Walking with his friend back to the shop, Jon forgot about time, about his impending meeting that afternoon, and frowned as Mark mentioned his fiancée, the woman who watched Abe once a week. “I thought she was new to town, too.”
“She’s only been back for a couple of months. She moved away when she was six.”
There was more to the story, Jon could sense as much. But Mark didn’t elaborate, and Jon didn’t ask.
* * *
LILLIE WAS RUNNING late. She’d been called to the clinic to assist with setting the arm of a ten-year-old boy who’d fractured it playing football. It had been almost one o’clock before she’d been free to change into her jeans and tend to the paperwork and reports that had built up during the week, and she hadn’t eaten yet that day.
Which was why she was at the Shelter Valley Diner at three, grabbing a bite before walking over to the city park across the street for her four-o’clock appointment with Jon Swartz.
“Hey, woman, how are you?” The familiar voice greeted her as she stood at the counter, trying to decide what she felt like eating. Salad or sandwich? Or maybe just a cup of soup?
“Ellen? I didn’t know you were in town!” There was nothing about the pretty blonde that suggested the trauma she’d lived through almost ten years before.
“Jay and I are dropping Josh off at Mom’s. We’re heading up to Jerome for the night.”
Jerome, an authentic old mining town built into the top of a five-thousand-foot mountain, was a couple of hours north of Shelter Valley. These days, the bustling roadside town was an artists’ haven and boasted several B and Bs in addition to a well-preserved twenty-five-room hotel that dated back to the 1900s.
“Are you taking the motorcycle?” Lillie asked, noting the happy glint in Ellen’s brown eyes, the shine to her natural blond hair. Marriage to Jay had done wonders for the woman Lillie had first met through Ellen’s son, Josh, when Lillie had first come to town. She’d supported Josh through a routine procedure at the clinic. And bonded with his grateful mother in the process.
Ellen, who’d been born and raised in Shelter Valley, had been a regular to the clinic back then—visiting the counselor whose office was just across the hall from Lillie’s—as she fought her way back from the hell of having been raped.
Jay, a masseuse at the clinic, had been central to Ellen’s recovery. In ways no one could have foreseen.
“Of course we’re taking the bike.” Ellen’s grin stretched across her face. “Jay’s been great about taking the car when we have Josh in tow, so I insist on taking the bike anytime it’s just the two of us.”
“Admit it—” Lillie grinned back “—you just want to spend the entire trip with your arms wrapped around that husband of yours.”
“I also happen to love the wind in my hair, the feeling of flying and the rush of speed....”
Ellen looked happier than Lillie had ever seen her. And for a brief second, she was envious.
Nancy, a mother of six who’d been working at the diner since she was in high school, approached them from behind the counter. Ellen ordered a cherry pie to go. “Jay and Josh are in the car,” she told Lillie. “Mom’s having the ladies over this afternoon and I told her I’d pick up the pie on my way there.”
Ellen’s mom, Martha—who was married to one of the preachers in town—and her friends, some of them from as far back as high school, got together every week. They were well-known throughout town because anytime anyone needed anything, the ladies inevitably found out about it and went out of their way to help. It didn’t hurt that Becca Parsons, mayor of Shelter Valley, was among their ranks.
Nancy turned to Lillie and she ordered a sandwich—easy to eat in the park—and waved as Mrs. Wright and Bailey walked in, hand in hand. Bailey’s lab work hadn’t come back yet.
“Did you hear about the break-in?” Ellen asked as Nancy went to the back to collect the pie and put in Lillie’s order.
“At the Conklins’? Yeah, Dr. Mueller mentioned it this morning. They just took cash, right?”
“Mom said they think it’s one guy working alone. Something about a size-ten footprint. They aren’t sure if he was only after cash, or if the Conklins got home while he was still there and scared him off. He left the sliding glass door leaning against a wall.”
“I was here four years for college and I’ve been back for five and the only break-ins I ever heard of were on campus.”
“I know what you mean. I read the police report in the weekly paper Mom sends to me in Phoenix and there have been a few accounts of people walking out of stores with things,” Ellen said. “But mostly the calls are due to domestic violence or traffic accidents or someone having a heart attack.”
But they both knew that, even given Shelter Valley’s low crime rates, bad things did happen there. Ellen was living proof of that.
“I’m sure Sheriff Richards will catch whoever did it,” Lillie told her friend, and hoped she was right. Knowing that there was a thief living among them was creepy. Shelter Valley was a unique little place on earth. It had been founded by a man who’d sought shelter from a world that condemned him for a mixed-race marriage at a time when such things weren’t accepted. The town’s growth had been guided by the belief that all good people deserved shelter from life’s storms.
And everyone who came to town seeking shelter and stayed was ready to offer shelter to others who needed it.
After saying goodbye to her friend, Lillie paid for her sandwich and focused on her upcoming appointment.
The child. Not the father.
She could get through anything life had to hand her by focusing on work.
* * *
“THROW THE BALL, son.” Kneeling next to Abe, Jon showed the toddler how to give the plastic orb an underhanded toss. And with a sprint, he made it in front of the ball to grab it as it fell and toss it back toward the little boy. Abraham followed the ball and, tripping over Jon’s feet, fell against him. Standing immediately, Abe reached for the ball with both hands and placed them just as Jon had demonstrated, tossed the ball and went running after it again.
“Wait, son,” Jon said. “Stay right there and Daddy will throw it back to you.” For two Saturdays now he’d been trying to teach the boy the concept of playing catch. Trying to get Abe to wait for the ball to come back to him. And just as Jon was determined to teach him, Abe was determined to play the game his own way.
Still, Jon continued to try. He waited while Abe tossed the ball and then went after it, trying to get the ball heading back to the toddler before Abe’s small legs got to it.
“Watch,” he said. “Daddy will throw the ball and then you catch it,” he said. Backing up, he tossed the cheap dollar-store toy gently in Abe’s direction. The boy ran toward it, waited while it dropped and then grabbed it with a laugh.
“Now throw it to me,” Jon said. Abraham tossed. And ran. Jon reached the ball first and, scooping it up with one hand, tossed the ball back in his son’s direction. Again. And again.
“I’m going to back up farther now,” he said as Abe once more picked up the ball. Turning, he hurried a few steps away before Abe had time to straighten. “Nooo!” His heart in his throat, Jon swung back around at the sound of his son’s terrified scream.
If...
Abraham stood there, right where he’d been, screaming his head off. No one was around. The ball was still in the boy’s hands.
“Abe?”