Daddy's Little Matchmaker

by Roz Denny Fox

  Laurel discovered she hadn’t the heart to disappoint three pairs of pleading eyes. “Let me get my calendar,” she mumbled. Unfortunately, she found she had Wednesday afternoons free for at least six months.

  Thumbing through his pocket calendar, Alan jotted down the times. He handed his cell phone to Jenny and then Brenna. Their moms were quick to promise they’d carpool the two girls from school.

  With the session at end, Charity led her flock along the path toward the footbridge. Alan hung back, waiting for Laurel to lock the cottage.

  When Louemma’s attention was focused on Dog, he lowered his voice and edged Laurel aside. “The fee you’re charging is more than reasonable. I’ll pay for the whole package, regardless of whether or not we continue. We’ll give next week a try, then decide if we’ll continue.”

  “We?” Laurel arched a brow. “Shall I prepare a loom for you as well, Mr. Ridge?”

  “Call me Alan,” he growled. “You know damn well I’m referring to Louemma.”

  “I don’t know how you’ll take this, Mr…er, Alan,” Laurel began.

  Alan found himself bristling immediately, not from her mild tone but from a sudden wash of heat created by her nearness. Their hips brushed accidentally, and he stopped short.

  Laurel continued with her sentence. “I predict Louemma will do better coming here with her friends.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Ms. Ashline.”

  “I’m supposed to call you Alan. I insist you call me Laurel.”

  “Fine. That’s not going to happen, Laurel.”

  Thrown off stride by the fact that he’d suddenly thrust his face closer than she was comfortable with, Laurel stumbled backward. His hand shot out to keep her from falling. She cringed, and as a result, caught her heel on a root. She fell, and try as he might, Alan couldn’t hang on to her and maintain his grip on Louemma’s wheelchair. Laurel slipped through his fingers, and he heard her land hard.

  Dog raced up, growling and baring his teeth the minute Alan stretched out a hand to aid her. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling his neck and face heat.

  “Daddy, why did you push Ms. Ashline down?” Louemma demanded in a shocked voice.

  “I didn’t!” Alan’s eyes flew to his daughter. “As if I’d do such a thing. Honestly, Louemma.” This time, deciding he’d fend off the dog if need be, Alan set the brake on the chair, and he did haul Laurel to her feet.

  “I stepped sideways on a tree root, and your dad couldn’t quite catch me, that’s all,” Laurel told the anxious child, feeling more than a little embarrassed.

  “You tripped, but you yanked your hand out of mine as if you thought I was planning to hit you or something.”

  Guilt tightened her features. She offered no further explanation. “Would you like some juice or water before you leave?” Laurel asked as she put more distance between them.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said. But he still pondered her odd reaction as he climbed into his Jeep. Once he’d turned the vehicle around, he gave his full attention to driving.

  “I wanted to stay and pet Dog some more, Daddy. I don’t see why we had to leave. Ms. Ashline asked if we wanted something to drink. I think that’s because Mrs. Madison said they were having snacks on the way home.”

  “Pet the dog…more? You mean you actually touched his fur with your hand?”

  Louemma’s smile faded. “No. Dog moved. But I liked how he felt, Daddy. He’s soft. Softer than my bear Scrappy. Isn’t Ms. Ashline cool? She’s nice and she’s pretty, don’t you think?”

  The hope that flared in Alan’s chest shriveled. Skipping over her comment about Laurel, he returned to their earlier discussion. “I know the doctors have all asked if you can feel hot and cold in your fingers, Louemma. Have any of them asked if you could detect soft, hard or sticky?”

  “They all do.” A frown lodged between her delicate eyebrows. “That’s why Dr. Meyers, the last doctor we saw, brought you in the room and told you I might be faking. Before you came in, she said I have sen…sen something all over my back and arms.”

  “Sensation?”

  “Yes. What’s that, Daddy? I’m not faking. I…want to be like I was before. I…just…can’t.” Huge tears drenched her big brown eyes.

  “Baby, baby, please don’t cry.” A knife twisted in the center of Alan’s chest, and something the size of a boulder threatened to choke him. He’d never been good with tears. Not his mother’s. Not Emily’s. And he was even less able to handle Louemma’s. He was the one who’d always walked the floor with her when she was ill. Emily had needed eight-plus hours of sleep every night. At times, Alan had thought she’d have let their baby cry for hours. But then, Emily had known he would crawl out of bed.

  “Louemma,” he pleaded now, awkwardly trying to wipe her eyes with his handkerchief. “Daddy needs to keep two hands on the wheel, especially now that we’re driving through town. Dr. Fulton, Nana, Birdie and I know you aren’t faking. If we see Dr. Meyers again, I promise I’ll tell her that. Sensation means feeling. The doctors think if you can feel things, honeybee—things like the dog’s fur—you ought to be able to lift your arms. They’re frustrated because they don’t know how to help. We’re all frustrated.”

  “Yesterday, Nana told Birdie Ms. Ashline’s going to do that.”

  “What?” he said distractedly.

  “Help me move my arms. With weaving.”

  Alan’s foot hit the brake hard at the stoplight. He and Louemma flew forward and back again. “Sorry,” he muttered, brushing aside the hair that had flown into her face. “Louemma, your nana’s like a pit bull once she sets her teeth into an idea. Remember when she made millions of little bonnets to cover her tomato plants because she’d read in some magazine that they’d keep birds from pecking holes? Or this past winter when she stripped all the electric blankets from our beds after Ruthie Pittman’s chiropractor said they might cause everything from allergies to heart attacks?”

  “So?”

  “So, I’m saying we indulge her because we love her. But not all the notions she gets in her head are the gospel truth.”

  “Then you don’t think Ms. Ashline can help me?” Her lips quivered.

  Alan was positive no man had ever been happier to reach the end of his driveway than he was at that precise moment. Louemma was a lot like Vestal in certain ways—like the fact that she could harp on a subject until the cows came home. Today he was saved from revealing his honest-to-God doubts about Laurel Ashline when Birdie greeted them at the door, announcing she’d just frosted a chocolate layer cake. Few things could have broken his daughter’s single-minded concentration, but chocolate in any form was one.

  “Birdie, will you help Louemma with her snack? If I don’t enter the new case-lot prices on our Web site today, Hardy Duff will have my head on a pike. The weaving lesson ran longer than last week’s and I promised Hardy the quotes would be on the site by four o’clock. It’s after that now.”

  “Did you have a good time?” Birdie asked, aiming the question at him.

  Alan dragged a hand over his downturned lips to hide his true feelings. “I’ll let Louemma tell you all about our afternoon.”

  As he handed the wheelchair over to his housekeeper and started down the hall, the first words out of Louemma’s mouth had him grinding to a halt.

  “Daddy shoved Ms. Ashline down on the trail and she fell right on her bottom. And I got to—”

  Rushing back, Alan interrupted her midsentence. “Louemma Ridge,” he declared, drawling her first name. “I did not shove Laurel—er, Ms. Ashline down.” He spread imploring hands toward Birdie. “Ms. Ashline slipped. I grabbed for her, missed, and she fell. She wasn’t hurt. At least, I don’t think she was.” He blinked, trying to recall if he’d even asked. He remembered how startled he’d been by the look that crossed her face. Fear. Now that he was further removed from the incident, he knew that was the only way to describe Laurel’s reaction to him.

  Birdie laughed the way large, jolly wom
en did—the sound welling all the way up from her toes. “Louemma, love, you’re teasing Daddy. Why, he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Oh, but speaking of falls…” Birdie’s grin dissolved into concern. “Miss Vestal took one today.”

  “What happened? How bad? She’s not back in the hospital again, is she?”

  “No. She’s resting. She’s shook up and bruised a bit. As for what happened, I tried to tell her the ground’s still too wet from the last rain to ask Neil Murdock to plow. You know how she is once she’s got something in her head. Next thing I know, I’m looking out the kitchen window and there she is, hauling rakes and such from the toolshed. Sure ’nough, her feet hit a patch of wet grass, and then she’s down, sliding toward the house.”

  “I can picture it, Birdie. Louemma and I were just discussing what she’s like when she gets her teeth into an idea.”

  “Uh-huh,” Louemma agreed. “Daddy, will you go see how she feels before you start work?”

  “I will. Right now, honeybee. If I don’t come straight back, you’ll know Nana’s okay. Then you can have your milk and cake and finish telling Birdie about your day. Just get the story straight this time,” Alan cautioned, tweaking his daughter’s nose.

  “Okay. Like Birdie said, I was teasing. I know you wouldn’t push Ms. Ashline down. Next time we see her, I’ll tell her, okay?” Louemma frowned. “The way she looked, I think maybe she’s afraid of you. Why, Daddy?”

  Birdie scoffed. “I’m sure that’s not the case, child. Everybody in the county knows your daddy’s a big old teddy bear.”

  Brushing a thumb thoughtfully over his lips, Alan watched the two disappear into the kitchen. For some reason he’d never made more than superficial inquiries about Laurel Ashline. What was her background? Old-timers certainly had plenty to say about her mother, Lucy.

  After checking on Vestal, and updating the Windridge Web site for Hardy, Alan decided to run back into town. It shouldn’t be hard to engage some of Ridge City’s most reliable gossips in conversation at the café. The problem wasn’t so much engaging gossips as knowing how to keep his name from being part of the subsequent rumors if he asked questions—for the second time—about Ridge City’s newest resident.

  He could stress, however, that he needed to know more about her before signing up his daughter for those weekly weaving lessons.

  Satisfied he’d hit on a solution, Alan set off to tell Birdie he’d be home before dinner.

  Chapter Five

  THE MONDAY BEFORE the girls’ first paid lesson, Laurel drove to town to pick up two bags of oats she’d ordered for her horses. At the feed store, the clerk ringing up her purchase said, as she handed Laurel a receipt, “You’re causing quite a stir around town.”

  Laurel stuffed the slip in her jeans pocket and puckered her brow.

  The apple-cheeked woman—Laurel knew her name was Ethel Jamison—smiled and continued talking. “Yep, Alan Ridge is conducting a pretty thorough background check. You haven’t robbed any banks back where you’re from, have you? Come to think of it, no one knows where you’re from. Is it a secret?”

  “Does Mr. Ridge investigate everyone who moves to Ridge City?”

  “Aren’t too many,” Ethel said noncommitally.

  “Oh. So the fact that I’m a Yankee is the reason for his nosiness?”

  “I ’spect it’s more the fact that you’re living in his hip pocket—on Ridge land.”

  Laurel was growing more upset with each step of this conversation. “There you go. He’s mistaken on both counts. His home is at least twenty miles from mine. And I live on land that belonged to Hazel Bell. Since I possess a deed, I believe that makes it mine.”

  “Hmm. There’s some around here who’d argue that point. I still didn’t catch where you came from, Ms. Ashline.”

  Grasping the handle on the hand truck holding her bags of oats, Laurel made it halfway to the door before she retorted, “Nice try. Tell Sherlock Ridge to do his own sleuthing.”

  Her temper simmered all the way home. Who did that man think he was, investigating her? And why was he instilling doubt about her in the minds of people she had to deal with in town?

  Parked across from the cottage again, she let Dog out to run while she took the oats from her pickup to the shed inside the corral. All the while, Laurel pondered what Ethel had said about there being people besides Alan Ridge who questioned her owning this place. Besides him, who else might think that? Furthermore, why would anyone care?

  Laurel supposed she could pick up the phone, call Alan and ask him point-blank what in hell he thought he was doing. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d spooked her.

  She fed the horses, relishing the task. She’d dreamed of having her own horses ever since the seventh grade, when a caring counselor used to take Laurel to her farm to ride. Those weekends had been her salvation that year. She gave Dog and the horses fresh water, then went inside and brewed a cup of peppermint tea. The ritual of making tea and the comfort of drinking it brought everything into perspective for her, she thought as she carried the sweet-smelling tea into her bedroom.

  As she sipped, she stared at a small trunk she’d found in the attic. A cursory peek had told her it was where her grandparents had stored tax records. The trunk was old and ornate, and went well with Laurel’s antique decor.

  Until now Laurel hadn’t seen any need to paw through their private belongings. She had every letter Hazel had written her in a small cedar box. Luckily, Dennis hadn’t found those during his last tirade. It was obvious—from the occasional comment Hazel had made and from Lucy’s complete unwillingness to talk about her parents—that her mom had hurt Hazel and Ted badly. Laurel’s own history with Lucy Bell Ashline had been rocky, another reason she wasn’t anxious to delve deeper into the background of what was most likely a dysfunctional family.

  Now was the time, though, she decided with a sigh, and gingerly let the trunk lid fall back on her handwoven bedspread. She set her teacup on the nightstand, on a mug mat she’d made to match the curtains and the spread. She loved the double Irish chain pattern, done in off-white and sky-blue for a light airy touch to counter the room’s dark wood paneling. The whole cottage had been dark as a mole hole, with dark furniture, forest-green carpets and dark brown paneling. Laurel’s first few months in the house had been taken up with lightening the rooms. She honestly wondered how her grandmother could have spent a lifetime in darkness. But then, people were different, and they certainly had different tastes.

  The top layer in the trunk held five years’ worth of tax returns, as she’d thought. Next came a ledger listing income and expenditures. In the last year of Hazel’s life, the majority of money had come from social security, plus a monthly direct deposit from Windridge Distillery. That stopped Laurel short. Her finger paused at the figure before moving on to a less substantial amount—income derived from her grandmother’s sale of her weavings.

  Laurel flipped to the start of the ledger, curious to see how far back the deposits from Windridge went.

  “Ah!” The first page described the sum as Ted Bell’s pension payments. So her grandfather had helped make bourbon. The mere thought of liquor evoked a smell that was all too familiar, and brought back other unpleasant memories. She shut the book abruptly, having lost any desire to look further into her grandparents’ finances.

  Uncovering the layer below the ledger, Laurel found it offered up an old photo album. Settling against the pillows, she picked up her cup before opening the book. Its pages were yellowed by age and tattered from use, but neatly arranged and labeled.

  At first Laurel didn’t recognize the jumble of names. Gradually it became clear that the oldest photos were of her grandmother as an infant, then a girl. There were faded black-and-white prints of Hazel’s grandparents, her parents and their siblings. Then came Hazel’s elementary-school chums, and on to high school.

  Hazel and a taller girl were together in more than half the pictures. Were they friends? Cousins, pe
rhaps? Vestal was an unusual name.

  Laurel sipped the minty tea. She’d heard the name somewhere. But where? Had she met someone named Ward since moving to Ridge City? Not that she could recall, she thought, quickly running down the meager list of her acquaintances.

  Anxious to see if the latter half of the album might reveal early photos of her mother, Laurel started to skip ahead. But the book fell open to sepia-toned shots of two weddings, the photos held in place by white corners. The church, flowers, attendants and bridal gowns were identical; the brides and grooms were different. A double ceremony, Laurel realized. With the friends or cousins all grown up.

  She set her cup aside as Dog trotted into the room, his tags clinking. He lay his muzzle on the bed next to her thigh. “Hi, boy,” she said, reading the names of the wedding parties while she ruffled his fur. Ted Bell and Hazel Hopewell were the bride and groom in the picture on the left, Jason Ridge and Vestal Ward on the right.

  “Holy cow, Dog!” Laurel lurched, letting the album fall shut. Her pet gave a start. Laurel picked up the album with shaking hands. If the brides were cousins or otherwise related, did that mean she and Alan Ridge were… “No,” she said abruptly. “No way! It can’t be.”

  She fanned the pages until she got back to the wedding shots. Wedding invitations wedged behind the pictures indicated the grooms had both been in the military. The ceremony coincided with the end of the Korean conflict.

  Although she wanted to rush, Laurel flipped through the remaining pages. A story grew in pictures. Young happy wives. Their husbands—buddies—shown working, barbecuing and drinking together. Windridge bourbon, Laurel bet. It seemed she couldn’t escape the stuff.

  Vestal, it appeared, lived in an elegant home. Hazel and Ted, with the help of Vestal and Jason Ridge and others, had built the cottage that was now Laurel’s. Also the one up the hill, which housed her spinning wheels and looms. The men holding hammers and saws clowned for the camera.

  Next came babies. First, Hazel’s friend and her husband proudly showed off a boy. Dates indicated Mark Ridge was six or eight months old at the time Hazel brought her own baby home—Lucy, swaddled in pink. Though faded, those pictures were all in color. Laurel ran a finger over one old photograph, studying what was probably the first picture ever taken of her mother.