Optical Delusions in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  “I worked for her grandfather for awhile when I was younger.”

  Natalie’s grandpa had owned a contracting business for decades. That was how Natalie got her start in the handy-woman business. She’d grown up working for him every summer out of Nemo.

  “After I quit helping him,” Ben continued, “I became a home inspector and sent work his way whenever possible. He in turn spread my name around the Hills. That was before he sold his business and moved south.”

  The grumpy old codger had fallen for the owner of some R.V. park in Arizona and left the Black Hills for good, taking Nat’s cousin, Claire, with him.

  “Are you still inspecting homes?”

  “On the side, until I build up my real-estate business. How’s working with my Uncle Ray going?”

  “Great. Just wonderful.” I’d rather spend each day skimming the solid matter off the top of sewage ponds.

  “He can be a little hard-headed at times, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, he’s a real gem.” More like a petrified turd.

  The waiter stopped by and asked to take our drink orders. When he left, I said, “So, did you purposely arrange this so-called blind date with me?”

  “No and yes. Initially, when Natalie offered to set me up with her best friend, I didn’t know it was you. She didn’t mention a name. It wasn’t until last week that she told me it was you.”

  That took away a layer of creepiness, but I was still squirmy inside about Ben. Those poems of his had red-lined my wacko stalker meter. I tried to focus on something more comfortable. “Natalie tells me you are a Star Trek ...” nut. “Fan.”

  He grinned. “I’m not a Trekkie, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just enjoy science fiction books and movies.”

  Me, too. “Weren’t you just at a comic book convention?”

  “Is that what she told you?” He laughed outright. “No, I went to a conference in Sioux City for home inspectors, and while I was there, one of the museums was featuring a science-fiction exhibit, including some old comic books and a lot of Star Trek memorabilia.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the home inspection business when we had dinner last month?”

  He shrugged. “I was trying to impress you—agent to agent. Why didn’t you tell me you pine for Captain Kirk?”

  “Oh, God.” My cheeks burned. “Natalie has a cavernous mouth.”

  His grin cooled the heat from my cheeks. “Okay, how about we stop trying to be something we’re not and start over. No pressure, just friends.”

  “Just friends?” I squinted at him, not quite trusting yet. “You mean that?”

  “Sure. And if something builds from that, so be it.”

  There’d be no building. Ben’s method of wooing women was just too weird. Apparently, I preferred Doc’s no-dating-allowed method. “Deal.”

  Thirty minutes later, we were neck deep in Tribbles and Captain Kirk imitations while waiting for our steaks when Natalie crutched and creaked up to the table.

  “Violet! Imagine finding you here.” She winked at me so broadly I’m sure the folks in the restaurant across the street witnessed it. “Oh, hi, Ben.” Her wide-eyed, wide-mouthed expression was a sad, sad attempt at faking surprise. “That’s right. Tonight was your date. I’d forgotten you were meeting here.”

  Wait a second! Tonight was her so-called date with Doc. My stomach queasy all of the sudden, I jumped out of my chair. “Ben,” I said without looking at him, “Will you excuse us for a minute?”

  Dragging Natalie and her crutches a few tables away, I whispered, “What are you doing here?”

  “You called me.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “When?”

  “About forty-five minutes ago. You didn’t say anything, but I figured that was because you couldn’t.”

  I remembered the beep when I’d sat on my purse upon arriving at the table. Crap, I must have butt-dialed her number. “That was an accident. Besides, you were supposed to call me back, not show up.”

  “Yeah, well, I came up with a better rescue plan. Something more fun.”

  That couldn’t be good. “What do you mean ‘more fun’? It’s a rescue, not an adventure.”

  She smiled over my shoulder and waved. “A double date.”

  An anvil fell from the sky and landed smack-dab on my chest. “No.”

  “Come on, Vi. It’ll be a blast. We haven’t double-dated in years.”

  For good reason. The last time we had, my date ended up falling for Natalie during dinner and trying to grope her afterward in the darkened movie theater—while I was sitting between them. “Nat, please tell me you didn’t bring Doc here.”

  “Shush. This will be great. Besides, Ben really likes you. You should have seen how excited he was when I showed him your picture.” She squeezed my hand. “Trust me, the only boob that’s going to be grabbed tonight is yours. Well, unless I can shake Doc out of this no-touching rule he’s insisting upon.”

  No-touching rule? I knew that rule all too well. What had brought that on? Actual touching?

  Natalie squeezed my arm and led me back to the table, where Ben stood shaking Doc’s hand, the hostess weaving away. “Doc, look who’s here.”

  When Doc saw me, thunder rumbled on his brow, and lightning clashed in his eyes.

  “Hello, Doc.”

  “Violet wants us to join her and Ben for dinner.”

  “Really,” Doc said. I was pretty sure I heard him growl.

  “You don’t mind sharing Violet tonight, do you, Ben?”

  “Uh, no. I guess not.” Ben glanced at me, his forehead slightly puckered, then turned back to our company with a big smile. “Pull up some chairs. I’ll go find the waiter.”

  Doc towed two chairs over to our table. Natalie nudged me so that I was sitting next to Ben. She fell into the seat on my left, leaning her crutches against the empty table behind her. “This is going to be so much fun.”

  Doc’s jaw ticked as he glared across the table at me.

  I plopped into my chair before my knees gave out. “Yeah, fun.”

  I could hardly wait for dessert.

  Chapter Eight

  Ben returned with our young waiter in tow. After we ordered our drinks and Doc and Natalie got menus, I sat back and waited for Natalie’s “fun” to begin. I wasn’t holding my breath.

  Ben excused himself and headed toward the restroom.

  “What are you having, Vi?” Natalie asked, perusing her menu.

  A nightmare. “The garlic steak and red potatoes.”

  “Garlic?” Natalie lowered her menu, her face pinched with exasperation. “It’s your first date and you’re already trying to sabotage it.”

  Doc peered at me over the top of his menu. After a long, hard stare, he slipped behind it again.

  “Blind date,” I corrected just so everyone at the table would be clear why I was here tonight. Not that it was any of Doc’s business, damn it. “And it’s not our first date.”

  That won me double takes from both of them.

  Natalie leaned toward me as if she hadn’t heard me right. “It’s not?”

  I smiled, sweet and tight. “Nope.”

  When I didn’t explain, Natalie grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Violet Lynn Parker, you’d better spill or I’ll start bellowing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you in my Bobcat Goldthwait voice.”

  Blood rushed from my head. “Don’t you dare.” That scene still fell within the top ten of my most-embarrassing moments.

  “Then start singing, my little canary.”

  “There’s nothing much to tell. Last month, Ben sent me some flowers and a few poems and then asked me out to dinner, and I obliged.” I left out the parts involving creepy shivers and night sweats.

  Doc dropped his menu. “Ben was your secret admirer?”

  I touched my nose, trying not to ogle him in front of Natalie. His fitted maroon button-up shirt creased in all the right places, allowing me to steal glimpses o
f his broad-shouldered torso.

  “You told me that guy just went away,” Natalie said.

  “Well, he did. Kind of. Until tonight.”

  “How come you never told me you went out to dinner with him?” Natalie sat back in her chair, looking as if I’d stolen her Christmas present and opened it.

  “It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.”

  Doc snorted. I shot him a glare.

  Natalie studied the two of us in turn, those pouty lips of hers pursed. Natalie may be borderline sexually compulsive and look like a Playboy bunny, but she was no fluff-head. The only reason she hadn’t caught on to my hot-to-trot vibes for Doc was that she trusted me—heart and soul. That, and she was temporarily insane due to this new obsession with everything Doc.

  “If it were no big deal,” Natalie said, “how come Doc knows about it?” And I don’t, her frown finished.

  This was becoming a bit of a sticky wicket. Natalie had good reason for her ruffled feathers. We’d been sharing secrets since our baby teeth started falling out. It wasn’t until Doc came into my life that I’d started hiding truths from her.

  “Doc was there when I got the dinner invite.” There. An innocent fact. “Harvey was, too,” I added to make her being left out less of a big deal.

  “Oh, my God. Harvey knows, too? Who else? The rest of Deadwood?”

  Okay, that backfired.

  Natalie crossed her arms over her chest. “What else haven’t you told me?”

  I had sex with Doc. “Nothing.”

  Had someone cranked up the heat in here? I grabbed the dessert menu from the center of the table and fanned myself. I couldn’t look at Doc, afraid of what Natalie would read on my face, so I inspected the checkered tablecloth for BBQ stains until Ben returned.

  He dropped into his seat. “What did I miss?”

  “I was just telling Natalie about our previous date.” I threw him under the bus. I couldn’t help it. Desperation had me on the run.

  Ben’s lips formed an “Oh.” He looked sheepishly at Natalie.

  She pounced on him. “Why didn’t you tell me you already knew Violet?”

  “I wanted to surprise her. And, boy, did I.” He patted my shoulder, winking at me. “You should have seen the look on her face.”

  I never had been able to make panic pretty. He should have seen me in the bathroom mirror about ten years ago when the pregnancy test showed positive.

  With Natalie’s focus on Ben, I risked a glance across the table and found Doc studying me, his hand rubbing his jaw. All traces of anger seemed gone, replaced by a mesmerizing dark heat that snaked out and wrapped itself around me. Something stirred deep in my belly, stealing my breath.

  Holy crap! How did he do that with his eyes? I fanned harder, faster, tearing my gaze away, blinking away stars.

  The young waiter stopped to drop off drinks and take the newcomers’ orders. Natalie stuck with a light salad. It was the story of our lives—she nibbled on lettuce leaves and I gnawed on red meat, which explained the difference in our waist sizes.

  “I’ll have the garlic steak and red potatoes,” Doc told the waiter, handing him the menu.

  He seemed oblivious to Natalie’s quick frown.

  As Natalie added special requests to her dinner order, Ben tore into the basket of sourdough bread the kid had brought as an appetizer.

  Doc drank from his glass of amber beer, his gaze sliding down to my chest. I peeked down to make sure I’d fastened enough snaps to hide my cleavage—woo-wee, just barely. When I looked up at him again, the obvious lust in his eyes twisted my bloomers into a pretzel knot. I squirmed, aching for something only he could ease.

  I deliberately knocked my spoon off the table, bending over to grab it, staying down long enough to take several deep breaths. I needed a paper bag, an oxygen bar, a kick to the head. Closing my eyes, I tried to think about non-sexy things like greasy tractors, dung beetles, Darth Vader—hold up, Darth was kind of sexy with that long black cape and all of that heavy breathing.

  I watched the waiter’s shoes leave and popped up in time to hear Natalie ask Ben, “Did Vi tell you she has a soft spot for loonies?”

  What? “Are you talking about Wolfgang?” I asked, wondering why she’d be bringing him up now. She knew I was still having nightmares. No, wait. I hadn’t told her about those, either.

  “No.” Natalie looked at me as if I was mentally impaired—which I was at the moment. “But he fits, too, I guess.”

  “There is no way Violet could have known the truth about Hessler before that night,” Doc said in my defense. “He even had the police fooled.”

  That wasn’t true and we both knew it. Doc had warned me about Wolfgang’s house and the danger within it; I just hadn’t listened.

  Ben turned to Doc, his head cocked to the side. “How exactly do you know Violet?”

  Carnally, I thought, and almost laughed aloud before wrangling a little control over my inner smartass. “I’m his Realtor,” I told Ben. And his “distraction.” Remembering that sobered me right up.

  “She’s a good friend,” Doc answered.

  Excuse me? I blinked, momentarily stunned by his admission. Well, this was a fine and dandy little nugget to be shared over seared meat with friends.

  “How do you know Natalie?” Doc asked Ben.

  While Ben gave Doc the same explanation he’d given me earlier, and Natalie bantered with Ben about some playful flirting game they used to play when he worked for her grandfather, Doc watched me—the way he would if I was dancing half-naked wrapped around a fire pole.

  I gulped.

  He slowly ran his fingers down the sweating glass of beer. A simple act transformed into a slice of erotica.

  I shivered. I was so out of my league here.

  His lazy grin surfaced and he strummed his glass again.

  I shivered again, damn it, and sent my libido to go sit in the corner. Nailing him with a knock-it-off glare, I kicked him under the table.

  Ben grunted and jerked, spilling the soda pop he’d been drinking down his light blue pinstriped shirt.

  “Oh, God! I’m sorry.” I dabbed Ben’s shirt with my napkin, mortification searing my cheeks. “I was crossing my leg.”

  Doc’s grin widened at the angry squint I aimed his way between dabs.

  “Here, use mine, too,” Natalie said, handing me her napkin. “Anyway, I was actually talking about the Carharts, not Wolfgang,” she explained to me, returning to her earlier comment on my loony state. “As in why you agreed to list their place.”

  Oh, silly me. I blamed Doc. His presence at the table caused a disturbance in the Force. I dropped back into my seat, grimacing at the soda stain on Ben’s shirt, feeling foolish all over the place. Where was my dang steak? I needed something to chew on.

  “Ben, didn’t you used to hang out with Junior Carhart when you were younger?” Natalie asked.

  “We frequented the same watering hole.”

  “Did he ever talk about his family?”

  “Sure. When you add liquor, don’t we all?”

  I would have kissed Natalie for changing the subject—especially to one so near and dear to my curiosity. Feigning mild interest, I was all ears. Doc’s attention had fallen in line, too, I noticed.

  “What was Junior like?” I asked. What could possibly have drawn Lila to him?

  “Mean as hell when he was sober. Just like his old man.”

  Nothing surprising there.

  “But get him drunk and he morphed into your best friend.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He was an amiable drunk, buying drinks for all, adopting anyone within sight as his new pal. I’d usually avoid Junior until he was three sheets to the wind.”

  Lila must have met Junior at the bar. “Did you ever see Junior at the bar with a skinny, black-haired ...” bitch “woman who goes by the name Lila?”

  Ben chewed on his bread for a few seconds. “No, I don’t think so. But I hadn’t been around
as much since I was taking classes down in Rapid.”

  “Classes for what?” Doc asked.

  “Real estate. I was getting my license.”

  Doc sized up Ben and me. “You’re both agents.”

  “Ben’s uncle works with me.” I smiled for Ben’s sake. He couldn’t help that he shared DNA with Deadwood’s number one asshole. “You remember Ray, don’t you, Doc?”

  “Sure.” Doc kept a straight face, to his credit. Just the sound of Ray’s name usually had me reaching for a blunt weapon.

  Enough about Ben’s violence-inspiring uncle. I wasn’t done with the Carharts. “Did Junior ever show interest in the dark arts? Like say, I don’t know, demonology?”

  Ben slowly shook his head, his brow furrowed. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Did he have any creepy tattoos?” I thought about some of the pictures in that book I found in the Carhart house. “Like a pentagram or a three-headed snake or some weird Latin words?”

  Doc cleared his throat, his brow furrowed as he reached for his beer. I avoided his eyes.

  “Does this have anything to do with your ghost question yesterday?” Natalie asked me.

  Doc froze, his glass midway to his lips. “What ghost question?”

  “Utshay upway, Atnay,” I whispered from the side of my mouth in the pig version of Latin.

  She ignored my attempt to shush her and batted her eyelashes at Doc. “She wanted to know if I believed in ghosts.”

  Doc’s glare drilled into me. I resisted the urge to slide down my chair and slink away.

  “Do you?” Ben asked Natalie, grinning.

  “Sure, why not?” Natalie said with the same flippancy she’d used when answering me yesterday.

  “How about you, Doc?”

  The ticking muscle was back in Doc’s jaw.

  Eek! I scrambled to change the subject. “Ben, did you go to Junior’s funeral?”

  “No, I was out of town that weekend.”

  That was too bad. I would’ve liked to hear his opinion of Lila.

  “But you know what I never understood about the whole mess?” Ben wiped his hands on his napkin. “The newspaper claimed that Junior was in a drunken rage when he killed his father. They even mentioned empty whiskey bottles found in his bedroom.”