Small Town Angel

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Whew, that’s good! I’ll be able to take payments over the phone too the way they are setting everything up for me.”

  “That’s going to be very convenient,” Abby told her as they continued their delightful conversation. Before she knew it they had been there two hours. She thanked her host as they got dressed to go back out into the winter’s night. The puppy was panting delightedly as the children had worn him out. Amy pressed more cookies on her guests as she saw them out and wished them a Merry Christmas. She looked out and waved as they got into the patrol car and she saw how deep the snow was getting.

  * * * * *

  Amy thought over their conversations in the coming days. She had really enjoyed getting to know Abby better and other new friends dropped by over the holidays. She didn’t feel alone and she kept a plateful of cookies and hot cocoa ready for her visitors. She went with a couple to the local Lutheran Church for New Year’s but having been brought up Southern Baptist it didn’t feel the same even though it was a pleasant experience.

  * * * * *

  Amy got to use her ATV for the first time the next day as she plowed out her driveway. It wasn’t as deep as she had hoped; the tall pine trees hid a lot of snow in their branches. She scared Toby the first time she started it up, but with a little coaxing and showing him the perch just for him she was able to get him back on the machine. Moving scared him again, but the young pup was game and she was soon trying out her blade and trying to remember what the salesman had taught her so long ago. She had fun and the dog seemed to enjoy himself from the back of the machine as she slowly removed all the snow from her driveway and even the walk up to her front door. She was reluctant to put away the machine with all the fun she was having but there would always be another day. She had heard of those who went on ATV trails even in winter and made a note to ask someone about that next Friday at Chuckies.

  Amy had the time of her life riding on the ATV trails with others from town once she found out about it. The ups and downs of the trail, the speed, the snow whipping at them was exciting. She couldn’t always take Toby as it got too cold. She herself had bought a snowmobile outfit right down to the goggles and a balaclava and was really quite warm as she joined the others on this adventure. Still others went out on the snowmobile trails and she thought about getting one of those as well but instead just enjoyed her new friends and rode along on theirs when she could.

  * * * * *

  Amy was looking out over the lake as she bit her lip thoughtfully. She had just come out from the store where she was setting up things for the final touches and had come outside for a breath of fresh air. Some of the chemicals that the guys were using to put in things in her store gave her a headache and she needed to breathe the cool, fresh, air.

  “Good Morning,” Abby greeted her; she had seen her from her own kitchen window and come outside before going out on her patrol. Her front living room had been converted to the local field office and while vague promises had been made to actually turn one of the buildings in town into the police station, it had never happened in the few years she had been an officer up here. The county found it too convenient to just pay her a stipend to use her own home. There wasn’t enough crime in the area to make it worth their while to do a whole remodel of an actual building.

  Amy turned from her thoughtful meanderings with a smile and dimples that took Abby’s breath away, that and the cold weather that had moved into the area. “Good Morning, how are you Abby?”

  “Middling,” she grunted as she took a sip of the coffee she had brought with her out onto the deck.

  Amy grinned at the surly tone knowing it was affected for her benefit. Abby tried to come across as this curmudgeon but everyone knew what a pleasant woman she really was.

  “This place coming along?” Abby inclined her head to the store where she could hear the guys putting something together with loud bangs, a few cuss words, and lots of noise.

  Amy nodded enthusiastically. “It should be done right on schedule,” she lost her smile as she answered though.

  “What’s wrong then?” Abby asked seeing it.

  “Well, I have to go out of town for a convention, I have to find things in person to buy for the store,” she said as Toby walked out of the ajar door to see where she was, wagging his tail happily as he greeted Abby. Toby had never met a stranger.

  “So what is the problem? Terry will continue the work whether you are here or not? Gonna miss the rides on the trails?” she grinned teasingly. She’d heard about those trips and in fact went out on a couple of the snowmobile rides herself but had missed the ATV ones or the ones that Amy went on with others.

  “No, I am sure Terry is perfectly capable of finishin’ without me being here,” she drawled with a grin as Toby insinuated his head under Abby’s gloved hand. She tucked her own hands under her arms to keep them warm in the cold winters wind coming off the lake; she glanced at the drifts, some of the shadows causing them to look blue. “It’s just that I don’t know what to do with him and I hate the idea of him being in a cage at the vets.” She looked at her dog with such adoring affection. She had found a vet shortly after getting him and made sure his shots were on time and keeping him healthy. She had gotten his license and a microchip registered to her at the same time. It made her realize that perhaps some of the licenses in town could be obtained through her store as well and she had looked into it. Dealing with the county or state was a whole lot different than dealing with the different businesses she had already contracted with.

  “So why don’t you let me keep him?” Abby offered generously.

  “Oh I wouldn’t want to bother you,” her accent made it sound so pretty. “I couldn’t impose,” she said doubtfully.

  “It wouldn’t be a bother, the kids would love it,” she rubbed under the dog’s ears who lifted his head appreciatively. “They’ve been after me for a while to get a dog; this might determine if we ever get one.”

  “But how would your mother-in-law feel?” she asked knowingly. She had heard the gossip of Bonnie trying to get custody of the kids who were her grandchildren, but that Abby had been left sole custody of her wife’s children. It had caused a lot of gossip and hard feelings after her wife’s death.

  Abby shrugged knowingly. “She’ll have to live with it won’t she? Just like everything else.” She was very well aware that Amy probably had heard some of the gossip. No one knew the full story, that she had settled things with Bonnie and her husband Jake, that they could live with her in the house she and her wife had lived in. In exchange they would help raise their grandchildren, but Abby would never give up custody of her children. When Jake had passed away, he had been one of the local deputies out of a neighboring town, Abby had arranged for the sub-station here in Northpoint to run out of her home. As she was already a deputy she took over his work as well. Bonnie ran her office for her and watched the kids while she worked. The store had taken up some of each of their time but it had been her wife’s dream, not Abby’s. Abby’s grandparents had passed knowing that it would be taken care of by this unorthodox family that their granddaughter had created, she had been happy, that was enough for them and they accepted their great grandchildren without a qualm. It was her parents who refused to accept that Abby was gay, had a wife, and children via that wife. When her grandparents had died, especially when her wife died, they had expected her to sell up everything and come back to the mainland. Abby hadn’t even considered it.

  Remembering how the children had played with the pup at Christmas and how often Heather greeted the pup longingly as she stopped in at the store she was certain that the dog would be well taken care of. She really didn’t want him in the sterile atmosphere of the vets and in a cage. She shuddered at the thought. “If you are sure…” she began hesitantly.

  “Of course I’m sure, if I asked the kids now they’d jump out of their skin,” Abby assured her. “What are the dates of your convention?” she asked.

  Amy smiled, one problem solved
as she discussed the particulars with her kind neighbor. She left Toby in her capable hands as she drove herself down The Thumb and to the airport in Green Bay, flying south to Chicago and then west to the convention where she looked for items that she could add to her store to make it authentic and add to its overall impression. She had a wonderful, if lonely time. The lights of the big city didn’t impress her and she missed her little town. She found lots of things for the store and placed orders realizing she had needed the business cards and other paperwork she had ordered well in advance of the convention and gave them out willingly as she wrote up purchase orders with the various vendors. They all promised prompt delivery as she even wrote out a few checks to prepay her orders and get ‘deals’ on free shipping or bulk orders. She congratulated herself on her ‘business’ savvy and really looked forward to seeing the merchandise she had ordered in her store.

  When she returned to Green Bay and recovered her SUV she spent the rest of the day and an extra day shopping around the town for her home and for the store. Deliveries weren’t a problem and she filled the back of her SUV once again before trekking back up The Thumb to ‘home.’ She couldn’t wait to get there; she loved living up in Northpoint. The people were friendly, her home wonderful, she loved having Toby, and she felt like she had really made a place for herself. She’d made friends and that was as good as having family.

  She picked up Toby who seemed almost reluctant to leave the two children after a week with them but then remembered who he loved the most and willingly got into the SUV with Amy. “I can’t thank you all enough for your kindness,” she told Abby and Bonnie as she gave them a few packages for them and the children.

  “You didn’t have to bring us presents,” Abby protested but she could see Bonnie was touched. Anything that made that woman happy was something, made things a little easier in her life; she was willing to let her have. Bonnie had always been a little unhappy at life, but the loss of her only daughter, first to lesbianism and then to life itself and followed by the loss of her husband, her only ally against Abby had taken a lot from this prickly woman. Abby tried, she genuinely tried, but living with Bonnie was not easy. She helped a lot with the children and since Abby worked a lot it was convenient to have a second parent around. If she wasn’t such a sour puss it would make things a lot easier on everyone.

  “Oh now, shush, everyone loves getting presents,” Amy drawled graciously. “You enjoy them now, ya’hear?” she said with a smile and waved as she got in the SUV with Toby and drove off.

  “She’s a nice girl,” Bonnie said magnanimously and Abby was surprised she would complement anyone after all this time.

  Amy was pleased to see the little cabin but not so pleased at the amount of snow in her driveway while she was away. She parked on the road and headed for the cabin, with the dog hopping from boot hole to boot hole in the deep snow. She knew it was going to be cold inside too as she and Toby slogged through the waist deep white stuff to the front door where she brushed them both off as best she could before unlocking the door. Going inside she was pleased to see nothing seemed out of order and her first chore was starting up a fire in the fireplace. When that was crackling merrily she checked the rest of the house. Toby was snuffling in the kitchen and she found a mess from where something had gotten into her cereal while she was away. She sighed as she let Toby clean up the mess and she threw the now empty boxes into the fireplace shaking her head. She wondered if it was mice or heaven forbid a rat but then also wondered if it was a squirrel but thought they hibernated for winter? She and Toby after their ‘exertions’ went back out to clear the driveway with the ATV before parking the SUV in the now cleared area and began to unpack the back of the SUV. Load after load she brought into the cabin and parked on her living room floor until she could sort it later. Toby had fun galloping in the snow but she shut him inside when he started limping from snow between the pads of his feet, it was just too cold out for him for any length of time and he didn’t have the sense to stay out of the snow, it was fun and he was still a puppy.

  She was tired, it had been a long couple of days and as she parked her suitcase and briefcase, her last trip from the SUV, she locked it up remotely with her keypad. She locked up the front door of the cabin, and she sat down with a sigh as she removed her outdoor garments. The cabin had warmed up considerably since she got there, the fire doing quick work. Whoever designed the cabin had known how to build a fireplace that warmed the entire building and she was grateful for the thick logs. She hung up her outdoor clothes and lugged her suitcase into the bedroom, pulling out her bag of dirty clothes. She would have to go to the laundromat in the next town as Northpoint didn’t have one that she had found. She could have gotten a washer and dryer for the cabin but there was no room to put it in anywhere. She had plans for that, someday. She’d have to expand the little cabin, but that was in the future. Meanwhile she would continue to take her clothes to the next town and spend an hour or two as the machines efficiently washed and then dried her clothes which she folded into the baskets and lugged them out to her SUV.

  She looked at the boxes and packages and considered leaving them until the next day and then with a sigh she got up and began to put things away. From bulk purchases of toilet paper to canned goods she just kept putting things away until the pile in her living room was reduced to nothing. She opened her briefcase and looked at the many purchase orders and decided to work on that the following day in her spare bedroom that had been made into a small office. She had made it up with a day bed and a nice antique desk she had found on one of her many jaunts around The Thumb.

  Amy’s trip netted results and boxes and deliveries began to arrive the next week. Terry groaned at some of her purchases as she began to put fixtures and other things into the store. His work was nearly finished and he liked what he was seeing as she fussed and unpacked the many purchases. “Are you going to have a grand opening or something?” he asked as he watched her put things in the still covered windows.

  “Oh, you haven’t seen this,” she said as she reached for her briefcase and showed him the circular that was going into the newspapers throughout The Thumb and all the way down into Green Bay inviting people to a Sunday ‘social’ at the store to celebrate its grand opening. It was set for February, the weekend of the snowmobile races that were such a big part of the social scene up there in Door County. People from all over, locals and tourists would arrive to fill the Bed and Breakfasts as well as the few hotels that existed.

  “You timed that right,” he said knowingly. He hadn’t thought her ideas for the store were sound but seeing it come together with all the hard work he and his men had done he had to reevaluate, she had a nifty idea and he was looking forward to the store opening himself.

  She smiled at his gruff compliment knowing he and his workers had thought she was nuts, her many suggestions and ideas causing them to roll their collective eyes, but their work had been very good and she had appreciated it. She didn’t begrudge writing the checks for it as all of it was superior work and the craftsmanship superb.

  * * * * *

  “Where you going Alex?” Abby called as she saw one of the many high school students she had observed heading for the store. He was just one of the many people she saw get in line in the cold January weather pummeling Door County. The snowdrifts were everywhere and she had coordinated with the county to keep her roads clear.

  “Oh Miss Adams is hiring,” he said showing her the newspaper tucked under his arm.

  “So that’s it,” she nodded; she hadn’t read the paper today so she hadn’t known why swarms of people had been lining up to go into the store. She thought she had missed the opening or something but she had heard the gossip that Amy was opening in February during the snowmobile derby out on the ice. A lot of people would be around that weekend and she would have extra deputies up from the city doing overtime as they helped keep the crowds under control. Even Abby would have to wear her regular uniform instead of the relaxed c
lothes she normally wore with her badge only appearing when necessary. The locals knew who she was; it was the tourists who gave her any trouble as they figured she was just a hick sheriff’s deputy in this one horse village.

  “Yeah, I hope I get it, it sounds fun,” he said enthusiastically, his voice cracking in duress and his pimply face showing his excitement.

  Abby smiled at him wondering if she had been that way as a teen. There weren’t a lot of jobs around this area and Amy would have her pick of the kids, but she could see adults had come and gone from the store as well and she wondered what jobs Amy was hiring for.

  “I’m sure you’ll do your best,” she told him, and she was certain of that knowing the kid since he was a baby. His parents would expect hard work out of him and his brothers and she was sure if Amy hired him he would do a great job.

  “Gosh, you think she’ll hire me?” he said with a gulp of his Adam’s apple.

  She smiled at the gawky teen wanting to reach out and ruffle his hair, but he was long past that stage. Any chance to make money up here was sought after by the locals, from fishing to hunting guides there wasn’t a whole lot if you didn’t have a business, but Amy was providing them with an opportunity they couldn’t pass up. Abby understood the steady stream of people coming and going from the store now. “I’ll put in a good word if you think that would help?” she asked the anxious teen.

  “Gee thanks Chief, that’d be awesome,” he said gratefully as he went up the stairs to the boardwalk and into the store. It was too cold to stay outside too long and chat.

  Abby watched him go with a little smile and determined she should check out the store anyway. She hadn’t seen a lot of the remodel. Since Terry and his crew had finished, only Amy had been there for the many deliveries, the UPS, the trucks, the many, many deliveries that people had gossiped about. People had noticed. She seemed determined and no one had seen inside since she had the windows still covered with construction paper. Abby had to admit she was curious herself.