Chapter 2
Stace sat at what was obviously their breakfast table.
There was a plate of eggs and toast in front of her.
Lily was balanced on her knee, reaching for bits of egg and buttered toast which she had broken into manageable pieces.
The sheriff was at the foot of the table, filling in the last of his report, and the big bearded man was to her right.
Every now and then, his burly arm brushed hers as she held onto Lily.
This still felt surreal, and it was hard to drag her thoughts together apart from the one immutable fact she couldn’t ignore.
If this really was where the interviews for the home companion job were being held, then she was sure she’d just lost any hope of consideration.
Nobody wanted an employee with as much drama as she’d just brought to their door, and she didn’t even know what had sparked it.
At her first opportunity, she wanted to call the moving company and find out what happened.
She had paid, but maybe the paperwork hadn’t been marked down right.
He’d called her a cheat, said she’d stolen his money, but she’d done no such thing.
She itched to go outside and rescue her proof from where the driver had torn it up and thrown it in the mud, but when she’d tried, the big man had stopped her.
“You don’t need to go out there just yet,” he’d said, and then he’d gone in her stead.
He’d returned while she was trying to explain what had happened, the papers so drenched in mud as to be unreadable.
He’d vanished with them into the kitchen, but having seen them dripping muddy water from his hand, she already knew there was no “fixing” them.
“So,” the sheriff said, sipping at his coffee before taking the bite of toast the toddler was offering to him.
He smiled at her, cooing, “Oh, thank you, honey. Nom nom nom.” He bent to eat it straight from her fingers, chuckling when she giggled, and then turned his attention back to his paperwork.
“Let’s go over this one more time. He picked you up yesterday? ”
“Yes, sir,” she confirmed. “He arrived at 8 a.m. yesterday morning. Then he and the two other movers—”
“The two in the white pickup that passed me before I got here?”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded. “They came maybe twenty minutes later, and then they loaded up everything of mine from my—” She stopped, the words just as hard to say the second time around as they had been the first. “—my husband’s house and I left with them.”
“And he wasn’t happy,” the sheriff said flatly.
Lily squirmed on her lap, trying to offer the big man a bite of toast too.
“No, uh,” she adjusted her hold on the baby, her face flushing as she tried to push her daughter’s arm down.
“Sweetie, eat your breakfast. Mister, um… Mister…” she flushed even hotter.
She’d written her interviewer’s name and address on the back of the moving itinerary so she wouldn’t lose it.
It was in the kitchen wherever the big man had put it, probably in the garbage.
She couldn’t for the life of her remember his name.
“Sanderson,” the big man said. “Brock Sanderson.”
She was so embarrassed. She should have remembered that. “Yes, I’m sorry.”
Lily stretched her whole body, trying to offer him her well-fingered piece of toast.
“Lily, honey…”
“She’s fine,” he said, in that same deep tone of voice.
She wanted to argue—not everyone liked babies, after all, and Brock seemed to be doing everything possible just to keep from looking at her. That wasn’t a good sign, and yet he bent down, opening his mouth to let the toddler slip her toast between his lips.
“Nom, nom, nom,” he growled too, nibbling her tiny fingers as well as the toast. His dark brown mustache and beard must have tickled. The baby laughed.
Stace tore her gaze from his lips, anxious not to be caught gawking at him. A man could be nice to her baby and still not hire her. And surely that had to be where they were heading, since he still wasn’t looking at her.
“Miss Malone?” the sheriff asked, snapping her wandering thoughts back to the conversation at hand.
“Um… I’m sorry. What was the question?”
“He wasn’t happy,” Thompson prompted.
“No, right from the start he was mad. He didn’t like it at all that I needed to ride with him, or that I had a child.
But these were all things I told the representative of the moving company when I first signed with them.
I told them I’d lost our car and had no other way to get there.
They were the ones who recommended I pay a little extra to ride in the truck.
They said it would be cheaper than renting a car and following along behind. ”
“No one mentioned it violates the personal insurance policy of most movers, since it’s their job to move your things, but not you?
” Brock asked. There wasn’t so much as a trace of judgment anywhere in his tone, but Stace knew it had to be there.
She could feel the impact of each of his words like the knell of a hammer on a bell.
She shook her head. “N-no,” she said, hating how small and uncertain she sounded.
For the first time, he looked at her. Swallowing hard, she quickly looked away, which left her staring helplessly at the sheriff instead.
“They were the ones who said I could. They said it was a service, and it would only cost me $350 more. They said rental car places don’t like to rent their cars for one-way trips.
They said it would cost me twice as much, plus gas if I went that route. ”
“Mm hm,” the officer hummed, making a few notes. “And then they brought you here? Not next door, where your aunt is letting you stay?”
“Y-yes, but… I paid for that too.” Jesus, she sounded like a wounded child.
Her nerves were vibrating, she was so anxious.
She’d thought she’d done every right, but sitting here, all she felt was wrong.
“It was a service, they said.” She sounded stupid, even to her own ears.
“All I had to do was pay $200 more and they would take me to the—” She glanced sideways at the old man as he came shuffling into the kitchen.
He paused behind her to make silly faces with Lily, who launched into a game of peek-a-book with him.
Brock was watching her again; Stace quickly averted her eyes again.
“Here,” she said naively. Defensively, she turned back to Brock.
“B-but when I downloaded my directions off Mapquest, it said this place was just over a mile from Aunt Maggie’s, and Aunt Maggie called twenty miles before we got to town to say she had to go into work and couldn’t watch Lily until tomorrow, but I had to be on time for my interview, and—”
“And our friend, Mr. Johansen didn’t seem in a waiting mood?” the sheriff asked, redirecting her back to the important details.
Even more rattled, feeling guilty as hell and hating that she didn’t know exactly what for, Stace nodded. “He got even madder. He said either I had to pay him another $5000 or he was going to dump all my things in the road.”
Beside her, Brock sucked his lips against his teeth and shifted in his seat.
“And he dumped you in the road instead.” The sheriff jotted down another note.
“I touched his truck,” she confessed. “I was begging him not to, but he wouldn’t look at my invoice with his company, and…” She wilted. “I touched his truck.”
“And Lily was in your arms the whole time?”
“From before the s.o.b. put his hands on her, right up until he balled up his fist to hit her,” Brock’s father hoarsely added from where he was lowering himself to sit at the head of the table.
He wasn’t making silly faces anymore. Flicks of temper were very much alive in the backs of his pale blue eyes.
“That’s when me and my boy went for the guns.
And if you think you’re gonna fine me for shootin’ that old rifle again, young man, I’m—”
Holding up both hands and the pen he’d been writing with, Thompson was quick to correct him.
“Oh no, I’m not fining you or Brock, not for any of this.
No, this is as justifiable as it comes, in my opinion.
I think I’ve got enough for now, but I’ll be needing you and Brock to come to the station so I can get your statements too.
Tomorrow or next day, you know… when it’s convenient. ”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Brock promised.
“Don’t go shooting up the truck any more,” he warned.
“I only shot the tires out so I could make good and certain he didn’t abscond with Miss Malone’s things.”
Hearing him say her name like that set all the quivering tingles in the pit of her stomach to flushing hot.
But, of course he knew her name. He really was the person she’d come here hoping to interview with, and of course this really was the right address, in spite of Mapquest’s insistence that she still had a mile of travel left to go.
“Miss Malone?”
Stace startled again, her gaze darting to Brock. Shoot, he’d asked her a question and she’d missed it. He sat there, expectantly waiting for her to answer him.
“I-I’m sorry?” Her face burned hot. Please don’t let her be blushing.
His head tipping ever so slightly as he regarded her. “I said, I’ll move the truck, but I won’t have time to help unload it until later.”
“Let me know when, and I’ll send over a couple of the guys to help,” the sheriff said.
“Oh!” She straightened in her seat, looking from one to another. “You don’t have to do that. I can empty it.”
Brock arched an eyebrow every bit as dark as his brown eyes. “You’re going to empty that twenty-footer out there all by yourself?”
“What about your furniture and heavy stuff?” the sheriff reminded. “It’s no hardship for us, Miss Malone. Pretty sure your aunt will have my ear for letting you do that all on your own.”