by Melissa Tagg
“Uncle Bear?”
So instantly did Bear let her go that she would’ve stumbled if not for his steadying hand even as he turned.
“Erin?” Bear’s voice was a mere rasp. “Did you have a nightmare?”
She shook her head, her sleep-tousled hair a mess of tangles around her face. “But I woke up and you weren’t there.”
“I was just getting some fresh air. Come on, kid, I’ll tuck you back into your sleeping bag.” With a quick, indiscernible look at Raegan, Bear disappeared with Erin into his tent.
Raegan touched her fingers to her lips as she listened to Bear’s hushed tone settling Erin. Jamie must’ve woken up, because his voice, too, drifted from the tent.
After a couple minutes, Bear finally emerged from the tent. He zipped the flapping door, then whispered through the mesh. “Be back in a sec.”
A whisper of disappointment wriggled in.
Raegan hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d left her. Probably still looked as dazed as she felt.
But Bear . . . all the emotion that had filled his voice earlier—and then filled that kiss—had begun to visibly seep away. “I’m not sure how much Erin saw . . . of that. But she was still half asleep. She’ll probably forget by morning.”
Did that mean they, too, were supposed to forget it? Like that’s possible. “Bear, that kiss—”
“Raegan.”
“Don’t apologize for it. Please don’t apologize.”
“I wasn’t going to apologize. I was just going to say . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck, offered her a sheepish smile. “I don’t know what I was going to say.”
Gosh, she wanted him to kiss her again. But the moment, it seemed, had been broken. “Earlier . . . you said that everything got worse.” She had to ask. “How could it get worse than you going to jail?”
“I’d rather not . . . I can’t . . .” The shades fell into place over his eyes once more. But just before he slipped into the tent, he gave her the barest answer. “Annie died.”
12
Bear had pressed Send on two applications today—one to the mission board in Brazil, one to Des Moines Area Community College. He’d signed up for a CPR class at the local hospital. And he’d started caulking holes in Sara Jaminski’s cabins.
Didn’t matter how many tasks filled his Monday, though. They couldn’t drive Raegan from his mind. Or those kisses. Or the fear that he’d somehow gone and made everything worse.
Until the phone call. The fourth one like it. No greeting, no voice. Just heavy breathing.
And that was it. He’d waffled long enough. Bear pulled open the door of the Maple Valley Police Department.
At least his course of action was certain in this one thing. If only he felt as sure of what to do about Raegan. He couldn’t stand the awkwardness that now hovered like a low-slung cloud between them. On Saturday when he’d woken up in his tent, a kid on either side of him, Raegan had already left the campsite. He’d barely seen her that day.
They’d wound up next to each other in church on Sunday. But after a couple stilted tries at small talk out in the church lobby and then again as they sat around two pushed-together tables at The Red Door, all the local Walkers crowded around, she’d disappeared with Kate and hadn’t returned until evening.
Avoiding him. Obviously.
She’d been the one Friday night to order him not to apologize for kissing her. Had she switched stances, though? Was she sorry it’d happened?
“Can I help you?”
Bear blinked, the details around him flashing into focus. The smell of fresh coffee. Voices and a phone ringing. A cop in uniform twirling a set of car keys in his hand while he read a newspaper. A pool of desks sat behind the counter, lined at the back by a row of offices. Details he’d been too livid to see last week when he was here for Jamie.
A woman with brown skin and sleek black hair waited for him to speak. How long had he been standing here?
The phone calls. Rio and Rosa.
He was a mess of battling worries today. Raegan. The kids. Raegan. The kids.
He knew the kids were his most immediate concern, he just couldn’t get over the feeling that with a few kisses—maybe even more, with all he’d told Rae—everything had changed Friday night.
Or maybe nothing had changed at all. Maybe he’d simply finally accepted what had been there all along—the truth that he was over-the-moon crazy about Raegan Walker. He loved her laughter and her friendship. He loved all the amusing quirks that made her who she was. He loved the vulnerable glimpses she’d given him into her heart. And he loved the strength and bravery he wasn’t sure she knew she had.
Yet he’d still sent off that application to Brazil.
God, I don’t know what I’m doing or why anymore.
“Sir?” The woman in front of him prodded him.
You do know one thing—you know what you’re doing here.
Was that hushed reminder his own thoughts or God replying? Either way . . .
“Is Chief Ross around?”
Too perfectly timed, a door marked “Police Chief” swung open near the back of the department.
“Claudia, you’re going to think I’m a dolt, but I broke my printer again and—” The man Bear had met last week cut off as he came out of his office. “Oh. You. You here to ream me out some more?”
“I don’t know, you bring any more eleven-year-old kids in for questioning?”
The chief approached the counter. Deep-set eyes and an imposing height—even to Bear—loaned an appropriately firm stature to the chief, though an amused smile played about his mouth. “I would’ve thought with enough time to simmer down you would’ve realized by now I did Jamie a favor. Saved him from Mr. Baker’s yelling before a crowd could form.”
“If you’re waiting for me to thank you—” He stopped himself. He’d come here. For help. Not getting off to the best start. “Sorry. And, sure, thanks for sparing Jamie further embarrassment. I guess.”
Now Chief Ross—Sam—was fully grinning. “Real convincing, McKinley, but I’ll take what I can get. Do you need something?”
Bear glanced from Sam to Claudia and back to Sam again. “I’ve got an odd situation. Honestly don’t know if you can help me or not. But I thought I could at least, I don’t know, maybe bend your ear for a few minutes.”
“An odd situation, huh? I once responded to a 9-1-1 call from a ninety-year-old woman who’d trapped a mouse in her purse. She didn’t want to kill the thing. Asked me to drive it out to the country, free the mouse, and then return her purse.”
An image of that jostling mattress in Sara’s cabin found the surface of his thoughts. He could still hear Raegan’s squeals, her teasing voice accusing him of being scared of whatever creature lived in the thing.
She wasn’t entirely wrong. “Did you do it? Free the mouse?”
Claudia nodded her head, looking to Bear. “And Odette Hays still thanks him every time she sees him.”
“Still carries that purse, too.” Sam waved his hand toward his office. “Come on back. You can tell me about your odd situation.”
Bear followed the chief around the counter, past the collection of desks, and into a simple office. Sunlight streamed in a narrow window. A framed photo of a young girl and a couple of coffee mugs sat on the windowsill.
“Take a seat.”
Bear dropped onto the lone black chair that faced Sam’s desk. “I don’t really know where to start.”
Sam turned to the mini-fridge in the corner and pulled out two bottles of water. He set one on his desk in front of Bear. “Beginning’s usually a good spot.”
Problem was, Bear didn’t know where the beginning began. All he knew was that Rio wasn’t in a single Atlanta jail. Rosa hadn’t called or texted again since Friday night.
And he couldn’t shake the goading sense that something was wrong.
“Well, you met Jamie the other day. He and his younger sister are staying with me at the moment. It was only supposed to be for two or three
weeks, but . . .”
The story spilled from him in spurted starts and stops. Rio’s history of criminal activity—what little Bear knew of it, anyway. Rosa’s urgent request that Bear take the kids away from Atlanta. His current anxiety about not being able to reach either of them.
Just for good measure, he threw in the details of his own history. Prison. Brazil. The vandalism that had driven him away and then that cryptic comment Rosa had made about “they” being able to find Bear in South America.
He finished with the phone calls, the blue Taurus, and Rosa’s final text Friday night.
By the time he ran out of words, Sam sat transfixed, palms flat on his desk and water bottle unopened in front of him. Whereas Bear had downed his entire bottle throughout the telling.
“Wow.” Sam rubbed his chin. “This is, um, not the kind of thing I hear every day.” He reached for his water, twisted its cap, and proceeded to guzzle half the bottle.
Bear traced the seam of his chair’s armrest. “Not of the same caliber as a mouse in a purse, I suppose.”
“To be sure.” Sam emptied his bottle with his next drink. “The fact that we’re talking about two individuals in another state whose whereabouts may or may not be in question—”
“They’re certainly in question to me.”
“Yes, but you said prior to last month, you’ve hardly had any contact with your brother and sister-in-law in a decade. Just because you don’t know where they are doesn’t mean anyone else doesn’t know where they are.” Sam launched his empty bottle toward a recycling bin in the corner. “But regardless, because we’re talking about another state, it’s kind of tricky. Even trickier, the kids.”
“Jamie and Erin seem to be handling everything fine. As far as they know, they’re just spending some time getting to know their uncle.” He hoped, anyway. But Jamie was perceptive. He might suspect more than Bear had let on. “Still, I’m getting more and more unsettled about the whole thing.”
Sam’s face was unreadable. “Don’t blame you. And the phone calls—under normal circumstances, I’d chalk it up to a prank. But considering . . .” He leaned forward, lacing his fingers atop his desk. “I’d like to have one of my officers look at your phone, just in case there’s anything we can do to trace the call. And I’d like you to write down some details for me: your brother and sister-in-law’s names, their address. Social security numbers would be great, if you have them.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s all right. In any case, write down as much as you can. Then I’ll start making calls, see if there’s someone on the Atlanta force who can help us out.”
“Do I need to file a missing person’s report or anything?”
“Like I said, I don’t think we can really consider your brother missing at this point. If it were your sister-in-law sitting in here, that’d be different. But you said yourself you haven’t had contact with him in years. For all you know, he’s hanging out on a buddy’s couch and your sister-in-law is simply enjoying a break from motherhood.” He shook his head. “Besides, most P.D.s won’t let you file over the phone anyway. So for now, let’s focus on gathering contact info. You noted your sister-in-law said something about going to her father’s house. I’ll want his name, and any other names of family members or friends we might be able to make inquiries with. If we’re lucky, we’ll find both of them easily.”
“And the blue Taurus?”
“Common car. Not much we can do on that one. Not without a license plate number.”
He’d tried to catch the number the fourth time he’d seen the car—out at the ranch on Saturday afternoon, sitting in that same spot on the same gravel road where he’d first seen it. But the driver had spotted Bear’s attention too quickly, sped off in a cloud of dust before Bear could focus on the plate.
“As for the rest of it, we’re simply not going to know anything until we start looking.” Sam stood. “I’ll get some paper and we’ll review it all.”
Bear let out a slow exhale. He might not have answers yet. But he had help. It was a start.
Moving around the scaffolding with the extra weight of the harness had almost started to feel normal.
And the chalk markings over the brick were almost detailed enough to be a work of art on their own. They should be. Raegan had spent half of Saturday and—she glanced at her watch—five hours today outlining after her morning shift at the library.
“You ever going to be ready to start painting, my girl?”
At the sound of Mr. Hill’s voice, she spun and crossed to the edge of the platform, leaning over the guardrail “Hey, I’m working as fast as I can. I do have three other jobs, you know.” Though, Dad had cut her hours at the railroad down to nearly nothing.
Mr. Hill shielded his eyes as he looked up at her. “You mind company up there?”
“Of course not.”
A moment later, the metal structure rattled as he began his climb.
It’d been a good idea to limit her mural to the building’s second floor, bordered by cement above and below. If she would’ve tried to incorporate the first or third floors, it would’ve required a more complicated scaffolding setup, and the chances of completing the thing by the art festival would diminish drastically.
She had enough doubts about finishing in time as it was—less than six weeks to go. But Mayor Milt was counting on her. Heck, the whole town was counting on her. How many times in the past week had someone stopped her on the sidewalk or at church or Seth’s restaurant just to tell her good luck? Jenessa Belville, who had run the local newspaper ever since Logan had sold it to her, had even come by the site on Saturday. She’d taken pictures of Raegan working, asked her a few questions. Apparently the article would run in the digital publication later this week.
She turned back to the pastel outline taking shape over the painted brick. A cluster of shadows passed over the wall—clouds gathering overhead. Another summer storm was on its way in tonight, according to the forecast. Which was why she’d opted for her car rather than her bike when she’d left the house today.
Not that she had any intention of being on the road—in a bike or car or otherwise—in a storm. Not when both her most recent attack and her worst had taken place during storms.
Even a decade later, she could still hear the crash of metal from the accident pushing through her panic. Sara would make her describe it, wouldn’t she? The unembellished explanation she’d given last week was only the beginning, she knew. She’d have to relive the whole thing—what little she could remember of it, anyway.
If it really helped, maybe it’d be worth it. If she could learn to cope, build a mental arsenal of tools not just for avoiding panic attacks but managing them when they happened, if she could figure out how to handle the embarrassment and stop hiding, stop living in denial . . .
Maybe one day there wouldn’t be that niggle of dread every time she got behind the wheel. Maybe she’d be able to drive farther than Ames or Des Moines or Omaha without fearing the worst.
Maybe, for once, she’d be able to picture herself in a new place with new people doing new things.
Not just picture it. Live it.
And if Bear insisted on going back to Brazil, maybe this time . . .
She almost snorted out loud. What? She’d go with him? A few impromptu kisses and she was already imagining a future beyond Maple Valley?
Granted, they’d been perfect kisses. Worthy of one of Kate’s stories. No, maybe too good, because there couldn’t possibly be words to adequately describe them.
Maybe God did care about her desires.
“That smile on your face makes me want to throw out a few dozen ‘I told you so’s.’” Mr. Hill’s footsteps stopped beside her. “You’re enjoying yourself.”
She wasn’t about to tell her old teacher the real reason for whatever foolish expression covered her face. But he did have something of a point. She had enjoyed herself today. More than she’d expected to, especially considering the confusing
emotions flurrying like a tempest inside her ever since Friday night.
Try ever since Bear came back. No, ever since you met him.
Especially since Friday night, though.
But for a while on Saturday and again today, she’d been able to lose herself in her art. Creativity had whooshed in like a gale too long held at bay. She’d let it carry her along. And she’d felt almost as exhilarated as she had when Bear kissed her.
Almost.
“You’re smiling again. You’re happy.”
No, I’m ridiculous. After all, she’d hardly spoken to Bear since Friday. For all she knew, he regretted the whole thing. It was why she’d done her best to avoid him ever since. She wouldn’t be able to handle it if he made some big speech about how it shouldn’t have happened. Or worse, if he tried to pretend it hadn’t happened at all.
“Happy and pensive,” Mr. Hill said.
“Sorry. I’ve spent a ton of time alone today. Having trouble getting out of my own head.”
“Well, you’re gonna want to escape your thoughts long enough to hear this.” Mr. Hill turned to face her, enthusiasm brightening his already pleased expression. “I’ve persuaded Forrester Carlisle Young to attend the festival.”
Raegan wiped her chalky hands on her apron. “Forrester Carlisle Young? I don’t know the name.”
Mr. Hill gaped. “You’ve been away from the art world for far too long, my girl.”
“Was I ever really in the art world, though?”
“He’s the Dean of Arts at Rhode Island School of Design. We go way back. I knew him when his name was still Phil Leech. He changed it before his first showing at a gallery in NYC. A pretentious-sounding nom de plume, if you ask me—three last names? Come on. But I can forgive him because he’s an artistic genius.”
And he was coming to little old Maple Valley for a regional art festival?
Mr. Hill must’ve read her question. “We’ve been saying we were going to catch up for years. The festival gives us an excuse. Want to know the best part?” He leaned forward, a gleam in his eyes. “He remembers you.”
Raegan felt her forehead scrunch. “What? I never met him.”
