Nancy Pickard - The Scent of Rain and Lightning

IT WASN’T EVEN two o’clock in the morning yet.

Jody drove fast, taking advantage of the fact that every law enforcement officer in the county had more important things to do now than to chase speeders like her. Her high beams showed her fence lines, sleeping cattle, sweet young growths of soybeans and sunflowers that she flew past as she navigated the curves in the road with a skill that came from familiarity-which was a good thing, since as she approached the gate, she couldn’t even remember how she got there. The whole drive was a blank in her mind.

All she could think of was Collin’s face as he told her about his mother, Collin’s arms as he held her, Collin’s grief, and Collin’s confession of love for her. She tried to recall how his mother had looked yesterday in front of Bailey’s, but she couldn’t remember anything about Valentine. She’d been aware only of Billy and his son. She felt grieved and guilty about that, realizing she had totally ignored a woman who-at that moment-had only a few hours to live. If she could have gone back in time, she would have run at Valentine and pulled her away, yelling, “Get away from him, get away from him now!”

As Jody neared the ranch gate, she drove past Red Bosch’s place again. This time she saw that his garage door was all the way down and she felt a tweak of surprise. Since it wasn’t her truck hiding in his garage, it must mean that some other woman’s was.

That didn’t take long, she thought as she drove on by.

It appeared that Red had read the signs correctly and already moved on. Jody felt no jealousy; she felt relieved that their ending was so easy and relatively painless. He’d be sad about Valentine, though. She hoped that he and his new friend got to sleep in a little on this morning, to delay the moment when he found out.

JODY HALF EXPECTED to find her grandparents and her uncles awake and already talking about the shooting, but instead she found her grandfather in the kitchen alone, with only a light on the stove to illuminate him. He was noisily puttering around in the near-dark, trying to fix coffee and only managing to make a mess of grounds on the counter and water in the sink.

Her first instinct was to blurt the news, but she didn’t.

“Here,” she said, flipping on an overhead light and hurrying toward him. “I’ll do that.”

He blinked in the sudden light and then smiled down at her. “Your coffee isn’t any better than mine is.”

“Why does everybody say that?”

“Because it’s true?”

“Yes, well at least I’m tidier.”

He laughed and turned and walked over to the kitchen table.

He doesn’t know yet, she thought, observing him from behind.

“What are you doing up so early, Grandpa?”

“Couldn’t sleep. What are you doing dressed and sneaking in the back door?”

“Didn’t you see my note? I wasn’t sneaking.”

She turned and tried to smile at him.

It hurt Jody’s heart-a lot more than seeing Red’s closed garage door-to note how slowly Hugh Senior moved this morning. He was a big man, but his skeleton was never designed for years of the hard physical abuse he’d given it on horseback and in cattle pens.

If he didn’t know about the shooting yet, it wouldn’t do any harm to let a few more minutes slide by before she told him and ruined his morning. Besides, that would give her own heart a little more time to stop pounding and her eyes to stop prickling with tears, so she could tell it all to him calmly, as he would want her to do.

“You feeling okay, Grandpa?”

He sank down into a chair, laid an arm on the table as if needing the support of a hard surface. “I’m fine. Just the usual aches and pains. They get better as the sun comes up. I’m like an old dog. I need the sun to warm me up and get me going. You’re smart to be a teacher instead of a rancher like the rest of us.”

“I’ll always be a cowgirl, Grandpa.”

“It’s in your blood. Just don’t let it break your bones.”

She held up the leg she’d fractured years ago when a horse bucked her. “Too late.”

He chuckled and then sighed and settled farther back into the chair, causing it to creak.

“Nobody else is up yet?” she asked, still stalling.

“Up and gone.”

She turned to look at him over her shoulder again. “Chase and Bobby?”

“They both took off early for home.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Not more than an hour ago. I came down for coffee with them.”

“I guess they couldn’t sleep, either,” she said, but he didn’t reply. “What about Grandma?”

“She got up to see them off, then went back to bed.”

“Did I wake everybody up? Was it because I left?”

“Did you leave?”

She glanced back at him and saw his blue eyes had a twinkle in them.

Jody washed wet grounds off her fingers and then turned to face him.

“Grandpa, you don’t know, do you?”

He frowned a little. “Know what?”

“Something happened in Rose less than an hour ago.” She swallowed hard, forced herself to tamp down her emotions. “Somebody got killed. Shot.”

Hugh Senior’s jaw dropped and he leaned forward. “Who?”

“Valentine.”

“Oh, no.” He looked grieved to hear it. “Oh, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear it. Did they arrest him, Jody?”

“Arrest him?”

“That…” Her grandfather wanted to say bastard or son of a bitch, she could tell, but he wouldn’t in front of her. “… murderer.”

“They haven’t caught him yet. Billy took her car and escaped.”

“Well, I guess this ends any of that stupid talk about how he didn’t kill your father.”

“Does it?”

“Of course!” He slapped the kitchen table so hard that it shook, and then he quoted what his daughter had said the night before at the dinner table. “That’s the kind of man he is.”

Jody didn’t join him for coffee.

She poured a cup for him and then dragged herself upstairs and fell asleep on top of her covers, so tired that not even confessions of love could keep her awake any longer.

JODY WOKE UP at two-thirty in the afternoon, stared at the passage of time on her clock with dismay, and hurried down the hall to shower. Once dressed, she clomped downstairs, intending to apologize for sleeping so late. One look at her grandmother’s face told her that Annabelle was worried about more serious matters than a lazy granddaughter.

Jody hurried over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Why’d you let me sleep so late?”

“I thought you needed it.”

“You know about Valentine?”

“Of course. That poor child.”

“Which one? Her or her son?”

“Both of them.”

“Have they caught him yet, Grandma?”

“Not yet. And people are scared to death. They’re locking their doors and loading their guns and just generally acting as if he’s going to break into houses and start shooting people. Personally, I think he’s a long way from here.” Annabelle looked her up and down. “You look nice and fresh. Now go back up and change into some old clothes, honey. Red hasn’t shown up yet today and we’re trying to catch up on his chores. I can’t imagine where that man has got to. Did you hear him say he was going anywhere today?”

It must be love, Jody thought, remembering his closed garage.

“Maybe Uncle Chase or Uncle Bobby sent him off on some errand and just forgot to tell you before they left.”

“That’s what I told Hugh. Go change clothes.”

“What are we doing?”

Her grandmother smiled at her. “Your favorite job.”

Jody groaned as she turned to go upstairs again.