Fetching Sweetness

by Dana Mentink

  “So? She’ll sign with whomever gives her a better deal and you know it.”

  Jack stared from woman to woman, and he then headed to the back of his truck for the gas can secured there.

  “Stop! You can’t give her the gas, Jack,” Stephanie said, her hands on her hips. “She’s a poacher.”

  Laura pointed at Stephanie. “Don’t get in the way of a Good Samaritan. I’m pretty sure that’s in the Ten Commandments.”

  Jack stood frozen as he mulled it over. “Ain’t right to leave her stranded,” he decided, moving to Laura’s car.

  Stephanie’s ears buzzed and her pulse pounded in her temples. Not now, not when she was so close. Her self-control snapped like a dry dog biscuit, and she ran to Jack’s truck, grabbed her purse, and tossed it to him. He caught it one handed, his mouth open in surprise.

  “That’s my purse, wallet, and cell phone. I’m sorry, Jack. I promise I’ll bring it back.”

  He blinked. “Bring what back?”

  “Your truck,” she said, hopping into the driver’s seat, gunning the engine, and barreling up the road toward 1 Eagle Cliff Road.

  Rhett chopped away at the burned branches. The ax felt good in his hands. It released some stress and helped him focus on the looming problem. Karen. She stood stubbornly by the position that she would work the farm, regardless of the impossibility of the task, the ridiculous amount of work it would require, the physical toll it would take. She was already making appointments with bankers to discuss a loan.

  “Before I left Hastings Cinemas, I arranged for a trust fund for you,” he tried to tell her. “You’re taken care of. You don’t need a loan.”

  She waved him away. “I’ll save it for my old age. You’re not going to support me financially.”

  He both lamented and admired her determination. It was the same stubborn attitude that allowed him to build a business empire from nothing. As he whacked away at the charred tree that was leaning precariously toward the old farmhouse, he heard Bethany and Karen sitting outside the trailer, cooing over the baby rabbit. They’d christened it Bunny. Bunny and Panny. His life was turning into a nursery rhyme. They’d dutifully fed the infant rabbit some goat’s milk from the dropper under the watchful eye of Panny, who was pleased to lick the baby clean between each mouthful.

  Karen was right. Panny really did seem to need a fuzzy companion since Sweetness was gone. He heard Bethany laugh, and he was grateful she’d decided she might as well stay for a few days since she’d driven all the way over.

  It would give him some freedom to get workmen in to trim the trees, and a contractor to quote a price to rehab the farmhouse. Karen would complain that he was butting in. And he was. And he would, until Thursday when he’d return to San Francisco and leave Dappled Acres far behind.

  Would he really be able to drive away and leave his sister here on a broken-down farm fifty miles from the nearest doctor? What was the other option? Stay and help her? He knew nothing about trees or harvests or tilling the soil. It was preposterous.

  He put down the ax and wandered away into the black trees standing sentry on their carpet of green. The sun was warm, and sweat dampened his forehead. It would have made a grand movie, this whole ridiculous RV journey from Big Thumb to Dappled Acres, collecting animals along the way. And what would the final scene be? The hero returning to the life he knew, changed certainly. A better man, hopefully. That is not such a bad ending after all, he told himself. He’d come often to help his sister and check in on her constantly. He could talk to experts who might be able to advise them on things farming related. The plan comforted him, yet there was still a hollow, empty feeling in his heart that he could not shake. Maybe he never would.

  His gaze drifted to the distant tangle of green, and he walked there, drawn by the scent of fruit. The breeze ruffled the leaves and set them dancing, cooling his skin at the same time. The two chickens paraded by, unconcerned now that Sweetness was not around to stalk them, scrabbling and pecking at the earth.

  Sweetness probably would have shimmied up to the nearest tree, scratched himself against the bark, and then thrown himself down in a patch of sunlight to relish the warmth streaming through the canopy.

  He kept his face toward the green, remembering Stephanie’s words. “See? If you look this way you can see what was spared, the life that’s still here…it’s what your sister sees.”

  But the cost of restoring all these trees? The years it would take to resurrect this old orchard? What Karen saw was beyond even the scope of rose-colored glasses.

  The sun broke through the waving branches, etching a pathway of light and painting the orchard in golden splendor. And then, in an instant, the light got inside Rhett Hastings, gilding him with a splendid revelation. It’s not about the trees, he thought suddenly. The plan he’d heard so clearly, God’s plan, was strong and undeniable, but he’d got one tiny word wrong, the name.

  “Change Karen’s life,” he’d heard.

  He realized his mistake in that sunlit moment, in the apple-scented threshold between the dead trees and the living. God had not just given him the opportunity to restore Karen’s life, but his own.

  He understood at last what God was trying to tell him.

  Come close to Me, and I will reinvent your life in ways you’ve never imagined, better than any plan you could dream up.

  He’d started by depositing Rhett squarely in the middle of a decimated property, side by side with his sister, a farm that needed him, filled with broken buildings and oddball critters.

  The blue of the sky dazzled his eyes as he looked up at a patchwork of azure, emerald green leaves, and the barest puff of downy white clouds. The strange fact was, it didn’t matter if the orchard ever became profitable or not. It did not matter that all his strategies and plotting had come to nothing. He was a different man, a better man. Suddenly, abruptly, fantastically, unbelievably, Rhett Hastings understood.

  He laughed, offering up the sound to the branches, wishing Sweetness were there to join him in a merry game of chase. Finally, the dog would say. You are a very dim-witted human.

  Rhett was seized by a desire as strong as the fire that had swept through his grandfather’s apple trees. He had to tell Stephanie Pink what he had learned.

  It was ridiculous, really, his brain said. She was probably on her way to New York, manuscript in hand, Sweetness safely delivered.

  She would think him crazy, perhaps. Maybe he was, but he knew he had to tell her, had to show her that she’d been right all along. Maybe it would change her life in some small way too.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he shouted to Karen and Bethany as he cleared the orchard.

  Both women looked up, startled.

  “Where?” Karen asked.

  “To find Stephanie!” he hollered. “I’ll explain later.”

  Something in the knowing glance they gave each other made him think they already knew more about his unaccountable actions than he did. Paying no mind, he raced to the truck. He’d just gotten his fingers around the door’s handle when a vehicle pulled in behind him.

  A police car.

  Out stepped a cop.

  He was not smiling.

  “Mr. Hastings,” he said, “I need to have a word.”

  Twenty-Four

  Stephanie wondered how long the jail sentence might possibly be for driving with a suspended license. Or stealing a truck.

  “It wasn’t actually stealing,” she told Sweetness. He looked encouragingly at her. “I left my purse as collateral. That makes it sort of a barter, right?”

  He offered a consoling lick to her forearm.

  “You’re a good dog, Sweetness. You know that?”

  He took that as encouragement to sidle over and extend his tongue further, bathing her upper arm as well.

  “All right,” she said with a laugh and a gentle shove. “You’ll be home to lick Agnes in no time.”

  The remaining ten miles were steep. Her apprehension grew with each jostling turn.
Agnes would no doubt be overjoyed at having Sweetness back, but would she be irate at the delay? Would she take the dog, slam the door, and send Stephanie packing?

  She imagined what Mr. Klein would say.

  “Ms. Pink, get that manuscript. No excuses.”

  Clenching the steering wheel, she started up a gravel driveway, past a surprisingly modern mailbox, and on up the steep slope. Trees crowded around so thick it might have been dusk. A couple of quail regarded her curiously from their spots under the bushes, earning an interested glance from Sweetness.

  The driveway crested the slope and dropped down into a hollow. Set back behind a well-tended rock garden, was 1 Eagle Cliff Road.

  Stephanie did a double take. The neatly painted, tile-roofed house with the two-car garage was not what she had been expecting. It should be something rustic, a homestead hewn by Jedd and Agnes with their own hands, made of logs with a moss-covered roof.

  This structure had painted aluminum gutters and a badminton net erected in the side lawn. Could she have made a mistake? Eccentric authors who lived off the grid didn’t have such modern-looking domiciles. But there on the house was a shiny brass number 1, and she’d seen the sign for Eagle Cliff Road.

  No more stalling. She parked the truck and got out, clipped Sweetness to the leash, and marched up to the doorway, her heart pounding. She rang the bell and heard melodious chimes sounding inside.

  Butterflies somersaulted through her chest as someone approached the door.

  “This is it, Sweetness. We’re finally here.”

  Sweetness wriggled his hindquarters, and she noticed he still had the spatula in his mouth. Now she could finally ask Agnes about that weird fetish.

  The door swung open.

  “Hello,” she said brightly. “I…”

  A small man with his hand on the knob was wearing khakis and a tucked-in polo shirt. His mostly bald head had a fringe of hair circling the wider portions. Reading glasses slid low on his nose, magnifying his brown eyes.

  “Hello,” he said, eyeing her and the dog. “Can I help you? Did you have some car trouble?”

  “Uh, no. No car trouble. I’m bringing him home.” She pointed to Sweetness.

  The man peered over the top of his glasses. “Why does he have a spatula in his mouth?”

  “I was hoping to ask you that.”

  Now the man looked good and truly perplexed.

  “Maybe I have the wrong house,” Stephanie said. “I’m looking for Agnes Wharton. She’s a writer.”

  His face brightened. “Actually, you are in the right place. Agnes is out back working in the garden. I’m her husband.”

  “Jedd?” she asked.

  He started. Then he laughed. “Oh, I see. Good one. No, my name’s Roger. Come on out this way.”

  No Jedd? Instead, a Roger. The facts clicked into place. Jedd had not made it back on that fateful night recorded on the last page of Sea Comes Knocking. Fast-forward twenty years, and Agnes was now married to a man who looked as though he might be an accountant or an insurance agent. It made her feel odd. Of course people change in two decades, you ninny. As long as Agnes’s sequel captures the drama and angst from those early Jedd years, things will turn out just fine.

  The house was sleek and modern inside, with abstract prints in neutral tones complementing soft beige walls. Elegant leather furniture and tall shelves of books adorned the living room. The kitchen featured granite countertops and a vase with three brilliant yellow sunflowers. It opened onto chic French doors that led to a tiled patio that offered cushioned chairs and a massive glass table.

  Odd, so odd, so out of step with her expectations. But it was a common error, confusing an author’s work on the page with their actual life. A literary agent should know better, she chided herself. She wondered suddenly what Ian would have made of the situation.

  Roger opened the French doors and gestured. “Go just out past that shed. She’s working on the pole beans today, though we’ve got enough beans to last us until the next millennium. I’m knee-deep in an Excel spreadsheet so I’ll let you go find her by yourself.”

  An Excel spreadsheet. How…normal. “Right,” Stephanie said faintly.

  She guided Sweetness along, tugging when he wished to stop and urinate on the massive terra-cotta pots that stood sentry on either side of the patio. “Come on. You can pee on that later. Let’s go see your mama.”

  She tugged Sweetness along a flagstone path, past a tidy painted shed with a shake roof. Beyond was a burgeoning garden, bordered by a split rail fence. Precise plots of soil ballooned with life, spilling their green entrails over onto narrow paths in between. Even with her limited sense of the natural world, Stephanie recognized eggplant, squash, and cucumbers. Some trellises struggled to hold up climbing pole beans, and others propped up blackberry bushes that bristled with fruit and thorns.

  Stephanie’s pulse ticked up. Agnes bent over one of the trellises. Her hair was pulled back into her trademark braid and she wore jeans and a striped T-shirt. A bandana was tucked into her back pocket.

  Stephanie found herself in need of a strengthening breath. Here it was. The Moment.

  Sweetness didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the homecoming because he was still sniffing madly, this time nosing around some sort of squash that Stephanie had never seen before. She cleared her throat.

  “Mrs. Wharton?”

  Agnes jerked, whirling to face her. She blinked and squinted. “Stephanie Pink?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve come for the manuscript and…”

  But Agnes’s gaze was riveted on Sweetness. Stephanie stopped talking, allowing the tender reunion to unfold. Agnes’s Sweetness, her baby, returned to her at long last.

  Agnes finally managed speech.

  “Get that awful animal away from my squash!”

  Rhett was half crazed by the time he picked up Jack and Laura from the side of the road. They’d hunkered down in the shade of a ragged pile of rocks after Jack placed a call to Rhett and explained that Stephanie had absconded with his truck.

  “Dunno what happened,” Jack said as he helped Rhett add some fuel to Laura’s gas tank. “Seemed like she kinda went crazy.”

  Laura shook her head in disgust. “Well, my time here in this hole-in-the-wall has been wasted. Stephanie got to Agnes first by car thievery. Who would do that?”

  As she yanked her vehicle into a precarious U-turn and headed back down the mountain, Rhett had the sense that Laura would have done exactly the same thing. Ruthless, these literary agents, and that manuscript was much more than a simple business deal to Stephanie.

  Rhett and Jack continued up the mountain. As soon as they drew even with the truck parked in Agnes Wharton’s driveway, Jack handed Rhett Stephanie’s purse, hopped out, and made for his vehicle.

  “I’m sure she will want to apologize to you and thank you again for letting her, uh, borrow your truck,” Rhett called.

  Jack didn’t even look back. He fired up the engine and drove away before any more madness could strike.

  Rhett was relieved that he saw no sign of the police car yet.

  He knocked, and the door was answered by a peeved-looking man with glasses. He took in the sleek black purse in Rhett’s hand.

  Rhett hurried to explain. “I’m looking for a woman.”

  “Let me guess. The lady and her dog who arrived here earlier?”

  “Yes, sir. Are they here?”

  “You’ll find them in the garden. You can make your way out there through the kitchen. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my spreadsheet.” Pointing in the way they should go, he marched off into the hallway.

  Rhett had been expecting more of a Grizzly Adams type, but he didn’t take the time to stew on it. He hastened out through the back door and dashed toward the garden. Raised female voices and excited barking indicated he was probably too late, but he ran anyway.

  He found Stephanie standing dumbfounded next to a tangle of squash plants. Agnes glared at her, sn
apping a pair of garden gloves in an accusatory manner.

  Sweetness galloped over and gave Rhett a slobbery greeting.

  Stephanie showed no surprise when both women turned to look at Rhett.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said.

  “I absolutely am.”

  Stephanie shook her head as if she hadn’t heard him. “No, I mean you’re really not going to believe this. Sweetness…” she looked in round-eyed disbelief at the dog.

  “Isn’t Sweetness,” Rhett finished.

  Agnes snorted. “Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell this woman. Sweetness is a pedigreed Samoyed. He is having his nails done right now.”

  “But…but back in Big Thumb, you said…you asked me to find Sweetness.”

  She waved a glove. “Some trucker on his way out of town saw Sweetness by the side of the road. He called the number on his tag, and my husband called me. I picked up Sweetness before I cleared the state line.”

  “Hold on,” Stephanie said. “I thought you didn’t believe in talking on the phone.”

  “I don’t,” she said, aiming a withering look at Stephanie. “Not to literary agents. I would never give an agent my phone number.”

  Stephanie gaped. “So I’ve been lugging this dog across three states, and he isn’t even yours?”

  “Correct.”

  “Whose is he, then?”

  “How would I know the answer to that?”

  In a moment of perfect timing, Roger slid open the patio door, looking even more annoyed than he had earlier. He shooed the police officer onto the patio. The officer was followed by a familiar-looking woman whom Rhett could not place at first.

  “That dog is Bert,” the officer said. “He belongs to Gene, who runs the Cup of Mud back in Big Thumb.”

  “Yeah,” said Evonne, crouching down to accept an exuberant greeting from the dog. “And because you swiped Bert, my uncle wants to press charges for dognapping against both of you.”

  “Uncle Gene? At the diner?”

  “Well,” Rhett said. “That explains the spatula fetish.”