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“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.”
