Homeplace by Joann Ross

What happened? Did she dump you?”
    “Nah. She didn’t get the chance. I just never called her again after that first date.”
    “Why not?” She definitely sounded like Dan’s type. Actually, Jack considered, if looks counted for anything—and they sure had back in those hormone-driven teenage days—Savannah sounded pretty much like any guy’s type.
    Dan’s grin was quick and abashed. “Because she flat out scared me to death.”
    They shared a laugh over that. “Sounds like I’ve got the wrong sister in my life. Can you remember anything about Raine?”
    For a man who’d always enjoyed women, Jack had had about his fill of females today. Ida and the kids were damn aggravating, but the lady lawyer, with her constant phone calls, writs, injunctions, restraining orders, and sundry other legal threats, was turning out to be a herculean pain in the ass.
    “Well, thinking back on it, we were on the debate team together my senior year. I remember her as being skinny, with braces and a chip on her shoulder as big as a Western cedar.”
    “The braces are undoubtedly gone by now. But if the phone conversations are any indication, I’d say the chip is still there. Larger than ever.”
    “Guess that means she still hasn’t gotten her dad’s attention.”
    Since Raine Cantrell’s mother, Lilith, had been providing Coldwater Cove with gossip for years, Jack recalled that Ida’s granddaughters each had a different father. “And her dad would be…?”
    “Owen Cantrell.” When that didn’t seem to ring a bell, Dan elaborated. “He was the lawyer for the Sacramento Six.”
    “Is that supposed to mean something?”
    “They were counterculture revolutionaries back in the 60s. Along the lines of the Chicago Seven, but they didn’t get as much press. They were accused of firebombing a selective service office in Sacramento and conspiring to blow up others all over the West. Cantrell pulled a lot of magic legal rabbits out of his hat and got them acquitted. The case study was required reading in my criminal law class.”
    “Were they guilty?”
    “I told you—”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jack interjected impatiently. “A jury let them off. But did they do it?”
    “From what I’ve read of the testimony, yeah. But Cantrell was brilliant in revealing some of the government’s heavy-handed tactics. So, the guys walked and he went on to become a hired big gun of the legal profession. In fact, I read in this morning’s paper that he’s heading up the team representing that TV sitcom star. You know, the one arrested the other day for stalking his ex-girlfriend, then slashing her throat.”
    “Cantrell sounds like a dandy guy,” Jack muttered. “So his daughter is trying to live up to his lofty legal reputation?”
    “You have to remember that I haven’t seen her for years. And I’m no shrink. But yeah, at least back in high school, I’d say that was definitely the case.”
    “Terrific.” Jack’s curse was rich and ripe. That was all he needed messing in this: a mouthy woman with an Oedipus complex waving her fancy Harvard law degree in his face. As the door to the house opened and an arm, clad in a pink sleeve reached out and snatched the pizza from the porch table, Jack wondered if his father had ever had days like this.
     
    Finally, her long journey almost over, Raine was standing at the railing of the ferry Walla Walla that was making its way across Elliott Bay. The stiff wind, carrying with it the pungent bite of green fir and the softer scent of pending rain, cut through her suit and tore at her hair. But needing to clear her head after her long flight, and to prepare for battle with that small-town sheriff who’d been the bane of her existence these past hours, Raine resisted the lure of the ferry’s warm interior.
    Although night would have already fallen back in New York, here on the West Coast the sun was just beginning to set, turning the choppy waters a shimmering copper. Behind the white