The aura Nick exuded from every pore.
He set the automatic pilot and leaned back.
Analise crumpled the empty candy-bar wrapper and pulled out a bag of chocolate sandwich cookies.
“No wonder you’re so hyper, eating all that sugar,” Nick grumbled.
“I told you, flying makes me nervous.”
“Why do you fly if it makes you nervous?”
“Because it’s the fastest way to get places, of course. Anyway, I have a theory. If you’re afraid of something, you have to do it and then you won’t be afraid of it. Since my parents have made a career out of worrying about me, I could be afraid of everything if I didn’t make an effort to do all the things they think I shouldn’t do.” She offered him the bag of cookies. “Here. You could stand to relax a little, too. Surely you’re not nervous about flying. Although, if you go along with my theory, becoming a pilot would be the logical thing to do to overcome that fear.”
“I love to fly.” He accepted a couple of cookies. “But I didn’t have any dinner.”
That was a good sign. Eating cookies together was always a bonding experience.
“So,” she said brightly, hoping to inspire a bit of brightness in her cranky pilot, “tell me what you discovered today about Abbie Prather.” He didn’t respond immediately. His jaw muscle twitched. Maybe he was still chewing on that cookie. “You can just give me your report verbally instead of faxing it to me since I’m not home to receive the fax,” she encouraged, giving him plenty of time to swallow.
His lips compressed as if the cookie tasted bad or he didn’t want to comply with anything she asked. She knew there was nothing wrong with the cookie.
“I searched the records in Casper,” he finally said, “and talked to people who live in the area where Abbie Prather lived, and I found out two things. She moved to Nebraska in about 1976, and she had a little girl with her.”
Analise stopped with her cookie halfway to her mouth. “A little girl? Where did she get a little girl?”
“I would imagine she got her in the usual way.”
“But she didn’t have a baby when she left Briar Creek! And you didn’t mention any baby in South Dakota, or any husband!”
“No evidence of a husband. My guess would be that she either had the child right before or right after she left Texas. The people I talked to today figured the kid to be about two when she moved here and four when she left.”
“But where was this baby when she was in South Dakota?”
“In South Dakota she lived out away from people, just like she did in Wyoming. If she’d had a baby with her in South Dakota, it would have been easy to hide her. A toddler’s another story, and the people who saw this little girl said she was a pistol. Very visible. Had red hair and was always getting into something. Every time they saw her, the kid was charging around and Abbie was yelling at her, though they said by the time she left. the kid was getting kind of cowed by all that yelling.”
Analise touched her own curls, sadness sweeping over her at the thought of Abbie’s daughter being cowed. “A little red-haired girl, four years old. She’d be about my age. If Abbie hadn’t stolen that money and left town, her daughter and I might have been friends. That’s terrible that Abbie yelled so much at her that she broke her spirit But at least now we know why she stole the money.”
“You think stealing the money to take care of her kid justifies her actions?”
“No, of course not! But it explains why she did it. She must have been pregnant in Briar Creek and the father wouldn’t marry her so she had to leave in shame—”
“Leave in shame? This was 1972, not 1872.”
“Briar Creek can be pretty provincial. Anyway, she managed to hide her pregnancy, but she knew she couldn’t hide the baby ... they make too much noise...so she stole the money and left town. If she’d stayed in Briar Creek and given her child up for adoption, my parents might have taken her and I’d have had a sister. They wanted another child.”
The idea brought an eerie sense of déjà vu, doubtless because she’d always wanted a sister, had even invented one when she was a child, a red-haired sister who looked like her and was named Sara. How sad that she’d missed the possibility. Sad for her and the other little girl. Abbie didn’t sound like an ideal mother, while her own parents were practically perfect...unlike their changeling daughter.
“That’s pretty much the way I had it figured,” Nick said. “However, you should realize that this could mean your fiancé’s father was the father of her baby.”
“No way!”
“Then why did she choose him to take the blame?”
“Because he was the most likely candidate. He’d been in trouble before when he was a teenager. His family was really poor, and when he was in high school he was dating Lucas’s mother, whose family wasn’t poor though they weren’t wealthy, either. Anyway, he wanted to take her to his senior prom but he couldn’t afford to rent a tuxedo, so he stole one. At least, he tried to steal one. They caught him. He got off with probation because he’d planned to return it after the prom and he was an honor student and he’d never been in any kind of trouble before, but when that thing at the bank came up and he looked guilty, nobody bothered to check any further.”
“Which doesn’t mean the man wasn’t the father of Abbie Prather’s child. Why didn’t your fiancé look into this?” He lifted a hand to cut off her protestations. “I just think you ought to know that you may be opening a can of worms here. This may not be the kind of wedding present your Lucas wants. There may be a good reason he never investigated.”
“There certainly is a good reason. Well, a fairly good reason. It’s real good if you understand Lucas’s point of view. He was only four years old when his dad was convicted, so pretty much all he remembers is how people treated the family of a convicted felon. As soon as his dad got out of prison sixteen years ago, they moved to Pennsylvania where nobody knew anything and started over. His parents have told him repeatedly that they have to forget the whole thing, move forward and put it behind them. Give themselves and everybody else a chance to forget. They won’t even come back to Briar Creek for our wedding.”
“If they don’t want to dredge the whole thing up, why are you doing it?”
“So his parents can feel comfortable coming to our wedding and because Lucas really does want to know the truth, deep inside.”
“I see.” Disbelief oozed from the pores of both words.
“He does! Okay, he’s never really said it in so many words, but he says it every day by his actions. He’s a doctor. He could practice anywhere in the country, but he chose to move back to Briar Creek and go into practice with my dad. He tries really, really hard to be an exemplary citizen and show people by the way he lives that his father couldn’t possibly be guilty. If he says his dad’s a total straight-arrow, I believe him. You find that little girl’s birth certificate and we’ll see who the father is and I guarantee it won’t be Wayne Daniels.”
“I fully intend to do that, but this is Saturday night, and the courthouses won’t be open until Monday morning at nine.”
She sighed. “Then I guess we’ll have to wait to settle that point. What’s the little girl’s name? Did anybody remember?”
“Oh, yes. Several people remembered because Abbie yelled at her so much, calling her name. It’s Sara.”
Talk about déjà vu! “Sara,” she repeated. “When I was a little kid, my imaginary sister’s name was Sara, and then