Читать книгу The Sheriff - Jan Hudson, Jan Hudson - Страница 10

The first drop hit her on the forehead, the second on the nose. Mary Beth shot up and bolted from her bed.

She immediately stumbled and went sprawling.

She’d forgotten the blasted cast. Muttering a few choice words, she shook herself awake. A storm rattled the windows, and a steady drip of water plopped on her pillow.

After pulling her bed to a safe spot, she checked on Katy, who was fast asleep and dry. Grabbing her crutches, she hurried to the kitchen and grabbed a stockpot. There was a steady leak over the stove. She shoved another pot under that drip, left one crutch behind and hobbled back to the leak as quickly as she could. Quietly she set the pot on the floor of the nook she’d made into their bedroom. The tinny ping-ping-ping of the drops against the aluminum seemed awfully loud, but Katy didn’t stir.

Not wanting to disturb Katy with a bright light, she made her way around the place using only the illumination from their small lamp, the neon sign behind the bar and the light that spilled from the kitchen. She located another three leaks in the restaurant: one in the men’s room and two others in the dining area. When she had placed containers under all the places that dripped, she tossed her soaked pillow on a table and fell back into bed sweating from the effort.

Rain came down in torrents, beating against the windows, the wind howling as if in rage. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked, boomed and rolled. The storm sounded very close. She counted between the lightning flashes and the thunderclaps, trying to judge how far away the center of the storm was. It was close.

Another deafening crack and boom shook the walls.

The lights went out. She slapped her hand against her chest, trying to contain her runaway heart.

Water dripping into the pots sounded like a discordant steel-drum band. Windows rattled with the wind and rain pelted the panes.

Except for an occasional flash from outside, everything was dark as a tomb. The air grew heavy and she had a hard time breathing.

She hated storms.

And the dark.

Then, between the steady plop-plop-plop, she heard a rustling, scurrying sound.

Her heart almost stopped.

She wanted to scream bloody murder and run somewhere, anywhere. Instead she pulled the quilt over her head and prayed, filling the time until morning.

“MOMMY, MOMMY, WAKE UP.”

Mary Beth opened a bleary eye as Katy shook her. She must have dropped off to sleep sometime after the storm passed.

“Are you awake? Sheriff J.J. is here.”

“Where?” she asked, throwing an arm over her eyes to avoid the morning light.

“Here,” J.J.’s deep voice answered from the foot of her bed.

She grabbed for the quilt and raised herself up on her elbows. There he stood, hat shoved back and thumbs hooked over the front of his gun belt.

“How did you get in?” she asked.

“The usual way. I knocked. Katy opened the door. Here I am. We had a heck of a storm last night. Trees down everywhere. I was just checking to see if you were okay, and if your power was on. Some areas lost electricity for a few hours.”

She glanced at the neon sign behind the bar. It hummed and glowed its usual red. “It was off for a while, but the power seems to be back on now.”

He stared pointedly at the huge pot on the floor. It was nearly full of water. “Looks like you had a leak.”

“I had several. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’ve had coffee, thank you. I need to see about some other folks in the county. Want me to empty those pots for you?”

“I can manage, thank you.”

He snorted. “Like hell you can. That one alone must weigh thirty pounds.”

“Sheriff J.J. said an ugly word,” Katy whispered loudly.

“I noticed.”

“Sorry about that. I can see I need to clean up my language. Please accept my most profound apologies, ladies.” He took off his hat and swept a low bow.

Mary Beth rolled her eyes while Katy giggled.

He hefted the big stockpot near Mary Beth’s bed and strode toward the kitchen. In a minute, he returned to take the other containers to the kitchen. She merely sat in bed with the quilt wrapped around her and watched.

His task finished, he came to the foot of her bed. “Need anything else?”

“No, I can manage, but thank you very much,” she said stiffly.

“You’ve got a rat in one of your traps.”

Her stomach turned over.

He tipped his hat. “Ladies, I’ll be going now.”

Darn his hide if he didn’t turn and sashay toward the door with that loose-hipped walk of his. “J.J.!”

He turned and gave her an innocent “Yes?”

“Would, uh—would you mind disposing of the—uh—uh—”

“Rat?”

“Yes, please.”

He grinned. “Pretty please with sugar on it?”

She ground her teeth. “Yes.”

“Sure.”

He started to the kitchen, and Katy danced after him. “Could I see the rat? Is it dead?”

“Gruesome child,” Mary Beth mumbled, shuddering.

She listened to Katy’s childish chatter interspersed with J.J.’s deeper voice and heard the back door open and close. In a few minutes she heard them return.

Katy, still in her nightie and now with muddy feet, galloped in, grinning from ear to ear. “Mommy, we buried that scalawag. And we said some words over him, didn’t we, Sheriff J.J.?”

A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “That we did, Katy. Gave him a right nice send-off.” He tipped his hat again. “I’ll be moving along.”

Mary Beth watched J.J. go, torn between wanting to throw her sneaker at him and wanting to throw herself at him. Every time she was around him, she became more and more aware of his blatant masculinity. It radiated from him. She sighed. Despite her efforts to ignore the obvious, she had to admit that J. J. Outlaw was one sexy guy. Maybe it was because she’d been celibate for so long, but hadn’t she found herself thinking positively naughty thoughts about him since she’d been back in town? He’d always been good-looking, but the years had added a layer of confidence and experience that made him even more appealing. If only—

She pushed the thought aside and rose from her bed. “If only” never changed anything. The past was past. She had to start thinking about today. And tomorrow. Soon utility bills would come due on this place, and bills had to be paid. She needed to come up with a plan. But first she needed to get dressed and fix breakfast.

Shoving thoughts of J.J. to the back of her brain, she dressed herself and Katy and made a scrumptious meal from the bounty her neighbors had graciously provided.

Mary Beth and Katy had barely finished eating when there was a knock on the front door.

“The casserole parade must be beginning,” she said to Katy.

“What’s a casserole parade? Is it like when you were queen?”

“No. I was just teasing, sweetie.” She kissed the top of Katy’s head and went to the front door.

A young man in a T-shirt and jeans stood there. He didn’t look to be more than eighteen or so. Blond with big brown eyes, he had a killer smile that must have set six counties of teenage girls’ hearts aflutter.

“Mornin’, ma’am,” he said, tugging at the bill of his red ball cap. “I’m Dean Gaskamp. Wally Gaskamp from Wally’s Feeds is my daddy.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve come to fix your roof.”

“My roof? But I can’t afford—”

“Oh, there’s no charge, ma’am. I mean, I’m a roofer by trade, so I know what I’m doing, but working on yours is part of my community-service hours. If you don’t mind, I’ll just get to work.”

“Community service?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did J.J. think up this community-service business and send you out here?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. It was his brother Frank—Judge Outlaw, I mean—who thought it up. J.J.—I mean Sheriff Outlaw—called and told me to add you to my list. I’ll get on with it. With the storm and all, a bunch of folks are needing some help. I’ll get in a lot of my hours this weekend.” He tipped his cap, turned around and started unloading a ladder from the back of his truck.

In no time, Dean was hammering on the roof.

Mary Beth had barely cleaned up the kitchen when the casserole parade did indeed begin again. It seemed as if everybody in Naconiche dropped by—many, she suspected, out of simple curiosity, but nobody arrived empty-handed. One kind soul—an old classmate—even brought a small television set and a VCR, insisting that they were extras “just sitting around and gathering dust.” Another brought a stack of children’s videos with the explanation that her children had outgrown them. Katy was delighted. She insisted on watching Snow White immediately. Mary Beth fixed her a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to eat while she watched the movie.

Dixie dropped by for lunch, bearing a box of toys and games for Katy. “My girls don’t play with these anymore,” she said, “and I need the room if you don’t mind hand-me-downs.”

“I don’t mind at all. We had to leave many of our things behind with a friend in Natchez. Katy’s a trouper, but things have been difficult for her. At least where I worked, she had children to play with.”

“Where did you work?”

“At a health club. I was an aerobics instructor, and Katy stayed in the nursery there while I taught my classes.”

“An aerobics instructor! God knows I need one—or will when Robert here is born.” She patted her belly.

“What will you need?” Ellen said as she came in the front door.

“An aerobics instructor,” Dixie said. “Did you know that Mary Beth taught aerobics in Natchez?”

“If she mentioned it, I conveniently ignored it,” Ellen said, grabbing a plate and filling it from among the goodies lining the bar. “I see Mabel Fortney has been here. Tomato aspic with lima beans. She brings it to every event and it’s ghastly.” She joined her friends at the table. “You do have some tasty items here, though. I swear, I wish there were a decent place for a woman to have lunch around here. I think I gained all my weight just eating hamburgers at the Burger Barn and chicken-fried steak at the Grill. Even their blue-plate specials are loaded with stuff better suited to loggers. But it’s either that or Mexican food, and I can handle just so many taco salads or enchilada dinners.”

“Lord, I hear that,” Dixie said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if this town had a tearoom like the one in Travis Lake?” Travis Lake was a larger town twenty-five miles away in the next county.

“Mmm-hmm,” Ellen said. Then she stopped and glanced from Dixie to Mary Beth.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Dixie asked.

Ellen nodded. “Mary Beth, what kind of a cook are you?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m not bad. But I don’t know if I could run a tearoom if that’s what you have in mind.”

“Now, don’t dismiss the notion until we’ve had a chance to talk about it some,” Ellen said. “I never thought that I could sell real estate either, but I’m kicking butt these days.” She grinned. “Let’s do some brainstorming.”

For the next hour or so, they came up with every conceivable crackpot scheme they could think of, laughing wildly as they considered every option from turning the Tico Taco into a cathouse with Mary Beth as madam to refurbishing The Twilight Inn as a home for aging aerobics instructors or renting it out as a haunted house on Halloween.

Actually, some of their ideas weren’t half-bad.

“You know,” Dixie said, “Naconiche really does need a health club—or at least a place where people could take some exercise classes.”

“I don’t think the town could support a health club,” Ellen said. “Remember when JoNell Davis tried it several years ago? All that equipment—and she lost her shirt. But really, I’ll bet there would be some interest in a few classes. Maybe aerobics for some of us and stretching classes for seniors. Dr. Kelly is always trying to get my mom to do some stretching for her arthritis.”

“Who’s Dr. Kelly?” Mary Beth asked, reaching for another chocolate-chip cookie. “I don’t remember him.”

“Her. Dr. Kelly Martin. She came here a couple of years ago to take over Dr. Bridges’s practice when he retired. She’s about our age. I really like her.”

They batted around several other plans, trying to think of ways to use Mary Beth’s talents and the facilities available.

That was how the germ of an idea for The Twilight Tearoom was born. Ellen and Dixie were thrilled to hear that Mary Beth had been a member of the Junior League and had worked in its tearoom before she and Brad had split.

“I had to drop out after the divorce,” Mary Beth told them. “I couldn’t afford to keep up with my more affluent friends.” She didn’t mention that she was too humiliated to show her face, nor did she mention that Brad was a criminal, locked up in prison. “But I did learn how to pour tea and which fork goes where and how to make chicken crepes to die for. I learned to make the crepes and several other fancy dishes when a group of us took lessons from a French chef. And we used to serve as hostesses when some of the local charity events sponsored luncheons at the league building.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ellen said. “This is perfect. The garden club is looking for a place to have their big luncheon, and I heard Annie Schultz say that the hospital auxiliary needs somewhere, too. The VFW hall just doesn’t have much ambience. Why couldn’t they meet here?”

Mary Beth glanced around at the garish walls, the scarred tables and the tattered piñatas. “Here? You’ve got to be kidding. This place is a far cry from the Junior League Tearoom. I’ll bet it doesn’t have as much ambience as the VFW hall.”

“A coat of paint would do wonders,” Dixie said.

“True,” Ellen agreed. “Take all the Mexican stuff down and add some pretty tablecloths and flowers. The place has some possibilities. And if you opened it just for lunch or for special parties, you’d still have time to spend with Katy. Why, she’ll be in kindergarten in the fall, and you could teach some aerobics here in the mornings. Just move the tables aside. How about it, Puddin’?”

Mary Beth shrugged. “I’ll have to give it some thought, but it has some possibilities. I might even be able to earn enough to slowly restore the motel. I could either run it or sell it.”

“Good idea,” Ellen said. “For sure nobody’s going to buy it as it is.” She glanced at her watch and stood. “Gotta run. I have a closing in a few minutes. We’ll chew all this around more later.”