Roz Fox - Daddy's Little Matchmaker

“Laurel or something else really rattled you today. It isn’t like you to snap, Alan. I’ve always said you were the most even-tempered of all the Ridge men. Unless…” She paused. “Unless it wasn’t her at all. Maybe it had to do with being in Charity and Pete’s house again—without Emily.”

“Vestal, why are you bent on giving me a hard time?”

“I’m not. I know what’s it’s like to lose the other half of your heart.”

As if noting how Alan stiffened, Vestal sighed, stood and glided quietly from the room. Over her shoulder, she called, “Dinner’s at seven, remember? Birdie’s fixed chicken and dumplings.”

Alan grunted a reply, crushing the thin plastic of the water bottle. Instead of getting straight to work as he’d planned, he moved restlessly back to the picture window and stood silently evaluating empty rows of paddocks and bluegrass growing too tall inside unused corrals.

Perhaps his grandmother was unaware of the strains within his and Emily’s marriage. Probably just as well. He never wanted Vestal or Louemma to know the full extent of the questions raised by the police who’d investigated the accident. The note Emily had left on their dresser for him to find had said she and Louemma were spending a week in Louisville shopping for school clothes.

The police had asked a million times why, if Emily had gone on a shopping spree, so many suitcases brimming with clothes were packed in the trunk of her Mercedes. And why she had left Alan a note instead of simply calling the distillery to apprise him of her plans. There’d been plenty of whispers floating around at the funeral, too. Thankfully, Louemma hadn’t been well enough to attend. Alan wished he really knew why a woman he’d known all his life and lived with for a lot of years would ruthlessly run off with the one thing they both loved more than life itself. Except he knew, deep down, that Emily felt they were in competition for Louemma’s affections.

Was he afraid of the truth? Was that the real reason he hadn’t wanted to rekindle old friendships, like the one he and Emily had shared with the Madisons? Alan didn’t want Louemma’s memories of her mother ever to be marred by unsubstantiated hearsay. And if that meant forgoing social pleasures, so be it.

JUST BEFORE THE SECOND Camp Fire meeting, Laurel had to ready the loom cottage for the invasion of children. A long bench set with hand looms and plenty of chairs were already in place. Her grandmother had given lessons, but not to women from Ridge City. Laurel was unsure why.

She’d been prevented from attending Hazel’s funeral by the most serious of Dennis’s drinking binges. An attorney had sent her the sympathy cards collected by the funeral home. Several women from a nearby town had spoken fondly of the hours they’d spent at Hazel’s, learning how to weave.

If anything had given Laurel the impetus to sever the bonds of a marriage she’d tried so hard to hold together, it was the fact that Dennis had found and destroyed those cards, plus a letter from the attorney saying Hazel had wanted Laurel to attend her funeral without her husband. That had sent Dennis into an uncontrolled rage. He’d been drinking a lot in the weeks before. But the cards and the letter had set him off. His anger had apparently made him crazy—so crazy he’d smashed her loom and her spinning wheel and cut up finished products that would’ve kept a roof over their heads for another month. For the first time in their marriage, Dennis had raised his hand and struck Laurel, so hard she fell, bruising her cheek and her shoulder.

That was the end. Up to then she’d maintained the marriage. She’d kept a spotless house. Had paid bills on the sly so he wouldn’t feel emasculated. And she’d accepted his hat-in-hand apologies time after time. But he’d never hit her before.

She was just sorry that it took her grandmother’s death to give her the strength and the means to stand up and walk away. Hazel had offered a ticket out more than once, and Laurel had always refused. Not a day passed that she didn’t wish she’d come sooner. Now she could only hope her grandmother was looking down to see how much this place meant to her. “Well, Dog, we’re as ready for them as I guess we’ll ever be.”

He raised his head from his paws. Then he jumped up and loped to the door, running back to Laurel, then to the door again, barking loudly.

“It’s okay, boy. There’s no one in this group I need protecting from.” But because she wasn’t sure how he might act around noisy kids, Laurel snapped a leash to his collar. Together they followed the winding creek down to the footbridge.

She stopped short of the bridge, realizing Charity Madison hadn’t brought all five girls. Alan Ridge’s Jeep had pulled in behind.

“Maybe I do need protecting,” she murmured to her pet. But even as the words left her lips, she chided herself for such silliness. She hadn’t met a soul in town who didn’t speak highly of the man. She didn’t need twenty-twenty vision to see he was a doting father. And by all reports, cared for his grandmother.

So why did she get squirmy merely watching him climb from his Jeep? Maybe because she liked the way he looked in his tight blue jeans and open-throated white shirt. Laurel frowned. It wasn’t like her to swoon over a man’s looks. Yet there was a definite shift in her equilibrium.

Dog growled deep in his chest and didn’t let up.

“Hush. I know you recognize him. He’s not bringing flowers this time, but he will be carrying his little girl. She’s fragile, Dog, so if you don’t want to be shut in the house for the next hour, start making them feel welcome.”

As if he understood, the animal dropped to his belly at Laurel’s feet. And as the children trooped across the wooden bridge, he woofed softly, letting his tongue loll out the side of his mouth as the girls gathered around, lavishing attention on him.

“Big change in that animal between now and the last time we met,” Alan said in a husky voice. He held Louemma aloft and pushed her empty wheelchair.

Laurel, who kept an eye out for any adverse reaction from his child, ignored Alan’s remarks. “This is Dog,” she announced. “Don’t let his size or bark fool you into thinking he’s mean. He might look fierce, but he’s a big gooey marshmallow inside.”

All the girls laughed.

“Hey, you have horses,” Jenny exclaimed excitedly. She’d raced ahead up the trail on her own. “Cool. After you show us how to spin thread, can we take turns riding the horses around the yard?”

Laurel caught the panicked expression on Louemma’s face. The girl’s thin chest rose and fell fast, as though her heart might leap out through her flowered T-shirt. Laurel recalled hearing someone in town say that before her accident, Emily Ridge had been an accomplished rider who owned a stableful of Thoroughbreds. Then, shortly after Alan had brought Louemma home from the hospital, he’d sold every one of his wife’s prize horses.

At the time, Laurel supposed an anguished man had no time to bother with the care and feeding of high-strung animals. Now she wondered if Louemma’s obvious panic had been the catalyst for Alan’s behavior.

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