This Place: Holmes Crossing Book 3

by Carolyne Aarsen

  This Place

  A Holmes Crossing book

  Carolyne Aarsen

  This Place

  Copyright © 2015 by Carolyne Aarsen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-0-9940498-3-4

  Created with Vellum

  Foreword

  I’m always writing.

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  Chapter 1

  My life had come full circle.

  Abandoned child. Check.

  Uncertain guardianship of said child. Check.

  Only this time I wasn't the one crying upstairs, cast off yet again by my biological mother, rejecting hugs offered by a loving foster parent.

  This time it was my niece who lay prostrate, staring sightlessly at her bedroom wall, so quiet it seemed she was afraid to draw even the smallest bit of attention to herself.

  Earlier in the evening, I had sat beside her until she fell into a troubled sleep, my hand curled around hers, my heart breaking for so many reasons. I wanted to stay at her side all night. To drink in features I had imagined so many times. To be there for her if she woke up, crying.

  But I had other issues I couldn’t put off. So I reluctantly drew myself from her side, and returned downstairs to find a small blaze crackling in the corner fireplace of the living room. The heat warmed the house but did little to melt the chill in my bones. It had settled there, deep and aching, as I watched her parents’ coffins being lowered into the icy ground.

  Duncan Tiemstra, Celia's uncle, hovered by the fire as if attempting to absorb all of its warmth, one arm resting on the mantle, looking at a picture he held in his other hand. He had aged since that first time I met him at Jer and Francine’s wedding. Then he looked young. Fresh. Ready to face life. And very interested in me.

  Now he looked like a grieving Visigoth, with his blond hair brushing the collar of his shirt and framing a square-jawed face. The hint of stubble shadowing his jaw made him look harder and unapproachable. When we met at the funeral all I received was a taciturn hello. No memory of the feelings we had shared eight years ago.

  My heart folded at the contrast from then to now.

  Then we were dancing on the edges of attraction, flirting with possibilities. I was twenty-two, my life ahead of me. He was twenty-seven, looking to settle down. We laughed together. Even went on a couple of dates.

  Now, we were separated by years and events that had pushed us apart, yet connected by the little girl that lay upstairs.

  "Is she sleeping?" Duncan asked setting the picture he had been holding on the mantle.

  "Yes. Finally." I plumped a throw pillow and set it on the large recliner I guessed had belonged to my brother. I folded an afghan that had fallen onto the floor and laid it on the matching leather couch.

  "Poor kid. She must be exhausted." He dragged his hand over his face and heaved out a sigh. "I know I am." Then he glanced my way, his eyes holding mine. "How about you, Miriam? How are you holding up?"

  His concern touched me, but I sensed he was merely being polite.

  "I'm tired. There were a lot of people here," I said, pushing a love seat to face the fire, resisting the urge to gather the few coffee cups remaining on the low table, traces of the mourners that had filled the house only moments before. "I didn't think Jer and Fran got to know that many people in the few months they lived here."

  "That's Holmes Crossing," Duncan said, stifling a yawn as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his crisp blue jeans. "Everyone knows everyone, and we all show up at the funerals.” He moved closer to a second love seat flanking the fireplace. "You going to keep fussing, or are you going to sit down? We need to talk."

  His words were ominous. I knew exactly what he wanted to discuss and it wasn’t our previous relationship. This conversation had been lingering on the edges of my grief ever since the lawyer had called to let me know that while my brother had named Duncan as Celia's guardian in his will, in a strange and unexpected complication, Duncan's sister had named me.

  I lowered myself to the couch across from him, folding my ice-cold hands together, trying to still my wavering emotions.

  "It was a nice service," I ventured, not ready to delve into the convoluted guardianship issue. And for sure not ready to make a trip down memory lane.

  "Nice." He almost snorted the word as he leaned back on the couch. "I don't know how a double funeral could possibly be considered nice."

  I understood his anger. When I got the news of my brother’s death, I was in the cramped little apartment I shared with my friend, Christine. Alone.

  I remember clutching the phone in both hands as my world spun out of control, sinking to the floor, trying to make sense of what Duncan was telling me. All I heard were the words accident, snowmobiling and mountains.

  My first thoughts were of their daughter Celia, and what would happen to her. Behind that came an unreasonable fury that Jer and Fran would be so stupid and reckless.

  Then came the waves of grief, and everything after that was a haze.

  "You're right," I murmured. "Nice is a lame word. But I did appreciate the message."

  "How the dark threads of our lives give contrast to the others?" He released a harsh laugh.

  I let the rhetorical question slip past me. The dark weavings of my own life kept me tossing and turning with regret in the lonely hours of the night. Losing my foster mother—Jer's mother—six years ago, had added yet another dark thread. She had been the only solid anchor in my life.

  And now Jer was gone as well.

  "So, how do you see this happening? This guardianship thing?" Duncan stretched out his long legs, crossing his muscled arms over his chest.

  My feet and head both ached, pounding with the beat of my grieving heart. I wanted nothing more than to drag myself upstairs and slip into bed beside Celia. Pull the covers over our heads, and give in to the grief that held me in a relentless grip.

  Not to be reminded of the one thing I wanted more than anything else but couldn’t allow myself to.

  Take care of Celia.

  "I don't know," I said.

  "The estate isn't settled yet, either," Duncan said. "I'm worried what will be left for her."

  I was too. This house was huge. I wasn't sure how my brother had afforded it on his electrician’s income. Phil, the lawyer for the estate, had hinted that there were a few insurance and estate issues to be dealt with and not to make any hasty decisions.

  "For now, until all the legalities are done, I feel I should stay here at the house with Celia," I said. "I want to make sure everything is settled in her life before…"

  I stopped, realizing I was jumping ahead of the scattered plans I had made on the flight here.

  "Before what?" Duncan asked, his voice curt.

  I tried to hold his narrowed gaze, reminding myself that his anger wasn't directed at me. At least, I hoped it wasn't.

  "Actually, to be honest I haven't thought beyond getting to bed tonight and trying to figure out what to do tomorrow morning."

  My throat thickened at the thought of Celia living the rest of her life without her parents. However, years of suppressing my own emotions for the sake of peace, for the sake of the greater good, kicked in. Les
sons learned the hard way through the dark and rocky paths my life had taken. I tried a different tack.

  "Do you know why they each made separate wills? Why they named different guardians?" I asked. Or why Francine thought that I, with my itinerant lifestyle and too many scars from the past, would be a suitable guardian?

  The slow shaking of his head was his only answer.

  "I thought maybe, because you lived close to them, you might know their reasons…" my voice trailed away, and I pulled in a deep breath.

  "They'd only been here a couple of months, and I hadn't spent a lot of time with them." He sighed again, tunneling his fingers through his thick and unruly hair. He looked over at me and for a moment his gaze softened, and I caught the faintest glimpse of the old attraction. But this wasn't the time or place and we both had other priorities.

  "Jer had always said they'd agreed to make your parents Celia's guardians," I said. Though part of me had struggled with his reasoning, I knew I wasn't guardian material.

  "My father's accident in the bush last year changed all that," Duncan said. "There's no way Mom and Dad can take care of a young girl right now." Duncan sat straighter, scratching his temple with a forefinger. "Now all we need to know is how long you're sticking around?"

  "I won't leave until things are settled in Celia's life."

  "So not right away?"

  "No. Of course not. It's her birthday next week—" my voice tangled on the words, and I stopped, memories of the day of her birth ingrained in my memory.

  "Of course. I can see that you want to keep her here till then,” he said.

  The direction of the conversation puzzled me. His impersonal tone warned me to simply take his question at face value. I doubted he was looking to fan the old, barely glowing spark between us. I certainly wasn't, though I would be fooling myself to deny the attraction he still held.

  "My parents will be glad to hear that," he continued, leaning forward, clasping his hands between his knees. "I'm sure they are also hoping you’ll stay until Christmas."

  "I'm hoping the guardianship issue will be resolved before then. As well as the estate." Besides requiring taking a month off work, I wasn't sure I wanted to be around for Christmas. That family-centered season had become more difficult each passing year. Each dark twist and turn of my life had removed more people from it. My own mother and her crazy life, my foster mother.

  Now my foster brother.

  Christmas was a season when all those losses created a darkness that no amount of candles or carols could brighten.

  "What's to resolve?" he asked. "You're the guardian. At least, according to the lawyer."

  I frowned, trying to piece together what he was saying. "I was under the impression that we would do this jointly."

  "You won't need my help. I can't do much."

  "What do you mean? You're as much her guardian as I am."

  I had presumed the joint guardianship was the reason for his smoldering-by-the-fireplace act. I thought he resented my presence in Celia's life.

  "I don't have the foggiest clue why Jerrod named me,” he snapped. “After my father's accident, I thought they would name my sister, Esther, as guardian. Not me. I'm not capable."

  "I'm sure you're more than capable. Plus, you have a lot of support." As I sat in the church, filled to capacity with friends and community members, a peculiar poignancy had filtered through my grief. I realized that Jer, through Fran, had found something here in Holmes Crossing that I hadn't in my peripatetic wanderings.

  A place where they belonged. A place where Celia would have grandparents, an aunt and an uncle who lived normal lives, in a community of people who cared.

  "That doesn't change anything." Duncan heaved out a sigh as he rubbed his forefinger over his temple. "You may as well know that I can't…can’t help you out with Celia. I've got too much going on in my life. I'm not in any position to care for her."

  His words were a jolt.

  "But how…? Why would you want to…? Jer wanted you as guardian…you can't just walk out on her."

  He looked up at me, his eyes flat, as if all emotion had been drained out of them. "I'm not walking out on her. I just won't be involved in the day-to-day stuff. She's all yours. I won't fight you for her. I can't be her guardian. I just can't."

  She's all yours.

  His words plucked at a deeper, harder pain. And yet, for a moment a tendril of hope, of yearning, slipped upward.

  She’s all yours. You don’t have to share.

  Then a chilling thought occurred to me. "Is this because she's adopted?" I asked, the words spilling out before I could stop them. "Because she's not a blood relative? Is that why you won't take responsibility?"

  "That has nothing to do with it. She's as much my niece as any natural child of Francine's would be." He shot one more glance over his shoulder at the pictures behind him, as if something there had triggered his outburst.

  For the tiniest moment, I thought his resistance was due to the few days we'd been together all those years ago, then dismissed that thought as crazy. The key words were, all those years ago. I stopped replying to his texts after those few blissful days we spent together. After I returned to the States and my own messy life and realized I was only fooling myself. I assumed he'd given up on me. In fact, I knew he had given up, because he had gotten married six months after we parted ways.

  "Seriously. I can't take care of that little girl," he said.

  "I realize that you’re busy, but you’re saying you won't help me out at all?"

  He shook his head again, rising from his seat. "Sorry. It won't work for me. I just… I can't. I’ve got the logging operation to deal with, and a farm to run. And there’s no way I can." He stopped there then swung away from me.

  He grabbed the heavy coat draped over the back of one of the chairs, slipped it on and glanced my way again. I don’t know if it was my fragile emotional state, or my own reaction to him, but I seemed to catch a glimpse of warmth in his eyes, a softening of his features. Then there was a shift, and it was gone.

  “Goodbye. I’m sure we’ll be in touch,” was all he said, and then strode out of the room. The closing of the door echoed harshly in the silence he left behind.

  I sat a moment trying to absorb what had just happened. Did he seriously think I could do this by myself?

  I thought of Celia upstairs, alone and my throat thickened.

  This wasn't right, I thought, leaning back on the couch, confusion mingling with sorrow. Celia was supposed to have been settled in a stable, loving family. When I heard that Jerrod had died, though it cut me to the core, one sliver of my soul was thankful that Celia at least had an uncle, an aunt and grandparents. She would be taken care of, and surrounded by people who loved and supported her.

  What was Francine thinking, naming me Celia’s guardian? She knew where I had come from, and what my life was like. I pressed my hand to my mouth, my emotions doing battle.

  I didn't deserve Celia then, and much as my lonely, aching heart yearned to take her in, to take her home, I knew I couldn't be the mother she needed any more than my mother could be the mother I needed. Celia deserved a better legacy.

  And even as my mind tried to process this latest complication, another thought sifted through the fog and settled with startling clarity.

  Was Francine trying to undo what had happened almost five years ago, when they had they adopted my baby? My daughter?

  Celia.

  #

  Duncan twisted the key in the ignition of his truck and threw it into reverse, making sure to avoid the huge SUV that used to belong to his sister. He slammed the truck into drive and hit the accelerator, tires spinning snow as he barreled down the driveway.

  He clenched the steering wheel, staring at the twin cones of light his headlights cast on the snowy road ahead, thinking only of escape. Every moment he spent in that house, listening to the never-ending words of condolence, was like a twisting of the knife that had been embedded in his soul th
ree years ago.

  He banged one hand on the steering wheel in a mixture of impotent rage, laced with grief.

  He had argued with Francine about their trip to the mountains. About the cost, the stupidity of leaving Celia behind while they ran off to indulge in their newfound snowmobiling hobby.

  What had been more troubling was Francine pulling him aside before they left, telling him she and Jerrod needed this holiday. She had pleaded with him to just leave it be.

  And now that ‘break’ had cost them their lives, and put another pair of graves in the Holmes Crossing graveyard.

  Duncan swallowed down a knot of pain, fighting the flood of emotions, pushing them back where they belonged. He hit the dashboard fan controls, blasting warm air over the iced up windshield. He rubbed it with the sleeve of his coat as old questions and an old anger with God threatened to take over.

  But dwelling on those things meant letting feelings take over. He figured God didn't care about the grief of working slobs like him.

  He turned on his radio and country music blasted out of the speakers, bouncy, happy, and trite.

  Didn’t matter. It was a distraction.

  Think about your horses. That new one you want to buy, he reminded himself. He hoped to hitch his other horses, Bonnie and Clyde, to the sleigh again. They were a good team, and he enjoyed working with them. Maybe this spring, after he was done seeding, he’d be able to take them out to the wagon rally that the Wildmans held every year down in Silver Valley.

  If the logging season didn’t last too long.

  And on the heels of that thought came plans that weighed more heavily and required immediate attention.

  Skyline was talking about reducing their logging contract. He had to get the air brakes fixed on that new Kenworth. Les said they could move into that new block tomorrow.

  He sucked in a breath, then another, as he mentally blocked off that portion of his life, shifting in his seat.

  When his wife Kimberly was alive, she had often accused him of compartmentalizing—throwing the word out like some kind of accusation—but it was the only way he'd been able to juggle all the different aspects of his life and stay sane.