Beauty & the Beasts (11 page)

“Your mom’s a good cook.”

“She
used
to be!” Garth burst out. “You ought to see the stuff she cooks now! It’s all weird. Like—” He broke off suddenly, his expression closing. Apparently he’d realized he was being confiding.

Eric pretended not to notice. “She always did like to experiment. You didn’t mind when you were little.”

“Yeah, well, if she’d put squid in ink sauce down in front of you, would you have eaten it?” the boy challenged.

Parents should stick together. “I would have, uh, taken a bite. You never know…”

“Oh, right.” His son sneered.

Glad of an excuse to change the subject, Eric nodded toward the revolving belt that carried a planeful of luggage. “Which is your bag?”

From then on, Garth answered Eric’s questions in
monosyllables. An hour later, just breaking free of Everett’s rush-hour traffic, Eric flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and glanced at his son, whose face was averted. The boy was slumped in the passenger seat, nibbling on one fingernail and staring out the window. A few minutes ago he’d pulled a Walkman from his pack and put on headphones, shutting out Eric’s increasingly desperate attempts at conversation. Despite the headphones, a monotonous bass beat thudded through the pickup cab.

Why the hell hadn’t Noreen warned him? Eric wondered, his anger growing with every mile that passed. Had Garth changed so slowly she hardly noticed? Or was she afraid he’d opt out of his parental responsibility if he knew what a fun summer lay ahead of him?

“Goddammit,” he muttered, “she should have known better.”

And he couldn’t even call her. She was off on her honeymoon to Tahiti. No phones in the grass hut presumably. Although something told him that Chuck Morrison, CEO, had booked a somewhat more upscale room. The new wife just wanted to be incommunicado. Eric looked again at their son. Who could blame her?

Actually she
had
left an emergency number. But he didn’t figure this was an emergency. Yet.

At home he carried Garth’s suitcase to his bedroom, unchanged from last year. The seemingly perpetual sneer never left the boy’s face as he looked around at the books he’d left on the shelf, at the mountain bike Eric had put in here the day after
Garth went home last August, at the sports posters he’d reverently hung two summers ago.

“You don’t care if I tear those down, do you?” Garth asked.

“Of course not. It’s your room.”

The boy didn’t move. “Why did you make me come?”

His answer mattered. “Because I want to be part of your life.”

His son turned a heated stare on him. “You mean, you want me to be part of
yours.
This isn’t
my
life.”

There was some truth to that. Enough to make Eric uncomfortable. Was it fair to Garth to haul him across three states every summer and expect him to slide into a new slot as if he fit perfectly? Did Garth really need a father, or was he, Eric, being selfish in putting his son through this?

“It could be,” he said quietly. “You used to make it yours.”

“You and Mom never gave me a choice.”

Pain stabbed his gut. “Are you saying you’d never have come if we had?”

“Maybe.” Garth hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to be here now.”

“Where do you want to be?” Eric made his tone brutal. “On your mother’s honeymoon?”

“I could have stayed home alone,” his son said fiercely. “Or with a friend. Mom’s not going to be gone that long.”

Keeping his voice level, being the adult he theoretically was, took an effort. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “you’re not here because of your
mother’s remarriage. I love you. I want to spend time with you. This is the only way I can do that. I know it’s not perfect. I know it would be a hell of a lot easier on you if your mother and I had stayed married. But we didn’t, so it’s this or nothing. I would have missed my father if he hadn’t been part of my life. I hope that, looking back, you’ll feel the same.” He went to the door. In exactly the same tone, he added, “Now, I’m going to put dinner on. Why don’t you unpack?”

He was just opening the refrigerator when the phone rang. Snatching it up, he snapped, “Yeah?”

“Dr. Bergstrom?” The voice belonged to one of two women who ran the extremely efficient message service the veterinary hospital used.

He shoved the refrigerator door shut and leaned against it, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hi, Beth. What’s the bad news?”

“Dr. Hughes is already out on a call and Jed Rice just phoned. His shepherd—you know, that big black one? She got hit by a car. She’s in a bad way, he says. He’s on his way to the clinic with her right now. Dr. Hughes is up almost to Darrington. She’d be nearly an hour even if she turned around now.”

“Okay,” Eric said, resigned. As busy as he and Teresa were getting, maybe they needed to hire a young vet as an assistant. “Tell her to finish up there. If Jed phones in again, let him know I’ll meet him at the hospital in ten minutes.”

A moment later he knocked on Garth’s door. No answer. He swore under his breath and went in.

The suitcase still sat, untouched, where Eric had
left it. Garth was sprawled on the bed, headphones on, eyes closed. For an instant Eric thought he was asleep, until he saw that Garth’s fingers drummed a beat on the bedcovers.

“Garth.”

The boy muttered some lyrics under his breath. His eyes remained closed.

Eric shot a glance at his watch, then crossed the room and touched his son’s shoulder.

Garth’s eyes opened. He yanked off the headphones and glared up at his father. “What?” he asked belligerently.

“Can you get yourself something to eat? One of our clients is on his way into town with a dog that was hit by a car. I don’t know how bad it’ll be or how long I’ll take, but I’m guessing an hour minimum.”

Garth jerked his shoulders. “Sure.” He settled the headphones back over his ears and added flippantly, “Have fun.”

Anger churned in Eric’s stomach, but it was depression as heavy as a winter cloud cover that rode his shoulders as he drove to town.

Jed had beaten him there. Eric unlocked the door, and the two men staggered under the weight of the huge shepherd as they carried her from the back of Jed’s canopied pickup into the hospital.

She was bleeding and in shock, and one leg was obviously fractured. Eric started an IV, sedated her and took an X ray. The break was clean enough to set.

“You’ll have to keep her off it,” he warned. “It
won’t be easy. Start by planning to carry her up and down any stairs when she has to go outside. Somebody will have to watch her to make sure she doesn’t do too much. In a few days she’s going to want to put weight on the leg, and she shouldn’t.”

The farmer, a brusque man in his early fifties, had his head bent as he stroked the big dog. “It’s okay, girl,” he murmured. Lifting his head, he said, “We’ll manage. Got the grandkids here for the month. They can take care of her. Bonanza here, she’s the wife’s baby. Well, hell.” He ducked his head. “Mine, too. Nicest dog we ever had. When they were tots, the grandkids climbed all over her. Won’t hurt ’em to pay back now. I can handle the trips outside.”

“Then we’ll go ahead.” Eric reached for the razor to shave Bonanza’s foreleg.

Two and a half hours had passed by the time he quietly let himself in the front door of his house. Hannah was waiting, and Eric almost tripped over Mannequin, splayed on her back in the middle of the floor.

“Dammit, cat,” he muttered, “why can’t you find a nice couch like everyone else?” She blinked at him and didn’t move.

No sign of Garth; he was probably still closeted in his bedroom. Trailed by Hannah, Eric went to the kitchen first, to see if Garth had gotten anything to eat. Either he hadn’t or else he’d cleaned up after himself. Eric was betting on the first alternative.

He turned to leave the kitchen, then stopped. The house had an open floor plan; separating kitchen and family room was a long wet bar, which he seldom
used except to eat breakfast when he was in a rush. He hadn’t entertained in a month or more, and he almost never had a drink by himself. But one of the cupboards was slightly ajar. The magnetic latch hadn’t quite caught or had bounced back open.

Eric squatted in front of it and swung the door the rest of the way open. Hannah slipped inside to check out the wine rack, empty but for a couple of bottles, and a miscellaneous collection of hard liquor: a good Scotch, half a bottle of vodka, gin for those who partook. He was certain there’d been a bottle of bourbon, as well. But no longer.

He made sure his footsteps were quiet as he went down the hall. He knocked; a moment of silence was followed by a hurried, “Just a minute!”

Eric opened the door. Garth was bent over, hand under the bed. The window was flung open, but even so the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke lingered.

Garth’s head shot up. “Hey!” he exclaimed indignantly.

“So you smoke, too.” Eric’s voice was hard. Parent, coming down heavy on his kid. Who’d have thought?

“Sometimes.” The teenage shrug was sullen. “Big deal.”

“Does your mother know?”

“Yeah.” But Garth’s eyes wouldn’t meet his. Translation: Noreen had caught him a few times and forbidden cigarettes.

“Neither of us smoke, and for a good reason. In the long run it kills you. When you’re eighteen and
have moved away from home, you can make your own decision. Right now you’re twelve, and my responsibility. You will not smoke when you’re here. Is that clear?”

Garth let loose with an obscenity.

Eric ignored it. “This is your home. You can help yourself to food any time you want. But the booze—” he leaned over and snatched the bottle of bourbon from under the bed before his son could do any more than jerk in involuntary protest “—is offlimits. I think you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I just wanted to taste it.”

“Let me repeat—you’re twelve years old. Alcohol is illegal for you to ‘taste’ until you’re twenty-one. And by God, you won’t drink in my house.”

“Oh, it’s
your
house now. And I’m your
responsibility
now. That’s all I am, isn’t it?” the boy cried, flinging himself facedown on the bed. When Eric laid a hand on his shoulder, Garth rolled away from it. “Just leave me alone!”

Eric hesitated, feeling inadequate. How was he supposed to handle this? Maybe he should have been more buddy-buddy, talking about how he knew Garth wanted to be a man, but how booze and tobacco weren’t the way to be one.

Too late. And the anger simmering in his belly wouldn’t have let him, anyway. Garth wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t been testing his own manhood; he’d been testing his father’s control over him.

“Fine,” Eric said. “I’m going to warm up spaghetti and make a salad. If you want some, you know where to find it. And me.”

In the kitchen he slammed a pan down on the stove too hard, considering its glass surface, and knocked the milk container on its side as he yanked the bowl of leftover spaghetti out of the fridge. Dumping it into the pan, he turned the burner to high, then cursed as he grabbed the dish towel to mop up the pool of milk.

What in hell was he going to do with Garth? In the past year, the boy he’d known had vanished, replaced by a sullen defiant teenager who didn’t want to be here. Setting limits was great, but how did a parent enforce them? He couldn’t watch Garth day and night; he’d have to leave him alone some of the time. Good God, did he even want the boy with him at the hospital or on farm calls? What would Garth do—sneak out behind the barn for a cigarette while Eric was doing preg checks?

“Noreen,” he said softly, “why didn’t you send an instruction manual?”

Easy answer: because she didn’t have a clue what to do with their son, either. Maybe Garth wasn’t too far off in guessing that his mother was dumping him for the summer.

Teresa’s daughter, Nicole, had been a pain in the butt when her mother had first moved to White Horse and bought into his practice, he remembered. Maybe Teresa would have some advice.

Anything was worth trying, before he irredeemably blew his relationship with his son. Eric reached for the phone and dialed.

P
ATRONS AND WAITRESSES
bustled around Madeline and Eric’s table at the Main Street café. His chili
steamed, untouched, in front of him; a toothpick still impaled her turkey-and-swiss-cheese sandwich. Madeline listened to his tale with her elbows on the table and her chin cupped in one hand.

“I locked the alcohol in a cupboard in the garage. Garth conspicuously did
not
throw out his cigarettes. And that was just the first day. In fact, he didn’t come out of his room except to use the bathroom, and then he slammed the damn door so hard a picture fell off the wall.” Eric leaned back in the booth. His laugh held no amusement. “We’re hardly speaking now. He holes up in his bedroom, and I utter dictatorial pronouncements. Parenting at its finest.”

Touching had never come easily for Madeline, unless she was reaching for something four-footed and furry. But now instinct had her stretching out her hand and taking Eric’s across the table. “It sounds like he’s asking for it. What else can you do?”

The tightness with which he returned her clasp belied his wry tone. “Abdicate?”

“Plenty of parents do.” Including her father, who had been absent throughout her childhood. He’d sent checks for her birthday and Christmas. She’d seen him twice after he and her mother divorced when Madeline was four. He’d died a few years back, unmourned by her.

“What does he want from me?” Baffled pain filled Eric’s eyes. “Or doesn’t he want anything?”

“Of course he does!” She squeezed even harder. “He wants love and security and…and…acceptance.”

Eric sighed heavily. “God help me, I do love him, and I can’t believe he doesn’t know that. And, hell, what do I accept? His music? Smoking? The pants bagging around his ankles?”

Feeling a spark of humor for the first time, Madeline tilted her head to one side. “Now wait a minute. You’re starting to sound like our parents’ generation. Did
your
mother and father like your music and what you wore?”