The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake (10 page)

I looked at him hard. “For the record, I have no intention of sleeping with you until you’ve been tested for every venereal disease out there.”

His head jerked toward me. “What brought that up?”

“Logic. It’s probably a miracle you haven’t been infected before now.” I turned my gaze toward the stretch of highway before us.

He grew quiet. “I was always careful about things like that,” he
said finally.

I remained silent as I collected my thoughts. “You’ll forgive me if your word isn’t good enough.”

He had turned back to face the road. “I’ve been tested. You want the medical report?”

I turned back to face him. “You have?”

“Every six months whether I thought I needed to or not. From the time this started.”

I stiffened and returned my focus ahead. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You brought it up. Pastor says if we want this marriage to be saved, we’ve got to be honest. That’s as honest as I can get. I’ll have the reports sent to you so you can rest your mind.”

“Rest my mind?
Rest
my mind? Oh my goodness, Jack. What do you know about my mind?”

He grinned. “I know your mind. Better than you know it yourself, I’d say.”

I remembered the cell phone beneath my seat. “Maybe you don’t know me at all,” I said. “Maybe you only know the part of me I allow you to know.”

“We’re playing that game, are we?”

I crossed one leg over the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack Dippel.” I reached into my purse on the floorboard for the book I’d been reading over the past few days. “I’m going to read while you drive,” I said, opening the pages. “I brought plenty of books to read, by the way. Don’t know what you’ve got planned, but I thought this would be a good time for reading.”

I sensed Jack’s frown as I looked down to the pages of the book. “I’d like to do some ice fishing. Thought maybe the two of us could do some hiking. And, I brought a book—though only one—to read.”

“Oh, yeah? What book?
Wild at Heart
?” I didn’t bother to look at him, or the incredible scenery outside the car, for that matter. I just focused on a single word on page ninety-seven of the book, though I couldn’t tell you what the word was.

Jack shifted a bit in his seat. “Actually, yeah.”

Now
I looked at him. “Really?”

“It’s good. I’m learning a lot about myself.”

I took a moment to study my husband. Though a bit stockier than when we married (back then it was all muscle and no pudge), he was still a good-looking man. He wore glasses now, but they only made him look more distinguished. His hair was a becoming shade of gray, and his face was naturally tan and slender with only a few character lines near his mouth and jaw. If I were to go blind tomorrow, I would carry his look in my memory forever, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing either.

But inside... inside, Jack was a mystery. For years I’d known him only as the father of my child, the provider of my financial needs, and the thorn in my flesh. Now he was turning on me. He was changing. And I was not sure if I liked it or not. At least before, I knew what to expect from him. Now, every day was a mystery.

I shook my head a bit.
No, Goldie. Focus on the real issue here.
The man was about to be a father again. He didn’t know it, but that didn’t make him any less guilty.

Jack looked down to the console then. “Hmm.”

“Hmm?” I repeated, glad for the change of subject.

“I could have sworn I left my cell phone in the cup holder
there.”

I put my cup of coffee in the second holder and pretended to look around. “Well... let me see. We hit a bump a ways back. Maybe it just fell out.”

When did I become such a liar, Lord?

Staying in the character of a fraud, I reached under the seat and pretended to search. “Oh, here it is,” I said, pulling it out and carefully
ending the call. “Good as new,” I said.

Jack took the phone from me and looked down at its face. “My battery is low. That’s weird.” He placed it back in the cup holder. “I probably need to buy a new one. This one’s not holding a charge like it should.”

I didn’t respond. After that we continued toward Summit Ridge in silence.

Summit Ridge turned out to be everything Pastor Kevin had said it would be and more. My thoughts immediately went to his late wife, our beloved Jan, and remembrances of how much she loved coming here. “A home away from home,” she’d said. “A place to unwind, reconnect to God and to each other.”

Well, the God part sounded good, and even the unwinding. But right now the only connecting I wanted to do with Jack was my fist up against the side of his head. Still, I couldn’t help but notice God’s natural beauty as we drove through Gold Mine Pass, which Jack immediately pointed out as being haunted.

I gave him my best “give me a break” look.

“I’m serious,” he countered from the driver’s seat. “I saw a show about it on the History Channel. Old miners who got trapped up here when the snow banks collapsed from the weight of the snow.
Sometimes they got trapped for months.”

I jerked my head to look out the window and up the rising slopes of the pass. “I can see where that could happen,” I said, then looked back to him. “Not the ghost part. But the snow causing a slide.”

“They interviewed all these eyewitnesses. Said they occasionally see old miners walking up and down the road here.” He winked at me. “Soon as they slow their cars down, the old miner turns and looks at them, then”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“just
disappears.” His eyes grew wide.

“Jack, stop the nonsense.”

He held up his right hand. “I’m serious,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s what they say.” He jutted his neck out a bit. “I’ll keep driving, and you can keep your eyes peeled for ghosts.”

When we arrived in the actual “town” of Summit Ridge, located on an upper ridgeway between two passes, Jack slowed the car and parked it in front of the general store. “Need anything?” he asked me as he opened his door.

“Ah... no.”

“I thought I’d pick up a few things. What groceries did you bring, by the way? Anything you might have forgotten?” He was now standing outside in the snow, with his head dipped down to
look at me.

“Oh no. I think I remembered it all,” I said with a nod.
Tonight,
the chef is preparing your least favorite food in the world: hamburger
quiche, a dish you had once claimed real men would never eat, even
under the threat of starvation. Well, we’ll just see about that, won’t
we?

“Alrighty then. If you want to get out, stretch your legs, look around...” He shut his door, and I scrambled out of mine. With a single blink I could take in the whole town.

“What are you getting?” I asked. “I mean, I think I have everything.”

“Firewood. Pastor Kevin said we’d need to stop here and get some firewood.”

I felt a small sense of relief. “Oh.” If Jack bought too much in the way of food, then part of my plan would backfire. And I couldn’t
have
that
.

I saw a small bookstore sitting alongside the general store and pointed to it. “I’ll take a look inside there.”

Jack nodded and then walked into the general store, bells tinkling as the door opened and closed. I had taken no more than two steps toward the bookstore when I felt a few flakes of snow on my face. I looked up then toward the way we’d come. A distant sheet of falling snow suddenly made the surrounding mountains indistinguishable. In mere minutes, the approaching whiteout would blanket this little burg.

I hurried inside the bookstore, hearing the same sound of chimes as when Jack had entered the general store.

When I say that the bookstore was small, I’m talking really small. A very studious-looking teenager sat in an old cushy chair next to a wood-burning stove, one leg tucked up under her and her nose pointed straight toward an open book that rested on the chair’s arm. She was so engrossed, she didn’t seem to realize that someone had walked in. I stood for a moment, watched her blow a bubble from the gum she chewed ever so slowly. She closed the book then looked up at me. “Oh, hi,” she said. “Can I help you with anything?”

I smiled at her, then looked around the short, narrow room. Four long bookstands crowded the space. “What kind of books do you have?” I asked.

She shrugged. “All kinds, really. Used, all of them. People bring their books up to Summit Ridge, read them, then want something else, so they come here.”

I took a few steps to the nearest stand, which was filled with thick romance novels. Even though there was no way I’d read one of these, I picked one up anyway and rummaged through its musty pages. “Do you live here?” I asked, then thought that to be a stupid question. “I mean, all the time?”

“Yeah. My parents own the general store. I’m Jenna, by the way.”

I looked at her. “You’re not in school, Jenna?”

“My mom homeschools me.”

I replaced the book. “Does it get pretty lonely up here?”

She rolled her eyes, but not in a rude way. “I have a few friends, but, yeah. It can.”

I pointed to her book. “So what are you reading?”

She looked at the book, then back to me. “It’s about the old miners who died during the slides just on the other side of town. Back in the 1800s. There was a show on the other night about it, and I got sorta interested.”

I crossed my arms. “My husband and I were just talking about that.” I turned a bit to look out the windows and noticed that the snow was falling full force now. “The miners. And ghosts.”

“Can’t say I believe it for sure, but you never know. The ghost part. I mean, what do we really know about what happens after we die? Maybe if someone dies tragically like that, their souls really can’t get to God.” She shrugged again. “I dunno.”

“I don’t buy that,” I said. “I think we either go to God or to the devil.”

“You religious?”

I smiled at her. “I’d like to say I have a relationship more than
a religion.”

She smiled back. “I believe in God too. You can’t live up around here and not believe in him. I’m young, but I know grandeur when
I see it.”

Grandeur. She was right about that. If God had left his fingerprint on anything on the whole planet, it was the Colorado Rockies.

Jenna laughed, then stood. “You want that book?” She pointed to it. “It’s sleazy as all get out, but sorta well written.”

I picked up the book again. “You’ve read it?” I asked.
And,
why?

“I’ve read every book in here,” she answered, moving toward the L-shaped cashier’s counter near the front door. “What else am I going to do with my days? Very few people actually live up here, and it’s not like we have a mall or anything.”

I took the book over to the counter. The price tag was only a dollar plus tax, and I figured it could be her only sale of the day. “Sure, why not,” I said, feeling—in a way—sorry for a young girl who appeared to be about sixteen, trapped in a village comprised of a general store, a bookstore, a beyond-tiny post office and bank combination, a coffee shop, a motel, and a gas station.

She grinned at me. “Read this trash and you might actually learn something. My mom says if husbands were to read these books, wives wouldn’t have to.” She shook her head and giggled.
“Cute, huh?”

The idea of Jack reading a book in which the cover is highlighted by a chiseled and tanned man with hair flowing in the sea breeze, arms filled with the almost lifeless, barely dressed damsel in distress, and the pages filled with words like
loins
and
passion
was too much for me to imagine. I pulled two dollars from my purse and handed them to the girl. “I suppose you could call it cute.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” she said, slipping the book into a paper bag, then handing it across the counter to me. “Happy reading,” she said and handed me my change.

I took the book and smiled at her. “Thank you,” I said.

As I reached the door to leave, Jenna added, “How long you
here for?”

“Just a couple of days,” I said, turning back to her. “I can’t believe that in all the years of living in the area, I’ve never come
here.”

She leaned across the counter, elbows and forearms resting on its unpolished surface. “Sometimes when something is so close, you don’t pay it enough attention.” She shrugged. “But two days for your first time? That’s hardly long enough to enjoy the view.”

“My husband and I both have jobs. We took tomorrow and
Tuesday off, but we need to be back home by Wednesday.”

She looked around the room, then back at me. “I know, right? Work. What a pain.”

11

A New Detective in Town

It was becoming a new habit, running his fingers through his hair. And Clay was beginning to understand the power women had exercised over the years by the simple movement. And he liked it.

Sure enough, Britney noticed right away.

“Your hair,” she said with a smile from the other side of the front counter. “Sharp look.” Then she stopped. “Wait, there’s something else too. What is it?”

Clay stepped up to the counter and returned her contagious smile. “Weight loss.”

“I can see that.”

“Had some highlights put in my hair.”

She tilted her head, and the overhead fluorescent lights made her blonde hair shine all the more. “Nice touch.”

Clay feigned a frown. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

“Not at all.” She leaned over the counter, startling him by running her manicured nails through his hair. “Very good. Who did it for you?”

“Had it done over in Silverthorne. At a salon there.”

Britney winked at him. “Next time, call me. I won’t charge you half a week’s salary. In fact, I wouldn’t charge you at all.”

“You can do this?”

She nodded. “Foils, right?”

Clay nodded back.

“Every girl worth her weight in high school and college has to
learn how, don’t you know that?”

He laughed. “I guess not.” He turned slightly and looked toward the front door. “Say, who was that woman who just left? Maybe a
minute before I walked in?”