“Oh, this is fun.” Gran clapped her hands. “I almost have ‘bingo’.”
“You won’t beat Stella. She wins every time,” Mrs. Anderson said.
“How can she win every time?” Gran asked. “Diana, I’m afraid this game is rigged. No one can win every time.”
“D-3,” Mr. Taylor said.
“Would it kill him to enunciate?” Gran asked. “B as in boy or D as in dog?”
“D as in dog,” Diana said, and then helped both Gran and Mrs. Anderson checked their boards, and consulted hers. No one had it.
So far, Diana’s boards looked like a jigsaw puzzle. But no straight lines anywhere. Just her luck. She was striking out at bingo among the senior citizen crowd at St. Catherine’s.
“Agnes,” Gran said, “Please tell my granddaughter that she shouldn’t be hanging out with a bunch of senior citizens like us. She won’t listen to me.”
“Gran, I told you. I want to be here.” Diana heard Mr. Taylor announce the next number, and found the marker for Gran. Gran was obscenely close to ‘bingo’.
“It’s not right. Not healthy.”
“Are you looking to fix her up?” Mrs. Anderson leaned in. “Because the Turlock boy is still single. He’s apparently not interested in my niece Peggy.”
“Peggy is forty-five!” Gran said.
“So?”
“Scott is twenty-eight if he’s a day. Good Lord, Agnes. Anyway, Diana agreed to go out with him as soon as she’s ready to date again.” Gran beamed and patted Diana’s hand.
It was getting difficult to hear the numbers being called with the ladies’ constant chatter. “What did he just call out?”
“Now you can’t hear either?” Gran asked.
“Bingo!” An older man shouted from the front of the room. “Hot diggity dog!”
“Oh, great.” Diana sighed. She and Gran both could have used that money.
“At least it’s not Stella again.” Mrs. Anderson cleared her board.
The man seemed ecstatic to win. His fists were lifted high as if he’d won a race and not a bingo game. Such enthusiasm for life. It made Diana smile despite her current Loser status.
“Patrick McCarthy.” Gran said.
“Who’s that?” Diana asked.
“It’s Scott’s grandfather. They all call him Pop.” Gran put her hands on the table. “And it’s not like he needs the money. Well all right, let’s go.”
“Wait. Why? They’re having cookies and refreshments after.” Diana put her hand on Gran’s, keeping her in place.
Gran stared from above her bifocals. “Now you’re worrying me. How can you be excited about cookies after bingo?”
“I’m not. I want you to be.”
“Fine, dear. Fine. I’ll stay for cookies. But you have to do one little thing for me.”
At last, progress. “Anything, Gran.”
“Get out of here.” She pointed towards the door.
“Get out?”
“Do you see any other young people in here?” Gran cast her gaze around the hall. “No, you don’t. I want you to step outside into our fresh wine country air and have a little walk about. Come and pick me back up after I’ve had my cookies and milk or whatever they have for me.”
Diana took only a moment to recover from being kicked out by Gran. She was right, after all. How could Gran reconnect with old friends if Diana always hung around, acting like her cruise director? Gran was right, and Diana would have to make friends her own age in town. It would be nice to come back here again next summer and spend more time with Gran. Making friends and connections here was the smart thing to do. Scott’s handsome face immediately sprung to mind, with all its inherently male angles, but how could they be friends when they kept kissing every chance they had to be alone? No, friends didn’t kiss like that. It was in the rule book somewhere, filed under ‘what was I thinking?’ She’d need to work on that. What she wanted most right now was a real friend, and Scott was clearly a friend to everyone.
Diana walked all the way around the block and then turned left and walked towards town. She passed by the Curl Up and Dye, where a blonde with a pink streak in her hair and a half sleeve of tattoos on one arm waved as if they were old friends. Probably saw the video. Diana gave her a half-hearted wave and walked a little faster. She passed the diner, the bookstore slash ice cream store combo, Giancarlo’s Ristorante, and somehow wound up in a residential neighborhood she didn’t recognize. Her heart froze when she saw the fire truck in the front of someone’s home.
Back in her suburban neighborhood, this meant either a drug overdose or an elderly person being carried out on a stretcher. With the elderly shut-ins, it had sometimes been weeks before anyone found them. A sudden image of Gran being carried out on a stretcher someday flashed in her mind. No way would that ever happen on Diana’s watch. Gran wouldn’t die alone. Ever. Diana would make sure of it.
She walked closer, and a couple of firefighters were gathered around the truck laughing. Strange sense of humor. “What’s so funny?” Diana stopped in front of the truck and threw the men a death stare.
One of them gazed at her with a hint of male appreciation in his eyes, despite the fact that she’d gone back to wearing the most matronly clothes she could find. Her ‘mom jeans’ and a loose prairie top. She was going to reinvent the way these men thought of her or die trying. Sooner or later they’d all figure out that the Victoria Secret lingerie was a fluke. They’d all caught her on a bad day.
“Oh please Scott, tell me my baby’s going to be fine. Talk to me!” A woman said.
Diana’s head whipped in the direction of the house and the sounds of the anguished woman. A baby? This was worse than she imagined.
But then she spied the same large boots she’d seen a week ago sticking out from under the house. “I’ve got her.” Scott’s big body was half under the house, half out.
“Thank God. I don’t know why she keeps running under the house and getting stuck.” The older woman stood on the front lawn, ringing her hands.
“I think I know why.” Scott emerged from under the house, carrying with him a litter of five puppies. A larger dog trotted close behind Scott. “One way to get a dog to come out? Take her puppies. She almost bit my hand off but here you go.”
“Oh my goodness, Lady, what have you been up to down there? We thought she’d given birth to the puppies and abandoned them. I had no idea.” The woman accepted the puppies one by one, taking them into the house.
“Bet she doesn’t run under the house again.” Scott squatted down to pat Lady’s head, and she licked Scott’s face.
Diana became vaguely aware of the fact that she was staring at Scott, who was now brushing off cobwebs, grass, dirt, and who knew what else off the navy blue fire department t-shirt that clung to his body like a second skin. Rebound guy. She wanted to be the one to do that—let her fingers wander down, brushing everything off that shirt from his broad chest to his abs. Later maybe licking it down to make sure she hadn’t missed a spot. Maybe she could, just this once, have a rebound guy.
“Diana?”
“Yes! What?” She shook off the fantasy and dialed back to the present time and location. Bookworm versus Hot Stud. It sounded like a porn movie.
Scott was studying her again, a little smile tugging at his lips. “What are you doing here?”
“I left Gran at St. Catherine’s playing bingo and just took a walk through town.” Then fell head first into a river of lust.
“Yeah? Pop plays every Saturday too.”
“He won.”
The grin slid off his face. “He won’t stop talking about that for weeks.”
“He seems like a nice man. Maybe a little excitable.” She thought back to the fists pumped high over two hundred dollars. She might have done the same had she won, but she wasn’t the one well acquainted with a multi-millionaire.
“He doesn’t need the money and always gives it away. It’s all about winning for him.”
“Let’s go, Pr
ince Charming,” one of the wise-ass firefighters called out. “Pretty sure someone of the two-legged species might need us.”
Diana caught a slight wince from Scott but to his credit he mostly ignored the guy. “Gotta go.” The driver had just started the engine. “See you tonight?” Scott hopped on the tail of the truck as it slowly moved onto the residential street.
“Tonight?”
“Running.” He winked as the truck drove off. “You didn’t think I’d forget?”
No, of course he wouldn’t forget. The abs and the dimpled grins weren’t enough. Neither was the child and puppy rescuing. He would now torture her by not allowing her to forget that she’d said she wanted to run in a moment of clear madness. Diana strode back to the church hall to pick up Gran, who waited for her at the curb chatting with Mr. McCarthy.
Gran smiled. “Pat, I’d like you to meet my granddaughter. Diana.”
“Call me Pop. All the young people do.” He held out his hand and shook Diana’s. “Bets and I are old friends.”
“Bets?” Diana glanced at Gran, who was—blushing?
“It was my nickname in the good ol’ days.” Gran waved it off. “When I was a much younger woman. Pat, you really shouldn’t call me that.”
“The hell I won’t! Bets is who you are, and a few liver spots won’t change that.” He smiled at her, and then flashed another grin in Diana’s direction.
Gran laughed, which sounded to Diana unnervingly like a cross between a giggle and a snort. “Oh, Pat!”
Pop turned to Diana. “I offered to take Bets home, but she said she already had a ride.”
“That was very nice of you.” Interesting that in all the socializing she’d pictured Gran doing, a man had never been a part of it. “I’ve got my car in the back. No worries.”
“Next week I’ll pick you up. It’s been too long and we have a lot of catching up to do. How about it?” Pop asked Gran.
Diana wanted to protest and explain that she’d be the one to do the driving, followed by asking to see Pop’s driver’s license and possibly his driving record. But wasn’t this what she’d wanted? Gran out of the house? Making friends? She just hadn’t pictured—this development. But they were just friends, and what could be wrong with that?
Gran looked from Diana to Pop. “Actually, that might keep my granddaughter out of here so yes! Thank you, Pat. Pick me up next Saturday.”
Pop tipped his head, and touched the blue striped bowtie he wore.
“Nice to meet you.” Diana took Gran’s arm and led her to the car. Once inside her car, Diana quizzed Gran on just how well she knew Mr. McCarthy.
But Gran seemed struck mute. “He’s a nice man.”
Diana wasn’t going to borrow trouble. If it got Gran out of the house it had to be a good thing.
***
What the hell was he doing? Answer: he had no clue.
The only thing he realized for certain was that every time Diana made no secret of checking him out—her gaze traveling from his chest, abs and lower, then acted like she’d been caught in the middle of a lewd act—something happened to his brain. It stopped working. It was the only reasonable excuse for the way he kept seeking her out.
Part of the problem was that old memories had started to flood back. Like the summer he had spied Diana dancing alone behind the bookstore when she obviously thought no one else could see her. Her sexy belly laugh, which he’d first heard at the lake when he’d pushed Troy off the pier and he’d yelled an expletive. She might look like the girl next door but her laugh was wicked and sensual.
But she was Mrs. Paulsen’s granddaughter, and would be leaving at the end of the summer as she’d done every year since the first time he’d met her. She didn’t strike him as someone who would want to stay in their little town. Yeah, she loved visiting but she had no intention of staying. And maybe that was for the best. Not like he was looking for permanent or had any high hopes that he’d ever find a woman willing to put up with him.
Once he’d finished his forty-eight on Saturday night, he went home and showered. He cooked himself some ramen noodles, and headed out the door to meet Diana for a run.
He found her slumped on the side of the track.
She looked up like she’d been caught slacking, adjusted her glasses and slowly rose, brushing off bits of grass from her knees. She wore a pair of shorts—black jogging ones with an orange stripe down the side. An oversized black t-shirt in neon pink lettering that read, ‘If you find me dead on a jogging trail, I was killed elsewhere and my body moved there’. Obviously, the lingerie the night of the fire was a complete fluke because Diana seemed to have little if no imagination when it came to clothes. Even so, she had great legs that she couldn’t hide under those ridiculous shorts. No matter how hard she was willing to try.
“I was just taking a break. I’m going around again.”
“Sorry I’m late.” He inspected her from top to bottom. Maybe he should take her heart rate first. “You okay?”
“Sure!”
Her false bravado encouraged him. Exercise was healthy and helped everyone so even if she had some misguided reason for it he wouldn’t discourage her. They ran around the track several more times before he acknowledged that she deserved another break. He led her to the bleacher stands and handed her a bottle of water.
“Thanks.” She accepted the bottle and climbed to the top of the bleachers. “I like the view up here.”
He also liked the view. Even those shorts couldn’t hide her world class ass. It would be a crime to make that ass any smaller as it happened to be the perfect size, but he’d given up on telling women that some men didn’t appreciate the stick figure types. Single women exercised and dressed for each other, he’d been told by both Brooke and Genevieve. That’s when he realized he’d never understand women so he’d given up trying.
“Sometimes the team Billy coaches practices here, on the other side of the field.” He threw a glance in the direction of the baseball diamond in the distance. Empty now.
“I think I’ve seen them.” She took a swig of water. “Did you play baseball too?”
“Nah, not me.” How was he supposed to compete with Billy’s record? Even though he’d been pursued time and time again by the coach who had prayed that some of that skill might have been in the Turlock genes. If so, it had bypassed him. “I played basketball.”
She glanced at him. “That makes sense. You’re tall enough.”
“Yeah, that’s what the coach said but height isn’t everything. I was good but I didn’t excel at it. My best friend was five eight and one of the best point guards we ever had.”
She nodded. “I never played sports, as you can probably guess.”
“I don’t make assumptions.”
“All right, that’s fair.” She blew away a stray hair that had loosened from her ponytail. “I’m sure you remember me as the bookworm. The wallflower. Guys like you didn’t date girls like me.”
“Guys like me?”
“Big man on campus. Athletic. Popular. Handsome.” The last word was almost whispered.
“Were you the only beautiful bookworm at school?” He sat close enough to feel her flinch at the remark.
“C’mon, Scott. Stop.” She looked at her feet.
“No.”
“Please?”
“So we’re just going to pretend nothing is happening between us?”
“Can we?” she almost squeaked the words out.
“I don’t think so. We’re both wildly attracted to each other.”
She sighed. “But what I need now is a friend.”
Ouch. Friend-zoned. Despite his disappointment, he’d never turn his back on a friend in need. Never. The one time he’d thought that a friend could wait, the one time he’d failed to act selflessly, had devastating consequences.
That would never happen again. “You got it.”
“Really?”
This wasn’t about what he wanted, and he agreed it probably wasn’t a good id
ea. It couldn’t last, anyway.
“I’m your friend, your pal. Whatever you need. Let’s see what we can do to get this video down, and maybe set the record straight about that night.”
“That would be great.”
“I don’t like the gossip any more than you do.”
When Billy had been forced to retire from baseball, the vultures had come to feed on the dead carcass of his career. Then he’d come home to buy the vineyard and they’d started spying on him and his general manager, now wife, Brooke. Scott didn’t care much for reporters as a matter of Billy’s experience, but Stephan the town blogger wasn’t a reporter so much as he was a creep with too much time on his hands.
“Once people get to know me, the real me, they’ll see that night was a freak thing.”
A light bulb suddenly went off in Scott’s head. An explanation for why she’d taken to dressing the way she had, hiding her body from the world. “Is that why you’re dressing like this?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“C’mon.”
“No, tell me.” She glanced down at her t-shirt. “Am I supposed to dress like a cheerleader to run?”
“I didn’t—” Great, he’d stepped into it, and back pedaling at this point might be useless. “Look, I’m just suggesting that you stop worrying about what other people think.”
She gaped, jaw slack. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“Easy for you too.”
“You do care what people think.” She squinted behind her frames.
He loved those liquid brown eyes, deep and dark, and many times flashing heat. Because he enjoyed the flashes of heat, he could admit to sometimes pushing her buttons. He realized he’d hit on one right now, and damned if he couldn’t take his thumb off it. “I care what I think.”
She didn’t appear convinced, giving him a smirk.
But he did care what his family thought. Especially since he’d already embarrassed them enough in this lifetime. So if he played the part of the good guy, everybody’s friend, it was only because he had so much to make up for.
Unforgettable You (Starlight Hill Series Book 4) Page 11
