“Why did you want to be a writer?”

“I don’t know. I liked to do a lot of things, but when I had my nose in a book or when I was scribbling out a completely made-up story, I’d get a little lost. If no one could find me, I’d be up in the hayloft with a book or a notebook. I’d go to a different place in my mind. Maybe my real life just wasn’t interesting enough for me. My older brothers thought I was a complete geek and never shut up about it. I also played football, did farm chores, rode my horse, hunted, fished… But I wrote when I was alone because it felt good. I thought I was going to write novels, but eventually movies got my attention and I decided I liked film. I think it’s all the dialogue. I like to listen to the way people talk to each other. What made you want to be a chef?”

“Nana,” she said. “Jillian was five and I was six when our family was in a bad car accident. My dad was killed and my mother was disabled and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. My great-grandmother took us in. Now, we were poor—sometimes desperately poor. Nana knew how to make it—she gardened, canned, could turn beef rough as old shoe leather into something you could cut with a spoon, she cooked like a genius… She also ironed and did laundry for neighbors, anything that would keep the wolf from the door. She was our mother’s caregiver, but we all helped with everything—we were a team. All that, along with Social Security, not only got us by, she managed to save a little for emergencies. Jill loved the garden, hated the kitchen. I loved the kitchen.”

“Hate the garden?” he asked.

“I like the selection of food. At La Touche we had vendors we ordered from, but I liked to go to the dock to select the fish, go to specialty markets for some of our produce, go straight to the butcher for meat. I don’t have much interest in growing it, just using it. I can alter the outcome of everything with the pinch of one spice, the addition of one herb.”

“You have a gifted palate.”

“Sensitive palate. I know because I test it against the palates of other tasters. I listen. I experiment. What was once survival is now art.”

He smiled as though he knew.

“Oh, boy,” she said. “Tell me about Deerslayer. I think there’s some history there…maybe survival to art…”

“It might be me spinning gold out of straw,” he said. “Country kids rarely have it easy. I resented that until I was at least thirty—that nothing was ever given to me. Everything came so damn hard. I hated that the only way I could play football was if I used my older brothers’ gear—I was the third one to use the helmet, pads, even the nut-cup. Do you have any idea how beat-up that stuff was? My dad said, ‘Guess you’ll have to play real good then since your gear ain’t so fancy.’ I was kind of scrawny and asked for a weight set Christmas after Christmas, birthday after birthday. And one year my dad said, ‘Lief, got you a weight set—follow me.’ He had just gotten a hay and firewood delivery—he told me to stack it all in the barn. Before dinner.”

She laughed at him; she imagined he must be gifted because listening to him tell a story was wonderful!

“I wrote about those things in my classes at UCLA. I was working as a builder, writing at night, taking classes on film, writing and production. I wrote about putting down a dog when she had a run-in with a piece of farm equipment and lay whimpering…”

“Aw,” Kelly said. “Did you take her to the vet?”

He shook his head. “We didn’t have time or money for vets unless the family livelihood depended on that animal, and my dog was suffering. I had to do it. And then there was my horse—he’d been my horse since I was about eight and I was sixteen when he tore a tendon and went lame. My dad tried a lot of home remedies, even called the vet for that one, but we didn’t do expensive surgery on leisure animals. It was a major indulgence to have that gelding in the first place. But he did splurge and have the vet put him down. I ran away, I was so pissed. But once I got cold, lost and hungry, I headed home. My dad found me when I was about halfway home. He’d come looking for me. And my dad said something like, ‘Look, Lief, I’m sorry life is hard. I wish to God it wasn’t.’”

“Deerslayer?” she asked.

He reached for her hands. “It started as a short story, like the football gear, the dog, the weight set. I was taking a class from a writer who told me my writing was good but quaint. He asked me if I wanted to tell quaint, down-home Americana stories, because if I did, that was all right. Someone might even film it. Or I could ratchet it up, try to capture some experience and emotion that would take that kid’s experience to the next level. I experimented—I tried having him snatched by aliens… I liked that one,” he added, grinning. “Then I had him accidentally kill his brother… I think I was pissed off at one of my brothers at the time. Finally I came up with an idea that I thought might work—an innocent but dangerous involvement in a militant anti-government group that rescues the runaway, then flips him against his roots, then puts him in the middle and uses him against the Feds. And he has a family who wants him back—a family on no one’s side—not the isolationists’ or the Feds’. Just the kid’s.” He shrugged. “I guess it worked.”

Her mouth hung open. “How did you come up with this idea?” she asked.

He leaned toward her. “Local color and imagination. Kelly, where do you think Ruby Ridge is?”

“So what are you doing these days instead of writing?”

“Lately I’ve been watching someone cook,” he said with a smile. Then he grew more serious. “And I’ve been focused on Courtney… And thinking. Sometimes the hardest work I do doesn’t look like writing. You know, there were so many times I wished Courtney could experience some of the challenges I had but not quite as hard. I wouldn’t want her to have to put down a pet—that’s just awful. But maybe if she didn’t have the best of everything, maybe that would help her in ways I can’t help her. But I never wanted her to suffer like she has since she lost her mom.”

“I’d like to hear more about Courtney’s mom,” Kelly said.

But the phone rang and Lief stood to answer it. “Maybe later,” he said.

“Lief!” Courtney said in an almost desperate whisper. “I have to go home with Amber! I have to!”

“What’s wrong, Courtney?” he asked, frowning.

“Amber called home a while ago. The puppies came! They’re here! I have to go home with her! We’ll ride the bus!”

He chuckled. “I thought something was wrong.”

“Can you pick me up later? Like around nine?”

“Eight,” he said.

“Eight-thirty! I’ll do my homework! Please!”

“I’ll be there.”

He turned to look at Kelly. “It happens Courtney is going to be busy tonight.”

Lief might’ve been hoping for a close encounter with Kelly, but he wasn’t entirely disappointed with what he got. She was cooking for Jill, Colin, Shelby and Luke, so she was more than happy to include Lief. And luckily for Lief, Shelby and Luke had a baby in tow, making it their preference to keep earlier hours. By eight Lief was on his way to the Hawkins farm.

Sinette let him in the front door. “Gelda and family have taken up residence in the mudroom, Lief,” she said. “Right behind the kitchen.”

“What have you done to me, Sinette?” he teased.

“If Hawk doesn’t get that dog fixed, I might be fixin’ him! Nine this time. And I swear to God, I think they’re half wolf!”

“Gelda’s not the best planner, I guess,” he said. “Maybe some old wolf snuck up on her.”

“I doubt he had to sneak,” Sinette said, walking away from him toward the kitchen.

There was the sound of hushed voices coming from inside the mudroom, the whisperings of children. He stood in the frame of the door and saw that Amber, Courtney and even Rory were sitting on the floor, cuddling brand-new puppies. Rory’s wheelchair was pushed off to one side. They all looked up at him at the same time.

Courtney held a little blond pup close to her chin. “This one is mine,” she said vehemently. “His name is Spike.”

“Spike?” Lief said, trying not to laugh.

“He’ll grow into it,” she said confidently, gently putting him back in the box. “Seriously, he’s mine.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Lief said. “We’re gonna have to get going, Court. Did you get that homework done?”

“Pretty much,” she said.

Courtney lifted the puppy from Rory’s hands to return it to Gelda’s brood. Then Lief watched in wonder as Courtney stood and gently pulled Rory upright. Rory hung on around Courtney’s neck while she maneuvered him into his wheelchair, propped his feet on the bottom and ruffled his hair. He was almost as big as she was. Or, Courtney was almost as small as Rory.

He felt his eyes sting. That was his girl—kind and loving. Generous. Sometimes he missed her so much.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Let me get my stuff out of Amber’s room. Be right back.”

Lief wandered back toward the living room where he found Hawk and Rory’s dad playing a little cribbage by the front window.

Without looking up from his game, Hawk said, “Your daughter won the bet on how many pups.”

“Is that so? What did she win?”

Hawk looked up briefly, a lopsided smile on his face. “The pups.”

Lief laughed. “You’re a real pal.”

Then Courtney was beside him, jacket donned and backpack slung over one shoulder. “’Kay,” she said.

“’Night, Peacock,” Hawk said, still concentrating on his game.

“’Night, Hawk. Thanks for dinner.”

“Always a pleasure, Peacock. You take care.”

Seven

Jillian and her assistant Denny were tilling a half-acre plot on the west side of the Victorian, getting it ready to mulch to prepare for a spring planting. Jillian was handling the gas-powered tiller while begloved Denny was behind her, removing large rocks from her wake. Even in the chilly October morning, they were both sweating.

When she got to the end of a row and turned, she noticed Colin was standing at the garden edge. He’d taken quite a hike from the house to get here, so thinking it must be important, she went to him.

“I thought you were painting,” she said.

“I am. I was. Listen, something strange is going on in the house. Kelly’s loft is above the sunroom and there are sounds. At first I thought she was singing in the shower or something. But then I thought maybe she was crying.”

Jill lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure Lief isn’t in the house? Maybe they’re doing something that sounds like singing or crying…”

Colin was shaking his head. “Nope. I even looked around outside for a car or truck. Should I just stay busy for a while and ignore it?”

“She said she had something to do this morning, but she didn’t say what… I just assumed she’d be busy in the kitchen.”

“Whatever it was, I think it made her cry. A lot.”

“Well, maybe I better check on her, make sure nothing is seriously wrong. Maybe they had an argument or something.”

“I was hoping you’d do that.”

“Why? Are you worried?”

“Not so much that, but I was hoping you’d drive me back to the house in the garden mobile. I’ll stay on the porch until you investigate.”

Jillian was actually surprised that, by the time she was climbing to the third floor, there were still sounds of sniffles and whimpers. It made her a little scared; Kelly was not known for crying. Halfway up the staircase she stopped and knocked on the wall. “Kell?” she asked.