The Bride-In-Law. Dixie Browning

into the refrigerator. Unthinkingly she reached down and scratched him behind his ears.

      By focusing on the morning paper while she ate her standard breakfast of fruit, tea and whole-grain cereal, she almost managed to avoid thinking about her immediate problems. To put things into perspective, there was always Washington, China and the Middle East.

      The phone waited until she was halfway through brushing her teeth to ring. She caught it on the forth ring and gargled, “Hewwo?”

      “Annie? This is Bernice, are you all right?”

      “Of course I’m all right, if you don’t count having to swallow a mouthful of toothpaste. Where are you? What happened? Do you need me to come get you?” Bernice’s old junker was inclined to be temperamental.

      “Why would I need you to do that?”

      “Well, I don’t know, I only thought—Bernie, it’s barely eight o’clock in the morning, what’s going on?”

      “Well, now that you mention it, you could do me a favor if you’ve got time. You said you were going to call, didn’t you?”

      Annie patted her bare foot and waited. Bernie’s demands were never straightforward. “It’s Saturday. I’ve got time. If you want to try and get the whole mess annulled, I’ll meet you wherever you say, and I promise not to ask any questions, all right?”

      “I don’t want to get anything annulled. Besides, it’s too late for that. And believe me, Harold doesn’t need any of that Vigaro stuff, either.”

      “Any what?”

      “You know. It’s been all over the news since last year.”

      “Bernie, what on earth—no, don’t tell me, I don’t even want to know.”

      “Oh, for pity’s sake, I knew you’d be like this, you always are.”

      “Like what?” Annie wailed, gesturing wildly with her toothbrush. “I’m not being like anything, just tell me what you called about, please!”

      “You’re just waiting for a chance to say you told me so, aren’t you? You’re just like your father always was, you know that?”

      It was on the tip of her tongue to deny it, but this was not the time. “Bernie, what are you calling about?” she asked with as much patience as she could muster. “Like Daddy? I’m nothing at all like Daddy. Daddy was the sweetest, kindest man alive.”

      “Maybe, but he could be a real pain in the rear end.”

      “So can I. What’s your point, Bernie?”

      “It’s about Harold’s boy.”

      “Harold’s what?”

      “You met him yesterday. Tucker. He was here the same time you were, don’t you remember?”

      “I remember,” Annie snapped. She remembered all too well. The memory had a lot to do with why she’d spent so many fruitless hours peeling back the layers of Annie Summers, trying to find out if there was anything worth salvaging under all those years of conditioning.

      “Yes, well, Harold’s been trying to call him, but he doesn’t answer his phone, and—”

      “You want me to go see if he’s all right? Bernie, have you lost your mind?”

      “Oh, he’s probably all right—I mean, why wouldn’t he be? But the thing is, Harold forgot his blood pressure medicine, and he can’t remember Tucker’s mobile number, and it’s not listed, so since you don’t have to go to school, would you mind driving out to where he’s working and asking him to bring it out to the motel? Harold says it’s probably on the kitchen windowsill.”

      Annie rolled her eyes. From the sun parlor came the sound of dirt being scratched onto the tile floor. “Why can’t Harold go get his own medicine?” Her jaw was tightening up again. Tension always did it to her.

      “Well, because he can’t, that’s all. Do that for me, Annie, and I’ll never ask you for anything again, I promise.”

      “What about your cat?”

      “I’ll take him off your hands just as soon as Harold and I find a place to live.”

      Annie wasn’t at all sure she wanted to get rid of her cousin, or even her cousin’s cat. Somebody in the Summers family had to take responsibility for the flakier members, and she was obviously elected. Eddie would just have to understand.

      Which was how she came to be splashing through a muddy construction site, dodging ruts and panel trucks, and knocking on the door of a brown metal trailer some forty-five minutes later. Somewhat to her surprise, the sign on the door said Dennis Construction. Which Dennis? Father? Son? Both?

      Not that it mattered.

      When the door was flung open, she nearly tumbled down the mud-slick step. “Oh, for God’s sake, now what?” Tucker Dennis exclaimed plaintively.

      “Don’t take your nasty temper out on me, I’m only here to do your father a favor.”

      “Yeah, sure you are. If you can pry your cousin’s hooks out of his hip pocket, that’ll be favor enough to suit me.”

      “Fine. I’ll tell your father’s wife you refuse to take him his blood pressure medicine. Do you know the name of his physician, just in case?”

      “What blood pressure medicine?” He opened the door wider and muttered, “You might as well come inside.”

      Annie did, but only because she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t grab her by the arm and yank her inside if she refused. He had that look about him.

      The interior was no more inviting than the exterior. A stack of boxes in one corner. A dull green file cabinet, a gray metal desk, a scarred draftsman’s table and two tan metal chairs. If you didn’t count the red mud that had been tracked inside, the only bit of color to be found was in the row of hard hats that hung over a small rusty refrigerator—two white, a blue, an orange and a yellow—and a feed store calendar on the opposite wall.

      “You might as well sit down.” He waved her to one of the two worn oak chairs. “I’ve got a few things to say to you.”

      “The medicine.”

      “In a minute.”

      She took a deep breath and tried to remember the lessons of a lifetime, but nothing in all the years she’d spent among decent, civilized people had prepared her for dealing with a surly, motorcycle-riding construction worker in an ugly metal trailer out in the muddy middle of nowhere.

      So she sat. Back straight, ankles crossed and hands resting one of top of the other on her lap. But no amount of outward composure could prevent the color from rising to stain her cheeks.

      Tucker flexed his fingers, stiff from hours of clutching a pencil and years of working with his hands. Incipient arthritis. Wet weather didn’t help. He studied the woman seated across the desk from him, reluctantly revising his earlier opinion. She wasn’t as old as he’d thought yesterday, nor quite as plain. But her raincoat was every bit as ugly as he remembered it and so were her shoes. Nor had her disposition undergone any miraculous overnight transformation.

      “So what is it you want me to do?”

      “Go home and get your father’s medicine and take it to him. I suppose.”

      “You suppose?”

      “That’s the message I was given. You didn’t answer your home phone, and your father couldn’t remember your mobile, so Bernie called me to pass on the message.”

      “Harold knows how to reach me here.”

      She shrugged. “All I know is what I was told. If you’re too busy to be bothered, then I’ll call Bernie and tell her—”

      “Oh, for Pete’s sake, just hang