Cold Tea on a Hot Day by Curtiss Ann Matlock Read Free Book Online Page B

found me. I did not find-ed him.”
    “We will run an ad in the paper for two weeks. That is the right thing to do, the most we can do.”
    Willie Lee turned on his side and clutched the dog to him.
    Marilee kissed him and considered not running the ad. Maybe just the Sunday paper.
    She kissed Corrine and turned out the light, then went to the kitchen to prepare the coffeemaker for the morning. She thought it a wise course to tone down the strength of the brew that Corrine made. Maybe lessening her caffeine intake would help her nerves, which seemed so on edge these days.
    At the moment of stretching her hand to the light switch, her eye came to rest on Willie Lee’s picture book lying on the edge of the table. The book he’d had that morning, when he had been trying to show her the picture of the dog.
    She took it up and thumbed through the pages, until she came to the one with the dog picture that jumped right out at her.
    She scanned the print below, which was a description of the dog. An Australian Shepherd, it said, bred for herding sheep. The dog in the picture had his tail bobbed. Marilee had seen similar dogs in the rural areas.
    Taking the book, she went to the open door of the children’s room, where the dog lay on the rug beside Willie Lee’s bed. The dog opened his eyes and looked at her. His tail thumped.
    In the dim light cast from the bathroom, Marilee consulted the book, then looked again at the dog.
    She would check again in the clear light of day, she thought. So many wild things could occur to a person in the night and be cleared up in the light of day.
    When the morning came, Marilee found that Munro did look remarkably like the dog in the picture book, although, he was darker.
    Her eyes followed the dog and her son walking through the kitchen. No matter the dog’s appearance, she thought, her son had asked for a dog and been given one. She wondered what she would ask for…and wished she could believe it would be given.

Five
    The Beauty of the World
    I t was bare first light of his first full day in his new town when Tate, dressed in brand-new, grey sweatpants, brand-new, bright-white T-shirt with the words Just Do It emblazoned on the front, and brand-new top-of-the-line jogging shoes, came out on his very own front porch.
    Tate had jogged intermittently off and on for years, and had profited from it, too, but now he wanted to really make it routine. He was in the prime of his life and wanted to honor that by making the most of himself physically and mentally. That was the spirit!
    Stretching his arms wide, he sucked in a deep breath. Ahh! The brisk morning, quite different from the heavily humid air of Houston.
    He jogged down the steps and out to the sidewalk of the quiet street. As he turned along Porter Street, in the direction of Marilee James’s house, the yellow cat, Bubba, streaked out from beneath a lilac bush and joinedhim, bouncing along behind Tate, looking like an orange basketball with a tail.
    Tate wanted to see Marilee’s house clearly in the light of day. He wondered if she was an early riser.
    He had a sudden fantasy of her being on the porch and seeing him, jogging along manfully, her waving and him waving back. He smiled at his fanciful notion, although he did experience a little bit of disappointment when his gaze found her front porch, white gingerbread trim, and empty.
    Not only was all quiet at the James house, but along most of the street. At the house on the corner, a young man wearing a UPS uniform was chinning himself with bulging arms on a beam across the middle of his porch ceiling. He dropped to his feet, headed for his car at the curb, casting Tate a wave as he came. Friendly fellow! Tate waved back.
    Turning up First Street, heading for the commerce area of Main, Tate slowed. He had begun to breathe quite hard. He sure didn’t want to have a heart attack on his first day in town. He glanced back and saw that Bubba had deserted him.
    Tate continued on, a sort of