Gift of Friends

Chapter Thirteen

Donna pushed her cup away. “If I drink any more coffee, I’ll float away. I can’t believe we’ve talked for two hours. Charlotte, you probably had other things you needed to do today other than sitting here, jibber-jabbering with me.”

The woman across from her grinned. “Honestly, Donna, now that poor Glen is in the memory care unit, I can afford this luxury. But you’re right. I do need to pick up a few groceries, and both Hoover and Nikki will have to go outside before too long.”

Charlotte reached for her purse, but Donna quickly nabbed their ticket. “My treat. You drove, I’ll pay. Hoover and Nikki?”

“Thank you, dear. You don’t need to buy my coffee, but I appreciate it.” Charlotte grinned. “Ah, yes, Hoover and Nikki. The dynamic duo. Nikki is Jackie’s border collie. I’m puppy-sitting for her while our daughters are off on their girls’ trip. And Hoover is the little dog Glen brought home a few years back, after a friend of his died suddenly and there was no one else to take her. She’s a quarter of Nikki’s size, but she more than makes up for it in attitude. I don’t know what I’d do without her. Do you have any pets?”

Donna shrugged, setting her small handbag next to their empty coffee cups. “No, but I surprised Lynette with a cat recently. I’d have been happy to watch Ebony, too, while Lynette is off with her friends, but she arranged for Annie Pierce’s son, Relic, to take care of the cat during the two weeks that she’ll be away, since he’s already mowing our grass. She must not trust me to look after Ebony. Which is ironic since the little stinker snuck out on her last week.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Don’t you hate it when your kid treats you like a feeble-minded old woman?”

“With a vengeance. But we better get going, or those dogs will make a mess on your carpet. We hate to prove our children right.” Donna stood and looped her handbag over her shoulder. She waved their ticket at Charlotte. “We should do this again sometime. Even two hours wasn’t enough time to catch up.”

“Maybe Patsy was on to something when she suggested we form our own little girls’ club, just like our daughters did when they were kids.”

Donna glanced back at the woman for a second, careful not to bump into a table on her way to the register at the front of the café. “I agree. Maybe we could even crash their little reunion at that lake resort. I hate to miss Lynette’s birthday. It’ll be the first time I’m not with her to celebrate.”

Charlotte caught up to her as she handed the ticket to the hostess. “You can’t be serious! Lynette is fifty years old. You two have never been apart for her birthday?”

Charlotte’s surprise reminded Donna just how lucky she was to have a relationship with her grown daughter that most mothers only dream of. “Fifty-one, but that’s right. This will be a first.”

Charlotte slowed and pulled to the curb in front of the stately old house that Donna and Lynette called home. As Donna opened the passenger-side door, she spied a young man jogging around the north corner of the house.

“There’s Annie’s youngest now,” Charlotte said. “Donna, I’ve always admired this house, but I’ve never been inside. We’d have loved to buy in this neighborhood, but we could never afford it on a principal’s salary. What is this style of architecture called?”

“Um, I believe the proper term is ‘American Foursquare.’ At least that’s what the handyman Lynette hired to help us with the crushingly long list of projects around here told us. Give me a minute, Charlotte,” she said, managing to climb out of the front seat without grunting, and slammed the door behind her. “Is everything all right, Relic? You look upset.”

Relic slid to a stop, still near the house, and pointed to the phone at his ear. She hadn’t realized he was talking to someone. She overheard him tell someone to hurry, then he stuffed the phone away and jogged across the lawn toward her.

“Hey, Mrs. Howe. Am I happy to see you!”

Donna opened her mouth to correct him, but snapped it shut just as quickly. She’d been no one’s wife, ever, but the boy wouldn’t care. “What is it? Are you having trouble starting the lawnmower? Lynette mentioned the starter might need to be replaced, but I don’t think she’s gotten around to it yet.”

He shook his head. “It’s too wet to mow. I stopped by to change the kitty litter and check the house. Dad told me to be sure to go down into the basement, given all the rain we’ve gotten. Good thing I did. Did you know there’s at least a couple inches of standing water down there?”

Donna gasped. “In the basement? Obviously I didn’t know there was water down there, child! Do you think I’d be out for coffee if I knew there was water down there?”

Relic took a step back.

A steadying hand dropped onto her shoulder. “Hello, Relic. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Jackie’s mom, Charlotte. Jackie is one of your mom’s good friends?”

Realizing Relic was only trying to help, Donna inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell,” she apologized. “You better show me. Thank you, Charlotte. We’ll take it from here. I know you need to get going.”

“Don’t be silly, Donna. I’m not leaving you with a mess on your hands. The dogs will be fine for another hour, and I can buy groceries tomorrow.” She turned her attention back to Relic. “Lead the way, young man.”

He nodded and turned back to the house. “I just called my dad. He’s on his way over to help, too.”

Donna had to hurry to keep up with him. “It’s Tuesday afternoon. Isn’t Henry at work?”

Relic nodded and reached for the door. “Yeah, but he said he could come anyway. I didn’t think I should tackle this by myself.”

Donna didn’t like the sound of that. The new sump pump must have failed.

The second Relic yanked the door open, a bundle of black fur streaked past them into the spent peony bushes lining the house’s foundation.

“Grab the cat!” Donna screamed.

Charlotte launched into action. Despite her ivory linen slacks, the woman dove in, sending stems and leaves rustling. Brown petals fluttered to the ground. One loud meow followed two quick grunts, then nothing.

Donna glanced frantically between a shocked Relic and Charlotte’s hunched back. It was all she could see of the woman in the bushes.

Then came a cackle. “I got you, you little minx,” Charlotte laughed, a note of triumph in her words. “I have her by her collar, but if you two don’t give me a little help here, she might try to scratch my eyes out!”

“Grab the crate,” Donna said, pointing at the portable cat transporter just inside the door.

Relic moved fast, but by the time he got to Charlotte, she’d straightened, ducking her head from side to side. It wasn’t the cat’s claws she was trying to avoid, but her tongue.

“Aren’t you a sweet little thing,” she cooed, petting the cat’s long black fur. “What’s your name?”

Relic dropped the small crate onto the grass, shaking his head at the pet Lynette had hired him to watch in her absence. “Ebony. You know, because her fur is so black? I think Lynette should have gotten to know her better before giving her a name. Licorice would have suited her better. She licks everything.”

“Thanks for catching her, Charlotte,” Donna said. She sighed with relief. “You surprised me. I don’t think I could have moved like that.”

Charlotte grinned as she handed the cat to Relic. “My little Hoover likes to sneak out once in a while, too. Let’s just say Ebony here isn’t the first animal I’ve had to snag from the bushes. Now, let’s go check that basement.”

“We’re going to need more than buckets and rags to clean this up,” Relic’s father said. “Do you ladies have a Shop-Vac around here?”

Donna sighed. She knew Henry was right, but they didn’t own one. The basement had three inches of standing water in it. Thankfully, Lynette had noticed a dampness on the basement floor when they’d first moved in, so they’d decided not to keep much down here. Instead, they’d used the attic for storage.

She’d need to walk down to their neighbor Owen’s house, a block over, to see if he was home so she could borrow his. Again.

This was yet another example of why she missed her old life in New York City. When you lived in an apartment in a high rise, water in a basement was never your concern.

“I’m sorry, Henry. We don’t. But we’ve borrowed one from our neighbor before, and he told us we could use it anytime. I’ll walk over there to talk to him. Lynette has his phone number, but I don’t.”

“I’ll come with you. If we can catch him, I’ll carry it back. Shop-Vacs are clunky,” Henry said. “Relic, go out to the garage and see if you can find a big broom. Maybe even a squeegee.”

Donna scanned the mess again. “Do you think I should call Lynette?”

Henry considered it, then shook his head. “It’ll just ruin the trip for her. Relic and I can help you clean this up. I’m glad you don’t store much down here. Do you use that washer and dryer over there?”

“No. The previous owners installed a new set in what used to be a butler’s pantry, off the kitchen.”

“That’s good,” Henry said. Donna could feel him looking more closely at her. “This isn’t as bad as it looks, Donna. Don’t worry.”

She straightened her spine. He was right. They could handle this. Lynette needed a break from household disasters.

Footsteps above reminded her that Charlotte was still upstairs, probably looking for the flashlight she’d sent her after just before Henry arrived. “Come on then,” she said, trudging back up the stairs. “Relic, if you find the items your father asked for before we get back, run upstairs and grab a pile of towels from the linen closet, too, please. The ones on the lowest shelf are meant to be used as rags.”

In the kitchen, she discovered Ebony, sitting on the chair that Lynette normally used, keeping an eye on the chaos. Charlotte was rooting around in the broom closet.

“Charlotte, we have to run over to see if we can borrow our neighbor’s Shop-Vac to suck up that water. Why don’t you go on home now? These two gentlemen will help me take care of this.”

Her friend glanced at her wristwatch, then ran her hands down the front of her pants. “I probably should do that. But promise me you’ll call if I can be of any help. And I expect a tour of this place the next time I come over. From what little I’ve seen, it’s as lovely as I’d imagined.”

Donna took a deep breath. “I promise. Thanks again for the fun afternoon. We’ll get together again soon, I promise.”

Donna covered the block between their home and her friendly neighbor’s as quickly as her seventy-two-year-old knees would allow. She hated to keep Henry away from his work any longer than necessary, though he’d assured her it wasn’t a problem.

When she turned into the driveway, Henry stopped. “Wait. Isn’t this Owen Jameson’s place?”

She nodded, not surprised that Henry would know Owen. Lynette had told her they’d all been friends when they were kids. But then she remembered Henry didn’t grow up around here. “How do you know Owen?”

“I don’t know him well, but I visited with him at Kit and Dean’s wedding. You know how those ladies can take forever when they start gabbing. We talked fishing after everyone else was gone, while we waited for the bride and her tribe to wrap things up.”

Donna laughed. “Sounds about right.” Unfortunately, she’d missed Kit’s wedding. “Those girls sure can talk.”

The whine of a saw cut into their conversation and Donna spied two vehicles up ahead in the driveway. “Good. Looks like we might have caught Owen at home.”

“Sounds like someone is working out back,” Henry said as they walked toward Owen’s house. He let out a low whistle when they came abreast of a shiny pickup truck. “Damn, nice truck. Owen’s?”

She laughed again. She knew nothing about trucks, but she had to agree. It was pretty. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen it before.”

Donna stopped to catch her breath. A man shouted something out back, followed by the sound of hammering.

Henry noticed her fatigue. “Stay here. I’ll go see if it’s him back there.”

She didn’t argue. Her right knee felt like someone was stabbing it with an ice pick. “If you don’t mind.”

The quick smile he shot her told her he didn’t, and he hurried around the corner, out of sight, much as his son had done when Donna first arrived home from her coffee date.

She turned her attention back to the handsome vehicle Henry had admired. Out-of-state plates, so it probably wasn’t Owen’s. Maybe it belonged to one of his two boys. If she remembered right, one was a young doctor. She wasn’t sure what the other did for a living. How much did a pickup truck like this even cost? Probably two or three times more than the Mini Cooper she’d splurged on. Her imagination took flight, dreaming up possible professions of someone that could afford a vehicle like that.

“Donna, I hear you have a little water problem over at the house.”

She spun toward the voice, disoriented for the briefest of moments when pulled so abruptly from her thoughts.

Owen strode toward her, a friendly smile on his face.

She noticed, again, what a handsome man he was. Why was it that some men got more attractive with age? She had even mentioned Owen to Lynette, to which her daughter only laughed, making some comment about his heart belonging to another. Donna assumed she was referring to Jackie, his old high school crush, and let it go. Her daughter was never receptive to her dating advice. Not that she could remember Lynette going out on a single date since they’d been back in Ruby Shores.

Henry and another man followed behind Owen.

“I don’t know that I’d call it a little problem, but Henry was kind enough to come over to help. I didn’t realize that the two of you know each other.”

Owen nodded. “Met him at that wedding your daughter and her friends talked me into letting them hold out on my land by the lake. Hard to believe that was almost two years ago now.” He turned toward Henry. “You ever follow up with that other guy about the fishing? Because we are having zero luck around here lately. What the heck was his name? Renee’s husband, I mean.”

“Matt,” Henry supplied. “And no, but it’s funny you should ask. Just last month I asked Annie to get his phone number for me from Renee, and she did, but then I forgot to give him a call.”

Donna noticed the other man was hanging back a bit. He wore dark sunglasses and a baseball hat pulled low. He was a large man, standing with legs apart and thick arms crossed over his chest. Owen wore a tank top, but the mystery man was in long sleeves, despite the August heat. While he didn’t fit the image of the wealthy investment banker Donna had conjured in her mind, her gut told her he was the owner of the fancy pickup truck.

Then she remembered Henry needed to get back to work, so she got down to business. “Any chance we can borrow that Shop-Vac of yours again, Owen? I hate to be a bother, but . . .”

Owen waved away her words. “You aren’t a bother, Donna. That’s what neighbors are for. All those years of city life must have made you forget that. Stay right here and I’ll go grab it.”

The man Owen hadn’t bothered to introduce held up one hand. “We can just drive my truck over. I’ve got an industrial-sized vacuum in the box already. I bought it to do some work out at my lake place.”

“Even better,” Owen said. “Let’s go.”

“I certainly don’t expect all of you to help with the water,” Donna protested. “I was just hoping to borrow your tools.”

Owen stepped around her and opened the back passenger door of the snazzy truck. “What kind of people would we be if we left all the hard work to you? Besides, we just finished up on my new deck and pergola out back and we were about to break for a beer. Got any cold beer in your fridge over there?”

Donna tried to remember if she had anything at the house to offer these men. Lynette didn’t like to keep much alcohol in the house and never drank beer, but Donna thought she might have picked up a case of it for the crew that fixed their roof earlier in the summer. Hopefully there were a few cans left.

“If I don’t have beer, there might be a bottle of red wine in the cupboard.”

The unnamed man shivered at her mention of wine.

Her primary concern at the moment was that Owen appeared to expect her to climb into the backseat of the monstrous truck. There were no running boards, and the odds of her gracefully reaching the seat were about zilch.

As if he’d realized Donna’s dilemma over climbing onto the backseat by herself, the owner of the truck gave Owen a light shove to move him out of the way, then placed one arm behind Donna’s back and the other at her knees. He scooped her up and deposited her on the black leather seat as if she weighed nothing at all.

“Th . . . thank you,” she stuttered, to which he simply grunted and slammed the door.

“Let’s go,” she heard him say to Owen and Henry.

Within two minutes, they were pulling into her driveway. The men talked fishing during the short drive over, and Donna noticed the driver was finally taking part in the conversation.

Before she could worry about how she’d get out of the truck without doing a face plant, Owen opened her door and offered her a hand down. “Can’t let him show me up,” he said with a wink.

This Shop-Vac was much larger than the one they’d previously borrowed from Owen, and within an hour, mere shadows of moisture remained on the basement floor.

The three men, plus Relic, joined Donna at the kitchen table. Ebony snubbed them when Relic set her on the floor, sashaying out of the room as if she had better things to do.

“Are you twenty-one yet?” Donna asked as she held a beer in Relic’s direction.

“Close enough?” he suggested, glancing between her and his father.

“He was a big help,” Donna said to Henry. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“Fine,” Henry conceded.

The driver of the pickup and supplier of the handy-sized vacuum crumpled his beer can and burped. Relic giggled.

“Jesus, Taran, did you inhale that thing? And where are your manners?” Owen chided.

Donna wondered again about the man Owen had finally introduced while they worked down in her basement, but she didn’t want to prod. One rude individual at the table was enough.

She could have sworn the man’s cheeks reddened at Owen’s reprimand. One side of his mouth twitched up in a grin. “Sorry, ma’am. Been a while since I enjoyed a refreshment in the presence of a lady.”

She somehow doubted he’d ever spent much time around ladies, but he hadn’t really offended her. Taran had been a big help. Before she could tell him she forgave him for his rudeness, he spoke again.

“Actually, Jameson, you aren’t the first person to scold me for belching in this kitchen.”

“You’ve been here before?” Donna asked, surprised. “Do you know my Lynette?”

The man took his dark glasses from where they hung from the neck of his shirt and slipped them back on before answering. “I was just a kid. Doubt I was even ten. The old lady who lived here used to feed me chocolate chip cookies and lemonade. I think I shoved a half a dozen of those delicacies down my throat at a time. I knew better than to burp at the table—my momma raised me right—but it slipped out. And do you know what she said?”

Everyone stared at the man with a mixture of amusement and confusion over this surprise admission.

“What did she say?” Relic asked, enjoying his seat at the table with the grown men.

“She said that was the best damn compliment I could have given her.”

Donna once again felt like the world was out of focus, but the feeling passed in a flash. She couldn’t have said what brought on the feeling. Relic dissolved into laughter and Owen popped the back of Taran’s ball cap up, knocking his sunglasses sideways.

“Watch it, man,” he growled, swatting Owen’s hand away.

Donna narrowed her eyes at the two men. “How long have you two known each other? You act like brothers, but I remember you saying you don’t have any, Owen.”

“Too damn long,” Taran said, getting to his feet.

Henry caught Donna’s eye and shrugged, as if to say he wasn’t sure what to make of Taran, either.

Everyone else rose, and the men headed for the backdoor.

“I wish there was some way other than beer that I could thank you for all the help,” Donna said, trailing behind them while also keeping a wary eye out for Ebony. She didn’t want the cat to sneak out again. But the feline seemed to have disappeared, hiding away in the bowels of the old house.

“Think nothing of it,” Owen said, holding the door so Donna could follow them out into the side yard. “Say, Henry, I’m serious about the fishing. Gage here has been complaining that there isn’t any decent fishing left in the state of Minnesota anymore, and he’ll be taking off again in a couple weeks, so I’d love to prove him wrong. What do you think about giving Renee’s husband a call? Maybe we could get something lined up.”

Henry nodded. “I think I’ll do that. Give me your number, and if I hear anything promising I’ll be in touch. Maybe we can carve out a couple days before you head out, Taran, and go drown a few worms.”

Donna watched as Henry and Owen exchanged numbers, and then all four drove off in the vehicles they’d arrived in. Their brief comments about a fishing trip reminded her of her earlier discussions with both Patsy and Charlotte about possibly organizing a little getaway sometime. How was it that men could so easily throw something like that together, while women got tangled up in the details?

She started back toward the house with a sigh, but remembered she hadn’t grabbed the mail that morning. Charlotte had arrived before the mailman. She smiled as she changed directions, heading for the front of the house and the pretty black mailbox attached to the house’s front gate. Lynette joked that the box, which sported an iron bird perched on the top, looked like something that belonged on a witch’s house.

“My girl’s imagination runs to the eclectic side,” she murmured, and a twinge of loneliness hit.

She noticed a thick envelope jutting out of the mailbox. Her smile morphed into a grimace when pain shot up from her knee again. Maybe she should go see that orthopedic doctor Lynette had been suggesting. But a visit to the doctor would have to wait, because she had an idea.

She just hoped her scheme wouldn’t get her into trouble.