Right that minute, however, Joanna Lathrop Brady was far more interested in establishing some privacy ground rules than she was in getting along. As a thirty-year-old widow-one local voters had chosen to elect to the office of sheriff-ii seemed as though it was high time for Joanna to stand up to her own mother. Eleanor’s response to Joanna’s declaration of independence was utterly predictable.
“What in the world must Jenny think!” Eleanor exclaimed “And what about everyone else? You’re a public figure in this town, Joanna. An elected official. You can’t have people going around talking about you this way.”
“How are they going to find out about it, Mother?” Joanne asked. “I’m not going to tell them. Are you?”
“Certainly not!” Eleanor huffed. “I’d never mention such a thing, but Jenny might. After all, she told me, didn’t she? Just like that. As though it’s the most natural thing in the world.’’
“It is the most natural thing in the world,” Joanna countered. “Birds do it. Bees do it. I suspect even you and George do it on occasion.”
When it came to Butch Dixon, Joanna was tired of sneaking around. With everyone but Jeff and Marianne, Joanna and Butch had acted with such vigilance and discretion that most people in town probably thought of them as little more than nodding acquaintances. Suddenly Joanna found herself running out of patience with keeping up appearances. Butch deserved better, and so did she.
There, she thought. Now it’s finally out onthe table. Letthechips Call where they may.
Which they seemed to be doing. As Eleanor’s ominous silence lengthened, Joanna knew she had crossed into some kind of emotional no-man’s-land from which there would be no return.
“Mother,” she said at last. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” Eleanor said in a small voice. “I’m thinking about Jenny.”
“What about her?”
“She’s suffered so much already. How in good conscience can you put her through this kind of emotional wringer?”
“What do you mean?” Joanna asked.
Eleanor heaved a great sight. “Jenny’s not ready for a new father, Joanna. It’s way too soon.”
Joanna’s temper switched into high gear. “Who said anything about her having a new father?”
“But if you and Butch are… well… you know, then obviously you must be planning on getting married or something.”
“We’re not planning on anything,” Joanna said. “We’re enjoying ourselves. We’re enjoying getting to know each other. It may lead to something more serious, and then again, it may not. In the meantime, Mother, it’s our business and no one else’s. Now, Kristin said you called three times. Is this why, to bawl me out about Butch, or was there some other reason?”
“I was going to invite you to dinner.” Eleanor’s arch, unbending tone wasn’t likely to win friends, or daughters.
“Were,” Joanna repeated. “Does that mean that now you’re not?”
“No. Of course not. You’re still invited-you and Jenny both.”
Jenny and I, not Butch. Definitely not Butch.
“1’m working a case, Mother,” Joanna said. “I have no idea what time I’ll finish up. I wouldn’t want to keep you and your other guests waiting. I’ve got to go now. There’s construction on the highway, and I need to concentrate on my driving.”
Ending the call, she put the phone down and drove for several seething minutes before she picked it up again and scrolled through until she found Butch’s number. He answered on the second ring. When he realized who was calling, the pleasure in his voice was unmistakable. “I was hoping you’d call long before this so I could take you to lunch.”
“I missed lunch,” she said, realizing it for the first time. “I’ve been out on a crime scene.”
“Skipping meals isn’t good for you,” he observed.
“Neither is talking to my mother.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Jenny told her that you spent the night. She’s on the war-path about it.”
“You settled her down, didn’t you?” Butch asked. “You did let her know that I slept on the couch?”
“No,” Joanna admitted. “I didn’t. I let her draw her own conclusions.”
There was silence on Butch’s end of the call. “Why did you do that?” he asked finally.
“Because I’m sick and tired of her trying to run my life; of her telling me what to do. I want Eleanor Lathrop Winfield to mind her own damned business and leave me alone.”
“Well,” Butch observed thoughtfully. “Your mother didn’t like me very much to begin with. I doubt this will improve the situation.”
“So you think I did the wrong thing?” Joanna demanded. She was beginning to think so herself, but she didn’t want Butch to share that opinion. And, if he did, she didn’t want to hear it. That would only make it worse.
“No,” he said with an easy laugh. “Not wrong. But you never choose the easy way out, do you, Joanna,” he added. “That’s one of the things I like about you-one of the things I love.”
The word slipped out so smoothly, so naturally that for a second Joanna wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly.
“Oops,” he said. “That probably counts as pushing, and I promised you I wouldn’t-push, that is. Especially not over the phone.”
Joanna’s initial reaction was to tell him to take it back, to unsay it. And yet, if she didn’t want him to care about her and if she didn’t already care about him, what the hell was the fight with her mother all about?
Joanna took a deep breath and decided to sidestep the issue. “Mother’s position is that if we’re sleeping together, we ought to be getting married or we should already be married. She also thinks, because of Jenny, that it’s far too soon for us to even think about such a thing.”
“In other words, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” Butch said.
“Right.”
“See?” he said. “Like mother, like daughter. Eleanor Winfield isn’t known for taking easy positions, either. Has either one of you thought about asking Jenny for her opinion?”
“Butch, she’s only eleven. What does she know?”
“You might be surprised,” he said. “Now if we’re not having lunch, why are you calling?”
“Is Jenny there?”
Lowell, the school Jenny attended, was only three blocks from Butch’s newly refurbished house in Bisbee’s Saginaw neighborhood. On days when she didn’t have after-school activities, she usually went to Butch’s house to have a snack, do her homework, and hang out until Joanna got off work and could come pick her up.
“She’s up the street riding her bike. Do you want me to go find her, or do you want to leave a message?”
“A message will be fine. Tell her I’m on my way to Tombstone to check on a crime scene investigation, and I’ll probably have to stop off in Saint David on the way. It may be late before I get there to pick her up.”
“Don’t worry,” Butch said. “She can stay as long as she likes. I’m making a pot of beef-and-cabbage soup. Soup and freshly baked bread are always a winning combination on a cold winter’s evening. There’ll be plenty for you, too, when you get here.”
“Thanks, Butch,” Joanna said. “By then I’m sure I’ll be hungry. I have to hang up now. I need to make another call.”
“Take care,” Butch said.
“I will.”
Joanna drove down Interstate-10 all the while rehashing both conversations. Butch had slipped that four-letter word into the conversation so unobtrusively that she might well have missed it altogether. Still, he had said it-had admitted aloud that he loved her. Now the ball was in Joanna’s court. Was she going to let their affair grow into something more? Did she love him back or not? And if so, how long before she’d be ready to admit it to herself, to say nothing of anyone else, including her own mother?