Home to Harmony

“It was a boarding house back in the thirties, I think,” she said, joining him. In the years she’d been gone—eighteen of them—the place had become stooped with age, the yellow paint gone as faint as cream and the different-colored doors were milky pale. The wraparound terraces looked as though they’d give way in a breeze.

This shocked and saddened her, like seeing a lively friend wan and weak in a hospital bed. She’d never liked the place, but it had always seemed bright and vibrant.

“Cool,” David said, nodding.

Cool? Christine hid her smile of relief. The one thing in her favor was that David’s girlfriend, who shaped his every opinion, approved of communes. Well, la-di-dah.

“Check out the school bus,” David said, indicating the ancient vehicle painted with hippie rainbows and peace signs.

“I can’t believe Bogie still has that monster. Wonder if it even runs.” She used to hate when it broke down on the winding road to town. Being late for school had been mortifying, not to mention all the stares at her homemade clothes. Christine was seven when Bogie had talked her mother into moving out of the cozy apartment in Phoenix to the commune in the middle of nowhere. To Christine’s young eyes, beyond the bright paint, the place was all mud, stink and chaos.

Now, weary after the four-hour drive from Phoenix, Christine peeled her sweat-drenched tank top off her back. The cooler air in the hills was a relief, at least, though there would be many hot hours in the clay works, as well as tending the gardens, the animals and the kitchen, helping out until her mother and Bogie were back on their feet. Bogie, her mother’s old friend and partner in the commune, was recovering from prostate cancer.

Absently, Christine scratched the back of one arm, then examined the itchy red bump. Mosquitoes already? The flying pests bred in stagnant irrigation water or at the nearby river’s edge and they’d eaten her alive as a kid.

As if on cue, both her legs began to itch, too. She bent down to scratch them. “Remind me to get bug spray in town.”

“No way. Too toxic. Just cover yourself up,” David said. He would say that, dressed in his usual flannel shirt over a ratty T-shirt and shapeless cords, all too hot for early May in Arizona.

“We’ll see. Grab a suitcase, okay?”

He went for the backseat, crammed with luggage, his too-long straw-colored hair hanging over his face, hiding his gorgeous eyes. Dragging out one of the bigger bags, he stumbled a little. The two inches he’d grown in the past year had made him as gangly as Pinocchio, not quite able to work the long limbs he’d suddenly gotten.

How she missed the old David. They used to be Team Waters against the world, as close as a mother and son could be. She’d been so proud of the way she’d raised him. She’d been open, direct, affectionate and accepting, and always, always talking things out. So different from the way she’d been raised, with all her questions unanswered, Aurora mute or dismissive.

From the moment she found herself pregnant she’d sworn to be a better mother than Aurora and she’d succeeded.

Until David slipped into puberty’s stew of hormones and hostility. After that, and so much worse, came Brigitte. Two years older and snottier than David, she’d wrapped him around her sexually active little finger in no time flat.

He was too young. Only fifteen. Too young for sex, for drugs, for dangerous friends, for any of it. Christine’s anxious heart lurched with sorrow.

Watching him drag the bag across the gravel, she made a vow: I will not lose you.

“What? What’s wrong?” he demanded, letting the suit case drop to the dirt. He assumed she was criticizing him.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, managing a smile. Not so far, anyway. Away from Brigitte and drugs, David’s head would clear. He’d get involved in the commune, finish his schoolwork, talk to a counselor and, eventually, to her, and gradually get back on track.

That was Christine’s plan, along with helping Aurora without damaging their fragile relationship.

Oh, and doing some ad agency projects on the side.

She would make this work. She had to.

A goat’s baa drew her attention to a side garden, where a man in a straw hat was pulling weeds, watched over by a black-and-white sheep dog perched on its haunches. Bogie?

She headed over to see, lifting her bag because of the gravel. When he shooed the goat with his hat, Christine saw the gardener wasn’t Bogie. Not at all. He was mid-thirties, not mid-sixties, and tanned, not leathery. He was also handsome.

Strikingly so.

The goat trotted past her and Christine caught the sour stench that had gotten her labeled “Goat Stink Girl” at New Mirage Elementary. Ah, the good times.

The sheepdog gave an excited woof and galloped at David as if he knew him. Once he got close, though, the dog drew back, turned and shot off toward the cottonwood grove.

“Did we scare your dog?” Christine asked.

“Lady’s shy. She tolerates me only because I feed her.” The gardener smiled at her so quickly she wasn’t sure she’d seen it, but when he looked at David his face went tight, as if in unpleasant recognition. Odd.

“I’m Christine Waters. This is David.”

“Marcus Barnard,” he said, whipping off a leather glove to shake her hand. He looked her over with cool green eyes that held a glimmer of masculine interest…or maybe that was a trick of sunlight. It hardly mattered. She was not about to reciprocate.

“You’re Aurora’s daughter,” he said, nodding. “She said you’d be coming.”

“How is she doing?” Bogie had told her the prognosis was good, but Christine was anxious to see for herself. The news that her mother was ill had hollowed her out. Aurora had always seemed indestructible.

“She seems weak, but managing. I’ve done whatever extra Aurora will allow.” He shot her a brief smile.

“Allow? That sounds like my mother. Bogie asked me to say I’m here because he needed help, not her.” She smiled, but she felt far from happy. If Bogie hadn’t called, she was certain Aurora never would have. That hurt deeply, though Christine told herself it was Aurora’s way and always would be.

“People as self-sufficient as your mother often find it difficult to accept help,” Marcus said.

“Self-sufficient, huh? That’s one way to put it, I guess.” It irked her that this stranger felt the need to explain her mother. Over the years, Christine had tried to bridge the chasm between them, but her mother hated questions and wasn’t much for phone calls. E-mail was out, too, since Aurora didn’t approve of computers. Christine sent cards and called, but made no headway.

“So how long have you been a guest, Marcus?” She figured him for a short-timer. He carried himself like a business guy dressed for a hike in a neat chambray shirt and newish jeans, not a bit like the grubbier, weather-worn and laid-back commune residents.

“Almost three months, I guess.” His eyes were piercing, but cool, lasering in, but warning you away at the same time.

As striking in demeanor as he was in good looks, he seemed wound tight, watchful, and there was a stillness about him….

Not a man easy to ignore. That was clear.

“Can I help you with your bags?” he asked.

“We don’t know where we’ll be yet, so, thank you, no.”

“When you do, I’m here.” He settled his straw hat onto his head in a firm, deliberate way. Sexy. Definitely sexy. “And good luck in there.” He flashed her a smile.

“Can you tell I’ll need it?” When she walked away, following David to the porch, she stupidly wondered if Marcus Barnard was watching her go.

At the door to Harmony House, all thoughts of anything but what she faced fled. Christine paused to collect herself. Ready or not, here I come. For better or worse, Christine was home.

Once inside, she was startled by how everything looked the same as she remembered. There was the same hammered-tin ceiling, dark carved paneling, marble fireplace and antique furniture. It even smelled the same—like smoke, old wood and mildew. She was swamped with memories, her feelings a jumble of fondness, nostalgia, dread and anxiety.

She followed David down the hall into the big kitchen, which was empty and eerily quiet, unlike the old days when it was always crammed with people cooking, talking, eating or drinking. Christine had loved mealtimes, when everyone was in a good mood, not too high or drunk or argumentative. As a child, Christine had stayed alert to the vibe, braced to scoot when it got ugly. Remembering made her pulse race the way it used to. Ridiculous, really.

The back door opened and Bogie entered with a canvas holder of firewood in his arms. “Bogie.” Christine’s heart leaped at the sight of him. Bogie had always been kind to Christine, offering a gentle word on her behalf during the daily arguments with Aurora over food, clothes, toys and Christine’s free time.

“Crystal!” He dropped the wood into the box by the woodstove and approached her, a grin filling his gaunt face, which was sun-brown and webbed with wrinkles. His ponytail had gone completely gray. He’d aged so much, though his cancer treatment might have temporarily set him back.