“Not sure yet. Probably leaving tomorrow.” And then Krista forced herself to look Dawnie in the eye. Her insides turned to liquid, but she made herself say the words she needed to say. “People are really worried about that missing boy, Dawnie. And all the trouble that will come if he isn’t found safe and sound.”
“Now how is that any of your concern?” All pretense of friendliness dropped from Dawnie’s face, and the look in her eyes made Krista’s heart stutter.
Once upon a time, Krista would have quailed, mumbled an apology, and fled. But the memory of the look on a desperate father’s face, and the sight of the men staggering around her family reunion half-blind and mentally addled thanks to Dawnie’s medicine stiffened her spine and she met Dawnie’s gaze steadily.
“I still have family living here, and there are plenty of good folk who are going to be hurt by this. He needs to be found.”
“That’s my problem, not yours.” Dawnie’s eyes had turned to the color of a stone arrowhead, hard and sharp and mean. “Best you be on your way after the reunion, Krista. Tonight would be good. You probably don’t want to wake up in this holler ever again. That’s all the warning I’m going to give you.”
She leapt to her feet and stalked off.
Blake was by Krista’s side a minute later, and she felt a heaviness lift from her shoulders. Whatever burden she bore, he’d always be there by her side to share it. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard.
“I’ve got an idea now,” she said. “OK. Dawnie was up all night—I would just about stake my life on her being out there searching for Ethan. Now, I don’t know exactly what’s happened, but I do know this. It’s got to be someone close to her that’s responsible. If it were someone who was working for her she’d strip their skin off inch by inch until they talked, and she’d find Ethan and give him back. It’s got to be either—”
Before she could finish her sentence, she heard a loud, shrill voice that stabbed into her eardrums like a dentist’s drill.
When Krista twisted around, Maybelline was there, standing by the table full of drink coolers. Of course, she was. If there was an opportunity for drama and public crises and sobbing, melodramatic, woe-is-me scenes, Maybelline would be there with bells on.
Her voice carried across the crowd, as it was meant to. “No, no alcohol for me, of course not! I’ve got my soda water, that’s all I need. Don’t believe me?” Her tone turned belligerent, and she glared at the half circle of people who’d gathered to watch the show. She thrust her soda glass at them. “You can smell it.”
Nobody had actually offered her a drink—it was pure drama. Alcoholics were supposed to recognize that they were powerless and put their faith in a higher power; the only higher power in Maybelline’s life was her crippling narcissism.
Krista wanted to crawl under the table and never come out. Half of her wanted to run to her mom and hug her while the other half wanted to go to her and slap her straight. But both sides of her froze.
Maybelline had changed over the years. She’d stopped bleaching her hair so aggressively and it was more of a faded strawberry blonde, even shot with a little gray. Her once-full figure had diminished, but she wore it well, with a clinging red scoop-neck dress that highlighted it. She still wore far too much makeup, but the look she was going for was dramatically wan rather than aging bombshell. She hurried towards Krista and drooped onto a bench next to her. Krista was only surprised she hadn’t arranged for a fainting couch.
Blake let out a little growl and nudged up against Krista. She managed a bright smile and looked up at him.
“What brings you back home, Krissie?”
Krista didn’t know what her mother was up to, but she was fairly certain neither of them was ready for this conversation. It probably needed to happen anyway, though.
Krista deliberately unclenched her fists, laying her hands flat on the table, palms down. She stared at Maybelline. “What do you want?”
Her mother gave a wobbly little smile that was supposed to make it look like she was about to cry. “What do you think I want? I want the chance to make up for the way I raised you. I want to make up for… a lot of things.”
“And you think you’re going to do that how?”
Maybelline’s expression turned furtive and she leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Help you save that boy for one.”
Krista stared at her narrow-eyed. Here it was. “Bullshit. Buulll… shiiiiit. The day that you go up against Dawnie? Cold day in hell.”
“Krista.” Maybelline’s eyes filled up with tears. Krista was unmoved. “I know you didn’t come here to show off any old fated mate. You don’t even believe in such a thing.”
Krista glanced at Blake and then shook her head at Maybelline. “I do now, no thanks to you.” She was rewarded with Blake’s smile.
Maybelline’s face went sullen as a toddler’s. Krista had a man and she didn’t.
“I had a fated mate too, you know,” she said, that familiar whine creeping in. “I forgive you for scaring him off.”
Krista gave a bark of laughter. “I scared my daddy off? I thought your cheating did that.”
Maybelline’s eyes flashed with a brief burst of rage, but then she pulled herself together and pulled her lips up in a smile. “Not your daddy. He was never my fated mate.”
“That’s funny, you always told everyone he was. Who did I scare off?”
“Norton, of course. But you’re my daughter, and I forgive you.”
