Goose in the Pond Read Free

judgment. A lot had happened in my life since Jack died—losing the ranch we owned with his brother, moving to San Celina and making the transition from being an “aggie” to a “townie,” landing the job as curator to the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum and Artist’s Co-op, meeting Gabe in the circumstances surrounding a murder at the museum, falling in love, and getting married after knowing each other barely three months.
    “You’ve certainly lived life this last year like it’s going out of style,” my Gramma Dove said yesterday when I was out at my father’s ranch helping her put up a batch of peaches. Though technically she is my paternal grandmother, she treats me more like a not-quite-bright-or-especially-responsible youngest daughter. That’s because my own mother died twenty-nine years ago when I was six years old and Dove moved out from Arkansas to help her oldest son, Ben, my father, raise me. Lugging my thirteen-year-old uncle Arnie, the youngest of her six children, her fabric and yarn collection, her favorite Visalia saddle, and her almost complete set of Erle Stanley Gardner books, she took charge of the Ramsey Ranch household and has, with cast iron claws, ruled the roost ever since.
    “Well, Gabe’s been through a lot more than me,” I said, screwing the lid on the twenty-first jar of peach preserves.
    “That’s the gospel truth,” she said, pouring me a glass of sweetened iced tea. “Comin’ here thinking he was just going to stay a few months and ending up taking the police chief’s job, all them murders, and then marrying you, which, Lord knows, would be life changing enough for any man—”
    “Hey, just a minute—” I protested.
    She ignored me and kept going. “Then there was that nasty business in Kansas with his friend and now Aaron passin’ on. And didn’t you say he hadn’t heard from his boy in a while? Heavens, by now a lesser man would have hightailed it to the hills to howl and lick his wounds.”
    “He is under a lot of stress,” I agreed. “And not hearing from Sam for five weeks hasn’t made it any easier.” Gabe had finally grown used to the idea that his eighteen-year-old son, Sam, had dropped out of UC Santa Barbara and was working in a surfboard shop on Maui while trying to find the perfect wave. They’d even managed an amicable phone conversation or two in the last month. Then, when Gabe called the shop to break the news about Aaron, some clerk said Sam had quit six days before, and no one knew where he was. Gabe had discreetly used his law-enforcement connections, but so far there was no sign of Sam. “Gabe won’t talk about it, but I know he’s worried.”
    “Kids,” Dove said, shaking her head and spooning more cooked peaches into a Mason jar. “Dang little heartbreakers. Every last one of them. Ought to line ’em all up when they’re twelve and smack ’em with a wet rope just for the heartache they’re gonna give you.”
    “Please, spare me the dramatics,” I said wryly.
    “Ain’t nothin’ dramatic about it. I’ve spent over fifty-five years of my life worrying about one youngun or another. I’m seventy-six years old and I deserve a break.” She was referring to my uncle Arnie from Montana, who’d moved in on Daddy and her four months ago because his wife had finally kicked his lazy butt out. He and my father argued like two polecats tied at the tail, and Dove was getting fit to send them both to Alaska. Permanently.
    A brazen peck at the toe of my Adidas brought me back from my musing. A green-necked mallard gave a brassy quack and ruffled his neat wing feathers. He’d pushed ahead of all the dull brown girl mallards and was demanding more than his fair share.
    “Men,” I said, throwing him the last of my food just because of his noisy persistence. “You’re all so pushy.” He honked again, and I showed him my empty hands. “That’s all, buddy.” He gave me a disgusted look and waddled away.
    The sky flushed a salmon