LITMIR.BIZ

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the seller had title question on the land involved in the prospective sale. The bluster was a delay tactic.

      Almost down to the minute Denny had predicted when the seller would seem to renege and their client, the buyer, would be calling in a panic and had assured Reed he’d see the man.

      He was lucky to be in business with Denny, who thrived on converting the ridiculous to the sane.

      Reed tucked his phone into his pocket and snagged Jesse’s paychecks and stubs from the kitchen table where he had left them. The good people of St. Adelbert who had hired his brother were out there waiting to talk to him.

      And now it might all be more complicated. Was it possible Jesse was a father?

      More likely Reed was so tired, he was inventing things in his head. Surely Jesse wouldn’t have gone off for two months and left his son behind. Surely Abby would have said something about Kyle being his nephew. His head ached.

      He looked at the top stub in his hand. The address read “Miller’s Hardware Store” on Main St. in St. Adelbert. Small town advantage. No GPS needed.

      He yawned and looked over at the welcoming bed with the sheets Abby had washed. Abby, witty, attractive, maybe sexy if she weren’t trying so hard to be…what…nonchalant? He yawned again. Suddenly grilling the town’s merchants right this second lost its appeal.

      Abby was right. Sleep was definitely a good idea, maybe not even a choice, but only for the next few minutes, a power nap. The last thing he could do was waste time. If he talked to people today, he could be on a plane for Chicago tomorrow morning and be back in the office by late afternoon.

      He stretched out on the bed. He had no idea if Kyle and Jesse were related, but he couldn’t help thinking a grandchild would soothe his mother’s conscience. Maybe even give her the strength and courage to get outside herself and give up her downward spiral once and for all. Get her off his back. He was sure he was going to hell for thinking such a thing about his mother, and he was a bad, bad person to wish his mother on a small child.

      He called Denny and left a message about the client. Then he yawned, rolled over on his side and inhaled the fresh smell of the linens. Abby must have hung the sheets on the line outside. He vaguely remembered one of the nannies having done the same thing routinely in his family’s backyard, despite how the flapping scandalized his mother.

      He let his eyelids close for a five-minute nap.

      “CARRIE, YOU OLD CREEPFACE, aren’t you ever home?” Abby left the identical message for her friend in Denver as her friend had left her—only the names were changed—and smiled as she hung up the phone. Carrie was a dear and the only person in Denver she still carried on a friendship with.

      With no one to talk to, Abby washed the dinner dishes. From time to time, she peered out the kitchen window into the near darkness. The apartment above her garage, the paid-for apartment above her garage, was dark and stayed dark all the time she was washing and drying. She had been able to keep Kyle from being too curious about the man by shamelessly distracting him with a shopping trip and a long visit to the nearby park. He was safely asleep now, as apparently was the man upstairs. Thank goodness.

      She put the last dish in the cupboard and pulled the whole-grain bread she had made out of the oven, placing it on the rack to cool. Then she went in to the back room to turn on the computer. Her sister wasn’t online and was probably asleep somewhere. She wanted to yell at her sister for being irresponsible, for leaving Kyle in such a precarious position.

      If Jesse was Kyle’s father, and if Jesse never came back, the boy would never get to know his father. If Jesse wasn’t his father, Kyle might never know the other side of his family. Ever. She knew what that was like. Her father’s relatives had never contacted her and Lena after their father left.

      Or the other side of Kyle’s family, no matter who they were, might take him away.

      The thought of giving up Kyle tore at her, and not just because it would leave her alone in the world with only a mother who kept trying to take husband-hunting to new levels and a sister on the other side of a very large ocean. Kyle was five and he didn’t deserve to have his world ripped apart because of the adults surrounding him.

      Sanity got the better of her and she sent off a cheery email to Lena about their mother and the Fuller men and told Lena she’d save Travis Fuller for her if she wanted him. She asked again about Jesse’s possible whereabouts and signed off. She would do anything she could to keep her sister safe, even if that meant doing what she had to do at home and keeping quiet about the problems.

      What would the older brother do for the younger brother? How far would he go?

      THE NEXT DAY, AFTER HAVING slept in, Reed called his partner, Denny, who gave him a proper amount of harassment for missing their usual early-morning call. He’d told Reed all had been quiet from his mother so far, and that Abby Fairbanks was a nurse who worked at the medical clinic in downtown St. Adelbert. The Avery Clinic named after its now retired founder. The only clinic in town, so it wouldn’t be hard to find. He wondered if her leaving Denver had anything to do with a nursing job.

      After a shower and shave Reed jumped into the rental car and headed out to find the people whose names and addresses were on the paychecks and stubs Jesse had left behind.

      He wound the rental car through the neighborhoods and pulled to a stop at Main Street. The town was roughly linear and flanked by mountains and deep green forests. A small shallow river flowing through the town dictated any bends in the streets, a river he suspected that was neither small nor shallow when the snow in the mountains melted in the spring and early summer.

      To the right on Main Street sat a Chevron station, a miniature trading post-style meant to attract tourists. He turned left onto Main Street in front of the post office, equally Old West-looking. Past the post office and disrupting the linear flow was the town square with businesses around the perimeter.

      But it was Alice’s Diner down the street past the square with its white paint and bright blue trim that caught his eye, more correctly, it caught his stomach, which growled loudly. Since he was soon going to need more than the mountain air to keep his coffee-addicted eyelids open, a big breakfast suddenly seemed like a great idea.

      He pulled to the curb beside the diner. It was possible someone in there knew something about Jesse’s whereabouts.

      “Mornin’, darlin’,” a waitress with a lot of black hair, a white frilly apron and a name tag that said Vala greeted him as he stepped inside. “Seat yerself wherever you want.”

      Reed did so and turned his coffee cup right side up. A moment later the same waitress filled the heavy old mug with coffee and handed him a menu.

      “I’ll be back in two shakes to take your order.”

      It was almost ten-thirty on a Friday morning and only two other tables were occupied. Each of the eight diners, four at a table, had a cup of coffee in front of them and a platter of sweet rolls in the middle of their respective tables, a midmorning snack. Breakfast for them had probably been hours ago.

      All were gray-haired, if they had hair, and each studied him in their own way. There were a few smiles, one from a woman whose checked apron covered half her denim skirt. A frowning man, a real cowboy type, looked really old, maybe late eighties, and had a deep tan on the lower two-thirds of his face, while his forehead was much lighter. Two other women—sisters? twins?—dressed alike except for their individual color theme, glanced at each other and at him and then grinned broadly.

      Reed gave a simple wave. Some waved back, others nodded, and then they all turned back to their conversations. Well, at least they didn’t chuck coffee mugs at his head. Not all small towns were receptive to strangers.

      After Vala took his order Reed stood, and with coffee cup in hand approached the closest table. The occupants shifted their gazes up to him, and three of them picked up their own coffee cups so as to be equally armed. He smiled at that.

      “You’re Jesse Maxwell’s brother,” the aproned woman said.

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