Chapter Thirteen

They hadn’t talked the rest of the short flight. Samantha had dozed. Or possibly pretended to. It gave Alex a chance to just look at her. He had so many questions. At least one of the big ones had been answered.

He knew the first time he’d touched her that she was more than a little gun-shy when it came to the opposite sex. He knew the look, the feelings, the reactions. He’d been burned himself and hadn’t even dated in months. It took a while to trust again and he wasn’t to that stage yet himself.

But he couldn’t imagine going through what she had. It proved how strong she was.

He wondered if that was why she’d changed her hair, tried to hide her body beneath the oversize suits. She came off as an ice princess when there was molten lava burning inside her. Their kisses had proven that.

She was scared of those feelings. So was he. And with good reason. She knew who he was. He couldn’t say the same of her. More than a wedding planner. But how much more?

Once they landed, Samantha gave him directions and they left Knoxville and quickly found themselves in the Smoky Mountains.

As they left the city and the roads became steeper and narrower, he caught her several times watching her side mirror. With a jolt, he realized why. “You think we’ve been followed?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said. “Someone’s been following us since the day Caroline was injured in the hit-and-run.”

He gritted his teeth. “And you didn’t bother to mention it?” How did she know about these things anyway?

She seemed to let that go without comment.

“Isn’t it pretty obvious who would be following us?” he asked. “Let’s see. Who lied about who he was? Who doesn’t seem to want to be found?”

“It could be someone who’s hoping we’ll find Presley for them,” she said.

He saw her expression. “Like my brother or my father?” He let out a curse. He hadn’t thought of that.

The road was now only a single lane as it climbed up a series of switchbacks. “You sure we’re on the right road?”

She was staring back at the road behind them. “It shouldn’t be much farther according to the directions we got back at the station.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t put it past either my brother or my father to hire someone to follow us. But you can’t think they hired the guy who almost killed you the night in the condo.”

“I don’t think he came there to kill me. Maybe scare me. But then I surprised him,” she said.

He glanced over at her, recalling what had happened at the hospital when he’d sneaked up behind her. “I’m sure you did.” He had to shift into four-wheel drive to make the next switchback up the mountain. “Or maybe he was there for the same thing you were. Maybe he’d realized he’d left something incriminating in the condo and had gone back to retrieve it. I’m putting my money on Presley Wells. Unless you know something else I don’t.”

“I don’t know any more than you do now.”

He shot her a look, wanting to believe her. Up ahead, the road flattened out a little and he spotted an old rusted mailbox with WELLS printed in crude letters on the side. “Looks like we found it.”

AS SAMANTHA CAUGHT a glimpse of the house set back in the woods, she felt her stomach knot. The house had once been white but was now in desperate need of paint. Wash flapped on the clothesline out back and trash burned in a fifty-five-gallon barrel off to the side, the smoke rising slowly to fill the air with a rank smell.

Alex brought the rental SUV to a stop in the rutted yard sending a half-dozen chickens scurrying across the bare dusty ground. Several old dogs slept in the shade, not even stirring as flies swarmed around them. Through the tall weeds along the side of the house she could make out the remains of aging vehicles rusting in the sun.

“You all right?” Alex asked as he parked next to a battered old pickup.

She could only stare at the house. She knew this kind of poverty, this kind of despair. She’d lived it in Iowa, where she’d grown up, and had run like hell from it the first chance she got.

“Samantha?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice, as she caught movement behind the faded curtains. Faded like her mother after having so many children and being caught in a cycle of hopelessness.

“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to,” Alex said, obviously seeing her hesitation to get out of the car.

She could feel his gaze on her, that same curious searching look he’d been giving her for several days now. How much could he see? Could he see her fear at the possibility of witnessing her earlier life in this family’s faces? Did he have any idea what a coward she was when it came to her past?

She’d been running all her life, she thought as she opened her car door in answer and got out. A rusted sprinkler spat out a trickle of water in a tight circle near the porch on what might have once been a lawn but was now a mud hole. The sun was an oppressive ball of heat directly overhead. It beat down on her as she walked toward the rotting porch steps, Alex by her side.

The porch sat at a slant, the boards weathered and rotted. The smell from the trash hit her again and Samantha was struck with the image of her mother, her body thin and stooped, wearing a worn old housedress and slippers, taking out the trash to be burned.

The woman who opened the door could have been Samantha’s mother. She wore a worn-thin homemade housedress, her graying hair limp and hanging around her narrow weary face.

“Yes?” she asked, squinting into the bright day as she eyed first Alex, then Samantha.

“Mrs. Wells?” Alex asked.

“Yes?” She looked at them suspiciously as if they were bill collectors.

Alex seemed at a loss as to what to say to the woman and glanced at Samantha. “I know your son Presley,” she said.

The woman raised a brow, her narrowed eyes filled with even more suspicion. “He done something?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Samantha assured her. “His fiancé has been in an accident and we’re just trying to find him to let him know.” Her voice sounded shaky but not half as unsteady as she felt.

The woman looked more than skeptical and Samantha realized it was the kind of story that bill collectors used to come up with when they were trying to track down her daddy.

“I’m Samantha Peters,” she said, holding out her hand to the woman.

Mrs. Wells ignored it.

“I’m planning Caroline and Presley’s wedding and this is her brother Alex Graham,” Samantha continued, dropping her trembling hand to her side again, feeling the dampness. She wiped her palm on her skirt trying to find that cool she’d once been so famous for. It had deserted her.

The woman frowned. “Caroline? That the woman he goin’ to marry?”

“Could we step inside?” Alex asked, swatting at the flies swarming around them.

With obvious reluctance the woman stepped back. “But I ain’t got no idea where he is.”

Samantha stepped into the living room. Even the smells took her back to her childhood. The house was unbearably hot and dank. Everything looked as worn-out as Presley’s mother.

“He don’t come here no more,” she said, wiping her hands on her dress. “Ya’ll want to sit down. I got some sweet tea—”

Samantha glanced toward the sagging couch and felt Alex’s gaze on her. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

She felt light-headed but nodded. “Fine.”

“Thank you, but we can’t stay,” he said to Mrs. Wells.

“Did Presley tell you anything about Caroline?” Samantha asked.

She shrugged. It seemed to take all her energy. “He mighta said somethin’ in his last letter.”

“Do you remember the letter’s postmark? Where it was mailed from?” he asked.

“Miami. He lives down there,” she said. “You sure he ain’t in trouble with the law again?”

“Why would you ask that?” Alex said.

The woman made a face. “His letters. There’s money in ’em.” She looked up at Samantha. “Says he’s an…investor. Don’t know what that is but it don’t sound legal.”

Samantha saw Alex hide a grin.

“Investing can be legal,” Samantha said.

The woman didn’t look as if she believed that.

Samantha pulled one of her business cards from her purse. “If you hear from Presley would you let me know?”

Mrs. Wells took the card in her rough hands. Through the window Samantha could see the old-fashioned wringer washing machine out back. She remembered her mother bent over one.

“You should buy yourself an electric washing machine with some of the money Presley sends you,” she said.

Mrs. Wells narrowed her eyes. “The one I got works good enough.”

Samantha said nothing as four children, ages from about ten through sixteen, came running in through the back door. They all looked a little like the man who’d been with Caroline the first time the two had come in to talk about their wedding.

“How many children do you have?” Samantha asked, her voice cracking, and quickly softened the question by adding, “I come from a large family myself.”

“Twelve, only six left at home.”

Samantha nodded. Her own mother had her first child at fourteen and spent the next thirty years having babies. She could feel Alex’s eyes on her, feel his surprise at hearing about her large family.

“Your husband gone?” Samantha asked, knowing he probably was, since there were no diapers on the clothesline.

“Died some years back.”

A silence fell over the house.

“I always wished I’d grown up in a large family,” Alex said into that silence.

Samantha looked away, not wanting him to see her contemptuous expression. He had no idea what it was like. But then he’d never been dirt-poor. Samantha had. So had Presley.

He is no different from you.

She cringed at the thought. It was true, though. Like Samantha, Presley had escaped what her father used to call the snake pit. But did anyone ever really escape the scars of their childhoods?

She thought about Presley sending money home in his letters but realized even crooks often still cared about their mothers.

“Thank you for your time,” Samantha said. “We can see ourselves out.”

Mrs. Wells said nothing as Alex opened the screen door and they stepped out on the porch.

As they crossed the porch, Samantha saw a face staring out at her from the trees and froze.

The girl stood watching them. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. Her feet were bare, her dress too small and scrubbed as threadbare as the white sheets hanging on the clothesline, her hair straight as a stick hanging in dirty hanks on each side of her narrow face.

But it was the eyes that grabbed Samantha. She recognized that look because she had been that girl.

Maybe still was that girl inside.

As Samantha started down the stairs she was unable to take her eyes off the girl. That’s why she didn’t even realize she’d missed a step until she went sprawling forward. She saw Alex reach for her but he was two steps behind and she was falling too fast. She tried to catch herself, but her hand landed in the muddy yard and she fell to her knees.

Alex was there at once, helping her up. “Are you all right?”

All she could do was nod. Her hands were muddy and her clothing soiled. She looked at the spot where she’d seen the girl. She was gone. If she’d ever been there to begin with.

Tears burned Samantha’s eyes.

“You are hurt.”

Samantha shook her head harder, the tears impossible to stem. She’d thought she’d dealt with her past. She’d thought she’d escaped that life, that girl she’d been. But all the pain came gushing out, hot tears scalding her cheeks.

She pulled free of Alex and stumbled toward the rental car, trying to brush the mud from her hands and forearms, the dirt from her clothing. She heard Alex behind her. He handed her one of the raglike towels that had been hanging on the clothesline and opened the car door for her.

She wiped what she could from her with the towel, returned it to the clothesline even though it was now soiled and stumbled into the car seat, knowing how foolish she must look to him. It wasn’t until he joined her in the car that she finally got the sobs to stop.

Alex started the engine and drove away from the house without a word.

Samantha didn’t look back. Couldn’t. She was afraid she would see the girl watching them, longing to go with them.

“I’m sorry.”

He looked over at her, aghast. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

“For…for falling apart on you like that.” She took a ragged breath. “I…I…”

“You don’t have to explain,” he said, glancing at her again as he drove.

ALEX WAS MENTALLY kicking himself for bringing her to Tennessee, to this place. He’d seen her reaction back there before she fell, before she broke down. Damn. He wanted to stop the car and pull her into his arms. But he feared that would be the worst thing he could do right now.

“That was me.”

She’d spoken so softly he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

“You?”

“That was my childhood back there,” she said.

She couldn’t be serious. But then he looked over at her and finally understood. “You’re the Presley in your family, aren’t you?”

She nodded and turned her face away.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “I thought I’d gotten over my childhood, the poverty, the bleakness of that life, but seeing Mrs. Wells and her children…” She brushed a hand over her cheek, her eyes red and shiny from her tears.

Alex said nothing as he drove and tried to imagine what it would be like growing up back at that house.

SHE WATCHED THE TREES rush past, feeling foolish. She’d worked so hard to hide who she was from Alex and to break down like that…

Alex reached across, took her hand and squeezed it. “You must think I’m a real jackass complaining about my family.”

Her throat hurt from trying not to cry again. “I’ve never thought you were a jackass.”

He smiled then, those wonderful eyes of his brightening as he glanced at her. “You’re just letting me off easy and we both know it.” His gaze caressed her face. “You are one remarkable woman, you know that?”

She felt anything but remarkable right now.

He turned back to his driving and she watched the thick dark leaves of the trees brush over the SUV and thought about Presley Wells. Where was he? She couldn’t shake the feeling that his mother was right and that not only was Presley in trouble, but so was Caroline.

“I don’t want to be wrong about Presley,” she said.

He looked over at her. “I don’t want you to be wrong, either. You never suspected where he’d come from when you met him?”

“Just like you never suspected when you met me.”

He smiled sheepishly. “No. But you made something out of yourself.”

“Maybe Presley did, too.”

“You didn’t change your name.”

“No,” she admitted. “But I changed everything else.” And yet she was still that poor, scared little girl inside.

Samantha saw a flash as something shiny caught in the sun on the side of the mountain ahead.

The back window of the SUV exploded. An instant later, the windshield turned into a spiderweb of white.