by Shirley Jump
Chapter Twenty-Five
"I don't know, Ray Jr. Think we can trust him?" Vernon said, eyeing Travis, working thirty feet below them.
Ray Jr. grunted under the weight on his shoulders and glared at his younger brother, who had let go of his end. "It's a little late for that, don't you think? We're up here, he's down there. I'd say we trust him already."
"Yeah, but I think we're the ones having all the fun." Vernon grinned and tugged on the harness he had strapped around his hips and waist, then attached to a lifeline cable that ran along the length of the twelve by twenty-four feet sign.
In their hands were thirty poster sheets, to be assembled like a jigsaw puzzle over the image of Meredith. They were working in the middle of the night, gluing the new image into place before the morning commuters started their day's ride into the city.
A little subterfuge, just the kind of thing Ray Jr. liked. Best of all, he was helping to pay back what those bastards at Belly-Licious had done to his little sister. If he could have, he would have charged into the company's offices with Cecil's shotgun. That would have ended their plan to use Meredith for their kill-milk scheme.
He'd been all loaded up with buckshot and ready to go when Travis had stopped him, saying they took assault with a deadly weapon pretty damned serious in Massachusetts.
Liberals. Hell, how was he supposed to get any justice with those rules?
"Hey, this stuff works great," Vernon said, pasting another sheet into place, smoothing it out with a roller. "Might even beat out duct tape."
Ray Jr. raised the bucket of glue. "Think we can sneak a gallon into Cecil's truck and take some back home?"
"Oh, the trouble we could get into with this," Vernon said.
"You can say that again."
"Oh, the—"
"I didn't mean literally." Ray Jr. scowled. "Now hold this last piece up. There. That's it. We're done."
The two of them leaned back, but couldn't see much of their handiwork from the small catwalk surrounding the billboard. "That'll teach that Larry bastard to mess with our sister."
"Yep. And if he does it again, we'll glue him up here."
Ray Jr. chuckled. "Now there's an idea."
After a few special finishing touches, they collected their supplies, then climbed down the ladder to the ground. "All set," Ray Jr. told Travis. "You done on your end?"
"Yep. All wired and ready to go."
"Let's light her up then." Ray Jr. stepped back so he could get the full effect.
Travis flicked a switch at the base of the pole. Above them, the total destruction of Larry Herman came to life, complete with blazing lights and animatronics.
"Now that's revenge," Ray Jr. said. "You are one creative guy, Travis. Glad I'm not on your bad side."
Travis chuckled. "Thanks, guys. I appreciate the help."
"Just so you know, we're only doing this for Meredith," Vernon said, giving Travis a glare that said the younger Shordon had yet to be won over by Campbell.
Travis held out two fifty-dollar bills. Vernon snatched them up and stuffed them into the back pocket of his Levi's. "Well, for that, too," he admitted.
"Thanks again," Travis said. "I'll take care of things from here. Pick up the tools, return the supplies." He put out a hand for the leftover gallon of glue.
Ray Jr. didn't give up the wonder product quite yet. Instead, he shuffled a bit on his feet. Finally, he sucked in a breath and let out the words he hated the most to say. "I, ah, want to apologize."
"For what?"
"Calling you a city boy. You're not so bad. And if you want to marry Meredith, well, Vernon and I—" he gave Vernon an elbow that caused his younger brother to grunt out an agreement, "—well, we'd stand up for you."
Travis raised a brow. "You mean be my ushers?"
"Hell no!" Ray Jr. scoffed. "We hate those damned penguin suits. I meant we'd stop drinking early enough at the bachelor party to stay standing. Keep you from making a fool of yourself with the strippers."
"Thanks ... I, ah, think."
Ray Jr. gave Travis a clap on the shoulder that caused the other man to stumble a bit. What this city man needed was a good piece of steak, at least a 22-ouncer, and a week on the farm to toughen him up. "Nothing to it."
"Let me know if you guys ever need a favor in return. You helped me, and Meredith, out tonight." Travis gestured toward the billboard, now flashing its message to the highway of passing drivers.
"Actually," Ray Jr. began. "There is one thing ..." Might as well take advantage of the situation. He gave Travis a devilish grin and clutched the gallon of glue to his chest. "If it's okay with you, I'd like to keep this. We got plans for this glue."
"Plans?"
"You could call it a competitive edge." Ray Jr. exchanged a glance with Vernon. His brother gave him a smirk that said he was sharing the same devious thought. "This year, Bobby Reynolds ain't going to be tractor pull champion. By the time we're done, he'll be lucky to pull out of the restroom."
Aunt Gloria's Mistakes-Can-Be-Baked-Away Fish Cakes
1 pound haddock fillet, cooked
1 pound potatoes, cooked and mashed
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons onion, chopped
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon flour
1 egg, slightly beaten
1-1/4 cups breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Listen to your Aunt Gloria, who has made a mistake or two in her life. All you need to do is get the injured parties in the kitchen. Almost anything you've done wrong can be fixed over a hot stove.
Melt the butter in a pan and cook the onion. Flake the haddock into a bowl (making sure there are no bones about it, ha ha, a little humor there). Add the potato and butter mixture, then mix well. Stir in the lemon juice, then season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan.
Now's the time to get those hands working and take out any frustrations. Form eight little balls, then flatten them into a round shape. Dip each fish cake into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Fry them until they're golden brown all over and you can't see any of your mistakes in forming those patties anymore.
It's just like life. Cook something yummy and bad for your hips (and Lord knows, I have hips) and all your errors just seem to melt away.
Chapter Twenty-Six
"Momma, this is never going to work if you don't take that thing off," Meredith said, trying to keep Bessie still with one hand and pour milk with the other. It was early Wednesday morning and once again, Meredith was standing in a public place in her cow costume, only this time with the real version beside her.
Public humiliation, it seemed, had become her newest hobby.
"But what about the smog?" Momma asked. The words, muffled by the surgical mask, came out more like "What abudda smock?"
Meredith just eyed her mother, who got busy loading up a tray with three different kinds of cookies, donated by Gift Baskets and baked by Meredith and her mother in the wee hours of the morning. "You promised you'd help me. We aren't going to make any milk fans if we look like we're ready for the end of the world."
Momma sighed, then pulled off the surgical mask and tucked it into the pocket of her jumper. "Oh, all right. But if I end up on my deathbed next week—"
"I promise to bring you chicken soup," Meredith said. "And even make it myself."
Momma relented and put an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "You are a good girl."
"No, I'm not. But I try my best."
"That's all I ask, you know."
Meredith laughed. "Momma, you ask more than that and you know it. You ask more than any one person can give. And a box of cookies."
Her mother pouted. "I do not."
Bessie swung her head around and let out a moo of contention. Meredith arched a brow that said, See?
"I can't help it if I have high standards." Momma took the gallon of milk out of Meredith's hands and
took over the pouring duties. It had taken a lot of doing, and a lot of listening to Momma's lectures, but Meredith had finally smoothed the waters between her and her mother early this morning. It had helped that she'd brought home two pounds of fresh shrimp for dinner the evening before. Bribing her family with fresh seafood had worked—very well.
She knew that despite everything, she loved her mother and having a wall between them would make any outcome to this—good or bad—bittersweet. So they'd talked, and then they'd baked. Somewhere between adding the flour and stirring in the chocolate chips, Momma had paused and drawn her daughter into a hug, providing a temporary truce. Even Vernon and Ray Jr. had relented, drawn in by the scent of fresh-baked cookies, and opted to help by picking up Bessie at a farm outside of Boston and transporting her and her trailer here. After that, her brothers had insisted on remaining along the fringes of the area, to provide crowd control—and grab an occasional bite to eat.
Momma still didn't understand Meredith's need to leave Heavandale, but she was here, helping Meredith repair the damage done by Larry Herman.
And that was a start.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Momma asked, finishing with the paper cups.
"No. But it's the best plan I have."
Momma took a step back, swept an appraising glance over her daughter, then adjusted the cowprint hood. "You do look good in udders, sweetie."
"Gee, thanks."
Momma's hand lingered on the hood for a long second, then she let go. "Oh, your father would be so proud of you. Standing up to all these people like this."
Meredith caught a glimpse of phase two of her plan, heading toward them right on schedule. She adjusted her udders and tightened her grip on the leather leash that kept Bessie beside her in the middle of Government Center. "Brace yourself, Momma. Here comes the media."
Kenny came barreling into Travis's office, out of breath and waving his arms. "Have you seen the morning news report?"
"No. Why?" They'd both beaten Larry into the office this morning. Maybe he'd get lucky and see Larry hanging off the catwalk of the billboard, threatening to commit suicide by dairy product.
Kenny didn't answer. He just grabbed Travis's arm and dragged him down to the break room and over to the small TV mounted in the corner of the room.
There, on the nineteen-inch screen was Meredith, dressed in a cow costume, holding a leash connected to—
A cow?
Travis blinked. When he looked again he saw, indeed, it was a real live mooing cow standing beside Meredith. She and another woman, who had to be her mother judging by the similarity in their appearances, were pouring cups of milk and handing them out to the reporters, along with cookies.
"Well, I'll be damned," Travis said, chuckling.
"You'll be worse than damned if Larry sees this,'' Kenny muttered.
"I have a plan for that already." Travis crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter, watching as Meredith talked to a reporter from Channel Seven.
"You can't beat the real thing," she was saying, "for nutrition. Real milk has been around for centuries and there's a reason for that. When you start drinking chemicals, who knows what it will do to your system down the road?"
"But Meredith, what about that picture of you drinking No-Moo Milk?" A lanky reporter in a too-big suit asked.
She smiled sweetly. "I was trying it out. You have to know your competition—in order to beat it." She handed him a paper cup of milk and a pair of chocolate chip cookies.
Damn. That woman was smart and sexy. Travis grinned, admiring her twenty times more than he had before. She could have bashed Belly-Licious, but that would have just stirred up the controversy more and given the company more press. Instead, she'd turned the conversation right back to her own cause.
"Travis..." Kenny said, interrupting.
"Hmm. What?" Travis didn't remove his gaze from Meredith's image.
"You mentioned a plan to take care of Larry. What did you do? Is it something that can get us fired?"
Travis shrugged. If all went well, no. But at this company, he didn't count on anything going well, so the answer was pretty likely yes. "Maybe."
Kenny shook his head, laughing. "My ex is going to hate me for saying this, but it's about time. I'm sick and tired of this job. Give me a good kick in the ass and I'm outta here."
Travis grinned and turned to Kenny. "No one's going to accuse you of being ambitious."
"Hell, no. That's what gets you into trouble. Working too late, drinking too little. And you know where that leads, don't you?"
Travis's gaze had returned to the image on the screen. Meredith had completely won the crowd of reporters over, he could see. Most of them held a cup of milk and several were starting on their second helping of cookies. The tone of the interview had shifted into something pleasant and soft, as if they were on a chatty talk show, not the morning Boston newscast.
"What?" Travis asked, when Kenny repeated his question.
"No sex." He pronounced the words like a judge handing down a death penalty.
Travis glanced again at Meredith, her pretty pink mouth and wide blue eyes the only things he could see through the folds of the cow costume. Still, she looked cute as hell and, dressed like that, she could be his own personal Halloween fantasy. "That's not necessarily a bad thing, you know."
"Oh hell. Now you really have gone crazy." Kenny swiped a Styrofoam cup off the counter and poured himself some coffee. "What's it been, ten days? And here you are, saying no sex is a good thing? I think you need a shrink."
"Nope. What I need is her." Travis pointed at the screen.
Kenny raised his cup toward Meredith's image.
"She's not going to want a guy without a job. If there's one thing women want, it's a working man."
"Oh, she won't mind. Not once she sees what got me fired."
Kenny poured a second cup and pulled out a chair for himself, then gestured toward another one for Travis.
Travis didn't move until Meredith's image was replaced by one of the talking anchorheads, who went on to the weather forecast. High in the low fifties, partly cloudy.
But in Travis's heart, things had taken a decidedly sunny turn.
"All right, tell me what you did," Kenny said, sliding the second cup over to Travis. "I want to at least get in one good chuckle before I'm standing in the unemployment line."
"I—" Travis cut himself off, glancing again at the television. An ad for a soap opera filled the screen, nowhere near as exciting as the images he'd just been seeing.
A sense of urgency filled him. He'd done something to help Meredith, but had it been enough?
And besides, what the hell was he doing here, waiting for Larry to come in and blow a gasket, when he could be there—with her? Duh, as his teenage cousins would say. He was in the wrong place. He'd been in the wrong place for days.
"Sorry, Kenny. No can do." He got to his feet and pushed the chair back in against the table. "I have to go help a cow."
Travis's Apologies-Come-in-Little-Packages Seafood Puff Pastries
1 8-ounce package cocktail shrimp
8 ounces crabmeat
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons each chopped parsley, dill and basil
2 tablespoons celery, minced
2 tablespoons onion, minced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 package puff pastry
You need something that's going to impress her, yet not take a lot of time or Emeril's skills to create. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll out the puff pastry to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 8 squares.
Mix all the other ingredients together. Fill each of the puff pastry squares with the seafood mixture, then twist the tops together to make a little package. (Hey, what'd you expect? Something that looked like a swan?) Put them on a cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Serve it fast, before she has time to think about all the reasons why dating you might not be such a good idea afte
r all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"Can a thirsty man have a drink?"
Meredith turned at the sound of the familiar voice. There was Travis, standing on the other side of the small table she and her mother had set up, wearing a white shirt and red tie and looking sexier than any man had a right to. She started to smile, then remembered her resolve to hate him for the rest of her natural life and kept her features stony. "Certainly."
She reached for a paper cup of milk, wishing Momma would tend to Travis instead. But her mother was busy chatting with a reporter from one of the local weekly papers, giving him her recipe for a vinegar and dishsoap all-purpose cleanser. The young man, who didn't look like he'd been out of college for more than a day, diligently took notes, as if he was girding up for major mildew battle.
"Here you are," Meredith said, handing Travis the milk. Then she turned to Bessie, giving the old Holstein a rub on her silky ears. The media crowd had petered out for the time being, leaving her and Travis alone. If she didn't count the cow.
"What? No cookies?" he said. "Everyone knows you can't have milk without cookies."
"Yeah, especially the fake kind." Her voice held a cutting edge to it that was unlike her and for a second, she wanted to take the words back.
"I deserved that." Travis took a step forward, the paper cup seeming so small in his large, strong hands. "But I also deserve a chance to make this up to you."
She let out a sigh. "Why can't you just leave me alone? You and that company you work for have ruined everything. All I can do now is try to repair the damage."
He arched a brow and grinned. "And you're going to do that with a... cow?"
Despite herself, she laughed. "Hey, it's a good idea."
Admiration shimmered in his eyes. "It is. I only wish I'd thought of it."
"Hey, if you want to trade places..." she said, plucking at the cow costume and gesturing toward him. For a second, the tension between them evaporated and Meredith could believe it was just like it used to be when they'd first gone out. Sweet Easy, with that ever-present hum of sexual electricity running between them.
