Page 8 of Dangerous December (Northern Pines Suspense #8)
I handled that meeting so well, Dev growled to himself as he drove through town the next morning. He’d thrown common courtesy out the window, with someone who’d only wanted to help.
Your ex-wife, a small inner voice reminded him. The one you treated so badly a year ago.
He cruised slowly past the bookstore. He debated about stopping to apologize...then remembered that Beth’s mother was probably inside, her claws bared.
Why the woman bore such a serious grudge after all this time wasn’t hard to fathom, but she certainly didn’t try to hide her feelings. Where was her Christian sense of forgiveness? His parents had certainly held that concept dear, at least on the surface.
Then again, maybe it was just as well that Beth had her guardian mama around.
He didn’t have any plans to stay in Agate Creek. Even if he did, he had no business thinking about her, and surely he was the last man on earth she’d ever want to spend time with, anyhow.
He’d seen the stark pain and shock in her eyes when he walked out on their marriage. Her frustration when he’d refused to listen to her attempts at salvaging their relationship.
War had changed him in more ways than she could ever know, with her genteel life of books and friends and pleasant customers.
And whether she believed it or not, he’d done her a favor by leaving her behind.
Dev pitched another shovelful of debris into a refuse barrel. Renewed pain lanced through his shoulder, forcing him to lean on the shovel and take long, slow breaths.
The town he’d been born in now felt as foreign as some distant planet, where the inhabitants expected security and happiness, where their day-to-day lives centered on inconsequential issues, and where they fully expected to be alive and whole twenty-four hours from now.
That false sense of safety was as incomprehensible to him as the culture of streaming television services and interactive games that had swept this quiet part of the world during his absence.
But he would succeed in meeting the stipulations of the will. Murdock would be out of luck.
And then...well, Beth would own her building and be safe from greedy developers like Stan. The rest of the buildings could be sold to people who would preserve the historical flavor of the area. End of story.
Yesterday, Dev had headed straight to the Walker Building after the meeting with Beth, just to lose himself in the mindless, backbreaking process of clearing out the interior, and today he’d come back for the same reason.
It wouldn’t hurt to start cleaning it out at any rate, so he could leave town faster when his six-month sentence was up.
An excellent plan...except this morning, it had taken two ibuprofen and a couple strong cups of coffee to get himself moving.
Still, hard physical labor was better than dwelling on the past...and every street corner, every gracious old mansion and quaint storefront of Agate Creek seemed to trigger memories he’d tried to forget.
That first date at the ice-cream parlor with Beth, the spring of his senior year in high school, when he’d just turned eighteen and she’d been a shy, sweet junior—prettiest girl in the entire school.
The old mom-and-pop-run theater, now boarded up, where he’d first held her hand and eventually found the courage to ease his arm around her slender shoulders.
The endless walks they’d taken along the quiet streets of this small, historic town, with canopies of elm and oak overhead and the fragrance of flower beds drifting from manicured yards...streets that now reminded him of the hopes and dreams he and Beth had once shared.
Dreams of a perfect life, a perfect home, and two or three perfect children.
Naive dreams of happiness not touched by war and death, and the harsh reality of life.
So much was the same here—yet there’d been changes, too.
Back then, many of the stores were failing, victims of a struggling agricultural economy and the exodus of people toward better jobs in the Twin Cities to the west, and Madison to the southeast.
Now, Main Street boasted art galleries, upscale gift shops, and high-end specialty stores through the center of town, while many of the fine old homes at either end of Main now housed bed-and-breakfasts, antique stores and restaurants.
Parallel to Main, Hawthorne ran for several blocks along sparkling Agate Creek, and in between the blooming array of touristy cafés, coffeehouses and artisans’ shops at the northern end, one could catch glimpses of the towering, rocky cliffs on the opposite bank of the creek.
In the block owned by the Sloane estate, only Beth’s bookshop was open for business, but that would be changing once he got the other buildings sold.
Though by that time, he would be back to active duty and long gone, if sheer perseverance counted for anything.
The physical therapists at Walter Reed had recommended a series of strengthening exercises to work on every day to maintain mobility in his shoulder joint and build his strength. Each day, he tripled the recommended number of reps, then added more variations of his own.
With that, and working on the building, he was going to be ready to rock by the day his medical leave ended. A day that couldn’t come too soon.
“Yoo-hoo,” a voice warbled from the open front door. “Can I come in?”
He turned toward the entryway to find a tall, slender woman with silver hair cut in a short, almost masculine style standing in the doorway. “Can I help you?”
She stepped inside. “Do you remember me?”
It was a question the locals liked to ask, though it had been so long since he’d lived here and so much had happened during the intervening years, that he struggled with names and faces. A decade of physical changes made it all the harder.
He knew this woman, though. He shifted uncomfortably as he tried to place her wry, friendly smile and that light silver hair.
“Olivia Lawson. I believe,” she added with a twinkle in her eye. “I was your third-grade Sunday school teacher.”
Fourth, he remembered, as his mind locked onto the precise memory, though he didn’t correct her.
Her hair had been a glossy brown back then, and she’d had the ability to quell the rowdiest behavior—often his—with a single, piercing glance.
She’d also been a great storyteller, able to hold her classes rapt with the way she could make a Bible lesson come alive using her dramatic voice.
Another dim memory surfaced. “Weren’t you an English teacher, too?”
She smiled. “Community college—and still teaching. I was also an acquaintance of your mother’s, through church.”
Less pleasant memories, there.
She cocked her head, studying him. “I hear you’ve led quite a life of adventure.”
He stiffened, waiting for the hint of censure that he’d always heard as a teenager from those in his mother’s social circle, where the adults engaged in subtle games of one-upmanship when it came to their children’s career choices.
Greetings directed at him invariably drifted into questions about his plans to follow in his father’s footsteps...or would it be law instead of medicine?
Exactly the expectations his family had held for him, until he’d rebelled at the recruiter’s office. His parents had never failed to let him know of their disappointment in him after that, whether through subtle comments or long-suffering sighs.
He spared Olivia a brief nod, and scooped up another shovelful of debris.
“We’re all proud of you, you know—and your service to our country. Our pastor names you and all of our local men and women in the military during our Sunday prayers.”
At the unexpected note of approval in her voice, he paused and looked back at her. If any of the hometown folks had ever noticed his absence, much less been proud of him, his family hadn’t chosen to relay the information. “That’s...that’s good to hear.”
She surveyed the area, tapping a finger against her lips. “You should get some help, or this cleanup will take forever.”
“I’ve got the time.”
“The youth group at the Agate Creek Community Church could do it in a snap,” she said decisively.
“They’re always looking for fundraiser projects.
Buy them pizza, make a donation to their program, and you’ll have this cleaned up in no time.
Though given who your mom was and what she did for them, they’d probably come for free. ”
What she did for a youth group? At church? Olivia had to be confusing Vivian Sloane with someone else.
She laughed aloud. “From your expression, I get the feeling you didn’t know your mom very well in her later years.”
“I haven’t been around here much since I enlisted. We...didn’t always see eye to eye.”
“Something she always regretted, no matter what you might think.” Olivia drew closer and rested a slender hand on his shoulder. “I believe she once said that you two were too much alike.”
He stifled a snort at that. Country club events and golf tournaments certainly hadn’t been his focus, to the exclusion of everything else. He’d only been a bothersome child.
“I think she mentioned ‘stubborn’ and ‘independent’ once or twice, but my memory could be wrong.” Olivia winked. “I guess I’d better be going. Maybe I’ll see you in church on Sunday?”
He shrugged. Not likely.
She waggled the tips of her fingers in farewell as she left, leaving him to count the number of times he’d been asked about church in the past twenty-four hours.
Barring a few of the newer people in town, everyone he’d encountered seemed to recognize his name whenever he stopped at a store or gas station. They offered condolences about his parents and dredged up pleasantries about how much they were missed in these parts.
And they assumed Dev would be slipping into the traditional Sloane pew, right up front.
But he’d seen too much, learned too much over the years to resume his family’s superficial, pious role again.
Maybe God watched over the good folks of Agate Creek, but He sure hadn’t followed Dev to the Middle East or into the halls of Walter Reed. And if He hadn’t stepped in when Dev had needed Him most, He certainly wouldn’t care about what happened to him now.
The cell phone on his belt clip vibrated. He lifted it and glanced at the caller ID, trying to ignore the instant rush of awareness that he’d tried to forget. He almost said a silent prayer for strength before he caught himself.
It was Beth.