Indivisible. Part 2

"You can do it in the daylight."

Again the hands to the hips. "Tell me why you're worried."

"Can't you ever just take advice?" He matched her glare, then backed down. He was probably blowing it out of proportion. Seeing her this morning had kept her too near the surface, a bad idea on any day. A worse one today. "Fine. Lock the door behind me."

"Of course." Just enough barb to make it sting.

He drove home to his cabin tucked away from both the new, sprawling mansions and the little, old Victorians like Tia's. He removed his jacket and weapon belt, locked his sidearm and backup in the gun safe, then opened the collar of his shirt and entered the den. From the corner shelf he took the bottle of Maker's Mark and rubbed its dustless surface.

He ran his thumb down the label, removed the stopper, and slowly pa.s.sed the throat beneath his nose. The spirits rose up and constricted his nostrils. His taste buds quickened, saliva glands moistening with antic.i.p.ation. He imagined the fluid in his throat, remembered the heat like it was yesterday.

Today of all days that heat would comfort, fogging the memories that filled his mind in stark relief. He would welcome the fog, deep, deadening. The voice of desire whispered in his ears.

"You do not control me," he whispered back, closed it up, and set it on the shelf.

In the bedroom he undressed and collapsed onto the bed. Almost over. Just a few more hours.

With Jonah's uneasiness p.r.i.c.king her nerves, Tia made her way up the wooded path. Had he invented an excuse to see her alone, or was his concern real? He'd offered to walk her home, a troubling thought at the best of times. She jerked a glance over her shoulder when a pine cone fell from a tree, then expelled her breath.

She moved on, annoyed with herself as much as Jonah. She reached the side street and yelped, pressing a hand to her chest when Piper slipped out of the shadows beside her.

"Sorry!" Piper clasped her hands to her chest. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Her own fault for letting Jonah get to her. "What are you doing out here?"

"Going ... home."

Tia released her breath. "I thought you were inside already." Rising as early as she did, Piper had been early to bed as well, like the bright-breasted finches that disappeared at sundown and popped up again with the dawn.

"A bunch of us were playing Cranium at Java Cava."

"Oh." Tia climbed the single porch step. "I guess I'm just jumpy."

"Because of the chief?"

Tia stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"I saw him leaving the shop."

Great. She unlocked the house door. "He doesn't think it's smart to be out alone after dark. He was cautioning people." Except, it appeared, Piper's crowd. Had she been personally targeted by whatever he saw? No, he would have told her that. It was his hypervigilance, and it made her crazy.

Piper followed her in. "Did he say what happened?"

"He didn't give me any details, just said we shouldn't be out. Would you like some tea?" She went to the kitchen and dropped several tight knots of jasmine pearls into two mugs, then put the kettle on to boil. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Jonah had seemed genuinely shaken. As he'd stood across from her in the candlelight, she had glimpsed the rumple-haired boy in a trouble-hardened face.

Her first memory of Jonah was at the top of a slide, knees drawn to his chest, the other kids griping from the ladder for him to go already. His eyes had looked enormous until she realized the sockets from his eyebrows to his cheekbones were bruised purple. He'd looked at her and slid to the bottom, then sprang lightly to his feet.

"What happened to your eyes?"

"Mom stomped the brakes too quick. I hit the dashboard."

"Didn't you wear your seat belt?"

He shrugged. "Why bother?" "Why bother?"

Years later she'd realized what he meant.

She shook herself. He'd delivered his warning, and she had pa.s.sed it to Piper. She poured the steaming water over the pearls and handed Piper her mug. Lifting her own, she inhaled the exotic fragrance of the gray-green leaf buds unfurling in the cup.

She looked past her reflection on the window to the black night outside and remembered another blacker night. Lord, it had been grim, had tainted so much afterward. No wonder he'd looked so wretched today. Could she not have been kind?

She shook her head. If she gave him anything, showed any weakening, he would use it.

Piper came up beside her, ghostlike in the gla.s.s. "Are you all right?"

"Just tired. I guess I shouldn't work so late." She sipped her brew and savored the mellow flavor. She'd leave at a reasonable hour from now on.

"You could have played with us. I wish I'd thought to come get you."

"I'm too compet.i.tive for big group games." As a child she had won at a rate that endeared her to no one. "I prefer Parcheesi with a mug of tea and a fire crackling in the fireplace." Purely the luck of the dice.

"What's the scent on the waxed pine cones?" Piper's eyes glittered.

Tia drew a breath, almost smelling it as she said, "b.u.t.terscotch."

"Perfect." Piper laughed.

Okay, it was nice having her, even if she pushed and pried. They sat and talked until Piper's yawns grew contagious.

As Tia went up to bed, Jonah's troubled face pursued her. What could have bothered him enough that he felt the need to warn her? She shouldn't have been rude, not this day especially, but she couldn't stop it. She blamed him for so much. And he deserved it.

Three.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.-RALPH WALDO EMERSON Stifling a yawn, Piper handed an apple turnover to a man with marble-shaped eyeb.a.l.l.s. She'd stayed up so late with Tia, sleeping had felt like blinking, but for the first time they'd been more than landlord and guest, spinning threads of friendship with their words.

"They're just out of the oven," she cautioned, "so the filling might be hot."

Sarge usually served the customers, but a spasm had seized his back, and he'd gone to sit in the warm kitchen. When she first started working for him, he had seemed plain mean, but now she knew it was pain that made him snap, like a dog bruised in places invisible under the fur.

She checked her watch. Two minutes left on the bear claws. She'd get back there before Sarge even thought of bending to remove the sheet from the lower oven.

"Just one second," she told the woman coming in the door, then ducked into the kitchen. The timer had begun to shrill, but Sarge didn't go for it. He lay writhing on the floor.

Piper rushed to his side. "Sergeant Beaker? Sarge?"

He was gasping for words. She lunged for the phone on the kitchen wall and dialed. "This is Piper at the bakery. Sarge is in trouble."

After the emergency dispatcher had taken her information, she hurried back to his side. Yes, she had called him an evil elf, sent withering looks through the wall after his tirades, but that was before. The timer was still shrilling. She jumped up and removed the bear claws, then knelt again and took his hand between hers. "Hold on, Sarge. Help is coming."

His fingers felt like chilled carrots. Piper pressed the back of her free hand to his flushed cheek that felt as hot as hers got leaning over the oven door. He seemed to be trying to order her around, but she couldn't catch a word.

In minutes, Chief Westfall walked through the door, smelling woodsy and looking rugged and more together than when she'd first seen him. "Ambulance is on the way." He crouched down and took the old man's other hand. "Hey, Sarge. Hanging in there?"

Sarge jammed a finger toward her. "You! You interfering-"

Chief Westfall looked up from his crouch. "Go on out front. I'll stay with him."

With one look back at Sarge's face, she carried the tray of bear claws to the case. The shop had been hit by a people wave. Oh, boy Oh, boy. She pulled off the oven mitts. "I have no idea who's first."

Two people spoke their orders at once, and a third said, "Where's Sarge?"

"Sarge is ... not doing too well." A buzz pa.s.sed through the crowd as she wrapped a lemon scone and a raisin bun and handed one to each of the two who had ordered together. She scooted to the end of the counter and rang them up.

Good thing Sarge had made her learn the register, but this crowd would wipe out the case, and she wasn't in the kitchen baking replacements or the lunch rolls. How had Sarge done it before she came?

Her head spun with all the demands as people realized they'd get whatever was left if they didn't order first. She threw up her hands. "Make a line. If you don't get what you want today, write it down." She dumped the basket where people could leave their business cards to win a freebie. "Put your requests in here. They'll be half price tomorrow."

She could bake according to the requests. People who didn't come in every day might come twice in a row for a half-price offer. As far as she knew, Sarge had never done half price on anything except the day-old rack, and there usually wasn't much left on that. He might howl if he knew, but the ambulance had arrived, and she'd keep it to herself until he was strong enough to holler without hurting himself.

Tia startled as the ambulance stopped outside the bakery. She had just reached her back door but detoured to Sarge's, praying Piper had not injured herself with a mixer or suffered a burn or cut. She pushed open the kitchen door. Piper was nowhere in sight. Instead she saw Sarge on the floor, with Jonah supporting his head as the EMTs came through from the front.

"What happened?"

Jonah levered himself up, giving them room to work. "Piper called in the emergency. I don't know if he fell or what."

"She's okay?"

"A little shaky. I sent her up front to handle the rush. You know how Sarge is."

From years of experience. He could hardly force words out, yet he was still arguing, purple-faced, with the emergency team. Jonah had removed Piper from the line of fire, and he squatted back down, speaking softly to Sarge, again diverting the tirade.

Tia slipped back to her shop and admitted Mary Carson, who had asked to drop in early to pick up her order. Tia had the tapers wrapped and ready, but Mary would still browse. She always did.

"Is it Sarge?"

Tia nodded, unsure why that hadn't been her first thought. "He's not happy with the fuss."

"Old Sarge will cuss Death right back where it came from." Mary's eyelids reddened. "My Bob was too polite to put up a fight."

Tia touched her arm.

Mary's silver head trembled with palsy. Of the two, Bob had seemed like the strong one, tan and robust, still hiking at seventy-seven while inside his brain a time bomb ticked. Blinking back the tears, Mary ran her finger over the gold aspen leaves on a scarlet, triple-wick pillar candle just inside the door. "My, this is beautiful. You always had an artistic side." Mary was one teacher who hadn't bought into her parents' warnings. She'd let her students prove themselves, one way or another. "This would perk up my living room, give it some life."

"And accent your fainting couch."

"Scarlet with gold threads." She raised her eyebrows. "Did you design it to entice me?"

Tia laughed. "Now there's an idea. Target my designs to my friends' decor. Wish I'd thought of that, but I'm afraid they just happen."

"Well, I'll take it before anyone else does. Kate Maitlan has similar colors."

Tia moved behind the counter where the cubbies were stuffed with tissue and string. "You have a base for it?"

"Oh." Mary snapped her purse. "No, I hadn't thought. I was picturing it across from the planter, so of course it needs a holder." She glanced around the shop. "Well, I'll have to pick one, won't I?"

Tia carried the six-pound candle around the shop, showing it on the different stands. As they moved to a natural stone pillar near the wall, a stranger came in. Though she hadn't locked the door behind Mary, the business hours were clearly posted.

The man stood well over six feet, his shoulders rounded to minimize that, as with many overly tall people. His brown hair cut straight in line with his earlobes made him look comical. But the white pants, pressed to a crease that could cut paper, and slick blue Windbreaker seemed good quality, and his brilliant white tennis shoes made a squeaky sound on the tile floor, as though they hadn't been worn twice.

"Go ahead," Mary whispered. "He must be lost."

Tia handed her the candle and approached the man, who smelled of hand sanitizer. "Can I help you?"

"No." He spoke crisply. "I don't need help."

"Okay. Just ask if you have questions."

"No questions." He put a shelf between them as though he could hide like the elephant in the cherry tree.

"Okey-dokey," she said mostly to herself and returned to Mary, who raised an eyebrow when the odd customer took a tissue from his pocket to lift and inspect a luminous, melon green ball candle.

"Lovely, isn't it?" Mary addressed him, the former schoolteacher coming out.

He peered over the top of the incandescent ball, looking for all the world like a sea lion who might balance it on his nose.

"She makes all the candles by hand," Mary continued. "You can even see her fingerprints."

His head jerked. "Do you know how many germs are transferred by a single fingerprint?"

"No," Mary said dryly. "How many?"

Tia bit her lip.

Without answering, he set the candle back onto the shelf, held the tissue like a dead rodent, and searched for a trash can.

"Allow me." Tia whisked it out of his hand and deposited it into the bin under the counter. "I doubt you'll find a candle without a fingerprint, except ..." She turned. "Maybe the tapers. They're dipped, not formed, molded, or decorated, though I can't say who's touched them since I hung them."

He pulled out another tissue and went to inspect the tapers, actually selecting a beeswax couplet. He plucked them off the peg by the connected wick and dangled them over the counter as she rang up the sale.

"Would you like me to wrap them?"

"No." He pulled out his wallet and retrieved a bill with the long fingernails of his overlarge hand.