by Gina Wilkins
From the choices he suggested for her, Lindsey selected a purple bowling ball, because she liked the color. Bo had brought his own, a fancy, blue-and-green swirled ball he carried in a monogrammed leather case. He had his own shoes, too. “You bowl a lot?” she asked, thinking the answer was obvious.
He surprised her by saying, “Not really. My folks bought me all this stuff for Christmas a couple of years ago. I haven’t bowled in months.”
“And you just suddenly had an urge to bowl again?”
Flashing her his trademark grin, he gave a little shrug. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do with you tonight,” he admitted. “It isn’t as if there’s any real excitement that goes on around this burg—at least, not very often. But I figured everyone likes to go bowling sometimes.”
She laughed. “I don’t know about everyone, but it sounds like fun to me tonight.”
“Good. That’s what we’re here for.”
She was spending the evening with an amusing, good-looking companion, Lindsey reminded herself. Maybe having fun tonight wouldn’t kill her, after all.
Riley O’Neal was hanging around the police station when Dan left that evening. Straightening away from the desk where he’d been idly flirting with the pretty young dispatcher, Riley tagged at Dan’s heels to the parking lot. “All kinds of rumors were flying around town today.”
“Is that right?” Dan dug his keys out of his pocket as he approached his truck.
“Hmm. Heard you spent a few hours at the high school this morning. None of the staff there is talking about why you were there.”
“They’d damned well better not be,” Dan muttered. Unfortunately, none of the teachers he’d met with thus far had recognized the handwriting in the notebook, which meant there was nothing much to tell even if they wanted to talk to the reporter.
“You’ve obviously given the order for them to keep quiet. No one’s quite brave enough to break rank.”
Dan nodded in satisfaction. There wasn’t much he could do if someone did talk, of course, but he would certainly make his displeasure known. He made sure folks around here were almost as wary of his bark as his bite. That made it a bit easier to keep order in his jurisdiction.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to throw me any news tidbits,” Riley suggested.
“Nope.”
The reporter nodded as if he’d expected that answer all along. “Okay. So you want to get something to eat? I’m starving.”
It wouldn’t be the first time the two bachelors had shared a meal, but Dan couldn’t help being suspicious about the timing of this seemingly impulsive invitation. Was Riley hoping he would let something slip during the meal about the investigation? True, Riley wasn’t as obsessive or as persistent about his career as Lindsey, but he was still a reporter, for the time being. Dan had good reason to be wary of the profession in general.
He could still picture in painful detail the headlines that had appeared in newspapers all over the state when his ex-wife had been arrested for embezzling money—along with a co-worker with whom she’d been having an affair—from a large insurance company in a neighboring town. The wire services had picked up the story of the police chief’s wife who’d broken the law—and had gleefully quoted her bitter comments about her “distant, workaholic husband” and his “small-town-cop salary and mentality.”
She hadn’t minded using his small-town-cop’s salary to make restitution to her employer and keep her faithless butt out of jail, of course.
He shook his head in self-disgust, wondering what had made those ugly memories suddenly resurface. He thought he’d been doing a better job, lately, of keeping them submerged. “Sure, Riley. Let’s get something to eat. But no talking business tonight, okay?”
“Suits me. How about Kelly’s?”
Kelly’s was the snack bar at the local bowling alley. Dan was a bit surprised by Riley’s choice, but not opposed. Kelly’s was known for serving the best chili cheese fries in the area. So, okay, he’d have to eat salads for a few days. It would be worth it. “Kelly’s is fine.”
Even on a Monday night the bowling alley was doing a brisk business, Dan noted when he turned into the parking lot. It wasn’t as if there was much choice of entertainment in these parts.
Not for the first time, he found himself wondering where Lindsey was going for her “date” that evening. And who she was seeing.
Not that it was any of his business, of course, he reminded himself sternly. He just couldn’t help being curious.
Fifteen minutes later he sat across a small booth from Riley, behind a heaping plate of chili cheese fries and a large cola. The bowling alley was noisy, of course, but it was a cheerful racket of laughter, conversation and crashing wooden pins. Dan could feel his mood lifting a little. After a long and thoroughly frustrating day, junk food and mindless relaxation was exactly what he needed.
“So how’s it been going—outside of work, of course?” Riley asked around a mouthful of food.
Dan shrugged. “You know me—there’s not much going on at all outside of work.”
Riley shook his head in disgust. “You need a life, Dan-o.”
“I tried that once—I wasn’t very good at it.” The remark was intended as a joke, but Dan could tell it had fallen sadly flat.
“You and Lindsey.” Riley shook his head. “She was just as defensive when I told her she needed a life outside of work.”
“You said that to Lindsey?” Dan pushed fries around on his plate with his plastic fork as he asked the question, hoping to look casual about it.
“Yeah. She’s been a bit down lately. Sort of at loose ends since her dad died a couple months ago. She told me she’s getting restless for changes, which is why she’s talking to Don Pettit about putting her house on the market.”
Dan hadn’t realized Lindsey had already gone from thinking about selling her house to actually talking to a real estate agent. “So the house is up for sale?”
“I assume it is. But in the meantime, she’s trying to cheer herself up by changing her routine here. You know, spending less time at the paper, taking more time for herself. Seeing new people.”
“New people?” Dan repeated, thinking about Lindsey’s date that evening. Never being the type to indulge in idle gossip, he felt vaguely uncomfortable with this conversation—but it was Riley who’d brought up the subject, he reminded himself.
“Well, maybe not new—that’s pretty hard to accomplish around here. But different, anyway.” He nodded to some point behind Dan. “Take tonight, for example.”
Dan felt an odd chill whisper down the open neck of his shirt. “Tonight?” he repeated, resisting a sudden impulse to look around.
“Yeah. Lindsey’s over there bowling with Bo Jeffries. You know him, don’t you? He’s part owner of that Western supply store in Gibsonville. I did an interview with him a year or so ago about his rodeo sideline. Interesting guy.”
Dan remembered Bo. The cocky young cowboy who’d all but fallen down the front of Lindsey’s dress at Gaylord’s. It took all his willpower to keep from turning to see if she was wearing something equally revealing this evening. “Did you know Lindsey was going to be here this evening?” he asked Riley instead.
Riley glanced up from his food, an ingenuous expression on his face. “She might have mentioned it this afternoon. That’s probably what reminded me of how much I like Kelly’s chili cheese fries. Why?”
Dan shrugged. “I wouldn’t want her to think I’m checking up on her or anything.”
“Why would she think that?”
“Well…you know. I’m B.J.’s friend. I’ve known her since she was a kid. I wouldn’t want her to think of me as an overprotective older brother.”
“You think Lindsey regards you as a brother?”
Dan couldn’t quite read Riley’s expression. “Maybe not as a brother. Certainly as her brother’s contemporary.”
“Hmm.” Riley stuffed his mouth with fries again.
Dan set
his fork down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Swallowing, Riley took a drink of his cola before asking, “What does what mean?”
“How do you think Lindsey thinks of me?”
Riley looked across the room again. “I guess you’d have to ask her that.”
Which, of course, was something Dan had been carefully avoiding. Unable to resist any longer, he glanced over his shoulder.
The first thing he noticed was Lindsey laughing in a way he hadn’t seen her laugh in quite a while. She looked as if she were having a wonderful time. That observation shouldn’t be so disturbing to him.
His second realization was that she looked great. There was nothing overtly revealing about her outfit—a long-sleeved maroon T-shirt and khaki cargo pants—but the garments fit snugly enough to show off her slender, healthy figure.
The third thing he noticed—the one that made his frown deepen to a scowl—was that cowboy Bo was standing very close to her, one arm around her waist as he used his other to coach her in her bowling form.
“Looks like she’s getting some private bowling lessons,” Riley murmured, his tone as bland as his expression.
“It’s disgusting. The guy’s crawling all over her.”
“Strictly an older-brother-type observation, I take it?”
The truth was, Dan wasn’t feeling particularly fraternal just then. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, exactly—other than a simmering urge to personally remove Bo’s hands from Lindsey’s derriere.
Instead, he forced himself to turn back to his food. He noticed that Riley seemed to be watching him rather closely. “What?” he asked curtly.
Riley grinned and plucked a dripping French fry from the pile on his plate. “Not a thing, Chief. Not a thing.”
Dan glared down at his own half-empty plate, his appetite gone. Damn. Now he was getting indigestion.
All in all, this had been a hell of a day.
Even though she assured him it wasn’t necessary, Bo walked Lindsey to her door that evening. Trying to keep it casual, she gave him a breezy smile. “Well, I didn’t bowl as badly as I thought I would, considering how long it’s been.”
“Not bad at all,” he acknowledged graciously, as if he hadn’t completely stomped her in both the games they had played.
“I had a very nice time.”
“So did I. We should go out again sometime.”
“Sure. We’ll do that.” She kept the answer deliberately vague. She really had enjoyed the evening, and wouldn’t mind seeing Bo again. Someday. Maybe. But she didn’t want to give him the impression that she was interested in anything more than friendship at this point.
Bo stood by while she unlocked her front door. She was relieved that he didn’t seem to expect an invitation inside. Instead, he gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek, then stepped back. “See ya, Lindsey.”
“See ya, Bo.”
She watched him lope to his truck, and then she turned and entered her house. Her smile faded almost as soon as she closed the door behind her.
The evening had been a deliberate attempt on her part to put Dan Meadows out of her mind. Unfortunately, he had lurked at the back of her thoughts all evening, casting a definite pall over her fun. As much as she enjoyed Bo’s company, she’d been all too aware all evening that he wasn’t Dan. Which only proved that she still had a long way to go to get over him.
Dan met the mayor for breakfast at the Rainbow Café Tuesday morning. Marjorie Schaffer’s downtown diner was a popular breakfast and lunch destination, and Dan wasn’t the only one there for an early business meeting. The food was delicious, as usual, but his enjoyment of it was diminished by the mayor’s very vocal displeasure that no further progress had been made on the arson investigation, despite the most recent clue.
Dan had to remind the mayor that they didn’t even know for certain if the notebook was a clue. For all they knew it was an eccentrically artistic teenager’s interpretation of the recent, much-discussed fires. The mayor didn’t want to hear that, of course. He wanted this case closed. Immediately, if not sooner.
Called abruptly away by a cell phone summons, the mayor left with one last directive for Dan to keep working to identify the owner of that notebook. Dan managed not to retort that he didn’t need to be told how to do his job. Tempers and patience tended to run short at times like this, and everyone needed to be careful about speaking rashly. He lingered over his coffee after the mayor left, taking the time to organize his thoughts and make plans for the day.
“The mayor looked a little testy this morning.”
Dan glanced up from his coffee to give Marjorie a faint smile. “You could say that.”
She slid into the seat vacated by his breakfast companion. “So how are you holding up? I know this is a stressful time for you.”
“I’m fine. The real stress comes from wondering when—or if—this jerk is going to strike again.”
“I know you’re doing everything you can to prevent that.”
As much as he appreciated her confidence, Dan wished he shared it. He knew all too well that there was little he could do to prevent the firebug from striking again unless he first figured out who it was.
“Was it ever determined for certain whether the fire that killed poor Truman Kellogg was deliberately set?”
“No, although we’re still going on the assumption that it was. There are similarities to the other fires, even though there are also significant differences.”
He could only hope again that the notebook Polly had found would eventually provide some real clues, rather than being merely a red herring. And thinking of the notebook…
“I’d better get to work,” he said, picking up his coffee cup for one last savored sip. “Got a long list of things to do today.”
“Of course. Oh, by the way, I’m having a little get-together this weekend here in the diner after we close Saturday. Kara and Pierce are going to be visiting for the weekend, and I want to show them off a little. Sort of a celebration for Pierce’s new recording contract. Do you think you’ll be able to come?”
“I’ll try to drop in. It sounds like fun.”
She chuckled. “To be honest, I have an ulterior motive in having a social gathering this weekend—besides Kara and Pierce being here, I mean. I’m going to try my hand at matchmaking.”
“Matchmaking?” Dan said the word with the dread of a man who’d been subjected to more than his share of that particular form of torment.
Smiling serenely, she nodded. “My friend Virginia’s grandson will be in town this weekend. Remember him? Scott? The one who graduated with all those honors and went off to St. Louis to study medicine? He’s a resident at Johns-Hopkins now, very close to being a full-fledged internist.”
“I remember him. He worked for you here a couple of summers, didn’t he? He spilled a whole pitcher of orange juice down my back once.” Dan still shivered at the memory.
Marjorie laughed. “That was his first day on the job. He was such a brilliant, serious young man, but I’m afraid he didn’t have much natural talent for waiting tables.”
“And you say he’s a doctor now? Scary thought.”
“I’m told he’s a much better doctor than he was a waiter.”
“I would hope so. So, who are you hoping to fix him up with—especially since he’s only going to be in town for a weekend visit?”
Looking rather smug, Marjorie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Lindsey.”
Dan nearly dropped his coffee cup. Recovering rapidly, he set the cup down very carefully. “Lindsey Gray?”
“Of course.” She looked quite proud of herself for the idea.
Why the hell was everyone trying to match Lindsey up with someone? “Any particular reason you want to hook Lindsey up with a medical student from Baltimore?”
“Well, she’s been wanting to make some changes in her life,” she replied as if it made perfect sense. “She’s putting the house up for sale, dating new people. Scott’s
a nice young man with a good future ahead of him. And if it did work out, I’m sure Lindsey could find a newspaper job in Baltimore. Think of the opportunities there for her.”
“You’ve got her married off already to a guy she hasn’t even met yet?” Dan had tried to speak dryly but was afraid he’d sounded cutting, instead.
“It isn’t as if they’re total strangers. They knew each other in high school, even though he was a class or two ahead of her.”
Dan shook his head, knowing his disapproval must be evident on his face. “I doubt that Lindsey would appreciate being set up like this.”
“Oh, I’m not blindsiding her. I’ve told her Scott’s going to be here. I even told her she could bring a date if she wanted. She has several young men friends, you know.”
Dan grimly pictured Lindsey snuggled up with cowboy Bo and a bowling ball. “So she’s bringing a date to a party that’s being planned primarily to fix her up with another guy? And you don’t think that’s awkward?”
She laughed again, though Dan wasn’t sure exactly what she found so amusing. “I suppose it would be. But she said she won’t be bringing a date, so that’s not really an issue.”
Dan still hated the whole idea. There was just something…well, tawdry about it, he decided. Putting Lindsey on display for some hotshot young doctor to look over…she deserved better than that.
“Oh, don’t look so negative, Dan. I’m not putting her up for auction. It’s just a party, and she and Scott will both be there. If nothing happens between them, it’s no big deal. I just thought they might enjoy seeing each other again while Scott’s in town.”
Put that way, it didn’t sound quite so unsavory. But he still didn’t like it.
“I don’t get to play matchmaker much now that my girls are both taken.” Marjorie sounded as if she were lamenting a favorite hobby she’d been forced to give up. “I tried a couple of times with Riley, but he made it very clear he isn’t interested in getting involved with anyone now. He’s too busy playing and being entirely self-indulgent.”