Page 8 of A Veteran's Desire

I usually love this time of the morning, but seeing the Hope town sign bent out of shape has me feeling uneasy. Maybe I should have listened to Abby when she begged me to stay home at the farm today. It was a tense dinner last night. No one wanted to tell Pops about the sabotage. But I don’t like the family keeping secrets, so I told him the truth, that someone used the cover of the storm to break into the cafe and vandalize it.

Abby thinks we should close until the repairs are done and the police know more, but Rachel was insistent we can’t afford to lose the business, especially as we closed for two days during the storm. I kept silent, but I knew I’d set my alarm for 3:15 as usual and be there to bake and serve coffee to the townsfolk who desperately need everything to feel normal at a time like this. The window is boarded up thanks to Sam, a local veteran.Although I suspect it was Grant who arranged for his veteran buddies to mobilize and help get us all cleaned up and ready for business.

Sycamore Drive is open again, and as I approach the cafe, a lone figure sits outside on the sidewalk. I tense and ease my foot off the accelerator. The figure stands up, and I recognize the bulky shape of Grant.

I let out a long breath. When Grant said he was going to be my bodyguard yesterday, I was annoyed but also a little relieved. I’ve been brought up to be independent, to rely on no one but my sisters. The thought of needing a man to keep me safe irks me, but at the same time thrills me, which makes me even more annoyed. Whatever my complicated feelings, seeing Grant emerge from the darkness chases away the anxiety of a few moments ago.

He gives me a silent nod as I drive past and pull onto the side street a few doors down. I park in the staff parking lot that services the local businesses, and by the time I open my car door, he’s come to meet me.

“You’re here.”

“I said I would be.”

“You said you’d be my bodyguard. I didn’t expect you to turn up at four a.m. to watch me bake.”

I open the trunk to pull out the box of groceries from home, and he nudges me out of the way and lifts the box out.

“You don’t have to carry that for me.”

“I know.”

I like a man carrying the box for me more than I should. It’s heavy, and I always struggle getting it through the door. But Grant wields the box easily as I open the back door for him. It’s been hastily repaired, and it’s tight. I have to shove the door to get it open.

I switch on lights while Grant takes the box through to the kitchen.

“Have you heard anything from Owen?”

Grant and the acting town sheriff are buddies, probably on account of both being veterans, and he might hear things before we do.

“They didn’t find any prints, no footprints, nothing.”

He doesn’t have to say what we’re both thinking. Whoever did this was a professional.

“Did you notice anything missing?” Grant asks.

“Some of the photos were destroyed, and one of them I didn’t find at all. It must have blown out in the wind.”

Grant tilts his head, his expression suddenly serious. “Which photo?”

“It wasn’t a photo. It was the reproduction Beth did of the deeds to the farm. She copied it for an art project in high school, worked the paper up to look old, and practiced her handwriting for weeks to get it right using an old-fashioned pen dipped in ink.”

“I remember it,” Grant says. “She copied out the original deeds?”

“Not all of them. Just the front page, the cool-looking bit with 1872 in big letters. Not the signatures, obviously. They were made up. But it looked so authentic we put it on the wall.”

Grant sets the box down on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and when he does his voice has gone carefully flat.

“Where was it hanging?”

“Middle of the wall, next to the farmhouse picture.”

“Where’s the real one kept?”

“Pops’s safe, upstairs at the farm. Why?”

But something has shifted in him, the way it does when he’s filing information away.

“You think that’s what they were after?”