Not Katherine. Not Katie.
Kate.
The woman who was getting to him regardless of the fact that it was all wrong, and it was about as mismatched as it could get, and it was the kind of deal that could end up with good old Bugs Doyle getting left in the proverbial dirt.
But he was nothing if not a realist, and there was something going on here. He felt it every time he looked into her eyes, every time he got within ten feet of her. He had felt it when they danced. He could still feel it. He was willing to admit that when it came to women, he had had more than one occasion of being terminally dense—but this wasn’t one of them. He was not wrong about it. Which brought him back to his original question.
Now
what?
Mrs. Bee seemed to be her usual chipper self today. She’d gone someplace several times in Thelma and Louise, and she’d even had the energy to get after him for ignoring her orders about leaving the dirty dishes. Even so, he made a point of hanging around downstairs in the Bee Library. Mrs. Bee came through a time or two—she even stopped to chat, but she made no mention of Meehan. He had no idea what kind of work schedule Meehan was on now, but it was clear to him that he was just going to have to
“hunt the hill,” and that’s all there was to it.
“Mrs. Bee, have you seen Meehan today?” he asked when she was dusting the little china dogs on the mantel.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Bee said without missing a dog.
But that was all she said.
“You’ve…known her a long time, I guess.”
“A long time,” she agreed, still dusting. “That was her parents’ house next door. Mr. Bee and I were living here when the family moved in. There were four girls. Let’s see now. Katie and Arley—Arley’s the youngest. And Gwen—she’s older than they are. And Grace—she’s the oldest. Katie is the one who looks after everybody. Grace is the bossy one. Gwen is the timid one. Arley is the handful.”
“Which one belongs to Scottie?”
“Arley.”
Figures, Doyle thought, his earlier, “poor old Scottie” opinion now reaffirmed.
“What about Meehan’s ex-husband?” he asked, getting to the point of the conversation. “Did you know him?”
“Oh, my, no,” Mrs. Bee said. “I don’t think I would have wanted to. Katie doesn’t talk about him to anyone, and I would never ask.”
Unlike some people he could name.
A car horn honked in the driveway.
“That’s Lula Mae,” Mrs. Bee said. “I’ll be at the church until I don’t know when. If you leave, will you lock the house, Calvin?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Bee.”
“And,
Calvin?”
“Yeah, Mrs. Bee?”
He waited for her to say something—she obviously wanted to—but she sighed instead.
“You’re a good boy, Calvin,” she said, hurrying away.
He stood for a moment, thinking.
Meehan didn’t talk about the ex-husband to anyone—but she’d told him. Of course, he’d asked about it, but she didn’t have to oblige. And she’d danced with him. She might have even done more if the sister—Arley—hadn’t crashed the party. There had to be a next logical step to take here—only he had no idea what it was.
He decided to go outside to see if Meehan was right, if nothing else. Maybe he was getting around better.
Mrs. Bee hadn’t put Thelma and Louise back into the shed after her final run. The vintage car sat in the driveway, mud-spattered from last night’s rain. He stood on the porch for a moment, then went back inside and into the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to locate Mrs. Bee’s all-purpose enamel bucket and some clean rags in the pantry. The least he could do was spiff up her car a little. It would give him something to do to pass the time—right where he could see Meehan if she came back.
It took him a while to get the garden hose out of the tomato patch and dragged to the car, but he managed eventually. The car was mostly in the shade, which was a good thing. It was hot outside. Somebody close by was playing the radio—a country-western station, which suited him just fine.
He worked slowly and methodically at rinsing the mud off the fenders, trying to keep his mind on the job and not on anything else, singing along with the radio whenever anything caught his fancy. At one point he took off his T-shirt—and heard a small gasp.
He looked around. Three women stood at the edge of Meehan’s backyard—
huddled together—staring. He had the sudden sense that the only thing missing was the cauldron. He’d never seen such an array of facial expressions—one annoyed, one worried and one very appreciative of his buff bare chest.
He didn’t see any cars in the drive—he could only assume that they had either arrived by broom or they had parked on the street. And, big sunglasses or not, he recognized one of them—the handful, Arley.
The women immediately got busy looking busy. He nodded in their direction, but he didn’t say anything, and neither did they. He went back to washing Mrs. Bee’s car.
Apparently, women, no matter what age they were, had no idea how well a man could hear—when he wanted to.
“Is that him?” one of them whispered.
“Yes,”
someone—Arley—answered.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve seen him more than once, you know.”
“How old do you think he is?”
“Well, how should I know? I didn’t ask him—and I sure didn’t ask Kate.”
“What happened to him?”
“Helicopter
crash,
she said.”
“Are you sure he and Kate were—”
“I’m
sure!”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” another voice said. “This is none of our business. We should not be doing this—”
“Excuse me!” the first voice called loudly, and he looked around.
“Hi,” she said. “You’re Kate’s friend, right?” she asked, but she didn’t give him a chance to answer. “She’s having a little…get-together—steaks on the grill kind of thing—this evening. Can you come?”
Slick, he thought. He knew damn well she was making it up as she went along, but she got the invitation out and never once did she say it was Meehan’s idea. He strongly suspected that Meehan didn’t have a clue that she was entertaining this evening.
“Sure,” he said, anyway. “What time?” He wanted to go so he could see what she was going to do to them, if nothing else.
“Six o’clock. Sharp,” the sister who had to be Grace, the bossy one, said.
“Okay,” he said. “Want me to bring anything?”
“Just
yourself.”
“I can handle that,” he said, and she forced a smile. He went back to washing the car.
“Kate is going to kill you, you know that,” he heard the sister who must be timid Gwen say.
“Will you stop worrying? If she won’t tell us what’s going on, it falls on us to find out the best way we can.”
“Yes, well, I hope you like the color green—because she’s going to turn all three of us into frogs.”
Doyle laughed softly to himself. This was going to be so good. Or bad. Clearly, the sisters thought they had cause for alarm where he and Meehan were concerned, and he couldn’t help but feel encouraged. Maybe it was more than just Arley seeing them not dancing. Maybe Meehan had said something—protested too much.
He kept working on Mrs. Bee’s car, feeling the eyes on him from the row of windows at the back of Meehan’s house. He was good at that—feeling eyes—thanks to all his peacekeeping deployments to places that were anything but peaceful. Coyote Jane was probably looking out the window, too.
He was tired when he finished, from the unaccustomed exertion and from the lack of sleep. He went inside and showered, then opted for a short nap under the heated throw before he went to the impromptu get-together next door. He was looki
ng forward to seeing Meehan—if she didn’t find out what her sisters had planned and make a run for it.
He woke up to a soft knock on the door. He had been sleeping so soundly it took him a moment to orient himself.
“In,” he said when the knock sounded again. He had been reasonably comfortable with the throw over his legs, and he was in no hurry to make things hurt. He expected to see Mrs. Bee, but Meehan stepped through the doorway.
“I understand I’ve been stood up,” she said.
With considerable effort he sat on the side of the bed. “Stood up?”
“The steaks are on the grill and no Doyle. I’m willing to accept that you might stand me up, but you wouldn’t miss a steak—so I figured I’d come and see—especially after I heard you’d been washing cars. So. How bad are your legs hurting?”
“Not bad,” he said.
“You are such a liar,” she said in exasperation, and he couldn’t keep from smiling.
“Okay. Bad. For a while. They’re pretty good at the moment, though.”
“So are you up for the inquisition?”
“Are
you?”
“No—I feel like an idiot. I’m too old for this—but I guess I need your help. If you can come over and make an appearance—just long enough to show them there is absolutely nothing going on between you and me, I’d appreciate it. You’ll get a steak out of it, and I’ll get some peace and quiet. Okay?”
He was looking at her, thinking how pretty she looked and about taking the pins out of her hair and letting it fall down. There was no denying it. Her pants were by no means as safe as he’d led her to believe.
“Doyle?” she prompted.
“Lead the way,” he said. “But not too fast.”
“You understand the plan,” she said as he unplugged the throw and got up from the bed.
“Affirmative. There is absolutely nothing between us.”
“And you’ll convince my sisters.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“Just be…normal. You know…indifferent.”
Of all the things he might have been in her presence lately, “indifferent” wasn’t one of them, but he didn’t say so.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just stayed here? And they think I really did stand you up?”
“No,” she said pointedly. “Your not showing up would just put blood in the water. My sisters travel in a pack, and they think I’m getting into something with the potential for a lot of trouble and heartache. Believe me, they never give up.”
“Can’t you just rip them a new one?”
“That’s Plan B—I promised our mother I’d do what I could to keep the peace.”
“Got your work cut out for you, huh?” he said.
She ignored his remark. “Plan A is simply letting them see us together. Then they can see for themselves that I’m not trying to hide anything, and they’ll go run somebody else’s life.”
“Works for me,” he said.
“Good.”
“I get the steak either way, though,” he said, and she grinned.
“Deal,”
she
said.
“Should I apologize?” she asked as they crossed the yard.
“For
what?”
“For whatever my sisters said to you. I realize they can be less than subtle.”
“Nobody said anything worth an apology,” he said, resting for a moment before he tried walking again.
She gave a sharp sigh. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You’re one of my patients, and I’m dragging you over here when you should be resting.”
“I’m not a patient, I’m a friend. And I can rest anywhere. So do they have husbands—the sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Where
are
they?”
“Hiding if they know what’s good for them.”
He got a whiff of the steaks on the charcoal grill. “Man, that smells good.”
Good enough to entice him into walking again.
“You look nice,” he said as he hobbled along. “What?” he added, because of her extremely incredulous look.
“You can’t say things like that!” she whispered. “I told you, they think something is going on!”
“Well, did they hear me? No. I don’t think it would matter if they did.”
“And I don’t think you understand this situation.”
“Sure I do. What’s not to understand? Your sisters travel in a pack, and they think you’re doing the dirty-dirty with me. You don’t want them to, and they’re not about to butt out, so you’re going to implement Plan A—when you’d really rather lock and load. Unfortunately, your mama put it on your shoulders to keep the peace and you don’t feel like you can tell them where to park it no matter how bad you want to, so you’re stuck with making nice. My personal opinion is that what you need here is a good slash-andburn policy, so that you can put an end to this kind of meddling once and for all—but, what do I know? I couldn’t handle my female relatives, either. This is your operation all the way, and I got it. No problem.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
“I got it, I got it,” he assured her.
She sighed again. Clearly, she really was bothered about all this.
All three sisters were on the alert and waiting for him to reach the patio.
“You’ve met my sisters,” Meehan said when they were close enough, holding out a hand in their direction.
“Not exactly,” he answered truthfully.
“Well, this is Grace,” she said, indicating the tall one he had already guessed was the bossy one. “This is Gwen and Arley. And Scottie you know.”
He hadn’t realized the kid was on the premises. “Hey, buddy. How’s it going?
You got any more rocks?”
To his surprise the boy ran to him, nearly bowling him over with an enthusiastic hug to the knees.
“This is Bugs,” Scottie told his aunts. “He doesn’t wait for the plane to land—
come on, come on, Bugs!” he said, pulling Doyle by his free hand. “Come and see!”
Doyle let himself be taken into the house to the same couch he’d spent the night on, and he immediately made a mental note not to say anything about that.
In any event, it seemed as good a place as any for him to be “indifferent.” The couch was in the traffic pattern from the patio to the kitchen. The sisters walked back and forth, all three of them keeping their sights on him as if they thought he might make off with the silverware. He was not in what he would call a target-rich environment. There was only one. Him.
Scottie didn’t have his rocks with him this time; he had books. A lot of books. Doyle ended up sitting with a cat under one arm and a boy under the other, and the entire stack of books on his lap. Meehan brought him a footstool, and Grace brought him a glass of iced tea. Arley frowned—and Gwen cut her finger on something lethal in the kitchen.
He read. And read. By the third book, two-thirds of the couch potatoes were fast asleep.
“I’ll take those,” Meehan said, lifting the books off his knees. “And that,” she said of Scottie.
“He’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“I’ll just move him to the other end so he can stretch out. The steaks are almost ready.”
“Great,” he said, taking advantage of the opportunity to watch her while she put Scottie into a more restful position on the couch. The boy didn’t wake.
“Big day, I guess,” Doyle said, nodding in Scottie’s direction.
“Are you all right?” Meehan asked.
“Who me? I’m fine. Why?”
“I thought maybe you had a big day, too.”
“I washed a car. Period.”
“I didn’t know you were going to have to baby-sit again.”
He looked into her eyes, just to see if she’d let him. She did—briefly.
“He’s not any trouble.”
“I wish his f
ather felt that way,” she said.
“So where is his father?” he asked. Scottie wasn’t the first little kid he’d seen starved for male attention.
“With his new girlfriend.”
“We have a problem, Kate,” Grace called from the patio.
“There’s my cue,” she said wearily. “It can’t be Gwen—she’s run out of fingers.”
“Are you getting the third degree out there?” he asked.
“You bet,” she assured him. She walked off to see what Grace wanted, and Arley almost immediately took her place. She sat down on the coffee table and looked at him a long time before she said anything. He had thought the first time he saw her that she looked like a younger version of Meehan. He still did. There was something missing in the eyes, though. A lot of something missing.
The Older Woman Page 11
