Christy watched him as they drove in silence. She recognized the exotic aroma of an extremely expensive lady’s perfume. She studied Anthony’s profile and wondered about the woman who’d recently been in the truck. Up until this moment, she hadn't seen him as anything other than a dark and menacing criminal who'd managed to turn her life upside down in less than twenty-four hours. Thinking that there was a woman in his life humanized him somehow.
She hadn’t been lying or trying to make excuses–her brother, Richard, wouldn’t believe she had a man in her life. She’d told the truth. Richard wouldn’t believe it because not once had Christy brought a boyfriend home to meet her family. Not even when she was still in school. She wasn’t one of those girls whose folders in high school displayed elaborate doodles of her latest boy crush. She hadn’t participated in any clubs, sports, or extracurricular activities. She’d never giggled after catching a boy’s eye at the lunch table or on the bleachers. No dances, no proms, no homecoming. It meant no girlfriends and definitely no boyfriends. It wasn’t like kids hadn’t tried. Most girls looked at a connection with someone like Christy Chapman as a step up, but she always rebuffed any attempts at friendship. She quickly earned a reputation for being the snobbiest girl around. High school for her hadn’t been an escape from the reality of her circumstances. Rather it had been endured so she could graduate and move out of her family’s home. Besides, the fewer people she let inside her inner circle, the less risk there was of her family’s dysfunction being exposed or of Van getting his lecherous hands on some unsuspecting teenager. She scoffed out loud at her own musings. She didn’t have an inner circle. You need friends to make up a circle. There was no one. She was alone.
After hearing her scoff, Anthony looked over. “Still don’t think you can convince your brother I’m your boyfriend?” Before she could answer, he added rudely, “Guess I don’t look like your typical upper-class snot-nosed kid.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not that.” She paused, ignoring his last comment and asked, “Don’t we need time to come up with a back story? I mean, you want to walk in there cold turkey? What if he asks us something that we don’t know the answer to?” She quickly added, “And you’re obviously a lot older than me. That might be hard for anyone—not just Richard and Nadine—to believe.”
He shot her a look. “How old do you think I am?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just older.”
“I’m thirty-two,” he answered. “I’ll be thirty-three later this year. I guess you’ve only dated boys. We’ll convince him you prefer men.”
“Thirty-three?” she practically screamed. “When I said I thought you were older I meant like twenty-eight, twenty-nine at the most. I didn’t know you were in your thirties. You don't look that old.”
“Yeah, well, you’re legal so it shouldn’t matter either way,” he quipped. He wasn’t insulted that she thought he was ancient. He found it amusing, kind of like the beeswax comment, and it irked him more than he admitted. Anthony Bear rarely found anyone or anything amusing.
“So, how did we meet?” she asked.
“You got a flat tire. I stopped to help you change it. We flirted. I asked you to dinner. We keep it simple. If he wants you to elaborate, you tell him we’re still figuring it out and you don’t want to say too much.”
She didn’t reply so he decided to goad her a little. “And if he pushes and wants to know why you don’t want to say too much, you tell him it’s because you’re crazy about me and you don’t want to jinx it.” Why are you engaging her? he asked himself. This is business, pure and simple. Find Van, get the money he owes, get rid of her.
He heard her gasp while staring out her window and mumbling under her breath, “That is not simple. I can never see myself being crazy about an overbearing, bullying, kidnapping, stubborn criminal. Especially an old one. Never!”
She snapped her head around and glared at him. “You think you’re so smart. That you have this all figured out. Fine. I’ll play along, but only to prove to you that it won’t work. You don’t need to meet my brother. Drop me at the house and come back for me. I told you before I won’t cause any trouble. I hate Van just as much as you do!”
“No,” was all he said.
“And how should I explain this?” she asked, gesturing toward her forehead and the prominent purple knot.
“The truth. You walked into the edge of an open door,” he answered matter-of-factly.
Twenty minutes later they pulled into Rolling Meadows, a tasteful subdivision that Anthony was familiar with. Native Touch serviced a few clients in this upper-middle class neighborhood.
They drove up to a pale-yellow house with white trim. The yard was sparsely landscaped but neat. What looked like a brand-new station wagon was sitting in the driveway. Anthony pulled in behind it and noticed the Bobbi Bowen decal on the back of the car, right below the window.
“Thought you said your brother was disinherited,” he said pointedly. “This is a nice house and that,” he said nodding at the car in front of him, “looks brand spanking new from your grandmother’s dealership.” He was certain that Bobbi Bowen didn’t sell station wagons. This must’ve been a special purchase.
Without looking at him, Christy replied, “I bought them the car. The one Nadine was driving had seen better days. I wanted her to have something safe to drive the kids around in.” She opened the door and got out. Anthony followed her up to the front door. She knocked twice and went in.
She stopped short, and Anthony almost bumped into her. Christy slowly scanned the living room that was in disarray. Cardboard boxes, some taped closed and some still open, were scattered on the floor. The coffee table and end tables were cluttered with items that didn’t belong in the living room. Just then, a little boy appeared in the hallway. He ran to Christy and wrapped his arms tightly around her legs. She picked him up and hugged him close.
“Cody, where are Mommy and Daddy? Where's Nana?”
Before the little boy could answer, she caught sight of Nadine walking toward her. She slowly lowered Cody to the floor and tried to mentally wrap her mind around what was happening.
Anthony didn’t say anything as he watched the beautiful woman approach Christy. He knew instantly she was a Native American. She gave Anthony a curious look before returning her eyes to Christy. Eyes which instantly burst into tears.
Christy fired off a litany of questions, not giving Nadine time to answer any of them.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Nadine? Where’s Richard? I didn’t see his car out front. Is everything okay? Is the baby okay? Is Nana okay?”
Nadine pulled Christy in for a close hug. Her shoulders were shaking. Christy carefully removed herself and held Nadine by her shoulders.
“What is going on?” she asked with concern, steering Nadine toward the couch.