Love Is All Around (3 page)

Patsy Lee rolled her eyes. “It feels like a pool table. Break already.” She cocked her hip and leaned against the table.

Placing the cue ball on the felt, Will lined up his shot. Patsy Lee leaned forward, resting one fine-boned hand on the green felt. Her nails were short and unpolished. His fiancée’s had always been long and fake. Couldn’t open a pop can for fear of messing up her manicure. Will bet Patsy Lee faced the dreaded pop top head on.

Patsy drummed her soda-can-defeating fingernails on the table top.

Subtle.

Not bothering to aim, Will took his shot. The balls zipped to the four corners but came short of falling into the pockets.

“What a shame. Guess it’s my choice.”

Will could feel her sorrow.

Grinning, she pointed her stick at a solid, “Corner pocket.”

“You don’t have to call them,” Will commented.

“Oh, but when you’re winning, it’s so much more fun that way.” A snap, a thump, and the sound of the seven ball rolling under the table followed.

“You might want to sit down,” Ruthann called from behind her wine cooler. “Once she gets going, it can be a long wait till your turn—if you get it.”

“You planning on clearing the table?” Will asked.

“Not the whole table, just the solids—then the eight ball, of course. Excuse me.” Patsy brushed against him on her way to the chalk, leaving a light floral scent in her wake.

Her perfume was alluring but unpretentious, like kite-flying, Easter egg hunts, and rolling down a grassy hillside. All things Will never did as a child. All things his father said were a waste of time.

Irritated with the direction of his thoughts, he crossed his arms and awaited his turn.

Three balls later, he got his first shot. “Hope you don’t mind.” Will gestured to where Patsy stood, blocking the easiest shot on the table.

“Oh, if you want to take the easy shot.” She shrugged.

“And I do.” He grinned. She was too good a player for him to cut her a break.

“Fine, you take that one. After that, you’ll have nothing left to shoot at anyway.”

Will analyzed the game. She was right. She’d left him with one clean shot and the rest were bank shots. He hated to lose, and he didn’t plan on doing it now. He had a feeling once the cue was back in Patsy’s hands, it would be a short watch on his part till the eight ball went to join his solid brethren under the table. Will had to clear as many balls as he could this turn, preferably all of them.

“Don’t have much choice now, do I?” he asked.

“Not a Fudgsicle’s in hell.” She flashed him a grin.

Will gritted his teeth. That arrogance could become pretty annoying. No wonder her brother drank.

He sank the nine and walked around the table to assess his options. They weren’t pretty.

“Eleven ball, corner pocket.” He motioned to the end of the table where Patsy Lee stood.

“You sure you want to try that?” she asked.

He ignored her. With a quick tap from Will, the cue ball snapped the eleven into the cushion. He held his breath as it rolled toward Patsy Lee.

Closer, closer, in. He bit back the grin that raced to his lips. Better to act confident.

“Maybe I’ll try a hard shot this time,” he said.

Busy applying chalk to her stick, Patsy Lee looked up. “You miss already? I thought you’d at least get a couple.”

“Twelve, other side.” He winged another stripe into a pocket. He was feeling good. All those months hanging out at the pool hall when he was supposed to be in school had really paid off. He should have played Patsy Lee for money or something more tantalizing.

After grinding another layer of chalk onto her stick, Patsy Lee dropped the blue cube onto the wooden edge of the table. It bounced once, then fell on the floor. Will tensed in anticipation. As he expected, Patsy Lee bent to retrieve it, giving him an unhindered view of sexy behind and a glimpse of lace.

He swallowed. Lace. That was nice. All women should wear lace underwear. The kind that cupped their behinds, like a lover’s hands. Hiding and hinting all at the same time.

 Patsy rapped the cube against the wood. “You taking a shot sometime soon?”

“Ten, down here,” he called and promptly knocked her five into the pocket.

“For me? You didn’t have to.” Patsy Lee sauntered to the center of the table and lined up a shot. “Three, over there.”

Will knew when he was beat. He dropped onto a chair next to Ruthann.

It took Patsy less than five minutes to clear the table. It took her ten to quit gloating.

Where was Dwayne with his beer?

As if called, Dwayne wandered up, two beers in his hands. He handed one to Will. “She beat ya?”

“Looks that way.” Will watched as Patsy slid her cue into the rack on the wall. He could look at this view all night. Didn’t know that he wanted to play her at pool again, but the view—it couldn’t be beat.

“Tough break,” Dwayne replied.

Randy, who’d pulled up a chair from another table, snorted.

“So, Will, what brings you back to these parts?” Dwayne asked, ignoring his friend.

“Nothing special,” Will replied.

Patsy pulled out the chair next to Ruthann.

“Heard tell you made it big on the Internet. You know, my little sis here is learning that stuff.” Dwayne flicked his hand toward his sister.

Will said, “Really. Pool shark and the Internet too. What other talents do you have?”

“I’m not a shark. I told you I was going to beat you.” Her look challenged him to deny it.

“I guess you did.” But she hadn’t answered the whole question. What other talents did she have? Swallowing the thought, he continued, “There’s still a lot of money to be made on the Internet.”

“That so? Exactly what kind of business did you have?”

He wasn’t sure he liked this coy smile anymore than her victory grin. It made him feel like she knew some deep secret he’d rather keep quiet.

“Consulting,” he replied.

“Hmm.” She took a sip of beer. “Lot of money in that?”

“Enough.”

She studied him a moment, then turned to her brother. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to learn something new. If you had a brain bigger than a walnut, you’d be trying too.”

“What, and leave all this behind?” Dwayne held his arms wide.

Will smiled. Even with the constant banter, it was obvious Patsy and Dwayne cared about each other. He didn’t have that kind of rapport with his family. They were polite, but there never seemed to be a lot of underlying emotion.

“So, you want to come?” Dwayne interrupted Will’s thoughts.

He looked at Dwayne blankly.

“Floatin’. A bunch of us are heading to the Current on Sunday.” Flicking a balled-up Bevnap toward Patsy, he continued, “After church. Probably get in the water ‘round one.”

Will didn’t have time to be floating down the river drinking beer and soaking up skin cancer. He should be concentrating on repairing his house and finding a new source of funds to keep Ralph in Iams.

 Patsy Lee caught the paper napkin and whacked it back at her brother. As Dwayne ducked to avoid the missile, his hand brushed his beer bottle, causing it to topple into his lap. At his responding curse, Patsy’s eyes sparkled with humor. She turned a carefree smile on Will.

Ralph might have to switch to Kibble. “Count me in.”

Chapter 2

The next day, after a mind-numbing shift counting out change at the Bag & Basket, Patsy pulled into the drive that ran along the side of her grandmother’s fieldstone house. The bumpy rocks, outlined by wide stripes of white mortar, were a patchwork of pinks, grays, and reds. The sight was as comforting as the old crazy quilts Granny kept folded in the cedar trunk at the foot of her bed.

She hopped out onto the drive and climbed the wide steps to the front porch. The welcome mat with two bug-eyed pugs and the words “Take A Paws” imprinted on it gave her a smile. The empty mailbox didn’t. Fifty resumes and no answers. Not even a generic “we received your application” postcard. She was going to be stuck in Daisy Creek forever. She let the box’s metal door clatter shut and stepped inside the house. Resisting the urge to flip on the floor lamp that sat next to the door, she took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dark house.

“Granny, I’m home.”

A small, wriggly body shot at her from the back of the house. “Pugnacious, what have you been up to? Miss me?” She squatted down to pick up the squirming dog.

Patsy’s grandmother appeared from the kitchen. “She’s been baying at the squirrels again. I’m telling you what, that dog is about the most confused critter I ever laid eyes on. You ought to just turn her over to your brother and let him make a coon dog out of her.” Granny plunked her round figure onto an afghan-covered gold recliner.

“Any phone calls?”

“I told you, me and the dog were out back.” Granny swiveled her chair around to face the TV. “Click on the cable and see if the WWE is on. Now you’re home to watch that hound wannabe, I need to do a little relaxing.”

Patsy walked over to switch on the TV. After handing the remote to her grandmother, she wandered into the kitchen to get a glass of tea and check the answering machine.

It was unplugged, again. What did Granny have against her? It wasn’t like she asked her to take a message—just leave the machine plugged in. Was that too much to ask?

After returning to the living room, she said, “The machine’s unplugged.”

Granny didn’t look away from the screen. “Fancy that.”

Yeah, fancy that. Patsy found a spot between the crocheted afghans and embroidered pillows and plopped down.

“Come here, Pug Girl.” Pugnacious popped up from where she lay and scrambled onto the couch next to Patsy.

“What you all do last night?” Granny’s chair spun toward Patsy.

“Nothing much.” Patsy sipped her tea. Granny didn’t approve of the roadhouse, and Patsy wasn’t in the mood for a fight. “You remember the Barneses?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“They were one of the mine families. Lived here about five years before moving on. They had a daughter my age and a son a year or so ahead of Dwayne.”

Granny nodded her head in recollection. “They weren’t Baptist, were they?”

They could have been devil-worshipping goat-sacrificers for all Patsy knew. “I don’t know. Anyway, the son, Will, moved back to town. Ruthann and I saw him last night.”

“He a good-looking boy?”

What did that matter? “He’s okay.”

“He get a job round here?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t real clear on what he’s doing. But according to Jessica Perry, he had an Internet business he traded for a wad of cash. She sold him the Barnett place.”

Granny’s chair creaked as she sat up a little straighter. “I heard someone bought that old place. He’s a youngun, you say?”

“Older than Dwayne.”

“Must have money to buy that old house. They was askin’ near $200,000, I hear tell.”

Resting the icy glass on her leg, Patsy combed through the fringe of an afghan.

“He must be planning on staying then.”

“Who?”

“That Barnes boy you was telling me about.”

“I guess, at least till he gets bored with us.”

“There ain’t nothing boring about us. You say he was a friend of Dwayne’s?”

“Not really, he was older.”

Granny’s brown gaze bored into Patsy.

“But Dwayne did ask him to come floating with us tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. It don’t hurt none to be neighborly.”

The theme music for World Wrestling Entertainment blared out of the television, saving Patsy from further discussion. She wasn’t sure what Granny’s sudden fascination with Will Barnes was, but she didn’t want to encourage it. The more time Patsy spent on the computer, the more Granny seemed to plot to keep her in Daisy Creek. Patsy’d never confessed her plans to leave, but Granny seemed to sense Patsy’s motive for learning web design.

If she thought a new man would keep Patsy here, she was dead wrong. Patsy’d made that mistake once before. She wasn’t doing it again. Maybe she should fill Granny in a little more on Will’s past. If she knew he had spent too much time cutting class and hanging out with the Gormans, she might back off. Then again, she might not. When Granny got focused on a cause, there wasn’t much could shake her.

After depositing her empty glass into the kitchen sink and grabbing a Hostess pie to tide her over, Patsy wandered back to her room. It was a tiny space nestled in under the eaves. There was enough room for a daybed, computer table, and not a whole lot more. Patsy hadn’t even added too much in the way of personal décor—a couple of posters of Australia hung on the white walls and family pictures sat atop the computer.

It wasn’t much, but Patsy’d called it home since Granny suffered her first stroke about four years ago. A week later, Patsy’d found herself in need of new housing and moving in with Granny seemed to make sense.

At the time, it had been perfect. She and Granny helped rebuild each other, Granny physically and Patsy emotionally. Lately though, Patsy realized she needed something more, something she wasn’t going to find in Daisy Creek. She’d put her life on hold long enough. It was time to take some risks and meet the world.

While she waited for Windows to come on the computer screen, she walked over to some raw basket materials piled in the corner. Picking up a coil of white oak splits, she ran it through her semi-closed hand. It was smooth and strong. Patsy loved the feel of it against her skin.

Granny taught Patsy basket weaving when she was twelve. It was a special time for just the two of them, and Patsy loved it. But basket weaving wasn’t going to get her anywhere, leastways nowhere outside of Daisy Creek.

No, basket weaving was as country as dirt roads and fried okra. Patsy needed to concentrate on learning a skill with big city market potential. She carefully lowered the coil of oak strips to the floor and walked back to the PC.

o0o

 “You know how to run that thing, son?” The deliveryman from Perry Flooring looked at Will with unease.

Of course Will didn’t know how to run a floor sander, but how hard could it be? You plugged it in and held on, simple.