My Little Runaway (Destiny Bay) (8 page)

She opened her eyes and stared into the mirror. She looked tired. And why not? It was well after midnight.

Should she run away? Disappear through the bathroom window like the heroine of a detective film? She glanced at the tiny window and groaned. So much for that plan.

She sighed, knowing she would continue to Destiny Bay with Reid. But what would happen once they got there was anybody’s guess.

A tiny, snuffling sound turned her head. She’d thought she was all alone in the bare room, but now she saw someone crouched in the corner.

“Hello there,” she said to the dark-eyed child. “Is something wrong?”

The eyes were huge. Stringy black hair fell down over her forehead. Dressed in raggedy jeans and a pajama top, she couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. Jennifer stopped a few steps away so as not to frighten her.

“What is it, honey? Did you lose your mama?”

Suddenly she realized that there was no look of comprehension on the sweet little face. Groping for her high school Spanish, Jennifer tried,
“Donde esta su madre?”

Relief washed across the child’s expression. “
No
se,”
she whispered.
“Estoy perdida.”

Perdida.
Lost.
 

“Oh, sweetheart!” She looked at the child and saw another little girl with satiny brown curls and chocolate-brown eyes, just as lost, just as scared, but with a sense of desperation even deeper. All little ones get lost at some point. The lucky ones are soon found again. Some spend the rest of their lives searching but never finding a home. Her heart went out to this lost one.

“Me llamo Jennifer. Como te llamas?”
she asked the girl.

“Nita.” One fat, dirty thumb went into her mouth, and she stared at Jennifer, eyes huge as saucers, hanging on to the thumb as though it were a lifeline.

Jennifer smiled and reached out a friendly hand, stopping inches away from the little girl. “Will you take my hand, Nita? We’re going to find your mother.”

Reid watched the crimson end of his cigarette glow in the dark. He’d filled the tank and pulled over to the side and gotten out to lean against the car and wait for Jennifer. She’d been gone for an inordinate amount of time, but he wasn’t worried. Not yet.

His mind was much too full of other things. Questions. Suspicions of his own motivations. What the hell did he think he was doing, anyway?

Ever since that afternoon earlier in the week when he’d found her again, dressed in that ridiculous jumpsuit, with mud all over her, it was as though he’d been seized by a fever he couldn’t shake. She filled his thoughts, his dreams—he was acting like an obsessed idiot.

But he was a rational man in a rational profession. He’d been trained to be objective. He would approach this with his usual calm intelligence. There was a promise that needed to be kept. There was a problem that needed to be solved. It was time to divest this situation of all its emotional impact and deal with the facts.

Fact number one, he’d made a promise to Tony. Bringing Jennifer home would finally fulfill that obligation.

Fact number two, the Thorntons were miserable. They’d lost a daughter, then a son. They needed Jennifer back. Whatever might have caused the rift between them, surely it couldn’t be as important as the parent-child tie and its potential for nurturing the soul.

There it was. His entire justification for forcing Jennifer back to Destiny Bay. It held up. The logic, the problems, the solution. It all fit.

He stubbed out what was left of his cigarette angrily and immediately lit another. It all fit. But was it all really relevant? Or was the bottom line the simple truth—that he’d seen Jennifer, and the old longing for her had swept over him, crippling his cognitive powers and rendering him incapable of rational thought?

He’d told her something of the truth the other day in the park, of how he’d been attracted to her when they were younger. But he hadn’t admitted how deep those feelings lay. He hadn’t told her of the nights he’d lain awake thinking of her.

It hadn’t been right for him to love her because she’d been much too young. In some ways she still seemed too young. Something about her was so open and innocent, and he felt as old as the hills.

He wanted her, and like any caveman, he’d simply forced his way into her cave, grabbed her by the hair, and stomped out again.

“So which is it, Reid Carrington?” he muttered, still not sure of the answer. “Logic or lust?”

It suddenly occurred to him that she’d been gone too long. He glanced at his watch and frowned, then eyed the door of the ladies’ room she’d disappeared into. She’d made a crack about hitchhiking. Surely she wouldn’t do anything that silly and dangerous. Would she?
 
Concern lengthened his stride as he made his way to the door of the ladies’ room. Just as he arrived, a middle-aged woman emerged.

“Is there anyone still in there?” he asked, and she looked startled at the harshness of his tone.

“No, no one I could see,” she said before hurrying off to her waiting car.

The station was the only one still open for miles, so despite the late hour, there was plenty of business from passersby on the freeway. Reid turned quickly, surveying each car to see if it contained a new passenger, but there was no sign of her. Walking quickly, he went around to the back side of the station. It was deserted.

“Dammit to hell,” he breathed, gritting his teeth. His mind conjured up a mental picture of her standing on the highway with her thumb out, the wind tumbling her curls over her eyes. He could see her accepting a ride from some creep in a souped-up car with flames painted on the sides. The only thing left to do was to get out on the freeway himself and beat the creep to her.

He spun on his heel, ready to hurry back to his car, but something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He hesitated for a moment, staring down a lonesome, unlit dirt road that led away from the station toward the hills. Someone was walking his way.

He took two quick steps toward her, then stopped and waited for her to come to him. It was Jennifer. Anger mingled with relief as he watched her approach.

“Hi,” she said brightly as she came close. “I was
just—“

Only seconds after telling himself not to overreact, he did exactly that. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “Don’t do that again, Jennifer. Don’t try to hide from me.”

“I wasn’t—“ she began, but he wouldn’t listen.

“Don’t try to get out of doing what you have to do with any of these childish tricks.” His silver gaze raked over her. “You’ve got more integrity than that, Jennifer.”

She opened her mouth to explain to him that she’d just been returning a little girl to her mother, but then she closed it again.

“I was just taking a walk,” she said stiffly. The heck with him! If he wanted so badly to believe she would run, let him. She should have told him before she left, but she hadn’t realized Nita’s people would be so far down the road.

It had turned out that Nita was staying in a trailer parked in a dirt lot with other itinerant pickers. She’d been sent to the bathroom at the station, but when she came out, she had lost her way and had gone back to the bathroom as the only hiding place-she could find. Her mother had been overjoyed to see her. The scene of the reunion had been heartwarming, as had been the earnest thanks the family had bestowed upon Jennifer. Too bad Reid had missed it.

She was angry with him and not about to try to explain herself. She let him lead her back to the car, but she didn’t speak. And in a moment they were back on the freeway again, getting closer to Destiny Bay by the minute.

It was so dark she couldn’t see the emerald-green hills or the sapphire-blue ocean. Everything was masked by the same blanket of darkness. Neither one of them said another word as they sped up the coast. Finally, they reached the outskirts of town, and Reid turned off onto the road that led right into the exclusive area
,
La Bahia, which was their destination. Jennifer’s heart was thumping as she began to recognize landmarks. This was home. How could she have forgotten?

They stopped in front of the Carrington house, and she stared across the green belt to where her own parents lived. The house was dark. It was very late. She was tired. Maybe that was why she didn’t feel anything, not even love.

“Are your parents here?” she asked Reid.

“No,” he said shortly. “They’re in Europe.”

She nodded.

Reid watched her, and the look on her face made his heart ache. He wanted to take her into his arms, to hold her and let her cry, but he wasn’t sure she wanted that. After what he’d done in her bedroom, he was going to be extra careful not to give her the idea he’d just brought her down here to get her into his bed. So he didn’t touch her. But he spoke, softly, urgently.

“This isn’t going to be easy, Jennifer. I know that. But you can do it. I’ll be here for you, right behind you ... all the way. Whatever you need, all you have to do is ask.”

He reached a hand toward her before he could stop himself, but she’d already turned away and didn’t see it. He drew it back again and gripped the wheel.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do—and what I’m not going to do,” she told him, her voice so low he could barely make out the words. “I’ll stay with you for a few days, Reid. But I’m not making any promises.”

“I know that. We’ll take it one step at a time.”

He got out and came around to open the door for her, reaching inside to help her with her suitcase and guitar. Then he led the way into the house, using his key rather than ringing to wake the servants. Jennifer followed behind, peering into each familiar room as they passed. He led her up the stairs and right into his old bedroom.

She entered behind him and looked around at all the old school pennants and Rotary Club awards on the walls, then nudged the single bed with her knee.

“Are we going to take turns, or what?” she asked, referring to the obviously narrow proportions of the sleeping accommodations but also probing to find out just what he expected from her.

He put down her luggage and looked up to see what she was talking about, then he smiled as he realized her point. “You’ve got the whole thing to yourself,” he assured her. “I don’t use this room anymore. I’ll be across the hall.”

She felt disappointed, and she turned away, opening her suitcase and fussing with the contents to hide it from him. God how she wished he would take her in his arms, take her into his bed, hold her all night long! She needed him.
 

“ ‘I Will Survive,’ “ she whispered to herself with a self-mocking smile.

“What?” Reid asked, turning.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “Nothing at all.”

He walked to the window. She followed him. Below, she could see her parents’ house. Some exterior floodlights were left on all night, and it lay below, cold and impersonal.

“I used to have my desk right here by the window,” Reid told her softly. “I did all my studying here. And so often I would look down and see you and Tony playing around.”

“Playing around,” she echoed ruefully. “That was what Tony and I both did best, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t answer.
 

“Are they there?” she asked, referring to her parents.

“Yes. They’re always there.”

She took a deep breath. “What do you expect me to do?” she asked briskly. “Knock on the door and yell, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m home’?”

“That would be one way. Don’t you think she’d open her arms to you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Reid, I don’t think you know them as well as you think you do.”

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t.”

She spun and stared at him.

He shrugged. “Get some good sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She nodded, turning away from him. He hesitated for a moment, watching her. The tumbling chestnut curls invited an affectionate hand to rake through and put them in order. When she looked up at him, her eyes barely visible beneath the windblown hair, she looked so forlorn and vulnerable he had the urge to sweep her up and kiss her red mouth until . . .

“Good night,” he forced out, jaw twitching.

“Good night,” she whispered back.

He left her alone.

He was going to be strong. Leaving her room, he went into his own, closed the door tight, and leaned on it, drawing in a deep, ragged breath. Yes, he was going to be strong if it killed him.

CHAPTER FIVE:
 

Memories of a Golden Boy
 

Jennifer spent the next morning exploring Reid’s old room. What she would have given for a morning like this in the old days! Free rein in the midst of all Reid’s secrets.

Unfortunately, he either didn’t have many or he’d hidden those he had somewhere else. When he moved out, he’d left behind a shelf of beautifully crafted paper and wood airplane models, a wooden pencil box he’d obviously made with his own hands in some shop class, and a stack of well-thumbed-through fifteen-year-old
Playboy
magazines. But other than sports equipment and trophies, that was about it. She turned toward the bookcase, hoping for better luck there.

“Do men ever keep diaries?” she muttered. If they did, they didn’t leave them in bookcases, because she couldn’t find a sign of one. She did find a discouraging number of law books, along with calculus and physics textbooks, which didn’t hold much promise. And then, finally, she discovered his yearbooks.

He’d gone to Dantan Prep, the same exclusive private school as Tony. She’d attended Fairfax School for Young Women and hated every moment. Somehow she’d never been able to consider herself one of the chosen few, the self-proclaimed ruling class. She hadn’t been comfortable with snobs. Every day of every year she went there, she’d pleaded with her mother to take her out and let her go to public school.

“The faculty at Fairfax knows how to prepare you to take your place in society, Jennifer,” her mother would scold. “Besides, the things one hears happening at that public high school—I wouldn’t send a dog there.”