Holiday Homecoming

Then, he’d heard her hit the ground.

He’d been by her side in seconds, doing CPR with his cell phone on the floor beside him so he could scream for help.

Help that had arrived too late.

Briana had slept through the whole ordeal. He’d woken their next-door neighbor to watch his little girl while he followed the ambulance to the hospital. The next morning, he’d had to tell Briana that Mommy was gone, not coming back.

She hadn’t believed him at first and continued to look for Regina, watching the door and the phone.

Meanwhile, he’d numbly called the dentist office where Regina had had an appointment the next week. Then, he’d found the number of the woman in charge of Regina’s book club. Finally, he personally visited the gym where she’d taught aerobics part-time and cleaned out her locker. There he’d accidentally encountered the grieving dark-haired personal trainer who’d known Regina was married but didn’t care.

His wife had been having an affair.

Jimmy blamed himself. He’d been passionate about the wrong things, had been gone too much and loved too little. He wouldn’t make the same mistake with Briana.

He wouldn’t mess up love a third time.

Still, he didn’t want his family to know how broken he was, so instead of screaming his frustration at life, he asked his brother, “Think this irrigation technique will work?”

Danny said something under his breath.

“Wasted effort?” Jimmy queried.

“No, it will work.”

Jimmy and Danny’s parents lived five miles away, just down Pioneer Road. While their dad, Mitch Murphy, ran a cattle and sheep operation, his brother Matthew—where they were working today—farmed beans, squash, corn and whatever else struck his fancy. Against his wife’s wishes, right now Matthew also rented a few acres from Ray Stone.

The women in Jimmy’s family held long grudges.

“Not Ray’s fault the girl ran off” was Matthew’s feeling.

Jimmy agreed. Not Ray’s fault. It had been Jimmy’s for not being mature enough to listen to Meredith, to think things through, give her time. She’d been all of seventeen when he’d asked her to leave with him.”

He’d thought she’d said “No, I can’t” because she didn’t want to be with him. Only later, after he’d been in school awhile, lived a little, grown up, had he realized it had been a “No, I can’t right now.”

But it had been too late to change things by then. She’d stood up his brother at the altar and had left Gesippi. Seemed both he and Meredith had run away.

“If you’re sure it will work,” Jimmy said after a moment, referring to the irrigation technique. Danny had been quiet for too long.

“I’m sure the concept will work.” Danny came around the truck, a bright yellow roll of plastic ditch now on the back of his quad. “I’m just not sure if I have enough plastic.”

Something about bright yellow stripes running down the center of cornstalks didn’t work for Jimmy. Gesippi, Arizona, was once home to the Tohono O’odham and Akimel O’odham Indians, expert crop growers who would laugh at Danny’s efforts. From the nearby Santa Catalina Mountains, to the Saguaro National Park, to every lake in between, Jimmy preferred natural beauty. Yellow plastic–striped rows of corn just didn’t do it.

“I’m thinking,” Danny said, “that I’ll stop the quad at the end of a row and walk the plastic down.”

“Walk?”

“Well, more like unroll,” Danny admitted. “Maybe just the first few to get a feel of how I want it placed and how it’s going to settle.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing right now. I’ll anchor it on the quad. Shouldn’t be too hard to unroll.”

“Okay, see you back at the house.”

Jimmy could tell him that this was a two-man job. The roll would get stuck and one brother would need to run back to untangle it while the other pulled and straightened. But if Jimmy volunteered to stick around, he’d not be able to ride down the road and satisfy his curiosity about the SUV. Clearly the mysterious SUV was connected to Raymond Stone, and that both worried and relieved him. Strange how quickly Gesippi had settled around Jimmy, tapping him on the shoulder and reminding him that he could leave the small town but the small town wouldn’t leave him. He and Briana, his daughter, had only been back a week, which had been plenty long enough for Jimmy to notice that Ray’s body was weakening, his mind was somewhat confused and he was uncharacteristically grumpy.

As they were Ray’s nearest neighbor, Jimmy’s aunt and uncle had plenty to say about Ray being alone. Mostly how lately they sometimes saw the beam of his flashlight in the middle of the night and heard him shouting in the distance. “As if he’s calling for someone or something,” Aunt Shari had said.

He wondered if he should go over there. Jimmy didn’t care what the Stone family thought of him; he’d more than paid for his decade-old lapse in judgment. Looking over at Danny, Jimmy felt a moment’s guilt. Actually, Danny had paid more dearly. But maybe now with Danny getting married to the right girl this time, the relationship between the Stones and the Murphys would start to heal.

Besides, Jimmy loved Ray Stone as if he was his own grandpa. The man had taught Jimmy to sit a sheep, wrestle a steer and ride a bull.

His mind made up, Jimmy headed for his white Dodge 250 truck, brushing his hands on his shirt. He thought briefly about going inside and washing up, but if he did, Aunt Shari would either want to feed him or want to know what he was doing.

As he approached, he noticed the brown SUV was parked in front of the house. That told Jimmy the driver was a return visitor. A stranger would have stopped just past the road.

He parked behind the SUV as the porch door opened and a slender girl came out. No, not a girl, a woman. One he knew well. Meredith Stone, all long golden-brown hair, pink sweaters, and endless energy and smiles.

At least that’s how he remembered her.

Today her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her hoodie was black. Judging by the way she hurried down the front walkway toward him, the energy was still there, but the smile was gone.

This wasn’t good.

He almost opened his mouth to tell her how not good her sudden appearance was. Now was the worst time for her to return, just weeks before Danny got married.

Danny still avoided mentioning her name.

Heck, sometimes Jimmy couldn’t choke it out, either.

But before he could say anything, Meredith skidded to a stop right in front of him, panic in her eyes, and said, “I can’t find Grandpa.”

CHAPTER THREE

WHILE JIMMY CALLED his aunt Shari and quickly gave her the rundown, Meredith paced. She hadn’t changed, not one bit, in the years since he’d seen her last. Today, she was like a two-year-old colt, not quite broke and wanting to move. She wanted to search some more, with or without him.

Hanging up, Jimmy said, “Aunt Shari will get a hold of the neighbors. We’ll spread out and cover more territory. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

“My brother’s on his way,” Meredith said. “He’s trying to get a hold of my parents. I—I didn’t know who else to call. I was about to call your uncle, when you drove up.”

Considering that the Stones and Murphys had been neighbors for more than thirty years, she shouldn’t have hesitated. “You can always call my dad, me, my uncle—” he looked her right in the eye “—my brother.”

“I’m so flustered,” Meredith muttered, “that I couldn’t remember a phone number for anyone in your family.”

Any other day, any other moment, Jimmy might have smiled. There’d been a time when Meredith had talked to both him and his brother on the phone daily, either talking or texting. Usually she’d been trying to organize their day to her liking. He’d always reorganized. Danny had actually followed her directions.

But now she looked ready to cry, something she didn’t do easily. He knew that firsthand.

“I’m usually spot on in an emergency,” she muttered.

He knew that, too. “You’re sure Ray’s not in the house?”

“I’m sure. The house wasn’t that hard to search.”

No, Jimmy had to agree with that. There were three bedrooms, which made up half the house. A kitchen, bathroom and living room made up the other half.

“You went downstairs?”

“I did.”

She’d never much liked the basement, Jimmy remembered. It was half finished, which bothered her to no end, and most of it was dirt walls. Sometimes snakes managed to get in.

Though that had never bothered Meredith. She’d just caught them, taken them outside and let them go. He’d helped her—and fallen in love. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a girl who thought snakes deserved a second chance?

“Pepper keeps barking,” Meredith said impatiently. “I can hear him in the distance. I’ve shouted his name until I’m hoarse. I tried to follow the sound, but I can’t figure out where he is. Once I thought he yelped, like he was hurt, so I decided to come back and get help. On top of everything else, I had to keep searching for a location to get cell-phone reception.”

Jimmy checked his own phone again. All the bars showed and the signal was strong. “You want to stay here at the house and wait, or come with me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I’m coming with you.”

As they stepped out the back door, in the distance Jimmy, too, could hear Pepper’s barks.

“Sounds like Pepper’s well past the end of the field.”

Meredith agreed. “At least to the foothill.”

Surely Ray hadn’t walked all that way. Jimmy had stopped by to check on him just two days ago. Ray’d had trouble just getting up from the easy chair and heading to the kitchen for a snack.

But Meredith was already moving through the backyard and toward the sound. “I don’t get why Grandpa would come out here.”

Jimmy thought for a moment. “Maybe he did what we’re doing. He heard Pepper barking and wondered if something was wrong.”

Meredith had never acted like a rich girl when her parents had had money. She’d preferred being out here with her grandparents and with him and his brother. And right now, she followed Jimmy and didn’t mind that her shoes were getting dirty or that her hoodie was getting snagged.

It had been almost a decade since he’d seen her this close. His family, though, had kept him informed a bit. He’d been in Australia doing a crocodile story when the Stones had thrown Ray a big eightieth birthday two years ago. Jimmy hadn’t received an invitation, but his mother had told him about the event. She’d said Meredith looked good and was doing what she loved.

Mom was wrong. Meredith didn’t look good; she looked great.

Meredith spoke up. “Maybe I should have kept looking for him.”

“You did the right thing, coming back for help,” Jimmy reassured her as she stepped around a paloverde tree and almost lost his balance as the terrain started to slope.

“The right thing is finding him.”

“If you’d found him injured, you wouldn’t have been able to get him home on your own and even more time would have been wasted.”

“He might not even be with Pepper,” she muttered. She muttered a lot more than she used to, that’s for sure. “He might be out looking for Rowdy, and Pepper’s just out here playing with us.”

“Rowdy? He’s been dead for—”

“Almost ten years,” Meredith finished. “Zack says he had to remind Grandpa of that fact just the other day. Grandpa’s getting forgetful.”

“Or maybe Pepper’s out here on his own and your grandpa went into town.”

“Leaving the television on? His breakfast plate still on the kitchen table? Plus, Zack organizes all Grandpa’s trips into town. No, Grandpa’s next doctor’s appointment isn’t for a month, and that’s a specialist in Phoenix, and Zack is taking him.”

“And he wasn’t expecting you?”

She shook her head. “We were afraid if he knew I was coming, it would upset him. I’m...” She hesitated. “I’m moving in for a while.”

“Good. He needs someone.” Jimmy upped his pace, refusing to take the time to consider how having Meredith next door again might affect the balance of his family: Danny getting married; Jimmy home again but intending to leave as soon as the next story, next locale, called.

He followed the barking as it grew louder, more frantic, and Meredith had been right, it seemed to come from different directions: right, left, straight ahead. It echoed, too, and he overheard Meredith say, “Almost sounds like two dogs.”

No wonder she’d turned around when she’d been searching by herself.

“Ray!” he hollered. He followed that by whistling for Pepper.

Only the dog responded, with a strange echo.

Jimmy’s cell phone sounded. Instead of a hello, he answered with, “Tell me what’s happening?”

“There’s a bunch of us in Ray’s living room,” Danny said. “Where are you and what do you want us to do? We’ve called the sheriff, and Dad’s all for organizing a search.”

Meredith stepped next to him, closer than she’d been in years. Tears shimmered in her eyes, just below the surface. Jimmy wanted to reach out, touch her, but he knew she’d step away, so he didn’t. Instead, he said, “We’re about five minutes north of Bandit Hideaway. We can hear the dog but can’t seem to get to him. I’ve got the first-aid kit with me.”

Danny said something Jimmy couldn’t hear, and then Zack Stone took the phone. “Doc Thomas is on his way and bringing his dog. Zeus loves Pepper and will lead us right to him.”

“Hope Doc gets here soon,” Jimmy said, ending the call and then sharing the information with Meredith.

They spent the next fifteen minutes investigating different paths and trudging through underbrush. Jimmy felt the first inklings of real fear. No way should Ray have come this far alone. The man was a veteran of not one but two wars, had been part of the volunteer fire department and lived alone at age eighty-two. Two days ago he’d showed no signs of poor judgment. He’d been distracted, yes. Almost as if he was expecting someone.

But Ray wasn’t careless and didn’t take chances.

“If we don’t find the dog or Ray in five minutes, we’re heading back to the house to regroup—”

Two things happened then.

First, they rounded a corner and found Raymond Stone. He lay on the ground, conscious, but obviously in pain.

Second, Ray wasn’t alone.

* * *

“THAT’S A WOLF!” Jimmy stopped so quickly he almost stumbled.

Meredith stepped in front of him. She didn’t need him to go all heroic, not right now. “It’s a wolf dog. Just stay still. Grandpa, are you all right?”

“I will be if I can get up without that fool animal attacking me.” Ray held a stick in one hand. Even though he now had two rescuers, he still shook it at the animal.

“Did he bite you?”

The wolf dog barked, thinking Grandpa wanted to play.

“He nipped me on the leg. It was enough to knock me down, but he didn’t break the skin. Pepper lit into him after that.”

Pretty impressive for an old dog. Glancing around, Meredith found the mutt hovering a few steps behind Grandpa, shivering, limping, but still ready to fight if his owner was threatened.

“Stop waving the stick,” Meredith said. “He thinks it’s an invitation to play.”

Grandpa dropped the stick to the ground.

To Jimmy, Meredith said, “I’m going to deal with the wolf dog, lead him away from Grandpa. You help Grandpa, make sure he’s all right, no broken bones.”

Jimmy stared at the animal. “Wolf dog? You’re kidding. How did one get way out here?”

“Since she’s got a collar, I’m thinking she must have escaped from her owner. Let’s hope she’s trained.”

“How do you know it’s a she?” Jimmy asked.

“I’m guessing.”

Walking sideways, Meredith slowly moved closer to the wolf dog. Behind her, Jimmy knelt at Grandpa’s side and helped the elderly man to a sitting position. The wolf dog kept looking at Grandpa, clearing wishing that he would start playing with her again. Meredith wasn’t sure what the wolf dog thought about her.

A bird chirped in the otherwise silent world. The wind picked up, blowing Meredith’s hair into her eyes. She resisted the urge to pat it back into place. Instead, crouching down, she moved even closer to the animal. Now the wolf dog was on alert. Her eyes stayed on Meredith, and her tail stopped wagging. The wolf dog didn’t know whether to meet Meredith’s eyes and try to establish dominance or whether to be submissive. When Meredith got within a foot of the wolf dog, she halted, waiting to see what the animal would do.

“I’m not sure this is wise,” Jimmy said.

Meredith agreed with him, but... “Look at the collar. It’s tight, hurting her. We can’t let her run off without trying to help her.”

“We need to help your grandfather first,” Jimmy pointed out.

“I’m fine,” Ray said.

That the wolf dog hadn’t run off indicated that she had been a pet. But the tightness of the frayed collar suggested that she’d been in the wild for quite a while, probably abandoned or maybe an escape artist that the owner hadn’t found.

Or looked for.

It made Meredith furious.

Her favorite animal in the world was a wolf dog named Yoda. But if Meredith had her choice, Yoda would be a dog, nothing else. Breeding wolves with dogs was a risky endeavor. Most people who chose a wolf dog as a pet got rid of the animal within a year. They were hard to train, expensive and destructive.

By the time the owners realized the commitment involved, the wolf dog was no longer a cute puppy but a demanding teenager quite willing to eat a couch.

Forget about shoes. A wolf dog could actually chew his way out of a wire cage.

Shelters didn’t want them.

Neither did zoos. They didn’t quite fit anywhere.

Slowly, the wolf dog’s tail went between her legs, and she turned her head away. Meredith didn’t wait for another sign. She reached for the collar, praying she’d not lose any fingers. The collar was too tight for her to get a grip, but she managed to force the wolf dog to look her in the eyes. After a moment, the wolf dog sat, lay down, then finally put her head down to rest.

Meredith let go of the collar.

“You’re either a miracle worker or stupid,” Jimmy said.

Meredith wasn’t a miracle worker, but she wasn’t about to admit that what she’d done was a little stupid. “How’s Grandpa?”

“I can answer for myself. Help me up.”

“Right, Grandpa.” Meredith left the wolf dog and headed for Grandpa, going down to her knees to stroke his forehead. “Where do you hurt?”

“Everywhere but the bottom of my left ear. Help me up.”

They’d just got him to his feet, though he was clearly favoring one leg, when Pepper starting barking. A group of people, dogs and horses appeared from behind a small hill. Afraid the loud noises and sudden movements would spook the wolf dog, Meredith turned to her.

She was gone.

But it only took a groan from Grandpa to convince Meredith not to pursue the wolf dog. Jimmy got Grandpa to his feet and slowly the trio started toward the noise.

Meredith’s brother met them halfway and the two men hoisted Grandpa between them.

“Don’t ask me to get on a horse,” Grandpa said.

When they finally made it to Grandpa’s house, it echoed with people. Meredith’s brother went right to the phone, trying to get a hold of Doc Thomas, who’d not made it to the house yet.

“He’s got a sprained ankle at least,” Zack predicted. He was more than annoyed that Grandpa refused to go to the hospital in Adobe Hills.

“You’ve already iced it,” Grandpa called from the bedroom.

Zack ignored Grandpa’s protest. “Doc says he wants you in his office at two o’clock tomorrow.”

Grandpa muttered something Meredith couldn’t quite hear. He’d gotten crustier in his old age.

“We’re having a family meeting on Friday. Today changes everything,” Meredith said.

Zack took Grandpa back to his bedroom, propping Grandpa’s foot up, taking his temperature, giving him an aspirin and making him comfortable. When they were little, Meredith had rescued animals, but Zack had fixed them. Their little sister, Susan, had stuck bows in the animals’ fur. Jimmy, of course, had made up stories about them.

Leaving Grandpa with Zach, Meredith headed for the kitchen. Sitting at the table was Danny Murphy, bigger than she remembered and missing the smile that had driven the girls wild in high school. Of course, it had been a long time. Maybe the smile was a thing of the past.

Jimmy sat next to him, tapping the table with his fingers, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was.

“You say this dog was part wolf?” Danny’s brown eyes met Meredith’s green ones. She couldn’t ignore the stoic expression on his face or how straight he sat. Because of her, he clearly felt like a stranger in her grandpa’s house.

But then, so did she.

“Probably more than half,” Meredith said.

Danny leaned forward. “Could it kill a cow?”

“Did you lose one?” Meredith countered.

“You didn’t tell me you’d lost any cattle,” Jimmy said.

“I’ve lost three head.”

“Were they old or young?” Meredith asked.

“Both,” Danny said. “Two were just calves and one was old, losing her teeth and all. I expected her to die, though, not disappear. Why?”

Meredith thought for a moment. She was mostly familiar with the behavior of wolf dogs in captivity, but she could generalize. “Wolves do go after calves, but they generally leave cows alone. Cows don’t act like prey.”

“She’s right,” Jimmy said. “A cow tends to look danger in the eye and ignore it. Confuses the heck out of predators. Plus, for a wolf, given the size of its mouth, it’s hard to find a place on a cow to grab on to. Cows are big. Kinda like trying to bite into a whole watermelon using your teeth. Wolves prefer something a little smaller.”

Meredith stared at Jimmy in disbelief. “And you know this how?”

“I specialize in doing documentaries on wild animals and writing for Nature Times magazine. I know just as much about animals as you do.”

“I know you write for Nature Times, but wolf dogs aren’t endangered. There’s no reason for you to have researched them.”

“Wolves are endangered, so I’ve done plenty of research. When we went multimedia and started doing documentaries, we started small. The gray wolf was one of my first stories.”

She didn’t remember that, or remember that at one time Nature Times had only been a magazine. Usually she agreed with what his pieces, at least when it came to disappearing habitats and hunting for sport or seizure. But then he’d climb on his animals-belong-in-the-wild soapbox, and criticize zoos for making tigers lose their natural inclination to hunt, or making chimpanzees depressed, or forcing bears to wear silly hats and tutus.

Okay, she didn’t have to read or watch him. She’d just been drawn to. She’d loved him, after all.

And still missed him.

She’d been engaged to Danny, but it was Jimmy who had been the love of her life. And if she was being honest, he, James Henry Murphy, was the reason she was still single. No one made her feel the way he had.

Even though he’d more than once written about the cruelty and injustice that wild animals suffered in captivity, never once acknowledging that there were sanctuaries like Bridget’s Animal Adventure, which actually saved animals’ lives.

But then, he’d always been a bit tunnel-visioned, seeing what he wanted to see. Isn’t that why he’d refused to wait for her?

CHAPTER FOUR

IN THE END, sitting at the table in Ray’s tiny kitchen, Meredith convinced Danny that the wolf dog had probably not been responsible for the disappearance of the calves or the adult cow. A pack of full-blooded wolves maybe, Meredith had allowed, but a lone wolf dog, no.

And not one wearing a collar and leaving no carcass.

Jimmy’d seen wolves in the wild. They were cunning, creative and callous when hungry. He did, however, agree with Meredith that calves were a more likely target. He also was somewhat sure a lone wolf could do the job, too, especially on an old or already wounded bovine.