Forever Together (20 page)

Colin took out his cell phone. “If we’re done
here I’ll head back into town. Smile for the camera.”

Before Kate knew what he’d done, Colin
snapped a photo and hot-tailed it back into his patrol car.

Dan moved faster than the pepper spray had
shot out of the canister. He rapped his knuckles on the roof of
Colin’s car. “Don’t you dare show that photo to anyone.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. But it could come in
handy for the Christmas slide show Betty puts together. Watch your
feet.”

Dan stepped back and Colin drove away,
tooting a couple of times as he passed Tom and Anna’s house.

The ranch seemed too quiet once he’d
left.

“Wait here.” Dan’s voice cracked like a whip.
Kate heard the gravel crunch under his feet, heard the thump of
something hitting the barn wall, then saw a beam of light ricochet
around the yard.

“You brought a flashlight?” She didn’t mean
to sound like a grouch, but she couldn’t help feeling more than a
little annoyed. “You were sitting inside in the dark, but you
brought a flashlight outside? Maybe you should have turned it
on.”

“I could see fine until I got to the back of
the barn.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was you sneaking
around?”

“I didn’t sneak anywhere. You think this was
my fault? I wasn’t the person holding the pepper spray.”

He had a point. But if it had been someone
else she would have been thrilled to have her trusty can
clutched
in her hands.

Dan turned and started walking away. “Hey,
you can’t leave me out here alone.”

“You won’t be. I’m sure Betsy and Pearl will
enjoy listening to you. I need a shower.”

“But my bag is somewhere out here.”

Kate heard Dan growl, then watched the beam
from the flashlight get closer.

“Where is it?”

“Back of the barn.” Kate followed Dan and
pointed to the bright orange tote bag lying beside a crate. “There
it is.”

He grunted, picked it
up,
and handed it to her. Without another
word,
he stalked back to the house.

Kate jogged to keep up with his long-legged
stride, stopping briefly beside Anna’s car to get her suitcase. She
didn’t know what Dan’s problem was, apart from a little pepper
spray. But she had a feeling she was about to find out.

CHAPTER TEN

“Where is it?”

Kate lifted her gaze from the newspaper in
front of her. Dan stood in the doorway of the living room, anger
steaming out of his ears. He’d had a shower, changed his clothes.
His face looked red, sore, and mighty painful.

“What are you talking about?”

“The check from the fashion show. Anna left
it on the kitchen counter on Friday night.”

Kate shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve got no
idea. Have you asked Anna?”

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

Kate pushed the newspaper away and stared at
Dan. She might be slightly ditsy sometimes, but she was rarely
dumb.

So much had happened today that her brain
felt foggy around the edges. It took longer to connect the dots and
find a straight line, but when she did she could have strangled
him. “Are you implying that I stole the check Emily gave Anna?”

“It was a cash check. Anyone could have
deposited it, including you.” He marched forward and stood
over
the top of her. “You packed
your bags and left. I’ve got no idea why you came
back,
unless the money’s gone and you don’t want
it to look like you stole it.”

“I’m going to give you the benefit of the
doubt, which is more than you’re giving me. We’ve all had a hard
day. I suggest you go and speak with Anna before accusing me of
stealing money.”

“Anna and Tom have enough to deal with. They
don’t need you to complicate their lives.”

Kate took a deep breath and counted to ten.
“I thought you were a decent kind of guy. A bit mixed up and
confused, but basically okay. But
you’re
being
rude and obnoxious. I suggest you go back to work and
find real criminals and not harass make believe ones.”

“There’s nothing make believe about your
record. You’ve stolen money before so what’s stopping you now?”

“You know nothing about me, Daniel Carter.
You have no proof that I’ve stolen anything so go away before I
call the Police.”

“I am the Police.” Dan ran his hand through
his hair. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the truth. I
want to know where the check has gone.”

“I don’t have the check.” Kate stood up.

Dan’s eyes narrowed. He looked as though he
was fit to burst with anger. “You won’t get away with it. I’ll make
sure Emily calls the bank and cancels the check.”

“You do that, Dan. But before you get all
high and mighty on that pedestal you call a brain, I’d suggest you
speak with your sister.”

“I have talked with Anna. She said it should
be in the kitchen.”

“
Well,
I’d
suggest we go and have another look.”

“I’ve looked three times. It’s not
there.”

Kate didn’t bother listening. She pushed past
him and headed
into
the kitchen.
Two cartons of milk sat on the counter. She picked them up to put
them in the fridge, but they were empty. She looked over her
shoulder at Dan.

“My throat was burning. Milk’s the only thing
that helps.”

She went to throw them in the trash, then
stopped. The check could have ended up in the trash, thrown away
with other pieces of paper. She grabbed the bin and started
rummaging through it.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“What you should have done,” Kate muttered.
Dan must have emptied the trash yesterday. There wasn’t much in it,
just some old toast, a few torn
envelopes,
and
an old
newspaper.

She closed the lid and turned slowly
around
the kitchen. “Where did
Anna say she left it?”

“You’re wasting time. Just give me the check
and then you can disappear.”

If she wanted to hide a check, she’d put it
in a drawer. Right at the back where no one would find it. She
started with the cutlery, lifting the drawer until it came off its
runners. She put the whole thing on the kitchen counter, looked
inside, then moved to the next one.

“It won’t do any good. There’s no check in
this room.”

“If you can’t say something positive, then
I’d appreciate you
not
saying
anything at
all.
”

Dan muttered something under his breath. He
opened the fridge, poured himself another glass of milk, and sat at
the kitchen table.

Kate knelt on the ground and had a good look
inside the cabinetry. Nothing.

She could practically feel Dan’s temper
fizzing. She ignored him, kept hunting, kept emptying drawers and
cupboards then refilling them. Forty-five minutes later she was
ready to admit defeat. If anyone had hidden a check in the
kitchen,
she hadn’t been able to
find it.

“Are you ready to tell me where it is?”

“Would you quit blaming me? I didn’t take
it.”

“You probably said the same thing to the
judge ten years ago.”

Kate closed the pantry doors. “I told him
what I’d done. Until I started hanging out with the wrong
kids,
I mostly stole food and
clothes. I didn’t have any money.”

Kate remembered sleeping on the streets, the
bone-gnawing
hunger that kept her
awake, made her do things she knew were wrong. She’d learned it was
harder to stand up for someone who couldn’t stand up for
themselves,
than to leave them
alone. She’d been beaten, stepped over, and ignored.

“How did you survive?”

Kate leaned against the counter. She almost
hadn’t survived and that scared her more than anything else. “I ate
in soup kitchens, volunteered for any work they needed help with.
They let me wash my clothes in their machines, made sure I had at
least two meals a day.”

She’d tried so hard to pay back the kindness
they had shown her. That’s where she’d met Mrs. Martin, the office
administrator that had taken Kate under her wing and helped restore
her pride.

“One of the women who worked at the soup
kitchen had a sister who owned a beauty salon. She gave me a
part-time job. I swept the floors, folded towels and washed the dye
containers and brushes.”

She pulled a chair out and sat down. “One day
I was walking back to the shelter I was staying at. I’d just been
paid. Rory, one of the boys I used to hang out
with
saw me. He was going to rob a lady from the
soup kitchen. The same lady that had helped me. I told him he
couldn’t do it. That she’d helped me. I gave him my pay. Told him
to leave her alone or I’d go to the Police.”

“What the hell did you do that for? You must
have known what he’d do.”

“I didn’t think he’d be so angry,” Kate
whispered. “He broke my ribs, split my lip open and left me so
bruised that I couldn’t move for days. But Mrs. Martin didn’t get
hurt.”

“That’s when you got arrested?”

She nodded. It had almost been a relief,
knowing she was being held accountable for the mess she’d created.
Her mom, her sister Lily, the people she’d stolen from. She’d let
them all down.

“Mrs. Martin agreed to look after me. I
stayed with her until I had my life back on track. I won a
scholarship
to
the local college.
I worked hard to get my grades up. I eventually got accepted to
beauty school, found a job, and made a better life for myself.”

“That still doesn’t solve the mystery of the
missing check.”

Kate sighed. “I know it doesn’t, but I really
can’t help you. I don’t know where it is.” Dan’s eyes searched her
face, looking for any clue that she was lying. She stared straight
back, annoyed that he still didn’t believe her, too proud to walk
away. She wasn’t the same person she’d been ten years ago and if he
didn’t know that by now, he never would.

“Why did you leave the ranch?”

Kate looked down at the table. She’d packed
quickly after Dan had left for work. She hadn’t been thinking,
hadn’t wanted to work out why she needed to get away. It wasn’t
until
later,
when she’d spoken
with her dad, that she knew it had been the right decision.

“I felt embarrassed. You said you were going
to spend the night at the station. This is more your home than
mine, so I decided to move out. Last night…it shouldn’t have
happened.”

“You regret spending the night with me?”
Dan’s voice sounded hurt, maybe even as embarrassed as Kate
felt.

She shook her head. “No, but I regret that
you think it was meaningless. And I regret what happened
afterward
when dad and Anna
arrived.”

Dan’s silence filled the room. “Why did you
come back tonight?”

Kate frowned. “I told you I would. I wanted
to explain, to let you know that I…” She stopped, gathered her
thoughts, and hid what was in her heart. He didn’t trust her. He
wouldn’t believe what she had to say, not now. “It doesn’t matter.
I was late because I spent time with grandma, at her retirement
village.”

She glanced at Dan and wished she hadn’t. His
mouth was pressed into a grim line and his eyes were flat and
defensive, so different to the man he’d been last night. The man
she saw when he thought no one was looking.

“I’m glad you saw Lily.” He picked up his
empty glass. “I’m going to bed now. I’m on the early shift tomorrow
so I’ll probably be gone by the time you wake up.” He walked toward
the hallway, stopping when he saw her suitcase. “I’ll leave this
upstairs by your bedroom door.”

And then he was gone and so was her suitcase.
If Kate didn’t know
better,
she’d
have sworn he was making sure she didn’t leave again tonight.

She was tired of disappointing everyone, of
thinking their needs were more important than hers. It was
time
she took control of her life,
living in the here and now and not in the shadow of Lily’s death or
Kaylee’s disease.

She had some important decisions to make and
she was darn sure they’d be what was best for her and not everyone
else.

***

Dan parked outside Emily’s
boutique
on Main Street and turned the ignition
off.

He’d spent most of last night trying to
figure out how he was going to tell Anna that Kaylee’s fundraising
check had gone missing. Then he’d spent more time this, standing
under the shower, thinking about everything that had happened the
night before. His eyes still hurt like hell, but the pain was
nowhere near as bad as it had been. He was damn lucky Kate hadn’t
sprayed him directly in the face, but it had still been enough to
drop him to the ground.

After all the contemplating had rolled
through his head, he’d started coming up with different scenarios
about how the check might have gone missing. But he still didn’t
have any answers. As far as he knew, apart from Kate, they were the
only two people that had visited the ranch since Kaylee’s
transplant. Except on Monday morning when Tom and Anna had caught
him naked in the hallway. That visit had been so short that they
wouldn’t have had time to hunt for a check, let alone remember
where they’d put it three days ago.

Before he started looking for the thief he
needed to make sure the check hadn’t been cashed. If it had, they
probably wouldn’t find the money or the person that had taken
it.

And that’s why he was sitting outside Emily’s
boutique
, staring into space.

He would have been distracted for longer
except two older women walked past his patrol car. Doris and Jessie
had their heads bent toward each other, chattering nine to the
dozen about something that was going on. They were the center of
town gossip, the kingpin of all social gatherings. The speed of
their information network put the local police force to shame.