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“Anyway, she’s with my mother. I told you about Ma. She runs the store here. I can’t remember what all I told you about Bear Root. Back when I met you, I thought I’d left home for good.” He straightened his back, drew a deep breath just to be sure he could and sighed. “Live and learn, huh?” He reached for her hand.
He’d lived ten years and learned many more hard lessons since his roughneck days, knocking around the Western oil fields with Vic Randone, the buddy he’d met up with in Alaska. He’d gone from knocking around to being knocked out—almost literally—by a beautiful, butterfingered waitress in a Wyoming truck stop. Merilee Brown. Talk about a knockout. The ghost of a woman nearly lost in hospital-bed sheets and struggling for every ventilated breath wasn’t much more than a sliver of the vibrant girl Sam remembered. His first glimpse of her laughing face had been branded into his brain. She’d slopped some water on the floor behind his chair—got him in the back with it, but he didn’t mind—and then came back and slipped in it and conked him over the head with a tray. He’d caught her and fallen for her in the same instant.
Merilee, Merilee, Merilee, Merilee, life is but a dream.
She was magic. She could be silly one moment and thoughtful the next. She wore her heart on her sleeve, but she changed it with her clothes. She was passionate about being passionate, and her passion show never failed to captivate Sam. She could get just as excited about the color of an apple as the purchase of a much-needed pair of shoes. She made no apologies for doing what she had to do to get what she wanted, but she gave easily, and she never kept score. She was everything Sam wasn’t, didn’t have the makings or the means to be, but always wondered what it would be like. Rubbing shoulders with magic was one way to find out.
Vic hadn’t been with him at the truck stop that day, but he was never far away, and it wasn’t long before they’d become a threesome. On the outside they were three carefree pals stopping over in Wyoming on their way to the rest of their lives. But on the inside, there were cares. Big, bad, unbearable cares. Merilee cared for living on the edge. Vic cared for money. Sam, who had cared for getting out of Bear Root, now cared for Merilee. With cares safely stowed in their separate little bags they’d left Wyoming for California, where Vic made some easy money, Merilee made some edgy choices, and Sam eventually made peace with becoming the odd man out by doing what generations of Indian men before him had done. He’d enlisted.
“And living with you and Vic, I sure learned.” With his thumb he sketched a slow circle on the back of her hand. “No regrets. A guy’s gotta get educated somehow.”
He fixed his eyes on the cool, thin hand lying in his—a china trinket on a wooden shelf. He had to force himself to look at what was no more than a mask of the face that had once left him breathless. He ought to regret leaving her, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Worse, he wanted to get up and leave her now. It hurt to look at her. She was in a bad way, and he could do nothing to undo whatever had been done. He wasn’t a doctor or a miracle worker or a magician. He was, like any man worth his salt, a guardian. And like any man who could survive on little more than the salt that measured his worth, he’d made keeping the peace his life’s work.
“So why are you here, Merilee? You didn’t want anything from me when you could’ve…” He shook his head. So he’d had some regrets, carried them around for a while, but not anymore. He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d last thought about her. “Why now?”
Because she’s dying now, and she has a kid.
Where had that come from? Dying? Hell, she’d made it to a hospital and gotten fixed up before. She’d do it again. She was young. And, yeah, she had a kid. She had something to live for besides Merilee.
The last time he’d seen her, it was all about Merilee. And Vic, she’d told Sam, she was “so into Vic.” Sam had actually tried not to see any of it coming. The drugs were their business. Maybe they’d been busier with their business lately, but he was pretty sure it was mostly weed. Harmless weed. Was that what was making them bug-eyed and jumpy and downright mean lately?
No, that was him. He was always on their case about “taking the edge off the day” the way everybody did, with a pipe or a little blow. They had it under control. Besides, Sam wasn’t exactly a saint. And they weren’t shutting him out. There was plenty of everything to go around.
Back then it was all about Merilee.
She’d looked bad the day he left, but not this bad. Not death’s-door bad. “You’re such a good man,” she’d said. “I’m doing you a favor. You’re doing yourself a favor. The marines build men, you know. I take them apart, piece by piece.”
She’d been right. After Merilee, boot camp had been a piece of cake.
But seeing her this way reminded him of his tour in the Middle East. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it, so he sucked it up—mind, body, soul—and packed it all in tight around his heart.
Chapter Three
Hilda topped off Dave Cochran’s sack of groceries with a plump loaf of Wonder Bread, put his card number through her new dial-up system and watched Star sneak Lucky an unearned treat while the phone sweet-talked a distant computer into approving the principal’s purchase.
“Is your school on break?” Dave asked absently as he slipped his wallet into his back pocket.
“Star’s visiting with her mother,” Hilda explained. She wasn’t sure what had roused her defensive instincts. Principals probably went to sleep at night counting children instead of sheep.
“What grade are you in, Star?” was his automatic follow-up.
“Second.”
“Mr. Cochran’s the principal of our school.”
“You only have one school?”
“The older kids go to Bear Root Regional, which is over in Medicine Hat. But our second graders go to Mr. Cochran’s school. The second grade teacher is…”
“We have two for second grade,” Dave said. “Mr. Wilkie and Miss Petrie. How many do you have?”
“Four, but there’s another whole school over on Water Street. I could go to either one. Can I give Lucky another treat?”
“Only for another trick. Star’s from…” Hilda dragged the dog treat jar across the counter and poised to spin the cap. “What’s the name of your town, honey?”
Star sprang out of her Lucky-level crouch as though she’d been bitten. “I think I should go back to the hospital now, in case my mom’s awake yet.”
“We’ll have some supper here in a minute.” Hilda handed Dave his credit card. “There you go, Mr… Oh, look who’s here,” she chirped, echoing the spring on the screen door.
Dave greeted Maggie and her son in his principal’s voice. Maggie was polite. Jimmy was quiet, clearly on a short leash. There was a brief exchange about the boy’s behavior during the second half of the day as Mr. Cochran turned on what passed for his charm. Hilda took pleasure in seeing for herself that Maggie didn’t get it. Or didn’t appear to. The pheromones were missing the target.
Hilda had heard plenty of comments about Maggie’s eligibility—single women were harder to find in Bear Root than available men—and she’d been treated to more than a few silly imitations of Dave Cochran’s stiff-necked approach. The real thing would have been more painful than gratifying to watch if Hilda hadn’t mentally taken Maggie off the mate market. On so many levels, Maggie was taken. All she and Sam had to do was wake up and smell the music.
“Yes, sir, I promise,” Jimmy was saying, and Cochran offered an awkward high five. Some people shouldn’t do high fives, Hilda thought. She, being an old lady, was probably one of those people, and the school principal, being the school principal, was certainly another.
“We appreciate your patience,” Maggie called after him.
“Just don’t tell him his call is important to you,” Hilda whispered. “He’ll think you mean it.”
Maggie shot her a look before turning her attention to their new charge. “Hey, Star, I see you’ve made friends with the star attraction of Allgood’s Emporium.” She bent to pat the motor-tailed little dog, quietly adding, “I just came from the hospital. Your mom’s still resting, and Dr. Dietel is taking good care of her.”
“I wanna go see her. She’ll be waking up pretty soon.”
“I thought we’d have a little supper first,” Hilda said. There was more to it than food, of course. There was company. Acting on the theory that kids help each other cope, Maggie had offered to bring her son over for supper. With a hand on each child’s shoulder, Hilda made a bridge of herself. “This is Jimmy. He’s just about your age.”
“How old are you?” Jimmy challenged. “I’m nine.”
“I’m seven and a half.”
“I’m nine and—” he used his fingers to calculate “—seven months, so you’re way younger.”
Star looked up at Hilda and murmured plaintively, “I’m not hungry.”
“Your mom would worry if she knew you weren’t eating. I know I would.” And did. It was easier than worrying about the faces of Star’s comatose mother and her own uneasy, unforthcoming son. She slipped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “And you’re worried about her. I know I would. So we’ll all go upstairs, sit down and have some food, and then we’ll go see her.”
“Will she get well?”
“Dr. Dietel is very good at finding out what’s wrong and making it right,” Maggie put in. Hilda nodded, giving her friend the keep-talking look as she flipped the sign on the door to Closed. “He’s still working on the first part, but she’s getting two things we all need. Food and water.”
“If she could eat she’d be awake,” Star reasoned. “Did she wake up at all?”
“Not yet, but she’s getting her food put directly into her body through a tube.”
“And we have to put yours through your mouth.” Hilda made a sweeping gesture toward the stairway to the heavenly scent of her famous Hilda’s Crock-Pot Cacciatore.
“Mmm, smells like our favorite.” Maggie extended a come-with-me hand to Star. “And tomorrow, maybe you’d like to go to school with Jimmy. Just for a little while. Visit Mom for a little while, maybe have lunch with me.”
“I’ll ask my mom.” Star accepted Maggie’s hand. “Tomorrow, when she wakes up.”
Hilda served her guests at the table that had been in her kitchen since she’d taken over the store, basically the same kitchen she’d grown up in, although she’d replaced the woodburning stove with gas right after her father died. Daddy had refused to depend on anything he couldn’t harvest with his own hands. Not that he didn’t use store-bought—he ran a store, after all—but using and depending were two different things. Hilda had moved the stove downstairs and made it part of the country store décor. Her kitchen was still cozy, and any number of power failures and stranded gas trucks had given her pause to appreciate the little potbelly wood burner she’d kept in the living room when she was “updating.” Her TV was a little dated, but she didn’t have much time to watch it, anyway. She did love to cook, and she wished she had room for a bigger table and more guests.
Hilda got a charge out of sitting Maggie in Sam’s place. She’d had them figured for a match ever since she’d met Maggie, who would surely charge Sam up a bit, while he would offer her some good ol’ Western grounding. Every time those two came within sight of each other, you could already feel the current flowing.
After supper, Lucky lured the children into the living room while Maggie helped Hilda clean up the supper dishes.
“Is her mother going to wake up?” Hilda asked quietly as she slid four scraped plates into the mound of bubbles Maggie was growing in the sink.
“You’ve heard of trying to get blood from a stone? That poor woman. It’d be easier to get an IV into Mount Rushmore.” Maggie flipped the faucet handles and lowered her voice in the new quiet. “Has Sam been able to get in touch with her family?”
“I haven’t had much chance to talk with him, but I’m sure he’s trying. I guess he knows her pretty well.” She glanced up at Maggie. “Or did.”
“You don’t?”
“Never even heard the name.” She pulled a beats-me face. “My boys used to tell me everything when they were Jimmy’s age.”
Maggie glanced over her shoulder at the sound of one quick bark and two easy laughs. “When did they stop?”
“I’ve never asked. I’m satisfied with the way I remember it. They told me everything back then. Anything they don’t tell me now, I probably don’t need to know.”
“Until you do.”
“And then they’ll tell me. Sam will, anyway.” Soon, she hoped. “It all works itself out. Ninety-five percent of your worries never materialize, and four out of the other five turn out to be a whole lot less dire than you thought.”
“That leaves one percent.”
“Yes, it does. And that’s life.”
Maggie screwed her head and rested her chin on her shoulder to get another look at her son. “Math was never my strong suit, but it sounds like I could improve his chances by increasing the worries.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Hilda met Maggie’s questioning glance with a smile. “Math is not your strong suit.”
“I’m not the best worrier, either. I don’t want Jimmy to get shortchanged just because I’m a single parent.”
“That small percent is always gonna be there no matter how many parents a kid has. You can throw yourself in front of the bus, but he could still get hit.”
Maggie chuckled. “That’s what I like about you, Hilda. You never give away the ending.”
“Speaking of which, have you finished the book for this week?” Hilda pulled a paperback novel off the top of the refrigerator. “Who suggested this, anyway? The wrong guy gets the girl.”
“Well, now I’ve finished it.”
“Just kidding.” She set the book aside. “Mr. Right always gets the girl. And Mr. Lucky gets—”
The dog barked. Hilda laughed, but he barked again. And again. She turned to the kitchen door just as it opened and the brim of a hat appeared. “It’s just me, Ma.”
“And you missed supper, but there’s some left.”
“Thanks, I’m good.” Sam acknowledged Maggie with a nod and took his hat off in one economical gesture as he closed the door behind him. “I still have some paperwork to finish up. Kinda lost track of some of the details.”
“It’s caccia-to-reee,” Hilda sang out. She knew he hadn’t eaten. As hard as she’d tried to feed him up, he was still as skinny as he was when he’d come home from the service.
“Smells great. If it’s gone tomorrow, you’ll know I got the midnight munchies.” He held up a big plastic bag. “One of the nurses said you’d taken charge of the little girl, so I brought over a few things that were in the room.”
Star’s little head rose above the dog-kid huddle like a periscope. “What room?”
“The motel room.” Sam cleared his throat, eyeing the child as though he was afraid he might scare her. Or she, him. Quietly he explained, “I thought you might need some clothes.”
“Where’s my backpack?”
“It’s safe in my office. I’m…” He shifted to a lower voice, his version of theatrical. “I’m the sheriff in these parts, so I get to—”
“You can’t have my backpack. All my stuff is in it.”
“I’m not going to keep it. Listen…Star?” He looked to Hilda for approval, and she nodded. That’s right, son. You’re doing fine. He squatted on his heels, hat on his knee, and offered the child the plastic bag. “Star, can you tell me where you and your mother live now? And how you got here?”
She peered into the bag. “We used to live in California, but not anymore.” She pulled her face out of the bag and told Sam, “We came on the bus to find my grandmother.”
“Where does your grandmother live?” he asked, his voice soft and gentle.
“Right here.”
Sam looked up at Hilda as though she was the one who owed an explanation.
“I need your help downstairs, Sam.” She nodded toward the door. “Can’t quite reach the Oreos. Maggie, would you give the kids some ice cream while Sam helps me get the cookies?” She glanced at Star. “And then we’ll go check on your mom. Okay?”
Hilda said nothing as she led the way downstairs, followed by one of only two people in the world that could make her a real grandmother. Strong, steadfast, straight-shooting Sam. Hilda marched past the cookies and turned on him between cough drops and condoms.
“I don’t know what she’s doing here, Ma.” Hat in hand, he made a helpless gesture, all innocence. “It’s been more than eight years since I last saw her. Met her down in Wyoming when I was workin’ the oilfields. We were together for a while before I enlisted.”
“Star tells me I’m the grandmother she came looking for.”
Stared for a long moment, and then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so.”
“I left because there was another man.”
“Who’s my competition?”
“Mrs. Randone, I guess. Vic never said much about his family, but whoever raised him, she’d be no match for you, Ma. On the other hand, I wasn’t the right match for Merilee.”
“You never looked back?”
He lifted one strapping shoulder. “I called her a couple of times after I left. Wanted to make sure she was all right. I let her know I was shippin’ out. She didn’t say anything about a kid. She barely said anything at all.”
“Star’s last name is Brown,” Hilda reminded him.
A long moment passed over that thought. No father. Exclusively her mother’s child. Hilda knew her son, knew they were chewing on the same tough truth. Somebody hadn’t done his job.
