Natural Born Charmer (12 page)

Sal made her give him another pack of Cheese Nips. She ate one herself and then, because she was still so scared, she ate some Rice Krispies Treats. She had to pee really bad, but she couldn’t tell Sal that, so she held her legs together and hoped they got there soon. Sal wasn’t driving fast like he had before. After almost wrecking, he had both hands on the steering wheel, and he kept the radio off. They missed Smoky Hollow Road because it was too dark to see the sign and had to turn back.

“Why are you jumping around so much?” Sal still sounded really
mad, like it was her fault he hadn’t slowed down when he got off the interstate.

She couldn’t say she had to pee. “Because I’m glad we’re almost there.”

She was looking as hard as she could for the sign for Callaway Road when Sal’s cell rang. They both jumped. “Shit.” He banged his elbow on the door trying to get the phone out of his jacket pocket. He looked really scared, and when he answered, his voice kind of squeaked. “Hello?”

All the way on the other side of the car, Riley could hear his dad yelling, asking Sal where the hell he was and telling him if he didn’t get home right now, he’d call the police. Sal was afraid of his dad, and he looked like he was going to cry. When his dad finally hung up, Sal stopped the car right in the middle of the road and started screaming at Riley. “Give me the rest of the money! Right now!”

He looked like he was going sort of crazy. Riley shrank back against the door. “As soon as we get there.”

He grabbed her jacket and shook her. A little bubble of slobber popped at the corner of his mouth. “Give it to me or you’ll be sorry.”

She jerked away, but he’d scared her so much that she kicked off her shoe. “I got the money here.”

“Hurry up. Give it to me!”

“Take me to the farm first.”

“If you don’t give it to me now, I’m going to hit you.”

She knew he meant it, and she grabbed at her sock and pulled out the bills. “I’ll give this to you when we get there.”

“Give it to me now!” He twisted her wrist.

She smelled the Cheese Nips on his breath, plus something sour. “Let go!”

He pried open her fingers and grabbed the money. Then he yanked her seat belt free, reached across her, and threw open her car door. “Get out!”

She was so scared she started to cry. “Take me to the farm first. Don’t do this. Please.”

“Get out right now!” He shoved her hard. She tried to grab the door, but she missed and fell out on the road. “Don’t you tell anybody,” he shouted. “If you tell anybody, you’ll be sorry.” He threw her backpack out, pulled the door shut, and took off.

She lay in the middle of the road until the sound of the engine disappeared. All she could hear was herself crying. It was so dark, the darkest night in her whole life. There weren’t any streetlights like in Nashville, and she couldn’t even see the moon, just this gray place in the clouds where the moon must be behind. She heard scuffing noises and remembered this movie she’d seen where a guy jumped out of the woods and kidnapped this girl and took her back to his house and cut her all up. That scared her so much that she snatched her backpack and ran across the road to where the field was.

Her elbow throbbed where she’d hit it when she fell, her leg hurt, and she had to pee so bad she’d wet her pants a little. Biting her lip, she fumbled with the zipper on her cords. Because they were so tight, she had a hard time pulling them down. She kept her eye on the woods across the road as she peed. By the time she’d finished and found a tissue, she could see a little better in the dark, and no man had come out of the trees, but her teeth were chattering.

She remembered the MapQuest directions. Callaway Road couldn’t be that much farther, and when she found it, all she had to do was walk 1.3 miles to get to the farm; 1.3 miles wasn’t far. Except she didn’t remember which direction they’d been going.

She swiped at her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. Somehow when Sal had pushed her out of the car, she’d rolled a little and gotten mixed up. She looked for a sign through the dark, but because the road was going uphill, all she could see was darkness. Maybe a car would come? But what if a kidnapper was driving it? Or a serial killer?

She thought they’d maybe been going uphill when Sal’s dad
called. Even though she wasn’t sure, she picked up her backpack and started walking because she couldn’t stay here. The nighttime was a lot louder than she’d ever imagined. A spooky owl hooted, wind cracked in the trees, and things made slithery noises that she hoped wasn’t snakes because she was very afraid of snakes. No matter how hard she tried to hold them back, these little whimpery sounds kept coming out of her mouth.

She started thinking about her mom. Riley’d thrown up in her wastebasket when Ava had told her the news. At first, all she could think about was herself and what would happen to her. But then she’d thought about how her mom used to sing silly songs to her. That was when Riley had been a cute little kid, before she got fat and her mom stopped liking her. During the funeral, Riley kept imagining how scared her mom must have been when she felt her lungs filling up with water, and she’d started crying so hard that Ava’d had to take her out of the church. Afterward, her dad said she wasn’t allowed to go to the graveyard for the burial, and him and Aunt Gayle had a big fight about it, but her dad wasn’t afraid of Aunt Gayle like everybody else, so Ava took Riley home, and let her eat all the Pop-Tarts she wanted, and put her to bed.

The wind whipped Riley’s hair, which was bushy brown, not shiny blond like her mom’s and Aunt Gayle’s and Trinity’s.
“It’s a pretty color, Riley. Like a movie star’s.”

That’s what Riley imagined her big brother would say about her hair. He would be like her best friend.

The farther she got up the hill, the harder it was to breathe, and the more the wind kept trying to push her back. She wondered if her mom was up there in heaven looking down at her now and maybe trying to figure out how to help her. But if her mom was in heaven, she’d be talking to her friends on the telephone and smoking.

Riley’s legs were burning from where they were rubbing together, and her chest hurt, and if she was going in the right direction, she would have seen the sign by now. Her backpack got so heavy she had
to drag it. If she died here, she wondered if a wolf would eat her face before anybody found her, and then maybe nobody would know it was her, Riley Patriot.

She still hadn’t reached the top of the hill when she saw a bent metal sign.
CALLAWAY ROAD
. It went uphill, too. The blacktop was crumbling at the sides, and she stumbled. Her cords ripped, and she started to cry, but she made herself get up. This wasn’t straight like the other road but had curves that scared her because she didn’t know what was on the other side.

She almost didn’t care if she died now, but she didn’t want a wolf to eat her face, so she kept going. Finally, she got to the top of the hill. She tried to look down and maybe see the farm, but it was too dark. Her toes jammed against the front of her sneakers as she started downhill. Finally, the woods opened up a little, and she saw this wire fence. The wind blew cold against her cheeks, but she was sweaty under her puffy pink jacket. It seemed like she’d already walked a hundred miles. What if she’d walked past the farm and didn’t even know it?

At the bottom of the hill, she saw a shape. A wolf! Her heart hammered. She waited. It felt like it should be morning, but it wasn’t. The shape didn’t move. She took a cautious step forward and then another, getting closer and closer until she saw that it was an old mailbox. Something might be written on the side, but it was too dark to read, and it probably wouldn’t be her brother’s name anyway, since people like her brother and her dad tried not to let everybody know where they lived. Still, it had to be his farm, so she turned in.

This road was the worst of all, gravel without any blacktop and big trees making it even darker. She fell again, and the heels of her hands stung from the gravel. Finally, she came around a curve where the trees stopped and spotted a house, but there weren’t any lights on. Not even one. Her house in Nashville had motion lights, so if a burglar came close at night it would light up. She wished this house had motion lights, but she didn’t think they had those in the country.

She hoisted up her backpack and walked closer. She saw more buildings. The shape of a barn. She should have thought about what she’d do if nobody was awake. Her mom hated getting woken up too early. Maybe her brother would, too. Worst of all, what if her brother wasn’t really here? What if he was still in Chicago? That was the one thing she’d been trying hardest not to think about.

She needed a place to rest until it got to be morning. She was scared to go to the barn, so she gazed toward the house. Slowly, she made her way up the path.

The faintest threads of morning light crept
through the lace curtains in the tiny window above Blue’s head. It was too early to get up, but she’d foolishly drunk a big glass of water before she went to bed, and the gypsy caravan, for all its cozy charms, had no bathroom. Blue had never slept in a more wondrous place. It had been like falling asleep in the middle of a fairy tale that came complete with a wild, blond-haired gypsy prince who’d danced with her around the campfire.

She couldn’t believe she’d dreamed about him. True, Dean was exactly the kind of man to inspire outrageous female fantasies, but not from a realist like her. Ever since yesterday morning, she’d been too aware of him in all the wrong ways, and she needed to snap out of it.

The wagon’s bare wooden floor was cool under her feet. She’d slept in an orange T-shirt that said
BODY BY BEER
and a pair of deep purple tie-dyed yoga pants that had never seen a yoga class but were super comfy. After she’d slipped into her flip-flops, she stepped outside into the cucumber chill. Only the birds’ dawn songs broke the quiet—no clatter of garbage cans, shriek of sirens, or piercing warn
ings from trucks backing up. She headed for the house and let herself in the side door. In the morning light, the white kitchen cabinets and their bright red knobs gleamed against the new soapstone counters.

Don’t sit under the apple tree…

Dean had taped black plastic over all the bathroom doors before he went out last night, and she made her way to the downstairs powder room partially tucked under the stairs. Like everything else in the house, this room had been designed for him, with a high sink and a partially raised ceiling to accommodate his height. Blue wondered if he’d noticed how much his mother had personalized everything. Or maybe she’d simply done as he’d asked.

While the coffee brewed, she located some bowls from the boxes of new kitchenware waiting to be unpacked after the kitchen was painted. The clean plates sitting on the new countertop reminded her of the dinner she’d shared with April last night. Dean had begged off, saying he had things to do. Blue bet those things included a blonde, brunette, and redhead. She pulled open the refrigerator door to get milk and saw that he’d made a big dent in the shrimp Creole leftovers. Judging from how little of the dish remained, all that sex had worked up his appetite.

She splashed water in the sink to wash some dishes for breakfast. The white bowls had red mattress-ticking stripes around the edge, and the mugs were printed with a cluster of bright red cherries. She poured her coffee, added a splash of milk, and wandered toward the front of the house. When she reached the dining room, she paused in the doorway. Last night, April had told her she was considering having some landscape murals painted in here and asked if Blue did that kind of thing. Blue said no, which wasn’t exactly true. She did a fair amount of mural work—pets on rec room walls, business logos in offices, the occasional Bible verse on a kitchen wall—but she refused to paint landscapes. Her college professors had given her too much grief about the ones she’d done for her classes, and she hated anything that made her feel incompetent.

She let herself out the front door. Sipping her coffee, she ambled toward the steps and enjoyed the mist swirling in the hollows. As she turned to watch a platoon of birds perch on the barn’s roof, she jerked and splashed coffee on her wrist. A child lay huddled in the corner of the porch fast asleep.

The girl looked like she might be thirteen or so, although she hadn’t lost her baby fat, so she could have been younger. She wore a dirty pink jacket with a Juicy logo and muddy lavender cords that had a
V
-shaped tear at the knee. Blue put her wrist to her mouth to lick up the coffee. The child’s wild, curly brown hair tumbled over a round, grimy cheek. She’d fallen asleep awkwardly, her back wedged against the dark green backpack she’d shoved into the porch corner. She had olive-toned skin, bold, dark eyebrows, and a straight nose she hadn’t quite grown into. Her polished blue fingernails were bitten to the quick. But despite her grime, her clothes looked expensive, as did her sneakers. This kid had
BIG CITY
written all over her, which meant another wanderer had shown up at Dean’s farm.

Blue set down her mug and made her way to the child’s side. Crouching down, she gently touched her arm. “Hey, you,” she whispered.

The girl jumped, and her eyes shot open. They were the toasty brown of caramelized sugar.

“It’s okay,” Blue said, trying to calm the fear she saw there. “Good morning.”

The child struggled to sit up, and a morning croak deepened her soft southern accent. “I—I didn’t hurt anything.”

“Not a whole lot out here to hurt.”

She tried to shove the hair out of her eyes. “I wasn’t…supposed to fall asleep.”

“You didn’t pick a very comfortable bed.” She looked too skittish for Blue to cross-examine just yet. “Would you like some breakfast?”

The child’s front teeth sank into her bottom lip. They were straight, but still a little big for her face. “Yes, ma’am. If that’s okay?”

“I was hoping someone would show up to keep me company. My name is Blue.”

The child struggled to her feet and picked up her backpack. “I’m Riley. Are you the help?”

Obviously, she came from a privileged background. “Help or hindrance,” Blue replied. “It depends on my mood.”

Riley was too young to appreciate an adult smart-ass. “Is…like anybody here?”

“I am.” Blue opened the front door and gestured for Riley to enter.

Riley peered around as she came inside. Her voice quivered with disappointment. “It’s not done. There isn’t any furniture.”

“A little. The kitchen’s almost finished.”

“So…nobody’s living here now?”

Blue decided to dodge the question until she figured out what the kid was up to. “I’m so hungry. How about you? Do you feel like eggs or cereal?”

“Cereal, please.” Dragging her heels, Riley followed her down the hallway to the kitchen.

“The bathroom’s right there. It doesn’t have a door yet, but the painters won’t be here for a while, so if you’d like to wash up, nobody’ll bother you.”

The girl gazed around, looking toward the dining room and then the stairs before she and her backpack headed into the bathroom.

Blue had left all the nonperishable groceries in sacks until the painters finished. She went into the pantry and dug out some cereal boxes. By the time Riley returned, dragging her backpack and jacket behind her, Blue had everything set out on the table, including a small cow-pitcher filled with milk. “Choose your poison.”

Riley filled her bowl with Honey Nut Cheerios and three teaspoons of sugar. She’d washed her hands and face, and some of her curls stuck to her forehead. Her lavender cords fit too tightly, as did her white T-shirt, which had
FOXY
written across it in purple glitter
script. Blue couldn’t imagine a less appropriate word to describe this serious child.

She fried an egg for herself, made a piece of toast, and carried her plate to the table. She waited until the child had satisfied the worst of her hunger before she started digging. “I’m thirty. How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“That’s a little young to be on your own.”

Riley set down her spoon. “I’m looking for…somebody. Kind of a relative. Not—not like a brother or anything,” she said in a rush. “Just…like maybe a cousin. I—I thought he might be here.”

Right then, the back door opened, bracelets jingled, and April came in. “We have company,” Blue said. “Look who I found asleep on the porch this morning. My friend Riley.”

April cocked her head, and a big silver hoop peeked through her hair. “On the porch?”

Blue abandoned her toast. “She’s trying to find one of her relatives.”

“The carpenters should be here soon.” April smiled at Riley. “Or is your relative one of the painters?”

“My—my relative doesn’t work here,” Riley mumbled. “He’s…He’s supposed to live here.”

Blue’s knee banged the table leg. April’s smile faded. “Live here?”

The girl nodded.

“Riley?” April’s fingers convulsed around the edge of the counter. “Tell me your last name.”

Riley dipped her head over the cereal bowl. “I don’t want to tell you.”

April’s complexion lost its color. “You’re Jack’s kid, aren’t you? Jack and Marli’s daughter.”

Blue nearly choked. It had been one thing to suspect Dean’s connection to Jack Patriot, but another thing to have it confirmed. Riley
was Jack Patriot’s daughter, and despite her clumsy attempt to hide it, the relative she was looking for could only be Dean.

Riley tugged on a coil of her hair, pulling it over her face while she stared into her cereal bowl. “You know about me?”

“I—Yes,” April said. “How did you get here? You live in Nashville.”

“I sort of got a ride. With this friend of my mother’s. She’s thirty.”

April didn’t call her on her obvious lie. “I’m sorry about your mother. Does your father know you’re—” April’s expression hardened. “Of course he doesn’t. He hasn’t got a clue, does he?”

“Not most of the time. But he’s very nice.”

“Nice…” April rubbed her forehead. “Who’s supposed to be taking care of you?”

“I have an au pair.”

April reached for the notebook she’d left on the counter last night. “Give me her number so I can call her.”

“I don’t think she’ll be out of bed yet.”

April locked eyes with her. “I’m sure she won’t mind if I wake her up.”

Riley looked away. “Could you tell me…Is anybody…Is like maybe my…cousin living here? Because it’s very important for me to find him?”

“Why?” April said tightly. “Why do you need to find him?”

“Because…” Riley swallowed. “Because I need to tell him about me.”

April drew a shaky breath. She gazed down at the notebook. “This isn’t going to work the way you want.”

Riley stared at her. “You know where he is, don’t you?”

“No. No, I don’t,” April said quickly. She looked at Blue, who was still trying to absorb what she was hearing. Dean bore no resemblance to Jack Patriot, but Riley did. They had the same olive skin tone, mahogany brown hair, and straight bladed nose. Those darkly
rimmed caramelized sugar eyes had stared back at her from countless album covers.

“While Riley and I talk,” April said to Blue, “would you take care of that matter upstairs?”

Blue got the message. She was supposed to keep Dean away. As a child, she’d felt the pain of withheld secrets, and she didn’t believe in shielding kids from the truth, but this wasn’t her call to make. She pushed back from the table, but before she could get up, a firm set of footsteps approached from the hall.

April grabbed Riley’s hand. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

It was too late.

“I smell coffee.” Dean walked in, freshly showered, unshaven, a
GQ
ad for hip country casual in blue bermudas, a pale yellow mesh T-shirt with a Nike swoosh, and high-tech lime green sneakers as streamlined as race cars. He spotted Riley and smiled. “Morning.”

Riley sat paralyzed, drinking him in with her eyes. April pressed a hand to her waist, as if her stomach ached. Riley’s lips parted ever so slightly. Finally, she found her tongue. “I’m Riley.” Her voice came out in a papery croak.

“Hi, Riley. I’m Dean.”

“I know,” she said. “I—I have a scrapbook.”

“You do? What kind of scrapbook?”

“A—about you.”

“No kidding?” He headed for the coffeepot. “So you’re a football fan.”

“I’m sort of…” She licked her dry lips. “I’m sort of like…maybe your cousin or something.”

Dean’s head came up. “I don’t have a—”

“Riley is Marli Moffatt’s daughter,” April said stonily.

Riley kept her focus glued entirely on him. “Jack Patriot is…like my dad, too.”

Dean stared at her.

Riley’s face flushed with agitation. “I didn’t mean to say that!” she cried. “I never told anybody about you. I swear.”

Dean stood frozen. April couldn’t seem to move. Riley’s stricken eyes filled with tears. Blue couldn’t stand witnessing so much pain, and she rose from her chair. “Dean just rolled out of bed, Riley. Let’s give him a few minutes to wake up.”

Dean shifted his gaze to his mother. “What’s she doing here?”

April stepped back against the stove. “Trying to find you, I guess.”

Blue could see this meeting wasn’t playing out as Riley had imagined. Tears spiked the child’s lashes. “I’m sorry. I won’t ever say anything again.”

Dean was the grown-up, and he needed to take charge, but he stood silent and rigid. Blue moved around the table toward Riley. “Somebody hasn’t had his coffee yet, and it’s made him a grouchy bear. While Dean wakes up, I’ll show you where I slept last night. You won’t believe it.”

When Blue was eleven years old, she’d have challenged anybody who tried to close her out, but Riley was more accustomed to blind obedience. She ducked her head and reluctantly picked up her backpack. The kid was a walking heartache, and Blue’s own heart contracted in sympathy. She slipped an arm around Riley’s shoulders and steered her toward the side door. “First, you have to tell me what you know about gypsies.”

“I don’t know anything,” Riley muttered.

“Fortunately, I do.”

Dean waited for the door to shut. In less than twenty-four hours, two people had confronted him with the secret he’d been able to keep for so many years. He spun on April. “What the hell is going on? Did you know about this?”

“Of course I didn’t know,” April retorted. “Blue found her asleep
on the porch. She must have run away from home. Apparently she only has an au pair watching her.”

“Are you telling me that selfish son of a bitch left her alone less than two weeks after her mother died?”

“How would I know? It’s been thirty years since I talked to him in person.”

“Un-frickin’-believable.” He thrust his finger at her. “You find him right now and tell him to get one of his flunkies over here this morning to pick her up.” April didn’t like being ordered around, and she set her jaw. Too bad. He headed for the door. “I’m going to talk to her.”