by T. F. Walsh
“This morning I signed a lease for a shop in Crystal Springs. My bookstore found a home at one twenty-four Front Street.” She smoothed her napkin and waited for his reaction. It would be best if they remained friendly. The village’s size made it imperative for business owners to avoid holding a grudge or ignoring each other.
He offered polite congratulations before ordering coffee and pie. “Will you be offering anything in your store in addition to books?”
“I’ll be stocking basic office supplies. The core will be a mixture of new and used books.” She managed to keep her voice even by limiting herself to glances at his face. The balance of the time she watched the employees clean up after the lunch rush or concentrated on her meal. Time after time she pulled her thoughts away from memories. How many meals had she shared with Scott at a similar table? “What line should I stock for you?”
“Sorry to say I’m not an avid reader. Why did you pick Crystal Springs instead of a larger town?” He tore two packages of sweetener open and emptied them into his coffee.
“Family,” she replied without hesitation. At Sunrise Café he added syrup to his mug. She rested her fork on the plate to hide her hand’s sudden unsteadiness. Scott and his brother joked about an addiction to maple flavor. They tucked it into all sorts of things, including coffee. “I happen to have a higher concentration of relatives here than in any other county.”
“That can work both ways.”
She paused at the hint in his statement. Her family, at least the immediate portion of it, knew when to give a person space and when to close ranks. “We get along. My father’s career put us in Missouri, but according to some experts a bit of geographical distance can be good. We’re not the feuding type.”
“Didn’t mean to imply you were.”
“So tell me about Mr. Wilcox.” Laura put the final bite of roast beef on her fork. “I don’t remember the family name from my visits. Where did you work before buying the insurance agency from Mr. King?”
“Call me Myles.” He repeated his request from earlier before running his tongue once across his upper lip. “Lived so many places I couldn’t remember them all if under oath. Figured it was time to settle down and Crystal Springs opened up with the old gentleman’s retirement.”
“Simple as that?”
He nodded, “Nearly.”
“Somehow, Mr. Wilcox, I feel that nothing is simple with you.”
“Oh, let me.” He waved her hand away from the money she removed from her wallet. “I promised you a treat.”
“I understood that as an offer for coffee; this was a full meal.” She ignored his frown and laid her payment and tip on the table. With one firm motion she stood and removed her coat from the back of the chair. “Until next time, Mr. Wilcox.”
The fine hairs at the bottom of her circled braid warned her that Myles stared at her back every inch of the walk to the exit.
Several minutes later, Laura pulled onto the highway the locals called Old Federal and turned toward Crystal Springs. She sighed, releasing more tension than she’d known her body could hold.
Try as she might to concentrate on the remaining errands for the day, her thoughts kept returning to a side-by-side contrast of Brad and Myles.
The entire time she sat near Brad’s elbow this morning and discussed lease specifics, the few memories of Scott had been brief and warm. Her most difficult task proved to be fighting the urge to reach over and cover Brad’s wrist during the natural, brief lulls.
Myles prompted the opposite responses. His presence tensed her spine and put her tongue into extra cautious speech. Each time she’d looked at him longer than one blink, her final image of Scott attempted to intrude. Did she need a reminder that her husband’s murder remained unsolved? The nightmares did a more than adequate job of refreshing Scott’s features. She’d never ever forget his head at an unnatural angle in his office chair. His still heart. His cooling body.
What now? Laura checked the rearview mirror to see a police vehicle with lights flashing. A hundred yards later she pulled off onto the shoulder.
“License and registration, please.” The uniformed officer made his request at her window and continued to the front of her car.
“What’s the problem, officer?” She fumbled her Missouri driver’s license out of her wallet and laid it on top of the registration papers.
“Missing rear plate. Wait here.”
Where would I go? She struggled for a steady breath as he returned to his patrol car. If she understood the scene in her mirror, he used a mobile computer to retrieve information. He wouldn’t find tickets or warrants. Her fingers rubbed the clear plastic over a picture of her and Scott. Her mind finally processed the officer’s words. Missing plate?
“It was attached this morning,” she muttered while continuing to watch the scene in her mirror. “I didn’t notice anything wrong when I put the bags in the trunk.” She reached for the door handle, considered the officer’s words, and waited.
Chapter Ten
Brad tapped on the door of one twenty-four Front Street and peered through the glass. No movement inside. The lights shined and Roger’s pick-up truck sat at the rear of the parking lot, pointed at the back porch. Where was Goldilocks?
“Hey. I’m not open for business, sir.” The woman in question approached from the hardware store with long, confident steps.
“Good morning. Do you always leave the lights on?” His heart rate doubled as she approached in the soft light of a cloudy late morning. Today her braid swung free against a red St. Louis Cardinals sweatshirt. She appeared younger, innocent, in need of protection from a dangerous world.
“When on a short errand next door the answer would be, yes.”
“May I?” He held up the key from the lock box. “I thought you might need help.”
She sent a silent question.
“Didn’t you mention cleaning?” He handed her the store key and pushed the lock box into his coat pocket.
“Do you expect me to believe you need another hat? How many will that make?”
“Don’t have time for the math.” Stepping around an aluminum ladder he halted near the former serving counter and sought the ceiling for advice. Already Goldilocks claimed the space, filling it with her energy. He looked at her now and smiled. A mere five minutes ago, he’d walked out of Springs Press to the sound of Daryl’s voice in its protective uncle mode uttering the phrase “careful young man.” He intended to be very careful. For all sorts of reasons. “I heard a rumor once that variety made life worth the effort of getting out of bed in the morning.”
“Personally I prefer the smell of hazelnut vanilla coffee.”
“It figures you’d pick the gentle side. I’ll remember not to wake you to incoming mortars.” Truth be told, he didn’t want that alarm again either. Recycled in quiet nights it overwhelmed him with helplessness. How do you shoot back at a mirage?
In slow motion, as if hesitant to startle her, he removed his jacket and draped it to share a folding chair with her parka. For sixteen years he’d been spinning fantasies about this woman. If he could hold onto his patience well enough, he’d nurture their current neighborly friendship into something more. Whether she acknowledged it or not, her painful loss had given him a second chance to pursue his first and clearest infatuation.
“I may not look like your typical maid, but if mother didn’t teach me how to clean it, the army did.” He glanced over the former serving counter and tipped his head toward washed vegetable bins drying on faded towels. “I see you attacked the source of one foul odor already.”
Her eyes flashed with laughter. “It refused to be ignored.”
Like you in any room we share? He swallowed back an explanation for his hasty departure in Wagoner yesterday. He didn’t owe her words for going to conduct an interview related to an investigation. The disappearance of Joseph Carlstead stood unrelated to the murder of Scott Tanner one year and six hundred miles away.
“Volunteer? I d
on’t have room in the budget to pay you.”
He grinned and let his heart soar that they would share the building for a handful of hours. “What’s first?”
• • •
Laura refreshed her sponge and leaned into the oven another time. Footsteps and an occasional bar from an old Alicia Keyes song seeped through the adjoining wall. She pictured Brad, sleeves pushed up to elbows, removing years of dirt from the bathroom.
She’d taken a break after wiping the oven the first time. A protein bar, a short conversation, and a long look at Brad in motion did more to warm her toes than the thick socks in her sneakers. Within a blink, she pictured his shoulder and back muscles moving under a turtleneck smooth against his body. The mere sight of him tempted her to delay cleaning chores for forbidden fruit.
When did she revert to thinking like a teen girl? It would be better for all concerned if she remembered their true roles. Volunteer labor. A neighbor. A friend.
Church bells announced the noon hour. This was only the second time she’d actually heard the call to prayer St. Mathias issued three times a day, but already the sound rounded the rough edges of her problems. This particular small town tradition comforted her.
Keep your mind on the work. If she concentrated perhaps she could conjure Scott’s voice clear enough to blot out the man in the next room.
“Hey, Goldilocks.” He declared from close behind her.
She backed out of her metal cave, turned, and blinked up at him. “May I help you?”
“How goes things in the kitchen? I’ve reached a good stopping point.”
“Progress,” she tossed the sponge into a pan of water and pushed to her feet. “Once more with clean water and I’ll be done with the oven.”
“Lunch? My treat at Jack’s.”
“I brought a sandwich.”
“Figures you’d be prepared. Want to save it for supper?”
“Mr. Anderson will be coming over to change the locks. It would be rude for me to be gone.” She understood how small town grapevines worked. Odds already favored quiet comments about her evening at the Ashers’. Once she entered Jack’s with Brad, half the town would consider them a couple. Her loyalty and heart remained with Scott. Hadn’t she whispered a promise not to forget or betray him?
“In that case,” he stepped toward the door. “I’ll be back in a few. What flavor pop?”
“Sprite.” Her lips blurted the word before her brain could stop it.
She waited until he crossed the street and entered Jack’s Village Tavern before releasing her sigh. He stirred up foolish flutters unsuitable for a widow. She didn’t need emotions forming whirlpools every time he looked at her with a wide smile, as if he knew a secret. It drained energy she needed to set up the bookstore and prod Daryl to search for Scott’s killer.
Dirty water swirled before vanishing into the sink drain. She filled the pan again and attacked the final traces of oven cleaner.
“All done?” Brad announced his return as she inserted the final oven rack.
“Almost.”
A few minutes later, Laura eased down beside him and claimed her own portion of serving counter base as a backrest. She unzipped an insulated bag and began to pull out a sandwich, apple, and cookies. “What did you get?”
“The Tuesday special. Brat with kraut.” He opened the foam “to go” box on his lap and picked up a packet of bright yellow mustard. “Want a packet? I brought extra.”
“No thanks.” She focused on her bologna and cheese on whole wheat. A memory from a long ago summer poked up. Her hand came up to hide her smile before it burst into a giggle. “Vacation Bible School. Lunch. Mustard.”
“Give me a moment. It has to be something more fun than our daily memory work.”
“I’m remembering a day we ate lunch inside.” She swallowed back bubbling laughter. “We sat across from each other. My sandwich . . . ”
“Mustard. Your vocabulary surprised me.”
“You traded with me. Without asking.”
“I paid a steep price for that lunch.”
“What do you mean?” Her stomach calmed until she glimpsed the amount of mischief in his eyes.
“Nothing’s worse for an eight-year-old boy than to be seen kissing a girl. It breaks the code.”
“Are we that bad?”
“I survived. We all come around sooner or later.” He opened the final packet and ran a thick yellow bead across the warm sausage. “Still don’t like mustard?”
“I’ll always be a ketchup and mayo sort of girl.”
“Not the first descriptor I’d use. But it will do.” He took a swallow of Sprite. “So tell me. What does Laura Tanner do for fun?”
Laura Tanner. Sunday evening he addressed his questions to Laura Starr. She searched for something recent, since Scott. “Four of us gathered for movie night at a friend’s place not long ago. Just girls, no men or children allowed,” she repeated their only unbreakable group rule. “After one scene—more suitable in a video sex manual—our hostess paused it. Not one of us could find words. We could have auditioned for a school of fish.”
“Goldilocks at a loss for words? Has it ever happened before?” Brad lifted his drink.
“More often than I’d like to remember.”
“Do you expect me to believe that with all your inherited organizational skills and list making habits something can surprise you?”
She polished her apple with a paper towel. “A number of things have startled me over the years.”
“I’m listening.”
“Oh, where to begin.” She took a bite of fruit and chewed for a long moment. “Can you keep a confidence?”
“Army granted me ‘Top Secret’ during my second deployment.”
“Trouble with my marriage vows,” she stared at the floor. “We were in this really charming hotel wedding chapel in Vegas. Scott and I faced each other holding hands and all of sudden . . . the chaplain spoke with a thick British African accent . . . I couldn’t understand a word of it. All of us—Scott’s brother and his wife plus the chapel employees—stood in silence while I hunted for my voice. Scott mouthed something beyond my lip reading abilities. I’ll never remember exactly what I said. I know I started with our names—Laura Marie and Scott Wayne Tanner—but then I managed to put in a little of everything from each wedding I’d attended in my entire life.”
“Laura, the nervous bride.”
She toyed with her Sprite can and sighed.
“I always imagined you’d go for a fancy, princess style church wedding.” He wiped the final drop of kraut juice from his lips.
“Too expensive. Too complicated.”
“Got a video?”
A real laugh burst out of her. “We managed enough humor out of it without living color and stereo sound.” She calmed to almost normal and skimmed her gaze over his profile. “It’s your turn to share. I’m going to assume you have a nervous moment or two in memory.”
“I’ve got a whole library shelf of them.” He shifted his feet, reached down, and adjusted a Velcro sneaker strap. “Graduation and commissioning all happened at once. Translate that into a group of very fresh second lieutenants wearing Army uniforms instead of a cap and gown. We looked sharp. Made our families proud.”
They still are. I saw the photos on the wall the other night. “Sounds good so far.”
“All these unfamiliar officers showed up at the commissioning. And we were the lowest of the low, greener than a John Deere. I started saluting everything in uniform. Caught myself with my arm two-thirds up at my buddy in his band gear. My face matched his bright red tunic before he stopped laughing.”
“Was he a high ranking Badger?” She leaned away from him, certain the mischievous boy part of him would deliver a swat.
“Negative. Typical middle of the rank trombonist. Lost track of him through the years. My fault as much as his. Like so many, I didn’t keep in touch like you promise that last day of college.” His voice tapered to a whisper.
“I noticed your shirt. Rumor says Cardinal fans are loyal.”
“Absolutely. Speaking of shirts, I admired yours at the game Saturday. That was a good event. Is basketball first among sports in the valley?” It made sense that hoops, with smaller official teams and greater flexibility for pick-up games, would be more popular than other sports.
“You play?”
“High school. Guard on the bench.”
“Ditto.” He pulled up his knees and rested his prosthesis across them. “Eric beats me these days. He’s getting good enough to make me feel like an old man on occasion.”
“The fun’s gone. A summer of solo practice turned into work, darkened my attitude around the edges. Scott and I . . . how to say it? Evenly matched? We played HORSE for silly things.” She clutched the front of her sweatshirt and grasped the rings. “The last time, his car needed an oil change and I lost. Wasted an hour of a beautiful December Saturday smelling new tires and lubricants.”
“Sounds like my kind of guy.”
Laura closed her eyes, pictured Scott making a free throw, and nodded.
“Hey,” his voice caressed her ears as much as his finger rubbed against the back of her hand. “Sometimes we need to let go. Even if it hurts.”
“I . . . I didn’t mean to get all weepy sentimental on you. You never even met the man.”
“He demonstrated admirable taste when he married you.”
She opened her grip, smoothed the shirt, and started to move her hand aside when he captured it. The back of her neck tingled in curiosity. Her face tipped up a few degrees, giving her a view of his intense hazel eyes. They asked a question she didn’t expect.
In less than a heartbeat he closed the space between them. His lips pressed against hers. Gentle. Insistent.
Her mouth quivered with warm surprise and pleasure. Comfort and joy bubbled in her chest screening out doubt and dull routine for a moment. How long since? Was it ever? But she didn’t care about the answers right now.