Return to Oak Valley (17 page)

Pulling up in front of the cheerful red-and-white steel building that housed McGuire's Market, she turned off the ignition. Hopefully Melissa-Jane would be in the store office.

She was, and answered Shelly's knock on the door with a frown. Seeing Shelly her expression changed, a wide smile replacing the frown. “Hi, Shell. What brings you here? Some hot gossip, I hope.”

Shelly smiled back, shaking her head. “No. I thought that if anyone had gossip it would be you.”

“Fat chance,” Melissa-Jane said. “I'm usually the last one to know.” She pointed to a chair next to one of the gray metal desks that crowded the area, and added, “Have a seat. I need a break anyway.”

The office was small, almost a cubicle, and most of the floor space was taken up with either file cabinets, bookshelves, three desks, or other office equipment. A couple of short narrow aisles snaked through the clutter. Every conceivable surface was covered with brochures, advertising literature, and big red three-ring binders. The impression was one of disorganized order. There were two computers, a pair of large-screen monitors, a copy machine, fax machine, phones, and various other pieces of office paraphernalia scattered all over the place. A bank of security cameras hung from the ceiling near one wall and enabled anyone working in the office to keep an eye on the rest of the store. The room bordered on the claustrophobic, a small one-way window that looked out over the bread-and-bakery aisle the only thing that kept it from resembling a monk's cell. Lying on top of one of the file cabinets and completely out of place was a startling lifelike gorilla mask, the black lips pulled back in a ferocious snarl.

“What in the world,” Shelly said, pointing to the mask, “is that doing in here? Last time I checked, Halloween isn't for months yet.”

Melissa-Jane scowled. “Hang around long enough, and you'll find out.” She glanced at the big round clock over her desk. “Yeah, he ought to be here in about a half hour.”

Having made that cryptic statement, Melissa-Jane plopped down in the high-backed oak office chair in front of the middle desk and put her feet up on the rim of a black metal waste-basket. “So, how's it going?” she asked.

Shelly had known Melissa-Jane all of her life, and they had, until Shelly had left so precipitously almost seventeen years ago, been inseparable. Their parents had been lifelong friends, and there was only three weeks difference in their ages, Melissa-Jane, or M.J., as she preferred, having been born in late July and Shelly in mid August. They'd gone to grade school together and had endured the loneliness of private school when their parents had enrolled both of them in the same private high school. Only the presence of the other one had made the separation from family, friends, and the valley bearable.

The two women were opposites physically. M.J. possessed a mop of bouncy blond curls, the blondness helped a bit these days by L'Oreal, and a pair of the biggest, darkest pansy brown eyes ever seen on a real live human being. She had a gamine face, a tip-tilted nose, and stood only about five-foot-three, to Shelly's commanding five-foot-nine, and while Shelly was on the lean side, Melissa-Jane was curvaceous—too curvaceous, she'd complained often enough. As teenagers, Shelly had envied M.J.'s small stature and generously endowed curves, and, naturally, M.J. had sighed over Shelly's tall slenderness.

Eyeing Shelly's long legs as she stretched them out in front of her just now, M.J. commented, “You know, I still don't think it's fair that you got the height and the slenderness. My boobs and hips would look a lot better on you.”

“1 dunno,” Shelly said with a grin. “I'll bet that even if we could switch body parts, we'd probably still think the other one got the better deal. You know—the grass always looking greener on the other side, or, you could say, the boobs always look greater on someone else's chest.”

M.J. giggled, the same infectious giggle she'd had all of her life, and Shelly found herself giggling with her. That giggle, coupled with those big speaking eyes, were part of M.J.'s charm, and one couldn't hear that gentle gurgle of laughter without joining in, never mind that they were both approaching thirty-five years of age. Melissa-Jane's giggle was timeless.

M.J. glanced at the sliding window of the office and perked up. “Oh, would you look at that.”

Another security feature, the one-way window only allowed those inside the office to look out and observe the interior of the store. On the other side, there was just a mirror, giving the inhabitants of the office total privacy.

Shelly turned her head and glanced out the window. “What?” she said. “It's only Jeb talking to some woman.”

“Yes, but it's
who
he's talking to. Don't think you've met her yet, but that's Tracy Kingsley—the local vet. She came to the valley after you'd scooted off to New Orleans. Been around now, I guess, about ten years.”

Shelly eyed the red-haired woman, laughing up at something Jeb had said to her. There was an air of familiarity between them, Jeb standing close to the woman, his hand resting on her shoulder. The woman was tall, probably about her height, Shelly estimated, and probably about the same build, maybe not quite as slim.
Bigger boobs
, Shelly thought gloomily. The other's woman's hair was pulled back in a ponytail and fastened with a plaid scrunchy, and she was garbed in typical valley wear—worn blue jeans, scuffed running shoes, and a comfortable shirt. A pretty woman, Shelly decided, taking in the even features.

“Vet, as in, veterinarian?”

“Yes. She's pretty good, too. When Jamie's dog, Rowdy, got kicked by a cow last summer and had his leg broken in three or four places, she patched him right up. Didn't charge an arm and a leg either. It was great not having to drive an hour down the St. Galen's road to Willits with a crying kid and a howling dog.”

“How are Jamie and Todd?” Shelly asked, mentioning M.J.'s two sons.

M.J. tore her eyes away from the window and made a face. “Fine. They're with their father this semester. Since the divorce, he gets them about half a year and I get them the rest of the time. They've adjusted to the midyear change in schools pretty well, although their grades always suffer a little until they settle in. They'll be home around the end of July.” Her features softened. “Can't wait. I miss them so much when they're gone—they're growing so fast. I can't believe that Jamie will be twelve in another month or that Todd, my baby, turned ten in February. Wait 'til you see them.

You'll never recognize them from the pictures I sent you at Christmas.”

The divorce, final two years ago, ironically on Valentine's Day, had been hard on M.J. She had adored her tall handsome Highway Patrol husband, Charles Sutton, and she had been devastated when she'd discovered that a lot of those supposedly late-night assignments had been
assignations
, with various attractive young ladies he'd met during the course of his job. To discover, as she had done, that Charles had been cheating on her for years had been devastating. She'd been shattered by the betrayal, and the decision to end her marriage of twelve years, with the future of two small children to consider, had been painful and difficult. But as she'd told Shelly during one of their marathon telephone conversations during that dreadful time, “I can't trust him,” she'd said, tears in her voice. “And if I can't trust him, there is no marriage.” She'd given a bitter laugh. “Everyone in his unit, hell, half the county, knew that he was playing around on me. Worse yet, I've found out that he's been doing it practically the entire time we've been married. I can't forgive him, and if I can't forgive him, I can't stay married to him.”

Shelly didn't blame her for feeling as she did. She and Sloan hadn't been married, but he had betrayed her in a painfully similar manner. Hearing M.J.'s sad, sordid little tale long-distance, all Shelly could do was weep with her and try to lift her spirits. The Valentine's Day when M.J. had gotten her final decree, she and Shelly had gotten pretty well smashed. They'd both bought a bottle of champagne in anticipation of the event, and when Melissa-Jane had called with the news, they had stayed on the phone for hours, drinking champagne and telling each other what bastards men were.

Once the house in Ukiah that M.J. had been so proud of had been sold, she'd packed up everything and moved back to Oak Valley. A good thing, too, she'd told Shelly. Her grandfather, the founder of McGuire's, wanted to retire—had wanted to for years—and since neither one of his two sons had ever shown any interest in the store, M.J. got tapped to take it over. “I think the only reason the crafty old devil dragged me into the store instead of one of my cousins was to keep me so busy I wouldn't have time to think about how miserable I was,” she'd told Shelly last spring. “And you know what? He was right. I'm not going to say I don't still have my bad days, or that I'm not bitter about Charles, but I sure as hell don't have time to brood over it. Clever man, my grandfather.”

Knowing how torn-up M.J. had been at the time, Shelly agreed with her statement. But Shelly had always suspected that Bud McGuire had chosen his oldest granddaughter to succeed him, not only to keep her busy during that painful time but also because M.J. was the only McGuire, besides Bud, who had ever cared about or shown an interest in the store. Until she'd been sidetracked by Charles Sutton fifteen years ago. M.J. had been well on her way to stepping into Bud's shoes when the time came. She'd grown up working in the store, and attending the junior college in Ukiah, she'd been taking marketing and business classes, readying herself for the future.

M.J. squealed, distracting Shelly's thoughts. “Look! Look! He kissed her.”

Shelly looked. “On the cheek,” she said dryly. “Jeb does that to every female he meets. Doesn't mean a thing.”

M.J. sighed. “Yeah. You're right. I'd forgotten that.”

“Why are you so interested in Jeb's love life anyway?” Shelly cocked an eyebrow. “Is it possible that you've changed your mind about all men being lying, cheating, penis-brained Neanderthals, and you've set your sights on Jeb?”

“Good God, no! You know his reputation. He's left a trail of broken hearts from Santa Rosa to the Oregon border and beyond. Our boy gets around, and Jeb's the last man I'd be interested in.” Melissa-Jane sniffed. “
If
I ever get interested in another man in
this
life. After Charles, scum-sucking lowlife bastard that he is, men aren't high on my list.”

Thinking of Sloan, Shelly nodded. “Can't disagree with that.”

“So. What brought you to town today? Just slumming or are you bored?”

“Not bored or slumming, I just didn't feel like hanging around the house by myself today. I needed a break.”

M.J. studied her. Shelly's words were just a little too careless to be taken at face value. “The estate coming along OK? No problems?” she probed.

“Everything's fine. It'll be six months or so before everything is finally taken care of, but for now, most of it is just stuff that Sawyer can take care of.”

“Sawyer-the-Lawyer,” M.J. said in a singsong chant. “How is he to work with? I've finally convinced my grandfather that we ought to have an attorney on retainer, and I've been asking around.”

Shelly hunched a shoulder. “You could do worse. He seems all right.”

“Not a glowing recommendation. Don't you like him? Josh liked him pretty well. They were good friends.”

“Maybe that's part of the trouble,” Shelly admitted. “Sometimes, I feel like he's Josh's lawyer, not mine.”

M.J. started to say something, but a glance out of the oneway window had her leaping to her feet and grabbing the gorilla mask. Shelly stared as M.J. jerked on the mask.

A look out of the window showed Danny Haskell, all decked out in his sheriff's office uniform, strolling down the aisle. When Shelly had left Oak Valley, Danny had been a gangly, big-eared, clumsy teenager, his feet too big for his growing body. Over the years she'd been gone, M.J. had sent pictures of herself and her family, as had Bobba, but Danny had not, and seeing him for the first time a month after she'd arrived back in the valley had been a shock. He had matured into a very handsome man and the fumble-footed, awkward, not-particularly-good-looking friend of her childhood was gone forever, replaced by the attractive man walking toward the office.

Broad-shouldered but slimly built, Danny sauntered closer with a loose-knit grace, his olive complexion and black hair and eyes the only outward heritage of his Indian great-grandmother. His badge was pinned on the front of his khaki shirt; his narrow waist ballooned with all the various accoutrements required by the sheriff's office. He was bareheaded, his unruly hair brushed back from his brow, and he had a goofy smile on his face—
that
hadn't changed one bit.

Shelly watched openmouthed as M.J., wearing the gorilla mask, chortled evilly and positioned herself in front of the window, one hand ready to slide the glass open.

Shelly rose and, peering over M.J.'s shoulder, saw Danny glance around, then hustle up to the mirrored window. He tapped it and thrust his face against it, contorting his handsome features into a horrible, ugly grimace, wagging his tongue and wiggling his fingers on either side of his head.

Startled, Shelly stepped backward; at that same instant M.J. gave a savage roar, flung back the sliding glass, and stuck her gorilla-masked head out the window.

Nose-to-nose with a snarling gorilla, Danny's eyes bugged, his mouth went slack, and he shot back from the window as if he had been fired from a cannon. He flew backward so fast that his feet tangled and he lurched sideways, his arms flailing wildly. Desperately, he grabbed, but his fingers could find no purchase on the slick metal shelving, and his gyrations sent boxes of cookies and loaves of bread flying. A rack of potato chips was his undoing, his own momentum slamming him into it. With a crash he hit the floor in a heap—chips, cookies, and bread half-burying him.

M.J. ripped off her mask. “Gotcha!” she cried gleefully, grinning from ear to ear.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Danny said from his position on the floor. “You scared me half out of my wits.”

“Considering you only have half of them anyway, what's the big deal?” Melissa-Jane asked sweetly.