LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART

by Nancy Gideon

  He wanted her to take a confident stand beside him against the tide of the town's disfavor.

  Bess paused in mid-sentence when she saw him. Her expression lit up with a secret pleasure, then she glanced away to continue her conversation. She didn't wave, she didn't call him over. She didn't acknowledge him except with that brief, covert smile.

  Not good enough.

  Not damn near good enough!

  He continued along the edge of the square, his stride picking up an exaggerated bounce as he shifted unconsciously into his too-cool-for-this-place strut. His hard, provoking arrogance drew in trouble like a magnet.

  "Hey, Crandall. What're you doing back here? Thought we cleaned out the trash back in the eighties."

  Zach kept walking, but his steps grew light and alert as he tried to get a fix on the coarse voice.

  "Think you're too good to look me in the eye? Guess again."

  The speaker closed in on him from behind, flanked by two others. Abruptly, Zach stopped and spun, setting the trio back in alarm. His mood was just dark enough to relish an in-your-face confrontation. He leaned forward, intimidating with his posture, with the menacing squint of his eyes.

  "This is the nineties, that was the eighties." He spoke quietly, with the compact velocity of a .44 silencer. "Some things have changed, but not you, Web. You were an ignorant SOB then, and you're an ignorant SOB now. Still hiding behind your daddy's badge, or are you man enough to back that mouth of yours?"

  Obviously Web Baines wasn't, not in the middle of town, especially when his two friends were busy backing away. Too sullen and just plain mean to let it go without a final jab, he sneered, "Oh, I'll back it. Just you wait and see."

  Zach checked his watch. "My time's valuable, Baines. Maybe you should make an appointment."

  Then he turned with a majestic indifference to the danger and strode away. Web Baines wasn't about to do anything out in the open. He was an ambush kind of guy. And despite Zach's show of calm, he knew from now on he'd have to be ready for the coward to strike.

  He had few friends in Sweetheart. And more enemies than he could name.

  A fact of life, inherited with the name he carried.

  * * *

  The afternoon hours crept by, slow and sweltering. Except for that brief glimpse, Bess didn't see Zach again. It did no good telling herself she wasn't disappointed.

  A visit from Herb Addison hardly alleviated it.

  "I was hoping that book on the Spanish-American War was going to be on your sale table, but I don't see it."

  "I'm sorry, Herb. One of the Boxstander twins picked it up to do her history report. I would have saved it for you if I'd known you were really interested."

  Herb came by her store several times a week to browse, though she was certain he didn't have any literature over magazine length in his home. He was an earthy man of simple tastes, and reading wasn't one of them. Finding a new wife seemed the greater priority. Bess hadn't given him any encouragement there, but she wondered if someone—or a pair of someones who happened to be sisters—was. She didn't dislike Herb. He was a fine citizen, a fairly good friend. But he wasn't husband material—at least not for her.

  Now to convince him, gently, of that fact.

  Today he didn't seem in the mood to listen.

  "You would have known I wanted it if you'd been paying attention," the farmer grumbled. "You've been mighty distracted lately."

  Bess's goodwill took a frosty turn. "I've been busy, Herb."

  "Busy strutting around in those shameful shorts," he muttered under his breath. "Busy flaunting yourself with that Crandall guy. Old friends." He made an uncharitable noise and continued poking through the books. "I was looking forward to your rhubarb pie, like I do every year, but I would have settled for the lemon."

  Bess locked her teeth against words she'd regret later. Instead she mentioned, "It's over at the library—"

  "Was over at the library until someone bought the whole darned thing. Guess I don't need to tell you who that was."

  "I'm afraid you'll have to because I don't have the slightest—"

  "Zach Crandall, that's who. Who else has been hanging all over you, taking up all your time after appearing out of nowhere."

  Conflicting emotions collided: the unexpected pleasure of Zach's purchase and the ugly undercurrent she was getting from Herb. He sounded all too possessive and she didn't care for it in the least.

  "Zach and I are old friends, Herb." She made sure he caught the edge in her tone, telling him she resented having to explain something she didn't think was his business.

  "Zach Crandall is trouble and not the kind of man you should be involved with."

  Every human being had a limit, and Bess found hers.

  "If I need someone to tell me how to run my personal life, Herb Addison, I will certainly come to you first, since you feel you have the right to comment on it so freely. And if you find yourself hungry for pie anytime soon, I suggest you try Sara Lee."

  While Herb's jaw sagged, threatening to drop his wobbly bridgework, Bess snatched up her cash box and marched inside the store. After slamming the door, she flipped the sign over to Closed, then stood trembling, panting, in the aftermath of her first temper blowup.

  She took a breath, then another, deeper one. What possessed her to explode like that? She should find Herb and apologize—

  No. No, she would not! He was the one in the wrong, not her. She wouldn't say she was sorry … because she wasn't sorry. In fact, a liberating sense of satisfaction lightened the niggling sense of guilt. Why shouldn't she tell nosy old Herb Addison that her love life—which did not include him—was none of his affair.

  And unfortunately still nonexistent. A few pulse-racing moments with Zach didn't equate to a love affair. The town was jumping to conclusions.

  And unfortunately, again, so was her heart.

  The bell on the door jangled. Bess turned, ready to fillet Herb Addison out like a trout. Her features froze in indignation.

  "Aunt Bess?"

  Her self-righteousness deflated like a pin-pricked balloon. "Faith…"

  "Are you all right?"

  "Of course I am. I just decided to close up a little early."

  The teen frowned skeptically. "Oh. I thought maybe someone had said something to you."

  "About what?" She bent to open her small floor safe where she'd store her earnings until the bank opened in the morning. Not that there was much to steal.

  "About you and Zach."

  Blood pounded to her head. Somehow, she managed a level voice. "What about us?"

  "That the two of you are having a passionate affair. If you are, how come you didn't tell me?"

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  "Who gave you—and the town—that crazy idea?"

  "Zach."

  "Zach?" His name quavered from her. "What— Why—"

  "Probably when he bid thirty dollars for your lemon pie at the library auction."

  "Thir—"

  "I thought Mr. Sadler and his mom were going to have strokes. I didn't know you were that great at baking." The girl's eyes twinkled mischievously.

  Bess rocked back on her heels, gripping her tented knees in an effort at control. "All this is over a pie?"

  "That and something about the two of you lip-locked in the driveway last night." Faith grinned wide in her delight

  "Lip— We were no such thing! Zach Crandall is an old friend. I was just being nice to him. We were dancing." Heat sizzled in her cheeks. It had been more than dancing. She'd wanted it to become more scandalous than a kiss. Was it the rumor upsetting her … or the fact that it wasn't true?

  "You don't have to convince me," Faith insisted. "I know it was just you and your dotted swiss nightie in your bed last night."

  "They're saying Zach and I— That he and I were together in my house—in my bed?" That last came out a hoarse whisper.

  "They're saying everything shy of the two of you runn
ing off to Las Vegas to get hitched in the Elvis Presley Honeymoon Chapel."

  "Oh dear!" She sat back hard on the floorboards in a graceless slump, shocked, stunned, horrified! She couldn't think. She couldn't react. After all she'd gone through, all the hell and heartbreak, to protect the one precious private slice of her past. She'd been so careful, so fearful of anyone finding out the truth.

  And now everyone thought they knew everything. She could picture the gossips huddled close, suppositions and innuendoes flying on the winds of salacious rumor. Her name, her feelings, her morals dragged through the mire of scandal her mother fought so hard to save her from. What an irony that a lie should have the effect the truth could not.

  How could she ever repair her reputation?

  "If it's not true," Faith said with the clear-cut naiveté of youth, "why don't you just tell them it isn't?"

  Fat chance! Like anyone would choose to believe her! No one noticed a small retraction on page twelve refuting a front-page headline. How was she ever going to hold her head up again? Joan Carrey's demure daughter, shacking up with the town's ex-con under the same roof where her young niece was sleeping! Imagine!

  Bess could imagine. And she went numb inside.

  What would her mother say? The thought of her harsh censure knotted Bess's stomach into a painful half hitch of dread.

  Worried by her aunt's pallor, Faith knelt down to slip a supportive arm about her rounded shoulders. "Why should you care what they say? Heck, I'd be in seventh heaven if they had me horizontal with someone like Mr. Crandall—I mean, if I were older."

  Someone like Zach. Someone considered a town's worst nightmare. Someone who'd stirred her life into a frenzy, then disappeared from it for seventeen years without a word. Someone who went to prison for who-knows-what crime then casually returned without a word of apology to set her world, on its ear again—without her permission.

  It would be different if she were guilty of something sinful. Then she'd deserve the frowns, the whispers. But for Zach to purposefully create the idea of guilt by association in indifference to her reputation, well knowing—knowing!—how afraid she was of loose talk…

  Her shock thawed to a roiling boil.

  How dare he play loose with her standing in Sweetheart? She was a businesswoman, single, with temporary guardianship of an impressionable young girl. Didn't he realize what harm such talk could do?

  Of course he did. He was one of the Crandalls. He, more than anyone, knew how vicious rumors could become.

  * * *

  With the clatter of the midway going full tilt and the enticing scent of barbecue heavy on the air, people gathered in the shady square. With lawn chairs and blankets spread, they anticipated an evening of speeches and music that would culminate in a dazzling display of fireworks.

  Bess laid out their blanket toward the edge of the gathering where she could escape easily and without much notice. Founders' Day programs were notorious for their longwindedness and the questionable talent of their performers. The mayor's wife had center stage, belting out an off-key medley of show tunes with an enthusiasm that made her too-tight, beaded dress strobe and flash like a mirrored disco ball. No one had the heart to tell her what a spectacle she made in the garish dress, with her face made up like a big-city streetwalker. In her own eyes, she appeared elegant and sophisticated, so her friends smiled as she hit or missed notes, indulging her the fantasy.

  Faith, not being small town like the majority of them, gawked in dismay and winced in pain. Bess poked her.

  "Be kind."

  "Shoot me, please," the girl muttered.

  Bess hid her grin of agreement. Then her amusement drained away as she spotted a lone figure leaning back against one of the century oaks. Zach Crandall, all dressed in villainous black, stood staring not at the stage but unblinkingly at her, his expression grimly unsmiling, his eyes laser-beam direct. She gasped and looked quickly away. He couldn't have drawn more attention to them if he'd been sitting on the blanket beside her. A few good citizens already noted the focus of his attention, and she cringed beneath their questioning frowns. It couldn't continue. She had to do something before Faith noticed the commotion.

  "I'm going to get a soda," she announced, reaching for her billfold. "Do you want something?"

  Faith raised her can of pop. "I'm still fine. Some aspirin would be nice. Ear plugs would be better."

  Bess tried to shame her with a scowl but the teen was incorrigible. Finally she had to chuckle. "I'll be right back."

  Faith nodded absently, her interest already captured by a cadre of senior boys who just happened to swagger by in front of her.

  Freed of her pretense, Bess hurled a meaningful glare at Zach, then wound her way to the back of the square where children were romping with gleeful indifference to their surroundings. She began walking, heading behind the skill booths set up to lure the hard-earned coins of the unlucky. It took Zach less than a minute to catch up to her. She rounded on him in an immediate attack.

  "Just what exactly are you trying to do to me, Zach?"

  A host of unspoken answers filtered behind his steady stare, some protestingly innocent, which she didn't believe in the least, and some provokingly intimate, sparking more anger to cover her vulnerability. Finally he turned the tables with a bland question of his own.

  "Just what is it you think I'm trying to do, Bess?"

  "Don't you think thirty dollars is a little excessive for a pie?"

  "I like lemon pie. And it was for a good cause."

  She huffed indignantly. "And you never once stopped to consider what people might say?"

  "I've never been one to listen to what other people are saying, but apparently you still do. What are they saying, Bess?"

  Her cheeks flamed with humiliation then awkwardly spelled it out for him. "They're saying… They're spreading rumors that—" Her voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. "They're saying that we're sleeping together."

  "Because I bought your pie at a charity auction?" His brows lifted. "That's an excessive leap of logic, don't you think?"

  His lazily unconcerned attitude threatened her control. Her voice grew shrill. "Not for this town, Zach, and you darned well know it!" She glanced around nervously to see if they could be overheard. "Someone saw us last night. In my driveway."

  He shook his head, dismissing the significance. "So? We're two single adults. It's not like we were rolling around naked on the lawn."

  Bess swallowed down her guilty thoughts to snap, "Why are you doing this? I thought we were friends."

  His gaze chilled. "I thought we were more than friends."

  His lethally quiet claim gave her a moment of frantic pause, then she scrambled to recover. "That was a long time ago."

  He said nothing, challenging her statement with a penetrating stare. Goading her to speak more harshly than she normally would.

  "You left. You never once tried to get ahold of me." Accusation strengthened her tone.

  "You let me go," he added, mildly.

  "I was seventeen years old!"

  "So, what's your excuse now?"

  What was her excuse? For an instant, as she followed the provoking purse of his lips with mesmerized attention, she forgot. Those lips. The thought of his kisses. The air seemed too thin, making normal breathing difficult. Then, the slow, decidedly arrogant spread of his grin proved a reminder. Her temper rallied.

  "This is my home, Zach. I live here, work here. I face these people every day. Even if you don't give a damn what they think, I do. I have to." She was too incensed, too upset, to be shocked at her own uncharacteristic use of profanity. "You left. I had to stay here."

  "No, you didn't," he corrected. A touch of her temper began creeping into his modulated voice as well.

  Bess grabbed for breath and stability. She'd never been good at confrontation. Her stomach ached. Her heart pounded. But she had to make him understand. So maybe she could understand.

  "I've been lonely all my life. I couldn't have
friends, I couldn't join clubs or go to parties like the other kids. I didn't know how to make my own choices. Julie was the brave one, not me. I was the good kid, the dutiful child who stayed home and caused no problems. Do you know what it's like, day in, day out, suffocating on your own fears?"

  "Yes."

  She ignored his soft reply because she couldn't afford to soften her resolve.

  "I spent years taking care of Mother and the store, shut up in that house or in that store. When I buried my mother, I was the one who escaped being buried alive. This town has become my family. They took me in. They've shown me more love and acceptance than I ever knew existed."

  "How nice for you." His drawl held a cutting edge. "I'm sure the good folks of Sweetheart were just as generous to my sister when she was left dangling on her own. Come on, Bess, wake up to what they are. They're narrow-thinking, closed-minded hypocrites! And you want to be just like them."

  "I do not!" Her objection validated all he said without her knowledge of it.

  "You don't see a difference between the way they treat a Carrey and a Crandall? How many of your fancy functions does Mel belong to? How many of these good people have gone out of their way to make her their friend?"

  "I have."

  "Have you? Or is it just lip service, like you gave me? You don't want to be seen with us. What would they think?"

  His words twisted everything around, making her motives seem self-serving and shallow. Forcing her to question what she'd so happily embraced. She wouldn't listen. She couldn't believe, not without accepting the brunt of the same searing hatred he held for the rest of the community.

  She couldn't bear to be held with such contempt, not by him. So she couldn't let it matter.

  "I will not pretend that I don't care what they think," she protested valiantly in her own defense. "I do, Zach. I do care. If I get all wrapped up in you again, I'll never earn back that sense of belonging. And someday you'll up and leave, and where will I be? I'll be here, alone. I can't spend the rest of my life that way, growing old and isolated and bitter like my mother was."