Chance Encounters - Ch.1

From the rough draft of Chance Encounters by Pat Otterness

?CHAPTER ONE

????????????I was feeling a little lonely as I began to sort my planting boxes and wire lids. November was planting time for iris seeds, and I had more than twenty crosses to plant. It was a beautiful sunny day, seventy degrees, slightly breezy. Indian summer at its best. My sister Hope had returned to her home in Richmond, disillusioned again by her relationship with my neighbor, Chance Cassidy. Hope knew she could do better. Chance knew he couldn’t. “Opposites detract,” he had told me, and although I knew he meant something different, his words stuck with me as I waited for Jordan’s return.

????????????I’m Charity Chance, Chat to my friends. I hybridize tall bearded irises at Bonne Chance Gardens in Lovingston, Virginia. What used to be a single-handed operation had been complicated when other iris growers and hybridizers had followed my example and flocked to the area near my home on Dancing Creek Lane. Suddenly our town had become a Mecca for the iris community. I was still grappling with how I felt about what seemed like an intrusion on my space.

????????????To complicate things more, there had been a rash of murders on my turf that I had gotten involved in, and in the process I had fallen under the spell of Sheriff’s Investigator Jordan Hunt. Jordan was allergic to pollen, cat hair, and dust, all the vital components of my life. He lived in a perfectly ordered dust-free home in nearby Amherst, with nary a cat nor so much as a potted plant. “Opposites detract,” did seem to apply.

????????????Right now Jordan was away on a cadaver dog training course, and he had taken my canine friend Wolf along to see if he could learn to search for bodies immersed under water. We all knew Wolf would flunk out of cadaver school again. He was an ace at finding bodies, but he always chose to retrieve them himself instead of simply alerting his trainer. I missed him. My feral cat, Demon, was in a funk because of his absence. They had a love-hate relationship that was entertaining most of the time, hair-racing the rest..

????????????My best friend, Hiram Jones (Harm to his friends) had been avoiding me since my relationship with Jordan gained some traction. Harm was the man every woman dreams of, but never chooses. He was a great companion, helped me in every way, was devoted to me and my welfare. What he wasn’t was a romantic figure. A short, slightly plump, balding man, he was was hard to rattle, but lethal if truly maddened, as I had seen with my own eyes. It was like watching a cuddly kitten turn into the Incredible Hulk. Harm seemed to be, or thought he was, in love with me. Since Jordan and I were “going out,” Harm was keeping his distance. I missed him even more than I missed his dog, Wolf.

????????????I began packing potting soil into the small pots I used for planting. I filled them nearly to the brim, and packed the soil down firmly. This was one of my favorite jobs. Planting seeds was so life-affirming. I carefully lined up seeds in rows on top of this base and covered them with about a quarter inch of potting soil. Lots of record-keeping must be done, of course, but I kept a notebook handy to record the names of pod and pollen parents and the number of seeds planted.

????????????I was just finishing up when I heard the kitchen door open. Wolf was away, and Harm was keeping his distance, so I figured it was Chance who had entered. Those were the three that rarely knocked before entering. I guess I should lock my door, but I was in and out so much in warm weather, it made no sense to me.

????????????Sure enough, it was Chance who stuck his grizzled head through the living room door. “I thought mebbe you was lonely,” he began, a sure sign that it was actually he who was feeling that emotion.

????????????“I’m okay, Chance,” I said. “Sounds like you’re a little down today, though.”

????????????“It’s Hope,” he said. “I think mebbe I shouldn’t have told her. I thought she’d understand.”

????????????“What? You told her about your wife and six kids?” I said in jest. What on earth did Chance have to hide??Forget I said that.?He was a mystery wrapped in a conundrum. What did I really know about Chance Cassidy anyway?

????????????“This ain’t funny, Chat,” said Chance. “This is serious.” He looked so woebegone, I actually wanted to stroke his head.

????????????“So … are you going to tell me what you told Hope?” I asked. “Because if you killed someone, I don’t want to know.”

????????????“Naw! O’ course not! It was about being family.” Chance looked warily at me to see if I reacted badly.

????????????“You asked her to marry you?” I asked, amazed.

????????????“Naw!” he said angrily, “ I tole her we was related.” He glared at me, daring me to say the wrong thing.

????????????“Say that again,” I said.

????????????“Hope and me, we’re related,” said Chance.

????????????“So you and I, we’re… relatives?”?OMG! This was hysterically funny, and Chance was not going to like it if I laughed.

????????????“Cousins, like,” said Chance, reddening. “I didn’t think she would care.”

????????????“Let me get this straight, Chance,” I said. “You were sleeping with your cousin, and you didn’t think she’d care?” Hope, of all people would run screaming away from this revelation. Hope was the model of propriety. The good example I was supposed to follow. It was all I could do not to snort as I tried to hold in the laughter. “You know, Chance, people don’t sleep with their cousins, and there’s a reason why.”

????????????“They do where I come from,” said Chance angrily.

????????????I’ll just bet they did, in whatever podunk town in Texas he’d come from. What was I supposed to say? Welcome, cousin Chance?

????????????“I’ll talk to her,” I said, relishing the thought. “Maybe she’ll come around.” His hopeful look should have made me ashamed of myself. I knew for darned sure there would be no?coming around?on this issue. She might never show her face in my neighborhood again.

????????????“Harm don’t think there’s much hope,” Chance said glumly. “He thinks I should’ve told her up front, when we first met.”

????????????I remembered that first meeting, and laughed inwardly to myself. Hope had found Chance naked, sleeping in my upstairs bedroom.?A perfect time to learn she had a new cousin.?I could hardly wait to talk to Hope. She hadn’t uttered a word about it when she left. Come to think of it, she’d been in an almighty hurry to get away.

????????????“How long have you known you were related, Chance?” I asked him. I had thought it was just a coincidence that his first name, Chance, was the same as my last name.

????????????“I knowed it all along,” he said. “My land used to be family land. Your family and mine. That’s why I come here.”

????????????“And why, exactly, did you never tell me this?” I was beginning to be annoyed. It did explain his familiarity, the way he popped in and out of my house without knocking.

????????????“ I thought you might be ashamed and all,” he said. “Our people didn’t see eye to eye, and I didn’t have the advantages you had. I thought it was better kept a secret.”

????????????Well, the cat is out of the bag, now. Meow!?I had to call Hope. I could hardly wait.