“What’s so sad is that…if and when Dennis sobers up, he won’t remember a word. He may not even remember my phone number. He hasn’t called except when he’s three sheets to the wind.”
“Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? But I have to admit I’ve never spent any time around an alcoholic.”
Laurel seemed surprised by that. “In your business? You mean Ridge City hasn’t got any town drunks? That hardly seems plausible.”
“I’m not saying there aren’t guys around who get buzzed occasionally. And those who stop at the tavern every night for a beer or two. But I guarantee I’d know if anyone around here had a problem—or a mouth on him—like your ex.”
Again Laurel’s face reddened. “It’s not pleasant. Please, can we forget it happened?”
“I doubt it. Laurel, what if he shows up at your door one day?”
She shivered and wouldn’t meet Alan’s eyes. Her lawyer had said that Laurel shouldn’t be naive. Sometimes men decided to wreak vengeance on ex-wives who, in their alcohol-soaked minds, had wronged them, and they too often succeeded.
“I can tell that thought’s entered your mind.” Alan walked back to the coffee table and ripped off a corner of Louemma’s file folder. Taking out a pen, he scribbled down three numbers. He labeled them H, W and C. “The first is my home, which I know you already have. The second is the distillery, and the third is my cell. If for any reason, day or night, you need help, I want you to phone me.”
She shrugged and started to refuse the scrap of paper.
Striding up to her wall phone, he tucked the paper under the edge. “I mean it.” He glanced at his watch. “Time for me to stop saying goodbye and actually go. Louemma’s last class is almost over. If I hustle I can probably catch her tutor and wind up the conference I postponed.”
“By all means. Go. Her tutor sounds…young,” Laurel said before she could stop herself. Having made the observation, she quickly added, “Is she a certified teacher or just a college student working toward a teaching degree?”
“Rose? You think Rose Robinson is young enough to be in college? She’ll love it. Laurel, she taught me. Rose is my grandmother’s age.”
Once again, Laurel felt her face explode in heat. It was bad enough to appear curious about a woman who might be more to Alan Ridge than his daughter’s tutor. It was even worse to be caught probing so blatantly for information. “It’s hardly my concern,” she said dismissively.
Alan’s foggy brain could come up with only one reason Laurel might be so flushed over their latest exchange. If she’d thought he and Rose—no, that was preposterous. Laurel had all but told him to stay out of her life. Clearly she couldn’t wait for him to be gone.
He didn’t stick around, although he stopped more than once to cast a backward glance in her direction. Surprisingly, she remained standing in the doorway. Alan didn’t wave, and neither did she. All the same, there was a new connection of sorts. As he drove home, Alan discovered he was looking forward to returning the next afternoon.
THE NEXT DAY, Louemma badgered her dad to stop at the supermarket in town before they went to Laurel’s. “I want to buy treats or a toy for Dog. He always puts his head on my lap, Daddy. It’d be cool if I had a present for him.”
“He may be a little old for toys, honeybee. Anyway, we have no idea what he might like.”
“Nana told me you used to have a dog. She said he died and you never got another one. Why? Were you too sad?”
“I was. Boone was a good old dog. A coon hound. Out of the same litter as Pete Madison’s Crockett. Pete and I named our dogs after mountain trackers—Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Hey, squirt, don’t you remember how you and Sarah used to try and dress up old Crockett?” Alan smiled as he cruised through fond memories.
“I don’t remember. Why did your dog die and not Mr. Madison’s?”
“Boone picked up a tick. His fever shot sky-high before I could get him to a vet. Sometimes sickness spreads so fast there’s nothing anyone can do, Louemma.”
“Why didn’t you get another dog?” she asked again.
“I didn’t have time to train a new pup, and…your mother, well, she…was never too wild about dogs.”
“We could get one now.”
Alan should’ve seen that sneak attack coming, but he hadn’t. “It’s not just up to us. Nana has a say. Look, here’s the pet aisle. Let’s see what they have.”
Louemma finally settled on a soft rubber bone that had a bell in one end and a squeaker in the other. It took her so long to decide, Alan thought they might be late for her lesson. On their way to the checkout, Louemma saw a display of African violets. “Stop, Daddy! Ms. Ashline loves flowers. Those ruffled white ones with the pink centers are beautiful. Can we buy them? The other day Brenna showed Jenny and me a vase on the windowsill above Ms. Ashline’s loom. Her flowers were wilted. Buy her these, Daddy, ’cause they’re in a pot and they won’t get all yucky.”
“Honey, it’s one thing to take Dog a toy. A gift for your teacher—well, she might get the wrong idea.”
“How? I don’t understand. She likes flowers, and hers died.”
Sighing, Alan added the small green pot to their purchase. Some rituals of the type that went on between men and women he’d rather not try explaining to a nine-year-old.
They were only marginally late, for which Alan was glad. He passed Brenna’s mom on the gravel road a half mile from Laurel’s cottage. He wouldn’t have liked that chatty woman to see him carrying a potted plant to a single, and therefore eligible lady. Gossip again. Lord, Alan hated those wagging tongues. In small towns, though, gossip was like the lifeblood.
Seconds after Alan had pushed the wheelchair across the threshold into the loom cottage, the violet pot wedged on one side of his daughter and Dog’s toy on the other, he rushed to assure Laurel that both gifts were from Louemma. After all, he remembered the fate of the fruit basket Vestal had sent in his name.
“For me?” Laurel knelt and wrapped her arms around the child. “You shouldn’t have, sweetheart. But they’re gorgeous. I have the very spot for violets. Where I can see them whenever I work.” Standing on tiptoe, she stretched to place the pot on the ledge above her loom.
“See, Daddy?” Louemma said smugly. “That’s where me, Jenny and Brenna saw her dead roses.”
Laurel froze, then dropped slowly back on her heels. Had Alan, too, noticed how long she’d kept his vase with the three rosebuds? If so, he said nothing to rub it in.
“Shall we get started?” Laurel said brightly. “Half an hour will go by fast.”
“Where’s Dog?” The child seemed upset when she didn’t see him.
“Oh, I left him at my house after Jenny and Brenna’s class. Dog generally eats about this time and I didn’t want to interrupt your lesson to go feed him.”
“I brought him a toy bone,” Louemma said excitedly. “ I want to give it to him.”
Laurel opened her mouth to suggest waiting until after the lesson. But it was plain that Louemma wouldn’t settle down to work without first delivering her other gift. “I’ll run and get him.”
“Let me.” Alan reached for the doorknob at the same moment Laurel did. Their fingers touched, and something like an electrical impulse shot up Laurel’s arm. “I’d better go,” she rushed to say, yanking back her hand. “He knows you, but he might be unwilling to let you in if I’m not home.”
“Ah. Of course.” Alan’s arm fell limply to his side. As Laurel dashed out, he was left wondering what had happened.
He hardly had time to gather his wits before she returned. Her hair was mussed by the wind and her cheeks pink from the run down and then up the hill. She was beautiful. How had he missed that in the beginning?
Louemma immediately called Dog. The big lummox loped over to her chair, his tongue lolling out one side of his mouth. He zeroed right in on the bone lying across her knees. He nudged it with his nose. The toy rattled and the dog sprang back.
Giggling, she coaxed h
im forward again. This time he grabbed the bone, but when it squeaked in his teeth he tossed it straight up in the air. It fell with a squeak and a rattle. Acting like a pup, Dog pounced once, then twice, shaking it wildly in spite of the noise.
The trio watching the show shared a delighted peal of laughter. Laurel sobered first. “Well,” she exclaimed dryly. “With luck that’ll keep him occupied throughout your lesson, Louemma. But you’re here to learn weaving. I’ll start by sliding your chair under the table. You’ve watched your friends work a loom. Now I’m going to show you up close how easily the beater bar moves.”
Louemma’s eyes grew round. It was obvious she wanted to touch the wool.
“What color yarn is your favorite?” Laurel asked.
“Red,” the girl whispered. “Or yellow. I like yellow, too.”
Edging the wheelchair back, Laurel plunked a huge coil of bright red yarn in Louemma’s lap. She added a yellow one of equal size. Taking Louemma’s inert hands in hers, Laurel carefully arranged the lifeless fingers around each ball of yarn.
Laurel felt Alan grow tense. “Alan, we’ll be at this awhile. Please take a walk or at least find a seat.”
Dropping cross-legged to the floor, she smiled serenely, inducing an answering smile from Louemma. “These colors would make such a nice, bright winter scarf. I want you to imagine how soft it’ll feel warming your neck.”
“Will it be a scarf like skaters wear?”
“Sure,” Laurel murmured, almost afraid to think she felt a ripple along the backs of Louemma’s hands. A faint tightening of her muscles.
“I wanted to learn to ice-skate on the pond. Mama wouldn’t let me.”
“Think of your scarf. Imagine how it’ll look flying behind you in the wind.”
Slowly, ever so slowly as Laurel painted pictures with words, she also withdrew her fingers. Louemma clutched both balls of yarn without assistance.
Directly behind Laurel, Alan leaped up from his chair and drew in a sharp breath. The hiss startled his daughter. Her right hand fell to her side and the red ball skittered across the floor.
Upset over dropping it, she started to cry. The yellow ball joined the red.
Dog bounded across the floor. He sniffed the yarn, then picked it up in his mouth and gently deposited it on the child’s lap. He held the ball steady, a low whine urging her to take it. And she made every effort. The strain showed on her thin face. Laurel thought Louemma’s wrist might have moved a quarter inch.
“Thank you, Dog,” she said calmly. “Louemma needs you to bring her the yellow ball.”
“Yes, please,” the child said, sniffling through her tears. Laurel took a clean tissue from her pocket and dried her face.
When the shepherd obeyed at once, Louemma broke into a happy laugh. “He did, Daddy! He brought me the yarn.”
And ham that he was, Dog expected to be petted in reward. He nuzzled his way under the girl’s stiff arm. “I love you,” she cried, making her best attempt yet to stroke his soft fur. “I wish you were mine! I drop stuff all the time. If you lived with us, Nana wouldn’t have to bend so much. She’s getting old, you know.”
Pleased, feeling that a tiny breakthrough had come far earlier than she’d expected, Laurel was unprepared for Alan’s response.
“How much for the shepherd?” he demanded, digging out his wallet.
“What? You’re joking!”
“No. You saw what I saw. It’s the dog, not the lessons, that’ll help her.”
Clambering up, Laurel frowned as she pulled him aside. “If that’s what you think, we’ll stop the lessons right now. Dog is not for sale.”
“You can go to the shelter and find another pet.”
“Leave, Alan. I don’t care if you own the entire town. You can’t barge into my life and think you can buy everything I have. First the creek. Now Dog.”
For a moment Laurel thought he’d argue. He didn’t. He walked stiffly over to his child, grasped the handles of her chair and wheeled Louemma to the door.
“Bye,” the girl called. “I’ll be back for another lesson in two days. I love you, Dog. And you, too…Laurel.” The door slammed on her words.
Laurel sighed and glanced at the nodding violet, doubting she’d ever see Louemma again. It was some time before the incident faded and she was able to return to her own project. Even then, she worked with a heavier heart.
Chapter Nine
WELL AFTER DARK that same day—Laurel had lost track of the exact time—Dog leaped up from her feet under the loom and raced to the door. He barked, but this wasn’t one of his I-hear-a-squirrel yips. A couple of weeks ago, when he’d had a similar barking fit, Laurel had discovered a pair of raccoons waddling up the path. “Easy, boy,” she called, rolling her shoulders. It was later than she’d realized; she’d worked through supper again. However, she’d forgotten her irritation with Alan Ridge, and in one more good sitting she’d finish this project.
Dog didn’t let up. He was definitely acting strange. He snatched up the bone Louemma had given him, and still attempted to bark without dropping the toy. “Come here, you crazy mutt.” Laughing, Laurel spun around in her chair. Dog didn’t budge, so she got up to check. She’d nearly reached his side when she heard the unmistakable crunch of footsteps on her gravel path. Still, Dog was no longer sounding an alarm. Unless you could call emitting happy little woofs—around the bone he continued to hold—a warning.
She yanked open the door and screamed as a dark, somewhat blurry shape with an upraised arm appeared on her porch. Her mind stopped functioning. Dog—her protector—wagged his tail.
“Laurel.” Alan’s low, deep voice penetrated her fright.
She flattened her right hand over her galloping heart. “Why on earth are you sneaking up on me at this time of night?”
“It’s just past eight. I…should’ve phoned first, but I was afraid you might hang up on me, considering what a jackass I made of myself this afternoon.” Noticing the dog, Alan bent and the two played tug-of-war with the squeaky toy.
“If you’ve come to up the ante on your offer for my dog, the answer is still no.” She resented the way she’d let him frighten her out of her wits.
He straightened, looking repentant. “I seem to spend half my life lately apologizing to you. Of course you don’t want to sell him. I was blinded by Louemma’s first sign of improvement. At dinner I told Vestal and Birdie what I’d witnessed. They both believe if there’s a breakthrough it’s due to both of you and Dog.”
“Come in,” she said finally. “We’re letting the mosquitoes in. We need to talk. Better yet, let’s go to my house. I haven’t eaten, and I’ve sat at the loom long enough.”
“I hate to interrupt your meal, Laurel. May I take you to a restaurant instead? God knows, a substantial meal is the least I owe you.”
“It’s late, Alan. And you owe me nothing.” They walked down the path with Dog trotting between them. Laurel unlocked her well-lit house.
“I stopped here first because so many lights were on.”
“If I turn them all on when I feed Dog at five, then when I work late, as I often do, I’m not walking into a dark empty house.”
“Makes sense.” Alan trailed after her into a small but serviceable kitchen.
“I’m going to make tea. Would you like a cup? Or I have soda.”
“Tea’s fine. Or nothing. What did you want to talk about?”
Laurel set up the teapot, then took out a plate and began to fashion a sandwich of ham and cheese. She sliced tomatoes, periodically staring at Alan as if trying to decide where to begin. “Our backgrounds are so different, Alan. I was ten when a doctor at a welfare clinic diagnosed my mother as having an anxiety disorder. It wasn’t the first of her mood swings, but the most severe, to that point, anyway. I think he explained it to me, because I was the only other person there. He prescribed pills and said she’d be fine. Except she alternately used and abused her pills, I learned later. She got and quit jobs, then didn’t fill her prescr
iptions. To make a long story short, my mother suffered chronic and recurring episodes in one form or another until she died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. I was fifteen—the age she was when she had me.”
As Alan rose, he evaluated what life must have been like for her. He couldn’t resist wrapping her in a warm embrace. When she stiffened, he rubbed her to relax her. “Did you end up in a foster home?”
She gravitated to his warmth. “No, I didn’t tell my counselor Mom was dead. I struggled to stay in school, the only place I enjoyed. I managed.”
“Why didn’t Hazel take you?”
“A year passed before I found Mom’s parents’ names in a keepsake box. Since she’d never said anything good about them, I made excuses not to contact them, either.” The kettle whistled and Laurel slipped out of Alan’s embrace. She prepared the tea and poured them each a cup. She half expected Alan to interrupt again. He didn’t. He murmured sympathetically and continued to observe her out of dark, turbulent eyes.
She took a seat at the table in her breakfast nook, which forced him to wedge himself in, too. Alan sipped his tea and Laurel picked at half of her sandwich until the silence grew excruciating. “After graduation—I don’t know—I guess seeing all the other kids’ families at the ceremony made me want…someone. I wrote to my grandparents. Hazel wrote back, and we began a weekly correspondence.
“The main thing she did through her letters was spark my interest in weaving. I visited an old school counselor, and she helped me get into an apprentice program in Vermont.”
“And that’s where you met and married the bozo I heard on the phone.”
“Right. Alan, I’m not telling you this story to make you feel sorry for me, but to explain why I hate scenes. And confrontation. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime. I had to accept erratic behavior from my mother. I accepted it from Dennis. But this seesawing we’ve been doing over Louemma’s lessons isn’t something I have to put up with. It’s got to stop. Otherwise, I won’t be able to continue teaching her, no matter how much you or anyone pleads.”
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