The Luck of the Paw (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 9)

by Susan C. Daffron

  Kat was busily removing items from the bag and ferrying them to the table. She set down a tray full of phyllo triangles and turned to Brigid. “You made them! I love these things.”

  Mia handed Tracy the wine bottle just as Kat returned to the kitchen with glasses. Tracy shook her head. “I’m having water. Driving, remember?”

  Brigid took a glass and held it up while Tracy poured. “I’m not. All right ladies, let’s talk about homeless dogs.” She pulled out a sheet of paper and listed her agenda items.

  Mia felt like a third or fifth or some type of outsider wheel that had fallen off the rim. She didn’t know the dogs they were talking about, so she mostly sat quietly and ate the munchies piled up on the plates.

  Kat was right about the triangular phyllo things. They were filled with spinach and you couldn’t eat just one. She tried to look casual as she grabbed another one. Right as she took a huge bite, Kat turned to her and said, “Mia, you wanted to ask about someone who was here in the seventies, right?”

  Mia choked down her food, “Mmmph, yes. Um, my feather.”

  “Your father,” Kat said.

  “Yes, right. Dan Riggins. He might have been here in the seventies sometime and someone from here wrote to him. I have postcards.”

  Brigid, Tracy, and Maria all stared at her, suddenly silent. Mia’s cheeks were aflame. This was so mortifying. She was babbling and no one knew what she was talking about. Finally she stammered, “I…I haven’t heard from my father in a long time. My parents divorced.”

  Brigid said, “So are you trying to find him or someone else?”

  “Both. Someone sent me the postcards and I think it must mean blushing…I mean something. They’re signed ’CA,’ but I don’t know who that is,” Mia said.

  “Clay lived here then. He might know. Or his sister TJ. What’s your father’s name again?” Brigid said.

  “Dan Riggins.”

  Tracy waved a carrot. “I was really little and splashing around in creeks at the commune, so unless he was a hippie, I’m no help. But I can ask my mom.”

  Kat said, “That’s a good idea. Bea knows everyone.”

  Maria took a sip of wine. “I’m thinking about adopting a dog.”

  Tracy, Brigid, and Kat all made incredulous exclamations at once and Maria waved them off. She put down her glass. “Drastic measures are required here, ladies. Earlier this evening, it came to my attention that our new friend Mia has been in Alpine Grove for approximately forty-eight hours, boarded her dog, and has already managed to meet a man. Kat continues to discriminate against felines, so I’m being forced to make a concession.”

  “That’s not a good reason to adopt a dog and you know it,” Brigid said.

  “You don’t even like dogs,” Tracy said.

  Kat sucked down the last of her wine. “Oh for heaven’s sake. Bring Scarlett, the wild-and-crazy destruct-o cat, for a weekend. I’ll let her stay in my office or something.”

  “The engineer isn’t gonna like that,” Maria said.

  “I know. Joel is going to kill me, but I’m going to make a special exception just for you, so you’ll stop harping on the idea that my dog-boarding kennel is some type of bizarre matchmaking service.” Kat waved her empty glass at Maria. “You are going to owe me big time.”

  Tracy giggled, “Whoa, you really got her all riled up.”

  “Hey, don’t get on my case. You’re one of the matches made.” Maria pointed her glass at Tracy, then tipped it at Brigid. “And so are you!”

  Kat poured more wine into her glass. “Y’all are giving me a headache.”

  “I think that’s the wine,” Maria said. “Speaking of drinking, I’ve been thinking about party planning. Do you know where you’re getting married yet? Picked a dress? How about the reception? I want to talk bachelorette party too.”

  “No.” Kat had the type of sulky look on her face that Mia had seen many times in the mirror. Perhaps the wedding was a touchy subject.

  “You are going to have to think about this sometime, girlfriend,” Maria said.

  Kat set down her glass. “Can we please change the subject? Doesn’t anyone else have anything interesting going on?”

  “I think I might be pregnant.” Tracy covered her mouth with her hand, and then let it fall to her lap. “Oops. I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”

  Brigid and Kat sat motionless with their mouths hanging open, and Maria clapped her hands together, “Yessiree! You sure did. Does Rob know about this?”

  “No, and I’m not really sure either. I might be just, you know, late,” Tracy said.

  Maria said, “When that happened…”

  “Shut up!” Kat said.

  “As I was going to say, you might want to go to the drug store and get a test,” Maria said.

  “I know.” Tracy put her elbows on the table and her forehead on her palms. “It’s just not…I’m a little freaked out. Right now, Rob is so busy. Ben wants him to set up a fancy web site for some house he’s building and showcase it on the real estate section of the Alpine Grove site.”

  Brigid put her arm around Tracy. “That must mean his boss likes his work. It sounds like a good thing to me, assuming Rob is getting paid well. Babies are expensive.”

  Tracy looked up. “He’s working lots of hours though, and I miss him. And I’d have to quit my job at the vet clinic.”

  Kat said, “Get the test. You don’t know anything for sure yet.”

  Tracy looked at her. “I’m just so jealous. I want to travel so bad. Do you know what I’d give to get out of Alpine Grove and go to Hawaii in March like you are? Now it might never happen.”

  Brigid squeezed her shoulders. “You don’t know that. I didn’t think I’d be here now, much less running a rescue for homeless dogs. A lot can change in a short time.”

  The other three women nodded at Brigid’s comment. Mia had a feeling there was a whole lot of stories she didn’t know, but she couldn’t disagree about things changing quickly.

  If someone had told her a month ago that she’d win the lottery and be sitting in a tiny mountain town talking with a room full of women about everything from pregnancy to ranch dressing, she would have just laughed.

  After everyone left, Kat called Joel and told him the coast was clear. He’d wisely left the house while the PR committee meeting of the Alpine Grove Animal Adoptions group was in session. She fed the dogs, let them out, and flopped onto the bed, exhausted.

  At a bright light, Kat opened her eyes. Joel was standing next to the bed, looking down into her face. “Rough meeting?”

  “Kind of. Welcome home.”

  He bent to give her a kiss. “I didn’t realize you were lying in here in the dark. I can’t believe the dogs didn’t wake you up when I came in.”

  “I just incorporated dogs into my dream, which was one of those wine-induced ‘a little too close to real life’ type dreams where you wonder what the point was. Yuck. I need to brush my teeth. Sorry about that.” Kat sat up, threw her legs over the side of the bed, got up, and walked across the hall to the bathroom.

  Joel followed her and leaned on the door frame, watching her in the mirror while she scrubbed her pearly whites. He raised an eyebrow. “So what happened? You look annoyed. Or disturbed. Or something.”

  Kat spat out the toothpaste and rinsed her mouth. “I am.” She walked out of the bathroom and gestured for him to follow her. Closing the bedroom door behind them, she whispered. “Maria is downstairs snoring away on the bed in my office, hopefully sleeping off the pinot grigio.”

  “Are you annoyed at her?”

  “Yes. No. More annoyed with myself. I agreed to board her cat.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I wish I were.” Kat crawled back onto the bed and rolled over with her arms outstretched.

  “So where do you plan to keep Scarlett? I don’t think she’d appreciate a dog kennel and would stage a speedy exit, never to be seen again.”

  Kat moved her arm listlessly.
“I guess I’ll put her in my office.”

  Joel shoved her aside and sprawled out on the bed next to her. “I want absolutely nothing to do with this.”

  “I know.” She rolled over to look at him. “We also are going to have to deal with the whole wedding thing. If we ever figure out what we’re going to do and where, we’ll have to make reservations and what not, so we need to fork over money for deposits. I’m not sure how you want to handle that.”

  “I suppose I’ve been avoiding it too. I’m looking forward to the day after the wedding. March twenty-first is going to be a happy day.”

  “The whole wedding problem is not going to go away. We talked about paying for everything ourselves, since my family…well…I don’t even want to go there. Anyway, you mentioned merging finances. Maybe we should do that sooner, rather than later.”

  “That might make sense. I guess.” He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “I guess we should talk about this.”

  Kat snuggled into his embrace with her cheek on his chest. “I don’t really know much about your money situation other than that you’re cheap. But I don’t know if you have seven bank accounts, organized by interest rate, or something.”

  “I prefer the word frugal. And no, I don’t.”

  “This isn’t particularly romantic thing to say, but maybe we should call one of those finance people at the bank and set up an appointment. Because of my inheritance, things could be complicated and it’s a well-known fact that I do not play well with numbers.”

  “We? You mean me, don’t you?”

  “No, I mean we. I didn’t say you. I said we. That means you or me.”

  “It does. So are you going to call the bank?”

  Kat paused for a moment. “No.”

  “Then you mean me, don’t you?”

  “I hate it when you get all logical like this.”

  He squeezed her shoulders. “I’m just looking at the facts objectively.”

  “I suppose. So you’ll set up an appointment?”

  “All right. Where are we going to get married?”

  “I’m not sure. Thoughts?”

  “I was lobbying for elopement, remember?” Joel grinned. “Otherwise known as running away.”

  “I want to be married, but not the wedding so much. Every time I look at those bridal magazines Maria keeps throwing at me, the whole thing stresses me out. And you can spend a fortune on a wedding. I don’t want to go into debt for one day.”

  “I can’t argue with that. I’m the frugal one, remember?”

  Kat tickled his ribs. “I know, and that has been extremely helpful during the kennel construction process. So here’s an idea: what if we do the courthouse deal for the actual legal part, and then have a separate reception? That way we completely sidestep the whole religion issue. Because I’m absolutely not going there, no matter what my mother thinks.”

  “You’re willing to go without all the flowers and pomp-and-circumstance stuff?”

  “That involves a lot of traditions and Emily Post garbage that I’ll get wrong, which will leave someone mortally offended. The reception is just a party, so expectations are lower.”

  “Where do you want to do that?”

  “Given that we’re getting married in March, it has to be somewhere inside.”

  “Definitely. The big party the dog rescue did at the lodge was nice.”

  “True. If we held it at the North Fork Lodge, out-of-town folks can get a room. Then everyone can drink and pass out. Meanwhile, we can sneak away. Robin would probably give me a decent deal, since it’s off season.”

  “Way off season.” Joel pushed some hair back behind her shoulder and kissed her ear. “It works for me, if it works for you.”

  “I’ll talk to Robin and see what she says. Relatives booking rooms at the lodge in March would make her happy. If there’s a party for Maria to plan, she’ll be happy too.”

  “Speaking of the woman sleeping downstairs, how was the big PR committee meeting? Did you get anything done?”

  “A little, but then Tracy said she thought she might be pregnant and that pretty much trumped everything.”

  “Uh, yeah, that would do it.”

  “I know. And poor Mia looked so confused. I probably shouldn’t have subjected her to that much wine and whining.”

  “Did she drink too much? Is she down there sleeping in your office too?”

  “She was fine and went home. I think she was too busy being shy and embarrassed to drink much. It’s no fun being an odd duck, particularly when everyone else knows each other. I’ve had that experience.”

  “Are you having some gray-sheep-of-the-family flashbacks?”

  “Yes, you know me so well. The expression on her face reminded me of me at family dinners with my sisters and mother. Maria was in fine form and then Tracy dropped her little bombshell.”

  Joel sat up straighter. “Does Rob know Tracy is pregnant? I hope she’s going to be a little more forthcoming than you were with me.”

  “She hasn’t told him yet, since she’s not sure. But yeah, I know, talk about flashbacks. All in all, it was a rather disturbing evening. It’s like every insecurity and problem that has ever set up residence in my brain made an appearance at tonight’s big déjà vu fiesta.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “The only thing that would have been worse is if my mother had called to round out the evening. So let us be thankful for small blessings. I assume chopping up firewood and hanging out with Jack was more peaceful.”

  “It was. Their wood is all stacked and Jack will be by sometime this week to help with ours.”

  Kat gave him a hug. “I’m looking forward to snuggling in front of the fire with you this winter.”

  “Me too.”

  Chapter 6

  At the Ranch

  After Mia returned to her motel room, she collapsed on the bed for a while and read her novel. It had been a day filled with far too much human interaction, which was way out of her comfort zone. She needed to decompress.

  Before everyone left Kat’s house, Brigid had invited Mia to come out to the ranch in the morning to talk to her boyfriend, landlord—or whatever she thought he was—before he started work training horses. Clay, the guy Maria said looked like Indiana Jones, had grown up in Alpine Grove, so presumably he might have heard of her father or the mysterious “CA” person who wrote the postcards.

  After her exhausted, introverted soul had recovered somewhat, she called Chris at the Enchanted Moose and suggested they meet later in the day for the next installment of the Alpine Grove postcard tour. Mia was completely talked out and he sounded terrible, so the conversation was brief, but she agreed to pick him up the next day after she walked Gizmo.

  Maybe she was just cranky from all the intense people time, but as she lay on the ugly plaid bedspread at the H12 staring at the ceiling, Mia couldn’t help thinking about her uncharacteristic curiosity about these old postcards. What on earth was she was doing? The whole thing was insane. Why did she even care that her father sent the postcards and lottery tickets, anyway? Assuming it was even Dad who sent them. Mia had vowed never to speak to the man again, so why did she suddenly want to look him up?

  Truth be told, she undoubtedly was using this whole postcard mystery as a complicated avoidance tactic. After several days loitering around Alpine Grove, she was no closer to figuring out what to do with her life. While she was busy looking into her past, she could avoid dealing with the ugly reality of her future. Although she had some money now, it wasn’t like she could spend the rest of her life aimlessly driving around the country forever.

  Even if her stay here was all about avoiding other issues, every time she looked through the postcards, her curiosity was reignited. She couldn’t help wondering about them. Who was “CA”? Apparently she had kids who were just babies in 1975 or 1976, so that made those people roughly ten years younger than she was. What if Mia had younger brothers or sisters living here somewhere? How could
she leave without at least trying to look them up? She had lots of lottery money to live on in the short term. Although the money wouldn’t last forever and she did need to find a job, for a while she had the flexibility and time to get a few questions answered. If she found out her father had sent the package, she also could say “thanks for the lottery tickets.” A tiny part of her wanted him to know she’d won.

  It was amusing that now that Chris had seen the postcards, he seemed to be as curious as she was. He’d been disappointed that she wasn’t able to meet him in the morning, but perked up when she’d suggested that they meet later in the day. Chris said he wanted a full report on her meeting with Clay out at the ranch.

  Talking to Chris again would be fun. The evening at Kat’s reminded her how much she preferred conversing with just one person at a time. Being in a room full of women she didn’t know was just way too much information to process all at once. Kat had seemed sympathetic and given her a hug when she left, so that was nice anyway.

  Tired of her thoughts, Mia rolled over onto her side and resumed her novel. It would be great to be someone like the woman in the story. Clarissa the Fabulous was never at a loss for words. Never embarrassed and always able to come up with the perfect witty comeback in any situation. And always ready for smoking-hot sex at the drop of a hat with men swooning at her feet. Yeah, right. Mia would have to have a complete brain transplant for that to ever happen.

  Although Mia was grateful for the money and the changes it had made possible, it couldn’t change the fundamental aspects of who she was. Once the odd mushroom girl, always the odd mushroom girl.

  The next morning, Mia got ready to go out to the ranch, which was north of town. The fact that Brigid was so direct and organized during the meeting had been a little intimidating and Mia was anxious about meeting Clay. What if he was even more uptight than his girlfriend?

  Mia tried not to let her imagination get the best of her, but she had visions of using the wrong word with Indiana Jones. He’d probably roll his eyes, lasso her, and throw her over a cliff to put her out of her misery. In the movies, Indy didn’t waste time with pleasantries.