by Tina Leonard
“If ever cookies were needed, I’d say now is the time.” Fiona looked at Cat with some concern. “Honey, does your daddy know where you are?”
“Yes,” she said with a grave shake of her head. “I’m supposed to check on him while Dad’s at the courthouse.”
Fiona looked at Shaman. “Jonas brought Sam because he said you needed a crack lawyer. Kendall sent her team, and Gage said the place was crawling with so many lawyers it put his teeth on edge. He said you were so lawyered up no one would ever suspect you were just a poor cowboy. I hitched a ride so I could bring you and Tempest a baby gift.” She seated herself on the long bench, and smiled as Cat took a pink-sprinkled cookie.
“Good thing I’m a model child,” Cat said.
Fiona laughed. “True.” She handed a small blue-polka-dotted bag to Tempest. “These are for the babies.”
She smiled back. “Thank you so much.”
Fiona looked at Shaman. “You’ll recognize this, I feel certain.”
Tempest pulled two pairs of tiny knitted sky-blue baby booties from the bag, and then two knitted baby blankets in beautiful blue-and-white mixed yarns. “Fiona, they’re lovely! Did you knit these yourself?”
“I did.” She smiled with delight at Shaman. “I did a much better job after your husband showed me where I was going wrong with my knitting.”
Tempest looked at him. “Knitting?”
He shrugged. “It’s peaceful. Isn’t it, Fiona?”
She laughed. “When I’m not dropping stitches.”
He took a baby blanket from Tempest, examining it carefully. “Thank you, Fiona. The boys are going to love your gifts.”
Shaman looked up as an elderly, square-set woman walked into the cell. “Welcome,” he said. “Join the knitting club.”
“I’m Ellen Dowdy,” she replied. “Quite a ruckus you’re causing out there,” she told Shaman.
“Ms. Dowdy,” Tempest said, “I’d like to introduce you to my husband, Shaman, my niece, Cat Phillips, and Fiona Callahan of Rancho Diablo in Diablo.”
Ellen nodded. “Good to meet everyone. Heard your house burned, Zola. I should say I’m real sorry to hear it, but I’m not. Unlike other folks in this town who wanted to make a shrine of it, I thought it was a roach motel that should have been knocked over years ago. I hope you’re not sad about it.”
“No, ma’am, I can’t say that I am,” she said, and Shaman took her hand in his.
“Well, I hope you’ll be staying in Tempest, anyway.” Ellen looked at the knitted booties and blankets in Tempest’s lap. “We have knitting and sewing circles here, and we have a position open at the library for a storyteller if you’re still of a mind to read to our kids.” She squared her jaw at everyone in the room. “There’s also need for a drama teacher at the elementary school, which I am certain you have the appropriate résumé and experience to handle.”
“Really?” Tempest said. “I would love that!”
Ellen nodded. “I hope you’ll plan on staying here. Goodbye,” she said politely to the cell at large, then disappeared, her soft-soled shoes making no noise on the concrete floor.
“Wow, Aunt Tempest,” Cat said. “You’re going to be famous in Tempest.”
She smiled. “I wonder what made her change her mind?”
“Oh, folks with that much age and spice in them generally come to the right decision in due time,” Fiona said, and Shaman chuckled.
“Congratulations.” He squeezed Tempest’s fingers.
“You guys can’t stay in here forever,” Deputy Keene said. “Sheriff Nance’ll be annoyed that this place is becoming a regular meet-n-greet.” He glanced at the plate of cookies in Fiona’s lap, which she offered to him. After a moment, he snatched two, muttering, “Ten more minutes can’t hurt anything,” and trundled back down the hall.
“I suppose I should go,” Fiona said. “Cat, let’s you and I go see if Uncle Sam has managed to spring Shaman from his misdeeds.” She shook her head at him. “One would think a house that decrepit would have fallen down with a good puff of wind. Sorry, Tempest, no insult to your home.”
“None taken,” she said quickly. “Goodbye, Fiona. Thank you for the cookies and the lovely gifts.”
Fiona flopped a hand at them and disappeared. Cat followed after flinging her arms around both of them for a hug, then hurried to follow her nana.
Tempest leaned her head against Shaman’s shoulder and sighed. “Why are you protecting me?”
He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her against him. It felt like home. Everything about Tempest felt like the home he’d always been searching for. “I always will,” he said. “I promised to love, honor and protect you, and you promised to love, honor and obey me. I believe you emphasized obedience.”
“Nice try, but I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” Shaman said, smiling. “I can compromise on the obeying part. But I’m always going to protect you, and my children.”
“You may be in jail a long time,” Tempest said. “I guess the boys and I can bring you meals on occasion.”
“I ate MREs for years. I can handle Sheriff Nance’s grub.”
She looked at him. “I’m going to tell Sheriff Nance the truth, Shaman. I’m going to tell him you didn’t do it.”
“He won’t believe you,” Shaman said. “You just take care of my sons.”
“But you didn’t do it.”
“That’s true,” Shaman said, “but I can’t have the mother of my children in jail. I’d say it’d be pretty hard to feed those hungry boys of mine if you’re in here.”
She sat up, staring at him. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you think I set the fire?”
He looked at her. “The sheriff seemed to think so. You’d left the bungalow, so—”
She shook her head. “Shaman, I went to the house. I walked down memory lane. But I didn’t burn it down.”
He considered that. “Bobby told the sheriff he saw your car at the house. He said you went inside.”
“Because I did. But I promise I didn’t commit arson.”
Shaman studied her for a long moment, seeing truth in her blue eyes. Then it hit him. “Holy crap, Tempest. You’ve been set up. Bobby wants you to go to jail because he wants to see you suffer.”
“Yeah. He had a great plan. But you took the fall.” She shook her head at him. “You’re my hero, but you’re going to have to figure out that I really can take care of myself.”
She put her hand in his and Shaman felt hope flare to life inside him. “I know you can. Believe me, I know it.” He let out a long, deep breath. “Bobby’s got us in a heckuva bind. I confessed, and if I rescind my confession, you’re going to jail because we can’t prove that Bobby did it. And he did, or he wouldn’t have covered his tracks by telling the sheriff he saw you out there.”
“He was in the house when I was there,” Tempest said, with sudden realization. “I noticed a pack of cigarettes on the counter.”
Shaman remembered getting broadsided with the pipe, remembered what Xav looked like in ICU. Tight, fierce anger washed over him as he thought of what could have happened to Tempest if Bobby had decided to take his fury out on her.
“You just stay close to me until this is over,” he said. “I’m gonna crush Bobby like a bug if I ever see him.”
“I’ll help you.”
She didn’t say anything else, but she snuggled a little closer to him. And it filled his heart with hope.
* * *
“ALL RIGHT, HERO. You’re free to go.” Sheriff Nance opened the cell, shaking his head at Shaman. “You know you didn’t save anybody.”
Shaman looked around for Tempest. He’d fallen asleep because it had felt so darn good to have her lying against his shoulder. At some point she’d left, which was pretty typical of their relationship.
She was going to have to stop leaving and start staying.
“I’m not trying to be a hero. Why are you letting me miss the Thursday night edition of ‘Jailhouse Rock’?�
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“Very funny, soldier. Go before I change my mind.” He shut the cell behind Shaman. “By the way, I didn’t make a report that you confessed. I know you were lying. The question is why. I’d really appreciate you breaking the unfortunate habit of lying to people in uniform.”
“You were the first.” Shaman didn’t move down the hall the way he knew the sheriff wanted him to. “Where is my wife?”
“She’s not here. I think she went to feed the babies. She can’t babysit you all the time.” Nance grinned at his joke. “If I were you, I’d get over to the courthouse. Your people have made a stink the like of which we’ve never seen in this town, and I suspect we’ll be talking about it for years. We don’t usually get this much excitement, although with you and Zola around, things are looking up.”
“I don’t have ‘people.’”
“You have an army of lawyers and about four or five family members. If everyone leaves, I’ll be able to get on with my job.”
Shaman stayed right where he was, not about to take a step down the hall until he knew that Tempest wasn’t going to be hauled in to jail. “If you’re letting me go, who do you think burned down Tempest’s house?”
“I have my suspicions,” Sheriff Nance said, “but right now we’re just going to call it a plain old unfortunate accident in a house that should have been razed long ago. These things happen in abandoned places. Old wiring gets chewed through by mice, and so forth.”
Shaman nodded. “Pesky little buggers.”
“Exactly. So go before I lock you up again just for annoying me. Or loitering. That’s always good for about twenty-four hours in the slammer.”
Shaman hesitated. “So Tempest and I are in the clear?”
Sheriff Nance shrugged. “As long as you don’t go making any more heroic confessions to save your wife, you’re probably fine.”
“Thanks.” He headed down the hall and out into the late-afternoon sun. The town square looked as if a festival of some kind was being celebrated there. He doubted there’d ever been this much traffic in Tempest.
There was no time to see what all the excitement was about over there; someone would tell him soon enough. He headed over to Shinny’s Ice Cream Shoppe to find Tempest.
“Hi, Blanche,” he said as he walked through the door.
“Well, if it isn’t the town hero.” She gave him a broad smile. “That sure was good of you to rescue Bobby Taylor from that burning house. I know you two have no love lost between you.”
“I didn’t rescue Bobby from anything. In fact, I might have tossed him in if I’d had the chance. Let him take a personal tour of Dante’s Inferno.” Shaman glanced around. “Do you know where Tempest is?”
“She took the babies back to the bungalow so they could eat and nap.” Blanche grinned. “Those sure are sweet little boys. Reminds me of their mother when she was a wee thing. You never saw such an ugly baby in your life, though.” She laughed at the memory. “Red and wizened and always yelling. She had colic, you know. And no hair.”
Shaman blinked. “My wife is drop-dead gorgeous. She makes men run into light posts. Why are you telling me my fabulous, sexy wife was an ugly kid?”
“Ah, well. That was then and this is now.” Blanche wiped down a counter, then paused thoughtfully. “You know, it’s a funny thing, but she and Bobby Taylor never looked a bit alike. Guess that’s because they had different mothers.”
Shaman turned, his hand on the doorknob. “They don’t look alike now. He’s a blockhead of stupidity and she’s an angel. He’s dumber than a rock and it shows on his greedy face. My lady would give you the hat off her head if you needed it to stay out of the rain.”
Blanche smiled. “All true.”
He looked at her. “Who was Bobby Taylor’s mother?”
“Clara Jane Simmons.”
“What happened to her?” He had a funny feeling he was missing some information, and Blanche was trying to help him see the light.
“She died. She was a nice lady. But she missed her people and she’d had those three boys and I don’t think she cared for living out at what is now Dark Diablo. It was lonely and Bud Taylor was gone a lot. She got some infection and died.” Blanche shrugged. “I went to her funeral. Bud Taylor was a mess, I can tell you. I don’t know that he loved his wife, but he sure didn’t want to be left alone with three young boys.”
“Young?”
“Pretty much. I’d say Bobby was probably eight at the time, his siblings younger.”
Shaman let go of the doorknob and went back over to the counter. “How many years until he took up with Tempest’s mother?”
“Right after. Men don’t tend to wait long. They don’t live without a woman too well. Anyway, it was just a casual thing for a while, and then Zola was born.” Blanche washed out some ice cream glasses and dried them with a paper towel. “She started school, of course, six years later. Bobby was about fourteen then. The kids gave him hell about his sister, because everybody knew. We didn’t know for sure, but we suspected.”
“Poor Cupertino,” Shaman said.
“Yeah. I don’t think it was easy for her. Anyway, Bobby’s been festering about being the butt of those jokes for years. Then the old man died and didn’t leave any of them a dime. And they never knew what happened to the money.”
Shaman knew. “Why would Bobby Taylor take all this out on Tempest?”
“I suspect as a child he was afraid that his father might fall in love with her mother. And then Zola was born, an instant rival. She went off and got famous, he stayed here and made a mess of his life. You wonder why you don’t see his siblings around these parts?” She put the glasses in the cupboard. “Because they made something of themselves. And they didn’t care to live in the past like Bobby did. But I still say Tempest was such a neglected, hungry kid that none of this matters.”
“You think Mr. Taylor would have helped out with some money when she was young, if she was his. If he believed she was his.”
“Would be a likely thing to happen.”
Maybe Bud Taylor had felt guilty that he’d never helped his only daughter out when she was young, and thus he’d left her all his money.
“Hi,” Tempest said, pushing the pram through the door. “I went to see you at the jail, but Sheriff Nance said he’d let you go. Said you were getting on his last nerve.” She smiled. “Sheriff Nance’s nerves are not the thing to get on the wrong side of, just in case you weren’t aware, Shaman.”
He looked at his darling and opinionated wife. He thought about blockhead Bobby and his wide face. None of Blanche’s hints made sense. If Tempest wasn’t Bud Taylor’s daughter, then why did everyone think she was?
Gage let out a squawk, and his brother added to the noise. “You sure are loud little men,” Shaman said, picking his children up from the pram, holding one in each arm. “Loud, but good lookers, too. It’s clear you get your looks from your mother.”
Blanche and Tempest laughed. “They are Phillipses,” Tempest said. “I was not a beautiful baby. Somewhere Blanche has some baby pictures of me, and you can see that for yourself.”
He blinked. “You couldn’t have ever been ugly, Tempest.”
She smiled. “Haven’t you ever heard of the ugly duckling, Shaman? The fortunate thing for our boys is that they have good genes from your side of the family tree.”
“Yeah,” Shaman said, gazing down at his sons. “Not so much mine, though. That was Xav’s arena. I was the thinker, and Gage was the wild one.”
“No,” Tempest said, “your sister says you and Gage tied for the wild prize. You always tried to do him one better. She said you felt a need to prove yourself.”
Most men did. Shaman kissed his babies on their soft, fuzzy heads, thinking. “When was the last time you saw your mother’s husband, Cupertino?”
“I don’t know.” Tempest frowned at him. “Mac Cupertino came by to visit a time or two, maybe three or four, throughout my childhood. I was probably twelve the last time I saw him.
” Her face had darkened. “He died about five years ago. Why do you ask?”
Blanche smiled, and came to take little Gage from Shaman’s arms. Shinny walked into the shop and put his apron on. “We had quite a run of customers this morning and early afternoon, thanks to you being in jail,” he told Shaman. “Folks want ice cream when they’re all lathered up about injustice and stuff. We need more drama in this town, I guess.” He took Josh and went to join his wife in a booth.
“Why do you ask?” Tempest said.
“I don’t know. I just never heard you speak about him. I talk more about my old man than you do about the guy your mom was married to.”
She did not look happy. “Well, there’s nothing to tell. He was a really handsome man. My mother was crazy about him. It drove her nuts, always waiting on him. He was fair-haired and liked the drink, so he went from town to town getting a job and then getting fired. Mac Cupertino was not one for staying in one place. Or raising a family.”
“Hey, that gives me a few points, maybe, huh? I’m not so good-looking, I don’t drink very much unless you bring it in the picnic basket, and I’m all over raising a family. You should give me a second look, Cupertino.”
She pressed her lips together for an instant, then shook her head. “Let’s just stick to the original plan.”
“I suggest an extension on the original plan.” He’d known this moment was coming. Every time she got close, she skittered away. Like Candy, the wild mustang who wanted to kick him every time he put a lead rope on her. He’d had to watch for those nimble hooves.
Now he had a woman who’d been distinctly nervous ever since he’d put a wedding band on her finger.
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t make myself believe in fairy tales, Shaman. I know all about make-believe—that’s my business, it’s what I do. But I just can’t make myself trust that you and I will make it for the long haul.”
It would be hard to do that if one’s supposed “father” had blown in and out of one’s life growing up. And that’s when he knew he was up against more than just a woman who didn’t want to “be married for the sake of the children.”
