I have no idea where Chester and I stand, or if we are standing at all.
His kiss the other night was pretty powerful, as they all have been.
“I’m sorry I kicked you out.”
“I’m glad to be back. I missed the boys.”
“Is that all you missed?”
How do I tell him I think about him daily? I think about that morning on the regular. We’ve been up and down this month like a rollercoaster. One minute he’s sugar kindness. The next he’s brine with extra salt. When he kisses me, though, he’s the refreshing fragrance of dill and I lose my head.
Had he missed me? It’s a question I’d never ask.
“I think we should save the mice costumes for the party at The Fugitive and wear our celestial bodies T-shirts to the tamer gathering at the community center. It’s going to be chilly later that night, anyway.”
Naomi found us shirts—the Sun, the moon, and the Earth—for the three of us to wear. We can form an eclipse depending on how we stand next to one another.
“What party at The Fugitive?” That’s the bar Chester owns as Big Poppy, or whatever he goes by depending on where he is.
“The Fugitive is hosting a Halloween party on Saturday,” Naomi explains. I stare at my sister, unaware of this party and very aware I was not invited. The sting in my heart does not go unnoticed.
“Won’t it be dangerous?” The only way to get there is drive The Tail of the Dragon and the fact it’s essentially a biker bar, attending a party at The Fugitive does not sound like a smart idea, even if we’ve already been there once.
“We’ll stay the night,” Naomi offers, and both my sisters blush in varying degrees. For Naomi, The Fugitive is where everything began for her and Nathan. For Beverly, she’s living with Jedd, so the admission she’s sleeping with her fiancé is not a secret. I’m the one alone, outside their happy little love-bliss nests.
“I wasn’t invited,” I say, turning up my nose at being excluded. Mask in place, Scotia. “Sounds stupid,” I immediately add, hoping to disguise my hurt. A bunch of bikers getting drunk and raising a ruckus while dressed in costumes—I can’t picture it. And for some reason, I don’t want to because all I see is a beautiful biker woman dressed in some glorious historically correct medieval outfit dancing with a roguish Big Poppy Chester Chesterfield Chet as they fall into the mating traditions associated with Halloween. It’s the number one holiday for random hookups, a fun fact shared with me by my assistant, Gideon.
“Oh, your invitation is a given as Beverly and I were both included,” Naomi states, not necessarily reassuring me that the invite did include me directly.
“I have plans,” I lie, knowing it will likely be like any other night for me. I’ll work late, then eat dinner standing by my kitchen sink. Maybe read something dirty and fall into bed turned on and dreaming of one lumberjack-looking biker named Big Poppy. Maybe that night, the fantasy will be a partially tux-clad millionaire named Mr. Chesterfield. Or perhaps, the evening will include images of an easygoing bearded guy named Chet on a living room floor.
“We can’t be the two blind mice,” Beverly states. “It’s not a thing.”
“Then go as Mickey and Minnie Mouse,” I retort.
“We aren’t a couple,” Naomi clarifies, as if I don’t know this about my siblings.
“What is Nathan going as?” I question, wondering why there is so much emphasis on us dressing up and not the men in their lives doing the same.
“Nathan says he’s going to be a mouse catcher and carry around a net.”
Mouse catcher? Is that a thing?
“Jedd’s going to be a mouse-trap. He claims his mechanical arm will give off the look well enough.” Jedd is comfortable working with only one arm, but he’s also known to wear a prosthesis, which looks like something bionic, on his amputated arm.
“And who’s going to match me?” I question, noting I’m the fifth wheel in this collection.
“We’ll need to find someone who will be a giant wedge of cheese,” Naomi states as if that’s a possibility and won’t look ridiculous on a grown man.
“Yes, you need a good wedge,” Beverly says. We fall into slow silence while Beverly twists her lips. Her mischievous eyes dance, Naomi snorts, and I can’t seem to help myself. I chuckle a little at my sister’s ribbing.
Yes, I’d love a thick wedging.
Chapter 12
Bonfire Confessions
[Chet]
“I think my nephew has a crush on your daughter,” I say to Nathan as we stand around the bonfire on Beverly and Jedd’s property. It’s the night of the local community center’s annual Halloween party, which I attended earlier this evening at the insistence of the boys. In hopes to see Scotia, I agreed to go with the collection of pirates, Harry Potter lookalikes, and one too-cool-for-a-costume fourteen-year-old.
That’s where I noticed a fuzzy-haired blonde with large glasses hanging out with Dewey most of the evening. They are on the school’s robotics team together, but there is something more than teammates in Dewey’s eyes when he looks at Clementine Ryder.
Another thing I noticed at the party was Scotia’s avoidance of the boys and me, but I don’t mention it to Nathan.
“I didn’t know Dewey Maverik was your nephew,” Naomi says. “I don’t suppose I should mention we have a pet hedgehog named Dewey Decimal, should I?” As she’s a local librarian, I’ve heard Miss Naomi’s name a time or two, but Maura does the library runs. It’s funny how small our world is in Green Valley. The librarian Dewey adores is now the stepmother to the girl he has a crush on.
“I didn’t realize your Clementine was Dewey’s love interest.”
“They won’t be dating anytime soon,” Nathan warns while tucking Naomi under his arm.
“You just shush. They’re too young to date, but nothing’s wrong with a little crush. They have similar interests, and it just leads to a natural inclination to like each other.”
“Then how do you explain us?” Nathan teases his wife, who is pretty dissimilar to him.
“Opposites attract.”
I shake my head, thinking of her sister Scotia. The pull of positive and negative forces must be the explanation for my attraction to her because no matter how hard I tell myself to look away, I’m drawn to her like a high-powered magnet. Her marked hair. Her vulnerable eyes. Even her sharp tongue.
Something lures me to her. My eyes followed her earlier at the community center party, but she never looked up at me once. Is she ashamed of who I am as Big Poppy? It wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t meet a woman’s approval in a social setting. Henny never took our relationship public. I was her dirty little secret—trailer trash, serviceman, good in bed—to a reckless girl with a rebellious spirit.
Thoughts comparing Henny to Scotia put me in a foul mood. Adding in the fact Scotia didn’t acknowledge the boys, and that snub was just unacceptable to me. The boys adore her, and she told me she was happy to be back at Harper House.
“I’m glad to be back. I missed the boys.”
“Is that all you missed?”
She’d stared up at me, eyes hesitating. She’s afraid to open up to me, and I can’t exactly blame her after our back-and-forth with misunderstandings about Mrs. Pickle and her purpose at Harper House. Then again, she’s been equally disillusioned between Chester, Big Poppy, and me.
Still, I crave one of her honest comments.
I like you best like this.
However, now, I’m just pissed off. She disappeared from the party shortly after our arrival, and I’ve been stewing ever since. She was wearing a T-shirt with a giant sun on it. Maybe she ran off with some swanky astronaut wanting to circle her sun and make her the center of his universe. I gag with the adolescent thought.
There aren’t any children at this party. This is adults-only, including Beverly and Jedd, obviously. Nathan and Naomi are here. Jedd invited a veteran friend named Tower Hudson who is living in his old farmstead with Jedd’s younger brother. T
hey’re turning the place into a veteran’s refuge. Vernon Grady from Grady Seed & Soil is here with his wife, Abigail, who’s a drunken mess, and Vernon’s sister, Wilhemina, is with them. I’m introduced to Jedd’s sister, whom I’ve never met before. We’re an odd collection of old friends bringing together new ones.
Not too long after introductions, a posse of women joins us, and it’s like witnessing the mean girls arriving at high school. The way they walk. The way they talk. Before they even near the blazing fire, I recognize Scotia Simmons and her friends from the sidewalk last summer.
“I still cannot believe she tried to imitate Julianne MacIntyre’s coleslaw. I mean, you just do not do such a thing. That slaw is like a national treasure,” one biddy states.
“Sacrilegious, indeed, sister,” the other agrees.
There isn’t enough beer for me to handle their kind of showdown in my piss-poor mood, so I chug the rest of mine and excuse myself from Nathan. I head to a cooler packed full of refreshments a few yards from the bonfire. As I remain in the shadows away from the roaring flames, Scotia eventually approaches me.
“Hi,” she says, all Halloween-candy sweet, but I’m not having it. She ignored me at the party earlier and then arrived with these biddies. Opposites will not attract this evening. “I saw you at the community center. Did the boys have a good time?”
“As if you care,” I clip, and instantly, Scotia stands taller. She covered her T-shirt from earlier with an old barn jacket, but she’s still wearing tight jeans and rubber boots up to her kneecaps.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, I saw you at the party, and you didn’t look up once at the boys.”
Scotia turns her head, looking over her shoulder at the group of friends gathered around the towering fire. Twisting back to me, she narrows her eyes.
“You’re the one who told me I couldn’t use Harper House to . . . how did you word it? ‘Plump up my resume’. I took that to mean I needed to be disaffiliated from it, so I was doing what you asked. I thought I was being careful and respectful. I didn’t come anywhere near the boys and left early on the off chance one of them noticed me. I didn’t want to blow your cover, Big Poppy.”
“I—” I did say all that to her, and it was thoughtful that she was respecting my wishes. I don’t want her parading around her volunteer work like the boys are some charity case.
She spins away from me, but I’m quick to catch her elbow. “I’m sorry.” The words aren’t enough. “It’s not as if you aren’t keeping secrets yourself, Mrs. Pickle.”
She exhales heavily before lowering her head. “I thought it would be a fun name for the boys,” she defends. That isn’t what I meant. There’s something deeper inside Scotia Simmons, something buried down at the base of her. She’s hiding herself. Mrs. Pickle is only a thin layer. However, the boys do like the name. It’s as if they have their own private Mrs. Doubtfire.
“And it’s not like you approached me either,” she hisses, snapping her head back up to glare at me. Those silvery eyes gleam like polished daggers.
“I’m not the one embarrassed by you,” I defend thinking of how often she’s dismissed me as Big Poppy. My home. My bar. My help at the auto shop.
“Embarrassed?” Despite the darkness around us, her eyes spark in shock as her brows lift. “Who said I’m embarrassed by you?”
“I see you with your gossipy friends.” I nod in their direction. “You tell them you banged me?”
Her arm tugs in my grasp, and if I wasn’t holding her, I’m certain she’d slap me.
“I don’t like you like this,” she mutters through clenched teeth.
Yeah, well, I don’t like me like this either. And I don’t know why I’m acting this way. Maybe because I want us to be seen together. I want her to introduce me to her friends. Then again, I don’t need their approval. I definitely don’t need friends like them.
“They wouldn’t approve of me anyway,” I state.
“You don’t know that,” Scotia insists, glaring at me.
“I’ve heard how you talk about people with those women, and they most definitely would not approve of Big Poppy.”
“I—”
“And before you think you can just introduce me as Chester Chesterfield, let me tell you it ain’t gonna happen. He doesn’t come out often, and I prefer it that way. I don’t need to be torn apart like you and your friends were tearing down women on the street or some lady for replicating a coleslaw, for shit’s sake.”
“I didn’t do that,” she defends, settling her arm still in my grasp.
“You did,” I snap. “Putting others down is so second nature to you, I bet you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”
Her brows lift and then her eyes narrow. “What does it matter how or who I talk about?”
“It’s just plain mean, Scotia.” Her mouth falls open. Then clamps shut. Silence falls between us. I’ve said what I said. It’s the truth.
“It’s just chatter among friends,” she weakly argues.
“It’s mean,” I repeat, hoping I’ve struck a nerve with her.
Her head lifts, struggling to still her expression. She’s working on shutting down on me. “Well, plenty of people speak ill of me, and I give zero fucks about it.” Her haughty voice returns, mixing with the harsh profanity, and I’d laugh if I wasn’t still wound up.
“It’s mean, darlin’.” My tone softens. My hand slides up her arm and rests on her shoulder.
“I’m old enough to do what I want when I want with who I want.” Her eyes still spark. Her tone terse. But something heavy weights in her voice. She’s losing a bit of her salty snap.
“Is that what’s happening here? You do me to prove something. Forty-something and not giving fucks. Is that your thing?”
Her mouth falls open again, then clamps shut. With her shoulder under my hold, she steps closer to me. “I didn’t just do you.” Her eyes blaze like polished chrome. Damn, she’s so pretty when she’s on fire but I’m not looking to be burned by her.
“What are we doing, then?”
She doesn’t answer and her silence says everything.
“Yeah, me neither,” I state to the emptiness around us. I don’t know what we’re doing with one another either.
Scotia shrugs to loosen my hold on her and slips out from under my touch. “And for your information, I did not discuss you with my friends, and it has nothing to do with being embarrassed by you. It’s because . . . because . . . I don’t wish to share. I want someone who belongs to me.”
Instantly, I’m reminded of our first morning.
And with that, she stalks off for the bonfire, and I’m the one left stumped.
Later that night, I learn that Scotia’s friends are the Hester sisters, and they’re twins. Hazel Cumberstone is the older one by four solid minutes, and she’s bossy as hell as if she were four years older than her twin, Mabel Murphy. Mabel’s a widow, and through the course of the night, I discover her husband was in the military. I also notice she can’t keep her eyes off Tower Hudson. She’s quieter than her sister, cutting off the other or correcting her rude comments, softening the blow of insults and verbal injuries. Her behavior is a reminder not to judge a book by its cover, and I seem to be guilty of judging.
I’ve been unfair to Scotia.
“I’m sorry,” I say, eventually approaching her as she stands near the bonfire. The heat of the flames and the dancing of the blaze are messing with my head, and so are thoughts of this woman. I clip a part of her coat and tug. “Come back here a bit, will ya?”
She quietly follows me, and I don’t miss her sullen expression. I also realize it’s my fault.
“I’m just in a mood.” It’s not much of an excuse. I seem to be up and down on a wave of emotion this evening.
“You’ve been back here quite a bit tonight,” she states, keeping her arms around her midsection as she looks off at the bonfire, burning brightly. We’re a good ways back from the flame, and I want to open her coat and t
ouch her skin.
“The flames get to me,” I explain, giving her some of the truth.
“My sister loves fire. It’s a part of her religion.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“She’s a Wiccan. The American Halloween coincides with her ancient celebration of the dead. Tonight is called Samhain.”
Celebration of the dead. My eyes focus on the orange-yellow blaze moving over a pile of small tree trunks. “Fire doesn’t equate to a celebration for me,” I say under my breath, until I notice Scotia’s watching me, waiting for more. “Forget I said that.”
“You know you can talk to me,” she says, softening her tone and loosening her arms as she turns to face me. I remain silent, struggling whether to open up to her or not. For some reason, I talk.
“My best friend and his wife died in a house fire.” I can’t pull my eyes from the flames, watching them flit and waver. Try as I might, I can’t get rid of the image I have in my head of them burning alive in a bed. Scotia’s hand lands on my forearm, but I can’t feel her touch through all my layers of clothing. I can’t feel her skin, and I need to feel her.
“I’m so sorry, Chester.”
“Yeah, not as sorry as their three boys.” I tip up my chin, dismissing my own heartache.
“Hugh, Dewey, and Louie? It was their parents? Were the boys in the fire?” Her voice dips lower, coaxing the remainder of the story from me.
“They were home, yes. But Hugh woke Dewey from their shared bedroom and took Louie from his crib in the nursery. Hugh was all of seven. He’d been well trained. They had a fire escape plan. Get out of the house and meet at a tree near the street. He waited and waited. By the time the flames thoroughly engulfed the house, Harper and Davis hadn’t come out.”
“Harper?” she whispers, but I ignore the obvious answer—I’d named the house after the boy’s mother, so they’d never forget her. She asks another question instead. “How did it happen?”
Love in a Pickle: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 9) Page 10