Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(6)

Adrienne and her brothers were all adopted, which had never been a secret. It wouldn’t have been a secret anyone could have kept, even had her parents been inclined to try. Her father was Jamaican, with skin the deep brown tone of bittersweet chocolate. Her mother had been a WASP, with brown hair and eyes.

Her brothers were Korean, and Adrienne, the family joke was, looked like she’d been born in Brigadoon, with curly, bright red hair, freckles, and deep blue eyes.

In truth, she looked strikingly like her bio-mom, Shannon. That had been a real shock, meeting her and knowing the truth instantly.

Her parents had always been supportive of any curiosity she’d had about her biological parents, but she’d never really had much. Her parents were her parents, and the only set she’d needed. But when her mother passed away, and Adrienne had found old journals she’d kept, chronicling her struggles to get pregnant, her devastation at learning she could not, their arduous journey to adopt, and her mother’s vividly expressed bliss at bringing her new daughter home, Adrienne had suddenly, desperately wanted to meet the woman who had brought her into the world and made her mother so happy.

And now she knew Shannon and Show, and she had grown to love them both. That wasn’t why her father was unhappy that she’d come. He wasn’t jealous or threatened, and he had no cause to be. But he didn’t like what he knew about the life Shannon and Show led, and he didn’t like what he believed Adrienne was giving up to spend any significant time in Missouri.

The world in which Shannon and Show lived—Signal Bend, the Night Horde—was completely different from anything Adrienne had known before, but that was part of the appeal. She’d been brought up in a college town in New York State, a couple of hours from New York City. She’d graduated from Columbia University, living for more than four years in the heart of that city. Her family was international, and she’d begun traveling the world at a young age. Her parents were both academics, so her life had been comfortably middle class from her birth. It had always been a life as big as she’d wanted it to be.

Signal Bend was so different it was almost like a new dimension in time and space. The town was tiny.

Everyone seemed to know everyone and care about what everyone was doing. The Horde seemed to be more in charge than the mayor.

She’d seen the same movie her father had. She knew they’d been into some bad things, or at least illegal things, and that bad things had happened in the town. But while that knowledge made her father worry, it made Adrienne curious. Until recently, Signal Bend had seemed quaint—sleepy, even—and the Horde had been just a bunch of nice guys with a couple of extra helpings of testosterone. Something had changed, though, and she didn’t know enough to know what.

She’d spent a year teaching English in South Korea and then had rattled around Asia on her own for a few months, and since she’d come home, she’d been at loose ends, not sure what she wanted to do with her life. At her father’s encouragement, she’d chosen a degree according to her interests and inclination rather than job prospects, so she had a double major in Fine Arts and English. Most of the jobs available to her with that kind of education were of the intern variety—gopher jobs for no or low pay, intended to get her foot in the door toward a career as a curator or editor or something. That wasn’t what she wanted. At all.

She wanted to take pictures. Of the whole world, writ large and small both.

But since she wasn’t quite sure how to do that and make a living, she’d been kicking around her family house for months, nannying part time, regressing back to her high school stage—and it had been shockingly comfortable. She thought maybe some time in Signal Bend, trying to fix things with Badger and maybe helping Shannon out during her pregnancy, might at least shake her up a little.

Her father, though, saw only backtracking. Hiding from the world. In a place where shootouts happened on Main Street.

One shootout, Papa. Just one.

Finally bestirring herself from the narrow bed, Adrienne dug her slouchy sweater out of her rucksack and, after a quick trip to the bathroom, headed down to the kitchen to see if breakfast, or at least coffee, was possible.

She’d think about Badger later. Maybe.

Coffee was definitely possible. As Adrienne came downstairs and headed down the main hallway, the aroma of brewing or freshly brewed coffee nearly grabbed her by the nose and pulled her forward to the kitchen.

Adrienne really liked their kitchen. She liked the whole house, but the kitchen was her favorite room, all done in a soft yellow and grey, with bright accents of a limey-green color—chartreuse. It was cheerful and tasteful. The cabinets and table were heavy wood and looked old, but the appliances were new. It was kind of a mishmash, but visually it was perfect. Not too staged, not too haphazard. Shannon had an eye.

Shannon was standing at the stove, wearing a black silk robe, her dark red hair clipped into a loose bundle on the back of her head.

“Morning!” Adrienne went straight for the coffee.

Shannon turned with a smile. She was making oatmeal. “Morning, Ade. It’s a nice surprise to have you here already. It was a nice surprise to have you back so soon at all—and maybe to stay longer? That makes me happy.”

After she stirred her four teaspoons of sugar into her coffee, Adrienne went over and kissed Shannon’s cheek. “I’m happy to be here. I just kinda need to…reset, you know? If that’s okay? I guess I have some culture shock or something after Asia. I don’t know. But I needed some distance, so I could figure out my next thing.”