KADE HELD TIGHT TO DAVE’S HAND. “YOU DID REALLY well in the outhouse race. I’m proud of you, son.”
The boy gave a little skip. “I wanted to win.”
“Next year. Mom was glad you didn’t win that Newfoundland puppy.”
“He was cute. I want to get one.”
They reached the Suomi Café. The bell on the door jingled when they entered.
“There’s Jenna,” Dave said, pointing to the blonde woman in the booth in the back corner.
Molly saw them and waved. Samson started toward her, but Kade stopped him with a word. The dog fell in at their heels as they walked back to join Jenna. Her reddened face and tear-filled eyes made him pause.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
Davy tugged at his hand. “Can I go pick out a roll?” he asked.
“Sure.” He watched the boy run to the display case, then slid into the seat across from Jenna. “You’re crying. Anything I can do?”
“Boyfriend troubles,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He shifted uneasily. “Bree is a good one to talk to about stuff like that. I’m hopeless.”
His hands were on the table, and she reached over and cradled one of his hands in hers. “It helps just to know you care,” she said.
He started to pull his hand away. Surely she didn’t mean anything by it. At least that’s what he told himself until he caught the come-hither expression in her eyes. It shocked him so badly, he sat there like a lump and left his hand in hers.
“What’s going on here?” Bree asked to his right. Her gaze was on their linked hands.
Kade snatched his hand out of Jenna’s. “Jenna is upset. I told her she needed to talk to you.”
Jenna smiled. “Kade is such a sweetheart to try to comfort me. You’re so lucky, Bree.”
“What’s wrong, Jenna?” Bree’s eyes remained skeptical.
“Just boyfriend trouble. Not all men are like Kade.”
“No, he’s one in a million.” Bree’s words held a cold edge.
Davy ran from the pastry case and tugged on his mother’s hand. “Mom, can I have some grilled cheese?”
“Sure, honey.” Bree stepped over Samson, who had plopped on the floor, then slid into the booth beside Kade. “Sit down by Miss Jenna.” She set the baby carrier on the floor.
Jenna scooted over to make room for Dave, but she wore a sulky expression. Molly came up to take their order. She put down a plate of food for Samson, who began to gobble it up.
“Hi, Molly, what’s the special today?” Bree asked.
“How about some nice borsch, eh?” Molly said. “And I know your man. He’ll want some smoked trout.”
“I’ll have both,” Kade said, grinning. “You know me too well.”
“Blech, borsch,” Davy said. “Can I have grilled cheese?”
“You got it, little man,” Molly said, scribbling down the order. “And that pastry with thimbleberry jam, right?” Davy nodded.
Bree ordered borsch. Jenna studied the menu. “Nothing sounds very good. What are all these weird things? Cabbage rolls, pickled herring. Ick. I’ll have grilled cheese too,” she said, folding the menu and handing it back to the waitress.
Kade could sense Bree’s displeasure coming off her in waves. He was relieved to see Mason’s burly form enter the café and head straight for their table. He grabbed a chair and dragged it to the edge of the table, then sat. “Having a good time?”
“The best,” Bree said. “Hilary around with Zoe?”
“They’re over at the kids’ games.”
“Any word on my brother?” Jenna asked. “Is he talking this morning?”
“Nope. He did some more puzzles.”
“It must be his way of coping with his circumstances,” Jenna said.
“I went through your brother’s room at the Blue Bonnet right after we arrested him. I sorted through it again this morning. Nothing much there. More puzzles. His clothing. An iPod shuffle and a few Madonna CDs. His toiletries. Nothing else.”
“He hates clutter, and he prefers to spend his time outdoors.” Jenna gawked at the men walking by the big plateglass window in Speedos. “He loves winter festivals. I’m sure he’d like to be here now.”
“I managed to get him moved to a cell with a window,” the sheriff said. “He seems more calm. No more head banging at any rate.”
“Oh, thank you so much!”
Kade watched her glow at the news. Poor kid. She loved her brother very much. Mason glanced at Bree. “Hilary wanted me to invite you to dinner next Sunday. It’s Zoe’s third birthday.”
“We wouldn’t miss it!” Bree’s smile was warm.
Mason rose and returned the chair to the table from where he’d taken it.
“Nice guy,” Jenna said, watching him walk away. “He’d be nicer if he’d let my brother out of jail. It sounds like you’re related or something.”
“His wife is my first husband’s sister,” Bree said. “And they adopted Kade’s niece. His sister, Lauri, had a baby at sixteen.”
“Where is Lauri now?” Jenna asked.
“College at Houghton.”
Molly brought their food, and nothing more was said as they dug into their lunch. When Jenna was done, she excused herself, saying she needed to run an errand. As soon as she was out of sight, Bree opened her mouth, glanced at Davy, then shut it again. Kade knew she wanted to ask what the hand-holding was all about.
He smiled at her. “It was nothing, babe.”
Her green eyes clouded. “It looked like something.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for that. She was just upset.” His cell phone rang and he took it out, then smiled. “Lauri. I was just thinking about calling her.” He punched the talk button. “Hey, sis, how’s school?”
Lauri’s voice was high with excitement. “Great, just great. But even better, Kade, I got a job! It’s working for the top accounting firm in the UP. And I’m getting paid really well. No need to worry about your baby sister anymore. I can take care of myself from now on.”
A pang squeezed in the region of his heart. “I never minded taking care of my baby sister. I kind of liked it, in fact.”
“I’m grateful, too, but my life is changing for the better. No more pinching pennies. As soon as I get paid, I’m buying a different car. This old rattletrap is about to fall apart.”
At least that would be one financial burden he wouldn’t have to carry. His thoughts went to the grant application. The lies he’d told on it gnawed at him.
The chatter around the café faded to a distant hum. Bree knew this was her problem, not Kade’s. He’d just been comforting Jenna. His kindness was one of the things that had drawn her from the beginning. She sipped her coffee, which had grown lukewarm. Was that happening to her marriage? Was the passion between them fading to a humdrum routine?
She dared a peek at her husband. He picked at his smoked fish with an absent expression. This was Kade, not some stranger. He’d never do anything to hurt her.
“Honey, I’m tired. Could we go home?” she asked.
He glanced up with worry in his eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just ready for a nap.”
Kade looked at Davy. “While Mom’s napping, you and I will go make a snowman.”
“Yay!”
Kade reached over and picked up Olivia in her carrier. She was wide-awake and looking around with big eyes.
Bree slipped her coat on and followed her husband and son into the driving wind. The fine day had turned more frigid. The sun slipped behind the gathering snow clouds, and a cold front blew from the northwest, bringing moisture from the lake. Kade held her hand so she wouldn’t slip on icy patches. The sense that he cherished her calmed those nagging doubts.
The truck was like an icebox when she slid across the frozen seat. Davy got in the club seat behind her and she heard his seat belt snap into place. He was good at remembering to buckle up. Kade secured the baby in the middle of the backseat while she fastened her own seat belt.
Kade drove slowly out of town, and Bree stared out the window at the frozen landscape. As they rounded the curve out to the lighthouse, she saw the man in the biker gear along the side of the road. He was beside a white truck. Her heart jumped to her throat, and she strained to see him better.
“You should probably stop and help him,” she told Kade, pointing to the stranded man.
“Yeah, you’re right.” He eased the truck to the side of the road. “I’ll leave the truck running so you’ll stay warm.” Kade got out and went to talk to the man.
Bree watched them through the window. The man had taken his glasses off, and she caught her breath again at the sight of his profile—so much like Rob’s it was scary. But this guy had dark hair and a dark beard. Rob’s were light brown that turned blond in the summer.
Then the man smiled at Kade, and her breath froze in her throat. That crooked smile. She stared harder, and the guy turned and looked straight at her.
Rob. It was Rob.
The certainty coalesced in her head, her heart. She couldn’t breathe past the constriction in her lungs. When she stared harder, she became less certain. Didn’t they say everyone had a twin somewhere?
Was she totally going crazy?
It was all she could do to swallow the fear in her throat. She watched Kade go around to the back and retrieve his gas can. He poured some into the biker’s truck, and moments later, the big vehicle roared to life. The man drove off as Kade returned.
“Who-who was that?” she asked, trying hard to keep her voice steady.
“Said his name was Quinn Matilla.”
“From around here?”
“He didn’t say, but his accent sounded like it.” Kade dropped the transmission into drive and continued on down the road. He glanced at her as he pulled into their driveway. “You okay?”
“Fine. He just reminded me . . . of someone.”
“Who?”
She put her finger to her lips and mouthed, “Later.”
But she doubted he’d remember later, and she wasn’t about to bring it up. Often enough over the years, he’d seemed insecure about whether she’d truly gotten over Rob’s death. And judging from her reaction today, she wondered the same.
A thump hit the back of her seat. “Don’t kick the seat,” she told her son.
“Mom, did you find Olivia’s mommy?” Davy asked in a voice that was too nonchalant.
She twisted around to stare at him. His gaze was locked on Olivia. “Not yet, honey.”
“You found her in the woods, just like me,” he said.
She’d hoped those memories of his being lost had faded. “Yes, that’s right. I’m trying to find her mommy and daddy though.”
“Mother didn’t try to find you.”
The woman who had found Davy, Rachel Marks, had made no attempt to find Davy’s family. She’d kept him for a year, and it was only because of Samson that Bree found her son again. And God, of course. Mostly God.
“No. No, she didn’t. And that was wrong.” Olivia began to cry, a thin wail that told Bree she was still half asleep.
Davy took her hand. “She’s crying for her mommy,” he said. “I hope God hears her. Grammy says God always hears. Do you think he hears Olivia?”
“I’m sure he does,” Bree said, her eyes filling with tears. She hadn’t been looking at the situation through Olivia’s eyes, only through her own need for a baby. Whose cry would God answer?
Kade parked and got the baby out of the back. Olivia’s cry was ramping up. Bree took Davy’s hand and went to the lighthouse. The baby was wailing by the time they stepped into the house. She took the carrier from Kade and lifted the baby from it.
“So much for a peaceful afternoon,” he said. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’ll be all right. She sounds hungry.” Bree tossed her coat at him, and he caught it and took it with his to the closet. She kicked off her boots and went on into the living room.
“There, there,” Bree crooned, cradling the infant. Olivia gave a small hiccup and began to quiet immediately. Bree grabbed a bottle and put it in the warmer.
Kade followed her. “I saw you talking to Mason. Has he found anything about her parents?”
“Nothing.” She hesitated, then told him of her suspicions of a baby ring. “I think maybe she’s Ellie’s baby.”
“What about the parents who adopted her? Why did they never get her? And how do we find them?”
“I don’t know. I hope we don’t find them,” she said. “I want to keep her, Kade.”
He pressed his lips together. “Bree, we’ll have our own baby.”
“I want this baby. I love her.”
“I was afraid this would happen,” he muttered. “You have to give her up. For one thing, we can’t afford a child right now.”
“We’re doing okay,” she said.
“Have you noticed how much formula and diapers are costing us? We haven’t gotten the first payment from CPS yet either, and it’s all coming out of our pocket.”
Was this turning into an argument? She’d thought Kade would be on board with the idea of adopting her. “I thought you loved her too,” she said, her lips trembling.
His voice softened. “Babe, she’s not ours. Someone is desperately looking for her.”
“You don’t know that!” She removed the bottle from the warmer and stormed back to the living room. The phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, she saw it was Naomi. She composed herself and answered it. “Hey girl, what’s up?”
“I’m not sure. We stopped over to get that sled, and I saw some guy in biker gear walking in your backyard.”
The guy had come here? Her pulse ratcheted up a notch. “What was he doing?”
“Just standing out back. Looking at the water, then turning and looking at the house.”
Ice moved through Bree’s veins. What did this mean? Rob was dead. She’d overseen the removal of his body from the crash site into the graveyard here in town. Of course he was dead. If he were alive, wouldn’t he have come back to her?
“Did you speak to him?” she whispered.
“No. He saw us and ran off around the other side of the house. Donovan ran after him, but he got away before Donovan reached him.”
“Maybe he was just admiring the lighthouse.” People did all the time. They stopped and asked to come in like it was some kind of tourist attraction. Surely that was it. She hung up the phone, her hands still trembling.
She took the warmed bottle and popped it into Olivia’s rosebud mouth. The baby began to suck. Her eyes closed. Bree had to keep Olivia. It was impossible to think of her life without this little girl. Bree fed her, then laid her in the bassinet, grabbed a throw, and curled up on the sofa. Kade and Davy clattered down the steps as they ran outside, where they shouted and laughed.
Alone for a few minutes, she went to the bookshelf and dug out a photo album. She’d put it on a low shelf so Davy could look at it whenever he wanted, but Bree hadn’t seen him going through it in over a year. She probably hadn’t looked at it since she married Kade.
She carried the book back to the sofa and flipped it open. Her younger self smiled at the camera. Dressed in a soft white wedding gown, she’d been impossibly young and happy. She hadn’t known then what the future would hold.
She flipped the pages and stopped at the close-up of Rob. His eyes crinkled at the corners from his face-splitting smile. That crooked smile she’d seen fifteen minutes ago. Bree swallowed hard and told herself again it had to be her imagination.
Why had the biker come here if it was all in her head? Until she’d heard Naomi’s news, she’d been able to convince herself he was a lookalike.
She closed the book and went to the back door. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she stepped out and stared at the man’s footprints tracked there in the snow for all the world to see.
A dark blob caught her eye. Paulie, their resident cardinal, sat on it. She didn’t have any shoes on, so she stepped back inside and slid her feet into Crocs, then went back out. As she neared the item, it registered. A pipe. His pipe. She stumbled and nearly fell but caught herself.
She didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want her world to crumble around her, but she forced her feet to move closer until she stood looking down at the evidence in the snow.
Pipe tobacco littered the white snow, but her gaze was frozen on the pipe. She knew that pipe well. Paulie tipped his head and sang out. He pecked at her fingers when she moved her hand toward the pipe. “Go away, Paulie,” she said, shooing him away.
She reached down and picked it up. The bowl was an eagle’s head, carved by Rob’s grandfather. Anu had given it to him when her father died, and it was Rob’s most prized possession. He would never have left it behind on purpose.
The biker couldn’t be Rob. Someone was messing with her head. She put her hand to her cheek and moaned.