by Sylvie Kurtz
Beth sighed. "You're going to make me beg, aren't you?"
"A slight show of desperation would be appreciated."
She shook a finger at Eve. "The only reason I'm giving in is because I haven't had a chance to do a search of my own. With the school's freezer not working and all those useless emergency meetings, I just haven't had a chance."
"Not to mention having to make sure you get home in time to feed Logan."
"Eve—"
That, of course, was a line of conversation she didn't want to get into. Eve saw a prospect where only a project existed. Beth stirred her black coffee. Still...
Innocently Eve took another mouthful of muffin. "How is your project coming along, by the way?"
Beth twirled the mug before her in tight, noisy circles. She'd made the mistake of telling Eve about the incident with Jamie, and Logan's overreaction. "I think I'm seeing progress. He asked us to stay for dinner last night."
Eve's eyebrows rose. "Ooh, now that's encouraging. Did you?"
"No. I don't think he's ready for that yet." She split her cranberry muffin in two.
"How long are you going to dangle him on a cord?"
"It's not like that. I just want to be sure that if anything happens he can take it in stride."
Eve cocked her head. "You may be waiting for a long time, then. Christmas is only a couple of weeks away."
"I know. I'll invite him for dinner tonight."
Eve nodded. "Sensible."
"I thought so."
Eve licked the last crumb of chocolate from her finger. "All right, what do you want to know?"
She concentrated on the cranberries in her muffin. With the tip of a knife she excavated a round berry from the surrounding cake. "The hero bit."
"Ah, yes." Eve practically chirped. "There's something about a hero, isn't there? A man in uniform seems to ring a certain chord in a woman's heart—"
Beth sent Eve a narrowed look. "Eve, I swear, I will strangle you any second now."
Eve laughed and folded the muffin's paper cup into ever-smaller triangles. "He saved a busload of elementary school children."
"How, where, what happened?" Silently she cursed the eagerness in her voice.
A smile of smug satisfaction curled Eve's lips. She leaned forward. "Well, it seems there was an unexpected ice storm last winter. The kids were being sent home early. According to the paper, the bus driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a car and ended up skidding on a patch of ice, careening down an embankment and into an electric pole. A live wire dangled right over the engine, threatening to catch the whole thing on fire."
Eve sipped her coffee with exaggerated drama.
"And?" Beth urged breathlessly.
"And Logan was the first officer on the scene. Somehow he got the kids out safely, and the driver, too. Then the bus exploded."
"Wow." She slumped back in the chair. Having seen Logan overreact to Jamie's fall, she could imagine how desperately he'd worked to save the frightened children. She frowned. "All of them got out safe?"
"Yes. But that's not all. It turns out the driver had been drinking. He was borderline drunk."
"No! How could that have happened?" Somehow the information didn't fit with Logan's overreaction, though. There must be more to the story.
Eve shrugged. "Logan refused the commendation the city wanted to give him."
"Why?" Her frown deepened.
"He said he was just doing his job."
"Hmm." She stared at her muffin, picking out one cranberry after another.
"What's wrong, Beth?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "There has to be more. If he saved all of the children, then why was he so shaken when Jamie's lip got cut at his house?"
Eve squirmed in her seat. She sipped her coffee much too intently.
Beth tensed and pushed aside the small plate bearing her mutilated muffin. "Eve, what else do you know?"
"It's not that simple, sweetie."
"What's not simple about it? You know. You tell."
Eve peered into her coffee, then, as if coming to a decision, looked up again. "Do you like him?"
Eve's evasiveness and the sudden determined look in her eyes confused Beth. "He's rude, ill-tempered and moody."
"But do you like him?" Eve insisted.
She deflated. "Oh, Eve, I don't know. There's something about him." She shrugged. "Underneath all that armor, there's a wonderful man. I just know it."
"But..."
"But after Jim..." She lifted a hand in a helpless gesture.
"After Jim what?"
"Nothing can compare." How could she explain her fear at losing someone who had meant so much to her? Jim had occupied all of her heart. He'd been the center of her life. He'd been her best friend, her lover, her other half. If she gave part of her heart to someone else, would she forget Jim and all he'd meant to her? He was already fading so fast from her memory. She felt for the lump of her wedding ring hanging on a chain beneath her sweater.
And if she couldn't give all of her heart to someone else, then, was it fair to start a relationship? Logan deserved more than a small corner of heart. He needed someone who could love him completely.
Eve reached for one of Beth's hand and squeezed it. "Sweetie, don't shut doors before you even give yourself a chance to walk through them."
She shook her head. "It's not that simple. You of all people should understand that. You never loved again after your fiancé was killed."
"And look at me now. I'm an old spinster who's all alone." Eve squeezed Beth's hand again. "I made a foolish mistake."
"So why do you keep saying no to Gus's proposals?"
"Because I'm too old to change my ways. But you're not. You're young. You have a son to think of. You have a whole life ahead of you. And that's why I can't tell you anything more."
"I don't understand."
Eve drained her cup. "It's something you need to hear from him."
"I could look it up myself."
"You could." Eve ticked a nail against the tabletop to underline her point. "But the papers give only one version of what happened. They don't tell you about the heart. There's a matter of trust involved here, Beth. You should ask him, and he should tell you."
"In a perfect world..." She dug through her purse for her wallet. "He's very closed off. I don't think he trusts anyone, not even himself."
"All the more reason to hear his version of the truth, don't you think?"
Even more confused now, she signaled their waitress.
"Nothing's perfect," Eve said, and reached for her coat. "The sooner you get that through your head, the better off you'll be. Jim wasn't perfect, though you've made him out to be a saint with the passing years. And saving yourself for a ghost is pure stupidity."
"Eve!"
"Well, you asked."
"About Logan—not for a lowdown on my shortcomings."
"One is tied with the other in this situation." Eve perched her red rolled brim hat at a jaunty angle on her head. "So what are you feeding him tonight?"
She groaned and stuffed her wallet back into her purse. "Brussels sprouts in a cheese sauce and a sweet-potato and black-bean stew."
"Beth! That's not the way to get to that man. He needs meat and potatoes."
"No, what he needs is something out of the ordinary to knock him out of his loop."
Eve laughed and slipped on her red wool coat. "Well, he's getting that, that's for sure."
Leaning forward over the table, Beth whispered, "Oh, no."
"What?"
"Don't look now, but here comes Laura Darlington."
* * *
"Good morning, ladies." Laura Darlington's high-pitched voice cleaved through the diner's noise like a freshly sharpened ax.
"Good morning, Laura," Beth and Eve said with resignation in unison.
With her skinny body, oversize glasses and her prematurely white hair cut in a bob, Laura looked like a cross between an owl and a crane. Wearing shades of white,
brown and gray didn't help the image. And Darlington really was not a good fit for a name. There was nothing darling about the way she meddled with everybody's business or about her sour view of life.
"Are you headed to the meeting?" Laura asked. Something about her body language suggested she had juicy gossip she was dying to share. Or worse—juicy gossip she wanted to extract.
"Beth is. I have a house to show in—" with a flourish, Eve looked at her watch "—oops, less than ten minutes. Beth, I'll expect a call tomorrow. About that new black-bean stew."
Eve's eyes twinkled with mischief, and her smile had a swallowed-canary quality.
"The stew's really better the second or third day."
Eve roared with laughter. "Stop by after church, anyway. I just bought a new bag of that French vanilla coffee you love."
With a wave Eve made her escape, leaving Beth trapped on the other side of the table. Laura slipped into Eve's chair.
"So, how are things with you?" Laura asked, taking off her brown gloves.
Beth purposefully misinterpreted Laura's prodding. "I think we finally found what was wrong with the freezer. The new part should be in on Monday. Everything should be set for the middle school concert on Wednesday. The PTA has nothing to worry about."
"That's great." Laura waited a beat. "Big Bill is almost well enough to come home."
Give a little, hope to get a little back. Did Laura know her tactic was transparent? Did she even care? Beth cringed as she hitched her purse on her shoulder and stood. "I'm so glad to hear that. I have some chicken noodle soup in the freezer ready for him."
"He'll love that."
Beth gathered her gloves. "We'd better get to the town hall. The meeting starts in a few minutes."
"Oh, yes, you're right."
Beth wound her way around the closely set tables, hoping against hope to lose Laura in the maze. No chance of that with Laura nipping at her heels.
"I still don't know how we're going to get anything done before the Holiday Fair next weekend," Laura said.
"We'll think of something."
The bell's clang over the door sounded like a screech rather than a joyful chirp. The wind, heavy with the scent of snow, wheeled sooty clouds over the blue sky.
"The town doesn't have that Currier & Ives quality without the red ribbons and pine boughs." Laura took a position at Beth's side on the sidewalk.
Zipping her coat, Beth insisted everything would come together in time for the Holiday Fair. "It'll be the best one yet."
Laura sighed and professed more gloom. "Christmas will be drastically different this year. Remember last year? Even without the snow the town looked like a jewel. And two years ago we had a bonanza year. Snow before Thanksgiving and sunshine every single weekend. Never before have we had such bad luck with... everything!"
"It'll just be different, that's all."
But Laura was well into her own well-worn groove of lament. "And everyone is so depressed about the SuperMart opening. You know how people are. Got to check it out. And they've got good prices, but really, when you get down to it, they don't have the service. Still, it's tough to sell that line these days. People just look at the price, not what they're getting for the money. Gene has the same problem."
Gene being Simon Eugene Darlington, Laura's husband, owner of Darlington Motor Company, one of three used car lots in this small town. Only Gene had inherited the business and had no true interest in cars or selling and seemed more content to sit and watch game shows all day rather than drum up business.
Beth had a theory that Laura saw so much negative in others to deal with the disappointment her own life had brought. If everyone else's life was rotten, then hers couldn't be that bad.
In some ways, Beth felt sorry for her, but not today, not when she knew just where Laura would eventually wind up—needling her about Logan.
"Do they really think that's going to help?" Laura snorted as they passed a giant banner flapping in the wind, proclaiming in bright-red and green, "Wrap It Up Locally!
"And Roy is too old to put up the tree this year," Laura continued. "Especially after his hip surgery last spring."
Roy Crandall was an old widower who'd done much for the town. He'd gifted his property on the edge of town to Rockville as conservation land and it housed some of the nicest trails in the area. He'd once been part of the selectmen running the town. Now he simply offered the voice of reason as the town attempted to guide its growth.
"He'll outlive us all," Beth said, thinking fondly of Roy's excitement over the Christmas season. Making sure the town glowed with lights and color seemed to give Roy purpose, and seeing all the children's faces as they sat on his knees and surrendered their secret wishes to his Santa, seemed to energize him for the entire year.
"Maybe so, but he can't be out there hacking down trees and climbing up ladders to set the lights. Not with Big Bill out of commission and those two idiots who make up the public works department busy trying to keep up with the water problems."
Not to mention keeping up with the snow removal and all their other duties. "We have plenty of healthy men in their prime willing to help out."
"Speaking of healthy men..."
Beth silently groaned. She'd walked right into that one.
"...how is that new neighbor of yours?"
She speeded her pace. "Very busy."
"You don't say."
Give her a little and get her off your back? "He's remodeling his kitchen."
"Strange place for him to start, don't you think? I mean him being a man. A bachelor at that."
She took the steps in front of the town hall two at a time. "Why? The kitchen is the center of any home. I think it makes perfect sense. Everybody has to eat."
Laura puffed by her side. "So I've heard. All those dinners." Laura tisked. "Do you think it's wise to lead the man on when you have no intention of ever marrying again?"
"Who said?" Beth frowned. Being the subject of grapevine conjecture didn't sit well with her—especially when it rang too close to the truth.
"Well, it's obvious. After having someone like Jim, how could you even think of replacing him? Everybody loved Jim. There was no one quite like him."
Anger rumbled inside her, but she reminded herself that she was talking to Laura. The same Laura who'd had her eye on Jim twelve years ago and who'd nearly torn Beth's eyes out when Jim had chosen Beth over her.
"What I do or don't do is really none of anybody's business." Beth swung open the heavy wooden door and zipped through.
"Oh, you're so right. Still, if you keep feeding him, he could get the wrong idea, you know."
"I don't think so. He's not looking for a relationship either."
Laura grabbed on to the tidbit as if it were caviar on a table of chips and dip. "Really, is that so?"
"Yes."
"Now, I wonder why that is." Laura's voice echoed in the stairwell, and even the tread of their racing feet on the stairs couldn't block out Laura's intent scrutiny at her prey for any signs of weakness.
"How should I know?"
"Well, you go there every day, and I heard Jamie was hurt over there sometime last week."
"Jamie wasn't hurt. He's perfectly fine."
Laura was zeroing in now. Beth could almost feel the sharpness of talons digging into flesh.
"Logan. Such a nice name, don't you think?" Laura practically purred with delight. "Masculine. Strong."
Beth stopped and rounded on Laura who had to check her step in order not to run into her. "Leave him alone, Laura."
Laura's eyebrows arched with astonishment. Her eyes widened. She gave an owlish blink, then started sputtering. "I didn't mean anything by—"
"He doesn't need to be the butt of town gossip."
Without waiting for an excuse or giving an apology, Beth swiveled back and climbed the last two steps. Her face burned. Her heart pounded. Her tensed muscles quivered. Where had all this fierce protectiveness come from? And how could she have lost her tem
per like that? Laura's tongue would wag this tidbit all over town, and she'd never hear the end of it.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she entered the meeting room and found the rest of the committee already in place. Claudelle Weston banged the gavel to open the meeting, putting an end to Laura's pecking. Beth squeezed in between Claudelle and Roy, forcing Laura to take a spot at the opposite end of the table beside Mildred Wallace and Clementine Brickman.
But as she picked up the typewritten agenda sheet and pretended to give it all of her attention, she had to wonder why this conversation with Laura had disturbed her so much, why she was still a little shaky.
Because having someone dissected by Laura was not a fate she would wish on her worst enemy, she rationalized. And Logan had already been hurt enough. It wasn't because she felt she had to protect the privacy he cherished so much, and certainly not because her stomach fluttered every time she saw him.
She frowned and stared at the paper on which she could suddenly see nothing but a blur of black ink on white paper. Roy had to nudge her twice to get her attention and even then, she could hear nothing he said over the loud drum of her pulse pounding.
No, it couldn't be. Hand on her stomach, she shook her head to clear it. Could Laura be right? Could she be half falling for her surly neighbor? Could she be leading Logan on?
Mind stuck on fast forward, she reviewed each of her encounters with Logan, then huffed out a breath. He was a project, not a prospect. She fed him because he wasn't feeding himself. And she'd have done that even if Jim were alive. As a matter of fact, Jim would have encouraged her. She'd done nothing to make Logan think she sought anything more than a neighborly relationship.
"I'm sorry, Roy. For a second there, I scared myself thinking I left the house without turning off the oven." The whole room chuckled. "Can you repeat your question?"
* * *
The Beautification Committee set an agenda. They would seek donations of boughs, wreaths and ribbons, and twice this week they would gather volunteers to decorate lampposts, the town hall and the bandstand on the common with hopes Rockville would look festive by the Holiday Fair next Saturday. They would worry about the tree lighting next week.