Tempest Rising: Episode 1 (Rising Storm)

by Julie Kenner

  Not for the first time, Joanne wondered how they were sisters because Joanne owned exactly one pair of cowboy boots, and they’d been a Christmas present from Hannah.

  “I was hoping you were working today,” Hannah said. “Isn’t it horrible? I wanted to get some flowers for the service on Thursday.”

  “It’s a tragedy,” Joanne agreed. “Mallory spent some time yesterday with Luis. He and Marisol are so relieved that Ginny’s okay, but it’s so horrible about Jacob.” She turned to the refrigerated case behind her. “Do you have something in mind, or would you like me to just put together an arrangement for you?”

  “Would you? You know I suck at that kind of thing.”

  Joanne nodded because her younger sister did suck at that kind of thing. If it didn’t involve animals, Hannah was pretty much clueless.

  “Thanks. Just send a bill to the office, okay? Or you can bring it to lunch tomorrow.”

  “Are we doing lunch tomorrow?” Joanne frowned, afraid she’d forgotten something.

  “You have Mondays off, right? Mom thought you could come by. Visit for a little bit.”

  Joanne’s stomach twisted at the thought. “I don’t know. What if Daddy comes home?” Her father had told her that if she married Hector, she was no longer his daughter. At the time, she’d thought that he was just spewing invectives. Her father had always adored her—had adored both her and Hannah, really, but with Joanne there was a special bond.

  But he’d meant it. And ever since she came back from Vegas married, her father didn’t even acknowledge that she was alive.

  She told herself it no longer hurt, but that was a lie.

  “That’s the thing,” Hannah said. “He’s out of town tomorrow. So we can catch up.”

  “I—I can’t,” Joanne said. “I’m working. My hours changed.” That part was true. What she didn’t say was that she could easily change her hours if she wanted to. Kristin would cover, or Hedda would come in for a bit—she liked to pretend that she was retired and had “her girls” to run the store, but Joanne knew how much she loved to still be a part of the daily life at Pushing Up Daisies.

  But she didn’t say any of that, because the truth was that it just wasn’t worth it. Her mom was awesome, true. And she’d kept in touch despite Joanne’s father’s stern instructions not to. Debbie Grossman had helped care for Joanne’s kids, snuck money to her when the grocery budget ran tight, and just generally been there.

  And Hector hated that almost as much as Robert Grossman did.

  So maybe Robert was out of town, but Hector wasn’t. And Joanne really didn’t see the point in getting on her husband’s bad side. Not when his bad side was so bad. Of course, his good side could also be so very good.

  “Maybe some other time,” she said. “Maybe we can go to a restaurant.” That wouldn’t bother Hector as much. He knew that Joanne saw her mother. But going to the house—doing anything that put her in Robert’s circle—pissed him off royally.

  Hannah looked at her, frowning. “What happened to your wrist?”

  Joanne turned back to the refrigerated case and pulled out a rose. “Tripped. Stupid, really.”

  “You’ve gotten to be such a klutz,” Hannah said, her voice deceptively level. “You never were clumsy when you were growing up.”

  Joanne turned back around with a shrug, then bent down to pull out a sheet of tissue paper, the action hiding her face. “Well, I’ve had kids. Maybe they threw me off-kilter.”

  “Is that a metaphor?”

  Joanne looked at her sister, then shook her head fondly. “Yeah. Your nieces and nephew are enough to throw anyone out of whack.”

  As she’d hoped, Hannah grinned. “True that.”

  “Here.” Joanne passed Hannah the single rose wrapped in tissue. “Put it in your office. You need some color in there—not just stainless steel and leather. And I’ll call you later about the arrangement, okay?”

  Hannah took the rose and bent her nose to sniff it. Then she looked up at Joanne. “Jo—” She shook her head. “Never mind. We’ll talk later. Okay?”

  Joanne nodded, more relieved than she should be, then she came around the counter and walked her sister to the door. As Hannah left, Joanne looked out across the street to the square and the lovely old courthouse. Her eyes were on the view at first, and then she noticed the man on the sidewalk, just standing there looking at the store.

  Dillon Murphy.

  The sheriff stood in his jeans and uniform shirt, his Stetson pushed back a bit so that she could see his face and a hint of his thick black hair. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew them. Deep and blue and as bright as the sky, and just thinking about them looking at her made her shiver despite herself.

  As she watched, he reached up and brushed the rim of his hat in greeting, and all the while his eyes stayed firmly on her.

  She felt the blush touch her cheeks even as her stomach did a few funny little jumps, and before she could talk herself out of it, she lifted a hand and waved.

  Oh, man. She shouldn’t have done that.

  But why not? He was the sheriff after all, and she was just being polite.

  “Who’s there?” Kristin asked as she and Bryce returned from the back. Bryce kissed his sister’s cheek, then left the store as Joanne hurriedly turned away from the window, barely even responding to Bryce’s parting words.

  “Joanne?” Kristin pressed.

  “Nobody.” She cleared her throat and forced herself to stay level. “Just the sheriff.” But even as she spoke the words, Joanne knew that Dillon wasn’t “just” anything. Not to her. And she wasn’t just any girl to him.

  It was a nice feeling. A sweet, secret little feeling.

  But also a very, very dangerous one.

  “Hey, listen,” Kristin said, her words bringing Joanne back to reality. “I couldn’t help but overhear you and your sister.”

  Joanne looked at her, then walked deliberately away toward the counter.

  Kristin was not deterred. “If you really did trip, that’s one thing. But I have to be honest, Jo. I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “A lot of bruises. A lot of falls.”

  “Kristin—”

  “Joanne, dammit, you should talk to someone.”

  “Really?” Joanne didn’t mean to snap, but it was all just building up, and God knew she couldn’t snap at home. “Really? I need to talk? Maybe you need to talk. I’m not the one having an affair with a married man.”

  She knew the arrow had struck home when Kristin’s face turned dead white. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “How do you— Who—”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not gossip around town, and to be fair, I don’t even know who he is. But I know it’s true—and if I didn’t before, I do now. So dammit, Kristin, leave me alone. People in glass houses, and all that, right?”

  Kristin licked her lips, then nodded. “We should both probably talk about it,” she said softly.

  Joanne sighed. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But we’re not going to.”

  Chapter Eight

  Ginny hated when everybody left and she was all alone in the room with nothing but the television, a book, and all the beeping machines.

  But she was out of the woods now, so that was something. And they’d moved her from ICU to this regular room last night. Dr. Rush said that everything looked great and that normally they’d go ahead and release her, but because of the baby, they were being cautious.

  The baby.

  She still hadn’t quite gotten her head around it. She was going to have a baby. She was going to be a mother.

  She barely even remembered her mother, so how on earth was she supposed to manage that?

  Maybe she’d hit her head harder than they all thought because what had she been thinking when she said she’d keep the baby? Of course, she wouldn’t have an abortion—she didn’t think she could do that—but s
he could give it up for adoption. Probably should. Because she’d been on the five-year plan at UT, what with her work-study schedule, and with a baby she’d be pretty much on the twenty-year plan.

  How the hell was she going to make a living without a college degree?

  And how was she going to get a degree if she had to take care of a baby?

  Why, oh why, weren’t Marisol or Luis here? Someone to talk to. To take her mind off all of this? The baby. Jacob.

  She squeezed her eyes tight and told herself not to cry again. But she missed him so damn much. And if it was his baby—and she was going to just keep saying that it was over and over in her head until she really believed it—then it broke her heart that he’d never get to see it.

  That was the part that made her sad.

  The part that made her scared was that if Jacob were here and the baby was his, he’d marry her. He loved her—and even if he didn’t really love her like that, the sex had been awesome and they were best friends, and that was better than most marriages, right?

  So he’d marry her and they’d raise Little Bit together. He’d get student loans for med school and they’d live in cheap housing, and she’d do some sort of work-at-home job so that she could raise the baby, and then he’d be a doctor and everything would get easier, and when they were old they’d look back and laugh about how they had to scrimp and save when they were young and had a baby.

  Except Jacob was never going to get old.

  She pressed her hands over her belly and closed her eyes, hating the way it just kept sneaking up on her. So far, she hadn’t had nightmares. The counselor who’d come in to talk to her had told her to be prepared for them, but if she talked about it and didn’t try to hold in her grief, she might not suffer in the night. Either way, she was better off just letting herself feel bad, and not trying to push it away.

  Well, no problem there. She felt bad. Bad that she’d survived and Jacob hadn’t. Bad that she’d been driving the car. Bad that she was having a baby that might—okay, it was a very small might—be his and that he’d never see it.

  And bad that she’d lied to his parents by telling them that the baby was Jacob’s. But the look on his mother’s face had broken her heart, and when she’d learned about the baby, she’d lit up.

  She grimaced. Somehow that thought had circled her all the way back to the brutal reality. She was about to be a single mom with only a high school diploma.

  “We can do it, Little Bit.” She rubbed her belly and whispered to the baby. She didn’t know that she believed the words, but she wanted the baby to believe them.

  And maybe it all would work out. Marisol kept telling her over and over that everything would turn out okay. Hadn’t they survived after their parents had died? If they’d held together as a family through that, then they would all pull together through this new addition.

  And that was all well and good and Ginny knew that Marisol loved her and meant every word, but Marisol wasn’t exactly the Chef Ramsay of small-town bakeries, and the baby was going to be one more mouth to feed. Ginny so wanted her baby to have a whole family. To have everything she’d missed out on. A mom and a dad. Grandparents. The whole Norman Rockwell small-town American dream.

  She’d missed out on it, and now her baby was going to miss out on it, too.

  Enough.

  She was reaching for the remote so that she could watch something mind-numbing on television when Celeste walked in, her face an odd mixture of sadness and hope. “I’m so glad you’re out of ICU. And the baby is doing well?” She stood by Ginny’s bed, her hand poised over the blanket on Ginny’s tummy. “May I?”

  “Sure,” Ginny said because she could see how happy the thought of a baby made Celeste. “But I think it’s too early to feel anything.”

  “But we know,” Celeste said, cupping her hand over Ginny’s stomach. “You and me and the baby. We know that he’s in there and that he’s safe and that he’s a little part of Jacob, too.”

  Ginny stiffened at the words and hoped that Celeste didn’t notice. She liked Celeste. Loved her, really. The Salts had always treated her like one of their own, and it was because Ginny loved them—because she’d felt so horrible about Jacob being dead and her being alive—that she’d told them the baby was Jacob’s.

  It was like she was giving them Jacob back.

  But now, it felt less like a gift and more like a lie, and the guilt of that lie was weighing heavy on her.

  “Celeste—”

  “Wait one second,” Celeste said, interrupting Ginny. But that was okay because in the end she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to say. She knew what she should say, but she wanted to hold on to the fantasy a little bit longer, too. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Oh.” Fear swirled inside her. Surely Celeste didn’t know about the senator?

  “You must be very excited to go home tomorrow.”

  Ginny nodded, unsure where this was headed, and Celeste pressed on.

  “And the truth is that I’m sure Marisol and Luis are going to be so happy to have you back. But sweetheart—” Now she leaned forward, grasping Ginny’s hands and holding tight. “—they aren’t going to be able to give you the attention you need and deserve. Luis is a teenage boy, and he needs to be out with his friends. And Marisol—bless her heart—can’t take time away from her own business, no matter how much she might want to.”

  “I know,” Ginny said. “I don’t expect them to. I’m—we’re—used to being on our own a lot.”

  Celeste nodded sagely. “Of course you are. And that’s a sad thing for a child—for you. For your brother. And for your sister who—like you—got responsibility handed to her far earlier than she deserved.”

  Ginny frowned. Everything Celeste was saying was true, but she wasn’t really in the mood to hear how much tomorrow was going to suck and how alone she was going to be.

  “I realize this may sound a little strange, but Travis and I have talked about it, and—well, the truth is that we want you to move in with us.”

  Ginny sat up so fast she upset the cup of ice she had tucked in by the bed rail. “Leave it, leave it,” she said, when Celeste bent down. “What did you say?”

  “We’ve worked it all out. You can have Jacob’s old room and we’ll turn Sara Jane’s into the nursery. And once the baby’s born if you feel like you need more room for yourself, you two can move into the apartment,” she added, referring to a small two-bedroom cottage that had once been a stable but that the Salts had converted into a small rental property that they offered to tourists for a week at a time.

  “I don’t—” It was coming at her so fast. “Are you sure?”

  “Sweetheart, you need family near you. We’re family now, too.”

  Family.

  A home. A real house with real parents and supper on the table every night and the kind of security that she’d never known, but for which she’d so envied Jacob.

  It was like a gift.

  “And we want our grandchild nearby, even before he’s born. It—it will make it seem like a little bit of Jacob is there with us.”

  And there it was. The guilt.

  She had to tell them. They had to know.

  But oh, dear God, how she wanted that life. That cocoon. That safety net as this baby grew inside her.

  She didn’t know what to say, and so she didn’t say anything, and Celeste’s smile was so gently maternal that Ginny almost cried.

  “Don’t answer just yet,” Celeste said, then reached forward to press her soft hands to either side of Ginny’s face. “You just think about it, okay? And talk to Marisol. And I’ll talk to Marisol, too, if that’s okay with you.”

  Ginny nodded, a little awed, a little amazed. And still a whole lot guilty.

  “Whatever you decide, you know we’ll be there for you. You’re family now, sweetheart.” Celeste stood, then bent down and kissed Ginny on her cheek, just like her mother might have done once upon a time.

&n
bsp; And though it was hard, she managed to hold it together until Celeste left the room. But once the door clicked closed behind her, the tears began to flow.

  * * * *

  “You on a stakeout, son? Because I wouldn’t have pulled that Guinness for you if I’d known you were still on duty.”

  Dillon took another sip of the stout in question, then turned away from the window and faced his father across the bustling bar. “Just keeping an eye out for someone. I was hoping to have a word.”

  Aiden Murphy, Dillon’s father, narrowed his eyes as he pulled a pint for Zeke Johnson, a local rancher who also happened to be the mayor of this fine town—and a regular at the bar. Him and a lot of other folk. There was no disputing that Murphy’s Pub was the most popular watering hole in town, with its fine mix of Ireland and the Lone Star State. And that wasn’t just family prejudice talking.

  The main room had the look of an Irish pub but boasted a selection of beers to make any Texas cowboy happy. Not to mention a wine list filled with offerings from local Texas wineries—and the less interesting California and French selections, just to round things out. And, of course, all the various hard liquors were well represented. High-end liquors that also included local offerings like Tito’s Vodka, Balcones Single Malt Whisky, Dulce Vida Añejo tequila, and Deep Eddy Ruby Red vodka, to name just a few.

  There were peanut shells on the floor of the back room and enough space for two-stepping on a Friday night. The back room boasted its own entrance, too. And on unfortunately rare occasions, someone like Lyle Lovett or Willie Nelson might drop in and be persuaded to sing a song or two.

  “A word,” Aiden repeated thoughtfully. “Would this be with a suspect in one of your many cases or with a person of the female persuasion?”

  “You stick to pouring drinks. I’ll stick to what I do.”

  Aiden chuckled but didn’t argue. He passed Zeke the pint, then went back to stacking the tray of freshly washed glasses.

  Dillon watched his father fondly for a moment—the old man was in his element, that was for sure. Then he let his gaze track over this bar that had been practically a third living room for him growing up. Right now, early on a Monday evening, nothing that interesting was going on inside the bar. And that was fine with Dillon. He was all about what was going on out there on the street. He kicked his booted feet out, tilted back his hat, and continued to look out the window.