So why did he find himself anxious at the end of the day to see her? Why did he always stay for that extra cup of coffee after dinner? Why did he anticipate her late arrival to the kitchen each morning, hoping that she’d oversleep so he could have the fun of waking her and watching her fight the morning?
Trouble. All of it. His feelings. His sleepless nights. His lust. All because of her and there was no getting rid of her. He was stuck with her until MacCurdy nailed Rocco and Grotti. Which according to the last update from Frank wasn’t going to be as soon as MacCurdy had indicated. Just his luck.
“You don’t have time to change, so we might as well go,” Ross told her gruffly. It wasn’t much of an answer to her question, but it was all she was going to get. If he started confessing that he liked her skimpy clothes, the next thing he knew he’d be telling her how much he liked her, and how glad he was that she’d come to his corner of the world, if only for a brief time.
“Mr. Charming step back, you’ve got nothing on Ross Evans,” she said aloud in her uniquely sarcastic way.
Ross merely grunted and led her out the front door. Rosa May was already seated in the cab of the truck.
“What’s she so excited about?” Claudia wondered. “All we’re doing is going grocery shopping.”
“I told her we could stop at Friendly’s for lunch.”
“Oh. Friendly’s, huh?”
“Yeah, why? You’ve got a problem with Friendly’s?”
Claudia sighed as she sashayed her way to the pickup. Ross opened the passenger door and gave her a boost up as she was unable to lift herself into the pickup. He took the driver’s seat and started the engine. “If you don’t want to go to Friendly’s, I’m sure we can find something else,” he told her as they drove down the driveway.
Rosa May actually gasped. “Not go to Friendly’s! But it’s the friendliest place in the world.”
Claudia grinned, then ruffled the girl’s bangs. As she reached for her purse in pursuit of her hair spray bottle, she explained, “I don’t have a problem with Friendly’s. I just thought in a place called Sun Prairie, there’d be one Main Street with a Sun Prairie drugstore and a Sun Prairie hardware store. And a diner on the corner with a cranky old lady behind the counter, where everyone goes to get the best coffee and the best gossip in town.”
“This is Wisconsin, not the Old West,” Ross informed her.
Rosa May closed her eyes obediently as Claudia spritzed her hair and teased her bangs.
“Friendly’s is the best place in town for gossip. You’ll see,” Rosa May promised.
Ross was right. Sun Prairie wasn’t the Old West. It was the New West she supposed. Shopping malls instead of Main Street. Fast food restaurants instead of diners. A popular hardware store chain. A popular drugstore chain. There was a Main Street, but it was busy with Saturday afternoon traffic. Not exactly what she pictured.
“Look, Claudia there’s my new school! I’m going to junior high next year. Boy, Dad, you sure will be lonely on the farm when I go back to school. You know in a few years I’ll be going to high school, then off to college. You’ll really be lonely then.”
“Enough, Rosa May,” Ross growled seeing through his daughter’s act. “I managed just fine when you were at school last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. Somehow I’ll muddle through this year as well. As for college, I think I have a few years before I have to start worrying about that.”
“I just think maybe it’s about time you considered settling down. You know you can’t be a bachelor forever. Maybe you should think about dating Miss Harkim, again,” Rosa May suggested.
Reverse psychology. Eight point nine, Claudia mused. “Ah, the infamous Miss Harkim. I have to say I’m slightly curious about this woman. What made you stop calling her, anyway?”
“She was too much of a city girl. Milwaukee,” he said pithily.
“Milwaukee is actually considered a city?” Claudia asked with a smirk, his hidden meaning not so hidden.
“Here we are,” he announced as they pulled into the supermarket parking lot. And in the nick of time, he added silently. The crew piled out of the truck and sought out an appropriate shopping cart.
Not surprising, Claudia made as much of a production of choosing the right shopping cart as she did of actually shopping. One cart was too tight, the other too loose. One’s wheels wobbled, and one she found offensively dirty. After ten minutes they finally found perfection. Rosa May pushed, while Claudia selected items off her shopping list, half of which Ross couldn’t even identify.
After a period of time he gave up trying. “Here take the checkbook. I’ve signed a blank check for you. Don’t go overboard,” he warned. “I’m heading to the hardware store. I’ll meet you back at the truck.”
“Have fun.”
“I’m just going to look at a few tools. It’s not what I would consider fun.”
“Oh, please. A man, a farmer no less, in a hardware store. The testosterone levels in those places are enough to get you high.”
Shaking his head, he walked off. If nothing else a visit to the hardware store would restore his sanity. A man could go crazy being around a woman like Claudia for too long. And it had definitely been too long.
A little less than an hour later, Ross finally spotted Claudia and Rosa May departing the grocery store. He’d been waiting by the pickup for what felt like forever. “What were you two doing in there, growing the food yourselves?”
“Ha, ha,” Claudia said sarcastically. “No, but I was trying to find the ingredients for my special gravy. Not an easy task in your neighborhood market. Back in Brooklyn this wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“Back in Brooklyn, the last thing you’d be worrying about is gravy,” he returned, reminding her why she was here in the first place.
“Very true.”
“Now can we go to Friendly’s?” The girl was on the verge of becoming a teenager, but in many ways was still just a kid at heart who lived for ice cream. Ross began to think that maybe Rosa May wasn’t influenced by their mature visitor.
Then he saw what could only be considered a pout. Fat bottom lip and all. So much for not being influenced by their visitor. “Yes, now we can go to Friendly’s.”
The pout instantly vanished and was replaced by a gorgeous smile. That was the one good thing about pouting, Ross reflected—it was so much fun to make it go away.
The threesome strolled across the busy street to the restaurant on the corner. They walked in and immediately Ross felt all eyes upon them. No, that wasn’t true. All eyes were on Claudia.
“Dad, how come everyone is staring at Claudia?”
“It’s because she’s new in town, honey. You know how folks around here are with strangers.” What he didn’t say was that folks around this neighborhood were sometimes intolerant of strangers. Surely, Claudia’s hair and her chic, tight-fitting clothes would spark the gossipmongers’ attention.
“Why are they staring at me?” Claudia whispered.
Ross moved closer to her as a clear message to the town that she was with him. He didn’t like the women’s disapproving glances or the men’s out-and-out drooling. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her under his breath so that only she could hear. “They don’t know what to make of you, that’s all.”
“I know what to make of them,” Claudia whispered back.
He had been hoping to shield her from their unpleasantness, but clearly she understood what was going on.
“It’s obvious they’re jealous.”
Okay, maybe she didn’t understand what was going on. Jealous? How did she figure that? “How do you figure that?” Ross asked incredulously.
“Well, look at them. I’ve never seen a more pathetically dressed group of people in my life! That woman over there actually has rollers in her hair. I haven’t seen a painted nail yet. And their clothes look like something that came out of the Farmer’s Almanac mail-order catalog. Ten years ago. Good grief have these people nev
er heard of fashion!”
“Can I help you?” a young girl asked.
Claudia took in the Friendly’s uniform and grudgingly admitted that she couldn’t blame this girl for her lack of taste. After all, it was a uniform. But the mousy brown hair had to go. “Tell me something honey, have you ever considered blond highlights?”
“Uh, no. Did you need a seat for three?”
“You’ve got a lot of natural highlights that just need a boost,” Claudia continued, unperturbed by the girl’s expression of shock. She was on a mission of mercy and wouldn’t be deterred. “A little diluted peroxide with some lemon and you’d be a babe.”
“Would you like smoking or nonsmoking?” the girl asked. “A babe?”
“A babe,” Claudia reiterated. “Listen, I don’t really do this sort of thing anymore, I specialize in nails now.” As proof, she flashed her bovine and equine themed nails. “But for you, I’m willing to make an exception. Before I leave, I’ll write down some instructions for you. I want you to follow them to the letter. What’s your name, honey?”
The girl thrust out her right breast with name tag attached. “Shelby.”
“Shelby, you give us the best table the house has to offer and I’ll throw in tips on how to condition your hair with mayonnaise.”
“Okay,” she said happily. Then she showed the mock family to a large booth.
A booth that happened to be situated directly across from a table where the two worst gossips with the two most disapproving frowns sat. “Hello, Ms. Pritchet. Mrs. Harkim. How are you today?”
“Just fine Ross, and yourself?” the older Mrs. Harkim asked in an insincerely sweet voice.
“Wonderful,” he lied boldly.
“Are you going to introduce us to your new friend?” Ms. Pritchet, the sixth-grade schoolteacher, asked politely but with a thread of steel running through the request, which made it sound more like an order.
“Howdy,” Claudia responded, as she waved her hand to the old broads. “I’m just an old friend from…the Bureau. Special Agent and stuff. I’m only visiting. No hanky-panky or anything.” She was trying to help, but the resigned look of desperation on Ross’s face told her she wasn’t doing such a terrific job. So much for defusing the gossip. “So who does your hair? You’ve got some nice silver highlights,” she complimented the older woman.
Mrs. Harkim huffed and grabbed at her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My hair color is completely natural.”
Claudia laughed boldly. “You go, girl. You stick to that story!”
The two huffed and turned their faces away from Claudia. Ross ran his hands down his face. He couldn’t help but ask, “Do you always approach strangers and comment on their highlights?”
“Only the ones that have highlights,” Claudia answered cheekily.
“Here comes our waitress. Maybe you could leave her alone,” Ross suggested.
“Maybe.”
But when Claudia saw the state of that poor woman’s hands she almost swooned. Before their meal was over Claudia had explained to the woman in detail about the merits of soaking her hands in aloe every night. When the nails were soft, that was the best time to cut and shape them. The woman, skeptical at first, couldn’t help but be drawn in by Claudia’s openness and sincerity.
By the time they left, Claudia had done her part in the war against the fashionless and the beauty deprived, and Rosa May got to pick out a free half gallon of Friendly’s ice cream on the behalf of the grateful staff.
“You are outrageous, you know that,” Ross commented as they walked back to the pickup.
“Whaaat? All I did was offer a little advice. And did you see the way those two old broads came around when I mentioned my cure for those little tiny wrinkles over the mouth? They know a good thing when they hear it. Even Mrs. Harkim, who had to hate me on principle.”
He hoped she hadn’t noted the one woman’s last name. He’d stirred enough gossip by bringing Claudia to town and was going to take enough heat from his friends and neighbors because of it. He didn’t need to take heat from her at home as well. He and Hannah had been nothing more than friends. Despite what Mrs. Harkim and Claudia believed.
Still, it hadn’t been as bad as he thought. For a town notorious for its wariness of strangers, the group at Friendly’s had taken to Claudia relatively quickly. In the course of a lunch and just because of a few beauty tips, Claudia had gone from town hussy to town beauty consultant.
“Did you know that there is only one beauty salon in Sun Prairie? And it’s one of those chains. No wonder these people are a mess. You can’t really give your clients quality time when you are trying to deal in volume.”
“How horrible,” Ross mocked.
“Laugh all you want, but if someone opened a real salon here they could make a fortune.”
“Sometimes I forget that you’re a businesswoman.”
“Actually, I like to consider myself an artist first, a businesswoman second. But no one ever said that you couldn’t mix beauty and business.”
“Hey, Dad look at this,” Rosa May screeched.
She reached the pickup first and pulled a flyer out from underneath the windshield wiper. “They’re having a real old-fashioned barn dance at the high school next Saturday night. Everyone’s supposed to dress up like cowboys and cowgirls. And it’s for adults only. That’s you and Claudia!”
Ross all but ripped the flyer out of his daughter’s hands. He didn’t want to be rude, but the last thing he intended to do was attend a dance at the school. A dance where he would be expected to invite Claudia. A dance where he would be expected to hold Claudia.
“A dance, huh?” Claudia asked over the hood of the truck, her on one side, Ross on the other, Rosa May already in the cab.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” he said. “I wouldn’t be any fun at a dance.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I mean if you were to ask me to a dance, what would people think? Besides, you’d probably spend the whole night crushing my toes and tripping over your own two feet. That wouldn’t be much fun. Not fun at all.”
Irritated, because he knew she was deliberately trying to draw him in, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself, he said, “I didn’t say I couldn’t dance. I said I wasn’t much of a dancer. There’s a big difference. Besides, what would a city girl like you know about a barn dance? I doubt you know how to two-step.”
“Of course I do! I’ve seen Urban Cowboy. John Travolta. Debra Winger. It’s one of my favorites.”
There was no way out. He might as well face the inevitable and get it over with. He only wished he wasn’t as excited by the proposition of holding her in his arms all night as he was.
“Claudia?”
“Yes, Ross?”
“Would you like to attend the barn dance with me next Saturday?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to check my schedule.” With that Claudia hoisted herself into the pickup with a little help from Rosa May pulling on her arms. “Let this be a lesson to you kid, never say yes to a man the first time he asks you on a date. It smacks of desperation.”
6
“NO. NAH. NOPE. No way. Uh-uh.”
“This is harder than it looks,” Rosa May muttered under her breath. They’d been searching through Claudia’s clothes for hours in a vain effort to find the perfect outfit for the dance that night. So far no luck.
“What can I say? I did not come prepared for a barn dance. Every other contingency I was ready for. Elegant dinners, informal parties, but somehow barn dances eluded me.” They were shoved in the bathroom together, desperately trying to gauge the appropriateness of each outfit in the tiny mirror. Claudia pressed dress after dress up against her body. Strapless, spaghetti straps, scoop necks. Nothing seemed quite right. Nothing said cowgirl.
“Hey, I know!” Rosa May chirped. “You could wear one of my mom’s old outfits. She had lots of stuff you could use. We still have everything in boxes in her closet.”
Cl
audia hesitated. She wasn’t so sure about wearing Susan’s clothes. Susan. She’d come to think of her as a real person even though she’d never met the woman, and was never going to meet her. She still seemed to occupy such a large part of the farm and the house, and Ross’s heart. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
At night, wrapped up tight in the afghan Susan’s mother had knitted, she sometimes felt the woman’s presence. It was a comforting feeling. She imagined that Susan could see her doing Rosie’s nails, or fighting with Ross over the remote control, or struggling to move a cow into the barn. She wondered if she understood that despite the fact that she was only on this farm to hide out temporarily, she yearned to feel included. Even a little needed.
Yes, Claudia was certain that if Susan were alive they would probably get along despite their differences. After all they both cared for Ross, didn’t they? Which made the thought of borrowing her clothes a little weird. It was one thing to make the moves on a dead woman’s husband, it was another thing all together to do it in her clothes.
But Rosa May was insistent. “Come on,” she urged, pulling Claudia out of the bathroom and dragging her to Ross’s room.
Unaware of her older friend’s reluctance, Rosa May started extracting skirts and blouses from boxes. She dug deep into the box and pulled out a pair of red cowboy boots. “See. These are perfect.”
Wary, Claudia stammered, “I—I don’t know. I don’t think your pop would appreciate me going through your ma’s things. Clothes are very personal.”
“Not to her they weren’t.”
“Ross!” Claudia turned at the sound of his voice and found him in the doorway of his bedroom. His white T-shirt was plastered against his thick chest, damp from hard work. At the V, she could see tufts of hair escaping the cloth. The thought of running her hands through those tufts made her mouth go dry. No man had ever made her mouth go dry.
He stared at her from his position and saw her eyes cloud over with desire. Instantly, his body responded to the knowledge that she wanted him and couldn’t seem to hide that fact. Then he saw the boots she held in her hands and tried to remind himself why he shouldn’t want anything to do with her. It was getting harder and harder to do just that. Maybe if she was dressed head to toe in Susan’s clothes it would show just how unlike Susan she was and would make it easier.
The Doc's Double Delivery & Down-Home Diva Page 23