by Nora Roberts
At the beep of a horn, she stumbled, and whirled around, lifting the basket like a shield. She watched her own car slide into its habitual place near her steps. Lynt got out.
"Didn't mean to startle you."
She managed a nod. Why was he watching her that way, like she was some alien species? Why did people look at her that way?
"Ah, tires look fine. They were just low. Real low. I put air in them for you."
"Oh. Thanks. Thank you."
"And. ah, since I was at it. I was going to check your spare for you. But…"
She moistened her stiff lips. "Is there something wrong with the spare?"
"The thing is…" He pulled on the brim of his hat, shifted his feet. "It's kind of buried in there."
"I don't know what you mean." She made herself set the basket on the steps, cross over. "I don't have anything but emergency gear in there."
When he hesitated, she took the key from him. popped the trunk.
The smell came first. Garbage just going over. The trunk was full of it—eggshells, coffee grounds, wet, stained papers, empty cans. As it someone had dumped a full can of waste into it.
"I wasn't sure what you wanted me to do."
"I didn't do this." She took a step back, then another. "I didn't do this. Did you?"
That same sudden shock that had run across Brenda's face ran across Lynt's. " 'Course not, Reece. I found it like this."
"Somebody did this. I didn't do this. Someone's doing this to me. Someone—"
"I don't like shouting outside my place." Joanie came out the back, down the side of the building. "What's going on here? Well, for chris-sake.,what's all this?" She wrinkled her nose as she peered into the trunk.
"I didn't do this," Reece began.
"Well, I sure as hell didn't. Went to get her spare," Lynt said. "Found this. She's got some crazy idea I dumped all this garbage in here."
"'She's just upset. Shit, Lynt, wouldn't you be if you had this happen? Kids," Joanie said mildly. "Bunch of asinine kids most likely. Lynt, I got some cans around back, some rubber gloves in the backroom. Give me a hand cleaning this out."
"I'll do it." The words jerked out of Reece's raw throat. "I'm sorry, Lynt. I just don't understand—"
"Go upstairs,"Joanie ordered Reece. "Go on. Lynt and Pete can deal with this. I'll be up in a minute. Don't argue with me," she added when Reece started to protest.
"I'm sorry." Tired now, Reece dragged up the basket. "I'm sorry. I'll get your money."
"No charge." Lynt waved it away. "It was nothing but air."
Joanie gave Lynt's arm a pat as Reece went up the steps. "Go on back, will you, tell Pete to give you a hand with this. Got your next meal on the house."
"How'd kids get the trunk open, Joanie? I can tell you it hasn't been forced."
"God knows how kids do anything. Or why," she said before Lynt could voice the question. "But the fact is that trunk's full of stink and garbage. You and Pete take care of that."
When Joanie went inside the apartment, Reece was sitting on the side of the daybed, the basket of wet laundry at her feet.
"Soup smells good." Joanie stepped over, frowned at the basket "Those clothes'll mildew you don't at least hang them up. Why didn't you use the dryer?"
"I thought I did. I know I did. But they were in the washer."
"What the hell's all over them?"
"Ink. Red ink. Someone put my red marker in the machine with them."
Joanie puffed up her cheeks. She went over, got a saucer out of Reece's cupboard. She lit up a cigarette when she came back, sat on the bed beside Reece.
"I'm going to have a cigarette, and you're going to tell me what's going on."
"I don't know what's going on. But I know I put those clothes in the dryer, I put in the money, I pressed the button. But they were in the washer, wet, when I went back for them. I know I didn't put that garbage in the trunk of my car, but it's there. I didn't write all over the bathroom."
"My bathroom?" Joanie popped up, went to have a look. "I don't see anything written in here."
"Brody painted over it. I didn't put my hiking boots in the kitchen cupboard or my flashlight in the refrigerator. I didn't do those things, but they happened all the same."
"Look at me. Look me in the face here." When Reece did, Joanie studied her face, her eyes. "Have you been taking drugs? Doctor-prescribed or otherwise?"
"No, nothing but the herb tea Doc made up for me. And Tylenol. But all my security blanket meds ended up poured into my mortar."
"Why would anyone do that? Or any of the rest?"
"To make me think I'm crazy. To make me crazy, which doesn't take much of a push. Because I saw what I saw, but it's easy to dismiss a crazy woman."
"They found a body—"
"Wasn't her," Reece interrupted, and her voice began to rise and pitch. "Wasn't the same. It wasn't her, and—"
"Stop that." Joanie's voice snapped out like a slap. "I'm not talking to you unless you calm down."
"You try it, you try to be calm when someone's doing things to you. You stay rational when you just don't know what might happen next. Or when. My clothes are ruined. I barely had enough left till payday to wash them; now they're ruined."
"You can run a tab at Mac's, or I'll give you an advance if you need to replace some things."
"That's not the point."
"Nope. But it's better than a stick in the eye. How long has this been going on?"
"Little things since… almost since I got back from seeing that woman killed. I don't know what to do."
"You ought to be talking to the sheriff."
"Why?" Reece dragged her hands through her hair, just fisted them in it. "You think that pile of garbage in my trunk has fingerprints on it?"
"All the same, Reece."
"Yes." On a sigh, she lowered her hands to scrub them over her face. "Yes, I'll tell the sheriff."
"Fine. For right now, you'd better go through those clothes, see what you can salvage and hang them up to dry. You need a new shirt or underwear, you can get it at Mac's on your break. You've got about five minutes before your shift."
Joanie stubbed out the cigarette. She rose and dug a twenty out of her pocket. "For painting the bathroom."
"I didn't. Brody did."
"Then give it to Brody, you want to be a dumbass."
Pride warred with practicality, and practicality had more muscle. "Thanks."
"Brody knows about all this?"
'"Yes, except for what happened today, yes."
"Do you want to call him before you come down to work?"
"No. I seem to be getting in his way."
Joanie snorted. "Men have their uses, but unless you're under one having an orgasm, it's hard to see what else they've got to offer. Pull yourself together and come on down. Prime rib's the special tonight."
Reece stirred herself, poked at the basket with her foot. "Prime rib of what?"
"Buffalo," Joanie said with a thin smile. "Maybe you got a way to fancy that up."
"As a matter of fact…"
"Then get your ass down there and do it. I've only got two hands."
BRODY CONSIDERED tossing a frozen pizza in the oven and thought of chicken and dumplings.
She'd done that on purpose, he decided. Thrown that at him so he wouldn't be able to think of anything but her—of it, he corrected.
He'd just wanted her to back up. Isn't that exactly what he'd said? But she overreacted, as women always did.
A man was entitled to a little breathing room in his own house, wasn't he? A little solitude without a woman fussing all around him.
He was entitled to frozen pizza if he wanted it. It just so happened he didn't. He wanted a good, hot meal. And he knew where to get one.
He'd eaten at Angel Food before she came along, Brody thought as he went out to his car. He wasn't headed there because she was there. That was just circumstance. And if she wanted to keep her nose up in the air, that was her business. All he wante
d was a decent meal at a reasonable price.
But when he pulled up at Joanie's, Joanie herself came out.
"I was just coming over to see you," she said.
"About what? Reece is—"
"Yeah, Reece is." And in that instant concern, she saw what she'd expected. The guy was gone. "Take a walk with me. I got ten minutes."
She told him quickly, overriding his interruptions, rolling over his temper. "Said she'd call the sheriff, but she hasn't. Not yet. Handles herself once she gets her balance back. That was a nasty bit of business, that garbage in her trunk. I don't like nasty."
"It's all been nasty. I need to talk to her now."
"She can have ten, if she wants to take it. Go around to the back. I don't want the two of you spitting at each other over my counter."
He did as Joanie suggested, then brushed right by Pete and took Reece's arm. "Outside."
"I'm busy."
"It'll wait." He hauled her straight out the door.
"Just a damn minute. I'm working. Nobody comes in and pulls on you when you're working. If you have something to say to me, you can say it when I've finished."
"Why the hell didn't you call me when all this crap happened today?"
"As usual, word travels." she said sourly. "And I didn't feel like calling you. If you're here to ride to the rescue, keep right on riding. I don't need a hero. I need to do my job."
"I'll wait until you're finished and drive you back. We'll go see Rick in the morning."
"I don't want anyone waiting for me, and when I'm finished I have plans."
"What plans?"
"Ones that don't concern you. I don't need you to go to the sheriff with me. I don't need a babysitter or a white knight or pity any more than you need me to make your bed and do your laundry. And it's not time for my break."
When she turned toward the door, he took her arm, pulled her around again. "Goddamn it, Reece." He sighed, gave up. "Goddamn it," he said quietly now. "Come home."
She stared at him, then she shut her eyes. "That was a sneaky punch." And it took her breath away. "I think we both better take a little time thinking about that. I think we'd both better be sure just what that means, and if it's what we both want. Maybe we'll talk tomorrow."
"I'll sleep in my office, or down on the couch."
"I'm not coming to your place so you can protect me. If it turns out it's more than that, we'll see what happens. You'd better figure it out before we talk again."
She left him, baffled and edgy, to go back to the grill.
* * *
Chapter 22
ONE BEER. Reece thought. If a woman couldn't afford to buy herself one beer, what was the point of holding down a job, and working at it so that the small of her back quietly wept at the end of a long day?
Clancy's was hopping with locals mixing and mingling with the tourists who'd sprinkled into the area to fish or float, to hike or horseback ride. The long, tall Reuben had the mike and was doing a soulful version of Keith Urban's "You'll Think of Me." A group of cowboys had flirted a couple of town girls into a game of pool, so the balls cracked amid a thin sexual haze. Two couples from back East were hoisting drinks and snapping pictures of themselves against the backdrop of elk and sheep's heads.
At the bar, his boot propped on the rail, Lo brooded into his bottle of Big Horn.
"He looks like he's suffering."
At Reece's comment. Linda-gail shrugged. "Not enough. This time around, he's going to have to come my way, hat in hand. I can wait." She-popped one of the pretzels out of the black plastic bowl on the table, crunched down hard. "I've been hung up on that stupid cowboy most of my life, and I've given him enough time, enough space to finish riding the damn range."
"Nice metaphor," Reece told her.
But Linda-gail wasn't in the mood to take a compliment. "I figured Lo carried around more wild oats than most, so fine, let him sow them, get all that business out of his system. Man like him, women are always going to jump when he crooks a finger."
Reece raised a hand. "I didn't."
"Yeah, but you're crazy."
""True. I guess that explains it."
"But I'm ready to start building the rest of my life now." With her eyes narrowed at Lo's back, Linda-gail crunched another pretzel. "He either catches up, or he doesn't."
Reece considered it. "Men are assholes."
"Oh well, 'course they are. But I just don't like women in the same way. So I'm going to need one to get things going."
"What sort of things?"
Propping her elbow on the table, Linda-gail rested her chin in her palm. "I want to buy my house from Joanie. She'd sell it to me if I asked her to. And when she's ready to take a step back. I want to manage Angel Food."
Unsurprised, Reece nodded. "You'd be good at it."
"You're damn right I would. And I want a pair of silver candlesticks to put on the dining room table. Nice ones that I can pass down to a daughter. I want a daughter, especially, but I'd like it best if I could have one of each. A boy and a girl. I want a man who'll work beside me for that, and who looks at me like I'm the reason. I want to hear him scrape his boots outside the door at night when supper's cooking. And every once in a while, just now and then, I want him to bring me flowers when he comes home."
"That's nice."
"And I want him to be a damn conquistador in bed, and make me deaf, dumb and blind on a fairly regular basis."
"Excellent goals, every one. Lo's up for that?"
"The sex part, I'm pretty sure of, though I've only had the previews and not the whole show." She grinned, a little fiercely, as she popped another pretzel. "The rest? He's got the potential. But it he wants to waste it, I can't stop him. Want another beer?"
"No, I'm fine."
Linda-gail signaled for one as the two women from back East took over the stage with an energetic version of "I Feel Like a Woman." "What about you? What are your excellent goals?"
"They used to be to run the best kitchen in the best restaurant in Boston. To be listed as one of the top ten—better, in the top five—chefs in the country. I had the idea for marriage and children somewhere in the back of my mind. I thought there would be plenty of time for that. Eventually. Then after I was hurt. I just wanted to get through the moment. Then the next hour, then the next day."
"Nobody knows what that's like unless they've been there," Linda-gail said after a moment. "But I think it's the smartest thing to do. You have to get through to go on."
