"Just listen. I don't know if it was the shock of what I'd done, or… For the first time, I felt as if I were really seeing him. Only him. Not Jamie."

"Gabe, leave me alone, will you?"

"Rach…"

"Please. I'll meet you at the drive-in at six."

He didn't say anything, and, finally, she heard him walk away.

She packed up everything she and Edward owned and loaded it into the Escort. As she pulled away from Annie's cottage, she swallowed her tears. This small cottage had been a symbol of everything she'd dreamed about, and now she was leaving it behind.

At her side, Edward groped for Horse, and when he didn't find his old companion, chewed on his thumb instead.

Rachel called Lisa Scudder from Kristy's condo and got the name of a reliable high-school girl to watch Edward, then fixed him an early dinner from the leftovers she'd brought with her from the cottage. She was too upset to eat anything herself. By the time she'd changed into a clean dress, the sitter had arrived, and when she left, the two of them were safely tucked in front of Kristy's television.

Rachel would have given anything not to have to go to work that night. She didn't want to see Gabe, didn't want to think how he'd betrayed her trust, but she spotted him the moment she pulled into the drive-in. He stood in the middle of the lot with his fists clenched at his sides. There was something unnaturally still about his posture that alarmed her. She followed the direction of his gaze and drew in her breath.

The middle of the screen had been defaced with streaks of black paint like some giant abstract painting. She jumped out of the car. "What happened?"

Gabe's response was low and toneless. "Someone got in after we closed last night and wrecked the place. The snack shop, the rest rooms…" He finally looked at her, and his eyes seemed empty. "I've got to get out of here. I called Odell, and he's on his way. Just tell him I found it like this."

"But-"

He ignored her and headed for his truck. Moments later, it shot out of the lot, leaving nothing behind but a dusty trail.

She rushed over to the snack shop. The lock had been smashed and the door stood partially open. She looked inside and saw broken appliances littering the floor, along with spilled soft-drink syrup, melted ice cream, and cooking oil. She hurried to the rest rooms and found a sink partially ripped off one wall, rolls of paper towels stopping up the toilets, and broken ceiling tiles scattered over the floor.

Before she could inspect the projection room, Odell Hatcher arrived. He got out of his squad car along with a man she recognized as Jake Armstrong, the officer who'd tried to throw her into jail for vagrancy.

"Where's Gabe?" Odell asked.

"He was upset and he left. I'm sure he'll be back before long." She wasn't sure of anything. "He told me to tell you this is the way he found it."

Odell frowned. "He should have waited around. Don't you leave until I say it's all right, y'hear?"

"I wasn't planning to. Just let me call Kayla Miggs and tell her not to come in." Tom Bennett lived farther away, and he would have already left by now, so it was too late to contact him.

Odell let her make her call, then had her accompany him to inspect the damage and see if anything was missing.

The hundred dollars in change Gabe had left in the register was gone, along with the radio he liked to play when he worked, but she couldn't tell if anything else had been taken. As she stared at the desecration, she remembered Gabe's awful stillness. Would this send him back to that empty place he'd been dwelling in before she'd come to Salvation?

Tom appeared and, after he'd been filled in on what had happened, accompanied them to the projection room. The FM receiver that controlled the sound equipment had been flung to the floor, but the projector itself was too large for that, so the intruder had pounded it with something heavy, probably the folding metal chair that lay on the floor.

The destruction was so mindless that it gave Rachel the chills. She turned to Odell. "I have to block off the entrance before the customers start arriving. Tom can tell you better than I if anything's missing up here."

To her relief, he didn't protest, and she fled. But she had just descended the outside stairs when a white Range Rover roared into the lot. Her heart sank. Of all the people she didn't want to see right now, Gabe's big brother headed the list.

Cal jumped out and stalked toward her. "What's going on? And where's Gabe? Tim Mercer heard on his police radio there was trouble out here."

"Gabe's not here. I don't know where he went."

Cal caught sight of the drive-in screen. "What the hell happened?"

"Someone vandalized the place last night after we closed."

He cursed under his breath. "Any idea who did it?"

She shook her head.

Cal caught sight of Odell and rushed up the steps. She made her escape to the ticket booth.

As soon as she got there, she fastened the chain across the entrance, then dragged the sawhorse with the Closed sign into place. She'd painted that sawhorse herself. The same purple as the ticket booth.

When she was done, she stepped inside the ticket booth and stared out at the highway. Had it only been six weeks since she'd come to Salvation? Images began to flip through her mind like a music video of all that had happened.

A shadow fell over the doorway. "Odell wants to talk to you."

She whirled around and saw Jake Armstrong standing there, looking even more insolent than the day he'd tried to arrest her. She felt a prickle of foreboding, then dismissed it. "All right."

Jake was standing too close to the door, forcing her to turn slightly so she could pass through without touching him. She'd barely taken three steps before she realized that the police chief, Cal, and Tom were all standing around her Escort, and the hatchback was open.

Her first thought was that they had no right to be poking around inside her car, but then she remembered the car belonged to Cal's wife. Still, she didn't like it. Her uneasiness increased, and she picked up her pace.

"Is there a problem?"

Cal turned to her, his expression vicious. "There's a big problem, lady. I guess you wanted a little revenge before you left town."

"Revenge? What are you talking about?"

Odell ambled around the hood of the car. In his hand, he held a crumpled white paper sack, the kind they used in the snack shop. It was smeared with what looked like melted chocolate ice cream. "We found the hundred dollars missing from the register. It was stuffed in this sack under the front seat of your car." He jerked his head toward the boxes in the backseat that were filled with her meager possessions. "Tom's small-screen TV was under one of those boxes and that radio you told us was missing."

Her heart kicked against her ribs. "But… I don't understand."

Tom looked hurt and confused. "It was the TV my wife gave me for my birthday. Remember I told you? So I could watch baseball while I was working."

Realization struck. They thought she was responsible. Her skin prickled with alarm. "Wait just a minute. I didn't do this! How could you even-"

"Save it for the judge," Cal snapped. He turned to Odell. "Since Gabe isn't around, I'm pressing charges."

She lurched forward, grabbed his arm. "Cal, you can't do this. I didn't steal these things."

"Then how did they get in the Escort?"

"I don't know. But I love this place. I could never destroy it like this."

She should have saved her breath. With a sense of unreality, she listened as Odell read her her rights. When he finished, Cal stared down at her, his gaze hard-eyed and condemning. "Jane liked you from the beginning," he said bitterly. "And you'd just about won over Ethan. He was starting to believe you really cared about Gabe. But all you've ever cared about was his bank account."

Her temper flared. "I could have his bank account if I wanted it, you idiot! He asked me to marry him."

"Liar." He ground out the words through clenched teeth. "So that's why you did it. Marriage is what you've had in mind from the beginning. You knew he was vulnerable right now, and you-"

"He's not half as vulnerable as you think!" she cried. "Damn you, Cal Bonner, you're-"

She gave a gasp of pain as Jake Armstrong grabbed her arms and wrenched them behind her. Before she could react, he'd snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists, securing them behind her in the same way dangerous criminals were restrained.

Cal frowned. For a moment she thought he was going to say something, but then Odell slapped his back. "I've got to hand it to you, Cal. I wouldn't have thought to look in her car."

She was going to cry. She blinked back her tears and stared at Cal. "I'll never forgive you for this."

For the first time he looked uncertain, then his expression hardened. "You deserve everything you get. I tried to make it easy for you with that check, but you got too greedy. By the way, I'll be stopping payment on it first thing Monday morning."

Jake Armstrong put his hand on top of her head and pushed her toward the backseat of the squad car more roughly than necessary. Her shackled wrists made the movement awkward, and she stumbled.

"Watch it." Cal caught her before she could fall and guided her into the backseat.

She jerked away from his touch. "I don't need your help!"

He ignored her and turned to Jake. "You be careful with her. I want her locked up, but I don't want anybody playing fast and loose. You got me?"

"I'll keep my eye on her," Odell said.

Cal began to move away.

Edward! What was going to happen to him? Kristy was gone and the sitter wasn't even sixteen.

"Cal!" Once again she had to swallow her pride because of her son. She drew a shaky breath and tried to speak calmly. "Edward is at Kristy's condo. He's with a sitter, but she's too young to take care of him for long, and Kristy's gone." Something inside her gave way, and her eyes brimmed with tears. "Please… He's going to be so scared."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then gave a brusque nod. "Jane and I'll take care of him."

Jake slammed the door and settled in the front seat next to Odell. As the squad car moved forward, she tried to absorb the fact that she was on her way to jail.

23

It was starting to get dark, so Cal tucked Chip under his arm and hauled him like a sack of potatoes up the steps onto the deck. "You're getting too good with that football, buddy. You wore me out."

Chip giggled as Cal gave him a couple of extra bounces. Cal had hoped playing with the boy would take his own mind off what had happened a few hours earlier with his mother, but it wasn't working.

He looked up and saw Jane standing inside the French doors with Rosie in her arms, and he felt a jolt right in the middle of his chest. Sometimes it hit him that way-hard-the sight of these two females he loved more than anything in the world. There had been a time in his life when he hadn't wanted either one of them, and he never let himself forget that. The memory kept him humble.

Rosie was clutching that god-awful stuffed rabbit, and she started to kick and squeal as she caught sight of Chip. As soon as they were inside the French doors, Cal let the boy down, brushed Jane's lips with a quick kiss, and took Rosie from her.

The baby gave him a big grin, then blew a noisy raspberry, her newest trick. He smiled and wiped his face on her already damp T-shirt. Only then did he notice that Jane looked harried.

He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. "I haven't been outside more than fifteen minutes."

She sighed. "Wait till you see our bathroom."

"The toilet paper again?"

"And the toothpaste. You didn't put the cap back on, and I wasn't fast enough."

As if she knew they were talking about her, Rosie gave him another drooly grin and clapped her hands in delight. For the first time he noticed that she smelled like Crest Tartar Control.

"Rosie's got a lot of mischief," Chip said with all the solemnity of an adult. "She's a handful."

Cal and Jane exchanged amused glances.

Rosie kicked again and held her arms out toward Chip, dropping the rabbit in the process. Cal set her on the floor, and she immediately threw herself at the boy's legs. He crouched and tickled her tummy, then looked up at Cal, his forehead puckered with worry.

"When's my mommy coming to get me?"

Cal stuck his hand in the pocket of his slacks and jingled the change. "Tell you what, buddy. How'd you like to have a sleepover right here?"