Chapter 4
Chapter Four
T he mountain of a man who was Gabe Armstrong stood framed in his door again. Sunny welcomed the heat that curled out around him, brushing against her cold cheeks.
She held the papers out to him. “Changed your mind?”
He looked at the papers like they were covered in dirt and other unmentionable substances. “I’m going to work.”
“Oh.” He marched past her, spanning the small porch in one long-legged step. He was halfway down the sidewalk when she turned.
Sunny scurried after him. Why hadn’t he taken the damned papers like a normal person would? And why couldn’t she leave them on his doormat like she’d promised? She knew better, but she couldn’t resist choreographing a family reunion for him. The nine months she’d spent on the set of The Brainiac Bunch were the best time of her life. She’d felt like part of a real family. And now Gabe was walking away from his own chance at one. The papers crinkled in her fist.
“Can I walk with you?” she asked when she caught him. If he wouldn’t take the papers, she could toss them into the back seat of his car. Then she’d have made her best effort to help him. She could go to LA with a clear conscience.
He looked down at her. It wasn’t quite as hostile as the glare he’d given the papers, but his deep brown eyes were colder than the dormant, snow-covered trees next to the sidewalk. He shocked her when he snorted and said, “Walk with me? Fine.”
She trotted to keep up with his long steps. It was okay. A quick jog would warm up her thin Southern California blood. But he surprised her again by striding past the parking lot where she’d left Cata’s car and exiting the complex to the main street. He turned toward Beach Island.
It was a familiar path. The bus stop Sunny had used during her stint as a caroler at the park was just up ahead. But she’d never walked this fast. Between the bulky petticoats of her costume and the ridiculous, too-small period boots, she’d had to watch her step on the sometimes-icy sidewalk. Maybe he rode the bus to work. His dress pants and gorgeous wool overcoat belonged to a guy who drove an Audi, not a guy who relied on the dingy bus, but who was she to judge? Her car still sat dead at her own, less nice apartment complex.
She had just a few steps to the bus stop to convince him to take the papers. But the direct approach hadn’t worked before. Maybe indirect was better.
“Where do you work, Gabe?”
He didn’t answer right away. Glanced at her. Continued down the sidewalk. “I work up there.” He tilted his chin at the park entrance just past the bus stop.
“Really? Me, too. I mean, I did. Briefly. During the Holly Days. I was a caroler.”
He shot her a sharp glance. “What’s your last name?”
“Lafortune.”
“Ah.” But he didn’t say anything more. Maybe he didn’t watch New York Bomb Squad .
She pressed on. “What do you do?”
“I work in the office.”
Of course he did, with his business apparel. “In payroll?” It was the only department she’d visited in the one-story office building. She didn’t remember seeing him when she’d picked up her paychecks. And she’d have noticed someone who looked like Gabe.
“Not exactly.”
They walked down the middle of the giant, empty parking lot. “Why do you walk and not drive?” she asked.
“It’s not far.”
“But it’s cold.”
He glanced at her again, his face inscrutable. “I don’t drive.”
“But you own a car, right?”
“No.” His jaw was granite like the Allegheny Mountains she’d driven through on her way from New York.
“You have a fancy suit and a cashmere coat but no car?”
“That’s right.”
As fast as he moved, it probably was easier for him to walk to work than to drive. But why didn’t he drive? Unable to relinquish her wheels when she’d moved to New York, she’d ended up spending almost as much for parking as she did for rent.
“Is that why you don’t want to go visit your biological family? Because you don’t drive? Because there are planes, too. I’d…” Now she was barreling past the line she’d promised Cata she wouldn’t cross. “I’d drive you to the airport.” Though she’d have to borrow Cata’s car again to do it.
“You would?” His steps faltered. “You don’t even know me. Why is it so important to you that I meet them?”
Sunny tried to catch her breath. “Look, I don’t know you or your family. What I know is that family is important.” And when the family you were born into didn’t give you what you needed, unconditional love and support, you made your own. Like she’d done with the other kids on The Brainiac Bunch . Hell, she still kept a framed copy of their cast photo and exchanged birthday cards with the actors who’d played her parents. But she couldn’t tell him that. He’d think she was silly for imprinting on a fake family. “Sometimes you have to find your own family. And it looks like your family in Vegas wants to be found. I just want to help.”
“I have a family.”
“But they—they’re gone now. Don’t you want to meet the rest of your family?” She narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t pulled the right lever yet. “They might need something from you.”
When he stilled, she knew she was onto something. Still, he hesitated, glaring at the steel gate that barred the employee entrance. The blue curve of Twister of Terror was visible through the bare branches of the trees.
“I don’t fly, either,” he said, his voice so low she almost didn’t hear him.
“You don’t?”
“No.” He turned to her, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
The words bubbled out of her without thought. “I’m on my way to Los Angeles. I’ll drive right through Vegas. You could ride with me.”
“You’re going for…for work?” An adorable little crease separated his thick eyebrows.
Her face went hot. “No, I quit. I couldn’t, after…”
“Oh.” The crease disappeared, and his face went stony.
“I have a job opportunity. And that’s where my parents live. I’m leaving as soon as my car’s fixed.”
His forehead creased. “You’re offering to drive almost two thousand miles with a stranger?”
Sunny shrugged. “It’d be more fun than driving alone. You could pay for gas.” Her mouth was making plans without even consulting her brain. Cata would kill her.
She scrabbled in her purse for a pen. On the back of the page she still clutched in her frozen fingers, she scrawled her name and phone number. “Think about it, okay?” She shoved the paper into his chest, and he grasped it.
Flashing him her brightest smile, she turned and headed back toward Cata’s car. Whether or not he took her up on her offer, she’d accomplished her mission: she’d given him his brother’s contact information and the DNA results. It was literally in his hands now.