by Ruby Laska
Dr. Raj had tried a variety of nonsurgical techniques to help Angel's dysplasia, but they had run out of options. Options that Roan could afford, anyway. Dr. Raj had already offered to do both hips for the price of a single surgery, and Roan had a feeling he was tempted to do the entire procedure for free, but she could never allow that.
Roan had been on her own from the age of eighteen and one day, and she was determined to hang onto her independence, which was something you couldn't do by taking handouts.
Roan went into the kitchen and knelt down next to Angel, who made a sound deep in her throat that Roan thought of as her purring sound. She yawned extravagantly and burrowed her head onto Roan's knees. Roan scratched her behind the ears and along her spine, taking care not to exert any pressure on the dog's hindquarters.
"You up for a walk, girl?" she asked, fetching the leash from the hook on the wall. She'd walked Angel after her dinner and the dog didn't need to go out until morning, but the encounter with Calvin Dixon had left Roan unsettled. A walk in the cold night air would do her good.
Roan closed the door behind her with care. Her landlady lived in the front of the house and her bedroom was on the same side as Roan's door. Mrs. Castleberry was quite elderly and probably would sleep through Armageddon, but many of their neighbors worked long shifts and cherished their sleep.
They set out together, walking slowly—limping, in Angel's case. Angel was a bulldog/chocolate lab mix, as far as anyone could tell, and she wasn't yet six years old. Her severe dysplasia was sheer bad luck, Dr. Raj said, combined with the bulldog breed's tendency toward hip issues. With surgery, she could live pain free. Without it...
Roan blinked away the moisture in her eyes. She wasn't a crier. Never had been and wasn't about to start now. Without surgery, having exhausted every other option, Angel would experience agony every time she took a step. Roan had given herself until the day after Thanksgiving, a week away, to find the money for the surgery. Dr. Raj, his kind old face looking unusually lined and tired, had nodded when they discussed what needed to be done. Roan knew that he would be waiting for her in his office if she needed him, even while his wife and daughters went shopping or enjoyed their holiday, and that he would do whatever could be done to make Angel's passing a peaceful one.
"No," Roan whispered, kicking a rock. Angel looked up at her quizzically, her ears perked. "Oh, not you, baby," Roan quickly assured her.
It was ridiculous that Roan's best friend in the world was a dog. She'd lied to Cal—she didn't have plenty of friends. She had Walt and Hank and Justin, the guys from the shop; she occasionally went out for beers with Hank and his girlfriend, or went over to dinner at Justin's house, where she helped his wife Diane with the dishes and played with their toddler. She had a few friends from high school who had stayed in the area, but they were busy with boyfriends and husbands and babies, things that seemed more out of reach all the time.
But Angel wasn't just a dog. She was the last thing that Roan's dad had given her, a month before he died. If Roan had known the heart attack was coming, she would have worked a lot harder to cement the fragile peace that she and her father had finally worked out. But she was still smarting from her mom's death and her father's marriage to Mimi, which had come much too fast—too fast for Roan, anyway, who needed a brash, flashy stepmother like she needed a hole in the head.
They'd fought nearly from the start. Roan, thirteen at the time, had threatened to boycott the wedding, but her father had pleaded with her, so she'd put on the horrible pink dress Mimi picked out, posed for pictures, and snuck so much champagne that after the bride and groom left for the honeymoon, some ladies from the church had to clean her up and get her home.
Over the course of the years that followed, she and Mimi vied for her father's attention and antagonized each other until it seemed they were incapable of a civil conversation. After acting out all through high school, Roan moved out right after graduation. She vowed never to talk to either of them again, but in the months before her father's death, they'd begun talking again. Nothing big—just meeting for coffee or the occasional ice cream sundae. Earl Brackens might not have been a big talker, and neither was Roan, but she began to see that there might have been things going on that she didn't understand. Her father's loneliness, for one thing. His helplessness in the face of trying to raise a teenage girl on his own. His inability to find the words to reach her when she lashed out.
On her nineteenth birthday, he stopped by the shop, something he hadn't done before.
"I know you're busy working," he'd said, twisting his hands nervously. "And you probably have lots of things you'd rather do on your birthday than spend it with your old dad. But I thought—I was thinking—well, I got you something. If you like it. I mean if you don't that's okay, I can take it back—"
"What is it?" Roan demanded, ushering her dad out of Walt's crowded shop floor and into the sunny summer afternoon. That's when she saw the crate her father had parked outside the front door.
It was a wooden produce crate, lined with an old towel. Inside was a pup—a mutt, Roan could see that first thing, with features that didn't quite match. Soft ears flapped near her head. Her short snout ended in a bubble-gum pink nose, and her brown coat was dappled with tan splotches. Her legs were too short and her tail was undisciplined, and even as a puppy her bottom jaw jutted forward in a pugnacious underbite as she frantically licked Roan's hand.
It was love at first sight. When Earl died the next month, Roan buried her face in Angel's soft coat and cried until her fur was wet through, and Angel seemed to understand.
They rounded the block and found themselves back at the house.
"That was quick," Roan said dispiritedly. Angel thumped her tail. She pointed out at the street with her snout, where Cal had dropped her off.
She couldn't know. There wasn't any way she could know, was there? Sure, Angel had a fine sense of smell and she was the smartest dog Roan had ever met—it wasn't like she was partial or anything—but how would she know that a stranger had dropped her off tonight?
"He's nobody," she said anyway, in a reassuring tone. "Just someone who gave me a ride home."
As she unlocked her door, she could feel Angel's big brown eyes on her. It was like Angel knew something she wasn't telling.
Walt wandered into the back room at five minutes before noon.
"Hey, Spokes-girl, can you knock off that Trek before you get lunch? Guy said he was going to swing by around 12:30."
Roan concentrated on the chain she was examining for bent side plates. "Oh, sorry, Walt...I would, but I have to...ah...I have something. That I have to do. Can you get Justin to do it?"
To avoid looking up, she pretended to adjust her lamp over the workbench, but she could feel Walt's gaze sharpen on her.
"You got something to do?"
"Yes, Walt." She didn't turn around.
"Like what exactly?"
"Like—" She sighed and turned around, fixing her gaze on the wall behind Walt's shoulder. His arms were folded over his thickset chest, his long gray beard brushing against the collar of his old flannel shirt. "Like, it's private, okay?"
"Is it a doctor's appointment? Everything's okay, isn't it? Shoot, girl, are you feeling all right?"
"I said it's private," Roan snapped, and immediately felt terrible when Walt's bushy eyebrows shot up. Walt was the closest thing she'd had to a father since her own father died. In fact, he had been a friend of her father's, which was probably why he'd been willing to hire her despite her lack of experience, and then trained her himself. "I'm sorry," she immediately amended. "It's just that I'm having lunch with someone. Not a date."
Walt's faded blue eyes cleared, and he clapped her on the shoulder hard enough that she almost stumbled against the workbench. "Oh, all right then. Okey-doke. Yup, Justin and me can manage, no problem. You just go on and enjoy your not-a-date. Where's he taking you, anyway?"
"Seriously, Walt, it's not," Roan said, grabbing her shoulder ba
g and almost running her fingers through her hair before remembering that she'd secured it off her face with a barrette today. "And you think I'm dumb enough to tell you where I'm going? You and Justin and Hank would all be down there in a heartbeat, poking your noses in my business."
She paused to kiss Walt's soft, papery cheek on the way out the door. "And tell the Trek's owner that when that derailleur keeps skipping after Justin tries to fix it, bring the bike back and I'll adjust it for free."
Her heart began to pound as she walked down Third Street. The sky was gunmetal gray; a couple of stray snowflakes swirled past as Roan pulled her jacket more tightly around her body. The first snow of the season, she realized, and had to banish the threat of a memory: her mother helping her cut snowflakes out of printer paper, then taping them to the windows as a surprise for her dad.
Her mother's memory was all over Conway. Elaine Brackens had brought Roan downtown, walking these very same streets, before she was old enough for school. They'd gone to the drugstore, the bank, the grocery, and Elaine made Roan believe they were on a grand adventure, and that she would rather be here than anywhere else in the world, doing errands with her daughter.
Roan walked faster.
She was tempted to turn around and make sure that none of the guys were following her, but even they couldn't possibly be that nosy. Sure, they were like family to her; and they had certainly each tried to encourage her to get out and find someone. She'd dated Hank's cousin for a while, a nice guy from Minot who'd left to join the air force; she'd gone out a few times with Justin's wife's little brother. Roan's heart was never in it. Like everything else in her life, she felt like someone had pressed a giant "Pause" button, and she was stuck here in Conway—with a dead-end job, and a two-minute walk to visit her parents' graves—until something beyond her control would come along and press the "Play" button and life would resume again.
She reached almost unconsciously to push her hair back and her fingers brushed the barrette. She was half a block from the diner, and there—yes, that was his truck, and he was getting out of it. She hitched her bag up over her shoulder and fixed a neutral expression on her face and pretended for all she was worth that she hadn't spotted Cal Dixon getting out of his truck, looking like a man who never slowed down for anything.
#
She looked like she wanted to kill someone.
She was beautiful, Cal corrected his initial impression, not just pretty. Today, she'd pulled that untamed mass of gold-streaked brown hair off her face so that it cascaded over her shoulders. Her eyes glinted with navy sparks; maybe there was something about the light before an autumn storm that made colors more intense. She was wearing a little makeup today: she had put gloss or lipstick on her lips, so that they were shiny and rosy, and she'd lined her eyes with black. She was wearing what looked like a man's khaki jacket over a fluttery skirt, thick tights and the same motorcycle boots she'd had on yesterday.
Cal swallowed hard. There was something about the combination of all those details that added up to smoldering heat. He glanced around him, but the few other passersby didn't seem to take note. Chemistry, then. Maybe she wasn't even pretty, maybe he was just having some sort of pent-up reaction after a dry spell. He'd been focusing so single-mindedly on preparing for the departmental exam that he hadn't given women a second look since arriving in Conway. When the other guys were between hitches, they went camping and fishing, went to Bismarck for a night on the town, or Grand Forks to watch football—but Cal had stayed local, putting in long hours on the firing range and working out and studying late into the night.
"Hey," he said, when she was close. The frozen smile told him she was even more uncomfortable than he was. He held the door of the diner for her, and as he followed her inside he waited for the moment he knew would come, and wasn't disappointed: the lull in conversation as everyone in the place turned to see who'd arrived and who they were with.
"Hey, Roan," a female voice called cheerfully. "Take that one over by the window, I just wiped it down."
Cal followed the voice; it belonged to the hard-edged brunette waitress, the one who'd barely given him the time of day despite the fact that he'd eaten at the Bluebird dozens of times.
"Thanks, Gayle," Roan said. To Cal, she added, "I used to work here, when I got out of high school, so I know everyone."
She didn't wait to see if he was following, but wove her way through the lunchtime crowd to the only empty booth. Cal was right behind her, excusing himself as he bumped into other diners.
He pulled off his coat and tossed it on the bench, then slid into the booth. Roan unwound her scarf, coiling the sparkling fabric and setting it on her handbag before sliding off her jacket. Cal found himself short of breath again, watching her slide the rough cotton garment over her long, graceful arms. It wasn't so much that she made him think of her stripping...but she had the grace of a dancer, and her skin under the filmy fabric of her shirt was tawny and smooth and he couldn't help wondering what the body underneath the loose-fitting shirt might be like.
"Look here," he said, too loud, as she folded her coat. She paused, and looked at him with narrowed eyes. People at the neighboring tables glanced over at them. "We need to talk," he tried again, lowering his voice.
"I thought that was why we were here," Roan retorted. "So we could 'talk.' I think you implied that if I didn't, you'd turn me in to Mimi."
Cal felt his face get hot. Last night, she'd seemed a little afraid of him—or not of him, but of what he might do. Today she was all defiance and steel. Cal knew what that was like: a good night's sleep could quash whatever momentary self-doubts you had when you were busted and make you feel superhuman again.
"We got off on the wrong foot," he tried. "Forget Mimi. I'm trying to help you here."
"Help me?" Roan didn't try to mask her skepticism. One side of her mouth quirked up and she lowered her eyelids, looking at him from under her thick lashes.
Before he could respond, the waitress came over with her order pad poised. "Hey girl, haven't seen you at the gym lately."
"I've been doing the early class before work, now that the days are getting shorter. That way I can take Angel on the creek trail when I get home."
"How is she?"
"Good," Roan said, but Cal caught the hesitation in her voice.
"I've got a couple of nice soup bones in back—I'll wrap them up for her."
Roan smiled. "Thanks, Gayle, she'll love that."
Cal finally caught on: Angel was a dog.
The waitress gave him an appraising look, not bothering to hide her curiosity. "So how do you know Roan?"
"We, uh, met when she was out riding her bike in the country. I live out there. Have you two been friends a long time?"
"Only since first grade. She gave my brother a black eye."
"He fell off that swing set," Roan corrected her.
"He's forgiven you," the waitress said, still eying Cal. "Come up here for oil?"
"No ma'am," he said. "But I am from out of town."
"Arkansas," Roan said, in the same tone she might have said "escaped convict."
Then they were both staring at him. Cal pushed the laminated menu toward the edge of the table and cleared his throat. "So, I guess I'll have the brisket."
"It's Saturday, sweetie," Gayle said. "Brisket's Tuesday."
"Oh. Okay. Whatever you've got on special today. I'm sure it's fine."
Gayle winked at him before turning to Roan. "Usual for you?"
"Yes, please, and coffee."
"Coffee," Cal echoed, though Gayle gave no sign of having heard him.
Once she was gone, Roan went silent again.
"Well, at least they're friendly here. The locals haven't exactly warmed up to us," Cal tried.
"People have mixed feelings about the boom," Roan said, shrugging. "With all the people living here, it's put a real strain on the infrastructure. They're used to getting a parking spot downtown whenever they want one. We haven't had crowding i
n the schools...well, ever. And there are other problems. Trash on the streets, roads breaking down from all the truck traffic, a lot more crime."
"A lot more money, too," Cal said. "Way I hear it, a lot of folks are able to pay their bills, send their kids to college, save for retirement, who couldn't do it in the past."
Roan shrugged. "Life's all about trade-offs," she said, her voice several degrees colder.
Gayle came back with a coffee pot. She filled Cal's cup first, then leaned over the table as she filled Roan's.
"Don't look up," she muttered quietly. "But I thought you'd want to know. Your stepmonster just got here. Dragging the flavor of the week behind her."
CHAPTER FIVE
Roan felt her blood go cold in her veins.
Mimi. Of course. It wasn't enough that a perfect stranger had forced her into a lunch where the whole town would be watching—or that the same man was triggering feelings in her that she wanted to keep firmly buried. But now she was going to have to deal with her father's widow and the latest of the men that Mimi had hooked up with, dressed in whatever tacky outfit she'd bought with the money Roan's father left her.
"Thanks, Gayle," she muttered miserably. She took a deep breath and fixed a smile on her face. "Please, Cal," she added when the waitress walked away. "Just don't say anything to encourage her. I'll make it up to you."
"Rooo-annie!" A shrill voice cut through the lunchtime conversation as a woman came toward them, her long red coat brushing against diners as she pushed through the crowded tables. She was tall, maybe five foot ten—though high heeled boots added inches—and dramatic looking, especially for Conway, where fashion generally took a back seat to practical considerations. Short silvery gelled hair capped a colorfully made up face: drawn-on brows, purple eye shadow, and dark lipstick contrasted with powdery skin that must have had a Botox injection or two. Large silver hoops brushed against the collar of a tight red leather coat belted over equally tight leopard print pants. Bracelets jangled at her wrists and a cloud of perfume preceded her.
