My Foolish Heart

by Susan May Warren

  “What can I say? The tourists love their donuts. By the way, have you met your neighbor?”

  “No. But when I do, I’m going to make the Neanderthal buy me more pansies.”

  “Neanderthal, huh? What is that, number two on the ‘Issy’s perfect man’ list—no Neanderthals? What does that mean, really?”

  “Number four. And specifically? No flannel, must be able to read above a third-grade level, and most importantly, don’t park on my pansies!”

  “You and your list.”

  “It’s practical and keeps me safe.”

  “Your list will keep you safe because it’s unattainable.”

  The sound of laughter lifted from the street. A group of locals walking home, perhaps.

  “So, really, you aren’t even going to talk to him?”

  “Who?”

  Issy raised an eyebrow. “Seb, of course.”

  “No. Why would I? It’s in the past, and I’m over Seb. Completely.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Issy got up, carried her plate into the kitchen, leaving Lucy to contemplate the moths darting at the hot porch light.

  * * *

  Something about Lucy didn’t seem right. Something in her tone, the way she described Seb.

  Hello, but had Issy been the only one in the room when Lucy refused to attend school for three days after she broke up with him? And stayed in her bed, crying? Then for at least two months after, she walked around in a sort of daze as if a part of her had died when Seb broke her heart.

  It had taken eight years for Lucy to come back to herself. Little by little, and especially after the Presleys’ accident, she’d finally become the girl that Issy knew. Maybe, indeed, she was over him, but Issy had expected Seb Brewster’s reappearance to rate more than a “He looks good.”

  Perhaps if Lucy had added, “The creep,” Issy might feel like she wasn’t hiding something.

  Issy stored her leftover fish burger in the fridge for tomorrow. Maybe she’d attempt the grocery store again.

  Or not. Oh, she’d never shake the expression of that poor man from her brain. How could she be so cruel? I’m sorry, God. Please help him to forget me, forget what happened.

  Hopefully he was a tourist and right now was dancing to—

  “Issy!” The panic in Lucy’s tone brought Issy back to the porch, where Lucy stood—perhaps trapped, perhaps simply horrified by the monster unseating Issy’s variegated hosta.

  They might have been on reasonable terms this morning, but that was before he broke into her yard, started tearing up her garden. “Duncan! Stop!”

  He looked at her, dirt hanging from his muzzle.

  “Maybe he’ll go away,” Lucy said.

  “You’re a huge help. How’d he even get in here?”

  The dog dug his snout back into the earth. The hosta tore and she cried out in actual pain when it flew into the air, green and white shrapnel. “No!” She turned and grabbed the broom still on the porch from this morning’s cleanup. Then, shoving it into Lucy’s hand, she said, “Back me up.”

  “What? Wait—you’re not going in! What if he attacks?”

  Issy didn’t turn around. “Then I want you to bean him. As hard as you can.”

  “Isn’t that dog endangerment?”

  “I’m more concerned about the hosta endangerment.” Issy took a breath, then grabbed the animal’s grimy collar. Bracing her feet, she fought to wrench his face from the ground. “Oh, I am so going to kill him.”

  “Kill who? The dog?”

  Her precious garden dirt, with the lava ball fertilizer and imported vermiculite, hung from the animal’s mouth. With all her strength, she wrestled him away from the hole. Then, to Lucy, “No, my new neighbor, the redneck who can’t keep his mule in his own yard.” She cast a look at the hosta debris. “And while I’m at it, I’m going to tell him to get his tires off my pansies.”

  Lucy edged off the porch. “Why stop at a tongue-lashing? I’ll get a rope.”

  “Stop grinning, Lucy, and just hold the broom.”

  When Issy reached the gate and unlatched it, Duncan catapulted through, tearing toward freedom. “Ow—don’t take my arm off.”

  She braced her feet as the animal half dragged her toward the front of the house. “I don’t know why you didn’t just exit the way you came.” A car rolled down the street and again she nearly lost her arm at the socket as Duncan lunged for it. “No! Bad dog!”

  “You tell him, Issy!” Lucy followed, a good ten feet behind.

  The dog shagged a look back at Lucy, a sloppy grin on his face.

  Issy hip-checked him toward his owner’s travesty of a yard. She practically had to get her jungle waders on, take a machete to his grass to fight her way to the walk. Duncan got the general drift and bounded for the front steps.

  Her bare foot stepped in something soft, gooey. Ew—what was that? Egg?

  Disgusting.

  Music—she should have guessed, some twangy country singer—rumbled through the open window. She rang, then knocked on the door. Then rang again.

  “I’m coming, just a second!”

  But the music didn’t stop and the dog stepped on her foot.

  “Get out here and get your dog!”

  “Uh . . . my dog?”

  “Yeah, your dog.” Duncan slurped her on the face. Oh, for crying out loud. “Listen, you have to keep him tied up or something.”

  “I can’t tie him up.”

  Of course not. It was probably against his redneck code. The music cut low and she heard banging. How long did it take him to get to the door?

  “You should know that my hosta took me years to grow and your buffalo here chomped it out in one bite. Have you any idea how hard it is to get things to grow up here? This is a zone three, and nothing grows here, especially my variegated hosta. I’m just thankful he didn’t get into the Pilgrims, and I’m telling you, if he had even sniffed at my tea roses, I’d be digging a hole for his grave.”

  “Listen—”

  She heard a warning tone, and it sparked something inside her she couldn’t place. “No, you listen. I live next door, and I’m tired of staring at this wreck of a yard. Show some respect for the neighborhood—for that matter, your new town. If you really want to win friends, paint your house. It looks like an old shoe left in the rain.”

  “I just moved in!” His voice sounded far away, deep inside the house.

  She lifted her voice in case he couldn’t hear her. “And could you please attempt not to drive on my lawn when you pull up? Here’s a hint, if you mowed your lawn, you might actually find your driveway, and you could park on that. You took out six months’ growth of pansies.”

  The door opened.

  And then her world stopped. He wore a red bandanna—instead of his red hat—and a black National Guard T-shirt cut off at the arms, a pair of faded jeans, and a growth of scraggly whiskers.

  She hadn’t noticed that before.

  Nor had she noticed the football girth of his arms, now dressed in shadow, or the way he filled out his shirt, his wide shoulders, lean hips. He leaned into the door, bracing himself even as he opened the screen.

  This time she knew enough to keep her gaze off the scar running down one arm.

  “Can I help you?”

  Her stomach began to cramp. God, this isn’t fair. She’d asked for a second chance, but . . .

  “I’m sorry.” The words trickled out small, without power. She let go of the dog. “I . . . Your dog was in my garden.”

  He looked at the animal like he couldn’t care in the least. “He’s not—”

  The swirl inside roused, tightened. Get off the porch; get back home. . . .

  “Just take him.” Issy let go and the dog jumped on her. She grabbed its paws. “No, please, c’mon, Dun—dog.”

  She expected her breaths to pile up in her chest, expected sweat across her palms. Instead she just wanted to cry. “Keep him away from my yard and my hosta, and if you could keep him from committing any more felonies�
�”

  Stop talking. She heard the voice as if it might be speaking to her outside her head. “Uh . . . welcome to Deep Haven.”

  She fairly pushed the dog into the house, past the neighbor. He startled, gripping the door as the beast mowed over him, but she didn’t stick around. Hopping off the porch, she all but sprinted back to her property, past Lucy standing sentry with the broom—what a huge help she turned out to be—up her own porch steps, and into her house.

  Issy sank down on the stairs. Shook her head.

  Lucy came in, set the broom upside down in the umbrella stand, and closed the door. “What was that all about?”

  “He’s the one.”

  “The one? As in, the perfect ten?”

  “What?” Issy looked at her. “No. The guy from the grocery store.”

  “The guy with the scars?”

  Oh yeah, his scars. Mostly she remembered his blue eyes. And the look of confusion in them. “Yeah. But . . . well, he actually is kind of cute.” Had she said that? She winced, then buried her head in her hands. “And I made a fool of myself, yet again. What is it about this guy that brings out the worst in me?”

  Lucy sat on the stairs. Put her arm around her. “And remember, Lovelorn, your perfect love might be right next door.”

  * * *

  It’s not my dog. Caleb had tried to push the words out, but every time he tried, she cleanly bit them off. He just might be bleeding.

  He’d closed the door when she reached her porch and now turned to the reason for his bruises. “Way to go, pal. Exactly the way I’d hoped to meet the pretty neighbor.”

  And, oh, his heart went out to her. The look on her face when he’d opened the door, the texture of shame in her voice. He wanted to go after her, but perhaps he’d wait until they’d both recovered.

  His leg wasn’t quite secured, either. He’d struggled to get it on as she stood outside, yelling at him, and had nearly given up and grabbed his crutches, but he didn’t want a repeat of the grocery store.

  The dog stared at him, a sofa pillow in his grimy jaws. Then he dropped low on his front legs like he wanted to play. Yes, she’d been right calling him a buffalo. “What are you? Horse? Part bison—hey! Don’t!” But the dog took off as Caleb eased toward him, knocking over a glass of water he’d set on his stained mission table. As long as the animal didn’t topple the flat screen—

  Caleb dove for the television, righted it just as the dog skidded to a stop on the oval rug. He dropped the pillow as if Caleb would take the bait and lunge for it. His tail wagged with the power to destroy a couple small countries.

  “I don’t know who you are, dog, but frankly, I’m in her camp. You and I can’t be friends if you’re going to eat my groceries and decimate my yard. I need this town to like me.” He approached the animal, but it bounced away—with the effect of a tractor trailer rumbling through his A-frame. “How ’bout if we scrounge around the fridge, find you something to eat, huh?”

  Limping back to the kitchen, he opened the fridge, found a package of hot dogs he planned to cook this week on the grill, and wrestled one out. The dog slurped it up in one breath, his massive tongue licking his jowls.

  He had a good mind to simply toss the package outside as far as he could, let the dog romp after it. “But that would be irresponsible, wouldn’t it? She has a point. You are a bit ragged around the edges. Don’t you have a home?”

  The dog sat in the middle of Caleb’s linoleum, depositing a slick of mud on the white floor, and swished his tail through it.

  Nice.

  “Okay, if you’re going to sleep here, you have to at least be clean. C’mon . . . Roger. I think you’re a Roger. Let’s go.” Caleb snagged a flannel shirt hanging over a kitchen chair and tucked the package of hot dogs in the pocket, then grabbed the liquid hand soap next to the sink.

  Roger trotted out the back door, down to the yard.

  Caleb flicked on the porch light and uncoiled the faded hose nestled behind the house. Then, holding out another hot dog, he caught Roger’s collar. “Sorry, dude.”

  He turned on the hose and began to wet the animal’s coat. Mud sloughed off, puddling at his feet, and Roger’s coat began to shine a lovely raven black. He pumped the hand soap, and as Roger finished off the last of the hot dogs, Caleb ran his hands over his coat, working up a brown lather on his body, his legs, under his neck. Then he sprayed the dog again.

  Roger shook, drenching him with grimy suds.

  “Nice, Rog. But you’re kind of handsome without the mud.” He’d hop over to the library tomorrow, pin up a Found ad on the community bulletin board. Until then, maybe he could teach Roger some manners.

  At the very least, he’d keep the mutt away from the neighbor’s hosta.

  Caleb watched the dog dance through the jungle of his backyard. When he turned toward the house and took a step, his bad foot dropped into one of Roger’s holes.

  He pitched forward and went down hard. He tried to roll onto his back but bit back a cry as the leg caught in the hole.

  Then his gaze went—of course—to the Victorian window overlooking his yard. Thankfully, no one stood in the outline, pulling back the curtains. Scrambling to his feet, he hopped toward the house, his leg hanging, useless. “Roger!”

  The dog bounded up the stairs, danced on the porch, his tail taking out the dead spider plant in the plastic planter near the door. Caleb steadied himself on the porch rail as he turned, then scooted up the steps backward.

  When he reached the top, he slid back and stretched for the light, disappearing into the darkness.

  Breathing hard, he worked off his prosthesis. He might have damaged the hinge at the ankle. He’d have to make it work. At least until after the competition. He couldn’t win the job out of pity.

  A thousand stars winked above him. He listened to the wind brush the trees, smelled the pine, heard the faintest twang of the band downtown.

  Lord, this might be harder than I thought. Are You sure I heard You right? Am I really the one for this job?

  Roger sat down next to him. Put his soggy head on his lap. Sighed.

  Caleb ran his hand over the dog’s head. “Me too, buddy. Me too.”

  5

  “Caleb, I hope you like butternut squash.” Ellie, Dan’s pretty wife, set the casserole dish on the table. “It’s growing like a weed in my garden.”

  “Love it. My mother used to slather it in butter and bake it in the oven.”

  “Your mother and I would get along.”

  Wendy, their daughter, carried in a plate of meat loaf. “Daddy’s favorite,” she said and glanced at her father, pouring iced tea into glasses.

  Dan winked at her. “Go call your brothers in for lunch, please.”

  Caleb watched her open the sliding door, call out over the deck to where twins Ethan and Joseph swung on their jungle gym. Caleb had learned their names this morning when they’d nearly knocked him over running down the center aisle after church. Thankfully, Ellie blocked for him. She had the moves of a right guard.

  “Great sermon today, Pastor. I love Philippians and especially the 4:19 passage.”

  “‘This same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches.’” Ellie added a Jell-O salad to the table. “Including lunch. We’re so glad you could join us. Sorry the place is such a mess. I had to cover an extra shift at the firehouse last night because of the picnic.”

  A mess? The house—more of a log cabin—had the look of a firehouse. Everything in order, gleaming stainless steel appliances, a picnic table in the kitchen, a couple of comfy suede sofas in the open living room. A loft above the kitchen looked over the giant picture windows facing town. Caleb had stood way too long drinking in the view of the little hamlet perched on the curvature of the harbor.

  “This is a beautiful place.”

  “Thanks. Ellie and I built it together.” Dan pulled out his wife’s chair.

  Caleb took the one next to Wendy. “Built it? As in, hammer and na
ils?”

  “Yep,” Ellie said. She held out her hand for Dan, who took it.

  Wendy nudged Caleb, her hand lying on the table. Oh. He caught it up, took Dan’s on the other side. Bowed his head as Dan prayed.

  In those brief seconds, he was home, sitting at the table, his father at the head, with the traditional words, the smell of a pot roast, carrots, onions, potatoes, and rosemary nudging open his eyes. Collin sat across from him, kicking him under the table—

  Wait. He peeked open his eye. Sure enough, Ethan suppressed a grin.

  “Amen,” Dan said. He reached for the meat loaf. “I have to admit, I was surprised to see you today in church.” He handed the plate to Caleb.

  “Why? You invited me.”

  Dan loaded up some squash. “That I did. It’s just . . . well, it’s good to see the football coach sitting in the pews again. It’s not an easy job, coaching all those boys into manhood. It’s great to see that you’re willing to accept some help.”

  He wouldn’t exactly call it that. More like following through on his word to the Almighty. After all, a guy could only expect so much help. “I grew up in the church.”

  “Where was that, Caleb?” Ellie scooped squash onto Joseph’s plate, despite his grimace.

  “Little town on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin called Preston. It’s a farming community. My father ran a hardware store.”

  “So were you a Packers or Vikings fan?” Dan asked.

  “‘It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up,’” Caleb said, quoting Vince Lombardi, the Green Bay Packers’ legendary coach.

  Dan shook his head. “Well, we’re going to have to keep it friendly when the Packers play the Vikings.”

  “Not too friendly,” Ellie said, handing Caleb the salad. “So why did you choose Deep Haven?”

  “I love small towns. I like the simple life, the slower pace.”

  “You won’t think it’s so slow when the school year starts.” Ellie moved a napkin to Joseph’s lap. Gestured for Dan to do the same for Ethan. “We can barely keep up with the sports, the carpools, ministry, and our shifts down at the firehouse.”