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I was saved. Safe. My dearest wish had come true.
And I was so numbed that I couldn’t even cry.
—Excerpt, The Unlucky Ones by Jane Gama
Mila’s pulse jumped when she heard voices in the hallway, but the guests knocked at Wynona’s door, then went inside. She stiffened when a car door sounded on the street below and left her chair to look out the window, hoping to see Sam’s pickup. It was just a silver car instead.
“You sure you won’t eat something?” Gramma asked from the kitchen.
“I had an apple.”
“You know apples aren’t eaten by themselves in this house. They go in pies or cakes or you dip them in caramel and chocolate and pecans.”
That was Jessica’s opinion for most fruits. Oranges were for juice, peaches for ice cream, bananas for nut bread, strawberries for angel food cake, cherries for pies. When Mila had first come to live with her grandmother, she had been fascinated by the fresh fruit on the counter. She had seen fruit before—had heard about it, but she’d never had a piece that she could remember, and one night she’d sneaked into the kitchen and eaten until she was sick. Gramma had found her, holding her belly and surrounded by cores, pits and skins, and laughed and then cried, and she’d come home the next day with more fruit than ten kids could eat.
A car passed on the street, and Mila couldn’t help turning to look. Sam had been gone an hour, far longer than necessary to pick up Poppy and some clothes. Maybe he’d made a few stops along the way. Maybe he’d needed to check in at the office. Maybe Detective Harper or Detective Little Bear had needed to share something with him. Maybe—
Maybe something had happened.
“Sam is okay.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Gramma responded. She came across the room and wrapped her arm tightly about Mila’s shoulders. “He’ll be back soon. He’s probably just clearing the decks so he can be your twenty-four-hour bodyguard. He likes you a lot.” Her clear gaze studied Mila, and a smile softened her face. “You like him a lot, too.”
“I—I do.”
Gramma danced her around in a little circle. “Thank you, Jesus. I’ve been praying for this day.”
She was so happy. Would it hurt to let her hold on to it awhile longer? To keep the concerns and worries to herself? The Sam-being-a-cop and Mila-being-a-fraud stuff? The whole ugly story of her past that she hadn’t trusted him with? The This is who I am and what I did and what I bring to the family table?
Her heart fluttered. Oh. She’d never allowed herself to think seriously about babies, about love, about marriage. Normal life had been such a struggle that she’d thought she would always live on the outskirts of it, almost there but not quite. She’d never imagined a man like Sam taking the time to get to know her. Liking her. Wanting her. Worrying about her. Those things had happened, though. Could he want to stay with her? Have a family with her? Make a life with her?
The very idea made her light-headed. Clinging to Gramma with her good hand, she was returning to her chair when a knock sounded. Gramma went to answer, and Mila knew she should sit down before Poppy barreled in and knocked her down, but her muscles didn’t want to work. They’d frozen, leaving her suspended in a moment of breathlessness. Fear.
When Gramma opened the door, her cheerful greeting died unspoken. “Sam, where’s Poppy?”
The stone-cold anger on his face would have made Mila’s legs give way if they hadn’t frozen. He stabbed his fingers through his hair, squeezed his eyes tightly shut for an instant, then spoke in a voice that was as cold and hard as his expression. “She’s…missing. He broke into the house and—and let her out or—or took her. We don’t know… We’re looking… I’m sorry, Mila.”
Poppy. Missing. The words sounded so foreign together. Poppy couldn’t be missing. She’d been asleep on the sofa when Mila left this morning. She’d opened one eye, given a huge yawn and started snoring loudly before Mila got off the porch. She couldn’t be missing. She couldn’t be running loose. She was the best dog in the world, but she didn’t do well on a leash with Mila hanging on to provide some control. She was too excitable, too silly, too careless…oh, dear God, too important to be missing.
