Читать книгу Daddy's Little Matchmakers - Kathleen Y'Barbo - Страница 13

Chapter Four

Friday afternoon ended with Amy bolting out of the empty house on Vine Street and heading toward the beach. Knee-deep in the warm Gulf, she lost herself in the swirling waters she loved so much.

A steady line of traffic moved down Vine Street, passing silently between her and Nana’s white cottage. From her vantage point she could see the swing swaying gently beneath the arbor of sunny yellow Lady Banks roses. And while the white picket fence hid them, Amy knew the blossoms in Nana’s perennial garden were swaying, as well, though the weeds around them were likely moving in unison.

She turned her face to the salt-tinged wind. Something about the topography of the land and the angle of the waves kept a breeze blowing year-round at Vine Beach. At least that’s how Grandpa had tried to explain the phenomenon, though she’d never known whether a bit of his theory was true. Her stomach growled, a reminder that she’d only snacked on cheese and crackers for lunch.

Tucking an errant curl behind her ear, Amy was swishing through the water toward the sandy shore when her cell phone began to ring. A quick glance at the display told her that the temp agency was on the other end of the line.

Her heart sank. Just yesterday upon completion of her assignment at the Gazette, the agency’s administrator had told her that there was no more work for her in Vine Beach. All taken by summer workers willing to take minimum wage, she’d been told. While the news had been delivered in an apologetic tone, Amy had felt as if a weight had been lifted.

If a job had been found, she might have to rethink her theory that lack of work meant it was time to leave Vine Beach. Amy said a quick prayer that this would not be the case.

“Hello,” she said on the third ring.

“Amy, I’m so glad I caught you before the end of the day,” the agency administrator said. “There’s been an opening for an assistant at Dr. Wilson’s clinic. He’s specifically asked for you. Monday morning. Seven a.m. sharp. No idea of how long he’ll need you, so this one’s open-ended. Might become permanent.”

Her breath caught and for a moment, Amy considered the proposition of working for the vet. Then clarity and good sense told her what to say. With no idea of what she was supposed to do next, it was not the time to take on another temp job. At least not one that might become permanent. No need to leave him one employee short should she decide to leave town.

“No, I’m not interested, but please tell Dr. Wilson thank you.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am,” Amy quickly replied. “I’m really not sure how much longer I’ll be in Vine Beach, so I can’t really commit to another job right now.”

“I’ll let him know.”

Amy hung up with a promise to update her contact information should she decide to leave town. Replacing the phone in her pocket, Amy shook her head. Why in the world would Eric Wilson specifically ask for her? Very odd indeed.

Perhaps she should call Dr. Wilson and explain her reason for declining his offer. Then she might also have to answer for why she contributed to the story that landed in today’s headlines.

She went to bed still debating the issue and awoke to decide that weeding the gardens was a much better idea than taking on such a task. Thus, Amy spent Saturday morning tending to the long-overdue chore of caring for her grandmother’s garden. While she worked, her mind once again wandered back to what Eric Wilson might think about the article in the Gazette. Surely he would understand that she’d only performed the duties of her job. That anyone who happened to answer the phone would have done the same.

And there could have been something seriously wrong with his mother.

“Who am I kidding? If it were me, I’d be horrified,” Amy muttered as she swiped at the perspiration on her brow. “I should have minded my own business. And I certainly shouldn’t have said anything to Bev.”

The article hadn’t been all that awful. A little embarrassing if you were of a mind to prefer your privacy, but not awful.

Shrugging off the thought, Amy leaned back on her heels and sighed. More pressing was the fact that as of yesterday, nothing held her in Vine Beach other than the silly notion that her grandmother might eventually come to need her again.

She wouldn’t, of course, at least not anytime soon. Rather, since moving into the assisted-living facility, her grandmother’s social life had blossomed, and with it any question of her return to the cottage on Vine Beach disappeared. The issue now was what to do with the house. And what to do with herself. For much as she loved to sit on the swing and stare across Vine Street at the gray-green water of the Gulf of Mexico, Amy knew the situation was only temporary.

When she took the three-month assignment at the Gazette, Amy promised herself when the work there was done she would make plans to move on. Three months had seemed like a very long time when she took on the commitment. Now that she’d seen the assignment to its completion, she felt no closer to knowing what came next.

Perhaps she’d go back home to Houston and return to the flower shop. Unfortunately, every time she thought to broach the subject with Mom or Dad, she found it impossible to do so. The words just wouldn’t come out. Finally Amy realized that much as she loved her parents, the Lord seemed to be leading her elsewhere. But where? So far He’d been silent on that.

So, she’d filled out a few applications last night online and printed out her résumé to mail three more. If the Lord wanted her here, He wouldn’t allow any of those inquiries to become offers.

At least she knew she’d done something. Anything. Now she could only wait.

She straightened and gathered up the basket, the summer sun warm on her shoulders. Across Vine Street, the sound of waves breaking on Vine Beach beckoned. Amy cast a glance around the vegetable garden with a satisfied smile. The morning’s work had been productive, and she’d picked enough to make a nice salad for lunch.

Porch salad. Amy smiled as she thought of the name she and her grandmother had given to the salads made from the garden. Whatever they picked they washed and chopped into a mishmash of vegetables that were served up on Nana’s porch in bowls taken from the cabinet in the dining room. Something about the combination of the rose-covered fancy china, the lace tablecloth cast over the old wicker table at the corner of the porch and the best view of the Gulf of Mexico on all of Vine Street made each porch salad meal unforgettable.

She shook off the dirt from her gloves then gathered up the basket and strolled toward the back door. Just inside the kitchen, after leaving her gloves and shoes outside, an idea occurred, and Amy reached for her phone to call her grandmother. Why have porch salad alone?

“Sweetie, much as I would love a good porch salad, you know it’s my bingo day and we always have lunch together after,” Nana said once the pleasantries were exchanged and Amy’s purpose for calling divulged.

“Is it?” she asked as she retrieved the colander and sat it in the sink to begin rinsing the vegetables.

After a long pause, Nana said, “Amy girl, are you all right?”

She turned her back to the sink and leaned against the counter, one arm around her waist. On the opposite wall, the old regulator clock ticked a comforting, even rhythm.

“I’m fine, Nana,” she said as brightly as she could manage.

“How’s that job going down at the paper? Goodness but today’s headline about those darling little girls was something.”

“The job ended yesterday, actually, and the headline…” She paused to reach behind her and turn off the water. “It certainly was something.”

“I know Susan Wilson must be tickled pink that Eric’s finally going to get over his loss. I need to call her. Yes, I’ll do that right after bingo.”

She froze. “You know Mrs. Wilson?”

“Of course I do,” Nana said. “Known her for years. I believe we first met at the Garden Club meetings. Or maybe it was volunteering over at the old folks’ home. Before we were both old folks, of course. Anyway, she’s got an absolutely green thumb when it comes to roses. No one grows them as thick and pretty as Susie.” A pause while she chuckled. “Except me, of course. But then, I taught her everything she knows.”

While Nana rambled on about soil enhancements and the benefits of deadheading roses earlier rather than later in the season, Amy moved to the tiny kitchen table and sat down. From her vantage point, she could see the climbing rose on the trellis that Grandpa had built so long ago. In another month, the sturdy vine would be covered in a profusion of pink blooms.

A pity she wouldn’t be here. She would have to arrange with someone at the assisted-living facility to bring Nana out to see them.

“Sweetheart,” her grandmother said, “you’re a dear for letting me go on about roses and such, but I am afraid I’m going to have to hang up. It’s just about bingo time and I haven’t done a thing with my hair yet.”

“Of course. Have a great time with the ladies, Nana,” she said.

“I will, sweetie,” she said. “Oh, wait. Listen to me going on about flowers and bingo when I didn’t even think to ask what you’re going to do next.”

“Next?”

“Yes, you said you were finished with your job at the paper. What will you do next?”

Amy leaned back in the chair and thought of yesterday’s call from the temp agency. “I don’t know, Nana. I had thought once I was finished at the Gazette, I might…”

“You might what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just never thought that I was supposed to live in Vine Beach permanently.”

There. She’d said it. Aloud. Amy held her breath and waited for Nana’s response.

“Well, of course you didn’t,” her grandmother said lightly. “You came for me and now that I’m on the mend, you’ve got to decide what the Lord’s asking of you next.”

“Yes,” she said on an exhale of breath. “That’s it exactly.”

“So what’s He telling you, sweetie?”

“That’s the problem,” Amy admitted as she rose and moved down the hall toward the front door. “I keep asking, and I even sent out a few job inquiries, but so far He hasn’t responded and neither have the employers.”

“Yes, He has,” Nana said. “Surely you understand that no response is also an answer.”

Amy stood at the front door looking through its beveled glass to the beach and the shimmering water beyond. “I suppose,” she said. “But what I don’t understand is what I do about it.”

“It?”

“Staying in Vine Beach,” she said. “What’s God telling me about that?”

“In my experience when God isn’t telling you to do something new, He means for you to keep doing the last thing He told you to do.”

“Nana, I don’t even remember what that was,” she said as she saw a familiar truck pull into the driveway and stop.

“Sure you do, sweetie,” Nana said. “He told you to come to Vine Beach. Well, here you are and I suppose it’s here you stay until He says otherwise.”

“Yes, well, enjoy your day,” Amy said as she watched Eric Wilson climb out of the truck.

Eric slammed the truck door then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Coming here was a bad idea. But then so had going to the church support group for widowers. He’d managed to get all the way into the parking lot before good sense prevailed and he drove back home.

Back home, he’d found the quiet—brought on by his mother’s insistence on having a girls’ day with his daughters— impossible to bear. So he’d gone to work.

Another mistake, for the moment he drove into the parking lot, he was set upon by a woman who had hoped he kept office hours on Saturday. Suspiciously, she carried not a pet but a copy of yesterday’s Gazette.

That had sent Eric hurrying back to his truck. And somehow between Main Street and Vine Street, he’d decided to speak to Amy Spencer personally about the current state of his life. At least the part that was her fault.

He’d circled the block three times. Finding out where Amy Spencer lived had been easy, given the size of Vine Beach and his mother’s propensity to talk about who was related to whom.

Before he could change his mind again, Eric bounded toward the front steps of the picturesque home then stopped short of his destination when the door opened and Amy Spencer stepped out onto the porch. His gaze collided with blue eyes the color of the afternoon sky, and the speech he prepared—where he told her exactly how he felt about her part in everything from the humiliating headline to the near mutiny his office staff staged yesterday afternoon—completely evaporated.

Unlike her professional appearance yesterday, the classifieds girl’s curls had been captured in a somewhat messy knot at the nape of her neck, leaving her shoulders bare beneath the pale pink floral sundress. As the screen door slammed behind her, Amy’s eyes narrowed.

He hadn’t thought of it until just now, but Christy’s eyes had also been blue. Eric saw them every day in his daughter’s faces. But unlike the color of soft denim that his late wife had handed down to the girls, Amy Spencer’s eyes were the startling pale shade of robin’s eggs.

Eric expected she might speak first, and truly she appeared to consider it. When the silence stretched too long, he said, “I guess you’re wondering why I’m here.”

She worried with a small heart-shaped locket, strung on a thin gold chain at her neck. “If it’s about the job…”

Leaning against the rail, Eric felt the worn wood sway slightly. A quick look told him it could use a coat of paint, as well. Signs of a lack of attention that could easily be remedied. He forced his attention back on Miss Spencer. “The agency told me you turned my job offer down.”

“I did.”

Eric waited for an explanation, one that was obviously not forthcoming. “Any reason?” he finally asked. “I thought the salary was generous, and I can guarantee there will be plenty to keep you busy.”

Thanks to you and your snooping, he wanted to say.

“Yes, actually.” She stopped toying with the locket and allowed her hand to fall to her side. “I’m leaving Vine Beach soon.”

The news hit him with an unexpected stab of disappointment. And then he recalled just how much trouble Amy Spencer could pack into a short time.

“Soon as in when?” he said. “Because thanks to a certain article in the local paper, my office is swamped with women whose pets don’t have a thing wrong with them beyond the fact their owners are single. And my office staff? I’ve gone from wondering how I will pay the women I inherited from the vet who retired to wondering how I can keep them from quitting. So if you’re still here on Monday morning, I think it would be a good idea for you to come and help fix what you’ve caused.”

“Fix what I’ve caused?” She shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry for any trouble the newspaper article caused but I assure you it was not my intention.”

His patience snapped. “A reporter from the Houston Chronicle called yesterday, and my office manager told me she’s fielded phone calls from a half-dozen television stations in a four-state area as well as CNN and Fox News. And every one of them wants to know about my search for a wife. For a wife,” he repeated before taking a deep breath. “And never mind the fact I’m trying to figure out how to tell my daughters they’ve done something wrong without breaking their hearts. I’d call that trouble whether you intended it or not,” Eric managed in a calmer tone.

Color rose in Amy’s face, belying the cool breeze that danced through her curls. “I did not ask to be any part of this, Dr. Wilson. Your daughters called me.”

“They are children,” he said, though he suspected those children had more than a little help from his mother. How much help he’d yet to pry out of her. “And you are an adult.”

“As is your mother,” she said evenly.

That reminder caused him to pause a moment. “While I’m sure they were only trying to help me,” he said after a moment, “I can’t say that I believe that’s what you were thinking.”

“Oh, really?” The former classifieds girl straightened her spine and eyed him as if he were the most distasteful thing she’d seen all day. “What is it you believe I was thinking?”

“I believe you were asking yourself how you could get out of the classifieds department and into the big time as a real reporter. And along came my three girls. Bam! You had your story.”

“And I planned all that?” Sarcasm seeped from her words. “Really?”

Logic took a little of the bluster from his response. “No,” he said slowly as he struggled to think on the fly, “but you seized the opportunity when it was presented to you.”

“Seized the opportunity,” she echoed. “That’s an interesting theory, Dr. Wilson. But if I’m so interested to rise to the coveted ranks of reporter at the Gazette, explain to me why not only do I no longer work there as of Thursday at 4:00 p.m., but I am also planning to leave Vine Beach.” A pause, punctuated by a triumphant stare. “How do you explain that?”

He picked at a flake of white paint on the stair rail then sent her a look. “I’d explain it by saying you got a better offer. My guess is Houston or Dallas.”

Her laughter caught him by surprise. “I hope you’re better at diagnosing animals than you are at figuring out people.”

Eric had no response for that. A passing car honked and Eric turned to see Riley Burkett, a friend he’d met at church. He returned Riley’s wave then looked once again at Amy Spencer.

“So, you’re not as quick to speak now?” she said.

“I’ve said enough.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “And I stand by what I said.”

“Then you’ll be surprised to know that I am a florist by trade, not a reporter, and I have no intention of having anything to do with a newspaper of any kind other than reading one on occasion. I came to Vine Beach to take care of my grandmother after her fall.” Her expression sobered. “I thought your mother had fallen. That’s how all this started.”

Her statement took Eric aback. “What are you talking about?”

She gave him a pointed look. “When the girls called, I thought it was a prank call. I worked in classifieds three months. You’d be surprised at what people think is funny.”

Rather than respond, Eric remained silent.

“The call came in while I was out at lunch.” She paused. “Talking to you in the park, actually.” Amy appeared to let the statement sink in a moment before continuing. “So when I got back to my desk, there was the sweetest message. I returned the call. Your mother answered, and she passed the phone on to one of the girls. All three of them, actually, but anyway, before we could complete the wording of the ad, there was a crash and some noise that sounded like breaking glass. Then the screaming. And there was barking, which I now know belonged to Skipper. The dog.”

“Yes, I know my own dog’s name,” he snapped. “Sorry. You were saying.”

“The line disconnected, and when I tried to call back no one answered. I assumed…”

Realization dawned. “You assumed my mother had fallen.”

Her nod was almost imperceptible. “No one was there when my grandmother fell. She lay there for hours until…”

An image that didn’t quite fit his idea of who Amy Spencer was rose in his mind. Until now he’d imagined she’d gone to his home in search of a story.

“Anyway,” she continued, “as it turns out, the dog knocked a platter of sandwiches off the counter. That was the cause of the sound of breaking glass as well as all the other noise. And lest you think your mom was being negligent, she told me she was just outside the back door watering her roses.”

Eric took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then I owe you an apology. For being wrong about why you went to my home.” He held up his hand to silence her response. “However, the fact remains that you sold my daughters and me up the river with that article, and now my office is full of women thinking they want to be the next Mrs. Wilson.”

Laughter again, this time with much more humor in it. “Isn’t that what the girls wanted?”