Ms. Simon Says (11 page)

“More coffee?” Sam Mendenhall hobbled from the stove to the kitchen table with the old-fashioned, dented metal coffeepot in his free hand, the one without the cane.

Mick shook his head, covered his cup with his hand, and then watched while Sam poured more liquid tar into his own empty cup. Jesus. The guy’s taste buds were probably crippled, just like his leg. Then, while Mick watched him, the man wasn’t able to fully suppress another grimace of pain as he lowered himself back into his chair. Curious about the injury, Mick was about to inquire, but Sam spoke first.

“So, when are you going back to Chicago?” he asked. “Dunno.” That was the truth, but Mick tacked on a convenient falsehood. “I need to talk to my captain and see if she wants to extend my assignment. Whenever I do go, I’ll give you a heads-up. I can keep you posted on the investigation, too, from Chicago.”

“Yeah. That’d be great. Don’t worry about it if you don’t have time. I’ve got a few contacts with the feds, so it shouldn’t be too hard to stay on top of it.”

Mick nodded agreeably even as he was thinking that those contacts were probably nothing more than a brief acquaintance with one or two lowly field agents in Grand Rapids.

“I’ve got some out-of-town business coming up,” Sam said, “but I’ll make sure she’s covered in my absence. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Great.”

Sam angled his head in the direction of the eastern shore. “Linda and Harry need to be aware of this situation. Are they?”

“No. She didn’t want to worry them.”

“Let them worry,” Sam said. “I’ll apprise them of the problem if you don’t want to do it.”

“I’ll do it.” Actually Mick had been debating about that, too. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to override Shelby’s wishes in regard to her parents.

“Good because . . .” Sam’s eyes narrowed as he gazed out the window. “Speak of the devil.”

Mick leaned forward to get a better view around the edge of the burlap curtains. The devil was dressed in skintight jeans and a turtleneck sweater that curved and clung and did things he never knew a sweater could do. In the yellow light, her hair took on a reddish cast. She was still far enough away that Mick couldn’t discern her expression, but her walk was purposeful even as it was sexy as hell, enough to inspire a definite thickening in his blood.

He glanced at the man across the table to see if he was similarly moved by the approaching vision of Ms. Shelby Simon.

Nope. Sam Mendenhall just looked pissed, and sounded it as well when he swore under his breath and then said, “Guess we better go see what she wants.”

As Shelby approached the Mendenhall place, memories of past summers nearly brought tears to her eyes. My God. They’d been impossibly young and incredibly stupid back then. All of them. She and Beth and Sam and whatever young swain she might have had her eye on at the time.

She thought about that final summer they were all together, and wondered now if she’d do again what she did then—advise seventeen-year-old Beth to go to college rather than elope with nineteen-year-old Sam. He had signed up for the army and was headed for Fort Benning, GA, hot to make his little Beth his bride before he left until Shelby intervened, convincing her sister that it was in her best interest to wait at least a year or two.

“If Sam really loves you, he’ll wait,” Ms. Simon had said. She could still almost hear herself, such a wise big sister, so sure, so absolutely certain of her own rock-solid and sensible advice.

But then Sam didn’t wait, did he? He’d barely gotten out of boot camp before sending Beth a Dear Jane letter, telling her he’d married a girl he met down there in Georgia.

Then Beth hated both Sam and Shelby, and Shelby hated Sam, and neither of them knew how Sam felt about anything because neither Shelby nor Beth ever saw him again.

What a big fucking mess.

The mere sight of the Mendenhall cabin up ahead brought it all back with a vengeance now.

And then the sight of two men coming out the door onto the cabin’s little front porch made her stop dead in her tracks. Mick Callahan, of course, was a cinch to recognize, not only from his ratty jeans and stupid duct-taped vest, but also from the way her heartbeat stuttered the moment she saw him.

But the other man? Who...?

Shelby squinted in the sunlight, bringing the man more clearly into focus, believing at first that it was Mr. Mendenhall because he looked a lot like Sam’s father and because the man moved like a much older person. He even used a cane.

But wait. Hadn’t her mother told her that Mr. Menden-hall passed away a few years ago?

She walked forward, stumbling once over a circle of stones outlining an old fire pit, still staring, beginning to feel oddly out of sync with the time and place.

Was that...? No. It couldn’t be
Sam.
It just couldn’t be.

Could it?

The closer she got to the cabin, the more it seemed she was having an out-of-body experience or perhaps time traveling.

Up on the porch, he leaned on the cane and stretched out his right hand toward her. “Shelby Simon,” he said, grinning. “Still giving advice, I see.”

“Sam?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, my God.”

His hand was still reaching out. “It’s okay, Shelby. Come on up here. I’m not mad anymore.” He laughed. “At least not enough to kill you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

M
other, did you know that Sam Mendenhall is back? Here. At the lake.”

Linda Simon looked up from the graph paper spread out on her worktable and saw her daughter’s anxious face with its flashing eyes and flushed cheeks. Only seconds earlier she’d heard Shelby’s footsteps stomping up to her third-floor office and Linda had thought the proverbial shit was about to hit the ballroom fan. Thank God this fuss was going to be about Sam, she thought, and not about herself and Harry.

“Of course, dear,” she replied in her calmest, most maternal voice. “I know he’s back. In fact, I was the one who suggested we hire him as our security person a few months ago. Why do you ask?”

“Why do I ask?” her daughter shrieked, lifting her hands toward the chandelier over her head. “Why do I ask? My God, Mom. Does Beth know about this?”

“About Sam being back? No, I don’t think so,” Linda said, knowing damn well that her younger daughter didn’t have a clue. “I think Beth had already left for California when he arrived.”

“And it never occurred to you that she might want to know?” Shelby asked accusingly. “That Sam’s back after all these years. He’s back and he’s unattached.”

“No, Shelby, it didn’t occur to me. Furthermore, I doubt that your sister would be the least bit interested considering that she’s living with someone at the moment.”

“That painter guy,” Shelby said with a snort and a dismissive wave of her hand. “She may be living with him, Mom, but she’s still single. And so is Sam.”

“Yes, and they don’t need you poking your nose in their lives, either, Ms. Simon. Take
my
advice for a change, Shelby, and mind your own business.”

Hoping to bring the conversation to an end, Linda returned her attention to the table and the sweater design she’d been drafting on her graph paper, as if to say
I’m working here.
Maybe her daughter would take the hint. Or not. God love her, Shelby could be pretty dense when she was on a mission, which she apparently was at the moment. She had inherited her perseverance, otherwise known as mule-headed stubbornness, from her father.

“What’s wrong with Sam’s leg, Mom?”

Linda looked up again. “Pardon me?” she said, pretending she hadn’t heard the question perfectly.

“What’s wrong with Sam’s leg? He limps and uses a cane.”

“Yes, I noticed that. I have no idea what the problem is.”

Actually, she knew exactly what the problem was, but she’d promised Terry Mendenhall, Sam’s mother, whom she’d known for nearly all of her fifty-six years, that she wouldn’t breathe a word about his injury or the place on the other side of the globe where it had happened. Sam, it seemed, not only didn’t want to talk about it, but also apparently wasn’t at liberty to disclose any details.

“Shelby, sweetie, I’ve really got a ton of work to finish here.” She glared down at her design in progress now, picked up a red pencil, and began coloring squares. “Can we talk about this later?”

Miraculously, just then the phone rang, and after Linda answered and began a conversation about fabric care and dry cleaning versus hand washing, she offered her daughter a helpless shrug, indicating that she would be on the phone for a while.

Shelby sighed, waved good-bye, and went back downstairs.

Undoubtedly to call her sister. She was such a buttinski.

Shelby sat sideways in one of the Adirondack chairs on the lawn, her legs draped over one of the flat wooden arms, while she entered Beth’s cell phone number into her own cell phone. The two of them had never greeted each other with normal telephone etiquette. They just started talking. So when Beth said “Hello,” Shelby replied, “Guess who’s back at Heart Lake?”

“Shelby, I’m on a ladder right now, painting trim on a second-story window. I don’t have time to play Twenty Questions.”

“Guess who’s back at the lake?”

“You,” Beth said.

Shelby rolled her eyes and raked her fingers through her hair. “No, I mean other than me.”

“What are you doing back at the lake?” her sister asked.

“It’s a long story. Dammit, Beth. Guess who’s here.” Her sister was silent a moment, and then said, “You know I’m up so high here that I can actually see San Francisco Bay. Which should give you a good indication of how badly I’ll be injured when I fall off this fucking ladder, Shelby. Can we talk later?”

“Sam,” Shelby said.

“What?”

“Sam’s back. Here. At the lake.”

Beth didn’t respond, so Shelby asked, “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you,” she muttered.

“He’s not only back. He’s not married anymore.” Again, there was silence on the other end of the line, but Shelby was pretty sure it wasn’t because her sister had fallen off the ladder.

“Beth, he’s back,” she said softly, with just a hint of urgency, “and he’s single.”

“He’s dead to me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“I don’t want to talk about this now, okay? Don’t call me. I’ll call you when I have time. Give Mom and Dad my love. Hey, are they back together yet?”

“What do you mean, are they back together yet?” Shelby asked at the same time that her gaze drifted across the lawn to the driveway, where Callahan was climbing out of his Mustang. Her heart did that funny thing again, like stubbing its toe.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Beth was saying “. . . about five or six months ago. He moved into the carriage house. I figured since you’re there, you finally knew.”

Shelby was watching Callahan’s lean-hipped, tight-jean progress across the lawn toward her, only half listening to her sister. “You figured I knew what?”

He edged a hip onto the arm of the adjacent Adirondack chair, cocked one leg, crossed his arms, and looked down at her while Beth was saying, “I figured since you’re up there that you know that Mom and Dad are separated. Or at least they were. I haven’t talked to either one of them in a couple weeks.”

“Separated.” Shelby echoed the word as if she had no idea what it meant or even what language it was. Portuguese, maybe. Or Urdu. “What do you mean?”

“Listen,” her sister said, sounding more than a little irritated, “go ask Mom, will you? Or ask Dad. It’s clouding up here and I’ve got to get this trim done. I’ll call you later in the week.”

Beth hung up, leaving Shelby blinking stupidly while she listened to the dial tone.

“What’s the matter?” Callahan asked. “Bad news?” “You could say that. My sister just told me that my parents are separated. Separated! Or at least that they were.” She snapped her cell phone closed. “I can’t believe this.”

She swung her legs off the arm of the chair and stood up. “I don’t know why nobody ever tells me anything,” she muttered as she started up the lawn toward the house.

At her back she heard a chuckle, followed by “Maybe they don’t want your advice.”

Shelby would’ve flipped him the bird over her shoulder, but she wasn’t sure whether or not that constituted threatening an officer of the law.

Her mother wasn’t up in the ballroom. Instead, there was a note propped on her desk that read “Gone to town. Back around six.”

Her father wasn’t in the carriage house, where “Gone fishing” was scribbled on a small chalkboard near the refrigerator.

Thoroughly confounded now, as well as supremely pissed, Shelby stalked back to the grouping of lawn chairs where the lieutenant was still sitting, gazing placidly out at the lake.

She plopped in the chair beside his and muttered, “Nobody’s home.”

“They’re probably avoiding you.”

She aimed a glare at him, but then almost had to laugh in spite of her current mood. “You’re probably right.”

What did Beth know anyway? Unlike Shelby, she didn’t spend much time worrying about other people’s problems. Maybe she’d just invented that separation business to get back at Shelby for mentioning Sam or to punish her once more for the advice that broke them up. Bethie could be pretty unforgiving.

In an attempt to forget the whole thing, she forced herself to smile. “Hey! Want to go for a walk, Callahan? Or a drive? There’s some pretty countryside around here.” She leaned over to look at his watch. It was almost noon. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot. What time did you plan on leaving?”

“I’m not,” he said. “I talked to my captain earlier, and they’ve extended my assignment. I’m going to hang around here for a while. A couple more days, anyway.”

“Oh.” Thank God that innocuous little word had popped out of her mouth instead of the “Woo hoo” that she was feeling. On the other hand, maybe this wasn’t such good news. Maybe she should be feeling scared again.

“Does that mean that they think this situation’s gotten worse?” she asked. “Do they know something?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Just taking the standard precautions under the circumstances. It’s no big deal.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Phew.