I better head home. It’s been a very long day. Thanks for dinner. If you want, we can do lamb chops tomorrow.”
She beamed. “Or Sunday, if that’s better?” She followed him through the house and out onto the driveway.
He frowned, then nodded. “Maybe Sunday would be better. I’ll stop and pick some up. Then we’ll cook them Sunday.”
She smiled and nodded. As he was pulling away, she muttered, “Can you have lamb with pasta?” She knew if she could get him to cook another huge pot of pasta, she could eat all week without any problem.
Plus she knew that, given a chance, she would eat pasta every meal.
Mack gave a honk on his horn and drove away, with a hand waving out the window. She waved back, feeling a sense of loss and loneliness as he left. She had really gotten used to having him around daily when she fell through her little bridge again recently. But she’d see him again soon. Boy, it was good to have him in her life. She turned and walked back inside.
Chapter 5
Saturday Morning …
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear. Doreen hopped out of bed with an energy she wasn’t expecting. Just the thought of starting on the deck expansion tomorrow was huge and exciting. She was a little worried about the cost involved. And what if she got a little way into the job and then had to wait until she had more money? That would be tough, especially since she couldn’t collect any money yet on the sale of the antiques or even the sale of Nan’s clothes.
Mack hadn’t left her any money for the gardening she’d done on his mom’s yard. She groaned. She knew it was because he was so busy with work. She wished she could help him out, but unfortunately she was a large part of the reason he had so much work to do.
In the kitchen she put on her morning coffee, disarmed the security system, and opened the kitchen window and the back door. The animals all barreled out. Thaddeus flew out the window, as if he couldn’t possibly make it fast enough out the door. She shook her head.
“What’s up with you guys?” she asked, stepping onto her little deck to look around. But there was nothing to see.
Except that the water was definitely higher. It was bobbing close to the top of the path now. She stared at it in surprise. Looking back at the coffeepot, she realized the first cup was almost half dripped and wondered if she could steal a cup because she wanted to go down to the creek herself, coffee cup in hand.
She had put away the jewels in her bedroom last night, wondering what to do with them. She needed to get the appraisal done, but she didn’t know how long that would take. She wasn’t comfortable leaving the jewels anywhere but at home with her. She also wasn’t happy at the idea of showing anyone else the jewels. Secrets had been buried with the jewels, and, if opened, all heck could break loose.
Finally, she managed to get a cup of coffee from the still dripping pot, and, with the animals crowding around her, she walked down to the creek. It had risen at least eight to ten inches overnight. Was more to come? If that was the case, her pathway was about to go under. It was still quite a bit lower than her backyard, but wow. Mugs kept going closer and closer to the edge.
“Mugs, stop,” she snapped placing her full cup on a big rock.
He looked at her and woofed, then, almost like a two-year-old, took one more step toward the water and darned if he didn’t start to fall. Doreen raced to his side as he scrambled up the bank, trying to get back out of the heavy rush of water. She managed to snag him by the collar, just in time to pull him toward her. But, as a result, she ended up falling on her own butt, sliding down toward the water. It was all she could do to hold herself back from ending up in the fast current herself.
She could hardly see through the surface; the water was dirty, as if it had picked up dirt every inch of the way as it headed down her little creek to become a river. She remembered seeing aerial photographs of the lake, where the brown rush of water from the river flowed into the