Chapter 2 Breakfast for Three
M iley slept like the dead while Hawk tapped away on his computer. He’d be sure to tease her about all the snoring she wasn’t doing when she awakened. The spunk she’d shown so far was impressive. One thing was for sure. She was no crybaby.
Clint drove up about an hour later, but only long enough for Caro to hop out of the passenger seat and bring a wicker basket to Hawk’s front door. The basket was filled with clothing and supplies — female supplies like lotion and shampoo. Apparently, Caro had stopped by Ashley’s and Johnny’s place on the way there to save them a second trip across town.
Hawk hurried down the porch steps, gratefully accepting the basket she pressed into his hands. “Miley’s still asleep.”
“Good. She needs her rest.” Caro gave him a squinty-eyed look. “You sure you can handle a teenager all by yourself? Because we can turn this into a stakeout, if you’d prefer, and take turns pulling shifts.”
Hawk gave the basket of supplies a pointed look, pretty sure that Miley didn’t require round-the-clock monitoring. “I’m not sure there’s enough room in my cabin for one female, let alone two.”
Caro sniffed in disgust as she spun away from him. “And you wonder why you’re single!”
Oh, he was all too aware of why he was single. He simply hadn’t met the one yet. “Thanks for the offer, though,” he called after her.
“Yeah, yeah!” She waved without turning around. “Call us if you need anything.”
He wouldn’t, but it was nice of her to offer. He turned around and headed back inside. Moving across the living room, he deposited the basket beside the sofa where Miley was still sleeping. She’d see it first thing when she woke up. Or stumble over it. He used the toe of his boot to nudge it closer to the end table to get it out of tripping distance.
Returning to his favorite leather recliner, he picked up his laptop and resumed his search. He browsed news articles going back a full month in Turkey and the surrounding towns.
One of them jumped out at him. It was about a woman they were calling Jane Doe. She’d been discovered unconscious at the scene of an accident some forty miles away from Turkey. The description loosely fit an older version of Miley. Even more significant was the date of the accident — three weeks ago on the dot.
His heart thumped with elation over the possibility that Miley’s mom was still alive. He wasn’t sure what the odds were that the Jane Doe in question remained at the hospital, or that she was the woman he was looking for. However, it was worth a shot.
He stood and carried his laptop to his bedroom, not wanting to wake Miley by making a phone call in her presence. Pushing his bedroom door shut, he dialed the hospital. They transferred him around from department to department, making him feel like he was getting the run around.
“Listen,” he finally exploded. “Can you just tell me if she’s still there?”
There was a moment of silence. Then the attendant spluttered, “I thought you said you had information that would lead to her whereabouts. All I can really do at this point is give you the tip line for the police.”
It was with a sinking heart that he disconnected the line. He’d confirmed that Annalee Gilbert was no longer at the hospital. Only time would tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Right now, it appeared to be a dead end.
Unfortunately, Hawk’s skill set didn’t extend much beyond pulling guard. Lonestar Security had hired him for his muscles. He could physically protect Miley, but he wasn’t trained in the world of private investigating.
Fortunately, Johnny Cuba was. Hawk shot off a quick email to the guy, updating the P.I. by day and dairy farmer by night on the Jane Doe report.
Johnny rang him a few minutes later. “You’re not gonna believe this, bro.”
Excitement leaped into Hawk’s chest. “Try me.” He hadn’t been expecting to hear back from his friend so quickly.
“Your Jane Doe was in a coma for three weeks after a hit-and-run accident. She woke up and left the hospital the same day.” He paused before adding, “Against doctor’s orders.”
Hawk snorted. “You got a lot further with them on the phone than I did.”
Johnny’s voice grew sly. “I might know someone who works there.”
“That’s convenient.” Johnny had an uncanny way of shaking folks down for information. Hawk envied his cleverness.
“I might’ve also called in a favor with one of their security guys.”
“Oh?” Hawk sensed there was more information forthcoming.
He wasn’t wrong. Johnny rushed to add, “I was told this was off the record, so I need you to keep this between us, but…” He went on to describe how Jane Doe had apparently pulled out her own I.V. and taken off barefoot. “They think she might’ve hitched a ride away from the hospital in a laundry truck. It’s hard to say, since the security camera on the loading dock wasn’t working that day, but it’s the best theory they can come up with.”
Excitement churned in Hawk’s gut. The level of spunk Jane Doe had exhibited the day she’d left the hospital reminded him of a certain somebody asleep on his sofa in the living room. Somebody he’d really hate to see take off in her current state.
A rustling sound outside his bedroom door made his head jerk in that direction. “Listen, I gotta run. Thanks for the information.”
“You bet,” Johnny shot back. “I’ll keep digging into the Gilbert family’s story.”
“Appreciate it.” Hawk disconnected the line and strode toward the door, yanking it open and stepping into the hallway.
A startled yelp stopped him in his tracks.
He found himself face-to-face with a very disheveled version of Miley.
“You scared me,” she squeaked, waving her good hand at him. “Stalking up on me like the big, bad wolf.”
“I live here,” he reminded, hating that he’d caught her off guard. It wasn’t his intention. Hoping to put her at ease, he turned on the nearest wall switch, flooding the hallway with light.
“Ouch!” She shielded her eyes from the sudden blast of brightness.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “There’s just no winning with you tonight, princess.” The spunky teen from earlier was gone. In her place was a hissing tiger. His gut told him she must be in a lot of pain.
“Not tonight.” She gave him a nasty look. “My arm is on fire!” With that, she stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Loudly. “Sorry about that,” she hollered at the top of her lungs.
He grinned and hollered back, “I’m gonna get an ice pack for your arm.”
“Or an ax,” she groaned, sounding miserable. “Might be easier to just chop it off.”
He hurried to the kitchen to follow through on his promise, pulling a zip-up plastic bag from a drawer and filling it with ice. His cabin was small enough that he could still hear the faint bleating sounds of pain Miley made during her pit stop. The bleating sounds were followed by the flush of the toilet and the faucet running.
Then the door to the bathroom opened, and she stomped to the kitchen.
He handed her the ice pack.
She accepted it, white-faced, and gingerly applied it to the inflamed area of her arm. “I’m not usually this awful. I’m really not.”
He didn’t consider any of her behavior to be what he would classify as awful. Just human. And young. Opening an upper kitchen cabinet, he pointed at the contents. “I keep my pain meds in here. You can double up on ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Just watch the dosages on the bottle, you hear?”
She cast a longing look at the open cabinet. “Load me up, chief,” she begged, hitching one skinny hip on the nearest bar stool.
He carefully counted out the pills on a napkin and poured her a glass of water to go with them. He liked feeling needed. Most people didn’t need him.
He slid the napkin and glass across the counter to her. “Prim said she called in a round of antibiotics to one of the pharmacies in town if you end up needing it.” Prim was the physician assistant who served the rez. She was also the one who’d stitched up Miley’s arm earlier.
“That’s good to know.” Miley reached for the pills with brimming eyes. “Not trying to weird you out or anything, but you remind me of my dad. So much,” she choked.
Her words tugged something elemental inside him. “Chayton Dakota was a good man.”
At the sound of her stepfather’s name, the tears welling in her eyes brimmed onto her cheeks. “Did you know him?”
“No.” He reached for a box of tissues and set them closer to her. “Wish I had.” All he’d done was read about the guy online. The articles he’d run across had made him sound like a wizard more than a gardener —a guy who’d been able to coax anything into growing.
She pulled a couple of tissues from the box and wadded them against her eyes. “I miss him so much, Hawk,” she wailed. “Nothing has gone right for me and my mom since we lost him. Nothing!”
It was a troubling statement to digest. Hawk rested his elbows on the bar and leaned her way. “You wanna talk about it?”
She nodded, weeping silently. It took her a few minutes to compose herself enough to start speaking again. “My dad died with like…no warning whatsoever. Shortly afterward, my mom broke the news to me that we were about to lose the farm, too. Then three weeks ago, she disappeared, and some nut job who looked like her showed up at the house, claiming to be her. It’s all so messed up!”
“Tell me more about your mom’s look-alike,” Hawk pressed.
Miley’s gaze flickered like blue fire. “She marched right into our living room wearing my mom’s favorite t-shirt and sneakers! It was like she was wearing the same skin or something.” She shivered and seemed to wilt. “I know how crazy this must sound to you, but it wasn’t her. You have to believe me!”
He did believe her. “I think you’re more than old enough to know your own mom, kid.” It was a bizarre story, though. No way around it.
“Thank you for saying that.” Miley viciously chewed on her lower lip. “I’ve been trying to figure out why she looked so much like my mom. It was more than makeup. I can tell you that.”
“What else can you tell me about her?” Hawk gestured for her to continue. “Tell me everything you can remember, no matter how insignificant it might seem.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath, making her bangs rise on her forehead. “The imposter looked like my mom and was roughly the same build. She was also wearing her clothes, but she was older, and her voice didn’t sound anything like my mom’s voice.”
“Older,” he repeated carefully.
“Yes, older,” Miley snapped, pointing at the edges of her eyes. “She has more lines around her eyes than my mom has, and her teeth are straighter. Like so straight they can’t be real.”
He cocked his head at her. “You think they might’ve been dentures?”
“Yeah. Dentures.” She pressed the ice pack more firmly to her arm. “I took some pictures on my cell phone so I could compare them to my mom’s pictures. They look enough alike to be twins, other than the few differences I mentioned. Definitely older. And she didn’t seem to know anything about me. Like she totally forgot that I dip my French fries in mayonnaise instead of ketchup. What kind of mom would forget something like that after eighteen years of buying me mayonnaise?”
“Not your real mom, that’s for sure.” Hawk couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to wake up one morning and realize the woman posing as her mom wasn’t actually her mom. It sounded like something out of a horror movie.
“I know, right?” Miley spluttered.
Now for the hard question. Hawk watched her closely, not wanting to miss a single nuance of her body language. “What made you decide to break a window and climb out of it?”
Miley paled. Then she turned red. “My mom’s imposter sent me to my room for no particular reason —like I was four-years-old again. Then she locked me in!” She sounded incensed. “I didn’t realize she’d reversed the doorknob until it was too late. The whole thing was really unnerving, you know?”
“I bet.” Hawk’s chest ached for her. “And then?”
Her lips tightened. “I watched through my bedroom window as she drove away. Then I smelled smoke. I tried to open my window, but it was jammed shut. I had to launch a bowling ball through the glass to break the double panes. Once I made it to the other side, I took off running and didn’t look back.” She paused to yawn broadly.
“You did the right thing.” It filled Hawk with rage that someone who looked like Miley’s mother had attempted to burn her alive. “Next question. How’d you find your way here?” His cabin wasn’t exactly walking distance from where she’d come from.
“I have a great-uncle living on the rez.” The rez was what most of the locals called the Comanche reservation he lived on. “Or used to. I’ve never met him, so I can only hope he’s still alive.” She lowered the sodden tissues from her face and dropped them on the bar beside the glass of water he’d poured for her. “I hitchhiked my way here, hoping he might help me search for my mom after I introduced myself and explained what was going on.”
“What’s his name?” Hawk already knew it, but he wasn’t ready to reveal his relationship with the man yet.
“I assume his last name is Dakota, but my parents have always referred to him as Running Bear,” she admitted. “From what I understand, he and my grandfather had some sort of falling out years ago, so there was never any contact between us.”
Running Bear was definitely a name that Hawk recognized. He wagged a finger energetically at her. “He serves on our tribal council.” Given Running Bear’s choice of lifestyle, Hawk wasn’t sure what his interest would be in taking on the responsibility of a teenager.
“Oh, Hawk,” Miley breathed, lighting up like a candle. “Are you serious, or are you just messing with me?”
“I’m always serious.” He pointed at the ice pack that she’d laid on the cabinet while downing the pain meds. “You’re gonna need to ice your arm for at least twenty minutes. Want me to set a timer?”
“Yes, please,” she returned meekly.
He set one on his watch. Then he met her gaze again. “Now that you’ve verified your great-uncle is alive,” he spread his hands, “are you gonna turn in your resignation from the rawhide business?” He sure hoped not, but he wasn’t going to arm-twist her into doing anything she didn’t want to do.
She glared at him. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want to be bothered with me anymore?”
“Nope.” He meant it, too. “I’m running behind on several orders. I could use the extra help.”
“Good, because I still need a job.” She sounded relieved. “Plus, I have no idea what Running Bear is going to think about meeting a niece he may or may not know he has.” Misery edged her voice. “A niece not even related by blood.” She glanced away from him. “In case I failed to mention it before now, my dad adopted me after he married my mom.”
Hawk studied her, wishing he could think of the right words to make her feel better, but nothing came to mind.
Fortunately, Miley didn’t seem to be waiting for a response from him. She drew a heavy breath. “To make matters worse, my grandfather and dad didn’t get along, either. All I really know about my grandfather is that he became a widower, remarried, and disowned my dad all in the same year — possibly because of me.” She sounded sad.
“Why’s that?” Hawk wasn’t following her.
She ducked her head. “Mom had me when she was a teenager in foster care. Rumor has it that my biological dad is just some cowboy who was passing through at the time. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, since my mom refuses to talk about it.” She waved a hand in exasperation. “To conclude my less than thrilling life story, my parents and grandparents have been arch enemies and corporate rivals for as long as I can remember.”
Which may or may not have anything to do with why someone is trying to kill you and your mom. Hawk nodded as he digested everything she was telling him. “I take it your grandfather owns a farm, too?”
“A commercial one.” She bobbed her head in affirmation. “Much bigger than ours.”
“I see.” Hawk asked for the name of it next, intending to research it online later.
“Dakota Farm,” she supplied. “Ours is Gilbert Farm. Not very creative, I know.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “Business took a nose-dive on our end after we lost my dad. Mom had to lay off most of our staff.”
Hawk couldn’t tell by listening to her if she knew that the farm she’d grown up on had burned to the ground. However, it didn’t feel like his place to tell her.
The timer he’d set on his watch went off. He held out a hand for the ice pack, and Miley gave it to him. “You ready to turn in for the night?” Rest would be her biggest healer right now.
She nodded. “I’ve been praying around the clock for my mom’s safety. The Lord is gonna take care of her until we can find her, right?”
“Yep.” Hoping he wasn’t giving her false hope, he shared his latest discovery with her. “A friend of mine helped me track down a report about a Jane Doe at a hospital in Clarendon. She was involved in a car wreck that left her in a coma about the same time your mom disappeared.”
Miley’s forehead scrunched with worry. “What’s a Jane Doe?”
“A generic name the law enforcement and medical communities give a woman when they can’t identify her.”
Her expression grew hopeful. “And you think it’s my mom?”
“I do.” He held up a hand in caution. “That said, the same day she woke up from her coma, she left the hospital against doctor’s orders.”
“That sounds like something my mom would do.” A smile spread across her face. “Take my word for it. She won’t rest until she finds me.”
After meeting the teenage daughter of the woman in question, Hawk could easily take Miley’s word for it. His anticipation of meeting Annalee Gilbert for the first time ratcheted up another few degrees. She sounded every bit as extraordinary as her daughter.
* * *