Love Is All Around (7 page)

“Okay, Patsy, do you know mouth-to-mouth?” This time, he didn’t bother with the grin.

“I know a lot of things.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her eyes glimmered.

She did look afraid. Of him? He should be polite—back off. He should, but he couldn’t. He wound the pale strand tighter around his finger and lightly ran his other hand up the back of her arm. She shivered and he wanted to pull her close, keep her warm, safe. He was sailing dangerous waters, without a life preserver or that elusive mast on which to secure himself.

“Anything you’d like to share?” he asked.

“I got the feeling last night you didn’t want my help,” she murmured.

He tugged slightly on her hair, and she fell against him. “That was different.” Will lowered his head, his lips grazing hers.

She shivered. Was she cold? Will wasn’t. Even fresh from his second plunge into the river, he was hot. Another minute and steam would be rising from his damp shorts. That, and something else.
Get closer
, something deep in his brain urged.

Patsy’s fingernails scratched against his chest, luring him, encouraging him. Focused on her parted lips, he bent forward. His lips caught hers.

She tasted sweet with a hint of spice, like the cookies they’d shared. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, urging her lips further apart. She hesitated for a second, then met his tongue with her own. Her nails scraped up his chest as her hands made their way around his neck. As she tugged on his neck, he reached behind her, cupping her butt.

He paused for a minute, feeling the elastic of her bikini bottom through her shorts, remembering that white V of skin. He willed her to move her body upward. The smooth skin of one thigh edged up past his swim trunks toward his waist. Moving his fingers from the temptation of her buttocks, he ran his palm down her thigh, following the line of her hamstring. When his hand reached the underside of her knee, he prepared to pull her up, to wrap her legs around him.

“Patsalee, where the hell are you?” Dwayne bellowed from the other side of the rock path. “Beer’s running low, and the creek’s running high. Time to get moving.”

“Damn it,” Patsy muttered. She attempted to jump away just as Dwayne clomped into view. Still in a haze, Will kept her firmly hidden in his arms.

“There you all are. What’s going on?” Dwayne eyed the pair. His gaze lingered on Will’s hands, which again cupped Patsy’s backside.

“Nothing. We’re doing nothing.” Patsy shoved Will’s arms down and stumbled toward the stones.

Will bit down a curse. He wanted to grab her and yank her back, but Dwayne still stood on the other side of the stone path, grinning like an idiot. “Hell.” Ignoring the rocks, Will stalked toward him through the fast-flowing, frigid water.

 Apparently unaffected by Will’s glower, Dwayne greeted him, “Guess this means you don’t mind if I give Jessica a little rub-a-dub-dub, huh?”

Patsy rolled her eyes, and Dwayne turned his attention back to her.

“You’re just lucky Randy seems to have lit onto Ruthann, sis. Or I’d be on you like a fat kid on a Twinkie.” Dwayne wiggled his index finger at Patsy. “As it is, with this opening the door for me with Jessica and all, I’m willing to let your indiscretion go on by.”

Was there something between Patsy and Randy? That was an irritating thought. Will narrowed his eyes and evaluated her reaction.

“You’re full of it. There was no ‘indiscretion.’ You’re just inventing things in your minuscule mind.” Patsy glared at her brother.

“Sure I am, and you must’ve taken a belly flop into the river when I wasn’t looking too. ‘Course, even then, I’d have thought the back of your shorts would’ve got just as wet as the front.”

Will glanced at her recently dried shorts where the wet imprint of his thighs was now obvious. He smiled. Nothing like proof positive. For some reason, he was annoyed she was denying their “indiscretion,” and the fact that Dwayne had noticed the damp evidence of their encounter pleased him. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Patsy. It would be interesting to see how she explained that. If Dwayne had been two minutes later, she would have had a lot more to explain. Or, if you were talking clothing, a lot less.

She turned as if to deliver an angry retort, but stopped short when Randy, Ruthann, and Jessica appeared, peering at them from behind a bush.

Patsy stomped past them, leaving an amused and frustrated Will behind.

o0o

 “What are you thinking about?” Ruthann asked, after catching up with Patsy at the river. “Like I have to guess.”

“Nothing.” Patsy frowned at her friend. She wasn’t ready to analyze what had happened between her and Will, much less discuss it. “Where’d you go this time?” she asked. The attempt not to dwell on what had happened by the ruins failed miserably. Busy reliving the feel of Will’s solid thighs pressed against her, she almost missed her friend’s answer.

“Randy and I decided to do some cave exploring.” Ruthann reached up to smooth her hair.

A twig poked out of the back of Ruthann’s moussed locks. Patsy yanked on it, ignoring her friend’s squawk, and held it up. “The cave’s barred up. You can’t get in there.”

“Oh, is that right? Guess we didn’t notice.” Grinning, she took the stick from Patsy, and flipped it into the river.

 o0o

The next day, Will stared into the recesses of his harvest-gold refrigerator. It had been bad when he bought the place, but going on forty-eight hours without electricity had converted it from a simple eyesore to a total health-code violation. That was disgusting. He slammed the door shut before Saturday’s egg salad, or what it had morphed into, could reach out and suck him in.

This was getting desperate. Yesterday morning, he’d managed to get the front window boarded up before leaving for the float trip, but that was it. He’d considered skipping the outing, but knew Patsy would realize he wasn’t able to finish a few simple repairs. Of course, after tossing her out of the canoe, any attempt at looking self-sufficient was a moot point. He still flushed at the thought.

Other parts of him got a little flushed too. Memories of her pressed close, her fingers scratching against his chest, were accompanied by a tightening in his groin.

What if Dwayne hadn’t shown up? Would things have continued in the direction they were going? Another image of Patsy, her back pressed against an oak, her thighs wrapped around his waist, nothing but her shorts and bikini separating them, filled his mind.

Friction. When he was around her, there was so much friction, but friction could be a good thing—and with Patsy, it was a very good thing.

Hell. He was getting distracted, and he couldn’t afford that. He needed to concentrate on the problem at hand, namely no window and no electricity. Simple issues, compared to trying to figure out a woman, especially one as unpredictable as Patsy Clark.

He wouldn’t think about her again. That shouldn’t be difficult. He had plenty of other issues to focus on.

He flipped open the book on “Do-It-Yourself Wiring” he’d checked out of the library. His eyes drifted down the page to a section that detailed the joys of joining male and female connectors.

Like he needed a lesson on that. His personal connector jumped at the thought.

Sure, he could forget Patsy Clark, no problem at all.

o0o

Patsy dug into the back of the Bag & Basket’s cooler and pulled out a bottle of Diet Pepsi. It was hot. Must be ninety-five degrees outside and, with the ancient air conditioner wheezing and clanking, the temperature inside was only a slightly more tolerable eighty-two. Her makeup had probably melted off hours ago. She checked her reflection in one of the polished metal doors that led to the storage area. Not pretty.

Her look matched her mood. Ever since her reckless behavior with Will by the river, she’d been in a funk. What had happened? How could she have let him get to her like that? She had been completely out of control, ready to strip off his shorts and roll around on the ground like —like Jessica.

Then Dwayne walking up, bellowing at them. Patsy cringed at the memory. It had been so long since Patsy had slipped like that. Why now? Why with Will? She didn’t even like him, certainly didn’t like his past or the fact that his money opened doors for him that others couldn’t enter. Plus she was finally getting close to escaping Daisy Creek—she could feel it.

She couldn’t mess up, not this time. Focused on the thought, she wiped a smear of eyeliner from under her eye and turned to leave. She almost bumped into Marcia Stephens, who was sneaking out the side door.

Not again. A knot formed in Patsy’s stomach. Ruthann, strolling over with a Dreamsicle, spotted her too. She scurried to the door and stood up on her tiptoes to get a view through the round window.

“Get over here.” Ruthann motioned to Patsy. “She’s doing it again.”

Patsy stood still.

“Come on.” Ruthann waved at her. “Who does she think she’s fooling? The whole town knows what she’s up to. It’s just a matter of time before Carl figures it out too.”

Patsy gave up and trudged to the door.

“How long you think she’ll wait out there? It must be a hundred and twenty in that car.” Ruthann deserted the window long enough to take a lick on her ice cream bar.

“Who knows? Bruce is up front talking to Randy’s momma about donating to the Daisy Daze fund. She may keep him tied up for hours,” Patsy replied. The knot slowly moved up her throat.

“That’s most likely what Marcia has planned for him too. A little lunchtime S and M. You think they role-play? She’s the picky customer, and he’s the burly butcher?”

“He probably just watches her squeeze her melons,” Patsy replied, sounding lighter than she felt. How could Marcia do this to Carl, her daughter, herself?

“What does she see in him?” Ruthann asked. “He’s bald, old, and has hairy knuckles.”

“Maybe it’s the size of his sausage,” Patsy quipped, more from habit than humor.

Ruthann giggled.

Patsy sighed. “It’s disgusting though, isn’t it? She has Carl and her daughter, but every lunch hour she sneaks out to Bruce’s car, waits for him to swagger out, then drives God-knows-where for a midday roll in the produce.

“And she’s not even good at sneaking around. Does she really think we don’t notice her hunkered down on the floorboard when they leave the lot?”

“At least they leave now.” Ruthann took another peek out the window before continuing. “I heard Leroy popped in on them in the walk-in cooler one day. Marcia told him some tale about getting her hair stuck in the milk roller bar and Bruce helping her out. But even Leroy couldn’t see how Bruce needed to have his pants unzipped at the time.”

“Well, all I know is, if she dies of heatstroke out in his car, Bruce is going to have a hell of a time explaining it to her husband.” Patsy turned on her heel and headed back to the front.

She gave Bruce a cold stare. He was no better than Marcia, in her opinion. Just because he was single didn’t give him the right to mess up someone else’s life. Carl deserved better, Marcia deserved better, Patsy deserved better. Yet another reason to keep away from Will Barnes and jump on the first job that got her away from Daisy Creek.

“What you thinking?” Ruthann followed her.

“Nothing important.” Patsy banged her money tray into the drawer.

Ruthann watched her uneasily.

“What? Don’t you need to get to work?” Patsy shoved the drawer closed.

“Bruce’s busy, and there’s no customers.” Ruthann chewed on her lip, then brightened. “Hey, did you drive by Will’s this morning?”

“Why would I do that?” Did Ruthann think she was stalking him or something?

“He had a refrigerator on his porch.”

“A what?”

“A big, old, ugly gold refrigerator.”

Patsy peered at her friend. “How about his window? Was it fixed?” Not that Patsy cared what Will was doing. She was just making conversation.

“Guess that depends on what you call fixed. Looked like he had a road sign hung over it.”

“A what?”

“A road sign. You know, ‘detour ahead.’” Ruthann leaned over the conveyor belt, closer to Patsy. “I don’t think his neighbors are gonna like that much.”

Who would?

“You don’t think he’s gonna leave it there, do you?” Ruthann asked.

“The sign?”

“No, the refrigerator. You know, like people who have a couch on their front porch?”

An image of a polo-shirted Will entertaining Jessica and his snobby sister on his front porch, complete with velour sectional and harvest-gold refrigerator, popped into Patsy’s mind. “It’d be worth seeing.” She grinned.

“Somebody has to tell him he can’t have a refrigerator and a road sign on his porch. Not on Oak Street. It’s not like my street. Those people’ll get out the torches.”

Patsy wasn’t sure if Ruthann meant to burn his house or to hunt him down, but the thought of angry townspeople chasing him through the streets made her grin again.

“I don’t like that look.”

“What look?”

“You got that ‘I’m gonna do something bad’ look.”

“Don’t be silly. That wouldn’t be neighborly.” Patsy looked around for Randy’s mother. She’d left Bruce’s side and was standing near the deli. “Watch my lane, will you? I need to talk to someone.” With a parting grin at Ruthann, she trotted down the aisle.

o0o

Who could be at his door? Will brushed the cobwebs off his face and stumbled up the basement stairs. If you could call it a basement; it was really more of a cellar: dark, dank, and filled with scratchy noises Will tried not to dwell on.

Standing at his door with a chocolate cake and a cross look was a fifty-something matron—steel hair, stiff smile, poker up her ass. Cindy in thirty years. Breathing a sigh of relief that he’d escaped the future on his porch, he pulled open the door.

Standing behind the older woman, out of view of his peephole, was Patsy Clark. She was wearing a hideous purple smock and a sly smile.

Will smelled trouble.

“Will Barnes, look at you, all growed up.” The matron sailed past him into his house. “I can’t believe you’ve been living three doors down from me, and I just heard tell of it.” She held the cake out to him. “Just a little welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift.”