Deep in the Valley (14 page)

But when June got to her bedroom she realized she had misunderstood Sadie’s appetite and apparent comfort. Sadie had been fed and let out—that’s why she was in such great shape. And there, on June’s pillow, lay a bunch of miniature daisies from the forest, tied at the stems with a white ribbon.

At lunchtime the next day, June wandered across the street to the café. Elmer and Sam were sharing a booth, while Tom leaned against the counter. June slid in next to her dad. “Aren’t the fish biting today, Sam?” she asked.

“I heard the catch of the day was here,” he said.

“Oh?” she asked. Before she could get him to elaborate on the statement, Leah appeared beside her table and stood poised, pen and pad in hand. “What’s this? Leah?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but it didn’t take long for it all to come back to me,” she said. Her face was as bright as her smile. It was amazing what the absence of stress and fear could do for a person; her skin glowed a healthy pink and her eyes were so much larger and clearer than June remembered. “Do you need to see a menu, June?” she asked.

“After all these years? Is there anything new?”

“Besides me? Just Frank.” She inclined her head toward the lunch counter, where Frank, in a white shirt and cap, stacked clean cups and glasses. “George says if he does a good job at bussing and washing up dishes, he’ll teach him to cook.”

“Who’s gonna teach George?” Elmer asked.

“Dad! You’re going to get yourself thrown out of here!”

“Naw, George expects me to complain. Leah, bring me another piece of that awful blueberry pie, will you please?”

“My pleasure, Doc. And a coffee refill?”

“Yes, ma’am, if you will.”

“Leah,” June marveled, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you looking better. This job must agree with you.”

“It’s like a new lease on life. I told Frank he should start saving for a car, but he insists all his money will go in the family pot to keep us whole. Jeremy, Joe and Mack are going to tend little Stan and the garden this summer, while school is out, and if things go right for them, they should be able to have a vegetable stand by the road come harvest.”

“You tell those boys if they can bring in a good crop, I’ll cart them over to where 101 meets Highway 68 south of Piercy,” Sam said. “They can catch that traffic coming out of the redwoods. Make a ton of money.”

“That’s awful nice of you, Sam. That’d help out.”

“I’ll get over there and see they get a little fishin’ in, too,” he said. “Boys can’t pass summer without fishin’.”

Leah’s eyes began to mist up. “Well,” she said, her composure failing her, “let me get your pie and coffee. And June?”

“Chicken sandwich on a sourdough bun, whatever salad George made up and iced tea.”

“It’s macaroni salad today. Be right back.”

When Leah had gone back behind the counter, June said, “That was a wonderful thing George did. He must have made up the job for Leah and Frank—it didn’t seem like he needed anyone.”

“He may be soft in the head, but he’s soft in the heart, too,” Elmer added.

“Can you believe how vibrant she looks? My gosh, I didn’t know she
could
look that good!”

“Gives you a hint of what that useless Gus saw some years ago, doesn’t it?” Sam asked. “What I’d like to know is how a bad apple like Gus hangs on to a woman like Leah. She’s good as gold.”

“You know how. He beat her into submission and scared her to death.”

“Well, he’d better look out. If this dose of independence and self-esteem gets her a little gumption, she might find the strength to finally be through with that old sauce.”

“Who’s this? Mrs. Stone?” Elmer asked.

June craned her neck, looking toward the door. It was Susan, absent of husband and child. She was a picture of youth in her jeans and clogs, blond pageboy swinging across her shoulders. She had a tiny figure, peaches and cream complexion, and head-cheerleader disposition—always positive, always upbeat. “Don’t the two of them together remind you of Barbie and Ken?” Elmer demanded.

“You’re getting awful hard to shut up these days, Dad.”

“Matter of fact…” Sam began.

Susan looked around the café and in the process gave June a halfhearted wave. She obviously didn’t see who she was looking for, and the expression on her face seemed one of complete distraction. She finally made her way over to where June and the old boys sat.

“Susan, come here and join us. I need help keeping these two in line.”

She slid into the booth beside June. “I was hoping to run into John over here—he’s not at the clinic. Jessie said he might be having lunch.”

“He might be, but he’s not having it here today. He had a surgery in Rockport this morning and made rounds for the both of us. He hasn’t gotten back yet. Did you try his cell phone?”

“No,” she said wearily. “I only just decided I was looking for him. June…” she began, then trailed off while she thought over what she was about to say. “June, have you been very involved with the Presbyterian Women? Or any of the Bible studies?”

“I’m lucky if I make Sunday church,” she said. “Why?”

“It’s a damn shame,” Susan said. “There are a lot of good people around here, and the pastor of the biggest church in town is nothing but a sleazy lecher.”

“That’s our preacher,” Elmer agreed.

Leah returned with their food and coffee refills. Susan was convinced to order lunch and supply the story.

“I guess I thought it was a joke, the way everyone talked about him.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” June demanded.

“As in assault? No, nothing like that. But does it hurt to have your minister proposition you? I couldn’t believe my ears!”

“What did he say? I mean, if you feel comfortable—”

“He said he found me attractive, that I’d tempt the very saints, and if I needed any private counseling, he was available. I asked him if he’d just made a pass and
he said, ‘No! Of course not!’ But there was no mistaking it.”

“Did you tell him so?” June asked.

“I absolutely did,” she said. “But I got the impression he couldn’t care less.”

“He couldn’t,” Elmer said. “He does it all the time.”

“He’s gotten a slap or two,” Sam told her. “Wouldn’t hurt for him to get a few more.”

Susan’s expression became dark. “Slapping is too good for him,” she said. “He needs to be
removed.
”

June bit into her sandwich and chewed slowly, considering Susan’s remark.

“June, do you know the names of some of the women who have also been sexually harassed by Pastor Wickham?” Susan asked.

Sexually harassed? She hadn’t thought of his actions in those terms, but there it was. She nodded. She wasn’t quite prepared to name herself, but if it came to that, she’d step up to the plate with Susan.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to talk to some of them. I know this is a small town, and some things are just quirkie and eccentric and all in good fun, but I don’t think this is funny. And I don’t think he should get away with it.”

“I agree!” June said. “He’s met his match at last! For now, why don’t you ask Julianna what she knows. She’s lived here a long time.”

“Uh-oh,” Elmer said. “It’ll be like shutting down the movie house for some of these folks. We’ve been watching Pastor Wickham get himself burned for almost a year now.”

“Understand,” Sam said, “it’s not as though anyone
really approves of him. He’s been a nuisance, but I don’t think he’s actually dangerous. He’s kind of stupid, you ask me.”

“You just never know what kind of harm an attitude like that can do to a woman,” June lectured. “Especially if he stumbles on a woman who is vulnerable. Needy. Spiritually hungry. Or maybe just gives him too much credit.”

“Who’d put any stock in what that pretty boy with the hair plugs is peddling?” Elmer asked in disbelief.

“You never know,” June said. “Right, Susan?”

But Susan wasn’t listening. She was staring off into space, sucking on her straw absentmindedly.

“Susan?” June said, nudging her.

“Hmm?” she asked.

“Where
are
you right now?”

“Oh, sorry, June. I was just thinking about Jessie…”

“Jessie? What about Jessie?” June asked, intrigued.

“You know, what she does on her lunch break.”

“No, I don’t know. What exactly does she do?”

“Well, she brings a lunch to the clinic, and while she eats she reads your clinical and science textbooks.”

“My Jessie?” June asked in surprise. “She didn’t even finish high school. What interest could she have in those textbooks?”

“I don’t know, but she was so engrossed, she didn’t even look up until I stood right in front of her and cleared my throat. Then she tried to cover the book with her napkin.”

“Why would she do that? I don’t care if she reads them.”

“I can’t answer that, but just so you know, the book
was microbiology, and there were no pictures on the page.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Elmer muttered.

F
or just a while, until medical tests were completed and until Birdie’s constant headache disappeared, the quilting circle was suspended. The women still dropped by her house, of course, bringing things like casseroles and flowers, teas and even newly collected fabric scraps, to be stored for next time.

June looked in on her daily.

“There’s something different about you,” Birdie said.

“Yes, there is. I almost lost you. I’m completely changed. Forever.”

“You won’t be rid of me for a while yet, but that’s not it.”

“There isn’t anything else,” June said.

Birdie cocked her head, taking June in in a sidelong glance. “It’s not like you to lie,” she said matter-of-factly.

June couldn’t lie to Birdie because she was too busy lying to herself. When she stretched her neck to look down her long drive toward the road at dawn or at
dusk, she would firmly tell herself she wasn’t looking for
him.
When she drove extra slowly on her way home, it was only to enjoy the scenery, not to catch a glimpse of a red-and-black plaid shirt. And when she stayed at her clinic a little late, door unlocked, it was not in hopes that someone might have shot one of his friends. God, no.

At Fuller’s Café, where she took morning courage and carbs, she asked Tom, not once, not twice, but three times total, “Have you heard anything about raids or busts or anything in the Alps?”

“Those things can drag out forever, June.”

“But you would hear?”

“I have made it a point to be informed.”

“And would you tell me?”

He frowned. A Cherokee can look particularly serious when frowning. “June, it has crossed my mind that maybe you should look through some mug shots.”

“Whatever for?”

“To see if you can identify the men who came by your clinic that night. To see if either of them is a known criminal.”

“Have they asked me to? The DEA?”

“No. But maybe for your own good…”

It wasn’t until that exact moment that she realized she’d been hounding him for information. And that he was probably onto her.

Didn’t anyone understand what it was like to be her? To be thirty-seven and have your best friends be a married cop and your seventy-year-old father, your most exciting evening out be the quilting circle? To not even own a “little black dress”?

She was
dying
to look through pictures! To ask Tom what he could find out about this ghostly figure called Jim. It had been just over a week. Nine days, to be exact. And she wasn’t yet angry that, after all that sweet talk and the best kiss she’d had since high school, he hadn’t come back. He’s out there in the woods, saving the world, she told herself. Bringing justice to the forest. Surely.

She sat in her clinic with Sadie, her new and constant companion, sorting patient files, making notes and setting up her patient roster for the next day—all things that could wait for morning or be done some afternoon during a lull in the schedule. Waiting. Foolishly hoping.

“June?”

She jumped and Sadie came to attention. “Justine? I didn’t hear the door!”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I saw the light, and, well…”

“Come in. What’s wrong?”

“Everything. Everything is wrong.”

“Are you sick? In pain?”

The answer must surely be yes for Justine crumbled. She crossed her arms over her stomach and stumbled to the chair in June’s office, overcome with sobs.

“My goodness!” June gasped, moving quickly around her desk to help the distraught woman into the chair. “There, there,” she said. June began delivering tissue after tissue as Justine wept copiously. Sadie licked Justine’s elbow for a little while, then got bored with the lack of appreciation and found a quiet place to lay under June’s desk. A good ten minutes passed before Justine even began to settle down.

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to blow your nose, dry your eyes and tell me what has you so upset. If I’m to help you, that is,” June said.

On cue, Justine made a final noise into a tissue, one that sounded remarkably like a train whistle. She sniffed loudly, blinked tightly, and straightened her spine. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

If June looked surprised, it was more by the timing than the actual event. Just days after Susan Stone made an oath to see Pastor Wickham dealt with on the issue of his flagrant womanizing, here came Justine. There had been copious talk. Justine owned the little flower shop at the end of the street and delivered the flowers for the Sunday service to the Presbyterian Church every Saturday afternoon. She was said to take a suspiciously long time in making up the arrangements and also to leave the church with a rather satisfied look on her face. It was Elmer and the old boys who talked that way, and it annoyed June no end. But if there was anything harder to stop than Pastor Wickham’s roving eye, it was idle gossip. Gossip, and the disaster before her. This was just what June had feared.

“Oh dear,” she said to Justine.

“I’m sunk,” Justine stated. “My father will never speak to me again if he finds out.”

Justine was a roundish young woman of twenty-six, but she wasn’t large enough to conceal a pregnancy. June didn’t like where this was going. “Well, he will eventually find out. Won’t he?”

“I’ll need an abortion, June. Right away.”

“One thing at a time,” June said. “Are you absolutely sure you’re—”

“I drove over to Fort Bragg and got one of those little tests. It was very positive.”

“They’re not all that accurate. You should have an examination. And then—”

“I
know
I’m pregnant! I’m not stupid!”

“Okay, okay…”

“Sorry. I’ve been a little testy lately.”

“Well, that’s understandable. But before we—”

“Can you even imagine how pissed off I am? All that sweet talk! All that business about having spiritual conflict because he couldn’t
help
himself where I was concerned! That his passion overcame his ethics, and even his commitment to
God
couldn’t stop him from loving me! That I’d tempt the very saints!”

“Does he say that to every—?”

“What bullshit! He probably got all his spiritual conflict from being scared shitless that his bully of a wife is going to kill him!”

“Justine, really, you don’t have to tell me all—”

“That’s probably a big fucking lie, too! That he hasn’t had sex with her in six years!”

“Really, this is none of my… Don’t they have a five-year—?”

“Do I look stupid?”

“N—” June tried to reply, with shaking head.

“Would I have let him if he hadn’t promised me we’d be together forever? That he wasn’t in love with her anymore, that he hadn’t been in years, and if it weren’t for the children—”

“Oh, famous last—” June began, in spite of herself.

“I should have known! He’s just another duplicitous, horny, groping son of a bitch! And I’m pregnant!”

With that, she melted into more helpless sobbing, and June resumed handing off tissues.

Was this the only person in Grace Valley who didn’t know Jonathan Wickham came on to practically every woman who crossed his path? June frowned as she patted Justine’s back. Justine, as far as she knew, didn’t have girlfriends. She lived a fairly isolated life as the youngest daughter of her widowed father. Standard Roberts owned the flower fields east of town, where he grew many of the flowers Justine sold, and Justine still lived in his house. She had since her mother died when she was sixteen, ten years ago. She probably cooked his meals, did his laundry and cleaned the house. He was a hard man, bitter and unfriendly. Shoot, maybe Justine
didn’t
know about Jonathan! Who was going to tell her?

Here it was. Here was how his shenanigans could hurt.

“Justine, we can deal with this situation, but you’re going to have to get a grip. And we can’t solve this whole thing tonight. I’ll see you first thing in the morning and—”

“Can you believe how he
used
me?” she sobbed.

“There’s a lot of hysteria about this event right now,” June said. “Let’s try to maintain a—”

“The bastard! Man, what a guy will say to get laid!”

“I realize you’re overwrought, but—”

“I wonder how Mrs. Wickham will take the news. I bet she’ll kill the little dickhead!”

“Now just hold it!”
June shouted. Justine’s head snapped up and June’s eyes blazed. “I realize you’re very angry,” June said.

“Totally pissed,” Justine corrected, but she did so with some control.

“Whatever. Just get a grip before someone gets hurt.”

“Someone
has!
”

“Let’s concentrate on resolving this rather than making it worse. Shall we?”

Justine slowly and perhaps reluctantly nodded. June let out her breath in a sigh of relief. Boy, this could get ugly. There was not only a wife, a girlfriend, a bunch of offspring and a pregnancy here, but a
congregation.
A small-town congregation that was heavily populated with women who were more than ready to pull the plug on the womanizing preacher. The shit could really hit the fan.

“What I’d like you to do, Justine, is try to get some rest tonight without doing anything more to escalate this drama. Then first thing in the morning, I’ll meet you here for an exam, okay? Let’s get the facts right before we go in search of a solution. Then, once we know exactly what we’re dealing with, we can—”

June was cut short by the ringing of the phone. She reached for the receiver. “I’m sure you’ll make a good decision once you’ve heard all the facts and all the options, hmm?”

“I guess,” Justine said, not entirely mollified.

“Excuse me,” June said. “Hello, June Hudson…yes…yes…okay, please take a breath…you administered mouth-to-mouth? Uh-huh? He’s breathing again? Okay, look at his nail beds. Okay, how about his mouth? Tongue and gums? Pale, blue, rosy, bright red? Okay, here’s what you do. Run the shower hot and get a good steam going in the bathroom. Go sit in there with the baby. No, you hold him, Julianna. No, he’s going to be
fine. We don’t know yet, do we? But if it’s croup or bronchitis or something like that, you might as well get started loosening it up while I drive. No, he’s going to be fine, just do as I say. I’m on my way. I’ll be on the cell.”

She put the phone down and looked at Justine. “You heard,” she said. “It’s Julianna Dickson’s baby—wasn’t breathing and is now blue around the gills. I have to hurry. Sadie!”

The dog came to her at once, ready for a house call.

“Of course,” Justine said. She’d grown a bit pale.

June was standing in her office door, fingers on the light switch, Sadie at her side. “Now,” she said.

“Oh!” Justine said, jumping up. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry to have bothered—”

“No bother. See you in the morning. Sadie, let’s go!”

June had the lights out, the clinic’s back door locked and the engine started in the Jeep in less than twenty seconds. And Sadie, learning to be a doctor’s dog, was in the passenger seat beside her in a flash.
This
was how she normally moved—like her pants were on fire, not like she was slogging through wet sand.

Route 482 was faster. It never even crossed June’s mind that it was the site of the accident. All she could think of was getting to Julianna and the baby. They were excellent, resourceful, educated parents; they would do everything right. But the reality was that sometimes everything was not enough.

Julianna had called earlier in the day to report that the baby had a sniffle, but no fever. June had told her to “nurse the baby through it,” for there was no sign of
the infant developing worse upper respiratory symptoms. The steam room June had suggested was a shot in the dark, plus something to keep them busy and close to the baby. Julianna had just found the child lifeless, bluish, and had brought him back with resuscitation. It could be SIDS and have nothing to do with a cold or upper respiratory infection.

June, Oh God, June, he wasn’t breathing! I don’t know how long he’d been without oxygen!

In all these years and all these babies, June had never heard that kind of panicked call from the Dicksons.

She flew around the curve known as Angel’s Pass and there, in a flash of light, she met the headlights of an oncoming car. She pulled hard right, felt the scrape of rocks and logs as she went off the shoulder. She pulled hard left, seeing no sign of the other car, and attempted to correct her mistake, but it was too late. She fishtailed in the gravel, hit a tree hard enough to bounce off, and the Jeep spun crazily around. Her head broke the glass of the door window as the vehicle skidded into a row of pines. Sadie squeaked in either pain or fear, tossed around the inside of the Jeep like a rag doll. Everything went black.

The underside of the Jeep scraped over metal refuse left from the earlier accident. There was a spark. Then a flash. Then a hot glow as the belly of the Jeep caught fire.

June felt strong hands in her armpits, pulling her free. Her legs snagged on jagged metal and scraped over broken glass, but she couldn’t open her eyes. She
groaned, feeling the heat of the fire on her legs as she cleared the wreckage. Then she was aware of being lifted into capable arms and carried away from the fire and over the road. She could hear Sadie yapping at their side. “Good girl,” the man said. June didn’t recognize his voice, but Sadie calmed and only “talked” in her sweet, throaty way. June was overcome by a sense of well-being even though she could hear the crackling and popping of her Jeep burning behind her.

As he carried her down the road, she sank into his arms. At peace. He had a leather and wood smoke smell about him. At least it wasn’t marijuana, she thought distractedly. With a blast, the Jeep exploded behind them and she flinched. “It’s okay,” he murmured, and immediately she felt safe again. The Jeep erupted in yet another huge blast and she thought of the oxygen she had been rushing to the Dickson’s.

“The baby,” she whispered, her hand searching her bloody head for a cut.

“Is there a baby in the car?” the man asked, surprised.

“No…the Dickson baby,” she said. “I have to…”