When he didn’t respond, she finally glanced over and found him staring sadly at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But if the truth’s going to be too hard for you to take, then we need to quit right now.”
“Stop it.” She waved an impatient hand. “Clay doesn’t make the best first impression, that’s all. He’s the kind of man you have to get to know.”
“And you know him.”
“Of course.”
“He doesn’t let anyone know him.”
She shook her head. Maybe Clay had his secrets. But those secrets didn’t include murder. “If you knew what life used to be like for him, you’d have a better understanding of who he is.”
“Tell me about him,” he said.
She pictured the proud, long-legged boy Clay had been at sixteen, the boy who’d proven himself as tough as any man. She’d already mentioned that it was her stepbrother who’d kept the family together, but it was the smaller details that really defined his character. “He wore the same clothes to school over and over so Grace and Molly and me could have an occasional new dress. He gave up his friends, because he no longer had time to play. He went from being one of the most popular kids in school to being an absolute loner, a boy too old for his years. He skipped lunch more days than he ate so we could eat, and he pretended he wasn’t hungry, so we wouldn’t have to feel guilty about it. He worked like a dog at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, long hours for low pay, to keep a roof over our heads. And he was willing to come to blows with anyone who threatened or mistreated us.” She glanced away from the road long enough to peer into Hunter’s face, to be sure she’d made her point. “I don’t know of another person who could’ve done what he did at such a young age. My whole family owes him. I owe him. He was our protector—our father, in a way, although he was my own age.”
The passion in her voice must’ve convinced him, because Hunter’s expression grew more thoughtful. “What about Irene?”
“As time went by, even she leaned on him as if he were the parent and she the child. He did what needed to be done regardless of the sacrifice involved. And he never complained about the price he paid.”
“No wonder you admire him,” he said softly.
“He’s earned it.”
He seemed to weigh her answer, to mull it over and examine every angle. “I appreciate what he’s done for you, Maddy.”
It was the first time he’d used her nickname. She liked the sound of it on his lips, and that worried her. But she shrugged it off. After the breakup of her closest relationship, she was looking for the warmth and security she’d lost. Hunter was confident almost to the point of being cocky, coolheaded, always in control. She found everything about him attractive. It’d be almost too easy to want to get involved.
Easy for now but dangerous for later. He couldn’t stay forever. She didn’t even know what kind of life he led in California…
“I appreciate what he’s done for Grace and Molly and your mother, too,” he was saying.
As sincere as he seemed, he was holding something back. She could tell. “But it still doesn’t change your mind about Clay.”
His light eyes bored into her as if he could see right through her. “It tells me you have a decision to make.”
She knew what he was about to say. She’d faced the same decision for nineteen years. Did she question certain events, conversations—pursue the truth despite her loyalty to the Montgomerys? Or did she play it safe and cling to what her heart told her had to be true? So far she’d done a little of both, but she didn’t know how long she could go on doing that.
“They’re my family,” she said. “The only family I have left.”
He touched her shoulder, his fingers warm through her blouse. “Then maybe it’d be better if I went home.”
She shrugged off his hand because she found it so confusing, so mystifyingly welcome, and raked her fingers through her hair. She didn’t want him to leave, although there were moments she was absolutely terrified—like back at the farm, when Clay was glaring at Hunter and she was seeing her stepbrother through Hunter’s eyes. Or when she remembered the strained silence that had permeated the house as she’d walked in the morning after her father hadn’t come home. Or the tense, wan face of her stepmother in the days that followed. Or the complete absence of emotion with which Clay and especially Grace had talked about her father in the years afterward.
But that was craziness, wasn’t it? Focusing on those little curiosities was simply allowing herself to succumb to the power of suggestion. The Montgomerys had a rational explanation for each and every behavior. Clay didn’t see any value in opening up to Hunter or anyone else. Why would he? He couldn’t risk coming under attack again, particularly now that he had a family. And of course Irene would be under a great deal of stress and the house would feel odd the morning after her father hadn’t returned. They were all waiting to see what would happen next, to receive some word of him. And Grace had become increasingly secretive and unreachable—and not just when they were talking about her father. Madeline suspected that what they’d found in the trunk of the Cadillac might’ve had something to do with it, but even if Grace was telling the truth about not knowing how her underwear had ended up in that suitcase, teenagers were notoriously moody.
How could Madeline let the suspicion evoked by those tiny details erode her confidence in her family? She knew the Montgomerys were good people. They’d been there for her, proven themselves over and over. That was a greater testament to their innocence than any strained look could be proof of their guilt. Wasn’t it?
It was Irene who’d sat at her graduation ceremony, Irene who’d held her when she cried over the breakup with her first boyfriend, Irene who’d helped her move into her cottage and was there any time she needed a sympathetic ear. Clay still came by to patch her roof, fix a leaky faucet, paint her office or keep her old printer going. She and Grace had grown apart for a few years, but since Grace had returned to town, they’d become close again. And Madeline had always adored and mothered Molly. Because Irene had been so busy helping Clay earn a living and save the farm, and Grace had been so remote, Madeline had taken care of the youngest Montgomery. They often talked on the phone, and when Molly came to visit, she stayed as many days at Madeline’s house when she came to visit as she did with anyone else.