Let Loose (2 page)

“The Silver Trail?” I knew about the sled dog
race in part because Betty, my part-time employee, had entered
their poster contest every year for the past twenty years. She had
also, for the past twenty years, lost.

“It usually starts in Lincoln, but the trail
got washed out a few weeks ago, so they’re relocating it.”

“To here?” I glanced around. My little town
had at one time been a booming mining community. Now only about
twenty of us called it home year-round. Visitors were usually
limited to log trucks and the occasional tourist who overshot the
campground a couple of miles up the road. The campground I assumed
he and his dogs must be staying at.

“Starting at the campground, actually, but
we’ll be going right through there.” He pointed across the road and
past the creek where an old railroad trail lay.

I rose on my toes as if doing so would give
me a view of this yet-to-come event. “Really? I hadn’t heard
that.”

“The route hasn’t been officially announced
yet. We’re doing it at the fund-raiser.” He pointed at the tickets
I held.

“Oh.” I grasped the slips of paper tighter.
Finally a do-good opportunity I could embrace. “Do you need
volunteers?” No more crotchety old people or cheese-saturated
garbage for me.

“Always.”

As he climbed over my fence and slipped into
his skis, I planned my attack. First, I’d tell Betty I’d gotten
tickets to the event. My show of support for her twenty-first
effort at the poster contest would surely buy me something. Then
I’d slide the news to Phyllis that my time serving seniors and
bagging trash was done. And finally, I’d bring the grand news of
the race to my little town itself.

Ding, ding, ding, three wins, all from one
little roll down a hill.

My day had suddenly taken a giant turn to the
good.

o0o

Two days later, it had warmed up to a balmy
minus 5. I popped some pain killers, loaded Kiska into the Jeep,
and headed to my antique shop, Dusty Deals.

I’d owned the place for a few years, after
getting a little money in an inheritance and leaving my job as a
reporter for
The Helena Daily News
. I even occasionally
turned a profit, more so since Phyllis Cox had declared herself my
partner. Phyllis was an ex-Texan and an ongoing blessing and pain.
As was my part-time employee Betty Broward. Honestly, the two of
them made as many decisions about the shop as I did, mainly because
after watching the two of them battle any choices out, I had no
energy to take on the winner.

I walked inside to find both Phyllis and
Betty already there. Normally this would be cause to feign some
pressing engagement that would take me right back out as quickly as
I’d entered, but today I was happy to have them both present for my
race news.

I pulled the tickets out of my pocket and
waved them in the air. “Guess what I have?”

Betty cocked one hip against a Victorian
washstand and waited.

Phyllis, completely ignoring my question,
shook her head and placed her hands on her hips. “A ruined
reputation. Ethel Monroe expected you to drive her to the
ophthalmologist yesterday.”

I lowered my hand. “It was Sunday. The
ophthalmologist wasn’t open.”

“Doesn’t matter. Ethel was expecting
you.”

“But I never told anyone—”

“Do you know who Ethel is?”

Obviously, I didn’t. I glanced at Betty for
support, but the look on her face gave me zero reassurance.

“Only the biggest donor to the Historical
Museum of all time. She knows everybody who is anybody in western
Montana.”

Being a big fat nobody, it was obvious why I
wasn’t acquainted with the lady.

Phyllis, however, wasn’t finished talking.
“She’s also on the Humane Society board, a founding member of
Montana Mommas, past president of the Lloyd Monroe Performing Arts
Center...” She ticked off on her fingers Ethel’s many
accomplishments as she talked. “And...” She drew in a big breath
and looked at Betty. In unison they said, “The originator of the
Helena Jazz Festival.”

“She is,” Phyllis finished. “Everything we
want you to be.”

The level of maternal disappointment in her
eyes was so intense I fought to keep from hanging my head in
shame.

Instead, I pulled in a breath and declared,
“I’ve never heard of her.” I’d lived in Helena longer than Phyllis.
If this Ethel was that important, I would have heard of her.

Both women stared at me in shock.

Or not.

I had, it appeared, just proven Phyllis’
belief that I was sorely lacking in all things civic and public
relations oriented.

Looking, if possible, less tolerant than
ever, she spun her diamond embellished watch around to the front of
her wrist. “You have half an hour to get to the retirement home to
pick Ethel up and drive her to the hair salon.”

“But...” I held out the tickets.

Phyllis plucked them from my hand and
frowned. “It’s a nice gesture, but I don’t know. Does the Humane
Society support this?”

The Humane...
I glanced around,
guilt washing over me more from habit than any real knowledge of
the group’s stance on sled dog races.

Betty, unencumbered by the perpetual guilt
that I seemed incapable of shedding, crossed her arms over her
chest and narrowed her eyes. “Those dogs love to run. Taking that
away from them would be like taking wind from Everett. It’s what
they are.”

Everett was Betty’s trumpet-playing
husband.

She stepped closer to Phyllis. “I didn’t hear
you shaking your feathers when Stanley sponsored that steer
wrestler in the rodeo circuit.”

Phyllis might be more city than country, but
as a proud Texan, she still respected rodeo as the sport of true
Americans.

She made a hmphing noise and crossed her arms
over her chest.

The chill that settled over the shop would
have given a polar bear frostbite.

I rescued my tickets from Phyllis’ rigid
fingers and shoved them into my messenger bag.

“Well, then, maybe I’ll be...” I stepped
backward, careful not to disturb the tenuous silence, and kept
going until the back door was safely closed behind me.

o0o

In the retirement home parking lot, I pulled
out my phone and dialed Peter Blake. Kiska, who had followed me
during my exit from Dusty Deals, ran his nose over the window,
leaving dog-nose-shaped streaks.

I shook my head and focused on my call.

The police detective and I had been dating
for going on a year. Things had been getting progressively more
serious. He’d even offered to let me stay with him this coming
summer when my parents planned a visit, also known as the upcoming
invasion of my life and home.

But for the last month, he’d been working
some statewide case that seemed to take him out of town more than
it kept him in.

The phone rang five times before he
answered.

“Blake.”

The gruffness of his tone told me this wasn’t
a good time, but there didn’t seem to be a good time, at least not
lately. So I put a smile in my voice and chirped out the good news
of my fund-raising ticket score.

His voice softened. “Sorry, Lucy, I can’t. I
have to be in Great Falls in three hours, and I won’t be back until
the weekend.”

I tamped down my disappointment and focused,
remembering that he was serving the greater good, whatever that
meant. “This weekend?” I asked, keeping the chipper thing going as
much as I could.

“Yeah, maybe we can go for a drive or
something.”

His voice lowered on the
something
and my heart and few other of my pertinent parts purred.

“I’d like that,” I murmured, releasing the
purr in what I hoped was a sexy don’t-forget-me way.

“Are you catching something? George has been
out for a week. There’s definitely something going around.”

I cleared my throat and sat up straighter in
my seat. Kiska, apparently sensing my humiliation, moved his nose
from the window to my throat and inhaled loudly.

“That really doesn’t sound good,” Peter
added.

I put my hand on Kiska’s face and shoved him
into the back seat. “I’m fine. Maybe we could—”

“Sorry, Lucy, I have to go. The detective
from Bozeman just arrived. We have some people to talk to here
before we head out.”

I scowled and stared at my dog, who seemed
completely unconcerned with the dive my love life seemed to be
taking.

“Lucy? Are you there?”

“Yes.” My purr seemed to have changed to a
growl.

Peter’s voice lowered again, this time into a
soothing apology. “I’m sorry I’ve had to cancel so much. You know I
wouldn’t if... You know I
want
to see you, right?”

“I guess.” I stared out the window and
wallowed in some well-deserved self-pity.

“Take Rhonda to the fund-raiser. You know
you’ll have more fun with her anyway, and I promise I’ll see you
Friday... Saturday at the latest.”

Peter didn’t make promises. Peter didn’t even
talk this much at one time unless he was admonishing me for
something I’d done that he deemed... frivolous. And his tone was
apologetic. It really was impossible not to forgive him.

“Okay.” I purred again.

“Good. Sorry. Have to go.”

A dial tone buzzed in my ear.

I muttered a curse and clicked “end call” on
my phone. My fingers wrapped tightly around the Jeep’s steering
wheel, I stared out the windshield at the snow-covered parking
lot.

I was still sitting there, staring, when a
loud rap on the driver’s side window sent me shooting upright.

“Are you Lucy?” A porcelain doll of an older
woman smacked a carved wooden cane against my window. My discerning
eye couldn’t help but notice the age - mid-1800’s, wood - walnut by
my best guess, and an ornate handle shaped like the head of some
kind of sharp-nosed dog.

I rolled down my window. “Wolf?” I asked,
still eyeing the cane. Wolf items flew out of my shop, especially
during tourist season.

Her pink baby doll lips pursed. “Coyote.”

Hmmm. I settled back against my seat. Coyotes
just didn’t have the universal appeal that wolves did.

She raised her brow and tilted her head,
giving her an unsettlingly innocent look for someone who had to be
post-eighty.

Kiska shoved his way past me to push his
entire head out the window.

“Are you my ride?”

With a side of malamute pressed up against my
face, I couldn’t see her expression; her tone sounded calm, but I
had to imagine that my dog, friendly though he was, might be
somewhat intimidating to someone of her size and most assuredly
frailty.

“Back!” she barked.

Kiska jerked his head into the Jeep and
floundered into the seat beside me, where he sat looking almost as
stunned as I felt.

I turned to look at the woman I’d classified
as frail. The coyote head of her cane bobbed next to her cornflower
blue eyes.

“My second husband had a team. None of them
were as big as him.” She eyed Kiska, who hadn’t completely
recovered from his brush with authority. He stared studiously out
the passenger side window, refusing to acknowledge either the
porcelain doll turned drill sergeant or his loving owner.

“But they were just as stubborn.” She lowered
her cane to the ground and tapped one finger on the coyote’s head.
“Northern breeds. They’re all the same.”

Then with one last assessing gaze at my dog,
she teetered around the front of the Jeep and yanked open the
passenger door. Kiska, with no urging from me, scrambled into the
back.

It all happened so fast, I completely missed
my opportunity to be the caring polite Girl Scout my mother and
Phyllis dreamed of me being. I turned toward my door, wondering if
it was too late to do some scurrying of my own and at least close
the door behind my elderly but speedy passenger.

She jerked the door shut, ending my
indecision.

“My appointment’s in ten minutes. I hope this
rig moves fast.” She tapped the cane against the floor board in
three decisive raps.

When I made no move to start the vehicle, she
tapped again, but this time with the coyote head against the
steering wheel. “Drive,” she demanded.

And I did. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure where
I was going, but Ethel, as I was ordered to call her, did.

A few minutes later, we stopped in front of a
house with a pickup truck connected to a trailer carrying two
snowmobiles parked in front.

“Kitchen sink wash and set,” Ethel announced,
shoving open her door and sliding out into the snow. “Carol
Kennedy’s been doing my hair for fifty years.” She muttered the
last as she stomped and struggled through two plus feet of snow
that had been plowed up along the edges of the driveway.

A little more alert this time, I hopped out
of the Jeep, leaving Kiska to snooze inside, and hurried over to
help her.

Stuck knee-deep in the snow, she grabbed hold
of my offered arm and let me tug her out of the bank and up onto
the sidewalk.

Huffing and puffing, I bent over and wondered
how someone so small could weigh so much. My back shrieked. I
pressed a hand to it and gritted my teeth against the pain. After
the count of ten, the pain subsided, at least enough that I was
able to open my eyes and see my octogenarian Peter Pan bending
nimbly at the waist to pick something up off the ground.

“You dropped something. Oh... tickets.”

Remembering Phyllis’s’ concerns about the
Humane Society and the race, I flushed, but then I remembered
Ethel’s remark about her second husband and relaxed a bit. “It’s a
fund-raiser,” I said, virtuously as I could.

Ethel nodded. “I’ve heard of it. Kind of
fancy.” She narrowed her eyes and stared at me in a way that made
me distinctly uncomfortable. I glanced back at the Jeep as if Kiska
might do something to save me from whatever was about to come.