Tribute

you ladies had a fine time on Saturday.”
    “We did.”
    “Cathy always says shopping’s her hobby. I’ve got golf, she’s got the mall and the outlets.”
    “Don’t see the point in either.” Buddy shook his head. “Fishing’s got a point.”
    “Excuse me.” The clerk strode up. “Everything’s in stock, Ms. McGowan. You got the last we have of the wall-hung sink.”
    “What wall-hung?” Buddy wanted to know. “I’m plumbing for a pedestal in the third bath.”
    “It’s a replacement. The sink you installed in the second-floor guest bath was damaged.”
    If he’d been a rooster, Cilla thought, Buddy’s cockscomb would have quivered.
    “How the hell did that happen? Nothing wrong with it when I put it in.”
    Okay, Cilla thought, one more time. “I had a break-in Saturday. Some vandalism.”
    “My God! Were you hurt?” Tom demanded.
    “No, I wasn’t home. I was out with your wife and Patty and Angie.”
    “They busted up a sink?” Buddy pulled off his cap to scratch his head. “What the hell for?”
    “I couldn’t say. But both second-floor baths we’d finished took a hit. They used my sledge and pickax from the look of it, smashed a lot of tile, one of the walls, the sink, some glass block.”
    “This is terrible. It’s not the sort of thing that happens around here. The police—”
    “Are doing what they can,” she said to Tom. “So they tell me, anyway.” Since she wanted the word spread, she kept going. “I’ll be installing a security system.”
    “Can’t blame you. I’m so sorry to hear this, Cilla.”
    “Wouldn’t want my daughter living out that far on her own.” Buddy shrugged. “Just saying. Especially after what happened to Steve.”
    “Bad things happen everywhere. I’ve got to get my supplies and finish my run. Good luck with the spec.”
    “Cilla, if there’s anything we can do, Cathy or I, you just give a call. We’re a growing area, but that doesn’t mean we don’t take care of our own.”
    “Thank you.”
    It warmed her, and stayed warm inside her, even as her supplies were loaded, even as she drove away.
    Our own.

EIGHTEEN
    C illa gave herself the pleasure of removing the old, battered doors with their worn or missing weather stripping, and installing their replacements. She salvaged the old, stored them in the barn.
    You just never knew, to her mind, when you might need an old door.
    She’d opted for mahogany—damn the budget—in an elegantly simple Craftman style. The three-over-three seeded glass panes on the entrance door would let in the light, and still afford some privacy.
    Sucker fit, she thought with pleasure after one of the laborers helped her haul it into position. Fit like a fricking dream. She waited until she was alone to stroke her hands over the wood and purr, “Hello, gorgeous. You’re all mine now.” Humming under her breath, she went to work on the lock set.
    She’d gone with the oil-rubbed bronze she’d chosen for other areas of the house and, as she began the install on the lock set, decided she’d made the perfect choice. The dark tones of the bronze showed off well against the subtle red hues in the mahogany.
    “That’s a nice-looking door.”
    She looked over her shoulder to see her father stepping out of his car. Cilla was so used to seeing him in what she thought of as his teacher clothes, it took her a minute to adjust her brain to the jeans, T-shirt and ball cap he wore.
    “Curb appeal,” she called back.
    “You’re certainly getting that.” He paused to look over the front lawns. The grass had been neatly mowed, with its bare patches resowed and the tender new shoots protected by a thin layer of straw. The plantings had begun there, too, with young azaleas and rhododendrons, a clutch of hydrangeas already heading up, a slim red maple with its leaves glowing in the sunlight.
    “Still got some work, and I won’t put in the flower beds until next spring, unless I manage to put in some fall stuff. But it’s coming along.”
    “You’ve done an amazing job so far.” He joined her on the veranda, close enough she caught a whiff of what she thought might be Irish Spring. He studied the door, the lock set. “That looks sturdy. I’m glad to see it. What about the security system? Word gets around,” he added when she raised her eyebrows.
    “I was hoping that word would. It might be as much of a deterrent as the system itself. Which went in yesterday.”
    His hazel eyes tracked to hers, solemnly.