A Small-Town Homecoming

by Terry McLaughlin

  “Down,” she ordered the black Labrador retriever streaking across the shadowy yard. “Stay down, or you won’t get your bribe, you fur-faced shakedown artist.”

  Charlie’s obnoxious pet rammed its wide black nose into her crotch before she could toss the biscuit across the yard. “Good riddance,” she muttered as the dog raced after it, and then she glanced at the muddy paw prints on her shoes with a sigh. At least the monster hadn’t left a matching set on her jeans and jacket. Charlie’s fiancé, Jack Maguire, must have been making some progress with the obedience training.

  He’d certainly made some progress with Charlie’s house. As Tess strode up the narrow path toward her friend’s freshly painted forest-green front door, she noted the neatly clipped lawn and the new willow tree staked in one corner of the yard. Charlie hadn’t done much more than dump her junk in the place after she’d bought it last year, but Jack was slowly and surely turning the fixer-upper into a charming home they’d share after their wedding. Charlie had always needed a keeper, and in Jack she’d found a man who liked to keep things the way they ought to be kept.

  Actually, it had been Jack who’d found Charlie. He’d arrived in the Cove nearly three months ago, investigating the area’s sand and gravel supply for his employer. Within two weeks of checking out the local situation—and meeting Charlie—he’d quit his job, made an offer to buy out her competition and slyly cornered her with a deal she couldn’t refuse: combining their two ready mix companies with a wedding. At first she’d fought him with every weapon in her arsenal, but in the end she’d agreed to a mutually beneficial business arrangement and accepted his marriage proposal.

  For a man whose words tended to ramble along in a syrupy drawl, Jack Maguire could do some fast talking when it suited him.

  Tess lifted the period knocker and let it fall against the hammered plate, pleased with the solid thwump of the heavy iron. The man had taste. He also had an ego the size of the Pacific, but at least that Southern-fried charm of his helped soften the most outrageous excesses.

  More than she could say for the prickly contractor she’d had to deal with before dinner. Nothing soft or charming there.

  Charlie opened the door. “Thought you’d never get here,” she said as she snatched the bag from Tess’s hands and tugged her inside. “Addie brought a stack of bridal magazines, and she’s making me look at pictures again. Tell her to stop, or I’m going to shoot you both right now and eat all the cookies myself.”

  Tess tossed her jacket over the arm of a club chair and settled beside their friend, Addie Sutton, on the plump sofa. Addie owned a stained-glass shop a block from Tess’s office, where she was creating some fabulous windows for Tidewaters. She had more artistic talent in her dainty fingers than Tess had in her entire body, and yet Tess loved her in spite of it. Everyone loved Addie, in the same way everyone loved puppies and pizza. It was inevitable.

  “Where’s Jack?” Tess asked. “I brought one of Marie-Claudette’s cookies just for him. One shaped like a big, fat mouth.”

  “Baseball practice.” Addie turned a thick, glossy magazine in Tess’s direction and pointed to a photo of a model buried in clouds of white tulle and baby’s breath. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”

  “Yeah, if you’ve got something to hide—like the bride and half the wedding party.”

  Leave it to Addie, who could pass for a French bisque doll with her spun-gold hair and long-lashed eyes, to go for the ruffles. But anyone who knew Charlie knew she was allergic to frills. Tess took the magazine and flipped through more pages, looking for something sleek and simple. A classic gown with a touch of pizzazz or a hint of drama, just to keep things interesting. “Do we have a date yet? Or a venue?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I’m working on it.”

  “That’s what you said last week.” Tess paused to admire a striking bouquet of calla lilies. “You mustn’t be working very hard.”

  “Don’t nag.”

  “Don’t worry. I figure Maudie and Ben are double-teaming you on a daily basis.” Charlie’s mother, Maudie, had recently announced her own engagement to Ben Chandler, Geneva’s relation by marriage and a distant cousin of Tess’s. But Maudie had made it clear she wouldn’t begin planning for her own wedding until she’d seen her daughter walk down the aisle.

  Tess turned the page and sighed over a picture of a dark-haired bride in an elegant sheath with a plunging back. “How about this?”

  Addie craned her neck to study the shot. “It would look great…on you.”

  “Yes, it would. Too bad I’m not in the market right now.” She closed the magazine with a sigh and slumped against the cushions. “I’ve got news.”

  Charlie leaned a shoulder against the arched entry to her dining room. “Champagne news or beer news?”

  “Beer doesn’t go with cookies.” Addie wrinkled her turned-up nose in disgust.

  “Neither does champagne,” Tess said, “but hey, don’t let that stop us. If you’ve got any,” she added.

  “Please.” Charlie grinned. “Jack would be insulted to hear you question the quality of his wine cellar.”

  “Jack’s not here.” Tess raised one eyebrow. “And since when did he start missing out on an evening with you?”

  “Since he got sucked into his own plot to prove his community spirit and volunteered to coach Little League.” Charlie straightened and headed toward the kitchen. “I’ll go get the party plastic and be right back.”

  “What are we celebrating?” Addie tucked a long blond curl behind one ear. “Is this about your waterfront project? About the windows?”

  Addie’s shop forever teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, but that wasn’t the only reason Tess had incorporated touches of stained glass in her design. They added a vintage detail that would help the building blend with its Victorian-era neighbors.

  Charlie walked into the room carrying a bottle and a small stack of plastic cups and paper napkins. “I hear Quinn got the job.”

  “So much for my big news.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Small town.”

  “Big mouths.” Tess took the napkins and fanned them across the coffee table. “Bigger noses. I don’t know why The Cove Press bothers competing.”

  “Isn’t Quinn the contractor who left town a few years ago?” asked Addie. “Something about an accident on a job site?”

  “Yeah.” Tess sighed dramatically. “But he’s back.”

  “Heard his wife left him.” Addie frowned. “Heard he had a drinking problem, too.”

  “Had being the important word here.” Charlie popped the cork from the bottle. “Jack likes him.”

  “Jack likes everyone,” Tess pointed out. “He’s been seen buying crushed cans from the crazy guy who sells trash down by the wharf. He even continued to like you while you were trying to run him out of town a couple of months ago.”

  “You shouldn’t lump Charlie in the same sentence with Crazy Ed.” Addie folded back a page in the magazine on her lap and passed it to Tess. “How about this gown? The lace is so delicate.”

  “You shouldn’t lump Charlie in the same sentence as delicate,” Tess said, handing back the magazine.

  “Don’t bother showing me,” Charlie mumbled around a mouthful of sugar cookie. “I’m only the bride.”

  Tess watched her soon-to-be-married friend stack her booted heels on the rickety coffee table. The tomboyish redhead would be horrified to hear that her pint-size frame and pixie-style nose were two of the most obvious items on a long list of features that could be termed delicate.

  “Isn’t Quinn the guy who drives that big black truck?” asked Addie. “The one with the gold shamrock on the door?”

  “That’s him.” Tess scowled. “He was at the site tonight when I swung by to gloat. Spoiled a perfectly good mood.”

  “Which happens so rarely.” Addie shot her a sideways glance. “He’s kind of…”

  Tess narrowed her eyes. “Kind of what?”

  “Kind of…hot.”

  �
�Hot?”

  “Hot,” Charlie said. “H-O-T. Not that I’d notice, being engaged to someone who’s even hotter.”

  “Hot. Huh.” Tess shrugged to prove her disinterest, even if she agreed with her friends. “I suppose. If you go for tall, dark and brooding.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Addie shared a knowing grin with Charlie. “Especially you, Tess.”

  “Brooding gets old after a while.” Tess straightened with a sigh. “I know I’m getting tired of it myself, tonight. Time for some fun. Time to pick out a dress.”

  “And flowers,” Addie said.

  Charlie groaned and slumped in her chair. “I thought this was supposed to be a party in honor of Tess’s big news.”

  “It is.” Tess poured a half inch of champagne into her cup. “And this is how I want to celebrate.”

  “By making me miserable?”

  “You know what they say about misery,” Tess said. “It loves company.”

  “Thanks a lot,” muttered Charlie.

  “Any time.” Tess grabbed a sugar cookie and snuggled back against the sofa cushions. “What are friends for?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  QUINN EDGED his way through his apartment door that night with his arms full of breakfast supplies and a fast-food dinner. “Hi, Neva.”

  “Here, let me take that.” Neva Yergin, his elderly neighbor and part-time sitter, shuffled toward him to take one of the sacks and set it on the narrow counter in his tiny kitchen. “You’re back earlier than I expected.”

  “Hope I didn’t interrupt Trivia Maze.”

  She shook her head. “Commercial break. But I’d better scoot next door before they start round two.”

  “Okay.” He pulled the quart of milk and canned cat food she’d asked him to pick up for her from one of the sacks and set them aside. “How’s that disposal working?”

  “Like a charm. Thanks again for fixing it.”

  “No problem.”

  Neva slipped her things into her bulging tote and headed toward the door. “She got home right on time. Been sitting at that computer all afternoon.”

  Quinn stopped short of a sigh. He didn’t approve of Rosie’s method for shutting herself away, but he couldn’t ask Neva to drag his daughter out of her room and force her to find something better to do with her time. His neighbor was doing far too much for him already, more than he could repay with the rent he subsidized, or the occasional repair or sack of groceries.

  “Thanks, Neva,” he said as the door closed behind her.

  He moved into the cramped space that served as a combination living and dining room and switched off the television. The radiator rattled and wheezed and coughed up traces of mildew and aging plaster. Beyond the tall, grime-streaked window overlooking Third Street, a siren’s wail competed with the hum of passing traffic. Not the best place for raising a kid, but he’d had his own needs in mind when he’d signed the lease for an efficiency apartment two floors above the Karapoulis Travel Agency storefront.

  And if they moved away, there’d be no Neva a few steps down the hall to keep an eye on Rosie after school. “Rosie,” he called.

  No answer.

  He set the bucket of chicken on the table and headed toward his daughter’s room, pausing in the doorway. “Rosie.”

  “What do you want?” She sat slumped in her desk chair with her back to him, reading a note on her monitor screen.

  “It’s time for dinner.”

  “In a minute.”

  “Now.”

  The only part of her that moved was her finger on the mouse as she clicked to another screen.

  “Rosie.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t set the table.”

  “I didn’t know what time you’d be home.”

  “I’m home now.” He held his breath and grasped for patience, trying to avoid another fight. Another scene. There’d been far too many of both since her mother had dumped her on his doorstep. “And it’s time for dinner. Now.”

  “Okay.” She clicked to a page with a picture of a wild-haired rock guitarist caught in the glare of a gigantic spotlight. A tidal wave of electronic noise flooded the room.

  “Turn that off.” He stepped through the door. “It’ll still be there after you’ve eaten.”

  “All right.” She blew out a martyred sigh and whirled in her chair to face him. “Chicken again?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jeez.”

  “We can go to the store this weekend. You can pick out some things you like to cook.”

  “I’m not your slave.”

  “No. You’re my daughter,” he said, feeling foolish for pointing out the obvious. “And I want you to come and eat your dinner.”

  “I said all right.”

  He slid his hands into his pockets and watched her, waiting, praying she’d give in and walk through the door, promising himself he wouldn’t move a muscle or say another word until she did. He searched her face—that long, pale face dusted with her mother’s freckles and framed with his own dark hair—looking for the sweet, cheerful little girl he’d known so long ago. But she wasn’t there.

  “Are you just going to stand there all night?” she asked.

  “No. Just until you come to dinner.”

  She rolled her eyes and shoved to her feet. “Jeez.”

  He followed her back to the kitchen, dreading the nightly routine. Questions about homework, answers he didn’t trust. Conversation conducted in monosyllables and resentment hanging so thick in the air it seasoned every bite of food he swallowed. An argument about the cell phone, or bedtime, or something she wanted to buy, or whether a ten-year-old needed a babysitter—anything but the one topic he knew she really wanted to fight over: her mother, and when she was coming back to rescue her.

  At times, the pain was unbearable. He wanted to keep his daughter here, with him, wanted to get to know her again, wanted to break through the walls she threw up in his face, wanted his love to matter, to build solid memories for her to take with her when she’d grown and gone. He wanted to gather her close and hold her tight, to make her pain disappear, to feel her thin arms wrap around his neck and hug him tight, the way she’d hugged him so many years ago. A lifetime ago.

  But he couldn’t take away her hurt, and he couldn’t offer the comfort she wanted right now. All he could do was reach deep, deep down below his murky emotions and haul up another handful of patience and love. And pour his invisible offering over the sad and sullen child whose stony expression reminded him of all his failures.

  He asked her what she’d done at school that day, but she wasn’t talking to him tonight. So they sat in uneasy silence as they picked the meat from the bones.

  TESS GLANCED up from her monitor two days later when the door to her office clicked open, admitting a gust of rain-specked wind and a dripping, frowning Quinn. He raked long, scarred fingers through his wet hair and ran an assessing look around her office.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Is that how you greet all your customers?”

  “Is that what you are?” she asked as she rose from her chair. “A customer?”

  “What kind of customers do you get in here, anyway?” he asked as he stepped farther into the room. His gaze traveled over the sketches pinned to the wall, the fan suspended from the tin ceiling, to the models displayed on tall white cubes and the massive ficus arching over one corner of the red Persian rug on the old plank floor.

  “The serious kind.” She folded her arms and waited as he leaned over a model of a tasting room she’d designed for a Paso Robles winery.

  He straightened and met her stare with a particularly grave expression. “I’m serious.”

  “Yes,” she said as her lips twitched to hide a grin. She wondered if she’d just witnessed a miserly sample of his sense of humor. “You are.”

  “I like this.” He bent again to study the winery model. “It’s clean.”

  “Clean?”

  “Uncl
uttered. French without the frills.”

  “The client asked for sleek and no-nonsense, with an Old-World feel.”

  “You gave it to him.”

  “Giving my clients what they ask for is what keeps me in business.”

  “Even if you know better than they do what they should be asking for?”

  “That’s where a touch of diplomacy comes in handy.” Tess tilted her head to one side, pleased with his subtle compliments but wondering what he wanted. He had to be working some angle, or he wouldn’t have spared the time to stop by. Everyone who knew him said he was a straightforward kind of guy. “It works wonders,” she said. “You might give it a try.”

  “Waste of time.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and straightened again, facing her. “I want to change the approach to the parking area. Straight shot, northeast corner.”

  “The curve from the street on the south will slow traffic and show the building to best advantage. I want visitors to savor their entry into the space.” Tess strode to the model set in the wide bay window and pointed to the overlapping layers representing the site grade. “A curving drive will give the landscape design team a more interesting flow to work with. And this bend in the road will be the perfect place for an ornamental tree.”

  “We can get more parking spaces if we come in straight from the street.” He crossed the room to where she stood and sliced a finger across the softly cascading form. “Here.”

  “We’ve already provided for the number of parking slots the city required.”

  “There’s room for more.”

  “No.”

  He glanced at her. “Now might be a good time to try some of that diplomacy you mentioned.”

  “I don’t have to be diplomatic about this.”

  “You do if it’s not cost-effective.”

  “Everything I’ve mentioned is in the budget.”

  “About that budget.” He narrowed his eyes. “There’s no room for delays.”

  “Yes, there is.”