Free Within Striking Distance by Ingrid Weaver Page B

Geez, what was wrong with him?
    Jake forced himself to look around the loft. The space was larger than he’d expected, and mercifully high enough in the center for him to stand upright. Two more dusty trunks were ranged in the angle beneath the eaves on one side. On the other, sheets of plastic draped what appeared to be several old bicycles and two large-wheeled baby carriages. More plastic sheets covered a group of wicker lawn furniture near the back wall.
    His gaze settled on a stack of cardboard boxes on the other side of the packing crate. A few appeared to have been dragged off the top of the pile. He nodded toward them. “Are those yours?”
    “Yes.” Becky stuffed a large piece of pineapple into her mouth, wiped her fingers on her jeans again and went to kneel beside one of the boxes. “I thought I’d try this one next,” she said, ripping the packing tape off the top. “It felt the right weight to have photos.”
    The first few boxes contained Becky’s high-school year-books and grade-school artwork. Others were packed with knickknacks and souvenirs from races. The box with the extra photographs turned out to be at the bottom of the stack.
    Jake decided she hadn’t been exaggerating by much when she’d said her mother had taken a million pictures. Most were still stuffed into the envelopes from the developing company, with the slot for the negatives. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the outer envelope with the date the film had been developed, nor had they been packed in any discernible order. The only way to find what they wanted was to look through each one.
    By mutual agreement, they settled on the floor with their breakfast and the box of photos between them. This was the kind of tedious detail-checking that Jake was accustomed to doing in the course of his work. Yet after the tenth lot of photos, he realized that he couldn’t regard them with the detachment that he should. He was seeing what Becky’s life had been like when she’d been a child. She’d appeared healthy and had plenty of toys, but in the vast majority of shots she’d been alone.
    He didn’t feel pity for her, exactly; it was more of a sadness for what she’d missed. Though it had been annoying at times to share his bedroom and his toys with his brothers, most of the time he’d been grateful for their company. And while his parents had gotten into the occasional argument like any couple, their marriage had been strong. Even after his father had died and times had been tough, Jake had never imagined belonging to any family except the one he had.
    Yet growing up alone with battling parents hadn’t broken Becky’s spirit. She appeared to be a secure and self-confident woman. As she’d told him, she wasn’t afraid to take risks with her heart. Patsy was pretty courageous in that regard, too. As for Becky’s determination, she might have gotten that from Dean…
    If she was Gina, he reminded himself. That was still a big if.
    He tucked in the flap to close one envelope and reached into the box for another. The photographs in this one appeared to have been taken when Becky had been around seven, so they weren’t any use to him, yet he paused to look at them anyway. He could see hints of the adult Becky in her clear, blue eyes and wide, honest smile. She was holding an Easter basket and wearing a yellow dress that had an embroidered white rabbit, complete with a pom-pom tail, on the skirt. In the next picture, the front of the dress was smeared with what looked like chocolate, as was her smile.
    “What?” Becky asked.
    He looked up to find her watching him. He lifted his eyebrows. “What do you mean, what?”
    “You’re smiling. Did you find something?”
    He turned the photo around so she could see it. “For a future model, you didn’t seem too worried about how you looked on camera.”
    She laughed. “My mother was always dressing me up for special occasions, but I was happier in jeans. I still am,” she added, glancing