Diane Chamberlain - The Lost Daughter

She doubted it would be that simple. “All right. I’ll try.” CeeCee lifted the mask from her head. “Thanks, Naomi,” she said. “For everything.”

She and Tim made love on the mattress in the small bedroom that night. Her body felt even more numb than usual when he entered her, and she was angry at it. She thought of Ronnie telling her to fake it. Who knew when she and Tim would get to make love again? How long would they be apart? It would be a gift for him. A gift that would keep her in his mind until they were together again.

She began to pant, to writhe a little beneath him. Not wanting to overdo it, she only let a small moan escape her lips, but she felt his excitement mount and she grew more vocal. It was pretty easy once she got into it. She arched her back, biting the corner of the pillow as she shuddered with her counterfeit orgasm.

Tim came an instant after her performance. “Oh, babe,” he said, his breath hot against her ear. “That was the best ever. The best ever.”

“It was,” she agreed.

He rolled onto his side, pulling the covers over her shoulder as he held her close.

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he said. “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me. For Andie. It’s so generous.”

“Thank you.” She liked the acknowledgment.

“And that was phenomenal sex.”

“It was,” she said again. She felt guilty for misleading him.

“You weren’t faking that, were you?”

Damn. Why did he have to ask her straight out like that? How could she lie to the man she loved? It would make a mockery of their relationship.

“Of course not,” she said, her heart sinking a little with the words.

Tim let out a long sigh. “Tomorrow’s going to be hard, babe,” he said. “And I realized when I saw you in that Sleeping Beauty getup that you have the hardest job of the three of us. Do you regret saying you’d help us?”

She hesitated. Did she? She was doing something magnificent, Naomi had said. “I don’t think I’ll know the answer to that until it’s over,” she said. “I … you know what I’ll regret, Tim. I’ve told you so many times, you’re sick of hearing it.”

“What?” He sounded puzzled. How could he possibly not know?

“I’m worried about how we’ll ever get to see each other again,” she said.

He hugged her. “That, my little Sleeping Beauty, should be the least of your worries.”

What did he mean? Why couldn’t he, for once, tell her exactly how they would work it out? She was tired of his vague responses to the question. She needed to know more. She needed details. And this was her last chance to ask for them.

“Tim,” she whispered, gathering her courage, “I need to know what you mean when you say it will work out. At least tell me what might happen. How will you be able to let me know where you are? How can you do that without putting yourself … putting both of us, at risk?”

He didn’t respond, and she turned to look at him. His eyes were closed, his breathing soft and even, and she knew she would get no answers from him tonight.

It just occurred to me that you might have your driver’s license by now. All I can say about that is “Watch out, world!”

THERE WAS SOMETHING NO ONE HAD ANTICIPATED: Although CeeCee knew how to drive—barely—she’d never driven a stick shift. She’d had her provisional license less than a year, and her foster mother had let her drive their car to run close-to-home errands, but the clutch and stick shift were alien to her. So alien that she hadn’t even thought to mention it the night before, when they’d told her she could have one of Naomi and Forrest’s cars.

“All we’ve got is manual.” Forrest blew out a stream of smoke and looked from one rusted car to another. The dented vehicles appeared no better in the morning light than they had the afternoon before. Their paint was worn so thin it was hard to tell what colors they’d once been.

She shivered inside her jacket. “I’m sorry,” she said to Tim. “Why didn’t you tell us you couldn’t drive?” Marty asked.

“I can drive,” she insisted. “Just not a stick.”

“Okay.” Tim put his hand on her neck and gave it a squeeze. There was so much strength in his fingers that she wasn’t sure if the gesture was affectionate or threatening in nature. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “She’s smart. I’ll teach her in ten minutes.”

Thank God, Naomi and Forrest lived in the middle of nowhere so that she and Tim had the dirt road to themselves. The car bucked and stalled as she tried to find the balance between the gas pedal and the clutch. She felt nervous laughter bubbling up inside of her, but she stifled it, knowing that Tim was in no mood to make light of the situation. He’d awakened in his own head that morning. Any warm words from the night before were forgotten. He was a man on a mission to save his sister and that was it.

“Well,” Tim said, as they parked the car in the yard after her lesson. “The good news is that there’s not much damage you can do out here in this thing. You’d better take your time getting back to Chapel Hill, though. You’re not ready for the highway.”

Inside the kitchen later that evening, CeeCee hung back, rocking Emmanuel in her arms, while the three men studied the map spread out on the kitchen table. Naomi was baking trays of granola in the oven and the smell was tantalizing.

Tim looked over his shoulder at CeeCee. “You should take a look at this, babe,” he said.

“Here, let me take him from you so you can see.” Naomi slipped the baby from CeeCee’s arms and into the ever-present sling she wore over her shoulder.

CeeCee stepped between Tim and Forrest and leaned over the table.

“We’re here right now.” Tim pointed to a spot on the map. “And the cabin is here.” He ran his finger over barely visible lines on the map until he reached a long narrow strip of blue. “That’s the Neuse River. The cabin’s right next to the river, on a road that’s not on the map,” he said, “but I’ll remember it when I see it.”

“Where do we get groceries?” CeeCee asked.

“Closest store is ten miles from here,” Forrest said. “Over here.” He pointed to a spot on the map.

When they’d figured out their route, CeeCee and Tim took the van to the grocery store. At Tim’s insistence, she wore her gloves as they perused the aisles so that any groceries she touched would not bear her prints. They bought canned tuna, soup and vegetables, a loaf of bread, toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, eggs, pasta, peanut butter, cookies, tomato sauce and two pounds of ground beef.

“All this?” CeeCee asked worriedly as Tim put the ground beef in the cart. “How long do you really think this will take?”

“I’m still hoping for a few hours,” he said. “Overnight at the most. But you should have enough food in case it’s longer.”

They drove back to Naomi and Forrest’s house, where CeeCee transferred the groceries to the old car that she could now, for what it was worth, call her own. Marty decided to ride with her, in case she had any problems with the clutch, and they would follow Tim to the cabin. They said goodbye to their hosts, who couldn’t mask their looks of relief at seeing them leave.

She stayed close behind Tim in the old car. Twice she stalled, once at a turn and once on a hill when she stepped on the brake instead of the clutch. To his credit, Marty didn’t utter a word. He was too wound up to chide her, she thought. All three of them were so focused on what lay ahead that they barely noticed what was happening around them.

Ahead of her, Tim turned onto a road that was even more rutted than the one Naomi and Forrest lived on. She felt every jarring dip of the road in her spine, and Marty put his hand on the dashboard for balance. They were in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing except acres of tall pines and the narrow ribbon of dirt on which she was driving.