LITMIR.BIZ

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held her smile.

      He didn’t smile at all.

      “Where is she?” he finally asked.

      Before Abby could respond, the door behind her flew open. She spun and bent over her five-year-old nephew, putting her body between the man and the child. The boy looked up at her with his big blue eyes, her sister’s eyes. “Aunt Abby, can we finish our game now?”

      She put her hand on his blond head, curly hair like hers, not straight like his mother’s. “Go back inside, Kyle sweetie.”

      “Who’s out there?” Kyle tried to see around her, but the big city had taught her caution on the border of paranoia, and where Kyle was concerned, everyone was to be suspected first. Trust needed to be well earned.

      Abby physically turned Kyle around and pushed him gently into the house. “I’ll be in very soon. Why don’t you pour us each a glass of milk, and I’ll get cookies down when I come in.”

      “Yippee, cookies,” the five-year-old shouted as he ran toward the kitchen at the back of the house. A cookie bribe. The bad-aunt police should be after her any minute.

      “And pick up your toys,” she called after him and then slowly pulled the berry-colored front door closed again. When she turned back to the stranger, he suddenly seemed taller, stronger, and she needed him away from the house, away from Kyle. She stepped off the porch and down onto the sidewalk bordered with unruly wildflowers.

      “I’m Angelina’s sister. Who are you and what do you want with her?” she asked as he descended the steps.

      “My name is Reed Maxwell.” He didn’t offer his hand. She probably didn’t look as if she would accept the offer.

      “Maxwell as in Jesse Maxwell’s relative?” One of the rich snobs? One of a bunch of people who didn’t care about anyone except themselves? Those were the kinds of things the man who rented the living quarters above her garage had said about his family.

      “Jesse’s brother.”

      “Of course you are. He has a picture of your family, though it’s several years old.” Like about a decade or so. The brothers in the photo were gangly teens. This one had definitely developed a man’s body. “Jesse hasn’t changed much.”

      Reed Maxwell nodded. “I wanted to ask Angelina if she knows where he is. According to what I found out in Denver, she knew Jesse when they lived there.” The words sounded like an accusation. Maybe Jesse was right. Snobs.

      Light. Keep it light, she reminded herself. “He…um…said none of his family gives…well, he said something about…a rat’s ass, about…none of his family giving one…sorry…about him.”

      The man smiled and brought one hand up to rest on his hip under the lower edge of his jacket.

      Of all the things Abby expected from him, a big grin was not it. Some of the tiredness lifted from his face, brightening his whole appearance and making him—well—yummy.

      “What,” she asked, jerking her wandering mind away from thoughts of yummy, “are you smiling about?”

      “I know I’m on the right track. The ‘rat’s ass’ hyper-bole would be the kind of thing Jesse would say about us.” He put the photo in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “And he’s probably right for the most part, but I do need to speak with Angelina or Jesse if you know where he is.”

      “Angelina’s not here. Neither is Jesse.”

      “Jesse was here? In St. Adelbert?”

      For almost a year. How could a family not know where one of their own was for that long? “He lived, lives above my garage in the apartment there.”

      “With your sister.”

      “Angelina doesn’t live here.”

      “So, do you know where Jesse is or when he’ll be back?”

      Her shoulders drooped when she thought of her tenant. “I wish I knew. He just sort of disappears sometimes. He’s been gone for over two months this time.”

      “And that’s different?” Reed Maxwell shifted one foot up onto the lower step. Dress shoes, those slim, well-fitting ones that spoke of money—with laces and everything—and a scuff on the toe of one. A very long way from home. Chicago, more precisely, a rich suburb north of Chicago according to Jesse.

      “I haven’t heard anything from him,” she explained. “Not that he usually calls and he never writes, but I thought since he’s gone so long he would have let me know he’s all right. Has he called you in the past couple months?”

      The man shook his head thoughtfully as he rubbed his fingertips along his jawline where a long day’s worth of dark whiskers grew. “Are you sure Jesse and Angelina aren’t together somewhere?”

      “Angelina is out of the country. Jesse said he was going hiking in Utah, but that was only supposed to be for a couple weeks.”

      “And you didn’t think to contact his family.” His grin had long since left and the tiredness returned.

      I hope you’re not this rude when you’re well rested. “I sent a letter two weeks ago to an address I found in his things. I haven’t heard a peep in response.”

      “Even though you believed we didn’t give a—care?”

      “Make up your mind, please. I should write. I shouldn’t have written. Jesse’s a friend of my sister. She’s worried and so am I. I did talk it over with the sheriff.”

      “And?”

      “Well, the last time Jesse went missing for almost a month and I was about to go file a missing person’s report, he showed up. I told him about it and he got really sad, asked me never to do that. So this time the sheriff said to give Jesse time. I was going to wait till I heard from his family before I did anything, um, rash. For all I knew he was home in Illinois.”

      The man looked out over the mountains rising beyond the town. Then he looked back at her and almost drilled through her with his dark eyes. “I’d like to check out his apartment.”

      She involuntarily took a step back, her heel coming down in a clump of white yarrow releasing the stringent, musty smell of the injured plant.

      “I don’t think I can let you in without Jesse’s permission,” she said as she stepped forward to take back the ground she had given.

      He must have realized he was coming on strong, because he put up a hand in a conciliatory gesture, an uncalloused hand that had never held a rope or the reins of a workhorse. “I don’t mean to cause trouble. I’d just like to find my brother. How much back rent does he owe you?”

      “Why do you think he owes money?”

      “Some things don’t usually change much over time.”

      “Three months.” And the edge of financial oblivion lived a constant threat right under her toes as compounding interest worked heavily against her. The last three weeks…

      “I’ll pay the three months and I’ll pay for next month. Will that buy me entrance?” He reached in his pocket for his wallet. Not a wallet, a money clip, of course.

      She couldn’t meet his probing gaze without a chance to think. She turned away to study an old red pickup passing slowly in the street. She had no idea how she planned to find the mortgage payment due three weeks ago, and her SUV was also late for an oil change. The house needed work and Kyle needed clothes that would fit, and soon. School started next month.

      “It feels mercenary,” she said quietly. Or worse, she thought. Their mother had said again and again that taking money from a man without good reason was wrong. On top of a winning personality, Delanna Fairbanks did have some morals. “With Jesse missing.”

      “And you need the money.”

      She

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