A Creed in Stone Creek (11 page)

Melissa folded her arms. “What’s this all about?” she demanded. “You know damn well you had no business pulling me over.
I stopped for that sign.
”

Tom was still gazing after Steven’s truck. “I just wanted to say hello,” he lied.

“What a load,” Melissa replied. “The truth is, you’re just as nosy as your aunt Ona. You saw Steven following me and you wanted to know what was going on.”

“He said, ‘See you at six,’” Tom went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You two have a date or something?”

“Or something,” Melissa said. “Not that it’s any of your business.” She flexed her fingers, then regripped the steering wheel, hard. “This is harassment,” she pointed out.

Tom chuckled, shook his head. But there was something watchful in his eyes. “At least let me run a check on Creed’s background before you get involved,” he said. “A person can’t be too careful these days.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Melissa retorted, exasperated.
“A person
can
be too careful. Like you, for instance. When are you going to ask Tessa Quinn out for dinner and a movie, you big coward?”

Tom blinked. Straightened his spine. “When I get around to it,” he said, in a mildly affronted tone.

“Have you run a background check on her yet?”

“Of course I haven’t.”

“A person can’t be too careful,” Melissa threw out. Then she sighed and changed the subject. “I was just coming from the Parade Committee meeting,” she said pointedly. “You know, that little thing I’m doing because your aunt, Ms. Ona Frame, has to have her gall-bladder out? You
owe
me, Sheriff Parker. And if you think I’m going to put up with being pulled over for no reason—”

Tom did a parody of righteous horror. Laid a hand to his chest. Back in the squad car, Elvis let out a yip, as though putting in his two cents’ worth. Then Tom laughed, held up both hands, palms out. Elvis yipped again.

Melissa leaned to retrieve her purse and that stupid clipboard.

He laughed again. “He’s got you pretty flustered, that Creed yahoo,” he said, looking pleased at the realization. “I haven’t seen you this worked up since you were dating Dan Guthrie—”

Too late, Tom seemed to realize he’d struck a raw nerve. He stopped, reddened, and flung his hands out from his sides. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Melissa huffed, turning on one heel.

Tom followed her as far as her front gate. “It’s not as if you’re the only person who’s ever loved and lost, Melissa
O’Ballivan,” he blurted out, in a furious under tone. “Imagine how it feels to be crazy about a woman who looks right through you like you were transparent!”

“I can’t
begin
to imagine that, for obvious reasons,” Melissa replied, heading up the walk.

Elvis howled.

Tom stuck with Melissa until she’d mounted the first two porch steps and rounded to look down into his upturned face. “You deliberately misunderstood that,” he accused, but he’d lost most of his steam by then.

Melissa sighed. “You were referring to Tessa Quinn, I presume?” she asked, though everybody in town and for miles around knew that Tom loved the woman with a passion of truly epic proportions. Everybody, with the probable exception of Tessa herself, that is.

Tessa was either clueless, playing it cool or just not interested in Tom Parker.

Tom thrust out a miserable breath. “You know damn well it’s Tessa,” he said.

Melissa cocked a thumb toward the squad car and said, “Get Elvis and come inside. I made a pitcher of iced tea before I went out.”

But Tom shook his head. “I’m supposed to be on patrol,” he said.

“Well, that’s noble,” Melissa replied, as the dog gave another long, plaintive howl, “but I’m not sure Elvis is onboard with the plan.”

“I was just taking him over to the Groom-and-Bloom for his weekly bath,” Tom said. He took very good care of Elvis; everybody knew that as well as they knew his feelings for Tessa. “He’s just worried about missing his appointment, that’s all. He’s particular about his appearance, Elvis is.”

Melissa smiled. Nodded. “Tom?”

He was turning away. “What?”

“Why don’t you ask Tessa for a date?”

He looked all of fourteen as he considered that idea. His neck went a dull red, and his earlobes glowed like they were lit up from the inside. “She might say no.”

“Here’s a thought, Tom. She might say yes. Then what would you do?”

“Probably have a coronary on the spot.” Tom sounded pretty serious, but there was a tentative smile playing around his lips. “Same as if she said no.”

“So you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Tom said.

“I dare you,” Melissa said. When they were kids, that was the way to get Tom Parker to do just about anything. Of course, she hadn’t tried it since playground days.

He flushed again, and his eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You heard me, Parker,” Melissa said, jutting her chin out a little ways. “I double-dog
dare
you to ask Tessa Quinn out to dinner. Or to a movie. Or to a dance—there’s one next weekend, at the Grange Hall. And if you don’t ask her out, well, you’re just plain—
chicken.
”

Instantly, they were both nine years old again.

Tom stepped closer and glared up at her. “Oh, yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” Melissa replied stoutly.

“You’re on,” Tom told her.

“Good,” Melissa answered, without smiling.

“What do I get if you lose?” Tom wanted to know.

Melissa thought quickly. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“As long as you’re not cooking,” Tom specified, looking and sounding dead serious.

This was a bet Melissa
wanted
to lose. “I’ll recruit Ashley,” she said. “She can do those specially marinated spare ribs you like so much.”

“Deal,” Tom said, without cracking a smile. Even as a little kid, he’d been a sucker for a bet.

“Wait just a second,” Melissa said. “What if
I
win? What happens then?”

“I’ll take over as chairman of the Parade Committee,” Tom told her, after some thought.

“Deal,” Melissa agreed, putting out her free hand.

They shook on it, then Tom turned and stalked back to the gate, through it and down the sidewalk to his car. “Just remember one thing!” he called back to her.

“What?” Melissa retorted, about to turn around and open her front door.

“Two can play this game,” Tom said.

Then he got into the cruiser, slammed his door and ground the engine to life with a twist of the key in the ignition, leaving Melissa to wonder what the hell he’d meant by
that.

He made the siren give one eloquent moan as he drove on past her house and vanished around the corner.

“Damn,” Melissa said, as the answer dawned on her.

Now she’d gone and done it.

Tom would lie awake nights until he came up with a dare for her. And it would be a doozy, knowing him.

But she didn’t dwell on the problem too long, because she had things to do. Like go over to Ashley’s, thereby braving the wild bunch, who might well be swinging from the chandeliers in their birthday suits, to steal a main course and a dessert from one of the freezers.

“N
EXT TIME
,” Steven told the rearview reflection of a chagrined Matt, as they drove out of town, “it would be a
really
good idea to talk it over with me before you go inviting people to our place for supper.”

Matt was no pouter, but his lower lip poked out a-ways, and he was blinking real fast, both of which were signs that he might cry.

It killed Steven when he cried.

“I was just trying to be a good neighbor,” Matt explained, sounding as wounded as he looked. “Anyhow, I
like
Ms. O’Ballivan, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, tightening his fingers on the steering wheel, then relaxing them again. “I understand that your intentions were good,” he went on quietly. “But sometimes, if that person happens to have other plans, or some other reason why they need to say no, it puts them on the spot. There’s no graceful way for them to turn you down.”

Matt listened in silence, sniffling a couple of times.

“Do you know what I’m saying, here?” Steven asked, keeping his voice gentle.

Matt nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I get it. I’m gifted, remember?”

Steven laughed. “There’s no forgetting that,” he said.

“Are you mad at me?”

An ache went through Steven, like a sharp pole jabbed down through the top of his heart to lodge at the bottom. “No,” he said. “If I straighten you out about something, it doesn’t mean I’m angry. It just means I want you to think things through a little better the next time.”

Matt let out a long sigh, back there in the peanut gallery, one of his arms wrapped around Zeke, who was panting and, incredibly, managing to keep his canine head from blocking the rearview mirror.

“It’s kind of weird, calling you Steven,” Matt said, after a long time. He was looking out the window by then, but even with just a glance at the boy’s reflection to go on, Steven could see the tension he was trying to hide.

“Who says so?” Steven asked carefully. Conversations like this one always made his stomach clench.

“I do,” Matt told him. His voice was small.

The turn onto their road was just ahead; Steven flipped the signal lever and slowed to make a dusty left. “What would you like to call me?” he asked.

“Dad,” Matt said simply.

Steven’s eyes scalded, and his vision blurred.

“But that doesn’t seem right, because I used to have another dad,” Matt went on. “Do you think it would hurt my first daddy’s feelings if I went around calling somebody else ‘Dad’?”

“I think your dad would want you to be happy,” Steven said. It was almost a croak, that statement, but, fortunately, Matt didn’t seem to notice. They’d reached the top of the driveway, so Steven pulled up beside the old two-tone truck and shifted out of gear. Shut the motor off. And just sat there, not knowing what to say. Or do.

“If he was
Daddy,
” Matt reasoned, “then I guess it would be all right if
you
were
Dad.
”

Steven’s throat constricted. He literally couldn’t speak just then, so he shoved open the truck door and got out. Stood staring off toward the foothills and the mountains
beyond for a few moments, until he’d recovered some measure of control.

When he turned around again, both Matt and Zeke had their faces pressed to the window, gumming it up big-time with their breaths.

He laughed and carefully opened the door, so Zeke wouldn’t plunge right over Matt and his safety seat and take a header onto the ground.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Steven said.

“So I can call you
Dad?
” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” Steven replied, ducking his head slightly while he undid the snaps and buckles. “You can call me
Dad.
”

“That’s good,” Matt said. A pause. “Dad?” He said the word softly, like he was trying it on for size.

“What?” Steven ground out, hoisting the little boy to the ground, and then the dog.

“How come your eyes are all red?”

Steven sniffled, ran a forearm across his face. “I guess it’s the dust,” he said. He pretended to assess the sky, sprawling blue from horizon to horizon. “A good rain would help.”

“H
ELLO
?” Melissa rapped lightly at her sister’s kitchen door, though she’d already opened it and stuck her head inside. “Anybody home?”

There was no answer, but she could hear voices coming from the dining room.

Melissa hadn’t seen a car parked outside, so she’d hoped the lively group had gone out, maybe to play miniature golf or take in a movie. She would have loved to raid the freezer and duck out again, unnoticed, but
she was afraid one of the oldsters would wander in, be startled and collapse from a massive coronary.

So she moved to the middle of the floor and tried again. “Hello?”

This time, they heard her. “Melissa, is that you?” a woman’s voice called cheerfully.

“Yes,” she answered. Then she drew a deep breath, proceeded to the inside door and drew another deep breath before pushing it open.

The guests were gathered at one end of the formal dining table, playing cards. And they were all wearing clothes.

Melissa was so profoundly relieved that she gave a nervous, high-pitched giggle and put one hand to her heart.

How amused Ashley and Olivia and Brad would be if they could see her now. In her family, she did
not
have a reputation for shyness, and her sibs would have gotten a major kick out of her newfound fear of naked croquet players.

“Come and join us,” Mr. Winthrop said, rising from his seat. “We’re playing gin rummy, and I’m afraid we’ve all known each other so well, for so long, that there just aren’t any new tricks.”

I’ll just bet there aren’t,
Melissa thought, but not with rancor. Initial embarrassment aside, she
liked
these people. They had spirit. Imagination. Wrinkles. Lots and lots of wrinkles.

“I can’t stay,” she said, and the regret in her tone was only partly feigned. She enjoyed gin rummy and, heck, everybody was
dressed,
weren’t they? “I’m having company tonight, so I came by to borrow a few things.”
She waggled her fingers at them, backing toward the swinging door. “Enjoy your game.”

“Don’t take the roast duck,” one of the women sang out, shuffling the deck for another hand of cards. “Your sister promised that to us. It’s Herbert’s favorite, and he’s turning ninety tomorrow.”

“Hands off the duck,” Melissa promised, palms up and facing the group at the table, and then she slipped out. She was smiling to herself as she headed for the large storage room, off the kitchen, where Ashley had two huge freezers, invariably well-stocked.

One was reserved for desserts, one for main courses.

She selected a container marked
Game Hens with Cranberries and Wild Rice, Serves 6,
Ashley’s graceful handwriting looping across the label. Melissa hoped that Matt liked chicken, as most kids did, and would therefore accept a reasonable facsimile.