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From there, he stopped to pick up groceries for Birdie. He dragged out the trip because he wanted to avoid hearing Vestal fuss at him to apologize to the Ashline woman.
As well as that aggravation, Hardy Duff, his distillery manager, had been pressuring Alan to do something about Bell Hill. So he swung by the courthouse to have a clerk trace its history—to figure out how they’d lost what had once been part and parcel of Ridge land. Everything seemed to be in order, up to when Hazel filed squatter’s rights. Alan didn’t know what else to do. He’d left a note to that effect in Dale Patton’s office, even though Dale, the company attorney, was on vacation.
Following that, Alan decided to get his hair cut prior to moseying over to Saxon’s Flowers. Finally, when he hit the very end of his to-do list, the only thing left was to order a damn bouquet for the disagreeable Ms. Ashline.
Even worse, Eva Saxon was like the town crier. Alan suspected that seconds after he walked out of her shop, everyone in town would know he’d sent a strange woman flowers. As he approached the store, he had a brilliant idea. He’d send a bouquet in Vestal’s name.
Eva Saxon, nearly as wide as she was tall, glanced up as the bell over the door sounded. She was ten years older than Alan’s thirty, and used to baby-sit him. Smiling, she greeted him with the snap-snap-snap of her ever-present Cloves gum.
“Hi.” Alan fumbled Laurel Ashline’s wrinkled business card out of his jeans pocket, along with a fifty-dollar bill. “This is all the information my grandmother has on the woman. She said you shouldn’t have any problem finding her and delivering a plant or something. Enclose a note saying that Vestal invites Ms. Ashline to drop by Windridge at her convenience, or something to that effect. Oh, you’d better include our address. I believe she’s new in town.” He shoved the money across the counter.
Eva dug a pencil out of her beehive hairdo. For as long as Alan could remember, she’d worn her hair in the exact same style, and yet it still astonished him. As he gaped at her big hair, he noticed Eva eyeing him oddly. “Is something wrong?”
Crack went the gum. “Uh, no. ’Cept Vestal phoned a few days ago and ordered a deluxe basket of fruit sent to Ms. Ashline on your behalf. I helped her compose a real sincere apology. If you haven’t heard back by now, hon, I’ve gotta say you must’ve really done the lady wrong.” She stuffed the fifty in her cash register and counted out change. “The basket cost twenty-five dollars.”
“What?” Alan saw red, and it wasn’t just Eva’s hair color.
“I suggested a dozen roses instead of fruit. Or a box of chocolates displayed prominently on top of the fruit. Vestal nixed both.” Eva shoved Alan’s change toward him. “It’s probably not too late for roses. ’Course, I don’t know what you did to the woman. But I got some nice pink buds in today. Shall I carry Laurel out a dozen this afternoon? Is she worth another twenty-five bucks?” Eva kept a hand on the last bill.
“I haven’t got the foggiest idea what she’s worth. I’ve never met her.” Alan wadded up the change and stuffed it in his pants pocket. He retrieved Laurel’s business card, then started for the door. Then he hesitated and pivoted back. “Hell, Eva, stick a few of those roses in a nice vase. Write her address on the back of this card. I’ll deliver the flowers myself.”
“Uh-huh. You made her mad, but you don’t even know where she lives?” Reaching into the cooler that sat behind the counter, she hauled out an already made up arrangement. “That’ll be six ninety-five. A bargain, even for self-delivery. These buds are beauties. Out of curiosity, what did you do to the lady that requires flowers?”
Alan flung down a ten, muttering, “Keep the change.” He snatched up the vase. “For the record, I never have met Ms. Ashline, so don’t be spreading rumors, okay?”
The pale blue eyes regarded him frostily. “But Vestal said—”
“Yes, she’s got a bee in her bonnet. This need for me to apologize is due to a mess of Grandmother’s creation. I’m caught in the middle. You know Vestal’s been ill? Ms. Ashline’s someone she met at the hospital.”
Eva frowned slightly. “Vestal didn’t sound dotty. But I s’pose she is gettin’ on in years. Ralph’s mama’s not as old as your grandma, and that woman’s plumb gone off the deep end.” Launching a diatribe against her mother-in-law, Eva followed Alan to the door.
“Thanks,” he said, all but running from the shop. Alan didn’t stop to study the address until he was in the Jeep and had the motor running. Then his jaw dropped.
Laurel Ashline lived in Hazel Bell’s old cottage. The first of two tucked deep in a grove of sycamore and red maple trees—a scant few miles from the source of the spring gushing down Bell Hill. That spring was at the core of Alan’s current problem. Hardy Duff insisted they had to tap into it in order to expand Windridge; he wanted to add a hundred new mash barrels per each milling process.
Alan was well aware that the water they used, rich with essential minerals and naturally filtered through Kentucky limestone, made Windridge bourbon one of the most sought-after whiskeys in the world. What he didn’t know was how Laurel Ashline had ended up living next to a coveted stream that really belonged to him and his family.
Alan might not know, but he intended to find out. With or without an offering of fruit or roses, he thought, wedging the vase between the passenger seat and his center console.
He fumed to himself all the way from town, taking a shortcut fire road that bisected his property from the Bells’ land. What they claimed was their land. He made the mental correction as he got out to open a gate posted with a Private Property—Keep Out sign. For the first time, he wondered if his grandmother knew the Ashline woman had settled in quarters they owned. Well, maybe owned. He revised that thought, too. According to the clerk he’d spoken with earlier, Hazel Bell hadn’t done anything illegal.
Hazel and Ted had met the state statute for filing squatter’s rights. Jason Ridge, Alan’s grandfather, had issued a temporary deed, which gave Ted the right to erect two dwellings. The couple had resided in one cottage long enough to qualify them as land claimants, otherwise known as squatters, according to a historic act that had apparently never been removed from the county statutes. Such folks had the right to petition for ownership of land they’d improved and occupied for twenty years. Clearly, no Ridge had suspected the Bells would ever file.
Alan didn’t understand all the legal mumbo jumbo. And Windridge’s business attorney was in Europe on vacation. There was little Alan could do until Dale Patton returned. Except…he could determine who’d let Laurel Ashline move in. Hazel had been dead and buried for over a year. Alan could attest to that, as he and Vestal had attended her funeral. It was then that they’d learned of her treachery. Hazel’s lawyer, an upstart from Lexington, had paid her outstanding bills and practically thumbed his nose at locals over the squatting.
Now Alan wracked his brain and tried to recall who else had been at the service. A van filled with mostly middle-aged women had shown up at the last minute, making a total of maybe fifteen. Sad for someone who’d lived her entire life in Ridge City. But as Vestal had pointed out, Hazel had cut herself off from neighbors.
Alan supposed Laurel Ashline must’ve been in the van. He knew Hazel was involved in local craft fairs. Ted had complained often enough that his wife spent more time with her “artsy-fartsy friends” than she did at home doing what he figured wives should do. Alan guessed that meant cooking, cleaning and the like.
He never commiserated, because he didn’t share Ted’s belief, and because his wife had acted in a similar fashion. Not that Emily ran with an arts crowd. She’d spent her days—and nights—with the horsey set. Racehorses. Down in Louisville. Alan had rarely seen her during the months leading up to the Kentucky Derby. But race season was long over when Emily had had her accident, which was why Alan had such a hard time understanding why she’d been on that particular road. He knew what people whispered, though.
Even now his stomach pitched at the memory of the call from the state police. He forced his mind onto other subjects. Such as what questions he ought to ask when he arrived at Laurel Ashline’s door—about two minutes from now.
Pulling up, Alan parked on the west side of the stream near the footbridge leading to the largest of the Bell cottages. Ted had built the second, smaller place for Hazel’s crafts. Down-home items sold like hotcakes to summer tourists.
If he’d hoped to find the structures in major disrepair, he was sadly disappointed. The oiled-wood siding on both buildings looked to be in pristine shape. Slate-blue trim gleamed as if newly painted. All around the cottage, a profusion of crocuses and daffodils created a riot of color against the bright green of trees just beginning to burst with spring leaves.
Absently, Alan reached back to retrieve the vase with its pale-pink rosebuds. They seemed puny compared to the Ashline woman’s garden.
Not for the first time, Alan considered forgetting about this stupid mission. Except, it had never been said of Ridge men that they were cowardly. Hitching up the belt of his well-worn jeans, he thrust a hand through his freshly cut hair, which still bore a cowlick. Alan slammed the Jeep door and set out across the footbridge. He’d taken two steps onto the spongy wooden slats when a huge, snarling dog flew from around the left corner of the cottage, running straight at him. Black ears laid flat spoke of the animal’s displeasure at seeing a stranger. A second look at the black muzzle, lips curled over gleaming white incisors, had Alan edging back the way he’d come.
He tried softly cajoling, muttering, “Good dog,” several times, to no avail. After which he resorted to shouting for the dog’s owner. “Ms. Ashline! Laurel? Hey, could you come out and call off your watchdog?”
He got no response. But Alan would swear the white lace curtains covering the largest window moved. And wasn’t that the shadow of a human form appearing briefly behind a rip in the lace?
Maybe that was wishful thinking. Gripping the neck of the vase, Alan scanned the hill behind the cottage. Between the upper and lower dwellings, two horses poked their heads over a split rail corral.
Alan had assumed, maybe wrongly, that someone was home, based on the battered pickup beside which he’d parked his Jeep. It occurred to him now that she could be out riding. Although… He glared suspiciously at the window again. Was it logical to leave her monster dog to watch the house instead of taking him along for protection? Hell, maybe her bite was worse than her dog’s.
He knew absolutely nothing about Laurel Ashline, except that she had a sexy voice. He probably should’ve gleaned more details from his grandmother. Or from Eva Saxon, who loved sharing gossip more than anything else on earth.
He felt like a fool standing here, clutching a vase of pink rosebuds, squared off with a snarling dog. Yet it was obvious the German shepherd wasn’t going to let him cross.
Hitting on a new plan, Alan dug out his cell phone and punched in the number written on the crumpled business card. She might be working in the upper cottage. He had no idea whether looms made more noise than that fool dog. He frankly doubted it, but then he knew nothing about weaving.
The phone rang and rang. If he took the cell away from his ear, he could hear it ring in the cottage across the way. Listening through at least twenty rings, he finally swore again, closed the phone, and stowed it away. That was when he noticed the garbage can sitting near his Jeep. Damned if sticking out of it wasn’t a still-wrapped basket of fruit.
“Phew! Stinko!” Striding up to the container, Alan waved away a swarm of flies and saw that the fruit had rotted. He would bet ten to one that Ms. Ashline had read the card Vestal had composed in his name and then tossed the whole thing in the trash. Hell, the proof was staring at him. She had tossed away a kind gesture, lock, stock and basket. The card lay on top of the torn cellophane.
Alan moved away from the odor and the flies, wondering what kind of person could do that—throw away an apology, judging a man she didn’t know. Unless she just hated men, period.
That notion raised his hackles. It made him want to lob the damn vase at her front window. But, no, that’d probably be the type of macho jerk action she’d expect him to pull.
Instead, baring his own teeth at the dog, Alan stalked across the bridge and roared, “Hush up!” The animal backed off with a surprised whimper, just long enough to give Alan a chance to set the vase on the porch. “Pitch those in the trash,” he yelled at her tightly closed door. “You can’t hide forever. We have unfinished business, you and I. One day we’ll meet. Bank on it!”
Because the shepherd had recovered from the onslaught, and now raced at him again, barking furiously, Alan lost no time hotfooting it back to his Jeep. Though he was sweating like a pig and panting like a man twice his age, he felt a measure of satisfaction at accomplishing his mission.
And oddly, he hadn’t felt so alive in months. Not—he realized with shock—since the accident. As he started the Jeep and made a sweeping turn, aiming the vehicle downhill to the highway, he thought about the hermit he’d become in recent months. And he didn’t like the picture. Didn’t like it at all.
FLATTENED AGAINST THE WALL between the window and the door, Laurel waited several long minutes following her visitor’s last diatribe. She wished she’d had a clearer look at him. Framed against the trees, with the backdrop of brilliant sunlight, he’d been little more than a shadow.
She’d apparently out-waited him at last. Dog had stopped his incessant barking. Venturing another glance through a gap in the curtain, she saw that the pesky man had indeed gone.
Laurel opened the door just a little, and Dog trotted up, shaking his shaggy coat. “Good boy,” she said, praising his efforts as she stepped out and rubbed his ears. He seemed to grin at her, slobbering on her jeans when he rose on hind legs to lick her face. Dropping again, the dog lowered his head to sniff at something behind the screen. A low growl alerted Laurel and she went to investigate.
A cut-glass vase holding several rosebuds of a delicate pink winked at her in the flickering light. Laurel’s breath caught in her throat. He’d left her flowers? Roses. Store-bought roses.
Kneeling, she fingered the soft, fragrant petals. She had to shove Dog’s nose aside as she hesitantly picked up the vase. Breathing in the light, sweet scent, she smiled through suddenly teary eyes. This must be what he’d shouted at her to pitch. She thought he’d retrieved his earlier offering of fruit from the garbage can. Why on earth would the man brave being bitten by Dog to leave flowers for an ungrateful wretch who’d disposed of his first gift? Fruit baskets weren’t cheap. Nor were roses in cut-glass vases. Too bad they’d been purchased with the profits from whiskey, she thought with a sigh.
She nudged open the screen door, letting Dog lead the way inside. Despite everything, she couldn’t help being touched. Laurel tried the vase in three separate locations before finally carrying it up the hill to her loom cottage. Shabbily though she’d treated him, Laurel reasoned it didn’t mean she shouldn’t enjoy the first bouquet anyone had ever given her. Well, technically she supposed, three rosebuds, some fronds of fern and a stalk of baby’s breath wasn’t a bona fide bouquet. Nevertheless, they were lovely.
Gazing at them, she felt more…more…well, more for the giver than she’d wanted to. Guilt cloaked her as she took a seat at one of her floor looms, which she’d set up for weaving a commissioned rose-patterned bedspread.
Alan Ridge’s roses sat on the windowsill, reminding her how abominably she’d acted.
Whether he was aware of it or not, Mr. Ridge had made a favorable impression, and she should probably revise her earlier opinion. She was sorry she hadn’t gone out to see him. Maybe she should call him—just to say thank-you.
Humming a tuneless melody, Laurel kept time alternately with the foot pedals and the beater bar of her giant loom. The double-rose pattern her client had selected for this piece dated back to the late seventeen hundreds. An elderly weaver who’d given Laurel the pattern had painstakingly written directions with a stubby pencil on tablet paper. The old weaver called the entwined roses “Bachelor Among the Girls.” Did that describe Alan Ridge? Laurel supposed not. Eva Saxon from the flower shop had said Ridge’s wife had died in an auto accident. That made him a widower.
So Laurel could call this version of the pattern “Widower among the Ladies.” Given his stature in the community, if he handed out roses willy-nilly, Alan Ridge had to be a hit with every unattached female for miles around.
A hit with everyone except her. The kindness of his gesture aside, Laurel still disliked the man’s business. Did he know or care how many potentially good people had problems with whiskey? How many lives had been destroyed by liquor? On second thought, she wouldn’t be phoning the whiskey baron of Ridge City to say thank-you anytime soon. Laurel had made one monstrous mistake when it came to letting a man’s charm sway her. She’d do well to remember that flowers faded, and so did romance.
But he didn’t have to bring you flowers, insisted a nagging voice inside her head—a voice she was determined to ignore.
ALAN STOPPED IN TOWN for the second time that day on the pretext of picking up a few groceries for Birdie and checking on a grain order for Windridge. His visit didn’t go unnoticed, since he so rarely got to town these days. So when he asked questions about Laurel Ashline he couldn’t really blame the shopkeepers who were reluctant to give much away.
At the granary he was told Eva Saxon had described Laurel as a tall, willowy blonde. Peg Moore, waitress at the corner café eyed Alan as she wiped off the counter and poured his coffee. “Laurel Ashline is…rather plain, I’d say. And she’s either really shy or exceptionally quiet.”
“About how old, would you guess?” Alan asked casually.
“Um, late twenties or early thirties,” Peg ventured.
That surprised him, and pretty much ruled out the possibility that she’d been one of the women who’d attended Hazel Bell’s funeral. They’d all been matronly.
He could see that everyone in the café was curious. But, typical of folks in this part of Kentucky, no one pressed Alan to say why he wanted to learn more about the stranger in their midst.
“It’s later than I thought. I should be getting home. Louemma will be finishing her lessons, and I have a message for her tutor from the school.” Depositing a tip next to his coffee cup, Alan stood up.
“Is Louemma improving at all?” Peg asked what few ever did of Alan.
“Not really,” he admitted reluctantly.
“I thought that was probably the case. Yesterday Charity Madison brought her Camp Fire troop in for ice cream. Used to be you never saw Sarah Madison without Louemma. Peg shook her head. “That Sarah’s getting a mouth on her, and Charity doesn’t seem to know how to curb it. If it was me, I’d be giving that little miss some chores, and I’d take away privileges.”
Alan didn’t respond. Charity and Pete Madison had been his and Emily’s best friends. To their credit, the couple had tried to include him and Louemma in their social events after the accident. But there was no denying the dynamics were different now. Maybe Charity couldn’t bring herself to discipline Sarah, he mused. Because Louemma’s experience showed how quickly life could change for the worse. Could be Charity was plain glad Sarah hadn’t been with Louemma at the time Emily’s car spun out of control.
At home again, Alan carried the groceries he’d bought in the back door. He’d missed Louemma’s tutor, so he’d have to call her later. He sat down beside his daughter on the couch in front of the TV and kissed the top of her head.
“Hi, Daddy. Where’ve you been?”
“Nowhere. I just ran some errands in town.”
Birdie bustled into the room bearing a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies and a tall glass of milk. Vestal appeared out of nowhere, clearly wanting to nab Alan.
As Birdie sat down to help Louemma drink and eat, Vestal yanked him out of the living room, into the hall. “What happened when you went to see Laurel Ashline? When’s she coming to see Louemma?”
He scowled. “Who said I even went to see Ms. Ashline?”
“Eva. She phoned right after you left her shop. Trying her best to learn why you followed up a basket of fruit with a vaseful of roses for a woman who apparently told Eva she hadn’t even met you. You know Eva can’t stand to think that anyone in town is keeping secrets from her.”
“Three roses, Grandmother, not a vaseful.” Alan wiggled three fingers. “She wasn’t home, by the way. And speaking of secrets, why didn’t you tell me you sent her that fruit basket in my name?”
Vestal did have the grace to look guilty.
“Also, were you aware she’s living in Hazel Bell’s cottage? Her cottage, on our land. It is, you know. Ours.” He narrowed his eyes and watched his grandmother clasp a fist to her thin chest.
“That’s why her name sounded familiar. Ashline—that was the transient workman Lucy Bell ran off with. Oh, my. Laurel must be Lucy’s daughter.”
“What? Ted never mentioned having a granddaughter.”
“No. But it has to be. In that case, you have your answer as to why she settled here. Laurel Ashline has roots in Ridge City.”
“No way! Her mother ran off how many years ago?”
“At least thirty. But you said it yourself, Alan. Strangers never move here. Only people who have roots. She does.”
Alan turned and stomped toward his office. At the door, he stopped. “She may think she has roots here,” he said. “Obviously Hazel or her lawyer led the woman to believe Bell Hill belongs to her. But that forty acres is Ridge land—always has been and always will be. Hardy needs the water from that spring to expand Windridge. We’re paying him big bucks to ensure Louemma’s legacy and her children’s legacy long after you and I are gone, Grandmother. Isn’t that reason enough not to get chummy with Laurel Ashline?” He started to slam the door, but Vestal blocked it with a toe.
“Now you listen to me. Way back before Lucy Bell went wild, her mother and I dreamed about our son and her daughter forging an unbreakable bond between our two families. That didn’t happen. But maybe…”
“Uh-huh. No, ma’am. Don’t even think it!” Alan’s voice rose sharply. “You’re not pairing me up with…that woman. Not with any woman.”
“Grouchy as you are, no woman in her right mind would have you, Alan Ridge. Chew on this—if you don’t get help for her, the Ridge bloodline ends with Louemma. I tell you, I have a feeling about Laurel. You know Jason and your father both respected my intuition. I can’t imagine why you’re in such a state over someone you’ve never met. Quit being an ass and make peace with the woman, for Louemma’s sake.”
Squaring her shoulders, Vestal withdrew her foot from the door, then slammed it shut herself.
Behind the door, Alan rubbed his eyes. Obviously he had to do something. If this battle between them continued, Vestal could work herself into a heart attack. Or he would, considering how furiously the blood pounded through his veins. No, he couldn’t let this go on. Somewhere there had to be a doctor able to cure whatever ailed Louemma.
CHAPTER THREE
ALAN THOUGHT HE HEARD faint sounds of someone crying as he stood braced against the door. He gave himself a mental shake and opened it a crack.
It wasn’t like Vestal to give way to tears. And it wasn’t like him to push a confrontation to the brink of tears, either. That had been part of his and Emily’s problem. She’d spoiled for a fight over the least little thing and had been adept at employing tears to get her way. Alan had realized early in their marriage that she’d manipulated her parents in pretty much the same manner. He’d been determined not to fall into the same trap. When the hysterics began, his response was usually to walk away, which only made Emily more furious.