by Rae Davies
“That must be that Barnes boy Dwayne invited. Can’t think of anybody else who’d bother to knock. Patsalee, go let him in,” her mother ordered.
Wondering where Dwayne was, Patsy peered out the front window. Will Barnes stood facing the door, holding a bouquet of pink roses. Practically attached to his leg was a long-haired dog. Guess he managed to beg a break from Mrs. Jensen. Patsy hadn’t asked Dwayne if Will was coming or not. Didn’t want Dwayne crowing about her setting her sights for Daisy Creek’s newest resident.
But there he was, as big and tempting as a case of Ding Dongs fresh from the freezer. And he was carrying flowers. Patsy gripped the curtains in her hands. She was strong. She could resist.
Besides, she was tired of the tug and push game. She’d tried to play nice at the B & B, but he’d walked away in a snit. And Patsy hadn’t forgotten Ruthann’s report that he’d been sharing casseroles with Jessica. Patsy was not going to be suckered in by good looks and fancy flowers. Enough was enough.
“What you doing, sis? Don’t leave the boy out in the cold. Let him in,” Granny bellowed.
Patsy didn’t think there was much risk Will would suffer frostbite in the eighty-degree heat, but she whipped open the door anyway.
o0o
Will shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. He wasn’t sure how to approach Patsy. Something had happened Thursday at the Bag and Basket. He wasn’t sure what, but there was a definite shift. A shift toward something that could make him half of a couple again instead of all of a whole. A shift he wasn’t ready for.
Escaping Cindy’s plotting had been hard enough, and if he was being honest, he never really cared about her. She was just another example of following the track his family laid for him. Patsy was about as far off that track as you could get, but something warned him walking away from her wouldn’t be easy. This was his chance to do things his way. Dating meant compromise and bending to accommodate the other person. Will had spent most of his life contorting to please someone else. He wasn’t willing to jump back into that pattern again so soon.
He concentrated on that thought as the door swung open. Patsy stood in the doorway, an unconvincing smile on her lips. Denim shorts revealed a length of toned leg, and ribbons at the neck of her peasant blouse hung open, exposing the indentation at the base of her throat where a faint blue vein pulsed with each heartbeat. Will felt his own heart jump in response.
As he moved to step forward, a small, black body hurtled toward him.
“Pugnacious! What are you doing? Bad girl.” Patsy bent down and grabbed for the small dog’s collar. The pug slipped past her onto the front porch and bounced off Ralph, who sat pressed against Will’s leg.
As Pugnacious rebounded onto her behind, Patsy gave Ralph an uneasy glance and scooped up her pet.
“Don’t worry. Ralph won’t hurt her,” Will said. From the way the smaller animal bowled out the door, it was much more likely she’d do damage to Ralph.
“I’m sorry about Pugnacious too. I don’t know what came over her. She’s usually so good-natured and easygoing.”
“Lazy and thick-skulled’s more like it,” a man’s voice called from inside the house. Patsy’s father, Will guessed.
Patsy backed out of the doorway, still holding the wriggling pug in her arms.
“Put her down before she falls down. The boy said his dog wouldn’t hurt her none.” An elderly woman had come around the back hall and now spoke over Patsy’s shoulder. “Well, well, he’s a looker for a foreigner, isn’t he?”
Foreigner? Should he be insulted? Will strived to look polite.
“Granny,” Patsy muttered as her smile stiffened more.
“Anybody not born in Daisy Creek County is a foreigner to Granny,” she explained, then bent down and released her dog, who strutted up to his canine companion.
Ralph spared a short glance at the pug before dismissing her with a bored look down his broad nose.
Granny continued to eye Will like she was sizing him for a new suit, while Patsy introduced him to her parents. Her mother blushed and cooed when he handed her the flowers.
“I just love roses.”
“I’ve never met a woman who didn’t,” Will replied.
“Well, not my Patsy. She’s always loved daisies.”
A frown creased Patsy’s brow. “When I was five.” Her tone held all the exasperation of a teenager being forced to mingle with annoying adults.
Her grandmother snorted and said, “Don’t let her fool you like she’s trying to fool herself. She’s a daisy gal through and through.”
Patsy crossed her arms over her chest but refrained from answering.
Thinking of the fields of daisies that grew wild around Daisy Creek and the childhood days he’d spent lost in their midst, Will replied, “I’ve always loved them too.”
A mixture of surprise and something warmer lightened Patsy’s face. Will shook off the discomforting feeling they had just shared a moment. He carefully kept his face blank while Patsy completed the introductions.
“You planning on staying in Daisy Creek, son?” Her grandmother looked him in the eye.
She was a direct one. He wouldn’t be surprised if she asked him to open his mouth so she could check his teeth, or maybe his checkbook so she could see his balance. Feeling like a double-dealing bookkeeper during an audit, he replied, “Yes, I bought the Barnett place. I’ve already started fixing it up.”
“Hmm.” Hazel eyes reminiscent of Patsy’s green ones gave him another look up and down.
There had to be some escape. “Where’s Dwayne?” he asked.
“He must not have heard you pull up. I’ll go get him.” Before he could stop her, Patsy scurried from the room, leaving Will behind to fend off her family.
o0o
With a sigh of relief, Patsy slid the back door shut in the middle of her father’s tribute to oak woodwork. Will looked miserable, and he’d only seen half the show. Just wait till her Aunt Tilde made an appearance, then he’d get the full performance. Especially when Tilde learned he’d bought the Barnett place. Her antique-loving, flea-market maven of an aunt would make Randy’s momma look as pushy as a Baptist in a beer line. Yeah, Mr. I-can-do-it-myself was about to meet his Armageddon.
Patsy briefly wondered if he was an everything-brand-spanking-new-and-modern kind of man or a they-don’t-make-things-like-they-used-to kind. Things would go easier on him if he were the latter. Either way, Patsy’d bet her PC Will was going to be living in a house full of horsehair chairs and claw-footed tables in the very near future.
‘Course, Patsy had problems of her own with her family. Granny’d been eyeing Will like he was a prize hog and she had a hankering for ham. And that talk about him staying. Granny could plot all she wanted. Will might be staying, but Patsy wasn’t. She was just grateful Granny hadn’t witnessed The Kiss, as Patsy thought of it.
Despite her earlier resolve, seeing Will standing on her parents’ doorstep holding those roses, surrounded by their sweet smell, had almost sent her leaping into his arms. Daisy gal, ha, she could be converted. If Pugnacious hadn’t bounded out of nowhere, Patsy’d probably be dangling from his neck right now.
It was going to be a long night. Patsy picked up a stick and flung it into the woods. She had to rein in Granny before she did something embarrassing, like tying up little net bags of rice at the dinner table, or bonking Will with a frying pan and tossing him and Patsy in a sack.
Being stuffed in a sack with Will. That didn’t sound so bad. Dark, warm, cozy. Patsy’s pulse quickened at the thought. Forced to spoon, or maybe she’d lay with her face pressed against his chest. That would be nice. She’d tip her head up…
Snap out of it. Patsy slapped herself in the forehead. Will Barnes was nothing but heartache, with a capital ache.
Okay, first convince Granny she wasn’t interested in Will.
Then work on herself.
Shaking aside the thought, Patsy rounded the corner of the house. Randy stood with a bow
ed head next to Dwayne. It was unusual to see the pair engaged in what appeared to be a serious conversation. She slowed her steps as she approached.
“Do what you like, but the creek ain’t stocked like it used to be. Pickings are getting slim, and we can’t be as picky.” Dwayne rolled his knife into a piece of leather and tied the packet together with a strip of rawhide.
“I know, but you know how my mom is. She’ll have a fit if I bring...” Randy stopped when he noticed Patsy. “Hey, Patsy. What’s going on?” he stammered.
Patsy didn’t like the guilty glint in his eye or the talk of slim pickings, but Dwayne just shrugged at her.
“Will’s here,” she replied, watching both of them for a clue as to what they were discussing.
“We better go save him before the folks send him running back to town.” Dwayne slipped the leather packet under his arm and walked around the corner.
Patsy let him go. She knew to attack the weakest link. “What’s going on, Randy?”
“Nothing.” Randy rolled a rock around with the toe of his boot.
Patsy raised an eyebrow. “Sounded like something.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Patsy. Just talking, you know?” Randy shrugged one shoulder and glanced at her before turning his attention back to the rock.
Patsy watched him for a moment, but decided not to pursue it. She’d get it out of Dwayne somehow. Right now, she needed to get back and watch Granny. She turned to follow her brother.
“Patsy,” Randy called.
She turned back. The link was stretching.
“There any chance of us ever getting together?”
Randy looked vulnerable, standing with both hands shoved in his jeans’ pockets, his eyes confused, but his body tense, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear her response.
Patsy hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt him, but it wasn’t in her nature to lie. “No, Randy, there isn’t.”
Randy visibly relaxed, his shoulders slumping downward. He kicked the rock across the scraggly grass into the woods and strode past her, a slight spring in his step. “That’s okay. I just needed to know. Nothing personal, right? It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“That’s right. It just wasn’t meant to be,” Patsy mumbled. That wasn’t the snap she’d been expecting. She was pretty sure she’d just been insulted.
Dwayne and Randy were standing near the now-blazing grill when Patsy returned to the patio. Will was perched on the picnic table. His dog lay at his feet. Pugnacious was sniffing Ralph’s behind in what was probably a very acceptable manner in dogdom, but still made Patsy flush.
“Pugnacious, leave him alone,” she said.
“Don’t be yelling at her. She’s just being friendly.” Granny waddled out the patio door, a plate of pork steaks in her hands. “A gal’s got to know how to let a man know she’s interested. Isn’t that right, son?”
Granny directed her question at Will, but Patsy jumped in. Time to set her straight. “She’s not interested. She’s just nosey. She should leave him alone.”
“Oh, she’s interested or she wouldn’t be sniffing around like that.” Granny nodded toward the dogs.
“Well, even if she is, he isn’t. Sniffing around isn’t going to change that,” Patsy replied.
“Sometimes dogs need a little push to know when they’re interested and when they’re not. Besides, he’s not putting up much fight.” Granny set the platter on the table next to Will and faced Patsy.
Patsy picked up a fork and speared a steak. “Not putting up much fight? He’s a guest. She should leave him alone. It’s not polite to be pushy.”
“You can’t get nothing worth getting by leaving it alone. Pugnacious knows that.” Granny turned to Dwayne. “You trying to burn the house down? We can’t put them steaks on a fire like that. They’ll burn to a crisp.”
Patsy dropped the steak back on the plate and wiped her hand on her shorts. This was impossible.
Granny grabbed Patsy’s hand and rubbed it with the tea towel she pulled from the waist of her apron. “The biggest problem most folks have is knowing what’s worth having and what’s not. You just be glad Pugnacious is smart enough to figure it out on her own. Not many in this family can lay claim to that.” She dropped Patsy’s hand and stomped back into the kitchen.
o0o
Taking a sip of the tea Patsy’s grandmother poured for him, Will had to twist his head to the side to hide a grimace. Geez, that was sweet. He could feel a cavity forming with each swallow.
After meeting Granny, Will could see where Patsy got her spunk. The woman had to be seventy-plus, carried an extra fifty pounds or so on her small frame, and, according to Dwayne, she had survived at least one stroke, but she seemed to rule the roost. Patsy’s mother flitted around the kitchen like a butterfly victimized by a shifting wind, but her grandmother chose a course and shoved forward in a direct line of attack.
There was no doubt who was the object of Granny’s current path. She looked at Will like he held the password to a lost file, an important file. The kind you spend months, if not years, trying to reconstruct after a crash.
Or maybe he should think of her in hunting terms. She was a hunter, a husband-hunter that is, and he was the prey. She looked at him with the same light in her eyes his dad had when he dragged home an elk from his annual hunting trip out west. If Granny had her way, he’d be gutted and hanging over Patsy’s fireplace before dark. He scratched Ralph behind the ear.
He’d been down that path before, been a trophy of sorts to Cindy. Of course that wasn’t all he was to her. No, he’d also been a bank account with money for a 6,000-square-foot house, private schools and a gas-guzzling SUV. A freaking fairy-tale romance, except Cindyrella’s prince had a platinum Visa instead of a missing slipper.
Was Patsy in on her grandmother’s plans? Was she looking for a prince or a bank account? Or neither? Glancing at the house, he saw Patsy watching him through the sliding glass door, her figure cast in silhouette by the kitchen light. Will picked up his glass and slammed back another jolt of sugary tea. Swallowing hard, he thought, playing prince might not be all bad, at least for a while.
Patsy’s shadow was replaced by a rounder, shorter one, followed by the door edging open.
“Well, it’s about time. Where you been?” Granny stepped through the doorway, a middle-aged woman with foot-high, coal-black hair close behind. The woman’s face was powdery white, her lips glossy red. Black eyebrows that looked like they’d been drawn on with a Flair pen arched above brown eyes.
Like an aged Betty Boop drawn by a cartoonist just off a two-week bender.
“Son, this here’s Patsy’s Aunt Tilde.” Granny motioned from the newcomer to Will.
Trying not to stare, he stood to shake her hand. A firm grip quickly confined his hand. He tried to pull back, but the Betty wannabe gave it a squeeze while placing ruby-tipped fingers over the top of their clasped hands.
“Well, he’s a looker, isn’t he?” She grinned at Granny. Turning back to Will, she said, “What you do for a living, kid, to get those muscles?”
Her personality was just as subtle as her makeup. Eager for some distance, Will tugged his hand free. “I owned an Internet business, but I sold it recently.”
“I’m telling you what, I’d have never thought punching letters on a keyboard would build up a body like that.” She squeezed his bicep.
Before he could stutter out a response, she moved on in a whirl of lime-green polyester and lemony perfume. “Randy Jensen, you just get better looking every day. When you going to settle back down with some pretty girl and get that poor mother of yours some more grandchildren? I swear all that lovin’ is more than poor little Luke can handle all by hisself.”
Happy he’d been dismissed, Will didn’t listen to Randy’s reply. His own encounter had left him drained. He fell back onto his seat. Wonder why Dwayne hasn’t pulled out any beer yet? Will was going to need it to make it through this gauntlet of a family.
“So, Tilde, what�
�d you find down in Henning this week?” Patsy’s father had joined them on the patio.
“Not diddly. I liked to talk myself blue trying to worry an oak sideboard out of Billy Joe Blackwell. I’d have had better luck getting milk from a bull. That man wouldn’t let the red-hot end of a poker go.” Tilde shook her head.
“I did hear some gossip though.” She grabbed a paper cup and poured herself some tea. “There’s a rumor going ‘round that someone’s looking to buy up land down that way. Billy Joe said he heard people were talking two to three times the going price.”
Will leaned forward. Could this be for the smelter? He hadn’t gotten back to Richard yet. Had he found someone else to bankroll his land deal?
“What do they think they’re going to do with the land?” Patsy’s father asked.
“Oh, they don’t know. It’s the usual rumors. Some say it’s a new airport, a couple claimed it was for a water park, and one old fool even swore he’d seen Merle Haggard tooling around in his limo. Said he was buying up land to start a game preserve.”
She took a sip of tea. “None of it sounds too likely to me, but I know one thing. If I owned land down there, I’d be trying to find out who was handing out the cash, and I’d dump my acres before they wised up.”
Will swirled his tea glass around, watching the liquid flow around the ice. Did others feel this way? Would people sell off their land and ask questions later? And if they did, was it his problem? He wasn’t the one ripping them off. He was going to turn Richard down. None of it was his business. So, why did he suddenly feel guilty?
There wasn’t anything he could do to save people from their own stupidity. In business, it was survival of the fittest.
Will winced. That was his father’s credo. Still, what could he do?
Chapter 7
Patsy watched from the safety of the kitchen as Granny introduced Tilde to Will. He seemed to take her unique sense of style in stride, though he did turn pale when she caressed his arm. Just as well their conversation was blocked by the glass door. Patsy was better off not knowing what her aunt said. Tilde was well known around Daisy Creek for a lot of things, but tact and diplomacy weren’t among them.
