Page 126 of Confessions

“Just passing through?” she asked.

“I think I’ll be sticking around for a while.”

“Coffee?”

“Please. Black.”

He opened the menu as she hurried back to the kitchen. He’d known that Tracy was in town, of course; Nadine and his father had written him while he was in the service. She’d been nearly destroyed after Kevin had died. Three weeks later she’d dropped the bomb with a mind-numbing announcement that she was pregnant with Kevin’s baby. Ben had already left Gold Creek when Tracy had told his father the news.

She’d given birth to a healthy baby boy eight months after Kevin had been buried. George had helped her out a little as her own family had nearly disowned her. Things were better now, or so Nadine had told him. Tracy worked at the bank during the week and put in a shift or two at the Buckeye on the weekends.

She returned, flipped over his coffee cup and poured the coffee from a fat glass pot. “You know,” she said as she set the pot on the table and grabbed her pad, “Randy would love to meet you.”

Randy was her son. His nephew. He felt a jab of guilt. “Sure. Anytime.”

“You mean it?”

“Give me a call.” He reached into his wallet and drew out a business card. “I’d like to see Kevin’s boy.”

For a second he thought she might cry. Her brown eyes glistened and she cleared her throat before taking his order and moving on to wait on the next booth.

Tracy had never married, though, according to Nadine she’d dated several men seriously. She’d spent the past ten years taking care of her boy and trying to better herself. She was pretty, one

of those kind of women who seemed to get more good-looking as the years passed.

She returned to Ben’s table, talked with him, laughing and joking, smiling a little more than she did with the other patrons as she served him a ham sandwich, potato salad and a crisp dill pickle.

“Don’t make yourself scarce,” she said when he’d taken the final swallow from a coffee cup she seemed determined to keep filled.

“I won’t.” He left her a decent tip and waved as he walked out the door. A weak winter sun was trying to break through the clouds and the puddles of water, left over from the rain, shimmered in the pale light. He climbed into his pickup and drove to the veterinary clinic where he was told that the shepherd, though dehydrated and suffering from malnutrition, was on the mend. The hole in his belly was probably compliments of a fight with another dog or a wild animal and though the beast had lost a lot of blood, he would survive.

“I’ve called around,” Dr. Vance said as he rubbed the lenses of his glasses with the tail of his lab coat. “None of the shelters or other vets have any anxious owners looking for their pets. I even checked with the police department. He’s got a collar, but no license, so there’s no way of knowin’ where he comes from.” He patted the groggy animal on the head. “But my guess is that the dog is a purebred and someone’s taken care of him. He’s been neutered and had his teeth cleaned within the last year, and look at this—” he showed him the dog’s feet

“—his toenails have been clipped, fairly recently, so I don’t think there’s a worry of rabies, though I’d inoculate him.”

“If I decide to keep him.”

The round vet smiled, showing off a gold tooth that winked in the fluorescent lights dangling from the ceiling. “You’ve got yourself a hefty bill here for a dog you’re gonna turn loose on the streets.” Again he patted the shepherd and the dog yawned. “Besides, every bachelor needs a dog. Someone to come home and talk to. Believe me, a dog’s better than a wife. This here shepherd won’t talk back.”

“I heard that,” Lorna, the doctor’s wife and assistant, called from the back room.

“Listenin’ in again?” he yelled back at her.

“Hard not to overhear you griping.”

Dr. Vance rolled his eyes and mouthed, “Women!” as if that said it all.

Ben agreed to have the dog vaccinated, then paid his bill. It took most of his patience not to be offended when the shepherd growled at him. “Okay, Attila,” he said, leading the animal outside and to his truck, “if you so much as snarl at me while I’m driving, I’m letting you off right then and there. You’re history.” The dog snorted as Ben helped him onto the sagging bench seat, but he didn’t bare his teeth, nor did he try to bite, which Ben decided, was an improvement over the day Ben had first found him.

“Just for the record,” he said, as if the beast could understand him, “I don’t want a dog.”

Settling behind the steering wheel, Ben thought of Dr. Vance’s words of wisdom about marriage. Vance was probably kidding; he’d been married forever.

Ben had already decided he needed a wife—but not Carlie Surrett. Yet, just at the thought of her clear blue eyes, lustrous black hair and intelligent smile, his gut tightened.

He wanted her. It was that simple. And though he could deny it to himself a thousand times, he had to admit the truth. “Damn it all,” he muttered, slapping on the radio. The dog let out a low growl of disapproval, which Ben ignored.

His house, a rental, was located on the outskirts of town. Once inside, he offered the dog food and water, then left him on a blanket in the laundry room. He had to meet some of the men who were going to clean the debris from Nadine’s lot, then he had to do a little work over at the Hunter Victorian. He’d figure out what to do about the dog a little later.