Indivisible (18 page)

The devil wasn’t in the booze. It was in him, driven deep, deeper with every fist, every welt, every searing word that had left his mind as raw as his flesh. And with the blows, the smell of whiskey, the taste of fear in his nose and mouth and lungs.

Lord. Did it ever end?

He had shielded Reba from his fall. But Tia had been there, she’d always been there, in the dark and terror. In the pain. In the shame.

“The worst of it,” Sarge murmured, shuffling in behind him, “is going on, day after day. What for?” He spread his hands, then lowered himself into the other recliner. He smelled like an old coat, pulled from a trunk where it had rested too long.

“I hope you don’t mind being here, Sarge. It means a lot to me.”

“You like to rescue people.”

“I didn’t—”

Sarge held up a hand. “It’s not the first time.”

Jonah waited.

“The first was the night Marty died.”

Sarge had not talked about it before, not to him anyway.

“When I saw your face, a little boy tormented by a twisted man, I knew. In the moment of my failure, I’d been given a second chance.”

“You didn’t fail Marty, Sarge.”

Sarge shook his head. “I wasn’t that different from your old man.”

“You’re different.”

“Hard and immovable. Always proving something. Do you know how it was, being a cook when the others were out there risking their lives? I felt invisible, inconsequential. A poser in uniform.” He raised weary eyes. “But at home I was king.”

Jonah didn’t argue.

“Marty.” He tipped his head, looking wounded. “Marty never made waves, not like the girls. He was sensitive. Smart. Introspective. He had a soft heart, and Ellen wouldn’t let me harden it.”

Billie must not have been so lucky.

Sarge’s lips pressed together, his brows gathering. “She was a good mother, a good wife, better than I deserved.”

“I wish I’d known her.”

Sarge nodded. “She’d have taken you under her wing.”

“Your wings were enough.” Sarge looked up. Their eyes held.

“You did well by me, Sarge. Anything I return is because you gave me the chance to be something.”

“Then remember who you are. And who you never want to be.”

Jonah studied his face, every crag and crevice, every line life had put there. He loved the old man. Throat tight, he nodded.

Still shaking with cold but not allowing her teeth to chatter, Tia thanked Adam Moser for finding and transporting her to and from the firehouse where the guys made way too much of it, insisting she sit in warmed blankets with a hot drink while they wrapped her ankle and berated the cop for not including them in the mission.

“Chief’s call,” Moser said, rubbing it in without knowing.

Now the sooner she got inside, the sooner she would put this whole thing behind her. Using her staff and the officer’s arm, she reached her door, then thanked Moser again with a clear finality. “Please go get warm.”

“Sure you’re all right?”

“Absolutely.”

Her calf and ankle were on fire, and her heart had been quarried. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and curl up like a worm. But when she went inside, Carolyn rose from the chair beside the fire. Mary Carson sat on the settee beside Piper. Her heart thumped. “Bad news?”

“What? No, we’re here for you. And Piper.”

She masked her dismay. “I’m fine. Twisted an ankle. Not my smartest move, but I handled it.” Leaning heavily on the staff, she moved toward the fire to combat the chill that still seemed lodged in her bones.

“You’re half frozen,” Mary Carson said.

Piper jumped up. “I told the chief hours ago that you needed help, but he kept saying you could take care of yourself.”

Jonah should know. “The sprain slowed me down, and then the storm moved in and everything got cold and slippery.” Tia stretched out her hands, one at a time, hating for these two women to see her in the aftermath of a poor decision. She could have shrugged it off with Piper, but Carolyn’s gaze held such concern it hurt. “I’m fine. Really.” Her brow puckered. “I’m sorry you had to come out in this.”

“We came over to help Piper pray,” Mary stated.

“Pray.” Tia turned to the young woman who had blithely rejected the notion.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Her woeful eyes said it hadn’t been enough. “When the chief wouldn’t listen.”

“Prayer was perfect, Piper. See? Here I am.”

“But you’re hurt.”

“Only a sprain.”

“That you should not be up on.” Carolyn braced her by the elbow and led her to the settee.

Piper climbed in next to her, pulling a blanket over them both. “They prayed you wouldn’t be lost or hurt.”

The two things that had driven her into the storm, but she meant it physically. No one knew how soul-sick she’d been. Except Jonah, and he’d told them she could take care of herself. He was also telling her.

“I’m not hurt, Piper. It could have been way worse. A sprain is nothing. Even the firemen let me go.”

The kettle sang, and Carolyn left, then returned from the kitchen, not with tea but a cup of hot lemon and honey. The warmth of another hot drink was welcome, but she really wanted to be alone. These women were breaking her heart.

“God loves you, Tia.” Mary said. “And you too, Piper.”

Piper snuggled in. “Please don’t get lost again.”

Tia leaned her head into Piper’s, but she was lost already, falling, falling into the abyss.

Liz set the carrier onto the stainless steel table, toweled her hands and face and hair, then looked in at the amorphous pups, nearly furless, a flat brown without markings. Slits for eyes, snub noses, rounded ears that would peak in time. They curled together in the carrier, and she lifted them out as one when Lucy entered.

“Oh. Oh, Lizzie.” Lucy peered at them. “They’re so new.”

Liz smiled. “Brand-new. Help me fill droppers to feed them. They’re going to need very special care.”

“Are they from the coyote?”

“Yes.”

“Then you saw the chief.”

“Only long enough to bring you these.”

Lucy beamed. “I’ve never seen anything so precious. Look how they nestle together.”

“Yes,” Liz said.

“Did he mind you taking them?”

“A little.”

She handed one of the pups to Lucy. They fed them with droppers, then she tucked them into one of the kennels she had padded with receiving blankets.

“Will they be warm?”

“There’s a heating pad under the blankets. But we’ll have to feed them every hour for awhile. And stroke them so they eliminate.”

Lucy nodded. “I can do that.”

“They can’t hear or see anything. But they can smell and feel us.”

Lucy raised her hand and laid it over the pups. Softly, softly she stroked them. Liz closed her eyes, overwhelmed by an achingly tender resolve.

Eighteen

One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.

—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

P
iper pushed the heels of her hands into the dough. Something had happened to Tia, something besides getting injured on the mountain, but she wouldn’t discuss it, wouldn’t say why she’d gone as she’d gone. Piper rolled and pressed again. She had slipped into Tia’s room before leaving and seen her looking through a drawer cluttered with empty perfume bottles, filmed and crusted nail polish, children’s bracelets, earrings, lip gloss containers with only a smidgen left around the bottom edge. A princess paper doll with hand-drawn clothes.

“What’s all this?” she’d whispered.

“Reba.” Tia put the drawer aside and pulled the covers over her shoulder.

“I hope you’re staying in bed today.”

Her silence seemed weary beyond words. God may have brought her off the mountain, but not whole. Whatever had driven her into the storm had clung to her all the way back.

Piper sighed, then jumped when the bakery door rattled and swung open. Her eyes spread wide, her mouth even wider. “Sarge!”

A flush burned into his cheeks as he pressed the walker toward her. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m a POW, not a casualty.”

“I’m not surprised; I’m thrilled. You look so much better.” He’d been gone over two weeks, and she’d last seen him writhing in the hospital bed, ranting like a madman.

Sarge scowled. “Stop fawning. Show some pride.”

Piper smiled at Jonah standing behind Sarge. “Back to his old self.”

Sarge wheezed as he shuffled closer, pushing the aluminum walker. “What’s that you’re making?”

“Raisin rolls.” She tried not to sound bored. This was Sarge’s homecoming.

“Jonah said you’ve been making all kinds of concoctions.”

Traitor. “I’ve served only regulation since you gave me back my job.” The escapade with Miles had been on her own time to clean out the pantry. “Tell him.”

“That’s true.”

Sarge made a slow scan of the kitchen. “And you’ve been opening Sundays and all sorts of foolishness.”

“Well, I thought you’d need to pay some bills.”

Sarge pushed through the door to the front of the store like a general inspecting the barracks.

She crossed her arms and frowned at Jonah. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I wanted Sarge to see you at your natural best. He can’t have missed your surprise, and he’ll know his inspection is an accurate picture of the job you’re doing.”

“What if everything was a mess and … and—”

“Only fair for Sarge to see it as it is.”

She raised her hand and bit her index cuticle.

“I cured my officer of that little habit.”

Piper stuck her hand behind her back. “How?”

“I told her to project the confidence necessary to do the job. Have you done your job?”

“You know I have.”

“Then show no weakness under fire.”

Easy for him to say. Last time she saw Sarge face to face, he canned her.

By the time Sarge made it back to the kitchen, he seemed pale. His feet dragged, but she couldn’t tell if it was fatigue or disappointment. He crooked his face up to hers, stared a long moment into her eyes, then said, “Well done, soldier.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Thanks, Sarge.”

“And I guess if you’re all fired to make something different, a daily special won’t sink the place.”

It took a moment to understand. “You mean it?”

“You earned it.”

If she wore buttons, they’d be popping. She looked from Sarge to Jonah. His eyes held a warmth that melted her.

Sarge extended a knobby finger. “But I don’t want you open on Sundays. You need time off.”

Piper nodded. “Okey-dokey.”

“I’ll raise you a dollar an hour since you’re in charge.”

She bit her lower lip as the smile spread on her face. “Where’s Sarge, and what have you done with him?”

Fighting a smile of his own, Sarge turned for the door with a gruff, “Carry on.”

Still smiling at Sarge’s about-face, Jonah went to work. Ruth had a list of things for him to handle before he’d made it three steps inside. Top of the list,
Call the mayor
.

“That color’s nice on you, Ruth.” Her cheeks and neck flushed a deeper pink above the mint green shirt.

“You miss the note about the mayor?”

“I see it.”

“That usually makes you cranky.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to take it out on you.” He moved on to his office. He’d have rather dealt with every one of the petty messages beneath the mayor’s, but he picked up the phone and leaned back in the squeaky chair. “Mayor Buckley, please. Jonah Westfall.”

He waited in proportion to the mayor’s importance. He was head of the council and performed at civic functions, although for the last seven years the city manager, Dave Wolton, had charge of all real business matters.

The mayor came on in a jovial mood. “Jonah. Thanks for getting back so promptly.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, there’s a little matter I’d like to discuss. Have you had breakfast?”

“I have.”

“I’d like to talk in person.”

“I’ll come by your office.”

“No, let’s say … the bridge at Wesley Park.”

The bridge spanned Kicking Horse Creek, which was about twenty feet wide through town. In politics, it wasn’t unusual to discuss sensitive matters where fewer listening ears could hear, but Jonah couldn’t imagine what sensitive matter there was to discuss. “Okay.”

He found the mayor standing on the center of the bridge looking into the creek’s stony depths. His silver hair lifted in the breeze of another clear morning anticipating fall, as the cold snap had started the leaves turning. Deep dimple lines indented on each side of his cap-toothed smile. “You remember when the old bridge got wiped away in that flash flood?”

“I do.” Jonah looked down through the clear rushing water to the gold-flecked stony bed.

“Imagine standing here and having it all torn out beneath you.”

“Luckily no one was on it.”

“Still. Can you just feel it in your feet?”

“I guess I can.” He glanced at the older man, realizing he was making a point.

“I work very hard to promote this community.”

Jonah waited.

“People don’t realize how much goes into that, because it’s all perceptions. You get me?”

“I think so.”

“Perceptions can be swept away in an instant just like that flood ripping out this bridge.”

Jonah had already made the connection.

“It takes time to rebuild. Time and resources, which in a bad economy might not be there at all. As you know, this Pine Crest annexation we’re negotiating will attract a certain type of resident. You’ve seen the homes they’re building, not just within the Pine Crest gates but throughout this valley. The revenue they’ll put into the coffers will pay your salary.”

“Should I be asking for a raise?”

The mayor smiled. “You take that up with Wolton, why don’t you?”

“So what can I do for you?”

The mayor put his hip to the railing. “It’s come to my attention that you’ve encountered a few bizarre animal mutilations.”

“I guess you could call them that.”

“Doesn’t matter what I call them. If word gets out, we’ll have alien abductees cutting crop circles in our meadows, claiming extraterrestrials are performing surgeries on our pets.”

“Only one pair might have been pets.”

“We’ll have PETA breathing down our necks, and trust me, son, it’s no foreplay.”

Son
set his teeth on edge. “Well, I wasn’t planning on making an announcement. But I am looking into it.”

“You get animal rights groups looking this way, they’ll find some endangered mouse that stops folks building and revenue growing—you getting me?”

He got him.

The mayor gave his head a sideways tilt. “Now you know it’s probably a prank, kids putting a scare into folks. Why else leave them where they’ll be found?”

“This is sick stuff, and I can’t see it being kids or a prank. There’s a level of proficiency that concerns me. The kind of thing that could escalate, might already have from wild to domestic animals.”

“Just a couple cats.”

“Cut open and joined.”

“What’s the vet say? You consulted her, didn’t you? At the funeral home?”

Had Morey been his source? “She hasn’t seen it before. It could be cult—”

“Don’t even start. Think the word ‘cult’ is going to further our position? We need this annexation.”

“Why?” Redford had done fine as a little-known secret all these years.

“For growth and continued prosperity.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Politics is a balancing act. A high wire, if you will. Lean too far left or right, take too big a step forward, a treacherous step back …” He paused. “If word gets out about cults and animal sacrifice in our fair community, well, may as well wash the bridge right out from under us.”

“I can’t ignore something that could become a threat to safety.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how many things just …” He spread his hands. “Evaporate. Our jobs, yours and mine, are to balance on that high wire. Your father understood that.”

Jonah stiffened.

“I’m not saying he didn’t lose sight of things at the end. That business went very bad. The town took a hard hit. That’s why we gave you your father’s job. Putting the best face on that whole business.”

“Nothing to do with my qualifications?”

“Sure. Of course you’re qualified. That’s not the point here.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I don’t want anything to cost us this deal. Least of all a few wild animals.” The mayor shifted his weight. “Just leave it alone.”

“You’re asking me to stop doing my job.”
Walk away. Just walk away
.

“I’m telling you to balance this potential situation with the greater good.” Buckley leaned in. “You get me?”

“I’ll consider what you’ve said.”

Mayor Buckley eyed him coolly, then warmth crept into his eyes. “I had reservations about you. But you have the makings of a legend yourself, Jonah. Stan always said so.”

Tia had made it halfway through the morning before the sickening self-pity forced her out of bed. She showered awkwardly, rewrapped her ankle, and limped down the path to the shop. Summer was ending, all but gone since yesterday’s storm had flipped the switch. Even the air felt different.

Autumn was still a good tourist time, with the turning of the aspen and area ski slopes opening. Out-of-state skiers were especially keen on mountain handcrafts. She would incorporate golden aspen and fiery sumac leaves into wax pillars and tie sprigs preserved in glycerin to jars and crocks.

Soon it would be waxed pine cones, juniper and holly accents. The bear and moose and evergreen molds. Hard fingers of desperation strangled her, and when a customer came in, Tia made no move toward her. The woman could decide whether she had anything of value to her.

Apparently, she did. “I’m fascinated with these leaf pillars. But I’m afraid they’ll ignite if I burn the candle.”

“They’re only in the perimeter. The wax at the center melts down, and the flame glows through the leaves. It’s a beautiful effect.”

“And I just love this one with the pebbles and such clear wax. It looks like a creek bed.”

“It’s a new glycerin wax.” She had made that candle before she’d realized the significance of its scripture:
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. Psalm 42:1

Her work had revealed what she had not admitted, even to herself. She was parched, desiccated. The hope that once sustained her had dried up like a creek bed after snowmelt. She could not slake her thirst in it any more than a deer from the rocks.

“I’ll take it,” the stranger said. “It’s so unusual.”

“They’re all originals.”

“Yours?”

Tia nodded.

“You’re quite talented.”

“Thank you.” She wrapped and tied and stickered the purchases. She had told Piper she enjoyed it, but now she hated it with everything in her. How long could her mother expect her to go on?