Home Again

by Shirlee McCoy

  Probably he had. That was Matthias. Big plans. Little action. His three brothers didn’t seem to be the same way. Not that she’d seen much of them. They’d stepped in to take over the care of Sunday and Matt’s kids. Or, at least, one of them had. The other two visited almost every weekend.

  She avoided them whenever possible.

  She didn’t need complications in her already complicated life, and the Bradshaw men had the potential to be that.

  The Bradshaw boys.

  That’s what people in town called them.

  As if, somehow, the three had never grown up, left Benevolence, and made lives for themselves. Nearly every conversation Clementine had at the feed store, the grocery store, or the diner began with Those Bradshaw boys and ended with a story about the havoc the three had wreaked on the town.

  Matthias had apparently been the good brother.

  The other three were hellions, rebels, and troublemakers.

  Or so the stories went.

  Clementine had taken to listening with half an ear.

  In the month since she’d returned to the farm and taken up residence in the little ranch-style house on the edge of the property, she’d kept her distance from the Bradshaw kids and their uncles. Life was easier that way, and she’d decided after Sim walked out on her that easy was what she wanted.

  No more emotional drama.

  No more entanglement in other people’s issues.

  Just simple, peaceful living.

  She reached the end of another row and turned the tractor again, the loud chug of the engine masking sounds of waking birds and scurrying animals. In the distance, Sunday’s house loomed up against the indigo sky. No lights. Just the dark facade of it shadowed by early morning.

  She turned the tractor again, her heart jumping as a small light danced through the field to her left. She let the tractor idle as she watched it skip across the dried-out husks of a never-harvested corn crop. The stalks moved, swishing as something darted between them.

  Clementine cut the engine.

  The morning was silent except for the dry rasp and crackle of breaking branches and twigs.

  “Who’s there?” she called, climbing off the tractor and heading toward the still-moving light.

  It cut off. The old cornstalks stilled. Whoever it was had either decided to move more carefully or wasn’t moving at all.

  She waited, listening to the silence.

  No birds.

  No animals.

  Even Elvis was quiet, the young rooster forgoing his normal sunrise greeting.

  “I said, who’s there?” she repeated, pushing her way toward the place where the light had disappeared.

  She wasn’t afraid. Out here, the most dangerous predator was human, and she had no reason to believe a stranger had wandered onto the property. It was just far enough outside town to discourage visitors, just far enough from the highway to not be found easily by troublemakers.

  No. She wasn’t worried that a serial killer was sneaking through the cornfield. The most likely culprit was one of Sunday’s six kids, and that did have her concerned. The kids had been wild before their parents’ accident. Being parentless had made things worse. There’d been issues at school. Issues in town. Fights. Skipped classes. Shoplifting. Minor stuff in the grand scheme of things, but in a town the size of Benevolence, they were huge. People were talking. And no matter how hard Clementine tried not to hear, the stories were there, in her head, whispering their truth every night when she tried to sleep: the Bradshaw kids were struggling, and she really should try to help their uncles get that under control.

  Only, she had enough of a mess to deal with.

  The farm. Her life.

  She pushed further into the weeds, thorns catching her cotton pants and long-sleeved shirt and ripping the skin beneath. Up ahead, dry stalks rustled. Whoever was moving through was too short to be seen. A kid for sure. It could be any of the six except for Oya. She was too young to escape the house on her own.

  “Moisey?” she called. “Heavenly?”

  Still no response, so Clementine followed the shifting cornstalks, stepping out onto the old country road that separated the fields from the rocky land that abutted the Spokane River. She could see water gleaming in the grayish dawn, a glittering silver-green snake that wound its way through the valley. Placid in some areas. Dangerous in others. Not a good place for a child to spend time alone. Especially not this time of year when snowmelt was flooding the banks and the water was moving swiftly.

  “You had better not be heading for the river,” she hollered, scanning the area and catching just a glimpse of a child-sized figure darting behind an old spruce that stood on the river side of the road.

  “That’s it!” she said, hurrying across cracked asphalt coated in layers of dirt and debris. “It’s too early in the morning for hide and seek!”

  “It’s too early for just about anything,” a man responded.

  She swung around, a scream dying on her lips as she came nose to chest with one of the Bradshaw brothers.

  Not Sullivan.

  He lived on the farm full-time, and she would have recognized him easily. The other two were near strangers. She’d seen them a couple times, but avoiding people made it difficult to get to know them. Porter or Flynn.

  He was one or the other.

  The tallest one.

  The one with the broadest shoulders, the darkest hair, the lightest eyes. The one who was staring at her as if he suspected her of criminal activity or nefarious schemes.

  “You surprised me,” she said.

  “Sorry about that,” he responded, but he didn’t sound it. He sounded irritated. Hopefully with the errant child and not with Clementine. She didn’t want or need any kind of trouble with Sunday’s brothers-in-law.

  “It’s not the weekend,” she pointed out, because in the time she’d been back on the farm, she’d never seen Porter or Flynn during the week. “Shouldn’t Sullivan be the one corralling kids?”

  “He would be if he were around. Since he’s not, it’s up to me to track the little hooligan,” he replied, moving past and heading in the direction the child had gone.

  She followed, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  She certainly couldn’t return to plowing while one of Sunday’s kids was in danger.

  “Is it Maddox? Did he sneak out?” she guessed. He was the obvious choice—the kid who’d been suspended four times since his parents’ accident. The one who’d nabbed a candy bar from the five and dime and stood right outside the door munching on it. The trouble-maker-of-all-trouble-makers if the town rumor mongers were correct.

  “No.”

  “Milo?”

  “No,” he repeated.

  “Should I keep guessing, or are you going to make it easy and tell me?”

  “The quiet one.”

  “Twila?”

  “Are there any other quiet kids in that house?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder, his eyes seeming to glow in the early morning shadows. They weren’t blue or silver, but some clear, sharp shade in between.

  “Heavenly can be quiet,” she pointed out.

  “If your definition of quiet is chasing her twin brothers around shouting death threats at the top of her lungs, then yeah. I guess she’s quiet, too.”

  “Death threats?”

  “They ruined her choir dress.”

  “Should I ask how?”

  “You can ask anything you want,” he responded, walking a circle around the spruce.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “She’s gone.”

  “Twila is quiet. Not stupid. She wouldn’t stand here waiting for you to find her.”

  “None of the kids are stupid. That’s the problem. Every minute of every day, they’re thinking up new trouble to get into. I don’t know how Sullivan has managed for this long.”

  “It’s only been two months.”

  “I’ve only been running the show for twenty-four hours, and I’m ready to call in
the cavalry.”

  “Running the show?”

  “Yeah. Rumer and Sullivan eloped.”

  “They eloped?”

  She sounded like a parrot, repeating everything he said, but she couldn’t stop herself. She also couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Rumer Truehart and Sullivan Bradshaw had run off together. Shortly after the accident, Rumer had been hired as a housekeeper, nanny, and cook. She’d been the light in the darkness, the one ray of hope that the Bradshaw kids would be okay until Sunday recovered. The kids adored her. She adored them despite all their challenges and troublemaking capabilities. And now she was gone. Off getting married and leaving a sharp-eyed behemoth to take care of six traumatized children. This was not good. At all.

  It also wasn’t Clementine’s business.

  She was here to tend the land. Not the family. She needed to keep that in mind, because she knew herself too well. She was a sucker for sob stories. She got involved in things she shouldn’t because she tended to care too much. But, after Sim, she’d decided to close that part of herself off. No more rushing in to save the day. She wasn’t a heroine from an ancient tale. She was a woman who needed to get her crap together so she could have a secure, stable and enjoyable life.

  “Yes,” he said as he scanned the landscape.

  “As in, they ran off and got married and didn’t tell anyone they were going?” she persisted, because she still couldn’t believe it. Or, maybe, she just didn’t want to.

  “They let me in on their plans a few days ago,” he replied.

  “That was good of them. Seeing as how they were leaving six kids behind.”

  He glanced her way, smiling just enough for her to know he had a sense of humor. “I said something similar when Sullivan called, but I can’t be too upset. He’s held down the fort for two months. It’s my turn to step in.”

  “Fort? More like a juvenile detention center if the stories being passed around town are any indication.”

  “It might not be that bad.”

  “Might not be? That leaves open the possibility that it is.”

  “Right.”

  “Rumer seemed to have things under control. At least, every time I’ve been at the house, she did.”

  “She did, but Rumer isn’t here. She’s off marrying my brother. Only God knows what kind of hell is about to descend on the house now that she’s gone.” He moved through thick tumbleweed, heading toward the river.

  She pushed through after him.

  “It might take a while for the kids to gear up to anything close to hellish behavior.”

  “Sullivan and Rumer left twenty-four hours ago. I’m already outside before dawn searching for an escapee. I think it’s safe to say the kids didn’t need any time at all.”

  “You have a point,” she admitted.

  “Fortunately, my brother and his new wife will be back in a week or two.”

  “That’s vague.”

  “They said a week. I told them to take their time and relax. They both deserve the break.” He’d reached a narrow path that led to the river and stopped there, scanning the sparse foliage and boulder-dotted landscape. “Twila! You’d better stay away from that river!”

  A family of quail scurried from the thick scrub to his right, but he was already jogging toward the river. Bare feet. Jeans. Short-sleeved, white T-shirt that clung to broad shoulders and a narrow waist. She noticed those things just like she noticed the first glint of morning light sparkling on the surface of the river.

  A hundred yards away, an old dock stretched into the water. Beside it, a boathouse stood on spindly legs, its wood siding gray from age. Clementine had been on the dock and in the boathouse many times. Neither were sturdy enough to be called safe.

  The Bradshaw kids knew that.

  How many times had she heard Matthias warn them away from it? How many times had he made empty promises about fixing the dock and resealing the canoe that had been housed in the ramshackle building for longer than he’d been alive?

  Too many times to count.

  Matthias had been big on promises and small on follow-through, and now Twila was picking her way across rotting planks. Clementine could see her—a small, dark shape moving toward the far end of the dock and the deeper waters of the river.

  “Shit,” Matthias’s brother muttered, sprinting toward the dock.

  “I’ll second that,” she responded, following.

  They both reached the dock, and he stepped on the old wood.

  Clementine pulled him back.

  “I’ll go,” she said, walking onto the dock.

  He grabbed the back of her jacket. “My niece. My risk.”

  “Your niece weighs next to nothing. You weigh what? Two hundred?”

  “Good guess,” he responded, his gaze suddenly on her. His eyes really were an interesting shade of silvery blue. Rimmed with black or navy, they seemed oddly light against his tan skin and dark lashes.

  “I’m good at making predictions, too. And, I predict that 200 pounds is too much for this structure.” She tugged her jacket free and stepped onto the wobbly planks.

  He followed, and the entire structure shifted.

  “Shi . . . oot,” her companion muttered.

  “I told you, I’d go,” she responded. “This thing is not going to hold your weight. If it goes down, Twila will go down with it.”

  “If you both just leave, there won’t be a problem,” Twila called. She’d reached the end of the dock and was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge, her long dark hair falling nearly to the splintering wood.

  “You know that’s not going to happen, kid,” her uncle responded, stepping off the dock. “So, how about you make it easy on all of us and come on back?”

  “Sitting here is easy for me, Uncle Porter. Going home is easy for you. How about we both do those things?” Twila responded with just a hint of irritation in her voice.

  Porter.

  That was his name.

  Clementine filed it away and focused on Twila. She’d known the family long enough to understand that Twila was generally the peacemaker, the obedient one, the child least likely to be rude to adults. Her response to her uncle bordered on that. There had to be a reason. Maybe she was angry that Sullivan and Rumer had left. Maybe Porter had done something to offend her. Maybe she was just getting tired of being the good kid.

  “You sound angry, doll,” Clementine said, easing across the rotted wood, slowly making her way to Twila’s side.

  “I’m not a doll and I’m not angry. I’m just sitting here. Trying to mind my own business. Just like Heavenly always tells me to do.”

  “Have you and your sister been fighting?”

  “We always fight.”

  “More than usual?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure? Because it’s a little early in the morning to be outside. I figure you must have a reason for that.”

  “You’re outside,” Twila responded, staring out across the river, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her fuzzy pink pajamas clean and neat despite her trip across the field. She’d shoved her feet into winter boots, the white trim glowing in the dim morning light.

  “I have a lot of work to do,” Clementine replied.

  “You can get back to it if you want.”

  “I’d rather sit with you.”

  “Why?” Twila finally met her eyes. She’d always been the solemn and quiet one of the group. Reserved. Polite. Neat. Never in trouble in school or at home. Still, Sunday had worried about her as much as she’d worried about her rowdy twins and rebellious tween. She holds too much inside. She worries too much about being perfect. Of all my kids, she’s the one that I know the least. Lord knows how much I’ve tried to change that, but Twila is a treasure box without a key. At least, not a key I’ve ever been able to find.

  Sunday’s words were hanging in the air, tripping across the flowing river, and Clementine wanted to do right by her and by the little girl she loved so much.

>   “Because you look lonely,” she finally said, and Twila sighed.

  “Just because a person is alone doesn’t mean she’s lonely.”

  “Is that your way of telling me to go away?” Clementine asked.

  “You said you had work to do. That sounds much more important than sitting beside me on this dock.”

  “Nothing is more important than you.”

  Twila stiffened. “That’s what Mommy always says.”

  “Because it’s true. So, tell me why you’re out here.”

  “It’s quiet, and I need to think.”

  “About?”

  “Uncle Porter,” she whispered.

  Clementine resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see if Twila’s uncle had heard. The river was flowing, but this area of the Spokane was placid. Even in early spring. The morning was just quiet enough, the breeze moving in just the right direction to carry their words to his ears.

  “What about him?”

  “Heavenly said he’s an assassin. That’s why he’s got muscles and a gun.”

  “He has a gun?”

  “Yes,” Twila hissed, glancing at her uncle, maybe checking to be certain he hadn’t moved closer. “I’ve even seen it.”

  “You have?” This time, Clementine couldn’t resist. She looked, and Porter was exactly where she’d left him—standing with his hands tucked in his jean pockets, his stance relaxed but watchful. There was something about the curve of his lips, the hint of amusement in his eyes, that let her know she’d been right—he could hear every word.

  “He had it under his jacket when he got here.” Twila paused, her legs swinging back and forth with just enough force to make the dock sway.

  “Maybe you should stop that, hun,” Clementine suggested, setting her hand on Twila’s scrawny leg to still the motion. “This dock isn’t in very good shape, and the river is frigid this time of year.”

  “Do you think he is one?” Twila asked, ignoring Clementine’s comment as she glanced back again. The fear in her eyes was unmistakable. She wasn’t worried about the dock collapsing. She wasn’t worried about falling in the ice-cold river. She probably wasn’t even worried about getting in trouble for leaving the house without permission. She was worried about her uncle and about the possibility that he was exactly what her sister had claimed.