Riding beside Chance in his SUV, she’d had a lot of time to study the man. He sat relaxed and confident behind the steering wheel, hands clasped loosely around it. Driving under the speed limit because of the conditions, she had the feeling he rarely exceeded it, even when it was bright and sunny. A total Boy Scout, that was Chance Boudreau. Described him to a T.
It stung that he’d had her investigated. While they weren’t best buds or anything, she hadn’t realized he distrusted her enough to dig into her background. Fortunately, most of it was hidden beneath layers of false information, thanks to Nico’s savvy computer skills. Coincidence was a funny thing. She hadn’t realized she’d ended up using the same guy Renee found to do her fake IDs. A few weeks after landing in Portland and after a few judicious and discreet inquiries, she’d run into Nico. He’d helped her lay a false trail, obscuring her real life and creating a brand new one, with a few extra bumps along the way, to make it look legit. There was no way Chance’s computer guru was clever enough to wade through the layers Nico established—not unless they were a genius. Nico was just that good.
“First question. What’s your real name?”
“Wow, going straight for the jugular, counselor?” Her lips quirked and she bit the bottom one to keep from laughing, because she’d been expecting him to dive in feet first. In the courtroom, he might try to put his witnesses at ease, but she didn’t expect him to treat her with kid gloves. “I was born Christina Phillips, but I’ve always been called Tina.”
Watching his face closely, she spotted the slight upward tug of his lips, which confirmed he already knew that information. Score one for Chance.
“My turn. What was your name, before it got changed to Boudreau?”
“Well, it’s always been Chance. Only the last name changed. When I turned eighteen, I legally changed it to Boudreau. It’s kind of a family tradition. Before that, it was Donovan. Why’d you leave California?”
Her eyes widened at his question. “Your investigator is pretty good. My parents and I had a…falling out…and it was best for everyone if I exited the picture.”
“Want to elaborate?”
“Not really.”
“Where’d you go after you left your parents?”
“I stayed in California because I was attending school and lived with my aunt and uncle. They’re amazing and I adore them. Things have been a little rough the last few months. Uncle Stanley’s had some health issues, and Aunt Maxie’s been taking care of him.” Thinking about the two people who’d stood by her when her life was falling apart gave her a twinge of homesickness. They’d been her rock when her whole world exploded, lending her their support and their love.
“Your turn. What made you choose to become a lawyer?”
A tinge of pink spread across his cheeks, and she realized he was embarrassed by the question. Oh, boy, this is gonna be good. Internally, she was rubbing her hands gleefully together, because if he refused to answer her question, she was off the hook and wouldn’t have to answer any more of his.
“Well now, that’s kind of a long, mostly boring, story. You sure you wouldn’t rather ask a different question?”
“Counselor, if you refuse to answer the question, our game is over. I don’t mind. I’ll just lean back and take a nap. Of course, you’ll never know if your dossier about little old me is accurate.”
She gave an exaggerated stretch and shifted in her seat, getting comfortable. Either he’d spill his secret, or she’d get some quiet time without him prying into old wounds. Win-win.
Chance breathed out a long sigh and she thought she heard him mutter a curse beneath his breath. “It was about a year after I came to live on the ranch. I guess I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. Adjusting to living with new people, and a bunch of other guys as screwed up as I was, it wasn’t easy. I’d never been much of an outgoing kid, definitely shy and introverted.”
“You? Somehow I can’t picture it.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Absolutely. Please continue.” She kept her tone lighthearted, because something deep in her gut told her things could take a very serious turn if she wasn’t careful with her words.
“Anyway, it was summertime, and the temperatures were scorching. One hundred plus during the daytime, and still in the low nineties in the evenings. Hot enough it felt like your skin would peel off. Add in that I was at the stage where I hated everything and everybody, well, it was a recipe for trouble. I snuck out of the house late at night. Everybody was already in bed, and they didn’t hear anything. Hightailed it down to the road, and a couple of guys from school picked me up.”
“Thirteen or fourteen? Not old enough to drive.”
“This is Texas, darlin’. We learn to drive right after we learn to walk. Working on a ranch or a farm, we drive tractors, ATVs, three-wheelers for hauling feed. If it had an engine and tires, I could drive it.”
“Gotcha. So, these friends picked you up. Where’d you go?” Tina found herself immersed in his story, despite knowing he was only answering because of their little game of twenty questions. Didn’t matter, he was telling her a small piece of the puzzle that was Chance Boudreau, and she found herself eager to hear more.
“We headed into town. Specifically, the local high school. Of course, it was locked up tight, but that wasn’t a problem, we just climbed the fence and snuck in. I told you it was hotter than blazes, but we weren’t there to swim.” He chuckled and she found herself grinning, because she had an inkling he was about to impart some of what he’d called “mischief”. “Jimmy and Henry had collected our bounty that afternoon. Now, remember, I was a kid, and kids do stupid stuff and think it’s cool.”
“I vaguely remember what it’s like to be a teenager.”
Chance shot her a look, his eyes heating as then skimmed her from head to toe and back again. “You weren’t a teenage boy. We don’t mature the way girls do. Me and my buddies were simply playing a prank. Nobody would get hurt, and we’d laugh our butts off. Like I said, we climbed the fence at the school, and headed straight for the water. Jimmy carried a pillowcase full of snakes.”
Tina jolted upright at his word. “Snakes?”
“Yep. Nothing venomous, just rat snakes and grass snakes. Harmless. We thought it would be cool to dump them in the water and see what happened. Only, before we could toss them in, a security guard with a big flashlight caught us red-handed. Yelled for us to stop. Instead, Jimmy shoved the pillowcase in my hand and he and Henry took off running, leaving me holding the bag.”
Tina covered her mouth with both hands, holding back her laughter. She could picture this towheaded teenager with big baby blue eyes standing there like a deer caught in the headlights as the security guard was bearing down on him, while his buddies left him high and dry.
“Did he call the cops?”
“Worse. He called Momma.”
“Oh, dear.”
His shoulders shook with his own suppressed laughter, and she couldn’t hold back any longer. It spilled from her, a deep belly laugh and he joined in. Wiping at her eyes, she brushed away the tears.
“Well, don’t stop there. Tell me what Ms. Patti did.”
“That one hour waiting for her to drive into town was the longest one of my life. I accidentally dropped the bag and all the snakes got loose anyway, slithering all over the cement, and some of ’em got into the water. Others made a mad dash for freedom through the chain-link fence. Anybody watching me and this poor security guard chasing after those little buggers would’ve thought they were watching an old vaudeville routine. I grabbed hold of one, lost my balance, and fell into the pool headfirst.”
She jerked forward, the seatbelt stretched taut across her chest when he slammed on the brakes at the snarl of traffic, which had slowed down to a slow crawl. Red brake lights flashed in every lane, a stark highlight in the gloomy gray morning.
“Sorry. I should’ve paid closer attention.”
“Not your fault. Blame the weather. Besides, nobody got hurt, so it’s all good.” She gave him a smile, letting him know everything was okay. Honestly, she was having fun hearing about his boyhood adventure. Besides killing time, it gave her a glimpse into the man Chance Boudreau was, and how he’d become the person who was liked and respected by everyone in Shiloh Springs.
“We’ve got a while to go yet. Do you need more coffee or anything? I can pull over and hit a drive-thru.”
“I’m good. Plus, we’ve got the cinnamon rolls your mother sent if you get hungry. So, tell me what Ms. Patti did when she got to the pool?”
“That’s just it. She didn’t do anything. She spoke to the security guard for a few minutes, and then turned to me. I waited for her to explode. Anybody else would have, being called at one o’clock in the morning, yanked from their bed to come fetch their kid for breaking the law. I expected her to yell or scream or hit me. Something. Instead, she simply said let’s go home and walked toward the car. There was complete silence on the drive home. I think I’d rather she yelled. I kept wondering if this would be the thing to make them send me away. In the back of my mind, I also anticipated being put back into the system. It’s part of the welfare mindset. You go into a foster home, stay a couple months, end up back in the system, and the cycle repeats until you turn eighteen, then you’re out on the streets on your keister.”
“I can’t picture Ms. Patti or Douglas doing anything of the sort. They’d never turn their backs on their kids.”
“Ah, but you’re looking at it through the eyes of an adult. I was a snot-nosed punk who didn’t have a lot of friends. I was short, pudgy, and sullen. Nobody’d ever wanted me around, and I kept waiting for the inevitable.”
Tina reached across the space dividing them and touched his arm softly. The rock-hard muscle beneath her hands didn’t surprise her; she’d seen him almost naked that day in her hotel room when Bruce managed to get in. He was a hot, yummy, off-limits package she couldn’t afford to get involved with. Caring about someone led to heartbreak.
“What happened?”
“She pulled up in front of the Big House and cut the engine. The entire way home, she hadn’t said a word, but her disappointment was thick enough it almost choked me. She hadn’t even looked in my direction once we got in the car. I thought she couldn’t bear to be around me. I jumped out of the car and raced into the house, only to find Douglas waiting for me. The look of sadness on his face nearly did me in. I swear, I’d rather one of them beat on me than see how much I’d let them down. I hadn’t realized until then how much I’d grown to love them, and now I’d broken their trust. It opened my eyes in a lot of ways that night.”
“Did Douglas punish you?”
“No. They sent me to bed. No yelling about how I shouldn’t have snuck out, or how I’d broken the law. No condemnation of hurting their standing in the community. I’d done something awful, and their silent disapproval was worse than any punishment. I laid awake all night. I thought about packing, because I’d convinced myself they’d be calling Child Protective Services in the morning, to come and get me. Except I was afraid Brody would wake up. We shared a room and I was already in enough trouble. I didn’t need my brother piling on more guilt.”
“Obviously they didn’t call CPS, because you’re still a part of their family. You’re a Boudreau.”
“The next morning, we drove into town, straight to the sheriff’s office. Talk about scared; I was petrified. I swear I almost peed my pants. They could’ve thrown me into juvie, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”
She shook her head, her soft gaze studying him. “It’s impossible to imaging Ms. Patti or Douglas doing anything like that.”
“Remember, I was just an arrogant jerk with an attitude and I felt like I deserved anything they threw at me.”
He breathed out a long sigh, his gut clenching with the memory of that morning. Scared spitless, he’d huddled in the back seat. Shaking like a leaf, he’d wanted to pretend he was a big man, that he wasn’t afraid of anything they threw his way, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Sometime during the long, sleepless night, something inside him shattered, leaving him with the realization he didn’t want to leave. The Big House had become a sanctuary, a place where he finally felt at peace. And he’d tossed it all away with a stupid prank.
“Adolescence and puberty are rough, especially when you don’t have an anchor, something to cling to.”
He gently eased up on the accelerator as the brake lights ahead flashed on, like strobe lights in an uneven pattern. Tightening his grip on the wheel, he couldn’t help wondering how their conversation had gone from a teasing game of twenty questions into a revelation of his youthful indiscretion.
“You can’t leave me hanging, counselor. What happened when you got to the sheriff’s office?”
“That’s a story for another day. Whose turn is it now?”
“Hmm, I guess since you shared an embarrassing incident, it’s mine. Hit me with your next question.”
Before he could frame one, he glanced in the side mirror, some instinct pulling his attention to the cars behind him. A dark red sedan sped northbound on I-45, water from the asphalt spewing from beneath its wheels. Idiot was driving way too fast for the conditions, but then there was usually one who thought they were invincible and didn’t give a thought to other people’s safety. Not sure why, he moved over one lane to the right, putting a little distance between and the moron coming up fast.
“Chance?”
“Hang on, Tina. I want to let this guy—”
The sharp impact threw Chance forward, the abrupt jarring jerking his head forward. From the side of his vision, he saw the seatbelt pull taut across Tina’s chest before she slammed back against the seat. The truck skidded on the slick road, and he steered into the slide, wrestling with the wheel, his foot off the accelerator. He knew better than to slam on his brakes, that was a sure path to disaster.
Guess they weren’t going to make it to the airport after all.