At Home in Mossy Creek Read online

I don’t know if Heaven’s a golden kingdom or an astral plane, a stopover between reincarnated lives or, as my cousin Ingrid Beechum envisions, a celestial bakery where no one gets fat eating cheesecake. All I know for certain is that anywhere Jeb is will be Heaven to me.

  That’s my dream. I’m not anxious to reach its horizon for a long, long time—Big Ida lived to over ninety, and I think I have a good chance of pulling off the same feat—but I know my life’s at least half over.

  And I know that Amos’s life, at the tender young age of thirty-six, is not.

  There will be no more kisses between us. No more swaying, hugging, deep, soulful kisses. No dating. No engagement. No marriage. No dentures. No support hose. No regrets. No more of the town twittering over us.

  Enough said.

  Amos

  BUBBA RICE’S PLACE had earned a spot on my restaurant rotation. Good food served with a minimum of fanfare. Until today. Bubba was certainly serving it up with gusto today, piling it on thick. Everyone in town had taken a whack at me since the infamous kiss.

  “Listen, you’re gonna love this meatloaf.” He sat down one of those oval platters. Bubba’s didn’t serve skimpy portions. “I’ve added cayenne pepper for an extra kick. You know, just to shake things up. Some people—not everyone—experience hot lips. So I brought you some iced tea to cool you down.”

  I did my best not to snatch the napkin off the table but I did snap it to shake it out. “Thank you.”

  “Ah, think nothing of it. We’ll just . . . pretend it didn’t happen.” And there it was. A little side dish of subtext to go along with the meatloaf. Half of Mossy Creek, the male half, were incredulous that I hadn’t sealed the deal. The other half giggled and sighed and expected an engagement ring to be produced any moment.

  “Win, I don’t forget a friend who’s looking out for me.” I tried for a reassuring smile as I attempted to calculate how many line drives I could send right at Win Allen’s head during spring ball practice. I was willing to bet that if I put in some hours at the batting cages over in Chinaberry that I’d hit my target as often as not. For now I raised an eyebrow and tried to look pleasant. “Anything else?”

  “No. That about wraps it up.”

  I tapped the platter with my fork. “Good. This is about all I can stomach right now.”

  “I wasn’t certain. You seem to be able to stomach a lot before pushing back from the table and saying, ‘Enough.’”

  Someone two tables away made one of those honking ha’s that you make when you nervously cut off a laugh.

  My silverware clattered a little louder than I actually intended. “What is it with you people? I have my love life under control, thankyouverymuch for the concern.” I scanned the restaurant. Most had the decency to pretend they hadn’t noticed anything. Katie Bell was scribbling furiously, one hand held up as a stop sign so we wouldn’t continue until she was ready. Unbelievable.

  “Excuse me.” I reached over to the bread basket on Dan McNeil’s table and helped myself to two slices of some thick, whole-grain bread. I slapped a wedge of meatloaf between them and told Bubba to bill me.

  “Right, then!” he shouted after me. “I’ll put you down for a table for two Saturday night.”

  PATROLLING IS GOOD for the soul. And the temper. I eased off the gas pedal before I had to give myself a ticket for speeding. Shake it off, I told myself. I’d asked for this the moment I decided to cross that line with Ida. I knew this wasn’t the easy road.

  Every angler in America will tell you that the best fish don’t jump into the boat. Nope. You have to wait it out, use every trick in your book of tricks and hope to God that when you get them close to the boat—close enough to accepting they can’t break free—that they don’t freak out, find superhuman strength (more ridiculous objections) and slip away again.

  If you weren’t committed to your plan, then you’d spend the next who-knows-how-many years talking about the one that got away. I had no intention of letting Ida get away, but some of the guys in town were beginning to make me second-guess myself, my plan. I thought I had her hooked. Maybe running out the line for all she was worth, but hooked all the same. Not that she’d appreciate the fishing analogy. And I sure didn’t appreciate the speculation and ribbing coming my way. I didn’t like seeing her on Del’s arm.

  Maybe Win had a point. Maybe it was time to change strategy.

  And lanes!

  On the northbound lane of Bigelow a long tour bus that looked as if Walt Disney World’s magic had exploded all over it was pouring smoke and slowing down. I slowed and hit the light to warn any traffic behind me. The bus lurched to the side of the road and settled with a nasty clanking sound punctuated with a backfire. They weren’t quite on the shoulder so I angled the Jeep and left the light going.

  As I got out I had to wonder. If you could get seven clowns in a tiny circus car, how many could you get in this monster of a bus? Cirque d’Europa. Oh, boy, this was gonna be good. Or really, really bad.

  The door whooshed open but I waved them back in and followed. “We’ll get this sorted out but stay in here where it’s warm as long as you can. Who’s in charge?”

  I lost count of the languages as people on both sides translated for their neighbors. One woman had a white knuckled grip on the panel separating the driver from the rest of the bus. “Me. Quinn James. I think we’ve broken down. The bus has been making noises for miles.” She cut her eyes toward where her hands were clenched. “Sorry. I have a touch of vertigo.”

  Several questions and several grinding attempts to restart the engine later, it was clear that this bus wasn’t going anywhere without the help of a very large tow truck.

  “Don’t worry about a thing. Let me get some help. You just stay where you are.” I radioed Mutt and told him to rally the troops. By the time he arrived, I was all but certain Mossy Creek would have to pull together. The performers were getting restless and beginning to leave the bus as Mutt arrived. There were a lot of them.

  “Listen, Ms. Quinn. Our mayor will be here soon to help you with the logistics of your people, and I know we’re going to need to put some of your folks up in town. See, I have a friend and it would just thrill him to host one of your clowns.”

  “We don’t have clowns, not like American circus clowns. We’ve got a couple of mimes.”

  “Perfect. If he could host one of the mimes, it’d just make his year. Win Allen—you might want to write that down—Win used to work with a clown down at the radio station. There was a fire and well, the clown had to move on. Win was really sad about that.” I glanced up, checking for lightning, ready to push Ms. Quinn out of harm’s way. Apparently the Powers-That-Be thought Win deserved a little mime punishment as well.

  “Of course, Chief. I’ll make a note about Mr. Allen liking mimes. But call me Quinn.”

  I’d been watching what appeared to be a family of jugglers. The patriarch looked like the kind of worldly charming guy that could give Del a run for his money. If I were Del, I certainly wouldn’t want this guy hanging around screwing up my Valentine’s plan with Ida. “One more thing, Quinn. Our mayor would be the perfect home for them.” I pointed. “If anybody knows how to juggle life, it’s our mayor. She’s got a nice-sized home place and could host a family easily. You wouldn’t have to split them up.”

  “Thank you.”

  Suddenly a teenage girl in the patriarch’s clan turned and saw me. She was jail bait, and I wasn’t interested. But she was. And not shy, either. “Rhett Butler!” she squealed in a French accent. “Monsieur Butler! Be still my heart!”

  The patriarch glanced my way with a dismissive smile, then said something quiet to the teenager. She scowled and turned away after batting her eyes at me one more time.

  I wasn’t having a good time, here. “Mutt!” I yelled. I turned to see if he’d heard.

  “Yeah, C
hief?”

  “Tell Peavey’s to haul the bus to Mount Gilead Methodist first. They have the biggest parking lot and it’s on the way to their garage. It’s too dangerous to unload luggage here. And it’s time to call the mayor.”

  Ida

  “THERE’S A WHAT broken down on the side of Bigelow Road?” I said into the portable headpiece of my phone. Bigelow Road is a fast two-lane—a beautiful but isolated mountain route framed by vistas, fields and deep woods—and it serves as our main artery south to the county seat, Bigelow. In Mossy Creek we tend to name roads according to where they go. Which is why we have several obscure little lanes named Ruin, The Dogs, and No Good.

  “Bus fulla circ . . .” Mutt’s voice disappeared. Cell phone reception in the mountains can be iffy.

  “Bus full of what?” I asked loudly as I paced my office at town hall. I glanced at a clock that said most of Friday afternoon was gone and I still had a dozen phone calls to make. Sheaves of computer print-outs from the water department filled my mud-crusted left hand and a pad of mud-stained notes for the next council meeting filled the other. Being mayor of a small town isn’t glamorous. I’d just spent the cold February afternoon with a crew crawling around a giant, leaky pipe at the town water plant, aka the Upper Mossy Creek Reservoir, Water Treatment Facility, and Bass Pond.

  That last part is unofficial.

  My jeans and sweatshirt were splattered with mud, my feet were freezing inside wet socks and hiking boots, and I smelled like fish. Cats and sushi chefs would have craned their heads when I walked by.

  “A bus of circus people, Mayor,” officer Mutt Bottoms yelled clearly, this time. I heard the strangled rumble of a large diesel engine in the background. Then an ominous clanking sound. Then silence. Mutt sighed loudly. “Well, that settles that. Broke down for good. Yes, ma’am. The Chief’s here but he said you’d want to be involved. Peavey’s Garage is already here peering under the hood, but in the meantime, we got us a busload of . . . of, well, people with funny accents who can hook their legs behind their heads. They’re all out here on the side of the road, stretchin’ and shivering and . . . oh, man. There goes another one. That looks painful, y’all. Y’all are all gonna need new hips one day.”

  “What kind of circus people?”

  “I’m readin’ the name painted on the bus. ‘Circ-Q D Europe A.’”

  “Spell it.”

  He did. I bit back a smile. “Cirque d’Europa.” I’d heard of it. One of the small, elegantly surreal European troops, a baby cousin to the famous Cirque du Soleil.

  Mutt slowly repeated the name. “Mayor, I just sprang a muscle in my tongue.”

  “Peavey’s thinks their bus is a lost cause?”

  “Yep. Figures it’ll take ‘til Sunday to get it running. They got no other bus. Just a tractor-trailer hauling their tents and some equipment trucks. No elephants or nothing. Not even a trained monkey or two. As far as I can tell.”

  “They don’t use animal acts. It’s not like American circuses. More theatrical.”

  “Oh, I can sure see that.” Mutt’s voice dropped to a stunned whisper. “Mayor, there are foreigners out here doing handsprings. In the road. I don’t know what languages they speak, so I can’t even yell at ’em to get off the pavement.”

  “Try this. Arrete! That’s French for ‘Stop!’ I expect most of them will understand.”

  Mutt bellowed, “Air rat tay! Air rat tay, y’all!” Long pause. Then, “Okay, Mayor, they’re kinda snickerin’ at me, but they’re off the road. Thanks.”

  “How many people are we talking about? Total.”

  “About three dozen.”

  I groaned. It was the start of Valentine’s Day weekend, with Sunday being the holiday. Hamilton Inn, our only hotel, was booked solid. So were all the romantic rental cabins in the mountains around Mossy Creek, including the cabins at my late husband’s namesake, Jeb Walker State Park, up on Colchik Mountain.

  “Mutt, I’ll put my staff on phone duty, and we’ll rustle up some rooms at local homes. Just tell the circus people to hang in there.”

  “Yeah, the Chief’s already pickin’ out homes for some of ’em. He’s got you set up for a bunch of jugglers.”

  I arched a brow. “Oh, is that right?”

  “Yeah, he told ’em you’d be perfect ’cause you like to keep a lot of stuff hangin’ in mid-air.”

  “I’ll have to thank him for that . . . compliment.” I sighed. “Just tell the visitors that here in Mossy Creek we never let strangers go cold and hungry.”

  “How do I say all that in French?” Mutt moaned.

  “L’aide vient. ‘Help is coming.’ L’aide vient.”

  “Got it, Mayor. LAID VENT!” he yelled. “LAID VENT!”

  It was going to be a long and decidedly unromantic Valentine’s Day weekend.

  Sandy

  MY BABY BROTHER Mutt’s voice crackled over the radio of my brand-spanking new blue-and-white cruiser. I slapped the dashboard of the 1998 Crown Vic Mayor Ida Hamilton Walker had just donated to the Mossy Creek PD—the paint job was brand-spanking new, anyway—and Mutt’s voice cleared up a little.

  “Say again, Dogface,” I instructed. I assure you, people don’t call him “Mutt” for nothing.

  “I need you to come to where a circus bus has broke down right outside of town on the road to Bigelow.”

  “A circus bus? You mean with clowns and trapeze artists and lion tamers and such?”

  “Yeah. Only there’s no animals here. Well, only Bob. He’s running around sniffing people’s pants legs and peeing on everything. There’s a tattooed trapeze woman with a big eagle on her back, and when Bob saw it he started howling like a banshee with a toothache, not to mention peeing like a racehorse. I reckon it reminded him of the hawk.”

  Bob the Chihuahua had famously survived being kidnapped by a hungry hawk which flew Bob around the town square before being coaxed to let go. I take credit for shooting at the hawk and making it put Bob down. Don’t worry, the hawk escaped without even losing a feather. But Bob has never been quite the same since. I had to ask my brother what in the world Bob the incontinent flying Chihuahua was doing on the scene. “Ingrid heard about the breakdown and came to see the spectacle,” Mutt said. “Along with about half of Mossy Creek.”

  I grimaced. Ingrid Beechum, Bob’s over-protective owner and a first cousin of Mayor Ida’s, was on my “list.” And you know what list I mean. The catty heifer had told me just that morning that she’d seen my husband, Jess, sitting with that cute Julie Honeycutt at The Naked Bean coffee shop not once but twice in the last week. “Yes indeed, they had their heads together, talking about something very serious,” she said.

  Everybody knows Julie is sweethearts with that nice sheep farmer, Russ Green, which I pointed out to Ingrid. She hooted and said the last time Julie was in her bakery she asked her when Russ was going to make an honest woman of her after all these years. She said Julie squinched up her face like she was fixing to cry and ran out of the shop like the devil was after her. “There’s something wrong with that relationship,” Ingrid said and clucked her tongue, nodding to me and shop owner Jayne Reynolds. “You mark my words.”

  Jayne, whose little boy, Matthew, is Ingrid’s godchild, just nodded back respectful-like. But I informed Ingrid that there is nothing wrong in my marriage. Nothing that she needs to worry about, anyway, I thought to myself. “I’m sure that’s true,” Ingrid said, but not in a convinced way. Her son had been ruined by a wild wife. Ingrid had a short fuse for philanderers. “I expect Jess was just giving Julie that broad shoulder of his to cry on,” Ingrid went on. “I just never knew that Jess and Julie were friends.”

  The truth of the matter is, neither did I. But I am not worried about my husband’s friendship with another woman. He’s not the cheating kind. But then, what woman thinks her husband is the chea
ting kind?

  My brother’s words snapped me back to reality. “Everybody’s running around here like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off,” Mutt said. “The people from the bus are squawking in a dozen different languages.”

  “That’s not illegal, bro.” I swear, sometimes that boy doesn’t have the judgment God gave a Billy goat. “Why do you need me?”

  “Tempers are running short,” he said. “I need you to help me calm everybody down. It’s Valentine’s Day weekend. These circus people don’t look too happy to be stuck in Mossy Creek on a romantic holiday, and our folks don’t look too happy to be stuck in charge of ’em. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  Calming people down, eh? Now he was talking. That sounded to me like a job for Officer Sandy Bottoms Crane. “Looks like you could use my conflict resolution skills,” I said.

  “Uh, yeah,” Mutt said. “Whatever. Just get here as soon as you can. Over and out.”

  I turned on the siren with the flick of a switch. If I do say so myself, conflict resolution is my specialty. Why, only a month ago, in January, I defused a delicate domestic situation between Miss Ada Lou Womack and her big sister Inez over an heirloom quilt.

  If anybody is ever kidnapped and held for ransom in Mossy Creek, I feel sure that my skills will qualify me as the chief hostage negotiator. Not that anybody has ever been kidnapped and held for ransom in Mossy Creek, you understand, but there’s a first time for everything. And besides, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

  Like I said, a domestic conflict situation can be tricky and dangerous. I’ve even started reading books about relationships to help me figure people out. For research, you might say. The most interesting one is called, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and boy howdy, did it ever open my eyes.

  I spent all last weekend reading it. And eating Bubba Rice’s newest creation at his restaurant here in town—“Bubba’s Bodacious Burrito.” Bubba cooks a lot of fancy dishes—his restaurant uses tablecloths and real silverware and he lights candles on the tables at night—but he does regular food, too.