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The Stranger's Sin
Darlene Gardner


Accused of a crime she didn't commit, Kelly Carmichael skips bail and heads to Indigo Springs. It's a shot in the dark, but with her freedom at stake she has no choice if she wants answers. When forest ranger Chase Bradford starts asking questions, Kelly tells him she's a stranger passing through. That's the first lie. Now she has to keep lying.She's walking a dangerous tightrope…especially when she starts falling for the single father. How will Chase react when he finds out who she really is? Will the honorable guy feel duty-bound to bring her in? Or will he stand by her? If only she had the courage to trust him with the truth….









“You’re a very good liar.”


Kelly’s step faltered at Chase’s words, her defenses going up like a brick wall. She’d felt so comfortable with Chase during the drive that she’d let herself forget he was in law enforcement.

She’d let herself become attracted to him.

Who was she trying to fool?

One of the reasons she’d asked him to team up with her had been that she was already attracted to him.

Far too much.




Dear Reader,

Is lying ever justified?

Kelly Carmichael thinks so, especially upon her arrival in Indigo Springs when the truth could land her back in jail. Then she meets and starts to fall for Chase Bradford, who holds the opposite view—and a badge.

That’s the setup of A Stranger’s Sin, the second book in my Return to Indigo Springs trilogy. I thought it would be interesting to pair a woman, who lies when she has to, with a do-the-right-thing kind of guy and see what happened.

Hint: there’s a scene in the book during a Fourth of July fireworks show.

All my best,

Darlene Gardner

P.S. Visit me on the Web at www.darlenegardner.com.




The Stranger’s Sin

Darlene Gardner










ABOUT THE AUTHOR


While working as a newspaper sportswriter, Darlene Gardner realized she’d rather make up quotes than rely on an athlete to say something interesting. So she quit her job and concentrated on a fiction career that landed her at Harlequin/Silhouette Books, where she wrote for Harlequin Temptation, Harlequin Duets and Silhouette Intimate Moments before finding a home at Harlequin Superromance.


To the truth, which has a way of coming out.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN




CHAPTER ONE


T HE SWEET PROMISE OF FREEDOM lay just beyond the courthouse doors, a nearly irresistible proposition for a woman who’d spent the night in jail.

Kelly Carmichael longed to rush outside and turn her face to the late-June sun. The Wenona County courthouse was three or four miles from the cozy, one-bedroom town house in upstate New York where she lived alone. She planned to walk the entire way home, no matter how high the temperature climbed.

Then she’d take a long, cool shower. She yearned to wash away the horror of the eighteen hours since uniformed police officers had pounded on her door, shown her a warrant and taken her away in handcuffs.

But first she needed to hear what the attorney who’d represented her at the arraignment advised her to do about the colossal misunderstanding that had gotten her arrested.

The attorney stumbled out of the hall restroom, wiping the brow of his thin, pale face. She’d seen that same look of misery on one of her first-grade students last week. Spencer Yates, she guessed, had a stomach virus.

She rose from the wooden bench outside the court clerk’s window where her ex-boyfriend had posted her bail before leaving as quickly as he could. Spencer Yates was moving very slowly.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“No, I am not all right,” the lawyer snapped. His wisp of a moustache underscored how young he was, as though he couldn’t yet grow decent facial hair. He put up a hand. “Sorry. It’s just that this stomach thing has hit me pretty hard. So let’s get down to it.”

He indicated that she should precede him into a meeting room not much larger than the jail cell where she’d spent a sleepless Sunday night on a hard cot, counting down the hours until Monday’s arraignment. He moved to pull the heavy door shut and last night’s claustrophobia came rushing back.

“Please, can we leave the door open?” she asked, her voice cracking.

His hand dropped to his side. “Makes no difference to me.”

He sat down heavily on one of the upholstered chairs alongside a meeting table with a laminate wood top and swiped a hand over his damp brow.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly. “Even if I wasn’t, we need to go over a few things.”

He opened her file and removed some sheets of paper he’d had time only to glance at before the hearing. Kelly sat silently, trying to be patient. Yates had explained the district judge was interested in getting through his heavy load of arraignments rather than correcting mistakes. But once the young lawyer looked over the specifics of her case, surely he’d see to it that justice was served.

In short order he put aside the papers, his head lolling slightly as though he had to put forth an effort to keep it up. “My suggestion is to see if the district attorney will go for a plea bargain. I’ll try to get you a deal where you won’t have to serve more than one year.”

“One year! No!” She shook her head vigorously. Like mother, like daughter, she thought before her mind rebelled. “I can’t go to prison. I won’t.”

He looked at her through tired eyes shadowed with heavy, dark circles. “You should have thought of that before the police found that baby at your place.”

“But there’s a perfectly good reason he was there.” Kelly leaned forward, desperate to make him understand. She’d already told the story a dozen times in hours and hours of interrogation. “A woman I met on the playground asked me to babysit.”

“Where is this woman?”

“I don’t know where she is. I don’t know anything about her except her name is Amanda Smith.”

“So you agreed to babysit for a perfect stranger?” Yates put one elbow on the table and tiredly rested his chin in his hand. “The police aren’t buying that story.”

“It’s the truth. Amanda has to be the one who kidnapped Corey.”

“The baby’s name is Eric, and the police think you kidnapped him. Right now you’re facing charges of second-degree kidnapping, which is a felony. If the DA agrees, I might be able to get the charge reduced to endangering the welfare of a child. That’s a misdemeanor.”

Misdemeanor sounded better than felony, but the words still sent dread coursing through her. If she pleaded guilty to either of those charges, she’d have a permanent criminal record and the repercussions that came with it. “If I’m convicted, nobody will ever hire me to teach again!”

He stared at her as though it was of little importance to him whether she lost her job as a first-grade teacher.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Teaching children is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you’re not the sort of person who should be around kids.”

It took a few seconds for his meaning to sink in. A shudder raked her from head to toe. “You think I’m guilty, don’t you?”

“I shouldn’t have said that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But it doesn’t matter whether I think you’re guilty or not. What matters is whether there’s enough evidence here to win at trial. And there’s not.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

He opened his eyes the rest of the way and straightened his backbone. “If you’re not satisfied with my counsel, you can request to be reassigned to another lawyer. With the overwhelming evidence against you, though, another lawyer will tell you the same thing.”

“What overwhelming evidence?”

“Besides the kidnapped baby the police found in your town house? The report says you spend hours watching children at the playground.”

“I don’t go alone,” she countered. “My next-door neighbor runs a business out of her home. I take her son to the playground to help her out.”

“Okay, then. How about the fact that the person who called the police after hearing the Amber Alert said you’re unhappy you can’t have children of your own?”

“Of course I am! What woman wouldn’t be?” she cried. She was sorry she’d ever shared that sad information with any of the women at the playground. “That’s not proof.”

“The baby was taken from a stroller outside a grocery store in Utica on Friday night.” He named a town in New York about an hour away and tapped her file folder, which he’d already closed. “On Sunday the police found that baby with you.”

“I wasn’t in Utica!”

A spark of interest lit his eyes. “Can anyone verify that?”

Kelly thought back to the thriller that had kept her reading Friday night until the last page. Too bad fictional characters couldn’t give alibis. “No,” she admitted.

His eyes went flat again. “There are two eyewitnesses who described the suspect as a woman in her twenties of average height and weight with shoulder-length brown hair.

“That could describe a lot of women,” Kelly said, even as panic started to set in. She couldn’t deny she and the woman at the playground shared a resemblance.

“One of the eyewitnesses picked you out of a photo lineup,” he said. “Do you see the problem here? A jury will believe you’re guilty. We’ll be lucky if we do get a plea, but it would certainly come with a stipulation that you submit to counseling. If we didn’t take it, you could be facing up to eight years.”

She swallowed her panic, making herself think, picking out the hole in his argument. “If the evidence is so overwhelming, why did the judge grant me bail?”

“Quite frankly, given the nature of the crime, it surprised me that he did.” He gestured with his hand. “Who knows? It could be because you have ties in the community and no priors. And bail was high enough he probably thought you couldn’t make it.”

She understood how the judge could believe a defendant who needed a court-appointed attorney wouldn’t have the money to cover the huge amount set for bail. Or even the ten percent a bail bondsman charged. “A friend posted bail for me.”

Yates quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t ask what sort of friend coughed up that kind of money. His face was growing paler by the second. He clearly didn’t want to hear about her relationship with Vince Dawkins, who’d materialized at the arraignment like a benevolent ghost.

Kelly would have preferred not to accept favors from Vince, who worked as a reading resource teacher at the private Edgerton School where she also taught, but the alternative was going back to jail and she’d been desperate.

Vince was wealthy enough that the bail amount would be a trifle for him. Besides, he still felt guilty for the way their relationship had ended.

“Just be thankful you caught Judge Waters in a good mood,” Yates said, “because he’s usually much harsher on people conventional wisdom says are flight risks.”

The lawyer couldn’t be serious. Kelly Carmichael, a flight risk? Despite her mother’s long rap sheet, Kelly had never tangled with the law until yesterday. She’d spent the last two years establishing herself in the community with a town house she’d turned into a home and a career she loved.

A career that, according to Spencer Yates, was in serious jeopardy. She was working as a counselor at the Edgerton School’s summer camp, a position she’d already lost. Vince had informed her the school’s principal said she shouldn’t come back until this matter was cleared up.

“I’ll give you a call after I talk with the DA.” Yates stood, swaying slightly on his feet. He acted as though the matter was all settled, as though she’d agreed to let him work out a deal that would send her to prison.

“But—”

“I really need to go.” Yates turned even more gray. He hurried out of the meeting room, calling over his shoulder, “You have my number if you need me.”

She stared after him, frustrated because she had so much more to say. But Yates was clearly ill—and as disinterested in hearing about the woman at the playground as the police had been. If Kelly retained him as her lawyer, he’d get around to asking the same tough question the police had: Why had nobody else seen the woman?

The reason was both simple and complicated.

Nobody had seen her because Kelly had been the only one at the playground. Late on a Saturday afternoon. Without her neighbor’s two-year-old son.

Kelly hadn’t set out to visit the playground. Her intention had been to enjoy the beautiful summer weather. Her walk took her past the swings and the monkey bars, the place where she spent so many happy hours. The woman—she’d given her name only as Amanda Smith—had been trying to get her baby boy to stop crying. Kelly’s first mistake had been stopping to talk to her.

Kelly shook off the memory and stood up, suddenly desperate to be outdoors. She hurried out of the courthouse and into the brightness of the summer morning. She gazed up into the cloudless blue sky, watching the flight of a hawk that was free to go wherever it pleased.

So was she, but not for long. The police weren’t searching for the real kidnapper. Kelly was headed for prison unless…

Unless she found Amanda herself.

The idea took root and sprouted. It was crazy, but it was her only option.

There was the not-so-minor detail that she wasn’t allowed to leave the state of New York under the terms of her bail, but if she was back before her next scheduled court appearance, Vince might not even lose the money he’d posted for her bail. If she wasn’t, she’d find a way to pay him back, even if it meant selling her town house.

But she couldn’t think about that now. She needed to remember something—anything—Amanda might have said that would provide a clue on where to look.

Their conversation had revolved around the baby. Amanda hadn’t talked about where she’d grown up or where she lived but it seemed to Kelly she had mentioned a place.

Yes. That was right. She’d said something about there being no more to do in Wenona than in…what? The name of the town floated in Kelly’s brain, just out of reach of her consciousness.

Green Water? No. That was wrong. It hadn’t been Water, it had been…Springs. But Green Springs wasn’t right. Neither was Blue Springs.

Indigo Springs.

The name hit her with such certainty that she rushed down the courthouse steps, eager to get to a computer so she could figure out where Indigo Springs was.

Because that’s where she was headed.




CHAPTER TWO


C HASE B RADFORD SET DOWN the car seat that doubled as a carrier, acting as if it made perfect sense for the invited guest at the Indigo Springs library’s Summer Speaker Series to bring along a sleeping year-old baby.

“Dream on, buddy,” he whispered, squashing an urge to kiss one of Toby’s flushed, chubby cheeks. “Please, please dream on.”

He wouldn’t have called himself soft-hearted before Toby came into his life, but it had taken Chase about ten seconds flat to fall in love with the little guy.

He’d fallen pretty quickly for Toby’s mother, too, but that turned out to have nothing to do with love. He wasn’t usually impulsive when it came to women. After Mandy, he wouldn’t be again.

“You sure that baby will be okay there?” asked Louise Wiesneski, the big-boned, florid-faced librarian who’d set up the talk.

“He’ll be fine, Louise,” Chase said with more confidence than he felt.

Her eyebrows formed an inverted V and her mouth twisted. “If you say so.”

She turned to the small group of people milling about the meeting room. Chase recognized a few faces, but the group consisted mostly of the outdoor enthusiasts who descended on the town in summer to hike, bike and ride the white water down the Lehigh River.

“Please take a seat,” she commanded. “We’re about to start.”

The people who weren’t yet seated pulled chairs out from the tables facing the front of the room, the legs scraping on the linoleum floor.

Toby promptly woke up, his baby blues opening wide.

His tiny face crumpled, he kicked his short legs and he opened his little mouth. Chase bent down before he could scream, filling the baby’s field of vision with his familiar face. Toby closed his mouth, his lips forming into a pout, and stretched out both arms.

As timing went, Toby’s couldn’t have been worse.

Unbuckling the baby from the carrier, Chase resigned himself to having a partner during his presentation. He picked up Toby, smoothing his blond hair back from his flushed face, hoping the baby would be a silent partner.

A few dozen faces stared up at him while he said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t opted for a slide show. The way things were going, he’d have a hard enough time passing around the oversize photos he’d brought along.

“Tonight we have Chase Bradford, a wildlife conservation officer whose talk is titled: ‘That Wasn’t a Mountain Lion.’” Louise’s voice sounded amplified even without a microphone. “Chase will speak about some of the species of wildlife that can be spotted in the Poconos.”

Doing his best to pretend he didn’t have a baby in his arms, Chase held up a photo of a man kneeling beside a large, dead animal. “Can anybody tell me what this is?”

The hand of a freckled-faced boy sitting in the front row shot up. He was no older than ten, the youngest person in the room. Before Chase could acknowledge him, the boy asked, “Are you a policeman?”

“Not exactly,” he said just as Toby covered his badge with a chubby hand. “Think of me as policing the woods and waters. I help hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts enjoy our state’s resources responsibly.”

Chase repositioned Toby and asked again, “Now does anybody have a guess about this animal?”

“It’s a mountain lion,” answered a man wearing hiking clothing and a sunburn.

“That’s right,” Chase said. “A big one, too. Probably somewhere in the two-hundred-pound range. So now you’re probably wondering about the title of my talk.”

Toby squirmed, obviously still out of sorts from being awakened so abruptly. The baby almost never napped in the early evening but had fallen asleep on the drive over. His routine was seriously messed up.

“This photo made the rounds on the Internet a while back, with the text claiming the animal had been hit by a truck in a number of locations, including right here in Pennsylvania.”

Toby whimpered, and Chase bounced the baby the way he’d seen mothers calm their fussy children. Unfortunately motion wasn’t usually the key to soothing Toby. The baby was the ultimate outdoors enthusiast. Take him outside and he instantly quieted.

Louise crossed her arms over her chest, her lips flatlining.

“But there are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania and haven’t been since the late 1800s,” Chase said just as Toby let out a lusty wail. He bounced the baby some more, with no success. “This big cat was killed in northern Arizona.”

The volume of Toby’s cries increased. The freckled-faced boy in the front row covered his ears.

“Over the years, people have claimed mountain lions are roaming our hills.” Chase spoke louder to be heard above Toby’s cries. “But then some Pennsylvanians also claim to have seen Sasquatch.”

Nobody laughed.

Louise straightened from where she’d been leaning against the wall, marched over to Chase and held out her arms. “I’ll take him.”

Chase’s grip on the baby tightened, but he couldn’t continue the presentation over Toby’s howls. “Sorry about this. He’ll calm down if you take him outside.”

He had a moment’s doubt before handing the baby over, but the librarian’s entire body softened when she took him. She headed for the door, whispering soothing words, and Chase relaxed.

The freckled boy’s hand raised, bringing Chase’s attention back to the group. “Do you bring your baby on patrol, too?”

Considering its inauspicious beginning, the talk went over well. Chase showed the group photos of black bears, coyotes, red foxes and bobcats. The young boy was particularly interested in what Chase had to say about timber rattlers and copperheads, which was basically “Poison—stay away.”

The talk finally over, Chase picked up the baby carrier and went in search of Toby and the librarian. He found them on the sidewalk outside the library, with Louise balancing the baby on her hip as she pointed out the things around them in a soft, pleasant voice.

Sky. Tree. Grass. Bench.

“We just finished up,” Chase said as he walked toward them. “Thanks for watching Toby for me, Louise.”

The librarian’s demeanor instantly changed, her whole body turning rigid and uncompromising. She handed Toby over, but not before Chase saw her press a quick, furtive kiss to the back of the baby’s head.

“What were you thinking bringing a baby with you?” she demanded.

He was thinking he needed to talk his retired father into carrying a cell phone. Then he could have reminded him of his promise to babysit.

“My dad and I got our signals crossed.” Chase should have mentioned the talk when he got home from work, but figured whatever errand his father needed to run wouldn’t take long. He’d figured wrong.

“Your dad?” Her voice had a hard, suspicious edge. “Isn’t he a widower?”

How had she known that? Tourism had arrived in Indigo Springs years before Chase’s parents bought the vacation home where Chase now lived with his father. While Indigo Springs still had a small-town feel, it wasn’t so insular that residents automatically knew everyone else’s business.

“Yes, he is.” Chase bent to lower Toby into the carrier and started buckling him in, making sure the straps went over the baby’s shoulders and between his legs. “My mother died nine months ago.”

“I was sorry to hear about that,” she mumbled, then added in a clearer voice, “So if your father’s watching Toby for you, that must mean Mandy’s still out of town.”

Chase looked up at her sharply at the mention of Toby’s mother. “How do you know Mandy?”

“She was a regular at the library. She mentioned once she was living with a wildlife conservation officer. That’s how I got the idea to ask you to speak.”

Chase turned back to Toby and finished buckling the gurgling baby into the carrier. He squashed an impulse to demand Louise immediately tell him what she knew about Mandy. Picking up the carrier by its sturdy plastic handle, he forced himself to sound casual.

“Were you and Mandy friends?”

“Oh, no,” the librarian said. “She just came in here to read her magazines— People, Vogue, Cosmo. Never touched Parents magazine or American Baby, though she had this little one and told one of the other librarians she was pregnant. She had a miscarriage, didn’t she?”

Chase kept his expression stoic, determined that Louise not guess she’d hit on a sore spot. “Yeah, she did.”

“Wasn’t that about three weeks ago?” Louise didn’t wait for confirmation, suggesting she’d been downwind from some serious gossip. “I heard she left town right after. Where did she go anyway?”

That was the million-dollar question.

“Nowhere in particular,” he said carefully. “She just needed to get away.”

“From her baby?” Louise arched a skeptical eyebrow. “When will she be back?”

Chase nearly told her to mind her own business, but she clearly liked to gossip. Since she was bound to give her co-workers a cry-by-cry account of tonight’s bring-a-baby-to-work fiasco, it would be best not to alienate her.

“Soon,” he said.

“I certainly hope so,” she said. “A baby needs his mother.”

In Toby’s case, Chase disagreed.

Toby uttered some gibberish, awarding Chase with one of his priceless grins.

“Thanks again for having me,” he told Louise, “but I need to get this happy little guy home so I can get him to bed on time.”

He felt like a politician on the campaign trail, putting the best possible spin on a situation after getting called for a misstep. Damage control, the politicians called it.

He headed for his Jeep before she could ask another question. He’d been facing more and more of them lately, most dealing with whether he and his father were equipped to handle a baby.

It was only a matter of time before somebody guessed that Chase didn’t have a clue where Mandy had gone.

Or whether she was ever coming back.



T HE GLOW OF THE microwave brightened the dark side of the kitchen; Chase hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. He waited for the shrill beep, then opened the microwave door, noting the time on the digital display.

Eleven fifty-six, a good three hours since he’d put Toby down for the night and at least an hour since Chase had turned out his own bedside light.

He’d switched it back on again a few minutes ago.

He removed the mug from the microwave, his eyes drifting to the whiteboard affixed to the side of the refrigerator. It was too dark to read the lines his father had scribbled in black marker but he knew them by heart.



Don’t worry. Home late.



The mystery of where his early-to-bed father had gone paled only in comparison to Mandy’s disappearing act.

Chase heard the mechanical sound of the garage door raising, signaling that he’d soon find out the answer to at least one of the puzzles.

“Hi, Dad,” he said when his father walked into the kitchen a few moments later.

His father’s body jerked, then relaxed. A tall man with a full head of gray hair, he’d nearly shattered when his wife died but lately Chase had seen signs that he was coming back to life. Not only had he gone out tonight, but he’d taken care with his appearance, wearing a new-looking short-sleeved polo shirt with his favorite khakis.

“I didn’t see you there.” Charlie Bradford carried his shoes in one hand, as though afraid the click of his heels on the hardwood would wake up the household. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

Chase held up his mug. “I’m trying Mom’s remedy.”

“Ah, warm milk,” his father said.

Chase brought the mug to his lips, blew on the liquid and took a sip. The thick, chalky taste filled his mouth, and he made a face. “Ugh. As terrible as ever.”

His father chuckled softly. “I never could stand the stuff. Always thought it was better to talk about what’s keeping you up.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Asked the man drinking warm milk in the middle of summer,” his father quipped.

Chase set the mug down on the kitchen counter. “It’s Toby.”

“Is he all right?” his father asked sharply.

“He’s fine,” Chase assured him, “but I’ve been thinking about that message Mandy left on my cell phone.”

Chase had received the voice mail a few days after he discovered her “miscarriage” was a convenient way to explain away a pregnancy that had never been, not that he’d shared that embarrassing tidbit with his father or anyone else.

He’d met Mandy Smith at the tail end of a year he’d been in Harrisburg attending training school to become a Pennsylvania Game Commission employee. After his March graduation, he’d been assigned a territory that included Indigo Springs. Weeks later, she’d phoned to tell him their single night together had resulted in pregnancy.

What else could he do but invite her to live with him? Had the pregnancy progressed, he would have asked her to marry him. It would have been the right thing to do. Instead he’d been played for a fool.

In the voice mail Mandy had rambled on about leaving Toby, but explained that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother.

“I don’t think she’s coming back for him,” Chase said.

“That could be,” his father said. “That girl wasn’t much of a mother.”

His father should know. During the two months Mandy had lived with them in Indigo Springs, his dad had spent more time with Toby than Mandy had.

Chase drew in a breath, then put into words the conclusion he’d reached while lying in bed. “I need to contact the Department of Public Welfare.”

“No! That’s a terrible idea,” his father cried. “Where’s this coming from? Did something happen tonight?”

“Yes and no,” Chase said. “It’s just that the librarian who set up my speech asked a lot of questions.”

His father put a hand to his head and groaned, then sank into a chair beside Chase. “I forgot about your speech.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“You don’t usually need me on your day off, but I still should have remembered.” He grimaced. “You had to take Toby with you, didn’t you?”

“I tried some of the neighbors but nobody could watch him,” Chase said.

“How was he?”

“Noisy. The librarian took him outside for me, then she quizzed me about Mandy. Turns out Mandy used to come into the library to read magazines.”

“I’m sorry,” his father said, but still didn’t offer an explanation for where he’d been. Odd. His father had to know Chase wanted him to get out of the house and go somewhere besides the river with his fishing pole.

“Where were you anyway?” Chase asked finally.

“Nowhere special.” His father added hurriedly, “Why would some librarian asking questions about Toby make you think you have to go to DPW?”

Chase opted not to repeat the question he’d asked his strangely secretive father. “Because she’s not the only one. Mandy’s been gone for almost three weeks. Sooner or later, someone will figure out we don’t have legal custody.”

“We won’t have legal custody if you go to DPW, either,” his father pointed out. “The agency would.”

“Yeah,” Chase said, “but it’s the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do,” his father muttered, running a hand over his lower face. “You’re just like your mother. She was always going on about right and wrong, as though it was easy to see the difference.”

“It is easy,” Chase said.

“Not true. What if DPW takes Toby away from us? Think about it, Chase. You work long, unpredictable hours, and I’m sixty-seven years old. Toby’s a normal, healthy baby. Do you know how many couples out there are looking to adopt a baby like him?”

“Toby’s not up for adoption, Dad. I’m thinking we could ask to be his foster parents. He’s lived with us for two months. It wouldn’t make sense to move him.”

His father’s head shook vehemently. “It’s too much of a risk. There’s no way you can know for sure that DPW wouldn’t take Toby away from us.”

That possibility was what had driven Chase to the kitchen in search of the warm milk he couldn’t drink. If Louise Wiesneski were a social worker instead of a librarian, Chase doubted she’d let Toby continue to live with him and his father. She clearly didn’t think much of his parenting ability.

“I know you want to do the right thing, but look at it this way,” his father continued. “The right thing for Toby is to stay with us.”

“We can’t just keep him indefinitely, Dad,” Chase said. “Sooner or later, I need to go to the authorities.”

“Then make it later. Three weeks is too soon to be sure she isn’t coming back.”

“It’s getting there.”

“Okay, then let’s say she isn’t coming back. Mandy told you she didn’t have any family, right? That means she left Toby for you to raise. So find her and get her to give you custody.”

After his father went to sleep, Chase sat at the kitchen table, his hands cradling the now-cooled milk, trying to figure out what to do.

Find her, his father had advised.

The directive wasn’t nearly as easy as it should have been. He’d made a couple of stabs at it already, but he had no credit-card information to trace or phone numbers to track down. He’d checked his phone bills and Mandy hadn’t made any long-distance calls while she was living with him. He’d even taken a short trip to Harrisburg, but the employees of the bar where they’d met claimed not to know her. The clerk at the hotel where she’d rented a room said she’d paid in cash.

Looking back on it, Mandy had been closemouthed about her past and Chase hadn’t spent much time getting her to open up. He’d been too busy trying to get along with her.

So how could he go about finding a woman he didn’t know anything about?




CHAPTER THREE


I NDIGO S PRINGS TURNED OUT to be a picturesque town in the Pocono Mountains, with charming stone buildings lining a hilly main street that provided stunning views of the surrounding area.

The lush green of the valley mingled with the majesty of the mountains and the blue backdrop of the sky. Kelly would have felt as if she’d been transported to the pages of a storybook if she hadn’t been searching for the only person who could keep her out of prison.

The clerk behind the counter at the busy ice-cream shop shook her head and tried to give the color sketch Kelly had done of Amanda back to her.

“Are you sure she’s not at least a little familiar?” Kelly shifted her heavy backpack, repeating the same question she’d used on the string of clerks and receptionists in the stores along the town’s main street. “It’s not a perfect likeness.”

“I’ll be glad to look at it again.” The clerk had a matronly figure and a round, pleasant face, with big eyes that narrowed when she concentrated. After a few moments, she muttered, “Come to think of it, something about her does seem familiar.”

Kelly’s heart gave a hopeful leap. Finally, after hours of frustration, this could be the break she’d been waiting for. She held her breath as though even the simple act of exhaling might ruin the clerk’s concentration. Time seemed to lengthen, and the swirl of conversation dimmed, taking a back seat to the drama.

“I’ve got it!” the clerk said decisively. Her gaze lifted. “She looks like you.”

The air left Kelly’s lungs, the hope that her long shot was about to pay off fading along with it. This wasn’t the first time today Kelly had experienced the same swing of emotions. A half dozen other people had also pointed out the resemblance. Kelly was beginning to understand how the eyewitness had mistakenly picked her out of a photo lineup.

“It’s not me.” Kelly took back the sketch. “But thanks for looking at it.”

“Well, I hope you find her,” the clerk said kindly. “Do you mind me asking why you’re searching for her?”

“I have something of hers,” Kelly said. Before she could expand on her answer, the door banged open, admitting a noisy, laughing family of four.

“I want chocolate chip.” The smaller of the two children, a thin, dark-haired girl of about three years old, skipped up to the counter, flashing an adorable smile. Her mother immediately followed, placing hands on the girl’s shoulders to hold her back.

“You have to wait your turn, sweetie,” she said.

“Why?” the girl asked, eyes big and wide.

As the mother explained, the clerk laughed, then told Kelly, “We’ve been really busy this week with the Fourth of July weekend coming up. Can I get you something?”

Why not? Kelly thought, and ordered a bowl of fudge ripple ice cream. She found a table at the back of the store, shrugged off the backpack and sat down, digging into the ice cream with a plastic spoon while people laughed and talked all around her.

It didn’t dawn on her how hungry she was until she swallowed the first mouthful. The last thing she’d eaten was a package of cheese crackers from a vending machine. When had that been? This morning? Last night?

She truly didn’t remember. Driving her own car to Indigo Springs had seemed too risky, so the Tuesday morning after her Monday arraignment she’d set out for the bus station. Using cash she’d withdrawn from her modest savings account, she’d taken a series of buses. What would have been a five-hour trip had stretched to eighteen, with Kelly trying to catch snatches of sleep during the long night of transfers and layovers.

It occurred to her that by covering her tracks she was acting like a guilty woman. At the very least, she’d violated the terms of her bail, but she didn’t see how the authorities would know she was gone until she failed to show up for her preliminary hearing, whenever that was. Spencer Yates, if he suspected she’d left the state, should be bound by attorney-client privilege not to tell.

In any event, she couldn’t go back to Wenona until she found Amanda, and that might take a while. Nobody who’d seen the sketch had inspired even a glimmer of hope, with the exception of the construction worker with the great smile.

It turned out he hadn’t recognized Amanda, either, which wasn’t surprising. He’d been supervising the construction of a new wing of town hall, his attention divided between a crew putting up drywall and a desperate woman shoving a sketch at him.

She gazed down at her bowl, stunned that it was already empty. Weariness set in from her nearly sleepless night, weighing down her very bones. She needed to summon the energy to pick up the backpack she’d stuffed full of clothes and leave the ice-cream shop. She had only a few more businesses to canvas. Once she did, she’d have to tax her tired brain to come up with a new strategy.

She supposed she could make copies of the sketch and hand them out on the street, but she’d have to include contact information, something she was reluctant to do because she couldn’t shake the feeling the authorities would be looking for her.

The jingling of the bell on the door announcing the arrival of a new customer added to the general hubbub. Kelly looked up, expecting more tourists in search of an afternoon snack.

A tall man in a policeman’s uniform entered the shop. He ignored the ice-cream counter, his gaze sweeping the shop and zeroing in on Kelly. The breath in her chest froze, as cold as the ice cream she’d just eaten. She told herself to remain calm, and reminded herself she’d only left Wenona yesterday. The law couldn’t possibly have found her already. Even her attorney couldn’t be sure she was gone.

The cop played havoc with her rationale, striding directly for her. Her heart stampeded, and she felt like she might pass out.

The penalty for violating the conditions of bail was an immediate return to jail. She imagined herself behind bars, heard the sound of a cell door slamming shut, felt the weight of panic crushing her chest.

He stopped at her table and loomed over her, blotting out her view of everything but him. “I need to talk to you.”

Battling her growing dread, she tipped her chin, fervently reminding herself she was innocent. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

The corners of the cop’s mouth dipped slightly. “I didn’t say you did.”

“Then why…” She stopped in midquestion, belatedly realizing his uniform of a short-sleeved khaki shirt and dark pants was decidedly different than those worn by the New York policemen who’d arrested her. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

“No,” he said.

She squinted, making out the words on his silver badge. Wildlife Conservation Officer it read. Another term for forest ranger.

Relief saturated her limbs, making them weak. Her brain started to function with more clarity. Even in the unlikely event the cops in New York knew she’d left the state, this was Pennsylvania. If this man had been a cop, he wouldn’t be on the lookout for her.

“Would it matter if I was a cop?” He had an aggressively masculine face with a square jaw, lean cheeks and an outdoorsman’s tan. Short, thick brown hair, lightened by the sun, sprang back from a widow’s peak above assessing brown eyes. She guessed he wasn’t yet thirty.

“No. No. Of course not.” She bit her lip to stop from issuing another denial. She tried to smile but felt her lips quiver. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He gestured to the sketch on the tabletop. “That,” he said. “Can I sit down?”

“Yes, of course.” She felt like she was on a roller coaster, having survived one plunge only to be ascending another incline, praying this one wasn’t too tall to climb. She turned the sketch around so that it faced him. “Do you know her?”

He picked up the paper, his expression giving away nothing. She wondered who had told him about the sketch. Her guess was the construction worker, who’d probably known more than he was telling.

“I might,” he said. “What’s her name?”

“Amanda Smith.”

He gave no indication he recognized the name. “Why are you looking for her?”

“I have something she’d want back.” She unzipped an outer pocket of her backpack and pulled out a necklace. Fake gemstones of jade, lapis and ruby hung from a thick gold herringbone chain that looked just like fourteen-karat gold. “It’s costume jewelry, but it’s vintage. This one’s exceptionally pretty.”

“Did she give it to you?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I don’t know her nearly well enough for that. In fact, I don’t know her at all.” She was letting his direct gaze disconcert her, and as a result she was almost babbling. She made herself stop.

“Then how did you know to come to Indigo Springs?” he asked.

She regrouped, calling to mind the story she’d concocted on the bus. “She mentioned the town after we shared a table at a really crowded coffee shop. After she left, I found the necklace. The clasp is broken.”

Only the last part was true. She’d found the necklace in the kidnapped baby’s carrier and theorized the baby had tugged it loose. She wasn’t sure whether the necklace belonged to Amanda or the kidnapped baby’s mother, but it provided a convenient cover story.

“Where was this coffee shop?” the forest ranger asked.

The other people who’d heard the story had taken it at face value, asking few follow-up questions. She groped for an answer that would be general enough.

“Upstate New York.”

“Really?” He put down the sketch, rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward, his eyes still fastened on hers. “So you drove all the way to Pennsylvania from upstate New York to return a piece of costume jewelry?”

Stated that way, her story sounded ridiculous and unbelievable. She clasped her hands, feeling sweat on her palms. She made sure to meet his eyes so he wouldn’t know for certain that she was lying. “Oh, no. I happened to be passing through.”

“With a sketch?”

She bit her lower lip so the truth wouldn’t come tumbling out. Her intuition told her the forest ranger could be trusted, but her instincts had failed her in a catastrophic way when she’d run across Amanda and the baby. It wasn’t difficult to understood why the cops had a hard time believing she’d agreed to babysit for a stranger.

This man was as much an unknown as Amanda had been. She didn’t need to justify herself. Kelly tapped the sketch with her index finger. “Do you know her or don’t you?”

“Not as a brunette, as a redhead.” He straightened but kept watching her just as closely. “I have some photos of her I can show you.”

Adrenaline coursed through Kelly. It made sense that a woman who kidnapped a child might also disguise her appearance. She couldn’t keep the eagerness from her voice. “Where is she now?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.

A static-filled voice suddenly came over his two-way radio. He pulled the device from his belt, uttering a quick, “Excuse me. I have to take this.”

The man at the other end of the line said something about a black bear rooting through garbage at a campsite. The forest ranger listened, nodding, frustration chasing across his features. He signed off.

“We’ll have to continue this later,” he said. “Are you staying in town?”

Now that she’d stumbled across a lead, she would be. “Yes. When can you meet me?”

He glanced at the clock on the wall, which showed it was already past three. “How about seven o’clock? My place. I’ll show you those photos.”

He reached into his wallet, pulled out a card and handed it to her. Chase Bradford. Pennsylvania Game Commission. “That’s my home address and telephone number. Do you have a card? A number where I can reach you?”

She didn’t dare give him her cell-phone number and she hadn’t yet checked into a hotel. It seemed likely that a forest ranger would have contacts in the law-enforcement community with access to information databases. He had no reason to investigate her now, but she needed to think ahead and be smart.

“I don’t have a cell phone,” she lied, “but I’ll be at your house at seven.”

He appeared reluctant to leave her, but she sensed he was a man who didn’t shirk his duties. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Kelly,” she answered automatically before her newfound sense of self-preservation kicked in. “Kelly Delaney.”

“Where are you from, Kelly?”

Kelly Carmichael was from Wenona, New York. Kelly Delaney, who happened to be a college friend who shared her first name and had also majored in education, wasn’t. She dredged up the name of her friend’s hometown from the Christmas cards they still exchanged. “Schenectady.”

If the forest ranger got suspicious and had a friend run Kelly Delaney’s name, he wouldn’t find anything to sound alarm bells.

“I’ll see you tonight, Kelly Delaney.”

After he left the shop, her shoulders drooped and she cradled her head in her hands. She prayed that Chase Bradford would have information that would lead her to Amanda.

Because now, in the eyes of the law, Kelly wasn’t only an accused criminal.

She was a fugitive with an alias.



K ELLY HEARD THE CRIES before she spotted the woman. She sat on a park bench adjacent to a deserted playground, a baby in her arms.

The gray clouds, heavy with the threat of rain, had kept the regulars away. No children scampered up the stairs to the clubhouse or swung from the swings. There was just the lone woman and the baby.

“Shut up!” The woman’s voice, rich with frustration, carried on the breeze. “I can’t take it anymore! Why won’t you stop crying?”

Kelly didn’t hesitate. She veered from the path, toward the playground, walking at a fast clip. “Excuse me, but can I help?”

The woman turned around. She was an attractive brunette about Kelly’s age with tears streaking down her cheeks. Lines of strain bracketed her mouth and creased her forehead.

“Oh, yes.” She stood up and held out the baby. “Could you hold him for just a minute?”

It was a baby boy about three or four months old with blue eyes and light-blond hair, his face red from crying. Kelly’s heart melted. She held out her arms for the baby. “Sure.”

The sky darkened and thunder rumbled, followed by loud voices, one male, one female.

“Where do you want to go to dinner?”

“That Italian place on the corner looked good.”

Kelly frowned, trying to figure out what the man and woman were doing in the park. Where had they come from? And why couldn’t she see them? For that matter, where was the baby and the woman who couldn’t stand his crying? What had happened to the park? All she saw now was blackness.

Realization dawned, and her eyes snapped open. She wasn’t in a park in Wenona at all, but in a room with the shades pulled down, lying on a feather mattress.

She’d been dreaming about stumbling across Amanda and Corey—no, not Corey. The kidnapped baby’s real name was Eric—on that fateful day she’d tried to help out a stranger. If the dream had continued, she would have seen herself agreeing to babysit for a few hours until Amanda pulled herself together.

A dream. It had only been a dream. As she struggled to come more fully awake, she dredged up the past few hours.

Wandering through Indigo Springs looking for a room, which had proved to be a tough task with the Fourth of July just three days away.

Checking into a room she really couldn’t afford at the Blue Stream Bed-and-Breakfast.

Phoning her home answering machine to discover Spencer Yates was still trying to work out a deal with the DA and the judge had scheduled a preliminary hearing nine days from today.

Falling asleep on top of the comforter.

The noise she’d heard hadn’t been thunder but some of the other guests descending the wooden stairs outside her room. But it shouldn’t be dinnertime yet. Amanda had lain down around four-thirty, setting the alarm on her cell phone to wake her up at five-thirty so she had time to get ready and eat something before meeting Chase Bradford.

She turned her head, catching a glimpse of the time on the bedside clock: seven-fifteen.

She bolted to a sitting position, shoving the hair back from her face, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

The alarm must not have gone off.

She dashed for the bathroom, grateful that the room came with a private one, splashed water on her face and peered at herself in the mirror. With smudges of mascara under her eyes, her clothes wrinkled and her hair sticking up in all directions, she looked a fright, like the kind of crazy woman who might actually snatch a baby.

It wasn’t the kind of image she should present to Chase Bradford.

She turned on the shower and stripped out of her clothes. She hated being late for the meeting, but she could call him from the phone in the hall once she was presentable. She’d shown Chase’s business card to the desk clerk who’d checked her in so she already had directions.

The talkative clerk knew Chase because she volunteered in the church nursery during Sunday services and he had a little boy he sometimes left there. The clerk knew Mandy, the boy’s mother, less well but had let it slip that Mandy had moved in with Chase when she got pregnant.

Fighting a ridiculous wave of disappointment that Chase was either married or at the very least romantically involved with Mandy, she stepped into the shower. She wasn’t sure why it mattered except that Chase had seemed solid and dependable, the kind of man who’d see through a woman like Amanda.

But she was jumping ahead of herself. She wasn’t yet sure that Amanda and Mandy were the same woman. She’d assumed Amanda was childless because it seemed far-fetched that a mother would kidnap a baby. But then nothing about the devastating events of the past few days made sense. If Chase was involved with the woman who’d perpetrated the crime, that would be good news. Surely he’d have some ideas about where she might have gone.

As the water streamed down on Kelly and grew cold, a chilling question occurred to her. If Kelly was on the right track and Chase found out the real reason Kelly was searching for Amanda/Mandy, which woman would he be more likely to believe was guilty of kidnapping?

The woman who was mother to his son, or a complete stranger?



C HASE’S FATHER PACED TO the bay window that overlooked the street and peered into the twilight, a journey he’d been taking with increasing regularity.

“She’s already an hour late.” He stated a fact of which Chase was only too aware. “Think she stood you up?”

“It’s starting to look that way,” Chase admitted, internally kicking himself for the way he’d handled his first meeting with Kelly Delaney. He’d sensed she wasn’t being completely honest but had failed to ask where in town she was staying. Tracking her down wouldn’t be that difficult—if she was still in Indigo Springs.

It had been pure bad luck to get called away on that nuisance-black-bear call before he got any useful information but he hadn’t anticipated her not showing.

Any woman who’d go to the trouble of drawing a sketch and showing it around town had seemed a good bet to follow through on her search.

“Maybe she figured out she was looking for a different woman,” his father theorized.

Chase shook his head. “I don’t think so, Dad. She has a necklace I remember Mandy wearing. Although I’ve got to admit it seems strange for her to go to all this trouble to give it back.”

“Not so strange. Some people are good Samaritans. She could be one of them.” His father’s voice caught on the last word and he groaned, his face turning pale.

“Dad, are you all right?” Chase asked. His father hadn’t seemed well all night, but had waved off Chase’s earlier concerns, claiming he’d overdone the yard work.

His father swallowed, seemed to take stock of himself, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Must have been a cramp. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Ba, Ba,” Toby cried, distracting Chase from his father’s problem. The baby sat on the floor in the middle of the room, his face creased with delight as he patted a large colorful ball. The ball rolled away. He giggled, crawling after it as fast as his chubby knees would carry him.

“You almost got it, bud,” Chase’s father called, seeming like his old self again. “Keep on going.”

Toby reached the ball and batted at it, only to have it roll farther away. He laughed wildly, with Chase and his father joining in.

It was a simple moment, not unlike a thousand others since Toby had come to live with them.

It brought home how much Chase needed to find Mandy so he could get legal custody of the boy he already loved as a son. He shouldn’t have made the mistake of assuming Kelly Delaney was as desperate to locate her as he was.

The doorbell rang, surprising them both. His father had kept such a close watch on the window, he would have seen headlights had a car pulled up.

Figuring their caller was most likely a neighbor, Chase went to the door and pulled it open.

Kelly Delaney stood there like an answer to a prayer.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I took a nap and fell asleep. I would have called but somebody was using the phone at the B and B.”

She looked like a different woman than she had at the ice-cream shop. That woman had seemed exhausted, her face pale and her shirt so wrinkled it appeared as though she’d slept in it.

This woman wore slim-fitting blue capris and a darker blue short-sleeved shirt. She had thick, shining brown hair and a certain vitality in her face. He’d thought earlier she resembled Mandy, but now he saw her face possessed a sweetness that Mandy’s lacked. Her hazel eyes were a little bigger and wider set, her brows thinner, her nose smaller with a tiny bump in the center.

He stepped back, playing it cool, trying not to let on how relieved he was to see her. “Come on in.”

He went to shut the door behind her, noticing there was no car in the driveway or at the curb. First no cell phone. Now no car? “Where’s your car?” he asked.

“I walked,” she said.

“From town?” Chase and his father lived outside the Indigo Springs city limits where houses were set back from a two-lane road on an acre of land or more.

“It wasn’t far,” she said.

It was a mile and a half, about a thirty-minute walk, most without the benefit of sidewalks. An easy distance for the hikers who regularly descended on Indigo Springs, but she wasn’t wearing hiking shoes.

“Do you have a car?”

“Back home.” She cleared her throat before she said, “I took the bus to Indigo Springs. It made more sense than driving, what with the wear and tear on my car and the high price of gas.”

Yet she’d been able to afford a night in a bed-and-breakfast during the height of tourist season.

Toby let out a loud, baby laugh, drawing their attention. He’d balanced his torso on the ball, which rocked back and forth.

“That must be your son,” Kelly said, an assumption Chase didn’t correct. In all the ways that counted, he was Toby’s father. She walked into the house, following the laugh as though Toby was a tiny Pied Piper. “He’s precious! How old is he?”

“Twelve months,” Chase said.

She clapped her hands and smiled at the baby. “You are such a cutie.”

“Thank you,” his father said.

Her head turned sharply, her eyes sparkling when she spotted his dad. “I meant the baby, but you’re not so bad, either.”

His father still looked a little pale, but he laughed and extended his hand. “I’m Charlie Bradford, Chase’s father.”

“I’m Kelly,” she said as they shook, then added almost as an afterthought, “Delaney.”

“Nice to meet you, Kelly Delaney.”

“What’s your grandson’s name?”

“Toby.” His father didn’t correct her misconception, either, but then he’d probably started thinking of himself as Toby’s grandfather soon after Mandy moved in. Mandy had certainly treated him that way, leaving him alone with Toby for large chunks of time.

“Hi, Toby,” she said brightly.

The baby turned at the sound of his name, gurgling out a greeting.

“You sure are a handsome devil, but that’s not surprising.” Kelly slanted his father a teasing look. “We’ve already established good looks run in the family.”

His father beamed, his chest puffing out. Chase looked on in wonder. In the space of minutes, Kelly Delaney had managed to charm both his father and his baby. She might have captivated Chase, too, if he hadn’t noticed how nervous she’d been at the ice-cream parlor. Something about her reactions had been off, something that warned him to beware.

“I hear you’re going to help us find Mandy,” his father announced. Obviously no internal warning system was cautioning him to beware. “Can you believe a mother could leave her baby the way she did, especially when Chase was so good to her? I told Chase she—”

“I haven’t told Kelly about Mandy yet, Dad.” Chase cut off his father in midsentence. “I wanted to show her the photos first.”

“Of course,” his father said, but he sounded puzzled.

Chase went to pick up the photographs he’d left on a side table while his father moved to cut off Toby, who was crawling toward the kitchen. Chase theorized the baby hadn’t yet taken his first step because he was such a champion crawler.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” His father bent down, grimacing as though movement was difficult, then he swung the boy into the air. He wrinkled his nose. “No wonder he’s so happy. I think his diaper’s loaded.”

“I can change him, Dad,” Chase offered. Although he was reluctant to leave his father alone with Kelly, he was more disinclined to take advantage of his father.

“No, I’ll do it,” his father said. “It makes sense to give him his bath now. You two have things to talk about.”

His father left the room. Was his gait a bit slower than normal? Toby grinned at them over Chase’s father’s shoulder. “Bye-bye,” the baby called.

“Bye-bye.” Kelly waved, then waited until the pair was out of sight before she said, “Your dad’s wonderful with him. You’re lucky to have him.”

“He tells me that all the time,” Chase said. “It wouldn’t be so annoying if he wasn’t right.”

He expected her to smile but she seemed suddenly tense and he realized she was staring at the photos he held. He wondered why she cared so much about finding Mandy. Could it really be because of something as simple as returning a lost necklace?

“Here you go.” He handed her the photos, watching her carefully as she examined them. There were two of them, both shot by a neighbor at a backyard cookout. In the first, he and Mandy sat beside each other at a picnic table, their bodies not touching. The second photo was of Mandy and Toby. Mandy wasn’t smiling in that one, either.

“It’s her. It’s Amanda,” she cried, the relief evident not only in her voice but in her posture. “Her hair color’s different but it’s definitely her. Look at the necklace she’s wearing in this photo. It’s different than the one I have, but it’s a similar style.”

“She has a thing for jewelry,” Chase said. “The necklace you have was one of her favorites.”

She lifted her head to gape at him. “You recognized the necklace?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“I don’t understand. Why show me the photos if you were sure Amanda and your wife are the same woman?”

“She’s not my wife,” he corrected. “And I showed you the photos so you could be sure, too. I don’t want you to hold anything back when you tell me where you met her and what she said to you.”

“Did she leave you?”

He wouldn’t have stated it quite that way, but he wasn’t about to confide the complicated nature of his relationship with Mandy, not when large parts of Kelly’s story didn’t track. But he had to tell her something to get her to open up.

“She left almost three weeks ago,” he said. “Aside from a message on my cell phone saying she couldn’t stand living here any longer, I haven’t heard from her.”

“Why would she leave Toby behind?”

“She didn’t much like being a mother, either,” he replied truthfully, but he’d said enough. It was his turn to ask the questions. “You said you met her at a coffee shop in upstate New York. Where exactly?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Schenectady.”

“When was this?”

“Last Saturday,” she said. “Like I told you, it was crowded. There was an empty seat at my table, and she asked if she could take it.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing important. She seemed…frazzled. Nervous. She made a remark about not liking Schenectady any more than Indigo Springs. I got the impression she was passing through town.”

Passing through. It was the same expression Kelly had used to explain what she was doing in Indigo Springs, which brought them to the most far-fetched part of her story. It had nagged at Chase all afternoon, because it just didn’t compute.

“That’s quite a coincidence that you ended up in Indigo Springs a week later,” he said. “How did you happen to be in Pennsylvania?”

Another hesitation. “I was visiting friends. In Scranton.” The geography only made a vague sense, which she seemed to realize. “I decided to take a detour.”

Chase mentally reviewed her story. She was hundreds of miles from home, showing around a sketch of a woman who was essentially a stranger to return a necklace that wasn’t worth much more than a hundred dollars.

Although she’d answered all his questions, there had been long pauses before some of her replies as though she was thinking about what to say.

Chase wasn’t buying her story, but he couldn’t think of a single reason for her to lie. Before the night was over, he intended to unravel the puzzle.

The heavy sound of footsteps interrupted his thoughts. His father stumbled into the family room, his face gray, clutching at his chest.

“I put Toby…in his crib,” he said haltingly.

Chase forgot about Kelly Delaney and her lies and sprang to his feet. He crossed the room to his father’s side, his own chest seizing with worry. “Dad? What’s wrong?”

“I think…I’m having…a heart attack.”




CHAPTER FOUR


C HASE HAD ALWAYS BEEN GOOD in a crisis, but his mind rebelled. This couldn’t be happening to his father, who always seemed so hale and hearty. So invincible. Yet his father’s eyes were shut in obvious pain, his hand covering his heart, his face contorted with fear.

The same way Chase’s mother had looked before she died.

Chase’s mind flashed back nine months to the visit he’d paid to his parents while he was training to be a conservation officer. His father had gone to the grocery store to pick up milk. His mother had seemed overly quiet as she and Chase watched a Seinfeld rerun. She’d complained of not feeling well, then collapsed in the armchair, the canned laughter on television an incongruous backdrop.

No! his mind screamed. He couldn’t lose his father that way, too.

He should have seen the warning signs. Earlier today his father had dismissed his back pain as a by-product of too much yard work. He hadn’t mentioned his chest, but his discomfort had been obvious. Why hadn’t Chase put it together?

“I’ll call 911 and get them to send an ambulance.” Kelly’s voice, full of authority.

“No!” Chase stopped her before she reached a phone. He’d summoned an ambulance during his mother’s attack, and she’d died before the EMTs had reached the house. “There’s no time. I can get him to a hospital quicker myself.”

He put his arm around his staggering father to support him, trying to figure out how best to get him into his Jeep. He’d left the vehicle in the garage, the door to which was off the kitchen.

“Where are your car keys?” Kelly asked.

It took him a moment to retrieve the information from his scrambled brain. “Hanging from a hook on the side of the refrigerator.”

She rushed toward the kitchen, calling over her shoulder. “Do you have any aspirin?”

Of course. Aspirin thinned the blood, lessening the size of blood clots. He should have thought of that.

“In the long, thin cabinet on the left.”

Chase’s father was breathing laboriously, leaning heavily on him as they continued walking toward the kitchen.

“Chest hurts,” he choked out.

“Hang in there, Dad,” Chase said, fighting rising panic.

But then Kelly was there, meeting them with a glass of water in one hand, a single aspirin in the other, ordering his father to chew instead of swallowing because she’d read somewhere that chewing got the aspirin into the blood stream faster.

She stood by while his father crunched the aspirin, then guided the glass to his lips with a sure, steady hand. “Don’t drink too much. Great. That’s great.”

She was on the move again, opening the door that led from the house to the garage, handing Chase his keys, flipping the switch that operated the automatic garage door, helping Chase situate his father in the Jeep.

Acting as if she was part of the family instead of a relative stranger.

Toby, he thought.

He couldn’t leave Toby with a woman he’d just met. A woman he’d convinced himself not ten minutes ago was lying.

“I need to take Toby with me,” he said.

“Don’t worry about Toby,” she said. “I’ll stay here with him.”

“But—”

“Listen to me,” she interrupted in that same calm, authoritative voice. “You need to get your father to a hospital. I promise I’ll take good care of your son.”

Her eyes bored into his, clear and convincing. His father groaned, the sound causing pain to Chase’s own heart.

“If it’ll ease your mind, call a neighbor while you’re on your way,” she suggested. “But you need to go. Right now!”

She was right. It was vital to get a heart-attack victim to a hospital as quickly as possible. Doctors could administer drugs that broke up clots, stopping the heart attack in progress and limiting damage. Chase made a snap decision, the only one he could make.

“Okay, I’m going.” He rushed around to the driver’s side of the Jeep and got in.

His father was slumped in the seat, secured by the seat belt that Kelly had already fastened.

“Kelly’s a good woman,” his father muttered out the side of his mouth. “Toby’ll be fine.”

The fate of his father was less certain. His face was frighteningly pale. Chase turned the key in the ignition, mentally reviewing the winding route to the nearest hospital, figuring out how fast he dared drive to give doctors the best chance to save his father.

The trip passed in a blur, with Chase dividing his attention between the road and his father. It seemed an eternity before he pulled up to the emergency room.

Incredibly his father was able to walk into the hospital under his own power, with minimal help from Chase. The E.R. staff didn’t take any chances when Chase reported his father was suffering from chest pain. The nurses hustled him into a wheelchair and transported him into an examining room.

Somebody asked Chase to move his pickup from the emergency-room entrance. When he returned to the waiting room, an admissions clerk summoned him to her cubicle and instructed him to fill out paperwork.

Only then did Chase have time to phone Judy Allen, the mother of three who lived a few doors down, to ask her to check on Toby and Kelly. He got a return call an hour later, shortly after the E.R. doctor informed him they were running tests on his father.

“Kelly has everything under control. She was putting Toby to sleep when I got here, and we’re just sitting here talking,” his neighbor told him. “How’s your father?”

Chase didn’t find out the answer for another hour, a diagnosis his father was still marveling over much later as they drove home through the dark night, traveling at a much lower rate of speed.

“Heartburn,” his father repeated. “Can you believe it was only heartburn?”

“Now that I know you had chili for lunch, yes,” Chase said. “I should have asked what you’d had to eat, but the back pain threw me. That’s a warning sign.”

“In this case, it was only a sign that I’d been working in the yard,” his father groused.

“Hindsight,” Chase said, as he pulled the Jeep into the garage. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

The house was silent, the peace almost absolute, suggesting that no one was awake. Chase put a finger to his lips and peeked into the family room.

Kelly was asleep on the coach, one hand resting on a slightly flushed cheek, still wearing her tennis shoes. Judy was gone.

“She’s asleep,” he whispered to his father.

“This old fool needs to get some sleep, too,” his father said. “But better an old fool than a dead fool.”

His eyes moistening at the thought that his father could have met the same end as his mother, Chase impulsively embraced the other man. “Good night, Dad,” he whispered.

“Good night, son.” His father clapped him on the back, his voice as unsteady as Chase’s.

After his father went upstairs, Chase quietly approached the sofa. Kelly’s face looked even sweeter in sleep, her lashes sweeping her cheeks, her lips slightly parted as she breathed in and out softly.

He gently removed her shoes, then straightened. She stirred, rearranging herself into a more comfortable position. He held himself immobile, reluctant to make a sound that would wake her. He’d check on Toby next, but he already knew with a soul-deep certainty that the baby was fine.

The irony struck him even as he watched her sleep.

A few hours ago he didn’t trust she’d told him the truth about Mandy, but he’d trusted her with something infinitely more precious.

Toby.

His desperation to find Mandy had driven his suspicion but his gut made the decision to accept what Kelly had told him at face value.

What possible reason could she have to lie anyway?



K ELLY AWAKENED T HURSDAY morning to the sounds of a baby’s giggles, followed by a man’s deep laughter.

Unlike the previous afternoon when she’d woken up disoriented after dreaming of Mandy and the kidnapped baby, she knew instantly where she was. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa while waiting for Chase Bradford and his father to return from the hospital.

She remembered her eyelids growing heavy while she puzzled over why a woman who left behind a baby as darling as Toby would resort to kidnapping. Thinking she’d rest for just a little while, she’d closed her eyes. Now it was morning.

“Here comes the train,” she heard Chase say. “Choo choo choo choo. Open the tunnel.”

She swung her legs off the sofa and got to her bare feet. Had someone taken off her shoes? She put them on, then found a bathroom where she smoothed her hair and clothes the best she could before following the voices to the kitchen.

“Good job, buddy.” Chase sat in front of Toby’s high chair, a small bowl of oatmeal in front of him.

Toby rapped his hands on the pull-down tray, his face and bib surprisingly free of food splatter. The choo-choo had a good engineer.

“Let’s try an airplane. Scratch that. Too ordinary. How ’bout a flying saucer? Your mouth can be a black hole. Open up.” Chase made believe the spoon was flying, then started humming the theme to X-Files.

Kelly laughed aloud.

Chase swung his head around, grinning when he spotted her watching them, yesterday’s suspicion nowhere in sight. He was already dressed in his ranger’s uniform, the light-khaki color of the shirt bringing out the tan of his skin. Funny how she hadn’t noticed what a handsome man he was until this moment.

“We’ve got company, bud. Could be the government. There could be trouble if she reports a UFO sighting.” His spoon was still hovering above Toby’s mouth. “Quick. Open up. Get rid of the evidence.”

Toby might have been obeying Chase or he might have been smiling with his mouth open. Either way, Chase put the spoon in his mouth and the oatmeal—er, the UFO—disappeared.

“Way to go, Toby!” Chase raised his palm, parting his middle and ring fingers in the Vulcan salute from the old Star Trek shows. Toby clapped with glee.

“Doesn’t that mean live long and prosper?” Kelly asked.

“Not in this case,” Chase said. “In this case it means Toby just kicked some baby butt. Didn’t you, sport?”

The baby laughed louder, making it impossible not to join in. With Chase’s face creased in a smile and laugh lines showing around his eyes, he barely resembled the man who’d questioned her with such fervor the night before. Her inability to understand Mandy deepened. The woman hadn’t left only her baby, she’d left Chase.

“I hope you slept okay,” he said.

“I did,” she said, surprised it was true. Since her arrest, a good night’s sleep had been an elusive commodity. “But you should have woken me when you got back.”

“I tried,” he said, “but you couldn’t hear me over your snores.”

Horrified, she put a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I snored.”

“You don’t,” he said, laughing. “In fact, you hardly make a sound. But you should have seen your face when you thought you did.”

Toby joined Chase’s laughter, although he couldn’t possibly have understood the trick Chase had played.

“You think that’s funny, do you, Toby?” She ruffled the boy’s blond head. “Don’t tell anyone, but I do, too.”

“Whew. That’s a relief.” Chase wiped a hand across his brow. “I’d hate to insult the woman who did me such a huge favor.”

“It was nothing,” she said.

“It was most definitely something. You stayed with Toby so I could get my dad to the hospital.”

“Your neighbor told me it was heartburn,” she said. He’d phoned the house when the results of the EKG had come back, explaining that his father’s heart had checked out fine.

“We didn’t know that at the time,” he said. “If it had been a heart attack, you might have saved his life. You were great. I panicked.”

“You didn’t panic.”

“I did.” He blew breath out his nose, his jaw clenching. After a few moments, he said, “My mom died of a heart attack not even a year ago. When I saw him standing there, clutching his chest…Well, all I could think was how much I didn’t want to lose him.”

Her own heart softened at the sorrow that laced his words. “I’m sorry about your mother, but you would have done fine even if I hadn’t been here.”

“Probably.” He met her eyes. “But I’m glad you were here.”

Toby cried out something incomprehensible, but made it understood he was less than pleased that he’d ceased to be the center of attention.

“Easy there, sport.” Chase bent over and undid Toby’s bib, smiling when the baby stroked his cheek. To Kelly, he said, “Could you watch him for a minute? I’ll wake my dad, then drive you back to town on my way to work.”

“Please, don’t,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “Your father had a rough night. He could use more sleep. I’ll stay with Toby until he wakes up.”

He frowned, obviously reluctant to agree. Why shouldn’t he be distrustful? Kelly asked herself. He clearly hadn’t believed her story about the necklace. Despite what had happened last night, she was still a stranger.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking. Of course you don’t want to leave Toby with me.”

“That’s not—”

“I should apologize for sending your neighbor home last night,” she interrupted. “But she was so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and she needs to get up early with her youngest. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I didn’t,” he said.

“Of course we’re nearly strangers and…” She trailed off as his denial penetrated her brain. “Do you mean that? Were you really okay with me sending your neighbor home last night?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m okay with you staying with Toby now, too. I just don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“You wouldn’t be,” she refuted. “Really. I’d like to stay with him.”

“Are you sure?”

“If you are.”

He picked up his car keys, kissed Toby on top of the head and grinned at her. “Of course I’m sure. What did you think? That I’d be afraid you’d run off with him?”

“No,” she managed to choke out, imagining how he’d react if he knew the charges she was facing. “Of course not.”

“If you want, leave the necklace and I’ll see Mandy gets it when I find her,” he said. “I’ve gotta run. How ’bout you? Are you going back to New York today?”

“I, uh, haven’t decided.” She hadn’t found out all she could about Mandy, but launching an interrogation when he’d apparently abandoned his didn’t seem wise.

“Help yourself to coffee and whatever’s in the refrigerator,” he called.

He was halfway out of the kitchen before he hesitated, turned around and retraced his steps, not stopping until he stood directly in front of her. She tipped her chin, her gaze focusing on his mouth. His lips were lush, a tantalizing contrast to his masculine features. Her breath caught and for a crazy moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. But then he stuck out a hand.

She took it, and a bizarre sensation hit her like tiny fingers dancing over her skin.

“I’m sorry about all those questions last night,” he said. “If I don’t see you again, thanks. For everything.”

He was dismissing her, she realized. He held on to her hand for a few moments longer. Or maybe she was the one doing the holding. Then he let go and she felt…bereft. And guilty as hell for convincing him she’d told the truth about Mandy.

When he was gone, she attached the suction toy she found on the kitchen table to Toby’s high chair, taking in his oatmeal breath and the lingering smell of baby powder.

“What do you think, Toby?” she asked him while he played with the colorful toy’s spinning, sliding, blinking shapes. “Am I a terrible person? And did you see me almost drool when he shook my hand? I mean, he’s hot, but really.”

“I don’t think you’re a terrible person because you think my son’s hot.” Charlie Bradford said, grinning at her from under the archway that led to the kitchen.




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