The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (5 page)

The girl stopped thrashing and shoved a hand into her pocket, prompting Sam’s brother to bellow, “Watch out! She’s got a gun!”

Several people screamed, and there was a flurry of movement as everyone scrambled for cover. At that precise moment Ian dove like a linebacker blocking a pass, grabbing the girl about the waist and slamming her to the ground. They struggled briefly, dirt and leaves flying. A high-pitched wail skirled up into the cloudless blue sky.

“Get the fuck off me!”

He hauled the girl to her feet. She was panting, bits of leaves and twigs caught in her tangled brown hair. Her eyes were dark glints in the flushed redness of her face. She took a wild swing, but Ian leaped nimbly out of reach without letting go of her wrist. She swung again, weakly this time.

“Easy now,” he soothed. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

“Leggo!”

“I will as soon as you promise not to run off.”

“Fuck you!”

Sam trotted over, catching only a brief glimpse of the bruised-looking hollows under her eyes before the girl dropped her head. “I wasn’t stealing,” she said in a low, ragged voice. “I was just…hungry.”

In a single motion she pulled free of Ian and reached into her pocket, tossing something onto the grass. Not the gun they’d imagined, a bread roll. Sam didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“What’s your name?” she asked, not unkindly.

The girl’s head jerked up. “What’s it to
you
?”

Sam replied calmly, “For one thing, this is private property and you’re trespassing.”

“I didn’t steal nothing,” she insisted.

“I’m not accusing you.”

The girl glared mutely at Sam. She looked and smelled as though she hadn’t showered in days. It had probably been that long since she’d eaten a proper meal. A runaway, no question. The sooner she was shipped home to her parents, the better.

“Maybe this is a discussion you’d rather have with the police,” Sam said.

The color drained from the girl’s face. She began to shiver. “No. Please. I’ll do anything you say. Just…no cops, okay?”

Ian’s eyes met Sam’s, and with a nearly imperceptible shake of his head—as if to say,
let me handle this
—he said, “Relax. No one’s calling the cops.” He stuck his hand out, this time in friendship. “Ian Carpenter.”

The girl hesitated before taking it, mumbling, “Finch.”

“That your first or last name?” he asked.

“Both.” She narrowed her eyes as if daring him to make something of it.

“Fair enough.” He took a step back. “How long since you’ve eaten?”

She shrugged, dropping her head again.

“All right,” he said patiently, “let’s try another one. How did you get here? It’s a long way to walk.”

Sam remembered the scuffling noise in the van. “That was
you,
wasn’t it? In the van?”

The girl took a step back, glancing on either side of her as if preparing to bolt. “It wasn’t locked.”

Ian shrugged. “It’s okay. No harm done.”

She shot him a grateful, if guarded, look. “Can I go now?”

“Not until you’ve eaten.” The words were out of Sam’s mouth before she realized she’d spoken. It was the only decent thing to do. The girl looked more starved kitten than cat burglar.

Sam turned and began strolling casually up the slope. A moment later, a shadow fell over the grass at her side. She didn’t have to look around to see that it was Finch.

Watching Alice walk to meet them, she felt a twinge of anxiety. Would she object? It was her day, after all. And she’d always been so particular, wanting everything just so, even when she was little. Martin hadn’t called her his little princess for nothing.

Then there was Alice, taking Finch by the hand and saying as if nothing were out of the ordinary, “Come on, I’ll get you a plate.”

Watching the unlikely pair trail off toward the tent, the storybook bride in her snowy gown and the ragged urchin with leaves in her hair, Sam felt her throat catch. She’d never felt so proud of her daughter.

“That was nice, what you just did.”

She turned to find Ian smiling at her. “What else could I do? She looks half starved, poor thing.” She gave him a stern look. “You, on the other hand, could have been killed. How did you know that wasn’t a gun?”

“I didn’t.” He grinned, smoothing a hand over the top of his head. In the bright sunlight his hair gleamed like polished oak.

Martin wouldn’t have stuck his neck out like that,
she thought.

If any one of his family had been kidnapped, he’d have begged, borrowed, or stolen the ransom. But risk life and limb jumping into a fray? No, that wasn’t Martin’s style.

“Are you always this impulsive?” she asked.

Ian gave a snort of laughter, brushing idly at the grass stains on his shirt. One of its studs was missing, she noticed. “My dad has another word for it. Ask him how many times he had to haul me up by the scruff of my neck when I was that age.”

“You don’t look any worse for it.”

“Lucky for both of us I figured out pretty early on what I was good at.” He cupped a hand over his eyes, shading them against the sun. “Speaking of which, I meant what I said before. I’d love to show you my work.”

“Sure,” she said lightly. “One of these days.”

In the wedge of shadow slanting over his face, Ian’s gaze was unnervingly frank. All at once she was intensely aware of sun beating down, warming her through her flimsy dress. She might have been naked, the way her skin burned, the way her insides quivered at the thought of his touch. What was happening to her? She’d never felt this way before, not even with Martin.

“What about tomorrow?” Ian asked. “I’m staying over in town. I could pick you up in the morning.”

She stared at her shadow falling over the perfectly clipped grass with what she hoped was a pleasant, neutral expression. “I don’t know. It’s pretty short notice.”

“Do you have other plans?”

“Well…no. Not exactly.”

“Okay then. Around eleven?”

She shook her head. “Maybe another time.”

“What are you afraid of?” His voice was low and intimate. And, oh God, the way he was smiling at her…as if their roles were reversed, as if
he
were older and wiser somehow.

“Nothing,” she lied, her heart racing.

“I’ll be honest,” he said. “I want to see you again.”

She felt suddenly exposed. As if she’d been turned inside out like a pocket, every shameful thought spilling out into the open like loose change. Dear God. What must he think? A lonely older woman only too grateful for a younger man’s attention?

“I don’t think we should be having this conversation,” she said stiffly.

She’d started to walk away when she felt his hand close over her arm. She didn’t pull away, just stood there, rooted to the spot, the hot sun burning her through her dress. Gerry would have known how to handle this, she thought. Gerry would have known what to say.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.

Anger rose in her, anger at no one in particular. She eyed him coldly. “I’m afraid you have the wrong idea about me.”

He cocked his head. “What idea would that be?”

“I don’t think I need to spell it out.”

Ian nodded slowly in comprehension, smiling that crooked little smile of his. “Oh, I get it. The age thing, right? You’re not going to believe this, but it was the furthest thing from my mind.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe you.” A sliver of uncertainty crept in nonetheless. Was it possible he didn’t see what
she
saw in the mirror?

He dropped his hand from her arm, but she remained motionless. “I enjoy your company. That’s it, I swear.”

“That doesn’t change the fact,” she said, “that I’m old enough to be your mother.”

“But you’re
not
my mother.”

“Okay, your stepmother’s mother then.” Spoken out loud it sounded so absurd she found herself breaking into a smile.

“Now
that
is weird.” Ian regarded her with amusement, his blue eyes crinkling. Then he jerked his head in the direction of the tent. “Come on, let’s grab a bite. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“On the way to my place.”

He made it sound natural, if not entirely innocent. She met his smiling gaze. The sun winked off the silver stud in his ear, and she had to fight to keep from brushing a leaf from his hair.

“All right,” she said. “As long as it’s not a date.”

“How about a promise kept?”

“I suppose that’ll do.”

As they made their way toward the tent Sam found herself wondering uneasily if the promise wasn’t to Ian, but to some younger version of herself, the girl in her mind’s eye looking back wistfully at the path not taken.

L
AURA EYED
the unkempt girl seated cross-legged on the grass, hunched over her plate of food. Finch, if that was her real name, which Laura doubted, was eating like someone starved, yet not without a modicum of manners. It was almost touching to see how she struggled with her knife and fork while attempting to hold her plate balanced on her lap. Every so often she’d glance up to see if anyone was watching, then quick as a hummingbird snatch up another morsel and pop it into her mouth.

Laura guessed her to be about sixteen. A runaway, but one with plenty of experience fending for herself. Scared, too. As if she were running from something…or someone. Laura didn’t doubt that if fate hadn’t intervened, she’d have kept right on going. She strolled over, plate in hand. “May I join you?” The girl’s head shot up like a startled bird’s. She was clearly unaccustomed to taking friendly gestures at face value. At the same time it was obvious she didn’t want to appear rude. In that sense, too, she’d been taught a modicum of manners. Her young old face engaged in a brief tug of war before rewarding Laura with a nod.

Laura lowered herself onto the grass under the live oak where her grandmother used to make special picnics for Alice and her, with sandwiches and cookies on little flowered plates. A few yards away, in the rose bed off the porch, a tiny skeleton lay buried, a pet canary named Winkie. She remembered the mock funeral they’d staged, with Grammy bearing the tiny cardboard box as solemnly as a casket, while Alice brought up the rear, her small hand cupped about a guttering candle.

“You should try the guacamole,” she said, pointing at the girl’s plate, on which the dip sat untouched.

Finch nudged it dubiously with her fork. “It doesn’t look like the kind you get at Taco Bell.”

“That’s because it’s the real thing. Made with avocados from our own trees.”

Finch brought a tiny forkful to her lips. “It’s pretty spicy.”

“In this part of the world everything is spicy. You’ll get used to it.” Laura nibbled on an empanada. Ever so casually she asked, “Where did you say you were from?”

“I didn’t.” The girl’s face closed as abruptly as a door slamming shut.

Careful,
a voice in Laura’s head warned. She tried a different tack. “I was just thinking that if you needed a place to stay I could put you up for a day or two. My ranch is just a few miles down the road.” She knew she ought to have her head examined—didn’t she have enough to juggle as it was?—but the girl looked so damn…bruised. Like a horse that’s been mistreated and is letting you know not to even think of getting near it with a saddle. How could she
not
offer?

Finch perked up a bit. “You have a ranch?”

“I guess you could call it that. I keep a couple of horses. Do you ride?”

“I…I’ve always wanted to,” she confessed shyly.

“Well, here’s your chance.” Laura kept her voice light, remembering how skittish her Appaloosa had been when she’d first taken him in, all oozing sores and exposed ribs. She flashed the girl what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I think you and Punch would get along just fine.”

“That’s a funny name.”

No more so than Finch.
“My mare’s named Judy. Get it? Punch and Judy.” No, she thought, Finch wouldn’t get it. That was way too dated for someone her age.

But the girl surprised her by saying, “Oh, yeah. Like the puppets. I saw this show on the street once.” She caught herself, as if fearing she’d revealed too much.

Laura’s gaze wandered to the tent, where nearly every seat was filled. Wes’s friends and relatives mostly—he seemed to have quite a few—with a respectable showing from her own family. Uncle Ray, fat and bald as ever, and Aunt Dolores, trim as in their wedding photos, only a little blonder. Seated on either side were Laura’s married cousins, Jen and Kristy, both coincidentally pregnant. Jen just beginning to show, while Kristy looked about to give birth.

Laura felt a twinge of guilt. She’d been avoiding her cousins all morning. It was simply too hard, having to act excited for them when she was eaten up with jealousy inside. If she’d been able to have children of her own maybe Peter wouldn’t have left.

“I could sleep in the barn if you have one.” The voice beside her was soft and tentative, not that of the tough girl who’d been cursing a blue streak just minutes before.

Laura turned to Finch, her heart constricting at the hesitance in those bruised-looking eyes: that of someone used to second best. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “There’s an extra bed in Maude’s room.”

“Is she your daughter?”

Laura laughed. “Lord, no. She’s…well, that’s Maude over there.” She pointed her out at one of the tables. Maude was going on and on about something to Uncle Pernell and Aunt Florine, who wore slightly dazed looks, as if they didn’t quite know what had hit them.

“Oh.” Finch nodded, as if needing no further explanation. Clearly, she was used to homes that were anything but traditional.

“Believe me, she won’t mind,” Laura said. “Anyway, it’s only for a couple of days, right?”

Finch fell silent.

Laura watched her awkwardly bring a forkful of food to her mouth, noting that her fingernails were bitten to the quick. She felt a tug inside, like a muscle giving way. As gently as possible, she said, “If you’re worried I’m going to go behind your back, don’t be.”

The girl flicked her an apprehensive glance. “You won’t call the cops?”

“You have my word on it.”