by Marta Perry
“Will do.” Maybe, by the time they came back, she’d have gotten over being annoyed with him.
A metallic rattle announced the arrival of the battered old pickup Billy drove. He got out, stood looking at them for a minute and then pulled a long pair of garden clippers from the truck bed.
Kevin, who seemed to be everyone’s friend, went running to meet him. “Hey, Billy. Guess what we did. We put up a new light on the back porch.”
Billy’s gaze went from the boy to Deidre to Jason. “What’d you need a new light for? The old one broke?”
“This is a special light,” Kevin announced. “If anything moves by the back porch, the light comes on. Cool, isn’t it?”
His eyes shifted again. “Yeah, I guess.” He brandished the clippers. “Gonna work on the hedge, okay?”
Deidre nodded. “That’s great, Billy. It’s been looking a bit shaggy since the rain.”
She stood for a minute, watching him get started, frowning a little.
“Something wrong?”
Deidre shrugged. “No, I guess not. I didn’t expect him to be here today, but that’s Billy for you. He doesn’t keep to a schedule.”
Billy was clipping vigorously, with Kevin trotting along behind him and attempting to gather the clippings. “Has Billy said anything more to you about Dixie?”
Had Chief Carmichaels even bothered to question him?
“No.” Her blue eyes followed his movements, and a worried frown gathered between her brows. “I tried. I know he’s upset about it, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk.”
Did she worry about everyone she knew? “Maybe that’s how he deals with pain. Some people can’t bear to discuss it.” Which pretty much described him, too.
“I guess,” she admitted. “The thing is, I have something that he’d made for Dixie—one of his figures. It was in a box of mementoes I brought home to sort. I thought he might want to have it back, but I don’t want to upset him.”
He couldn’t help thinking that he’d like to see Billy’s reaction, whether it upset him or not.
“I’d offer it to him, at least. He doesn’t have to take it if he doesn’t want the reminder.”
Apparently that tipped the balance for her. Deidre nodded and went into the house. Through the windows, he could see her walking into the workroom, where she lifted a box onto the table.
He was reminded of the watcher, standing by the window, and his hands clenched. She was remembering to close the shades and curtains once it got dark, wasn’t she? Even then, a pane of glass wasn’t much to have between her and someone who wished her ill.
You don’t know that, he reminded himself. The intruder might have been an ordinary Peeping Tom, a teen intent on vandalism or someone who thought it was funny to play tricks outside a house where a murder had occurred.
He didn’t seem to be convincing himself.
Deidre reappeared, holding a small wooden figure in her hand. “Look.” She held it out to him. “He really has a gift for this sort of thing.”
The figure was a doe, this carving showing more delicacy than the one he’d done for Kevin. There was a grace and beauty about it that couldn’t be denied, and he suspected it spoke of the feelings Billy had had for Dixie.
“Has he always done carvings?” He turned it over in his hands.
“Ever since I can remember. When we were kids and a gang of us used to go exploring in the woods, he’d always have a jackknife and a piece of wood with him. Whenever we sat down to rest, he’d pull it out and start whittling.”
He tried to picture a group of kids allowed to run loose in the woods and failed. “Do you let Kevin do that?”
“Not yet. He’s not old enough. I trust him and Benjy to go back and forth to the farm. And I’m sure they run all over the farm property when he’s there.”
He glanced up at the ridge, looming over them. “Will you let him when he’s older?”
Deidre looked at him as if he were from another planet. “Of course. All the kids do. In a group, of course. I wouldn’t want to see even an adult go off alone and risk getting lost.” She smiled. “You’re thinking that’s careless parenting, and it would be in some places. But that’s an advantage of living in a place like this. Kids learn a lot from each other when they don’t have adults directing their every move.”
He considered the young professionals he’d known in the city. Their children’s lives had been carefully designed, with lessons and playgroups and organized sports filling up their free time. They wouldn’t agree with Deidre’s philosophy.
Seeming to consider the conversation closed, Deidre took the wooden deer back from his hand. “I’d better get this over with. If he’s upset, I’m blaming you,” she added lightly.
As well she should. He followed her as she walked across the grass, wanting to see for himself how Billy took it.
“That’s looking nice and even,” Deidre said once they were within earshot.
“I’m helping,” Kevin said. “But I think I’m thirsty. Can I get a drink, Mommy?”
She nodded. “Get a juice box from the fridge. And see if Billy wants one.”
“Do you, Billy? We have lemonade or apple.”
Billy stopped clipping to consider. “What’re you having?”
“Lemonade. That’s my favorite.”
“Okay. Get me one, too.” They might have been the same age based on the way they were talking.
Deidre waited until Kev had run to the house before she held out the wooden carving. “I thought you might want to have this, since you made it for Dixie.”
Billy snatched it out of her hand. “What’re you doing with it?” Jase took a step closer to Deidre.
“You remember, Billy.” Her voice was gentle. “Dixie’s mother asked me to clean out her apartment.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He stared down at the deer, turning it over and over in his hands. “You weren’t gonna throw it out, were you?”
“No, of course not. I’m sure Dixie treasured it.” She paused, as if considering whether that was correct, but Billy didn’t seem to notice. “Anyway, I brought some things over to decide what to do with, and I thought you might like to have this back.”
He ran his finger along the neck of the doe. “She did like it,” he said, oddly insistent. “I know she did.”
“Of course she did.” Deidre was trying to be comforting, but obviously she wasn’t sure what was behind his words. “It probably reminded her of those hikes we used to go on in the woods, remember?”
Billy looked up, his face twisted. “She liked to do that, didn’t she? Until...” He shook his head, lips pressing together as if to hold back something.
Jase was uneasily reminded of how he’d burst into tears that last time they’d talked. He wasn’t going to do that again, was he?
Billy sniffed a time or two. Then he wrapped the deer in a faded red bandanna and stowed it in a pocket. “I’ll keep it. Dixie would want me to. I was her friend. Her good friend,” he said again, emphasizing the words. “Better than anyone.”
His voice broke. He grabbed the clippers and took off in a shambling run for the truck.
Picking up a small branch that had gone flying, Jason eyed Deidre. What was she thinking? “I guess the trimming is done for today.”
Deidre stared after Billy, rubbing her forehead. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given it to him. It’s hard to know how he’ll react. Still, I think eventually he’ll be glad to have it.”
“I think so,” he murmured. Billy was upset, but he hadn’t given much clue as to why, other than his sorrow over losing his friend. What had he meant by his insistence that he’d been Dixie’s best friend? It was odd, but he had a feeling it might be important.
CHAPTER TEN
CARRYING A BACKPACK loaded with lunch
and drinks, Deidre headed out to the car on Saturday with Kevin dancing around her, eager to get started. He carried his own small backpack and bubbled over with excitement.
“Will there be a lot of water coming over the falls? Do you think we’ll see any deer? I want to find some wildflowers. Will there be any?” He tugged at her navy Windbreaker. “Mommy, answer me!”
“Which question do you want me to answer, sweetheart?” She grinned at him. “You have to give me a chance.”
“All of them.” He gave an extravagant gesture. “Hey, there’s Jase.” He started to bolt toward Jason, but she grabbed him by his backpack.
“Did he tell you it was okay to call him that?” Teaching manners was a constant effort.
“Yeah, he said so.” Kev wiggled. “Let me go, Mommy.”
She released him and watched as he raced to Jason. His lips were already moving a mile a minute. Good. Let Jason try to answer his questions. He was the one who’d wished himself onto them today.
She had to put up with Jason’s presence, for Kevin’s sake, but that didn’t mean she was letting him get too close. She’d found his kiss too disturbing to her equilibrium. It had been days ago now, but still she couldn’t quite get it out of her mind.
“Morning. Everybody ready to go?” Jason looked cheerful. He had on a pair of well-worn jeans, hiking boots and a dark red T-shirt that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. It was enough to make any woman steal a second glance.
“Good morning.” That sounded rather frosty, but she couldn’t help it. “Let’s toss our bags in the back, and we’ll head out.”
“Right.” He took hers before she could put it in, hefted it and shook his head. “What do you have in here, rocks?”
“Water and juice boxes. You’ll get thirsty hiking, even though it’s not too hot.”
“I don’t doubt it, but there’s no reason I can see that you should carry them all.” Without asking, he unzipped her bag and transferred the water bottles to his. Then he put them both in the back, grinning at Kevin.
“I think I saw lunch in there, Kev. You hungry yet?”
He shook his head, clambering into the back and grabbing his seat belt. “I’ll work up a really good appetite walking. We always have our lunch where we can look at the falls.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to break tradition.” Jason switched his gaze to her, and Deidre went quickly to the driver’s seat, prepared to rebuff any suggestion that he should drive.
But he slid into the passenger side without comment, and she had the ridiculous notion that he knew just what she’d been thinking. Worse, that he might be laughing at her.
She glanced at him, found his dark eyes studying her, and hurriedly focused on the mirror as she backed out of the driveway. The trouble was that Jason was the first man she’d gotten close to since Frank died. That was it. Everyone in town still thought of her as Frank’s wife, and there hadn’t been anything remotely sexual in any of her relationships.
But Jason had seemed to look at her from the beginning as an attractive, available woman, not as someone’s wife. It had been a long time since she’d encountered that. Maybe she’d just forgotten how to handle it.
She pictured Frank’s face in her mind and discovered, to her panic, that she was remembering a static photo, not the living, breathing, fallible human being. Was he slipping away into the past? But he never could, not when she had Kevin.
A short distance down the road, she turned onto the dirt lane that would take them as far as they could go in the car. “This lane skirts the Yoder farm.” She glanced at him. “Judith, my partner.”
Jason nodded. “I know. That’s where Kevin’s buddy Benjamin lives.”
He seemed to be gazing at the herd of Holsteins moving slowly across the pasture. She noticed Judith already had a clothesline full of clothes flapping in the light breeze, the bright solids of the dresses contrasting with the somber black pants.
“Look at the colors of the women’s and little girls’ dresses,” she pointed out. “Those will soon show up in Judith’s quilts. She has a real gift for combining the solid colors in her quilt designs.”
He nodded politely, though she doubted he was much interested in quilts. “You and Judith seem to enjoy being in business together.”
“Of course.” She hit a rut in the lane with a tooth-rattling jolt. She’d better keep her eyes on the road. “We were part of each other’s lives from the time we were very small.” Her gesture took in the fields and the wooded hillside. “This was our playground. We loved to pretend we were the first ones to explore the land.” She risked a sideways glance at him. “You probably did the same, didn’t you?”
She was startled to see Jason’s face tighten.
“Not many places to explore where I grew up. We were too busy staying off gang turf to go wandering.”
He glanced toward Kevin in the backseat and clamped his lips together, leaving her wondering and a little shaken.
She’d assumed, if she’d thought of it at all, that he’d come from the same kind of upper-middle-class background as Frank and most of his classmates. Apparently she’d been wrong. And he didn’t appear to be very forthcoming about it.
Jason seemed to make a determined effort to shake off his mood. He gestured to the surrounding woods. “Is this all private land?”
“A mix of private and government owned. Judith and Eli’s farm ended back at the fence line. From there up to the top of the hill is State Game Lands, but over on the right, it’s all private.”
He nodded to a gravel lane going off to the right. “Does that lead to a farm, then?”
“Hunting cabins,” she said briefly, concentrating on avoiding the ruts washed out by the spring rain. “Sometimes people come in the summer, but generally the cabins are used once or twice a year for hunting trips, and they sit empty the rest of the time.”
The lane petered out into a wide spot where they’d leave the car.
“Here we are,” she announced. “We walk from here, so grab your backpacks. Kev, you need some insect repellent before you head into the woods.”
“Do I have to?” Kevin’s response was always the same. “It smells yucky.”
“Yes, you have to.” She sprayed it onto her palm and then rubbed it onto Kevin’s face before spraying his clothes. Then she handed it to Jason.
“Do I have to?” he said, grinning.
“Unless you want to risk taking a deer tick home as a souvenir, you do. I always think they’re worse this time of the year.”
Apparently he took her seriously, because he anointed himself thoroughly. “Not going to do my face for me?”
She avoided his eyes. “I think you can manage.” She did her own spraying, and by that time Kevin had put on his backpack and was waiting at the trailhead.
“Let’s go,” he said impatiently.
They headed after him. “He’ll slow down after a bit as he gets tired,” she said. “It’s mostly uphill.”
“Good.” He fell into step with her where the path was wide enough for two. “I’d be ashamed to admit I can’t keep up with a five-year-old.”
“More likely we’ll have to carry him on the way back. I will, I mean,” she corrected hastily.
“I think I can manage that without getting too close to you, can’t I?” The laughing note had left his voice.
“I...I don’t know what you mean.” That didn’t sound convincing even to her.
“Don’t you, Deidre?” He shrugged. “Okay. Well, take it however you want.” He lengthened his stride. “Hey, Kevin, wait for me.”
Left behind, she struggled with the meaning of his words. So he knew she was trying to keep him at a distance, which also must mean he knew she was attracted to him.
But that didn’t mean she was going to act on that attraction. And
to do him justice, he hadn’t attempted anything since that one kiss. Maybe he wanted a relationship between them as little as she did. That should be reassuring, but...was it? Or had her emotions gotten the better of her plans?
She’d told herself, when she’d begun to recover from the shock of Frank’s death, that it only made sense to take the possibility of a serious relationship off the table. Kevin was the most important person in her life. She wouldn’t subject him to anything that might make him feel less secure, including the idea of another man taking his father’s place. Besides, at that point she hadn’t been able to imagine feeling for anyone else what she’d felt for Frank.
She still couldn’t, could she?
The trail led through an area thick with hemlocks and maples. The maples were just leafing out, making the woods less dense than they would be later in the summer.
“Kevin, look here,” she called out. She stopped, waiting until the two of them came back to her. Then she knelt, drawing her son down with her. “See these plants, like little umbrellas?”
Kevin touched one gently. “It’s like an elf’s umbrella,” he exclaimed.
“Right.” She smiled. “Look underneath it.”
Kevin bent over to peek and came up smiling. “It’s a flower. A little white flower. Look, Jason.”
Jason squatted beside him and looked in turn. “You’re right, buddy.” He glanced at her. “What is it?”
“That’s called a May apple. If you look at it later in the summer, you’ll find what looks like an apple where the flower is now. But you can’t eat it,” Deidre added hastily. “It’s not a real apple.”
“May apple,” Kevin repeated. “I’ll remember.”
He was on his feet in an instant and moving again, but Jason lingered, giving her a questioning look. “Is there anything about this place you don’t know?”
“I grew up here, remember? Some things you learn sort of by osmosis, I think. My father loved to teach me the names of plants and how to identify the different trees. And constellations. He’d sneak me out of the house on summer nights to look at the stars.”