Enright Family Collection (101 page)

“You think Addie keeps her eye on this garden?” Zoey began to rake, pulling the leaves toward her with long strokes.

He nodded. “I don’t think Addie’s missed a thing.”

“There’s a scary thought,” Zoey said, looking up to the house and the second-floor bedroom where she and Ben had spent so many nights. Even here, in the garden, they had made love on more than one occasion. Why, right here where she raked, they had . . . She blushed at the thought of Addie Kilmartin keeping tabs on the goings-on at her old home.

As if reading her mind, Wally laughed out loud. “I sure had you going for a minute there, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” She laughed in spite of herself.

“Good to see you laugh, Zoey.” He puffed on his pipe.

She understood what he was saying—that she didn’t seem to laugh as much anymore—but couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it. To do so would invite conversation
about why, and they both knew why. There was no point in discussing it.

Wally apparently didn’t agree.

“So. When’s the boyfriend due back in town?” he asked.

Zoey shrugged as if it wasn’t of consequence, though they both knew differently. “I’m not sure.”

“How’s that?”

He just wouldn’t let it drop. Zoey leaned on her rake and said, “Something came up and Ben couldn’t make it home last week. And no, he can’t make it home this weekend either.” She started to rake a little more fiercely, stabbing at the leaves as if they were somehow responsible for her present situation. “And don’t ask, Wally, ’cause I don’t know when he’ll be here, okay?”

“I hear you, loud and clear.” He nodded. “Course, that probably means that you don’t have a partner for the paddleboat races this year.”

“Is that this weekend?” She frowned.

“It is,” he told her.

“Has it been a whole year since I met you?” She stopped again, confounded by the realization that a whole year had gone by since she had first seen the house that had become her beloved home, a whole year since Wally had befriended her. And in that one short year, Ben had come back and, miracle of miracles, he had loved her.

“Yup. The sixtieth Brady’s Mill Pumpkin Fest will open at eleven A.M. on Sunday.” Smoke puffed from the bowl of his pipe. “So. Whatcha say?”

“About what?”

“About the paddleboat race on Sunday. Want to make it two for two?” He grinned. “Word around the post office has it that Clifford and Nancy are just itching to challenge us.”

“Well, then, Clifford and Nancy had better practice up this week”—Zoey grinned—“because the reigning champions will be back to defend their title on Sunday.”

The reigning champions of the Brady’s Mill paddle boat
race scored an easy victory, and as she stood on the dock with Wally to accept the prize, Zoey felt a certain satisfaction. She loved this little town. She fit in here—
fit like a glove,
Wally would say. And later, as she lined her front porch steps with the pumpkins she had bought that day at the Brady’s Mill Pumpkin Fest, she wished that Ben had been there to share the sheer fun of it, the camaraderie, the laughs, the simple pleasure of drinking a cup of cool, fresh apple cider, and the warmth of the sweet autumn sunshine. Maybe next year Ben would be there.

Sure.
She shrugged without enthusiasm as she went into the house and locked up for the night.
Sure he will
. . .

On the following Tuesday afternoon, she walked off her cooking set—peanut satay (“Okay, who’s the wise guy who thought that it would be fun to watch me do Thai?”) and was flagged down by her producer, who told her, “You’re wanted in the boss’s office.”

“Whoops, I guess there was a little too much lime juice in the dipping sauce for good old Petey.” She grimaced as she took off her apron and folded it under her arm. Made of heavy black cotton, it loudly pronounced “To hell with housework” in red block letters. Ben had sent it to her his first week in England and it had become a show favorite.

She took the steps two at a time, wondering what Peter wanted to see her about. Maybe he’s had enough of my cooking. She grinned to herself, having instructed the show coordinator to make sure that a serving of whatever it was she had cooked went to the man who sat behind the big desk in the executive suite. Maybe he’d get the message and let her off the hook, she reasoned.

She smiled at Beth, the secretary Peter had inherited when he took over Ben’s old job.

“Go right on in,” Beth said without looking up. “He’s expecting you.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but you’re really turning into a good cook.”

Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice and she stopped dead in her tracks.

She must be hallucinating.

She must want so badly to see Ben behind that desk that she had conjured up his image.

“This really isn’t all that bad. Did you taste it?” Her vision held the fork out to her, as if they were in some small, intimate restaurant somewhere sharing a romantic dinner for two.

She shook her head dumbly.

“No?” He grinned. “Don’t trust your own cooking? Well, then, maybe you’d rather go out for lunch?”

She still could not speak. He was acting as if. . . well, as if he’d never been gone, as if the past few months had been an unpleasant dream.

“I personally can vouch for the satay, but. . .” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, gosh, we’re going to be late. We’d better get going.”

“Late?” She managed to get out the one word in a sort of squeak.

“For our appointment.” He walked from behind his desk, and took her elbow, pausing to kiss her gently.

“What appointment?” she asked, not bothering to close her eyes, although her lips were tingling at the touch of his mouth and it would have been oh so easy to wrap her arms around him and lose herself there.

“Beth, take a long lunch for yourself. Leave early if you like,” he told his secretary as he escorted Zoey through the doorway and into the hall.

“There’s no place in this world like Pennsylvania in the fall,” he said as they strolled toward his car, Zoey still wide-eyed and wanting to pinch herself. “And don’t you think,” he said as he started the car, “that the trees are particularly beautiful this year? Have you ever seen such a shade of red before?”

“Ah, no.” She shook her head.

“And how ’bout that one, that Japanese maple,” he pointed to a small graceful tree with leaves like coral-colored lace. “Gorgeous.”

“Ummm,” she nodded, sneaking a glance at him from across the console.

Ben slipped a CD into the stereo, pausing to ask, “How do you feel about Pink Floyd?”

She nodded. “Fine.”

He hit the button and “Dark Side of the Moon” filled the small car with music and maniacal laughter.

Why, of course. That’s it,
she reasoned calmly.
He’s lost his mind. That would explain his bizarre behavior.

“Where are we going, Ben?” she asked in cool, soothing tones.

“It’s a surprise,” he told her, grinning as if very pleased with himself.

“Give me a hint.”

“Well, you see, when I was in England—”

“Oh, good. So you
do
realize that you’ve been away.”

“Of course I realize I’ve been away.” He frowned at her.

“Go on.” She gestured.

“Well, when I was away, I had time to think about it. To put it all into perspective, you know?”

She didn’t, but she nodded anyway.

“And I came to the realization that if I wasn’t doing what I really loved to do—which is racing—then what was I doing
there,
alone, when I could be
here,
with you?”

“I give up. What were you doing there?”

“I was running a business. Which in itself is not a bad thing to do. But then it occurred to me that if I was going to be a businessman, I didn’t need to be there.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. Tony could hire anyone to do what I was doing. He didn’t need me to do that job. But Delaney, now that’s a different story altogether.” He peered in the rearview mirror, then made a quick right-hand turn down a narrow two-lane country road. “Delaney needs me. I’m the only grandson—the only living relative—he has. And besides, I had started to like the HMP. It’s not quite the same as
driving,
but then again, neither is
building engines. So Tony and I had to sit down and talk about where the company was going and where I was going.”

“Which was . . .?”

“Back here, of course.”

“Back here?” Zoey’s heart flipped over. “To stay?”

“Of course, to stay.” He took her hand and squeezed it, then said, “Hey, I think we’re here.”

He made a left into a wide driveway and stopped in front of a three-car garage that sat well behind a white farmhouse. Without another word he hopped out and was around the car to open Zoey’s door before she could ask
where.

Which she did, as soon as she got out of the car.

“Ben, where are we?” She grabbed his arm.

He took her hand as the back door opened and a trim woman in her mid-fifties stepped out onto the small porch.

“Hi.” He smiled as he led Zoey toward the steps. “I’m Ben Pierce. I called earlier.”

The woman smiled at Zoey and said, “They’re all awake now, but you know how babies are. Awake and playful one minute, napping the next. Come in, come in.” She stepped back so that Ben and Zoey could follow her into the house.

“This way.” She beckoned to them.

Zoey stopped and sniffed at the particular smell of the house, something vaguely familiar that she just could not place.

“They’re in here,” the woman told them as she opened a door, and a flood of yellow fur spilled out onto the tiled kitchen floor.

Ben’s laughter filled the room as a dozen balls of pale gold rolled onto the floor in a moving heap.

“Puppies!” Zoey exclaimed. “They’re puppies!”

“They certainly are,” Ben picked up first one, then the other, as if silently evaluating the merits of each.

“What are they?” Zoey asked.

“Golden retrievers,” the woman responded, then bent
over just slightly to scratch the head of the much larger lump of lumbering pale fur. “It’s okay, LuLu,” she crooned. “No one will hurt your babies.”

Zoey’s head was spinning, much as the yellow lumps were spinning around her feet and licking at her legs. One, two, three runs sped down the side of her leg as her pantyhose fell victim to a platoon of tiny puppy toes. She leaned over and picked up the pup who had started an assault on the heel of her shoe.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Zoey laughed as the pup merrily slurped her face with an eager pink tongue.

“Which one do you think, Zoe?” Ben asked, holding up a waggy-tailed specimen who looked a bit brawnier than the one that was still washing Zoey’s face.

“Which one what?” She asked.

“Which one do we want?” He spoke as if they had discussed it.

Zoey thought that she could hear the crazy-man laughter from “Dark Side of the Moon” all over again.

“Which one do we want?” she repeated.

“Which puppy. Zoey, are you feeling all right?”

“I feel fine.”

“Good. Which puppy do we want?”

“Do we want a puppy?” she paused to ask.

“Why, yeah. We do. Definitely.” He nodded.

“Oh, well, then, I guess maybe . . .” She looked down at the soft bundle of fur that squirmed in her arms and the rollicking mass that rolled at her feet. How did one decide such a thing with so many to choose from?

“Several have been sold,” the woman told them, and she proceeded to point out five that had already been spoken for.

“How can you tell them apart?” Zoey asked. “They all look alike to me.”

“They all have their little differences,” the breeder said. “Now, that one there, that you’re holding”—she pointed to the pup in Zoey’s arms—“she’s going to be a real pistol. She’s the one who starts the others into
scratching at the door to go outside. She likes the fresh air. But she’s the runt. She’ll always be small, small-boned and small at the shoulder. Now that one”—she pointed to the pup Ben picked up—“he’s the biggest male in the litter. He’ll be a real bruiser when he’s full grown.”

Ah, yes, Ben sighed. His Big Dog. He could see them now, taking off through the fields this time next year. Maybe even do a little duck hunting . . .

“I think I like this one, Ben.”

Ben frowned. The pup Zoey was holding up was not his Big Dog.

“Zoey, she’s the runt,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“So?”

“So, she’s not going to grow to be that big. Now, this little guy here . . .”

“Why does she have to be big?” Zoey frowned.

“Because that’s what a big dog is, Zoe,” he explained as if speaking to a child. “It’s supposed to be . . . well,
big.”

Zoey stared at him as if she hadn’t understood one word. The pup in her arms licked at her chin, then nipped it. Zoey laughed. “I really like her, Ben.”

“But. . .” Ben looked down at the puppy that had settled down to chew on his shoelaces. The pup’s paws were enormous, a sure sign that he’d be a
big
Big Dog.

“Ben, you asked me which puppy I wanted”—she smiled at him—“and I’d like this one.”

Ben glanced reluctantly at the big pup, the visions of autumnal boy-bonding-with-dog slipping away. He glanced at Zoey’s face. Clearly, she was smitten with the smaller female. And she
was
a cutie, he had to concede, with those black button eyes and that dark brown nose. She was still buff colored, not yet golden, but she would darken up, he knew. For a minute, he all but regretted having brought Zoey along. Maybe he should have just picked out his puppy and brought it home. But that would have defeated the purpose of picking out a pup
together, of making the commitment together. And that was at the heart of this trip. Judging by the way Zoey was looking at him, he suspected she already knew that.

“She’ll be a great little dog,” the breeder told them.

At the sound of the words—little dog—Ben’s heart sank even further, but Zoey held the puppy out to him and he took it. Little Dog wagged her tail excitedly and tried to nip his ear.

“Does she already have a name?” Zoey asked.