The Trouble With Valentine's Day (15 page)

“Yes.” She stopped by the nightstand and pressed a hand to her beating heart. “You scared me to death. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, now. Grace stopped by.”

“I know, she said she would.” She noticed the Nyquil and aspirin on the stand next to the pussycat alarm clock. Its cute little pussycat eyes winked on the half minute. “Have you eaten dinner?”

“Grace made me soup.” He looked back up at the ceiling. “It was pretty good. Homemade chicken noodle. You can tell a good woman by her soup.”

Kate thought it probably took a little bit more than soup. “Do you need anything?” she asked as she shrugged out of her coat.

“Yes, I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I've got some empty boxes out for you to put some of your grandmother's things in.” A horrible cough racked his chest, then he added, “I thought you should take anything you might want.”

This was news. Big news. Kate wondered what had happened to bring it about, but she didn't ask, in case he changed his mind. “Okay. Anything else?”

“Turn out the light.”

She flipped the switch and moved back into the kitchen. She took the bowl and spoon from the sink and placed them in the dishwasher. As she added soap, she wondered how a nice woman like Grace could have raised a man like Rob. How a “good woman” who made a sick old man soup could raise a man who just grabbed unsuspecting women and kissed the breath right out of them. A man who could kiss like that, get that turned on, and not try and take things further. That wasn't natural.

She started the dishwasher and glanced about the kitchen. She didn't know where to start. What was she going to do with a house full of Tom Jones stuff? Rent a shed and store it the rest of her life?

Her gaze fell on the set of Tom decorative plates held in a rack by the table, and her thoughts returned to the kiss Rob had planted on her. What kind of man grabbed a woman's hand and shoved it on his erection? She got a stack of newspapers by the back door and set them on the table. Unfortunately she knew the answer to her last question. The kind of man who wanted to prove he didn't have a problem getting it up. In the calmer part of her brain, she could even kind of, sort of, understand why he'd done it. But what she didn't understand was what kind of man got that hard and pushed a woman away? She'd never known a man that sexually turned-on who didn't think she should drop to her knees and do something about it.

Whatever his reason, it didn't matter. She should have been the one to stop things before they'd gotten to that point. She should have been the one to step back. The one in control. He should have been the one left dazed and mortified.

She told herself that at some point she would have stopped him. That before their clothes hit the ground, she would have grabbed her bag and gone home. That's what she told herself. Problem was, she wasn't all that convincing. Not even to herself.

Kate wrapped a plate in paper and set it in the box. Rob Sutter was a cheater and a bad emotional risk. He was rarely nice, and most often a jerk, which explained her inexplicable attraction to him.

He'd humiliated her twice now. Two times he'd left her embarrassed by her own behavior and stunned by his rejection. That was two times too many.

There couldn't and wouldn't be a third.

Ten

Stanley read over his poem one last time.
It had taken him three days to write it, crossing out one word, substituting another, and he still wasn't sure he'd expressed himself right. The poem ended with the word
reimburse,
which was, admittedly, stupid.

He knew Grace liked poetry, and he wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her looking in on him. He wanted to tell her he thought she was a good nurse, but he hadn't been able to think up a good word to rhyme with
nurse
—
hearse
and
purse
just didn't do it.

He folded the poem and placed it in an envelope. He'd been out of commission with the bad chest cold for four days, and Grace had stopped by every morning before work and every night after just to check up on him. She'd taken his pulse and listened to his lungs. She talked about Rob and he talked about Katie. She always left him soup. She was a good woman.

He placed a stamp in the corner, then glanced out of the office. Katie was in front with the Frito-Lay salesman, probably getting suckered into stocking the “Natural and Organic” products, which was a bunch of hokum as far as Stanley was concerned.

He hurriedly wrote Grace's address and stuck the envelope under a stack of outgoing mail. A pile of pamphlets sat on his desk, and he opened a drawer and dumped them inside. He knew his granddaughter wanted him to think about upgrading his cash register and bookkeeping system. He wasn't interested. He was seventy-one and too old to change the way he'd been doing business for more than forty years. If his wife hadn't died, he'd be retired by now, spending his retirement fund on travel or some other type of recreation, not on some integrated accounting system.

Stanley placed a hand on top of his desk and rose to his feet. He'd come back to work to discover that Katie had rearranged a few things. Nothing big, just rearranged some of the merchandise. He wasn't quite sure why the over-the-counter medications had to be kept down below the prophylactics on aisle five.
And
she'd removed the live bait he'd kept by the milk in the reach-in cooler. For some reason, she'd put it next to the discounted meats. He knew she'd ordered some gourmet jelly and olives. He supposed he didn't mind, since it meant she was getting more involved in the store, but he didn't think gourmet items would sell in Gospel.

He placed a rubber band around the outgoing mail, and when Orville Tucker came in his mail truck, Stanley handed it over before he could change his mind. He wondered what Grace would think of his poem. He popped a few Tums and told himself it didn't matter. He'd tried his best, but Grace was a really good poet, and he was just an amateur. He cut meat for a living. What made him think he could write a poem?

He spent the rest of the day worrying about what Grace would think. By that night, he was in such agony that he wished like hell he could break into the post office on Blaine Street and steal the poem back. But the post office was one of the few businesses in town that had an alarm system. He wished he'd never sent it. He knew that if he didn't hear from Grace, it meant she probably hated it.

The next day Grace called him and told him she loved it. She said she was flattered and that the poem had spoken to her heart. Her praise spoke to Stanley's heart in a way he'd never expected. It reminded him that his heart was good for something more than pumping blood, and when she invited him and Katie to dinner at her house the next night, he accepted for both of them. Katie was always nagging him about getting out of the house more. He was sure she wouldn't mind.

“You what?”

“I accepted a dinner invitation to Grace Sutter's for the both of us.”

“When?” The last thing Kate wanted was to be stuck at a dinner table with Rob Sutter. She hadn't seen him since the night he'd kissed her. That wasn't quite right. She'd
seen
him. He worked across the parking lot, but he hadn't come in the store for five days. And every time she'd seen him, she'd gotten an odd little bubble in her chest. Kind of like nerves, but not the good kind.

“She called about half an hour ago.”

“That isn't what I meant.” Kate paused as Iona Osborn labored to the counter, her quad cane making a
ka-chink-thud
across the hardwood floors.

“How much are these?” Iona asked and set a bag of Doritos next to the cash register.

Kate pointed to the price clearly marked on the bag. “Four nineteen.”

“It always had a sticker before.”

Kate took in Iona's blue eyes, chubby jowls, and mile-high gray hair and forced a smile in place. Iona wasn't the first person to give her grief over the sticker issue. She wondered if there was a conspiracy to drive her insane. She took a deep breath and explained yet again, “Items clearly marked from the manufacturer don't need a sticker.”

“I like having a sticker.”

Kate held her hands palms up, then dropped them to her sides. “But the stickers were always the same as the clearly marked price.”

“There's always been stickers on stuff.”

Kate was giving serious thought to smacking a sticker on Iona's forehead when her grandfather interceded. “How's that hip?” he asked.

“I'm a little stoved-up. Thank you for asking.” Iona's leather purse hit the counter with a heavy thunk.

“Have you thought about getting one of those power chairs like they advertise on TV?” Stanley asked as he rang up her Doritos.

Iona shook her head and dug into her bag. “I don't have that kind of money, and my insurance won't pay for it.” She pulled out a wallet so full of cash and coupons that it had to be held closed with a rubber band. “Besides, I can't sit in one of those while I work all day at the diner.” She searched all her coupons, then pulled out five one-dollar bills and laid them on the counter. “Would be nice though, if you provided one of those chairs for seniors like they do at that ShopKo down in Boise.”

“That's certainly something to think about,” Stanley said as he took the money and made change. “How much do one of those things cost?”

Kate glanced at her grandfather as she placed the Doritos in a plastic bag. He couldn't be serious.

“About fifteen hundred.”

“That's not too bad, then.”

He
was
serious. He wouldn't spend a dime to upgrade his bookkeeping system in order to make his life easier, but he'd blow fifteen hundred on a power chair that the kids in town would jump on and race around the store. “I don't understand you,” she said as soon as Iona left. “You won't make your life easier, but you'll buy a power chair for the occasional customer. That doesn't make sense to me.”

“That's because you're young and your bones don't ache when you get out of bed in the morning. You don't have trouble getting around. If you did, you might think differently.”

That was probably true, so she let it go. For now. “When is Grace's dinner?”

“Tomorrow night.”

Now the tricky question. “Is Rob going to be there?” Kate asked as if she didn't care one way or the other. But the reality was that if the answer was yes, she'd have to come down with cramps or something.

“Grace didn't say. I could ask her.”

“No. I was just wondering. It's not important,” she said as she grabbed the feather duster and headed toward the canned vegetables and fruits aisle. If Rob was going to be there, she'd have to suck it up and pretend he didn't bother her. That the kiss he'd given her hadn't affected her at all, which of course it hadn't. Sure, she'd felt little warm tingles, but that didn't mean anything. Lots of things gave her warm tingles. She couldn't think of any at the moment, but she would.

The jars of olives and jalapeño jelly she'd ordered had arrived the day before, and she placed them at eye level on the shelves. No one had purchased any of her gourmet items, but it had only been one day. Maybe she should take an hors d'oeuvre plate to Grace's dinner. If Grace liked the hors d'oeuvre, she might talk them up. Word of mouth was important to sales.

She wondered what Grace was serving, and if her house was as enormous as her son's.

It wasn't.

The second Kate walked into Grace Sutter's home, she could tell a woman lived there by herself. The furnishings were comfy and cozy and soft. Lots of pastel colors and white wicker. Belgian lace, cut crystal, and fresh flowers. Very unlike her grandfather's house, and completely opposite her son's. The home was filled with the smell of roast beef and baking potatoes.

Grace greeted them at the door wearing black pants and a red sweater set. Kate felt underdressed in a jean skirt and her long-sleeve Banana Republic silk T-shirt. She handed Grace the hors d'oeuvre plate she'd made, and her gaze scanned the living room.

No Rob. She felt her shoulders relax and the tension in her back loosen. She wished she didn't care one way or the other, but for some reason he made her uptight and nervous. And again, not in a good way.

“Thank you, Kate,” Grace said as she took the plate from her. “This was so thoughtful of you.”

Kate pointed to each section of the plate. “Those are Italian olives, and I stuffed those mushrooms.” Grace set the plate on a coffee table. “That's jalapeño jelly,” Kate continued, “over cream cheese. You spread it on the wafers. It's wonderful.”

“I'm going to take your word on that jelly,” her grandfather said as he popped an olive in his mouth.

Grace picked up the Delilah cheese knife and spread some of the cream cheese and jalapeño jelly on a cracker. She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “That's quite good,” she announced.

Kate smiled and looked at her grandfather. “Thank you.”

“I still don't think it's right for people to make vegetable jelly,” Stanley maintained and refused to even try it. He'd dressed for the dinner party in his gray permanent press pants, a blue dress shirt, and a gray sweater. Which was quite dressed up for him. Kate wasn't certain, but she thought her grandfather was acting kind of nervous. He kept folding and unfolding his arms and twisting the tip of his handlebar mustache. And he was wearing so much Brut that she'd practically had to ride all the way over with her head sticking out the car window like an Irish setter.

Grace showed them her collection of Swarovski crystal, and she gave Stanley three crystal penguins on a chunk of crystal ice to hold up to the light. The two of them looked at the prism of color spilling across Stanley's old, gnarled palm, and then they looked at each other. For one brief moment their eyes held before he lowered his hand, as well as his gaze. His cheek turned a slight pink, and he cleared his throat.