by Lori Wilde
“The back end of this truck is hanging out onto the road. We’d better go now.” She slid over to the passenger side and positioned Winnie between them. “You drive—I’m too rattled.”
Let him wonder whether she was blaming her nerves on his comment or on having scratched his truck.
Reece slipped into the driver’s seat and restarted the engine. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But you did agree to the terms of the bet, and I expect you to pay up.”
“What about all that talk of our being just friends?”
“Nothing has changed. For the past two years, I took my mother to the banquet. This year I’m taking a friend. Okay?”
She wasn’t wild about being lumped into a category with his mother. But if they were to continue to work together and remain good neighbors, it was best they learn to get along as casual friends.
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe I’ll even meet some nice local fellas while I’m there.”
Reece ground his teeth and spun the tires in the loose gravel.
Lanie’s petition and letter writing campaign proved successful. At the next meeting of the Board of Supervisors, the Stop the Highway group won a small victory when the Board agreed to hold the issue as a special referendum after the upcoming Bliss Festival Week, which ended on Labor Day weekend.
During the month of August, Dot seldom showed up for work at the shop. “You’re doing just fine,” she’d told Lanie one day. “Why should I come get in your way when I’d have a much better time touring Charlottesville or Williamsburg with Walter?”
Lanie was happy Dot had found companionship in someone whose personality complemented hers as well as Walter’s did.
Maybe someday Lanie would find happiness with a man suited to her own quirky traits. Lanie sighed when she considered the possibilities.
There was enough self-induced confusion in her life. Why should she want a man with the same faults to add to that confusion?
She and Reece spoke to each other in a most professional manner, their responses almost stilted in their efforts to keep a safe but cordial distance.
Still, though her behavior was proper, her thoughts were not. Effortlessly, her mind roamed back to the weekend Winnie had gotten sick.
More than once since then, she’d awakened to the memory of Reece holding her to him, his heavy lids closing in weary slumber. She tried to steer her wayward imagination far from the thought of how it would feel to wake up in his arms every morning.
And she tried to filter from her mind the more scandalous image of Reece’s body bearing down on hers as he made slow, excruciatingly tender love to her.
Whenever her longing became too painful, she reminded herself of their differences and of the sad but agonizing fact that he didn’t want her. He’d as much as said so.
Sure, they’d kissed a couple of times. Thirty years ago, that might have meant something. But in today’s era of self-gratification, kisses meant nothing—no matter how good they’d been at the time.
As Reece had said, it had been nothing more than a physical need for reassurance after an event-filled day. Lanie just wished her body would stop wanting his reassurance.
“Aha! I caught you at last, you little cheese snatcher.”
Lanie peered down into the plastic kitchen wastebasket at the rodent circling the bottom.
She debated whether to retrieve the wooden ruler that had served as a makeshift gangplank but decided against putting her hand too close to the mouse.
However, if she left the ruler in there, the mouse might be able to climb up and jump out.
Barbecue tongs! She turned her back long enough to rummage through a kitchen drawer for the tool. When she turned her attention back to the mouse, she found Winnie with her nose in the wastebasket, her ears pricked forward in curiosity.
“Get out of there, you goofball.” Lanie gently pushed the horse away. “Do you want to get bitten?”
Lanie grabbed the ruler with the tongs, but not before the vermin made one last bid for freedom. It skittered up the ruler and leaped almost to the rim of the basket.
Squealing, she flung the tongs and ruler across the kitchen. She stepped back, her heart pounding as if she’d been chased by a wild rhinoceros.
A knock sounded at the back door. Lanie whirled, her half-slip billowing above her knees.
Oh, no. Reece was here already, and she hadn’t even finished dressing.
At least she’d put on the top half of her dress before the mouse had fallen into her trap. She let Reece in and walked over to pick up the tongs and ruler.
“You don’t need to cook,” he joked. “They’ll feed you at the banquet.”
Lanie tossed the tongs into the sink and threw the peanut butter smeared ruler into the trash. Then she noticed Reece.
Really noticed him.
He wore a gray suit that seemed to magnify the broadness of his shoulders. The neat white shirt was tucked into the waistband of his slacks. Why were they even bothering to go to the banquet? He looked good enough to eat.
“I, uh, didn’t expect Mickey over there to take the bait until I was gone. Give me ten minutes, and I’ll be ready.”
“Make it five,” he called after her. “I don’t want to be late.”
Lanie went to her room and glided the slim tiger-striped skirt up over her hips. She fastened the matching black and silver belt around her waist and was digging in her jewelry box for a silver necklace when she heard Reece swear.
“What’s a mouse doing in your trash can?”
Without even bothering to unfasten the strand, she slipped the pendant over her head. When she went back to the kitchen, she found Reece standing over the wastebasket, staring down at the jailed mouse.
“How’d you get him in there?” he demanded.
Lanie was enormously pleased with herself for having invented a humane trap, so she didn’t mind sharing her discovery with him.
“I knew the mouse had been on the counter, so I baited a ruler with peanut butter and balanced it here on the edge. When he walked out to get the peanut butter, he and the ruler fell into the wastebasket.”
She gave Reece a smug smile. But he only stared back at her, as if she were some strange new species that warranted further study.
“Haven’t you ever heard of conventional methods? Folsbee’s Market sells mousetraps and poison. Why didn’t you try something like that?”
He seemed angry, and Lanie had no idea why. Jeez. He was acting like she had committed a crime by being unorthodox. Well, by now he should know better than to expect her to do things in a “normal” way.
She grabbed her clutch purse and tucked it under her arm. Her chin rose along with her annoyance. “What difference does it make to you how I catch a mouse? I got the job done, didn’t I?” She pressed her lips together. “I didn’t want Winnie to get poisoned or her nose pinched in a trap. Besides, it’s kinder to the mouse, too.”
She picked up the pink wastebasket and walked to the back door.
“Where are you going with it?” he asked.
“We’re going to set him free in the woods.”
He pushed back his cuff. “Look, it’s getting late. Can’t you do that in the morning?”
“He might starve!”
“Well, put some cheese in there, for crying out loud.”
“Reece, the poor little thing is terrified. I can’t just leave him in here to die of shock. And Winnie keeps trying to play with him. What if he has rabies and bites her?”
Reece pulled at the knot in his tie. “All right,” he said, reaching for the wastebasket. “I’ll run it out back and turn it loose.”
“Thanks for the offer,” said Lanie, “but he’s already figured out how to get in my house. We’d better take him somewhere else, so I don’t have to go through this all over again.”
Reece groaned and ran a hand through his neatly combed hair. He took the basket from her and closed the back door, making sure to lock it. “I’m parked out front,” he
explained when she raised questioning eyes to his.
“Then why didn’t you come in the front door?”
“Only company comes in the front way.”
He held the door for her, and she stepped out to find an elegant white Jaguar parked in her driveway.
“Oh, Reece, it’s beautiful. When did you get it?”
Or, more precisely, why did he get it? She found it hard to believe that this exotic sports car belonged to the same man who had clung to the dilapidated pickup truck for so many years.
When Howard had approached him about buying a new vehicle for the shop, Reece had refused, saying there was no need since the truck was still running. He hadn’t mentioned wanting a new car, and Lanie couldn’t envision him buying something like this on impulse.
Reece anchored the wastebasket between their seats and held the door for Lanie. The rich black leather smelled fresh and new as she settled back into the seat. He walked around and slid into the driver’s seat.
“It’s not mine,” he said as the engine growled to life. “Mom bought it yesterday—don’t ask me why.” He shook his head in incomprehension. “The truck needs some work, and since Walter’s taking Mom to the banquet in his Lincoln, she lent me this.”
“You sound like you don’t approve.”
“I just wish she’d shopped around more. I would’ve tried to talk her into something more sensible.”
He skillfully maneuvered the car out of the driveway and headed out Judestown Road toward Sanderson Road. Then he took a side road to a secluded area and pulled in at a small wayside.
“My father and I used to hunt here. Back then, nobody lived for miles around.” Reece took the wastebasket and was preparing to empty the mouse into the ditch.
As gracefully as she could manage in the tight skirt, Lanie got out of the car and picked her way across the scattered leaves, twigs, and vines growing alongside the road.
“What if he runs out into the road and gets smashed by a car?”
Reece stopped what he was doing to stare at her, one hand on his hip and the other trying to rub the consternation from his brow. It was so quiet out here Lanie could hear the mouse’s feet skittering across the bottom of the plastic container.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll take it farther into the woods.” Then he muttered something about being late for the banquet.
“I’ll do it.” Lanie took the little trash can from him and marched off toward the thick of the woods. Her heels sank into the loose dirt, and bits of brush snatched at her legs. Something crashed through the woods behind her, and she turned to see Reece running to catch up with her.
“You didn’t have to come. I can take care of it myself,” she said.
The deer path they followed was too narrow for them to walk abreast, so Reece followed close behind. They’d walked a short distance when Reece finally spoke, this time to Lanie.
He’d been muttering under his breath all along. Lanie had tried to ignore the deep rumble of his voice, chalking his mumbling up as another skill all men were born with. Like sulking. But she found she liked the depth of it, the way it vibrated and wound its way into the corners of her mind.
“I doubt he’ll find his way back to the road from here without a compass and knapsack. Or did you plan to provide them for him?”
Lanie halted and uttered an oath of her own. These shoes were meant for sidewalks or carpets or polished floors, not for tramping through the forest. She’d come close to falling more than once, and for what? For a little mouse, who’d probably end up as an owl’s meal anyway. Even so, she was doing the right thing, and she was glad of it.
“Lighten up. I’m setting him free now.” Lanie turned the wastebasket on its side and watched the gray mouse scramble into the underbrush. “Bye, Mickey,” she said and gave a little wave.
A boom reverberated through the woods. If that was thunder, it had struck something close by. Reece’s hand closed around her arm.
“I didn’t see any lightning—”
“Shhhh.”
From off in the distance, they could hear a man shouting. And he didn’t sound happy. Another boom rang out.
“Let’s get out of here.” Reece started off the way they’d come, but Lanie didn’t budge. “What are you standing there for? He’s got a gun!”
This time he grabbed her arm and didn’t let go. Together they ran, Reece pulling and Lanie trying her hardest to keep up despite her confounded high heels. Nimbly, he skirted around a broad old tree, but Lanie wasn’t as agile. The pointed toe of her shoe caught an upgrown root, and she went sprawling.
She fell against Reece’s back. Instinctively, her arms flew around his waist, but her momentum had pushed him forward. She slid down as he flew forward, her face grazing his rear end, his thigh, and his calf during her graceless tackle.
In a flash he was up, hauling her to her feet. Then they were off again, jumping fallen logs and pushing past blackberry briers.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Lanie huffed. The walk in the woods seemed to have taken half as long as their mad flight out.
Reece raised his free arm and pointed. “Just over that rise.”
But as they crested the rise, there was no car to be seen on the deserted road.
“Damn, I overshot it.” He slid his hand down and clasped her fingers in his. They sprinted over the rough asphalt pavement around the curve to where the white car waited for them. Behind them, the gunman’s footsteps crackled over dried twigs and leaves. His language colored the air blue.
In her haste to enter the car, Lanie banged her head on the low roof. The engine started right up, and Lanie gave thanks that the recalcitrant pink truck had chosen today to go on the blink.
As they sped away, Lanie turned in her seat to peer out the small back glass. A grizzled mountain of a man stood beside a No Trespassing sign and shook the gun over his head.
Lanie faced forward and let out a shaky breath. Her body sagged against the black leather. After a minute or so, Reece slowed to a normal rate of speed. “Are you okay?”
Lanie assessed her damages. “I think so. Just kind of messy.”
Reece was no better. Dust clung to his elbows and knees, as well as the entire front of his dark-gray suit. His shoes were scuffed, and a bit of vine dangled from his hair.
“My trash can! We left it in the woods.”
Reece took his eyes from the road and let his gaze wander over her dishevelment. He shook his head. “Let him have it.”
“I don’t think pink is his color.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. Reece rubbed the back of his neck. “Lanie, is it just when I’m around, or does stuff like this happen to you all the time?”
“Stuff like what?”
His knuckles whitened as he clasped the steering wheel. “Stuff like getting shot at. Didn’t it strike you as odd that a man with a gun chased us out of the woods?”
“Yeah. I guess I should have noticed that No Trespassing sign before we went on his property.”
He groaned. “That’s not what I mean.” He glanced at her again. Except for some general mussiness, she seemed quite composed now. Was her life usually so bizarre that getting shot at seemed like an everyday occurrence? “Doesn’t it bother you when things like this happen?”
“A little,” she said. “But I can replace the wastebasket for about five dollars.”
Reece thought, not for the first time, that it had been a mistake to ask Lanie to come with him tonight. What had he been thinking when he’d called in his bet? The original plan had been to ask her to find someplace else for her little horse to stay during the workday. But after Winnie had gotten sick and he’d seen the fear in Lanie’s hazel eyes, he didn’t have the heart to ask her to make that sacrifice.
Winnie and Barney still made their morning runs through the store. And surprisingly, Reece found that he was becoming accustomed to their peculiar ritual.
But Lanie’s peculiarities were another matter. Why, just
last week she’d suggested they sell grain in the old-time flowered canvas sacks.
She’d explained that the fabric would appeal to newer residents who’d been lured to the county by its rustic charm. Sure, her idea to expand the pet supplies and sell horse books and figurines had proven successful. But he’d have to give the feed sack notion some more thought.
He stole another glance at the woman seated beside him. Involuntarily, his hand reached out to touch a silken strand of dark-brown hair.
She didn’t pull away. In her green-and-tan eyes he saw a hint of humor—the kind people share after they’ve weathered an ordeal together. They were comrades.
Reece plucked a fragment of dried leaf from her hair. “You’re a mess,” he said, then grimaced when he heard the tone of condemnation in his voice.
The humor left her eyes, and Reece was sorry to see it go.
Lanie fixed a sugary smile on him. “Nice to meet you, Pot. You can call me Kettle.”
Reece pulled into the dirt parking lot at the Memorial Building and took one of the few remaining spaces. “Point taken.”
As he walked around to open the door for Lanie, he dusted himself off. Taking her arm in his, he led her to the massive stone steps at the front of the old building.
“Wait a minute.” Lanie burrowed into her clutch and withdrew a clean, but wrinkled tissue. “Here,” she said and held it up to his face. “Spit.”
“Huh?” Reece took a step back and scowled at the tissue as if it were already contaminated.
“You have a dirt smudge on your cheek. Just moisten this, and I’ll wipe it off for you.”
He hadn’t been spit-washed since he was six years old, and he didn’t want to start now. He took the tissue from her and rubbed the left side of his face.
“Now you’re smearing it.” Lanie reached up and guided his hand to the right spot.
She stood so close he could smell the faint honeysuckle scent of her shampoo. He breathed deeply, savoring her sweetness, wanting to pull her to him and make those large eyes close in anticipation of his kiss.
Reece shook the thought from his head. Lanie was a nice girl and a terrific office manager. But she was also trouble—with a capital T.
