Grilling the Subject (15 page)

“I'm a big girl. I can handle it. Trust me. Please. Please. Please.” Tears threatened to fall.
No
, I warned them.
Don't you dare.

My father held his breath, and finally his anger melted. He sighed and dragged me into a hug. “It's tit for tat, sweetheart. You worry about me; I worry about you.”

We remained in the hug for a long moment, and then I pressed apart and said, “About that . . . has Lola found any witnesses? Anyone at all who might have seen you?”

“Not yet. But she's as stubborn as you. What will you tell Rhett about David?”

I gulped. From the moment I'd set eyes on David, I had been consumed with thoughts of him, us . . .
me
. I hadn't thought a whit about Rhett.

S
eeing as I'd
agreed to meet Rhett at the pole-bending competition in the late afternoon, I decided not to call him. Okay, maybe I was chicken, but honestly, anything I needed—
wanted
—to say had to be said in person. I texted him on my cell phone to confirm our date; he texted back:
Can't wait. Meet you by the stadium seat entrance.

Feeling guilty for not spilling the beans, I suddenly had a craving for chocolate. I hurried to the Nook Café kitchen and begged Katie for a bite of the barbecue fudge Bailey had mentioned. She was more than happy to oblige. She wasn't sure if her taste buds were failing her. She needed another lab rat. I loved it. It was zesty and extremely satisfying. She had used crisp, crumbled bacon in the recipe and had sprinkled the top with a mixture of peppery spices. The combination of sweet and salty was amazing.

“Katie, you've done it again. This is downright sinful!”

She beamed.

“I think it's about time you write a cookbook.” A few
months ago she had mentioned wanting to do so. “No more stalling. No more delays.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Even if you self-publish it, think of all the customers who will want to purchase it at the shop. We can set some by the register in the café, too.”

She bubbled with enthusiasm.

“On the other hand,” I kidded, “don't do it, because then I'll have to worry about whether some big muckety-muck will steal you away.”

“I'll never leave Crystal Cove.”

“Never?”

“Not if Keller has anything to say about it.” Her grin spread ear to ear. Keller was her boyfriend of a few months, a novel guy who rode around town on his bicycle churning homemade ice cream. He was Katie's first serious relationship; she hadn't dated in high school or college.

“You'd kowtow to his wishes?”

“Jenna, sometimes you only get one love of your life. He's it.”

Her words hit me hard. One love. Way back when, I had thought David was my one love. Losing him and then suffering the jolt of his betrayal and the double jolt of his surprising rebirth was sending me reeling.

I nabbed another chunk of fudge—chocolate fixes lots of problems—and then offered to set out a plateful in the breezeway. Katie gushed with thanks and reminded me that tonight was the dance hall theme at the café. I should stop by with Rhett. I told her I would try.

Throughout the morning, I anxiously reviewed what I would say to Rhett about David. In between, I paid strict attention to customers.

At one point, a trio of Chocolate Cookbook Club members arrived. I steered them to the fudge in the breezeway, and you would have thought I had saved the world. Or rather, Katie had. Many were demanding that she sell the chocolate by the pound.

Around 2:00
P.M.
, as I was explaining to a customer and her husband how to organize the cookbooks in their house—she owned over one hundred; her husband said they were scattered, slapdash on the shelves in the kitchen and in cubbies throughout her house—a thirty-something single mother glommed onto my arm.

“Wait, Jenna!” She beckoned a girlfriend who had entered with her. “We'll want to hear this.”

They gathered and grew attentive.

“My suggestion would be to figure out how you access your cookbooks,” I said. “Not everyone does the same thing. For example, when you want to find a cookbook, do you think of the cuisine, the technique, the author's name, or the title?”

“Title,” the single mother answered.

“Do you think of the course: soups and salads, appetizers, entrees, et cetera?” I asked. “Depending on your answer, I'd organize them along those lines.”

“I use a card catalog,” her friend said.

The woman laughed. “That's because you're a librarian.”

“I organize them by size,” the customer I'd been addressing said.

Her reed-thin husband laughed. “That's because you bought them for their beauty. You don't cook.”

She batted his arm. “Do so.”

He rolled his eyes.

The discussion continued for almost an hour, and I made another mental note. Perhaps a page on the shop's website showing how to organize cookbooks might be a good sales tool for the shop. Maybe we could share it visually on one of those picture-lover forums. I jotted the idea down on a list I kept running on the computer; I never left an idea to roam inside my head. Idle ideas had a tendency to go
poof
.

At half past three, after wrapping a customer's purchase that included a couple of specialty books I'd ordered to celebrate the Wild West Extravaganza—the first,
Every Cowgirl Loves a Rodeo
, a cute children's book that featured fabulous drawings
and a sweet story, and the second,
Cowgirls: Commemorating the Women of the West
, a beautiful coffee table–style book that had earned lovely reviews about how the author had captured the glamour as well as the grubbiness of being a strong, hardworking female—I set off to meet Rhett. My stomach churned with anxiety. What would I say? How would he react?

*   *   *

For the pole-bending
event, the Wild West Extravaganza group had rented Midway Motocross, the dirt bike track located north of town, a half-mile beyond the junior college. The track was a large dusty oval set at the foot of a grassy knoll. The extravaganza committee had done a bang-up job of gussying up the area, setting up red-and-white-striped tents for food vendors as well as occasional shade, tying bundles of red balloons onto every available pole or staff, and stringing red triangular flags around the entire facility. Spectators were dressed similarly to what the attendees had worn at the foodie truck event. I was overdressed in my summery dress and sandals.

Over a loudspeaker, an announcer introduced the participants in the first pole-bending contest. There would be eight in all. A teenage couple walked in stride with me. She was explaining the nuances of pole-bending to her boyfriend.

“It involves one rider on a horse, running a weaving path around six poles arranged in a line. Sort of like skiing the slalom course. Each pole stands twenty-one feet from the other, and the first pole is twenty-one feet from the starting line.” Her companion nodded his understanding. “A horse can take its position either to the right or the left of the starting pole, but then they have to run the remainder of their pattern accordingly. If they knock over a pole, they get a five-second penalty. Got it?”

“Jenna!” Rhett called to me from the entrance to the stadium seats. He looked as handsome as ever, clad in jeans and a simple white-and-blue plaid shirt and, unlike everyone else, tennis shoes.

My stomach did a flip-flop at the sight of him. Unfortunately, not the good kind. Oh sure, I had the fleeting notion of sweeping him beneath the rustic bleachers and smothering him with kisses before I told him anything, but I squashed the idea. There was no privacy. Everyone would see us. I hurried to him, rehashing what I would say. When I drew near, my mind went blank.

“Hey,” I said. Real smooth. I slipped into his outstretched arms and we kissed pristinely.

He nudged me away. “What's up?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don't kid a kidder. You look dazed, as if you've seen a ghost.”

“Nice thing to say to a girl.” I forced a smile. “How about, ‘You look radiant, glowing, ethereal'?”

“Je-e-enna.” He dragged out my name.

“Not here.”

I slipped my hand into his and led him to a knoll, far from the swelling crowd. A cheer cut through the air. The first race had started. Dang. I had really wanted to catch a glimpse.

A warm breeze brushed my cheeks, but a chill skittered through my core.
Dive in anytime.
I licked my lips and began. “I've had a bit of a shock.”

“Is it your father?”

“No, Dad's rallying. He hasn't been arrested. I honestly don't know what's going on with that. I've got suspects rotating in my mind—” I wiggled my free hand beside my head. “That's not what's bothering me.” I drew in a deep, calming breath and let it out. “Wow, how do I say this?”

“Spit it out.”

“My husband. David. It's complicated.”

Rhett gripped both my hands. “Does this have something to do with how I ended our telephone call the other day, saying, ‘I love you?' Because if it does—”

“No. I mean, yes. I love you, too.” There. I said it. I meant it.

Rhett shook his head, not grasping the problem. “Then what about your husband?”

“He's alive.”

Rhett released my hands and staggered backward. He spun on his heel while running a hand through his hair. When he made a full three-sixty and faced me again, he looked as if he were the one who had seen a ghost. “He's alive?”

I told him everything in one quick stream: David observing me; entering my cottage; spilling his life story; and the SFPD allowing him a week to finalize things. “He has one month to live.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because he told me so.”

“He's scammed you before.”

“The detective confirmed it.”

Rhett moaned. “And he's staying with you? You're letting him?”

“What else could I do?”

“Boot him home to his mother, and then”—Rhett clasped my arms—“divorce him.”

“Divorce?”

“You're married, Jenna.”

“No court—”

“The law is the law. He didn't die. You're married. And . . .” He released me. “I don't date married women.”

“You're being unreasonable.”

“Am I?” Rhett's nostrils flared. “I don't think so. Your husband, a known criminal, is in your house. By his very presence, you could be implicated in any future misdeeds.”

“He's dying!”

“When he does, give me a call.” Rhett heaved a sigh filled with a thousand unspoken words and stomped away.

Tears flooded my eyes, and a string of angry terms cycled through my mind:
jerk, idiot, miscreant.
But when I regrouped, I knew Rhett wasn't any of those. He was hurt. I hadn't explained the situation well. It was my fault. I had let my dying
husband back into my life and had allowed the new love of my life to walk out. Fantastic. Now what?

“Jenna?” Bailey rushed to me, tissues extended. “I saw Rhett heading the opposite way. He looked peeved.”

“I told him about David.” I took the tissues and dabbed my eyes. “We fought. He's upset.” I gazed in the direction that Rhett had gone, and a horrible notion struck me. What if he finds someone else, and
bam
, just like that, he and I are history?

Tito, dressed like many at the pole-bending event with a cowboy hat resting jauntily on his head, joined us. “Don't worry, little lady.” He tipped his hat backward with one fingertip and jutted a hip, a pose he must have seen in an oater movie. “Men need time to cool down.”

Bailey shot him a look. His face warmed red.

“How much time?” I asked. “My husband”—the word stuck in my throat—“could be in town for a while.”

Bailey said, “You said he's sick. Dying.”

“He is. He has a month or less. He—” I gulped. “What if Rhett's right? What if David scammed the detective?”

“Even I don't believe that.” Bailey pulled a bottle of water from her tote and thrust it at me. “Drink. You look like you're going to be sick. Speaking of sick, Tito”—she nudged her boyfriend—“tell her.”

“
Sí.
Of course.” Tito settled into his regular personality, no gimmicks, no cowboy-isms. “I had to do a delivery the other day.”

Bailey continued for him. “Pitching out
The Crier
because his cousin got sick.”

“I'm sorry,” I murmured.

“It's
nada
,” Tito said. “Sinus infection. He's on meds.”

“Go on,” Bailey urged.

“I was delivering the paper in the hills the morning Mrs. Gump was killed.”

“In your father's neighborhood,” Bailey added.

My worries about Rhett and David vanished. “Tito, did you see my father?”

Bailey said, “No, he saw Mrs. McCartney and her friend.”

“
Sí.
They were yelling, ‘Here, kitty, kitty.' It was around five
A.M.
”

“Are you sure?” I shook my head.

Tito tapped his watch. “I am certain. I know because I was busting my chops to finish up by six fifteen so I could get to work. I was only halfway done with the route, but I was making good time.”

“I have to contact Cinnamon.”

“I also saw that actress,” Tito said.

“D'Ann Davis?”

“
Sí.
She was doing something outside her house.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“She was performing a ritual,” Bailey inserted. “That's what you called it,
mi amor
.”