11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

C leo could fully admit that she’d never been in the throes of love herself. She’d met Jameson five years ago at a mutual friend’s party. He’d been flirting with her friend Violet by the pool half the night, and Cleo thought he was a bit annoying. When Violet pushed him into the pool, he retaliated by hopping out and trying to pull her in with him. Violet grabbed onto Cleo to resist getting sucked over the side, dragging Cleo across the pavement in the process. Cleo ended up in the deep end with a magnificent splash and bloody legs. Angry, wet, and cut up, she was furious with Violet and Jameson.

He spent the rest of the night attempting to atone for his mistake by following her around, catering to her every need. What she really needed was for him to leave her alone, but like gum to a shoe, he stuck to her for hours. It got only marginally better after that.

So even though she’d never fallen in love herself, she was fairly certain the scene that met them at Dale’s was not what it was supposed to look like. Clark and Cleo could hear raised voices from the driveway. Cautiously opening the front door, they spied Dottie holding a frying pan behind her head like a baseball bat, Dale across the kitchen with a cookie sheet shield protecting his face.

“Dottie, be reasonable,” he pled.

“Now, when have you ever known me to be reasonable?” she bellowed.

Cleo’s eyes were likely as wide as Clark’s as their stares met in the entryway.

“Fair enough. But I’m asking you right now to try to be reasonable.”

“I’ll be reasonable when you stop acting like a lunatic!”

“Dottie, I only wanted to–”

“I know what you wanted to do, Dale Shepherd, and it’s wrong! Wrong, I tell you!”

Cleo’s gut squirmed and she wondered for half a second if she’d been insane to leave Dottie at Dale’s, alone and helpless. Had he tried to take advantage of her? That seemed so unlike this gentle, quiet man, but what did Cleo know? She’d only met the guy last night. So what had happened while they were gone?

“Please, Dottie, if you’d just set the frying pan down so we can discuss this like adults–,” Dale peeked his head out from behind the sheet to see a pancake flying at him. He ducked behind the sheet once more and the pancake bounced harmlessly off it. She chucked another one at him, this one missing by three feet.

Cleo felt it was time to intervene. “Dottie, put the pancakes down!” Two pairs of eyes turned in her direction. Likely neither attacker nor attackee had noticed that Clark or Cleo had joined them. Dottie obediently set the pancakes back down, glared at Cleo, and stormed off to her room. Clark and Cleo gaped helplessly at each other before Cleo followed her.

Letting herself in, Cleo found Dottie shoving her things into her luggage, muttering curses under her breath.

“I knew we shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“What is going on?” Cleo asked. Dottie spun around and planted fists on her ample hips.

“You! You and your hair-brained idea to have us talk!” Dottie pointed an accusing finger at Cleo’s face. “If you hadn’t meddled, none of this woulda happened! I’m gonna snatch you bald-headed for this.” She continued to round up her clothes and toiletries and stuff them into her bag, zipping it closed before her things were all the way in. She had to start again, and when it still didn’t close, she picked it up and carried it out of the room anyway.

“Dottie, please tell me what happened.” Cleo followed Dottie out of the house, down the porch steps, to the driveway where Dottie parked herself on the curb, presumably to wait for the new rental car to arrive.

Dottie sealed her lips shut and turned away. Cleo moved to sit by Dottie, but a death glare sent her packing. She retreated to the house to gather her own things. Finding a flustered-looking Dale putting away the rest of breakfast, she joined him. The water in the sink was cold and not soapy, so Cleo refilled it, adding dish soap as she’d seen people do on TV shows. She’d never actually scrubbed dishes clean like this before, but she’d admit that only under oath.

Clark stepped to her side and took the first clean dish from her hand, drying it with a towel and depositing it in the drainer by the sink. “What in Hades do you think happened here while we were gone?” he asked quietly. Cleo shrugged. She wasn’t sure they’d know anything unless they got Dale to talk, because Dottie was closed up as tight as a donut shop at 8 pm.

Cleo handed Clark a soapy mug. Their fingers brushed when he took it from her. Her eyes shot to his face as a tingle spread all the way up her arm. What was that? He glanced down at his hand like he’d felt something, too. When he looked at her again, Clark shifted to fully face her and opened his mouth, drawing in a deep breath. He held her gaze for a beat, his brown eyes searching hers like he was trying to solve a puzzle. But then he studied her hand and his brows pulled down. He closed his mouth, his words swallowed. Turning back to the sink, he began rinsing and drying the mug, and Cleo wanted to snatch it back from his grip like the words he’d been about to say. Disappointment sat stale in her belly.

Dale had disappeared sometime during their work. Cleo and Clark made a pile of their sheets by the couches where they’d slept and gathered their things by the door.

A car pulled up outside but Dottie made no move to talk to the driver. Clark went out while Cleo went searching for Dale. She found him in the backyard, staring out at some lovely hydrangea bushes.

“Dale?” When he didn’t respond she called his name again, and this time he did face her.

“Are y’all off, then?” he asked, falsely cheerful.

“The rental car has arrived,” she confirmed. “We can’t thank you enough for helping us last night.” Dale’s gaze dropped as he scuffed one toe against the brick.

“It was nothin’.”

“It wasn’t nothing, and we won’t ever forget your kindness.” Dale pivoted again to face the bushes. He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly.

“Hydrangeas were her favorite.”

Cleo wasn’t sure who her was. Was he speaking of his wife, or Dottie? Where was his wife? Cleo was about to ask when Clark said her name from the house. “All ready to go?” he asked. Cleo nodded, and Clark expressed his gratitude to Dale as the three of them went inside. Dale walked them to the door but didn’t come outside. It was probably for the best. Cleo worried it would send Dottie into hysterics if she saw him again.

Clark drove while Dottie sulked in the backseat. It was a tense hour ride to Dottie’s house, filled only with small talk between Clark and Cleo until they were close enough that Dottie had to give Clark instructions to her house.

Exiting the highway to a quaint town’s streets, they quickly ran out of paved roads and found themselves on country lanes, bumping along past fields full of plants Cleo couldn’t name. She was enchanted by everything, from the occasional cows they passed to all the yellow and white she saw. Could that be cotton, she wondered? It was like a movie.

When Dottie directed Clark onto an even smaller dirt lane, it became clear that a tractor had cut deep grooves in the road long ago that a car’s tracks were never going to smooth out. Clark navigated carefully, but it was a bumpy ride.

“There they are!” Dottie breathed out the words on a sigh, the first thing she’d said all day that evoked contentment. Not that she’d sounded very content at any other point on their trip, but this sounded like coming home. Cleo wondered if she’d ever felt that way about any of the homes her father had.

Before the car had even stopped, Dottie leapt from the backseat and began racing toward small specks in the distance that were slowly growing larger. “Those must be the girls,” Clark commented. “I’d best not hit one.”

He put the car in park when they finally reached a house that was covered in trellises of climbing flowers. Cleo thought she spied white wood underneath, but there was such an eruption of color from all the flowers blooming up the sides that she couldn’t be certain. It was not the run-down, ramshackle ranch house Cleo had envisioned when Dottie had spoken of it; rather, it was the most charming home Cleo had ever seen.

“This is lovely,” she murmured. Dottie embraced each of her chickens, though it seemed to Cleo the love was a bit one-sided. They squawked until she put them down and then ran circles around the newcomers. There was a small, white windmill circling in the distance. Giant sprinklers watered the plants in the fields behind the house, and perfectly picturesque rolling hills rose up in the distance. The breeze carried a smell Cleo couldn’t identify, but if she could bottle it up, it would say “clean” on the label. If Cleo and her friends had ever planned a getaway to a “quaint little house in the country,” this would’ve been the house they’d have picked.

“Come on inside and try my buttermilk and biscuits.” Dottie waved them toward her home. Anxious to make it to Texas, Cleo hadn’t wanted to stay, but she couldn’t possibly say no now. She desperately wanted to explore every inch of Dottie’s ranch.

Clark took off his aviators as he ascended the steps in front of Cleo. She tried not to ogle his backside when it was at eye level, but he did put it right in front of her! And it was a great backside, one of the best she’d seen, if she were honest. Dottie smirked at her from where she was holding the door open for her guests, and Cleo looked away, her cheeks flaming.

When Cleo passed through the doorway, Dottie said, “Got some pretty good views here, eh?” Then she roared with laughter at her snarky comment. Clark’s eyebrow twitched upward, but Cleo refused to make eye contact or let him in on the joke.

“Welcome to the Black-Eyed Susan,” Dottie declared, coming in behind them.