Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

“Yeah!”

“Sounds. . interesting,” Trace said.

“Delicious,” Kacey proclaimed. “You just can’t go wrong with Oreo cookies, peppermint flakes, and mint ice cream. Yumm-o!” Her green eyes glinted with humor. “I think I’ll get a double scoop!”

“Me, too!” Eli shimmied from Trace’s arms and raced back to the barrels of ice cream.

“Thirty-nine,” a girl with a deep voice intoned. “Rosenberg party. Thirty-nine.” An athletic-looking teenager pushed away from a table of friends and headed for the pickup area, her long blond ponytail bouncing behind her.

“How about you?” Kacey asked, looking up at him. “Double scoop? Triple?”

“Uh. . maybe I’ll settle for a beer.”

Her smile widened as they reached the counter near the ice cream barrels. “With your cone, right?”

“How ’bout with a Meat Lovers’ Special?” He hitched his chin toward the overhead menu, beneath which a skinny kid with bad skin, a shaved head, and thick glasses waited, ice cream scoop in hand, for them to order as the two girls in skinny jeans drifted off toward a round table.

Trace said, “I’ll buy.”

She was reading the menu. “Or we could order half a Meat Lovers’ Special and half a Veggie Delite and split the bill.”

“Only if you can eat half a pie yourself.”

“Half a pie and a double scoop,” she assured him.

He felt one corner of his mouth twitch. “Tell ya what. I’ll arm wrestle ya for the bill.”

“Don’t,” Eli warned her. “My dad’s the strongest ever.”

“Is he now?” She was smiling more broadly now. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that.” To Eli she confided, “I’m pretty strong, too.”

“Nah!” Eli shook his head. “Not like my dad!”

“Uh-huh.” She winked. “Only tougher.”

The kid behind the counter was getting antsy. “Can I get you something?”

“We’ll have two double scoops of Christmas Cookie Swirl in. . waffle cones.” She looked at Eli, who was nodding rapidly.

“And sprinkles!”

Kacey chuckled. “And sprinkles.” She cast a glance at Trace. “And?” Her dark eyebrows arched, and he noticed how thick her eyelashes were, how the green of her eyes shifted in the light. “For you?”

“I’ll stick with pizza.”

He placed their order for pizza, along with two beers and a soda, then, for the better part of the next hour, as the pizzeria became busier still, he sat in an uncomfortable booth, getting to know this woman, a damned doctor, who talked to Eli so easily. She had lied, though, about her appetite, and managed to eat only two slices of the vegetarian side of the pizza, while he and Eli polished off all the meat-covered wedges. Actually, as he thought about it, he’d eaten most of the cheese-and pepperoni-slathered slices himself, as his boy was pretty full after the ice cream. Just what the doctor ordered after the week they’d all had.

“I never asked. What were you doing at the vet’s clinic?” He hitched his chin toward the window and the building on the far side of the snowy street.

“I’m looking for a dog,” she admitted.

“Any kind?”

“The one I hope to adopt is a mutt. Big dog. Boxer and pit bull probably. At least according to the vet.”

“Guard dog?” he asked, remembering the way she glanced over her shoulder as she crossed the street with Eli an hour earlier.

“That’s one criterion.” Her eyes shifted away, toward the area where Eli and a group of kids were crowding around the arcade-type machines. “I, um, live alone.” She picked up her glass. “Could use the company. You know.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, thinking of Sarge and silently praying the dog would pull through.

“So, you grew up around here?” she asked, changing the subject and pushing a bit of uneaten pizza crust to one side of her plate.

“Been here most of my life, except for college and a few years in the army. Inherited the place and decided ranching was a good life. What about you?”

“I was born and raised in Helena, but my grandparents lived here, so I spent my summers at their farm.” She smiled thoughtfully, caught up in the nostalgia of the moment, seeming to study her near-empty glass, though he suspected her mind was miles and years away, conjuring images of her youth. Vaguely, he wondered if she’d known Leanna, who had spent the first years of her vagabond life in Montana’s state capital as well.

“So you decided to settle down here?”

“Eventually.” Her eyes shifted, and she looked up at him again. “I went to college in Missoula, medical school in Seattle, and stayed for a while. I got married, then divorced and, since I’d inherited the farm, decided to move back.”

“No kids?”

She shook her head, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “He. . wasn’t ‘ready.’ ” She made air quotes, then, as if she’d thought better of it, shook her head. “It’s over, has been for three years, and I told myself I’d try never to be catty about it, even if he is an easy target.” She lifted one slim shoulder, dismissing the man to whom she was once married. “So, how about you? What happened to Eli’s mother?” She took a sip from her glass.

“She took a hike. Never hear from her.”

She thought about that long and hard.

“We do fine,” he stated firmly.

Her expression was neutral, but he bet she didn’t believe him for a second. And the thing of it was, she was right. He remembered Eli’s most recent crying jag, when he’d begged to find out where Leanna was. God, it tore his heart out, and he couldn’t help wondering how scarred his boy was.

Before the conversation went any further, they were interrupted. “Hey! Doctor Lambert!”

Trace turned to see the receptionist for the clinic wending her way through the tables. She was balancing a glass of wine in one hand. The fingers of her other hand were laced with those of a twentysomething guy who sported a scruffy beard and wore a frayed stocking cap drawn down over his ears.

“Hi, Heather,” Kacey said.

“This is Jimmy,” she said quickly; then her gaze landed on Trace. “And you’re Eli’s dad, right?” She was nodding, agreeing with herself. “How’s he doing… oh!”

At that moment Eli came barreling back to the table. “I need more money!”

“Hey, dude, don’t we all?” Jimmy said.

Eli cast him a who-the-heck-are-you glance. “To play the games,” he said to his father.

“I think maybe it’s time to go.” Trace scraped his chair back.

“Wow.” Jimmy took a look at Kacey as she stood. “You kinda remind me of someone.”

“Miss Wallis!” Eli said; then his expression clouded as he remembered that she was gone.

“Shelly Bonaventure,” Heather said.

Jimmy snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Man, you’re like a dead ringer or something.”

“Or something,” Kacey said, and she, seeming to suddenly want to leave as quickly as Trace did, reached for the coat she’d tossed onto an empty chair.

But the kid was right. Trace was only vaguely aware of Shelly Bonaventure as an actress, but in the last week her picture had been splashed across the front of every magazine near the checkout stand of the store where he bought groceries. He’d also caught the end of an “in-depth” story on the woman when he’d been channel surfing the news for an update on the weather.

“She was from around here, wasn’t she?” Jimmy asked.

“Helena, I think,” Heather said.

“Helena,” Trace repeated, his gaze meeting the doctor’s. Like Leanna. And Kacey.

“I think I’d better get moving,” Kacey said. “Thanks.”

Heather’s gaze swept from her boss to Trace and Eli, and she had trouble smothering a smile.