“You okay?” The tile guy had stopped working and was staring at me with eyes of deep black ink.
“Oh, yes, sorry. I just need some coffee.”
He grunted and went back to work. I grasped the bell on my desk and rang it, then walked down the hall, stopping by the door to the kitchen.
“Jack?”
He appeared at his office door and said, “Good morning.” He pulled out his half smile-dimpled-raised eyebrow magic.
It made my heart sing, but today it was a sad song. “Teardrops on My Guitar.”
I avoided eye contact and said. “Thank you for the flowers.”
I’d discovered the arrangement on the porch when Wallace and Nadine woke me the previous afternoon to let me know the police had found no sign of Valentina at Harvey’s. Mother had come home while they were there. Her discombobulation over my obviously gay and biker chick friends was the brightest part of my last few days, other than punching Melinda Stafford.
“You’re welcome.”
I ducked into the kitchen and took a seat.
“How are you?” He sat down, but at a sideways angle. Our knees were inches apart.
“Fine.” Physically, anyway, but I kept the rest to myself. “What’s going on in the lobby?”
“New tile.”
“No, I mean why? Was there a water leak or something?”
He jerked his head toward the door, speaking softly as he did. “That’s Freeman, our client. He does tile. So he’s doing ours.”
I clenched my fists. Five minutes after I got to work and Jack already had my eyes crossed. I just wanted to know why we were getting new tile. It didn’t seem like a complex question. Could the man ever answer me straight? I opened my mouth to snap at him, but snapped it shut instead. Jack and Clyde had talked earlier in the week about the new carpet. A client that couldn’t pay his bill. Services in kind. Okay, it took me a while, but I got it. My eyes grew moist and my hands relaxed. Something about crying most of the last few days had loosened my on-off switch. I swallowed the tears back.
Jack filled the silence. “I read your Johnson report. I think we’re good to go there.”
I gave him a leaky smile. “Thanks. And it appears he can afford to pay in cash.”
Jack leaned back in his chair, which scooched his knees forward. They bumped mine, and I jerked my legs away by reflex. Jack didn’t appear to notice.
“I had a very entertaining call from ADA Stafford yesterday,” he said. “She claims to have suffered physical injury and mental anguish at the hands of one Emily Phelps Bernal.”
I slouched back down, which bumped our knees again. “I’m sorry. I can explain.”
He put his hands behind his head, his elbows out to the side and tipped his chair back just so far that the front legs lifted from the ground. He’d rolled his sleeves up this morning, enough that I could see the smooth, tan underside of his forearms. I’d assumed Jack had a suntan on his face and neck, but instead it appeared to be his natural skin tone.
“I can only imagine,” he said.
“Seriously, she’s evil. When we were eight she sat behind me in class and cut my ponytail off one day. Short.”
His chair came down with a thunk, and he brought his hands back to his knees. “I messaged over a check to cover her doctor’s bills.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“No need. I’d have paid more than that just to have seen it.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Are you going to the fundraiser with her?”
“She did ask.”
“But are you going?”
After a long pause, he said, “Conflict of interest. And lack of.”
I hadn’t realized I’d held my breath until he answered and I started breathing again. He clasped his hands between his legs. Today he was wearing a pair of jeans so old the knees were white, with a flannel shirt. Flannel and faded jeans meant he didn’t have court today.
“If you’re up to it, I need you to help me on Freeman,” Jack said. “We could be going to trial before Christmas, and I’ve got a long way to go with it.”
I nodded. Maybe if I worked really, really hard on Freeman and Jack’s other clients, he’d let me get started on a wrongful death survivor case, which would mean we would have to find Valentina.
“We’ll leave for Tularosa after lunch.”
My throat tightened. I’d forgotten about New Mexico this weekend. “I don’t have my bag with me,” I said.
And I’d planned to do my own reconnaissance at Harvey’s stripper-girlfriend abode later that day. I’d lost twenty-four hours—more, really—on finding Valentina, and no one seemed to have made any progress in my absence.
“We can swing by Heaven on the way.” He levered himself out of the chair and started walking out.
My emotions went to war, over Valentina, and wanting to stay here to look for her. My lost baby, and desire to hibernate. My job, and needing to keep it. Jack, and my attraction to him. New Mexico, and the possibility of a sleuthing side trip to Roswell.
“Jack, wait,” I said. He stopped, and I continued. “I don’t think I’m very good company right now. I might not be at my best for Johnson’s housewarming. I’m . . . recovering.”
At least the parts of me that could recover. The part of me that wanted to be a whole woman and a mother someday wasn’t even near the path yet.
He puckered his lip up to the left, and I fell for it. With that one little expression my emotional resistance crumbled like dry sod. How could the left side of his face do such interesting things? He was right-handed, after all. I’d checked.
“Noted. Now, let’s get to work,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-one
The next eight hours passed in a blur and ended with the wheels of Jack’s plane thudding to earth at Wrong Turn Ranch. I still wasn’t a fan of small planes, but last time I’d puked my guts out in the little Skyhawk, and this week I didn’t use a single barf bag. It wasn’t lost on me that Jack had replenished the stash in the seat pocket to overflowing. Amazing what the absence of a fetus could do for a woman’s queasy tummy. Even more amazing what its absence did to her heart. The rest of me didn’t feel that bad, and I hoped I could put away everything sucky about my life for a weekend. Some things I couldn’t change anyway, and I needed to learn not to dwell on my new reality. Mountains, horses, and green chiles might be just what I needed to try to get my head right.
As we bounced down the runway, I checked my phone. Jack had practically hog-tied me to his side the entire morning as we put together a work list and game plan for Freeman and Escalante and the new Johnson case. We’d barely finished in time to grab lunch at Taco Villa on the way to Heaven. A bean burrito with sour cream usually cheered me up, but it didn’t today. Besides my sadness about the lost baby (babies?), I hadn’t managed to sneak away to Harvey’s crash pad, and I knew I had to entrust it to Wallace. I loved Wallace, and Lord knew he meant well, but he was a rule follower, at least in his professional life. I’d texted Nadine on my way to the airport, asking her to go with him. She was someone who knew that there was more than one way to skin a cat, and she’d texted back a Yes five seconds later.
That was over four hours ago, and it was six o’clock in Texas. I’d hoped to hear how it went from them by now. But I had no messages.
I sent them a group text: Update?
Jack pulled the plane to a stop in front of his little barn-hangar, then spun the Skyhawk. He turned off the engine and the propeller slowed gradually, thwum, thwum, thwum, until it stopped. The silence screeched in my ears, but I was getting used to it after several flights.
Jack leaned around his seat. “You okay back there?”
I nodded and pulled the corners of my mouth up. My face felt like it would crack.
He opened his door and pushed his seat forward. Brisk air hit me in the face—cold air, really. I noticed the sky for the first time. Black clouds to the west veiled the falling sun. I shivered and hopped out. Then something s
trange happened. The temperature and the dry scent of sage and pine acted like shock paddles to my emotional system. I drew in a full breath and let it out. I looked around me, and it was like someone had adjusted the focus on my lens. Emily lives on, even if just barely.
Jack’s eyes sparkled. “Brr. Let’s gas her up quick, then get her inside before we unload.”
“Good idea.”
This time there was no Judith to meet us, but I knew the drill. He opened the roll-up door and I moved the Suburban outside. When I returned, he had fastened the tow bar to the nose wheel. We maneuvered the small plane to the gas tank.
“Why do you gas it up when we land?” I asked as the fuel pumped.
He pointed at the sky. “Sometimes the weather or other circumstances dictate a rapid departure in less favorable conditions.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I rubbed my arms. When the plane was full, we pushed it inside. He chocked the wheels and chained the plane in place. Wind gusted into the hangar and rattled the walls and roof. We grabbed the dog and the bags and made it into the Suburban in one trip. By the time Jack started the engine, snow was falling and the sky all around us had turned dark gray.
I rolled down the window and let the flakes fall against my hand as we drove. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, I love these early-season storms.”
“Not great horseback weather.” Not that I should ride anyway.
He took a left, toward the ranch house. I don’t know why it surprised me, since it was after the workday, but it did. Something about heading straight to the house felt more like a date than a work weekend. But, of course, it wasn’t a date. And if it had been, what a horrible date I’d be. The weather and high desert smells had helped rejuvenate me, but I had a long way to go before I was good company. I wanted to slap my cheeks to perk myself up and put some color back into my face, but held back.
Jack rolled his window down, too. “Yeah, but the weather will change five times this weekend.”
The house appeared out of the dark skies, sudden and large, and no less impressive than last time. Jack swung the Suburban around to the far side and parked in a three-car garage. Even in there, the snow and cold wind followed. He closed the garage behind us.
Just before he opened the door to the house, Jack turned back to me. “Your friend Collin contacted me this week. I told him we’d be back tonight for a Saturday work function. He asked if he and Tamara could take us to dinner. And I . . . uh . . . I told them we needed an early start so that it would be better if they came out here.”
Did I mind? I wasn’t sure. “So you didn’t tell them about my miscarriage?”
Jack opened the door and motioned me through. “They said they’re bringing dinner. All we have to do is sit and eat.”
I wanted to throttle Jack for forcing me into this. My mood had improved, but only enough for a soak in the claw-footed tub I’d discovered in the guest bath last weekend. I wasn’t going to give that up.
“How long do I have?”
“They’ll be here at six-thirty. Oh, and Mickey and his wife will be here, too.”
Ten minutes from now. A regular dinner party. “No promises. I’m really not feeling all that well, but I’ll try to come down.”
He looked at his feet, then opened the door. “Yeah, I understand.”
I escaped up the stairs, each step ponderous. How could walking up one flight make me this dizzy? I knew I was out of shape, but maybe the surgery had weakened me more than I’d realized. I dropped my handbag on the bed and my suitcase in the corner and headed straight for the bathroom. The white porcelain tub stood regally in the corner on its pewter feet. I turned both spigots on full blast and started opening cabinets and doors as fast as I could, searching for bath salts. I found cucumber bubble bath and dumped in half a cup. The water steamed, so I eased off on the hot, tested it with my hand, and eased it back further. I let my clothes fall to the floor. I took out my clip, twisted my hair high on my head, and refastened it.
Two bottles of water stood by the sinks, and I grabbed one, uncapped it, and slugged it down. Then I looked at the counter again: a bottle of Dancing Bull merlot, an old school corkscrew, and a plastic wine tumbler. This was a giant step up from boxed white zinfandel. Naked, I sunk the corkscrew deep in the cork, my hands shaking. I twisted, twisted, twisted, then flipped one end down to make purchase on the bottle’s lip and depressed the other end, easing the cork out slowly until it made a soft popping noise. The velvety, red liquid splashed into the glass, glug, glug, glug. I filled it the proper two thirds, then, after a pause, I filled it to millimeters below the rim.
The aroma called to me and I buried my nose in the top of the glass, inhaled, then inhaled again, deeper. I sipped, holding it in my mouth, the liquid gliding over my tongue, the different notes of the wine playing out their symphony, and I closed my eyes while I savored the sweet music until it crescendoed, then I swallowed.
A deep sigh broke from my lips. I set the wine glass on the small wooden table at the head of the tub, dialed the timer to fifteen minutes, and sunk eyeball deep into the bubbles and water.
***
When I climbed out of the tub an hour later, waterlogged and wrinkly, I was a little unsteady on my feet. Only one glass had made me tipsy? Well, that little lunch burrito had been hours ago. I needed food, and the only place I could get it was downstairs. I didn’t want to waste the wine, though. I poured another full glass emptying the bottle.
I padded to my suitcase and put on a mossy green velour dress with my boots. The fabric whispered over my skin. A chorus of laughter erupted below. Male and female voices. Happy, normal people. The scent of something tangy. My stomach growled, long and echo-y. I held my hand to my belly, feeling its emptiness, its deep pit of nothingness. Food wouldn’t fill that void.
I applied burnt sienna lip-gloss and ran a brush through my hair, still undecided about whether to join the group. While I wavered between stay or go, I teased my bangs back into shape and sprayed them with Aqua Net. I opened the door without crossing the threshold, just to test the air outside my room. More laughter. Voices. Collin’s. Tamara’s. Jack’s. Mickey’s. Others I didn’t recognize. I smelled that tangy aroma again, plus something spicy, and my stomach rumbled. Darn it, I had to go down there. My hand reached up of its own volition and did one last touch test on my bangs. They were fine. Vanity even in the depths of a blue funk. I ventured out, and down the stairs.
I entered the kitchen with my half-full glass in hand. Faces swam before me. At the kitchen table, Jack and Mickey sat with a woman I didn’t recognize, who had her hand on Mickey’s knee. To my surprise, Paul Johnson sat with them, too. What was he doing here? Tamara and Collin manned the business end of the kitchen, busily arranging a platter of pizza slices.
I waved. “Hello, all.”
My name echoed in the air. Hello Emily-ly-ly-ly-ly-ly. I blinked. Snowflake bounded to me. I reached down and ruffled her ears.
The woman I hadn’t met stood and grasped my hand. Hers was cold and tiny, but she had an iron grip. “Laura Begay,” she said.
We shook. She was so short I could see the top of her head, the side part of her sleek, brown bob. She probably weighed half what I did, max.
“Emily.”
She sat back down and patted Mickey’s knee. “Wife of this character.”
Mickey’s eyes reflected her, and in them you could see how lovely she was. “She left out ‘jockey of international reputation.’”
“Wow,” I managed. Normally, I would have clung to her every word, dying to hear about such a fascinating job. Maybe she’d give me another chance some other time.
Paul did better than me. “Hey, I knew I’d heard of you.”
She smiled at her husband and then at Paul. “It’s a job.”
Conversation resumed, and I sidled over to Jack and spoke under my breath. “What’s Paul doing here?”
He tilted his head toward mine. “Paperwork.”
Wh
ich explained why he’d come, but not why he’d stayed. I waited, but Jack didn’t elaborate.
Collin removed the foil off some buffalo wings he’d pulled from the oven. “Voilà.” He gestured his hand in the air with a flourish, throwing his hip as he did it.
Tamara golf clapped then went back to work uncorking a bottle of white wine on her hip—3 Blind Moose pinot grigio—while Jack set out glasses, seven of them.
“Fill ’em up, people. You can’t eat anything Collin cooks sober, I promise,” she said.
No one needed further prodding. I poured pinot grigio in a fresh glass, feeling conspicuous, but no one even glanced at me, which confirmed my suspicion that Jack had clued everyone in on the change in my maternity status. Somehow I’d become unable to keep anything about my life private, like I was a walking Match.com billboard, a constantly updating Facebook status. Maybe my blurting everything out last weekend had something to do with it, as did my mother and her friends. Even Collin.
Voices pulsed and throbbed around me. People teased and laughed. I stayed quiet. My wine buzz had me a little queasy, until I polished off two pieces of the chile-enhanced New Mexican pizza that Tamara and Collin had made, after I picked off all the chicken, anyway, as best I could. The queasy went away, as long as I kept my eyes off the food in Paul’s mouth. It gave way to mellow, and I watched Snowflake successfully beg for food from everyone assembled until she collapsed in a food coma on her pillow in the corner. I tried to follow the conversations around me, and more than once I felt my lips curve upward, until finally I laughed.
I glanced up into Jack’s eyes. He looked away quickly, but the aftereffect remained, a wake lapping against my skin.
Laura shushed everyone. “I want to play a game.”
Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) Page 22