Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (2 page)

Relief flooding his chest, Brad hunkered down beside the box.

“What are you anyhow?” he asked the lump of dusty gray fur. “You a raccoon? Or a kitten? You’re putting up a mighty big fuss; that’s for sure.”

“Don’t touch it,” Mack warned. “You could get bit and die of rabies.”

“Yi! Yi! Yi!”
The creature tried to turn around, bumped into the side of the box, and then lifted its head to howl.
“A-woo! Oooo! Yow, yow, yow.”

“Rabies,” Brad muttered. He reached into the box and slipped his hand under the soft, downy belly. Cupping the animal, he made a cursory examination. Ears, eyes, tail, snout, fuzzy legs, and four paws.

“It’s a puppy,” he pronounced. “And the talkingest one I’ve ever met.”

“Yawp.”
The little head darted forward and a small pink tongue licked Brad’s nose.

“Agh, not that!” Brad wiped away the moisture with the back of his hand. He flipped the puppy over and determined he was holding a male. “Who left you here, fella? You must be freezing.”

“Brother,” Mack said in disgust. “You gotta be some kind of jerk to dump a puppy in weather like this.”

Brad knew that Missouri country folks often didn’t have the means to get their pets fixed. That meant thousands of mixed-breed, unwanted puppies and kittens were abandoned on the roadside each year. Animal shelters and city pounds usually picked them up, but many starved, were killed by larger predators, or got hit by cars.

“At least they put him near a public place,” Brad observed. “I guess they figured he’d find a home.”

“He ain’t finding a home with me.”

“Me neither.”

The jukebox started up inside the tavern. Yvonne must have finished her song set and would be taking her usual place at the bar. Married nearly a year now, Brad knew he shouldn’t give the woman a second thought. The sultry songbird was older than Brad by several years, and she had been around the block a few times. She told him she had tried to make it in the Nashville music scene but found the going too rough. She had sung backup at one of the big shows in Branson for a while too. But eventually she came home to the lake area—single, sexy, and looking for a good time. That siren call was getting harder to resist by the day.

“Wow!”
The sharp yelp startled Brad. The pup had curled up in the crook of his elbow.
“Ick, ick, ick.”

“What are you talking about now, you little yapper?” Brad murmured as he stroked the matted fur. Pressing his small head against the man’s palm, the dog expressed his delight in human touch. Brad grinned. “What do you want, boy? Huh?”

“Uh-oh,” Mack said. “You’re starting to sound like a sucker.”

“I’m not taking him home. But still … he can’t be more than a couple of months old.”

“I bet he’s barely off his mama’s milk. We had dogs when I was growing up. You shouldn’t take ’em from the mother too soon.”

“I always wanted a dog. My dad ran off strays with a shotgun.”

Though the puppy appealed to some tender place inside him, Brad knew things were going so badly with Ashley that it would be a mistake to arrive home with a puppy. She’d probably pack up her beads and run back to mama and daddy. Which might be a good idea after all.

Brad wasn’t looking for a relationship with Yvonne or any of the other attractive young women who made Larry’s their regular watering hole. He didn’t want Ashley to leave him, either. But how long could two people go on this way? Chilly silence interspersed with arguments. Blame. Name-calling. Accusations.

Sex was a rare occurrence in the marriage too, and that didn’t sit well with Brad. Before their wedding, Ashley couldn’t get enough of him—and vice versa. Lately, they hardly had time for a kiss. With him working days and her working nights, they were rarely even in bed at the same time. You couldn’t expect a twenty-two-year-old man in the prime of life to forgo that kind of pleasure. Pleasure? No, it was a
need
.

“Brrrp … brrrp …”

Brad glanced down to find that the puppy was snoring softly. “Great. He went to sleep.”

“What did you expect? Probably been out here freezing most of the day.” Mack gave a snort. “Might as well take him home. You know you want to.”

“I don’t want a dog. But how can I put him back in that cardboard box? We’ll walk out of Larry’s in a couple of hours and find him frozen stiff.”

Brad couldn’t imagine abandoning the dog to the ice-cold air and stepping into the warmth of the bar without wearing guilt like a chain around his neck. He wanted to head inside, settle down next to Yvonne, and smell that perfume she wore. She’d start flirting with him, and he’d buy her a few drinks. Then she would saunter back onto the stage and sing to him until he was so woozy with beer and temptation he could hardly stumble to his car.

He had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he gave in.
Why-
vonne the Con
, most of the men called the sensuous songstress. It was no secret that Yvonne used her looks and her wiles to get what she wanted out of a man. But at this point, Brad hardly cared. He wanted the same thing. A little fun. No strings. No expectations. No responsibilities. It all sounded good to him.

“Brrrp … brrrp … brrrp.”

His hand on the puppy’s head, Brad studied the front of Larry’s. Three or four couples had gone inside since he first picked up the pup.

“Someone else will find the dog and take it home,” Brad told his friend. “We’re not responsible for the mangy little mutt. Come on.”

Without allowing himself time to think, he set the puppy back inside the box and yanked open Larry’s front door.

“Yow!”
The terrified shriek tore through Brad’s brain and went straight to his heart.
“Yow-wow, yow-wow! Owoooooo!”

With a muttered curse, Brad bent over, scooped up the dog, tucked it under his jacket, and headed for his car. He could hear Mack laughing behind him.

“Sucker!” his friend called. “I’ll tell Yvonne hi for you!”

Gritting his teeth, Brad opened his car door. This was a mistake. A big, big mistake. He and Ashley didn’t have room for a dog in their small house. They didn’t have a fenced yard. No one could look after the puppy while they were at work. The whole thing was a very bad idea.

He plopped the puppy onto the passenger’s seat. Maybe someone in the neighborhood would take the animal. He slid in and started the motor. Jaw tight, he drove out of the parking lot and onto the short stretch of road that led down to Deepwater Cove. This was not what he wanted to be doing. Maybe Ashley was right and he shouldn’t spend so much time around Yvonne and the other bar patrons, but why should he have to go home and watch TV alone all night?

The pressure of four paws warmed his thigh, and Brad looked down to find the puppy settling comfortably on his lap.
No
, he thought. He didn’t want a dog. Or a wife, a home, a job, a steady paycheck.

At one time, those things had seemed like impossibly lofty goals. His chaotic childhood had made such dreams seem unattainable. But he had found Ashley, won her heart, bought a house, married the woman he loved, and settled into his work and a life he had expected to be wonderful.

It wasn’t.

Now things were coming apart fast, and he shouldn’t be taking home a dog. The mutt would require a long-term commitment, and that was exactly what Brad had been wanting to escape.

“Brrrp … brrrp … brrrp …”

The puppy’s gentle snoring calmed Brad’s nerves as he pulled into the driveway. Leafless branches widened the view during the winter months, and Brad saw moonlight glitter on the lake like dancing fireflies.

The dog barely stirred as Brad climbed out of the car and carried him toward the house. Ashley had left every light on, as usual. The girl blamed him for their money troubles, but the real fault lay at her feet. All those beads. And plastic bags. And boxes. And postage. Did she have any idea how much cash she ran through every month on her little necklace business?

Once inside, Brad saw that the house was pretty much the way he had left it early that morning. Ashley hadn’t washed a dish, swept, vacuumed, or even put away the groceries she must have bought during the day. He studied the array of canned vegetables, cake mixes, and jars of spaghetti sauce on the kitchen counter.

Ashley’s parents ran a hot dog and ice cream shop in Camdenton, and that was about the only food she knew how to fix. Her friend Esther Moore had been teaching her to cook real food, but Mrs. Moore had passed away at Thanksgiving. Now Brad couldn’t even mention the old woman’s name without Ashley dissolving into a puddle of tears. And his wife had abandoned all efforts to learn to prepare tasty, hearty meals from scratch.

Still cradling the exhausted puppy, he rooted around in the freezer until he found some turkey casserole left over from who knew when. He heated it in the microwave, placed a small helping on a saucer, filled a bowl with fresh water, and set everything down on the floor.

Without pause, the little critter stepped onto the saucer, waded right into the warm casserole, and began to wolf it down. Unable to keep from laughing, Brad grabbed a fork, seated himself beside the dog, and dug into what was left in the container. Now and then, the dog would look up and wag his tail before returning to his dinner.

That’s what’s missing around this house
, Brad thought.
A little appreciation. A few kind words of affirmation.
The least Ashley could do was thank him for the hours of work he put in every day on the construction site. Besides that, many afternoons he
did
avoid the bar to come home and work with Esther’s husband. Charlie Moore and Brad were finishing a new addition to the house and spiffing up the rest of the place. They’d been painting, repairing cracks in the ceiling where the roof had leaked, caulking the bathtub and sinks, and weatherproofing the windows and doors.

At least the puppy noticed what he had been given and was grateful. After a long drink of water, the mutt clambered into Brad’s lap and joined him in polishing off the rest of the turkey casserole. Oddly enough, Brad didn’t mind the little black snout rooting around the corners of the glass dish.

“We’re two of a kind, huh, pal?” he told the dog. “Someone dumped you into a box in the parking lot. And I’m left here night after night in an empty house by the lake. We both got abandoned by people we thought loved us. Stinks, doesn’t it?”

The puppy sat down in the empty baking dish and leaned against Brad’s chest. “You planning to take another nap? Well, I guess I’ll join you. Might as well. Nothing else to do around here.”

Brad picked up the dog and set the pan in the sink along with the other empty plates, glasses, and pots. Then he dropped down onto the sofa. After unlacing his work boots, he kicked them off and stretched out on the saggy cushions. The remote control was out of reach, and he considered rising to get it. But the puppy had already made a nest in the crook of Brad’s arm.

“Brrrp … brrrp … brrrp …”

Chuckling, Brad wrapped his hands around the filthy little fur ball and closed his eyes. Ashley would have a fit when she walked into the house sometime after midnight. But at least he wasn’t at Larry’s. He hadn’t even popped open a beer. And he certainly wasn’t gazing at Yvonne Ratcliff with thoughts that embarrassed even himself.

Ashley struggled to stay awake as she steered her old, battered Honda along the curving tree-lined highway toward Deepwater Cove. Borrow ditches bordered the two narrow lanes, and she knew how easy it would be to drop a wheel off the pavement and flip the vehicle. Names of three of her classmates from Camdenton High School marked homemade crosses perched on a slope along this path. She didn’t want her parents to weep as they decorated a cross with roses and ivy at the place where she had perished.

The thought of death brought Esther Moore to the forefront of Ashley’s mind, and she couldn’t prevent the tears that spilled down her cheeks. Though two weeks had passed since the stroke that took her friend’s life, Ashley still couldn’t believe Esther was gone. Oddly, it comforted her to cry inside the warm, silent car where no one could see.

Brad hated his wife’s emotional outbursts—of any kind. And rather than comforting her or cuddling her in his arms, as he had at the start of their relationship, he now told her to shake it off. Get over it. Snap out of it. As though recovering from death could ever be that easy.

Sniffling, Ashley turned the car into the Deepwater Cove neighborhood. She’d once been so eager to get home she could hardly keep her foot from pressing too hard on the gas pedal. In her imagination, the little house she and Brad had chosen seemed to sit like a cozy cottage by the lake just waiting for their loving touch. The rooms would wear coats of softly glowing paint. Quaint antiques and pretty curtains would dress them up. Outside, gardens of foxgloves, petunias, and geraniums would welcome guests.

“Piece of junk,” she muttered as she parked beside Brad’s car in what was once the graveled driveway—now a patch of shriveled weeds. “I hate this house. Leaky windows. Stupid wall heater. Freezing floors. Termites.”

The sight of the burrowing pests had been their first indication of trouble. Neither had thought to ask for an inspection before they bought the place. Ridding the house of termites had cost an arm and a leg, and Ashley still got a crawly feeling when she was home alone.