“You Tracy?” he asked.
Meghan felt her back stiffen. She knew by the antagonistic tone of his voice that this was not good.
“Who wants to know?” she said, sounding braver than she felt.
Instead of answering, he eyed her with a contemptuous smile.
“I got a message from Dominic. He said for you to get your ass on the road and bring his car back, or he’s gonna report it stolen.”
Broomstick turned and started for the porch steps, then he looked back and added, “Oh, yeah, Dominic also said to make sure you bring the kid; otherwise he’s gonna charge you with kidnapping.”
He gave an evil-sounding snigger and disappeared down the walkway.
Meghan hesitated a moment, her heart thumping against her chest, then she closed the door and returned to the kitchen. Tugging Tracy into the Snip ’N’ Save office, she closed the door and repeated her conversation with Broomstick.
“You know who this guy is?” she asked.
Tracy shook her head. “Probably one of the guys Dominic knew from before.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something,” Meghan said, “or else he’s going to report his car stolen.”
“Crap,” Tracy said with a groan. “What do I do now?”
Meghan thought for several minutes, then offered up a plan. “It sounds like he’s more upset about you taking the car than kidnapping the baby, so let’s just ship it back to him.”
They spent the next two hours making calls and finally found a transport company with a truck leaving Jacksonville the next morning, headed for New Jersey.
“We’ve got room for one more vehicle and can do a pickup in Georgia,” the salesman said, “but it’ll be an extra seventy-five, plus the two forty for transport.”
“Three hundred and fifteen dollars?” Tracy sputtered. “To deliver a car that’s barely worth fifty?”
“Not my problem,” he replied. “That’s our rate. Take it or leave it.”
The thing was, Tracy couldn’t just take it or leave it. She had to get the car back to Philadelphia one way or another. The only alternative would be for her to drive it back, and she wasn’t about to do that.
“I’ll take it,” she said begrudgingly.
Once that was done, Meghan backed her car out of the garage, and Tracy pulled Dominic’s inside. If Broomstick came by again, he’d hopefully think she was on the road headed home. There was still the problem of Dominic’s claim to Lucas, but they’d take it one step at a time.
On Friday morning, Meghan woke with a raging headache. She’d spent a sleepless night worrying that any minute she’d find Dominic pounding on the door or Broomstick tossing a rock through the window. Several hours had passed before she decided that if such a thing happened, she’d simply call the police.
Once that worry was put to rest, she moved on to thinking about Lucas. At times he appeared to be a perfectly normal fourteen-month-old baby; other times he seemed detached, off in a world of his own. There but not there.
Meghan couldn’t help but wonder if that were normal. She thought about other babies she’d known and tried to remember when they began talking. Marjorie Campbell’s boy came to mind; that baby was saying mama before he was a year old. And then there were the Cooper twins, both of them already chattering like magpies.
It seemed odd that Lucas wasn’t trying to form words. He grunted, reached for what he wanted, and bucked like a bull when he didn’t get it, but there was no attempt to mimic sounds like ba-bee or ma-ma. Now this morning, he’d decided to throw a tantrum. Over what, no one could say.
One thing at a time, Meghan told herself, but it did little to relieve the pounding in her head.
When the transport trailer arrived before she finished her morning coffee, Meghan’s headache worsened. The sight of Dominic’s junky old car being rolled onto a trailer carrying Lincolns and Cadillacs would have been laughable were it not for the pounding in her head. After nearly twenty minutes of clanging, banging, and moving cars around, the transport was gone. By then, Lila had quieted Lucas down, and he was ready for a nap.
Tracy looked into the Snip ’N’ Save office and asked, “Am I interrupting anything?”
Meghan shook her head. “Come on in.”
Tracy plopped down in what once was Meghan’s chair. “Thank God that car’s gone.”
Meghan gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I heard Lucas screaming. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Mama’s putting him down for a nap. He was obviously frustrated with something, but God knows what it was.”
“I was thinking if you want to take him to the doctor—”
“Tomorrow, okay? First I want to make sure Dom can’t send a sheriff after us.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“If you don’t mind my using your computer, I can google parenting laws and figure out what rights Dom has or doesn’t have.”
“Sure, go ahead.” Meghan pushed back from the desk and stood. “Take your time. I’m going down to the lake for a breather.”
She grabbed the black-and-white composition book from her top drawer and pocketed a ballpoint pen.
“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” she said, and disappeared out the door.
The sky was thick with clouds pushed up against one another, and as Meghan walked to the lake she could feel the heaviness of it overhead. The smell of last night’s rain was still in the air, but now that the wind had picked up, it seemed the storm was gone.
The lake was a twenty-minute walk from the house. She could have driven it in five, but it felt good to be walking in the fresh air. Already her head felt better. She quickened her steps and began wondering what she would write about today. The words in her journals were seldom planned. They were always ideas that popped into her head when she opened the composition book to a fresh new page and began to write.
Today there were a thousand thoughts rolling through Meghan’s head. Perhaps she would write about Lucas and the strange way his behavior swung back and forth: happy one moment, screaming for something he couldn’t name the next.
Or the topic could be Tracy; she’d become a different person in the years she was gone. Tracy was always the fun sister, the one who could find humor in even the direst circumstances. Now her cheeks were thin and her mouth set in a rigid line. Instead of slathering on sunscreen and lying out in the yard, she was at the computer searching for a way to hold on to her child. She had the stooped look of a woman carrying the weight of the world in her pocket.
And then there was Mama, snatching up Lucas every time he screamed and cooing that there was nothing to worry about, when a look of concern was already etched onto her face.
Meghan dropped down onto the grass in front of the lake, close enough to hear the bass splashing but beyond the reach of the water. The earth was still moist from last night’s rain, and the dampness soaked into the seat of her shorts. It was good, cooling almost. She stretched her legs out in front of her, kicked off her sandals, and opened the composition book to a fresh page.
Although she’d thought through a number of things she wanted to write about, her first words were about Broomstick and the noise of loading Dominic’s car onto the transport trailer. From there, she continued documenting her thoughts of Lucas, Tracy, her mama, and even Aunt Phoebe.
At the bottom of the fourth page, she wrote, “They say that every cloud has a silver lining, but right now I can’t see . . . ”
Before she could finish the sentence, a dark shadow fell across the page. Meghan looked up and saw angry gray clouds rolling across the water. The storm had turned and was coming her way. She closed the book, stood, and reached for her sandals.
That’s when she spotted the dog splashing around in the middle of the lake. From where she stood, it appeared to be a brown-and-white pup about the size of Clancy.
At first she thought he was playing—swimming out to fetch a stick or some other game—but there was no one on the opposite bank. She watched for a
second or two, then realized the dog wasn’t playing. He was floundering, trying to keep from going under. Although it had been almost six years since Clancy disappeared from the backyard, the thought of him came into Meghan’s mind.
With her heart pounding like a trip-hammer, she ran into the water and started swimming toward the dog.
Meghan was a strong swimmer, and the lake wasn’t all that large, but before she got to the dog, the rain started. It came in droplets so heavy they had the feel of hail.
She saw the dog, and seconds later he was gone. She pushed forward frantically, her arms reaching out in long strokes, her legs kicking harder and faster. Seeing nothing but the splash of rain around her, Meghan bobbed in the water and gasped for air.
“Here, boy!” she called, but the sound of her voice was lost beneath the roar of the wind and rain.
Treading water, she squinted and searched the surface. Suddenly she caught sight of him again. A tiny speck in the water that had begun to churn and swell. Keeping him in her line of vision, she lunged forward.
In that instant before she reached out and grabbed hold of him, she saw the pup’s face, his eyes big and round with fear. Meghan circled her arm around his middle and pulled him close.
“Hang on, buddy,” she said, and turned back in the direction she’d come from.
The sky had grown black as night, and the storm was all around them. With the rain pinging against her face, Meghan could no longer tell where the shore was. The lake wasn’t wide, but it was long, and if she were headed in the wrong direction they’d never make it.
The water was rougher now, and with one arm wrapped around the dog, she moved slower. Using mostly her legs and torso, she propelled herself forward, hoping—praying—that she was headed in the right direction. Her breath came in ragged gasps, but there could be no rest. The sound of thunder was directly overhead.
Stroke after stroke, she moved through the churning water, and then her legs began to slow. Each kick felt like lifting a heavy weight, and each stroke brought with it a stab of pain to her side. In her mind, there was only the thought of saving Clancy. But this pup wasn’t Clancy . . .
Realizing she was most likely swimming the length of the lake, Meghan was as close to giving up as she had ever been. Her legs stopped pumping and dropped deeper into the water. A storm swell pushed against her back, and she rushed forward. That’s when she felt her foot touch the ground beneath her. Propelled by a sense of desperation, she reached the edge of the lake and stumbled. She fell to her knees, released her grip on the dog, and crawled onto the shore.
After coughing up a mouthful of black water, Meghan passed out.
The Dog
When Meghan came to, she was lying on the grass with the dog’s tongue lapping at her arm. In those foggy first few seconds, she believed it was Clancy beside her. She opened her eyes slowly and saw the dog. It wasn’t Clancy. It was a medium-size brown-and-white pup with his body low to the ground and those huge pleading eyes looking up at her.
For a few moments, everything remained fuzzy and out of focus. She felt uncertain about where she was and how she’d gotten there. She rolled to her side, leaned on her right elbow, and tried to push herself to a sitting position. A sharp pain shot through her hip, and she dropped back to the ground. She closed her eyes again.
The day was warm, hot almost, yet she shivered as she began to remember those last few moments of desperation when she’d held on to the dog, fearing the next breath would be her last and she would take him down with her. In a voice that was no more than a whisper, she said through a groan, “Thank God.” A well of tears overflowed her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
The dog moved closer. Keeping his body low, he stretched his paws and placed them on her shoulder, then cautiously eased his snout forward and began to lick the tears from her face. Instinctively Meghan wrapped her arm around him and held him close. She found a measure of comfort in having the thump of his small heart next to her own.
As several minutes ticked by, she remembered the blinding rain and the rush of water at her back, but she couldn’t remember the actual moment of climbing out of the lake. It was something she’d most likely never remember, and perhaps it was better that way.
The last drizzle of rain finally disappeared and left behind a gray sky with a few dark clouds hanging low. Meghan remained there until the throbbing in her hip was bearable, then she pushed herself to a sitting position. The dog scrambled into her lap and went back to licking her arm.
Gradually a sense of steadiness came back to her. Her hip ached, and her legs felt as if she’d run a 10K race, but she was alive, and the dog was alive. It was a lot to be thankful for. She affectionately rubbed his ears, and he leaned into her touch.
“Poor baby,” she said softly. Again she wondered how it came to be that he was out there in the middle of the lake.
Now with the rain gone, she could see across to the other side of the lake. She looked up and down the shoreline, but no one was standing there. No owner calling for a lost puppy or looking to pull him from the water.
The dog was affectionate and sweet; surely he belonged to somebody. She ran her hand around his neck looking for a collar or tag, but there was none.
“You must belong to somebody,” she said, “but whom?”
The more Meghan looked at the pup, the more he reminded her of Clancy. He wasn’t Clancy, she knew, but his mannerisms and the way he curled himself into her lap were exactly like Clancy. The two dogs were about the same size, but this pup had paws too big for his body. He was still young and would most likely grow to be the size of a shepherd or golden retriever.
They sat there for a long while, her stroking the dog and lovingly plucking bits of leaf and twig from his fur, him licking at her hand, arm, leg—anything he could reach. When Meghan stood and began looking around for her sandals, he was right behind her.
She had climbed out of the lake in a different spot than where she’d gone in, and it took a good fifteen minutes before she found her shoes. The journal she’d been writing in was nowhere to be seen. As she sat to pull on her sandals, the dog cozied up beside her and licked her leg.
Meghan smiled. “Since you don’t seem to have an owner anywhere around, do you want to come home with me?”
The dog wiggled his rear end, looked up at her with those heartrending eyes, and gave a soft whimper. To her ear it had the sound of “Please.”
She bent down and ruffled the soft fur on the underside of his snout. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
He cocked his head and barked, his tail swishing back and forth happily. There was something about the way he looked at her with such direct eye contact; she could almost swear he understood what she was saying.
“You are so stinkin’ cute,” she said, laughing. “I just know a sweetie like you belongs to somebody, so we’ve got to at least try and find your owner.”
Keeping his eyes fixed on her face, he gave another pitiful whine.
When Meghan called him Sox, it was nothing more than a description of his looks. Despite the dirty lake water clinging to his fur, she saw three completely white paws and a fourth fringed with white. He looked as if he were wearing sweat socks, the kind she wore for a run or a workout at the gym. That fourth paw had the look of a sock without much elasticity, like it had slipped down.
When she said, “Let’s go, Sox,” he followed along.
Apparently he was okay with the temporary name.
Calling him Sox meant she hadn’t given him a real name. If she gave him a real name, it would signify she was going to keep him. As much as she wanted to, he wasn’t hers to keep. She reminded herself this was short-term. He was hers for today, but after that . . .
As they started toward the road, she looked down at the dog and laughed.
“We look like a couple of drowned rats, don’t we, Sox?”
The dog responded by vigorously shaking his body. A spray of water went flying and doused her again.
Her hair was dripping down her back, her clothes were soaked, and with every step, she could feel the wetness of her sandals squishing between her toes. Yet none of those things seemed to matter. At the moment Meghan had a feeling of contentment that had been missing for a long time. It was a warmth that settled into her chest and gave a jauntiness to her step, even though her legs still ached.
On the walk home, she again reminded herself that this dog wasn’t Clancy and in truth she had no right to him. But in the back of her mind, there was a small voice arguing You saved his life, so now he’s yours.
By the time they arrived back at the house, Meghan and the dog were both still trailing muddy lake water, so she circled around to the back and came in through the kitchen. Tracy heard the door open and came from the Snip ’N’ Save office.
“Hey, Meghan, wait until you hear what I’ve found out!” She stopped, eyed Meghan, and asked, “What happened? You’re soaked!”
“A storm came up and—”
“Storm?” Tracy spotted the dog and bent to pet him. “Aw, isn’t he a cute little rascal. Where’d you get him?”
“Rescued him from the lake,” Meghan said. “I was getting ready to leave, and this huge storm rolled in.”
“Strange. We didn’t have a drop of rain here.”
“Good grief, it was like a hurricane blowing through. I don’t know how you could have missed it.”
The dog shook his body again, and a spray of muddy water splattered across the kitchen floor.
“Uh-oh. Mama just cleaned up in here. She’s gonna have a fit about this mess.”
The dog went down on his belly and lowered his head as if he were ashamed.
“If she has a fit, then she has a fit,” Meghan said. “Too bad.”
Tracy laughed. “After all these years, don’t tell me you’ve decided to take a turn at being the rebellious daughter!”
The Summer of New Beginnings: A Magnolia Grove Novel Page 6
