Читать книгу Star-Crossed Parents - C.J. Carmichael - Страница 6

L EIGH REFERRED TO the MapQuest directions she had taped to the dashboard, next to the cup holder. From the Washington Bridge she was supposed to merge onto I-95.

She did a shoulder-check, then shuddered. A steady stream of cars came up from behind her. Oh, God. Why did all the drivers have to hang on to each other’s bumpers? She was never going to be able to make a safe lane change.

But she had to.

She switched on the indicator light, shoulder-checked again, then steered the car to the next lane. Mercifully, the vehicle behind her made room.

Oh, God, she thought again. This traffic was unrelenting. Thank goodness she didn’t need to drive very often.

In fact, if the guy at the car rental agency had known just how rarely she did drive, he probably would have thought twice before handing her these keys.

Living in Manhattan, she had no need for a car, which was lucky because she had no interest in them, either. She couldn’t even recall the make of this one. It was red and had four doors. When the needle on the gauge fell near empty, it would need to be filled with gasoline. That was the sum total of her automotive knowledge, and she could only pray she wouldn’t be called upon to figure out anything else.

She glanced at the MapQuest directions again. In seven-point-three miles she would have to take the Hutchinson Parkway North exit and then almost immediately take another exit to the left.

Usually, Taylor navigated for her. She had a natural sense of direction and was good at reading maps. On top of all that, she had common sense, which was why this whole escapade just didn’t compute.

Taylor wasn’t the kind of kid to fall in love over the Internet, then run off for a secret meeting. Well, she’d left a note. But a discussion beforehand would have been far more acceptable. Not to mention mature.

If Taylor thought being eighteen and graduating high school was all it took to make you grown up, she had a lot to learn.

“Hey, buddy!” Leigh slowed as a blue car from the right suddenly came into her lane, practically on top of her. Immediately she forgave every rude thing New York taxi drivers had ever said in her presence. Talk about job stress.

Her cell phone rang and she glanced at it, worried. She needed both hands on the wheel. But what if it was Taylor?

She picked it up to check the call display. It was Wenda, the office manager at work. Before she’d left home, Leigh had called and left a message that she wouldn’t be able to make it in on Friday. Oh, and by the way, Taylor’s graduation party had been canceled.

Wenda was probably panicking right now, but Leigh would have to talk to her later. Right now, the only call worth taking in this traffic was one that might be from her daughter.

Fear tightened her stomach, squeezed her throat. Taylor was okay, she kept telling herself, but what if she wasn’t? Only rarely did Leigh regret the fact that she was a single mother. This was one of those times. It would be nice to have a husband to lean on right now. Someone who knew Taylor and who understood that this sort of behavior just wasn’t like her.

The police didn’t get it. Her call had not been treated with the urgency it deserved. In their eyes Taylor was an adult. The fact that she’d left a note proved she was acting of her own free will.

Just this winter, Leigh had been required to sign the application for Taylor’s college admission. Now, if Taylor felt like it, she could enlist in the military and go to war.

As if a few months and a birthday were all it took to make you a grown-up.

The world was a crazy place.

A car on Leigh’s tail honked, then pulled out and passed. It seemed to Leigh that the vehicles on both sides of her were driving much faster than she was. She pressed a little harder on the accelerator, gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly.

This was terrifying.

Suddenly, spending a few thousand on a cab fare seemed like a brilliant idea. If only she could take the bus, as Taylor had been smart enough to do. But there was no time. She probably couldn’t get to Jefferson before Taylor did, but Leigh was going to get there as fast as possible.

Before PartyMan had a chance to…

No, she couldn’t think about that.

According to MapQuest, she had over three hundred miles ahead of her, six hours of driving.

Six hours that her daughter would be at PartyMan’s mercy…

“D ID YOU CATCH the Red Sox game last night, Uncle Sam?”

“Huh?” Sam flipped a page in the Lands’ End catalogue. Lately, his sister had been at him about his wardrobe. It seemed like every item he owned was wearing out. Even the cleaners had told him he needed some new shirts. But what colors? What size? Susan had always bought his clothes for him.

“The Mets trounced them.”

He closed the catalogue and looked at Robin, who was grinning at him as he read the sports section of the Boston Globe. Robin loved baseball, like just about everyone else in Jefferson—except for Josh and Robin’s mom, Kate.

“That rookie pitcher for the Mets is hot. Some say he reminds them of you, in the early years.”

“Is that right?” He opened the catalogue again and heard Robin sigh. Poor kid was always trying to engage him in baseball talk. You’d think his mother’s aversion to the subject would have turned him off, but it hadn’t. Sam’s own feelings about the game were ambivalent. Baseball had given him a lot, but it had cost him plenty, too.

“Say, when you were pitching, did you ever—”

The sound of a bell cut Robin short. Outdoor lights illuminated a cherry-colored Ford Fusion as it pulled up to the pumps.

“I’ll get this one.” Sam tossed the catalogue behind the counter, then moved briskly toward the car. The Fusion’s plates told him it was a rental from New York. The driver was an attractive brunette, who must not have noticed this was a full-service station because she was out of the driver’s seat before he could ask her what grade of gas she wanted.

She looked to be in her thirties, a petite, pretty woman who radiated tension. He eyed the fancy dress she was wearing. The matching shoes. The slender, yet muscular, calves.

“Can you tell me where Jefferson is?”

He bristled at her tone. A “hello” would have been a nice courtesy. But this woman was clearly in a hurry.

“You’re in it.” She couldn’t have missed the hand-painted sign just a hundred yards up the road.

It wasn’t unusual for strangers to have recognized him by now, but this woman’s glance was dismissive and short. She was far more interested in the surrounding countryside than the human being in front of her.

“But where are the stores?”

He pointed out the Grocery sign behind him. “Right here. School’s around the bend. So’s the post office and general store.”

As she processed that, he glanced through the window into her car. A black duffel bag was tossed on the back seat. MapQuest directions were taped to the front dash. He smiled at that. On the front passenger seat, along with a cell phone, lay some crumpled tissues and an empty bottle of water.

He gave the woman a closer look. There were smudges of mascara under her eyes. Had she been crying? But she didn’t look sad. She looked angry.

“On holiday?” he asked, though she clearly wasn’t. She was dressed as if she was on her way to a fancy cocktail party, though that couldn’t possibly be the case. Cocktail parties in Jefferson were about as rare as beach parties in the Antarctic.

“No. I’m looking for Oak Valley Road. Do you know where that is?”

She was looking for his place? No, he realized suddenly. Josh’ s.

Now he made the connection. This woman had the same delicate build and coloring of the girl Josh had picked up from the bus earlier.

She seemed a little young to be Taylor Hartwell’s mother, but Sam would have bet his business that was who she was. The woman was burning off more carbon than any gasoline-sucking combustion engine he’d ever seen.

She was pissed.

He thought of the used tissues in her car and amended his assessment. Also upset.

“Well? Have you heard of it? I hope I didn’t write down the address incorrectly.”

She looked as if she was about to pull her hair out at that possibility, so he was quick to reassure her. “I’ve heard of it. Actually, it’s my road. My house is there and so is the cabin where my nineteen-year-old son lives.”

“Your son. Is he Josh Wallace, by any chance?”

“That’s him.”

“And you said he’s only nineteen?” Her shoulders relaxed a little. “Well, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about, at least.”

“Pardon?”

“Sorry. I’m just—When I got home from work this afternoon, I found a note from my daughter. She said she’d gone to meet this guy she’d met over the Internet. You can imagine my reaction. She’s only eighteen.”

Sam swallowed. Yeah, he could imagine her reaction, all right. Good God, what was the matter with Josh? Why hadn’t he told him about this? Sam would have advised him to talk to the girl’s mother, at least.

“Look, I was about to close up for the night. Why don’t you follow me home and I’ll introduce you.”

He’d have a word with his son at the same time. So much for the hope that letting Josh have his own place would have a maturing effect. Maybe it had been a mistake to let him move into the guest cabin without agreeing on monthly rent. But Josh’s event-planning business was still in the start-up phase. Once it was in the black, he’d de finitely expect his son to contribute some cash.

“I GUESS WE SHOULD introduce ourselves before we go any further. I’m Sam Wallace.”

“Leigh Hartwell.”

This man made her feel uneasy. Partly it was his size. He was unusually tall and very broad-shouldered. He was also quite attractive, despite a crooked nose and crowded bicuspids.

Maybe that was the problem. He was uncomfortably good-looking. She’d never been able to trust handsome men. They were too used to getting what they wanted from women.

Was that what his son was like, too?

“Right,” she said in the brisk, professional tone she used with patients. “So, let’s get going.” She slipped back behind the wheel, then waited as Sam crossed to the truck parked at the side of the station. A dark-haired teenage boy stepped out from the store and they had a brief conversation. The boy glanced in Leigh’s direction, then headed back to the store where he flipped the sign in the door from Open to Closed.

Leigh rubbed the back of her neck as she waited. She was relieved that she’d found the right place, and that her daughter was meeting someone her own age and not an older man who preyed on innocent girls.

Still, there was plenty about the situation she didn’t like. Never mind Taylor skipping out on her own graduation party. Why hadn’t she told her mother where she was going? That note had been a real slap in the face.

And what kind of kid was this Josh Hartwell? His father seemed respectable enough—not to mention potently attractive—but didn’t you have to wonder about someone who would lure a girl hundreds of miles just to meet on spec?

Sam hurried back, keys in hand. He got behind the wheel of a black pickup truck and Leigh hurried to follow him. They passed through the four-way stop, then down a hill and up the next rise.

It was too dark to see much of the surrounding countryside, but Sam drove his truck just under the speed limit, making it easy to follow him. Not that the route was complicated. Oak Valley Road was the second left after the stop sign by the gas station. He could have easily given her directions, rather than going to the effort of escorting her.

Seconds later they pulled into a narrow access road. The track was bumpy and she tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she followed Sam down yet another hill. He stopped beside a white van with “Party Man” painted in black letters, along with a phone number and a Web address.

Leigh felt another release of tension as she realized that Taylor’s friend’s moniker referred to a business, not a state of mind.

Ahead of them stood a two-story home with white siding and black shutters. It looked like a family home and Leigh half expected a woman to step out the front door with a welcoming wave.

That didn’t happen, though. Sam got out of his truck and came around to open her door. He held out a hand for Leigh as she stepped out of the driver’s seat.

For a moment they stood close to one another, and Leigh felt a crazy stirring, an attraction she couldn’t deny. As a dentist, she was used to being physically close to people she didn’t know very well. Some of them were handsome men. But she’d never had this sort of reaction to one of them before. She stepped back, not trusting, not liking, this betrayal of her own body.

“The cabin is just down here.” Sam pointed at a worn path to the left of the house. Thanks to a dim porch light, Leigh could see the outline of a small building amid the trees.

She let Sam lead the way, her heels causing her no small problem on the uneven ground. As she stumbled along, fear rose in her again. This was true wilderness out here, with no sign of civilization anywhere, beyond the Wallaces’ two homes.

Once on the wooden porch, Sam glanced back at her. He seemed hesitant about knocking.

“Hurry up,” she urged him.

“It’s awfully quiet in there. I’m a little worried….”

“So am I,” she assured him. Her daughter and his son had been alone for hours. Anything could have happened.

She tried the door handle and felt a flood of relief when it turned in her hand. She pushed the door wide and stepped into an open space containing a kitchen, eating nook and sitting area.

No one was there.

Her gaze followed a staircase to the left that led up to a loft.

Sam put a hand on her arm. “The bedroom’s up there.”

Unbidden came an image of Taylor—bound and gagged and tied to a heavy bed frame. “It’s okay, honey. I’m here. I’ll be right there.”

She tried to break Sam’s hold, but it was firm and strong. “Let go of me. What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

“Mom?”

The voice was soft and came from above. Leigh craned her head back. Her daughter stood at the pine railing that ran the length of the loft. She was wrapped in a bedsheet, packaged with the guy next to her like a two-for-one special.

Both had tousled hair, naked shoulders and very flushed cheeks.

There could be no doubt as to what Leigh and Sam had just interrupted.