Kissing Mara, touching Mara was still on his mind. He should maybe take a drive out to the orchard. It was only, he checked his watch, a little after eight. Maybe he could help her put Zeke to sleep, and then after maybe they could take a walk and—
Not gonna happen, Calhoun. The woman might be okay co-parenting with you, but she’s already walked out on you once. Get that through your thick skull.
He pushed thoughts of Mara and her sexy mouth out of his head, grabbed a dart from the holder, and threw. The white-tipped dart hit the board in the lower right quadrant. Not bad. Now if he could just follow that up with another three or four decent throws, he could assure himself he was getting back to normal. He liked normal. He thrived on normal. Normal was everything he had wanted for his life for as long as he could remember. Mara being in town was messing with the normalcy he wanted.
He tossed another dart, and it went wide left.
She was making everything better than normal, and better than normal was dangerous. Better than normal was when she disappeared on him in Nashville. And if she disappeared this time, it wouldn’t be just her he’d miss. There would be Zeke to consider, too.
The three of them had spent a lot of time together over the weekend. A picnic at the lake, an outing to the park and a walk along one of the trails circling the forest near the lake. Things were progressing well. At least, things seemed to be progressing well.
Zeke laughed and giggled when James was around. They built block towers. The little boy had even handed over the purple dinosaur on Sunday afternoon so they could attack the cushions of the porch swing together.
The whole Tyler clan, along with Savannah, was coming to his house for a Fourth of July barbecue later in the week. That was a positive.
“James, just the deputy sheriff I wanted to see.”
James stopped midthrow when Thom, the owner of the Slippery Rock Grill and the town mayor, called to him. He wore his usual summer outfit of khakis and a short-sleeved button-down shirt. The older man took off his straw fedora and ran one hand over his nearly bald head.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Mayor?”
“I heard you had some trouble at Mallard’s last week.”
James shook his head. He’d thought the gossip about Mara’s shoplifting had died down. God, sometimes small towns sucked. “Not really, unless you count their malfunctioning doors a problem.”
Thom put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “CarlaAnn mentioned a shoplifting incident. With Mara Tyler?” Thom whistled low through his teeth. “I thought that girl would have matured by now, like the rest of you.”
“Mara’s just fine.” Better than fine, but he knew Thom didn’t really care about Mara’s mental health or maturity. Despite the minor nuisance of most of Mara’s pranks, Thom had come down hard on the enforcement side. James often wondered if the man would have felt the same if Collin or Levi or one of the twins had been their ringleader. He frowned. “You should check your sources more carefully. Mara works for the security company that is revamping Mallard’s old system and was conducting a security check.”
“Oh.” The older man seemed annoyed at the simple answer.
Not James’s problem. He jostled the darts gently in his hand.
“I also heard you’ve been spending a lot of time at the orchard.”
“Collin and Mara have been friends of mine for a long time. I’m not sure why it’s suddenly hit the grapevine.” He tossed a dart at the board and hit dead center.
Thom leaned in and whispered, “You know how these things can look. Favoritism, old boys’ network, even if one of the ‘boys’ is a woman. If you want to win the election in a few months, you have to be conscious of how all this looks to the outside.”
“How all what looks?” James asked, unable to keep the ice from his tone. He focused his attention on Thom, who shrugged his shoulders and refused to meet his gaze.
“The acting sheriff not conducting an investigation into a shoplifting incident.”
James squeezed his hand around the darts. “There was no incident, and therefore no investigation. As to the election, I am running, and I do plan to be the next sheriff of Wall County. My record is clean and, if anything, my friendship with the entire Tyler family should serve as an indicator that I take my personal relationships just as seriously as I take my professional obligations.”
Thom blinked. “Of course. You wouldn’t be a Calhoun if you didn’t take those things seriously. Your father is one of the best men I know. His legacy—your family legacy—is important to our whole town. We don’t want anything or anyone to tarnish that legacy.”
James put the darts on the table, picked up the glass of water and took a long drink. “Thanks for the tip,” he said, tossing a ten on the table before walking out of the bar.
He had no intention of ruining the legacy his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had worked so hard to build at the sheriff’s department, but he also had no intention of ruining the legacy of his only son. Somehow he would have to find a way to meld those two legacies into a life he was proud of living.
* * *
JAMES SAT ON a three-legged stool at the counter of Guy’s Market. Bud was down at the end helping a couple of fishermen decide between minnows and crawfish for bait. James didn’t recognize the men, but he recognized the type—old ball cap, old jeans, worn tennis shoes. In town for the Fourth of July fireworks, they’d probably begged out of shopping in Springfield with their wives in favor of spending the day in a rented boat, bass fishing for dinner.
Sunlight sparkled off the water. James would have liked to be going out with them. He could have used a few hours of enforced silence with nothing to do but wait for a fish to latch on to his hook. All that nothing would give him the space to think and sort out what he was going to do about Mara.
He couldn’t keep his mind off her, and in his mind she was not the woman who’d walked away from him. Not the woman who had kept his kid from him for more than a year. Nope, he kept skipping right over the difficult part of Mara, straight to thoughts of Mara the siren he remembered from all those weekends they’d spent together.
James shook his head. He had to stop skipping over the hard things and really figure out what he planned to do. And he needed to do it fast, because in a couple of hours, Mara and her entire family would be at his house for a Fourth of July barbecue and fireworks.
Bud finished with the fishermen and returned to James’s end of the counter. “How’s it going, Sheriff?”
“Deputy,” James corrected him, “and it’s going.” Going straight to hell with confusion, but, hey what did that matter? He would know better how to react to Mara if he could convince himself she was playing some kind of game, and that she would get tired of it and leave.
The thing was, though, this didn’t seem like a game. Not that they’d had any deep conversations about her past or his, her future or his, but there was something different. It wasn’t just the more open way she discussed her actions and motivations for keeping Zeke a secret. And it wasn’t just the changes that childbearing had brought to her body. There was a depth to her gaze. In the past, it always felt as if she was just out of his grasp, and maybe just out of the grasp of anyone else. And maybe she’d kept herself separate deliberately all those years ago. But now, she was more present in Slippery Rock.
Bud leaned against the counter. “Deep thoughts for noon on a Thursday,” he said and put a large takeaway cup before James. “Coke, fully leaded.”
“Thanks.” James took a long drink, liking the feel of the carbonation against his throat.
“Need anything else?”
“Club on wheat, extra mustard.” He motioned to the end of the counter where the fishermen had been. “Summer crowds seem to be coming back.”
“Most of ’em have already forgotten about the tornad
o. Tourists have a way of ignoring things like tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes once the news stops running the pictures. That concert Savannah rigged up after, though, that helped, too. Showed people we were still alive down here.” Bud slathered mustard over one side of the bun and began stacking turkey, ham and roast beef on the other. “You want a pickle?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just stuck a big pickle spear in the middle and closed the sandwich. He put it on a paper plate and handed it to James. “Speaking of the tornado, how’s the cleanup at the DeVries place going?”
James shook his head. “It isn’t. Those trees are still there, and the weeds are getting higher. He’s my last stop for this shift. Then I’m off for the night.” James picked up the sandwich and took a big bite.
The bell over the door rang. Jonathan wheeled himself into the shop while Anna held the door for him. His arm was out of the sling, but he must not have gotten clearance to use the crutches yet. James hadn’t spoken to either of his parents since that night at dinner, and he knew that was childish on his part. He should have called to check on them. Jonathan’s reaction to the news about Zeke, to Mara, had stuck in James’s craw, though, and he didn’t want to be the one to make the first move.
Since he was a child, he was always the one who made the first move—who apologized for not making the game-winning touchdown, for being too loud at dinner. For having friends who didn’t meet Jonathan’s idea of perfection. One friend in particular. He’d never minded Collin, Adam, Aiden or Levi, but Mara had always been another story. Despite what she’d done with Zeke, she didn’t deserve the kind of scrutiny and judgment Jonathan tended to dish out. Using her teenage angst and boredom against her as an adult was petty. Intimating that she was responsible for James’s actions on graduation night was insulting.
He’d made his own decision that night, and he’d paid for it—literally—in the form of anonymous donations to the school district’s transportation fund.
Anna wheeled Jonathan to the end of the counter.
“Usual?” Bud asked, looking from James in the middle of the counter to his parents at the other end. He didn’t wait for an answer, just started making two more sandwiches—this time roast beef on rye.
“James,” Jonathan said after a long moment.
“Dad.” James took another bite of his sandwich, then a long drink from the cup.
Anna watched her husband and her son closely but didn’t say anything. James took another bite and slowly chewed.
Let them wait. Sure, it was more childishness, and yeah, it was petty, but he wasn’t in the wrong here. Zeke was his kid. Mara was his friend, despite what she’d done. This was his life, not Jonathan’s and not Anna’s.
Bud put their sandwiches on paper plates and poured two more sodas from the fountain.
Anna looked from Jonathan to James and back again. “Oh, would the two of you stop? You’re both being ridiculous.”
Bud grabbed a rag and began wiping down the sandwich prep area. Taking mental notes to gossip about later, James was sure. Well, it had to get out sooner or later.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, and James swiveled to look at his father. Straight shoulders. Annoyed expression. He hadn’t touched his lunch. James let the words hang in the air for a minute as he sipped his soda and chomped on a chip.
“It is your life, and I shouldn’t have said what I said about—” Jonathan paused “—her.”
His words weren’t a great apology, but they were more than James had ever heard from his father. Maybe there was hope for him, for them, after all.
“I could have been less blunt about the way I told you,” James said, because if Jonathan could give a little, so could he.
James finished his lunch while Bud continued his pretense of cleaning the prep area. His parents remained at the other end of the counter, eating their sandwiches.
“You got rid of the sling,” James commented, not sure what else to say.
“Yesterday. Tomorrow we talk crutches, and then figure out when to schedule the next surgery.”
“Thank goodness,” Anna said. “I was running out of ways to entertain him. Now that he’ll be more mobile, he can find his own pastimes.” She elbowed her husband. Jonathan grinned.
“It was nice, you picking up after me,” Jonathan said.
“Like I haven’t been doing that for the past thirty-five years. This just slowed you down enough to notice.” She turned her attention to James. “If you wanted, you could come by for dinner tonight, before the fireworks.”
“The Tylers are coming to my place for a barbecue. The Walterses will probably show up, too. You should drop by,” James said before he could second-guess the invitation. They had a right to meet their grandson, and it would be nice for Jonathan, especially, to see how much Mara had changed in the time she’d been gone from Slippery Rock.
“We don’t want to intrude,” his mother said. Jonathan said nothing.
“It’s a family dinner. We’re family, right?”
Bud turned at that nugget of information, and James wanted to kick himself. The comment was innocuous enough, at least until Mara started to be seen around town with a baby. Mara, a baby and James’s comment about them all being family would start the tongues wagging for sure. And once they started talking about the present, the past was sure to come up. He’d have to do something about that.
“Can I bring something?” Anna asked, but her attention was focused on Jonathan.
“Just yourselves. Gladys is bringing pie, and I’ve got kabobs ready to go.”
“I’ll bring my potato salad,” she said, excitement evident in her voice.
“Sure, Mom.”
“Steak and chicken?” Jonathan asked.
James nodded. “With fresh peppers and cherry tomatoes and mushrooms.”
Jonathan nodded. He’d finished his sandwich and threw his plate and cup in a nearby trash can. “We’ll bring the potato salad, and maybe some sparklers or something, too. The Fourth is always better with sparklers.”
“We’re watching the big show over the lake after dinner. It’s supposed to start around nine.”
“Sounds like a fun night,” his mother said, and she squeezed Jonathan’s hand in hers.
Jonathan put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter before wheeling himself around to James. He clapped him on the back. “We’ll see you in a few hours, then.”
“I’ll be home anytime after four.”
Anna hugged him as she passed. The bell over the door tinkled as Anna pulled it open for Jonathan to maneuver through. When the two of them were gone, James breathed a sigh of relief. Crossing this hurdle with his family was a good start. If he could keep Jonathan thinking in the present instead of the past, maybe he could keep the rest of the town in the present, too.
“So you and Mara Tyler, hmm?” Bud asked.
“We’re friends, always have been.” Friends didn’t seem like quite the right term to describe his relationship with her, but it was the best he had. They weren’t more than friends, not anymore. They weren’t enemies, either.
Bud whistled. “People are gonna talk about that. Sheriff James Calhoun and rebel Mara Tyler. People are definitely going to talk.”
“I’m not the sheriff,” James reminded Bud.
“Not yet.”
“She isn’t a rebel, either. The six of us were teenagers with too much time on our hands, that’s all.”
Bud nodded. “Sure, sure. For what it’s worth, I always thought those pranks were genius, especially painting Simone’s number on the water tower. That girl was a terror, and her mama never could see it. Still can’t or she wouldn’t have started the talk about Mara being a shoplifter.”
“She wasn’t shoplifting. She was conducting a security check.” James shook his head. He’d had to correct the story only twice this
week, but it was two times too many. Unfortunately, he had no cause to talk to CarlaAnn; it wasn’t as if gossiping was illegal.
“I’ll see if I can’t get that added into the grapevine.”
James watched the older man for a long moment. “I would appreciate that,” he said and handed a twenty over for his lunch.
“Not necessary, Sheriff.” Bud pushed the money back toward James. “I always did like that girl. She had spirit.”
“Still does.”
Bud smiled, and it was the first genuine smile James had seen from the man since before the tornado. He waved at the older man as he left the store.
He’d go see Wilson DeVries about the downed trees in his yard, finish his paperwork, and look over schedules for the rest of the holiday week and still be home before four. The Methodist church bells sounded, signaling the top of the hour. But the clock in the old tower showed eleven as it had for as long as James could remember. Some things never changed.
Maybe adding Zeke into his ordered life, and having a tangible connection to Mara, wouldn’t throw his well-ordered life into a tailspin.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MARA PULLED IN behind James’s Jeep in the driveway of the little lake house. Like so many homes that were built before the engineers dammed the Slippery Rock River to create the lake, it didn’t look like the waterfront homes she’d seen on either coast or even in Chicago. The front porch, which faced the street, was wide, with a porch swing to one side and a larger area behind it for eating. The peaked roof hinted at a second story, and the front door was painted a vibrant green that matched the shutters bracketing the windows. He didn’t keep plants or other decorations on the porch, but a red, white and blue flowered wreath hung on the door.
Probably his mother’s doing. From what Mara remembered, Anna Calhoun was the type to decorate for each season and holiday.
Even without the flowers, the place was inviting. A large maple provided shade, and rosebushes marched in straight lines along the sides of the house.
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