A Time to Gather (26 page)

More steps to climb.

Rosie stared at them . . . at the trail of red-black spots marring the thick ecru carpet.

She followed them up, gingerly planting her feet around the blobs.

“No ambulance?” Bobby’s voice came from below.

“Nope.”

“Yell if you need me.”

Rosie went inside the bedroom. Fresh sea air greeted her, a welcome whiff through the open balcony doors. Like the downstairs, the room was chaotic.

Erik lay on a king-size bed, clothed in black sweat pants, atop the covers. His eyes were shut.

Lexi sat beside him, pressing a towel against his wounded shoulder. She looked up. “He always barfed whenever somebody on his ball team got hurt. He’d faint at the sight of blood.”

“Has he fainted?”

Erik cleared his throat, but didn’t open his eyes. “No. Just feel . . .” He raised his left hand and waggled it. “A little off.”

Every nerve in Rosie’s body crimped up as if she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket. “Beaumont, you pathetic waste of oxygen! You snooker your sister into racing over here because you feel a little
off
? Because of you she calls me because you feel a little
off
? People are out there getting robbed and beaten and worse while I’m here because you feel a little
off
? Give me a break!”

Lexi burst into tears. “He didn’t snooker me! Rosie, he needs help.”

“That’s the understatement of the year. But the truth is, Lexi, he is never going to get help because he will not come straight out and ask for it!” Who in the world did not know that basic psychological fact? Everybody knew it! What was wrong with this family?

Lexi rushed past Rosie to the door. “Why don’t you just shoot him again?”

“I just might do that!” she yelled at her retreating back. “Put him out of his misery.”

Bobby appeared at the top of the stairs and pressed himself against the wall to allow Lexi by. He looked at Rosie. “That was professional.”

Words of retort caught in her throat. Bobby’s tone did not banter nor condemn. He did not lift his chin in the way that communicated he was Mr. Patience. He could wait for her to get over the huff and puff before offering a soft reprimand.

Nope. None of that. She had crossed a line, one big giant step from where she belonged as a cop right on over into the ethereal never-never land of personal involvement.

Rosie gulped. “I need more time off,” she whispered.

He gazed at her, his face unreadable.

“One day. Starting now. I’ll call in.”

“Don’t bother.” He shoved himself away from the wall. “Just get yourself straightened out, Delgado. You’ve got twenty-four hours.”

She watched him pound down the stairs.

How had she gotten into such a tangle? She had only meant to pray for a needy person who crossed her path, a rich, good-looking guy with issues for whose sake she had now probably lost her job and her friendship with Bobby Grey.

None of it made sense, but she knew her choices had narrowed themselves down to one.

“Lord, have mercy,” she muttered and turned back into the bedroom to take care of Erik Beaumont, that man she referred to as a pathetic waste of oxygen.

  
Forty-Five

Y
ou okay in there?”

At the sound of Officer Grey’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door, Lexi lowered the towel from her face. According to her reflection in the mirror, she was anything but okay. Her straight hair had gone stringy, her hazel eyes colorless orbs rimmed in puffy reds.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

“Can you come out, please?”

The sight of Erik’s filthy bathroom made her want to be sick again. She opened the door and followed him into the living room. He was not a big man, but in the blue-black uniform, arms akimbo and jaw set, he appeared larger than life.

He said, “What happened here tonight?”

“I-I don’t know.” Lexi squirmed under his gaze. “When I got here, he was sitting on the floor upstairs, bleeding from his shoulder wound. Not much, but enough to make me think he should go to the ER.”

“There’s a stool overturned in the kitchen.”

She nodded. “I think he fell off of it. He’s not really coherent, but he said something about standing on it, searching those high cupboards for boo—for whatever. He’s such a mess. He needs help.”

“Did he say anything about another person being here with him?”

“No.”

“All right. We can assume he was alone, inebriated, had an accident.” He exhaled heavily. “Delgado is going to stay with him. We should leave.”

“But he needs—”

“Rosie will take care of him.”

“How? What will she do?”

“I don’t know exactly, but we can trust that she has the situation under control.”

“She said she might shoot him.”

He started to say something but clamped his mouth shut. His face glowed red.

Lexi bit her thumbnail. Tears burned her eyes. “She didn’t mean it.”

“No, she didn’t. Is there anything I can do for you? Give you a lift?”

“I should stay and help her.”

“She’s a one-woman show. You can help him and yourself best by leaving.” The creases in his forehead smoothed out and his voice hushed to a gentle tone. “Lexi, sometimes we’re just too close to a situation. We need to step back and let others take over for a while. Nonfamily others.”

“I should clean up this place.”

“No, you should go home. Why don’t you go to your parents? They must be as concerned as you are about him. He’s taken you all through a rough time of it. I imagine you’re feeling pretty alone right now, maybe afraid too. You may not know this, Miss Beaumont, but misery and anxiety love company.” One corner of his mouth lifted.

“But my parents . . .” The protest fizzled. Her parents what? Made her crazy? No longer fueled her soul with warm fuzzies? Not that her dad ever had, but her mom and grandparents knew how to care for her.

Knew. Past tense.

“Lexi, a crisis makes for a good catalyst. It pressures people to look at life differently, to make changes.”

Resistance drained from her. She felt a twinge of gratitude that she and Erik had not been close in earlier years. He exhausted her. She felt like a lone warrior carrying him for weeks now, ever since they’d acknowledged mutual self-destructive habits.

Where was everyone else? Of all weeks Danny could camp, he went this one. The rest of her family—

Well, who knew? She was the one angry with them.

Maybe it was time to go home.

L
exi drove slowly up the road from the highway through Hacienda Hideaway grounds. The evening was pitch-black. Distanced from city lights, stars shone brilliantly. As she rounded a bend, house lights came into view. They emanated from the new bungalow where her grandparents now lived.

How odd that they’d moved in before she’d even seen the finished product. She, the grandchild who spent more time in their home than any other family member.

Before the fire.

“Can you compare the Lexi Beaumont before the fire and the Lexi
Beaumont after
. . .
”
The reporter’s question came to mind.

Before the fire she came and went as she pleased, to and from the estate at least two or three times a week. She worked on the landscape. She helped Papa with the horses. She played canasta with him. She rested in Nana’s serenity. She learned the old ways from her, how the Kumeyaay lived off of the desert. She heard about Jesus’ unconditional love and she received it from the old couple.

She seldom ate herself into oblivion at the hacienda. She seldom made herself sick.

Then came the fire. It diminished Nana and Papa, somehow made them smaller. And that development—even more so than her parents’ stupid re-wedding rigamarole—was what had wrung the life out of Lexi’s world.

Not exactly a lucid answer for Nathan Warner and his article.

She stepped on the gas pedal. Dirt swirled behind her, and the new home faded from view.

It was time to find her own new home. Not the house she’d grown up in—that had been sold. Not the hacienda her grandparents used to live in—that had burned and been refurbished.

No, it wasn’t a physical thing. It was her parents and her grandparents, waiting now for her up at the big house, longing to hear news about Erik.

She hoped they longed as well to welcome her home.

  
Forty-Six

C
laire held Lexi tightly. Her youngest was shorter by a few inches, small boned, petite.

When Claire was pregnant with her and Danny, the doctor did not suspect twins. Always it was one heartbeat, one large baby doing gymnastics in the womb. He waited full-term to arrive. Some minutes later, Lexi surprised them all, slipping quietly into the world as if she were her brother’s shadow. Too tiny to go home with him, she remained at the hospital for a few weeks.

“Oh, Mom!” Lexi choked.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Claire took half a step back, hands on Lexi’s shoulders, and looked at her.

They stood alone outdoors, near a kitchen window, on the verandah. Patio lights strung along the overhang cast a warm glow in the evening.

“He is such a mess!” Lexi cried.

“You said Rosie was with him. That’s all I need to know for now about Erik. I asked how
you
are, Lex. Tell me, please? Last week you left here so upset. Then you didn’t return my calls. I miss you.”

Lexi’s breath caught. Her eyes widened. “I miss you! I miss Nana and Papa. I miss Danny something awful.” The words tumbled from her. “I just miss the way life used to be. Oh! I sound like such an idiot!”

“No you don’t. Emotional, maybe, but not an idiot. What did you mean ‘used to be’?”

Lexi blinked. “Before the fire.”

Before the fire.
But so much good had come after the fire! Eventually, at any rate. Lexi, obviously still stuck in the losses, did not have the eyes to see those things. It was an old tune with her: change meant trauma.

Claire chose her words carefully. “It’s true the fire precipitated a lot of changes.”

“A lot? Absolutely nothing is the same anymore. Nobody is the same anymore.”

She nodded. Lexi had always struggled with change, no matter how insignificant. Everything from a new classroom to a new toothbrush disturbed her in equal proportions. Thank goodness she’d hooked up with Vivian, her boss, in a business she adored, at the age of sixteen. She hadn’t needed to change jobs. Moving her from home to her own apartment hadn’t happened until just a couple years before and had been nothing short of amazing.

Recent developments would be wreaking havoc in her.

“Lexi, there have been huge adjustments to make. I know how hard it is on you. Your childhood home is gone. Nana and Papa have aged considerably. Their place, your home away from home, can’t possibly feel the same to you.”

Lexi hung her head, and Claire knew she’d hit the soft spot.

She knew because it was her own. “Honey, Nana once told me that you came to the hacienda for the same reason I did.”

Lexi raised questioning eyes that brimmed with tears.

“It was a safe place for us. Hm?”

Lexi nodded.

Claire drew her close. “Well, I think it’s supposed to be one again. For you and me and the others. Even for strangers who visit. It’s a tall order and not one I can fill. But I’m learning that God is a God of tall orders.”

“You’re sounding more and more like Nana.”

“Thank you.”

Lexi backed out of her embrace, wiping at her eyes, a tiny smile on her lips. “You’re welcome.”

Claire returned the smile. Her baby was home, at least for now, vulnerable enough to express her heartache, open enough to receive her mother’s hug.

Had God begun to fulfill that tall order?

T
he proof lay in Lexi’s reception of Max.

Dinner had been put on hold for over an hour after Lexi phoned. Now Claire put the finishing touches on it, praying that her daughter would sense a safe harbor with the dad she really didn’t know well at all.

Tuyen sat in the corner at the table, not entering in on the welcoming of Lexi. She remained visibly upset about Erik. Jumpy, she asked question after question about him. Her Vietnamese accent thickened by the hour until she was almost unintelligible.

Indio
comforted her new grandchild as best she could, but she appeared tired and unable to put her whole heart into it.

Ben had deigned to join them, making one of his rare visits to the family dinner table since Tuyen’s arrival. His behavior toward the girl still bordered on rude. No wonder Indio was worn out.

Claire pulled baked potatoes from the oven, piled them into a bowl, and murmured softly to herself, “Not my job. Not my job.”

What a perfect phrase! The pastor had used it the day before in his sermon, and she’d already repeated it umpteen times, whenever an old thought pattern attacked and suggested she was responsible for Max and Ben, Erik and Lexi, Jenna and Danny and now Tuyen. The old Claire—the one before the fire—majored on trying to fix things so that family and friends would not know one minute of unhappiness.

Of course that was an impossibility and—to top it off—it was never intended to be her job!

At the stove now, she lifted the lid from a pot, forked the broccoli in the steamer, and saw Lexi greet Indio and Ben.

Big hugs were passed all around. Perhaps almost as big and warm as in the old days, the days before the fire had changed everything? Lexi asked if Danny was coming; her face fell at Indio’s negative answer.

At last Max approached her from behind, touched her arm, turned her away from her grandparents.

“Hey.” He spread his arms apart. “Welcome.”

Claire paused in her work, spatula midair above the baked chicken pieces, and held her breath.

She held it for a long, long moment.

Then Lexi shifted her weight onto the other foot, and the narrow space between her and Max was filled.

She sort of disappeared inside Max’s arms. His width enveloped her small frame.

A blink of an eye later, the hug ended.

But, Claire thought, it was a hug, given and received.

Yes, God seemed to be filling that tall order.