A Little Learning (6 page)

* * *

A
T
NOON
,
WHILE
walking back from the Sultan Mountain School to his house, Seamus phoned Telluride to check in with Elizabeth, who was supervising the studio in his absence. The first topic of conversation was Ki-Rin, Seamus’s dragon-boy hero, who had provided so well for him and his family for so many years.

“Okay, so when he sees Koneko,” Elizabeth said, “he transforms...”

“Not yet,” Seamus interrupted. “She hasn’t threatened him yet. He doesn’t transform until she threatens him or someone else.” The boy Ki-Rin would take on his dragon form only when that occurred. It annoyed Seamus slightly that Elizabeth hadn’t yet picked up this fundamental aspect of the character. But there were other details to discuss related to the making of the latest Ki-Rin animated feature.

“How are you doing in Sultan?” Elizabeth asked at last.

“Good, good.”

“Do your children remember who you are?”

Seamus could have done without the dig. In retrospect, he didn’t like this woman, the last with whom he’d been involved. He liked her well enough as part of his studio team, but he didn’t like the memories of dating her nearly as much.

“Fiona called,” Elizabeth said. “Did she get you on your cell phone?”

“Actually, no. Is she all right?”

“Yes, but she’s thinking of traveling some more with her son and his wife. Maybe she doesn’t want to break it to you yet. You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Fiona knew how he depended on her. But after only forty-eight hours without her... Well, it wasn’t that he felt more able to cope with his children. He certainly still felt all the same anxieties when he was near them. Only the previous night, for instance, Lauren had told Beau that their mother had skied down Uncompahgre Peak one year.
She’s skied down the backs of lots of these mountains.

The resentment and anger had coursed through Seamus, and he’d gone outside so as not to have to hear, or comment on, what he’d heard.

Yes, Janine had been a good athlete.

Yes, she’d never let fear stop her from doing anything.

But she was... All the hard names for women came to his mind at the thought of her, at the thought of the handgun and the accident and...

And all of it.

And that reaction was the sole reason he had avoided spending time alone with his children since Janine’s death. Because the compulsion to say everything going through his mind was almost beyond his control. And what would that do to them?

Nonetheless, when they weren’t sharing their memories of Janine, Seamus found he
liked
being with his children.

And Rory Gorenzi, too.

He wanted to sort that out. Did he like her because of the children? Did he like his children’s company only because of her? Was he using her as a friendly intermediary between himself and the kids?

It would be a mistake to become involved with any woman simply because she was good with his kids.

But it
had
been crazy for him to date women who didn’t like to be with his children.

In any case, he wasn’t going to have anything to do with Rory in that way. She was Kurt’s daughter.

But he’d begun to count on her warmth, the easy caring she showed around his family. And he’d begun to see her clouds of hair, her wide smile and brown eyes, even when she wasn’t with him.

He put away his phone as he neared the house.

Rory’s car pulled up to the curb outside, and something lurched in his chest as she helped Belle out of one side of the backseat while Caleb scrambled out of the other. The front door of the house opened, and Seuss scrambled out. He slipped on some ice and rolled down the steps, and Rory, watching, erupted in laughter.

Beau came after the puppy, who was rushing toward the street. He ran, trying to catch him and chasing him into the road.

Rory, watching all this, set Belle on the sidewalk and ran toward the house, calling, “Seuss can’t catch me, Seuss can’t catch me.”

Seamus reached them all as Rory, who had persuaded the puppy to chase her, caught the dog’s collar and explained to Beau that you couldn’t catch a puppy by running toward it. If the puppy ran into the street, they must run
away
and get the puppy to chase them back to the house.

Beau picked up Seuss. He was carrying the dog’s leash. “I thought he would stay with me.”

“He’ll learn to,” Rory said, “but he’s still a baby.”

Caleb ran to his father. “I’m the best skier in the class. I’m better than the instructor.”

“I believe that,” Seamus answered with a smile. Caleb had been skiing since he was three.

Rory said, “We’ll be inside in a minute. I want to talk to your dad.”

“I’m going to walk Seuss,” Beau said and snapped the leash on the puppy’s collar. He headed up the street toward the alley that separated their house from Rory’s.

“Yes?” Seamus asked.

Rory noted a certain wariness in the question. What did he suspect she wanted to discuss with him?

“Look,” she began, “this isn’t my business, and I meant to tell you last night...”

He waited.

“I just want to say...” She drew a breath. “Seuss is going to be a large, powerful dog. You’ve really got to
be
with him, when he’s around kids.”

“The breeder said they’re good with kids.”

Rory wanted to kill the breeder. “They can be. But the children have to be considerate. And if there’s a lot of running around, squealing, that kind of thing, the dog can get excited. People talk about it arousing their prey drive, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I mean, a German shepherd is going to realize that your kids aren’t prey. But he might still bite. He might think of your kids as puppies and play with them the same way he would with other puppies. I just mean, he needs obedience, and your kids need to be taught what’s okay and what’s not okay to do around him. And when other kids come over to play, you have to be there to make sure he behaves.” She felt her face turn red. This
really
wasn’t her business. “I just want things to go right for all of you and Seuss.”

Seamus looked at Rory thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose
you’d
be willing to teach him obedience.”

“It would be better,” she said, “for him to go to classes—with you and your kids. He needs to be around other people and other dogs. You’ve got to make sure he has that experience now, when he’s young, so that he’s comfortable with these things. I’m sorry for butting in, but...”

“You don’t have to apologize. I appreciate what you’re saying. Are there classes available in Sultan?”

“I think I might be able to find something. There will probably be just two other dogs, at the most. This is such a small town. But there is a woman who trains avalanche dogs, and she does some obedience classes, too, from time to time. I’d be happy to give you her number.”

“Thank you.”

His intense study of her made Rory wonder exactly what he was thinking; how he was reacting to her unsolicited advice. She said, “Well, you should grab something to eat, and I’m off to do the same thing. I’ll see you at one.”

Seamus opened his mouth but didn’t speak. Not at once. “Fine,” he said at last.

Rory suspected it wasn’t what he’d been going to say.

* * *

B
EAU
WAS
SULLEN
on the ride to the same trail Rory and his father had skied on the previous afternoon. Rory wished she’d been able to speak to him alone about his resistance to telemark skiing—or to skiing with Seamus—but there hadn’t been time. Seamus drove, so on the way there Rory sat in the back with Beau and asked him about his previous telemark experience.

“I’ve done it a few times. I can’t, like, make a telemark turn yet.”

“Lots of people with tele skis never make a tele turn,” Rory replied.

When they reached the spot they’d used the day before, they parked and removed their skis from the roof rack of Seamus’s car. As they put on their skis, Rory noticed Seamus watching his son thoughtfully.

“It’s been a while since we’ve skied together, hasn’t it?” Seamus asked.

“Yeah,” Beau murmured.

“Skins on,” Rory said, and they all fitted climbing skins to their skis.

She’d skied with fathers and sons in the past, as a ski instructor. Her pet peeve was fathers who found the occasion an opportunity to pursue her, rather than attend to their children’s needs.

Seamus wasn’t like that. He complimented Beau, talked about how he himself was huffing and puffing—untrue—while Beau steamed up the trail in the lead. Rory saw Beau’s confidence and self-esteem grow with his father’s praise. It made her like Seamus more.

In fact, it made her like Seamus to an alarming degree.

Is it just because my father has never spent time with me?

Well, whatever the Lee family got out of the Sultan Mountain School, she reflected, at least they would have this—more time together, meaningful time.

She coached father and son on their first run, praising Beau’s form, which was excellent. A childhood skiing in Telluride, even without his father’s company, certainly showed.

When they returned to the car late in the afternoon, she checked her cell phone and found a message waiting for her.

“Rory, it’s Samantha. We have a domestic problem. Guess who is out and hasn’t been found. I’ve told Desert I’m not sleeping in the house until Lola is caught. So I’ll be staying at the hot springs. And Norris broke up with Desert. I think it was about the snake. So Desert’s miserable.”

And at home alone with Lola? It hadn’t been stated in so many words.

Rory certainly wasn’t going to sleep in the house with the python loose, either. Granted, Lola was unlikely to cozy up to one of them, bite and squeeze. Still, Rory knew she wouldn’t sleep soundly with the snake out of its vivarium.

And Lola would not be easy to catch.

Desert’s house, Desert’s problem.

But Rory was a roommate. And Desert’s boyfriend, according to Samantha, had just broken up with her.

“Everything okay?” Seamus asked as Rory closed the phone.

Rory felt reluctant to reveal that Lola was loose. Desert’s irresponsibility—and Rory had no doubt that Desert’s carelessness was behind the escape—seemed to reflect on her.
He’s going to think we’re all like Desert. Airheads.

Desert
wasn’t
an airhead.

She was just...Desert. And though Rory lived with her and danced with her, she had no illusions about the other woman.

Her second thought—after a decision not to tell Seamus about the snake—was that her father mustn’t find out.

Anyhow, it wasn’t as if Lola would be slithering about in subzero temperatures, menacing the population of Sultan. She was doubtless curled up in some inaccessible part of the house—between the walls, for instance. They might later find her on the move through the house.

Or
Desert might have to pay workmen to come tear apart the place looking for the creature.

“Everything’s fine,” Rory lied.

Okay, if Desert wanted her to stay in the house, they could sleep in the same room, in case Lola came in and made herself comfortable.

But Rory knew she couldn’t get Lola off Desert by herself, and Desert probably couldn’t do the same for her. The snake needed three handlers.

Even so, she knew Desert would not abandon the python.

She rode back to the Empire Street house with Seamus and Beau, but she was preoccupied—and unprepared when Beau asked her the plans for the next day.

“I’ll drop by this evening, and we can talk about it,” she said. “You did really well skiing, Beau.”

“What are you doing for dinner?” Seamus asked.

Beau threw a sharp look at his father, then abruptly climbed out of the SUV and started taking his skis off the roof.

“I need to go home and check on something.”

“Some evening when Lauren and Beau are willing to babysit, I’d like to take you out to one of the restaurants in town. To thank you for all you’re doing for us.”

Rory didn’t believe the second statement. “I’m just doing my job,” she said, with a tone of finality.

He didn’t ask again, and she climbed out of the car knowing she’d settled the issue, protected her job and now stood a better chance of pleasing her father.

So why was she disappointed?

She wished that things were different—and that she
was
in a position to enjoy a romantic dinner with Seamus.

CHAPTER FIVE

O
VER
THE
NEXT
WEEK
, Seamus, Lauren and Beau all completed the avalanche safety course. Beau resumed working for the ski maker, and Rory took Lauren ice-climbing with her. Lauren spent much of her spare time twirling the broom handle Rory had given her. Fiona called and said she’d be ready to join them in Sultan the following week. Seamus assured her that he was enjoying his time with the children.

Fiona asked, “I don’t suppose you want to do it all the time, though.”

Seamus could tell that, far from trying to influence him—or worse, discourage him from spending time with his family—she was offering him a way out. Perhaps, simply, to see if he would take it.

“Well, when I’m in Telluride it’s difficult.”
But how true was that?

No, he knew the trouble was that, in the past, he’d felt he needed to avoid the kids.

So far, during the time in Sultan, his children had rarely mentioned Janine.

And yet the issue was there. Always.

He and Fiona hung up with the understanding that she would call him again in a few days to see if he really wanted her to join them. She’d been invited to spend time with her daughter’s family, and Seamus sensed she wanted to do it.

* * *

O
N
A
T
HURSDAY
evening, more than a week after they’d arrived in Sultan, Lauren arrived home from Rory’s fire-dancing class and said to her father, “Rory’s like Mom, you know. She can do anything.”

Janine
had
been able to do many things. An expert skier, a competent snowboarder, a pilot, an attorney, a mountain biker. Seamus wondered if this would provide him with a chance to talk with Lauren about her mother, to say something that might impress upon Lauren the fact that Janine had still been human.
But how can I explain to her that all her mother’s accomplishments may have been signs of her insecurity?
“I don’t think Rory is all that much like your mother,” he said instead.

Lauren’s expression turned vaguely hostile. “Don’t you like Rory?”

“Of course, I like her. I just don’t think she’s like your mother.”

“Why?” Challenging.

Had Lauren somehow worked out the fact that he simply could not speak well of Janine?

He tried, for his daughter’s sake. “Your mother was highly educated.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Lauren scoffed. “Anyhow, Rory’s been to college.”

But she hadn’t earned a degree, he’d gathered.

He tried to keep his mind on the original subject. “Why do you think she
is
like your mother?”

“She’s a really strong person, that’s all. A strong woman.”

“I agree that Rory is a strong woman.”

“And that Mom was.”

He said nothing, except, “Let’s drop this subject, Lauren.”

The teenager glared, and it struck Seamus how much she looked like Janine. His impulse was to phone Fiona at once and tell her to get to Sultan fast. Then he could separate himself from...these feelings.
I’m going to say something. I won’t be able to stop myself from saying everything I think about Janine.

“You were glad Mom died, weren’t you?”

The accusation seemed to come out of nowhere. Yet Lauren had pulled it from somewhere within, just as if she
knew
what words would most anger him.

“No,” he said. “Please don’t say that again.”

“You didn’t want her to have the gun.”

He could not believe that Lauren was bringing this up. “Why is this coming up now?” he asked. “And you’re right. I didn’t want her to have the gun. It was stupid.” The thought came out before he could stop it. But once he’d said it, it seemed especially true. “You were the oldest of our four children.”

“She taught me to shoot it.”

“What?”

“She wanted me to be strong, like her.”

“Your mother
wasn’t
strong.” There. He’d said it.
Stop, Seamus. Leave—walk away from this. You can’t win.
“She spent a whole lot of time trying to prove she was tough. But it didn’t make her tough, and it didn’t even make her interesting, and it certainly didn’t make her any friends.” He almost choked as words poured out. “I loved her.” The hardest words. “And I was
not
glad she died. Lauren, I
found
her.”

Abruptly, his daughter’s eyes filled with tears. Throwing her broomstick onto the linoleum like a child half her age, she fled the kitchen. He heard her on the stairs, and then a door slammed. She must have gone into the extra room, the room that would have been hers if she hadn’t decided to sleep with Belle.

“Dad?”

He spun. Caleb had come in the back door. How long had he been there? When had he gone outside?

“Where’s Seuss?”

“Beau took him. He’s watching Rory and her friends dance with fire. I came home.”

Seamus considered whether it was safe for a seven-year-old to walk in an alley in Sultan after dark. And whether it was safe for a twelve-year-old to do so.

“Rory lost Lola,” Caleb said.

“What?” Seamus couldn’t concentrate on what Caleb was saying. He must talk to Lauren. He must find something to say. Now, her mind must be filled with images of what she thought he’d seen when he found Janine.

Nausea coursed through him.

He seldom thought about that discovery anymore. But now the images came flooding back.
Why did I say it? Why did I make her imagine it?

He’d had counseling after Janine’s death—but not recently. The point of counseling had been to talk to another adult, so that he would not talk to his children about what had happened and what he’d seen.

Caleb was saying something, but Seamus didn’t listen.

“Caleb, I need to talk to your sister right now. I do want to talk to you, but I need to finish talking with Lauren first. I’ll be back.”

Upstairs, he knocked on the door of the corner bedroom. “Lauren?”

Feet on the floor. The door swung open. Her beautiful face was tear-streaked.

He said, “Forgive me. Please. I’m so sorry I said those things.”

“You meant them,” she said.

He couldn’t deny it. “I should never have said them to you.”

She turned away. “Rory’s troupe is going to perform this weekend for the Sultan Winter Festival.”

“We’ll have to go see that,” he said. He’d been aware of the approaching festival without knowing what it might involve. Relief washed through him. Lauren had changed the subject. They could let it go, move on, pretend they’d never had the conversation. He mused, “I think Caleb said they lost the snake.”

“Oh, they did. She’s loose in the house somewhere, so Rory and Samantha and Desert are all sleeping in one room. Samantha wasn’t going to stay in the house at all, but Desert talked her into it. They’re waiting for the snake to turn up. They figure she’s curled up next to something warm.”

“Undoubtedly.” Tension raced through him. Rory was sleeping in that house, living there, with that huge snake wandering around in search of “something warm”? What if it attacked her?

An image came to him of Rory trying to fight off the giant snake. He shook it off, telling himself not to overreact. “Caleb says they’re practicing with fire now,” he said, to distract them both from thoughts of Lola on the loose.

“I know. You can go watch,” she said. “If you want. I mean, I’ll stay here with Cal and Belle.”

“Thank you. I think I should go see what Beau’s up to.”

“You want Rory for your next girlfriend, don’t you?”

Next girlfriend.
As if there’d been a series. As if a girlfriend was a temporary thing, easily replaced by another and another. He gazed at Lauren, noting the arch of her dark eyebrows, her expression belligerent once again.

“Does it matter to you?”

She shrugged. “Someone else is always more important than us. That’s all. It’s either a girlfriend or work or working out. Then, you say you have no time.”

“I’ve had nothing
but
time since we’ve gotten to Sultan.”

“Beau says you asked Rory out. You can’t wait to do something else.”

“That’s not true.”

“I just wish you wanted to be with us, like you obviously want to be with her.”

Seamus refused to be drawn in this time. “I’m going for a walk. Thank you for your generous offer to watch your brother and sister.” He looked at her and wanted to say,
I love you, Lauren,
but the words would not come. Not now.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love her.

But she kept fighting for Janine in the war that was dead, dead, dead.

Except, he knew that it would never be dead. That his children would always cherish their mother’s memory—and he never would.

* * *

N
ONE
OF
THEM
were outside. Not Rory and her roommates or their drummer or Beau and Seuss. Was his son inside? With a loose thirteen-foot snake?

Of course, the snake was probably not aggressive....

But look what it did to Samantha.
How many stitches had Rory said she’d needed?

He hesitated only a moment. He could see light in the room beyond the back door. He let himself in the back gate and crossed the concrete patio. At the door, he knocked.

He heard laughter, and the door swung open.

It was Rory. She wore a long-sleeved thermal undershirt, baggy canvas pants, a wide-striped knitted scarf and a ski hat. She looked as if she’d just come in from outside, except that she was in her socks.

“Oh, come in. He’s here.”

Beau knelt on the floor in the carpeted living room. Samantha knelt at the other end of the floor. They seemed to be taking turns saying, “Seuss, come!” and having the puppy rush toward him.

“Dad, he knows ‘Come’!” exclaimed Beau.

Where is the snake?
Seamus wondered. He said, “Has Lola turned up?”

The tallest roommate, whose hair was now beginning to resemble a buzz cut, wandered in from the hallway. “Oh, hi,” she said. She wore flannel pajamas covered with pictures of the Pillsbury Doughboy, and had a red stuffed thing on a ribbon tied around her neck. Seamus saw that it was a heart in two pieces.

“Brokenhearted?” he asked.

She made a face, some sort of agreement.

“Lola is still lost,” Rory said, answering his question.

Was that the reason for Desert’s heartbreak? He wanted to whisk Rory away from this very odd household. But she wouldn’t go. Not while the snake was loose and could hurt her roommates. And part of Seamus found her eccentric lifestyle endearing. She was playful, and so she had found a way to turn her work and her vocations into play.

“Keep Seuss close by,” Seamus suggested to his son.

“Seuss would stand up to her, wouldn’t you?” Beau asked the puppy.

“Seuss is probably just the right size for a snack for Lola,” Seamus answered.

His son suddenly looked as if he might cry. Seamus wished he’d been more tactful, but good grief! Hadn’t it occurred to Beau already?

Obviously not, because his son was now hugging the puppy and holding his collar.

“I’m going to take him home,” Beau said.

“I’ll come with you,” Seamus agreed. Was he destined to make all his children cry tonight?

Rory came to Beau’s side, bringing the leash, which she fastened onto the puppy’s collar and handed to him. “We’ll make sure Lola doesn’t get him. I’d never let that happen, Beau.”

Beau lifted his face with a sort of naked need. A need, perhaps, to be comforted by a babysitter, an older sister, a mother. Rory seemed to fill one of those roles for him.

And she knew just the right thing to say.

“She’ll turn up when she gets hungry,” Desert said.

Rory wheeled around and looked for a minute as if she was about to yell at her housemate. Then her anger evaporated. She relaxed, breathed.

Was it pointless to address Desert’s tactlessness? Seamus supposed so. If Rory were in a serious relationship, would she move out of this house?

“If you’re not comfortable sleeping here—any or all of you—we’ve got plenty of room across the alley,” he offered, feeling transparent for doing so. Yes, he wanted Rory under his roof. Rory, who wouldn’t even go out to dinner with him.

Desert said, “You don’t just
abandon
pets when they get difficult.”

“Nobody was suggesting abandoning Lola.” Rory managed to sound both reasonable and soothing.

“I’ve suggested it,” Samantha said bluntly. “I’ve suggested taking her to the top of Sultan Peak in subzero temperatures and leaving her there.”

“She wouldn’t live, would she?” asked Beau, seeming puzzled.

“That’s the point,” Samantha said.

“Let’s head home,” Seamus suggested. “Rory, we’ll be seeing you in the morning?”

She nodded. “Night, Beau. Night, Seuss.” She crouched to pet the puppy, who licked her face.

As the door closed behind the Lees, Desert started in on Samantha. “Look, you don’t
have
to live here, Samantha. Lola’s a member of the family, and it’s not nice to talk about killing her.”

“It’s not nice for her to
try
to kill me, either.”

Rory was tired of peacemaking. Lola should never have gotten out. “Rocky Mountain Reptile Rescue has said they’ll take her, if we can transport her there.”

“Where are they?” asked Samantha at once.

“How are we supposed to contain her to transport her, in the winter, no less?” Desert demanded. “I can’t believe you guys are just deciding this on your own. This is
my
house and she’s
my
snake.”

“Fine.” Abruptly, Samantha rose. “I’ll move my belongings out tomorrow. I’ve had enough, Desert. You’re my friend, and I love you, but I’m tired of living with that creature wandering the house. I get in the shower and keep peering around the curtain to make sure she hasn’t decided to join me in the bathroom. It’s not cool. It’s not fun. It’s scary. Now, we’ve found a responsible way to solve the problem and you’re not willing. You prefer Lola to us. You can keep her.”