“Yep. If there’s any particular theme or size you’re looking for I can help point them out to you.”
“Ok. Is it alright if I just look through them myself?”
“Sure.” Becky Sue watched as the woman started looking through the quilt, occasionally fingering one and leaning over to whisper to her husband. Price consideration was usually the topic of discussion. She thought she charged a fair price for her quilts, but sometimes cheap tourists would try to barter with her. After explaining to them the cost of fabric and the time it took to make one, they would either give in and buy it at set price, or they’d leave empty handed.
The two little girls, aged somewhere between five and seven, began to play hide and seek in the panels of the quilts hanging near the floor. The dad soon got on to them and held one by each hand. They continued their shenanigans playing peek-a-boo around his legs.
Becky Sue smiled. She didn’t mind kids most the time. It was usually the older ones that would come in, ice cream cone in hand, and touch everything as the ice cream slowly dripped onto the quilts that would piss her off. A little hide and seek never hurt anything.
After a few minutes she could see the dad getting as anxious as the kids to leave. The mom finally selected two twin size princess quilts and paid out.
The next few hours dragged by with only a shadow passing by the window once or twice. Becky Sue was just tightening the hoop after moving it again, when a familiar voice reached her ears.
“Afternoon Becky Sue.”
She knew the voice but when she looked up she saw a stranger.
Chapter 3
Ray was no longer the gangly youth she’d known. He was compact, solid, muscled up. His brown hair was cut military style. His blue eyes were more piercing than ever.
“What’re you doing here?”
The words sounded harsher to her ears than she meant them, but it was better to get straight to the point rather than beat around the bush or pretend to take an interest in each other’s lives.
“What kind of greeting is that for the town’s most eligible bachelor? Especially coming from the town’s most eligible spinster.” He walked up to the small counter and leaned over, grinning from ear to ear, to see what she was doing as he spoke.
Becky Sue looked down at her homemade clothes. Most eligible spinster my ass. In her home made clothes she looked more like a hybrid of something off of “The Little House on the Prairie” and a hippie, not an eligible bachelorette. But again, the homemade clothing helped with the tourist appeal. Once upon a time she’d have blushed and pretended to be flattered, but not now. Not with Ray.
“Most eligible bachelor, really?” The screw spinning in her hand made her look down at her hoop. She’d just tightened it too much and knocked the screw loose. Great, just what she needed, a near useless hoop. At least she had a backup.
“You’re sarcasm is as sweet as ever. But yes, Mom has already had four calls checking my marital status, two of which had marriage proposals included for their daughters. You should hold off on that eye roll until you hear what I have to say.”
She looked up and couldn’t help but grin back. She’d been caught. Her friend Ray was home. Letting go of the hoop she moved around to the side of the counter to get a better look at him. He was more mouth watering delicious than Lydia’s fudge. “Alright, I give in. It’s good to see you again.”
He opened his arms and stepped up to her. She wasn’t really the hugging type, but she’d make an exception this once. He squeezed her tight against him. Reflexes and a small flowing fountain of relief at seeing him again demanded she squeeze back just as hard. The muscles across his chest were definitely new. And he smelled good too, like spices and exotic places. Things she only read about in books.
What was the appropriate time length for a hug? Becky Sue didn’t know. All she knew was Ray felt good in her arms. Like home. It was as if he’d never left, and the barn incident had never happened. It made her feel warm and fuzzy, maybe a little too warm. Her body felt as if a heat lamp had been turned on, soaking up his body heat and possibly radiating some of her own. She felt his breath on her neck. Goosebumps raced down her arms, making the hairs stand on end. She shrugged off her reaction to the fact that she hadn’t gotten any in a while.
This was the only other human being on earth who really and truly understood her, even after the long passage of time apart, she knew with a certainty she couldn’t explain, that nothing had changed between them.
A sound in the door way broke up their embrace. She glanced over just in time to Cindy’s look of shock before she turned and disappeared from the threshold.
“Well, looks like you won’t have to worry about your eligible bachelor status for long. By dinner tonight I’m sure the whole town will have us married.”
“Oh, I’m glad you mentioned that.” He snapped his fingers like he’d just remembered something important.
“What? Marriage?”
“No, dinner. Mom said she hadn’t seen much of you in a while and I should invite you over for dinner tonight.”
“You know she’s just as bad of a matchmaker as everybody else in this town, right?”
“Yeah, but I figured it’d be nice to have a chance to catch up. It’s been a few years. After dinner I’ll grab us a jug of Dad’s moonshine and we can go hang out at the barn and tell tales.”
“Now don’t go calling it moonshine. We call it Thunderhead tonic now.” She teasingly scolded. A confused look passed briefly over his face. They’d branded the moonshine for sale as a local tonic the year she’d graduated high school. “But you know, that doesn’t sound like a half bad idea.”
“Good. I’ll see you about 6:30p.m. then?”
“You betcha.”
He reached out and gave her a quick hug and walked out. His ass was so round and so perfect she just wanted to reach out and grab it. Had it always been that bubbly or had it come with the rest of his muscled physique? She caught herself drooling as he walked past the window, looked in at her, and winked.
Ray had turned into Adonis reincarnate. Becky Sue knew better than to let his new look sway her. It was a bad idea. A really bad idea. It would result in nothing but heartache if she gave in. But damn if he wasn’t tempting.
No sooner than Ray had left and Becky Sue had returned to her quilt than Cindy came through the door.
“Becky Sue you better scoop that man up before one of these other women around here does. Honey, he looks good.”
“I’m telling you, brother. We grew up really close.”
Cindy put a hand to her voluptuous waist and gave Becky Sue a look that said she wasn’t buying it. “And that embrace I just saw was sisterly too, huh?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“He was nuzzling your neck, child! Don’t you know anything? When a man that looks like that nuzzles your neck you better hang on and not let go.”
Becky Sue gave an exasperated sigh. There was going to be no winning this argument. “He was not nuzzling my neck.” Was he? Involuntarily she rubbed the chill on her arms.
“Are you cold?” Cindy’s look was calculative and assessing.
“A little. I was buried under that quilt working and got all toasty warm, now that I’ve been out for a few minutes I got chilled.” It was the best lie she could come up with.
At precisely 5 o’clock Becky Sue locked up her shop with a skip in her step. On most days she walked the half a mile to her house, but today she felt like running. She didn’t. It would look too suspicious and the rumor mills that were already at work would roll into overdrive.
The only time she didn’t walk to work was when it was raining, or she needed to carry more than a basket full of things to the shop. Technically she qualified as living in town, but her nearest neighbor was almost a quarter of a mile away. Her little place sat on about four acres, most of which was dedicated to her garden. Her house was quaint and decorated in homespun. Bits of thread clung to most the furniture and collected on everything al
most as bad as dust. This was her sanctuary and creative cave.
“Sherlock, I’m home,” she called out to her cat, a grey striped and slightly overweight ball of fur. Sherlock was perched on the back of the couch and halfway opened one eye, clearly unimpressed at her return.
She plopped down on the couch near him. “Fine if you don’t want to wake up, I won’t tell you what happened today.” Both cat eyes opened. He yawned and stretched. “I thought that might change your attitude.” Reaching up she scratched the back of his head while she talked. He relocated to her shoulder and began to purr.
Half an hour later she finally went and changed into jeans and long sleeve shirt. She grabbed a jacket and the keys to her little pickup truck on her way out the door.
Ray’s parents, Mary Beth and Chester, lived back in the mountains. It was familiar stomping ground for Becky Sue, considering she grew up as their neighbor. Neighbor being a loose phrase as country folk usually couldn’t see their neighbors through the trees.
The house itself was not a large affair, but for the area was it upper middle class. A porch large enough for a couple of rocking chairs covered the front. Ray sat in one idly rocking when she pulled into the yard and parked. Three beagles came racing around the side of the house, dancing, waggling their tails, and yipping at her door unwilling to let her out until she tossed them their treat she always brought when she delivered watermelons.
Ray stood and called the dogs. “Lucky, Duke, Daisy, come here.” Still munching their treats, they obediently sauntered over to Ray where he reached down to pet each one. “I keep telling Dad he needs to lock these hoodlums up when people come over.”
Becky Sue stepped from her truck. “No need. They’re not gonna hurt anybody, unless you count getting licked to death.” The dogs returned sniffing at her pant legs and hand. “Sorry guys, no more treats.” They sniffed for another minute, finally decided she was telling the truth, and wondered off.
“Not everybody has a way with animals like you do.”
“What’s there to know? Feed them, treat them fairly, give them a little attention. It’s amazing how little can go so far.”
“If only there were more people in the world like you, Becky Sue.”
“Yeah, you’ve been in the ‘big city’ too long. You’ve forgotten how folks are out here.”
“Even folks out here can be bad.” The tone of his voice caught her attention and she looked harder at him trying to read the things he wasn’t saying. She walked up to the porch where he waited. He motioned for her to sit in the adjacent chair from him.
“Speak for yourself. Didn’t I hear something about you going to jail a time or two after you left?” A look passed over his face she couldn’t read. Why was he being so mysterious? This was one of the few things that had changed, she could no longer read most his thoughts.
“I’ll tell you about it after dinner.”
“I thought I heard somebody pull up. The dogs were going crazy. How are you Becky Sue?” Chester came out the door, leaving it half open, and shook her hand.
Chester was a postcard hillbilly. At 5’6” he was wiry, slightly shaggy grey hair, and round grey beard, piercing blue eyes like his son, and a firm handshake that revealed the strength of a man who lived mostly off the land. He was dressed in his customary overalls and plaid shirt. A lump in his thin cheek gave evidence of the wad of tobacco in his mouth.
“I’m good. How’s the moonshine business?”
“Can’t complain. I think my profits have doubled since I started making that watermelon hootch from your melons.” He tucked his thumbs in the bib of his overalls. “By the way, you planning on planting watermelons again this year?”
“Oh, I might be persuaded. You gonna want your usual order?”
“Yep. I was thinking of increasing it, if you get enough. Them female tourists love the wine. As a matter of fact, the other day, I thought I was gonna get myself in a bind. They found one of them female tourists dead along side the crick. She had one of my Thunderhead tonic bottles on her. Turns out she overdosed on some high class drug instead. That’s the only problem with them tourists. You never know what’s gonna come floating along through this here town.”
“Chester stop your bellyaching and ask that girl to come inside. I’m about to lay out dinner,” Mary Beth called.
“Well, ya’ll heard the boss. Looks like it’s time to get our eats on.” Chester turned and walked in. Ray looked over at Becky Sue and shook his head in a gesture that she took to mean, some things never change.
Becky Sue couldn’t remember a time when the inside of this house didn’t smell like bacon grease and raw grain alcohol. Today was no exception. The furnishing hadn’t changed in the last ten years or so since she’d been there. The odd peach colored fake leather couch was draped with a burgundy colored afghan that she suspected was hiding the peeling parts of it. The burgundy colored recliner next to it listed to one side like a ship sinking at sea. The wooden coffee table was littered with newspapers and an empty glass jug that was guaranteed to have had some of Chester’s homemade brew in it recently. The wood was a patchwork of discolored rings and gouges. A box TV sat across the room. It was probably the first TV the Burnett’s had ever owned after they married thirty years ago.
The table was the same too. Only the sixth chair had been replaced with a mismatched one to the original set. A plate of fried chicken sat in the middle of the table on a crocheted hot pad accompanied by fried potatoes and beans.
They each took a place at the table, filled their plates, and spread local gossip.
After they sat and chatted for what seemed an appropriate time period after their dinner, Mary Beth got up and started to clear up the food and dishes.
“Becky Sue, would you be up for a walk?” Ray asked.
“That’s a good idea. I’m just not sure I’m capable.” She rubbed her full stomach. “I’m as stuffed as a dog tick that just fell off.” She pushed back her chair anyway.
Ray stood and reached out a hand to help her up. “Come on you ol’ tick, come hop on this dogs back, we’ll go for ride.”
She took his hand and allowed him to help her out of the chair. The warm rush she’d felt before at his touch flooded her veins. She dropped his hand like it was a hot potato.
“Don’t forget this kids. It’ll aid the digestion.” Chester produced a jug full of a light pink liquid.
“Is it wine or that hundred forty proof rot gut you make?” Becky Sue asked as Ray reached out and took the jug from his dad.
“It’s the wine. I know you gotta drive home tonight and don’t want you to go getting all snockered.”
Becky Sue followed Ray out the back door. When they were out of hearing distance from the house she said, “you know I’m doing a smell check on that before I start sipping?”
“You think Dad switched it out with his hundred forty?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. You noticed your mom didn’t even blink. She just stood there humming like it was the most natural thing in the world to send your single son and a single female out into the night with a jug of alcohol. They’re plotting against us, I’m telling you. I can hear their little brains. They’re hoping we get drunk and sleep together so maybe I’ll turn up pregnant. Then we have to get married. It keeps you from wondering off again. And they’ve made their match. It’s been done more than once.”
“Yeah, I know. So just make sure you don’t seduce me.” He winked at her then handed her the jug of watermelon wine to hold while he dug out his key and unlocked the side door.
“Somehow I just don’t see that as a possibility. I mean after all, you’ve been in the big city. I’m sure I have nothing on those city women.”
He turned and gave her a strange look before he flicked on the light switch to check the area then turned it back off. He flicked on the flashlight that was still kept near the door and led them over to a stack of square bales of hay and sat down.
Becky Sue sat down beside him. A sliver
of moonlight fell on the dirt floor a few feet away. They listened to the sounds of the night. She thought this felt an awful lot like the night Lucy had burned down the barn, only cooler. She crossed her arms against the chill, her jacket lying useless in the passenger seat of her truck.
“You look cold,” Ray said as he offered her the first sip from the jug.
“Not terribly.” She took the open jug, sniffed it. Maybe it really was just the wine. She took a swig. Sweet warmth instantly made the chills disappear. She handed it back.
The jug bubbled a couple of times as Ray imbibed. He capped it and set it between their feet.
A hundred questions swirled in her head, but she didn’t want to seem too nosy or accusatory. So she settled on silence. She knew if she was quiet long enough, Ray would talk. She didn’t mind the silence either. She was used to it. Right now it was comfortable and calm.
One of the beagles began to bay, followed by the other two. She picked up the jug and made a couple of bubbles in it. Before she could set it back down, Ray took it from her hands. She watched as he put his full, sensuous lips where hers had just been and sipped the brew. A shot of fire went straight south through her. It was the wine. It had to be. She was too old to get all giddy about objects that had touched another’s lips.
“It’s been a while. How’ve you been?” Ray asked, setting the jug down.
He was trying to talk, but, like her, didn’t seem to know where to begin.
“Good. The shop is going good. I’ve been making my garden a little bigger each year. Your dad buying my watermelons has helped. Mom has her good days and bad. What about you? I know you’ve got more to tell than me. Nothing around here changes very much.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I work. I go home. I go to the gym.”
“I didn’t want to ask, but what happened to send you back here. I mean with your job and all?”
“It’s complicated.”
“And?...Does it have to do with a woman?” She prodded.
Legend Of The Sparks Page 3
