Part 5 (1/2)
”That helps to know. Thanks.” She handed him a cup of coffee and poured one for herself.
”He doesn't mean half the things he says.”
”Oh, he means them.” She looked pointedly over the Styrofoam brim of her cup.
Jonah surrendered the point.
”So what do you do?”
”I'm chief of police in Redford.”
”You're not.”
He rocked back in the plastic break-room chair and c.o.c.ked his head.
”Sorry. You just don't look like a cop.”
”Yeah, well. Sometimes I wear the uniform.” Might help if he didn't look like central casting's rogue hero.
She looked at his hands. ”Not married?”
”No.” He'd already noticed her naked fingers.
”Divorced?”
He hesitated. ”A broken engagement. Years ago. I'm not relations.h.i.+p material.”
”Says who?”
”Anyone in a position to know.”
”What a waste.”
A corner of his mouth tugged at her boldness. She sat back, fingering her cup. Perhaps, being a caregiver, she had an even stronger urge than most women to fix people. But it wasn't the broken engagement that made him unfixable.
He pushed up from the chair. ”Thanks for the coffee. And for looking after Sarge.”
She didn't get up, just watched him leave the room. The drive back was long and cool, accompanied by cla.s.sic rock and troubled thoughts.
In her room of the small house connected to the animal hospital, Liz woke with a jolt. Nightmare sweat coated her chest like VapoRub. Her left side throbbed, strange since she had no feeling there at all. Two ailing dogs whined from their kennels, but that hadn't awakened her. She turned her head on the pillow. ”Luce?”
”Don't talk to me. I'm sleeping.”
Liz turned back and closed her eyes but did not slip like Lucy into sleep. She'd always been the one who cried to be held, cried to be fed. A fighter, Daddy called her. ”Lizzie has s.p.u.n.k enough for both of them combined.” ”Lizzie has s.p.u.n.k enough for both of them combined.”
She didn't feel s.p.u.n.ky. She was tired. She wanted to sleep, but she got up and padded to the table, turned on the lamp.
”Unh. Do you have to?” Lucy moaned.
”It's for you, you know.”
Lucy sighed. ”But it's useless.”
”No, it's not. And I won't give up until I find a way.”
She sat down at the desk with the three-inch textbook lying open, a stack of note cards beside it, and applied herself to the work until the nightmare dread diminished, leaving her hollow as a pithy reed. Behind her Lucy slept, and Liz didn't begrudge her. She needed it.
Liz rubbed her eyes and turned off the lamp. Dawn was coming in the window, and pets needed tending.
Five.
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined ... to strengthen each other ... to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.-GEORGE ELIOT Piper did not believe in G.o.d, benevolence being bestowed on her clan by courts and insurance companies. But when she saw the police chief duck into the small, stone church five minutes past the time posted on a greeting board, she walked in behind him.
Dressed in jeans and a black crew-neck s.h.i.+rt, he took a seat in the otherwise empty back pew with enough s.p.a.ce on the end for her to slip in too. She smiled, and his eyes creased in response. They were lined with thick lashes that lightened at the ends, like his hair, dark underneath lighter hanks that had to be a natural contrast. She couldn't see him in a salon getting highlights.
He wasn't a pretty boy. More like the Marlboro Man with a streak of Wolverine. He looked like trouble, and he looked like salvation. Like a man who could run cold and could run hot, but never just warm. His scent was clean and woodsy. She hadn't seen him in over a week, but now she'd have the whole service to take him in and wonder what he could have done to upset Tia. The sister thing couldn't be the whole story. People broke up all the time. It didn't make them hateful.
She almost gasped out loud when he reached out and clasped her hand. Then she realized someone at the microphone had invited them all to join hands with their brothers and sisters in Christ. Brother and sister wasn't where her mind had gone. Would she be condemned by these church people if they felt her pulse?
Someone at the front read a statement. ”We are members of the same body, different gifts, but the same Spirit. If we tug and strive against each other, we cause injury and disunity. But if we hold tight, bearing each other up, we grow strong, resilient, united. Let us prepare to celebrate this great mystery as one body, one spirit in Christ.”
He let go, and belatedly Piper drew her hand back. The service that followed involved standing and sitting and kneeling on the part of the long benches that folded down. Jonah lowered it each time for both of them, and that simple act shot right inside her. Kneeling next to him was the most spiritual thing she'd ever done.
She knew enough not to go forward to the altar. The ceremony had gotten mysterious and solemn, and she didn't want to violate something sacred. But Jonah slipped past her to follow in line to the front where he took what they handed him, then nodded to a golden goblet. He surprised her by not coming back to his seat like the others but continuing straight out the door.
She was on her feet and out almost as quickly as the chief. ”How come you cut out early?”
He half turned. ”What?”
”You came late and left before it was done.”
He glanced at the doors, then back to her. ”Are you going to report me?”
She laughed. ”Not me.”
”Good.” He turned back toward the parking lot.
”I've got fig and pine-nut sticky rolls ready to bake. Would you like one fresh out of the oven?”
”Better not.” He kept walking.
”Come on. Try something new.”
He shook his head. ”Sarge will ask, and it's better if I don't know what you're up to.” He reached his Bronco and pressed the remote.
Sarge had been out over a week, but she didn't believe for a minute he'd given up control. ”You can tell him how much you like it.”