All in One Place

by Carolyne Aarsen

  I glanced down at my perfectly respectable Eddie Bauer jean jacket, worn especially for the occasion of seeing my sister. Paired with Diesel blue jeans, I didn't look like a serial killer. Or a religious fanatic.

  I cringed, thinking of Leslie's little chat with me in the diner the other day. In all my imaginings, I didn't think she would end up in the clutches of faith and a God whose name I used only when angry or upset.

  If it had been anyone else but Leslie, my calm, by-the-book, somewhat skeptical sister, I would have brushed the whole thing off as a phase.

  This, however, was something different. Something that tied in with what Father Sam had talked about. It was unsettling and made me think. Something I tried to avoid doing these days.

  I grabbed the strap of my purse, turned around, and carried on carrying on.

  A breeze teased my hair out of its ponytail, giving me, I was sure, that artfully tousled look that models spend hours trying to perfect.

  I slipped my hands into the pockets of my jean jacket, enjoying the freedom of the moment. No rain pelted down from the sky. I was walking downhill into Leslie and Dan's valley. Shadows of white, puffy clouds drifted across the valley floor and up the sides of the mountains.

  As perfect a day as they come.

  I heard the growl of a truck engine and spun around, hope mixing with wariness. Diesel engines meant guys, which could mean either a good ol' boy who was willing to pick up a woman, or a guy who was looking to “pick up a woman.”

  A fine distinction, but a world of difference.

  The vehicle slowed, the tires crunching over the gravel as it came to a halt beside me. The passenger window slid down, and the driver draped one arm over the steering wheel, his face shielded by sunglasses, a half-smile curving his lips. He wore a black shirt, rolled up over his forearms.

  Jack DeWindt, channeling Johnny Cash.

  “We've got to stop meeting like this,” I said, beating him to the punch line as I walked over to the open window.

  “I'm guessing you need a ride.”

  “Are you on official business, or do you policemen take time off between arrests?”

  “You going to get in, or do you want to come up with a few more cynical comebacks first?”

  I held up my hands, my expression mirrored in the dark lenses covering his eyes. If I didn't know him, I would have walked away from the offer. “I surrender. I don't suppose you're going anywhere near Leslie and Dan's place.”

  “Right to the doorstep.”

  “Is this my lucky day or what?” I said with a note of irony as I pulled open the door and climbed into the truck.

  “I think you might prefer ‘or what,’” Jack said, hitting a button. As the tinted window slid upward, I felt as if the outside world was cut off, underlining his slightly ominous comment.

  I slid my purse off my shoulder and set it on the seat beside me, a fragile barrier that was definitely more show than substance.

  “Seat belt,” Jack commanded as he pulled onto the road.

  “If you had asked me politely instead of coming across like a cop, I wouldn't be resenting the fact that I'm doing what you told me to,” I said as I slid the buckle into place.

  “An obedient narrator,” he said, leaning back in his seat, steering with one hand. “I like that in a girl.”

  “You sound like your dad.”

  “He likes you. He says you speak your mind. High praise from him.”

  “Why don't people ever say I'm coy and discreet?”

  Jack shook his head, still smiling. “That would be out of character for you.”

  “And how do you know what my character is?”

  “I think I'm a pretty good judge.” Jack glanced from the rearview mirror to the road to the dashboard as he delivered this very definitive statement.

  Don't ask. You don't need to know.

  I should listen to that rational, reasonable voice. I should just smile and nod. But the fact that Jack thought he had me figured out sat wrong with me.

  “And… what's the conclusion?”

  Jack's sunglasses flashed my way. “You're spontaneous. You like to make people laugh but use jokes to keep people at a distance. You try to come across like an open book, but you have secrets that you keep to yourself.”

  I wanted to hold his gaze as he ran through this list. Hard to do when faced with that barrier of tinted lenses.

  “All this after a few chance meetings?” I said, feeling as if he had laid me open and found me wanting. “You're in the wrong business.”

  “As a policeman I have to make snap decisions all the time. I'm thinking I'm in exactly the right business.”

  “So you admit that this was a snap analysis?” I said, trying to get my bearings again.

  “I'm guessing, from the way you've gotten all prickly, I hit the nail on the head.”

  “Now he's a carpenter,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Again she's using jokes to deflect.”

  I was losing ground fast, and the only graceful thing I could do to save myself some dignity was look out the window.

  I should have kept walking when he stopped to offer me a ride. Jack made me uncomfortable on too many levels.

  The only sound in the cab of the truck was the ping of gravel on the undercarriage, the tick of Jack's key chain on the steering column, and the faint whistle of the wind from behind my head.

  The trouble was, the silence made me even more aware of him.

  I heard his fingers tapping out some unknown rhythm on the steering wheel, noticed how the sunlight glinted off the hairs on his arm, off the face of his heavy watch.

  His cheeks and chin showed the beginnings of stubble, giving him a slightly unkempt look, so different from the last time I'd seen him. He looked appealing.

  This was the second time that word had sprung up in the recesses of my mind in connection with this guy. What was my brain made of? Broccoli? Would I never learn? Men equal problems.

  “How long has it been…?”

  Jack's sudden question stabbed the air and I jumped.

  “Sorry,” Jack said.

  “It's okay.” I took a slow breath. “Try that again.”

  “I was just wondering when was the last time you saw Leslie. Before this trip,” he clarified.

  My first inclination was to ask him why he wanted to know. But that would make me sound defensive, which would make him suspicious, which would make me even more defensive.

  “I went to see her in Seattle shortly after Nicholas was born.”

  “Is that where your mother lives?”

  I so did not want to go there. The next question would be “Where did you grow up?” followed by the obligatory family history and genealogy, none of which I enjoyed delving into. Dad? Who knew? Home of my youth? Apartments in various cities or small towns—depending on where our mother decided she would stop for a while. Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Nonexistent as far as either Leslie or I knew.

  “I give up,” I said, tempering the joke with a smile. “Does she live there?”

  Jack gave me an oblique look. “It's perfectly healthy to have a serious conversation from time to time.”

  “Okay. I'll try.” I folded my hands in my lap. “So, Lieutenant DeWindt, how long have you lived in Harland?”

  “I've been back for about six years.”

  “And why did you come back?”

  “My dad is still here, plus it's home. I love the area and the community.”

  “That's nice. Did you always want to be a policeman?”

  He shook his head. “I originally wanted to be a rancher, but it costs too much to get started, and neither of my parents came from a ranching background.”

  “Is your mother still alive?” I figured that was a safe question. Jack's father was very much present, and plain ordinary biology required a mother to be somewhere.

  “No. She died when I was sixteen.”

  “Siblings?”

  “A sister in Cleveland and two br
others who decided that San Jose had more to offer than Harland.”

  “Do you get along?”

  “Usually.” Jack's mouth curved up in a smile. “See? Painless.”

  The slight reprimand in his voice should have made me feel guilty about asking him so many questions. But it didn't.

  “Well, you know I have a sister, so you didn't need to ask me that. And the rest”—I lifted my hands—“superficial and boring.”

  “My family history is hardly movie-of-the-week material.”

  “No. But it is the kind of life that has launched many a television series.”

  Jack's laugh brought out an answering smile in me. Though the sunglasses still gave him that shielded look, from the side I could see the crinkles fanning his eyes. “I suppose. I know in my line of work I've seen lots of other variations of family.”

  “Like the family of those little girls you took from their home. Do you think they miss their family?”

  Jack's sunglasses flashed toward me. “I'm sure they don't miss being hungry or having dozens of drunk people stumbling around their house.”

  “Did you ask them where they'd rather be?”

  “I could say I was only following the orders given to us by Social Services, but considering those little girls were all alone in a house that looked like Beirut, I'm sure they made the right call. And my first priority is always the safety of the children. Always.”

  Much as I wanted to keep the discussion going, we were veering a little too close to personal territory for my liking. So I kept my big mouth shut.

  After a few miles of silence, he switched the radio on. Classical music filled the cab. Another surprise. “Do you mind?” he asked as his fingers adjusted the volume.

  I waved his question off. “I'm just the passenger.”

  We drove on for a while, the scenery slipping past us, the music adding an elegant sound track to the beauty that changed with each curve we went around, each hill we came over.

  The tension holding my shoulders eased away, and I relaxed against the seat. No wonder Leslie stayed. My eyes followed the sweep of the land to the purple-hazed mountains standing guard.

  Surprise jolted me when I saw that he was looking my way.

  “Beautiful, isn't it?”

  I nodded. “It is.” Scenery was a very safe topic of conversation. No controversy there.

  “I always feel closer to God here.”

  The way he spoke God's name—so easily and casually—created an indefinable shift in the atmosphere. I wasn't sure where to put this new part of Jack, and it disoriented me for a moment. So much for safe.

  “It… it is rather awe-inspiring,” I conceded. And as if to heighten the moment, the music playing in the background swelled, the violins and brass creating a triumphant counterpoint to what he said, what we saw.

  “I think this is what I missed the most when I left,” he continued, his voice softening as he stacked his hands on the steering wheel.

  “I'm sure Cor will be disappointed to find out that you didn't miss him.” I needed to lighten the atmosphere.

  “Real men don't admit to missing their dads,” Jack said with another smile.

  The admission, the smile on top of the previous moment, created a chance to give something in return.

  “Jack, when you asked me about my mother…”

  “It's okay,” he said, anticipating my apology.

  “No. I'm sorry. It's just that my mother wasn't a textbook case of maternal bonding. I know she had a lot to deal with, and I'm sure she tried. She was around when we were younger, but we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves at a young age.”

  To his credit, Jack said nothing. Which made me want to say more.

  “I mean, I know in your line of work you probably see a lot of bad situations, some probably worse than ours and, well, Mom was around most of the time when we were growing up. It's just that as a rule she didn't work a lot, spent a lot of time at home… and somebody please stop me before I start sounding like I should be on Oprah.”

  “You and Leslie have had a fair bit to deal with, then,” was all he said.

  “I'm sure our mom did the best she could, and even if she didn't, it's done. There are better mothers out there; we just didn't get one, and I'm not going to turn into the kind of person who has ‘issues’ with her mother or ends up blaming her for the mess her life is.” A sliver of panic hooked into my heart at my oblique admission, and I clamped my lips together. Looked away.

  Too close. Too close.

  “How much farther to Leslie's place?”

  “A couple of minutes yet.”

  My reflection stared back at me from the window, superimposed over open fields bordered by mountains. The rest of the ride was quiet, and thankfully Jack got the hint that I didn't want to talk.

  Chapter Eleven

  A few minutes later, just as he'd promised, he drove up to Dan and Leslie's house, parking beside a strange car and leaving the truck running as he got out. I didn't think Leslie was expecting company. She hadn't said anything about guests when I phoned to tell her I was coming.

  “Shouldn't you turn the truck off?” I said as he walked behind me to the house.

  “I'm heading down to the barnyard,” he said, slipping off his sunglasses. Uncovering his eyes gave him a defenseless look.

  I realized that I hadn't even asked him why he was going to Leslie's place when I took his offer. I'd just jumped into the truck.

  “What do you need to do there?”

  “Dan's training a horse for me.”

  “Oh,” was all I could manage as an unwelcome mental image of Jack on the back of a horse slipped into my mind. So very Montana.

  I knocked on the door and heard the thumping sound of feet running toward us. Then the door was yanked open, and I looked down into Anneke's delighted face. “Auntie Terra is here!” she shouted over her shoulder as another, younger girl came running up behind her.

  Anneke threw herself at me, just as she had at the diner, and I let her hug me hard, glad for the contact, the connection. I hugged her back, stroking her tangled hair. “Hey, little girl, how are you?”

  “I missed you so much,” Anneke said, breathless with drama. “You're my best friend. Carlene is here, but her brother, Cordell, is with his daddy. They're at an auction. We're helping my mommy.”

  The younger girl, Carlene I guessed, hung back, watching me with slightly suspicious eyes. I didn't blame her. I was pretty sure she saw me as a usurper.

  “Terra, hey. So glad you came.” Leslie came out onto the porch, her smile wide. But as she came closer, her eyes flicked from me to Jack.

  “Jack gave me a ride,” I said quickly.

  “But I told you I could easily come and pick you up.”

  “I was heading out this way anyway,” Jack said, forestalling any explanation I might have to offer.

  “Dan's in the corral already,” Leslie said.

  As Jack left, Leslie pursed her mouth in a Well, well, well look that I knew all too well, well, well.

  I leveled her a warning look, then glanced at Anneke, who was rapidly losing interest in me by the sheer fact that I wasn't paying enough attention to her.

  “Jack picked me up because I was hitchhiking,” I said, nonchalantly as Anneke took her friend's arm and ran off. “It was sheer coincidence that he happened to be on his way here.”

  “Well, that's good. That it was a coincidence.” Leslie pulled me close.

  “And this public service announcement is given to me for what reason?”

  Leslie shrugged. “No reason.”

  I let it lie, but got a shivering suspicion that Leslie was less than thrilled with the whole Jack-and-her-sister scenario. “I told you. Coincidence.”

  “Sure.” She pulled me toward a chair by the kitchen table that was covered with stacks of colored and printed papers, photographs, and assorted other paraphernalia. “Sit down while I make you a cup of coffee.”

  “What's going on
?” I picked up a picture of Nicholas as a baby and smiled. I recognized the cute sailor outfit. I had bought it at Baby Gap.

  “Scrapbooking.”

  “And how does a noun become a verb?”

  “Same way looking for something on the Internet becomes Googling?” A woman walked into the kitchen waving a piece of paper as if letting it dry. She flashed me a quick smile. “Good to finally meet you. My name is Kathy. Friend of your sister.”

  “Terra. Sister of the sister.” Leslie had written to me about Kathy, and she sounded like a good friend. I wanted to like her. But though she smiled as she talked, her faint emphasis on the word “finally” pressed down on my guilt, like a finger on a bruise.

  “Your printer is awesome,” Kathy said to Leslie as she settled herself behind the large table. “These look as good as real photos.”

  “Kathy and I are both trying to get our baby albums done, so we decided to do it together,” Leslie said, setting the cookies to one side as Kathy began whacking the pictures down with determined movements. “Monday didn't work for me, so she came today.”

  This was not how I'd envisioned spending time with my sister, but then who was I to complain? Dropping in unexpectedly on Leslie's life hardly gave me the right to set out the terms of engagement.

  Kathy laid the pictures she had just hacked up under an oval template, pulled out a little blade, and with a few sure movements cut the picture down again. Why print them out full size if you're just going to make them smaller, I thought, but I wisely kept the comment to myself and turned to my sister, trying to look ept instead of inept.

  “Where's Nicholas?”

  “He's with Dan,” Leslie said, picking up a couple of pictures and releasing a melancholy sigh. “Look at this little grublet. He was such a cute baby.”

  I leaned sideways just as Kathy came to look over Leslie's shoulder, pressing her skinny body into what I saw as my personal space. “Oh, look at his hair. It's so thick and dark!” she exclaimed, taking the words right out of my mouth.

  I resented her comment. I had seen Nicholas's hair when it was thick and dark. I had held him and snoozled him. Not this woman. This Kathy of the “finally.”