July Thunder

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call your insurance?” Fred said hesitantly.

“That bad?”

“The bumper has to be replaced, and the tailgate is really bent. I don’t think we can straighten it, so we’ll probably have to get a whole new door assembly. Taillight assemblies, paint…well, you’re not gonna like it. But the car’s almost new. You ought to have it fixed the way it was or it’s worthless. The bank wouldn’t like that.”

“How much?” she asked.

He quoted a price that caused her to straighten abruptly.

“That much?” she said, appalled. No way was Jim going to be able to pay for that, not after working at the mine for little more than a month. But neither could she afford it herself. A schoolteacher’s salary didn’t stretch that far.

“Let me call your insurance,” Fred said. “They’ll work it out with the other insurer and it won’t cost you a dime.”

She was tempted, sorely tempted. But it might cost Jim Wysocki his insurance, and without insurance, he wouldn’t be able to drive, even to get to work. Biting her lip, she fought down a sense of panic. What was she going to do without a car? “Is it drivable?”

“Not now.”

“How long would it take to get it drivable?”

“At a minimum, five days. I have to order parts, and there’s a lot of work to do just to get that far, never mind the paint.”

Well, of course, she thought miserably. It was only what she deserved. “Let me get back to you, Fred, okay?”

After she hung up the phone, she sat staring out the window. Across the street, someone was moving into the small house, a man with incredible white hair. A couple of people were helping him. It crossed her mind that she ought to wander over and offer to help, too, but she felt too stunned. Too…depressed.

Jim wouldn’t be able to pay for the repairs. She wouldn’t have a car to drive, which meant she wouldn’t be able to go visit her aunt this weekend. That troubled her, because Nessa was seriously ill, undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. But it was no more than she deserved, she reminded herself. No reason her life should be easy when she had destroyed someone else’s.

With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart, she picked up the phone and called Jim Wysocki. He was just getting ready to go on his shift at the mine.

“Oh, jeez, Ms. McKinney,” he said when she told him the bad news. “Oh, jeez. I can’t pay for the whole thing at once. Half. I could do half. And maybe pay the rest in installments over the next couple of months?”

Paying half would wipe out her savings. But apparently it would wipe out Jim’s, too. Her shoulders sagged. She could have insisted on going to the insurance company, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She would manage somehow. She had to.

“All right,” she said. “Take the money over to Taylor’s. You can pay me the rest when you’re able. And tell Fred Taylor to give me a call after you stop in, will you?”

“Sure, Ms. McKinney. Thank you! I mean…”

But she didn’t want to hear his gratitude. As quickly and gently as she could, she ended the conversation. He was a good kid. But like most eighteen-year-olds, he still had some growing up to do.

And she had to stop spending so much of her own money on classroom materials. Like all too many teachers, she was always finding things that she thought would stimulate interest in her students, things the school system didn’t provide. And of course there were always the students from poorer families who needed the most basic supplies, from pens to notebooks. She never regretted those purchases, but she did need to be more careful about them, if her savings could be wiped out by a single car accident.

Forcing herself to shake off the mood that had been plaguing her since the accident, she went to freshen up a little. Sam would arrive to get her soon. And there was the neighbor across the street. She needed to at least welcome him.

The past needed to return to the dungeon where it belonged.

Which of course it didn’t want to. But after all these years, Mary had some experience of twisting her mind away from it by playing tricks with herself. She rewrote her shopping list, telling herself she needed to forgo a few extravagances she had planned. Crossing these things off the list simply wouldn’t do.

And finally she went across the street to welcome her new neighbor, sure that a few minutes of conversation until Sam arrived would be just the distraction she needed.

He was a beautiful man, she thought as she approached him. Tall, lean, with the thickest, whitest hair she had ever seen, and piercing eyes as blue as ice. His very presence seemed to command, and something about him struck her as familiar.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Mary McKinney, your neighbor across the street.”

He smiled. “Reverend Elijah Canfield,” he said in a deep voice that hinted at thunder. “I’m the new pastor at The Little Church in the Woods.”

“Oh, it’s a lovely little church,” Mary said warmly.

“You’ll join us sometime for worship?”

“I’ll think about it,” Mary replied, though she had no intention of that. She belonged to another church with which she was quite content, thank you very much. “Canfield? I know a deputy named Sam Canfield.” It was a casual remark, something to mention to a stranger when she didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t expect the answer she got.

“I know him,” said Reverend Canfield.

“Are you related?” The thought surprised her. While she didn’t know Sam all that well, she suddenly realized that she’d been under the impression he didn’t have any family at all.

“I know him,” Elijah repeated.

“Oh.” Mary felt uncomfortable suddenly, as if she’d trod somewhere she shouldn’t have. A strange feeling for a first, casual encounter with a stranger. “Well, I hope you enjoy your time in Whisper Creek, Reverend. It’s a lovely, friendly little town. And if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m always good for a cup of sugar.”

He laughed, and the uneasiness was dispelled as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud.

“I’ll remember that, Mary McKinney. Is that missus?”

“Ms.”

“Miss McKinney,” he said with a little bow.

Mary, who was quite opposed to “miss” because she didn’t feel her marital status was anybody’s business but her own, realized she had just run into an old-time preacher who thought women had their proper place. However, out of common courtesy she said nothing. Some old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks, anyway.

“So, what do you do, Miss McKinney?”

Was she imagining it, or did he emphasize the “miss”? Down, girl, she told herself. It was not time to get on her feminist soapbox. “I’m a teacher at the high school,” she answered. “Creative writing and literature.”

At that moment two of the helpers came out of the house, and with a suddenly sinking heart, Mary recognized them. They were parents who had last year attempted to get some of the books on her reading list banned.

“Literature,” Elijah Canfield said. “That wouldn’t be The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, would it?”

It would be. It also included The Return of the Native, Pride and Prejudice, Captain Blood (for the boys) and a lot of other classics, like Catch-22 and The Old Man and the Sea. She’d had to go to the mat over some of them last year before the school board, and she was prepared to do it again.

But now she found herself looking into the eyes of a new enemy, one who could be considerably more powerful than the handful of parents who had complained last year.

She felt her dander rising but tried to remain civil. “Among other books,” she said pleasantly. “I always feel it’s best to introduce young people to a wide variety of the greatest works of literature. It tends to be instructive in ways that help them better avoid some of the errors and temptations of life, not to mention exposing them to powerful writing.”

So take that, she thought almost childishly.

“The Bible is powerful writing.”

“Indeed,” she agreed with a smile. “Very powerful. But it’s wisest to leave that in the hands of ministers, don’t you think? I’m sure you’d be very unhappy with me if I pointed out the apocryphal nature of some of the Biblical stories.”

And thank goodness Sam’s patrol car pulled up across the street just then. Escape was at hand. But then she noticed that Sam didn’t get out and come join them. Why not, if he knew this preacher?

“There’s nothing apocryphal about the Bible,” Elijah said sternly.

“Not about its message, no,” she agreed, clinging to her smile. “However, I’m sure some of the stories are more illustrative than factual. But I have to go now, Reverend, so I’ll leave the Bible in your capable hands. Let me know if I can help with anything.”

Except banning books in my school, she thought irritably as she crossed the street and climbed into the patrol car beside Sam. Then it struck her as odd that Sam hadn’t even climbed out to open the car door for her. That didn’t seem like him. What was going on here?

“That man,” she said as Sam pulled away from the curb, “is going to be a major thorn in my side, I know it.”

“He enjoys being a thorn,” Sam said levelly. “It’s his stock-in-trade. Don’t get into it with him, Mary. You’ll regret it.”

“I have a feeling he’s going to want to ban books.”

“Probably. He has everywhere else he’s been, as far as I know.”

She turned in her seat and looked at him. “Sam, what’s going on? Who is he? Do you know him?”

“I used to know him,” Sam said after a moment.

“Friends? Relatives?”

They were almost at the store before he responded. “He’s my father.”

A million questions occurred to Mary, but she didn’t voice them. The store simply wasn’t the place to have such a discussion.

Sam pushed the cart for her while she selected items and dropped them into it. He seemed preoccupied, which gave her the opportunity to look his way frequently without being detected. He was a strong man in his mid-thirties, with a face attractively lined by exposure to the harsh mountain elements. His gray eyes, so unlike the icy-blue of his father’s, were warm, even now when he seemed low. And never, not once, had she ever found him to be anything but kind.

A remarkable man. A handsome man. One who would give women little heart flutters simply by smiling. As well she knew.

She remembered his late wife only slightly, a petite dark-haired woman with a thousand-watt smile who always seemed to be laughing. Sam must sorely miss her. Which, she told herself sternly, was one of the best reasons to ignore those little flutters.

Besides, marriage wasn’t for her. She didn’t deserve such happiness.

But she owed Sam something for going out of his way, so she picked up extra for dinner, determined that he was going to eat with her tonight. No matter what he said. No reason for him to go back to his empty house, and no reason for her to spend the evening alone, worrying about that preacher across the street. Besides, it would give her an opportunity to ask one or two of those millions of questions that kept popping up in her mind.

At the very least, learning about Sam Canfield would keep her mind off her own problems.

Which, she told herself, was a very selfish way to think. Okay, so she was selfish. Maybe it would be good for both of them to talk a little.

But nothing more than that. Not ever.

3

Sam helped carry Mary’s groceries in for her. From across the street, where the moving activity had ended, leaving only a locked-up trailer in the driveway and a battered Oldsmobile parked out front, he could almost feel his father’s eyes boring into his back.

Elijah wasn’t in sight and might not even have been there, but Sam could still feel his presence and had to steel himself not to dart any looks in that direction. For all he knew, the old man was staring out a window at him.

Although why Elijah would do that, he couldn’t imagine. He hadn’t cared to look on Sam’s face in fifteen years, and he hadn’t seemed any happier to see him on the road today.

But the feeling persisted anyway, and he was glad when he carried the last bag into Mary’s kitchen.

“You’ll stay for dinner, of course,” she said to him as he set it on the counter.

Part of him just wanted to escape to his safe hermitage, but another part of him couldn’t resist the warm friendliness of her smile. He stood there, torn, and realized that his social graces had apparently gone the way of the dodo, because as his silence grew longer, her face began to fall.

He couldn’t allow that. “Sure,” he said. “I’d like to.” Then he added, so she wouldn’t misunderstand, “Eating alone is the pits.” Then it struck him that that had been an ungracious thing to say. Damn, he sounded like he’d been raised in a stable.

The corners of her mouth lifted, however, letting him know she hadn’t taken his words amiss. “It sure is,” she said. “And it’s absolutely no fun to cook alone. What we need to do is start a singles dining club. Get a group of us lonelyhearts together to cook for each other once in a while.”

“That might not be a bad idea,” he allowed, although in truth he had no intention of socializing that way. He’d avoided all the singles clubs in town because he was convinced that whatever they claimed was their purpose, their members were all after the same thing: marriage. And he didn’t want that ever again.

He unpacked the grocery bags for Mary, handing her each item so she could put it away. The way he’d once done for Beth, because she’d been convinced he would screw up her pantry organization if he put things away himself. His heart squeezed painfully at the memory.

“Are you all right, Sam?”

Mary’s voice, quiet and sweet, drew him back to the present. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

Her brow knitted with concern and maybe a bit of disbelief, but she didn’t press him about it. He handed her a container of grated Parmesan cheese, and she turned away to tuck it into the cupboard.

Then she gave him another kick in the heart. “So that’s your father moving in across the street?”

He couldn’t blame her; her curiosity was natural. But he wished she would talk about the weather, the upcoming school year, or even his job. Anything but this. On the other hand, he couldn’t be rude.

“Yeah,” he said, and pulled some cans of soup out of a bag.

“I take it you don’t have a good relationship?”

He gave a harsh crack of laughter. “That’s an understatement.”

“I’m sorry.”

For a minute he thought she was going to leave it there. But women never left anything there. A man would have, but a woman always wanted to pry into a guy’s heart. Hadn’t he learned that with Beth? Secrets were anathema to women. Particularly secrets of the heart and soul.

“What happened between you?” she asked, her voice as gentle as gentle could be. That gentleness was going to kill him.

“He disowned me fifteen years ago,” Sam said flatly. “Threw me out and disowned me.” His tone was meant to be a bar to further questions, but that didn’t work, either.

“Oh, Sam,” she said, groceries forgotten, her gaze sorrowful. “Why in the world would he do such a thing?”

“He said it was because I refused to become a preacher.” Although, in his heart of hearts, Sam believed it was more. As far back as he could remember, he and his father had disagreed on basic religious beliefs. Sam had challenged Elijah more than once with the brashness of youth. And even now that maturity had mellowed him somewhat and made him more tolerant, Sam still couldn’t buy into a lot of his father’s notions. Or at least the notions Elijah had tried to raise him with.

“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “That’s terrible.”

“It was a long time ago. It’s just better that we don’t speak. More peaceful for everybody.”

Mary nodded and resumed putting the groceries away. “Well, it’s going to be awkward for you, living in the same town.”

Sam shrugged and passed her a box of crackers. “I’ll deal with it.”

Yeah, he thought. The way he was dealing with it right now? Feeling the pressure of his father’s presence like a dark cloud? Entertaining fleeting thoughts of taking a job elsewhere? Cripes, he had to quit running.

He helped Mary make their dinner, a simple meal of salad, bakery rolls and two porterhouse steaks, which he was sure had been a big splurge for her. He felt bad about that, knowing that schoolteachers made about the same as cops.

“How’s your car?” he asked when they sat to eat at the dinette in her kitchen.

“Bad.” She tried to smile. “Jim can only pay for half of it right now, so I’m anteing up the rest until he can pay me back.”

“You should have made him take responsibility for it, Mary.”

“He is taking responsibility. And I don’t want to be responsible for making him lose his insurance, because if he can’t drive, he can’t get to work.”

“That’s true. But that kid seems to need a lesson.”

“He’s eighteen. He’s getting his lessons. But sometimes it’s necessary for adults to provide a bit of a safety net so these kids don’t crash and burn while they learn.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re a kind woman, Mary.”

She shook her head. “I’m a teacher. I haven’t had a chance to forget all the stupid things I did at that age.”

Sam nodded, admitting to himself he was coming down harshly on Jim, more harshly than was his wont. Maybe he was just getting sick of human stupidity. He sure saw enough of it.

“You know,” Mary said, “I’ve never known a preacher’s kid before. Well, other than one I taught. Is it true that you guys cut up more than usual as kids?”

“I don’t know about anybody else. I think I was just average.” Actually less than average, because his father would have put him through hell for even minor misbehavior, but he didn’t want to get into that.

“That seemed to be true of my student, too. Just the average sort of stuff. He seemed like a normal kid to me.”

“An interesting concept, normal.”

She smiled. “Isn’t it?”

Her smile, he realized, was warm enough to make his toes tingle. Why had he never before noticed her? And why was he noticing her now? Both questions left him feeling uncomfortable, and he began to develop an urgent desire to get away from her. She was disturbing him, and he didn’t like that.

But she was a beautiful woman, and he had plenty of opportunity to notice that while they did the dishes. Her movements were inherently graceful, as if she were comfortable inside her own body. What was more, she didn’t have that boyish look that seemed to be so popular in women these days. Her hips were well rounded, looking as if they could cradle a man in perfect comfort. And her breasts, while not overly large, were full and inviting. He couldn’t understand why some man hadn’t snatched her up long since.

Which was, surely, a damn good reason to get the hell out of there.

“Do you have any other family?” she asked as he washed and she dried.

“Not a soul.”

“I’m not blessed that way, either,” she admitted. “My aunt is still alive, but right now she’s getting chemotherapy.”

“I’m sorry. How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. The doctors seem hopeful, but…I’m not sure they’re not lying to us.”

“Where does she live?”

“In Denver.”

He reached for another towel and dried his hands. “If you want to go down and visit her before your car gets fixed, let me know. I’ll be glad to take you. In fact, if you need to get anywhere between now and then, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Sam.” She smiled. “You’re a kind man.”

Hah, he thought as he stepped out into the night. Kind? Not hardly.

He paused in the driveway beside his patrol car and stared at his father’s house across the street. The long mountain twilight had erased the shadows, making the evening strangely flat. A light had come on over there. The old man was home.

Sam stood for a few minutes, trying to deal with the reality of his father moving to town. All day long he’d stewed in discomfort, but he hadn’t allowed himself to really think about it. He supposed it was something he needed to do, and the sooner the better.

It kind of surprised him, though, that fifteen years of separation didn’t seem to have given him any real emotional distance. The instant he’d laid eyes on his father this morning, all those old feelings had been there, as fresh as they’d ever been. That wasn’t going to make the situation easy.

Just then he thought he smelled a whiff of smoke. Instinctively he scanned the area, looking for signs of a fire. Nothing. He supposed that someone must be burning a log in their woodstove to take off the chill of the evening, even if it did seem warm enough to him.

Another whiff and then it was gone. Nothing.

Sighing, he climbed into his patrol car and headed home.

Elijah Canfield had seen Sam help Mary in with her groceries, but he hadn’t seen him leave. He hadn’t intended to watch, but he was getting older and had collapsed into his easy chair, surrounded by the boxes that held the residue of his life, too tired to do any more today. It just happened that his chair had been put in position to see out the front window.

He wandered briefly into the kitchen, where everything was still in boxes, and helped himself to the dinner his new congregation had brought him: cold sliced turkey, salad and slabs of homemade bread. For dessert there was a generous square of crumb cake.

When he returned to his easy chair and settled in the only position that would ease his stiff back, he resumed his absent contemplation. That was when he saw Sam come out of the McKinney woman’s house.

So they were dating.

That was inconvenient, he thought. When he’d accepted the pastorship here, it had never occurred to him that Sam would still be living in this town. Sam was a runner. He’d run away from Elijah more than once in his younger days, and Elijah had just somehow figured that Sam would have moved on when his wife had died.

Regardless, it hadn’t been a possibility that had entered into his decision one way or the other. He’d long since buried his son, emotionally speaking.

Or he thought he had. Judging by the way he was reacting, things weren’t quite as dead as he’d believed.

He felt angry. Of course, anger wasn’t unfamiliar to Elijah Canfield. He routinely got angry at sin. Anger was, in fact, his stock-in-trade. Sometimes he even let his anger spill over from the sin to the sinner, if he thought it might do any good.

But when he thought of his son, he wasn’t angry at sin. He was angry at waste. Sam had wasted himself and his God-given talents. The Spirit had been upon him, but Sam had refused the call.

Belle, his late wife, hadn’t seen it that way. They’d fought bitterly over their son on many occasions, especially after Elijah had disowned the boy. Belle had thought it wasn’t Elijah’s place to determine their son’s calling. Elijah felt that, as a preacher, he was better able to judge that matter than anyone else.

But whatever the arguments had been, it remained that Elijah was still angry. Searingly angry.

And hurt.

Sam had failed him. Sam had turned his back on his upbringing and his faith. He had spat on all that his father believed.

Nursing his pain, Elijah sat on into the evening, thinking about Sam, and about the woman across the street, the woman who had challenged him on the obscene books she encouraged children to read.

His mission here was becoming clear. He knew what he had to do.

The fire, stymied at the heights for lack of fuel, caught between two brooks that stood sentry over the rest of the forest, nearly died. The last flames vanished, and a smoky pall hung over everything, even filling the valley below.

Across the brooks, still unsettled by the smell of soot and ash, animals tentatively tried to resume their routine. But the deer were restless and slept lightly, awakening frequently to sniff the night air for danger. The birds were completely gone, offering no surety of a timely alarm if they were disturbed. Smaller animals, creeping out of burrows and nests, seemed even more skittish than usual as they followed their various habits of hunting and gathering. Pausing more often than usual, they lifted their heads to test the acrid odor of the air.