by Leslie Kelly
AFTER MIKE HAD DROPPED JEN OFF at her aunts’ houses, he’d made the short drive to his grandfather’s place. With every second, he’d tried to force all thoughts of the strange interlude he’d just shared with her out of his head. In the future, he’d probably look back and grin, thinking about the sexy, crazy woman with the tire iron. But for now, he was still too focused on the sexy part of the equation. Which wasn’t good. He didn’t need to be thinking that way about anyone right now, especially not a woman who had a violent streak. A woman he’d never see again.
He got as far as his grandfather’s driveway before he remembered the one thing he had neglected to pack. The dog snuffling against the back of his neck reminded him of the dog food still sitting on his kitchen counter at home. He had nothing for Mutt.
“Sorry, boy,” he said as he drove up toward the house.
He knew better than to just get out and leave a trip to the store until later. Mortimer would insist on giving Mutt an entire grilled sirloin, which would make Roderick sniff and mumble stuff about cooking for dogs. They’d snipe at each other like an old married couple—Roderick would get his feelings hurt, Mortimer would be completely oblivious and Mike would sit in silence all evening.
Uh-uh. No thanks.
The crotchety and affectionate, love-hate relationship between the two men might make people who didn’t know them wonder how close they were. Looking at them under today’s standards, their relationship might be questionable. But Mike knew better. In their day, Mortimer and Roderick had forged a completely unbreakable brotherhood, fired in battle, cemented during years of adventure and treasure-hunting. They’d been the modern-day equivalent of pirates, with women on every continent. Even stuffy Roderick had, per Mortimer, “cut a dashing figure” in his day.
Which made it strange that they were both now alone, and had been for many years. He didn’t doubt his grandfather would have liked to fall in love one more time, and he suspected Roderick would have, as well. They’d spent so long raising Mike and his brothers, though, they seemed to have let those dreams slip away. Now that the two old bachelors had taken up residence in Trouble, Pennsylvania, the odds of them meeting the kind of women they’d met in the capitals of Europe were slim to none. So they were apparently stuck with each other for life.
“I know Grandpa would welcome you right up at the table, pal, but old Roddy’s pretty particular.” Reaching over his shoulder, he scratched the animal’s scruffy head. “He won’t like cooking for a dog, not even one as superior as you.”
Besides, even if he did, Mutt didn’t handle table food well and Mike would spend the night cleaning up after a sick pet.
That cinched it.
So, doing a quick turnaround, he headed back to Trouble, hoping the small grocery store carried the right brand. For a mutt, Mutt was pretty finicky.
For some reason, his foot lifted off the gas pedal and he slowed down when he passed the old house where he’d dropped Jennifer off a few minutes before. He’d seen no sign of her.
That was good. Great. Perfect. So why, he wondered, had he been holding his breath, half hoping to see her yelling curses up at the window? Alone. Stranded.
In need of rescue again?
The idea was stupid and he kicked himself over it as he ran his errand. Why one hour in the company of a woman would have him wishing he’d have to come to her aid again, he honestly didn’t know. Talk about selfish.
Hell, maybe his brothers were right and he did have some kind of protector fixation. One more reason to stay away from women right now. All women. Especially the brunette who’d been filling his head since the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
Arriving at the store, he parked out front, then tied Mutt up to a pole by the door. Fortunately, the store was tiny and he could see him from inside. Even more fortunately, they carried the right brand, if not the same flavor of food.
He was heading back to Mortimer’s Folly, as his brother Morgan liked to call the ugly old white elephant their grandfather lived in, when he saw something that made him wonder if he was some kind of jinx. Or just the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet. Because ahead of him, parked on the opposite shoulder of the two-lane road, was a car. And standing beside it was a very frustrated-looking woman.
It was all he could do not to let Jennifer see his amusement when he did a quick U-turn and pulled in behind her. Getting out, he called, “Problem?”
She glared at him through her bangs, which had fallen into her eyes. “I ran out of gas.”
“Good. I was afraid the old ladies had ditched you again.”
Shifting her gaze away as he reached her side, she admitted, “They used up all my gas and I didn’t even notice it.”
“You know, I have to admit, someday I’d like to see those two aunts of yours for myself.”
“You can come to their funerals. They’ll be next week. Ivy would definitely want an open casket.”
“Still feeling murderous?”
“You have no idea.”
Oh, he felt pretty sure he had some. Dangerous or not, the woman was cute as hell when she was mad. “I think you need to be a little more on guard with those two.”
That full, sexy mouth of hers pulled tight. “No kidding.” She gazed longingly at his Jeep. “I don’t suppose you have a spare gallon or two?”
“No,” he admitted, “but there’s a gas station a quarter mile away. Let’s go.”
She hesitated for a moment, staring at him with those big, incredible eyes. She looked tired and annoyed still, but also wore that hint of vulnerability he’d seen before. She’d obviously had a very long day and looked about at the end of her rope.
Mike reached out and took her arm, giving her some physical support. And maybe some of the emotional kind, too. Not even realizing he owned such a gentle tone, he murmured, “On second thought, you’ve been through enough today. Why don’t you wait in your car, I’ll be back in five minutes.”
She nodded slowly, not pulling away. A tremulous smile curved her mouth up. Not her usual smile of snarkiness or mischief, but one of relief, of gratitude. “You know, it’s not going to do my reputation any good if people find out a nice, considerate guy came to my rescue not once but twice today.”
Ha. As if anyone would recognize him as a nice, considerate guy. Seemed they were both suddenly acting out of character. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Opening her car door, she got in. “Fair enough. Thank you.”
She didn’t say anything else as he walked away, nor much when he came back ten minutes later with a small gas can. Though he offered to follow her to the station after he’d put some gas in the tank, she insisted she’d be fine.
He didn’t press it. Whatever moment of weakness she’d allowed him to see earlier, it was under control now. She was staunch and resolute, appreciative, but also once again very self-confident. So accepting her final thank you and knowing there was nothing more for him to do, Mike got in his Jeep and drove away from her for the second time that day.
JENNIFER DIDN’T LIKE THE END of anything. Whether it was one of her books that she was having a great time writing or a visit from her parents or simply the joy of the holiday season, she hated reaching The End.
She especially hated watching people leave. Particularly people she’d just met—sexy people—who she’d like to get to know better. Like him.
But it obviously wasn’t to be. Like before, he’d played the hero and ridden away on his Jeep Wrangler steed. Big, strong, silent. As she watched Mike Taylor’s taillights disappear into her history again, she felt like a saloon girl watching the handsome lawman ride away in some cheesy western.
Pathetic. She was thinking like one of the women who wrote to her talking about how wonderful her own handsome hero had been before he’d turned into a cheating toad.
This latest incident was simply the crap-flavored icing on her mud pie of a day. One for the to-forget books.
After filling up her tank at Trouble’s one and only
gas station—paying prices that would make an oil baron blush—she headed downtown. Her mood had slipped from mostly gray and cloudy to nearly black and stormy. A big part of her wanted to just keep driving, straight back to New York. She had a book to finish—her third—with a hefty check waiting at the end of it.
But she had a feeling that if she left, she would never be able to make herself return to Trouble and see her aunts again.
While that appealed to her on one level, on another, she knew that, as twisted as they were, she’d miss them. Miss their stubbornness and their independence, their caustic natures and the aura of mystery that had always surrounded them.
No. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until they’d hashed things out, face-to-face.
But first things first. She steered the car toward the local store. Once inside, Jen ignored the shelves full of expired canned goods for a nickel to scout the first-aid area for bandages and antiseptic to clean her blisters. She managed to find a tube of stuff that didn’t look as if it had been produced during the Carter administration. Adding a toothbrush to her cart, she paid for her things just as the store closed at six.
Six o’clock on a Friday night and the town was closing up shop. Rolling up its sidewalks. The one stoplight in the main square had already stopped changing from red to green and turned into a flat, blinking yellow beacon that screamed, “You’re in the middle of nowhere! Get out while you still can!”
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, glancing across the street at the one business that still appeared to be open. But it took a few minutes for her to muster the courage to actually go over and enter Tootie’s Tavern. Because if the Travel Channel ever stopped doing shows on the ten scariest places in the world, and started naming the ten scariest places to eat, this would probably make the cut. She’d bet it was on an FDA watch list somewhere.
Finally, though, she forced herself inside. Knowing Aunt Ida Mae and Aunt Ivy were very untrusting, she suspected they hadn’t even crawled out of their hiding places yet, much less unlocked any doors.
“Hey there, missy, thought you was gonna spend your whole week here without comin’ in to see me!”
This comment came from the owner, Tootie herself, who was shaped like a box—as wide as she was tall—with hair the color of congealing sausage gravy. But she had always been nice to Jen as a kid. Even if Jen’s mother had always made her throw away any cookie or treat Tootie had slipped to her during a family visit.
“Hi,” she said. “I, uh, need to use the ladies’ room.”
Jen immediately wished she hadn’t put it like that. She knew she’d been overheard when a meaty guy at a nearby table, wearing a Bud T-shirt and a backward baseball cap, snickered like a third grader who’d spotted a little girl’s underwear.
That, of course, instantly made her think about the conversation she and Mike had had earlier…and his wickedly erotic comment about the soft fabric between a woman’s soft thighs. The soft fabric between her soft thighs had gotten a mite damp after the remark, that was for sure. And just thinking about Mike now could probably make it more so.
Forget it. He’d driven away—twice—without mentioning the possibility of seeing her again. Besides, she didn’t like the big, strong, drop-dead gorgeous, dangerous, silent type.
Hmm. Maybe…No. Not her type, even though her friends all thought she should be happy with any guy who was breathing. But she wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
“Sorry, sweetie, facilities are for paying customers only,” the proprietress said with an apologetic shrug, her loud reply ensuring they were being overheard now.
Then the words sank in. Perfect. She was actually going to have to eat here? “Oh, uh…”
“Meat loaf’s on special.”
She was tempted to ask what type of meat was in it—armadillo, mastodon—but wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Unfortunately, every other place in town was probably already closed. This might be the only bite she’d have until she could get her aunts to let her in. That could take a week.
“Could you just get me a plain salad and an iced tea?”
Tootie nodded. “I’ll have Scoot put in the order, but you’ll have to sit at the counter. There’s no tables.”
She glanced at the counter, seeing a sea of men wearing red plaid and wife-beater T-shirts. All packed shoulder-to-shoulder, heads down, like horses at a trough. All probably having heard her ladies’ room comment and right now thinking about her walking into the next room and pulling down her panties.
Eww.
“Can I get it to go?”
“Didn’t she already say she had to go?” a phlegmy voice asked. The question was accompanied by a lascivious chuckle. Both had emanated from a guy at the closest table who, judging by his comma-shaped posture, was between one hundred and death.
Tootie leaned close. “I don’t blame you, sugar. Some of these fellas act like mongrels over a bone when a pretty woman comes around. Me ’n’ Scoot have taken to giving each other signals when we need help extricating ourselves from one when he gets over-amorous.”
Scoot. That was the waitress. Tootie’s assistant. Practically Tootie’s twin. The hottest single ladies in Trouble?
“Ooo-kay,” she murmured, keeping her eyes forward, focusing on the door to the ladies’ room. “I’ll be back.”
Once inside the bathroom, however, she realized she’d made a tactical error. “This place is dirtier than the ground,” she muttered, staring in dismay at the mildew climbing up the backs of the sinks and the peeling, puke-green linoleum on the floor. She’d be better off cleaning her cuts in a truck stop men’s room.
If there had been a hotel anywhere in the vicinity, she would have given up for the night, blowing off Ida Mae and Ivy’s houses for clean sheets, hot water that wasn’t the color of dirt and free HBO. But, if she recalled correctly, Trouble had only ever boasted two inns and both were now closed. One—Seaton House, where she had once stayed with her parents as a child—due to the death of its former owner. And the other, the Dew Drop Inn—where she had never stayed with her parents as a child because the owner was a nudist—also closed. From what the aunts said, the owner, Mr. Fitzweather, had had a bit of a run-in with a dog during his nudist days and had since retired.
“This is ridiculous,” she told her reflection, continuing to shift her toes to keep them protected by the flip-flops, so they wouldn’t come into contact with the dirty floor. “There has to be something I can do.”
Then she remembered something. And started to smile.
During Jen’s last visit, Ivy had nastily told her that Ida Mae was a loose woman, praying for a burglar to come along and ravish her. In order to make it easier for said burglar, Ida Mae always kept a spare key under the rusty iron bench sitting on her front porch. Knowing Ivy, she’d probably forgotten she’d spilled the secret five minutes after the words had left her lips, just as Jen had forgotten the comment. Which meant Ida Mae probably hadn’t removed the key.
A half hour later, when she returned to Ida Mae’s, holding a plastic container full of salad, she checked. And hit pay dirt. The key was there.
“Oh, Luuuucy, I’m home,” she called as she let herself into the house, hoping Aunt Ida Mae had calmed down and could be reasonable. She didn’t dare hope for such a thing from Aunt Ivy.
“How did you get in here?” a stern-sounding voice said, emerging from the dark, cluttered parlor.
Jen immediately swung toward it and strode into the room, carefully picking her way through the maze of furniture. Good thing she’d become familiar with it during her week’s stay because it was nearly dark outside and not a single light was on within. The heavy oak and crushed-velvet pieces stood in odd positions around the room, competing for every inch of floor space. It was like being inside a child’s antique dollhouse which had too much toy furniture. Jen had never left this house without a bruise or two from having banged into something.
She’d already been bruised, battered and cut enough at her aunt
s’ hands today, thank you very much, and didn’t need any more war wounds. “I used your spare key,” she said, plopping onto the sofa and opening her bag of food. She’d ditched the drink right after leaving Tootie’s because, after sucking in a big mouthful through the straw, she’d had tea leaves coating her tongue.
“Who said you could come into my house?”
“Technically, Aunt Ida Mae, since I cover your mortgage, paid for the new roof and am responsible for all the utilities, I think it’s partly my house.”
That got the old woman out of the darkness. She came out of the corner and expertly wove her way across the room, flipping on a single lamp as she went by it. The whiteness of her round face, emphasized by dark circles under her brown eyes, said she’d been tense, waiting for this confrontation.
Ida Mae had probably never been considered pretty—though Ivy had. Judging by the pictures Jen had seen, the younger Feeney sister had been more than pretty; she’d been a knockout. But the older one would have to be described as handsome rather than pretty, even today at seventy-eight. Ida Mae carried herself well and was proud of her thick, snow-white hair. Usually up in a bun, it now hung loose, halfway down her back, stark against her pink housecoat. Thick and lovely, it was definitely her best feature.
Way nicer than her smile. Which almost never got any use. Kind of like Mike Taylor’s.
“You can have your roof and your utilities.”
Jen opened her salad, tore open the packet of Italian dressing that had come with it and squirted it onto the wilted lettuce. Ignoring the obvious impossibility of removing the new roof, she murmured, “So you want to sit here in the dark and get rained on?” she asked before taking a bite.
“That’s just what you’d like, isn’t it? To make me so sick and miserable I’ll let you put me in an almost-dead-folks home?”
Jennifer couldn’t contain a small laugh. Ida Mae was nothing if not blunt. “Look, can we please call a truce? I have absolutely no intention of forcing you to do anything.”
“As if you could,” the woman mumbled, eyeing Jen’s salad.
