A Gift For The Groom

“I asked him that and he said no. Either she didn’t want to push her luck or she got better at hiding her crimes. He said she was kind of a religious fanatic. She and her daughter went to every service, but they never made friends, never participated in social activities. He said Sara was a very quiet, subdued little girl, that June ruled her with an iron hand and Sara seemed scared of her mother.”

“That’s too bad.”

He sounded disconnected, detached, as though they were talking about the mechanical breakdown of a car or something. “It certainly is too bad! Where were the authorities? Why didn’t somebody help Sara? Why didn’t Sampson do something about it? He’s supposed to help people!”

“Hey, don’t get mad at me. I’m agreeing with you. But you’ve got to be realistic here. That was a long time ago, a small town, and what could the authorities do anyway? Did she beat Sara? Did she hurt her physically?”

“She spanked her. Sampson saw her do that in church. And she probably did worse in private. How else could she subdue her so drastically? Remember you said when she was in Wyoming that she’d been, and I quote, a pistol. June Martin had to do something drastic to break her spirit like that.”

He stared straight ahead through the windshield, his profile calm and unperturbed though his jaw was still set solidly, with one muscle twitching slightly as if maintaining that calm was an effort. “I’m sure you’re right, but that was a lot of years ago. Sara’s grown now, probably has a good job, a husband, maybe a couple of kids. Whatever happened to her as a child is over and done with. We’ll find June Martin and she’ll go to jail for embezzlement and you’re going to have to accept that as her punishment for whatever she did wrong in raising her daughter.”

“I can’t believe you’re so uncaring about this whole thing!”

Nick pulled into the Presbyterian church’s packing lot and turned to Analise. “I can’t believe you’re getting so upset about somebody you don’t even know.”

For a long moment Analise stared into the distant, unreadable blue of Nick’s gaze and questioned exactly why she was so obsessed with Sara’s happiness. Obviously it only added to her instability in Nick’s eyes. On the other hand, she couldn’t accept his total lack of concern.

“I can’t explain it, but Sara doesn’t feel like a stranger. It’s like there’s some sort of a link between her and me. I felt it last night when you first told me about her. Then today when Sampson was talking about her, it was almost like I could feel her sadness and loneliness. Like I was destined to find that little girl who has the same color hair and eyes that I do, find her and rescue her from the awful woman who caused so many problems for so many people.”

Nick lifted one eyebrow skeptically.

“Fine,” she said, turning away and reaching for the door handle. “I don’t care whether or not you believe me. I don’t care whether or not you keep working for me. I’ll do it without you.”

“Analise—” He laid a restraining hand on her shoulder, and those tingles started again, her already warm skin warming in a different way, setting those lumps of coal to blazing again.

She held her breath, paralyzed, unable or unwilling to move. His hand slid slowly down her arm, lighting miniature forest fires everywhere it touched, and he made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Or maybe the sound came from her own throat. Or maybe she only imagined it.

This wasn’t good at all. Okay, it felt good, real good, but she didn’t need some man other than her fiancé making her feel things her fiancé didn’t. Not that she wanted to feel those things from her fiancé, that out-of-control, wildly exciting ride on the Adrenaline River straight over Disaster Falls.

She definitely didn’t need this, didn’t want or need to be attracted to a man who was the embodiment of chaos, guaranteed to create more problems in her life.

Nick took his hand away, and she opened the car door and darted out. He caught up to her as they reached the church steps.

“Analise, I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t believe you. I just have a hard time understanding. I helped raise four little sisters and I was married for four months, so I know what it means to be compelled to take care of someone and worry about them. But—a stranger?”

She stopped and turned back to him. “I’ve always had everything. It’s been great, but I’ve often wondered why I should be so lucky. I didn’t do anything to deserve any of it. And Sara didn’t do anything to deserve so much bad. It’s not fair that I had so much and she had so little. Maybe this is my chance to make things more equal.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his gaze unreadable and veiled. Finally he shrugged. “Whatever. It’s your case.” He looked down at her bare legs. “But are you sure you want to go to church in that getup?”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “Last I heard, God was more concerned with the inside than the outside. Anyway, I don’t have anything else. This bag will only hold so much.”

Nick scowled. “Why didn’t you bring a regular suitcase?”

“If my parents had seen me packing a suitcase, they’d have stopped me from coming. If anybody in that town had seen me with a suitcase, they’d have told my parents, who’d have stopped me from coming.”

Nick’s gaze moved slowly over her body, heating her blood as if he’d physically touched her, then returning to her face. “You’re a grown woman. Isn’t that a little extreme, having the whole town tattling on you?”

“I’ve always thought so. I told you, my parents are really into being overprotective. I’m twenty-seven years old, but you’d think I was still seven the way they treat me. They don’t think I have sense enough to cross the street by myself even though there’s hardly any traffic in Briar Creek, which remands me, I haven’t called them since I got to the airport in Wyoming yesterday and they’ll be worried. I need to find a phone.”

“Do your parents have reason to worry about you?”