The annual open house Christmas party got underway as usual around six o’clock. By seven, most of the family was there, and I’d been right about Carrie: they only handed her back to me when she got hungry or started fussing for another reason. All the women in the family took turns holding her, even my oldest niece, Abigail. The two younger girls, Abigail’s sister Hannah and Catherine’s daughter Annie, were deemed too young, but they crowded around Abigail and cooed over the baby. I think they saw her more like a living doll they could play with than anything real and breathing, but it wasn’t like I could complain too much about that, since I kind of saw her as a living doll I could play with, too.
Audrey—Mother’s best friend, Dad’s girlfriend before Mother, and Mrs. Jenkins’s niece—got a little quiet when it was her turn. She held the baby and looked down at her, her expression arrested, and I swear I saw tears glittering in her eyes. She was probably remembering the newborn daughter she’d given up for adoption almost as soon as Darcy was out of the womb, and all those years in-between, before Darcy came back, that she lost.
And Darcy must have realized it, too, because she put her arm around Audrey’s shoulders and smiled at her. Here I am, and it isn’t too late. After a second, Audrey smiled back, and the two of them went back to admiring Carrie together.
“You did good,” Aunt Regina told me, lifting her glass of wine in a toast. It was the second year we’d been sitting here together, during Mother’s open house. Last year, Aunt Regina had told me about the original Carrie—my great-great-great-grandmother Caroline, the mistress of the mansion during the War Between the States, or the Civil War to those of you above the Mason-Dixon Line—and Caroline’s illegitimate son William, the result of an affair with one of the grooms.
And that was when, during last year’s conversation, there had been a knock on the door and Rafe had shown up. I glanced at him now, across the room, where he was sitting with my brother Dix and with Jonathan, Catherine’s husband. “He did most of the work.”
“I’m sure you did your share,” Aunt Regina said. “It takes a lot of practice, making a baby.”
It did.
Anyway, the doorbell rang again. Last year, Dix had been the one to go into the foyer to answer it. This year, it was Bob Satterfield, after a quick glance at his watch and an almost equally quick apology to my mother. Maybe he was expecting Todd, his son.
That might be a little awkward. Todd and I had dated in high school, and as late as a year ago, he’d still wanted me to marry him.
Of course, once I’d married Rafe, that had become a moot point, and the last time I’d had occasion to talk to Todd, it had been almost pleasant and pleasantly normal. But this would be the first time he’d encounter Carrie, and that could potentially prove to be a little more awkward.
However, when the sheriff came back in, he was accompanied by someone I knew, and knew well, but it wasn’t Todd.
My jaw dropped. Not that I was all that surprised to see homicide detective Tamara Grimaldi from the Nashville PD here. We were friends, and so were she and Rafe. She’d been maid of honor at our wedding this summer.
As far as Grimaldi and Dix, they were more than friends, although I wasn’t sure just how much more. Grimaldi had investigated my sister-in-law’s murder in November last year, and she and Dix had struck up a kind of friendship in the aftermath of Sheila’s death. But Dix was still moving through the grieving process, and he had Abigail and Hannah to think about; he wasn’t ready for any kind of new romance yet. Although I had a feeling that when he got to that point, Grimaldi was going to be near the top of the list.
However, that wasn’t why I was gaping. I had seen her wear many things over the year and a bit more I had known her. Her usual business suit and shirt. Capris and a T-shirt for hanging out in Dix’s back yard. A navy blue chiffon dress for my wedding.
I had never seen her wear a spiffy police uniform, complete with cap on her dark, curly hair and shiny brass buttons.
I glanced across the room at Rafe. He looked as thunderstruck as I felt.
Dix, on the other hand, was smiling. I guessed he knew what was coming.
Bob Satterfield cleared his throat. “I thought,” he said, when we were all looking at him, “that tonight might be a good time to tell you the news.”
You’re eloping?
But no. Grimaldi wouldn’t be wearing a uniform for that. And anyway, she was half Bob’s age. Not to mention that he’d been my mother’s gentleman friend for the past couple of years, and they both seemed happy with the situation.
He glanced at Grimaldi. “The detective has accepted the position of police chief of Columbia. She’ll be starting on January second.”
There was a beat of silence. A long beat. My jaw wasn’t the only one that dropped this time. Mother nodded and looked pleased, and Dix was grinning, but other than that, I don’t think any of us had been prepared for, or suspected, the news.
Mother had heard it from Bob, I assumed. Grimaldi must have discussed it with Dix. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
I mean, it was nice that she had, don’t get me wrong. Although I felt maybe just a tiny bit slighted that she hadn’t discussed it with me.
Or with us. Rafe looked as shocked as I did. It took him a second to join the applause.
Bob had offered him the position back when Chief Carter had first left the picture. Rafe had declined. With an emphatic, “Hell, no.” And I didn’t think he’d had a moment’s regret since. I didn’t think he wanted to be chief of police of Columbia. But this had still come as a shock.
It was a good solution, though, once I started thinking about it. I’d been worried about Dix and Grimaldi and how they’d work out an eventual relationship, when she was on the police force in Nashville and he had a law practice—and two kids—in Sweetwater. This would solve that problem. Dix and the girls could stay where they were most comfortable, and Grimaldi could continue to do what she did well, and wouldn’t have to choose between her career and the guy.
“This is great!” I told her when she came to sit next to me.
She gave me a long look. Her eyes are almost as dark as Rafe’s. “You sure?”
“I’m going to miss you.” And now was the first time that thought had crossed my mind. It took my breath away, just a little bit. I pushed through. “But this will give you and Dix a chance to take things slow, while you’re in the same county most of the time.”
She nodded, with that slight awkward look she got on her face every time I said something about her relationship to my brother.
“You’re extremely well qualified, I would think. And you’re somewhat familiar with Maury County. You’ve been down here plenty.”
For my wedding, for Dix, and on numerous occasions when something either she or Rafe was working on in Nashville spilled over down here. Like Sheila’s murder.
Or Rafe’s murder, during those interminable eight hours I’d once thought he was dead.
“And you have a good relationship with Sheriff Satterfield,” I added, blocking that particular trauma out of my mind. I’d still get goose bumps if I thought too hard about it. “That’ll help you get situated, as well as help the people here trust you. They’ve elected him sheriff every four years for a couple of decades by now.”
She nodded. “That’ll be helpful, for sure.”
“Big change for you, I guess. You’ll be doing more desk work and supervising, and less detecting.”
She made a face, but nodded.
“Where are you going to live? Do you have a place?” Not with Dix, surely? Or had they gotten to a point, unbeknownst to me, where she was moving in?
“I’ve rented a place near Darcy,” Grimaldi said. “Until I know whether this is permanent or not.”
It probably wouldn’t be permanent. She was only around thirty, or maybe a year or two older. I couldn’t imagine that she’d be happy being chief of police for Columbia forever. It would probably be pretty boring after what she was used to. But I guess maybe she meant until she knew what would happen with Dix. If things didn’t work out between them, she’d move somewhere else. And if things did work out between them, she’d move in with him and the girls, or they’d find a new house where they could start over, the four of them, without shades of Sheila.
“Did the sheriff pitch this idea to you at Thanksgiving?” I’d noticed them sitting with their heads together a lot.
He had.
“You know,” I said, “he suggested that Rafe should do it first.”
We both glanced at my husband, who was yakking it up with Dix and Jonathan across the room. Someone had given him Carrie to hold, and he was supporting her with one hand and holding a bottle of beer in the other, and was grinning at something Jonathan had said. And for a second, I lost my breath at the sheer beauty of it.
Not just Rafe, although he’s gorgeous. And not just the baby, although she’s gorgeous, too. But the whole beautiful rightness of it. Him, and me, with her. Together. When a year ago, I’d sat right here—in this same chair—and wondered whether I’d ever see him again, or whether I’d lost him altogether.
Grimaldi shook her head. “Hard to imagine a job that’d be less suited for your husband.”
She had that right. I had a hard time imagining Grimaldi working behind a desk. I couldn’t imagine Rafe doing it at all. “The sheriff is talking about retiring. He was feeling Rafe out about being sheriff of Sweetwater, as well.”
Grimaldi arched her brows. I nodded. “I know. Crazy, right? He’d have a better chance of becoming police chief of Columbia. At least that’s only a matter of convincing the city council, or whoever, to hire him. Can you imagine Rafe running for sheriff of Maury County and trying to get people to vote him in?”
Between him and Cletus Johnson, Bob’s current deputy, who’d certainly want Bob’s position when Bob retired, there was absolutely no question who the citizens of Maury County would choose.
“Anyway,” I said, “he turned it all down. In no uncertain terms. He has a job. He likes it. And I can’t imagine anything that would make him want to move back to Sweetwater.”
“Nothing?” Grimaldi’s glance took in Mrs. Jenkins, and Audrey and Darcy, the family Rafe hadn’t known he had. And beyond them, me and the rest of the Martins, and finally Carrie.
“Well…” There were certainly plenty of reasons to make the move down here. With Carrie, our part of East Nashville had lost some of its luster, no question about it. With a baby to worry about, Rafe might even be thinking that a less dangerous job wouldn’t be a bad thing. (Or maybe I was the only one thinking that. He hadn’t said anything about it.) But even if he were, none of that meant that Rafe might be willing to move back to this place where he had so many bad memories. And I couldn’t blame him for that.
Grimaldi didn’t say anything else. Nor did I. We sat next to each other in silence and contemplated the future.