The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich (15 page)

“Is somebody buried here, Mr. Gates?” Shay asked as they neared an old willow tree thriving near Rowdy’s house.

Calliope looked to see a grave-sized mound covered in large stones. She hadn’t noticed it on their way to Rowdy’s house. She’d been too anxious about facing him.

“Yep,” he answered. “That’s where I buried old Dodger after he was…after he passed on last fall.”

“Who was old Dodger?” Shay asked. “Your grandpa or somethin’?”

Calliope smiled when Rowdy chuckled with amusement.

“No, honey,” he answered as he stopped walking when they reached the grave and hunkered down next to Shay. “Dodger was my dog.”

Calliope watched as Rowdy placed a hand on a large stone th
at topped the mound of rocks of the grave. Her heart pinched with empathy, for she could see in his demeanor that the dog had been a most precious thing to him.

“He was a good friend,” Rowdy explained. “I had him for almost three years
. He found me one day. He’d been abandoned or somethin’ out in the middle of nowhere. I took him home, and Dodger and me were the best of friends ever since.” He paused a moment, smiled, and closed his eyes. “Sometimes if I close my eyes like this and listen real hard, I can almost hear him barkin’…hear him welcomin’ me home in the evenin’.” Rowdy grinned. “I can see his face clear as day in my mind.”

“What did he look like?” Shay asked.

“Oh, he was a big ol’ black-and-white dog,” Rowdy said. “He stood about yay high,” he explained, leveling one of his hands near Shay’s shoulder.

Calliope felt tears well in her eyes as Rowdy patted the large stone on top of the grave. “I sure do miss him. He was a good dog. He was my best friend.”

“Why, that’s the saddest thing I ever heard of, Mr. Gates,” Shay mumbled. Calliope looked to see Shay’s eyes brimming with tears as well. “I just don’t know what I’d ever do if Molly up and died! I think I’d probably die along with her. How can you stand it, Mr. Gates?”

Rowdy reached out and took Shay’s hands in his own. “Death is a part of life, Miss Shay Ipswich
—a part we all have to face at one time or another. But it helps me to know that there’s a place in heaven for everything, even ol’ Dodger. And when I get too sad over missin’ him too much, I just think of him up there in heaven where there ain’t no pain and nobody can harm him ever again. I’m guessin’ he’s found an old willow tree to nap under up there and that he’s just as happy as can be.”

Shay smiled a little. “Maybe he’s eatin’ cake. That’s what would make me happy if I was in heaven.”

Rowdy laughed, wholeheartedly amused. “Maybe he is,” he concurred. “Or bacon. It was his favorite treat, after all. And I certainly can’t imagine heaven bein’ heaven if it didn’t have cake and bacon, can you?”

“No, sir!” Shay agreed emphatically. She looked up to Calliope and asked, “May I go pick some flowers for ol’ Dodger’s grave, Calliope? I promise I won’t tarry
. I’ll be quick. I saw some pretty wild daisies just a ways up the road.”

“Of course,” Calliope said with a smile and a nod. “But do be quick, all right? It’s almost suppertime.”

She wondered how she would ever manage to be a good mother; she couldn’t even refuse her little sister anything. How in the world would she manage to tell her own children no?

“I will,” Shay agreed as she hurried off toward a beautiful cropping of wild daisies.

As Rowdy stood up once more, Calliope nervously warned, “She’ll probably take to leaving flowers on the grave every few days or so now. I hope you don’t mind. I’ll tell her not to bother you—just to leave the flowers and leave you in peace. But now that she knows the story, she’ll worry over your poor dog’s little grave forever.”

“She’s a tenderhearted little soul, isn’t she?” he commented.

“Yes, she is,” Calliope confirmed. “I’m thinking that’s why her cat Molly puts up with all the nonsense Shay showers over her.”

Rowdy chuckled. “Yeah
, the poor cat. I’ve seen little Shay draggin’ that poor cat around town on a leash.” He looked to Calliope, his handsome brow puckered with astonishment. “A leash, mind you! I never did hear of a cat that would tolerate a leash.”

Calliope giggled. “Oh
, Molly tolerates a lot that most cats wouldn’t.” She watched Shay picking flowers for a moment and then added, “And I think it’s because that sweet old marmalade cat knows a good heart and soul when she sees them in Shay.”

“It must,” Rowdy agreed.

Calliope studied Rowdy as he watched Shay gathering flowers. She wondered if any of the other young women in town had seen him since he’d been shaved. Blanche, Winnie, Sallie, and all the others would swarm around him like moths to a lamppost once they saw just how handsome Rowdy was. The thought entirely disheartened her all of a sudden. Up until the millpond incident the day before—up until Doctor Gregory had had to shave Rowdy in order to stitch the wound on his cheek—Calliope had had Rowdy Gates all to herself. The other girls in town never paid him much mind. In fact, they were all a little scared of him, in truth—his being so solitary and all. But now—well, if there was one thing Calliope understood about her friends, it was how fast their attention was arrested by a handsome man. Calliope’s secret bliss of being in love with Rowdy Gates—the secret that only Shay knew—was about to be brutalized by jealousy and competition with other young women.

In fact, the sudden realization that the other young women in town might actually begin to try and win Rowdy Gates
’s heart for their own caused a sense of urgency and near panic to rise in Calliope. If anyone ended up winning Rowdy’s heart, she wanted it to be her! Couldn’t endure it if it weren’t her!

Thoughts of a
ll the possibilities regarding Rowdy and the other young women of Meadowlark Lake converged into a tangled clump in Calliope’s mind—so tangled that she couldn’t even sort them all out.

Therefore, thinking of the day before—when she’d nearly been caught spying on Rowdy and ended up in the millpond with him after he saved her—
bundled her feelings of powerful emotions for him, and before she even realized what she was doing, Calliope acted on the one impulse she could determine.

Raising herself on her tiptoes and placing her hands on his shoulders to steady herself, Calliope placed a lingering kiss to Rowdy’s cheek just below his wound. As she kissed him, she slowly inhaled—relishing the s
cent of him, the feel of his whiskers and skin against her lips.

“Thank you, Mr. Gates…for saving me,” Calliope said in such a quiet, timid voice that it was almost a whisper.

“Thank you for the pie,” came his response.

To her great, great, nearly devastating disappointment, Rowdy seemed entirely unaffected by her gesture of thanks—by her pitiful attempt at allure. He hadn’t touched her in return—hadn’t been tempted to kiss her in return. He’d simply accepted her thanks and thanked her for the pie.

Calliope tried not to blush as she stepped back from him, just as Shay raced up to Rowdy holding a lovely bouquet of daisies, buttercups and poppies.

“Here you go, Mr. Gates,” she said, offering the flowers to Rowdy.

“Oh, you go on and put them there, little miss,” he said, smiling, however. “Ol’ Dodger would rather a pretty girl paid him some attention than me anyhow.”

Shay giggled and gently arranged the flowers at the head of the dog’s grave. She exhaled a heavy sigh and said, “Rest well, Dodge
r. And don’t worry. I’ll be back with more flowers another day.”

Calliope looked to Rowdy to find him looking at her with a smile conveying that he understood she had been right in her prediction that Shay would want to place flowers on the dog’s grave regularly from that day forward.

“I told you,” she whispered.

Quickly then, for she found her blush of humiliation at having kissed Rowdy’s cheek so spontaneously was fast returning
, she said, “Let’s go, Shay. We’ve taken up enough of Mr. Gates’s time this evening.”

“All right, Calliope,” Shay agreed. “But you go on ahead for a moment. I have somethin’ private I’d like to say to Dodge
r here at his restin’ place.”

“Well
, I…maybe you should ask Mr. Gates if that’s all right with him, honey,” Calliope suggested. “After all, it is his dog, and he’s a very private man, and—”

“You say anything you want anytime you want, Miss Shay Ipswich,” Rowdy said to Shay, however.

“Thank you, Mr. Gates,” Shay said with a giggle. Looking to Calliope then, she gestured that Calliope should start home by shooing her little hand at her big sister. “You go on, Calliope. I’ll catch right up to you.”

“Um
, all right, Shay…but don’t dilly dally,” Calliope said. She didn’t want to leave Shay behind with Rowdy—not for a moment. Who knew what she was liable to say to him?

But with no choice before her—for she didn’t want to make an issue of it in front of Rowdy—Calliope said, “You have a good evening, Mr. Gates.”

“You too, Miss Calliope,” he said with a nod.

Calliope turned then and started toward home
, praying that Shay would use the good sense of tact Kizzy had been trying to instill in her.

Shay Ipswich shook her head with obvious disapproval as she looked up to Rowdy. She exhaled a heavy sigh, planted her hands on her hips, and quietly asked, “Do you have oatmeal for brains, Mr. Gates?”

“I beg your pardon?” Rowdy asked, astonished by the girl’s scolding manner.

Shaking her head again, Shay answered, “She wanted you to kiss her, you big, silly goose! What do you think she kissed your cheek for?”

“Um…uh…to thank me for yesterday at the millpond,” Rowdy stammered
, still astonished at being scolded—and now further astonished by what he was being scolded for.

Shay
Ipswich rolled her dark eyes with exasperation. “She kissed your cheek because she wanted
you
to kiss
her
, oatmeal brain.” She leveled a small index finger at him, adding, “Next time you kiss her back, do you hear me?”

“O
h, she wanted me to kiss her, did she?” Rowdy chuckled, amused by the child’s assumption. “And just how do you know that?”

“Because I’m a gypsy, Mr. Gates,” Shay informed him. She shook her head with renewed aggravation
.

“Well, I happen to know, Miss Ipswich Gypsy
, that Fox Montrose is plannin’ on askin’ your daddy if he can court your sister Calliope,” Rowdy baited. “What do you have to say about that?”

But Shay again rolled her eyes. “Oh
, she told Daddy some time ago to tell Fox Montrose
no
if he ever comes askin’ to court her, so I know that…”

The little girl gasped, covering her mouth
with both hands. “Oh no! I’m not supposed to tell anyone that, Mr. Gates! Mama and Daddy will give me such a talkin’ to if they find out, and Calliope might never, never tell me another secret!” She lowered her voice even further so that Rowdy could hardly hear her. “Please promise you won’t say a word about what I slipped up and told you, Mr. Gates! Just promise me you won’t let on.”

“Even torture couldn’t drag it from me, Miss Shay,” Rowdy assured her with a smile. “I swear it to you.”

“All right. All right then,” Shay said, obviously feeling better. She looked to Rowdy again and said, “Just don’t be an oatmeal brain next time my sister gives you a chance like she just done.”

“Shay!” Calliope called.

Rowdy looked up to see a rather worried Calliope motioning for her little sister to join her.

“I gotta go,” Shay said. “Remember what I said, okay?”

“Oh, I will,” Rowdy chuckled as Shay ran to catch up to her sister.

He watched them clasp hands and start toward home. The fact was he watched them because he was too stunned to move for a second or two.

Was it true, what Shay had told him? Had Calliope wanted Rowdy to kiss her? Surely not. The child simply misunderstood. Calliope was still feeling guilty for the little bumps and scrapes Rowdy had gotten the day before when he jumped with her into the millpond. That was all. That was why she had kissed his cheek—to thank him.

Yet then there was the other part of it—the accidental revelation that Calliope wanted her father to deny Fox permission to court her. Could it be true? Rowdy knew it could
, for in all his time in admiring Calliope from afar, it was always Fox coming after Calliope, never the other way around. Rowdy had always just assumed that Calliope wasn’t as flirtatious as other women her age. But could it really be that she didn’t like Fox Montrose as much as everyone in town seemed to think?

Rowdy finally came to his senses and returned to the house. He had a peach pie waiting for supper, after all. A peach pie made and delivered by the one girl in town who had managed to put her mark on his heart—and her little gypsy sister, of course.

“I still can’t believe he denied me,” Fox growled. “The almighty Judge Ipswich denied
me
permission to court Calliope!”

Fox’s ranting was wearing on everyone else’s nerves. Fox had done nothing but fume most of the day over the fact. Yet Rowdy had begun to wonder if Fox wasn’t a bit more upset over the fact that he’d been denied something than over
what
he’d been denied.