Once More, At Midnight

Crystal nodded. Following his lead, she said nothing about the incident that had just occurred.

“We’ll be fine here.” Crystal was composed by nature, and she was Lakota; she read Gus well enough to know when to converse and when not to.

With a nod in return, he left the minimart. Squinting in the sun, he walked around the building to the open garage, where he’d parked his car, and raised a hand in acknowledgement to Crystal’s cousin Jim, also Lakota, who toiled over the clutch of a Ford pickup and worked the pumps.

The gas station was pulling a decent business in gas and repair work and more business would be coming Gus’s way; he was certain of it. He liked risks, but he didn’t gamble unnecessarily. He’d come back to North Dakota with plans, not only for the station, but for Kalamoose.

Twelve years ago he’d left town with his head hung low, carrying shame and frustration that had dogged him most of his life. He’d owned nothing, had dropped out of school and alienated anyone who might have helped him.

And he’d left town hating Lilah Owens the same way he’d loved her—ferociously, blindly, passionately.

Starting the engine of a Lexus SC, he put the convertible in Reverse, pulled out of the garage and jammed on a pair of hundred-and-fifty-dollar sunglasses to block the glare.

The shock on Lilah’s face when she’d realized he owned the gas station had filled him with satisfaction—and churning resentment. She hadn’t expected him to amount to crap, had she?

Gunning the car’s engine, Gus headed for the highway, toward nowhere in particular.

It had been a long while since he’d craved danger and speed; apparently Lilah still had a deleterious affect on his judgment. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about her for long.

He had learned to manage his thoughts the way he managed his businesses: by allotting time only to that which would bring success and by turning away from distractions.

Starting his mental clock, he decided to allot Lilah two minutes. That would be enough time to assess his feelings.

First, he reminded himself that seeing her again should have come as no surprise, no jolt at all. When he’d returned to Kalamoose, he had accepted as fact that she would be back to visit her sisters some day and that he might run into her. He’d looked forward to the meeting, to showing her he’d moved on—and up—without her love, without her support, without any of the things he’d once believed he needed in order to breathe.

He could live, he’d since learned, without a lot of things. And Lilah Owens was one of them.

Thirty seconds down; a minute and a half to go….

He briefly allowed himself to relive that first moment of seeing her again. She’d been wrestling with a kid who was obviously shoplifting. He could have stepped in—he’d just exited his office when the tussle began—but he’d hung back, taken the opportunity to let his revved senses calm and to study the woman he’d known he would see again one day. Without the perfectly chosen, perfectly pressed clothes she had once favored, without the makeup, without the soft teenage perfection, Lilah was still—

He swore and pressed the gas pedal.

The golden girl of Kal High was still built like every man’s fantasy. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept well, but she still had cat eyes—golden-green and blazing—and lips full enough to make most men eschew common sense.

Easing off the pedal when the speedometer hit eighty-five, Gus wondered about the kid. He knew nothing about children, but guessed the girl to be a young teen, or nearly so. She was tall, belligerent and looked a little like Lilah’s older sister, Sara, with whom Gus had never hit it off. Could be Sara’s kid, he supposed, or maybe the younger one’s—Nettie’s. He’d heard she’d married and lived part time in Kalamoose, part time in New York. Beyond that meager information about the Owenses, he had studiously avoided all gossip.

He’d already dismissed the likelihood that the girl was Lilah’s daughter. The tussle over the candy had been awkward, as if they weren’t used to touching. There was no familial spark.

Another thirty seconds down. Don’t waste any more time on the kid.

For his last minute of reflection on Lilah Owens, Gus decided to remember the most important part of their relationship: She had betrayed him. In one unforgettable moment she had cut out the heart he had discovered only by loving her.

For a long, long time, Gus had wished a similar pain befell her. He’d hoped she would fall in love, learn to trust and let herself need someone who would throw it all back in her face.

For a long time, hatred had kept him alive but stupid. He’d made piss-poor choices and asinine mistakes.

Finally he’d realized hatred held a person in the gutter, but that righteous fury could be a powerful motivator. That’s when he began to fight the right way.

He’d battled for opportunities he’d never have hoped for in the past. He’d swallowed his pride—and his arrogance—and worked with integrity when he thought a menial task would lead to something more. He learned how to conform, or at least to give the appearance of doing so when it would benefit him. He’d sought mentors and when they’d advised him, he’d listened.

Over the years, Gus had become more than anyone had ever imagined he would be. More, even, than he’d dared hope to become.

His passion had served him. And once it had, he’d let it go.

Somewhere along the line, he’d stopped picturing Lilah with every job he’d taken, every bank account he’d opened. There had come a time when he’d tried on a thousand-dollar suit and sought his own approval, not hers, in the mirror. In that moment he had known that he was ready to move on personally, not just professionally. He’d finally been able to start living and would eventually try his hand at loving. He’d moved past caring what Lilah Owens felt or thought about, or whether she’d ever regretted her actions….

Until fifteen minutes ago.

“Let me get this straight: The kid’s mother gives you—a woman she hasn’t seen in years—custody of her kid, and you have no choice in the matter?”

Seated behind her broad oak desk, dressed in her sheriff’s uniform, red hair slicked back into an honest-to-God, old-fashioned bun, Sara Owens looked and sounded more like a suspicious law enforcement agent than the warm, supportive sister Lilah needed right now.

“Keep your voice down,” Lilah cautioned, glancing to the jail cells Bree was presently investigating. At least the fact that Sara worked in a jail had scored points with the chronically unimpressed preteen. Sara had given her permission to nose around and that bought Lilah a few minutes to try to explain her current situation to her sister. “Of course I had a choice in the matter. You can’t force someone to take a child.”

“So?” Sara raised her hands. “Why do you still have her?”

Glancing toward the cells, Lilah wondered which details to relay and which to leave out. She hadn’t had the chutzpah to tell anyone the whole story. Not yet.

“I’m going to raise her.”

Sara put her head in her hands.

Lilah’s stomach burned. This was why she had been hoping to tell Nettie first. Nettie was gentle. Nettie was polite. Nettie was the youngest sister, but among the three of them she was the only one who had ever possessed a modicum of maternal instincts. When their parents died, it had been Nettie who’d assumed the role of nurturer and caretaker. Although Lilah and Sara were older and should have been the ones taking care of their baby sis, they had learned to rely on Nettie for their emotional needs, for reminders to complete their homework and for edible meals. Looking back, they had taken her for granted.

After driving across several states with Bree and then seeing Gus Hoffman, Lilah needed Nettie’s comfort and her levelheaded advice more than ever. She’d driven straight to Nettie’s from the gas station, but the house had been locked up tight. On her own, Lilah would have stayed put and waited. Bree, on the other hand, had started complaining about the heat and the threat of starvation, so Lilah had reluctantly come to the sheriff’s station.

Standing before Sara’s narrowed green eyes and their eagle-sharp scrutiny made Lilah remember why she’d rarely trusted Sara with her secrets, even when they were both kids. Sara’s world was black and white. Actions were either right or wrong, good or bad; you did something or you didn’t do it—case closed, end of story, next case. Lilah had never understood that.

Picking her way carefully over the rocky terrain of explanations, she attempted to answer Sara without provoking a cross-examination.

“Grace was my best friend when I first got to L.A. She was the receptionist at the first acting agency I signed with, and she took me under her wing and told me who I could trust and who to steer clear from. She saved my butt lots of times. I owed her any help I could give her.”

Sara squinted as if she were in pain. It made her look like Robert De Niro. “She helped you with your acting stuff, so you think you should take her kid?”

Lilah told herself not to get defensive, but she was exhausted and couldn’t stop thinking about Gus—two conditions guaranteed to put her on edge. And the way Sara said “your acting stuff” reminded her that in her older sister’s eyes she’d failed in just about every area of her life.

“I’m not going to let Sabrina down,” she said, “and you know what? You’re not going to understand this, so just drop it, Sara.”

Sara leaned over her desk, cheeks turning as red as her hair. “I’m not going to understand it? Why?” She splayed a big-boned hand on her chest. “Are you implying that I would let someone down? That I’m not reliable?”

“Geesh, Sara, no—”

“I sure as hell hope not, because as I recall I’m not the one who moved fifteen hundred miles from my family so I could be on the New Dating Game.”

“Oh, that’s it!” Lilah stood and knocked over a half-dead aloe vera plant as she swung her purse onto her shoulder. “Do you have Nettie’s cell number?”

“What for?”