A Week Till the Wedding (13 page)

* * *

The critter man, Sammy, arrived right on time. If you had a snake, raccoon, fox, chipmunk or squirrel problem in the county, you called Sammy. He was in great demand, and the only reason he’d worked Daisy into his schedule today, so soon after her call, was that she cut his wife’s hair.

Sammy was an odd man. Short and stocky, he had a face that was less than symmetrical and a complete lack of fashion sense. Today he wore baggy khaki pants, black socks and shoes, a Georgia Tech T-shirt, and his usual horn-rimmed glasses.

That made it a relatively good day for Sammy, fashion-wise.

“Come on in,” Daisy said brightly, trying to ignore the fact that Jacob was standing right behind her as if he’d spent the night and they were a couple. That was half-right, she supposed. He
had
spent the night.

Sammy wiped his feet before stepping inside, his curious eyes landed on Jacob. He nodded. “Mr. Tasker. Good to see you.”

They’d never met, at least they’d never been properly introduced, but it wasn’t like everyone in town couldn’t recognize a Tasker on sight.

“Call me Jacob.” He stepped forward and offered his hand. Sammy wiped his hand on the side of his khakis before taking the offered hand and shaking briefly.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Sammy said, turning back to Daisy and pushing his glasses up with his index finger. He leaned forward and glanced into the dining room. “The new window treatments are fabulous. Really fabulous.”

Window treatments? She’d hung new curtains a couple of years back, but they weren’t anything special. “Uh, thanks.”

“This rug is new, isn’t it?” He looked down, between his feet. “Beautiful, beautiful work.”

“No. This rug has been here for twenty years.” Maybe she needed to shop for a new one, but who had the time?

“The place looks great, really. Of course, it always did. I haven’t been here in years.”

Not since before her parents had died. How long before, Daisy had no idea. She didn’t remember, but maybe her parents had had trouble with squirrels while she’d been in college and had been ignorant of the kinds of problems that came with caring for an old house.

“Do you want to check the attic?” she asked.

Sammy straightened his spine, looked around one last time and said, “Sure.”

Daisy led the critter man into the hallway, grabbed the plain rope-pull at the end of the hall and with a yank released the attic stairs. For a moment she held her breath, half expecting the offending squirrel to run down the stairs and into the house. Wouldn’t
that
be a disaster! But that didn’t happen. Sammy turned on his flashlight, adjusted his belt and climbed up the creaking wooden stairs. As he neared the top he sniffed hard and often, and with his head stuck in the attic he said ominously. “I smell urine. Yep, yep, that’s urine all right.”

Great. She had squirrel urine in her attic.

“The next step is to determine what species of squirrel you have nesting here.” With his body half in and half out of the attic, he shone the light of his huge flashlight around. “I don’t see anyone here at the moment, but...ah, yes, that’s how they’re getting in, the little rascals.”

Jacob asked, loudly enough for Sammy to hear. “What difference does it make what species of squirrel is nesting up there?”

Sammy took a step down, turned and poked his head out of the attic. The serious expression on his face was almost comical, and Daisy had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing.

“It’s extremely important. What if the invaders are an endangered species? What if the newest residents of this house are flying squirrels, or fox squirrels?”

Daisy tipped her head back. “First of all, I think
invaders
is more accurate than
residents
.” They weren’t exactly roommates. “And I’m sorry, Sammy, but I don’t care if they’re endangered or not.” Daisy kept her voice calm but firm. She didn’t want to annoy the only critter man for fifty miles. “I want them out of my attic.”

“Flying squirrels and fox squirrels are not really endangered, not in these parts, but they’re not exactly common tree squirrels, either.” Sammy looked offended, perhaps on the squirrels’ behalf. Daisy wondered how offended he’d be if he knew everyone—including his wife—called him the critter man behind his back.

“There are lots of places for small animals to hide up here,” Sammy continued. “I’ll set some traps, plug the entrances and we’ll see what happens.” He took another two steps up the ladder, moving more fully into the attic. He continued to sniff and ooh and ah. “Nuts!” he cried.

“Is something wrong?” Jacob asked.

“No, no, but I found a stash of nuts. Walnuts and pecans. Your little friends have been hoarding.”

“They are not my little friends,” Daisy said softly. Jacob looked at her. He smiled. Then he laughed, and a moment later Daisy was laughing, too. It felt good, not just to laugh but to laugh with someone, to share a joke. Daisy’s laughter died quickly. She forced it to stop. The last thing she needed was to get any closer to Jacob Tasker than she already was.

Today should cure him of any misconceptions where she was concerned. If she was really lucky he’d be a jerk and that would make it even easier to cut him loose. She really, really needed to cut him loose, once and for all.

Sammy was in and out of the house for a while, up and down the attic access ladder. He set traps and sniffed some more, and once again admired her window treatments. As he left he said he’d be back later in the day to repair the cracks that had allowed the varmints to slip into the attic in the first place. Those repairs he could handle from outside, so Daisy didn’t need to be home.

When they were alone again, Daisy turned to Jacob. “Welcome back to Bell Grove.”

“Is the rest of your day going to be as interesting as the morning?”

“Probably.”

“Then I’m definitely in.”

Daisy raised her eyebrows, crossed her arms defensively. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. “You know how word spreads in a small town. If you spend the day with me, by sundown word will be out that we’re back together. Even though we’re
not
.”

“I can handle that. You?”

No, not really
. “Of course.”

Jacob moved closer, he lifted his hand as if to cup her cheek, or pull her in for a kiss. For a split second Daisy considered letting him continue. After all, last night had been wonderful, and she could still feel him, smell him. And here he was, willing and able and wonderful. But she pulled away sharply and ducked beneath his arm, making a cowardly escape.

Jacob had forgotten where he’d come from, and he’d apparently forgotten why they didn’t work together for more than one wonderful night. A day driving around the most rural parts of the county should cure him of that forgetfulness. Those she delivered meals to were needy, but they weren’t always easy to get along with.

“Don’t get any ideas, Tasker. Spend the day with me or not, it’s not a date and we’re not sleeping together again.”

“Whatever you say.”

She could hear in his voice that he hadn’t given up. Too bad, because she meant what she’d said. Jacob Tasker could break her heart all over again, but only if she allowed him inside it.

Chapter Nine

E
unice Tasker sat at the table in her bedroom where she usually took her lunch, munching on chicken salad and green grapes and drinking sweet tea. For dessert she’d have chocolate cake, because she was by golly old enough to eat whatever she pleased without worrying about calories or fat count or sugar. According to Lurlene they were almost out of chocolate-covered cherries, and that would not do. That wouldn’t do at all. Eunice had three chocolate-covered cherries every night before bed, served to her on one of her good china plates, with a linen napkin in case any of the juice dribbled. Since she was an expert at eating chocolate-covered cherries, it had been a long time since she’d had need of that napkin. Susan complained that it wasn’t easy to find her mother-in-law’s favorite treat after the Christmas season had passed, but she managed.

Eunice was not going to sacrifice her chocolate-covered cherries.

The truth of the matter was, at better than eighty she was healthy as a horse. Her legs weren’t as strong as they had once been, and her hips and knees gave her trouble every day—and would until the day she died—which is why she relied on the wheelchair. If it hurt to walk, why should she walk?

Doc Porter had told her she’d live to be one hundred or more, and she planned to prove him right. Not that she could share that tidbit of information with her family. Not right away.

Eunice looked out the window and smiled. Jacob hadn’t come home last night. He’d left here with Daisy’s freshly washed dishes, and he hadn’t come home. Finally! Maybe Daisy wasn’t as stubborn as she’d first thought.

For a few minutes, just a few, she considered calling her friend in Atlanta and changing her plans, but in the end she decided against making that call. One night of love might not be enough to push Daisy into Jacob’s arms. She might still need a little extra incentive. Everything was playing out very nicely. Why take a chance by changing her strategy now?

Not for the first time, Eunice felt a little guilty. Just a little. She could see that her family was suffering, thanks to her game. She knew they were on edge, waiting for her to go completely bonkers or fall over dead. But the guilt didn’t last long. She already had a plan to cover her tracks. After Jacob and Daisy were married, but before the family brought in the new physician Eunice had promised to see after the reunion, Doc Porter would discover that his patient didn’t have dementia after all, that her confusion was the side effect of a blood-pressure medication. He’d change her medication, for appearance’s sake, and Eunice would miraculously improve. Voilà.

Though she had to admit, playing at being bonkers had been a lot of fun. And Caleb really could use a wife...

* * *

Jacob had forgotten how different everyday life was in Bell Grove. In San Francisco he didn’t know his neighbors. His life consisted of work, a couple early mornings a week at the gym and the occasional work-related social event.

In Bell Grove everybody knew everybody. Work was necessary, but so was church, and the occasional town social, and helping your neighbors when they needed it.

Daisy thought nothing of spending her only weekday off driving all across the county delivering meals. And it wasn’t like she dropped the prepackaged meals off and ran. She visited, laughed and expertly repaired more than one head of disheveled hair. She cleaned one man’s kitchen in record time, and removed a splinter from a woman’s trembling hand. At one house, she fed three dogs and a cat.

He didn’t miss the joy on the faces of those Daisy visited as she walked in the door. They genuinely liked her, and why wouldn’t they?

She was gorgeous, she had a killer body and she had a laugh that Jacob felt to his bones. But it was her heart that set her apart, her heart that made her unlike any other woman he’d ever met. Every chore she took on, she accomplished with a smile.

Jacob found himself a topic of conversation among those Daisy visited. He was a curiosity, at the very least. So far they’d dropped off meals to two elderly ladies, one ancient gentleman and a middle-aged woman with a broken leg. He was familiar with them all, the names if not the faces, though he couldn’t say he knew even one of them well. They knew who he was, but other than a name and the memory of a child or a young man who’d once lived in Bell Grove he might as well have been a complete stranger.

They knew
his people,
and that was enough to serve as an instant introduction. You’d think he was a long lost relative, the way some of them acted.

None of the older folks were very subtle. They winked and waggled their eyebrows, and the old man looked at Daisy then glared at Jacob and announced that it was “about damn time.” Daisy insisted on telling them all that she and Jacob were just old friends, but none of them bought it.

He didn’t buy it himself.

Their last stop was the most isolated on her route. The small house had to be close to a hundred years old, but it had been well maintained. From the bumpy dirt road that approached the house from the south, he could see a window air conditioner at the front of the house. Given the size of the place that one unit was probably enough to cool the entire house. The wide front porch was so overgrown, all that was visible from their angle, as Jacob parked in what might’ve been a designated parking space, were a few weathered steps.

Daisy jumped out, opened the rear passenger side door and retrieved the last meal and a bag containing a bottle of water, a soda and a carton of milk. She didn’t seem at all concerned about entering the house, even though it looked like the setting for a horror story.

And that was
before
an elderly, stick-thin woman with an Einstein-ish hairdo burst into view, brandishing a shotgun. She held the weapon as if she knew exactly how to use it.

Instinctively Jacob jumped in front of Daisy. He threw out an arm to push her back and she stumbled. He heard her bounce against the car, mutter “ow” and “what the hell?” The woman on the steps lowered her shotgun.

“Sorry,” she said in a gravelly voice. “I didn’t recognize the car.”

“Not a problem,” Daisy said. She stepped around Jacob, glared at him and then looked at the armed woman and—strangely—she smiled. “This is my friend, Jacob.”

The woman adjusted her grip on the shotgun as if she were thinking of lifting it up again. “Jacob
Tasker?
”

“Yes,” Daisy said crisply.

“I shoulda known. He has the look of his grandfather at that age.” She finished that observation with a spit to the side, as if she were ejecting the bitter taste of his name out of her mouth.

This crazy woman he didn’t remember at all. Maybe when he heard her name...

Daisy moved toward the house with her offerings. Jacob stayed close behind her. “Yes, I suppose he does look like his grandfather. But now, that’s not his fault, is it? It’s not his fault that he’s a Tasker, either. There’s not a thing he can do about the name he was born with.” Standing on the bottom step, now, too damn close to the shotgun, Daisy turned to him. “Jacob, this is Vivian Reynolds.” She looked up again. “Miss Vivian, be nice to Jacob and I’ll braid your hair.”