Shifting Dreams

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Promise. Now go take care of your brother. I’ll see you a little later.”

  She was tough, but not harsh. The affection in the boys’ faces was clear and she watched them with an expression that reminded him a little of his cousin Stephanie, who was a single mom of three back in Albuquerque. Steph and her kids were one of the few reasons he’d had a hard time leaving, but he knew she understood.

  Low and Aaron rushed out the door followed by Devin, already talking on the phone. Caleb turned back to Jena, who was filling three drink orders. “You’re a good mom.”

  The corner of her mouth turned up. “Get that from a five-minute conversation, Chief?”

  “Didn’t even take that long. I’m a trained investigator.”

  “Ha!” Jena passed the drinks to a girl who was serving the booths and took the ticket she handed her and passed it to the cook. “I’m a busy mom, that’s for sure.”

  “Two boys will do that.”

  “You have any kids?”

  “No. My ex didn’t want any. I have a lot of cousins though, and most of them do.”

  “Hmm.” She started refilling ketchup bottles.

  “Jena?”

  “Yes?”

  He leaned forward, pushing his empty plate to the side. He’d drawn out his lunch as long as he could, but he had to get back to the station. “You’re pretty busy, huh?”

  She smirked. “That’s not what you really want to ask me.”

  “No?”

  “Nope.”

  He caught her eye and the woman actually stopped rushing around for a minute. “Go out to dinner with me,” he said.

  She took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. “Where, exactly? Here? It’s the only restaurant in town.”

  “Get a drink with me at The Cave.”

  “Where I work at night?”

  “Every night?”

  She sighed. “Caleb…”

  “I like the way you say my name,” he said in a low voice. He could see her bite the corner of her lip. “I like the way you run your place and the way you talk to your boys. I like the way you kiss—”

  She slapped a hand over his mouth and glanced around the diner. He didn’t care who heard them. He grinned beneath her hand and tried to nip at her fingers, tasting a bit of ketchup.

  “Ugh!” She turned and went to wash her hands at the sink behind the counter. “Boys.”

  “Go out with me.”

  “I’m not going out with you. There’s a reason I don’t date.”

  “Never?”

  “Never. I’m busy. I’ve got too many responsibilities and not enough time for the life I have. I may like the way you look, Chief Gilbert—”

  “You like my boots, too. Don’t lie.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t date.”

  “So I’m going to have to settle for week after week of flirtatious lunches with my new landlady?” He stood and grabbed his wallet from his back pocket, peeling off a few bills before he set them on the counter and reached for his hat.

  Her eyebrows furrowed together. “You’re not coming in here every day, are you?”

  Caleb cocked his head. “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not? That was some great coleslaw.”

  Her mouth gaped open for a moment before she snapped it shut. “You’re…”

  “Handsome? Witty? Ruggedly appealing?”

  The cook rang a bell. “Order up!”

  Jena grabbed two plates before she walked out from behind the cash register. “I was going to say irritating.”

  He stepped in front her so she had to pause. Jena looked up at him with a scowl, but Caleb only smiled. “I’m also persistent, Jena Crowe. And I like a challenge.”

  “Get out of my way, Chief Not-just-passing-through. Or I’ll dump this Coke down your pants, and I know for a fact you don’t have your own shower.”

  “I’m trying to rent yours.” He slipped his hat on, tipping it at her before he walked to the door. “See you later, Jena.” He slipped out the door before she could say anything. He did love getting in the last word, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t happen too often with the woman.

  Caleb walked to his truck with a spring in his step, nodding and smiling at the curious residents he passed. It may have been small, dusty, and in the middle of nowhere, but Cambio Springs was looking better all the time.

  Chapter Seven

  Jena peered into the glare of the late morning sun that hit her when she stepped out the church doors. Aaron darted around her, already racing toward the punch and donuts with one of Allie’s boys.

  “Bear, you watch where you’re going!”

  Low sauntered behind her, clumsily flirting with the new girl in his class. Her family had just moved back to the Springs. Jena suspected the girl’s mother, who was part of the cat clans, knew her daughter faced her first change soon. Jena smiled toward the uneasy father, who was already shaking hands with Reverend Bullock and being invited for coffee by Ted’s father after church.

  Her grandmother bumped her shoulder. “Come over for coffee with the boys.”

  “Okay. I’ve got everyone coming over for dinner later, but coffee sounds good.”

  “And I’ve got a pie cooling with the last of the peaches.”

  “Now that sounds really good.”

  She saw Aaron run up to Caleb Gilbert, who was leaning against his truck in the parking lot, talking to Jeremy and his wife, Brenda. The man said something to her youngest, then winked, sending Aaron and his friend into peals of laughter before they ran away. Caleb looked up, caught her eye, and winked at her, too. Jena pretended not to see him, but it was hard to ignore the persistent man. He’d been coming into the diner almost every day and it was getting harder and harder to dismiss him. He was smart with a teasing sense of humor that quickly made him friends with her regular lunch crowd. He and Mr. Campbell debated which of Alma’s pies was the best. He always took the time to say hello to Missy and ask how she was feeling. He tipped the busboy way more than he should have and talked football scores with Devin.

  And he flirted with her. Relentlessly. Jena couldn’t help but be flattered. It wasn’t like any of the other men in town—most of whom she had known since preschool—ever paid her attention like that. For the first time in years, Jena felt like someone was looking at her. He wasn’t looking at Lowell’s widow, or Aaron and Low’s mom. Caleb looked at her.

  “That one has the subtlety of a bear after honey,” Alma said.

  “I know.”

  “I approve.”

  Jena turned to Alma; she could already feel her cheeks heating up. “You what?”

  Her grandmother only pinched her arm and walked to her car. “See you at the house!” Then the old woman sauntered past Caleb’s truck, stopping to chat with Brenda and garnering a hat tip from Caleb before she got into her old Jeep and took off into the desert.

  Jena was distracted by another tug on her arm. It was Alex.

  “I’ve been here for two weeks, Jen. Two weeks of coffee and pie and no answers.” Alex patted his trim stomach. “I’m jogging twice as much every morning and I still have no idea why she objects to the resort.”

  “If you’re asking me if I know, you’re out of luck. She hasn’t told me. What do you all talk about when she’s feeding you pie?”

  Alex sighed. “Who’s growing what and what’s in season. State water allocations and the federal riverbank restoration project. Who’s having babies and who’s moving out of town. Who’s moving into town. Where your parents are traveling this month. How my grandmother’s knee is… The woman can chat for hours about anything and everything except the resort that has the potential to pull this town from the edge of poverty.”

  Jena tried not to smile. Alma didn’t chitchat needlessly. Never had. So whatever Alex’s frustrations, her grandmother had a reason for dragging out their discussions.

  “Will you just ask her? Please?” He pulled off his sungl
asses and gave her his best puppy dog eyes. “I’m begging. I’ve got a dozen balls all set to roll on this, but I have to get her approval. Once she’s sold on it, everything can start and people can actually work again. At least mention that to her?”

  Jena shrugged. “I’ll talk to her, but no guarantees. You know how she is.”

  “I know.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek. “You’re a doll.” He started toward his car before he turned back. “Hey, dinner at six, right?”

  “Yep. Bring whatever you want to drink. Allie and I got the rest.”

  “See you then.” Alex turned and nodded at Caleb, who was watching the exchange carefully. Then Alex reached over and punched Jeremy in his arm before he pretended to grab a laughing Brenda. Jena laughed, watching the cousins play-fight before they waved good-bye. She caught Caleb glancing at her before she heard Low.

  “Mom? We going to Grandma’s or what?”

  Alma Crowe, like all the Crowe women, had raised her children in the family home in town, near to the church, the school, and their neighbors until the next generation had been born. Then she and Jena’s grandfather had built a small home out in the desert butted up to a sheer wall of sandstone that glowed red in the morning sun and shaded the old house in the afternoons. It wasn’t an easy place to find, but then Crowes tended to like their solitude.

  Jena pulled her Subaru into the graveled drive in front of the house; the boys were already on the way out of the car.

  “Mom, we’re going to the Cliff House!”

  “Okay. I’ll call when it’s time for pie.”

  The boys whooped and hollered as they clambered up the rocks. The “cliff house” was a narrow sliver of cave cut into the rock face who-knows-how-many years before. It might have been one of the numerous shelters for the desert dwellers who had fled, leaving petroglyphs and pottery shards, or it might have been naturally made. For Jena and her sons, it served the purpose of a childhood fort. Cambio Springs didn’t have much in the way of tree houses, but the Cliff House was even more special.

  She climbed onto the small porch, which was hung with dusty blinds to keep out the sun, and into her grandmother’s house. Alma must have just turned on the air-conditioner that hung in the window, because the house was still warm.

  “Grandma?”

  “Back in the kitchen, Jena.”

  She set her purse down and walked back to her grandmother’s pride and joy. The kitchen was immaculate, the one indulgence in an otherwise simple house. Alma Crowe had been baking pies long before Jena had been born and her recipes were famous. When she and her husband had started the Blackbird Diner, it had been a pie house, serving Alma’s famous pies for breakfast and lunch. Her grandmother still had every recipe, though she only made dessert pies for Jena on a regular basis and only rarely made her breakfast pies.

  “Hey.” She sat down at the long table that ran through the middle of the room.

  “The boys at the Cliff House?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good. Talk to me about that handsome sheriff.”

  “He’s not a sheriff. He’s a police chief.”

  Alma said, “He could be a Fed for all I care. He’s finally turned your head, which is more than I can say for any other man in the last three years.”

  “He hasn’t turned my head.” Jena tried not to think about Lowell. “I don’t have time for that stuff.”

  Alma patted her shoulder as she moved to the small pie safe that stood in the corner of the room. “You should make time. It’s not good for you to be alone. And you don’t see your face when he comes in the diner. You light up.”

  “I do not.” Did she?

  Her grandmother smiled. “It wouldn’t be obvious to anyone but me. It’s nice. You haven’t looked like that in a while. You need to get out.”

  “I don’t have time for—”

  “You’re not an old woman,” Alma said. “You’re entitled to a little happiness for yourself. Lowell wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone.”

  He hadn’t. Her late husband had told her himself. Jena said, “You been talking to Mom again?”

  “Always.” Alma set the pie down on the table before she settled down next to Jena. “My favorite thing about my son is his wife. I let him know that on a regular basis.”

  Jena thought about the two grubby boys climbing on rocks. “I just hope my daughters-in-law like me as much as Mom likes you.”

  “That’s the curse of having boys. Sucking up to your daughters-in-law becomes a full-time occupation,” Alma said. “I’m joking, Jen. Your mom and I were just talking yesterday—they’re in Wyoming, of all places—and I may have mentioned that there was a handsome new man in town. She was curious, that’s all.”

  “Grandma!” she squeaked. “Why would you do that?”

  “I can see the writing on the wall…” Alma gazed out the window. “I’m mystical like that.” Then she turned to smile at her granddaughter. “I’m glad he’s persistent. You need someone to bother you into a little fun.”

  Deciding a subject change was in order, Jena asked, “Speaking of persistent, Alex is starting to bug me.”

  “Starting to bug me, too. That boy can put away food. Don’t know how he stays so skinny.”

  She shook her head. “Then why do you keep inviting him over and not talking about the hotel?”

  Alma chuckled and stood, walking to the counter to pull out two mugs and pour the coffee. “Alex McCann is a good boy. He’s also a very smart one.”

  “Yep, and he really does think this resort is a good idea for the Springs. He’s sinking a lot of his own money into it with no guarantee of success, just because he thinks it’s the right thing for the future.”

  “I’d like to point out,” she said as she sat down, “that I didn’t say ‘no.’ I said, ‘not yet.’”

  “Tell me the difference from your perspective.”

  Alma sipped her coffee. Black. Always strong and black. Jena poured a dollop of cream in hers.

  “He’s smart and dedicated to the Springs,” she said. “But he’s young. And he’s been living away. I’m probably going to give him my approval. But the more he has to justify it to me, the more thought he puts into it, and the more pieces of everyday news he has to absorb, the better the project’s going to be.”

  So that was the reason behind the chitchat. “You think he’s out of touch.”

  “I know he is.” She stood again to grab four plates and a sharp knife. “He’s been living in L.A. for over ten years. He needs to be thinking where the water is going to come from to use in this hotel. People on vacation like taking long showers.”

  “We’ve never been short on water. Not really. Despite what we tell outsiders.”

  “I know that, but it’s still something to be mindful of. He needs to think about who’s going to be around. How is this going to affect the children in town if they have to mind their every word? He doesn’t have kids yet because he and Ted keep dancing around each other, but he will someday. He needs to think about how this is going to affect the farmers in town. Is dust going to become an issue with his pretty hotel landscaping? He’d be building right along the Smith’s farm. And how are hotel guests going to react to tractors outside their windows instead of pretty desert views? All this stuff is going to affect the decisions he makes at the very beginning, so there’s no need to rush into this.”

  “There are people out of work, Grandma.” Jena spoke quietly. She respected her grandmother, but she saw Alex’s side of the argument, too. “There are things in motion to get people jobs again. Give people some hope. At least give Alex a sign that he’s not spinning his wheels on this.”

  Alma started cutting the peach pie and the sweet scent wafted up and into Jena’s nose. As if called by the dinner bell, she heard the boys scrambling on the back porch, no doubt sweaty and tired from climbing on the rocks.

  “Hands. Wash. Now.” She pointed toward the sink as they burst through the door.

  “Yes, Mom,” they
said in chorus.

  Alma started serving. Jena said, “At least let him know you’re giving it some thought, Grandma.”

  “I’ll think about it. Now, how many slices of pie do my boys want?”

  “I am going to win her over on this,” Alex said as he and Ollie tended the grill and Jena put another salad on the table. “Alma Crowe is going to think I’m the best thing that ever happened to this town by the time I’m done convincing her.”

  The sun had slipped behind the mesa, so the evening was starting to cool off. Allie had turned on the sprinklers when she and Joe had turned up with their four kids, so six shrieks of excited laughter rang from the backyard while dinner was put on the table. They were eating on the back porch, which was screened in so they could have the kitchen open to the backyard.

  “Is Dev coming over?” Ted asked, and Jena saw Alex shoot her a glare.

  “I don’t know. I invited him, but he said he might have to work a shift for someone today.”

  “How about the cute police chief?” her friend teased.

  Alex muttered, “Are you making passes at every single man in town now, Ted?”

  Ted curled her lip and threw a dinner roll at him. It fell to the ground where Ollie’s mastiff, Murtry, immediately scooped it up and trotted away. Jena peeked out the kitchen window to see Allie’s three-year-old daughter, Loralie, hop on his back. The dog turned, gave the small girl’s face a giant lick, then ambled toward the sprinklers with the baby clinging on.

  “The chief of police is already pestering me every lunch rush and living behind my house.” Jena glanced out back where she could see a sweaty, shirtless Caleb unloading another box into the 34-foot Airstream trailer at the back of her property that was now his home. If she noticed the lean muscles that glistened in the afternoon heat, well… that just meant she was observant, didn’t it?

  She hadn’t even done a background check, just called Jeremy, who assured her the chief seemed pretty tidy for a bachelor and not likely to run out on the rent. Her mother had been thrilled. “He doesn’t need to be intruding on our Sunday dinners, too.”