“I thought you were checking up on the work.”
“No.” He came back out, pleased with the storage space the house had to offer. “Why are you working this late?”
“Oh.” She looked embarrassed. “The van won’t start and my cell phone’s dead. I went ahead and worked awhile, thinking Holly might stop by when they got back from the casino—she and Gianna took a group today—but I forgot they were staying for dinner. I was getting ready to turn off the lights and walk home when you got here.”
“I’ll take you home. Or, better yet, to dinner.”
She shook her head. “There’s chili in the Crock-Pot at home. If you’ll give me a ride, I’ll share it.”
“That sounds great.” He agreed before she could change her mind, as the look in her eyes told him she might have wanted to.
When they walked past the company van, Arlie patted its crumpled front fender. “We’re going to have to give her a decent burial.”
Jack gave the vehicle a doubtful look. “It looks as though she’s had a long and hard life.” He opened the passenger door of his car for Arlie.
“Don’t hurt her feelings. She’s been with the company from the first, when she already had a lifetime’s worth of miles on her. She did look better then. Now I’m the only one who will still drive her.” Arlie flipped down the sun visor and frowned at herself in the lit mirror, pulling at the cobwebs in her hair. “Of course, I looked better then, too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with how you look now.” He meant it, and her eyes flashed something that might have been appreciation in the semidarkness of the car.
* * *
AT THE TOE, Arlie asked Jack to get the mail out of the rural box at the end of her driveway while she went inside and made peace with Caruso. “I know I’m late,” she told the fussy cat, scooping her food into her bowl, “but it couldn’t be helped. Have you been a good girl today?”
Caruso ignored her, going to the front door with her tail twitching.
“Well, fine. He’ll be right in.” Arlie shrugged at the cat’s lack of loyalty and took bowls from the open cupboards above the counter. The chili smelled good and it had been a long time since she’d had a bologna sandwich at lunch.
“Your mail’s a lot livelier than mine.” Jack’s voice came from inside the front door. Caruso meowed sternly.
“Not another frog, I hope—the neighborhood kids do that occasionally. It scares the mail carrier to death when she opens the mailbox.” She set the table with soupspoons and cloth napkins that matched the quilted table runner then put a sleeve of crackers into a basket.
Jack came into the kitchen carrying a stack of mail in his right hand and something else in his left.
Something fuzzy that definitely wasn’t a frog. Winding around her ankles like a blue-gray wool muffler, Caruso meowed again.
“What is it? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any mail I’d describe as ‘lively,’ unless you count the obscene birthday cards Holly sends me.” Arlie came to where Jack stood. “Oh, it’s a puppy. A teeny, teeny one. Look at its little white feet.”
His eyes danced behind his glasses. They were standing so close she felt his breath against her temple. It was a warm feeling she didn’t want to think too much about. “You get puppies in the mail here on the lake?” he asked. “It must be really interesting when someone has a baby. Do you deliver them after you deliver them?”
She crossed her eyes at him. “It’s so little. I’ll bet it’s too young to be away from its mother. Where’s your baby basket, Caruso?” Arlie went into the laundry room, scrabbling through the cupboard above the dryer until she found the old Easter basket Caruso had slept in until she figured out how to climb onto Arlie’s bed.
“He’s cold.” Jack cuddled the puppy between his hands. “Do you want me to go get him some formula?”
“I made it when I found Caruso. It should be the same for a puppy, shouldn’t it?” Arlie scrounged out the cloth diapers she’d used to keep Caruso warm when she was a kitten. “I’m afraid I’m going to be a hoarder—I seem to keep way too many things.” She wrapped the diaper around a rice bag, microwaved it and tucked it into the basket.
“You have room.” Jack laid the whimpering puppy on the soft flannel bed and stroked his little fuzzy head with his index finger.
She foraged for the ingredients for homemade puppy formula. “Caruso was only a few weeks old when we found her,” she explained, opening a can of evaporated milk and pouring some of it into a glass measuring cup. “Jesse taught me to do this stuff. He’s a great vet.” She added thick corn syrup and an egg yolk and poured in some distilled water, then whipped the mixture with a whisk. “You want to feed him while I brush the cobwebs out of my hair and finish getting dinner on the table?”
“Sure.”
She handed him the cup of warmed formula along with an eyedropper and wondered for a heartbeat how Chris would have responded to that question. He was a good person—funny and smart and generous—but nurturing was so far down his list of attributes she thought it probably wasn’t there.
Of course, she didn’t think Chris had any secret children he hadn’t mentioned, either.
A short time later, they put the snoozing puppy in the basket on the brick hearth in the living room. Freshly showered—the cobwebs had made her feel sticky all over—and with her hair once more in a towel, Arlie lit the gas fire, petted a curious Caruso and joined Jack at the table.
“So, what are you doing at Llewellyn’s Lures?” she asked, laying a napkin across the lap of her favorite brown sweatpants.
“Getting ready to sell it.”
She looked up in dismay. “Really?”
He shrugged. “Neither Tucker nor I are interested in running it. Most of my business concerns are in Vermont and his are in Tennessee.”
“Llewellyn’s has been here for a hundred years.” Wasn’t it enough that he walked away from things so easily? Did he have to be so cavalier about the nearly sixty employees whose jobs he was selling off?
“And I hope it stays. I truly do,” he replied quickly. “We’ll do everything we can to keep the status quo, to pass Llewellyn’s on to someone who wants to keep it in business and run it the way it has been. After all, it’s a profitable company.” His expression didn’t change, but his eyes did. They looked distant. Sad. And conflicted. “The truth—for me—is that Charlie lives in Vermont most of the time. I don’t have custody. I don’t even see him nearly as much as I should. But he’s there, and I need to be there, too.”
She couldn’t argue that, though she’d have liked to. She’d have liked to throw things and shout at the top of her voice, What about our baby? She’d be fifteen now.
But he didn’t know. Other than Gianna and Holly and herself, the only ones who knew were the medical staff who had attended her the night of the accident, the ones who told her the trauma was too much for the fragile life she’d carried.
Gianna had wanted her to tell Jack about the pregnancy, but Arlie had refused. It had been over nearly as soon as it began, one more loss added to a night already too full of them. He’d had enough on his plate, she thought, losing his father and dealing with the knowledge that Victor Llewellyn had caused the accident. She would tell him later, she’d promised her stepmother, when life was calmer. He would share her grief and make it easier to bear.
But by the time “later” came, Jack was gone