Black Creek Burning (The Black Creek Series, Book 1) (13 page)

He'd given Brie time to think and the space she'd asked for. He'd never had time for
clingy women. Following her suggestions, he worked with Andy each night, reading the
books she sent home, doing the worksheets, flashing the flashcards and all that. As
he and Andy worked on his assignments, Duncan worked with pencil and water colors
on the view of the lake and Black Creek. The scene was becoming a nightly routine,
and it felt right.

For the first time, he was beginning to feel like a real parent. The studio wasn't
calling. He wasn't working late. The letters requesting work piled up, but he could
ignore those easily enough.

His folks helped and had already convinced him into a few day trips with the boys,
one hiking around the Finger Lakes and another ice skating in downtown Northridge.
The boys seemed to get into the cold as much as his hard-shelled neighbor. He saw
her almost daily and let his dog out to play with hers when the two of them came around
to her backyard.

He stopped what he was doing to watch out one of the windows in the back of his garage.
There she was, working with Goldie. His dog trotted across the log without her coaxing
him now. She plopped his butt down and put a hand in front of him like a stop sign,
then walked away. The mutt sat watching her. Brie patted her leg and he ran to her,
looking like he was going to knock her over. Instead he slammed on the brakes, then
sat his butt down again. Go figure.

Brie always had some kind of treat in her pocket for a reward. He thought that was
cheating. He tried to get Goldie to sit and stay for him once, but the dog played
dumb. If he didn't hear from her soon, she would have to deal with him breaking the
don't-come-to-my-house request.

* * *

Andy learned quickly. Brie was determined to catch him up. Not because of anything
that included Nathan, but because it was her job. She learned that he loved to build.
There wasn't a lot of that in the first grade, but she made some adjustments to allow
for it. The other kids were drawn to him. He was fun and had a likable personality.
It was often too cold to go outside for recess. On those days, the students played
in the classroom after lunch. The other children liked to give Andy something to build
with, sort of a challenge. Cards, blocks, books.

She decided to ask about Duncan and stopped in to see his teacher on her way home.
She knocked on the open door. "Elizabeth? Did I catch you at a bad time?" Mrs. Whittier
was in her early sixties. Her hair was stark white and her skin well cared for. Not
too many lines for a woman her age. She generally wore dresses with large floral prints
and laced shoes with large heels.

"No, no, Brie. Come in. I expected you long before this."

Honestly confused, she asked, "Did I forget something we were to do?"

"No. I expected you to check on the Reed boy before now. Aren't you still seeing his
uncle?"

The
Reed
boy? Brie thought that was cold. "I was never seeing his uncle." She reviewed the
night of the New Year's Eve party in her head, trying to remember if Elizabeth had
been there. "Who told you that?"

Elizabeth's brows lifted. "I'm not sure really, everyone I suppose. The boy is doing
well. He's smart enough, although the children are giving him a go. Sorry about the
assumption, by the way."

"Apology accepted as long as you mention that it's not true the next time you hear
it. What do you mean 'giving him a go'?"

The third-grade teacher stuffed papers into a bag covered with pictures of cats. "They
call him a girl. He does like to doodle on a lot of his notebooks and papers. Mostly
trees and people. The teasing doesn't seem to bother him. He's content."

"I see you're on your way out. I'll let you get going. Have a nice night, and thank
you."

Brie kept running back the phrase "but he does like to doodle" through her mind, like
it was enough of a reason to call him a girl. As if it was his fault the other children
were calling him names. Like
any
child was content with being teased. That woman needed to retire.

As she drove home for the long weekend she thought of stopping by to see Nathan. Not
to mention what Mrs. Whittier had said. She had her own ideas about how to handle
that. She hadn't seen Nathan since she'd went over to give him the run-down on Andy's
test scores and her plans for catching him up. That was a regular home visit, she
convinced herself. She made plenty of home visits over the years.

Nathan respected her request not to crowd her. Points for him. She saw plenty of his
dog, however. Goldie made almost daily trips over to wrestle with Macey. So much for
the child lock on the door. She had to admit she enjoyed working with him. He thrived
on learning and not only could successfully maneuver the log whenever he came over
but had all but mastered most of the routine commands. She decided on calling instead
of stopping by. Safer.

* * *

"You're calling me," Nathan said.

Smiling at his reaction, Brie held the phone between her ear and shoulder. "Yes. Don't
you get phone calls, Reed?"

"You're calling me from your house?" he asked as a question this time.

She walked to her freezer and pulled out a bag of coffee beans. "I want to see if
your cop friend found out anything."

"You can run miles every morning, make my dog go crazy at the crack of dawn when you
go by, but you can't walk over two fields and a creek to ask me?"

"I didn't realize we were making your dog go crazy. I can run a different route. And
I didn't know if you'd be home."

"My dog's in your yard right now. I can see him. Don't run a different route."

Still holding the coffee beans, she went to look out her back window. She could see
Goldie tugging at a stick with Macey like they were joined at the head. And she could
barely make out a figure in the glass doors leading to Nathan's kitchen. She smiled
and bit her bottom lip.

"You haven't put the child lock on your door yet." She paused a moment. "Are you staying
away from me to respect my wishes or to make me want to see you again?"

"Which answer gets you to go out with me tonight? I'll see if the cop can come along.
We'll make it business."

"Either answer works, but I can't tonight. I'm watching my sister's kids."

"Tomorrow then."

She thought a minute. What the hell was she doing? "Okay. I'll bring a friend, too.
You know a pub called Mikey's?"

"I know the place. I'll pick you up at eight."

She thought again. "No. I'll meet you there."

"We're both going to drive when you live close enough for me to see you standing in
your kitchen?"

"Absolutely."

"Eight o'clock, then."

* * *

"Why don't you have a hill on your side of the creek?" Liz's daughter asked Brie.
She sat back on her little heels on the floor in front of Brie's back window watching
Duncan and Andy sled down their hill. Elbows resting on the chilly windowsill, her
niece propped her chin in her hands.

Brie walked over to her and sat down, looking out the window with her. They watched
Nathan pulled Andy up onto his shoulders, carrying him back up their short hill that
was worn from use. Duncan got a running start, then dove head first onto a red sled.

"I guess my ground decided to be flat. Too many trees over here anyway." She mussed
her niece's hair and stood up to answer the knock at the door.

Without waiting for an answer, Clifford Piper's granddaughter walked in, closing the
door behind her.

"Amanda. I was just getting ready to call you." She hugged her longtime friend. Smiling,
she shook her head as she thought of what Nathan had said about people walking into
each other's homes in this neighborhood. "Hey, Rose." She squatted down to Amanda's
five-year-old daughter and her shocking head of strawberry blonde hair.

"Hi, Bwie." Rose waved her hand once like a windshield wiper.

She looked at Rose face to face. "Where've you and your mom been this time?"

Rose tugged on her mom's shirt sleeve, pulling her head down so that her little mouth
could reach her mother's ear.

Amanda answered for her. "The Dominican Republic. That one's a mouthful for her. We
helped clean up after Hurricane Emily." She turned to her daughter. "I think I hear
Liz's kids in the family room."

Before Amanda had finished, Rose took off through the open space of the foyer back
to the family room.

"How long are you in town?"

Amanda tossed her coat over the newel post. "Hopefully 'til at least summer. I'm enrolling
Rose in school. They say they want her in the bilingual class at Marsh."

"No kidding? I thought you were doing home schooling and tutors while you're abroad.
Marsh is a great school," she added as she picked Rose and Amanda's coats off the
post and grabbed hers from the closet.

"That turned out to be harder than I thought. It seems she needs to settle somewhere,
for a while anyway. We'll see how it goes. It's really great to see you."

"You, too. We miss you around here. Too many old people."

Amanda walked into the kitchen, opened the cupboard and pulled out a glass. "Who are
you kidding? You love old people."

"Sure, but the ones I know are not the kind you can go out with for a drink and some
laughs. Speaking of going out for a drink, I need a favor."

"Son of a bitch, girl, I just walked in the door." Amanda poured herself a glass of
water and headed for the family room.

"I know, and it's really big." Brie followed. As they watched the kids, she went through
the abbreviated version of the tires.

"You mean the cute new neighbor is who we're meeting? I came over when they were playing
Starsky and Hutch in your garage. And he's bringing the sexy cop? I'm in, though I
think the chaperone thing is stupid."

The kids had dressed Macey in a shirt and hat. "Who's ready to crash a party?" Brie
asked, saving her dog from further humiliation. "Get your stuff. We're going sledding."

* * *

Nathan recognized Liz's kids walking across the fallen log. He thought the tiny woman
helping the little girl across was the Amanda he'd met the day of the flat tires.
A thrill struck him when he saw Brie take up the rear with a paper grocery sack in
one arm and sleds balancing on her other shoulder. Her mass of wavy hair was pulled
through her cap. He jogged down to help. "Here, let me help you," he said as he reached
for her sleds.

"No. I've got it." She smiled. "Are you up for a few extras? I brought hot chocolate."

Amanda approached him before he could say hello. "Remember me? Flat tires? Checking
up on Brie's house?"

Rose ran off toward the little hill without stopping for introductions.

"Yes. Good to see you again. Is she yours?" he asked, gesturing to the screaming girl
pulling the old pink, circle sled that Brie brought with her.

"Yeah. That's Rose. What'd you find out about the tires? Brie tells me there's been
trouble."

"I didn't say
trouble
," Brie interrupted. "I said to look out for odd pranks or strangers walking around."

"I agreed to come and supervise the discussion of the dire situation," Amanda said
sarcastically. She walked away and gave the kids a running push down the hill.

They stopped for breaks to sip the hot chocolate Brie brought in two large thermoses.
It was dark, but the white snow lit in the moonlight. After some time, they decided
on pizza for dinner and dragged their frozen bodies around the front and into the
warmth.

"You finished the stairs," Brie said.

He felt humbled that it was the first thing she noticed. The rooms on the first floor
were still just as bare, but his stairs had the rows of straight spindles topped with
his smoothed railings. They didn't have the delicate look of the stairs Brie had replaced
in her house. He'd used more lines than curves, and he'd made the newel post with
enormous tops and layer upon layer of thick wood.

She leaned over for a better look at the panels in the posts when she said, "These
patterns in the grain look like swirling cumulus clouds."

"Burled walnut veneer," he answered. "I probably should be finishing the upstairs,
but I couldn't get the picture of the stairs out of my mind."

"Hey, babysitter, you gonna help these kids? Or let me do it all?" Amanda methodically
pulled off wet gear from the kids and tossed it randomly on the floor.

They ordered pizza. After eating their fill, Andy and Rose went to the part of the
bare room with Andy's Duplos. The older kids headed upstairs to play in Duncan's room.
Nathan and Brie each sat in a folding chair and sipped on a glass of chardonnay while
Amanda sat on the floor, legs folded.

"That's not what you do with those," Andy told Rose.

She stuck the Duplos together in a single, tall row. "There's no wules," Rose said
with her head tilted down and eyebrows stuck together.

"You're supposed to make something," he said reaching for her toys.