It was sixteen long years since he’d been in this house, yet he felt like he’d just returned home even though it was a tragic homecoming. His broad, athletic shoulders slumped, but he straightened back up when Dodo entered the kitchen. She ran to him and hugged him so hard he winced.
“Trust me, Ben, we’ll make Bella pay for this.”
2
Ben Gunn snapped to attention the minute he heard one of his surrogate mothers speak. He was on his feet a second later. Even though he hadn’t heard Dodo’s voice in years, he recognized the stern, motherly tone. “Yes, ma’am, we do need to talk. Is Darby okay?”
Dodo shook her head as she stared at the young man she’d always wanted to pair up with her niece. She’d always thought of him as rugged-movie-star material. Tall, muscular, dark hair with a slight wave, matching dark eyes. Thanks to orthodonture, Ben had beautiful, straight teeth that she and her sisters had paid for over Bella’s objections. Ben had hugged her the day his braces came off, thanked her profusely, and said he thought girls might look at him from then on. They’d both giggled. He flashed his famous smile now, but it was wary.
Dodo eyed the thick, double lashes covering Ben’s dark eyes. Any woman, herself included, would have killed for those eyelashes.
Today Ben was dressed in faded jeans that hugged his legs, and a tee shirt with the wordsMUSTANG ISLAND sprawled across the front. Both shirt and jeans were damp and sticking to his body.
“What do you want to talk about, Dodo?” His voice sounded vague yet anxious to his own ears.
“For starters, young man, where are you staying, and why aren’t you staying here?”
“The Baton Rouge Inn. Mary’s staying there, too.”
Dodo smacked her hands together. “Nonsense. I want both of you to come here. For heaven’s sake, what made you go to the inn?”
Ben raked his fingers through his hair. “It was late when I got in. I waited at the airport for Mary. Her flight got in an hour after mine. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Neither one of us wanted to wake any of you up in the middle of the night. On top of that, I think we were both in a state of shock. Hell, I’m still in shock. I can’t believe Russ is dead.” Ben’s voice choked up as he swiped at the lashes hooding his eyes.
Dodo opened the refrigerator, twisted off a cap, and handed Ben a beer. “I suppose that makes sense in some cockamamie way. What in the world were you doing at the cemetery today? Never mind, I’m glad you were there to bring Darby home.”
“I wanted private time. On the face of it, it sounds pretty damn stupid. I went there to say good-bye to a shell. My brother isn’t in that grave. Jesus, for all I know they donated his brain, too.” He choked up again, and Dodo hugged him. “I’d say Russ must be spinning in his grave but there’s nothing to spin. Somebody else…has…has all his parts. He’s goddamn well scattered all over the place. Tell me how that could have happened, Dodo. How?” His voice was so tormented, Dodo backed up a step to stare at the bewildered young man.
Dodo started to cry. “I don’t know, Ben. You need to speak with your father.”
Ben drained his beer and snorted. “Not likely. He leaves everything up to Bella. He’s not well, Dodo. He has round-the-clock nurses, so it must be serious. I don’t even know what’s wrong with him. What little I do know, Russ told me months ago.”
“I saw him at the funeral, and he didn’t seem to know what was going on or even who I was.”
Ben flopped back into his chair. “My father’s last stroke has almost incapacitated him. At least that’s what Bella told Russ.”
Dodo was about to respond when she turned to see her sisters and Darby walking down the hall to the kitchen.
“How’s that coffee coming?” Ducky shouted.
Ben jumped up, his eyes going to his old childhood friend. “Is she okay?” He directed his question to the two sisters flanking Darby.
Darby did her best to focus on Ben. “I’m all right. A steaming-hot shower followed by an ice-cold one tends to bring a person front and center. Thanks for bringing me home, Ben.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she wiped them away with the sleeve of her robe. “I’m sorry I missed the…the funeral.”
Ben poured a cup of strong, black coffee and set it in front of Darby. She wrapped both hands around the fragile chinaware, but it still shook in her trembling hands. She looked up at her three aunts, and said, “We should plant some flowers on the…grave. Some of your begonias, Dodo. Some of yours, too, Diddy. Different colors. A mix of colors. Russ loved flowers. I’ll dig up some of the Gerber daisies that Ducky and I planted in the spring. That way we’ll all be represented. Do you think tomorrow will be too soon?” Her words all ran together in one long, jumbled stretch.
The aunts and Ben looked at one another. “Tomorrow will be fine,” Diddy said.
“Then in the fall we’ll plant some chrysanthemums. Those big pom-poms. Maybe some of those spider mums, too. Bright colors. Then in the winter we’ll take evergreens. We should do that, don’t you think?” This time the words tumbled over one another only to end on a flat note.
Ben cleared his throat. “Absolutely. I’ll help you if you want me to.”
Darby again brought the bone china cup to her lips, but her hands trembled so badly that Ben reached out to catch the cup, knowing it was going to fall from her hands. The coffee spilled on the table and ran over its edge. The three aunts rushed for paper towels. Darby started to cry. A wad of paper napkins was shoved into her hands.
Time crawled forward as the aunts seated themselves at the table and waited for Darby to compose herself. Ben walked in circles, his soaking-wet sneakers making squishing sounds on the old pine floor.
Ben couldn’t keep his eyes off Darby and hoped the aunts weren’t as astute just then as he knew they normally were. He’d loved Darby Lane from the time he was ten years old. Even as a little boy, he’d beamed with pleasure when she smiled at him. When she showed him her two front teeth in a velvet pouch, compliments of the Tooth Fairy, he still thought she looked like an angel. His ears turned pink when he remembered how he’d actually said the words aloud. Both Russell and Darby had giggled. How well he remembered that day.
It was always Russell and Darby. Best friends forever and ever. He wasn’t sure if they were lovers or not. Probably. The two of them were stuck together like glue. Over the years that closeness hadn’t changed. Because he and Mary were older, they tended to pal around together until Mary made her own friends in high school, leaving him on his own in his search for friends.
People always said Ben Gunn was a loner. He guessed he was, to some extent. The truth was he hated spending time with people who didn’t interest him or people he had nothing in common with. He was comfortable in his own skin, comfortable with his own company. Seeing Darby now, after all these years, he finally realized why he hadn’t formed any lasting relationships. He’d given his heart to Darby Lane, and he had never taken it back.
Ben shook his head to clear away his thoughts. “Where’s Willie?” he asked suddenly, thinking of Russ’s beloved golden retriever.
Darby’s head snapped forward. “Willie? Isn’t he with you or Mary? What do you mean, where’s Willie?”
The three aunts started to dither.
“Dear God! I think I heard someone say Willie was in the car with Russell,” Diddy said.
“I just assumed Bella took the dog,” Ducky said.
“Not in a million years. She wouldn’t even allow us to have goldfish when we were kids,” Ben said.
“Maybe the police or the EMS people have him,” Dodo said. “Dear God, how could we have forgotten Willie?”
“The pound. Call the pound,” Darby said, her voice quivering in near hysteria.
His angel had spoken. The phone was in Ben’s hand a minute later. They all listened as he dialed the information operator, copied down the number, then called the Baton Rouge Pound.
Darby reared forward, her hands gripping the sides of the table when she heard Ben
say, “What do you mean, people are standing in line to adopt Willie? No, no, that dog belongs to my family. I’ll be there in ten minutes to pick him up. I don’t care if your gates are locked. Open them. I want that dog. How did you get him anyway? Mrs. Gunn had her chauffeur bring him in. Well, I’m taking him out in ten minutes.”
The four women looked at Ben in awe. “Stay put. I’ll go fetch Willie. That damn Bella…”
Ben was starting his car in the time it took the sisters to realize that the back door had opened and closed.
“Russ loved Willie. Willie loved Russ,” Darby said brokenly. “That woman is so mean. Hateful and…”
“We need to discredit that woman for Russ. If we don’t discredit her, she’s going to turn the shoe into a monstrosity like the one she lives in. The woman has no taste. None at all,” Dodo said.
Ducky looked over at Dodo and mumbled. “There’s no way on this earth that Bella can get into the good graces of theRougies. She burned her bridges early on when they snubbed her. All those unkind remarks she made, how she refused to donate to anything the town sponsored. TheRougies have long memories.”
Diddy weighed in. “It’s disgusting the way she’s been on television. Every time I turn on the news, there she is. She’s been saying she just had to be generous even in her time of grief by donating her stepson’s organs. I don’t trust that woman. She never does anything unless it helps her in some way. It’s a sin the way she’s playing this up just to ingratiate herself with theRougies.”
“We just need a plan,” Dodo said with a glint in her eye that would have normally sent her sisters running. But this time they knew Dodo wasright.
“We’re all agreed, then,” Ducky said. “In the meantime, we really need to eat something.” She looked pointedly at the refrigerator. “Ben’s probably going to be hungry when he gets here. It’s a given that the dog will be starving. Do you haveanything besides weeds in your vegetable bin, Dodo?”
Dodo huffed and puffed. “I’m a vegetarian, Harriet.” The use of Ducky’s given name was warning enough that Dodo had had enough of her sister’s remarks.
“Come with me, Ducky, to my house. I roasted two chickens early this morning. And, I made a red-velvet cake and two loaves of bread because Darby loves homemade bread. I think I have a potato, onion, and cheese casserole in the freezer. It won first prize last year in the cook-off. With Dodo’s vegetables we can certainly put a meal on the table.” Diddy loved to cook and could always be counted on to have a full refrigerator and freezer.
Darby gathered the top of Dodo’s old robe tightly in her fingers. “Is it always going to hurt this much, Dodo?” she asked when Ducky and Diddy left the kitchen.
Dodo wished her sisters had stayed. This was crucial, important stuff. Darby needed to know Bella went against Russ’s wishes. For one brief moment she thought she was having a brain freeze with her niece’s question. Sometimes you just had to wing it and hope for the best.
“No, baby, it won’t always be like it is today or the day you got the news of Russell’s death. It will take time, Darby. This is your grieving time, and that’s the way it should be. You take it one day at a time. Willie might be a big help. What did you think of Ben?” she asked, hoping to divert her niece’s thoughts.
“Ben?”
“Yes, Ben. He’s such a fine young man. Handsome, too. I wonder why he never got married. Most men are married by the age of thirty-five, with a couple of kids. That’s another way of saying he’s an extremely good catch for some lucky woman.”
“That’s nice,” Darby mumbled.
Desperate to keep the conversation moving, Dodo said, “So, did you get the order for the dollhouse?” The dollhouse she was referring to was a custom-made one created by Darby. Darby Lane Custom Miniatures was the company that Darby started when she graduated from college. With no real home of her own to tie her down, Darby didn’t mind all the traveling she had to do with her fledgling business that was more a labor of love than a business and was just now starting to show a small profit. The aunts allowed her to set up shop in the garage, which meant no overhead and allowed her to venture in a very small way into the catalog business at Russ’s suggestion.
“Yes, I got the order. The little girl is wheelchair-bound. I showed her father my catalog, and she picked the one I knew she would pick—my favorite house. I’m converting the house to a castle just for her. She was a sweet little girl. Her parents dote on her; they didn’t even flinch at the price.” She paused then, and looked at Dodo as if her heart were breaking. “What will Willie do, Dodo?”
Dodo had no idea if dogs grieved, or if they just went on with their lives as long as someone fed them. She groped for a response. “I think he’ll be fine if you take over his care. I think it’s what Russell would want.”
“I’ll give him one of Russ’s shirts to sleep with. He has a teddy bear Russ bought him. Russ always called it Willie’s baby. He’d tell him to get it, and he would. I wonder where it is. Willie was really attached to it. We have to find it, Dodo.”
A mission. “Maybe it was in the car. They took it to the junkyard. I heard that on the news. Then again, maybe it’s in Russell’s apartment. Do you think he’d let the dog take it in the car?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know, Dodo. My head is buzzing. I feel like I’m caught in the middle of a bad nightmare. What time is it?”
“It’s eight o’clock, baby.”
Darby nodded as though the time registering on the kitchen clock was paramount. She slid her chair back from the round wooden table that had once belonged to her great-great-grandmother to allow Diddy and Ducky, who had just returned, to place the food in the center. She watched her three aunts as they busied themselves setting the table and warming the food.
Normally, Darby loved her aunt Diddy’s cooking. Now she could only stare at the delectable roast chickens, the casserole, and the red-velvet cake. She’d eaten the same food hundreds of times and loved every mouthful. She knew if she tried to eat it now, she’d get sick. Would she ever be able to enjoy her aunts’ food again? Would she ever be able to enjoyanything again? Her eyes started to fill again. “I think I should just go on home,” she said in a weary voice.
“No, no, no,” the aunts chorused. They turned and swooped around her as they crooned words Darby couldn’t distinguish. She was saved from being smothered by a wild bark from outside the kitchen door. A second later, the rambunctious golden retriever crashed through the screen in the lower half of the door. He pranced and danced around the kitchen, going from one woman to the other in search of warm pats and scratches to his belly. Darby slid off the chair and tried her best to settle the dog on her lap. He licked her cheeks, snuggling against her. This time she couldn’t stop the flow of tears. Sobs shook her slender shoulders.
Willie struggled free of her tight hold and barked as though asking what was wrong. Darby cried harder. The aunts clung to one another, wringing their hands. Ben dropped to his haunches and pulled the dog to him; what he really wanted to do was gather Darby in his arms.
Willie continued to bark, advancing, then backing away, before he tore through the house and up the steps. The little group waited, knowing what was going to happen next.
A subdued Willie returned to the kitchen dragging a well-worn tee shirt that saidTEACHER OF THE YEAR on the front. Russell’s favorite shirt, presented to him years ago by his fifth-grade class. All eyes were on the beautiful yellow dog as he eyed them all as though trying to decide to whom he should present the shirt. In the end, he carried it over to the door, dropped it, and lay down, his head nuzzling the shirt to savor his master’s scent.
Everyone started to jabber at once, uncertain what they should do next.
Ben shifted from one foot to the other. “I think I’ll head on out. Mary’s waiting for me. I need to spend time with her since she’s leaving tomorrow to go back to New York and her travel agency. We’ll stop by in the morning before she leaves.”
“But…don�
�t you want to eat something, Ben?” Diddy asked.
Ben’s eyes drifted to Darby.Ask me to stay. “I’m not really hungry. I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s okay. If you need me, call the inn.” He kissed and hugged the three sisters. He dropped down on his haunches again and reached for Darby’s hands, forcing her to look up at him.
Darby stared at Ben. He looked so much like Russell it was unnerving. “Thanks for bringing me home and for getting Willie,” she said quietly. “Will you see if you can find Willie’s baby. It’s a small brown teddy bear with whiskers. One ear is chewed off. I want to keep Willie, if that’s all right with you.”
Dodo reached out and grabbed her sisters’ arms when she heard Ben say, “I think Willie belongs with you. I would never dream of taking him away from you. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Darby turned toward her aunts. “Would you mind terribly if I go to bed? I don’t think I could eat even if I tried. I’ll take Willie with me.”
“No, no, no, you will not take Willie with you. We’re going to give him a bath to wash off the smell of the pound. We’ll bring him up the minute he’s dry. I promise, baby,” Dodo said.
At the wordbath, Willie growled and burrowed into the tee shirt beneath him.
“All right,” Darby agreed.
The sisters looked at one another. Ducky looked down at her designer dress and sighed. “Okay, let’s get it over with.” She advanced one step, then a second. Willie growled and showed his teeth. Ducky backed up. “Okay, Dodo, how do you suggest we get this dog into the laundry tub? He’s got to weigh at least eighty pounds, and those teeth of his look pretty sharp. We all take aspirin, so that means our blood doesn’t clot normally. I’m waiting, Dodo,” Ducky said, tapping her bare foot on the floor.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Would you want a smelly dog sleeping on one of your beds? No, you would not. Let’s close all the doors except the door leading into the laundry room. Diddy, fill the tub so when we do get him in there, we can just dump him in the tub.”
Hey, Good Looking Page 3
