The Lost and Found (23 page)

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“If you ever need something, you can always come to me, or to Josiah.”

“’kay.”

“You need anything before I head back out?”

“Nah, I’m good.” Ethan grinned at me. I tried not to notice that the grin didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I really like this show. It’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, it is. You take it easy. I’ll see you later.”

CHRISTMAS WAS TWO WEEKS
away and the tutoring was finished. I still helped the boys with their homework, but only as they needed it. I knew I was going to have to find another job. I mentioned it to Billy and he told me again that it wasn’t necessary. I knew he meant well, but I wanted to work. Josiah had things on the ranch handled fairly well. It was obvious to me that my help wasn’t really needed there. I went with him mainly to have something to do and to spend time with him. I started scouring the want ads looking for any kind of employment.

Salmon was a small town, so the pickings were slim. I just figured I’d keep looking and maybe something would come up after Christmas.

Three days before school let out for the Christmas holiday it began to snow again. I was happy and annoyed at the same time. This time the snow was sticking. Standing on the porch, my hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee and Josiah’s warm, strong arms wrapped around me, I contemplated the big, fluffy, white flakes.

“You need to learn to drive in it at some point. May as well be now.”

Josiah’d been trying to talk me into learning to drive in the snow. I’d been fervently praying this would be a mild winter and that the need to learn to drive in the snow wouldn’t be necessary until next year. That maybe the little bit of snow we’d already had would have been it. I sighed deeply as I realized that prayer wasn’t being answered, at least not to my satisfaction.

“Come on, Crimson. Now’s the perfect time. The boys are at school, no one around to make you uncomfortable.”

I groaned in response.

“You’re scared,” he stated quietly. I shrugged silently in response. “Crimson, I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

I grumbled a little more and let him lead me down the steps and out to the Chevy. I climbed up behind the wheel and sat still for a moment, just staring glumly out the windshield. I had a sudden inspiration. “Wouldn’t you rather we go up to your loft and make out? No one’s around to bother us…”

Josiah studied me carefully. I saw the heat beginning to build in his blue eyes and thought for just a moment that I’d succeeded. At least until he said, “You
must
be scared to use that sort of tactic to distract me. And any other time I’d take you up on that offer, but this is important. You need to know this.”

I let my head drop forward onto the steering wheel. Then taking a deep breath, I pushed in the clutch and started the engine. Driving in the snow wasn’t that different from driving in any other condition, all things considered. I had to start and stop a little slower, take more time, but other than that, there really weren’t too many differences.

Of course Josiah had me practice sliding and how to correct those. I’ll admit the spinouts and donuts were fun. He had me drive to town, and even though it was barely above freezing we still got our milkshakes. As I drove slowly back to the ranch I’d been thinking and decided to share my thoughts with Josiah.

“I need to talk with Billy.”

“About what?”

“About… everything, really.”

“Everything?” he questioned.

“Yeah. About my mom, me, the accident… you.”

“Everything,” he agreed.

“Yeah.”

“You want me to be there?”

“I think it’d be easier to have you there, but I also think it’d be best if I talk to him on my own, ya know?”

“I’m always here for you.”

“I know.”

My opportunity came two days later. Billy asked me to drive him into town while the boys were in school. He needed to pick up some prescriptions and he thought it’d be good practice for me. We drove the Chevy again as it was the safest in the snow. We were just a few minutes from town when I worked up enough courage to begin a conversation that was ripe with emotion for both Billy and me. I glanced over at the older man; he was staring out the window like he was deep in thought.

Taking a firmer grip on the steering wheel, I said, “Hey, Billy?”

“Yeah?” he said as he glanced over in my direction.

“What happened? Between you and Mom?”

Billy took a deep breath and then let it out just as slowly. “Ignorance and pride,” he sighed quietly. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I just wanted her to not hurt anymore. I had nothing against you, Sage. At that time, I never really thought a whole lot about that being a baby. The pregnancy was just the evidence of the… pain Terri’d already suffered.

“I didn’t know how to respond when she said she wanted to keep the guy’s baby. I couldn’t figure it out. Nothing made sense.” Billy rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“She felt that I was as much a victim as she had been,” I softly explained.

“Yeah, I know. She wrote and told me about it later on. I asked her to come home, but… your momma — she was a proud one. And tough. Always had been. Took after her momma. She had to be. So it was my ignorance. I should have known better. About the pregnancy, about her feelings, her pride. I should’ve known better. My ignorance, her pride.”

I chuckled a little. Mom had always been strong and proud. She stood on her own two feet, had no problem speaking for herself. I don’t know what she was like before her rape, but after she was strong. Really strong and tough.

“I’m not mad, Billy,” I said quietly. “And if you need it, I forgive you. Really, there’s nothing to forgive. I don’t blame you.”

Billy cleared his throat and sniffed a little, nodded his head, and took another deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper. “Thank you.”

“I’m not mad at you, but I’ve been pretty mad at her. All of this, my existence, you, my real identity… I just wish she’d told me herself. That’s been hard. I’ve been so confused.”

“I can imagine. I know she’d intended on telling you. She told me that. It was just hard for her to talk about. She’d been afraid of hurting you, that was all. She’d been protecting you for so long, it was hard to know when to stop.”

“Yeah, she mentioned that,” I replied as we pulled into town.

“You seem to be adjusting all right. Especially lately.”

I blushed lightly and said, “Yeah, I am.”

“Josiah. He’s a fine man. That boy has come a long way, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone better,” he stated.

As we pulled into town he said, “Just swing into the Saveway and I’ll run in. I’ll be back in a moment.”

After I dropped Billy off at the front door I found a parking spot and waited for him. He was only gone about fifteen minutes, but I still had plenty of time to think about all we had shared. When Billy climbed back into the truck, I started her up and headed back for home.

“Did you ever suspect anyone? When Mom was…?”

“At the time, to me, because she was my baby girl,
everyone
was a suspect. Terri gave as best a description as she could, but it wasn’t much to go on.”

“Do I… do I
look
… like anyone she knew then?” This thought had bothered me a lot. Had I been a constant reminder of her attacker?

Billy looked over at me. His older blue-green eyes slowly slid over my face, lighting on several features, finally he met my gaze and sighed. “You’re a lot like she was. Same facial features, same frame. Your hair is lighter and your eyes… your eyes are different.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You’re thinking about someone, aren’t you?”

Billy tightened his jaw, ran a hand through his thinning hair, and said, “There was a boy. He was a friend of Terri’s boyfriend, Jon. He had eyes like yours. And his hair was that same shade of pale blond.”

“You think it was him?”

“I don’t know, Sage. I guess it doesn’t really matter much now. Terri’s gone.”

“What was his name?”

“Lance. His name was Lance McDaniels.”

Josiah was waiting for me when we got back. Billy headed inside to do some more paperwork; it seemed like there was always some form to fill out on one of the boys. I told Josiah I’d be right back and ran upstairs to my room; I had an idea. Mom had boxed up lots of pictures that I hadn’t gone through yet. I wondered if that guy, if
Lance
was in any of them; if I might recognize him because he looked like me. I gathered up the box with all the photos and headed back out to Josiah.

He arched a thick brow at me when he saw the box, but after looking at me carefully, he must have seen something in my eye, because he just took the box from me. He held it easily under one arm, then took my hand in his and led me to his apartment. I went to his couch and sat down. Josiah placed the box on the coffee table in front me.

“How about some coffee?” he asked quietly.

I nodded and bit my lip, my gaze on the box; I was a little scared of what I’d find. What if I
did
find a picture of Lance, and he did look like me? And what if I didn’t? As my mind went over everything in my head, I was vaguely aware of Josiah as he made our coffee. It seemed just moments later when he sat down beside me. He sat the coffee down and waited.

“Crimson,” he said; his deep, rough voice softly caressed over me. “Hey, why don’t you tell me what it is that we’re looking for?”

I blinked my eyes and looked up at him. I saw the concern, the emotion in his dark blue eyes. I took a slow, deep breath and said, “We’re looking for someone who looks like me.”

Josiah studied me silently. I saw the speculation, the awareness, the understanding. “Someone who looks like you.”

“Yeah,” I whispered looking down at my hands where they rested in my lap. “He’ll have my color hair and eyes. His name will be Lance.”

“You think he might be…?”

“Yeah.”

“Crimson, look at me.” When I didn’t, Josiah gently took my chin in his grip and turned me toward him. “I’ll help you look, but I don’t care what we find. You are and will remain the most beautiful person in the world to me. I need you to know that.”

I felt the tears slip from my eyes and I quickly wiped them away, and nodded.

“All right, let’s do this,” he said as he reached for the box and slid it closer to us.

“Billy said Lance was a good friend of Mom’s boyfriend, Jon. So I figured there might be a picture of him together with them.”

We went through every photo in the box. It took us over an hour. There were several photos that had Jon and Mom in them, but none with a pale-haired boy — I wondered if that was significant. There was one photo that made me wonder. Mom and Jon were standing close together, their arms around each other. They were smiling. The picture had been torn. About one-third of it was missing. In the part I had, there was a shadow of someone else standing there with them, but the image was the part that had been torn away. I stared at that picture for a long time.

Josiah reached for the photo; gently he tugged it from my grasp and set it down on the coffee table. Then he pulled me to my feet. Blinking, I looked at him.

“You’ve been staring at that picture for close to an hour. Let’s take a break. C’mon, I’ve got a surprise for you.” He kissed me gently and led me down the stairs.

When we stepped outside I saw that the sun was going down; the sky was lit in beautiful shades of pink and coral, violet and orange. I hadn’t even realized how late it had gotten. I must have missed dinner, missed Ethan getting home. I felt bad about that.

Josiah led me to the horse barn. Waiting in front of it was Trigger; the big gelding was hitched to a sleigh — a real, honest-to-God sleigh. I stopped in happy surprise and turned to Josiah.

“It’s the perfect night,” he shrugged. “Gorgeous sunset, beautiful woman at my side. It’s not too cold. We’ve got a few thick blankets, and I packed us a couple sandwiches and some hot chocolate.”

“When did you do this?” I asked, my eyes taking it all in.

“You were pretty focused on those photos,” he chuckled. “You never even noticed when I left. I just thought… well, I thought your mind could use a break. You know, just relax a little and we’ll look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes…”