Dream a Little Dream (47 page)

“
Now!
You gotta let us out now! You’re
scaring
Rosie!”

“Shut up! Just shut up, will you?”

The curve came at him too fast. He heard himself make this funny sound in his throat, and then he hit the brakes.

The boy screamed in the back.

The car began to fishtail, and Bobby’s mom’s face flickered in his head.
Mom!

He lost control.

Rachel couldn’t stop making whimpering sounds.
Please, God . . . Oh, please . . . Please . . .

Gabe’s knuckles were white on the Mercedes’s steering wheel, his face gray beneath his tan. She knew he was thinking the same thing she was. What if they’d turned the wrong direction on the highway?

She told herself the police would find the children if she and Gabe couldn’t. Kristy and Ethan had stayed behind to notify them. And the skid marks at the bottom of the lane had been distinct. Still . . . They’d already gone over ten miles. What if they’d guessed wrong? Or what if the bastard they were chasing had pulled off onto a side road?

She couldn’t think about that. If she did, she’d start screaming.

Gabe sucked in his breath. “The car.”

She saw it then. “Oh, God . . .”

The Range Rover was turned upside down in a ditch ahead to their right. Vehicles had stopped; people were clustered together. There were two patrol cars and an ambulance.

Oh, God . . . Please . . . Please, God . . .

The Mercedes’s tires squealed, and a shower of gravel hit the undercarriage as Gabe pulled off the road. He jumped out of the car, and she ran after him, pebbles biting through the soles of the sandals Kristy had tossed at her. She heard him call out to the state trooper standing next to the ambulance.

“The children! Are the children all right?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m—I’m the boy’s father.”

The trooper jerked his head toward the stretcher. “They’re stabilizing the kid now.”

Rachel reached the stretcher just after Gabe did. But it wasn’t Edward. They gazed down at Bobby Dennis.

Without a word, Gabe spun toward the car and bent over to look inside where one of the doors gaped open. He immediately straightened. “There were two small children with him. A five-year-old boy, and a baby girl.”

The trooper grew immediately alert. “Are you saying this kid wasn’t the only one in the car?”

Gabe offered a brusque explanation while she ran to look inside the Range Rover. The straps on Rosie’s empty car seat dangled. Rachel looked frantically around and saw a white baby shoe in the weeds ten feet from the car.

“Gabe!”

He raced over to her.

“Look!” she cried. “Rosie’s shoe.” She squinted against the fading sun and spotted a tiny pink sock hanging in the weeds near a line of trees that marked the edge of a densely wooded area.

Gabe saw the sock at the same time she did. “Let’s go.”

Without waiting for the trooper, they moved into the woods together. Prickly bushes snagged at her skirt, but she paid no attention.
“Edward!”

Gabe’s voice boomed. “Chip! Call out if you can hear us!”

There was no response, and they forged deeper into the trees. Gabe’s legs were longer than hers, and he quickly moved ahead. “Chip! Can you hear me?”

A low branch snared her shirt. She yanked it free, then looked up to see that Gabe had frozen in place.

“Chip? Is that you?”

Oh, God . . .
She stopped in place and listened.

“Gabe?”

The voice was small and achingly familiar, coming from somewhere off to their left.

Gabe raced ahead, calling out. She rushed after him, her heart pounding.

The terrain sloped downward, and she slipped, then righted herself. Gabe disappeared. She followed the path he’d taken through a thicket of pines and came out in a clearing by a small creek.

That was when she saw them.

Edward sat huddled against the trunk of an old black gum tree some thirty yards away with Rosie curled in his lap.

“Chip!” Gabe’s shoes pounded the ground as he flew across the clearing toward the children. Rosie had been quiet, but as soon as she saw him, she started to scream. Both children were dirty and tear-streaked. Edward’s T-shirt was torn and one knee was scraped. In addition to her missing shoe and sock, Rosie’s pink romper had a grease smear across the front. Gabe went down on his knee, snatched her up with one arm, and threw his other one around her son.

“Gabe!” Edward clutched at him.

A sob tore her throat as she ran forward.

Gabe thrust Rosie at her and pulled Edward to his chest, then pushed him away far enough to lift his eyelids. “Are you all right? Does it hurt anywhere?”

“My ears.”

Gabe immediately turned Edward’s head to look. “Your ears hurt?”

“Rosie’s got a loud scream. It hurt my ears.”

Gabe visibly relaxed. “Is that all? Anything else?”

Chip shook his head. “I was real scared. That boy was bad.” He started to cry.

Gabe gave him a quick hug, thrust him at Rachel, and took Rosie to check her over.

Edward trembled in her arms and spoke against her belly. “Mommy, I was so scared. The car turned over, and I was afraid that bad boy would wake up and run off with us again, so I got Rosie out of her seat and carried her, but she was heavy, and she kept screaming ’cause she was scared, too, but finally she stopped.”

Rachel spoke around her tears. “You were so brave.”

Gabe, in the meantime, had quieted Rosie. Rachel looked up at him, and he nodded. “She’s fine. We’ll have them both checked, but I think they’re all right. Thank God they were buckled in when that car went over.”

Thank you, God. Thank you.

Rosie rested her head against her uncle and brought her thumb to her mouth. Her little chest heaved as she took a few comforting sucks.

Edward reached out and patted her leg. “See, Rosie. I told you they’d find us.”

Rachel kept her arm firmly wrapped around her son as they began to head across the clearing toward the highway, but they hadn’t traveled more than a few yards before Rosie let out another shriek.

Edward winced. “See, Mommy. I told you she can really yell.”

Gabe rubbed her back. “Hush, sweetheart . . .”

But Rosie wouldn’t be hushed. She twisted her body, flung out her arms, and screamed.

Rachel followed the direction of her gaze and saw Horse lying at the base of the tree where they’d found the children. Rosie wanted her stuffed rabbit. “I’ll get it.”

She walked back to the tree, then came to a halt as she saw that the back seam had split open and the stuffing spilled out.

Shining,
sparkling
stuffing.

Gabe saw it at the same time she did. He hurried back to the tree and stared at the small pile of glittering stones. Most of them lay on the ground, a few clung to the rabbit’s mangy gray fur.

Gabe let out his breath. “Diamonds.”

She gazed numbly down at the sparkling stones. Dwayne had hidden his cache inside Edward’s stuffed rabbit. The Kennedy chest and the Bible had merely been diversions so she wouldn’t suspect the truth. When he’d begged her to bring their son to the airfield, it wasn’t because he wanted to say good-bye, but because he’d known Edward would bring Horse along. Dwayne had wanted the diamonds, not his son.

At that moment, Rachel decided G. Dwayne Snopes was no longer Edward’s father.

Gabe took her hand. “Looks like you finally found your fortune, Rach.”

She poked at one of the stones with the toe of Kristy’s sandal and knew he was wrong. These diamonds weren’t her fortune. Her real fortune stood right in front of her, but she had no right to claim it.

R
achel didn’t
get to take her shower until nearly ten o’clock that night after Edward had finally fallen asleep. She turned off the water and, as she dried herself, said one more prayer of thanksgiving that Edward and Rosie had both been given a clean bill of health by the doctors.

There had been so much to do since they’d recovered the children. Cal had locked up the diamonds for her in Dwayne’s old safe, then all of them had spoken with the police. They’d also checked on Bobby Dennis, who was in the hospital, and Rachel had talked with Carol. Bobby’s mother was badly shaken and very much in need of forgiveness. Rachel had given it without a moment’s hesitation.

But she didn’t want to think about Bobby now, so she concentrated on untangling her wet hair with Gabe’s comb. She wasn’t in any hurry. Right now, Gabe and his overdeveloped conscience were sitting out there waiting for her, and she knew that Mr. Eagle Scout had prepared himself to do the honorable thing. The comb caught on a snarl, and she tossed it down.

If she’d had her wish, she and Edward would have gone back to Kristy’s condo for the night, but Edward and Gabe had refused to be separated. She still didn’t entirely understand how the relationship between them had changed so drastically. It was ironic. What had once seemed like an insurmountable problem in her relationship with Gabe had disappeared, but an equally large barrier still stood in the way. Gabe didn’t love her, and she couldn’t live in Cherry’s shadow.

She reached down to pick up the clean clothes Ethan and Kristy had brought her from the condo only to realize they weren’t there. Wrapping a towel around herself, she cracked open the door. “Gabe? I need my clothes.”

Silence.

She didn’t want to walk out like this.“Gabe?”

“I’m in the living room.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“I burned them.”

“You did what?” She shot into the hallway. She felt defenseless enough without having to confront him wearing only a towel, so she stormed into his bedroom and pulled on one of his clean work shirts. After hurriedly buttoning it, she marched into the living room.

He looked as cozy as could be, slouched in a wicker armchair with his feet propped on the old pine-blanket chest that served as a coffee table, ankles crossed, and a can of Dr Pepper in his hand. “Want something to drink?”

She smelled the stench and spotted smoldering embers in the fireplace. “I want to know why you burned my clothes!”

“Don’t talk so loud. You’ll wake up Chip. And I burned your clothes because I couldn’t stand looking at them another minute. You don’t own one thing that’s not butt-ugly, Rachel Stone. Except your panties. I like them.”

He was acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Where was the tense, difficult man she’d grown so used to? “Gabe, what’s wrong with you? You had no right to do that.”

“As your present and future employer, I have a lot of rights.”

“Employer? The drive-in’s closed, and I’m leaving tomorrow. You’re not my employer any longer.”

She saw by his stubborn expression that he wasn’t going to make this easy on her.

“You refused to marry me,” he said, “so I don’t see any other way to go about it than to rehire you. I burned those bus tickets, by the way, along with your clothes.”

“You didn’t.” She slumped down on the couch, all the wind knocked out of her. Did he think that just because he’d finally attached himself to her son, everything was all right? “How could you do that?”

For a moment he said nothing. Then he gave her a slow, calculating smile. “I know you too well, sweetheart. You’re not going to keep those diamonds. That means it’s time to cut a deal.”

She regarded him warily.

He eyed her over the rim of his Dr Pepper, then sipped. As he lowered the can, he took his time studying her. His scrutiny made her fully conscious of the fact that she was completely naked beneath his shirt. She drew her legs closer together.

“I’m making some changes in my life,” he said.

“Oh?”

“I’m going to get licensed in North Carolina and open up a practice right here in Salvation.”

As upset as she was, she couldn’t help but feel happy for him. “I’m glad. It’s exactly what you should be doing.”

“But I’m going to need some help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Well . . . I have to hire a receptionist who can also pinch hit when I need surgical help.”

“I already have a job in Florida,” she pointed out. “And I’m not going to be your receptionist.” Why did he have to belabor this? Didn’t he understand how hard leaving him was for her?

“That’s not the job I’m offering you,” he said smugly. “Although if you’d volunteer to help out every once in a while, I’m sure I’d appreciate it. But no, what I’m thinking about for you is more in the way of a career than a job.”

“A career? Doing what?”

“Things I need done.”

“Such as?”

“Well . . .” He seemed to be thinking. “Laundry. I don’t mind cooking and washing dishes, but I don’t like laundry.”

“You want me to do your laundry?”

“Among other things.”

“Keep going.”

“Answering the phone in the evenings. When I’m not working, I don’t like to answer the phone. You’d have to do that. If it’s somebody in my family, I’ll talk. Otherwise, you take care of it.”

“Doing laundry and answering the phone. This is supposed to be my new career?”