All in One Place (15 page)

Nor did I want to see Jack getting pitched onto the ground.

Anneke nodded solemnly, and I gave her shoulder an extra squeeze just to underline my warning.

I held tightly to her and Carlene's hands, and this time not even a murmur of protest was forthcoming from either.

I may not have been a mommy, but I was getting this aunt thing down.

Nicholas was standing on a walkway that ran along the outside of a chute alongside the corral, his hands clutching the rough-hewn
wood of the fence in front of him.

As we took our spot alongside him, the beginnings of a squeal gathered in Anneke's throat, but I clamped my hand on her shoulder,
and she obediently choked it off.

And the score was two to one for the crabby auntie.

Sasha dropped down into the shade of the fence, her head on her paws, and emitted a sigh, disappointed in our lack of action.

“Horse,” Nicholas said, pointing to the horse that Dan and Jack were talking about. Jack held the reins in one hand, the other
rested on the horse's neck.

Jack gathered the reins, grabbed them and the saddle horn, and pressed his hands down on the saddle. The horse didn't flinch.
Then he put his foot in the stirrup and slowly put some of his weight on the saddle.

Bit by bit, he got the horse accustomed to more of his weight, each time getting off and then leading the horse around the
corral before he tried again.

The sun grew warm, and sweat formed on my hairline, bringing out the curl that I'd spent half my life fighting. But the scene
in front of us was hypnotically peaceful.

Finally, after a long stretch of slow movements, Jack lay across the saddle, slowly slipped one leg over to the other side,
and sat up straight.

The horse twitched her ears and gave her head a little shake, but didn't move.

“I think we're gonna be okay.” Jack's voice was a quiet rumble, and Dan gave him a gloved thumbs-up.

Jack gently nudged the horse in the flank, and she took a hesitant step ahead.

“Good girl.” Jack leaned forward and gently stroked her neck, then tried it again. And when he achieved the same result, praised
her again.

A few more tries and the horse was walking quietly around the corral. “She's doing well,” Jack said, throwing Dan a gloating
look.

“Don't rejoice too soon.” Dan leaned back against the boards, his arms crossed over his chest, his shirt still holding the
smudge of dirt from his dismount. “She's unpredictable. Could still get away on you.”

“She trusts me.” Jack patted the horse gently and kept her moving.

The only sound in the still afternoon air was the muffled thud of the horse's feet as they hit the ground, accented by small
puffs of dust. I caught a faint whiff of warm horse as a breeze teased the dead air, feather-light.

Jack looked at home in the saddle. And from the relaxed set of his mouth, at peace. He looked more cowboy than cop.

“You want to try to get her moving a little faster?” Dan asked finally, his voice slipping into the quiet.

“Patience never ruined a horse.”

Jack made a few more circuits of the corral, then gently eased himself out of the saddle and hooked his arm under the horse's
neck, patting it gently, talking to her in soft, low tones.

That was the first time in my life I'd ever been jealous of a horse.

“I'm thirsty,” Carlene whispered.

“Me, too,” Anneke chimed in. “Nicholas, are you thirsty, too?” she asked. “Do you want some juice?”

“Stay,” was his succinct reply, his eyes intent on Jack and the horse.

Sasha got to her feet, waving her tail expectantly. Maybe this time the humans were going to do something interesting, like
chase some cows or, at the very least, go for a walk beyond the boundaries of the yard.

“I'm taking the kids to the house,” I told Dan, trying to ignore Jack, who was now watching me. “Nicholas wants to stay.”

“Tell Les that we'll be coming in in a bit,” he said.

I herded the two girls away from the corral, escorted by Sasha, who ran on ahead, jumping up and down like a rocking horse,
her head twisting back to make sure we were still coming.

When she realized we weren't going anywhere near the driveway, she slowed her pace and dropped her head, telegraphing her
disappointment with our lack of vitality.

I stroked her warm, dog-smelling fur to make up for our deficiency. “Maybe some other time,” I promised her. “I'll come over
and we'll go for a long walk.” Still petting her, I looked past the farm to the blue mountains beyond, envisioning myself
walking over hill and vale, this faithful dog at my side. In my vision, I dangled a straw hat with ribbons that trailed over
the grass, a wide peasant skirt flowing in the wind as the dog frolicked beside me. I laughed and turned to the shadowy figure
at my side. Not too tall. Brownish hair. Hazel eyes. Long eyelashes. Deep voice, compelling in a rough kind of way…

Okay. Enough. I glanced guiltily around the yard for the girls I was supposed to be taking care of. There they were. Heading
up the sidewalk to the house, each holding a bouquet of dandelions.

I caught up just as Anneke pulled open the screen door.

“I got you flowers, Mommy,” Anneke called out as she toed off her running shoes and kicked them into a corner of the porch.

“Anneke went faster so she could be first,” Carlene grumbled, dropping onto the floor and yanking off her shoes. “She always
wants to win.”

“I bet if you put your shoes away nice and neat, that will make your mommy a lot happier than the flowers will,” I said, hoping
my feeble words would encourage her.

Carlene looked from me to the shoes as if weighing my authority on the subject. “Mommy says I'm a grub.”

Kathy wasn't too far off the mark, I thought, noticing the dirt smudges on Carlene's pants, the orange ring around her mouth,
and the tangles in her hair. I gave her a quick smile. “But I bet she loves you anyway.”

Carlene nodded, then with a sigh pushed her shoes into a cubbyhole. She grabbed her flowers and slowly got up. “You talk like
a mommy.”

My heart took a slow, rolling plunge, pulling my smile with it.

But Carlene was already heading into the house, holding her awkward bouquet and leaving me behind to deal with the pain of
her innocent comment.

I allowed myself a tiny sting of hurt before I pulled in a breath, conjured up the smile, and joined the party.

Leslie was putting Anneke's flowers in a vase when I came in. “How is Dan making out with the horse?”

“He bucked Dan off.”

“What? Is he okay?”

“I know a great orthopedic surgeon who will have those discs fused faster than you can say co-pay.”

“Did he swear?” Kathy put in with an expectant grin. Which, in spite of our earlier moment, made me laugh.

“Kathy, please,” Leslie protested, glancing at both Anneke and Carlene, crouched at their feet playing with the paper scraps,
as if assessing any potential damage to their delicate psyches.

“Not in front of the girls.” I shared Kathy's wink, eager to capitalize on this mini connection.

Leslie's eye-roll expressed her antipathy. “That guy. I thought he would have left bad language behind in Seattle with the
mechanic business.”

“I had pristine grammar until Nelson decided we needed beef cows to call ourselves proper farmers,” Kathy said, positioning
a picture on the page. “Of course he ended up getting cows other farmers brought to the auction mart to dump on some unsuspecting
slob, a.k.a. us. I felt like putting a Statue of Liberty up in front of our corrals… You know, ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…’”

“‘Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me…’” I finished for her.

Kathy's laughter created another shared moment. “Those homeless and tempest-tossed cows created a tempest in a tossed teapot.
Working with them was a time of testing for my faith.”

And there it was again. That oblique reference quietly creating a space that I didn't have the tools to bridge. The only faith
I spent any time on was not of the supernatural kind. I had faith that the bus would get me where I needed to go. Faith that
when I put money into the pop machine, I would actually get a can of pop. Of course that faith was sometimes tested, but not
enough to make me avoid pop machines or buses.

Shallow as I was, however, I knew this was not the faith that Kathy was talking about, or that Leslie now shared.

I hadn't bumped up against religion very much in my life, but since arriving in Harland, it had come at me from many and varied
angles. If I were a person who actually believed that God did, in fact, care about me personally, I might think He was trying
to tell me something.

Kathy glanced pointedly at her watch. “I should get going.”

“Speaking of time,” I said, “Dan said he and Jack were going to be coming in in a bit. I don't know how long that is, but
I suspect you do.”

Leslie sighed again, her eyes flicking to the clock. “Guess that means he'll want coffee.”

Leslie gathered up the pictures while Kathy sorted and stored.

“Anything I can do?” I offered.

“I want to help!” Anneke called out, jumping up from the floor.

“If you want to help, you have to wash your hands,” Leslie said.

“You may as well wash your hands, too,” Kathy said to her daughter. “We're going to leave pretty soon.”

“You come and help me, Auntie Terra,” Anneke commanded.

Though the bathroom was down the hall from the kitchen, I could still hear Leslie and Kathy talking. They had lowered their
voices, but I picked up a word here and there.

And then I caught Amelia's name, which sent my radar spinning.

While Carlene and Anneke let the water splash over their hands, I leaned closer to the kitchen, listening intently.

“So what's with Amelia Castleman's baby?” Kathy was asking. “That little tyke looks four months old.”

“There's definitely a problem,” Leslie murmured. “Malnutrition, developmental delays, but that's only a guess.”

“Every time I see that child, she's worse. I can't believe Social Services hasn't taken the little thing away from her.”

Here their words were drowned out by Anneke's and Carlene's chatter. I leaned closer.

“Without being able to run tests, I'm guessing she suffers from failure to thrive,” I heard Leslie say.

“That baby needs help,” Kathy was saying. “It just breaks my heart to see her so helpless and uncared for. I heard through
the grapevine that Amelia took her into a bar, leaves the baby in the car when she goes out. That girl definitely has a few
lumps in her Play-Doh. I don't know what Rod sees in her.”

I clenched my fists, fighting down the urge to barge into the kitchen and defend my friend. Sure, Amelia may not be the swiftest,
but all she needed was help and support. Not condemnation and judgment.

The slamming of the screen door announced Dan's, Jack's, and Nicholas's entrance, and Leslie and Kathy changed the subject.

Kathy was all packed up by the time I brought the girls back to their mothers clean and polished. Jack was seated at the table
while Dan rummaged through a drawer of the buffet, looking for something. Nicholas was unpacking a puzzle on the floor beside
him and Anneke ran to join him. Leslie was grinding beans, releasing the rich scent of freshly ground coffee.

She never ceased to surprise me. Four years ago she would have told Dan, in no uncertain terms, to make his own coffee, and
here she was, a June Cleaver for the twenty-first century.

“Hey, peanut. We should get going,” Kathy said to Carlene as she slung a large black bag over her shoulder. “Thanks for helping
her clean up,” she said to me.

All I could give her in return was a noncommittal shrug. I'd thought better of her until I heard her coldly discussing Amelia's
situation. I felt a tremble of sorrow that she could so casually discuss taking this baby away from her mother. Children needed
to be with their parents. Especially their mothers.

“You're looking very solemn,” Leslie teased as I pulled cups out of the cupboard while the coffeemaker gurgled purposefully
in the background.

“Life is very serious.” I caught a puzzled glance from Jack that pinned and held my own.

Relax. Breathe.

Jack was trained to observe and, I suppose, mistrust. I was becoming too involved. So I gave him a dual-purpose smile. One
that would send him off the scent and remind me to relax.

To my surprise, he smiled back, the faint lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes softening his expression. To my even
greater surprise, his smile sent a flurry of anticipation scuttling up my throat. Then my stomach fluttered, and while my
emotions were flitting about like deranged butterflies I realized what was happening.

In spite of my short but checkered past here in Harland, I could see that Jack was interested. And the trouble was, I was
becoming interested as well, reacting to his appeal in the age-old way of women of all ages.

Dangerous, problematic, and simply a bad idea for a slow learner like me.

“Are you going to put those cups out?” Leslie gave me a poke in the ribs that jolted me back into the moment.

“Actually, I figured if I frowned at them long enough, fear would send them scurrying to the table on their own,” I joked,
scrabbling for control, for humor, anything to deflect unwelcome emotions.

“Leslie, did you find a piece of lined paper on the counter?” Dan shut a drawer and stood up.

“No. Why?”

“It's my prayer.”

“Don't tell me you lost it again,” Leslie said as Dan yanked open another drawer. Leslie caught my puzzled look. “Dan was
asked to pray in church tomorrow, and he wrote out the prayer,” Leslie explained.

Dan crouched down by the desk in one corner of the kitchen, yanking open drawers and riffling through papers. “Are you sure
you didn't put it away?”

“I wouldn't dare even breathe on it.” Leslie poured coffee and rolled her eyes at the same time. “I thought I saw a folded-up
piece of paper in the upstairs bathroom.”