He glanced down at the array of dishes. "Can we talk about Nick later?"
She chuckled. "Yes, we can. Later." His single-mindedness didn't surprise her. But she realized she was guilty of letting the pain of those around her lower her mood, too. Now not only for her sake, but for Nick's and Burke's, she had to work him out of this moodiness. It wasn't good for either of them to get so wrapped up in the troubles of others. If nothing else, she needed to show him how to lighten up.
After filling their plates, Keely and Burke sat down at a long white paper-covered table across from a familiar gentleman who rose when he saw her. She gave him a smile.
"You know Harlan Carey, don't you?" Burke asked her.
"Mr. Carey has been involved with the Family Closet since its beginning," Keely replied, opening her paper napkin. "How are you this evening, sir?"
"I'm fine, Ms. Turner, and let me say that you look more than lovely this evening." Harlan beamed at her.
Nick sat down beside Harlan and plopped a plate on the table in front of him. Without a word of greeting, the teen bent low over his food, ignoring everyone.
Harlan glanced his way. "Young man, I think you forgot to greet your principal, Ms. Turner." The voice was gentle, but it scolded without compromise.
Nick looked across at her, his chin still down. "Hello, Ms. Turner."
"Good evening, Nick." Without skipping a beat, she went on. "That trick last night—setting off firecrackers during the game—better be your last. That's all I'm going to say about it tonight or in the future. Now when are you going to come over and finish the job at the Family Closet you were doing on Labor Day?"
The one-two punch, a technique she'd perfected in the classroom, left Nick open-mouthed.
"I think Nick and I will have time to mosey over Monday after school," Harlan said. "That sound right to you, son?"
Looking cornered, Nick glanced at them all in turn."Fine."
Keely felt Burke lean forward as though preparing to deliver a lecture. She laid her hand on his arm, urging him wordlessly not to press the matter now. Nick just needed some TLC. Jayleen, sitting a few tables away, needed more, so much more. Didn't anyone else feel the tension in this hall between the two mothers and the one baby?
Burke gave Keely a sideways glance. Would he take her hint? He picked up his fork and began eating. She relaxed. Then she heard a change in the rumble of conversation and looked around. Veda McCracken had just walked in. She had come dressed for something like raking leaves, not a wedding reception. No doubt Veda had a twisted reason for attending. Keely closed her eyes. Not Veda tonight. Please.
"I was hoping she wouldn't come," Harlan said softly.
"Who?" Nick asked.
No one answered.
"Who?" Nick insisted.
"My sister-in-law, Veda McCracken," Harlan replied at last and nodded toward Veda.
Burke looked over at her as though trying to take the woman's measure from a distance.
"She's related to you?" Nick asked in disbelief.
Keely wasn't surprised at Nick's reaction.
"She is the only sister of my late wife," Harlan explained. "And, Nick, she is a very troubled woman. My advice, stay clear of her."
Harlan had such a tender heart that Keely knew it must have pained the old man to say that much. He went on drawing Nick into a discussion of fly-fishing.
Out of the corner of her eye, Keely tracked Veda as she made her way to the buffet table, filling two plates with food. People made way for her as if she were Steadfast's Typhoid Mary. Did that bother Veda? Or did she get perverse pleasure from the negative attention as some of Keely's students did?
This reminded her of Grady. Sometimes her heart broke for him, too. If only I could have taken him with me when I left for college. But that had been impossible, of course. There had been no way that she could shield him from their own parents. Now Grady was being forced to live at home to finish high school when he'd thought he'd graduate out East.
Her father was making matters worse. Insulted or fearful, he had refused to volunteer any spent bullets from their hunting rifles. She was sure he'd pressure another judge to refuse a search warrant. Didn't her father realize that it would be better for Grady to turn over the spent bullets? They might have proved him innocent.
"You done with that plate of food, young man?" Harlan asked at last.
"Yes, sir." Nick leaned back in his chair.
Keely was glad to see that Harlan's efforts were affecting Nick's mood. She wished he'd done the same for Burke.
"Then I'm going to take you over and introduce you to Jayleen Kainz." Harlan rose. "From what Patsy, her grandmother, told me at the church, Jayleen's going to be starting high school here on Monday. She's just come back from Milwaukee. Maybe you two will have something in common." Harlan and Nick left together, clearing away their dishware.
Keely's heart warmed. She'd thought she was the only one concerned about Jayleen besides Jayleen's family. But she'd been mistaken.
Bless
you, Harlan Carey.
Burke turned to her and frowned. "Do you think that's a good idea?" he asked in a low voice.
Keely leaned closer to him and shrugged. "I trust Harlan's instincts."
He gazed at her. "I can't argue with that statement." He nodded toward the far side of the room. "Is Harlan's sister-in-law the one that called the police on you that night?"
"Yes, that was Veda." Keely couldn't keep her low opinion of Veda out of her voice.
"She looks like a few bag ladies I used to see downtown in Milwaukee. Not just her clothing. Her manner."
Keely pursed her lips to keep from agreeing with him.
"I need to talk to you about Nick," Burke started.
Then Shane called out, "Let's start off with the 'Bunny Hop'!" The lilting traditional tune with its marked rhythm ricocheted off the cement block walls. Keely uttered a thank you under her breath.
Keely saw Harlan nudging Nick and Jayleen into the bunny hop line, a large irregular circle that snaked around the room. Toddlers to grandmothers, practically everyone in the room, joined the dance. She began singing the cheery and silly lyrics along with everyone else.
Nick shook his head but stayed by Jayleen. Keely watched the girl's reaction to the silly dance, looking as uncomfortable as Nick. Keely turned to Burke. "Last night was no big deal. I'll handle it."
"Nick could have started a fire. He could have burned himself or someone else."
"So the rich man's daughter from LaFollette shows up to the peons' wedding in Steadfast." A strident voice came from behind Keely. "That's big of you."
Keely stood up, acting as if she hadn't heard the woman. She felt Burke rise and stand near her.
"So someone took a shot at you?" Veda persisted, giving a nasty, gloating twist to each word.
Keely half turned from the woman. Nick and Jayleen were coming toward her.
"So the Weavers got your kid," Veda jeered at Jayleen.
"Veda!" Ma snapped, coming up fast behind her. "You've had your free meal. It's time you left."
Burke moved closer to Keely as though ready to protect her.
Veda took a menacing step toward Ma. "Think you're the cat's meow now that you hooked an old fool. How did you trick Bruno into marrying you? You couldn't have gotten pregnant like you did the first time."
"I said it's
time
you left," Ma repeated, "or do I have to have you put out?"
Ma and Veda glared at each other. Harlan Carey joined the unhappy group. "Veda, do you need a ride home?" he asked.
"I can get myself home!" Veda swung away and headed toward the cloakroom by the front entrance.
"Thanks, Harlan," Ma murmured. "You'd think after all these years that woman would grow some sense."
"She needs more than sense," Harlan replied.
After Veda stomped out of the VFW, Burke let Keely draw him away toward the other exit at the rear. He needed to talk to her, but being alone with her wasn't a good move. He wanted that too much. Caught in this crosscurrent, he hesitated. "Where are we headed?"
Passing through the door, which had been propped open, she motioned him to follow her. Without a word, she crossed the parking lot to a large grassy area at the rear of the deep lot.
He followed her, wanting to voice his doubts about the wisdom of their talking out here, ab out the wisdome of being private in such a public place. Being alone with her at the lake had been different. Couldn't they have talked inside? Wouldn't that have been less noticed by the gossips?
She finally stopped and bent down to pick up a stack of four rusty horseshoes lying around a rugged metal stake. Dressed elegantly for a wedding but holding these rough objects, this lady was a puzzle Why was she in this little town, trying to help teens? "You want to play horseshoes?" he asked, disbelieving.
She sighed. "Not really. I just needed to talk to you without a hundred people looking on. These—" she held them up—"give us a reason to be outside together." She walked over to a worn-bare spot in the grass and began swinging her arm back and forth, aiming her first shoe.
Burke found himself captivated by the sight of Keely, dressed in a stylish rose pink dress, swaying in the twilight. The dress was made of a soft fabric that flowed over the length of her, molding to her slender curves, ending by hugging her calves. She tossed the shoe. It missed. "I'm out of practice."
Watching her casually toss the horseshoes eased the tension he'd been feeling. She hadn't sounded that upset about Nick's stunt with the firecrackers. Maybe he'd been overreacting.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, worry creasing her forehead. "From what I've heard, Jayleen got herself mixed up with a bad bunch in Milwaukee."
He snorted, trying to react to her words, not her. But he couldn't take his eyes off her. "The worst."
"I'll be her principal and I need to know the girl's story." Bending at the waist, she began swinging her second horse shoe. "Please tell me the barebones facts of what happened to Jayleen and how the baby got here." She tossed the shoe. Clang. It hit the stake and bounced away. She straightened and shrugged, giving him a leisurely smile.
She was right. As the girl's principal, she'd need to know what had happened. "Jayleen got mixed up with an older guy in his twenties, very smooth. She told us she didn't know that he was in a gang, a drug dealer. But who knows?" He went on, speaking fast, "Anyway, he got her pregnant, and she ran away from her mother last fall right after school started and moved in with him. He'd told her he was going to marry her."
A burst of laughter from the reception came to them, carried by the breeze. Keely began swinging her third shoe, pointedly judging the distance. "But that changed after the baby was born?"
Her facing away from him let Burke speak more easily."He had a bad temper and started using heavy. She said she tried to go home, but he wouldn't let her. I got the feeling he thought she'd inform on him." He watched Keely swaying. As always, her every move was graceful, intriguing, distracting. He pressed on, "Anyway, she felt unsafe, so she entrusted her baby to her girlfriend, who then stole a car with her boyfriend and headed north to give the baby to Jayleen's grandmother."
"Why did she hide the necklace?" Keely asked.
"She didn't trust her friend not to steal it." Burke shrugged. "And she wanted it with the baby so her grandmother would know it was really Jayleen's baby. Her friend had a sealed letter to give Patsy with the baby; it explained everything and asked for help for Jayleen."
Keely tossed the third shoe. It hit fast and spun around the stake, making a metallic ring.
"But the letter and baby never got to Patsy. And her father couldn't get to Milwaukee because of the bad winter last year.
"Why didn't her mother report Jayleen missing to the police?" Keely asked.
"She wanted the child support, and she probably didn't want social services nosing around her." He hoped Keely never had to confront that woman. She'd been a piece of work.
"Poor Jayleen. She must have been terrified." Frowning, Keely shook her head, looking grieved. "How did she get away from the drug dealer?"
He wasn't surprised by Keely's quick sympathy. Jayleen was lucky to be getting Keely Turner as her principal."When the baby disappeared, he beat the girl up and made her tell him where the baby was. Then he took advantage of the child's disappearance. He acted like he'd gotten the baby away from her friends and she was with his family. He let Jayleen go home then but told her if she gave evidence against him, he'd make sure she never saw the baby alive again."
"How could he do such a thing?" Keely asked, sounding as though the words had been twisted from her.
The sound roused his compassion. He'd schooled himself to be detached from the cases he worked on. But this lady's empathy and Jayleens' sadness opened the door to feeling. The stirring inside him took him all the way back to when he'd been in the thick of the confrontationwith Jayleen's atrocious mother, in the midst of the shouting and crying, dragging the truth out of the guilty mother and helping the girl tag the drug dealer. He hadn't let himself think...or react then.
But now it overwhelmed him. The girl wasn't even as old as Nick. And she'd been sick with worry about a baby she'd tried to protect but lost. The emotional torture she'd suffered flooded him. He looked to Keely and for the moment, he saw that they shared the same sympathy for Jayleen.
Then Keely turned away. As though consciously breaking the mood, Keely swung her arm back and forth, aiming the final shoe. Finally, she let it go. It went wide. She groaned, such a commonplace sound, and started walking to retrieve the shoes.
"You're too upset about Nick's prank last night." She tossed the charged words at him almost casually.
Over the uneven ground, he moved to catch up to her. "I can't seem to connect with him."
"Stop trying then." She gathered up the shoes.
"What?" Stop trying? "That's what I'm already guilty of, not trying."