The Love of a Stranger

by Jeffrey, Anna

  “How about you? What happens next to Doug Hawkins?”

  “I’m taking it one day at a time. I’ve got some feelers out. My cop days are over, but I’ve still got some skills to offer.”

  “And why haven’t you remarried? The way women chased after you, it’s hard to believe you never got caught again. I’m just an ordinary old sock. I’ve always had a hard time just getting a date, but you had your pick. I’m surprised one of those sexy-looking actresses down there in La-la Land didn’t latch on to you.”

  Doug’s thoughts landed on the drama queen with whom he had lived for a few years and had caught sharing his bed in his apartment with some mid-level studio executive. “Pete’s right about women. One you can trust is hard to find. I haven’t considered it since Diane. Had a couple of live-ins, but things just didn’t fit.”

  “Mary Jane and I get along great when we’re not arguing over Alex,” Ted said. “With her being a teacher, I guess it makes sense she’d want me around more in the summer. And I do like taking those boys of hers fishing. They look up to me like I’m special.”

  The look on Ted’s face told Doug just how affected he was by his relationship with Mary Jane’s sons. The mention of teachers sent his memory down another corridor. “Rick’s wife was a teacher.”

  “Rick?”

  “Ricardo Chavez. My old partner. He bought it the same time I got shot.” A stillness filled the cab, making Doug wish the fact about his old partner hadn’t spilled out of his mouth.

  “I wish you’d tell me about it,” Ted said softly. “You know I want to know.”

  Doug hesitated, wondering if he could tell someone who was as close as Ted had once been and whom he knew would be non-judgmental. “Nothing much to tell, Ted. It was Christmastime. Everybody working short-handed. Rick and I got co-opted by the ATF. They were pulling a raid on an old warehouse. Just a few homeboys pushing a little dope and a few guns. They knew we were coming. It was that simple.”

  Doug paused and looked out his window. He could tell the story only to this point without choking up. He couldn’t recount aloud the actual shooting or the last minutes of consciousness with Rick’s head pouring his life’s blood onto Doug’s lap. “Rick was my partner for ten years.”

  He stopped and attempted to will away the trembling and tightness that gripped his chest when he thought about the incident. Before moving to Callister he had been sent to a cardiologist to be checked out for the symptoms. Anxiety had been the diagnosis. More drugs had been the recommendation. Instead of having the prescriptions filled, he left L.A.

  “That’s not simple, Doug,” Ted said finally. “On TV, they said you shot a kid. Is that true?”

  “Thirteen years old.” Doug’s throat ached as if it had swelled shut. The boy he had mentored had been only a year younger. “Shit, Ted...forget it.”

  “Right. Didn’t mean to tear you up, buddy.”

  “Change the subject.”

  They turned off the highway and headed up the long driveway to Doug’s house. Ted picked up the conversation again. “Now that you’re here and settled down, maybe you’ll meet somebody. Get married and have a family. You’re not too old.”

  Once Doug had taken for granted that he would marry a loving woman and have kids and a house with a yard and blah-blah-blah. At some point in the past few years, a family was something he had ceased to expect. “Neither are you.”

  “Mary Jane’s only thirty-two. Guess we could still have some kids together.”

  “Diane was pregnant once,” Doug said.

  Ted pulled in front of the house. Doug hadn’t left a porch light on and a quarter-moon cast gauzy, bluish light over his front yard.

  “I never knew that,” Ted said. “You said you didn’t have any kids.”

  “I don’t. If you think life doesn’t play strange tricks on you. Birth control was always an issue. She couldn’t take the pill for some damn reason. She wouldn’t let me touch her without a rubber, so I don’t know how she got knocked up. We hadn’t made any plans for a family, so when she told me, I figured there’d been an accident. I thought, okay, we’re old enough to be parents and I was making enough money to support us.”

  In truth, the news had swamped him with emotions and he had been thrilled, had gone out and bought a little Nerf football the very day she told him. “The next thing I knew, she’d had a miscarriage. Past tense.” He didn’t try to stop the bitter huff that burst out. “Which was a lie.”

  Ted didn’t speak, just looked across at him wide-eyed.

  “A month or so after she told me she lost it, I was cleaning her car. I found a receipt from one of those family planning clinics. By then, the professor she later married had entered the picture. For all I know, the kid could’ve been his.”

  “I wonder why my mom never heard about her being pregnant.”

  “I doubt anybody heard about it. We were in Lincoln. I didn’t even say anything to Steve. Her mother knew, but she kept quiet. To this day, Diane’s dad probably thinks I’m an asshole.”

  “Probably not. He’s been dead quite a few years now.”

  “Hunh. Too bad. He was the better part of that family.” Doug pulled on his door latch. “I’m going in. This is depressing and I don’t need to be depressed. Be sure to tell Mary Jane thanks again.”

  “Right,” Ted said. “Be seeing ya....And Doug? Thanks for trusting me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I trust you, Ted? We’re friends.”

  ****

  As Doug entered his dark house, loneliness stole through him. He clicked on his only living room lamp, then went to the kitchen and glanced at the Mickey Mouse clock. It was early, too early for bed. He wouldn’t sleep, would just toss and turn all night. He could never sleep when memories got the upper hand. He stepped out onto his front deck and glanced across the valley toward Alex’s mountainside. Visible in the darkness was the black expanse of Wolf Mountain silhouetted against a less-black, star-sprinkled sky. He squinted and looked closer and he saw them—Alex’s lights, tiny against the mountainside.

  He turned on the radio he kept tuned to an oldies station, then dropped into his rocking chair, propped his feet up on the deck railing and locked his hands behind his head. Until he came here and Ted dredged up old memories, he hadn’t thought about his cheating ex-wife for a long time, or the fact that she had aborted his child.

  Life might be different now if she had given birth. Even if she hadn’t wanted the kid, he would have taken it. And now he might have a fifteen-year-old son to play ball with or a daughter to fret over. He would probably never have a kid now. Maybe thirty-seven wasn’t too old, but he couldn’t imagine what kind of woman he would choose at this stage of his life to be the mother of his child.

  Mothers and children. His thoughts drifted to Mary Jane Masters and her kids. And Ted. Mary Jane was obviously a good woman, mother and homemaker. Learning that Ted put off her affection while he held out hope that something might flourish between him and Alex McGregor had been a surprise. It was one thing to fantasize about somebody like Alex, but another to allow the fantasy to take over your life and drive you to do something dumb. Only Ted seemed to be blind to just how unrealistic his pursuit of Alex was.

  Ted, Ted, Ted.

  Did Alex do or say something to make Ted think he had a chance with her? Was she aware that his attraction to her kept him from making a move that would be good for him? Did she know Ted had had supper tonight with Mary Jane and would she care?

  Doug sighed and pushed to his feet. Before going back into the house, he looked across the valley at Alex’s lights again. He had met just about every kind of nut there was, so he had met reclusive people. But they usually weren't as appealing as Alex. What would drive a woman like her to come to a remote, small mountain town and live alone in an old house stuck on a mountainside virtually impossible to reach without a four-wheel-drive vehicle? What would she be doing tonight? Watching TV, reading? Was she lonely? The questions shuffled like playing cards in his mind,
even after he went to bed.

  Chapter 14

  Doug awoke with a headache. After supper at Mary Jane’s, they had polished off the wine and added a few beers. He hadn’t made it to the grocery store before it closed yesterday, so, out of eggs and bacon, he ate Cheerios for breakfast. After a pot of coffee, he tackled taping and bedding the house’s interior walls.

  He stopped late afternoon. He then showered and shaved and drove into town for groceries, vowing to not be distracted from that mission.

  But being in town and seeing Carlton’s, he couldn’t keep from thinking of Alex, especially since she had been in his head most of last night. When he got home last night, he had violated his promise to himself and glanced across the valley. Her lights had been on, tiny bright dots against the black mountainside. Like an adolescent fool, he had plopped down in his old rocking chair on the front deck and fantasized about running his tongue all over her body. And her returning the pleasure.

  He finished at the grocery store, but before going home, he detoured down the side street where he knew she often parked. He didn’t see her Wrangler, but he had heard Ted speak of her routine often enough to know she picked up the daily receipts late in the afternoon and helped Estelle behind the bar for a while.

  Rounding the block, Doug saw Pete’s truck parallel parked on the main street in front of Carlton’s. As if on auto-pilot, he pulled into an empty space behind it, telling himself he was doing nothing more than stopping off to have a beer with a new friend, Pete Hand.

  He saw no sign of Pete inside Carlton’s. The bar was empty except for Estelle. He ambled to the far end of the bar and said hello.

  Today, Estelle’s tent dress was bright yellow with huge pink flowers and she was wearing a corsage-like thing in her hair—it matched the flowers in her dress—and Nikes on her feet. “Where’s the boss today?” he asked her.

  “Oh, she’ll be here. I hope she comes pretty soon or she won't get away before the night trade starts. She don’t like staying around here at night.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Don’t like being around drunks. And we got plenty of ’em.”

  Doug lowered his head to hide the grin her answer triggered and wondered if Estelle had ever thought it strange that a woman who didn’t like drunks owned a bar, and a rowdy bar, at that. He glanced at his watch. Alex did seem to be late.

  No sooner had he paid for a glass of cold tap than she glided through the front door. Wearing dark slacks and a tan knit shirt, she looked sporty, clean and sleek as an otter. He felt the little burst of excitement that seeing her always sent through him. She breezed around him and stuffed her purse under the counter behind the bar. She fussed with something out of sight and came up with the zippered bank bag.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, unable to think of anything more imaginative and more nervous than any man of his age and experience should be. How the hell she did that to him, he didn’t know. He had stood toe-to-toe with society’s worst and eye-to-eye with its best and none of them had made him feel as inadequate as Alex did.

  “Fine,” she answered and looked around. “Where’s Ted?”

  From her tone, she seemed even more irascible than last night. Mental sigh. “Work, maybe. I’m a little early.”

  Estelle joined them at the end of the bar. Alex asked her if Kenny Miller had called. Estelle said no, but a lawyer in Boise had called three times. A crease formed on Alex's smooth brow.“Damn,” she said, then stared at the floor, rubbing her temple with two crimson-tipped fingers. She was apparently worried. Had something new happened with Godzilla?

  Customers began to drift in. A din of conversation and juke box music grew in the small room. “Looks like a good Friday night,” Alex said to Estelle. “We’re going to be full. I’ll stay and see what happens. If the crowd gets too big, we’ll call in extra help.”

  Several Forest Service employees drifted in, Pete and Mike among them, and took their usual table. Doug nodded a greeting and Pete waved him over, pulling out an adjacent chair. Doug gave up his attempt to talk to Alex, crossed the room and took the empty seat beside Pete. “Ted’s not coming?” he asked the men.

  “He had a date,” Mike replied.

  “He took Mary Jane Masters to supper up to the ski lodge,” Pete added. “We were afraid he might back out if he knew we were coming here, so we didn’t invite him.”

  Doug was muddling through that information when the front door swung open and a hulk filled the sunlit doorway. Only his silhouette showed until he closed the door.

  Miller.

  The logger’s black hair was slicked back and shiny even in the low light. His long-sleeve shirt hung loose and unbuttoned, showing a gray T-shirt. One of his hammy hands clutched a sheaf of papers. Like an aura, anger shimmered around him.

  Pete set his glass on the table with a clunk. “Oh, shit.”

  Mike twisted a hundred eighty degrees, looked at the front door, then swore under his breath.

  The sight of Miller, coupled with Pete and Mike’s reactions, sent a little surge of adrenaline through Doug. His pulse rate kicked up and he glanced across his shoulder at Alex who stood at the end of the bar absorbed in a ledger. She looked up.

  Miller crossed the barroom with a bow-legged stomp that dared anyone to get in his way. He stopped in front of her. “You big city bitch!” Miller’s voice, trembling with anger, carried across the narrow aisle that separated the bar and Doug’s seat. The logger shook the fistful of papers in front of Alex’s face. “Here’s what I think of you and your goddamn injunction!”

  Alex stared up at him, giving no ground, not even when Miller pushed his bulldog face within inches of hers. “You left me no choice,” she said evenly, looking him in the eye.

  Miller ripped the papers in half, ripped them again and threw them at her. She ducked to the left, avoiding being struck by the pieces. “You ain’t keeping me away from my trees,” he growled.

  A familiar fist gripped Doug’s gut. Defending against bullying was deeply ingrained. His butt was already off the chair, but Pete’s restraining hand fell on his arm. “Wait, Doug. He ain’t gonna do nothin’ stupid in a public place. It ain’t your fight anyway. She can handle him. She’s done it before.”

  Doug sat back on the edge of his seat, reminding himself he was no longer a cop and remembering the fire in Alex’s eye at their first meeting. Hell, she probably could handle a gorilla.

  Alex snapped the ledger shut. “Kenny, listen to me. Nobody wants to keep you from your timber. But you aren’t going to build a road across my property and you aren’t going to take logging equipment through Swede Creek. You’ll have to go around.”

  Doug detected a tremor in her voice. It was familiar because he had heard it that night with Miller in her office. She had been scared that night and she was scared now, but he had to admire her guts. He stood up, carrying his empty glass toward the bar as if to order a refill.

  “That’d cost a fuckin’ fortune and you know it,” Miller said. “I tried to be neighborly with you, Alex. You want lawyers? You want legal bullshit? You got it. I got something that’ll fix your ass.” He yanked a folded document from his shirt pocket and shook it at her. “See this? I don't have to go around. I’m going right up Old Ridge Road. Legal.”

  “This is no place for this conversation,” she said sharply. “I’ve said all I’m going to.”

  As if on cue, the relentless juke box stopped and the hot exchange between Alex and Miller became audible to the room. Conversation ceased and Miller’s voice notched up louder and stronger, obviously for the benefit of the audience. “You come in here to our town, bring your high-falutin’ ways, do any fuckin’ thing you want to ’cause you think we’re all backward.”

  “Do what you’re going to, Kenny. But leave me alone.” She moved around to a spot behind the bar and faced him across the bartop.

  He waved the folded document in front of her eyes again. “Your old man and I had an agreement, but even that don’t matter
anymore. You’re gonna eat crow, missy, and everybody in this town is gonna know it.”

  “I don’t like crow and I don’t eat it,” Alex said. “I’m not discussing this with you. Your lawyer can call mine. I’m sure he has the number.”

  Alex’s stemmed glass, half-filled with white wine, sat on the counter. Miller grabbed it in a giant paw and hurled it like a major league throw against the backbar’s mirror. The black-veined antique cracked in spidery lines all the way across. Mirror shards rained down on top of the assortment of liquor bottles.

  Doug’s adrenaline surged and he started for the end of the bar where Alex and Miller faced off. A couple of people on bar stools stood up and backed away.

  “Estelle, call the sheriff,” Alex said.

  The bartender’s eyes looked like two olives floating in buttermilk, but she followed orders. She reached for the receiver, but before she had pressed a number, Miller’s deep voice boomed. “Estelle!” He pointed a finger at her. “You expect that boy of yours to ever work in this valley again, you leave the goddamn phone alone. This don't concern you.”

  Estelle meekly returned the receiver to its cradle. An image of Miller wielding a cue stick flashed in Doug’s mind.

  “You leave Estelle and her family out of this.” Alex’s tone cut like a scapel. “Your beef is with me. And I warn you, Kenny, the Sierra Club or Friends of the Earth would like nothing better than to adopt Granite Pond. If I let that happen, you won’t log Soldier Meadows in this lifetime, even if someone builds a freeway to it.

  Godalmighty! Doug couldn’t believe she had threatened him.

  Miller became a smoking volcano. His black eyes darted. He seemed to be searching for something else to throw. Doug lunged, but before he could reach him, Miller’s hand shot out and jerked Alex forward by the neck. She scuffled with him across the bar top, slapping at his wrist and face.

  The dull thud of a blow resounded. Alex stumbled backward. The next sound was the unmistakable ratchet of a pistol being cocked. By the time Doug saw the scene clearly, Alex was backed against the backbar, shaking…