She tried to imagine her sister cheating on her husband. Sleeping
with his best friend behind his back. But it was impossible. Casey wasn’t that
kind of woman. If she knew nothing else about her sister, she knew that. Casey
hadn’t been carrying on with Rob while Danny was alive.
But there’d been something between them just the same. Something
stronger, deeper, and more far-reaching than simple friendship.
He finished the song, looked up, and saw her standing in the
doorway. “Hey,” he said.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But the music sounded so nice,
I just couldn’t walk away.”
“Not a problem. Whether it’s an audience of fifty thousand people,
or just one, it doesn’t faze me. There’s not a shy bone in my body.”
Her attention was snagged by the huge framed poster on the wall
behind him, of the three of them, Casey, Danny, and Rob, set against a plain
white background, shot from above as they gazed up into the camera. Even in two
dimensions, the bond between the three of them was clear. They all looked so
very young. “Good God,” she said. “You were just babies.”
He craned his neck and eyed the poster. “In our twenties. Now that
I’m almost forty, with a sixteen-year-old daughter of my own, it feels like a
million years ago. How is that even possible?”
“Tell me about it. Can I have a minute of your time?”
“Come on in. Sit.” He swung those long legs off the desktop and
carefully set down the guitar. “You want to talk to me about the job.”
A wave of relief flowed through her. He’d brought it up first,
making her feel a little less like a beggar. And she’d bet dollars to doughnuts
that her brother-in-law knew that, and had deliberately introduced the topic at
the onset, to oil the wheels of this conversation and make it less painful for
her. For that, she was willing to give him a few Brownie points.
“Casey told me you just need somebody temporarily, until Ali’s
maternity leave is up.”
“Three months, give or take. That should work out well for all of
us.” He studied her through soft green eyes. “I don’t really have you pegged as
a long-timer. You’ll be gone by spring.”
Why did his words make her feel defensive, when they were true? “Didn’t
we already have this conversation?” she said. “There’s not much here for me.”
He leaned back, swiveled his chair. “I guess that depends on what
you’re looking for.”
“A roof over my head, three square meals a day, and a paycheck big
enough to allow me to put some money away.” She raised her chin and met his
eyes. “So I can move on in the spring.”
He nodded, crossed one bony knee over the other. Leaned to fiddle
with a sneaker string. “It’s a shame,” he said, untying and retying the string,
“that you can’t see how much she loves you.” He glanced back at her, his eyes shuttered
and unreadable. Planting his foot back on the floor, he said, “The job is
pretty much a jack-of-all-trades kind of thing. I’m not the most organized guy
on the planet. It’ll take you about five seconds to figure that out. I’m
looking for somebody who’s part executive secretary, part sounding board, part Rottweiler,
and part Wonder Woman. My wife says you’re smart and quick and efficient. That
sounds good enough to me. You can start Monday morning.”
She blinked a couple of times. “That’s it?”
“The other thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t stand on
ceremony. I’m a loosey-goosey kind of guy. What can I say? I’m a musician. It
comes with the territory.”
She let out a hard breath. It was the oddest and briefest job
interview she’d ever had. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me until you see how much work it is trying to keep
track of me.”
“Right. Got it.”
He leaned back and clasped his hands over his midsection, his
long, slender fingers threaded together. “There’s one more thing I have to say
before we seal the deal, and I’m only saying it once, so pay attention. There’s
a lot of tension between you and Casey. She was all wound up when the two of
you came back from shopping. I don’t really know what your deal is, or why you
have so much trouble getting along, because my wife usually gets along with
everyone. But that’s not the point. The point is, I don’t want to see you
fighting with her. I don’t want her upset. If the two of you can’t get along…if
I catch you winding her up…I’ll toss you out on your ass. As long as you don’t
step over that line, we’ll be just fine.”
She should have been insulted. Should have told him to take the
job—and the apartment—and shove it. Instead, she said, “Why are you so
protective of her?”
“My house, my rules. That woman is my life. I don’t think I could
breathe without her. She takes care of everybody but herself. Somebody has to take
care of her. I elected myself Somebody.”
There was something in his eyes, something he wasn’t saying. Suddenly
frightened, she said, “Casey’s not sick, is she? I thought she looked pale this
afternoon, but she brushed me off and said it was nothing.”
He sighed and shook his head. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”
Colleen clutched the arms of her chair. “Tell me what?”
“She’ll probably kill me for blabbing. We were planning to wait a
little longer before we spread the word. But if you’ll be living here and working
with us, you should know. She’s pregnant.”
Relief, sudden and shockingly welcome, arrowed through her,
leaving a tremor in her voice. “Is that all? You had me scared for a minute.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you. She’s exhausted and cranky. That’s
how she was during her first trimester with Emma. She’s having bouts of morning
sickness at all hours of the day and night, and she’s trying to wean Emma
because in a few months, there’ll be a new baby to be breastfed. And her blood pressure’s
running too high. The doctor’s not worried, but she is monitoring it pretty
closely. This whole thing has me nervous. I think it’s too soon for another
baby. Emma’s only eight months old. But my vote didn’t count. Casey was
determined not to wait, and I’m sure you know how stubborn she can be. This is
why I don’t want her upset, angry, agitated, you name it. I don’t want to see
anything that’ll send her blood pressure spiking.
Capisce
?”
She let out a hard breath. Nodded, and said, “
Capisce
.”
He stood then, reached across the desk, and shook her hand. And
said, “Welcome to Two Dreamers Records.”
Harley
Above his head, soft flakes of snow drifted, feather-light, from
the sky. Damned if the Widow hadn’t gotten it right. Was it some sixth sense?
Or was she like his Granddaddy Atkins, who always swore his right knee told him
whenever it was about to rain?
He tapped his shoes against the edge of the steps to shake the
snow off. Behind him, Annabel did the same. Together they crossed the porch to
the front door. Harley rang the bell and waited, shifting from foot to foot
like some high school kid on a first date. Beside him, Annabel crouched down to
ruffle Ginger’s fur. He’d intended to leave the dog home, but Annabel wouldn’t
hear of it, had insisted on bringing the damned critter with them. He hoped
Casey wouldn’t mind. She was a dog lover, after all. And Ginger could play with
Paige’s little mutt, Leroy.
The door swung open, and he found himself face to face with the
ice princess. She glanced past his shoulder at the snow that was falling
steadily, and he could have sworn he saw a smirk of satisfaction cross her face.
“Come in,” she said coolly. “Looks like I’m the welcoming committee.”
He fumbled with the bottle of Merlot he’d brought, finally managed
to transfer it into her hands without smashing it on the hardwood floor. “I
thought I should bring something.”
She took the bottle from him, held it gingerly, frowned as she
studied the label. Then said, “This should go to Casey, in the kitchen. I can—”
“I’ll take it to her,” Annabel said. “Then I’m going upstairs to
find Paige.”
“Shoes off!” he said. Annabel kicked off her shoes, and dog and
girl trotted contentedly in the direction of the kitchen. He and the Widow
stood in the entryway for a minute, staring at each other, before she seemed to
realize she was still holding the door wide open. She closed it quietly, then leaned
against it, crossed her arms, and said, “You clean up pretty good, Atkins.”
He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Pardon me?”
“I said you clean up pretty good. The dog, the mud…”
Ah.
“The misunderstanding…”
She turned the color of a ripe peach, and for a flicker of an
instant, he was sorry he’d embarrassed her. “That was quite a surprise,” he
said, “walking into my kitchen and finding you standing at the sink, performing
a household chore I find highly distasteful.” He studied her face, those blue
eyes that gazed at him impassively. “Maybe I should hire you to do that on a
regular basis.”
Dryly, she said, “You’re about four hours too late.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“My brother-in-law just hired me to fill in for Ali until she
comes back from maternity leave.”
“Well, then. Congratulations on the new job. If, indeed,
congratulations are in order.”
“I haven’t decided yet. Check back with me in a couple of weeks. I
should have a better idea by then whether or not I’ve made a colossal mistake.”
“It’s a damn shame. While I’m sure you’ll be a crackerjack
assistant, you would’ve been outstanding as household help.”
“Why do I not find that amusing?”
In spite of himself, he grinned, unable to avoid the picture that popped
into his head of her wearing one of those skimpy little French maid uniforms. He
needed to be careful. If he said what he was thinking, he’d be skirting
dangerously close to the edges of sexual harassment. And he didn’t doubt for an
instant that this one would take full advantage of that kind of lapse. He’d
seen her type before, in court, back in the days before he became a corporate
talking head. A woman like that, no matter how tempting, no matter how beautiful,
was out for just one thing: to take care of Number One.
The grin faded as Annabel rushed into the entry hall. “Five
minutes to dinner!” she shouted, and clattered up the stairs in search of Rob’s
teenage daughter, followed by a long-legged, loping canine. Paige was seventeen,
and therefore a big deal to his twelve-year-old daughter. A mentor, an older
woman who knew everything that Annabel herself was so eager to learn. Paige
seemed like a good kid, but God only knew what kind of stuff she was teaching Annabel.
“We might as well go into the living room,” the ice princess said.
He left his shoes in the front hall. In the living room, a roaring
fire crackled on the hearth. Harley stood in front of it, rubbing his hands
together in a vain attempt to warm up some portion of his frigid anatomy. No
matter how many years he spent in the Northeast, his pathetic Georgia ass would
never adjust to winter weather. “You were right,” he said.
Perched primly on the arm of a chair, her legs crossed, some kind
of frou-frou, expensive, girly shoe dangling loose from her bare foot—bare, in
Maine, in January—she said, “About what?”
He forced his attention from the curved arch of her foot back to
her face. “About the weather. It’s snowing like a son of a gun out there.”
“I rest my case, Counselor.”
He’d thought she lacked a sense of humor, but maybe he’d been
wrong. He opened his mouth to speak, and Casey appeared in the doorway, her
face flushed, her hair a little mussed. Quite possibly there’d been more than
cooking going on in the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready,” she announced.
As if by telepathy, the girls seemed to get the message. They came
clomping down the stairs like a herd of antelope, and the six of them, plus
baby and two dogs, gathered in the formal dining room. Looking around, he
surmised that the room wasn’t used often. Casey and Rob MacKenzie weren’t
formal people. But their kitchen table was too small for company, where the
dining room could hold up to twelve people without anyone rubbing elbows.
The smell of meatloaf, loaded with ketchup and onions, almost
brought tears to his eyes. As a bachelor, his cooking left a lot to be desired.
Anything he could take from the freezer, spread out on a baking sheet, and toss
in the oven was good enough. But Casey MacKenzie was a world-class cook, the
meals she made hearty and delicious. Good, old-fashioned home cooking. Comfort
food. He’d forgotten how much he liked coming here. Good food, good company,
good conversation.
Rob opened the bottle of Merlot and offered it around, but Harley
was the only one to partake. While he and Rob filled their wine glasses, the
women poured iced tea from a tall glass pitcher clinking with ice cubes.
Everything about these people was warm, welcoming, and a little unconventional.
Instead of sitting at opposite ends of the long dining table, Rob sat at the
head with his wife at his left elbow, baby in her lap, close enough to touch. Or,
Harley thought, close enough to play footsie under the table. The group busied
themselves scooping up mashed potatoes and meatloaf and green beans from
Casey’s garden. They buttered rolls, filled glasses, forked homemade
bread-and-butter pickles onto their plates. While at their end of the table, the
girls dissected the latest teen movie, he glanced across at the ice queen. Those
blue eyes met and held his for what seemed an eternity before she picked up her
napkin, shook it open, and dismissed him.
At her end of the table, Casey scooped a tiny amount of mashed
potato onto the tip of her spoon and fed it to the baby. “You probably remember,”
she said, addressing Harley, “that I had an ulterior motive for inviting you
here tonight.”
“I do seem to recall you saying something about wanting to talk to
me.”
She smiled at him, fed the baby another bite of potato. “You told
me once that your parents raised sheep.”
If it wasn’t the dead-last thing he’d expected her to say, it ran
a close second. “I did. And they did.”
“I’d like to pick your brain. I’m thinking of buying a few, and
I’d really like your input.”
“Buying a few,” he said blankly, and met Rob’s startled eyes. “A
few sheep.”
“Sheep?”
Rob said, as if he’d never heard the word before.
“Sheep,” Casey clarified. “As in
baa-baa
.”
“I know what sheep are,” her husband said. “I’m just a little…ah…surprised.
Just when were you planning on telling me?”
Harley hazarded a glance at the ice princess, who was watching
this little exchange with a rapt expression. She glanced at him, raised her
eyebrows, and returned her attention to the drama that was going down at the
end of the table.
“I’m telling you now,” Casey said. “We have acres and acres. I was
raised on a dairy farm; I know animals. And I was in 4-H. I raised my own prize
heifer. We won a blue ribbon. I bet I never told you that.”
“You didn’t.” The expression on Rob’s face was priceless, alternating
between pride and horror. “Knowing you, it doesn’t surprise me. But why sheep?”
“You should be grateful that I don’t want cows. They’re huge, and
messy, and they have to be milked twice a day. Sheep are much more manageable,
and you can make lovely things from their wool.”
She turned back to Harley. “I’ve been thinking about trying my
hand at dyeing and spinning yarn. I’d like to use my own wool. But I don’t know
a thing about raising sheep, or even if it’s within the realm of possibility. I
thought you might be able to fill me in.”
“Well, ah—” He tried to ignore the way Rob was looking at him,
nostrils flared, as if daring him to take a misstep. Harley cleared his throat.
“You have to realize that it’s been a while. But as far as I can recollect, my
experience with sheep was that they’re dirty, mean-tempered, and quite
incapable of any form of critical thinking.”
“Oh, but those sweet little faces,” she said. “I just want to
shower kisses all over them.”
“That may be, but they’re a bit intellectually challenged. You
know their reputation. There’s a reason why clichés become clichés. If one damn-fool
sheep grazed too close to the edge of a cliff and fell off into the sea, the
rest of the herd would just jump off right behind him.”
Colleen made a funny little sound. He shot her a quick glance, but
she lowered her eyes and demurely lifted her iced tea.
“As a matter of fact,” Casey went on, “I’ve read that sheep aren’t
nearly as stupid as they’re reputed to be. Yes, they play follow-the-leader, but
that’s because of their herding instinct. Did you know that they can recognize
human faces? That might not involve critical thinking, but I’d have to
categorize it as a form of discriminatory thinking. Certainly more than simple
instinct.”
“In that case,” he said, picking up a buttered yeast roll,
“they’re probably higher on the intellectual scale than a few folks I’ve run
into who just graduated from Harvard Law.”
Rob coughed into his hand and said, “Babe? I’m thinking this is
something we need to talk over. Later. In private.”
She opened her mouth to argue with him, and her sister let out a
little shriek. Harley turned in her direction just in time to see Ginger, one huge
paw braced on the table top, scarfing down what was left of Colleen’s meatloaf.
“Ginger!” Annabel scolded. “Bad dog!”
Harley closed his eyes. Counted to ten. Opened them again, raised
his empty wine glass, and said to Colleen, “Would you mind passing that bottle
down the table? I’m definitely overdue for a refill.”