Arizona Homecoming

by Pamela Tracy

  Jane and Cook both gasped. Harold looked thoughtful, but Patti leaned forward, figuring it out before Jacob could respond. “The skeleton was Billy Wilcox,” Patti gasped.

  Jacob nodded. “His dental records prove it. The only thing we can’t figure is how or why. He was seventeen when he ran away. Both DNA and dental records prove it’s Billy.”

  “How did he die?” Harold asked.

  “I’m not sure they know yet.”

  “It wasn’t a blow to the head,” Emily said.

  Almost immediately, Donovan could tell, she wanted her words back. Looking around the table at each and every person, he watched the levels of comprehension.

  “So, they think he was murdered?” Patti asked.

  “They’re not sure.”

  “Then why did they take you in for questioning again today?” Harold said indignantly.

  “You went in for questioning again today?” Patti echoed.

  “They’re still playing around with the knife and my initials.”

  “Probably a dozen knives with those initials,” Cook said.

  “And if you lose yours,” Jacob joked, “you’ll never get it back because no one knows who D.C. is.”

  That got a few chuckles. Emily leaned back, looking relieved, and Donovan put a hand on her knee. She didn’t move it, just glanced at him, something akin to fear in her eyes.

  “It will be all right,” he mouthed.

  “There’s not one thing to connect you to Billy Wilcox,” Cook declared.

  Donovan didn’t miss the look shared by both Harold and Patti. Neither did anyone else, apparently.

  “What?” Cook asked.

  “It’s nonsense,” Jacob said.

  “It is,” Patti agreed, “but nonsense has gotten more than one man in trouble.”

  Jilly said softly, “What is it, Jacob?” Donovan hadn’t noticed until that moment that she had her hand on his shoulder.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I told the cops. When Naomi was in high school, she dated Billy a bit. First time I met her was at the rodeo. She was a bit of a thing, only sixteen. If you’d have told me I’d be marrying her, I’d have fallen off my horse.”

  “So Billy didn’t like you?” Jilly queried.

  “I don’t think he even knew me!” Jacob protested.

  “She stopped dating him because she liked you?” Emily asked.

  Never again would Donovan complain about small towns being boring.

  “If she did, I wasn’t aware of it. Yes, I knew that I’d sat with a pretty girl at the cowboy supper. Yes, I knew she’d looked at me adoringly—”

  Patti snorted.

  Jacob gave her a dirty look. “—at the carnival after we rode the Ferris wheel. But honestly, I was a twenty-three-year-old buck, and the sixteen-year-old girl was wet behind the ears.”

  “Was Billy at the rodeo?” Cook asked.

  “Not that I know of. Patti, do you know?”

  “Probably. The rodeo was something we all went to. Most of us competed. I won the barrel racing event.” She gleefully added, “I won all three runs. I always said it was because Naomi was distracted. Thanks, Jacob.”

  “Wish I could remember.”

  “You were busy with other things. Billy wasn’t a competitor, though. He’d go to watch.”

  She smiled and suddenly Donovan saw where Jane got her beauty. Clearly, the memories were good.

  “Billy looked like a cowboy, walked like a cowboy and all that,” Patti remembered, “but he’d fall off the horse even if the beast was standing still.”

  “Not much fun,” Emily said.

  Jacob nodded.

  “That was the rodeo,” Patti went on, “where a stray firework shot into the crowd and set Gramma Hamm’s purse on fire.”

  “Mike Hamm’s great-grandmother,” Jacob supplied.

  “And my gramma,” Patti said. “I’ve been a de la Rosa so long that people tend to forget that once upon a time I was Hamm. Oh, but Gramma was mad. You’d thought she had a million dollars in that purse. She spent the next two years complaining that her new driver’s license made her look older.”

  “She made our wedding cake,” Jacob added to the story.

  In a way, Donovan figured, listening to these two—with both Cook and Harold adding bits along the way about other rodeos and people—was like the town of Apache Creek spreading its arms and surrounding him.

  Before, he always shrugged off any attempt someone made at grounding him. He didn’t feel that way now.

  “That was the best rodeo ever,” Patti ended her story.

  “I enjoyed it, too. Strange thing is,” he added, “that’s the rodeo where I won the knife, and they carved my initials in the handle.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It was after nine when everyone returned to the maternity floor’s waiting room. Another smaller family was in the corner. The vivid blue sky had turned dark, and the ward had a silence that spelled the end of the shift for nurses, mommies and babies.

  The only noise on the floor came from the waiting room.

  Emily settled into a corner chair and responded no baby yet to five texts in a row, while Timmy whined about being bored across the room, kicking his feet against the bottom of his chair. The other family looked his way. They didn’t seem too excited about the noise. Emily wanted to remind them that in ten years whatever little bundle they welcomed tonight would be a lot like Timmy.

  “All right if I turn the television on?” Cook asked. “I want to watch the news.”

  No one said yes.

  In ten minutes’ time, Jane and Patti took off. Emily promised to text them the minute she heard anything. Even as they sailed through the door, Patti was looking back at Jilly as if wondering why the other woman seemed inclined to stay.

  Or maybe not wondering but clearly seeing—like Emily was.

  Cook and Harold headed back to the ranch, taking Timmy with them. He wanted to stay, but the confines of a single room had started wearing on his ten-year-old energy level. Cook had the same exact antsy expression. Emily knew that the two would engage in a Nerf battle when they got home.

  Jacob wasn’t willing to leave. He’d parked himself in a chair and was reading the newspaper with Jilly looking over his shoulder, commenting on the presidential hopefuls and state of Arizona’s education system.

  Donovan sat next to Emily, texting on his phone while his feet stuck out in the aisle again. He’d already had to move them twice so people could pass by.

  “I think I’m going to regret not knowing Great-Gramma Hamm,” Donovan said.

  “She died before I was born, too. By the way, you were so right about my dad and Jilly. I can’t believe I missed it.”

  “It’s pretty easy to figure out that Patti’s attracted to your dad, too.”

  “That’s not hard to notice. It’s part of the reason why she no longer works at the Lost Dutchman. She made a few decisions while working the front desk without consulting Dad. Decisions that only family should have made. Sure surprised us, though, when he let her go. I think we were all expecting him to marry her.”

  “It would never work.” Donovan shook his head.

  “Why? How do you know?”

  “She’s high maintenance.”

  “And Jilly’s not?” Emily said it a little louder than she’d meant to, earning a frown from her father and Jilly mouthing, “I’m not high maintenance.”

  “Jilly’s a different kind of high maintenance. She can take care of herself. Jane’s mom would rather someone take care of her.”

  Elise entered the room then, carrying a plate, and sat across from Emily but didn’t start eating.

  “Karl’s awake. Cooper and Garrett are talking to him. He’s crying. I’ve never seen anyth
ing like it. I thought I could stomach anything, but I had to get out of there. You should see Cooper and Garret. They’re practically in bed with him, holding him. I think of how Dad might feel if one of us disappeared.”

  “I don’t even want to imagine,” Emily responded.

  Elise, a social worker for Apache Creek’s high school, always tried to look at life from every angle. “Billy ran away. He made a choice.”

  Quickly Emily shared everything that was said at the dinner table, especially what Patti de la Rosa had shared.

  “Being uncoordinated on a horse is no reason to run away. Family stays together through thick and thin. Running away only makes things worse.”

  “Patti said something about Billy having a crush on our mom.”

  Elise looked surprised. “That’s a twist.”

  “When we get home, I want to go through some of the photos. Patti made me think about Mom and the rodeo. Apparently, the rodeo where Mom and Dad met is the one where Dad got the knife.”

  “Stupid knife.”

  Silently, Emily agreed. “Still, Dad has his knife. And I’m glad they identified the body. I still can’t believe it’s Billy Wilcox.”

  “The doctor came in a little while ago. He said Karl has an anxiety disorder that affects his heart.”

  “Last time Karl was in the hospital was when Garrett went missing,” Emily told Donovan, quickly sharing the story.

  “And now today,” Elise ended.

  “He’ll be all right?” Donovan asked.

  “Yes. The doctor said Karl might be discharged tomorrow or the day after.” Elise put down her untouched plate and went over to sit by her dad. Emily caught the words stay with us for a while and see that Billy has a proper burial.

  Eva was the nurturer. Elise knew how to take care of the important details. Emily felt lost for just a moment and then decided that she knew what to do. She’d long ago started the book about her mother. It had segued into much more, containing the history of the Salado as well as the town of Apache Creek. Billy belonged there, too. She’d see that a whole chapter went to him. She just knew if she looked she could find a picture of both her mother and Billy at a rodeo.

  Elise came back and joined them, picking up her cold plate of food and diving in.

  Leaning forward, Elise whispered to Emily, “You think eventually, Timmy and the new baby will call Jilly Grandmother?”

  “Never.”

  Donovan agreed. “She’s more a Granny Jilly type.”

  A nurse came to the door but called a name that had the other family jumping up and following her. Elise finished her meal and pulled out her phone. “I’m going to check on Karl and call Bernice’s parents to see how she’s doing.”

  “Bernice?” Donovan queried.

  “She’s the girl who was thrown from her horse earlier today. That’s why Elise was in Two Mules. She’s in the hospital, too, over in Globe.”

  Looking over at her dad, Emily noted Jilly’s head leaning against his shoulder; Jilly was fast asleep.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Emily told Donovan. “I can give you the keys to my truck. Elise or Jilly will take me home.”

  “I’ve been here this long.”

  Elise chose that moment to return and looked at the two of them as if realizing something. Emily gave the briefest shake of her head. No way did she want Elise playing matchmaker.

  “Soooo,” Elise said. “Donovan, you’re going to be working on Tinytown. How long will that take? And, what’s after that?”

  “Hard to answer,” Donovan admitted. “The contract I’ve signed with your father gives me the freedom to work on Tinytown between jobs. Right now, I’ve a good six weeks before my California building begins.”

  Emily already knew this, but her heart still missed a beat at the words.

  Donovan wasn’t a permanent kind of guy.

  “However, Tate Luxury Homes could send me to help with an existing job site. Or...” He paused.

  “Not a chance you’ll finish the Baer house?” Elise asked.

  It was a question Emily should have posed but didn’t. She didn’t want to know the answer. If he said yes, she’d struggle with her feelings.

  She liked him.

  If he said no, she knew that he was temporary in the truest form.

  “Baer might have changed his mind now that the remains have been identified and the mystery will die down. But, he’s more than spooked about the levels of radon the inspector reported.”

  “Why didn’t you test for radon earlier?” Emily asked. When Donovan first announced why the Baer construction had ceased, she’d researched the radioactive gas, worried that it could harm what she considered a Salado site.

  “We did, but apparently the levels increased as building progressed. Baer wanted a basement. He wanted a well dug. Then when the county started putting in pipes, well, we were tampering with the underground. Radon levels spiked as a result.”

  “And radon is that dangerous?” Elise asked. Emily decided she was too disgruntled to contribute.

  She’d been against him building there from day one. He should have listened.

  “I’ve submitted a few drawings for him to consider. Just adding swamp coolers will help if he’d use them. Plus, I’m bringing in a team to assure there are no cracks in the foundation. Based on what Baer has spent, adding a heat recovery ventilator makes sense. If he allows all this, I’ll finish the job and his home will be as safe as any other.”

  “So there’s a chance you’ll finish?”

  Donovan looked at Emily. She saw regret and maybe some compassion in his eyes. “There’s a chance.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “My sister,” Elise said, “is stubborn.”

  “Only when it counts,” Emily said, sticking up for herself.

  “Which is all the time,” Elise countered.

  Emily’s stomach hurt. Maybe it was the events of the day: her dad taken in for questioning, Eva’s baby coming, the body being identified, Karl collapsing.

  Donovan by her side almost the whole time, which felt so impossibly right.

  “I’m looking for Jacob Hubrecht.”

  Everyone stopped talking and stood, watching the nurse who’d just entered the room.

  “I’m Jacob.”

  “Follow me,” said the nurse. “Your daughter wants you.”

  “How about me?” Emily said. “I’m her sister.”

  Elise nodded.

  But Jacob and the nurse were already out of the room.

  “I’m texting Jesse,” Elise said.

  Emily checked her phone. Who’d said that when Jesse stopped texting, it might mean he was too busy becoming a dad? It had been a while.

  Elise started pacing.

  Emily collapsed in the chair and looked at the ceiling. Today might possibly be the longest day of her life. And the one with the most highs and lows!

  “The nurse was smiling,” Donovan noted.

  “How could you tell? She came, she went, no time for questions.”

  Emily’s phone pinged. Come down the hall. Turn left. She turned to share the news, but everyone was gathered around her except Elise, who was already through the waiting room door.

  How four adults managed a quiet half jog through the hallway, Emily didn’t know. The jog, however, ended at a large window. The same nurse who’d fetched Jacob entered the room. Coming to the window, she held up a dark-haired—all that hair!—sleeping baby.

  Even Donovan, Emily noticed, had his nose pressed against the window.

  “Beautiful,” Jilly breathed.

  Then the nurse laid the baby in a bed, and Emily read the name card at the foot.

  Naomi Campbell.

  * * *

  Apparently the only
one worried about working the next day was Cooper, Elise’s fiancé.

  Donovan found himself hugging Emily goodbye—feeling very much like he belonged with her—and following Cooper and his younger brother, Garrett, to their car.

  Both were amazed that the skeletal remains were Billy Wilcox.

  “Mom took it pretty hard,” Garrett shared once they were on their way home.

  “You told her?” Cooper said.

  “She asked why Mr. Hubrecht was taken in for questioning,” Garrett defended himself.

  The time spent with Emily at the police station seemed like another day, long ago.

  After a few minutes, Garrett said, “I wonder if Karl is willing to sell now that he knows for sure Billy won’t be coming home.”

  The thought had crossed Donovan’s mind, too.

  “No, he won’t sell,” Cooper said.

  “I think he will.” Garrett leaned forward. “That place is too much for him, and he needs to be where people can take care of him.”

  Cooper didn’t hesitate to reassure him. “He’s doing all right on his own for now.”

  “But I need to be there helping him. Maybe I—”

  “You’re going to be in college for the next four years. You’ll have to help out summers and holidays. That’s growing season anyway.”

  “No, it’s not,” Garrett muttered.

  Donovan agreed. In Nebraska, summer was growing season. In Arizona, summer was shrivel-up-and-die-from-the-heat season.

  “Main crop is cotton. You’ll be picking in August.”

  “I’ll never be able to afford a place like Karl’s. I’ve no savings and when I graduate, I’ll be even more in debt. Maybe I shouldn’t go—”

  Donovan didn’t want to tell Garrett how right he was about the cost of a spread like this. No doubt the visit from Randall Tucker was making the boy think and think hard. Smart kid.

  “Stop,” Cooper said. “We’ve been over this. College is a necessity, not a choice.”

  Donovan’s parents had been amazed at his desire to go to college. Both had only gone to high school. Both believed that taking over the dairy farm was job security.

  “He’s right,” Donovan spoke up. “College is your number one priority. I had to fight to get into a college, pay my own way and I’ve never regretted it. A place like this needs someone with good business sense.”