High Country Fall

Mommy I’ll try to be home for supper, okay? … Love you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “That last case ran a little long.”

“It’s all right.” He grabbed his jacket from the coat-rack. “We’re not on any schedule.”

“Was that your daughter?”

“Yeah. She aced her spelling test today. When you’re in first grade, every day’s a nice adventure.” He pulled his office door to and we walked down the hall, past uniformed officers who nodded as we passed. “The nine-year-old still likes school, too, but the oldest’s in sixth grade now and it’s starting to be cool to gripe about it.”

“All girls?”

“The older two are boys.” He held the outer door for me and we stepped out into late-afternoon sunlight. “You have kids?”

“Just nieces and nephews.”

“What about Major Bryant?”

“A son. He lives with his mother in Virginia, though.”

“Rough,” Underwood said sympathetically.

I nodded.

Another one of the reasons Dwight said he wanted to get married was so he could make a real home for Cal down here and maybe get the custody agreement modified. I like Cal and I think he likes me, but for the first time, I felt a touch of apprehension. If this wedding comes off, it won’t be for weekend visits only. We’ll probably have him for holidays, certainly for several weeks every summer. I’ll be his stepmother. He’ll be part of my daily life.

A stepmother?

Me?

I remember all the tales I’ve heard of how some of my brothers resented my mother when Daddy remarried so quickly after their own mother died. She eventually won them all over, but things must have been uncomfortable the first year or so.

Of course, Jonna’s still alive and kicking—still bitching, too, according to Dwight’s mother. (Dwight takes in stride her gripes about the size of his child-support payments, but Miss Emily’s more outspoken.) Anyhow, it’s not as if I’m going to usurp Jonna’s place in Cal’s affections. And he’s still young enough to adapt, unlike my last lover’s sixteen-year-old daughter, who never stopped scheming to get her parents back together.

And did.

But that’s all spilt milk under the bridge now, as my brother Haywood would say, and no point crying over it, although I’d certainly done my share of crying last spring and kept a good pity party going for myself halfway through the summer.

Underwood waited while I unlocked the trunk of my car and stashed my laptop.

“You sure you don’t want me to follow you in my car so you don’t have to bring me back?” I asked.

“No problem.” He held the door of a nearby unmarked car and helped me figure out the unfamiliar seat belt. “I have to come back this way to get home.”

“You live here in town?”

“On my salary?” He gave an amused snort. “No, we live down in Howards Ford. No schools up here anyhow. And most of the subdivisions have rules against toys left on the driveway.”

“No toys?”

“All bikes, trikes, and games have to be stowed in the backyard or out of sight. Goes with the rules about keeping the grass mowed and the hedges clipped. You’d be amazed how many calls we get about unmowed grass every summer.”

I shuddered. “Even without all that regimentation, it’d probably still be dull for children here. No school activities, no McDonald’s, no movies.”

“Hey, we have movies,” Underwood said with mock indignation as we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. “There’s a film festival every summer in the little park back of the library.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Art films? Foreign imports with subtitles?”

“You got it.”

“No popcorn?”

“Nope, but lots of white wine in plastic goblets.”

“And little cubes of jalapeno cheese on those long jazzed-up toothpicks?”

“Hey, I thought I’d seen you somewhere before!”

Having established our proletarian bona fides, I settled back in my seat and said, “So tell me about Deeck. How come a man his age isn’t in private practice?”

“Raking in the big bucks?”

“He seems competent enough for it.”

“He did have a private practice at one time and was well on his way to his first million from what people say.”

“What happened?”