FOR A WEEK or two, Neely seemed to have disappeared. She didn’t come in the bar, didn’t bother either Sid or Dakota, wasn’t seen around town. Dakota wondered if all that had been required was for him to be very stern, very unapproachable. He did check around his cabin for signs of footprints, tire tracks or other disturbances, and he looked through his surveillance video. He looked quickly, but he looked.
“She doesn’t live in Timberlake,” he said to Sid. “Maybe she’s wandered off to greener pastures.”
“Didn’t she say she was invested in businesses around here?” Sid asked.
“Yeah, she said that,” he answered, smiling. “So what? She said a lot of things.”
“I’m going to look up business licenses in Timberlake,” Sid said.
“Would that necessarily show you investment partners?”
“I’m very good,” she said. “If there’s a record, I can find it.”
“Let’s not obsess about this. I just want her to go away without leaving a trail of destruction.”
“And I want to be ready, if she happens to come back. She hasn’t bothered your sister, has she?”
“I’ve only seen Sierra twice since the Fourth. She was fighting off some stomach thing and said not to come near her in case she was contagious, but she’s fine now. You ask me? I think she’s exhausted. Sam is awesome but he’s a handful. He’s crawling. And waking up very early in the morning and not wanting to go to bed at night.”
“We all need to get together,” she said. “Maybe on the weekend?”
“Sure. But I have to tell you, I really like being in a routine with you. We can both work, see each other regularly, there haven’t been any surprises...”
“It’s only been a little while.”
“But it’s been good,” he said. “What would you say if I told you I don’t need much more than this to be completely happy for the rest of my life?”
“I’d say, I’m not ready to talk like that,” she said.
“All right. But can I talk like that?”
“You said you weren’t ready to put down roots.”
“I’m pretty surprised by how much I enjoy being around Cal and Maggie and Elizabeth as well as Sierra’s sudden family. I kind of feel like this place is peaceful enough to calm the inner beast. I could live and work here. I’d like to see this place in winter. Do you ski?”
“Me?” She laughed. “You saw the leg, Dakota. I missed that stage.”
“I could teach you. I bet Rob and the boys ski.”
“You want to haul trash for the rest of your life?” she asked. “Because I don’t want to be a bartender forever.”
“What do you want to be?” he asked.
“I have a few other skills. In fact, my old boss called me. I’ve been trying to help him with a programming issue long-distance but I think I should go back to my old lab, work with him for a few days. It would be good in a number of ways. It would tell me some things about myself—like how over it am I? Do I really want to move on to something new? Am I fully healed from my bad experience and my awful divorce?”
“Tell me the truth, Sid—do you need to find out if you should run away from me?”
“Oh, Cody, no,” she said. “You’re the best guy I’ve ever had in my life! Not that there were many. I’m so crazy about you. It’s just that... Well, there’s just this one thing. I don’t want you to rescue me.” She put her palms on his cheeks. “I want to rescue myself.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure I get it.”
“I know,” she said. “I can’t really be with you until I’m sure of who I am. And who I am is more complicated than you realize.”
“Try me,” he said. “I come from a wacko family, my sister is in the hospital on drugs to calm her frazzled head, I’ve been in military jail—you have no idea how much I can understand.”
“Kind of a dramatic résumé, now that you mention it,” she said.
“Sid, that has nothing to do with you and me...”
“All right, take it easy,” she said, smiling. “I think it’s a good idea for me to go back to California and work with Dr. Faraday for a few days. Maybe a week. I should take a look at my old job, my past friends. I’ve talked with Rob. He’s trying to work it out with the other night manager. It won’t be for long and I will talk to you every day.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In a week or two. When Rob has the schedule worked out. This is a good time—the kids aren’t in school and they’re helping out in the kitchen almost every day.”
“The best piece of news in this is that I don’t think Rob can manage without you,” Dakota said. “That’s good for me.”
* * *
It took a while for Tom and Lola to work out a time when Tom might catch Trace alone. July was already in its fourth week and it was hot, even in the higher elevations. It was steamy but the forest was brittle.
Tom sat outside on Lola’s porch. Trace was due home from his job at Rob’s bar and had told his mother he was going to get together with a few friends that night to play baseball. It was his typical routine. If Trace worked days, he played ball at night, and if he worked nights, he played ball during the day. Whatever the schedule, he played ball. It made Tom smile.
Trace came up the walk, shirttails hanging out and shoes unlaced. He’d generally graze from the fridge, drink some water, make a quick change, grab his glove and bat and head for the park. Tom stood.
“You looking for my mom?” Trace asked.
“No, she’s working at Home Depot tonight. I was waiting for you. I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes.”
“Why?” Trace asked.
“I got the idea we have one or two things to work out,” Tom said. “Come on, give a guy a break. Sit down here.” He lifted one of two bottled waters on the small outdoor table that separated two chairs. “Here. You look a little dry. Take a load off.”
Trace, reluctantly, it seemed, sat down. Tom reclaimed his seat. “Let me start out by saying, I love your mom a lot but we’re not going to rush you. I can tell you’re pretty worried about us combining households. You’re probably wondering where you fit in if we turn into one big family. We don’t have to do that right away. We have lots of time. We want you to be ready.”
“You said fall,” Trace said. “When school starts...”
“That’s not carved in stone, Trace. If you’re not ready, we can wait.”
“But you want to live together.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tom said with a self-conscious laugh. “It’s amazing to love a woman like your mom and have her love me back. I never thought I could be this happy.”
“And everyone else is okay with this idea of all of us living in one house?”
“Some more than others,” Tom said. “Nikki wants to move to a dorm in Denver at the big campus and she is definitely not excited about sharing a room with her younger sister. Zach, on the other hand, is aching to get closer to Jackson’s stuff, but Jackson is looking for a footlocker with a lock on it. I don’t think Jackson or Cole care what we do—they’re not planning on living with their parents much longer, anyway, but they still need a place to stay when they’re not at school.”
Trace was quiet for a long moment. “I’ve lived in this house almost my whole life. Since I was five, anyway. I don’t remember the house we lived in before.”
“You boys and your mom have been here a long time. Is that what bothers you? Not having this house as an anchor?” Tom asked.
“Sort of,” he said with a shrug. “Or maybe it’s that we’ll live in your house.”
“Ah. That makes sense. Can you think of it as your mom’s house?”
“Listen, man, I like you. You’re a good guy and I know you like my mom. I don’t have any problems with that. It’s just that this is where we live. Where we’ve always lived. And I don’t want to move. That’s all. It’s not personal.”
“Gotcha,” Tom said. “You planning to live with your mother the rest of your life?” he asked.
“No!” Trace said. “Until I get my own place, that’s all!”
“When you’re...like...twenty-six?” Tom asked.
“I just turned eighteen! Hopefully I’ll be living in my own place by the time I’m twenty-one.”
“So if we could wait three more years to get married and move in together...?”
“But then I figure me and Cole will come here for holidays and stuff,” Trace said.
“Oh, I get it. So you want this house and your mother to stay the same until you decide you’re done. With it and with her?”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“Can you be a little more clear about what you mean?” Tom asked. “Because Lola and I decided from the start, our kids come first. We don’t want to rock your world too much, so if you’re going to get sideways about us getting married and living in the same house, we’ll just wait until the idea is more acceptable. But it would help to know what it is you need. So we can try to make it happen.”
“I should be talking about this with my mom,” Trace said.
“Then why haven’t you done that? Because I think your mom is worried. She’s ready for a positive change. Both of us are. I got divorced a long time ago, too. We’re both ready to have a steady shoulder to lean on. Someone to talk about the checkbook with, someone to divvy up chores with. Oh, and your mom has been dying to buy a fixer-upper, remodel and sell at a profit—use all the skills she’s learned working at Home Depot. And I’ve done that twice. We thought if we plan right, we can turn our partnership into a business, too. We’d love to do that. We’re a lot alike—we both have worked as many jobs as it takes to keep our families afloat and we’ll continue to do that.”
“So what’s the big deal, then?” Trace asked.
Tom took a drink of his water. “Well, the big deal is, it’s hard to love someone and not get to see them. When you live in separate houses and you work a bunch of jobs, just finding the time to talk is a challenge. Naturally we’d like to lie down together at night, wake up together in the morning. We’d like to be able to share our days while we do the dishes or spend a couple of hours in front of the TV just not talking. That’s all. We don’t want to inconvenience anyone. We just want to spend time together. Quality time. But...” He stood up. “We took an oath. Our kids come first. We’ll be patient. Would you do us a favor, though?”
“What?”
“Would you talk with your mom about this? Tell her your honest feelings? She really needs to know how you feel.”
“Why don’t you just tell her?” Trace asked.
Tom shrugged. “I might not see her for a couple of days. She’s working and I’m working and we have two houses and six kids to take care of. I’ll try to remember to, but she’d probably appreciate it more if it came straight from you.”
“Okay,” he said weakly. “Sure.”
“Thanks for being honest with me, Trace,” Tom said. “See you later.”
“Yeah,” Trace said.
Tom started down the walk and then he turned. “There is one more thing. I’d consider it a privilege if you could accept me as your stepfather. We couldn’t do this if we didn’t care about each other’s kids. Your mom is really looking forward to having daughters. It would make me proud to add you and Cole to my family. Just so you know.”
Trace didn’t say anything.
Tom didn’t really expect him to.
* * *
“Do I thank Sid for this born-again Dakota Jones?” Cal asked.
“Born-again?”
“You’ve gone from the AWOL Dakota Jones to Dakota the family man.”
“No, it’s not Sid’s doing,” he said with a laugh. “It could be, if she’d give in a little.”
They were in Dakota’s Jeep, headed for Denver. It was Monday, Dakota’s usual day off. Maggie wasn’t due back in Denver until Wednesday, so she stayed home with Elizabeth; they were going to Sully’s, where Maggie would help in the garden and Elizabeth would probably eat dirt.
Sedona had been released from the hospital and was staying at Maggie’s for a couple of days. Bob had come to Denver to check her out and fly home with her, but her brothers asked if she could stay long enough for them to see her.
“Sid is definitely one of the things holding me in Colorado,” Dakota said. “It hasn’t been very long for us but I like it. Don’t get too excited. She’s going to string me along for a while.”
“And why is that?”
“I guess she wouldn’t mind me telling you. She went through an ugly divorce and is coming up a little short in the trust department. She’s not inclined to bet on a man.”
“Especially one she hasn’t known very long?” Cal asked.
“I’m starting to think the longer we’re together and the better she gets to know me, the more it terrifies her. She’s going back to LA sometime soon to give her old boss a hand. But I think it’s more than that. As far as I know she hasn’t been back since Rob brought her out here. I bet she wants to know if there’s anything about that old life she misses.”
“Any worries that she’ll move back?”
“I have no idea.”
“And if she does?”
Dakota sighed and concentrated on the road. “I’m not likely to give up easily.”
“You seem altogether different than the man I thought I knew,” Cal said.
Oh, really? Dakota thought. I ran away from home, spent a lifetime in the Army, went to war a bunch, lost the love of my life to a terrorist, went to jail for a while... Why would I change?
“There are things you don’t know about me,” Dakota said. “I’ve been too private. There was a woman who changed my life.”
He told Cal about Hasnaa. They talked all the way to Denver.
Cal looked at Dakota’s profile.
“You can start over and enjoy a happy life. Look at how things have turned out for me. I lost Lynne but then I found Maggie. I guess you thought that only happened to you, huh?”
“If you tell me it happens to everyone, I’m going to be very disappointed. I think I’m special.”
Cal laughed. “I hope Sid takes pity on you, because I like having you around. Never thought it would happen,” Cal said.
* * *
Sedona greeted them at the door. Though it was July, she wore slacks, a sweater set and fashionable leather flats. From the time she discovered life after the farm, she opted for country club casual clothing, never jeans. While Sierra still wore jeans with tears in all the right places, Sedona always looked like a schoolteacher.
Cal and Dakota took their turns hugging her. She touched her hair and said, “I haven’t had a proper hair color in quite a while and I’m getting gray.”
“You look great,” Dakota said. “Let’s get some coffee or something. Then you can tell us how you’re feeling.”
Bob came from the kitchen to shake hands with the men. He thanked them again for all their help, especially in finding Sedona.
“Sierra couldn’t come with us,” Dakota said.
“She called. She said the demands of the new addition to their household has her running low on energy. I’ll catch up with her when we’re both doing better,” Sedona said.
They all sat at the kitchen table with coffee and some bakery coffee cake that no one touched. Dakota tried not to look too hard at Sedona but his dark, heavy brows betrayed his emotions. She seemed fine, but every action and movement was as if she’d just awakened from a nap.
“It’s going to take a little time for Sedona to get used to the medication. It may even have to be adjusted. But as Sedona tells it, she doesn’t feel any inner turmoil,” Bob said.
“What do you feel?” Cal asked.
“I feel a little too calm. I guess that’s the medication. The one thing I fear the most,” she said, “is that everyone thinks I’m crazy.”
“Anxiety isn’t crazy,” Cal said. “As Maggie explains it, it’s a chemistry thing—some people’s serotonin levels are wacky and that can cause depression or anxiety or any number of things. So there are medications to manage that.”
“I don’t have much anxiety, but I now have depression,” she said.
“There’s a process,” Bob said. “Sedona is going to come home, see a psychiatrist for her medication and a therapist for her counseling. It’s not going to be a quick cure—she has spent way too long fighting her fears. She needs a rest.”
“You look a lot better than you did the last time I saw you,” Dakota said. “But different. I don’t know what’s different.”
“This is how you look when you realize you aren’t losing your mind. And I haven’t had a panic attack in quite a while. They’re terrible.”
“I’m sure they’re terrible to have,” Bob said. “They’re also terrible to see. More than once, I found her curled up in a corner, sweating, crying, talking to herself.”
“I went to a doctor several years ago, and after telling him about Jed and answering some questions, he said I was obviously schizophrenic. He put me on a heavy medication and I got worse. I could hardly get out of bed and then I was hallucinating.”
“That set us back about five years,” Bob said. “And everyone jokes about OCD but the real thing is no joking matter. Half the time Sedona couldn’t sleep because of anxiety and the rest of the time it was because canned goods that weren’t alphabetized were dancing in her head.”
“Everything had to be my routine or I couldn’t function. I’ve never been good with change...”
They talked for a while about her plans. Sedona and Bob were going to fly home the next day. The talk of separation was off the table for the time being, but Sedona said she understood that if she stopped taking her meds or attending therapy sessions, Bob wasn’t making any promises.
“But we’re going to communicate better,” Sedona said. “I can’t risk staying with a bad practitioner just to keep the peace when the outcome could be worse.”
After an hour or so, Bob left to get some sandwiches.
“Cal, I owe you for putting your foot down and confronting me. At the time I hated you, but I’m glad you called Bob. And, Dakota, I still can’t believe you left your job and devoted yourself to searching for me. I don’t know what might’ve become of me if you hadn’t done that.”
“You must have been so scared,” Dakota said. “I couldn’t sleep at night, thinking of you living in a box under a bridge.”
She laughed. “With all my scraps alphabetized? It’s more likely you’d have found me hiding in some store or warehouse, curled up in a sweaty ball, after I’d organized everything.”
“It’s good you’re doing better,” Dakota said.
“We’ll see how much better I am when I’ve been home awhile. I’m afraid I’ve hurt my family.”
“Listen, you did your best. You had issues, but you tried. Sometimes you have to accept nobody’s perfect,” Dakota said.
“Even me?” she asked with a sly smile.
“Sedona, the problem isn’t that perfectionists are hard on themselves,” Cal said. “They’re hard on the people around them. When I talked to Bob he said he’d be happy to hang all the towels with a level and alphabetize the canned goods, but whatever was happening to you was much more serious than that. He was terrified. He loves you.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I hope he can forgive me.”
Dakota was quiet a moment. “For better or worse,” he finally said. “Most couples have plenty of both.”
* * *
Connie took some personal time from his shift to go home. With any luck Sam would be napping and he could have a serious talk with Sierra. But he found them on the floor together, playing.
“Aw, you hoped to hit naptime,” she said with a sly smile.
“I did, but not for boom boom. I want to talk to you.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, pulling Sam closer, into the little hollow made when she sat cross-legged.
“Yes, Sierra, something is wrong. You’ve been a little off for about a month. You might be anemic. Or maybe you have some infection or something that just isn’t taking hold. Or maybe it’s something scary, like fatigue syndrome. I don’t have a clue. I started looking on the internet—there are about a hundred possibilities. But we’re done screwing around with this. I made you an appointment with Dr. Culver. She’s at the urgent care clinic down the road from the firehouse. She’s new around here and really nice—you’ll like her. She’s going to draw some blood, get some lab work, see if she can figure out what’s going on. Hell, you could have some heart infection or kidney disease making you weak and tired.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were so worried.”
“I’m not exactly frantic, but I suggested a checkup about fifty times and you didn’t do anything. So I made you an appointment. Tomorrow, when I’m off. I’ll take care of Sam.”
“Okay. I guess that’s completely reasonable. But I bet there’s nothing wrong. Just, you know, the occasional bug I don’t quite get over before it hits me again.”
“Right. That was one of the things the internet didn’t turn up. That kind of occasional, uncertain bug. So you’ll see the doctor tomorrow morning at ten. But first,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a long, slim box. “This.”
She took the box from him. “A pregnancy test? But I haven’t even been late!”
“It’s the first thing the doctor is going to check.”
“I’m on the pill! I’ve been completely regular!”
“Just go pee on it and remove the question from my mind,” he said.
“But we’ve decided to adopt and foster on account of—”
“That’s fine, if it works out that way. For right now you act like a woman with a little touch of pregnancy. So pee!”
“But, Connie, I’ve had all my periods, right on time, everything is—”
“I want you to do this,” he said. “Do not make me squeeze you over that stick!”
“Jeez,” she said. “Don’t get all testy, okay?”
He reached for Sam. “Now,” he emphasized.
“Fine. But you’re going to feel silly.”
“I’m very good at that,” he said.
With a surly huff, she got off the floor and disappeared with the pregnancy stick. Connie held Sam on his lap. “Here’s the deal, bud. When you sign on with us, that means I’m your dad. That means you’ll have to count on me as the one who teaches you about women—how to understand them, how to talk with them, how to negotiate with them, how to make things work with them. And as you can see, I’m a little dense about that. Your mom is teaching me the rules. I’m slow to catch on but I’m getting there. By the time you really need to know, I’ll be a damn genius.”
Sam gurgled and flashed his big toothless grin.
A bloodcurdling scream came from the bathroom, causing Sam to jump, his eyes as big as hubcaps. His lower lip quivered. Molly jolted in her sleep and sat up, one ear flopped inside out.
“That could be a bad sign or a good sign, depending on your perspective. Let’s go see.”
Sierra was sitting on the closed toilet lid, her arms crossed over her knees, the test stick dangling from one hand. Her head was down and she was crying. She lifted her head when she heard Connie open the door. “Oh, Connie, what will we do?”
“I’d like to start by talking about it,” he said.
“How did this happen?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s not like we screwed up, Sierra. You were on the pill.”
“Maybe I got befuddled with all that was going on. I missed a couple, so I took them when I remembered and not at the same time every day. But I thought we were good.”
“It’s okay. This is a good thing.”
“Sam is only six months old yet and here I am—”
“We’re going to be busy,” he said.
“We’re going to do this?” she asked. “Are you saying we should do this?”
“Come here, Sierra,” he said. “Come on, honey.”
She went to him and he enfolded her with Sam into those big fireman’s arms, kissing her cheeks and eyes. He drew her backward until he was sitting on the edge of the bed, Sierra on his lap and Sam on hers. “I’m saying we should do this. I’m saying it’s ours, it came out of us, came out of our lovemaking, came out of our love for each other. It wasn’t planned, it’s going to be inconvenient, but we can manage. Lucky for us, we can manage.”
“But you agreed, the risk of schizophrenia...”
“I agreed that if you found having children a little too frightening given your father’s disease, I can live with that. But see this little guy right here? Our little guy? He came out of a smashed car. There are a lot of risks, honey. Parents have to be brave, strong and smart. I think we’re up to it.”
“Oh, Connie, I’ll worry all the time. Not only is there mental illness in the family, but addiction!”
“I think the last statistics I read, addiction touches every family. Thank goodness you’re an expert on it. So, don’t be afraid. We’re going to raise Sam and he’s going to have a little brother or sister.”
“I told you,” she said. “You’re taking a big chance on me.”
“I don’t regret it one bit,” he said. “You feel like shit sometimes because you’re pregnant. You’ve had morning sickness and you’re fatigued. You’re going to have a few more complaints along the way, too. But all in all, it’s going to be awesome. I love you.”
“You are too good,” she said, stroking his cheek.
“Apparently I really am too good,” he said, grinning. “I blew right through birth control pills and nailed an egg.”
“Please don’t get all cocky,” she said.
“Too late. I’m feeling very invincible right now.”
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now I think we convince Sam to take a little nap and get busy.”
“But I’m pregnant!”
“I hear it’s even better that way.”
“Well, me getting accidentally pregnant sure hasn’t diminished your sex drive!”
“It has not.”
“I don’t think he’s ready for a nap,” she said.
Sam yawned so big his open mouth almost swallowed up his face. He put his fist in his mouth and his head on Connie’s shoulder. “That’s my son,” Connie said. “He’ll be asleep by the time I get my boots off.”
Sierra took the baby to his room. “I’m not sure I’m in the mood,” she said as she was leaving.
“That’s my favorite part,” Connie said. “Getting you in the mood.”