Just Down the Road (13 page)

She made a little sound and then opened her mouth, and he learned a great deal about kissing real fast.

Finally, he looped his arm around her shoulder and they walked back to the car. He’d discovered that Willow didn’t know much more than he did about dating, but he sure did enjoy kissing her. Maybe they should be talking, but the
silence between them was good and he didn’t stutter when he kissed.

When they were back in the car, he leaned over and kissed her again. This time he moved his hand up her side until he was almost touching her breast. She felt so good.

She didn’t seem to mind as he moved his hand along her ribs.

“I-I like this between us,” he whispered. “I like it a lot.”

“So do I,” she answered, and awkwardly planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “Does this mean we’re dating?”

He brushed his hand along her throat and beneath her hair. Her skin was warm and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her there. “W-would you mind if w-we were?”

“No.” She looked down. “But, Beau, the way you play and sing, you’re gifted, really gifted. In no time girls will be throwing themselves at you. Pretty girls. Rich girls. Girls with a lot more going for them than I’ll ever have.”

“Y-you’re pretty, Willow. Real pretty.” He moved two fingers down the neck of her blouse, barely touching her skin. “I-I like the way you feel.” His fingers moved up and brushed across her lips, still wet from their last kiss.

She shook her head. “I’m just saying that when fame happens for you, I won’t hold you back. I’ll let you go and I’ll count myself lucky to have been your girl for a while.”

“M-my girl?” Beau looked at her in the moonlight and thought he should have said she was beautiful, not just pretty.

He drove her home with his arm around her shoulder. When he walked her to the door, he whispered, “Thanks.” He wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for. For going out with him. For kissing him, really kissing him. For believing in him.

When he leaned down to kiss her one last time, she leaned into him and he almost couldn’t let her go. She felt so good against him. She was the one who pulled away and said good night. He let her go and walked back to his car, the lyrics to a new song already playing in his head.

S
HORTLY AFTER TEN O’CLOCK
A
DDISON MADE IT HOME TO
her little house in the country. Sometime in the past few weeks she’d been thinking of it as her hideout, as if she were an outlaw running from the law and not a doctor trying to disappear from her parents.

She walked across the darkened rooms of her rented place, stripping off clothes as she headed for a warm shower. The smell of blood and antiseptic always seemed to linger on her skin after she left the emergency room. She’d just finished an eight-day work week and planned to do nothing but sleep and eat for the next three days.

Her father had tried to call twice while she was working. Addison didn’t pick up and, as always, he didn’t leave a message. He knew she rarely answered her cell when she was working, and she guessed he suspected she often didn’t return his calls even when she wasn’t at the hospital. He was also a doctor who was rarely available to family. She’d learned her communication skills from him.

If she called him back, she’d hear the same lecture she’d heard since the day she’d piled two suitcases in her little car and headed for Texas. He had plans for her. At first, he wanted her to specialize in plastic surgery and join his practice. When that campaign failed, he moved to his second line of attack. He picked out the perfect man for her to marry. When she’d objected, he’d insisted that Dr. Glen Davidson was everything her first husband was not.

He’d told her simply, “You could do little better than a top-notch researcher on his way to being a legend in his field. If you ask me, Addison, you’re lucky he’s willing to take a look at you.”

She’d felt like a shelter dog being paraded in front of the dog show judges as the bad example.

Addison was glad she hadn’t called her father back. She’d had a lifetime of never quite measuring up, and she didn’t need to be reminded of her failures after a long work week. When she’d been growing up, his lectures over her shortcomings had hurt far more than any belt. The carrot before her, just out of reach, had always been his love, but no matter what she did she never quite deserved it. She’d tried escaping once into an early marriage. She’d found a hell even lower than what she’d known at home. This time when she broke the ties to her father, she’d walk away strong enough to stand alone.

As was her habit every night, she stood under a warm shower until the water grew cool, then pulled on a clean pair of underwear and an old college T-shirt. She needed sleep. Everything could wait until morning, including her father’s weekly lecture. Though he’d talk for fifteen minutes, the summary boiled down to
grow up—come home—get married to Glen
. Her life had all been planned and organized for her, and no one understood why she’d taken this one-year assignment in the middle of nowhere. No one but Addison.

The last time she’d run, she’d been eighteen and rushed to the first guy who’d paid any attention to her. The marriage lasted less than six months. Her father’s constant
reminder of her mistake hung in the air between her and her parents forever.

In her young husband, she’d thought she had a friend she could trust, but neither of them knew about love or loving. After a few awkward attempts at sex, he gave up and shifted his full attention to spending her savings. She’d known the marriage was a mistake after a week, but she’d hung on, hoping something would happen and she wouldn’t have to go home. When the money was gone, so was her first husband.

She closed her eyes, remembering how he’d hit her several times as he’d packed. He’d even screamed at her, more out of frustration than hate. She’d made a mistake in marrying, and somehow he’d blamed her for all their problems. In a way, he was like her father; he blamed her for not being good enough. She’d had no choice but to go back to her parents, not only bruised but broken.

As Addison combed her wet hair, she thought about how that time in her life seemed more like a dream than real, or maybe a nightmare. She’d turned off all feelings that winter, and now not even regret haunted her. She’d welcomed her parents making all her decisions. When they’d sent her to New England to school, she’d let the cold weather seep into her heart as well.

Only this time when she’d run to Texas to work, she had no regrets except that soon she’d have to go back and make choices she wasn’t ready to make. In a few months she’d have to face her father and tell him she planned to live her own life. There would be no engagement to Glen, and she’d never work with her father.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, the curtain blew in the night breeze along with the hint of fall in the air.

She took a long breath, thinking of how much she loved the stillness of this place. If she could bottle it, she’d take it always with her wherever she went.

The triangle of light from the bathroom spread across something in the middle of her bed as if spotlighting it on a darkened stage. Addison froze.

She thought it might be an animal. It could have crawled in, not knowing or caring that the house was occupied, or maybe the kittens were out of their box in the kitchen and old enough to explore. She’d left food for the mother cat in the garage, but she hadn’t returned.

Addison took a step toward the bed.

The shadow moved slightly, and she saw that it was a small child. A little boy curled up next to one of the kittens Tinch had found in her barn. She could make out the boy’s dirty face and sandy hair. His chest moved in the slow rhythm of someone deep in sleep.

Addison backed out of the room and grabbed her cell. She waited until she reached the porch, then dialed 911.

When the dispatcher picked up, she said calmly, “This is Dr. Spencer. I’d like to speak to the sheriff, please.”

“She’s on a call. How can I help you?” The dispatcher sounded bored.

Addison didn’t feel like repeating her story to first him and then the sheriff. Her tone grew hard and impersonal. “This is Dr. Spencer. I need to talk to the sheriff.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the dispatcher answered. “I’ll patch you directly to her cell.”

Addison glanced back into the house. She could barely make out the boy, but he was still sleeping.

“Sheriff Matheson here.”

Addison was used to talking to cops who only wanted facts. “This is Addison Spencer. I’m out on Timber Line Road and I’ve just found a child sleeping in my bed.”

There was a pause, a few muffled words, and then the sheriff was back on the line. “I’m on my way.”

The phone went dead. Addison looked at it for a moment, feeling like the sheriff must have left out a piece of the plan. Then she noticed the lights at Turner’s place to the south. He looked like he was having a party. Every light in the house was burning bright. She watched what looked like a police car speed away from his house.

Addison reached for her lab coat as the car turned into
her long driveway a minute later. Something was definitely going on.

Tinch and the sheriff climbed out of the cruiser and ran to the porch. In a low voice Alex explained what had happened. She ended with, “We’ll wake him up and take him back to Tinch’s place if he’ll go. If not, I don’t know what I’m going to do with him this time of night. If I call in Child Protective Services, it will be a few hours before they get here.”

Addison frowned. “Has anyone examined the boy?”

“Not yet. The night shift has its hands full dealing with his mother’s suicide and the drugs we found scattered around her place. At last report she had no next of kin to notify.”

Addison was all business. “I’ll take a look at the boy. If he’s been living in a trailer with rats, there’s no telling what he’s been through.” She looked at Tinch as if just noticing the cowboy standing beside the sheriff.

She had no idea why he was involved in this mess, but he might as well help. “Why don’t you make a few of those egg sandwiches you’re famous for, and a pot of coffee? When I’m finished, I’d like to make sure he eats something before you take him back.”

She disappeared into the house.

“Bossy, isn’t she?” Addison heard Tinch comment. “Expects her orders to be followed, I’m guessing.”

“She’s right,” the sheriff said. “I should have had him checked out at the hospital first. I was just thinking about how frightened he looked and how being with you might help. I was worried more about him having just lost his mother than what would be the usual procedures in a case like this.”

“Bringing him to my place obviously didn’t work.” Tinch walked into the house and headed for the kitchen. “You want an egg sandwich, Sheriff? Four are no harder to make than two, and I plan to have one.”

“Sure, but I need to call Phil Gentry and tell him he can
call it a night. He’s been on overtime for five hours. There’s no sense having him waiting at your place if we know the boy is here.”

“Tell him to turn off the lights when he leaves, would you?”

Tinch walked to the bedroom door and saw Addison in the shadows. The only light was a yellow slice from the bathroom. She looked like a ghost in her white coat and pale skin and hair, but there was a kindness, a gentleness in the way she touched the boy.

“Jamie,” she said as her hand brushed his shoulder. “Jamie, are you all right?”

The little boy moved and looked up at the doc. Tinch expected him to bolt, but he just stared at her with eyes almost too big for his thin face.

“You’re an angel, aren’t you?” he said. “My mommy said if she ever went away an angel would come take care of me. She’d watch over me and make sure no one would hurt me.”

“Then I’m your angel, Jamie.” Addison clicked on the nightstand light. “I’m here to help you, but first I have to make sure you’re not hurt.”

“The bad guys didn’t hurt me when they came this time ’cause I hid real good, but I think they hurt my mommy. I heard her scream a few times, and then they came out and looked around. I don’t think they knew I was there.” The tiny boy moved into her arms, and for a few minutes Addison just held him. “She told me never to bother her when she was asleep with the door closed, so I didn’t, even when I got hungry.

“I think the bad men were looking for something, but I don’t think they found it. They didn’t find me either. Mom showed me a place under the table to hide. In the day it’s dark and hard to get to, but at night no one can see anything under there.”

Tinch watched as she picked Jamie up and moved to the bathroom. As the doctor pulled off the boy’s dirty clothes, he saw her examine him for bruises or broken bones. Then
she helped him step into the shower. While he played with the warm stream of water, the doctor washed dirt off.

She glanced toward the door and saw Tinch. “Did you hear what he said?”

Tinch nodded. “It may not have been a suicide.”

“Tell the sheriff. And tell her the boy is covered with bad bruises. I’m guessing they’re about a week old. It looks like someone hit him across the back of the legs and over his back with something about the size of a broom handle. There are also bruises on his upper arms left by the grip of a big hand. He was either jerked around during the beating or held down while he was being hit.”