Keeping Katie

by Stella Quinn

  Instead of taking the cliff walk up to the lighthouse and letting himself into his garden, he took the turn back into Redwood Cove.

  He wasn't the only one who had been feeling disconnected or who had been looking for some sort of anchor to tether them back to the now.

  His disconnect had been his writing. The subject matter of his last book had been the cause of his angst, and the royalties that had flowed into the bank account he could no longer stomach looking at.

  Katie's disconnect? He wasn't sure, but he could guess. She missed her sister, that much he did know. She was lonely, like he had been lonely. She had her dog, Rose, and her work at the refuge, but were they enough?

  The incline rose as he hit Main Street, and he turned the corner into the historic district when he reached the gracious old storefront that housed Simmons and Simmons Attorneys. With luck, Danny and Jules had left the spare key to the office in the bougainvillea pot by the front door. He had a year’s worth of agony aunt columns to review. Battle stations, as his nephews would say.

  He found the spare key hidden in the blow hole of a chipped pottery whale and ran his fingers over the cold hard metal. What was his anchor?

  How many of the Fabulous Five could he tick off in the checklist of life?

  He had his weekly page in the Cove to Coast Herald, but how often did he prepare it all at home, alone, rather than here in the office? Danny and Jules welcomed him like their long-lost prodigal son whenever he turned up, but how often had he invited them to his place in the last year?

  Never.

  Eduardo, he’d been evading.

  School and college friends, there were plenty of those who'd welcome him into their homes if he called them, but that was the rub. If he called.

  And when did he?

  He hadn’t cut his sisters out of his life, but his sisters didn’t live in Redwood Cove. So long as they didn’t visit in person, he could convince them he was happy and connected.

  And that had been enough, until he met Katie.

  Now, he’d realized the truth. Convincing himself and others he was happy was a terrible second best to actually being happy.

  He’d found Katie, even when he hadn’t known he was looking, and she’d given him the jolt he needed. He had his love of writing fiction back, and he had Katie to thank for that. Her dogged determination to find her sister had been the reboot his brain had needed.

  He had a new friend who called him out of the blue and dragged him on stakeout missions to mountain towns. Took him on last-minute expeditions to a cozy wine bar at the end of the day. Held his hand.

  He owed her everything, and he’d gone and blown it.

  He found the letter shortly after lunch on Monday, after a weekend of wading through thousands of letters.

  “Bingo,” he said, just as Jules, who had turned up for work at nine, was trying to persuade him to eat half of her sandwich.

  “I couldn’t, Jules. You eat it. I’ll grab something from Joe at the bakery.”

  “You’ll take a half-pastrami-on-rye or feel the heat of my wrath, young man,” she said, ignoring his protests and plunking a chipped plate on the desk next to him. “Now. You going to tell me what’s got you going through all these old issues like you’re digging for lost treasure?”

  “I think this is the one I’ve been looking for,” he said, scanning the page as he ate. “You got a minute to listen?”

  “For you? Of course.”

  Julia perched herself up on the spare desk like she was a schoolgirl, not the grandmother she was. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Dear Anna,” he read aloud.

  I’ve got a problem, and it’s been festering in my head and making me unhappy, so I thought I would write for advice.

  Here’s the thing. I met someone, and I’m pretty sure this guy is the one, not just some foolish crush (that’s a whole other story! #understatement). Problem is, I’m worried how my getting involved with someone, really involved, will affect my sister.

  The man that raised us passed away a year ago, and we’ve been really close ever since. I had to move away from work, and my sister got really sad and quiet. Now if I start making time for someone else in my life, will that make her even more sad?

  If I had to choose, I’d choose her.

  But Anna…I really don’t want to have to choose.

  Yours,

  Very Secretive

  The initials were the clue that had hit him right in the center of his crossword-solving synapses. VS for Very Secretive, and VS for Veronica Shields?

  “What did Anna write in response?” said Julia.

  He dropped his eyes to his response, half dreading what he might have written. Could there be anyone less qualified to answer agony aunt letters than a semi-depressed former psychologist who wrote high-octane thriller dramas for a living?

  Dear Very Secretive,

  You don’t have to choose between your sister and yourself, but you do need to be thoughtful.

  Now is not the time to be writing letters to Agony Aunts. Now is the time to be sitting down with your sister and talking to her about what you feel and what she feels.

  People process grief in different ways, and some people need more help than others to make their way through.

  Talk and listen. Then talk and listen some more. There are counselors here in Redwood Cove who can help you both.

  But Very Secretive? If this guy is important to you, then you owe it to yourself to try to make it work. You matter too.

  Yours,

  Anna Toguy

  Hmm. Not reckless, but cautious. As advice went, it was okay.

  Jules eyed him over her grass-green spectacles. “Nicely said. What’s the problem? Someone complained?”

  “No.”

  “You going to make me drag this out of you, Anton? Because I’ve got all day. I can sit here, swinging my pretty little ankles as long as it takes. Tell Jules what’s wrong.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re not going to start embroidering me any more feel-good tips, are you?”

  “I’ll embroider what I like when I like, young man. Now come on.” She dropped the bantering tone and frowned at him. “What’s got you going through all these old letters?”

  He sighed. “I’ve met someone.”

  “Oh, pet,” said Jules, clasping her hands together. “Wait—is it this Very Secretive person?”

  “No. Her sister.”

  “I see.”

  “She—Katie—is a little prickly. I think I offended her the other day, and now I’ve just found this letter from her sister which will upset her even more.”

  “That does sound like a pickle.”

  He chuckled. “A pickle? Now I know why Danny didn’t make you take over the Dear Anna column.”

  She grinned. “Oh, he tried, pet. I just know a lot more than you about making Danny do things my way.”

  “Huh.”

  “Besides, I don’t have a degree in psychology.”

  “I might have the piece of paper, but that’s as far as my psychology career ever went, Jules, I can assure you.”

  She nodded. “You know what else I know, Anton? You’re a nice guy. A kind guy. And I’m going to give you a little bit of agony aunt advice of my own.”

  He sat back in his chair. “I’m all ears.”

  “Now is the time to be sitting down with your young lady and talking to her about what you feel, and what she feels.”

  “Huh,” he said again. “Sounds kinda neat when you say it.”

  She smiled at him and hoisted herself off the desk. “It’ll come up nice on my next embroidery project, too,” she said with a wink.

  Talking it over. Telling Katie about his own issues, learning more about hers. If this was what it took for him to keep Katie in his life, then so be it.

  Trouble was, first he had to show her this letter her sister had written. Whether she would be open to listening to him after that was a whole different ballgame.

  Chapter 21


  Katie spent the week high in her control tower, trying to ignore everything in the world below her that didn’t need clearance to land on a Redwood Cove Airport runway.

  When Saturday came around, however, there was no work to keep her mind occupied.

  Andy had refused to give her a shift. “Go home,” he’d said as he waved her off on the Friday night. She’d gone home, she’d slept poorly, and now she was awake so early that she had to step over a snoring mound of golden fur to get out of her bedroom.

  Okay, she’d overreacted last Friday night.

  First, Anton had been adorable—fun at drinks, making her laugh the whole way home, making her feel like she was fun. too. Then he’d kissed her until she melted into a puddle of feelings that were new and warm and sweet.

  But then he’d laughed.

  Not at her. He’d explained that. He wasn’t laughing at her ineptness at word games, and she knew it down deep.

  She just overreacted anyway. She’d made the classic response every animal she and Rose had been training for the last few years had made when presented with a situation that made them anxious.

  Fight or flight. And she’d chosen flight in the quickest way she’d known how, by brushing Anton off and racing inside her front door and slamming it shut while her heart hammered in her chest.

  She spent the day on a beanbag in the den binge-watching cooking shows on television. By mid-afternoon, when it was time to head out to the pet refuge, she could have chopped a purple cabbage in sixty-three different ways, but she still had no idea what she was going to do about the stuff going on in her head.

  Sunday was a little more productive; she took the dog for a swim down at Pebble Beach, threw the frisbee for her in the dog park until they were both out of breath, then spent the afternoon pushing Uncle Roly’s ancient lawnmower up and down the lawns.

  She should have done some housework too but settled on picking up the various dog toys that were scattered about. “That counts as housework, right, Rose?” she said, as she shoved her hand under the sofa to retrieve the long rubber alligator that Rose was partial to squeaking.

  Her fingers closed over a smooth corner that didn’t feel at all like Mr. Squeaky.

  An envelope—a blue envelope—with her sister’s handwriting tripping across the front. Katie Shields, 47 Prospect Road, Redwood Cove.

  What?

  She twisted so she was in a sitting position, then tore it open.

  Katie,

  Just a quick note this week, sorry, I’m a little pressed for time. You know that guy I was telling you about? Well (*squee) Pete and I are running away for a few days to Santa Clara County to check out a house auction. He has zero experience with flipping houses, but he assures me he'll be excellent at holding my purse while I crawl around the rafters with my measuring tape.

  The realtor says mobile reception is pretty patchy up there (something about mountains and cell-towers and bureaucracy) so if you don’t hear from me for ten days or so, no need to call out the National Guard, lol!

  Here’s your clue for the week: four down, nine letters: pin shapes together for a laugh.

  Hot tip: jumble two of the words up to find the answer.

  Maybe when we get back you could come up for the weekend and meet Pete? I’m so hoping the two of you will get along.

  Love as always,

  Vee xx

  P.S. Hugs for Rose

  Katie looked for a date on the letter, but found none. The envelope had a smudge of black ink that looked more like hieroglyphics than any readable date stamp.

  “How did I miss this, Rose?”

  The dog woofed and rolled onto her back in case a tummy scratch might answer the question. "Nice try,” she said. Her hand was on the soft belly of her dog when she remembered who had been bringing in her mail recently.

  Rose had. In her jaws, then dropping the pile onto whatever surface was close at hand. Vee’s letter must have slipped under the sofa and been lurking there for over a week!

  Her sister wasn’t missing at all, just...away. Happy, gone, adventuring with her new friend, Pete.

  Why, oh why, did everything suddenly seem so much worse?

  Wait. If this was posted all that time ago, then that meant now, Sunday evening, her sister should be getting home.

  She looked at her phone. At the risk of giving Veronica’s neighbor a seventh conniption, she was going to have to call again. Hitting the numbers, she waited while the phone rang. And rang. And ra—

  “Pete speaking.”

  She froze. She needed Vee, and she needed her now, not some random guy that she’d never even met. “This is Katie Shields speaking.” Now she sounded like Vee’s pursed-up, prim and persnickety spinster aunt.

  “Katie! Well, hi.”

  He sounded warm. Nice. Like a guy who would hold a purse so his girlfriend could dirty herself up inspecting derelict houses. Darn it, why couldn’t he have sounded like an evil mastermind that she could resent wholeheartedly?

  “Um, is Veronica there?”

  “She’s just gone down to the store to get a new phone. There’s a long and funny story for another day, but the short version is that I backed over her old one.”

  “You backed over—”

  “Yep. As punishment, I get to cook every night for eternity, apparently.”

  “You’re sounding right at home there, Pete.”

  “Er…is that a problem?”

  Of course it wasn’t, so why did she want to yell yes, yes, yes into the phone. Rose must have sensed her distress, because she came and lay—all seventy pounds of her—in Katie’s lap.

  “No,” she lied. “Can you ask her to give me a call when she gets home?”

  “Of course. It’s so nice to talk to you in person, Katie. Vee’s told me so much about you, and about Rose your beautiful dog, and about Uncle Roly’s house, I can’t wait to—”

  “My house,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s my house. I’ll be pleased to welcome you, Pete, when Veronica brings you to visit. Goodnight.”

  She put down the phone, and Rose lifted her head and regarded her with calm brown eyes.

  “What?” she said.

  Rose twitched her eyebrows.

  “I know. I was a teeny-weeny bit rude. But at the end there?”

  Rose looked up at her expectantly.

  “At the end, I was magnificent.”

  Chapter 22

  Keeping Katie was his number one priority. After that came his skeleton of a manuscript which was slowly beginning to acquire some muscle and heart. Low on the list, but still needing to be done, he mused, frowning down at his layout for the upcoming Saturday edition of Page Seventeen, was working out some way of squeezing his clue, money order from Prague, we hear, into his crossword grid.

  Aha! Two down, perfect. The solution had been staring him in the face, he just needed to see it.

  An idea struck him. Another solution was staring him in the face, too…only this one didn’t come neatly boxed in a black-and-white frame.

  This one was wild. Epically wild. Wild and wondrous and—yeah, he could admit it without even feeling the tiny bit emasculated—desperate.

  What did Katie care about?

  Him. He was sure of it. He was willing to lay his heart on the line for it.

  But she also cared about the animals on Heartbreak Row that she and her dog, Rose, trained every week in the hopes of rehabilitating them for a better life. And that was something he had the wherewithal to do something about.

  If Katie really didn’t care for him, he’d deal with it, and move on, and know that he’d done something good with the profits he had struggled so hard to deal with in past months.

  But if she did care for him? At the very least, he’d have proven to her that he really did care. He really did respect her for who she was and how important her volunteer work was for the community.

  The temporary facility of the dog refuge was worse than he’d expect
ed. Clean, sure. Organized, spacious, and with outdoor dog runs neatly fenced off. But where were the fields? The shady trees, the cozy barn, the farmyard bliss that he realized, now, he’d been recalling from some Hollywood series he must have seen as a kid, where the sun was always shining and seven brawny brothers were busy swinging their seven comely brides in a dance routine through the hay bales.

  Heartbreak Row had no Hollywood soundtrack to relieve the starkness of its chain-link fence, its cement flooring, its sad-eyed canine residents.

  “We’re always looking for donors,” said Ramon, the volunteer who had been manning the office when he drove in. “We had premises on the south side up until a year ago, but the Mayor’s Office needed to rezone them for development, and all we could get in a hurry was this unused industrial precinct. The Dorma Valley Winery owns the land and lets us use it for free, which is a heck of a fine thing considering the taxes they must pay…but still. You can see how unsuited it is for kennels.”

  “Tell me,” Anton said. “If you could have your dream location, what would it look like?”

  Ramon’s smile would have done an orthodontist advertisement proud. “Five acres. No more than an hour from town so the volunteers can still man the place without finding the distance too much of a deterrent. Not too hilly, and preferably with sheds or barns that we could redo easily. Dog refuges burn money, pal. Vet fees and dog food add up.”

  “Grass?”

  Ramon winked. “I didn’t take you for a romantic, man. Of course, grass. Trees, wildflowers, fresh air.”

  “A rabbit or two to chase?” he joked.

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Their stroll through the warehouses had brought them to the final row. “Heartbreak Row,” he murmured.

  “Excuse me?” said Ramon.

  “The last row…I thought this was the one called Heartbreak Row?”