Page 29 of Leave a Mark
The thought made his skin flame.
He wanted to go to her. It was impossible, but he wanted to.Hewanted to apologize. He wanted to thankher.And, more than anything, he wanted to pull her into his arms. Lee only had a hint of what it was like to know Wren Blanchard, but a hint was enough. She didn’t deserve this.
And he didn’t lie to himself. He would have liked the chance to tell her that she wasn’t alone. That he felt it, too. That if he were free, things would be very, very different.
But he wasn’t free. Lee and Marcelle had been together for more than a year. They were in a committed relationship. They’d talked about getting married and raising a family. Even if this… this… whatever it was with Wren had addled his brain, he couldn’t turn his back on that.
Lee traced his finger over the drawing. He knew that whatever this was, it would fade with time. For both of them.
“LET’S GET Adog.”
Lee had just shut off his five a.m. alarm and pulled Marcelle into his embrace.
“What?” she murmured into her pillow.
“I think we should get a dog,” he said again.
Marcelle rolled onto her back. He could tell she was still half-asleep by the way she breathed, but she’d usually get up and head to the gym when he left the house.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, coming around. “Where did this come from?”
He wasn’t about to admit it, but Lee had fallen asleep thinking about Wren and her pies and the onslaught of memories the taste of peach unleashed. His father had put King down when Lee was sixteen. They’d had the golden retriever for as long as he could remember, but, by the end, the old boy had been blind and riddled with arthritis.
Lee had understood that it was time. After watching what his mom had gone through, he hadn’t wanted his dog to suffer. And his father had promised that they’d get another dog one day, but they never did. Tom met Barbara a short time later, and within a year, they were married. Barbara was allergic, and Lee had been headed for LSU.
“Did I ever tell you about my dog, King?” Lee asked, running his right hand over Marcelle’s hip.
She placed a hand over his to stop him. “Not now. I didn’t sleep well.”
Lee chuckled. “I’m not trying to get into your panties, Marce. I’m just trying to talk to you.”
“Sorry. Why do you want a dog?”
“Well, they’re fun and sweet and playful. And we could take him for walks at night.”
“And at five in the morning and midnight and seven times in between.” She was arguing with her eyes closed, but even half-asleep, Marcelle had her objections ready. “Puppies take a lot of work. Do you have time for that? I certainly don’t.”
“I’ve already thought of that. We could get a pet service to take care of him while we are at work. Or a doggy daycare. And when he’s older, we could just install a doggy door and let him run around in the back yard.”
“A doggy door? So he could get muddy and then just come inside and jump on the furniture whenever he wanted?" Marcelle wasn’t half-asleep anymore. She sounded wide awake.
“Okay, then, doggy daycare. Just think about it. It’ll be great. We could play fetch and walk him down to The Filling Station, and he could sleep in bed with us—”
Marcelle bolted up. “Are you out of your mind? Sleep in bed with adog?”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. I used to sleep with King every night." The memory of the dog’s warm, silky body pressed against his feet came back to him. After his mom died, there were times when King was the only company he could stand.
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Go shave. I need fifteen more minutes.”
Lee rolled out of bed and let his girlfriend have some peace. He closed the door to his bathroom so the light wouldn’t bother her.
What he couldn’t bring himself to say was that he hoped a dog would make the house feel more like home. Lee hadn’t really thought about it in those terms, but that urge was why he’d bought the house on Dunreath in the first place. Because it seemed like the kind of house that could feel like home. It was nothing like the house he’d grown up in on Roselawn — a brick house on a slab with a pool in the back yard — but it was a house that seemed to have roots, and he wanted a place where he could take hold.
But even though he loved the house and feltathomein it, something integral was missing.
It was getting a mouthful of a homemade peach pie that had made Lee wonder if what he really sought was a family. It wasn’t the right time to begin a family — not for him or Marcelle, who was busy most days building her interior-design business, but maybe a dog would be the right place to start.
Marcelle might be against it at first, but chances were she’d come around if he kept at it. Most of his ideas took her a little time to accept. So far, he’d been able to talk her into going kayaking at Lake Fausse Point; she’d been terrified of the alligators at first, but they ended up having a great day. Despite her resistance, he’d convinced her to dress retro for Downtown Alive, Lafayette’s spring and fall concert series, the last time The Molly Ringwalds played. He couldn’t believe how fantastic she’d looked as Lucky Star Madonna. And even though she still insisted it was hideous, he occasionally caught her playing Simon & Garfunkel on the Wurlitzer jukebox he’d bought on eBay just months after he moved into his house.
