Читать книгу Rachel Dahlrumple - Shea McMaster - Страница 7

Chapter 2

Kicking around our big, empty house, I spent a disgruntled evening hauling crates of party supplies, tables and folding chairs out of storage. Dining alone had involved shoving the pizza in the fridge, and picking at a quarter portion of the Greek salad. However, one more night without Burt snoring in my ear held a certain attraction.

For background noise I’d turned on the TV, and to my surprise the opening credits of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever popped onto the screen. Reliving a moment of my youth, I tried out Barbra-slash-Daisy-slash-Melinda’s most definitive line to see how it worked with my name.

“My name is Rachel. Rachel Winifred Dahlrumple Bruckmeister.”

Somehow it didn’t sound the same as when Barbra-slash-Melinda said it. Disgusted with the false hope that saying it aloud would make it somehow more magical, I went about my tasks.

The movie had become so deeply rooted in my past, practically from the moment of my birth, which took place on the evening the movie opened, Wednesday, June 17, 1970.

No, I’m not clairvoyant like the character Daisy Gamble. If only. Would have saved me a whole lot of trouble. No, it will take a little more explaining.

As the story goes, my parents went to see the film mainly as a distraction for my mom in the uncomfortable end stages of her pregnancy, but also to escape the summer heat, if only for a few hours. Why they chose this movie over another had to do with dishy Frenchman Yves Montand who played the male lead, a psychiatrist. Well, dishy in a 1970s European style. In the film he was still hot by any day’s standards in that older-man appealing way. At least I always thought so. Mom did too, which was why my father indulged his hugely pregnant wife.

In the movie, Barbra Streisand, regressed through hypnosis by Yves, announced, “My name is Melinda. Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees.” Complete with upper crust British accent instead of the Brooklyn whine of her other character identity, Daisy Gamble. At this point, the character played by Yves sat up and took notice.

Somehow my name doesn’t carry quite the same impact.

In any case, my middle name, Winifred, came from that movie. My mother loved the film, and swore destiny played a hand as she went into labor at the theater. They dashed from cinema to hospital and five minutes before midnight, I made my debut.

Because of this, Mom wanted to name me after the characters in the film, but my father ruled out the entire name she put together. Eventually they settled on Rachel after his grandmother and Winifred as a compromise. Had I been consulted, I would have voted for Melinda.

I was raised listening to bits of the songs, in particular, “…who would not be stunned to see you prove, There’s more to us than surgeons can remove?” and hearing Mom prattle on about names and destinies. Sadly, I’d never lived up to anyone’s expectations or great hopes for my life, yet, each time I watched the movie, I searched for the divine inside me, the spark of life that brought a character like Daisy to life so brilliantly.

Alas, like every other time I’d seen the film, I didn’t find my spark of divine inspiration, but went about my chores and sang along with the songs as I’d been doing from the time VCRs were invented and the movie became available on tape. Because of Mom, I knew the movie inside out and backward. In fact, it had been some years since I’d seen it because it always reminded me of her and made me miss her even more.

By the time I finished for the night, I had precious little energy left and spent only a few moments on the dark porch, listening to the hot San Joaquin Valley night. Right alongside the crickets, the hum of air conditioning units filled the night air. I debated taking a swim, but even the thought took too much effort.

Entirely too ready for bed, I was upstairs and in the middle of my nightly regimen of allergy medications–those with hay fever have always found summer in the valley brutal–when I heard an odd noise from the front of the house.

Raccoons, coyotes, or even one of the neighbor’s dogs commonly wandered by to sniff around. Because of the coyote possibility, I decided to take a look. The last thing I needed was them getting into the coolers. I considered the possibility of kids from the street getting into the beer, but not seriously. The parents in our little neighborhood would make the punishment more excruciating than the hangover they might have the next day, and the kids knew it.

Besides, it never hurt to double check the security, a habit drilled into me by Burt from our days of living near San Jose, and one he’d not let slip one bit since moving to my tiny hometown. In our first years, he’d reminded me nightly, especially when he was away, until I had the habit deeply ingrained in my bones.

Not particularly happy to deal with strange noises on my own–that’s what husbands were for–I pulled a robe on over the t-shirt I slept in when Burt traveled. He preferred something a bit more revealing, or nothing at all, when he was home. I found it bemusing since he hadn’t turned to me in true love in months, possibly a few years. Not counting the lukewarm sex on our anniversaries. That hadn’t been lovemaking in the slightest.

I debated grabbing my smaller handgun, but the double barrel shotgun made a better choice. I kept the cartridges filled with rock salt, which would hurt enough but not cause serious injury. Thank you, James Bond. The shotgun had the advantage of being more visible and could be used as a club if a dose or two of salt didn’t deter the pest. I pulled it from under the bed and padded down the hardwood stairs on bare feet.

Being afraid wasn’t an option because I just couldn’t work up the emotion. Small town life bred it out of a person. I knew these people as well as I knew myself. I’d grown up in the house built by an ancestor less than a generation after the Civil War. Most of my neighbors had moved onto our street when the original homes were built in the late 1970s, after my parents subdivided the land. In the small, tight-knit community of twenty-one homes, we always looked out for each other because that’s what neighbors do. Still, caution was all to the good, thus the security system had been installed shortly after we’d moved into the house.

I peered out a sidelight, flipped on the porch light and detected no sudden movements or creepy sounds. Reasonably confident I’d find nothing more than the hot night, I deactivated the house alarm and opened the front door. Nothing unusual beyond the screened security door greeted me.

Well, except for a long white box sitting at the edge of the porch. An item so out of the ordinary, I didn’t know if I should be intrigued or alarmed.

First of all, Burt never sent cut flowers. His gifts tended toward jewelry I’d rarely wear, and live plants I knew he’d picked out from an anniversary gift guide. Not a bad trait in a husband, really. Better than his taste in lingerie.

Second of all, the florist never delivered after six o’clock in the evening, any day of the week. Certainly not at ten o’clock, when the sidewalks all around us were already rolled up for the night. And if she had, she would have rung the doorbell and not run off. As I said, small town.

Sometimes the younger kids who came into my library brought me a handful of daisies, or those “really pretty yellow flowers” also known as wild mustard. Because of my allergies, I’d let the mustard wilt and tell the kids the plant was too delicate for a vase and was best left in the fields. I liked the daisies and kept a vase especially for them. But kids only brought me flowers at work. Never at home.

Trapped by indecision, I heard a car start up next door, to the east. My left. Ah, right. Deputy Dan. I recognized the growl of the sports car. It occurred to me that the last month or two he’d been a regular weekend visitor, unless he had patrol duty, and then he’d still swing by. Things slow on the dating scene? Surprising. If I’d gone for dinner, I would have caught the news from someone about his dating habits. Not that his habits mattered to me, but it did seem odd, him not having a date on Friday night.

Seeing as how he was the law, and had to drive past my house, that tipped the scales. I leaned the shotgun against the wall and swung open the screen door.

Sure enough, Dan’s Corvette backed down the drive and into the circle where our street ended. My house stood like a grand old queen, dead center, at the back of the curve, a hundred years older than the other homes on the street. As I watched from the corner of my eye, in part because his headlights blinded me and in part because I didn’t want to openly acknowledge his presence–very mature, right?–he hesitated before shifting the car into first gear while I approached the box. A box designed to hold a dozen red roses.

If they were roses from my husband…well, he’d better be behind a bush ready to jump out and make up for being a selfish prick the last couple of years. One heartfelt apology, one meaningful session of making love, and I’d probably forgive him anything. After all, while our life might not be perfect, I couldn’t imagine life without him. All that time together had to stand for something.

Rumbling with a sexy, throaty purr only a high powered car could produce and mean it, the ’Vette crept forward, coming even with the path from the street as I crouched and realized just how short my sleeping outfit was, coupled with the fact I wore no panties. I could only pray darkness and the hem of my robe hid that detail. Despite my potential for exposure of the embarrassing kind, curiosity got the best of me and I lifted the lid of the box. Tissue mostly hid what seemed to be an arrangement of greenery with a few blooms inside, and I could see a card tucked into the leaves under the tissue.

As rumbly as his car, the deputy’s voice reached me without being too loud. “Everything okay, Mrs. Bruckmeister?”

Oh, I’d become Mrs. Bruckmeister, had I? I’d been Rachel earlier. Okay, fine. I could play it that way.

Mildly surprised he’d actually spoken to me–for the second time in one day, no less–I looked up to see him leaning toward the open passenger window. When the hell had he grown so damn cute? I’d really tried not to notice over the past year, but since my husband wasn’t looking at me anymore, well, my eyes had done some wandering, and my mind some wondering.

Even more so when I’d been blown off one time too many. Hours later, it still stung. If I had an affair, or gave the impression of having one, would Burt spend more time at home? I dropped that thought in a heartbeat. I just wanted Burt around when I needed him, like for party preparation. I didn’t want him underfoot all the time. Having him hanging around tended to interfere with my reading.

“I think so… But I’m not sure. Did you see anyone drive by? Someone dropped off this box.” Though my face heated at a few words of attention from the deputy, I still didn’t know what to think about the flower box.

Not Burt, then who? A secret admirer–my first, unless the admirer were under ten and they tended to be not so secret–or a prank? And in either case, why? Why there, why then? I couldn’t help but wonder at the coincidence of Dan and the box showing up at the same time. Had Dan put it there, then waited for me to come out and find it? And there I crouched in a ratty t-shirt barely covered by a thin, very short, pink kimono sort of robe. One good breeze and he’d know about the missing panties.

Must’ve been the magic words. Dan threw the car in reverse, and backed it up to the start of the circular drive. Before I could say Deputy Dawg, or worry about my state of dress–or lack thereof–he’d parked on the drive in front of the house.

“You opened it?” He strode toward my porch. Well, if he had put the box there, his reaction didn’t feel right. Shouldn’t he have been more flirtatious instead of angry?

“Well, yeah. How else am I supposed to figure out what it is?” I dropped the lid and reached for the tissue. “Some sort of floral arrangement.” A light breeze blew one half of the tissue back and revealed a bunch of greenery, the stems artistically bound with a white satin ribbon. I lifted the small envelope from where it nestled in the leaves. My name was printed in block letters on top. “And it’s for me.”

Odd, the handwriting looked nothing like Burt’s or anyone else’s I knew. As the librarian, I saw a lot of different handwriting styles on a daily basis. The sample I held was completely unrecognizable.

I remained crouched on the porch, so when he stood on the step below, he towered over me. “Recognize the handwriting?”

“Suspicious much?” The breeze kicked past and blew a strand of hair into my eyes. I was about to push it back when Dan bent and gripped my wrist.

“Stop. That’s poison oak and, if I’m not mistaken, ragweed.”

I must have looked pretty dopey staring up at him. A gust of hot breeze carried a swirl of dust and pollen to my face as I reacted to the warmth and strength of his hand wrapped around my wrist. Before I could think of something to say, much less move, I sneezed. Truly elegant and attractive.

“That box is one mass of toxins. Aren’t you super allergic to hay fever stuff?”

Stunned, I let him pull me up. He knew that about me? Then again, in our little town, who didn’t?

I looked up at him but didn’t see anything beyond professional concern. Even one step down, he stood taller than eye level with me. I still had the envelope in my hand. “Yes. I live on allergy meds all spring and summer.” And weekly shots. All of which I’d left sitting on the bathroom counter upstairs. I might have been able to ditch them all if we’d moved to the coast, but every year Burt reminded me we couldn’t afford living there. Another sneeze rocked me and my eyes began to water. Applied in a timely manner, the meds made it possible for me to live a somewhat normal life, including time in my allergy-friendly garden where I’d planted low pollen plants as defined by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Unfortunately, I was about an hour past my usual time, so I sneezed on Dan’s fine white t-shirt again.

He didn’t flinch, but he did stare at me for a few seconds.

“Sorry.” I reached to wipe away the miniscule spots, but he stopped me.

“Let’s get you inside. Don’t touch anything, hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve dealt with poison oak before. How’d you recognize it in the dark? My porch light isn’t very bright.”

“I have good night vision.”

I could only wonder what that meant as he dragged me past the screen door he held open. I liked to skinny dip in the pool out back from time to time, but only very late on the darkest nights. Had he been able to see me from his brother’s kitchen window? I’d almost done it tonight. Heat raced across my face.

“Where do you keep your first aid kit? I assume you have something to treat this.”

I lost my train of thought with my next sneeze, which echoed in the foyer as we passed through. “What?”

“Your first aid kit. Where is it?”

“The cabinet by the back door.” After a few bouts with stubbed toes on the pool apron and bug bites from working in the yard, I’d found it easier to have the kit on hand for fast grabbing.

Dan stopped by the sink and turned on the water so I didn’t have to touch the faucet. He had me drop the envelope into a plastic baggie, and after pumping soap into my hands he began searching the contents of the first aid box.

“Calamine? It doesn’t do diddly, Rumple. Not on poison oak.”

Rumple? Good heavens. I half snorted, half sneezed. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in twenty years.”

Once I’d cleaned my wedding rings, I pulled the set off and dropped it into the little dish on the window sill. I’d never liked wearing rings when doing dirty work in the kitchen and often left them there overnight. Burt objected every time he saw me do it, calling me irresponsible with how I treated the two-carat diamond on the engagement ring. I figured I saved the ring set some wear and tear. Especially on the days I forgot to wear the set altogether. The first time he’d caught me at work without… Well, I’d learned to be very careful when he was in town.

Dan stiffened, shot me an irritated glance, and kept digging. “Mint oil? Menthol? Camphor? Lanacaine? Do you have anything along those lines?”

“Aloe with Lanacaine? Witch hazel, rubbing alcohol…”

His hand plunged into the box. “Antihistamine cream and hydrocortisone. Those’ll work.” Appropriate tubes captured and officially subdued, he turned and observed my scrubbing efforts.

Unusually fast, the sting had started to set in. Thank God for his exceptional night vision. I would have carried the box into the house and set it on the counter before recognizing the toxic plants. The oil from the poison oak would have been everywhere, not to mention the evil pollen of the ragweed.

“Who’d you piss off?” Dan handed me a paper towel. “Pat, don’t rub.”

“Aye, aye, Deputy.” Off duty, he wore jeans, a no longer quite so pristine white t-shirt, and three day stubble. Yowzer. Even though I’d been married for seventeen years, I had no immunity to all that raw manliness standing six inches away from me for the second time that day. Young manliness. Two years younger than I. Twelve years younger than my husband. I patted my hands and face dry, did my best to delicately blow my running nose, and tossed the paper towels into the trash.

“Funny.” He squeezed out the antihistamine cream first. “Rub that in and we’ll follow with the hydrocortisone. Got a pair of chopsticks or tweezers?”

“What?” Out of the blue, the question struck me as bizarre.

“I want to read the card inside the envelope,” he said slowly with exaggerated patience and a touch of sarcasm. In truth, I’d been thinking about him to hide my real turmoil. My mind, still reeling from the fact someone would send me such a rotten arrangement, had trouble catching up to him.

“Tweezers equals no touchy.” He wiggled the fingers of one hand.

“Funny.” I repeated his one word sarcastic answer before sneezing, that time into the sink. “Top drawer, grab one of the wooden pairs of Japanese chopsticks. They have the pointier end.” I took the fresh paper towel he handed me, and oh-so-demurely wiped my running eyes and drippy nose.

“You’re a real comedian, library lady. Exactly what do you wear under your proper suit of straight skirt and prim white blouse, with your hair up in a bun?”

He gave me a look that raked me from head to toe and back again. Shocked at the appraisal as much as the comment, I stared back. I could have sworn he had X-Ray vision because he looked at me as if my clothes weren’t there at all, as if he knew what I didn’t have on underneath. If I hadn’t had goo all over my hands, I would have pulled my robe tighter. Instead, my entire body flushed and I squeezed my thighs together, internally swearing I’d never set foot outside my bedroom without panties ever again. Or had I really had the opposite thought, as in I’d never wear panties again? Damn, I needed a remedy to counteract what the man did to my brain.

“I’ve seen you in your natural habitat. You just need to raise the hem on your skirts four inches, change out the flats for stilettos, undo a couple more buttons and you’ll have all the teen boys hanging out. County literacy will soar.”

His comments were so outrageous, if I hadn’t known him for twenty–mumble–years, I’d have reported him to the Sheriff. Instead, my mouth dropped open partly in shock that he’d said so many words in a row to me. On the other hand I’d watched cop shows and recognized his attempt to distract me while he extracted the card enough to read it, but I was outraged all the same. To hide my hot face, I bent to the task of rubbing the soothing creams into my hands.

Seriously, he hadn’t tried walking, bending, crouching, and climbing step-stools all day in a thong. Even worse, a garter belt and stockings. Men! I’d like to see him do it. I’d stick to my comfy Lycra. Besides being comfortable, it gave a little tummy control, too. As for heels, he needed to get real.

But I did vow, silently, to think about the shorter skirts.

“I’ll ask again, Mrs. Bruckmeister, are you aware of any enemies?”

I looked up from my lotion rubbing and took in his expression. Blank. All teasing gone. Cop mode.

“I’m a simple person, Deputy Weston, you know that. Steady and calm. Boring. I don’t offend anyone, and no one gives me trouble. Unless you’re talking about Jose Delgado, who is three weeks late with the last book he checked out.”

“I don’t think Jose wrote this note.” He looked at it again, and his eyebrows drew together. With a deepening scowl, he turned it so I could read it through the clear plastic.

The handwriting on the card matched the envelope. Black, block letters, innocuous enough, aside from the message. Ah, yes, the kicker.

Let him go. We want to be together. Start divorce proceedings. Or better yet, end your pitiful life. Your choice. For now.

I could only imagine my expression at that moment. Dan’s gaze was glued to my face, which first felt hot, then cold. My head swam and my breathing wheezed in and out, as ragged as my stuttering heartbeat.

That bastard. The low down, scheming, rotten, lying, slimy, vile, despicable…

“Care to revise your statement?”

A few quick blinks brought the deputy back into focus, though I could feel the airways in my lungs constricting.

“I know who’s going to die, and isn’t going to be me,” I whispered. “Chinese water torture is too good for him. Splinter those bamboo chopsticks and the minute he gets home, they’re going under his fingernails. After that, his balls.” I’d learned a few things from my father’s stories of ’Nam. And of course, reading about the war. After all, I was a librarian. A curious one. I’d read nearly every book on our well stocked shelves. Except the really dry science and technical books, which I left to the geeks. And I meant that in the nicest way. I liked geeks. Briefly, I considered doing a search on torture techniques when I returned to work Monday morning. If I could hold off that long.

The tanned face so near mine blanched as he flinched. “Easy going, ma’am.”

Right. I wasn’t known for saying such things. I wasn’t known for saying much.

“Well?” I demanded, possibly a tad harshly, but I’d earned the right. My fragile world had just vaporized before my eyes and it was far too soon to see what might be left. If anything. The only future visible looked like a rapidly expanding black hole.

Someone wanted me dead. But who? My husband? His girlfriend? God, that hurt. I hated cheaters. I hated what they did to families, especially the children. Even though I had no children, divorce loomed in front of me like a huge gaping maw. I wanted to wail, gnash my teeth, and obliterate something, anything. Of course, I was Rachel the Mouse, so I did my best to hide the violent urges building inside. Rachel the Meek never, ever, let loose with her most primitive emotions. She hid them deep, keeping a calm, submissive, accepting face turned toward the world at large.

Then again, my harsh tone might have been part of that breathing trouble I so very much wanted to control. “What would you do?”

For the first time I could remember in our long, long history, Dan looked directly, and very deeply, into my eyes. The sympathy, sincerity, and concern on his face hit me before the actual words did. Already overwhelmed from too many emotions boiling in my heart and head, I had no defense or response for his reply, or the way he ever so lightly caressed my cheek with the back of his fingers. When had he gotten so close?

“Well, Rachel, since I’m not the kind of idiotic ass your husband is, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to screw around on the most amazing woman anywhere. Were I the lucky one to have you, I wouldn’t leave you alone long enough for you to ever feel abandoned.”

Aside from the asthma and allergy thing, I was a healthy woman. I’d never, ever, once fainted in my life. But the shocks to my system that night hit too hard. A poisonous gift, a nasty note, knowledge I didn’t want of my husband’s cheating ways, and a gorgeous, younger man, telling me he considered me amazing and not plain, boring, and mousy… The zing I felt in my tummy from his touch did me in.

Black waves engulfing me, limbs losing strength, I slowly collapsed and Dan caught me at the last moment of consciousness. Like any nineteenth-century heiress worth her crumpets and tea, I fainted right into his arms.