Confessions of a Small-Town Girl Read online

  “Did you build it, Uncle Sam?”

  “Yeah, Uncle Sam.” The smaller of the two boys gave a little bounce. “Did you?”

  “You said you would.” The older of the boys, the one who looked about six, wriggled from his uncle’s arm and slipped to the floor. The instant his miniature sneakers hit the polished pine, he cranked back his head to look up. “You promised.”

  “Build what, Trevor?” asked his Great-Aunt Janelle.

  “A trap for the monster. He told Tyler and me he’d make one so we can catch it if it follows us here.”

  “Hey, have a little patience.” Teasing, Sam, ruffled the boy’s hair. “I haven’t had time yet.” Lowering the smaller child beside his brother, he crouched to bring himself to the boys’ eye level. “It’ll be ready by the time you move in.”

  “And you’ll give us a key so we can lock it in?” Trevor asked.

  “Absolutely. I really don’t think it’s going to come here, though.”

  Tyler’s little brow furrowed. “How come?”

  “Will you arrest him?” Trevor wanted to know.

  Sam’s expression went as solemn as the child’s. “You know, buddy, I would if I could. But I really don’t think you’ll see him once you move here. He’s a New Jersey monster,” he explained, sounding every bit as serious as he looked. “It’s going to be too cold for him in Vermont. It freezes and snows here. A lot.”

  “Oh, yeah,” the sober little boy mumbled, as if he’d forgotten what the adults in his life had told him he had to look forward to with the move. Apparently remembering, his eyes widened, his fears temporarily sidetracked. “That means we get to go sledding and everything!”

  “Yeah! And everything!” his younger brother echoed. Swiping back the fine hair brushing his forehead, Tyler grew even more animated. “Can you teach us how?”

  “Come on, boys.” Darting a look of concern toward her niece, Mrs. Collier motioned one work-chapped hand toward the door. “Let’s get back to our project. Your second cousins and all the kids will be here in an hour or so,” she told them, speaking of her own offspring and grandchildren, “and your uncle needs to go help his uncle in the barn.” She glanced to Sam. “Grandma and Grandpa Collier are coming, too. And I think your Aunt Mary,” referring to her in-laws, who also happened to be his grandparents and an aunt on his mother’s side. “She was going to work the festival for a while and come out later.”

  Looking more than willing to spare the boys the deluge of relatives, or more likely spare himself, he touched a protective hand to the boy’s heads. “Why don’t I take them down to the barn with me?”

  His sister’s voice went flat. “Because they’ll get dirty again.”

  “No, we won’t!” Trevor insisted.

  “Nuh-huh,” Tyler agreed with a vigorous shake of his head.

  “Tell you what,” said Sam. “If they get too dirty, I’ll just turn a hose on them. What do you say, boys? Do you want to stay and shuck corn, or learn how to fix a clutch?”

  Both boys grabbed their uncle’s hands and hauled him toward the door. Neither one of them seemed to have a clue what they were doing, but if their uncle was doing it, they clearly wanted to do it, too.

  “What’s a clutch?” the older one wanted to know.

  “It’s something that helps shift gears.”

  “What’s a gear?” voiced the younger one.

  Pushing open the screen, Megan stepped aside to avoid getting trampled.

  “Keep them away from anything pointed or sharp,” she called as the trio squeezed through the doorway. “And no more sugar!”

  “They’ll be fine,” Sam called back. “Hey, listen. If you guys need any pies baked, let Kelsey do it.” His glance caught hers, something like apology, or maybe it was guilt, in his quick smile.

  Until that moment, Kelsey wasn’t sure he’d even realized she was there. Watching his sister glance to where she remained by the magnet-and-crayon drawing-covered fridge, she also realized she’d just been abandoned. With his uncle having rescued him from the women, he apparently didn’t need her as a buffer.

  Without him with her, she felt much as she had outside—as if she might well be intruding. Lines of worry deepened in Mrs. Collier’s forehead as she searched her niece’s face.

  “What’s this about a monster trap, Megan?”

  The weariness Kelsey had noticed in Sam’s sister’s smile moved into her eyes as she turned from the door.

  “We’ve been having a little problem with nightmares.” She spoke quietly, her tone as matter-of-fact as Sam’s had been when he’d related what he had about his last assignment. “Ever since Rob died, the boys have had to sleep with the lights on. Or with me,” she explained, bending to pick up the bits of grass that had come off the boys’ shoes. “Their pediatrician says it’s not abnormal for a child who’s lost a parent to suffer insecurity. Especially when it’s the father, since he’s usually regarded as the protector.” Crossing the room, she dropped the grass in the trash under the sink and turned with another smile in place. This one apologetic.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Kelsey. “Bummer subject to walk in on, huh? Anyway,” she continued to her aunt, “when we were out at the house yesterday, Trevor asked Sam where the closets would be so he’d know where the monster would hide. After I told Sam what was going on, he came up with the idea of the trap. The boys were talking about it last night. I think knowing they’ll have some control might actually help.”

  “Well, I like that he told them he didn’t think it would come here at all. He’s a good uncle.”

  “Yeah. He is. I just wish he was around more.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “What I really wish is that he’d quit that damn unit, but we all know that’s not going to happen.” Taking a deep breath, she blew it out.

  “So, Kelsey,” she said, sounding truly anxious to change the subject. “At the risk of being totally rude, how about helping me make coleslaw while you tell us how long you’ve known my brother?”

  The feeling that she shouldn’t have accepted Sam’s invitation faded somewhere between admitting that she’d first met Sam thirteen years ago and learning that Mrs. Collier had never known or suspected that he’d stopped at the diner on his way back from running errands for his uncle. According to his aunt, during the summers he and his sister had spent with them, he’d always been ravenous come suppertime. According to his sister, who’d remembered the diner but had never been in it back then, he must have been impressed with more than the food there now to have brought her with him.

  “You’re the first woman he’s brought around family since his divorce.” With a speculative smile, she reached into the fridge. “That’s what, Aunt Janelle? Ten years now?”

  “About that,” the older woman replied, clearly speculating herself.

  Megan turned, held out a head of cabbage. Taking it, Kelsey refused to find any importance at all to what he’d done. He’d brought her as his cover to avoid having his relatives poke around his personal life the way they were doing now. That was all.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” she insisted. “We’ve really only known each other for a few days. It’s not like we’re dating.” Or anything, she might have added. But that wouldn’t have been quite true. They had her old fantasies between them—such as the one that had started with a kiss that had slowly melted her insides and left him looking more than willing to explore the rest of her imaginings.

  “This isn’t a date?”

  “We’re just…friends.”

  Unable to think of a better way to describe whatever their relationship was, she added an apologetic smile for Mrs. Collier. The woman looked truly disappointed.

  Megan ignored the claim.

  “Our mom met Dad working at a diner. It was a coffee shop, actually,” she corrected, unceremoniously spooning mayonnaise into a bowl. “At Stowe. Mom worked at the lodge there after high school. She said it was as far from this house as Grandpa would let her go.”

  “
She lived here?”

  “Until she was twenty,” Megan replied. “Uncle Ted’s her brother. He took over the farm when he married Aunt Janelle. Anyway, Dad was a rookie cop and he’d gone there on a ski vacation.”

  “Cocky rookie cop,” her aunt pronounced, handing Kelsey a cutting board and a knife before she turned to start hulling strawberries.

  “From what I understand,” Megan continued, still spooning, “Mom didn’t want anything to do with him. I guess he showed up every morning that week to ask her out. And every morning, she said no. When his vacation was over, she thought she’d never see him again, but he came back the following weekend and asked her out again.”

  “Did she go then?”

  Megan’s dark ponytail swayed as she shook her head. “Mom said she told him she didn’t want to date a policeman. She didn’t want to move to the city and have to worry about losing her husband in the line of duty. She wanted a nice farm boy.

  “He told her he didn’t want to date her,” she continued. Tipping the jar, she dug at what was left in the bottom. “He said he wanted to marry her. I guess he also told her that if she wanted a man with a safe job, she better look beyond the farm because he’d heard of some pretty nasty accidents with combines and tractors. Then, he promised he wouldn’t die on her. He told her he was the third generation of New York’s finest and his family had a tradition of staying healthy.”

  “Cocky,” Mrs. Collier repeated.

  “‘Confident,’ he’d say,” Megan defended. She glanced toward Kelsey. “Has my brother promised you that?”

  Caught tossing the first layer of cabbage leaves toward the garbage disposal, the question nearly made Kelsey miss the sink.

  “Megan,” her aunt softly chided. “She said they’re just friends. Just because they met in a similar way doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I know my brother, Aunt Janelle. He’s very much his father’s son when it comes to knowing what he wants.” The jar clinked against the counter as she set it down to look at Kelsey. “I already know he must care about you to have brought you here. I guess what I really want to know is how much influence you have with him. He’s told you what he does, hasn’t he? About the assignments he takes?”

  Kelsey hesitated. Sam’s sister was nothing if not direct. Her claim about his caring, however, was terribly off course. “He’s told me some.” Enough to make me wonder why he didn’t want this leave, she thought to herself.

  “Did he tell you how long he was under last time?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  Looking vindicated, Megan reached for a lemon. “Then you know why we worry about him.” She set the citrus on the counter, whacked it in half with a knife. “Mom hates the duty he’s pulled the last several years. Even Dad tried to discourage him before he went under this last time. You know it has to be bad for my father to do something like that, too,” she insisted. “Dad is as loyal as blood to the corps. And he’ll defend Sam every time to the rest of us. But you have to know he’s getting concerned himself when he starts trying to talk him into transferring into something else. I overhead him tell Sam right after he came off this last assignment that there’s a reason there aren’t many fifty-year-old undercover detectives. They either burn out or get shot.” Her hand tightened around the knife as she glanced up. “Do you know what Sam said?”

  Unable to even venture a guess, Kelsey shook her head.

  “He said, ‘I’ve already been shot, so I have fifteen years before I have to worry about the other.’”

  As if to make sure her niece hadn’t just offered news out of turn, Janelle darted a cautious glance to where Megan pressed half the lemon, hard, onto the juicer. “That might not be something he told her about, dear.”

  “It’s okay.” Kelsey offered the assurance quietly. “I knew. That he’d been shot, I mean.” She knew none of the details of the incident. But she’d seen the puckered scar, along with enough police shows to suspect what it was. And she’d seen the other scars. The ones that looked like slashes. Watching his sister now, she found herself hoping there weren’t others in places his pants had kept her from seeing.

  Having no idea how to ask, reluctantly hoping his sister might offer more, she remained silent and returned to her task.

  “At least he talks to you,” Megan muttered, assuming far more than Kelsey had intended. “We can’t talk to him about his work at all. His back goes up the minute any of us says a word about it.” Her voice dropped lower. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

  The assumption that she could be their champion brought Kelsey’s motions to a halt.

  “I’m sorry, Megan. I really am. But I don’t have any influence over Sam at all.” She’d never met anyone less susceptible to another’s influence, either. His very need to rely on himself, his skills, his judgment made him very much his own man, insular in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend. “I can’t imagine that he’s not the absolute best at what he does, though. He has good instincts.” She encountered some of them herself. “He knows how to protect himself.”

  Even as she spoke, she knew how weak her assurance had to sound. Megan had grown up in a family of policemen. Her brother had already been injured in the line of duty. She knew what the risks were.

  “That’s what I tell myself, too.” Defiance fought helplessness. “It’s what everyone who loves a cop does. I love my brother and I love my dad, but I was like Mom. I didn’t want to live with the uncertainty that came with being married to one.

  “My husband was an accountant. You don’t find a job much safer than that,” she said quietly. “He was my best friend. He was a good man. A gentle man. But we lost him to the kind of random violence my brother deliberately walks into. I know there are no guarantees,” she insisted. “And I know all the arguments about why we need people out there watching out for us. I grew up hearing all of them. I just want somebody else to do it.”

  She shook her head, blew a breath. “Ignore me,” she muttered, tossing the empty lemon rind onto the cabbage leaves. “I quit talking to my brother about this ages ago. I should know by now that no one’s going to be able to keep him from doing what he wants to do.”

  Kelsey considered the young widow squeezing the life out of the other half of the lemon. As much as Sam’s sister had already lost, she clearly feared losing more should something happen to her brother. Knowing no possible way she could help herself, Kelsey offered the only idea that might.

  “If it’s been that long,” she suggested softly, “maybe you should say something to him now.”

  Megan gave her head another shake, wiped back a stray hair with her forearm. “I don’t want to wreck the time we’ll have with him here. Especially for the boys,” she said, as the front door opened and voices drifted in. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed it yet,” she said as the voices grew nearer, “but my brother is a master at avoiding people he thinks are going to say what he doesn’t want to hear.”

  “You must be talking about Sam.”

  That breezy observation came from a younger version of Mrs. Collier as Cathy, her oldest daughter, walked in with a pie in each hand, a husband bearing a bowl of potato salad and two little girls who promptly wrapped themselves around their grandmother’s knees. Seeing Kelsey, Cathy gave a little squeal of recognition and set the pies on the table before throwing open her arms à la her mother to greet the classmate she hadn’t seen in years. Her husband, whom Kelsey had never met since he wasn’t from around there, sought the security of the barn the minute he was introduced and learned that was where the other males had gone.

  For the next hour, talk moved with comfortable ease from the rumors Cathy had heard about Kelsey’s job offers, to how work was progressing on Megan’s new house, and on to the long-ago summers the cousins, Megan and Cathy, had spent together on the farm with their respective brothers.

  As more food was prepared, and the little girls were set on chairs to help, Kelsey began to realize that Sam hadn’t just visited the
farm outside Maple Mountain on occasion. As a child he’d spent part of nearly every summer there. As he’d grown older, he’d worked entire summers with his uncle. He hadn’t worked there in college, though, other than the summer between his junior and senior years. That had obviously been the year her hormones had kicked in and he’d gone to work on her imagination.

  She learned, too, that those summer visits to the farm were sacrosanct as far as Megan and Sam’s mother was concerned. Since her children were being raised in the city, she had insisted that they have the balance spending time in the country would provide. She’d very much wanted them to know the quieter life she’d grown up with.

  As much as Kelsey admired their mother’s parenting philosophy, quiet was nowhere to be found as more relatives arrived bearing food and small children. The afternoon breeze soon carried the screams of kids running through sprinklers and the laughter of women visiting while they drank iced tea at the long picnic tables and chased wet offspring. When the men finally showed up needing to wash because they all had grease under their nails, the sounds filling the air were joined with the deeper chuckles of good-natured ribbing and, eventually, the clank of horseshoes being played on the far lawn.

  All the while Kelsey found her thoughts drawn to the man who stood a little taller than the rest, whose deep laugh masked deeper secrets and whose occasional smile in her direction had her conscious of the members of his family curiously watching them both.

  He said very little to her, though. Other than to sit beside her when they all finally ate with everyone jammed elbow-to-elbow at the heavily laden picnic tables, he spent most of his time with the men and the kids—until the adults started gathering the children to go see the fireworks at the lake.

  It wasn’t until his aunt had asked Sam if he and Kelsey would be going out to the lake with them that he realized how long he’d been there. It had been in the back of his mind when he and Kelsey arrived to stick around for an hour or so, then head back to the mill. Between helping his uncle, a man he admired as much for his live-and-let live attitude as his ability to repair or rebuild practically anything, and horsing around with his nephews, that hour had turned into the entire afternoon.