Love Is All Around (13 page)

“You just settle back down. You have no business tromping around in those woods, especially after a coon that would make two of you. And agree with me or not, I don’t need anybody’s help to control you.”

Patsy shoved another scrap of meat through the bars and finished cleaning up the kitchen.

 o0o

An hour later, Patsy decided it was safe to release Pugnacious. The sound of Dwayne’s hounds baying hadn’t echoed back at her for a good twenty minutes. They were either having a hard time catching a scent or they were too far away to hear their ruckus. Patsy bet on the latter.

“Okay, Pug Girl, come on out.” She bent down to release her dog.

The cage was empty.

She grasped the metal bars and peered inside. “Pug Girl, where are you?” She whipped around and searched the kitchen. “Pug Girl, you come out right now.”

“What you yelling about in here, sis?” Granny toddled into the room.

“Pugnacious isn’t in her cage. Do you know where she’s at?”

“How’m I supposed to know where that bug-eyed beagle got off to? I let her out to do her business a half hour or so ago. She should be sitting on the patio by now.”

“You let her outside?” Patsy’s voice quivered with outrage.

“Yeah, what’d you expect? You think I was going to hold her furry rump over the toilet? ‘Course I let her outside.”

Patsy’s eyes narrowed as she watched her grandmother sway back into the living room. Who did she think she was kidding? Patsy knew what was going on. Granny thought she could force Patsy into going on the coon hunt with Will. Just because Pugnacious was probably running as fast as her stubby legs could carry her to where Dwayne and his hounds were terrorizing a family of raccoons didn’t mean Patsy would beat a trail behind her. The pug would be fine. Dwayne was there. He’d watch out for her. Granny wasn’t manipulating her like that.

An image of Dwayne grumbling over his supper of beans flitted through her mind. He hadn’t been able to have a beer while he was within sight of Mom and Granny. It must have been killing him.

She checked the clock over the stove. They’d been gone an hour. Dwayne had probably worked his way through a brewery by now.

Patsy kicked the door of Pugnacious’ cage. Damn it all. She was going to have to find them.

There was only a sliver of a crescent moon tonight, and not much of its light would make it through the branches of the skinny oaks surrounding her parents’ home. Patsy pushed the button on the lone flashlight she could find, an old plastic lantern, probably from the 80s. The light flickered on, illuminating a space about five feet in front of her. It wasn’t much, but it beat her penlight. She searched the edge of the woods for a likely path.

Off to the right, the brambles had been flattened. As good a place as any to start. She strode into the woods. A century of dry leaves crunched under her feet. Tree frogs and whippoorwills sounded their calls. An orchestra of forest noises, but no baying hounds. Where were they? She swung the lantern’s beam around her, searching for direction.

Tufts of gray fur clung to a raspberry bush—Ralph. Guess that’s why hounds were all short-haired. Following the trail of fur, she picked her way through the brambles and down the hill.

 o0o

 “Not a scent yet. How long we been out here?” The glare from the light mounted on Dwayne’s hat momentarily blinded Will.

“Going on an hour at least,” Randy replied.

Thankful so far he’d been spared the sight that Patsy so sweetly described, Will leaned against a tree and reached down to stroke Ralph on the head. If possible, the dog was sticking even closer to his side than normal. Will wondered if he was jealous of the other dogs or if he somehow knew what the guns Randy and Dwayne were carrying signified. Dwayne had explained the weapons were just in case something went wrong; there was no benefit to hunting out of season. The coon skin market was dependent on a nice thick pelt, and the heat of Indian summer precluded that.

Even so, Will had waved away Dwayne’s offer to borrow a rifle. It was just a .22, but Will wasn’t a hunter, and he’d never handled a gun—yet another choice that had driven his father crazy. After resisting his dad for almost thirty years, Will didn’t see any reason to relent now, especially tromping around in the dark woods.

The sound of something pushing its way through the dead leaves that carpeted the ground startled him out of his thoughts. Heavy breathing signaled whatever the creature was, it wasn’t far away. He lifted his hand from Ralph’s head and pushed himself away from the tree.

“What in the blue moon is that?” Dwayne turned his spotlight toward the noise.

The breathing became more of a snort, but Will still couldn’t make out what was creating the racket. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention.

Searching the darkness, he wished he’d taken Dwayne up on his offer. His hand dropped to Ralph’s head. The dog seemed calm. That had to be a good sign.

More snorting and crackling of leaves. Sounded like a Suburban charging through an ice storm. Dwayne’s helmet light caught a flash of white. Will felt an accompanying flash of dread before recognizing the slobbering beast charging toward them.

“Pugnacious, how’d you get away from the sentry?” Dwayne dropped to one knee and rubbed the little dog on the white spot that decorated her chest.

The pug gave his hand a soggy kiss before swinging toward Ralph. She reared onto her back legs and pounced on top of the much larger dog. With Pugnacious attached to one ear, Ralph turned a woeful gaze to Will.

“Guess she’s prince hunting.” Will slipped his finger into Pugnacious’ mouth and disengaged her from Ralph’s ear. “That’s what you get for being a heartbreaker, boy.” A problem Will was not currently experiencing. The pug bounded off to the base of a tree where she continued sniffing and snorting.

“Patsy is going to have a fit when she figures out Pugnacious is out here. You think we should take her back before Patsy notices?” Dwayne asked.

“Might as well. We won’t be missing anything here, that’s for sure.” Randy stepped toward the tree where Pugnacious now had her flat face smashed to the dirt. As he bent down to scoop her up, she lifted her chin to the sky and let out a howl.

Dwayne stiffened. “She’s caught a scent. Beau, Piedmont, get over here, you worthless hounds. We’re coon hunting.”

Pugnacious took off at a run, her nose pushing a furrow through the leaves.

“Let’s go, boys. We got a coon to tree.” Dwayne jogged after her.

 o0o

This sucked. Patsy had been stomping around these woods for twenty minutes and nothing, not a canine sound, not even a coyote. She’d gotten tangled up in more raspberry brambles than Brer Rabbit with his Tar Baby. She’d even tumbled over a rock and rolled into a sinkhole.

She hated sinkholes. The strange depressions in the ground gave her the creeps, like the world was being sucked back into itself. She clambered out of it as fast as she could, but dropped the flashlight on her way down, and it chose that moment to go out. She was stuck down there fishing through the leaves for what seemed like hours. Once she found it, a couple of good whacks got the light back on, but it flickered ominously. Her hair was littered with leaves, there were bloody streaks from the brambles on her legs, and she was pretty sure she’d become home for a colony of chiggers. She could not survive another tumble into a sinkhole. Damn that dog. Damn Granny. Damn it all.

A long howling bay rent through the air. Even though she had been praying for the sound, Patsy couldn’t stop the shiver that flew up her spine. There was nothing as haunting as the noise of a hound on a hunt.

Well, they were out there. Now just to find them. She gave the lantern another shake, pulled some leaves from her hair, and strode toward the baying. As she got closer, it was impossible to miss the group of hunters. Lights bobbed across the trees, leaves crunched under running feet, and men and dogs barked out orders and replies. It was a wonder there was a coon left in Daisy Creek County, much less still in the path of this clan.

The beam of her lantern revealed a masculine profile, a very masculine profile. Will stood about fifteen feet from the cluster of men and dogs who bobbed and bayed around a rotted-out tree.

“It’s a den tree,” Dwayne yelled. “He’s up there, but we can’t see him.”

Patsy crunched toward them. Only Ralph saw her approach. He stood in greeting, leaving Will’s side long enough to sniff her leg. Will noticed Ralph’s absence and turned.

“Oh, we were expecting you.” His voice was warm as he stepped toward her.

Her heart did a little patter move. It was nice to be wanted, to have someone happy to see you. Nice, but not enough. Besides, she had a dog to rescue. Tamping down the warm fuzzy, she stomped forward.

“What do you mean, you were expecting me? Did you find Pugnacious?” Patsy suddenly realized she was tense. She had concentrated on her annoyance with the dog for escaping and Granny for breaking her out. Seeing Will broke through that barrier, and the fear for Pugnacious poured out. “Is she okay? Why didn’t you bring her home?”

Will pointed to the mass surging around the tree.

“You don’t mean… She isn’t in there?” Patsy swung her light to the base of the tree. Clawing her way upward was Pugnacious. Randy’s and Dwayne’s hounds slammed into her in their own attempts to get to whatever had holed up in the oak, but the pug held her ground.

Pugnacious couldn’t take on a coon. She could be killed. In a panic, Patsy ran toward the tree. “Dwayne Clark, get my dog out of there. What were you thinking?”

Dwayne lowered his rifle to the ground. “Hell, Patsalee, she caught the scent. We’d been weaving through these woods for an hour and nothing. Then that pug of yours comes snorting out of nowhere and nails a trail. She led us right here.” He swung the light on his helmet up the tree. “But damn if it isn’t a den tree. It’d be a bad break if we was hunting for real.”

Dwayne’s light revealed a hole about fourteen feet off the ground rotted into the tree trunk. Sharp barking yells came from inside.

“Good for the coon.” Patsy shoved Randy’s dog out of her path and grabbed Pugnacious. The pug was not grateful for the rescue.

“You can’t take her now. I told you this was her trail. Beau and Piedmont have been acting like they got corks stuck in their noses all night. Besides, look at her. She wants to stay.”

Pugnacious wriggled in agreement.

“Too bad. I’m taking her home.” Patsy wrapped both arms around the pug while struggling to maintain a grip on her flashlight. She stomped away from the ticked-off coon and past a grinning Will. She made it another twenty feet before her light went out. Great. Now what?

“Pugnacious, settle down. I’m going to drop you if you don’t.”

“I think that’s her plan,” Will spoke beside her.

Patsy jumped, barely maintaining her hold on the dog but losing her struggle with the flashlight. It fell into the leaves, where it immediately switched back on. “A lot of good it does me down there,” Patsy grumbled.

“Do you want some help?” Will asked.

Patsy was not getting into another argument about who needed help. “Just hand me my light, please. I don’t want to spoil your fun.”

“Certainly.” Will retrieved her lantern, which again flickered out. “I don’t think you’ve got much hope of getting her back by yourself though.” He flicked his Maglite on. “In case you haven’t noticed, she doesn’t want to leave.”

“She doesn’t know what’s good for her. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s a pug, not a coonhound.”

“Oh, I see.”

Patsy didn’t like his tone. She couldn’t make out his expression in the dark, but she suspected he was making fun of her. “What do you see?”

“Oh, just what you said. She’s a pug, not a coonhound. It makes perfect sense. She was bred for what, sitting on a silk cushion? I guess that’s all you can expect from her.”

“First of all, that isn’t what pugs were bred for.” Patsy paused. Actually, he wasn’t far from wrong. Pugs had been owned by royalty throughout their history, but the way he said it was insulting. “And second, she can certainly do anything a dumb coonhound can.”

“Oh, so it’s just that you don’t want her to do what she enjoys.”

This was exasperating, and Patsy’s nerves were stretched past their limit. She turned on him. “Of course, I want her to do what she enjoys, but she doesn’t enjoy coon hunting.”

Pugnacious took advantage of Patsy’s lack of attention and broke free. She landed on the ground, legs fully extended. Without a backward glance, she bolted back to the den tree.

“See what you made me do?” Patsy started after her dog.

Will stopped her with a warm hand on her arm. She struggled to ignore the tingle that seemed to be the standard accompaniment to every contact between them.

“What are you afraid of? Do you really think she’ll get hurt?” he asked with no hint of a taunt.

 Patsy paused. “She could. Coons are bigger than she is, and heaven knows Beau and Piedmont won’t watch out for her.” She could feel each of his fingers as they pressed into her arm. His hold was gentle, but she couldn’t step away. There was that pull again, the need to lean against him, bury her face in his neck.

“You don’t believe that. What’s the real issue?” His voice was low, almost hoarse.

She wavered, getting so close his breath moved her hair. The clean smell of his soap mingled with the earthiness of the woods and the other scent she’d begun to accept as just—him. Patsy inhaled deeply. “Nothing. I just don’t want....”

“What don’t you want?”

There was that voice again, low and comforting. Saying trust me, confide in me. She fidgeted with the lantern.

“What don’t you want, Patsy?”

She filled her lungs with air and unsettling masculine pheromones. She gave up. “A coon dog. Okay? I don’t want a coon dog. I bought a pug because I wanted something different. Something no one here had, something not from around here, something no one here understands. Then what happens? They turn her into a coon hound. It isn’t right. It isn’t what I wanted.”

Her lantern flickered back on, revealing an inscrutable glint in Will’s eyes. He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Do you even know what you want, really?”