“She looks to be about five, wouldn’t you say?” Holly asked, a trace of excitement in her voice. “He’s just a puppy, but he kind of looks like Wally. Biff must be a golden retriever, too.”
Chris turned the page, and there were more photos of his mother as a child, and the dog—no longer a puppy—who appeared to be her best friend. There were photos of Saralee with other girls, too, but Biff seemed to feature in most of them. Chris flipped through all the way to the end, then quickly opened the third photo album. There were fewer photos of Saralee here, as if she’d become self-conscious about having her picture taken when she grew into her teens. But there were still photos of her with Biff, and Chris felt a sudden ache in the region of his heart, an unexpected kinship with his long-dead mother he’d never felt before. “I never realized...”
“Girls and dogs,” Holly reminded him. “I told you a strong bond can exist between a girl and her dog.” She went through several pages, one by one, Saralee maturing with each page. They were almost to the end before they realized there were no more photos of Biff. Holly turned back to the previous page, and there was a photo of Saralee all dressed up, with a young man at her side, obviously her date for the evening. There were other teenagers in the background, and the caption read “Saralee and Jeff—Sweet Sixteen Birthday Party.” Captured in the bottom right corner of the photo was Biff. Just one ear and his muzzle, but it was definitely him.
But on the following page and all the subsequent pages, Biff was noticeably absent. One picture caught Chris’s attention, titled “Saralee and Luke—Junior Prom.” He touched it, thinking how much Annabel resembled their mother when they were both that age. Annabel was a blonde and Saralee was a brunette, but their faces were nearly identical.
“Junior prom,” Holly said softly. “She would have been seventeen.” She was silent for a moment. “Biff must have died sometime between her sixteenth birthday and her junior prom. Seventeen.”
“Yeah.” Chris carefully went back through everything between the Sweet Sixteen and Junior Prom photos, but there was no picture indicating exactly when Biff had died, or where he might be buried. Mama would have buried him in a special place, he told himself, knowing it for the truth. Just as he would have buried Bouncer in a special place...if Bouncer hadn’t been euthanized at the pound. If Chris had been allowed to bury his dog.
He couldn’t help but wonder—if his mother really was buried somewhere here on her parents’ land—if his father had buried her near her beloved dog. It didn’t sound like the father who’d blackmailed his children into visiting him in prison. The father who’d grudgingly doled out meager clues to his wife’s burial place. But it did sound like a man who’d once been in love with his wife. Who hadn’t meant to kill her...and then felt remorse when he saw what he’d done. Who’d wanted to make amends in some way...even in something as simple as this.
Holly was right, he realized suddenly. You can never really know another man’s motivations. You might think you do, but...
Chris didn’t subscribe to the theory that to know all was to forgive all. His father had killed ten people. Not surprising he’d gotten the death penalty in a state where the death penalty was often imposed in capital murder cases, but behind the scenes political machinations had gotten those death sentences commuted to sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole—to be served consecutively. Matthew would never get out of prison—except in a box. And Chris couldn’t be sorry. Maybe his father had been sick, but if so, it was a sickness that could never be cured. No one else’s loved one would ever die at Matthew’s hand, and Chris was fine with that. Matthew was in prison—exactly where he belonged.
But...
Holly was right about that, too, he acknowledged. No one is all good or all bad. Mama wouldn’t have loved him if he was purely evil. And she did love him—I know she did.
Which meant that Holly could be right and he could be wrong. Maybe his father had just wanted to see all his children one last time before he died. No matter what he had to do to make it happen.
* * *
Holly swung on the front porch swing while Chris strode around the outside of the house and the barn with an exuberant Wally at his heels. He’d told her he really didn’t expect to find anything—it was twenty years ago, he’d stated flatly—but he had to look anyway.
Holly watched Chris from afar, her thoughts in turmoil. Every so often she pushed the swing with one booted foot to keep it moving. The hinges squeaked—needs oiling, she told herself—but it was still soothing to swing. And she needed something to soothe and calm her, because she realized she was in over her head.
Whatever this was with Chris had gone from zero to sixty in nothing flat. Last night—she couldn’t get last night out of her mind. She’d never looked on sex as a recreational pastime. Sex with Grant had been an extension of her love for him, and even though it hadn’t been...well...hadn’t been anything like sex with Chris, she’d never in a million years have imagined she could react that way with a man she didn’t love.
Three times in one night. The thought chased around and around in her mind, three orgasms that had shattered her image of herself. She’d almost convinced herself the first time had been a fluke...until the second time. Until Chris’s fingers had intertwined with hers and he’d whispered in her ear, I’m going to please you until you can’t take any more. And when I’m done, you’ll know just how perfect you are.
Her response the second time had been as cataclysmic as the first, and she’d thought nothing could ever surpass either of them. She’d been wrong. Because the third time, when he’d said, I want to watch you come. Will you let me? she hadn’t been able to refuse—she’d melted just thinking about it. She’d always been curious, but Grant had never wanted to do it, and she’d never pressed.
But Chris seemed to have no inhibitions. And he hadn’t let her have them, either—that was what she couldn’t get over, how utterly different she was when Chris was in her bed.
Best time ever, she acknowledged now. All because of a man who tugged at her heartstrings on so many levels. A solitary man who should never have been allowed to be such a loner—he was made for laughter and sweet loving. For children’s hands trustingly clutching his, and a woman’s tender smiles.
And sex. Holy cow, was he made for sex. All six foot two, hundred seventy-five pounds of solid muscle and bone, with an unerring knowledge of her body, as if she was made for him. As if he was made for her.
That thought brought her up short, and she dragged one foot on the ground to stop the swing. It wasn’t possible. She’d known him for less than a week. “Not even a week,” she muttered under her breath. But if she were honest with herself—something she tried very hard to be, always—it felt as if she’d known him forever, because she could usually tell what he was thinking, the way long-married couples seemed to be able to do.
Long-married couples? What made you think of that?
And sleeping with him? What was that all about? Not something she’d ever done before, sleep with a man she barely knew. Which begged the question—why had she slept with Chris?
She shied away from answering, because the question alone scared the hell out of her...much less the answer.
* * *
The drive home seemed to take longer than the drive out to the farm in Bearson, mainly because Chris and Holly didn’t talk much. He glanced at her from time to time as she gazed out the window at the passing scenery—scrubland that wasn’t much to look at.
Finally he couldn’t take it any longer. “What are you thinking about?”
She turned and resettled herself against the truck door. “Last night.”
“Before, during or after?”
She laughed as if she couldn’t help it. “Why is it,” she asked him, trying to look stern but failing miserably, “that you can always make me laugh, even when I don’t want to?”
“Answer my question first.” He cast her a wicked look before firmly fixing his gaze on the road. “Then I’ll answer yours.”
Laughter pealed out of her, and she shook her head. “Mine was a rhetorical question. I’m not expecting an answer.”
“I am.” And just like that he wanted her. His voice dropped, the husky sound taking on sexual overtones that at one time had come as natural to him as breathing. “Before, during or after?” He stole a sideways glance at her, and loved the way her cheeks betrayed what she was thinking, and guessed, “During.”
“Yes.” It was just a thread of a sound.
“If we hadn’t been interrupted this morning...”
“Yes?”
His answer mattered to her. He didn’t know how he knew, just that it did. So instead of teasing her—his first inclination because it was such fun to tease her—he confessed, “I wanted to see you in the light of day. Not with the sheets pulled up under your chin like they were this morning. But in all your glory.”
“You...you shouldn’t say things like that to me,” she said faintly.
“Why not?” When she couldn’t come up with an answer, he said, “Tell me you don’t regret last night.”
“Oh, no!” Those little flags of color were back in her cheeks, but she leaned over and placed a hand on his arm as if she thought he needed reassurance. He did...but he wasn’t about to admit it. “I could never regret last night.”
His ego liked hearing that. A lot. That was something else he wasn’t going to admit, though, so all he said was “Me, neither.” But he couldn’t keep the sudden, lighthearted grin off his face.
* * *
The first thing Holly did when she got back to Chris’s house was call Ian and Jamie, talking with them for almost half an hour while they babbled in their childish way about everything they’d done that day. Then Peg had gotten on the phone, filling her in on how the twins were doing. “They’re fine today. No issues. And I wasn’t going to tell you,” Peg admitted, “but...”
“But what?” Sudden concern made her voice sharp.
“We did have a teensy scene at bedtime last night. Jamie wanted you, and when I told him you weren’t there and weren’t going to be there, he dissolved into tears and sobbed, ‘Call-her-on-the-phone.’”
“Oh, Peg, why didn’t you call me?” Guilt speared through Holly that she’d been having the time of her life with Chris while her baby needed her.
“I would have, Holly...if he’d continued crying. But Susan gave him her teddy bear to sleep with—you know the one that’s bigger than she is?—in addition to his bunny, and he calmed down after that. It only took three bedtime stories and four lullabies and he was out like a light. We haven’t had any issues today, although when I asked Ian and Jamie what they wanted for breakfast, they both said, ‘Waffos!’ So I—”
“You had toaster waffles in your freezer.”
“Well, no, I didn’t, but no big deal. I dragged out the waffle iron, mixed up a batch of waffle batter, and they were happy as clams.”
“Oh, Peg,” Holly repeated, but this time it wasn’t a reproach of her friend. This time it was said in gratitude that Peg was doing all this for her. “Thank you so much! I can never repay you for—”
Her response was typical Peg—she snorted a very unladylike snort. “Don’t talk to me about repayment, missy,” she told Holly. Then her tone changed. “Besides...”
“Besides what?”
“Our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up at the end of next month, Joe and me.”
She didn’t come right out and ask, but Holly quickly volunteered, “I’d love to keep Susan and Bobby for you and Joe. You could go somewhere nice and romantic.”
Peg chuckled in a suggestive way. “Nice and romantic is how we ended up with two children barely a year apart.”
Holly was forced to smile. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, and we’ll be happy to take you up on your offer...as soon as your in-laws are in jail.” That reminder drove the smile from Holly’s face. “I know it’s only the first day,” Peg continued, “but are you making any progress?”
“Not on the McCays,” she admitted. “Annabel and Sam have some things to do before we can get started on that. But we may have uncovered something more on where Chris’s mother might be buried.”
* * *
Chris was in his office. He considered calling Annabel and his brothers to tell them what he’d found out about Biff this afternoon, but then chose to shoot one email with the details to all of them instead, saving himself time.
He’d brought all the photo albums back with him, and now he pulled the fourth one out, wondering what else he might uncover. He and Holly hadn’t reviewed the last two photo albums after they’d figured out Biff had died near the end of album number three.
But he regretted his decision to keep looking as soon as he opened the fourth album. Because there on the very first page was a professionally taken picture of his mother and father in their wedding finery. So young. So obviously in love.
Two pages later he came across another picture of his parents, both smiling, with an infant. The caption, in what by now he’d figured was his grandmother’s handwriting, read “Saralee, Matthew and Trevor.”
There were more pictures of Trevor—some with their parents and some by himself—from infant to toddler. Then Chris came upon another professionally shot photo, with three-year-old Trevor looking somewhat self-conscious in a tiny suit, propping up two babies—one in blue and one in pink. And underneath that photo it said “Trevor, Chris and Annabel—our first granddaughter.”
Chris turned the pages slowly. Soon Ridge made an appearance, followed by Ethan, then Sam. Josie still hadn’t shown up by the time Chris came to the end of album four, so he switched to number five. And there was Josie. Baby Josie as he vividly remembered her. He and Annabel had been closer than most brothers and sisters—that bond of twins—and he’d been protective of her...when she wasn’t nudging him with those sharp elbows of hers or trying to wrestle him over something. But Josie had been his baby sister. So tiny, so beautiful, with dark, wispy hair and a baby smile that fascinated him. He’d been eight when Josie was born, and he and Annabel had tried to do whatever they could to help their mother—who’d never really seemed to recover completely after Josie’s birth. “Why didn’t I remember that?” he whispered as the memory came back to him now, crisp and sharp.
Pictures of all seven children now, some that Chris could have sworn were taken at his grandparents’ farm, and— Yes! There was a picture of six of them wedged tightly in the front porch swing, with his parents standing behind them, Josie lying in the crook of his mother’s arm.
Then all at once the photos stopped. Halfway down a page, two-thirds of the way through, the photos stopped. And Chris knew why.
* * *
Holly, with Wally at her heels, found Chris standing at the window in his office, staring out at nothing. She’d intended to pretend to knock, then ask him what he wanted for dinner. But when she saw him, silhouetted by the dying sun’s angled rays through the window, it flashed across her mind that Chris could be alone even in a crowd.
“Chris?”
He swung around sharply, his right hand reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster in what she could tell was an instinctive move. “Holly,” he acknowledged a heartbeat later, his hand dropping to his side. “Sorry. You took me by surprise.”
Wally bounded across the room toward Chris, tail wagging, tongue hanging out. Sure of his reception in a way Holly envied. She would have liked to run to Chris, wrap her arms around him and let him know he wasn’t alone. But she couldn’t do that. Could she?
Chris squatted on his haunches, stroking Wally’s head with both his hands. Scratching behind the ears where the dog couldn’t reach, eliciting the doggy equivalent of a satisfied whimper. And in her mind Holly heard her own whimpers last night as Chris had caressed her body with those big hands of his—not once, not twice, but three times—then made her cry his name, a sound that still echoed in her consciousness.
Her heart kicked into overdrive, and in that instant she would have given anything to have Chris touch her that way again. Make love to her again. But instead of saying what she wanted to say, she glanced at the schoolhouse clock on the wall, drawing his attention to the fact that it was long past dinnertime. “It’s getting late,” she announced. “You must be hungry. Did you want me to make dinner for us?”
He raised his gaze from Wally and gave her his full attention. “I can cook,” he said. His smile was a little crooked. “Pepper steak okay? You can help me chop the vegetables.”
* * *
In the middle of slicing and dicing, Holly asked quietly, “You want to talk about it?”
Chris narrowly avoided slicing his own thumb when the knife he was using in a semiprofessional manner on the onions threatened to break free. “Not much to talk about.”
He turned to the stove and dumped the contents of his chopping board into the cast-iron skillet he’d already used to sear the steak strips. As the onions began sizzling, he took Holly’s neatly sliced bell peppers and dumped them into the skillet, too. “It’s just...looking at old photos brought back...memories,” he volunteered finally.
“Good memories?”
He nodded slowly. “And bad ones. They’re a reminder—as if I really needed one—that we don’t know where Josie is. But it’s not just that. She was three when...when she went into foster care, and we were only allowed to see her a few times a year. She turned Trevor down, she turned me down, when we tried to get custody of her.”
“You mentioned that before.”
He added a little water to the skillet using the lid, then stirred the onions and peppers, making sure they cooked evenly. “Yeah, but the hardest part is not knowing anything about who she is, not just where she is. I remember her when she was little—she was the happiest baby. And so precocious. She walked early. Talked early. She loved coloring and finger painting—” He chuckled suddenly at a memory. “And oh, how she loved to finger paint, but what a mess she always made. Mama used to say Josie got more paint on herself than on the paper.”
“That’s one of the good memories, then.”
“Yeah.” He smiled slowly at Holly. “I’d forgotten all about that. Guess sometimes it does pay to talk about what’s on your mind.”
They smiled at each other for a minute, until Chris suddenly realized the veggies for his pepper steak were in danger of scorching. He turned back to the stove and stirred furiously, then added in the steak strips he’d seared earlier. Finally he turned off the burner.
“Who taught you to cook?” Holly asked as she got the plates from the cabinet.
“Taught myself when I was in college. I lived off campus with three friends, none of whom could cook. I couldn’t stand eating frozen cardboard-like food heated up in the microwave the way they did, and I certainly couldn’t afford to eat out all the time. So I checked out a basic cookbook from the library and started messing around. I got to liking it—not just eating decent-tasting food, but the actual process of cooking from scratch. It’s relaxing. Once I started Colton Investigations, though, I rarely had time to cook except on the occasional weekend.”
“This is really good,” Holly said as she dug in. “Cooking must be like riding a bike. You never really forget how to do it.”
Chris forked a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Meat could have used a little time to marinate—I should have planned ahead and done that.”
Holly shook her head at him, smiling. “It’s delicious and you know it.”
“Well...” Once again he didn’t know how to respond to a personal compliment. No one who knew him professionally would believe it, he acknowledged. He was supremely confident as a PI. Not so much in his personal life.
Holly changed the subject back to Josie. “So you’ve been searching for your baby sister for six years, that’s what you said.”
“Off and on. Whenever I can.”
“But no luck.”
He almost agreed, then realized that wasn’t quite true. The whole Desmond Carlton thing was setting off alarm bells in his mind, telling him there should be a connection there...he just hadn’t been able to figure it out. “There is something new on Josie—at least I think there is. Remember when I asked Annabel to look after you and the boys the other afternoon?” Holly nodded. “I needed to meet with a reporter in Dallas about an article he wrote.”
He went on to give her all the details. If he’d stopped to think about it, he might not have. Holly wasn’t a PI. She wasn’t even family. But he suddenly wanted to share this with her, knowing instinctively she could be trusted to keep everything to herself. Including...
“So you’re worried Josie might have killed Desmond Carlton,” Holly stated, going right to the heart of the matter, “and that’s why she disappeared.”