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She had bags of groceries, too, as always.
“Where’s the sheriff?” Joe’s gruff voice came from somewhere behind the one-room log cabin he had built by hand over thirty years ago.
Ellen and Greg usually made this trek up the mountain together. But not always.
“There was a traffic accident out by the highway.”
“You shouldn’t be here without him.”
“Of course I should be,” she called, completely without fear. “Sheriff Richards knows I’m here. And you need your groceries.”
Besides, Joe would never, ever do anything to hurt Ellen. Ever.
Now if she had been meeting Black Leather, as she’d come to think of the man she’d seen roaring through town the other day, she would have—
She simply wouldn’t have done it. Period.
“Can I come sit by the window?”
He’d built a seat for her there when she’d first started visiting him. Greg would sit in the cruiser and Ellen would counsel with Joe in plain sight but out of hearing range of the sheriff. Then somehow things had changed and Ellen and Joe had been more friends than social worker and hermit.
“Wait.”
She heard a rustle of grass then saw the thin, slightly stooped man, dressed in baggy overalls and a flannel shirt, skirt around the front of the house and inside. He promptly latched the door with the board Ellen knew he used to lock himself in.
“’Kay.” She only heard the word because she’d been waiting for it. Listening.
Leaving the cooler in the back of the Escape, Ellen grabbed the blue book bag she’d purchased at Walmart the same day she’d bought Josh’s and headed to the house.
With her back to the building, she pulled out a folder of papers and rested them on the windowsill.
Joe’s fingers didn’t come close to brushing hers as he gently tugged the folder away from her.
“It’s all there. Dr. Sheffield is glad you’re in her class. And she hopes she gets to meet you before the semester is through.” Classes didn’t officially start for another couple of weeks, but Phyllis had agreed to send along Joe’s work early. Ellen figured her mother’s friend shared her wish that the studies would interest him enough to get him off the mountain and into the classroom.
“If it was anyone else but you, I’d think there was a trick here. Psychology class. Like I need psychological help.”
“You probably do.”
“Not up here, I don’t.” It wasn’t the first time they’d had the conversation.
“I have an ulterior motive, Joe,” Ellen said, as honest with him as always.
Their ability to speak openly was one of the things she valued most about their peculiar relationship. Conversation with Joe was stripped of most social graces. Or pleasantries.
“I hope that you love the class enough that you’ll need to take more of them.” She chose her words deliberately.
Joe grunted. He didn’t believe himself capable of feeling anything as alive as love. “How’s Josh?”
“Lonesome.” Just thinking about her son hurt her heart. “But I think he’s having fun, too.” This was their first time apart for more than a few days.
“How are you?”
“Fine. Busy. Mom and David have had me over for dinner twice this week. And I’ve been going to work in the evenings. I’m helping some of the residents cheer up their rooms. We’re doing collages, mobiles and photo mosaics. I’d like to paint the multipurpose room, too.”
“How many dates have you been on?”
Josh was her usual excuse for not dating.
“None.”
“You’re not fine.”
She sighed. “Mostly I am, Joe. I’m busy at work. I love the center. How could I not? I get to spend my days helping senior citizens enjoy life. And Josh and I have a new house that I love. We even have a pool. And…” She fiddled with the hem on her shirt. “I’m really okay. I’m running every afternoon. I’m going to do a 10K with Randi Foster in November.”
“In Shelter Valley?”
“Of course. Montford is sponsoring it.”
“Is Randi training with you?”
“No. She runs at school.” Randi was the athletic director at Montford—and baby sister to the university president, Will Parsons, Mayor Becca’s husband.
“Who are you training with?”
“No one.”
“You’re running alone.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t be running alone.”
“I’m careful. I carry pepper spray. And I’m not going to be held hostage to fear.”
“You shouldn’t be running alone.”
He wasn’t going to be convinced. She understood that. And even understood why. But she was still going to run.
Because it was something she had to do for her. Whether Joe understood that or not.
She could so easily end up like him.
“You should be dating.”
“You’ve done fine on your own.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“I— My… She was the one.”
“Maybe Aaron was, too.”
“You really think so?”
She had. At one time. Then…time…had changed things. Less than sixty minutes of it had changed everything.
Forever.
And that was something that Joe Frasier understood all too well.
CHAPTER TWO
BEFORE DAWN FRIDAY MORNING, Jay left his motorcyle in the short-term parking lot at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. He caught the shuttle for the off-site car rental place he’d phoned the night before.
Half an hour later he was on I-10, his six-foot frame chafing beneath the seat belt in the Chevy Impala. He’d never driven in Phoenix before, but at that early hour there was little traffic and he’d studied maps. He also had a sense of direction that could get him from one dark hole to the next without a spot of light.
Mostly what he wanted to do was remain inconspicuous. As inconspicuous as a long-haired, broad-shouldered man could be. He’d shed his leather vest and figured his white T-shirt blended in as well as anything might.
He’d signaled his exit and followed his preset route to his destination. The neighborhood, once he got to it, was a nice one. Elegant. Expensive. The best.
He’d expected nothing less.
The gated entry slowed him not at all. Saying he was surprising his sister with a visit, he’d coaxed a garbage guy down the street to give him the service code.
Jay had been investigating those who didn’t want to be found too long to let things like gates stop him.
Not that this particular jaunt had anything to do with him finding someone who didn’t want to be found. No, this time it was him who didn’t want to be seen. Not yet. All in good time.
“HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN Josh hugs you?”
Ellen didn’t want to answer Shawna’s question. She didn’t want to answer any more questions ever again. Period. Questions made her feel like a freak.
And…they helped.
Which was why she was in counseling again.
She took a deep breath and forced herself inside, where the truth she was seeking lay waiting for her. “Sometimes his arms around my neck, his little body close to mine, is like what I imagine heaven to be. Light and free and so good you need to cry. With overwhelming joy. Other times, I feel peaceful.”
There. All true. And as normal as it got.
“And?” Shawna peered at her over the reading glasses she always wore when she had Ellen’s file on her desk in front of her.
Ellen, hands folded across her stomach, met the older woman’s gaze head-on.
She and Shawna had been together, on and off, since before Josh was born.
“And sometimes, most particularly when he comes at me when I’m not expecting it, I have to fight the instinct to tear his hands away.”
And then she quickly added, “But my patients at work hug me all the time and I’m fine with that. I love it.” She was fine. Healthy.
She just wasn’t dating.
And while no one but old Joe Frasier was on her about it, Ellen didn’t want to spend her life alone, raising her son alone, watching him grow and succeed alone.
She didn’t want to sleep alone for the rest of her life.
“How many of them come at you unexpectedly?” How could Shawna’s question come out so quiet when her voice sounded so firm?
“None.”
“Are there times when Josh hugs you, when you are expecting it, that you feel cramped?”
Oh, God. Was she a horrible mother? “Yes,” she barely whispered.
“Hey.” Shawna leaned forward, her blond hair falling over her shoulders to her desk. Ellen focused on the hair. “It’s okay.”
She met Shawna’s gaze and listened intently.
“You’re fine,” Shawna said. “Look at you, Ellen, you live independently. You have a successful career that you love. From what I can tell, everyone in town, young and old, comes to you for assistance because they know they can rely on you. You go out alone all the time.”
Of course she did. She was alive. She lived.
She just didn’t date.
“You’re going to have hard times. We talked about that five years ago. I told you to expect them. And to know that you would get through them.” But…
“And you have gotten through them, haven’t you?” Shawna asked.
Ellen thought to the time when she couldn’t be in a room alone. When she couldn’t leave her mother’s house.
It had taken her two years to walk into Walmart.
She thought of the years when she hadn’t slept through the night—any night.
“Yes,” she finally said.
“You’ll get through this, too, if that’s what you want.”
Because she could do anything she set her mind to. She knew that. Believed it.
And yet…
“Listen, I have a suggestion…” The way Shawna sat back, her words trailing off, got Ellen’s attention. “What?”
Studying her, Shawna remained silent, then glanced at Ellen’s file and seemed to come to some kind of decision. “There’s this new guy in town. He arrived this week. His name’s Jay Billingsley.”
