The Talk of the Town by Fran Baker

entryway chimed the time. Six-fifteen. Which meant they were either a little early or a little late for dinner.
    “Roxie? Is that you?” called her unseen mother. “Hurry up, we’ve just sat down.”
    “Which way?” Luke asked, whispering.
    Pointing left, Roxie whispered back, “They’re in the dining room.”
    As he strode into the room with her firmly clasped in his arms, there was an absolutely still moment in which shock rippled down the table, from her mother at one end to her brother Frederick and his wife Nora sitting next to each other in the middle to her father at the other end.
    The second wave of reaction was more varied, including her parents’ clearly visible concern, her sister-in-law’s obvious curiosity, and her brother’s equally obvious antagonism. Roxie watched their changing expressions and felt her pleasure in Luke’s arms fade. She wiggled within his grasp, indicating she wanted to be set down, but he simply tightened his hold.
    “Roxie twisted her ankle,” he announced to one and all. “It looks like it could be a bad sprain.”
    Hearing the trace of aggression in his voice, she looked at him in sharp surprise. He’d never used that tone in her presence, not even tonight when he’d been so determined to bring her home. But the surprise she felt was nothing compared to her family’s. She could see it darkening the chandelier-lit room and decided the moment called for a quick explanation.
    “It was just a silly accident,” she said. “I fell in the warehouse, and if Luke hadn’t been there to drive me home, I don’t know what I would have done. My ankle is already three times its normal size.”
    Her mother rose with a series of brisk instructions. “Nora, get some towels from the upstairs bathroom. Frederick, bring up that small soaking tub from the basement. William, the footstool is in my sewing room.”
    Chairs rasped, voices clashed, steps rapped over hardwood as the rest of the family jumped obediently to do her bidding. Mary briefly inspected Roxie’s ankle and told her to take her stocking and shoe off. Then she darted into the kitchen to get some ice and run some cold water.
    Luke felt like he’d walked into the eye of a tornado.
    Returning with the footstool, William recognized the look on his face and laughed, startling him. “You may have noticed that Mary is a regular whirlwind of efficiency. Even after thirty-five years together,” the older man added, “I still find the wind knocked out of me when she’s like this.”
    “Yes, sir,” Luke said, feeling at a real loss. He’d expected hostility from William, or demands to unhand his daughter—at the very best a reserved thanks. He would have known how to handle any of those, but this left him dumfounded. He watched warily as the gray-haired man moved to the side of the table, pulled out a chair and set the footstool in front of it. Even in his open-collared white shirt and comfortable blue sweater, he conveyed an air of authority.
    “Unless you’re of a mind to hold on to my daughter forever,” he said dryly, “I’d suggest you put her down here.”
    “Yes, sir,” he repeated. He’d rather have held on to her, but he set Roxie on the chair and then backed into a shadowed corner.
    Her father ruffled her hair with a gentle hand before he bent to remove her peep-toed pump, his body shielding her as she raised her skirt above her knee to release her stocking from the garter that kept it up and roll it down her leg. She began relating the accident in amusing detail and the two laughed together. The loving intimacy made Luke feel like an intruder. Beginning to wish he could simply vanish into thin air, he started edging his way out of the room.
    Mary swept in from the kitchen, followed by a stony-faced Frederick, and within minutes Roxie’s bare foot was soaking in a small round tub of ice water. She let out a little yelp of distress at the frigidity, and her brother claimed she deserved it for being so