Little Fox Cottage Read online

  "I love kitties." She patted Maisy on the head. "I love doggies, too."

  "You should paint more of them. You are a wonderful artist."

  "No pets. No pets. Not any more. I love kitties. But can't make pictures 'cause I don't have them."

  "But these are lovely, Sophie! Really they are. You are a wonderful artist."

  "No!" She snatched the picture out of her hand. "Can't be that. Have to take care of Papa. Go away."

  "Okay. I hope you feel better." Bree grabbed Maisy's collar and led her back out the door.

  She left the little adobe house with its charming tiles, and its strikingly artistic paintings, and took Maisy back through the hedge to Vixen & Kits, wondering all the while about what could have possibly made the people on this street go completely insane.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NICO WOKE up in the little apartment he was renting above Santos' Market.

  He looked at his phone. It was seven on Saturday morning. Wow. It was morning. He'd gone to sleep last night and now it was morning. No nightmares.

  He'd gone to bed last night without realizing what he was doing. He'd been so distracted thinking about Bree, about her infectious laugh and her grit and drive to make something of herself. That's all he had been thinking about. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to learn how she'd overcome the horrible past without becoming bitter and scarred by it. He wanted to kiss her again.

  He had fallen asleep without even remembering to be afraid of what the night would bring.

  He sat up in bed and thought about it. No, he couldn't even remember dreaming. Nothing. He just felt rested. Like a person who had slept soundly all night.

  He got up and shaved, brushed his teeth, dressed. Went through his morning routine. It all felt so good.

  The phone rang. He picked it up off the bathroom counter.

  "You can bring the doughnuts to the meeting today." The padre's voice was smooth, a bit cool.

  How did he know? How did he realize that just this once, just today, he had been thinking that he'd skip the meeting and instead go wander over to Vixen & Kits?

  "Our topic today is relationships," the voice on the phone said.

  "Real subtle, Padre."

  HELENA SAT at the dining room table while Bree worked in the adjacent kitchen. Maisy kept to her post at Helena's side.

  Bree popped her head around the corner into the dining room. "Do you think I should invite Sophie and her father over to eat with you?"

  "Oh, her Papa would never come. He was so mean to Sophie."

  "He was?"

  "Bullied her terribly." Helena shook her head for emphasis. "He was a mean old man."

  It was all in the past tense. "Where is he now?"

  "Dead. Dead and buried. Dead and gone. Good gone." Again the head shake.

  "How long ago did he die?"

  "Long time. Not a long time? She's all alone. No Papa to take care of. But he was a mean old man."

  She knew what that was like. If he was a bully, him dying and leaving her alone might not be the worst thing in the world. Maybe she was better off alone. But no, she'd felt that bony shoulder through the bathrobe last night. She needed help just like Helena did.

  "Has she been sick?"

  She wanted to ask more, to ask is she sick like you, but didn't know how to bring it up.

  "She comes by. She visits. We talk."

  The sentences were getting shorter as Helena started to drift off in that way Bree already recognized in both her and Sophie.

  "Well," she said, trying to sound cheerful. "A nice breakfast is just what you need."

  She went back in the kitchen. The dried blueberries she'd soaked in boiling water had softened up nicely. She added them to the muffin batter she was making. She stirred the mixture furiously, thinking about what could have caused these two women to both be caught in such an agonizing decline.

  Whoa, Kid. What did that batter ever do to you? Henry's words echoed in her head.

  She stopped beating the mixture, and made herself slow down and gently spoon it into the muffin pan.

  She opened the door on the Chambers and slid the pan in, then set the timer on her phone for twelve minutes.

  No response to her last text to Nico. Not that she was obsessing. She had simply written GOOD MORNING to him. He was probably still asleep.

  She started to compose a new text, trying to figure out how to ask, in these cryptic little messages, what was going on. Was the water poisoned on Tejas Street? Was it normal for two women in their fifties to get dementia like this? Could the old tileworks at the end of the lane be leaching something toxic into the soil and making everyone sick?

  She wrote and erased the message a half-dozen times before giving up. He would think she was nuts.

  She wrote, SEE YOU LATER TODAY? and sent it. Then put her phone down and went into the dining room.

  "Do you have Sophie's phone number?" she asked Helena.

  "She's just next door," Helena said, as if she were an idiot.

  "I know. But I was going to invite her to have brunch with us."

  "She's a good cook," Helena said irrelevantly.

  "Yeah. She makes soapy-somethings." She couldn't remember the name of the pastry. She hadn't been at her best at three in the morning.

  Again that look of disdain from Helena. "Sopaipillas. Yum. Make some."

  She could probably find a recipe online. "How about blueberry muffins now, and that later?"

  Helena shrugged.

  "I'm going to run over and invite Sophie to eat with us," she said.

  She went to the front door and opened it, only to find Sophie standing there.

  "Why, Sophie! I was just going to come over and invite you to breakfast."

  "You did," Sophie said.

  Had she? She vaguely remembered saying she should come over for breakfast with her father. Apparently it had gotten through.

  "Well, come in."

  Sophie went over to where Helena sat at the dining room table. "We're having muffins," Helena said brightly.

  "Muffins are good," Sophie said. She sat down next to Helena, then reached for the dog. Maisy went to her, and leaned against her affectionately, as if she knew how much these women needed her.

  Bree looked at them. They both were only in their late fifties. And yet they sat there like people decades older, gazing blankly at the walls.

  "Is it burning?" Helena asked.

  Bree ran to the oven and yanked open the door. "Not quite," she said. She folded a towel and used it to grab the muffin pan and set it on the stovetop. "Thanks, Helena," she called out to the dining room. "You saved the muffins."

  She better start paying attention here, or she'd end up as confused as the rest of the women on Tejas Street.

  AFTER A BREAKFAST of blueberry muffins and omelets made with some frozen spinach and shredded Monterey Jack cheese, Sophie just wandered out the door and back toward her own house without a word.

  Helena moved over to her favorite living room chair, and Maisy took up her spot at her side.

  "Do you need anything?" Bree asked, but Helena just shook her head.

  "Okay, I'm going to head downtown for a bit." Maisy showed no sign of moving, so Bree left them both there, grabbed her phone and purse, and went out.

  THE PHONE RANG again while Nico was in Santos' Market picking up two dozen assorted doughnuts from the in-store bakery. He looked at the caller id. It was Bree.

  His finger itched to hit the button and take the call. He silenced the phone instead.

  WHEN BREE WALKED up to the medical clinic, she found the door locked. There was a sign on the door listing what to do in case of emergency (Dial 911), and non-emergencies (Dial the clinic's answering service).

  Bree put the clinic's number in her phone but didn't call it. What was she going to say? There's a non-emergency with two old ladies she didn't even know who are senile? She really wished she could talk to Nico, and not just because the guy had charmed her, kissed
her, and then refused to take her calls.

  She turned around to leave the clinic and noticed Nico headed her way.

  He was still a ways off, but she gave a big grin and waved to him. "Hi, there!" she shouted.

  He looked away quickly, then turned on his heel and went the other direction. She stood there with her arm up in the air, feeling like a fool, and watched while he took off almost at a run to get away from her. He turned up Mission Street and disappeared from sight.

  She took in a big breath, then let it out slowly. Wow. That was unexpected.

  So the doctor liked to kiss 'em and leave 'em? Well, that was fine with her. She clenched her fists. Yeah, just fine with her.

  Gathering her dignity around her like a cloak, she turned and walked the other way.

  She noticed she was right across the street from the sign for the high school she'd seen when she first arrived in town. It still advertised the baseball game from last night and today's farmer's market. Other people were walking and driving up the hill toward the high school, so she followed them.

  She walked up a hill lined with pine trees and found the high school sitting in a large clearing, surrounded by woods.

  To the left was the baseball field. Vixen & Kits were probably just beyond the trees behind it, which brought back that evocative sound drifting through the night air, of the bat hitting the ball and the little crowd cheering on the hometown kids. By daylight the field was empty, except for a couple jogging around the bases.

  To her right the parking lot held the farmer's market. It was set up in a row with half a dozen booths on each side, most with handmade signs and piled high with spring produce. At the end of the row, capping it off, was a booth whose canopy read MADRIGAL RANCH - BERRIES, APPLES, CHERRIES, & MORE. She headed that way.

  A man who looked vaguely familiar smiled at her when she got to the booth. "Hi," he said. "The raspberries are really good today. Feel free to taste." He pointed to a tin with samples of lush berries piled high.

  He was a tall man, with dark, curly hair and vivid green eyes.

  "Are you a Madrigal?" she asked, still having trouble shaking that feeling of familiarity.

  "I'm Kyle Madrigal." He put out a hand to shake hers. She shook it, and started to introduce herself, but he said, "It's nice to meet you, Bree Taylor. I'm sorry about Henry. He was a great guy."

  He called over a woman who had been bagging produce in the back of the booth. "Honey, this is Bree Taylor, who's staying with Aunt Helena. This is my wife, Hallie."

  "I'm so sorry about Henry," the woman said. "He was a wonderful man."

  "Yes. He was."

  "Have you talked to Father Anselm about Helena yet?" Bree asked Kyle.

  He nodded. "He said her dementia seems to be getting worse. Without Henry to look after her, we'll need to do more for her." Then he lowered his head. "I feel like we should have been aware of it before, but Henry never mentioned it."

  "Maybe that's why he wanted to talk to you," Hallie said to him.

  "He wanted to talk to you?" Bree asked. "When was this?" She stopped. "I'm sorry. It's really none of my business. But I've been noticing—" She stopped, unsure about what to say.

  "What have you been noticing?" he asked.

  She blurted it all out, about Helena's confusion, about Sophie waking her up in the middle of the night, about all of it. She held back from talking about Henry's heart attack, about voicing the worries about that. She'd wait until she heard from Nico about what he found before stirring up that hornet's nest.

  But what she said was enough. "Aunt Sophie, too?" he said. "She has been acting confused, and has turned down invitations to family dinners for a while now. I should have realized and done something."

  "You couldn't know," Hallie said, touching his shoulder. She turned to Bree. "You seem really worried. Do you think they shouldn't be alone?"

  Bree hesitated. "I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I just was so shocked by what I found when I got here yesterday. Henry had never told me about Helena's condition." She stopped. "I don't know. It's not my place to say. But to see Helena so confused, and then to see Sophie with all that beautiful artwork and yet she can't find her way around her own kitchen…."

  "Artwork?" Hallie said. "What artwork?"

  "Didn't you ever see it? She's very talented. At least I think she is. She has paintings of animals and they are, well…." She stopped. "Have you ever seen the fox tiles on Vixen & Kits?"

  Kyle smiled. "The Robles tiles. Of course."

  "Her stuff is like that. Not an imitation. But that kind of quality."

  They both looked surprised.

  "I had no idea she painted. She must have kept it hidden when her father was alive," Kyle said. "Old Man Robles was a jerk. Que Dios lo acoja en su seno," he added guiltily, and crossed himself.

  He turned to Hallie. "You might see if she'd like to join the arts council. She could bring her work to appear in the next show."

  She nodded. "That's a great idea."

  Then he turned back to Bree. "Thank you for helping Aunt Helena, Ms. Taylor. And Aunt Sophie, too. We really appreciate it."

  "We should go by and bring them something to eat," Hallie said.

  "I fixed up Helena's lunch yesterday, and she ate it all," Bree said. "And then she had a spinach omelet and blueberry muffins for breakfast this morning. Sophie came over and had three muffins, as well."

  "That's right," he said. "You were Henry's assistant, I forgot that. Thank you for making them both breakfast."

  "It's no bother. She's letting me stay in the guest cottage, so I wanted to thank her."

  "You worked for Henry as a sous-chef, right?"

  She nodded.

  "But now you got a job at Mel's Fish Shack."

  "How did you—never mind. Pajaro Bay."

  "Right. Gossip Central. So," he said, with a significant look at his wife that Bree didn't understand, "are you planning to stay in town?"

  "I'm not planning to impose on your aunt long-term! I'm looking for an apartment. But she said I could stay with her for a couple of days. I just figured I'd cook the meals for her while I'm there."

  "Then you should take some of this," Hallie said, gathering raspberries, squash, and who knew what else, and stuffing it all into a fabric bag.

  "Thanks. That will help. There's stuff in the freezer, but not a lot of fresh food. And the senior meals are a little underwhelming."

  "About those senior meals," Kyle said. "There's a job opening in town you might be perfect for."

  "What's that?"

  "We need someone to cook for the senior center. We lost our cook a few months ago. The school cook has been filling in, but she doesn't have time to do anything but make the same dietician-approved meal for the seniors every day."

  Bree tried to keep her face neutral. "Um, that's very kind of you to think of me, but it's not really the sort of job I'm looking for." Institutional cooking? An endless parade of poached chicken breasts and gravy? She couldn't imagine herself doing that kind of thing.

  "I'd better go," she said, before they started getting any ideas.

  "Don't forget the bag!" Hallie said, handing her the overstuffed sack.

  "Put in some of the artichokes," Kyle said, adding them to the bag.

  "And some lettuce," Hallie said.

  Arms full, Bree finally broke away from the booth and went on her way.

  She was halfway back to Vixen & Kits before she realized why Kyle Madrigal looked so familiar. He was the spitting image of the two curly-haired, green-eyed boys in Henry's photograph.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LUNCH WAS COMING ALONG WELL. Bree had stopped at Sophie's house to invite her over, and now the two women waited patiently in the living room while she finished up a fresh pasta with artichoke crème, zucchini curls, and a raspberry mousse to follow.

  There was a knock on the cottage's front door.

  Maisy barked and went to the door, but Bree didn't hear either Sophie or Helena getting up,
so she went to answer.

  When she opened the door an elderly woman in a blue pantsuit and matching hat (complete with peacock feather), stood on the porch. Slightly behind her stood a chubby little man.

  "Yes?" Bree said. "Are you here to see Helena? She's just in here." She stood aside to let them enter.

  "I'm here to see you, Bree Taylor," the woman said in a voice that brooked no argument.

  "Okay," Bree said slowly. "I have lunch on the stove, so you'll have to come in the kitchen if you want to talk to me."

  The man went over and sat on the sofa by Sophie. She patted his hand, clearly knowing who he was. He nodded to Helena, and she smiled back.

  "I'll be back, dears," the elderly woman said. "I need to have a chat with your chef."

  Bree shrugged and went back into the kitchen. At this point, nobody's strange behavior seemed surprising anymore.

  She stirred the artichoke crème in its little copper saucepan. Sure enough, the Chambers stove's slow simmer had allowed the sauce to thicken without curdling, and it was perfect. She turned off the burner and let the sauce rest there for a minute.

  "You seem quite at home in this kitchen," the woman observed.

  "I didn't move in. I'm just visiting."

  "Don't get snippy, young lady. If you care about Helena, you shouldn't object to her friends looking out for her."

  "You could do a better job of that."

  An elegantly groomed eyebrow was raised. "Really? In what way?"

  "She's very thin. Both of them are. She isn't eating. That's why I'm in her kitchen, cooking."

  "Both of them subscribe to our senior meals program for shut-ins."

  "Have you eaten their meals?"

  "Not personally."

  "Maybe you should try them sometime." She glanced up from her work. "I need to drain the pasta now," she said, noticing the woman was watching her with an eagle eye. "You're welcome to stay for lunch. I made plenty."

  "Thank you, but we already ate lunch."

  "Okay. And I'm sorry I got snippy, as you put it. I'm a little stressed."

  The woman smiled wisely at Bree. "I think you're being quite patient under the circumstances."