“So are we now thinking that we’re either in the middle of an intra- or interspecies conflict or a cross species mating?” I asked.
“The scents are confusing,” Rick agreed.
“Speculation,” Soul said, looking oddly introspective and still worried.
“Feud,” Occam said. “It feels like a feud. A paranormal-versus-paranormal mini-war, either familial or a clan-versus-clan confrontation, like between vamp clans or between were-creature species. The scents might mean nothing. Or everything.” Occam sipped, thinking, and I could see everyone nodding, putting pieces of the case puzzle together. “Like werelions against wereleopards or wolves against hyena. Vaguely similar paranormal species fighting over territory,” he finished.
“Inside the family? Family on family?” I asked. “Miriam went missing. Maybe she’s back?” That sort of thing didn’t happen in the church. The patriarch’s word was law and no one fought against it. And then I realized, it had happened. And it had started with me, which made me uncomfortable in ways I couldn’t explain to myself, so I shoved it into the back of my mind for later consideration. But family against family, that was very common in the church. I just hadn’t thought about things like that happening in the townie world.
“You’ve done well narrowing it down,” Soul said. “Has anyone had sleep in the last sixteen hours? No? Then Unit Eighteen is now officially off duty. I want everyone to bed. I’ve kept the feds updated and will update them again in an hour or so. They can carry the ball for the next twelve. I’ll monitor everything from here and see you all back here at six p.m., well rested and feeling lively. Dismissed.”
It wasn’t a request. I checked the time and found it was after six in the morning. I had no idea where all the hours had gone, but I was expected at Pete’s Coffee Shop. To have breakfast with Benjamin Aden.
I stood, ignoring Occam, who stared at me as I slipped past him in the doorway. I got my bags and took the stairs to the outside. To discover that I didn’t have my truck. “Well, dang,” I said.
“Need a ride?”
My boots crunched on the sleet as I turned to see T. Laine. All I could think was, Thank God it isn’t Occam. “Is Pete’s Coffee Shop, downtown on Union, out of your way?” I asked.
“Totally, but I’m driving. I want to see this paragon of manliness and restraint that has Occam’s panties in a twist.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Get in.” Lainie popped the locks and we climbed in. She glanced at me and away as she started her car. “Occam told me about your truck not being here. Sent me to drive you. Boy’s got it bad.” I didn’t know how to reply to that. We drove off into the dawn, with the storm clouds blowing away and a golden sun climbing into the sky.
TWELVE
Amazingly, T. Laine found a parking spot on the street and pulled in. I looked at her from the corner of my eye. “You are not joining us for breakfast.”
“Of course I’m not. I’ll be at the bar. Getting food. Minding my own business.” She slipped into the morning light and shut the car door. I realized that there was no way to stop her. That I had no car to get home. That I had no cash for an Uber. And that my option was for Ben to drive me to my house. I hadn’t thought this through. I blew out a breath and followed T. Laine into the building, which looked a lot like an old-fashioned diner.
Muttering as I passed by her seat at the long stainless bar, I said, “You turn him into a toad and I’ll be really mad.”
Lainie snorted and accepted a cup of coffee from the bar waiter.
Ben was seated at the last booth in the back of the building. I moved through the morning crowd, removed my coat, and sat across from him. He was freshly shaved and dressed in an Old Navy pea coat and leather boots, Levi’s, and a waffle Henley in a blue that made his eyes glow brilliantly. Not churchman clothing. Store-bought. Not new. Things he had owned for a while. I figured that his clothes might be an attempt to communicate something about his separation from the old ways of the church.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning, Nell. You look mighty pretty to have worked all night. Most people would be dragging, but you look wonderful. Your eyes are . . . really green,” he added. “And your hair is . . . was it always so red? Did you . . . color it?” Coloring one’s hair was a sign of vanity, a damning sin to the church.
“It’s the light,” I said shortly. “I haven’t been to Pete’s. I didn’t know it was also a restaurant. What’s good?”
Ben dropped his eyes to the menu and said, “Most everything. I eat here whenever I’m in town. It’s a decent, inexpensive breakfast.” Which was something my daddy would have said and was high praise for a churchman. And . . . that was what Ben was, no matter how townie he dressed. A churchman. Through and through.
I didn’t know why that made my eyes fill with tears. I blinked them hard and smiled at the waitress when she brought coffee I hadn’t ordered. “Extra cream and sugar,” I said to her. “Thanks.”
“You folks ready to order?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to reply but never got the chance.
“Yes,” Ben said. “The lady will have the cinnamon French toast with sausage. I’ll have a Greek omelet, sausage, bacon, and biscuits.”
It was exactly what I would have ordered, but . . . but Ben ordered without asking me. Just like the weird nanny stuck her fingers into my plants. Without permission.
“With two eggs,” I said. “And actually, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have hot tea instead of coffee. And bacon instead of sausage.”
Ben looked nonplussed and I said, “And that will be separate checks.”
“Got it,” she said. She walked away.
I studied Ben. A faint blush had spread over his cheeks and down his neck as I spoke to the waitress. I figured he was embarrassed at my behavior in changing my breakfast order instead of being a docile woman. Churchmen might think that ordering a woman’s food was a compliment instead of an intrusion. Carefully not using any church-speak, I said, “We were interrupted yesterday before we got to the meat of the discussion about you and me. I’m not a churchwoman, Ben, not anymore, if I ever was. You say you know it, but you don’t.”
I leaned in and stared him down, dropped my voice like I’d heard the cats do, and said, “I’m not a child to be married off by my parents. I’m not a hillbilly backcountry hick, or too stupid to know beans from bunny droppings. I’m a law enforcement officer and a paranormal investigator. I don’t want to spend my life spittin’ out babies like an assembly line. I don’t want to make my own clothes or cook for a huge family and live and die in the house and the church. Maybe . . . maybe if we’d met right after John died and before the churchmen decided to try and kill me, things mighta been different, but they aren’t.”
“I heard you fought back. I like that in a woman. I don’t want a woman who—” He stopped.
“A woman who lets a man order her food for her? A submissive little doormat?”
The waitress set our plates in front of us. Pete’s cook was fast. My tea went to the side and my coffee cup was whisked away. I poured tea from the small pot and added cream and sugar as Ben and the waitress chatted about us needing more of anything. The tea was a little weak yet, but the warm mug felt good in my cold hands. I held it close to my face so the steam would warm me.
The waitress walked off and Ben turned back to me. “I asked your brothers and sisters what food you liked best. It didn’t occur to me that I’d come across as bossy. So I propose we start over.” He held his hand across the table. “Hi. I’m Ben Aden. I like walking in the rain, singing in the shower, working wood, and making things grow. I’m not always real bright about women, but I’ll never lie to you, hit you, or make you be anything you don’t want to be.”
His hand hung across the table. I stared at it, thinking over what it meant if I accepted it. Thinking about Occam’s kiss. Slowly I
reached out and clasped it. “I’m Nell. I’m independent, got a big mouth sometimes, and like living alone. I’m a cop of sorts. And a farmer. I like making things grow too. Mostly vegetables and fruit.”
Ben released my hand. “See. We got something in common already.” He dropped his head and closed his eyes for a moment. I realized he was praying over his food. And that he didn’t expect me to pray with him the way a churchman would. I seldom prayed anymore—the church had put me offa praying—but I closed my eyes and said a silent word of thanks for the food and the company and the strange handshake, which surely cemented a deal of sorts. And for Occam. And asked God if he had put them both in my path, and what I might learn from the presence of two such different men in my life. When I opened my eyes, my unplanned prayer over, Ben’s blue gaze was on me. He nodded and we dug in.
The breakfast was pretty good. The company was better. Ben was charming and kind and told me about his first year of school and classes and how he was a fish out of water in the normal world. He asked me about getting my GED and going to Spook School. He told me about his ideas for sustainable farming with ancient aquaculture, specifically, integrated multitrophic aquaculture, a method devised in ancient Asia. I’d read about it, but Ben’s degree in agriculture gave him a deeper and wider understanding of the pros and cons of the farming methods. I brought up permaculture principles of farming and what animals he might suggest for a half acre of dedicated land. His answers made me want to try permaculture on Soulwood.
The conversation was light and cheerful and fun. And it wasn’t a discussion I could have had with Occam.
At nine o’clock Ben checked his cell and said, “Nellie, I gotta go. I got a shipment of well dried manure being carted in from Daddy’s land, now that the weather’s eased up. You can get home on your own? Your watchdog took off about half an hour ago.”
I twisted around in the booth and saw that T. Laine’s seat at the bar was now occupied by someone else. “You saw her? I’m sorry.”
“I think it’s nice that you got folks who’ll watch out for you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
Ben tossed a twenty and a five to the tabletop, looped his jacket over an elbow, and slid from the booth. He leaned down and I tensed, near horrified at whatever he might be about to do. In public. He hesitated, his mouth only an inch from me. I didn’t turn. I didn’t breathe. He crossed the distance and gently kissed my cheek. His lips were warm and moist. He pulled back a fraction of an inch and, when he spoke, his breath feathered across my face, smelling of coffee. “I know you said you’d pay for your meal. And that’s fine. It just means the waitress gets a mighty fine tip. I’ll see you later, Nellie.”
I didn’t look around, didn’t move for a good two minutes. And then I gathered up my coat and left Pete’s, allowing Ben Aden’s two crisp bills to buy my breakfast too.
A date. I’d had a real date.
Outside, I spotted T. Laine’s car. The overworked witch was asleep in the driver’s seat with her head leaning against the window, her mouth open a little. I tapped on the passenger window and she snapped awake and unlocked the doors. I got in and buckled up, saying nothing, ignoring her steady gaze. A few seconds too late, she turned to the front and pushed the start button, easing into traffic, heading toward the hills that marked Soulwood. More minutes passed.
“Okay. Fine,” she said at last, taking the turn toward Oliver Springs. “I wasn’t going to ask. I was going to let you volunteer. But I have to say, that boy is a fine specimen of manhood. Dark hair and creamy skin, blue eyes to freaking die for. And you made him blush. Deets. I want to know everything. And before you say no, just remember that it’s a damn long way to your house from here, on foot.”
I had begun to smile as she spoke and when she finished her harangue, I said, “You waited for me.”
“Of course I waited. Unit Eighteen rule number one. No one goes in alone. No one gets left behind.”
It was the single most important reason that I had joined PsyLED. “He kissed me on the cheek before he left.”
“Day-um, girl! Dish! Start at the beginning!”
For the first time in my life, I had what Lainie called a “girl talk” about men. And it was pretty wonderful.
• • •
Back at the house, I unloaded my gear from the car and waved T. Laine away. She was so tired, I feared her eyes wouldn’t stay open for the drive to her place, but she refused to “crash at your pad,” as she put it, and pulled back down the hill at speed, her mouth moving. I figured she had waked up JoJo to tell her about my breakfast date.
• • •
I took care of urgent housekeeping chores, like heat and water, and mixed up some no-knead bread for later baking. I had venison stew, but it needed corn bread to go with it, so I set the Dutch oven on the cooler part of the stove to warm, and the skillets on the hot part of the stove top for later use. Let the cats out and then back in, and fed them. Washed a load of clothes. Put on my pajamas. Turned on the electric blanket. And went out to the married trees with my faded pink blanket, raided from my big gobag. I sat on the blanket on the damp ground, my palms flat, and blew out the stress of the last few hours. I eased my mind into the earth, down and deep, into the warmth that was Soulwood. I had drawn on it pretty hard and wanted to make sure it was all right. And it was, energies humming quietly through the ground like pulses of pale light. I gave it a small bump of energy, like a scratch behind the ears. Had it been a dog, the sentient thing that was my woods would have rolled over and given me its tummy. Satisfied, I glanced Brother Ephraim’s way long enough to ascertain that he wasn’t doing anything naughty. His area looked cold and dark and appeared to be free of electric snakes. I figured he had used everything he had for his strike at me. If I was lucky he was well and truly dead. I wasn’t usually lucky where Ephraim was concerned. Slowly, I eased back to my body.
The air was warmer than any day in the past week, but I was still cold. I raced for the house and the bed that was snuggly and warm and wonderful. And fell asleep. Only to wake at four p.m., stirred from whirling, confusing dreams about Ben Aden and Occam. About bravery and cowardice and lifestyles and the future. And not being human.
• • •
I was ready for work by four thirty, when I felt an unknown vehicle on the road up the hills to my land. And realized that I hadn’t felt Ben or Occam when either of them drove onto my land. That was worrisome and I didn’t know what it might mean.
I put my gear by the front door and waited until I saw Daddy’s truck turn into the gravel driveway. Sam and Mud got out, and Soulwood perked up, aware and drowsy and happy to have them here. Which was disturbing in its own way. I opened the door and let my true sibs in, offering the church welcome of hospitality, keeping the good things from my past. “Welcome to my home. Hospitality and safety while you’re here.”
Sam chuckled and pulled off his bright blue toboggan. It looked brand-new, it wasn’t Mama’s favorite paler blue shade, and I assumed his new wife had crocheted it for him. “I hope you’un have something on the stove, sister of mine. Mindy says you two are having an early supper.”
“We are?”
“Yup,” Mud said, plopping on the couch and pulling an afghan over her.
“Woman stuff,” Sam informed me.
“I have to leave for work in an hour.”
My brother’s face flashed surprise, quickly shuttered. “Oh. Right.” Churchwomen didn’t work out of the home. Cultural bombshell—I did. But neither of us said any of that. “I heard about the rainbow wig,” Sam said teasingly, his expression so much like the young boy he had been that I laughed and shook my head.
“Ben told you.”
“Ben told everybody. I’ll pick her up in sixty minutes.” He slipped out the door and closed it.
“Grilled cheese okay?” I asked my sister.
“And somathat lemony te
a, if’n you’un got any?”
I remembered the cramps of my first cycle. Mud must be hurting. “My feminine relief mixture coming up. Lemon, ginger, and maybe some fennel this time?”
Mud shrugged and snuggled deeper, the cats walking over her, investigating. Jessie curled on Mud’s shoulder, purring. Cello, the scaredy-cat, crawled under the afghan, peeking out. Torquil leaped to the kitchen cabinet and sat, staring at me, her black head looking like she wore a helmet—Thor’s helmet, for which she was named.
I put butter in the skillet and started the sandwiches, heated water in the microwave, and ladled up some stew into bowls. I spooned my honey lemon preserves into the new infuser cup, then added a small spoonful of fennel seed, some dried black cohosh, dried raspberry leaf, and some black tea. When the microwave dinged, I poured boiling water over the mixture and brought a tray with tea and stew to the table.
Mud had pulled the afghan up to her cheeks and was watching me over the edge. The silence between us had grown but was still somehow comfortable. “I don’t like being a woman grown.”
“Oh?” I put her stew bowl, teacup, and the infuser near her.
“Brother Aden come by this morning. He said he was there to take breakfast with Daddy, but he was there to look me over. Gossip says, his son Larry is looking for a second wife. Gossip says, Brother Aden wants you’un to marry Ben and me to be affianced to his second son, Larry, Mary’s boy, to cement relations in the Nicholson faction.”
I went cold and still, even as a heated rage flushed through me. Brother Aden was a church elder and Ben’s daddy, and had been a family friend for years. He was older than the hills, and he was important in church hierarchy. Usually he was a progressive sort of man, though he did have two wives of his own, Sister Mary and Sister Erasmus. And Larry had one wife already. Voice steady, I asked, “What do the Nicholson womenfolk say about the gossip?”