Love Letters from Ladybug Farm (15 page)

He shook his head sadly. “That’s a difficult situation. I have to admire you all for taking it on.”

She finished with the brushes and turned, wiping her hands. “He’s one of the family” she replied simply.

She liked the way he smiled at her, and when he turned back to look at the paintings she was flattered, and a little nervous, to notice that it was her work he seemed to focus on. And he studied the canvases as though he were in a museum.

“This is great,” he said, without turning from his appraisal of a large oil painting of a cardinal in the snow. “The way the bird takes up the whole canvas, and the trees are so small in the distance ... it makes you think about perspective, doesn’t it?”

Lindsay was pleased. “That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do! Well, that, and make you smile.”

He turned, smiling. “It does that, too.”

Lindsay began gathering up the plastic trash bags that were attached to each easel. Because the paint and turpentine-soaked paper towels that the students used in every class were highly odiferous—not to mention flammable—she knotted each bag before stuffing it into the larger one she carried. Dominic fell easily into step beside her, knotting and handing her the bags from each easel.

“These aren’t bad,” he said. “You must be a good teacher.”

“You need to take a class,” she invited him. “As it happens, I have an opening or two.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve got a few talents, but, like I said, painting is not one of them.”

She smiled. “You might be surprised. The things we do in class are more like paint by number than fine art, and, frankly, talent is far down the list of course requirements.”

“It must be hard for you,” he said, with unexpected perception, “to go from those”—he nodded to the painting of the cardinal—“to paint by number.”

She chuckled and took her trash bag to the door. “Some people would say there’s not that much difference.”

“I wouldn’t be one of them.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” She smiled at him for a moment, then looked away, a little embarrassed.

She took an oversized bottle of baby oil from a shelf over the sink and poured a measure into her paint-smeared hands. “It breaks down the pigment,” she explained to Dominic as she worked the oil into her hands, “and it’s a lot easier on skin than mineral spirits. Smells better, too.”

He smiled at her. “I’ll have to remember that.” Then, “What’s first on the list?”

“Of what?”

“Class requirements.”

Lindsay wiped her hands with a paper towel, cleaning the paint from around her nails as she thought about that. “Oh, I don’t know. A willingness to try, I suppose. A sense of fun. Yes,” she decided, “that’s it. The people who come to my class don’t want to be artists,” she explained. “They already
are
whatever it is they want to be. For them, painting is a way to pass the time, to learn something new, and, maybe, to explore a different kind of self-expression. I promise them they’ll go home with a painting and a sense of pride in what they’ve done, and all I ask from them is that they have fun.”

“Well, in that case,” he said, with a small considering tilt of his head, “maybe I will sign up.”

Lindsay smiled and tossed the paper towel into the trash bag. “Well, you’re welcome any time—although exactly when you have time to do anything other than eat and sleep I can’t imagine. Between your full-time job and working over here for free every spare minute you have, when do you have time for a life?”

He gestured easily toward the vineyard beyond the open door. “This isn’t work. This is like coming home. This is my life.”

A breeze from the open door tugged a strand of hair across Lindsay’s cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. “That’s right. I forget sometimes that you probably know more about this place than we do. I’d love to hear more about what it was like when you were a boy here.”

He smiled. “I’d love to tell you.”

And then he startled her by stepping close to her, and lifting his thumb to her cheek, wiping it gently. Surprise must have flared in her eyes, because he looked embarrassed as he explained with a small gesture, “You had a little paint...”

“Oh.” Lindsay touched her cheek, and laughed. “Can’t imagine how that happened.” She turned to take a paper towel from the work counter and wiped her hands, then, for good measure, her face again. “We should have you over one night for dinner. I know everyone would love to hear your stories.” And then she added, with a cautionary lift of her finger. “After the wedding, of course.”

He smiled. “After the wedding,” he assured her. He hesitated, and then seemed to come to some decision. “Actually,” he began, “I was thinking—”

“Lindsay are you there?”

Cici caught the doorframe with her hand as she swung by. The look of disappointment on Dominic’s face was gone in an instant, and his customary easy smile was back in place as he turned to greet Cici.

“Oh, hi, Dominic,” Cici said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I stopped at the back door but you were on the phone,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you the ground is dry enough to work so we should probably get the vines fertilized by the weekend.”

“Not this weekend!” Cici and Lindsay said together, and Cici explained, “We’ve got some people coming out Saturday.”

“The wedding thing,” Lindsay added, tossing the paper towel into the trash.

He scratched his head thoughtfully. “We shouldn’t put it off much longer. If you don’t mind working Sunday, I could come out after church and help you out.”

“That would be terrific,” Lindsay said gratefully.

“Thanks, Dominic,” Cici added. “And plan to stay for supper, okay?”

Dominic glanced at Lindsay. “That would be real nice. Thank you.”

He lifted a friendly hand to Cici, and then paused to nod to Lindsay before resuming his stride toward his pickup.

Cici watched him go with an appreciative smile. “Now there,” she declared, “is one of the good ones.”

“No doubt about it,” Lindsay agreed, but her expression was a little distracted. “Do you think he ... ?”

She broke off, and Cici turned to her curiously. “What?”

Lindsay gave an impatient shake of her head. “Nothing. I probably imagined it, that’s all. What do you need?”

“Oh.” Cici straightened up, the customary harried and unhappy expression of the past week returning to her face. “Photographs,” she said. “You know, for Catherine’s brochure?”

Lindsay rolled her eyes.

“Now she’s decided to hire a graphic designer, and she wants me to e-mail her pictures of the house and garden, along with a list of nearby hotels with prices and directions...”

Lindsay choked on a laugh.
“Hotels?”
she repeated. “Plural? And nearby?”

Cici shrugged, even as she tried not to grin. “I said I’d do my best,” she said. “Anyway she wants us to send the photos, the hotel info, and a brief history and description of the house and gardens...”

Lindsay gave a long-suffering sigh and hoisted the trash bag. “I don’t suppose she gave you any idea of what, exactly, she wanted photographed.”

“As a matter of fact I have a list.” Cici dug into her back pocket.

And that was when they heard Bridget scream.

What the Misses North-Dere did not understand was that Ladybug Farm was a working farm, with at least a hundred tasks that demanded the attention of its proprietresses every day. Those tasks were far more urgent than whether or not sugared almonds or monogrammed chocolates were served with the coffee. And furthermore, with every e-mail, every phone call, and every menu change, the “heavy hors d‘oeuvres” that were initially discussed were morphing into something very closely resembling a sit-down dinner. Who
cared
what kind of candy was served with the coffee when all you were offering was hors d’oeuvres?

Those were the kind of fuming thoughts that were occupying Bridget’s mind as she came down the back steps with a laundry basket filled with damp sheets and tablecloths to be hung on the line. One of the few points on which she had finally come to agree with Ida Mae was that the sun was far superior to electricity when it came to drying and freshening whites, and laundry was only one of those hundreds of things that, right now, were more important to Bridget than the menu crisis at someone else’s wedding.

She eased the screen door closed with her hip, came down the brick steps with the plastic basket of laundry balanced before her, and noticed in dismay that something had made a shambles of the pretty little pansy bed at the bottom of the steps. Then she noticed the rest.

The white sheets and lace tablecloths that she had hung earlier were strewn on the ground or hanging by one pin on the line. Dirty paw prints and grass stains smeared the fabric, and one of the tablecloths was torn right down the middle. For a moment she was too shocked to do anything but stare, but her breath came back to her in a rush and she exclaimed furiously, “Rebel! You bad dog! You bad, bad dog!”

Rebel was, of course, nowhere to be seen.

She marched over to the scene of the disaster, plopped the basket of clean laundry onto the ground, and started snatching up the ruined linens.

It was then that she noticed that the dirty smears on the fabric weren’t exactly paw prints. They were more like ... hoofprints. Bambi? She started to straighten up, squinting in the sun, looking around for the deer, and then she felt something brush the back of her knees. She whirled around, full of invectives for the deer, and found herself staring, not into a pair of big brown eyes as she had expected, but into a pair of narrow yellow ones. She gasped and stumbled backward. The creature lunged at her. That was when she screamed.

Lindsay and Cici arrived just as Bridget, who had tripped over the laundry basket, was scrambling to her feet. Ida Mae came stiffly down the steps, flapping a towel and shouting. A brown and white goat stood a few feet away, bleating in confusion.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Lindsay, staring. “Where did that come from?”

Cici helped Bridget to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“Nasty damn thing,” Ida Mae swore, snapping the towel in the direction of the goat. “Look what it did to my laundry! Get on out of here! Shoo! Shoo!”

“Wait!” Bridget cried as the goat bounded a few feet away. “You’re scaring him!”

“That’s what I mean to do,” returned Ida Mae, advancing menacingly on the goat. “Shoo! Get!”

“How did a goat get all the way out here?” Lindsay said. “I mean, they don’t just wander around in the wild, do they?”

Cici said, “Look, it’s got a rope around its neck.”

Bridget held out a staying arm to Ida Mae. “Ida Mae, stop it. Just hold on for a minute.” She took a couple of cautious steps toward the goat, who eyed her warily but didn’t move. “Maybe he’s got some kind of identification.”

Ida Mae gave a snort of disdain, but she stopped waving the towel. “Goats don’t wear collars.”

Lindsay insisted, “He’s got to belong to somebody.”

“She,” Ida Mae said shortly. “Ain’t you got eyes? That’s a milking goat.”

Bridget, holding out her hand invitingly, murmured, “Nice goat. Good goat, don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you. Good fellow, I mean girl ...”

The goat stayed its ground uneasily, watching her with wary yellow eyes. Bridget got within a hand’s reach of the animal, and from out of nowhere Rebel lunged from his border collie crouch, lightning fast and without a sound. He charged the goat, which leapt into the air as though on springs, landed in a panicked run, and charged toward the house. Bridget screamed, “Rebel, no!” Ida Mae threw the towel at the goat, Cici ran to put herself between the older woman and the terrified goat, and Lindsay lunged to catch the rope that dangled from the animal’s neck. But it was Rebel who, with a well-placed nip to the goat’s back leg, turned it away from the house and out into the yard.

Bridget cried again, “Rebel!”

The dog, as usual, ignored her. Herding the goat as he would a sheep, cutting and turning, lunging and crouching, he pushed the terrified creature in an erratic pattern across the yard, heading toward the edge of the woods. Bridget shouted and chased after him.

Lindsay looked at Cici, “What is she
doing?”

“Gone plumb crazy is what,” Ida Mae replied. She raised her voice. “Let that critter go! Get it on out of here!”

Bridget cut to the east of Rebel, shouting and waving her arms at him. The goat swung suddenly toward her and she dodged out of the way just in time.

“She’s going to get trampled,” Cici worried, and ran after them.

Chickens squawked and feathers flew as Rebel chased the goat past the chicken yard, and Bridget, with big scooping motions of her arms, managed to turn it toward the barn. Cici raced ahead and swung open the barnyard gate. Rebel cut to the right, and then to the left, and the goat, bleating in agitation, trotted right through the gate. Cici slammed the gate shut and latched it, then leaned against it, breathing hard, as Bridget caught up to her.