Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Grant
As I navigate into the long drive leading to the historic farmhouse where I grew up, Lily and Poppy are already chattering away about their plans for the day.
“Gramps said he was going to teach me welding, but not until I turn seven.” This from Lil, six and an old soul. She’s got her hair in two neat braids and her outfit coordinates in pinks and purples.
“Gram said I could help her make peanut butter cookies and if it’s nice this afternoon maybe we could ride Thistle,” Poppy joins in, her four-year-old little voice sounding more and more mature. It kills me.
Her outfit includes most colors of the rainbow and then some, and since she wouldn’t let me brush her hair, let alone braid it, she used clips to keep it out of her face.
It’s tacked down in front and rises in a halo of wispy curls toward the back.
We’ll need baths with hair washing tonight for sure.
“I’ll have to chat with Gramps about the welding, but cookies and pony riding sounds reasonable to me.
You just have to promise to save me a cookie.
” I glance in the rearview to see them both grinning wide.
Their pale blonde locks match in color if not style, and add in their dark brown eyes, they are the perfect combination of their parents’ features.
Sometimes, looking at them still sideswipes me with brutal grief.
“Of course we will, Dad!”
There it is. Gut punch a handful of times a day, isn’t it?
Doesn’t always get me this bad, but I’m oddly tender this morning after a bad night’s sleep.
I am their dad, but they had another dad.
And a wonderful mom. And both of those amazing people are not only gone from their lives but from mine, too, and the world will never be as bright without them.
I can’t get caught up in those feelings right now, though.
The girls talk through their plans while I park and start unloading. I don’t normally work Saturdays, but we’ve got a few cases causing us trouble and I need to go in for a few hours. Thankfully, they aren’t upset at extra time with their grandparents.
“There’s my boy,” Dad says as he holds out his arms.
He clutches me close, a gesture that used to cause my eyes to roll and all kinds of teenaged angst about being smothered to nearly strangle me, but now I hug him back just as tight.
Once you know loss, it becomes easier to be open.
Even when my default tends toward a grumpy setting, or so my little sister named it, I appreciate what he gives.
I’ve never asked Dad if he was always like this or if it happened after he lost someone, but either way, I’m grateful I can accept what he’s offering.
“Hey, Dad.”
He smiles at me, no reservations. He’s open and affectionate in a way I never appreciated until I left Juniper View like my tail was on fire.
“Brace for impact,” I warn, right as Poppy and Lily come barreling into his legs. I’ve warned them that if they get much bigger, they’re going to take him out like bowling balls.
“My girls! I’m so glad you’re here to rescue me from a day of dreadful boredom.” He drops to one knee, taking all four of their little hands into his weathered ones. “But you’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll keep Gram from making me do chores all day? You’ll help me have some fun?”
His bright blue eyes are pleading, silver hair glinting in the sun, but his head snaps up when he hears, “Are we doing that? Making poor old Gram out to be the taskmaster while Gramps gets to be the fun one?”
My mom is smirking from the wraparound wood porch but crouches to gather the girls to her. Lily and Poppy are instantly asking about making cookies, but my mom straightens, squints at my dad, and points two fingers at her eyes then toward him in the classic “I’m watching you” gesture.
Dad absolutely lights up and looses a giggle. “I do so love your mother. She keeps me on my toes.” He’s still grinning back in her direction, though she’s already disappeared inside the house with the girls.
“As nauseating as you two can be, I’m glad.” I pat his back, and he heads toward the house while I gather the kids’ bags.
“Gramps, can you see what’s wrong with Daddy?” Poppy asks, reappearing on the porch and swinging around one of the columns flanking the front door.
“What’s wrong with Daddy, do you think?” my dad asks her in that tone that says he’s completely wrapped around her finger.
Her brown eyes grow wide. “He was stomping around all morning. He’s grumpy.”
“Come on, kid. Why are you throwing me under the bus?” I send her a scowl but there’s no heat to it. I’ve learned the hard way I can’t expect these two to keep anything to themselves.
“What? Gramps isn’t a bus!” She giggles and races back inside.
Dad’s head slowly turns to me.
“Didn’t sleep well.” I keep walking. No interest in getting into it.
But he’s not with me. He’s stopped, digging in his heels like the mule he is when it comes to this kind of thing.
He won’t let up until I give him more, so I stop and turn around. “It’s fine.”
“Nightmares again?” He’s still youthful considering he has six kids firmly in adulthood. He and my mom started young, so they actually are rather young to have an oldest son in his mid-thirties.
Still, when he looks at me like this, I see the wear on him. I know he still worries about me—about all of us. His heart attack last year took us all by surprise, and it set him back a bit. But he’s recovered so well, sometimes I forget to worry about him.
“No. Just work stuff.”
Not exactly that, but the woman I talked to last night. She was so guarded and clearly uncomfortable with me helping her. Maybe because I’m a man and a fairly large one at that, or maybe because I’m law enforcement. I know not everyone has positive experiences, unfortunately.
There’s also a part of me that has to consider she might be part of this mess with Patriot Ridge.
The cult-like compound should’ve been destroyed when Peak County Sheriff’s department and the Silverton Police department raided it late last year, but it’s rumored to be growing again despite that intervention.
I got word last week that the Silverton PD is tracking at least one disappearance they’re worried might be related to the place.
What that means is anyone coming through my county or my town is a potential bad actor.
Maybe a visitor. Maybe a criminal.
Either way, I hated it.
Hated even more seeing a single woman pulling into the motel last night.
When I saw her beat-up old car skirt the park and head back out of town, away from the Old Hat Bed and Breakfast or the JV Inn, I couldn’t let her go that stretch alone.
If she was up to no good, I might catch her recruiting or meeting up with someone sketchy and that’d give me info. And if not…
So I kept my distance and made sure she got settled into her roadside room and left. I shouldn’t have done it, because I wouldn’t have this image of her in my head if I hadn’t. I don’t regret making sure she got there safely, especially on a spare tire, but I wouldn’t have seen her.
Of course I could tell she was pretty when I helped her change the tire—or tried to—but not… that. Not so beautiful that just looking at her from twenty yards away lit only by a dim light plastered to the wall of the motel outside her door was a sucker punch.
I don’t do that. I’m not attracted to people I try to help or pull over or interact with in a work capacity.
I take them in like evidence, just like I did with her when she stepped out of her car last night on the roadside—long dark hair, pale skin, no good read on eye color in the dim twilight.
Petite build, jeans, and a sweater over a plain T-shirt.
Notably lacking a jacket. Well-worn sneakers on her feet.
Generally unremarkable in terms of red flags or suspicious behavior, but with what’s been happening around the county, I can’t simply ignore her.
I didn’t allow myself to put the picture together then despite feeling a tug of concern at her resistance to me.
Generally, I don’t feel attraction to anyone. It’s not something I have to turn off because I think the ability to be attracted or want got cauterized two years ago. Or… I thought it had.
“Earth to Grant.”
My dad comes into focus. He’s still handsome with a shaved face lined with debonair wrinkles and gray hair that’s thinning on top but still holding strong.
He’s not as tanned as he’ll be come summer, but he’s still got a warm tone to his skin.
His bright eyes are just like mine, though his have an aspect to them that makes it seem like he’s always about to laugh.
Only one of his children inherited that feature, and it’s not me.
“Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. Work stuff. But… no nightmares.”
Flashes of the recurring nightmare I haven’t dealt with in a few months slice through my head.
Flames. Crushed metal. A car at my door.
My commanding officer and CSM, plus a chaplain and the local PD.
I never wanted this. The girls are so tiny, crying and crying and crying—I’m not ready for this. I don’t know how to do this.
Dad’s hugging me tight, then pulling away to pin me with his wizened gaze. I’ve got a solid six inches on the old man now, but he and Mom are still the rocks of this family.
“You’re a good man, Grant.”
I nod. He pats my shoulder. We head inside.
I’ve worked to believe he’s not wrong, but he’s also not right. He doesn’t know everything, and I can’t tell him or anyone the whole of it.
I can never admit how thoroughly I failed life’s biggest test before I finally got my feet under me.
How I could hardly look at the girls those first few days.
I held them, fed them, rocked them to sleep.
If it weren’t for my brother, I don’t know how I would’ve done it.
And every second I spent feeling boxed up and absent from my body, and from them, was a failure.
So I’ll keep doing the next thing and eventually…
Eventually, it’ll be fine.