The Stranger's Sin

His father swallowed, seemed to take stock of himself, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Must have been a cramp. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Ba, Ba,” Toby cried, distracting Chase from his father’s problem. The baby sat on the floor in the middle of the room, his face creased with delight as he patted a large colorful ball. The ball rolled away. He giggled, crawling after it as fast as his chubby knees would carry him.

“You almost got it, bud,” Chase’s father called, seeming like his old self again. “Keep on going.”

Toby reached the ball and batted at it, only to have it roll farther away. He laughed wildly, with Chase and his father joining in.

It was a simple moment, not unlike a thousand others since Toby had come to live with them.

It brought home how much Chase needed to find Mandy so he could get legal custody of the boy he already loved as a son. He shouldn’t have made the mistake of assuming Kelly Delaney was as desperate to locate her as he was.

The doorbell rang, surprising them both. His father had kept such a close watch on the window, he would have seen headlights had a car pulled up.

Figuring their caller was most likely a neighbor, Chase went to the door and pulled it open.

Kelly Delaney stood there like an answer to a prayer.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I took a nap and fell asleep. I would have called but somebody was using the phone at the B and B.”

She looked like a different woman than she had at the ice-cream shop. That woman had seemed exhausted, her face pale and her shirt so wrinkled it appeared as though she’d slept in it.

This woman wore slim-fitting blue capris and a darker blue short-sleeved shirt. She had thick, shining brown hair and a certain vitality in her face. He’d thought earlier she resembled Mandy, but now he saw her face possessed a sweetness that Mandy’s lacked. Her hazel eyes were a little bigger and wider set, her brows thinner, her nose smaller with a tiny bump in the center.

He stepped back, playing it cool, trying not to let on how relieved he was to see her. “Come on in.”

He went to shut the door behind her, noticing there was no car in the driveway or at the curb. First no cell phone. Now no car? “Where’s your car?” he asked.

“I walked,” she said.

“From town?” Chase and his father lived outside the Indigo Springs city limits where houses were set back from a two-lane road on an acre of land or more.

“It wasn’t far,” she said.

It was a mile and a half, about a thirty-minute walk, most without the benefit of sidewalks. An easy distance for the hikers who regularly descended on Indigo Springs, but she wasn’t wearing hiking shoes.

“Do you have a car?”

“Back home.” She cleared her throat before she said, “I took the bus to Indigo Springs. It made more sense than driving, what with the wear and tear on my car and the high price of gas.”

Yet she’d been able to afford a night in a bed-and-breakfast during the height of tourist season.

Toby let out a loud, baby laugh, drawing their attention. He’d balanced his torso on the ball, which rocked back and forth.

“That must be your son,” Kelly said, an assumption Chase didn’t correct. In all the ways that counted, he was Toby’s father. She walked into the house, following the laugh as though Toby was a tiny Pied Piper. “He’s precious! How old is he?”

“Twelve months,” Chase said.

She clapped her hands and smiled at the baby. “You are such a cutie.”

“Thank you,” his father said.

Her head turned sharply, her eyes sparkling when she spotted his dad. “I meant the baby, but you’re not so bad, either.”

His father still looked a little pale, but he laughed and extended his hand. “I’m Charlie Bradford, Chase’s father.”

“I’m Kelly,” she said as they shook, then added almost as an afterthought, “Delaney.”

“Nice to meet you, Kelly Delaney.”

“What’s your grandson’s name?”

“Toby.” His father didn’t correct her misconception, either, but then he’d probably started thinking of himself as Toby’s grandfather soon after Mandy moved in. Mandy had certainly treated him that way, leaving him alone with Toby for large chunks of time.

“Hi, Toby,” she said brightly.

The baby turned at the sound of his name, gurgling out a greeting.

“You sure are a handsome devil, but that’s not surprising.” Kelly slanted his father a teasing look. “We’ve already established good looks run in the family.”

His father beamed, his chest puffing out. Chase looked on in wonder. In the space of minutes, Kelly Delaney had managed to charm both his father and his baby. She might have captivated Chase, too, if he hadn’t noticed how nervous she’d been at the ice-cream parlor. Something about her reactions had been off, something that warned him to beware.

“I hear you’re going to help us find Mandy,” his father announced. Obviously no internal warning system was cautioning him to beware. “Can you believe a mother could leave her baby the way she did, especially when Chase was so good to her? I told Chase she—”

“I haven’t told Kelly about Mandy yet, Dad.” Chase cut off his father in midsentence. “I wanted to show her the photos first.”

“Of course,” his father said, but he sounded puzzled.

Chase went to pick up the photographs he’d left on a side table while his father moved to cut off Toby, who was crawling toward the kitchen. Chase theorized the baby hadn’t yet taken his first step because he was such a champion crawler.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” His father bent down, grimacing as though movement was difficult, then he swung the boy into the air. He wrinkled his nose. “No wonder he’s so happy. I think his diaper’s loaded.”

“I can change him, Dad,” Chase offered. Although he was reluctant to leave his father alone with Kelly, he was more disinclined to take advantage of his father.

“No, I’ll do it,” his father said. “It makes sense to give him his bath now. You two have things to talk about.”

His father left the room. Was his gait a bit slower than normal? Toby grinned at them over Chase’s father’s shoulder. “Bye-bye,” the baby called.

“Bye-bye.” Kelly waved, then waited until the pair was out of sight before she said, “Your dad’s wonderful with him. You’re lucky to have him.”

“He tells me that all the time,” Chase said. “It wouldn’t be so annoying if he wasn’t right.”

He expected her to smile but she seemed suddenly tense and he realized she was staring at the photos he held. He wondered why she cared so much about finding Mandy. Could it really be because of something as simple as returning a lost necklace?

“Here you go.” He handed her the photos, watching her carefully as she examined them. There were two of them, both shot by a neighbor at a backyard cookout. In the first, he and Mandy sat beside each other at a picnic table, their bodies not touching. The second photo was of Mandy and Toby. Mandy wasn’t smiling in that one, either.

“It’s her. It’s Amanda,” she cried, the relief evident not only in her voice but in her posture. “Her hair color’s different but it’s definitely her. Look at the necklace she’s wearing in this photo. It’s different than the one I have, but it’s a similar style.”

“She has a thing for jewelry,” Chase said. “The necklace you have was one of her favorites.”