The front door of the house opened.
“I think we’ve been made,” he said. “Ready?”
She looked oddly reluctant to go inside, and he wasn’t all that eager himself.
“I think I should tell you something,” Keely said. She put her hand on his arm, stopped him before he could get out of the car. “The people who love me are hell-bent on setting me up. That’s what the wart thing was about.”
“Wart thing?” He vaguely recalled her friend making mention of something along those lines.
“Lise was bugging me. Wanted to know all about you. I told her you were old and fat and had a wart.”
He had to laugh. “Thanks.”
“Sorry.” She blushed.
“It’s too late for me to grow one,” he said, working to keep things light. “Or get fat and old.”
“That’s okay.” She laughed now, too, and he could see the tension break in her eyes. “I’m just letting you know so that you’ll be prepared. They won’t be content with your being my friend. We’ll just have to be firm about it, and you might have to be a little patient with their pushiness. They’re good people.”
He hoped she was right. A large, rugged-looking man was heading down the steps from the front of the house. Jake and Keely met him halfway and Jake reached out to shake the hand offered to him. The older man’s grip was firm, his gaze level. He wore crisp slacks and a golf shirt, casual yet clean-cut.
“Dad, this is Jake Malloy.”
“Howard Bennett,” he introduced himself. “I want to thank you for being there with our Keely last night when the quake hit. She told us you were a big help to her. Good to meet you.”
“It’s good to meet you, too, but I didn’t really do anything,” Jake responded.
“Just being there was important to her,” Howard argued. “And important to us.”
“We’re so glad to have you here. Roxie, Keely’s mother.” The woman who came up behind Howard Bennett was petite, much slighter than Keely’s tall build. “I’m just thrilled that you’re having dinner with us.”
Both of her parents were regarding him with obvious interest. They both seemed young and physically fit for their age. Roxie Bennett was attractive, her slender face carefully made up, looked younger than her years.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bennett.”
“No, now you just call me Roxie.”
Howard slapped an affable arm around Jake’s back and guided him into the house. It smelled like fried chicken and fresh baked bread inside and his mouth watered just a little. It’d been a long time since he’d had home cooking. A long time since he’d been part of any kind of family gathering.
He looked back for Keely. Her mother seemed to be fussing over her, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying as they entered the house to the sound of a baby’s wail.
A woman walked into the airy foyer of the home, a chubby baby dressed in a sailor suit draped over one shoulder.
“Hi there,” she said over the child’s crying. She jiggled the boy on her shoulder and he quieted to a sobbing hiccup. “Paul, come meet Keely’s friend,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m Sherry, Keely’s brother’s wife.”
She positively beamed at Jake.
A man appeared behind her, another sailor-suited baby in his arms. “I’m Paul.” He shook Jake’s hand while cradling the baby in his other arm. He was tall and bore a striking resemblance to his father.
More people than he could imagine fitting into the house started filling the foyer, all with curious looks at him while calling birthday greetings to Keely. She’d been just about swamped in hugs. He learned that Keely had two brothers, as well as a sister. There were several cousins and friends, with children and spouses.
“Danny, hey, thanks for coming,” Keely was saying as she stepped around him, brushing against him in the press of family and friends. She gave the man who was as big as a linebacker a warm hug, then said, “Where’s Mary?”
“Out back with the kids,” Danny said.
“Mary’s a good friend of mine,” Keely explained. “This is her husband, Danny. He teaches at the high school and coaches football.”
“Now let’s not crowd in here when we’ve got a whole house,” Roxie Bennett said, shooing everyone back into the living room. The furnishings were comfortable, informal cottage-style with lots of florals and checks. Jake went with the flow as they spilled out onto a spacious back deck where he saw at least one person he recognized—Lise Tanner.
“You came! I’m so glad,” Lise welcomed him. “Meet my husband, Tom.”
Premature sparks of silver at his temples, wire-rimmed eyeglasses and a slender frame gave Tom Tanner an academic air. He reached his hand out to grip Jake’s, then turned to Keely. “Happy birthday. Some birthday, eh?”
Keely’s friend Mary, he discovered, was the woman in the flowing purple-patterned summer dress with beads draped around her neck and a couple of kids hanging onto her ankles.
He thought about his own family and old friends, split up about a hundred different ways. He had some stepsiblings from his mother’s later marriages. He wasn’t close to any of them and hadn’t been in touch with old school friends in years. Haven was the kind of place where people grew up and stayed together. It was all foreign to him.
“Sit down, sit down. Now. Tell us about yourself,” Roxie invited as she sat down on a padded redwood chair across from Jake, who found himself shooed to a seat next to Keely. There was a stack of beautifully wrapped birthday gifts on the umbrella-topped outdoor dining table. This crowd wasn’t going to fit around it but he could see that there were plenty of seats, some nice redwood and other extra plastic chairs that had probably been brought out for the occasion. Flowers overflowed from pots and wind chimes hung from poles on the ends of the deck.
Keely had one of the bouncing baby boys on her lap. One of her cousin’s daughters was running laps around a bird feeder in the smoothly cut sloping lawn that stretched to a line of trees. The sun had dipped below the trees and shadows crossed the lawn. A chorus of cicadas beat the crisp, clear air.
“What brings you to Haven?” Roxie prompted when Jake didn’t reply right away.
Keely’s gaze slid from the giggling baby to Jake. She looked gorgeous with a baby, he thought unexpectedly. She also looked extremely curious, waiting for his response.
“Country living,” he came up with. “Peace and quiet.” It was true enough, though not his idea.
That brought a laugh from Keely’s father. “And we greet you with an earthquake and a media frenzy. What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m not working right now.”
“I could help you find some work if you like,” Tom put in. “I work for the town.”
Well, Jake had managed to give the impression that he was out of work and slightly better than a bum. He figured that would help Keely out with the matchmaking problem.
“Tom helps everybody,” Lise put in. “You should see him at Christmas. We hardly even see him because he’s out buying food and presents for the families of everybody who comes through the local shelter.”
“Girls, would you help me in the kitchen?” Roxie asked, and Keely’s sister, sisters-in-law and friends exited, one of them with her arm swung happily around Keely’s shoulders.
The people who love me…Yep, she had a lot of people who loved her, that was clear. He wondered if they were all really as nice as they seemed. Or maybe that was just his suspicious, bitter-cop side coming out.
He found himself hoping they were all as nice as they seemed. The scene before him was like some fantasy family gathering. He didn’t fit in, didn’t belong.
Keely’s mother was no doubt dragging Keely off to point out how unsuitable he was as husband material, bringing along the rest of the women for added support. And he was unsuitable, just not for the reasons Keely’s family knew about. Her friend Mary was the last to go, grabbing up the lap-running three-year-old from the lawn on her way. Another little girl, maybe six, ran behind her. Sherry had left the twin babies with her husband, who looked somewhat pained as he attempted to juggle the two of them.
“You all live around here?” Jake asked Tom and Danny, who were both seated near him.
Danny took another beer out of a big cooler on the deck and offered one to Jake. “We’ve got a place out on Black Hollow Road,” Danny said. “It’d take a forklift for me to get Mary out of Haven. When we have kids, she wants to raise them here, where she grew up.”
“We’re out on Lick Fork,” Tom said. “Just built a new house last year.”
The town manager was doing pretty good, Jake guessed as he opened his beer. Keely’s parents were doing all right, too, judging by the nice home he’d passed through on his way to the deck. It was well-furnished, comfortable, very modern and full of light. Nothing like Keely’s farmhouse, he thought as the men’s conversation turned to the disaster.
“It’s too bad about what happened to the old family farmhouse,” Jake said.
“Hopefully we can salvage something out of it,” Howard said. “It’s a huge loss, in terms of family treasures, but—”
“Maybe Keely can move on now,” Tom said. “We tried to talk her out of living out there when Ray died. I never thought she was safe there by herself. And now, with what she says she found—”
“I went out there today to get something out of my car,” Jake said casually. “My car got hit by a tree in the storm, right before the shock hit. Someone’d been tampering with the site before the police got there. The dirt was freshly turned out behind the house and someone rammed a white pickup truck out of the barn, blew the doors down, nearly ran me over.”
He’d taken careful note of the vehicles in the driveway and parked in the yard when he’d driven up. None of them had been white pickups. Of course, there he went, being paranoid and suspicious again.
“Now that worries me,” Howard said. “I don’t want Keely out there at all.”
“I agree,” another of her brothers—David? Jake couldn’t remember his name—added.
“I’m just wondering who knew about what she found,” Jake said.
“Unfortunately, probably a lot of people,” Tom said. “I heard about it this afternoon from my secretary, who’d had lunch with one of the dispatchers. Of course, she knew it was my sister-in-law in this case, but people talk. They shouldn’t, but they do, and finding a skull in your rose bed is certainly good gossip around here. We don’t get a lot of murders in Haven. But for all we know, might not be human bones. Could just be animal bones.”
“Keely said she saw a human skull.”
“You know she probably took off screaming the second her shovel hit it,” Danny said jokingly. “You know how women are. Could’ve just been another animal digging around since she’d uncovered bones.”
“I still don’t like the sound of this whole thing,” Howard said. “I’d rather Keely was staying here now.”
“I don’t think we need to overreact until we have more information,” Tom said. “Let the police do their job.”
Lise popped her head out of the kitchen. “Tom! Phone.” She spoke over her shoulder to her husband as he headed past her to the phone inside. “Do not give him any money! It’s Jud Peterson again. I’m tired of his freeloading and now he’s tracking you over here, for Pete’s sake. Used to, he’d at least do a half-ass drunken odd job for a few dollars but now he just wants handouts.” Tom was already gone with the phone. She turned to Howard. “Tom is such an easy touch. We’ve got a new house and bills to pay and he’s financing Jud Peterson’s binges. Anyway, dinner’s ready.”
Done venting, she disappeared in a huff.
“Come on, Jake, don’t be shy,” Roxie called from the dining table. “There’s plenty, so eat up,” she went on as Jake lined up where directed and picked up a plate. The crowd filled the dining room and one by one they carried full plates outside. Everyone seemed to talk at once.
“We’ve got spice cake with whipped cream frosting, Keely’s favorite, for dessert,” Roxie said, “and then we’ll open presents.”
“Have you opened that present from Ray?” Lise asked Keely as she sat down next to Jake in one of the plastic chairs.
“No.”
Tom came back out to the deck with his plate, having finished his phone conversation. Jake noticed Lise gave him the cold shoulder when he sat down beside her.
Roxie did a double take. “What present from Ray?”
“It’s nothing,” Keely said. “I found a little box, all wrapped up, with happy birthday written on it, from Ray. I’ll open it when I’m ready. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, honey.” Roxie Bennett’s fork froze over her mashed potatoes for a beat before she went on, turning to Jake. “Keely says you two are just friends.”
Keely didn’t look any happier with this topic. “Mom—”
“Good plan,” Mary quipped to Jake. “She’s shy. You don’t want to scare her off.”
Keely seemed focused on her plate, determined to ignore her family.
“Why don’t you join us at church on Sunday?” Roxie invited Jake. “It’s the Haven Community Church on the main highway west of town.”
“I bet Tom can get you a line on some work,” Lise said. “With the damage in the county, there’s going to be a lot of reconstruction. You look like you could handle a hammer.”
What was he now, a charity project?
“People really don’t need to wait a year after they’re widowed to start dating,” Roxie said. “I keep telling Keely that went out of style a long time ago. It’s fine.”
“Especially since Ray was such a cheating, lying bastard,” Lise added.
Keely’s jaw tightened. “We’re not dating.”
Mary’s head swiveled to her friend. “Then why did you sleep with him?”
Keely went beet-red.
The whole deck went silent. A bird chirped in the woods.
Mary clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God,” she breathed into the charged air. “I really am psychic.”
“That went well.”
Jake backed the car up the dark driveway. Keely didn’t respond for a moment. She felt shy and embarrassed, and the even-keeled way he’d dealt with everything from the earthquake to dinner made her both more attracted and more scared.
“I’m sorry. That was awkward for you. I don’t know what made Mary say that. I never said anything to make her think that. Thank God everyone seemed to take my word for it that she was wrong. She’s not psychic, you know. She does this palm-reading and tarot card thing, mostly at local carnivals, sometimes out of her house, private readings. But even she doesn’t take it seriously. It’s her home business, she calls it.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks. No wonder my family likes you.” How could they help liking him? “They don’t even care that you made it sound as if you were out of work.” Hot, that’s what Mary had called him.
“I tried to help you out,” Jake said, sliding her a grin she could barely make out in the lights from the dash. The night was dark and still. Electricity was back on tonight in most of the county and as they drove, lights twinkled from the occasional farmhouse.
They reached the highway and headed into Haven proper. Businesses were closed except for the small gas station. The community building was dark, whatever emergencies remained being shuttled up for care at the hospital. The peak of the crisis had passed. Haven could return to normal now. The Foodway was dark inside, the lighted sign illuminating the front.
“Thank you,” Keely said as Jake pulled up in front of the store. She gathered up the bag of presents she’d brought back—some new and now desperately needed clothes, some of the homemade candles her sister made, some pottery she’d admired at the fair in Cedar Lakes last year when she’d gone with her mother.
“I could walk up with you, make sure everything’s all right.” Jake regarded her seriously. “I’m worried.”
“You don’t need to be. I’ll be fine.” If she couldn’t even walk into her apartment without someone holding her hand, she was going to have a hard time getting through the rest of her life. “Maybe Tom is right and all I saw were animal bones.”
The intensity in his look didn’t flinch. “I’ll wait out here until I know you’re inside and everything’s okay.”
“Whatever you want to do.” She frowned. “That didn’t come out right. I appreciate your concern. I just don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not a bother. I’m your friend, remember?”
She avoided his gaze by staring at his shoulders in the darkened car. He had very broad shoulders. His arms had felt so good wrapped around her last night when she’d been scared. She couldn’t look at Jake Malloy without him arousing tender, hungry feelings that had no place in her life. He made her think of the type of man she’d wished she’d married. Someone not at all like Ray.
“Then I’m just bothering myself,” she said and pushed the car door open. “Maybe I don’t know how to be your friend.”
Oh, damn. Now she’d gone and said something more stupid than ever.
“Hey—”
“Good night.” She wrestled with her purse, thank God finding her keys immediately, and was in the door and had it shut behind her before Jake could think twice about coming after her. If he was thinking about coming after her. He was probably starting to think she belonged in an asylum the way she ran hot and cold on him.
If she wasn’t confusing him, she was definitely confusing herself.
Night-lights lent enough illumination for her to find the stairs that led to the apartment and antique/consignment shop. She unlocked the apartment and reached for the switch beside the door.
She never knew what hit her.