Texas Secrets, Lovers' Lies

Chest tight, Zoe sat.

“Can I get you something to drink? Cola? Sweet tea?”

“No, thanks.” Patting the cushion next to her, Zoe tried to smile. “Please. Let’s talk. Tell me what’s been going on with Shayna.”

Mama Bell nodded and hurried over, nearly tripping over her feet in her rush to get to Zoe. Zoe noted the older woman still wore her favorite outfit, sweatpants and a T-shirt with a saying on the front—today’s advertised a restaurant in town—and brightly colored sneakers that tied it all together. Her trademark dangling earrings completed the picture.

“Don’t ever change,” Zoe said impulsively, hugging her. “You look the same as ever.”

“Thanks.” Mama Bell tried to smile. “I’ve even lost a few pounds since Shayna...” Her smile wobbled and she finally gave up and bit her lip instead.

“Tell me.” Zoe touched her arm. “I talked a little to Brock on the drive from the airport. I’d like to hear your take on what was going on with Shayna.”

“That’s just it.” Mama Bell shook her head, sending her silver earrings flying. “I have no idea. When Shayna started acting strange a few months back, I tried to talk to her about it. She got angry at me. Told me to quit trying to poke my nose into her business.”

Zoe blinked. “That doesn’t sound like Shayna.”

“I know.” Again Mama Bell’s large blue eyes welled with tears. “She and I were always so close.”

“So what happened?” Zoe leaned closer. “What made her change?”

“I don’t know.” Mama Bell actually wrung her hands. “She seemed happy enough when she moved in with Brock, but I guess the two of them were having troubles. When I asked her about it, she told me she didn’t want to discuss it.”

“Several months, you said?” Zoe couldn’t imagine. “Why didn’t you call me and let me know?”

“How could I? Shayna made it plain she felt I was being pushy. Calling you just would have made things worse. Shayna even stopped coming to Sunday suppers. To be honest, when she went missing, I didn’t even know.” She hung her head, her rounded shoulders shaking. “I hadn’t talked to my own daughter in over a month.”

Shocked, Zoe didn’t know what to say. Over a month? And Mama Bell hadn’t seen fit to call her? This stung. “I last talked to her two weeks ago,” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “Our usual phone call. She told me she and Brock were engaged.”

“What?” Mama Bell gasped, as though in pain. “How could she have gotten engaged and not even told me?”

Zoe stroked the older woman’s arm to soothe her. “That’s the thing. Brock says they weren’t. He says they never even discussed marriage.” She took a deep breath. “He told me Shayna was moving out.”

This time, Mama Bell moaned. “Oh, Zoe. That’s the other thing. I’ve caught Shayna in quite a few outright falsehoods.”

“Do you think she lied about the wedding?” Zoe could hardly wrap her mind around that.

“She had to.” Mama frowned. “Brock wouldn’t lie. That man’s never done anything but told the truth.” She sighed. “I’m so worried. I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll get through it together,” Zoe said. “What about the police? Have you contacted them?”

“Yes, of course. But since Shayna’s been telling everyone in town that she wanted to leave, their hands are tied. The sheriff did add her to the Missing Person’s Database. Brock let Shayna’s father look through her bank records and there was nothing out of the ordinary. But she hasn’t used her cell phone since she vanished.”

Biting her lip, Zoe tried to think. “And the last time she was seen? Brock said he saw her this past Friday.”

Mama Bell nodded. “She and Cristine went out. The two of them have been doing that a lot lately. Hanging out in bars, dating strange men. I know she’s a grown woman, but I’ve been worried sick.”

Zoe didn’t blame her. None of this sounded at all like the Shayna she knew. “Anything you can tell me about her behavior will help.”

“She was jumpy. Nervous, always looking out the window.”

“Do you think she was on something?”

“I... No.” Mama Bell stood and crossed her arms. “I think she was afraid,” she finally said. “Zoe, she told me what happened to your mother and how you got messed up in it. Even though the man responsible is still in prison, I think she was scared the same thing might happen to her.”

Chapter 2

Ever since Shayna vanished, Brock had felt unsettled. Guilty, too, as if he’d failed her. After all, she’d been living with him. He’d always tried to watch out for her as best as he could. He’d been the person she’d call if she was going to be late home and vice versa.

Even though their relationship hadn’t worked out, he considered himself an honorable man. He’d tried to do right by her, lately more like a friend than a lover, a relationship status on which they’d both agreed.

Though he was understandably worried, he knew Shayna better than most. He didn’t really believe she was missing. Given her new lifestyle, she’d probably met someone and taken off for a little private recreation vacation. This disappearance was so like her—or maybe more like the person she’d become these past few months. He barely even recognized her. Though he’d tried to tell himself it wasn’t his fault, Shayna had completely changed after Brock told her he could never love her the way she deserved to be loved.

To say she’d gone wild would be an understatement. She’d gone from a careful, studious, at-the-library-every-weekend woman into a let’s-do-a-pub-crawl-every-Friday partyer. In addition to dressing like a streetwalker, she’d changed her hair to some spiky, vibrant color not found in nature and caked on the makeup so heavily she was nearly unrecognizable. No matter what happened between them romantically, they’d always been good friends, at least since Zoe had left. These days, they didn’t even have that. He didn’t like the woman she’d become.

Shayna didn’t care what he thought. She and her friend Cristine Haywood had become thick as thieves. Long before announcing her plan to move out, Shayna had taken to vanishing immediately after work on Friday, refusing to answer her cell and finally straggling in late Sunday afternoon, looking as if she’d spent the entire weekend in a drunk tank.

At first he’d worried, but even attempting to broach the subject had made Shayna react with out-of-proportion anger. She’d thrown things, screamed, cursed and generally carried on so loudly he’d figured the neighbors must have thought he beat her.

Finally, he’d simply told her he was there if she needed to talk and left her alone. She was a grown woman, after all. And he wasn’t her keeper.

He figured this disappearance, though much longer than her usual disappearing weekends, was the latest stunt. A means of getting attention. Because if there was one thing Shayna thrived on these days, attention would be it.

He also didn’t believe Cristine when she claimed to have no idea where her new best friend had gone. He’d talked to Mama Bell, and Shayna’s mother had conveyed her own worries over the changes in her daughter’s behavior. Evidently the older woman had grown so concerned that she’d called Zoe Onella. And now even Zoe had returned to town to try to help, though he had no idea why. As far as he could tell, Shayna and Zoe hadn’t been chummy since Zoe took off five years ago.

Zoe was one person he would have preferred to have gone the rest of his life without seeing again. How in the hell she still had the power to make his heart clench, he didn’t understand.

When she’d left, mere weeks before their wedding, his hurt had blossomed into hate. This had sustained him through the dark nights when, more than once, he’d found himself looking into the bottom of a bottle. Gradually, the hate had faded, though the pain had never left him. He’d convinced himself he was over her, tried like hell to make himself forget.

Then he’d seen her striding through the airport, her long-legged beauty taking his breath from him.

That image was still burned on his mind. He knew when he closed his eyes to try to sleep later, he’d only see her impossibly long-lashed brown eyes staring at him as if she didn’t know him. Had he truly been so easy to forget?

“Hey, Brock.” Ted Williams sauntered into the feed store, his red tractor cap turned backward. “Cristine asked me to put these up.” He slid a paper across the counter. “Is it all right if I hang one up in your store?”

A photograph of Shayna stared up at him. Her bright smile and windblown hair proved it had obviously been taken in better times. Brock grabbed the paper and read. “Cristine wants to be in charge of the search?”

Ted shrugged. “No one else is doing anything. Even the police don’t really think she’s disappeared. What could it hurt?”

The bell over the door tinkled, saving him from answering. When he saw who’d come into the feed store, his gut clenched. Marshall Bell, Shayna’s father.

Before Brock could tell Ted to put the paper away, Mr. Bell caught sight of his daughter’s photo. Immediately, he looked ill. All the color leached from his face. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and wiped his hand across his lips. “Brock,” he managed, and then had to clear his throat. “I’d like a word.”

Brock nodded, glancing at Ted, who apparently chose not to take the hint and continued standing there. “Alone?” Brock asked, more to clarify things than anything else.

“Please,” Mr. Bell rasped.

Still Todd didn’t move, as though his feet had grown roots.

“Todd?” Brock prodded him with his elbow. “Do you mind?”

Looking disappointed, Todd finally shuffled away.

“What’s with him?” Mr. Bell grumbled. “Was he one of Shayna’s new boyfriends?” Then, realizing he was talking to the man who’d lived with his daughter, he appeared contrite. “Sorry, son,” he said, squeezing Brock’s shoulder. “No harm meant.”

Grimacing, Brock nodded. He still hadn’t gotten used to people making comments to him about Shayna. Her sudden disappearance made everyone in town think it was all right to say just about anything to the man she’d been cheating on. He could only imagine what kind of remarks they made to her parents.

Mr. Bell looked left and then right. Besides him and Brock, there were three other people in the feed store. Brock’s sister Eve, who worked part-time at the store while attending junior college, Todd, and Anna Perilli, who raised Arabian horses. She was looking at bits and bridles, so she would be all right for a few minutes by herself.

“Come with me,” Brock said, leading Mr. Bell toward his cramped office. The room remained exactly the way it had been when Brock’s father had occupied it, with the exception of a hanging wall calendar that Brock changed out every year.

Once inside, Brock closed the door and indicated a chair across from his at the desk. “Have a seat.”

Sighing heavily, Mr. Bell sat. “I’m worried about my daughter,” he said.

“I understand.” His fingers steepled in front of him, Brock waited to see what else the other man had to say.

“What do you think?” Mr. Bell peered at him with bloodshot eyes. “Do you think our Shayna just ran away?”

Our Shayna. On the verge of telling the truth, Brock hesitated then decided not to. No sense in hurting Shayna’s father any more than he had to. “I honestly don’t know, Mr. Bell.”

“Call me Marshall,” the other man said, surprising Brock. He’d known Mr. Bell his entire life and never addressed him by his first name.

“I’ll try,” he said, meaning it. “Though I might forget. Force of habit. As far as Shayna leaving, I don’t know.” He took a deep breath, aware his next words would probably be a shock. “Marshall, did Shayna tell you that she and I were breaking up? She was planning to move out of the apartment soon.”

Marshall recoiled, clearly stunned. “I suspected that would happen. Do you have any idea where she was planning to live?”

“She was talking about moving in with Cristine,” Brock said, dodging a direct answer. “Those two had gotten to be pretty good friends.”

“Cristine.” The other man’s voice conveyed his disgust. “I wish she and Shayna had never started hanging around together. She’s nothing but a bad influence on my baby girl.”

Again Brock had to bite his tongue. He was of the opinion that Shayna and Cristine egged each other on. Who was the worse influence, he couldn’t tell. He really believed they sort of fed on each other’s energy.

Suddenly, he realized Shayna’s father was eyeing him with suspicion, making him wonder what his expression had inadvertently revealed.

Torn between wanting to laugh or simply shake his head, Brock decided the direct approach would be best. “Despite the fact that our relationship was over and her plans to move out, I bore no malice toward Shayna, I assure you,” he said. “I promise you I had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

Instead of appearing relieved, Mr. Bell narrowed his eyes. “That’s a strange thing for you to say. I never accused you of anything like that.”

“No, you didn’t. But I wanted to set your mind at ease in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” Mr. Bell sighed heavily. With apparent difficulty, he focused on Brock again. “But I know you. I’m certain you’d never do anything to hurt my daughter.”

“Thanks.”

“How are you doing with all this?”

Surprised, Brock shrugged. “I can’t help but think Shayna will be found when she wants to be found.”

Marshall cocked his shorn gray head. “I didn’t mean about that. I’m talking about your former fiancée. Zoe’s back in town. Though I’m not sure why, my wife seems to think if anyone can find Shayna, Zoe can.”

Brock shrugged. “I don’t care either way what Zoe does. That relationship was over long ago.” As far as Zoe being able to find Shayna, anything was possible. Though Shayna had lately made a big effort to prove she didn’t care about anything or anyone, Brock figured maybe Zoe would prove the exception.

“Apparently, the two of them have kept in touch all this time,” Marshall continued. “My wife even thought maybe Shayna took off to go visit Zoe.”

“I see,” Brock said, though he really didn’t. He hadn’t even known Shayna and Zoe still talked to each other these days. Shayna had said Zoe’d been backing away, abandoning her friendship the same way she’d deserted him.

Marshall nodded, his faded brown gaze far away.

Though Brock understood the older man’s concern and worry for his only daughter, his intuition told him that this roundabout conversation wasn’t the entire reason Mr. Bell had come to see him. He checked his watch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get back to work. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

The other man nodded, a muscle in his cheek working. “I’m leaving,” he blurted. “Tomorrow.”

Stunned, Brock wasn’t sure how to respond. “You’re leaving? What do you mean?”

“I’m leaving Mrs. Bell, Anniversary, everything.” He waved his hand vaguely. “All of this is way too painful. I can’t take it anymore.”

“But what about your wife?” Brock sputtered. “She’s already hurting over Shayna’s disappearance. Think about what this will do to her.”

The other man’s face seemed to close in on itself. “I have thought of that, believe me. But I can’t help thinking it will hurt her worse if I stay.”

“Worse? How can it be worse than that? And what about when Shayna comes back? How’s she going to feel when she finds her daddy has taken off?”

“If Shayna comes back,” Marshall said, his voice full of the same weariness revealed by his rounded shoulders and defeated posture. “As to that, I can’t help but feel if she didn’t care enough to say goodbye, what will it matter to her who’s here when she returns? Look after them for me, will you?”

He waved away any comment Brock might have attempted to make. Moving laboriously, as though he’d aged twenty years in the space of minutes, he gave Brock a bleak smile.

“Why are you telling me this?” Brock asked as he followed him to the door.

“Because you care,” Mr. Bell said. “I have to let someone know, and you’re the closest thing I have to a son. As far as I can tell, you might be the only one holding this family together by the time all of this is over.”

Those words haunted him. For the rest of the afternoon, as he loaded pickup trucks with bags of feed, sold bridles and bits, hay and birdseed, Brock tried to figure out what the hell Mr. Bell was thinking. If he did leave, the fallout would be tremendous. Poor Mrs. Bell, who was one of the nicest, kindest women in town. She would be devastated.

And Zoe? She considered the Bells her family. Mr. Bell was the closest thing to a father she’d ever had. How would she take his desertion?

Just like that, the old pain came roaring back. Zoe’d left him, and he’d foolishly believed he’d recovered. Now he realized what he’d done was survive, nothing more. And despite the fact that his and Shayna’s relationship hadn’t worked out, he didn’t understand how she could do the exact same thing. To him or to her family. And now this. Marshall Bell was beating a fast track out of town.

Wherever she’d gone, Shayna needed to come home now. If she didn’t, she might return to Anniversary some day and find she had nothing left to come back for.

The rest of the afternoon dragged. After finally turning the Open sign to Closed, Brock locked up the feed store and tried to decide whether he wanted to grab some fast food for dinner or cook something himself.

Or he could make another trip to the sheriff’s office and see if there was anything else they could do to help find Shayna. He’d been there several times already, as had Mama Bell. He’d learned that adults have the right to leave without telling anyone where they are going, who they are with or why they left. According to Roger Giles, the sheriff, without evidence of foul play, they had to balance the missing person’s legal right to do what they liked and the family’s natural desire to make sure their loved one was all right.

In other words, the information would sit in a file and, beyond the occasional phone call to see if Shayna had come home, little else would be done.

While Brock didn’t like it, he could see Roger’s point.

More weary than he’d been in ages, he decided he’d figure something out on the drive home.

Instead, he found himself turning onto the Bells’ street. As he coasted to a stop in front of the neat ranch-style house, he debated whether he really wanted to go inside. Not only was Mr. Bell’s secret weighing him down, but he wasn’t sure he was up to seeing Zoe again.

The decision was taken from him when the front door opened—Mrs. Bell, heading to the mailbox to get the day’s mail. The instant she caught sight of him, she smiled and waved.

“Brock! What are you doing sitting in your truck? Come on inside. I was just about to cook up some of my famous fried chicken.” Her smile wavered slightly. “Who knows, maybe Shayna will smell it and decide to come home.”

Despite himself, his mouth watered and his stomach growled. Mrs. Bell was known all around town for her chicken. It was the best he’d ever had.

Any reservations he might have had vanished, just like that. His stomach won out. He cut the engine and pocketed the keys.

Retrieving her mail, Mrs. Bell chattered all the way up the sidewalk. Apparently, Mr. Bell hadn’t yet told his wife of his plans to leave. Brock wondered if he would.

He held the door open so Mrs. Bell could go inside.

Zoe glanced up as they entered the room. Surprise flashed across her face when she saw Brock, but almost immediately she schooled her features into an expression of polite interest. “Brock,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I stopped by after work to check on ya’ll, and Mrs. Bell invited me to dinner.” He kept his response equally civil. “When she mentioned she was making her chicken, I couldn’t pass it up.”

“Oh, look at this!” Mrs. Bell held up a flyer, passing it to Brock. “Looks like Cristine is having a get-together tomorrow over at the high school.”

Brock nodded, reading the leaflet quickly. Maybe if he kept himself busy while he was here, not only would he not have to wonder if Shayna had left because of him, but he also wouldn’t have to look at Zoe and wonder what might have been.

“A get-together?” Zoe’s voice jolted him out of his thoughts. “Why on earth—”

“Wrong choice of words,” Mrs. Bell said, lifting one shoulder in apology. “Cristine is calling a meeting to organize a search for our Shayna. Even if she took off on her own, maybe Cristine can help locate her.”

Closing her mouth, Zoe nodded. To Brock’s surprise, she glanced at him, almost as if seeking his opinion. The instant her vibrant brown eyes met his, he felt a slow burn begin in his blood. Did she feel it, too? How could she not?

But her glance flitted away almost as quickly, and he knew he’d been wrong. Zoe didn’t feel anything for him. She never had.

“Are you going?” Mrs. Bell asked, taking the flyer from him and passing it to Zoe.

“We’ll go,” Brock found himself saying, replying for both of them even though he had no right.

“Of course, we’ll go,” Zoe interjected. “We all want to help find Shayna as quickly as possible.”

Since there was nothing Brock could add to that, he nodded.

“Well, I’d better get busy frying up some chicken.” Mrs. Bell headed toward the kitchen.

“I’ll help,” Zoe said, letting the flyer flutter to the floor as she jumped to her feet. She hurried away, leaving him alone in the oak-paneled living room.

He picked up the flyer and read it again. While he’d never really liked Cristine, he found it commendable that she cared enough about her friend to do something to try to find her. The skeptical part of him wondered if Cristine just missed having someone to party with, but in truth, her motives didn’t matter. Finding Shayna was what mattered. Even if she had just climbed onto the back of some guy’s motorcycle, she needed to understand the worry she’d caused her family.

Again, he questioned how it could be that Shayna hadn’t at least told Cristine where she was going. The two women had been best friends, so close that Shayna had planned to move in with her.

The thought twisted his gut. This one little fact, his belief that Shayna would have clued Cristine in, worried him more than anything else.

Glancing again at Zoe, he couldn’t help but wonder how she and Cristine would get along. Both women thought of themselves as Shayna’s best friend. They couldn’t be more dissimilar, except for the fact that they both loved her.

Cocking his head, he listened to low murmur of voices as Zoe and Mrs. Bell talked in the kitchen. The sound brought back old memories. As teens and young adults, he and Zoe and Shayna had spent a good bit of their time hanging out at the Bells’ house. Partly because of Mama Bell’s amazing cooking, and partly because the place always felt warm and welcoming, Brock had come to consider it his second home.

As nostalgia filled him, he grimaced. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed those days. Or that part of them, at least. He was over the Zoe part. Completely.

A few minutes later, he heard the sizzle of the frying pan, and then the heavenly smell of Mama Bell’s fried chicken filled the air.

On cue, his stomach growled, making him grimace at himself. Suddenly the delectable fried chicken had become a gateway to a past he’d put behind him. Life had been...good. He had a routine, a rhythmic sameness to his days that felt soothing, and maybe just the tiniest bit boring.

Not anymore. Now that very same peaceful existence had been turned on its ear. He didn’t like change. Never had. But starting with Shayna’s abrupt disappearance, his ordinary life had been thrown into upheaval. He’d tried searching for her, just as he had for Zoe when she’d left. Both times, he’d found nothing but heartache.

Now Zoe was here. Zoe, whom he’d loved more than life itself.

And, though she had no idea, he owed her. It had been because of her prodding that he’d gone to broadcast school after graduating high school, because of her bugging him that he’d applied for an internship at a radio station in one of the largest markets in the country. He’d been accepted right after she abandoned him before their wedding. Of course, fate had other ideas. As he’d been packing to move to New York City, his father had suffered a massive heart attack and died, leaving Brock to pick up the pieces. Someone had to run the feed store and take care of his younger sister Eve, who’d only been thirteen at the time.