It served him well now.
He drove down the road that followed the river, past the other acreages along the river. Francine and Jerrod had bought the acreage from a friend of their father. They could barely afford it but Francine was never one to count the cost before starting a project. And now the lawyer, Phil, was saying there might be problems paying out the insurance.
Duncan sucked in a long breath, pain lancing his chest at the thought of his sister. Another person swept out of his life.
And Celia…it had been difficult enough seeing the little girl around Holmes Crossing the past few months. The thought of being responsible for her was more than he could comprehend, and Jerrod should have known that. Why had he thought he could be his niece's guardian?
He thought of the look on Miriam Bristol's face when he said he couldn't do this. Her disappointment bothered him more than he cared to admit.
When he saw her coming into the church, it had been the first time since their date after Jerrod and Francine's wedding that he'd seen her. The years had narrowed her features, given her a haunted look that made him wonder what she'd been through. With her presence came the might-have-beens that slipped through his mind whenever he thought of her. He had been surprised at the faint quiver of attraction he'd felt.
Did she think the same of him?
He arrived at the fork in the road and slowed down. Left sent him to town. Right brought him to his house.
His empty house that felt even emptier the past few days. Actually, the past couple months. Since Francine had moved back to Holmes Crossing with her perfect life and her perfect family, his house, which had been hard enough to live in before, now seemed even more inhospitable and unwelcoming.
And empty.
He turned left.
The neon ‘Closed’ sign shone in the window of the café but at the funeral Terra told him to stop by if he had time.
As he stepped inside the cafe, the warmth came over him and he shivered, shucking his heavy jacket.
Jack De Windt, still wearing the Mountie uniform he had worn at the funeral, sat at his usual table halfway down the café, nursing a cup of coffee, smiling that half-smile he had perfected at something Lester Greidanus was telling him. Probably some questionable joke. Then Terra came by to refill Jack's mug. Her hand rested on his shoulder and he looked up at her, his expression shifting. It wasn't much, but in that look Duncan caught a hint of what he had been hoping for in his own marriage.
As though there'd been some unspoken signal, they all turned at once, and he could tell, to the split second, when they saw him.
Their smiles froze, then shifted into a sorrow that made him second-guess the wisdom of coming here. Though they had attended the funeral, seeing them now, isolated from the crowd of people, made their sympathy suddenly more personal.
Then Jack was up on his feet, striding toward him.
"Hey, man. Glad you stopped by."
Jack's words were made all the more poignant by his gruff voice. His hand on Duncan's shoulder, squeezing once, settled Duncan's uncertainty in coming here. He needed his good friends.
He joined Lester at the table and without a word, Terra appeared with a cup of coffee for him. "Still got some Saskatoon pie," she said.
"That'd be nice." He hadn't eaten anything since he choked down a piece of bread at home, and sipped half-heartedly at mugs of cold coffee at Francine and Jerrod's house.
But in the quiet familiarity of the café, ordinary was finally given some space in his life.
Lester fidgeted across from him, his hands turning the fork around in his hands. "So, today kind of sucked."
"Les. Seriously," Terra scolded, as she set Duncan's pie in front of him.
"Well, it did," Lester protested.
In spite of the emotions still surrounding him like remnants of fog, Duncan smiled at Lester's succinct and honest précis of the day and everything surrounding it.
"You're right, Les. It did suck." Duncan shot Terra a grateful glance and then sat down between him and Jack. "Thanks for the pie. And thanks for bringing all that food to the house."
"There's probably mountains of it left over," Terra said, resting her elbow on the table and spinning a curly strand of auburn hair around her finger. "Judy and Gloria told me they would bring food as well, but I didn't think they would recreate the feeding of the five thousand."
Duncan smiled as he dug into the flaky crust of the pie. "Miriam won't have to cook for months with all the leftover food in the house."
"I don't remember seeing her around before," Jack asked. "Where does she live?"
"You gonna run a background check on her?" Les joked.
"See, Les, this is where things get complicated for you," Jack said, leaning back, crossing his arms over his chest. "What I'm doing is called conversation. Showing interest and asking questions."
"If you weren't still in uniform, with all that hardware strapped around your waist, I'd think it was just chatter instead of the third degree," Les said with a lift of his eyebrow.
"Trust me, you would know when I'm giving you the third degree," Jack returned, his grin belying the gruff tone of his voice.
Les turned to Terra. "Let me know when he's on shift, okay? So's I don't speed when he's patrolling."
"Nuh-uh," Terra said adding a shake of her head. "You're on your own, there."
Les released a nervous laugh.
This was why he came here, Duncan thought, easing out a sigh of contentment. Chit-chat. Easy give-and-take.
"Les was telling us that Miriam is Jerrod’s sister," Jack said.
"Foster sister. I met her at Jerrod and Francine's wedding." Actually it was at the rehearsal. Miriam sat beside Jerrod's mother, laughing, her long, copper-colored hair framing a face with large, expressive eyes and a gentle mouth. And he had been smitten.
Les snapped his fingers. “Right. Now I remember why she looked familiar.” He turned to Duncan. “You two danced every dance at the wedding. Looked really cute together.”
Duncan kept his head down, concentrating on getting the exact ratio of filling to crust on his fork, ignoring Les’ comment.
Les didn’t know they had done more than that. The day after the wedding, they had gone on a date. Laughed. Had fun and left with promises to stay in touch.
“Wasn’t that after you and Kimberly broke up?” Les asked.
Duncan just shrugged his response. He didn’t want to talk about Kimberly. At all.
“Kim dumped him a couple of months before the wedding,” Les put in helpfully for the benefit of Terra who hadn’t lived in Holmes Crossing at the time.
“Something like that,” was all Duncan would say.
“So why didn’t you go after Miriam, then?” Les pressed.
Duncan wished his chatty friend would just put a sock in it. “I texted her a couple of times after the wedding, but didn’t hear anything. So that was the end of that story. ” Duncan gave his friend a meaningful glance that he hoped conveyed the message, ‘Hush your yap’.
When he got the brush-off from Miriam after the wedding, Kimberly had gotten into contact with him again. She tearfully promised things would be different this time and his mom was pushing him to get back together with her. They never liked the fact that he had broken up with her.
And then, when Kimberly got pregnant, the choice was made for both of them.
"So, how are your parents doing?" Jack asked.
Duncan looked over at Jack and gave him a tight smile. "Dad's busted up. Mom’s being Mom," Duncan said, thinking how his mother managed to hold in her emotions, even in this darkest of times. "But it's tough."
"Of course. Tough for you, too," Terra said, gently placing her hand on his. "And now this guardian thing with Celia."
Duncan just shrugged and looked down at his pie, poking his fork into the flaky dessert.
"Might be a bit soon for Duncan to talk about this," Jack said.
"Sorry. Like I said. Nosy," Terra apologized.
"That's okay," Duncan said giving Terra a forgiving glance. "I think it's been on everyone's mind, but no one has dared bring it up."
"Except motor mouth me," Terra said. "Again. Sorry."
"Does seem kind of weird," Les said. "I mean, Francine is your sister and all, and Jerrod is just the in-law. Seems kind of twisted. Unless they were trying to get you two to hook up again."
Duncan caught Terra's exasperated eye roll directed at Les, and grinned at her reaction.
"The last time Jerrod and Fran talked about Celia, my parents were supposed to be her guardians," Duncan said.
"What do your mom and dad make of it?" Terra asked. "They must be wondering why the sudden switch?"
"Mom and Dad don't like it at all," he said, breaking off another piece of pie. "But Dad's still in a wheelchair, and Mom can't take on more."
He knew they would like the situation even less once they found out what he had told Miriam. He wasn't emotionally ready for that conversation yet. Bad enough he had spilled his intentions to Miriam. He had hoped to wait a couple of weeks, at least, before letting her know she would be on her own where Celia was concerned.
He blamed the picture of Kimberly and Tasha that he’d found on the mantle for evaporating any last bits of self-control he had clung to through the entire afternoon. He had thrown away all his own pictures of his wife and daughter right after their funerals, but as soon as he saw this one, it was as if everything came back.
The photo was taken on Celia’s 3rd birthday. He and Kimberly had flown down to visit Jerrod and Francine, who were living in Toronto at the time. They had taken Tasha with them.
It was the last photo of Tasha that he had. Three days later, she was dead. She and her mother.
"What's Miriam like?" Terra asked, her question jerking his dark thoughts back to the present. "Do you think you'll be able to work with her?"
"She's hot," Lester said. "Maybe you should get together with her again."
Terra shot him an 'are you kidding' look.
"What?" Lester protested, lifting his hands up in a gesture of puzzlement. "She is."
Duncan had to admit his outspoken friend was right. Miriam had been pretty then; she was gorgeous now.
"I understand that she was Jerrod's foster sister?" Jack said.
"Yeah. They grew up in Halifax. Miriam had a lot of crap in her life dealing with her natural mom. I’m thinking she got tossed back and forth between her mom’s home and foster homes for a few years before she finally settled in with Jerrod's family for good."
"And don't I know what that feels like," Terra said with a wry note. "Leslie and I were moved enough when we were growing up. At least Miriam had some stability by being returned to the same foster home every time."
Duncan shot her a sympathetic look, understanding Terra's reference to her and her sister’s erratic upbringing with a mostly absent mother. "Well, she'll have someone to relate to while she's here."
"Miriam might not want to talk about her past with a complete stranger," Terra said with a shrug. "Or an incomplete one, for that matter."
Jack groaned at the old joke as Duncan finished off the last of the pie, the headache that lingered all day slowly returning. "Can I bug you for some Tylenol?" he asked Terra.
"Of course," she said.
"Should let you know, I got things under control in the bush." Les folded and refolded the paper napkin in front of him. "Got 500 cubic meters logged and skidded today."
" That is a good day," Duncan said.
"I don't think Duncan wants to talk about logging," Jack muttered.
"Actually, I don't mind.” Work was territory he could negotiate without all the emotional landmines. "I'll be back tomorrow," he said to Les. "I need routine and work. It's been a crappy week."
Dealing with the legalities of bringing Francine's and Jerrod's bodies back from Blue River, the funeral, and the other stuff that came with it, had dragged everything out of him. He longed for the simple. The straightforward. Even with breakdowns and problems and stress, working in the bush was less emotional than dealing with his sister’s death.
"Here you go," Terra said, setting a cup of water with ice cubes in it and a couple of pills on the table. Duncan tossed the tablets back and chased them with the water.
"So I imagine you’ll be busy the next while, helping with Celia,” Terra said. “Getting her settled in. That's quite a responsibility for you as well."
Duncan finished the glass of water and set it on his plate, knowing that he had to tell them. He didn't want unrealistic expectations, or to have to deal with constant questions about his niece.
"I don't think I'll be helping much with Celia."
"Does Miriam not want you involved?" Terra asked.
Duncan dragged his hand over his face, his stubble rasping against his fingers as he eased out a sigh, not sure how to say what he had to. "First off, from a legal standpoint, I'm not Celia's principle guardian."
"Why not?" Jack asked.
"Apparently, the lawyer said there's this whole insurance thing about how, statistically, a wife lives longer than her husband, so when they die at the same time, the wife is deemed to be last to die. Which means everything that would have gone to Jerrod goes to Francine, and is then handled by Francine's will."
"So what has that to do with Celia?"
He thought the legal explanation would have been enough for his friends. Black and white. Nothing he could do.
But he felt a need to get this out of the way before anyone got too many wrong ideas. He knew his parents would be angry. Hurt. But he couldn't do anything about that. He couldn't live their life for them. Now, after the horrible emotions of the past week and all they brought back to him, he needed to get his life settled.
"I told Miriam that because Francine named her as guardian, I was willing to leave it at that. To let her do with Celia what she thought best."
"But she's your niece, too," Terra protested. "You have some rights."
She still didn't get it.
"I'm a single guy with too much on my plate. Between the farm and the logging, I’m too busy. Besides, I can't be involved in that little girl's life. I can't do this.”
"But Duncan—"
"Leave him be." Jack spoke softly, laying a hand on his wife's arm. "Duncan has his reasons."
Duncan shot Jack a grateful glance. Jack had been on duty when Kimberly and Tasha died. In fact, he had been the one to bring Duncan the news. Jack knew exactly what Duncan lost that horrible day, and why he was balking at taking on the responsibility his brother-in-law handed him.
Celia was too visible a reminder of that loss.
#
"So what is he like?" Christine's voice over the phone line sounded eager, greedy to ferret out whatever details I'd toss her way. "Francine's brother."
I groaned, realizing what a tactical error I had made when I told her about Duncan and his position as co-guardian.
Trust my dear friend to concentrate on the peripherals, edging past the hard places. I was glad I had never told her Duncan and I had met before. She would be relentless.
"Good-looking, in a brooding, Norse God kind of way." I switched my phone to my other ear as I sat back on the narrow, single bed in the spare room. I couldn't stay in Francine and Jerrod's large room and king-sized bed. Besides being slightly creepy, it was like an explosion had gone off in there. Clothes and personal items were strewn across the bed and spilling onto the floor. It looked like they had packed in a hurry before they left.
And all that stuff seemed too personal to deal with until I was ready.
"Ooh. Sounds yummy already."
"I'm not interested," I told her, cutting her off mid-gush.
"But why not?" she half-groaned, half whined. "You haven't had a date in ages. He's right there. Available. Like you."
"Sorry, but this is hardly the time to be talking about guys and dates." Too late, I realized how snappy I sounded but figured I had to stop her before I started crying
again. My emotions had been teetering all day, and I didn't want to start now while I was alone.
Christine was immediately contrite. "Sorry. Being insensitive again. So, now you've got this little girl to take care of. How's that's supposed to work?"
Little girl. Such cool, unfeeling words to describe my daughter.
My heart hitched again at the thought. I had checked on her before I left and I wanted to pull her into my arms. Hold her close.
But I didn’t dare confuse her like that. She barely knew me as an aunt let alone as a mother.
"I have no idea how that will work." I leaned back against the wall, looking out the window, still unable to comprehend how utterly dark it got out here in the country. I could see a band of stars spread across the sky and, once again, felt amazed at the vastness of creation. And, even worse, how completely isolated I was out here. "You know as well as I do that I can't bring her back to Vancouver with me."
"True that. There's barely enough room in the apartment for the two of us, let alone a little girl." Wasn't too hard to hear the relief in Christine's voice, which underlined my determination to keep Celia here in Holmes Crossing. "But what else will you do? Would you think of staying there and taking care of her?"
"I don't think I'm the right person to do it."
"What do you mean? You love kids. All of your sketches and paintings are of kids." Wasn't hard to miss Christine's surprise.
She never knew that my painting children, creating those pouty-lipped, adorable faces was a way of living out a dream that wouldn't become reality. I had never told Christine all the down-and-dirty details of my life. I had met Christine A.D. Anno Domini. After Christ. After Celia. They had both arrived about the same time.
"No. I just like other people's kids,” I said, folding an arm over my midsection.
"I'm sure it's tricky for you, if Duncan doesn't want to be involved," Christine continued.
"I think he's just grieving. I'm sure he'll come around." It was what I prayed for. My life was too unsorted to take in Celia. Exactly the kind of life my biological mother lived. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
This Place: Holmes Crossing Book 3 Page 2