The Cottage on the Corner (6 page)

“We have to get moving. I need to be at Ida's in five minutes.”

“Then let's go. Where's your coat, Zuzu?” Zim asked.

“There,” Zuzu pointed to the egg-stained afghan.

Zim met Charlotte's eyes, and she shrugged. “Max must have forgotten she needed one.”

“Humph!” Zim responded, yanking the blanket off the ground and tossing it around Zuzu's shoulders. “Saw a car seat in the living room. I'll grab it on the way out.”

“Humph!” the little girl replied, smiling at Charlotte over Zim's shoulder.

Obviously, Zim wasn't the best influence on an impressionable little girl. Oh, well. Max should have thought of that before he'd pawned her off on Charlotte.

“No,” she muttered one more time for good measure as she grabbed the baked goods and followed them out to the station wagon.

Max avoided the office for as long as he could.

First he patrolled the rural routes just outside of town. Then he made a trip to the local elementary and middle school to check for vandals and loiterers. He didn't find any. He stopped for a cup of coffee and a doughnut at the local coffee shop and carried them into Riley Park. The sun had crested the mountains and the town was waking up. A few people waved as he walked the path around Riley Pond and looked for trouble that he knew he wouldn't find.

Apple Valley was a quiet town filled with quiet people.

Most of them got along. Those who didn't pretended to.

Sure there was crime. By and large, though, it was petty stuff. Missing livestock from the farms at the edge of town. Vandalism by kids with too much time on their hands and too little brain in their heads. There were a few thefts every year. One or two assault and battery charges. Nothing to write home about and nothing to keep him out on patrol for eight hours straight.

Sixteen.

He was working a double.

Too bad he couldn't find a few cases to pursue and didn't have a few criminals to track down. He'd have been happy to spend the remainder of his shift on patrol and out of the office. In a town the size of Apple Valley, there was no reason for it, though. Besides, it was cold in eastern Washington, the late-November air sharp edged and bitter. He'd grabbed his coat on the way out the door, but he'd forgotten gloves.

Had he put Zuzu's coat on?

Damn if he could remember doing it. She'd been fighting him tooth and nail by the time he'd carried her from the apartment. He'd grabbed her and a blanket, and . . .

No coat.

“Damn it,” he muttered, and an old lady walking her chubby mutt frowned.

“Language,” she said as she and her dog waddled past.

Yeah. Right. Language. He was on duty, wearing his uniform and badge, carrying a firearm, and representing the sheriff's office.

Otherwise, he might have let loose with a few other choice words.

Charlotte probably thought he was an idiot, bringing a little girl outside in pajamas and a blanket.
He
thought he was an idiot. Nothing he could do about it now. He'd pick the coat up on the way back to Charlotte's.

He walked out of the park and crossed Main Street. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't avoid it any longer. There was paperwork to do, a few phone calls to make. He had to go into the office.

The one-story brick building that housed the sheriff's department loomed ahead. He braced himself for what he knew would come.

Emma Bailey sat at the reception desk, her light brown hair pulled into a neat ponytail, her police uniform hugging slender curves. She had a sweet pretty face and a cutting tongue. People who'd known her while she was growing up said that the first was from her deceased mother and the second from her father, a mean drunk who'd spent more time in the bottle than he had in his home.

Max had never had reason to question the gossip.

As far as he could tell, Emma was tough as nails. She worked as dispatcher and planned to attend law school when she finished caring for her father. Rick had been diagnosed with dementia two years ago.

Most days Emma looked worn-out.

Today she looked amused.

“Good morning, Stanford,” she said. “Finally decided to make your appearance, I see.”

“I've been checking in all morning, Emma,” he grumbled, snagging one of the cookies that she kept on a plate at the corner of her desk. Charlotte's doing. She delivered baked goods to the police department and convalescent center once or twice a week.

“Long night?” Emma asked, not even trying to hide her smirk.

“Not any longer than any other night,” he lied.

“That's not the way I hear it.” She smiled full out, her gray eyes sparkling with glee. “The way I hear it, you were up all night listening to your
daughter
scream.”

“She's not my daughter,” he argued, even though he knew it was useless.

“That's not what Ida said.”

“When did you talk to Ida?”

“When she and the historical society showed up with donations. One of the ladies saw poor little Zuzu sitting in Charlotte's station wagon dressed in nothing more than faded footy pajamas, and it was obvious she was in desperate need. She decided then and there that they needed to take up a collection.”

“Please tell me you're kidding.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to hold on to his temper. This wasn't Emma's fault. It wasn't Zuzu's fault. It wasn't the historical society's fault or Ida's or whichever one of her cronies had made the decision to take up a collection. It was Morgan's. The lying, scheming—

“I'm not. There's a two-foot pile of clothes sitting on your desk. I would have told Charlotte about it when she dropped off the cookies, but she didn't come in.”

“She left cookies,” he pointed out as he snagged another one. Some fancy little thing with fruit jelly in the middle and white frosting on the top.

“Zimmerman Beck left the cookies. He also left a message.”

“I guess you're going to tell me what it was?”

“He says Gertrude McKenzie is growing pot in her greenhouse. He knows that the state just legalized the use of it, but he's sure that she needs a license to grow and distribute it. Plus he doesn't want the kind of riffraff in the neighborhood that he's sure her little operation is going to attract. He wants you to cut off the greenhouse lock and check the situation out.”

“I'm sure he does.” Zim had a habit of seeing trouble where there wasn't any. He'd caused his own trouble the previous year, and that had kept him quiet for a while. Apparently he was back to his old habits.

“Are you going to check it out? Because if you don't, he'll be back. Again and again and again.”

“Trust me, I know. And I'm not in the mood to deal with him. Give him a call and tell him I'll be out there this evening, will you?”

“No problem.”

“And if any historical society ladies stop by with donations while I'm here, don't send them back to my office. I have work to do, and I don't want to be interrupted.”

“Uh-huh,” she responded.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded. He wasn't in the mood for games, and he wasn't in the mood for gossip.

“Why does it have to mean anything?”

“Because you're looking at me like you know a juicy secret that you're just dying to share.”

“You're the one with the mysterious kid that no one in town has ever seen or heard of. Not me. So I'd say you're the one with the secrets. Can I help it if I want to know what they are?”

“Zuzu is not mysterious. She's my ex's kid. Morgan dropped her off at my place last night. She needs someone to watch her for a few days.”

“And she left her with you?” She raised a light brown brow and tapped her fingers on the desk.

“Why not?”

“Because, as far as everyone around here is aware of, you haven't spoken to the woman in years. Not to mention the fact that you wouldn't be most women's first choice as a babysitter. You wouldn't be mine, anyway. I don't even think I'd leave you with Pops.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly.

“Just a statement of fact, Max. You're not a kid kind of person. You like adult companionship. Preferably the female kind, and you don't have a lot of patience for fools. Pops is nothing else if not a fool.” She frowned, her gaze jumping to some point behind him.

He glanced back. A small group of ladies was decorating the lobby Christmas tree. Very
slowly
decorating it. When they realized he was looking at them, they bent over the tree's heavy boughs, pretending that they weren't straining their hearing aids trying to listen in on the conversation.

“This probably isn't the best time to discuss any of this,” he murmured, and Emma nodded.

“Probably not.”

“I'm going to do some paperwork,” he said loudly enough for the women to hear.

“You're going to have to clear off your desk first. And your chair, and maybe some room on the floor. The historical society wasn't the only group that brought donations for your daughter.”

“She is not my . . . !” He glanced at the elderly women. Their eyes were big as saucers as they waited for him to shout the denial. He wasn't going to do it. He'd take a paternity test before he made another public statement. That way he'd have undeniable proof that Zuzu wasn't his.

Or that she
was
.

The thought gave him a momentary pause, that one-percent chance that she
could
be his eating away at him. He wasn't father material. Would never
be
father material. God help the kid if he turned out to be her dad.

“You were saying?” Emma prodded.

“Never mind,” he muttered. “I'll be in my office if you need me.”

“Might want to take some coffee with you. You look like you need it.”

He wanted to ignore her, but she was right.

He needed coffee. Badly.

He poured a cup from the carafe near her desk and retreated to his office. He planned to sit at the desk, drink his coffee, try to get his head together. One look at the room, and he knew that wasn't going to happen.

The desk was overflowing with stuff, his computer draped with a pink blanket that had little white flowers all over it. The chair was covered with more stuff. Pink stuff. Purple stuff. Little girl stuff. Even the floor had piles of clothes and toys and dolls.

“Shit!” he muttered, lifting the pile from his chair and tossing it onto the desk. He'd need a wheelbarrow to get it all out of there and another apartment to store it all.

He only had himself to blame for his troubles. He could have just let Morgan leave with the kid. He could rectify the situation. It would be easy enough to track Morgan down. He knew her name, her destination. He could put out an APB on her Mazda, find her, and ship Zuzu back where she belonged.

He couldn't make himself do it, and he wasn't sure why not. Old memories, maybe. Thoughts about what it had been like to be a fatherless kid pawned off on whatever adult was willing to take him. Maybe a generic sense of responsibility. Zuzu was a little kid. Someone needed to protect her from her mother's selfishness.

Damn his civic-mindedness. He blamed his grandparents for it. If they'd left him with his drug-addict mom for a few more years, he probably wouldn't have cared all that much about one little kid.

He did care, so he and Zuzu were stuck with each other until Morgan returned. Or until he got fed up and sent out a posse to find her.

At the rate the kid had been screaming, that might happen sooner rather than later.

Thank God for Charlotte.

There was something inherently maternal about her. Maybe it was her need to feed everyone around her. She was constantly dropping cookies or cupcakes or breads off at the front desk. Max wasn't much for sweet treats, but when it came to Charlotte's baked goods, he could pack down some serious calories.

Hopefully Zuzu had done the same.

A kid her age couldn't go very long without nourishment.

Or water.

He frowned. She'd barely even taken a sip of the juice that he'd tried to get her to drink that morning. For all he knew, she was dehydrated, her little kidneys shriveling up and shutting down.

He needed to check in with Charlotte, make sure that Zuzu had had something to drink.

He grabbed the phone and realized he didn't know her phone number. He should have gotten it before he left, given her his cell phone number in case she needed to reach him. Dang if he wasn't completely inept at this babysitting thing.

“Deputy Stanford,” Emma called through his radio. “We have a 398 in progress.”

“A what?” He knew all the codes, but this was one he'd never heard before.

“Cows on the interstate. Larry Beasley's son left the pasture gate open, and all Larry's prize Herefords escaped. They're trying to cross I-90 at McTravis Road. I've gotten five calls about it.”

“I'm on my way.”

He'd call Charlotte later. Better yet, he'd stop in. See how little Zuzu was doing. He grabbed a couple of pink pieces of clothing from the pile on his desk, dropped a pair of shoes on top of them, tucked a doll under his arm, and walked out of the office.

He was pretty damn sure he heard Emma laughing as he passed her desk and left the building.

 

 

Three deliveries down. One to go.

Charlotte glanced at the clock as she dragged a lemon yellow mixing bowl from the cupboard and set it on the counter. It would be fantastic if she actually managed to bake the cookies before they were scheduled to be delivered to Apple Valley Elementary School's PTA holiday party.

At the rate she was going, she'd be carrying in bowls of batter. Having a toddler around was really slowing her stride. Having Zim around . . .

Yeah. That was even worse.

“How's the baking going, Charlotte?” he asked as he lumbered into the kitchen, Zuzu toddling along beside him.

It would be going a lot better if you didn't keep interrupting me,
she wanted to say.

“I have one more batch of cookies to make.”

“What kind?”

“Oatmeal with walnuts and dark chocolate.”

“Had 'em before. They're good. We're running a little behind, aren't we?” Zim asked, squinting at the dry erase board tacked to the wall. Her schedule was written out clear as day there. Anyone who could read could see that she was running behind.

“About an hour.” She grabbed butter and eggs from the fridge, pulled dark chocolate from the pantry. If she worked fast, she'd still get the cookies delivered on time.

“Hmmm. Think we'll finish before those things have to be at the school?”