A ragged chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” started from the back of the room in a key so low James Earl Jones would have had trouble matching it. As it wrapped up, individual voices rose.

  “…when Val called and said she wanted to honor you…”

  “…didn’t know anything about what a hero you were…”

  “…thank you for what you did…”

  “…her blog. Can’t say I follow it, but my granddaughter says…”

  “…so exciting to have her here…”

  “…course we know, and now the whole world will…”

  “…can’t hide your light under a barrel this time…”

  “…you should have heard Lisa when we told her about Valerie Trimarco being here, and what she wanted to do for you…”

  Through the camera lens, Val watched Jack take a long stride forward, hat still masking his eyes.

  Was he coming to greet her? Maybe she should put the camera down. Though the thought of it made her feel like a soldier considering climbing out of a foxhole and right into enemy fire. But if she ignored him, if he went past her, that would be awkward, too. Did she turn to follow him with the camera? Stick out a hand and say you probably don’t remember me, but I’ll never forget you? Or—

  He didn’t walk past her. He didn’t greet her, either.

  Next thing she saw through the lens was a tan blur, then the camera was gone from in front of her face, gone from her hands. Gone.

  She had an unobstructed view of Jack Ralston’s back as he headed out the café’s door.

  *

  People closed ranks around her. Someone took her arm. Someone else put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Dave, you go after him,” Matty said.

  “Me? What about Dad?”

  “Your mother’s better at that sort of thing. Donna will you—?”

  “Let me,” Val said. Immediately followed by a prayer that they’d say no. Why had she—?

  “Good idea, dear,” said Donna. “I’ll look after Addie.”

  She opened her mouth to withdraw the offer, to argue that Addie would be getting restless, to find some reason to get out of this.

  Addie cuddled deeper against Donna’s shoulder, and the older woman used her free hand to give Val a nudge. “Go on, or you’ll lose him.”

  She went.

  Squinting against the bright sunlight outside the café, Val spotted him crossing the empty street diagonally. He was heading toward a long low building made out of logs and with a wooden sidewalk in front of it. His head was bent and he was fiddling with her camera as he walked. That must be what had slowed him up enough to keep his long gait from taking him out of sight.

  “Hey!”

  He didn’t turn at her shout, even though she’d kept her tone relatively restrained and friendly, considering he’d absconded with her camera and clearly was doing something to it. She sprinted after him, catching up just before he would have taken the two steps that led up to a wooden sidewalk. Close up, she saw that only the front of the building was made of logs — or made to look like logs — and it appeared fairly new. Signs for a dentist, a real estate broker, and the lawyer who was friends with the Curricks marked the row of doors.

  “Jack. Jack Ralston.”

  He didn’t stop until she grasped his shirt sleeve’s turned back cuff. Even then he simply turned and looked at her.

  “I’m Val. Val Trimarco. Three-and-a-half years ago, you helped me, uh…. You delivered my baby. In the back of my station wagon?”

  He said nothing.

  This was worse than just about anything she could have imagined. “You don’t remember—”

  “I remember.”

  It was too grim to carry any reassurance. “Or remember me?”

  His grunt indicated he did.

  “Or recognize me—

  “I recognize you.”

  He didn’t sound happy about it. She hadn’t screamed that loudly … well, yes, she had. But he hadn’t seemed all that upset about it, not after Baby Girl Trimarco was born, anyway. It had seemed like her coming into the world had thrown a blanket of let-bygones-be-bygones over every pain, discomfort, embarrassment, ill word, and, even, that one truly accidental connection of Val’s fist to his cheekbone. She could have sworn he wasn’t holding a grudge when he loaded them into the ambulance.

  “Oh. Okay. Well, I came back here to Wyoming to thank you.”

  He grunted again.

  She propped her hands on her hips, starting to get annoyed. “Can we at least sit down and talk?”

  “About what?”

  “About how I wanted to surprise you and—”

  “Ambush.”

  She glared up at him. “It was not. It was supposed to be like a surprise party, honoring you. And all your friends were excited, saying how nice it was that other people would know what you’d done and what a great guy you are. They’re all back there now feeling bad because you were a total—” She swallowed her first-choice word, as she had so frequently since she’d become a mother to a child who was also part parrot. “—grouch. Not to mention snatching my camera and walking off with it, which is theft.”

  He looked down at her. None of his facial muscles budged a millimeter. He might as well have the scarf back covering the lower part of his face the way it had when he’d knocked on her car window.

  Although, at least then she’d been able to tell a little from his eyes.

  She focused there now, and noticed the slightest deepening of the lines fanning from his blue-gray eyes. As if—.

  “You laugh at me, Jack Ralston, and I’ll let loose a scream like you haven’t heard in three and a half years.”

  He held up both hands in surrender, the muscles of his face relaxing, though not quite reaching a smile.

  She sat on the step. “C’mon. Sit down for a minute.”

  She wasn’t sure he was going to comply until he did. Leaving a couple feet between them.

  He didn’t say a word. It was going to be up to her. Considering he’d walked out, she had a hunch the planned party wasn’t going to be the great ice-breaker she’d hoped it would be. She better come up with something else.

  “You did a great thing that day, Jack Ralston. And I do thank you.”

  “Anyone would have done the same.”

  “No way.” She looked at him. The turned-up side of his hat revealed his profile, but that gave nothing away. “I sure wouldn’t have. I’d have run the other direction. If my car hadn’t been stuck in that ditch, and if I hadn’t been taking the situation with me no matter where I went, that’s exactly what I would have done.”

  Without turning his head, he started to cut a look toward her. Presumably he finished it, too, but by that time, she had a hand up, shielding her eyes, gazing up and down the street.

  Like there was anything to look at, since everyone was still in the café, waiting for the guest of honor or the how-stupid-can-you-get organizer of this party to return.

  “Anyway, that’s what I used to do best. Not as bad as when I was younger — remind me to tell you about my job resume sometime — because I’d gotten better about it, mostly thanks to El and The Fishwife. That’s the restaurant we started. But I hadn’t quite turned the corner all the way if you know what I mean. That didn’t happen until Addie. Oh, did I tell you her name is Addison Rose? No longer Baby Girl Trimarco, so, see, she’s made me face up to things. Deal with them. Be a grownup. I’ve pretty much stayed put since her. And I’ve been in the same job for several years now. That’s new, too. Well, it’s not exactly being in a job. More like I made one up.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I blog. About single motherhood. … how it started, how it took off … And some about cooking. Review products a little. Talk about real stuff. What happens every day when you’re raising a child. When you’re in the kitchen. What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, there is something. I see that look.”

  “Personal life in public.”

  “Oh that. Now you sound like El. Always talking about the line between public and private. For her it’s like the Grand Canyon or something. For me, it’s more like a squiggle in the dust. I keep telling El, I’m not as reserved as she is. And — now what?”

  But instead of repeating or explaining the look he’d given her, he said, “El. Cousin?”

  “Right. My cousin, Eleanor.” Sure. That he remembered. Even without seeing El’s lush curves and intelligent face. “She’s very cautious. Well, not as much as she used to be, not since she and Cahill got married and had little Sam. And now with El’s brother-in-law living with them, and her mother-in-law coming over soon she’s going to have less and less time to fuss at me. It’s not like I don’t take precautions. I do. I never show Addie on-screen. I use other names for everyone and mix up events so nobody knows exactly who did what or when. No public appearances for Addie ever. And since that little incident, I don’t ever say the house is going to be empty at a certain time or anything like that.”

  “Incident?”

  “These guys broke in. One of their girlfriends was coming to an event and was all excited about it, so she was reading the blog out loud to her boyfriend, including the part where I said nobody would be at home because Addie was going to her grandmother’s where she is spoiled rotten. Which I fully admit I should not have put in the blog — the part about the house being empty — not the part about my mother spoiling her, because she does, and it’s got to stop. And that’s something a lot of mothers experience, so we talk about that. Especially with a family like mine. And that stuff about the have to spoil her because she doesn’t have a dad? That’s an excuse to give her more candy. Nothing like having a sugar-crazed kid after a couple hours at grandma’s and—”

  “Break-in.”

  “Oh. Right. So these two guys broke in. And I guess they thought I was going to be some rich person with lots of electronics they could fence, just because I’m on the Internet, and boy were they disappointed, because most fences won’t take bouncy chairs and OshKosh B’gosh overalls. So they were resorting to stealing my TV, which has to be at least a decade old, when Cahill — that’s El’s husband and the greatest guy in the world — and his little brother Kiernan, though why I’d call him little, when he’s six-two and a hunk and a half I don’t know, but … Where was I?”

  “TV.”

  “Right. The TV. They were detaching the TV from all the cords when Cahill and Kiernan went by and saw lights when they knew I wasn’t home. Caught them red-handed coming out the door to where they’d parked their van. Kiernan snapped off a bunch of pictures for the record, then they kept them there until the police came. Should have made them reattach my TV and get it to work right again instead of putting them in jail for a month. Sure would have done me more good, because it took me forever to get the cords sorted out and plugged back into the right place. Well, actually, Kiernan did it. But even then it’s never worked completely right since.”

  She paused for breath.

  “You talk a lot more now.”

  She thought the corner of his mouth quirked, but maybe it was a tic.

  “I had other things on my mind then. I was in labor, remember? And besides—”

  “Yes.”

  The yes that confirmed he remembered stopped her. Memories splattered across her mind, like big, fat rain drops hitting a sidewalk, each an individual ping of a moment, coming faster and faster as they formed a whole. Many of the individual pings carried pricks of embarrassment or discomfort, some sharper than others, but the whole taken together formed the birth of her child, and that was a memory worth keeping.

  “And besides?” he prompted.

  She broke out of her memory-transfixed state with a huff of breath. “And besides, I’m a little nervous now.”

  “Not then?”

  “No. Then I was scared witless. And practically wordless. Especially when I thought you’d taken off after I told you I was in labor.”

  He turned and looked at her directly for the first time, and she saw surprise in his face.

  “You went around to the passenger side to tie up your horse, remember?”

  “More protected.”

  “Was that why? Well, I had no way of knowing. I thought you’d taken off on me like — Uh, like most normal people would have done in the circumstances. Then, there you were, knocking on the passenger window and giving cranky orders, which should have warned me, since it set the tone for what followed.”

  Push, Val.

  I am pushing.

  Push harder.

  This is as hard as it gets. Sorry to disappoint you, Jack. I am. I’m really sorry. After all you’ve done, and now I just can’t. I’m always disappointing people. Leaving. Moving on when it gets tough or—

  Quit crying, and push.

  I can’t.

  That’s better. You pushed when you yelled. Do it again.

  I can’t. I can’t push. I can’t have this baby. I can’t.

  You’re having this baby. Now. Push now, Valerie Trimarco. Do it!

  “Didn’t take off on you,” he said. A protest.

  “No, you didn’t.” She cleared her throat without looking at him. “That’s why I wanted to thank you. That’s what the surprise party was for. All your friends helped and — what?”

  He gave her a blank look. Not like he didn’t understand, but like he’d erected a brick wall between his understanding and her.

  “You flinched,” she clarified.

  The look stayed blank. The brick stayed solid.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Well, anyway, we all wanted to give you this party to celebrate what a great guy you were that day. And for me to thank you properly.”

  “You thanked me.”

  “Yelling out the back of an ambulance doesn’t count.”

  The ambulance hadn’t been able to get to them. They’d had to go to it.

  A ranch truck driven by a kid Jack had called Bryan had arrived first. She’d held the baby, while Jack picked her up in his arms again, with as many dry covers as he could manage, and clambered into the truck’s passenger seat, holding her and the baby. Bryan drove. Slower and slower, as each bump made her groan, and Jack snapped, “Ease up.”

  At last they were back to a main road. She thought she’d slept a bit. Next thing she knew, the truck door was open, she and Addie were being bundled onto a gurney, then into an ambulance.

  Still groggy, she’d called out “Thank You.” The door slammed, trapping the final “Jack” inside with her.

  She thought she’d dreamt his presence in her hospital room that night, but she hadn’t dreamt the two-foot-tall stuffed horse that had joined their belongings by the next morning.

  No note or card or name attached. But he wasn’t going to disappear that easily. She remembered the name of the ranch, and she’d intended to track it down right after she took a nap.

  But then there was another feeding, and another nap. And then El was there.

  And, oh, it was so good to let her cousin take care of everything to get her and Addison Rose to Gloucester, then settled in to the house. She’d let events and time roll past in a way that wasn’t at all like her. She’d recognized that, but as if from a long distance, and without much caring.

  It wasn’t until almost a year later and almost that long of doing the blog that one of her followers said she’d probably had at least a touch of post-partum depression, not to mention a major case of sleep-deprivation.

  “I wanted to thank you properly,” she repeated doggedly. “Plus, it all seemed meant to be. After all this time when I should have gotten in touch with you to thank you, now all the planets were aligned and — No. I mean that’s all true, but it’s only part of it. It was also because you didn’t desert us. Maybe that’s why I hoped you’d help me with this.”

  He didn’t give her even a Help you with what? Just silence.

  “See, I rented out my house. It’s on the beach in Gloucester — that’s Massachusetts. North of Boston.”

  “Cape Ann.”

  She gawked at him for half a second, then caught herself. “Right. Didn’t know if you’d remember all that. Anyway this crazy writer fell in love with it, and I told him I absolutely would not sell it to him. For one thing it’s still half El’s no matter what she says, and even if it weren’t, it’s a family house. And on top of that, it’s right there on the beach, and Addie loves the beach, so no way. But then he offered to rent it. Wanted the whole summer, but I got it down to two months and then, when I asked for this astronomical rent and he said yes, what could I do?”

  Apparently he had no answer for that.

  “So I had to find somewhere to go. Not back to Mom and Dad’s or Addie won’t have a tooth left in her head from all the sugar, even if they are her baby teeth. And not to El and Cahill, because they should not give up good income from any of the inn’s rooms just because I’m making a killing — how is that fair? And they’re too damned stubborn to listen to reason about my paying rent. So, I decided to come to Wyoming. Back to where it all began. Being a mother, I mean.”

  He shot her a quick look, which she did not return.

  “Like I told you, I write this blog. So I’m writing about the trip. Tracing back to when Addie was born. The misadventures. And the first few days. And working in the things I’ve learned, and the perspective I’ve gained — and how those first worries seem pretty small compared to now, and how that’s preparing me — hah! — for future worries and issues to keep getting bigger and bigger, because eventually we’ll be facing boys and piercings and driving, and all the rest. So, of course, I want to feature the man who brought Addison Rose Trimarco into the world.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? It won’t be maudlin or anything. I was camping it up telling you, but the blog’s not gooey sentimental. Honest.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you have more to say than ‘No’?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Jack—”

  “I will not be part of this. In any way. Ever.”

 

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