“Hi.” He extended his hand. “Jonah Westfall.”
“Of course. I’m Billie. This is Stacey. Dad’s been hollering for you, but I’m not sure what you have to do with this, unless he’s broken the law.” A ludicrous thought, her raised eyebrow told him. Sarge laid down the law; he didn’t break it.
“He hasn’t broken any laws.” Jonah looked at Sarge in the bed, shrunken even more than he’d been. “Hey, Sarge.” Low simmer, Jonah gauged, by the return stare.
“The hospital is ready to release him to a VA care facility that will continue pain management and—”
“I can manage my own pain. Always have.”
Billie rolled her eyes. “The drugs impair balance, cause drowsiness. He won’t be able to drive or walk long distances. He’s—”
“Not deaf or on my deathbed.” A rolling boil.
“He has numbness and slight paralysis in the right leg that will worsen as the spine constricts the nerves. He needs care that my sister and I can’t provide.”
Jonah nodded.
“We have considered the options—”
“I’d like to discuss one you haven’t considered.”
That caught her off stride. “Another option?”
“Let him move in with me.”
Both women stared at him, slow blinking.
“You want Sarge to live with you?” Stacey tried for an inquiring tone, but it came out incredulous.
“I’ve just about completed the addition to my home.” He hadn’t started it with Sarge in mind, but as he’d driven, the thought had come. It was all he could come up with to keep Sarge out of a place where he’d be utterly powerless.
“I don’t understand how you’re involved.” Billie looked more suspicious than her sister. “What’s in this for you?”
“Sarge is my friend.”
She barely masked her disbelief. “I don’t know what he’s promised you—”
“I’m not looking for compensation. I’d like to give him a place where he can stay on the mountain and keep a hand in the bakery.”
Billie looked at her sister. “We were thinking we’d sell the bakery.”
“Over my dead body,” Sarge barked.
“It would pay for quality care—”
“My own daughters, digging my grave.”
“Sarge,” Jonah said mildly. “Everyone wants what’s best for you.”
“Best for me? Let me live my life. My way.”
“We’re trying to do that.”
“Not those—”
“You’re not helping your cause, Sarge. Let me handle it.”
Billie scowled. “Has he said he wants to live with you?”
“I haven’t invited him. What do you say, Sarge? Want to bunk with me?”
“I don’t need to bunk with you. I have my own place.”
Jonah hung his hands on his hips. “That’s not an option. It’s my place or the home.” Nursing care was not cheap. The daughters should jump at the chance.
“Dad?” Billie fixed him with the fierce, beaky stare she’d clearly inherited. “For reasons I can’t fathom, Chief Westfall is making you an offer.”
Sarge looked up. Jonah saw a desperation that could have been interposed on the wounded coyote. Come on, Sarge. He waited. Take the chance you’ve got. Sarge would have wanted to fight it, to hold the line and not retreat. He never pretended to be what he wasn’t, but right now it was clear he wasn’t sure who or what he was.
“I don’t have a choice, I guess.” His voice sounded thready, but the glare had lost no potency.
Jonah breathed his relief, wiping the sweat from his palms. It didn’t seem to matter who was in a vulnerable situation. It always got him in the gut.
“We’ll work out the details, Sarge.”
Sarge’s mouth moved, but no words came. His big hands clawed the sheet.
“I’d like to see you in the hall,” Billie said. “Sit with Dad, Stacey.”
This apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Jonah followed her out.
“We will be selling the house. There is no way we can pay for a residence he’s not living in—or ever going to again. He should have sold that place years ago and gotten proper care. It’s a shrine to the dead.”
“It’s paid for, but you’re right.” Jonah nodded. “I’ll help him clear—”
“No. Stacey and I are here. We’ll clean it out.”
Jonah looked toward the room. “He’d like some say in it.”
“He’d like to control the whole thing, but that’s not going to happen. You think I’m a hard woman. I see it in your face. But I lived with him. Longer than I should have had to. This time, we’re doing it my way.”
Jonah didn’t press it. He’d drop by and collect things Sarge valued when the time came. He’d need to call Jay to complete the finish carpentry. They’d move Sarge’s furniture and bring the man in. He wasn’t sure who’d be at greater risk, Sarge or the coyote, but he wasn’t about to bring that up now.
Lauren touched his elbow. “Coffee?”
He took the cup. “Thanks.”
“Who won?” She raised her thick lashes.
“I’ll be taking him home, I guess.”
Her eyes softened. “Do they issue halos with that badge?”
“If they did, mine’s long gone.” He sipped the coffee. “This is good.”
“The new cappuccino machine. Makes it perfect every time.”
“Removes the human element.”
She nodded. “So have you thought this through?”
“Kind of freestyling right now.”
“I paged the doctor to come talk to you.” She signed the chart brought to her by a stocky, male CNA who tried to disguise how much he enjoyed standing in her presence. She turned back. “You’re going to need medical assistance with Sergeant Beaker. I could help you get him set up and provide ongoing care.”
“It would be a long drive.”
“I’m up that direction. My family owns a town house complex in Pine Crest. I have my own unit.”
He studied her face. “You have a card?”
She removed one from the slim wallet in her pocket. “My cell’s on the back.”
“Sure you mean it?”
“I’ve been inoculated.” The corners of her eyes tipped up. “Who else are you going to find to put up with him?”
“That’s a very good point.”
“I’m a good point maker.”
“I’ll bet you are.” He slipped the card into his pocket. He’d just burned whatever bridge had been left with Tia. Looking at Lauren, he ought to feel something—besides lust. Something like potential. He sighed.
“Call me tonight.”
“I’ll be getting things figured out.”
“Tomorrow then. We’ll send Sarge with a walker, but it won’t be long before he’s wheelchair bound. I can show you what you need.”
He had not thought through the details in his rash offer. He’d negotiated the prisoner’s release but probably did need help getting Sarge organized. He and Jay could ramp the back entrance, but there were probably a dozen other things he wouldn’t think of. “Okay.”
She looked up. “Here’s the doctor.”
Jonah turned, and it hit him that he’d just taken responsibility for another person. God help them both.
Piper looked up as Jonah’s morning companion came back into the bakery, searching the tables instead of approaching the counter. Piper eyed her curiously. “Can I help you?”
“Oh.” Liz turned. “I wanted something from the candle shop next-door, but no one’s there. I thought maybe Tia had dropped in over here.”
“I haven’t seen her. Did she put the sign up? Back in half an hour or whatever?”
“No. But I looked all through. Even the bathroom was empty.”
“You mean the store’s open, but Tia isn’t there?”
“Yes, I found that strange.”
More than strange. Tia would never leave the shop unsecured.
“I’m ready to order.” The woman who’d been perusing the board decided.
“Can you warm this raisin roll for me?” The squat man behind her queried.
Piper released her breath. “Okay. Sure.” She grabbed the roll and asked the woman, “What would you like?”
The microwave took forever, then the register tape jammed, then someone else wanted a coffee refill. When she looked up Liz had gone. She’d have to check Tia’s shop herself.
As she started to round the counter, Bob Betters came in with a toothy female companion who wore an embarrassing amount of makeup, trying to look fancy enough for Mr. Successful. Bob had swallowed a canary whole. He would not wait while she searched for Tia.
“What can I get you?”
“No goat cheese?” Bob didn’t exactly sneer.
“Just what Sarge has on the board.” Come on, come on, come on.
“Two cheddar rolls. And warm them up, peach.”
Maybe that was what his companion wanted, but she hadn’t seen him ask. Piper bagged his order, but he and his date sat down at a table. She didn’t like leaving customers in the store but had to check on Tia. As much as Bob annoyed her, she didn’t see him ripping her off. She keyed in the register lock, let herself out from behind the counter, and rushed through the kitchen.
Tia’s back door was locked, but she hurried around and found the front open. “Tia?” Could she have forgotten to lock her store? The shop seemed undisturbed. The back room looked the same as always except Tia had moved her worktable out front. Piper checked the shelf where Tia kept her sling-back purse. Empty.
Piper speed-dialed her cell phone and got voice mail. “Call me, Ti, okay?” She locked Tia’s front door, though she couldn’t shoot the bolt without a key, then went back to the bakery.
Bob lounged back. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “More iced tea?”
“Sure.” As she poured the refill, he said, “Thanks, peach.”
What was with the peach thing? She filled his date’s glass. “I’m Piper.”
“Ainsley.” The girl had lipstick on her teeth.
“How’s the roll?”
Ainsley glanced at Bob and back. “It’s good.”
Mary Carson came in. “Oh, lovely. You have one last lemon scone.”
“Just for you.” Piper lifted the flap to get back behind the counter. “To go?”
“Yes, please.”
Piper snagged the scone. “Do you know where Tia might have gone?”
“She’s not in the shop?”
Piper shook her head. “She didn’t turn the sign and forgot to lock the door.”
“Maybe she had an emergency.”
“Someone on the Hopeline?”
“She’s not supposed to make that face to face. Too easy for people to take advantage or misrepresent themselves. Tia knows that.”
“Someone from the church?”
“Certainly possible.” Mary nodded. “But to leave the shop unlocked?”
Piper swallowed. “It’s not right.”
“No.” Concern furrowed Mary’s brow. “Doesn’t seem right, does it?”
Even with the light appointment schedule, Liz had taken as much time away from the clinic—from Lucy—as she could, waiting for Tia to return. Disappointed that Piper had locked the store, Liz leaned into the glass once more to peer in. She would have liked to walk through again without Tia there, to sense and imagine her, to see what Jonah saw, what he wanted.
She had planned to get a candle for him as a thank-you for the pups—and to see his reaction when she presented it. She wanted him to see that she knew, that she had guessed what he hadn’t told her. But it didn’t matter. All she needed from him now were the littermates, sweet newborn puppies whose existence thus far had been almost entirely wrapped together inside the mother.
She closed her eyes and imagined them, the closeness, the oneness. She had dared to think she might find that with Jonah when she’d seen the hollows in his eyes. But that wasn’t reality. The person she had, the one she’d always had was Lucy.
Nothing mattered now but making things right for her sister, her twin, her other self. As with all identical twins, they’d been one egg that had become two fetuses, their DNA differing only by infinitesimal code changes. But they were closer still. In monozygotic twins, when the egg split in the first two days after fertilization, each fetus developed its own placenta and its own sac. Most of the time the split came later than that, resulting in separate sacs but a shared placenta.
About one percent of the time the splitting occurred late enough to result in both a shared placenta and a shared sac. In that case, the mortality rate was fifty percent due mainly to cord entanglement. In the infrequent instances when the zygote split extremely late, the result was conjoined twins. Mortality was highest then because of the many complications resulting from shared organs.
It was so rare as to be miraculous when such twins survived.
Sixteen
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Tia filled the blue plastic bladder with water, stuffed it down into the pack, and pulled the straps over her shoulders. She snapped the strap across her chest and tugged the jacket down beneath the waist belt. Grabbing her walking stick, she limped out the door. Her body was not up to the hike, but her mind insisted.
Jonah had broken her open. She had to go where she felt whole. On the mountain, clouded over as it was, she could ease the horrible pain. The craggy heights had always been her escape. When the weight of inadequacy had crushed in, she charged up the slopes, seeking freedom, release.
She couldn’t charge today. She hobbled up from her backyard to the trail running horizontally across the forested slope. The bruise ached with every step. Her chest burned as she pushed up the steep terrain. That much would pass when she found her stride.
Hiking alone without a word to anyone was stupid, especially with a storm moving over the peaks, but she had to. Customers would come to the shop and find it closed. She frowned, a sudden disconcerting thought catching her short. Had she locked the door? She hesitated, then pushed on.
She didn’t care. It wasn’t even her business. And the candles? What she hadn’t lost to Miles’s destruction would burn away as though they’d never been. That was how she felt too. Burned up, burned out.
She reached the trail and turned, digging the point of the stick in and striding hard. Aspen groves formed golden bands between the blue-green firs and spruces, but the sight failed to move her. By the time she’d climbed two hundred feet in elevation the clouds filled all the gaps like gray batting, much more aligned with her mood. Her damp hair curled wildly, clinging to her face and neck. She breathed the cold wet air like a needy smoker that first long inhale.
She pressed on, harder, faster, not finding her usual stride but making a new one. Closed in by the clouds, she had only a subconscious awareness of the looming peak on her left, the pitch to her right. As the fog settled around her, she eased the pace and kept it steady.
An hour passed and another, scrambling over boulders and rocks that formed the trail. Her throbbing calf registered distantly, as muscle fatigue might inform a long-distance runner without compromising the goal. The clouds broke open, and sunlight bathed her for a time, before the sky darkened, angrier than before. A far-off rumble called from one peak to another, but she climbed on, needing the summit.
That was one thing she and Jonah had in common, not running away but to a place where her lungs expanded to take in the remnants of atmosphere that worked on her like a drug. Though they’d never climbed together, she had often glimpsed Jonah on treks of his own, and she’d known when she had followed that day, that they would share something on the mountain Reba would never understand. Reba breathed oxygen.
Tia’s knuckles whitened on the staff.
“I loved you before I slid the ring on her finger.”
&nbs
p; Tia shook her head. From the first time he’d looked into her eyes with his own bruised stare, they’d shared a connection. She had thought only she had taken it farther in her mind and in her heart. Now he’d admitted the same, yet still he chose Reba.
Tia stumbled, recovered, and increased her pace. Thunder rumbled, still far but menacing. Her hair clung, a sodden mass. Jonah had to have Reba. He wouldn’t settle for the reject. He had desired but not chosen her.
“I loved you before we betrayed your sister.”
He had cost her so much. And he dared to call it love. Her hand slid on the wet wood of the stick. Ozone filled her nostrils. Lightning flashed across the valley, deep in the dark heart of the storm.
She should turn back, but she didn’t. More than any place else, she felt God in the mountains. Awe. Majesty. Omnipotence. Power that could annihilate her but didn’t. She rounded a hairpin and stared up into the cloud, a gray silk cocoon, a womb. If she could really climb back to her inception, would she emerge different? Could she be a milder, more compliant Tia, a Tia someone wanted?
She shook the moisture from her hair. Nature versus nurture missed the point. Any nature nurtured would thrive. Any nature rejected would starve. She’d been born with a spark that could ignite a wildfire. People had feared and resisted it, beaten at it, suffocated it, never seeing the glow or breathing the aroma.
Jonah had seen and craved the fire inside her. But even he wouldn’t risk the burn. He’d chosen Reba. Sweet, shining Reba.
Pain speared. Her foot slipped, and the other leg buckled. Her staff tumbled over rocks and juniper, as her hands scraped, her cheek burned, her head and shoulder banged. She grasped for tree trunks, ripping bark and moss and the flesh of her palms before she lodged with a thud in the crook of the ravine.
Piper paced. It was way past time for Tia to call or come home. Even if there’d been an emergency, wouldn’t she make contact? Piper fingered her phone. She’d left three messages. No response. She looked out through the streaming pane. Rain beat at the windows. Lightning flashed and thunder hollered.
She had searched every hangout, even Tia’s church and the library. Nothing. She wanted to tell Jonah, but she had promised Tia not to overreact. If she called the station and said Tia had left without locking up, would they do something? It took more than that for a missing person unless there were signs of struggle or threats or something.
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