No Plans for Love (2 page)

When he brought her home after supper the night before, Frank Blakely invited Sherry to church with them Sunday morning.

She took a sponge bath in the room temperature water and dressed in her black skirt with pink roses and a pink knit top with a V-neckline. It was her favorite outfit for good. She slipped her feet in her black sling-back flats. Around her neck was the thin white gold necklace with a tiny starburst necklace set with diamond. Sherry's best friend Dawn Holmes' parents gave Dawn and Sherry matching necklaces for graduation gifts.

When Jan's black SUV pulled in the driveway, she went out. Frank Blakely  got out of the driver's seat to open the back door for her. Mark grinned at her from the other side of the back seat.

"Pretty in pink today," he commented as she buckled up.

"Pink is my favorite color," she replied.

"It suits you," he complimented.

Being next to him and smelling his aftershave made her feel self-conscious. She reminded herself he was spoken for and she should forget any romantic notions. Besides, her plans did not include romance. She was going to college. She had been saving since she was fifteen. All she needed now was a job so she could continue with those plans.

As if she read Sherry's mind Jan asked, "What type of work are you looking for?"

"Right now, anything. I can't afford to be too choosy."

"There's a help wanted sign in the dollar store window," Frank said.

"I know. I have an application filled out. I just need to take it in."

"Jan said you might want to go along down to Lewistown tomorrow to get your driver's license changed to Pennsylvania. You can drop it off then."

"Thank you. I shall do that."

Frank pulled in the parking lot behind the church, found a space and switched off the engine. Sherry was already standing beside the car by the time Frank unbuckled his seat belt and got out. Across the lot a tall shapely woman in a cherry red suit trimmed in black came toward them with a smile on her face. "Here comes trouble," Frank said softly.

"Hello, Mr. Blakely," she said in a throaty voice.

Frank's introduction was simple. "Sherry Winnette, Elena Bayshore."

Sherry held out her hand. Elena ignored it, informing Sherry, "I'm Mark's fiancee."

Mark and Jan came around the car. Elena barely acknowledged Jan. "Hello, darling," she said to Mark.

He leaned to kiss her, but from where Sherry stood she could tell their lips never actually met. "Now what kind of a kiss was that?" Elena pouted.

"I don't want to wear your lipstick to church." Elena slipped her hand around his arm and they went off around the church.

"I guess we've been properly snubbed," Jan said as she took Frank's arm. He offered Sherry his other arm. As they reached the walkway that led to the front of the church, they met an elderly couple.

"You must be quite the man with a pretty lady on each arm," the man remarked.

Frank introduced them. "Sherry, I want you to meet Mark's grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Donald White. Sherry is Violet Winnette's granddaughter."

The woman held out her hand. "Your grandmother was a dear friend of mine. I am glad you have come to live here."

They allowed the older couple to precede them. Frank stopped to talk to another farmer about the weather and the price of milk. Sherry and Jan went on into the church where they sat in the same row as the White's. "They are Mark's grandparents from Frank's first marriage," Jan explained.  "Julie was killed in an accident caused by a drunk driver. I'm the same age as your mother."

Sherry became more relaxed once the service began. She knew the hymns and sang along joyously. As she listened to the pastor's message she was glad she had come When they passed the offering plate, she dropped in a five dollar bill. After the final hymn, they filed out.

Mark and Elena were waiting for them at the car. "I hope you don't mind if I invite myself to dinner," Elena said.

"If you don't mind tuna sandwiches and salad," Jan rejoined in a voice that plainly said she was not pleased. Sherry sensed an undertow of animosity.

Frank held the door for Sherry and she was already seated by the time Mark opened the door for Elena who sat in the middle of the back seat with Mark next to the door. Elena seemed to have trouble with the seat belt. In an effort to be genial, Sherry quickly snapped the belt for her.

Elena's voice could have frozen water. "Thank you, Miss Win-it."

Sherry wasn't intimidated by her put down. "It's pronounced Win-net, Miss Baysore."

Frank almost swallowed his chewing gum. Jan shot him a look that said,
Don't you dare laugh out loud.

After they were out on the street headed east, Elena asked, "So Miss Winnette, what do your parents do?"

"My mother is a hostess for an upscale restaurant," Sherry said.

"Oh, then if I go out to eat, I might meet your mother." She let Sherry know that she had enough money to eat in the poshest places.

"Only if you go to Newark," Sherry shot back.

When Frank stopped at a stop sign, he took longer than usual look to the left. By the time he looked to the right, he had wiped the grin from his face.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, but Elena wasn't going to allow a little snip like Sherry to have the last word. "And what does your father do?"

"I don't know," Sherry said truthfully. "I do not know my father."

"Oh, in other words, you are an illegitimate little bastard."

"Elena, that was unkind," Mark protested.

Sherry let Elena know she was up to answering her  catty remark. "Meow. Do you hiss, scratch and bite, too?"

Frank's hoot of laughter became, "Whoa!" as he jammed on the brakes when a doe with two half-grown fawns ran across the road.

They rode in silence for a while until Jan asked, "Do you want to come to dinner, too, Sherry?"

"No. I have my own tuna but thanks for the offer. I didn't sleep well after that storm went through last night." She wasn't about to admit that her lack of sleep was because of the discomfort of sleeping on the floor. "I plan to rest up this afternoon. After all, it's Sunday."

"We'll see you at milking time," Frank said as she got out of the car.

"I'll be there." She waved to Jan and went to the breezeway door. By the time she had the key in the lock, Frank had already backed out on the road and was headed for home. After changing to her favorite hot pink tee shirt and denim shorts, she looked through her pantry to find something for lunch. Selecting a can of ravioli, she scooped the contents into the white dish she had bought at the dollar store the day before.

After she ate, she went out the back door and walked around the yard in her bare feet. "This grass needs mowed," she mused. She would talk to Frank about it tomorrow. The flower beds were woefully untended. Even so, the chrysanthemums were in bud. Among the flowers she found a perfectly egg-shaped rock that had remnants of paint on it. She carried it to the porch and laid it beside the door. Later she would wash it and paint it like an Easter egg to add a little color to her new home.

She went back inside to take the mystery she was reading out of her pile of belongings and lay down on her blankets to read. When she tired of the hard floor, she got her bag of potato chips and went out to the front porch where she perched at the top of the steps.

Mark drove by in his Suburban and tooted the horn. Sherry waved. Elena waved, too, but Sherry didn't miss her middle finger sticking up. "You, too," Sherry said. She closed her potato chip bag and went back inside where she lay down for a nap.

It was almost four o'clock when she woke up hungry. A peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich and powdered milk mixed with water in an empty juice bottle was sufficient to hold her until suppertime.

At a quarter to five she walked over to the farm where she found Frank and Jan already preparing to do the milking. She joined in the work.

They were half finished when Mark walked in the barn still dressed in his white shirt, gray trousers and shiny black shoes. He went up to Sherry, put his hands on her shoulders and leaned to kiss her. Her reaction was swift. She slapped his face.

"Ow! That hurt."

She stepped back out of his reach. "That'll teach you to mess with a street-smart kid from Newark."

Mark cracked up. Because of his laughter, he stuttered, "Do...do you hiss, scratch and bite, too?"

"You better believe it. With a couple karate chops and kicks thrown in for good measure."

"Karate? You? I'll bet you don't weigh a hundred pounds."

"One hundred and six," she told him. "Where I lived a girl needed to know how to protect herself. The only time I needed to use it was on a man about your size. When I left him, he was on his knees moaning with his hands over a particularly vulnerable part of the male anatomy."

"Mark, why did you do that?" Jan asked.

He shrugged. "If I'm gonna have the name, I'm gonna have the game. Elena broke up with me because I paid too much attention to Sherry."

"Go change your clothes and help with the milking so I can make supper."

After Mark went to the house, Frank came through the milking parlor. He smacked Jan on the behind as he passed. "If you women worked as much as you talk, we'd get done quicker."

"Watch where you put your hands, Mr. Blakely," Jan said.

He turned and grinned at her. "My hands have been in much more intimate places than your ass, Mrs. Blakely. Mark's home. Go make supper. That tuna sandwich and salad you gave me for dinner wasn't enough."

Sherry put a little extra effort into her work, hoping they wouldn't see how she was blushing. Their sexual banter made her feel uncomfortable though they were husband and wife. When Mark came to the barn dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, she kept her distance from him. He was no longer off limits and she wasn't sure how that made her feel.

It was already dark when Frank took her home after a supper of chili and cornbread. When she had the door unlocked, she waved to thank him. Inside all was dark but she knew where her flashlight was.

Sitting on her pillow by candlelight, she played her guitar and munched potato chips until the bag was empty. She could pick up another bag when she took her application in to the dollar store the next day. Potato chips were her comfort food. She went to bed early because she knew that Frank or Mark would be calling to wake her up in the morning.

Despite the discomfort of the hard floor, she went to sleep quickly. She was awakened so suddenly that she sat right up in bed, her heart pounding. She grabbed her flashlight and looked at her watch. It was nearly one thirty. She sat there listening until she heard it again. Someone was trying to get in the door in the den.

She got up unsure of what to do. Then she heard the scrape of a footstep on the brick patio. Pointing her flashlight at the floor, she went to look out the kitchen window. Someone was out there with a small flashlight and he went straight to the back door to the breezeway but she had locked the storm door. He shone his light around until he saw the egg-shaped stone.

She grabbed the phone and dialed the Blakely's number. It took three rings before Jan's sleepy voice answered.

"This is Sherry. Someone's trying to break in. He just smashed the window in the storm door to the breezeway." Her voice became panicky. "He's inside. He must have a key."

"Go hide in the bathroom and lock the door," Jan ordered. "I'll wake Frank and Mark and call the cops." Jan shook her husband by his shoulder. "Frank! Frank, wake up!".

"Leave me alone," he mumbled.

"Frank! Sherry just called. She said someone is trying to break in."

That brought him out of bed in a hurry. "Wake Mark. Tell him to move it. Then call the cops." He headed for the door no more than he had his pants and sneakers on.

Jan ran back the hall to her stepson's bedroom to pound on his door. He answered immediately. "I'm up. I heard you trying to wake Dad."

"I've got to go call the cops."

He came out of his room pulling on a dark blue tee shirt. "Call Sherry back. Maybe the phone ringing will scare the intruder away."

He ran down the steps and out the front door. Frank already had the truck turned around. He leaned over to open the passenger-side door. "If you're coming with me, move it." He had the truck going out the lane before Mark had the door shut.

As he pulled into Sherry's driveway, the headlights reflected from the breezeway windows, but they could see the light of the flashlight the intruder carried as he came out the kitchen door.

Mark was out of the truck before it was stopped and ran full tilt around the house. A dark figure ran across the patio. "Hold it right there!" Mark shouted.

The flashlight went out and the man took off across the backyard and between the garden fences to the fields beyond. Mark raced after him. Mark always thought he could run fast but he was no match for the fleeing figure.

The sliver of a crescent moon and the stars gave little light. Once the dark figure was in the shadow of the trees along the creek, Mark couldn't see him anymore. On the far side of the creek he could make out a white or light colored car parked on a field road. But he couldn't see the intruder. He looked around straining his eyes in the meager light. He heard a soft footfall behind him and started to turn around.

Something hit the side of his head and a million stars exploded in his brain as he fell and the world faded away to oblivion.

Chapter 3

"Sherry, it's Frank."

She opened the door and peered out. "Did you see him?"

"No. Mark must have. I heard him holler out back."

"I heard him, too. What could anyone possibly want? I haven't got that much. I put my money in the bank."

As they stood on the front porch waiting for the police, Frank shifted uneasily, looking toward the corner of the house. "Mark must've chased that guy to kingdom come. He should be back by now. If he isn't here soon, I'm going looking for him."

His worriment planted a seed of worry in Sherry's brain. At last they saw the flashing lights of a state police car.