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Seamus felt a small smile forming on his lips. “We’re making pizza tonight. Would you like to join us? If you’ve had enough of the Lee family, I understand, but it would be great to have you.”
Rory checked her watch without glancing at him again. “I teach a class at six. Belly dance and fire dance. By the way, your daughter has asked to learn fire dance, and I could teach her to spin poi and twirl staffs without anything on fire. You’d have to come with her to the Sultan Recreation Center and sign a release.”
Seamus pondered Lauren’s sometimes tough act, which reminded him of Janine at her worst. Would the activities Rory was referring to increase his daughter’s need to prove that she was fearless? “Without fire,” he repeated.
“Yes. I never teach with fire this time of year, anyhow. We don’t have a facility in town that is insured for it. But, in any case, Lauren would need lots of practice before that stage.”
“She’s not reckless,” he admitted, almost as though arguing a point—though with whom he couldn’t have said. “Sure. I’ll come and sign the waiver, and you can bring her back afterward and join us for pizza. How long does the class last?”
“Till seven-thirty. Half of it is belly dance. The other half is poi spinning and staff twirling.”
INCLUDING LAUREN, Rory had four students. It seemed a small class, but Sultan was a small, remote town. Though tourism was reviving the local economy, Seamus could tell from its sleepy winter streets that Sultan still struggled. He signed Lauren’s waiver and then headed back home, where Beau was watching Caleb and Belle during his brief absence.
The Sultan Mountain School provided day care for Belle when Seamus couldn’t be with her and when she wasn’t in ski school. At four years of age, she couldn’t be expected to be outside or in classes all day. Tomorrow, he knew, Rory would supervise Lauren teaching his youngest daughter’s ski class. He saw the pitfalls of this already. Belle would cling to Lauren and make it impossible for her to work with the other children in the class.
Not my problem. He felt guilty for the thought. If his children caused problems, it was his problem.
When he got home, he checked the pizza dough, which Beau had kneaded in his absence. Half an hour before Rory and Lauren were due back, he and Beau put the dough onto two pizza pans and began assembling toppings. Belle was playing on the floor in the other room with Caleb and the puppy.
From the kitchen, Seamus heard her shriek and then howl.
He hurried to the living room, Beau right behind him, and found Belle hugging herself and sobbing, “He bit me!” Seuss was cowering under the dining table.
Seamus saw, with something like horror, that indeed there was a small puncture mark on his daughter’s arm.
“You were bugging him!” Caleb said.
Seamus didn’t know what to do about a puppy bite. What if this meant he had a vicious dog on his hands?
He said, “Let’s put Seuss in his crate.” He walked to the dining room table and scooped the puppy from beneath it.
Seuss looked as if he didn’t understand at all what it was that he’d done.
Seamus reached for Belle and picked her up. I’ve hardly held this child, he thought, as he had so many times in the past forty-eight hours, since Fiona had left for Baja. “Now, calm down and tell me what happened. Then, we’ll wash off your arm.”
Belle’s sobs became hiccups and finally stopped. Seamus examined the bite again. Just one tiny puncture wound. Did he need to take her to the clinic? It was an animal bite, after all. Seuss had received all his shots, but still…
“He probably was teething on her,” Beau said. “He does that to me a lot.” He held out his hand and pointed to a small scab. “His teeth are sharp. They’re puppy teeth, and that’s why they’re so sharp.”
Seamus wondered what his son’s authority was for this statement.
Caleb said, “Belle was climbing around and jumping over Seuss and stuff, and he was excited, and he growled a little and bit her. It looked like he was playing.”
“He probably was,” Beau said.
“Well, let’s go wash your arm, Belle,” Seamus decided.
He was just applying a Band-Aid when the front door opened.
Belle followed her father down the hall to the front room. “Lauren, Seuss bit me!”
“He did what?” Lauren asked.
Rory sank down on the couch to listen to the story of the puppy bite.
Seamus turned to her. “Should I take her to the clinic?”
Rory eyed the wound, which Belle was showing Lauren, and shook her head. She was exhausted, and hungry, but she couldn’t ignore the situation that had presented itself.
Seamus Lee had chosen to acquire a dog that would grow to be large and powerful. That meant he was going to have to train the dog and his children, and he was going to have to supervise his children with the dog during the process.
Dog training is not part of my job description, she thought with some irritation.
But could she turn her back on this?
She remembered her beloved Gandalf.
She could not stand to see such a dog ruined by not receiving the training he needed. So many dogs ended their lives in shelters because no one had helped them learn rules for living with people.
“He needs to be in obedience class,” she said.
“There probably isn’t one in Sultan,” Seamus remarked. “Is there?”
I can’t do it all. I can’t do everything! But she probably knew more about German shepherds than anyone else in Sultan. “I’ll see what I can find out. Look, all of you have to discourage him from chewing on people. He probably nipped Belle, and those milk teeth are sharp.”
“Like I said,” Beau put in.
“Here, let’s let him out.” She sat on the floor and opened the crate. The puppy tumbled out, scrambling into her lap. He began licking her hands, then teething on one of them. Rory firmly and gently closed his jaw with her hand, lifted his head so that his eyes met hers, and growled, soft and low. Then, she released him. When he sat comfortably in her lap again, she petted him and said, “Good boy.” Briefly, she gave them some guidelines for correcting the puppy, then said, “But I’m not a dog trainer, and you need to take this puppy to school. I recommend lots of obedience lessons. Dogs usually like them, and the training helps all of you learn to be consistent.”
Seamus said ruefully, “I didn’t realize a dog would be so much work.”
She shouldn’t say it. It was too opinionated. They wouldn’t like her if she said it.
But she had to say it, because Seuss was a good puppy and had a chance of becoming a great dog. “If you’re not prepared to put in the time, you should return him to the breeder. It’s not fair to him, and you just can’t have an animal like this and not train him.”
“I’ll train him,” Beau said. “We’re not taking him back. I’ll train him.”
Rory believed him. There was a steadiness to Beau that she liked and admired. But she knew the conversation about the dog was not over. Someone also needed to speak to Seamus about supervising Seuss with his children and their playmates and with teaching his children how to treat the puppy.
Her instincts told her to stay out of the situation, to keep her mouth shut. But this wasn’t for the usual reason—that saying too much tended to get her in trouble.
It was because, as Seamus Lee had put her skis on the car that day, she’d felt that mysterious whisper of being cared for, being looked after, being cherished. The whisper had suggested a future—an imaginary future, just happy thoughts in her mind, about a man like Seamus caring for her. Wanting to make a Ki-Rin character for her. Yet she couldn’t afford to think that way, even casually. She wanted so badly to succeed at this job, to earn her father’s esteem.
She needed to back off from Seamus Lee and his family—from their emotional lives.
Yet, damn it, someone had to talk to him about the dog.
CHAPTER FOUR
EVEN BELLE WANTED to see Lola, the Burmese python, so after pizza the entire Lee family followed Rory back to her house. On the way, she considered how to segue from acknowledging the inappropriateness of a Burmese python in a household with children, to responsible dog ownership.
Stay out of it, Rory.
Samantha was working—she waited tables at one of the two restaurants in Sultan that remained open during the winter—but Desert was home. Rory found her housemate painting her toenails.
“Desert, these are some of SMS’s new clients. Seamus Lee and his children—Lauren, Beau, Caleb and Belle. Seamus, everyone, this is Desert Katz. They’ve come to look at Lola.”
Seamus watched as Desert stood up, her long flared pants skimming the Victorian floor, one of those authentic patterned floral floors, obviously restored with care. Rory’s roommate’s head was shaved; her skin bore many tattoos, and her nose, eyebrow and lip were all pierced. Ears, too.
She was beautiful—with model good looks, cheekbones, figure and all.
“Oh, I’ll take you down,” she said. “We can get her out.”
“No,” Rory said quickly. “We’ll just look at her through the glass. Let’s not bother her.”
“She ate yesterday. She’s going to be pretty lazy, in any case,” Desert argued.
Rory shook her head, her expression clearly anxious.
Desert said, “Well, whatever. Come on downstairs.”
The basement was lined with stone and surprisingly warm. Seamus noted that Rory kept close to her housemate—as if to prevent her from opening the large vivarium that stood in the center of the basement. It was a floor-to-ceiling unit—a glass room—and inside, a huge white-and-yellow snake with red eyes lay atop a boulder.
“Lola is an albino Burmese python,” Rory said.
“Awesome,” exclaimed Beau, coming closer.
“Would you like to hold her?” Desert asked.
“Sure!”
Rory said, “Actually, let’s not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Desert told her.
“Desert, there are too many people here. It’s too stressful for Lola.”
Seamus said, “Beau, let’s not do that.”
“She’s really gentle,” Desert insisted.
Seamus could see that Rory was infuriated by her roommate’s obstinate refusal to listen.
Rory faced his family. “Beau, the reason we’re not taking Lola out is that she is a wild animal—a large one. She weighs more than fifty pounds, and last summer she bit our other housemate and might have tried to kill her if we hadn’t been there. That’s why we keep her safely inside her vivarium.”
“She wouldn’t have killed Samantha. She was just confused,” Desert insisted.
Caleb said, “I want a snake, Dad. Not a big one. A little one.”
Rory blinked and Seamus wondered why. But he, too, heard the strangeness of one of his children actually calling him Dad. Twenty-four hours around his family, and Rory had noticed that his own children were like strangers to him—and they treated him as a stranger.
“They’re a fair amount of work,” Rory said to Caleb. “But there are plenty of smaller snakes that make good pets. You definitely don’t want one that will grow as big as Lola. But corn snakes are gentle and fairly inexpensive. Here, check out this book, Caleb.” She went to a bookcase against one wall and selected a large colored encyclopedia of snakes.
Watching, Seamus felt enchanted—by her kindness toward his children, he supposed. Simply by her. She was pretty, but he had known more beautiful women. Hell, her off-balance roommate was more beautiful than Rory. But the roommate didn’t have Rory’s attentive presence, her instinctive caring—at least that was what he thought he saw in Rory Gorenzi. That when his children were present, her motivation was to listen, to attend, to care.
Desert seemed immature, in comparison to Rory—and less of the real world. He wondered why Rory lived with a woman like that, with a rather frightening zoo animal for a pet.
“What happened with your roommate?” Lauren asked, gazing through the glass at the python.
“Well, Lola may not look like a lot of work, but it takes three of us to move her. We used to take turns feeding her, and then one day, we don’t know why, she grabbed Samantha’s leg and wouldn’t let go. We didn’t even know how to make her let go at that time. Now we keep some cold water ready in the refrigerator. We bring it out before we have to go into the enclosure. Supposedly, running cold water in her mouth will make her let go. Anyhow, Samantha needed stitches.”
“It was that essential oil she was wearing,” Desert insisted.
Rory shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, now we never open the enclosure unless there are three adults present.”
Belle stood beside Lauren and reached her arms up. “I don’t like the big snake.”
Seamus felt rejected by the preschooler and wasn’t sure why. It was natural that Belle should turn to Lauren, since she knew her sister better than she knew him.
But before his oldest could pick up Belle, he himself raised her into his arms. Belle seemed momentarily surprised—and wary. But then she leaned against him sleepily, gazing up at his face.
Watching, Rory smiled, and Seamus felt his heart leap. She was smiling at the two of them; at the sight of him with his youngest daughter.
Desert fell into step behind Seamus as he carried Belle upstairs, accompanied by the other children. Belle stared at Desert and asked, “Why don’t you have hair?”
“I shave it off because I like how I look this way. Want to feel it?”
As they reached the kitchen, Belle stretched out a hesitant hand to touch Desert’s head.
A young woman with glasses was just coming in the front door. “Oh, hi.”
Seamus started, recognizing her face but unable to place it.
Rory introduced Seamus and his children to her second housemate, Samantha, who said to Seamus, “We’ve met. I interned as a legal aide at the Women’s Resource Center one summer when your wife was there.”
Ice chilled his veins. She’d known Janine.
“I thought I knew you,” he managed to say.
Rory told his family, “Well, I’ll see all of you tomorrow. Practice with your broom handle, Lauren, so you don’t forget what we learned tonight.”
Fire staff practice, Seamus thought, as his daughter smiled in response. The reminder of Janine and how she’d died faded away, leaving only a faint chill. Seamus guided his children out into the dark and the cold, but felt as if he was carrying some memory of warmth with him.
And perhaps that of Rory Gorenzi, too.
“YOU KNEW HIS WIFE?” Rory whispered the words, anxious they not be overheard by the people walking away on the other side of the door.
Samantha nodded with a sad half smile. “She was my boss.”
