Six

CAMILLA WANTED LIGHT Caribbean blue with magenta stenciling. Melanie had nothing against these colors, but she was having a difficult time applying them to the vintage maple armoire after she’d already refinished it once. She should have told the customer no, but Melanie had a hard time saying no to people. She had an even harder time refusing a paying commission.

Creating decorative pieces satisfied her artistic nature, but Melanie was quickly becoming acquainted with the downside of making art for money. Earlier in the day, Camilla Townsend came to see the armoire and give her approval before delivery. The woman ended up being a test of Melanie’s patience and fortitude. Not only had Melanie refinished, painted, and embellished the wardrobe in the colors Camilla picked, now she was asked to do it again. The shade of blue Mrs. Townsend first decided on didn’t come out the way she thought it would. The turquoise was too dark. Camilla insisted the armoire needed to be two shades lighter because it wouldn’t fit the decor in the room she planned to showcase the armoire in. Her bluntness about not owing Melanie any additional money for the extra hours of work had Melanie speechless. Thank goodness Melanie hadn’t discounted the job to begin with.

Yet, she stood in her workshop and agreed with her customer to make it perfect—again. Melanie wanted her side business to be a success. Coaching and giving swim lessons wasn’t the most lucrative job. She never wanted to rely on child support from her ex. Camilla turned out to be an enormous pain in the butt, but she had an enormous checkbook to go with it.

Melanie turned up the radio and set to work. After sanding off the magenta stenciling, Melanie realized she needed to sand the entire piece again. The patches would show through on the new lighter paint color. Freaking wonderful, she thought as she changed the sandpaper on her electric palm sander. Maybe she should refuse custom orders from now on. It would save her from experiencing another Camilla incident in the future. Melanie tried to focus on taking the paint layers down, but everything she wished she’d said to Camilla played on mental repeat.

Melanie’s hand slipped and a long groove streaked across the side panel.

“Fudge nuggets!”

She flipped off the sander and set it aside. Melanie pulled off her glove and ran her fingertips over the mark. “Shitake mushrooms!” she said through tight lips. The new scar went through the paint into the wood grain. Melanie shoulders sank. This meant more work for her to blend and smooth the wood. She closed her eyes and breathed. Why? she thought. Why this piece? Why had she fumbled? She never made mistakes like this.

Stepping back, Melanie tugged on her glove, picked up the sander, and attacked the project afresh. Letting a mistake defeat her didn’t help solve anything. If she had to redo the entire piece, then so be it. Lessons learned seemed to be on her agenda more often than not lately.

Sweat dripped down her temples. Dust clung to her hair, skin, and clothes. Her back itched like mad as the perspiration trickled down her spine, but she didn’t stop working. A cold drink would soothe her parched throat, but Melanie was determined to make herself suffer through this blasted project. Then Melanie could move onto the aspen wood nightstands she wanted to inlay with slate tiles.

Eight inches left to sand on the back of the piece came between her and taking a break for dinner. The sander hesitated, hiccupped, and jerked in her hand again. The resulting blemish on the wood wasn’t as bad as the first time it happened, but Melanie gaped at the slash mark.

“What is going on?!” She turned the palm sander off and dropped it on the workbench, frustrated and perplexed. Melanie ran her hand over the area and felt the gouge in the wood. Dang it! The power tool had never done this before today. The odd behavior was causing her extra work and time.

The heat of the day didn’t improve Melanie’s dismal attitude. She pushed sweat-dampened hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist then pulled her dust mask off. If she couldn’t trust her palm sander, then she couldn't continue using it. She would finish the last of the sanding by hand. And after she found a cold drink. Later when she had time, she would take a look at the sander and figure out if she could fix it or if she needed a new one.

The doors and windows were wide open, but a blue-tinged dust cloud hung motionless in the air. Melanie moved toward the driveway and fresh air. She strode past the end of the workbench and stared at the western horizon. The day had grown late. The sun hid below the treetops and the sky cast the sweet glow of twilight over her yard and the neighbor’s house. Melanie stepped on something hard. She glanced down and found the end of a carrot. Garbage trailed from a knocked over trashcan, across the floor, and out the garage door. Tweeny stood in the driveway holding a piece of trash in her mouth that was three-quarters the length of her body.

“Drop it!” Melanie ordered.

Tweeny bolted for the house. Melanie ran after her, determined to rescue the garbage from Tweeny before the dog swallowed it. God knew what the dog had already gotten into while she was consumed with her work. Melanie would count herself lucky if Tweeny didn’t need an emergency trip to the vet.

Melanie cut Tweeny off before she could escape through her most recent hole beneath the fence. Tweeny whirled and switch directions, heading back inside the garage for access to the inside of the house through the laundry and utility room.

Tweeny’s treasure must be valuable if the rotten dog was trying to hide it from her. She caught a glimpse of the contraband and saw it was an empty cereal bar box. For the love of Pete! she thought as she chased Tweeny into the workshop. The dog was stealing an empty box. Maybe she should let the dumb creature eat the paperboard. The stomachache would serve her right, but the vet bill wasn’t worth it.

“Tweeny! No!”

Melanie kept the laundry room door shut when working. Tweeny would be cornered as long as she didn’t slip past Melanie and run outside again. Tweeny saw the closed door and darted beneath the workbench in the back of the garage.

“You little trouble maker.” Melanie bent down to take the box away and Tweeny growled at her. Offended and surprised by the aggression, Melanie growled back. She couldn’t quite reach Tweeny and had to squat down and scoot forward. Tweeny saw an opportunity for escape in Melanie’s awkward slow movement and took advantage. Melanie wouldn’t be played by her daughter’s ridiculously naughty dog and she wanted this game of chase to end sooner rather than later. She jumped sideways and tried to snag the box from Tweeny’s jaws.

The dog jumped, crashed into the leg of Melanie’s portable work table, and a frustrating situation morphed into bedlam. Melanie’s table wobbled. Tweeny refused to let go of the cereal bar box. Melanie wouldn’t let go either. Tweeny’s hind quarters swung around and knocked into the already unstable table leg. Melanie tipped over and landed in the workshop dust on the floor. Extracting the box from Tweeny’s mouth held one hundred percent of her focus. She was vaguely aware of the table wobbling, but she had no conscious perception of what was on top of the table. That is, until her stencils, paintbrushes, and the small can of paint crashed to the floor. The paint can lid popped off upon impact against the concrete and an explosion of magenta shot across the garage. Of course, the splash of paint sprayed across the armoire.

Tweeny didn’t appreciate the shower of brushes and stencils raining down around her and she released the cereal bar box from sheer surprise.

“No!” Melanie cried out as she saw the splatters of magenta on the freshly sanded furniture. “You horrible dog!” she shrieked at Tweeny.

Melanie’s fist curled around the paperboard box as she climbed to her feet. The thin box crumpled under the force of her fury. Tweeny backed up, her eyes glued to her confiscated prize. The dog’s focus on the box instead of Melanie’s anger only infuriated her further. Melanie tossed the box onto the workbench, well out of reach of Tweeny, and rushed toward the cabinet that held cleaning rags and paint thinner. If she could wipe the paint off before it dried, it would save her more hassle.

Tweeny’s brainpower, or lack of it, never stopped amazing Melanie. The white dog backed up as Melanie dove for cleaning supplies. Tweeny stepped in the puddle of magenta paint.

“No, no, no…” Melanie said when she saw her dog standing in the paint.

With the change in the tone of her voice, Tweeny’s ears perked and she looked into Melanie’s desperate eyes. “Move! Don’t just stand there.”

Tweeny tilted her head and promptly sat. Why did the dog think “move” sounded like “sit”? Was the dog’s mental wiring tangled? Disconnected? Did she speak another language? German perhaps?

“Iche liebe dich!” Melanie scolded. The dog tilted her head the opposite direction. The phrase meant I love you in German and was the only German phrase she knew. Tweeny did not declare her love back to Melanie, so she tried another demand in English. “Get out of here!” Tweeny’s dog-to-English translation kicked in and she rose to her grand height of six inches. She trotted out of the workshop, snatching the chunk of discarded carrot off the floor on her way out. Melanie cringed at the trail of paw prints and groaned at Tweeny’s magenta backside. Melanie reached in the cabinet for a rag. Camilla’s furniture held priority over Tweeny’s unfortunate fur.

By the time she finished cleaning the armoire and the spilled paint, picked up the garbage—which for the life of her she couldn’t figure out how the dog managed to tip over a trashcan five times her height—Melanie was done with this day. She turned off the radio and closed the shop doors and windows. A glass of cherry juice and a snack was all she thought about before showering and crawling into bed.

She trudged inside and went straight for the refrigerator. Death Valley in July held more moisture than the back of her throat. She chugged juice straight from the bottle. If Sienna saw her now, she would never live it down, she thought. Drinking from the juice bottle was breaking a household rule. She knew it and didn’t stop. Perhaps an inner rebel lived inside her yet. No, she answered herself, she was just parched. Melanie lowered the bottle from her lips, shut the fridge door, and turned around. Tweeny lay in her dog bed, licking her paw.

Melanie’s gaze traveled from Tweeny to the dog door. Spots of magenta decorated her floor, but it was nowhere near as bad as the workshop. She didn’t have the mental fortitude to continue scrubbing paint off the floor tonight. Tweeny, on the other hand, couldn’t be allowed to eat paint; zero volatile organic compounds or not. Melanie set the juice down and scooped Tweeny out of her bed for a dog bath. Neither the washer or the washee appreciated the experience.

Dog hair, dog soap, and smears of paint decorated Melanie from head to toes by the time she finished. Tweeny was no longer white. Most of the magenta paint washed out of the fur, but it also saturated the bath water. All but Tweeny's head was a pleasant shade of Easter egg pink and her backside remained a shade darker. Thankful she didn’t have to hear Sienna’s comments about Tweeny’s new look, Melanie stepped outside and breathed in a lungful of mountain air. The temperature outside held the unseasonably warm heat of the day. Sticky and uncomfortable, the added doggie bathwater accentuated her desire to shower.

Tweeny darted out the dog door and went straight for the nearest patch of dirt. The entire backyard was covered with raw patches of earth from Tweeny’s insatiable need to dig. Melanie wanted to scream at her for taking a dirt bath, but refrained. If the dirt helped remove the pink tint to her fur, then rolling in dirt was welcome. Melanie headed toward the dock instead of going back inside. After the blistering hot day, the house was stuffier than a sauna. Melanie needed a break from reality and a swim would cure her.

Melanie walked across the wood planks of the dock and stopped at the edge. The lake was liquid glass, still and calm. Not a single breeze rippled the surface. It was a rare sight that helped calm Melanie’s scattered mind. To the west, the glow of the distant city lights was crowned by a steel blue sky. A sprinkling of stars were beginning to appear as evening settled into night. She glanced over at Braden’s house. The lights remained dark. It’d been a couple of days without any sign of life next door. A pang of regret tightened her throat that she hadn’t reconnected with Braden. Would they come back? She wouldn’t want to insert herself where she wasn’t wanted. She and Alana would never get along as friends. It had to be for the best that he didn’t recognize her. Maybe Braden hadn't spoken to her on purpose. The awkwardness if Alana found out that she and Braden were each other’s firsts could make things unbearable for everyone.

Melanie stared at her other neighbor’s house. The trees between the properties created an effective privacy screen. She couldn’t see anything except part of the roof line. No glow of interior lights shined through the branches and silence greeted her. No one was around. Her fingers moved to the button on her shorts. Melanie hadn’t skinny dipped since she was in high school. One time and one time only. The memory was a keepsake. She and Braden, alone and in love. They hiked three miles and decided to go swimming in a small lake—without clothes. He turned his back and let her enter the water. She turned her back for him. The day had been hot like today. The kisses they shared remained imprinted on her forever. They were full of longing and lust. Time always stopped and nothing mattered except Braden.

Dylan never kissed her that way. The opportunity to swim and make out with her husband in any body of water never presented itself in all the years they were married. Ponds and lakes in Ohio weren’t as inviting as they were in the mountains. Being a mom absorbed her life to the point of forgetting everything that used to inspire her. Only in the last couple of years had Melanie began to realize how much she had forgotten who she was. When she started remembering, she realized she and Dylan had little in common anymore, other than Sienna. Now that the divorce rested fully in her past, she knew without a doubt she didn’t love Dylan and hadn’t for a long time, if ever. She wouldn’t feel sad about the years she spent with him. Her life hadn’t been bad. Dylan loved Sienna and he was a supportive provider for his family.

Melanie unlaced her boots and pulled them off. She unzipped her shorts. Going back inside for her swimsuit defeated the point of being spontaneous. Wasn’t she attempting to avoid the house and everything in it that reminded her of being a responsible adult? The shorts landed on the dock. She stripped off her tank top and dove into the water.

The thought that her underwear wouldn’t remain around her hips never crossed her mind until they rolled down to her knees. Melanie reached for the escaping undergarment as she came up for air. She planned to practice her usual routine of swimming out to the middle of the lake and back and couldn’t hold her underwear in place with one hand while swimming. Frustrated and convinced this day was determined to knock her down, she slipped off her underwear and flung them onto the dock. They landed with a splat next to her clothes. The lack of coverage wouldn’t deter her from succeeding at one important thing today. She would bare-ass it across the lake. If Alana could let everything hang out, she could at least go halfway.

The crisp lake water streamed over her overheated body and washed away the dog hair and shop dust. Melanie’s muscles lengthened and warmed with each stroke. Before she knew it, she reached the middle of the lake and stopped. Rather than return immediately to the dock, she rolled over, lifted her hips and floated on her back. The stars had brightened and a sliver of moon rose over the mountain ridge to the east. Her heart beat steady and strong. The increase of endorphins worked wonders on improving her mood. Melanie turned over before her heart rate lowered to a resting pace. She wanted to maximize her efforts for optimal results. The coach in her couldn’t be turned off, no matter that it was night and she already worked out in the morning.

The swim back gave her the needed time to organize the rest of her night. She would go inside, open up the windows, and start the fans to air out the stifling house. Then she would eat a small dinner, shower, and climb into bed. With her thoughts in order and her body relaxed, she placed her palms on the side of the dock and pushed herself out of the water.

Fully aware of her bare bottom and the increasing moonlight over the lake, Melanie searched for her clothes, but they were gone. Panic quickened her pulse. Then she noticed what had to be her tank top crumpled near the other end of the dock. Melanie glanced in every direction as she tiptoed toward her shirt. How? Who? she thought next. Caught between being frozen with fear and wanting to make a mad dash for the house, she bent down to retrieve the displaced shirt.

A male voice to her right said, “The dog stole your clothes.”

Startled beyond words, Melanie screamed and jumped out of her skin. Her ankle turned over and she screamed a second time from the unnatural angle of her joints and the consequential pain. She stumbled and her right foot tried to recover her lost balance, but only found empty airspace. Melanie stepped off the side of the dock and reentered the water with the grace of a terrified chicken, arms flapping like wings and her voice squawking injustice.

She knew she was going into the water, but the trip there wasn’t anything like she’d experienced before. Melanie’s reflexes kicked in and instead of crashing into the water, she first landed on her knee, then tipped over sideways, scraping her hip against the dock before spectacularly flailing into the lake. She didn’t panic, exactly. The thought of some psycho nearby frightened her much more than drowning, and her hip stung worse than her ankle.

Melanie found her bearings as the psycho jumped into the water next to her.

“Hold still. I got you,” he said. “You’re okay.”

A strong arm wrapped around her chest in a life saving hold. Melanie fought and kicked, but it made no difference against his strength. They were close to the shore and she found herself being lifted against his chest and carried out of the water.

Her voice finally caught up with her panic. “Let go of me!”

He clung to her tighter. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Put me down! I’m fine.” She was suddenly aware of his bare chest and the heat of his body warming her bare skin.

“If you’re sure,” he said.

As he waded toward the bank, she caught his profile in the silver moonlight. Strong brow, angled jaw, straight nose. He had little hair, like a buzz cut, and streams of lake water poured down his face.

“I’m sure,” she said with her most stern coaching voice. She knew her highest level of stern sounded more like flustered and scared, but it was all she currently had to work with.

He lowered her slowly from his arms in the knee-deep shallows. Her body slid down the length of him and he kept one arm secure around her as she regained her feet. Finding the lake bottom took a surreal length of time. How tall was this man?

Her feet dipped into the water and found the lake bottom. He continued to provide support by holding her upper arm. That may have been a good move on his part since her ankle and hip hurt, but she shirked out of his grip and promptly shielded her lady parts.

His profile had been etched into her mind at the age of seventeen. It could be none other. “Braden?” she asked.

He stilled. She watched him stiffen and move a step back.

“Do I know you?” he asked, a cold menacing tone to his question.

Awkward much? She was naked and he was paranoid. Melanie’s embarrassment trumped anything else happening in the moment. Her clothes were still missing, but her tank top thankfully still lay on the dock. At least she could cover up her chest with it. She’d never been so thankful for a bra in her life. With hands plastered over her lower half, she darted to retrieve her shirt. Of course it sat in a pool of moonlight. For crying out loud, she thought. This day belonged in the Humiliating Chronicles of Melanie Jamison. She’d never pen such a disastrous tale, but if there was such a thing as a diary of life, today would have frowny faces and black stars on it.

“What’s your name?”

“What did you do with my clothes?” she asked, as she slipped on her shirt. Braden began making a wide berth around her in the direction of his house.

She heard his huff of contempt or surprise before answering. “Not me. The little dog.” He lifted a hand and pointed into her yard.

Melanie squinted into the night. She thought she saw Tweeny’s ghostly shape in the moonlight. She’d seen Tweeny digging holes in the yard before and could tell, even with the lack of light, her dog tearing up the yard. Except this time, Tweeny had something that resembled fabric in her mouth.

“Urgg!” Melanie groaned.

“He stole your undergarments first. Then came back for the rest.” Braden stood a respectful distance from Melanie and faced the house next door.

Memories of their high school skinny dipping adventure brought a shiver to her exposed skin. Fine hairs rose over her arms and a swirling pool of warmth coiled in her abdomen. Ugh. Now was not the time for a stroll down memory lane. What was the matter with her?

“Tweeny is a girl,” she corrected.

“Nice dog. Does she always steal underwear? I’m only asking so I don’t leave my laundry out.”

“Yes,” Melanie growled through her teeth.

“Well, that’s—” He didn’t finish the thought.

What did one say about panty-stealing mutts? Melanie thought. The awkward was beginning to become its own entity. She stepped in the direction of the house, but the moonlight was even brighter in her yard. At least by the water there were patches of shade from the pines and spruces that kept her naked butt from glowing like a full moon.

“I’m sorry I startled you. That wasn’t my intention. I saw you looking for your clothes and thought you might want to take them back from the dog.”

Melanie glanced at her neighbor who kept his eyes politely to himself. He had filled in—a lot—since high school. “Why are you in swimming trunks?” she asked accusingly. She couldn’t help but wonder if he followed her. She would swear there wasn’t anyone around when she’d dove into the water.

“Why are you in nothing but your top? If I were offended, you could be ticketed for indecency in public.”

Melanie was taken aback. This was rich considering what she watched him and Alana doing on the deck—in broad daylight. He continued before she remarked about it.

“Not that I mind, but the Millers two houses down aren’t the friendliest of neighbors, or they didn’t use to be.”

“Why do you remember them?” she asked, incredulous. Why would he mention the old couple down the street and yet not remember her? Was he brain damaged? Did he join the Coast Guard like he wanted to all those years ago and suffer a closed head injury. That would explain a lot. “And what happened to your hair?” When she saw him a few days ago, his hair was long enough to cover his ears. The shaggy appearance didn’t suit him, in her opinion. It only enhanced the idea that he was a stranger to her now. His current shorter style reminded her of the Braden she remembered.

A brief pause sat between them. An owl hooted from some distant trees. Melanie heard Tweeny’s scratching in the dirt. She imagined what her ruined underwear looked like. Braden ran a hand over his head.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

She felt his gaze on her. A ripping sound came from Tweeny’s direction. “I have to go,” she said. The amount of anger and hurt in her voice that he didn’t know who she was surprised her. He disappeared from her life with no goodbye. The emotional devastation still resided inside her, even though she thought she had gotten over it. Over him. Life and motherhood had a way of erasing the past, but now the past stood too near to her for comfort.

Melanie took the bullet of embarrassment and darted across the yard, her bare bum glowing in the night. She scooped Tweeny up, the remnants of her underwear hanging from the dog’s teeth, and ran inside.

Sleep was impossible. She lay in bed and every memory of Braden and their hours of conversation, meeting for lunch during their senior year, hiking, swimming, holding hands, stolen kisses, and broken promises plagued her. By the time she reviewed each memory and decided that he broke her heart beyond repair, the sun had circled around the globe and was reappearing. At age eighteen, Braden meant more than the world to her. She mistakenly thought she meant more to him than she did. He vanished just before she left for college. No word, no phone call, nothing. She never thought returning to Granite Lake would bring him back into her life. Never. Now he was here and didn’t even remember her. Should she demand answers? Did the truth really set people free? What if the answers were worse than the assumptions she made? Could she handle a coldhearted dismissal? She knew she could. What already happened to split them up was the worst thing she’d ever endured. Anything he said wouldn’t compare to the desperate heartache she lived through when he ditched her.