He studied her one last minute, that storm that was part clarity, part confusion, still in his eyes. He finally dropped his hands and took a step back, as though making himself create distance between them. “Good night, Corie,” he said and walked away.
“Good night, Ben,” she whispered after him. She closed the door.
* * *
BEN SAT AT the kitchen table with a cup of tea and looked over the information Will Fennerty had printed out for him. The folder held news of the mayor’s election almost two years ago and his choice of Roberto Pimental as deputy mayor. Several residents had written letters to the editor disputing the need for one in a town as small as theirs. Another letter cited the mayor’s health and questioned why he was elected when he required another person to help him do his job. A moot point, since the election had taken place.
Ben frowned over the casual government in Querida.
There was an editorial in which Will asked for proof of the deputy mayor’s salary. A pay stub in a very reasonable amount had been provided. There was an article about Corie’s arrest for assault along with a photo of the deputy mayor with a cut lip and a gash above his right eye.
The reporter repeated Corie’s claim that Pimental had tried to force sexual favors from her for his assistance in helping Teresa fight eviction. He also repeated Pimental’s denial and insistence that she had offered him sexual favors. Pimental had decided not to press charges and denied having seen the delivery person who claimed to have witnessed his advances.
Pimental removed parking meters in the downtown area just before last Christmas, which had resulted in a hail of letters of praise. “He’s doing a fine job.” The remark, from the proprietor of a downtown business, seemed based exclusively on the parking meters.
Fennerty had also included a printout from the local town government website about operational protocol relating to a deputy mayor. Several sentences were underlined. “The deputy mayor does not become mayor if a mayor resigns. The council selects a new mayor by majority vote if there is a vacancy. The deputy mayor serves only during the absence or temporary disability of the mayor.”
The mayor hadn’t officially resigned, according to Will’s note, but an absence of more than a year and a half was considerably more than temporary. So, he really had no right to be in office?
There was an item several years old about Gil Bigelow’s appointment as chief of police. A sticky note attached to the article by Will said that he’d tried to find a connection between Pimental and Bigelow but had been unable to so far. He was still investigating.
Unfortunately, Ben thought, most of the information related to what Pimental had done in public. What they needed to know was what went on behind closed doors.
And could Pimental possibly be related to the necklace that had showed up on Corie’s pillow? He and Tyree were cronies, but would Tyree have told him he’d gotten the jewelry back and was defrauding the insurance company? And, if so, did either man know that Corie had taken the jewelry in the first place?
Ben closed the folder, put it in his bag and went to his makeshift bed on the floor, distracted from his concerns about Pimental by the memory of Corie’s kiss. That was a more pleasant thought to sleep on.
* * *
IT WAS HARD for Ben to imagine that children would find pea gravel so exciting. Teresa had gone Christmas shopping and Corie had ordered the children, just home from school, to remain near the back door under pain of dessert deprivation for a lifetime. “And I’m not kidding!” she added forcefully when Soren and Carlos grinned.
The boys sobered instantly and watched with the other children in complete fascination as the dump truck tilted its red box and dropped a large mound of gravel. The driver moved the truck forward, then jumped out and ran to the controls at the back to increase the angle of the box so that it dumped another load right in front of the other. He repeated the process several more times until a long, four-foot hill of gravel stood in the middle of the backyard. The children shouted and applauded. The driver took a bow, handed Ben the bill, climbed back into the cab of the truck, righted the large red box and drove away.
“That’s so cool,” Soren said. He turned to Ben. “Can we climb on it before you spread it out?”
Corie turned to Ben. She still had a little trouble looking at him after their kiss last night, but he met her gaze evenly, as though he thought of nothing else but keeping her charges safe. He knew she wanted to tell the children they couldn’t but apparently hated to deprive them of fun. “Is it safe?” she asked.
He didn’t know how to answer that. He wouldn’t have thought a pile of gravel could hurt anyone, but since watching these children at play, he’d learned that their creativity could make a feather and a cotton ball into dangerous threats. “I’ll be right here,” he promised. “Give them half an hour on it then I’ll start smoothing. But we’ll set a few rules.”
“Fine. I’ll stand by just in case.”
He tried to mimic her firm expression and no-nonsense voice as he turned to the children. “You can stand on it, slide down on it, but no burrowing into it. Everybody got that?” He frowned fiercely. He could see them meeting his eyes and trying to determine just how serious he was. He didn’t flinch.
“Okay,” Soren finally said. “On it and down it, but not in it.”
“Right.”
“Got it.”
The children ran toward the pile of gravel screaming like a military force taking a hill. Later, Ben and Corie had to extend the time limit to an hour because the kids stuck meticulously to the rules and were having so much fun.
“Who’d have thought?” she asked, leaning toward him.
He caught a whiff of her cherry blossom/ginseng shampoo.
“That the gravel would be as much fun for them as the playground equipment? Maybe you could have saved yourself a lot of money.”
He smiled without taking his eyes off the kids. “Wait till the set gets here. It’s pretty cool.”
“Oh, no. I have to start honing my carpentry skills for Monday, right?”
“No,” he replied. “My partner on the police force has a couple of weeks off and he’s coming to help.”
She turned to him in surprise. “He has a couple of weeks off and he’s coming here to do manual labor with you?”
“The woman he loved is marrying someone else. He’s happy to be able to get away. It was come here or go with his mom and her sisters to Reno.”
Corie frowned. “Poor guy. Where’s he going to stay?”
“I got him my old room at the B and B. You’ll like him. He’s a great guy. His parents taught at an American school in Europe, then his father died and his mom wanted to move back to Oregon to be near her sisters. Grady came along to spend a little time to make sure she was going to be all right. He fell in love with Beggar’s Bay. He’s been there five years.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m disappointed that I don’t have to help you measure and hammer. But I will help you spread gravel. There are a couple of rakes in the shed.”
“Thank you.” He pointed toward the children. “You ready to break this up? You’re better at laying down the law than I am. I have to act tough.”
“But, you’re a cop. Don’t you lay down the law every day?”
“Sure, but adults are easier to intimidate.”
* * *
THE PLAY SET arrived on schedule Monday morning in four giant boxes. Corie gathered with Ben, Teresa and the younger children on the back patio to watch the delivery. Corie had driven the older children to school earlier.
Ben asked the men to place the boxes near the gravel base she’d helped him prepare. His friend Grady Nelson was due to arrive tomorrow and Ben planned to go through all the pieces today to arrange them for a more efficient assembly.
“I can’t believe all you’ve do
ne for us.”
Corie had heard Teresa say that to Ben at least half a dozen times.
Ben’s reply was always the same. “I’m happy to.”
“But we’ve completely sidetracked you,” Teresa said. “You came here for a purpose, but you’ve spent all your time working for me and the children.” She indicated the enormous boxes sitting to one side of the yard. “There’s no way we can set it up without you, but once that’s done, you have to concentrate on what you came to Querida for.”
“I’ll get to that,” he said with a smiling glance of warning in Corie’s direction. He went to talk to the driver, signed paperwork and handed back the clipboard.
“I think Ben came for you,” Teresa said to Corie, giving her a maternal smile.
“He did, but not for the reason you think.”
Teresa herded the little ones into the house, Corie hiking Roberto onto her hip.
“Maybe the reason’s changed,” Teresa said. “You have to be open to that in life. Things start out one way and, before you know it, everything’s different. That can be okay. You have feelings for him, don’t you?”
“I do,” Corie admitted with a wide smile as Teresa took Roberto from her and put him in his playpen. “Frustration, exasperation, annoyance...”
She gathered dishes off the table to put them in the dishwasher. The arrival of the delivery trucks had interrupted her morning cleanup.
“He puts up with you, too.”
“Not without a lot of flak.” Teresa beckoned Bianca to the little rocker beside Roberto and put on the children’s favorite morning television show. They immediately began bouncing with the music.
“Corie, your being here has been wonderful for me. Like having a daughter. And you’ve made things so much easier. Still, this is my life. You have to find yours.”
“Well. You made life possible for me. If you hadn’t taken me in, I don’t know what would have happened to me. So I’m happy to be here.”
Teresa held her hand tightly and looked her in the eye. “I want you to reconnect with your brother. You should go to Oregon when Ben goes home and make a new life there.”
“Out of the question.” Corie dismissed the very thought by going back to the dishwasher. She continued to load then put in soap. “I don’t fit in there, Teresa.”
“You’d fit in anywhere now, Corie. You just have to want to.”
Life in Oregon with Ben and the Palmers. It was a nice thought but probably more in the realm of a fairy tale. For a while, at least, she had to focus on reality.
CHAPTER TEN
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON Ben cut open boxes and sorted lumber. Teresa took the younger children to town to see Santa, and Corie, who should have been helping Ben, looked through the box of treasures from her adolescence.
She and Cassie had been in touch through email then, and she’d used the library’s computer to read Cassie’s letters and then print them out. She’d taken them with her when Juanita sent her to Marta’s. They’d been in her backpack when Marta hadn’t fed her for two days because she’d talked back to her and then run away to Querida.
Teresa had bought her a pretty box for her letters and the one photo her sister had sent her via snail mail.
It was a simple school photo. Cassidy had been ten years old and in the fifth grade. Corie smiled over it now. Cassidy had large teeth with a space between the front two, a wide smile unembarrassed by the gap, and blond, bushy hair. Her eyes were bright blue, almost cobalt, and her smile said she was loved.
Corie remembered how happy she’d been when Cassie had started writing to her. She’d said her father repaired corporate software and had found Corie’s father, Miguel Ochoa. Then Corie’s father had died and all the awful things happened when Corie turned twelve. Cassie had moved to Paris, Corie had run away from Marta and she and Cassidy lost track of one another.
Once in Querida, Corie had used Teresa’s computer to email Cassie at the old address but the message had bounced back. She’d tried the snail mail address, hoping mail was still being forwarded, but her letter came back with Not At This Address stamped across the envelope.
Corie should be able to find her now. Jack had found Corie.
She read through the letter that said Cassie and her father were moving to Paris. Cassie had been both excited and afraid. “I mean,” she wrote, “boys are hard enough to deal with in English!” Corie smiled at the notion that sparkling, gap-toothed Cassie had been interested in boys.
Ben walked in, snapping her out of her trip back in time. He was sweaty and a little grubby, and went to the front window to look out, wiping his hands on a rag. Then he came to stand behind her. “I thought you said you’d help me sort lumber. What are you doing?”
“Rereading Cassie’s emails,” she said, holding up the photo. “This is what she looked like at ten years old. She told me they were moving to Paris, but not where, precisely.”
“Did you try just putting her name in White Pages or People Search?”
“Yes, a while ago. But I got nothing.”
“Her father’s name was Chapman. Did you try that?”
“Yeah. Jack told me. Still nothing. Apparently he was, maybe still is, an IT person. It’s possible he knows how to make himself invisible.”
Ben puzzled over that. “True, but not necessarily the way to go if you’re in business. Unless he works for a company and doesn’t have to get his name out there in search of clients.”
Corie read from Cassie’s last letter. “‘Dad got a job with a company that installs and repairs computers. I forget the name. It’s something French and German.’”
“When we get home tonight,” Ben said, “we’ll download a list of all companies in Paris that have anything to do with packaging or installing or repairing computers to see if we can come up with a name in those two languages.”
A loud knock on the door made Ben straighten. Corie’s heart skipped a beat.
Ben opened the door and a tall, blond man took one step into the house and shoved Ben backward. Ben grabbed him by the shirtfront.
Corie was on her feet in an instant. Bigelow had sent someone to hurt Jack for interfering with Bigelow’s attempt to evict Teresa. She leaped onto the intruder’s back, wrapping both arms around his neck, knowing it would give Ben the opportunity to take his best shot with his fist.
She was completely surprised when absolute silence fell over the room. The man she held didn’t struggle though she gripped him tightly. Ben released the man’s shirt and reached over his shoulder to lift Corie’s chin with his forefinger. She looked up from her fierce hold to see Ben bite his lip.
“Corie,” he said. “This is Grady.”
Too shocked to do anything, she continued to grip his friend. Ben walked around behind her, put his arm between her waist and Grady’s back and peeled her off.
“Grady Nelson,” he said, pulling her forward to introduce her, “this is Jack’s shy and retiring little sister Corie Ochoa. Corie, Grady Nelson.”
Corie closed her eyes, sighed, and when loud laughter erupted, opened them again. She apologized to Grady with a wry smile. “You shoved him,” she said by way of explanation as he and Ben continued to laugh. “He grabbed you. I thought you meant him harm.”
“And you wanted to help him?” Grady looked from Corie to Ben. “Wow. I want a woman like that.” He rubbed his neck and cleared his throat exaggeratedly. “Much as I’d love to cause trouble for Ben, I did agree to come help. Off the job, Ben and I always greet each other with hostility. It’s tradition. We’ve been fighting over which one of us is the toughest since we were partnered up in Beggar’s Bay.” He smiled at her. “I promise, though, to never do anything to upset you. I have a feeling you’re tougher than Ben and me put together.”
Corie reached out to shake his hand. “Hi, Grady. By wa
y of apology, I’ll get you some coffee. Please sit.”
He was very interesting-looking, Corie thought, surreptitiously watching him and Ben reconnect like men who’d worked together for a long time. He was a shade taller than Ben and leaner, with burnished blond hair that waved a little over his left eye. He had a couple of days’ growth of beard, and very pale eyebrows over green-gold eyes.
She brought them coffee and a plate of cookies then picked up her box of treasures and left the room to see if the latest load of laundry was ready to fold.
* * *
“WOW,” GRADY SAID to Ben. “So, that’s Jack’s little sister, though not yours. Lucky for you. She’s beautiful and is willing to defend you like a bodyguard.”
“I’m supposed to be hers.” He gave Grady a brief version of Corie’s dealings with Pimental, Teresa’s problems with Bigelow and touched lightly on the stolen jewelry Grady had mailed for him when he’d gone to visit Celeste in Seattle.
“Tyree was on the news, claiming when he received the box, it was filled with junk jewelry. Corie thinks he hid the real jewelry and is trying to cheat the insurance company by pretending that what he got in the mail was intended to taunt him. Someone broke in here the other night while she was at work and put one of the necklaces that supposedly hadn’t been returned on her pillow.”
“Why?”
“Hoping she’d get caught with it, maybe.”
“Where is it now?”
Ben slapped the side pocket of his jeans. “Always with me. Anyway, I’ve been taking her to work and picking her up. She’s a little prickly and not taking the notion of protection very well.”
Grady nodded. “Now I see why you thought it would be good to have another cop around. Is there no law enforcement in this county?”
“Not that’s honest. At least, not that we know of. The chief’s daughter’s boyfriend is the cop who responded to the break-in. Seemed nice enough, but whether he’s honest or not remains to be seen.”
“There’s always the attorney general’s office.”
To Love and Protect Page 10