He ignored the sour faces, and by the time the old warehouse fire had been squelched, he was dirty and smelly, and realized again why he was in love with his job.
He hadn’t pulled anyone from a burning building. He hadn’t put out the fire. He hadn’t rescued anyone’s dog.
But by manning traffic and directing folks out of harm’s way, he may have saved a life.
That was why he loved wearing the uniform.
“You’re a mess, Harrison.”
He laughed at the commander and headed for the shower in the barracks. “Nothing that can’t be washed off. For the second time today, actually.”
Last night’s calving seemed like a long time ago. He checked his phone once he was clean, hoping for a call from Piper.
Nothing.
He’d seen her working while he got three more deck boards installed. The pass of the tractor meant she was making work to stay away from the farm, clear of the drama, and maybe away from him?
Why?
You don’t like farms, you embrace control and she’s living in an uncontrolled environment that might go south at any time.
Was he that rigid?
He scrubbed a hand to the nape of his neck.
Yes.
Could he change?
Not easily. And what’s more, he didn’t want to change. He liked things just the way they were. Straightforward. Organized. Predictable.
A call interrupted his thoughts on the drive home. “Harrison.”
“Zach, I need coverage midday tomorrow. Ozzie’s out sick and Mayville’s festival is going on. Can I bring you in four hours early?”
Offers of overtime had become the norm as budget cuts shut down small police forces in rural towns. Other than covering vacations, overtime used to be rare. Now? These requests had become the norm, and leaving a region shorthanded meant possibly putting someone in jeopardy. “Yes.”
“And what about Monday? Just in case?”
Zach hesitated, then compromised. “Let me check things at home. I’ll let you know for sure when I get to work tomorrow, but if you find someone else to take the extra, I’ll step back.”
“Will do.”
He began the summer on a schedule, organized, planned, ready to roll.
One father, one sister, two nephews, a rotting deck, a couple of roosters and a beautiful farmer later, he was stealing moments, trying to get things done. And Zach never worked piecework. Ever. That was a big part of avoiding the farm. It wasn’t the work involved, but the inconsistent drag on time, working on someone else’s schedule or Mother Nature’s time clock. Zach didn’t do unpredictable. He liked being in charge. In control. Decisive. Anything else frustrated him.
Not seeing Piper added to that frustration, and that new wrinkle irked him even more.
Was the world changing around him? Or was he growing up enough to realize the world didn’t revolve around him and his time frame?
Regardless, he had work to do, on and off the job. One way or another, he needed to get things done. Half-baked didn’t work for him. Never had. Never would.
And that’s just how it was.
* * *
“Aunt Piper, are you driving us to church today?” Dorrie peeked her head around the corner of the kitchen the next morning. She darted a quick look upstairs, as if afraid to be overheard.
“No.” Piper leaned down and kissed Dorrie’s cheek. “I’m working here today. And who put a pink ribbon in your hair?”
“My mommy.” Dorrie’s face said the words didn’t come easily, nor the confession. “I tried to tell her I get purple and Sonya gets pink, but she said change is good.”
“And it is.” The ribbons were really no big thing. They just made it easier to tell the girls apart when they weren’t standing together. Apart, their one-inch height difference was undetectable. “And you look beautiful no matter what color you wear.”
“Thank you!” Dorrie grabbed her around the waist, hugging her. Piper lifted her up and cuddled her. The girl smelled soap-and-water clean. Her hair shone and the pink ribbon brought out tiny stripes of similar coloring in the dress she’d chosen for church. “I love you, Aunt Piper.”
“Me, too!” Sonya came down the steps in her more reserved fashion, wearing the exact same bow as her sister. “I shared my pink bows with Dorrie. Doesn’t she look pretty with them?”
The fact that the girls looked good in the same thing hadn’t hit the twins yet. Now and again they liked to dress alike, but mostly they enjoyed being themselves. And while the world saw them as twins, they saw themselves as individuals, which meant Piper and Lucia had done something right. “You both look great in pink.”
“They’re beautiful, Piper.”
Piper bit back a sigh. She’d been trying to sneak out the door without facing Rainey, but the girls had slowed her steps, so she faked a smile and looked up. “They look like you.”
“I know.” Rainey made a face that said that might not always be a good thing, but she smiled. “We’ll try to get them to make better decisions, though.”
Her words screamed through Piper’s brain.
Better decisions?
Better than dragging your family’s name through the mud? Than ending up unmarried and pregnant while on parole? Than abandoning twin toddlers in the dead of night?
Rainey’s expression changed, which meant Piper had done a poor job of hiding her feelings. Remorse and shame shadowed Rainey’s features, but then she recovered, smiled at the girls and said, “I think we’re ready. Once Abuela comes down.”
“Are you a good driver?” Dorrie wondered, never one to mince words.
“Yes.” Rainey descended the last few stairs and faced Piper. “You’re not coming?”
Her gentle tone reflected the empathy on her face, but Piper had determined she wasn’t ready for a face-to-face with Rainey about much of anything yet. Right now she just wanted to be left alone. “Working. I’ll pray in the fields.”
Rainey’s expression stayed caring, and that spiked Piper’s angst. The dark-haired woman crossed the kitchen, made a cup of coffee and turned back while the coffeemaker gurgled behind her. “Ben Franklin called farming a kind and continual miracle, a reward for innocent life.” She switched her attention to the hot, dry fields and breathed deep. “Although right now I expect you’re not feeling too many of those miracles, Piper. I promise to do whatever I can to help you. And Mama. To be the person I should have been all along.”
It was an olive branch, sincerely extended.
Rainey’s face, her outer beauty, unmarked, unmarred.
Penitence softened her features and made her eyes grayer. Deeper. She had a Madonna-like prettiness, dark and evocative, gentle and good.
But Piper refused to dive into the whys and wherefores of forgiveness now. Not here, in front of two precious girls, cast aside by the person who should always love them most. Their mother.
No olive branch or pledge of help could make that right. Not in Piper’s eyes. Not when she’d suffered a similar fate. She shrugged away from the stairs, went through the back door and headed for the feeding area.
She’d take over so Berto could go to church with his sister, niece and grandnieces. And when he grinned at the idea and hurried across the grass to clean up and accompany the family to church, Piper felt more alone than she had in years.
She watched them leave from the far side of the barn, a family, joined by love and similar coloring. Dark hair, deep eyes, latte-tinged skin.
Watching them pull away, it was Piper who felt like the outsider. A part of her wondered if that was now the case.
Chapter Twelve
Zach pulled his SUV around the back of Lakeside Grace and Fellowship. He parked, climbed out, then waited as his father, Julia and the boys parked directly be
hind him.
Julia and the kids were going on to the summer festival in Mayville. Zach was heading straight to work.
As they moved around the front of the white clapboard church, he saw Lucia and Berto bustling the twins up the stairs. Berto held one girl in his arms. Zach couldn’t tell which one because they both had pink ribbons in their hair.
Lucia held firm to the other twin’s hand, and her face...
Unsure, but determined, the set of her chin saying she’d face whatever proved necessary...
Was probably because of the pretty woman walking with them. Tall, slim, with thick, dark hair, the woman was an older version of the twins.
The wannabe detective in him noted two more things: Piper was nowhere to be seen, which meant she wasn’t enamored of her sister’s reappearance.
The Weekly would be delivered today, which meant the entire lakeshore would be aware of what the Kirkwood town supervisor had planned for McKinney Farm.
Would folks band together to defend farmers’ rights?
Or would they go their merry way when work and play made civic duty inconvenient?
He moved up the steps, torn. He needed to be here with his family. Pray together. Form a unit. Julia needed that support around her.
But he wanted to check on Piper. See her face-to-face. Talk to her.
But he’d boxed himself in with overtime today, so he wouldn’t see Piper when the news hit the streets, and that was his fault, much like his father before him. Duty called. He answered. And she’d face the onslaught alone, like his mother had done, time after time. Because Marty had been that caught up in his work and it seemed like the apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree after all.
* * *
Rainey stood on the back steps when Piper came back from pouting in the fields midday. Grief slackened Rainey’s jaw. Pain marked her gaze. Dorrie stood at the base of the stairs, yelling up at her mother, anger and distrust darkening her pixie features.
Rainey’s expression told Piper more than words could say. She was hurting as much as anyone in this convoluted mess.
Piper choked back the bundle of mixed emotions. Years ago, her father had given her a card with one of Mother Teresa’s well-known sayings: Peace begins with a smile.
Could it?
No way of knowing unless she tried. She hopped out of the truck, picked up Dorrie and moved toward Rainey. “Are you yelling at your mom, Dorrie?”
“I told her I don’t wear pink,” Dorrie screeched. Indignation hiked her voice. “I told her I wear purple and she wouldn’t listen! Sonya wears pink, I wear purple and that’s how it is every day!”
Piper sent a look of commiseration to Rainey, because she looked like she could really use someone on her side. She sank to the lower step, cuddling Dorrie, and nodded for Rainey to sit. Rainey followed suit and took a seat on the step above them to Piper’s left. “You know why Abuela and I used pink for Sonya and purple for you, don’t you?”
“Because those are our colors.” Jaw firm, Dorrie aimed an impudent stare at her mother. “Everybody knows that!”
“Well, that’s not exactly why.” Piper made a face as if confessing something really big. “You and Sonya look a lot alike.”
“We’re twins.” Dorrie rolled her eyes.
“Yes, but even identical twins have differences. You’re an inch taller than your sister.”
“She’s short.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Piper sent another tiny smile toward Rainey, a look that intimated that Dorrie might be the most like her mother.
And Rainey aimed a ghost of a smile back, understanding.
“But you have different natures. Sonya is more cautious.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Dorrie boasted.
“And you’re more hotheaded.”
“Sonya’s nicer.”
“I’d say more easygoing. Eager to please,” Piper replied. “So the reason we use the different ribbons is because Abuela and I need to be able to tell you apart when we see you, but God gives a very special gift to mothers. They can always tell their twins apart.”
“No, they can’t.”
“Yes, they can.” Rainey moved down to their level. “From the time you were born I could tell you apart in an instant. Others couldn’t. But I could. And I still can, Doralia.”
“Then why’d you leave?” Dorrie stared right at her mother and asked the million-dollar question they’d all been waiting to have answered. “If you can tell us apart so well, you must love us, but if mommies love their little girls, they don’t leave them. Right, Aunt Piper?”
Piper swallowed a rock-sized lump in her throat, working to push aside memories of a ten-year-old girl whose mother left.
Had Nina McKinney cared? Even a little?
No, or she’d have come back. Called. Written. Sent cards.
But this conversation wasn’t about her, it was about Rainey, Sonya and Dorrie. “Dorrie, I wish I could give you answers off the top of my head, but sometimes adults do things because they think they’re right at the time.”
Rainey’s gaze shot to hers, and her eyes―questing, searching Piper’s―said Piper was onto something. So Rainey had left because of something or someone.
“The important thing is that Mommy’s here now. She came back to help take care of you guys.”
“And help on the farm.” Rainey met her gaze, unflinching. “Whatever it takes, Piper.”
Piper appreciated the promise of help, but she wasn’t much different from Dorrie. Could she trust Rainey? Had she matured enough to face life, day by day, without running away?
The smile, remember?
She turned her attention up to Rainey and offered a genuine smile, a look that said sisters should stick together.
Rainey’s gaze grew moist.
Her chin quivered, as if she felt undeserving.
A bird chirped above them, followed by another. Not the quaint song of the cautious oriole, but the clear trill of the finch, joyous and free.
“So, Dorrie.” Piper stood, dusted off the seat of her pants and handed the pink ribbon to Dorrie. “I don’t think Mommy cares what color ribbon you wear, but she doesn’t need a daily argument over it. Got it? And we don’t yell at grown-ups. Ever.”
“Okay. Sorry.” Dorrie aimed a not-really-sorry look her mother’s way, chin firm, lower lip thrust out.
“Your lack of sincerity is appalling.” Piper stepped back and pointed, keeping her voice firm. “Apologize to your mother nicely, and then let’s get some lunch. I’m starving.”
“Is Trooper Zach coming over?”
“No.” Piper replied as if it was no big deal that Zach wasn’t around today, but it felt like a big deal. It felt like he’d noted the craziness of the McKinney clan and bowed out, quietly. Which was exactly what she thought he should do, so why did it hurt so much?
The sound of Zach’s name and title made Rainey pale.
And that confirmed the thought Zach put in Piper’s mind. Rainey had run scared three years ago.
Given time, she might just tell them from whom. Or what.
Piper’s phone rang just then. She saw Zach’s name and answered it. They were neighbors, after all. And avoidance could only go so far. “Hey. Are you at work already?”
“I am. Overtime. Again.”
“I wondered when I saw your car pull out...well, actually I wondered more when it didn’t come back.” She cringed, wishing she could snatch the words back.
Too late. “You were watching for me.”
“Was not. Just working and happened to notice.”
“You weren’t in church this morning.”
“No.” She hesitated while Rainey and Dorrie went inside. “I decided I’d be like those birds you’re so fond of. Talk to God in the fiel
ds.”
“I saw the family there.”
Rainey’s family. Not hers.
“I figured you were home, pouting.”
The accuracy of that put her back up, but before she could come up with a suitable retort, he laughed and said, “I’m ordering Chinese food to be delivered for all of you later.”
“You’re... What? Why would you do that?”
“Because your article is creating a furor in town, you’re going to be inundated with people today both in person and on the phone, and I wanted to help even though I’m working.”
“Zach, that’s nice, but...” She started to put him off, but then noticed the line of cars pulling into the farm drive.
And twice her phone signaled that people were calling her while she talked to Zach. “There are people pulling in right now. Some I know. Some I don’t.”
“Go. Talk to them. And hang tight. Remember you’ve got my father there to help, so work the crowd. Do what you can. I’m only sorry I won’t be there to offer assistance. Consider supper my contribution.”
His words touched her heart, but she understood and respected why he’d left the family farm. Not everyone was wired to embrace Mother Nature.
She was.
He wasn’t.
End of story.
* * *
“What’s going on?” Rainey came back outside and moved closer to Piper in a gesture of unity that felt good and strange all at once as the stream of cars continued.
“The town is trying to seize part of the farm.”
“They’re what?” Rainey’s scowl said more than her growled words. “Over my dead body.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Piper replied, and it felt funny to actually be talking with Rainey, much less agreeing with her. “But we’ll have a fight on our hands this week. You up for it?” She faced Rainey. “Because it might not be pretty, Rain.”
“Prison wasn’t pretty.” Rainey shrugged shoulders that appeared delicate, but the grit in her voice said she was anything but. “This? A walk in the park, Piper.”
Falling for the Lawman Page 15
