The grill sat in the front yard under the water oak. She really didn’t care when, if ever, it made its way back to the rear porch.
She gave a longing look at the bag swing, which swayed gently in the evening breeze. She couldn’t count on Seth to rescue her again, so no bag swing.
Seth’s SUV wasn’t in his driveway. Working late? Or a hot date?
Now, that presented an interesting situation. Did he already have a steady girlfriend? Nobody—probably not even Barbara—would feel the necessity to clue her in if he did. So far as anyone knew, they were simply neighbors. No one would consider that she would want to have that information. She and Seth were simply acquaintances.
Did Seth think that’s all they were? Did she? Okay, so they’d spent some time together, but they’d barely even kissed. As good at kissing as he was, he’d obviously had plenty of practice.
Barbara said his wife had left him. Why? According to Barbara, the ex didn’t like the country and was currently married to a city dentist.
Was that the whole story? Seth was an attractive man. Possibly one of the most attractive around here. What to say his wife hadn’t left him because she got tired of his playing around. He didn’t seem like the type, but then Trip hadn’t seemed like the type either.
Until he was.
What was Emma to Seth? A couple of peculiar dates, but no pressure to take it to the next level. Emma’s stepmother had said that in her day, men all wanted you to go to bed with them. But she said, “They didn’t actually expect you to do it.”
Emma had found that in too many instances, most of the men she’d gone out with did expect you to go to bed with them. It infuriated her. Like every single woman she knew, she’d had to fight her way out of situations that verged on rape. The wine was vintage, the food was French, so sex was the expected end of the evening.
She and Seth had enjoyed brunch—Lucullan, but still during the day. Would he have pushed for a little post-prandial delight if not for Bobby Joe’s rescue?
But he hadn’t pushed after he’d hauled her off the bag swing. That would’ve been the obvious opportunity.
Or maybe he wasn’t pushy because he wasn’t that interested? Talk about a downer.
Because, dammit, she was interested. When she dreamed at night, there was no other face in her dreams—erotic or otherwise.
Before long, if he didn’t do something, she might have to. And she never in her life had before. She’d always been pursued. She didn’t have a clue how to pursue.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BY TUESDAY AFTERNOON, Emma felt comfortable running reception for Barbara. The cases had been pretty routine—a couple of spay and neuters, some gashes that needed stitches, the usual horses needing shots. Unlike many vets, Barbara tried to avoid taking outside calls as much as possible; she simply didn’t have time to travel. So even the large animals generally came to the clinic. She did have one call out to a cow that was having difficulty calving, but the call was close by, and the calf came relatively easily after she’d managed to straighten its twisted foot.
Still, Emma was glad to leave after her shift finished. She’d never realized how difficult being tied to a desk at someone else’s beck and call could be. She decided to send the secretaries at Nathan’s office a big box of Dinstuhl’s chocolates to thank them for putting up with her.
For the second night, Seth’s SUV wasn’t in his driveway. Where was he? He certainly had no reason to report to her, but he seemed to be avoiding her. Drawing away from her? So it would seem. She wasn’t going to sit behind drawn curtains waiting for him to come home—alone or otherwise. He was sleeping somewhere, in someone’s bed, just not his own. Or hers. Avoiding her, so she wouldn’t ask questions about his father? Afraid that if he came home, she’d go bang on his door and demand an explanation? She would never do such a thing. She had no right to burrow into his life.
Maybe it was time for her to return to Memphis. Not like she was going great guns here.
That evening when she called home, her father answered. She made the story of the Saturday party and Sunday rescue sound very funny and not nearly as critical as not finding Bobby Joe would have been. “Is Trip still calling you?” she asked.
“Not as often. I’m sending him straight to voice mail. He’s beginning to get the idea. Is he calling you?”
“Not in several days.”
“Now, however, Nathan Savage is calling. He wants to know when you’re coming home. I think he may want to offer you your job back.”
“Well, hooray for him,” she said drily.
“Are you still interested?”
“Of course I am, Dad. But not under the same rules. I’m happy with the salary for now, but I want more autonomy, more trust, less meeting planning and more design responsibilities. I’m actually enjoying living up here at Aunt Martha’s. I think after I come home, I’ll rehab it with Andrea’s help, and we can use it as a weekend getaway.”
“As if your siblings want to spend weekends away from their friends. You remember what you were like at that age.”
“Then maybe just for you and Andrea and me,” Emma said.
“And miss golf? Good try, Emma, but you’re going to have to come home to us, and that’s all there is to it.”
By the time she went to bed, Seth’s SUV still wasn’t in his driveway.
Nor was it there when she climbed out of bed to feed the skunks. Wherever he was, it was serious. If he wasn’t with another woman, what about the disasters that could be keeping him away? Drugs or poaching or road accidents or hunts for criminals or more lost children. She had no right to expect him to call her to check in, but she wished he would.
She had just put the clean dishes away when she heard a car in her gravel driveway. Her heart turned over. Seth! At last! She was going to kiss him and then she was going to kill him—or maybe vice versa. She ran to the front door and yanked it open.
Standing on the stoop with his hand raised to knock was Nathan. “You won’t take my calls, so I drove up.” He gave her a hug.
“Well, if you ain’t the sexiest Ma Kettle in the wilderness.” He kissed both cheeks. “Give me to drink, dear lady, before I die of thirst.”
“Beer, wine, lemonade or iced tea—unsweetened.”
“Lemonade homemade?”
“But of course.”
He nodded. “Then I want that. Who’s the cage for? Installed your own Tarzan, have you?”
That was entirely too close to the truth, so she only smiled and ushered him in. “This is fondly known as The Hovel,” she said.
“Actually, it would benefit from your stepmother’s fine decorating hand, but it does have good bones. Andrea could turn it from a sow’s ear to a Gucci handbag. I was afraid it was a log cabin. You do have indoor plumbing, don’t you?”
She nodded and raised her eyebrows. “Heating and air-conditioning, too. At least I think they work. Hasn’t been hot or cold enough to test out yet.”
He wandered around the living room while she fixed the tumblers of lemonade and brought him one.
“Since you don’t have to worry about Andrea’s allergies, I expected you’d have adopted at least a cat or dog or two,” he said, “But I didn’t get attacked when I got out of the car, so no dog as yet, am I right? You haven’t deteriorated into the local cat lady yet?”
“No cats. No dogs. Skunks.”
He spat his mouthful of lemonade straight across the room. “Say what?” He whirled around looking at his feet. “Guard skunks? Am I about to get hosed?”
“It’s called ‘being skunked.’ They’re orphan babies, Nathan. They don’t make scent yet. Want to see?”
“I’m more the labradoodle type, but if you’re sure these trousers are safe from attack...”
They walked outside and around the corner of the house to the kennel. Having finished their breakf
ast, the babies were all curled up sound asleep in their quilted dog bed beside the tree limb.
“Ooooh!” He dropped to one knee. “A-dorable!”
“Hush. You’ll wake them up,” Emma whispered.
He leaned against the fence, made cooing noises, then let her drag him back into the living room. As she shut the door behind them, he clasped his hands. “I should’ve known you’d make beluga caviar out of dead fish eggs. Emma, I can think of two ad campaigns right this minute that would top the charts using those little sweeties. How soon can you bring them to Memphis so we can shoot lots of footage of them?” He glanced at the door. “You weren’t kidding about their not ‘skunking’ yet?”
“Hold on, Nathan, just hold on. The only place they’re going is back to the woods as soon as they’re weaned. Nobody’s supposed to know I even have them. It’s against the law in Tennessee. You must not tell anyone. I mean it. I know how you get when you have an idea. We could all wind up in jail.”
“Surely not!”
“Surely yes. That Tarzan you mentioned is a game warden and he lives right there across the street. I don’t dare let anyone find out about them. Promise.”
He sighed. “Very well. But I can bring my crew up here and film them in their cage outside, can’t I? Nobody would have to know where I got the shots.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned them. My friend Barbara, a vet who lives down the road, rehabilitates orphan animals. At the moment, she has a goose with a lame foot, several orphan fawns, a couple of raccoon babies...”
“Baby deer? Yes, yes, yes. Let’s go see them!”
“Nathan, you’re such a baby yourself when you get an idea.”
“Because I have such good ones. I still want the skunks, but I’ll settle for the fawns in the meantime.” He set his now-empty lemonade glass on the kitchen counter. “Grab your purse and let’s go.”
“She may not be available. I should call first.”
The phone at the clinic rang until it went to voice mail. Emma started to speak, when what sounded like a very frazzled Barbara picked up. “This is Barbara. This better be an emergency... Emma? You’re not supposed to be here today. God, I wish you were.”
“One quick question. My former boss drove up here and wants to come see the fawns before you release them. Is that possible?”
“Um... Okay, but remember you’re coming to load and release them tomorrow.”
“We won’t even go into the clinic. I’ll take him straight to the barn.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Although I may sic Mabel on him. That goose would scare the emperor of a third-world country.”
“Okay. Sorry, got to go.”
“Well?” Nathan asked.
“We don’t bother Barbara, we don’t try to touch any of them, and you don’t scream.”
“All right, all right. Let’s take my car. Yours, as usual, is covered with mud.”
“Around here, mud is a badge of honor. Come on. You buy me lunch afterward.”
“Where? The ditch beside the road? Do we have to snare a rabbit?”
“Nathan, do we—I mean you—have a client who sells trucks?” She climbed into the BMW and fastened her seat belt.
“Two clients, as a matter of fact. What’s your point?”
She directed him to Barbara’s clinic. He pulled into the parking lot. As Emma climbed out, she waved a hand at Nathan. “Well, check these out, podna. This is what pickups look like in the real world and not in the ads we write for them.” The pickups ran the gamut from elderly farm trucks held together by rust to big special-edition diesels hauling stock trailers. With the exception of a single bright red pickup that still had a dealer’s drive-out tag in the back window, every one of the trucks was dusty or downright dirty. “If you wash your truck, you do it on Saturday morning while the kids are watching cartoons and before the golf matches are telecast in the afternoon. Or, if it’s winter, before you head for the woods to get your deer or your doves.”
“By ‘get’ you mean?”
Emma nodded. “Exactly. Come on. Now let’s go look at the fawns.” She started around the building, as Mabel the goose rounded it from the other direction in full attack mode—wings flapping, neck stretched forward like a cobra’s, lame foot dragging but not slowing her down.
“My God, what’s that?” Nathan slid behind Emma.
“A goose. Mabel, go away. She’s harmless. She protects the place from strangers. You, Nathan, count as strange.”
“And you don’t? Ha!”
Emma ducked into the stock barn and walked to the stall at the far end.
“Okay, Nathan, fawns as requested.” She picked up half a dozen thin carrots from the basket hanging on the hasp of the door lock, broke them into short pieces and handed a couple to Nathan.
“These aren’t babies,” he whispered. “They’re full-grown deer.”
“That’s why Barbara is releasing them tomorrow.”
“To where?”
“The deep woods. She has a friend who keeps a big hunting preserve where he no longer allows hunting. They’ll be a ready-made herd.” She held out a carrot, avoided getting bitten in the ensuing rush for the goodies, then took Nathan’s offerings and handed those out, as well.
“They’re not very big, are they?”
“Nathan, these are Southern deer. They’re not elk or moose. They run small. They come in either gray or beige, and I think they are beautiful.”
“Yeah, but they won’t do for a marketing campaign, I’m afraid. Now, about your skunks...”
* * *
EMMA PICKED UP her own SUV to lead Nathan into town for lunch. She had errands to run after he left, and her house was in the opposite direction from the route he’d be taking back to Memphis. No sense asking him to bring her home.
More to the point, drive time without his chattering to her held off any offers to return to her old job. So far he hadn’t actually offered. She’d be crazy not to want it. Nothing held her here now that her babies were going to the woods. She had no impact on Seth’s life. Barbara would find someone to take her place at the clinic.
They were at the café early enough to get a parking space. “What kind of restaurant is this?” Nathan asked as he slid into the banquette at the back of the café. With luck they’d avoid running into Seth, but if they did, they did. She couldn’t live her life avoiding him.
“Maker of the best steak burgers this side of the Tennessee River,” Emma said. “Morning, Velma, what’s the special?”
Velma stared at Nathan as though he had three noses. “Uh, chicken fried steak, corn on the cob and O’Brien potatoes.”
“Oh, goody,” Nathan whispered and then actually smacked his lips. “There goes my waistline.”
“We can do you a chef salad,” Velma said. “Diet dressing and all.” She didn’t sound pleased.
“Woman, are you mad? Of course I want the special! I am a child of the South. Fiddle-dee-dee, I’ll diet tomorrow.”
Velma went to put their orders in. As she moved away, a shadow that was all too familiar fell across their table.
The hair on Emma’s arms stood straight up and her stomach tightened. She’d felt him when he walked in the door. She also saw Nathan’s eyes widen as Seth’s shadow loomed over their booth. She looked up to say hello.
He was not alone. The woman with him was nearly as tall as Emma and every bit as slim. Her hair was short, cut in layers and completely white. No tinge of faded yellow or old-lady lavender. Since her unlined skin didn’t match the silvery hair, the hair must be prematurely white. She wore a long-sleeved jewel green silk shirt over black dress jeans that fit as though they’d been tailored for her.
Emma suddenly felt underdressed. And country. She wished she hadn’t missed her haircut last month, and that chopped-off bits and pieces didn’t continue to resist taming after her
attack with the Swiss knife. She wished she’d put eye shadow on and redone her manicure. At least she’d gotten the ratty polish off.
The woman looked older than Seth, but not by that much. Maybe she was a colleague in town for a couple of days. Better than thinking she might be a girlfriend. Maybe they’d been off touring duck blinds or something. Or maybe he simply didn’t feel he owed Emma a telephone call. One dinner did not spell commitment. She was used to guys who swore they’d call and didn’t, but she hated for Seth to turn out to be one of them.
“Emma,” he said. He spoke to her, but his eyes were on Nathan. So were everyone else’s in the restaurant. It was like an old B Western. She expected him to say, “This town ain’t big enough for both of us.” Except he probably didn’t care.
He stepped aside. “This is Emma French, the new neighbor I’ve been telling you about.”
Then he turned to Emma. “This is my mother, Laila Logan.”
Emma let out her breath. “How wonderful to meet you,” she said. “This is my ex-boss, Nathan Savage. He drove up to visit. We’ve been to see Barbara’s fawns. Seth, you know you’re supposed to help us free them tomorrow?” Shut up! You’re babbling! “Please, won’t you join us? We just ordered.”
“We wouldn’t want to interrupt,” Mrs. Logan said. But she slid into the booth beside Nathan and turned a million-watt smile on him that would probably enslave him for the rest of his life.
Seth slid into the other end of the booth so that Nathan was effectively sandwiched between mother and son.
“Sorry I didn’t call to check on the babies,” Seth said. “I figured you were busy at Barbara’s and didn’t need any interruptions.”
“And I figured that if you were dead in a ditch somewhere, I’d find out sooner or later.” She studiously kept her voice low and casual. Men! Why did they think they were asserting their masculinity if they didn’t check in and keep their friends and families from worrying about them?
Tennessee Rescue Page 18