Judith Bowen - The Wild Child

She was everything in the world to him, the center of his life.

When he arrived, five minutes early, she was setting out cups and plates on a table in front of the playhouse, which he’d designed and then had built and painted, with Matthew’s help, to resemble a miniature gypsy caravan. Everything was built on a three-fifths scale, perfect for a child.

“Hi, Dad!” Fanny had a temper but she couldn’t hold a grudge for very long. It was another of her characteristics he adored. She certainly didn’t get it from his side of the family. No matter what had come between them—and they had plenty of disagreements—her sunny spirits would bubble over and she’d forget her outrage in a minute.

“What’s the occasion?” He took one of the solid and squarely built little wooden chairs ranged around the small blue-painted table and sat down. “Kelly’s birthday?”

She gave him an arch look and continued setting out cups and plates, places for six, he observed. “It’s a surprise, Daddy. I can’t tell you,” she said, then continued a little worriedly, “I don’t know when Kelly was actually borned so I don’t know when to have a party for him.”

Silas’s personal theory was that the little gray squirrel Fanny was so fond of was already a generation or two past the original “Kelly.” How long did squirrels live? “Born, honey, not borned,” he automatically corrected.

“Born,” she repeated under her breath, counting out the cutlery. Silas watched as she went to the nearby doll carriage and pulled out a Tupperware container. “You can take the lid off this, please.”

Silas pried the top off. “Mmm, cake.”

Fanny nodded, looking pleased. “With icing. Auntie Aggie made it. What time is it now, Daddy?”

Silas checked his watch. “Five past two.”

“No, ’xactly. What time is it ’xactly?”

“Okay.” He studied his watch again. “It’s six and a half minutes past two.”

Fanny nodded, her face sober. She sighed, then put the cake in the middle of the table and went back to the doll carriage and pulled out more Tupperware containers. Vegetable strips. Some kind of nutritious-looking dip—trust Aggie. What would he have done these past few years without her and Matthew? Juice boxes. A plastic jug of water alive with ice cubes—

“Now what time is it, Daddy?”

“Ten past. Shall we get started?” Silas glanced at the five other places set at the table. “Is Auntie Aggie coming?”

“No. She said she’s too busy. This one’s for Bruno—” Fanny touched one plate, part of an unbreakable set she kept in the caravan. “And this one’s for Kelly, ’cept I’m not sure he’s coming.” Silas hadn’t heard the squirrel. Kelly rarely “visited” but, when he did, he made his presence known by his loud chirruping from the huge Orenco apple tree behind the playhouse.

“Matthew’s gone over to Half Moon Bay, if you’re expecting him,” Silas told her. “He won’t be back until just before dinner.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Auntie Aggie told me that already so I didn’t make him a ’vitation. What time is it now—hey!”

There was a distinct clip-clop on the packed earth of the path that led toward the wharf. The donkey! Of course.

Silas turned to see the grizzled old beast clatter into view, head bobbing. He’d been a fixture on their side of the island, off and on, for months. Harmless enough, from what Silas had seen. Probably lonely, too, although Silas knew someone had made arrangements for weekly hay drop-offs in the spring. Bruno sat up, ears perked, eyes interested.

This was the “surprise”?

“Andy!” Fanny cried out. The animal had a name? How did Fanny know—“—and Eva!”

“Am I late?” The woman who’d moved into the Bonhomme house stepped from the wooded path into the clearing. She was dressed in jean shorts and a pink T-shirt and had her dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Her left arm, oddly, was festooned with what seemed to be loops of yellow yarn. Eva. Silas stood automatically, as he’d been taught to do when a member of the opposite sex entered the room—he supposed this arrangement under the apple tree qualified as a room.

Fanny clapped her hands in delight. “Surprise!” she crowed. “Surprise! Surprise!” Silas heard the squirrel start to chatter in the tree overhead. So Kelly had joined them, after all….

The afternoon, which had promised to be just another hot, somewhat boring July afternoon, had suddenly become interesting.

EVA’S FIRST THOUGHT—that Fanny’s father might have had something to do with the party invitation—evaporated when she saw his expression, as dismayed, she was sure, as her own. He hid his surprise instantly and stepped forward, hand extended. “We weren’t properly introduced yesterday. Maybe we should start again. I’m Silas Lord.” He nodded. “Welcome.”

“Eva Haines.” She shook his hand briefly, aware of the heat of his skin, the hard, dry strength of his fingers….

At his reference to their previous encounter, the way he’d practically thrown her to the side as she grabbed his arm to prevent him from barging into her kitchen, her lips thinned, and she answered him coolly. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“You’re limping,” he said bluntly, leading her toward the small table.

“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. The briar she’d removed must have left something behind, because her heel had begun to throb that morning. She’d stuck on a Band-Aid after her run and had worn thick socks with her sneakers.

“It’s a party!” Fanny, at least, was delighted to see her. “This is my dad, I guess you know that—” Silas nodded again “—and this is my playhouse he builded for me and this is Bruno, well, you know him!” She waved toward the branches overhead. “And that’s Kelly up there, he’s my squirrel.”

Eva dutifully peered up but didn’t spot the source of the scolding. She waved and called softly, “Hi, Kelly!” then felt rather silly, knowing Silas Lord was watching. Her initial impulse had been to enter into the child’s game, her play “world,” just as she’d have done with one of her students at school.

When she turned, Fanny’s father was indeed watching her.

He gestured toward a small chair opposite his, and Eva approached. “Are you in the habit of talking to squirrels? And what, if I might enquire, is that unusual bracelet you’re wearing? It’s very attractive. Did my daughter make it for you?”

“Dad!” Fanny giggled.

Eva lifted the loops from her wrist and set them on the table. “You could say that. I found my way here by following the yarn Fanny left on the bushes. That was very clever of her.”

Fanny beamed. “I wanted you to draw me a map, Dad, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Silas met Eva’s eyes. “I’m guessing you got an invitation, just as I did.”

“Yes.”

“And you followed the clues. Kind of like Hansel and Gretel.”

Eva laughed. “Exactly. Except the birds didn’t eat up all the clues, like they ate the crumbs—”

“I know that story!” Fanny interrupted, coming to the table and looking important as she picked ice cubes out of the beverage container with her fingers and put one in each of the three plastic glasses in front of her. “Dad reads that story to me.”

“No birds to eat up all the crumbs,” Silas said in a low voice, his eyes on Eva’s, “and no big bad witch at the end of the trail, either.”

Eva hesitated for a split second, then shook her head. “No.” Fanny’s father seemed very different today from the man she’d met yesterday. Then he’d been brusque and determined, angry and arrogant, with the exception of those few minutes on the trail when he’d returned, almost as an afterthought, to offer to escort her back to Doris’s house. Was that to make sure she left the property? This afternoon he seemed deliberately friendly, even jovial.