Bringing Maddie Home(16)
Author: Janice Kay Johnson

Not until her car was out of sight did he sigh and head back in to face his irate commander.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re here.” Emily shook her head in obvious bemusement. “And the three of us together again.”

Emily and her new husband had recently bought a house in town only a block from the river. It reminded Nell a little too much of the Dubeau home, although this one was more modest. She could tell, though, that it was as dignified and gracious as Emily herself. Nell couldn’t help thinking this was the daughter her own parents had wanted her to be.

Emily sat now in a wing chair, a pretty, elegant woman with her masses of blond hair worn up in a simple twist. She’d kicked off her shoes, but beneath slacks she wore tights or knee socks with an elaborate pattern of climbing vines.

It hadn’t been her face so much as her Princess Grace carriage that brought back Nell’s first memory of her.

“I used to tease you and insist your mom must make you walk around with a heavy book on your head for an hour a day,” she blurted.

Both women stared at her. “You remember,” Hailey whispered.

After a moment, Emily burst into delighted laughter. “Yes! After the first time you said that, I tried it.” She wrinkled her nose, reducing the air of dignity. “I was really good at it.”

They all laughed now.

Hailey sat on the carpeted floor, her back to one end of the sofa and her knees drawn up. She wore ragged, faded jeans and was engulfed by what looked like a man’s sweater that had reached midthigh before she’d sunk to the floor. If she’d started the day with any makeup, it was gone. Maybe the bright hair was statement enough.

Seeing the two of them, the contrast, did bring hazy memories.

“Why were we friends?” she asked, then blushed as she realized how untactful that sounded. “I mean, Emily, you’re so chic and I’m not.”

“And I’m really not,” Hailey chimed in.

A smile curved Emily’s mouth. “You should remember,” she said to Hailey before looking at Nell. “I looked like…like the classic flagpole even in eighth grade. I’m five foot eleven, you know. I towered over everyone, boys included, from kindergarten on. And I had these big feet.” She lifted one in demonstration. Yes, it was probably a size eleven. “My mother kept saying—with thinly veiled desperation—that everyone would envy me someday, because I’d have the face and figure of a high fashion model.” That merry laugh rang out again. “That didn’t quite happen, but at least I did, eventually, acquire some figure.”

Hailey grinned at her, their intimacy momentarily excluding Nell. “But not until you were sixteen.”

Emily smiled at Nell, erasing her momentary feeling of loneliness. “I thought I’d never get my period. Or meet a guy who’s taller than me and doesn’t love having a girl he can cuddle against his chest.” Her fond gaze wandered toward the kitchen, where they all heard the sound of running water. Nell had met Jason when she arrived and liked him immediately. He wasn’t that much taller than Emily—six foot one or two, maybe—and lean to the point of being skinny. He was also gentle, friendly and obviously in love with his wife. The way he’d looked at her had made Nell feel a pang of envy. He’d chatted for a minute and then excused himself, leaving the women alone.

“It’s true,” Hailey said. “The three of us were sort of misfits, in different ways. Emily got over it. I never did.” She didn’t sound as if she minded.

“I felt like a misfit.” Nell knew that much. “Always so awkward, so…”

When she hesitated, Emily finished her sentence. “So unsure of yourself.”

Nell blinked. She’d expected to hear “so sad.” This at least was different. It also fit with her recently recovered memories. “Yes” was all she said.

“My mother kept bucking me up,” Emily continued, her expression compassionate. “I’m pretty sure yours tore you down instead.”

“Yes,” she said again. She had ducked her head in a way that was uncomfortably familiar. I still do that, she realized in dismay. Hiding. “I wish I knew why.”

“Maybe you should ask her,” Hailey suggested. She, too, was watching Nell with kindness and sympathy.

Nell managed a smile. “Maybe I will.”

“You were the first one of us to have a boyfriend, you know,” Emily said slowly. Her forehead was crinkled a little.

“What?” Nell’s heartbeat picked up speed and everything in her clenched with intense anxiety.

“Wow,” Hailey said. She and Emily both were looking at her in puzzlement. “I’d forgotten. You talked about him, but I never saw him.”

“I did, once, but only because I ran into you two by accident.” A tiny hint of old hurt sounded in Emily’s voice. “You’d barely told us about him. I guess it was new, but…”

“Who?” She swallowed. “Who was it?”

Emily shook her head. “That’s the thing. He didn’t go to school with us. You said he was older, like sixteen or seventeen. You thought he really liked you.”

“How could he not have gone to school with us?” Nell asked, trying to understand. “Was there a private school or something?”

“You said he was on his own. Like a dropout? Truthfully, it freaked me out. This guy you were keeping secret, who didn’t even go to school? Or—wow—was even older than he’d told you. Later, I told the police about him, but I don’t know if they ever found him.”

Oxygen seemed to be short in the room. It was a struggle to make herself sound collected and only mildly surprised. “Maybe I made him up.”

But Emily was shaking her head again. “Uh-uh. ’Cuz I did see him. He was actually pretty cute. At least, I thought so then.” She grimaced. “All I remember is that he had dark hair and brown eyes and he was dressed kind of scruffy and he seemed alarmed by me.”

“I don’t remember him at all.” I don’t.

Then why am I scared to death? As if…

She didn’t know. Only that this boy meant something.

“Did I tell you his name?”

Emily’s forehead crinkled as she thought. “It would be in the police report. Buck. No.” Her face cleared. “Beck. That was it. You never said a last name, though. Maybe Beck was his last name.”

“You’re right.” Nell made a face. “My mother would have had a cow.”

They talked about other things for a few minutes, and when Hailey excused herself Nell said good-night, too. Although she liked both of these friends, tonight she felt agitated and overwhelmed.

Beck.

Snow was falling again by the time she and Hailey left, but this time in big wet globs. The walkway and street were already slushy-looking. Emily had apologized because she and Jason had to park in the driveway. The garage, apparently, was full of unpacked stuff; combining separate households meant they had duplicates of lots of household items, plus furniture they hadn’t decided whether to keep or not. “I swear, by next winter,” she had said when they first arrived, “I want an empty garage and a remote control opener.”

Hailey had parked at the curb in front of the house, Nell across the street, having wedged her small car in between two hulking SUVs. Hardly anyone in town drove a car, she’d noticed, never mind one as modest and aging as hers. Four-wheel drive seemed to be a necessity, and she was beginning to see why. Even Hailey hopped into a Subaru Forester. She was already halfway down the block when Nell started across the street, stepping carefully. Even so, icy dampness penetrated to her toes. She really needed new boots.

She was midstreet when she heard the roar of an engine. Somebody was driving way too fast. For an instant, confused, she came to a stop. It was so dark, with the falling snow obscuring porch lights and streetlights. No headlights touched her.

Then she saw it, huge, black and bearing down on her. Fueled by a shot of adrenaline, she tried to run, but her traction wasn’t great in these boots, either, and she slipped and almost went down. It was terror that kept her on her feet and had her running and then throwing herself into the narrow gap between her front bumper and the white SUV she’d parked behind. She hit her shoulder on the way down and ended up splayed on the pavement between vehicles. The monstrous black SUV or pickup or something passed so close she braced herself for the scrape of metal. It didn’t come. What felt like an angry roar receded.

Wet and cold, bruised and probably scraped, she nonetheless scrambled to her knees and then her feet. Instinct drove her to get into her car, lock the doors, get away.

Run, run, run.

But oh, God— Where were her keys? She’d had them clutched in her gloved hand.

Frantic, Nell scrabbled in the wet snow on the pavement, praying they hadn’t slithered beneath one vehicle or another.

She could run back to Emily’s.

No. She wanted her own burrow. Colin.

Her hand closed over the keys and relief poured into her, making her sag. Her shoulder and one knee hurt, but she made it back to the driver’s side of her small Ford, unlocked it and all but fell inside, locking the door immediately.

She drove on automatic pilot, half numb, half terrified. For the first time she realized how well she knew the streets of this town, at least until she reached the outskirts.

Nell was shaking by the time she turned into Colin’s long driveway and finally braked in what had become her parking spot. Lights were still on in his house. Motion-activated lights above the garage came on, too.

Stiff and hurting, her teeth chattering, she got out and limped across the yard to his front porch. She had barely pressed the bell when the door swung open.

“Nell…?” His expression changed. He reached for her, pulling her inside and, after a quick, hard look past her, closed the door behind her. “What happened?” he demanded. “Did you fall down?”

She hugged herself to try to contain the shivers. It was hard to talk with her teeth chattering. “I almost got run over.”

“You had an accident?”

She shook her head. Her teeth clacked like castanets. “I was…I was…crossing the street,” she managed to answer.

“Oh, damn.” He began peeling her outer garments from her, after which he touched her cheek with such gentle fingers, she didn’t know why her face stung. “You’re hurt.” His voice was guttural. Taking her completely by surprise, he swung her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, close enough to the fire that she sighed in new relief.

“You’re soaking wet.” Now he mostly sounded angry. “I want to see where you’re hurt, then we’ll decide whether you need the E.R. or just a hot bath.”

A hot bath sounded like heaven, but the apartment had only a small shower.

“Show me.”

Self-conscious, she pulled her turtleneck over her head and then craned her neck to see her shoulder. It was flaming red and when he gently manipulated it, she winced.

“You’re going to have a hell of a bruise,” he growled.

The shakes were subsiding. “I think I whacked my knee instead of twisting it,” she said. Under his peremptory stare, she half stood and eased her jeans down, too. Her knee was swelling, but not badly, and, oh, boy, but she was going to have a hell of a bruise there, too, to quote him.

“I’m okay,” she muttered, pulling the jeans back up. When she reached for the turtleneck, Colin tossed it away.

“We’ll see how you feel after a bath. Here, put your arms around my neck.”

No one had ever carried her before like this. Or at least…no one in her memory. Stiff and self-conscious and excruciatingly aware of his strength, his scent, his body, she kept her gaze fixed on Colin’s strong jaw, rough with a day’s growth of beard. In an effort to distract herself, she tried to picture her father carrying her like this and couldn’t.

Colin’s bathroom was positively sybaritic, the tub huge and surrounded by a forest of deep green tiles, a few scattered ones textured with what looked like the imprint of pinecones. He started the water running, tested it with his hand, then rose to his feet and looked at her. “Can you get undressed by yourself?” His voice was a little gruff.

“Of course I can!” Nell couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his compelling gray eyes but that didn’t mean she had to sound like a languishing her**ne of some 19th century Gothic romance.

Although…she hadn’t known the meaning of the word shy until now. Here she was wearing nothing but her bra and unsnapped, wet jeans. For once in her life she wished she wore boring undergarments. This bra happened to be black with hot pink polka dots, the cups framed with hot pink lace. And oh, yes, she hurt and the fear still came and went like ocean waves, pounding and receding, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also feel aware of him with every cell of her body.

His hand curled into a half fist, he stroked the cheek that wasn’t scraped with his knuckles. “Okay,” he murmured, the deep voice tender. “I’ll run over to the apartment and bring you dry clothes.”

“Thank you,” she said huskily.

He still didn’t move for a moment, and she knew his gaze rested on her face. But then with a nod he went.

She peered first into the mirror and saw that a long scrape decorated one side of her face. Her hair was plastered to her head and dripping, and her eyes looked wild. No wonder he’d reacted with alarm at first sight of her on his doorstep.

Her knee was stiffening. Swinging that leg over the side of the tub was a challenge, but sinking into the hot water was heavenly.

When the door opened partway, she crossed her arms over her br**sts, but all he did was set a pile of clothes on the floor and quietly close the door again.

Nell stayed in the tub long enough to warm herself through, but not as long as she’d have liked. She imagined Colin pacing outside the bathroom. He would want to know what had happened, and she needed to tell him.