On Blue Falls Pond

by Susan Crandall

  She drew away slightly from Eric’s sudden intensity. “No I didn’t. I said unplanned pregnancy.”

  “You said ‘unwanted.’”

  “Whatever.” She didn’t really want to get in an argument over semantics.

  “Didn’t he?” Eric pushed again.

  With a dismissive smile, she said, “Of course he wanted a baby. We’d been married for six years . . . he was a little nervous, like all expectant parents.” She twisted her hands in her lap, and added softly, “Of course he wanted it.”

  For a long moment, she could feel his eyes on her, but she concentrated her gaze on the waterfall.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and some of the intensity had left his voice. “I’m sorry. That was none of my business.” He swiped a hand over his face. “I didn’t mean to open a painful subject. You wanted to come here alone, and I’ve intruded.” He got up. “I’ll go wait for you back on the path.”

  Before he turned and walked away, Glory reached up and grabbed his hand. “No.” She finally dared to look at him again. “Stay. Please.” She didn’t want to be alone and think about where her question had come from—or why her answer to his felt like a lie.

  Chapter Ten

  AT LEAST GRAVITY was in Glory’s favor on the way home. If she’d been alone at the falls, she would have soothed her aching muscles beneath the cascading cool water before heading back. She didn’t even consider it with Eric present. It wasn’t that she was overly modest. Stripped down to her underwear, she’d still be showing less skin than in her swimsuit. It was more the fact that she felt herself in an emotional slide toward him, and she’d already exposed herself in ways that left her more vulnerable than their casual acquaintance should have allowed. Her desire for him to kiss her on their way up attested to that. Swimming might lead to . . . other things.

  This time, Eric took the lead the entire way. The grade was steep in places, easy for feet to slide out from beneath a person. Glory moved carefully, torn between watching her footing and the movement of Eric’s masculine shoulders. Occasionally her foot would slip, reminding her that she’d better be careful; she’d fallen on him once today, twice would be just too humiliating.

  They hadn’t said much since the moment she’d asked him not to leave her beside the pond. They sat in quiet companionable solitude until Glory had gotten up and said she was ready to leave.

  Now, as they neared the church, the grade evened out some, and the path became wide enough that they could walk side by side. He slowed up and let her move alongside. As their arms brushed, he took her hand in his. He didn’t say anything, just walked slowly beside her in the heat.

  The contact gave her such an adolescent thrill that Glory didn’t dare look at him. Really, she was twenty-eight, she was a widow; holding hands with a man shouldn’t give her the shivers. But it did.

  They still held hands when they reached his motorcycle at the shady edge of the cemetery. At that point, Eric drew her to a stop in front of him. He held her gaze, smiling down at her, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand.

  Glory stood there like an idiot, unsure what to say.

  He tipped his head toward the bike. “You want a ride home?”

  Glory remembered how it felt to slide onto that machine behind him and race down the roads—at least it had felt like racing, but knowing Eric, she was certain it had been a very cautious ride. Repeating the experience was greater temptation than she cared to admit. Which is why she took a small step backward and said, “No, thanks.”

  Was that disappointment in his eyes?

  He released her hand. “I was going to stop by and see if Tula needed anything from town before I left the hollow anyhow. It’ll be a few days before anyone’ll be able to drive a car out of here.”

  Unreasonably, Glory didn’t want Granny to know Eric had been with her all afternoon at Blue Falls Pond. Guilt edged into her consciousness, not that she’d done anything to feel guilty about, she assured herself. Still . . .

  “You go on and visit with Gran. I’m going to take a nice slow walk the rest of the way.”

  For the briefest second, she thought he was going to try to change her mind. But he finally nodded and said good-bye.

  Glory stood in the churchyard until he’d started the motorcycle and disappeared down the road. Then she began her meandering stroll home.

  As she turned onto the lane that led to Granny’s house, Glory heard a sharp, thin chirp, like an injured bird. She paused and listened. After a second, she heard it again. Only it didn’t actually sound like a bird. It was more like a yip than a chirp.

  Her skin prickled. There were wildcats in this area. She’d never heard of one attacking a human. Her mind mentally judged how far it was to Granny’s front porch. She couldn’t see the house, but it wasn’t that far away, just around the curve in the gravel lane.

  Two sharp yips sounded like they came from the culvert that ran beneath the lane, sounding more pitiful than threatening. But this was wild country, not domesticated farmland of Ohio or Minnesota. Something injured and angry—and feral—was probably in that drainpipe.

  Glory looked at the ditch that led to the culvert, then to the lane that led toward the house. She stood in indecision for another moment before another wild-sounding yelp made her mind up for her.

  Eric had exhausted all of his excuses for hanging around Tula’s house, and still Glory hadn’t shown up. It was nearly three-thirty; he’d stayed so long that Tula had begun to doze on the sofa.

  Even at a snail’s pace, Glory should have been home by now.

  He mentally took stock of the potential hazards between here and the church. The woman was proving herself to be accident-prone. She could have stubbed her toe on a root and fallen; broken a bone or hit her head. She could have been bitten by a copperhead. She could have twisted her ankle in a rabbit burrow.

  He shifted in his chair.

  Maybe he’d go back to the church, check the road along the way. If he didn’t see her, maybe he should walk the path through the woods.

  He leaned forward and rubbed his forehead.

  What if he did find her and she was fine? He’d already intruded on her private time enough for one day. She was a grown woman.

  He got up out of the chair, roused Tula enough to tell her good-bye, and left, still debating his course of action. He half hoped he’d see Glory appear from the path in the woods as he got on his bike.

  When that didn’t happen, he thought maybe he’d meet her on the lane.

  He started the motorcycle and rolled it off its kickstand.

  He’d just cruise past the church. No harm in that.

  He rounded the curve in the lane, looking one last time in the rearview mirror to see if Glory had appeared in the yard. When he returned his gaze to the lane in front of him he saw her.

  She was sprawled facedown in the ditch that ran to the drainpipe that passed under the lane. Her legs were spread and her arms flung over her head.

  His heart gave a double beat as he braked and lunged off the bike, sliding it to the ground on its side; not talking precious seconds to set it on its kickstand.

  “Glory!” He threw himself onto his knees in the ditch beside her.

  Her head came up, a shocked expression on her face. “Are you all right?” she shouted.

  “Fine,” he responded, trying to make sense of what was happening and settle his heart back in his chest.

  “Your bike!” she said.

  “What in the hell are you doing lying in this ditch?”

  She grinned, then ducked her head close to the ground and looked into the pipe again. She whispered something that he couldn’t make out.

  He wrinkled his brow and asked, “What?”

  “Puppies,” she said softly. When he looked at her blankly, she pulled him down beside her. “Look.”

  Eric realized there were little squeaking sounds echoing from inside. Sounded like bats.

  He squinted and looked in the pipe. At first he couldn’t
see more than a lump obstructing the light coming from the other end. Then he saw that the lump was moving. As his eyes adjusted he saw a dog and a pile of pups.

  Glory said, “I think she’s a retriever of some sort. I counted six pups—although with them wiggling around I can’t be sure.”

  She started to reach into the pipe. Eric grabbed her wrist.

  She looked at him. “We can’t leave them here. What if it rains? They’ll drown.”

  “I know,” Eric said softly. “Better see if the mother’s agreeable first.”

  Glory looked back into the pipe. “There! She’s wagging her tail.” She scooted forward on her belly to reach inside. “She’s probably hungry and thirsty.”

  With a little coaxing, they lured the mother out into the open. She was dirty and thin, her tan coat matted with muck from the bottom of the drainpipe. Eric picked her up while Glory gathered the puppies and loaded them in the upturned hem of her T-shirt.

  “Oh my, their little eyes are still closed.” She drew in a breath as she looked at the wriggling pile in her shirt. “Oh, and their ears are so tiny.”

  Eric shifted the weight of the mother in his arms. “Let’s get them settled somewhere. I don’t think mama wants to be separated from them for long.”

  They started walking toward the house, leaving Eric’s motorcycle where it lay at the side of the gravel lane.

  Glory looked at the mother. “No collar. No tags. Do you think she’s a Lab? Even with no tags, someone might be missing her.”

  “She’s a mutt and probably a stray. There’s retriever in there, but look at those ears and the shape of her nose. Those are hound. And she hasn’t been groomed in what looks like forever.”

  Once they had the new doggie family settled in a blanket-lined box in Tula’s shed, they decided they’d better wake Tula and tell her of the new boarders.

  They made a game of it and led Tula out with her eyes closed.

  When they told her to open them, she sucked in a breath. “Good heavens! Look at that.”

  She knelt beside the box, a wide grin on her face. She said to the dog, “You did a fine job, fine job, little mama. Now you can rest. You’re all safe here.”

  Eric said, “She doesn’t have tags. Do you recognize her, Tula?”

  Tula shook her head. “Cain’t say I do. No matter, she’s welcome here ’long as she wants to stay.”

  Eric had been fairly certain Tula wouldn’t turn away any living creature, but felt himself relaxing when she responded so happily.

  Tula got to her feet and said to Glory, “Guess you’d better have Eric run you into town on that contraption of his to get some dog food. Who knows how long it’s been since she’s eaten.”

  Glory said, “Oh. I hadn’t even thought of that.” She looked at Eric. “Do you mind?”

  He almost said she didn’t need to go, he could get the food and bring it back. Instead, he bought himself more time in her company by saying, “Of course not.”

  For years Dawson had fought the trend to open retail shopping on Sundays. But even here in the mountains, times had finally changed. A few holdouts remained closed until noon—after church services—but most stores now had Sunday hours.

  Glory held tightly to Eric as he swung the motorcycle into the parking lot at Tucker’s Maxi-Mart. He stopped at the gas pump. Glory got off and went to see what they had in the way of pet supplies.

  Tucker’s had originally been just a gas station. Years ago it had expanded its services to a quick-stop, with milk and bread and soft drinks. Sometime later they had added canned goods, cereal, and a little deli. Then, just before Glory left town, it had been flattened by a tornado. While she had been gone it’d been rebuilt, the space redesigned to house a small-scale full-service market. The aisles were wide and brightly lit; a vast improvement to the cramped layout of the old store, where it seemed every year they managed to pile more merchandise into the already overcrowded space, making shopping there something more like a treasure hunt.

  Glory found the dog food and squatted to read the labels. There were choices for senior citizen dogs, puppies, dogs with bad breath, dogs with sensitive stomachs . . . nothing for dogs that had just delivered a litter of puppies. She settled on one that guaranteed maximum nutrition, pulled it off the low shelf, and stood up. When she turned around, there was a woman standing just behind her.

  “Glory? I thought that was you, but I just couldn’t believe it.” Ovella Harrison gave Glory a quick, mechanical embrace—which was about as much warmth as the woman ever had mustered for Glory. The dog food bag prevented Glory from hugging back.

  “Ovella.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. After a year and a half with only the brief obligatory holiday communication, this wasn’t the best way to have your mother-in-law discover you were back in town.

  “Why didn’t you call? How long have you been back?”

  “Last Wednesday. I planned on calling . . . time seemed to get away.” Glory always felt like a child called on the carpet with Ovella, no matter how friendly the woman appeared outwardly. She supposed it all stemmed back to the fact that Ovella had been less than thrilled with her son’s choice of a bride. She’d never treated Glory with anything less than outward affection and acceptance, but Glory had always sensed a strained undercurrent to that affection.

  Ovella dismissed Glory’s excuse with a wave of her hand. “No matter. Where are you living?”

  “Oh, I’m staying with Granny.”

  “Clear out there?” A hint of the old disapproval colored her voice. For Ovella, if you lived in the hollow, you didn’t really belong to Dawson at all. “What are your plans?”

  “I’m sort of playing it by ear. Granny’s having some problems . . . it all depends on how that goes.”

  “So . . . you’re not back for good?”

  Glory couldn’t tell if Ovella sounded pleased or miffed. She told the truth, and said, “I’m just not sure.”

  At that moment, Eric walked up. “Hello, Mrs. Harrison.”

  Ovella turned to him with a smile. “Eric! Good to see you.” Then she looked back to Glory. “Do you remember my daughter-in-law?”

  Eric smiled so warmly at Glory that she felt the heat right to the pit of her stomach. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ovella cast a curious look between Eric and Glory. Then said to Glory, “I’d better run; Walter is waiting for this cold medicine.” She held up the box in her hand. “He’ll be so glad to hear you’re back, Glory. Promise you’ll call this week.”

  Glory nodded. “I promise.” Whereas Ovella’s affection had always felt as if it had been given with reluctance, Walt had more than made up for it with his straightforward caring. Glory could actually say she’d genuinely missed her father-in-law.

  Ovella gave Glory a quick brush of a kiss on her cheek. Then she said to Eric, “Tell Jill I said hello.”

  Then she was gone, leaving only a hint of Chanel No. 5 and a sense of being caught in some sort of misbehavior.

  Eric took the bag of dog food from Glory. “Do you think she’ll need anything else?”

  Glory looked at him with confusion. “Ovella?”

  He laughed. “The dog.”

  “I don’t think we could carry anything else on the motorcycle.” As she walked to the front of the store with Eric, Glory told herself to stop wondering why Ovella had brought Jill up. Jill’s mother and she were friends, after all. And it had been clear that Ovella had no idea that Glory and Eric were together.

  It had to be a manifestation of that old feeling of being brought to account for her behavior in front of Ovella. Glory really shouldn’t have let Ovella discover she was back in town like this. Actually, her mother-in-law had been surprisingly gracious about the whole thing.

  As they walked out, Ovella was just finishing filling her car with gas. Glory and Eric climbed on the motorcycle and settled the bag of dog food securely between them. Eric waved to Ovella as he pulled away from the pump.

  Glory saw the stunn
ed expression on Ovella’s face and quickly looked away, feeling like she’d been caught cheating on her dead husband.

  “Mother, is that you?” Walter called from upstairs as Ovella walked through the foyer. His words were followed by coughing.

  “Yes, dear. I’ll bring the medicine right up. I’m getting you some orange juice.”

  She took her time arranging the orange juice, the Sunday paper, a napkin, and the cold medicine on a tray. Should she tell Walter about seeing Glory? He’d been doing so well lately. Ovella didn’t want him to be upset on top of his cold. He should be retired now, sitting on a sunny beach or deep-sea fishing, not grinding away every day at the paper company. He’d earned his rest.

  Luckily, she’d stayed home from church today because of Walter’s cold; she would have been mortified to learn through the grapevine that Glory was back. How would that look? That thought made up her mind; she couldn’t let Walter find out that way.

  Once at the top of the stairs, she put a bright smile on her face and entered the bedroom. “Here we are. Just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Honestly, Mother, you’re making too much fuss. It’s just a little summer cold.”

  “At your age, you can’t be too careful.”

  He sputtered. “You make it sound like I’ve got one foot in the grave! I’m only sixty-nine.”

  She set down the tray and opened the cold medicine. “Plenty of sixty-nine-year-olds get pneumonia. If something happened to you . . .” Walter was the twine that held her together. Without him she’d be in a thousand fragmented pieces.

  He pinched her on the butt. “Come over here and I’ll show you how healthy I am.”

  She jumped and swatted his hand away. “Enough of that!”

  He swallowed his pills with the orange juice, and she opened the paper for him. She took a deep breath and said, “Glory’s back in town.”

  Walter lifted himself off his propping of pillows. “Our girl’s back! When? Where is she?”

  Ovella eased him back onto his pillows. “Settle down. She’s staying out there . . . with her grandmother. I saw her at Tucker’s.” She wasn’t about to tell him that their daughter-in-law had been on the back of Eric Wilson’s motorcycle.