FRIDAY EVENING, JAMES slid the sheriff’s department SUV to a stop on the western side of Water Street. At one time, the street had been shaded by a line of oak, maple and honey locust trees. A few of the trees remained, but there were more stumps than trunks.
From where he stood, he could see the marina, which used to be filled with sport fishing and pontoon boats. These days there were more empty slips at the marina than boats on the water. One section of the marina still had drunken pilings and dock moorings connected by only a few locks. Now that the farmers’ market was nearly rebuilt, maybe a few residents could band together to fix that wrecked section of marina.
A couple of blocks away, his small house overlooked the lake. That section of Water Street had been virtually untouched. It was strange how tornadoes would wreak destruction in one block and leave the next free from damage.
Kind of like how Mara had whipped back into his life. Professionally, nothing had spun out of control—yet. Personally, he wasn’t sure where to start cleaning up the debris.
He could hear the hum of saws and the ring of hammers hitting nails from a few blocks farther down, where volunteers and construction crews worked to repair buildings damaged by the tornado. Days ago the sounds were soothing, reminding him that no matter what happened, his town would survive. Now the sounds grated, and he couldn’t help wondering how much more damage the tornado could do. Mara hadn’t said it, but the tornado had to be part of the reason she’d decided this was the time to come home. To tell him he had a child.
God, he had a kid. James felt completely unprepared for this particular occurrence. A tornado flattening portions of his town? No problem. But Mara and the baby were something else entirely. The impact that would come when people found out about them would ripple everywhere. His work. His friendships. His family.
James got out of the SUV. There were only a few other cars on the street, very little foot traffic to the cafés and tourist shops that would normally be packed on a sunny day in June. Next weekend, fireworks would light up the lake basin, and he hoped the promise of the regular event would bring both locals and tourists to the lake to fill the shore and the marina.
Having things this quiet, despite the ring of hammers and the whir of saws, was just odd. He didn’t like it.
James rolled his shoulders and, taking a deep breath, pushed through the wobbly chain link fence of the house on his call sheet. Wilson DeVries had been a curmudgeonly old man for as long as James could remember. But since the tornado had taken down his maple trees, ruined the roof of his shed and crushed parts of his old fence, he’d been more bad-tempered than ever. James knocked on the screen door of the house.
Through the screen, he could see everything in its place. A line of remote controls sat on the coffee table next to a stack of Rural Missouri and Grit magazines. The floors appeared to be freshly polished, and there was a steaming cup of coffee sitting on the table beside an olive-green recliner that had to be at least thirty years old.
“Coming,” a gravelly voice called from deeper within the house. Then James heard the shuffling of Wilson’s slipper socks against the hardwood floor. The old man wore a white T-shirt with Slippery Rock Sailor, the school mascot, emblazoned on the chest. The few strands of gray hair he had left were combed over the top of his head. When he got closer to the door, he eyed James warily. “You here to arrest me?”
“You done anything that would warrant an arrest lately?” James asked.
Wilson pushed open the screen, which moaned a little in protest, and said, “Not that I can recall. You here for a well-check, then? I’m well enough.”
James walked into the house, put his aviator sunglasses on top of his head and looked around. The rest of the house was just as spotless as the portion of the living room he’d seen from the porch.
“I’m here because your lawn is breaking the town ordinance against nuisance vegetation.” He handed the notice to Wilson, who shoved his hands in his pockets. James put the piece of paper on the entry table beside the door.
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with my yard,” the old man said, a stubborn set to his jaw. “Just mowed it yesterday.”
James glanced behind him. The grass did, indeed, look freshly mown. “The problem isn’t the grass. It’s the two maples you lost in the tornado that are now lying across your yard, along with the foot-long weeds growing up around them.”
The old man rocked back on his heels. “I’ll cut up the trunk and the limbs as I need ’em for firewood this winter.”
“You won’t be able to reach them for the thicket of grass and weeds by winter. They need to go now. You can have the local tree service take care of the cutting for you. They’ll probably even stack the wood nicely in the backyard.”
“I don’t need those yahoos cutting up my trees.” Wilson put his hands behind his back and rocked some more. “Had them trim one of the maples last summer. Ended up looking like a lollipop, and no maple should ever look like that.”
Now the old man was just being stubborn, which James should have expected since he’d already been here twice with warnings that Wilson had summarily ignored. “Your trees are already down, and if you don’t take care of it, you’ll have a family of raccoons or skunks or opossums living there before the Fourth.”
“It’s my yard.”
“Yes, it is, but it’s inside the city limits, so you have to live by the city ordinances. You have fifteen days to dispose of the downed tree, and fix the fence, or the city will have to take action.”
Wilson crossed his arms over his chest and continued to rock. “Ordinances,” he said as if it were the dirtiest word in the English language. “Don’t people know a tornado come through here?”
“Yeah, it did. Nearly a month ago. Most of the other downed trees have been taken care of, and a lot of the buildings downtown are taking shape again. The community has banded together.”
“Not here.”
“Because you stood at your fence with your twenty-gauge on your shoulder, practically daring the volunteer crew to set foot in your yard. I know that’s what you did because I was part of that volunteer crew, and I thought I was going to have to tackle you and your twenty-gauge to keep you from using us as targets.” The thought still gave him chills. James had no qualms about facing off with a shooter bent on destruction, but taking down an old man who still attended high school football games and bought rolls of holiday wrapping paper from whichever class was selling it was another thing entirely. He was trained to use force, but using force against an eighty-year-old man who wanted to prove he could do things on his own felt wrong.
“I wouldn’t’ve shot nobody. I got better aim than that,” he said and pushed his eyebrows together. “I don’t need help to take care of my own affairs.”
“Everybody needs somebody.”
“Well, you ain’t my somebody, and I don’t need you quoting song lyrics as you handcuff me and put me in your squad car.”
James inhaled a steady breath. Eighty years old, James, he reminded himself. Eighty and alone and persnickety. “One, I’m not handcuffing you. I’m handing you a notice to clean up. Two, it’s not a squad car. It’s a squad SUV.”
“You know, your daddy was a better sheriff than you are.”
“Yes, he was.” Jonathan Calhoun was the most respected sheriff Wall County had ever had. He knew the ins and outs of the law, was tough but fair, and never, not a single time, did anything reckless. Somehow James had to find a way to live up to that reputation. “But the tornado put him on the sidelines. I’m what you’ve got.”
“You’re not much,” Wilson said, eyeing James as if he might try some kind of evasive maneuver.
James shook his head and held in a sigh. He knew that all too well. “I’m just the messenger, but I won’t be for long. Read the ordinance and warning. If you want the volunteers back, all you have to do is call.”
He left the house, taking the three narrow steps leading to the cracked concrete walkway in a single bound.
“I’ll clean up when I’m darn good and ready,” Wilson yelled through the open door.
James waved. “As long as you’re darn good and ready within fifteen days, we won’t have a problem,” he said as he got into the department SUV.
He checked his call sheet. Wilson was his last call before his shift was over. The street was still quiet as James pointed the SUV toward the sheriff’s office downtown. Being the interim sheriff came with a lot more paperwork than he was used to as a deputy, but in an area as small as Wall County, it amounted to only an extra hour or so of work. Being single meant no one waiting for him to come home from the office, no domestic schedules. He’d taken to working one of the patrol routes in the morning and using the afternoon to help one volunteer crew or another, then finishing his shift at night. The county commissioners didn’t mind his split shift, and he figured setting himself up as a law enforcement officer who did more than carry a gun would help when the general election came around in the fall.
With Mara back in town, he’d have to pull a regular shift if he had any hope of getting to know his son.
He’d always planned on becoming the next Wall County sheriff, but he hadn’t figured on that happening before he turned thirty. The tornado had changed a lot of things in his town.
James turned off Water Street and onto Oak, then pulled the SUV into one of the department spaces to the side of the Wall County courthouse. This close to downtown, he could smell the freshly cut wood, and the ring of hammers was more a pounding sound.
He waved to the deputies coming on shift as they exited the building, heading to their cruisers or SUVs, then strode through the front door. The sheriff’s office took up most of the three-story building across the street from the courthouse. The tiled vestibule held a few plastic-backed chairs and a small table with out-of-date magazines. Danny Kennedy, who took a desk job the year before, sat behind the bulletproof glass, phone to his ear. He buzzed James into the bullpen filled with cubicles. A couple of deputies heading off shift sat at their desks, finishing paperwork. Despite the late morning hour, the room was quiet.
Jonathan, his father, wheeled himself into the bullpen where the deputies’ desks and cubicles were located. “Patrols are still out from the morning runs. You have some payroll files to go over when you come back on shift as well as the usual paperwork. We’re still trying to figure out who’s behind the street vandalism from before the tornado, but it’s been quiet.”
Jonathan’s leg, broken in three places, stuck out from the wheelchair, and his arm, still in a sling from a separated shoulder, was held close to his chest. His brown hair was a bit longer than usual, but he was clean-shaven, and his gaze was sharp. Deeper lines were etched around his mouth and eyes. He’d be fifty in a couple weeks. Before the tornado he could have passed for forty, but to James he now looked closer to the sixty mark. His injuries had taken a toll.
“You aren’t supposed to be here, Dad.”
Jonathan sat a bit straighter in the wheelchair. “It’s still my office.”
“You’re still on bed rest.”
Jonathan rolled his hazel eyes and shook his head. He wore the county uniform. James had no idea how his mother had managed to get his father into his dress blues. “Only because my surgeon is a worrywart.”
“Technically, she is the head of orthopedics at the best hospital in Springfield. She has a degree from Harvard.” Not that his father cared. He’d done one of these “surprise” inspections of the sheriff’s office so often that James was no longer shocked to see him wheeling his way around the cubicles. James might want his father to be home recuperating, but he also knew he would heal faster, at least mentally, if he came to work from time to time. “Everything quiet?”
“Got another nuisance call about Wilson DeVries’s tree. And the morning patrols thought they saw some illegal fishing on the south side of the lake, but the Fish and Wildlife guys were too late to catch them.”
“I’ll have a couple guys swing by Bud’s. He’ll know if anyone’s been on the lake who shouldn’t.”
“Don’t want to discourage the fishing too much. We still need the Bass Nationals to feel comfortable setting that new tournament here.”
“I don’t think anyone associated with their organization would be illegally poaching walleye or crappie. Probably some city guys down from Springfield or Tulsa.” Together the two men headed down the hall leading to the private offices. James considered telling his father about Zeke but quickly dismissed the idea. He needed to get things straight with Mara first. Jonathan was a man who liked a clear plan of action. “I’m headed to the farmers’ market to work with the volunteers for a while,” James said. “Want me to drive you home first?”
“I managed to get myself here in one piece. I think I can get myself home.” Jonathan paused at the office that used to be his. “Have an appointment with that young doctor on Friday.”
“She’s forty, Dad, not fourteen,” James said, but Jonathan ignored him.
He patted his arm in the gray sling. “If it all checks out, I’ll have the use of both my arms again. Maybe I can get out of this chair and on crutches.”
“It’s going to check out.” James picked up a folder of paperwork from the desk.
“You bored with the quiet yet?” his father asked, and James felt as if he were missing something. Like there was a subtext to the conversation that he wasn’t getting. He didn’t like the feeling.
“I like quiet.” Quiet meant everyone in his town was safe, that things were getting back to normal.
“We all do. Looks like that’s one of the things that hasn’t changed about Slippery Rock. We might have fewer trees, and our marina might still look like a drunk plowed into the docks, but we’re still a quiet town.” Jonathan pushed a button, and the wheelchair motor turned the chair in a half circle. “You eat lunch yet?”
“I’ll pick something up at Bud’s before I hit the market,” he said, his mind turning to the paperwork in the folder. Just needed a few signatures—he could take fifteen minutes for that, then spend the afternoon with the construction crews before finishing his split shift. If he wasn’t exhausted by then, he’d try to go out to the orchard to see Mara. To meet his son.
That would mean a conversation with Collin.
Maybe James would simply call her. James still didn’t know if the rest of the Tylers knew about his connection to the baby.
“You could have dinner at the house,” his father said, and that note was back in his voice. “If you wanted.”
James watched his father closely for a moment. Something wasn’t right. Couldn’t be the baby thing. There was no way he would know. Wrinkles James had never noticed on his father’s face now seemed as if they had been etched there with a marker. The hazel color of his eyes seemed a little less vibrant, his perpetual frown a bit more pronounced. James could have dinner with his parents instead of dealing with the Mara situation. He’d already missed fourteen months of his son’s life. One more evening wouldn’t have a huge impact on the relationship he had yet to build with Zeke. Tomorrow was soon enough to start wearing the dad hat.
“I can make dinner. Six?”
Jonathan nodded, then left. The sound of the wheelchair motor faded down the hallway. James sat behind the desk his mother had picked out when Jonathan was first elected twenty years before. It felt strange to think that in a few months, this could be his office. Jonathan desperately wanted to return to the department, and that was probably what the subtext was about, how the injuries he’d sustained in the tornado prevented his work in law enforcement. Perhaps his regular visits to the station helped him cope with that knowledge. James thought he probably needed a little time to let go of the man he had been before the tornado trapped him in the patrol car under two-and-a-half tons of downed tree.
Pictures of his father and grandfather, who was the sheriff before Jonathan had been elected, hung on the walls. Pictures of James and the football team stood on the shelf under the side window. Everywhere in this room, he was surrounded by his past. Surrounded by his father.
With all the things that didn’t change in Slippery Rock, James was going to make sure having a Calhoun as sheriff was one of them. He could be a father and a cop; his own father had shown him how to fulfill both roles for years.
* * *
SATURDAY MORNING, MARA put the last of her things in the bureau of the bedroom where she’d spent her teenage years. Lavender-checked curtains still hung at the windows, the walls were the same robin’s egg blue and the clouds Granddad had painted on her ceiling were still visible.
The Pack ’n Play in the corner was a new addition, and it seemed to bring the room into the present. She’d never hung posters on her walls, never won any ribbons or trophies to speak of, so the shelves were lined with ceramic figures she’d collected over the years. Some were Christmas ornaments, some from trips the five of them had gone on during summer vacation. She especially liked the owl she’d picked up in a coastal Alabama town the year she turned sixteen. Mara ran her finger over the smooth porcelain, tracing the thin blue, yellow and red stripes and markings. Amanda had come home from that trip with a stuffed dolphin and Collin with driftwood he’d been convinced he could carve into an apple tree sculpture. He’d given up after a week.
James hadn’t called. Realistically, Mara understood that it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since their argument at the B and B and that kiss. It wasn’t as if years had gone by. Still, he’d said he wanted to be involved somehow, and he hadn’t called. Well, she had other things to figure out right now, like how to make her childhood room work for herself and the baby.
She put her hands on her hips, surveying the room. She could use the bureau top as a changing table if she removed the paraphernalia of her teenage self—cheap perfume, an old jewelry box filled with junk and a set of antique brushes she found at an estate sale. She put the items in a box she found in the closet, then folded a soft flannel blanket that could work as a table pad until she found something better.
If she found something better, she reminded herself, as she set a stack of diapers and packages of wipes and powder and diaper cream to one side. For the first time, her professional future wasn’t set. She was here for the next four weeks because of the contract with Mallard’s. After that, there were no new contracts. There could be, but she’d intentionally left her calendar open. Not because she expected to be here for the long term—she held no illusions about Slippery Rock welcoming her back after all this time—but because she’d hoped she might have more than four weeks with her family. With James.
Mara put the suitcase under the bed and hung Zeke’s diaper bag over the rocker in the corner.
If she decided to stay longer than the contract lasted, she would think about getting actual baby furniture.
Downstairs, she found Gran sitting on the sofa with Zeke. The little boy slouched against the overstuffed cushions with two of his favorite toys, a squeaky owl and a board book with bright pictures. Gran pointed to one of the pictures.
“Ball,” she said. Mara leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb to watch. “Ba-a-ll,” she said again, drawing out the syllables. Just as she’d done when Amanda was a baby, Mara remembered.
“Blob-ball,” Zeke said, pointing to the same picture.
“Ball,” Gran corrected him, and Zeke smiled happily.
“Baall,” he repeated, and squeezed the owl. He grabbed the corner of the board page and turned it over to see an oversize moon drawn to look like a wheel of cheese. “M-m-ooo,” he said.
“Moon,” Gran corrected him again, and squeezed the owl as she pushed it gently into his face. Zeke giggled happily and kept turning pages.
“It’s like time turned back fifteen years. You used to read with Amanda like that.”
Zeke scooted off the sofa, and when his little feet hit the hardwood, he curved his toes against the wood as if he could turn his foot into a fist. Then, holding on to the sofa with one hand, he inched his way toward the pile of toys Mara had left on the floor earlier. Stuffed animals and hard plastic dinosaurs tumbled about. He picked a neon purple pterodactyl and the stuffed lemur he usually slept with.
“Blob ball mmmoo,” he said to the toys as he sat in the middle of the pile.
“Some of my favorite memories are baby memories. Amanda as a toddler, your father. I wish I’d had you and Collin as babies, too.” Gran started to get up, but Mara motioned for her to stay and took the chair beside her. She didn’t get to watch Zeke play often enough, and she was going to enjoy the heck out of this particular moment.
No distraction about James or work or what might happen a few weeks down the road. Just her, Gran and Zeke.
“You know, you don’t have to worry about getting a babysitter while you’re here,” Gran said. “You said with Cheryl gone you’d want to find someone. I’m your someone.”
“Gran, you don’t want to take care of him for the next four weeks. What about—” Mara stopped. Did Gran play bridge in town? Have a quilting club? A book club? She wasn’t working at the farmers’ market or the roadside stand this summer—Mara knew that much—but she had no clue how her grandmother spent her days.
“My physical therapy is finished, but your brother insists I’m not strong enough to work the market or help out at the stand. I like canning and jelly making, but a woman needs more in her life than a sweltering kitchen and counters filled with pies. Adding playtime with my great-grandson isn’t a bother.” Her words were matter-of-fact, as most things were with Gran.
She drove Collin crazy with her late night TV-shopping habit, but considering some of the things Mara and Collin had gotten up to in their teens, Mara figured they both deserved anything Gran could dish out now.
“I don’t want to impose,” Mara said. “Staying out here, adding two more mouths to feed, busying up the bathroom and laundry schedules. It’s summer. You should be—I don’t know—having lunches with the church ladies or something.”
Gran rolled her eyes. “Butter Bean, having lunch with the church ladies is worse than sitting in that sanctuary without air-conditioning in the middle of July. You know sooner or later someone is going to keel over in a heat-induced holy moment, but it seems to take forever just for the excitement to hit.” She picked up Zeke’s book and paged through it. “I don’t mind looking after him for you.”
“I can afford help. If someone else is here—”
“You think I can’t do it.” There was hurt in Gran’s voice. “I broke my hip, young lady, not my brain and not my common sense. Caring for a fourteen-month-old doesn’t take a college degree, and there is no age limit.”
Mara blinked. “Of course I think you can do it, but I don’t want to impose on you. Any of you—”
“If you didn’t want to impose, you’d have stayed at the B and B.” Amanda stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Her white-blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her blue eyes glared in Mara’s direction. She wore cutoff jeans, a yellow tank top, mismatched socks and worn Nikes. A flannel shirt was tied around her waist. “You don’t live here, you know.”
“I know that, Amanda.” The last time she’d been home, Amanda had been at least three inches shorter. Now her younger sister was nearly as tall as Mara, and seemed just as angry as Mara had been at her age. “I’m not here to impose.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I asked her to stay,” Gran said, her voice placating. “She’s family.”
Amanda snorted. That got Zeke’s attention. He turned toward the adults and began babbling with the lemur in one hand and the dinosaur in the other.
“I am not changing dirty diapers, and I’m not babysitting for free.” Amanda scowled at the little boy. At least she was acknowledging his presence now. On Friday she had walked into the kitchen, seen them and immediately returned outside. Mara had no idea what to say to make things alright between the two of them.
Before the tornado, Collin had been worried about their little sister. She’d been acting out, rebellious. Mara thought things had changed, but obviously not very much. Not that she could blame Amanda.
When she was turning eighteen, the last thing she would have wanted was a family member to show up at the orchard with a baby in tow.
“Family doesn’t ignore family,” Amanda said, then whirled around. She stomped down the hall and up the stairs.
“Well, I guess Amanda isn’t thrilled that we’re here.”
Gran reached across the space between them and squeezed Mara’s hand. “She’ll soften up. People coming and going is hard on her. It was hard on all three of you, but I think in some ways, it’s worse for her.”
“Why?”
Gran’s smile was watery. “Because, in her experience, people who leave don’t come back. Your parents haven’t been here in years. No calls, no cards. Your grandfather died. You left for college.”
“But—” Mara started to protest, although she knew Gran was right. She’d abandoned her family when she left for college, and she had pushed them further away when she became pregnant. She couldn’t expect Amanda to jump for joy to have her absentee sister show up with a baby on her hip. “Yeah. I did.”
“You’re here now, and none of us blame you for going.” There wasn’t a hint of disdain or censure in Gran’s voice, just more of the no-nonsense that Mara had missed from the moment she left. “So, you’re back, and we’re happy, and I’m your babysitter. No arguments.”
“Gran, you don’t—” Mara stopped herself. Gran never did anything she didn’t want to do. If she wanted to spend time with Zeke, Mara wouldn’t stand in her way. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, while I’m watching Zeke, why don’t you go see if there is anything missing from our cupboards? As long as you’re here, you might as well have a few favorites in the kitchen. If we have everything you need, you could start prepping dinner. I was thinking meat loaf and veggies for tonight.”
“It’s not even noon, why worry about dinner right now? Besides, I’m a guest.” A guest who hadn’t gone willingly into a kitchen in ten years.
“You’re family, and we all share kitchen duties here.”
Mara chuckled. “I totally get it now. You didn’t want us to stay out here because you missed us. You wanted extra time off from the kitchen.”
Gran slid her index finger along her nose and winked. It was her silly way of implying that something said sarcastically was true. “You were always the smart one.”
“Does the cook still get the night off from cleanup?”
Gran nodded.
“Then I’ll check the cabinets and I’ll prep the meat loaf, but only because I don’t want to deal with the aftermath of pots and pans.”
Mara crossed the room, picked up Zeke and placed a noisy kiss on his cheek. The baby chortled and said, “Maa baall.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I love you,” she told him. “Gran’s going to play with you while I search the cabinets, and prep dinner. And then, I’ll make you something quick for lunch. Because I’m Super Mom.” She put him down, and he continued chattering to his toys on the floor. “I have no idea why I just told him that.”
“Because you want him to know you’ll be here. Same reason I used to tell you kids where I’d be when you were in here playing and watching TV.” Gran picked a book off the coffee table and took a seat closer to Zeke. “We’ll be fine. Go.”
Mara watched her son a few more moments. He was happy. Healthy. Gran was happy. Healthy. She glanced up the stairs. She’d figure out a way to reach Amanda, and she would figure out how to share her son with his father. First, though, she had to make a grocery list, and figure out how to create a meat loaf from whatever Gran had in the fridge.
Taking her phone from her pocket, she tapped a few letters and began looking for an easy recipe.