Close to Home

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “What are you plotting?” Tilly demanded.

  Dodie stopped at the traffic light and shot her mother a shocked glance. How did she know? “Nothing.”

  “Who are you kidding? You’ve got your lips pursed, and you only do that when you’re planning something.”

  Dodie focused intently on the road as the light turned green. “Just thinking about the fundraiser meeting.”

  “If you say so…” Tilly’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Though I know Jace is only working here long enough to help out Carson MacGregor, I’m so pleased to see him involved in the community. He’s such a good person.” She shrugged. “I was surprised the two of you didn’t have more to talk about today.”

  “What’s to talk about?” Dodie replied, turning onto the street where the Riverbend Hall was located.

  “Dodie, the two of you were thick as thieves. Your father and I were so pleased.” Tilly paused a moment, as if to make sure Dodie was well aware of how suitable her mother thought Jace was for her. “In fact, we suspected wedding bells—”

  “So, tell me, how thick are thieves?” Dodie interrupted her mother’s meanderings. “Is the comment referring to their intelligence? Or their girth? And if so, why thick as opposed to thin? I mean—”

  Tilly lifted her hand. “Don’t bother with your silly comments. I know you don’t want me talking about Jace and for some inane reason you aren’t interested in him anymore.” She sighed. “Though I can’t see why not. He’s as good-looking as he ever was, and that scar he got from the car accident actually accentuates his looks. And let’s not forget that he’s a successful lawyer with a bright future ahead of him…”

  Dodie wanted to make a smart remark about the places Jace was going, but she realized any reaction to her mother’s litany of Jace’s attributes, negative or positive, would only encourage her to keep prattling on.

  “Here we are,” Dodie said with a forced note of brightness in her voice. She parked the car in the empty parking lot by the hall. “First ones here.”

  “No, we are not. I saw a few cars parked at the side of the hall,” her mother said when she got out of the car. “I’m sure one of them was Jace’s.”

  Dodie flipped her purse over her shoulder and wrapped her arms around her middle as she strode across the parking lot. Enough about Jace already, she thought, jogging up the steps to the hall. She just wanted to get this over with!

  The echoing screech of the door announced their arrival. Dodie walked in behind her mother, glancing around the room.

  A few people sat near the back. One girl looked back and gave Tilly a quick wave of recognition. Jace, standing by a table at the front of the room, looked up, as well. The smile on his face shifted as he caught Dodie’s eye.

  Well, she wasn’t crazy about being here, either, she fumed, plunking herself down in the nearest chair at the back of the room.

  Her mother joined Jace at the front of the room.

  While they chatted, Dodie crossed her arms and pretended to be interested in the bits of crepe paper clinging to the walls, left over from the last wedding held here.

  She’d celebrated enough of her cousins’ weddings in this very hall, she thought with a touch of melancholy. Sarah and Logan’s, Ethan and Hannah’s…And she fondly recalled the love that had filled this very room during her sister Janie’s second marriage to Luke.

  As a young girl dreams of her own wedding had gone through various iterations, but the one constant had been a big, family-filled celebration here, at the Riverbend Hall.

  Six years ago the vague plans had included lilies in tall, crystal vases, twined with ivy and surrounded by small votives at their bases, sage-green napkins with silver napkin rings on creamy damask tablecloths and bags of homemade cookies for favors.

  For a time, she even had a groom in the picture. Tall, dark, handsome, with an intriguing scar down his one cheek.

  Dodie wrenched herself back from the bittersweet memories. She closed her eyes and tried to center herself in the now.

  “Dorothea, come here, honey.” Her mother’s quiet voice broke into Dodie’s ineffectual self-talk. Though her mother hadn’t raised her voice, the inherent demand in it was hard to ignore.

  So Dodie got up and joined Tilly, who was holding a piece of paper.

  “Because you missed the first meeting the committees have been established already,” Tilly said.

  Dodie kept her attention on the paper in her mother’s hand, trying unsuccessfully to ignore Jace.

  He still wore his suit, the striped silk tie still cinched around his startling white shirt. Typical lawyer dress, she thought. And far removed from the scruffy blue jeans and T-shirts he favored throughout high school, college and law school.

  His gaze flicked over her and returned to Tilly.

  Dodie didn’t know if she should feel insulted at his offhand treatment of her, then decided she didn’t care. She tucked her hands inside the front pockets of her jeans.

  “Which one would you like to join?” her mother was asking.

  Dodie pulled herself back to the present with a start. “I don’t want to be on a committee,” she said, glancing down the lists.

  “Why not?” her mother asked.

  Because I’m not coming to any more of these meetings and committees meant ongoing commitments and more meetings, she thought.

  “I like something I can do on my own time. I’m too busy for meetings.” She made the mistake of looking directly at Jace and catching the disappointment in his eyes. It shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did. At one time his opinion meant everything to her.

  She blinked and broke eye contact.

  Don’t get pulled in, she told herself. Don’t cave. Once he’s done his work here, he’ll be gone again.

  “Why don’t you have a look at the list?” Tilly suggested. “You might see something you can help with.”

  To satisfy her mother, Dodie took the paper and found a committee she could probably help on.

  “Do you have a pen, Mom?” she asked, laying the paper down so she could write on it.

  But a masculine hand appeared in her vision. Without looking up, Dodie plucked the pen out of Jace’s fingers, trying not to notice how the metal was still warm from his hand.

  She scribbled her name under the committee responsible for gathering donations for the silent auction, then set the pen on the table.

  Phoning from home, that she could do. Simple and straightforward. Work through the list and she was done.

  “That’s one of the more critical committees,” Jace said, as he picked up his pen. He lifted an eyebrow in her direction.

  Dodie shrugged his concern away. “I think I can handle it.”

  “Think?” His eyes seemed to hold a challenge.

  Dodie didn’t look away. “Know,” she replied.

  “Okay. We’ll be getting together tomorrow night to put together a list of potential donors from various towns.”

  “We?” Dodie frowned.

  “Yeah. I’m on the same committee.” Jace took his pen and pointed to his name scrawled at the top of the list.

  How could she have missed it?

  “Our first meeting will be here,” he said.

  “I’m in Mayerthorpe for farmer’s market, but I’ll be back in time,” she said, holding his gaze.

  “Good.”

  “Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” Tilly said, patting her daughter on the shoulder. “Jace has some more information on the fundraiser printed out here. Why don’t you read the material while we wait for the meeting to start?”

  She handed Dodie a cardboard folder.

  As Dodie flipped through the material, she couldn’t help but be impressed with how organized it all was. In one inside pocket was a list of all the committee members. In the other, a description of the purpose of the fundraiser.

  She sat down and started reading. Though she knew very well what the fundraiser was for, she made sure to read every word on every piece of paper in the ent
ire brochure. That way she didn’t have to pay attention to Jace, hovering at the front of the room.

  The money would fund a building to house a Crisis Counseling Center. The center had a few people on staff in an office sharing space with a local dentist. They needed to expand their services and in order to do that, were desperate for a new building. Hence the fundraiser.

  Dodie traced her finger over the artist’s rendering of the building, with its Victorian-brick facade. At one time she had made plans to work at the center.

  To that end she had taken correspondence courses, building on her college degree. But she hadn’t found the time or the motivation to finish the course.

  Maybe. One day.

  She looked up again and caught Jace looking at her. A sense of foreboding held her in its grip.

  Working with Jace was a bad idea in so many ways.

  What if all the memories she had shoved deep down came roaring back?

  She’d just have to make sure she did everything within her power to keep that from happening.

  Chapter Two

  He shouldn’t have been surprised that Dodie hadn’t shown up to the meeting.

  Even though the other committee member had left fifteen minutes ago, Jace had stayed around the hall in the faint hope that Dodie would come rushing in full of apologies and excuses. He’d been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt but it had all been for naught.

  Sighing, Jace glanced at his watch again and gathered his papers. It was time to go home and get caught up on work. Dodie was a no-show.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed. When he agreed to come back to his hometown of Riverbend it was with the vague hope that he could have one more chance to find out why his old girlfriend had changed so much.

  Obviously he wasn’t going to find anything out tonight.

  In spite of his irritation with Dodie, he had to smile as he drove through the tree-lined streets of Riverbend. He never thought that he’d one day see familiar landmarks that he’d always walked past—the hardware store, the post office, the movie theater, his old high school—through the windshield of a silver BMW.

  How things change, he mused, wincing when his thoughts immediately drifted back to Dodie again.

  And why did his mind immediately slip back to Dodie again?

  Why couldn’t he get her off his mind? He wished he could just treat her as casually as he treated any of the old friends who had stayed behind in Riverbend.

  He had managed to avoid running into her for two weeks. But when Tilly asked to talk to him at the coffee shop, he knew that seeing his old girlfriend was inevitable.

  Old girlfriend.

  The words conjured up too many painful memories of him and Dodie, walking hand in hand down these same streets. First as high school sweethearts, then as college students returning home to work, save up money and head back to the city once again.

  Forcing thoughts of Dodie out of his mind, he pulled up to his old house, grabbed his briefcase and got out of the car.

  Spring was definitely in the air. He took a moment to let the scent of the new season wash over him. The row of Mayday trees he and his father had planted many years ago, were in full bloom, sending out the heady scent of almonds. The trees arching over the street held the tender green of new growth.

  I missed this, he thought, looking around his old neighborhood.

  He wished his mother still lived here, but after his father died four years ago, she began talking about moving to Ontario, where her own sister lived. A year ago she’d made up her mind and moved.

  Leaving the house to Jace’s care.

  His only other family was a sister who’d answered the call to do mission work in Nigeria.

  Only a couple of friends still lived in Riverbend. So other than Carson’s promise of a promotion if he came back here to clean up the mess the previous lawyer had left behind, precious little called him back to Riverbend.

  And Dodie?

  Jace banished the question. She had taken up enough of his thoughts. Besides, he was tired of seeing her wasting her potential working away at jobs that were a waste of her talent.

  He strode up the sidewalk to his house. Once inside, he went to the bedroom off the living room. His old bedroom, now his temporary office. A few darker rectangles marked places where posters had once lined the walls.

  If he closed his eyes, he could hear the strains of the country music his sister always insisted on playing, coming down the hallway.

  And he could hear his parents arguing in the kitchen, going over the usual ground—the constant shortage of money and how they were going to manage.

  His glance took in the peeling paint on the walls, the bare lightbulb suspended from the ceiling. Though it was his childhood home, it always represented his parents’ struggle to make a living. Ever since his father’s disabling accident at the mill where he worked, things had been difficult financially. His mother worked at the local grocery store to augment the meager disability check his father got.

  As long as Jace could remember, money had been a problem. That was why he became a lawyer—so money would not be a worry in his life.

  He threw his briefcase on the desk just as the phone rang.

  He picked it up and glanced at the clock. Habit. Got to make sure you catch any billable hour you can, he thought.

  “So how are things down in the boondocks?” Chuck MacGregor’s overly hearty voice called out over the phone line.

  “Can’t believe one guy could do so much in only two years at this office,” Jace said. He tucked the phone under his ear as he picked up one of the files he’d brought home to work on.

  “That’s why Dad got you to go out there. You’re the man for the job,” Chuck said. “Glad I could stay back here and keep working my own files.”

  Jace repressed his sigh. Being the boss’s son was probably the bigger reason Carson MacGregor didn’t ask Chuck to come and do this.

  But no matter. Anything that put Jace in Carson’s good graces would be an advancement for him.

  “You connected with any of the old school buds yet?” Chuck asked.

  “Not many of them around. Most of them did what I did—left.”

  “Smart people. I heard Dodie was still around? How’s she doing?”

  “Same as before. Wasting her time.” And potential. During high school, during his wild years before he wised up, Dodie had been the one who challenged him to do more. Now, thanks to her, he was where he was.

  Why she was where she was would remain a mystery.

  “That’s too bad. She had brainpower. She married yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “So you still have a chance?” Chuck said with an edge of sarcasm.

  “What can I do for you Chuck?” Jace asked, ignoring Chuck’s question. He didn’t want to let old feelings about Dodie superimpose themselves on the present.

  “I’m working on the Henderson file…”

  Jace felt a shiver of apprehension trickle down his spine. Chuck had been his friend since third grade, when Jace had rescued him from a playground bully. Jace had gotten a bloody nose out of the deal, as well as Chuck’s eternal friendship. They stayed close all through junior and senior high. In college they roomed together, and when Dodie left it was Chuck who consoled him, Chuck who told him that Dodie had always considered herself a cut above them both.

  In spite of that, Jace was very aware of his friend’s true nature. He had seen firsthand how Chuck always took care of Chuck.

  “You’re not poaching my clients, are you?” Jace asked, trying to sound as if he was joking, though he wasn’t.

  “Too busy for that,” Chuck said with a laugh. “Dad asked me to have a look at the buy-out clause.”

  And soon they were immersed in legalese and work.

  When they were done Jace glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty, and they were both still working.

  But that was how one got ahead. And getting ahead w
as what Jace wanted right now. Especially after growing up surrounded by poverty.

  He looked around his room, a grim reminder of the discrepancies between his and Chuck’s lives. How often had he come back here after spending time at the palatial MacGregor’s place and wished for more?

  And when Chuck moved to Edmonton, his parents sold their house and bought an even bigger one in Edmonton. And Chuck’s father, Carson MacGregor, started an even bigger legal practice, leaving the one in Riverbend in the hands of his partner.

  The MacGregors always had so much more than the Scholtes.

  And now Jace was on his way to that elusive “more.” If he did his job here, who knew what could happen? Who knew what kind of place he could build for himself?

  But whom would he share it with?

  Jace let the question linger a moment. Scrambling up the legal ladder didn’t leave much time for romance. He’d had a few girlfriends, but none of them took, as Chuck would say.

  None of them compared to the girl who had once held his heart.

  He let an image of Dodie linger, comparing her to the girl he used to date. Dodie-of-now had a faded pink streak in her hair, wore clothes that could only be described as eclectic. Short skirts, high boots, oversize dangling earrings all in unusual shades of pink, turquoise and purple. She seemed to be deliberate about cultivating an image far removed from the girl who wore plain blue jeans and button-down blouses.

  The girl Jace had been captivated with.

  Jace glanced over at the bookshelf and, on a whim, pulled out his high school yearbook. Dust caked its spine.

  The picture it fell open to took up half the page. Dodie Westerveld, her long blond hair flowing over her shoulders, her hands raised above her head in a gesture of victory. The photo was a study in uncontrolled exuberance and carefree joy. A picture of Dodie.

  Before.

  Jace sighed as he flipped through the book to another familiar page. Dodie’s single picture with her signature scrawled in sensible blue ink.