Sweet Talk

by Jackie Merritt

  People already used the park, even though Reed didn’t consider it finished. Much of the underbrush had been cleared and some trails created, along with one bike path around the perimeter. But his plans included hiking trails crisscrossing the property, picnic areas, playgrounds for the younger set and a special area for youthful bikers and skateboarders. Also, he wanted to add plants and trees to spots of sparse vegetation. He had gone to the Billings office of the U.S. Forest Service and picked up several books and pamphlets about indigenous vegetation, so that along with what he already knew about the subject, he was able to lay out a sophisticated but sensible landscape blueprint.

  His mother had become interested in the project and offered her services. Carolyn felt the town should be involved in both labor and finance. “People will feel a much stronger bond with the park if they help in some way to develop it, Reed,” she had told him.

  He couldn’t disagree. His mother worked tirelessly for several fine charities, and he gladly turned over the financial end of the park’s development to her. Rumor Park, as he thought of it—though he would really like someone to come up with a more meaningful name—was going to belong to the people of Rumor. Once completed, it would be ceremoniously presented to the town. In the meantime, Carolyn was seeking the approval and assistance of state and national environmental groups and, to arouse further local interest and enthusiasm for the project, was planning a Christmas ball. It would be a swank affair—the likes of which had never before been seen in Rumor—and would be held in enormous, heated tents set up on a good-size area of MonMart’s parking lot. The decorations were going to be spectacular, and tickets were already sold out.

  Reed grinned when he pulled into MonMart’s busy parking lot and envisioned the glamorous event, which was scheduled for the second week of December. The bank account that had been opened for park funds contained a large sum of money, and by spring, Rumor Park would be finished. Just thinking about it delivered a thrill to his system. He loved being involved in community affairs, and he sometimes wondered if he shouldn’t run for public office.

  But then he would be tied to one job, and ever since high school he’d been happiest when juggling a dozen different duties and responsibilities.

  After parking in the employees’ lot to the right of the store, he went in, whistling between his teeth. He felt so good it had to be a crime, he thought, grinning at the first person he saw. The young woman smiled back and said, “Good morning, Mr. Kingsley.”

  “’Morning, Lois.” He went upstairs to the administration offices and stopped in at the video room, where a security officer kept an eye on a dozen monitors, the output of the surveillance cameras placed around the store. It was too bad that retailers had to guard against theft, but shoplifting was a national scandal, and even in a nice little town like Rumor some people couldn’t resist the temptation of sneaking goods into a pocket or handbag.

  “How’s it going this morning?” Reed jauntily asked Homer, the computer whiz manning the equipment today.

  “Same as always,” Homer replied with a big grin. “Busy downstairs. Looks like folks are getting an early start on Christmas shopping this year.”

  Reed glanced at the monitors and nodded. “It does, doesn’t it? Goods have been pouring in and going out so fast it’s a race to keep the shelves stocked.”

  “Well, you can’t knock success,” Homer drawled.

  “Nope, sure can’t.” Reed made a move to leave, but then stopped short. He narrowed his eyes on a screen and bent closer to it. Was that woman in aisle twelve Valerie Fairchild? It was! His pulse quickened. Went a little bit wild, actually. Just the sight of her shopping made his blood run faster. He remembered his vow to leave her be, to never put himself in the position of being turned down by her again, but clinging to that oath while watching her with his own eyes wasn’t easy.

  “What’s so interesting?” Homer asked, and took a look at the monitor Reed couldn’t seem to tug his eyes away from. “Did you spot something?”

  “Just someone I know.” Reed pulled himself together. “See you later, Homer.” He hurried out and went to his office. But instead of sitting at his desk and doing something productive, he paced the floor and thought about Val. He’d felt so damn good not ten minutes ago. Now he ached all over, and he resented losing his fabulous mood over something so mundane as Valerie Fairchild doing her weekly grocery shopping.

  By damn, he had every right to walk any aisle in the place! If he just happened to run into her—it had happened before—what could she do but be nice?

  Groaning over Valerie’s polished ability to be nice and ice-cold at the same time, Reed told himself to forget it. To forget her! Why couldn’t he? He’d known women who were more beautiful, possibly women with more sex appeal, but she was the one he couldn’t get out of his mind.

  Leaving his office to get himself a cup of coffee at the snack bar down the hall, he passed the surveillance room and couldn’t resist checking the monitors again to see where Val was now. Homer looked at him curiously, but Reed ignored him and searched each monitor screen until he found her. She was in the canned goods aisle, and she was… Bending over, he peered more closely at the image. What was she doing? It looked as if she was leaning against the shelves, but why would…

  It hit Reed like a ton of bricks. Running from the room, he took the stairs two at a time, then rushed through the store like a madman. Everyone in town knew that Dr. Fairchild was recovering from breast cancer, and obviously she wasn’t fully recovered yet or she wouldn’t be propped against a damn shelf!

  Reed hit the aisle running, saw Val still leaning there with her eyes shut, and hurried toward her. Bending low enough to anchor his left arm behind her knees, he scooped her in the air.

  Val was so startled she just hung on while Reed Kingsley hurriedly strode to the front of the store, leaving her cart of groceries behind. Everyone they passed stopped dead in their tracks to stare, and her fury sprouted and grew. She was so furious by the time they went through the large automatic doors and outside that she could have cheerfully murdered the odious jerk intent on saving her from…from what? My God, she thought, with tears burning her eyes, this incident would be the talk of the town in five minutes!

  “Put me down,” she said in a lethally low and hoarse voice, afraid that if she spoke with greater volume she would screech loud enough to wake the dead in the Rumor cemetery. She could feel her shoulder bag bumping against his leg as he walked, and wished it were sharp and pointed and beating a hole in his thigh. Maybe it was a cruel thought, but she had never been so embarrassed in her life.

  “In a second,” Reed said. “You need some fresh air.” He kept going, heading for Val’s bright blue SUV. He recognized most of the vehicles around town, so it was no great feat to pick out Val’s in the nearly full parking lot.

  People who were transferring purchases from carts to their vehicles stopped to study the sight of Reed Kingsley carrying Valerie Fairchild through the organized maze of parked cars and trucks.

  While they gawked, Val seriously—hysterically—considered slapping Reed Kingsley silly, which was exactly what he deserved. But that would only give friends, neighbors and complete strangers something else to stare at. She wasn’t helpless; she knew she could wriggle and squirm and force him to put her down. But that would create another scene, and some of these shoppers were pet owners who brought their cats and dogs to the Animal Hospital. They knew her as the animal doc. Years from now they would still think of her in this debasing situation whenever they brought Snookums or Buffy or Killer in for a shot or some other procedure. She would never live this down—not ever!

  Her only usable weapon was her voice and she went for it. “I wish I could think of some way to hate you more than I do at this moment,” she said in the same deadly tone she’d used before.

  Reed was so shocked he nearly dropped her. He stopped walking and let her feet slide to the pavement. “I…I sure as hell didn’t do this to make you hate me,
” he mumbled.

  She wasn’t quite steady on her feet and reached out to the closest car, grabbing it for support. She had enough strength to glare into this wannabe rescuer’s eyes, though, with a look in her own that could have curdled milk. “What in hell did you think was going on in there?” she spat.

  “You looked faint. You’re still pale.”

  “I am not pale, and I wasn’t going to faint. How dare you humiliate me in front of the whole town? What do you do—imagine yourself as some kind of knight in shining armor, running around saving damsels in distress? You should be locked up!”

  Reed was so shaken by her fury he could barely think at all, let alone come up with a reply. He’d honestly thought she needed help; obviously he’d made a huge mistake. He felt sick about it.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I really thought—”

  “Go to hell!” She let go of the strange car and walked the short distance to her own.

  “Wait! What about your groceries?” Reed called.

  “Put everything back on the shelf or shove them where the sun don’t shine! I wouldn’t go back in there if the damn stuff was free!” Val got behind the wheel of her SUV, started the engine and backed out of her parking space. Her eyes were burning like fire, but that Kingsley jerk was still watching her and she would rather drown in her own salty tears than let him see her wiping them away.

  Reed realized the enormity of his act when he returned to the store and found that everyone he met asked him what had happened. The incident would be the talk of the town for days, and he had smeared Val’s reputation by assuming something that wasn’t true. She hadn’t been feeling faint, she’d coldly told him; she’d been…what? She’d denied without explaining, but what would cause a woman to lean against shelving in a store?

  Mumbling evasive answers to the curious, Reed hurried toward the stairs to the second floor. But when he remembered Val’s cart, he made a U-turn. It was right where she had left it. Right where he had caused her to leave it.

  “Damn,” he muttered under his breath. The basket was loaded with meat, vegetables, dairy products, fruit and bakery goods. She’d done a lot of shopping, probably filling a weekly grocery list. And there it all sat. Would she calm down and come back for it?

  “She won’t have to,” he said under his breath, pushing the cart toward the front of the store. At the first available checkout stand, he unloaded the pile of groceries and told the clerk to put the cost on his account, bag it and have it delivered to his office. He wasn’t sure what to do with it but he figured he’d think of something.

  He did. When a bag boy—Joe Harte, who was juggling high school classes and his job, trying to save money for college—pushed a cart with five stuffed bags of food into his office about fifteen minutes later, Reed had a slip of paper ready. “Hi, Joe. You have a car, don’t you?” he asked the young man.

  “I have a pickup.”

  “That’ll do. I’d like this order delivered to this address.” He handed over the piece of paper. “Tell the supervisor you’re doing me a favor so you don’t get hassled about your absence, all right?”

  “I’ll take care of it, Mr. Kingsley.” Joe left with the cart, heading for the elevator. Reed left, too, but he used the stairs, as he usually did.

  Once in his vehicle he drove to town and straight to Jilly’s Lilies. Jilly, the owner and his cousin Jeff’s wife, wasn’t in, but her teenaged assistant, Blake Cameron was there. After a hello and how are you, Reed ordered flowers and wrote a message on a card, which he put in an envelope. Blake promised delivery within two hours, and Reed left.

  His day was ruined, and he neither returned to MonMart nor stopped at the volunteer fire station. Instead he drove home, went inside, threw himself on the couch, stared at the vaulted ceiling overhead and tortured himself with the memory of Val saying that she wished there was a way to hate him more than she already did.

  The day that had started out so great had turned sour—horrible, actually—and he wasn’t completely sure it was his fault. After all, he’d only tried to help. It was his nature to help anyone in need. Didn’t Val know him at all?

  Val had fought flooded eyes and blurred vision all the way home. She was so upset that her whole body trembled. This had to have been the most humiliating experience of her life, or at least the most humiliating since her move to Montana. But strangely enough, when she finally pulled into her driveway, she wasn’t just angry with Reed Kingsley, the sophomoric jerk, she was furious with herself. Why had she said such terrible things to him? She never lost her temper, and she didn’t tell people she hated them just because they annoyed the hell out of her.

  She turned off the engine and sat there staring into space while her stomach churned and her hands shook. Rumor was her home. Her business was here and there was no place else she wanted to live. But this was Reed Kingsley’s home, too, and Rumor was too small a town to completely avoid someone, especially if that person was hot on her trail, as he seemed to be. The man’s tenacity was amazing. She had never given him an ounce of encouragement, yet he kept showing up and making her notice him. Why, for God’s sake?

  Groaning, Val opened the door of her SUV and got out. Estelle came outside and walked toward her. “I’ll help carry in the groceries,” she called.

  Val’s spirits dropped another notch. “There aren’t any.”

  Estelle had gotten close enough to see her face clearly. “Oh, my God, you’re pale as a sheet. What happened? Did you have a bad spell in the store? Well, don’t worry about the groceries. I’ll send Jim shopping later on.”

  Was she really pale? Val frowned and brought her trembling hands to her face, as though she could detect the color of her skin with her fingertips.

  “And you’re shaking like a leaf,” Estelle exclaimed. She took Val by the arm. “You are going straight to bed, my friend. Obviously you need to rest a bit.”

  Val rarely argued with Estelle when it came to matters of health. The woman was a trained nurse working in the field all her life until retirement a few years back. She adhered to the common-sense school of medical treatment, and bed rest was high on her list of preferred remedies.

  Besides, hiding in bed for the rest of this unnerving day held a massive amount of appeal for Val. She let herself be led along to her bedroom, and obediently undressed when Estelle asked if she wanted pajamas or a nightgown.

  “Pajamas.”

  Estelle went into the bathroom and returned with a thermometer, which she stuck in Val’s mouth, and a blood-pressure cuff she placed around her upper arm. Val sat quietly for the procedures, wishing that Jinni was back from her honeymoon. Her sister would know what to say about that debasing incident—probably something funny that would make Val feel like laughing instead of crying.

  Estelle said, “Your blood pressure is fine.” She took the thermometer. “So is your temperature.”

  “I only had one of those weak spells,” Val said. “I’m not ill, Estelle.”

  “Well, I still think a little nap is in order.”

  “I doubt if I’ll do any sleeping.” But she was getting into her pajamas, and her big, comfortable bed looked very inviting. Estelle folded back the bedding and Val obligingly climbed in.

  “Do you still have that grocery list?” Estelle asked.

  Val slid her gaze to the right, to the window, just to avoid meeting Estelle’s sharp eyes. She would hear about the incident—it was highly unlikely that anyone living within a twenty-mile radius of town would miss hearing about it—but Val couldn’t bring herself to talk about it. Not yet, at any rate. It was still too new, too painful to think about, let alone attempt to explain why she had left her groceries in one of MonMart’s busy aisles.

  “It’s in the pocket of my jeans…I believe,” she murmured.

  Estelle picked up the jeans from the chair Val had laid them on and dug into the pockets. “Here it is. Good. I’ll have Jim go to MonMart later on.” She went over to the window and shut the blinds, whi
ch darkened the room considerably. “You rest for at least an hour, hon,” she told Val. “Call if you need anything.”

  “Thank you, Estelle.”

  “You’re very welcome.” The front doorbell chimed. “Now who can that be?” Estelle exclaimed as she hurried from the room.

  Val’s heart sank. If Reed Kingsley had dared to ring her doorbell, she was going to get out of this bed and—and… Well, she wasn’t sure what she would do, but it wouldn’t be pleasant. She sat up and listened intently, heard voices and movement in the house, but nothing she could pick up was distinct enough to enlighten her nervous curiosity. If it was Reed at her door, she thought with a sickish sensation in her stomach, she would probably do no more than yank the covers over her head and play dead. He wouldn’t really have the gall, would he?

  Estelle finally returned and she was wearing a huge, excited smile. “Well, I never,” she began. “That was one of MonMart’s bag boys, Joe Harte, with all of your groceries. Doesn’t that beat all? He said that Mr. Kingsley asked him to deliver the food right away. It’s all in the kitchen. I have to get busy putting it away.”

  Val was so dumbfounded she couldn’t even mumble a reply. After Estelle’s hasty departure Val’s mind went into overdrive, and she yelled, “What about payment?”

  Estelle didn’t hear her, and Val lay back on the pillows and said again, this time at normal pitch and with an agonized ache throughout her entire system, “What about payment?”

  It didn’t take very much thought to figure out how those groceries had gotten from a cart in MonMart’s canned goods aisle to her front door. She groaned, turned to her side, reached for some tissues from the box on her nightstand and let the tears flow. She knew—she knew, that she could beg Reed Kingsley from now until doomsday to tell her the total cost of that food so she could write a check for it, and he wouldn’t do it.