Gnome On The Range (16 page)

I had two dark green couches in an L shape facing the TV. Two wood end tables with lamps on the far ends, another one in between. An area rug was beneath a wooden coffee table. On the other couch sat the gnomes, watching the game. The boys had propped them up to watch TV and left them there before they went to bed. They’d said the gnomes were going in their suitcases to Georgia but I planned to change their minds. The gnomes carried some bad mojo and I didn’t think it was best to move the mojo across the country. Besides, they’d definitely break. Again.

Goldie and Paul had left. So had the Colonel, to pack. The boys were in bed, asleep. They’d burned off all the excitement from the camper incident and then the news of their trip to see Nana and crashed hard.

I’d spent over an hour talking with my mom on the phone, getting her updated on the whole fiasco my life had turned into. Agreeing the boys would be safest with her for the time being, she immediately hung up on me to book flights online. Beneath her worry, I figured she was secretly excited about seeing the Colonel. For three weeks.

At least they’d have two boys as chaperones. But I wouldn’t. I’d be on my own, without any supervision. I could do things I would never do with the boys around. Like fulfilling Goldie’s hopes for my non-existent sex life. I wouldn’t even have the Colonel in his house separating me from Ty.

“I guess I owe you for saving my life,” I told him, beer in hand.

“Which time?”

I stopped to consider. It seemed I had quite a bit of thanking catch-up to do. “I’m thinking of the derby, but I guess the explosion, too. Thank you.”

“Great. You’re welcome. You owe me dinner. Tomorrow night.” Ty slouched down, feet up on the coffee table, arms crossed.

I tilted my head. “For saving my life? That’s all you want?” I flushed realizing what I’d said.

I could tell he had more on his mind than just dinner. “For now.” He had that look in his eye that I was starting to recognize as the I’m-going-to kiss-you look.

I hopped up from the couch. “Well,” I said, nervous. I did not want him to kiss me now. Not with the kids in the other room. Not when we couldn’t finish what came after a kiss. Besides, I didn’t know if Ty had decided to put a kybosh on his kybosh of our friendship, relationship. Whatever he called it.

Sure, we’d kissed at the derby. But I kissed him first. And there’d been tons of adrenaline pumping through our veins along with lust. Maybe I’d get the answers at dinner tomorrow.

He stood up, both of us close and fenced in by the coffee table. His hand came up, brushed gently over my cheek. “Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.”

And he wasn’t talking about pizza and beer.

***

“How long did you cry?” Ty asked the next night at dinner. We sat at a four top at the Ale Works on Main. I had the chicken burrito, Ty the steak. The building was an old warehouse, brick with turn-of-the-century photographs on the walls. A vintage train car was built into the side to add ambiance, and history dating back to the golden age of railroad. Since it was a nice night, we rode our bikes down the Galligator Trail, past the new library, to the restaurant.

“What makes you think I did?” I asked.

Ty didn’t reply, just took a sip of his beer.

I rolled my eyes.  “An hour,” I admitted.

I’d dropped the boys and the Colonel off at the airport after lunch. The entire morning had been spent running around trying to find a missing flip-flop, packing enough snacks for the plane and crazily searching for medical release forms. I’d tried my best not to cry until I got home and made it as far as the garage before I’d lost it. I didn’t know how long I sat and cried into the steering wheel. After that, I climbed in bed and threw the blankets over my head. I woke up ten minutes before dinner with Ty.

I’d rushed to pull myself together, splashing cold water on my face to reduce the puffiness around my eyes. I ran a brush through my hair, pulled it back in a loose ponytail so some curls hung around my face. Swiped on some tinted lip balm. I threw on a pair of black Capri pants with a white cotton shirt, slipped on simple black sandals and called it good.

My babies had left the state for weeks and it hurt. Who cared about makeup and pulling myself together for a date when my children were hurtling through the sky in a tin can at five hundred miles an hour? Without me to protect them.

Ty took my hand and squeezed. The simple touch felt good. Soothing. Reassuring.

“I heard from the fire investigators about the explosion at the Moore’s. As we thought, there was a propane gas leak.”

“Duh,” I said. I tucked a curl behind my ear.

“At first there was talk about a homemade pipe bomb in the garage.”

I looked at him blankly. “You mean like extremists in Idaho?” We never mentioned extremists in Montana like the Unabomber. They were all in Idaho now.

Ty smiled but didn’t comment on that touchy subject. “That was nixed pretty fast. A propane tank is usually positioned away from the house and down a hill or embankment of some kind to prevent a gas leak from filling the house. The Moore’s tank was next to the house, which is rare. Should have been moved years ago.” Ty took a sip of his beer.

“Okay, go on.”

“Propane inside the tank is liquid then converts to a gas when it mixes with air. Propane gas is heavier than air so it settles low to the ground. It should have spread into the basement and to the hot water heater or furnace where it would ignite.”

“Right,” I said. This whole gas thing was a little over my head. I knew he was speaking English, but not all of it made sense. Some of it. But I never really thought about blowing a house up before. “Go on.”

“The Moore’s water heater and furnace weren’t in the basement, but in a closet off the garage. Not uncommon, although most are in basements. I guess since the house didn’t actually have a basement, they were given a space off the garage.”

This I understood. “My friend Kelly’s house is like that.” I suddenly had a really crappy thought. “Should I be concerned about her house blowing up?”

He casually pointed his fork toward me. “No. She doesn’t use propane, nor did someone tamper with her gas pipe.”

Thankfully true. “How did they tamper with the pipe?”

“Pipe wrench.” Ty took a bite of his steak.

I nodded my head envisioning someone with a huge wrench crouching down behind the Moore’s house. Conceivable since the yard was lined with very mature lilac bushes. Definitely shielded from neighbors.

“Long story short, we smelled gas because we were downwind. Whoever did it must’ve assumed the water heater was in a basement or a lower portion of the house where they hoped the whole house would be launched to Kingdom Come. But they were wrong and it didn’t cause a huge explosion.”

“This wasn’t a big explosion?” I asked, amazed.

Ty shook his head. “This one just flung crap through the air and made a huge mess.”

“Huge,” I added, thinking of the collapsed garage and Ty’s smooshed truck.

“Huge,” Ty repeated. “But the idiot didn’t know about the water heater off the garage and when the gas seeped in, it filled just that area and the pilot light ignited it quickly. There wasn’t time for the gas to fill the lower area of the house. Besides, the propane tank itself was almost empty. The Moore’s never had it refilled before they moved to Arizona. That’s why the most damage was to the garage and the left side, nor overly big. He didn’t make a real explosion, thank God. He just wrecked the house.”

“That wasn’t a big explosion? I don’t have a lot of comparison here,” I added, sarcastically.

“Let me put it this way. If it had been a serious propane tank explosion, instead of the fridge being on top of my truck, it would have landed on someone else’s a mile away.”

Okay, that’s a big explosion. “So you’re saying this was done by an amateur.”

“I’d say an Internet-savvy, anti-social person intent on hurting someone.”

“I’m an idiot when it comes to fire, although I can light my grill.” I sipped my iced tea. Ty nodded. “Yeah, I’d say you’re at least that smart.”

I smacked him on the shoulder. “Funny. But we still don’t know Morty’s whereabouts. All we do know about whoever’s trying to hurt me is that he’s some half-cocked person spending too much time online. That’s probably half of the population of the US.”

“True. But he was obviously trying to blow up the Moore’s house. And just that house. As I said, Mr. and Mrs. Moore have been out of town for awhile. They weren’t the target. Someone wants Morty dead, someone who knew he’d been staying there.” Ty ate a couple of bites. “The real worry is when whoever’s doing this decides to get smart.”

“Because they’re trying to kill me now, too,” I added. We didn’t comment more on that but ate instead. My burrito didn’t taste as good as it did a minute ago. Or maybe it was the whole death and destruction thing that put me off my food.

My cell phone rang. I jumped in my seat and grabbed for my bag, frantic to find the phone.

“Relax, the kids are fine.”

I gave him the evil eye. I looked at the caller ID. Phew, not CNN calling about a downed commercial airliner.

“Hi, Goldie,” I said. I took a deep breath, my heart rate slowly dropping back into normal range.

“We’ve got a doozy of a problem.”

“Okaaaaay.” That could mean a thousand different things.

“No, no, don’t worry, I’m fine. You’re the one with all the secret admirers,” she said sarcastically. “Remember the bachelorette party we arranged to do?”

“Sure, it’s next month.” I absently forked up a bite of burrito. Ty watched me as he ate some fries.

“Actually, it’s tonight. It’s a surprise party. The bride was at the store with her girlfriends and they couldn’t blow it by giving the actual day. So, they told us next month. Unfortunately, dingbats that they are, they forgot to call us and tell us about the real date. Until now.”

I looked at my watch. Six thirty.

“What time’s the party?”

“Eight.”

“Holy crap.”

Ty perked up at that.

“I’ve got everything organized and in boxes here at the store. I just need you to pick them up and get to the party.”

I took a deep breath. “Fine. Call Dingbat back and tell her we won’t be there until eight thirty. She can make do until then. We’ll be by the store in an hour to get everything. And Goldie, make sure you get good directions. The last time I drove all over trying to find the place.”

Goldie hung up. No goodbye.

“Dingbat?” Ty asked.

“Don’t worry, you’ll meet her.”

“Huh?” A fry was halfway to his mouth.

“How do you feel about bachelorette parties?” I scarfed down a bite of my meal.

“Never been to one.”

“That’s about to change.”

“Oh really? Male stripper call in sick or something?”

I contemplated that for a moment, the image of Ty stripping like a Chippendale dancer. It actually wasn’t a pretty thought. I’ve never been big on strippers. Didn’t do a thing for me. Seeing Ty naked though was something entirely different. And maybe watching him take his clothes off might not be so bad either. The idea made me hot all over. I took a sip of my iced tea to cool off. As long as when he finished he was naked instead of wearing some pouchless briefs or banana hammocks. Gross.

“Have experience with that? If you do, you may not want to mention it to Goldie or you might have a side job.” I paused to let Ty consider this back-up career. “Actually, we scheduled a toy party for a couple of bachelorettes last week. There was some confusion about the dates. It’s tonight. We’ve got two hours to get there.”

“We?” he asked. I could tell he was a little nervous. What guy wanted to break the invisible barrier between men and women and end up at a bachelorette party? He had every right to be anxious. The few males who ended up at one were only wearing day-glo yellow nut huggers and a pair of cowboy boots.

“Don’t worry. You’ll keep your clothes on. I thought you didn’t want me going anywhere by myself. Besides, I’m your
girlfriend
.” It was a perfect time to throw that word out there. See what I might reel back in.

Ty took a swig of his beer. “You’re right. I don’t want you going off by yourself with everything that’s happened, but I draw the line at stripping in front of a bunch of women, especially one named Dingbat. If you want me to take my clothes off, we can go back to your house—or mine. You can even help.” He lifted his eyebrows rakishly and took another swig of beer. “But here’s the thing you need to know if you’re going to be my girlfriend.”

He looked me in the eye. I was practically hypnotized by their blueness.

I licked my lips in anticipation. I hadn’t been a girlfriend since tenth grade. And that consisted of holding hands while walking through the mall. I dated. I married. There was no girlfriend status ever with Nate. “What’s that?”

Ty’s mouth twitched. “I can cut my own meat.”

I looked down at my fork and knife. I was so flustered by the boys’ departure, the night’s change in plans, the imagery of Ty getting naked, I didn’t even notice what I’d been doing.

I had cut up Ty’s steak into little bite sized pieces, just like I did for Zach and Bobby.

Chapter Twelve

“Oh shit,” Ty mumbled as we rolled up to the house for the bachelorette party. You couldn’t miss it. Unless the house had penis shaped balloons attached to the mailbox just ‘because.’ “This can’t be good.”

We were in Belgrade, near the airport. The subdivision was brand new with matching street lamps all the way down the road. The house had two stories, painted a cheery yellow with red shutters. The two car garage took up most of the lower floor except for a tiny porch and front door. The yard had been put in by landscapers but ended abruptly at the property line on either side as the home abutted two empty lots.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” I mocked. Secretly, I was enjoying every moment of this. His discomfort was comical and I tried hard not to laugh. Hell, I tried hard not to crack a smile.

“I will be the first man in the history of the world who’s ever gone to a bachelorette party unpaid.”