Larkspur Cove (34 page)

The sentence finished on a hopeful high note that pleaded with me to leave him at the Waterbird, where he could do man projects in view of the cute girl. “Beats the heck out of sitting at home,” he finished, as if he’d just remembered that acting too enthusiastic might affect his coolness rating.

“It’s easier to do that job with a couple extra hands,” Mart added and cast a sideways glance at me, his eyes a warm camo green. It looked like Dustin wasn’t the only one enjoying the day.

I vacillated between making some excuse that Dustin was needed at home, and letting him go. Having Mart give my son rides to water safety class was one thing, but seeing them acting like friends was another.The idea of letting Dustin develop a connection with a man I’d met just a couple weeks ago felt like a risk, a tiny crack in the security fence. When it came right down to it, I knew very little about Mart. I had no real idea what his intentions were. I knew very little about his past, or how he’d ended up in Moses Lake, or his plans for the future. Most of our conversations had been about his job, Birdie, or about me. Even if I was willing to dangle myself over what might turn out to be an emotional cliff, I couldn’t afford to take chances with Dustin. Beyond that, there was a deeper question – what if Mart was only interested in Dustin because Mart was interested in me? If . . . when I finally had to come down to earth and admit to Mart that I wasn’t ready for a relationship and didn’t know when I’d ever be, would he toss Dustin aside like yesterday’s news? Dustin couldn’t take one more rejection in his life.

On the flip side of the coin, there was my son, bright-eyed, smiling, enthusiastic for the first time in months. Even Taz’s four-by-four hadn’t lit him up like this. He had the gleam of looking forward to something, of enjoying the moment and not worrying about what lay ahead or behind, or the fact that August was less than a week away.

Above the doorway to the back porch, a plaque caught my eye. The bit of backwoods wisdom Mart had mentioned last night but couldn’t call to mind at the time.

Stop looking ahead. Stop looking back. Stop. Look around.

I took in my son’s buoyant smile. How long since I’d seen him this happy? How long since he’d had a moment like this? I couldn’t even say.

“Sure,” I answered. “Sure. That sounds like fun. I’ll see you at home when you’re finished, all right?” My heart caught in my chest, as if I were blindly feeling my way through a dark house, knowing that something dangerous could be hiding around any corner. By the time I saw it coming, it would be too late.

“Thanks, Mom.” Dustin grinned ear to ear, then quickly toned down the boyish enthusiasm. “Cool. I’ll see ya later, then.” Clearly, that was my cue to get out of the way and let the evening’s adventure continue.

For an instant, I was jealous. I wanted to be in on the fun, rather than heading home to cook supper and pay this month’s bills.

“Do you need some money for a snack?” I asked Dustin, reaching into my purse.

“I got it.” Mart opened the doughnut case and made a selection, then waved Dustin to the counter. “I owe Dustin for the help this afternoon.”

Nodding, Dustin whispered something to Cassandra, then headed to the cash register with his candy bar in hand. I left Mart and Dustin standing side by side at the counter, looking out the window and talking about guardrails.

When Dustin came home later, he was as happy as a boy with summer reading and half an English workbook to complete could be. While telling me about his day, he ate the sandwich I’d left for him. An old Robert Redford movie,
Jeremiah Johnson,
came on TV, and we sat watching it together.

After finishing his supper, Dustin stood behind the sofa, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to stay with me or go to his room.

“Stay and watch awhile,” I said. “You can work on your English homework in the morning.”

“ ’Kay.” He shrugged and sat down. “Ummm, by the way . . . Is it okay if I go help next week down at the Tin Building Theater? They’re working on some sound and lighting stuff. The Rev asked if maybe I could work with them on it. I told him about the huge sound booth that Dad . . . at our old church.”

“The Rev?”

Dustin nodded hopefully. “Reverend Hay. Cassandra calls him the Rev. She goes there to church . . . at Lakeshore Community, I mean.”

“That sounds fine,” I said.

His eyes lit, just as they had when I’d given the green light earlier that afternoon. “Thanks, Mom.”

He watched a few more minutes of the movie, then brought up another subject without looking away from the screen. “We’re starting the ramps and the guardrail on the dock tomorrow afternoon, so Pop Dorsey can get down to the lake in his wheelchair. I can go, right?” His level of interest was surprising. A motherly sixth sense told me that a good deal of that interest was related to Cassandra. Part of me wanted to say no, to keep Dustin safely at home in his little cocoon. On the other hand, he needed to know that I trusted him, that I believed in him. He needed to be allowed to begin navigating the path through teenagerhood, with all the rights, privileges, and stumbling blocks that involved.

“All right, but make sure you’re paying attention to the power tools and not just looking at girls, okay.”

Dustin blushed and swallowed hard, nodded, and focused on the movie. Watching him, I vacillated between being grateful for the newfound enthusiasm and worrying about it. As nice as Mart seemed to be, as much as Mart had assured me that Cassandra was a sweet girl, all of this felt like a risk, a potential train wreck in the making. I’d just let Dustin step onto the train.

Even as those cautionary notes played in my head, I found myself watching the lake with one eye and the movie with the other. Somewhere between Robert Redford being a greenhorn and learning to survive in the mountains, Dustin fell sound asleep on the sofa. After that, I watched the lake with both eyes, looking for lights in the cove.

Outside the window, Larkspur Cove remained dark, and as the clock ticked past eleven, I felt a heavy sense of disappointment. Mart wasn’t coming tonight.

Just as I was finally facing that fact and getting ready to wake Dustin so he could move to his bed, the phone rang. I grabbed it and headed for the porch, answering with anticipation pinwheeling in my windpipe, making my voice higher than usual and syrupy sweet. “Hey.” I searched the lake, looking for Mart’s boat. “What’s up?”

He yawned before answering. “Aw, stuck out here in my truck. Had a complaint called in about some yay-hoos night-shooting coyotes off a county road. There’s a state park campground a couple hundred yards through the trees. Idiots.” He yawned again, and I pictured thick, dark lashes brushing his cheeks.

“You sound tired.” The words seemed intimate, like pillow talk.

He laughed softly, and I felt it deep in my chest. “Some long nights catching up with me.”

I blushed, even though no one was there to see it. I was responsible for at least the last few of those long nights. Once Mart and I started talking, it seemed as if we could go on forever – not about anything vital, just silly things. Stories from the lake, the quirky people he ran into on the job, my work, his work.

Last night we’d talked about the water safety class, and how Dustin, Cassandra, and my ten-year-old client, Daniel, were doing. Once, I’d even found myself laughing about Meg and me, and how we’d spent our teenage years tangled in a tooth-and-nail battle of sibling rivalry.

I can’t imagine what you’d have to be jealous about,
Mart had said.
But then again, I haven’t met your sister.
He’d given me a flirty look that was evident even in the dim light. I’d swatted him and told him Meg was married. He’d grinned and said,
Just my luck,
and then he’d kissed me.

Remembering that kiss now brought a surprisingly potent sense of disappointment. He wouldn’t be motoring up the cove tonight. This cell call was it. Some logical part of me said that was probably for the best. Things were happening way too fast. Still, I cradled the phone on my shoulder, hugging my knees. “You should turn in earlier.”

“Had better things to do.”

My skin went hot and prickly all over. It was probably a good thing he wasn’t here in person tonight. “So, I want to move forward on Birdie’s referral as soon as possible.” Sliding into work talk was what my boss would have referred to as a
defense mechanism
– a way to maintain distance when things got too close. Probably a smart move, all issues considered.

Mart didn’t seem conscious of the switch.“Yeah, I got your text message. When’re you heading up there?”

“I have a slot at eleven a.m. tomorrow, and I think I can get through the low-water crossing, but I don’t have any way of knowing if Len will be home. It’s not like I can ring his cell. I hate to ask, but is it possible for you to let him know I’m coming?”

“Len is usually hunkered down at the house in the heat of the day, but I’ll catch him out on the lake in the morning and let him know your plans. If he has a problem with the time, I’ll call you.” He paused, and I heard a radio call in the background. He turned down the sound before coming back on the phone. “How about lunch after?”

Air bounced like a basketball behind my ribs. “If you’ll set up things with Len for me, I’ll even bring the chow.”

Mart laughed. “Well, that’s an offer I can’t refuse. I was gonna suggest lunch at one of the bakeries in Gnadenfeld or at the artist colony, though.”

Even though I undoubtedly wouldn’t see anyone I knew at either place, the idea of our going out in public together tightened the muscles in my spine and tamped down the fluffy air ball in my stomach. “I’d rather listen to the mockingbird, I think.”

“Sounds perfect.”

We arranged a time, and then the conversation ended abruptly when he saw a spotlight through the trees.

“Be careful,” I told him.

“Always,” he answered, and hung up.

I said a little prayer for his safety, without even realizing it at first. From that thought I drifted, somewhat unconsciously, into a vague contemplation of what it would feel like to be with someone who put himself in harm’s way for a living. Before the thought process could go too far, I cut it short, covered Dustin with a quilt, and went to bed.

I fell asleep thinking about the trip to Len’s house and wondering how the visit would go. I’d never been there alone before, but sooner or later, I had to start. It wasn’t right to ask Mart to hold my hand when I went to Len’s this time. The man did have a job of his own to do, after all.

In the morning, I started the day with a murky sense of trepidation, as if something had happened overnight and I wasn’t aware of it yet. The feeling stayed with me through a staff meeting at the office and my first client session of the day, during which both Daniel and his grandmother gave glowing reports about the first two sessions of water safety class. Now Daniel wanted to be a game warden or work for the Corps of Engineers when he grew up.

After I left the Crandall house, I sat in the car for a few moments, trying to gather my thoughts and analyze the knots in my stomach. Birdie’s case wasn’t so different from others I’d taken on in this job. Why did it seem different? Why, when I imagined her, did I see the image from my dream – the one in which she was balancing on the bridge railing, innocent, vulnerable, unaware that she was in danger?

Perhaps it was the mystery surrounding her that concerned me most, or perhaps it was Birdie herself. What secrets were hiding behind her soft blue eyes, and how could I unearth them? What had happened to silence her voice? What was she afraid of now? Where had she been before she came to Moses Lake?

The questions swirled randomly as I drove the road to Len’s house, fording mudholes and bouncing over furrows cut into the roadbeds by runoff from the weekend storms. The low-water crossing was touch-and-go, but I made it and crawled up the other side with all four tires grinding through the wet caliche, showering the truck with dirt, pebbles, and mud. If my boss saw all the mud, he’d probably make some joke about my abusing his truck, and then he’d pat me on the back and call me
cowgirl
. If he had any doubt that I could handle Birdie’s case, he hadn’t shown it.
Just go with your gut,
he’d advised.
When you get there, you’ll know what to do
.

I hoped he was right, because as the truck idled quietly up the lane to Len’s farm, my gut wasn’t doing anything but churning.

Turning the corner, I peeked through a gap in the wall of scrappy cedar trees and spotted activity in the tomato patch down the hill. Len was slogging through the garden mire, tying up tomato plants that the storm had beaten down. He’d obviously been at it for a while, because his boots and threadbare jeans were caked with mud. Behind him, Birdie was similarly attired – mud-caked jeans and a T-shirt that had probably come from the emergency stash at Lakeshore Community Church. Her oversized red boots had been cinched onto her feet with twine again, but the heavy mud sucked her down with each step, forcing her to hold the boot tops with her hands, so that she duck-walked along after Len. Over one arm she had a plastic bucket that appeared to be for collecting tomatoes knocked from the vine during the storm. Every step or two she stopped, let go of the boots long enough to gather fallen produce off the ground, then hooked her bucket over her arm and resumed the duck walk. Len waited patiently for her to catch up before moving to the next plant.