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“I want to hit the doctor and the dentist’s offices. I have a little extra time. I want to see if there is an Orion anywhere. I want to swing by the school, too.”
“Step into my steed. I’ll drive.”
“Don’t you have sheriff-type things to do today?”
“Nope. Neil says he gets to do all the fun stuff now. I’m just supposed to sit here and look pretty. Well, except, I have to go write a ticket for Peach the Fuzz again. He made it into the library this time. Stole Gillian the librarian’s Twinkie out of her bag. She was a bit upset. Seems that’s the only thing she can keep down in the afternoons. Morning sickness, you know. Afternoon sickness, I guess.”
“I did not know that. How wonderful. I’ll swing by and tell her congratulations next time I can.” A look went through her eyes. One he understood. Maybe this place was not exactly great for the career, but they’d both loved it, in different ways. Hell, even he was going to miss it.
“Come on, kid. Nothing says you can’t come back to visit. Maybe we’ll come back here for our honeymoon?” Or he’d buy a little cabin just outside of town and bring her here to seduce her every weekend, or something.
“Funny.”
“I’d kiss you. But I’m in my sheriff’s garb.” He settled for a quick peck on her forehead—behind the side of his SUV. No one should be able to see him there. Except Neil. Who wassmirkingat them from the window and wagging his finger chidingly. “I gotta behave, Marshall said, for another week or so. I was told no going cowboy, no major upheavals, no seducing the governor’s sexy sister-in-law in pubic, and no more than ten tickets written for a cat. Apparently, I’ve given Peach too many, and IA is getting curious.”
“Just get in the Tahoe. You’re driving. I’ve been driving for three hours. I need a break.”
“Great. And you can tell me what’s going on. Your beady little eyes have that glow. You’ve found something. Now you want to dig like a little gopher.”
“Ferret actually. I have Sydney and her lackeys ferreting out information now, too.”
“She’s back at it?”
“For a day or so. She was bored. She’s supposed to take it easy.”
“Glad she’s back. And…I haven’t given up. I’m going to find the bastard who stuck her and make him see the error of his ways.” Murdoch opened the passenger door and gave a bow. His mama had raised a gentleman, after all. “Where to, my lady? We have work to do.”
“Doctor’s office first. Kids get sick. Pen got sick almost every month after I first got her. I found a pediatrician, fast.”
She’d been twenty-one or so, he thought. Responsible for an eleven-year-old. She must have been terrified. He wished he had been there. To help. To protect. To just be there whenever she’d needed him. “I think she’s lost weight again.”
“She’s stressing again. Since the shooting. She goes to counseling. I insisted on it. And it has helped. But she stresses over her classes—even though she’s brilliant. She’s always been that way. A constant ball of nerves. She learned to hide that in foster care. When they’d split us up.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“There was a social worker. He would send kids with special needs, like one with an extremely high IQ who had been misdiagnosed as ADHD and autistic at one point, to aspecialfoster home. That home received an additional thousand a month per girl in their care. Two hundred of that lined the social worker’s pocket. There was one for teenage girls as well.Discipline problems.Similar arrangement. His thing was to threaten—I’ll send your big sister away if you don’t cooperate. And these places had reputations with those of us in care.”
“You were sent there, weren’t you?” He doubted his Zoey Sofia would have ever played those kinds of games. Not her.
This was the first she’d ever spoken of her childhood with him. He knew how hard that had to be for her.
“Yes. And Pen went to the other home. With help from a girl whose sister was also there with Pen, we exposed what was going on. But in retaliation, another social worker split the four of us up. We went in opposite directions. I didn’t get Pen back until I got her permanently, after that. I don’t know what happened to her there. I doubt I ever will. She doesn’t talk about it. Never would, even when I visited every week. She ran away from there when she was eleven. I found her on the streets of Dallas two weeks later. It had taken the social workers that long to bother telling me she was missing. But we’d set up a secret email address years earlier. She finally emailed me where she was. And I got her back.”
He flinched, just imagining it. “You have her now. And she adores you.Iadore you. In fact, you can keep me forever, if you’d like.”
The words had slipped out, but he meant them.
He couldn’t resist the pull of the woman with him now. He should probably accept his fate. Murdoch pulled into the doctor’s office. “How do you want to play this?”
“Just friendly information. I don’t have a warrant. I just need to know if this kid exists.”
“Then, let’s do it. I’ll take you to dinner tonight. Then we’ll cuddle up together. And I’ll tell you what I found about the Colesons of Coleson Hollow.”
55
Houghton had spoiled them all,Sydney decided. Blessed Reunions needed a place to run DNA tests. So Houghton had bought the nearest lab. In Wichita Falls. Now Blessed Reunions work took top priority, unless it was a contracted test through law enforcement.Thathad been Melody’s doing.
Law enforcement, especially the TSP, was top priority.
