Indivisible (5 page)

“What?”

“Try to push her creations on my customers?”

Jonah shrugged. “I think she just tried to keep up. You’re lucky to have her.”

“Lucky!” Sarge honked through his nose, but his eyes were drooping. “Say that again, and I’ll … buzz my pretty nurse to … throw you out.”

Jonah laughed. “I can think of worse things.”

“I’ll bet you can.”

“You should take advantage of a little downtime. When’s the last time you took leave?”

Sergeant Beaker didn’t answer. By the snore that resonated through his commodious nose, the Sarge was at ease. Jonah watched him. He didn’t know what could be done for the man. Maybe nothing. But peaceful sleep and relief from pain were sometimes as good as it got.

He flipped through a magazine for the better part of an hour to see if Sarge came to, then went out. Sarge’s nurse—Lauren on the name tag—was leaning against a wall, talking with another whose thin, pale ponytail accentuated a broad, pinkish face. The first turned smoky gray eyes on him, her light brown hair clipped back haphazardly.

He paused in passing. “Sarge is … used to being in charge.”

She gave her long lashes a slow blink. “It’s the pain. He let it go too long.”

“He won’t admit that.”

“He’s not the first. Men that age are so reluctant to admit they need help. It’s like a badge of honor or something.” A hint of dimples indented her cheeks. “Did you come far to see him?”

“Down from Redford.”

“You must know him well.”

“I do.” Sarge had slipped him rolls and raisin buns when it was obvious he’d gone hungry. Not because his family had no means, but as another form of discipline—the sober form that masqueraded as character development but was just as mean as beating.

She slid her hands into her pockets. “I’m taking my break. Want to fill me in over coffee?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure.”

As they moved down the hall to the break room, he described Sarge’s military service, then his opening the bakery and the years he’d served the town fresh bread and pastries. “He’s a master of efficiency, and anything that curtails him is unbearable.”

“That helps to know. Thanks.” She handed him a cup of coffee and poured one for herself.

“He doesn’t mean half the things he says.”

“Oh, he means them.” She looked pointedly over the Styrofoam brim of her cup.

Jonah surrendered the point.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m chief of police in Redford.”

“You’re not.”

He rocked back in the plastic break-room chair and cocked his head.

“Sorry. You just don’t look like a cop.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes I wear the uniform.” Might help if he didn’t look like central casting’s rogue hero.

She looked at his hands. “Not married?”

“No.” He’d already noticed her naked fingers.

“Divorced?”

He hesitated. “A broken engagement. Years ago. I’m not relationship material.”

“Says who?”

“Anyone in a position to know.”

“What a waste.”

A corner of his mouth tugged at her boldness. She sat back, fingering her cup. Perhaps, being a caregiver, she had an even stronger urge than most women to fix people. But it wasn’t the broken engagement that made him unfixable.

He pushed up from the chair. “Thanks for the coffee. And for looking after Sarge.”

She didn’t get up, just watched him leave the room. The drive back was long and cool, accompanied by classic rock and troubled thoughts.

In her room of the small house connected to the animal hospital, Liz woke with a jolt. Nightmare sweat coated her chest like VapoRub. Her left side throbbed, strange since she had no feeling there at all. Two ailing dogs whined from their kennels, but that hadn’t awakened her. She turned her head on the pillow. “Luce?”

“Don’t talk to me. I’m sleeping.”

Liz turned back and closed her eyes but did not slip like Lucy into sleep. She’d always been the one who cried to be held, cried to be fed. A fighter, Daddy called her.
“Lizzie has spunk enough for both of them combined.”

She didn’t feel spunky. She was tired. She wanted to sleep, but she got up and padded to the table, turned on the lamp.

“Unh. Do you have to?” Lucy moaned.

“It’s for you, you know.”

Lucy sighed. “But it’s useless.”

“No, it’s not. And I won’t give up until I find a way.”

She sat down at the desk with the three-inch textbook lying open, a stack of note cards beside it, and applied herself to the work until the nightmare dread diminished, leaving her hollow as a pithy reed. Behind her Lucy slept, and Liz didn’t begrudge her. She needed it.

Liz rubbed her eyes and turned off the lamp. Dawn was coming in the window, and pets needed tending.

Five

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined … to strengthen each other … to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

—GEORGE ELIOT

P
iper did not believe in God, benevolence being bestowed on her clan by courts and insurance companies. But when she saw the police chief duck into the small, stone church five minutes past the time posted on a greeting board, she walked in behind him.

Dressed in jeans and a black crew-neck shirt, he took a seat in the otherwise empty back pew with enough space on the end for her to slip in too. She smiled, and his eyes creased in response. They were lined with thick lashes that lightened at the ends, like his hair, dark underneath lighter hanks that had to be a natural contrast. She couldn’t see him in a salon getting highlights.

He wasn’t a pretty boy. More like the Marlboro Man with a streak of Wolverine. He looked like trouble, and he looked like salvation. Like a man who could run cold and could run hot, but never just warm. His scent was clean and woodsy. She hadn’t seen him in over a week, but now she’d have the whole service to take him in and wonder what he could have done to upset Tia. The sister thing couldn’t be the whole story. People broke up all the time. It didn’t make them hateful.

She almost gasped out loud when he reached out and clasped her hand. Then she realized someone at the microphone had invited them all to join hands with their brothers and sisters in Christ. Brother and sister wasn’t where her mind had gone. Would she be condemned by these church people if they felt her pulse?

Someone at the front read a statement. “We are members of the same body, different gifts, but the same Spirit. If we tug and strive against each other, we cause injury and disunity. But if we hold tight, bearing each other up, we grow strong, resilient, united. Let us prepare to celebrate this great mystery as one body, one spirit in Christ.”

He let go, and belatedly Piper drew her hand back. The service that followed involved standing and sitting and kneeling on the part of the long benches that folded down. Jonah lowered it each time for both of them, and that simple act shot right inside her. Kneeling next to him was the most spiritual thing she’d ever done.

She knew enough not to go forward to the altar. The ceremony had gotten mysterious and solemn, and she didn’t want to violate something sacred. But Jonah slipped past her to follow in line to the front where he took what they handed him, then nodded to a golden goblet. He surprised her by not coming back to his seat like the others but continuing straight out the door.

She was on her feet and out almost as quickly as the chief. “How come you cut out early?”

He half turned. “What?”

“You came late and left before it was done.”

He glanced at the doors, then back to her. “Are you going to report me?”

She laughed. “Not me.”

“Good.” He turned back toward the parking lot.

“I’ve got fig and pine-nut sticky rolls ready to bake. Would you like one fresh out of the oven?”

“Better not.” He kept walking.

“Come on. Try something new.”

He shook his head. “Sarge will ask, and it’s better if I don’t know what you’re up to.” He reached his Bronco and pressed the remote.

Sarge had been out over a week, but she didn’t believe for a minute he’d given up control. “You can tell him how much you like it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on. You’re not on duty.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s Sunday. The top guy doesn’t work Sunday.”

“Another time maybe.” His gaze flicked past to the plainer church across the parking lot.

Tia had just emerged. In the sunlight her hair looked molten, attracting an iridescent green hummingbird that hovered above her head for a moment, then shrilled away seeking nectar-bearing wildflowers.

Tia walked down the steps with Eva Gladden, who sold real estate and ordered raisin buns for the whole office on Fridays. They parted with a hug, and Piper turned back to see the chief climbing into his Bronco just as Tia reached her.

“Hey.” Tia had a hug for her too. “I didn’t expect to see you up early on your day off.”

Piper shrugged. “I prepped a few things at the bakery. Want to try my fig and pine-nut sticky rolls?”

“You’re opening today?”

“Experimentally. To help Sarge with the medical bills.” She’d seen the figures her folks plugged in for hospital costs. “While he’s out I want to try as many different things as possible so I know which ones are popular enough to suggest when he gets back.”

“Sweetie, Sarge is not going to sell anything new. He’s not just set in his ways; he’s set in stone.”

“I can try.” Walking together toward the bakery, she saw Chief Westfall pull up to the stoplight. “Hold on.” She couldn’t resist one more try. She jogged over and tapped his passenger side window.

He cocked his head, then depressed the window button.

“Tia’s brave enough to try my sticky rolls. Why don’t you join—”

The driver behind him tapped his horn.

“Gotta go.”

Piper stepped back, irritated. The light had changed like a second ago. Her irritation grew when she saw the honking driver was auto sales manager Robert Betters. If ever a name matched a person, it was full-of-himself Bob Betters. He’d hit on her twice even though he had to be as old as, well, the chief. He raised his chunky fingers up from the wheel in a cool-guy wave as he drove by. She could think of a use for the gold chain on his neck.

“Come on.” Tia hooked her arm and marched her off.

They met Mary Carson on the street, and Tia invited her in to purchase the sticky rolls, which turned out better than she’d hoped—high altitude schmaltitude.

“I must say, my dear, you have a knack for the unusual.”

Piper beamed at the older woman. “I could make a new creation every day and never exhaust the possibilities.”

The timer sounded, and she hurried back to the kitchen for her other experimental special. Mitted, she pulled the spinach, goat cheese, and kalamata olive rolls from the oven as yeasty heat waves exfoliated her cheeks. She placed them on a tray and carried them to the front case as a great big guy with a Lego-man haircut walked in. “Can I help you?”

“If you wash your hands.”

She looked down, thinking she’d missed a strip of spinach or blob of cheese, then held up pristine fingers for him to see. “They’re clean.”

“That would be discernable if germs were a million times bigger than they are.”

Oh. A germaphobe. She glanced at Tia and Mary Carson, who were watching him and murmuring. Piper turned to the counter along the wall and slipped on a plastic glove, pulled a square of parchment from the box in the case, and held it ready. “Okay?”

Satisfied by her double line of defense, he looked at the tray. His nostrils pinched in as he sniffed. “What is that smell?”

“Spinach, goat cheese, and kalamata rolls straight from the oven.”

He looked at the board, and faster than anyone could have read it declared, “That’s not on the list.”

“Nope.” She hadn’t dared change the board. “They’re the same price as the cheddar rolls.” With the more expensive ingredients, she would have to charge more if she got to sell them for real. “I bought the goat cheese fresh this morning from a local source. She’s been raising goats and churning cheese for fourteen years.”

“Then it’s not regulated.” The big fella crossed his arms.

“On the other hand, it hasn’t passed from farm to packaging to supermarket. Plus, it’s been baked.”

He frowned. “How long?”

“Long enough to give the roll a golden crust and cheesy, chewy inside.” She pulled one from the case, laid it on the parchment, and cut it into bite-sized pieces.

As she set it up on the sample plate, Bob Betters swaggered through the door with a hapless guy who looked like an overgrown baby with downy duckling hair and pudgy cheeks. Bob puffed out his chest. “Isn’t she everything I said she was?”

She ignored them as her customer took a sample and chewed slowly. He had a pretty good poker face.

“What do you think?”

“Too much kalamata. The spinach is stringy.”

Her spirits sank. “What about the cheese?”

“The cheese is interesting.”

Interesting was good. She could work with that. “Would you skip the spinach or chop it finer?”

“Finer. And fewer olives.”

Bob’s head bobbled back and forth between them.

“Would you rather have the last fig and pine-nut sticky roll?”

The man eyed the two choices, then nodded. With her plastic-wrapped hand and a fresh parchment square, she procured the treat, knowing Bob would have chosen the sweet over the savory. After ringing up the sale, she turned to Bob and his companion, irked all over again that he had cut her conversation with the chief short.

“Can I get you something?”

“I’ll take the baker.” Bob chortled.

“Oh, that’s original.”

“One date. I will amaze you.”

She looked at his glossy face and plastic-looking teeth. Every hair on his head in its place. “I don’t think so.”

His companion laughed uncomfortably.

“You haven’t taken a test drive.” He actually went
vroom-vroom
.

She tried not to gag. “Do you want a goat-cheese kalamata roll?”

“If I buy one, can we have dinner tonight?”

“I have a date.” Only a little lie, because the day was young and someone would surely want to hang out.

“How about two, and I’ll throw in breakfast?”

“Sorry.”

“Then I’ll have a lemon scone.” He read from the board, not even noticing the empty case, or he thought she had them in back.

“I only have the goat-cheese rolls. I’m not really open for business.”

“You served him.” Bob thumbed the previous customer hunched over the table closest to the door.

“A pine-nut and fig roll. They’re all gone now.”

“Well, if you’re not open, why don’t I take you to lunch?”

She clasped her hands. “How can I say this nicely …”

“Not no, but hell no.” The Lego man intoned from his table.

Piper’s eyes widened as she resisted a laugh. She didn’t want to insult Bob, just stop the assault. Did every conversation have to be in overdrive? Mary Carson laughed softly into her napkin. Piper thought she heard, “Well said, young man,” but it might have been, “Watch your language.”

Piper cleared her throat. “So … kalamata roll?”

Bob glared. “No, thanks. Not a fan of goat cheese.”

“I’ll have the regular menu tomorrow.”

“Right.” Bob walked away, scowling at the Lego man as he passed.

After grabbing the bag of nails, Jonah climbed out of his Bronco and strode into the cabin. Attending church was not new; attending voluntarily was. He’d been forced into it every Sunday and resented every minute until he had sunk so low there was nowhere else to turn. It wasn’t about proving his piety like the police chief before him, but just the opposite, admitting his need of something bigger.

He’d stopped expecting lightning to strike when he entered, but others probably hadn’t, so he kept it uncomplicated, going late and leaving early. Piper was the only one to call him on it. She’d become disarmingly persistent.

Now that he’d crossed thirty, women seemed to think him safe. No longer prowling didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. He still had it within him to wreck someone’s life.

He changed from his jeans and shirt into a battered pair of cargo shorts and T-shirt that had passed ratty years ago. Methodically, he set to work on the addition he’d begun at the back of his cabin, doubling its size with a rec room, workshop, two additional bedrooms, and bath. He had the acreage to support the addition, and with real estate values escalating as the very wealthy discovered the area’s charm, it made sense to improve his investment.

He had poured the foundation slab, framed and sheetrocked the walls, and now he’d almost finished taping the seams. After a couple of hours, sweating with the heat of the day and the labor, he pulled up his shirt and wiped his face. He had put off the other task long enough. He climbed down, put his tools away, and climbed into the Bronco. After inserting the key into the ignition, he dropped his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Then he started the engine and pulled out.

As he drove, he braced himself mentally and emotionally. His shirt was damp and flecked with sawdust, but he never wore the uniform when he visited. That would be like running power to C4.

He parked outside the sprawling, single-level house he’d grown up in, almost seeing his dad sitting out on the long front porch, bottle in hand, leer in place.
“If it isn’t the big shot. Thinks he can do the job better than the old man.”

Over thirty-one years, Chief Stan Westfall’s reputation as the toughest lawman in the county had earned him the respect of its law-abiding citizens. Lawbreakers had respected him too—out of fear. Stan Westfall could chill a man’s spine with a stare.

The door opened, and his mother stepped out, face slack. “What do you want?”