Kiss Me (Fool's Gold 17)

“I brought Baked Ziti with Butternut Squash and Risotto,” Mayor Marsha told Andrea. “The recipe is from the Fool’s Gold Cookbook. I hoped you might like it because there’s no meat.”

Andrea looked nonplussed. “How did you know?”

“Maya,” Mayor Marsha said as she pulled her into a warm embrace. “What a pleasure. And you must be Phoebe. Welcome to Fool’s Gold.”

“Mayor Marsha is the longest-serving mayor in California,” Maya said.

Phoebe enjoyed her friend’s enthusiasm. She’d never lived in a small town before, but she thought she might like it. In LA, she rarely bumped into friends. The city was so large and spread out, they had to make appointments to see each other, and the appointments had to be scheduled around the flow of traffic. Life seemed simpler here.

“I have something I’d like to talk to you about,” the mayor said to Maya. “Come to my office when you’re done with the cattle drive.”

“Will do.” Maya turned to Phoebe. “You doing okay?”

“Sure. This is fun. A little strange to have all these people show up in the middle of our cattle drive.”

“It’s Fool’s Gold. You gotta go with it.”

* * *

“WHAT MOST PEOPLE don’t know is that Cinderella had a brother,” Thad said.

Tommy looked surprised by the news, but Lucy simply snorted.

“She did not,” the little girl told him. “She had wicked stepsisters. There weren’t any boys.”

Thad smiled. “Her brother had been sent away by the wicked stepmother. He was working in the castle as a groom for the horses, when he heard about a tournament. It was being held the day of the ball.”

C.J. continued to stroke the brush through Lucy’s hair. After playing all evening with a few of the children from Fool’s Gold, Lucy and Tommy seemed quite content to sit near the dying fire with her and Thad. The party had broken up about fifteen minutes ago, and Thad wanted to tell the children a story before bed.

“It’s true,” she said. “He wanted to win for the glory, but also because the prize money would mean he could finally rescue his sister.”

Tommy nodded, as if that made perfect sense, but Lucy looked skeptical.

“That’s not the real story,” she complained. “You’re supposed to talk about the fairy godmother and the glass slipper and stuff.”

“I’ll get to that,” he promised.

C.J. glanced at her husband. He sat on a blanket in front of the fire. Tommy leaned against him. C.J. and Lucy were next to them. She’d already unfastened the girl’s braid. As she continued to brush her long hair, she admired the glow of the fire in the dark strands.

“I’ll bet her hair wasn’t nearly as pretty as yours,” C.J. told the girl.

Lucy turned around and stared at her in surprise. Her mouth parted slightly, but she didn’t speak.

C.J. felt badly that a simple compliment would be so unexpected. For the first time she wondered where Lucy and Tommy had come from. Where were their biological parents? Had Lucy and Tommy been abandoned? Had their parents died? What circumstances had forced them into foster care?

She looked at both kids, noticing how small they seemed in the vast darkness of the night. They were enthralled by Thad’s twisted version of Cinderella.

Watching them set up a familiar longing deep inside. A need for a baby of her own to hold and love and see grow. She wanted to hold the sweet-smelling infant and listen to the steady breathing. She wanted to be there for the first smile, first word, first step.

She put down her brush and stared at the fire. Pain swept through her as she acknowledged it was never going to happen. For reasons she couldn’t control, through circumstances that were no one’s fault, there would never be a baby in her arms.

Emptiness surrounded her until it was big enough to crush her into dust. No child, no family. No memories, no hopes, no dreams.

She and Thad were good people. They didn’t deserve what had happened.

A soft sound caught her attention. She turned and saw Lucy laughing at something Thad had said. C.J. studied the girl’s profile, her pretty face and the hunger that never faded from her eyes.

What did Lucy want? When she was alone at night, what dreams did she have?

A family, C.J. decided. The girl would want a family and to feel safe. Would that ever happen? She sighed. Given the children’s mixed heritage and their age, it was unlikely. So she and Lucy had at least one thing in common—they were both caught up in wishing for what they would never have.

While C.J. didn’t enjoy her own fate, she knew she could survive it. But what about Lucy and Tommy? How would they make it to adulthood only dependent on each other? Alone and unloved in a world that preyed on the lonely.

The solution to all their problems was right in front of her. She acknowledged it even as she rejected it. She might have to give up her dream, but she wasn’t ready to accept something else instead. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

CHASE WAITED UNTIL Thad and C.J. got the kids settled for the night, and Eddie and Gladys made one last trip into the bushes, chattering all the way there and all the way back. Then he walked toward the fire. Zane was there, as he was every night. He was always the last one to go to bed and the first one up in the morning. Chase had the sudden thought that his brother must spend a lot of his life tired of being the responsible one.

He crossed the bare dirt until he reached the fire. His brother didn’t look up as he approached, but he didn’t walk away, either. Chase figured that was about as good as it was going to get.