Libby’s grandmother had practically run the town for as long as Jenna could remember. Now in retirement, Mary “lived in sin” with her companion, Calvin. “I know, Mom, but Mary’s not doing too well right now. Lib said they had a scary episode yesterday. Calvin’s hoping it was a reaction to a new medication, but they don’t know for sure.”
Mom sighed heavily. “If I ever start showing signs of dementia, I want you to toss a hairdryer in the water while I’m in the tub.”
Jenna had been hearing various exit strategies for the past couple of months. “With my luck, you’d catch it, and then accuse me of attempted murder.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Dementia robs you of short-term memory, Mom. You might forget that the plan was your idea. Libby’s grandmother didn’t even recognize her yesterday.”
Mom lifted the cup to her lips but didn’t drink from it. Instead, she frowned and said, “Well, I’m sure that no matter how bad I get, I’ll still know when it’s time to exit stage left with grace and flair.”
Jenna knew better than to argue. They’d had this discussion as recently as a week ago when Mom thought she’d developed C.O.P.D. -- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. No one adored diseases that came with abbreviated names more than Bess Murphy. Her doctor had insisted the symptoms were that of a cold. Possibly a little bronchitis. Mom had been crushed.
Her mother needed to get out more. At the very least, she’d benefit from a hobby.
Jenna and her friends in the Wine, Women and Words book club had discussed the topic at length. They’d even invited Bess to join the group. Mom had declined, claiming her failing eyesight was proof of macular degeneration. For some reason, Bess was convinced that her life was on a slippery slope and she could swoosh off into the ethers to join her deceased husband at any moment. A drama queen on skis.
“I probably won’t be home until four or five,” Jenna said, heading for the door. “You’re in charge of supper.”
“You’re not going to miss Jeopardy, are you? Alex Trebek is so cute…in a Miniature Schnauzer kind of way.”
Jenna stopped abruptly and wheeled about. “Mother, what is it with you and dogs? Are you trying to tell me something? Do you want a pet?”
Bess put a hand to her chest as if aghast. “Heavens, no. With all my health problems? What would happen to the poor thing if we bonded then I died? I wouldn’t inflict that kind of anxiety on any living creature. No…no…,” she shuffled to the chair she’d vacated earlier and sat. “I…well, if you must know, I’ve been trying to come up with a character I could play in the new TV show. Say…a quirky older woman who runs a pet adoption service.”
Jenna’s stomach crimped. She loved her mother. The last thing Jenna wanted was to see her disappointed. She was too emotionally fragile to handle rejection. And Bess’s acting experience had been limited to local stages. Surely the people who were turning Libby’s story into a television sitcom had a script – and characters – in mind.
“Oh, don’t say anything. I can see in your face you think I’m slightly whacko for thinking such a thing, but I’ve given this a lot of thought, Jenna Mae. Hollywood coming to Sentinel Pass doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Not only will the increased traffic and advertising the filming brings in be good for business, but from what Cooper said last night, he and his producer friend are looking for locals to appear in the show.”
His tall, dark and handsome producer friend. The Bernese Mountain Dog. The guy who had set off all kind of weird bells and whistles the moment he walked into Char’s gift shop where Jenna had been working yesterday afternoon. The man who disappeared like a ghost a short while later.
Jenna made herself focus on her mother. Dreams were good – to a degree. But the chance of Bess securing even a bit part in some not-yet-written TV show seemed pretty iffy. And Jenna knew who would be left to pick up the pieces when nothing came of all this dog talk. “I’m sure Cooper means well, Mom, but the only way the Mystery Spot is going to benefit is if we’re open for business. Have you thought any more about your hours this summer?”
Jenna and Bess had been having this discussion for weeks—no, months. Bess made a limp, noncommittal gesture. “I really don’t know if I’m up to it this year, Jenna. The arthritis in my back isn’t helped by standing around taking tickets and playing tour guide to a bunch of tourists.”
“What arthritis?” Jenna almost asked. So far, not one of her mother’s many X-rays had shown even a hint of arthritic deposits.
“Well, you know our budget as well as I do, Mom. If I have to hire someone to take your place, there won’t be any money left for the improvements we have slated. Like paving the parking lot.”
All vibrancy left her mother’s face, making Jenna regret her impatient tone. She could blame her short temper on budget woes, but those were ever present in a small, tourist-oriented business. The real cause was something she didn’t want to talk about. Or think about. Her chase dream had returned last night. An old, unwelcome friend that had been a constant in her life through most of her twenties. It always started with a pleasant, harmless stroll down a busy street but ended in a heart-racing pursuit by a faceless demon whose heavy breathing reminded her vividly of a memory she thought she’d mastered.
“Sorry,” she said, crossing to the chair where her mother sat. She gave her a hug, gently patting her back as she might a child. “I’m just a little tense because it’s the middle of June and we’re not open. I probably should have hired someone else to fix the broken water line, but I felt so sorry for Walt.”
Walt Gruen was the plumbing contractor she’d hired to repair her broken water line. Unfortunately, his college-age daughter had been injured in a car accident a few days after he started the job and he’d had to drop everything to attend to her in Denver. Since he worked alone – for a fee even Jenna could afford – there was no one to pick up the slack.
“I know, dear. But you can’t blame yourself. This kind of thing was bound to happen. I warned your father about taking short cuts, but you know how he was with money.” Bess shook her head. She was one of the special women who gray with such grace and beauty it would be a sacrilege to color her hair. Jenna feared she wasn’t going to be that lucky since she’d inherited her father’s red hair.
Clarence Murphy had been sixty-four when he suffered a heart attack one morning before leaving for school. Scientist, teacher and mastermind behind the popular summer attraction that had baffled and intrigued visitors for twenty-odd years, his death had been mourned by many. Jenna had been a part of the family’s summer business almost from its inception, but her father had sheltered her from one undeniable truth: her mother couldn’t be trusted with money. His widely reputed miserliness may have been prompted by a need to offset his wife’s tendency to spend without reservation. Every day, Jenna felt she understood her father better.
“I know that’s what you think, Mom, but I can’t figure out why the break happened so long after the frost melted.” Jenna sighed. They’d been over this ground before. The pipe broke and needed to be fixed before they could reopen. Bottom line. “I’d better go. Don’t want to miss the inspector. I’m just sorry I didn’t schedule this for yesterday. Then I could have subbed for Libby today instead of holding down the fort for Char. The Post Office pays better.”
“But if you hadn’t been working at the teepee, you wouldn’t have met Mr. Bernese Mountain Dog.” Her mother fluttered her eye lashes coquettishly. “Tell me again what he said.”
Jenna paused, hand on the door knob. She’d never understood her mother’s fascination with Hollywood. Bess had nearly wet herself the first time she heard Cooper Lindstrom was in town, and last night when introduced to a real live producer, she’d gotten honest to goodness stars in her eyes.
“His name is Shane Something. I only remember that because I knew a guy in college named Shane. Not knew knew, but we had a class together. And, to be honest, this Shane didn’t leave that much of an impression.” Liar. “
We barely exchanged two words before Coop showed up asking where he stood with Libby. Your Bernese Mountain Dog slipped away.”
Bess looked in the direction of the McGannon homes. “And now Libby is getting married. There’s hope for you, yet, honey.”
Jenna didn’t see the correlation, but she let the comment pass. She was happy for her friend who – with a little luck – might get some well-deserved happiness – and the baby she’d gone to such extreme lengths to procure. “Gotta go, Mom. ’Bye,” she mumbled.
“Wait. Promise me one thing.”
Jenna held her sigh as she paused in the doorway. “What?”
“If you bump into the handsome producer, try not to mutter. It’s distracting and makes you appear a little odd.”
“What on earth makes you think I’ll be seeing him? He and Coop are supposed to be holding open meetings for the townsfolk this week. I’m going to be busy at the Mystery Spot trying to get the plumbing fixed so we can open and start earning enough money to pay our taxes.”
Her mother’s reply was one Jenna had heard a million times. “I just have a feeling. You’ll see.”
As always, Jenna wished she’d been born with a just bit less of her father’s pragmatism and a bit more of her mother’s optimism. Maybe then she wouldn’t spend all of her time worrying.
Shimmering lines bounce off hot pavement.
Wavy, unbalanced. Like a girl
Going nowhere.
Fast.
“Going nowhere fast,” Shane repeated, as he looked up from the small volume of poetry that Coop had given him.
Kinda like me yesterday.
He shook his head, still embarrassed by the way he’d reacted to seeing Jenna Murphy behind the counter of the big teepee. Like an inexperienced schoolboy drooling over the girl of his dreams. He’d come to South Dakota to find her, he just hadn’t expected her to be the first person he bumped into.
And he hadn’t expected her to be so vivid. Possibly more beautiful than he remembered. Definitely more real than the tragic figure he’d made her into in his mind.
He pushed the heel of his hand against the uncomfortable pressure behind his breastbone and shifted in the car seat. He didn’t know why he’d never been able to get Jenna out of his head, but she’d definitely been part of his motivation for joining Cooper in Sentinel Pass.
If he could work up the nerve to contact her.
He reached around the steering column to turn the key in the ignition. The Cadillac’s dashboard lit up impressively, giving him the pertinent facts of time and outside temperature. He lowered the driver side window a few inches and drew in a deep breath of dewy, pine-scented air.
He’d been sitting in this car in front of Libby MacGannon’s house for over an hour after dropping Cooper off. Not because he lacked a plan – Coop had set the ball in motion the night before and people were expecting them to show up at the local restaurant, but Shane knew he’d be worthless until he got this thing with Jenna off his chest. Something he could have done yesterday, but didn’t.
He sighed and slumped down in the wide, comfortable leather seat. Maybe if he’d been better prepared. Had some kind of dialogue scripted in his head. But what do you say to the girl whose life you ruined?
Hi, Jenna. Remember me? Shane from Art Appreciation class. College. The semester you were raped.
He groaned and wiped his sweaty palms on his trademark black jeans. What the hell was wrong with him? He wasn’t an inexperienced kid who didn’t have a clue about what he wanted to do with his life. He was a successful television producer, director and screenwriter. He’d made a lot of money at a profession he enjoyed and was good at. Then, he'd taken that money and invested it--some said gambled it--in the stock market. His risk paid off. His shelf full of awards that included an Oscar for his adaptation of a popular novel a few years back was nothing to sneeze at, as his mother might have said. She would have been proud of him. And happy for him. Although he knew his personal life – or lack of one – would have concerned her.
But she’d been gone nearly six years. Six years that had weighed heavily on Shane since her deathbed confession of a secret that probably had shortened her life through the weight of the guilt. Shane also blamed that secret in no small part for the state of his love life.
He’d lost count of the times he’d drowned his sorrows in a bottle of Scotch, wishing for the impossible. That Mom had taken her secret to her grave. Or, even better, that he’d been born an only child.
Unfortunately, Shane had only to look in the mirror to be reminded of his brother. Adam. His twin. His opposite in every way that counted, though. Or so Shane hoped.
There were some in Hollywood who called Shane “the monk” behind his back. He often made the club scene but usually alone, unless work was involved. He dated on occasion but seldom took out the same woman twice. Luckily, he lived in a place and time where women enjoyed sex for the same reasons men did and weren’t necessarily looking for a long-term attachment.
If that made his life seem shallow and superficial, he didn’t really care. He couldn’t name a single person he was trying to impress. He’d cut all ties with Adam after their mother’s funeral. He’d done the same with his father a few months later when the old man married a woman half his age. His father’s act merely confirmed what Shane had always known about his dysfunctional family – the nucleus was split evenly down the middle. Shane and Mom on one side. Adam and Dad on the other. The gulf between the two factions was wide and deep. And Shane hoped it would stay that way. For Jenna Murphy’s sake.
He closed the book and studied the cover. Ashes of Hope by Jenna M. Murphy. Deep maroon watermark silk with gold leaf lettering. Elegant and lady-like. A little old-fashioned given the age of the author, he thought, but serene. Perhaps to mitigate the austerity of the poems, which, from the dozen or so he’d read, were intense, deeply personal and poignant.
Coop had given him the self-published treatise as a bribe to get Shane to confess how he knew Jenna, who was Libby McGannon’s best friend. Libby, Sentinel Pass’s Postmaster, was the catalyst that had set this whole, unwieldy circus in motion.
Shane hadn’t intended to blurt out the fact that he recognized Jenna, but seeing her behind the counter of the teepee-shaped gift shop just minutes after arriving in Sentinel Pass had left him badly shaken. And, naturally, that kind of only-in-the-movies coincidence sparked Coop’s curiosity. What Coop didn’t know -- and Shane had no intention of sharing -- was the fact that Jenna was Shane’s sole purpose for being in the Hills.
He could have delegated the research part of this trip to any one of a dozen minions, but from Coop’s very first mention of an online ad offering part ownership in a working gold mine in Sentinel Pass, South Dakota, Shane had known his past had finally caught up with him. There simply was no other explanation. Fate? God? Karma? Shane didn’t believe in any of them. But he firmly believed every person was capable of manifesting his or her own reality.
For the past six years, Shane’s reality had included the ethereal image of a young woman he’d barely known for one short semester in his senior year of college. She haunted him at night. Not the happy, exuberant persona that had attracted him in the first place, but the hollow-eyed ghost of a girl in the back seat of her parents’ car as they took her home weeks before the normally scheduled holiday break. As far as he knew, she never returned to campus.
That girl was the reason he was here.
His plan…if you could call it that…was to ease his conscience and, if possible, to make amends.
He just hadn’t expected Jenna Murphy to be the first person he met when he and Coop pulled into town. But there she’d been – trademark red hair a dead giveaway. Behind a counter filled with Native American jewelry.
She hadn’t recognized him. A fact that didn’t surprise him given how much he’d changed since college. He was a different person, really. Short hair. A new name. Lasik surgery to lose the coke-bottle bottom glasses.
But
she was still every bit as beautiful as he remembered…with a few changes. Her gorgeous red hair was shoulder-length instead of all the way to her waist. Now, she was the one with glasses. Small, stylish black frames drew attention to her flashing green-gold eyes, alive with wit and wisdom. She’d laughed a lot back them. Until the night she attended a party and became the victim of something the news media had branded the ‘date rape’ drug. Her attacker was never caught.
Shane heaved a weighty sigh and reached for the thermal travel mug he’d purchased that morning. He polished off the last gulp. Cold, but to his profound surprise, the brew wasn’t bad – unlike what his mother had passed off as coffee when he’d been growing up in Minnesota.
In atypical Coop fashion, his friend had rousted Shane at the break of dawn to drive him to the local bakery to buy doughnuts and jelly rolls, which he planned to use as props when he proposed to Libby.
Shane set the container back in the car’s cup holder and leaned forward to rest his arms on the steering wheel. He wondered how it was going for his friend inside the unpretentious two-story home. There was no outward sign of life, but a dark-haired man – Libby’s brother, Shane was pretty sure – had come and gone on foot half an hour earlier.
There hadn’t been any gunshots. Shane had been listening. Sorta. Mostly, he’d read the words of Jenna’s poetry, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl he’d fallen in love with.
Well, he’d called what he’d felt “love.” Maybe it was infatuation. Lord knew it was one-sided, completely unrequited. He and Jenna hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words that semester, but his knees got weak whenever he saw her walking across campus.
He closed his eyes and smiled. Walking didn’t come close to describing the way Jenna Murphy moved. She danced with barely contained energy, like a happy hummingbird. The first time he saw her he’d assumed she was a theater major because she moved like a dancer and her voice carried as if she’d been trained to project. But he came to realize that was her “tour guide” voice. A by-product of spending her summers working in her parents’ business. A Sentinel Pass tourist trap called the Mystery Spot.
Black Hills Baby Page 24