A Penny for Your Thoughts (6 page)

Wishing she weren’t “highlighted” under the bright lights of the waffle house and the large table to ceiling windows, she leaned forward and squinted. Without turning on its lights, the car began a slow movement toward the exit of the parking lot. She strained to watch its progress around the side of the building. Didn’t he realize his lights weren’t on? Once on the street, the driver turned on his lights and sped away. She followed his rapid progress down the road.

“Is something wrong?”

Penny turned her attention back to Matt to tell him about the car, but she clamped her mouth shut and shook her head. It was nothing. This was a small town. She was bound to see the same people over and over. Perhaps he was an employee of the restaurant just getting off shift.

“No, nothing.” She took a deep breath. “Well, thank you very much for the meal. It’s been great catching up with you.” Penny pressed her napkin to her lips.

Matt’s eyes flew to hers with a startled look. “That sounds awfully final. I’m going to see you again, aren’t I?”

“Oh sure,” Penny nodded, unable to suppress the color in her cheeks. “Small town as it is.” She grinned pleasantly and studied the edge of the table, willing the waitress to bring their check. She couldn’t think of anything else to say besides begging him to tell her why he’d let her go.

“It
is
a small town. Besides, I need to check your apartment anyway. Let’s go get your car, then I’m going to follow you home.”

The thought of Matt in her apartment filled her with more anxiety than that awful phone call earlier in the day. The waitress heard her silent plea and returned with the check.

Matt swallowed the last of his coffee and laid out some money on the table after refusing her offer to pay. “Are you ready?”

Penny nodded. “Yes, I am.”

He led the way outside, and they climbed into his SUV once again. He pulled out of the parking lot in silence and drove back toward the police station. Penny wracked her brain for pleasant everyday conversation, but she couldn’t think of anything one might reasonably say to an ex-lover one had been dreaming about every night for the last several months.

“So, where are you staying?” Matt asked in the silent darkness of the car.

“At the Seashore Condominiums,” Penny offered. What had his wife been like? Beautiful? Blonde? Everything she was not?

“I know where that is,” Matt said, keeping his gaze on the road.

Penny remained mute.

Matt said nothing further as they pulled into the parking lot of the police station. He waited until she got into her own car. Penny buckled her seatbelt with shaking hands. She pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the beach, and Matt followed. Penny did her best to block the memories that threatened to engulf her, and she focused on the phone call of the morning.

Who could possibly have made that call? She wracked her brain to match the voice to any of her clients, but she still couldn’t imagine anyone she knew doing such a thing.     She turned onto the Gulf Beach Highway, drove west for a mile and then turned into the front drive of her condominium building. Matt pulled in behind her and parked next to her.

Penny stepped out of her car reluctantly. She couldn’t even remember if she’d left her apartment tidy. Had she even made the bed? She shook her head. Why did that matter?
Silly woman
. She gave herself a mental slap and smiled brightly at Matt as she led the way up the stairs to the third floor.

“How do you like it here in Gulf Shores?” he asked conversationally.

“Oh, it’s great! What a wonderful place this must be to live.” She turned to look at him as they arrived at her door. Matt scanned the hallway to the left and right.

“It gets pretty hot in the summer.” He grinned as he waited for her to open the door. He wanted to come in? She swallowed hard. Seriously?

“I’m pretty sure no one is going to bother me, Matt. I hate to keep you. You’ve probably had a long day.”

“I just want to see if everything is all right, Penny. My day isn’t over yet. I’ve got to get back to the bank to see if they need anything.”

She pushed open the door, and Matt followed her in. She cast a quick eye over the neutral beige couch and easy chairs, light wood coffee table and end tables in the living room. Everything looked tidy.

“Nice place,” Matt murmured as he moved to the middle of the room. He turned to the right toward her open bedroom door. “May I?” He tipped his head in the direction of the bedroom.

A tremor ran through Penny’s body as she nodded. How often she had dreamed of seeing Matt walk into her bedroom over the years. And now he was about to...but only to inspect!

Matt flipped on the light and looked around the room. She watched him open and shut the closet door and step into the bathroom. Not everyone had the Chief of Police search their house, she thought with a small measure of satisfaction. She fought the little smirk that threatened to erupt on her face.

“Everything looks good so far.” Matt came back into the living room and crossed over to the large sliding door that opened onto the balcony. He pulled it open.

“This isn’t locked, Penny.” He turned to eye her with a raised brow.

She hung back.

“I-I thought since it’s on the third floor. No one can climb up here...I don’t think.”

His grave look sent her into a kindergarten seat.

“Lock it.”

He stepped outside. Penny closed her dropped jaw and followed him. He’d never spoken to her like that before. She wouldn’t have taken it from anyone else.

The Gulf breeze blew brisk, full of salty moisture. The outline of the white foam from the waves on the shore was faintly visible under the light of the quarter moon.

Matt leaned over and peered below.

“You’re right. I doubt if anyone could climb up here, but just in case, keep it locked.”

Penny nodded mutely, surprised at her meekness. Could she beg him to stay? She bit her lip.
Of course not!
It was quite likely their time had come and gone.

Matt’s cell phone rang...again.

“Chief Williams.” He lowered his head to the phone.

Penny tried not to eavesdrop...too much.

“Yes. I’ll be right there.”

She turned away and reentered the apartment with a sinking feeling. Soon, he would be gone. Matt entered behind her, closed the door and locked it.

“Well, everything looks pretty good here. I’ve got to get going. Here’s my phone number.” He pressed a card into her hand...a business card.

Penny stared at it dumbly. Who would ever have thought a man she’d once loved so passionately would give her an impersonal business card? It seemed surreal.

“Call me if anything comes up...if you get any more phone calls. I hope you don’t. Maybe this was just isolated. Maybe a prank call. I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see.” He moved toward the door. Penny wanted to follow him like a good hostess, but she froze in the middle of the living room with her hands clasped behind her back. He paused at the door and surveyed her with an enigmatic smile.

“I’ll call you,” he said quietly. He waited at the door, but Penny still made no move toward him.

“Sure, sounds good,” she murmured with downcast eyes.

“It’s really good to see you again, Penny.”

“You too, Matt. Thanks for everything.” She raised her eyes and flashed him a bright smile.

“Good night. Lock the door.” And then he was gone. 

Penny stood in the middle of the living room floor and stared at the closed door for a moment before she jumped into action and crossed the room to lock it. The ringing of her cell phone startled her.

She reluctantly dragged the phone from her purse and studied the caller ID with anxious eyes. The phone number brought a grin to her face, and she dropped onto the soft couch.

“Hi, Travis!”

“Hi, Mom. What have you been doing?”

“Oh, nothing. What’s going on? What time is it there?” Penny squinted at her watch. The sound of her son’s voice lifted her spirits as no other voice could.

“About ten. I just dropped Trish off. We had dinner.”

“How is she?”

“Good. She’s good. You know. School’s starting again in a few days, so...back to the grindstone, I guess.”  

“What did you say she was studying? I don’t remember.”

“Mom, you’ve got the shortest memory. I swear. She’s a graphic arts major.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry. So how’s your dad?”

“He’s fine, Mom. You know Dad.”

“And Lyla?”

“She’s fine, too, Mom. She and Dad just got back from Mexico. They went to Cabo for a few days.”

“Are you kidding? Leaving you there alone? Why didn’t you go? I didn’t know they were going to Mexico.”

“Mom, I’m twenty one! Way old enough to be on my own. You know? Twenty one?” Travis chuckled. “I didn’t want to go. Trish had to work, and I didn’t want to go without her, so I stayed.”

“Oh,” Penny replied, imagining warmer sunny beaches on the Mexican Riviera, her tall, handsome, blonde ex-husband and his equally tall, beautiful and blonde wife. They’d been such a mismatch. He’d seemed so self-assured, so confident...the complete opposite of her young, immature and confused self. Why had he ever married her, she wondered.

“At any rate, all my parents seem to be running off to beaches and abandoning me,” Travis said over a chuckle. “How is it down there?”

“Here?” Penny fought her way out of the mists of memory. “Fine...you know. It’s really very beautiful here. You would not believe today though.” Against her better judgment, she told her son about the menacing phone call, the bank robbery and meeting Matt.

“Do you remember him?” she asked.

“Not really, Mom. I was only...what? Maybe five or six?”

“Oh,” she replied nonplussed. It seemed inconceivable that someone could forget Matt, but that was probably her own rose-colored memory at work. Matt taught Travis how to ride his bike for the first time. Travis once adored Matt, but that had been long ago.

“Mom, tell me about him later. I’m worried about the phone call. That doesn’t sound good.”

“I think it was just a prank, and not a very nice one. I’m going to try to forget about it.”

“You don’t think it has anything to do with...”

“With?” Penny prompted with a knot in her stomach.

“I’m sorry, Mom... Anything to do with your client?”

“No, absolutely not! That’s not possible...as far as I know. Who would do such a thing?”

“Calm down, Mom. Calm down. I’m just asking. Did you happen to tell the police about that?”

“No, it has nothing to do with this. I can’t believe that.”

“Okay, okay,” he said soothingly. “Well, take care of yourself. How long have you been there now?”

“Two months,” she sniffed.

“Well, you’re picking up an accent. I thought you should know.”

“Really?” she squeaked.

“Yup! I can hear it. You’ve developed quite the genteel Southern drawl.”

“Oh, stop,” she murmured, her cheeks turning pink. “I have not.”

“Yes you have. They’ll never understand you when you get back to Michigan.”

“Michigan. It seems far away right now. At any rate, I think half the state has come down here for the winter.”

“Is that where they went? I always wondered where everybody went when it got cold. And I thought they all came out to Southern California.”

Penny laughed, putting the past behind her and feeling comforted by the sound of family. She vowed to call her mother the following day.

“So, tell me about this Chief Williams guy.”

Penny shrugged. “Oh, there’s not much to tell. We went to college together. Since we were both a little older than the average student, I guess we bonded. He was in criminal justice, and I was working on my teaching certificate. You and I spent a lot of time with him. He took us rafting on the Missouri River, golfing...though you were too little to enjoy that. We went to Glacier National Park and Yellowstone. It was great.”

“So what happened?”  

“Oh, nothing.” Penny slumped further into the sofa. “I got that teaching job in Belgium at the American military base, and that was the end of it.”

“Really... Just like that, huh?”

“Yeah, you know. You grow up, move on.”

“No, I don’t know.”

Penny shrugged again though Travis couldn’t see her. “We lost touch. Three years was a long time to be gone.”

“Didn’t you try to keep in touch?”

“I wrote a few times. I didn’t hear back from him.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

The ever ready tears sprang to Penny’s eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was cry on her son’s shoulder.

“Oh, it wasn’t that big of a deal, Travis. I got over it.”

“Really? It doesn’t sound like it. Are you going to be seeing him again?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure he’s busy. So, how is school going anyway?”