Читать книгу Big Sky Secrets - Linda Miller Lael - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DRIVER OF the semi pulled in at a busy truck stop on the outskirts of Three Trees, Montana, reined in the big machine with a squeal of brakes and smiled over at Quinn Whittingford. His eyes were sad and gentle, in a way that made seventeen-year-old Quinn miss having a dad just that much more. He glanced at the ragtag little dog cuddled in her arms, then looked into her face again.

“You sure you’ll be all right?” the man asked quietly. His name was Tim Anderson, and there was a snapshot of a pretty woman and three small girls affixed to the driver’s-side visor. His wife and daughters, he’d told Quinn earlier. He’d picked her up back at that last rest stop, somewhere in southern Idaho, late the night before. “That little fella can’t offer much protection, much as he might want to.”

Quinn held the gray-and-white critter she’d named Bones, after finding him alone and hungry, possibly lost but more likely abandoned, maybe five minutes before Mr. Anderson had stopped at the rest stop to stretch his legs and avail himself of some free coffee. He’d already given Quinn the standard lecture on the dangers of hitchhiking, offering her his cell phone so she could call home and let her “folks” know she was okay, but, obviously, he was still concerned.

She knew he was a good person, and that she’d been lucky to catch a ride with him, considering some of the stuff that could have happened. Quinn had endured the speech, but since she planned on becoming a cop after college, or even an FBI agent, and she’d seen all the shows on the ID network about rapists and serial killers, she wasn’t completely clueless.

Not, she silently admitted, that her behavior was any indication she knew better than to take such a risk. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thanks.”

Tim Anderson nodded. “You be careful, now,” he said as she pushed open the heavy door of the truck, slung her backpack over one T-shirted shoulder and climbed down onto the running board and then the pavement, careful not to drop Bones in the process. “Sure you don’t want to use my cell phone? Call your mom and dad?” he asked again.

“I’m sure,” Quinn said politely. She didn’t have a dad, actually, and her mom was probably relieved that she was gone—if she’d even noticed yet. She had a cell of her own tucked into her backpack, but the battery was stone dead, and she hadn’t mentioned it, for whatever reason. “Thanks again.”

She stepped back, and smoke billowed from the truck’s gleaming stacks. The horn blew once, a shrill salute, Tim Anderson waved goodbye from behind what seemed like an acre of windshield and Quinn silently asked herself a question she’d kept at bay until then: what she’d do if Ria turned her away. Though she’d always been close to her aunt, it was at least remotely possible that Ria was busy with her new life and didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with a teenage runaway.

Still, she couldn’t, wouldn’t go home, not only because she was seriously on the outs with her mother, who preferred to be addressed as “Meredith,” claiming that being called “Mom” made her feel ancient, but because Bones would almost certainly wind up in a shelter if she did.

Meredith didn’t like dogs—or cats, either, for that matter. They were too messy, she claimed, too much trouble, always needing something. Like a kid, maybe?

Furthermore, all the carpets in the upscale Portland condominium the two of them had been sharing for most of Quinn’s life were a pristine white.

And the house rules were strict. No shoes allowed past the tiled entryway. No eating or drinking outside the kitchen, at the table or the breakfast bar. No watching television or listening to music in the living room.

The whole setup reminded Quinn of one big and very weird game of hopscotch—whatever she did, she had to be careful not to step on the lines. Naturally she never invited friends over; she’d have to police their every move, as well as her own, if she did. So, when she wasn’t at school, Quinn spent most of her time holed up in her bedroom, and even there, she felt like some kind of hostage.

She’d been over at her friend Rosalie’s place, cruising social-media sites on her tablet while Rosalie used the desktop in the family room—family room, what a concept—when Meredith had called and turned an ordinary day upside down.

Quinn and Rosalie had been having a great time until Quinn’s cell phone rang, and Meredith instructed her, crisply and with no preamble at all, to come home and pack. At the last minute, she’d found a summer camp with an opening—Quinn hadn’t even known she was looking for one—and promptly signed her daughter up for nearly three months of arts, crafts and songs around the campfire. She’d be leaving first thing in the morning, from the parking lot at their church, by bus.

Koombah-freakin-yah, Quinn had thought, as an overwhelming sense of hopeless misery settled over her.

She’d reminded Meredith that camp was for kids—that she was seventeen, not seven—and she’d be perfectly all right spending the summer at home. Why, in one more year, she’d pointed out, her temper gathering momentum, she’d be going off to college, for Pete’s sake.

Meredith, being Meredith, hadn’t listened. She’d insisted that Quinn would make new friends at Camp Winna-Whatever and have a wonderful time swimming and hiking and breathing in all that fresh air. In other words, it was a done deal, and there would be no negotiations.

Obviously, Quinn’s mom wanted a teenager-free summer, though she hadn’t actually said that straight out, of course. True, Meredith seemed chronically worried and distracted these days, and she’d been working even longer hours than usual lately, and traveling a lot more than usual, too. If something was seriously wrong in Meredith’s life, though, Quinn was the last person she’d have confided in.

Quinn had gone right home from Rosalie’s—Meredith was still at the office and Hannah, the housekeeper, had already left for the day—and she’d packed, all right. But not for a stint at camp.

No, she’d stuffed fresh underwear, an extra pair of jeans, a favorite T-shirt and her tablet computer into her backpack, along with her cell phone and charger, and lit out. She’d walked for several miles, not exactly sure what to do next, and then, finding an ATM in the convenience store where she’d stopped to buy a bottle of water, Quinn had taken her last eighty dollars out of her account and made up her mind to head for Three Trees, Montana. And Ria.

Two cowgirls on their way to a rodeo in Idaho had offered her a lift, and she was off. They’d bought her a cheeseburger along the way, asked her a lot of questions, like how old she was and if something was wrong at home, and, finally, reluctantly, dropped her off at the rest stop, where she met up with Bones and took a chance on a long ride with Tim Anderson, a stranger.

Now, standing outside the truck-stop café, hot and tired and grungy, Quinn wondered if the people inside would kick her out if she tried to bring Bones in with her. She could sure use something cold to drink and maybe a sandwich, and she needed to use the restroom, too.

She supposed she could say Bones was a Seeing Eye dog, but since he looked more like a walking dust mop than a service animal, the story probably wouldn’t fly.

Still, Quinn couldn’t bring herself to leave him outside, alone. She didn’t want the poor little thing to think, even for one second, that he’d gotten his hopes up only to be ditched all over again. Her stomach grumbled loudly, and she looked around carefully, spotted a phone booth over by the newspaper boxes and the ice machine.

Juggling Bones, she rummaged through her backpack and came up with enough change—she hoped—to make a local call. Accustomed to cell phones, texts and instant messaging over a computer, Quinn had never actually used a pay phone.

She approached the gizmo, frowning a little as she examined the smudged buttons, their numbers and letters partially rubbed off by years of weather and wear. Good thing she knew Ria’s number by heart, she reflected, because the skinny directory dangling from a chain beside the telephone looked as though some wild animal had eaten the pages in a single bite.

Murmuring to Bones, who wanted to be set down on his own four feet, wobbly though they were, Quinn plunked several coins into the slot and started punching digits.

Please be home, she thought as Ria’s phone rang once, twice, three times.

“Hello?” Ria said, just as Quinn was about to hang up, ask somebody for directions and hoof it to her aunt’s farm. There was puzzlement in Ria’s familiar voice. “Who is this?”

Quinn swallowed, and the backs of her eyeballs stung. “It’s me, Aunt Ria,” she managed.

“Quinn?” A smile came into Ria’s tone, and she no longer sounded curious. Most likely the readout in her caller-ID panel had flashed an unfamiliar number or maybe even read “pay phone.” “Are you—? Where—?”

Quinn laughed, forestalling the need to cry even as a certain giddiness rose within her. “I’m in Three Trees,” she said. “At the...” She paused, turned her head, read the big sign out by the highway. “At the Whistle-By Truck Stop.”

“That explains the readout,” Ria murmured, probably thinking aloud rather than addressing her niece. “What on earth—?”

“I’m here for a visit,” Quinn said cheerfully. “Can you come and pick us up?”

Ria didn’t ask who “us” was, as Meredith would have done. In fact, she didn’t hesitate at all. “I’ll be right there. Don’t talk to strangers.”

Quinn smiled at the admonition. Too late, she thought. “Okay, I won’t.” Since pretty much everybody around this little Montana burg qualified as a stranger, she guessed she’d just zip her lip until Ria showed up.

And that would be soon, Quinn hoped, because she needed something to eat, a hot bath and a few hours of sleep. Nice as Tim Anderson had been to her, she’d been afraid to close her eyes the whole night, despite all the subtle indications that he was a devoted family man.

It could so easily have been an act. Quinn shuddered slightly at the silent admission.

She’d just said goodbye to Ria and hung up the clunky black pay-phone receiver, rubbing her hand down the thigh of her jeans in a hopeless attempt to wipe away any lingering germs, when a man’s voice spoke.

“Are you all right?”

Quinn’s heart sped up a little as she turned, clutching poor, road-weary Bones protectively to her chest, and saw a tall, dark-haired man in a cop’s uniform standing directly behind her. His shirt was so crisply starched that the folds still showed, and his badge gleamed in the sunlight, brightly enough to dazzle a person, but she made out the words embossed in the metal just the same: Sheriff, Parable County.

“Um, sure,” she said, her bravado wavering slightly now. The sheriff looked kind enough, with his warm brown eyes and that crooked cowboy smile, but she still had to fight down a wild urge to turn and hotfoot it right out of there.

Here she was, already breaking the don’t-talk-to-strangers rule. Again.

But he was a cop, and under other circumstances, Quinn would have pelted him with questions about the job, the life, given her own aspirations to serve in law enforcement someday. And surely it was safe to talk to a policeman.

Plus, making a break for it would have been a bad idea, she decided, since he would surely catch her easily, long before she reached the woods behind the truck stop and found a place to hide—he looked young and fit. While Quinn was pretty sure she hadn’t broken any laws—was running away from home illegal?—the affable intensity of this man’s focus unnerved her. He clearly wasn’t going anywhere until he got the information he was after.

“Boone Taylor,” he said, putting out a hand.

Quinn had to jostle Bones a little, but she managed to return the sheriff’s handshake. Her throat closed up tight, her nearly empty stomach tightened like a fist, and she felt her upper lip and the space between her shoulder blades go clammy with perspiration.

Sheriff Boone Taylor waited a beat or two, but when nothing came out of Quinn’s mouth, he arched one eyebrow and asked, with a glint of humor in his eyes, “Do you have a name?”

It wouldn’t do her any good to lie, she sensed that, and anyway, she was rotten at bending the truth. If she tried to shine this guy on, he’d know it by her expression or her body language—or both. In an instant, too.

“Quinn Whittingford,” she managed to croak out. “I’m here to visit my aunt, Ria Manning. Maybe you know her?”

Get here, Aunt Ria. Please, get here quick.

“She’s a good friend of my wife’s,” he said, and Quinn relaxed a bit, only to tense up again when he added, “I saw you get out of the cab of that truck a little while ago. Was the driver somebody you know, Quinn, or did you hitch your way here?”

Quinn swallowed. Exactly how far away was her aunt’s flower farm? What if Ria lived at the far end of some long dirt road, on the other side of town, a rutted stretch of gravel winding for miles and miles before it finally reached the truck stop? In that case, it might be an hour before she arrived, or even longer.

“I hitched,” she admitted.

The sheriff rested his hands on his hips, and his black leather belt—with its gun and holster and various other fascinating cop gear—creaked as he shifted his weight slightly and studied her with a pensive frown on his tanned and handsome face. “That’s not good,” he said.

Quinn blinked hard, fearing that tears would spring to her eyes if she didn’t, giving away how scared she was. “I know,” she said, very quietly. “But my aunt’s on her way here right now. Everything’s fine, Officer—really.”

He absorbed her words, giving no indication whether he believed her or not, smiled at Bones and gently touched the little dog’s head, scratched him behind the ears. “Who’s this?” he asked.

“His name is Bones,” Quinn said, hoping the hurried way she spouted out the answer hadn’t made her sound guilty of some crime, like dognapping. “I found him wandering around at a rest stop last night. Maybe he just got lost, but it was pretty far from any towns or farms or anything, so I think somebody must have dumped him.”

Boone shook his head, and a muscle bunched briefly in his square jaw. “There’s a special place in hell for people who do things like that,” he said, frowning again. “Looks like he could use a few good meals and a bath.”

Quinn smiled then. She didn’t know why she did that, because she was still scared shitless of being arrested or sent straight back to Portland without even getting a chance to make her case with Ria. There would be hell to pay with her mom, and then she’d be packed off to summer camp anyway, and all of this would be for nothing. “Yeah,” she agreed.

At that moment, she spotted Ria’s car, the same unprepossessing compact she’d driven back in Portland, before Uncle Frank died, swing into the lot out by the big Whistle-By Truck Stop sign.

Saved.

“There’s my aunt now,” Quinn chimed, pointing. She hoped Sheriff Taylor would get back into his cruiser and drive away, satisfied that the runaway was about to be collected by a responsible adult and, therefore, all was well. No point in hanging around; he must have crimes to solve, even way out here.

“I guess I’ll stay and have a word with her,” Boone Taylor said, making it plain that he wasn’t planning to budge until he had a real handle on what was going on. “Why don’t you leave the dog with me, go inside and rustle up a bowl of water for him?”

“He doesn’t have a leash or anything,” Quinn reasoned, though she wanted, and badly, to ask for water for Bones and use the restroom.

“I’ll keep an eye on him while you’re gone” was the sheriff’s quietly pragmatic reply. “Go on inside.”

Ria, instead of having a straight shot, had to wait while a huge 18-wheeler made a three-acre turn and wound out onto the highway.

Reluctantly, but desperate for the bathroom and worried that Bones might be seriously dehydrated by now, Quinn set the dog down carefully at the sheriff’s feet, told the animal she’d be right back, honest to God, no fooling, cross her heart and hope to die, and entered the truck stop.

First stop, the ladies’ room. She peed, washed her hands and face at one of three sinks and slowly straightened to take in her reflection in the long mirror affixed to the wall. No wonder the sheriff was hanging around, she thought.

Her brown hair was tangled, her clothes were rumpled and she looked like a fugitive on the run, straight out of an episode of Dates from Hell or Deadly Women or some other true-crime show.

Okay, Ria was outside, waiting for her. Probably chatting with the sheriff by now.

But she, Quinn, definitely wasn’t out of the proverbial woods.

Resigned, she bent over again, cupped her hands under the faucet and splashed more cool water onto her face until she began to feel remotely human.

* * *

RIA, BACK BEHIND the wheel of her car, with Quinn in the passenger seat and the scruffy little dog perched on the girl’s lap, couldn’t stop thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to her niece between Portland and Three Trees.

“I can’t believe you hitchhiked,” she said, well aware that she was repeating herself and quite unable to help it.

Quinn leaned her head back and sighed. Her eyes were closed and her lashes, golden-brown like her hair, fluttered slightly. “I was desperate,” she said, very softly, very simply. “Meredith was going to send me away to camp, for the whole summer. I would have been older than most of the counselors, never mind the actual campers, all of whom were probably under twelve.”

Ria felt a pang of sympathy then, and the sudden, wild fear inspired by the knowledge that Quinn had come all this way, mostly in the company of strangers, began to subside. Yes, the child could have been abducted, raped, murdered, out there on the highway—hitchhikers disappeared all the time, all over the country. Especially young women.

Still, none of those things had actually happened, thank heaven. Quinn was right here beside her, safe and sound, if a little the worse for wear.

“Your mother must be beside herself,” Ria fretted. They were passing through the town of Three Trees by now, and she considered stopping at the big discount chain store for kibble and a collar and leash for the dog, along with whatever else Quinn happened to need, of course, but she decided that the errand could wait awhile.

Quinn lifted one shoulder slightly, as if to shrug, opened her eyes and turned to face Ria. “Are you going to send me back?”

“I don’t know,” Ria said, in all honesty, her hands tightening on the steering wheel, her palms suddenly damp. Whatever her own feelings about Meredith might be, Quinn was the woman’s daughter. By now, her half sister had probably called the police, put up a reward for the girl’s safe return, even hired private detectives to aid in the search. In Meredith’s shoes, Ria knew she would have done some or all of those things herself. “You have to call your mother the minute we get home, though. She’ll be frantic.”

Quinn sighed. “Annoyed,” she conceded. “Definitely inconvenienced. But ‘frantic’? No way. After all, the whole point of sending me to camp was to get rid of me.”

Troubled, Ria let the remark pass unchallenged. They were passing a string of fast-food franchises just then, so she picked one at random, slowed the car and signaled to turn into the parking lot. “You must be hungry,” she said, in belated explanation.

“A little,” Quinn said, very softly. “Can we get Bones a burger, too? I have some money in my backpack—” She indicated the seat behind them, where she’d stashed her one piece of luggage, with a small motion of her head. “I can pay you back later.”

“That,” Ria said, “is the least of my worries right now.”

They pulled into the drive-through line, and when their turn at the speaker came, a brief consultation was held and then Ria placed the order—a fish fillet sandwich, fries and a diet cola for Quinn, a cheeseburger off the children’s menu for the dog.

“Don’t you want anything?” Quinn asked, when the person inside had confirmed their requests and specified the amount they’d be expected to pay at the second window.

She sounded so concerned. And so young.

Ria’s heart ached. What was going on at home that had caused Quinn to take to the road the way she had? Surely it wasn’t just the prospect of summer camp—much as she apparently disliked the idea, her niece had indeed been “desperate” to get away.

Questions, questions, questions.

And the time wasn’t right to ask any of them.

“No,” Ria replied, finally, with a shake of her head. “Not just now. I’ll have something when we get back to the house.”

There was a pause, fragile and quivery, nearly tangible.

Then Quinn asked, “Are you mad at me?”

The subtext was Because if you are, I’m not going to know how to handle it. I need you to be on my side.

“No,” Ria said, for the second time in two minutes.

There were three cars ahead of them, each one stopping at the designated window to hand cash or an ATM card through, in exchange for paper bags with blotches of grease on the sides and cups the size of oil barrels, and Ria considered the rest of her answer carefully.

“I’m not angry,” she said, finally. “Not completely anyhow, and not permanently.”

Quinn gave a nervous little giggle. “That was ambiguous,” she remarked.

“Hitchhiking is a stupid thing to do, Quinn,” Ria pointed out, irritated with herself because that was certainly stating the obvious, wasn’t it, and she’d sounded so pedantic, too.

“I know that,” Quinn answered, and her beautiful green eyes brimmed with tears.

They reached the window then, and Ria paid for the food, accepted the fragrant bag and Quinn’s soda, passed them over, not wanting to say more until they were out of the cheerful clerk’s earshot.

The dog—Bones, wasn’t it?—had been curled up in Quinn’s lap until the transaction was made, but as soon as the food was inside the car, he perked right up, putting his grubby little paws on his mistress’s chest and sniffing wildly.

Quinn chuckled softly as they drove away, ferreted out the dog’s cheeseburger and tore off a tiny piece for him.

He gobbled it right down and, once again, Ria felt a stab of emotion, a poignant, heart-hollowing awareness that that big world out there could be so terribly hard on the helpless, whether they had four legs or two.

While Quinn and the dog consumed their food, taking turns, Ria drove toward home, thoughtful and silent.

There were still a million questions she wanted to ask her niece, yes, but the girl was obviously worn out, half-starved and God only knew what else. Quinn needed time to catch her breath, get her bearings.

When the farm came into view, with its rows and rows of zinnias and gerbera daisies and other brightly colored flowers, Quinn sat up straighter and gave a little gasp. Bones, having devoured his cheeseburger, had settled back onto her lap again and drifted off into a snooze.

“Wow,” Quinn said, in a murmur. “It’s beautiful!”

Ria’s spirits rose by a smidgen, though she was dreading the necessary call to Meredith, had been all along. But she’d worked hard to keep her small operation afloat, weeding and watering, digging and hoeing, planting and replanting, slogging out to the greenhouse through knee-deep snow the previous winter to tend seedlings and sprouts, and the genuine admiration in Quinn’s voice meant a lot. Especially since Meredith and most of Ria’s friends back in Portland thought the whole enterprise was a hokey waste of time and financial resources.

“Thanks,” she said, after clearing her throat, parking the car in the driveway instead of inside the detached garage because she knew she’d have to make a run into town for various supplies before the day was over. “It’s lots of work, for not much money, but I love it anyway.” She flashed on last night’s buffalo visit and added, “Mostly.”

A blush threatened, because remembering the bison incident meant remembering Landry Sutton—and the kiss.

And the date for Saturday night. What had she been thinking, saying yes to that? Now, at least, she’d have an excuse to beg off—unexpected company.

Though that particular thought should have been a comfort, it left Ria feeling strangely disappointed instead.

Quinn, naturally unaware of the whole quandary, opened the car door and got out, setting the dog on the ground with a tenderness that pinched a tender place in Ria’s carefully guarded heart. The girl looked around, taking in the famous big sky, the trees, the mountains and foothills that surrounded both Three Trees and its neighbor, Parable, thirty miles away.

“I can see why you love this place,” she said, her voice almost reverent as she took it all in. “It’s so quiet—so peaceful.”

The dog, meanwhile, trotted to the middle of the lawn, nose lowered to the ground, spent a few moments sizing the place up and finally raised one hind leg to christen the resin garden gnome. After that, Bones wagged his stubby tail and turned a perky gaze on Quinn and Ria, patient even though they were lagging behind when there was some serious exploring to do.

“Sorry,” Quinn said, very quietly. “About the gnome, I mean.”

Ria grinned. “No problem,” she said. “Look—he’s still smiling.”

With a soft laugh, Quinn retrieved her backpack from the rear seat, but her expression turned solemn again as she started toward Ria, who waited for her on the flagstone walkway leading to the front porch.

“Meredith won’t let me keep him, you know,” she said. “Bones, I mean. If I have to go back to Portland—”

While Bones continued to check out the yard, Ria slipped an arm around her niece’s shoulders, gave her a brief squeeze. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?” she advised, though she knew Quinn was right about the dog. Meredith definitely wasn’t an animal person. Heck, most of the time, she wasn’t even a people person. For her, everything had to be at a distinct remove, and preferably sterile—right down to conceiving a child.

Quinn didn’t respond, except to sigh again and lean on Ria a little as they walked.

“One thing at a time, sweetheart,” Ria told the woman-child beside her. “Our first order of business is to call your mother and let her know you’re all right. After that, we’ll play this by ear.”

Quinn tried to smile in response, but her mouth wobbled, and the attempt fell away. Tears filled her eyes again.

Ria wanted to cry right along with her niece as she unlocked the front door and opened it, and Quinn turned to summon the dog. He darted toward them, still grungy but full of pep now that he’d eaten and been invited into the house.

Before she’d even set down her purse and dropped her car keys into the blue bowl on the small table beside the entrance, Ria made up her mind on one thing, at least. If Meredith forced Quinn to come home—as she well might—Bones wasn’t going to any shelter; he was staying right here on the farm, with her.

After she’d shown Quinn around the cottage—there wasn’t much to see, since it was so small—the girl ducked into the bathroom to take a quick shower, and Bones went with her.

Ria didn’t have a guest room, since she used the second bedroom as an office, but there was a foldout couch in there, and of course Quinn was welcome to it.

The shower went on, and on, the sound of the running water a distant hum.

Surely the child was clean by now. The dog, too, probably.

Eventually, it occurred to Ria, sitting at her kitchen table making a shopping list, that the task of calling Meredith was going to fall to her. Quinn was obviously in avoidance mode and, besides, the girl’s emotions were at a very low ebb.