She upped the wattage of the smile. Brad was handsome and shallow, but as long as they stayed away from real conversation, she sort of enjoyed flirting with him. “You’ve guessed my guilty little secret, Brad,” she said. “I pine for you in private.”
He waggled evil eyebrows. “My privates pine for you, too, sugar.”
Ross nudged Ellie subtly but firmly out of the way. “Isn’t that Belinda Morgan waving at you, Brad?” He pointed a stern finger at Belinda and when Brad turned around, Ross waved enthusiastically at Belinda, who blinked, then waved enthusiastically back.
“Oh, hell.” Brad’s suave manner deserted him. “I’ve got to leave now before she gets over here. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He tapped the tip of Ellie’s nose and scooted out the door.
“You’re not going to see him tomorrow,” Ross said, then asked, “are you?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“I thought we were going to work on my car.”
She pursed her lips, a little surprised at the edge in his voice. “That won’t take all day, Ross. A couple of hours, tops.”
“But you said we’d have to drive over to Springfield again to pick up the new hose.”
“Chip will get it.” She looked at him. “I know how to handle Brad, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
“Nothing’s bothering me.” He crossed his arms across his chest, as if that proved it.
“Good.” She crossed her arms, too, just to be in sync.
“He tapped your nose,” Ross pointed out, sounding a little insulted. “You don’t like that, remember?”
“No. I just don’t like for you to do it.” She handed off the plate to him just as Hazel darted up, two steps ahead of Mabel. “Have some cake,” Hazel said, smoothly exchanging the empty plate for one brimming with cake.
“Wow, this looks good,” Ross said.
“Give me that!” Mabel grabbed for the plate and came up with a handful of cake and icing.
“Food fight!” someone yelled...and Ellie made good her escape before the crumbs started to fly.
“WHERE DID YOU GET TO last night?” Ross leaned against the front fender of his BMW while Ellie worked at replacing the radiator hose. “One minute you were my shield and the next minute I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“I slipped out before Mabel crammed carrot cake up Hazel’s nose.”
“That isn’t what happened. You should have stuck around.”
Ellie let her gaze slide to him from under the hood of the car. “Hazel smeared apple pie all through Mabel’s new perm?”
“No, Belinda jogged up to say hi to me just as Mabel flung her hand to dislodge the cake which, unfortunately put her—Belinda, that is—in the direct line of fire.”
“So Belinda got a face full of carrot cake?”
“Actually it hit her a little lower than the face. On her chest, to be exact, and it sort of just... slid...down the front of her blouse.”
Ellie could well imagine the scene that had created. “Let me guess. Every gentleman in the room stepped forward to unselfishly offer to help her get the cake out of her cleavage.”
“Not every gentleman rushed to help. Someone had to protect what was left of the apple pies and carrot cakes.”
Ellie matched his sudden grin. “So how much sugar did you put away during the brouhaha?”
He tapped his thumbs against his cheeks. “Enough to put these roses in my cheeks.”
“And where was Tori during all this?”
“Guarding the gifts.”
“Why? Did she think someone might steal them?”
He waggled a finger at her. “You forget, we received a genuine Bostian bolt. For all Tori knew, the government could have sent men in black to confiscate the alien material. There are conspiracies everywhere, you know. A giant coverup.”
“You’re such a cutup, Ross,” she said, mimicking Tori’s giggly voice. “Either that or you have too much time on your hands. Get me the channel-lock pliers from the tool chest, will you?”
He returned a minute later. “Where’s your watch?” he asked as he handed her the tool.
“I left it in the office: Why?”
“Just wondering when the last time was that you were thinking about me.” He leaned his hips against the grill and crossed his arms. “Want to go fishing when you get through here?”
“Can’t.”
“You’re going to close the garage for the rest of the week, anyway. Why not go ahead and do it a few hours early? Hours you can spend with me.”
“We’re closing at noon. I’ve already sent Chip home.”
“Great. Then there’s no reason we can’t go fishing.”
“I have other plans,” she said, squeezing the clamp with the pliers as she maneuvered the ends of the hose into place. “Maybe Tori can find time to go with you.”
“She’s on her way to the airport to pick up Chrissy right now.” He scuffed at a spot on the concrete floor with the toe of his loafers. “Why can’t you go?”
Ellie concentrated on the tricky business of keeping the clamp open and her mouth shut. She’d promised Brad and the other guys that their plans for the afternoon would stay a secret. But keeping secrets from Ross was even harder than she’d remembered. “I have things to do,” she said noncommittally.
“What things? I’ll help you.”
“You can’t,” she said quickly. “It’s, uh, girl stuff.”
“Girl stuff? What in the hell would that be?”
She rested her arms against the grill and frowned up at him. “You know what it is, Ross. Stuff that’s of interest mainly to females. Surely Tori occasionally does things that are of absolutely no interest to you. That’s girl stuff.”
“I know what it is when Tori does it. I’m just having a hard time thinking of something you might do that would be of absolutely no interest to me.”
“How about washing my panty hose?”
“You don’t wear panty hose.”
“How would you know? You’ve never once noticed what I was or wasn’t wearing.”
He grinned. “If you weren’t wearing anything, I’d have noticed.”
“Sure, you would.” She turned her attention back to the radiator hose.
“So you won’t go fishing with me because I’ve never cared whether you were naked or not?”
It was getting easier to keep the secret, Ellie decided. “Nope. I won’t go fishing with you because I have other things to do. By myself.” She handed him the channel-locks. “Put those away, would you, please?”
He did, turning back to her with a frown. “Hey, okay. I can take a hint. And I do have other friends, you know. One of them will want to go fishing.”
“Good.” She straightened and released the bar that kept the hood open. “Don’t let me keep you, then. I’m sure there are fish out there trembling in their fins already.”
“Okay,” he said again. “Okay. I’ll just take my car and go fishing.”
She let the hood close with a solid, metallic thud. “You could always drive the Miata out to the lake. That would give the fish one last good laugh before they wind up in your frying pan.”
He looked at her, his expression vaguely suspicious, his lips set in a thoughtful line. “What are you up to, Eliot?”
With supreme effort, she mastered the impulse to confess. “Girl stuff,” she said, wiping her palms down the sides of her overalls. “Just as soon as you leave and I get cleaned up.”
“Don’t forget about the Miata. I drove it down here this morning so you could take a look at the transmission. Tori complains that it’s hard to shift.”
“She might try using the clutch.”
He acknowledged her suggestion with a wry smile. “Could you please take a look at it before you rush off to wash your panty hose? Tori took Mom’s car to the airport, but she’s planning to swing by here and pick up the Miata as soon as she and Chrissy get back to town. She wants you to meet Chrissy.”
“Great,” Ell
ie said dryly. “Can’t wait.”
“Serves you right,” Ross said as he opened the door of the BMW and took the keys from his pocket. “You could have been fishing with me.”
THE MIATA SHIFTED beautifully. Ellie couldn’t find a single indication that it wasn’t in perfect working order. But upon sliding the seat back so she could more easily get in and out, she made a very interesting discovery. Under the seat she found two Twinkie wrappers and a crumpled-up M&M’s package. Plain. Not peanut. There was a trace of gooey filling left on one of the Twinkie wrappers and Ellie ran her fingertip across it out of curiosity. It felt sticky and reasonably fresh. A single M&M—a brown—rolled out when she uncrumpled the M&M’s package and she held it in her palm for a minute, wondering. Then she broke it in half and popped one of the halves into her mouth, using her taste buds to determine if the candy was left over from Halloween or some other sweet-treat occasion. But the chocolate tasted as fresh as if it had gone from the assembly line to the store just yesterday.
“Now, what is this doing under your seat, Tori?” Ellie asked aloud and then smiled, feeling suddenly a little more optimistic about Ross’s future.
“ELLIE? THIS is Chrissy Kramer. Chrissy, this is T. S. Eliot.” Tori’s smile beamed from Ellie to Chrissy, her maid of honor. “She’s not the real poet, though. She’s just named after him.”
Ellie glued on a smile and offered her hand to Tori’s best friend in the world. “It’s T. S. Eliot Applegate. I’m happy to meet you.”
Chrissy, a full-figured, doe-eyed brunette, gave Ellie’s outstretched hand a limp shake. “Me, too,” she said, then giggled. “I mean, you, too. I’m happy to meet you, too.”
“I couldn’t wait to introduce you two.” Tori clapped her hands with excitement. “Ross’s best friend is here and my best friend is here and we’re all together and now everything is just perfect.”
“You don’t look a thing like I thought you would,” Chrissy said candidly. “Of course, I never met a woman mechanic before.”
Ellie wanted to say she’d never met a nitwit’s best friend before but decided that would have been mean-spirited. “We all look alike.”
“Well, you’re prettier than I expected,” Chrissy went on. “Ross said you were attractive but, well, you know how men are. They don’t always mean attractive when they say attractive. Sometimes it can sort of, well, have a different meaning altogether. If you get my drift...”
Ellie was pretty sure she got it. “I guess I should be grateful he didn’t show you the picture of me and the Land Cruiser.”
“The one where you’ve got all that mud in your hair?” Tori was obviously familiar with the picture. “You remember, Chrissy? Ross showed it to you that time at the country club. The snapshot of that awful old tank Ross used to love and Ellie? And they’re both just covered with mud?”
“Ohh.” Chrissy stretched the syllable while wrinkling her nose. “That was you? I thought it was some guy.”
Before the week was out, Ellie decided she was getting that picture away from Ross. “That was me,” she said on a sigh. “Just one of the guys.”
Chrissy’s professionally arched, sixteenth-ofan-inch eyebrows went up. “Ohhhhhh,” she said.
“Noooooo.” Tori frowned fiercely and shook her head. “She likes boys. Ross told me there’s never been any...well, you know.” She smiled brightly at Ellie while correcting Chrissy’s misconception. “Ellie is just a tomboy, that’s all.”
“Probably comes from being named after a man.” Chrissy, too, smiled brightly, obviously feeling more comfortable now that she’d been reassured as to Ellie’s sexual preference. “I’d never do that to my little girl when I have one.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Ellie said, pretending the tension in her jaw was just part of her own brilliant smile.
“But you know,” Chrissy continued, “there was that country music singer who had a guy’s name.”
Tori frowned at her best friend. “I don’t remember that. Are you sure?”
Chrissy snapped her fingers, as if her memory was somehow attached to the action. “You know. She plays the guitar and has long hair and she used to sing with her mother....”
“The Judds?” Tori asked.
“That’s it.” Chrissy nodded, happy to have that mystery solved. “Judd. And being named after a man hasn’t ruined her life.”
“That’s her last name.” Tori gave Ellie a payno-attention-to-her look. “And it’s just a stage name, too. Wynonna and Naomi Judd. Wynonna has a solo career, now.”
“Whynonna?” Chrissy repeated, wrinkling her nose. “Well, if I was going to have a stage name, I’d pick something pretty like Crystal or Chantel. Just the one name, like that. You know, Tori, like when you were going to be a singer, you wanted to be known as just Tori!”
It was Ellie’s turn to raise her eyebrows, even though they hadn’t been professionally plucked. “You were going to be a singer?”
Tori blushed. “Oh, that was a long time ago.” She glanced at her dainty gold watch. “We have to go, Chrissy. Thanks for looking at my car, Ellie. Guess we’ll see you Thursday night at the rehearsal if not sooner.” Pushing a set of car keys into Chrissy’s hand, Tori opened the office door and stepped outside. “Come on, Chrissy. Bye, Ellie!”
Chrissy looked surprised by the sudden hurry, but she told Ellie goodbye as Tori all but jerked her through the doorway and out to the car. Odd, Ellie thought as she watched them leave. Twinkies and Tori!
Ross loved sweets, but not Twinkies. Tori abhorred sweets, but there were incriminating Twinkie wrappers in her car. Ross had once dreamed of being a songwriter and Tori had once harbored hopes of being a country-western singer. Maybe the two of them had more in common than she’d first thought. Ellie found the idea totally depressing.
Either that or her mother had ruined her life by naming her after a man.
Chapter Eight
Thick, gray clouds edged the afternoon in an early dusk and Ellie finished packing the El Camino with one eye on the sky and one on the clock. But by six, when the camping gear was loaded, tied down and covered with a tarp, the clouds had moved on. Now all she had left to do was find Ross and get him up to the falls so the bachelor shower could begin.
She found him alone in the last place she’d thought to look...at his favorite fishing spot a half mile downstream from the falls. He was standing in the deepest part of the stream, with water swirling nearly to the top of his hip boots, fly casting into the shade along the far bank. She picked her way down the grassy slope. “Having any luck?”
He pulled the rod back to the two-o’clock position, then cast forward to the ten, sending the line spiraling across the water. “I thought you were busy doing girl stuff.”
“I was,” she said, watching the smooth, even rhythm of his body as he yanked the line up and cast again. “I spent the afternoon getting ready for a hot date.”
His gaze flicked over her faded blue jeans, navy striped T-shirt and red Cardinals ball cap. “Can’t be too hot. You’re not wearing panty hose.”
“They’d just be in the way.”
There was a slight hitch in his cast and the lure fell into a swirl of sunlit water. He pulled it back and started over, this time sending the line unerringly into the deep shadows along the bank.
Ellie smiled to herself. “Are they biting?”
“Not at the moment.”
“It’s too late in the day for trout,” she pointed out. “Unless you’re hoping to wake one up.”
“I’m not fishing for trout.” He sent the line soaring out across the stream once again. “I’m thinking.”
“What about?”
“Guy stuff.”
“Mmm. That would be the stuff guys think about when women aren’t around, I suppose.”
“That would be it, yeah.”
“Couldn’t find anyone to come fishing with you?”
“I didn’t ask anyone else. I decided if you didn’t want to spend the afternoon with me, I
’d just as soon be by myself.”
Ellie stuck her hands into the hip pockets of her blue jeans and watched him cast twice... three...four times before she spoke again. “Must be kind of scary being this close to a lifetime commitment,” she said. “I’d probably want to think about it, too.”
His gaze cut to hers, as fleeting as the lure’s touch on the water. “Who said that’s what I was thinking about?”
“No one. That’s just what I’d be thinking about if it was only a couple of days before my wedding.”
“For your information, I wasn’t thinking about that at all.” He cast a few more times in pensive silence. “I was thinking that if I left now, I could be fishing for Alaskan salmon by this time Saturday.”
“Or you could be on a fishing boat off the coast of Florida, angling for marlin.”
“Or I could be waiting tables in Nashville, hawking song lyrics to every aspiring singer who comes in.” His smile was part regret, part resignation, all wry self-directed humor.
“But you’re not leaving,” she said.
“No, I’m not leaving.” He began wading toward the bank, reeling in the line as he moved against the flow of the stream. “I’m going to get out of these boots and go home to my fiancée.”
Ellie pursed her lips. “Actually, you’re not going to do that either.”
“I’m not?”
“No. You’re coming with me.”
“I really have no desire to wait tables in Nashville.”
“Good, because that’s not where I’m taking you.”
He nodded, considering. “I’ll need to call Tori, let her know how late I’ll be getting back.”
“I left her a note,” Ellie told him.
“You left Tori a note,” Ross repeated, his hip boots raining water as he trudged into the shallows and came out onto the rocky bank. “What did the note say?”
“‘If you ever want to see Ross again, leave six hundred boxes of Twinkies in the trunk of your car. P.S. This is a joke. We’ve just taken him camping.”’
Ross laughed. “The Twinkies were a masterful touch, Eliot.”
A Bachelor Falls Page 10