“While you were having this patience, did you ever get very, very lonely?” she asked.
Jack and Preacher were both quiet for a moment.
“Come to our house for Christmas dinner, Kelly,” Preacher said. “I’ll even let you help in the kitchen if it makes you feel better.”
She laughed at him. “Nah, it’s not that. I’m used to being alone. It’s just that however this all works out, I have no idea how to convince Courtney I won’t take her dad away from her. That poor kid has been through so much. Who knows where she is now? And I don’t want to stand in line to be the next wicked stepmother.”
“She’s a little prickly,” Jack said. “Teenagers are like that anyway. Even the ones who haven’t been through a lot.”
“Right now I’d be so happy to deal with all her little prickly thorns if I just knew she was safely in Lief’s care.” She took a sip. “They need each other so much.”
And I need him a little too much, she thought.
Lief had exhausted almost all his ideas; it had been a very stressful couple of days. It seemed there was no help for a stepfather who’d been duped. He couldn’t imagine what Court might be going through, kept from him like this. Was she thinking that he’d broken his promise to be nearby in case she needed him? And he was panicked to think where she might be, though he was relatively certain Stu couldn’t have taken her out of the country. Lief had her passport in the strongbox at home along with her birth certificate.
He tried one last idea. Walt Booth’s number was listed, and he called it. Walt picked up on the second ring. “Walt, it’s Lief. I’m calling from Los Angeles and I need to reach Muriel. It’s urgent.”
“She’s right here. Hang on.”
When she came on the line, Lief explained what he was up against.
“Why, that bastard,” she said. “How does a person do something like that when a child is involved? How can he sleep at night? Don’t you worry. I’ll find him!”
“He’s not answering his cell phone, but here’s the number in case you can find a way to get through.”
“Oh, I’ll get through. I’ll get a patch through a studio or agency line. When Muriel St. Claire wants to make a movie, people tend to take the call. And even though it’s just a few days before Christmas, I want a meeting. I’ll offer to fly in, wherever he is. Just sit tight and try not to panic.”
“God, why didn’t I think to call you two days ago? Thank you.”
“Keep the phone on, Lief,” she said.
Less than an hour later his phone rang and it was Muriel. “He’s in Maui. Kapalua Beach in some condo. Got a pen?”
“Ready,” he said.
She gave him the address. “Can you get there, Lief?”
“I’ll get there if I have to swim,” he said. “Listen, I owe you.”
“Just go get your girl. I never did like Stu Lord. He’s an ass.”
Lief turned in his rental car and headed straight to LAX, determined to eat and sleep in the airport until he could find a flight. He had to wait several hours and couldn’t get a nonstop into Maui, but he was headed in the right direction and was grateful he could find anything at all this close to Christmas—the airport was mobbed.
Courtney had done three days of babysitting, counting their travel day, and was exhausted, even though Alison and Michael were good children and their parents were usually close by. Stu said he’d talked to Lief, and Lief had said to tell her to try to have a good time, that he wished he was at the beach. “Didn’t he ask to talk to me?” she had asked.
“Courtney, I asked him not to interfere and I promised him you were fine,” Stu said. “He warned me that I’d better be telling the truth and agreed to leave it alone. After all, I am your father.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“We have a deal,” he reminded her.
“I’m sick of babysitting!”
“Well, you decide what you want, Courtney. Life in L.A. or the mountains. It’s up to you.”
So she held out, and after just a couple of days she was feeling tired and bored. She wasn’t going to last through another week of this—chasing little ones, eating with them, reading to them, playing with them, falling asleep on the couch in Ann and Dick’s condo, right next door to Stu