Next Comes Love

by Helen Brenna

  He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t keep his mind on the machine and had almost sliced the skin off several knuckles. The reason was undeniable. Erica Jackson. Her dark eyes, guarded and heavy with worry, haunted him. She was hiding something, and until he knew what, he wasn’t going to be able to get her out of his mind.

  His hold slipped and the post slid away, causing his arm to fall forward. Dammit anyway. He’d better quit while he was still in one piece. He switched off the machine and pushed his safety glasses onto the top of his head. So much for finishing off the table. He walked over to the laptop that he often kept in the small office off his woodworking shop and logged on to various databases to see what he could find on Erica Jackson.

  In Chicago, his resources had been virtually unlimited, but here he was on his own. He typed her name into his computer, figuring he’d check out Minnesota first since she’d claimed to have lived in northeast Minneapolis.

  His hand hovered over the return button as a silent debate echoed through his mind on the ethics of background checks given little or no cause. He’d told Lynn he’d back off, but what would be the harm in doing a background check? If the woman was clean, no harm done. If she wasn’t, he might be doing Lynn and Arlo a favor.

  Bang. Without another thought on the matter, he hit Enter and waited for the search information to pop onto the screen. One match. A woman in her forties. Too old. Maybe his Erica was from Chicago as he’d first suspected. He checked the Illinois and Wisconsin databases, as well as all the surrounding states. Still no matches in the correct age range. He tried various spellings. Nothing.

  Zach Jackson? He typed in the name. Several listings appeared, but none of the ages matched.

  Erica, if that was even her name, was lying. Why?

  He’d thought he’d shaken off Chicago, where armed robberies and murders were commonplace, but apparently Mirabelle alone wasn’t enough. A mysterious character stepping off the ferry was all it took to pop him right back into ready mode.

  On impulse, he picked up the phone and dialed his old partner. John Wilmes answered on the first ring. “Hey, John. It’s Garrett.”

  “Garrett who?”

  “Smart-ass.”

  “Ah, Garrett Smart Ass. I remember him. Tall, dark and stupid. Not that I’m still harboring ill will about him deserting me or anything.”

  “How you been, buddy?” Balancing the phone between his ear and shoulder, Garrett proceeded to clean wood dust out from under his nails with a metal file and then slathered on heavy lotion. Working with wood sucked every last bit of moisture from his hands.

  “Same old, same old. Everything messier and nastier than the day before. And that new partner they saddled me with? I hate training in these green boys. We need you, you know? No one else around has your intuition.”

  Intuition was a nice, sugarcoated way of describing Garrett’s ability to think like the lowest scum of the earth. John’s comment, the one that’d had Garrett interviewing for this job a year ago, ran through Garrett’s mind as if it was yesterday. Damn, G.T., you think just like them. Good thing you’re on our side.

  Except that Garrett had stepped one and a half feet over the line onto the lawless side on too many occasions. The last time, he’d set out to kill a man and had about finished the job.

  “When you coming back?” John asked.

  Garrett wasn’t leaving Mirabelle. This place spoke to his soul in a peaceful, quiet way. Working as a part-time cop and a part-time wood/construction worker was exactly what he needed to keep the demons away. And the setup here—ten acres with a split log cabin and a detached garage—well, he couldn’t have asked for more.

  Although the original house had been built in the ’20s, subsequent owners had added on several rooms and a loft and then gutted and remodeled the entire interior. The utility building was perfect for a woodworking shop. It was well insulated, had its own furnace and was big enough for not only all of his machinery, including, amongst other things, saws, sanders, routers, but also the stock of wood that he’d been buying for years in the hopes of some day designing and building his own furniture.

  “I’m serious,” John said. “We need you here.”

  “Yeah, like a hole in the head.” Garrett had never been a by-the-numbers police officer and his chief had made it clear he wasn’t all that broken up about Garrett leaving the CPD. “I come back,” Garrett said, “and in a couple months time, they’ll be putting me behind bars.”

  “You’re not the first cop to go vigilante, and you won’t be the last.”

  “I won’t cross that line. Not again.” Breaking the rules was one thing. He’d run into a lot of situations that didn’t fit the standard operating procedures, but it had scared the shit out of him, discovering exactly what he was capable of, getting a good look at the ugliness inside of him. Here on Mirabelle, he could forget what he’d almost become. He could force himself into a pure and virtuous mold, and no one was the wiser. “That’s the nice thing about Mirabelle. The worst I have to deal with up here is shoplifting or a bar brawl here or there.”

  “Four more years, three months and fifteen days until Sally and me are joining you up there in God’s country. You better start scoping out the houses for us.”

  “This island isn’t big enough for the two of us.”

  “Well, between now and then, you’re going to have to make room. Now, whaddya want?”

  “Checking up on a couple new residents. Erica and Zach Jackson.”

  “Runaways?”

  “No. Mother and son. Mom’s probably in her…” Garrett paused, picturing Erica in his mind. It was easy to do. She’d pretty much consumed his every thought since she’d stepped off the ferry. “Mid to late twenties. Early thirties at most.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “Nothing.” That’s exactly what Garrett had on Erica. He drummed his fingers on the battered desktop. He couldn’t peg her and call it a day, that’s what bothered him more than anything. Dammit to hell. Mirabelle was making him soft. He hadn’t even noticed whether or not she’d been wearing a wedding ring. She had a kid, so there had to be a dad. Where was he? Divorced? Uninvolved? Dead?

  “Let me check into it and get back to you,” John said. “It’s going to take a while, though. We’re swamped down here.”

  “Get to it when you can. Appreciate it.” Then there was the boy’s bruise. “Tread lightly, John, okay? I don’t want you bringing attention to them if it turns out they’re running from someone.”

  “IT’S NOT THE END OF THE world.” Erica stood next to Jason in front of the elementary school their first morning on the island. “We’re just here to check it out today, okay?”

  After sleeping in quite late, they’d stopped at Miller’s, the combination ice cream parlor and coffee shop for a muffin and juice for Jason and a double latte for Erica and had then set off for the school. They’d found the one-story tan brick building that looked as if it’d been built in the sixties, up the hill beyond the chapel, exactly where Arlo had said it would be. Now Jason only stood there, frowning, something Erica had seen far too much of these past few days.

  “What do you want me to do,” she said, “homeschool you?”

  His glance was hopeful.

  “Don’t even think about it, kiddo. You’d be going to school if you were back home, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So this is what your mom would want,” she whispered, pulling his baseball cap lower on his brow. “Right?”

  He nodded again and dropped his gaze to the sidewalk.

  “Then let’s go.” She held the door open and they found the office on the right.

  The secretary, a grandmotherly sort, glanced up and said, “Can I help you?”

  Erica froze without a clue what to say.

  “You two must be new to the island.”

  “Um…yeah. Zach and I…just moved to Mirabelle. How do I go about…?”

  “Enrolling him in school?”

  �
�Exactly.”

  The woman explained the process while piling up paperwork. “Just fill all this out and bring it back as soon as you can.”

  Erica took a quick glance at the information required on the forms. She was going to have to lie through her teeth and hope these folks wouldn’t complete too deep a records check before school wrapped up for the year.

  “We don’t live or die by policy here on Mirabelle, though,” the secretary went on to explain. “We’ll get your son into his classroom as soon as you’re both ready.”

  The principal came out and introduced herself, and Erica and Jason were given a tour of the building, which included meeting the woman who would be Jason’s teacher, Hannah Johnson.

  “Good to meet you.” The teacher smiled and shook Erica’s hand. The woman was blonde, blue-eyed and could have been the poster model for cute as a button. As opposite from Erica as sunshine from rain.

  Jason hung a sullen step or two behind Erica.

  Hannah knelt down. “Hi, Zach. I’m looking forward to having you in our class.”

  He never said a word, not even when his soon-to-be teacher gave him an information sheet to fill out so she could get to know him better. As they finished and headed back toward the entrance, classes were being let out for lunch and a rush of students flooded the halls.

  A small boy, who looked to be no more than Jason’s age and who wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention, ran headlong into Jason, knocking him down.

  “Hey!” Erica grabbed the kid’s arm and held him back. “Watch where you’re going.”

  “Oh, my gosh!” A perky-looking young mother came running toward them through the front entrance. “Is your son all right?”

  Jason looked shaken, but no worse for wear. Erica helped him up. “You okay, kiddo?”

  He nodded, refusing to look at the other boy.

  “Brian, tell him you’re sorry,” the woman said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m Sarah Marshik.” She held out a manicured hand. “This is my son, Brian. I have lunch with him once a week.”

  How very motherly of her. “Erica.” What was their last name again? “Jackson. This is…” She couldn’t seem to say the words my son. “Zach.”

  “You got to the island yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Erica nodded, feeling rather dowdy next to Sarah. Wearing a gorgeous wool coat over a silk shirt and dress pants, the woman looked as if she should be trolling the designer shops on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago.

  “I was grabbing something to eat at the Bayside Café when you got off the ferry,” Sarah explained. “Have you found a place to live?”

  “Yeah,” she answered reluctantly. The last thing Erica wanted was to make friends on this island, but the more she fit in the better she and Jason would disappear into the fabric of this foreign land. “One of the apartments above the pub.”

  “I’m down the street from you. On Main. Brian and I live above my flower shop.”

  They stood in silence for a few moments, before Sarah said, “Well, if Zach’s looking for someone to play with, or for that matter—” she grinned and dug around in her purse “—you need some flowers or even a wedding planner.” She handed Erica a business card. “Give me a call. That’s my home number, too. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  Sarah and her son were heading down the school corridor toward the lunchroom when Erica realized there was something this woman might be able to do for her. “Hey, Sarah?”

  The woman turned.

  “Can you suggest a babysitter? I’m going to be working for the Duffys and may need someone to watch over Zach here and there.”

  “Oh, that’s a tough one,” Sarah said, frowning. “There are several teenagers on the island, but a couple troublemakers in the bunch.” She wrote names on her card and handed it back to Erica. “Try these two, but I’d love to do some kind of playdate trade-off with you. My shop is open every day of the week and it’s always hard keeping Brian busy.”

  “Okay.” What would Marie say? “Once I get my work schedule, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Great!”

  As Sarah turned around, Erica glanced down at Jason. He was leaning against her, resting his head against her thigh and looking not a little conflicted as he watched Brian heading into the lunchroom, holding his mother’s hand.

  “I want to stay with you,” he said.

  A sense of complete inadequacy rushed through her. What could she say? What could she do to help ease his fears? “I know, kiddo.” It was sorely inadequate, but all she had. “Come on. Let’s explore the island a little and then get some groceries before we head…home.”

  Such as it was.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HAVING FINISHED A short shift at the station, Garrett changed out of his uniform and into work clothes and climbed the steps to the second floor of the Duffys’ building. He knocked on the door to Erica Jackson’s apartment. No answer. After knocking again and still not getting any response, he let himself in with the key Lynn had given him when she’d hired him to repair the storm damage.

  “Hello?” he called after cracking open the door. No response. They had to be gone. He stepped into the apartment, leaving the door open behind him and looking around. Unable to snuff his cop’s curiosity, he checked out the bedrooms. One suitcase sat open on the floor in each room. Two suitcases for an entire summer. Could be they traveled light or couldn’t afford much, could be she was lying about staying, or it could be they’d left wherever they’d come from in a hurry. The answer to that question would shed a distinctly different light on Mirabelle’s newest residents.

  The bigger suitcase was probably Erica’s, and he probably had time to shuffle through the contents. He ran a hand over his face, debating. Oh, hell. Knock it off, G.T. Having John check for criminal records was one thing, but Lynn was right. Unless this woman and her son did something to warrant closer examination, he had no right violating their personal space.

  He walked back out to the living room and went to work. He was on the ladder, tearing down the damaged sections of Sheetrock on the ceiling and wall when footsteps sounded on the metal steps in the alleyway.

  On hearing her hesitate at the open door, he spun around and called out, “It’s just me.” She’d hung back and he couldn’t see her. “Garrett Taylor. Doing some repair work.”

  Keeping Zach firmly behind her, she moved into the doorway, her arms loaded down with grocery bags. As soon as she saw him, she said, “It’s okay, Zach. Come on in.”

  As she stalked into the kitchen the boy followed, carrying his backpack and a baseball bat. Looking fairly miffed, she set the bags on the counter. “What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”

  Everyone’s carefree attitude on this island had been hard for him to adjust to, as well, so he did his best not to study her every move, not to read into everything she said. “Sorry if I scared you. The Duffys hired me to repair the damage from last week’s storm.”

  “I thought you were the police chief.”

  “That’s only a part-time job on Mirabelle. I do construction work on the side.”

  Her expression said she was trying to make sense of something.

  “The Duffys told me to let myself in. That okay with you?”

  “You mean, you have a key?”

  He almost laughed at the look of disbelief on her face. “It seemed the easiest thing to do. No one was living here when I started the repairs. If you want—”

  “Yes, I do want,” she said, unloading the groceries. “Give it back to them, please.”

  “I’ll leave the key with you.” Even if she was now living on Mirabelle, where some residents still didn’t lock their houses before going to sleep at night, he couldn’t blame her for being careful.

  “I want you—” She stopped, seeming to check the attitude. “I’d like you out of here by six.”

  “Can do.”

  The boy watche
d him for a moment, a look of serious concentration on his face. “Zach,” she said, “Come sit up here and let’s do that information sheet they gave you at school while I make us some dinner.”

  The boy hopped up onto the stool at the counter, and Garrett went back to ripping out the damaged parts of the ceiling and wall. Behind him, he heard her banging around in the cabinets. She was still royally pissed. Much to his surprise, he found himself enjoying making her mad. It sure seemed easy enough to manage.

  Before too long, she was chopping something. In the small apartment, the smell wafted up to him within seconds. Onions. There was the sound of a pan being set on the stovetop and then sizzling. More chopping. Tomatoes. Simmering in the pan. Then something frying. Italian sausage.

  The smells brought him back to his mother’s kitchen. He hadn’t had many home-cooked meals since she’d passed away a few years back. Oh, he’d been to his married brother’s house for holidays and such, and his sister-in-law was a wonderful cook, but nothing ever tasted the same as Mom’s. He’d even tried re-creating a few of her recipes himself. He might be able to work magic with wood, but he was crap in a kitchen.

  Now garlic and fresh basil. His stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten anything since meeting Herman at the sandwich shop at Rock Point Lodge earlier in the day and it was now close to five.

  Covers slid on top of pots, and then he heard her talking quietly to Zach. “What do you want me to put down for this question?” she asked.

  He glanced behind him to find her leaning over Zach and writing on a piece of paper on the counter. “That’s a good answer,” she said, rubbing his shoulders.

  It was an intimate exchange and caught Garrett completely off guard. He went back to work, wondering how people managed being parents, let alone good ones. What if he turned out like his own father?