Bombshell (6 page)

“Beg pardon?”

“Come on—or did Katie Belle Calaway raise a chicken?”

The fear in his eyes melted away until all that was left was bemusement. “I ain’t no chicken.”

“Then take off your shoes and race me!”

Before he could undo the first lace, she was off and running. With the wind in her hair and the cool grass beneath her feet, she felt like a child again, happy and carefree, and for a moment she thanked God she was in the company of a man who would not think her insane for taking such pleasure in the simple things.

In a flash he was behind her, his bare footfalls heavy in the grass. “Don’t you jump in that river, Annalee! Don’t you dare!”

She hurled herself headfirst into the water with a joyful whoop and came up shrieking from the cold. “I beat you!”

Calaway skidded to a stop just short of the waterline and watched as Penelope leaped past him and bounded into the river with a great splash. “You went and corrupted my dog, too!”

“No one gets corrupted unless they really want to be—and that goes for dogs, too,” she called with a laugh. “Now jump in, or I’ll know for sure you’re yellow!”

He peeled off his jacket, yanked off his tie, and took a deep breath before throwing himself into the water. When he burst to the surface, he gave a holler that scared the bluebirds from the trees. “Cold! God almighty!”

Annalee swam up to him and gave him a good splash. “What do I get for beating you?”

“Nothing. You cheated.”

“I never—well, okay, sometimes I cheat.” The water carried her body closer to his, close enough to feel his warmth, and as she gazed into his eyes she realized she would have given everything she had just to feel his lips against hers. She guessed he might have felt the same, for the consternation she first saw in his face softened.

“Ain’t we s’posed to do this naked?”

She nodded, tilted her head slightly to the side, and studied the fullness of his lips as though committing their shape to memory. “Probably.”

John Calaway gazed at her with half-closed eyes. His voice was little more than a whisper. “May I kiss you?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

“Katie Belle Calaway didn’t raise no—”

Her heart thundering, she pulled him close and kissed him full on the lips. His fingers wove through her wet hair; his mouth blazed a trail from her lips to the curve of her neck, to the little patch behind her ear that made her tingle.

“We’re gonna have a devil of a time drying our clothes,” he whispered.

Annalee laughed and playfully splashed him again. “First one back to the porch wins.”

“Wins what?”

“That depends on who wins!” She swam for the riverbank, clawed her way to the tall grass, and promptly fell to the soft ground, weighed down by her waterlogged dress.

Calaway, soaked to the gills himself, stood over her and grinned. “Can’t cheat this time, can you?”

“Oh, ha, ha.” She lay back and folded her hands behind her head. Twilight was already giving way to a starry night and a cool evening breeze. “Come keep me warm.”

He lay down next to her and propped himself up by his elbow. His gaze was warm, tender, and for a moment Annalee feared she might cry. No one had ever looked at her with such affection. “You’re making me hope Sully doesn’t fix things for me back home,” she whispered.

“The creative differences you talked about.”

“Yeah.”

Penelope rushed ashore, planted a wet stick on Annalee’s chest, and waited patiently for someone—anyone—to throw it.

Calaway grabbed the stick and flung it toward the porch, then softly caressed Annalee’s cheek. “Ain’t nothin’ says you have to leave.”

“Just a contract.”

“Maybe there’s a way around that.”

She opened her eyes and wished John Calaway was different, that he was more like the cads she knew all too well in Hollywood. It would have been so much easier to rip his heart out once the truth was known, so much easier to walk away from the emotional carnage.

“Why did you come here?” he asked. “Of all the places you could’ve gone...”

“I probably would’ve kept right on going, but the sheriff is awful easy on the eyes.”

“Aw, I’m not sophisticated like the fellas you’re used to.”

“And that’s a good thing,” she said with a smile. “No one’s ever made dinner for me before. And no one’s ever jumped into a river on my account, or looked at me the way you’re looking at me right now. Best be careful, Sheriff—I could get used to this.”

“Maybe you ought to.” He lay back once more, his mind relieved, and gave a soft sigh. “I had you figured all wrong, didn’t I? I thought you were one of those bad girls Katie Belle Calaway warned me about.”

Annalee broke into peals of laughter. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“Aw, the really bad girls can’t make me smile the way you do. A fella like me can get used to that.”

“Maybe you ought to.”

At some point she could not recall, she fell asleep. Out under the stars with a gentle breeze blowing across her body, it seemed natural enough, but when she opened her eyes and turned to her side, she found Sheriff Calaway sound asleep next to her.

Annalee wondered if perhaps she should feel some sort of panic, but the sight of him warmed her heart. She couldn’t remember when she’d ever awakened at anyone’s side—even Glenn had a terrible habit of leaving soon after the deed had been done.

Maybe that’s the secret
, she thought.
Don’t do the deed and they’ll at least stick around until sunrise.

His face looked peaceful, boyish as he slept. Annalee propped herself up on her elbow and watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, and hated it that she had to be the one to disturb his dreams.

“Hey, wake up.” She gave his shoulder a gentle shake, and waited a moment. “Sheriff...John, get up.”

He mumbled something incoherent, and suddenly sat up. His eyes were blank, bleary, and oddly beautiful in the early morning glow.

“The sun’s getting ready to come up,” she whispered. “You have to go to work...and I have to go.”

Calaway took in a deep breath and glanced around. “It’s daylight already?”

“Almost.”

“We fell asleep out here?”

“I’ve slept in stranger places.” Annalee laughed, took gentle hold of his chin, and gave him a small kiss. “Thank you.”

“For what? Lettin’ the skeeters get you?”

“For one hell of a first date.” She chuckled then and brushed some loose grass from his hair. “Can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned for the second.”

****

Word spread quickly that there was paying work to be found on the riverfront. Annalee arrived at nine—what she considered to be an early hour—and found the grounds packed with hopefuls.

Among the crowd was Earl Brown, the beast of a man she’d met in Sheriff Calaway’s police car. Next to him stood a small woman with frazzled auburn hair and a baby latched to her hip. Between them stood seven skinny, sad-eyed children.

“Sheriff told me the judge would go lenient on me if’n I quit drinkin’ and got a job,” he told her. “I’m workin’ at the first, and hopin’ for the best with the other. Name’s Earl. This is my wife, Molly.”

“You’re hired.” Her eyes wandered to the child on Molly’s hip. “Too bad that little one’s not walking yet. I could have him picking the weeds, at least.”

“I wouldn’t mind pickin’ weeds if that’s all the work I can get,” Molly said.

Annalee moved closer to the woman, as if to tell her a great secret. “There’s plenty of work to go around, but let the men break their backs. I’ve got something better for you.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve got a feeling you’re good at managing and organizing,” she told her. “Takes a keen intellect to do that sort of work—and a forceful personality.”

Molly looked up to her husband and gave a nervous laugh. “Oh...I don’t know ’bout that.”

“Of course you do,” Annalee insisted. “You wrangled seven children, an infant, and an ornery husband all the way down here to the river—and I bet you have to do similar every single day of your life. That takes talent. And I need talent on my management team.”

“Hear that, Earl? I’m gonna be a manager.”

Annalee turned her attention to the crowd. “The pay is two dollars a day,” she called. “I need yard workers, carpenters, painters, and cleaners. Group yourselves accordingly. Earl’s the foreman. He’ll take your name and pay you at day’s end.”

“Huh?” Earl looked dumbfounded. “I cain’t write.”

“You can’t...” She sighed and turned to the crowd once more. “Any one of you know how to write?”

A couple of hands went up. Annalee picked the smartest-looking one of the bunch and sat him down on the porch. “What’s your name?”

“Hank, ma’am.”

She handed him a ledger and a pencil. “Take down their names and their specialty—you know, the thing they’re good at doing. If they make it to day’s end, put a check next to their name and hand them their pay. Got it?”

“Miss Lady...”

Annalee turned a little too quickly, and for a moment felt dizzy. The man who approached her was short, wiry, shabbily dressed. Another fellow down on his luck, no doubt, and likely a hobo, but the look in his eyes gave Annalee pause. He looked hard and shrewd, and she felt a tingle of fear at the nape of her neck.

“Miss Lady, ain’t there gonna be any food?” he asked. His breath reeked of alcohol and rotten teeth. “Been three days since I last et.”

“No free lunches here, friend,” she told him. “You work today and you get paid, same as everyone else. After that, I don’t care what you do with the money.”

“Well ain’t this some shit!” The look in his eyes hardened to a hateful glare, and Annalee took an instinctive step away from him. She’d seen her share of drunkards in her lifetime, some of them as loud and angry as this ramshackle mess of a man who stood before her now, but she’d never seen such feral intelligence behind the rage.

This man is not drunk.

Annalee tried to control the fear that made her heart pound, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her. “If you don’t want to work, you’ll have to leave.”

The hobo shot forward, muttering things she could not understand, and reached out with thin, bony fingers for her shoulders. Before the man could get a firm grip on her, Earl stepped in and grabbed the hobo by his worn collar. “Ain’t gonna be no trouble here,” he warned. “You heard the lady. Get the hell off her property.”

The hobo ripped himself free of Earl’s grip and swore as he stormed off into the woods. The infant in Molly’s arms started to wail, and Annalee figured she was close to doing the same. She took a deep breath to calm herself, but couldn’t control the shaking of her hands. “Thank you, Earl.”

“I ain’t gonna let no bum mess things up here.”

“May I bring the child inside, ma’am?” Molly asked. “He’s teething and feeling fussy.”

“Of course,” she said with a shaky nod. “You and I have to sit down and have a good chat anyway.”

Annalee fell into a sneezing fit the second she entered the café. Seemed another half inch of dust had gathered since she first saw the place, and each speck of it was out to get her.

Molly brushed off a table and set her baby down. “A salt water rinse and some hot peppermint tea will help you with the hay fever. I suffer from it something awful, myself.”

Still trembling from the frightening encounter outside, Annalee occupied herself by toying with the baby’s tiny hands. “Is that some kind of a folk cure?” she asked. “Something passed down by your great-grandma?”

“No, Doc Graham, just up the road in Fish Hook. He’s got all sorts of secret ways of fixin’ ills. And,” she added slowly, “he is the man to see when it comes to birthin’.”

Every muscle in Annalee’s body froze. “Oh?”

Damn it. I knew I should’ve kept right on going to Chicago...

“I got eight,” Molly said with a sheepish grin. “If anyone ought to know the signs, it’s me. I could tell by the way you was carryin’ yourself out there that you got one on the way.”

“How was I carrying myself?”

“A little awkward, like you got some weight you ain’t used to carryin’ up front.” Molly raised her eyebrows, and Annalee thought she could have been quite pretty if she did some tweezing and used a little rouge. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I just reckoned you’d need a good doctor to see you through.”

“I appreciate it. Truth be told, though, I haven’t figured out how long I’m staying in town.”

“But what about all this? You can’t just build up a place like this and leave.”

“That’s why I need your help,” she explained. “Whether I stay or not, you’re going to run the place for me.”

“Oh...ma’am, I don’t think...”

“Annalee. And yes, you can. It’s about time this town knows how clever you are,” she said. “I’d still be owner, but you’d be the brains of the operation.”

“It just don’t feel right,” she insisted. “And won’t poor Sheriff Calaway be all broken up if you just took off?”

“Sheriff...”

“Earl overheard him and Calvin Stamp talkin’ the other day. He said Calvin was giving Sheriff Calaway a good ribbing about you. He’s a good man, you know. I think he really likes you.”

“Sure, until he finds out about...this.” Annalee ran her hand down her belly and Kiddo gave her a little tickle in return. “This will break that man’s heart more than my leaving ever could.”

“I just hope you’ll do some good, hard thinking about the matter a’fore you go runnin’ off,” Molly said. “I don’t know you all that well, but we need you here. And I think the sheriff does, too.”

Annalee took in her words of advice and gave a thin smile. “Let’s talk decor.”

****

Work began in earnest within the hour and continued well into the evening. All told, twenty-five men received pay for their labor, not including the Brown children, who picked a few weeds when they weren’t busy chasing each other.

Annalee handed Earl and Molly ten dollars each and smiled as Molly hustled their sleepy brood to the ramshackle automobile they’d parked out back.

“We can set and wait until you close up for the night,” Earl offered. “Gets pitch black ’round here once the sun sets.”

“Oh, I won’t be five minutes behind you.”