Coming Home

by Shirlee Busbee

  Jeb shook his head and took a bite of his own sandwich. “So what are you doing out here? Weren't you supposed to be doing something in the backcountry today? Checking culverts or something like that?”

  Mingo worked for the Department of Forestry and was attached to the small substation just outside of St. Galen's. His range of territory was in the Mendocino National Forest that lay to the east and about ten miles beyond the valley in the mountains. “Yep. And I did that already. Was up and checking out the various sites by daybreak. Even though it's cooler in the mountains, I didn't want to be clambering all over in this heat. Besides, it's lunchtime.”

  They ate in silence a moment, then Mingo asked, “So? What are you doing on your vacation?”

  The vacation was a sore spot. Jeb loved his job—so much so that he viewed taking time off more as punishment than a pleasure. Because of that, he rarely took time off and it just accumulated and accumulated on the books. It had reached the point where Bob Craddock, the sheriff himself, had ordered Jeb to use some of it up. Grumbling and cursing, Jeb had complied, wondering what in the hell he was going to do for a whole damned month.

  Picking up a potato chip from the pile near Mingo's plate, he said, “Let's see, now. I've rebuilt all the fences—they weren't in bad shape so that didn't take long. I hung a couple of pictures in the living room that I had in the spare room. Changed the oil on the truck. Repainted my bathroom. Oh, and on Monday I finished that stall and rented an airless sprayer and painted the barn—Grecian blue if you're interested. Very exciting stuff. I don't know if my heart can stand much more of it.”

  Mingo winced. “You know, you're not really getting into the spirit of things. You should have gone away somewhere. Like San Francisco. Or LA. Gotten a taste of the big, bad cities.” He winked. “And big, bad women.”

  “A woman is the last thing I need,” Jeb muttered, his eyes instinctively going to the glass sliding doors and to the foothills on the opposite side of the valley.

  Mingo caught the direction of his gaze and after taking a swallow of his beer, he asked innocently, “So, have you been up to see the lady?”

  Jeb scowled. “What makes you think I'm going to waste my time checking on Roxanne Ballinger?”

  Mingo grinned. “And how did you know I was referring to that particular lady? I don't remember mentioning her name.”

  Knowing Mingo had him, he grimaced and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I drove up and verified that she bought the damned place.”

  “What's it going to hurt? Personally, I'd rather have a beautiful bundle like Roxanne living up there than Dirk Aston. That guy was bad news. Think you'd be thrilled one more scumbag was off the streets—and out of the valley.”

  “That's not the point. The point is that Oak Valley is no place for the likes of Roxanne. She's nothing but trouble spelt with a capital T and I do mean capital.”

  Mingo opened his eyes very wide. “You'd rather have a fuzzy-faced pot grower living across the valley from you than a gorgeous chick like Roxanne? Jeez, have you been out in the woods too long. You know, this vacation might have been a very good thing for you, old man. You need to get a grip. Women, especially women like Roxanne, are to be revered and enjoyed, not tossed aside like last week's garbage.”

  “What do you expect from someone with my track record when it comes to women? You can't say someone with two, not one, but two failed marriages behind him really appreciates the finer nuances in dealing with the opposite sex,” Jeb said, his expression bleak.

  Mingo hesitated. Looking at the condensation on his bottle of beer, he said carefully, “Don't you think it's time that you quit beating yourself up about that? You made some mistakes, I'll grant you that, but I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that the failures of both your marriages might not have been entirely your fault. It does take two to tango, you know. And two to make a failed marriage.”

  Jeb shut his eyes. It was an old argument between them and he supposed that Mingo had a point. It was just…It was just that he never expected to end up at forty-five living alone, with two failed marriages behind him…and no kids. When he could look at it realistically, which was seldom, Mingo was right, it wasn't all his fault that both his wives had left him. Hell, even he would admit that his first marriage to Ingrid Gunther, the daughter of an Austrian baron who had bought up half the south end of the valley, hadn't been smart. He'd just turned twenty-two and Ingrid had been twenty-one and they'd taken one look at each other and fallen into cosmic heat. They married four months later and for three months they had been deliriously happy screwing each other blind. By spring, the edge had been off their appetite for each other and Ingrid had been bored and contemptuous of life in Oak Valley. Oak Valley was Jeb's life, it always had been and he figured it always would be. He'd tried to explain it to Ingrid, but she hadn't listened. In the end she gave him an ultimatum, either resign his job and follow her to Austria or.…By June, their marriage was over and she had returned to Daddy and her jet-setting ways. Sometimes when he was lonely and blue he wondered if he'd given in to Ingrid if the marriage might have survived…

  “You're thinking of Ingrid, aren't you?” Mingo demanded, cutting into his thoughts.

  “Yeah, I was, how did you know?” Jeb asked, surprised.

  “Because you always get that look on your face—as if you'd committed a crime against nature. I can't for the life of me figure out what you had to feel guilty about: she left you.”

  Jeb's gaze dropped to the table. “Yes, she did, and if you remember correctly, so did Sharon.”

  Mingo snorted. “You know you're the only one that didn't have a clue about Sharon. She married you because she wanted out of the valley and didn't have enough gumption to do it on her own. When you got your master's degree in criminology, she thought, like half the county, that you'd take off like a shot and get a position with some big city police department. Must have broken her calculating heart when she found outthat you were perfectly happy to stay right where you were.”

  Jeb looked uncomfortable. His marriage to Ingrid he could, on a good day, put down to youthful indiscretion, but with Sharon Foley.…With Sharon, he'd been certain he'd found a soul mate. They were both valley born and raised. They had a shared history and seemed to like a lot of the same things.

  He hadn't known that Sharon wanted out of Oak Valley. Oh, she might have loved him at first, but she'd had her eye on a future away from Oak Valley and that idea never occurred to Jeb. He came home one night to find a note on the kitchen table from his wife explaining that she was running away with the guy who owned a tree-trimming business in Santa Rosa. Jeb had been devastated. He hadn't had a clue and discovered that while Sharon was cute as a button, she was also as sly as a snake.

  A wounded look in his eyes, his gaze dropped to the table. He had loved Sharon. He'd believed that she'd been happy, that they shared the same goals. If he'd known, he thought bitterly, that Sharon had had her eyes on a life somewhere else, he'd never have married her. He had been certain she felt about the valley the same way he did. He'd pictured them growing old together, their children gathered around them; his grandchildren romping on his lap. But Sharon had other dreams. Dreams he hadn't shared. Dreams he hadn't even known about. He smiled painfully. He hadn't known about a lot of things. Certainly he hadn't had any idea she'd been seeing another man, but he had known she was unhappy in the valley. Desperate to make her happy, during those last months together, he'd arranged weekends away in the wine country, the coast, even several nights in San Francisco. But it wasn't enough. When she'd begun to pressure him to apply for a job in San Francisco, he'd dug in his heels, telling her that this was home, this was where he wanted to be. He still remembered the look on her face. Hands on her hips she'd faced him. “You know,” she'd said evenly, “not everyone wants to be buried alive in a dull place like this. Some of us would like memories of something more exciting than the FFA Field Day Parade or the Labor Day Rodeo.” The next evening he'd found the note.


  In his bleakest moments he wondered if there was something inherently wrong with him. Not one but two wives had left him. And each time, he realized now, the final straw had been his desire to remain in the valley. He'd tried to look at it from all different angles but it always came up the same: he'd wanted to stay, they'd wanted to leave. Had he been wrong? Had he been too stubborn? Had there been a compromise that he'd overlooked?

  After Sharon's defection, he'd been full of self-doubts, wondering where he'd gone wrong, wondering what was wrong with him that two women hadn't wanted to remain married to him. He'd hurt for a long time, brooded and suffered in silence for a while and eventually came to the conclusion that marriage justwasn't for him. It appeared he wasn't very good at it and he wasn't about to try again. Nope. Not for him. Love 'em and leave 'em had been his motto for the past twelve years and he saw no reason to change it.

  Jeb took a swallow of his beer and looked at his brother. “Leave it alone.” “I would if I thought you weren't still beating yourself up over something that wasn't your fault.” “

  I'm not. I'm fine.”

  Aware of the warning note in Jeb's voice, Mingo let the subject drop and after finishing his sandwich said good-bye and left. Jeb sat there at the kitchen table, staring off at nothing. Maybe he did still beat himself up about the two divorces. So what? He had failed. Two times.

  Pushing aside his uncomfortable thoughts, Jeb got up and walked outside. There was work to do, but reminding himself that he was on vacation, he opted to spend a leisurely afternoon. He let his dogs, Dawg and Boss, a pair of mixed breeds, out of their kennel and after letting them run around some and hike their legs, or as in the case of Dawg squat and piddle on every bush within fifty yards, brought them into the house for company. Lying on the couch in the living room, the dogs flopped down on the floor beside him, he lost himself in a book in the Prey series by John Sanford.

  Twilight was falling when he fed the dogs and let them out of the house for another run. While waiting for them to return, he popped another beer and sat out on his deck, enjoying the cooling night air. The dogs came bounding up eventually and after giving him slobbering kisses, took their usual positions lying on the deck beside him. Silence fell. The stars came out, twinkling silver against the black of the sky. Jeb sat letting the quiet and peacefulness seep into him. He was in a good mood. Content, even. Then, inevitably, his gaze was drawn to the light glowing across the valley in the window of Roxanne Ballinger's cabin. It was like a beacon in the night. One light shining out in a wall of blackness. His lips tightened. This used to be his favorite time of night, but now, now, he thought bitterly, it was the absolute pits.

  Chapter

  3

  Wearing only an oversized white T-shirt and sipping a glass of iced tea, Roxanne sat outside for a long time as darkness had fallen, just soaking up the tranquility, reveling in the refreshing coolness that had come on the heels of the setting sun. The rustling of the wildlife in the forest nearby drifted to her, soothing and thrilling at the same time. What was that sound? A fox? A raccoon? Or, she shuddered deliciously, a mountain lion? Maybe a bear? And the night sky above her. Breathtaking. Endless black velvet littered with millions of glittering diamonds. Below her, the lights of town gleamed and winked up at her, making her feel like an eagle in an aerie, staring down at the world. Her gaze drifted across the foothills to the east and she was delighted to spy a light halfway up the shadowy hillside. It gave her a feeling of intimacy to see that other light glowing in the vast darkness. My neighbor, she thought with a giggle, across the way.

  As the hour grew late, the coolness increased, and almost shivering, she went inside her cozy cabin. There was still no electricity in the cabin, but between her battery-operated lamps and the propane-run appliances, she had managed just fine. And her cell phone. Of course, she wasn't going to be long without power: tomorrow her brand-new generator was to be delivered, along with a second tank to hold propane.

  Snuggling down into the twin bed she'd set in the main part of the cabin, she went to sleep dreaming of all that she would accomplish the next day. And when the dawn broke, she bounded out of bed full of enthusiasm. A quick shower, a cup of coffee perked on the stove in an old aluminum coffeepot, a bowl of Total and a banana, and she was ready for anything. Today, she wore a pair of jean Capri pants and a white shirt sprinkled with blue forget-me-nots, her glorious hair neatly plaited in a French braid.

  It was still early when she took her second cup of coffee out on the deck and stood, admiring her views. The morning air was soft, the sky brilliant blue, and the mountains and foothills that surrounded the valley endless green spheres reaching toward the heavens. Delight welled up inside of her. She was so lucky! Putting down her cup, she did a little dance around the deck. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky!

  Humming to herself, she picked up her cup and walked inside. Finding the stack of CDs she brought with her, she rummaged through them until she found one by Cher. Putting it into the portable CD player, aware that there were no neighbors to consider, sheturned it up as loud as it would go. The cabin vibrating with Cher belting out “Half Breed,” “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” and a variety of other songs in that vein, she made her bed and cleaned the kitchen.

  With those chores done, the outside began to call insistently to her. She ignored the siren call for a while, but knowing that in a couple of hours the heat would be blistering, she went outside, unable to resist the urge a moment longer.

  Everywhere her eye fell, she could see labor—hard labor, and lots of money just pouring out of her checkbook, but it didn't deter her. She'd worked at the top of her game for years—with fees to match—and while she had lived well, she had also invested. If she spent wisely, she should be able to bring the place up to par—at least what she considered par—and with a bit of hoarding, still have a decent pad to keep the wolf from the door. She'd explained to her agent Marshall Klein that while she was more or less “retired,” she would do some charity gigs and if a really special job came up, and the mood suited her, she might accept it.

  Smiling, she wandered around the front of the cabin. Stepping back, she eyed it. She had plans for expansion, but she didn't want to lose the character of the A-frame. Sam Tindale, the architect Sloan had recommended back in early May when the offer she'd made on the place had been accepted, was coming up this afternoon with the final plans. She'd approached Sloan first, since he was an architect, too, but with an expression of horror on his handsome face, he had re fused. “Absolutely not,” he'd stated bluntly. When she'd looked hurt, he added, “Do you remember that tree house we built as kids?”

  “Yes,” she'd said slowly, the memory of their fierce fights on the way to go about it coming back. She'd even hit him with a board when he'd put a window where she hadn't wanted one. She'd grinned at him. “You're right. Our relationship will be much better if we don't work together.”

  He'd hugged her. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Escrow hadn't officially closed until last week—Aston had died in January and probate had taken time, but impatient as always, she'd set the paperwork in motion to start construction the instant her offer had been accepted. She had followed Tindale around as he had made the site inspections, sketching out the changes she wanted to make, and before she'd left for New York, he had magically transformed her ideas into reality—on paper. A contractor, Theo Draper, out of Ukiah had been chosen to do the work and he'd had the joy of dealing with the County Planning Department and getting all the permits. Roxanne didn't know how it had been accomplished, but to her delight, construction was to begin on Monday—and Sam and Theo had both warned her, that her real headaches would begin then.

  Telling herself that they were just exaggerating, she left off her contemplation of the cabin and walked to the greenhouses that were situated around a bend, out of sight of the cabin. She knew the general layout andboundaries of the land, but beyond the cabin, she hadn't paid a lot of attention to the outbuildings or the property i
tself, so it was all an adventure for her. She peeked in the biggest greenhouse, noting the gravel floor, the slatted wooden shelving that ran the entire length of the building, and the black plastic piping draped overhead. Had Aston really grown marijuana in here? It seemed kinda bold to her. Wasn't growing marijuana a clandestine occupation?

  Shrugging, she wandered over to the second building, discovering it was the same as the first, except smaller. Poking around outside, near the tree line, she found several half-used as well as new bags of chicken manure, peat moss, and some rolls of chicken wire. A dusty heap of tattered netting lay between the two greenhouses; closer inspection revealed that not only was it netting, but that it was camouflage netting. A lot of camouflage netting. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Aston had probably used it to make the greenhouses less noticeable from the air. Maybe he had been growing marijuana up here, Roxanne thought. Well, it had nothing to do with her. He was dead. She owned the property. And she wasn't, she muttered to herself, despite what a certain jerk in the sheriff's office might speculate, going to take up where Aston had left off.

  Her almost twenty-acre bench was irregularly shaped and not exactly flat. It rose and fell in gentle swales; in some places it was as wide as seven hundred feet or more, in others it narrowed down to less than two hundred. Sections of it were wooded and choked with brush, some were open, a couple were swampy and damp, others thick with the ever-present yellow star thistle, blackberry vines, the occasional bull thistle, poison oak, and a variety of wild grasses and weeds. Mostly weeds, she admitted, as she brushed off several tiny burrs that clung to the legs of her pants. Some people called them “stick-tights” but in her family they were known as “beggar's lice.” She hated them. And star thistle. And poison oak. Walking back toward the cabin, she tried to decide which one she hated the most. Hard choices—especially between star thistle and poison oak. She finally decided that star thistle had her vote as most hated. Poison oak at least provided habitat and food for the birds. Star thistle did nothing but ruin the grazing and choke out natural grasses.