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“Star tells me I’m the grandmother she came looking for.”
Stared for a long moment, and then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so.”
“I left because there was another man.”
“Who’s my competition?”
“Mrs. Randone, I guess. Vic never said much about his family, but whoever raised him, she’d be no match for you, Ma. On the other hand, I wasn’t the right match for Merilee.”
“You never looked back?”
He lifted one strapping shoulder. “I called her a couple of times after I left. Wanted to make sure she was all right. I let her know I was shippin’ out. She didn’t say anything about a kid. She barely said anything at all.”
“Star’s last name is Brown,” Hilda reminded him.
A long moment passed over that thought. No father. Exclusively her mother’s child. Hilda knew her son, knew they were chewing on the same tough truth. Somebody hadn’t done his job.
“I just talked to the doctor. She’s in real bad shape.” Sam glanced toward the top of the stairs. “How’s the girl doin’? Does she seem okay?”
“Considering she’s in a strange place and her mother’s laid up in some kind of a coma, I think she’s doing pretty well.” She laid her hand on her boy’s sleeve. “She’s a brave little girl. Quite grown up for one so young. She cares wholeheartedly for her mother.”
He drew a deep breath and blew a sigh, still staring. “Merilee did a lot of drugs. That was another reason I left. If she was pregnant and still into…” He looked to his mother for assurance. “The girl seems, you know…really okay?”
“Her name is Star.”
“I found her birth certificate in Merilee’s stuff. ‘Father unknown’ looks pretty cold when you see it in black and white. I don’t know anything about Merilee’s family. As for Randone…” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Ma. You ask me, he shouldn’t be anybody’s father, but he was…you know.”
Under different circumstances, his reluctance to put it into words for his mother would have amused her. He’d had sex with a woman. Not that the fact that somebody had been having sex with her, too, was amusing, but he couldn’t tell her in so many words. She was his mother. And he was forever Sam.
“Your woman brought her child here, son. Star knew my name. She knew about the store.”
“I can’t claim she was ever really my woman, but I told Merilee all kinds of things.”
“Good things?”
“She came lookin’ for you, didn’t she?” He gave her a loving smile. “I’m always talkin’ you up, Ma.”
“You’re not what I’d call a big talker,” she teased, and he suffered in silence as she patted his chiseled jaw. “It has to be you, Sam. You’re the one she was looking for. Had to be. Maybe she thought you were still in the marines all this time.”
“Wouldn’t be hard for her to find that out without coming here.” He reached around her and plucked a package of Oreos off the shelf. “Especially if she told them she had my kid. The military’s pretty fussy about stuff like that.”
“Well, we’re speculating. We can do the detective work later. Right now I seem to have a granddaughter.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get too attached.” He handed her the cookies.
“I’m going to take Star at her word, Sam. Her mother’s word. That’s all she has to hang on to right now. The little security the child has.”
Staring at the top of the stairs once again, Sam pressed lips together and nodded mechanically. “You’re a nice lady, Hilda Beaudry.”
“Nice has nothing to do with it. I’m a woman of grandmothering age, and all I have is unattached sons. My clock is ticking, and I’m realizing I could actually have grandchildren, and they could be anywhere.”
“I take back nice.”
“I already gave it back.” But not her new role. “Who’s going to decide where she stays?”
“Social services, and I’ve already talked to them. Lila Demery’s the social worker assigned to the hospital. Until somebody else comes forward, I’m the only one who knows Merilee, and since I’m the sheriff…” He raised an eyebrow and returned the pat on the cheek. “I’m going to leave Star with you for now. But put the clock in a drawer.”
“I told her we’d have supper and then go see her mother.” He questioned her judgment with a look. “It’s what she wants. She’s already seen the worst.”
“I’m givin’ you wise. You’re a wise woman, so I guess you know what you’re doin’.”
“That’s better than nice. I’m old enough, I don’t have to be nice.”
“It’s good Maggie brought her kid over. Kids do better with other kids around.”
“Maggie has good instincts.” She gave a perfunctory smile. “Come up and have something to eat, and then we’ll all go see—”
He stepped back. “Naw, I’ll meet you at the hospital. It’s touch-and-go, and I don’t want the girl to walk in at a bad time.”
Hilda nodded. Her son had good instincts, too.
Sam had a duty here. It was a word he understood, and he carried it into the hospital room with him like the badge he wore on his shirt every day. There was no doubt about duty, no pondering risks or considering alternatives or seeking shelter. He’d once loved the woman, and the child was hers. For the moment, they had no one else. It was his duty to take care of them somehow. The somehow part was a little vague, but it wasn’t operative. Duty was operative.
Wasn’t it? Or was it care?
No, taking care, that would be his action. They would be in his care, and he would take steps. He wasn’t much for walking softly—so said his boot heels whomping across the tile in the otherwise eerie quiet—but he would see to their needs.
Whatever Merilee needed, she wasn’t saying. As promised, he’d met her visiting party in the lobby and given the go-ahead. Merilee was hanging in there. Hilda took Star into the room, but she soon stepped out and ordered him to trade places with her. “She’s alone in a strange world. At least tell her you know her mother,” she told him. “She needs to talk to someone who has that in common with her.”
It was a scary assignment for a man who hadn’t thought he had many fears, certainly none as harmless-looking as Star Brown. She turned reluctantly as he approached. She had the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen. She wasn’t afraid of him. Far from it. She was in charge here, tentative only about taking those watchful eyes off her mother. She looked like a small adult trying out an oversize chair.
He knelt beside her. “My name’s Sam Beaudry. I’m Hilda’s son. Your mother’s a friend of mine.” Okay, not the most appealing introduction, but it was a start.
“Hilda Beaudry is my grandmother.”
Sam nodded. Now, how should he put this?
“Who’s your daddy?”
“I don’t have a daddy. I have Mom, and she has me.” She turned from him, resuming her close watch. “She’ll wake up pretty soon. Sometimes she sleeps for a long time, but she always wakes up.”
He rubbed the twinge out of his left knee. “Has she been in the hospital like this before?”
“She said this is what would happen if I called nine-one-one. In school they told us to call nine-one-one if somebody was hurt or sick, but Mom said they might take her away if I did that.” She eyed Sam suspiciously. “I didn’t call anybody, but you came anyway.”
“It’s okay. Your mother made the call herself. She knew she needed a doctor, and now the doctor’s trying to help her.” He glanced up at the bed. From this angle Merilee appeared to be even smaller, more childlike than her child. “I think she knows you’re here.”
“But she’s asleep.”
“Not exactly. She’s resting, trying to get her strength back, but it’s not the same as sleeping. One time when I was hurt, I was like this in a hospital, and I could kinda hear people around me.”
“And you woke up?”
“Not right away. I’m just sayin’ she might know we’re here. So if there’s something you want to tell her, she can probably hear you.” His knee cracked as he rose for a better view of the patient’s face. “Right, Merilee? It’s Sam, in case you don’t recognize the voice. I’m here with Star. We’re hoping you’ll open your eyes pretty soon, but we’ll understand if you don’t. We know you need your rest.”
“Mommy?” Star leaned forward. “I don’t know what to do, Mommy. I found the store, and I found my grandmother. Hilda Beaudry—I found her. Now what should I do?”
Sam shared with the child in the mother’s silence. Life’s breath came and went, came and went. How much effort Merilee put into the act was a mystery to Sam. She was hooked up to mechanical help, but maybe she was trying. He moved an armless chair from the corner of the room, set it at a right angle to Star’s, straddled the seat and rested his forearms on the back, taking care not to block her view of her mother.
“You came a long way on the bus,” he surmised. “How many days did it take?”
“Two, I think.”
“Did your mom say how long she was planning to stay?”
“She said I might go to school here.”
“Did she tell you anything about me?” he asked warily, and she glanced at him, equally cautious. “Her friend? Hilda’s son, Sam?”
“I don’t think so.”
How far should he take this? “Do you have any relatives besides Hilda? Another grandma, maybe, or an auntie?”
“My other grandmother died. I never saw her.” She eyed him briefly. “Are you like a cop or something?”
“I’m a sheriff. It’s kind of like a cop, but I have to look after a whole county, and I have to get elected. I was a cop when I was in the marines. MP, they call it. Military police.” Too far. Wrong direction. He could tell by her scowl.
“We don’t really like cops.”
“Oh.” That hurt. “Who’s we?”
“Well…” She glanced at her mother. Reminded she was on her own, she shrugged. “I mean, we like them when they help us. But I wouldn’t call them up or anything. They can take anybody away. They might take bad people away, but they could take good people away, too. They might even take me away.”
Damn. Where had that come from?
“Only if they thought somebody might be hurting you,” he suggested.
“Even if they take a bad person away, he can come back,” she confided, leaning closer to him in a way that made him feel better, like maybe he’d gained a little trust. “And when he comes back, he’s twice as bad.”
“Does the bad person have a name?”
“Maybe.” She drew back. “Maybe not. It could be any bad person.”
“I know how to handle bad people.”
“Do you have a gun?” she whispered.
“I do. I killed a snake with it the other day.” He gave a one-sided smile. “I have a jail, too. And handcuffs. A fast car with a big gold star painted on it. Bad people don’t mess with me. Pretty soon we’ll be gettin’ the word out among the snakes.”
“So, if I needed a cop, you’d be around? Because they’re never around when you need one.”
“You know Jim Whiteside?”
“Jimmy?”
Sam nodded. “Ask him. I’m always around. And Jim’s always keeping an eye on me. I’m beginning to think he’s on the county payroll, making sure I do my job. You ever need me, Jim knows right where to find me.”
She wrinkled her little round nose. “He thinks he’s a big smarty.”
“He’s a good kid, once you get to know him. It’s good to have friends. You probably have a lot of friends in California.” He tipped his head, inviting more confidence, hoping for names. “Maybe your mom has some friends there.”
“We just moved again. We didn’t know anybody in our new building.” She stared at her mother, hoping. “Is she gonna wake up tomorrow?”
Sam knew if he couldn’t say yes he was no help. He said nothing. He felt small and useless.
“Can’t the doctor make her wake up?” Her voice was tiny and thin.
Ask me for something else, kid. An ice cream cone, a ride anywhere you want to go, a puppy, a Band-Aid. Anything but answers.
A tear plopped on her thumb.
He told himself to stay behind the back of the chair, use it as a shield, keep his distance. But before he knew it, he was standing, lifting the child into his arms and letting her hot tears drench the side of his neck.
No way could he ever cry. But he felt as though Star was doing it for him.
Chapter Four
It didn’t matter to Maggie whether Sam had once loved Merilee Brown. It didn’t matter to her whether he was the girl’s father—unless he’d skipped out on them, which seemed unlikely, knowing Sam. But watching the three of them through the ICU glass gave rise to some soul-searching.
First, she shouldn’t have been watching anything but monitors. Second, she was feeling an uncomfortable twinge in a bone she could have sworn she didn’t have in her body—what self-respecting woman could be jealous of someone who was comatose—and, third, it did matter whether Sam was still in love with Merilee Brown. Because, first of all, the woman was probably dying. Second…
There was no second. Maggie was a nurse. Merilee was a patient. Put the two together, end of search. Merilee’s life was all that mattered at the moment.
Maggie dragged her attention back to the heart monitor. The life monitor. Life was dear, and Death was jealous.
“What’s the—”
Hilda’s voice gave Maggie a jolt.
“Sorry.” Hilda joined her at the nurse’s station, her gaze tagging after Maggie’s lead. Through the window several feet away they watched Sam take a seat in the bedside chair with Star in his lap. He said something to her as he reached for the tissue box, and she nodded.
“Oh,” Hilda whispered, and then, barely audibly, “Oh, Sam.”
Maggie swallowed convulsively against a rising tide of tiny stingers.
Hilda touched Maggie’s shoulder and leaned closer, as though she had a secret. “Lila said to tell you Jimmy wants to go home with her. I’m taking Star home with me as soon as she’ll let me. That leaves you and Sam.”
“For?”
“Coffee, maybe?”
“Hilda.” Maggie warned her friend with a look. “He’s not going to tell me anything he hasn’t told you.”
“Good.” Hilda patted Maggie’s shoulder. “Maybe you don’t tell each other anything. Maybe you just look at each other and breathe easy over a cup of coffee.”
What could it hurt?
“I’ll ask.”
She’d have to swallow some pride—first throat prickles, then pride—but given the circumstances, given the sweet moment between the big man and the little girl and the fact that Maggie had claimed a piece of it, maybe she could trade away a little pride. Give him one more chance. Forget that she’d invited Sam over for supper a couple of weeks ago, and he’d cancelled. Emergency, he’d said. Hell, Maggie’s middle name was Emergency. The next move should have been his.
Not that she was making a move, but if she had any thought that there were moves to be made, the events of the day should have convinced her otherwise. Words like issues, history and baggage came to mind. Stuff she didn’t need. She had no trouble handling herself pro-fessionally, and she was determined to start living the rest of her life with wits about her at all times. She’d almost decided she might be ready for an uncomplicated relationship with an uncomplicated man, and she’d been thinking about Sam Beaudry. A lot.
And now this.
So she asked, and he said sure—well, he’d nodded, anyway—and here they sat across from each other in Doherty’s Café staring into their ceramic mugs as though the shape of a coffee oil slick might foretell the future. Maggie was determined to let the first word be Sam’s. He could give her that much. She didn’t care what the word was. Maybe he needed a friend or a confidante. Maybe he wanted her professional opinion.
Maybe he was watching some kind of reflection of the clock that was affixed to the wall behind him.
Okay, so she cared. She was a nurse, for heaven’s sake.
“I think she’s holding her own, Sam.”
He glanced up. “Will they transfer her to Billings?”
“If there’s something that can be done for her there that can’t be done here, they’ll consider moving her. But in her condition, it’s a risky trip.”
“Why?”
“As I said, she’s holding her own. But she’s frankly pretty frail. Most of her major organs are at risk of failing.”
“Is it all from drugs?” he asked, and she glanced away. “What, you can’t give out that kind of information?”
She offered an awkward smile. “I’m supposed to ask if you’re a family member, and then I’m supposed to refer you to the doctor.”
“What do you consider a family member?” He cast a searching glance at the ceiling before drilling her with a dark-eyed stare. “How about the son of the woman she says is her daughter’s grandmother?”
“I…guess that works.” Montana was different from Connecticut. Fewer people with more space between them added up to more slack. Indian country was definitely different, especially when it came to defining a family member, and most especially when children were involved. “We don’t have all the test results. She has pneumonia. Probably hepatitis. She’s on medication for diabetes. That’s just for starters.”
“Damn.” He stared into his coffee for a moment. Then he drilled her again with those dark, straight-shooter eyes. “You think her daughter looks like me?”
Who but a man would ask such a self-centered question?
Who but a man would have to?
“She’s a beautiful child.”
“Yeah, I don’t see it, either.” He glanced away. “What did my mother tell you?”
“That she’s never heard of Merilee Brown. That you used to tell her everything, but now you don’t.”
“I’d tell her if I had a kid.” He bobbed a shoulder. “That I knew about.”
“These things happen?”
“Not to me.” He toyed with his spoon on the table. “We lived together for a while. I was crazy about her. I don’t remember why.”
“When you’re crazy, nobody expects you to know why.”
“Good point.” Which he chalked up on an air board with the spoon. “I remember why I left.”
“Being crazy wasn’t working for you?”
He rewarded her cleverness with half a smile. “I would’ve danced to whatever tune she called, but I didn’t have it in me. Couldn’t learn the steps.”
“Daddy don’t rock ‘n’ roll?”
“I never took you for a smart-ass, Maggie.” But he gave her the other half of the smile. “I could do that number. And I would.”
She pressed her lips together, holding back on any remarks about Mama not dancing with him—maybe not even breathing much longer.
“Go ahead, say it.”
She feigned innocence. “What?”
“Something like, ‘Easy for you to say that now, Jack. How many years after you hit the road?’”
She laughed, less for the humor than for the surprise of it, coming from Sam. And the accuracy. “I won’t tell you what I was thinking. Your guess is so much better.” But close.
“I’m not much of a dancer, but I do a little mind reading sometimes.”
“I see that.” She sipped her coffee. “What’s your next move?”
“I’m workin’ on fortune-telling.”
“I mean, being the law in these parts, what do you do now? You’ve got a comatose mother and a child who’s—”
“Staying with her grandmother.”
“We have a social worker.”
“I know the drill, Maggie. I guarantee you I’m the only one in Bear Root, probably the only one in the whole state of Montana with any connection to Merilee Brown.”
“Star’s staying with her grandmother,” Maggie echoed. Which means…
“While I sharpen up my detective skills. They haven’t gotten much use lately.”
“If I can help…” If she had a mirror in her purse, she could show him a clue. Maybe that was what he was searching his pockets for.
“We could be in serious trouble,” he muttered as he gave up on his pants in favor of his shirt.
“That wasn’t what I was thinking.”
“No, I appreciate the offer.” He smiled as he unbut-toned the flap on his left pocket—the one without the badge. “I thought I’d lost my billfold. They could’ve had the sheriff washing dishes here.” He wagged a slim leather wallet. “Talk about crazy, huh?”
“Not me. Far be it for a smart-ass to talk about crazy.”
“If I ask for help, it’s the smart part I’ll be lookin’ for.” He winked at her, a surprise that gave her butterflies. “I knew exactly what you were thinking.”
Sam’s apartment on the second floor of the old county building was hot, and not in a good way. There was no controlling the heat, no matter what the season.
He was never far away from his job, but he didn’t mind. It was the way he’d lived most of his life. He’d grown up on the second floor of Allgood’s Emporium. He’d billeted in camps, bunked in barracks, surfed a few couches, and he had to admit the sheriff’s apartment wasn’t half-bad as cramped, hot, on-site quarters went. He could always find some work to do when he couldn’t sleep. He liked to keep close watch on any guests he was keeping in the four-cell county jail, which was right next door in the new courthouse building.
Some nights he’d drive around looking for trouble. Other times he’d dive into the never-ending stream of paperwork. On this night he went to the property cabinet and removed the Merilee Brown box.
He’d never known her to have much, but for a woman with a child, she had next to nothing. The personal possessions he’d removed from the motel room were remarkably scant. He had to believe she’d left home in a hurry, and he needed to find out why. An uncashed paycheck was his first clue. It was made out to Merilee with an unsigned endorsement to the order of Vic Randone. The check proved that Merilee was employed by the Gourmet Breakfast House in Long Beach until at least four weeks ago and that Randone was still taking money from her.
What the hell did she see in him?
Damn. Sam hadn’t asked himself that question in a long time, and he wasn’t going to let himself start in again. Back to the job at hand, he found a book about fairy-tale princesses and one about horses, a scrapbook full of baby pictures and growing girl pictures, drawings made with crayons, numbers and letters made by small hands and milestones described in a flowing hand. Sam knew Merilee’s writing. It reminded him of the rise and fall of the ocean on a calm day at the beach.
Their early days—the three of them together—had been like that. Calm and sunny. They’d all found jobs—Merilee waiting tables, Vic and Sam driving trucks—and they’d made plans. Merilee would start out modeling—she had some experience—which would lead to commercials, which would lead to bigger things. Vic would manage her—he had no experience—and Sam would keep the rent paid and the cupboards from going bare. Sam had done his part. His was the easy part, according to his roommates.
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