“I met someone today who can help Louemma,” his grandmother said

Alan jabbed his key in the vicinity of the ignition twice, missing both times. “A doctor? At the hospital?”

“Not a doctor. What good have a host of sawbones done my great-granddaughter? No good, that’s what.”

Alan felt his burst of hope slowly shrivel. “Oh, not an M.D.” He clung to the belief that a doctor on the cutting edge of a new discovery about muscles and nerves would one day allow Louemma to move her arms again.

“Hear me out, Alan. I’ve lived many years and I’m not without common sense. The woman I met was working with old Donald Baird. She got him using his left arm and he's moving his fingers. What do you say to that?”

Alan turned his head. “After Donald’s stroke he had severe permanent damage to his entire left side.”

“Uh-huh. And today I watched him weave a potholder.”

“Weaving?” Alan snorted. This time he started the car easily.

“Don’t be making pig noises at me, Alan Ridge. Laurel Ashline said doctors recruited weavers during the Second World War to help injured soldiers regain the use of their limbs. Can it hurt to talk with her?”

“Fine, Grandmother. Tomorrow I’ll put out feelers. That’s my best offer.”

“You’re a good boy. A caring father. I’ve got no doubt you’ll explore every avenue to help Louemma. And that includes calling Laurel Ashline.”

Dear Reader,

Some books are born more easily than others. Such was the case with this one. Not long ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Kentucky and North Carolina. Being from the desert, I fell instantly in love with the rolling green hills and the beautiful mountains. I knew I wanted to set a story there, give some characters a home. Our trusty book tour led us through some beautiful and interesting places. But it was during a tour of The Little Loomhouse in Louisville, run by the Lou Tate Foundation, that my heroine came to life. Charmed by handweaving, we next visited the Weaving Room and Gallery in Crossnore, North Carolina. And Laurel Ashline’s tale really began to take shape.

Lou Tate was a talented woman of vision. She put her skill to good use, helping rehabilitate World War II soldiers coming home with shattered limbs. The weaving school at Crossnore began in 1920 and still provides funds for the Crossnore School started by Dr. Mary Martin Sloop and her husband. The school teaches Appalachian children who might otherwise not receive an eduction.

This book isn’t Lou Tate’s or Dr. Sloop’s life stories, although both are worthy of being called heroines. I did want my heroine to be a weaver and to help a child become whole again. Alan Ridge’s injured daughter, Louemma, showed up in my head one day to fill that role. By the time my journey ended, Laurel, Alan and Louemma’s story had almost written itself. I hope you enjoy the hours you spend with these characters. And if you ever have the opportunity to visit either of the weaving rooms, tell them Roz sent you.

Roz Denny Fox

I love hearing from readers. Write me at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, Arizona 85731. Or e-mail me at

rdfox@worldnet.att.net.

Daddy’s Little Matchmaker
Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for John Wisecarver, high school English teacher extraordinaire.

With his gift for teaching, and because of his enthusiasm for all books, he opened new worlds to us and inspired all who passed through his classes to reach higher and dream bigger.

He will be missed.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

A NOISE AT THE DOOR made Laurel Ashline glance up. She was working with Donald Baird, an elderly stroke victim, teaching him to operate a hand loom. The woman who stood in the doorway was someone Laurel didn’t know. Laurel was fairly new to Ridge City, Kentucky, and had recently become a volunteer occupational therapist here at the local hospital.

The white-haired woman wore a dusty-rose chenille robe and matching slippers. She seemed unsure about crossing the threshold.

“Hello.” Laurel offered a warm smile. “Are you here for weaving therapy? I wasn’t told to expect a new student, but if you’ll take a seat I’ll run out to my car to get another loom. I’m sure your chart will catch up eventually. They always do.”

“Oh, I’m not here for therapy. I’m practically recovered from a touch of pneumonia, although my doctor and I don’t see eye to eye about my going home today.” The woman sighed. “In fact, he ordered me to spend the afternoon in the sunroom. Said he’ll decide later if I have to eat hospital food again tonight.” Her droll expression spoke eloquently about her opinion of hospital fare.

“I see. Well, the sunroom is at the end of this hall.” Laurel pointed.

“I know, dear. I just couldn’t help noticing how you have my friend pulling that bar toward him with both hands.”

The man in question stopped a painstaking quest to thread the shuttle in and out between thick rag strips. “Vestal? Howdy.” He had to peer around Laurel to see the woman. “It’s sad when a tough old duck like me is reduced to making pot holders. This is woman’s work,” he said, although his disgust seemed exaggerated.

“Nothing of the sort,” Laurel quickly interjected. “Weaving’s a time-honored craft anyone can feel good about. All the better if working a loom allows you greater arm and wrist mobility. Isn’t getting well your primary goal?”

“You tell that old coot—uh—sorry, I don’t know your name,” the patient lingering by the door said, gazing at Laurel from faded blue eyes.

“It’s Laurel. Laurel Ashline. And you’re—?”

Her gaze still on what Donald Baird was doing, the elderly woman moved in for a closer look. “Is this type of therapy successful for all upper-body disabilities?”

Laurel hesitated. At twenty-nine, she was a master weaver, not a certified occupational therapist. “I don’t know about all disabilities. But it’s an old technique, one that gained respect and popularity with orthopedic physicians after World War Two. Lou Tate, a weaver from Louisville, was the first to use desktop looms to help partial amputees and other maimed soldiers. There’s a wonderfully soothing quality connected to the repetitious motion of working a beater bar. The exercise develops tone in atrophied muscles.” Laurel might have expounded further on a subject near to her heart, but a nurse appeared to escort the inquisitive stranger away.

“Goodbye,” Laurel called belatedly. “Good luck getting sprung by suppertime.” Her conspiratorial grin was answered in kind as the departing woman glanced back over one shoulder.

Laurel set to work again shuffling between the three people currently in her program. During the course of the day, the stranger faded from mind. Laurel maintained a hectic schedule. As well as volunteering at the hospital, she wove in cotton, wool and chenille. But her specialty was fine linen tablecloths and napkins.

When she’d first come to Ridge City, she’d been reclusive, hiding out to nurse her deep wounds from a bad marriage—until she decided it was time to take back her life. Now she had an ever-widening circle of private clients, plus she’d renewed a project her grandmother had begun—the collection and preservation of old mountain weaving patterns. Laurel found it was an endeavor that was both worthwhile and enjoyable; it was also a way to honor her grandmother’s memory. Added to that, she taught weaving at a community college two days a week. And a few weeks ago, she’d been approached to demonstrate at local clubs. Her schedule kept her almost constantly busy. Laurel needed that, because it meant she had fewer hours at home where Dennis Shaw, her alcoholic ex, might call and harass her. He paid no attention to restraining orders issued in Vermont and in Kentucky.

As Laurel finished up at the hospital and loaded her car, her thoughts were already on her next project.

ALAN RIDGE, current CEO of the once wholly family-owned Windridge Distillery, stood and quickly closed out a spreadsheet displayed on his home-office computer. He smiled faintly as he listened over the speakerphone to his grandmother, who ordered him to drop everything and come get her from the hospital. She’d vehemently resisted going there at all.

Vestal still spoke to him in the autocratic manner she had when he was a boy. But though he was thirty now, Alan didn’t mind. He was deeply concerned about his grandmother’s failing health. He didn’t think he could bear yet another loss.

Ending the call, Alan snatched a jacket from the hall coat-rack. Spring evenings in Kentucky could be quite chilly after the sun set. “Birdie, Grandmother’s coming home. Louemma’s napping,” Alan called, by way of requesting that Birdie Jepson, the Ridge family’s cook and housekeeper, keep an eye on his nine-year-old daughter.

She came out of the kitchen as Alan gathered up a lap robe to tuck around his grandmother.

“I do declare, Mr. Alan, that child’s gonna sleep her life away. What did that new doctor have to say yesterday? Did he have any good ideas?”

“She. Dr. Meyers is a female neuro-orthopedic specialist.” Alan felt his smile disappear altogether. “All the specialists say the same thing, Birdie. Medically, Louemma’s back surgery was a success. Every doctor I’ve consulted believes her problems are psychological. Except the psychiatrists haven’t helped. The last one claimed she’s just spoiled. I do indulge her. But…for pity’s sake, she lost her mother in a car wreck that’s left her…” Alan hated to say the damning word—paralyzed. “I know she’d move her arms if she could.”

“There, there. I reckon the good Lord will heal the poor baby in time. We’re all just so anxious to see her bouncing around like she did before the accident.”

“God’s certainly taking his time, Birdie. Come March fifteenth, which is next Monday, it’ll be a full year.” Alan rubbed a hand over a perpetually haggard face.

“That long? I guess it’s been at that. Doesn’t seem but yesterday I moved in, instead of popping in and out to cook for Miss Emily’s parties. You and Miss Vestal must feel like it’s been eons since that hellish phone call from the state police.”

Alan felt the pain always. Life at Windridge had been topsy-turvy since that call telling him his wife had been killed and his daughter injured in a senseless crash. Everything had changed then.

“Well, you’d best go collect Miss Vestal. If I know her, she’ll be pacing at the hospital door. Tell her I made buttermilk pie. For Miss Louemma, but Miss Vestal don’t need to know that.”

Alan’s smile returned briefly. “Talk about spoiling, Birdie. I’m pointing Louemma’s next psychiatrist straight at you. And Grandmother. That last shrink said we were all enablers.”

“We don’t know how to be anything else, Mr. Alan. Just tell that grouchy old doctor it’s ’cause we all love Louemma to bits.”

He laughed outright at her comment. Laughter seemed to be the only way they could deal with the parade of doctors, most spouting either useless or contradictory diagnoses, who’d become commonplace in their lives.

Out of habit, Alan detoured past his daughter’s room. Tiptoeing into the shuttered bedroom, he gazed lovingly down on sleep-flushed cheeks and pillow-tousled curls. The poor kid had a cowlick just like his, at the hairline above her left eyebrow. His wife had cursed that cowlick—and Alan for passing it on to Louemma.

Alan’s fingers gently skimmed the dark-blond hair. Backing quietly from the pink room that lacked nothing in the way of girlish accoutrements, he sighed and shifted the lap robe to his other arm as he dug out the keys to the car Vestal preferred over his more serviceable Jeep. Her baby-blue Chrysler New Yorker wasn’t Alan’s kind of car, and it rarely got driven. In her late seventies, Vestal Ridge had been so shaken by Emily’s accident she rarely drove now. Only on occasion, and then only back and forth to town.

Alan liked his four-wheel drive. Outside of visiting a myriad of doctors, his trips, consisted mainly of dashing between the house and the distillery, built a mile uphill on the vast family estate. The road was often muddy, especially in spring. Since 1860, a Ridge had owned the three hundred and sixty acres that made up Windridge. In all that time, the estate had remained virtually unchanged. With the exception of forty acres, Alan recalled with a scowl. Lord knew he wished he could forget the pie-shaped wedge sliced from their eastern border. Jason Ridge, Alan’s grandfather, had let that parcel slip out of the family’s hands before his death. And no one apparently knew how or why.

On the way to the hospital, Alan thought about the fact that his plant manager and board of directors wanted that wedge back. Considering how much work had piled up while Alan was taking Louemma to the most recent doctor, he hadn’t yet found time to delve into old county records to determine any options regarding Bell Hill. In the distillery safe, he’d found the land grant that deeded the entire parcel to the first Ridge to settle there. Written on parchment and signed by Daniel Boone himself, the document ought to prove ownership. Although Boone’s fort and settlement, rebuilt and now run by local artisans, had long since been incorporated into Fort Boonesborough State Park. So many local families had sold and moved out. Alan liked that sense of permanence. If it’d been up to him, he wouldn’t have incorporated Windridge Distillery, but kept it strictly a family-owned company.

Not wanting to think about that, Alan lowered the electric windows on both sides of the Chrysler. Settling his wide shoulders against the leather seat, he inhaled the relaxing scent of wet limestone and loamy soil refreshed by a recent shower. He shoved in a CD of mountain music. Alan’s preferences ran toward bluegrass played on fiddles, dulcimers, harmonicas and other old-time instruments.

Turning off the main road, he drove through the small town his ancestors had founded. In five minutes he reached the hospital he and Vestal had been influential in getting built. Granted, the town hadn’t yet floated a bond to install the newest equipment available. But it was a well-maintained facility, boasting a fine staff.

Birdie had been right. His grandmother was pacing in front of the door. Alan entered the hospital and, crossing the lobby, picked up her suitcase before greeting Vestal with a kiss on her soft, powdered cheek. For as far back as he could remember, she’d smelled like the wild roses that grew up the stone walls ringing the distillery. During certain times of the year they warred with overpowering odors of rye and barley mash used to produce Windridge’s high-grade bourbon.

“Why aren’t you waiting in your room?” he scolded gently. “Doc Fulton wouldn’t be happy to see you standing in a draft.”

“What does that twerp know? I diapered his behind when that boy was knee-high to a chigger.”

Alan grinned. “It’d serve you right if I phoned Marv right now and told him you said that. But if I did, he’d turn you over to Randy Wexler. Then I’d never get you to see a doctor again.”

Vestal latched on to Alan’s arm and maneuvered him out. “Randy Wexler has chickpeas for brains. I’m not trusting my body, old though it may be, to a kid who failed fifth grade. Marvin at least was an A student.”

“Randy knuckled down. According to his credentials from Duke University Med School, he graduated magna cum laude.” Alan opened the heavy car door and helped her in. Before Vestal could object, he wrapped the lap robe around her legs, then tossed her bag in the voluminous trunk. He’d barely slid under the steering wheel when she fixed him with a look Alan knew from experience usually meant trouble.

“I met someone today who can help Louemma.”

Alan jabbed his key in the vicinity of the ignition twice, missing both times. “A doctor? Here?” he asked, clearly excited. “A consultant?”

“Not a doctor. What good have a host of sawbones done my great-granddaughter? No good, that’s what.”

Alan felt the bubble of hope burst. “Oh, not an M.D.” He clung to the belief that a doctor on the cutting edge of a new discovery about muscles and nerves would one day solve Louemma’s inability to raise her arms.

“Hear me out, Alan. I’ve lived many years and I’m not without common sense, you know.”

“I know you’re a dear, smart lady. And you love Louemma. Up to now, though, all the doctors we’ve seen—and these are the very best—claim her dysfunction isn’t physical. That it’s beyond the scope of their expertise.”

“I think the woman I met is an occupational therapist. She’s got Donald Baird using his left arm and moving his fingers. What do you say to that?”

Alan turned his head. “Roy said his dad had severe, permanent damage to his entire left side, because of the stroke.”

“Uh-huh. And today I watched him weave a rag pot holder.”

“Weaving?” Alan snorted. This time he started the car easily.

“Don’t be making pig noises at me, Alan Ridge. Laurel Ashline said doctors recruited weavers during the Second World War to help injured soldiers regain the use of their limbs through learning to operate hand looms. Can it hurt to talk with her? Invite her to Windridge to evaluate Louemma? Short of voodoo, Alan, you’ve hauled that child around the state to every other kind of expert—and quack.”

“Never quacks! Every man or woman I’ve made an appointment with, in or out of the state, has been a licensed practitioner.”

“A ward nurse gave me Ms. Ashline’s business card. She apparently has a studio in the area. Her phone number has our local exchange.” Vestal waved the card under Alan’s nose.

He snatched it out of her hand and shoved it in his shirt pocket. “I’ll think about it,” he muttered. “I’ll ask about her program around town. You say she’s an occupational therapist?”

“I’m not sure of that. She volunteers at the hospital. Dory referred to her as a master weaver.”

“Right…” Alan half snarled under his breath.

“Just phone her is all I ask. If not for Louemma, then to humor me. You know I won’t stop badgering you until you do.”

“Tell me something new, Grandmother.” Alan sighed heavily. “Fine. Tomorrow I’ll put out feelers. That’s my best offer. I’m not about to hand Louemma over to some dingbat. What brought this weaver to Ridge City? Do you know the name Ashline? Who would move here unless they already have roots in the valley?”

“Would you listen to yourself? You’re always telling me times are changing.” Vestal sank back and fell silent for a minute or two. “I have to admit, when she first said her name I had a notion I’d heard it before. But for the life of me, I can’t recall where.” Closing her eyes, Vestal rubbed a creased forehead. “These bouts of senility are the main thing I detest about aging. You just wait, Alan. It’s no fun.”

He immediately picked up a blue-veined hand. “Your dad lived to be ninety. If you take care of yourself, you’ll have a lot of good years left. And you’re far from senile.”

“You’re a good boy. A caring father, too. I’ve got no doubt that you’ll explore every avenue to help Louemma. Including contacting Ms. Ashline.”

“Enough.” Alan dropped her hand. “Flattery won’t work, you know. And I’m hardly a boy. But…it’s no secret I’d step in front of a train if I thought it would help Louemma be normal and happy again. I’ll look into this weaver when I get time.”

Vestal twiddled her thumbs and continued to frown.

ALTHOUGH LOUEMMA HAD missed her great-grandmother, it seemed to Alan that during their first meal together again, the child was especially withdrawn. One reason he didn’t believe her problem was only psychosomatic was that she detested having to be fed like a baby. Their family doctor worried about her weight loss, and she did look terribly thin to Alan. “Honeybee, you love Birdie’s potato soup. Please take a few more sips.”

The child turned her pixie face away from the spoon. “I’m not hungry. You eat, Daddy. Otherwise yours will get cold.”

“With all the times I’ve been called away from the table to handle problems at the distillery, I’ve grown to like cold soup, honey. Hot or cold, it has the same nutritional value.” He waggled the spoon again to coax her.

Vestal adjusted a red bow Birdie had tied in Louemma’s dark hair. “You want to eat, child, otherwise you’ll end up in the hospital like I did. I can tell you from experience that no one lines up for their tasteless meals. Hospital cooks have never heard of spice.” Vestal launched into a funny story about patients on her floor who hid or traded food. She’d always been able to wheedle smiles from Louemma. Tonight, she only managed a tiny one. Eventually the girl ate a bit more, but by then they were all exhausted.

Louemma yawned hugely as Birdie collected the plates. “Daddy, please carry me to bed before you and Nana have dessert.”

It broke Alan’s heart to see his formerly energetic child so listless. The accident had caused too many noticeable changes in her personality. It wasn’t normal for a kid her age to sleep as many hours as she did. No wonder her muscles had lost their tone.

Birdie, who’d come back with the coffeepot and one of her famous buttermilk pies, shook her head. “Your daddy had better take your temperature, missy, if you be turning down this delicious pie I baked special for you and Miss Vestal.” The cook passed it under Louemma’s nose. A fresh scent of vanilla, mixed with the cinnamon dusted lightly on the rich custard filling, wafted through the air.

“I’m sorry, Birdie. I’m just too full.” Louemma turned helpless eyes toward Alan. “And I’m really, really sleepy.” She failed to stifle another yawn.

Vestal yawned as well.

The dinner hour at Windridge had always been set late to allow the men of the house time to tidy up at the end of long workdays. He glanced at his watch and saw it was just ten. Not particularly late by Southern dining standards.

As if Vestal had tapped into his thoughts, she murmured, “If you’re going to continue working from home, Alan, and if it’s agreeable with Birdie, we could move our dinner hour to seven, or even six.”

“We’ve never…” Alan crumpled his snowy linen napkin. Nine had been the tradition as far back as he could remember. But really, what did time matter? The Windridge family hadn’t entertained since…Emily’s death.

“Can we discuss this later?” He shoved back his chair, unclear as to why he hated the idea of altering yet another routine. Since the accident, so many practices had gone by the wayside. His hands-on grasp of the business, for one. The loss of old friends, although these were couples he and Emily had known forever. Even simple laughter seemed a thing of the past. Childish giggles for sure, as no children ran in and out of the big house anymore; playing tag with Louemma. Male-female banter was nonexistent, too. Windridge had become a virtual tomb.

And whose fault is that? a little voice nagged Alan.

His. He hadn’t wanted any overt reminders of Emily’s absence. And somehow, around other kids her age, Louemma’s handicap seemed magnified.

“I’m sorry, Birdie. Unless Grandmother wants pie and coffee, I’m going to pass. I’ll take Louemma to her room,” Alan said, carefully lifting the girl. Louemma suffered intermittent muscle spasms, because of which her doctor had suggested using a wheelchair. “Afterward, I’m going back to the spreadsheets I left unfinished when Grandmother phoned.”

Vestal folded her napkin neatly and set it aside before unhooking an ornate cane from the back of her chair.

Birdie faced them all, hands on her broad hips. “Pie’ll be in the fridge,” she snapped. “I’ll leave a thermos of coffee on the counter. In case that spreadsheet threatens to put you to sleep, Mr. Alan.”

“Birdie, I’m truly sorry. We all appreciate how hard you work.”

“We do indeed,” Vestal assured her. “And the pie will keep. You know, Alan,” she said, “there’s something I missed more than pie during my hospital stay. Our catching up over a nightcap. I believe I’ll wait in your office.”

The reigning Ridge matriarch patted Louemma’s thin face. “Good night, sweet pea. Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Alan smiled in spite of everything. Vestal had sent him off to bed as a boy with that same admonition. His father had said it’d been their ritual, as well. One thing was different—the way Louemma used to throw her arms around Vestal’s neck, and how girl and woman used to giggle delightedly. That ritual, too, was gone.

Alan escaped then, because it hurt deep inside his chest to be holding his precious child, and feeling her slip away from him in body and spirit, with apparently nothing he nothing he could do to change that.

Hiding the tears stinging his eyes, he dragged out the routine of tucking his daughter in for the night. He was aware, from Vestal’s insistence, that she had something more than a nightcap in mind. Eventually, Alan trudged slowly and heavily down the hall.

Bracing for whatever awaited him, he wiped away all traces of anxiety before entering the room he’d usurped for his office. On top of a desk crafted from local hardwood, aged and polished to a glossy shine, two old-fashioned glasses sat, each holding a splash of Windridge bourbon.

When Vestal picked up one glass and handed him the other, it struck Alan that it’d been she, not his father, who’d taught him how to appreciate the taste of bourbon. His dad had been struck and killed by lightning up at the distillery the year Alan turned thirteen. His grandfather Jason’s health had gone downhill after the loss of his only son. It’d been Vestal, and Alan’s mother, Carolee, who’d plunged him into the business of producing top-grade bourbon.

Their lives had seemed smooth until Alan was twenty or so and Carolee met and married a wine maker from California. At that point she turned her back on Windridge and her only child. She’d looked back once—when she’d signed over to Alan her shares in the corporation she’d set up. She’d sold forty-nine percent of overall shares, pulling the wool over Vestal’s eyes. And Carolee’s brash move had sparked the business with a new influx of cash.

Alan clinked his glass to the rim of Vestal’s, smiling fondly at her as they waited for the chime of the crystal to fade. That was another of her mantras. Fine bourbon should be served in the finest crystal.

“You seem restless tonight, Grandmother. This being your first day home after a lengthy illness, shouldn’t you trundle off to bed?”

The woman sipped the amber liquid with her eyes closed, ignoring his nudge. “I love the barest hint of a woody taste. I assume I can thank our new, ungodly expensive aging barrels. I hope you don’t mind that I broke the seal on a new bottle.”

“Not at all.” The bottles were all carefully filled and corked by hand in a manner that made Windridge a constant favorite of a discerning liquor market.

“Did you want an update on expenses, Grandmother? I can run you a cost analysis worksheet tomorrow.”

“Don’t rush me, Alan. Ever since you were a little boy, you’ve rushed through life hell-bent for election.”

He smiled again at her longstanding version of the cliché, then cleared his throat “I’m just wondering what this is about. Monday, as I pulled into the hospital parking lot, I saw Hardy Duff driving off. You didn’t mention his visit. I figure he must’ve decided the fastest way to get me to move on reacquiring Bell Hill was to go through you.”

“Hardy brought me violets. His neighbor grows them.” Vestal took another sip. “Very well, Alan. But I’m telling you the same thing I told Hardy. Ted Bell saved your grandfather’s life in Korea, and Jason meant for Ted and Hazel to live out their days on the hill. Still, Hazel had no call to go behind our backs and file squatter’s rights. Granted, she and I had a falling out. Didn’t mean I’d ever have tossed her off our land.”

“You, Grandfather and the Bells were once best friends.”

“Yes.” Vestal stared into space. “Relationships can crumble. Hazel had…hobbies that obsessed her. Then she…we…well, we argued after her daughter, Lucy, ran off with that no-account transient tobacco picker your grandfather hired. We hired a lot of transient laborers then. Hazel had no say in hiring or firing.”

“It’s late. Talking about this upsets you. Let’s save it for tomorrow.”

She polished off her drink and set the glass on the tray with a thump. Stretching out slightly arthritic fingers, she pried the business card she’d given Alan earlier out of his shirt pocket. “Bell Hill will solve itself. Louemma, however, is wasting away before our eyes. I want you to promise you’ll call Ms. Ashline first thing in the morning. If it wasn’t so late, I’d insist you phone her now.”

Alan snatched back the card, dropping it next to his phone. “Even though I fail to see how a stranger who doesn’t have a medical degree can be any help, I’ll call the damn woman. Scout’s honor,” he added, seeing Vestal’s arched eyebrow.

“Call it meddling if you will, Alan. Or call it intuition. I saw what she did for Donald Baird and…a feeling swept over me. I’m sure Ms. Ashline’s the one who can help our sweet girl get back to her old self.”

Alan downed the rest of his drink and set his glass beside hers. After walking his grandmother to the door and kissing her cheek, he muttered, “Unless Laurel Ashline is a magician or a witch, I sincerely doubt she can make a difference in Louemma.” He sighed. “Why can’t you knit or travel abroad like other women your age?” But Vestal just gave him one of her famous looks.

Still brooding, he shut the door and picked up a family photo sitting on a bookshelf. A picture of him, Emily and Louemma, the shot had been taken three years ago, on Louemma’s sixth birthday. Alan suspected she’d one day match her mother’s beauty. Maintaining a tight grip on the silver frame, he splashed another three fingers of bourbon into his empty glass, although he’d learned a year ago that drowning his sorrows in whiskey never worked. Not even drowning them in the world’s finest bourbon. Holding the glass to the lamp, he assessed the color and clarity. It was perfect. His daughter wasn’t.

Grimacing, he drank half in one swallow. Still, the subtle burn sliding down his throat couldn’t compare to the constant fire consuming his heart. He gently returned the photo to where he kept it for Louemma’s sake. After draining the glass, Alan stared at his former wife through a sheen of tears brought on by the fiery drink. “Dammit, Emily, I wish you’d reach out from the grave and tell me why in hell you were on a mountain road going to Louisville. Why were you driving on such an icy night? And why did you have Louemma with you?”

In the silence following his questions, Alan knew he couldn’t work on spreadsheets, after all. Not that bed was an answer to his restlessness. As had become habit since the accident, he grabbed a flashlight and an old jacket off a rack in the mudroom near the kitchen. Exiting the house, he tramped up the long hill to the distillery. The solidity of the building’s mossy stone walls had withstood generations of storms worse than the one raging inside him.

Finding that thought vaguely calming, Alan went into the vault and checked alcohol levels in two current batches of yeast-laden mash. Every batch fermented naturally for three to five days. On a chart, Alan made notations under Day Four. Their night watchman was used to his midnight prowling. The two men exchanged waves as Drake Crosby made his rounds.

Roaming familiar floors eventually brought about the desired exhaustion. By the time Alan left the building, again waving to Drake, he thought maybe he could fall into bed and manage two hours of dreamless sleep.

But at seven-thirty, he sat at his desk again.

Laurel Ashline’s business card still lay where he’d tossed it last night, taunting him. He passed a hand over his jaw, rehearsing possible openings in his mind. A prickly jaw reminded him that he hadn’t shaved. Vestal and Louemma were habitually late risers, which gave him plenty of time to get presentable.

Birdie popped into his office carrying a tray. “Mercy, if you don’t look like something dragged in from the woods. Have you been working all night?”

Alan accepted his usual juice and coffee. “No. I’m debating what’s the proper time to phone a lady.”

The cook’s eyes sparked with uncommon interest as she poured the coffee.

“Not that kind of call, Birdie,” he declared dryly, pulling the cup of rich, chicory-laced coffee toward him. “It’s a woman Grandmother met at the hospital. She apparently uses weaving for therapy, or some such nonsense—” Stopping suddenly, Alan vigorously shook his head. “It even sounds far-fetched.”

“I don’t know. Miss Vestal mentioned that weaver while I was fixing supper. Way I look at it, the Almighty arranges for people’s paths to cross for a reason. I’m just gonna scoot on out so you can make that call. Yell if you need the pot refilled.”

“Thanks.” Alan shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Why was he thanking her? This household was blessed with stubborn women.

Twice he lifted the receiver and set it down again. The third time he hurriedly punched in the number on the card.

A sleepy female voice ventured a wary “Hello…?”

Something in the low, husky timbre sent shock waves to Alan’s toes. Damn, this wasn’t her office. Clearly, he’d called too early. But now that he had her on the line, Alan was determined to state his case, set an appointment and be done with it. “I apologize for calling before eight,” he said. “This is Alan Ridge. Yesterday, at the hospital, you met my grandmother. Vestal,” he added. Despite the silence, he forged on. “She was impressed by how you’ve helped a friend of hers— Don Baird. Vestal thinks you can do the same for my daughter, Louemma.” Nothing Alan had said thus far had produced so much as an iota of response from the other end.

“So I’m phoning to arrange a consultation with you, Ms. Ashline. What day can you come to my home to evaluate her? My daughter,” he added hastily.

“Ms. Ashline?” he said a long moment later. For all Alan knew she’d dropped the phone and fallen back asleep.

“Yes. I’m here, but… I’m, ah, afraid you…have me at a disadvantage. I was up all night finishing a commissioned weaving. And I suspect your grandmother misjudged my role. Oh, I’m probably not coherent enough to be making any sense.”

A fellow night owl, he thought. “You’re making perfect sense, considering. Look, I’m quite sure you’re right about my grandmother’s incorrect assessment. However, if you knew her, you’d know she won’t stop pestering me until you see my daughter. We’re easy to locate. If you need a personal reference, ask anyone. Our family’s been in Ridge City for years. Drive west along Windy Creek Road, and you can’t miss Windridge. The distillery’s on the knoll, but our house sits closer to the highway. Just name a time and day.”

Laurel had finally managed to sit up and shrug off her stupor enough to process most of what her caller had said. She now knew exactly who he was. Obviously, neither he nor his grandmother had placed her. They couldn’t know she was Hazel Bell’s granddaughter, or else Laurel was certain Alan Ridge wouldn’t have been this pleasant. In any event, his very association with making and selling a product responsible for the ruin of countless people, including her ex-husband, precluded her from getting involved with his family. Besides, it was unlikely she had anything to offer his child.

“No, I won’t come upon your house first,” Laurel said bluntly. “I won’t come to your house at all.”

Hearing the shock in his indrawn breath, she wasn’t quite sure how to end the call. But what else needed saying? Nothing, she decided, and she hung up with a quick but definite goodbye. A solid smack of the phone in the cradle should send him a clear message.

Alan heard the sound, and also the resulting dial tone. Anger ripped through him. “Who in hell does she think she is?” he muttered, belatedly slamming down his receiver.

Vestal poked her head into her grandson’s office. “The news must be bad if you’ve resorted to talking to yourself in that tone of voice, Alan.”

“I just spoke with your Ms. Ashline,” he said with an annoyance. “She refused to come see Louemma. But it’s just as well. I knew she was so much smoke and mirrors.”

“No, she’s not. Phone her again, and be nicer this time.”

“She hung up on me! Not the other way around.”

“Honestly! You do take after your grandfather. Ridge men can be so abrasive. And dense. Mercy, will you look at the time? Who calls a lady at this hour? It’s only quarter of eight!” Vestal tapped the clock on his desk. She sent Alan a look of the type that always left him stumbling to apologize.

“Run into town later and send her flowers or fruit from Saxon’s. Include a business card, and write Ms. Ashline a nice apology on the back. Ask her to phone at her convenience.”

Alan clamped down on the hell, no leaping to the tip of his tongue. Instead, he grumbled, “Can’t, Grandmother. No address on her card.”

“A lack of address has never stopped Eva Saxon from making a delivery. Oh, for pity’s sake. I’ll do it.”

“No, you won’t. The subject of Ms. Ashline is finished.”

But Vestal Ridge had her own stubborn streak. Alan knew he wouldn’t have a moment’s peace unless he appeased her. More than that, he loved her. Still…it felt like groveling. “Give me a week to rethink this, Grandmother. Right now I need to shave before breakfast, and roust Louemma.” And with that, he left the room.

Vestal stared after him for only a moment, then picked up the phone and punched in Eva’s number at the flower shop from memory.

CHAPTER TWO

LAUREL TRIED TO GO BACK to sleep, but the early call had left her stomach feeling jittery. At first she’d thought the caller was her ex, Dennis Shaw, phoning again to either insult her or beg money, as was his pattern. He never held a job for long, even though he had the charisma to get a new one each time he sobered up. It was that charm she’d fallen for, even thought she should’ve learned from her mom’s bad experience with men.

Stifling a yawn, Laurel wandered into the kitchen and bent to pat the big German shepherd she’d rescued from the animal shelter. Living alone, so far back in the woods, she’d decided it would be wise to have a fierce companion. At the time she got him, she’d had no heart for loving man or beast. Her intention was to keep the dog at arm’s length, using him strictly as a bodyguard, not a friend. For that reason, she’d simply named him Dog. While the name stuck, little by little he’d worked his way past her defenses—until Laurel couldn’t imagine life without him. Dog looked fierce. She hoped if push came to shove, he could scare off an intruder. But like her, he was a marshmallow inside. And like her, he was both lonely and a loner. Well, less lonely now that they had each other for company.

She missed corresponding with her grandmother. The letters had been her lifeline though tough times. Living here in Hazel’s house, surrounded by her things, Laurel wished now that she hadn’t been cursed with her own mother’s stubborn pride. A pride that had kept them both from coming home to this safe haven for far too many lonely years.

She washed her hands and face, then put water in the kettle for her favorite herb tea. Whenever old memories closed in too tightly, the ritual of making tea generally staved them off.

Today, however, she allowed a few of those memories to seep in. She’d grown up fatherless, taking charge of a chronically ill mother at an early age. Just before her death, Lucy Ashline had sworn to haunt Laurel if she ever dared phone her grandparents. From ages fifteen to eighteen, Laurel had lived like a rabbit in a hole. She’d struggled to make ends meet, and she’d lived on her own, deceiving social workers, going to school.

Then one rainy day she woke up and broke her word to Lucy. Laurel wrote a letter to Hazel Bell, introducing herself—even sending a graduation photo. She’d let Hazel believe her life was rosy.

At first Laurel didn’t tell her grandmother that Lucy had died. Eventually, through letters, she’d gradually opened up. It was also through these letters that Laurel developed an interest in her grandmother’s passion for weaving. Hazel sent money from time to time. Laurel used the funds to apply for an apprenticeship in a weaving program. The instructor said she had a knack, and within a year had recommended her for a master weaver’s apprenticeship in Vermont. Only after Laurel left the last apartment she’d shared with her mother, did she invite Hazel to visit her.

Hazel made excuses. First, she said her husband was ill. Then he died and she didn’t feel like traveling. All the while Hazel begged Laurel to continue corresponding.

Looking back, Laurel knew she’d let Dennis Shaw slip past her defenses because she was so lonely. Lonely, living in a new city in a too-empty little studio apartment.

Dennis was selling yarn when she met him. At the time, Laurel had no idea it was just one in a string of jobs he held on to until he went on a bender and got fired. Sober, he was funny and charming. He’d traveled places Laurel only dreamed of seeing. In the early days of their courtship, he used to sprawl on her couch, easing the emptiness in her life. Dennis had said he loved watching Laurel create the items she sold on consignment. And maybe it was true—then.

They began discussing a future together. They made plans. That was one thing she could say about Dennis: he always made big plans. Not until after she consented to marriage did she slowly learn he was all talk. Any plans they implemented used money she earned. Dennis’s plans all ended in losses Laurel bailed him out of.

Her grandmother sensed her unhappiness, although Laurel never meant to spill it into the pages of her letters. Hazel suggested on more than one occasion that Laurel leave Dennis and come to Kentucky. She’d even offered plane fare, but the same foolish pride that had kept Laurel’s mother from hightailing it home, a failure, also kept Laurel in her mistake of a marriage. Until it was too late.

Unfortunately, it had taken seven years of living in hell, and Hazel’s sudden, surprising death, to pound sense into Laurel, enabling her to overcome that stiff pride of hers. She regretted that it was her grandmother’s last letter, delivered through her attorney, that finally kicked her hard enough in the backside and gave her the funds to divorce Dennis.

Refilling her cup, Laurel called Dog. The two of them went out to enjoy the sun warming the front porch. Here, and in the upper cottage where she did her weaving, the past always faded into obscurity.

A row of window boxes on the porch spilled over with violets and fragrant pinks. Their perfume filled the air with the promise of spring. Winter rains had subsided, and the creek had once again receded below its banks. Laurel loved everything about the cottages, including the fact that no one could drive up and surprise her. A footbridge crossed the creek. Visitors had to park in a clearing on the other side—not that she had any visitors.

Laurel also owned two horses she’d bought about the time she adopted Dog. That was because her grandmother had once written about how she carried on the laudable work begun by another Kentucky weaver. Lou Tate Bousman had devoted her latter years to keeping the art of hand-weaving alive. Both women, during different decades, had traveled the hollows of the Kentucky hill country, collecting and preserving patterns that would otherwise have been lost.

As she went back inside, Laurel reflected on her efforts to carry on the tradition. Last fall, she and Dog had roamed those same hills, she on horseback, he loping beside her. Laurel had met some fantastically talented women, although uneducated by most standards. The beauty of the hollows, and the strength of women who survived under mostly primitive conditions, had helped heal Laurel’s shattered life.

Sort of. She and Dog both tensed at hearing a car heading toward the clearing.

Actually, it was a panel van. Squinting through an ivy-covered lattice that framed one end of the screened porch, Laurel made out the lettering on the side: Saxon’s Flower Shop. Was the driver lost? Unless Dennis had suddenly gotten flush again… But his flush times were growing fewer and further between, and his ability to bounce from job to job lessening. Besides, he’d never waste money on flowers.

A chubby woman with flame-red hair piled high atop her head crawled out of the vehicle. “Hello, the house,” she called. “I have a delivery for Laurel Ashline. Am I in the right place?”

Dog sensed Laurel’s uneasiness. He barked and lunged at the screen door. Silencing him with a word, Laurel ordered him to stay as she stepped outside. Tightening the sash on her robe, she walked to her side of the bridge. How should she respond? She’d never received a flower delivery before. Never. Would the driver expect a tip? Nervously, Laurel smoothed a hand over her shoulder-length, wheat-blond hair. Goodness, she must look a fright, judging by the scrutiny she was getting.

The driver, puffing a bit, crossed the rickety bridge. She lugged a wicker basket wrapped in cellophane.

Wryly, Laurel saw she still wasn’t getting flowers, but rather a fruit basket the woman plopped at her feet.

“Thank you,” Laurel said softly. “I’m sorry to greet you in my robe. I worked all night on a weaving I need to deliver for a bridal shower today. Are, uh, you positive this is mine?”

Bending, the woman unpinned the attached card. “I’m Eva Saxon, owner of the flower shop in Ridge City. If you’re Laurel Ashline, it’s yours.” Eva slid the card out of the envelope and held it up for her to read. “Came from Alan Ridge himself, I’m told—which makes you special. Alan keeps to home these days. Has since his wife died last year in a car crash. Emily was a beauty, she was. A born prom queen. ’Course, she was a lot younger than me. You’re a lucky woman.” Eva nodded sagely. “Alan Ridge is a good catch.”

Laurel stiffened. “I’m sure he is, should a woman be fishing for a man. I am not,” she said loudly. So loudly that Dog began to bark again, throwing himself against the screen. Laurel worried that he’d get hurt or come through the mesh. “Excuse me, my dog is very protective. Thank you again for the delivery. Really, it’s not personal. Mr. Ridge contacted me regarding business. Very early in the morning. It’s totally unnecessary, but he probably sent this by way of an apology for waking me.”

The shorter woman under the mountain of hair nodded as if she understood. As Laurel turned and left the bridge, she, too, retreated.

Once the van had driven off, Laurel let Dog out. He continued to growl so she let him sniff the basket filled with rare fruit—mangos, guavas, pineapples and grapes. Laurel let the van’s dust settle, then marched across the bridge to where she had to keep her garbage can if she wanted the city to empty it. Collectors wouldn’t come until Friday, and it was only Wednesday. Her receptacle was full. Nevertheless, because she didn’t wish to accept anything from a man who made his money off whiskey, she jammed the basket as far into the can as possible. As a result, she had to hang the lid sideways on the basket handle.

“Come, Dog. With luck, that’s the last we’ll hear from Mr. Ridge.”

IT WAS THREE DAYS before Alan made it into town. He had to run by the elementary school to pick up the quarterly lesson packets that Louemma’s tutor used. They’d tried having his daughter attend classes after she’d healed from the initial surgeries, but she’d gotten so upset that in the end he’d decided to have her taught at home—for a while, anyway.

From there, he stopped to pick up groceries for Birdie. He dragged out the trip because he wanted to avoid hearing Vestal fuss at him to apologize to the Ashline woman.

As well as that aggravation, Hardy Duff, his distillery manager, had been pressuring Alan to do something about Bell Hill. So he swung by the courthouse to have a clerk trace its history—to figure out how they’d lost what had once been part and parcel of Ridge land. Everything seemed to be in order, up to when Hazel filed squatter’s rights. Alan didn’t know what else to do. He’d left a note to that effect in Dale Patton’s office, even though Dale, the company attorney, was on vacation.

Following that, Alan decided to get his hair cut prior to moseying over to Saxon’s Flowers. Finally, when he hit the very end of his to-do list, the only thing left was to order a damn bouquet for the disagreeable Ms. Ashline.

Even worse, Eva Saxon was like the town crier. Alan suspected that seconds after he walked out of her shop, everyone in town would know he’d sent a strange woman flowers. As he approached the store, he had a brilliant idea. He’d send a bouquet in Vestal’s name.

Eva Saxon, nearly as wide as she was tall, glanced up as the bell over the door sounded. She was ten years older than Alan’s thirty, and used to baby-sit him. Smiling, she greeted him with the snap-snap-snap of her ever-present Cloves gum.

“Hi.” Alan fumbled Laurel Ashline’s wrinkled business card out of his jeans pocket, along with a fifty-dollar bill. “This is all the information my grandmother has on the woman. She said you shouldn’t have any problem finding her and delivering a plant or something. Enclose a note saying that Vestal invites Ms. Ashline to drop by Windridge at her convenience, or something to that effect. Oh, you’d better include our address. I believe she’s new in town.” He shoved the money across the counter.

Eva dug a pencil out of her beehive hairdo. For as long as Alan could remember, she’d worn her hair in the exact same style, and yet it still astonished him. As he gaped at her big hair, he noticed Eva eyeing him oddly. “Is something wrong?”

Crack went the gum. “Uh, no. ’Cept Vestal phoned a few days ago and ordered a deluxe basket of fruit sent to Ms. Ashline on your behalf. I helped her compose a real sincere apology. If you haven’t heard back by now, hon, I’ve gotta say you must’ve really done the lady wrong.” She stuffed the fifty in her cash register and counted out change. “The basket cost twenty-five dollars.”

“What?” Alan saw red, and it wasn’t just Eva’s hair color.

“I suggested a dozen roses instead of fruit. Or a box of chocolates displayed prominently on top of the fruit. Vestal nixed both.” Eva shoved Alan’s change toward him. “It’s probably not too late for roses. ’Course, I don’t know what you did to the woman. But I got some nice pink buds in today. Shall I carry Laurel out a dozen this afternoon? Is she worth another twenty-five bucks?” Eva kept a hand on the last bill.

“I haven’t got the foggiest idea what she’s worth. I’ve never met her.” Alan wadded up the change and stuffed it in his pants pocket. He retrieved Laurel’s business card, then started for the door. Then he hesitated and pivoted back. “Hell, Eva, stick a few of those roses in a nice vase. Write her address on the back of this card. I’ll deliver the flowers myself.”

“Uh-huh. You made her mad, but you don’t even know where she lives?” Reaching into the cooler that sat behind the counter, she hauled out an already made up arrangement. “That’ll be six ninety-five. A bargain, even for self-delivery. These buds are beauties. Out of curiosity, what did you do to the lady that requires flowers?”

Alan flung down a ten, muttering, “Keep the change.” He snatched up the vase. “For the record, I never have met Ms. Ashline, so don’t be spreading rumors, okay?”

The pale blue eyes regarded him frostily. “But Vestal said—”

“Yes, she’s got a bee in her bonnet. This need for me to apologize is due to a mess of Grandmother’s creation. I’m caught in the middle. You know Vestal’s been ill? Ms. Ashline’s someone she met at the hospital.”

Eva frowned slightly. “Vestal didn’t sound dotty. But I s’pose she is gettin’ on in years. Ralph’s mama’s not as old as your grandma, and that woman’s plumb gone off the deep end.” Launching a diatribe against her mother-in-law, Eva followed Alan to the door.

“Thanks,” he said, all but running from the shop. Alan didn’t stop to study the address until he was in the Jeep and had the motor running. Then his jaw dropped.

Laurel Ashline lived in Hazel Bell’s old cottage. The first of two tucked deep in a grove of sycamore and red maple trees—a scant few miles from the source of the spring gushing down Bell Hill. That spring was at the core of Alan’s current problem. Hardy Duff insisted they had to tap into it in order to expand Windridge; he wanted to add a hundred new mash barrels per each milling process.

Alan was well aware that the water they used, rich with essential minerals and naturally filtered through Kentucky limestone, made Windridge bourbon one of the most sought-after whiskeys in the world. What he didn’t know was how Laurel Ashline had ended up living next to a coveted stream that really belonged to him and his family.

Alan might not know, but he intended to find out. With or without an offering of fruit or roses, he thought, wedging the vase between the passenger seat and his center console.

He fumed to himself all the way from town, taking a shortcut fire road that bisected his property from the Bells’ land. What they claimed was their land. He made the mental correction as he got out to open a gate posted with a Private Property—Keep Out sign. For the first time, he wondered if his grandmother knew the Ashline woman had settled in quarters they owned. Well, maybe owned. He revised that thought, too. According to the clerk he’d spoken with earlier, Hazel Bell hadn’t done anything illegal.

Hazel and Ted had met the state statute for filing squatter’s rights. Jason Ridge, Alan’s grandfather, had issued a temporary deed, which gave Ted the right to erect two dwellings. The couple had resided in one cottage long enough to qualify them as land claimants, otherwise known as squatters, according to a historic act that had apparently never been removed from the county statutes. Such folks had the right to petition for ownership of land they’d improved and occupied for twenty years. Clearly, no Ridge had suspected the Bells would ever file.

Alan didn’t understand all the legal mumbo jumbo. And Windridge’s business attorney was in Europe on vacation. There was little Alan could do until Dale Patton returned. Except…he could determine who’d let Laurel Ashline move in. Hazel had been dead and buried for over a year. Alan could attest to that, as he and Vestal had attended her funeral. It was then that they’d learned of her treachery. Hazel’s lawyer, an upstart from Lexington, had paid her outstanding bills and practically thumbed his nose at locals over the squatting.

Now Alan wracked his brain and tried to recall who else had been at the service. A van filled with mostly middle-aged women had shown up at the last minute, making a total of maybe fifteen. Sad for someone who’d lived her entire life in Ridge City. But as Vestal had pointed out, Hazel had cut herself off from neighbors.

Alan supposed Laurel Ashline must’ve been in the van. He knew Hazel was involved in local craft fairs. Ted had complained often enough that his wife spent more time with her “artsy-fartsy friends” than she did at home doing what he figured wives should do. Alan guessed that meant cooking, cleaning and the like.

He never commiserated, because he didn’t share Ted’s belief, and because his wife had acted in a similar fashion. Not that Emily ran with an arts crowd. She’d spent her days—and nights—with the horsey set. Racehorses. Down in Louisville. Alan had rarely seen her during the months leading up to the Kentucky Derby. But race season was long over when Emily had had her accident, which was why Alan had such a hard time understanding why she’d been on that particular road. He knew what people whispered, though.

Even now his stomach pitched at the memory of the call from the state police. He forced his mind onto other subjects. Such as what questions he ought to ask when he arrived at Laurel Ashline’s door—about two minutes from now.

Pulling up, Alan parked on the west side of the stream near the footbridge leading to the largest of the Bell cottages. Ted had built the second, smaller place for Hazel’s crafts. Down-home items sold like hotcakes to summer tourists.

If he’d hoped to find the structures in major disrepair, he was sadly disappointed. The oiled-wood siding on both buildings looked to be in pristine shape. Slate-blue trim gleamed as if newly painted. All around the cottage, a profusion of crocuses and daffodils created a riot of color against the bright green of trees just beginning to burst with spring leaves.

Absently, Alan reached back to retrieve the vase with its pale-pink rosebuds. They seemed puny compared to the Ashline woman’s garden.

Not for the first time, Alan considered forgetting about this stupid mission. Except, it had never been said of Ridge men that they were cowardly. Hitching up the belt of his well-worn jeans, he thrust a hand through his freshly cut hair, which still bore a cowlick. Alan slammed the Jeep door and set out across the footbridge. He’d taken two steps onto the spongy wooden slats when a huge, snarling dog flew from around the left corner of the cottage, running straight at him. Black ears laid flat spoke of the animal’s displeasure at seeing a stranger. A second look at the black muzzle, lips curled over gleaming white incisors, had Alan edging back the way he’d come.

He tried softly cajoling, muttering, “Good dog,” several times, to no avail. After which he resorted to shouting for the dog’s owner. “Ms. Ashline! Laurel? Hey, could you come out and call off your watchdog?”

He got no response. But Alan would swear the white lace curtains covering the largest window moved. And wasn’t that the shadow of a human form appearing briefly behind a rip in the lace?

Maybe that was wishful thinking. Gripping the neck of the vase, Alan scanned the hill behind the cottage. Between the upper and lower dwellings, two horses poked their heads over a split rail corral.

Alan had assumed, maybe wrongly, that someone was home, based on the battered pickup beside which he’d parked his Jeep. It occurred to him now that she could be out riding. Although… He glared suspiciously at the window again. Was it logical to leave her monster dog to watch the house instead of taking him along for protection? Hell, maybe her bite was worse than her dog’s.

He knew absolutely nothing about Laurel Ashline, except that she had a sexy voice. He probably should’ve gleaned more details from his grandmother. Or from Eva Saxon, who loved sharing gossip more than anything else on earth.

He felt like a fool standing here, clutching a vase of pink rosebuds, squared off with a snarling dog. Yet it was obvious the German shepherd wasn’t going to let him cross.

Hitting on a new plan, Alan dug out his cell phone and punched in the number written on the crumpled business card. She might be working in the upper cottage. He had no idea whether looms made more noise than that fool dog. He frankly doubted it, but then he knew nothing about weaving.

The phone rang and rang. If he took the cell away from his ear, he could hear it ring in the cottage across the way. Listening through at least twenty rings, he finally swore again, closed the phone, and stowed it away. That was when he noticed the garbage can sitting near his Jeep. Damned if sticking out of it wasn’t a still-wrapped basket of fruit.

“Phew! Stinko!” Striding up to the container, Alan waved away a swarm of flies and saw that the fruit had rotted. He would bet ten to one that Ms. Ashline had read the card Vestal had composed in his name and then tossed the whole thing in the trash. Hell, the proof was staring at him. She had tossed away a kind gesture, lock, stock and basket. The card lay on top of the torn cellophane.

Alan moved away from the odor and the flies, wondering what kind of person could do that—throw away an apology, judging a man she didn’t know. Unless she just hated men, period.

That notion raised his hackles. It made him want to lob the damn vase at her front window. But, no, that’d probably be the type of macho jerk action she’d expect him to pull.

Instead, baring his own teeth at the dog, Alan stalked across the bridge and roared, “Hush up!” The animal backed off with a surprised whimper, just long enough to give Alan a chance to set the vase on the porch. “Pitch those in the trash,” he yelled at her tightly closed door. “You can’t hide forever. We have unfinished business, you and I. One day we’ll meet. Bank on it!”

Because the shepherd had recovered from the onslaught, and now raced at him again, barking furiously, Alan lost no time hotfooting it back to his Jeep. Though he was sweating like a pig and panting like a man twice his age, he felt a measure of satisfaction at accomplishing his mission.

And oddly, he hadn’t felt so alive in months. Not—he realized with shock—since the accident. As he started the Jeep and made a sweeping turn, aiming the vehicle downhill to the highway, he thought about the hermit he’d become in recent months. And he didn’t like the picture. Didn’t like it at all.

FLATTENED AGAINST THE WALL between the window and the door, Laurel waited several long minutes following her visitor’s last diatribe. She wished she’d had a clearer look at him. Framed against the trees, with the backdrop of brilliant sunlight, he’d been little more than a shadow.

She’d apparently out-waited him at last. Dog had stopped his incessant barking. Venturing another glance through a gap in the curtain, she saw that the pesky man had indeed gone.

Laurel opened the door just a little, and Dog trotted up, shaking his shaggy coat. “Good boy,” she said, praising his efforts as she stepped out and rubbed his ears. He seemed to grin at her, slobbering on her jeans when he rose on hind legs to lick her face. Dropping again, the dog lowered his head to sniff at something behind the screen. A low growl alerted Laurel and she went to investigate.

A cut-glass vase holding several rosebuds of a delicate pink winked at her in the flickering light. Laurel’s breath caught in her throat. He’d left her flowers? Roses. Store-bought roses.

Kneeling, she fingered the soft, fragrant petals. She had to shove Dog’s nose aside as she hesitantly picked up the vase. Breathing in the light, sweet scent, she smiled through suddenly teary eyes. This must be what he’d shouted at her to pitch. She thought he’d retrieved his earlier offering of fruit from the garbage can. Why on earth would the man brave being bitten by Dog to leave flowers for an ungrateful wretch who’d disposed of his first gift? Fruit baskets weren’t cheap. Nor were roses in cut-glass vases. Too bad they’d been purchased with the profits from whiskey, she thought with a sigh.

She nudged open the screen door, letting Dog lead the way inside. Despite everything, she couldn’t help being touched. Laurel tried the vase in three separate locations before finally carrying it up the hill to her loom cottage. Shabbily though she’d treated him, Laurel reasoned it didn’t mean she shouldn’t enjoy the first bouquet anyone had ever given her. Well, technically she supposed, three rosebuds, some fronds of fern and a stalk of baby’s breath wasn’t a bona fide bouquet. Nevertheless, they were lovely.

Gazing at them, she felt more…more…well, more for the giver than she’d wanted to. Guilt cloaked her as she took a seat at one of her floor looms, which she’d set up for weaving a commissioned rose-patterned bedspread.

Alan Ridge’s roses sat on the windowsill, reminding her how abominably she’d acted.

Whether he was aware of it or not, Mr. Ridge had made a favorable impression, and she should probably revise her earlier opinion. She was sorry she hadn’t gone out to see him. Maybe she should call him—just to say thank-you.

Humming a tuneless melody, Laurel kept time alternately with the foot pedals and the beater bar of her giant loom. The double-rose pattern her client had selected for this piece dated back to the late seventeen hundreds. An elderly weaver who’d given Laurel the pattern had painstakingly written directions with a stubby pencil on tablet paper. The old weaver called the entwined roses “Bachelor Among the Girls.” Did that describe Alan Ridge? Laurel supposed not. Eva Saxon from the flower shop had said Ridge’s wife had died in an auto accident. That made him a widower.

So Laurel could call this version of the pattern “Widower among the Ladies.” Given his stature in the community, if he handed out roses willy-nilly, Alan Ridge had to be a hit with every unattached female for miles around.

A hit with everyone except her. The kindness of his gesture aside, Laurel still disliked the man’s business. Did he know or care how many potentially good people had problems with whiskey? How many lives had been destroyed by liquor? On second thought, she wouldn’t be phoning the whiskey baron of Ridge City to say thank-you anytime soon. Laurel had made one monstrous mistake when it came to letting a man’s charm sway her. She’d do well to remember that flowers faded, and so did romance.

But he didn’t have to bring you flowers, insisted a nagging voice inside her head—a voice she was determined to ignore.

ALAN STOPPED IN TOWN for the second time that day on the pretext of picking up a few groceries for Birdie and checking on a grain order for Windridge. His visit didn’t go unnoticed, since he so rarely got to town these days. So when he asked questions about Laurel Ashline he couldn’t really blame the shopkeepers who were reluctant to give much away.

At the granary he was told Eva Saxon had described Laurel as a tall, willowy blonde. Peg Moore, waitress at the corner café eyed Alan as she wiped off the counter and poured his coffee. “Laurel Ashline is…rather plain, I’d say. And she’s either really shy or exceptionally quiet.”

“About how old, would you guess?” Alan asked casually.

“Um, late twenties or early thirties,” Peg ventured.

That surprised him, and pretty much ruled out the possibility that she’d been one of the women who’d attended Hazel Bell’s funeral. They’d all been matronly.

He could see that everyone in the café was curious. But, typical of folks in this part of Kentucky, no one pressed Alan to say why he wanted to learn more about the stranger in their midst.

“It’s later than I thought. I should be getting home. Louemma will be finishing her lessons, and I have a message for her tutor from the school.” Depositing a tip next to his coffee cup, Alan stood up.

“Is Louemma improving at all?” Peg asked what few ever did of Alan.

“Not really,” he admitted reluctantly.

“I thought that was probably the case. Yesterday Charity Madison brought her Camp Fire troop in for ice cream. Used to be you never saw Sarah Madison without Louemma. Peg shook her head. “That Sarah’s getting a mouth on her, and Charity doesn’t seem to know how to curb it. If it was me, I’d be giving that little miss some chores, and I’d take away privileges.”

Alan didn’t respond. Charity and Pete Madison had been his and Emily’s best friends. To their credit, the couple had tried to include him and Louemma in their social events after the accident. But there was no denying the dynamics were different now. Maybe Charity couldn’t bring herself to discipline Sarah, he mused. Because Louemma’s experience showed how quickly life could change for the worse. Could be Charity was plain glad Sarah hadn’t been with Louemma at the time Emily’s car spun out of control.

At home again, Alan carried the groceries he’d bought in the back door. He’d missed Louemma’s tutor, so he’d have to call her later. He sat down beside his daughter on the couch in front of the TV and kissed the top of her head.

“Hi, Daddy. Where’ve you been?”

“Nowhere. I just ran some errands in town.”

Birdie bustled into the room bearing a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies and a tall glass of milk. Vestal appeared out of nowhere, clearly wanting to nab Alan.

As Birdie sat down to help Louemma drink and eat, Vestal yanked him out of the living room, into the hall. “What happened when you went to see Laurel Ashline? When’s she coming to see Louemma?”

He scowled. “Who said I even went to see Ms. Ashline?”

“Eva. She phoned right after you left her shop. Trying her best to learn why you followed up a basket of fruit with a vaseful of roses for a woman who apparently told Eva she hadn’t even met you. You know Eva can’t stand to think that anyone in town is keeping secrets from her.”

“Three roses, Grandmother, not a vaseful.” Alan wiggled three fingers. “She wasn’t home, by the way. And speaking of secrets, why didn’t you tell me you sent her that fruit basket in my name?”

Vestal did have the grace to look guilty.

“Also, were you aware she’s living in Hazel Bell’s cottage? Her cottage, on our land. It is, you know. Ours.” He narrowed his eyes and watched his grandmother clasp a fist to her thin chest.

“That’s why her name sounded familiar. Ashline—that was the transient workman Lucy Bell ran off with. Oh, my. Laurel must be Lucy’s daughter.”

“What? Ted never mentioned having a granddaughter.”

“No. But it has to be. In that case, you have your answer as to why she settled here. Laurel Ashline has roots in Ridge City.”

“No way! Her mother ran off how many years ago?”

“At least thirty. But you said it yourself, Alan. Strangers never move here. Only people who have roots. She does.”

Alan turned and stomped toward his office. At the door, he stopped. “She may think she has roots here,” he said. “Obviously Hazel or her lawyer led the woman to believe Bell Hill belongs to her. But that forty acres is Ridge land—always has been and always will be. Hardy needs the water from that spring to expand Windridge. We’re paying him big bucks to ensure Louemma’s legacy and her children’s legacy long after you and I are gone, Grandmother. Isn’t that reason enough not to get chummy with Laurel Ashline?” He started to slam the door, but Vestal blocked it with a toe.

“Now you listen to me. Way back before Lucy Bell went wild, her mother and I dreamed about our son and her daughter forging an unbreakable bond between our two families. That didn’t happen. But maybe…”

“Uh-huh. No, ma’am. Don’t even think it!” Alan’s voice rose sharply. “You’re not pairing me up with…that woman. Not with any woman.”

“Grouchy as you are, no woman in her right mind would have you, Alan Ridge. Chew on this—if you don’t get help for her, the Ridge bloodline ends with Louemma. I tell you, I have a feeling about Laurel. You know Jason and your father both respected my intuition. I can’t imagine why you’re in such a state over someone you’ve never met. Quit being an ass and make peace with the woman, for Louemma’s sake.”

Squaring her shoulders, Vestal withdrew her foot from the door, then slammed it shut herself.

Behind the door, Alan rubbed his eyes. Obviously he had to do something. If this battle between them continued, Vestal could work herself into a heart attack. Or he would, considering how furiously the blood pounded through his veins. No, he couldn’t let this go on. Somewhere there had to be a doctor able to cure whatever ailed Louemma.

CHAPTER THREE

ALAN THOUGHT HE HEARD faint sounds of someone crying as he stood braced against the door. He gave himself a mental shake and opened it a crack.

It wasn’t like Vestal to give way to tears. And it wasn’t like him to push a confrontation to the brink of tears, either. That had been part of his and Emily’s problem. She’d spoiled for a fight over the least little thing and had been adept at employing tears to get her way. Alan had realized early in their marriage that she’d manipulated her parents in pretty much the same manner. He’d been determined not to fall into the same trap. When the hysterics began, his response was usually to walk away, which only made Emily more furious.

Someone was definitely crying, he decided. But it wasn’t coming from his grandmother’s wing. Setting off to investigate, Alan found Louemma still in front of the TV. Her face was wet. Tears dripped off her chin, as she couldn’t lift a hand to wipe them away.

He dashed to her side and whipped a clean handkerchief out of his pocket. On his knees beside her, Alan gently blotted her face. “Louemma, honey, what’s wrong? Are you in pain? Tell me where so I can call Dr. Fulton.”

“Why were you and Nana yelling? It…it reminded me of you and Mama.”

“We never yell—” Stunned, Alan let the hand holding the handkerchief fall away. “Baby, I never raised my voice to your mother.” Emily, though, had screamed loudly enough for ten people.

Again the dark eyes studying him glistened with tears. “But…Mama yelled at you. And sometimes stuff hit my bedroom wall.”

Alan’s stomach lurched. Good grief, had Louemma somehow picked up on the fact that he’d been thinking about Emily’s tantrums? Vestal swore her side of the family was clairvoyant—could Louemma sense other people’s thoughts? No. If anything, it was the strain they were all under.

“Honeybee, your mother had a…a temper. But never doubt that she loved you more than anything in the world. I love you, the same way. Please don’t cry.” Alan felt an urgent need to reassure her. Yes, he and Emily had had their spats. But one thing they’d agreed on was that their child came first in both their lives.

“In reruns of The Brady Bunch, they got a new mom. She’s nice.”

“We do okay, don’t we? Look, I made Nana mad a minute ago. Even before I heard you crying, I was about to go and apologize. I’ll go see her right now if you promise not to cry another tear.”

Louemma lowered her lashes. Her lips trembled. Finally, in a small voice, she sighed, “Okay, Daddy.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “You didn’t drink much milk. Remember, Dr. Fulton said you need milk to strengthen your bones.” Alan got up and moved the TV tray closer, adjusting the bendable straw that allowed Louemma to drink without using her hands. “Did Birdie help you eat a cookie?”

“I’m not hungry or thirsty. Daddy, will Miss Robinson always have to give me my lessons at home?”

“I thought you liked Miss Robinson.”

“I do. But…sometimes I miss going to school. I could try walking more.”

Again Alan felt at a loss for words. Louemma had obviously forgotten how frustrated she’d become when they’d sent her back to her regular classroom. Shunned by former friends, she’d felt left out. Alan had ached as he’d held her through those first horrible crying jags. “Honey, the doctors all agree that for the time being, until someone figures out what’s causing your muscle weakness, leg cramps and balance problems, home-schooling is best.”

“When will the doctors find out what’s wrong? When, Daddy?”

“Soon, baby. Soon,” he said, with conviction enough to make it so. “Oh, your program’s over. Shall I put in the Space Kids DVD? I need to go find Grandmother.”

“Sure,” the girl agreed listlessly, sliding down until she lay cradled in the pillows.

Alan discovered his hands weren’t steady when he removed the DVD from its plastic case. He let his mind drift to the various doctors and clinics they’d visited since the accident. So far, all were in Kentucky. Maybe they should try New York or Chicago? Dammit, someone somewhere had to have answers.

“After you see Nana, do you have to work? Or can you watch the movie with me?”

Running his fingers through her tangled bangs, Alan tried not to think about the paperwork piling up on his desk. Hardy had pressured him this morning to calculate the end costs on the imported virgin white-oak barrels he wanted to install in the new warehouse they planned to build. None of which would do Windridge an iota of good until they solved the matter of diverting water from the Bell Hill spring.

Everything on his list seemed to circle back to that forty acres, where he now had an unwanted tenant dug in. A tenant who had at least two horses and a bloodthirsty dog. What other creatures was Laurel Ashline harboring? he wondered.

“Louemma, if you finish your milk, as soon as I clear the air with Nana, I’ll come straight back and watch the movie with you.” Alan decided that if his lot in life was to negotiate and strike bargains, he may as well start with one he had a chance of winning.

Without a word, Louemma wriggled closer to the TV tray. As he headed for the door, he noted with satisfaction that the straw was white and the level in the glass was on the decline.

Striding down a side hall, he tapped on the door to his grandmother’s suite. He waited for her “Come in, it’s unlocked,” before entering.

There was a fire going in her sitting-room fireplace. Vestal reclined in an overstuffed chair with her feet propped up on a matching ottoman, book in hand. She sat up straight as Alan approached, and closed the medical thriller she’d been reading.

From the way she refused to meet his eyes, Alan knew she was still annoyed. He edged her ankles aside and perched on the ottoman. “Did you ever see Emily throwing things any of the times she got mad at me?”

“What? I thought you’d come to gripe some more about Laurel Ashline.”

He shook his head and set a hand lightly on her knee. “No more arguments. Louemma heard us. It frightened her. She told me it brought back memories of some of my less than happy encounters with her mother. Louemma all but accused us of throwing things at each other. I never—” He shut his eyes and rubbed a thumb between his brows. “Maybe I was wrong to walk off when Emily started a tirade.”

“No good ever comes from talking about the dead, Alan.”

“You know our friends in town think Emily was having an affair.” He said it haltingly. “Our troubles began after Grandfather died. Even more so when my mom up and married Royce and left us. I couldn’t let you run the business alone. Emily hated my working long hours.”

“Those were tough times until you promoted Hardy. But even with all his experience in making bourbon, he needed to learn the business end. We all did our best,” she said quietly. “I hope you’re not feeling guilty. You have nothing to regret, Alan. Emily was headstrong. Payton and Joleen spoiled her rotten, and they would’ve done the same with Louemma.”

He smiled at that. “Yes, I can’t say I was sorry to see my in-laws retire to Arizona. I didn’t relish the prospect of having to limit their contact with their only grandchild.”

Vestal picked up her book again and prepared to open it. Then she hesitated, marking her place with one finger. “I forgive you for being so stubbornly resistant to seeking help from Ms. Ashline, Alan. Louemma is your daughter. I shouldn’t be an interfering old busybody.”

Alan’s eyebrow shot up to meet the lock of hair that perpetually fell over his brow. “If I thought you honestly meant that, I’d leave now, a happy man. But I’m betting tomorrow you’ll find another way to bring up her name in a flank attack. So I’ll capitulate. If I can ever get an audience with her, I will speak to Ms. Ashline about Louemma.”

“Really?” Vestal removed her reading glasses and gazed at her grandson with a hopeful expression. “It so happens I have the perfect plan, Alan.” Setting her book aside again, she swung her feet off the ottoman and stood. Walking over to her small cherrywood rolltop desk, she picked up a section of the Ridge City weekly newspaper. “According to this article, Laurel’s giving a weaving demonstration to Charity Madison’s Camp Fire troop tomorrow. It’s no coincidence. It’s synchronicity, Alan. Louemma still belongs, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but…she hasn’t attended since the accident. What are you suggesting? That I barge in on one of their meetings?”

“No. Well, yes. Louemma’s been cut off from her little pals long enough. Call Charity. Say you’re bringing Louemma to the meeting. Those kids are all her friends. She used to look forward to seeing them.”

“I know, but…” It struck Alan that these were his fears welling up. He’d quit visiting Pete and Charity because they were among the people who, after the accident, had first alluded to his wife’s possible infidelity. “Give me the article. I’ll go out right now and talk to Louemma. If she wants to attend, I’ll contact Charity. Only…aren’t you forgetting that some of those kids are the same ones who treated her so badly at school?”

“That’s the way of kids. Especially girls. Trust me, Alan, I saw it all during the years I taught third grade.”

Releasing a breath trapped deep in his lungs, Alan pushed to his feet. “I’m not going to force her to interact with her former friends. Whatever her response might be, will you take my word for it? Or do you want to come along and see that I actually throw out the possibility and let her choose?”

“I trust you, Alan. I’ve questioned your hardheadedness, but never your integrity.”

He laughed at that and walked toward the door. “I’ll give you the verdict at dinner. Oh, by the way, are we eating earlier tonight?”

“I asked Birdie to move up lunch and dinner by an hour or two starting tomorrow. I know you said we’d discuss it, but I thought it had probably slipped your mind.”

“It had until now. If it works for everyone else, I’ll make it work for me.”

Alan went straight back to the living room. Louemma was engrossed in her movie, so he dropped the paper and sat down to watch it with her as promised. He had to lift her up and settle her against his side. At times like this, more than any other, Alan longed for the return of the active boisterous girl she’d been before the accident. For that reason, it seemed churlish of him to have argued with Vestal over the Ashline woman. He ought to grab at any chance of helping Louemma, no matter how unlikely or bizarre it might seem.

The minute the credits started to roll at the end of the movie, Alan sat Louemma up. He grabbed the section of the newspaper and turned off the movie with the remote. “Nana found something interesting in today’s paper. Your old Camp Fire group has someone coming to the meeting tomorrow to demonstrate weaving.”

The little girl glanced up with interest. “What is weaving?”

“Uh…well, all cloth is woven. There are different kinds of thread, and various types of weaving. The article mentions pot holders. Woven on a hand-operated loom.”

“Oh.” The spark died in her dark-brown eyes. “I couldn’t do it, then.”

Alan hated to raise her hopes, only to dash them again. On the other hand, he’d promised Vestal. “Nana saw this weaver working with patients at the hospital. A friend of hers who’d had a stroke and used to be paralyzed on one side can apparently operate the loom now. I’m not saying you can do it, baby, but it’s worth trying. Plus you haven’t seen Sarah Madison in a while. I thought I could knock off work early and take you to the meeting, and let you see what weaving’s all about.”

She pursed her lips. “Sarah called me a spoiled brat. But I miss Jenny, Maggie and Brenna. I guess it’d be okay to go.”

Alan had hoped for more overt enthusiasm, or else a flat refusal. He supposed he’d have to live with her tepid response. “Fine,” he said, clasping sweating palms over his knees. “I’ll phone Mrs. Madison and tell her to plan on two more at the meeting. Oh,” he added as he stood, “I understand we’re eating earlier beginning tomorrow. Did Birdie tell you?”

“Birdie and Nana discussed it with Miss Robinson. She said it didn’t matter to my lesson schedule.”

“Good, that’s what we’ll do.”

He realized he was stalling, not wanting to make that call to Charity. Alan removed that DVD disc and found another appropriate program for Louemma to watch before he decided he could stall no longer.

AT THREE-THIRTY the next afternoon, Alan found himself sitting in front of the Madison home. Louemma wore an anxious expression. Her Camp Fire uniform hung on her, emphasizing her weight loss.

“Sure you’re still okay with your decision, honey? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“I want to go.”

Alan heard a but in there. “But…?”

“I don’t like riding in the wheelchair. And I’m nine, so when you carry me, I look like a baby.”

“Don’t you remember how you woke up crying every night with terrible muscle aches? That’s why Dr. Fulton got you the chair.”

She dragged her lip between her teeth.

Allowing her to make up her own mind, Alan remained silent. He and Charity already thought the meeting, added to the demonstration and the social half hour, might be too much for Louemma’s first outing. They’d settled on skipping the meeting portion, at that time Charity would prepare the other girls for Louemma’s eventual appearance. As he waited, staring out the car window, he saw a pickup cruising slowly toward them on the opposite side of the street. He recognized it as the one he’d seen parked near the footbridge at Laurel Ashline’s cottage. It galled him to think of it as her cottage. If she was related to Hazel Bell, then she was kin to a woman who had scammed his family.

Well, maybe scammed was too harsh a term. But Hazel had certainly deceived them.

“What’s the verdict, Louemma? I think that’s the weaver across the street. We’ll want to go inside and get settled so we’re not interrupting her.”

“I’ll use the chair, Daddy. The other girls sit on the floor.”

Since the last thing Alan wanted was to encounter Laurel Ashline on the porch, he jumped from the Jeep, pulled out the wheelchair and flipped it open. He unbuckled Louemma and lifted her down, placing her in the chair. It became apparent that their demonstrator had things to collect, too. He saw her leaning into the pickup bed—and he couldn’t help admiring her backside. Forcing his eyes away, he managed to maneuver his daughter and himself into the house, greeting Charity and the other girls, all before Laurel knocked at the door.

Alan took a seat in the far corner of the Madisons’ family room. It was a good place from which to evaluate the weaver without attracting her attention. Apparently, Eva Saxon’s assessment of Laurel as a tall, willowy blonde was fairly accurate. Peg Moore, though, had called her plain. And shy. Alan wouldn’t attach either of those labels to this woman, whose skin was flawless. After putting down a loom and a large quilted bag, she talked animatedly with Charity, all the while flashing brilliant smiles at the small circle of girls.

Alan wasn’t close enough to get a good look at her eyes, but if he had to guess, he’d say they were hazel, more aqua and gold than brown. She didn’t wear a speck of jewelry. Perhaps that was why Peg considered her plain. In his experience, southern women tended to drape themselves in gold necklaces, with charms, crosses and other things hanging at varying lengths. Like the ones Charity had on and Emily had worn. Plus gemstone rings on every finger. Alan hadn’t thought much about the practice until now, following the graceful sweep of Laurel Ashline’s bare, slender hand through the air.

He suffered yet another guilty start and sat up fast. He had absolutely no reason at all to compare her with other women of his acquaintance—especially not in an interested fashion. A romantic…

More to the point, Alan needed to observe her reaction when Charity introduced her to Louemma. Or when they got around to him.

He didn’t have long to wait. Alan saw the woman take in Louemma’s full name, and thought he saw a narrowing of her eyes. Just as quickly, she pasted on another smile. But when Charity pointed to him, the smile disappeared and her mouth dropped open.

He got to his feet and ambled over, acknowledging the introduction with a brief nod of his head. Then he casually tucked his thumbs under his belt and resumed his seat. He couldn’t help gloating that his nemesis seemed so obviously rattled.

And rattled she was. Although she’d kept his pink roses long after another woman would have thrown them out, Laurel had built a less than flattering picture in her mind of Alan Ridge. She’d imagined him fortyish, slightly paunchy, possibly even with receding hair, but definitely with a ruddy complexion from partaking of the product that had made him a wealthy man. Her stomach fell suddenly as she realized she’d attached to Alan Ridge attributes her ex-husband had developed over their seven-year marriage.

Ridge was melt-in-a-puddle-at-his-feet gorgeous.

Belatedly, Laurel realized that she was standing there gaping at him, and had completely missed what the hostess, Charity Madison, had said next.

“I’m sorry? What?”

Charity darted a sharp glance between her visitor and her husband’s former best friend. “I asked if you needed a card table for your demonstration. But perhaps I should’ve explained why a man is sitting in on what is normally an all-girl event. I assumed, from talk around town, that you and Alan were acquainted.” Charity discreetly murmured the last few words.

“Ah, no. We’ve never met.” Laurel hauled in a deep breath. The infusion of oxygen to her lungs and brain had the desired effect. “A card table will work just fine,” she said briskly. “I’ll talk a bit about the history of weaving in Kentucky, then start a pot holder I’ve set up on a hand loom. While you prepare refreshments for the girls, I’ll take them individually and let them weave four or so lines apiece on the mat. By the time they finish, they’ll have a fair idea of how a weaving comes together.”

“Oh, that sounds marvelous. Exactly the kind of program I’m always searching for. In a small town it’s hard to find things year after year to interest kids who have the attention span of gnats.” Both women laughed at that.

“Sarah and Brenna,” Charity called. “Ms. Ashline needs the card table. It’s your turn to set up for our speaker.”

Laurel saw two girls jump up. Both were pretty and gangly like colts. One had long golden hair and the other was a freckled redhead. The golden girl appeared somewhat bossy. But it wasn’t until the group leader spoke sharply to her that Laurel gathered the bossy one was her daughter.

Charity followed Laurel to where she’d left her loom and bag. Kneeling, she helped collect the various things, although that clearly wasn’t her primary goal. It became obvious that she had something to say to Laurel that she didn’t want the girls to hear.

“Come into the kitchen for a minute, will you please, Ms. Ashline?” Charity kept her voice low and her eyes shuttered. Laurel couldn’t determine exactly why she wanted a private consultation. Like it or not, she was about to find out.

Charity announced, “Girls, we’re going to grab the adults some coffee. Finish preparing the table and return to your circle. Ms. Ashline and I will be right back.”

“Call me Laurel,” she murmured, dutifully falling in behind the other woman.

In the homey country kitchen, Charity filled cups already set out on a tray.

“What’s this about?” Laurel asked, getting straight to the point. “I can’t drink coffee while I demonstrate.”

“I know.” Charity bit her lip. “I assumed you were aware of Louemma Ridge’s disability, or I’d have advised Alan not to bring her today.”

“Are we speaking about the child in the wheelchair?” Suddenly it all began to fall into place.

“Louemma is Alan’s daughter.” Charity tucked a stray curl behind one ear. “It’s too long a story to give you details, but the short version is that she was injured in the accident that killed his wife, uh, Louemma’s mother. Since then, the poor child hasn’t been able to, or refuses to, move her arms. As a result, she also has difficulty with balance and therefore walking, and her legs are withering from disuse. Frankly, there are so many…rumors flying around….” She paused, frowning. “My Sarah and Louemma used to be best friends. After the accident, well… Alan and Louemma have dropped out of everything. I was shocked when he phoned and asked to bring her today. To be honest, I’m not sure why they’re here. I assume, since his grandmother suggested I invite you to do a program, that she’s the instigator.” Shrugging, Charity broke off and picked up the tray. “Oh, I’ve probably only confused you, Ms. Ashline…uh, Laurel,” she said, as Laurel opened her mouth to correct her. “I thought you’d want to know so you won’t expect Louemma to participate in trying to weave like the other girls.”

“Thanks. I do appreciate knowing.” Laurel grabbed a mug off the tray and even though she’d denied wanting coffee, took a sip. It gave her an excuse to be in the kitchen while she tried to make some sense out of the information Charity Madison had so unceremoniously dumped on her.

As she returned to the family room a minute later, Laurel didn’t even glance in Alan Ridge’s direction. She went straight to the table and began unloading her kit. From everything that had been said in the kitchen she deduced two things. Vestal Ridge, the pleasant woman she’d met quite by accident at the hospital, had a purpose in mind when she’d asked if weaving therapy always helped patients regain use of injured limbs. And the elfin child huddled in the wheelchair was the reason for Alan Ridge’s initial phone call, and his subsequent attempts to contact her by plying her with goodies.

That much Laurel had straight. Now she was even more furious that the man would place her or his poor, sweet child in a situation doomed for failure.

But here they were. She had an audience that expected to be taught weaving. And there was nothing she could do except muddle through. Afterward, however, Mr. Ridge of the Ridges for whom the town was named was going to get a piece of her mind. And he wouldn’t like it.

The eager faces of the girls wiped away the frown Laurel felt between her eyebrows merely thinking about Alan Ridge. Laurel and the waif in the chair connected with a brief meeting of their eyes.

Laurel began stringing the loom. “Hand-weaving is an art brought to this country from Europe by women who had dreams of raising their families in a society free of religious oppression. The women, the pioneers who settled the state of Kentucky, wove cloth out of necessity. For clothes, bedding, curtains…well, for everything. Back then there were no stores. No malls. Sheep provided wool, and the women spun it into yarn. If you’ve never seen a spinning wheel, maybe Mrs. Madison can bring you to my loom cottage on a field trip.”

One child’s hand shot up. “Is that sheep’s wool you’re using?”

“Good question. No. It’s cotton. The first Kentucky weaver to use cotton probably bartered for as little as four pounds of cotton seed from a Virginia farmer. Records are sketchy, but that’s the recollection of early settlers. Again, your great-great-great-grandmothers spun the thread and dyed it with native bark and berries. It was expensive to buy indigo-blue or cochineal-red coloring. Which is why, if you see early Kentucky weavings in museums, they’re true natural colors.”

Sarah Madison tossed her head saucily. “Why go to so much work, Ms. Ashline, when we can drive to the mall to buy clothes, pot holders, bedspreads and stuff?”

“Not so many years ago, women helped supplement the family income, or filled their kitchen cupboards, by bartering and trading their weavings. And believe it or not, there are still families who live too far from a town to have ready access to the things you mentioned. My grandmother and others before her traveled on foot or horseback in remote sites to collect and preserve weaving patterns that might otherwise be lost.”

“Why do you weave?” asked a bored-looking girl. “I mean, you live in Ridge City, right? You could just go to the mall.”

“Ah. Another good question. I discovered I have a strong urge to create. I enjoy seeing an ancient pattern come to life under my hands. Like many other women, I gain satisfaction from making such pieces and using them in my home.” She laughed. “Fortunately for me, Maggie,” she said, reading the name off the last questioner’s badge, “a lot of busy women think like me but feel like you. They want handmade items on their tables, beds and windows, but lack the time, desire or knowledge to produce cloth themselves.”

Another reed-thin girl straightened to peer at her friends through thick cocoa-colored bangs. “I think it’d be cool to weave. Look what Ms. Ashline’s done just since she started talking. I’ll bet if we tried, we could all make our moms Christmas gifts.”

“You could,” Laurel agreed, and at once saw that the interest she’d noticed in Louemma Ridge’s expressive eyes had been extinguished. “I see disbelief written on a few faces. Making things like pot holders or place mats is much easier than you obviously think. Maggie,” she said, choosing the girl who, other than Louemma Ridge, least wanted to participate. “Come here and I’ll show you how to work the shuttle. I’ll show each of you while Mrs. Madison prepares your snack.”

The children jumped to their feet and crowded around. Without fanfare, Laurel left the table. She gave the child seated in the wheelchair a warm smile, then wheeled her into position near the table so she could watch what the others were doing.

“Louemma can’t do this,” Sarah Madison said snippily. “She can’t do anything the rest of us can. I don’t even know why she’s here.”

Laurel sent her a stern look. “A highly respected Kentucky weaver by the name of Lou Tate Bousman had more faith in our craft than you do, Sarah. Thanks to her and some of the weavers she taught, a lot of people with hand, arm and back injuries learned to successfully operate a loom.”

“Right,” Sarah drawled. “I guess Louemma could move that bar back and forth with her feet.”

Most of the children tittered. Except for Brenna, who darted a sympathetic glance toward Louemma before scowling at Sarah.

Laurel wouldn’t let Sarah’s remark go. “Girls, there are artists who paint holding a brush in their mouth or with their toes. Everything is possible.”

Charity Madison and Alan Ridge, who’d gone into the kitchen, arrived back in time to hear Sarah’s rude statement.

“Sarah Michelle Madison!” Her mother set down a tray of juice and cookies, and grabbed her daughter’s arm. “If I hear you speak in that manner again, you won’t go to the new Disney movie tonight.”

The child jerked out of her mom’s grip, but although her expression was one of stormy resistance, she bit back any response that may have run through her mind.

Charity paused behind Louemma. “Pay Sarah no mind, hon. Her daddy says she’s going through another phase. Oh, my! Look what you all have made in the few minutes I’ve been gone.” Charity leaned across the table to admire the weaving, which had grown several inches under Laurel’s tutelage.

“I did the most,” Jenny said, dancing back and forth. “For our program next week, Mrs. Madison, can we all go out to Ms. Ashline’s place and see the spinning wheel and stuff?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Charity, who was now being pressured by all the girls except Sarah, turned to gaze helplessly at Laurel.

“I’ll have to check my calendar,” Laurel said, not wanting to make those arrangements in front of Louemma, which would surely add to her discomfort.

Charity pointed to a day planner peeking out of Laurel’s quilted handbag. “Isn’t that where you’d write down your appointments?”

Flushing, Laurel snatched up the book and flipped to the proper page. Unfortunately, the children had crowded around her, and they all saw that the page was blank.

“Yay!” Jenny flung her arms in the air and squealed at the top of her lungs. “She hasn’t got anything at three o’clock. We can go, we can go!”

Since there was nothing to do but block out the time, Laurel grabbed a pen and drew a big X through the hour from three to four. “Will you bring treats?” she asked Charity. “Or do I need to provide a snack for the children?”

“Mercy, I wouldn’t expect you to feed the girls. It’s kind enough of you to extend your program to include a session on spinning. Thank you so much. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen them this excited over a project. Well, some are,” she added, dolefully eyeing her daughter.

Laurel figured she’d have to suffer through Sarah’s cattiness and probably even Maggie’s indifference for one more day. She quickly dismissed the idea of seeing Louemma Ridge at the next gathering. Her father was already preparing to leave. As Laurel still wanted to tell him how insensitive she thought he was in subjecting his daughter to this demonstration without adequate preparation, she rushed to gather her things, and started after him.

“Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain the art of weaving,” Laurel remembered to tell Charity as she moved toward the door. “Which reminds me, you’ll need my address.” Taking out a business card, she scribbled on the back.

Charity gave it a cursory glance. “I turn at Vining Mill Road?” She looked up. “Are you living at Hazel Bell’s old place? Goodness, you probably don’t even know who that is. I guess you’re renting from Alan.”

“Renting from—?” Laurel paused, pulling her eyes away from his broad back as he disappeared out the door. “Hazel willed me the property when she died.”

“Willed it to you? But I, uh, gosh…didn’t realize she and Ted had bought Bell Hill. Last week I thought Hardy Duff told Pete—Pete’s my husband… Oh, never mind. Pete only listens with half an ear to what’s being said.” Charity was called away from the door by her daughter, who demanded her immediate attention. With a shrug, Charity grinned at Laurel. “At times I envy you single women.”

“It does have its benefits,” Laurel agreed. “But I do have responsibilities. Two saddle horses and a dog. By the way, are any of the girls allergic to dogs? Mine is underfoot all the time.” She said it almost hopefully.

“I don’t think anyone in the group has allergies. Unless Louemma’s developed some since her accident. Maybe you’d better catch Alan and ask him.”

“Oh, I’m sure he won’t bring her all that way. The area around my cottage is still quite primitive. Visitors park west of the stream and cross on a footbridge to reach my place. The cabin where my spinning room and looms are located is quite a trek up a gravel path, if you can even call it a path.”

“Well, then you definitely should speak with Alan. I just assumed Louemma would participate in our regular meetings, starting today.”

Laurel flew out the door then and called to Alan, who’d already placed his daughter in the Jeep. He closed her wheelchair and set it in the back before answering Laurel’s summons. He waited beside the open driver’s door, jingling his keys, clearly indicating his desire to get underway.

But Laurel really didn’t want to talk to him where Louemma might overhear, so she stopped by the Madisons’ front gate.

“Are you stuck, or what?” Alan demanded, sounding annoyed at her intrusion into his planned escape.

It was plain to Laurel that the man didn’t intend to budge. Reluctantly she started toward him. “Mrs. Madison suggested I remind you of the undeveloped condition of the walkway leading up to my loom cottage.”

He ignored that. “So, you really weren’t home when I came out to your place?” he inquired instead. “Doesn’t matter. I fulfilled my grandmother’s request today. It was even worse than I expected. Of course Louemma won’t be at next week’s meeting.”

Laurel was at a loss to explain why her relief was mixed with a twinge of sorrow when she heard his curt words.

“Daddy,” Louemma called plaintively from inside the dusty blue vehicle. “I want to see the spinning wheel. Can’t I please go with the others?”

From the frown that instantly crossed his face, throwing the angles of his cheeks into sharp relief, Laurel fully expected him to deny the child. But as he half turned to peer at her through the door, the lines softened measurably. “You want to go, honey? Are you positive?”

“I want to see how to get yarn out of sheep’s wool. And I like Ms. Ashline.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” Alan practically barked at Laurel, blaming her with his eyes for the fact that Louemma thought she was nice.

She could have ended it then and there. But the eagerness on Louemma’s face wouldn’t let her. “I plan exactly that,” she mumbled at last. “I’ll demonstrate washing, carding and spinning yarn from sheep’s wool, and thread from raw cotton bolls.” The stab of guilt she felt over her testiness toward him also came with an unexpected reward in the slow smile that lit the girl’s dark eyes.

“Uh, so I’ll see you next week, Louemma,” Laurel said. “I’m glad Mrs. Madison has a van big enough to transport all of you girls.” She abruptly sidestepped the Ridge Jeep, waved to the girl and ran across the street to where she’d parked. As she felt Alan Ridge’s smoldering gaze tracking every inch of her progress.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE OUTING TOOK A TOLL on Louemma; she fell asleep on the drive home. Still furious about the way Laurel Ashline had fouled his attempt to stonewall a second meeting, Alan carried his sleeping child into the house. It galled him that Laurel had sashayed off in that sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth manner after setting him up.

She’d planted the suggestion in Louemma’s mind by mentioning she could ride there with Charity. As if he’d entrust his daughter’s transportation to anyone else! Her own mother had disregarded something as basic as weather warnings.

The house was silent, so he walked quietly along the hall. Entering Louemma’s room, he placed her gently on her bed, then removed her jacket and shoes. Finding a lightweight coverlet, he settled it over her, thinking he’d let her nap until dinner. Then he might ask if she’d like to go see the Disney movie that Charity had mentioned. He wanted their lives back to normal. Wanted Louemma to have friends again.

Alan knew he was guilty of hovering. Marv Fulton, their family physician, said to quit treating Louemma like an invalid. He said they should plunge back into their pre-accident routines. Ha! Marv obviously didn’t understand how hard that was.

Finding Louemma’s favorite stuffed animal, a plush brown bear she’d had since birth, Alan propped it on the pillow where she could readily see it if she woke suddenly. She was still prone to nightmares, although she never said what they were about. The accident, everyone assumed. Marv thought maybe they’d never know. He hoped in time they’d fade. So did Alan.

He left the bedroom and bumped into Vestal.

“Oh, you’re back from the weaving demonstration.” She peered past him, into Louemma’s bedroom. “How’d it go?” she whispered.

Pursing his lips, Alan left the door ajar. With a slight shake of his head, he led the way to his office. Leaving his grandmother to choose a seat, he rummaged in the small fridge and extracted a bottle of water. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, not looking at her, but rather out the window at the budding tulip trees.

“Nothing, thanks. I take it from your evasiveness that things didn’t go well. I’m so disappointed. I’d hoped—”

“What?” he snapped, whirling. “Did you think a weaver would have some magic potion? That she’d succeed where the very best medical talent has failed?”

“Maybe,” Vestal admitted wearily, sinking onto a high-backed leather chair, which had been her husband’s favorite. She rubbed the brass studs on the rich green armrests. “I’m sorry if Louemma hated the demonstration, or if being there made her feel worse. What’s next, Alan? Find a new bone doctor? Or another psychiatrist?”

He took a deep swig from the icy, sweating bottle. “I didn’t say Louemma hated the demonstration. It…just opened a can of worms. She’s begged to go to the woman’s cottage next week. She’ll be spinning thread like some damn black widow spider.”

The old woman leaned forward eagerly, adjusting her trifocals over her myopic eyes. “Why didn’t you say so right off the bat? That’s good! Think how long it’s been since Louemma took an interest in anything outside the house.”

“I’m afraid I don’t agree it’s good to foster an interest in something she’ll never be able to do, Grandmother. Is it wise to throw her in with peers who only make her feel more inept? Sarah Madison was such a pain today. According to Charity, it’s only a phase. All I know is that Sarah caused Louemma’s problems at school, too. I thought those two were best friends. Was I so blind and naive before the accident?”

“Girls are fickle, Alan. Sarah may not know how to handle what’s happened to Louemma. Maybe its her way of coping. Your friends haven’t all known how to act, either. Shoot, most of them don’t know what to say or whether to even mention Emily. These are just kids. Go a little easy on them.”

“I’ll try. But I’m not letting Louemma ride out to Bell Hill next week with Charity, and that’s final. It’s not that I think she’s a bad driver. She’s probably fine. But Emily drove fine, too.” He brooded for a minute, staring into his water bottle. “Anyway, hauling Louemma and her wheelchair across the footbridge needs a man’s strength. Did I tell you that Ms. Ashline has a ferocious watchdog? Oh, and horses. You know how hysterical Louemma got over our horses when she came home from the hospital. How will she react to a yapping dog?”

Vestal rose. “It sounds as if you’re making a laundry list of excuses so you can avoid the next Camp Fire meeting yourself. Is this really about all the things you just brought up? Or do you plain dislike Laurel Ashline?”

“She’s pushy. And takes independence to extremes.”

“Hmm. I thought she was attractive and quite gracious. With a smoky voice that reminded me of a young Lauren Bacall. But you know how I love Bogie and Bacall’s old movies,” she said, absently straightening papers on Alan’s cluttered desk.

“Don’t organize my controlled mess,” he said testily, setting his plastic bottle atop a particularly precarious stack of shipping orders.

“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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