The faintest threads of morning light crept through the lace curtains in the tiny window above Blue’s head. It was too early to get up, but she’d foolishly drunk a big glass of water before she went to bed, and the gypsy caravan, for all its cozy charms, had no bathroom. Blue had never slept in a more wondrous place. It had been like falling asleep in the middle of a fairy tale that came complete with a wild, blond-haired gypsy prince who’d danced with her around the campfire.
She couldn’t believe she’d dreamed about him. True, Dean was exactly the kind of man to inspire outrageous female fantasies, but not from a realist like her. Ever since yesterday morning, she’d been too aware of him in all the wrong ways, and she needed to snap out of it.
The wagon’s bare wooden floor was cool under her feet. She’d slept in an orange T-shirt that said BODY BY BEER and a pair of deep purple tie-dyed yoga pants that had never seen a yoga class but were super comfy. After she’d slipped into her flip-flops, she stepped outside into the cucumber chill. Only the birds’ dawn songs broke the quiet—no clatter of garbage cans, shriek of sirens, or piercing warnings from trucks backing up. She headed for the house and let herself in the side door. In the morning light, the white kitchen cabinets and their bright red knobs gleamed against the new soapstone counters.
Don’t sit under the apple tree…
Dean had taped black plastic over all the bathroom doors before he went out last night, and she made her way to the downstairs powder room partially tucked under the stairs. Like everything else in the house, this room had been designed for him, with a high sink and a partially raised ceiling to accommodate his height. Blue wondered if he’d noticed how much his mother had personalized everything. Or maybe she’d simply done as he’d asked.
While the coffee brewed, she located some bowls from the boxes of new kitchenware waiting to be unpacked after the kitchen was painted. The clean plates sitting on the new countertop reminded her of the dinner she’d shared with April last night. Dean had begged off, saying he had things to do. Blue bet those things included a blonde, brunette, and redhead. She pulled open the refrigerator door to get milk and saw that he’d made a big dent in the shrimp Creole leftovers. Judging from how little of the dish remained, all that sex had worked up his appetite.
She splashed water in the sink to wash some dishes for breakfast. The white bowls had red mattress-ticking stripes around the edge, and the mugs were printed with a cluster of bright red cherries. She poured her coffee, added a splash of milk, and wandered toward the front of the house. When she reached the dining room, she paused in the doorway. Last night, April had told her she was considering having some landscape murals painted in here and asked if Blue did that kind of thing. Blue said no, which wasn’t exactly true. She did a fair amount of mural work—pets on rec room walls, business logos in offices, the occasional Bible verse on a kitchen wall—but she refused to paint landscapes. Her college professors had given her too much grief about the ones she’d done for her classes, and she hated anything that made her feel incompetent.
She let herself out the front door. Sipping her coffee, she ambled toward the steps and enjoyed the mist swirling in the hollows. As she turned to watch a platoon of birds perch on the barn’s roof, she jerked and splashed coffee on her wrist. A child lay huddled in the corner of the porch fast asleep.
The girl looked like she might be thirteen or so, although she hadn’t lost her baby fat, so she could have been younger. She wore a dirty pink jacket with a Juicy logo and muddy lavender cords that had a V-shaped tear at the knee. Blue put her wrist to her mouth to lick up the coffee. The child’s wild, curly brown hair tumbled over a round, grimy cheek. She’d fallen asleep awkwardly, her back wedged against the dark green backpack she’d shoved into the porch corner. She had olive-toned skin, bold, dark eyebrows, and a straight nose she hadn’t quite grown into. Her polished blue fingernails were bitten to the quick. But despite her grime, her clothes looked expensive, as did her sneakers. This kid had BIG CITY written all over her, which meant another wanderer had shown up at Dean’s farm.
Blue set down her mug and made her way to the child’s side. Crouching down, she gently touched her arm. “Hey, you,” she whispered.
The girl jumped, and her eyes shot open. They were the toasty brown of caramelized sugar.
“It’s okay,” Blue said, trying to calm the fear she saw there. “Good morning.”
The child struggled to sit up, and a morning croak deepened her soft southern accent. “I—I didn’t hurt anything.”
“Not a whole lot out here to hurt.”
She tried to shove the hair out of her eyes. “I wasn’t…supposed to fall asleep.”
“You didn’t pick a very comfortable bed.” She looked too skittish for Blue to cross-examine just yet. “Would you like some breakfast?”
The child’s front teeth sank into her bottom lip. They were straight, but still a little big for her face. “Yes, ma’am. If that’s okay?”
“I was hoping someone would show up to keep me company. My name is Blue.”
The child struggled to her feet and picked up her backpack. “I’m Riley. Are you the help?”
Obviously, she came from a privileged background. “Help or hindrance,” Blue replied. “It depends on my mood.”
Riley was too young to appreciate an adult smart-ass. “Is…like anybody here?”
“I am.” Blue opened the front door and gestured for Riley to enter.
Riley peered around as she came inside. Her voice quivered with disappointment. “It’s not done. There isn’t any furniture.”
“A little. The kitchen’s almost finished.”
“So…nobody’s living here now?”
Blue decided to dodge the question until she figured out what the kid was up to. “I’m so hungry. How about you? Do you feel like eggs or cereal?”
“Cereal, please.” Dragging her heels, Riley followed her down the hallway to the kitchen.
“The bathroom’s right there. It doesn’t have a door yet, but the painters won’t be here for a while, so if you’d like to wash up, nobody’ll bother you.”
The girl gazed around, looking toward the dining room and then the stairs before she and her backpack headed into the bathroom.
Blue had left all the nonperishable groceries in sacks until the painters finished. She went into the pantry and dug out some cereal boxes. By the time Riley returned, dragging her backpack and jacket behind her, Blue had everything set out on the table, including a small cow-pitcher filled with milk. “Choose your poison.”
Riley filled her bowl with Honey Nut Cheerios and three teaspoons of sugar. She’d washed her hands and face, and some of her curls stuck to her forehead. Her lavender cords fit too tightly, as did her white T-shirt, which had FOXY written across it in purple glitter script. Blue couldn’t imagine a less appropriate word to describe this serious child.
She fried an egg for herself, made a piece of toast, and carried her plate to the table. She waited until the child had satisfied the worst of her hunger before she started digging. “I’m thirty. How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“That’s a little young to be on your own.”
Riley set down her spoon. “I’m looking for…somebody. Kind of a relative. Not—not like a brother or anything,” she said in a rush. “Just…like maybe a cousin. I—I thought he might be here.”
Right then, the back door opened, bracelets jingled, and April came in. “We have company,” Blue said. “Look who I found asleep on the porch this morning. My friend Riley.”
April cocked her head, and a big silver hoop peeked through her hair. “On the porch?”
Blue abandoned her toast. “She’s trying to find one of her relatives.”
“The carpenters should be here soon.” April smiled at Riley. “Or is your relative one of the painters?”
“My—my relative doesn’t work here,” Riley mumbled. “He’s…He’s supposed to live here.”
Blue’s knee banged the table leg. April’s smile faded. “Live here?”
The girl nodded.
“Riley?” April’s fingers convulsed around the edge of the counter. “Tell me your last name.”
Riley dipped her head over the cereal bowl. “I don’t want to tell you.”
April’s complexion lost its color. “You’re Jack’s kid, aren’t you? Jack and Marli’s daughter.”
Blue nearly choked. It had been one thing to suspect Dean’s connection to Jack Patriot, but another thing to have it confirmed. Riley was Jack Patriot’s daughter, and despite her clumsy attempt to hide it, the relative she was looking for could only be Dean.
Riley tugged on a coil of her hair, pulling it over her face while she stared into her cereal bowl. “You know about me?”
“I—Yes,” April said. “How did you get here? You live in Nashville.”
“I sort of got a ride. With this friend of my mother’s. She’s thirty.”
April didn’t call her on her obvious lie. “I’m sorry about your mother. Does your father know you’re—” April’s expression hardened. “Of course he doesn’t. He hasn’t got a clue, does he?”
“Not most of the time. But he’s very nice.”
“Nice…” April rubbed her forehead. “Who’s supposed to be taking care of you?”
“I have an au pair.”
April reached for the notebook she’d left on the counter last night. “Give me her number so I can call her.”
“I don’t think she’ll be out of bed yet.”
April locked eyes with her. “I’m sure she won’t mind if I wake her up.”
Riley looked away. “Could you tell me…Is anybody…Is like maybe my…cousin living here? Because it’s very important for me to find him?”
“Why?” April said tightly. “Why do you need to find him?”
“Because…” Riley swallowed. “Because I need to tell him about me.”
April drew a shaky breath. She gazed down at the notebook. “This isn’t going to work the way you want.”
Riley stared at her. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
“No. No, I don’t,” April said quickly. She looked at Blue, who was still trying to absorb what she was hearing. Dean bore no resemblance to Jack Patriot, but Riley did. They had the same olive skin tone, mahogany brown hair, and straight bladed nose. Those darkly rimmed caramelized sugar eyes had stared back at her from countless album covers.
“While Riley and I talk,” April said to Blue, “would you take care of that matter upstairs?”
Blue got the message. She was supposed to keep Dean away. As a child, she’d felt the pain of withheld secrets, and she didn’t believe in shielding kids from the truth, but this wasn’t her call to make. She pushed back from the table, but before she could get up, a firm set of footsteps approached from the hall.
April grabbed Riley’s hand. “Let’s go outside and talk.”
It was too late.
“I smell coffee.” Dean walked in, freshly showered, unshaven, a GQ ad for hip country casual in blue bermudas, a pale yellow mesh T-shirt with a Nike swoosh, and high-tech lime green sneakers as streamlined as race cars. He spotted Riley and smiled. “Morning.”
Riley sat paralyzed, drinking him in with her eyes. April pressed a hand to her waist, as if her stomach ached. Riley’s lips parted ever so slightly. Finally, she found her tongue. “I’m Riley.” Her voice came out in a papery croak.
“Hi, Riley. I’m Dean.”
“I know,” she said. “I—I have a scrapbook.”
“You do? What kind of scrapbook?”
“A—about you.”
“No kidding?” He headed for the coffeepot. “So you’re a football fan.”
“I’m sort of…” She licked her dry lips. “I’m sort of like…maybe your cousin or something.”
Dean’s head came up. “I don’t have a—”
“Riley is Marli Moffatt’s daughter,” April said stonily.
Riley kept her focus glued entirely on him. “Jack Patriot is…like my dad, too.”
Dean stared at her.
Riley’s face flushed with agitation. “I didn’t mean to say that!” she cried. “I never told anybody about you. I swear.”
Dean stood frozen. April couldn’t seem to move. Riley’s stricken eyes filled with tears. Blue couldn’t stand witnessing so much pain, and she rose from her chair. “Dean just rolled out of bed, Riley. Let’s give him a few minutes to wake up.”
Dean shifted his gaze to his mother. “What’s she doing here?”
April stepped back against the stove. “Trying to find you, I guess.”
Blue could see this meeting wasn’t playing out as Riley had imagined. Tears spiked the child’s lashes. “I’m sorry. I won’t ever say anything again.”
Dean was the grown-up, and he needed to take charge, but he stood silent and rigid. Blue moved around the table toward Riley. “Somebody hasn’t had his coffee yet, and it’s made him a grouchy bear. While Dean wakes up, I’ll show you where I slept last night. You won’t believe it.”
When Blue was eleven years old, she’d have challenged anybody who tried to close her out, but Riley was more accustomed to blind obedience. She ducked her head and reluctantly picked up her backpack. The kid was a walking heartache, and Blue’s own heart contracted in sympathy. She slipped an arm around Riley’s shoulders and steered her toward the side door. “First, you have to tell me what you know about gypsies.”
“I don’t know anything,” Riley muttered.
“Fortunately, I do.”
Dean waited for the door to shut. In less than twenty-four hours, two people had confronted him with the secret he’d been able to keep for so many years. He spun on April. “What the hell is going on? Did you know about this?”
“Of course I didn’t know,” April retorted. “Blue found her asleep on the porch. She must have run away from home. Apparently she only has an au pair watching her.”
“Are you telling me that selfish son of a bitch left her alone less than two weeks after her mother died?”
“How would I know? It’s been thirty years since I talked to him in person.”
“Un-frickin’-believable.” He thrust his finger at her. “You find him right now and tell him to get one of his flunkies over here this morning to pick her up.” April didn’t like being ordered around, and she set her jaw. Too bad. He headed for the door. “I’m going to talk to her.”
“Don’t!” Her intensity stopped him. “You saw the way she was looking at you. It’s easy to see what she wants. Stay away, Dean. It’s cruel to raise her hopes. Blue and I’ll handle this. Don’t do anything to let her get attached to you unless you’re going to see it through.”
He couldn’t hide his bitterness. “The April Robillard school of child rearing. How could I have forgotten?”
His mother could be a real hard-ass when she wanted to, and her chin shot up. “You turned out all right.”
He threw her a disgusted look and left by the side door. But halfway across the yard he slowed. She was right. Riley’s needy eyes said she wanted everything from him that she knew she wouldn’t get from her father. The fact that Jack had abandoned the kid so soon after her mother’s funeral spelled out her future in big capital letters—an expensive boarding school and vacations spent with a series of glorified babysitters.
She’d still have it better than him. His vacations had taken place in luxury villas, fleabag hotels, or seedy apartments, depending on where April had been with her men and her addictions. Over time he’d been offered everything from marijuana to booze to hookers and generally had accepted it all. In fairness, April hadn’t known about most of it, but she should have. She should have known about a lot of things.
Now Riley had come after him, and unless he grossly misread the yearning on her face, she wanted him to be her family. But he couldn’t do that. He’d kept his connection with Jack Patriot secret for too long to have it blown now. Yes, he felt sorry for her, and he hoped like hell things got better, but that was as far as it went. She was Jack’s problem, not his.
He ducked inside the gypsy caravan. Blue and Riley sat on the unmade bed in the back. Blue was her customary fashion disaster, her pointy nursery rhyme face at odds with a pair of tie-dyed purple pants that had to be somebody’s idea of a joke, and an orange T-shirt big enough to house a circus. The kid gazed up at him, a world of misery inscribed on her round little face. Her clothes were too tight, too fussy, and the script FOXY on her T-shirt looked obscene over the innocent buds of her breasts. She wouldn’t believe him if he tried to convince her she was wrong about his connection to Jack.
Seeing so much desperate need in Riley’s expression brought back too many bad memories, and he spoke more harshly than he meant to. “How did you find out about me?”
She glanced at Blue, afraid to reveal more than she already had. Blue patted Riley’s knee. “It’s okay.”
The kid poked at the lavender wales on her corduroy pants. “My—my mom’s boyfriend told her about you last year. I sort of heard them talking. He used to work for my dad. But he made her swear not to tell anybody, not even Aunt Gayle.”
He braced his hand on one of the caravan’s ribs. “I’m surprised your mom knew about the farm.”
“I don’t think she did. I heard my dad talking to somebody on the phone about it.”
Riley seemed to overhear a lot of things. Dean wondered how his father had found out about the farm. “Give me your phone number,” he said, “so I can call your house and tell them you’re all right.”
“There’s only Ava, and she doesn’t like when the phone wakes her up too early. It makes Peter mad.” Riley picked at the blue nail polish on her thumb. “Peter’s Ava’s boyfriend.”
“So Ava must be your au pair?” he said. Nice work, Jack.
Riley nodded. “She’s pretty nice.”
“And incredibly competent,” Blue drawled.
“I didn’t tell anybody about—you know,” she said in earnest. “I know it’s a big secret. And I don’t think Mom did, either.”
Secrets. Dean had spent his early childhood years believing Bruce Springsteen was his father. April had even invented an elaborate story about Bruce writing “Candy’s Room” about her. But it had all been wishful thinking. When Dean was thirteen and April had been high on God-knew-what, she’d blurted out the truth, and his already chaotic world had turned upside down.
Eventually, he’d found the name of Jack’s lawyer in April’s stuff, along with a collection of photos of April and Jack together, plus evidence of the support money Jack was paying out. He’d called the lawyer without telling April. The guy had tried to stonewall him, but Dean had been as stubborn then as he was now, and finally, Jack had called him. It was a brief, uncomfortable conversation. When April found out, she went on a weeklong bender.
Dean and Jack had their first face-to-face encounter, a secretive, awkward meeting in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, during the L.A. segment of the Mud and Madness tour. Jack had tried to act like Dean’s best friend, but Dean hadn’t bought it. After that, Jack had insisted on seeing him a couple of times a year, and each secretive visit was more miserable than the last. At sixteen, Dean rebelled.
Jack left him alone until Dean’s sophomore year at USC, when his face started popping up in Sports Illustrated. Jack had started calling again, but Dean had frozen him out. Still, Jack occasionally ran him to ground, and Dean sometimes heard that Jack Patriot had been spotted at a Stars game.
He got down to business. “I need a phone number, Riley.”
“I…kind of forget.”
“You forgot your own phone number?”
She nodded, a quick jerk of her head.
“You look like a pretty smart kid to me.”
“I am…but…” She gulped. “I know a lot about football. Last year, you completed three hundred forty-six passes, and you only got sacked twelve times, and you threw seventeen interceptions.”
Dean usually requested that people not use the i-word around him, but he didn’t want to agitate her more than necessary. “I’m impressed. It’s interesting you can remember all that and not remember your phone number.”
She pulled her backpack into her lap. “I’ve got something for you. I made it.” She opened the zipper and removed a blue scrapbook. The pit of his stomach contracted as he gazed down at the cover, which had been painstakingly hand decorated. Using puffy paint and marking pens, she’d drawn the Stars’ aqua and gold logo and an elaborate 10, his jersey number. Hearts with wings and banners that said “The Boo” decorated the border. He was glad Blue spoke because he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
“That’s some pretty good artwork.”
“Trinity’s better,” Riley replied. “She’s neat.”
“Neatness doesn’t always count so much in art,” Blue said.
“My mom says neatness is important. Or…she used to say that.”
“I’m so sorry about your mom,” Blue said quietly. “This is a really hard time for you, isn’t it?”
Riley rubbed one of the puffy hearts on the scrapbook cover. “Trinity’s my cousin. She’s eleven, too, and she’s very beautiful. Aunt Gayle is her mom.”
“I’ll bet Trinity’s going to be worried when she finds out you’re missing,” he said.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “Trinity’ll be glad. She hates me. She thinks I’m a weirdo.”
“Are you?” Blue asked.
He didn’t see the point of rubbing it in, but Blue ignored his dirty look.
“I guess,” Riley said.
Blue beamed. “Me, too. Isn’t that wild? Weirdos are the only truly interesting people, don’t you think? Everybody else is so boring. Trinity, for example. She might be beautiful, but she’s boring, right?”
Riley blinked. “She is. All she wants to talk about is boys.”
“Yuck.” Blue screwed up her face way more than she needed to.
“Or clothes.”
“Double yuck.”
“Look who’s talking,” he muttered.
But Riley was totally tuned in to Blue. “Or puking so you don’t get fat.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Blue wrinkled her small, sharp nose. “How does she know about that?”
“Puking’s real important to Aunt Gayle.”
“Gotcha.” Blue shot Dean a quick look. “So I’m guessing Aunt Gayle is pretty boring, too.”
“Totally. She always says ‘huggy huggy’ when she sees me and makes me kiss her, but it’s fake. She thinks I’m a fat weirdo, too.” Riley tugged on the hem of her T-shirt, trying to pull it over the little roll of flesh showing above the waistband of her cords.
“I feel sorry for people like that,” Blue said earnestly. “People who are always judging. My mother, who’s a very, very powerful woman, taught me that you can’t do extraordinary things in the world if you’re spending your time criticizing others because they don’t look or behave the way you think they should.”
“Is your mom…like…alive?”
“Yes. She’s in South America helping protect some girls from getting hurt.” Blue’s expression turned grim.
“That doesn’t sound boring,” Riley said.
“She’s a pretty great woman.”
A great woman, Dean thought, who’d abandoned her only kid to be raised by strangers. But at least Virginia Bailey hadn’t spent her nights getting high and fucking rock stars.
Blue rose and stepped around him to retrieve her cell from the table. “I need you to do something for me, Riley. I can see you don’t want to give Dean your phone number, and privacy’s okay up to a point. But you have to call Ava yourself and tell her you’re okay.” She held out her phone.
Riley gazed at it but didn’t take it.
“Do it.” Blue might look like an escapee from the Magic Kingdom, but she could be a drill sergeant when she wanted, and Dean wasn’t surprised to see Riley take the phone and punch in a number.
Blue sat next to her. Several seconds ticked by. “Hi, Ava, it’s me. Riley. I’m okay. I’m with grown-ups, so you don’t have to worry about me. Say hi to Peter.” She disconnected and gave the phone back to Blue. Her eyes, bottomless pools of need, returned to Dean. “Would you…like to see my scrapbook?”
He did not want to hurt this fragile kid by raising false hopes. “Maybe later,” he said brusquely. “I’ve got some work to do.” He looked at Blue. “Give me a hug before I go, sweetheart.”
She got up, compliant for the first time since he’d met her. Riley’s appearance had put a crimp in his plan to deal with her lie about April, but only temporarily. He moved to the middle of the caravan so he didn’t bump his head. She wrapped her arms around his waist. He considered copping a feel, but she must have read his mind because she pinched him hard through his T-shirt. “Ouch.”
She smiled up at him as she pulled away. “Miss me, dreamboat.”
He glared at her, rubbed his side, and left the caravan.
As soon as he was out of sight, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the cell she’d transferred over to him. He flicked through the menus, redialed the last call, and got voice mail for a Chattanooga insurance company.
The kid was no dummy.
While he had Blue’s phone, he thumbed through the log until he found the date he wanted. He dialed up her voice mail and entered the password he’d watched her punch in a couple of days earlier. She hadn’t gotten around to clearing out her mailbox, and he listened to her mother’s message with interest.
Inside the caravan, Blue watched Riley slowly return the scrapbook to her backpack. “I didn’t know he was your boyfriend,” she said. “I thought you were like the cleaning lady or somebody.”
Blue sighed. Even at eleven, this child knew the Blue Baileys of the world weren’t in the same league with the Dean Robillards.
“He likes you a lot,” Riley said wistfully.
“He’s just bored.”
April poked her head in. “I have something I forgot at the cottage. Would the two of you like to come with me while I get it? It’s a nice walk.”
Blue still hadn’t made it to the shower, but keeping Riley away from Dean for a while seemed like a good idea, and she suspected that was April’s intention. Besides, she wanted to see this cottage. “Sure. We weirdos like new adventures.”
April lifted an eyebrow. “Weirdos?”
“Don’t worry,” Riley said politely. “You’re too pretty to be a weirdo.”
“Stop right there,” Blue said. “We can’t be prejudiced against people just because they’re pretty. Being a weirdo is a state of mind. April has a lot of imagination. She’s kind of a weirdo, too.”
“I’m honored,” April said dryly. And then she gave Riley a stiff smile. “Do you want to see my secret pond?”
“You have a secret pond?”
“I’ll show you.”
Riley grabbed her backpack, and they both followed April from the caravan.