Sweet Town Love

by Maggie Ryan

  The End

  Paige Parsons

  Paige Parsons is a creative Joan of all Trades, who has spent 25 years working in theatre as an actress and stage manager. A native New Yorker, she now resides in Japan. Paige has always loved the world of make believe and was a voracious reader growing up. Some of her favorite authors included Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Jackie Collins, Erma Bombeck, Toni Morrison, Dan Brown and a host of others. Her writing began with stories for her Barbie, Ken, and Skipper dolls and progressed with poetry, modern retellings of classics, and her own spicy romances, kept in a locked journal.

  She graduated with a degree in Communication/English-Creative Writing and has worked as a journalist, teacher, stage manager, and production manager. Paige loves to tell stories, read stories, and put stories up on the stage.

  Visit her on Facebook: Paige Parsons

  Twitter: @authorpparsons1

  Instagram: authorpaigeparsons

  Don’t miss these exciting titles by Paige Parsons and Blushing Books!

  Taking The Stage

  Sweet Town Love - Anthology

  Piper in a Pickle

  By

  Chula Stone

  Chapter 1

  “I’ll be perfectly safe walking back to the intersection, Mr. Silberman.” Piper Gowan tried again to get out of her old clunker, but her passenger was the strongest ninety-year-old she had ever met. He grasped her seatbelt and held on, effectively trapping her in the car. In a strange and ironic counterpoint, the radio was blaring one of her favorite songs. I’m just an old-fashioned girl…

  “On a road with no shoulder and no streetlights? Little lady, if you were mine, and if I still had knees, I’d turn you over them and paddle your fanny but good! Don’t you even think about trying it!” His strong fingers patted the clasp of the seatbelt as if in emphasis while the song continued. Living in a hurry-up, modern world.

  She turned the radio off, preparatory to leaving the car. “But we’ve been out way too long and you’re out of insulin. We’ve got to get back to your apartment.”

  He popped the knob and the song rang out again. “We’ll be fine here until somebody drives by.” With the lights too bright… “Put on your flashers and tie something to the radio antenna. Somebody will stop. This is Brampton, for goodness sakes. We’ll have ten people lined up along the road trying to help within twenty minutes.” And the jeans too tight and the lights too bright…

  “We would if it were twelve noon, but I don’t think our luck will be quite the same at twelve midnight.” She turned the music down so they could understand one another, but the words were still clear. And good-byes too easy to say…

  “I shouldn’t have kept you out at the lake so long. I’m sorry, little lady. It’s all my fault.” Fast living it up is getting me down.

  “I’m glad to do it, Mr. Silberman. I enjoyed watching the moon rise over the water as much as you did.” A pause in the conversation let the song’s lyrics ring out. A string of broken hearts left all around town.

  Not for me. I’m longing to be an old fashioned girl all the way. He seemed to be trying to keep a comment quiet, but eventually it burst out of him despite his efforts. “You should be watching it with a boyfriend, not some old codger like me who can’t even walk out of the trouble he causes.” The elderly man banged frustrated fists on the stubs of his legs.

  “If I didn’t drive such an old bucket of bolts, there wouldn’t be any trouble. I had more fun with you tonight than I’ve had on my last three dates combined,” Piper retorted. Was there a hint of resignation in her tone? She tried to make it brighter. “Now, you just sit tight. I’ll be back in no time.” Again, she turned off the music and tried to exit the car.

  Again, he held her seatbelt in place. “Get my wheelchair out. I can roll myself down to the intersection a lot faster than you can walk.”

  “Really, Mr. Silberman! They’d never let me take you out again if they found out I’d let you roll down this road at night.”

  “The administration at Shadestone Senior Living Apartments has no say in what I do or who I go out with,” the older man shot back.

  “Wait, look! Who’s that?” Piper shaded her eyes in a futile attempt to identify the lights that were glaring in from behind them. They were shining right into her eyes, which told her that it must be some sort of sport utility vehicle, or some other kind of car that sat higher on the road.

  They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Piper rolled her window down, but the dark figure approached Mr. Silberman’s side of the car. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “Dr. Karn? Is that you?” Piper asked.

  Piper could picture the incredulity on the handsome face she knew went with the voice. Dr. Karn was certainly memorable, with his thick, black hair and kind blue eyes. Too bad they had to meet again under such embarrassing circumstances. “Piper? What do you think you’re doing out here this late at night?”

  Piper answered a bit defensively. “We didn’t mean to stay out this late. We broke down.”

  “Well, I can’t take you both in that thing.” He indicated the all-terrain vehicle he was driving. Now that his lights were off she could see that it only had two seats and only roll bars overhead. “I’ll head back to my ranch and get my truck so I can get you two wherever it is you’re headed. Where are you going, anyway?”

  Mr. Silberman put his arm out the window and the two men shook hands. “Dr. Karn, is it? I’m Harold Silberman. She was taking me home to the Shadestone. Piper, why don’t you ride with the good doctor? I can wait here on my own.”

  Piper knew the gleam that was in his eye, though it was too dark for her to see it. It was the expression he always wore when he was trying to fix her up with someone, which was any time he met a man of suitable age and unmarried status. She could only hope Dr. Karn didn’t notice Mr. Silberman’s matchmaking face. “We can’t wait that long, Mr. Silberman. You need your insulin now. Dr. Karn, you don’t have anything to help him in your emergency bag, do you?”

  “I wish both of you would call me Blake,” the doctor answered, “And it would be better if he had his own medication. How overdue are you? Are you having any symptoms?”

  “None at all. I feel fine. Well, as fine as any ninety-year-old codger like me has a right to feel.”

  “He’s sweating, Blake.”

  “And your hands were a bit clammy, Mr. Silberman,” Blake put in, his tone matter of fact, his words neither unkind nor patronizing. “No use John Wayning it out when it comes to insulin.” He opened the door. “You two can take the ATV back to town and call a tow truck after you get your shot. I’ll wait here.”

  “I can’t drive a stick shift and now’s not the time to learn.” Piper told him. “Please, can’t you just bring him something?”

  Mr. Silberman shook his head. “He could lose his medical license, Piper. It’s not a life or death thing. You two go on together. I’ll be fine. Piper knows where my kit is and what to bring.”

  “I don’t think you’ve got that long, Mr. Silberman. Surely you can drive a stick? If you’ve let your driver’s license expire, that’s okay. You don’t have to drive on the roads. You can take a dirt track to my house and hop in my little pickup. It’s automatic.”

  “I can’t hop anywhere, young man,” Mr. Silberman remarked. He patted the stumps of his legs which an ironic cackle of laughter. “But thanks for not noticing. It’s nice to be treated like a normal person for a change.”

  “You are a normal person, Mr. Silberman,” Piper objected hotly.

  “And you don’t patronize me when it comes to most things, Piper.” Turning to Blake, the older man went on. “She really is an amazing girl, you know. You ought to see her.”

  “Not now, Mr. Silberman, please. This is serious,” Piper begged. “Now do you see why you’ve got to…” Her voice trailed off. There was no getting him into that ATV. The two of them could just barely manage the transfer between her car and his wheelchair with the help of his strong
arms and a transfer board, but up into that ATV? Just then, Mr. Silberman gave a little gasp and leaned heavily forward, breathing hard. Piper reached over and took his shoulder. “Mr. Silberman? Can you hear me? Blake, please, do something.”

  Blake was already in motion and had the door open before Piper knew what he was going to do. He reached over, popped the seatbelt open and jerked the elderly man out of the car as Piper got out on her side. “There’s no time to argue. Stay put! I’ll be back for you.” Blake tossed Mr. Silberman into the ATV as if he weighed nothing.

  “He’s waking up,” Piper informed Blake as she leaned into the ATV from the driver’s side and rooted around between the seats. “But he’ll need help staying in. Where’s the seat belt?”

  Blake shot her an “I’m not kidding” glare. “There aren’t usually seatbelts in an ATV.” He had produced a bungee cord from the back and was stretching it around the seat and hooking it so that it supported Mr. Silberman’s chest, keeping him upright.

  “I’m all right,” Mr. Silberman declared. “Just fell asleep for a minute. No need to make a federal case out of it.” He grabbed the handholds in front of the seat. “But I would like to get home and get that shot if I can.”

  “I’ll have you there in no time,” Blake declared. “In this thing, I can cut across country here and be at the intersection in a couple of minutes. From there, it’s a straight shot to Shadestone, five minutes tops.”

  Piper scrambled out of the ATV and headed back toward her car. “Will that cord hold if you go through the woods?” As she spoke, Piper slung the wheelchair out of the back of her car.

  “I’ll be fine,” Mr. Silberman told her, but he was forming the words with extra deliberation, as if it cost him great effort to speak loudly enough for her to hear him.

  “Give me that.” Blake met her half way between the car and the ATV.

  “I can manage it,” she objected, tugging to keep her hold on the wheelchair.

  He wrenched it smoothly from her grasp. “Not while I’m around, you can’t. I’ll hold it while you clamp it into the cargo area.” As if it weighed no more than his emergency medical bag, he threw the chair into the thin cargo hold of the ATV. She saw the clamp he meant and snapped it shut.

  That really did make sense, for him to do the heavy lifting. She would have struggled for quite a while if she had needed to wrestle that chair into that space. Still, it gave her a strange, roiling feeling in the pit of her stomach, to hear his words and accept his help. “He needs that chair. It’s important to him. Without it, he feels helpless.”

  “Don’t worry.” Blake put a hand over hers and even in the dark, she could feel his gaze lock onto her face. “I’ll take good care of him. He’ll be fine.”

  Mr. Silberman’s voice interrupted the moment. “You hop back in the car and wait for the doc to come and get you.”

  “Please, hurry!” Piper waved both hands at the ATV and was relieved to see that the taillights didn’t waggle very much as they grew smaller and smaller. The field he was crossing must be pretty flat but she knew that he would be rushing. Even in the uncertain light from the full moon Mr. Silberman’s face had sported the color of your average melted glue stick.

  It was taking a long time for the taillights to disappear. Piper suspected that Blake might be waiting for her to get back in her car, so she quickly opened the door and let the light from her interior blaze through the night for several seconds. She even went so far as to sit in her front seat so that her silhouette would show clearly. Apparently it worked. The ATV faded into the darkness of the trees at the edge of the field.

  Piper took a moment to compose herself, finding it impossible to examine and ignore at the same time the feelings the last few minutes had spawned. Was Blake a high-handed dictator taking over or a confident hero saving the day? Her head and her heart had a bit of a tug of war that ended in a stalemate. Piper considered only a moment before she hopped back out of the car and followed in the tracks of broken grass laid down by the passing vehicle.

  “How are you doing there, Mr. Silberman?” Blake asked in a loud voice. “Come on, now. Head’s up. Stay with me.”

  “I’m here. I’m here.” He shook his hands as if they were wet before getting a better grip on the front handholds. “It’s just hard to… concentrate. You know, hard to make the words.” His voice sounded strong enough and his words weren’t slurred. That was a good sign.

  “But you can hear me?”

  “No problem.”

  “I need you to stay awake, Mr. Silberman.”

  The older man shook his head as if he were working hard but couldn’t quite recall something. “Then you talk to me. Tell me how you met my Piper.”

  “I’ve known Piper’s family all my life.”

  “Well, of course,” Mr. Silberman panted. “It’s a small town.”

  “You’re right. Most families are interconnected somehow.”

  “But she… seemed to know you.”

  “Family picnics and such. We’ve had a few conversations.”

  Mr. Silberman gave a groan. “Keep talking, will you? I haven’t got the breath to answer. Tell me about Piper. Have you asked her out?”

  Blake looked over and was reassured to see the older man sitting up straighter in his seat. His color looked better, too. Why did he sound like he was in distress? Still, Blake didn’t see any harm in chattering to a patient if it served the purpose. “I did ask her out, but she turned me down. Then we wound up spending… some time together anyway. We got stuck in an elevator.”

  “I thought you might be that doctor. She told me about you.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Just that you had some old-fashioned ways about you that you got from your family.” There was a long pause and then he went on, sounding suspiciously stronger. “And that she had been shocked at the time, but after thinking about it, she decided that it fit with her old-fashioned outlook on things.”

  Could it be true? Was this really happening? If Piper really did feel that way, that changed everything. But why hadn’t she told him herself? Did she even know Mr. Silberman was going to convey the message? That was absurd, but the truth did start to dawn on Blake. He sat up, wondering how a ninety-year-old man in a wheelchair had just very neatly led him down a garden path. Not wanting to let the older man know the true impact his words had made, Blake took a different approach. “I’ve been set up, haven’t I?”

  “Like a set of bowling pins,” Mr. Silberman agreed with a wheezing laugh. “Of course, little Piper knew nothing about it. It wasn’t planned.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t keep her out late on purpose and I couldn’t have arranged for that old rattle-trap of hers to break-down on your land or anywhere else for that matter.”

  “But when you saw the opportunity…”

  “Exactly. I really do need that darn needle. I feel like a week old trout left in the bottom of a boat. It’s just that when I heard her call you doctor like that, I guessed who you were and I made up my mind to try to get you two alone together. When it turned out you only had room for one passenger, well, I figured fate was playing right into my hands. You can go back and get her with the full knowledge that she has nothing against your… traditions.”

  Blake let out a hard breath in surprise. “What did she tell you?”

  “She didn’t tell me much at all. She just asked me if I knew you and what I thought of the rumors. I told her that your mother is one of the happiest ladies in the county and your father keeps a paddle in the closet. Are those two facts connected? None of my business, but nobody around here is going to question Bud Karn or his wife. Whatever they do in private is just that: private.”

  “It works for us and it just seems right. I never questioned it.”

  Mr. Silberman laughed. “She did question, but from what she admitted to me, seems like she’s decided that it would suit her after all. She was definitely regretting some of the things she said to y
ou. What I want to know is, how did the subject come up? I mean, it’s not exactly something most people talk about.”

  “We were trapped in that hospital elevator for hours and hours. We talked about everything. It started pleasantly enough. She told me about her father’s passing and how she was still paying off the bills. That was her reason for being in the hospital. I told her how I was moving back to Brampton now that I’m finished with my residency.” Blake rammed the ATV up onto the main road, spinning reddish black mud up into the air. “Not long now. Hang in there.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Mr. Silberman replied. “I want to hear more about that conversation.”

  But Blake didn’t want to tell him much more. It was private and he wasn’t sure how much Piper would be comfortable with anyone else knowing. Still, she seemed to have confided in the old gentleman. “After a while, somebody figured out we were in there and called maintenance. They shouted through the doors at us and once we figured out what they were saying, we realized we were in for a long wait. It got late and maybe it was the tiredness or the hunger, but we both got pretty honest for a while there.”

  “Understandable,” Mr. Silberman said. “In a situation like that, folks open up.”

  “Exactly. She told me that she was confused and upset because while she was cleaning out her dad’s things, she found a paddle. I told her there was nothing wrong with a man having a paddle and things went on from there.”

  Mr. Silberman groaned, but when Blake looked over, he realized the older man wasn’t in physical distress. He was shaking his head in sympathy. “There is such a thing as too much honesty.”

  “I found that out quickly enough. We had a few awkward moments. She didn’t come out and say as much, but I got the strong impression that she didn’t approve. I tried to tell her that in my family, it’s just the way things are and it works for us. I even admitted that I came back home to work so that I could find an old-fashioned girl who would share my values and who wanted to be cherished and cared for. I haven’t seen anything but the back of her head since we left that elevator. Every time I catch sight of her, she’s swinging around and practically running the other way.”