Love, Louisa

by Barbara Metzger

  Perfect or not, he was out looking for her dog when no one else was. So why didn’t he call?

  At least two hours later, it seemed, when she was hoarse from calling and limp from crying and scratched from searching through the brambles at the edges of the property—she most likely had tick bites and Lyme disease herself, now, if not poison ivy again—Louisa heard a truck.

  She went flying down the gravel driveway, and had to leap onto the grass when he slammed the brakes to a sudden stop.

  “Damn it, Louie, I could have run you over!”

  “Where were you? You didn’t call and it’s been days and I was so worried and—”

  “It’s been twenty minutes, if that.”

  Louisa had been peering into the truck’s cab. Now she stepped back, disappointed. At least Dante had not found Champ dead on the side of the road, so she supposed she ought to be glad instead of disheartened. “You didn’t find him.”

  “Who said so?” Dante got out and walked to the back of the truck. He dropped the tailgate and reached in. “He’s dead! Oh god, my poor dog is—”

  Dante nearly threw the dog into her arms. Champ gave her chin a feeble lick and thumped his tail once against her thigh. She carried him to the front of the truck, to look him over in the headlights’ beam.

  “He’s covered in blood!” She started rocking the dog, feeling him for injury, sobbing. “I don’t know the way to the emergency vet, and what if the gas stations are closed? Howard was the one who always made sure we had enough gas in the car. What do I know about tourniquets? Poor baby, we’ll fix it.”

  “It’s not blood,” Dante said in a disgusted tone.

  “Not…?” The dog did smell strange, now that she took a moment to sniff. So did Dante, kneeling beside her with the flashlight.

  “It’s barbeque sauce, and it’s all over me and my truck.”

  Louisa dropped the dog, too late for her sweatshirt and shorts. Champ lay down with a moan. “What’s wrong with him, then, and why didn’t he come when I called him?”

  “Guilt. And indigestion. He ate a whole package of uncooked hotdogs, at least a pound of potato salad, maybe two dozen donuts, and I have no idea how many leftover hamburgers, all of which was in my truck, on its way to the food pantry kitchen with enough of Marta’s barbeque sauce to feed every poor family in the Harbor for a month. Mr. Bradford always donates what’s left after one of his parties, and I put tonight’s load in my truck, on the passenger seat. Like a fool I left the pass-through window open between the passenger compartment and the truck bed. Your damned dog passed through. Then he hid back with the tools so no one would yell at him, and he’d have leisure to eat the leftover ribs.”

  Champ did look as contrite as a dog could look, and as woebegone. Louisa did not pet him. “You mean he was in your truck the whole time, not on his way back to my house as we thought?”

  “He couldn’t walk that far, not with his stomach dragging on the ground. What kind of stupid animal eats so much he can’t move?”

  “Look who’s calling who stupid. You never looked in the truck?”

  “Why should I? What would your dog be doing back there? And I was in such a hurry to find him for you, I never checked the bags and boxes on the seat. The overhead light is out, or I would have noticed right away. Which isn’t to say,” he hurried to add, “that’s as bad as not having enough gas in your car to get to the hospital, or the vet.”

  Louisa ignored that. “How did you find him?”

  “I thought I saw something on the side of the road, so I pulled over to look. It was a raccoon, hightailing it for home. When I got back to the truck, I heard a noise. Sir Galahad, himself, groaning. At least I got him down in time, not that the truck isn’t a mess.”

  “I’ll help clean it in the morning, I promise. What do you think I should do with him now?” Champ had hardly moved.

  “Pepto-Bismol. That’s what Aunt Vinnie always gave her chihuahuas.”

  She asked him to wait with Champ outside while she looked in the medicine cabinet in Marta’s kitchen.

  “Why? He’s not going to move.” He nudged the dog onto his feet, though, and herded him slowly in the direction of the house’s back door. He even held the terrier while Louisa tried to pour a spoonful down his throat—the dog’s throat, not Dante’s. You’d never know it from the pink stuff dripping down both of them. When the dog shook, he got some on Louisa too, which made Dante feel a little better.

  After putting the bottle away and wiping her hands, Louisa looked at the dog, then at her car, then at Dante. “Un-uh, lady,” he said. “He’s all yours. I’m not putting that sack of manure back in my truck, no matter how bad it is now. It can still get worse.”

  “I don’t see how,” she muttered, looking in her car trunk for rags to put down in the backseat. Champ lumbered to his feet and tried to nuzzle her leg.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, you bad boy. And don’t think you can win me over with those big sad eyes. You’re not sleeping in my bed tonight and that’s that.”

  Dante didn’t know his eyes looked sad. Oh, she meant the dog, which, according to Louisa, was too rank and ratty for her car, her carpet, and the dog’s own new mattress. He cursed and picked up the fleabag. His clothes were already ruined.

  “Oh, thank you!” Louisa enthused. “Truly you are the nicest, kindest, most considerate—What are you doing? That’s Mr. Bradford’s swimming pool!”

  “No, it’s mine, remember?”

  “You jerk! You miserable, misogynistic maniac!” Louisa bent over the pool’s edge to make sure her overloaded dog didn’t just sink to the bottom.

  Dante couldn’t help himself. He tried, but he just couldn’t resist the urge. He put his hands on the sweetest ass he’d ever seen, unfortunately attached to the biggest pain in the ass he’d ever met. Then he pushed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Louisa got even.

  She asked Dante to get some towels from the pool house. When he got back, the dog was out of the water, and so were Louisa’s clothes. If that wasn’t an invitation, his name wasn’t— What the hell was his name, anyway? Nothing mattered but getting into that water, getting into Louisa Waldon’s euphemistic pants, not the sodden ones on the tiles.

  He stripped in seconds, which was about what it took for her to swim to the far end of the pool. By the time Dante had acclimated himself to the water, losing a bit of his ardor to the sudden chill, she was out of the pool, running. She picked up the dog, she picked up the towels. She kicked Dante’s clothes into the pool. Then she ran for her car, while he dove for his wallet and car keys.

  Poor Mr. Bradford wouldn’t last a month with that woman, Dante thought on his way home. The man would have another stroke for sure. He’d have a fit tonight if he could see Dante wearing nothing but a towel and a big smile. No, Louisa needed a younger man, a stronger, healthier man. Why, Dante would be doing the old guy a service, taking Louisa off his hands. Or drowning her. The more he saw of her, the more he wanted to—take her, that is. He’d been willing to step back, but he kept stepping in quicksand. Now he didn’t know which end was up or where to jump next. His body was telling him one thing, with great frequency and insistence, but his head was telling him another. He needed time to figure things out, things like his own feelings. If he satisfied one itch—which didn’t look hard, considering how Louisa looked at him; lord knew everything else was hard—would he be starting a whole rash? How long was Mr. Bradford’s book, anyway?

  *

  Oh, no! How could she be so stupid? Louisa wondered. Of all the idiotic things, she’d left her clothes on the side of the pool. Louisa almost turned back to Mr. Bradford’s, but she was cold in the towels she had wrapped around her, her dog was wet—and Dante might still be there. What if she’d dropped something in the pool when she was stripping? Something like her panties? The pool guy would come in the morning when the filter stopped working and he’d find her pink bikinis clogging the drain. Louisa could just see him holding out his pole
with her skimpies dangling at the end. He and his helper would have a good laugh. Mr. Bradford wouldn’t. He’d know she wouldn’t go skinny-dipping by herself. He’d think she was sex-crazed, screwing around, shameless.

  Well, she might want to find out what making love with Dante Rivera was like—or having sex in the water, for that matter; Howard was anything but adventuresome—but she was definitely ashamed. How could she have more desire for a man she’d known for a month or so, than she had in all the years she’d known her own former fiancé? Maybe she and Howard had panted after each other at first, in a civilized way, of course, but that was a vague long-term memory. Now just the daisy-fresh memory of Dante’s bare chest raised her heart rate.

  She was absolutely not screwing around. She was not going to be just another of Dante Rivera’s women. If she was ashamed now, Louisa could not imagine how she’d feel when he dumped her and moved on. Howard had bruised her heart. Dante, she feared, could rip it out of her chest, step on it, and kick it into the next county.

  So she couldn’t go back for the clothes. It wasn’t Dante she did not trust; it was herself. If she drove back, and he were still there, maybe with his clothes still off, or clinging wetly to his warm skin, and he gave her one of those dimpled smiles… She turned off the car’s heater. She didn’t need it.

  Louisa told herself she was doing okay with her life: making friends, making money, making her house cozy and clean. She did not need a man. She did not need this man. She needed a good night’s sleep. If she set the alarm for 6:30 she could get to Mr. Bradford’s before the workmen came.

  Way before then, almost as soon as her head touched her pillow, in fact, Louisa heard a car pull up her driveway. Champ did not bark. Louisa prodded him with her toes to make sure he was breathing. He whuffled and went back to sleep.

  “Some watchdog you are,” Louisa grumbled, hearing the car door slam. Maybe it was next door, company coming for the weekend, people who had been stuck in traffic so long they arrived after midnight. Louisa rolled over. But what if it were Dante, returning her clothes? Maybe he was being chivalrous. Maybe he was being confident. Maybe he had reason to be hopeful. How could Louisa resist him for the umpteenth time, all on the same day? By not answering the knock on the door, that was the only way.

  The problem was, the front door was open, and only the screen door was locked. Louisa was proud to be conquering some of her big city fears—and it was too hot to keep the house closed up—but anyone could come in. Francine had pointed out that a housebreaker could slit the screen in an instant, explaining why she did not bother to have a lock on her screen door, and why rich people had air conditioners. They could live in fortresses that way, but they couldn’t smell the honeysuckle or wake up to birdsong. According to Aunt Vinnie, half the year-rounders never locked any of their doors, but that was too much for Louisa.

  Tonight’s burglar wouldn’t have to fumble for his box cutter. A paw could push in the screen, Louisa had done such a poor job of replacing it in the warped door frame. Champ had gone out twice, before Louisa had nailed some crosspieces across the lower part.

  She heard the knock again. At least he was a polite thief. Louisa found the lamp switch, a robe, and her orange flip-flops. She grabbed the book she’d been reading, a heavy hardcover. She would not go unarmed to face Dante in the dark.

  Her caller wasn’t Dante; it was his cousin Francine, with Teddy asleep in her arms.

  Louisa quickly unlatched the door and beckoned the woman in, leading her to the sofa.

  “I won’t be able to pick him up by next year, I bet,” Francine whispered, looking down on her son by the hall light Louisa had flipped on. “He’s grown so much this year alone.”

  And his own bed had grown too small since yesterday so he needed Louisa’s couch? Louisa rubbed her eyes. “Fran, it’s the middle of the night. Did your house burn down or something? I didn’t hear any sirens. Is your mother all right? You want me to watch Teddy while you go to the hospital with her?”

  “No,” Francine said, the word catching on a sob. Louisa led her to the kitchen and filled the teapot. “Or do you want coffee?”

  “T-tea.”

  Louisa put mugs—ones with dolphins on them from last week’s yard sales—and spoons on the table. Then she put a box of tissues and a plate of chocolate chip cookies in front of her guest.

  Francine took one of both and apologized for disturbing Louisa, for invading her house without so much as a phone call, for having no place else to go.

  “What about Dante? He’d help, no matter what.” Francine still had not told her what the problem was, but Louisa was sure of Dante’s devotion to his family.

  “I called an hour ago, but he’s not home. I guess he went out after the party.”

  He went out looking for Louisa’s dog. “He might be home by now. Do you want me to call?”

  Francine shook her head and took another cookie. “Besides, Dante’s houseboat is the first place Fred would look. Everyone knows where he keeps it.”

  “Fred? Teddy’s father?”

  Over a pot of tea—Louisa would never be able to sleep tonight—and the rest of the cookies, Francine finally explained what she was doing at Louisa’s house. She’d taken Teddy up to Osprey Hill for the fireworks party, she said, rather than let his father take him on the beach with his drunken friends. Fred had taken umbrage. He’d also taken a bat to Francine’s mailbox while they were gone. He’d called an hour ago admitting it, shouting that she was turning the boy against him, turning him into a rich kid wannabe. Her cousin saw more of the kid than his own father did. She was wrecking Fred’s own life, he claimed, demanding all his money for a brat he never got to see. Now she was trying to get the courts to garnish his wages, costing him another lawyer’s fee to fight it. She was going to make Fred’s boss think he was some kind of scum, leaving his wife and son starving in the gutter. He could lose his job at the boatyard at the end of the summer, on account of her damned whining.

  So he was late with a couple of payments. Francine had a job, didn’t she? And living at her mother’s house she wasn’t paying sky-high summer rental fees, like Fred was doing. And he worked on Saturdays, fixing the tourists’ yachts’ engines, so he ought to get Teddy on his days off.

  “Of course he did not want him this morning, when I suggested he take Teddy for new sneakers. He doesn’t want to know anything about how expensive it is to raise a child. Sometimes I think he cares more about sticking up for his own rights than he does for Teddy. Fred’s been late half the Sundays when he’s supposed to have him, and brings him back early whenever he feels like it, whether I’m home or not.”

  “You were married to this creep?”

  “I know. But he wasn’t this bad. He didn’t use to drink so much, and he wasn’t so angry all the time. He hates his job, hates the people he works for, hates being on his own. He never had to do his own laundry or anything, before.”

  “Fran, I have to ask, was he ever, you know, abusive?”

  “Physically? No, except for the stuff he used to throw. Pillows, dishes, flowerpots. Not at me, though. But now…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Now?”

  “Now he says he’s going to come get Teddy, and no one is going to stop him.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “You don’t understand. I guess no one can, unless they’ve been there. Fred would be even madder then, humiliated in front of the whole town. They publish the police blotter in the local paper, you know. He’d add that to his pile of complaints, and remember it the next time he had a few drinks. And what could the police do if he hasn’t done anything much but make threats, anyway? Besides, he went to school with half the cops on the local force. They’re not going to hassle him over a little thing like a mailbox. They’d most likely take his side anyway, thinking no mere woman should take away a man’s kid.”

  “Not in this day and age, surely.”

  “What country have you been living in, Louisa? Or
ders of protection aren’t worth the paper they are printed on half the time.”

  Louisa got up and walked to the phone. “I’m calling Dante.”

  “No. I shouldn’t have called him either. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, Dante would only go looking for Fred. There would be worse trouble.”

  “What could be worse than you being afraid to stay in your own house?”

  “Dante could break Fred’s arms and go to jail.”

  “He wouldn’t.” Then again, when it came to defending his family, Dante seemed capable of anything. “What about your mother? You didn’t leave her home, did you?”

  “She refused to leave, saying no low-life louse was going to chase her from her house. She won’t let Fred in, and she won’t hesitate to call the neighbors if he gets rowdy. They’ll phone the police for sure, and then the cops will have to come, but I won’t be there. Fred only wants Teddy, anyway. He’ll know we’re not there if the car is missing, and he won’t cause any trouble.”

  “But, Fran, what about next time? I mean, you’re welcome to stay here tonight. We should put your car behind the Mahoneys’ house so no one can see it from the road. The house is still empty. But what then? You can’t live your life in fear of some mean drunk stealing your kid.”

  “I know. I thought I would move, but I don’t know how much longer my mother can stay on her own. But, really, Fred’s not so bad when he’s sober. I can talk to him tomorrow, make him understand he can’t keep threatening me, and he can’t ever have Teddy if he’s going to be drinking and driving. He knows I can call my lawyer Monday and get the visitation rights changed if he keeps carrying on this way, so he never sees Teddy on his own. I have to believe that he loves his own son, in his own way, so he won’t jeopardize that. He’s not such a bad man, only frustrated with the way things have been going for him.”