Finding Stefanie (13 page)

Gideon couldn’t get Libby off his mind. It had been a week since he’d quit his job at Lolly’s. That was a difficult conversation he’d never expected to have. To quit one job because he’d found a better one? To have a decent wage and work hard enough to feel exhausted, yet happy at the end of every day? He could hardly believe his good fortune.

Of course, he’d had to admit to himself that more money and outdoor work had nothing to do with why he’d left the diner. No, shame and confusion led that list, a list that ended with not wanting to get into more trouble than he already had.

Lincoln had turned out to be a decent guy under all those expensive clothes. He treated everyone like they might be his best friend, remembering not only their names but their kids’ names and even their favorite sandwiches, which he ordered every day from Missy and passed out on the job site.

Libby had delivered them yesterday. Gideon hadn’t seen her arrive, and when he walked into Lincoln’s nearly finished living room and spotted her unloading the bags onto a sheet of plywood over the sawhorses they’d been using for a table, he nearly tripped over the cord of a Skilsaw.

She just might be prettier than he remembered; it had only been six days, so his memory wasn’t that fuzzy. More than that, he relived the moment in the diner over and over, trying to figure out exactly where he’d gone wrong.

Sometimes he could even taste her soft mouth on his, kissing him back, and feel her arms around him. He’d never quite felt
the way he had when he’d kissed Libby. He’d kissed girls before—well, at least before jail—but this kiss had made him believe he could fly.

Weren’t guys supposed to be cool about this sort of thing? All the guys he’d been with in juvie hall had already dated a lot of girls, had acted like it was no big deal not only to kiss a girl but to do more. He was ashamed now to think about the way he’d talked and acted, pretending that he knew exactly what they meant.

Deep inside, in the place beyond desire, he couldn’t help but think it was supposed to be this way, that kissing the right girl should feel like flying or maybe singing—something perfect and warm and right.

Which was what Gideon had been trying to tell Libby before he’d completely messed everything up. He kept going back to that moment when he had Libby’s face in his hands, staring into her eyes, and couldn’t think of anything more clever to say than
“I really like you
.
”
He’d thought about it for hours as he laid flooring, painted walls, and helped build a deck and finally decided that what he should have said was
Libby, I can’t think straight around you. All I care about is seeing your smile and knowing that I helped put it there. If that’s love, then I guess . . . I’m falling in love with you.
Yeah, that’s what he would have said.

Those words ran through his mind in a blinding second as he saw Libby again, standing there in the living room with the sun pouring through the window. She had on a pink T-shirt, the same one she’d worn that night at the diner, and her hair was up in a cute ponytail. She set the sandwiches out and didn’t look at him . . . not once.

It made him hurt all the way through. He reached for a sandwich
but couldn’t walk away. Not when he saw something on her face that looked like pain.

“Libby?” He came around to stand beside her. She said nothing but glanced at him.

Actually, she glanced at the steel-toe work boots Lincoln had given him. He even wore a tool belt, just like the rest of the guys. In fact, he’d made a few friends with the locals, especially a cowboy named Luther and another named JB, who worked on a nearby ranch and had shown up for the great pay and short-term work before roundup.

Gideon wished he hadn’t spotted Luther lifting some of the tools off the site. The guy had even bragged about it a couple times. Gideon still wasn’t sure what to do about it, but it made him sick to his stomach, especially after the second chance Lincoln had given him.

“Libby, how are you?” Gideon asked quietly.

She breathed in deep; then, though he could tell it took effort, she forced herself to look at him and work up a smile.

He wanted to kiss her again. But something in her eyes, a sort of nervousness, made his breath hitch. “Do I owe you an apology?” he asked softly. “I’m . . . sorry. I . . . don’t know . . .”

Whatever the look had been, it drained as compassion filled her pretty eyes. He recognized it so easily that the knotting in his stomach eased even as the ache inside him grew.

“It’s okay, Gideon. It’s good to see you.” She handed him a Coke. “Do you like your new job?”

Their friendship came flooding back to him. He remembered the way she’d stood beside him only two weeks ago as he watched
his life turn to ash, so scared he wanted to—did—cry. And not once had she uttered a word of ridicule or blame.

“Wanna share my sandwich?” he blurted.
Oh, how lame.

“I gotta get back,” she said, that hurt look again on her face.

Gideon couldn’t bear to think that he’d put it there. “Five minutes. Let me show you around. It’s a great house.”

That hooked her. He carried his unopened sandwich around the house as he showed her Lincoln’s massive digs. He had a huge kitchen with a limestone floor quarried from some Montana mine. The alder cupboards and center island with a granite top filled a kitchen that could probably seat a small army. From the kitchen, the house sprawled out to a huge family room—the carpet would be laid later this week—and a two-story stone fireplace. Palladian windows looked out both sides, with a view of the Bighorn Mountains to the west and the sprawling Big K land on the east. A deck, with a yet-to-be-installed hot tub, jutted out the back.

“Gorgeous. I’ve never seen a house so big,” Libby said.

“Yeah, it even has a maid’s quarters on the other end of the house. And you should see the plans for the movie theater. He’s going to make over the barn into this huge theater. It’ll house, like, a couple hundred people.”

“We’ve never even had a movie theater in Phillips.”

“Let me show you the upstairs.” Gideon led her up a curving staircase with hand-hewn pine spindles and a knotty pine rail. He showed her the master bedroom, which he’d help paint sky blue, and the master bathroom with the two sinks, the two-person soaking tub, and the giant, two-headed shower. He wasn’t sure whom Lincoln might be sharing this with, but whoever the lady was, Gideon knew she’d like it from the way Libby’s eyes widened.

He suddenly wished, with everything inside him, that he could give her a house like this.

He showed her the four other bedrooms, and for a moment she stood in the northernmost room and stared toward Phillips. “My entire house would probably fit in the kitchen.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “The place is huge.”

Gideon opened his sandwich and offered some to her, but she shook her head. He took a bite. “I know. We could fit my mom’s trailer in his bedroom. And back at juvie, they’d put about fifteen guys in a room this size.”

The bread seemed to thicken into paste in his mouth as he realized what he’d said. He couldn’t look at her.

“You were in jail?”

He swallowed the lump in his mouth. “Yeah.” He wished she wouldn’t look at him like that, all shocked and even a little sad. “I . . . uh . . .” He was sick of lying. Of hiding. Of the guilt that chewed at him. Besides, Libby wore that compassion again in her eyes, and it made his brain turn right off, made him react completely on desperation. “Actually, Libby, I killed somebody.”

Had he really said that? He groaned as the air seemed to be sucked out of the room. He expected her to gasp or maybe look at him with accusation, but when he glanced at her, she’d leaned against the wall, frowning.

“What happened?”

Gideon blew out a breath, but it was too late to stop now. “Well, in case you’re thinking it, it wasn’t murder or anything. I didn’t shoot someone or anything like that.”

Nothing in her eyes changed, as if she wasn’t surprised by his lack of violence. “I was out with some of my boys—joyriding in a car
I boosted. The guy driving had been drinking, but we all were sorta . . . well, drunk. I don’t know how it happened, but the car went out of control. It jumped the median and hit an oncoming car.”

As he spoke, he was right back there—squealing tires, metal slamming against metal as the car rolled over and over. He heard the screams as he pulled himself out through the jagged windshield, covered in blood. He felt again the heat as the car and then the van that lay on its side exploded in flames. He even tasted his bile as he remembered retching onto the grass.

“Both my friends and the passengers in the van died—a man and his kid. The driver lived, but she was pretty banged up. I don’t know what happened to her. There wasn’t even a trial. I just pled guilty. Even though I wasn’t driving, I’d stolen the car. . . . It was my fault. I’ve never figured out how to say I’m sorry to the victims.”

Libby said nothing.

“While I was in lockup, my mom got sick. They said it was the flu, but I don’t know.” He shrugged, hating how his voice sounded like he was talking through a tunnel, dark and hollow. “She passed away, and Macey and Haley went into foster care.”

“What about your dad?”

Gideon crumpled the sandwich wrapper into a tight ball. “My dad is in lockup down in Kansas. I’m hoping I get lucky and never see him again.” He didn’t care that Libby flinched at his words. She probably didn’t have a dad who took out his frustration on his kid. “Macey wrote to me, told me what was happening with her and Haley. Right before I got out, she said that Social Services was putting Haley up for adoption. I got them both out as soon as I could.”

“Which is how you ended up here in Phillips.”

He nodded and finished his sandwich, although it felt like clay in his mouth. “I guess it was fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate, Gideon. I know God has a plan for everything. Even the bad things.”

Did He have a plan for Gideon’s heart to stop beating right here in the middle of Lincoln’s magnificent house? Because that’s how he felt as Libby stepped toward him. He could hardly breathe when she simply put her arms around him, laying her head on his chest.

“I’m so sorry for all you went through,” she said softly.

He closed his eyes, hating how they burned, and listened to his heart thunder in his chest, knowing that all the words he dreamed of saying to her were absolutely, without a doubt, true.

He was falling in love with her.

She had to find a way to get in that house. Or at least get close enough to him to watch and wait. And she could wait. Now that she’d found him, she’d bide her time, scout out the perfect angle, wheedle close to him.

Plan the finale.

She watched him survey the house, like he was some sort of king on his royal land. He didn’t deserve this fresh start.

Especially after what he’d done to her.

For two weeks she’d hung around this town, watching, planning. Twice she’d almost gotten close enough to inflict damage. But she didn’t want to wreck it, didn’t want to risk not being able to finish the job.

She backed her car out of the driveway, thankful that so many cars and trailers and people milling around hid her surveillance.

It wouldn’t be long now. No, not long at all.

CHAPTER 8

“M
AYBE YOU’RE NOT
my type.”

There had to be something crazy wrong with Lincoln because Stefanie’s words burned a hole through him, infecting his brain, driving him insane in the dark hours of the night.

What was that supposed to mean? He’d made a career of adapting, of being someone’s type.

Not her type?

Well, he could become her type. A cowboy, complete with a Western drawl, a slow smile, the ability to rope, and a herd of beautiful horses. He was an actor, and he could slip into the role of cowboy like a second skin.

Yeah, he could become Stefanie Noble’s type. Prove to her that he was exactly the kind of man she needed in her life.

Especially since he had this disease licked. Lincoln was starting to even wonder at the diagnosis. His hand felt fine—
he
felt fine. No more memory loss or vision flashes, no more limping. Maybe he’d just been tired—his grueling production schedule had sucked
the energy from him, and at thirty, he wasn’t the same man he’d been at eighteen, able to recover from, say, nearly drowning, like he once had. But now he felt whole and strong and back to his invincible self.

He’d known that the Big Sky air would snap him out of it.

Lincoln felt so good that he’d even come up with a brilliant plan. He finished buttoning the starched white dress shirt and tucked it into a pair of black suit pants, then buckled his snakeskin belt. He’d put on weight this month—something he’d fix starting tomorrow in the weight room downstairs. The house seemed oddly quiet this morning, thanks to the exodus of half his construction crew. The half that remained would start remodeling the new barn into a grand movie theater, holding two hundred, as well as landscaping the grounds.

He’d finally put his finger on the restlessness inside him. Despite the crowd of people working on his house for the past month, he was lonely. The kind of lonely that he couldn’t salve with gourmet dinners and beautiful wannabe costars. He even missed Dex. The closest thing he had to a friend lately was Gideon, whom he drove back and forth to the Silver Buckle every day.

But hopefully, after today, he’d fix the gap in his social life.

The smell of eggs and bacon drifted from the kitchen, and he blessed Delia for finding Karen, a live-in cook/housekeeper. Not that he couldn’t survive on Missy’s food for the next decade, but after watching the way Gideon looked at Libby every time she delivered lunch, he’d decided he’d have to figure out a way to dump water on any flames of romance.

Didn’t Gideon know that Libby was the pastor’s daughter? A little fact he’d discovered when Pastor Pike had stopped by a cou
ple days ago—probably sent on a divine mission by his evangelist daughter—and invited Lincoln to church. He wasn’t so stupid he couldn’t figure out that Pike had also hung around until he’d gotten a good look at Gideon.

Despite being a man who supposedly lived for forgiveness and grace, Pastor Pike didn’t look the least bit grace-filled about his daughter’s choice of friends.

It had churned up a strange feeling in Lincoln, one that made him mention to Pike that Gideon was one of the hardest workers he’d ever met. He hadn’t been lying. Hiring Gideon had probably been one of the smartest moves Lincoln had ever made. First, the generous gesture had endeared Gideon to him for life. Plus, he’d inadvertently put a watchdog in with the crew. It was Gideon who’d reluctantly told him about Luther and his sticky hands on the power tools.

Hiring Gideon had also scored points with Stefanie. She’d actually lifted a finger in a wave two days ago as he passed her on the road into Phillips. And last night, when she’d come out onto the front porch as he dropped off Gideon, he saw the faintest glimmer of a smile in his direction. He fully planned on cultivating that relationship, thanks to Pastor Pike and the dropped tidbit of information that the Noble family attended Phillips Community Church.

And now, so did Lincoln Cash.

He grabbed his new black snakeskin boots and went down the stairs in his stocking feet.

Karen turned and piled eggs onto a plate. “Good morning, Mr. Cash.”

He sat at one of the wrought iron high-top stools and pulled the plate toward him. “Is this turkey bacon?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

According to Delia, Karen had recently moved to Phillips and came with glowing references. Delia knew how important a good cook was—Lincoln could barely make toast, and he was always on the lookout for someone who could whip up a decent pie. Maybe Karen would be his culinary savior. With a quiet demeanor and a hesitant smile, she seemed exactly the type to keep his secrets and make sure the house would stay immaculate.

Between Karen and Lolly’s Diner deliveries, he might live.

He’d have to remember to send Delia some roses when she got back to her home in LA. It felt strange to be without her at the helm of his household. A widow in her late fifties, she’d taken on running Lincoln’s house, his correspondence, even his finances, six years ago, when his name became known in faraway places like Russia and Japan.

Delia had even investigated and found the right doctors for Alyssa, and she was currently researching the background to Alyssa’s experimental medicine. According to the nurses, her night terrors had worsened, and she’d begun to withdraw and stare listlessly out the window.

If he hadn’t left Texas when he did, he would probably be doing the same thing right now.

He hoped Delia would agree to move to Phillips permanently, but in her absence, Karen seemed a good replacement.

“Are you getting settled in okay?” He took the eggs, pouring ketchup on the plate. “Anything you need?”

“No, sir.”

“If you do, give Delia a call. She’ll make sure you have everything you need.”

“Yes, sir,” Karen said, turning back to the stove.

“So, where are you from?” He skated his forkful of eggs through the ketchup.

“Oh, not far from here.” She didn’t look at him.

“Do you have a family?”

“No. I . . . don’t have a family.” She sounded as if her voice caught on the answer.

“It’s pretty rare to find someone with your talents way out here in the middle of nowhere.”

When Karen turned, he noticed she had a pretty, if tired, face, guarded eyes. He placed her at about thirty-five, although she might be younger. The wisp of white in her dark hair, right along the brow line, made her seem older, he guessed.

“I needed a job, and this is what I was looking for. I’m very pleased to work for you, Mr. Cash.” She barely lifted her eyes to him.

He finished his bacon and eggs, then pushed the plate toward her. “Thanks,” he said.

Karen took the plate and gave him a hint of a smile. She was singing to herself when he left a few minutes later.

The sky overhead sang of spring as he drove his pickup into Phillips. He could smell summer in the air, the freshness of the ground awakening. He had overheard that some of the ranches had already started roundup. He had an itch to see one and even asked JB if he could hang out at the Double B when the Breckenridge place held theirs.

He would be a cowboy, a real cowboy.

Phillips Community Church had to be straight out of an old movie. Goodness and righteousness were embodied in the white steeple and stained-glass windows.

Organ music spilled out of the red double door as Lincoln parked in the gravel parking lot, next to dirty pickups and a few dusty sedans. Opening the door, he slipped into the back of the church.

A few heads turned, but the singing muffled any murmuring or conversation about his arrival. He spotted an empty seat a few pews up on the left and scooted in, smiling as the woman next to him, dressed in her Sunday best from the early eighties, handed him an open hymnal, pointing to the right stanza.

He stared at the song and opened his mouth, but as if a hand had reached up and grabbed his throat, nothing emerged.

He’d suddenly been sucked back in time. Sweat beaded along his spine, and he felt as if he might be again standing in the front pew, knees shaking, staring at an open casket, listening to the hum of accusation behind him.

He needed to leave. But now, like then, his feet were rooted to the spot and it was all he could do to breathe, to stand there and dumbly move his mouth, to fake calm when everything within him felt as if it had been churned up and stuffed inside.

But he was an actor. So he gritted his teeth, smiled, and shook hands when the hymn ended and Pastor Pike invited them to greet one another. He even said the requisite “Jesus loves you,” as instructed. He clutched the hymnal with white hands, however, as he sat down.

He’d make a point of never making this mistake again.

Pastor Pike opened the Bible and began to read, but Lincoln was aware of nothing but his heartbeat in his ears, the sweat sliding down his back. What did he think would happen? That God would reach out of heaven and zap him?

Uh,
yes
.

Lincoln slipped the hymnal into the holder at the front of the pew and ran his wet hands along his legs. The church had to be eighty years old, but with the bloodred carpet and finished pine paneling, it looked like it had been updated in the early sixties. Pastor Pike stood on a platform behind a simple podium, now getting warmed up for his sermon. Lincoln tuned him out. He didn’t need the hell-and-damnation message—he already knew where he was going.

Apparently church attendance was a part of this town’s social makeup, because as his gaze scanned the room, he noticed faces and profiles of most of the people he’d seen in Phillips. Missy and Libby were in the front row, and there was the guy who ran the hardware store down the row from him, and JB was two rows up on the right. He looked for the Nobles but didn’t see them, and a pang of disappointment went through him.

Next time Lincoln put his life in jeopardy, he would make sure his sacrifice panned out. What had he been thinking, coming to church? He’d believed too much of his press again, thinking he was untouchable. His head began to throb.

“‘As Jesus was walking along,’” the pastor read.

Lincoln glanced at the open Bible on the lap next to him. John 9.

“‘. . . he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”’”

Both, of course.
Although Lincoln had never met his real father, he knew that the man had hightailed it toward the Texas line when he’d discovered Lincoln’s mother was expecting. The next “dad” had stuck around all of two years. Then one day Lincoln came home to find all their belongings gone. Then again, the relief of
never having to dodge the man’s anger had made up for having to sleep on the bare floor.

Lincoln placed the blame of growing up on food stamps and sleeping on the sofa in a rickety trailer soundly on his deadbeat dads.

Pastor Pike’s reading interrupted Lincoln’s dark memories. “‘“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”’”

Lincoln wondered if Pastor Pike could feel his glare from where he was sitting.

“See, the Pharisees wanted to blame the man’s ailments on something he did or the sins of his parents. Because if they could, they could insulate themselves from the pain of this world. If they simply didn’t sin, then they wouldn’t experience blindness or sickness or anything else they considered a punishment of sin.”

Pike seemed to look right at Lincoln. “But it doesn’t work that way. We can’t behave our way out of accidents or sickness or dark circumstances. This man wasn’t blind because he was a sinner. And the evidence of his blindness didn’t convict him as a sinner. That was the condition of his heart, regardless of his ability to see. But God used the man’s blindness to bring him to Jesus. To healing. And He’ll do the same in our lives.”

Okay, Lincoln was out of here. He checked his watch.

“If we let our situation define us instead of lead us to God, then there is no victory.”

What victory could there be in losing his body? his career? everything he’d worked for? Lincoln tested his hand just to make sure it felt fine.

“Consider Hebrews 12. God says that we are to endure divine discipline, remembering that God is treating us as His children.”

Yeah, that sounded about right. Lincoln had grown up with exactly that image of God, based on his stepfather’s fists.

“Not every suffering is discipline from God, but we can react as if it were—allowing Him to use it for good in our lives, producing a harvest of trusting God in all situations. We don’t have to let circumstances define us, but we can let them produce definition in us. Circumstances can bring you to God so He can teach you how to grow in the character of Christ.”

Lincoln didn’t want definition or character from God. He wanted healing. But he knew better than to ask. Just like he knew better than to stick around and get beat over the head with a sermon. Besides, he didn’t agree with Pastor Pike. Not at all. God wasn’t disciplining Lincoln because He loved him. Lincoln was being punished. For both his parents’ sins . . . and his own. He knew exactly why he’d been afflicted, why his body was giving out on him.