Big Sky Secrets. Linda Miller Lael

was hanging around, she thought.

      Her brown hair was tangled, her clothes were rumpled and she looked like a fugitive on the run, straight out of an episode of Dates from Hell or Deadly Women or some other true-crime show.

      Okay, Ria was outside, waiting for her. Probably chatting with the sheriff by now.

      But she, Quinn, definitely wasn’t out of the proverbial woods.

      Resigned, she bent over again, cupped her hands under the faucet and splashed more cool water onto her face until she began to feel remotely human.

      * * *

      RIA, BACK BEHIND the wheel of her car, with Quinn in the passenger seat and the scruffy little dog perched on the girl’s lap, couldn’t stop thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to her niece between Portland and Three Trees.

      “I can’t believe you hitchhiked,” she said, well aware that she was repeating herself and quite unable to help it.

      Quinn leaned her head back and sighed. Her eyes were closed and her lashes, golden-brown like her hair, fluttered slightly. “I was desperate,” she said, very softly, very simply. “Meredith was going to send me away to camp, for the whole summer. I would have been older than most of the counselors, never mind the actual campers, all of whom were probably under twelve.”

      Ria felt a pang of sympathy then, and the sudden, wild fear inspired by the knowledge that Quinn had come all this way, mostly in the company of strangers, began to subside. Yes, the child could have been abducted, raped, murdered, out there on the highway—hitchhikers disappeared all the time, all over the country. Especially young women.

      Still, none of those things had actually happened, thank heaven. Quinn was right here beside her, safe and sound, if a little the worse for wear.

      “Your mother must be beside herself,” Ria fretted. They were passing through the town of Three Trees by now, and she considered stopping at the big discount chain store for kibble and a collar and leash for the dog, along with whatever else Quinn happened to need, of course, but she decided that the errand could wait awhile.

      Quinn lifted one shoulder slightly, as if to shrug, opened her eyes and turned to face Ria. “Are you going to send me back?”

      “I don’t know,” Ria said, in all honesty, her hands tightening on the steering wheel, her palms suddenly damp. Whatever her own feelings about Meredith might be, Quinn was the woman’s daughter. By now, her half sister had probably called the police, put up a reward for the girl’s safe return, even hired private detectives to aid in the search. In Meredith’s shoes, Ria knew she would have done some or all of those things herself. “You have to call your mother the minute we get home, though. She’ll be frantic.”

      Quinn sighed. “Annoyed,” she conceded. “Definitely inconvenienced. But ‘frantic’? No way. After all, the whole point of sending me to camp was to get rid of me.”

      Troubled, Ria let the remark pass unchallenged. They were passing a string of fast-food franchises just then, so she picked one at random, slowed the car and signaled to turn into the parking lot. “You must be hungry,” she said, in belated explanation.

      “A little,” Quinn said, very softly. “Can we get Bones a burger, too? I have some money in my backpack—” She indicated the seat behind them, where she’d stashed her one piece of luggage, with a small motion of her head. “I can pay you back later.”

      “That,” Ria said, “is the least of my worries right now.”

      They pulled into the drive-through line, and when their turn at the speaker came, a brief consultation was held and then Ria placed the order—a fish fillet sandwich, fries and a diet cola for Quinn, a cheeseburger off the children’s menu for the dog.

      “Don’t you want anything?” Quinn asked, when the person inside had confirmed their requests and specified the amount they’d be expected to pay at the second window.

      She sounded so concerned. And so young.

      Ria’s heart ached. What was going on at home that had caused Quinn to take to the road the way she had? Surely it wasn’t just the prospect of summer camp—much as she apparently disliked the idea, her niece had indeed been “desperate” to get away.

      Questions, questions, questions.

      And the time wasn’t right to ask any of them.

      “No,” Ria replied, finally, with a shake of her head. “Not just now. I’ll have something when we get back to the house.”

      There was a pause, fragile and quivery, nearly tangible.

      Then Quinn asked, “Are you mad at me?”

      The subtext was Because if you are, I’m not going to know how to handle it. I need you to be on my side.

      “No,” Ria said, for the second time in two minutes.

      There were three cars ahead of them, each one stopping at the designated window to hand cash or an ATM card through, in exchange for paper bags with blotches of grease on the sides and cups the size of oil barrels, and Ria considered the rest of her answer carefully.

      “I’m not angry,” she said, finally. “Not completely anyhow, and not permanently.”

      Quinn gave a nervous little giggle. “That was ambiguous,” she remarked.

      “Hitchhiking is a stupid thing to do, Quinn,” Ria pointed out, irritated with herself because that was certainly stating the obvious, wasn’t it, and she’d sounded so pedantic, too.

      “I know that,” Quinn answered, and her beautiful green eyes brimmed with tears.

      They reached the window then, and Ria paid for the food, accepted the fragrant bag and Quinn’s soda, passed them over, not wanting to say more until they were out of the cheerful clerk’s earshot.

      The dog—Bones, wasn’t it?—had been curled up in Quinn’s lap until the transaction was made, but as soon as the food was inside the car, he perked right up, putting his grubby little paws on his mistress’s chest and sniffing wildly.

      Quinn chuckled softly as they drove away, ferreted out the dog’s cheeseburger and tore off a tiny piece for him.

      He gobbled it right down and, once again, Ria felt a stab of emotion, a poignant, heart-hollowing awareness that that big world out there could be so terribly hard on the helpless, whether they had four legs or two.

      While Quinn and the dog consumed their food, taking turns, Ria drove toward home, thoughtful and silent.

      There were still a million questions she wanted to ask her niece, yes, but the girl was obviously worn out, half-starved and God only knew what else. Quinn needed time to catch her breath, get her bearings.

      When the farm came into view, with its rows and rows of zinnias and gerbera daisies and other brightly colored flowers, Quinn sat up straighter and gave a little gasp. Bones, having devoured his cheeseburger, had settled back onto her lap again and drifted off into a snooze.

      “Wow,” Quinn said, in a murmur. “It’s beautiful!”

      Ria’s spirits rose by a smidgen, though she was dreading the necessary call to Meredith, had been all along. But she’d worked hard to keep her small operation afloat, weeding and watering, digging and hoeing, planting and replanting, slogging out to the greenhouse through knee-deep snow the previous winter to tend seedlings and sprouts, and the genuine admiration in Quinn’s voice meant a lot. Especially since Meredith and most of Ria’s friends back in Portland thought the whole enterprise was a hokey waste of time and financial resources.

      “Thanks,” she said, after clearing her throat, parking the car in the driveway instead of inside the detached garage because she knew she’d have to make a run into town for various supplies before the day was over. “It’s lots of work, for not much money, but I love it anyway.” She flashed on last night’s buffalo visit and added, “Mostly.”