Least Likely Wedding?

by Patricia McLinn

  She snapped the phone closed. “That was useless.”

  “There is one piece of information we’ve added.”

  “What? There’s no name. No other tags to give us a lead to his—”

  “That’s the new information. Under all that matted fur, this is a her.”

  “Are you sure? Why didn’t you notice before? You said you had dogs when you were a kid.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t question a lady about the sex of her dog. And Chester’s coat is such a mess it’s hard to tell anything. Guess you’ll have to stop calling her Chester. Unless it’s short for Chesterina or Chesterette.”

  “She’s Chester. Like Glenn Close.”

  He chuckled. “If anyone could train her to an Oscar performance, I have a feeling it’s you.”

  “Not me.”

  She didn’t know what he found in those two syllables to make him look at her that way. She opened her tote and checked that she’d put the phone where it belonged. She had.

  “I don’t know how to take care of a dog,” she admitted, just to get Rob to stop staring.

  “Your family never had pets?”

  “My mother’s had dogs. Little ones. But taking care of them, no, the housekeepers do that. Feed them, take them out.” Whatever else people did for dogs. “Besides I can’t have dogs in my…”

  She’d been about to say in my building. But she didn’t have a building anymore. Tomorrow, she would call an agent tomorrow.

  “I will not be pushed into adopting a dog,” she said. She’d simply given a creature food and water, and earned its gratitude. “If we’re going on this walking tour, let’s go. Chester, sit. Stay.”

  She refused to look at the dog as she walked away.

  Rob looked back. The dog sat where Kay had left her.

  He wished he had a camera. A picture of Chester’s heartbroken yet expectant expression should be a surefire inoculation against getting involved with this woman. Chester had let herself get attached. He wasn’t going to make that mistake.

  Yet there was something about the way Kay looked at that animal…. She was smitten all right, but she was wary.

  “You could see more if you slow down,” he said as he caught up with her. She had the camcorder going again while the breeze tousled her hair.

  “I’m used to New York walking.”

  “You also could see more if you didn’t keep your eye glued to that thing.”

  “I want a record of what I’m seeing instead of just my impressions. So tell me the history of Tobias,” she ordered.

  “The town was founded by Tobias Corbett,” he started. He glanced back at Chester, still sitting, still watching Kay.

  As Rob took Kay on a zigzag path from Bliss House’s hill to the revitalized waterfront, he filled her in on Tobias Corbett and his descendants. The Corbetts had produced worthy, prominent citizens who built Corbett House on one hill and the Blisses had produced one-of-a-kind eccentrics who built Bliss House on another.

  “You love it here, don’t you?” Kay asked unexpectedly.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “But you stayed away for a long time. Why?” She made it a challenge.

  “I had my life mapped out. Returning to Tobias didn’t come until later.”

  “How come a guy so career-driven his schedule kept him from someplace he loves is on a leave of absence?” She aimed the camcorder at the library as they approached.

  “The divorce.”

  She moved the camcorder and considered him. “Is that all?”

  “There’s no that’s all about divorce.”

  “I meant is that the only thing, and you knew that. If you want to tell me it’s none of my business, fine, but something’s gnawing at you.”

  “On a day like this? Sunshine, a breeze—”

  “The big thing—the big thing that’s bothering you.”

  “Not a thing.” It had to be a lucky guess. No one else suspected anything beyond the divorce. “Janice, my ex, used to say I was the original WYSIWYG—what you see is what you get. An ordinary guy from a nice town in Wisconsin, had a normal family, did okay in school and got a good job.”

  “She was an idiot.”

  He grinned, surprising himself. “Because she let me go?”

  “Because she didn’t really see you. You’ve got your demons, just like everybody.”

  She looked him over again. Not the way she had when she’d catalogued how well he would fill Brice’s spot; she gave him a different look entirely. Like she was looking inside.

  “Hey!” Nell, coming from the library, skirted raised flower beds to reach them.

  “Hi, Nell.” Kay clicked off the camcorder. “You sure must like books—didn’t you get a stack from the library a few days ago?”

  “Finished those. Can I ask you somethin’?”

  “Sure,” Kay said before Rob could decide whether to warn her that Nell’s somethins could be lethal.

  “Miss Trudi says your grandmother taught you to paint, and that she has a whole big studio you got to use when you were a kid.”

  “That’s right. It’s a great place.”

  The girl tilted her head. “You loved it, huh?”

  He wouldn’t have made that leap. Yet he recognized the truth of it. Sometimes Nell Corbett was scary.

  “I loved it,” Kay said. “It was like Disneyland and Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory—literally. Dora always had chocolate. She said she didn’t know how anyone could create without chocolate. And she was almost as particular about her chocolate as she was about her painting. The smell of paint still makes my mouth water.”

  Nell heaved a giant sigh.

  “I wish I had a grandmother I could paint with. I’ve only got one grandmother and she doesn’t like anything fun. Hey! You can paint with me at Fran’s day after tomorrow. There’s no camp that morning. You could come paint with me and we’ll see who’s better.”

  “It’s not a competition, and I’m working and—”

  “Painting’s work. That’s how your grandmother got famous, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And she’s made a gazillion dollars.” An SUV horn honked. Nell stepped toward it. “Rob, you bring her to Fran’s house day after tomorrow.”

  “But—”

  There were no buts because Nell had gone.

  Laughter brightened her eyes, but Kay said with a fake shudder, “Competitive painting. Why do I have the feeling I’m the underdog.”

  Being around Kay gave his grinning muscles a workout.

  “Because you are,” he said. “Make no mistake about it.”

  During the climb back to Bliss House, Kay pretended great absorption in the view through the camcorder.

  Actually, she’d been absorbed with the man beside her. Close beside her. Sidewalks in Tobias made walking cozy. In crowded Manhattan everyone knew it was nothing personal if you bumped shoulders. Here, when their shoulders bumped, she jolted and hoped he didn’t notice.

  Why did she have this reaction to him? He wanted nothing to do with her. He was a budget freak. He talked about how hot their kiss was with one breath and in the next he cited sense, different backgrounds and bad timing to overrule the attraction. And…and he made agendas for heaven’s sake. She was the least agendaized person in the world. PDAs horrified her. They cramped the soul, not to mention making you squint.

  Although, he showed no sign of a squint, and those muscles had to be too well behaved to cramp.

  “Looks like there’s a problem,” Rob said as they turned the corner beside Bliss House’s grounds. “What the heck…?”

  A half dozen of Max’s men knotted in front of a bright yellow machine used for moving dirt. The driver took his hat off and wiped his brow. She could see the men looking at something on the sidewalk directly in the path of the idling machine. The group shifted.

  Kay broke into a run. “Excuse me, excuse me.” She wormed between two men to where Chester was lying where she had left her.

  A
plastic bowl of water and a hamburger on an opened wrapper were just out of the dog’s reach. She drooled and sniffed hard in the vicinity of the hamburger, but she didn’t move.

  “Oh, Chester.” Kay blinked at the burning behind her eyes as she bundled the camcorder into her tote. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  The tail thwap-thwapped against the sidewalk.

  “Lady, is this your dog?”

  “No,” she said. “Chester, okay.”

  The dog bounced up and immediately went to the food. Every face in the circle looked at her.

  “If that ain’t your dog, lady, you should go on TV with that act,” said one gray-haired, burly man. “We’ve been trying to get that danged dog to move the last twenty minutes so we can get the Bobcat across. Tried bribing him with water and food, and the stubborn cuss won’t move an inch.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. Don’t blame Chester.” She picked up the bowl and the licked-clean wrapper. “We’ll get out of your way. Chester, come.”

  Chester padded beside her into a maple’s filtered shade and out of the path of the machine, which roared to life. Shaking their heads, glancing at the dog and passing comments, the men returned to work.

  Rob stood to one side as she put the bowl down to let Chester drink. “Guess the logical thing now is to call animal welfare to pick hi—her up.”

  “Animal welfare? The pound?” Her voice climbed. “Don’t you read the stories? Don’t you know what can happen to animals there?”

  “Kay, shelters do their best to adopt out the dogs and cats.”

  “Their best? But not all get adopted. And then—no. Absolutely not.”

  He looked at her as if she were a column of figures that kept adding up differently. “In that case, Kay, I think you’ve got yourself a dog. If she stays loose, someone else will call the pound. And even if they didn’t, if she doesn’t listen to anybody but you, it’s not safe for her out here.”

  He was right. What if those men hadn’t been so patient?

  “I can’t take a dog to the Hollands’ house.”

  “Sure you can. They love dogs, have two they take everywhere. Besides,” Rob continued, “you haven’t adopted her. She’s adopted you.”

  “She must be desperate,” she muttered.

  Without answering, he opened the back door of his car and said to the dog, “Do you want to come home with me?”

  Chester didn’t budge.

  “Do you want to go home with Kay?”

  The dog hopped in the car. The two faces—one female canine, one male human—looked at her expectantly.

  “This is temporary,” she said.

  “Sure,” Rob said. The dog sank onto the leather car seat with a sigh.

  Serve him right if he had toenail marks all over the seat.

  “If I do things wrong, you can lump it,” she told Chester. “And I don’t want any lectures from you,” she added to Rob.

  He raised his hands. “Not a word.”

  “Good, because everybody should remember this is short-term. I’m going to post notices, run an ad. The owner will claim her. This is to keep her out of the pound. Nobody’s going to get attached.”

  Chapter Five

  “As long as Chester’s already in the car, I’ll be happy to give you a lift to the Hollands’,” Rob offered.

  “You better be happy to give me a lift to more than that, since I don’t have a car and you engineered this whole thing.”

  Some of her anger had worn off during their walk, but the asperity remained. He liked it.

  “Me?” He pleaded innocence with one hand to his chest.

  “You. Let’s start with a pet store for food, a leash and, uh, stuff.”

  “Let me use your cell and I’ll ask where Steve and Annette get supplies for Pansy, Nell’s puppy. They got her a couple weeks ago.”

  “Good news,” he announced when he hung up. “There’s a pet superstore on the highway that Annette says even has on-the-spot grooming. And you’ll get your first introduction to Tobias retail.”

  As they drove, he refused to feel guilty for not telling her the Tobias Animal Welfare Center had a no-kill policy, with dedicated volunteers placing adoptable animals and caring for the rest. Something about these two—woman and dog—made him sure they should be together. Almost as sure as Chester appeared to be.

  “You’ll still need to call animal welfare,” he told Kay. “Somebody could have reported her missing. And it’s the law.”

  “The law! The law has no heart. People come first, not stupid rules and regulations. People and animals.”

  They’d reached the superstore so he tucked that reaction—overreaction—away for future consideration.

  Nearly two hours later, they emerged with an overflowing shopping cart, a tag with Kay’s phone number on it and a half-dozen books. Chester had been groomed, her matted lumps from ears to tail replaced by fluffy fur.

  “I need to find a vet for her,” Kay said once they were in the car.

  “Everyone takes their animals to Allison Maclaine. She was a couple years ahead of Steve and me in school.”

  Kay’s thanks were muffled. He turned and saw that she was twisted in the seat, facing the back, where Chester lay serenely.

  “Stop worrying,” he said. “It looks like she’s a good traveler.”

  “I wasn’t worrying exactly. I was wondering if she’s regretting this.”

  “Are you kidding? She’s thrilled—as long as she’s with you.”

  “God, doesn’t she know she can’t go around giving out trust that way.”

  She’d clearly meant the comment to be light, maybe even funny. She’d failed.

  “Why are we stopping here?”

  Here was a structure of brick, frame and stucco cobbled together, with a three-quarters full parking lot and a sign proclaiming The Toby.

  “It’s a must-see stop on the Tobias tour. Because with all the attention we’ve paid to this dog’s diet, you and I haven’t gotten dinner. The Toby isn’t haute cuisine, but it’ll keep us from starving.”

  “You mean leave Chester in the car? Alone? She’ll feel deserted. It’s too soon. And she could get heatstroke. Or—”

  “Relax. I’ll get takeout, you stay with Chester. There’s a picnic table.”

  Sitting on the bench while Chester sniffed under the table, Kay admitted this was a good idea. Trees held off the slanting sun with long, cool shadows, while the light turned golden.

  This had never been her favorite time of day. As a kid it was when her parents prepared to go out. After daylight, before nightlife ignited. Catching a sunset in Manhattan wasn’t impossible, but usually required planning to be where the western view wasn’t blocked. A sunset was a goal, an occasion. Here it was part of everyday life. She liked that.

  She slipped off her sandals and wiggled her toes in the warm grass.

  “Hey, Kay, look who I found inside.”

  Rob strode toward her. For a flash, it was like the moment she’d come down the stairs at Bliss House. All she could see was him, all she could feel—

  No. She forced her focus wider. Behind him walked Annette and Steve, also carrying a bag, and Suz and Max.

  “We were in line when Rob told us you rescued a dog,” Annette said.

  “Oh, I didn’t—”

  “And we’re waiting to be served,” added Suz. “So we had to come see this girl named Chester.”

  Chester wagged her tail, but pressed against Kay’s knees.

  “She must not have been out on her own that long,” Max said. “She’s got a bit of a gut on her.”

  “That’s fur,” Kay said indignantly.

  “Along with doughnuts and cheeseburgers,” Rob murmured.

  She shot him a glare. “You can feel her ribs. She’s skin and bones.”

  “And fur,” Max said. “Looks like she’s a golden retriever-collie mix. She’s a beauty.”

  “That’s what the groomer said,” Kay told him, almost ready to forgive his �
��gut” comment.

  “Oh, she’s a love,” Suz crooned, and had her hand licked.

  “With those bloodlines she’ll be a people-pleaser,” Max added.

  “She found the person she wants to please, that’s for sure,” Rob said.

  “And with those bloodlines she’ll shed like crazy.”

  “Yeah, like that bothers you, Annette,” Steve said. “Who was that I heard singing love songs to Pansy while you vacuumed this morning?”

  “Fur doesn’t bother me,” Annette said with dignity. “I said it so Kay would know in case it bothers her, so she wouldn’t get too attached.”

  “Too late,” Rob said. “Chester picked her and there’s no going back.”

  Kay shook her head. “I’m going to put up notices to find the owner.”

  Even looking into the sun’s glare, she saw that none of them believed her.

  Janice had called. According to Fran’s note on the counter, Janice had said to call her whenever he got in. Fran had underlined whenever.

  Rob found the note when he returned home after dropping off Kay, Chester and all the new paraphernalia at the Hollands’. Before he’d left, he’d told Kay what she should see in Tobias tomorrow. When Kay had said she could get a rental car, he’d said he might as well drive her around because he could add Tobias commentary as they went.

  Christ, what was he thinking? Could it be what everyone seemed to be accusing him of thinking?

  When he’d married Janice, he’d had reasons to believe their future would follow their chosen track. Janice had been focused and steady, where Kay was scattered and changeable. If he got involved with Kay it would be like leaning over so the mule that had kicked him in the teeth could get a clear shot at his ass.

  With that image in mind, he was half tempted to ignore the message. But he wouldn’t put it past his ex to call again in the middle of the night, and he didn’t want Fran disturbed.

  Strange how little he missed Janice. He supposed because they hadn’t really been part of one another’s lives for a long time.

  He settled in the family room with a beer and turned on the TV to the all-business channel, took a swig and punched in Janice’s number.