Yeah, he was jealous.
Allie was refilling napkins and glancing at the door with a small frown on her face. Worried, probably. Worried for him.
He wanted to pick her up, cart her to his office, and kiss the frown off her little mouth. He wanted to carry her back to his house, gather her kids up, and fold them into the close-knit Campbell clan so she’d never have to worry about anything again.
He knew she could handle all the shit life had thrown at her. It just pissed him off that she had to.
Caleb pushed the door open, and a quick wash of heat entered the bar before he could shut the door.
“Hey, Caleb!” Allie said. “Get you a water? A Coke?”
Caleb wiped his forehead, his face carefully blank. “Iced tea?”
She smiled. “Tracey’s making some in back. I’ll see if it’s ready.”
Allie slipped to the back, and Caleb’s face shot to Ollie’s, thinly veiled anxiety written on his face.
“Hey, man. What’s up?”
Caleb glanced from Ollie to the hallway where Allison had disappeared, and Ollie’s stomach dropped.
“Joe?”
Caleb nodded just as Allie came back with a tall glass of iced tea.
“Just ready,” she said with a smile. “So how’s everything going with you today?”
“Allie,” Caleb started, “why don’t you sit at the bar with me?”
Her smile fell. Ollie watched as the color drained from her face, and he wanted to roar. Wanted to throw Caleb out of the bar. Instead, he lifted up the pass and went to stand behind her as she and Caleb sat down. He put his arm on the bar beside her and waited.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice wooden.
“I… Have you heard from Joe since the last time I asked you?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure? Not even a call that hung up? Kevin’s got a cell phone now, right?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “But he’d tell me if his dad called.”
“You’re sure?”
“Caleb,” she said. “Just tell me what this is about.”
Caleb put his hand over Allie’s and Ollie knew. It was bad.
“Yesterday a rancher out near Twentynine Palms found a body on his property.”
Damn you, Joe Russell.
Ollie put a hand on her shoulder and left it there.
“It had… been there for a while. There wasn’t much left, but there was a pawn ticket in the pocket and they traced it back to a shop in Indio. It was for an antique Bowie knife, and the name on the ticket was Joe Russell.”
Allie tore her hand from Caleb’s and covered her face. Without a word, Ollie turned her on the stool and pulled her into his arms, wrapping her up as her shoulders began to shake with inaudible sobs. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed, her cries still silent, her tears running down his neck.
Caleb had gone to the back, and he could hear Tracey, Jim, and the chief talking quietly. Then Tracey’s quiet gasp and Jim’s concerned rumble of a voice.
Ollie held on to her until her shoulders stopped shaking. He didn’t say anything until she pulled away and wiped her cheeks.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he said, leaving one hand on her shoulder. “You hear me? You’re gonna make it through this.”
Her face was stricken. “He’s their daddy.”
“Allie-girl—”
“No matter what he became to me, he’s their daddy,” she whispered. “My babies, Ollie.”
Caleb came back before Ollie could clear the lump in his throat from seeing her in so much pain. The police officer set a box of Kleenex on the bar and handed one to Allie, glancing at Ollie’s arm, which was still around her shoulders. She took a tissue, blew her nose, and grabbed another for her eyes.
Then, in a surprisingly clear voice, she asked, “Are they sure it’s him? Or could someone have stolen that ticket?”
“They’re not sure,” Caleb said, “which is why I need you to come with me. Did Joe go to the dentist regularly?”
She nodded. “Same one as me and the kids in Indio. He hadn’t gone for a few years though. Once money started getting tight, we skipped and just made the kids get checked up.”
“It shouldn’t matter. If there are X-rays on file, the pathologist can use them to identify him or rule him out as a victim.”
“A victim?”
Caleb paused. “It’s possible it was an accident or something like that. But there are also signs that there was violence. Ted’s going to call her pathologist friend in San Bernardino. See what he can share with her. The remains were taken to the county lab.”
Allie nodded. “You need me to sign some forms or something? For the dentist?”
Ollie could tell Caleb hated to be asking her, but Allie was all business.
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “And I need to make a proper report. You know it might take longer than you expect to identify him, right? These things don’t happen right away.”
“Caleb, I’ve watched CSI with Ted enough times to know it doesn’t happen as fast in real life as it does on TV.”
Ollie tried not to smile. “How long?” he asked Caleb.
“I don’t know. I’ll try to find out.”
Tracey and Jim came out from the back. Ollie could see the red in Tracey’s eyes. She had married in from outside but had melted into the bear clan right away with her generous, funny nature.
She held out her arms and Allie went to her.
“What can I do to help?” she asked. “Anything you need, honey. Anything. You just ask.”
Allie shook her head. “I’ve got to go. Kevin is watching the younger kids, but I can’t… I know it’s Friday, and I’m so sorry—”
“Stop,” Ollie said. “Allie, it’s not your job to worry about the bar. Caleb, you need her right now or can this wait?”
“She can come in on Monday if she wants, but the sooner the forms are filled out, the sooner I can send them.”
“Then we’ll call in someone to cover you tonight,” he told her. “And you concentrate on you and the kids. Want me to call your dad?”
Caleb said, “Jena already called your dad and Beth. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, it’s fine,” she murmured.
She looked lost. He could see her thoughts flying everywhere.
“Allie?”
“Yeah?” She was standing with her arms wrapped around herself.
“What do you need right now?”
She stared at Ollie like a lost child. “I don’t… I don’t know what to tell the kids. What do I tell the kids? What if I tell them and then it’s not Joe?”
Ollie sat down on a barstool and pulled her toward him so they were eye to eye. “My gut instinct is you tell Kevin, but not the younger kids. Not yet. Kevin’s going to know something is up though, and he’ll be pissed if you don’t say something.” Ollie looked at Caleb. “What do you think?”
“I think that’s the right move,” Caleb said. “The younger three—”
“Mark is only ten, but he sees everything,” Allie said. “He’s the joker, but… he’ll know. He’s the one that stopped asking about Joe first. He knew he wasn’t coming back.”
Ollie nodded. “Then you tell Kevin and Mark. Leave Chris and Loralie alone for now. You’ll tell them if and when you need to.”
“Okay.” She nodded, and he could see a hint of relief that she at least had a plan. “Okay.”
Caleb pulled out his phone. “Want me to see if Jena can take the younger two tonight? We could do a sleepover at our house or something.”
Tracey tossed in her house as an alternate if Jena couldn’t take the kids, while Jim suggested calling Jena’s parents if that didn’t work out. As plans swirled around them, Ollie brushed his thumb over Allie’s cheek. It was still red from crying.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“It’s gonna be okay. The kids are gonna be okay. And you will too.”
She tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. “You don’t know that. I wish you did.”
“I do know that.”
“How?”
“Because no matter what,” he said, “they have you. And that’s a hell of a lot.”
IT was three in the morning when Ollie made it over to her house. He wasn’t sure she’d be awake, but he needed to check on them. His mind had been halfway gone all night.
Allie had a little place out on the edge of town, only half a mile from his house and built at a time when there were no palatial bathrooms or master suites. The old Smith place was more of a cottage and had been a gift passed down from Allie’s grandparents when she and Joe had gotten married right out of high school. Ollie remembered helping move them into it with Alex and the rest of their friends, when Allie had been a girl with a baby on the way and Joe had been the boy who loved her.
Ollie didn’t know when that changed. But as he approached, he saw her sitting on the edge of the porch, looking up at a crescent moon that wiped the fine lines from between her eyes, softened the angles worry had carved, and reminded him of the girl she’d been before life had worn her down.
She angled her ear his direction, her hearing almost as keen as a human as it was in fox form. He walked slowly, allowing her time to warn him off or go inside if she didn’t want company.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “No one awake but me.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me either.”
He sat on the step below her, leaning back and setting a bottle of Black Maple Hill bourbon next to her.
“Glasses?” she asked. “Or are we drinking hundred-dollar whiskey straight from the bottle?”
Ollie smiled and nodded toward the door. She got up and tiptoed in the house, emerging with two small jelly jars she set next to the bottle of bourbon.
“Hope you don’t mind roughing it. I swear, every dish in the house is dirty and every one of those boys has forgotten out how to work the dishwasher.”
“As long as you’re not putting it on ice, nothing wrong with jelly jars.”
He poured two fingers in each glass and handed one to her.
“To you.” He clinked his jelly jar against hers. “One of the strongest women I know.”
She tipped the glass back and drank. Then she kept drinking until the smooth, maple-soft whiskey was gone.
“Another?”
“Yep.”
He poured her another two fingers, then tucked the bottle behind him and leaned back on his elbows to watch the night.
“Were you happy here?”
She tensed beside him. “What?”
“I was walking over here and remembering when we moved you guys in. You were… four or five months along with Kevin, I think? I just remember wishing you’d be happy here. That’s all.”
Allie was silent for a long time. “I had my babies here. And we laughed a lot, especially when the older two were little. Lots of fights, but a lot of laughs too. So yes. I was happy here.”
“I’m glad.” He took a deep breath and let the silent desert surround them.
“Thanks for coming by,” she whispered.
“How was it?”
“Not good. My dad stayed. So that helped.”
“Kevin?”
“Angry.”
“At you?”
“No, at his dad. That’s kind of his go-to emotion about his dad lately. Also, he was pissed to know that his dad really did steal his Bowie knife, which was a gift from his grandpa and one of Kevin’s prized possessions. Kev thought he had, but he didn’t know for sure.”
Every time Ollie thought he’d manage calm, Joe Russell just pissed him right the hell off again. “I’ll make sure Caleb gets the knife back to him.” If I have to steal it back myself.
“He’ll appreciate that.”
Ollie nodded and sipped his glass. Kevin Smith was a hell of a kid, but Ollie remembered his own anger when his mom had left. He’d only been seven, but he remembered. He’d split his dad’s lip more than once the year after, not understanding what he’d done wrong that made his own mother abandon them.
“And Mark?”
Allie sighed. “Mark was… quiet. Kevin was asking questions one after another, but Mark was quiet.”
“Mark’s never quiet.”
“He can be. He is when he’s thinking things through. Then when you least expect it, he’ll make some joke that has you laughing at the most inappropriate thing imaginable.”
“That kid’s smart as a whip.”
She shook her head. “Some days I don’t know what I’m gonna do with him.”
“Pawn him off on Ted. She’s smarter than all of us put together.”
Allie laughed a little and sipped more of her bourbon. “This is nice.”
“Yep.”
“Not the bourbon—well, that’s nice too—but you coming over for a drink. I feel like I never see you except at work.”
Yeah, there was a reason for that, but he wasn’t going to tell her the night she found out her ex-husband was possibly her dead husband.
“I’ve been dealing with some personal stuff. Sorry if I’ve been an asshole.”
She shook her head, and he swore she was blushing, but it was too dark to tell. “No, I’m sorry. I… well, I’ve been stuck in my head lately.”
“You’ve got a lot going on.”
“World doesn’t revolve around me,” she said. “Never has.”
“Maybe it should.” He raised his glass to hide his face. “Every now and then.”
She smiled. “You’re sweet.”
He shook his head and let out a rueful laugh. “Not really.”
“Ollie?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to ask you a favor. And before you say anything, I want you to remember I grew up in this town. I know who really takes care of things and who makes sure the secrets stay secret.”
Ollie narrowed his eyes. “Allie—”
“I remember before we had our own police. Before the sheriff even paid attention to us. It wasn’t police who came to the door to tell Daddy that Momma had died; it was your dad.”
“And?”
“And since the beginning of the Springs—before it was even founded—the Allens and the Campbells were the ones protecting us. Who kept strangers out and made bad guys go away.”
“Allie, I am not the authority here. Caleb—”
“Caleb doesn’t have jurisdiction. Not that far out of town. He said he can ask for information if it ends up being Joe, but he can’t really stick his nose in too far without pissing people off.”
“But you think I can?”
She tilted her chin up. “Are you a Campbell?”
“Of course I am.”
“Then you can.”
Ollie shook his head. “It might not even be him.”
She sighed and a sad smile crossed her face. “I try my best to look on the bright side of things. I try to think the best of people. Because… it’s easy to think the worst.” She reached over and took his hand, squeezing his large paw between delicate fingers. “You and I both know it’s him.”
The question caught in his throat before he finally choked it out. “Do you care that much?” Did you still love him? “I mean, the details… I know he wasn’t good to you. And the kids—”
“The kids—especially Kevin and Mark—need to know what happened to their dad. Kevin’s the one asking questions now, but eventually they’ll all be asking.” She shook her head. “I’ve been cursing him for months, and this whole time…”
“You didn’t know.” He tamped down his anger. “You aren’t allowed to feel guilty about that, Allison.”
The corner of her mouth turned up. “Not allowed, huh? Bossy.”
“Yeah, I am. About this. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing. I just don’t understand why you want me to—”
“I need you to look into this because you know that the police are not going to know h
ow or where to look for the truth about what happened. Our kind know how to keep secrets too well. And what do they really care about some small-town guy from Cambio Springs who was suspected of dealing drugs and all sorts of other shit? They’re not going to care what happened to him. They probably think he had it coming. You asked me earlier what I needed? I need this.”
Ollie squeezed her hand back and gave her a nod, knowing it wouldn’t have mattered what she asked.
He’d give her anything.
Chapter Three
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, ALLIE HAD SHOVED the looming mystery to the back of her mind and taken over Ollie’s kitchen to cook for all their friends. Her house was too tiny to host more than a few people, so when it came her turn to cook for their usual Sunday dinner, she imposed on Ollie.
The old Campbell house had once belonged to Ollie’s grandparents. There were five bedrooms and four baths in the two-story ranch house, along with a wide porch and a barn where Ollie’s grandfather had once had a blacksmith’s shop. Now Ollie kept four or five project cars in the barn, but the rest of the house didn’t see much company unless Ollie’s friends came over.
The first time Allie had cooked in the old Campbell house, she had to force herself not to drool. It was a huge old country kitchen with room for a big table in the middle of the room, open shelves lining the back, and more cupboards on one wall than she had in her whole house. There was even room for Ollie’s mastiff, Murtry, in the corner. And Murtry took up some space.
How some woman hadn’t convinced Ollie to marry her solely so she could get custody of Grandma Campbell’s kitchen was a mystery to Allie. It needed a little updating, but all that counter space was a cook’s dream.
“I love this kitchen,” Jena said, grating cheese for the tacos.
“Me too,” Allie said. “Do you think Ollie would trade with me?”
Jena shot a look at Ted, who was sitting at the table, holding Baby Becca while the little one drooled on her fingers.
Ted said, “You’re the one who told me to back off.”
“I know,” Jena said.
Allie pulled a casserole out of the oven. “Know what? That Ollie wants to trade houses with me?” She snorted. “Not likely. Ted, did you say you brought some sour cream?”