I pinched the bridge of my nose, unlocked the doors, and slid into my seat. This shared investigation was not going to work if I had to report every move to him or wait for him to approve my decisions.
Or deal with a crush.
I blamed my fluctuating hormones.
Tanner slid in beside me and buckled his seat belt. “Stay to the speed limit,” he ordered. “And take a different way home. I don’t think anyone will follow us, but do it anyway.”
I fiddled with my keychain and pondered a shortcut. “What happened back there?”
He propped one hand against the dashboard and kept his gaze out the back window. “I smelled dirt. Really old dirt, combined with…engine oil, maybe?” He pressed into the seat and threaded his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. And for making assumptions.”
“We don’t know each other, and we don’t yet know how to work together,” I offered. “And thank you for the apology.” I put the car into reverse, ready to be home, ready for some breathing room. “By the way, I felt it too, and I traced it to the marina. And a boat belonging to my ex-husband’s family business.” His look went from irritated to possibly impressed. “But the connection disappeared when a prop plane took off.”
Once we were at my house, Tanner insisted I park the car so it faced down the driveway. “In case you need to get out of here in a hurry” was his offered explanation. I went with it, scooping up the pizza boxes so I could be the one bearing dinner and thereby have my sons’ complete attention.
“Guys,” I yelled, tapping my toe against the bottom of the screen door. “Food’s here.” Footsteps thundered down the inside stairs, followed by gangly limbs and smiling faces. “You two get your chores done?”
“What chores?” Harper lifted the pizza boxes out of my arms and held both high above his head as he twirled.
“Harper Flechette-Jones, put those back and go set the table. For four.” My eldest sent the boxes sliding the length of the kitchen’s narrow island. Thatcher—taller, skinnier, and, eight times out of ten, hungrier—stopped the boxes from toppling over the edge.
“Mo-om, I love you,” he said, flipping the lid and inhaling. “And you got one of Sallie’s pies!”
That was why the young woman’s face was familiar. She was related somehow to Harper and Thatch on Doug’s side of the family, which probably made them cousins. And solved one of the day’s mysteries.
“I’d love you more if you two would do your chores without me having to remind you all the time,” I said.
Harper coughed and adopted a serious tone. “Mother. Did you happen to look in the wood box? And did you observe the empty dish rack?” He swept his arm toward the staircase. “And I didn’t notice you inspecting our rooms in the three minutes you’ve been home, so I think—”
I swatted his shoulder. “Did you two really do all that, or are you just desperate for food?”
“Both,” they answered in unison as Tanner knocked at the kitchen door and let himself inside.
“This is Tanner Marechal,” I said. “He’s an agent with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, and he’s working on a case with me.”
A round of manly handshakes and deliberate eye contact followed, behavior I hadn’t noticed my sons exhibiting before. All movement toward getting food to the table paused as they assessed one another.
“Guys? Food?” I waved utensils and cloth napkins in the air. “Thatcher, can you please make a pitcher of lemonade?”
Once settled at the table, the teens inhaled their first slices of pizza and settled into a more sedate pace with their second. As usual, they were more interested in eating than in making conversation.
“What does your dad need your help with this weekend?” I asked.
“Is it okay if we go?” Points to Harper for swallowing first.
“Yes. But you still need to answer my question.”
“Dad bought a condo in Vancouver, near Granville Island, and he wants our help packing up his apartment in Victoria and assembling a bunch of furniture from Ikea for his new place. You know Dad. He wishes he had a magic wand so he wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty with menial shit.”
The bite of pizza got all cardboard-y in my mouth. How could Doug be one of the few people able to afford to move into Vancouver? Lack of money was his chronic lament. I wanted to spit out my mouthful of half-chewed dough, pick up my phone, and harangue my ex, but that had never worked in the past.
“You have someone to cover your shifts at the farm and the market?” I asked. The brothers nodded in tandem. “Then make sure your father pays for the ferry and see if he’ll cover your lost wages.”
Tanner focused on eating. Harper and Thatch discussed the logistics of getting to a concert they wanted to attend later in the summer, while the sounds of rhythmic chewing and swallowing filled my ears. Splaying my bare feet against the cool maple floor boards, I connected with my house and, below that connection, with my land.
A quiet burp, followed by an, “Excuse me” and chairs being pushed away signaled the teens were finished. They cleared the table, rinsed the dishes, and disappeared upstairs, plates of pie in hand. Following their movements, my heart clenched, wanting to hold on to the little boys inside the young men they were becoming.
Tanner shifted his left knee and made contact with my leg. “Good kids,” he whispered.
“Mm-hm,” I agreed.
He tapped the side of my knee again. “We should talk.”
“Let’s sit outside.”
A heavy three-seater swing took up one-third of the narrow deck off the back of the house. I placed my glass of lemonade on the low table and nestled into weather-hardened cushions. My house abutted a heavily wooded area,
