would survive in prison. Somehow, she couldn’t see him getting out early on good behavior. She pitied Drew. For the first time since he abandoned Laurel when she was pregnant, the anger was gone. The emptiness felt worse.
The crowd slowly dispersed. Suddenly aware that she was standing alone, Rachel squared her shoulders. Somehow, she had to get through the rest of this day.
Earlier, she’d left her nephew, Laurel’s son, at the summer school program. At her approach, Dylan looked up from his artwork and smiled. He was sitting alone at an outdoor picnic table while the other children played water-tag. He was the new kid in town, and Rachel worried about him making new friends. He was eight years old, no longer a baby. She couldn’t shield him from life.
“Hi.” Rachel smiled. However, her disappointment in the trial verdict must have shown on her face.
Dylan frowned. “Is Drew going to jail?”
She sat down beside him. “Yes, honey. He did something very wrong. And the court decided he has to be punished.”
“But he said he was sorry!”
“Sometimes that isn’t enough.” She met his troubled eyes with what she hoped was reassurance. “Things will work out, you’ll see. Let’s go home.”
Rachel stood and helped him gather his paperwork.
She took his hand, and they walked home—which wasn’t far. They lived in a rented cottage on the edge of town. A line of thick trees started a few feet from the back of the house. The Pierces owned the house, and the woods. In fact, they owned half the town.
When she opened the front door, the dog greeted them with an excited glad bark. Dylan grinned. Like his dog, he was sunny-natured and eager to please. At times, Rachel worried that he craved acceptance too much. He craved a father even more. She wanted love and security for Dylan—more than she wanted it for herself.
Dylan ducked his head as the dog licked his face, his ears, anyplace she could reach. “Down, Sunny.”
Rachel smiled at their antics. Her smile fled when she noticed Drew’s flashy red sports car conspicuously parked in the driveway. Apparently, he’d ordered his car delivered to her doorstep. She found the spare set of keys in the ignition. She could send the car back, but she knew it would only return—just as the new refrigerator, stove and washer had appeared and reappeared. Great! Her reputation was already in tatters, and this would only confirm the gossip.
When she first started work at the sawmill, she’d refused several offers of dates. Since Drew arranged her job, people assumed she belonged to him.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
The only connection was through Dylan. For years, he’d paid child support but never taken a personal interest in Dylan. Hoping to change that, Rachel had accepted his recent job offer and moved to Henderson, when the closing of the Stillwater Inn and the loss of her job forced her to make the difficult decision. Since the explosion was an accident, she’d felt sure that Drew would be found innocent. But nothing had worked out. While deeply immersed in the trial, Drew and his family had been kind, but understandably preoccupied, which left Rachel frustrated. Now, here she was in a strange town, and Drew was gone. The entire situation was on hold until he came home in five years—assuming he did.
Earlier that day, Rachel had felt the animosity in the courtroom. To add to her discomfort, there had been that awful man who kept staring at her. Well, maybe not so awful, she thought with a whimsical smile. He was tall, fair-haired with tanned even features. When he smiled, his gray eyes twinkled. From the fan lines around his eyes, she suspected he smiled a lot. She shook off the tantalizing memory.
In any case, his confusing her for Laurel explained his preoccupation. Laurel had had that effect on men—not Rachel, which was fine with her. She didn’t need complications in her life. She had Dylan. As sole guardian, she’d quickly learned that men weren’t interested in instant families.
Chapter Two
The trial of the century—Henderson style—was over. Life settled down to normal—whatever that was, Rachel thought a few days later. A morning breeze ruffled her hair, loosening a strand. She brushed it back from her face, glad that she’d gotten to work in her garden early in the morning before the day’s heat intensified.
She heard a dog’s frantic bark, then, “Mom, Mom!”
Hearing the note of panic in Dylan’s voice, Rachel dropped the tray of tulip bulbs, and ran. She didn’t stop to question her response. At first, she’d been Auntie, then Auntie Mom, and finally just plain Mom, which suited both her and Dylan. Although she tried to keep Laurel’s memory alive, Dylan’s childish memories of his mother were vague, colored by her long, frequent absences.
Sometimes, it seemed as if Laurel had never existed—except in Rachel’s memory. Sadly, Laurel had never been able to love her son, or at least she’d rarely shown it. A little boy needed a mom, and Rachel was it in every way that counted—short of giving birth to him. From the moment she set eyes on the squalling red-faced infant, Rachel adored him. A nurse had placed him in her arms. He was hers to love.
“Mom, Mom, come quick.” Dylan’s voice sounded confident that she would come because—well, because she always did.
Rachel arrived breathless. “What’s up?”
“It’s Sunny!” Dylan pulled on the dog’s collar but the yellow Labrador dragged him across the treed yard into the blackberry bushes.
Rachel caught Sunny’s collar. “Stay!”
At the sharp command, the dog stopped abruptly. Tail wagging, Sunny rested back on her heels. She inched forward.
Then, a rustling sound came from the bushes.
“Uh-oh!” Dylan groaned.
With one ferocious bark, Sunny tore loose, landing Dylan and Rachel in the dirt. They looked at each other and laughed as the dog disappeared into the thick bushes.
Dylan’s laughter warmed Rachel’s heart. Forgetting the dog for a moment, she leaned back on her hands. A faint breeze caught in the pine trees and whispered softly. Today was Saturday, the sawmill at this end of town was closed, and blessedly silent.
The dog let out a long series of high-pitched yelps. Rachel could hear her crashing around, but couldn’t see much.
Apparently Dylan could. “Sunny’s got something big!” He clearly hoped it was something huge. He’d been moping around for days—ever since the end of the trial.
Rachel felt the same. A restlessness still gripped her. She felt unsettled and wondered why the memory of a handsome face and a crooked smile should linger more than all the other images. She sighed. They could use a distraction—something pleasant for a change.
She whistled for the dog. “Here, Sunny.”
Dylan tried to whistle, then said, “I think it’s an alligator!” He sounded thrilled at the idea.
“Dylan, this is Maine. Alligators don’t live here.”
“But they could. I heard about people buying them at pet stores, and letting them loose, or flushing them down the toilet. It could be an alligator.
