He reappeared in less than a minute, car keys jangling in his hand. “I’ll drive.”
Colby slid into the passenger seat, and they were off down the driveway. He had the windows down, and the fall air teased the ends of her hair. She suggested they try Smitty’s Market first, only a mile or so away. He took a right, and something about rolling down a country road with this man on a late September evening felt free and good. Too much so.
At Smitty’s, they both hopped out and went inside. They searched an aisle or two before locating three quarts. They bought them all, then headed on toward town.
“How much do you think we’ll need?” Ian asked.
“A lot more than three quarts,” she replied.
They hit five stores in all, cleaning each one out. They both laughed at the last stop when the cashier asked if they were having a Bloody Mary party. “I wish,” Ian said.
Just outside the store, he added with a grin, “I hope there’s not a run on tomato juice in the next couple of days. We’ve just depleted the town’s supply.”
She smiled. “Definitely created a shortage.”
Back at the house, Ian followed Colby’s instructions and procured a large tin tub from the barn. They placed it near the water hose at the back door of the house. One by one they opened the jars and filled the tub with the juice.
Ian rolled up his sleeves. “I’m glad I don’t have to climb in there.”
“Oh, this is probably a terribly expensive skin treatment at some swanky spa in California.”
Ian shook his head. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”
Shoving up her own sleeves, she said, “All right. We’re ready for her.”
“But is she ready for us?”
“Probably not,” Colby said, smiling.
Ian let the dog out of the yard and led her toward the tub. Halfway there, Smidge must have figured out what was going on. She promptly put on the brakes, her legs stretched out in front of her like a balking mule. “You asked for this, you know,” Ian said.
At the tub, Colby helped him lift the reluctant dog and place her in. She had never seen a more offended-looking animal. The dog stood with one paw in the air as if to say, “You don’t really expect me to do this, do you?” While the skunk hadn’t seemed to bother her at all, the tomato juice apparently ranked as a grave indignity.
They used cups to douse her with the liquid. She stood statue-still, turning her nose toward the rising moon and letting out a protesting howl every minute or two.
“Okay. She needs to soak for a while,” Colby said once they’d thoroughly doused her. She pushed the dog’s fanny down so that most of her skunk-scented fur was submerged.
“So, how’d you discover the tomato juice secret?” Ian asked. “Did they teach you that in vet school?”
“Nope. That came from my grandmother. Actually, I kind of had the same thing happen when I was seven. I was waiting for the school bus and spotted a mother skunk with three babies. I thought they were cute, and naturally I wanted to pet them, but mama skunk had different ideas.”
“So you know exactly what Smidge is going through?” he asked with a grin.
“I don’t think she minded as much as I did.”
Ian smiled again, and they stood there watching each other. The moon hung high over his left shoulder, throwing shadowed light on his well-defined face. Nine o’clock on a Friday night, and she was helping Ian McKinley wash his dog and having more fun than she’d had in ages.
The moment shattered when Smidge decided she’d had enough. Standing in the tub, she shook, nose to tail, sending tomato juice flying in all directions. Colby yelped and jumped back. Ian sidestepped the onslaught, too, but not in time. They were both covered. Faces, shirts, arms, pants.
Colby looked at Ian and started laughing. She couldn’t help it. Even his long, dark eyelashes were dripping with tomato juice.
Judging from his expression, she didn’t look any better. His face broke into a grin, and then he started laughing, too.
With their attention diverted, Smidge hopped out of the tub and took off across the grass, running circles around the scattered old oak trees, a reddish-black streak in the moonlit yard.
Colby collapsed onto the ground, still laughing, holding her stomach now.
It took them a minute or two to regain their composure. Ian tried calling Smidge back a couple of times, but he failed to muster any sternness, and the dog definitely wasn’t taking him seriously. She wanted to play. She raced forward, stopping just short of him, barking and then taking off in a flash, fanny tucked low to the ground.
“All right, have your fun,” he finally said, “but you’ve got the rinse cycle to go yet.”
Colby got up from the ground, wiping her eyes. She lifted one side of the tub and helped him pour out the juice. He turned on the water hose and refilled the tub. The water level rose slowly, and again, Colby found herself studying him discreetly, his hair tousled and damp at the temples. His shirt was plastered to his chest, now polka-dotted with tomato juice, as well as paint. His blue jeans were in similar disrepair, damp and molded to his long legs in a way that did nothing for her peace of mind.
She jerked her gaze upward and found him giving her a like perusal. Her hand went to her hair, smoothing it back. No doubt she looked a mess. But that wasn’t the message she saw in his eyes. He stared at her as if he liked what he saw. The realization did crazy things to her insides.
An unexpected feeling of longing swept through her, a longing for something she’d claimed not to need, not to want. But she realized in that instant what she had been missing out on. Companionship. Simple, basic companionship. Someone with whom she could do silly things. Someone with whom she wanted to let down her guard. Be herself. She thought of all her awful dates in past years. The stiff dinners for two, the awkward silences at her door. None of them had ever felt like this. Maybe if they had, she would have been able to put Doug behind her long ago.
Shocked by her own thoughts, she turned away and called Smidge. The dog slunk toward them, her head bowed. They lifted her over the edge of the tub, silent now. They rinsed and rinsed until all traces of the juice were gone.
“I think it really helped,” Ian said, sounding surprised.
“It’s still there, but at least it’s a little more subdued.”
“The miracles of modern medicine,” he said.
“Sometimes the simplest cures are the most effective.”
It felt so good, standing in the moonlight with a giant, wet yellow Lab between them. The realization was unsettling and more than a little disturbing. Enough so that she stepped back and said, “I’d better get going.”
“Hey, I promised you a pizza. That’s the least I can do, considering how you just spent your Friday night.”
“I won’t hold you to that. It’s late—”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t work up an appetite after all this. Come on. I’ll call it in and you can get cleaned up.”
To stay longer would be to invite something different from what they’d shared so far. If not on his part, then certainly in her own mind. But she really didn’t want to go. Shirking common sense, she said, “Okay. Pizza, it is.”
“Good,” he said, looking pleased. He turned Smidge loose. The dog took off again, cutting circles around the house in obvious appreciation of her freedom. Colby followed Ian inside, where he said, “You’ll have to pardon the construction. We’ve got a little more to do yet.”
She’d never seen the inside of the house. It did, indeed, need work, but the actual layout was every bit as magnificent as the outside promised. The foyer was two stories high, and a mahogany staircase wound from the first floor to the second.
“Would you like a tour?” he asked.
‘I’d love one.”
He led her through the house, stopping at the living room first, a grand room of enormous proportions with a stone fireplace as large as a small room. The kitchen was equally big, with windows on two sides. A butcher bl
ock sat in the middle; copper pots hanging above it. Someone, probably Mabel, had placed potted herbs on the sill above the sink. A small greenhouse opened up off the kitchen, the perfect place to raise tomatoes and flowers year-round.
“As you can see,” Ian said, “I don’t have much of a green thumb. Mabel’s been after me to buy some plants.”
“I think even I could grow them in here,” Colby said. “And I’m known for my brown thumb.”
“Couldn’t be browner than mine.” He led her upstairs to what was apparently his bedroom. This room, too, was in need of redecoration, the paint on the walls circa 1960. The hardwood floor needed refinishing. But a beautiful cherry sleigh bed sat in the center of the room. Two matching nightstands graced the sides of it. A dresser in the same wood sat near the window. Judging by his choice of furniture, he had excellent taste.
“The bathroom is through there.” He tilted his head toward the open door on the other side of the room. He opened the closet and pulled out a dark blue shirt. “This will be too big, but at least it’s free of tomato juice. I’d offer you some pants, too, but I don’t think they’d fit.”
“This is fine,” she said, taking the shirt from him, feeling suddenly uneasy with the thought of wearing his clothes. It seemed personal in a way that brought to mind things she shouldn’t be thinking about.
Their gazes caught and held. Outwardly, they were guilty of nothing. She was standing in his bedroom, holding one of his newly laundered shirts. Nothing wrong with that. So why did it feel as if there was?
“Well, I’ll clean up and meet you downstairs,” she said, breaking the silence.
He stepped back as if jolted from a trance. “Sure. I’ll just go order the pizza. What do you like on yours?”
“Mushrooms and black olives?”
“You got it.” He stopped at the door. “When you’re finished, there’s something I’d like to show you.”
And he left her then to wonder what it was.
29
HE STOOD WAITING for her at the foot of the stairs when she finished showering and changing. His hair was wet, and a few drops of water still clung to his neck after his own shower. He’d found a fresh shirt and a pair of faded jeans somewhere, not a spot of tomato juice in sight.
He waved her toward the back door off the kitchen. “The pizza’s on its way.”
More than a little curious, she followed him outside to the barn. He opened the large, faded red door and motioned her toward a stall a few yards away.
Standing before her was a black-and-white calf, which she immediately recognized as one of the twins she’d delivered at Harry Pasley’s. She opened the stall and went in, dropping down on her knees to rub the calf’s forehead. “Hey, little girl. How’d you get here?”
She heard Ian move in behind her and looked up to find him with one shoulder against the doorframe. “You said she wouldn’t be of much use to Harry. I kept thinking about how she almost hadn’t made it and what you said that night after the lecture about how easy it is to ignore things that make our lives more complicated. I’ve been pretty good at that. I couldn’t stand the thought of her being sent to the stockyard. Harry brought her over in his truck for me.”
Colby stood perfectly still, so touched by what he’d done that words eluded her. Finally finding her voice, she said, “Well, you surprised the devil out of Harry.”
“Luckily, he hadn’t let her go yet, and when I told him I’d like to have her, he seemed pretty pleased. He’s keeping the other little guy. He said the father was one of his good bulls.”
“So what did you name her?”
“Mabel thought Matilda suited her. What do you think?”
“I think. . .Matilda is a lovely name,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat and stroking the calf’s soft fur.
“I’m feeding her by bottle three times a day. Harry showed me how to mix up the formula. She seems to like it.”
The calf let out a bleat and butted its nose against Ian’s leg.
“She likes you, too,” Colby said.
Looking a little embarrassed, he said, “She’s just hoping I’ll give her an extra bottle. Actually, she’s won us all over. Mabel’s down here every hour or so checking on her. Luke didn’t say much about her at first, but I’ve noticed that he heads straight for the barn every day when he gets home from school.”
“What will you do with her when you and Luke move back to the city?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, as if he hadn’t yet considered the question. “I guess I haven’t gotten that far yet. But I fully intend for her to get old and fat.”
A horn sounded from outside.
“That’ll be the pizza.” Ian hitched a thumb back toward the house and stepped out of the stall.
“I’ll be right up.” Once he’d left the barn, Colby turned and stroked Matilda’s soft forehead with the backs of her fingers, thinking about what he had done. She felt strange, as if the room had tilted, and she didn’t quite have the balance to stand.
Matilda looked up at her with enormous round eyes, swiping her hand with her rough, pink tongue. Colby rubbed a thumb across the calf’s moist nose and said, “If we’re not careful, Miss Matilda, you and I are both going to be in a heap of trouble.”
A few minutes later, Colby sat on the couch with her pizza-filled plate. She’d felt decidedly awkward after returning to the house. She sensed that he did as well. They said very little while he gathered their plates and silverware and carried it all to the living room. She watched him when she was sure he wasn’t looking. Saving Matilda from the stockyard wasn’t the kind of thing she would have expected from a man whom she initially likened to Doug. More and more, she realized just how wrong she had been. Not sure what to make of that, she said, “So tell me about your work in New York. I know it had to be more exciting than painting houses. Not that you aren’t good with trim.”
“Thanks.” He smiled, wiping the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “I’m keeping my finger in the pie from here.”
“Do you like what you do?”
He considered the question for a moment. “It’s pretty consuming work. Or rather, I let it be. I think the answer to your question is yes. When this whole thing with Luke happened, I’d just brought in the biggest client ever for the firm. It was a moment I’d spent a lot of years working pretty hard for. But somehow it wasn’t everything I thought it would be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. It just felt like something was missing. That was the night I found out about Luke being in trouble. That was when I realized what a lousy father I’d been, that I hadn’t really been there for him any more than mine had been there for me.”
“I can’t imagine that being true.”
Ian stayed quiet for a few moments. “I grew up pretty poor,” he said at last. “Really poor, in fact. My father left my mother when I was six. She spent most of her adult life trying to make ends meet. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to make something of myself, to make her proud of me. She encouraged me even though I think it was hard for her to believe I could really do it.”
Astonished that his childhood had been nothing like his life now, Colby realized she’d once again jumped to conclusions where he was concerned. “Is she still alive?”
He shook his head. “I had just found out about my scholarship to Columbia when she died.”
“She must have been very proud of you,” she said, saddened that his mother hadn’t been able to see what he’d done with his life.
“I think she was. That’s always given me comfort, even if it is selfish comfort.”
“It’s not selfish at all,” she said softly. “We all want our parents to be proud of us.” Colby put her plate on the table and sat back on the couch. “Did you get married in college?”
Ian shook his head. “I met Sherry, Luke’s mother, my freshman year. We got married right after graduation. We had Luke a little over a year later. She died a few days
after he was born.”
Colby didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just assumed you were divorced or—”
“It’s all right. Really.”
“Those were some pretty tough blows to be dealt at such a young age.”
“Yeah. Life has a big fist sometimes.”
She had to agree with that. “You were a single parent from the beginning, too, then.”
He nodded. “And I was so determined to be different from my own father, to give Luke the things mine had never given me, that I messed up my priorities.”
“You’re being hard on yourself.”
“I don’t think so. One thing I’ve realized since being here is that CCI hasn’t fallen to pieces without me. I could have spent more time with Luke.”
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Those ‘maybe’ games can get you into trouble. Believe me, I know.”
“So, why aren’t you married? I know it can’t be for lack of offers.”
“I guess I just never found the right man. Once the toads started outranking the princes ten to one, I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of looking.”
Ian laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“That bad.”
“What about Lena’s father?”
Colby sobered. “That didn’t work out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Most men with a baby would have remarried,” she said, turning the conversation back to him.
“I never wanted to make that kind of commitment to anyone again. The thought was too painful.”
He had obviously loved his wife very much. She heard it in his voice. And she respected him for that. “Rachel must be a very special woman.”
He hesitated. “It’s not the same kind of marriage. But our lives complement each other’s.”
“I see,” she said, not sure she really did. Didn’t he love Rachel? Would their marriage be based on compatibility rather than passion?
He watched her, not saying anything. Colby again felt somehow off balance, unsure of her footing. How long they sat there, she didn’t know. But she did know that it was getting more and more difficult to pretend indifference to this man. The more time she spent with him, the more dimensional he became, the more she identified with him. “I should go,” she said, breaking the silence. “I can help clean up before I leave.”
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