Return to Oak Valley (18 page)

The sound of the crash brought several people running to the site, including Jeb. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the scene. Shaking his head, he glanced from Danny lying supine on the floor to Shelly's and M.J.'s laughing faces in the window.

“I should have known,” Jeb said, a twinkle in his eyes. He shook his head again. “I don't even want to know what went on.”

He turned and walked away.

“Hey,” yelled Danny, a good-natured grin on his face, “there's an officer down here. Aren't you going to help me?”

Jeb kept on walking, saying over his shoulder, “Run along now, children, and try not to play too rough.”

Danny looked over to Shelly and M.J. “Good one, Milly,” he said as he stood up and began to pick up the scattered bags of chips. “I owe you—big-time.”

“No. And don't call me Milly. You know I hate it. We're even now. You've been creeping up and scaring me for months. You deserved it.”

Danny laughed. “I guess I did, but that doesn't let you off the hook.” His face twisted maniacally, his hands formed claws, and in a deep, threatening voice, he intoned, “You'll never know a moment's peace from this day forward. Be warned—when you least expect it, I'll strike.”

Melissa-Jane wrinkled her nose at him. “Go away. Some of us have work to do. And clean up that mess you made.”

Grinning, she slid the window shut and slumped down in her chair. “Wasn't that great? Did you see the expression on his face? God! I thought I'd die laughing.”

Shelly chuckled, nodding. “I know. I haven't seen him move that fast since we stirred up that nest of ground hornets when we were ten.”

M.J.'s expression grew wistful. “We had some good times when we were kids, didn't we?”

“Yes, we did. And if today's exhibition is any indication, I'd say that some of us haven't put childhood far behind.”

M.J. laughed. “Ain't it grand? I've been racking my brain forever to come up with a way to even the score, and Saturday, when I was in Ukiah, I happened to park in front of this party-supply place. I noticed that they had costumes, and when I spied the gorilla mask…” She grinned. “The rest is history.”

They talked for a few minutes longer, then regretfully, Shelly stood up, and said, “Well, I'd better let you get back to work.”

M.J. made a face, and Shelly felt a pang of guilt. Running the store took up an exorbitant amount of time, and M.J. had mentioned once that a ten-hour day was considered a short day for her. As for a day off…ha! She often worked twelve-and fourteen-hour days and had forgotten what a weekend was like. M.J. tended to grab an hour here or there and it had been one of the reasons, Shelly knew, that she'd been glad of her visit.

“You're probably right,” M.J. admitted. “I've got a ton of stuff to do.” She brightened. “Things have been a little slow lately though…maybe I could sneak off for a couple of hours or leave work early. You want to get together and go out to dinner Saturday night? I could introduce you to the nightlife of St. Galen's.”

“What? Drinks at the only bar in town and then dinner in one of the two greasy spoons? Or were you thinking of hitting Joe's Market for Mexican food or the Burger Place for burgers?”

“I'll have you know that we at McGuire's now offer fine take-out dining. You can choose from a selection of fried chicken, fried burritos, fried wontons, fried potatoes, and whatever else the meat department has fried up this week.”

“Er, has the word
cholesterol
entered the vocabulary of any of Oak Valley's residents?”

“Probably, but some of these old cowboys would die before they admitted that they actually watch what they eat. Seriously, these days the store does a great roast chicken, and on Friday nights, we've even done a prime rib and some tri-tip roasts. Oh wait. I have an idea. I could get off Saturday afternoon, grab something for us to eat, and we could take it with us and go for a ride up to the old homestead.” The telltale flicker of pain in Shelly's eyes made M.J.'s face fall. “Oh, Shell, I'm so sorry. I forgot. That's where he did it, wasn't it?”

Shelly forced a smile. “Forget it. I think that it would be an excellent idea to ride up there. I have to go up there sometime. Why not Saturday afternoon?”

“Are you sure? It won't give you the whim-whams or anything?”

“Listen, if spreading his ashes didn't bother me, at least, not as much as I feared, going to the cabin shouldn't be so terrible. Besides, like I said, I have to go up sometime, and seeing it with a friend might make it easier.” Shelly frowned. “Although I better check with Maria to see what condition the place is in.” A thought occurred to her. “I wonder if the sheriff's office is through with it?” She looked troubled. “Maybe the cabin isn't such a good idea. If it hasn't been touched since Josh…”

M.J. gave a delicate shudder. “I agree. He wasn't my brother, and it'd freak me out to walk in there and see bloodstains or the chalk marks outlining where his body fell.” Aware that she had put her foot in her mouth again, M.J. said wretchedly, “Oh, shit, Shelly. I am so sorry. Me and my big mouth. I didn't mean to conjure up all the ugliness.” She grimaced. “I was trying to make it better, and I only made it worse.”

Shelly smiled, albeit with an effort. “That's OK. I have to get used to it. And I am dealing with it. I can talk about him now without bursting into tears—most of the time, but it's still hard.” She shook her head. “Sometimes, I wake up at night and think that it's all been a bad dream and that Josh is going to come through my bedroom door with a mug of coffee in his hand and tell me to get my lazy rear out of bed.”

Melissa-Jane groped for the right words. She hated seeing that tragic look in Shelly's eyes, she didn't know what to say, but she couldn't stand the awful silence either. Rushing into speech, she said, “I know. I couldn't believe it when I first heard the news. He just never seemed like the kind of guy to do that sort of thing, and at the cabin at that. But then again maybe it isn't so strange he did it there. It's just
when
he did it that got me. I mean, if he'd done it right after—” Appalled at where her rambling tongue had led her, M.J. stopped in midsentence, her face the picture of appalled guilt.

Shelly regarded her fixedly. “Go on. ‘If he'd done it right after—’ what?”

Melissa-Jane dropped her head on her desk. Pulling her hair, she muttered, “Oh God! Why can't I learn to keep my big mouth shut? Why am I cursed this way?”

“We'll worry about that later,” Shelly said grimly. “Finish your sentence.”

M.J. raised her head, her big brown eyes distressed and swimming with tears. “I don't suppose,” she asked miserably, “that we could just forget we had this conversation? That we could go back a couple of minutes in time and simply decide upon a nice place to have our picnic?”

“Melissa-Jane, if you don't tell me what you know, and right now, I swear that I'll snatch you bald-headed. Tell me, dammit! You're supposed to be my best friend, and now I find out that you're keeping secrets from me.”

“I didn't mean to,” M.J. said tearfully. “Danny, Bobba, and I just didn't see any reason for you to know. Jeb agreed with us, and so did Maria and Nick. It wouldn't change anything and…and,” she muttered, “if you force me to tell you, it'll only make you unhappy.”

“Tell me,” Shelly said through gritted teeth.

Not meeting Shelly's eyes, she fiddled with some papers on her desk. “Josh was having an affair with Nancy when she died four years ago,” she finally blurted out. “They used to meet at the cabin—Nick caught them once, and Maria knew what was going on—Josh didn't hide it from her.”

Shelly rocked back on her heels, her face white. “Nancy? Sloan's Nancy? Sloan Ballinger's wife, Nancy?”

M.J. nodded. “Yes. I guess they'd been carrying on for several months, secretly at first, but getting bolder and bolder the last few weeks before she died.”

When she would have stopped, Shelly flashed her a look. “Go on. Tell me all of it. Don't leave out anything and, for God's sake, don't make me beg for details.”

M.J. sighed. “OK, here's what I know. The night Nancy left Sloan she crashed her car and died. Several neighbors of theirs in Santa Rosa had heard them arguing, ‘violently,’ as the newspaper reported, before Nancy drove off from their house. One even said that he'd heard her yell that she was going to her lover, Josh Granger, and that she'd take Sloan for everything he owned. It was ugly, made more so by Sloan's loose-tongued neighbors. It would have been a lot better for everyone if the papers hadn't gotten ahold of the story. For a while, until it was determined that the crash really was accidental, there was a lot of public speculation that Sloan might actually be arrested for murder.” M.J. grabbed a tissue from the holder on her desk and blew her nose. “It was just terrible. Even when Nancy's death was declared accidental, we couldn't just forget about it—there was fear that Sloan would come after Josh. Ross, you remember Sloan's brother, don't you?” At Shelly's curt nod, she rushed on. “Well, Ross, Jeb, all of us loosely banded together to keep an eye on Sloan, or rather to keep Sloan away from Josh.” She grimaced. “Considering everything, it wasn't hard to imagine the pair of them shooting away at each other on Main Street.”

Shelly sank down into the chair near Melissa-Jane's desk. She couldn't seem to get her thoughts straight. Josh and Nancy. Sloan's wife had been having an affair with her brother. Jesus! The thought made her sick. No wonder Sloan had torn up the check. It was amazing he'd even let her in his house. Josh had stolen his wife, plunged him into an ugly scandal, then sold him a right-of-way worth about two thousand dollars for a small fortune. It was a wonder she had escaped from Sloan's place with her head still intact.

Melissa-Jane peeped over at her. “Are you very angry? We didn't do it to hurt you. It was just that it happened four years ago, and if Josh hadn't told you, none of us felt that you needed to know. Your knowing wouldn't change anything, and no one, even Jeb, thought that Nancy's death had anything to do with Josh committing suicide—at least not four years after she died.” Unhappily, she added, “We weren't exactly trying to hide anything. We just didn't think Josh's affair with Nancy was something you needed to deal with right now. We were trying to help.” M.J. bit back a sob. “Oh, Shelly, please don't hate us…me.”

Shelly wanted to be angry. She wanted to punch something, to stand up and scream and throw things around the office, to rail and shout at her friend, but she knew that Melissa-Jane spoke the truth. They had been trying to help—all of them in their own way trying to protect her. Their motives had been kind and honorable, but their kindness left her reeling with a sense of betrayal and a nasty taste in her mouth. They were her friends. She'd trusted them, and they had hidden the truth from her. It made her squirm to think of all of them knowing what had happened and letting her blithely go on her way. Didn't they realize that she was an adult? Didn't they understand that they did her no favors by hiding the truth? If she was ever to understand the man her brother had really been, she needed to know everything. Her mouth twisted. Even the ugly and the sordid.

Wearily, Shelly said, “No, I don't hate you. I'm hurt, probably angry, but I'll get over it.”

“Are we still friends?”

Melissa-Jane's voice wobbled, and Shelly couldn't help responding to the misery she heard. She looked at M.J.'s tear-streaked face. “Yeah. We're still friends—always will be. Just don't…don't protect me anymore. It's been hard enough dealing with Josh's death, without some misguided friends tiptoeing around the fact that my brother seems
not
to have worn the halo I'd always put on him. If you know something, tell me. OK?”

Melissa-Jane nodded. “OK.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “So,” she said brightly, “we going on that picnic or not?”

Chapter Nine

T
hey never did decide on a date for the picnic. A quick look at the calendar revealed that M.J.'s schedule was a whole lot busier than she'd first thought.

“Damn!” she'd said. “Looks like we can't get together anytime soon—certainly not this weekend. Next Sunday would work, but that's Mother's Day and the FFA Parade and Rodeo.” She beamed suddenly. “I get the boys that weekend and, friend that you are, I still wouldn't give up
that
time for you. Maybe we'll just leave it in the air and see what develops?”

Shelly concurred, and a few minutes later she drove away from McGuire's. Her thoughts were troubled as she considered what she had just learned about Josh…and her friends. Looking at it objectively, as objectively as she could, she didn't really blame Melissa-Jane and the others for keeping their mouths shut. They had been trying to help, she'd grant them that, and faced with the same situation, she probably would have done the same thing. Which didn't, she admitted grimly, make the hurt and feeling of betrayal go away completely. It would, she knew, in time; but at the moment, she was feeling raw and bleeding. And yet…and yet, she had now discovered another piece of the puzzle that added to her knowledge of Josh. Only weeks ago, she would have been outraged at M.J.'s story and leaped fiercely to his defense, but knowing about Nick, or rather believing in Nick, and some of the other things she had learned recently had made acceptance easier.

In her heart, she'd known that Josh wasn't perfect. She'd been aware for a long time that he'd always been a bit of a womanizer, but she'd excused it, telling herself it was just that he hadn't met the right woman yet. Maybe. She'd give a lot to know the motives behind Josh's affair with Sloan's wife. Nothing excused it—adultery was adultery, but she'd be able to understand it if it had been one of those tragic and unfortunate instances where love really had been blind and had struck willy-nilly. If the woman had been any other than Nancy Ballinger, she might have been able to convince herself that love alone had been the driving force behind the affair, but when it came to Josh and the Ballingers…. She sighed as she pulled up in front of the house.

Pushing away further speculation, she got out of the Bronco and climbed the steps to the house. Not in the mood for conversation and afraid she'd end up pumping Maria for more information about the affair, she stuck her head inside the kitchen doorway and let Maria know she was home and that she would be upstairs in the studio.