by Liz Flaherty
Lucy walked past him, edging a little sideways so they didn’t touch. “Because you’d pretty much already made up your mind that I was going to steal the recipe and become the next Mrs. Fields, only with pie instead of cookies,” she said. “You and your sister have decided I’m a bad seed blown into Taft for the express purpose of taking advantage of Gert. I’m not going to waste my life defending myself against that.”
God, she walked fast for someone with such short legs. They were very nice legs, it was true, but undeniably short. Her height, what there was of it, was in her torso. Boone double-stepped to catch up with her. “I explained to you how much she means to us.”
“Yes, you did, and I explained to you that I wasn’t going to bilk her of all her worldly goods. You act as though you believe me, then every time I turn around, you’re throwing little verbal darts.” She stopped and he almost ran over her. “Well, let me tell you this—” she faced him and poked his chest with one stubby-nailed finger, “—I bleed just like anyone else does and I’m tired of being picked at.”
“You’re right.”
“Furthermore, if you and Crockett can’t stand to be in the same room with each other, that’s fine, but you worry your aunt to death. She says she expects to go up to the third floor and find a white line down the middle of the sitting room, dividing your half from his. You’re adults, for God’s sake, way up in your thirties. It’s time you acted like it.”
“You’re right.”
He’d heard that old aphorism where a guy told a woman, “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” and had always thought it was ridiculous. Lucy Dolan’s ire did nothing to change that opinion. Her nose got red when she was mad. Not the slightly sunburned pink he found captivating, but honest-to-God-in-heaven Rudolph-red. Her cheeks were white in contrast, with a spray of freckles standing out like little beacons. Butterscotch-colored hair sprang loose from the French braid that was supposed to be confining it. Perspiration gathered in the hollow of her throat before rolling down into the scoop neck of her shirt and driving him crazy.
Crazy enough he lost track of where she was in her tirade. Playing it safe, he said, “You’re right,” again. Sims had always told him he couldn’t go wrong by agreeing with a woman, even if she was wrong. Not that Sims had ever learned his own lesson—he argued with every word Gert said to him, but still…
“Stop saying that.”
Boone gave Lucy an outraged sigh. “Saying what? I haven’t said anything except that you’re right.” For good measure, he added, “You’re pretty when you’re mad.” Because somehow she was, ridiculous old saying or no.
“Oh, sure, all I need is clown makeup to go with my Ronald McDonald nose,” she scoffed, but laughter shimmered in her eyes.
“I like Ronald McDonald,” he said. “He’s one of the good guys. Will you go to the church supper with me? I’ll even buy your ticket.”
She hesitated, and he gave her his best smile, the one that had convinced Cassandra Whittenberger to… Oh, hell, back into puberty again.
“I’ll behave,” he promised. “I won’t cast any aspersions on your character or the color of your nose. I won’t break Crockett’s pretty face. I’ll even—” he stuck out his chest manfully, “—protect you from my sister. And I won’t tell Aunt Gert you covet her Birkenstocks.”
“That is something to consider. We wouldn’t want her to know just how mercenary I am.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Okay,” she agreed, “I’ll go with you as long as we can walk over.”
“You can’t car date yet?” he said. “Aunt Gert’s getting strict in her old age. You must be, what, twenty-eight?” He knew if he was stupid enough to guess a woman’s age, he needed to err to the low side.
“Thirty-three.” Her long-suffering sigh assured him the flattery had been wasted. “Old enough to know better than to get into a vehicle with you.”
“You wound me,” he protested. “I’ll have you know I’ve never had an accident.”
“Really?” The smile in her eyes belied the skepticism in her voice. “How many have you caused?”
“One, maybe, only the other driver took responsibility, so I—” He stopped. How could this conversation possibly come out well for him?
“Rescued her?”
“Yes, that was it. That’s what I did.” He had to touch her hair, to see if it really was as sun-hot and silk-soft as it appeared. He reached with a hesitant hand to stroke back one of the tendrils that had strayed from the braid, and didn’t want to draw his hand away. It was just that hot and just that soft and he wanted to pull it loose from its plait and bury his face in it. What in the hell was wrong with him? “Six-thirty?”
She nodded. The movement of her head forced his hand to cup her cheek. Really it did. Her skin was as silk-soft as her hair.
“I’ll walk you home,” he offered, and she nodded again, not drawing away from his hand on her face for a strange little space of time. When they started walking again, it was in silence, but she didn’t move away then, either. They were close enough that their hands bumped occasionally, and he had to stifle an urge to grasp her fingers and swing their hands like they were kids making their first explorations into the world of touch.
She pulled open the door of the newspaper office. “I need to pay for the ad we put in every week.”
“Hey, Lucy.” A tall man in a University of Kentucky sweatshirt and jeans stepped out of the glass-walled office that had Editor on its door. “It’s my day for receptionist duty. Would you like some coffee?”
Lucy shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ve had your coffee before. I just want to pay for the ad. Micah Walker, do you know Gert’s nephew Boone? He’s here for the summer to keep an eye on…things.”
Micah grinned. “We were in the same high school yearbook, Lucy, just different years. Taft better batten down its hatches. I saw Crockett earlier today. I don’t know if the town can hold both of you again.”
Boone shook hands with him. “Hey, you came back after twenty years away and it’s still standing. Shaken, but standing. Micah probably hasn’t mentioned this,” he said to Lucy, “but he, Tom Simcox, and Eli St. John were known as the Triangle of Terror. They left a reputation in their wake that the rest of us were powerless to equal.”
“But God knows you and Crockett tried,” Micah said dryly. His gaze behind his glasses became speculative. “Want to draw me some strips while you’re here? Exclusive to the Trib? We can’t pay your usual rate, but we’ll run you up some nice business cards and advertise all your garage sales free of charge. As an added incentive, you know.”
“I’d like that.” Boone leaned his elbows on the counter. “I’ve got a new strip scrambling around in my mind called ‘Eight Hours Work’. Want to be the guinea pig? And maybe write copy for it while you’re at it? Didn’t you used to do that with a cartoonist while you were in Lexington, pre-Pulitzer?”
Micah laughed. “Yeah, I did, though we never sold much. I’d like to do it again, though.” He extended his right hand across the counter and the men shook hands again while Lucy observed in mild shock.
“Just like that?” she asked. They were both successful, handsome men—she might even go so far as to describe them as “hunky” if she were caught unawares. Surely forging a partnership would require a lot more noise and testosterone than what she’d just witnessed.
They looked at her, then at each other. “Yeah,” they said in unison.
“This is Taft,” Boone reminded her. “The home of no one special. He and Tom and Eli were kick-ass-and-take-names seniors when Crockett and I were freshmen with brand new backpacks. I had Micah’s number in basketball. Crocket had Tom’s. Everybody knew everybody else. Far as I can tell, they still do.”
She knew that. It’s what had made her give in to Crockett’s urgings to come here. But it still surprised her that a prize-winning journalist and an internationally syndicated cartoonist conducted business in a way that seemed unconnected to
the twenty-first century.
The receptionist—the real one—came to the counter, her brow furrowed with concern. “Gert just called.” Her glance moved between Lucy and Boone. “She’d like for you two to come home. Sims has been hurt.”
“Go,” Micah said instantly. “You can pay for the ad later, Lucy. Take my car.” He reached into his pocket for his keys. “And let Lucy drive,” he called after them. “I think Gert needs for you to get there in one piece.”
Chapter Four
Boone seemed to pay a lot more attention to the road if he wasn’t actually driving on it. “The light was red,” he commented, after she’d turned off Main Street.
“It’s legal to turn right on red if no one’s coming,” she assured him. And I used a turn signal and actually checked before I turned.
“Go slow here. St. John always has a bunch of kids running around at the church. Most of them are his.”
“I know.” I go to that church, I shake hands with Eli St. John every Sunday, the women’s group meets at the tearoom, and I take my turn in the nursery. I’m the one that’s here, not you. Resentment nipped and flamed, and she had to bite down on her lower lip.
“Aren’t you going to slow down before you turn? Mr. Morgan’s crossing the street.”
Mr. Morgan, walking his sheltie, was nowhere near the intersection in question. Only the tight lines of concern on Boone’s face saved him. Lucy was not a proponent of violence, but she thought exceptions could be made. “Why don’t you try to calm down?” she suggested. “Gert doesn’t need anyone being hysterical.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“I told you Gert’s everything to Kelly and me.” His words were so terse they sounded as though they’d been snapped off like fresh green beans in nervous fingers. “That’s not entirely accurate. Gert became our mother, but after Uncle Mike died, Sims was our father, too.” He glared at her, then turned his eyes back toward the street. “The nosy old goat.”
Gert, Crockett and Kelly were all standing on the porch when they got home, so Lucy stopped Micah’s SUV at the curb. Boone was out of the vehicle before she had the key in the off position, loping up the brick path to the porch and taking the steps two at a time.
Gert raised her voice, so Lucy could hear as she approached. “He’s going to be all right. I won’t even consider the alternative.” She had her hands on her hips, her purse hanging from one arm. When tears slipped down her cheek, she swiped them away with an impatient palm. “Martha Kline was bringing that big old Lincoln she drives in for maintenance when the brakes gave out completely. Sims was walking across the lot and the car bumped him. He hit his head on the pump island when he fell.” Her voice wobbled dangerously, and Boone put an arm around her. “Damn fool should have retired years ago. Maybe now he will.” She tucked her purse under her arm and moved purposefully away from Boone. “They’ve taken him to the hospital in Cincinnati. I’m going there now.”
“Not by yourself, you’re not.” Boone’s face was white under his tan, his eyes dark again. The ring of keys he confiscated from his aunt rattled in his shaking hand.
Lucy wondered why he was trembling, but Crockett seemed to understand.
“I’ll take her,” he said easily, stepping forward.
Boone hesitated, then nodded, handing the keys to Crockett. “I’ll go down and take care of the station. You’ll call?”
“As soon as we know anything.” Crockett took Gert’s arm and started down the steps.
“I’m coming too.” Kelly’s chin jutted.
“Then step on it,” Crockett said shortly, “and don’t have any tantrums. No one has time for that now.”
Lucy drove Boone to the service station before returning Micah’s car to its parking spot. Having delivered the keys to their owner, she stood for a moment on the sidewalk outside the newspaper office, almost stepping foot-to-foot in indecision.
She didn’t know what to do. The work was caught up at the tearoom as was the housekeeping in the private quarters. Even the laundry was done—the sheets dried on lines that stretched between T-posts in the backyard. Jack had mowed the lawn and helped her weed the garden. Free time was a commodity she hadn’t had much of since arriving in Taft, and now that she had it, she didn’t want it. She needed busyness to keep Sims’s kind face from superimposing itself on her mind along with the memory of Boone’s tortured expression when he’d taken Gert’s keys.
He hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital. Everyone else had known why—Lucy’d seen understanding in their features as Crockett took the responsibility of transporting Gert.
She wished she understood, too.
You’re an outsider. You’ve been one all your life, so why is it all of a sudden a big deal?
Because she didn’t want to be outside anymore. She wanted to be in Kelly’s place as the comforter, holding Gert’s hand against the fear that masked the older woman’s face. Or she wanted to be Crockett, the rescuer, driving everyone where they needed to go. Even Jack had run to clean the windshield of Gert’s car because she always parked it under the sycamore tree and the birds used its windows for a bathroom.
Lucy thought about Boone down at the service station and wondered what role he played. If this were a movie, he’d be the hero who managed to be both tortured and funny. But in real life, Boone was as alone as she was. He pumped gas and checked oil in the place of the man who’d been a father to him, probably praying and cursing in equal amounts.
Well.
Lucy could damn well pump gas too. She’d always done it for herself before coming to Taft, where there were only two stations and full service was a given. She could clean windshields too, as long as she had a step stool. Boone didn’t have to be alone. Checking oil could be a problem—she wouldn’t know a dipstick from a kitchen skewer—but she could learn.
And maybe, just maybe, Lucy didn’t have to be on the outside. At least for right now.
She’d learned not to count on more than that.
*
“Everyone’s just buying a few dollars’ worth. They’re really stopping to find out how Sims is doing,” Boone said when she approached, staring with consternation at the cars lined up at the pumps.
“I can help.”
“Go for it.” He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and handed her some fives, tens, and ones, then brought a handful of coins out of another pocket. “There’s your bank. Give me a holler if someone wants their oil checked.”
She grimaced the first time she splattered gasoline on her shoes, grinned when a carload of teenagers asked for seventy-seven cents’ worth and paid in pennies, and laughed when Eli St. John offered to trade a couple of children for a tank of regular.
“That’s not very Christian of you,” she chided the minister, pumping his gas while he used the squeegee on the windows of his van.
“Sure it is. I’ll give you some of the good ones. They’re housebroken and everything.” Eli’s features sobered. “I’m on my way to the hospital. Have you heard anything yet?”
She shook her head. “Crockett said he’d call.”
Eli nodded in Boone’s direction. “He doing all right?”
“I think so.” But she didn’t know, not really. Boone laughed and joked with the customers, but his eyes were dark and impenetrable.
“Call if either of you needs me.” Eli raised a hand to wave at Boone. “Have cell phone, will travel.” He patted Lucy’s shoulder before getting into the car.
“Thanks. Is the church supper all set up?”
“Some of the ladies are taking care of it. I’ll try to get back before it’s over.”
She watched Eli’s aging minivan drive away, marveling anew at the closeness of the little community where she found herself.
Jack rode his bicycle onto the lot. “Is Mr. Sims okay?”
“We don’t know yet, but I hate to think what Gert will do to him if he’s not.” Lucy smiled and ruffled his already messy hair with a tentative hand.
He
didn’t pull away, which showed her the extent of his concern. So did his words. “I’d like to help.”
“You’ll be able to,” she promised, “and now you’d better move your bike. We’re developing a line.” She waved at the two cars waiting for service. “See you later, Jack.”
During a lull, Boone approached her. “Full service still closes at five on Saturdays, right?”
She nodded. “But I don’t know how to set the pumps up so credit card users can still get gas. Do you?”
“Yeah, I found the instructions. Can you take care of this out here while I start shutting down the inside?” He squinted at the clock inside the station. “It’s twenty after. I don’t think anyone will say we closed too early.”
The phone rang a few minutes later, its outside bell jangling. Lucy paused in sweeping the concrete-paved lot. Boone picked it up on the first ring. As he talked, he caught her gaze through the plate glass window and raised one hand in a familiar gesture, the thumb and index finger forming a circle. Okay.
Relief flowed through her, making her feel limp. She nearly dropped the broom. Thank You, God.
When he’d hung up, he leaned out the door. “Come on. We’re going to have to hustle if we want to make that dinner not smelling like unleaded gas.”
“Oh,” she said, “I forgot.”
“She forgot a date with me,” he told the skies, lifting a hand in supplication. “I’ve lost my touch.”
“Put this away.” She shoved the broom at him. “It’s not a date, you ninny. We’re just going to the same place at the same time. Like now, when we’re going home. What did Crockett say? Was he the one who called?”
He sobered. “Yeah. He says Sims has some broken bones and will be down for a while, but he’ll be okay. Probably in a semi-permanent state of pissed-off, but that doesn’t have to do with his injuries.”
She watched as he locked the door and then fell into step beside him. “The inactivity will drive him crazy.”