Love In a Small Town (35 page)

"I know. His pockets are full of pills and he's been selling them."

Through teeth clenched in anger, Lynn said, "Sarah, before you try to rescue anyone else, so help me, we'd better have a serious talk."

A large male body careened against them, forcing all three to struggle to stay on their feet. The skirmish had turned into a gang fight. Men and women, senseless with drugs, pushed and shoved each other, screaming curses.

David headed toward Lynn, Sarah, and Logan after Deke pulled him off Holder, who was bruised and battered, and lying on the ground, crying like a baby.

The police arrived with flashing lights and screaming sirens, followed by an ambulance with a paramedic team.

"I think we're busted," Deke said.

"What the hell's going on here?" The short, heavy, bearded man in overalls, who had been tending the gate, charged into the scene, looking ready to do damage to anyone within reach.

David turned to him. "You must be Oren Shuggert, responsible for this mess." By now calm and thoroughly sickened, David hauled back his arm and punched the man in the gut, shouting, "What the hell do you think you're doing, letting kids into one of these things? That damned punk," he gestured at Holder, writhing on the ground, "dragged my daughter here to get her into trouble with the police."

Shuggert looked at Jim. "Is that what this is about? You got the cops called on me because of some girl, you fucking piece of horseshit?"

With a heave, Jim staggered to his feet, fear overriding the pain on his face. "I didn't do nothing," he whined.

Shuggert made a move to grab him, but David moved in front to block him, while Deke, taller by six inches, came from behind and locked his arm around the man's neck.

Shuggert fought to get loose, yelling, "Get off me, you son of a bitch," but stilled in defeat when Deke flourished the baseball bat.

With her arm wrapped protectively around Sarah, Lynn started to lead her away.

"Come on, let's go before the police find out you're here."

Logan followed.

"Police," a voice boomed out of the darkness. "Everybody stay where you are."

Lynn turned to behold a giant in an Arkansas State Police uniform. Unmistakably an authoritative figure. The uniform, the hat, and his commanding stance, left no doubt who was in charge. She sighed with relief, and then realized Sarah could be identified and in trouble with the authorities.

Gripping Sarah with one hand and Logan with the other, she edged toward the road.

"Hold on," the State Trooper said, putting his arm out to block her progress.

Chief Hadley appeared. "These are the people who located the site. They're okay." His hand motioned toward David and Deke, who had turned Shuggert over to a patrolman.

"Give your statement to the officer standing by the paramedics, then you're free to go. You were never here."

Lynn noted, with satisfaction, that Holder had been searched and taken into custody. The paramedics were dealing with Madonna, and numerous others.

A sudden tiredness washed over her. She wanted to get away from the noise and violence and go home, back to the kids who were waiting at Emily's house, even back to the ever-loving Iris.

David was watching her. His gaze said he was reading her mind. Coming up to her, and embracing her, he whispered, "I love you."

"Are you guys okay, now?" Sarah asked, as she joined them, Logan's arm holding her as though she might run away again. "Are you and Dad back together?"

"Yes. We're going to be married. I'll be part of your family. Okay?" Lynn assured her.

"I'm glad," Sarah said dejectedly. "Lynn, I think I really need another woman to talk to." She sighed in sympathy. "Poor Dad."

"How so?"

"Well, with you, me, and Iris, and your cat, that makes four females against one male."

David laughed. "There's Logan. Two of us equal four of you any day."

Lynn saw the happiness in the faces gazing at her. Then it happened. She felt it with a physical awareness. The last part of her, the self-confidence and the certainty of who she was, missing for so many years, slipped into place. She was together again. The loneliness was gone, and she knew now that for every woman there's a man ready to love her, and for every man there's a woman. It doesn't matter where you've been, or how you live. You just have to open your heart to find them.

In her mind, the years stretched before her. There would be more children, family dinners, the house overflowing with happiness on Christmas. She wouldn't be alone anymore. Her days would be filled with love and laughter. Eureka Springs Serendipity had worked its magic once again.

"Let's go home," she said, "before Iris expires from separation anxiety."

Lynn lounged, relaxed, enjoying her usual afternoon of porch sitting, waiting for David to join her. Spring had arrived in Eureka Springs in early April with its usual explosion of forsythia, daffodils, and dogwood. The redbuds were already fading. Sleepily she watched a flicker eyeing the birdhouse hanging on a nearby tree as a possible nesting site.

Laying a hand over her burgeoning stomach, she soothed the life inside, as David arrived with two glasses of iced tea.

"How's our boy?"

"Enjoying his usual afternoon calisthenics," she said, her eyes filled with love and contentment. "Another three months of this and you won't be the only man in the Martin family." David's lawyer had handled the details of adoption and now both Lynn and David were Sarah's legal parents.

Iris emerged from her place under the table, and barked, tail wagging while she looked down the street.

Lynn laughed. "Logan and Sarah are coming home from school. How does she know this when we can't see them yet?"

"It's Eureka Springs, honey. It has its own vibrations. You can't beat it, so go with the flow."

The magic had happened to her and David, Sarah and Logan. They all had found love in a small town.

About the Author

A few words about me;

There isn’t a subject that doesn’t interest me. This intellectual curiosity has led me along many paths in life, and has supplied the material for my books in several genres including fantasy, romance, history, and even aliens.

I came to writing when I was seventy-five, after thirty years as a professional perfumer, retailer, and aromatherapist, and I use all my life experiences in my books.

I’ve been a wife and mother, a newspaper food columnist, a set designer, actor, and director in amateur theater, and served in the Women’s Army Corps during the Korean War. I’m an alderman on the Eureka Springs City Council. I have a passion for American History, especially the 1800s.

Also by Joyce Zeller

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Rogue Phoenix Press

The Haunting of Aaron House

Evil ghosts, mystery, murder and mayhem await documentary film producer Paul Barlowe, his wife Sam, and their teenage son Andy when they arrive in Lancaster County, PA, from Chicago, to shoot a film on local history. Sam becomes the victim of Amalie Broome, circa 1867, tormented by past mysteries and determined to destroy Phineas, her husband, whose ghost lives in the other side of the house, and take Sam’s life as her own. To survive Sam must enter a world where folklore, spells, Pow-Wow faith healers and witches are taken for granted. Only the wisdom of an elderly seer will save them from destruction by the spirits that claim them.

An Excerpt

Prologue

Lancaster County, 2005

The farmhouse stands alone, hidden by massive, black-leafed Crimson maples—a silent testimony to the triumph of tenacity over time. For two hundred years the old house has withstood the indignities of neglect, locked in a struggle for survival, for there is unfinished business to settle.

It began as a simple, two-story box of gray fieldstone, laid by the hands of an unskilled German immigrant. Before the Civil War, new owners doubled the size, added gables, and a wide porch—front and back—two houses combined as one.

Thus it endures—tall, vacant windows staring with dead eyes in shocked surprise at the mortal world. Past injustices must be resolved before it can crumble and return to the earth.

Occasionally tourists, exploring the narrow by-ways, notice the house set well back from the traffic. They pull the car into the lane thinking, perhaps, to take a picture, because the house is very old. Some will mount the rotting steps to the porch, trying to see through windows opaque with dust, curiosity getting the better of their judgment.

The moist air thickens around them, humidity gathers into a mist that pulsates with menace and they are seized by a panicked craving to return to the sunlight. The feeling is so intense, they swallow their heart and run for the road, shivering in the sudden cold; considering for the first time in their lives, the possibility of ghosts.An unheard voice, filled with longing and grief, cries, "A child, a child is coming." The sound of sobbing fills the air and a frightened rabbit runs wildly for its life, scribbling a frantic path in the tangled grass.

Chapter One

The familiar darkness grew around Samantha; the same dream, repeated nightly, but never during the day. No. Not during the day. It isn't possible.

"Dreams don't come while you're awake." She tried hard to convince herself and stave off the encroaching darkness. Always the same, an old farmhouse with a maze of dark rooms. Determined, she clenched her teeth and fought the blackness, willing it to go away, but it engulfed her.

Her gut spasmed on the sweet, coppery taste of blood. Desperately she gripped the edge of the kitchen sink, swallowing convulsively to keep her stomach still.

"I will beat this. I am not going crazy. Somewhere there is an explanation. It has to be stress, or nerves, or something," she said out loud, trying to convince herself.

The phone rang. The blackness vanished.
Thank God.
A call this early had to be Irene, but she welcomed even her mother if it killed the dream. No mere demon could battle Irene and win.

"Hi, Mom."
Keep it casual.
"How is Nairobi?"
Good. Voice not too shaky.
Her mother proved sharp as a fox at picking up stress. "Oh, you're in France?"

Why not? Irene traveled constantly, a nomad with no permanent address. Sam frowned, irritated, wishing her mother wouldn't call before breakfast. Mornings were special, reserved for family.
What time is it in Europe, anyway?

"What happened to Nairobi?"

Resigned to hearing a long story, she tucked the phone under her chin and set about assembling the makings of an omelet while her nerves settled into the morning routine. With cool efficiency she split a muffin and slipped it into the toaster, ready to go when Paul or their son, Andy, appeared.

"Yes, Mother," Samantha Barlowe, patient and dutiful, responded. Conversations with her mother required little besides occasional agreement whenever Irene paused for breath.

"So what are you doing in France?"

Irene, the perennial guest, lived shamelessly off the hospitality of her friends.

"Count de Coucy? Yeah, how fortunate you got invited to his party. He has a live-in psychic?" Sam huffed in disbelief.
Not good.
Her mother and a psychic meant trouble.

"Now hold on. You will not seek advice from this psychic about my vacation."

Sam's temper heated. Her mother simply could not stay out of her business since she had her own family. Throughout her childhood, Irene had blithely ignored her motherly duties—a little late to try for a relationship now.

"You can consult every psychic in Europe, for all I care, I'm not talking about this anymore. No way am I giving up the chance to live in a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse filled with antiques, even if it's only for two weeks."
Damn. Why had I ever mentioned the dream?
Deliberately she changed the subject.

"So, tell me about this house party. It sounds exciting." Sam summoned patience for the recitation.