Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (27 page)

Max leaped to his feet, hugging the pup close. “Really?”

“If it's all right with your mom,” Noah added.

“Oh, this is emotional blackmail,” Sophie objected. “If I say no, that makes me the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“Then don't say no,” Noah advised her. “You mentioned before that it would be nice to get Max a dog. You said that first morning that you ought to get a dog. I'm doing this as a favor.”

“I was speaking theoretically, not—”

“You said that, Mom?” Max was now regarding her with worshipful eyes.

“Yes, but maybe not so soon. I don't even have a place of my own. It's completely unacceptable to bring an animal into a house where I'm a guest.”

“I talked to Bertie last night to make sure she didn't mind about the dog,” Noah said. “She's totally on board with it.”

“You did not,” Sophie objected. “You said you didn't know her.”

“I said I hadn't seen her in a long time. Do you have your phone with you?” Noah asked.

Without thinking, she took it out of her pocket and handed it to him. He flipped it open and scrolled through her contacts, then hit Send and handed back the phone. “You can ask her yourself right now.”

Sophie closed the phone before connecting. “I still can't do this. I don't have time. I have to watch my grandson three afternoons a week.”

“The puppy can stay here while you're away,” Noah said simply. “And when Max isn't in school, he'll take care of her.”

“Mom, please.” Max tucked the puppy against his chest. “She needs me now.”

“Tell you what,” Noah said, shrugging into a parka, “I'll show you around. The puppy can come.”

Max and the dogs headed out the back door. Sophie started to follow, but Noah held her back, grabbing her hand and reeling her in to plant a kiss on her surprised mouth. It lasted all of two seconds, yet in that span of time, she relived all the ways he had touched her and the unexpected things he made her feel, and how, when she was with him, she never felt lonely.

She pulled away from him. “Stop that.”

“Your boy doesn't know about us?”

“There is no
us.
There's nothing to know.”

“Then what the hell are we doing, Sophie?”

“I don't believe you. Acting as though your feelings are hurt.”

“Maybe they are,” he said.

She tugged on her gloves as she walked out the back door. “You are in such trouble.”

He followed her outside, his boots crunching on the snow. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Not now.” She marched ahead.

“He seems like a good kid,” Noah said. “I'm going to show him around some more. Want to come?”

Like the pied piper, Noah led Max to the clinic. The puppy came paddling through the drifts behind. Sophie heaved a sigh, feeling confused and hopeful and out of sorts. Noah had overstepped a boundary, but the bottom line was, he had just given Max a reason to spend as much time as possible with her. She went to join them. After a brief tour of the facilities, which Max clearly found interesting, they went up to the barn. They checked out a room full of veterinary equipment and a stall for patients, currently vacant.

“Ever ride a horse?” Noah asked Max.

“Nope. Never had the chance.”

“I'll show you how one of these days. There's a girl who comes a few times a week to work around here and exercise them. Chelsea Nash. Do you know her?”

Max looked uncomfortable. “Saw her on the school bus.”

“Maybe she could teach you, too. And then there's your mom.”

“My mom doesn't ride.”

“I used to,” Sophie said quickly. “I used to be sort of good at it. I had a horse of my own.”

“No way.” Max watched her stroking one of the horses.

“I got Misty when I was about your age. I rode her every day.”

“You never told me you had a horse when you were a kid,” Max said.

“I never told you I had the mumps when I was little, either.”

“Yeah, but a horse. That's major.”

“Mumps are major.”

“So what happened to the horse?”

“She died and I was completely devastated.”

Max scooped up Opal and hugged her against his chest. “Don't think that's going to talk me out of this puppy.”

N
oah hadn't been lying about having called Bertie Wilson. Sophie phoned her, and Bertie said yes, it was fine to adopt a puppy. “Little Noah Shepherd.” She seemed amused. “It was great to get his call. I hadn't heard from him in years.”

Little
Noah Shepherd? Sophie had to smile. There was nothing little about him.

Max spent the afternoon rearranging his life—and Sophie's house—around the puppy. He brought the crate, bedding and food bowls from Noah's and set her up in his bedroom. Daisy and Charlie showed up at dusk, bringing a merry swirl of cold air. “I came as soon as I got your message,” Daisy said. “A puppy?”

Sophie took the baby from her while Daisy hung up her coat. “It wasn't my idea.”

“You should take credit for it, though. It's brilliant.”

While Daisy went in search of Max and the puppy, Sophie gave her attention to the bundle in her arms. “Hello, you.”

To her delight, Charlie offered her a funny grin, punctuated with a string of saliva.

“You know me now, don't you?” Feeling ridiculously pleased with herself, she joined Daisy and Max to find him transforming his closet into a puppy habitat. The crate fit on one side, and he'd created a play area with toys, a step stool and a fat, knobby log from the woodpile.

“I'm impressed,” Sophie said. “For someone who's never had a dog before, you seem to know what you're doing.”

“Mom. I've been planning this my whole life.”

She stood back and watched him stroking the puppy, his face soft with adoration. She wondered what other dreams and plans he had. There was so much to learn about Max.

With the baby in her lap, she sat cross-legged on the floor. The puppy came to check out Charlie and was polite enough about sniffing him. Daisy applied herself diligently to helping Max. After a while, Sophie realized the entire afternoon had passed without Max complaining even once about the lack of cable TV or computer games.

As she sat there with her kids and grandson and the new dog, she felt an emotion she almost didn't recognize—happiness, pure and simple. A sense of peaceful contentment.

Life, for this moment, was good.

She was just starting to think about getting dinner when the phone rang.

“I ordered pizza. It'll be here in about forty-five minutes.” Noah always seemed to have a smile in his voice.

“And this concerns me because…”

“Because I'm warning you now, there's no meat on the pizzas.”

“I'll inform the media.”

“Come over. We're going to be jamming.”

“We?”

“Me and the guys in the band.”

Band?
“My daughter's here—”

“Bring her. Bring anyone you want.”

Sophie reminded herself that she was mad at him about the dog. “Noah—”

“Be there,” he said. “Aloha.”

“What's up?” asked Daisy as Sophie put away her phone.

“How do you feel about an evening of culture?”

Her children regarded her skeptically.

“Continental cuisine and musical entertainment,” she said.

The kids looked queasy, and she relented. “Pizza and Noah's garage band. We're all invited.”

“Dude,” Eddie Haven, the guitar player said, “lose the sweatshirt.”

“What's wrong with this shirt?” Noah asked. “I just washed it.”

“You reek of Bounce sheets.”

Noah had stuffed a handful in the dryer with the last load he'd done. “So?”

“Chicks get suspicious when they smell Bounce sheets on a guy.”

Noah frowned at him and went over to his drum set, tapping the snare to check the tuning. “I don't get it.”

“When a shirt smells like dryer sheets, it can mean only one of two things. One, he's gay. Or two, he's got a girlfriend. Before today did you ever use it?”

“No. I had a box left over from when I was with Daphne.”

“My point exactly.”

“Sophie knows I'm single,” Noah said. “And she knows I'm not gay.”

Eddie adjusted the volume of his amp. “Yeah?”

“Definitely.”

“Dude.” He offered his fist and they touched knuckles. Of all the guys in the band, Eddie was the one with real talent. He could wail on the guitar like a young Stevie Ray Vaughan while belting out rock ballads that made grown men pine for their lost youth. The only reason he hadn't hit the big time was that he lived in Avalon—not by choice but by necessity. There was some convoluted story about a scuffle with the county prosecutor's nephew, a missed court date and a quarrel with a cranky judge. The upshot was, Eddie had been ordered to perform community service by serving the Heart of the Mountains Church as choir director. He did a remarkably good job at it, not surprisingly, given his background.

“About the laundry, I'm not kidding,” Eddie concluded. “Bo said you're into this chick.”

“I
am
into this chick,” Noah admitted.

“And I'm just trying to be helpful.”

Noah laughed. “Because you've been such a huge success with the ladies.”

Eddie looked chagrined. “I've been unlucky in love.” He had a long and complicated history with women—as well as the law.

“So you consider sleeping with the pastor's wife unlucky,” Noah said.

“Nope, I consider getting caught unlucky,” said Eddie.

Bo Crutcher arrived with two longneck bottles of beer stuck in his back pockets and a rebel yell on his lips. “Are you ready to rock 'n' roll, my brothers?”

“I was just giving our boy Noah a bit of advice for the lovelorn,” Eddie said.

“He's not lovelorn,” Bo said with a snort.

“How do you know?” Noah demanded. “I am too. I'm totally lorn.”

“In lust, maybe. Not love, though.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“Because if you were lovelorn, you wouldn't be with us tonight. You'd be with her.”

“I invited her over,” Noah said.

“I mean, you'd fix things so it's just the two of you,” Bo said.

“I can't. Not tonight,” Noah admitted.

“Can't what?” Rayburn Tolley, their keyboard man, came in through the kitchen, his apple cheeks burned deep red by the cold, making him look more boyish than ever. Like Noah, he'd grown up in Avalon. He was a policeman under Chief McKnight. He was also Eddie's parole officer.

“Can't be alone with his new woman,” said Eddie.

“Why not?” asked Ray.

“It's complicated,” Noah said.

“‘It's complicated' covers a lot of ground. It can mean anything from ‘I'm married' to ‘I did time for involuntary manslaughter after my last boyfriend was killed.'”

“She's got her kids with her all weekend.”

“Bummer,” said Eddie. “So much for the booty call.”

“And her grandson,” Noah added, watching his friends closely for a reaction.

They took it in stride. “She's a grandmother?” Ray said.

“That's right,” Noah confirmed. “And they're all coming over, and you guys are going to be cool.”

“Nothing but cool,” Bo agreed, opening a beer.

“You should never doubt our coolness.” Ray stepped up to the keyboard and switched on the power.

“Because she's kind of classy,” Noah said.

“What kind of classy?” Ray demanded.

Just then, Sophie walked into the room. “Hello,” she said. “I knocked at the door but I don't think anyone heard.”

Noah felt a rush of happiness when he saw her. His friends were wrong about the lust. That was part of what he felt for Sophie, sure, but it was so much more than that. Or it was going to be, if he didn't blow it. While she took off her jacket, the others went silent. Under his breath, Eddie muttered, “Dude.”

“Come in and meet the guys,” Noah said. He hoped like hell she wasn't still mad about the dog.

“My crew is here, too.” Sophie motioned them in from the vestibule, and there were introductions all around.

Noah wasn't surprised to see that her daughter, Daisy, looked a lot like Sophie—blond hair and blue eyes, a killer smile. Daisy's baby was a smiling, red-haired lump of a thing, his bright eyes moving watchfully around the room.

“How's it going with the puppy?” Noah asked Max.

“So far, so good. I found a perfect spot for her crate. She was sound asleep when we left the house. She was really tired.”

“Puppies sleep a lot,” Noah said.

The pizzas arrived in a stack of five boxes, five different combos. Everyone was quiet for a while, intent on eating. Noah found some sodas and a bottle of red wine in the pantry, and after a while, they got down to business. As a band, they didn't do much performing, but getting gigs wasn't that important. It was always good to have an audience, even a tiny one.

Noah put on his lucky baseball cap, brim turned backward, and took his seat. He offered Sophie a brief smile, feeling unusually self-conscious, which was not like him. They'd been practicing and, thanks to Eddie, they weren't half-bad.

Because of the little baby, they decided to stick with softer, acoustic numbers. They could rock and wail, but tonight they simply played some tunes they knew well, a mixture of new music from Eddie's talented pen, along with some classics from the dawn of time—“No Woman, No Cry,” by Bob Marley and James Taylor's “Fire and Rain.”

Sophie was an appreciative listener, at least she seemed to be, sitting thoughtfully on the couch. Maybe she was just being polite. Max—a baseball fan—regarded Bo Crutcher with the kind of hero worship Bo craved. When they finished with an Eric Clapton ballad, Sophie applauded and favored Noah with a smile that made him wish they were alone.

“Do any of you play?” Eddie asked at the break.

Max and Daisy both turned to their mother. She looked startled, but then admitted, “Piano. Not lately, though.”

Turning on his trademark charm, Eddie took her hand and drew her to Ray's keyboard while Ray gamely moved aside. She stood there for a moment, looking bewildered. “I'm classically trained,” she said.

“Don't worry, we won't hold that against you.”

As she took a seat, she assumed a pianist's trained posture. Noah suspected he was seeing old habits kick in. She played a piece he didn't recognize, the sort of thing that aired on public radio on Sunday mornings. Ray jazzed it up with some electronic adjustments. Noah added an easy beat, and Bo underscored it with some bass. Finally, Eddie chimed in with a few guitar riffs, giving everyone just a small hint of his virtuosity. For the next few minutes, the bass-line melody, which had likely originated with some guy in a powdered wig, turned into something new.

Sophie's kids looked on with their jaws unhinged by surprise. At the end of the number, she laughed at their expressions. “I think I'm insulted by how amazed you are.”

“Mom, that was really good,” Max said.

“Daisy, why don't you give it a shot?” Sophie said. “You used to be a good piano student, too. And I understand you're a drummer these days, Max.” She took the baby and traded places with her daughter. Noah motioned Max to the drum set. The kid was stiff and uncertain, but within a couple of minutes, they were having fun messing around with the guys.

Noah leaned over to Sophie. “Thirsty?”

“I could use some water,” she said, and they went to the kitchen together.

Noah immediately kissed her, leaning across the baby she was holding. “Been dying to do that all evening. I've never been with a woman with a baby before,” he said.

She gazed steadily up at him, then handed over the kid. “This is a grandbaby.”

“That's a new one on me, too.” If she thought it would faze him, she was totally wrong. The little one squirmed and squeaked at the notion of finding himself with a stranger, but didn't cry. Noah liked the soft, squishy feel of the baby he was holding, something he didn't get to do too often. He liked the way the baby smelled. He knew he'd like it even better when it turned into an actual kid. “I like this guy. And your kids.”

“If you think you're off the hook about the dog,” she said, “you're wrong. I can't believe you'd—”

“Mom,” Max called from the other room.

She moved away from Noah as though he were poison, then marched back to the living room, apparently having forgotten the water.

“Play something else, Mom,” Max said, taking the baby from Noah.

Ray, with his mouth full of pizza, waved in agreement. Sophie went to the keyboard and they tried some George Gershwin. Probably the person who was most surprised was Sophie herself. Noah got the feeling that simply playing music just for the fun of it was not a common occurrence in her life.