Slow Dances Under an Orange Moon (Colors of Love Book 4)

by V. L. Locey

  “Dolores Kelly from the Agency on Aging. I’m so happy to hear that you’ve finally arrived. Is Dunlop available?”

  “He’s in the tub right now.” I went to the end of the aged, curly phone cord and peeked up the stairs. I could faintly hear him singing about bluebirds and the cliffs of Dover as he splashed around. “Would it be possible to come in today and have a chat about Dunny’s situation?”

  “Sure, I have a block open before lunch. Say 11:00?”

  “Super, I’ll see you around eleven then. You’re still in the Markwell County courthouse, right?”

  “That’s correct. Next to the tax collector’s office.”

  We hung up after pleasant goodbyes were exchanged. I knew they couldn’t tell me intimate details about Dunny. I knew most of what they were worried about anyway, but I thought that touching base and telling them I was on the job and things were going to be in better condition would ease their minds. We all hated the thought of putting Dunny in a home. No one wants that for a loved one. But it was looking like he had to have help at least on a temporary basis, and since I was now footloose and fancy free, it might as well be me helping.

  “Okay, Dunny, I’m coming up. Get your balls rinsed off, and we’ll get you out and dressed for the day,” I shouted as I climbed up the stairs.

  “My balls are clean as an acorn!” he announced as I strode into the bathroom. This room was as dingy and dirty as the rest of this ancient house. Maybe it would be better to simply bulldoze the place and start over?

  “Good for your balls. Up we go.”

  Twenty minutes later, Dunny was dressed in clean shorts and a short-sleeved cotton shirt, happily in front of the TV, his drone project on a TV tray in front of his recliner.

  “Grab some milk. Oh! And gummy bears. The yellow ones only,” Dunny yelled as I went out the front door, the screen door slamming behind me, the busted screen whipping in the wind.

  I paused on the porch and added screening to my ever-growing list of necessities.

  The ride into town was pleasant, uneventful aside from a doe and fawn crossing in front of my car. I’d seen them in plenty of time, so I slowed down and stopped and simply watched the spotted babe wobbling along behind his mother, his legs skinny little sticks that tended to get tangled up now and again. I took a few dozen pictures before they slipped into the Maine woodlands.

  Town was quiet, Alf’s Hardware was even quieter. Spruce Lake on a Tuesday morning was nothing short of hubbub central. Not. Alf was the father of one of my school mates, Pete, who had joined the military out of high school—there were no jobs to keep young people here—and now had a wife and kids and lived out in Nebraska. All that was relayed to me as my pile of purchases grew and grew.

  “I might need to have you deliver this,” I half-joked when I propped a new stepladder up against the counter. “I’m not sure my car will have room.”

  “I can do that during lunch if you want,” Alf offered. So I took him up on his kindness and added an extra twenty to my total. “I’m parked around back so is it okay if I use your rear door?”

  “Ayuh. Just be mindful back there. Got a coon been hanging around by the trash cans behind the Sassy Moose past few days,” Alf called from the paint aisle where he was gathering up my paint and brush needs. “Keep telling Kenny to stop tossing food out there, but does he listen? No, man’s thicker than a pine knot.”

  I snorted at the thick Maine accent as I backed through the door, arms loaded with tools, nails, and cleaning goods like a bucket, mop, and broom/dustpan combo. It was just like Dunny’s. I spun around and slapped my ladder into someone. That someone grunted and began to apologize profusely until my eyes met Davy’s. There was deep surprise in those incredible brown depths. Surprise that twisted around into a cauldron of less than savory emotions. Anger being one that I picked out immediately. My gaze fell to the box trap in his hand then slowly traveled back up over him. Fuck but the man looked incredible in that uniform.

  “Hey,” I said in lieu of anything intelligent.

  Davy’s lips flattened. “I heard you were coming back to take care of Dunny.”

  Mm, his voice had deepened since I’d heard it last, become more mature, as had his face. He’d grown into his jawline well.

  “Well, for the summer at least. Until Dad is back on his feet and can make the correct call.”

  “Oh, yes, that sounds like you.”

  I blinked at the venom that had just splattered me. “Uhm, what?” He shoved ‘round me, his goal the trash cans behind the pub. I followed along behind him because what the fuck was that nasty poke in the eye all about? “Excuse me, Officer Aguirre, but what the hell was that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. It meant nothing.” He placed the trap to the ground and began shoving trash cans around. I shifted my load and spread my legs.

  “Sounded like it meant something. I thought you’d be happy to see me. I’m all kinds of excited to lay eyes on—”

  He whirled around like a wolverine who’d just had its tail yanked. The man was all fang and fire and fury.

  “Twenty years.” He leaned in close, so close I could see the light brown flecks amid the bittersweet chocolate of his eyes. So close that I inhaled his cologne. A rich, citrus spice that appealed. So close that I could enjoy the fine lines around those gorgeous eyes. “Twenty years. You left here twenty years ago and never once came back. You said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ but tomorrow never came, Kye!”

  Wow. Okay, yeah, I may have said that. I think I did. Did I? “Davy…”

  “No, David. My name is David. And you’re a motherfucking shit bag of a human being. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do here.”

  He turned and gave me his back. It was a really nice back, almost as nice as his front. I took a step closer then Kenny stumbled out the back door, mouthing off about Alf calling the game warden about a stupid little raccoon. I eased back, away from the conversation. It didn’t concern me, and Davy could handle himself. He carried a gun for fuck’s sake, so Kenny and his wet bar cloth wouldn’t present a problem. Also, backing away right now seemed wise. The man in the tan uniform calmly explaining that raccoons in town, while cute, became problematic quickly, had been more than a little upset with me. He’d been livid. Best to get some space and let him cool off.

  While the two men talked coon issues, I snuck to my car, dumped my treasures into the trunk, and drove off. It had been some time since I’d been so thoroughly spanked. I wasn’t sure I liked it. The verbal spanking that is. I didn’t mind a manual one from time to time.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, leaving Main Street in my rearview. That had not gone at all according to plan. I’d imagined Davy having a little residual irritability over my departure from this town all those years ago. Perhaps even a smidgeon of anger that would flare to life but only for a second. Then those beautiful brown eyes of his would soften, the anger would dissipate, and he would come willingly into my arms—and bed—and we’d rekindle. Rekindling seemed to be out of the question at the moment. Hard to start a fire with a frozen stick. “Fuck,” I said once more then cranked up “Crash into Me” and roared back to Dunny’s to lick my wounds and paint walls. A few hours later Dolores called to ask me what had happened. Now I felt like twice the loser, and so I spewed apologies all over the poor woman. I also made another appointment for the following Friday, apologized profusely one last time, then slapped my roller into the tray and began rolling madly while Dunny plotted about potato bugs.

  Chapter Three

  Two days after the raccoon trap fiasco, I awoke to a bloody sunrise. The sky was heavy and scarlet. I padded out onto the back porch after stepping into some shorts because old Mrs. Macklemore did not need to see my hefty cock swinging in the breeze. I tipped my nose into the wind and sniffed. Rain was on the wind. Knowing better but doing it anyway, I scoped out the Aguirre homestead. It looked peaceful. No one was about. Not so with Mrs. Macklemore. She was tottering around in her yard, pinching garden plan
ts seemingly without a care in the world. I’d lost track of how old she was, but she had to be near or older than Dunny.

  She’d moved into her house back after the war. Her husband had come home from his service missing a leg but determined to support his family. They found work on the farm that this property had once belonged to and moved into what was then homes for the farm hands. Three of them on the backside of the pond. Dunny had purchased the farm and land from the children of old man Schneider. He divvied the parcels up, keeping the larger lot and farmhouse for his wife and son, and sold off the other three houses. Dunny had kind of inherited Mrs. Macklemore but the Aguirre’s and the Watson’s—who had recently moved—had come along much later. They’d always been here as far back as I could recall. They both worked in the only industry around here, the cell phone charger factory.

  Mrs. Macklemore glanced my way, lifted a hand in greeting, and then simply fell over. One second she was standing up and waving and the next she was lying in her garden. I threw my cup of coffee aside and raced down then around the pond, my bare feet slipping in the thick dew on the grass.

  “Mrs. M, are you okay?” I called as I raced toward her. The sliding door on the Aguirre house flew open with a bang and Davy sprinted out, his father and mother behind him. I reached the old gal first and dropped to a knee right among the pepper plants. “Mrs. M, you okay?”

  “Duane?” she asked, clearly disoriented, as her son Duane had died in the late sixties in Vietnam. “Duane?”

  “Nope, not Duane, it’s Kye. Dunny’s boy.” I slid an arm under her legs and one under her back and stood. She weighed next to nothing. When I turned the Aguirre’s were all staring up at me. “Let’s get her inside. Someone want to call her doctor or emergency services.”

  “Let me take a look at her. I took basic first aid classes after I got my degree in case I came upon any medical emergencies in the field,” Davy said. I nodded and carried the old gal back into her house, placing her gently on her sofa then stepping back out of the way so Davy could give her a once over. Mr. Aguirre was on the phone with emergency services so that left me and Mrs. Aguirre staring at each other. She was still a pretty woman, same ebony hair and dark brown eyes as her son and daughter, but the smile she used to have for me back in the day was gone. Now there were just deep-set lines around her mouth, which seemed to be growing deeper the longer she looked at me.

  “Paramedics are on the way,” Mr. Aguirre, a tall man with thick black curls and a bushy mustache announced and strolled over to give me a sound hug and handshake. “Nice to have you back, Kye, we were getting worried about Dunny over there.”

  “Well, we’re working to get him settled and hopefully let him stay in his home as long as possible,” I replied, my attention drifting to Davy as he asked Mrs. Macklemore several gentle questions about her name, her address, who the president was. Mrs. M seemed a bit more coherent now that she was in the coolness of her house. Mrs. Aguirre brought our elderly neighbor some water, and by the time the paramedics arrived Mrs. M seemed to be herself again. They still persuaded her to go to the ER and get looked at. With a promise from Mrs. Aguirre that she would call Mrs. M’s nephew in the next county, the EMTs carted her off to the hospital, also a county over.

  “Nice to see you all,” I said, backing slowly out of the choking cloud of dislike settling on my shoulders like a wet, wool cloak. Feeling their gazes on my bare back, I let myself out the basement door. The humidity was building fast. If we didn’t get a kickass thunderstorm before the day was over, I’d eat my shorts. Noticing the pepper plants that had been knocked to the ground, I stopped by the tidy garden and bent over to right them and pack dirt back around the roots. As I patted the rich soil around the last plant the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up, so I straightened and glanced skyward to check on the thickening clouds. Seeing no forks of lightning, I turned a bit, and there stood Davy by his parents’ back door. Hands in the pockets of his denim shorts, gaze pinned to me, we stood there staring. I lifted my hand and gave him a shaky smile. He slid inside without so much as a suck my ass which would have been the proposition of a lifetime.

  “Just fuck you too then,” I snarled then stomped back to my side of the pond to get dressed.

  Dunny was waiting for me at the wobbly screen door, his blue eyes heavy with worry. “What happened?” He waved his cane at the pond.

  “Mrs. M took a tumble in the garden. Dehydrated maybe?” I shrugged. “We can call later to check on her. You know that kind of thing there is just one reason why people your age should really have someone checking on them every so often. She could have laid out there for days if I hadn’t—”

  “Don’t even start with your shit,” Dunny snapped, shuffling around me, his slippers kicking up sparks on the worn carpeting. “If I fall over and lay there until I die then that’s God’s will. Don’t want no one coming in here and poking around in my business and that includes you and your father!”

  I lifted my hands in surrender. “Fine, fine, just don’t bitch to me when you take a damn header down the stairs and bust every ornery bone in your body.” He farted loudly as he made his way out of the kitchen. “Nice, Dunny!”

  He chuckled wickedly as he made his escape. I threw the windows open to air out the room, booted the ladder to the far wall, and wondered why I wasn’t in the Cayman’s with some supple tan twink instead of back here smelling old man gas and being stabbed to death by angry Spanish eyes.

  Dunny and I had shared dinner, a frozen lasagna meal, and I’d gotten him safely up the stairs and into bed. He had a small TV set in his room, and he seemed happy enough with Gunsmoke reruns and a glass of Kool-Aid and cheese crackers beside his bed for a snack.

  “Hey,” he called as I eased out of the room. I stuck my head around the frame. “You hear anything about Stella you come tell me.”

  “Will do. Don’t be frogging around on those stairs. Everything you need is in here. Use the damn bedside commode if you have to go piss. I mean it, old man.”

  He stopped the eyeroll with a grunt and a shake of his cane. “Not right shitting where you sleep. Even a damn hog knows that.”

  “You’re not shitting where you’re sleeping, you’re shitting in a portable bedside toilet. Which will keep you from tumbling down the stairs and killing your fool self.”

  “Still shitting where you sleep,” he muttered. I threw up my hands.

  “Just shit in the damn pot!” I shouted over my shoulder while making my way down the stairs. What he said I didn’t catch. Probably just as well.

  I made a quick check of the locks on the doors and windows, all of which needed replacing, and felt a stab of guilt for the decline of this house. I’d known that Dad’s back had been getting worse and worse, and so I should have come to spend time with Dunny years ago. Maybe I was a motherfucking shitbag of a human being as Davy had said. Sure seemed so…

  The rain that had threatened all day arrived around dusk. A massive thunderhead rolled over the area, dumping rain and small balls of ice as winds whipped the trees and tugged off loose shingles. The Wi-Fi that I’d insisted be installed in Rose’s studio dropped out several times. Around ten as I was nicely showered and stretched out over my frilly pink bed, air drying my nuts, a message came in making my phone buzz and vibrate on the dresser. Tossing my book aside I padded over to pick up my phone. It was a short text from Davy (how he had my number I could only guess) saying that Mrs. M aka Stella was being kept overnight then going to spend a week or two with her nephew down in Penobscot County.

  I hit him back with a thanks and asked him to call me on the landline. A long pause followed my request, but then he replied and asked for the number. A fingerling of excitement coursed through me as I typed. The phone out in the living room/painting area rang, and I jogged out to get it.

  “Hey,” I opened with because I’m so articulate. “Thanks for calling. I hate typing on those phones. The keys are so small and my fingers are big like summer sausages.”

&
nbsp; “It’s fine. Stella was dehydrated and low on iron. Kind of typical for old folks, they don’t take care of themselves as they should.”

  “Yeah, I know that well,” I replied, walking to the patio door to gaze out into the night. Rain spattered the glass steadily. “I was wondering if you’d maybe like to meet me somewhere to talk. Doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy. Down by the pond would work?”

  “It’s raining.”

  My left ear felt cold. “I know, I didn’t mean right now, just sometime soon. I’d really like to catch up. We used to talk all the time back when we were…well, when we were…”

  “I really don’t have anything to say to you.”

  Yikes. Now I had a frostbitten ear and a stab wound to the lower belly. Rough crowd. Tough night. Don’t forget to tip your…ah, fuck it.

  “You sure? Seems like we have plenty to talk about.”

  I heard his exhalation and it pained me on so many levels. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Davy.”

  “Look, it’s David or Dave. I stopped being Davy the day my first love left and took all my childish hopes and dreams with him.”

  Ouch. Owie. Damn. Fuck. This phone call was leaving me with all kinds of weeping wounds and contusions.

  “You know if you would just agree to talk to me, I might be able to offer you some kind of apology,” I fired back because when I was in pain I tended to lash out. Ask any defenseman in the league about Kye McLeod’s reaction to being upended or speared. “Kind of hard to say, ‘I’m sorry’ to fucking air.”

  “I don’t think you have the right to get pissed off at me, Kye. I don’t think you have the right to demand one thing from me, be it my time or a cup of coffee. You left. You left without a care for me or my feelings.”

  “Davy, I mean Dave, for shit’s sake, you knew I was leaving. I’d told you over and over that when the time came I was off to play hockey. You knew that!” I wanted to shout or hit something or knock a goalie off his skates. Yeah, that sounded really good. I knew just the asshole I’d like to knock assbackward into his net too. That big Russian who played for Tampa Bay. Bastard had always been a thorn in my side. Shame no hockey was to be found.