Talk of the Town

by Suzanne Macpherson

  Question was, was she a bad girl? She’d come from bad, but more of a mess-bad than real-bad. She’d always kept to one relationship at a time, and really, those were few and far between. Sure, she’d lived with Raymond for a few years, but she did decide to marry him finally. Dumb as that was.

  Kelly straightened herself up and looked Sam in the eye across the table of the booth. If she’d lived a bad life, that life was over. Paradise was going to give her a new life. She slurped the rest of her milk shake down to the dregs.

  “So, did Paradise fall under a curse back in 1955 and just get stuck there forever, or have we time-traveled into the Starlight Diner? When we leave the city limits are we never going to find Paradise again? Will it vanish in the mist?”

  “I know the way back.” Sam stirred his coffee.

  “Back from time travel, from curse, or from the rodeo?”

  “All of the above. Want a bite of pie? Blackberry-blueberry. Starlight special.”

  “I’m willing to try anything.” Kelly stabbed her fork in Sam’s pie and hauled out a big hunk.

  Sam slipped his hand warmly into hers on the way out the door. “They’ll get used to it pretty soon, Kelly. I intend to be seen with you in all the best greasy spoons, if you’re willing.”

  When they got to the pickup, he pulled her closer and pressed her up against the side of the truck. She kissed him lightly across his lips.

  “Let’s give ’em something to talk about,” he said.

  “Happy to oblige, cowboy,”

  He took off his hat, then hers, and set them on the hood. He kissed her deeply, softly, and passionately, all at once. Their bodies melded together. She was warm and so full of desire, and she surrendered to his kiss like she had the night before, for the first time today. That made him hot for her all over again. Sam pulled back and looked into her eyes. He leaned close to her ear.

  “I’d like to get to know you much more, Kelly Atwood-Applebee. Let’s take a drive to the rodeo, and you can tell me all your secrets. You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

  Sam just hoped she didn’t have too many more secrets. He was still wrestling with the ones she’d already told him.

  Back in the Chevy, driving toward the Grant County Fair and Rodeo, Sam listened to Kelly talk about how she wanted to settle herself down and the dream she’d always had about a perfect town, just like in the movies. How she knew you weren’t supposed to say stuff like that to a guy, but he’d asked, and she might as well get it over with so he could bolt if he didn’t like what he heard. That made him laugh, considering it was she who was most likely to bolt.

  She talked about houses, and her white-farm-house-with-the-red-and-white-kitchen fantasy. They talked about art, about wanting to go to Italy and Paris and see the museums.

  He told her he had a minor in art history, and she told him she secretly wanted to try painting someday.

  Sam was listening. She talked like she wanted to stay put, but he still wasn’t sure. He was really enjoying her company.

  When he’d picked her up at the Hen House there had been a sense of distance in her. Like she’d put up the safety circle again. It bothered him that she sometimes took two steps backward with her emotions when he got too close. Too close to some old pain, probably.

  Kelly was strong, though. She was a clear thinker, and he liked that. She was passionate, and he liked that, too. He was listening, but he could smell the faint scent of lavender, and his body and mind drifted into the desire that was burning inside him, the desire to make love to this strong yet fragile woman.

  Chapter 8

  Sam could see the lights of a Ferris wheel and hear the announcements over the rodeo loudspeaker in the distance. He’d managed to convince Kelly to appear in public in her Annie Oakley duds once again, and they hiked from their distant parking spot holding hands, into the crowded fair, together.

  The night was warm. He was with a very beautiful woman who turned into a kid as soon as they crossed the gate into the Grant County Fair and Rodeo.

  First, Kelly made a beeline for the caramel corn and bought a huge bag to share with Sam, then Sam took her to the 4-H tents full of prize pigs and chickens. Kelly took a liking to the strange speckled breeds with fancy topknots and decided she would have chickens someday to complement the white farmhouse.

  Sam watched the pleasure on Kelly’s face. She actually squealed with delight over the lambs and again over a handmade quilt. He slipped the quilt maker’s card in his pocket when she wasn’t looking. Maybe someday he’d wrap her up naked in patchwork.

  It wasn’t often a man got to see his date get really excited over small things. His life to this point contained jaded women who stayed cool and unruffled at all times. Jaded was such an old word for young women, and Kelly, for all her hard knocks, was not jaded.

  At the arts and crafts tent Sam bought Kelly a painting of black and white chickens since she couldn’t have a real one at Myrtle’s.

  Then they headed for the beer garden, where folks were dancing to polka music. The ladies wore dresses with huge petticoats. The men wore string ties.

  After one beer, Sam convinced Kelly to polka with him. They swirled around the dance floor, Kelly following as best as a greenhorn could. The music ended, and they started back to the table, laughing hard from her lame attempts to two-step.

  “Where the heck did you learn to polka, Sam?”

  “It’s a required subject at Paradise High. That and animal husbandry.”

  “Polka 101. Did you get an A? Of course you did.”

  Sam stopped dead in his tracks, and Kelly ran right into his back.

  “Ow!” she said, still laughing.

  “Sorry,” he apologized, but she noticed he had stopped laughing. He took her arm and walked her back to their table rather quickly. She sat down and looked at him.

  “What’s up, Sam?” she asked, but Sam didn’t have time to answer. A tall, slender blonde was standing right in front of them with a look on her face that explained Sam’s reaction—Lynnette.

  “Sam Grayson. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” The blonde in the bright red Western jumpsuit put her hands on her hips. A tall man in a sheriff’s uniform came up behind Lynnette. This could be interesting, Kelly thought.

  “Kelly Applebee, this is Lynnette Stivers. We went to high school together.” Sam had an odd stance as he introduced Lynnette, but Kelly stuck out her hand in greeting.

  “Actually, we’ve met. At Cora’s, remember?” Kelly smiled, sort of.

  Lynnette ignored her and her hand. Sam broke the silence.

  “And this is Tom Blackwell. He’s the sheriff in Paradise. How’s it going, Tom? Anything exciting?”

  “Hey, Sam. Just the usual. Kids tipping over headstones at the graveyard. We make ’em do community service and pull lots of weeds. We never used to get caught at stuff like these kids do, right, Sam? Nice to meet you, Kelly.” Tom reached around his stone-statue of a date and shook Kelly’s hand.

  “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Lynnette asked as she surveyed every inch of Kelly’s face.

  “Yes, at Cora’s, remember?” Kelly said again. Boy, this chick was missing a few feathers.

  Lynnette stepped back as Sam walked behind Kelly’s chair and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “No, I’ve seen you somewhere else. Like in a magazine.”

  “She just has one of those lovable faces. Are you going to ride the broncs this year, Tom?”

  “I’m getting too old to go flyin’ off some wild horse, Sam. Besides, I have my hands full with Lynnette, here.”

  Lynnette looked at Sam and laughed a short laugh. “Too old for that, too, aren’t you, Tom?” Lynnette went on. “Well, Miss Applebee, you’ve got yourself quite a catch, honey, and rich, too, but I’m sure you know that, now, don’t you? You must be very pleased. You’ve caught the elusive Sam Grayson in your little web, and you’ve only been in town a few days! Why, you must be a talented little thing.”r />
  No one laughed. Tom Blackwell got a sad, faraway look on his face, then tipped his hat to Sam and Kelly.

  “We have to be heading over to the sheriff’s charity booth for our shift. Come on, Lynnette.” He gently took her arm. She jerked away and stalked off ahead of him. Kelly shuddered.

  “Well, now, I’ll be sure and invite Miss Stivers out for a day of shopping and tea real soon,” Kelly joked.

  “We dated our senior year. She was put out that I didn’t marry her then, and it got worse when I came back to town,” Sam said. “But she’s harmless.”

  “Oh, I see. Are there any more former girlfriends lurking about I should watch out for?” Kelly stood in front of him with her hands on her hips, in a stance similar to the one Lynnette had taken.

  “You’re beautiful when you’re jealous.” Sam put his arms out to her, and she stepped into his warmth.

  “I guess you’re right. It is a little early for full possession.”

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Kelly.” Sam held her tightly.

  “What does that mean, anyway?”

  “It means this is our second official date, and we have less than four weeks to go before I can quit being a gentleman, and I am so very pleased about that, and yes, you’ve caught me in your web.” He tipped her chin up with his finger and kissed her tenderly, right there beneath the colored lights of the beer garden.

  “Let’s go up on the Ferris wheel and watch the sun go down,” Sam suggested.

  Kelly agreed, and they walked over to the rides.

  The sky was pink and lavender with evening light. The sights and sounds of the fair surrounded them like a colorful dream: the delighted squeals of children as they rode the carousel horses, the rhythmic voices of the carnival barkers, and the tinny music of the kiddy rides. They got in line at the Ferris wheel. When their turn came up, she saw Sam whisper something to the attendant and slip him a bill.

  “Bribing the help, Sam? I suppose he’s going to strand us up there, and you will have to climb down to save me by turning the crank back on? He’s going to set you up to play hero?”

  “Sam Grayson, attorney at law, to the rescue!” He held the bar for her as they sat in their swaying cart.

  Kelly held on tightly as the first rush of movement caught her by surprise.

  “Ooooh. I forgot to tell you I’m sort of…ride-impaired!”

  “This is as tame as it gets, city kid, so we’ll overcome your terror together.”

  He wrapped one arm around her, and she snuggled into him. He was such a teddy bear, for a guy with such a great body. Hard but soft, Kelly thought.

  Predictably, after once around, the Ferris wheel paused with Sam and Kelly at the top. The sun was just giving a final color show. Scarlet and pink streaked the sky. The moon was already up, almost full, and pale in the last light. Two or three stars sparkled around the moon.

  Sam kissed her—first on her neck, then her earlobe, then his lips settled on hers. His kiss deepened. It was like whooshing up on the Ferris wheel. It caught her and moved her so much her heart ached.

  She moved back and looked in his eyes. There in those deep blues was the promise of a better future. She touched his cheek gently and kissed each of his eyes.

  “Kelly, you’d be damn easy to fall in love with,” Sam whispered.

  She ruffled his hair and played with the dark brown curls around his forehead.

  “Thank you, Sam. You’re like a special gift.”

  “And you haven’t even unwrapped me yet.” He took her hand, kissed the palm and each fingertip. Kelly leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the dark blue night descend and the moon brighten.

  The ride began to move again, and Kelly looked down on the tiny scene below them. Something caught her attention. Partially hidden at the back of a row of booths, staring straight up at them, was Lynnette Stivers in her red Western gear. She was gone when they reached the bottom.

  Sam had to help her out because her legs were wobbly. It was more than the Ferris wheel ride making her shaky.

  She decided not to mention Lynnette. Why spoil their lovely time with a discussion of an old high school girlfriend?

  Instead she let Sam feed her purple cotton candy. He tried to win her a blue and white china teapot she said she wanted to take home to Myrtle. Capable as he was, the breeze had kicked up, and the dancing balloons just wouldn’t hold still for his darts. But after about twenty dollars, the barker awarded him the teapot for a three-in-a-row balloon score.

  Sam decided to cure Kelly of some of her unreasonable fears and bought her a ticket on the pony rides. He put her aboard an actual horse, the only one on the track, and Sam cheered from the platform as she trotted around the ring, bouncing on her ass unmercifully.

  “Post! Post!” He cried from across the ring, making very odd up-and-down movements with his body.

  “What post? What the hell is post?” She laughed so hard she almost fell off. At the end of the ride he helped her down and caught her in his arms.

  “Ouch,” she said. But then she saw something that startled her. Over Sam’s shoulder, off under the trees, stood Lynnette again, watching them. She ducked behind a tree trunk when Kelly glanced her direction.

  “Sam, I think Lynnette is following us. This is the second time I’ve seen her.”

  “She’s kind of hard to miss in that neon red and gold number,” Sam joked.

  “I’m serious. What’s up with her, anyway?”

  “I kind of thought she’d recovered.” Sam and Kelly walked to a nearby bench, and he continued his story.

  “Lynnette always took things more seriously than I did. She used to talk about getting married. I told her we were too young, and that I had college and law school ahead of me.”

  Kelly watched Sam tell his story. She started to get the sense he didn’t get how crazy Lynnette was. Sometimes being new in town gave you a clearer perspective than that of people who had grown up there. And Kelly had a much clearer perspective

  “She said she would wait for me,” he went on. “I kept trying to tell her not to, but she wouldn’t listen. We broke up over that, and over her jealous fits.

  “She didn’t seem to actually grasp that we had broken up since I didn’t get involved with anyone, but we were just about to graduate and I figured, why start something up when I was leaving?

  “She hung around me, called me all the time. I was friendly, but I knew I was leaving four days after graduation.”

  “What happened when you left?”

  “She waited. Years. My mom told me, when word got out I was engaged, she went kind of nuts. She climbed up on the high school water tower in her negligee and tried to scrub our initials off with Comet. Tom Blackwell got the job of getting her down. He was a deputy sheriff then.”

  “And what’s up with him?”

  “He sees something in her I don’t, I guess. He’s been waiting for her to snap out of it. She’s supposed to be on some kind of medication. She works at Tom’s office now doing data entry and filing.”

  “Wow. I think she stopped taking her happy pills. She treats Tom pretty badly. Why does he put up with it?”

  “I think he really loves her.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Tom.”

  “I was hoping she would eventually accept the fact that I’m not interested in her and turn to him.” He smiled at Kelly and reached for her hand.

  Kelly figured she’d plow ahead, since Sam was talking. She wanted to know one more thing. “What happened to your engagement, Sam?”

  Sam let go of her hand and ran his hand through his hair in a nervous gesture. “Chelsea Westheimer. She had a drinking problem I didn’t know about. I ended up being the lawyer assigned to defend her when she was picked up for driving under the influence—reckless endangerment. She’d gotten into an accident. Her family disowned her, and she had to have a public defender—me.

  “Unfortunately, she had a prior conviction I didn’t know about. She was sentenced
for a year, but she got out in six months.”

  “Oh, my God, Sam. That must have been bad.”

  “She got a particularly hard judge. Not that I disagree with the penalties for driving under the influence. We had already broken up before it happened. Of course, I figured for a long time that’s why it happened, but that’s not the case.” He got up and paced in front of the bench. “I came back home after that. I wanted to work where I could do some good instead of…”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Sam.”

  “You think you know the person you’re with and then she just blows you out of the water.” Sam’s face looked hard.

  Kelly’s stomach flipped. She stood up and pulled Sam into her.

  “I know exactly what you’re talking about. But let’s just forget about the past and be together. How about we head over to the rodeo now?” she said.

  “Sounds just fine,” Sam replied. “Seeing a few boys rope their calves sounds relaxing.”

  “Right. Just don’t ask me to do that, okay?”

  “I promise. This time. You could be a champ. You’ve got the moves. You were a natural on that horse.”

  “Hog-tie 101, huh? You’ll have to teach me that one, Sam.” They walked toward the brightly lit arena and the cheering crowd.

  Kelly was quiet during the ride home. Sam put in a soft jazz CD. His mind was working on the problems surrounding them. First, he’d have to call Tom Blackwell tomorrow and have a chat with him about Lynnette for sure this time.

  Second, Kelly was married. He’d have to call his college buddy Peter Brody in L.A. and see if Peter could file the divorce papers down there. The clear choice was to get the marriage annulled, although the prior cohabitation might complicate that

  Third, he was having way too many feelings about her. This dating thing was supposed to be a way to clear his head, to get his instincts to shut up and his common sense to take over. It was supposed to be about testing her resolve to stay in town and not run like a scared rabbit.