Snowfall on Haven Point(3)

“You don’t have to eat it, but if you’d like some, I can bring it in here.”

He opened his mouth, but before he could answer, she heard a voice from the doorway.

“What happened to you?” Will asked, gazing at Marshall’s assorted scrapes, bruises and bandages with wide-eyed fascination.

“Will, I thought I told you to wait for me by the door.”

“I know, but you were taking forever.” He walked into the room a little farther, not at all intimidated by the battered, dangerous-looking man it contained. “Hi. My name is Will. What’s yours?”

The sheriff gazed at her son. If anything, his features became even more remote, but he might have simply been in pain.

“This is Sheriff Bailey,” Andie said, when Marshall didn’t answer for a beat too long. “He’s Wynona’s brother.”

Will beamed at him as if Marshall was his new best friend. “Wynona is nice and she has a nice dog whose name is Young Pete. Only, Wynona said he’s not young anymore.”

“Yeah, I know Young Pete,” Marshall said after another pause. “He’s been in our family for a long time. He was our dad’s dog first.”

Andie gave him a careful look. From Wyn, she knew their father had been shot in the line of duty several years earlier and had suffered a severe brain injury that left him physically and cognitively impaired. John Bailey had died the previous winter from pneumonia, after spending his last years at a Shelter Springs care center.

Though she had never met the man, her heart ached to think of all the Baileys had suffered.

“Why is his name Young Pete?” Will asked. “I think that’s silly. He should be just Pete.”

“Couldn’t agree more, but you’ll have to take that up with my sister.”

Will accepted that with equanimity. He took another step closer and scrutinized the sheriff. “How did you get so hurt? Were you in a fight with some bad guys? Did you shoot them? A bad guy came to our house once and Chief Emmett shot him.”

Andie stepped in quickly. She was never sure how much Will understood about what happened that summer. “Will, I need your help fixing a tray with dinner for the sheriff.”

“I want to hear about the bad guys, though.”

“There were no bad guys. I was hit by a car,” Marshall said abruptly.

“You’re big! Don’t you know you’re supposed to look both ways and hold someone’s hand?”

Marshall Bailey’s expression barely twitched. “I guess nobody happened to be around at the time.”

Torn between amusement and mortification, Andie grabbed her son’s hand. “Come on, Will,” she said, her tone insistent. “I need your help.”

Her put-upon son sighed. “Okay.”

He let her hold his hand as they went back to the entry, where Chloe still sat on the floor, watching the hallway with anxious eyes.

“I told Will not to go in when you told us to wait here, but he wouldn’t listen to me,” Chloe said fretfully.

“You should see the police guy,” Will said with relish. “He has blood on him and everything.”

Andie hadn’t seen any blood, but maybe Will was more observant than she. Or maybe he had just become good at trying to get a rise out of his sister.

“Ew. Gross,” Chloe exclaimed, looking at the doorway with an expression that contained equal parts revulsion and fascination.

“He is Wyn’s brother and knows Young Pete, too,” Will informed her.

Easily distracted, as most six-year-old girls could be, Chloe sighed. “I miss Young Pete. I wonder if he and Sadie will be friends?”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Will asked.

“Okay, kids, we can talk about Sadie and Young Pete another time. Right now, we need to get dinner for Wynona’s brother.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Will informed her. He had that urgent look he sometimes wore when he had pushed things past the limit.

“There’s a bathroom just down the hall, second door down. See?”

“Okay.”

He raced for it—she hoped in time.

“We’ll be in the kitchen,” she told him, then carried the food to the bright and spacious room with its stainless appliances and white cabinets.

“See if you can find a small plate for the pie while I dish up the stew,” she instructed Chloe.

“Okay,” her daughter said.

The nervous note in her voice broke Andie’s heart, especially when she thought of the bold child who used to run out to confront the world.

“Do I have to carry it out there?” Chloe asked.

“Not if you don’t want to, honey. You can wait right here in the kitchen or in the entryway, if you want.”