Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

seemed too young to have a grown son.

The other woman nodded serenely. Then for a few moments they were both silent as Rachel struggled to get the diaper fastened and the blanket snugly wrapped. When the job was done-more or less, Josie looked at Rachel with raised eyebrows and said, “May I?”

“Oh,” Rachel said. “Sure.” She stood aside and hovered self-consciously as the other woman carefully, tenderly picked up the tidy package she’d made of her baby son. They both laughed as he instantly turned his face toward Josie, mouth open, like a hungry baby bird.

“Oh, my, I think he needs his mama,” Josie said, laughing as she handed back the squirming bundle, and Rachel felt a kind of tremulous relief as she took that tender weight in her arms once more.

How terrifying this is, she thought, to have this bond, now, that I can’t bear to have broken, even for a moment.

“Would you like to come out and sit on the veranda to nurse him? It’s nice there this time of day. There’s a comfortable chair-a rocker-I like to sit there sometimes.”

Realizing suddenly how unsteady she was and grateful for the chance to sit down, Rachel murmured her thanks and followed her hostess through wide, double French doors. She caught an involuntary breath.

“Oh-it’s beautiful.”

The house had been built Spanish-style around a central courtyard. In the center of the courtyard a three-tiered fountain flowed with happy music into a pool covered with tile artistically done in a colorful mosaic of flowers and birds. Wide pathways paved with flagstone curved from each wing of the house to the central fountain, and between the pathways, small patches of lush green lawn separated flower beds filled with newly leafed shrubs and spring-flowering bulbs-hyacinths and daffodils and freesias, and tulips of every shade. Peeking out between the nodding heads of flowers Rachel could see the spikes and leaves of perennials that would come later-daisies and iris and cannas and peonies. Adjacent to the covered veranda that ran around all four sides of the courtyard, flowerbeds held climbing roses that clung thickly to the supporting pillars and arched over the tiled veranda roof, tangled with honeysuckle and trumpet vines. Here and there among the foliage Rachel caught glimpses of garden art: an old wagon wheel, a ceramic tiled birdbath, a terra-cotta statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, another of a child, a little boy, fishing. Birdhouses, hummingbird feeders and wind chimes hung at intervals from the eves of the veranda, the latter tinkling softly now in the breeze.

Josie glanced at her, a pink blush of pleasure showing in her smooth cheeks. “Thank you. This is…oh, I guess it’s my special place. I love flowers. Here in the courtyard, the dogs aren’t allowed and the deer and rabbits can’t reach, so I can have all the flowers I want. Maybe I overdo, a little.”

“Oh, no-it’s beautiful. My grandmother loved flowers, too. She would have loved this…” She had to stop, suddenly awash in emotions she thought she’d gotten past. Hormones, she supposed.

Josie nodded, her eyes kind. “Your grandmother-she was Elizabeth. Sam’s first wife.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, and turned away, looking for the promised rocking chair, thankful for the distraction of her squirming son, whose snuffling, fussing noises were becoming increasingly insistent. She had no wish to talk about her grandmother. And especially not her grandfather-not yet. Soon, she would have to. But not now.

“Oh-here,” Josie said, and guided her to the glider-type patio rocking chair, holding her arm to help support the baby as Rachel sank gingerly into the thick cushions. “There-you just go ahead and nurse your little one while I get you something to drink. You need to drink lots of fluids, you know, to make milk.”

She bustled off, stepping back through the open French doors, and Rachel was left alone with the wind chimes and the chuckling fountain and the scent of hyacinths steeped in sunshine.

How strange…how unreal it all is.

And yet, she realized, that wasn’t quite true. What was maybe the strangest thing was how normal it seemed. Because it was happening to her, and that made it somehow normal. Or something. She wasn’t able to explain it very well, even to herself, but she knew it to be true. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she thought. Watching that movie as a child with her grandmother, she’d never understood how Dorothy could accept so easily meeting witches and munchkins and talking lions and characters made out of tin and straw. Now she knew that the unreal, once you are in it, becomes your reality.

Which makes all this just one more way station on my yellow brick road. And I’m off to see the wizard, the one who is supposed to solve all my problems…

And the wizard is…my grandfather?

She shook off the notion and the irony of it with a small, sobbing laugh.

She was getting better at this nursing business, she thought as she lifted her shirt and unhooked the special bra, one of several Katie had bought for her. She was able to get her swollen nipple into the baby’s frantically searching mouth on only the second or third try. As the baby began to nurse hungrily, she closed her eyes and eased herself back into the cushions. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids and breath hissed between her lips as showers of tingles spread from her breasts through her whole body.

It’s almost like sex, she thought, then wondered where the thought had come from. It had been a long time since she’d had any thoughts about sex whatsoever. She thought she’d forgotten what it felt like…

She heard rustlings and quiet footsteps, and opened her eyes to see Josie placing a small tray on the table beside her chair.

“Sorry,” Josie whispered, “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You didn’t,” Rachel said, and reinforced it with a smile.

“I brought you both milk and tea-decaf. And I didn’t know if you take sweetener, so I brought both sugar and low-cal stuff-the yellow ones. Hope that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” Rachel murmured, filled now with a sweet sense of contentment, listening to her son make satisfied, squeaky sounds as he nursed. “Thank you.”

Josie hesitated, seeming uncertain whether she should stay or leave her alone. She gestured toward the doors she’d just come through. “Is this room okay? It’s closest to the main wing-to the kitchen, you know-so I thought-”

“It’s lovely-thank you.”

“Your friend, the sheriff-J.J.-can have the room right next door. Unless you’d like to have him-” She broke off, clearly embarrassed, and gestured again toward the door to Rachel’s room.

Rachel just gazed at her for a moment, comprehension coming slowly to her in her mellow mood. Then her heart gave a funny kick and she half straightened. “Oh-no, no. No.” Laughing, she made erasing gestures with her hand. “We’re not-no. He’s just my-I guess he’s sort of my-”

“I know you are under his protection,” Josie said, coming finally to settle onto the edge of another chair half facing her. She shrugged. “I just thought, maybe there was…you know-something more.”

Now it was Rachel’s stomach that did an odd little flip. “Why would you think that? I mean-I just met him two days ago. He delivered my baby-saved both our lives, probably. But…no, there’s nothing…”

“I’m sorry,” Josie said, that pink blush coming again to her smooth round cheeks. “I just thought…you know, the way he is with you. The way he looks at you. Maybe he feels…I don’t know…responsible for you?”

“That’s probably it.” But Rachel’s heart was beating faster. The way he is with me?

It came back to her then, the way J.J. had put his hand on her back when they were walking. Was that what Josie meant?

Then she was trying to remember if Nicky had ever done that. She thought of all the times they’d gone places together, appeared at benefits and nightclubs and balls and posh parties where celebrities gathered to play. Nicky had loved to be out among the rich and famous, and he’d loved having her on his arm. But no, she couldn’t recall that he’d ever put his hand on her back in that certain protective way. Rather, it was almost as if he’d worn her, she thought, like an expensive accessory.

Chapter 8