“Whale watching today,” she remembered aloud. Jeff had chattered about the trip every chance he got. He’d been looking forward to it for three weeks. “As I recall, you were supposed to go along.”
“I’d ask Consuelo to go, but she gets seasick. I know Mondays are your day off, and I hate to ask. . .”
“Oh, I love whale watching! I’d be happy to go.”
“Even with a class of six year olds?”
“The more, the merrier. I need to take Amber out on a boat, anyway.”
“You’re a lifesaver. I’ll bundle up Jeff and be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll come there.”
Vanessa hung up the phone, hopped off the mattress, and flung the covers up in a hasty pretense of making the bed. Knowing the sea breeze would be stiff, she wore a T-shirt beneath a fleecy sweatshirt. Jeans, thick socks, and a battered pair of tennis shoes finished the outfit, then she dashed into the bathroom to grab her toothbrush.
Vanessa stopped dead in her tracks and burst out laughing. She’d fallen asleep, reading in bed, so she hadn’t taken off what little makeup she normally wore. Mascara formed smoky rings around her eyes, a crease from her pillowcase looked like an earthquake fault line down her left cheek, and static electricity made every last strand of hair stick straight out in a bizarre impression of an atomic dandelion.
“Maybe I am having a nightmare, after all.” She quickly scrubbed away the raccoon rings with a damp washcloth and brushed her teeth. Practically snatching herself bald due to the hairbrush getting caught in numerous tangles, Vanessa grumbled, “I’m going to have to talk to that man. He’ll just have to understand he needs to arrange to have emergencies at a decent hour.”
Amber woofed from beside her.
“Hey, don’t stand up for the man. We girls are supposed to stick together.” Vanessa grabbed a handful of essentials, zipped back into her bedroom, and recalled lending Val the big leather purse. Without it, she knew she had to make do.
Fifteen minutes later, she stood on the doorstep to Nathan’s old saltbox in the predawn chill. She shivered and tapped quietly on the door. It opened almost instantly.
“Van, I can’t thank you enough. I—what in the world?” He stared at the bulging pillowcase in her hands and gave her a baffled look.
Vanessa cruised past him and refused to look him in the eye. “I’m not trick-or-treating. If you dare say anything, you’re dead meat. I told you I’m not a morning person.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
She tried to act calm, cool, and collected as she pulled her windbreaker from the pillowcase. She should have put it on for the drive over, but she hadn’t been functioning well enough to reason out that minor detail. Next, she withdrew Amber’s leash and bright green jacket. A digital camera, a hairbrush, a tube of lip balm, a scrunchy for her hair, a visor, and a pair of sunglasses tumbled onto the coffee table as she upended the pillowcase.
Pretending to ignore Nathan’s chuckle, she tossed the pillow onto the end of the couch, punched it a few times, toed out of her shoes, and flopped down. As she closed her eyes, she yawned.
Amber’s paws pattered on the hardwood floor as she turned around in her customary triple circles before she plopped down directly next to the sofa. In contrast, Nathan’s work boots sounded like a whole platoon of infantrymen as he approached. He detoured somewhere—but she refused to peek. All she wanted were twenty more winks. . .no, make that forty. A door latch popped open, then shut, and the infantry marched closer. “Here,” Nathan growled softly. He covered Vanessa with a big, heavy blanket.
She didn’t know where he’d gotten it from, and she didn’t really care. As she snuggled a bit deeper into the cushions and blanket, she mumbled, “Better dig up an alarm clock for me.”
“You won’t need one. Jeff gets up at six-thirty on the dot.”
“I’m not going to open my eyes, because if you’re smiling at that revolting news, I’ll have to crawl off the couch and leave.”
“Thanks again, Van.”
“G’night. G’bye.”
The lock on the door clicked, and she dropped into a deep sleep filled with wild, disjointed dreams centering on talking puppies.
“I can’t find my dad. Can you help me?”
“He’s in the yard,” she told the terrier.
“Thanks.” The little pup trotted away. A door banged, and cold air washed over her as the little dog hollered, “Dad. Daaad! Where are you?”
Vanessa bolted from the couch. “Jeff!”
Eleven
Vanessa stumbled over Amber and skidded through the kitchen. The clock on the stove read 6:33. She sped through the doorway in her stocking feet and ran out onto the wet lawn. “Jeff!”
Where was he? She nearly got whiplash, scanning the property. Red-and-blue plaid pajamas made him easy to spot once she turned toward the far end of the backyard. Both of his feet—bare feet—were on the rope ladder to his fort.
“I can’t find Dad. I thought I’d climb up here. I can see better if—”
“Honey, your dad’s not out here. He had a problem at work.”
“But you told me he was in the yard.” Jeff hung there and gave her a bewildered look.
“I must’ve been talking in my sleep. Come on back in the house.”
Jeff jumped onto the grass and headed back toward the door. He turned and watched Amber and Lick both take care of business and pointed at them with shameless glee. “See what good puppies we have?”
“Terrific ones.” She took a step. “Eww yuck! Your lawn is soaking wet!”
“Unh-huh. Dad made the timer on the sprinklers to go on early so the grass is dry for me to play on all day.” Jeff trotted past her, into the house, with both dogs in his wake.
She squished after him. Once inside, she peeled off her socks and scowled at them. “What time does school start?”
“Eight.”
“Great. I can toss these in the dryer.” She mentally clicked off the minutes before they’d have to leave and felt a burst of relief that there was plenty of time for her to regain dry socks. At least there was one good thing about Jeff being an early riser—it gave a bit of space for solving odd predicaments that came up.
“Dad’s gotta get home ’fore then, though. We’re going on a field trip, and we’ve gotta be at the school early.”
“Just how early?” She decided to break the news about being the substitute chaperon after she finished mopping up all of the wet foot and paw tracks on the linoleum.
“I dunno. It’s on the paper.” He banged his palm on the refrigerator door. The sheet of directions beneath his hand had a sketch of a whale in the upper right-hand corner.
“Thank You, Lord!” Vanessa snatched the page away from a pizza delivery magnet. She looked down at Jeff. “Know how I told you your dad had a great big problem at work? Well, since he figured he wouldn’t get back in time, Amber and I are going to go with you instead.”
“A dog can go to school?” Jeff’s eyes got wider. “A dog wants to watch whales?”
“Isn’t that cool?”
“Wow! Can I take Licorice too?”
“No, Sport. Amber’s allowed to come along because when she grows up, she’ll be a working dog. Give me a second here so I can get the scoop on what we’re doing today.”
“ ’Kay.”
Vanessa read the paper. The teacher had chosen a picture that depicted the kind of whale they’d most likely see—a point in her favor, and one she promptly lost when Vanessa spotted the second-to-the-last line, “Be sure to be here early! We’re leaving at seven-thirty!”
Vanessa flipped the paper onto the kitchen counter and glanced at the clock again. “We’re on a tight schedule, Sport. We have to be at school in less than an hour. You’d better hurry up and get dressed.”
Jeff rocketed up the stairs and reappeared five minutes later in an orange tank top and blue-and-purple-striped shorts. “I’m ready!”
“Only if you wa
nt to turn into a snowman. You’ll freeze your toes off in that outfit. C’mon. Let’s go find you something a bit warmer.” Vanessa took his hand and climbed the stairs. She felt a little funny, wandering around the private part of Nathan’s house.
What had to be the master bedroom was directly across from the landing. Early morning sunlight slanted through a beautiful, oval stained-glass window and splashed puddles of amber, rose, and blue over the rumpled, eggshell-colored sheets of a sleigh bed. In his rush, Nathan had dropped several coins that lay in a haphazard path from the antique oak dresser to the door.
It took but a second to take in that view, and Vanessa wanted to hurry on past it. Three doors gaped ahead. “Where’s your bedroom?”
“Over here.” Jeff tugged her past a bathroom where the towels hung askew, into what still looked like a nursery. The wallpaper featured pastel zoo animals, yellow gingham curtains dressed the window, and a baby blue, three-drawer dresser stood against the far wall. All three drawers were ajar.
“Boy, you really were in a hurry,” Vanessa said as she took in the garments spilling from each drawer. “How about if you find a pair of jeans, and I’ll come up with a shirt?”
“ ’Kay.”
Vanessa straightened out the drawers as swiftly as she could while trying to be unobtrusive. She pretended to consider different shirts before settling on an undershirt and a bright yellow sweatshirt that would make him easy to spot in a crowd. She made his bed and set the clothes on it with a pat. “You change while I see about some breakfast.”
“It’s Monday,” he said as though that fact had special significance.
“What does that have to do with breakfast?”
“Waffles and orange juice! We always have them on Monday.” He even nodded as if to assert it was the routine every decent home ought to follow.
Once Vanessa reached the kitchen, she glanced at all of the cupboards and cabinets. Where does Nathan keep the waffle iron? She could wait a few minutes ’til Jeff came down to answer that question. In the meantime, since there wasn’t a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator, she opened the freezer. There, in the door, just next to the can of orange juice, sat a box of toaster waffles.
“Quick and easy.” She grabbed both items and spun around toward the counter. It struck her as odd that Nathan bought juice that had to be prepared and waffles that were premade, but then again, he probably grabbed them during a dash through the frozen-food section.
Jeff plunked down the stairs, and they sat at the table and ate while the puppies chomped on kibble. Jeff banged the heels of his tennis shoes on the rungs of his chair. “What did you make for lunch?”
Lunch! Oh, great. How could I forget about that? She gave him an I’ve-got-this-covered look. “We’re a team. We’re making lunch together.”
He dawdled over a second waffle as she wiped down the toaster and put it away. Mouth full, he pointed at a cabinet. “We gots granola bars and fruit rollies up there.”
It didn’t take long to slap together a decent lunch. They brushed their teeth, and then Vanessa groaned, “I forgot to put my socks in the dryer!”
“You can wear some of mine.”
“Thanks, but my feet are a bit bigger than yours.”
He opened the dryer and fished out a crew sock with two black stripes at the top and another with no color striping but gray patches at the toe and heel. “Here. You can wear Dad’s. We aren’t gonna be late, are we? Teacher said if we’re late, the bus will leave without us.”
Vanessa yanked on the mismatched socks, ignored the fact that the heels poked out at ankle level, and shoved her feet into her tennis shoes. “You put Lick in the backyard. I’ll grab my stuff, and we’ll be outta here.”
“Are you sure Dad won’t come with us? The three of us always have fun together.”
“Yeah, we do manage to have fun together, but if your dad woke me up early for anything other than an emergency, I’d dump him right off the boat.”
She gathered all of the gear, snapped the leash and jacket on Amber, and they raced out the door. Jeff’s school was a brisk half-mile walk, and they chattered the whole way there. The minute they reached the edge of the school grounds, Vanessa spied a tall, dark, handsome man leaning against a cinder-block wall. “Nathan!”
❧
Nathan strove to look casual, but it wasn’t easy. Luckily, Jeff gave him a moment of diversion.
“Dad! You’re here! You’d better be careful. ’Nessa said she’d dump you over the side of the boat if you showed up.”
Vanessa’s pink cheeks tattled that she hadn’t counted on that little quip getting repeated. Nathan chuckled at her. “Gotta watch what you say around Jeff. He’s got a knack for remembering the smallest things and repeating them at the most inopportune moment.”
“So I noticed.” She shrugged. “I deserved that. I ought to think before I speak, but that’s a real weak point for me. I take it the apartment emergency isn’t a massive crisis after all?”
“Yes and no. The watchman thought the second floor was buckling. It isn’t. We designed it so the upstairs of the deluxe apartments will have either sunken baths or a raised platform for the bed and a lower conversation or play area.”
“I see.”
Nathan thought of how tired she’d been when she’d dragged herself to his front door earlier that morning. He quickly added, “But while I was there, I looked at the ceiling beams for the main entrance and noticed they’re already warped a little. They’ll continue to twist until they torque the supports and weaken the vaulted ceilings. I had to track down the manufacturer back East and read him the riot act. He’s sending replacements on the train today. It’s going to set us behind schedule a full three days. If I hadn’t caught that, it would have been a real embarrassment.”
“Doing quality work matters to you.”
“Yes, it does.” He raised his brows. “Am I forgiven, or are you planning to go through with that plot to dump me overboard and feed me to the whales?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. Jeff and I had a fun morning. He’s a great helper.”
“Yeah, I fed the puppies and got Van some of your socks.” Jeff giggled. “Hers got wet.”
Nathan gave Vanessa a stricken look. “Lick didn’t. . .um—”
“No! Oh, no, he didn’t. I tromped out in the backyard on your just-watered lawn.”
“Ah. Gotcha. One of the hazards of having a puppy.”
“Nope. She didn’t come out to get the puppies; she came out to get me!”
“Sport, what were you doing out in the backyard?”
“Vanessa said you were out there.” Jeff tugged on Nathan’s belt and stood up on tiptoe. In a stage whisper, he added, “Dad, she talks in her sleep!”
With a mock look of exasperation, Vanessa propped her hands on her hips and tapped her toe on the sidewalk. “And you, Jeffrey Adams, talk waaay too much while you’re awake!”
“Yep!” Jeff giggled at her theatrics. With a gleeful look, he added, “Dad, guess what? Your socks are too big on her. Waaay too big.”
“No kidding. Your dad’s feet are huge.” She pinched her jeans just above the knees and hiked them up several inches. “Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous?”
Nathan tilted back his head and roared.
“Listen, Mister, it’s not that funny!”
“Oh, yes, it is.” He couldn’t stop chuckling. “Let me guess. Jeff got those out of the dryer.”
“How did you know?” Vanessa and Jeff both asked him.
Nathan copied Vanessa’s action. He hiked up his own jeans and displayed a plain sock and a striped one. “I was in such a hurry to get out of the house this morning, I grabbed whatever was handy. I’m wearing the matching set!”
The look on Vanessa’s face was priceless. She blinked, her face split into a huge grin, and giggles spilled out of her. When she finally calmed down, she announced, “It looks like you have everything well in hand. They don’t need me as an extra chaperon, so
I’m taking your funny socks and going home.”
Nathan dared to reach over and grab her hand. “Actually, we do need you. When I got here, Miss Sanderly was having a conniption fit. It seems one of the mothers who offered to accompany us woke up with a toothache.”
“You’ll come, Vanessa, won’t you? Pleeeze?” Jeff jigged at her side.
“Of course she is. She wouldn’t miss this trip for anything.” Nathan didn’t want to give her an opportunity to back out. He knew he ought to feel guilty about roping her into this; the truth of it was, he didn’t feel anything other than pure anticipation.
Twelve
“Val, you wouldn’t have believed it,” Vanessa told her sister as they met at church for the midweek service. “One of the other kids on the field trip didn’t have a jacket. Nathan grabbed one out of the jump seat of his truck and gave it to the little boy.”
“That’s good. Remember the time we went whale watching and nearly froze?”
“Yes, but I thought we were done, and it turned out that was just the beginning.”
“Oh?”
“They could live out of that truck for a week. No exaggeration—they have so much stuff all organized in the cab, NASA ought to ask for packing tips. Nathan started rummaging for food so he’d have a lunch to take.”
“Well, we have energy bars and water in our cars.”
Vanessa shook her head. “But we don’t have cheese-and-crackers snack packs. A juice box.”
“Sis, Jeff’s a little kid. Nathan’s got to keep munchies for him.”
“If it stopped there, I wouldn’t think a thing of it. Then he started pulling stuff out in earnest. Beef jerky. Dried apricots. A little can of peanuts. Granola bars. Those individual cups of applesauce and plastic spoons!”
Valene’s eyes grew huge. “The man even had spoons?”
Muting her voice since they were entering the sanctuary, Vanessa said, “Yes. Spoons. And paper towels. Nathan packed a better lunch than I did!”
To her credit, Val muffled her laughter. As they slid into the pew, she wondered aloud, “Had he just gone grocery shopping or something?”
Love Is Patient Page 7