The Family Gathering (Sullivan's Crossing #3)(62)

“Shh,” she said. “We’re not there yet.”

“I’m so goddamn selfish. I want to be alone with you without something like this weighing us down. I want us to spend some serious time learning about each other. I already know where to touch you, how to touch you, how to make you want more, but I don’t know what kind of kid you were in high school. I want to know what you did on vacation, what you dreamed of your life turning into. I know your parents are gone now but I’d like to know what they were like. I want to know everything. And I want to tell you everything.”

She stopped him with a soft laugh. “That’s good, we’ll do that. But for tonight, let’s just go to bed and practice that touching thing. That should get us through the tough parts. Okay?” She took him by the hand and pulled him to the guest bedroom where he’d camped out. “That will get us through the night.”

“Sid, I want to never let you go,” he said.

“I can live with that,” she said.

There was no point in getting up at dawn. Homes and businesses were barely astir before at least eight and it was Sunday. Dakota had the best night’s sleep he’d had in over a week and he was in heaven with the soft and sweet-smelling woman next to him, curling against him. He kissed her forehead. “I love that little snore,” he said.

“I bet you’ll get over that...”

“I found it adorable,” he said. Then he frowned. “That noise is disturbing me.” There seemed to be a lot of traffic on Maggie’s usually quiet street, more than he’d ever heard before. “Is there a church around here?”

“I don’t remember seeing one,” she said. “Maybe someone’s having a yard sale. When someone has a yard sale in Timberlake, people show up at the crack of dawn to get the first look.”

“I don’t care if they’re going to church or a yard sale, I hate them,” Dakota said.

“That’s the patient, tolerant Dakota I love so much,” she said, laughter in her voice.

The doorbell rang.

Dakota jumped naked out of bed. “Think whoever that is will mind if I don’t take time to dress?” he said, giving his hips a crude little shake.

“If you open that door without pants on, I’m finished with you!”

“You’re not really fun all the time,” he said. He grabbed his jeans off the floor, pulled them on and went out of the bedroom. “It’s probably someone with the wrong address for the yard sale...” Not even bothering to zip and button, he flung open the front door.

He was met with the no-nonsense brown eyes and furry brows of Sister Mary Jacob.

“Sister!” he said, turning away, grabbing for the zipper and button of his jeans.

“Sorry to take you away from your photo shoot, Dakota, but a few of us decided our time was better spent here than at Mass.”

“Sidney!” he shouted. “It’s Sister Mary Jacob!”

Sidney came to the front door completely dressed in sweats and sweatshirt, a smile on her face.

“Oh, Sister, what are you doing here?” she asked, reaching out to hug her friend.

“We came to help look for Dakota’s sister,” she said.

Sid looked over the nun’s shoulder to see a large group gathered on the sidewalk in front of the house. Many of the people they usually served dinner with on Saturday evenings were there, plus a few others.

“You are so awesome,” Sid said.

“Then maybe coffee wouldn’t be too great a burden?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “Come in, everyone!”

There were fifteen of them in all—the crew from the soup kitchen and some of them brought along friends or family members. Sister Mary Jacob had rounded them up. Maggie didn’t have enough cups but she did have a decent supply of paper to-go cups, probably so she could caff-up on her way to work for those early, early mornings. It took two full pots just to get them all started.

Dakota, now fully dressed, explained that their routes and routine usually started with an 8:00 a.m. phone call from the private detective on the job and it was almost time for him to call.

“Even on Sunday?” someone asked.

“Even on Sunday,” Dakota said. “I have to find her.” And then he went on to explain what he understood about Sedona’s condition, that she could be in a state of panic or confusion, but he had no way of knowing. But no one, certainly not her family, could imagine her leaving them voluntarily. “We hope and pray she hasn’t been hurt,” he said.

*

Sedona had made a plane reservation and left Maggie’s house in Denver because she knew Maggie would be coming back soon. Maggie was scheduled to work on Tuesday morning and might even be coming to Denver the evening before. She could even bring Cal and the baby if the psychiatrist leaked the news that Sedona left the hospital, though that seemed unlikely since no one had come, the phone never rang and all was quiet. But Sedona had known her period of adjusting was over. She had to leave. She had to go home. She left on Monday afternoon. She had been out of the hospital for four days.

Since her flight wasn’t due to leave for hours, she went to a restaurant for an early dinner. She wanted to prove to herself that she could seem perfectly normal and entirely confident. But it was awful. She was aware of every watermark on a glass, wrinkle in the tablecloth, smear or mark on the flatware, grime on the cashier’s station. And this was a particularly clean establishment.