Logan’s eyes popped up over his laptop. “Butch Landow sold his truck and two cows in the past six months.”
My mind jerked and jolted, switching gears. Logan was my robo-boy. He stayed on track and didn’t swerve unless specifically instructed to do so. I’d asked him for information on Butch and he was going to provide it.
“That’s old news,” Roy said. “Butch lost his shirt gambling and had to sell off his truck and cows to pay his debt.”
“Gambling? What kind of gambling? Where? Who did he owe?” This was a solid lead.
Roy pulled his flask from a pocket inside his sports coat. “Ask that father-in-law of yours. Him and Butch, Carl, and Steve Longo pal around. I’m sure he’s in it up to his eyeballs too.”
“Stewart? Gambling?” It was the first I’d heard of it. I mean, fantasy football, sure, or even a trip to Vegas every couple of years, but real gambling somewhere in Metamora? “Does Ben know?”
“He’s your husband,” Johnna said, weaving her knitting needle around a strand of yarn. “You ask him.”
“Right. Okay, well, call the vendors back who Irene canceled and tell them it was a clerical error. Apologize, and we’ll find tables for them. I’ll deal with her and my mother right now.” I turned around to march up the stairs but spun back to face them. “And there will be no pageant.”
“We’ll see,” Roy said, laughing. “We’ll see.” Johnna cackled along with him.
Irene was a force to be reckoned with, and so far, I didn’t have a great track record when it came to standing up to her, but that was about to change. Canal Days was mine and the Action Agency’s to put on. The Daughters needed to keep their grubby hands off.
I left the church and stalked toward home, tugging my cell phone out of my bag and dialing my mother. “Did you hear?” she asked, answering on the first ring. “Isn’t it exciting? A pageant. We can go shopping for a pageant dress for Mia! We’ll have so much fun!”
In the background, I heard Mia shout, “Steph’s going to be in the pageant, too!” She sounded positively giddy.
How in the world could I rain on their parade?
“The whole town is buzzing about it,” Mom added.
“They’re definitely buzzing,” I said, thinking of my four seniors.
“Irene’s here. We have exciting news for you. When are you coming home?”
Irene was there? Exciting news? This wasn’t going to be good. “Is Monica there?” I asked. She would be straight with me.
“She and that old man, Dan, are at the hardware store buying supplies to get Dog Diggity ready to open. He’s going to help her with the projects Andy was doing.”
“Oh! Well, that’s great. I’m glad Dan can help her out.” That was one concern off of my shoulders. If Monica was worried about something, it automatically piled onto me.
“I don’t know,” Mom said. “He’s ancient. I don’t trust that he can do the job a younger man would do. Besides, he doesn’t seem all there—in the head.”
“He’s all there. He’s just … eccentric.”
“Like ninety percent of this town, you mean.” She chuckled. “Well, at least someone is helping your sister. So, when did you say you’ll be home?”
I hadn’t. I was doing my best to avoid going home. “I have a few errands to run.”
“What errands? I can help.”
“No, no. Just … nothing big. See you soon.” I hung up before she took over buying my deodorant and changing my brand of toothpaste. Somehow I’d forgotten how controlling she could be.
I detoured, going left instead of right, to see if Ben was still at the park. I didn’t want him to know I was working on the Landow case, but I needed information about what type of gambling Butch was doing with Stewart.
Luckily, it had only been a half hour since I’d left him and Quinn to their training, and they were still at it. Under the guise of asking about training my own crazy mutts, I strolled over to them. “Hello again, how’s it coming along?”
In answer, Brutus jumped up on me, placing his dirty paws on each of my shoulders and giving me a loud bark in the face.
“Down!” Ben commanded and gave a tug on his leash. Brutus got down, but bounded around in circles at my feet. He was way too hyper to be trained as well as Conan.
“Progress takes time,” Quinn said. “We’ll get there.”
“Did you need something, Cam?” Ben asked, clearly irritated by both me and his dog.
“I was just wondering if I could join you with my dog, Gus. He’s a Newfoundland and—”
“No,” Ben said. “This is serious police business.”
“Oh. Right. I understand.” I was pushing it, and I knew it, but why else would I be back again, interrupting their training session?
“Newfoundlands are beautiful dogs,” Quinn said. “Gentle giants.”
“He’s as sweet as pie,” I said, “but intimidating because of his size.”
“Conan’s like that, too. Wouldn’t hurt a fly unless I commanded him to.”
“Does he have a specialty? Like drug dog, or bomb squad?”
“Search and rescue and investigation work. He can sniff out drugs or bombs.”
“Wow! What’s the most memorable case he’s helped solve?”
“Cameron,” Ben said.
“Oh, sorry. I’m taking your training time.”
Quinn observed Brutus pulling at his leash to get to the ducks floating in the canal. “I think Brutus could use a break anyway. His attention is drifting.”
Ben sighed. It was the annoyed, frustrated sigh he usually reserved for me.
“They’re like little kids,” Quinn told him. “They require a lot of patience when you train them. They don’t want to do what you tell them. They want to be dogs and follow their instincts.”
Ben patted Brutus’s head and nodded. “He’s got a stubborn streak that doesn’t help.”
“It’ll make him a good police dog, though, once we get him to channel it.”
There was a minute of silence, so I took the reins and dove back in. “Right, so you were going to tell me about the most memorable case Conan helped solve.”
Quinn pushed his wavy hair back from his eyes. “There was this one case that was hard to pin down. We got reports that a jockey was doping his race horse with performance-enhancing drugs. The owner of the horse had testing done that proved the horse was clean, but the testing wouldn’t catch some synthetic hormones unless they were elevated at the time he was tested. Since Conan doesn’t look like your typical police dog, we let him lose and let him find his way into the barn. He sniffed out the substance hidden in a small wooden box on a shelf in the corner and brought it back to us.”
“Isn’t that trespassing since he’s a police dog and you didn’t serve a warrant?” Ben asked.
“Not if he ‘wandered off’.” Quinn shrugged. “Maybe it was questionable in practice, but Conan solved the case and we helped that horse. Those drugs could’ve cost him his life. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I didn’t do everything I could to stop it from happening.”
“The great horse racing caper,” I said, running a hand over Conan’s wiry fur. “Well done.”
Realizing horse racing was a form of gambling and I had an in to ask Ben about Stewart, I took advantage of the course of conversation. “We don’t have a horse track near us, do we, Ben?”
“Only about fifty minutes west of here in Shelbyville,” he said.
“Oh. Have you ever been there? Did your dad ever take you there when you were growing up?”
“My dad? No, why would he?” That look was back on his face again—constipated confusion.
“I don’t know, male bonding? Doesn’t he like gambling?” I asked. This was a rabbit trail, but he was following me down it, so I wasn’t stopping.
“Occasionally, I guess.
” He eyed me suspiciously, then cut his gaze to Quinn. He wouldn’t ask me what I was up to in front of a guest to our town.
A horn beeped, blessedly ending the conversation that was becoming pointless other than putting questions in Ben’s head.
I turned to find Monica hanging out of the window of Old Dan’s pickup truck. “That’s a beautiful dog!” she called to Quinn. “Hi, Cam! Hi, Ben!”
“Hi, Monica, Old Dan.” Ben lifted a hand to wave.
“Let me introduce you to my sister and the oldest resident of Metamora,” I said, leading Quinn and Conan toward the pickup. Ben and Brutus trailed along behind us.
Monica hopped out of the cab, and Old Dan leaned toward the passenger window. “This is Quinn Kelly,” I told them. “He’s from Ireland. And this is Conan, his dog.”
My sister gazed into Quinn Kelly’s eyes and I swear her feet floated off the ground. Her eyes gleamed and I’d never seen a brighter smile grace her lips.
I looked at Quinn and it was obvious that the attraction was reciprocal.
I snapped my eyes to Ben and nudged him. “What?” he asked, breaking the spell and pulling all three pairs of eyes to him.
“You did it again,” I said. When would he learn that me giving him an inconspicuous nudge meant he needed to pay attention to what was going on around him? Would he never catch on to my signals? Some husband! Some cop!
“Did what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“Hi, I’m Monica, Cameron’s sister.” She held out her hand and Quinn took it. They shook, but I noticed he let the handshake linger, not letting go right away.
“Very nice to meet you, Monica,” he said. “Do you like dogs, then?”
“Love them! My shop, Dog Diggity, opens this weekend. We sell dog treats. You should bring Conan by.”
“Really? A shop. That’s fantastic. Congratulations. Do you have a dog of your own?”
“Well, kind of. I—”
“Yes,” I said, jumping in. “She has a German Shepard. Isobel. A rescue.”
“A rescue,” he said, and I interrupted, and kept adding on to Monica’s saintliness.
“She’s elderly, too, and Monica is so patient with her.”
“Rescuing elderly dogs is so important,” Quinn said. “I hate thinking of them spending their last days in a shelter. I’ve always wanted to have a rescue for elderly dogs to do my part in making sure the ones under my care are treated with respect and dignity at the end of their lives.”
I could picture cartoon hearts emanating from Monica. Even the persistent thunder overhead couldn’t dampen her enthusiasm.
“Mighty hot out today,” Old Dan said. “Why don’t you two boys bring those dogs and come back to Ellsworth house for a cold drink?”
Old Dan gave me a wink. At least someone besides me was detecting the signals. “That’s a great idea!” I said. “You can meet Monica’s dog, Isobel, and my four. Ben, you can introduce Quinn to Mia, and both of our moms are there. Since he’ll be staying a while, it’ll be nice to get to know some other people in town.”
Ben’s brow furrowed for the hundredth time in the past hour. “My mom’s there? With yours? Why?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“A cold mineral sounds great,” Quinn said. “It’s fierce warm today.”
Monica giggled like a school girl at his Irish lingo. “Great, we’ll see you in a little while then?”
“Aw, sure look it,” he said, making her blush and giggle even more.
It seemed that when Quinn was dazed by my sister his firm grasp on American English slipped, letting the commonly used Irish words and phrases slip through. I didn’t think he even realized it.
Love was in the air.
Thunder cracked.
And storm clouds, I amended. Love and storm clouds.
• Seven •
Monica and Quinn sat outside on the patio drinking minerals, as he put it, the Irish term for what we call pop here in the Midwest. Conan, Brutus, Gus, Isobel, Mike & Ike (names I was tossing around for the twins), and tiny Liam were running around the backyard barking and howling like a pack of wild dingos in the Outback.
“How much money do you think he makes?” Mom asked, sidling up beside me behind the kitchen window curtain where I was spying.
“She can fall in love without money factoring into it.”
Mom pursed her lips, like she had a terrible taste in her mouth. “It’s hard to eat love, or to live in it.”
“She’s a businesswoman with her own shop. She doesn’t need him to provide for her.”
“The shop isn’t even open yet. It’s a little early to proclaim it a financial success.”
“They met two seconds ago. It’s a little early to proclaim it a failure.”
“Touché,” she said, spinning around and leaving my side to go back to the living room, where she and Irene had roosted with Mia and about a hundred fashion magazines. They were looking for exactly the right dress for the pageant.
I took a sip of my iced tea, proud that I could chalk up a win on life’s scoreboard against my mother. Now for Irene.
“They’re going to put me in the poor house,” Ben said, breezing into the kitchen. “The last figure I heard was five hundred bucks. For a dress. I’m not spending five hundred bucks for a dress unless she’s getting married in it.” He opened the refrigerator and took out a can of Coke.
“You know this whole pageant thing wasn’t even approved by the Metamora Action Agency, right? Your mother just waltzed into my office and declared herself in charge.”
“So tell her it’s unauthorized,” he said, cracking open the can and leaning against the counter. “Unless Soapy tells her she and the Daughters are planning Canal Days, she has no authority to declare anything.”
“Are you going to tell her that?”
He smirked. “Are you?”
“Is that a challenge?”
“I like getting you riled up.” He took a drink from his can, waiting for my retort. If only I had one.
At some point, I had to stand up to Irene. She’d bullied and bulldozed over me since the day I moved here. My only recourse had been getting Ben to intervene. But since Ben moved out, it seemed a bit hypocritical to ask him to do my bidding, even if she was still my mother-in-law, and he and I were still married. I needed to redefine my relationship with her by standing up to her.
“Fine,” I said, banging my class down on the counter for emphasis. “I’ll do it.”
He grinned, nodding. “Okay, but first, I have something to tell you.”
“Oh no. If it’s something else I need to do this week, I don’t want to hear it.”
“No. It’s about Andy. They’re not setting bail.”
“What? Why not? This is crazy, Ben, and you know it!”
“I agree. There’s more to it, but I haven’t figured out what. For now, Andy, John, and Paul are staying behind bars.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I know.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Back to standing up to my mom. You sure you want to do it with Quinn here? You want to scare him off ?”
Oh, good gravy. I hadn’t thought of that. “No. I don’t want to scare him off.” And I didn’t much feel like getting into it with Irene anymore, either. Not after the news about Andy.
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow. I bet you’ll want to tell her off in the morning.”
“If not, I’m sure you’ll be willing to rile me up again.”
“Anytime.” Ben put an arm around my shoulder and jostled me good-naturedly, then kissed my head. “Let’s go see if Mia has settled on a color.” He groaned.
“You should’ve had a boy.”
“Times like this, it would be simpler.”
“But, she’s her daddy’s girl.”
&nb
sp; He squeezed me and kissed my cheek. “So are you.”
We walked into the living room and Ben sat on the floor beside Mia, who was busy perusing high-end boutique websites on her laptop. Irene and Mom were flipping through glossy catalogues. They immediately scooted farther down the couch to make room for me.
“Sit,” Irene said, patting the cushion beside her. “Isn’t this exciting? I didn’t think we’d get to do this until prom!”
Mom reached across Irene and patted my knee. “Cam, do you remember when we went shopping for your prom dress? You broke out into hives in the dressing room.”
“She did not!” Irene said, and both of them broke out into laughter.
“That was when we were shopping for a wedding dress, Mom,” I said. Looking back, it was kind of funny, but I wasn’t in the mood to give an inch.
“It was only four years ago?” Mom asked. “It seems like it was much longer than that. Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Doesn’t seem like that long ago,” Ben said. “Seems like yesterday.”
Our eyes met and I knew we were both replaying our wedding day in our minds. It had been small, only close friends and family, and even if the reception wasn’t the big party I’d always thought I’d have, it was perfect. It was Ben and me, and I was sure it was the beginning of our happily ever after.
“I need Monica’s opinion,” Mia said, standing up with her laptop and ending the moment. “I’m going to ask her what she thinks of this one.”
Irene, the doting grandma, waited until Mia left the room, then said, “I’m paying for the dress. I’m so proud of the young lady she’s become. I didn’t see her often enough when she was little, and now I’m making up for it.” She took my hand, something she’s never done, and I had to resist the urge to yank it back. It was natural instinct, like pulling away when you accidentally touch a hot iron.
“You’re so good to her, Cameron. I know you never expected to have her live with you on a full-time basis, but since she moved here from her mother’s, you’ve taken on the responsibility of being her stepmom and done wonderfully with her.”
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