Another Saturday Night and I Ain't Got No Body (A Page Turners Novel) (26 page)

That’s great
.
If she saw my profile and recognized it, she’s probably come across Walter’s profile too. And that means she’d, no doubt, already told her posse of girlfriends about it. What’s she doing on an online dating site anyway?

He clicked on reply and typed in a short message.
I think it’s time we have a talk. How would you like some company next time you walk that Golden Retriever of yours?

Then he picked up his phone and hit the number seven speed dial key.

He listened to the ringing of the phone followed by a gruff, “Hello.”

“Hey, it’s Jake. I think we’ve got a problem.”

22

The sun came through the kitchen window as Sunny peered through the glass at Walter’s house. Little motes of dust floated and danced through the air, catching the light, and her thoughts drifted to Jake.

He seemed so kind and sweet when they were together, but every so often, she caught this distant look in his eye that seemed to suggest that he had seen things. Things she could never comprehend.

Last night’s discovery of the Fake-Jake profile had her rattled. Even after eavesdropping on him at the private investigator’s office, she still wasn’t convinced that he had anything to do with Walter’s disappearance. His actions were like a see-saw of good and evil. On the up end was the way he had cared for her and come racing to her rescue after the attempted break-in, but the down end of the see-saw was filled with menacing over-heard phone conversations and too many unanswered questions.

The phone rang, startling her, and Sunny turned from the window and reached for the receiver.

“Hey, Cass,” she said, after checking the caller ID. She was letting all
unknown
and
blocked
callers go to the answering machine.

“Hey,
g
irl,” Cassie replied, in her ever cheerful voice. “You ready for your date with Phil the Fisherman?”

“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“What are you wearing?”

“It’s a picnic, so I’m wearing that cute white sundress with the little pink flowers and my pink mule sandals.”

“Do they have a heel?”

“Just a little one, about an inch or so.”

“Those will be good. They’ll make you seem taller and your legs will look longer. I can picture you sitting on a blanket with your skirt swirled around your legs and a wicker picnic basket by your side. Do you think he’ll bring like, grapes and cheese and champagne flutes
?
O
o
hh
h
. Do you have like a big floppy straw hat you can wear?”

“Take a breath there, girl.” Sunny chuckled at Cassie’s enthusiasm.

“Sorry, I’m just excited for you. It sounds so romantic.”

“We’ll see. You know he could be a total dud. Or a serial killer.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Cassie said. “And don’t worry, Maggie and I will be there as well.”

“You what?”

“Heck yeah. You don’t think we’d let you go on a blind date with a strange man by yourself.”

“I don’t know if Phil’s planning on a date with three women. What if he doesn’t bring enough food?”

“We’re not gonna be
on
the date with you, silly. We’re just gonna be
in
the park, you know, meandering around, reading magazines or throwing a Frisbee around.”

Sunny laughed. “I would love to see Maggie throw a Frisbee.”

“You won’t really even know we’re there, but we’ll be around watching if you need us. We’ll be like, your backup.”

“Well, that will make me less nervous, knowing you and Mags will be lurking in the bushes watching me on my date. I should be really relaxed.”

“It will be fine. We’ll be there a few minutes early. If you are in trouble or want us to get you out of the date, you need to text us a
safe
word or give us a signal.”

“A
safe
word
?
Did you see that on a Law and Order or something?” Sunny asked. “And you accuse Edna and Piper of watching too much TV.”

“Oh, shut up and think of a word.”

“Okay. Okay. How about using ‘Beau’ as my word? I can try to get out of the date by claiming I need to go take care of my dog.”

“All right, that’s good,” Cassie said. “And we’ll try to send you a text or do something to get your attention in the middle of the date just to see how things are going.”

“Okay. I have to be there in twenty minutes, so I’m getting ready to take off.”

“All right, I’m actually pulling up in front of Maggie’s house right now. We’ll see you over there. Good luck.”

Okay, see you over there. And Cass?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, Friend.”

“You’re absolutely welcome. Have fun on your date.” Cassie clicked off.

Sunny made one last mirror check and dabbed on a little more pink lip gloss. The color was ‘A Day in the Park’, so she thought it a fitting shade. She squirted a blast of body spray into the air, walked through it, and declared herself ready to go. Feeling pretty good about herself as she walked out the door, Sunny grabbed her big straw hat, plopped it on her head, then pulled the door shut behind her.

* * *

“Hi. You must be Sunny. I’m Phil.” Sunny had found the one guy in the park with a picnic basket, and he now enthusiastically reached for her hand and pulled off his sunglasses at the same time.

She reached her hand out to shake his. “That would be me. Nice to meet you, Phil.”  His hand was warm, and he had a great smile that went all the way to his chocolate brown eyes
.

They both paused as they took a moment to appraise the other one. Phil was probably five-nine and fit. His skin had that healthy tan of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. His hair was light brown with natural streaks of blond highlights shot through it– which he probably got from the sun instead of paying eighty dollars for them at the salon. He looked comfortable in khaki shorts, Teva sandals, and a t-shirt depicting several fishing flies and a caption that read
The way to a man’s heart is through his fly
.
Nice.

Sunny watched his appraisal of her as his gaze roamed over her body, starting at her petal pink toenails and moving all the way up to the floppy straw hat perched on her head. Suddenly, she was rethinking the floppy straw hat idea.

“You look nice.” His tone sounded a little confused. “You know it’s a picnic, right?”  He gestured to the blankets on the ground. He had layered a quilt and a bright green sleeping bag on top of each other. The sleeping bag was unzipped and lay flat. It had green flannel on one side and thick piling inside. On one side of the sleeping bag was a picture of a giant package of gum and the words ‘Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum’ written along the side of the package. Sunny figured he’d had it since he was a kid.

To the side of the sleeping bag sat a well-used yellow fabric cooler, the shoulder strap lying limp across its side. One corner of the cooler was covered in dried mud as if it had sat on the edge of a river bank, and Sunny thought she caught a whiff of dead fish coming from it. She wasn’t sure how she was going to eat anything that came out of that cooler.

“Oh, I’m fine.” Sunny flounced herself and her straw hat over to plop down on one side of the blankets. She folded her knees under her and spread the skirt out, going for a feminine southern belle look. She smiled up at him. “Fun sleeping bag.”

That comment got a grin out of him, and he laughed. “I thought I had a different blanket in the car.” He gestured to the green Subaru Outback parked nearby. “But these were all I had. I love this bag. I’ve had it since the fifth grade.”

Told you so.

“So, what are we having for lunch?” Sunny asked, eyeing the yellow cooler.

He looked confused as he followed her gaze to the cooler, and then laughed. “That’s not our lunch. That’s my fishing gear.”

Sunny laughed as well, doing an inward sigh of relief– until she realized he said fishing gear. She looked around then, and to her horror, saw he was walking to a canoe that rested on the shore of the lake. A life vest and,
oh
,
please no
, two fishing poles rested against the side of the canoe. Two poles meant that unless someone else was joining them, he expected her to know how to use one of them.

“I thought it would be fun to try to catch our lunch.” He grinned like that would be the most fun idea he had ever had.

“Oh,” Sunny faltered and looked down at her pink-flowered sundress and kitten-heeled sandals.

“But we don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” he said, his face crestfallen. “I probably should have been more specific about what to wear. Not that you don’t look great.”

Sunny sighed. He had obviously put some thought in to this date, and he
had
gone to the trouble of actually bringing a canoe with him. Sunny tried to picture a romantic setting with the canoe gliding through the water, Phil in one end with his muscled arms pulling the oars forward, and she sitting daintily in the other end twirling a lacy parasol to keep the sun off her fair skin. Okay, so she didn’t have a lacy parasol or even fair skin, for that matter. But she had committed to this date, and she hadn’t actually ever been in a canoe before, and the dress was machine-washable, so what the heck?

“No, I’ll be fine.” Sunny put a smile on her face and stood up. “This looks really fun.”

Phil’s smile returned, and he loaded the canoe with the life vest, the fishing cooler, (
thank goodness that wasn’t our lunch
), and
both
of the fishing poles. At the thought of lunch, Sunny’s stomach rumbled a little, and she realized she was quite hungry. She had had an early breakfast of cereal and meant to grab a mid-morning snack, but in her nervousness over the blind date, she hadn’t really felt like eating, until now.

“You ready?” he asked and held out his hand to help her into the boat.

Sunny walked gingerly across the grass to him, her heels sinking into the soft soil. She took his hand and stepped over the side. Her shoe hit a slick patch of mud, and suddenly her foot slipped forward and one arm pin-wheeled as she tried to gain her balance.

“Whoa.” Phil grasped his hand tighter and wrapped his other arm around her waist. His quick move saved Sunny from busting her tail bone on the edge of the canoe, but it effectively landed his hand in her armpit while his arm crushed her breast.

“You all right?” He pulled her back upright while doing more boob-crushing with his arm.

“Yes, thanks,” Sunny said, regaining her balance and pulling her leg back out of the boat. Her foot came out but the cute pink sandal stayed stuck in the mud on the bottom of the canoe. Sunny might be up for these dating ideas, but she wasn’t sure any more of her shoes could handle them
.

Phil made sure she was steady before he reached into the boat and plucked Sunny’s shoe from the muddy spot. He wiped the shoe on his shorts then held it up for my inspection. “This might not be the best shoe choice for boating. You need some real sandals, not these…what do you call these anyway?”

“They’re called mules because you slide your foot into them and they have no back.” Sunny straightened her skirt and pulled her left foot free from the other shoe.

“I would think they’re called ‘mules’ because you’d have to be an ‘ass’ to pay full price for half a shoe,” he said, cracking himself up.

Sunny just stared at him.

“C’mon, that was hilarious,” he said. “I just made that up right there.”  He reached for her other shoe and tossed them both back onto the green sleeping bag, still chuckling at his own joke. “Will you be okay barefoot in the boat?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Sunny reached for his hand and again stepped into the boat. This time, her bare foot touched the cool bottom of the boat, and the muddy silt squished up between her toes. She kept her balance climbing in and plunked down on the bench seat.

“Here, you should put this on.” He handed her the life vest. “All passengers are required to wear one.”

“Where’s yours?” Sunny slipped the vest over her head and clicked the belt shut, successfully squashing the last idiom of a romantic boat ride.

“I’m a great swimmer.” He pushed the canoe away from the bank before he deftly climbed in. Sunny grabbed the sides as the canoe pitched and rocked, but Phil sat down and with experienced ease, paddled toward the middle of the lake.

* * *

“Oh, look how pretty she looks,” Cassie said.

“She looks great, but why is she wearing that stupid gardening hat?” Maggie asked.

The two women were firmly ensconced behind a large stand of lilac bushes. Between the branches, they had a great view of the picnic site and were fairly well hidden. They had arrived in time to see Sunny pull up and cross the grass to meet Phil.