The Secret Sin. Darlene Gardner

was better than home.

       CHAPTER THREE

       W ELL , that hadn’t gone well.

      Annie watched helplessly as Lindsey retreated into the bedroom she was using. The girl had changed out of her jeans into a pair of gray jersey knit shorts with Princess printed across the bottom.

      Princess. Yeah, Annie was way out of her league when it came to Lindsey.

      She’d half feared that Lindsey would change her mind about staying and say she wanted to go home, but the girl had surprised her. Not that the visit would be a done deal until she talked to Lindsey’s parents.

      Annie had left a second message for them and could barely concentrate while she waited for the phone to ring. Sometime between inviting Lindsey to stay and now, Annie had allowed herself to hope for time to get to know the girl.

      No. Not hope. That was too mild a word.

      She craved more time with Lindsey—and she was desperately afraid she wouldn’t get it.

      The phone rang, making Annie jump. She hurried into the kitchen and picked up the receiver of the wall-mounted phone. “Hello.”

      “Annie, it’s Ryan.”

      Annie’s brain froze, her throat closed up and her legs almost gave out. She could only think of one reason for him to call.

       He knew.

      She put a hand on the counter to steady herself. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer. She braced herself, struggling to decide whether she would admit the truth.

      “I’m calling to see how Lindsey’s feeling,” Ryan said.

      How Lindsey was feeling? His words didn’t compute. She’d expected him to say he’d guessed Lindsey was the baby they’d given up for adoption.

      “Annie? Are you still there?”

      “Yes,” she choked out, feeling overwhelming relief. “I’m here.”

      Her voice sounded raspy and unfamiliar with none of the maturity she’d strived so hard to develop over the years.

      “How is Lindsey?” he asked.

      A few more seconds passed. She closed her eyes briefly. She was handling the call poorly, arousing suspicion where there might not be any. She fought to regain her equilibrium. “Fine. She’s fine.”

      “Good to hear. Just make sure she doesn’t skip meals and she shouldn’t have the problem again.”

      “Okay. Sure.” She still sounded unsophisticated and unsure of herself, which was unacceptable. Especially with Ryan Whitmore on the other end of the line. Get off the phone, her brain screamed. The less you talk to him, the better. “Thanks for calling.”

      “Wait!” Ryan’s appeal was loud enough that she heard him even though she was just about to hang up. She reluctantly held the phone back up to her ear.

      “You’re guiding the ten o’clock white-water trip tomorrow morning, right?” he asked.

      “I’m planning to,” she said slowly, afraid of what he would say next.

      “Good, because I’m thinking about taking it.”

      She grimaced at the prospect of Ryan coming along on one of the trips, invading her world. How could she do her job with him in one of the rafts, reminding her of a past she didn’t want to think about?

      A beep sounded, signaling an incoming call. Annie normally considered it rude to place one person on hold to talk to another. Rarely, if ever, did she use call waiting. She didn’t intend to now, either.

      “I’ve got to take this call,” she said. “It could be Lindsey’s parents.”

      “Of course,” he said. “I don’t mind hold—?”

      “Goodbye,” she interrupted, pretending not to hear him. She disconnected, then answered the other call. She was right. The caller was Gretchel Thompson, Lindsey’s stepmother.

      Out of the fire and into the inferno, Annie thought.

      “Thanks for calling,” she said. “I’m Annie Sublinski, Frank Sublinski’s daughter.”

      “Oh, yes,” Gretchel said. “Your father’s visited us a bunch of times, usually with Lindsey’s grandfather. He’s a great guy.”

      Gretchel seemed to have no idea that Annie was Lindsey’s birth mother. Had her husband failed to tell Gretchel about the adoption arrangement? Was it possible he didn’t know about it, either?

      Annie realized she had something in her hand. It was a piece of paper she’d crumpled into a ball from the pad she kept by the phone. She set it down and explained how Lindsey had ended up in Indigo Springs.

      “I’m so sorry,” Gretchel said. “I’ll have a return ticket waiting tomorrow morning at the train station.”

      “I wanted to talk to you about that.” Annie prayed she wouldn’t sound too eager. “Since Lindsey’s already here, why not let her stay a while?”

      “You want her to stay?” The woman sounded incredulous.

      Lindsey wandered into the kitchen and stood against a wall, watching Annie with hooded eyes.

      “It’ll give me a chance to see why my father is so fond of her.” Annie took a breath, trying to figure out how to persuade Lindsey’s stepmother to agree to the visit. “I promise to take good care of her.”

      “Since you’re Frank’s daughter, I’m sure you would,” Gretchel said. “Could I talk to Lindsey, please? I’d like to hear what she has to say.”

      “Sure.” Annie kept her excitement in check, reminding herself Gretchel hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She held the phone out to Lindsey. “She wants to talk to you.”

      Lindsey moved toward Annie as though she were walking the plank. She took the receiver and listened, no doubt to a scolding, in silence. Her face seemed to run the gamut of expressions, from annoyance to acceptance and finally to what Annie hoped was pleasure.

      “Yes,” Lindsey said. “I want to stay.”

      The weight that felt as though it had been pressing on Annie’s heart lifted. She took the phone from Lindsey, one question paramount in her mind.

      “How long can she stay?” Annie asked.

      “I’ll get back to you on that,” Gretchel said. “To be honest, it might be better if Lindsey’s out of the house for a while. She’s a good girl, but as you’ll find out she can be sullen and unhappy. Lately we’ve had some…friction.”

      “Anything I should know about?”

      “Nothing important,” Gretchel said. “Just teenage stuff.”

      Annie was painfully aware it wasn’t her place to ask for the details even if the girl hadn’t been listening in on the conversation.

      “It’s settled, right?” Lindsey asked after Annie hung up. “I can stay?”

      “You can stay,” Annie confirmed.

      Lindsey clapped her hands and smiled. Annie smiled back, enjoying the moment but realizing trouble might lie ahead. Now that she’d cleared one hurdle, a bigger problem remained.

      What was she going to do about Ryan?

       R YAN had expected Annie to avoid him when he showed up for the Saturday morning white-water trip. He hadn’t anticipated she’d be a no-show.

      In his experience, the person in charge tended to at least be on-site during the busiest times of the week. Unless, of course, there was a good reason for her to stay away.

      Like a man she clearly wished would leave her alone.