A Late Hard Frost

by Stephanie Joyce Cole

  She nodded.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’ll come back in a couple of days and we can talk again. Maybe I’ll have that information from Chicago. And maybe you’ll have some new ideas we can explore.” He tucked his notebook into his satchel and stood up. “I want you to call me if you need anything, anything at all.”

  From the open doorway, she watched him walk slowly back to his car and drive away. She stood there for a while, letting the warmth of the spring sunlight wash over her. She was surprised to realize that she was a little sorry to see him leave.

  ***

  When he came back, three days later, she was loading a bisque kiln, carefully stacking the fragile greenware on the layers of shelves, while the score to Madame Butterfly soared from the speakers mounted in the corners of the cabin. She didn’t hear him arrive, and she jumped, startled, and dropped a bowl when his face popped into the frame of a nearby window, one of his hands waving frantically to her. Amazingly, the bowl rolled around on its rim and didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces, and she picked it up carefully, putting it on the table before answering the door.

  He stood in the doorway, carrying a large, black briefcase and a white paper sack. She realized he was waiting for her to invite him in, but it took her a moment to bring her mind into the present. When she worked, her mind flowed to another place where time and distractions didn’t exist. The only thing that mattered then was the joyful challenge of the task at hand.

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. “Come in, please.” He grinned and limped his way to the table. She moved to turn off the music. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “No worries.” He handed her the paper sack. “I, ah, brought something for you. Well, maybe for us, if we have some tea.”

  Cass peered into the bag. Blueberry scones from The Twins, so fresh that their buttery, doughy fragrance wafted upwards. Her favorite.

  “I love these. How…how did you know?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I asked Sally. I figured she might know, and she said right away you always ordered one of these.”

  Cass bit her lip. It was thoughtful, of course, but it also meant that Sally now knew that there was some sort of connection between her and Ryan, and Sally was a gossip. Cass worked so hard to keep herself apart, to keep everyone else out of her world. Everyone but Nick, of course.

  “Did you say anything to Sally about…?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  “Oh, no, of course not. What we talk about is completely confidential.”

  She believed him, but she was still uncomfortable. She turned to the kitchen counter and fumbled with the lid of the teapot, giving herself time to regain her composure. Ryan sat down, leaned his cane against the table, and pulled a file out of his briefcase.

  “I don’t have a lot to tell you. There were five convictions from the incident in Chicago…”

  The incident. She understood he was trying to be tactful, but that stung.

  “…Two of the perps are still behind bars. I’ve been able to locate two of the others. They’ve been reporting regularly to their parole officers, and they’re both employed, a long way away from here.”

  He shuffled his papers. “The fifth isn’t accounted for, at least not yet. He hasn’t been showing up for his parole meetings, and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. But honestly, that’s not unusual, and doesn’t mean there’s any connection between him and what’s been happening here. Chicago is a long way from here.”

  She brought the teapot and two cups over to the table, nodding as she sat down across from him. They sat silent for a minute, sipping from their cups.

  “These are beautiful,” he said, holding the cup up and away from him.

  She smiled. The cups were a new design, subtly flared and glazed in translucent blues and greens. She’d worked hard to get the rims just right, smooth and thin, perfect for sipping. She broke off a corner of the scone in front of her, realizing that Ryan’s presence made her slightly uncomfortable. His coming here, bringing the scones—the dividing line between the personal and the professional was a bit too blurry. Well, if their conversations were truly confidential, she could fix that.

  “Ryan, I should tell you…well, I think you should know that I’m pregnant.” Her voice came out too loud. She looked straight at him as a subtle shadow passed over his face, and was gone.

  “I mean, I know it has nothing to do with this…case. I haven’t told anyone yet. I just thought you should know.”

  You should know because I’m not available. Really not available.

  “Sure.” He swallowed, then nodded. “I understand.”

  She thought he’d probably leave then, but he reached over and poured himself more tea. “Well, all the more reason to get to the bottom of this situation then. So you don’t have to worry anymore.”

  He said the words stiffly, but then he smiled again, and leaned back in his seat. “Congratulations.”

  They sat in awkward silence. She waited for the question that she was sure would come next, about the father, about Nick. Over by the counter, Cat mewed and circled his food dish.

  “Have you been a lawyer a long time?” It was a strange segue, but she was desperate to say something.

  “Not really. I came to it a bit late.” He shrugged. “This leg,” he tapped his right leg, stretched long under the table, “shattered into nine pieces in a diving accident when I was in college. I was actually training for the Olympics. There was a big question about whether I’d walk again. It took two years of PT to get me back on my feet, and I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do, and I figured out that I wanted to help people.”

  “Really,” he said sheepishly, “You’ll laugh, but I decided I wanted to make wrongs right. Guess I’m just a Sir Galahad with a bad limp. Luckily, you can sit down most of the time, in courtrooms.”

  He shook his head, and a clump of his blonde hair fell over his forehead. He pushed it back with his long fingers, and one strand looped like a cartoon talking balloon over the top of his head.

  “I guess I should go,” he said, reaching for his cane.

  “I have some tuna made up.” She blurted the words, then she felt hot warmth rise in her face. “I mean, if you’d like to stay for some lunch. I could make some sandwiches. It’s a nice day. We could maybe sit outside.”

  He grinned at her. “That would be great. And while you do that, why don’t I make us some more tea?”

  Chapter 13

  Nick frowned as he tried to turn the doorknob. Cass’ front door was locked. That was new. It wasn’t unusual for her to be out when he stopped by, since most of the time he didn’t call first and he dropped in at different times, depending on what else was happening in his day. But the door was always unlocked, and sometimes she left a note on the kitchen table, letting him know where she was going and when she’d be back.

  Not that he disapproved of this new development. In fact, it was probably a good idea. He’d been more rattled than he’d let on about his tires getting slashed. Vandalism happened everywhere, he guessed, but somehow this attack on his truck seemed particularly malicious, maybe because it had been done in broad daylight. It was so in-your-face. Maybe it was time to start locking doors, taking precautions, even in Homer.

  He stood on her front porch, rocking back and forth on his heels, thinking. He wanted to talk to Cass about Cindy and Kevin before she heard it from someone else, and so he needed to find her soon. It was Wednesday, and she often stopped by the gallery in the middle of the week, to check on inventory. But then these last two weeks she’d asked him to drop some pieces off there instead of going by herself.

  He rubbed his forehead. When he had gone by the gallery last week, Moira hadn’t been full of her usual chatter. She’d taken the pieces with a cool smile and a polite thanks and walked away. Maybe there was some problem between the two women, but Cass hadn’t said anything about it, and she told him everything.

  She might be
carrying her phone, though she forgot to take it with her half the time. He pulled out his cell and dialed her number. He shook his head as he stared across the meadow, noticing the glint of dew in the shadowed hollows the sun hadn’t yet reached. She lived so much in her own world, and that seemed enough for her most of the time, but this baby—what was this baby going to do to all of them?

  “Nick?”

  The sound of her voice brought him back to the present. “Hi, Cass, I was just stopping by to see you. Are you nearby? Are you busy?”

  He could hear the smile under her words as she answered. “I’m just done at the post office, and I’m starved. Can we have lunch? Maybe out at Sandringham, instead of The Twins, just for a change?”

  “Sure.”

  ***

  She was relieved that she’d made it to the restaurant a few minutes before him, because she needed a little time to pull herself together.

  Her decision to stop at Safeway on the way to meet Nick was a last-minute impulse. She was a bit early and she wanted to pick up some apples and cat food. The store aisles were almost empty, and it didn’t take long to find what she needed and head to the register. When Johnnie, the bagger who was there every day, offered to carry out her groceries, she tried to wave him away, but he was already heading out, her bag in his arms. She shrugged and followed him to her jeep.

  Cass paid little attention to Johnnie as he slouched across the parking lot, his shoulders hunched forward on his lanky frame, the Safeway bib flapping around his body like a loose second skin and his big feet, housed in dirty, old sneakers, slapping the pavement as he walked. She was thinking about Nick and wondering if today, maybe today, they would talk about what they were going to do.

  She must have caught a toe on a bit of pavement, because suddenly, without warning, she was falling to the ground. It all happened so fast. Her feet swept out from under her, and she toppled sideways, her red coat swirling around her. And Johnnie, somehow Johnnie had fallen too, or maybe she had tripped him as she dropped, and he ended up on top of her. In the muddle of their efforts to break their falls, Johnnie reached over and grabbed at her, and his hand pushed right into her left breast. Even through the fabric of her thick coat, she felt a shudder of violation and a quick flame of furious anger. She slapped his hand away, hard, as he stuttered an apology and backed away from her on all fours, in a crab walk. She pulled herself to her feet and knocked away the bits of gravel that had imbedded in her palms when she’d tried to avoid the fall. Johnnie was continuing to apologize as he scrambled around her, trying to recapture the wayward apples. His face was so red it was almost purple, but she caught a glimmer of a grin on his face too, there quickly then gone.

  It was just a stupid accident. After all, she’d gone down first, tripping over her own feet. No real harm done, except for a few scrapes on her hands. Johnnie probably did think it was hilarious, after all, but she so hated to be touched, especially intimately, even though it had been unintentional, just the clumsiness of a bumbling grocery clerk.

  Johnnie was standing in front of her, holding the now ragged paper bag out toward her. “I can get you fresh apples, Cassandra, if you’d like. These are probably bruised now.”

  She snatched the bag from him. It had been a stupid little accident, but she didn’t have it in her to be gracious. She drew herself up tall, feeling her face carve itself into the sharp planes of the cold Snow Queen. “No, it’s fine. Just fine.” As she turned to go, tossing her grocery bag into the jeep, she wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard him snicker.

  ***

  Cass was waiting for him at a corner table. He liked the yeasty, bustling atmosphere of The Twins most of the time, preferring its sticky resin tables to Sandringham’s white tablecloths, but this was a quieter place to talk.

  He kissed her quickly on the cheek, sat down, took a deep breath and waited until the waitress with the starched apron took their orders. As soon as the waitress moved away, he jumped right in. “I got quite a surprise at The Twins. Cindy, my daughter, showed up. Found me when I was grabbing coffee. Turns out she’s been in town for a week. And to top that, she has a kid—my grandson. Four years old.” There, he’d blurted it out.

  Cass frowned at him across the table, her forehead wrinkling. “Did she come up to see you? I thought you hadn’t talked to her in years.”

  He held up his hands, palms upright. “I had no idea they were coming. They’re in some sort of trouble, mostly money, I think, and I think I’m the place of last resort. They didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He dropped his hands to the tabletop. “I’m letting them stay at the cabin, and I’m bunking on the boat.”

  The waitress strolled over with a tuna melt for him and a steaming plate of macaroni and cheese for Cass. Cass ignored her plate and leaned back in her chair.

  “You don’t have to stay on the boat. You could always stay with me, you know.”

  A heavy silence settled between them. It hadn’t even occurred to him to stay with Cass, but it had immediately occurred to her. He picked up a half of his sandwich and put it right back down on his plate.

  “Cass, you know, we’re going to have to figure this out.”

  He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat and sat up straighter in his chair.

  “You’ve made your decision. This baby is coming. We haven’t talked about how it’s going to be, between you and me. I told you I’ll be there for you, and you know I mean it. I’ll take care of you. But I need to know what you want.”

  The waitress strolled over to refill their coffee cups. Cass’ face had gone dead white. She stared at him for a few seconds, absolutely still, then pulled her coat around her and stood up.

  “We’ll have to talk later. I’m not feeling very well. I’m going home.” She brushed aside his offer to drive her, and held up a hand to stop him from getting up to walk her out. “Please stay here. I’m fine. I just need to get home right now.”

  He sat in front of his untouched sandwich and watched her through the window as she hurried to her jeep, her long red coat flapping in the cold breeze. Damn. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had said wrong, but he’d obviously put his foot in it, once again.

  ***

  Cass fought against the imminent onslaught of tears as she slammed the jeep door shut and pushed her key into the ignition. She needed to get away from there, and fast.

  The way he’d looked at her across the table, with concern, with caring, yes…but not with love.

  How could he not know what she wanted? How could he not realize that they needed to make a family together, that this was what the baby was all about?

  And now, his family, his other family, had showed up on the scene. He would need to take care of them. Sure, he wouldn’t forget about her, he was too good a man, but he had all this guilt about Cindy. He’d told her about his past, after all, how he’d failed Cindy, unknowingly abandoning her to an abusing stepfather. And now a grandkid, too? What was going to be left of Nick for her? A white-hot streak of rage surged through her. She shouted curses at the road ahead. Why couldn’t he see how it should be?

  She pointed the jeep north down the highway, away from Homer, and pushed down hard on the accelerator. An icy rush of wind poured through the open windows and whipped her hair into her face. She gave up on fighting away the tears and let them come. She felt so very alone, so very lonely. There was no one for her to confide in, no one to help her figure all this out.

  As a sob broke deep in her throat, she knew what she desperately wanted, right now. She wanted to talk to the only person who might be able to understand, but she couldn’t. She wanted to talk to Merry.

  Chapter 14

  “Found one!”

  Sabrina triumphantly waved a broken shell over her head. Merry pulled the fat-wheeled cart towards her, its contents of shells, stones, clumps of seaweed and other found objects rattling in the wagon bed. She stared into Sabrina’s palm. “Yep,” she said. “That’s a good one. R
eally does look like a heart.”

  Sunshine glistened on the wavy indentations carved into the wet sand bar by the outgoing tide. Their footprints and ruts from the cart’s wheels wound down the long beach behind them. Sabrina dropped the shell into the wagon, humming a lively tune under her breath as she brushed the sand from her hands. She turned and hopped on one foot further down the soft dome of the bar, her sneakers squishing, her arms waving wildly to keep her balance.

  Merry smiled. They were both having fun. Sabrina didn’t get time away from Willy very often, and Merry could tell she was relishing her little bit of freedom. It was almost like they were playing a game. Scary had again roped Merry into helping him with his latest project, tasking her with finding objects shaped like hearts, flowers and skulls. These he would arrange, he explained, on a flat boat built of driftwood, and then he’d float the loaded boat out to sea on an outbound tide. This would occur after a sunset ceremony about which he was currently very vague. When Merry had asked about the significance of the three categories of shapes, Scary had been vague about that too. No doubt the point of the project would emerge at some point, perhaps only right before the ceremony. Or perhaps the event would never happen, since Scary abandoned about half of his art installations mid-stream, losing interest in them or perhaps, more accurately, just finding something else that interested him more.

  Merry turned to scan the wagon’s contents. Heart shapes they had in abundance, as long as the shape didn’t have to be perfect. Some of the swirls in the smaller pieces of driftwood really did look like flowers. But skulls—nothing so far.

  She rubbed her hands together, wishing she had brought a pair of gloves. The afternoon sun offered some warmth, but her fingers were chilled to the bone from digging out wet shells and stones poking out of the sandy muck. She didn’t want to suggest they go back yet, though. She loved seeing Sabrina this way, carefree and coltish.