by Jayne Denker
Ray Dubois, owner of the print and copy shop . . . and Jordan’s nemesis from the historic-speeches firecracker incident. She shrank back a little, then hated herself for doing so. Lucky for her, he only had eyes for All That Was Audra. Jordan started snickering again at the dopey, besotted look on Ray’s face. It was sort of disturbing; the woman had to be twenty years younger than he was.
“Uh, Audra?” Will ventured. “I think Ray’s got your wallet.”
“But I lost it!”
“And I found it,” Ray said, “tucked in the roots of that tree over there. I was taking a break from walking around—needed some shade.”
Audra finally looked him up and down closely and said, with exasperated affection, “Ray, did you go out without sunscreen up top again? I told you . . .”
The man’s cheeks reddened, and he sheepishly patted his head. “I might’ve forgotten.”
“That is your wallet, then?” Will asked.
She took it from Ray—reluctantly, it appeared—and casually looked it over. “Yeah,” she grumbled. “I guess.”
“Great news. Why don’t you make sure everything’s still there?”
Her lips twisted while she rifled through it, then she nodded. “Nothing’s missing.”
“Good. Everything worked out. Be sure to thank Ray, now, Audra, and enjoy the rest of your day.”
As he turned to go, she called after him, “Will!”
“Yep?”
“Help me with my pumpkins?”
Finally, finally an amused look stole over Will’s face, and he caught Jordan’s eye. He made sure he was still turned away from Audra when he allowed himself to grin widely and answered, “Sorry. I’ve got another pumpkin assignment. But I think Ray can help you.”
Ray brightened, clearly ready to follow Audra anywhere. Will ushered Jordan toward the field, evidently satisfied Audra was in good hands.
“What the hell was that?” Jordan whispered when they were far enough away from the scene of the non-crime.
Will laughed and rolled his eyes. “I couldn’t even begin to explain it.”
“Looks like you need to lay off me about Cam, since you seem to have an admirer of your own.”
“Audra? Come on.”
“Who is . . . ?”
“Just . . . Audra. McNally. Owner of Suzette’s, a dress shop in town. And Bedelia’s niece.”
“And what else?”
“That about sums it up. Well, I guess we could add she’s Ray’s crush, if that wasn’t obvious already.”
“Ew.”
“They had quite the flirtation going this past summer, when she was a wardrobe consultant for his singing competition. I think Ray’s more head over heels than she is, though.”
“Too bad for Ray she’s got her eye on somebody else.”
Will shrugged, but he didn’t say anything—not even a denial.
“I’d guess this happens often, right? Police officer with the uniform and the handcuffs and the air of authority?”
“Why don’t we concentrate on pumpkins, Jordan?”
“Whose?”
He smirked. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of inspecting to do.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jordan was still trudging along a row in the rutted field, dodging tangled vines and smashed pumpkins rotting in the sun, growing warm herself as she exerted more effort than she had in a very, very long time, all to choose a couple of good-looking gourds. Will was several yards ahead of her, more surefooted among the dry, caked dirt mounds, as he glanced left and right at the pumpkin options, crouching to turn one over and examine it from all sides. He was taking this way too seriously. And she was getting bored. Unacceptable.
“Hey! Officer!”
Will straightened and turned around . . . and immediately a blush suffused his face. Jordan was standing in the middle of the field, holding a pair of small sugar pumpkins in a very suggestive location. Stems pointed outward. Speechless, Will rolled his eyes and turned away. It didn’t stop her.
“What, not your cup of tea?” she called, ignoring his embarrassment and the stares of other pumpkin pickers nearby. “Get it? Cup—? What, nothing? Okay, then. How about this?”
Although he seemed to be wrestling with whether to look or not, Will reluctantly turned again, this time to find she had swapped the sugar pumpkins for larger ones.
“Better?” She jiggled them from underneath like a stripper with lousy moves, until he flushed so much he was nearly crimson. But he was laughing. A little. Jordan was glad; for a moment she’d feared she’d pushed him too far. She didn’t want that. She was surprised at herself for feeling that way—usually she was an equal-opportunity offender. But for Will, she made an exception. She felt the need for his approval—most of the time, anyway—probably because it was so hard to win.
She put the pumpkins down, crossed to him, and resumed hunting. “So you like a girl with big pumpkins, eh?”
“Not necessarily,” he muttered.
“Really? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter that I didn’t take that rich guy up on his offer, then,” she said casually, as she inspected a candidate.
“What rich guy? What offer?”
“I knew a guy once . . . kind of old . . . offered to buy me some new boobs if I’d go out with him. I thought about it, I’ll admit it.” She gestured to her breasts like a spokesmodel showing off a new washing machine. “Obviously things didn’t work out.”
She wasn’t sure Will was listening. Without responding, he crouched next to her, rolled a fairly large pumpkin over, then squinted up at her. “What about this one?”
“Looks good.”
“All right, then.” He snapped it off the vine and hoisted it onto his shoulder. “And that one?” He pointed to another nice specimen, and she nodded. So what she’d said wasn’t bothering him? And was she worried it would, or was she hoping it would? Tucking the second gourd under his other arm, he started walking back the way they’d come. Jordan grabbed a white heirloom pumpkin she’d had her eye on and caught up with him.
When they’d almost reached the edge of the field, he said, “Jordan?”
“Yeah?”
He stopped at the dirt road and studied her. “Are you trying to freak me out on purpose?”
“Of course.”
He seemed to turn that over in his mind for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. Mind telling me why? I mean, is it just your usual thing? Keeping everyone at arm’s length? I’ve noticed you do that a lot.”
“Hey, I told you—I’m all about self-preservation.”
“Okay,” he said again. They’d only walked a few more steps before, staring straight ahead with a small smile on his lips, he added, “Won’t work on me, though.”
Chapter 10
It was official. A crime was being committed, and Will knew exactly how it was going down. The victim: one very stupid Officer William Nash. The perp: Jordan Let-Me-Centrifuge-Your-Brain-And-Skim-Off-The-Common-Sense Leigh. The motive: to drive him swinging-from-the-lampposts-on-Main-Street insane. The M.O.: Jordan just being Jordan. The weapon . . .
That mouth.
Most of the time he would have been happy to stare at it for hours—those slim, soft lips, parted to reveal just the even bottom edges of her teeth; the way they curled up at the corners when she was being clever; the way they stretched, for only a split second, when he made her laugh.
But when she was speaking . . . no. Just no.
It wasn’t that he was some sort of misogynist, wanting her standing silent in the corner, just looking pretty—far from it. Even though she was exceptionally attractive. No, he loved talking with her, even loved just sitting and listening to her ramble, spouting her non sequiturs, being sarcastic. When they were hanging out together, he felt like he could sit with her forever. When he tried to carry out his promise to revamp her image and ease her into Marsden life, however. . . well, all bets were off.
When did Will realize helping Jordan get back into the residents’ good grac
es was more of a minefield than he’d expected? Probably Monday afternoon, when they’d gone to Lix to get the last ice cream cone of the season before the hamburger stand closed down for the winter. They’d stood in line just in front of Beth Nichols, on an outing with her one-year-old, Bucky. Will was hesitant to reacquaint Jordan with Beth and Bucky, because he feared she’d start riffing on Bucky’s slightly monetarily themed name.
She hadn’t; instead, she’d said, “Wow. Bucky’s getting so big! And so cute.” Beth had beamed proudly, and Will had been in the process of breathing a sigh of relief when she’d tacked on, “He’s really growing into his head, isn’t he? I mean, phew! Right?”
Will had gotten ice cream into her food hole as quickly as possible, then hustled her away.
Or the next evening, when he’d convinced her to go back to Marsden Mercantile. He’d had to call in a whole lot of favors for that one—luckily he was on Walter’s good side, having gone out of his way last winter to keep an eye on Walter’s house on a remote, rural road when he and his family were on vacation in Florida.
Will had accompanied Jordan into the store, just to put Walter at ease, and everything had gone just fine. Jordan had even smirked at a rack of nail polish in the personal care aisle and had thrown not one or two, but four bottles of bright primary colors into her shopping cart, along with some tiny sparkly stickers to take her manicure to the next level or something—and then they’d come across elderly Mrs. Osterberg in the freezer section. Mrs. Osterberg had been their kindergarten teacher more than twenty years before—and even back then she was hitting retirement age—but she still remembered Jordan.
“Goodness, dear,” she’d said, patting Jordan’s hand with her own gnarled one. “Of course I remember you. You always had difficulty cutting shapes out of construction paper. I do hope your delayed motor skills didn’t limit your options in life. Tell me you’re doing fine.”
Jordan had glanced at Will, and he knew she was debating whether or not to show off her house arrest accessory. That would have knocked Mrs. Osterberg’s wig askew, not to mention make her incredibly disappointed in her former student—and Mrs. Osterberg’s disappointment ran deep, taking any of her students’ failures in adulthood as proof positive that she’d failed them somehow when they were five years old—so he jumped in. Jordan was doing wonderfully, he’d said. Very active with animal rescues. And . . . er . . . doing an in-depth study of the criminal justice system.
That had seemed to satisfy the old lady, and she went on her way with one last pat of Jordan’s hand. They were almost in the clear when Jordan had looked at him, wide-eyed, and said, “Dayum. What is she, a hundred and ten?”
Mrs. Osterberg pretended not to hear, but Will saw a little stumble in her step as she continued down the aisle.
“Okay,” he muttered, hastily steering Jordan in the other direction, “she is kind of old—”
“Kind of?”
“—But she’s still a person. With two working ears, even if they are at reduced capacity. So if you could just turn down the volume or, you know, maybe not vocalize every thought that comes into your head, that’d be great.”
Finally, Jordan reached a milestone: her last official day of incarceration. Will met her at Nora’s for a celebratory lunch. The diner was a safe location, because if he played his cards right, Jordan would only have to interact with the owner—and Nora brooked no shit from anyone.
“So what happens now?” Will ventured, poking at his coleslaw with his fork.
“What do you mean?” Jordan was barely visible behind the enormous cheeseburger she was holding up to her lips.
“I mean your house arrest is over, you get the monitoring device off tomorrow, and you get your freedom back. Then what?”
“You mean am I going to run away from Marsden and never look back?”
“Is that the plan?”
Her eyes glimmered over the hamburger bun. “Maybe. Or maybe not. Will you miss me if I do?”
He hesitated, wondering if she was expecting a serious answer. But then he shook himself. Who was he kidding? Jordan didn’t “do” serious.
Before he could answer, she made a buzzing noise. “Too late. You took way too long with that one. I get it; you’re not going to miss me. You’re going to do a happy dance when I’m gone.”
“I promise you,” he murmured, leaning forward, “I will not do a happy dance when you’re gone.”
“No?”
“No.” He paused. “I don’t dance.”
Smirking, she nodded sagely. “You have learned much in the way of snark, Padawan. I have taught you well.”
“You are the master.”
“Better believe it.” She tipped her head in the direction of a pair of diners in a booth across the way: Bedelia and Audra. “Want to go say hi to your girlfriend?”
“I’ll pass. She doesn’t look like she wants to talk, anyway.”
“Bedelia does, though.”
Will glanced over; while Audra hid behind her menu, obviously still stung from her flirtation fail at Bowen Farms, the older woman was waving at him. He smiled and nodded in return. Then he looked pointedly at Jordan, who took the hint and also waved—miraculously without flashing her middle finger.
“Are you two doing better with the whole neighbor-relations thing?” Will asked.
Jordan shrugged. “I guess. She tried to talk to me the other day.”
“Really? That’s great!”
“Mm, maybe at first.”
Will’s heart sank. “What did you do?”
“Hey, why do you always think I’m the one who blows it?”
“Didn’t you?”
Jordan sighed. “She seemed to be all right until she started talking about her weaving.”
“And then?”
“And then she asked me what my ‘art’ was.”
Will nodded. It was a common question around Marsden, since almost everyone had an artistic bent, even if it wasn’t a primary source of income. “And you told her . . . ?”
“I don’t ‘art.’ Then she gave me the hairy eyeball and walked away. Hasn’t talked to me since.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“Well, what the hell! I’m not artistic, okay? Does that make me a freak? If you ask me, everyone else around here is just weird, with their weaving and sculpting and woodworking and acting and singing and cellos on the street.”
“It’s tradition. You know the history.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But that’s not an actual question out in the real world.” She stuffed a couple of fries into her mouth. “What about you? What’s your art?”
“Ah . . .” That was complicated; he went for the simple answer. “I don’t ‘art’ either.” It was the truth . . . mostly. “You know, Bedelia was probably more offended that you used the word ‘art’ as a verb.”
“I won’t cry if she doesn’t get over it. What’s up with her, anyway? She always seemed so nice before, when Gran lived in the house. They were always together, laughing, goofing around.”
“Well, they were both drunk off their asses the entire time, weren’t they?”
“Oh yeah . . .”
“I think Bedelia misses her drinking buddy.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s gotta take it out on me.” Jordan glanced over at the woman one more time. “Then there’s the other one, eyeballing me over her menu. Not too subtle. What’s her problem?” Without waiting for Will to answer, she said loudly and clearly, directly to Audra, “What’s your prob—?”
“O–kay,” Will cut in. “Keep on winning hearts and minds there, Leigh.”
“I just want to know what’s up her butt.”
“The problem’s not with Audra.” Will and Jordan looked up to find Nora leaning over them, grim faced as always, pretending to concentrate on wiping down their table. “It’s Bedelia.”
“What have you heard?” Jordan asked her immediately.
“It’s probably because her . . . complaint didn’t get you b
usted,” Will said. “I never was able to convince her you weren’t smoking that night. I told her you were cooking with sage. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Well, I don’t do drugs!” Jordan exclaimed indignantly. “. . . Much,” she added under her breath, focusing on her food again to hide a smile.
“Will you please not say these things around me! Do you or do you not see the badge here?”
“And it’s not against you—not really,” Nora said to Jordan as she refilled their water glasses. “Bedelia’s goal in life is to match up Will and Audra, and she’s pissed at you because you’re screwing it up.”
Will didn’t know what to do with that and, apparently, neither did Jordan. He set his fork down carefully and looked away, but not before he caught sight of a bit of redness high on Jordan’s cheeks. Was she blushing? Couldn’t be. The woman didn’t blush. He doubted she even knew how.
“But—” she started to protest.
“I know. Audra’s a lot older than your boy, here. And she’s dating Toby, however that’s working out . . . or not. Not to mention she’s a touch insane.”
“Let’s call her eccentric,” Will suggested.
“You’re defending her?” Now Jordan was studying him with interest. “Why would that be, hm?”
“No, I’m not interested in Audra.”
“He gets a lot of that,” Nora said. “Quite the eligible bachelor, this one. Have you met Kyra yet?”
Now it was Will’s turn to redden as Jordan’s eyes lighted on him eagerly.
“Kyra?” she crowed, absolutely thrilled at this bit of information. “Who, pray tell, is Kyra?”
“Nobody,” he grumbled.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s the correct answer. Nora will tell me, won’t you, Nora?”
Something like a smile eased the creases in the diner owner’s face. “A little piece of Whalen ass who’s also angling for our boy, here. He’s in high demand, like I said. But as for those two,” Nora murmured, tipping her head slightly at the other booth, “just stay away from both of them. Bedelia’ll come to accept it eventually, and things’ll be fine.”
Jordan narrowed her eyes at the older woman. “Why are you helping me?”