No matter how he approached it, it would have been an impossible situation at its best. And this was definitely not at its best.
Ellen’s daughter had been silent for the entire trip so far. It was almost as if she was afraid of something. Was that normal? He had no idea. Maybe he should have taken Chisholm with him. If nothing else, she would have filled the air with chatter, made his sister’s little girl feel more comfortable.
“You all right back there?” he finally forced himself to ask, looking at Ellie in the mirror.
Small brown eyes darted to meet his. “Yes, sir.”
Echoes of his past came barreling at Garrett out of the shadows. His stepfather had demanded that each sentence spoken to him contain the word sir as a sign of respect. Hearing his niece address him that way brought back bad memories.
“I told you you don’t have to call me sir,” he reminded her sternly.
“No, sir—I mean …” Ellie’s voice trailed off. Taking a deep breath, she nervously tried again. “What … what do you want me to … What do I call you, s—?”
Garrett heard the slight hissing sound that gave her away; Ellie was about to address him as “sir” again. He had no doubts that she’d had that drummed into her head by her father, just as his stepfather had tried to drum it into his—often physically. Garrett had met Ellen’s husband only once, while his sister was going out with him. Even then, the marine had struck him as a carbon copy of his stepfather, from his military bearing to his stark haircut, right down to the way Duffy ordered Ellen around.
Garrett’s dad had ordered his wife and kids around the exact same way. Except that Garrett hadn’t stood for it. When he was still small, the man had tried to beat him into submission. But the day finally arrived when Garrett was taller than his tormentor. After that last go-round, when they’d come to blows that didn’t automatically result in a victory for the dominating marine, he’d finally left home. Garrett had taken off in the middle of the night, knowing that the next confrontation would result in one of their deaths.
“Call me by my name,” he told the wide-eyed little girl now. “My name is Garrett.”
“I know,” she told him solemnly. “Mama used to talk about you.”
He shouldn’t have let all those years go by, Garrett thought now, his conscience pricking him sharply. He should have tried to get in touch with Ellen, to let her know that she had a way out if she wanted one. That she was more than welcome to come stay at the house with him.
Too late now.
Ellie had lapsed into silence again. “What did your mother say?” he asked her.
“That you were a nice man,” she answered, as if she was reciting something she had memorized, and practiced saying over and over again. “And that you used to look out for her when she was little like me.”
Another wave of memories came rushing back to him, playing across his mind. At the same time, emotions began to tug at him—emotions he wanted no part of. He didn’t know how to react to them or to the little girl sitting behind him.
But he had to say something, so he fell back on basic facts. You couldn’t go wrong with facts, right? “We’ll be home soon,” he told her.
But even saying that felt awkward on his tongue. By home he meant his home, his private domain. His sanctuary. Sharing his office with a talkative deputy was bad enough. Now he was being forced to share his home with a stranger, as well. She was his flesh and blood, true, but she was still a stranger. Forty-eight hours ago he hadn’t even known she existed. There seemed to be no place left for him to retreat to, no space, however small, to call his own.
But what choice did he have? In either case? He was stuck with Chisholm, unless she suddenly decided to quit. And as for Ellie, well, not even that would work. The little girl had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. She was his responsibility for the next twelve years.
Garrett began to experience a dull ache in his head.
“Is that it, sir?” Ellie was asking. “I mean Uncle Garrett,” she quickly corrected. “Is it that house up there?”
The house she indicated was his, located at the top of a winding road. Darkness had fallen, but instead of being dark as well, the house was mysteriously lit up.
He didn’t remember leaving the light on when he’d left. He’d set out early in the morning two days ago. Some people, if they knew they’d be coming back home late in the evening, would leave on one or two lights to help them see when they unlocked the front door. But he didn’t need that kind of help. He was perfectly capable of finding the lock in the dark.
Garrett was positive he hadn’t deliberately left on a light.
Moreover, if he had done so it would have been just that. One light, not every light in the house.
What the hell was going on? he wondered. Neither burglars nor squatters announced their presence by setting a house ablaze with lights.
Had some kind of weird electrical malfunction happened while he was away?
Pulling into the driveway, Garrett turned the engine off and, after a beat, got out and stared at his house—specifically, at the banner stretched out between two of the windows in front. The bright pink banner proclaimed Welcome Home, Ellie! in giant black letters.
He heard what sounded like a scurrying noise behind him. Garrett turned around just in time to be on the receiving end of a flying hug. Ellie was throwing her little arms around his waist, stretching them as far as she could and hugging him for all she was worth.
“Thank you, Uncle Garrett,” the little girl cried happily.
Looking down into the small face, he saw Ellie smile for the first time.
“Nothing to thank me for,” he mumbled as he awkwardly patted her back.
Really nothing, he thought, since he hadn’t done this. He was about to tell her that when he heard the front door opening. He looked up, to find his suspicions confirmed.
Lani came out to greet them, an amazingly wide smile on her lips. Because it was cold, she’d thrown her jacket on over her shoulders, but hadn’t bothered slipping her arms into the sleeves.
“Hi, Sheriff,” she called out as she hurried toward them. Not waiting for him to respond, she turned her attention to the person who was, at the moment, her main concern. The sheriff’s niece.
To equalize their heights, Lani dropped down on one knee. “And this little beauty must be Ellie. Hi, I’m your uncle’s deputy. But you can call me Lani,” she told her. Rather than shake the small hand that was being offered, she drew the child to her for a quick, heartfelt hug.
“Are you hungry?” Lani asked her. “I’ve got a nice warm beef stew waiting for you in the kitchen. C’mon,” she urged, with the ease of a seasoned resident rather than someone who had just in the last few hours learned her way around the old house. “I’ll take you inside.”
Ellie hesitated, looking over her shoulder. “My suitcase …” she began, referring to the only thing she had brought with her when she and her mother had begun the fateful journey to Booth.
“Your uncle can bring it,” Lani assured her with a dismissive smile, then looked in Garrett’s direction. “Can’t you, Sheriff?”
He didn’t take well to being ordered around, but it was, after all, just one small suitcase for one small girl. He’d let it ride this time, he thought. “Sure.”
Garrett turned on his worn boot heel and went to fetch his niece’s small, battered suitcase.
When he walked into the house with it moments later, he moved quickly, with the