Somewhere Along the Way (31 page)

The bookstore owner stood from behind the counter and pointed with his open book. “We’re closed unless you’ve come to knit.”

Gabe backed out without a word.

He climbed into his car, circled around to the town square, and began driving slowly around it, glancing in the few stores still open. Most were empty except for employees.

At the second corner he glanced left and saw the light of the Blue Moon Diner. The sound of country-western music from the bar across the street drifted in even with the windows of his car closed. He had a feeling she’d be one place or the other.

He parked in an empty spot near the diner and tried the bar first. The only people sitting around looked like the leftovers from the original
Dating Game
. Most were drinking alone, waiting for closing time, when they’d all turn pretty and hook up.

Gabe decided he’d go back to the knitters before he stayed here. Outside he took a deep breath of fresh air and headed across the street.

When he walked into the Blue Moon, he was surprised to see Reagan sitting at the counter, her crutches beside her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he shoved his hood off.

“I could say I came to make sure you had takeout, but look at you. You walked in the front door. I’m proud of you.” She lifted her arms, and he had no choice but to lean down and let her hug him. The kid reminded him of a puppy he’d let in from the cold, and now she thought they were best friends.

Gabe wanted to tell her that he wasn’t the hugging kind, but he couldn’t hurt her feelings.

She started to get up. “The place is closed, but I haven’t emptied the coffeepot yet.”

“Don’t tell me you’re working here?”

Reagan laughed. “No. Today was my at-home nurse’s last day. She brought me in a few hours ago for a checkup. Uncle Jeremiah was supposed to pick me up at the hospital, but he doesn’t seem to have any telling-time brain cells left. Next I guess it will be the days of the week or month then finally night and day. When he was late I called to remind him of the time and asked Mary to bring me by here so I could see how Edith’s doing.”

“She been sick?” Gabe moved behind the counter and poured his own cup of coffee.

Reagan looked at him. Ancient eyes, he thought, a hundred lifetimes old. She might be eighteen in years here, but she saw more than most people five times her age. “She’s heartsick,” the girl began. She didn’t have to say more. Gabe knew what she meant.

“Where is she?”

“A few minutes after I got dropped off, she got a call from her husband.
He
was at the hospital. His brother found him on the floor of their trailer throwing up and flopping like a ‘dock fish.’ His words, not mine.” Reagan giggled. “I can kind of picture it in my head, though.”

Gabe fought down a grin.

“Anyway,” Reagan continued, “the brother brought him in. Doctors pumped his stomach and told him he had food poisoning. Edith told me, as she packed up her things, that he was so weak she could barely hear him when he called.”

Gabe looked up from stealing two cookies out of the display case. “Good,” he said slowly, knowing Reagan was following his thoughts. Weak men don’t beat their wives. “Any chance Lloyd might die?”

“No. The hospital is releasing him as soon as Edith gets there.” She looked down at her cast covered in purple and pink writing, then met his eyes again. “Something’s wrong with Lloyd. Something’s mixed up in his head. It scares me a little sometimes. I told Edith she should leave him, but I think she’s afraid of what he’d do. I even said she could come out to the farm and stay with Uncle Jeremiah and me, but she didn’t look like she believed me.” Reagan twisted her hands.

“What else is bothering you, Reagan?” He took the stool beside her and gave her his full attention.

“Maybe it’s nothing, but Lloyd comes in here sometimes when I’m covering for Edith, like he doesn’t know she’s home sick. When I tell him, he doesn’t seem in any hurry to leave. He kind of hangs around like he’s flirting or something. He orders things that aren’t on the menu and makes jokes about how I should leave him a tip.” She twisted her fingers together. “Gabe, I try to be nice to him, but he’s old, and creepy and dumb and doesn’t bathe regularly. I don’t even want to look at him, much less talk to him. Last time he stopped by he laughed and said as soon as I was eighteen he’d take me across the street dancing.” She made a face as if she’d tasted something rotten. “The way he said it . . . it was like he thought we were friends.”

Gabe figured the guy was close to being in his midforties, which made him a pervert to be trying to flirt with Reagan. “Does he make you feel uncomfortable with how he talks to you?”

“Major.” She laughed. “Like maybe-I-should-bring-that-birthday-present-you-and-Denver-gave-me-to-work uncomfortable.”

“Are you going to work Edith’s shift again?”

She shrugged. “Probably. She needs a night off and I think she picks Wednesday because it’s the slowest night. Fewer tips. When I get this cast off in another month or so, I’ll cover for her again, but I’m thinking of telling her to keep her creepy husband home.”

“How about I come in for coffee and stay awhile?”

“Great. He usually leaves if there is anyone else around.” Reagan smiled. “I’m probably overreacting, but if you could drop by it would mean a lot. Brandon Biggs will probably stop by too. When he does, he’ll stay until closing if I ask him.”

“Do you trust that kid?”

Reagan laughed. “Sure. I’ve already beat him up once. He’s half afraid of me.”

“As long as you’re not here alone. Don’t worry about Lloyd. He probably still sees himself as the big football star who almost took Harmony to state.” Gabe saw her relax and wondered how long she’d been waiting to tell someone her feelings about the guy. He changed the subject. “By the way, I know a Mrs. Biggs who works over at the B&B. Any chance this friend Brandon is related to her?”

“No, you’re the second person who’s mentioned it, but Brandon said he only has a little brother. His mother has married a half dozen times since Brandon’s father died ten years ago. He says she’s going to have to start using the phone book to find a name she hasn’t married.”

“If this Mrs. Biggs over at Winter’s Inn were related to him, he’d claim her. She’s a nice lady.”

A pickup pulled up and left its lights shining on bright.

“That’s my uncle,” she said standing. “Would you lock up?”

“Sure,” Gabe said, thinking he knew where Cass kept an extra kitchen key out back over the yard light. Once in a while, just out of boredom, he’d slipped in and sat in the dark watching the town from the windows of the diner.

She tugged on a coat that swallowed her in puffiness. “And turn off the coffeepot and the lights.”

“I’ll take care of it.” She was trying to mother him now, and they both knew it.

With her crutches under her arms, she faced him. “Gabe, I know you’re a lot older than me and I don’t want you to think it’s a boy-girl thing, but I think you should know something. I love you. I think maybe you’re my guardian angel.”

He almost choked on his cookie.

She laughed. “You and me don’t have much family around this place, where everyone else has relatives packed by the dozens. So from now on, I’ve decided you’re part of my family. . . .” She hesitated, looking very young. “If it’s all right with you?”

“It’s all right with me,” he managed. No one in his life had ever said those words to him, and he had a feeling no one had ever said them to her.

She hobbled to the door before he found his voice. “Hey, kid,” he managed. “I love you too.”

She grinned. “I know.” She smiled. “Thanks for saying it, though. Oh, I almost forgot. If you’re looking for Liz, she’s at Martha Q’s place. She was in here buying a pie when I came in. I heard her tell Edith that if she saw you tonight to tell you where she was.”

“How’d you know I was looking for her?”

Reagan shrugged. “I’m an adult now. I guess I got woman’s intuition. Besides, I watch people and you make her blush just by looking at her.”

“I’m not the type of man she needs.” He said his thoughts.

“Maybe not”—Reagan opened the door—“but she might be the kind of woman you need.”

She was out the door before he could think of anything to say.

Truman had climbed out of his pickup and was waiting for her. He helped her in with great care.

Gabe finished his coffee, rinsed the pot, and turned out the lights. He left two dollars on the counter and locked the door as he walked out. He really wanted to see Elizabeth, but he wasn’t sure he could take much of Martha Q. The woman had seen him naked, and now her eyebrows wiggled up and down every time she looked in his direction. Since she was old enough to be his mother, he wasn’t sure if she was flirting or stroking out.

Gabe left his car in front of the diner and walked the dried-up creek bed to the bed-and-breakfast. He let himself in the back door. He didn’t plan on walking into another knitting party.

In the dark dining room, he heard women’s voices and was glad he’d followed his instincts. The parlor was full.

Martha Q, who always talked like half the people in the room were hard of hearing, was leading a meeting of a half dozen women. “Now, Dallas,” she said to a woman frowning. “It’s really very simple. We’re forming the Follow Your Dreams Club. One of my dreams is to help others this year, and I’m starting with this group whether you like it or not. We’ll all meet once a week and think of things that make us happy and dreams we all have. We’ll do fun things and we’ll eat foods that make us smile. So get with the program and smile.”

“I don’t have any dreams beyond staying alive.” Dallas continued to frown. “And I
am
happy. I don’t know where you got the idea I’m not. If someone suggested to you that I don’t have dreams or I’m not downright brimming with joy, just give me their name and I’ll go pound a little happiness into their skull.”

Martha Q hit the woman on the top of her arm, making the bottom of both their underarms jiggle from shoulder to wrist. “You are
not
happy. You haven’t been happy since your husband died, leaving you with no one to torture, and your misery disease is catching. Look at your daughter. She hasn’t said a kind word to anyone in years. If she didn’t have that job at the post office, she’d just sit in your living room by the window and we’d have to water her once a week.”

Dallas blustered, “You think you’re the town saint come to save us. Half the women in town still hate you for what they think you did with their husbands, brothers, and fathers. You haven’t had a thought about anyone else but yourself in forty years. You’re such a clown that if your husband hadn’t left you money for this place you’d be wearing a red nose and blowing up balloons on street corners so you could twist them into weenie dogs to make money.”

Gabe swore he heard Liz giggle. He knew she must be in the room even if he couldn’t see her. He wasn’t about to break up the happy meeting.

Dallas turned her wrath on his cute little lawyer. “Why is she here? To make us all feel bad? She’s smart, and downright adorable.” Dallas poked her daughter in the side with an elbow. “Take a few lessons, Ronelle. I told you to go to college. Even if you’d taken a few correspondence courses, you’d have moved up the ladder a bit. You don’t have the family money of a Matheson, but you can still get a few pointers. Half the men in town would marry Liz tomorrow if she gave them a smile.”

Martha Q pointed one manicured finger. “She’s here because she’s my lawyer and I asked her. You don’t know, Dallas, how unhappy Liz is. You just don’t know. The dating pool’s so low in this town she’s having to go out with men she springs from jail. I know that for a fact.”

“Like I believe that,” Dallas snapped. “Give me one real reason to have her here.”

Liz stood and tried to join in. “Because I brought the pie, and everyone knows pie makes you happy. In fact, while you ladies are ironing out the rules to this club, I’ll go slice it up.” She ran from the room like a rabbit at a pit bull convention.

Gabe snagged her as she hit the kitchen door and pushed her inside, laughing. “Hello, trouble,” he whispered. “Causing problems again, I see.”

She wrapped her arms around him and touched her nose to his. “I hoped you’d come. Save me, Gabriel. I’ve tumbled into the Bitches and Broomstick Inn. Martha Q meant well. She invited all the women she thought needed help. The fact that they don’t seem to want it never crossed her mind.”

“I don’t care about them. What makes
you
happy?” he whispered.

“Having you hold me,” she answered, combing back his hair with her fingers. “When I’m with you there’s no pressure to be anyone but just me. So tell me, are you only seeing me because I bailed you out of jail?”

“You didn’t bail me out. I was never charged, remember? And we’re not dating. Near as I can tell we’ve never had a date.”

“I know. I like it that way. From my experience, dating is overrated.”

He kissed her lightly. “Any chance you’ll leave this party and run away with me?”

She pushed him away. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll make up some excuse and meet you back at the office. Right now I have to serve pie before a fight breaks out. From what I’ve learned tonight, Martha Q and Dallas were once friends. Probably the only friend either of them ever had.”

“I can see why. Did Martha Q sleep with her husband?”

Elizabeth raised her eyes to heaven and shook her head. “If you remembered Dallas’s man, you’d never ask that question.”

Gabe helped her cut the pie into six slices and place it on plates. She delivered it along with hot tea for everyone. When she returned for her slice and tea, he’d vanished along with the last of the pie.

She found him ten minutes later waiting outside her office door.

“How’d you get away?” he asked as he stroked his hand along her back while she unlocked the door.

She looked at him, her eyes full of laughter. “I acted like I got a call, stepped out in the hallway so they could still hear, and said, ‘Of course, Sheriff, I’ll be right there. No, Sheriff, I won’t tell anyone.’ Then I grabbed my purse and said I had to leave. No one asked me a single question.”