Arriving in Parable by night had been one thing, though, and venturing out in broad daylight, where she was bound to run into the locals, was another. Still, she needed groceries, since she’d only bought nonperishables the day before, and she had promised Kendra she’d stop by at the office and keep an eye out for drop-ins.
Plus, she reminded herself stalwartly, she hadn’t come back to Parable to hide.
The reasons for her return were far from concrete, as many times as she’d rolled the whole situation through the cogs and gears of her brain. Obviously, she wanted to make things right with the people her stepfather had cheated. At the same time, she knew she wasn’t responsible for another person’s actions.
So why had she come back? Why had she sacrificed so much, giving up a good job, selling the company she’d built by working nights and weekends, forsaking her luxury condo and her dream car?
The only answer Joslyn could have given, at that moment or any other, was that something—her overdeveloped conscience?—had driven her back. The compulsion to return had been cosmic in scope, as impossible to ignore as a tsunami or an earthquake.
The mandate, it seemed to her, had arisen from some secret part of her soul, pushing her to take the next step and then the next, operating almost entirely on faith.
It was like walking a tightrope blindfolded. There was no turning back, and if she didn’t keep moving, she was sure to lose her balance and fall.
Joslyn sighed and headed for the door, moving resolutely.
Visiting Kendra’s office meant going inside the main house, of course—and she knew she’d be beset by all sorts of memories as soon as she set foot over the threshold—but there was something to be said for just getting things like this over with. Kendra lived on the second floor and ran her real-estate firm out of the huge living room, where, as of Monday morning, Joslyn would be working full-time.
Might as well bite the bullet and brave the first and inevitably emotional reentry while she had some privacy. After sucking in a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Joslyn crossed the wide lawn where flowers of all sorts and shades and fragrances rioted all around her, climbed the wooden steps to the enclosed sunporch and reached for the handle of the screen door. Locked.
Joslyn sighed, recalling Kendra’s remarks about Parable having its share of petty crime these days. Evidently, her friend practiced what she preached, but, since she hadn’t offered a key, the front door was probably open.
Joslyn descended the steps and followed the familiar flagstone path around to the side of the house, running parallel to the glittering white driveway with its layers of limestone gravel.
The front yard, like the back, nearly overflowed with flowers, and Joslyn heard the somnambulant buzz of bees and the busy chirping of birds as she paused to look around. For a moment, she felt like Dorothy in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz, thrust with tornado force from a black-and-white world into a breathtakingly colorful one.
Except for a tasteful wooden sign suspended from a wrought-iron post by brass chain—Shepherd Real Estate, Locally Owned—everything looked the same as it had when she lived there.
Four Georgian pillars supported an extension of the roof, and the windows, mullioned glass salvaged from some country house in England in the aftermath of World War II, shone in the sunlight like so many diamond-shaped mirrors. The front doors were mahogany, hand-carved with leaves and birds and unicorns and all manner of ornate curlicues. A heavy brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head added to the grandeur of it all.
After steeling herself for another emotional jolt, Joslyn tried the knob. It turned.
Joslyn pushed open the door and moved into the shadowy coolness of the massive foyer. Soaring two stories high, the entryway echoed with the ponderous ticking of the oversized grandfather clock dominating the inside wall.
Multicolored light spilled through stained-glass skylights, and two grand staircases stood on either side, sweeping upwards to the second floor. The one on the left opened on to the side of the house where her room—more of a suite, really—had been, along with spacious quarters for guests and a private sitting room with its own fireplace. The master suite, with its decadent bath, an honest-to-goodness ballroom, and a sizable library occupied the opposite side of the structure.
Joslyn took a step toward the stairs, like someone hypnotized, but stopped herself before she could go any farther.
This wasn’t her home anymore. It was Kendra’s, she reminded herself silently.
Yes, Kendra was her friend—probably her best friend—but that didn’t mean Joslyn could go poking around in the old house, looking behind doors to see what had—and hadn’t—changed in the years since her departure.
She peeked into the living room—Elliott had always referred to it as “the parlor”—and saw that Kendra had made good use of the space. There were two desks, both antiques, both equipped with computers and modern phones. The bookshelves on either side of the gray-white marble fireplace were stuffed with manuals but otherwise tidy.
The elegant round table in the center of it all sported a sparkling cut-glass bowl with an exquisite pink orchid floating inside.
Joslyn blinked, and, for the merest fraction of a second, the room was the way she remembered it—cheerfully cluttered, with the bookshelves spilling paperbacks and hardcovers and DVDs, and two huge sofas, upholstered in beige corduroy, flanking the hearth. The TV was blaring, newspapers and magazines littered the floor, and Spunky, the cocker spaniel, barked joyfully, as if to welcome her back after a long absence.
Another blink, and, of course, it was all gone.
They’d taken Spunky with them the night they fled, she and her mom and Opal, and he’d lived to a ripe old age.
Joslyn shook off the twinge of longing she felt and moved farther inside the room. A comfortable seating area filled one corner, but there were no customers waiting, so it was an all-clear. She’d done her duty as far as her friend was concerned, she decided, at least for the time being.
Turning on one heel, Joslyn practically ran out of that house, haunted, as it was, by the ghosts of her pampered youth, and zipped around back to the cottage to fetch her purse and car keys. She needed to cook—like reading, making her favorite dishes and trying new recipes were forms of personal therapy for her—and that meant a trip to the market.
The limestone gravel crunched under the wheels of her car as she drove onto Rodeo Road and turned right.
Parable, population 10,421 according to the sign at the outskirts of town, boasted at least two supermarkets and the discount store she’d visited the day before to buy necessities, but Joslyn liked Mulligan’s Grocery, the mom-and-pop establishment across the street from the Curly-Burly Hair Salon, because the meat and produce were organic.
It had been a lot of years, though. Was Mulligan’s even there anymore? Or had the small family business gone under, done in by competition from the bigger stores and the rocky economy?
Her heart lurched a little when she rounded the corner and saw cars in the store’s grassy parking lot and an open sign in the front window. The soda machine, probably a valuable collector’s item by now, still stood next to the screen-door entrance, along with an ice holder and rows of propane tanks for barbecuing.
Cheered, Joslyn parked her car, got out and headed for the door, looping her purse strap over one shoulder as she went.
The same sense of déjà vu she’d experienced in the living room of Kendra’s house swept over her as she stepped inside.
She might as well have entered a time warp, things had changed so little. The bread and candy racks were right where she remembered them being, and the floors were still uneven planks, worn smooth by several generations of foot traffic and stained from a thousand spills. The brass cash register, another relic of days gone by, like the soda machine, occupied the same counter in the same part of the store. Only the people were different.
Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan, already old when she’d known them, were pr
obably long dead. Joslyn didn’t recognize the gangly man behind the counter or any of the other customers.
The tension that had drawn up her shoulders, without her really noticing, eased so suddenly that it left her a little dizzy. Her mind occupied with memories and ingredient lists, she’d forgotten to dread encountering one or more of her stepfather’s numerous victims.
That was bound to happen, sooner rather than later, most likely, but for now, Joslyn dared to hope she’d wandered into a confrontation-free zone.
Please, God.
Except for a nod of greeting, the clerk at the counter didn’t pay her any particular attention, and neither did the few shoppers gathering food from shelves and coolers.
Joslyn took a cart, one of the half dozen available—it had a rattle and one hinky wheel—and started down the first aisle. She hadn’t bothered to make an actual list, since she needed practically everything.
She was standing in front of the spices, picking out the must-haves, like paprika and poultry seasoning, when she suddenly realized someone was watching her.
Joslyn looked up into a pair of eyes so blue that they might have trapped fragments of a sky darkening its way toward evening. Her heart fluttered up into the back of her throat and flailed there as she registered the man’s identity.
Slade Barlow.
A badge glinted on his belt, reminding her that he was the sheriff of Parable County now, and he carried his hat in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
Be out of town by sunset, Joslyn imagined him saying, in a slow, thoughtful drawl, befitting his jeans, Western shirt and polished boots.
“Hello,” she said, sounding stupid in her own ears and feeling as stuck as a deer caught in the dazzle of oncoming headlights.
A slight frown creased Slade’s tanned forehead. His hair was dark and short, though not too short, and those new-denim eyes were slightly narrowed.
“Joslyn?” he asked.
She bit her lower lip, nodded, wishing she’d worn a pair of shades and a baseball cap, so she could have pulled the brim down over her face.
Or, better yet, one of those dime-store disguises with the big plastic nose and mustache attached to a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
Slade’s white, even teeth flashed as he grinned. “Well, now,” he said, still watching her.
Well, now? Just what did that mean?
Joslyn racked her brain, trying to recall if Sheriff Barlow had been caught up in Elliott’s scam, but it didn’t seem likely. He’d grown up in the trailer across the road from Mulligan’s, the shy son of a single mom, holding down a paper route until junior high and washing cars and helping out with hay and wheat harvests after that. He’d driven an old car with rust spots on the chassis and the muffler duct-taped to the undercarriage.
A far cry from the flashy red car she’d been given the day she’d gotten her driver’s license.
Nope, Slade wouldn’t have had the means to sign up for pie-in-the-sky with Elliott Rossiter. Lucky him.
“I was sorry to hear about Elliott,” he said.
Here it comes, Joslyn thought, inwardly bracing herself. “Sorry?” she echoed, stalling.
“That he died?” Slade prompted with just the hint of a grin dancing in his eyes and flirting with the corners of his mouth. For the most part, though, his expression was solemn. Thoughtful. Like she was the last person on earth he’d expected to run into in Parable, Montana, or anywhere else.
“Thanks for not adding ‘in prison,’” Joslyn said, without intending to say any such thing.
“I reckon that part goes without saying,” Slade replied easily. She knew he wanted to ask what she was doing back in Parable, and of course she couldn’t have told him, even if she’d been inclined to do so, because she still didn’t know herself. He nodded, started around her and her cart. “Anyhow, good to see you again,” he said.
It was a lie, of course, though cordially told.
“Same here,” Joslyn fibbed.
She’d have avoided Slade if she could have, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that Callie Barlow’s baby boy had grown up to be one good-looking hunk of cowboy.
Once he’d rounded the display of boxed doughnuts at the end of the aisle, Joslyn tried to concentrate on spices again, but all she added to the seasonings already in her cart were salt and pepper.
The shopping cart wheel creaked and grabbed at the floor with every revolution as she pressed on toward the meat, fish and poultry, showcased in a refrigerated cooler, sure that everyone in the store must be staring at her by now, suddenly recalling her former association with Elliott Rossiter.
She selected a package of tilapia, an organic game hen and some lean hamburger, trying to distract herself by ogling the prices—which were outrageous. She’d go broke if she did all her shopping at Mulligan’s, that was for sure, nostalgia or no nostalgia.
But she didn’t stay distracted for long.
Slade Barlow not only filled her thoughts, he seemed to permeate her body, too, as though there had been some quantum-level exchange of energy.
He was taller than she remembered, broader through the shoulders. It wasn’t even noon, and he had a five o’clock shadow, and, furthermore, that quiet confidence of his both drew her and made her want to sprint in the opposite direction.
What was that about?
She heard him exchange pleasantries with the clerk as he paid for the water, heard the little bell over the front door chime as he went out.
She stood frozen in front of the meat counter, strangely shaken, half expecting the sky to cave in, shattering the not-so-sturdy roof of Mulligan’s Grocery and landing all around her in big, blue chunks snagged with wispy strands of cloud.
“Aren’t you Elliott’s girl?” a quavery female voice asked.
Startled out of her daze, Joslyn turned and saw Daisy Mulligan herself standing at her side, shrunken and white-haired, with pink patches of scalp showing between her pin curls, but very much alive. Her blue eyes were watery behind the old-fashioned frames of her glasses.
Joslyn caught herself just before she would have blurted, “I thought you were dead,” and rummaged up a warm smile, putting out her hand. “Joslyn Kirk,” she said pleasantly. “Elliott was my stepfather.”
Daisy nodded slowly, her rheumy gaze watchful, as she shook Joslyn’s hand. “Nobody around here thought the Rossiter boy would grow up to be a crook,” she remarked. “His father and grandfather were both doctors. Solid citizens. We should have known there was something wrong with Elliott when he didn’t go to medical school.”
Joslyn tried to read the old woman, but it was impossible. Either Mrs. Mulligan was about to shout down the ceiling, calling Joslyn the spawn of Satan and ordering her out of the store, or she was just making conversation.
There was no way to tell.
“And when he didn’t marry a hometown girl,” Daisy added ruefully, following up with a sigh. She looked fragile as a bird in her cardigan sweater and simple cotton dress, though she walked without a cane and her shoes weren’t orthopedic.
Uh-oh, Joslyn thought.
“Not that your mama wasn’t a nice-looking woman,” Daisy allowed.
“Is,” Joslyn corrected awkwardly. “My mother is still—around.”
Daisy reached out and patted Joslyn’s left hand, where it rested on the handle of the rickety shopping cart. “That’s good to know, dear,” she said. Behind the smudged lenses of her glasses, her eyes grew a size. “Some of us thought you’d come back and marry up with Hutch Carmody, since the two of you seemed so crazy about each other, but the majority expected you to steer clear of Parable for good.”
Joslyn gripped the shopping cart handle with both hands now, her knuckles turning white. Daisy went on before she could think of anything to say.
“Fred’s brother-in-law lost a bundle in that mess of Elliott’s,” the old woman reminisced. “Died before that outfit in Denver started sending out checks.”
“Checks?” Joslyn mana
ged, almost croaking the word.
“A settlement,” Daisy Mulligan said. “That’s what the letters from the lawyers said it was. Most everybody Elliott bamboozled got their money back, with interest, but it was too late for some.”
Joslyn’s throat tightened. She swallowed again. She’d known some of the people Elliott had fleeced were gone, known she’d have to face the living ones who remembered. But knowing hadn’t prepared her for the actuality, and neither had all the sensible answers she’d rehearsed on the drive up from Phoenix.
Daisy didn’t break her conversational stride. “Folks figure the tax people or the accountants or somebody must have tracked that money down to some foreign bank where Elliott stashed it before he went to jail, then gone in there and seized every nickel. It was like a miracle when those checks started showing up in people’s mailboxes.”
Joslyn nodded, and her smile felt plastered onto her face, about to crumble and fall away. “That must have been what happened,” she said, though she knew full well that none of the stolen money had been recovered. Elliott had certainly squandered most of it, if not all.
Daisy smiled benignly. “I can’t imagine what you’re doing back here in Parable,” she mused aloud, her tone sweetly confidential, as though she were sharing a secret. In the next instant, her wrinkled face brightened with speculation. “Unless you’re going to marry Hutch Carmody after all,” she said, almost breathless with excitement. “He could sure do with a wife. Might settle him down a little—he’s got that wild streak in him, you know, like his old daddy had. And his mama’s people, why, they might have acted fancy, but they made all their money bootlegging back in the 1920s. Before then, they were nothing but a bunch of hillbillies.”
Joslyn felt like someone trying to board a moving freight train. “Umm—no,” she finally said, stumbling lamely into an answer. “There isn’t going to be a wedding. I mean, Hutch and I are friends, but there’s nothing romantic going on between us.”
Big Sky Country Page 3
