by Fiona Wilde
“The children, who are home-educated, are polite and inquisitive. Many of them have already mastered primitive skills like dying and weaving through apprenticeships within the community.
“The health of the community is good. They subsist on an organic diet and Heartfield has a dentist, a physician’s assistant and a midwife - all members –who treat the residents if needed. Members, however, are not adverse to outside treatment if warranted. Some have gone to the hospital or outside specialists for complicated pregnancies, diabetes or broken bones.
“Despite the high-profile incident involving arrests made by this department – which has since apologized to the community – no criminal enterprise or wrongdoing was found during this investigation. Heartfield residents have agreed not to sue the department, and the inquiry into their activities and community has been officially closed.”
Karen printed out the document, signed it and delivered it to Clemmons’ desk. Then she returned to her own and began to leaf through the files of new assignments she’d been given.
A band of adolescents was suspected in a spate of vandalism that had targeted the new museum recently built on a lot formerly occupied by a skate park. An elderly couple claimed a couple posing as insurance company representatives had scammed them. Karen sighed as she continued to leaf through the folder – identity theft, harassment, forgeries and other petty crimes. Not all cases would be exciting, and she sat back, thinking about what lay in store for her over the next weeks, months, years. Investigations, paperwork, dinner and drinks with friends, endless and senseless dates with men who would try and fail to connect with her, lonely nights at home, longer and longer work hours to fill the void. And finally, after years of work, retirement, with her final years spent in solitude.
“I can’t do this.”
“What?” Clemmons looked up from his desk.“Can’t do what?”
“This,” she gestured to her desk.
“Your work?”
Karen laughed for the first time in days. “This work, this job ... this life. I can’t do it anymore.” Everyone was looking now as she undid her holster and laid it and the revolver it contained on her desk. Next came her badge.
Clemmons stood. “Capt. Jarvis!” he called while keeping his eyes warily on Karen. “You’d better get out here!”
Jarvis appeared at his office door and looked wide-eyed at Karen.
“Karen, what on earth are you doing?”
She looked up, and her eyes filled with sad resolve. “I’m quitting,” she sighed.
“No!” he said, and his voice was filled with disappointment.
“I am,” she repeated. “And please don’t make me feel any worse about it than I do. I just don’t think I’m on the right path.”
Jarvis walked over. “It’s that compound thing, isn’t it? And that stuff with Sheriff Smith. Look, we all recognize the strain you’re under. I’m sure it was all very confusing.”
Karen shook her head as she picked up an empty computer paper box and began filling it with the personal belongings she’d just placed on her desk. “No, Jarvis. I’m not confused. In fact, this is probably the first clear moment I’ve had since I came back to work.”
She looked up to see everyone watching her in stunned silence. “I’m sorry if this is a disappointment to you,” she said. “I really am. But it’s time I stopped living up to everyone else’s expectations and live up to my own. Sheriff Smith is out. You guys are all going to be fine without me.” She smiled. “Just fine.”
Picking up her box, she turned toward the door.
“Patterson!” said Clemmons. “Where the hell you gonna go?”
She stopped and looked briefly back at them.
“Home,” she said, and walked out.
***
Clay was out by the road, putting a new lock on the front gate when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel followed by the slam of a door. When he looked up, she was standing there, a smile on her face.
“My car’s broken down,” she said.
He smiled back and walked over. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And it sucks because I did the craziest thing today. I quit my job, paid off my credit cards and tore them up, broke the lease on my apartment, gave all my furniture to the thrift store and packed what few things I thought I had to have in the trunk of my car. And now here I am, stuck with nowhere to go.”
He looked past her to the car. The back seat was packed with boxes.
“I heard there’s a commune in this area,” she said. “A place called Heartfield. I heard there’s this guy who kind of runs the place. He’s handsome and wonderful, the kind of guy a girl could fall for, could follow, could settle down with.”
Clay walked over and pushed a strand of hair away from Karen’s face. She was more beautiful than he remembered.
“Well, you heard right,” he said. “And coincidentally, he’s looking for the perfect woman. She’s about your height, spunky. I hear she used to work as a police officer, but I always thought she’d make a much better farmer. And an even better wife.”
The force of their kiss practically brought them both to the ground, and when Clay walked back into Heartfield it was with Karen Patterson on his arm. The community exploded in a round of nearly unanimous applause that evening when he asked them to accept her back, and announced that she was – beyond a shadow of a doubt – the woman he believed was meant for him.
And Karen could barely smile through the tears of joy. She was a Heartfielder. And she had, indeed, come home.
Chapter Fifteen
Karen and Clay lay in the hayloft of the big barn, their arms and legs entwined. It felt good, she thought, to be here in this simple place. She rubbed her cheek against the flannel of his shirt where she’d nestled it and sighed.
It had been three months since she’d returned to Heartfield, but already her former life felt like a distant memory. Looking up at the cathedral-like ceiling of the huge barn where pigeons cooed in the rafters, she wondered what she’d ever found attractive in the dog-eat-dog outside world.
“You’re awfully quiet.” Clay leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
She looked up at him and smiled before nestling back into the crook of his arm. “I was just thinking how I wish I’d found you – and this life – sooner.”
“If you’d found it sooner you may not have been ready for it,” he replied. “Gifts are revealed to us when we’re prepared to accept them, Karen. Don’t waste your time on regrets.”
Karen closed her eyes and thought about what he had to say, and wondered if Clay knew how easy he made it for her to trust and obey him. As leader of Heartfield, Clay was used to being introspective and thoughtful. As a partner he was the same way, and his affirmation of her choices was comforting.
Karen knew walking away from her job on the police force and leaving all she had worked for had puzzled everyone who cared for her. She realized her decision worried longtime friends and co-workers like Jarvis and Clemmons. She understood that while her time investigating Heartfield had convinced her it was a sound and workable community, there were still people on the outside that saw it as a cult, and feared she’d somehow been brainwashed.
But she was determined to no longer live her life ruled by the suspicions and assumptions of others. For the first time since she could remember, she was truly content and happy. It felt good to have all the drama of her job behind her, and to finally be about the joyful work of loving. And living.
Clay tipped her face up to his and kissed her before sitting up, pulling her gently with him..
“It would be nice if we could stay here all day,” he said. He looked lovingly at her as he picked hay out of her hair. “But we both know we can’t.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I just wish we could be together at night….” She looked down so he wouldn’t see her look of disappointment.
“We will be,” he said firmly. “But once we’re married. Like it or not, one of
the hallmarks of Heartfield is that we’ve adopted an old-fashioned code of conduct. Courtship first, then cohabitation.”
He tipped her chin up until he was looking in her eyes, his expression mock stern. “Got that, young lady?”
Karen grinned. “Yes, but you have to admit it’s not easy.”
He kissed her. “Baby, it’s harder for me than it is for you.” As he pulled her closer, Karen’s hand brushed against the obvious swelling in the crotch of his blue jeans and they both laughed.
“Apparently,” she said.
He pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Don’t worry. Time will pass faster than you think. I can’t wait to marry you. You know that. But as leader I don’t want to appear to be rushing things for the wrong reason. I’ve advised couples here to test themselves, to be sure. I can’t afford not to live by my own message.”
Karen stood. “Of course not,” she said, admiring his dedication to principle despite her desire to spend a full night in his arms.
Clay helped her down from the ladder and they exited the barn hand-in-hand. As they walked past other Heartfielders, most smiled in the direction of the community’s newest declared couple. But not everyone looked pleased, and Karen knew that her history as a police officer who’d originally come into their midst to investigate them had aroused lingering suspicion. She also knew it would take time to earn their trust, but didn’t feel the kind of pressure she felt in the outside world, where winning the confidence of others had to be balanced with the demands of careers and professional expectations. Here at Heartfield, relationships were part of the fabric and the members were judged by their character, and not for political reasons.
There were exceptions, of course. It bothered Karen that Adam Blye’s wife, Sarah, still disliked her, but Clay had convinced her that Adam would not allow Sarah to poison the community’s mind against Karen before she’d had a chance to prove herself.
Karen knew that Sarah had already been spanked for trying to stir up community opinion against both her and Ann Marie Markum, whose decision to join Heartfield led the former sheriff to have Karen investigate the group in the first place. Karen and Ann Marie had struck up a friendship, and Sarah’s continued jealousy of the two women was the only real worry Karen had. She’d tried to befriend Sarah, but had stopped after Ann Marie had advised her it was a lost cause.
“Don’t even try,” Ann Marie had said. “All she’ll do is stab you in the back.”
The advice was given out of earshot of both Clay and Ann Marie’s husband Jake. Ann Marie knew from Jake that Sarah’s husband had tried to subdue her. The plugging of wives was something Ann Marie had not mentioned. It was not her place to impart this information to Karen; the practice of anal training would be revealed to Karen by Clay when they were wed, should he think it necessary.
And besides, Ann Marie knew the men preferred the women to work out their differences, and both she and Karen agreed to avoid Sarah rather than try to fix a problem neither of them felt responsible for. Neither of them liked Sarah, and made a pact not to go out of their way to associate with her.
Before Heartfield, Karen couldn’t have imagined avoiding conflict. But then again, she couldn’t have imagined embracing a lifestyle where grown women were spanked for bucking male authority. Just as Ann Marie answered to Jake, Karen now answered to Clay, even though they weren’t yet living together. The concept wasn’t always easy to accept; Clay had spanked Karen twice since she’d been living on the compound.
The threat of it – the idea of knowing Clay could upend her over his lap at any time at his own discretion – frightened her. Within the bounds of Heartfield there was no authority higher than the man a woman answered to. Compliance and trust in that authority was integral to a woman’s success in the community. Karen knew she’d have to keep reminding herself that Clay was a man of honor, and that he would only chastise her if she truly needed it.
It helped that Ann Marie had to deal with the same thing and was there to mentor her, and Karen smiled now as she saw her friend walking in her direction. Turning, she said her farewell to Clay and walked over to the other woman.
“Where did you two lovebirds disappear to?” Ann Marie asked.
Karen giggled, blushing. “The barn. But don’t worry. Nothing inappropriate happened. We just cuddled a bit.” She sighed. “I just wish we didn’t have to be apart. It’s hard to wait.”
“Most couples don’t,” Ann Marie confided. “Jake and I didn’t. I mean, we didn’t live together right away, but we did start sleeping together before we were married.”
Karen grew quiet, feeling a seed of hurt implant itself in her belly. She and Clay had come close to having sex, twice. But both times he’d stopped. She suddenly wondered if something were wrong with her, then pushed it out of her mind.
“Clay’s really traditional, though,” Ann Marie continued, as if reading her mind. “He’s the kind to do everything by the book.”
“I suppose …” Karen said, suddenly wishing Clay would be a little less rigid in his principles.
She wondered if there were a way to convince him to change his mind about waiting, and smiled to herself. Perhaps there was. Even in Heartfield, women still had some power. Perhaps it was time to use it on the man she loved.
Chapter Sixteen
Jarrett Miller was born with two gifts. One was good looks, the other an ability to size people up. He could tell within minutes whether or not a person was worth his time. And the well-dressed, desperate woman sitting in front of him most certainly was.
“I know this is highly unorthodox,” she was saying. “And if I could count on the police to help me I wouldn’t be here.” She clawed through her handbag looking for a handkerchief. “Apparently they’re not that interested in helping citizens who need it.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Miller leaned forward, flashing Melissa Fales a sympathetic smile. “We administer the justice the police refuse to.”
He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a couple of Kleenex tissues and held them out to her. She took them and sniffed loudly as she dabbed angrily at her eyes.
“If they only understood how distressing this has been for my family – how difficult it is to lose a daughter - the police would never have given up. Can you believe they say the case is closed? Closed! They sat right in front of me and told me that my daughter - my beautiful Ann Marie - joined that ridiculous group of her own volition. They ignored the fact that she assaulted me, which she never would have done before. And they refuse to even discuss how the officer they hired to investigate sided with the group!”
“More than sided, I’m afraid.” Miller opened a folder lying in front of him. Inside was a picture of former police officer Karen Patterson and a copy of her employment file as well as a photocopy of her official letter of resignation. “It appears she quit her job after the investigation and joined the group.”
“See!” Melissa Fales said, as if his statement proved her point. “That Heartfield is a cult! A cult, I tell you. I want my daughter out, and those men and that crooked former cop arrested!”
“I don’t have the power to arrest anyone,” Miller reminded her. “We aren’t cops. All I can promise is that we’ll get your daughter out. And afterwards, perhaps we can convince her to admit to what she’s really seen there.”
He raised his eyebrow knowingly and Melissa Fales smiled. While she hated the idea of distressing Ann Marie, her daughter’s defiance in this matter had gone completely overboard.
“And the cop? I hold her personally responsible for what happened. If she’d just done her job instead of turning this into some interagency spat, then my daughter would be home.”
Miller was quiet for a moment. “Just what do you want us to do about her?” he asked.
“Make her pay,” she said. “Make her pay for what she’s done.”
Miller nodded. “Consider it done. But you do understand it will cost you extra.”
“I don’t ca
re what it costs,” Melissa Fales hissed. “My daughter is gone, my husband has all but abandoned me over the issue, and this group has gotten away scott free. You do whatever it takes to avenge me on this. Money is no object.”
Jarrett flashed her a winning smile. That was just what he wanted to hear.
***
Ann Marie kissed Jake as she set a plate of chicken and dumplings on the table in front of him.
“Mmm,” he said. “My favorite. How did you know what I wanted?”
Ann Marie smiled at him as she settled in the chair across the table. “Women’s intuition,” she replied. “How was your day?”
“Good,” he said. “They keep getting better, now that I realize all that mess with your family is finally over.”
Ann Marie’s smile disappeared and she jabbed at her food with her fork.
“What’s wrong, hon,” Jake asked when he realized his wife wasn’t eating.
Ann Marie sighed. “I’ve been thinking, Jake. Maybe it’s time I went and talked to my folks.”
But Jake shook his head vehemently. “After what they did to me? After what they tried to do to all of us? No, Ann Marie. I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’ll just open things up all over again.”
“But that’s just the point!” she cried. “I don’t think they were ever closed.”
“They were,” her husband insisted. “The cops came, they investigated and they officially declared no wrongdoing by this community, no evidence of duress. After unfairly arresting me and having to apologize, they wouldn’t touch us without good reason!”
“Exactly!” Ann Marie said. “Which is why it would be an excellent time for me to go talk to my parents. You don’t know my mother like I do, Jake. Without some kind of closure this will just fester. Who knows what she’ll try next?”
“I don’t care to know your mother, Ann Marie.” Jake slammed his fork down beside his plate. “She’s gotten the police involved. She failed. The last thing I want to do is help her find some closure she doesn’t deserve.”