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Mary ignored that. She dragged Van to the far side of the yard. She pointed with her arm, and his, at a lawn chair flush with the outside of the fence. “That used to be in the high-rise’s arbor over there.”
Van shook his head in disbelief. Lancelot was smart, sometimes even Machiavellian, but this wasn’t possible. “You’re trying to tell me Lancelot draggedthatchairfromthearborovertothefence?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
“What’s next in this little scenario? He pawed the ground, like a matador’s bull working up steam for the charge? He took off and hit the chair with a flying leap that ricocheted him up and over the fence?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Van said.
“You explain it then. Lancelot, let me point out, is on the inside of my six-foot fence. Look at those two, snuggled blissfully against each other.”
“Okay, I guess I have to believe he got over your fence somehow. I can even see he might have managedtogetbackdownfromthefencewithoutbreaking his neck. He takes flying leaps off lots of things way bigger than he is, or higher than he is, starting with the couch in our living room. He’s even gone off our balcony once or twice. He had to have landed in the big awning below and slid off to the ground. At least that’s the only way I can figure — ”
“He’s a Houdini as well as a Casanova, and you haven’t kept an eye on him.”
Van had little patience with excuses, not even whentheywerecomingfromhim.“Allright,Ihaveto concede he got in here. That doesn’t mean he could do anything once he got in.”
“Where there’s a will — ”
“I don’t see how a one-foot Basset Hound and a lady dog more than twice as high as he is could — ”
“My vet warned me against thinking that way if I wanted to make sure Guinevere had purebred pups with the sire of my choice. He said he once had a Saint Bernard as a patient who got together with a Beagle, and he doesn’t know how they managed it, either. But they did. The puppies proved it.” Mary crossed her arms across her chest. “So, what do you intend to do about what your dog has done?”
“I don’t know. Invite me in. Without dragging me by the arm, please. Or the ear. Or anything else. I need to sit down. I need to think.”
Chapter Nine
Muing aMry
V
AN TRIED TO GEThis thinking in while Mary crashed around to deliver the salad, omelet and home-made French bread — home-made! — she promised for a light supper.
HehadtostopdroolingwhenMaryopenedadrawer to get a knife. The drawer handle came off in her hand, and the drawer crashed near her bare foot.
Fromthere,shecameeverclosertocuttingherfingers off and burning down the kitchen. Van thought he might have to do something to protect the fingers and the kitchen. Not to mention himself.
Not that it was easy to think straight at all. Her bashing and banging kept drowning out rational thought. With every crash, his eyes swiveled in her direction. His first thought was always to find out whether she was bleeding, or even still alive. Then his gaze lingered on whichever curves had become poetry in motion this time. He knew what a lot of those curves felt like, and they felt —
Like something he didn’t want to think about, that’s what. He was so close to ending a lifetime full of looking after others. He was so close to freedom. He was so close to finally being able to find out who he was and what he could do when he wasn’t putting others first.
It was time to be a selfish bastard, that’s what.Oh, he’d do something about Guinevere’s delicate condition, if anything about a Saint Bernard could be called delicate. He’d pay the vet bills, of course. He’d buy the pups too. None of that would bring complicated distractions into his life.
But Mary Samuel wasn’t likely to let him off that easily. She wanted the same thing his aunt wanted, and both of them would be happy to guilt-trip him into it if that’s what it took. They wanted him to do endless interviews for a book that might make her a New York Times bestselling author.
In fact, he wouldn’t be all that surprised if it did. The times, to Van’s chagrin, were right to make a hero out of a man who saved a lot of jobs when so many were melting away or flying off to the Third World for cheap labor. If too many people found out hewasonthewaytobringingsomanyjobsbackand creating still more, he’d never get away.
Vanwasn’tdesertingthecompanyentirely.Hewas willing to nudge the revolution from the board of directors now and then, as long as he didn’t have to run it day to day. Selling the now-profitable company to the people who worked there was the perfect move. They deserved it, and they wanted to buy it. But with what? They needed a partner with deep pockets to finance the takeover. That last piece of the puzzle was finally almost in place.
All of which had brought him closer than he’d ever been to the splendid isolation that surely would set his sculpting muse free. He’d found his farm, the perfect retreat. It had peace, silence, and room to breathe. He could feel the rising hunger for his art in the itching emptiness of his hands.
Except, he suddenly realized, at least one of his hands wasn’t empty at the moment. That hand had found something in the way, and there it was, absently stroking Lancelot’s soft head. The dog’s head was always getting in the way when Van’s hands needed something to do while he was thinking about his sculpting studio.
He didn’t need another distraction. He was having enough trouble with the people he was entangled with. Well, the major one he was still entangled with: his aunt. He didn’t need some crop-legged creature depending on him too. Let him pat his own head.
Van wanted to shove the dog aside, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
