“You’ll just have to win them over,” she announced.
“How the heck am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t even know them. Let’s think about it.”
She’d come into the living room brandishing her latest drafts of visuals for the meeting, and for the first time she’d sat down beside him on the sofa so they could look at them together. That meant he was close to that slim, serious face, with the frown she always had when she was thinking. It helped his anger fade.
He drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. “The only way I can think of to win Ed over is to give him a whole bunch of money.”
“That would be bribery,” she said primly.
“As for Virginia, hmm, something to run. Something to star in.”
She snapped her fingers. “Give them important volunteer jobs for the center.”
“Huh?” He was flabbergasted. Last thing he wanted was to have Virginia and Ed messing with his center.
“Yes, volunteer jobs. If they get involved, well, you know what they say in politics.”
“No, I don’t know what they say in politics,” Daniel said, wondering where the conversation was drifting.
“A volunteer is a vote.”
He contemplated the concept. “That makes sense.”
“What job could Virginia do that would make her feel important?”
“I don’t know. Take over the whole project?”
She gave him a look. “Be serious. What sorts of jobs need to be done right now?”
He began to list them, and after he said, “We’ll be asking for grants, and the grant proposals will require projected capital expense and operating expense reports. You know, the cleaning, maintenance, food, equipment of various sorts…” he trailed off.
“What?” Lilah said. “What did you just think of?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “Virginia used to be a nutritionist. Maybe she’d be willing to plan a month of menus, estimate the cost.”
“That’s a great idea! She can form a committee. She’d be the chairman, of course, and she could command her minions to do the pricing and then have total control over the menus.”
“Okay,” he said, still feeling doubtful. “I’ll give it a try. Any ideas for Ed? Volunteer strangler?”
“Money,” she said thoughtfully. “Virginia would be pricing food without actually buying it, so what could Ed do that would make him feel as if he were spending a lot of money?”
“Sports equipment,” Daniel breathed. “He was a star football player in high school.” He wagged a warning finger. “Don’t ever ask him about it unless you have an hour or two to listen to him say, ‘And then there was that win against Brattleboro High…’ Anyway, he could figure out what we’ll need and check all over the state to price the equipment.”
“Good,” Lilah said. “That problem’s solved. Now could I show you these charts?”
“I’m at your service.”
To look at the charts, he had to lean closer to her, look over her shoulder. Her hair, which looked shinier and healthier every day, tickled his cheek. He began thinking really dumb thoughts. For example, imagining that she was his dreamcatcher, sent by fate to banish his nightmares. And that she’d flown into his life unexpectedly to inspire him to achieve greater things. And worse, he was realizing how much he didn’t want her to fly away.
She was so close, just a kiss away. Her generous mouth shone, blinding his common sense. He moved a millimeter nearer, or maybe it was only his heart that moved.
“We’ll look at these visuals tomorrow,” she said, leaping up with all her papers clutched tight in her hands. “Virginia and Ed were a much more important issue.”
She gave him a bright smile and did what he was afraid she’d do—she flew.
IF YOU RUN FAST ENOUGH, the monster won’t catch you.
In the safety of the carriage house she laid out her drafts on the coffee table and tried to regain her earlier excitement, to no avail. All she could see was Daniel’s face so close to hers, hinting at a kiss that would have been so easy, so natural, so wonderful—a moment that might be gone forever.
Would she regret it? At the moment, yes. She sighed, rearranged the papers in a neat stack and went to bed, wondering what it would be like to be kissed by Daniel. She had a strong and scary feeling that it would be absolutely blissful.
THE TWO WEEKS LILAH and Jonathan had lived in their car had seemed like an eternity, but the following two weeks hurtled by with the speed and force of a tidal wave.
The Fourth of July came and went with the proverbial bang. Fireworks, a parade in town, barbecued chicken that the Rotary Club members had gotten up at four in the morning to have ready by noon, and a great picnic in the backyard in the evening.
Lilah had paid a visit to the photographer Daniel had suggested. “Don’t let him scare you,” Daniel had warned her. “His skills are camera skills, not social skills.”
She was glad he’d prepared her. Ray Colloton was a dour man with a growly voice that he used as little as possible. She struggled valiantly through her spiel, to which he appeared not to have the slightest reaction, so she was shocked when she finally stopped talking and he said without even a ghost of a smile, “Sure. I’ll donate my time and materials. You pay travel expenses.”
“Free!” She was so excited she tackled Daniel right outside the clinic door on his way into the house. “All Ray wants is travel expenses.”
“Nothing like smart, informed female charm,” Daniel said.
“It wasn’t me, it was the center. You have a fan.” But his smile shone above her more brightly than the late-setting sun.
For Maury’s birthday, Mike closed the restaurant on Sunday evening—an unprecedented event—and produced a gourmet multi-course dinner, whose various dishes the younger boys either devoured enthusiastically or passed on surreptitiously to Lilah for covert disposal. It ended, whimsically and sentimentally, with the traditional birthday cake and homemade ice cream. Maury’s cake, of course, was decorated to resemble a chef wearing a tall white hat.
Maury beamed all evening. Lilah wasn’t sure whether it was the reaction to the excitement of the party or the presence of a very pretty girl he pretended not to be gazing at—or the fact that now he could work at the restaurant every afternoon, evening and weekend.
The diner was crammed full. The rest of Daniel’s kids were there, of course, plus Maury’s school friends. Mike was conspicuous because he was in charge, and Ian was there, too. Mike seemed to be warming to her. Even Ian’s glower seemed less fierce.
If only Jason’s party could have been so uncomplicated. The winning-over of Ed Wilcox and Virginia Galloway still hung oppressively in the air. Lilah had discovered that summer was Daniel’s busiest season, with cows to attend to, horses, pigs, Ian’s sheep, tiny Chihuahuas and big huskies, Labs, golden retrievers and Burmese mountain dogs—they seemed to need more attention in the summertime.
Just like kids. As long as you could keep them penned up, they were safe. Let them loose, however, and there was no end to the trouble they could get into.
“Virginia,” she reminded Daniel. “Ed. You have to buck up and go for it before the presentation.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” he said.
She gave him a look. “If you’d already done it, I wouldn’t have to nag. And here’s some more nagging. We have to schedule the filming. The meeting’s two weeks from Tuesday. Ray needs time to edit and splice, to choose background music, all that stuff. You’re the one who should go with him,” she insisted. “So don’t argue with me.”
“When you have him in the palm of your hand? When I have more piglets coming, cows with unacceptable cream levels and Bob Frost with an acid reflux reaction to cheesecake? Oh, yes, and there’s the fungus between Banjo Galloway’s toenails. How he got a fungus is a mystery to me. I don’t think Virginia lets him run loose…” He paused, gazing at her face, obviously realizing he’d sealed his own fate.
“When,” sh
e asked pointedly, “is Banjo’s appointment?”
“Okay, okay.”
She could see his exhaustion in the dark circles under his eyes. “Let’s make a deal,” she suggested. “I’ll go with Ray, and you’ll pounce on Virginia and Ed.”
He threw up his hands in surrender. “Deal. If I can just figure out a way to get to Ed.”
“You will,” she said, flashing him a smile.
A few days later, the trip with Ray to a foster-care center in Connecticut, celebrated as a model for all future centers, had been interesting. Unique, even. It had meant a long drive with Ray instead of a short flight, which had meant a long interval of silence instead of a short one.
Amazingly, the end result, produced a week later, was a compelling film. Lilah thought about inviting him to dinner with Daniel, Jesse and five energetic boys, and decided that might drive Ray into a deep depression, so instead she made a batch of peanut-butter cookies and hand-delivered them.
With the film behind her, the visuals under control and a week still left before the presentation, she turned her attention to the project that was almost as dear to her heart as the center was to Daniel’s.
“VIRGINIA!” DANIEL BEAMED as she swept regally into his examination room with Banjo in her arms. He took the dog from her tenderly, already checking out his toenails. “Looking good,” he said. “The ointment’s working.”
With his hands on Banjo and his eyes on Virginia, he said, “I have a big favor to ask of you. This grant money we’re going after for the center…”
Fifteen minutes later Virginia agreed to take charge of the nutritional component of the center’s proposal for funding.
He’d spent sleepless nights deciding how to approach Ed, but now Daniel thought he had it aced, so he took a deep breath and dialed Ed’s number. The first minute or two of the conversation were uncomfortable, what with Daniel at one end trying to pretend he didn’t know Ed had refused to let his daughter come to Jason’s party and Ed at the other end obviously wondering if Daniel knew. But at last he got to the clincher.
“Ed, a salesman has dropped off samples of a food supplement for milk cows, and he wants me to test them. If you’re agreeable, I’d like to try them out on your cows.”
He could almost hear Ed’s brain working. Free food supplements, and the doctor does the driving! What veterinary services can I hit him up for while he’s out here asking me for a favor?
Then there was the trip to Ed’s farm with the supplements, which Daniel had actually bought with his own money. And finally it was Ed wondering if he wanted to go to the trouble of giving the cows the supplements.
But he couldn’t resist getting something for free. Daniel took a look at a couple of the cows—no charge—and then wangled a glass of water. In the main room of the farmhouse he found the football trophies that Mike had told him would be there, which Mike had found out by quizzing his customers.
“Ed, I just realized that since you’re a legendary football star, you’re just the guy I need.”
It took fifteen minutes more to make sure Ed understood it was a volunteer job.
And then Ed set himself up for the kill. “Talking to dealers all over the state’s going to take a lot of gas.” Ed sent him a shifty look.
“It will,” Daniel said, “but not necessarily yours.” Ed’s eyes brightened. “I’m assigning you an assistant. He’ll drive you around. Great guy. Tell you what. I’ll treat you both to breakfast at Mike’s Diner on Tuesday morning.”
Sold. Ed was already thinking, “Free breakfast!” Daniel gleefully looked forward to the moment he could say, “Ed Wilcox, Jason Reeves.”
“WAR COUNCIL,” LILAH SAID to the boys one day when Daniel mentioned he’d be late for lunch. “We’re going to give Daniel a birthday party.”
“I’m not sure he’ll like that,” Jason said, frowning. “Jesse always makes him a cake, and he sort of, you know…”
“Huffs and puffs,” Maury said.
“Men are like that when they grow up,” Lilah said. “Never want you to make a fuss over them. But I’m not sure that’s how they feel inside. So we’re going to be brave and find out.”
“What do we have to do?” Nick said.
“Not tell him is the first thing,” Lilah said. “It’ll be a surprise party so he can’t do anything to stop it until it’s too late. Then we have to get Ian and Mike to cooperate.”
“They’ll sure do that.” Jesse grinned evilly. “They get a kick out of embarrassing each other.”
“How can we keep him from finding out?” Nick asked.
Nick of all people, so skilled at keeping secrets.
“We can do the cooking while he’s working and stash it in Lilah’s refrigerator,” Maury said, “and when that gets full, we’ll use one of the diner’s fridges.”
“Yeah,” Will said, “and he can walk in for breakfast and see Jesse making the cake, just like last year, and he can do his…”
“Huffing and puffing,” Lilah said. She smiled. “Then how can we keep him out late, so we can put it all together?”
“Uncle Ian,” Nick said. “He can have a sick sheep. Maybe he’ll have a sick sheep for real, but I hope not.”
“Maybe just a vitamin deficiency,” Jason suggested.
“Whatever,” Nick said, “and then they’ll talk, and after that Daniel will come home and we’ll yell, ‘Surprise!’ and then Uncle Ian will drive up.”
“That’ll work,” Lilah said. “Uh-oh, I hear the clinic door opening. Everybody scatter.”
They scattered straight into Daniel. “What’s going on?” he said.
“Lilah was checking our summer reading lists,” Jason said.
“And I have to finish Treasure Island fast, so I won’t get behind schedule,” Will said.
When he stepped into the kitchen, Daniel’s expression was puzzled, to say the least.
DANIEL WENT OUT THE kitchen door in search of Jason and found him washing his car. Cleanest car in the valley, except for Maury’s, which was practically sterilized.
Daniel had made a commitment to Ed without first consulting Jason, and he’d been worrying about it. He wasn’t sure he could convince Jason the plan would work.
The plan being that Jason could charm cranky Ed into recognizing him as an acceptable human being. Maybe it wouldn’t work. Daniel had no idea how Ed would react, and he had no idea how Jason would react. Ed was the last person on earth Jason wanted to see, talk to, or, worst of all, drive around the state.
But life had taught Daniel that if you had a problem, you had to face it and deal with it. This conversation required considerable tact and diplomacy, so he began by picking up a brush and starting to scrub the fenders. “Still like the car?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Jason turned to look at Daniel and grinned. It must have been something in Daniel’s face that made the grin fade. “Is this about Melissa?”
“You’re way too intuitive for your own good,” Daniel growled, at the same time reminding himself he was trying to get that grin back on Jason’s face. “But yes. I wondered how you were doing.”
Jason went back to washing the car. “Better. We talked a while at soccer camp. She still likes me. It’s just her dad.”
Daniel picked up a sponge and started on the hood of the car. “Ed can be difficult.”
“He’s a jerk.”
“Yep,” Daniel agreed. “But have you ever heard the expression, ‘You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?’”
“Of course you can. What’s that got to do with Mr. Wilcox? He’s pure vinegar. Never caught a fly in his life.”
“Ed is the fly,” Daniel explained. “You’re the one with the jar of honey.” He shifted to the side of the car. “I got to thinking that if you want to change Ed’s mind about you, you need to sneak up on him and show him what a great kid you are. Acting mad won’t get you anywhere. But getting him to decide he might have been wrong about you will.”
Jason stopped scrubbing. �
�How?”
“Let me tell you about my afternoon with Ed. He’s even more dead set against the center than he is about you, so I…”
He told Jason the whole story, doing impressions of Ed that got Jason laughing so hard he was snorting, and then said, “so I told him you’d be his driver.”
Jason dropped the sponge. He looked as if he’d swallowed a worm, a live one. “I’d have to sit in the car, my car, with him? Talk to him? No way.”
“I’ll buy the gas,” Daniel said, hoping to get him laughing again. It didn’t work.
“I can’t do it. What about Uncle Ian? He’s expecting me to work on the barn roof.”
“Ian will understand. I know it sounds grim,” Daniel admitted, “but it seems to me this is the best way to get to him. He’ll be able to see for himself that you’re good enough for his daughter. Heck,” he added, “he may figure it out when the three of us have breakfast at Mike’s Tuesday morning.”
“Daniel!”
“All you have to do is be calm and polite and tell Ed how much you’re looking forward to working with him. Don’t mention Melissa. Don’t mention the party. Just mention how awesome it is that he has volunteered. A sports hero like him will know all about sports equipment. And don’t look at him the way you’re looking at me right now, either.” He smiled at Jason’s dark expression as he explained. “Look earnest.” He demonstrated looking “earnest.”
“Think of it this way, Jason. It’s a game, and it’s one you’re sure to win. Think of it as getting the best of Ed.” He looked Jason directly in the eyes. “And I know it will work, because if I had a daughter, I’d be in hog heaven if she snagged you for her boyfriend.”
Jason broke eye contact and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Finally he reached out and took the hose away from Daniel. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot,” he said, “but I’m not looking forward to it.”
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