Misty and the Single Dad

CHAPTER FOUR

KETCHUP decided to live.

At nine the next morning Misty was gazing down at the little dog with something akin to awe. He was still hooked up to drips. His back leg was splinted and bandaged. He had cuts and grazes everywhere, made more gruesome by the truly horrid-coloured antiseptic wash, but he was looking up at her with his huge black eyes and…his tail was wagging.

It had lost half its fur and it had probably been a pretty scrappy tail to start with, but it was definitely wagging. The eyes that looked at her were huge with hope, and she fell in love all over again.

‘How can he have been at the shelter for two weeks and no one claimed him?’ she demanded of Fred, and the old vet smiled, took out the drips, bundled the little dog up and handed him over.

‘Not everyone has a heart as big as yours, Misty. Not everyone accepts responsibilities like you do.’

‘What’s one more responsibility?’ she said and, yes, she felt a little bitter but, as she carried Ketchup out to her car, she wondered how she could feel bad about giving this dog a home.

There was no way she could leave Banksia Bay with Gran like she was. Ketchup would make life better-not worse.

She settled him onto the passenger seat and she talked to him the whole way home.

‘You’re going to like it with me. I have a great house. It’s old and comfy and close to the beach, where you’ll be able to run and run as soon as your leg’s better. And there’s so many interesting smells…’ Then she couldn’t stop herself adding a bit more exciting stuff because, for some reason, it was front and centre. ‘And this afternoon we have two friends coming out to visit. Bailey and Nick. Nick’s the one who saved you.’

He really had saved him. Fred had given her the facts.

‘He’s left his credit card imprint. Every cost associated with this dog, long-term, goes to Mr Holt. There’s nothing for you to take care of. Yeah, he’ll need ongoing care, but it’s sorted.’

‘He’s a real hero,’ she said, thinking of the website, of Nick’s image, and of Nicholas last night. His care of his little son. His willingness to pay for Ketchup. The fact that he was haunted by his perceived failure to protect Bailey.

He was in such pain…

Ketchup wriggled forward and put his nose on her knee. Yes, he should be in a crate in the back but she figured this guy had had enough of crates to last a lifetime.

She was still thinking of Nick.

‘He’s our hero,’ she told him. ‘He’s come to Banksia Bay to be safe, not heroic, but he’s saved you. So maybe there’s a little bit of hero left in him.’

A little bit of Adonis?

No. He was done with adventure. He was done with risk-taking.

He wanted to settle in Banksia Bay and live happily ever after.

Maybe even marry the local schoolteacher?

Where had that idea come from? A guy like that… She felt herself blush from the toes up.

But you need to settle as well, she told herself as she took her dog home. You have a great life here. A comfortable existence. All you need is a hero to settle with.

And put another rocker on the front porch so you can rock into old age together? I don’t think so.

So what is it you want? she asked herself, and she knew the answer.

Life.

‘Life’s here,’ she told herself out loud. ‘Life’s Banksia Bay and a new dog and a new pupil in my class. Woohoo.’

Ketchup pawed her knee and she felt the familiar stab of guilt.

‘Sorry,’ she told him. ‘I love it here. Of course I do. I’d never do anything to upset you or Gran or anyone else in this place. You can come home and be safe with me.’

Safe with Misty.

A flash of remembered pain shafted through her thoughts. Her grandfather’s first heart attack. Her grandmother, crippled with arthritis, terrified. Misty had been thirteen, already starting to understand how much lay on her shoulders.

And then her hippy mother had turned up, as unexpectedly and as briefly as she’d turned up less than half a dozen times in Misty’s life. Misty remembered standing beside her grandfather’s bedside, watching her grandmother’s face drawn in fear. She remembered the mother she barely recognised hugging her grandmother, then backing out, to friends who never introduced themselves, to a psychedelic combi-van waiting to take her to who knew where? To one of the places the postcards came from.

‘You’ll be fine,’ her mother had said to her grandmother, and she’d waved inappropriately gaily. ‘I’m glad I could fit this visit in. I know Dadda will be okay. He’s strong as a horse, and I know you’ll both be safe with Misty.’

‘See,’ she told the little dog. ‘My mother was right all along.’

There was no way he could miss Misty’s house. It was three miles out of town, set well back from the road. There were paddocks all round it, undulating pastures with cattle grazing peacefully in the midday sun. The sea was its glittering backdrop, and Nick, who’d been to some of the most beautiful places on the earth, felt that this was one of them.

Here was a sanctuary, he thought. A place for a man to come home to.

Misty was on the veranda, easy to spot as they pulled up. She was curled up on a vast cane rocker surrounded by faded cushions. There was a rug over her knee.

Ketchup was somewhere under that rug. As they climbed from the car, Nick could see his nose.

Once again, that pang. Of what? Want? Of the thought that here was home? This place…

This woman.

He’d bared his soul to this woman last night. It should feel bad. Somehow, though, it didn’t feel threatening.

‘I can’t get up,’ she called, her voice lilting in a way he was coming to recognize, beginning to like. ‘We’ve just gone to sleep.’

As if in denial, a tail emerged and gave a sleepy wag.

Bailey scooted up the steps to meet her, but Nick took his time, watching his son check the dog, smile at Misty, then clamber up onto the rocker to join them.

Something was happening in his chest.

This was like a scene out of Little House on the Prairie, he told himself, at the same time telling the lump in his throat to go down and stay down. The way he was feeling was kitsch. Corny.

Any minute now, Misty would invite them inside for home-baked cookies and lemonade. Or maybe she’d have a picnic to take down to the beach. She’d have prepared it lovingly beforehand, with freshly baked cakes, fragrant pies, home-made preserves. They’d be packed in a cute wicker basket with a red gingham cover…

‘It’s about time you got here,’ she called, interrupting his domestic vision. ‘I’m stuck.’

‘Stuck?’

‘I’ve been aching for lunch but Ketchup gets shivery every time I put him down. So I’m hoping I can stay here while you make me a sandwich.’ She peeped up at him-cheeky. ‘Cheese and tomato?’

‘I could do that,’ he said, waving goodbye to schmaltz and deciding cheeky was better. Much better.

‘The bread’s on the kitchen table. Cheese is in the fridge and tomatoes are out the back in the veggie garden. I like my cheese thick.’

Mama in Little House on the Prairie would never demand her man make a sandwich, Nick thought, and he grinned. Misty saw it.

‘What?’

‘I was expecting the table to be laid, Dresden china and all.’

‘I have Dresden china,’ she said, waving an airy hand. ‘It’s in the sideboard in the dining room. You’re right, Ketchup and I would like our sandwich on Dresden china.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Why would we kid about sandwiches on Dresden china?’ She was helping Bailey snuggle down beside her. ‘Important things, sandwiches. Would you like a sandwich, Bailey?’

‘We’ve had lunch,’ Bailey said shyly.

‘Since when did that make a difference?’ she asked, astonished. ‘It’s not a school day. We can eat sandwiches all afternoon if we want. Will we ask your daddy to make you a sandwich as well? Is he a good cook?’

‘He cooks good spaghetti.’

‘Not sandwiches?’

‘I can make sandwiches,’ Nick said, offended.

‘Wonderful.’ She beamed. ‘Bailey, what sort of sandwich would you like?’

‘Honey.’ That was definite.

‘We have honey. Can I add that to our order?’ Misty asked and smiled happily up at Nick. ‘Please?’

So he made sandwiches in Misty’s farmhouse kitchen overlooking the sea, while Bailey and Misty chatted just outside the window.

He felt as if he’d been transported into another universe. He was making sandwiches while Bailey and Misty admired Ketchup’s progress and compared Ketchup’s bandaged leg to Bailey’s ex-bandaged arm.

‘My dad drew pictures on my plaster cast. Of boats.’

‘Ketchup’s more into bones. We’ll ask him to draw bones on Ketchup’s bandages.’

Bailey was giggling. Giggling.

This was too good to be true. His son was giggling on the veranda of a woman who was a part of his future.

His future?

Surely he meant Bailey’s future. Misty was Bailey’s teacher.

But his treacherous mind said his future.

He stabbed the butter and lifted a chunk on his knife, considering it with care. Where to take this?

This did not fit in with his plans.

He’d come to this place with a clear path in view. A steady future. Nothing to rock the boat.

Misty wouldn’t mess with that.

So maybe he could just…see. He could let his barriers down a little. He’d let them down last night and there was no issue.

There were no risks down this road.

‘Are you planning to hoist that butter on a flagpole or put it on our bread?’ Misty called through the window and he saw what he’d been doing and chuckled-and that in itself was amazing. When was the last time he’d felt like chuckling?

He made his sandwiches. He carried them outside, plus a bottle of not home-made lemonade, and he watched as Misty and Bailey munched and Ketchup woke a little and accepted a quarter of a sandwich and retired again.

‘This is the best place for a dog,’ Nick said. He’d settled himself on the veranda steps, not bothering so much about distance now but thinking more of view. If he leaned back at the top of the stairs he got a full view-of Misty.

And of Bailey and Ketchup, he reminded himself, but he was forgetting to remind himself so often,

‘It’s the best place for anyone,’ Bailey declared. He’d eaten two more sandwiches on top of his lunch. For a child who’d needed to be coaxed to eat for a year, this was another thing to be amazed at.

Teddy, Nick noticed, had been set aside.

‘It’s pretty nice,’ Misty said, but suddenly her voice sounded strained.

‘Don’t you like it?’ Bailey asked.

‘Yes.’ But she didn’t sound sure.

‘Where else would you like to live?’ Nick asked.

‘In a yurt.’

He and Bailey both stared. ‘A yurt?’

‘Yep.’

‘What’s a yurt?’ Bailey asked.

‘My mother sent me a postcard of one once. It’s a portable house. It’s round and cosy and it packs up so I can put it on the back of my camel. Or my yak.’

Bailey was intrigued. ‘What’s a yak?’

‘It’s a sort of horse. Or maybe it’s more like a sheep but it carries things. The yurt on my postcard had a camel in the foreground but I’ve been reading that camels bite. And yaks seem to be more common in Kazakhstan,’ she said. ‘That’s where yurts are found. Probably in lots of other places, too, but I’ve never been there to find out. Yaks seem pretty friendly, or at least I think they are. I’ve never met one, but some day I will. That’s my dream. Me and my yak will take our yurt and head into the unknown.’

‘In term vacations?’ Nick asked before he could help himself. Bailey did not need his new-found teacher to be heading off into the unknown.

‘I’d need more than term vacation,’ she retorted. ‘To follow the dreams I have…’ The lightness in her voice faded a little and she gave a wry smile. ‘But of course you’re right. Term vacations aren’t long enough. It’s only a dream.’

‘And you have a really nice house,’ Bailey said placatingly. ‘It’s big and comfy.’ Then he looked at Misty’s face and maybe he could see something there that Nick was sensing-something that was messing with his domestic harmony as well. ‘Could you buy a little yurt and put it in the backyard?’ he asked. ‘Like a tent?’

‘Maybe I could.’ The lightness returned but it was determined lightness. ‘Maybe I could buy a yurt on the Internet-or maybe we could build one as a school project.’

Bailey’s eyes widened with interest. ‘My dad could help you build one. He’s good at building.’

‘Could he?’ Misty smiled, but Nick saw a wash of emotions put aside and thought there were things here he didn’t understand. But then… Why should he want to understand this woman?

He did. There was something about her… Something…

‘Can you, Dad?’ Bailey asked.

‘I’m not sure…’ he started.

‘Well, I am,’ Misty declared. She tossed off her blankets in decision. ‘I think Ketchup needs to stand on the grass for a bit and then we need to remember why you came. We need to look at spare beds-I counted them last night and we have ten. Then I’m going to make a list of everything else you need in your house while you and your dad draw me a picture of a little yurt we could build in the school yard.’ She rose and hugged her little dog tight against her. ‘A little yurt would be fun and we can do without yaks. We don’t need anything but what’s in Banksia Bay, and why would a woman want anything but what’s right here?’

They searched the Internet and learned about yurts. They drew more and more extravagant plans and then Nick got serious and sat down and designed one they really might be able to construct in the school yard. Then they explored the muddle of furniture in the largely unused house.

Misty was right-the place was huge. It had been a big house to start with, and she told him her great-grandparents had built an extension when her grandparents married. She had two kitchens and three living rooms. She owned enough furniture to cater for a small army, and she was offering him whatever he liked.

With Bailey’s approval, Nick chose two beds, two couches, a table and chairs. He chose wardrobes, sideboards, armchairs. So much…

‘Why don’t you want it?’ Bailey asked, intrigued.

‘There’s only me,’ Misty said. ‘And Ketchup,’ she added. She was carrying the dog along with her. He seemed content in her arms, snuggled against her, snoozing as he chose, but taking comfort from her body heat. ‘I’ve tried to rent out the other half but no one wants to live this far out of town. So now I’m closing rooms so I won’t need to dust.’

‘Won’t it feel creepy when it’s empty?’ Bailey asked. ‘Like our place does?’

‘Ah, but you’ve forgotten, I have a watchdog now. Ketchup’s messed with my plans but now he’s here I can make use of him.’

‘Were you thinking of moving somewhere smaller?’ Nick asked, and she gave him a look that said he didn’t get it.

‘I told you. I want a yurt. But I’m amenable. Is this all you want? If we’re done, then how about tea?’

‘You can’t be hungry again.’

‘How can you doubt it? It’s four hours since my sandwich.’

Four hours! Where had the time gone? In drawing yurts. In exploring. In just…talking.

‘I’d like a picnic on the beach,’ she said and visions of gingham baskets rose again-to be squashed before they hit knee height.

‘There’s a great pizza place in town,’ she said. ‘I bribe them to deliver all the way out here.’

‘Pizza,’ Bailey said with joy, and Ketchup’s ears attempted to rise.

‘We’ve hit a nerve.’ She grinned. ‘Picnic pizza it is. If that’s okay with you, Mr Holt?’

‘Nick,’ he said and it was almost savage.

She made him take three trips to her favourite spot on the sand dunes, carrying cushions, rugs and food, because she was carrying Ketchup.

They ate pizza until it was coming out of their ears. Ketchup ate pizza, too.

‘I have a feeling Ketchup’s met pizza in a former life,’ Misty said, watching in satisfaction as he nibbled round the edges of a Capriccioso.

‘He looks like he might be a nice dog,’ Nick said-cautiously. He was feeling cautious.

He was feeling strange.

Ketchup and Bailey were lying full length on the rug. They were playing a gentle boy-dog game that had them touching noses, touching finger to paw, touching paw to finger, then nose to nose again. They were totally absorbed in each other. Bailey was giggling and Ketchup seemed at peace.

The evening was warm and still. The sun was sinking low behind the sand hills and the outgoing tide sent a soft hush-hush of surf over the wet sand. Sandpipers were sweeping up the beach as the water washed in, then scuttling out after the waves to see what had been washed bare.

Misty’s house looked out over paradise.

How could a man want adventure when he had this?

And this woman… She was watching Bailey with contentment. She seemed secure in herself, a woman at peace.

She was so different from Isabelle. A woman like this would never need adrenalin rush, danger.

A woman like this…

‘Why don’t you have a dog already?’ he asked and Misty stopped squashing pizza boxes, glanced at Ketchup and looked rueful.

‘We had a surfeit of dogs.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘My grandparents and me.’

He thought about that. It seemed safer than the other direction his thoughts were taking. Actually, he wasn’t sure where his thoughts were taking him, only that it seemed wise to deflect them. ‘Not your parents?’

‘My mother didn’t live here.’

‘Never?’

‘Not since she was eighteen. She left to see the world, then turned up only for brief visits, bringing things home. Weird people, artwork, dream-catchers. One day she brought me home. She didn’t stay any longer than the time she brought the dream-catchers, but she left me for good. Gran and Grandpa kept the dream-catchers and they kept me.’

‘That sounds dreadful.’

‘Does it?’ She smiled and ran her fingers the length of Ketchup’s spine, causing the little dog to roll his eyes in pleasure. ‘It never seemed dreadful. Sad, yes, but not dreadful. We saw her world through postcards, and that gave me a presence to cling to. An identity. And, as for needing her…I wasn’t deserted. Gran and Grandpa did everything they could for their daughter, and they did everything they could for me.’

‘But you stayed, while your mother left.’

‘I loved my grandparents, and they loved me,’ she said, sounding suddenly uncompromising. ‘That’s something I don’t think my mother’s capable of. It took me a while to figure it out but I know it now.’ Her smile faded. ‘It’s her loss. Loving’s fine. Like I fell in love with Ketchup yesterday. I’m a soft touch.’

‘You’ve never fallen in love before?’

‘With other dogs?’ That wasn’t what he’d meant but maybe she’d purposely misunderstood. ‘Of course I have. Five years ago we had four. The last one died six months ago. He’s buried under Gran’s Peace rose in the back garden. And now Gran herself…’

But something there gave her pause. She gave herself a shake, regrouped, obviously changed direction. ‘No. Gran’s okay. She’s had a couple of strokes. She’s in a nursing home but she’s only seventy-three. I thought… When she had the second stroke and our last dog died I thought…’

Pause. Another shake.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘It’s right to get another dog. When you fall in love, what choice do you have?’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘Like you could walk away from Bailey?’ Bailey looked up at that, and she grinned. ‘See? I defy you not to love that look.’

‘My son’s look?’

‘Your son.’

‘How can you compare a dog…?’

‘Love’s love,’ she said simply. ‘You take it where you find it.’

Where he found it? He’d thought he had it with Isabelle. He’d been out of his mind.

Bailey stretched out and yawned. The sun was sinking low in the evening sky.

Misty sat and watched the sandpipers, and he thought she was such a peaceful woman. She was also beautiful. And the more he looked… She was quite astonishingly beautiful.

He wanted, quite badly, to kiss her.

And that was a really bad idea. This was his son’s schoolteacher. His son was two feet away.

But not to touch her seemed impossible.

Her hand was on the rug, only inches from his. How could he not? He reached out and ran his fingers gently over the back of her hand and she didn’t flinch.

Her skin wasn’t silk-smooth like Isabelle’s had been. There were tiny scars. Life lines.

The world was still. Maybe…

‘No,’ she told him and tugged her hand away.

‘No?’ The contact had been a feather touch, no more. But she’d said no, and even now he knew her well enough to realise that she meant it. And for him? No was sensible. What was he thinking of?

‘Parent-teacher relationships are disasters,’ she said.

‘Always?’ The word was out before he could stop it.

‘Always.’

‘You’ve tried a few?’

‘That’s my business.’

He smiled but it was an effort, and that was a puzzle on its own. What was happening here? He had to get this back on a lighter note.

‘I’ve told you about Isabelle,’ he said, in a dare you tone.

‘You want me to tell you about Roger Proudy kissing me behind the shelter sheds when I was eight?’

‘Did he?’

‘Yes, and it was sloppy.’ She was also striving to make this light, he thought. That was good. She had a handle on things, which was more than he did.

‘When Grandma kisses me it’s sloppy,’ Bailey said dreamily from where he was snoozing against Ketchup, and the conversation suddenly lost its intensity. They were back on a plane where he could keep his balance.

‘Do you have one grandma or two?’ Misty asked Bailey.

‘Two, but Grandma Holt cries, and she gets lipstick all over me.’

‘That sounds yuck,’ Misty said. ‘Do you see your grandmas often?’

‘Gran Rose and Papa Bill live on a boat like we used to,’ Bailey said. ‘They came to see me in hospital lots of times. They gave me computer games and stuff. But Grandma and Grandpa Holt only came once. Grandma said computer games are the work of the devil, and Grandpa yelled at Dad when he said we weren’t going back to Pen…Pennsylvania. Then Grandma Holt cried, and kissed me too hard, and it was really, really sloppy.’

‘Double yuck.’ Misty smiled, then turned to Nick, her eyes lighting with laughter. ‘Would Grandma Holt be the no risk grandma? Someone should tell her you can share germs with sloppy kisses.’

And suddenly Nick found himself grinning.

The decision to bring Bailey to Australia had been made under all sorts of constraints. If he’d returned to the States, his parents would have given him a hard time. They’d give Bailey a hard time. But if he’d stayed in England…

Isabelle’s parents were based in England. They loved Bailey desperately, but loving had its own challenges. They’d smother Bailey, he thought, and maybe Bailey would react as Isabelle had reacted.

Since Isabelle’s death, he’d been in a haze of grief and self-blame. Banksia Bay offered a new start. Here, they were away from Isabelle’s parents, with their indulgence. They were away from his own parents saying the things they’d always said, only this time with the rider: ‘I told you so.’

Moving to Banksia Bay meant Bailey was spared sloppy kisses.

He looked at Misty and he thought…kisses equal germs?

His grin faded.

‘We need to go home,’ he said, and he knew he sounded harsh but he couldn’t help himself. What he was feeling was suddenly pushing him right out of his comfort zone. This was his kid’s schoolteacher. He’d touched her. He shouldn’t have touched her.

He shouldn’t want to touch her.

But she was right beside him, and she was warm, open and loving in a way he could only sense. She was smiling a question at him now, wondering at the sudden change in his tone.

She wouldn’t react with anger, he thought, flashing back to Isabelle’s moments of fury, of unreasonable temper. Here was a woman who saw everything on an equable plane. Who moved through life with serenity and peace.

And beauty. She really was beautiful, he thought. Those eyes…those curls…

No. He had to leave.

‘We need to get moving,’ he told his son, rising too fast. ‘Let’s get this gear up to the house and go.’

‘I don’t want to go home.’ Bailey’s voice was slurred by sleep. He was nestled against Ketchup, peaceful now as he hadn’t been peaceful for a year. Or more. Maybe never? ‘Why can’t we stay here?’

‘We can’t sleep on the beach.’

‘I mean in Miss Lawrence’s house.’ It was as if Bailey was dreaming, drifting into fantasy. ‘I could sleep in one of her big, big beds. Me and Ketchup. I could see Ketchup every morning.’

What the…? The idea took his breath away. ‘Miss Lawrence doesn’t want us here.’

‘Ketchup wants us here.’

‘No,’ Misty said, sounding strange. She also rose, and she looked just as taken aback as he was. ‘That’s not a good idea, Bailey. You have a house.’

But suddenly Bailey was fully awake, sitting up, considering his suggestion with care. ‘Our house is horrid. And we could help look after Ketchup.’

‘I can look after Ketchup on my own.’

‘He likes me.’

‘I know he does,’ she said. She stooped and hugged Bailey, then lifted Ketchup into her arms. ‘But Ketchup’s my dog. Your dad’s paid his bills and that’s all the help I’ll ask. I look after Gran and I look after Ketchup. I can’t look after anyone else. I’m sorry, but you and your dad are on your own.’