Currant Creek Valley(20)

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOU CAN COME with me, but only if you behave,” Alex said sternly to Leo early the next afternoon.

The dog gave her what looked uncannily like a grin and planted his haunches by the front door, waiting for her to hook up the extra leash she kept around the house for the times she doggie-sat Chester.

She clipped it on him then juggled the leash while she picked up a heavy cooler and headed out.

“I mean it,” she went on as she carried the cooler down the steps of her garage to the open hatch of her SUV. “Caroline loves her flowers. It breaks her heart right in half that she can’t tend them as she likes anymore. I won’t have you digging up any of her few perennials she has left, understood?”

The dog gave one well-mannered bark, smart as a whip, and she smiled. He was good company, this unexpected guest. He had been docile and easygoing when she had bathed him the night before and hadn’t even soaked her much.

Last night, he had politely eaten Chester’s leftover dog food and then had trotted out in the yard for his business before coming back and waiting with surprising patience by the door to be let back inside.

She had settled him for the night on some old blankets in a corner of her laundry room and he hadn’t made a sound all night long, until she had checked on him after she awoke. She could only wish all her houseguests were so trouble free.

Leo settled in the backseat of her SUV and lolled his tongue, overcome with joy when she rolled the window down.

As they pulled away from her house, she could see it in the rear windshield, the hewn logs gleaming in the afternoon sun. With two gables and a wide front porch that looked out on the mountains, the house looked warm and lovely, though she still tended to see all the work she needed to do.

After years of neglect, first as a vacation house with mostly absentee owners and then in foreclosure when the owners had walked away from the mortgage, the house was a work in progress. The window boxes in the upper window and along the porch railing that ran the length of the house were still empty and the garden was a wild tangle.

She was working on it slowly, determined that by summer’s end, the house and yard would glow once more.

The house was a labor of love, just like the restaurant. She loved this place, had since she was a girl. She could remember riding her bike on this road to visit a friend who grew up on the next development over.

All the houses in this area were lovely, mostly log, stone and cedar that had been constructed to meld with the mountain setting and separated from each other by tall stands of pine, fir and aspen.

She had always loved the serenity she found here as she passed fields of wildflowers and that musically rippling creek bordered by wild red- and black-currant bushes that had given the neighborhood its name. This specific little cottage, though, had always called to her.

Maybe it was the decorative shutters or the scrollwork gingerbread trim on the gables that always made the house seem charmed to her, like something out of a fairy tale.

She remembered telling Claire from the time they were young that someday she would live here. Of course, back then she had dreamed of a husband and a house full of children, just like the big family she had known growing up.

Funny how a person’s life journey could sometimes meander off in completely unexpected directions. Here she was, without the husband and without the passel of kids, but in the house she had wanted forever.

The dog in the backseat barked as she pulled away from the house and now she glanced in the rearview mirror at him.

“Don’t worry. I have a feeling you’ll be back.”

First thing that morning, she had called the animal shelter and the two veterinarians’ offices in town but had come up empty. None of her sources had heard anything about a missing chocolate Labrador retriever.

She had shot a picture of Leo with her phone, uploaded it to her computer and then used her limited design skills to come up with a flyer. It was quite creative, if she did say so herself, and she had promptly emailed a copy to several business owners around town, including Claire for String Fever and Maura for Books & Brew.

She needed to find the dog’s owner before she became too attached to the undeniable comfort of having another creature in the house with her.

He had been the perfect companion while she cooked up a storm that morning. He didn’t seem to mind her steady, rather aimless conversation and he even helped clean up the kitchen by snagging a few items she accidentally dropped on the floor while slicing and dicing and sautéing far too much food.

Okay, yes, she had gone a little crazy. She would freely admit it to herself and to any canines within earshot. She had woken after a fractured night’s sleep with vast quantities of restless energy. Naturally, she had turned to the kitchen to expend some of it doing what she did best, cooking.