They kept a bottle of Armagnac in the bathroom file cabinet along with paper towels, toilet tissue and the first aid kit.
Hunter expelled air in a noisy growl. “Sandy invited me to dinner.”
“You don’t want to go?”
“No.”
“Can’t you just tell her you have plans?”
“Too late. I accepted.”
Nate sat up and frowned across the desk at his friend. “That makes no sense, Hunt.”
“Yeah, I got that. But what do I do now?”
“I think courtesy demands that you go.”
“What does cowardice demand?”
Really wanting to help, probably because of his own confusion, which he didn’t want to confront, Nate went to his office door and pushed it closed. “What are you afraid of?” he asked as he took his chair again. “I mean, besides the fact that being around her is like being tied to the front of a semi.”
Hunter was uncharacteristically morose. “I think it’s the fact that I kind of...I almost...” He looked into Nate’s face and said with a self-deprecating grimace, “I like her.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. I ran into her yesterday at the grocery store. She had her girls in the cart and she looked so...I don’t know. Alive, I guess. Cheerful, despite all she must have to deal with. And...” He looked suddenly embarrassed and ran a hand over his face.
“I’m the friend,” Nate said, “who saw you fall off your motorcycle into a mud pit and didn’t laugh. Tell me.”
“Okay.” Hunter folded and unfolded his arms, then readjusted his long body in the chair. “Remember the morning of the meeting when you said you thought she had a thing for me?”
“Yeah.”
“I think she does. There’s something in her eyes when she looks at me. I saw it the night of the Monster Bash. I thought then that maybe I was imagining it because we were all being somebody else, you know? But there it was again when she first saw me yesterday at Freddy’s. Something softens and gets a little...I’d say ‘scared,’ but knowing her I can’t imagine that’s it. Maybe I make her nervous, or something.”
Nate smiled. “So, it’s nice that you’ll get to spend time with her if you like her. She’s pretty and smart, and despite the bulldozer personality, she’s a good person. And one dinner isn’t a lifetime commitment. If she has any sense at all, an evening spent with you will make her change her mind about being attracted. When’s the dinner?”
“It’s Thanksgiving at her mom’s.”
Nate remembered his conversation with Stella. “But your mother thinks you’re going camping with the guys.”
“I know.” Hunter looked distressed. “Mom would freak if she thought I was going to another woman’s house for Thanksgiving. My brain’s in self-destruct mode. I don’t understand why Sandy scares me.”
“That’s easy,” Nate replied. “It’s because she has the potential to change your life. And you’ve got it pretty good right now. No grave responsibilities, no one to consult about everyday decisions.”
Hunter stifled a laugh. “Pardon me, but remember my mother? Your housekeeper?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t live with you, so you can avoid her if you want to. And she’s the best cook in Clatsop County, and I happen to know she’s always filling your freezer.”
“True. But she has a lot of opinions on everything I do. Even some on what I think.”
“Women are just like that. I guess it was a man’s world for so long, the need to argue is just built into their DNA from generations of fighting to be heard.”
“Bobbie’s like that?”
“Bobbie. Sandy. Even Jonni. Name one woman and I’ll bet she’ll give you an argument on almost anything. Now would you get out of here? I’ve got a million things to do.”
“All right. Don’t say anything to Mom about Sandy and Thanksgiving. I’ll find a way to explain.”
“If she thinks there’s even the slightest possibility of getting grandchildren out of this, I’m sure she’ll be happy to let you do your thing. So that’s the way to approach it. And when I thought you were going camping for Thanksgiving, I invited her to spend it with us.”
Hunter saluted him. “You’re a pal,” he said, and would have closed the office door behind him except that Dylan stood in the doorway. He was neatly groomed, and since coming to the office after school, he’d taken to wearing a pencil behind his ear.
“You’re replacing me with him, aren’t you?” Hunter teased.
“If you don’t watch your step. What’s up, Dylan?”
“I put all the green-and-white envelopes for tax season away,” he reported cheerfully, “and now Karen wants to send me to Jae’s around the corner for cupcakes. She says everyone here needs a little sweetening.”
“Excellent idea.” Nate beckoned him inside. “Do you know what Hunter and Jonni were fighting about?”
Dylan came closer and whispered, “Jonni was teasing him about Sandy. I think they’re boyfriend and girlfriend or something. And he told her to put a sock in it.”
“Ah. Okay. So, get the cupcakes and come right back.”
“Okay.”
Nate watched Dylan walk importantly across the office and out the door, and wondered if he dared even let the thought form that he was making progress with him. Maybe the day would come when the name Raleigh and Raleigh would really define the business again.
* * *
NATE DIDN’T SEE Bobbie until the week of Thanksgiving. Now that the weather was definitely cooler, her garage door was always closed. He could usually count on meeting her a couple times a week in their driveways, but hadn’t done so once since Dylan’s trip to the hospital. Nate wondered if she waited for him to leave before going out to her car, or deliberately stayed away once she was out so that she wouldn’t meet him coming home from work.
The painting supplies had been taken from his garage. He called her to make sure they hadn’t been stolen. She assured him briskly that she had moved everything to her tiny workroom in the house, then hung up.
Sheamus wandered into the kitchen one evening while Nate looked out the window in the direction of her little house.
“Have you seen Bobbie?” he asked.
Sheamus had his dump truck under his arm, a package of Skittles in it. “Yeah,” he replied. “When I was out playing this afternoon. She gave me a cookie.”
“When was that?”
“Just before you came home. She went back in the house.”
So she was avoiding him. Nate wasn’t surprised.
“I came inside, too.” Sheamus sat in the middle of the kitchen floor and rolled the dump truck back and forth. “It’s starting to get cold. When is it winter?”
“Officially, it isn’t until December 21, which is still about four weeks. Pretty soon it’ll be time for your big jacket.”
His nephew focused on the truck. “Yeah.”
Nate knew what was on his mind. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll be able to open your closet door.”
Sheamus looked hopeful. “You think so?”
“I guess we’ll see. And if not tomorrow, then maybe the day after.”
Nate tried hard not to apply pressure. He couldn’t handle all his own problems. It didn’t seem fair to hurry his nephew into solving his.
Dylan appeared beside him, his sketch pad and pens in hand. “When are we going to go Christmas tree shopping?” he asked.
“Yeah!” Sheamus seconded.
“After Thanksgiving,” Nate replied. “Kiwanis is going to have a tree lot and Hunter promised to save us a big one.”
Dylan’s excitement faded just a little. “Mom used to love Christmas.”
“We made lots of cookies at Christmas,” Sheamus said.
“Yeah.”
Dylan was openly skeptical. “You are not. You can’t even make pancakes. They come out like CDs—flat and hard.”
Nate pretended indignation. Actually, he didn’t have to pretend. He’d worked hard on those pancakes.
“Maybe Bobbie would help us, Sheamus suggested.”
Dylan shook his head. “Bobbie is hiding from us because she’s mad at Uncle Nate ’cause he yelled at her.”
“How come you yelled at her?” Sheamus asked in surprise.
“We were having an argument,” Nate explained.
“But you’re not supposed to yell.”
“I forgot.”
“You wouldn’t let us get away with that,” Dylan pointed out with a superior smile. “Maybe if you went over and apologized...”
Outmatched, Nate frowned at both boys. “Don’t you guys have homework?”
“Nope. Half day tomorrow, then we’re off till next Monday.”
Sheamus’s wide blue eyes were troubled. “If you don’t apologize, we might never have cookies again!”
“Stella can help you with cookies.”
“She doesn’t like to make cookies,” Sheamus said, now seriously distressed. “She says it’s...” He turned to Dylan for the word.
“Tedious,” Dylan provided. “I think it means it takes a long time and is boring. No more cookies ever, Uncle Nate, unless you apologize.”
Nate groaned and promised to think about it. A future without cookies was a sorry fate.
* * *
BOBBIE NEEDED a tranquilizer. Her morning art class, moved to Tuesday because of the approaching holiday, had been almost cataclysmic. If it hadn’t been for Fernanda and her quick thinking when Eddy painted Miranda Julen’s hair chartreuse, she was sure she’d have been fired.
“Bless the waterproof paint,” Fernanda said, bustling from the room with Miranda by the hand and her own giant purse over her shoulder. “And the blow-dryer and curling iron in the teachers’ bathroom.” Left alone with sixty-some steroidal second and third-graders, Bobbie quickly devised a contest. “The best pilgrim,” she bargained, tacking up a poster-size caricature of one on the bulletin board, “wins a pen with a pilgrim on it.”
She held up the pen she’d found in a gift shop downtown. There were oohs and ahhs. She loved how easy the kids were to please.
She sat Eddy at her desk so she could keep an eye on him, and wandered around the room as the children worked, congratulating herself on handling the hair painting situation so well.
Until she delved into the front pocket of her purse for her truck keys after class and found a chartreuse daisy with a bright pink center painted on it. Next time she sat Eddy at her desk, she’d remember to remove her purse from the knee hole.
The day was alternately stormy and rainy, with scowling clouds hanging over the hills across the river, looking like the brink of doom one minute, then moving on and allowing a bright display of sun the next. She pulled up at a spot on Grand that served as a sort of overlook, and watched a freighter moving up the channel toward Portland. In this moment of sunlight, the superstructure was almost golden, distracting from the worn red-and-black of the hull.
The sun also picked out the red and gold colors in the trees covering Washington’s hillsides, and the windshields and chrome on the cars crossing the 4.1-mile Astoria-Megler Bridge. Warmth and a curious sense of belonging filled her being. She enjoyed it for a moment, worried about it for a moment, then sighed and put the truck in gear to go home.
She pulled into her driveway, a little disappointed that the space was empty. She’d thought her father might be here by now. He’d called her from Tillamook that morning and said he was bringing several kinds of cheese, for which the town was famous. He’d taken the van to a mechanic after a sudden loss of power. When the problem didn’t occur again, the mechanic suggested it might have been poor fuel purchased the day before in a remote area. So he’d visited the cheese factory, then spent the night in a motel. He should have been on his way right after breakfast.
She was looking forward to seeing him. Much as she’d despaired of having to say goodbye again, she was anxious to spend the holidays with him.
She’d already decided that the day after Thanksgiving she was going shopping for gifts for her father, the Raleigh boys, Sandy and her children, and Fernanda. There had to be a lump of coal somewhere for Nate. In the past, she’d always been too busy, too focused on her art to enjoy the day as most other shoppers did, but this time she was relatively free. She would deliver her commission on Monday. The relief she felt was enormous.
* * *
SHE PARKED THE truck, climbed out of it and noticed that the sky was darkening again. She hoped her father was all right. She hesitated a moment and dialed his cell. The call went to voice mail.
Mildly concerned, she shouldered her purse, smiled about the chartreuse daisy, then opened the passenger-side door and hauled out her box of supplies. She was on the back porch steps when a loud crash came from inside the house.
She stopped in surprise and heard the sound of raised voices, then another, louder crash. Monet screeched, followed by a woman’s high-pitched scream.
“Did I leave on the television?” she wondered aloud in confusion. The curtain on her back door window prevented her from seeing inside. Then she noticed that the door was slightly ajar.
She struggled to make sense of the situation. Did she have thieves who were fighting with each other? A man and a woman?
Footsteps sounded behind her and Nate leaped onto the porch, carrying an aluminum bat. He pulled her back from the door and pushed her behind him. Shoving the door open, he took a step inside, and stopped with a whispered curse.
Bobbie punched 911 into her cell phone, aimed her thumb over the send button, then stood on tiptoe to look over his shoulder.
She gasped at the sight of what appeared to be some derelict facedown on her kitchen floor. Stella had him pinned to the tiles with a squeegee pressed to the middle of his back. Monet stood on the counter, back arched, screeching loudly.
“Hello, Bobbie.” Her father’s strangled voice came from the grubby man on the floor. Mud was splashed over his jacket and pants, and his hands, which were flattened against the tiles. His glasses were askew. Unbelievably, he smiled as he craned his neck to look at her. “Flattered as I am by this lady’s attentions, would you get her off me, please?” He turned his attention to Nate. “You must be the neighbor with the boys. Hi. I’m Bobbie’s father.”
“Good God.” Nate grabbed Stella by an elbow and yanked the mop away from her. “Stella, what are you doing?”
The older woman’s expression went from righteous anger to horror.
“I...ah, he—” As she stammered, Nate handed Bobbie the bat and reached down to help her father to his feet. He adjusted Dennis’s glasses and brushed off his muddy beige jacket, though it didn’t help much. He shook her dad’s hand.
“Hi, Mr. Molloy. Nate Raleigh.”
“I saw him climb through Bobbie’s window,” Stella said, finally pulling her thoughts together. She looked from her employer to her victim in embarrassed confusion. “The back door was open so I went in and he—” she pointed to Dennis “—was rooting through the fridge. I thought he was an intruder.” She turned to Bobbie in supplication. “I’m so sorry, but he was dirty and helping himself and...he climbed through the window! God. I’m so sorry.”
Nate shook his head at her. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried but it just went to voice mail. So I grabbed my cell phone to dial 911 as I ran across the yard and...” She sighed and admitted with obvious reluctance, “I dropped it. I was nervous and clumsy, and I’m sorry.” She frowned at him suddenly. “What
are you doing home, anyway?”
He held up his cell phone. “Left this in my jeans. I heard screaming and shouting and ran across the yard just as Bobbie was walking in.” His stress seemed to deepen. “So, you just walk through an open door that should be locked, and confront and attack a stranger who could be armed?”
Bobbie turned to him impatiently. “Stella’s been taking care of herself for a long time.” The housekeeper sent her a quick glance of gratitude.
Nate turned on Bobbie. “And you. You’d have walked in on what’s obviously some kind of fracas in progress—people shouting, things crashing? That’s a good way to get yourself killed.”
“Or in this case,” Bobbie replied into his scowling face, “talked to death.” She reached around him and drew her father toward Stella. “Stella, this is my dad, Dennis Molloy. Daddy, Stella Bristol.”
Dennis Molloy was slightly shorter than Nate and very fit for a man in his early sixties. His gray hair was close-cropped and his eyes dark and sparkling with amusement, despite the state of his clothes.
He wrapped his arms around Bobbie, then inclined his head in Stella’s direction and said, “I apologize for my scary appearance, but I’ve spent the large part of this morning standing in the rain on the side of a muddy road trying to get my van to start. I was somewhere between Cannon Beach and Seaside. Cars raced past me, spewing mud and road debris, which accounts for my homeless look.” He held his arms out to his side to show off his pants and jacket to full effect.
“Triple A finally had me towed to a shop in Astoria, which promised I’d have the van back after the weekend. Bad alternator. So I took a cab here—after the driver put a tarp down on his backseat—and was hoping to find something to eat in the refrigerator.” He smiled in the face of Stella’s chagrin. “Bobbie sent me a key on the chance that I arrived when she wasn’t home, but it’s in my van’s glove box, hence the climb through the window.”
Stella sighed. “Did I mention how sorry I am?”
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