—Tag, no doubt—later. "Then what is the point?"
"Your bimbos, and why you're no longer dating them."
"Ah, of course. And what's the lesson for today, Sister Nicotine?" For once he would welcome someone poking around in his head and offering up a few answers. He trusted her, and he didn't want to hurt Paige.
"No lesson. You're a big boy now, and it looks like you're just about to figure it all out on your own."
No answers. Damn. Stretching his legs in front of him, he crossed his feet at the ankles and tried to pretend this wasn't so important. "I think you give me too much credit."
"And I believe you don't give yourself enough." She tucked her smoke into a pocket for another day. "All this serious talk has me craving a cigarette for real and I've vowed to quit. Again. How about playing me something to take my mind off it."
"Such as?"
"Learned any new Stones tunes lately?"
"I'll see what I can come up with." He swung the guitar up onto his leg and picked through the strings, tuning.
A gasp from under the arbor snapped his attention up. Paige?
Her face paled in the glaring sunlight. Alarms jangled in his head. He shot to his feet and charged across the grass to her side.
"What's wrong?"
She clutched his cell phone to her chest. "Vic thought Kirstie was with Seth, and Seth said Kirstie had gone off with a friend who doesn't remember seeing her." Her hands shook so hard the cell phone slipped from her grasp to thud on the lush grass. "Now they can't find her at all."
Chapter 14
Ten hours later, Paige closed the book to her daughter's favorite bedtime story, so grateful to have her child alive, her hands shook gripping Goodnight Moon.
She still couldn't breathe without each gasp slicing icy fear through her. Even holding Kirstie in her arms safe and sound in North Dakota didn't stop the shaking that had started the minute Vic realized he couldn't locate Kirstie to come to the phone.
Everyone reassured her Kirstie had simply wandered off as kids do. Everyone except Bo.
He hadn't dished up a single platitude, instead, all action, he'd raced her to the airport.
Even when Kirstie had been found a half hour later, nothing would have kept Paige off that plane.
She smoothed a hand over her daughter's cool forehead, stroking back curls still damp from a bubble bath. Kirstie may have seemed unharmed, but Paige's mind kept spinning horrible scenarios of what could happen to a little girl alone during those tension-fraught minutes.
Kirstie's story? She'd been playing with an imaginary friend because Bitsy was icky and mean. Children could be cruel and, God knows, Kurt had given folks more than enough fodder for gossip. Except that didn't explain why Kirstie gave Seth and Vic the slip in the first place.
Perched on the edge of Kirstie's bed while her daughter snuggled under her Strawberry Shortcake quilt, Paige listened to Bo's guitar through the open window. Seeing him so tender with Sister Nic had stolen another little piece of her heart during a weekend that had already made serious inroads on her emotions.
Less than twenty-four hours ago she'd been in his arms, dreaming of ways they could be together again. Something that wouldn't happen tonight when she needed him more than ever.
"I didn't mean to scare you so bad." Kirstie fished under the covers and pulled out her Strawberry Shortcake rag doll.
Parental antennae picked up on the nuance. So bad? As in, she'd meant to scare her a little?
Paige studied her daughter's expression for clues while a breeze wafted through the window carrying a hint of fresh-mown grass and an old Rolling Stones tune. She would have to tread warily to keep Kirstie from clamming up altogether as she'd done once Vic found her sitting outside the girls' bathroom as calm as could be. As if she could pretend her uncle wouldn't have already checked that same bathroom when she'd first gone missing. "Tell me more about your new imaginary friend."
"Who says he's new?" Kirstie picked at the yarn hair on her doll.
"He?" More than they'd known before—and frightening as hell. "What's his name?"
Kirstie shrugged.
"If you don't know his name, then he's a stranger."