Читать книгу Texas-Sized Trouble - Barb Han - Страница 10
ОглавлениеFaith sat on the edge of the couch in the living room, ignoring the sensual shivers climbing up her arms. She wished she could block out memories as easily. The last time she and Ryder had been at the cabin, their naked bodies had been entwined until morning.
Tall, with the muscles of a well-honed athlete, Ryder had a physical appeal that hadn’t dimmed in the least and her hormones had all of her senses heightened. His dark hair framed a squared jaw, and he had the most piercing jet-black eyes. Everything about the way he looked communicated strength, confidence and a little bit of danger. And after the news she’d broken, fierceness. All of which would be a good thing if she could harness it toward helping find Nicholas.
“Take me back to the beginning. How do you know the baby is mine?” Ryder’s question was a bullet to the heart.
“You were the only option,” she fired back, and her plan of using the other men to throw everyone off the trail seemed to dawn on him.
“Did you plan on telling me eventually?” he asked after another uneasy minute had passed.
“Yes, and we can discuss anything else you want after we find Nicholas.” She needed to direct the conversation back on task.
“Holding a pregnancy over my head is blackmail, Faith.” His normally strong, all-male persona faded with the look of confusion in his dark eyes.
She hated that this was her fault. Well, not the pregnancy. It’d taken two to dance that tango. She took the blame for the way Ryder was finding out. Seeing the hurt in his eyes knifed her. But she needed to stay strong for Nicholas’s sake and not let anything else derail her from her search. She knew in her heart that her brother was in trouble. “I’m sorry for how this has gone down, Ryder. I truly am. But I’m desperate to find Nicholas and you weren’t going to help me any other way.”
He seemed to take a minute to contemplate that thought while he assessed her, his attention on her belly.
“How much longer before the baby comes?” he asked.
“I’m almost five months along,” she said, her hand instinctively coming up to her stomach.
“Boy or girl?” His voice was steel, giving nothing away of his emotions now.
“One of those,” she said. Having her doctor tell her the sex of the baby made it that much more real. For that reason, she’d decided to wait. And then there was the fact that it seemed wrong to know without the father present.
“They don’t know?”
“I asked my doctor not to tell me,” she said.
Another few minutes of silence passed. Her need to press Ryder in order to get his agreement to help find Nicholas warred with her better judgment. She’d played her hand with Ryder and there wasn’t much more she could do to follow the trail without his help, not without the possibility of putting their baby at risk given that the SUV driver was becoming more aggressive.
Three days was a long time to be missing. Anything could be happening to her little brother right now...
Tears burst through just thinking about any harm coming to Nicholas.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to pull it together, “it’s just hormones giving me mood swings. They make it hard to think rationally.”
Ryder studied her.
“How do you know your half brother didn’t get fed up with his mother and run away?” he asked as she tried to force her gaze away from his lips—lips that made her body zing with awareness at the thought of how he’d once used the tip of his tongue to trail her curves. Faith admonished herself. That thought couldn’t be more inappropriate under the circumstances. Her hormones didn’t just make her emotional. They made her miss having sex even more.
“We had plans, and besides, he would’ve told me,” she said.
“You sure about that? Even people you think you know can shock the hell out of you.” Ryder’s tense, aggressive posture would strike fear in any reasonable person. She knew him well enough to know that he would never do anything to hurt her.
Faith told herself nothing mattered more than getting his agreement to help find Nicholas. And she was making gains on that front; she could tell by how bunched his face muscles looked and the tic over his left eye—all positive signs she was making headway. He was in conflict with himself and that was a good thing for her. The very fact that he’d agreed to discuss the matter privately was her first real step in the right direction. She could put up with his intense scrutiny if it meant gaining his agreement to find her brother.
“As sure as I can be. We’re close. I’ve been checking on him ever since I found out about him, so around kindergarten, and he doesn’t have any other siblings. Well, none that he knows,” she said. “My brothers would never acknowledge him if they knew, and he’s so much better than they are anyway. I would do anything I could to keep them separate and make sure they had no influence over him.”
This wasn’t the time to recount all the shortcomings of McCabe men.
“Why do you know about him but your brothers don’t?” he asked. It was a fair question.
“I spent summers working for my dad. I was being groomed for the family business and my job was learning the paperwork. I don’t have to tell you how much running a ranch is about dealing with stacks of documents. Legal papers were on my dad’s desk. I guess they got mixed up with a stack of bills. He was being sued for child support by Nicholas’s mother. You can imagine how that turned out. My dad got himself out of paying. Actually his lawyers did. So I’ve been sneaking money to Nicholas for the past ten years.”
“How do you know he’s your blood relative?” he asked.
She retrieved her cell phone from her purse and then scrolled through pictures, stopping at a recent one of her and Nicholas together. She held out her phone to Ryder so he could see.
“There’s no denying the resemblance,” he said, studying the likeness.
“He looks like a mini, younger version of Jason, only he’s nicer.” Jason was the youngest of her three brothers and her senior by four years. He’d been the toughest, too, having spent his life proving to his two older brothers, Jesse and Jimmy, that he could hold his own.
“I’ve learned not to trust the actions of any McCabe,” Ryder said flatly. He was obviously referring to her walking out and the pregnancy news.
She had that coming.
Glancing down at her stomach, she said, “I didn’t do this alone.”
Ryder made a face like he was about to say something hateful and seemed to think better of it, when he pressed his lips into a thin line instead.
“It’s probably for the best if we stick to the reason we’re here. For now,” Ryder said. Those last two words came out as a warning she knew better than to disregard.
“Fine.” She had no doubt the two of them would be doing a lot of talking about the future of their baby once the dust settled. A very large part of her had been dreading the inevitable conversation with him for months now and yet another side couldn’t deny that she wanted to involve Ryder. The first trimester had been too much about trying to keep food down to worry about what she would say to him. Who knew morning sickness actually meant throwing up all day? Her queasiness had finally let up a couple of weeks ago and she’d been trying to plan out her words ever since. She’d tried to convince herself that it would be a good idea to leave town without ever telling Ryder. She knew in her heart that she could never do that to him. No matter how strong the arguments against it waged inside her head, he had a right to know.
Ryder pulled a chair from the kitchenette, turned it around backward and straddled it opposite the coffee table. “Tell me what really has you so worried.”
“Nicholas might be a McCabe but he’s nothing like the boys in my family, despite having a worthless mother. He’s fifteen and plays on the school soccer team. His grades are good. He’s always talking about a future, getting a scholarship, going to college,” she said, probably more defensively than she’d intended. “He’s a decent kid, Ryder.”
“If that were completely true, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Ryder had a way of looking right through her. She worried he’d see her fear while she was trying to put up a brave front.
“That’s why none of this makes sense. He wouldn’t just disappear like that. He’s not that kind of kid.”
Ryder’s look of disbelief struck a bad chord.
“I know you can’t stand my family and you may never trust me again, but I know Nicholas wouldn’t up and disappear without telling me,” she said, hating the defensiveness in her tone. Ryder’s not believing her hurt more than it should.
“What else do you know about his life besides what I could read on a college application? Have you met any of his friends?” Ryder asked.
“We kept our relationship secret. So, no,” she said honestly.
“Seems you’re full of deceptions,” he shot back. “I’m guessing that’s why I never heard about him before.”
Her first instinct was to fight back. She let that zinger go for the sake of her little brother, even though it scored a direct hit. Common sense said that arguing with Ryder wouldn’t get her what she needed. Besides, a little piece of her knew that Ryder had every right to be upset with her and he was still reacting to the bomb she’d dropped on him. She should’ve gone to him with the news or given him a better reason for the breakup, instead of chickening out while she was waiting for him so they could talk and deciding to scribble her exit on the only thing she had in her purse, a Post-it.
“My father went to great lengths to cover up his relationship with Nicholas’s mother. I thought he might dish out repercussions against the two of them if he knew I was seeing my brother. That’s the reason for the deception. I couldn’t risk telling anyone. Not even you,” she said.
“He would’ve been angry with you, too. Are you sure you weren’t protecting yourself?” Ryder said in that unnerving steady tone.
“I don’t care what happens to me,” she retorted. “Or at least I didn’t until now.” She touched her belly.
“What about your mom?”
“I was fairly sure she had no idea about Nicholas. But she’s been acting stranger than usual lately. Jumpy. But that could just be a change in her anxiety medication.”
“Self-preservation seems to be a genetic survival trait in McCabe women,” he said in a low enough voice that she could still hear it.
She chose not to respond.
“What are you really afraid Nicholas got himself into?” Ryder asked.
She shot him a grateful look for the change in subject. “He wouldn’t stand me up without a good reason, and he always responds to my texts. I’m afraid for him, Ryder.”
“Could he have a recreational drinking or drug habit?”
“No.” Her shoulders slumped forward. “He has a good head on his shoulders. He’s a decent person despite bad circumstances.”
* * *
RYDER COULDN’T HELP but notice how many times Faith had mentioned that her little brother was a decent kid. Was she trying to convince him, or herself? As much as he doubted any McCabe son could be good, he would give Faith the benefit of the doubt. His trust was an entirely different story.
If he was going to help—and there was no refusing now that he knew she was possibly pregnant with his child and there was the slightest chance of foul play—he needed more information. Besides, the faster he could help her find Nicholas, the sooner he’d be able to focus on what he really wanted to know more about—the baby she was carrying.
“You haven’t spoken to his mother. There could be an easy explanation for all this, Faith,” he said, ignoring the tension sitting like a wall between them.
Faith shook her head. “I didn’t want her to know about our relationship. It would only cause more tension between the two of them and I doubt she’d welcome a McCabe anyway, considering my father hasn’t stepped up to help her in any way. She can’t be happy that he refused support, and I’m not saying that he’s right but neither is sleeping with a married man.”
“She may be able to clear this up in five minutes. We have to talk to her,” he said plainly.
“After the way my father treated her I doubt she’ll want to see anyone from his side of the family again.” Faith made a harrumph sound.
“That may well be true. Doesn’t mean we skip a step,” he said. If one uncomfortable conversation could clear this up, so be it. “Besides, she can’t be all that bad if Nicholas has turned out as well as you say.”
“Fine. But Nicholas isn’t close to his mother and he wouldn’t tell her if he was in trouble.”
“She may have filed a missing persons report. If she hasn’t, we’ll need her help since she’s his legal guardian. How long did you say he’s been gone?” he asked. Cooperation from Nicholas’s mother would go a long way with the law. In fact, she’d have to be the person to officially report him missing.
“It’s been three days,” she said with a voice so weak Ryder’s heart squeezed. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions overrule logic this time. They’d had him thinking that getting mixed up with her was a good idea in the first place.
“I’ve been on campouts without cell service longer than that,” he said, trying to offer what little reassurance he could under the circumstances.
Faith shot him a look.
“If his mother filed a report, three days would be enough time for law enforcement to take her seriously,” he said. What if the kid ran away? From what Faith said the boy came from an unstable home. “There are other logical possibilities. Maybe he got impatient. Or he and his mother could’ve gotten into a fight and he’s staying away while they both cool off. She might’ve done something that he didn’t want to tell you about since you don’t like her in the first place.”
“I have to think he would’ve called me like he always does. And he’s never missed a tutoring session.” If that was true she made a good point.
“Maybe he figures you’ll try to talk him into going home and he’s not ready.”
“It’s a thought,” she said without much enthusiasm, and he could tell she was going along with him even though her heart wasn’t in it.
“There’s another more likely possibility,” he offered.
“And that is?” She was clicking through the possibilities with him, and he could tell from her subdued expression that nothing was sparking.
“He might’ve met a girl.” He held his hand up when she started to speak. “Hold on. Hear me out. Fifteen-year-old boys are hormones on legs. It’s possible that he hit it off with someone and is staying at her house for a few days.”
Faith held up her cell phone.
“Last thing a hormonal teenager wants is the voice of reason in his ear. Believe me, I speak from experience,” Ryder said. “We had a lot of those in our house over the years between the six of us boys.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said. “I remember you at that age. And the need for an adrenaline rush hasn’t dimmed, has it, Ryder?”
“I like to think I’m more mature now.”
“I’d like to think I’m a supermodel,” she jabbed back. That quick wit of hers still made him want to smile. This time, he resisted the urge.
He glanced at his watch. “It’s late. I’ll get coverage on the ranch tomorrow, so we can get started first thing in the morning. We’ll start with his mother.”
An emotion he couldn’t put his finger on flashed in her eyes. Disappointment? Regret?
If Faith thought this was the beginning of the two of them bonding, working together as life partners, she was sorely mistaken.
* * *
THE HOUSE WAS SMALL, a two-bedroom bungalow with cars parked on the street and, in some cases, right on the front lawn. Those were on cinder blocks. There was a couch positioned on a porch or two instead of actual patio furniture. Chain-link fences surrounded mostly barren yards with patches of yellow grass. Ryder couldn’t help but take note of the contrast to the McCabes’ expansive ranch in Bluff.
Ryder parked in front of 622 Sycamore like Faith had instructed and cut the engine. They’d made small talk on the way over, mostly about the cold front that had blown through last night and the irony of this being the first day of spring when temps were barely hovering above freezing. In Texas, anything was possible when it came to the weather.
“What’s her name?” Ryder nodded toward the house.
“Celeste Bowden,” Faith supplied.
“Okay. Let’s go talk to Celeste Bowden.” He made a move for the door handle and stopped when a disgusted grunt sounded to his right.
“Fair warning, she’s not going to be happy to see me,” she said on a sigh.
“I already gathered that from our conversation last night.” He shouldered the door of his cab open. “Does she love her son?”
“In her own way? Yes,” Faith admitted.
He glanced around the neighborhood. “She may not take care of him in the way you’d like but she won’t want anyone taking him from her. If she hasn’t heard from him by now then she’ll be worried. And that’s the only shot we have at her talking to us, so keep a low profile and let me take the lead.”
Ryder tried not to focus on the fact that he didn’t sleep a wink last night, tossing and turning over the news that he might be a father. Two cups of black coffee first thing this morning had sharpened his mind.
Following closely behind Faith, he couldn’t deny a new protectiveness he felt for her because of the child she was carrying. He still didn’t know how to deal with the news other than to be stunned. Sleeping had been a nonissue. He kept waiting for the shock to wear off so he could figure out his next steps. He’d stayed at the fishing cabin last night, forcing down thoughts of the times he and Faith had spent there. Last night was the first time he’d been back to the place where too many memories could impact his judgment.
This morning, she’d left her car there and they’d decided to take his pickup, leaving long before sunrise. Conversation was a strain now, and he missed the easy way they used to talk to each other.
Ryder hopped the pair of concrete porch steps onto the small patio, and then opened the weathered screen door. It creaked and groaned. No way could anyone slip into this house quietly. And especially because a few dogs in neighboring yards fired off rapid barks. At this rate, the whole neighborhood would be up, trying to figure out what was going on. On second thought, he might need to talk to neighbors. Maybe it was good that they’d be up.
Ryder knocked on the wood part of the door. Most of the top half was glass. White paint chipped off the rest.
No answer.
This time, Ryder pounded on the door, rattling the glass in the window. The neighborhood dogs reacted again, going crazy barking as a figure moved toward the door. The woman came into view as she neared. Her hair wild, she wore jeans and a half-unbuttoned flannel shirt, no doubt the same clothes she had on last night. Worry lines and too much hard living shadowed what might have been an attractive face at one time.
“Who are you and what do you want?” she asked, cracking the door. Her gaze bounced from Ryder to Faith. Her eyes widened as she zeroed in on Faith, no doubt picking up on the fact that she was Hollister McCabe’s daughter. “Never mind. You’re not welcome here. Get off my porch.”
Celeste tried to slam the door but Ryder stuck the toe of his boot inside to stop her. “I’m sorry to wake you, but we’re here out of concern for your son. Is there any chance we can come inside?”
“No.” Angry lines did nothing to improve the woman’s hard features. On closer appraisal, she couldn’t have been older than her midthirties.
“I know he hasn’t been home. We just want to get some information so we can figure out where he is,” Faith said.
“My son is none of your business.” Celeste stared at Faith before giving Ryder a disgusted look. “Now move so I can close the door.”
Bringing Faith might’ve been a mistake. Ryder shifted to the right a little in order to block a direct line of sight between the two of them.
“No need to do anything you’ll regret,” Ryder said quickly, trying to bring the focus back to him. “We’re here to ask a few questions and then we’ll be on our way.”
“You with the law?” Celeste asked, glancing at the pocket of his jacket, most likely looking for a badge.
Ryder shook his head.
“Then let go of my door and get the hell off my property,” Celeste ground out.
“But—” Faith started.
“Last time I checked, trespassing was against the law. If you’re not gone by the time I count to three, I’m calling the cops.” Celeste’s tone intensified with her rising anger. Her gaze was locked onto Faith and he could tell that she was struggling to get past coming face-to-face with a McCabe.
“Okay.” Ryder held his hands up in surrender and shifted his boot, allowing her to shut them out.
The woman slammed the door so hard he thought the glass might break. She took a step back, folded her arms and stared them down.
“I hope you won’t let anything happen to your son because you’re not thrilled with us. We want to work together to find him and make sure he’s okay. We all know he wouldn’t disappear like this without answering his cell,” he said through the thin glass.
An emotion crossed her features, briefly softening her hard stare. She made a move for the door handle, but hesitated.
And then she shook her head.
Damn. He was so close to getting through to her.
“Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Ryder asked Faith. He spoke loud enough for Nicholas’s mother to hear.
“What? No. Why?” Her brow knit in confusion.
“There’s a diner in town.” He turned and hopped off the porch.
“That’s it?” Her voice outlined her shock as she stood rooted. “You’re giving up just like that? And now you’re hungry?”
“Get in the truck.”
“But she might know something. I can’t walk away without figuring out a way to make her talk to us.”
“She won’t. Not like this. She needs a minute to think it over. Besides, she’s listening to us and watching every move we make.” Ryder slowed but didn’t turn; he kept right on walking.
“Then we should talk to the neighbors. Someone might’ve seen something. Don’t tell me we drove all the way out here to eat breakfast.” The desperation in her voice almost made him turn around. Almost.
“If you want her to help find Nicholas, get in the truck.”
“Fine.” Faith stomped so hard the earth should’ve cracked. The only thing that did was Ryder’s face, in a grin. She still had that same fierce determination.
As soon as she took her seat and slammed the truck door closed, she whirled on him. “I hope this means you have a plan, because you just blew the only lead we have so far.”
“I didn’t but you almost did,” he said, keeping that wry grin intact as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired up.
“Me?” She was so angry the word came out in a high-pitched croak. “You’re joking, right?”
“Never been more serious.” He navigated the pickup through the one-lane street. “And you should calm down. Getting upset can’t be good for...it.” He motioned toward her belly, not really sure what to call the baby yet.
“Well, then, you’re going to have to explain everything to me as if I’m a two-year-old because I don’t understand,” she said, dodging his baby comment.
