by Linda Wisdom
Steffie shared a speaking look with her mother before taking off for the front of the store.
Rainey still held the screwdriver as he stared at Keely so long and hard she felt uncomfortable. She also noticed that there wasn’t anyone close by. With all those cars and trucks parked out front wouldn’t there be at least one person in this aisle? Didn’t tools have to be replaced on a fairly regular basis?
“Why’d you want to come back here?” he demanded.
She blinked at his sudden question. “I own property here.”
She almost backed up when he started toward her.
“I’ll send David back here to set you up,” he said, thrusting the screwdriver at her.
Keely took several deep breaths as she spun around and watched him walk down the aisle with a peculiar rolling gait, as if one leg were a bit shorter than the other.
Her own movements were jerky as she replaced the screwdriver in the bin. She wasn’t sure why, but she refused to buy anything he had touched.
Chapter 6
You two aren’t going to act like parents and embarrass us, are you?” Steffie asked as she and Keely walked up to the Barkley front door. Steffie carried a plate while Keely cradled a covered bowl in her arms.
“But we are parents,” she argued as she pushed the doorbell.
“That doesn’t mean you have to act like a parent.” Steffie eyed her mother’s outfit with approval. “At least you chose something nice to wear.”
Keely had selected a calf-length dress that looked like two pieces, with a softly gathered red cotton daisy print skirt and a denim vest. She wore a multi-beaded choker with it and matching earrings that dangled down against her cheeks. Simple denim flats finished her outfit.
“Thank you for the compliment. As for the parent part, sorry, it’s just part of the job,” she said cheerfully as the door opened.
Sam in his khaki uniform was imposing. Sam in faded jeans and a dusty green T-shirt was even more unsettling.
He eyed the plate and bowl. “I know I said you didn’t have to go to any trouble, but I’m glad you did. Cooking anything remotely complicated is way beyond me.” He stepped back and gestured them to enter.
“What do you consider complicated?” Keely asked, stepping inside and handing him the bowl.
“Pretty much any kind of salad other than lettuce and a couple tomatoes and anything that doesn’t come out of a box. The kitchen is this way.” He guided them down a hallway toward the rear of the house.
Along the way, Keely glanced into what had to be the living room housing a blue-and-mauve print couch that looked as if it wasn’t used very much. She didn’t miss the hurried dusting job on the coffee table and other pieces of furniture or the newspapers peeking out from an ajar closet door. She also noticed photographs lining the hallway wall and paused to inspect a few. She noticed most of them were of Lisa, from what looked like moments after her birth to her latest school photo, along with many candid shots. Others were of a younger Sam standing with his arm around a woman who was clearly Lisa’s mother. Mother and daughter shared the same smile. She also couldn’t miss the love and pride and Sam’s smile as he looked down at his wife. She felt a tiny tug in the vicinity of her heart. This was a couple who still would have still been married today if his wife hadn’t died. And she doubted either would have thought of straying. She quickly turned away from the photos.
“At least you don’t embarrass me this way,” Steffie declared, twisting her face in sympathy for her friend as she gazed at one candid photo where a baby-faced Lisa was licking an ice-cream cone but had more of her treat on her face than on the cone.
“I’m sure we could find an appropriate wall for all the pictures we’ve taken of you over the years,” Keely commented.
“Not if I hide them first.”
“Wow, what did you bring?” Lisa hopped from foot to the other as she stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Texas Brownies and a pasta salad,” Steffie announced, moving toward her friend. “I’m afraid Mom’s looking at the pictures of you.”
Lisa grimaced. “At least this wall doesn’t have my growth chart on it, too. Hi, Keely.”
“Hi, Lisa. I think this is a great idea for all those pictures we tend to either stick in a box or a photo album that’s in the back of a bookcase.” Keely walked into the kitchen. “Those look good.â€� She admired the steaks.
Sam stood at a counter basting the meat with barbecue sauce. “I can’t miss when I grill,” he told Keely with a slight grin on his lips.
“Believe me, Dad’s cooking is much better than it used to be,” Lisa assured them. “He used to bum some of the meat so bad we might as well have been eating charcoal.”
“Charcoal is good for the digestion,” he told her. “I bet no other kid in your class had the good digestion you had.”
Steffie rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, real important. I’m sure some people would consider that child abuse.”
“That’s what she used to say when I made her eat her peas,” Keely told Sam.
“Why don’t you two girls go do whatever will make you happy until dinnertime,” he suggested.
“Great idea,” Lisa said, promptly dragging Steffie off after snagging two sodas.
“Something to drink?” Sam asked Keely.
“Iced tea is fine.” She leaned against the table so she could look around the room without appearing too obvious.
The room showed use but few special touches. The towels were basic white; a shade at the window instead of curtains. The appliances showed a recent wipe down and the pans sitting on the stove were blackened on the outside.
Sam poured her a glass of tea and pulled a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator for himself.
“So, what great crimes did you solve today?” she asked lightly.
He cocked his head to one side in thought. “Let’s see. Harvey down at the video store discovered kids were putting X-rated tapes in the PG tape cases so they could rent them. They didn’t realize the bar code was on the tape, not the box, so they were busted the minute the tape was scanned. I had a talk with a few sets of parents on that. A couple didn’t see anything wrong with it Others thought Harvey shouldn’t be renting them out, period. He keeps them in the back room where kids aren’t allowed, but they managed to sneak back there anyway.”
“Very serious,” she said gravely.
He nodded in agreement. “Then Emily Walker called to complain they were playing disgusting music in the supermarket. She didn’t feel they should play anything that was produced after I947. Today’s canned music seemed to be from the disco era.”
Keely made a face. “It’s supposed to be dead.”
“Tell that to Louis, the store manager. He’s positive that music will make a big comeback any day now.”
Keely chuckled. “And they say small towns are boring. You might not have any major crimes, but you have your share of interesting ones.”
For a second Sam’s eyes were shadowed. He tilted the bottle up and drank deeply.
Keely felt her laughter drying up as she watched his
Adam’s apple convulse as the beer flowed down his throat. She coughed to cover up her feelings of confusion.
“What can I do to help?” she asked, straightening up.
Sam set his bottle down on the counter. “It looks as if Lisa forgot to get the plates out, so you can get them out of that cabinet by the refrigerator. How do you like your steak?”
“Medium well for me, well-done for Steffie.”
He nodded. “That’s easy.”
Keely uncovered the salad bowl and re-stirred the contents. She began to wonder if she’d been without a man for too long if she could stare at Sam like a lovesick puppy. She hadn’t missed it before. So why would it come up now? She quickly pulled down plates and rummaged through drawers for silverware. It wasn’t long before the fragrant aroma of cooking meat wafted through the open window.
“Girls!” she called out. “Do you think
you can tear yourselves away from whatever you’re doing and come out here for dinner?”
“I’m braiding Lisa’s hair,” Steffie sang out
“You can finish it after we eat.”
Aware of her mother’s tone of voice, Steffie walked into the kitchen with Lisa a few minutes later. Half of Lisa’s hair hung straight around her shoulders while the other half was pulled back into an intricate braid.
“I would have been finished in another ten minutes,” Steffie groused.
“You can finish it just as easily after dinner.” Keely placed the plates in her hands and handed Lisa napkins and silverware. “Why don’t you set the table while I get out everything else,” she suggested/
“I thought barbecues meant there wasn’t a lot of work,” Steffie uttered with a dramatic sigh.
Keely couldn’t help but notice how the girls made sure she and Sam sat next to each other at the redwood picnic table outside. She admitted at least they gave them the side with the view. And what a view.
The woods stood not far from the house and the night sounds were clearly audible but nothing she found threatening.
Not like the nights she stood at her bedroom window and looked out at another section of these woods and sometimes felt as if something, or someone, stood just within the trees where she could be seen and they couldn’t. She usually shrugged it off as nothing more than a fanciful imagination. Except there were times she had to wonder why her imagination also conjured up the faint aroma of cigar smoke that seemed to float through the air in her direction.
For now, she would concentrate on her steak and baked potato and pasta salad.
“So are you feeling more settled in yet?” Sam asked.
“I always feel settled in when I get back to my work,” she replied.
“Especially since I can now go back to school and I’m not around to disturb her concentration,” Steffie chimed in. “I don’t even know how she thinks I disturb her since she works so hard a bomb could go off and she wouldn’t notice it”
“Self-defense,” Keely said, as she cut into her steak.
“Were you a graphic artist during your marriage?” Sam asked.
She nodded. “I started out with an advertising agency right out of college. I was more a gofer than an artist then. I thought I’d be allowed to be in the thick of things. Help design memorable campaigns, but it seemed all I did was color pictures and carry the finished work down to production. I began to wonder if I’d have to wait for someone to die or retire before I could show what I could really do.”
“And what happened?” he asked.
She grinned. “Someone retired and I was finally given my chance to show them what I can do.”
Sam chuckled. “At least it didn’t take someone dying.”
“Even then I had to fight to be given a chance.”
As the two talked, they were unaware of their daughters exchanging significant looks and even more significant smiles.
Sam found himself enjoying just talking to Keely without any awareness of time passing. He had no idea how long they might have still been out there talking if he hadn’t noticed her shivering slightly. He started, realizing that the meal was finished and that the girls had obviously cleared the table, thoughtfully leaving the plate of brownies on the table between them.
“No wonder you’re cold. I hadn’t realized how late it was getting,” he apologized, more mad at himself than anything else.
“I’m fine,” she assured him as she got up and walked over to the deck railing. She leaned her arms on the top rail and looked out. “I’m still not used to ail this clear air,” she said.
He followed her. “What got me were all the sounds at night,” he admitted. “They talk about how quiet it is out here, and compared to what I was used to, this would be considered quiet.”
“Except there are birds and insects and the rustle of leaves in the breeze,” Keely said.
Sam nodded. “A wild night in town is when the guys get too rowdy during a pool game at Tug’s Tavern instead of a drive-by shooting or a holdup at the corner liquor store.”
Keely exhaled a soft sigh. “Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing moving Steffie away from all her friends.”
Sam turned to lean sideways against the rail. “She seems to have settled in just fine.”
She continued looking at the dark outline of trees and bushes. “Do you ever feel someone could be out there watching you?” she asked abruptly.
He straightened up at that remark. “Why would you ask that?”
Keely suddenly felt very silly asking the question. She shrugged. “Fanciful imagination, I guess,” she said lightly. “Maybe it’s all those books I’ve read about monsters in the woods. I think Bigfoot will walk out at any moment.”
“I think he’s living further north now.” He kept his words in the same light vein as hers but he still sensed that there was more to her question than she seemed to want to admit just yet. He wondered if he shouldn’t ask one of the deputies to do an occasional drive-by during the night to make sure everything was all right.
A strange feeling was running around deep in his stomach. He didn’t like this feeling. Anytime he had it, something bad happened. He’d hate to think Keely would be the victim this time.
Keely glanced at her watch. “We really should be going,” she murmured. “I thought I’d go over to my parents’ house tomorrow and do some cleaning.”
Sam frowned. “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to go alone?” He wanted nothing more than to tell her why the house upset her so much, but he knew he couldn’t. If Keely was meant to remember what happened there, she would have to do it on her own.
“Steffie made me promise to wait until after school so she could go along.” She pushed herself away from the railing. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Thanks for bringing the salad and brownies. After Lisa’s last stint in Home Ec, we get very few treats. She doesn’t do well with ovens except to cause fires.” He grinned. “Of course, I’m not any better.”
“Steffie tends to forget to set the timer and then she’s on the phone with a friend,” Keely told him. “She’d forget all about whatever she was baking until she could smell it burning. I’m surprised her attempts at baking didn’t wear out the battery in the smoke alarm.” She started for the door with Sam following her at a more leisurely pace. Just before he stepped inside, he looked over his shoulder toward the nearby woods.
Could someone have been out there tonight? Was that why he felt uneasy?
“Why don’t I follow you home?” he suggested. “Just to make sure everything’s all right.”
She slanted him a look filled with amusement. “Small towns are safe, remember? Besides, I left lights on. Steffie!” She raised her voice. “Time to go.”
Furtive whispers warned them the girls were coming. Lisa’s hair was now completely braided and her bangs had also been trimmed to feather across her forehead.
“Very nice,” Sam complimented. “But you’re still not dating,” he added, sending her smug grin downward.
“Don’t worry,” Steffie commiserated with her friend. “Mom said I won’t be dating until I’m thirty-five.”
“At least I only have to wait until I’m thirty.”
“Don’t be so eager to grow up,” Keely chided as they moved toward the front door. “Before you know it, you’ll be wishing to return to these days.”
Sam and Lisa walked outside with them and waited as Keely and Steffie climbed into the Blazer.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Keely said softly.
He smiled. “I enjoyed it, too.”
“We’ll have to do it again, but next time at our house,” Steffie suggested.
Keely didn’t say anything other than to thank Sam again before driving off.
“They are so nice,” Lisa commented as they walked back into the house.
“Lisa, no matchmaking,” he advised.
She sighed but didn’t
make any promises.
“They have a really nice house, don’t they?” Steffie said during the drive home.
“Very nice.”
“Sam’s not like any cop I’ve ever seen before. He’s, well, he’s nice and almost sweet.”
“Steffie.” There was no mistaking the warning tone in Keely’s voice. She glanced up when a speck of light caught her eye. Not so far back was the unmistakable glint of headlights. Since the road wasn’t all that heavily traveled, she was surprised to see headlights but she knew there were others who lived along this way. She dismissed the lights from her thoughts.
Except Keely soon noticed that the lights didn’t come any closer but seemed to prefer to keep a safe distance behind them. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she carefully pressed her foot down further on the accelerator.
When she sped up, the vehicle behind her sped up. She wished she hadn’t left her cellular phone on the charger at home. Having that little piece of security would make her feel much better.
“Mom, is everything okay?”
Keely exhaled a quick breath. “Everything’s fine, honey. I guess I was just daydreaming.”
“About a certain sheriff,” she teased.
She managed a stiff smile. “No, about what needs to be done tomorrow.”
She had already made up her mind if when they came to their road the headlights were still there, she would make an excuse and head straight for town. Now she wished she’d allowed Sam to follow her home. The thought echoed in her head. That was it! He had decided to follow her home anyway to make sure everything was all right. She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled onto their driveway and drove up to the garage. She noticed the vehicle passed by their house. She wondered why he didn’t stop.
As they stepped inside, the phone began ringing.
“Hi, Keely,” Sam greeted her the moment she said hello. “I forgot to give you your bowl. At least the girls washed it.”
Keely’s face froze.
Now that she knew it wasn’t Sam, she had to wonder just who was driving behind her. She feared her unknown follower had something to do with the letter she’d received, but she didn’t want to bring it up to Sam until she was sure.