Background
Brothers Cody and Jack McClellan serve proudly on their city's police force. They are happy, dedicated family men.
Cody's wife, Pam, plans a surprise birthday party for her husband but during the pa
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When Cody's wife, Pam, is killed in a robbery, the family is devastated. Left with two children to raise, Cody resigns his position with the local police department, where his brother Jack remains as a detective.
The story picks up two years later, with Jack trying to convince Cody to take a vacation.
"I don't have time for a big-brother lecture, Jack."
"Well, when will you have time? I'll rearrange my schedule."
"I could work you in three years from Thursday. Now, get your feet off my desk." Cody thumped the toe of Jack’s shoe.
Jack moved his feet, watched Cody check another folder, and put his feet back where they had been, considering a new approach. He studied the room while he thought.
Jack liked Cody's office better than any other place in the house. The walls were textured and painted to look like old plaster. Two Navajo-style rugs had been carefully placed on the hardwood floor to make the room feel warm and casual. Cody's desk, usually neat, was now covered with files. He was on his yearly 'clean out everything' binge, and his office had lost its perfectionist, 'Better Homes and Gardens' appearance. Photographs and one painting, all Cody's work, hung on the walls, grouped to create points of interest in the room. The photos always amazed Jack. He had been with Cody when most of the pictures had been taken, but never saw the incredible beauty Cody saw until the picture had been developed. It had taken him a long time, and about a hundred of Cody's photos, to realize that each shot told a story of his brother. He studied one now, trying to figure out what piece of Cody's complicated personality it told. Giving up, his feet still on the desk, Jack crossed his ankles, scattering some of the folders and accidentally knocking one of three framed pictures off of the desk.
Cody caught it in mid-fall, looking sternly at Jack, and returned the rescued picture to its rightful spot on his desk. Jack glanced at it and smiled. It was a picture of Michael and Katie. Like their dad, they couldn't give anything as 'just' anything. Instead, they'd created a collage. The children had carefully cut Taz and Babs Bunny out of two comic books and glued them onto a sheet of handmade paper. School picture headshots had been neatly cut and glued over the cartoon faces. They'd presented the picture, framed, to their dad for Father's Day, laughing that it was a character portrait of the two of them. Cody kept it on his desk, along with the last family photo they'd had taken and a picture of him, Jack, and their mother.
"Cody --"
"I've got a lot to do, Jack," Cody warned. "Don't bug me today. Being in between cases means I get caught up on things around here. And once I do, all it means is I need to be starting a new case." He paused and smiled slightly to soften the words. "You know that picture Dad took of your first adventure in shaving?"
"Picture of me...shaving?" Jack raised his eyebrows and scanned the ceiling of the office, pretending not to remember. He knew exactly what his brother was talking about, but he stalled, trying to catch its connection to this conversation. Cody inherited his love for photography from their father. Having two amateur shutterbugs in the family insured they had pictures of everything that ever happened to any of them. "Let's see ... No ... no, I don't think so." He grinned at Cody.
"Yeah, well, keep pestering me and you'll remember it." Cody's smile broadened and dimples appeared, making him look more mischievous. "I think I'll have them print it in the newspaper ... in the community affairs section. Let's see, the caption could be, 'Sergeant Shave'."
"That's Detective Shave to you, Junior."
"Doesn't sound as good."
Jack shrugged big shoulders. "So what? I was ... what, eight years old, right?"
"I was six," Cody corrected, pushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes, "so you were eleven ... almost twelve. Old enough to know better, and old enough that anybody who sees that picture will know it's you."
Jack arched his eyebrows almost imperceptibly at the last comment. "It wasn't that bad, anyway."
Cody glanced through another physical file folder, placed it in the cabinet, and said, "Not that bad? You looked like the poster child for a bandage company. You had every little old lady in church praying for you!"
"Mom shouldn't have made me go to church."
"You shouldn't have told everybody you fell off the back end of the truck."
Jack nodded, his dark eyes dancing, smiling at the long-ago memory. "Well, yeah. You're right, but I had to think of something. I don't think Allie Turner would've been very impressed with the shaving thing."
"Allie Turner, huh..." Cody tried to look serious, but the dimples returned. "Isn't she the heavyset blonde that didn't age very well and lives over on Ellis with, like, a million cats?"
"Yeah," Jack stretched out again, running his hand over his mustache and then lacing his fingers behind his head. He leaned back in the chair. "She should've gone out with me. She could be a happy woman now."
"She's probably happier with the cats."
"Ha, ha." Jack picked a pen up off the desk and pitched it at Cody, who caught it and stuck it behind his ear.
"So, I'll pick you up on Friday for the camping thing," Jack said. "It'll be like the old days, man. Before kids, before jobs..."
"You mean before responsibilities," Cody interrupted. His tone indicated he felt he took his responsibilities more seriously than his brother did.
"Exactly," Jack said, smiling as if taking pride in his supposed irresponsibility. His expression softened as he thought of his wife and son. Nothing on this earth would make him give them up. His pretense at being the black sheep was nothing more than a joke shared by his family.
He stood almost two inches taller than Cody, broader and more muscular. He was a big man; 6'4" and 235 pounds, broad-shouldered and muscular. He was proud of his build; he knew men ten years his junior, not in as good a shape. His hair, a dusty blond, seemed misplaced atop his dark complexion and plain brown eyes. It was his eyes, as ordinary as they first appeared, that caught and held others' attention. They always held a hint of something " some wonderful secret waiting to be shared, or a good joke just about to burst out. But they could change suddenly to stone; dark, dangerous tiger's eyes that warned of things to come. He and his brother favored their father and had inherited his crooked grin and eye-catching looks.
Jack had begun to wear a mustache several months before, much to the delight of his younger brother, who seized the opportunity to tease him without mercy. "Ah," Jack would rag back, "I can shave this thing off any time. You're with those precious dimples for life." He always emphasized the 'precious', hoping to bring back childhood memories of ancient great-aunts and wrinkled, alabaster-skinned church ladies who always seemed to feel the need to pinch his cheeks. He was usually successful.
Cody stepped close to the computer and compared information on the screen to a paper copy. He put a file away. "Still don't want to go."
"Yeah, well," Jack stretched again, "I don't want to be so good looking, either. Have to live with what we got."
"You're hilarious, Jack."
"So what's the matter?" Jack asked. He looked around conspiratorially and whispered, "Don't trust Mom, huh?"
Cody frowned at him, his brows heavy over too serious eyes, and his mouth tight. "Mom's getting too old to watch the kids for three days alone."
Jack cocked his eyebrows and lowered his chin toward his chest, studying Cody through genuine amazement. "Mom's getting too..." he let his voice trail off and whistled his surprise at this proclamation. "Don't tell her that," he advised shortly.
"Give me a break, Jack! They wear her out sometimes with me here. It wouldn't be fair to her to have to babysit all the time." Frustration was beginning to creep into Cody's always-calm voice. "Mom's already given up her house for us. I'm not turning her into a live-in-nanny."
Jack frowned and shook his head. "Mom did not give up her house for you, dumb butt. She couldn't afford to keep the house after Claire Eastman got remarried. She lost her roommate, plain and simple. You had an extra couple of rooms in this barn. She'd even mentioned it to Pam, Cody. If Mom heard you say that garbage she'd have me hold you down so she could kick your butt. Do what you want, but don't use Mom as an excuse."
Author Notes
Another weird stopping point, I know, but whatcha gonna do? Thiese are long chapters, and dividing them up isn't as easy as I'd hoped. So...
Thank you for reading. HOpe you'll hang in there. :)
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