“Yeah, well, the sooner we get that moldin’ of yours hung, the sooner you can help me haul out that stump.”
“You’re helping Charlie?” Too, Kelsey might have said. It was no wonder he looked so tired, she thought. Since she’d left, the man had obviously been working day and night and not getting any rest at all.
The lines around his eyes deepened even more with his smile. “Just doing a little friendly bartering. Right, Charlie?”
“Yep,” the older man muttered, setting his cap back by its bill to expose a tuft of white hair. “Neither job is one a man can accomplish on his own without a heap of frustration. Easier with two.”
Thinking his philosophy applied to a lot of things, and reminded of how needs were often reciprocated in the country, she glanced from the man who was apparently even more driven to occupy himself than she’d thought to the one now checking out the rusted latch on the main door.
Charlie thinned hundreds of maple trees every summer. She had just acquired a need for something to burn in her fireplace come fall. “What can I barter you for firewood, Charlie?”
The wrinkles in the older man’s weathered brow deepened as he withdrew his hand to ponder her query. “Tell you what,” he said after several long seconds of thought, “come apple harvest time, you help my Mary pick apples and put up pies and I’ll deliver you a couple of cords chopped and stacked.”
She held out her hand. “You have yourself a deal,” she said, offering her handshake with a smile. “I’m good for applesauce, too”
“Suits me.” Clearly satisfied with their deal, he withdrew his calloused hand and nodded toward the open door. “Mind if I have a look around in there?”
She didn’t mind at all. She told him that, too, then asked that he be careful before her smile faltered and she turned her glance to Sam.
“What about you?” she asked as soon as Charlie’s curiosity had carried him inside. “All the work you’ve done…all that’s left to do…” Her voice grew quieter. “I hadn’t considered how much it would cost if I’d had to hire it all out. I don’t know what to barter for your work.” A man could only eat so many pies and muffins. “Can I help you over at your sister’s? Or…pay you?”
The suggestion brought a quick frown. “You have too much to do here before I go to spend time working someplace else. And you don’t owe me anything. I’m getting what I want.”
Quiet conclusion entered her tone. “Something to occupy your time before they’ll let you go back.”
He didn’t think a lot of her phrasing, true as it was, but it was as clear as the certainty in the depths of her eyes that she understood him. Having never thought a woman would, knowing his family still didn’t, she had no idea how he appreciated that acceptance. “Exactly.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I’m positive.” There was something else he wanted, though. He wanted her. As he forced his eyes to remain on hers rather than the fullness of her mouth, he also knew he was not willing to do anything that might make her think he expected her to wind up in his bed. He was more than willing, however, to let nature take its course. “Okay?”
Despite his assurance, the concern shadowing her expression remained. It did, however, seem to shift course as she looked to where Charlie had disappeared.
“What’s the matter?”
“Joe must not have gotten on the radio. Charlie would have heard him. He has a police scanner.”
“Why does Charlie have one?”
“He has two. One at home and one in his truck. Lots of people around here do. It’s how volunteers know there’s a fire to fight, or someone needs a rescue.”
It was also entirely possible that Charlie had simply missed the transmission, Sam thought, but he didn’t point out that little piece of practicality. Charlie emerged just then to tell Kelsey he appreciated the look-see and mentioned to Sam that they should get to their project and leave Kelsey to hers.
He gave no indication that he’d heard anything at all about them. That situation, however, had changed by sunrise.
Sam was greeted by the normal chatter in the diner when he walked in the next morning—only to hear it change quality on his way the counter. As usual, Amos and Charlie had their backs to him as they sat drinking their coffee. Both being a little hard of hearing, neither man seemed to notice the shift in tone as Smiley, the postman, stopped talking to the two other locals seated at his table. The UPS man looked up from his eggs, lifted a hand and went right back to his breakfast, but Sam could have sworn he saw speculation in the eyes of everyone else who nodded to him.
He’d barely sat down on the empty stool between his breakfast companions before Amos leaned closer and poked his bony elbow into his ribs.
“Hear Joe saw you with Kelsey yesterday,” he informed him, his conspiratorial whisper carrying the length of the counter.
Charlie poked him from the other side. The white-haired old guy said nothing, though. He just gave him a wink before Dora appeared with a cup of coffee in her hand and a muscle jumping in her jaw.
“Sam,” she said by way of greeting, and set the cup down with enough force to send coffee sloshing onto the saucer.
She didn’t ask how he was doing as she usually did. She didn’t ask what kind of cakes he wanted, either. She didn’t do anything other than send Lorna over to finish waiting on him while she disappeared into the kitchen. Lorna seemed different this morning, too. She usually flirted and teased, but this morning she just gave him a smile loaded with what he could have sworn was disappointment.
It was Dora who concerned him, though. The chill she left behind felt as cold as a winter’s breeze.
Not at all certain what was going on, he picked up his paper napkin and set it under his cup to absorb what he could have sworn she’d spilled on purpose. It wasn’t often that he misread a person. From the way she’d mothered him as she did the rest of her customers, he could have sworn she liked him. Or, at least, that she didn’t dislike him. This morning, though, he was clearly on her hit list.
Unable to believe she would be so displeased just because he’d kissed her daughter, he tried to imagine what she could have heard. Other than what Joe had seen, there was nothing else for anyone to tell. He hadn’t even seen Kelsey since he and Charlie had left her attacking vegetation yesterday. Wanting to finish up at his sister’s within the next couple of days, he’d worked far later than usual. By the time he’d walked over to the mill a little before nine o’clock, Kelsey had already been gone.
Considering it best to not be thinking about her now, he asked Charlie if he wanted to come help him again that morning. As soon as he finished hanging the molding upstairs, he could move to the outside trim paint.
He was usually as good at blocking what disturbed him as he was working around distractions. When he worked undercover, he often found himself in situations where he had to appear as if he had nothing to hide. He honestly had nothing to hide now. Yet, as he sat there listening to the older men and aware of Dora’s icy glances, he found it strange that the edginess he felt in work situations wasn’t anything like the uneasiness he felt just then.
What he felt here was more disturbing, though in an entirely different way. In Maple Mountain, he had no undercover persona protecting him. Here, people knew exactly who he was. He was just a man. And a brother, nephew and friend as Kelsey had so succinctly pointed out to him the day she’d shown up with his favorite pie. He wasn’t used to being so exposed.
He made it through breakfast by telling himself to ignore Dora and the more friendly speculation in nearly every pair of eyes he met. But it wasn’t until later that afternoon while he was painting the trim on his sister’s place that he discovered exactly why Kelsey’s mother had treated him like one of the great unwashed.
Chapter Nine
“Mind if I turn that down?” Joe hollered.
From his perch on the roof, Sam saw Joe Sheldon motion to the boom box on the front porch. The guy was big, built like the line
backer he’d been in high school, and wore his khaki uniform with the ease of a man who’d been in it for a while.
Calling back for him to go ahead, Sam finished the last few inches of trim around a dormered window and climbed down the ladder.
The scream of electric guitars gave way to the chirp of birds as he set the bucket and brush he’d carried down with him on the sheet of plastic by the stairs.
Joe’s craggy features were screwed into a scowl. “I have no idea how you can listen to that stuff.”
“Hey,” Sam muttered, feigning umbrage at his musical inclinations. “Metallica is classic.” Glancing at his hands, he absently wiped streaks of Wedgwood blue onto his jeans. “By the way,” he added frowning himself, “thanks a lot.”
Joe’s short sandy hair sported a dent from the ranger-style hat he’d left in his Jeep. Guilt pulled his thick eyebrows low, making his receding hairline look even longer than it was. He didn’t have to ask what Sam was talking about.
“Yeah,” he began, looking uncomfortable. “That’s why I stopped by. I heard Dora’s not too happy with you.”
“Because I kissed her daughter?” He still couldn’t understand why that was such a problem. “She wouldn’t even have known about it if you’d kept what you’d seen to yourself.”
“Hey. I just thought it was interesting,” Joe defended. “Everybody knew you two had been out to your aunt and uncle’s on the Fourth. All I said was that it looked like things were heatin’ up.
“Look, Sam,” he continued, conciliation heavy in his tone. “I think you’re a decent guy. And it’s not like you’re an outsider here,” he insisted, sounding as if his loyalties were being torn between the town and a fellow officer. “But I’d lay low around the diner for a while if I were you. Dora’s unhappy with you for talking Kelsey into buying the mill. And I heard that the mayor and his wife are upset with Dora for thinking Kelsey wasted her money. Lots of people would like to see that old place up and running again and anything someone can do to boost the economy is welcome. I only saw Kelsey a couple of times when she was home last, but she seems to have a level head on her shoulders, and I’m hoping like some of the other folk around here that she can make it profitable.
“I can’t blame you for being interested in her, either,” he admitted, bluntly. “She’s one attractive lady. But you might keep in mind that you’re not her mother’s favorite person right now.”
He’d come to spare him another dose of the Big Chill. That much was clear. Joe’s advice, however, barely registered in Sam’s confusion.
“What do you mean I talked Kelsey into buying the mill?” he demanded, his tone flat with denial. “I didn’t talk her into anything. All I did was tell her to follow her instincts and go with what she felt was right.” That hardly qualified as coercion. “Buying that mill is something she’s wanted since she was a kid.”
“You’re helping her fix it up.”
Sam felt as if he were getting more lost by the minute. “Yeah…” he confirmed, slowly drawing out the word while he waited for enlightenment as to the particular problem there.
The best Joe could do was deepen his scowl. “Well, she’s not happy about that, either.” He held up his hands, palm out. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard, Sam. She thinks you’re responsible for Kelsey buying the place, and she doesn’t like that you’re helping her with it. Just thought you ought to know.”
Looking sympathetic, he nodded toward the endless yards of bare trim still needing paint and hitched his thumb toward his patrol Jeep. “I’m on my way out to the lake. Someone’s stealing campers’ fishing gear. Best let you get back to work, too.”
For a full minute after Joe left, Sam stood frowning after him. If he was responsible for something, he took the credit or the blame he deserved, but it grated against his basic sense of integrity to be unjustly accused. No way was he responsible for the decision Kelsey had made. No way had he talked her into anything she hadn’t truly wanted to do to begin with.
Dora’s attitude that morning made more sense to him now. But even as annoyed as he was at the woman for giving him the deep freeze when she was the one whose facts were screwed up, he fully intended to let the matter go. This thing had “family problem” written all over it and that was the last thing he wanted to get involved with. He had enough trouble with his own family and he knew from experience the dead-end sort of conflict that came when both sides tried to change the other’s mind. Emotions ran high, no one walked away happy and someone inevitably left feeling lousy because he wasn’t living the way someone else thought he should, or feeling cheated and resentful if forced into a change.
Avoiding conflict was the easiest way to prevent it from escalating. That had been his experience, anyway, and he fully intended to rely on it now. Since he would only be around for a few more weeks, he didn’t need to concern himself with any of it. Or so he told himself in the split second before he thought about Kelsey.
If Dora was that unhappy with him, she was equally unhappy with her daughter.
Sam swore. Shoving his fingers through his hair, belatedly remembering they were splattered with paint, he swore again. He wasn’t at all prepared for the protectiveness he felt toward Kelsey just then. But it was there, pulling as hard as the more familiar instincts jerking him in the opposite direction. Those instincts had always kept him from getting any more involved in a personal situation than he was comfortable with. They were the ones that insisted now that he needed to stay out of it, that there was nothing he could do, and that Kelsey would have told him if the situation was really as bad as Joe had made it sound.
It was because he felt certain she would have confided in him, since she’d confided so much else, that he picked up the paint to finish the trim around another window—only to remember that one of the first things she’d mentioned yesterday was her mom. She’d wanted to know if Dora had said anything to him about helping her.
Swearing silently again, he set the paint back down. He’d already intended to go over earlier than he had yesterday, just to make sure she would still be there. Since checking up on her was something he’d planned to do, anyway, he might as well do it now.
He found her not far from where he’d left her the day before with the weed-eater. The large swath of vegetation she’d cleared from the doors, stairs and directly in front of the building sat piled in heaps off to one side waiting to be mulched or burned. In the late afternoon light, he saw her adding to the nearest pile as she tipped a wheelbarrow beside it, dumping twigs and leaves and broken boxes from inside the mill.
“How’s it going?”
She turned at the sound of his voice, her preoccupation fading to a smile. A dusty purple ball cap covered her pale hair and a streak of dirt slanted across her cheek. What he noticed most was that she didn’t seem sorry to see him.
Taking that as a sign that the situation with her mom couldn’t be all that bad, he watched her leave the wheelbarrow to walk toward him, pulling off her gloves as she did. She had dust on her jeans, too, and on the shoulders and front of a big white T-shirt that practically swallowed her whole.
The thought that the loose garment might have belonged to an old boyfriend caused a twinge of something unwanted, unfamiliar and faintly unnerving—until he read the logo. It was for a women’s medical research run-walk she could well have participated in herself.
Not trusting the unexpected twinge of jealousy any more than he did the protectiveness that had brought him there, he watched her motion to the mill’s large open door.
“I think there’s as much dirt in there as there is out here.” Using her gloves, she swatted at her jeans. Dust puffed and drifted off. “I could plant seeds and grow things.”
“You could start with wheat.”
She tipped her head, her smiling eyes shadowed by the brim of her hat. “Grown and ground on site?”
The streak of dirt on her cheek ended at her jaw. Thinking to wipe away the small smudge, he reached toward her—onl
y to notice the paint spatters on his hands. He’d wiped them, but he hadn’t taken time to wash.
“Paint,” he murmured, dropping his hand, feeling oddly cheated. “I don’t want to get it on you.”
The temptation to tell him she wouldn’t mind tugged hard. Instead Kelsey told herself for the umpteenth time since yesterday that she truly needed to exercise a little more restraint where Sam was concerned. Even some would be good, since she’d been pathetically lax in that department.
“I’m a mess, too,” she murmured, just glad he was there.
“So,” he said.
“So,” she echoed.
Not sensing anything at all unusual about her, he put his hands on his hips to keep from reaching for her again. Even with every curve hidden and dirty from the long day’s work, she looked as tempting to him as sin itself.
“You’d already gone when I came over last night. I just wanted to make sure everything is going okay.”
She turned to the open door, blocking her expression, leaving him with only the view of her delicate profile. “Everything is fine,” she replied easily. “I want to start cleaning upstairs, but I can’t do that until I’m finished clearing storage space down here. I need a ladder to pull down the nests on the rafters, but I can get the rest cleaned out so I have someplace to put my things when they get here.”
“How about with everything else?” he asked, not overly anxious to ask about her mother outright. He’d rather take on a felon than personal matters any day. “Have you run into problems anywhere?”
“Everything else is fine, too,” she assured him. “Or will be when my things get here.” So I don’t have to listen to my mother tell me what a mistake I’ve made, she thought, promptly attempting to dismiss the admission. She truly did not want to think about her mom just then. She most definitely didn’t want to think about all she’d had to say about Sam last night.
Confessions of a Small-Town Girl Page 17