Читать книгу Lovers And Other Strangers - Dallas Schulze - Страница 8

Groaning, Reece rolled over and opened his eyes. This must be what it felt like to spend a night on the rack, he thought, as he inventoried an assortment of aches and pains. The last time he could remember sleeping in a bed this uncomfortable, he’d been an unwilling guest in a South American prison.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he stared up at the water stain on the ceiling directly over the bed. If he squinted a little, it was a dead ringer for the outline of Australia. He contemplated it with some regret, thinking of wide beaches, cold beer and tall, tanned Aussie girls in very small bikinis. Now there was the perfect place for working through a midlife crisis. What on earth had made him decide to come back here—where he’d spent the most miserable years of his childhood?

It was all a matter of timing, he thought as he rolled out of bed and slowly straightened his aching spine. The news of his grandfather’s death had come at a time when he was reevaluating his life. A rainy night, a slick road, and he had regained consciousness in time to hear the paramedics weighing his odds of making it to the hospital alive. With the distance provided by shock, he’d pondered the irony of dying in a car wreck. He’d lived with the possibility of his own death for a long time, but he’d always assumed it would come in a more spectacular form—a bullet, a knife sliding between his ribs, a car bomb maybe. It seemed supremely ironic that death should come in the form of something as mundane as having a tire blow out.

He eventually limped out of the hospital minus a spleen and fifteen pounds, neither of which he’d needed to lose but he wasn’t complaining. As the doctor had told him several times, he should consider himself damned lucky to be alive at all. It wasn’t the first time he’d scraped past death by the skin of his teeth. In his line of work, it was something of an occupational hazard, and he’d lived with the possibility for so long that he didn’t even really think about it anymore. But there was something about nearly waking up dead because of a car wreck that had made him stop and take a long, hard look at his life. Maybe it was the mundanity of it—the reminder that his death could be just as meaningless as anyone else’s. Or maybe it was spending his fortieth birthday alone in the hospital—the sudden realization that half his life was over that made him question what he was going to do with the rest of it.

It wasn’t a real midlife crisis, Reece thought as he pulled clean clothes out of his duffel bag and walked, naked, to the bathroom down the hall. In a real midlife crisis, you did stupid things like quit the job you’d had for the past fifteen years, let go of the apartment where you’d lived for almost as long, and had an affair with a woman half your age. He met the eyes of his reflection in the dingy mirror over the bathroom sink.

Hell. Two out of three and the most boring two, at that. Maybe he should have kept the job and the apartment and just gone for the affair. His mouth twisted in a half smile as he pushed back the shower curtain. Midlife crisis or temporary insanity? Looking at the grudging trickle of tepid water that seemed to be the best the shower had to offer, Reece wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

Shannon knelt on the lawn next to the flower bed and tugged halfheartedly at a scraggly patch of dichondra that was matted around the base of a rosebush. Generally, she gardened on the “survival of the fittest” philosophy. Any plant that couldn’t survive a little competition was welcome to move to someone else’s flower bed. She had neither the time nor the inclination to pamper delicate plants, and she tackled the weeds only when it began to look as if they were going to overwhelm the flowers.

She sat back on her heels and eyed the patch of ground she’d cleared. The weeds weren’t really all that bad but it was such a beautiful day that it seemed a shame to spend it indoors. In early November, summer’s heat was gone and the winter rains had not yet begun. The air was dry and warm and the nights were cool enough to be refreshing. Closing her eyes, she turned her face up to the sun, savoring the warmth of it against her skin. No matter how long she lived in southern California, she didn’t think she’d ever learn to take this kind of weather for granted.

“Good way to end up with skin cancer.”

The tart comment made Shannon jump and she stifled a curse when she realized who had interrupted the peaceful morning. Edith Hacklemeyer lived across the street. A short, thin woman on the far side of sixty, she was a retired English teacher who filled her days with gardening, quilting and offering unwanted advice to anyone who crossed her path. She was an unimaginative gardener, a mediocre quilter and a tireless busy-body. Since she was both a neighbor and a customer at the shop, Shannon felt obligated to remain on amicable terms with her.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” She chose to ignore the remark about skin cancer. One of Edith’s less appealing characteristics was her ability to find the bad in everything and everyone.

“We need rain,” Edith said, frowning at the crystal-clear sky.

“The rain will get here,” Shannon said easily. She leaned forward to smooth the soil around a marigold.

“Ought to pull those up and put in some pansies,” Edith told her, eyeing the marigold with disfavor.

“It’s still blooming, and I like the flowers.”

“Never cared much for marigolds. They always seemed a bit tatty looking to me but, even if I liked them, I’d pull them up. Got to get the winter bloomers in early so they can get established with the first rains.”

“Mmm.” Shannon made a polite, interested noise and tucked a little more soil around the marigold. The bright little blossoms seemed to smile at her and she smiled back.

“I don’t envy you.” Edith’s attention shifted away from the flowers and her pale-blue eyes settled on the dusty black truck parked in the driveway of the house next door.

“Oh, I don’t mind waiting a while to plant winter flowers,” Shannon said, deliberately misunderstanding.

“I was talking about him,” Edith said darkly. “I don’t envy you having to live right next door to him. No telling what sort of trouble he’ll cause.”

“I don’t see why he should cause any trouble at all.” Shannon let her gaze rest on the truck. She’d taught a class at the shop the night before and the truck had been there when she got home around ten o’clock. Obviously, the grapevine had worked with its usual efficiency and Reece Morgan really was home. After all she’d heard about him, she had to admit that she was more than a little curious to see him in the flesh.

“His kind doesn’t need a reason. Trouble comes naturally to that sort.”

“You haven’t seen him in twenty years. He might have changed.”

“A leopard can’t change its spots.” Edith’s tone suggested that this observation was original to her. “Mark my words, things won’t be the same now.”

“Maybe things could use a little shaking up.” Shannon said mildly.

“Not the sort of shaking up he’ll give them. Can’t imagine why he came back here. He wasn’t wanted before, and he’s certainly not wanted now.”

Until that moment Shannon had been reserving her opinion about Reece Morgan. Aside from a mild curiosity, she really hadn’t given much thought to the man. But Edith’s firm pronouncement that he wasn’t welcome set her back up instantly. She had a sudden image of the sort of welcome Edith might have given to a newly orphaned boy twenty years before. And his grandfather—just how welcoming had that stern old man been? She rose to her feet in one smooth movement.

“Actually, I was thinking that it would be neighborly to invite him for breakfast,” she said as she dusted her hands off on the seat of her cutoffs.

“Invite him to breakfast?” Edith couldn’t have looked more horrified if she’d just announced that she was going to tap dance naked through the center of town. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” Shannon’s smile held an edge that would have warned a more observant woman, but Edith was nothing if not unobservant.

“He’s a hoodlum, that’s why not. He rode his bicycle through my petunias.” She offered the last triumphantly, as if no more profound evidence of wickedness could be given.

“I don’t think a man should be judged by a childish prank. If you’ll excuse me, I think I just saw someone moving around in the kitchen,” she lied.

Shannon walked away without waiting for a response. Behind her, she heard Edith’s horrified gasp and then the rapid patter of her sneakers as she scurried back across the street, seeking a protective distance from potential disaster. Shannon knew the other woman would go into her house and immediately go to the front window, which gave her a clear view of the street and everything that went on there. It was that knowledge that kept her walking toward the Morgan house, even as her brief spurt of temper cooled. The last thing she wanted to do was invite a total stranger to breakfast, but she was too stubborn to back down now.

“This is what you get for letting your temper get the best of you,” she muttered as she climbed the steps to the porch. “The man is going to think you’re a total lunatic.”

Shannon jabbed her finger against the doorbell button and heard the faint sound of chimes through the door. She could practically feel Edith’s eyes boring into her back. Briefly she considered turning and waving. Such a breach of protocol would probably be enough to get her classified as a hoodlum, right next to Reece Morgan, petunia killer. The thought of Edith’s horrified reaction made her smile, and the last of her annoyance evaporated.

This wasn’t exactly how she’d planned to spend her morning, but she couldn’t deny that she was more than a bit curious about her new neighbor. After everything she’d heard about him, she was prepared for anything from a tattooed refugee from a motorcycle gang to a Milquetoast accountant, complete with pocket protector and taped glasses.

What she was not prepared for was the six feet four inches of damp, half-naked male who pulled open the door. He must have just gotten out of the shower, she thought, staring at an impressive width of muscled chest. A solid mat of dark hair swirled across his upper body and then tapered down to a narrow line that ran across an admirably flat stomach before disappearing into the waist of his jeans. She was astonished by the effort it took to look away from that intriguing line and lift her eyes to his face.

Oh my. It hardly seemed fair that the rest of him matched the body: thick dark hair, worn slightly shaggy and long enough to brush his collar, if he’d been wearing one; sharply defined cheekbones; a strong blade of a nose; and a chin that hinted at stubbornness. Twenty years ago he might have been almost too good-looking. But age and experience had added an edge to his features, refining and sharpening them to something far more potent than mere handsomeness.

None of her imaginings had prepared her for the man standing in front of her. Nor had they prepared her for the way her stomach clenched sharply in sudden awareness—a deeply feminine response to his masculinity. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt anything like it, and the unexpectedness of it had her staring at him blankly.

Reece’s first thought was that he’d never seen eyes of such a deep clear blue—pure sapphire fringed with long, dark lashes. His second was that he hoped she wasn’t selling anything because he had a feeling that his sales resistance might reach an all-time low under the influence of those eyes.

She didn’t look like someone who was selling something. She was wearing a faded blue T-shirt that clung in all the right places and a pair of denim cutoffs that revealed legs that went on forever. There was a smudge of dirt on one cheek, and her reddish-gold hair was pulled back in a plain, unadorned ponytail. The stark style emphasized the fine-boned beauty of her features. He caught himself straightening his shoulders and tightening his stomach muscles in an instinctive male response. The reaction both amused and irritated him.

“Can I help you?” he asked when it began to look like she wasn’t going to break the silence.

Shannon flushed, suddenly aware that she’d been staring at him like a teenager gawking at a rock star. Completely thrown off balance, she blurted out the first words that came to mind. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” he said, trying to sound as if he was accustomed to having beautiful women show up on his doorstep and offer him a meal. What a shame, he thought. She looked perfectly normal, but she was apparently not rowing with both oars in the water.

“I live next door,” Shannon said, aware that the invitation hadn’t come out as smoothly as she might have liked and trying to salvage the situation. “I didn’t mean to sound abrupt. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you.”

Reece’s brows rose. She sounded flustered but sane. He leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, starting to enjoy the situation. “You knocked on my door,” he pointed out gently.

“I know. But I wasn’t expecting…you.” She waved one hand, the gesture encompassing the six feet four inches of male standing in front of her. His brows went higher and she caught the gleam of laughter in his dark eyes. Sighing, she grabbed for the tattered shreds of her dignity. “I bet you’re wondering if you should call for the men with the butterfly nets.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” he admitted, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Can I start over?”

“Go ahead.”

She drew a deep breath. “I’m Shannon Devereux. I live next door.”

“Reece Morgan.” He offered his hand, and she took it automatically, startled by the jolt of awareness that shot up her arm at the light touch.

“I know who you are,” she said as she withdrew her hand. She rubbed her fingertips against her palm. “We were expecting you.”

“We?” Reece threw a questioning look past her shoulder at the empty street and Shannon cursed the easy way the color rose in her cheeks. This was what she got for letting temper and curiosity get the better of her, she thought. If she’d minded her own business instead of listening to Edith Hacklemeyer, she would still be pulling weeds and enjoying the weather. Instead, she was standing in front of the most attractive man she’d seen in a very long time, confirming his initial impression of her as a blithering idiot.

“I meant that everyone knew you were coming,” she said.

“Did they?” Reece frowned uneasily. He’d spent too many years keeping to the shadows to be comfortable with the idea, but he knew there were few secrets in a small town. Besides, it didn’t matter anymore, he reminded himself. It was just that old habits were hard to break. “I didn’t exactly take an ad out in the local paper.”

“You didn’t have to. Sam Larrabee’s brother spread the word.” When Reece gave her a blank look, she clarified. “He works for the electric company. He saw the order to turn on the utilities.”

“And he took out an ad in the paper?”

“No, he told Sam. And Sam told Alice—that’s Sam’s wife. And Alice told Constance Lauderman, who probably called—”

“Okay, I get the picture.” He shook his head as he interrupted her recitation of the local grapevine. “I’d almost forgotten what this place was like,” he said, looking both irritated and reluctantly amused.

“Well, it’s a small town, and news does tend to get around.”

“I guess it does.” Reece slid the fingers of one hand through his still-damp hair.

The movement drew Shannon’s eyes back to the solid width of his bare shoulders and chest, and she felt her stomach clench in helpless awareness. She didn’t know what it was about him that brought on this deeply female response. The sight of a bare male chest had never caused this kind of reaction before. It would be nice to believe it was because she’d spent too much time in the sun this morning. With an effort, she dragged her gaze upward and met his eyes.

“Anyway, that’s how I knew who you were. I thought you might not have taken the time to do any shopping when you got in yesterday and might like to have breakfast at my house.”

Reece rubbed his hand absently across his bare chest. She’d guessed right about the shopping. As far as he knew, the only food in the house was a package of slightly squashed Twinkies he’d bought somewhere in Arizona the day before. On the other hand, he hadn’t come back here to develop a social life. He just wanted to put the house in shape to sell and maybe get himself in shape—mentally and physically—while he was at it. No matter how attractive she was, he didn’t want to—

“Coffee’s already made,” she added, as an afterthought.

“Let me get a shirt.” The promise of caffeine was too great a temptation. He still wasn’t sure his new neighbor was all there, but she was beautiful and she had coffee—the combination was more than he could resist.

He disappeared into the house, and Shannon drew a deep breath and then released it slowly. Wow. What on earth had happened to her? It wasn’t as if Reece Morgan was the first attractive man she’d met. Kelly had made it her life’s work to introduce her to every single, straight, attractive male who came within range—a rapidly shrinking pool, as Kelly reminded her tartly every time Shannon turned down a date. She’d never given any of those men a second thought, had barely noticed them even when they were standing right in front of her. But this man—this one made her very aware of the differences between male and female, something she hadn’t paid much attention to lately.

By the time Reece returned, she’d regained her equilibrium and was able to give him a casually friendly smile. Whatever she’d felt earlier, it was gone now, and if she felt a slight tingle when his arm brushed against hers, it was probably only because she had a touch of sunburn.

“I thought you could go years without meeting your neighbors in California,” he said as he pulled the door shut behind him and checked the knob to be sure the lock had caught.

“In California, maybe, but not in Serenity Falls.” She caught his questioning look. “You see, the town is caught in some sort of space-time-continuum warp. You know, like the ones on Star Trek? I think we’re actually somewhere in the Midwest right now. As near as I can tell, the change occurs just as you pass the town limit sign. If you pay attention, you can actually feel the shift as the very fabric of space folds and deposits you in…oh, Iowa maybe.”

“Really? I didn’t notice,” Reece said politely but she caught the gleam of laughter in his eyes.

She liked the way he could smile with just his eyes, she thought. Of course, so far, there wasn’t much about him that she didn’t like. Tall, dark and handsome. The old cliché popped into her head, and she smiled a little at how perfectly it fit him. At five-eight, she was tall for a woman and was accustomed to looking most men in the eye, but walking next to him, she felt small and almost fragile.

As if sensing her gaze, he glanced at her, and Shannon looked away quickly, half-afraid of what her expression might reveal. Distracted, she tapped her fingers against the tailgate of his truck as they walked past.

“It doesn’t look particularly mean to me.” She immediately wished the words unsaid but it was too late. What was it about him that caused her to blurt out the first thing that popped into her head?

“What?” Reece gave her a look that combined wariness with curiosity, confirming her guess that he had doubts about her mental health. Not that she could blame him, she admitted with an inner sigh. She hadn’t exactly been at her best this morning.

“Reports of your arrival spread around town yesterday afternoon. Someone mentioned that you were driving a mean-looking truck.”

“Mean-looking?” Reece glanced back at his truck and shrugged. “It’s never attacked anyone, that I know of.” He frowned thoughtfully. “There was a woman at the gas station yesterday. Skinny, big teeth and a face sort of like a trout. She looked at me like I was an alien with green skin and antennae sticking out of my head.”

“Or Elvis in a spangled jumpsuit,” Shannon murmured, thinking of her conversation with Kelly.

“No, I think she’d have been less surprised to see him,” Reece said thoughtfully.

Shannon’s laughter was infectious, and Reece found himself smiling with her. He wouldn’t be all that surprised if it turned out that she’d escaped from a mental ward, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from enjoying her company. Walking beside her, he was conscious of the long-legged ease of her stride, of the way the sunlight caught the red in her hair, drawing fire from it.

“That was Rhonda Whittaker at the gas station,” she told him.

“Whittaker.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he repeated the name. “I think I went to school with her. She looked like a trout then, too.”

Shannon laughed again. His description was wickedly accurate. Rhonda did look a great deal like a trout—a perpetually startled trout.

“Careful. That trout holds a key place on the local grapevine.”

He shook his head. “I’d almost forgotten what this place was like. Everybody always knew everybody else’s business, and what they didn’t know, they made up.”

“According to Edith Hacklemeyer, no one ever had to make up anything about you.”

“Good God, is that old bat still around?” He stopped at the beginning of Shannon’s walkway and looked at the neat white house across the street. A modest expanse of green lawn stretched from the house to the street, perfectly flat, perfectly rectangular, cut exactly in two by an arrow-straight length of concrete sidewalk. The only decorative element was a circular flower bed that sat to the left of the sidewalk. It contained a single rosebush, planted precisely in the center. The rest of the bed was planted in neat, concentric rows of young plants, bright-green leaves standing out against a dark layer of mulch.

“Of course she’s still there,” Reece answered his own question. “The place looked exactly the same twenty years ago. Every spring she planted red petunias, and in the fall, she planted pansies. It never changed.”

“It still hasn’t.” Shannon wondered if it was just her imagination that made her think she could see a shadowy figure through the lace curtains. She had to bite back a smile at the thought of Edith’s reaction to having Reece boldly staring at her house. She touched him lightly on the arm.

“You’re not supposed to do that.”

“Do what?” He looked down at her, one brow cocked in inquiry.

“Look at her house.” Shannon shook her head, pulling her mouth into a somber line.

“There’s some law against looking at her house?” Reece asked, but he turned obediently and followed her up the walkway.

“You’re stepping out of your assigned place in the world order. It’s Edith’s job to watch you. It’s your job to be watched.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he said, amused by her take on small-town life. “I can’t believe old Cacklemeyer is still around.”

“Cacklemeyer?” Shannon’s gurgle of laughter made him smile. “Is that what you called her?”

“She wasn’t real popular with her students,” he said by way of answer. “She’s not still teaching, is she?”

“No. She retired a few years ago.”

“There are a lot of kids who should be grateful for that,” he said with feeling.

“According to Edith, you committed petuniacide on at least one occasion,” Shannon commented as she stepped around a small shrub that sprawled into the walkway. She glanced at him over her shoulder. “She seemed to think it was a deliberate act of horticultural violence.”

“It was.” His half smile was reminiscent. “She acted like that flower bed was the gardens at Versailles. If she was in the yard when I rode my bike past her place, she’d scuttle out and stand in front of it, glaring at me, like she expected me to whip out a tank of Agent Orange and lay waste to her precious flowers.”

“So you lived up to her expectations?”

“Or down to them.” He shrugged. “Sounds stupid now.”

“Sounds human. Hang on a minute while I move the hose,” she said as she stepped off the path and walked over to where a sprinkler was putting out a fine spray of water.

In an effort to avoid staring at her legs like a randy teenager, Reece focused his gaze on the house instead. It was a style that he thought of as Early Fake Spanish—white stucco walls and a border of red clay tile edging a flat roof, like a middle-aged man with a fringe of hair and a big bald spot. The style was ubiquitous in California, a tribute to the state’s Spanish roots and its citizens’ happy acceptance of facades. In this case, age had lent something approaching dignity to the neat building. The front yard consisted of a lawn that appeared to be composed mostly of mown weeds and edged by two large flower beds that held a jumble of plants of all shapes and sizes in no particular order. Reece was no horticulturist but he was fairly sure that Shannon was growing an astoundingly healthy crop of dandelions, among other things.

“I don’t advise looking at my flower beds if you’re a gardener,” she said, following his glance as she rejoined him. “I’m told that the state of my gardens is enough to bring on palpitations in anyone who actually knows something about plants.”

“What I know about plants can be written on the head of a pin.”

“Good. I may call on you for backup when the garden police come around.” For an instant, in her cutoffs and T-shirt, her hair dragged back from her face, her wide mouth curved in a smile, her eyes bright with laughter, she looked like a mischievous child. But she was definitely all grown up, Reece thought, his eyes skimming her body almost compulsively as she stepped onto the narrow porch and pushed open the front door. It took a conscious effort of will to drag his eyes from the way the worn denim of her shorts molded the soft curves of her bottom.

The last thing he wanted was to get involved with anyone, he reminded himself. He was here to clean out his grandfather’s house and maybe, while he was at it, figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He didn’t need any complications. Breakfast was one thing, especially when it came with caffeine, but anything else was out of the question.

And if his new neighbor would be willing to start wearing baggy clothes and put a paper sack over her head, he just might be able to remember that.

The interior of the house continued the pseudo-Spanish theme of the exterior. The floor of the small entryway was covered with dark-red tiles, and arch-ways led off in various directions. Through one, he could see a living room, which looked almost as uncoordinated as the flower beds out front. A sofa upholstered in fat pink roses sat at right angles to an over-stuffed chair covered in blue plaid. Both faced a small fireplace. The end table next to the sofa was completely covered in magazines and books. In one corner of the room, there was a sewing machine in a cabinet. Heaped over and around it and trailing onto the floor, there were piles of brightly colored fabric. The comfortable clutter made it obvious that this was a room where someone actually lived, and he couldn’t help but compare it to the painful neatness of his grandfather’s house—everything in its place, everything organized with military precision. The whole place had a sterile feeling that made it hard to believe it had been someone’s home for more than forty years. Pushing the thought aside, Reece followed Shannon through an archway on the left of the entryway.

The kitchen was in a similar state of comfortable disarray. It was not a large room but light colors and plenty of windows made it seem bigger than it was. White cupboards and a black-and-white, checkerboard-patterned floor created a crisp, modern edge, but the yellow floral curtains and brightly colored ceramic cups and canisters added a cheerfully eclectic touch.

“Have a seat,” Shannon said, gesturing to the small maple table that sat under a window looking out onto the backyard.

Reece chose to lean against the counter instead, his eyes following her as she got out a cup and poured coffee into it.

“Cream or sugar?” she asked as she handed him the cup. “I don’t actually have cream, but I think I’ve got milk.”

“Black is fine.” Reece lifted the cup and took a sip, risking a scalded tongue in his eagerness. But it was worth it, he thought as the smooth, rich taste filled his mouth. “This is terrific coffee,” he said, sipping again.

“It’s a blend of beans that I buy at a little coffee shop downtown. They roast it themselves.” She opened a cupboard, stared into it for a moment and then closed the door.

“You do your own grinding?”

“I haven’t figured out yet whether or not it actually makes a difference but the guy who runs the shop sneers if you ask him to grind it for you.”

Shannon opened the refrigerator door, and Reece felt his stomach rumble inquiringly. It had been a long time since dinner last night, and if she cooked half as well as she made coffee, breakfast was bound to be special. Relaxing back against the counter, he sipped his coffee and allowed his eyes to linger on her legs with absentminded appreciation while he entertained fantasies of bacon and eggs or maybe waffles slathered in butter and maple syrup or—

“How do you feel about Froot Loops?”