Return to Paradise

by Laina Villeneuve

  “Lacey dear,” she answered warmly.

  “I hope I didn’t drag you across the house.”

  “Oh, no. I was right here fixing some dinner.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” she asked, catching my tone.

  “I was going to offer to bring something out.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I can manage on my own.”

  “I know you can, Gran.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  I could feel her smiling through the phone. “What?”

  “You’d like some company. Come on out. I can stretch what I started for two.”

  “No, no. I was going to take care of you.”

  “Then I’ll let you do the dishes.”

  “Deal.” I smiled. “I’ll be there in ten.”

  An early dinner with my grandmother was exactly what I needed to take my mind off stray horses, ex-girlfriends and airheaded newcomers until my seven o’clock book club.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lacey

  When I decided to open my own business, I hadn’t understood how very much I hate billing. I’m stubborn about pulling my hands out of the engine, hate fighting with the computer, and absolutely despise sending out repeat invoices. My ringing phone offered a welcome distraction, but before I could even get a good look at the number on my screen, it went dark. I frowned at it and then back at my computer screen and Shawneen’s overdue bill. The next time I did any work on the car, I’d make her pick it up at the shop, so she couldn’t consider a free dinner wiping her balance away.

  The phone rang again, and a local number flashed on the screen. “Rainbow Auto,” I answered. My brain tried to decipher the muffled jumble of sounds on the other end. “Hello,” I tried again, wondering if someone had dialed the number by mistake. It almost sounded like the phone was under a pile of papers the owner was rustling through. I clicked off and hit print. Holding the bill, I debated writing a personal message to Shawneen, wondering if that might guilt her into settling her debt more quickly.

  When the same number rang a third time, I was tempted to ignore it. Annoyed, I picked it up. “Yes?” I barked.

  Silence. And then, “Lacey?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Sorry. It’s Madison?”

  I closed my eyes to try to expunge my negative attitude, but the way she turned a statement into a question added to my already short fuse. “How can I help you?”

  The muffled sounds I’d heard from the second call returned and I heard a distant “Get! Go on now!” before her voice returned at normal register. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with Houdini. I keep trying to call you to get the number of your contractor, and he’s gone wild, knocking the phone out of my hand.”

  “Houdini?”

  “My horse.”

  “Of course your horse is named Houdini.” I was back to pinching the bridge of my nose.

  “He’s my escape artist,” Madison explained.

  “Is this horse white?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I think we’re acquainted,” I said, recalling the story of his surprise visit the day before.

  “That’s impossible,” Madison said. “Must be some other white horse because my place is way out by the airport off Spanish Creek Road. We’re nowhere near your shop.”

  Her answer disappointed me. As improbable as it sounded, it would have provided an explanation I could give Dani. Like Gabe, she seemed concerned when I showed up to book club saying the horse had disappeared. She’d glanced ever so briefly at Hope, and I could see them assessing whether I was spending too much time on my own. I am good on my own, I thought, not someone who has to be dating to feel complete. “You called for a number.”

  “I did, if it’s handy.”

  I rolled the shop chair over to the file cabinet. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” she said, repeating the number after I’d read it to her. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime,” I said. Should I simply say goodbye? Was that rude? She hadn’t said anything, and the silence extended between us. “How’s it going at your place?”

  “Keeping myself busy. There’s a lot of work to do before I’m ready for guests. I can’t seem to go a day without having to run to the lumberyard or hardware store, but it’s good for me to get out and talk to someone besides Houdini. Someone who says stuff back even if it’s ‘You sure you can handle that belt sander by yourself?’”

  “Belt sander?”

  “Refinishing the floors. They’re fir.”

  “You have fur floors?” I saw a variety of pelts stitched together to cover her floors.

  “I have no idea if they’ve been refinished before and fir is such a soft wood that I don’t want to risk damaging it with a drum sander.”

  “You have fir floors,” I said, finally following.

  “That’s what I said. I should get back to it. Thanks for the number.”

  “You bet.”

  “Bye.”

  I stared at my phone trying to balance how normal Madison sounded talking about sanding floors with the spacey girl who let a horse knock her phone out of her hand. Not your circus, not your monkey, my mother’s catch phrase came back to me.

  As soon as I set down my phone, the screen lit up again. Shawneen. I groaned, wishing I could so easily apply the circus/monkey comment to her. I took the call.

  “Lacey honey, you are not going to believe my day.”

  Certain whatever had ruined hers was about to ruin mine, I prompted her. “What’s up, Shawneen.”

  “It would be easier if you drove out here. Can you drive out to my place? I…I can’t get the door to the Nova shut, and Dennis is already at work, and…”

  And it would be too much to pay for roadside assistance, especially when you’ve got a technician who loves your car. I tipped the phone away from my mouth as I exhaled, trying to let go of how the car’s owner annoyed me. Find the bright side. Find the bright side. In person, I could demand she settle her outstanding bill. “Be there in about ten.” I grabbed my coat and a small box of tools and headed over the hill, through Quincy proper and beyond the turnoff for the community college, and Spanish Creek Road which didn’t grab my attention or curiosity one bit.

  I zoomed by without one thought about the possibility of finding Madison’s place. Just because she said she lived off Spanish Creek didn’t mean her property was on the main road. There were plenty of side roads, and even if she was right on Spanish Creek, those houses sat so far back, there was no telling whether I’d see her black truck, if she was driving that one and not the familiar orange Dodge from the picture in the treasure box.

  See, I didn’t think about it at all on my way out to the mobile home place. I pulled up next to the Nova, and at the sound of my car door, she emerged from the long box. She and Dennis had done nothing to make it look like a more permanent home. Others on the lot added planters or awnings. Instead of hiding the difference between Shawneen’s place and those around her, the snow accentuated how little Shawneen did to make the place hers.

  She whipped a scarf around her neck and walked to the driver’s side. I grabbed my tools and joined her, kind of thankful she wasn’t going to pretend I was a friend doing a favor. I stopped short as I rounded the vehicle.

  “Shawneen,” I gasped.

  “I know. But with the two of us, do you think you could get it shut?”

  The door was bent open almost ninety degrees, firmly wedged in the waist-high snow piled to the side of the drive. I set down my tools and approached the vehicle. “What in the world?”

  “I usually back in, but last night, I was too wasted to drive. Dennis parked it for me. This morning, it was all froze over. I couldn’t see worth shit, so I opened the door to steer.”

  “And when the door got stuck in the berm?”

  “How the hell was I supposed to know it was stuck? I was moving. Then I wasn’t. I figured it was the hill and gunned it.
Damn door nearly pulled me out of the car.”

  Palm to forehead, I tried to find a way out of her mess. I climbed behind the wheel and turned over the engine. Once it purred, I cut the wheel hard away from the berm, leaned out to get a hold on the door and inched forward. I hoped that once we got the door disengaged from the snow, we could push it back to the frame. I left the car in park and motioned for Shawneen to join me on the outside of the door. We pushed together, and it moved an inch. I grabbed a tarp and tossed it on the ground.

  “Help me out here.” I patted the tarp next to me. Shawneen stared at me like I was hitting myself on the head with a hammer. “Come on. We’ve got more strength in our legs.” Reluctantly, she joined me and put her booted feet to the door. We pushed again and got another two inches, but she’d bent the hinges beyond where they’d ever let the door nestle to the car’s frame again. “Shit.”

  Shawneen looked at her watch. Pointedly.

  “What?” I barked.

  “I’ve got to get to work. I was going to say on the phone, but you’d already hung up.”

  Forcing myself to keep my happy face on, I said, “We can’t leave your car here. It needs to be in a garage until you get a new door on there.”

  “I thought as much.” Shawneen’s voice had a sharpness I didn’t appreciate. Before my feathers fully ruffled, her face and posture softened. I braced myself for what I knew would come next. “Couldn’t you take it back to your shop, sugar? Obviously, I can’t keep it here. It’s perfect. I’ll take your car back over to East Quincy, and you can get mine out of the elements.” Her hand slid down my arm, squeezing above the elbow. Uncomfortable, I clamped my teeth. I hated that she assumed she could get whatever she wanted from me and knew it was my own doing. I had failed to establish boundaries with her when she first brought the Nova to me. She knew I wanted to help the Nova. Even now, my mind was spinning on how to fix her door.

  “The keys are in the ignition,” I said.

  “Perfect. You let me know when the Nova’s ready.”

  “Oh no. You can park my car at the shop and leave the keys on the visor. I can give the Nova a spot in my garage until you’re current on your bill. Then we can address what needs to be done with the door.”

  The breath she puffed out lifted her bangs for a moment. “Fine.”

  After she disappeared in my car, I considered who might be able to help me with the door. I couldn’t drive any distance with it stuck out like a broken wing. I’d have to get the door off the hinges. Being so close to Spanish Creek Road, I could have asked Madison to help me wrestle the door from its frame, but I didn’t want to send her a message that I was trying to find ways to hang out with her. I needed at least one competent person to hold the door while I got the bolts off. I tried Gabe and got his voice mail. Shit. What had I gotten myself into? Hope answered and said she would have helped but was covering one of her waitstaff’s shift. She saved me the trouble of calling Dani reminding me that she had Senate. I hit Della’s number.

  “You can’t flake on the game tonight. You know my girls count on every face in the stand,” she said.

  “I know. I’m not flaking. I’m asking for help.”

  “With?”

  “I’ve got this door that I need to pull off a car.”

  “Right now?”

  “Preferably.”

  “Can’t right now. I’m on my way to Senate. Getting in the game, you know?”

  “Look at you! That’s great, Della!”

  “Too bad you don’t have the spacey chick’s number. Could’ve been a cute way to get to know each other a little better.”

  I would never admit to her that Madison had come to mind first. I hesitated a second too long.

  “Girl, you have her number, don’t you?”

  “She called for my contractor’s number.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. I gave it to her.”

  “So that number is just sitting there in your phone waiting for you to share it with your friend Della?”

  “What are you going to say when you call?” And did I mind sharing? I had to admit that the fleeting idea of watching them hit it off stung.

  “Remember me from Cup of Joy?” Della practiced. “Hope introduced us, but it seemed too forward to ask for your number right then.”

  “You didn’t tell me about that.”

  “And you tell me everything?”

  I still couldn’t forget the way I’d felt when Madison’s fingers brushed mine in my shop.

  “Thought so.” I heard Della’s satisfied smile.

  “So you’ve met her?”

  “I just said that.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “And what?”

  “You thought she was hot?” Why did I say that?

  “No, I’m asking for her number, so I can tell her that you want to ask her out.” Della’s sarcasm hung heavily.

  “How are you going to explain that you have her number?” I stomped my feet, starting to get cold in the snow. As fun as it was to hear Della be more lighthearted, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel if they hit it off.

  “Easy. I tell her my terrible friend Lacey promised to come to the basketball game and flaked but had the bright idea of giving the newcomer to town a chance to socialize and take her place.”

  “But I didn’t flake on you. I’m planning on coming.”

  “Not if the hottie is coming. Last thing I need is you sitting in the stands making moves on her.”

  “I’m not putting any moves on her.”

  “Your loss. What’s her number?”

  “I’ll text it to you. Text me if she says yes, and I’ll skip.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t help with the car,” Della said a little too cheerfully.

  “No you’re not. But thanks anyway,” I grumbled.

  Out of options, I scavenged wood from their winter supply to support the door while I worked on the bolts. As I wrestled them into submission, I kept my eye on the neighbors’ places, half-hoping that someone would come to my rescue. By the time I swung the door into the trunk and leaned against the car, victorious, I was overheated, every joint hurt and every muscle had turned to jelly.

  When I hit the highway, freezing cold air struck my sweaty body and set my teeth to chattering. I cranked up the heat and pointed all the vents at me. In my car, I had an emergency blanket. Load of good that did me.

  A mile from town, a line of cars at a standstill stumped me. There is no traffic in Quincy. Not in the dead of winter, not even at the lunch rush which was hours gone. I slowed and stuck my head out of the car’s frame.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” I unbuckled my belt and slid out of the car, gimping down the line of cars to where Officer Nelson stood waving her hands at an immobile horse. I passed a dozen cars held up in the road. Most had their windows shut to the cold, but a few were hollering at the officer and included me when I hobbled by.

  “Get that thing out of the way!”

  “This is absurd!”

  “That your horse, Lacey? Get it out of here!”

  “Isn’t this supposed to scare them off?” Brenna asked, waving her hat at the horse which appeared to be napping right smack in the middle of the two lanes.

  The hollering made me feel guilty even though it wasn’t my animal. “How am I supposed to know? Did you call Gabe?”

  “Why would I call Gabe?” she snapped.

  The way Gabe had talked about her, I was sure they were together, but her reaction sent me into a quick backpedal. “Because he’s good with horses.”

  Lips set in a hard line, she challenged me to add more. I caved. “I called him when this guy,” I motioned to the sleeping horse, “was in my shop.”

  “Well, that explains one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why Gabe said, ‘Not funny’ and hung up on me.”

  Ah, so maybe there was more than she was letting on. I started to smile and saw there was no humor in her face. �
�Oh.”

  “How is it a horse that was in your shop in East Quincy is now blocking my street?” Here I was trying to help, and even she blamed me.

  “It’s Madison’s horse.”

  “Madison?” Her dark eyes bore into me.

  “She’s new to town. She said Houdini is hers.”

  Hearing his name, the horse’s head snapped up, his eyes alert. Inexplicably, he ambled off the road to rest his head on my chest.

  “Madison’s horse?” Brenna stepped into the street and motioned for the cars to pass.

  “Keep that thing corralled,” someone hollered.

  Others stared angrily at me as they crawled past Brenna and me.

  “Apparently. I’m pretty sure. Do you want me to call her?”

  “First move that thing you’re driving. Is that Shawneen’s car? You want to explain why you’re driving without a door, missy?”

  “No, I really don’t,” I said, utterly finished with my already bad day.

  “Of course you don’t. Do you…” She let her head fall forward. She’d put her hat back on, so I couldn’t see her face. “Does she have anything in there we can put on the horse?”

  “Let me see.” As I walked to the car, Houdini followed along like a well-trained dog. I climbed in to pull to the shoulder, and he kept walking. “Wait up!” I hollered once I’d parked. Brenna was already running toward him, her hands on her heavy black belt. I glanced around to see if there was anything I could use to catch the horse, but when I looked back to the road, Houdini had moved into a trot. Brenna stopped running, and the horse angled to the shoulder, sailed over the fence and stretched out into a beautiful gallop.

  Brenna turned around, hands on hips. Before she could move, I jumped back into the Nova and threw it into gear, in no mood to explain.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lacey

  Bent halfway into an engine, the gentle bump against my hip would have caught me off guard a week ago. He’d come into the shop as quietly as he had left my shop the time before. I hadn’t even heard his hooves on the concrete. I set down my wrench and wiped my hands on the red rag I hung from my belt.