Chapter 3
Chapter Three
That weekend, Willow and her mom walked down to the stream that bordered the meadow where the mares grazed on Saturday mornings.
This morning was no different. Well, slightly different.
As always, Taylor brought a thermal coffee container and a pair of mugs.
Ceramic, because coffee didn’t taste the same in anything else.
As always, Willow brought the snacks—a pair of cinnamon buns she’d picked up in town for just this occasion.
And as always, the air was warm with a dry breeze, and the stream was cool and babbling, and the mares grazed, barely noticing them, peace emanating from their very pores.
But one thing was different. Her mom knew about the lava bubbling just beneath the surface between her and the Gringo. And Willow wasn’t ready to discuss it. She didn’t even know what to make of it.
Her mom had chosen a spot, sat down on a boulder, and was pouring coffee from the Thermos. She filled the first mug and handed it to Willow, who took it and remained standing, despite a nearby fallen log.
“Do you miss teaching, Mom?” she asked after taking a sip, just to start the conversation off on a safe topic. Her mom’s recent retirement from the university seemed like a good one.
“Not a bit,” Taylor returned. “Guest-lecturing a couple times a month is plenty for me. But I do miss the digs.” She pushed off her fawn-colored Stetson and let it hang down her back.
Willow noticed more silver in her long, dark hair than had been there in the spring. “I bet you do.”
“There are still opportunities, though. I might go on one next May. Rumor has it this Native site might be a thousand years old.”
“That’s exciting!”
“It is,” she said, and the sparkle in her eyes proved it. And then she sipped from her mug, and went quiet.
Willow did the same. A lot of the time they spent down here, they spent in silence, just being together and being with the land.
The sounds of birdsong were nature’s symphony, and they were backed up by the water laughing and tumbling over stones and splashing back on itself.
The air tasted like peppery sagebrush and sunshine.
Relaxing a little, Willow sat down on the log and sipped her coffee.
“So,” Taylor said at length. “Jeremiah Thorne, huh?”
Willow choked and coffee came out her nose. She coughed, swallowed then asked, “What about him?” She hadn’t looked at her mother.
“That’s what I’m asking you,” her mom said.
Willow set her mug of Joe on a flat fungus the size of a plate, growing off the side of a tree nearby. “What is this here, a shelf fungus?”
“A change-of-subject fungus, no doubt,” her mom replied. “Do you like him?”
She shrugged. “What’s not to like?”
“Must be something, or you wouldn’t be so unsettled about it.”
“I don’t love that he’s an ex-con who did a year for assault.” She shrugged. “But he says he didn’t do it.”
“Do you believe him?”
Willow took a deep breath. “Yeah, I do. That’s the problem. Why would I believe him when he’s saying the same thing every man convicted of anything in the history of the law says?” She shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m objective.”
“That must mean you like him.”
“Oh, I like him all right.” Willow’s head was down, but she lifted her gaze to see her mom’s mischievous grin. “Did you know there were dimples hidin’ under all those whiskers?”
“I did not,” her mother said, and she laughed softly.
But it died when hoofbeats approached, and three familiar forms came nearer, broad shouldered and topped in cowboy hats.
Willow’s father and his big brother in every sense of the word, Uncle Garrett, rode side by side, but it was the guy bringing up the rear who held her attention.
Jeremiah, riding like he was used to it.
He was wearing the sombrero, and for some reason she thought it was hot. Why would she think that?
Uncle Garrett’s star was pinned to his chest, so he was on duty, and Willow’s dad didn’t look too happy. Neither did Jeremiah.
Taylor rose up, coffee mug in her hands, and called out, “What’s wrong?” Because it was obvious something was.
Uncle Garrett looked at Willow’s father. “You tell her, Wes.”
Her dad shook his head, “Uh-uh, this is your deal, not mine.” That with an apologetic look at Jeremiah.
“What’s your deal, Uncle Garrett?” Willow noted the looks exchanged between her mom and dad. Those two could communicate without a word. Sometimes it seemed as if they had telepathy or something. Creepy.
She looked at Jeremiah, wishing he’d say something. He held her eyes, gave her a very slight flash of dimple that told her everything was okay.
“Well, I don’t mean to offend you in any way, now, Willow,” Uncle Garrett began.
“Sounds like you’re about to, though.” She got up, too, lifted her chin, looked her uncle in the eye, and waited to be offended.
“Jeremiah, here, says he was with you last night, around midnight. Is that true?”
Taylor stepped in front of her daughter. “Garrett Ethan Brand, how dare you ask your niece—my daughter—something like that?”
“I told you,” Wes muttered, picking up his hat to run his other hand over his hair, then lowering it again.
Willow moved up beside her mom and squared up to her uncle, much as she could with him being atop a horse. “Yep, you were right. You offended me.”
Her mother’s hand curled over her shoulder.
“We were both with Jeremiah around that time,” Taylor said.
“I was eager to show Willow the cradle liner I had made for Ethan and Lily’s shower.
I saw her lights on, so I knew she was up and I walked out to the cottage.
” She looked at Willow, her brown eyes urging her to go ahead and tell the rest.
Willow sighed, looked at Jeremiah again, realized he’d probably been told to keep quiet until she’d provided him an alibi, for what, she couldn’t imagine.
He looked right back at her. The amount of pissed off she was at her uncle was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Uncle Garrett looked crestfallen. He was not being a jerk on purpose, and he was not enjoying it.
And yet she was mad. “Fine, you want details? I got details. I had a flat on the way home from work. Jeremiah saw me changin’ the tire and stopped to help. I invited him home for leftover lasagna as a thank you.”
“I saw him when he left, too,” Taylor put in.
Willow narrowed her eyes. “I knew you were secretly watchin’.”
Taylor shrugged. “If you knew, then it wasn’t a secret.” Then she returned her attention to her brother-in-law, the sheriff. “Jeremiah left about fifteen minutes after I did. Walked past the fork in the driveway. I was still on the front porch.”
“Walked?” Garrett asked, shifting his gaze to Willow. “Why was he walkin’?”
Willow glanced at Jeremiah again, but he gave a subtle shake of his head and she knew for sure he’d been told to keep quiet. She didn’t like that notion one bit. Was her uncle trying to catch her in a lie? Trying to catch Jeremiah in one, more likely, but still…
“I didn’t want my very curious mamma makin’ somethin’ out of his visit, so I asked him to park at the pull-off and ride the rest of the way with me.
He obliged, like any gentleman would. We went to the cottage and ate leftover lasagna from Aunt Chelsea.
Mom came out not long after we got there, and Gringo left a few minutes after she did. End of story.”
“All good, all good,” Uncle Garrett said in the tone he’d use on a spooked horse. “I just need the timing of all that, as close as you can—”
“From the time he came upon me with the flat, he was with me about an hour and twenty minutes,” Willow said.
“It was around midnight when he pulled over behind me on the road, and about one-twenty when he left my place. Tack on ten minutes for the walk back to his car. Now, will you please tell me what this is all about?”
Garrett nodded. “Somebody threw a brick through the window at the pharmacy last night. It hit that old wall clock that’s been hangin’ there since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
Right in the face. A cryin’ shame is what it is.
But at least we know exactly what time it happened, ‘cause that clock stopped dead. Seventeen minutes after midnight.” He gave a slow shake of his head, then nodded at Jeremiah.
“You’re off the hook, son, as I knew you would be. ”
“Why was he on the hook to begin with, Uncle Garrett?” Willow asked. The edge in her tone surprised her. From the quick quirk of his eyebrows, she thought it surprised Jeremiah, too.
He spoke while Uncle Garrett was still wiping the wounded look off his face. “An anonymous caller said they saw me do it,” Jeremiah told her.
Willow tilted her head to one side, then turned to her uncle again. “What was taken from the drug store? Cash, or opioids?”
“Neither,” Garrett said. “Looks like pure vandalism.”
She met Jeremiah’s eyes and saw a reflection of her own doubts about that.
“Well,” Taylor said, “would you gentlemen care for a mid-mornin’ snack? We have fresh apple pie and more coffee at the house.”
“I have to get back to work,” Garrett said. “Willow, Jeremiah, I apologize for all this. Willow, I really had to ask—”
“You were just doing your job, Sheriff,” Jeremiah said. But he’d been calling him Garrett up until then.
Uncle Garrett felt that formality as it was intended, then wheeled his horse and rode back alone.
“I’d best go with him,” Willow’s dad said. “Somethin’s…off.”
“Somethings been off ever since the fire,” Taylor said. “Go on, take care of your brother.”
Wes and his horse galloped off after Garrett.
“I’m fixin’ to walk the stream a bit further before I head back,” Taylor said to Willow. “You should ride back with Jeremiah.”
“Mom, I don’t—”