Page 29 of The Secrets She Keeps

Powell saw Mac’s eyes narrow at that. Had her brother missed everythingthat had been happening in Finley Creek lately? Mac had that look now—the one that said he was getting curious. Thingshappenedwhen Mac gotcurious.Not always goodthings either. Damn it. She was going to have to fill him in when she got a chance.

“But he attacked Madison and Haldyn too. And that doesn’t make sense to me that it would be personal with Hope and Wilson. What if Hope hadn’t been there at all? If someone else had been almost killed instead? Would they get full pay? Then why not Hope? Is Haldyn getting the full pay? If she is, shouldn’t Hope get that too?”

Powell thought she definitely should. This didn’t make sense at all. She saw the confusion in her brothers’ faces too. And anger in Alex’s.

“It was Detective Kimball who shot them both, not Wilson, right? Hope didn’t have anything to do with Kimball until that night. They also said because Hope had open heart surgery that wasn’t related to the bullet she didn’t qualify. But the bullet caused the heart attack and surgery. But Hope’s kind of freaking out right now. It is a lot of money. And the rest of the family can’t help because Samia has herhospital bills from when that guy broke into our apartment and beat her up over Eastman. Mom has her hospital bills from Eastman andCrispin’s bills from Eastman, what the insurance won’t pay. Heather can’thelp either because she has all those hospital bills from where Wilson was stalking her and when he beat her up all those other times too.”

Mac’s face blanched right there in front of Powell. Cara missed it, but Powell didn’t. She knew…her older brother was going to have a lot of questions when they were alone.

“And the bills from when she had the babies and when she had to move all those times to try to get away from him. Aunt Heather doesn’t haveanyextra money at all. I think she may have been skipping lunch at work to save money too, Powell. I just can’t get Heather to admit it or anything. She is kind of stubborn and won’t tell me. I was going to dig into the legalities of Hope’s bills this week while the girls were sleeping, but I came up here instead. So it will have to wait until we are back home again.”

“I’ll make a few calls,” Mac said, a look in his eyes that concerned Powell. He looked almost like a Mac-on-a-mission right now. “Someone’s messing with her, Cara. I can almost guarantee that. Or doing some maneuvering behind the scenes that they shouldn’t be, banking on the idea that Hope won’t know she can fight that. But she can.”

“But who would ever helpus?” Cara sent him a wide-eyed, completely innocent look. “Heather said to expect bad stuff to happen to us all now. And to watch our backs even more than we already do. I think she believes it’s all her fault. Heather’s really, really afraid right now. Especially after what that Commander Butthead McKellen did and said this morning. I definitely don’t like him at all. He’s just a stupid bully, exactly like Steve Wilson.”

Daniel was one of the best men Powell knew. But she kept that to herself right now. She recognized that look on Cara’s sweetly beautiful face. Cara meant what she said. She fully believed it.

“Commander Butthead McKellen and Steve Wilson were probably friends or something. And now she’s afraid Wilson’s other friends at the TSP are going to come after her because of what happened. Or after Hope. My family is going to keep acloser eye on Heather than we had. She didn’t tell us about the bad stuff that was happening to her foryearsbecause she didn’t want us to be afraid. Heather has alwaysbeen the one to take care of everybody. Heather and my mom protected us, no matter what. They always have.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Gunnar said, looking down at the baby in his arms. He held her like he’d held babies that small every single day. “This is a seriously cute baby right here. She looks like Hope, no denying that.”

“Hope thinks that’s really funny too. Hope likes to dress her in the same style clothes Hope wears. Since Frankie looks just like Heather. So they each have a mini-me. Colesons do tend to look a lot alike. You can always tell a Coleson when you see one. We heard that millions of times in our old town. I really miss living there. We had lots of friendsthere.In Finley Creek, we really don’t have a lot of friends yet. We don’t know who we can trust. But at least we are all mostly together. I like that best.”

“You all definitely look a lot alike. Murdoch said the day he pulled Heather over he even asked her if she was related to Zoey or the governor’s wife. She just didn’t know she was.” Gunnar was calming down. Maybe holding the baby was helping. “He thought she had to be one of Zo’s missing sisters. I can see why.”

“It’s really weird. They look like they could be sisters for real. But so do Aunt Joy and Samia, I guess, except for Joy’s blond hair. And me and Cashie, even though Cashie was Evil Denita’s first. Evil Denita and my mom looked a lot alike, I think. I’m not sure. We don’t have any pictures of her. Ember’s eyes are getting ready to change to brown, we think. Frankie’s did pretty early.” Cara handed Gunnar a pink cloth. “You might want to hold on to this. Ember explodey-vomits sometimes. Without warning.”

He slipped the cloth under the baby’s head. She didn’t wake at all.

“She’s really sensitive. We think she has food allergies too. Like Frankie. Heather is having a hard time figuring out what they are, though. We know Ember shouldn’t have chocolate or food dyes.”

“How do you figure out that with a baby that young?” Brandt asked quietly. “How old is she?”

“She’s five months now. She was born the week before…Eastman took my mom and Cris and Zoey and Pen and that other girl, Sydney.”

“She’s very tiny,” Gunnar said. His hand covered Ember’s entire back.

“She’s really skinny for her age. But she has really long legs. That’s kind of a Coleson thing too. All of us are really skinny too. Heather used to be the heaviest of us, but she’s lost a lot of weight since she had the baby. Well, even before she was pregnant with Ember. I think it was probably stress and fear because ofhimand him stalking her and everything. We voted on a plan to get her better again. Joy and Samia are making her eat more when they can. Or they threatened to make her drink nutrition shakes that are really gross. It’s not that hard to tell. Basically, if Heather eats something and then nurses, and Ember explodes, it’s a pretty strong indication.” She covered the older girl with a blanket. Cara was very comfortable taking care of the little girls. That was obvious.

Gunnar slipped the baby’s pacifier into her little mouth. The baby made a face like she was concentrating. He looked really natural like that. He was going to be a good father. She had no doubt about that. It had her feeling a little gooier toward him in that moment than she had in a while.

She was having a baby withthisman.

And they still needed to talk about that. That whole entire “she-was-going-to-change-his-world-completely” conversationshe hadn’t been able to find a moment to have with him or anything.

Maybe it was poetic that she told himhere.Where their baby had been made in the first place. Full circle and everything.

Heather’s baby had dark brown hair. For a moment, Powell tried to imagine what her and Gunnar’s baby would look like. Powell had dark hair, and dark eyes—like Heather. Gunnar’s were blond and blue—chances were likely hers would dominate.

She could definitely have a baby with dark brown hair and probably brown eyes.

It wasn’t out of the possibility their baby could look like that sweet little girl right there. Cuddled against Gunnar’s chest, safe and loved completely. Powell really couldn’t wait to see him hold their baby just like that.

Yes, she was feeling a bit too gooey right now.

Gunnar looked at her. “I need to go call Dan for a moment. You want to hold her?”

Powell held out her arms. She wanted nothing more than to hold that sweet baby right now. He settled the baby into her arms, and then he looked up. His eyes met hers. And Powell was a total goner.

---