THE BACHELOR PARTY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Do you think you can stand?"

  When she nodded, he extended his hand. She hesitated, then with obvious reluctance, accepted his help. As soon as she could, she withdrew her hand. At the same time, she darted a quick glance toward the miserable heap of humanity on the floor.

  "I might be just an ignorant Yankee," she muttered, "but I had the distinct impression that moonshine stills were illegal in this country."

  "Yes, ma'am, they are."

  "Perhaps you'd better tell that to someone named Old Man Ducette, because according to that person on the floor there, he's just produced a prime batch."

  "Is that a fact?" Ford shot a look Talley's way. He and Rans had run together some as boys. In those days he'd been the one getting into trouble while Rans had hung back to watch the fun when he'd gotten caught.

  He called Rans by name, then waited patiently until he had the man's full attention. "I gotta tell you, son, it would sure do me a big favor if you'd tell me where Frenchy's set up this time."

  "Aw, Ford, you know I cain't do that." Talley tried to work up a spit, and failed. "Damn, now you made me go and swallow my chaw."

  Ford grinned. "Probably the most nutritious thing you've eaten all day."

  Talley offered him a sloppy grin. "You got a cigarette you can spare?"

  "Don't smoke."

  "Do so. I recollect you and me sharin' a whole carton once under Carston's Bridge."

  "Yeah, when we were twelve and stupid." Ford had given up cigarettes when he'd decided to try for the air force academy. According to the manual he'd devoured from cover to cover more than once, cadets were prohibited from drinking on academy grounds and discouraged from smoking. Besides, he'd planned to make the football team his freshman year and hadn't wanted to diminish his stamina.

  "It's like this, Rans," he said, suddenly out of patience. "You and me need to make us a deal here. You tell me where Frenchy's set up again, and I'll talk to the country prosecutor about a suspended sentence."

  Talley tried spitting again. "Maybe you don't recall how talented old Frenchy is with that pig-sticker of his'n."

  Ford recalled all too well. He'd been in the ambulance when Roy Dean Stevenson's youngest boy had bled out his life after getting in the way of Frenchy's murderous temper. Roy Dean, Jr., had been nineteen that summer, and Roy Dean had never been the same after the boy's funeral.

  Since that time, Ford had tried every trick he'd learned in his eighteen years of law enforcement to amass enough evidence to convict the hulking bootlegger, but Frenchy had too many people terrified of talking.

  "Rans, hear me and hear me good. You have forty-eight hours before my report goes to the town clerk to be processed and sent on. After that, you're riding a one-way train to prison. If I were you, I'd give some thought to what it's gonna be like, spending the next year or so locked up behind bars."

  Fear leapt in Talley's eyes like a roach on a hot griddle. "Git on with you. You done arrested me for drunk and disorderly twice before, and I didn't get no jail time."

  "This time the charge is attempted robbery and assault."

  "A man cain't rob what's his by right, sure enough, and it seems to me I'm the one who got assaulted on." He shifted his attention to Sophie, who stiffened, before Ford deliberately moved into Talley's line of sight. "Me'n this sweet little Yankee gal was just fixin' to have us a party when she up and changed her mind is all."

  "That's ridiculous and you know it," she declared hotly.

  Ford felt his mouth relax into a grin. So the lady had a habit of getting testy when her blood was riled, he thought, and wondered how she would react if he suddenly covered those pouty lips with his. He let his mind linger over that for a split second before he iced down his unruly libido.

  "Won't wash, Rans," he said, heading for the phone by the cash register. "Give me a minute to get the duty deputy over here to tend to Rans, and I'll drive you home," he told Sophie as he punched out the number of the sheriff's office.

  "Please don't bother, I like the walk," she answered quickly.

  "Be better if you rode, just this once."

  Sensing the steel beneath the polite words, Sophie gave in. "I'll just finish up in the back," she told him before fleeing to the kitchen.

  Ford leaned against the cluttered counter in the rooming house kitchen, sipping coffee he didn't want but couldn't politely refuse and wondering how long he was going to have to wait before Sophie appeared again. At the moment, she was upstairs in her room putting her daughter to bed while Miss Rose Ruth and Miss Fanny fussed over her.

  Katie had been in the midst of baking Christmas cookies when he'd brought Sophie home. Once she'd made sure Sophie was uninjured, she'd ordered Ford into the kitchen and plied him with questions until finally, and to his great relief, she'd run out of things to ask.

  "Someone should have shot Rans Talley years ago," Katie muttered, her green eyes blazing. "You, for instance."

  Even as Ford shrugged, he wanted to tell her that he hoped he never had to kill Talley or anyone else. Since he'd walked into Tim's office at the airport and seen the blood spattered from the floor to the ceiling, he'd gotten sick to his stomach at the sight of blood.

  The thought of actually inflicting that kind of carnage, even in the name of the law, made his knees shake. So far he'd been lucky the few times he'd had to pull his gun.

  "Rans isn't all bad," he said, studying the coffee left in his cup. He'd known better men who'd been driven to do worse things—like his old man, God rest his tormented soul.

  "I wish Sophie would have let me call Doc Gossely. At least he could have prescribed a tranquilizer for her, if nothing else."

  Ford slugged down the remaining contents of his cup before shrugging. Pain seared his shoulder, and he scowled.

  "Somethin' bothering you?" Katie asked quickly, her knife poised over the roll of cookie dough she was busy slicing onto another greased tin.

  "More like puzzlin'," he admitted, pouring himself a refill from the big pot.

  Katie shrugged. "I sure would have enjoyed watching Sophie kick old Rans in the privates," she admitted, her eyes sparkling the way they used to years ago when she and Lucy ran together like little hellions.

  "It was a sight to see, sure enough." He could have added that, in his professional opinion, Sophie's common sense didn't stretch quite as far as her courage.

  Sober, Ransom Talley was just about the nicest guy in all of Clover, but when he got liquored up, he turned into two hundred pounds of pure mean. Ford had arrested him twice before, and both times Rans had tried to take his head off with one of those hamlike fists.

  Old Rans didn't quite believe it yet, but he'd just run out of second chances. He figured he could talk Peg into pressing charges. With Sophie testifying to what Rans had told her and him telling the judge what he saw, old Rans was sure to get more than a hand slap this time.

  That settled, he attempted to rub some of the soreness out of his shoulder and watched Katie take another tray of Christmas cookies from the oven. He smelled cinnamon and orange, and his stomach growled. Dinner had been hours earlier, and he'd missed supper entirely. Figuring he was entitled, being a public servant and all, he filched the fattest of the cinnamon Santas and received a sour look and a muttered warning for his trouble.

  "Did Sophie mention why she happened to pick these parts to settle?" he asked between bites.

  "Not that I recall."

  "What about her kin?"

  Katie wrinkled her brow. "I'm not sure she's ever mentioned family, but then Yankees aren't like us, spilling out our entire history at the drop of a hat."

  "Did you ask?"

  Katie slanted him a disbelieving look before sliding the tray onto the slate counter. "Have you forgotten where you're livin' all of a sudden? Of course, I asked. She just wasn't answerin'."

  He gave that some thought. So he wasn't the only one Sophie shorted in the conversation department. "You didn't happen to notice what kind of mail she gets, or how much?"r />
  After taking a bowl of green icing from the refrigerator, Katie placed it on the counter to soften before answering. "So far she hasn't gotten all that much, just a bank statement every month, and a bill from Doc Gossely a month or so back."

  "Has she been sick?"

  Katie shook her head. "She took Jessamine for a routine visit shortly after they arrived." A smile played over her mouth. "I might not know much about Mrs. Sophie Reynolds's personal affairs before she came here, but one thing I do know, Ford. Her daughter is her life. Sophie wore the same three outfits for a month after she got here, but Jessie had the best of everything. Whatever she needed, she had. Even when Sophie's dead tired after working nights and mornings both, she makes sure Jessie gets an afternoon airing and playtime at the park. And love?" Katie's eyes turned starkly envious. "All you have to do is see them together to feel the love Sophie pours into that baby."

  Ford shoveled another cookie into his mouth and swallowed it damn near whole. He wasn't as ready as Katie to bestow sainthood on a woman he scarcely knew. He'd seen too many cases of public saints who were private devils.

  "Who watches the baby while she's working?"

  "Miss Rose Ruth or Miss Fanny, and sometimes both. It depends on what shift Sophie's working."

  Ford slugged down the rest of his coffee and walked to the sink to rinse his cup. "What about phone calls?" he asked, upending the cup in the dish drainer.

  "Not many. Aunt Peg calls sometimes about work, and now and then one of the other waitresses calls, wanting to swap shifts or some such."

  He dried his hands and tried not to think about the nice soft bed waiting for him at his place. The holidays were always busier than usual, especially when he'd been shortsighted enough to let Sig Roberts have two weeks off to be with his girlfriend down in Charleston.

  "What about men?" he asked, turning to lean his backside against the counter again.

  Katie regarded him critically. "Maybe we'd better establish who's asking these questions before I say anything more."

  "You're lookin' at him, aren't you?" Ford retorted, his patience thinning more rapidly than usual.

  "Don't narrow those gray eyes at me, Fordham Maguire," she exclaimed with a disgusted look. "I was around your place so much when I was growing up I was practically family, so I know what a pussycat you are under that mean old face you put on along with your uniform of a morning."

  Ford grunted his displeasure. There weren't but a handful of people in the whole county who could call him a pussycat to his face—or much else for that matter—and get away with it. Katie just happened to be one of them.

  "Katie, I'm tired, and I've got at least an hour of paperwork to do on this arrest before I can call it a night, so I suggest you just answer the blasted question."

  Katie relented with a good-natured smile. "Okay. Only I forgot the question."

  Ford watched the second hand of the Regulator clock tick its way through ten long seconds before he got ahold on his patience. He'd been awake since five, and had spent most of the day wrestling with budget projections the town council liked so much, and he sure as hell wasn't looking forward to another hour doing paperwork.

  "Does Sophie have men callin' her here?"

  "As in lovers?" Katie inquired with an innocence so exaggerated he was tempted to forget they were both adults and bend her over his knee for a hard swat the way he'd done when she was a kid and he was the closest thing to a daddy she and Lucy had.

  "As in men friends," he grated.

  "So far there haven't been any. Not as far as I know, anyway." She tested the temperature of fresh-baked cookies with a fingertip, then reached for a spatula. "According to Miss Fanny, Sophie was widowed before her baby was even born. Maybe she's not ready to date again."

  Ford tried to imagine what that had been like for her. Rough as hell was as good a description as any. "Any idea what happened to her husband?"

  "Perhaps you should ask me that question, Sheriff Maguire." Still dressed in her uniform, now sadly wrinkled and soiled, Sophie was standing stiff and unsmiling in the doorway. He didn't need a second look to tell him that she was very angry.

  He wasn't surprised. Ford had spent half his life wearing a badge and carrying a gun. He was used to folks swearing at him one minute and yelling for his help the next. Taking the heat for a long list of imagined sins—and some that were real enough by anyone's standards—that went with the job.

  He liked what he did for a living, and he was honest enough to own up to a certain pride in doing it well. There were times, however, when he wondered if he'd worn that badge so long he'd lost the ability to take it off, even on those rare occasions when he found himself damn near chasing his tail over a woman.

  "Consider it asked," he drawled, watching her mouth tighten.

  Ignoring her thudding heart and suddenly dry throat, Sophie looked first at him and then at Katie before declaring flatly, "My husband fell down a flight of steps and broke his neck. I was six weeks' pregnant at his funeral."

  She could have added that she'd nearly lost the baby that same night and, as it was, had had to be hospitalized for shock. But what would be the point? Even during the worst of the ordeal that had followed, she'd never sought sympathy, only understanding. In the end, she'd gotten neither.

  "How terrible for you," Katie murmured, her tone thick with sympathy. "No wonder you don't like to talk about it."

  "It's easier now," Sophie lied.

  "I hope you believe me when I tell you I don't usually discuss my tenants' private business."

  "I'm sure you don't." Sophie was almost too worn-out to care.

  Checking on Jessie and answering first Miss Rose Ruth's and then Miss Fanny's anxious questions had sapped what had been left of her reserves. Simply walking from the door to the butcher-block table in the center of the kitchen was an exercise in willpower.

  "I made coffee," Katie told her, smiling tentatively. "But it wouldn't take me but a minute to brew some herbal tea if you'd prefer. And I just took a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven. Best help yourself before Ford wolfs them all down."

  "Nothing for me, thanks," she murmured. "I just came down to ask if anyone has thought to tell Peg what happened."

  Sophie's side was beginning to ache where she'd slammed against the table, and though she'd snatched a moment to wash her face and run a brush through her hair, she felt grimy and disheveled. At the moment all she wanted was a long hot bath and an uninterrupted night's sleep.

  "Ford called her while you were upstairs. She should be here any minute." Katie cast an anxious glance toward the backyard. Her aunt lived three doors down on the other side of the alley. "Come to think of it, it doesn't usually take her long. I hope nothing's happened."

  Kate shifted her attention to Ford, who sighed. "One problem at a time, Katie. Besides, if I know your aunt, she's got half the phone lines in Clover tied up by now."

  "I have a feeling you're right about that," Katie admitted with a quick shake of her head.

  Relieved that she'd fulfilled her obligation to her employer to the best of her ability, Sophie was about to excuse herself and return to her room when Ford suddenly pinned her with a look. His tired eyes were friendly enough, in an impersonal sort of way, but Sophie found herself going tense to the bone. Even without the badge he was a man she couldn't easily ignore. With it, and backed up by the gun hugging his right hip and the quiet air of command he wore so comfortably, he was the enemy personified.

  "If you feel up to it, I have a few loose ends I need to tie up for the arrest report." Straightening, he pulled a pad and pencil from his back pocket. The badge pinned to his wide chest flashed in the overhead light, and she felt a stab of icy fear.

  "As long as it doesn't take too long," she murmured, glancing up at the clock. "I don't like to leave Jessie longer than necessary."

  "I'd be tickled to sit with her," Katie offered. "It's not often I get the chance, what with the ladies always fussin' over who gets to hold h
er next."

  Touched, Sophie offered her a grateful smile. "If you're sure you wouldn't mind?"

  "Heavens, no! Nothin' I'd like better, in fact."

  "She was sleeping when I came downstairs, but Miss Fanny said she's been fussing on and off all evening long."

  "I'll call you if she wakes up," Katie promised, putting down her spatula. "Help yourself to the cookies," she added before heading for the back stairs. "Just leave me enough to fill a plate."

  "Depends on the size of the plate," Ford called after her, and received a very unladylike comment in return. Chuckling, he pulled out a chair and waited for Sophie to seat herself before doing the same.

  "Probably help us both if you just go ahead and tell me what happened any way that suits you," he suggested, leaning back and stretching out his legs. "Start anyplace you want. If you leave any blanks, I'll ask you to fill them in when you're finished."

  Over the years he'd found that he more often than not learned more from the way a story was told than the specific details.

  Sophie was silent for a moment, then began talking, reciting the details of Talley's arrival a few minutes before closing time and the events that followed dispassionately, as though she were describing a play she'd seen.

  He took a few notes, mostly to show he was paying attention, and wondered what she was doing in a backwater town in South Carolina waiting tables for a living, when she was obviously well-educated and pretty enough to get married again a dozen times over.

  Most folks new to town had kin somewhere close or, like the new pastor of the Community Church, a job bringing them to the area. The way it had been told to him she'd just stepped off the Greyhound one Monday evening and gone looking for a place to live. She didn't seem like the wandering type, but he'd read folks wrong before—especially women.

  "—and then you came in," she concluded, then frowned as though she'd suddenly remembered something important. "Why did you come in so late?"

  "I was on my way home when Dexter Bobo flagged me down to tell me he'd seen Rans driving that old pickup of his all over the road. I saw it parked outside Peg's and, bein' the nosy so-and-so I am, I just naturally had to find out what was goin' on inside."