Jaded by Anne Calhoun Page B

Freddie’s list, then changed into a pair of dark jeans and a fitted long-sleeve V-neck T-shirt in a periwinkle her mother assured her matched her eyes. Back in the kitchen, she stirred the sausage, added it to the sauce, and turned down the heat to let it simmer while she went outside to examine the rose bed in the dwindling light.
    Green stalks emerged from the dirt, straining toward the white trellis, but weren’t quite long enough yet to need the support. Something in the wild tangles of thorny stems and canes worried at her soul, so the previous fall she’d read up on winterizing roses, then carefully pruned the bushes, sprayed them with dormant oil spray, dug trenches in all the beds, tipped the canes into the trenches, then covered them with soil and pine needles. A few weeks ago, she had removed the blankets and bags of leaves and replanted the bushes, then fertilized and mulched the bushes. New growth emerged nearly every day, but she wouldn’t be around to see the first bloom.
    Lucas pulled into the driveway. Alana felt her cheeks heat, but threw him a smile over her shoulder.
    “Hey,” he said.
    Duke hustled down the steps, his tail spinning like a propeller. Once again, Alana watched the reunion, the muted play of emotion on Lucas’s face, Duke’s adoringly upturned muzzle. Lucas looked tired, but not physically tired. Bone-weary, the kind of exhaustion that came from deep inside, not from whatever Walkers Ford was throwing at him. A shiver of sympathy resonated inside her. She knew that feeling. Knew it well.
    Emboldened, she rose from her crouched position and stretched until her back popped. “I’ve got spaghetti sauce simmering,” she said. “We can eat in an hour or so.”
    He straightened his shoulders. “Great. I’m looking forward to it.”
    She continued to redistribute the mulch. The downspout emerging from the back of the roof needed to be reconnected; the spring rains pushed the mulch away from the foundation. Lucas emerged from his house, Duke on his black leash at his side. Somehow putting the leash on Duke changed his entire demeanor, as if the old dog remembered his former work, how important it was. He trotted with more purpose beside Lucas, who was now dressed in jeans and a navy blue T-shirt that made his brown eyes even more vivid.
    “Do you know what these are?”
    He strolled over to stand beside her, then unclipped Duke’s leash. “Country Dancers. Gram planted them on this side of the house because they don’t need as much sun as other hybrids. You didn’t have gardens growing up?”
    “Of course we did. We also had gardeners.”
    In invitation she opened the screen door to the kitchen. He reached over her head to hold the door for her and she stepped inside. With a click of his tongue, he told Duke to clamber up the two cement steps, then waited for the dog to hoist himself inside. He sniffed desultorily at the cabinets, then the baseboards, then slumped down on the floor under Lucas’s chair.
    “Smells good,” Lucas said as he eased into one of the two chairs at the kitchen table.
    “Nothing fancy,” she replied. “Pasta with homemade Bolognese sauce. I hope you like sausage.”
    “I like anything I don’t have to cook,” he said.
    She got a beer from the fridge and handed it to him, then poured herself a glass of wine and sipped it while water ran into the stockpot to boil.
    “I didn’t think you’d want Italian again after having that big lasagna for lunch.”
    Alana felt her cheeks heat beyond what could be explained by a warm stove. “I didn’t eat the lasagna,” she admitted.
    “You gave it to Cody.”
    She nodded. “The only people I’ve seen with cheekbones like that are the models working in the fashion industry,” she said. “I want to feed them, too.”
    One corner of Lucas’s mouth lifted, but otherwise, the regular rise and fall of his chest under the blue T-shirt was his only response.
    “What exactly did he do to earn a hundred hours