The Woman for Dusty Conrad Read online

  The rest of the morning wasn’t looking like it was going to be much better. Especially after Jolie got the news that Ellie’s father was still in ICU, his condition critical. Not even Tucker would level with her and tell her if he personally thought Jeff would pull through.

  She and Dusty had decided that the best course of action to take in regard to Ellie with the news of her father was to avoid the subject until they learned something more substantial. Nancy agreed. Getting the child’s hopes up, then having her father’s health take a turn for the worse, would only further confuse her.

  Then there was the entire issue of the death of her mother.

  Jolie stood in the doorway of the guest bedroom, eyeing her attempt at making the room look more homey. Dusty had merely shaken his head when she’d returned from a grocery store run with stuffed animals and a cartoon-print bedspread and sheets to make the room more fit for a five-year-old. He didn’t have to say anything about the temporary condition of her stay. She already knew that. Instead, she reasoned that since all the Johansen belongings had been destroyed in the fire, Ellie would need the things, anyway.

  She rested her temple against the doorjamb, listening to the sounds of cartoons on the living room television, where she knew Ellie was sitting watching impassively. The child psychologist hadn’t been able to get Ellie to communicate much, but she had been able to determine that she was aware of the death of her mother and knew her father was in the hospital. Before leaving with a promise to come back in two days, she’d advised Jolie and Dusty not to broach the subject themselves, but that if Ellie indicated a desire to talk about the loss of her mother, or asked about her father’s condition, that they should try to be as honest and forthcoming as possible.

  But Ellie hadn’t communicated with them at all yet and Jolie was beginning to fear she wouldn’t, either.

  She turned from the doorway and made her way quietly back downstairs, hesitating in front of the living room arch. God, she looked so small. Smaller than even her five years. So much had been heaped on this young girl’s shoulders.

  Jolie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, not remembering many details about the time after her parents had died. Except, of course, beyond Dusty’s attentiveness, and her grandfather’s gruffness. She recalled feeling…numb. As if she’d known how much her life had changed and would continue to change and that things would never be the same again.

  She saw those same fatalistic feelings on Ellie’s face now.

  Spot rubbed against her ankle. She looked down and frowned, increasingly convinced the cat was trying to tell her something, perform some sort of role. She lightly shook her head, telling herself she was losing it as she picked the feline up and petted her. Her instant purring told her all the cat had wanted was attention.

  And that perhaps that’s what Ellie needed now, too.

  Giving Spot a hearty final pat, she put her back down, then entered the living room and sat on the floor next to Ellie, cross-legged.

  “Oh, Scooby-Doo,” she said. “I used to watch this when I was a kid.”

  It was a Halloween episode. And the crazy thing about it was that Jolie was convinced she knew the end if she just racked her brain enough for it.

  Instead, she waited for the next commercial, then stretched out her legs in front of her. “You know, Halloween’s tomorrow night.”

  Ellie blinked but didn’t look at her.

  “Did you plan on going trick-or-treating, Ellie?”

  No response.

  Jolie bit hard on her bottom lip, trying to think of what her friend Angela, Ellie’s mom, would say at a time like this.

  “I’ve got a thought,” Jolie said, finally shifting her attention back to the television. “Old Man Peterson has a whole patch full of pumpkins. Wouldn’t it be great to go out there and pick one, then come back here and decorate it for Halloween?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched for Ellie’s response. Nothing but a couple of blinks.

  She sighed as if the proposal bored her, as well. “Yeah, it’s a pretty lame idea, isn’t it?”

  The cartoon came back on and Jolie’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

  She hadn’t exactly expected this to be a walk in the park, but she hadn’t anticipated it would be so difficult, either. Ellie appeared to have holed herself up in a tiny corner within herself, and it was going to take more than doughnuts, and pancakes, and the promise of carving pumpkins to bring her out.

  “I’d like to get a pumpkin,” Ellie said.

  Jolie blinked at her, wondering if the girl had said the words, or whether she had imagined them. When Ellie kept her head straight, staring at the screen, she was beginning to suspect the latter. Then Ellie turned her wide, bright blue eyes on her, as if expecting an answer.

  “Oh!” Jolie said, surprising herself. “Well, then. Why don’t you go upstairs to the master bath and tell Dusty where we’re going and ask if he’d like to come along while I get our coats?”

  Ellie continued staring at her, absolutely no shift in her expression. Jolie smiled patiently, thinking the girl’s taking her up on her suggestion would be too much to hope for.

  So Jolie went up herself and asked Dusty to come along. He was up to his elbows in Spackle and told her to go on without him. And she did. She and Ellie and Spot—who wasn’t pleased that Jolie had planned to leave her behind—drove out to the farm to pick out a pumpkin, Jolie being careful to mark a wide path around Ellie’s old neighborhood lest she get a glimpse of the charred remains of the house that had nearly claimed her life. She turned the radio on low to an oldies station, making attempts at conversation, but being careful not to talk too much or try too hard, while Ellie kept her head turned toward the window, gazing out on the bright autumn afternoon and absently patting Spot.

  “What?” Jolie wanted to ask the cat when she caught the feline staring at her with a kind of “well, go on, already” expression on her furry face. Which was ridiculous, of course. The cat couldn’t possibly have any idea what had happened and what needed to be done to coax Ellie out of her shell.

  Before long, the sweeping field came into view, the blobs of orange pumpkins dotting the green, broad-leafed vines, reminding Jolie of Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin Patch. Ellie didn’t seem to notice they’d arrived. Not even after Jolie had pulled the Jeep to a stop near the gate to the field, where a young family was carefully rolling out a monster pumpkin through the opening, their smiles wide, their cheeks pink.

  Jolie tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought that this type of outing was something a young family would do together? What had she been thinking? Seeing the other family couldn’t help but trigger memories in Ellie of her own broken family.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “Look, Jolie…I want that one.”

  The words were so unexpected, Jolie was startled by them. Her heart beat an erratic rhythm in her chest as she looked hopefully at Ellie, finding the little girl’s round face awash with excitement.

  She cleared the emotion from her throat and tried to follow her chubby finger. “Which one?”

  Her eyes widened as her gaze settled on what had to be the most gigantic pumpkin she’d ever seen. There seemed to be enough room in the sucker for her, Ellie, Dusty and even the irritating cat.

  “Hmm,” she said carefully. “Somehow I don’t think it will fit into the back of the Jeep.”

  Ellie’s eyes immediately dulled and she dropped her hand back to lay limply by her side.

  Jolie felt as if the sun had ducked behind a cloud, threatening never to return again.

  She smiled. “But hey, we can give it the old college try, can’t we?”

  Ellie instantly perked up again, reaching for the door handle and sliding out. Spot seemed to give Jolie a long suffering look before leaping out after her.

  “What?” she asked the cat. “Would you rather I told her there wasn’t a chance in Hades that we’re taking that thing home?”r />
  Great, she thought, now she was talking to a cat.

  She drew in a deep breath and said a silent prayer. Please, Old Man Peterson, say you’re holding on to the pumpkin for some other reason. Anything but that we can take that mammoth thing home.

  She slowly got out of the Jeep, following Ellie’s path toward the pumpkin on steroids. As incredible as it seemed, it only got bigger the closer she got to it.

  She stuffed her hands into her pockets, trying desperately to find a way out of the mess she’d gotten herself into. “Well,” she said. “I bet there’s probably enough seeds in there to turn all of Ohio into a pumpkin patch.”

  Ellie giggled, running her tiny hand over the side of the rippling skin of the orange monstrosity.

  Jolie estimated that it had to be at least four feet high and five feet wide, and likely weighed as much as her Jeep.

  “We could make lots and lots of pumpkin pies,” Ellie said. “My mommy makes pumpkin pies.”

  Present tense. Jolie caught the mistake instantly. But rather than tell the five-year-old that this wasn’t the type of pumpkin with which one made pies, she smiled and said, “Yes. Your mom used to make the best pumpkin pie in the whole wide world.”

  She’d purposely used the past tense and waited for Ellie’s reaction.

  Thankfully there was little. Merely a downcast expression, her long, pale lashes resting against her flushed cheeks.

  “So,” Jolie ventured, crossing her arms and rounding the monster pumpkin. “What’s the verdict? Do you think it will fit in the back of the Jeep?”

  She asked the question only because she already knew the answer.

  Ellie eyed the pumpkin, then the Jeep, then her gaze drifted back again while Jolie held her breath. Of course she knew what the logical answer was. But she had to remind herself that life through a five-year-old’s eyes wasn’t always quite so black and white. Especially after what had transpired in Ellie’s in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Sorry, gals.” Old Man Peterson’s voice boomed across the lot as he sauntered over toward them. “If you had your hearts set on that one, I’m afraid I’m going to have to break them. This here pumpkin is slated for carving at the traditional Old Orchard Halloween Party in the town circle tomorrow night.”

  Jolie’s sigh was so deep she nearly had to rest against the pumpkin before taking in another. Ellie stared at the gnarled old man and backed up until she rammed into the front of Jolie’s legs. Jolie braced her hands against the five-year-old, realizing that was the first time she’d actually allowed herself to touch her. She gave the slender shoulders a reassuring squeeze and introduced the two.

  “Eleanor, huh?” Peterson asked. “They wouldn’t happen to call you Ellie, now would they?”

  The girl nodded, her eyes huge in her round face.

  “Thought so. I had a horse named Ellie once. Big thing, she was. And the most ornery cuss I ever did know.”

  Jolie smiled at his attempt at small talk even as Ellie dove around her legs, using them as trees with which to hide herself as she peeked at the tall man.

  She cleared her throat. “Are you sure we can’t have this pumpkin, Mr. Peterson? We were both thinking it would look really nice in our front yard.”

  He clucked his tongue. “Very sure. Mayor Nelson put town money down on it himself clear back to last year. He wasn’t happy when the Wentworths got the largest pumpkin then.”

  A familiar meow pulled Jolie’s gaze toward the field just on the other side of the fence. She looked down to see Ellie was also watching Spot, who was circling a good, normal-size pumpkin, then rubbing against it affectionately.

  “Is that Spot?” Old Man Peterson asked, scratching his chin. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her out this far. Means something important’s about to happen.”

  Jolie frowned at him. She knew the rumors surrounding the cat’s exploits. She was just surprised a man Peterson’s age believed them. Didn’t wisdom come with age?

  “Sorry, Mr. Peterson, but I think Dusty and Ellie and I will be the proud recipients of whatever Spot has up her fur. She tagged along in the Jeep with us.”

  His rheumy green eyes seemed to twinkle as he looked at her and his grin was wide and full of mischief. “Yes…yes. I’d say if anyone was deserving of a miracle, it would be you three.”

  Jolie was jarred almost right out of her boots.

  “Let’s go see about the pumpkin Spot picked out for you, huh?”

  Ellie took that as her cue and dodged around Jolie’s legs, through the gate, then straight to the pumpkin Spot was now stretched out on top of, her long, black limbs tipped with white hanging over the sides.

  Jolie stared at the feline for a long moment, her breath puffing out her cheeks before she exhaled. Then she shook her head and preceded Mr. Peterson into the patch.

  Chapter 12

  Dusty stood on the front porch, freshly scrubbed and in a clean pair of jeans and sweatshirt, a coffee cup cradled in his hands as Jolie’s Jeep pulled into the drive. Even from here he could see that her face was drawn and tight, her constant furtive glances toward Ellie, who sat stalwartly staring out the window, telling him all had not gone well on their outing.

  He swallowed hard, forcing himself to wait on the porch when he really wanted to walk to the car. He watched Jolie round the Jeep and open the passenger door, helping Ellie out. The five-year-old kept her eyes to the ground as she walked toward the house, then disappeared inside when Jolie opened the front door, the cat on her heels.

  “Go ahead and hang your coat in the hall, sweetheart,” Jolie called after her. “I’ll be in in a minute to get you that snack we talked about.”

  Jolie softly closed the door, then collapsed against it. Dusty watched her face as she murmured something under her breath. She sighed, meeting his gaze for the first time since pulling into the drive.

  “Didn’t go as planned, huh?” he asked, longing to reach out and tuck a stray, windblown strand of hair from her flushed cheek.

  “Oh, no, it went great. Fantastic, even.” Her gaze grew wistful. “She was talking, Dusty. Conversing. Full sentences.”

  He frowned. “So then what happened?”

  She pushed from the door and shrugged, absently taking his coffee cup from his hands and sipping from it. Her grimace told him she’d just discovered it was black. “Oh, Elva Mollenkopf happened. Right in the middle of town. We’d stopped at Old Jake’s General Store to pick up some pumpkin-carving materials, and who should we run into while stopped at the only light in town? Elva.”

  He accepted his cup back, gazing at it as he tried to figure out exactly where her soft, full lips had been and feeling an intimacy he wasn’t sure he wanted to be feeling just then.

  Jolie waved a hand. “Of course she undid in one minute flat what had basically taken us twenty-four hours to do.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “What didn’t she say is more the appropriate question. She told little Ellie she was sorry about the death of her mother, and what an awful way it was to go, one of the most awful deaths imaginable, but not to worry because her mommy was gone and couldn’t feel pain anymore. And that maybe it would be best if her father just went ahead and died, too, because he was going to be so burned he would be looked upon as a freak, and how sad it was that she was now an orphan, just like Little Orphan Annie, without the red hair, and how she felt sorry for her because she was all alone in the world now.”

  She finally came up for air, the reiteration of the exchange coming out in one long rush and leaving Dusty as upset as Jolie must have been when Elva uttered the foul words.

  Her voice dropped. “It was all I could do not to run the light to get away from Elva.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, then walked to the opposite side of the porch, her back rigid and tense, her jeans clinging nicely to her bottom and legs. “I don’t know. Why is it some people aren’t happy unless they’re making other people miserable?” She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Ellie is only
five years old, for God’s sake. That alone should make her exempt from all adult manipulations.”

  Dusty put his cup down on the railing. “Maybe she went after Ellie because she’s such an easy target,” he suggested. “Or maybe she’s completely clueless and has no idea what she said was so wounding.”

  Jolie shot him a glance over her shoulder.

  He shrugged. “Or maybe not.”

  Jolie turned her head away again. Dusty glanced toward the door, noting the silence from within the house and wondering what, if anything, little Ellie was doing. He opened the door and stepped inside. The five-year-old had turned on the TV and sat staring at the screen sightlessly. He stepped back out on to the porch and quietly closed the screen door.

  “She was the first one to say something to me after you’d gone.”

  Dusty’s gaze was drawn to the back of Jolie’s head at her quietly said words.

  “I thought…well, I’d assumed I’d have a couple days to myself, to get my thoughts together, figure out what I was going to say before I had to explain our circumstances to everyone. But my first five minutes outside and bam, there was Elva, telling me she was so very sorry you’d left, but wasn’t it my fault, really, because any woman worth her salt should be capable of keeping her man. Then she went on to say it was probably for the best, because you and I weren’t really suited for each other, anyway, and didn’t I see that now.”

  A tight fist of frustration formed in Dusty’s chest.

  Jolie gave a brief, humorless laugh. “The funny thing is that I hadn’t even told anyone that you’d left…Really left. I merely told them you’d gotten a good job in Toledo.” She slowly shook her head. “But Elva knew. I don’t know how, but she knew.”