Connor walked through the quiet rooms of his house. Sunnie was sound asleep with all her stuffed animals crowded around her. They’d been on the shelves in her closet for years, then her mother died and one by one they’d somehow found their way back to her bed.
He tugged a blanket over her shoulder, knowing it was long past the time when she needed tucking in.
Gram was downstairs sound asleep. The night nurse, with a book spread out over her ample belly, was snoring.
As he walked from room to room, he knew he would not be sleeping tonight. Too much on his mind.
Finally, he slipped out the back door and drove the silent streets in his old pickup. He knew who lived in almost every house. He knew their names and where they worked. With some of the people, he felt like he knew their life stories, and a few, their secrets.
He could name a hundred others who’d moved away. Kids who went to college and never came back. Couples who retired and moved out to a lake community or a few towns over to be with their grandchildren. He felt like he knew them all, except Jillian James. She’d shared more tonight than she ever had, but he didn’t think she would again.
Turning down Main, he parked in front of his office. If he couldn’t find out about her, maybe he could find the father she kept asking about. For some reason she must believe that he stopped in Laurel Springs thirty years ago.
Maybe he had.
Connor walked through his office to the stacks in the back. Births and deaths had been logged since the paper started and, thanks to his last assistant, they were on the computer. It wouldn’t be that hard to find Jefferson James if he was here thirty years ago. He’d search the year before and the year after, as well.
First, birth records. No Jillian James. New homeowners, nothing. Lists of people who joined clubs, churches, the chamber of commerce, the historical society. All blank.
He tried deaths spanning her lifetime. There were several Jameses, but neither Jillian nor Jefferson were listed under survivors. He tried her mother’s name. Marti, Margaret, Marguerite, Martha, and a dozen others that might be shortened to Marti. No marriage license. No deaths. No one by that name ever graduated from high school in Laurel Springs. Or been arrested. Or divorced.
Two hours passed. Three.
Finally, on a lark, he dug up the article on the rodeo when he was seven. Nothing.
He tried the year he was six. Bingo. His father had written a detailed account of the rodeo including a calf roper who’d lost the tip of his first finger. Jefferson James. Hometown unknown. Employee of Phillips Petroleum.
Connor grinned. He’d found her father. It wasn’t much, but for at least one day before she was born, her father had been in Laurel Springs. Fighting the urge to go wake her up and tell her, he made two copies of the article and headed home.
As usual, he circled through the abandoned part of town. If anyone was there, he might see some sign. Even a flashlight would be easy to spot.
The place was dark and unwelcoming as always. No movement.
Connor drove, turning his headlights down every alley. Nothing. It occurred to him that he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he did see someone. There was a chance any person living in the shadows might be armed, and Connor had never carried a weapon in his life.
Maybe he should talk to the sheriff and ask him to drive through. “No,” Connor said aloud. This was his property. His problem. The way stories spread in a small town, within two weeks they’d have dozens of kids combing through the building looking for a ghost, and someone might get hurt.
He’d deal with this problem, if there really was a problem, on his own.
When he made it back to the house, he was so tired, he crashed on the couch where he could see Gram sleeping in the next room. He liked her here, but he knew as soon as she was mobile, she’d be back in her apartment at the retirement home. Gram was independent. Even when Melissa died, she’d go back to her place every night after Sunnie was asleep and be back in the kitchen cooking breakfast when Sunnie came down the stairs.
As Connor drifted into unconsciousness, he pulled Jillian into his arms. She was there with him in his dreams. He would hold her all night long.
A few hours later, laughter woke him up.
“Dad, you need to slow down. The wild life must be getting to you.”
Connor rolled and almost tumbled off the couch. He groaned and opened one eye.
For a second he thought the devil’s angel was staring down at him. Tall and lean, dressed in black and chains, fiery streaks of red in her hair, huge black circles around pale eyes.
He scrubbed his face. No devil, just his daughter. “Morning, Sunnie.”
“Dad, you really have to start taking care of yourself, or you’ll age so fast I’ll have to quit college and move in to take care of you.”
“I do live with you.” He slowly stood. “How about skipping college and just taking on the job of taking care of your old man right now?”
“No, Dad, I live with you. I go to school. You go to work. I’m not ready to change roles.”
“All right. I guess I’ll shower and go to work. Any chance you’d cook me breakfast while I dress?”
She looked put out, but she nodded. “All right. But don’t take too much time. You have to take me to school in half an hour.”
Gram laughed from the dining room, then smiled when they turned and saw her standing. The nurse was right behind her, and Gram was leaning on a walker, but she was standing.
Connor and Sunnie both took a step toward her, but she held up her hand. “I’m fine. I’ve been practicing all week. One step at a time. This morning I plan to help with breakfast, and then I’ll probably nap the rest of the day.”
She took one step toward the kitchen. “Now don’t either of you tell Benjamin I can cook or he’ll want pancakes for breakfast.”
Sunnie just stood staring at her dad. Big tears rolled down her cheeks.
Connor moved to Gram and held the swinging door for her. “Gram, Benjamin died when I was a little kid.”
She looked confused for a moment, then smiled. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot for a moment. It seems like I just talked to him yesterday.”
The nurse took over and Sunnie pulled it together enough to start asking questions about how to make an omelet.
Gram remembered every detail.
Connor climbed the stairs, feeling like a boulder had replaced his heart. For a moment last night, he’d thought he might pack up and leave with Jillian. He’d dreamed of seeing the world. He’d thought he might just travel with her. For a few weeks, a month, forever.
But that was just a fantasy. He couldn’t leave his daughter, or his grandmother, or even the town. People depended on him.
He couldn’t, wouldn’t fly away. He hadn’t when Melissa told him she was pregnant or when his parents died, leaving everything in a mess, and he wouldn’t now. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to. He would stay.
An hour later Sunnie had been dropped off at school, his gram was napping and Connor was in his office. Since the accident, he’d left things for the city undone. He had calls to make, letters to sign, and proposals to draw up.
The book he’d been working on would have to wait. Nothing new.
An hour later, the fire chief, a big guy named Bob Stevenson, marched into Connor’s office, complaining that Joe Dunaway wanted all kinds of changes to the district—streetlights, new fire hydrants, road work.
When Jillian walked in Connor jumped up, hoping to be rescued. Once the chief started talking, it seemed like hours could drift by without Bob even taking time to breathe.
She hesitated, halfway to his city business desk, when she saw he had company. He found the shy way she lowered her head and let her midnight hair cover her face irresistible.
Connor stood politely and introduced her formally to the chief but made no effort to get close to her. Even looking at her made him feel like a diabetic staring at a chocolate layer cake.
She took her cue from him and said she didn’t mean to bother him but wasn’t sure what to do with an order that had been delivered. Gram must have placed the restocking order several weeks ago and now three huge boxes of new supplies for the shop were cluttering up the store.
Connor knew what she wasn’t saying. Why would they need an order of new fabric if the store was going to be closing?
The police chief answered first. “I’ll be glad to help you move them, little lady. Just as soon as I finish filling in the mayor on what’s been going on.”
Connor almost laughed out loud. Jillian had asked for direction, not help, and at her height no one would mistake her for a little lady.
Part of him wanted to say, “Send everything back,” but he couldn’t, not yet. “Just give me the bill, Jillian. I’ll cover it. Thanks for letting me know, though. I’ll call the company direct concerning future orders.”
He’d been managing Gram’s personal accounts since she’d moved into the Acres. He might as well start handling the shop’s, as well. Although, from the looks of her ledgers for the past year, she’d stopped writing checks and started simply using her debit card. There had been weekly deposits made, as always, but she hadn’t bothered to log any into the ledger.
Jillian said goodbye to the fire chief as she handed Connor the invoice. All very formal.
Connor didn’t look into her eyes. He couldn’t have watched her walk away if he’d stared into those eyes.
She was already back inside the shop by the time he remembered the rodeo article.
The fire chief jumped back into their conversation, but Connor was only halfway listening.
The day was going from bad to worse, he feared.