There was something uniquely uncomfortable about sitting in damp clothing. Bending my knees made me feel like I had been packaged in shrink wrap.
I grew tired of Kit’s huffing sighs. “You can play action hero next time. Stop pouting.”
“I don’t pout.”
“Yes, you—”
“Sorry it took me so long to get here.” A familiar face appeared on the other side of the door: J. D. Hardy. He unlocked the cell and entered.
“J. D.!” I leaped from the bench.
Kit rose more slowly. “I apologize for bothering you again on such a busy night, J. D.,” he said. “Nobody else in town answered their phone.”
“I’m not surprised. Instead of canceling the football game in Grayling, the refs kept calling for a delay. Half the town sat in the Grayling High School gymnasium for hours waiting for the weather to clear. It’s always been a dead zone, so they probably never got the call.”
“Trudy here didn’t mean to clobber that man with a broom. It was a bit of a misunderstanding.”
J. D. let out a slow breath and grinned at me. “I know all too well how that happens.” I had heard rumors about last summer. But I didn’t want to ask. J. D. nodded toward the dispatcher’s office. “I got the whole story from Parker. I know you aren’t entirely to blame. But you chose the wrong man to tangle with.”
“Who was he?” I asked.
“John Hamner. He’s a judge. Everyone around here calls him ‘Judge Jackhammer.’ He uses the gavel like he’s cutting up concrete on I-75.” J. D. kept his voice low.
Kit rubbed the back of his neck and raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, it looks like the broom got the better end of the jackhammer today.”
I curled my hand into a fist and ignored his sarcasm. “Can you tell us anything about Moby?”
J. D. smiled and I warmed under his kind, dark eyes. “He’s fine. Elizabeth went straight to the animal shelter after your call. It’s definitely Moby. She says to tell you that he wagged his tail when he saw her. And he had a fine dinner of real dog food that he seemed to like. Ate the whole thing.”
The relief was so strong and unexpected that I covered my face with my hands to control the explosion. Hot tears mixed with hyperventilating sobs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The words repeated themselves over and over in my mind. Never mind that I hadn’t prayed in years. All evening my imagination had gone wild with thoughts of what could have happened to Moby. We had been together just a few short weeks, but I couldn’t imagine him gone. It wasn’t just about the bond we had developed, but it was about the unwavering loyalty and innocent trust he put in me. I would never forgive myself if he had been hurt.
Kit pulled me into the crook of his shoulder. I struggled to get my composure back while he rubbed the back of my neck.
J. D. cleared his throat. “Since neither of you has a prior criminal record, you are being released without bond until your arraignment. Kit, you might want to contact the British consulate to let them know what is going on.”
“Bloody hell. Will Judge Jackhammer preside over the arraignment?”
I stepped back from Kit, relieved and ready for a fight. “I’ll bring a larger broom if I have to.”
J. D. laughed. “I am sure he would love to be the one to decide your future. But that is not legal in this country. Any judge with a connection to the alleged crime must recuse himself. You’ll get someone who is impartial.”
“So we can go and get Moby now?” I couldn’t wait another minute.
“The dispatcher is typing a report. It might take another hour or so. Then you will have to fill out some paperwork and show proof of ownership at the animal shelter. After that you should be fine.”
“Proof of what?” I asked.
“Ownership. You know, his license or his last rabies shot from the vet. That kind of thing.”
I stared at J. D. and my stomach dropped to my soggy boots.
Kit shook J. D.’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been a real hero, J.D.”
“No. Not really . . .”
“Yes, you have. A real hero! Isn’t he, Trudy?”
I nodded vaguely. J. D. ran his hand over his mouth to cover a grin at Kit’s words. “Don’t think twice about it. That is what I’m here for.”
J. D. saw my face and paused. “Are you all right, Trudy?”
“Yeah . . .” I said in a weak voice.
When he left, Kit plopped down on the bench and took a deep breath. “It will be a relief to get out of here, get Moby, and spend the rest of the night in a warm bed.”
I slunk to the bench and sat down gingerly, afraid to meet his gaze.
“What’s wrong?” Kit asked.
“Umm . . . there might be a bit of a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” he asked slowly.
“I don’t have any paperwork for Moby.”
Several seconds passed as he tried to process what I had just said.
“Can you repeat that?” His voice was suddenly sharp.
“I—I don’t have anything to show that Moby is mine.”
“A license? Registration?”
I shook my head.
“Papers from his previous owner? Dog tags?”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you even take him to a vet to see if he needed shots?”
I dropped my chin to my chest.
Kit took a slow breath. “You didn’t even get his vaccinations checked?”
“Nooo . . .” It came out in barely a whisper.
“That was du—” He stopped himself.
But I finished the word for him. “Dumb. I know.”
He put his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Damn! What a bloody, bloody mess!”
“Yes.” My hair hung limply over my eyes and hot rivers of shame streamed down my face. “I’m a hypo—hippo—you know! With my vegan lifestyle and all my talk of anti-hunting . . . not harming animals. Not even an unfertilized egg. I’m a hippa—what the hell is that word?”
“Hypocrite?”
“A stupid one.”
He was up and stomping around the cell. “Stop it. Stop doing that!”
“What?”
He stopped in front of me. “Putting yourself down. You don’t even know you’re doing it sometimes. You had a tough life, Trudy. Your mother died. Your father dumped you on Aunt Gertrude. She was unsympathetic. Then you ran away. You got the short end of the stick.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself.”
“Shut up and let me talk!”
I leaned back. “Go right ahea—”
“It’s time to grow up and stop pretending you’re some sort of free spirit who doesn’t want to hurt anything. Moby depended on you. And you didn’t protect that poor, sweet dog like you should have. All because of some misguided sense of freedom.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him. I just didn’t think I could take care of him as well as some people.”
He stopped in front of me. “Some people? You are missing my point. You know something, Trudy? Even that fat man who was on his way to a pheasant dinner—that man you knocked over the head with a broomstick—even he probably has a pet. If he can do it, why can’t you?”
I drew my feet up to the bench and wrapped my hands around my knees. There wasn’t a single good excuse I could make for my stupidity.
Kit sat down at the end of the bench, as far from me as he could get. I heard him breathing in large, angry bursts. I buried my head in my knees and we sat like that for a long time.
* * *
A half-hour later we emerged from the jail cell to a stack of papers that we were obligated to fill out before we were released. My stack took longer to complete because I couldn’t read with everyone looking at me. Kit finally picked up the forms, read them to me, and showed me where to sign. When we were finished, I asked the dispatcher if he knew any way to spring Moby out of the animal shelter without identification.
“You’re just lucky that they changed t
he laws. It used to be up to the county whether they destroyed an unlicensed dog or not.”
“What?” My heart went cold at the thought that Moby might have been killed in some gas chamber just because of me.
“Yep. It was perfectly legal until the laws were changed.”
“Is there any way I can get him back tonight?”
“Nope. You’ll have to find someone who can vouch for you and then there will be fines to pay. You’ll have to get a license and probably they won’t let you have that until you prove he’s up on his shots.”
“All that?” I asked in a weak voice.
Kit was done with his paperwork. He sent me a withering gaze and said sarcastically, “Funny how most people go through all that rigmarole of licenses and vet visits.”
The dispatcher was a little dense. “Well, most people will do anything for their pets. I heard there was a lady in Truhart who left all the money in her bank account to the animal shelter in her pet’s name.”
“You don’t say.”
“A lot of people thought she was crazy, but we might have closed the animal shelter if she hadn’t done that. Your dog would probably be lost in the system down in Saginaw if it weren’t for her.”
I shoved my last form toward him and watched his face change. “Brown? Gertrude Brown. Does that ring a bell?”
It took a few seconds, but finally his face changed. “Now that I think of it, that was her name . . .”
“What a coincidence.”
His nostrils flared and the corner of his mouth tilted. “Now, that’s fate, isn’t it? Same name of the lady who left the money. And now your dog is at that same shelter. Kind of ironic.”
“Jesus,” Kit said under his breath and he walked away.
When we left the office we were met with a blast of cold air and white. I looked up at a gently falling snow. It fell in a muffled hush that would have been soothing after all the pounding rain if my nerves weren’t so frayed. We approached the SUV and paused. The windshield was covered in a thin sheet of ice and snow. Kit held up his keys and unlocked the doors of the truck without a word. I wondered if he would ever smile at me again.
“Do you have an ice scraper?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t expect I’d have to deal with a snowstorm in the middle of October,” he bit back, as if that were my fault.
“It’s hardly a snowstorm. Just flurries.” I slid into the passenger seat. “Turn on the defrost and the windshield should be clear soon. This isn’t uncommon for this time of year.”
After several minutes of waiting that seemed like hours with a surly British man sitting next to me, the windshield melted for the wipers to clear the slushy ice. The heat kicked in and I offered Kit his coat. He refused and sat like a block of stone-cold ice.
We backed out of the parking lot and the SUV skidded as we turned onto the two-lane highway.
“Do you want me to drive? I’m used to driving on slippery roads,” I offered.
“We have snow in England. I can manage.”
“Like once a year. Let me drive, Kit. Really.”
“This is a truck. I think it can handle the roads just fine. Better than your little bug.”
“But there are things you need to be careful of with a rear-wheel drive.”
He ignored me and kept going.
“You are really unpleasant when you’re mad.” I adjusted the defroster and the speed of the windshield wipers.
We turned down another road that led to Truhart.
“Don’t step on the brake when you turn,” I said.
Everything would have been fine if Kit hadn’t taken his eyes off the road to tell me to mind my own business.
“Watch out!” A large branch lay across the road and he swerved to avoid it.
* * *
Several minutes later I stared at a sea of white in front of us and wondered if this night could get any worse.
The world was off-kilter.
And we were in a ditch.
I tried to recover from the shock. Not from the accident, but from the fact that Kit had an unusually broad vocabulary of swearwords. My ears still rang from the string of words he had unleashed when we landed in the ditch.
I shifted uncomfortably. “Do you mind getting off my lap?”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so. But between your driving and your swearing I’ll be both paralyzed and deaf before I get out of this truck.”
“Shite.”
“Are you done cursing?”
“Bugger off, Trudy!”
He braced a hand on the windshield and tried to lift himself from my lap. He winced.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yeah. I just can’t move very bloody well.” Unfortunately, the way the truck was tilted toward the passenger side, it was impossible for him to take all his weight off me.
I shoved his elbow out of my face. “You shouldn’t have removed your seat belt.”
“I was trying to open the door so I could get out.” Kit fiddled with the door lever.
“Why are you still trying to open the door?” I asked.
“So I can see what can be done about this.”
“I’ll tell you what can be done about this. We call a tow truck.”
He fished his phone out of his coat pocket where he had put it after the dispatcher handed it to him as we were doing paperwork. “It’s dead. Yours? Never mind. No cell phone, right?”
“I already heard the speech about being responsible and growing up. Don’t start another monologue.”
“What a load of rubbish. Who doesn’t carry a cell phone these days?”
I kicked him. But as he was squeezed up next to me, the power of my boot was diminished. I shoved him with both hands. “Get off me!”
“I can’t. Okay? Your seat belt is in the way. This truck feels like I’m stuck on a waltzer.”
“What is a waltzer?”
“You know, that carnival ride with the tilting cars that spin.”
“You mean a Tilt-a-Whirl?”
“Are we really having this conversation?”
He was right. My legs were going numb. I might never have the use of them again. “Let me get on the other side of you. I’m lighter.”
“Fine.”
We struggled to switch positions and my knee landed near his groin as we shifted.
“Ummph! You did that on purpose.”
“Ooop—sorry,” I said with a satisfied smile. Once we were more comfortable, with me sitting on the high side, I reached over to the dashboard.
“What are you fiddling with now?”
“I’m putting on the hazard lights. And I think this model year comes with an automatic nine-one-one call when there’s an accident. Someone will come soon.”
“What if they don’t?”
He wrote a word that looked like H-E-L-P on the foggy window beside him. “Oh, for God’s sake, Kit. This is a county road. We aren’t going to be stuck in mile-high snowdrifts in the wilderness.”
“It happens,” he said with a clip to his tone.
“Only in places like Montana or North Dakota. Northern Michigan isn’t that kind of place.”
“Says a woman who lived here for what? All of one whole year?”
I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut. For the next few minutes we sat, watching our breath cloud up in front of our faces. Kit had cut the engine after the accident. Despite our close proximity, the air felt frigid. I turned on the engine and let the cabin heat for several minutes.
“Don’t use up all the gas,” he said.
“Ten minutes an hour will be fine. You have half a tank of gas still.”
“When did you become such an expert?”
“I know cars. Handling them in emergencies comes with the territory. If the snow were deeper, I’d get out to clear the tailpipe. But it’s not.” I shut the engine off again. I was feeling downright comfortable for the first time since I had set out in the rain and wind looking for
Moby.
“Is that the seat-warmer I feel?” My backside felt quite cozy.
“No. It’s me,” Kit said. His arm had strayed around my waist because he had nowhere else to put it. I was tired of straining my neck to keep from touching him, so I let it rest on his shoulder. I lost interest in looking for headlights on the road. The cabin had fogged over completely, and I was feeling groggy and comfortable. The anger and bitterness that had saturated the small space just a short time ago was dissolving. Our breathing synced and Kit’s hand pulled me closer.
I took the chance that he wasn’t mad anymore.
“Kit?” I asked in a small voice.
“Hmmm.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hmmm.”
I raised my head and looked sideways at him. His eyes were hooded as if he was waiting for something more. “I dragged you into this tonight and it was all my fault you ended up in jail.”
He looked away as if he was disappointed by my apology. “Forget about it.”
I let my head rest again. “I can’t. You were right. I should have taken better care of Moby. He needed more than an occasional meal and a bed. He needed me to do the right thing and give him to someone who could take care of him.”
“You were taking care of him.”
“I don’t know how to take care of anyone, Kit.”
“That’s a piss-poor thing to say.”
I sat up and shifted off his lap. “How did a professor get such a colorful vocabulary?”
“Every teenage boy makes it his duty to learn four-letter words. As a student of the English language, I took the job very seriously.” He put the arm that had been around me on the back of the seat and lifted his chin. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I don’t remember what we were talking about.” I wasn’t sure I had the energy to keep any conversation going.
“About you and taking care of things. I am mad because you actually know a lot about nurturing, Trudy. You have a mind like an engineer. You can build stages and create props. Look what you did with the house of horrors.”
I pushed myself away from him and felt the warmth leave me.
“And you own a whole wardrobe full of clothes that were made in the last millennium.”
The Bookshop on Autumn Lane Page 25