One Summer (6 page)

“I don’t need to wait until tomorrow to make a decision. The dog’s no longer my problem.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his billfold. “Let me pay you what you think it’ll cost, plus some overtime for interrupting your evening, and we’ll be square.”

“If only it were that easy. I mentioned the shelter.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it is, at the moment, at full capacity. And I’ve currently used up my list of foster parents.”

“But you could keep him until you found someone to take him on. He’s probably cute enough, under all that dirt and hair, to find him a home.”

“He’s going to need more attention than I can give him. I’m afraid a prior commitment’s going to have me a bit overextended for the next few weeks.”

Dr. Charity Tiernan sure as hell wasn’t proving to be a pushover. Gabe found himself wishing Cole’s brother Sax were here. When he turned on the charm, the former SEAL had a smooth way about him that had most women agreeing to just about anything. Apparently Kara Conway, Shelter Bay’s sheriff, had proved a tougher nut to crack than most, but from seeing them together at the wedding, swaying so close they were nearly making love on the dance floor, it appeared Sax Douchett had won her over.

She scooped the dog off the metal table and shoved it at him. “At least hold him for a sec while I go check the crate situation,” she said. Although he figured it was a dare, Gabe wasn’t willing to bet the dog’s neck—which it could break if it fell—on it. Which gave him no choice but to take it from her.

She was gone longer than a “sec.” Every Marine had a clock in his head, and Gabe figured she was pushing on five minutes when she finally returned. It was a good ploy, given that the dog had literally put its muddy paws around his neck again and was happily licking his face while its tail wagged to beat the band. Damned if the two of them weren’t ganging up on him. But a guy who’d survived war zones wasn’t going to be taken down that easily.

“As I said, we’re full up,” she announced.
Surprise, surprise.
“I was considering getting down one of the travel crates I use to take animals out to the shelter for him to spend the night in, but the poor little guy’s been through enough. After I dip him, he might as well come upstairs with me.”

“You live here?”

“It’s a big place. It used to be a bed-and-breakfast, and when I saw it online, I fell in love. And the commute’s a lot better than the one I had in Chicago.”

“You’re not a local?” Genuine and easygoing, she seemed to fit here, as if she’d been born to the place.

“No. I’ve only lived in Shelter Bay about eighteen months. But I visited once while growing up. My mother was married to an Oregon architect for a while and I have a stepbrother who’s currently in the military, whom I’m close to. So, when I started looking for a change in scenery, and a place to put down roots, well, this town, where I spent the best summer vacation of my life, just felt right.”

After giving up on that fanciful idea of having a little woman waiting for him at home, Gabe had decided roots tied a person down. But he also understood that his was probably a minority opinion.

“Well, I’ve already taken up enough of your time.” If he was to be perfectly honest, he’d like to take up more, which was all the more reason to leave.
Now.

He put the nine pounds of matted black fur back onto the table. “If you’ll just tell me how much I owe you.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no idea what I may find after I bathe and clip him. He might have skin disease, more road rash, even ringworm. And he might need more tests.”

“Why don’t you make an estimate?” Gabe suggested. He pulled out a stack of twenties he’d picked up that morning at the gas station ATM. “Here’s three hundred. I’ll call tomorrow, and if it’s more than that, I’ll send the rest.”

When she didn’t immediately respond, Gabe wondered if she was worried about getting stiffed on her fee.

“You really should give the little guy a fair chance,” she said. “See how he cleans up before you reject him.”

“I’m sure he’ll look just dandy. But I’m not in the market for a dog. And if I were, a foo-foo dust mop of a canine would be the last breed on my list.”

The dog sitting on its haunches, looking up at him with a ridiculously adoring gaze, was about as far from a manly dog as Gabe could have imagined.

“I’m surprised.” She looked him straight in the eye as she patted the mutt’s head. “I wouldn’t have expected a big bad Marine to have masculinity issues.”

“Low blow, Doc.” She was doing it again. Laughing at him. He should have been annoyed, but for some reason he’d think about later, Gabe wasn’t. “And way off the mark.”

She lifted her chin. “Prove it.”

“How?”

“By taking him home tomorrow. Just for a test run. There’s no need to do any in-depth personality testing, because he’s already proven himself to be amazingly easygoing. We’re only talking one day. If he still hasn’t won you over after he’s cleaned up, then no harm, no foul.” She shrugged. “What can it hurt?”

Hell. Gabe had been up against Taliban fighters who weren’t as tenacious as Dr. Charity Tiernan.

“I’ve got work to do tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to shoot that many photographs in the middle of the day.” When he arched a brow, surprised she’d know that, she shrugged again. “Both my parents just happen to be serial marriers. One of my stepfathers is Peter Gillette.”

Although he might have spent most of the last years out of the country, even Gabe recognized the name. Gillette was, hands down, the most famous photographer of the rich and famous in the world. Gabe had attended a show of his at the Philadelphia Museum of Art while he’d been shooting in Pennsylvania, and had appreciated the way the photographer managed to reveal the individual behind the glamorous facade. Which sometimes, to the more judicial eye, wasn’t that flattering.

“He’s a genius.” Gabe had always believed in giving credit where credit was due.

“So they say. He was my mother’s fourth husband. They met when he did a photo shoot at our home for
Town & Country
magazine. When they were married, he used to let me sit in his darkroom while he developed his photos, which was cool.” She paused. “You probably use digital.”

“Yeah. I started out using film, but digital’s faster when you want to get the photos out of a war zone fast. Besides, there were a lot of guys who liked having copies to send home to families.”

“That’s nice.”

Gabe shrugged. Like
sweet
,
nice
wasn’t a word he was accustomed to being used to describe him.

“People, if they think about it at all, believe military photographers exist to take photos of medal ceremonies, or document wars. Which are both part of the job. But I always thought of it as capturing moments in history.”

“There’s a difference between documenting a war and capturing history?”

“I never thought about the fact that I was filming battles. What interested me was showing troops coping as best as they can in conditions civilians couldn’t imagine in their worst nightmares.”

“Yet in order to capture those historic moments, you had to take as many risks and suffer the same hardships they experienced.”

Gabe shrugged. “I was a Marine first. A photographer second. Though,” he admitted, “after Fallujah, I started carrying a helluva lot more rounds of ammunition.”

He hadn’t realized he’d smiled until she said, “You should do that more often.”

“What?”

“Smile. It makes you look … well, less threatening.”

“Are you threatened by me?”

“No.” She tilted her head and studied him. “Should I be?”

He gave her a hard, level look. “Probably. An ex told me I was the angriest man she’d ever known. Shortly before she left me.”

“I’m sorry. But perhaps she needed an excuse to do what she already wanted to do for her own reasons.”

The walls of the room had begun closing in on him. Gabe felt on the verge of suffocating. “And maybe she was right.” His curt tone declared the topic closed.

Her hand absently stroked the dog’s head as her verdant green eyes swept over him, making him feel as if he was being examined. Which, of course, he was.

“And maybe,” she suggested mildly, “you’re being too hard on yourself.”

“And you know this how?”

“I realize some people might consider it overly simplistic, but I tend to judge people by the way they treat children and animals.” She glanced down at the dog, who wagged his tail, then back up at him. “You interrupted your plans and intervened to possibly save this little guy’s life today. That is not exactly the behavior of an angry man.”

Not knowing how to respond to that analysis, Gabe said nothing.

Reading had brought Adèle Douchett a great deal of pleasure for more than six decades, first in childhood, serving as a magic carpet to carry her away to lands far from her isolated Louisiana bayou home, and later serving as a much-needed bit of brightness during the long, gloomy Oregon coast winters. But she’d been reading the same page now for what seemed like hours, and as soon as she’d finish a line, it would be as if her memory were a soap bubble that would immediately pop. So she’d begin again. And again.

The sound of the clock on the wall seemed inordinately loud. And slow.
Click … Click … Click …

Finally giving up, she decided to turn to knitting more clothing for Harbor Home, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Only to discover that she’d forgotten to buy the yarn she’d been planning to use for a sweater.

“It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of other yarn,” she muttered as she looked at the baskets overflowing with colorful balls in a rainbow of hues on the shelves her husband had built for her in their bedroom. “Just use something else.”

The only problem was, she’d had her heart set on “Peace Pink,” a soft pastel shade she thought was not only a soothing color but also appropriate, since the women and children living at Harbor Home had definitely gone there seeking not just safety but peace.

Unfortunately, her son and her daughter-in-law, with whom she lived, had gone into Tillamook to buy supplies for their bait shop. And her husband was out at sea with their grandson. A group of insurance men from Eugene who’d won a fishing trip in a sales contest had chartered Cole’s boat. Since she knew her Bernard still missed his days as a commercial fisherman, she’d merrily waved him off this morning, promising that she’d stay home while he was gone.

As much as she loved her family, she was looking forward to a little alone time. She was also getting weary of their hovering over her as if she were an infant. She was seventy-four years old. She might not have traveled the world, as her three grandsons had done while in the military, and perhaps her memory wasn’t as sharp as it had been when she’d been younger, but she wasn’t ready for the old folks’ home, yet.

She’d been living in Shelter Bay for fifty-four years. Although the town had experienced changes over time, much had stayed the same as it had been when she’d first arrived as a young bride after Hurricane Audrey had devastated the Louisiana bayou and shut down the shrimping business for a time. Figuring that crabbing wouldn’t be all that different, her husband, Bernard, had packed what was left of their belongings in his old Ford pickup, and brought her here to Oregon.

Adèle had gotten a job working as a companion and housekeeper for Sylvia Blackwell, the widow of a timber baron, who’d opened her eyes to a larger world. Sylvia had not only shared tales of her travels; the wealthy woman had a vast library in the cliff house that she’d encouraged Adèle to use.

“It’s not as if I just fell off a crab boat,” Adèle reminded herself.

What she’d done was fall down the stairs at the house her grandson was now living in, hitting her head when she’d reached the bottom. Dr. Conway, who was not only a very bright neurologist but also the mother of the young woman with whom her grandson Sax was obviously in love, had diagnosed her with a form of dementia. That had been the bad news. The good news was that unlike “normal” dementia, she shouldn’t get worse, and might even get better. But any recovery would, Dr. Conway had said, take time.

Unfortunately, unlike her husband, Adèle had never been known for her patience.

She looked up at the clock. It wasn’t yet noon. She had plenty of time to walk the few blocks to the Knitting Nook and be back before the rest of the family returned. They’d never even know she left the house.

And maybe she’d stop at Take the Cake and pick up some of those coconut-lemon cupcakes she’d become so fond of since Cole’s fiancée had brought them home from the wedding-cake tasting.

“See?” she said to herself. “Your memory can’t be that bad. You remember those.” Of course that might be because they were the best dessert she’d ever tasted. Although the sun was shining through the clouds, it was misting, a light, silvery rain that around these parts was known as “liquid sunshine.” Slipping on a hooded sweater she’d knit in a soft and airy purple fingerling yarn that accented her dark eyes, she fetched her pocketbook and left the house.

The mist hadn’t kept anyone indoors. This was, after all, the Oregon coast, where rain was to be expected. Tourists crowded the sidewalks, many carrying containers of crab from the takeaway shops, eating ice-cream cones, or digging into white bags of saltwater taffy. Along with its fishing fleet, Shelter Bay survived on tourism, so it was good to see the local shops doing a brisk business.

The harbor came alive every morning at sunrise, boats chugging out in search of lingcod, rockfish, along with trophy salmon, halibut, tuna, and Dungeness crab during the seasons. And then there were those taking tourists out to visit the pod of whales that lived in the waters just offshore.

The air was tinged with the scent of salt and faraway places; sea lions lounged on docks, barking to one another; a gull swooped down and grabbed up a crab nearly half his size. Unable to hang on to it, he dropped it onto the rocks, where it was quickly attacked by more opportunistic gulls.