Tall, Dark, and Determined (31 page)

“But,” Lacey spoke in desperation, trying to avoid what Dunstan, at least, seemed to consider inevitable. “It's all put away perfectly. Didn't you notice how clean everything looks?”

“Yep.” He headed for the door. “You got this place in order just in the nick of time. I'll be by later to pick him up.”

“What am I supposed to do with him while you're gone?”

“He likes you.” The door opened, its bell clanging an alarm. “You can manage him—you're a resourceful woman.” With that, he abandoned Lacey to his dog, and the dog to Lacey.

Decoy sauntered over to his pail of peanut butter and gave a great, happy sniff. It fell to the floor and rolled away, the massive dog lumbering after it as though playing a new game.

“I suppose chairs weren't included with shelves and bins in your training.” Lacey rubbed her forehead. By the end of the day, the smell coming off Decoy would fill the place.
Unless …

She made a beeline for the hygiene shelf and pulled out a box of Snow Boy Washing Powder. A large tub sat in the back of the storeroom, waiting for the time when someone would need it. Well, that day came sooner than she expected. If Chase Dunstan thought he could leave a smelly moose of a mutt on her hands and ruin her store, he'd learn just how resourceful she could be!

    TWENTY-FIVE    

M
iss Lyman?” Chase peered into the store an hour later. If he'd had any doubts, he wouldn't have left Decoy, but his trust lay more in the dog than the woman. So he'd come to check in.

She didn't call back an answer. Decoy didn't come bounding up as was his habit whenever they separated and Chase returned. Nothing stirred in the shop—except a few sudden misgivings.

He walked toward the back counter, thinking to check the storeroom. Along the way he surveyed the store for any damage. No signs of trouble. Not a single thing stood out of place in the newly pristine mercantile—Chase knew because he'd made a thorough study earlier. He rounded the potbellied stove and bypassed the cracker-barrel chairs. By now Decoy would have sensed him and come running, even from the back room.

A dull clang sounded as his boot hit something solid and metal. Decoy's peanut butter pail rolled a few forlorn inches. Chase doubled his pace to the storeroom door and yanked it open. Even in here, things were eerily tidy. No Miss Lyman. No Decoy.

Where did they go?
Irritated, he turned on his heel and headed outside. Chase paused, unsure where to go.
Not to the diner. Miss Thompson wouldn't allow a dog within ten feet of her kitchen. But maybe she'll have an idea where Miss Lyman went?

Too many tracks muddled the ground outside the door, imprints from people going in and out as they helped her get the store in order. Chase held slim hope of tracking them, so he headed for the diner.
She'd better not have gone out walking in the woods again
, he stewed.
I asked her to keep an eye on him in the store. What has that stubborn woman gotten into this time?

“Hello?” He stuck his head through the kitchen door. Since the night Granger told everyone why he was here, Chase made the kitchen his base for Hope Falls. It harbored everything a man needed to keep tabs on: most of the women and all of the food.

“Hello!” The high, girlish greeting came from Mrs. Nash. She sat on a bench, shelling peas and trying to look past him. “Are they finished yet? I mean, did you see your surprise?”

“What surprise?” Those faint misgivings from back in the store grew to dread. “Surprise” was the name for unpleasant things people snuck up on you, suspecting you would object if asked about it beforehand.
Not good. Not good at all
.

“Well, if you have to be asking us, they haven't shown you yet.” Mrs. McCreedy shook her head. “It's not for us to spoil.”

“Oh, go on, Martha.” Mrs. Nash finished shelling her peas. “He came back too soon, and he'll go poking around looking for who knows how long before he finds them or they find him. I'd say we might as well tell him he should go by the house first.”

“Thank you.” Chase started in that direction, only to duck back into the kitchen. “Do you know where they put Decoy?” The dog got underfoot in just about anything, his sheer size making it difficult to work around him. If they weren't careful, they'd trip over him or find their dainty toes bruised by his mammoth paws. Decoy hid a fondness for tromping on people's feet.

Whatever the women were up to, they'd most likely needed to shut the dog away from the action. And Decoy didn't like being cooped up for long. Disaster loomed large if they'd left him—

“Find the ladies.” Mrs. McCreedy beat Mrs. Nash to the punch. “And you'll find your dog. We won't say anything more.”

He looked to Mrs. Nash, but she smiled and pressed a hand over her lips, indicating they were sealed. Chase would get no information to prepare him for his “surprise.” That left him with no choice but to head down to the ladies' house.

As he drew closer, snatches of laughter and muffled shrieks reached his ears.
Sounds like they're having fun
. Their merriment went a long way toward easing his tension. Such carefree sounds couldn't accompany anything too awful.

His knock on the door found no answer, but the noise was all coming from around back. Chase left the porch and crept around the house, the better to take stock of the situation.

No one would be catching
him
unawares. He'd turned the tables.

“I think we used too much.” Someone sounded worried.

“It'll all wash out.” Miss Lyman's giggles floated by. If a man could catch a sound and keep it for sad times, that would be it. She sounded positively gleeful. “Pass me the bucket?”

The sound of sloshing water as the bucket was emptied—not poured—made Chase thirsty. He took a sip from his canteen and wondered what they could be doing. He crept closer to find out.

“We're going to need a lot more than that!” This huskier voice belonged to Miss Higgins. Though she spoke least out of the four women, her throaty tones were easily identifiable.

A great deal of splashing drowned out anything else for a while. Then came a bark. It was the short, low blast of sound Decoy made when he played. The spasmodic thump of his tail sounded against something metal, underscoring more laughter.

Chase froze. Decoy loved the water. Any water. Whether it was a stream to wade through, a puddle to pounce on, or a deep pool for diving into, his dog enjoyed water to the fullest. Combine that knowledge to the sounds and comments bubbling behind the house, it added up to one mounting suspicion.

He poked his head around the corner of the house and confirmed it.
Those daft women are giving him a bath!

“What do you think you're doing?” he demanded as he advanced on the tableau. Things were worse than he imagined.

Buckets of water trailed back toward the water pump, where Granger's cook stopped in the act of filling yet another. Miss Higgins clutched the end of a long rope knotted into a makeshift leash. The other Miss Thompson dropped the now-empty bucket she'd just poured over Decoy in an attempt to rinse him clean.

A failed attempt. There, behind the house, Miss Lyman crouched beside a tin hip bath, froth gloving her hands all the way up to her elbows. Cramped inside the bathtub sat a very happy, very wet, and very foamy dog. At least, it
used
to be a dog. Now it was a white, sudsy mess wriggling with delight.

“Giving Decoy a much-needed bath.” Miss Lyman managed to sound nonchalant as she gestured to the frothy mountain rocking the tub from side to side. “What else would we be doing?”

“Anything!” Chase raked his hands through his own shaggy hair. “Cooking, puttering about your shop, wading through the calf-eyed glances of your moony men. Anything at all,” he repeated, “except turn my dog into a walking mop!”

At this outburst, the women slowly began returning to their respective tasks. Miss Thompson fetched another full bucket from her sister at the pump, upending it over Decoy's back while Miss Lyman tried to work out the suds. She succeeded in raising more bubbles than had been washed away in the first place.

“He's not a mop, but I would've taken one to him if it would've helped clean him up.” She sounded muffled as she scrubbed at the dog's fur. “He was absolutely filthy, you know.”

Another bucket of water and more scrubbing unleashed another crop of bubbles. At this rate, they'd never get it finished.

“He's a
hunting dog.”
Chase scowled at them all and picked up a bucket. “Or he used to be until you four decided to turn him into an overgrown, soap-strewn parody of a poodle.”

Miss Lyman gave a half-strangled snort of laughter, so Chase figured he could be forgiven if half a bucket's water
accidentally
slopped over the tub and onto her skirts. Decoy wagged his tail even harder, delighted that Chase joined in.

“I've never seen a dog”—Miss Higgins shifted to the side to give him more room—”who looked less like a poodle.”

With his silver-gray brindled coat further darkened from the water, even the soap continuously springing up couldn't hide his coloring. And nothing could cover his size. Still, whatever soap they'd used made a spectacular effort.

“Just how much soap did you pour in?” Chase asked after his fifth bucket of water made little headway against the froth.

The women darted sideways glances at each other, but no one saw fit to answer. Nor did they immediately respond to his query about what sort of substance they'd seen fit to use. As far as Chase knew, and after relocating most of the contents of Miss Lyman's store the other day, he had a fair notion no company manufactured dog wash.
Which should have tipped them off
.

It didn't smell like lye, which was harsh enough to irritate Decoy's skin after the bath ended. He would have asked again, to be sure, but found he didn't need to. He spotted Miss Lyman nudging something around the tub with the toe of her boot.

Chase grabbed it. He read the box then looked at the ground for the rest of its contents. With growing exasperation, he realized why he didn't see any granules or flakes—he didn't know which form Snow Boy came in—scattered across the grass.

“You used the whole box?” He shook the box in disbelief, confronting them with the evidence. “An entire
box
of soap?”

“He's large enough we thought it best to be sure.” Miss Lyman carried on trying to rub the stuff from his fur. “With his thick coat to get through, we thought we'd need every bit.”

Miss Higgins looked a bit embarrassed as she confessed to the obvious. “It seems we overestimated. Significantly.”

He saw no need to comment on that bit of hindsight. Setting himself not to let his temper get the best of him, Chase kept bringing buckets.
I can't very well yell at all four of them
.

It took more buckets of water than Chase bothered to count, and far too much time, before they won the battle of the bubbles. Added with his attempts to hunt down his own dog, he'd lost half an hour or more of time he couldn't afford to see wasted.

He'd not managed to trap Granger in a productive conversation. In the week following his friend's departure, Chase set himself to poking around the unused parts of town. Hope Falls bristled with abandoned buildings. Most looked thrown together to meet the needs of a mining town rapidly outgrowing itself, some of such poor workmanship they needed leveling.

If he didn't need to bring back fresh meat on a regular basis, Chase would've gotten a lot further. Periodically doubling back to check on the women severely hampered his hunting, which in turn curtailed his nosing-around time.

The smallest structures most likely to hold tools and equipment he'd already searched. These were the places Chase figured a man in a hurry might hide unused blasting papers, fuse line, or anything else incriminating. They were common enough mining materials to be overlooked by the new residents.