Love in a Nutshell

FIVE

Matt and his three-legged dog, Chuck, had hunkered down to watch the flames dance in the large fieldstone fireplace that anchored the great room in Matt’s log home.

Chuck gave his standard contribution to any conversation: a thump of his tail against a pine floor scarred from his constant quest to discover if the darker knots in the wood might actually be hidden dog treats.

Matt stretched his arms across the back of the brown leather sofa. HeYouw took in the family photos that sat on the fireplace’s rough-hewn oak mantel. Chuck starred in more than one of the shots.

Five years ago, Matt had found Chuck tied to a newspaper box outside a gas station. Apparently, someone had stuck him there the prior night and no one had laid claim to him during the course of the day.

Matt liked to think of himself as a practical guy. He’d known that a three-legged hound, no matter how much he otherwise appeared to be bred to hunt, was going to be ornamental at best. But one look at that dog’s chocolate brown eyes and hopeful expression, and there had been no way he could have left him behind.

“That was my lucky day,” Matt said to Chuck. Chuck was a good listener when Matt needed to unload. And Chuck could be counted on for unconditional love any time of the day or night. “I don’t know why I’m letting Kate get to me,” Matt said.

Chuck tilted his head, probably trying to pick out words he knew, like “food” and “treat.”

“But that’s not what’s messing me up. There’s something more about her. Look at the way she took on Hobart like it was her life goal. And the way she’s straight with me, too. No sugarcoating. I like her. A lot, if you know what I mean.”

Chuck started to snore as he fell into a doze. He had been neutered a long time ago and had absolutely no idea what Matt meant.

Matt’s thoughts turned from Kate to his business problems. As the old saying went, it wasn’t paranoia if someone really was out to get you. The flat tires and messed-up deliveries he’d dealt with, but the open walk-in had cost him some serious money. He had been trying not to take it personally, since whoever was doing this had a certain level of insanity going on, but this was personal.

Matt headed into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and pulled out the orange juice jug, only to discover that at some point or another, he’d stuck it back in there empty. At least that way it matched the rest of his fridge’s barren expanse. He left the empty jug on the counter and swore he’d remember to get food tomorrow. Or eat at the restaurant again.

The phone rang and caller ID told him it was Lizzie. Guess she wasn’t through with him for the evening. He could ignore her, but it would do him no good. As a Keene’s Harbor police officer, she’d been known to pull him over when he’d ducked the rest of the family for too long. He picked up the phone. “Hi, Lizzie.”

“You blew out of the house so fast, I didn’t get the chance to give you your ticket for Friday night,” Lizzie said.

Ticket.

Matt didn’t like that word in any Keene’s Harbor context, be it parking or speeding or, far worst of all, admission. And even though this was Lizzie on the phone, he was damn certain that she was referring to the dreaded admission ticket to whatever Friday night benefit was planned at the Brotherhood of Woodsmen’s Hall.

“There’s a fund-raiser for Lester Pankram,” she said.

Matt winced. Lester was a nice old guy, but thrift had gotten the better of him. He’d been driving his tractor along the shoulder of a road when he’d seen a beer can. Hot for the ten cent refund, he’d stuck his tractor in neutral and hopped down. Blind to anything but that shiny can, he’d failed to note the road’s downhill slope and had pretty much run himself over. He’d come out of the incident with a broken leg, the sure knowledge that he’d become a Town Legend, and a Friday fund-raiser that would be held to help cover his medical expenses.

“I’m working Thursday and Friday this week,” Matt said. “There’s a private party at the brewery on Thursday, and we’re always slammed on Friday night.”

He rolled away from the nearly weekly fund-raisers the way Lester should have from his tractor. For some reason, at these events the older folks in town found it amusing to reminisce about the many dumb-assed moves Matt had made as a kid. The talk came with multiple elbows in the ribs, wry winks, and laughing. A lot of the stuff was funny when he heard it the first time of the night, but by the fifth or so time around, he found himself remembering why he’d decided to build his home deep in the woods. And why he liked to send an anonymous envelope of cash to the fund-raiser’s beneficiary.

“Let your staff do what you pay them for, and come to the fund-raiser,” Lizzie said. “You can meet and greet there, too.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

“How about you don’t, this time? You skip ninety-nine percent of these things. It makes you look like a hermit.”

He smiled at the gap in her logic. “Only if you can find me to see me.”

“I’m not joking, Matt. This is a town tradition, and we Culhanes have been part of the town forever. Dad wants you there with the rest of the family, even if he’s too proud to say it.”

That was the thing about Lizzie-she’d always known just how to get to his soft spot. She had none of the noise of his other sisters and ten times the efficiency. Matt didn’t want to disappoint his dad. He loved the man, even if he had never been able to pull off working side by side with him.

“I’ll stop by,” he said. “But no way am I staying the whole night.”

“That’s up to you. All I did was commit to getting you there.”

Matt sighed. No doubt another of his siblings had the duty of making him stay.

He wandered out of the kitchen and back to his spot in front of the fireplace, where Chuck slumbered on.

“Anything else?” he asked his sister.

“It would be nice if Depot Brewing dropped off a keg for the event, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

At least then he could be sipping some of his favorite Scottish Ale while being retold the tales of his youth.

“Great. And Matt, pick up Mom and Dad on the way to the hall, okay?”

His mom and dad were fully capable of driving to the hall, not to mention circumnavigating the globe.

“What? You don’t trust me to show up?”

Lizzie laughed. “I just know you.”

“Fine, I’ll pick them up. But so long as we’re horse-trading, do you want to do me a favor?”

“What?”

“When you’re on night patrol, take an extra loop by Depot, could you?”

“Do you want to tell me why?”

“It’s nothing big, just enough small stuff going down that I’d like a little extra attention.”

“Define small stuff,” she said in a voice that was now one hundred percent business.

“One set of flat tires on delivery trucks and an open freezer door. The first definitely took place after hours, and the second, maybe. Either way, an extra drive-by or two would help.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure we swing by more often. There’s not as much to patrol this time of year, anyway. And I’ll see you on Friday, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Matt said.

He disconnected and looked down at Chuck.

“Dude, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

Chuck briefly opened one droopy hound eye as though to say “no way,” then cruised back to napland. The canine king would not be deposed.

IN BED but not sleepy, Kate reached for the phone to pick up her conversation with Ella.

“I just wanted to let you know I was alive,” she said when her friend answered.

“When you didn’t call back right away, I figured maybe you were putting Matt Culhane to one of the better uses God intended.”

“It was briefly tempting, but no.”

“Do tell.”

“I’d rather not,” Kate said. “It wasn’t one of my better moments. How about if we take a look at my big social picture, instead? I remain in social limbo. I need to start getting out and meeting Ct aer not more people.”

“That, I can help you fix. This Friday there’s a fund-raiser at the Woodsmen’s Hall. Why don’t you come along with me? It’s nothing all that thrilling. There’s beer, potluck, and gossip, but it’ll give you a chance to meet a few more people.”

Kate smiled. “I think you’ve just given me incentive to survive the rest of the week at work.”

Including Thursday’s private Halloween-themed party being thrown by Shay VanAntwerp. Jerry had told Kate she’d be doing a lot of detailed prep work for the gathering. Kate didn’t know what that meant, but she expected it wasn’t good.

“Don’t get your hopes up too high about this fund-raiser,” Ella said, then yawned. Too late. Kate was primed.

WEDNESDAY HAD been little more than a blur of frenzied work as the Depot crew prepared for Shay VanAntwerp’s annual extravaganza. It was now Thursday evening, and Kate was exhausted. She stretched the cramped fingers of her left hand and looked at the jack-o’-lanterns leering at her from tables set up in Depot Brewing’s loading dock area. Wednesday morning, she’d viewed Jerry’s assignment of creating fifty pumpkin carvings as a gift. This was her fun, artsy reward for having become BFFs with Hobart. For the first dozen works of art, she’d been all about the details, shaving away paper-thin bits of rind for perfect translucent accents. Frankenstein and Dracula came to life, along with a tribute to Stella, her poodle. As she’d worked, Kate had enthusiastically separated pumpkin seeds from guts, thinking that salty roasted treats at each of the party tables would be an ideal accent to Culhane’s fabulous brew. But by the afternoon, her gag reflex had kicked in, and washing slimy mutant gourd seeds had fallen off her list of volunteer activities. She had left work and taken a series of long hot showers, both before bed and after she’d woken this morning. No luck. She still smelled like a giant pumpkin.

By 5:30 P.M., Kate no longer cared how she smelled and her artistic impulses had begun to sputter. No more tiny tools for her, just a nasty, sharp filet knife.

“Almost done?” Laila asked as she entered the storeroom.

“Just three more to go.”

“No time. You’re going to have to put them aside and help set up. The early comers are starting to trickle in.”

Kate looked at her watch, which she’d set on one of the table’s edges to avoid most of the pumpkin carnage. “But the party isn’t supposed to start for another half hour.”

“Free beer tends to make for overly prompt guests.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. All the same, I’d really like a shot at finishing. I swear, with my new minimalist approach, I’ll be done with the last three in a flash.”

C=”jem”x201C;Okay, then. I’ll gather up some help to have the finished ones taken out, and you keep carving. Everything needs to be done before Shay arrives. The good news for us is that she always arrives late,” Laila said, filling a cart with grinning heads and leaving Kate alone in her pumpkin kingdom.

Figuring the time had come to kick the assembly line into high gear, Kate grabbed the big butcher knife she’d borrowed from the kitchen and stabbed it into the top of the first of the three intact pumpkins. It sunk in quickly and deeply. The act was weirdly satisfying. She seemed to be developing a very real disrespect for pumpkins.

“You look like a natural.”

Kate glanced up to see Matt watching her from the doorway. She pulled on the knife, but it had gone in too deeply and wasn’t coming out. She tried to rock it back and forth. No luck. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

He approached her. “Problems?”

If one counted among them a heady overappreciation of a man dressed in something as simple as a black polo shirt and jeans, she had exactly two at the moment.

“The knife is stuck.”

“Let me see if I can help.”

Matt came around to her side of the table. Wow, but he smelled good. She caught a hint of woods and green fields. And, unlike her, he didn’t have a bit of pumpkin slime on him.

Kate moved her hand away from the knife, but not quickly enough. They touched, and she swore she felt an electric tingle as her hand involuntarily began to close around his. The sensation was far more satisfying than stabbing into a pumpkin. Good news on the mental stability front.

Matt wrapped his hand around the knife’s handle and winced.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess everything’s a little messy at this point.”

With his free hand, he brushed a fleck of pumpkin from her cheek. “So it is,” he said, “but it still looks good.”

He turned his attention back to the pumpkin and pulled the knife free with an ease she envied.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you get a bunch of these outside to line the front walk, and I’ll finish up the last three?”

Kate shook her head. “No, you don’t have to do that. It’s my job, and I’m all about finishing what I set out to do.”

“You’re not just talking about pumpkins, right?”

“I moved to Keene’s Harbor for a reason. To start a new life and build something I can be proud of.”

“And I’m the guy trying to take that away from you? It’s not personal. It’s business. And it was in the works a long time before you even moved t C evryio Keene’s Harbor.”

Kate crossed her arms. “Look. I know that. But that doesn’t mean I like it. And I’m going to find your saboteur, collect my $20,000 bonus, and buy back my house.”

Kate didn’t want to even think about the fact that a contractor had spent an entire day at her house trying to locate and fix her water leak. She didn’t have the money to pay him, either. Yet. And she wasn’t about to ask her parents for help. She wasn’t even sure they had the money, what with her father retired and living on long-held investments.

“Right now, all I want to do is carve a pumpkin,” Matt said. “Cut me a break here.”

“Well, since you put it that way, I could use a break, too. I’m pretty much pumpkined out.”

He smiled. “Consider yourself sprung.”

Kate grabbed a cart and loaded it with four jack-o’-lanterns. She made her way to the front of the house, where costumed beer lovers had already gathered. Once there, she slowed her pace enough to check out the guests. The event, like her emotional state, was high school all over again. The women had taken the borderline bawdy path to apparel, while the men had gone for minimal effort. Among the male ranks, there looked to have been quite a run on Grim Reaper costumes. Kate counted five of them in the crowd already. Two Grims were tall and skinny, and the other three of more well-fed dimensions.

The taproom was in full Halloween mode, too. The front windows were edged with strands of orange lights that glowed warmly against the dark wood trim. Tealights adorned each table, adding to the festive look. And an appetizer bar had been draped with orange linens and decorated with absurdly grinning skulls that shone from within. Kate wished she could stay and mingle, but there was work to be done.

She thanked one of the tall-and-skinny Grims as he held open the front door for her and the pumpkin cart. A sharp blast of wind greeted her. No doubt a storm was brewing out on the lake. Chilled, she hustled the cart over the mosaic mural, then hung a left to the end of the jack-o’-lantern line that Laila had already started.

Once Kate had her pumpkins in place, she patted her pockets for a light. She had none, of course. She turned her back to the wind and headed to the bar to snag a pack of matches. Inside, she spotted Laila chatting with a Grim Reaper. Market owner Marcie Landon was with them. She was very fittingly costumed as a tape measure. The bit of tape showing from the front of the bright yellow box was probably marked to perfect scale. The tall-and-skinny Grim definitely liked Laila, hovering close enough to be in her personal space. Laila didn’t seem to be objecting, either. She was laughing at something the Reaper had just said. Kate smiled, waved, and moved on.

Outside again, she hunkered down by the first jack-o’-lantern and pulled out her pack of matches. Two sputtered and died even before she could get them to the tealight waiting inside, and the next two were snuffed by a draft coming through the pumpkin’s eyes.

“Okay, then,” she said to herself and sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk. Clearly, she would be Cshejusthere awhile.

“You need a lighter.”

Kate looked up past a pair of sensible white server sneakers and standard Depot uniform to Laila’s serene face.

“I don’t suppose you have one?” Kate asked.

Laila pulled out a rectangular silver lighter adorned with what looked to be crystals. She flipped it open with a distinctive click, bent down, and did in two seconds what Kate hadn’t accomplished in four matches.

“Sometimes the old things are the best,” Laila said.

Kate smiled. “Obviously, you haven’t seen my house.”

AT ELEVEN that night, Kate lay in bed, unable to sleep. The contractor had found her leak. Evidently, when Junior had regrouted the shower tile in her master bathroom, he hadn’t inspected the shower pan. It had completely failed. Even worse, he’d reset the toilet without a proper seal, and raw sewage had swept underneath her bathroom floor. The water damage from the shower and toilet had infiltrated her living room, causing her floor to warp. The contractor was coming back tomorrow to pull up her water-damaged floor and tile. Kate had tried to call Junior several times but he wasn’t answering-probably in his best interest, given the problems he’d caused.

The good news was that it seemed like a pretty simple fix, and the contactor thought he could do it for a couple thousand dollars. More than Kate had but doable, especially with the bonus money she planned to earn.

Kate set aside the magazine she’d been leafing through. An article on “Ten Ways to Drive Him Wild” wasn’t what she needed to get Matt Culhane out of her head. Indulging in each of those ten with him might do the job. But she wasn’t going there.

Kate’s cell phone rang, and she jumped at the unfamiliar sound. She hadn’t received too many phone calls since her big move away from the city.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Katie-bug!”

“Dad?”

“I know it’s late, but I picked up this new phone today that does everything but clean the pool, and I wanted to be sure I had your number right.”

Her father sounded pretty chipper-about one double Manhattan’s worth was her guess. She could picture him sitting in a lounge chair out back of their Florida house, with the pool lights and stars shining. He was probably wearing his favorite navy cardigan and blue-and-white seersucker trousers. And Mom was probably inside pining for the days of wholesome television and good old-fashioned family values. Kate loved her parents, but it was like they’d just been freed from a 1960s time capsule.

“You’ve got the number right, Dad.”

Cigh phone cadiv›

But he’d never called it before, always opting for the landline when she’d lived back downstate. And she hadn’t heard from either her mom or her dad since that highly uncomfortable family dinner three months ago, when she’d had to admit how broke she was. Of course, she hadn’t called them since then, either.

“So as long as we’re chatting, I was wondering how… The Nutshell is?” her dad asked.

“The house is fine, Dad.”

“No issues with the plumbing? I know we’re due for a new septic system.”

“It’s all good,” she said.

“And that loose step on the way down to the beach?”

“I nailed it back down,” she fibbed.

Fact was, she hadn’t ventured to the water. All she’d done since she’d landed in Keene’s Harbor was focus on finding a job and nailing down her future. Beach walks had seemed like a luxury she hadn’t earned just yet.

“Well, that’s just great,” her dad said with more enthusiasm than the conversation warranted.

“Are you and Mom okay? There’s nothing going on down there that I should know about, is there?” she asked.

“We’re fine, Kate. Just fine! How’s the refrigerator?” he asked. “Do you need any help stocking it?”

They’d finally reached the real purpose of the call. Kate was glad no one was around to witness her embarrassment. The last time her dad had asked questions like this, her brother, sister, and their respective spouses had been watching. Kate had felt like the loser-girl on a reality TV show.

“I promise I have more than diet soda and shriveled-up apples in the fridge,” she said.

She still had that head of purple cauliflower, after all. But so long as she loaded up on the cheap employee meals at work, shopping was optional.

“Just checking. I know things have been tight.”

“It’s okay. I found a job.”

“Really? What are you doing?”

“I’m washing dishes and doing prep work at Depot Brewing.”

The line fell quiet for a beat.

“That’s great! It’s a tough job market out there. You should be proud. If you come up short, let me know and I’ll slip a care package your way. Just like your old college days.”

Ugh. Kate knew he was trying to be positive and supportive, but she was right back to feeling like the loser-girl. Kate wanted to be there for her parents, like her siblings wer C sitivee. Not the other way around.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m doing great,” she said. And it was true, if “great” could be defined as able to splurge on a fake cappuccino the next time she put gas in the Jeep.

“Just say the word, Katie-bug…”

She wouldn’t, though. Her parents were retired, and money didn’t grow on trees. They probably had a woefully out-of-date concept of how much money was needed to get the house in shape. But more important, Kate had something to prove. Not to her parents, but to herself. She could stand on her own.