one with a “thing” for
Cade
, not the other way around. “Tell him to come back here,” she said.
“No!” The girl stepped toward the three women, one arm thrust out, trembling. “Don’t tell him I’m here.”
Mia’s heart beat too fast. Why did this child seem so familiar?
“Please,” the girl whispered. “Just give me a chance.”
And then, at once, Mia knew. Her eyes had a different shape. The color was wrong, too; brown rather than blue. But the flash of desperation, the lost look in them, was identical to what she’d glimpsed briefly in her own daughter’s eyes before Christy ran away.
M
ia walked into the main dining area, followed by Leanne and Aggie.
Sheriff Cade Sloan stood just inside the front door. “Morning, ladies.” When he tipped his Stetson, Mia’s heart tipped, too. Although he addressed the three of them, his gaze stayed on her. His eyes were the hazy gray of a rainy afternoon and, as usual, spilling mischief. When Mia looked into them, she couldn’t look away; it was as if he wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to, though. Wanted to turn her back on the feelings Cade resurrected in her. Mia didn’t want to admit to herself that she could have such a strong attraction to anyone other than her husband. Dan still lived in her heart; any interest in another man felt like a betrayal.
Besides all that, Cade seemed to be smiling to himself, and she couldn’t imagine what he thought was so funny. Maybe to him a fifty-year-old woman looked silly in overalls. Or maybe, in his mind, a woman her age was pushing it by wearing her hair in a loose braid over one shoulder. Or maybe a piece of last night’s broccoli was wedged between her front teeth. Who knew?
No maybe about it, though, it was high time she stopped second-guessing herself whenever Cade looked at her. Especially on this particular morning when she had more important issues on
her
mind than what was going on in
his
.
“Good morning, Sheriff.” Mia struggled to sound normal.
Aggie echoed the greeting.
“Cade Sloan, you’re sure on the ball this morning,” Leanne cooed in the honey-coated voice she used whenever she spoke to men. Young, old, good-looking or homely; it didn’t matter to Leanne. They all received the same treatment. Pushing hair away from her face, she said, “We—”
“—don’t open for another hour and a half,” Mia cut in. “The coffee’s not even on yet.”
A look of uncertainty crossed Leanne’s face. She stared at Mia with raised brows. “But, we do have
something
in back that might interest him, don’t we, Mia?”
Mia sent her friend a quick, barbed glance. “The sweet rolls aren’t quite ready, Leanne.” She turned her brightest smile on Cade. “If you come back in a little while we’ll have a hot one waiting for you with plenty of icing. Just the way you like it.” With a scolding look, she added, “You know better than to show up so early, anyway.”
Humming a nervous tune, Aggie lifted the top tablecloth from the stack on the counter and unfolded it as she moved around to the nearest table.
Cade removed his hat, revealing short, dark hair, salted at the temples. He stepped further into the dining room with an easy, self-assured grace that might’ve seemed arrogant on any other man. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother you at this hour, but I’ve got myself a problem.”
“A problem?” Mia crossed her arms.
Cade walked to the counter, but didn’t sit. He leaned back against it, elbows propped up, his hat beside him.
“Late yesterday afternoon, Mack Holden caught a young girl lifting merchandise from his grocery store. The kid had stuffed her backpack with stolen food. A pair of pink suede boots are missing from Jesse’s Boutique, too.”
“Little packrat,” Leanne murmured, generating a curious stare from Cade and sinking Mia’s heart.
Aggie’s gaze darted toward the swinging doors that led to the back room then over to Leanne. “Would you help me with this?” she asked in a jittery voice. Her hands visibly shook as she smoothed the first cloth into place on a tabletop then grabbed another one from the stack. “I’ll get the centerpieces.”
“I’ve been eyeing those pink boots at Jesse’s myself,” Leanne said as she moved around the counter to take the tablecloth Aggie handed her. “The girl has good taste.”
Cade studied Leanne a moment longer before shifting his attention back to Mia. “Right as I pulled up at Mack’s, she got away and took off running. I recognized her from a photo the Amarillo PD posted. They’ve been looking for her a couple of days now. She’s a runaway. A fourteen-year-old foster kid name of Rachel Nye. The foster parents reported that she was missing when they woke up Wednesday morning.” He heaved a tired sigh, and Mia wondered if he had slept last night. “I thought I had her cornered, but she slipped right past me and disappeared.”
Aggie pulled vases of dried flowers from beneath the inside counter. “That poor, poor, girl,” she said. “Her family’s probably worried sick about her.”
“There are only the foster parents, and she hasn’t been with them more than a few months.” Cade pushed away from the counter and walked to the small fireplace at the side of the room. He glanced back at Mia. “You want me to get this going?”
When she nodded, he slid aside the screen and rearranged the logs. He took a match from the mantel and lit it. Flames leaped, danced, and crackled as he tossed it in and turned on the gas beneath the logs. “Stupid kids,” he rumbled. “They just don’t think.”
“Same as when we were young,” Leanne said, a frustrated edge to her tone. She fanned the checkered cloth she held, flapping it until it billowed.
Cade watched the fire until the logs took hold of the flame. Then he turned off the gas and replaced the screen. “Anyway,” he continued, standing, “You ladies are my first stop this morning. I plan on dropping by all the local businesses to give them a heads-up. I’d appreciate a call if you see any sign of her. She has a history of stealing. Nothing seemed out of place in here this morning, did it?”
Leanne glanced up from her work. She blinked at Mia then said, “Nothing except the fact that in our storage closet we found—”
“—a mouse,” Mia blurted just as Aggie made a quick turn and knocked a vase from the table behind her. The vase didn’t break, but dried flowers scattered across the floor.
“For heaven’s sake!” Aggie’s voice fluttered along with her hands as she stooped to clean up the mess.
Leanne, Cade, and Mia converged to help.
Cade chuckled. “What’s got you so jumpy this morning, Aggie?”
Aggie blinked worriedly. Leanne started to answer him, but Mia cut her off. “Post holiday jitters, most likely. I know
I
have them. Too many Christmas goodies.”
When the flowers were all back in the vase, everyone stood. Cade went to the counter for his hat, tugged it on then started for the door.
Suddenly, the phone on the wall behind the counter rang. Aggie gasped, jumped, and stumbled backward against a table.
Cade crossed to her quickly. “You okay?”
She pressed a palm to her chest. “Just startled.” Her face turned as splotchy red as the checks on the tablecloths. “Who would be calling at this hour?”
“You did eat too much sugar.” He smiled as she hurried past him, rounding the counter to answer the phone. “I thought maybe you saw that mouse.”
“Oh, hello, Roy,” Aggie said after picking up. She paused. “Clean socks? They’re in the dryer. I didn’t get around to folding them.” Another pause. “There’s no such thing as a left sock and a right. Just take out two and put them on.”
Listening to the phone conversation, Mia smiled at Leanne, who continued dressing the tables. Leanne didn’t smile back. She looked up at Mia with pursed lips, then said, “We don’t have a mouse, we have a packrat.” Her scowl left no question that she disagreed with Mia’s decision to cover for the runaway girl.
“A packrat?” Cade looked back and forth between the two women. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s how you referred to Rachel Nye a minute ago.”
Before Leanne could respond, Aggie hung up the phone and said, “That husband of mine . . . I swear I don’t know how he’d take care of himself if I wasn’t around.” She tightened her apron sash.
Mia bit her lip as she locked gazes with Leanne. She wished she’d had a chance to talk with her before Cade arrived. She wanted more time with the girl, wanted to hear her side of the story. What harm could come of another hour or two? Mia guessed her eyes conveyed that message because Leanne’s expression suddenly shifted. She looked torn, undecided. Still irritated, yes, but Mia couldn’t blame her for that.
Leanne finished with the tables then walked to the cash register, unlocked it and pulled the empty money tray out. “What happened to the girl’s real folks?”
“From what I could gather from her caseworker, she’s been in the system since she was four,” Cade answered. “Her mother was a crackhead. No father in the picture.”
“Mack and Jesse plan to press charges?” Mia asked, sympathy squeezing her heart.
“Afraid so. But first I’ve got to catch her.”
Cade rubbed his fingers across his jaw, and Mia noticed he’d failed to shave. A mixture of silver and dark brown stubble covered his face. A tough, weathered face that, at the moment, looked tired and vulnerable, but as strong as always. The lines beside his eyes seemed more deeply etched than she remembered them being before. But the eyes themselves were clear. Alert.