Born in the Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Me do it,” Ryan told his mother as she attempted to stab a piece of chicken with his toddler-size fork. The little guy was adorable with those soft blond curls and baby cheeks.

  Silently Beth handed over the fork.

  “So who’s the culprit and what’d he do?” Lonna asked.

  “Like this, Ry,” Katie said, stabbing her plate with great exaggeration. Her fork came up empty.

  The sheriff of Shelter Valley, dressed in jeans and a white polo shirt, pushed his half-full plate away and rested his forearms along the edge of the table. Without turning her head, Beth looked at her new husband, her mouth in the straight line that gave away nothing.

  Lonna’s indigestion increased.

  “I don’t know who the culprit is,” Greg said slowly, glancing pointedly at his sister.

  “Leave me alone, Greg,” Bonnie warned. And in a lighter tone, “Eat your dinner. I made it especially for you.” She smiled, but the brightly colored T-shirt she was wearing didn’t seem to suit her as much as it used to.

  “Why’s he mad at you?” Lonna stared from one to the other.

  “Dinner’s good,” Greg said. “Thanks.”

  “Why’s he mad?” Lonna asked again, more sharply this time.

  “He’s just being a guy, Grandma.” Bonnie turned back to Greg. “Aren’t you?”

  He conceded with a bowed head. But the glance he sent his sister seemed to be warning her that while he’d drop things for the moment, he wasn’t letting her off the hook.

  Bonnie placed her knife and fork on top of the half-eaten enchilada in the middle of her plate.

  “So what’s bothering you besides things that are none of your business?” she asked Greg. She put the lid on the sour cream. Gathered up the empty rice bowl.

  “Where you were the night of the first fire.”

  Bonnie’s head whirled around so fast her short dark curls were flung against the side of her face.

  “You think I had something to with the fires?”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Lonna declared.

  She looked at her “almost” grandson, waiting for him to deny his sister’s charge. He did not.

  “Assuming I was even the kind of person who could do such a thing, why on earth would I sabotage my own business?”

  “I have no idea why, Bon,” Greg said, rubbing his forehead. “Insurance money maybe? That’s what Culver’s going to think. Or to make the building less valuable so the sale will fall through?”

  “You can do better than that, Sheriff,” Bonnie said. “All I have to do is refuse to move and the deal will fall through.”

  “But Diamond’s going to apply more pressure, making it pretty difficult for you to continue to refuse.”

  “It would still be easier to say no to my landlord than become an arsonist.”

  “So maybe you and Keith need the insurance money.”

  “Are you asking if we do?” The quiet tone of her voice did nothing to diminish the anger in her question.

  “Not today.”

  “Of course they don’t,” Lonna inserted, giving up on her food, as well. “My grandson just got promoted. Everybody in town brings their kids to Bonnie. Any fool can see they’re doing just fine.”

  “Thank you,” Bonnie said with a brief glance at Lonna. Her gaze returned to her brother. “But you’re going to ask, aren’t you?”

  “No. Just leave it.”

  Lonna had a feeling this fight wasn’t about the day-care fires at all.

  “I’m a grown woman, Greg. I don’t need you cleaning behind me.”

  “I don’t think you’re responsible for the fires, Bon,” Greg said, his face softening. “But we’re fairly certain it’s an inside job, and you’re the first person anyone’s going to look at.”

  “Down!” Ryan’s baby voice interrupted with gusto.

  “Katie can get down, too,” Katie added earnestly.

  While Greg helped Ryan, Bonnie wiped Katie’s mouth and hands and lifted her down from her booster seat.

  “You two stay in the family room,” she told the pair as they tore off together.

  “Why are you so certain it’s an inside job?” Keith asked, his brow drawn as he glanced from sister to brother. He hadn’t eaten much, either.

  “We aren’t certain, but both times the fires have been in places that wouldn’t really hurt the day care. A supply closet. A craft room. Nothing that’s going to slow business down.”

  “That could be pure chance,” Keith said.

  Lonna didn’t know what to think. She was just glad the kids were talking to each other.

  “It’s highly unlikely that book of matches just sailed through the supply closet vent by accident,” Greg said. “And the angle the rocket had to be at to make it through the craft-room window…”

  “That pretty much means someone had to be doing it deliberately.” Keith stood, carrying glasses over to the sink.

  “And that the person in question would have to know the layout of the day care.”

  “It could just be some disgruntled parent,” Beth threw in from the sink. “Anyone who’s ever left a child there has had a tour of the place.”

  Bonnie joined her sister-in-law at the sink, loading the dishwasher with rinsed dishes. “Greg’s already been through everyone who’s ever been on the roster.”

  “What about Diamond?” Bonnie asked. Lonna collected the rest of the dishes from the table, scraping off the mounds of uneaten food. Keith sat back, swishing ice around in his empty glass.

  “We’re checking on him, but it doesn’t make sense, considering how badly he needs this deal to go through.”

  “Couldn’t he be attempting to sabotage Bonnie’s business to get her to leave?”

  “Possibly, but probably not. In doing that, he’d risk losing the thing he needs the most.”

  “What about the janitor, Shane Bellows?” Keith asked. Grandma saw the not-so-friendly look Bonnie shot over her shoulder at her husband.

  “There’s no way Shane would do anything like that,” she said. “Not only could he never pull it off, what possible motive could he have?”

  “Bitterness?” Keith asked. “An urge to get back at the world?”

  Greg shook his head. “I have to agree with Bonnie on this one,” he said. “We’ve talked to him and will do so again, but I don’t believe he could do something like this. He can’t even follow a conversation.”

  “Besides,” Beth added, “it’s obvious that Shane is fond of Bonnie. He wouldn’t do anything that would knowingly hurt her.”

  Lonna knew about the poor boy of course, as did everyone else in town, but she hadn’t seen him since his return to Shelter Valley. From what she’d heard, though, he was more lost than violent.

  Keith brushed crumbs from the table into the palm of his hand. “You’re probably right,” he told Greg. “As long as Bonnie has Little Spirits, Shane has access to her.”

  No one replied to that, but Lonna had a feeling there was plenty that wanted saying.

  After a quick peek around the corner into the family room, where the kids were playing, Greg grabbed a cloth and began wiping the table.

  “You’ve been too quiet, Grandma. What do you think?” he asked.

  “I think you’ll find whoever it is and when you do, he should be strung up.”

  The kids all chuckled, which eased the tension and her physical discomfort somewhat, but Lonna was still concerned. She’d been planning to move on from Greg to her grandson and his wife, to bring whatever problem had been bothering them out into the open. They obviously weren’t having much luck solving it themselves.

  But when she opened her mouth to speak, she closed it again. Everyone was smiling, working together, being a family.

  She’d leave it at that.

  Though she didn’t have any herself, Lonna paid close attention to the kids’ dessert portions, satisfied to see that everyone did much better with the cake and ice cream than they had with the enchiladas. Maybe things w
ould right themselves on their own.

  There was always hope. Always.

  “I need to be getting home, Keith,” she announced as soon as they’d finished eating.

  “But we haven’t had even one round of Trivia,” her grandson said, pulling the game from the cupboard.

  Lonna was tempted. She would’ve liked to stay. She enjoyed the game, loved being with the kids. But…

  “I’ve got things to do,” she told him. “My friend Madeline’s daughter has to go back to work, and the job she found is in Phoenix, so she won’t be able to get home to prepare her mother’s lunch. I need to add her to the meal list.” Lonna grabbed her purse before she could talk herself into staying. Even just for one game. “And Dorothy called about a woman she met at the clinic who’s recently moved to Shelter Valley to live with her son and his family. She’s in a wheelchair and is alone during the day—”

  “Grandma—”

  She held up her hand. “Not today, Keith,” she warned. Her stomach hurt. She wanted to stay and beat the pants off these young people who sometimes forgot that she knew so much more than they did.

  And she wanted a nap.

  She didn’t know whether to feel happy or not when, without another word, Keith took her home.

  BONNIE DIDN’T NORMALLY run on Sundays, but Keith expected her to that night. Tensions had been high most of the day, which meant she’d need the release exercise seemed to bring her.

  He found it ironic—in a humorless way—that he was getting to know this new woman who’d taken possession of Bonnie well enough to predict her actions.

  She told Katie a bedtime story before she left. One of her originals, which she created on the spur of the moment, instead of reading one of the many books they’d bought the child.

  It was another story about the bear who wrote himself notes. This time the bear made a new friend and found out he could still help people even though he was pretty forgetful, because he could still listen and that was a big part of being a friend.

  Keith liked the big old guy. But then, he liked all of Bonnie’s characters.

  Afterward they walked down the hall together, leaving the little girl sleeping soundly in her horse-and-rainbow room, tucked beneath the princess sheets. The past few hours had been good.

  And he had work to do that would take care of the rest of the evening. Logistics to lay down for a new Sunday-morning religious series they were launching in another month. The time slot had been offered to any church that wanted it, first come, first served, in one-hour segments.

  Bonnie grabbed her tennis shoes from the hall closet, getting ready to leave.

  The first piece in the series was a question-and-answer program offered by Pastor Edwards. Keith and Martha would be meeting with him the next day to firm up the show’s schedule.

  “It’s nice out. You want to sit outside for a while?” Bonnie was looking at him.

  She had her shoes on, but no socks. No running gear. Just the designer jeans and brightly colored T-shirt she’d had on all day. Though he generally slipped into gym shorts and a T-shirt at home when the weather warmed up, Keith hadn’t changed out of the Dockers and polo shirt he’d worn that day, either.

  “Sure,” he said.

  He slipped on the sandals he kept by the garage door.

  Work could wait.

  “We’re really lucky, you know, to have a place like this,” Bonnie said as they settled on a high-backed cement bench by the pool in their backyard. She pulled up her knees, feet on the bench, as she leaned her head against the wall.

  Damn, she was cute.

  “Yeah.” Keith sat comfortably beside her, missing the days when he would’ve put an arm around her. “But we’ve worked hard for it.”

  Her head moved along the cement in the semblance of a nod. She was staring up at the starlit sky, her throat bare and fragile-looking.

  He’d give a lot to know what she was thinking.

  Keith described the religious program he was going to be working on the next day. She made some good suggestions.

  She asked if he wanted a glass of sun tea. And went to get it when he said he did. Keith lit a fire in the cement pit in front of them. It wasn’t really cold enough, but he didn’t much care.

  “Grandma sure was feisty tonight.” Bonnie settled back on the bench.

  He poked the fire with a stick, sending sparks up into the night. “I’m worried about her. She’s doing too much.”

  “I’ve always expected that I’d grow old in this town, with all the friends I’ve shared a lifetime with. But I never really pictured our bodies giving out on us. Or thought about how difficult that would be.”

  Sitting forward, elbows on his knees, Keith played tag with the stick and the flame. “I’m beginning to think Grandma’s going to kill herself trying to keep up with all her commitments. She’s incapable of saying no.”

  “She’ll be okay.” Bonnie didn’t sound too worried.

  “She’s seventy-six years old.”

  “And if you take away the things that matter to her, she’s not going to make it to seventy-seven. Everybody needs a purpose. Grandma’s always needed a dozen.”

  She was right. But Keith was having a hard time seeing Lonna so tired and slow-moving—behavior that was the antithesis to everything he’d always known her to be. The rock of Shelter Valley. Of his life.

  The one person in the world who could handle anything.

  “She’s doing exactly what she needs to be doing,” Bonnie said. “I think it would kill her to stop.”

  He poked the fire some more. She stared silently out into the night. They sipped their tea.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A WHILE LATER Bonnie asked, “Does Greg really suspect I set those fires?” Her voice was uncharacteristically docile.

  “I don’t think so,” he replied. “Do you?”

  “Not really, but I can see why he’d put himself through the misery of asking just the same.”

  “Because of Beth.”

  “And Deputy Culver, too. Trusting people he loved cost your father his life.”

  Glass on the bench beside her, she lowered her chin to her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs.

  She appeared to be contemplating the ground.

  Alternating between an odd kind of repressed anger and a vulnerable, sappy love state, Keith stayed beside her, growing more uncomfortable as the minutes filled with a silence he didn’t understand.

  He loved her so much.

  And, his darker side chided him, he was still a man and there was only so much imploring that a man could do. His own self-respect wouldn’t allow him to…to act like a puppy begging for scraps from the table.

  Glancing over at her, he ached to pull her into his arms. He ached for the rights he used to have, which had somehow slipped away from him.

  She sipped her tea. Rested her chin on her knees again. Stared at the fire.

  Did it mean anything that she’d chosen to be with him rather than go running?

  He remembered the first time they’d sat out there like that. They’d pulled a lounge chair up to the fire and slept there all night, cuddled in each other’s arms.

  Now they usually slept on opposite sides of the bed.

  How had they lost each other?

  The fire crackled. The night grew chillier. Keith put on another log, his glass long since empty.

  “Is it me, Bon?”

  “What?” Her eyes were warm when she glanced at him, but she looked as though she’d been a million miles away—while he’d been right there with her.

  “Whatever this is between us. Is it me? Something I’ve done? Something I’m not doing?”

  “Of course not!” Her hand encircled his forearm. “You’re wonderful, Keith.”

  He didn’t know about that, but it hardly mattered, in any case. No matter who or what he was, it apparently wasn’t right for her.

  That thought, a constant companion, ate away at him like acid.

  �
��There must be something I can do, or do differently. Some way to help…”

  He was a man of action. The stagnancy of waiting, the idleness while his life drained away, was wreaking havoc with his mental equilibrium.

  He had to try. Because he couldn’t take this much longer. He deserved better.

  And so did she.

  Bonnie slid her hand up under his arm, moving closer until she was hugging his arm with both hands, laying her head on his shoulder. “You’re doing it,” she whispered. “You’re still here.”

  He wasn’t proud of the obscenities that ran through his mind.

  She wanted him to go on waiting. To continue exactly as he’d been doing. Loving her. Needing the promise of forever. And wondering every single morning if this would be the day she left.

  She buried her face against his shoulder and it was only then that he realized she was crying.

  SIX-THIRTY IN THE MORNING, and the air reeked of smoke. Wearing white cotton drawstring pants, a bright orange shirt and tennis shoes, Bonnie jumped down from her van. She released Katie from the car seat behind her, then grabbed her bag and purse—and the envelope of insurance forms she’d filled out over an early cup of coffee before dawn.

  “Pee-eew. Stinks.” Katie said.

  “Yeah, thank goodness it’s not us this time,” she said to the toddler. “It’s probably somebody burning weeds.”

  The air wasn’t cloudy, the building wasn’t smoking. There were no sirens, spiraling lights or fire hoses. No bustling men or official-looking clipboards. Little Spirits and the surrounding area was peaceful. Quiet.

  Until she stepped inside.

  “Pee-eeeww! Stinks, Mommy!” Katie said, grabbing her nose.

  Dropping everything except her purse, Bonnie swung Katie up and ran back to the van, strapped her in. She grabbed her keys and her cell phone, hit the automatic dial to Greg’s house and before her brother’s sleepy voice even came on the line, she was speeding out of the parking lot.

  “THANKS FOR BRINGING the doughnuts. I should’ve thought of that,” Keith said around a mouthful of glazed pastry.