At the far end of the great room, near the dining table, Skylar silently observed the Beaumonts. The entire clan was there, including even the golden retriever, Samson, and the yellow cat, Willow. Seated in various positions by the stone fireplace, everyone listened with rapt attention to the stranger talk about BJ, the missing one.
Danny broke from the circle and approached Skylar. Uptight as his mannerisms could be, his gait was an effortless glide. His mother said he spent more time on a surfboard than not. Perhaps it came from that.
His mouth split in a bona fide Wally Cleaver grin. “Let me guess,” he said in a low voice. “You’re a fly on the wall.”
Skylar shrugged a shoulder. “Does that bother you?”
“Would it matter if it did?”
“Nope.” She refused to explain that his mother had invited her into the room. As a matter of fact, Claire told her the hacienda was her home. She was welcome to enter into family life however she chose.
Skylar would sooner tell Danny to go jump off a cliff.
Evidently unaware of her abusive thoughts, he leaned against the buffet beside her.
The guy annoyed her to no end. He’d been in her kitchen countless times since her first day, probing for information—personal, menu-wise, and everything in between—fidgeting all the while like a hyperactive kid.
At the moment his behavior was atypically calm. He must have skipped his Wheaties that morning.
She turned her attention back to the Beaumont drama unfolding across the room. The presence of Beth Russell might explain Danny’s changed demeanor. The whole family seemed a bit subdued.
Beth. The woman was as soft as her name. Skylar deduced that tidbit after exchanging only a few words with her. Although she had to be in her late fifties, she was fresh faced as a little girl, peaches and creamy, cosmetic free. Her eyes were luminescent.
It was something else though, an intangible, that attracted Skylar. With every gesture and spoken word, Beth sent out vibes. It was an aura of—Skylar had no other word for it—goodness.
Danny shifted his weight. “For the record, it doesn’t bother me that you’re here.”
She muttered, “Like I care.” Thoroughly frustrated with his interruption, she pushed herself away from the buffet. “Excuse me.” She walked out the side door and quickly made her way into the courtyard.
So much for learning how the Beaumonts dealt with family smudges. Smudges like a fiancée meeting her dead beau’s out-of-wedlock, grown-up daughter no one even knew existed until a few months ago. It would have made a great tabloid headline.
Earlier Skylar had slunk into the sala in time to note Ben’s red-rimmed eyes and Jenna’s trembling chin. Tuyen sat close to Beth Russell, who often reached over to touch her arm. It was a curious picture.
Whipped right off the page by Danny.
Skylar climbed onto the bottom rail of the fence that enclosed the horse corral. Bending over the top rail, she clicked her tongue. Two palominos stood in languid beauty in shade cast from the barn. They swished their creamy tails and ignored her.
She made another clucking noise. “Hey, Reuben. Moses.”
An ear twitched on Reuben’s golden head. Moses winked.
“Aw, guys.”
It was a hot afternoon. They were avoiding the sun.
As diligently as she avoided the heat of Danny’s search beams.
The other week, when Claire went into her “just part of the wallpaper” act with the first guests, Skylar had easily recognized what was going on. It was a trick she herself had mastered in the recent past.
Eighteen months past, to be exact, but who was counting?
Disappear in plain sight and no one cares who you are.
Except nerdy dudes who had no life.
Like the one who most likely belonged to the footsteps now approaching from behind her.
Skylar threw a scowl over her shoulder, but he missed it. A moment later he hoisted himself up beside her.
He remained quiet for all of three seconds. “Do you ride?”
“Do you play ‘Twenty Questions’ with everyone or is it just me?”
He chuckled. “Mom says I bug you too much.”
“Your mother is a wise woman.”
“I guess that means you agree. Okay, I admit I probably do bug you and interfere with your work. I apologize.”
She squinted at him sideways. “Why?”
“Why apologize?” He shrugged. “Forgiveness is in the air today. I’m hoping to grab some for myself.”
“You say it’s in the air because of all that going on in the house?”
“Mm-hmm. Do you know the story? About Uncle BJ and Beth? About Tuyen?”
“Yes.”
“Sticky wicket, as Erik calls it. My grandfather has not been able to accept that Uncle BJ would do such a thing. Stay in Vietnam and have a child? No way.”
“Holy cow! BJ was in a war. How could Ben judge—” Too late she heard the barrage and stopped herself.
“Exactly.”
They exchanged a glance.
Of connection?
He said, “And now, lo and behold, Beth believes BJ probably did exactly that. She totally accepts Tuyen. Totally forgives BJ.”
“Forgives BJ? How can it be his fault? I mean the guy didn’t try to get shot down and survive in some foreign jungle he couldn’t possibly escape without being killed or captured.”
“I totally agree. But people were hurt. Call it forgiving him or the Viet Cong or our government. Whoever or whatever. The choice to forgive simply releases a stranglehold on someone’s heart. My grandfather’s, in this case.”
Oh, man. “I suppose you’re one of those, you know, vocal Christians.”
He laughed. “I suppose I’m still bugging you.”
“You suppose correctly.”
“So do you.”
“Easy call. It was either that type of Christian or you’re part bulldog, and since you don’t walk on four legs . . .”
“I’ve been tagged worse names.”
She gave him a mean smirk. “You have no idea how much I hold back.”
“I might.” He looked at the horses. “So do you ride?”
Skylar felt like she’d been thrown off a horse and had the wind knocked from her. His swing of mood and topic was going to give her whiplash.
She blurted, “Yeah. I love riding.”
Uh-oh.
She’d already decided fatherless kids from Ohio with drug-addicted moms did not ride horses. It was a rich person’s hobby, not even a remote possibility under the scenario she’d presented.
“I mean,” she said, “I got to go. A few times. As a kid. Big-sister program or something.” Shut up, Skylar. Shut up. “Your grandfather said he’d take me sometime.”
“Or I will. Moses and Reuben here are the best choice. The others are unpredictable. I think they’re still spooked from the fire.”
A wave of homesickness nearly bowled her off the fence.
It wasn’t an ache for home. It was an ache for moments, for the freedom of those moments.
She did ride. She loved to ride. She loved the wind in her hair. The keen sense that the powerful animal could whisk her to the ends of the earth at her command.
Skylar stepped down from the fence. “I have work to do.”
Without a backward glance, she hurried away.
Danny Beaumont was not a nuisance. He was a danger, the hound that would sniff and sniff until he caught scent of her true identity. He would make it impossible for her to remain in the Kansas, the home she’d just found.
Locating a pay phone was a major hassle. Skylar spent most of the drive down from the hacienda cursing cellular technology. It pigeonholed Americans, forcing them to carry phones on their hips, thereby eliminating convenient public phones for all those people who could not afford or simply did not want to carry phones on their hips.
She stood now at a pay phone in a bus station and placed a collect call. As she listened to the ring on the other end, relief at actually finding the phone got lost in a press of other emotions.
There was the strain of fabricating a grocery need in order to borrow a car for a quick run to town. Claire always graciously offered hers, but driving the sleek foreign model with its fancy gadgets on the curvy hills did a number on Skylar. GPS doohickey aside, navigating around an unfamiliar area was a pain. And there was still that lingering homesick ache she’d felt while watching the horses.
Which explained why she stood there staring at dirty cracked linoleum, battling a nervous breakdown.
The ringing stopped. “Rockwell residence.”
Skylar shut her eyes. “Mom. Hi. It’s me.”
“Laurie!” The low-pitched voice conveyed surprise layered heavily with wariness. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m good. I have a job, as a cook. And I met Wally Cleaver.”
“Who?”
“From TV. Not really. He just reminds me of—how are you?”
“Fine.”
“How’s Dad?”
“Just fine too. He’s at the hardware store.”
“Any news?”
A slight hesitation. “No.”
“Okay. Well, I just wanted to check in.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Sure.”
“Take care.”
“You too. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Skylar hung up the phone, shuffled to a nearby bench, and sank onto it.
Replaying that voice, she heard the usual relief in the “Take care.” If she listened hard, really hard, she could almost make out regret in the “Bye.” Almost.
Most likely, though, it was simply her imagination filling in gaps with what she’d never, ever in her life heard in that voice.