Within Striking Distance (20 page)

Cynthia reached into the safe, bypassed the remaining stack of banknotes that would have gone to paying Bocci…and wrapped her fingers around the butt of Gerald’s gun.

T
HE ROADHOUSE
was on the highway amid a string of motels only a few miles from the Indianapolis racetrack. On a raised platform opposite the bar, a local band was doing covers of Garth Brooks songs while a digital readout over the stage displayed a countdown to the start of the next day’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Becky knew the place well. She, Tara and Nicole had made it a tradition to come here whenever they were in town. The majority of the crowd who packed the round wooden tables were NASCAR fans. Most displayed their loyalties through the gear they were wearing—Becky wasn’t the only one with a blue-and-white Kent Grosso shirt.

Becky likely wasn’t the only one who had fantasized that she was Gina Grosso, either.

“Hey, are you all right?”

At Jake’s voice, she forced a smile. The volume of the music and the chatter from the other customers made conversation difficult. She was grateful for that. She didn’t share the party mood of the rest of the crowd. She picked at the label on her beer bottle with her fingernail. It wasn’t even a light beer, but she wasn’t in the mood to worry about calories tonight, either. “I wish you’d stop asking me that.”

“What?”

“If I’m all right. It’s race day tomorrow. Kent’s going to blow the competition away. And as a bonus, no one’s tried
to T-bone us at a stoplight or to stab us lately. What more could I want?”

Jake hitched his chair closer and put his arm around her shoulders. He brought his mouth next to her ear. “I’m sorry, Becky. I’m worried about you, that’s all.”

She could feel his breath stir her hair. She had a sudden urge to crawl into his lap and press her face to his neck. She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to comfort her, just as he always tried to protect her. That was his nature. She took another swallow of beer instead.

Jake had been nothing but considerate since they’d left the Shillington house. Even before that, he’d been treating her as if she were something fragile. She knew why. He no longer believed she was Gina and was doing his best to cushion the blow.

He might be right. Gerald Shillington would have had no motive to steal the Grossos’ baby. All he would have cared about would have been his team.

She set her bottle on the table with a clunk, struck by a sudden idea. “Jake, maybe Gerald took Gina so that Dean would lose.”

“I don’t follow you.”

She turned her head and pulled back to look at him. “Dean Grosso suspended his season to look for Gina. He didn’t race for months after she was abducted. What if Gerald had been deliberately trying to knock out his competition?”

“Dean was just starting his career at the time. He was a good driver, but he wasn’t a serious contender for a championship. And kidnapping a baby is a pretty extreme way to sabotage a few races.”

“Maybe his daughter did it. She was in love with their team’s driver. She might have thought she was helping him. People can do crazy things for love.”

Jake frowned. “That’s still far-fetched. Shanks quit before the end of the season anyway.”

“Yes, and he married Cynthia Shillington. Don’t you think that’s strange? She seemed to have no interest in NASCAR at all.”

“Everything about that woman was strange, including her reaction to you.”

Becky chewed her lip. She had taken an instant dislike to Cynthia Shillington Brown. It wasn’t merely because the woman had refused to allow them to see Gerald and had barely acknowledged Becky’s presence. No, the response had gone deeper than that. When Cynthia had walked into the room, during that one instant of eye contact between them, Becky had felt a prickle of something akin to fear.

It hadn’t made sense. Then again, nothing about this situation was making sense unless she was willing to believe that Gerald had told her father the truth.

“There’s another possibility,” Jake said.

His gaze was brimming with sympathy again. Becky didn’t think she was going to like what was coming. “What?”

“The baby Gerald gave to your father might not have been a cousin’s,” Jake said. “It might have been his daughter’s.”

She jerked backward. “No way! That woman can’t be my mother.”

“You have to agree that she appeared nervous. She didn’t seem surprised when you mentioned the adoption, either.”

“That’s true, but it couldn’t be because I’m
hers.
Why would she give away her baby? She was getting married anyway. If they were worried about scandal all they needed to do was move up the wedding.”

“Not if you weren’t Hank’s child.”

Becky rubbed her arms. “No, she’s not my mother. I won’t believe it.”

Jake stroked her hand. “I’ll check into the Shillington
family while we’re in town. There must be someone who is willing to talk to us. Gerald couldn’t be the only one who knows the truth.”

A woman laughed from the neighboring table. Becky looked at the group and felt a pang of envy. There were six people crowded around the table, and most of them were wearing Sanford Racing colors. They were talking together as if they were all old friends, but they could just as easily have met only minutes before. Being fellow NASCAR fans made them like family.

Becky knew that was one of the reasons she attended every race she could. She was guaranteed to feel part of the group, whatever city she happened to be in. She’d always wished to belong to a large, happy family…

“Careful what you wish for,” she said.

Jake squeezed her shoulders. “What brought that on?” he asked.

“I used to wish I had a family like the Daltons. Then I wished that the Grossos were my family. I don’t know whether I’d want to belong to the Shillingtons.”

“Do you want me to stop, Becky?”

“Stop?”

“We don’t have to keep looking for your birth parents.”

“You told me it’s not up to me. You’re being paid by the Grossos.”

He hesitated. “My job for the Grossos only entails finding out whether you’re Gina. I’m offering to keep looking even if it turns out you’re not.”

“And you think I’m not.”

He didn’t reply. The regret on his face was enough of an answer. He stood and held out his hand. “It’s been a long day, Becky. Let’s get out of here.”

Well, she couldn’t say that he hadn’t warned her about getting her hopes up. She grabbed her beer and drained it
before she got to her feet. She wished she could pretend that her tears were from swallowing too fast.

Someone jostled her shoulder as they moved toward the exit. It was a middle-aged man with a Will Branch ball cap pulled low over a fringe of red hair. “Sorry,” he said, shouting over the noise of the music. “I didn’t…Hey, don’t I know you?”

Becky shook her head and kept going. She wasn’t in the mood to explain who she was. The posters for the blue jeans campaign and her modeling career were the last things she wanted to think about. On the other hand, there wasn’t anything else she wanted to think about, either. Her dream of being Gina was over. Tara had once told her that she’d be the same person, whatever her last name turned out to be, but it wasn’t that simple. If her last name was Shillington…

She could never belong in that fancy house, or get accustomed to maids, or be comfortable in pearls and silk suits. Not that she’d be welcomed there anyway, since she’d been discarded at birth as an embarrassment to the family. No one had been trying to find her. It wasn’t anything like her fantasy. She closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the car seat as Jake drove to their motel.

He parked close to the staircase that led to the second floor where their rooms were and walked her to her door. “Let me check things out before you go inside,” he said, taking her key from her hand.

Becky watched him from the doorway as he moved around the room. The place wasn’t luxurious but as motels went it was clean and neat, with a sturdy wooden dresser and a television against one wall and a bed against another. It was easy to see that no one was lurking in the corners or the bathroom. Everything appeared to be exactly as she had left it. “Len was probably right,” she said. “We must have over-reacted to that break-in and the accident. They could be
totally unrelated. If I’m just a teenage girl’s unwanted baby, I don’t think anyone’s after us.”

“We don’t know that for sure yet,” Jake said, closing the curtains on the window. “We’ve only started investigating the Shillingtons. It’s better to be careful.”

She crossed her arms, rubbing her palms over her sleeves. “I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve said that. You’ve been trying to protect me from the time we met.”

He turned to face her. “I tried to keep you safe.”

“Right. Safe from getting my hopes up and safe from crazy ex-cons who might or might not be trying to do me harm.” She laughed without humor. “You even tried to keep me safe from you.”

“I realize my attitude frustrates you at times but I don’t want you to get hurt. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not. I know that’s how you’re wired. You can’t help being protective. But do you think you could knock it off? At least for tonight?”

“Becky…”

She stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind her. “Jake, I don’t need you to check my locks or look under the bed for intruders. I need you to hold me.”

He closed the distance between them in three strides, dropped his cane to the floor and pulled her into his arms.

Becky laid her cheek on his shoulder and pressed her face to his neck, inhaling his scent. As it always did, the feel of his embrace steadied her. “I don’t want you to look for my family anymore,” she mumbled. “It doesn’t really matter who gave birth to me. It was all just a stupid dream.”

“Give it some time.” He stroked his hand over her hair. “You’re disappointed now but you might feel differently about it tomorrow.”

“I don’t think so. My dream was about more than finding my birth family. I was looking for somewhere to belong, for
someone to love me. I don’t expect to find that with the Shillingtons.”

“It’s too soon to know that.” He brushed his lips over her forehead. “Don’t give up. As I’ve said before, you’re a courageous woman, Becky.”

“No, I’m not. I’m a fraud.”

“Where did that come from? You’re one of the most honest people I’ve known.”

“I’m a fraud,” she repeated. “People always tell me I’m beautiful. On the outside I must be, because I make my living from my looks. But there’s got to be something inside me that’s wrong. That’s repulsive. That makes people not want me.”

“No, Becky. There are all kinds of reasons people decide to give up a child for adoption.”

She locked her hands behind his neck and arched back to look at his face. “Do you think that’s all I’m talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do
you
want me, Jake?”

A tremor went through his body. Although he’d discarded his cane, he was leaning against the door for support, so she didn’t believe the tremor was from weariness. He moved his hands to her waist. “You’re upset,” he began.

“And you’re avoiding the question.” She stepped between his feet to nestle closer. “Don’t run away from it this time, Jake. Don’t make a joke or pretend there’s nothing special between us. It seems as if you want me. Whenever we kiss, you make me feel as if we’re the only two people in the world, but whenever I try to talk about it, you push me away.”

“I do want you, Becky. More than you can imagine.” He pulled her hard against him and looked at her lips. “That should be obvious. But you’ve just had a difficult day and you’re vulnerable right now. I respect you too much to take advantage of the situation.”

She fisted her knuckles in his hair. “What situation would
that be, Jake? Is it because we’ve spent practically every waking minute together for more than a week and I feel as if I’ve known you my whole life? Or because we’re alone in a motel room and all you want to do is check the door locks? Or is it the fact that I’m falling in love with you?”

“You don’t love me.”

Becky sucked in her breath as she realized what she’d just said. She loved him? Of course, she loved him. The admission had slipped out so easily, she must have known it for days. Maybe weeks.

She loosened her grip on his hair so she could run her fingers through the unruly clumps. She loved his hair as much as his crooked smile and the laugh lines around his eyes. She loved his tenderness and his strength. She even loved the way he was determined to deny the possibility of love, because she knew why he was so cautious.

She slid one hand to his chest and put her palm over his heart. “I do love you, Jake. I love you enough to understand that most of your caution isn’t for me, it’s for you.”

Beneath her palm, his heart was racing. Naked emotion sparked in his gaze. It wasn’t only physical desire, it was a yearning for a connection that was more elemental than that.

Becky trembled from a shock wave of recognition. She knew that look. It was the same emotion she’d seen in the mirror. Jake longed for love as much as she did.

“Everyone left you, too,” she said slowly. “It wasn’t only Heather. Your brothers grew up and no longer needed you to take care of them. Your mother remarried and moved away. You loved all of them, but you ended up alone anyway. That’s why you joined the army, wasn’t it?”