Good Guys Love Dogs

by Inglath Cooper

  Minute details assaulted her senses. The fresh, clean smell of his cologne, the starched crispness of his white shirt and the contrast it made with the sun-browned skin on his well-shaped hands.

  At one point, he dropped his program and bent to pick it up. His left shoulder brushed her right thigh. Colby jumped.

  Ian sat back up and whispered, “Sorry.”

  She shook her head and waved his apology away.

  Feeling ridiculously self-conscious, she forced her attention back to the speaker. That lasted for all of thirty seconds, before her senses took over again, and she felt grateful when the meeting finally drew to a close. For the past hour and a half, she’d felt as if she were on sensory overload. Standing, she introduced Ian to some of the people she knew. After a few minutes, they moved about the room, separately, until a half hour or so later, they both ended up near the door.

  “Ready to call it a night now that we’ve learned how to deal with our kids?” he asked.

  “I’d stay until morning if I thought I could go home and make things like they were when she was ten.”

  “If I got anything out of what our speaker said, that’s so much wishful thinking.”

  “Unfortunately, I think you’re right,” she said.

  A few people called out goodnight as they left the room.

  “Nice people,” Ian said in the hallway.

  “Yes, they are.” They took the stairs to the first floor, then hung back in the hallway.

  “How about a cup of coffee somewhere?” he suggested.

  A tempting invitation, but something told her it would be better to end the evening here. He looked entirely too good in a smart-looking jacket and black wool pants, both of which had Italy written all over them. Definitely not the kind of clothes that inspired women to think about friendship. She glanced at her watch. “It’s late. I should get home.”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  But she didn’t think he understood at all. She didn’t know if she did herself.

  Despite her declaration, they made no move toward the door.

  He leaned up against a locker, his arms folded across his chest. “She was a good speaker.”

  “Yes. I got the feeling she’d definitely been through it,” Colby agreed, hoping he wouldn’t ask her opinion on something that had been said when she’d been paying more attention to him than to the lecturer.

  “I think that’s the only way anyone could understand it. Firsthand experience.”

  “It’s hard to know what being a soldier is all about until you’ve been on the battlefield.”

  “Some days I definitely feel that way.” His expression grew solemn. “I just wish I had the chance to go back and do some things differently.”

  Regret threaded his voice, and she knew there was more to his situation than he’d let on. Sensing that he wanted to talk about it, she said, “Why did you move here, Ian?”

  He looked down at the floor for a long while, his hands shoved deep in his pants pockets. “Luke got arrested on a drug charge,” he finally said, his voice low. “I wanted to get him away from the city.”

  The revelation took her totally by surprise. She’d never imagined anything like that. She thought of her own problems with Lena and felt lucky. “Oh. I’m sorry, Ian. It’s not easy being a parent these days.”

  “I wasn’t doing a very good job of it, I’m afraid. I spent too much time working and not enough time knowing where my son was and what he was doing.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for—”

  “Oh, but I do,” he interrupted firmly enough to indicate that he’d spent a great deal of time thinking about exactly that. “I do.”

  Again, Colby felt fortunate not to have had that kind of trouble with Lena.

  “Don’t short yourself, Ian. Putting your life on hold is pretty generous, even for a parent.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “Have things improved since you’ve been here?”

  “Between the two of us, no. He’s going to school and doing the things he’s supposed to be doing. He swore to me that the drugs had never been a problem and wouldn’t be in the future. I have to believe him.”

  She found him appealingly vulnerable in this moment of admission, knew it hadn’t been an easy thing for him to talk about. “Well, as for Luke getting used to being here, give him time. He’ll adjust.” No sooner were the words out than she realized that she’d offered him the same platitudes people had been giving her about Lena for the past two months.

  “So, now that I’ve pulled all my skeletons out of the closet, what’s the problem between you and Lena?” he asked, looking down at her.

  “Hah. Now there’s a question. It seems like she just woke up one day and decided she didn’t like me anymore. I’ve reached the point where I don’t think I can do anything more than take my own cliché advice and wait for things to change again.”

  “Pretty sad, aren’t we?” he asked with a wry smile.

  “At least we’re trying. All you have to do is open the paper to see what happens to children who don’t have parents who care enough to stick with them.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. The older I get, the more I realize that being a good parent, a good human being, is just plain hard work. I’m human enough to wish I could be selfish and say the heck with it sometimes. But that’s not what I want to teach Lena. And from what I can tell, it isn’t what you want to teach Luke.”

  Ian watched her silently, his gaze lingering on her face. In that moment, she felt the forging of a bond that had been developing between them since the moment they’d met. It scared the devil out of her. She stepped back and motioned toward the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get on my soapbox. It’s late. I’d better get going.”

  “You didn’t. I’ve enjoyed the evening. Might have actually learned something,” he said, his gaze direct, warming her in a multitude of places. Clearing her throat, she made her way toward the door. He followed her outside to her truck.

  “Good luck with Luke,” she said, stopping at the driver’s side door. “I hope things will work out for us both soon. With the kids, I mean,” she added hastily, and then felt like an idiot.

  “I hope you’re right,” he said in that steady, even way of his.

  She made a valiant effort not to look at him again as she started the truck, backed out of the parking space and headed toward the exit. But as she pulled out onto the street, she couldn’t resist one last glimpse in the rearview mirror.

  He stood beneath the lamppost, staring after her.

  26

  THROUGHOUT THE NEXT week, Ian attempted to put some of the information he’d gained at the parent-teenager lecture to use.

  Teenagers are no longer children. Consult with them. Ask their opinions. Suggest. Don’t order.

  While Ian felt sure of the validity of Dr. Watson’s advice, he wondered if things were too far gone for any of it to make a difference with Luke and him. He thought about what Colby had said about parenting being plain old hard work. She was right. Rebuilding his relationship with Luke meant working at it each and every day, chipping away at the boy’s anger, hoping to move a little closer to his goal with each attempt.

  One afternoon when Luke got off the school bus, Ian was outside with a ladder and a bucket of paint, giving the trim on the house the face-lift it needed. He spotted Luke coming up the driveway, his stride long and relaxed until he looked up and saw Ian watching him. Insolence made him slow his walk and frown.

  Ian dipped his brush into the bucket on the tray at the top of the ladder, then carefully stroked the paint across the chipped trim beneath the roofline. The boy’s aloofness stabbed deep, but Ian refused to let him see it. When Luke reached the top of the drive, Ian waved and said, “I’ve got an extra brush handy if you’re interested.”

  Luke didn’t answer for several seconds. “What are you trying to prove, Dad?” he finally asked, his voice filled with condescension. �
�Do you really think moving me out to the country and pretending to be something you’re not is going to change us?”

  The anger in Luke’s voice sent a wave of despair through Ian. Did his son’s resentment run so deep that he might never get past it? The thought scared him more than anything in his life ever had. What if it was too late to make up for his mistakes? He couldn’t let himself believe that. They just needed time. Something Ian had plenty of right now.

  Refusing to let Luke see that he’d rattled him, he said, “If you change your mind, the extra brushes are at the foot of the ladder.”

  Luke swung around and stomped inside without answering.

  27

  Unbelievable.

  Unbelievable!

  Luke dropped his book bag at the foot of the stairs and stomped down the hallway toward the kitchen. No way was that his dad out there on that ladder. It had to be someone impersonating him. His father never had time for things like house painting. He hired people to do that kind of stuff. For as far back as he remembered, Luke hardly ever saw his dad in anything other than a suit. Since they’d moved here, he practically lived in blue jeans and running shoes.

  His dad looked like a different person. And he acted different, asking Luke to help with things, wanting to spend time with him. Luke couldn’t get used to it. He didn’t want to, because it wouldn’t last. He knew it wouldn’t. It never had before. He thought about the times his dad promised to come to a soccer match, only to be sidetracked by a last-minute meeting. Or the surprise birthday party he’d arranged for him and then been two hours late getting to. From the moment he’d been born, he’d been nothing but a burden to his father. He just wished his dad would stop pretending otherwise.

  Inside the kitchen, the smell of Mabel’s homemade chocolate chip cookies still hung in the air. A note on the table said:

  Luke,

  I’ve gone to the grocery store. Four cookies before dinner and no more. Back soon.

  Mabel

  Luke rolled his eyes and grabbed a handful of cookies from the glass jar she kept on the kitchen counter. Why was someone always telling him what to do? His dad, who never cared until he decided it was his duty to reform him. Mabel, who acted like his mother or something. And his teachers, who called him capable of far more than he showed in school. What did they know?

  Pulling a glass from the cabinet, Luke poured himself some milk and sat at the kitchen table. No one here really knew him. If he had anything to do with it, they wouldn’t be here long enough for it to matter.

  He hated it here.

  He’d met a couple of okay kids. Football players who were actually more concerned about getting college scholarships than getting high. And a couple of cheerleaders who’d made it clear they’d like to get to know him better.

  But they were all boring compared to the kids he’d hung around with in the city.

  And that Williams girl. Lena. Cute. But she looked at him as if she had no idea what to say to him. As if they were from different planets—and they might as well have been. He’d passed her in the hall several times. He’d wanted to stop and talk to her, but he had no idea what to say. Not his type, anyway. He liked girls who knew the score. Girls who didn’t expect to wear his class ring after the second date.

  All the kids at Jefferson High were just too straight for him. He wanted to go back to the city, where he knew how things worked. He belonged there, not here in this stuck-in-the-fifties town.

  If he played his cards right, it wouldn’t be too much longer before his dad gave up on him. He knew his father’s interest in him amounted to nothing more than a guilt trip. Until he’d gotten into trouble, they’d merely lived in the same house. His father left for work before he got up and usually didn’t come home until he’d gone to bed.

  And now he acted like Ward Cleaver. Painting the house. Fixing up the barn. He’d get tired of it before long.

  He finished his fourth cookie, reached for a fifth, then glanced at Mabel’s note and put it back in the jar. For the briefest of seconds, he wished that this whole fake life his father had created was true.

  That he really had grown up in a house like this, that he and his father had the kind of relationship where he went out and climbed up on a ladder beside him, where he told him about the play they’d read in English class that day. But they didn’t. And they never would.

  28

  On the following Friday afternoon, Colby made an emergency call out to the Bowers farm. A horse had gotten into a half-full grain bin and eaten almost enough of the sweet feed to kill her. Luckily, Lou Ann Bowers caught the mare before she finished it off. As good as the grain might have tasted, Colby doubted the horse enjoyed the dose of mineral oil that followed it.

  It was almost six o’clock by the time Colby unenthusiastically headed back toward town. With the end of September, the leaves were beginning to turn bright red and gold on the mountains in the distance. But Colby felt too down to appreciate them. Lena had her campout tonight, so she had an empty house waiting for her.

  She passed the Walker’s driveway without stopping. Normally, she would have stopped to visit, but Phoebe called the night before, needing to talk to her about Frank. Things still weren’t normal between them. She’d stayed on the phone with Phoebe for more than an hour, and although she tried to sound optimistic, Colby thought maybe her friend had cause for concern. She suggested that Phoebe try to get a sitter tonight so that she and Frank could have some time alone.

  Just past Phoebe’s house, Colby spotted a large yellow dog in her lane, barking as if it had just cornered a T-bone steak. She caught a glimpse of a smaller animal disappearing into the brush. Slowing to a stop, she recognized the dog as Smidge. The McKinleys’ dog.

  She pulled over and got out of the truck. “Here, girl.”

  The dog looked up, then trotted toward Colby, her tongue lolling to one side of her mouth.

  “What are you doing way out here by yourself, Smidge?” From ten feet away, Colby realized that the T-bone had in fact been a skunk. And Smidge came out the loser in the confrontation.

  “I have a feeling you’re going to be in big trouble, girl,” Colby said, holding her nose. “Come on. In the back. As much as I like you, I’m not up to sharing the front seat with you.”

  Colby let down the tailgate. Smidge jumped up and sat with her head over the side, panting. Pulling back onto the road, Colby considered taking Smidge home with her and calling Ian to come and get her. The entrance to Oak Hill loomed just ahead on the right. Friday night, and she didn’t relish the idea of running into his fiancée again if she happened to be visiting. Ridiculous, though. So what if the woman was there? She’d picked the dog up off the road, and now she would take her home. She would have done the same for anyone in Keeling Creek.

  Nonetheless, she swung onto the drive with the hope that she could drop Smidge off and leave unnoticed. No such luck. At the top of the driveway, she spotted Ian on a ladder at the side of the house. He turned around at the sound of her truck, looking surprised to see her. Reluctantly, she got out while he climbed down to meet her. He wore a paint-splattered shirt with jeans. His hair looked appealingly disheveled, and when he ran his right hand through it, she experienced the urge to do the same.

  “I’m returning your wayward dog,” she called out. “Although I’m not sure you’re going to want her anytime soon.”

  Smidge bounded out of the back and greeted Ian in typical dog-love fashion. Tail wagging, she lunged and planted her paws on his chest, her tongue swiping at his jaw.

  “Wait! Smidge, don’t—” Colby tried to stop her, but too late.

  “Good grief,” Ian exclaimed, leaping back. “What on earth did you get into?”

  Colby shouldn’t have laughed, but she couldn’t help herself, the look on Ian’s face just too comical. “She had a one-on-one with a skunk,” she said, trying to cover up a smile. “As you can smell, the skunk won.”

  “You sure you don’t want to take her home with you?”<
br />
  Colby smiled again. “Not tonight, I don’t think.”

  Ian shot a disgruntled look at Smidge, who looked offended by his less-than-enthusiastic reception. “How do you get rid of it?”

  “It’s mostly a wear-off thing.”

  Ian shook his head. “It looks as if you’re going to be sleeping in the barn, girl.”

  Smidge whined and plopped down on the ground, still panting from her adventure.

  Colby should have said goodbye then and left Ian to his own devices. But she found herself lingering. “There is one thing that might help.”

  “Hey, I’m willing to try anything.”

  “Tomato juice.”

  Ian looked at her as if she’d just suggested the dog could fly to the moon. “I’d like to see you make her drink tomato juice.”

  Colby laughed. “You don’t make her drink it. You bathe her in it.”

  “Bathe her in it? She weighs eighty pounds.”

  Colby shoved her hands into her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “Yep. We would need a lot of juice.”

  Ian eyed her skeptically. “Are you serious?”

  “It won’t get rid of it completely. But it might make her bearable.”

  The breeze threw a pungent whiff of skunk in their direction. “I’m desperate enough to try that,” he said. “If I offered a pizza as compensation, would you hang around and help me de-skunk my son’s dog?”

  If a couple of minutes ago had been the time to not involve herself further, now would definitely be the point to say she had to go. The words formed but didn’t make it past her lips. There was something about the way he looked so darned appealing in his paint-splattered shirt and the thought of the empty house waiting for her that made her say, “Sure. Why not?”

  He looked pleased by her agreement. “Okay. Give me a minute to put Her Smelliness in her fenced yard, and we’ll go in search of tomato juice. I don’t have any. I sure hope the stores around here do.”