Something Old, Something Dead

by Misty Simon

  This was the Ben I needed. This was the Ben I’d come to know over the few months we’d been together. Where was this Ben when we were out and about and women were fawning all over him?

  “No, I don’t need any help, but thanks for coming by.” I said it grudgingly. He obviously picked up on my mood if nothing else I’d done over the last couple of days, because the brow was more furrowed now, and his hands went to his hips.

  “Is something going on that I don’t know about?”

  Oh-ho-ho! Now he wanted to talk about things? Now he wanted to know what was going on, when I had a million people shrieking around my house looking for missing shoes and trying to find the special blanket my nephew could absolutely not live without? Too bad.

  “Look, I don’t have time right now. If you can’t tell, this is the seventh ring of hell, and we’re trying to get things going. I’ll have to talk with you later when they’ve all gone.”

  But he planted himself in my way when I tried to go around him to look for my niece’s binky, blocking me with his impressive chest. I really wanted to sink into him and forget about everything going on in my crazy world.

  “I don’t think so. I think you and I need to talk.”

  “Ben.” I mirrored his stance and stared him down. “I do not have time for this. It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I’ll call you as soon as I get back, and maybe we can spend time together. Let me get through this, okay?”

  Which was more than he deserved and more than I’d meant to offer, but whatever. It got him moving in the direction I wanted him to go, namely the door. I watched his fine butt leave and sighed, thinking about what I was going to say to him when I got back. Martha hadn’t come up with anything yet, but with her unintended houseguest—and now the unintended houseguest’s wife—looming large on the home front, I couldn’t blame her. Although, if she wanted me to start working on getting Horace and his wife Doris (cute, huh?) out the door, then she needed to give me some kind of progress, too.

  “All right, people, let’s get organized and get out of here.” Yelling this made me feel a little better, especially when the Bouquet’s heads popped up from what they were doing and all the kids stopped running around for a mere five seconds.

  But at least it was enough time to find Sarah’s binky. Then I found Jeff’s blanket stuffed in between two of my couch cushions, along with a half-eaten mushy cookie that I was not touching. I made Rose get it out of the couch and vowed to myself that I would have the whole house fumigated before the week was through.

  I trundled everyone out to the cars and drove along behind them, Dad and Martha with me in the back of the Santa Fe. We’d set up lunch at a little family diner about an hour away, and then my dad, Martha, and I would turn around and let the family continue on to the airport alone. It made more sense this way, since we’d have to drop them off. It would have been a three-hour drive one way just to say goodbye at the car rental return place. Not quite my thing, no matter how much I loved them.

  ****

  Let me tell you, when I got back to my silent house after dropping Dad and Martha off, I loved the absolute quiet even more. No one was yelling for the remote, no one did a headlong rush into the bathroom to beat me for mirror time. I luxuriated in a bath of Calgon with a cup of hot chocolate and soft jazz playing on the radio. Heaven. I was in heaven.

  And, surprisingly, nothing ruined my moment of absolute quiet. In such a short time I’d almost gotten used to people knocking on the door, someone trying to steal my underwear or toilet paper, something to take away from the idyllic time in the bath. But nothing happened. It was almost weird.

  I got out when the water grew cold, and wrapped myself in a huge terrycloth robe. After about ten minutes of this so-called blissful nothing, sitting in my robe, I was bored out of my mind. Then I remembered I’d promised to open the shop for a couple of hours today.

  Eh, silence may be golden, but it could also be highly overrated.

  Even though the shop was less than a block from my house, I actually contemplated getting in the car and driving. But it would take longer to get the heater running in the car and drive there than it would if I walked.

  So I bundled up for the tundra and went on my merry way. I probably looked like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man as I waddled to The Masked Shoppe, but at least I was relatively warm.

  When I got there, no one was out front, but that didn’t mean the shop wouldn’t fill up within minutes of the door being opened. The vine and its Martha’s Pointers grapes would be up and working in no time. Who needed so many panties, you ask? I don’t think anyone did, but I certainly appreciated their business.

  Within fifteen minutes, I was ready to go. I flipped the sign on the front door, leaned back on my stool with a magazine, and waited for the first tinkling bell that would herald some new customer, preferably one with a loaded wallet.

  What I got was a whole lot more than I expected. I was used to quite a few women coming in, picking out one or two items, checking out, and going on their way. Most of them were wives trying to spice up their lives, singles looking for that special something, or old biddies who didn’t feel like driving forty minutes for a bra.

  But today was totally different. Today I had an overabundance of twenty- and thirty-somethings, most of whom I hadn’t seen before, and all of them looking for lingerie, the slinkier the better.

  And one name kept coming up over and over again, although conversation pretty much stopped as soon as I walked into a room. That name was Ben.

  ****

  Later, with my cash till full but my heart heavy, I closed down at about four and went to the bank with one of the biggest deposits I’d ever had. Apparently Ben was good for business, even if I did cringe every time I had to wrap up a negligee.

  I waited my turn in line for one of the two tellers to become available. Tapping my foot to a thankfully non-Christmas song playing over the speakers, I mentally thought through my budget and decided it really was time to think about hiring someone to help me out at the shop. Things were going well, so I was sure I could afford it. Yay! The new year was looking very bright.

  I’d have to call Bella as soon as I got home and see if she had time to celebrate tonight. Normally, I would celebrate with Ben, especially on my first night alone in days, but I wasn’t in the mood.

  I pulled my cell phone from my bag and punched in her number. I let my eyes wander around the bank lobby, since I hated to stare at any one thing while I talked on the phone. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. It was just something I did. Chalk it up as another of my weird habits.

  Anyway, I looked around, my gaze zipping from potted plants to comfy chairs, to the island in the middle where they kept all the bank slips I never used, and the chained-down pens. And what before my wandering eyes should appear? But one annoying man and eight tiny reindeer. Not really eight reindeer, but he was holding eight stacks of bundled bills in a fan, and Horace really was annoying.

  How did the man who had no money and couldn’t go home manage to come to the bank and appear with a fist full of cash? I didn’t know, but I ducked behind one of the potted plants before he spotted me on his way out. It was probably like trying to hide an elephant behind a blade of grass, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

  Horace, who couldn’t even seem to move off the couch at Martha’s, strolled along the tiled foyer floor, whistling. Whistling! After five seconds I placed the song as the Chicken Dance, and barely held myself back from jumping out at the man who was making Dad and Martha’s life a misery. Without a second glance in my direction, he walked right past me and into the arms of a woman I’d never seen before.

  Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t hold myself back. I leapt from behind my foliage camouflage, ready to take on this jokester. But I ran smack into the door as it closed behind him and made a spectacle of myself as I slowly slid down the glass. Someone was not going to be happy when they had to wash my drool marks off the window.

 
; ****

  “Ow, ow, ow!” Ben dabbed at the cut on my lip, making soft clucking noises. This was the Ben I wanted, and with nary a pretty woman in sight I was finally getting him. I almost felt back on even keel despite my busted lip.

  “I’m sorry, babe, but I need to get it cleaned. I can’t really put a bandage on it, since it’s your lip, but it does need the antiseptic. I’m almost done.” His fingers cupped my jaw as his scent infiltrated my nose. Was there anything better than woodsy man? I inhaled again and felt my stomach relax.

  Everything that had happened recently could be chalked up to an overly affectionate population of women. I didn’t know why they had all come after him in droves lately, but it could be anything. Maybe it was the cold weather and the way everyone jokingly told me there were an awful lot of babies that arrived in early fall. Apparently one of the few things to do in a town this size with snow falling constantly was to get between the sheets and share your warmth, or create more, whatever worked for you.

  Regardless, Ben was mine, and he would stay mine. I knew it, he knew it, and I guess he wanted to show me, since his fingers drifted to the front of my blue sweater and started unbuttoning it. I was bare to my navel before I realized what was happening.

  “Um, have you forgotten we’re in the bathroom?” This room was in no way big enough to accommodate yours truly and the delicious Ben. The floor between toilet and sink was narrow, and the shower stood at the end of the small room. I wouldn’t even have attempted something in here if it was the last place on earth.

  Then again, there’s much to be said for the right, adventurous partner. And may I say that I did actually fit on the floor with plenty of room to drive the man of my dreams wild? Woo-hoo!

  Thirty minutes and three orgasms later, I was exhausted, but my lips were very tingly, as were many of my other body parts. Looking up at the underside of my pedestal sink, I was sad to see it had obviously been some time since I’d cleaned there. But with everything else going on lately, cleaning was the least of my worries.

  And, hallelujah! I could strike Ben and his activities from the worry list. He hadn’t called out anyone else’s name when he came, or whispered it against my flesh. If I were being realistic, I would realize he never had done anything wrong, no matter who was trying to grope him.

  “So what kind of plans do you have for today?” I asked, hoping he would want to run around with me. It would be nice to have his help in ferreting out who had tried to kill Horace and had succeeded in ending the trumpeter’s life.

  He twirled some of my hair around his fingers as he looked down at me. “I thought I’d hang out with you, if that’s okay.” He leered at me. “I don’t have to be in to the paper until later, and we have a lot of time to make up for.”

  The leer clued me in to the double entendre he was trying to hit with his hanging-out comment. I didn’t know if I would be able to have his dangly bits on me or in me for a whole day. As good as that sounds, and as nice as they describe it in your typical romance novel, I personally thought that would be pretty tiring, for me, anyway.

  “I know we have time to make up for, but I do need to get some stuff done today.”

  “Am I one of those things?”

  “Didn’t I just do you?” Ha-ha.

  He laughed with me. “All right, all right.” He ran a hand down my side, and I used my biceps to plump my breasts out of my armpits. Come to think of it, my back was no longer ignorant of the hard floor under me. Plus, what had I been thinking? This was the bathroom floor! Ick!

  I struggled to get up out of the cocoon of his arms. He helped by pushing on my back and pulling my forearm. “Thanks. Aren’t you going to get up?” Now I wasn’t any more comfortable since his head was level with my shin and he was looking up at my crotch. Before I could stop myself, I hopped, skipped, and jumped into my bedroom, then dove for my robe.

  Eventually, after I shoved myself into a pair of jeans and grabbed another sweater from the armoire, Ben came out of the bathroom, sauntering across the room, completely unmindful of the fact he was as naked as the day he was born.

  I sopped up some of my drool with the sleeve of my discarded robe and simply watched as all that male perfection strolled toward me.

  But then a loud squeal shot through the room, and it hadn’t come from me. I jumped, then turned toward the window at my back in time to catch not one, not two, but five women crowded at my bedroom window, gawking at Ben in all his yumminess. Jesus! What was going on? Was there some aphrodisiac being served in the water? And if so, why wasn’t I getting any of it?

  Ben stood there for a second; I whipped back to him and hissed, “Get some clothes on, for God’s sake.”

  But he still hesitated, and I could almost see a smile blooming on his face. I threw the pink robe at him, then watched in horror as it dangled from his no longer dangly bits.

  “Get away,” I yelled through the window, whipping the curtains shut. I turned to Ben as if in slow motion. He had a stunned expression on his face and the ridiculous pink robe hanging off his parts.

  I took a deep breath, working hard to keep my voice under control as I said, “You are a pig, and I want you to leave right now.”

  “Stunned” stayed on his face, with “confusion” putting in an appearance as his brow wrinkled. The robe fell to the floor with a plop, and I averted my eyes as he shriveled.

  “What?” He grabbed the robe off the floor and held it over himself. Slipping his arms into the robe backwards, he pulled the back collar up to his throat and used one hand to keep the flaps closed over his behind.

  “You heard me.” I was way beyond angry and turning a sharp corner into pissed. “I can’t believe you stood there and got hard at women staring through my window to get a peek at you.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I huffed to keep the tears at the back of my eyes instead of streaming down my face.

  “Baffled” took a moment to flit over his face before his own anger settled over his features. “What the hell are you talking about? I came in here to chase after you, to see if you wanted to play again. Maybe on an actual bed this time. You threw a robe at me and yelled ‘get away’ and yanked the curtains closed.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking even funnier in the pink fluffy robe. Not that I was in the mood to laugh.

  “Are you telling me you didn’t see the five women gawking through my window? Waiting for a glimpse of you—which you showed them in spades when you came waltzing into the room without a stitch of clothing on?”

  He stalked over to the window behind me and did a little whipping of his own when he pulled the curtain back to look out into my back yard. “I don’t see a single damn person, other than old Mrs. Fitz, who can barely see her dog at her feet. No one is out there. And even if there were someone out there, to be honest, I only have eyes for you, even if you don’t seem to believe that lately.”

  With that he stalked back into the bathroom, and I was treated to a very tempting view of his backside, since he’d forgotten to hold the robe together when he crossed his arms.

  What was going on? Why was my life spiraling out of control yet again? Was I so hung up on my insecurities that I would let the one man who’d ever seen the real me—and hadn’t run screaming into the night—walk away in pink?

  Truth was, I had no idea. I didn’t get a chance to think about it, either, because Ben came sailing out of the bathroom a minute later, fully dressed and heading for the door. I guess I didn’t move fast enough, because his long-legged strides took him to my front door before I made it to the bedroom door. I cursed small houses all the way back to my room. Why couldn’t I have owned some monstrosity where I had to chase him through long corridors to at least get the chance to yell down the hallway before he was out the door? My life sucked.

  To prove my point, the phone chose that moment to ring, and when I picked it up it was my dad yelling about no privacy and to get my ass on the 187 that had occurred at 1900 hours so he could get some nookie time with his new wife.


  God help me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I debated spraying my ear with Lysol after that last phone call. Knowing it wouldn’t do any good, I tried to mentally block the picture my dad had jabbed into my brain and prepared to have a more progress-filled afternoon. I had to find out who had tried to kill Horace so my life could go back to the way it was supposed to be.

  Not that I had much hope of that. Ben had stomped out, I was pissed, and the whole world was falling apart. Okay, maybe not the whole world, but at least my little part of it.

  I did the one thing I knew would always help in situations like these. I grabbed a box of peanut butter Tastykakes and called Bella.

  “Hello?” A deep voice answered who certainly wasn’t Bella.

  “Jared?”

  “The one and only. What mischief are you up to, Ivy?”

  “Is Bella there?”

  “She’s indisposed at the moment.” A rumbling chuckle filtered through the receiver.

  Ack! Was everyone either doing it or wanting to do it today? Seriously, I was not drinking the water again.

  “Can you have her call me when she’s disposed, then?” I really needed to talk to her, but I could wait, I guess.

  “Can I relay something to her? Have you found anything out?” His voice became more businesslike, his whole attitude changing. “If you have information regarding the crime, I’d appreciate it.”

  Hmmm. Maybe there was a way for us to help each other. Not that I had any information to give up yet, but he didn’t have to know that when he spilled his guts. “What have you got, and I’ll see if it matches what I have.”

  “Oh, you’re not going to get me that way, Ivy. Why don’t you tell me first, and I’ll verify?”

  “See, now, that doesn’t work for me.” I could out wait him, especially if Bella was in a compromising position (ick) and he needed to get back to her. “This will go a lot faster if you just give me something to work with. Then you and Bella can get back to playing cops and robbers.”