Mariah Stewart - Coming Home

“I’ll be happy to see everyone, too.” He glanced at the clock that hung over the door leading in to the dining room. “Almost dinnertime. We can go out for dinner, or I can cook.”

Her eyebrows raised almost to her hairline. “I’m sorry, would you repeat that last part? It sounded like you said you could cook.”

“That’s what I did say.”

Mia’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”

He laughed good-naturedly. “When you live alone, you learn how to cook, or you eat out every night. You might have noticed, if you drove through West Priest, that there is only one restaurant there.”

“Right. Sullivan’s. I saw it.”

“Did you stop in?”

She shook her head.

“Everything is hit-or-miss there. One day the soup might be great, but the sandwiches, not so much. Next day, might be the reverse. The guy who runs it has a problem with consistency in his kitchen. Their spotty menu aside, there’s the fact that when winter hits, it hits hard and fast. There are times when you can’t get into town for weeks. You have to keep supplies on hand and you need to know what to do with them.”

“So you learned how to cook.”

“It was that or starve. The first year I was here, I bought a freezer and a backup generator to keep things going when the power goes out.”

“So what can you make?”

“I make a truly mean mac and cheese.”

“Like Mom’s?”

He nodded. “Maybe better.”

“Let’s do it.”

Grady went to the refrigerator and took out a large brick of Cheddar cheese. From a cabinet he took a large bowl, a grater, and finally, a glass baking pan.

“What can I do to help?”

“You can make a salad when it gets closer to dinnertime. Meanwhile, how about a glass of wine or a beer?”

“I think I’d rather have something hot. Tea or coffee, whichever you have.”

He opened another cabinet and pointed to a shelf that held both. “Take your pick.”

“I think I’ll go with tea.” She rose and took down the box of tea. “Kettle?”

He shook his head. “I have a small pan you can boil water in.”

“Good enough.”

He handed her the pan and she filled it with water, then set it on the stove while he began to grate cheese.

“Are you chilly?” he asked.

Mia nodded. “A little. It’s already warm back home. I didn’t stop to think that it would be so much cooler here.”

“We’ll stay cool for another month or so.” He looked up and grinned. “Summer’s a short season here.”

“I knew that. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Let me get you a sweater.” He put the grater down into the bowl. “I’ll be right back.”

He returned in minutes carrying a pale yellow cardigan that obviously wasn’t his. He handed it to Mia. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” She started to put her arm into the sleeve. “You still have Melissa’s things here in the house?”

Grady nodded. “I don’t know what to do with them. I can’t bring myself to just throw them away.”

“There must be something like Goodwill, or the Salvation Army, or a thrift store in the area.”

“There is. But I don’t know what to say.” He picked up the grater and resumed working on the block of cheese. “I mean, do I call and say, ‘Hello, my wife was murdered a few years ago and I have all these clothes of hers that I was wondering if you’d want’?”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah.” Mia finished putting on the sweater and buttoned it halfway up, then rolled up the sleeves. “I’d forgotten how much taller Melissa was than me.”

Grady glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “You’re a peanut, next to her.”

An awkward silence followed. Finally, Grady said, “So tell me a little more about this cop who’s marrying my sister.”

“Chief of police, remember?” She unwrapped a tea bag and asked, “Cups?”

“Next cabinet to where you’re standing.” He pointed. “Okay, so he’s chief of police. Tell me about him. What’s his background? What’s his family like?”

“Spoken like a true big brother.” She opened the cabinet and found a mug. “Okay. Well, let’s see. He’s former military and he-”

“What branch?”

“Army. Special Forces.” The water had begun to boil and she turned it off.

Grady nodded without turning to look at her. He’d known more than a few Delta Force veterans. He wondered if he and Beck had any friends in common. “Keep going.”

“He was a cop someplace else before St. Dennis. Actually, his dad had been chief of police there and he’d recommended Beck for the job when he semi-retired.”

“They let him do that?” This time Grady did turn around. “They let this guy name his own son as his successor?”

“Hey, it’s a small town. His father, Hal, was-is-very highly regarded, and Beck was a good cop and had great references. He was the best candidate they had, and before you say I’m prejudiced, I heard that from someone who doesn’t particularly like Beck.”

“Well, I guess I can see it. Small town, he probably lived there all his life-”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “Beck grew up around Chicago. When he was almost fourteen, his mother brought him to live with his father.” She paused to pour hot water into her mug. “I should preface that by saying that Hal didn’t know he had a son with Beck’s mother. She never told him. They’d fallen madly in love when she was just eighteen, but he’d gotten drafted and shipped off to Vietnam before she knew she was pregnant. She was engaged to someone else at the time, and her parents made her marry the guy she was engaged to. His mother went through with the wedding but the marriage didn’t work out.”

“How much of this are you making up as you go along?”

“None. I swear. From what I’ve heard, Beck was a very wild and uncontrollable kid from the time he was ten or twelve. Right about that time, his mom remarried. That’s when she took Beck to Hal and left him there.”

“Wait a minute. You mean, she just…”

Mia nodded. “Rang the doorbell, handed over Beck’s birth certificate, and told Hal he was going to have to take things from there because she couldn’t handle his son.”

“And she just left?”

“Yep.”

Grady checked the water for the macaroni to see if it had reached the boiling point yet.

“Doesn’t sound as if he comes from a very stable background, Mia.”

“Sorry, pal, but this pot is not about to call that kettle black, if you get my drift. Not after Brendan.”

“You do have a point there.” Brendan had shattered any illusions anyone might have had about the Shieldses being a model family.

“Anyway, Hal took Beck in and really turned him around, though I did hear from some of the people in town that Beck was a bit of a hellion when he first arrived. But Hal hung tough.” She sipped her tea. “He’s an amazing man.”

“Hal or Beck?”

“Both of them.”

“And the mom?”

“I’ve never met her. Beck has no contact with her at all, though I think she’s tried to contact him from time to time. Birthday cards, stuff like that. And I think his sister hears from her occasionally.”

“He has a sister?”

“That’s the other part of the story. He never knew about her. Didn’t realize his mother was pregnant when she brought him to Hal, but he realizes now that she had to have been. A couple of years ago, Vanessa-that’s the sister, Vanessa Keaton-showed up in St. Dennis looking for Beck. She said her mother told her it was time she met her brother.”

“So Mama’s a woman who likes to keep secrets.”

“Apparently.”

“Will we see her at the wedding?”