The car belongs to Tina. I bought it for her when she graduated high school.”
“Wish I had a sister like you,” Lupe said wistfully. A look from Miss Joan had her going back to filling sugar dispensers.
Rick hadn’t heard what Lupe said. He was busy studying Olivia, trying to get a handle on her. She sounded more like an indulgent parent than an older sister.
Aware of the sheriff’s penetrating scrutiny, Olivia called him on it. “What?”
“Let me get this straight. You bought your sister a car. If I understood correctly what you said, she lives with you and you took in her no-account boyfriend even when you didn’t want to.” Most women Olivia’s age either lived on their own or with a lover, not a younger sister and that sister’s deadbeat boyfriend. At least not if they could afford a place of their own, as she so obviously could.
Olivia seemed impatient for him to get to the point. “Yes?”
“Well, looking at those kinds of facts, I’d guess that you were compensating for something.” His eyes held hers. She knew she could turn away at any time, but she decided to face him down. “Were you?” he pressed.
Her first impulse was to indignantly say no, but she wouldn’t cut this short. She’d always zealously guarded her privacy, hers and Tina’s. Her second impulse was to tell this would-be Columbo in boots and a Stetson that it was none of his damn business and just walk away. But she couldn’t.
She needed him.
Finding Tina would take a lot longer if she went about it on her own and the man had resources he could tap. Those resources could prove very useful and time saving in the long run.
Besides, she assumed that he was familiar with the area. She definitely wasn’t. That all added up in his favor, even if he was too nosy for her own good.
Since the sheriff continued watching her, quietly waiting for a response, she had to tell him something. Otherwise, she ran the risk of alienating the man. And while alienating people normally didn’t bother her, this time it might prove to be a liability.
Oh, damn it, Tina, why couldn’t you just stay put? Why are you such a flake? What would Mom and Dad say if they were alive now?
If they were alive now, none of this would have happened. Tina had adored their father and would never have done anything to incur his disapproval.
Instead, Tina had become involved with someone who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, gotten pregnant and then irresponsibly run off. And on top of that, from at least outward appearances, she’d abandoned her baby. Something like that could get her locked up for a long time in a place like this, Olivia thought.
After a moment’s debate, she decided to tell the sheriff something she didn’t normally share. None of the people at the firm where she worked were aware of this. But maybe if Santiago knew, it would make him go easier on Tina.
Right now, she could see that he wasn’t about to nominate her sister for Mother of the Year, or even of the hour. And she just wanted to take Tina and the baby home, not hang around to do battle over any kind of charges he would want to bring against her sister.
Taking a breath and mentally bracing herself for the words she was about to say, Olivia began. “Ten years ago, my parents were gunned down in the jewelry store they operated.” The corners of her mouth curved in a humorless smile. “Gunned down for two hundred twenty-three dollars and seventeen cents. That was all the money that was in the register. The rest were credit card receipts that did the thieves no good.
“My sister,” Olivia continued grimly, “was in the store at the time, in the back, doing her homework. The gunmen never saw her, but she saw them and what they did. I couldn’t get her to talk for a week.”
She remembered rushing home from college. Remembered the awful, empty feeling inside her as she’d identified the lifeless bodies of the people who had once filled the corners of her world so richly, so lovingly.
“Tina started acting out shortly after that, getting into fights at school. Crying at the drop of a hat. She was always afraid to go out by herself, always looking over her shoulder.” Olivia looked up at him and lifted one shoulder in an almost hapless shrug. “I did what I could to make her feel safe.”
Rick didn’t follow her reasoning. “By giving her things?” he asked.
Olivia inclined her head. “Among other things,” she allowed. She could see the sheriff didn’t understand. Most men wouldn’t, she supposed. “Possessions give you a feeling of stability, of continuity. Owning something feels good.”
Rick laughed shortly. The sideways logic interested him, not that he bought into it.
“Then Ed Murphy must feel really stable,” he commented. When she raised a quizzical eyebrow in response, he told her, “Ed’s one of Forever’s more eccentric citizens. He’s always pawing through things other people throw out. A lot of that stuff finds its way into Ed’s one-bedroom house. I hear it’s like a rat’s nest in there these days.”
She didn’t know if he was just relating a quaint story or subtly ridiculing her. Sheriff Enrique Santiago looked like a simple man on the surface—sexy as all hell, but simple—but she had a strong suspicion that beneath those prominent cheekbones was a rather shrewd, logical man.
For now, she decided to reserve her final judgment, at least for a little while. She hadn’t gotten to the position of junior partner in her rather highly regarded, high-profile firm so quickly by making hasty decisions and snap judgments.
“About that APB,” she prodded.
“On it,” he assured her. With that, he turned on his heel and started for the door. When she followed him, shadowing him step for step to the door, he stopped short. “Are you coming with me?”
She smiled. “Can’t put anything over on you, can I?” she asked in what she hoped he’d take to be a teasing manner. She had to keep reminding herself not to get on his wrong side and that she needed him.
He glanced at Miss Joan. “I figured you’d be more comfortable staying here.” And he would be more comfortable going about his job without having her less than five feet away.
“Comfort isn’t my main priority,” she informed him, her voice growing more serious. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you, see what you do.”
Having a beautiful woman around was way down on his list of things he minded. But, in this case, he knew it wasn’t just to keep him company. “Don’t trust me to send out that APB?” He was sharp, she thought. He seemed a little too laid-back for her taste and she just wanted to make sure that he did everything he could to locate Tina. But she knew that admitting as much would be a tactical mistake, male egos being what they were, so she forced another smile to her lips, one that was a little sensual around the edges, and said, “No, I just like leaving myself open to new experiences.”
The amused smile that came to his lips told her that she could have phrased that considerably better.
She was tired, Olivia thought, and there was no denying that emotionally she’d been through the ringer these past forty-eight hours. That was the reason she wasn’t at the top of her game.
“Nice to know,” he responded.
She could have sworn a twinkle had entered those incredible green eyes.
Or what could have passed for one, she amended silently. Seeing as how she’d never encountered a “twinkle” before that wasn’t captured within an old-fashioned string of Christmas lights. Like the ones her father used to string up around the house during the holidays, she remembered fondly.
The next moment, Olivia felt a pang in the center of her chest. That she missed her parents went without saying, but she missed them the most around this time of year. Thanksgiving this year had been spent with her searching for Tina, an emptiness eating away at her as she stopped at one diner after another, encountering