That Runaway Summer

Who was she trying to reassure? Jill wondered. Her mother or herself?

“I hate that you’re living this way,” her mother said. “You were so happy in Atlanta. You were going to buy into that bike shop and you had all those nice friends.”

“I can make friends wherever I go.” Jill refused to dwell on her lost business opportunity. “I can be happy anywhere.”

She wished that were true of her mother, a nurse who had long operated under the hope that the next hospital job or the next condo or the next man held the key to her happiness.

“How can you be content when you’re always looking over your shoulder? That’s no way to live.”

“It’s the way it has to be.”

“No!” Her mother was probably shaking her head, the curly dark hair that was so like Jill’s rustling from side to side. “No, it isn’t. You can go on back to Atlanta and get your life together.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Jill said quietly.

“Why not?” her mother demanded. “He’s not a bad man.”

Her mother had a point, but that didn’t change the situation. “You know why. We’ve been over it a dozen times.”

“And for the life of me I still don’t understand why you’re so sure this is the only way.”

“Because it is the only way.” Jill cut her off before her mother launched into what had become a familiar refrain. “Thanks for telling me about the private eye.”

Silence.

“I’ll be in touch when I can.” Jill couldn’t promise anything more specific than that. “Bye, Mama. I love you.”

She rang off before her mother could say anything else, then sat down on the thin mattress of the sofa bed to assess her situation.

Even with her new ironclad policy of trusting no one, she could have unwittingly left a trail.

She hadn’t seen a way around using her own Social Security number. When she’d filled out the employment papers for her waitress job, it had been with the assumption that no one but the cops could get access to her records.

Had that been naive? Private eyes on TV were always calling in favors with their law enforcement contacts. Did it work that way in real life, too?

Her eyelids finally grew heavy and she clicked off the living-room lamp with the sunflower shade she’d picked out herself. She usually had no trouble falling asleep, but tonight she felt the mattress coils poking at her ribs. Her eyes popped open at every noise.

She must have finally slept, because the weak light of dawn filtering through the shades woke her. Her mind felt clear, the indecision that had plagued her the night before gone. She didn’t linger in the sofa bed, for she had much to do.

When she was almost ready, she opened the creaky door to the second room in the apartment and approached the sleeping form in the bed. Very gently she shook the thin shoulder not covered by the white sheet.

The soft, regular breathing sounds of sleep stopped, replaced by a drowsy sigh. A head covered by floppy brown hair turned, and huge, dark, confused eyes set in a too-lean face fastened on hers. A tide of love swept over her, nearly causing her to take a step backward.

“Hey, Chris,” she said, sweeping the hair back from her brother’s face. “Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got to get you packed.”

He nodded once, then sat up, the covers falling away to reveal the white T-shirt he wore over his scrawny chest.

“Okay,” he said.

Last night, when she’d taken him to the carnival, he’d balked at the roller coaster but had eaten cotton candy and gone on the merry-go-round like any other ten-year-old.

Now his eyes were solemn and he didn’t even ask why she was going to upend their lives once again.

Jill wasn’t the only one who knew the most effective way to elude a bird dog was to fly off before the hunting party arrived.

CHAPTER ONE

Ten months later

TRUST NO ONE.

Jill Jacobi had managed to follow that simple rule since she’d stumbled across the evocatively named Indigo Springs on a Pennsylvania map and headed there. The scenic Pocono Mountain town had turned out to be a fine place to hide. It was out of the way, yet full of interesting, stimulating people.

No wonder she’d let down her guard.

“It was real sweet of you to invite me over.” Jill spoke to Penelope Pollock in a whisper on a Friday night in July. “Even though I haven’t known you long, I already love you to death. I might change my mind, though, if you’re aiming to fix me up with the vet.”

Penelope transferred four bottles of beer from the refrigerator to the sleek granite countertop of the island in her kitchen, then rummaged in a drawer until she pulled out a bottle opener.

“Of course I’m fixing you up.” Penelope spoke without a trace of shame. “It’s what I do.”

Jill would never tell Penelope the truth of how she and Chris had ended up in Indigo Springs. So why hadn’t she been more cautious when she’d gotten a dinner invitation from the woman who fancied herself a matchmaker?

The answer was simple, yet complicated.

Jill, who could afford to trust no one, was too darn trusting.

“You should be thanking me.” Penelope popped the top on one of the beer bottles. “Dan’s a great guy. On the quiet side, but animals and kids love him. When are they ever wrong about a person?”

On the wooden deck visible through the sliding glass doors, Penelope’s husband, Johnny, tended the grill as Dan Maguire bent to pet a huge dog. The beast’s thick tail wagged vigorously as the dog tried to lick his face. Dan straightened, teeth a dentist would admire flashing as he laughed, his hand still buried in the dog’s white-and-mahogany coat.

“I’m sure he’s a nice guy,” Jill began.

“Nice doesn’t begin to cover it,” Penelope retorted. “After he started working for Stanley Kownacki, all I heard about him were good things. Now that we have a puppy, I wouldn’t dream of using any other vet.”

Puppy? That monstrosity of a dog was a puppy?

“Not many nice guys are as good-looking as he is,” Penelope continued without taking a breath. “Just try to tell me he’s not hot.”

A breeze rustled Dan’s black hair, which fell almost to his collar. Jill knew from the few times she’d happened to see him around town that his eyes were a startling blue, but they weren’t his best feature. Neither were his long interesting nose, lean high cheekbones or wide full mouth.

Her eyes dipped to his legs, left bare beneath his khaki shorts. Lean and lightly sprinkled with brown hair, they had excellent calf definition.

Yeah, she was a leg girl, all right.

“Oh, he’s hot,” Jill said, “but I seem to remember you saying no when I asked if anyone besides you and Johnny would be here.”

Wielding the bottle opener in her right hand, Penelope methodically popped the rest of the beer-bottle tops.