Blue Clouds (49 page)

A firm believer in happily-ever-after, Patricia Rice is married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. A native of Kentucky and New York, a past resident of North Carolina, she currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri, and now does accounting only for herself. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Authors Guild, and Novelists, Inc.

For further information, visit Patricia's network:

www.patriciarice.com

http://www.facebook.com/OfficialPatriciaRice

https://twitter.com/Patricia_Rice

http://patriciarice.blogspot.com/

www.wordwenches.com

by Patricia Rice

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not inspired by any person known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by Book View Cafe 2012

© 1998 – Patricia Rice

Originally published 1998 by Ivy Books,

The Ballantine Publishing Group

by Patricia Rice

“I know what you're going through, Nina,” the man behind the desk said sympathetically, leaning forward to show his earnestness.

Nina contemplated saying, “No, you don't,” but stopped herself. She'd just come from a confrontation where she'd insanely held a shotgun on the cell tower installers, but a lifetime of caution came easier. That's why she was here, doing things the proper way.

Matt Home had a young politician's blond good looks and polished smile. Nina figured he had the county attorney's job locked up in the next election, and after that, the sky was the limit. In the meantime, he walked a careful line in the cases he took. She could see his agile mind weighing the pros and cons of this one.

“I'm doing this for Hattie,” Nina insisted. “I've put it off as long as I can, but the doctors say she'll never get better. Her lucid moments are fewer and farther between. It's not the money, Matt. You know that. Heaven only knows, there's little enough of that. It's the land. Hattie's life was that land. I can't let them steal it.”

“You can't stand in the way of progress, Nina.” Matt steepled his fingers against his chest as he retreated into a leaning position against the back of his leather chair. “I think we can keep the incompetency hearing quiet. People know how hard you've worked to help Hattie. They'll understand this is just a legal maneuver. But the cellular tower has to go in there, Nina. It's the only suitable hill in the whole county.”

“They can put the blamed thing on top of the bridge, then,” she said emphatically as she rose from the chair. “If you won't do this for me, Matt Home, I'll take it to a lawyer in Paducah. There are plenty of people behind me on this one. I'll get a petition. And if I find you're working for those damned phone people, I'll tell the world how you're robbing a sick old lady.”

Matt rose with her, holding out a steadying hand. “Now don't go off half-cocked, Nina. We go a long way back. I've never seen you like this. Hattie's illness has been too hard on you. You're stressed out. You should take a break, have a vacation, get away from all this for a while. I'll have the papers all ready when you return. It will be very simple, very quiet, just a legal transfer giving you power of attorney. You don't have to worry about a thing.”

“I have to worry about a damned phone company coming in and tearing up Hattie's Hill while I'm gone. I'm not quite that much of a fool. You get those papers drawn up now, Matt. If you don't, I'm out of here.”

Furious for the second time that day, Nina slammed from the inner office on the second floor of the one and only bank building in Madrid, Kentucky.
Take a vacation
,
she fumed.
Stressed out
.
Hell, yes, she was stressed. But she damned well wasn't a hysterical female who needed placating. If she had any money at all, she'd hire an attorney in Paducah and have him research ownership of that mobile phone company. She'd bet a week's wages Matt Home was on their payroll.

Not stopping to gossip with Matt's secretary in the outer office, Nina stormed down the stairs, furious at herself for losing her temper, furious at Matt for treating her like a mindless infant.

He'd been one year behind her in school, for pity's sake. He knew damned well she was twice as smart as he was. She just didn't have the money for the fancy schooling Matt's family had provided for him.

Hitting the glaring sun outside, Nina stopped long enough to let her eyes adjust to the shimmering heat waves. Groceries, she reminded herself. Groaning that she still had to add shopping to a list of irksome chores, she headed across the street, promising herself a treat to make up for the day's frustrations.

***

“Just tell me if I can keep that refrigeration unit running another year, Nina, that's all I ask. I can pay the new registers off in a year if that unit doesn't kick out.”

Holding her paper sack of groceries with the precious box of Breyers chocolate ice cream ticking inside like a time bomb, Nina gazed impatiently at the Piggly Wiggly owner. As with Matt, she and Howard had attended grade school together. Except for his thinning hair, Howard hadn't changed one iota from the mama's boy who'd sucked his thumb then.

“Howard, I'm not a psychic. I haven't any idea if your refrigerator will give out this year or next. But if you don't start setting it at zero, your ice cream won't be worth diddly-squat. I'm tired of taking home cream soup.”

“You told me when that other unit was about to crash,” he reminded her. “But you didn't tell me until after I'd already signed a new contract for roof repair. I don't want to make that mistake again.”

“Then you'd better start saving more money out of your profits for repairs to this ratty old building instead of spending it on new bass boats, Howard. That's what I tell my students. No one saves money against a rainy day anymore. It's spend, spend, spend. You'd do better to build a nest egg and pay cash.” Knowing she sounded like a prosy, frustrated spinster, Nina shifted the heavy sack from one arm to the other. She hated it when she sounded like this, but people never
learned.

Somebody had to teach them. “And I'll give you one more piece of advice. You won't increase profits for that nest egg unless you start stocking the kind of items tourists expect in a real grocery store. Why can't you try some of that fancy Haagen-Dazs ice cream, or some of those Oriental vegetables they have in the Kroger up in Paducah?”

“My customers won't pay a dollar and a half for ice cream bars, and can you imagine Ethel and Harriet buying Chinese walnuts or whatever? Don't be ridiculous, Nina.”

“Chestnuts, Howard. They're water chestnuts. And they're good for you. The tourists would buy them.”

“Well, the tourists are only here three months out of the year, and I have to make a profit for twelve. Don't tell me how to run my business and I won't tell you how to teach school.”

Nina grinned and surrendered before that familiar attitude. “I know. You're running the place the way your daddy did, and what was good enough for him is good enough for you. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Good luck with your refrigerator, Howard. But you'd better take a look at that meat grinder Sadie's using. It's grinding mighty peculiar.”

She swung out into the parking lot, smiling at having thrown Howard into another dither. They'd known each other forever, and he still hadn't learned she knew how to push all his buttons. But then, his mama never had been real smart either.

She wouldn't let the level of intelligence—or lack thereof—in Madrid bother her today. She had half a gallon of ice cream in her sack to top off the double fudge brownies she'd just bought. After a day like today, she intended to reward herself with absolute decadence. If she had someone to share with, she would have added real whipped cream, but cream separated if it didn't get used up quickly. She couldn't eat an entire bowlful by herself.

She still hadn't quite got the hang of living alone. Aunt Hattie used to join her in these occasional bouts of indulgence.

They'd turn an old Andy Williams record up loud, sit on the front porch, put their feet up, and eat bowls of double fudge chocolate whipped cream surprises. This time of year, they'd cover it with strawberries. Then they'd laugh and make plans and just enjoy the sunshine.

Nina did that on her own now, pretending Hattie still sat beside her. She couldn't get over to Hopkinsville today to visit Hattie, so she would turn up Andy Williams and talk to herself about the plans for the new greenhouse. On Nina's teacher's salary, Hattie's dream of a botanical garden was progressing slower than a snail through sand, but Nina kept working at it. Even though Hattie didn't understand Nina's grand dreams these days, Nina still related her latest achievements when she visited.

Each summer she inched infinitesimally closer toward the basic assets needed for the garden. By building her own greenhouses she figured she could grow most of the more common plants needed in this area. So she worked hard, saved every penny, and dreamed.

Nina frowned as a rust-red pickup chugged into the BP filling station next door. Lowering her sack of groceries into her aging Toyota hatchback, she hollered at a teenager heading across the parking lot in the direction of the BP. “Billy, tell that driver he'd better have his engine looked at before he takes off.”

The teenager waved his icy Pepsi can in greeting. “Sure thing, Miss Toon.” Grinning, he glanced at the truck's out-of- state plates. “But he ain't gonna listen.”

Nina shrugged. That wasn't her problem. In her experience, men seldom listened when a woman told them something they needed to know. Examining the idea further, she supposed they seldom listened, period. She knew perfectly well the stranger getting out of his pickup and filling up the tank would look at Billy as if he were some kind of backwoods con artist trying to rip him off for a valve job. She supposed she could go over there and inform him that Billy gained nothing by the warning, but that would lead to other explanations, and she didn't handle explanations well. People around here just accepted her warnings the way they accepted Miss Tansy's eccentric hats. Except for Howard, of course. He always wanted more.

As Nina cranked her engine, she glanced over at the small tableau at the filling station. Sure enough, Billy stood there earnestly talking to the stranger, while the stranger merely nodded with impatience. She didn't have her glasses on and couldn't see the man clearly, but judging by the long hair on the back of his neck and the athletic set of his shoulders beneath a tight black T-shirt, she'd say he wasn't a typical fishing enthusiast.

Swearing at herself for forgetting to put on the wretched new glasses again, she rummaged through her purse. The ice cream would melt if she didn't freeze it soon. She found the blasted glasses, untangled the gold chain she'd hoped would keep her from losing them, and jerked them on.

The stranger entered the station to pay for the gas. Nina glanced at the huge motorcycle in the back of the pickup. Harley-Davidson, no doubt. The man looked like that kind. She bet he had a leather jacket slung over the truck seat.

As she pulled out of the lot, she caught a glimpse of a longhaired teenager in the passenger seat. Brothers, she figured. A man with black hair that thick and unmarred by gray couldn't be old enough to have a kid that age. Why would two motorcycle thugs come to this backwater fishing retreat?

It didn't matter. She had enough worries of her own without borrowing others.

At a signal from Ethel Arnett, Nina stopped her car in the middle of Main Street. “Main Street” was a euphemism for the two-lane county highway running through the town's center. The Piggly Wiggly and other businesses on either side of the highway had installed sidewalks for the convenience of their customers, but they may as well have left the dirt roads and boardwalks of a prior era. The inhabitants still treated the road as a horse trail.

“Hi, Ethel. How's the bake sale coming?”

The older woman leaned against Nina's car door and fanned herself. “We'll have a hundred cakes or more, I reckon,” Ethel drawled. “We oughter raise more than last year. The committee thought flowers might look nice on the tables. Have you got anything we can use?”