Big Sky Mountain Part 4

CHAPTER THREE.

THE NEXT MORNING after church, Kendra gave in to the pressures of fate-and her very persistent daughter-and drove across town to Paws for Reflection, the private animal shelter run by a woman named Martie Wren.

Martie, an inst.i.tution in Parable, oversaw the operation out of an office in her small living room, surviving entirely on donations and the help of numerous volunteers. She'd converted the two large greenhouses in back to dog-and-cat housing, though she also took in birds and rabbits and even the occasional pygmy goat. The place was never officially closed, even on Sundays and holidays.

A st.u.r.dy woman with kindly eyes and a shock of unruly gray hair, Martie was watering the flower beds in her front yard when Kendra and Madison arrived, parking on the street.

"Tara said you might be stopping by," Martie sang out happily, waving and then hurrying over to shut off the faucet and wind the garden hose around its plastic spool.

Kendra, busy helping Madison out of her safety rigging in the backseat, smiled wryly back at the other woman. "Of course she did," she replied cheerfully.

"We're here to see Lucy's sister," Madison remarked.

Martie, at the front gate by then, pus.h.i.+ng it wide open in welcome, chuckled. "Well, come on inside then, and have a look at her. She's been waiting for you. Got her all dolled up just in case the two of you happened to take a s.h.i.+ne to each other."

Kendra stifled a sigh. She wanted a dog as much as Madison did-there had been a canine-shaped hole in her heart for as long as she could remember-but she'd hoped to find a permanent place to live before acquiring a pet. Get settled in.

Alas, the universe did not seem concerned with her personal plans.

She and Madison pa.s.sed through the gate, closing it behind them, and Martie led the way onto the neatly painted front porch and up to the door.

The retriever puppy did indeed seem to be waiting-she was sitting primly on the hooked rug in the tiny entryway, with a bright red ribbon tied to her collar and her chocolate-brown eyes practically liquid with hope.

Kendra immediately melted.

Madison, meanwhile, placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side, studying the yellow fluff-ball intently.

The puppy rose from its haunches and approached the little girl, looking for all the world as though it were smiling at her. Where have you been? the animal's expression seemed to say. We're supposed to be having fun together.

Madison turned her eyes to Kendra. "She's so pretty," she said, sounding awed, as though there had never been and never would be another dog like this one.

"Very pretty," Kendra agreed, choking up a little. She saw so much of her childhood self in Madison and that realization made her cautious. Madison was Madison, and trying to soothe her own childhood hurts through her daughter would be wrong on so many levels.

Martie, an old hand at finding good homes for otherwise unwanted critters, simply waited, benignly silent. She believed in letting things unfold at their own pace-not a bad philosophy in Kendra's opinion, though she'd yet to master it herself.

As a little girl she'd had to fight for every sc.r.a.p of her grandmother's attention. In her career she'd been virtually driven to succeed, believing with all her heart that nothing good would happen unless she made it happen.

Now that Madison had entered her life, though, it was time to make some changes. s.h.i.+fting her type-A personality down a few gears, so she could appreciate what she had, rather than always striving for something more, was at the top of the list.

Madison was still gazing at Kendra's face. "Can we take her home with us, Mommy?" she asked, clearly living for a "yes." "Please? Can we name her Daisy?"

Kendra's eyes burned as she crouched beside her daughter, putting herself at eye level with the child. "I thought you wanted to call her Emma," she said.

Madison shook her head. "Daisy's not an Emma. She's a Daisy."

Kendra put an arm around Madison, but loosely. "Okay," she said, very gently. "Daisy it is."

"She can come home with us, then?" Madison asked, wide-eyed, a small, pulsing bundle of barely contained energy.

"Well, there's a procedure that has to be followed," Kendra replied, looking over at Martie as she stood up straight again, leaving one hand resting on the top of Madison's head.

"Daisy's had her shots," Martie said, "and I've known you since you were the size of a bean sprout, Kendra Shepherd. You'll give this dog a good home and lots of love, and that's all that matters."

Something unspoken pa.s.sed between the two women. Martie was probably remembering other visits to the shelter, when Kendra was small. She'd been the youngest volunteer at the shelter, cleaning kennels, filling water bowls and making sure every critter in the place got a gentle pat and a few kind words.

"You get a free vet visit, too," Martie said, as though further persuasion might be required.

Madison's face shone with delight. "Let's take Daisy home right now," she said.

Kendra and Martie both laughed.

"There are a few papers to be signed," Martie said to the child. "Why don't you and Daisy come on into the office with your mom and me, and keep each other company while we grown-ups take care of a few things?"

Madison, though obviously eager to take Daisy and run before one of the adults changed their mind, nodded dutifully. "All right," she said, her hand nestled into the golden fur at Daisy's nape. "But we're in a hurry."

Martie chuckled again.

Kendra hid a smile and said, "Madison Rose."

"We'll be very quick," Martie promised over one shoulder.

They all trailed into Martie's office, Daisy sticking close to Madison's side.

"It isn't polite to rush people, Madison," Kendra told her daughter.

"You said," Madison reminded her, "that the church man took too long to stop talking, and everybody wanted to get out of there and have lunch. You wanted him to hurry up and finish."

Kendra blushed slightly. She had said something along those lines as they were driving away from the church, but that was different from standing up when the sermon seemed never-ending and saying something like, "Wrap it up, will you? We're in a hurry."

Explaining that to a four-year-old, obviously, would take some doing.

Martie chuckled again. "Lloyd's a dear, but he does tend to run on when he's got a captive audience on a Sunday morning," she remarked with kindly tolerance. "Bless his heart."

The Reverend Lloyd Atherton, like Martie, was a fixture in Parable. Long-winded though he was, everybody loved him.

Kendra made a donation, in lieu of a fee, listened to a brief and heartrending explanation of Daisy's background-she'd literally been left on Martie's doorstep in a cardboard box along with six of her brothers and sisters-and signed a simple doc.u.ment promising to return Daisy to Paws for Reflection if things didn't work out.

"Is Daisy hungry?" Madison wanted to know. It was a subtle nudge. We're in a hurry.

Martie smiled. "Puppies always seem to think they are, but Daisy had a bowl of kibble less than half an hour ago. She'll be just fine until supper time."

Madison nodded, apparently satisfied. She was staring raptly at the little dog, stroking its soft coat as she waited for the adoption to be finalized.

Soon enough, the details had been handled and Madison was in the back of the Volvo again, buckled into her booster seat, with Daisy sitting alertly beside her, panting in happy antic.i.p.ation of whatever.

They made a quick stop at the big discount store out on the highway, leaving Daisy waiting patiently in the car with a window partly rolled down for air while they rushed inside to buy a.s.sorted gear-a collar and leash, a package of p.o.o.p bags, a fleecy bed large enough for a golden retriever puppy to grow into, grooming supplies, a few toys and the brand of kibble Martie had recommended.

Daisy was thrilled at their return and when Kendra tossed the bed into the backseat, the animal frolicked back and forth across the expanse of it, unable to contain her delight, causing Madison to laugh in a way Kendra had never heard her laugh before-rambunctiously and without self-consciousness or restraint.

It was a beautiful thing to hear and Kendra was glad there were so many small tasks to be performed before she could put the car in motion, because her vision was a little blurred.

Back at the guesthouse, Kendra put away the dog's belongings while Madison and Daisy ran frenetically around the backyard, both of them bursting with pent-up energy and pure celebration of each other.

"We need a p.o.o.p bag, please," Madison announced presently, appearing in the cottage doorway, a vision in her little blue Sunday-school dress.

Smiling, Kendra opened the pertinent package, followed Madison outside to the evidence and proceeded to demonstrate the proper collection and disposal of dog doo-doo.

Afterward, she insisted they both wash their hands at the bathroom sink.

Daisy looked on from the doorway, wagging her tail and looking pleased to be in the midst of so much interesting activity.

Lunch, long overdue by then, was next on the agenda. Madison and Kendra made peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwiches in the impossibly small kitchen, and Kendra poured a gla.s.s of milk for both of them.

Daisy settled herself near Madison's chair, ears perked forward, nose raised to sniff the air, probably hoping that manna, in the form of sc.r.a.ps of a PB and J, might fall from heaven.

Martie had been adamant on that point, though. No people food and very few treats. The treat a dog needed most, she'd said, was plenty of love and affection.

When the meal was over and the table had been cleared, Madison announced, yawning, that Daisy had had a big morning and therefore needed a nap.

Amused-Madison normally napped only under protest-Kendra suggested that they ought to change out of their church clothes first.

Madison put on pink cotton shorts and a blue short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, and Kendra opted for jeans and a lightweight green pullover. When she came out of the bedroom, Madison and Daisy were already curled up together on the new fleece dog bed, and Kendra didn't have the heart to raise an objection.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, she heard her grandmother say.

Shut up, Gramma, was her silent response.

"Sleep tight," she said aloud, taking a book from the shelf and stepping outside, planning to sit in the shade of the maple trees and read for a while.

The scene was idyllic-bees buzzing, flowers nodding their many-colored heads in the light breeze, the big Montana sky sweeping blue and cloudless and eternal overhead.

Kendra relaxed as she read, and at some point, she must have dozed off, because she opened her eyes suddenly and found Hutch Carmody standing a few feet away, big as life.

She blinked a couple of times, but he didn't disappear.

Not a dream, then. c.r.a.p.

"Sorry," he said without a smidgeon of regret. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Kendra straightened and glanced toward the open doorway of the cottage, looking for Madison. There was no sign of either the child or the dog, but Kendra went inside to check on them anyway. They were both sleeping, curled up together on Daisy's cloud-soft bed.

Quietly, Kendra went back outside to face Hutch.

How could she not have heard him arrive? His truck was parked right there in the driveway, a stone's throw from where she'd been sitting. At the very least, she should have heard the tires in the gravel or the closing of the driver's door.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, too rattled to be polite.

Hutch spread his hands wide, grinning. "I'm unarmed," he said, sidestepping the question. He was, she recalled, a master at sidestepping any topic he didn't want to discuss. "Don't shoot."

Kendra huffed out a sigh, picked up her book, which she'd dropped in the gra.s.s when she'd woken up to an eyeful of Hutch, and held it tightly against her side. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" she repeated.

He gestured for her to sit down, and since her knees were weak, she dropped back into her lawn chair. He drew another one up alongside hers and sat. They were both gazing straight ahead, like two strangers in the same row on an airplane, intent on the seat belt/oxygen mask lecture from an invisible flight attendant.

"Tell me about your little girl," Hutch finally said.

"Why should I?" Kendra asked reasonably, proud of her calm tone.

"I guess because she could have been ours," he replied.

For a moment, Kendra felt as if he'd elbowed her, hard, or even punched her in the stomach. Once the adrenaline rush subsided, though, she knew there was no point in withholding the information.

A person could practically throw a rock from one end of Parable to the other and juicy stories got around fast.

"You'll hear about it soon enough," she conceded, though ungraciously, keeping her voice down in case Madison woke up and somehow homed in on the conversation, "so I might as well tell you."

Hutch gave a long-suffering sigh and she felt him looking in her direction now, though she was careful not to meet his gaze. "Might as well," he agreed quietly.

"Not that it's any of your business," Kendra pointed out.

He simply waited.

Distractedly, Kendra wondered if the man thought she'd given birth to Madison herself and kept her existence hidden from everyone in Parable all this time.

"Madison is adopted," she said. It was a simple statement, but it left her feeling as though she'd spilled her guts on some ludicrous tell-all TV show.

"Why do I think there's more to the story?" Hutch asked after a pause. His very patience galled Kendra-what right did he have to be patient? This was a courtesy explanation-she didn't owe it to him. She didn't owe him anything except maybe a broken heart.

"Madison's father was my ex-husband," Kendra said. Suddenly, she wanted to cry and it had nothing to do with her previous hesitation to talk about something so bruising and private. Why couldn't Madison have been born to her, as she should have been?

"And her mother?"

Once again, Kendra looked to make sure Madison hadn't turned up in the cottage doorway, all ears. "She was one of Jeffrey's girlfriends."

Hutch swore under his breath. "That rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he added a moment later.

Kendra stiffened her spine, squared her shoulders, jutted out her chin a little way. "I beg your pardon?" she said in a tone meant to point out the sheer irony, not to mention the audacity, of the pot calling the kettle black.

"Could we not argue, just this once?" Hutch asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"Just this once," Kendra said, and one corner of her mouth twitched with a strange urge to smile. Probably some form of hysteria, she decided.

"I'm sorry I called your ex-husband a rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Hutch offered.