Wild Iris Ridge (Hope's Crossing) (14 page)

“What about, uh—” he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the flowers adorning the neckline of Faith’s favorite shirt “—Daisy.”

“Oh! It’s perfect! I
love
it. We’ll call her Daisy! Hi, Daisy. Do you like your new name?”

The dog made its little mewling sound that wasn’t quite a bark yet, as if in agreement.

“She likes it,” Carter exclaimed. “Hi, Daisy. Hi, girl. You’re such a cute puppy. Yes, you are.”

Brendan sighed as he pulled into the driveway. Yeah. Like it or not, he wasn’t getting rid of this dog anytime soon.

“First order of business is finding her a bed and some old towels to sleep in, then let’s see if we can get her to eat some of this food.”

They were in the middle of it all twenty minutes later when the doorbell rang.

He answered and found Lucy on the other side of the door, her arms loaded down with bags. He smelled something delicious—besides Lucy—and his stomach rumbled at the reminder that they
still
hadn’t eaten dinner.

“What’s this? I thought I told you I only needed milk, bread and eggs.”

“I know that’s what you said. But since we hadn’t had time to fix dinner yet, we figured you hadn’t, either. We picked up an extra rotisserie chicken for you and some pasta salad from the deli. If you’ve already grabbed something tonight, you can always save it for tomorrow. I’m sure you’re well aware that rotisserie chicken can be repurposed in casseroles or chicken salad sandwiches or enchiladas or whatever.”

She carried the bags inside and to the kitchen, setting them down on the counter and started pulling items out to put in the refrigerator.

“Thank you,” he managed through his shock. He couldn’t figure out this woman. Every time he thought he had her pegged, she surprised him again.

He had always figured she was tough, driven, ambitious, but then she had these moments of nurturing kindness that seemed at odds to that other image.

Maybe she was all of those things. Why did one have to exclude the other?

“You’re a lifesaver,” he said. “Carter, in particular, is about ready to gnaw through the kitchen cabinets.”

She smiled as she extracted the chicken from the grocery bag. “I’m sorry you were dragged into the whole puppy thing. I know it wasn’t on your radar right now.”

“Same goes. We were both unwilling victims.”

“They
are
cute. You have to admit.”

She
was cute, with those dark curls and the warm green eyes he wanted to sink into.

“I guess,” he muttered. “If you like little fur-faced, big-eyed, shaggy-eared puppies.”

She smiled. “You’re right. Who would? I guess we’d better take our ugly puppy home and see how much damage he can do to a historic home.”

Out of nowhere, he wanted to kiss her again—just reach right out, wrap her softness in his arms and hold on tight. The need burned through him and he had to grip the kitchen counter instead. He was going to have to work a hell of a lot harder to keep himself under control or he was going to find himself in big trouble here.

“Good night,” he said, his voice gruff. “Thanks for the chicken. I guess we’ll have to arrange a few dates now.”

She gave him a startled look.

“For the puppies, I mean,” he said quickly. “You know. Playdates.”

“Right. Yes. Dr Lynde said they need to socialize with each other, didn’t she? Well, you know where I live. Any time you want Crystal or me to babysit, either the puppy or the kids, just call.”

“Thanks.”

She waved and headed for the door, leaving him to breathe in the scent of her that lingered in the air.

What would Lucy think if she knew he was beginning to weave some fairly inappropriate fantasies about her? She would probably want to rip his head off. She didn’t like him, right? She had only spent a decade proving it.

On the other hand, she
had
kissed him back. Pretty passionately, as he recalled—which he did, all too frequently.

What was he supposed to do with
that?

“Dad!” Faith called in a panic-stricken voice. “Daisy just peed on the floor! Help!”

He sighed. This was real life. His kids, his job, the chaos he called life, and now a pee-happy puppy.

“Let me grab some paper towels. I’ll be right there.”

He yanked a big wad off the roll and headed out to deal with the latest mess in a life that suddenly seemed full of them.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
HE
PUPPY
’
S
ARRIVAL
heralded a monumental shift in Crystal’s attitude.

The day after they found Max, Lucy returned from a quick sunrise run through the quiet back street of Hope’s Crossing to find her sister in the kitchen flipping pancakes while Max played in a box near her feet.

“Good morning.” Lucy reached into the refrigerator for a water bottle. “I’m surprised to see you awake.”

“Morning. Max woke me like an hour ago, yipping like crazy. He wouldn’t go back to sleep so I finally decided to get up and feed him and make breakfast for us.”

“Wow. Thanks. It looks delicious.”

Who knew Crystal had any skills whatsoever in the kitchen? Lucy certainly hadn’t had a clue.

“You’re welcome. I’ve got a ton of pancakes. I really hope you’re hungry.”

Lucy thought of the brutal, hilly run she had just finished. She didn’t enjoy running much but she did enjoy the endorphin high she found from having done it and she was much more productive and happy when she was fit.

Her plan had been to have a banana and a Greek yogurt for breakfast—why add more calories after she had just killed herself to burn a bunch?—but she didn’t want to disappoint her sister, who had gone to a great deal of effort for her.

“I’m starving,” she lied. “It all smells delicious.”

“Great! If you want to sit down, it’s almost ready.”

Lucy pulled the yogurt out of the fridge—at least she could have a little protein with her empty carbs—and sat at the big oak kitchen table.

A moment later, Crystal slid a plate loaded with more pancakes than Lucy could eat in a month in front of her and then sat down across the table from her.

“Mmm. Smells good,” she said. She tried a bite and just about fell off her chair.

“Oh, my word,” she exclaimed. “These are
fantastic.
That can’t be from a mix.”

They were light, fluffy, with a little hint of something tropical that melded perfectly with the maple syrup.

“I couldn’t find any mix in the pantry so I used a recipe I’ve tried before. They’ve got a little bit of coconut and almond extract in them. Those are the secret ingredients.”

“These are fantastic. Seriously good. I’m not just saying that, Crys. You could get a job at the Center of Hope.”

Her sister looked pleased and flattered. “What’s the Center of Hope?”

“The restaurant Brendan’s dad owns downtown. It’s sort of the town gathering spot. Everybody goes there for the great food and all the best gossip in Hope’s Crossing.”

“Gossip in Hope’s Crossing? Like who stole somebody’s newspaper or who else died of boredom this week?”

“You’d be surprised. This town has seen its share of juicy scandals. And you can find out about all of them at the Center of Hope Café.”

“I think I saw that. Is it kind of near the bookstore where we went last night?”

“Across the street and down a little.” She took another bite of the pancakes that melted in her mouth. She could eat these every single day of her life—and probably wouldn’t be able to fit through the door if she did, forget about jogging up and down the foothills around Hope’s Crossing.

“I mean it. Dermot would love this recipe. You should give it to him.”

Instead of the sullen expression she had worn since her arrival, Crystal seemed to glow at the praise. “It’s no big deal. They’re only pancakes.”

“You should let Dermot be the judge of that. Type it down and we can email it to him.”

“Assuming I get to have the Wi-Fi password today.”

Lucy smiled. She wasn’t naive enough to think all her troubles with Crystal were over because of one good morning and a cute puppy, but she was going to enjoy the peace while she had it. “I think we don’t have to worry about that today. What’s on your agenda, besides totally rocking the cakes?”

Crystal shrugged. “Nothing, really. I was going to play with Max for a while and then maybe Skype my friend Devin, and then I remembered she’s in school until this afternoon. I never thought being expelled would turn out to be so boring.”

“We’ve got to come up with a working schedule. It’s time we start working on your schoolwork.”

“Schoolwork? I was expelled! I can’t go back.”

“You can’t go back
this
school year. Your father has directed all your teachers to email me with your assignments and lesson plans so you can keep up with your classes, that way you won’t have to repeat the tenth grade next year. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I guess not. But I don’t want to do schoolwork, either.”

“Life is full of hard decisions, kid. Sometimes you just have to deal. After we’re done with your studies, I would appreciate your help. I’ve got a lot of work to do around here.”

“What kind of work?” Crystal asked warily.

“I have to clear out a lot of the old clutter in the rooms so we can start remodeling them for the bed and breakfast. Who knows? We might find some fun treasures. Will you help me?”

“Do I have a choice?” Crystal asked.

“Not really.”

“In that case, sure. I’d love to help you.”

Lucy laughed, appreciating her sister’s dry sense of humor. They shared that, at least.

“I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to having my own minion to help me out. Especially one who cooks me delicious breakfasts.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.”

The puppy whined at that moment and Crystal picked him up and went to fetch the supplies to feed him the formula.

The morning served as a vivid contrast to the first few days after her sister’s arrival. Crystal complained a little about the homework Lucy set out for her, but it seemed halfhearted and more because she thought it was expected of her.

After the initial muttering, her sister hurried through the work in less than an hour. When Lucy checked it, she found the algebra equations impressively neat and precise—and correct—and the short essay she wrote insightful and well-done.

She had a sneaking suspicion her sister’s failing grades were simply another act of rebellion against her parents’ expectations. She and Crystal were apparently alike in this, too. At some point during their remaining days together, she would have to sit down and have a good talk with Crystal about all the time Lucy had wasted in high school trying to hide her intelligence.

Not today, however. They had a schedule. With Max tucked into his box under Crystal’s arm, they headed up to the third floor to begin work on clearing out the house.

They started with a good-size bedroom facing east that Annabelle had always used as a craft room. It was filled to the brim with yarn, folded fabric swatches, boxes of beads.

“Some of this stuff is really retro,” Crystal said, after they started digging into the drawers of the storage units around the walls.

“Annabelle has probably been collecting her whole life. Most of it is probably older than I am.”

“Maybe you could use some of the fabric and notions for pillows and curtains and stuff around the house.”

Oh, Annabelle would have loved that! “What a good idea! Let’s box it all up and we’ll take it over to Genevieve Beaumont. She’s the designer helping me with the house. She might be able to look through it and find some possibilities.”

“What happened to your job at NexGen?”

They were carrying yet another load of boxes down the stairs—why, again, had she bothered with an early-morning workout?—when Crystal sprang the question at her.

She tensed, that sense of failure and loss pressing down on her again. “Why do you ask?”

“I know why
I’m
here—because Dad is pissed at me and wants me out of the house. I just don’t know why
you’re
here. Did you quit?”

She was tempted to make some kind of excuse and change the subject. She really didn’t want to talk about it. While success had always been important to her sense of herself, the failure still gnawed at her.

But she and Crystal were just beginning to foster a sense of trust between them. To her mind, that meant sharing the bad, too. She couldn’t shake the memory of how her father had completely refused to discuss anything with her when Betsy started growing increasingly unstable.

“I’m here because I lost my job.”

“Why? Because of the economy?”

“No. Over the last few months, I made some mistakes. The biggest was not speaking up when I should have about whether a software program was really ready to hit the market. Turns out, it wasn’t.”

“Why were you blamed?”

Lucy told her sister the entire story, about the disastrous marketing campaign and the PR nightmare resulting from it.

“It was a huge mistake, from start to finish, but I have to say, it’s been a hard but valuable learning opportunity for me.”

The biggest lesson was the realization that had trickled over her slowly while she had been back in Hope’s Crossing.

She hadn’t been happy for some time, but she had been too busy to even notice. For the first time, she wondered if being fired might have been one of those proverbial blessings in disguise.

“So what are you going to do now?” her sister asked.

Ah, there was the question. “Because I worked hard all these years and saved my money, I have a few options. I’m trying to figure out what I really enjoyed about my work. Maybe I can find something new that focuses on those strengths.”

She had loved the creativity and challenge of coming up with marketing strategies. Struggling with personnel issues and corporate tap dancing, on the other hand, had sucked her dry.

“For now, the plan is to focus on the house. You can see now that I have plenty to do.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Military school would have seriously sucked.”

“Your dad hasn’t ruled it out,” she warned.

“I know.”

Max whined a little, and Crystal glanced out the window. “It looks nice out there. Would it be okay if I take him out on the grass to play for a little bit?”

“Yes. Let’s take a break. I’m going to need to run these boxes of fabric over to Genevieve, anyway. You can hang out here or come with me. Your choice.”

“We’ll come,” Crystal decided, scooping up the puppy.

She might not have been excited about taking on the challenge of an orphaned puppy, but right now Lucy wanted to take the little dog from her sister and smooch him all over his furry little face for bringing about this miraculous change.

* * *

T
HAT
DAY
SEEMED
to set the pattern for the next several. She and Crystal would work on homework for a few hours in the morning and then pick a room in Aunt Annabelle’s house to clear out in the afternoon.

Along the way, they discovered a storehouse of treasures, many of them delightful period items that would work nicely with the plans she had worked out with Genevieve for Iris House.

If the weather was nice, Crystal and Max would play in the sunshine of the early evening while Lucy fumbled her way through caring for Annabelle’s garden.

By the end of the week, she was astonished at how much they had accomplished, on all counts.

“We have kicked butt this week,” she said to her sister early Friday evening as they sat on the grass watching Max chew a stick. In a week, he had already gained weight and was looking more solid and sturdy, much less like the fragile, helpless little wisp they had found in that Dumpster.

On the veterinarian’s instructions, they had started weaning him off the replacement formula and he was doing well with mushy puppy chow mixed with some of it.

He looked healthier and was definitely happier, though Crystal was still getting up several times a night to feed him. He was starting to be curious about the world and give them a little inkling into what a mischievous troublemaker he might be turning into.

“We should celebrate all our hard work,” Crystal said.

“Great idea. What would you like to do? After we’re done grilling, we could go catch a movie.”

They had a couple of chicken breasts marinating in the refrigerator and Lucy had started the charcoal briquettes in Annabelle’s old barbecue ten minutes earlier. The smoky scent was already wafting across the yard.

“Going to the movies could be fun. I don’t even know what’s out.”

They were discussing the possible genre of movie they wanted to see—Lucy was in the mood for an action thriller while Crystal wanted a romantic comedy—when she suddenly heard an excited voice outside the iron fence.

“Hi, Aunt Lucy! Hi, Crystal. Hi, Max!”

“Hey, Faith!” Crystal called as the girl climbed down off her bike and opened the gate.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Just sitting out here, enjoying the evening. What about you?”

“Oh, we just went on a bike ride. Guess what? I finished
Anne of Avonlea,
and now I’m starting
Anne
of the Island.
”

“Already? My word, you’re a fast reader.”

“Because I love to do it,” she said simply. “Max is getting soooo big. So is Daisy. You should see her! She’s so cute! I can feed her by myself now. I do it in the night when my dad is at the fire station. Mrs. Madison doesn’t like dogs that much.”

“Is she eating puppy chow yet?” Crystal asked.

“She started a few days ago. She really liked it. How about Max?”

“He likes it, too. He’s a little piglet, aren’t you, buddy?”

The puppy yipped and stumbled over his feet and both girls giggled just as Carter and Brendan rode up, Brendan on a mountain bike and Carter on his cute little BMX bike.

Lucy’s stomach did a long, slow roll. How had she forgotten in less than a week how outrageously gorgeous the man was, with those rugged features, the broad shoulders, those vivid blue eyes?

It really wasn’t fair.

“There you are,” he called to Faith. “How did you get so far ahead of us?”

She giggled. “Because you’re slowpokes, I guess.”

“I guess.” He and Carter both parked their bikes and walked toward them, and Lucy suddenly wished she had time to run inside and throw on some lipstick or something.