Temporary Dad. Laura Marie Altom

      Chapter Three

      In the specially designated cell phone waiting area, Patti held an ancient-model cell phone over her head, waving it back and forth in the hope of finding a signal. The man she’d borrowed it from, Clive Bentwiggins of Omaha, was visiting his mother. Clive was at least ninety-eight and on oxygen. The hissing from his portable tank sounded like wind shushing through the Grand Canyon.

      “Get one yet?” Clive asked, cradling a cup of black coffee.

      Edging toward the Coke machine, holding up her phone arm, Patricia shook her head. “I had one over by that fake ficus, but I—oh, here. Right here.” Yes. Between the Coke machine and a corral of IV poles, the light indicating a signal glowed an intense green.

      “Dial fast,” Clive said. “Don’t want you getting cut off again.”

      She cast her phone benefactor a smile and dialed Jed’s number. It rang three times before the answering machine picked up. After the beep, she said, “Jed? Jed, honey, are you there? Jed!” She heard static on the line. Crap. She inched closer to the IV poles, but the green light disappeared.

      Wheeling his hissing tank behind him, Clive walked toward her. “Losing it again?”

      Patti nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

      Where could they be?

      Something had to be wrong. It was too late for Jed not to answer his phone.

      He didn’t have a woman over, did he?

      She should’ve known better than to leave her babies with him.

      The green light came back on, but all she could hear was the hissing from Clive’s tank.

      Covering the phone’s mouthpiece, she said, “Would you mind scooting your tank just a little bit that way? I’m having a hard time—” Too late. The signal was gone.

      Patricia sighed.

      Clive patted her back. “I raised six kids and twenty-three grandbabies. Trust me, your flock is fine. It’s that busted-up husband of yours you need to worry about.”

      “HELLO?” Annie said, hands on her hips. “Care to finally let me in on your big secret?”

      Jed had been home from his twenty-four-hour shift for five minutes. In those five minutes, he’d replayed Patti’s latest message ten times. Now he definitely knew where his sister had gone.

      He shot into action, barreling into the kitchen. He’d take everything Patti left with him. There were only a few cans of formula and three or four diapers, but that should at least get him over the Colorado state line. In Denver, he’d grab whatever else he needed.

      “Jed?” Annie’s sweet voice jolted him from his todo list.

      Arms laden with his few requisite supplies, Jed looked up on his way back to the living room. “Yeah?”

      “What are you doing?”

      “Packing.”

      Annie’s eyes narrowed as she kissed the top of Pia’s head. “Please tell me you’re not planning to load up these sweet, sleepy babies and trek them wherever you think your sister may be.”

      “Hey,” he said from the living room, dumping the baby grub into the diaper bag, “I can see why you might think I’m crazy to go traipsing blindly across the country. But for your information, I happen to know exactly where Patti is.”

      “Oh, you do?” She followed him into the living room and gently set Pia on a fuzzy pink blanket on the floor. “Mind telling me how you worked it out, Sherlock?”

      “Love to, Watson.” He grinned. “You like those old movies, too?”

      Frowning, she said, “I prefer the books.”

      “La-di-da.”

      She stuck out her tongue. “Just get to the part where you unravel the mystery.”

      “Simple deduction.” He snatched the diaper wipes from the coffee table. “Remember all that hissing and shushing on the answering machine message?”

      “Yeah…” she said, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “Can’t wait to hear where this leads.”

      “She’s at our family cabin just outside Fairplay, Colorado.”

      “You’ve got to be kidding. Patti hardly said two words on that message, and from that you’ve deduced she’s holed up in some cabin?”

      Snatching a few teething toys—plastic key rings and a clear plastic thingamajig with fish floating around inside—Jed said, “You know babies, right? Well, I know my sister. Ever since having the triplets, she’s had a rough time of it.”

      “Duh.”

      He shot his smart-mouthed neighbor a look.

      She shot him one back.

      Try as he might to stay on topic, Jed couldn’t help thinking that he liked this feisty side of her. As soon as he got things settled, he just might tackle a whole new case—figuring out how to take Annie’s PG-13 rating to a wicked-fun R!

      He shook his head to clear it of the sweet sin threatening to muck up the next task on his road-trip agenda.

      “Well?” she asked. “You’re zero-and-one. Gonna go for zero-and-two?”

      Jed glanced up as he stuffed a blue blanket into his now-bulging duffel bag. “Anyone ever tell you that for having such a fine package, you sure have a sassy mouth?”

      Annie’s face reddened and she looked away.

      Hmm…Apparently he’d just pulled off his first TKO. “For your information, Little Miss Sassy Pants, all that hissing on the answering machine wasn’t hissing, but wind. Wind whistling through the pines and firs outside our family cabin to be specific. Cell-phone service is touchy up there, which explains why she constantly gets cut off.”

      As much as Annie hated to admit it, Jed’s warped logic made perfect sense.

      “Patti loves the place. When our folks were alive, we spent every summer up there for as long as I can remember. After they died, Patti and I went there as often as we could. Here in town, she was all about keeping up appearances. I guess she felt she had to put on this cool act. But up at the cabin, she was herself. A sweet kid who allowed herself to have fun.”

      “But Jed—” Annie crossed the small space cluttered with stuffed animals to touch his arm “—she’s not a kid anymore. She’s a grown woman with a family of her own. If your assumptions are true—that she ran off to figure out her life—maybe what she doesn’t need is her big brother charging in for a needless rescue. Maybe she needs time to get her head on straight. I mean, that’s essentially why I moved here. I miss my grandmother something fierce, but it was time for me to grow up. To face a few issues on my own. I’m betting Patti feels the same.”

      Annie looked down to see that she was still touching him, and she marveled not only at his physical strength—tightly corded and radiating heat beneath her fingers—but at his sheer mental will.

      “Look,” he said, “I realize that I probably seem a little psycho right about now.”

      “A little,” Annie said with a smile.

      He didn’t return her smile.

      Instead, he dropped the baby bag and sat hard on the bottom step. He cupped his forehead. “There are some things about me. My past. Patti’s. There’s no time to rehash it all now. You just need to know that I have to get up there. See for myself that she’s all right.”

      “Okay.” Her tone softer, Annie nudged him aside to sit next to him.

      Big mistake.

      The entire right half of her body hummed. All the way from her shoulder