Family at Stake. Molly O'Keefe

knew had no family outside of his mother and her series of husbands. Maybe he went to his wife’s family?

      In any case, Amanda Edwards’s file needed to be updated.

      Rachel should not take this case. She knew that. It was a conflict of interest if ever there was one. What she should do is march right back to Olivia and say, “I know this guy. Loved him, actually. I think. I definitely broke his heart. So, I can’t take the case.”

      She should do that.

      But she didn’t.

      CHAPTER TWO

      RACHEL PARKED HER CAR and turned off the ignition. It was Friday, two days after finding out about Mac and Amanda, and she had finally been able to clear her late-afternoon schedule and drive to their home.

      She shook out her numb hands. She’d been gripping the steering wheel a tad too hard. She had not counted on what it would cost her to drive to New Springs. Every time she looked in the rearview mirror, the scared, unsure girl who had left thirteen years ago stared back at her.

      Obviously she wasn’t as detached from the past as she thought.

      She grabbed her briefcase and got out of the car. The slam of the door sent a bird flying from the brush bordering the small gravel parking area, beside a low brown house built into a mountain and surrounded by avocado and lemon groves. The trees flourished on the hillsides surrounding New Springs, and all of the houses along the mountain road she had just traveled were farmhouses. The file said Mac was a farmer, and Rachel could see Mac working this land. It made perfect sense.

      Rachel still wasn’t convinced she would take this case. She was just here for preliminary fieldwork, a rudimentary home visit that should tell her if Frank had been right. And then she would be better able to determine what to do. She wasn’t convinced that this case was worth all that she had at stake. She could get into big trouble if Olivia became aware of what had happened between Mac and Rachel—it could cost her the job she loved. As she had convinced herself during the trip here, she was just sussing things out.

      Rachel had gone into social work to help families. It was her job. And she was good at it. She knew better than to become emotionally involved. And without emotion, this was just another case. Mac was just another father—one who was possibly failing his daughter.

      Rachel had to help. Or at least see if help was needed.

      There were no ghostly remains of some kind of romantic relationship. They had been friends. Clumsy lovers and then they’d lost touch. End of story.

      She checked her watch. Five-thirty, usually a good time to catch people at home. She’d learned early in her career that calling people to tell them she was coming just gave them the information they needed to not be home at the right time.

      The gravel crunched under her feet. Somewhere a wind chime made careless music in the soft breeze that blew across the mountain, bringing with it the smell of white sage.

      She stepped onto a flagstone path that led to the door, which appeared hidden underneath the eaves. A tomato plant grew like mad in a bucket next to a basil plant growing in a coffee can.

      That’s the Mac I remember.

      Rachel took a deep breath, cursed that extra-large coffee she’d drunk earlier that made her heart thunder in her chest. She ran a hand down the front of her white blouse, made sure she was all tucked in and presentable and knocked on the dark wood door, which, to her surprise, swung open under the light pressure from her fist.

      Rachel found herself in front of a small staircase leading down into a huge room with a wall of windows opposite her that faced the valley and the mountains behind it.

      She was taken aback by the beauty the small house hid.

      Pale yellow wood floors and walls gleamed in the clear bright afternoon light that filled the long multipurpose room. On one end there was a fireplace made of fieldstone and two big red couches facing an entertainment unit.

      A dining room table cluttered with a book bag, homework and a plate with crumbs on it stood in the middle of the room. A small kitchen occupied the far end with an island separating the kitchen from the dining room.

      It was warm and cozy, with pictures on the walls and a plate of cookies on the counter. It seemed like the very last place that abuse would happen. But that was the first lesson she’d ever learned, from her own family—things are never what they seem. And homes could be the most dangerous places on Earth.

      “Hello?” she called out, leaning into the foyer. She waited a moment but there was no response, no sound, even. She took one step in and looked around the door at a staircase leading up to a second floor. Since the ground floor wasn’t visible from the outside because of the way it was built into the mountain, the seemingly modest-size home was actually quite large.

      Mac was obviously a successful farmer. That hadn’t been mentioned in the files.

      “Anybody home?”

      “Hey!” a man shouted from another part of the house, and Rachel’s breath stalled in her lungs. It was Mac. His deep, rough voice sent shock waves down her spine. “Be right there.”

      Irritation flared at her sudden case of nerves and she forced herself to relax, to remember her job. Her skill and detachment.

      “Sorry.” His voice was closer, somewhere to the right of her and low on the first floor. Her stomach leaped. She could hear his footsteps, approaching swiftly. “Have you been—”

      Suddenly he was there, right in front of her, appearing from an unseen doorway in the corner of the kitchen. Her heartbeat stopped.

      Mac. Oh, my God, look at you.

      He was beautiful. His body had grown into the promise it had at seventeen. He looked lean but powerful. His shoulders filled the seams of his denim workshirt and the sleeves were rolled up to reveal wiry, nut-brown forearms. His khaki pants hung on lean hips. His hair, overlong and bleached from his days outside, fell over his forehead. She watched spellbound as he brushed it out of his eyes.

      His eyes were the same. Blue as the palest part of the sky and growing confused.

      “I’m sorry.” He flashed his lopsided grin with the dimple, and Rachel felt her heart start again with a painful double lurch. “Are you Amanda’s tutor?”

      “No.” She pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, and stood revealed and naked in front of him.

      Recognition and painful disbelief twisted his face.

      “Rach?” he breathed.

      She was going to cry. Her eyes burned and her nose became watery. She looked at her shoes, a habit she had spent the better part of her life trying to break.

      “Rachel?” His voice was strong but sharp at the end, and she couldn’t bear to look at him. You have a job to do, Rachel. Get it together. She sniffed and glanced up, meeting Mac’s gaze.

      “Hi, Mac.”

      He put one foot on the stairs and his hand gripped the banister, as if he wanted it dead. His knuckles turned white as he squeezed the wood. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice strangled.

      She was hoping for a different beginning to this conversation. I suppose a hug is too much to ask for.

      Sarcasm was her convenient crutch. She knew that about herself, but didn’t have the power to do this without a few crutches.

      She opened her mouth to explain herself, but a blond girl appeared at the top of the second-floor stairs and electricity charged the air in the house.

      The hair on Rachel’s arms stood on end.

      “Sorry, Dad, just went to the bathroom.” The girl’s voice was quiet and thin. Amanda was so skinny, Rachel’s heart heaved.

      Something is seriously wrong.

      Amanda