“Ten years!” she exclaimed. “You poor, deprived soda drinker. I myself am a bit of a connoisseur. In fact, I can tell you that this particular brand of root beer was brewed on a northern slope … probably on a Tuesday …” She paused seriously and took a long draw from the straw, swishing the creamy liquid around in her mouth before swallowing for dramatic effect. “Barq's is my guess. 2009. It was a very good year.”
Jared snorted and then transitioned into a rich and resonant laughter that Liv thought almost took the form of music.
The waiter stepped up to the edge of the table, ready to take their dinner orders. Instead, Jared cast Liv a playful expression before asking, “Just out of curiosity, what brand of root beer is this?”
“Barq's, I think,” the fellow replied, and the two of them shared a laugh that excluded their waiter. “Is there something wrong with your drinks?”
“No, absolutely not,” Jared replied. “They’re delicious. Obviously a very good year.”
The poor guy didn’t quite seem to know how to respond, so he raised his pad and set his pen to it. “What can I get you?”
Liv let herself sink back into the leather booth as Jared ordered salads and a platter of peel-and-eat shrimp. She hadn’t had shrimp in such a long time and, as she glanced out the window at the emerald-green Gulf waters just beyond the dock, she realized this would be about as fresh as a seafood meal could get.
“Tell me about your life back in Ohio,” Jared invited her. “What do you do there? Aside from shovel snow, that is.”
“Well, I live next door to my best friend and her family. And I like to paint and sculpt,” she told him, absently pushing the straw in circles around the inside of her glass. “I work full-time in the operating room of a busy hospital.”
“A nurse?”
“Yes. Well, I was.”
“It's a little early for retirement, isn’t it?”
“Thanks for noticing,” she replied with a grin. “I think I mentioned the other night that I’d been diagnosed with cancer.”
“That's right. Was it breast cancer?”
“Ovarian.”
“Ovarian, and you’re all clear now?” he asked.
“I am.”
“That's quite a blessing. Ovarian is one of the rough ones.”
“It is indeed,” she agreed. “But … they’re all rough.”
“True enough,” he said thoughtfully, and then he narrowed his eyes at her and smiled. “I seem to recall something else you’ve mentioned, more than once. Something about a curse and a fairly significant birthday sneaking up on you.”
“Ah, yes. The birthday curse,” she replied just as the waiter set two beautiful green salads before them, and then dropped a heaping platter of cold shrimp on the table between them.
“Will there be anything else?”
“Not right now,” Jared answered. “Thank you.”
While they polished off every one of the little critters, filling an empty plate to overflowing with discarded shells, Liv proceeded to entertain Jared with the dark comedic tale of the string of annual disasters that had plagued her for most of her life.
Jared could hardly believe it when he glanced at his watch and realized they’d been in the restaurant for more than two hours. After the shrimp came a shared slice of key lime cheesecake and countless cups of decaf. And truth be told, when they made their way down the dock and boarded his Sun Runner, he wasn’t ready for the evening to end.
“I haven’t had such a good time with someone in a long time,” he told her, the boat skipping across the bay.
“Thank you,” she replied, and then she lowered her eyes, preventing him from searching them for a trace of reciprocation. “The meal was lovely,” she finally added.
Jared flicked on the stereo. The Michael Bublé CD was still loaded; he’d had it playing while he cleaned the downstairs cabin the previous afternoon, and it made a nice soundtrack against the low-setting sun and vibrant purple sky.
He glanced at Liv and found her swaying to the music, her full, red lips mouthing the words of the song as she stared out over the darkened water. The sun was a ball of fire on the horizon that set her short red hair ablaze in its reflection. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders and arms, and he noticed the creamy porcelain skin of her hands as she folded them in her lap.
Jared's gaze began moving beyond her to the ocean view when he did a double take. Beneath the knee-length hem of her black dress, his attention was drawn to shapely legs, crossed at the ankle.
What in the world? he thought as he took a closer look.
He wished he’d have darted his eyes away just a second faster, but Liv caught him gawking, and she followed suit. As she looked down at her own legs, she gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.
“What is that?” she cried, popping to her feet and running a hand over one bright orange, striped leg. “Jared, what is it?”
It looked for all the world as if she’d been spray-painted.
“I don’t know,” he said, grabbing a towel from the bench behind him and handing it to her. “Try this.”
She did, and nothing changed, and then sudden realization seemed to overwhelm her. Jared watched as she heaved a belabored sigh and dropped back down to the seat.
“I can’t believe this.”
“What is it?” he asked. “An allergy, maybe?”
“No.”
“What then?”
Liv looked up at him with dewy eyes and a crooked attempt at a smile. “It's bronzer.”
“Bronzer?”
“I bought it this afternoon,” she admitted. “My legs were pasty Ohio white, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed. I thought a little bronzer might …” She trailed off without finishing, and dropped her face into her hands.
Jared tried to keep his grin in check, but he couldn’t help himself, so he just lowered his head and angled his face away from her. Once composed, he rested his hand on her shoulder and patted it gently.
“I look like I was left out for a couple of months after a rain. I’m rusted!” she exclaimed. “This is so embarrassing.”
“This is not embarrassing,” he reassured her. “It's just another beauty product gone mad. It happens all the time. My nurse, Georgia, came in one Monday morning with hair as green as seaweed.”
Liv separated her fingers and looked at him hopefully from between them.
“I kid you not. She is a peroxide-bleached blonde, she got hold of some new product, and her hair went completely green. They couldn’t dye it back for a week, so she had to just wear that green hair. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she were Irish instead of Southern Belle.”
Liv snorted, then buried her face in her hand again as she giggled.
“Or if it had been March instead of July. She could have blamed it on St. Patrick.”
After a moment, Jared reached over and pried Liv's hands away from her face, and then pulled one toward him and planted a kiss on one knuckle.
“Besides, as long as it's not a jumpsuit you’re wearing by the side of the road,” he told her, “you look very nice in orange.”
Liv punched at him and chuckled.
“I’ve heard sometimes chlorine water causes the fake-bake stuff to fade,” he suggested. “Why don’t you come over for a coffee and soak your legs in my pool?”
“No. Thank you, but—”
“C’mon.”
It hadn’t taken much convincing, and Jared was thankful for a reason to remain in Liv's company a little longer. There was something about this woman, something he couldn’t quite label or explain to himself. She gave off a ray of light that warmed him to the core. He hadn’t even known he’d been cold.
The pool lights cast a pale ice-blue sheen on the water, and movement sent wavy lines of light across the surface. Jared strode toward her, tray in hand, as Liv perched on the edge of the pool, legs extended out over the concrete steps, rubbing them vigorously with both hands.
“Do you like cappuccino?�
� he asked.
“I do, but I can’t have caffeine this late or I’ll be up all night.”
“It's decaf,” he told her. “I have the same problem in my old age.”
“Hey. Did you just label me old?” she teased.
“No. I labeled me that way.”
“Oh, okay. That's all right then.”
“Hey.”
Jared rolled the hems of his trousers up to just below the knee, and then sat down beside Liv on the flagstone, the tray of coffee between them, both sets of legs dangling over the edge of the pool steps. The underwater light magnified the difference in their skin pigments; his suntanned legs looked as white as a starched sheet in the reflection, and hers were orange, like the top layer of color on a piece of candy corn.
“I’ve had a really good time tonight, Jared,” she said, and her voice was as soft and sweet as a lone flute playing in the distance. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Thank you for coming along,” he replied. “I’m glad to know you enjoyed yourself.”
“Aside from the whole orange leg thing,” she told him with an arched brow, “it's been perfect.”
“I told you. I think you look beautiful in orange.”
“It is my color,” she acknowledged, and they shared a smile as the now-familiar sweet citrus scent of her shampoo wafted by him.
Jared knew it was too soon, but he didn’t allow himself a moment to think it through. Throwing caution to the wind, he reached toward her and skimmed the line of her jaw with his finger, and then he drew her face toward his into a kiss. It was consciously soft at first, nothing pressing or too intrusive, just the momentary meeting of their lips. They parted for an instant, and then came together again. He wasn’t sure if it was his doing or hers, but they both leaned into one another, a nonverbal agreement from both sides of a magnificent and tender kiss.
“Whoa! Go, Dad!”
A moment like that is never interrupted without a screeching, shattering jolt, and Jared felt it all the way to his waterlogged toes. Liv flushed with embarrassment, and Jared glared at Rand and his companion where they stood facing them from the other end of the pool.
“I didn’t know you had it in you, old man,” Rand teased, and the young woman with him jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.
“Is there something I can do for you, son?”
“No, I didn’t know you were home,” Rand said, leading his friend by the hand around the curve of the pool. “This is Shelby. We met at a singles mixer at church last week, and then we ran into each other again last night at the movie. Shelby, this is my dad, Jared Hunt. And our friend, Olivia Wallace.”
“Nice to meet you,” the petite blonde offered.
“We were thinking of hanging poolside,” Rand told them. “But I think we’ll leave you to the pool and we’ll go inside. Challenge you to a game of Scrabble, Shelby?”
“I love Scrabble!” she exclaimed.
“Me too. Let's go. Good to see you again, Liv. G’night, Dad.”
Just before the sliding door slipped shut behind them, Jared heard Rand speak ever so softly.
“What do you know! My dad kissed a girl.”
Jared glanced toward Liv and she grinned.
“I guess his old man surprised him,” he remarked.
“He called me a ‘girl’!” Liv added with excitement.
8
“Why are you so sad?” Horatio asked Prudence as they counted the ripples in the water from the edge of the pond.
“Because,” she replied. “Everything's going so well here in the valley.”
“You’re sad because you’re so happy?” her friend asked.
“Well, yes. I’m sad because I know the happy is sure to end soon.”
“That makes no sense at all. Aren’t you, after all, already a brand new Pru, just like I promised you would be?”
“This kind of happy never lasts,” Prudence explained. “We can’t stay here forever. One day soon, we’ll have to set out again for home and go back to the meadow, leaving the valley far behind us.”
“And that will be a sad day?”
“A very sad day,” Prudence admitted. “I think it will be the saddest day of all.”
The evening ended on a high note, but dawn brought with it an old and familiar frustration: old being the operative word in this particular instance.
Liv checked the clock. 5:52 a.m. This was outrageous, even for Clayton Clydesdale!
Liv's teeth were clenched so hard that her jaw ached. She pulled on sweatpants beneath the long sleepshirt she’d worn to bed and stalked toward the back door amidst a peal of barks and growls and snarls.
“Boofer! Quiet!”
With all of the unexpected strength that anger affords, she flipped on the patio lights and threw back the sliding glass door. Stomping out to the patio, she searched the water for any sign of Clayton or bright neon chartreuse swim trunks, or some equally shocking apparel.
Shocked is what Liv got, times ten. But not because of the color of any ensemble Clayton was wearing. In fact, Clayton was nowhere to be found.
Instead, moving steadily across the patio from the open screen door was an alligator. Destination: swimming pool.
Liv shrieked, and the five-foot reptile paused, turning its head full of teeth toward her. She tried to gasp, but her lungs were completely devoid of anything resembling air, and the world began to spin. She was locked in a cyclone of teeth, scales, and black eyes.
The ringing in her ears evolved into high-pitched barks, and she realized that Boofer had passed her by and was heading straight for the creature at the other end of the patio.
“N-nooooo,” she cried, finding her feet just in time to rush forward and pull the dog from the ground by the rim of her lampshade collar.
“Eeeeeeeeeyy-yyyeeeeeee,” she screamed, running on sharp tiptoe straight into the house.
Liv slammed shut the door and locked it before ever looking back. But when she did, the gator had transported itself completely across the patio and was no more than five feet away. She shot a quick and generic prayer of thanks upward for the wall of glass that separated them as she fumbled with the phone.
“Y-yes, hello? I n-need some h-help, please. There's an in-intruder.”
Liv could hear her heartbeat pounding in her own ears, but the 911 operator was calm as she asked for Liv's name and location and the whereabouts of the trespasser.
“Well, he was on the patio,” she said, wide-eyed, as she peered out through the glass. “But now he-he's in the pool.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Did you say the intruder has gone for a swim?”
“Y-yes. I just saw his tail disappear into the water!”
“His … I’m sorry. Did you say his tail?”
“Dad, you better get up.”
“Hmm? Why? What time is it? It's Sunday.”
“Well, it's only seven, but you’re going to want to see this.”
Jared stretched and then opened his eyes with reluctance. “Rand, what are you talking about?”
“Something happened next door. To Olivia.”
An inner spring he didn’t know he had launched Jared straight out of bed and to his feet.
“Don’t panic. She's all right. But there are rescue workers and news crews jammed around her house. It seems there's a gator in Josie's pool.”
“A what?”
Jared didn’t wait for further explanation. He hurried into the bathroom and was dressed and out the back door in under five minutes.
Rand wasn’t joking about the hordes of people, and Jared pushed his way through onlookers and reporters and cameramen until he reached the sidewalk. Rounding the house, he headed toward the front door but was stopped by a gathered crowd there as well.
“I didn’t know what to think, really,” Liv said, bright lights illuminating her, and several microphones placed in front of her. With her hair disheveled the way it was and wearing sweats, Liv looked just about as cute as Jared could stand. “I mean, th
e dog was going crazy, and the sun wasn’t even up yet. At first, I thought it was the elderly neighbor who uses the pool to do laps a couple of times a week. But then I found myself face to face with something much more frightening than Clayton Clydesdale!”
The reporters laughed as Jared caught Liv's eye.
“Jared!” she called, and then she thanked the news crews and excused herself.
Peeling herself away from them, she headed straight for him, deliberate and full speed ahead. She almost jumped into him, encircled his neck with her arms, and cried, “You won’t believe what's been going on here!”
“I heard. Are you all right?”
“I think so. I’m still shaking in my boots.” Jared looked down at her bare feet, and she wiggled her painted toes and added, “So to speak.”
“The dog?”
“Boofer is a moron. Ran straight for the big old thing like there was something she could actually do. But I grabbed her and ran inside and then called 911. One of the reporters told me that alligators shy away from humans, but this one ran right after us, Jared. I think Boofer looked a little too much like breakfast.”
Jared's heart squeezed. His brain knew that the woman before him was an intelligent, captivating, adult woman. But something about her just then, in her “Sleep Is Good” T-shirt and her pinkish toenails and orange-tinted feet, with her chin-length spiral curls waving in all directions, made him almost believe she was just a teenager home from a weekend sleepover and telling the tales of her many adventures.
He placed an arm around her shoulder and directed her toward the house. “Let's go inside.”
She allowed him to lead her past the swarm, chattering all the way about the gator's black eyes and scaly skin and massive pointed tail.
“Thanks, guys,” Jared said with a wave before closing the door on the reporters and neighbors gathered outside.
“Let's see if they got him,” she cried, scampering through the length of the house and stopping next to Boofer at the patio door. “Oooh, Jared, look!”
He stepped up beside her and watched as two workers in dark olive uniforms used a contraption with two large wooden pegs connected by a thick, looped nylon rope to restrain the creature.
The Big 5-OH! Page 7