Читать книгу The Husband Project - Kristine Rolofson, Kristine Rolofson - Страница 9
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
“MOM! HELP!”
“Mrs. Swallow?”
“Mommy!”
Lucia heard the screams coming from her backyard as soon as she opened the car door. It took her six seconds to run, slipping on fresh snow piling up on old snow, from the driveway through the space between her house and the Kelly house. Sure enough, there was a body in the backyard. Lucia’s heart seemed to stop for a moment, until she realized her three children and their babysitter, Kim, were not hurt. They looked at her and called for her, but their voices held more excitement than horror.
Her first thought: someone had fallen. The witch next door? No, the body was large, man-sized. Had Kim’s grandfather had a heart attack? The old man sometimes stopped in to check on his granddaughters, twin volleyball stars.
Tony, age four and the image of his father, ran as fast as he could toward Lucia. “Mom, we caught a thief! We caught a thief!”
“A robber,” her oldest son, Davey, insisted, calling from the back of the small yard. “I hit a robber!”
“He doesn’t dress like a robber,” was the first thing Lucia said as she hurried over, because the man lifting his face from the snow wore a new jacket and expensive hiking boots. “What happened? Did you call Hip?”
“I was just about to,” Kim said. “We were checking for a pulse. He has one. It’s a little rapid, but within range.” She held up her phone. “I just looked it up.”
Lucia leaned closer. “Can you tell us where you’re hurt?”
“I don’t think he’s a robber at all. He’s a nameless victim of inclement weather,” her babysitter declared, her cell phone clutched in her ungloved hands. “That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.”
The so-called robber groaned and rolled over onto his side. Thank goodness he wasn’t dead. Finding a dead thief in the backyard would not keep one in the holiday spirit. Finding some poor man frozen to death less than twenty feet from her warm kitchen would be positively tragic.
Boo growled, warning the man not to leap up and attack the children.
“Boo,” Lucia said, hoping the dog would listen to her. “It’s okay.” When he looked to her and wagged his tail, she knew the animal was enjoying the drama as much as her babysitter was. He turned back to the man in the snow and whined.
“Help,” the stranger groaned. “Get...them...away from me.”
“He was stealing our wood,” Davey said. “I was getting wood, like you told me to, and there was a guy stealin’ it!”
“Stealing our wood!” Matty cried, jumping up and down in the snow. His hat was missing and his ears were red. “The man was stealing our wood!”
“He’s not dead. See? I told you he had a pulse,” Kim said as she took pictures with her cell phone.
“Kim, stop that,” Lucia ordered, but she knew it was useless. Within seconds at least half the senior class of Willing High would know there was a strange man in her backyard and by tomorrow morning his photograph would be on the front page of the Willing Gazette’s Facebook page. “Don’t Twitter it, either.”
“Too late,” she said, stuffing her phone into her pocket. “Already sent. It’s a done deal, Mrs. Swallow. Sorry. But I’m glad he’s not dead. Really.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and studied it for a few seconds. “My grandpa wants to know if you called the sheriff.”
“Tell him I’ll get back to him.”
“Okay.” Kim’s thumbs flew over the keyboard. “I’ll tell him to ‘stand down.’”
“Down!” echoed little Tony, holding Lucia’s hand as he bounced up and down like his older brother. “Down, down, down!”
“Shh,” Lucia said. “All of you, be quiet and let me find out who he is.”
She knelt over the stranger in the snow, looked into pain-filled blue eyes and saw a very angry, very unfamiliar, very handsome man. He didn’t seem dangerous. Just intensely aggravated and somewhat humiliated, the way men get when they’re not in control. “Can you tell me who you are? Are you hurt? We’re going to call for help.”
“Don’t. Need. Help. Ribs,” he rasped. “Cracked.”
She turned to her son. “You broke his ribs?”
Davey stared at her, his eyes large. “Not on purpose. He was stealing our wood,” he whispered. “No one steals wood. Except bad people.”
“Not. Stealing.” The man moaned. “Renting. House.”
“From Jerry? Claire’s house?”
“Kelly,” he said. “The woman who died.” He tried to take another breath, but winced. “Purple.”
Kim muttered, thumbs once again punching her phone. “How do you spell delirious?”
Lucia ignored the question and focused again on the man. There was no blood, no obvious broken bones, but that didn’t mean he was okay. “I think you need to go to the hospital.”
He struggled to sit up. “I just...got out of one. So, no. The answer...is no.”
“You might want to think about it,” she said. “You look a little out of it.”
“Long...day,” he said.
“Okay,” she told him, deciding to save the discussion for later, after they were all out of the snow. “Just hold on for a sec and I’ll get you back inside before we all freeze to death out here.” She straightened and faced her boys. “Davey, take your brothers home. Now.”
“But—”
“Now.”
He knew she meant it, so he reached for Tony’s hand and led him across the snow-covered yard. Her youngest child continued to bounce despite the snow that should have slowed him down.
Matty hesitated. “Can I stay?”
“No, sweetheart. Your ears are cold. Go on, and call Boo with you.”
The dog had planted his rear end in the snow and had taken it upon himself to guard the new neighbor, someone he obviously saw as a potential threat to his temporary family. He’d been staying with Lucia while Owen, the future bridegroom, was out of town. It was like having another child, Lucia thought, watching the dog’s ears flick when he heard his name.
“Boo,” Lucia said. “Go with the kids.”
The dog looked disappointed. He may have even sighed. But he stood and shook off the snow before trotting obediently after Matt.
“We’re gonna have cookies,” the boy promised. “A whole lot of ’em, and they have red sprinkles on top. Green, too.”
Boo knew what cookies were. He wagged his tail a couple of times and broke into a run, racing Matty to the back door.
“Can you stand?”
“Eventually.”
She turned to her teenaged babysitter. “You get on one side, I’ll get on the other.”
She looked back down at the man. He was about forty, broad-shouldered—and more than a little handsome, she noted anew. “So you’re renting Mrs. Kelly’s house?”
“Yeah.” He managed to nod as he lifted himself up on one elbow. “Get me up. The wood stove,” he panted. “Needs wood.”
“Sure.” She motioned to Kim to help her. Together they managed to hoist the man to his feet. Split logs lay in the snow at their feet, and Lucia bent to collect them, until she realized he couldn’t walk without help. She’d come back for the logs later.
“I’m really sorry about this,” she said, dusting snow off the front of his jacket. “Put your arm around me. You don’t want to fall again.”
“I didn’t...want to fall the first time.”
At least he was breathing a little more normally. He was taller than she’d thought, at least a foot taller than her. His close-cropped dark hair was flecked with gray and wet with snow, which also clung to the front of his jeans. He shivered and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“I can help—”
“I’m fine,” he interrupted, but he sounded more tired than angry now. “I can walk. What I can’t do is...fend off little boys...and a dog. In a foot of snow.”
He tromped carefully toward Mrs. Kelly’s back door, Lucia and Kim following him until Lucia told Kim to go back to the kids. “I’ll be home in a few minutes.”
“No hurry. I’m gonna go put the pics on Facebook.”
Wonderful. “My mother-in-law will phone me as soon as you do, so tell her I’ll call her back after I defrost the neighbor.”
“Cool.”
She followed the nonrobber into his house, where he made it clear she wasn’t welcome. He sank onto one of the two kitchen chairs and stared at his wet boots. Lucia paused inside the door and kicked her suede boots off. She walked gingerly around the little mounds of snow the stranger had tracked in and turned up the thermostat on the wall next to the refrigerator. “It’s cold in here. You were trying to get a fire going?”
“I wasn’t stealing wood.” He gestured out the window to the shed.
“Of course you were. You just didn’t know,” she said, hoping to comfort him.
“That’s not my shed?”
“Nope.”
He sighed, a deep heartfelt sound that was almost comical.
“I can see where you’d think it was,” she offered cheerfully. “The yards kinda blend. I’m going to build a fire so you have a little more heat in here. Go take a shower. Can you manage that? You need to warm up.”
“I don’t know you. I’m Sam Hove.”
“I’m Lucia Swallow. Your next-door neighbor. Your—”
“The pie lady?”
“Yes.”
“You smell like rum, your kids run wild and your dog attacked me.”
He looked so disappointed. Obviously she was not what he’d expected. If she hadn’t been so amused, her feelings would have been hurt.
“I smell like rum because I was at a bridal shower and there was punch. A really delicious punch.” She didn’t explain that she’d spilled some on herself while washing the punch bowl, or that she’d been too tired to have more than a token sip during the toast to Meg’s marital bliss. “My kids are boys. I try not to let them run wild, but they do...run. And the dog? Is not mine, but he’s not wild, either. I’m dog sitting for the groom.”
“Groom?”
“Who’s marrying the woman whose bridal shower it was, but he’s out of town. Now, go take a shower and I’ll make a fire.” She didn’t say she’d return with some lasagna and garlic bread leftover from last night’s dinner. He looked as though he could use something to eat.
“I can’t,” he said after a long moment.
“Why not?” She was as patient as she’d be with little Tony, who often stared at his feet and said “I can’t” in a pitiful voice.
“I can’t get my boots off.” He smiled, the barest of smiles on his tanned face. Her heart did a tiny—very tiny—flip.
“Ah, those cracked ribs.” She drew a chair up opposite him. “Come on, give me your foot.”
He hesitated, eyeing her as if she might be playing a joke on him.
“I’m a mother,” she said. “I do this kind of thing all the time.”
“Not to me,” he muttered, but raised his leg and rested the heel on her leg. In a matter of seconds she’d untied the snow-drenched knot, released the frozen laces and pulled his new boot off. She did the same for the other boot. “You were going to wear these until your ribs healed?”
“I didn’t think that part through.”
“Obviously.” She held the boots by two fingers. “I’ll put these by the stove so they’ll dry out.”
“You don’t—”
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I thought you’d be a lot older.”
“I feel about ninety.”
“Jerry said you were some kind of professor. Retired. I pictured a frail, fragile elderly gentleman who liked soup and drank Earl Grey tea.”
“I thought pie ladies were old. Great-grandmothers wearing aprons.”
“Then I guess we’re both disappointed,” she assured him.
* * *
DAVEY SWALLOW NEVER meant to kill anyone, but for a few minutes outside in the snow he was awfully afraid he’d done it anyway. He and Matt had taken Boo outside to play in the snow after convincing Kim that their mother wouldn’t mind. Mom didn’t care if they made snowballs and built a snow fort as long as they didn’t leave the yard. Davey knew he was in charge of Matt and Matt knew it, too, though sometimes he griped. Most of the time Matt just followed him around and that was okay.
Sort of.
Except that Matty talked too much. Tony used to be quiet, but lately he’d started talking, too. Except he was only four and didn’t know any different. Davey thought that the world would be better if people didn’t talk so much. There were seven girls and four boys in his third-grade class and the seven girls never shut up. They talked about books and horses and television and video games and their older sisters. They talked about their dogs and their kittens and their favorite colors and when their mothers would let them get a cell phone.
They talked about homework. They talked about each other. They talked about the boys.
One time Davey wore ear plugs, but Mrs. Kramer caught him and made him take them out. She made him stay after school and asked him a lot of questions about whether he was happy or having a hard time or being bullied or having trouble at home.
He’d tried to tell her he liked being quiet. He told her he liked The Quiet, as if it was a place he could escape to: The Quiet, like The Beach. The Desert. The Mountains.
She wrote a note to his mom suggesting he have his ears checked.
When he told his mom about The Quiet, she’d listened very carefully. He liked that about his mom. She listened harder than anyone he knew. He bet his dad liked to talk to her. Sometimes, if he concentrated real hard, he could hear his dad’s voice. When he was in bed at night, he’d pretend he could hear the murmurs of his mom and dad talking. He’d remember his mother laughing a little bit, his father teasing her, the noise of the television or the water splashing in the sink as the dishes were washed.
He liked those sounds.
But now he was stuck with listening to Tony and Matt fight over who had the best Matchbox car while Tony’s favorite television show blared in the background. Kim’s thumbs were flying over her cell phone, which impressed Davey no end. At this rate he’d be twenty before he ever got his own phone.
And who was the man in the snow?
“I didn’t mean to knock him down,” he told Kim. “Boo kinda bumped me and I kinda bumped the man.”
“I know,” Kim assured him. “You’re not exactly the violent type.”
“What type am I?”
She glanced up from her phone and gave him the once-over. “You’re a cute, geeky boy, but geeky in a good way, you know?”
Davey guessed that was okay. “He said he broke his ribs.”
“Nah,” she said. “I think he was just being dramatic. He looked like the type.”
“You think this’ll count against me?”
Kim tilted her head and considered the question. She knew all about the third grade project, knew that Davey wanted to win the prize. “You have the rules somewhere?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me see.”
Davey pulled out his notebook and removed a carefully folded sheet of blue paper from the inside pocket of the binder. He unfolded it and handed it to Kim. “I don’t think it’ll count against me, but I’m not sure.”
Kim read it carefully, moving her lips a little as she did. She shook her head. “There’s nothing here about penalties.” She handed it back to him. “Just a warning that you can’t, well, arrange things so you can get a point.”
“Yeah. I didn’t get that part.”
Kim thought for a second. “It would be like making a big mess in the kitchen, without anyone knowing you did it. Then you clean it up, like you’re surprised there’s a mess. That doesn’t qualify as a Random Act of Kindness.”
“It has to be random,” he said, trying out the word on his tongue. “Random Acts of Kindness.”
“Yep.” She grinned. “Like when you see I don’t have a cookie and you know I like the ones with the red sprinkles and you sneak one in front of me when I’m not looking.”
Davey grinned back. “You talk a lot, but that’s okay.”
He gave her two, both with red sugar sprinkles, the biggest ones he could find in the plastic box.
* * *
SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL, but that was the least of his problems. He’d been around beautiful, black-haired women before, though this one was exquisite. Petite and delicate, with that waterfall of silky hair and greenish eyes that twinkled with good humor. The problem was his feeling that she was pure steel. Her sons had not argued with her when she’d told them to go home. The hellions had done what they were told, however reluctant they were to leave her with a firewood thief. He looked forward to meeting her husband. He pictured a soft-spoken giant who took orders well and behaved himself.
He’d never felt so helpless in his adult life.
She wasn’t getting the message to leave him alone. In fact, she’d ordered him to have a hot shower—after checking to make sure there was hot water, a slip-proof mat in the bathtub and fresh towels—and she’d carried his two duffel bags into the bathroom. She’d even unzipped them to save him the trouble of bending over to do it.
When she’d left the bathroom, he’d managed to kick out a clean pair of sweat pants and a long sleeved T-shirt.
“Are you okay?” she called from the hall. He locked the bathroom door because he wouldn’t put it past this woman to walk in and make sure he’d washed behind his ears.
“Yes, but you don’t—”
“Good.”
He’d heard nothing after that, so he carefully stripped off his clothes and, with some dexterous toe action, removed his thick wool socks. He adjusted the water, eased his cold body under the shower spray and realized the pain pill had eased some of the ache in his chest. Hallelujah.
He was going to survive this day after all. He retrieved the new bar of soap he’d noticed earlier and, after scrubbing himself with a faded purple washcloth, stood underneath the hot stream of water for at least ten minutes before carefully stepping onto the bath mat that Lucia Swallow had put in place. Both bath towels had violets embroidered on the edges. He rubbed his hair with one towel and wrapped another around his waist.
And he spotted the electric heater imbedded in the wall. Thank you, Mrs. Kelly, he thought, pushing the buttons until a blast of hot air hit him in the knees. He stood there for long, blissful minutes as the heat fanned his legs and warmed his feet.
“Mr. Hove?”
Damn. He drew a deep breath, then regretted the action when a now-familiar pain caught him in the right side of his chest. “Yes?”
“Just checking,” she said through the door, her voice as cheerful as a nurse’s. “You’re okay?”
“Fine.”
“No dizzy spells or anything like that?”
“No,” he declared, gingerly pulling the shirt over his head. “I thought you’d left.”
In fact, he’d hoped like hell she had. He stood half-naked in a purple bathroom. There was no sound from the other side of the door, so he hoped she’d finally taken the hint and gone home to her kids and her cowed, silent, pathetic husband. Sam finished putting his pants on, but decided not to struggle with socks. He unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out into the hall.
He smelled tomato sauce. Oregano. Coffee.
He inched down the hall and around the corner to the kitchen where Lucia Swallow stood in front of a microwave oven. Inside the oven a dinner plate rotated and sizzled, its wax paper tent flapping.
“I built a fire,” she said without turning around. She opened the microwave door and poked at the wax paper topping the food, then closed the door and turned the microwave back on. “It might take a while for the house to warm up, but the woodstove’s big and it should be fine for the night if you turn it down before you go to bed.”
“You carried wood?”
She turned and smiled at him. “How else would I fix the fire?”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“My kids knocked you down.” Her smile had disappeared.
“Your kids didn’t break my ribs.”
“So who did?”
“It was an accident.” She stared at him, waiting for more of an explanation. He felt about ten years old. “At work. I was hit by an Arapaima.”
“A what?”
“A fish.”
She frowned. “A fish broke your ribs?”
“A very large fish. And it cracked my ribs, not broke them. Three of them. Hurts like he—heck.”
“I’m sure it does.” A little furrow sprang between those delicate wing-shaped eyebrows.
“I’m actually doing fine. Healing according to schedule.”
“Even after falling in the snow?”
“Yeah. Even after that.” He didn’t feel any worse now than he had a couple of hours ago. In fact, after the hot shower and donning warm clothes, he felt better than he had in days. “The pain pill has kicked in.”
The microwave stopped groaning and pinged. Yes, he definitely smelled oregano and garlic.
“I assume you’re hungry?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Sit.”
He sat. She placed silverware and a napkin in front of him, then uncovered a plate piled high with lasagna and meatballs.
“You’re kidding me.”
“What? You don’t like Italian food?”
“It’s not that. It’s...the best thing I’ve seen in weeks.” Since a plate of pasticho in Brazil, but he’d been in too much pain to really enjoy that meal.
“I made coffee.”
“How did you do all this so fast?”
“I’m a mother. I’m efficient. I had Kim—the babysitter—bring over a plate of leftovers.” She shot him a quick smile. “And you take very, very long showers.”
He picked up his fork and tasted heaven, Italian style. Meanwhile Lucia Swallow shrugged on her jacket, which she’d hung by the back door, wound a striped scarf around her neck, tugged on her thick suede boots and pointed to a piece of paper stuck by a flower-shaped magnet to the refrigerator. “Jerry left you a list of contacts, including someone who’ll deliver firewood.”
He nodded, his mouth full of pasta.
“You’re welcome to our wood until you get your own. I’ll have the boys stack some by the back door for the morning.”
He swallowed and attempted to thank her, but before he could get the words out, she was gone.
Thank goodness.
* * *
“WAIT A MINUTE, say that once more?”
“He told me I smelled like alcohol and my kids were hellions.” Lucia laughed again just thinking about it. Curled up on her couch with three children, a dog and four bowls of popcorn, she was ready to talk over the afternoon with Meg. Her best friend had had little free time for phone calls lately, so this was a luxury.
“And you said?”
“Well, I told him I’d been to a bridal shower.”
“Seriously, Lucia, you are too nice.” It didn’t sound like a compliment, and since Lucia had heard that description of herself before, she didn’t take it as one.
“I know. I should have lost my temper and hit him with a piece of red fir. I was rude to him, though.”
“Lucia, sweetie, you couldn’t be rude if you tried.”
“Wait until you meet him. He’s hurt, so I get the ‘injured male’ frustration, but he won’t exactly fit in around here. I mean, he’s got major attitude happening.” She moved a popcorn bowl away from Boo’s sneaky nose.
“What does he look like? How old is he? Did he really look sick?”
“He’s handsome, late thirties, early forties, maybe. And he really did look as if he was in pain. I felt bad about that. You should have seen him, a body in the snow, with the kids jumping around and Kim taking pictures with her phone.” Now Lucia’s boys were entranced with a movie about a reindeer, one of their very favorites. The kids seemed like little angels, but she knew better.
“Handsome,” Meg repeated. “I knew I should have come home with you.”
“My life needs some excitement. I wonder how he got here?”
“Have Mike interview him for the new arrivals section.”
“There is no new arrivals section,” Lucia pointed out.
“He could make one up, just so we’d know who this guy is. Remember a couple of years ago? The man with the snowmobile?”
“The one who was hiding from the mob?”
“He had no credit history. And he wasn’t very friendly.”
Lucia lowered her voice. “I don’t want some mobster hiding out next door, but this guy doesn’t even seem like he knows what he’s doing here.”
“Jerry will know. He gets back tomorrow. I’m going to email him now. Have you done a Google search on the guy?”
“I will later. I’m going to frost another batch of cookies as soon as I hang up.”
“Can I come over?”
“Of course—if you want to watch Rudolph again.”
“Maybe not.” She paused. “I loved my party.”
“I know.”
“I loved all my gifts, even the frog sponge holder. Especially the frog sponge holder. I don’t know how you find things like that.”
Lucia climbed off the couch and retrieved the empty popcorn bowls. “It takes talent to be tacky.”
“It’s a real gift,” Meg agreed. “You’re a thrift shop queen.”
“No, I’m a boozed-up bad mother with a vicious dog.”
Meg’s howl of laughter rang through the phone loud and clear. “If he only knew.”
“I do feel bad about the kids knocking him down.”
“They’re too little to knock anyone down. I don’t believe it.”
“Well, the snow was slippery. Davey said the man lost his balance, and Boo didn’t help.”
“Stay away from him,” Meg said. “At least until Owen gets back and can check him out.”
“I left a message with Jerry,” Lucia admitted. “I asked if he’d done a background check on the guy.”
“I’m going to do a Google search on him. If I find anything I’ll call you back.”
“You’re not coming over?” Lucia tried not to sound disappointed, but winter nights were long and she’d looked forward to the company.
“There’s another foot of snow on the ground,” Meg said. “I think I’ll stay home, look at bridal magazines and admire my gifts.”
“Pick out a cake,” Lucia said. “I need design ideas.”
The next time the phone rang, Lucia was washing cupcake pans. She dried her hands and checked the caller ID. “Hi, Mama.”
“Who is this man in the snow?” Marie didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
“What man?” When in trouble, feign innocence. Her kids had taught her that.
“On Facebook. I’m friends with Kim.”
“You’ve friended everyone in town.”
“It’s nice. All my friends in Rhode Island do it. It’s how we keep in touch.”
“The man in the snow is renting Mrs. Kelly’s house,” Lucia explained.
“She was a nice woman,” Mama went on. “But no family. I always thought that was strange—not that I would say anything. But she was good to the boys, letting them come over and eat candy—not that I approve of too much candy. But it was good of her to be kind to them.”
“She was a lovely person,” Lucia agreed.
“Unlike the witch on the other side of you.”
“Mama!”
“Even her cat didn’t want to live with her. First her husband leaves and then the cat.”
“I think she’s a very unhappy person.” Lucia didn’t know why she was defending the woman. There wasn’t a meaner person in town than Paula Beckett. No one knew if she was seventy or ninety; she’d moved to Willing years before Lucia and Tony had bought their house. They’d attempted to befriend her, but she’d told them to stay on their side of the fence and not to have any wild parties, wild dogs or wild children. Lucia, holding her first adorable infant, had been shocked into silence at such rudeness. Her husband, a dangerous glint in his eye, had replied, “Yes, ma’am, and I’ll expect you’ll do the same.”
“I won’t waste any prayers on her,” Mama sniffed.
It was the ultimate rejection.
“The party was wonderful,” Lucia said, attempting to distract her mother-in-law from worrying about the neighbors. “Meg was thrilled.”
“She’s a good girl. And that Owen? A good man. He reminds me of Tony, big and strong.”
“He does a little.” Although her husband had been five-ten, a burly wrestler type and solid muscle. Owen, a rancher now, was taller. More basketball player than wrestler. And Sam Hove? Six-two, at least, and definitely in shape. She suspected he had spent a lot of time outdoors. His skin was tanned, his large hands calloused and scarred.
A boxer, she thought. He had hands like a fighter. What had he said about being hit by a fish?
“Stay away from that man, and keep the boys away until we find out more about him.”
Lucia promised and ended the call. Good thing she hadn’t told Mama about making the poor man take a shower.
