Holiday Homecoming. Pamela Tracy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “No, it feels better to stand. I sit and my butt starts to hurt. If I’m standing, it’s my back, but I can handle that. Here, put this away too.”

      It was an aged copy of Black Beauty.

      “You checked it out five times,” Agatha said. “Remember?”

      “I want to read it again. Maybe this time the fox will get away. Can I get a new library card today?”

      “Just take it and make sure you return it. We won’t tell Jessica.”

      Meredith’s cell phone beeped. After checking the screen, she tapped the answer key and said, “Grandpa, can I come get you now?”

      “Better hurry before Doc decides to do any more prodding.” Something distracted Grandpa, and he hung up before Meredith could ask anything else.

      “Ray’s gonna be okay?” Agatha asked when Meredith put her phone away.

      “For now, he’s okay. Just forgetful.”

      “Aren’t we all,” Agatha shared.

      “Agatha, you never forget anything, so I do want to ask. Has anyone been looking for a dog, really a wolf dog?”

      “No. Jimmy says he’s called the sheriff, talked to the newspaper editor over in Adobe Hills, plus his cousin who publishes the tabloid here. He had to promise to be interviewed for an article. Then, he even went driving around to see if there were posters up anywhere. Together we did an online search for wolf pups for sale. We did find some nearby, but no one answered the phone when we called. And no one’s reported a missing dog. I called a couple of librarians I know from Adobe Hills and Scorpion Ridge, but outside of a runaway Chihuahua, nothing.”

      Recognizing she was at a dead end for now, Meredith helped Agatha close up the library, turning off lights, locking up, just the way she had more than a decade ago. Agatha lived just three houses down from the courthouse, so Meredith waved goodbye as Agatha walked home.

      Meredith fought the wind as she got back into her brown SUV. There was a storm brewing, and not just in the air. Just what did Jimmy think he was doing, researching the wolf dog? He was going to make this a mission. That’s what he was going to do. Televise the plight of the wolf dog and the injustices it suffered. Get his stupid byline and then take off again.

      Well, she wasn’t going to be his star of the month, and neither were Yoda or the wild wolf dog.

      Grandpa and Doc Thomas were sitting on the porch when Meredith drove up. While Doc helped Grandpa down the ramp, Meredith opened the passenger-side door and took and stored the walker in the back. When Grandpa found his seat, she said, “Doc, I’d like just a moment.”

      Doc Thomas met her at the end of the car. She shut the hatchback and whispered, “He’s not eating. Maybe four bites at breakfast and not even that at lunch.”

      “You hear that, Ray. Your granddaughter says you’re not eating.”

      “I eat when I’m hungry, and she hasn’t made me pancakes.”

      “You’re going to need your strength during the next few months if you want to get better, Ray.”

      To Meredith, Doc Thomas said, “His ankle’s fine. I took an X-ray of his spine, though, and I didn’t like what I saw. You watch him close. If he slows down anymore—” both of them looked at Grandpa, who was still settling himself into a comfortable position “—I want you to get him into Adobe Hills and to a specialist. I know he has an appointment in January, but it would be good if you can get him in earlier. If he’s to keep living on the farm in the middle of nowhere, he has to be able to walk—no matter how slowly.”

      Doc Thomas said a few more things, mentioned rehabilitation and even surgery.

      “I can walk,” Grandpa groused.

      “At the moment,” Doc Thomas said so softly that only Meredith heard. His expression told Meredith a diagnosis she wasn’t ready to hear.

      Yes, he was eighty-two, but, well, he was Grandpa. The thread that held the family together in so many ways.

      As they drove home, he was quiet, too quiet, not even commenting on her driving. Usually he held on to the door handle and commented, “How fast are you going?”

      Meredith kept shooting him glances, hoping he’d open up, tell her she was driving too fast or something. When he didn’t, she tried talking to him. “Do we need to fill a prescription?”

      He nodded.

      “You want to do that now?”

      He shook his head.

      She’d been communicating with animals for years now—spent more time with them than people, really—and was used to figuring out problems without the exchange of words. But Grandpa was about as easy to read as a hedgehog.

      Either he was overly tired or something had upset him. Or maybe it was a combination of both.

      “I just want to get home, Merry.”

      When they finally got to the farm, she helped him out, opened his walker and then followed behind him as he walked unsteadily to the front door. Pepper came limping from the side of the house, greeting them with a wiggling body. Then, with doggy wisdom, he slowed down even more to walk sedately beside Grandpa.

      Grandpa didn’t even acknowledge him.

      But she knew something was really wrong when he walked past the television and went into his bedroom and shut the door, leaving both Pepper and her in the living room.

      Meredith tried to soothe Pepper. “Come on, boy. I really need you with me, and Grandpa wants time alone.” She spent the rest of the late afternoon and evening walking Grandpa’s land. She found the remnants of a tree house and an old shoe that had probably belonged to Zack. By the time she headed back to Grandpa’s, melancholy had set in. She’d started off looking for the wolf dog but, if she were honest, she’d ended up looking for Jimmy.

      She just wasn’t sure which Jimmy she was searching for, though: the idealistic boy from her youth or the man from yesterday who asked too many probing questions.

       CHAPTER SIX

      “DADDY, I REALLY need a Rainbow Loom,” Briana said Thursday morning as Jimmy drove her to school. “And not for Christmas. I have to get it before then.”

      He had no clue what a Rainbow Loom was. “You need it for school?”

      His daughter looked at him in disbelief. She’d been in school for just a couple of weeks and already she had a list of things a girl simply must have. He should have waited until after Christmas to enroll her.

      “No, it’s this thing that makes bracelets out of rubber bands. I could make you a bracelet, maybe a million, and in your favorite color. You could wear them to work. I could even, if I hurried, make one for Aunt Holly and the bridesmaids for her wedding.”

      “We’ll see,” he said.

      “The СКАЧАТЬ