Back in Kansas

by Debra Salonen

  She shrugged, her shoulder barely moving the bulky sweater that looked more college student than reformed hooker. By concentrating on his knee, Matt cleared the four steps successfully.

  Once inside, there were more introductions when Mr. and Mrs. Green joined them. Mrs. Green offered them the use of the kitchen and went ahead to set things out.

  Since there was no elevator, they were obliged to trudge up the wide, carpeted stairs. Each step was a potential pratfall for Matt. He tried to cover his discomfort by giving Bo a spiel about the town.

  “Otter Creek was settled in 1886. There are conflicting stories about how it got its name, but legend has it there once were otters in the nearby waterway, which, by the way, is not named Otter Creek. Did we bet on that?” he asked, pausing to look at his cousin.

  “Put it on my bill.”

  “Zach told me he saw an otter in the creek behind our house one day,” Claudie said. “Yancy insisted it was a dog. They got in a big fight over it and my fa—Garret made them hoe the entire garden as punishment.”

  Matt pictured the wealth of information he’d accumulated about the man whose name she could barely bring herself to speak. Sympathy for what she was facing made him say, “Bo told me you met with your brothers and sister. Weren’t they interested in coming back with you?”

  She flashed him a sharp look. “I started this. It’s my problem, not theirs.”

  He stopped before a door painted a deep burgundy and adorned with a pumpkin-size stenciled apple framing the word, Winesap.

  “My room. Bo, yours is over there.” A similar door in a different shade of red bore the name Jonathan.

  “Cool,” Bo said, using his key to open it. He lugged his suitcase inside and dumped it on the bed then poked his head out. “I’m going to freshen up a bit. I’ll meet you in the kitchen in ten, okay?” he asked Claudie.

  She nodded.

  Matt led the way to the small flight of stairs at the end of the hall. Since he still held the key, he went first, trying not to wince.

  He opened the pretty yellow door at the top of the stairs and walked inside. He placed the suitcase on a rack beneath the window and set the backpack on the bed. Facing Claudie, he said, “Mrs. Green says there are extra blankets—” He was stopped by the look on her face. “Is something wrong?”

  Clutching her odd box as if it were a shield, she said, “I’m not the right person for your cousin, but he won’t listen to me. He thinks he’s in—” She swallowed without finishing the sentence. “If you care about him as much as he cares about you, you’ll make him see that.”

  Matt’s stunned response was an ambiguous nod. It was the best he could do because—for the first time—he understood what his cousin saw in this woman. Honesty. Integrity. And something he couldn’t quite define.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CLAUDIE WEDGED the phone under her ear and used the hem of her T-shirt to wipe a tear from her eye. You’re being stupid, girl, she silently scolded herself. A part of her was thrilled that One Wish House could go on without her, but another was hurt that the residents showed so little concern at her extended absence.

  “Take as much time as you need, Claudie,” Maya said, her voice a hollow echo from using the speakerphone in Claudie’s office.

  “Yeah, we’ll be just fine. Don’t you worry about us,” Sally Rae seconded. “Not one of us has missed a single meeting since you left.”

  Claudie had spoken with Sara a few minutes earlier and been told everybody missed her, but obviously her friend had neglected to add the women of One Wish House were blossoming without her.

  “It would be nice if you could make it back in time for the fund-raiser, but, don’t worry, we can handle things if you don’t,” Maya said—although Claudie thought she detected a hint of trepidation. “You’re going to be so proud of all the money we make.”

  “If I don’t kill Babe Bishop first, you mean,” a voice growled.

  “Is that you, Rochell?” Claudie asked. “Is Babe giving you trouble? Do you want me to call her? I could—”

  Maya interrupted about the same time a loud “Oof” sound came over the line. “Babe’s been great, Claudie. What a trooper! She’s really gotten behind the dim sum dinner. In fact, it was her idea to hold an auction, too. She and Rochell have their moments, but that’s because they’re so much alike.”

  Claudie choked on a laugh. She pictured Ren’s mother’s reaction to being compared to a six-foot ex-hooker.

  “Claudie,” a Hispanic accent cried. “How is your little sister? Did Meester Bo find you?”

  He found me and he’s treating me like a child, Claudie told herself. Or a princess. “Bo’s here, along with his cousin from New York. I haven’t seen my sister yet—her class was on a field trip to Washington, DC. They were supposed to get home last night. Guess what? Bo got his hands on her school yearbook and Sherry’s class president.”

  Her friends’ cheers felt good for some odd reason, even if they were for Sherry—a beautiful, smiling stranger in a one-inch-square photograph. “So when do you think you’ll be coming home?” Sally Rae asked casually.

  Maybe a bit too casually? Claudie thought with a spurt of hope. “Bo says he thinks we can make contact this afternoon, if I’m ready.” Am I? She knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. Her life was waiting for her back in California.

  “Is Bo going with you?” Davina asked.

  Claudie smiled. She and Bo had fought long and hard over this issue. In the end Bo had won—or she let him, Claudie wasn’t sure which. All she knew for sure was she couldn’t face Garret alone. Last night’s nightmares proved that.

  “Matt and Bo are setting it up so we meet in a public place where they can monitor things,” she told them.

  The chatting continued a few minutes—each woman doing her best to reassure Claudie that everything was perfectly fine without her. She hung up feeling torn—glad they were showing the independence and backbone to take on new tasks but a little sad, too. One Wish House was her baby. She wasn’t ready for it to stand alone.

  The sound of crunching gravel drew her to the window. The rental car pulled in behind her station wagon. Bo burst from behind the driver’s seat with his usual exuberance; Matt slowly extricated himself from the passenger side.

  Matt had intimidated Claudie the first night they met. So tall and stern—a cop in casual clothing. She could sense his disapproval. She didn’t blame him and had hoped to enlist his help in deflecting Bo’s misguided love. Strangely, Matt had loosened up in the two days they’d been in Otter Creek and even seemed to like her. She didn’t get a sense he was making any headway with his cousin, either.

  Matt looked up. He started to wave but grabbed the door when his knee buckled. Claudie saw what Bo chose to deny. Bo, who loved his cousin like a brother, seemed blind to Matt’s pain, his bad knee, the back twinges that came after sitting in one position too long and his deep sadness.

  Her gaze went to Bo. He also looked up, his smile bright as the autumn sunshine. Putting both hands over his heart he mimed a swoon then blew her a kiss. The playful gesture made her stagger backward, her heart fluttering. Damn, that man could be infuriating, she thought. She didn’t know how to make it any clearer that she wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship with him. Even though he’d promised to back off until she had this ordeal behind her, he still showered her with attention.

  Even Mrs. Green commented on his obvious devotion. “That boyfriend of yours sure does love you,” the woman had told Claudie last night when she delivered clean towels. “Reminds me of the way Mr. Green used to be, back before his affliction.”

  A knock on the door shook her out of her reverie. “Come in, Bo, it’s open.”

  “It’s not Bo. He stopped to take a leak,” Matt said, entering the room. He left the door open. Claudie didn’t know if that was gentlemanly protocol or he was protecting his reputation. “Did you get hold of Sara Bishop?”

  That had been her excuse for not accompanying the
two sleuths on their reconnaissance mission. “Yes. I even talked to Brady. He loved the shirts I sent…and the dinosaur. He calls it a ‘T-weck.”’ She couldn’t help smiling.

  “Bo talks about him a lot. I think he’d like a couple of kids himself.”

  Claudie’s stomach turned over. “Then he’d better find himself a nice woman and get married.” She pulled together as much bluster as she could muster. “That’s how it’s done in the Midwest. You meet a woman—someone appropriate. You date, then you marry and have kids.”

  His lips thinned. “Then she meets someone better and you start over from scratch.”

  His bitterness was unmistakable. She sighed. “I don’t think either one of us should apply for jobs at Hallmark,” she said dryly.

  He looked at her and smiled. “I hate to tell you this, Claudie, but I think it’s too late.”

  The camaraderie in his friendly smile threw her. “Too late for what?”

  “Too late to save Bo.” He said the word with wry inference. “He’s a goner. Head over heels in love with you.”

  “Goddamn it,” Bo said, stomping into the room. “I told you not to tell her that. She has enough on her mind without worrying about my feelings. We’ve already had this conversation, haven’t we, Claudie?”

  The first time they had this conversation she’d been tempted to bolt. This time she laughed. “Yes, but you’re incorrigible. I should have known you’d blab to the whole world.”

  Smiling, he strolled toward her. “Not the whole world. Just Matt. And Sara and Ren.”

  She jumped back before he could touch her. “You told Sara and Ren?” That would explain Sara’s overly cheerful attitude on the phone.

  He grimaced. “Yes. But they already knew.”

  She noticed Matt was stifling a grin. “How’d they know?”

  Bo shrugged. “I’m transparent?”

  She barked out a laugh. “You always told me you were invisible. It’s not the same.” She looked to Matt for confirmation. “Is it?”

  Matt chuckled. “In Bo’s case it might be.” He walked to the chair by the desk and sat down, then said soberly, “If you two could drop the debate for a few minutes, I think we need to discuss this afternoon’s strategy.”

  Claudie looked at Bo, and it took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to run to his arms and disappear.

  “DO YOU THINK she’ll be okay?” Bo asked his cousin while they waited for Claudie to join them in the parlor.

  “She’ll be fine. She’s strong, Bo. God, when I think of all she’s been through…” He shook his head. “She’s doing fantastic.”

  Matt’s approval meant a lot to Bo and his endorsement of Claudie was gratifying, even if it surprised Bo a little. “You sure turned around fast,” he observed.

  Matt looked down to check his watch. Bo thought he detected a blush—something you didn’t see too often on Matt. “Yeah, well, maybe my experiences with Sonya left me prejudiced against women. Claudie’s a decent person. And you have to respect her motives for coming back here. I give her credit for that—even if I’m not sure it’s the right thing.”

  Bo frowned. “I don’t think she appreciated that bit about ‘letting nature take its course.”’ Word on the street had it that Garret Anders was dying of prostate cancer. Claudie wasn’t moved. “Good,” she’d said when informed of the rumor. “I hope that means he has erectile dysfunction, too.”

  Matt shrugged. “It was her call. I only wanted to give her an out if she was having second thoughts. You know what it’s like once you open a can of worms.” Matt started toward the kitchen where Mrs. Green kept a pot of coffee going at all times. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Once he was gone, Bo walked to the window. Pulling aside the lace curtain, he stared unseeing at the yard and the empty street. He wasn’t going to argue with Claudie about meeting Anders, but he wondered if he’d done the right thing by not giving her all the details he and Matt had learned about the man. According to the Topeka radio station that sponsored Anders’s weekly “Man in God” radio program, Anders was one of their most popular evangelists. “He’s a saint, but human,” the programming coordinator had told Bo.

  When Bo had tried summarizing the results of their investigation last night, Claudie had railed at him. “That’s total bullshit, Bo. I knew him for seventeen years and he was a jerk. A pissant, little jerk. He kept my mother barefoot and pregnant. He was a rotten father—cruel and mean and so un-Christian it’s pathetic.”

  They’d gone for a walk after dinner because she’d told him she was having a hard time sleeping and he thought the fresh air would be good for her. The air was a little chillier than he’d counted on. “I’m not saying he was a good father,” he’d countered, feeling guilty about not divulging the extent of the man’s philanthropy. “Zach said the same thing, but—”

  “Did Zach tell you about the time Garret hit him with a shovel?” she’d asked her voice as bitter as the breeze.

  “No.”

  Her small laugh sent a shiver up his spine. “One day—we were living in Illinois, I think—we had a snowstorm. It was Zach’s job to shovel the sidewalk before school, but we overslept and would have missed the bus if he’d taken time to do it, so Mom said he could do it after school.”

  Bo had used the slight tremor in her voice as an excuse to hold her hand. Her fingers were like icicles.

  “When we got home, Garret was already there. I told Zach I’d help him shovel it real fast. Garret waited until the school bus was out of sight then he came outside and started yelling.”

  Bo had felt a tremor pass through her body. Since they’d almost reached the inn, he pulled her up the steps and led her to the porch swing where he could wrap an arm around her shoulders. To his surprise, she’d cuddled against him for one brief minute then stiffened, putting an inch between them before going on with her story.

  “I was closest to the door when he came outside, but for once he wasn’t interested in me. He grabbed the shovel out of my hand as he walked by and marched to where Zach was shoveling. Zach didn’t hear him coming. Garret hit him squarely between the shoulder blades with the flat part of the shovel.” She clapped one hand to the other in a crack that echoed in the stillness.

  “Didn’t your mother try to stop him?” Bo had asked, his stomach twisting at the image.

  “No. But I did.”

  Her words chilled him to the bone. “What happened?”

  “He pushed me down and held my face in the snow. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die, but Mom saw what was happening and came outside. He let me go the minute she said his name—it was like throwing a switch. Jekyll and Hyde.”

  Bo had pulled her close and gave the swing a push. The gentle rocking motion seemed to help her relax. “That’s why I’m going to be with you tomorrow,” he’d told her. “Your mother isn’t here to flip switches.”

  He’d waited for her to argue, but she didn’t. Instead, she snuggled a fraction closer and pointed to the night sky.

  “Do you see those stars?” she’d asked. “The three in a row?”

  He’d had to lean down to see past the roof. The proximity brought him her scent—lemon shampoo and baby powder. “Do you mean Orion’s belt?”

  “Mom called them the Three Sisters. She said whenever she looked at them she thought of her three girls—Valery, Sherry and me.”

  “Which one is you?” he asked, brushing his lips over her silky hair.

  “The big one, of course,” she’d answered with a giggle. “Big and bossy.”

  He hadn’t been able to stop himself from leaning down and kissing her. Her lips were cold but not unwelcoming.

  To draw her closer, he’d slipped his hand inside her open jacket and splayed his fingers against her spine. She’d stiffened momentarily then sighed against his lips, a deep throaty hum that made him a little crazy.

  He’d trailed kisses along her jaw to her neck, thrilling when she tilted her head back to give him access to
the pulse point throbbing at the neckline of her sweater. A kiss, a nibble, a car rumbling down the street.

  Claudie had bolted like a shoplifter caught in the act, not stopping until she reached the porch railing. Her angry scowl looked accusatory.

  “Claudie,” he’d said as equitably as possible, “it was only a kiss.”

  Stubbornly, she’d shaken her head—the angry, suspicious woman he’d first met ten months ago in Sacramento. “I told you this wouldn’t work. Sex ruins things.”

  Bo’s heart had crimped from the pain he heard in her voice. He’d have given anything to take her upstairs and prove her wrong, but he knew she needed time to learn to trust—not only him, but also her feelings.

  She’d braced her shoulders for an argument, but he rose and walked to her before she could speak again. After delivering a quick, friendly peck on the lips, he’d told her, “I love Claudie. And if you need time to learn to love her, too, then I’ll wait.”

  As he opened the door of the inn, he’d heard her mutter something about “hell freezing over.” Grinning, he’d called over his shoulder, “Lucky me. I packed my ice skates.”

  “Here she comes,” Matt said, bringing Bo back to the present. He hadn’t even heard his cousin return. I must be in love. I’m totally out of it.

  Bo turned and looked toward the open staircase. She’d dressed with care—navy woolen slacks and a burgundy sweater set. Her short blond locks were feathered off her face courtesy of a blow dryer. Her only jewelry was the gold locket.

  “You look perfect,” Matt said, beating Bo to the punch.

  Bo gave him a dirty look and grabbed her jacket from the hall tree. “You’ll dazzle him. Are you feeling dazzling?”

  She gave him a plucky smile. “Yeah—like a forty-watt bulb.”

  He held her coat for her and added a quick hug before she could escape. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I won’t let him hurt you again.”

  CLAUDIE REPEATED Bo’s promise like a prayer the whole way to Harrah’s, the nearby Potowatami casino where Matt had set up the meeting, without telling Garret the true agenda. He’d used the ploy that he was a freelance writer working on a piece about God and gambling.