Where There's Smoke

“So does Key.”

The arrow in her heart twisted. “He seemed extremely uncomfortable to find himself suddenly in the spotlight.”

Janellen’s sweet face puckered with anguish as she blurted out, “He’s going away again. To Alaska. He told me this morning. He’s been offered a job as a spotter along the pipeline. That’s a pilot who checks for leaks.”

Lara nodded vaguely.

“He says it’s good money and that he needs a change of scenery. I reminded him that he’d just had a change of scenery, but he said the trip to Central America didn’t count. I don’t want him to go,” she said, her anxiety plain. “But now that Mama’s in better health, I guess there’s nothing to keep him here.”

“I guess not.” Her voice had a hollow ring.

“I’m so worried about him,” Janellen went on. “At first I thought he was just tired from the ordeal, but you’ve been back a week and he hasn’t snapped out of it yet.”

Lara was instantly alarmed. “Is he ill?”

“No, he’s not sick. Not physically. He’s withdrawn. His eyes don’t sparkle anymore. He doesn’t even yell when he gets mad. That’s not like him.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It’s like somebody pulled the plug on the electricity that kept him charged.”

Lara didn’t know how to respond.

“Well,” Janellen concluded awkwardly. “I just thought I’d tell you.”

She hesitated, as though there was more she wanted to say. Lara wondered if she knew that they’d slept together. Surely she couldn’t know… but maybe she’d guessed.

“Well, uh… When are you leaving town?”

“I don’t have a timetable, just whenever I get everything packed. I haven’t yet made arrangements with a realtor to handle the sale of this building.”

“Will you be moving to Washington?”

“No,” she answered sharply. Ameliorating her tone, she added, “I haven’t made any specific plans.”

“You’re going to pack up and leave, and you don’t even know where you’re going?”

“That’s the gist of it,” Lara replied with a weak smile.

Janellen was flabbergasted, but common courtesy kept her from prying further. “When you know your new address, would you please send it to me? I realize there’s bad blood between you and us Tacketts, but I’d like to stay in touch.”

“You had nothing to do with the ‘bad blood,’ ” Lara said gently. “I’d love to hear from you.”

Janellen seemed to debate whether it was the proper thing to do, but in the end she gave Lara a quick hug before rushing down the walk to her car.

Lara watched until she drove out of sight. Slowly she closed the door, symbolically ending a chapter of her life. This visit with Janellen was probably the last contact she’d have with the Tacketts.

Later, Janellen and Bowie were cuddled up on the parlor sofa. All the lights were out. Jody had retired to her room hours earlier. Key, as usual, was out.

Bowie was semireclined on the corner cushions with Janellen sprawled across his lap. She was using his shoulder as a pillow for her head while she mindlessly strummed his bare chest through his unbuttoned shirt.

“It was so sad,” she whispered. “She was standing there surrounded by all those boxes, looking like she was at a complete loss about what to do next.”

“Maybe you read her wrong.”

“I don’t think so, Bowie. She looked like she didn’t have a friend in the world.”

“Doesn’t make sense. She just found out her dead husband is alive.”