MM03 - Saturday Mornings (2 page)

She paused for breath, reaching for her dog all the while. At that moment, the thing she wanted most was to be out of Andrew McGill's presence. She'd never met such a disturbing man.

“If you'll hand Christine to me, I'll be on my way.”

“Not so fast.” Andrew continued stroking the little dog. “I've decided that training Christine will be a nice change of pace from training bird dogs.”

“I don't want her to point, just to stop wetting the rug. I’ll just take her and be on my way.”

“You don't look like the scaredy-cat type to me.”

“I'm not scared. I've changed my mind. That's all.” She lied. She'd never been as scared in all her life. What was more, she didn't know which frightened her the most—that Andrew McGill would find her attractive or that he wouldn't.

“I'll tell you what: I'll make a deal with you. Leave Christine here for a few days, and if she's not minding her manners by next Saturday, you can take her home. No charge.”

“And if she is?” Margaret Leigh hesitated. She'd always been uncomfortable discussing money. “You never did name your fee.”

Andrew McGill considered the woman standing beside him. Whim had made him take on the poodle. He had no idea what prompted him to lower his fee. But he did just that, naming a fee that was so reasonable even the most avid bargain hunter would have been delighted.

Margaret Leigh hesitated only a moment. If Andrew McGill weren't careful, she'd be forced to revise her opinion of him.

“It's a deal.” She held out her hand.

Andrew shook her hand solemnly. Then on another whim, he lifted it to his lips. He took his time with the kiss, lingering over her soft skin, inhaling its light floral fragrance. He could feel the heat of her blush all the way down to her fingertips.

Still holding her hand, he said, “You never did tell me your name.”

“Margaret Leigh Jones.” Her voice was breathless.

Andrew was as pleased with himself as if he had won a National Field Trial trophy. Releasing her, he gazed into her eyes in the manner that he knew most women loved.

“Margaret Leigh Jones, your dog is in expert hands... and so are you.”

“Mr. McGill—”

“Andrew.”

“—I'm not in any man's hands.”

Margaret Leigh plucked up her courage enough to lean forward and tell her dog good-bye.

“Christine, I'm going to leave you with this man for a day or two. But I’ll be back. I promise you.” She patted the little dog's head and accidentally brushed her hands against Andrew's. The hairs on her arms stood on end. “You'll be good to Christine, won't you?”

“Margaret...”

“Margaret Leigh.”

He smiled. “Margaret Leigh, I might be a scoundrel through and through, but I know how to treat a dog. Trust me.” He was surprised at himself. He never reassured the dog owners who came to him: he was a take-it-or-leave-it man. “If it will make you feel better, you can come back to visit her during the training.”

“Thank you.” She started to leave, then turned back for last-minute instructions. “She's afraid of the dark. I keep a night-light on for her. And she's vain. She loves to sleep in her ribbons. Loud noises bother her, so don't play the television too loud.”

“I don't own a television.”

“How do you keep up with current events?”

“Radio and newspapers.”

“Well, keep the radio down low for Christine, please.”

“Don't worry. She’ll be returned to you safe and sound, but without her bad habit.”

“Thank you.”

Margaret Leigh realized that was the second time she had said
thank you.
He must think she was a ninny. How did you deal with a man like Andrew McGill? Tess would know. She'd had experience. Margaret Leigh decided the best thing to do was just turn around and leave before she made any more blunders. With a little wave of her hand, she started off.

Andrew watched her go. Her eyes were the color of grape lollipops. The thought popped into his conscious mind unexpectedly. He'd never met a woman with eyes so blue they looked purple.

Christine whimpered, and he stroked her.

“Your mistress is about the most uptight woman I've ever met. Did you know that, Christine?” The little dog licked his hand. “I've never seen such a proper lady.”

The small car chugged around the bend and disappeared in a puff of dust.

“What would happen,” Andrew mused, “if I trained
both
of you?”

He chuckled at the thought. Teaching Margaret Leigh how to have fun might be just the thing to add some spice to his Saturday mornings.

o0o

 As soon as Margaret Leigh was around the bend, she pulled off the road and leaned her forehead on the steering wheel. She couldn't believe herself. She'd actually carried on with that man like a brazen hussy—letting him rub her cheek and calling him a scoundrel. What in the world had gotten into her? She should have taken her dog and marched right out of there. And that was another thing. She'd actually left Christine with the rogue.

Of course, he
was
a well-respected dog trainer.

She took a handkerchief out of her purse and carefully wiped her perspiring palms. Southern ladies didn't sweat. Aunt Bertha had always told her that. So had Aunt Grace.

Southern ladies didn't smoke standing up, either. She and Tess used to laugh over that bit of maidenly aunt wisdom. They'd get behind the barn with a pack of cigarettes Tess had swiped from Grandpa Jones and smoke standing up just to see if it made them feel like floozies. It never had.

Of course Tess had gone on to become the family floozy—three divorces and singing in juke joints. At least, that was the family's opinion. It made Margaret Leigh as mad as... well, nearly as mad as hell.

She drew a deep breath. There. She'd thought it.

“Hell.” She even said it out loud. And it felt good.

If she had had a cigarette, she'd have climbed out of her car and smoked it standing up just for the heck of it. Maybe she was turning into a floozy. The strange thing was, it didn't feel bad, not bad at all.

She cranked her car and headed home. She knew her bold and reckless feelings were only temporary. Shy all her life and content to live in Tess's shadow, she was something of an anachronism, a woman with Victorian manners and morals in an age of easy sex and instant gratification.

Driving away from Andrew McGill's cabin, she wished she were different. She wished she wore bleached hair and leather skirts instead of a French twist and sensible gabardine. She wished she knew the art of banal banter and sexual innuendo rather than how to make Southern fried chicken and how to get dog piddle out of the rug. She wished she knew how to flirt instead of how to blush. She wished she preferred French kissing to French cooking.

Of course, she didn't wish any of that as a permanent condition, just on a short-term basis, just long enough to deal with the likes of Andrew McGill. She sighed. Maybe she'd feel more like herself after she raked the leaves.

Chapter Two

Andrew watched Margaret Leigh drive away until the last puff of dust had settled behind her car. Then he looked at the small dog in his arms.

“Now, what in the devil have I done?” His impulses were always getting him into trouble.

Christine whimpered, and he patted her head.

“Don't mind me, sweetheart. It's not that I don't like you. I do. I love all animals, even ones that wet the rug.”

Andrew chuckled, remembering Margaret Leigh's earnest expression when she tried to explain her dog's problem. Maybe it was her face, rosy with embarrassment, that had made him take on a poodle right when he was in the middle of Mississippi Rex's intensive training. There were only five months until the National Field Trial Championships. He couldn't afford to lose even one week of training. Heck, how was he going to train his bird dog to hold point with a nervous poodle looking on?

From his backyard came the sounds of his dogs howling.

“Hear that, Christine? They know somebody new is on the premises. Let's go back there and get you acquainted before they decide to take matters into their own hands.”

Christine didn't like the bird dogs, and they didn't like her. Andrew had known that would happen. But he'd given his word, and he never backed down on his word. He'd just have to be patient, that was all.

He decided to take Christine inside and get her accustomed to her temporary home. The dogs bayed their displeasure at his leaving.

“Quiet down, old boys. This is Christine's day.”

The back screen door popped behind him, and the poodle shivered.

She doesn’t like loud noises.
He could almost hear Margaret Leigh talking in that earnest way, though why everything about her fascinated him was beyond understanding.

“Sorry about that, Christine.”

He set her on the kitchen floor and turned on the radio, keeping the volume low.

“What is your pleasure in music? Pop? Classical? Country and Western?” He turned the dial as he talked, listening briefly to the offerings of the local radio stations. “No? My feelings exactly.”

He switched to an oldies channel, smiling as the relaxed strains of Glenn Miller's orchestra filled the room.

Christine squatted down next to him.

“No, you don't, young lady.”

He got her outside just in time.

By afternoon, he and Christine had reached an uneasy truce; she gave up squatting in return for scratches behind the ear, exorbitant praise, and small doggie treats. If he had been the impatient kind, he'd have run out of patience about the same time he ran out of doggie treats. But Andrew McGill was as relaxed and comfortable as an old chamois shirt after too many washings.

Stretched on his hammock with Christine resting across his stomach chewing her latest doggie treat, he watched two squirrels chase each other through the branches above his head. Nature was an endless delight to him.

“Look at that lady squirrel up there, Christine.” Andrew scratched under the dog's fluffy chin. “She's a little con artist, pretending she's not interested when all the while she's dying to be romanced by that cocky old Don Juan. I've known lots of women like that. Playing hard to get, leading me a merry chase. Con artists, every one of them.” He chuckled. “And I love them all.”

Christine flopped her manicured tail and shook her pink hair ribbons as if to say, “Any fool can see that.”

“Of course, every now and then I like a little variety. Take your mistress, for instance. I'll bet she's never tried to con a man in her life. Heck, I'll bet she's never even flirted with a man.”

The idea intrigued him, and the more he thought about it the more intrigued he became. He thought about the way she had blushed and called him a scoundrel. He thought about her unusual eyes and the softness of her skin.

All the women he'd chased lately were alike—bright, witty, sophisticated, lovely to look at and lovely to touch. But they all wanted the same thing: they wanted Andrew to show them a good time, to take away the pressures of the hard-scrabbling, competitive lives they'd mapped out for themselves. They weren't like Margaret Leigh Jones. Not at all like Margaret Leigh with her old-fashioned manners and her old-fashioned virtues.

Another idea took hold. Variety. That's what he wanted. He left the hammock and tucked Christine into a small towel-lined wicker basket on his kitchen floor.

“Take a nap, little girl. I'm going courting.”

o0o

Margaret Leigh raked and hummed, while Aunt Bertha sat on the front porch knitting and watching and occasionally commenting.

“Margaret Leigh, you missed a spot, honey.”

“Don't worry. I’ll get to it.”

Bird song and soft humming and the
clack
of knitting needles punctuated the long October silence. Then the needles stilled.

“Margaret Leigh, did you know that little Crocker girl?”

“Yes, Aunt Bertha. But she's hardly a girl. She's twenty-five or so, if I remember correctly.”

“Well, she's in the family way. And her not even married. It's a sin and a disgrace.”

Margaret Leigh gave the leaves a good whack. Sometimes her aunt's outmoded ideas grated on her nerves, but she was immediately contrite for thinking even one bad thought about her family. She loved them, eccentric though they were.

“We shouldn't listen to idle gossip,” she called over her shoulder. “And anyway, it's none of our affair.”

“Well, still and all...”

Aunt Bertha fell into silence and Margaret Leigh hummed and raked. A while later, the knitting was shoved aside once more.

“Your hair is coming loose, honey. Maybe you ought to come inside and tuck it up.”

“I'm almost finished. Aunt Bertha.”

Margaret Leigh leaned against her rake and tried to tuck her hair back into its pins, but the task was impossible. Her hair was heavy, and the autumn breezes plus the exertion of her work had caused it to slip its bonds. Finally, she gave up and let it do what it wanted to do. Mouse hair, that's what it was. The dull, commonplace brown of an old mouse's coat.

Tess's hair was glorious. The red gold of an October sunset. Margaret Leigh had always admired her sister's hair. But she had never envied her. Envy was as foreign to her as cussing.

She lifted her rake once more and dragged the fallen leaves to her ever-growing pile. She picked up her song again where she had left off, an old hymn, one of her favorites, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.”

She was right in the middle of “We will meet on that beautiful shore,” when she heard the truck coming. It was noisy and old, backfiring as it started up at the red light down the street.

Looking up, she shaded her eyes. She knew the truck. She'd seen it just that morning, a rakish, impossibly red Ford pickup truck sitting in the yard of none other than Andrew McGill.

She tidied her hair and her face with one hand. Not that he was coming to see her, for goodness' sake. Why on earth would a man like that be coming to her house on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, when Tupelo was full of gorgeous, sophisticated women who probably knew how to French kiss and more?

The noise grew louder as the truck came down Allen Street. And wonders of wonders, it stopped at the curb right in front of her house. Andrew McGill stepped out, as big as life and twice as jaunty.