Free Southern Discomfort by Margaret Maron Page B

lazily about dogs and bass till the boys were released by their coaches.
    They were laughing as they came up, loping dark shapes silhouetted by the field lights behind them. It'd been a satisfying, hard-fought game, nothing sloppy on either side and none of the three had been charged with errors, so they felt good about their performances. I hugged all three of them, loving their gangly height, their awkward social graces, their clean sweaty smell like young horses that had galloped through long grassy pastures. Aunts and former-almost-stepmothers can get away with stuff like that.
    "Aren't you coming with us?" they chorused as car keys jingled and our group scattered across the nearly empty parking lot. "Aw, come on, Aunt Deb'rah."
    "Next time," I promised. I got a brotherly kiss and a "Seeya, gal" from Terry, then he was gone, too.
    For a small town Friday night, the main streets back through Dobbs were busy with cars and trucks full of couples sitting close to each other, wrapped in their own bliss. As I drove through the white brick gate and pulled up to the side entrance of the house, WQDR was playing the Judds's "Grandpa, Tell Me 'Bout the Good Old Days."
    "And the good old nights," sighed the pragmatist, even as the preacher was patting me on the head in approval. —Bout time you quit burning your candle at both ends."
    Lights were still burning down in Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash's sitting room, but I went on up to my bedroom, brushed my teeth, popped a cassette of Donovan's Reef in my VCR and was sound asleep before the drunken Aussies had sung a single chorus of "Waltzing Matilda."
*      *      *
    Next morning, Annie Sue came for me well before seven in one of the company's four trucks. She pulled right up to the front veranda and leaned on the horn till Aunt Zell went out and flapped a dishtowel at her to make her hush.
    "Some folks in this neighborhood like to sleep on Saturdays," she scolded as Annie Sue followed her back down the wide hall to the kitchen where I was finishing off a plate of sausage and eggs.
    "Sorry, Miss Zell," said Annie Sue. She snagged a biscuit and didn't look one bit repentant to me. No, ma'am, she didn't want a glass of milk or a cup of coffee; and no, she didn't want to sit either. Eagerness to get going kept her lithe young body in perpetual motion until she suddenly spotted the cardboard box in the corner of the kitchen.
    "Oh, is that the puppy you were telling us about?" She touched the fat little rump and the puppy immediately began to cry and snuffle about. "Oh, he's darling! May I pick him up?"
    "And feed him," said Aunt Zell, handing her the pup's nursing bottle as Uncle Ash came into the big sunlit kitchen.
    "Here, now, what's all this hoo-hawing this early in the morning?" He cocked his head at my niece and said, "Well, it's plain as those blue eyes in your head that you're a Knott. Haywood's or Herman's?"
    She smiled back at him as the wiggly little puppy in her lap suckled noisily. "Herman's, Mr. Ash. I'm sorry if I woke you up."
    "Not you, child. It was the smell of Miss Zell's coffee." His face was smooth and rosy from its morning shave. "She's a sneaky lady. Leaves the door open on purpose just to roust me out."
    Aunt Zell rosied up herself. Married forty years this May and they were still like that. I could never decide if it was natural, if they worked at it, or if it was because Uncle Ash was on the road so much as a buyer for one of the big tobacco companies. He'd been saving his frequent flyer miles and in less than two weeks, they were flying off to Paris for a second honeymoon, something Uncle Ash had been wanting to do ever since RDU became an international airport with direct flights to Paris.
    From the day he brought home the tickets, there'd been an air of "Let the Games Begin!" Nice to be around.
    He gave Aunt Zell a squeeze, then poured himself a cup of coffee and topped my cup, too. The puppy held our attention. It was about two and a half weeks old and