It didn’t rain on Sunday night, and Laurel’s headache didn’t go away, either. She woke up Monday morning still feeling muzzy and sleep-deprived, with a pounding that could only mean a sinus headache.
She was beginning to think she’d made a really dumb decision coming back here. What did God want her to do in this place, anyway? Half the time she had no idea.
As she lay in bed trying to figure out how to proceed for the day, the phone in the hall rang. It was early enough that Jeremy was still sound asleep, so there was no hope of his answering it.
Laurel couldn’t stand hearing the phone ring without picking it up. She supposed it was still a leftover from her teenage days when the phone never stopped ringing and every call was important to one or another of them. With three girls, a father who ran the sheriff’s department, and a mother who did more volunteer work than two normal women put together, they had actually worn out several of the old black plastic telephones during her childhood.
So when the phone rang a third time and Mr. Sam still hadn’t picked it up, Laurel got out of bed and padded barefoot down the hall to grab the receiver. She didn’t even get her whole formal “Harrison residence” greeting finished before Gina interrupted her.
“Hey, it’s me. You can stop being polite,” she joked.
“You don’t know how much of a relief that is this morning. I’m not in a very polite mood. What are you doing up at the crack of dawn there again?” Laurel asked her friend.
“Real estate, of course. Buying stuff, selling stuff, just wheeling and dealing all over the place. Which is why I called you at this awful hour.”
“It’s not so awful here. After seven, I’m sure.” Laurel tried to rearrange her tousled hair and talk on the phone at the same time. She hoped it looked better than it felt.
“Do you need to run a deal by somebody who has absolutely no understanding of the business?” Laurel’s question wasn’t the joke that it seemed. Gina often explained to Laurel the workings of a transaction and the problems she was having. That way, Gina explained, when she put it in plain language that anyone could understand, she could find the flaws in her own work.
“No, and I don’t even need a prayer partner right this moment. For a change.”
Laurel could hear Gina taking a sip of something and she could imagine a frothy latte in her friend’s favorite mug. For a moment she felt terribly jealous.
“That reminds me,” said Gina, “did all the equipment get there okay?”
“They’re supposed to come out this afternoon and uncrate the espresso machine and several other pieces. It shipped just beautifully, thanks.” Gina had some expertise with moving companies, and she had told Laurel the right ones to use to get her precious coffee equipment to Missouri. So far everything had come through without even a scratch.
“But then, the stuff that’s already in Missouri isn’t my primary concern right now. The stuff that’s in California interests me more.”
“Don’t tell me we had a burglary,” Laurel said, suddenly worried. “I just changed all the password settings on the security system before I left.”
“No, no burglaries. Calm down. But the changed settings were what I called about, in a roundabout way. What would you think of somebody looking at your house, if I can find a way in that doesn’t set off enough alarms for Fort Knox?”
“What do you mean, ‘looking’ at my house? Like, to appraise or something?” They’d talked about the fact that it was likely to go on the market when Laurel got enough time to deal with real estate in two states.
“Not exactly. I’m showing the world’s pickiest client around Westlake. He almost likes everything I’ve shown him, but there’s inevitably something wrong with every place. You know the old song and dance. One is too big, the other one is too small. Sometimes he likes the neighborhood, but not the houses that are for sale. Other times he likes a house, but dislikes the neighborhood. I’m at my wit’s end with this guy.”
“You’ve said that before. And those are usually the people that make you happiest when you’ve found them a house.”
“This is true. I will be overjoyed if this guy buys a house from me. When we did a scouting trip around new neighborhoods last night, nothing that had a For Sale sign in the front yard did anything for him. Naturally.”
There was a sigh on Gina’s end of the phone, then she went on. “Anyway, I finally had Mr. Picky just ride with me and look at the outsides of houses from the passenger seat. And fifteen minutes after we started doing that, he fell in love—”
Somehow Laurel knew where this was leading. It made a pool of uneasiness form in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t tell me.”
“Yes! When he found out there was even the barest possibility that your house could be for sale, he wanted me to call you at that moment and see if he could go inside and look around.”
“But my house isn’t for sale,” Laurel reminded her. “And I’m not positive it’s going to be anytime soon.”
“Really? I thought you were thrilled about being back in Missouri. That you were opening your dream business and settling down in the bosom of your family.”
“Depends on the time of day. And the company I’m keeping.”
“Sheriff acting up on you again?”
“Yeah, he is. Or I’m acting up on him. I’m not sure which it is, really. Yesterday was wonderful and awful at the same time. Do you mind if I spend your money telling you all about it?”
“Go ahead. I’ll take it out of my commission when I sell your house,” Gina said.
Laurel knew her savvy friend was joking. So she didn’t mind bending Gina’s ear for twenty minutes, telling her about Sunday.
“So what do you think?” Laurel asked, once she’d given Gina the whole story.
“I think he’s a guy. A very human, normal guy. And like most guys, he shies away from commitment. Some people get buyers’ remorse when they’ve signed a contract on a house. I see that all the time. A lot of guys get relationship remorse the same way, when the wrong words come out of their mouths.”
“You think that’s it?” Laurel shifted her position on Sam’s hard wooden hall floor. She was going to have to install a cordless phone. Or at least place a small easy chair in the hallway so she wouldn’t have to sit on the floor. It was probably never a problem for Mr. Sam. He was seldom on the phone more than a minute or two.
“I’m not a trained psychologist or anything. But you have to be pretty knowledgeable about people to sell real estate. And this guy just sounds like he ran away with himself a little.”
“I hope you’re right. I never thought I’d say this again, but I would almost like to give this whole relationship thing a chance again.”
“Whoa. That is something different, coming from you. Does this mean I can show Mr. Picky your house, after all?”
Laurel shifted on the hard floor again, and finally stood up to ease the kinks out of her protesting muscles. “Sure, go ahead. It isn’t the right house for just Jeremy and me, even if we came back tomorrow. Which we won’t. Let me give you the new security code so nothing will buzz, beep or yell at you when you open the doors.”
“Fantastic. Now, of course, this means he’ll probably hate the inside on sight, but at least I’ve tried everything.” Gina sounded tired. “Okay, I’ve got my pencil and paper. Give me the numbers.”
Later, while she sipped a latte and pored over figures at the coffee house, Laurel mulled over what to tell Jeremy, and when. She knew he would be upset at the prospect of selling the house. Even the promise that they’d find something in the same general area so he’d still be going to Westlake High with his friends if they moved back wouldn’t make him totally happy.
Right this moment, she wasn’t even sure what would make her happy. After a lifetime of independence in California, coming back home to Missouri wasn’t what she’d fantasized about. Her family had their own lives to live, and she didn’t see any of her sisters all that much. Jeremy wasn’t hanging out with his cousins the way she’d planned because Kyle was too young and Trent had daily football practice that wore him out.
The idea of the coffee house was exciting, and Laurel really felt it was the right thing to do. But would Friedens support it? What if six months from now she had to come to terms with being a colossal failure?
She sighed and leaned back in her creaky wooden chair. She felt so disconnected. California wasn’t home anymore, but it was what she was used to. Missouri wasn’t home, either, and she felt out of place here. When would things feel better?
The wondering started a silent prayer, and soon she was talking to God aloud. There was nobody else here to wonder if she was a little strange. She might as well do what felt natural. “I am so confused,” she told her Father. “If this isn’t what You want me to do, what is it? And what about Tripp? Are we supposed to be together in some way? I think I love him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he loves me in his own strange way. I know I love his daughter. She needs a mother, Lord. And I wouldn’t mind another child at all.”
There was no immediate answer. Laurel wasn’t used to one anyway. Just pouring out all her problems like this made them seem easier to deal with and made her feel less like she was bearing the whole weight of the world on her shoulders.
She looked across the room and noticed that her “thought for the day” calendar was about four days behind. She walked over to the counter where it sat and pulled off the out-of-date sheets. One day at a time, the message seemed to be. That’s all you can do, anyway. Just take it all one day at a time.
It was pretty good advice. Today’s tasks could fit on her plate without overwhelming her. She could sweep the floor and make sure there were enough donated and scrounged supplies to get on with the youth gathering Pastor Ron wanted to hold here for midweek services, instead of doing things at the chapel as usual. Maybe she could even talk Jeremy into coming in and helping by hanging up some of the posters he’d brought. It might be a good way to broach the subject of the move in the least threatening environment. One day, and one task, at a time.
This was positively the last straw. Tripp looked at the block-long Cadillac parked in front of the Town Hall. Neither meter had money in it. Here it was, the busiest time of day for the café, right during the lunch rush, and this monstrosity took up two of their parking spaces! And Sam Harrison wasn’t even inside the café where Tripp could call the matter to his attention.
It was too far away from the coffee house for Laurel to have parked here. She mostly walked downtown to get to the place, anyway. Only when she had something heavy to transport did she use Sam’s car. This had to be Mr. Sam’s work.
Maybe Tripp was just unhappy that he didn’t have an excuse to talk to Laurel right now. He tried to figure out if that was part of the aggravation he felt, or if all of it was directed toward the cantankerous older driver of the gleaming chrome-and-aqua monstrosity in front of him.
Hard to tell. Right now, anybody with the last name of Harrison wasn’t high on his gift list. The car drove him to distraction. Mr. Sam’s ignoring every traffic law ever written made him want to yell. It wasn’t the most serious problem he faced as acting sheriff, but it had to be the most frustrating.
Sam’s parking violations were more annoying than Jeremy’s continuing skateboard tricks on the public library staircase. He was ready to wring the kid’s scrawny neck if he caught him using the handrail for a slide one more time. Lillian Baker would soon have a conniption over all her reports on the Harrison males’ illegal activities.
If he heard one more “Laurel says this” or “Laurel thinks that” from his daughter, he was going to gag. It was great that Ashleigh had a role model. And Laurel made a good one. But given the fact that he was trying to find as much fault as possible with the woman—just to keep from falling in love with her—his daughter’s attachment was problematic.
Right now, he had to stop worrying about the Harrison clan in general, and find one member in particular—or tow this car away.
Just as he was ready to call Verna and have her get Mel and the truck to do the deed, Mr. Sam came out of the bank.
“Now what’s wrong? I’ve only been in there long enough to make one deposit and see that cute little teller’s wedding pictures,” the old man groused.
“Yeah, well, it was long enough for both your meters to run out. If you put money in them to begin with.”
Mr. Sam stood up straight, giving Tripp a great view of a shock of white hair. “Of course I put money in them. You really don’t think much of me as a driver, do you, Mr. Jordan.”
“Is it too much to ask that you at least call me ‘Deputy’? I know your opinion on my replacing Hank and I’m willing to let that part slide. But plain old ‘mister’ doesn’t sit right with me.”
Harrison scowled. “What you’ve done so far to earn any title is beyond me. Somebody could have been in there robbing the bank for all you cared. But no, you had to get all heated up about a couple of nickels for the parking meters. If I put a quarter in each of them, will you be satisfied?”
“Mr. Sam, I won’t be satisfied until you hand me the keys to that junker, or the receipt that shows you sold it to the dump and stopped driving it,” Tripp told him. That bit about bank robbery pushed him over the edge of civility.
“You should live so long.” Sam Harrison glared at him. “Now, if you’ll step aside, I’ll move the car so you’ll stop getting so exercised.”
“If you move it now, I’m going to have to write you a ticket. At least put a nickel in both of those meters first, to prove you mean well.” It probably wasn’t worth egging the old guy on, but Tripp was on a roll.
“Of all the—” Harrison reached into his pants pocket. “I don’t even have any nickels. I’m going to have to put dimes in both of them. I hope you’re happy. And me on a fixed income.”
Tripp didn’t laugh. He even managed not to smile as he stepped aside for Harrison to feed his meters and get into the car. If that old man was on a fixed income, it was fixed so high that it would make Tripp’s pension look like chump change. And right now, after dealing with him, Tripp felt old enough to collect that pension and get out of town while he still had a chance.
There wasn’t any reason to wonder why Hank was recovering from heart surgery. The characters in this town would do in the most patient of men. Tripp shook his head, watching Mr. Sam pull out with a squeal of brakes and head down the street as close to the speed limit as was possible, just to get Tripp’s goat.
Tripp was going to have to send Hank a get well card. Maybe even flowers. His boss couldn’t get back too soon for him.
When he walked into the office, Verna looked up from her desk and clucked. “You must have run into Mr. Sam and Lurlene. It’s the only thing I can think of that would make you look that sour. If you don’t watch it, you’re going to get ulcers.”
“Thanks, Verna. I needed that vote of confidence. Any calls while I was gone?”
“Ashleigh called twice, but it’s been more than forty-five minutes since the last call.”
He walked into his office and dialed his home phone number. It kept ringing until the machine picked up.
“I’m gone again,” he said to Verna, walking back to the front door. “Nobody’s answering there.”
“This just isn’t your day, is it, Tripp.” Verna sighed as he headed out. “She’s probably taking a shower or listening to music loud enough that she can’t hear you. My grandson wears those headphones—”
He closed the door on whatever she was saying next, and strode down the sidewalk. He quickly covered the distance home and climbed the stairs two at a time. Ash not answering the phone just gave him a bad feeling. That feeling didn’t improve when he called upstairs and nobody answered.
The door was locked. Tripp fumbled for his house key and opened it, knowing he was going to find an empty apartment. Sure enough, once inside he saw that the notepad he’d instructed Ash to use when she couldn’t get hold of him was lying neatly on the kitchen table next to a sharpened pencil. Nothing was written on the pad—not even doodles.
He was muttering under his breath now. She’d been so good for quite a while. Why did she pick today to wander around town without letting him know? The child would be grounded, once he found her.
He dialed Pearl’s number quickly, and she picked up on the second ring. They didn’t exchange too many pleasantries before he asked if Ashleigh had called.
“No, she hasn’t. And I haven’t called her today, either. Why, is something wrong?”
“Not yet,” he said to Pearl. No sense worrying her if he didn’t need to.
“Good. She’s been doing so well, I figured it was about time for a slip-up.”
After that comment, he wasn’t going to let her have the satisfaction of telling him she told him so. Tripp said a quick goodbye. Verna was right about the ulcers. If there were too many more days like this in his future, he was going to have to buy stock in some antacid company.
The first place he looked on the way out was the coffee house. He could see Laurel through the window, but she was alone. His pulse was quickening by now. Where was that kid? Maybe she was with Jeremy somewhere. He went back to the front of the sheriff’s department for his vehicle, scanning all the businesses in between, but with no luck. It was all he could do to keep himself from turning on the lights and siren the moment he got into the car.
A quick cruise of downtown didn’t net him anything in the way of sightings of either Jeremy or his missing daughter. Tripp hated to think what his blood pressure was doing by now. On impulse, he pulled up back in front of the apartment building, parking in a fire lane. What was he going to do, give himself a ticket? If he’d held off on Mr. Sam today, he could be generous to himself.
The apartment was still empty. There were no messages on the machine except his own—the one telling Ashleigh from the department that she was in trouble. This time when he went downstairs he went into the coffee house. Laurel looked up and smiled when he came through the door.
“You really ought to keep this door locked,” he grumbled.
“I know. Dad says so, too, but I can’t lock it all the time in broad daylight. I feel caged that way.”
“I’m looking for Ashleigh,” he said, trying to sound calm. “You haven’t seen her, have you?”
“Sure have. She was down here about an hour ago. Said she’d tried to get you at the office. All she wanted was to go to the library, so I told her to have a nice time and that I’d tell you if you checked up on her.”
Now he was ready to explode. “You what? Don’t you know that she’s supposed to talk to me before she goes anywhere? Or, at least, leave a message with Verna, or on the notepad at home? What makes you think you can countermand that?”
“She was only going to the library. I didn’t think that was on the list of forbidden territories.” Half Laurel’s mouth was quirked upward in a smile.
Tripp was still trying to keep from yelling at this irresponsible woman. “Well, it is. Anyplace is on that list, if she doesn’t talk to me first. Period. That kid is grounded but good.”
He was into his car and halfway to the library before he realized he hadn’t even said hello or goodbye to Laurel. But given her major lack of judgment regarding his daughter, he couldn’t say his lack of manners bothered him. If she thought she was getting an apology this time, the woman was wrong.