Laurel didn’t know what to expect when they got back to Friedens. When the SUV stopped in front of Mr. Sam’s house, she thought Tripp would just leave the motor running and tell her goodbye, and maybe thanks for the company. But Ashleigh put a stop to that plan right away.
“Oh, no. You and Grandma won’t let my friends get away with just dropping me off on the street. You make them stop the car, and somebody walks me to the door. Just like you won’t let me go out if somebody honks a horn.”
Tripp cut the engine and turned around toward the back seat. “She’s right on that score. And if it’s proper behavior for a thirteen-year-old’s friends, then it’s proper behavior for us to show her, as well. So who’s walking Laurel to the door?”
Laurel could almost hear the eye rolling that went with the sigh from Ashleigh.
“Honestly. She’s your friend, Dad. Not that I don’t want her to be my friend, too. We need to trade more sheriff stories.”
“Not tonight. There have been enough stories between the two of you. Shall we?”
His expression made Laurel feel a little fluttery. In the streetlight’s dim glow, Tripp looked be-mused. “You don’t have to. But then, if you don’t walk me to the door we’re setting a bad example.” Laurel felt as if she were just running on. “’Bye, Ashleigh. It was nice meeting you. I’ll see you again around town. A lot, I hope.”
“Me, too.”
Laurel got out of the car by herself, stepping down on the curb. She closed the heavy door behind her, wondering if she’d remembered to bring a key. She wasn’t yet used to picking one up when she left Sam’s house. She’d been independent for too long to get used to a new routine right away.
She fumbled in her purse, and was glad to feel the outlines of Mr. Sam’s spare house key. It was hard to miss—attached to a key chain that she hoped was a fake rabbit’s foot.
Tripp walked around the car and stood next to her. “Seriously, I appreciate your help tonight. I know we don’t agree on everything about my daughter. I don’t think we’ll ever agree on much, given what I’ve seen so far today. But it was good to have another point of view.”
They reached the front door quickly. A moth batted around the lone yellow bulb in the porch light. The front curtains were drawn. Someplace in the back of the house, Jeremy and his grandfather were probably watching television together. If she knew them, it would be a show with lots of screeching tires and loud male behavior. Or a ball game.
“I’m glad I came. If nothing else, it made me thankful for having a teenage boy. He may be quite a handful in his own way, but I remember being thirteen too well to want to relive it on a daily basis from a daughter’s perspective.”
“That’s fine with me. As long as I can call you to find out what that perspective is.” Tripp looked serious. “I can, can’t I? Call you, I mean?”
“Sure. Anytime.” Why couldn’t she take her eyes off him? He was still the same aggravating, blustering man that had towed her car away this morning. Was anything so different after spending a day in his company?
Yes, it was. Tripp was still annoying in his own way, but she understood more about him now. She’d seen a concerned father, a trustworthy officer and a very appealing man when he showed her glimpses of his personality. She felt as if she had to say something light to defuse the moment.
“If I’m not here, I’ll be out joyriding in Lurlene.”
“Not likely. You know where I keep the tow truck now.” A hint of teasing had returned to his voice, and somehow it made Laurel more comfortable.
Maybe the feeling of comfort was why she let down her guard for a moment. Paying attention to getting the key in the lock, she didn’t see Tripp leaning toward her until he was so close that she couldn’t have pushed him away.
Not that she would have. The kiss he placed on her lips was warm and electric, just brief enough to be surprising, just long enough to make her want more than she got. Her senses were reeling when he pulled away.
In a husky voice close to her ear, he said, “And Laurel? My name’s Jesse. As in Jesse James Jordan. That’s why Pearl calls me Jay.”
“Oh. And the ‘Tripp’ part?”
“For triple-J. It was as far from Jesse James as I could get. Which is important when you’re in law enforcement.”
She was still tongue-tied. “I guess so. Good night.”
His smile was slow and warm, and made her tingle even more than his kiss had. “Good night.”
She stumbled into the house, her face glowing. Laurel stood in the front hall and fanned herself for a few moments before she found Mr. Sam and Jeremy sharing a bowl of popcorn and a loud discussion over who to root for in a Los Angeles Dodgers–St. Louis Cardinals game tied in the ninth inning.
She was happy the room was dim and that they couldn’t see much of her expression. “Are you guys enjoying this?” she asked.
“The game or the argument?” Sam picked up Buster, who was getting close to the popcorn bowl. “Personally, I’m having a great time with both. And cats don’t eat popcorn, so move on, Buster.”
“This is great. But Grandpa’s team is going to lose even if they are the home team.” Jeremy took another handful of popcorn.
“Nah, McGwire still has an at-bat at the bottom of the inning. You guys are history,” Sam retorted.
Laurel felt as if she glowed like a beacon where Tripp…or did she call him Jesse now…had kissed her. “Well, I’m going to go upstairs and read for a while. See you two in the morning.”
They mumbled good-night, and Laurel went to her bedroom. She opened the windows wide and turned on the box fan in one corner. She knew better than to try to convince Mr. Sam that they needed the air-conditioning.
After years of California weather, Missouri felt uncomfortable to her. Had the summers of her childhood here been this warm and humid, even after dark? She expected so—but that was then, when she was a kid with scabby knees and no knowledge that other places existed that didn’t feel in August like somebody’s sauna.
They were going to have to get Mr. Sam to agree to at least some modern conveniences. Like a portable telephone for example. There were two telephones in the house, one in the kitchen and one in a rounded niche in the upstairs hallway. To call Gina, she would have to drag a chair into the hall and sit there while she told her everything that had happened. It felt awfully exposed, but she knew the guys would be watching their ball game for some time to come.
While Gina’s phone rang, she did a quick mental calculation. It was only eight in the evening in California. Maybe that explained why Gina wasn’t home. Laurel puzzled over what kind of message to leave. What did she tell her best friend? That she had met the most amazing man when he towed away her car? No, better just to ask Gina to call her when she got a chance.
She finished her brief message, changed into her nightgown and stretched out on the bed with her book. Maybe if she lay very still and got interested in the story she was reading, she could convince herself there was a cool breeze blowing in the room.
In the morning, Laurel woke up to the fan blowing cooler air across her body. She had an uncomfortable kink in one arm where she’d rolled over on top of her book after she’d fallen asleep. She felt as if she’d gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, except that she hadn’t even put her feet on the floor yet.
Stretching while sitting on the edge of the bed got some of the knots out of her tired body. Then she padded over to the closet to get her lightweight robe.
It was strange staying in this room without Sam. She’d done it several times since he died, but it never got any easier. There were still reminders in this house of her husband’s boyhood and young adulthood. Even though he’d moved out to go to college over thirty years before, it still felt as if the room were being saved for him. She wondered if there would be a room like that in her house when Jeremy was grown-up.
Of course, she would need to buy a house in Missouri. And today that didn’t sound as appealing as it had for two weeks. She was a little grumpy and out of sorts this morning, and she missed California. Why did she have to long for mountains today?
Laurel knew she was still doing the right thing by staying here in Missouri. When she’d been in California, she’d been terribly homesick for Friedens and the people in the town.
It just wasn’t fair that now that she was here she missed so many things about her adopted state. Even the house that had felt strange to her just days ago now looked pretty good. Especially compared to waking up in this virtual shrine to her late husband.
These feelings, plus the unbearable weather, were going to do her in today.
While she went downstairs to make coffee, she tried to remember all the good things about living in Friedens. She came up with some, but wasn’t sure if there were enough to get her out of her grouchy mood.
A good cup of coffee, was one of the things she missed most of all. Looking around Mr. Sam’s kitchen, she didn’t see any way to produce what she thought of as good coffee. She missed the whir of a grinder grinding dark beans, and the hiss of steam from her espresso machine. Here, people who drank coffee made it from out of a metal can with a grocery store logo and brewed it in an inexpensive plastic drip coffeemaker.
She did the best she could with what was at hand, but Laurel wasn’t very satisfied with the result. Sipping the pallid stuff at Mr. Sam’s kitchen table, she looked out on the backyard. She sighed. There was no hummingbird feeder here, and there were no mountains in the distance.
When the phone rang it startled her. This call would obviously be for Mr. Sam, because it was still before six in California. Nobody she knew would call this early.
“Harrison residence,” she said briskly into the phone.
“Laurel? You don’t sound like you, honey.”
Gina’s voice was the most welcome sound she could imagine. “What are you doing up at this hour. I mean, it’s early enough here. It’s the crack of dawn there.”
“I know. I’ve got a closing later today and I’m nervous about this one. I woke up wanting a cup of your good coffee, and I was intrigued by your message.”
“I woke up wanting a cup of my good coffee, too.” Laurel felt glum. “I wish we both had one.”
“At least, I can trot down the street to grab a decent espresso. You’d have to get work as a barista to ensure quality, I suspect.”
Laurel sighed. “It’s worse than that. Nobody here would even recognize the word barista. I’d have to open a store, espresso maker and all.”
Suddenly, it was as if God touched her lightly on the shoulder. Maybe this chance conversation would be the answer to several problems all at once. “Gina, how busy do you feel like being for the next couple of days?”
Her friend giggled on the other end of the line. “You know me. I hate sitting still. Tell me what you have in mind.”
Tucking her feet up under her still holding her cooling cup of weak coffee, Laurel began to spin out a plan that sounded outrageous even to her. But it just might be a way to get a decent cup of coffee in Friedens, Missouri.
“Okay, what else could go wrong today?” Tripp knew as soon as he asked Verna the question that he’d regret the answer. He’d had Ashleigh with him for barely two days, and nothing had worked out the way he’d expected.
She moped constantly, and everything she owned was still packed in boxes and suitcases. It was as if she truly believed that if she sulked hard enough or pouted long enough, her father and grandmother would give in and let her go back to St. Louis.
Tripp couldn’t remember an occasion when he and Pearl hadn’t stood firm on something major. But being a teenager, Ashleigh could probably remember that one time, somewhere in the distant past, when he and Pearl had dropped the ball. That would now be the standard. Never mind that order had reigned for years.
Ashleigh was the kind of kid who expected the unexpected. Or maybe it was just her age. Tripp remembered being a teen, and he hadn’t ever wanted past behavior to be an indicator of what the future held. Certainly not his own behavior at that age, when he was convinced that he could always do better, or be faster, or get caught less.
His mother’s behavior had always been constant; raising a son alone had made her strict. It was all she could do, married to a man like his dad. He’d show up once in a while, sometimes even work a few weeks and give her money. Occasionally the time without hearing from his dad would stretch into over a year. Those were the times Tripp remembered seeing his mother cry a lot.
He was fifteen before he understood the mail his mother got from the state Department of Corrections. He was never sure if knowing his father was in jail was a blessing or a curse. At least they knew where he was at those times. No more or less money came in than when he had been “missing,” so it wasn’t a greater hardship. And in the neighborhood Tripp grew up in, a relative in jail wasn’t even much of a stigma.
How had he gotten into this blue mood of musing, anyway? he wondered now. Tripp put down his coffee mug and surveyed his office. Verna had given him no answer to his question, preferring to go back to her desk and get to work, instead. She could sense his moods by now, and probably knew this wasn’t a day to hang around and chat.
“I’m going to go check on Ashleigh and pick up the mail,” Tripp said.
“Tell her hello,” Verna said. She told him that every time, which was at least twice a day. Ashleigh was at that awkward stage; too old for a sitter, too young to be left totally alone. That was why leaving her with Pearl would have been best, but Ashleigh had done away with that option. So Tripp looked in on her often, or called, and most days they had lunch together as well. He hoped that soon she’d make some friends around here and he’d have to keep track of her in a wider area.
It wasn’t much more than a block between the department and his building. He picked up the mail scattered below the door slot, and went up the stairs with it. There was more for Ashleigh than there was for him. He recognized Pearl’s handwriting on one envelope, and girlish scrawls on several others—from her friends, he assumed.
Ashleigh wasn’t in the living room when he opened the door. His home still looked like he missed Rose. There wasn’t nearly as much color in his life without her. He could manage the important stuff, like laundry and making sure there were always groceries in the refrigerator. But that was about it. He’d lived in this apartment for nearly a year, and only one picture hung on the walls—Ashleigh’s eighth-grade graduation picture. And even that was put up with tape, still in its greeting card holder.
He didn’t even have to look into his bedroom to know that it could use a feminine touch, too. Though, everything was clean and in relative order, and there were vacuum cleaner tracks on the carpet.
But the whole place had the charm of a military barracks. He had hoped Ashleigh coming to stay with him would change that. So far it hadn’t. She’d complained a little about his lack of style, but hadn’t added her own yet.
Maybe she’d soon feel like she belonged, and would begin to hang up her posters and put her clothes in the closet. When she asked for a bedspread, Tripp would know she was moving in. That was one of those feminine things that made a house a home, wasn’t it? He thought so, because his bed was still covered with nothing but a set of sheets and a navy blue blanket that had seen better days. He made the bed every morning, but there was none of that fussy stuff, like a bed spread, that women put on top of it.
Music was coming from Ashleigh’s bedroom. That was a good sign, because it meant she had actually unpacked her CDs and boom box. He knocked on the door.
“What is it?”
She didn’t sound as sullen as she had yesterday. Maybe they were making progress. “Mail call. And I thought I’d find out if you wanted to go to the café for lunch today.”
“Do they have grilled cheese sandwiches? Remember, I don’t eat things with faces.”
When had that come up? The last time he checked, her favorite foods had been chicken nuggets and pepperoni pizza. Those definitely involved “faces.” He decided it was better not to mention that, and searched his memory of the menu at the Town Hall.
“I believe they have grilled cheese. And I know they have pancakes and omelettes as well. Or do eggs have faces?”
Ashleigh wrinkled her nose. “Dad! Now you’re just teasing me.”
He hadn’t been, but didn’t know how to respond. “Sorry.” It never hurt to apologize to a woman. “Would you like to sit around and open our mail together before we go to lunch?”
“Sure. Most of it, anyway. I want to save the one from Sarah for when I’m alone.”
That seemed fair. Tripp eased his frame onto the hardwood floor of Ashleigh’s bedroom, thinking that a throw rug would be a nice touch in here. Maybe he could ask Laurel to help him out. It would give him a chance to see her again without arresting her or anybody in her family. That would be a change.
He sorted through the envelopes. “This one’s junk. These two are bills. This one, however, looks promising.” It was addressed to him and didn’t have a window in the envelope—always a good sign. If it didn’t say Occupant or Resident and wasn’t obviously a bill, it was unique in Tripp’s mail. However, when Tripp unfolded the business letter—which turned out to be from Gloria—and began to read it, his mood changed abruptly. It seemed her company, Martin Property, had sold this building out from under him.
He stifled language that Laurel had said he shouldn’t use in front of Ash. Maybe it wasn’t all bad. Maybe selling the building didn’t mean what it would in St. Louis: an instant rent increase or even eviction.
So far Friedens had been different. And he couldn’t imagine Gloria letting him down in such a spectacular fashion. He read on, feeling a little more relief with each sentence. The new owners, a company he’d never heard of called Wings & Wheels, Inc., promised no rent increase or tenant eviction. In fact, according to Gloria, the new owner was delighted to have a stable tenant.
All this outfit wanted, apparently, was to turn the bottom floor of the building into a retail store again. That didn’t thrill him, but it could be worse. He could have moved his daughter to Friedens just in time for them to be put out on the street.
“Any good news?” Tripp asked.
Ash leaned over his shoulder. “Grandma misses me. That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“Of course. Maybe we can call her after lunch. And my good news is that we get to stay here another month.”
“Fantastic.” Ashleigh bounced back onto the bed. “Do you think that restaurant down the block uses beef fat for their French fries? I could eat some fries with my grilled cheese. But not if they use nasty old beef fat.”
Another challenge, and it was barely noon. “We’ll see. Find some shoes and let’s head out.” Maybe somebody at the Town Hall would know who the mysterious Wings & Wheels tycoon was. Somebody there usually knew everything worth telling in this town.