But disappointment claimed the boy’s freckled face. “I thought maybe you had a prisoner in there. Or a dead body.”
“Nope.” Disappointment all around. “But I got a nice set of rattles, which I’d be glad to show you next time you come around to the office. But not if you’re climbin’ around the window. And not when you’re supposed to be in school.” He laid a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “You got yourself a double jeopardy situation here, Jim. I’m bowin’ out. Apologies accepted.” He nodded, reflexively raising his hand to the brim of the tan Stetson he wasn’t wearing. “Maggie.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
Safe on the steps of the old county building, which housed his office downstairs and his second-floor apartment, Sam watched little Maggie Whiteside march her big-for-his-britches son across the street. The boy deserved credit for silently suffering a mother’s hand-holding and hair-smoothing in full view of two stories of classroom windows, nodding dutifully in response to her words. Sam didn’t know anything about Jim’s father, but there must have been a father somewhere, and he must have been tall. Already a handful for a single mom, Jim didn’t get his height from Maggie. But she had the upper hand.
A nurse at the Bear Root Regional Medical Clinic, Maggie was the kind of woman who talked like she knew you when she didn’t, acted interested when she wasn’t, and laughed like she was enjoying herself most of the time. It was cute, but mostly for show. Sam didn’t know where she was from exactly—outside Montana there was only Back East and The Coast—but she’d only been living in Bear Root for about two years. Given time, she’d learn to cut the crap. Unfortunately, her kind of woman generally didn’t take the time in Bear Root. Two years was stretching it.
Sam reached for the old brass knob on the front door just as one of the town’s two sirens shattered the calm mountain air. Distant, coming this way. Either alarm served to galvanize every resident, but the Rescue Squad hit home hard and fast.
Is it my kid? My wife? My brother?
Sam was still watching Maggie, feeling the alarm along with her, the call to duty. She lifted her head as though there was an odor in the air, and she glanced back at him. You smell that? It’s big. It’s bad. They connected on the shared instinct.
Sam pulled his keys out of his pants pocket as he headed for the brown car emblazoned with a big, gold star. He felt a little light-headed, but it was only because he wasn’t wearing his Stetson. Which meant he was out of uniform.
He started the car, flipped on the radio, noted Maggie’s quick pace cutting across the schoolyard grass and mentally gave himself a demerit.
Lucky the Wonder Mutt learned fast.
It was his mistress who was a little slow on the uptake sometimes. But once Hilda Beaudry had the logistics figured out, Lucky’s new trick was all but in the bag.
“Lucky, hit the lights.”
The little black-and-white terrier—always a hit at Allgood’s Emporium—jumped on cue, landed on the strategically placed footstool, and then sprang for the wall switch, hitting the target with his only front paw. Lucky could do more with three legs than most mutts could achieve on four. He didn’t even need a command for the follow-up sit on the footstool. He perked his ears and waited prettily for his reward. Liver treats were his favorite. His long tongue curled around his nose as he whimpered.
“No, thank you. You’re the one—”
“Yip!” Lucky’s ears stood at attention. He tipped his head and stared past Hilda.
She turned. A small shadow darkened the bottom of the general store’s old-fashioned screen door. “Do I have a customer, Lucky, or do you have an audience?”
“Yip!”
“Boy or girl?”
“Yip!”
“Oh, good. Your favorite.” The shadow shifted. “And with free cookies for the first five people to come to the store today…how many so far?”
Hilda made the thumb signal for speak four times. Lucky cheerfully obliged.
“They’re chocolate chi-i-ip,” Hilda sang out.
The door’s spring chirped in response, and a little girl with a long, droopy brunette pony tail and huge brown eyes stepped within view, toeing the threshold with a white rubber sneaker bumper.
At Hilda’s signal, Lucky sat.
The child lifted her prim, pointed chin. “Do I have to buy anything?”
“In this store, free means free.” And at Allgood’s, chocolate chip meant recent business had been brisk. Hilda had a special recipe. Not for the cookies—she used the one on the chocolate-chip bag—but for the aroma. It was the scent that brought ’em in. She hadn’t figured out how to bottle it, but the oscillating fan beside the kitchen window filled the air outside Allgood’s Emporium with it.
“Come on in and help yourself. Two to a customer.”
“But I’m not a customer.”
It didn’t really matter that the girl was holding the door open while she dithered betwixt and between, since spring hadn’t sprung the worst of the flying insects yet.
Lucky’s throaty warble came on the heels of Hilda’s invitational gesture. “Introduce yourself and we’ll become friends. Friends get three, but you have to take the third one home for later.”
“We don’t live here.” With one hand behind her back the girl eased the door shut. “I’ve never seen a dog turn on a light. How come he only has three legs?”
“That’s all he needs.”
“Was he born that way?”
“I don’t know for sure.” Hilda put her hands on her hips and eyed the dog. “He was this size when he came to live with me, and we liked each other right off. We’ve never talked about our ages or what shape we’re in. What you see is what you get.” She looked up at the girl. “Does it seem warm to you? Lucky, turn on the fan for us, please.”
The terrier needed three strategically placed stools—small, medium, tall—to reach the counter under the long pull-string on the ceiling fan.
The dimension of the girl’s eyes rounded up to the next size. “Wow.”
“Are you here visiting, or just passing through?”
“We came on the bus. We’re staying at the Mountain Mama Motel. My mom likes the name, but I don’t like the way that arrow blinks on and off at night. It keeps us awake.” She stared at the plate Hilda had pushed under her nose, and then glanced up. Hilda nodded, but the girl needed more than a nod, more than a cookie. “My…my mom’s really sick.”
“Is it just the two of you?” The girl nodded. “How long has she been sick?”
“A little bit for a long time, but she’s getting worse.”
“Would you like me to go see her? I have a good friend who’s a nurse. We can—”
“My name’s Star Brown.” She took the top cookie, tasted it and daintily brushed a gathering of crumbs from her bottom lip. “My grandmother owns this store.”
“I own this store, honey, and I really wish I had a granddaughter. But I’m afraid—”
“Is your name Hilda Beaudry?”
“It is.” Her name was painted on the sign above the overhang out front. Small letters, but she’d matched them to her father’s and grandfather’s names, which were still there with their dates as proprietors.
“We came here to