When Snow Falls

“My pleasure.” His gaze lingered on her, then shifted back to Joe. “How are your girls?”

A muscle twitched in Joe’s cheek. “You’re asking me? You probably see them more often than I do these days.”

Lance blinked several times, obviously taken aback. “Not anymore. Suzie didn’t tell you? We moved here shortly after you, er, left.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Who’s we?”

“What do you mean?” He laughed awkwardly. “Me, Maddy and the kids, of course.”

“So Maddy stuck with you.”

The cashier handed Lance his change.

“Yes,” Lance said, losing some of his false cheer. “Things got a little rough, as you know, but then we found out she was expecting and decided we had too many reasons to hang on to our marriage. That child turned out to be the little girl she always wanted,” he added, attempting another smile.

“A girl,” Joe repeated.

“Yes.”

A strained silence followed. It felt to Cheyenne as if Joe had just suffered a blow of some sort. She’d watched him for too many years not to recognize when he was upset. Something about this conversation, this person, was all wrong. Maybe they’d once been neighbors, but Joe had no liking or respect for Lance. Was he one of the men rumored to have slept with Suzie? Gail had mentioned infidelity, and Cheyenne couldn’t imagine anything else making Joe act like this.

“Congratulations,” Joe finally said, the word so dry Cheyenne wondered how it hadn’t turned to dust in his mouth.

“We named her Madeline, after her mother. She’s been a real blessing.” Lance talked fast, as if doing so might carry him into friendlier territory. “Came at the perfect time.”

“For you, maybe. I don’t see how a pregnancy forcing Maddy to give you another chance could’ve been a blessing to her.”

All pretense of camaraderie disappeared. “I’ve apologized, Joe.” Lance shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans and hunched forward in his wool pea coat. “I don’t know what more I can do.”

“You can quit pretending we’re friends,” Joe said, and guided Cheyenne away.

Cheyenne could hear Joe’s labored breathing as he marched to his truck. With his hands curved into fists, he walked so quickly she could barely keep up.

“Why do you hate that guy so much?” she asked once they’d both climbed inside the cab. Although she had her suspicions, she had no idea if she was right.

He gazed at her, but she was fairly certain he wasn’t seeing her. His mind was somewhere far away. When he came back to himself, he seemed almost startled to realize she was in the truck with him.

“I’m taking you home,” he said. “This was a mistake.”

* * *

Presley stared down at Eugene Crouch’s business card. All his information was there—his name, the name of his agency, his P.I. license number and his email address. She could contact him easily, right now while her mother slept, with a phone call or an email, and put an end to the mystery of the blonde woman.

She owed her sister the chance to assume her rightful identity, didn’t she? The chance to have the respectable family she’d always longed for. Those ringlets in Cheyenne’s hair, the expensive party dress and the pretty shoes suggested she’d come from a very different situation than the one in which she’d been raised, a far superior situation—

“Presley?” Anita called. “Where are you? Aren’t you going to turn on our show?”