The Trouble With Tomboys (10 page)

Screeching to a halt, she immediately changed 73

Linda Kage

course and darted around a corner, lurking there until she saw him leave the store and cross the street.

The third time, however, she wasn’t so lucky and couldn’t avoid a...collision of sorts. She was in the diner, chowing down on some breakfast, when she caught sight of him through the window striding toward the entrance. Eyes going wide, she deserted her bacon and eggs and flew out of her stall. He was almost to the café, and there was no way she could leave without bumping into him, so she ducked around the corner, fully intent on hiding in the hallway to the bathrooms until he left.

She knew exactly when he entered, because the air in the building changed. Not only did the bell above the door ding announcing a new arrival, but all talk fell dead, and even the clinking of silverware paused.

Sal, the waitress, was finally kind enough to say, “Well, howdy there, Grady. What can I get you today?”

B.J. made a growling face, wanting to defend him. No wonder the poor guy had reverted into himself, turning all quiet and solitary. Everyone treated him like a freak.
Don’t go near that Grady
Rawlings. Widowhood might be contagious.

She frowned and then clenched her teeth when she heard him go and order a full meal.
Damn
, she mouthed. She’d have to hide until he was done. Sal would probably clear her breakfast away and

complain about her dining and dashing.

But B.J. didn’t care. She was prepared to stay right where she was for as long as it took. Until Ralphie Smardo ruined it all.

The brainless doofus opened his big trap and started talking. He’d come into the café about the same time as her, and he’d gone to sit at the counter with a couple of other bachelors. And as soon as he 74

The Trouble with Tomboys

sat down, he immediately started complaining about his old lady.

The boy was all bent out of shape because he and Nan were having trouble in the bedroom.

According to him, she was bored, claiming he wasn’t fun and adventuresome.

“Now, I can be just as adventurous as the next guy,” he whined.

From her hiding spot, B.J. rolled her eyes. If Ralphie’s form of adventuresome was grunting out,

“Hold onto somethin’,” for foreplay then, sure, he was one wild boy.

“Why, just a couple years ago, B.J. and I…”

In the hallway, B.J. froze and felt the blood drain from her head.
What the hell?
Why was he mentioning her name in the middle of his sexual exploits? If he splurged a single detail about their
one
time together, she was going to murder him slowly and painfully.

Straining to hear what he was going to blab

about her, she jumped when he hollered, “Hey, B.J.!”

She closed her eyes and then covered them for good measure.

“Where’d she go?” she heard Ralphie say. “I

coulda swore she came in here the same time I did.”

B.J. shook her head sadly. Yep, she was going to kill him.

“I think she headed toward the john a few

minutes ago,” Sal answered.

B.J. sank further into the shadows of the hall.

But it didn’t help, because suddenly there was Ralphie poking his big, dumb head around the corner.

“Hey, B.J.,” he hollered.

“What?” she snapped and gritted her teeth as she moved out of the hallway, brushing past him and storming back to her booth where, thank God, her breakfast still sat waiting.

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Grady was at the bar with a coffee cup steaming in front of him. He turned slightly and regarded her with a shuttered gaze. She paused as their eyes met.

She wondered what he was thinking of her,

realizing she’d been with Ralphie. As shame filled her, she turned away and slid into her seat. She commenced to ignore him and tried to ignore Ralphie too, but the idiotic man just kept on.

He fell into the seat across from hers. “You remember when we went skinny dipping that one night, right?”

B.J. had just picked up her fork, but at his words she stopped in her tracks, the utensil paused halfway between her mouth and plate.

“What the hell,” she said.

“Now tell me that wasn’t fun and adventurous, huh?” he encouraged with a goofy grin.

She could only gape in disbelief.

“Ralphie,” she sputtered. “You...you stupid
oaf
!

Nan’s going to skin you alive if you go announcing to everyone in the goddamn diner you went skinny dipping with someone else.”

Ralphie blinked in confusion. “But...but that happened way before me and her got together. Hell, it was years ago.”

“So why did you even—”

She broke off, unable to believe the dumbass.

How dare he announce to the entire place she’d had a weak moment and gotten kinky with him once?

And with Grady present too. Not that she cared what Grady thought, but damn it, she did care. She didn’t want him to think she was... Lord, she didn’t care. Let him think what he wanted. It didn’t matter.

“Jesus, Ralphie,” she snapped and threw down her fork. After getting to her feet, she dug into her wallet and tossed down a load of bills. “Don’t go bragging about someone else and expect Nan to be 76

The Trouble with Tomboys

fine with that. I don’t care if it was five years ago or five days ago.”

Ralphie looked worried now. “Y-you really think she’ll be upset?” He bumbled to his feet as well, crowding her with an anxious look.

B.J. lifted an eyebrow and set her hands on her hips. “Did you take lessons to be a moron, or does it just come naturally?”

She pushed by him and stormed angrily from

the diner.

****

hangar. B.J. had her Cessna sitting out in the sun where she had a side hood lifted to expose the engine. After almost crashing, she’d been going through and checking everything. After replacing the torn gas line, she’d installed a few other items needing replaced. Stuff she’d been thinking about fixing someday was suddenly top priority, and B.J.

was giving her skywagon the spit and polish

overhaul.

Ralphie pulled his truck alongside her plane, his forearm hanging out the opened window and his big, dopey face drooped in mute apology. In the bed of his truck were the four tires she’d won in the poker game that suddenly felt like years ago.

“B.J.,” he said solemnly as he cut the engine and exited the truck.

She slipped a grease rag from her back pocket and wiped off her hands as she followed him to his tailgate. Once he had it opened, he turned to her and tightened his face with regret.

“I’m real sorry,” he said, kicking at a pebble on the ground. “’Bout what I did at the café. I shouldn’t of—” “Hell, it’s no big deal,” she grumbled, giving up her dirty hands for hopeless and stuffing the rag back into her pocket. “I was just in a mood. You 77

Linda Kage

didn’t do anything wrong.”

Ralphie didn’t answer. He merely lifted his face, squinted at her since the sun was in his eyes and said, “Well, I’m sorry anyhow. I had no call to start that kind of tale about us. True or not.”

He kicked at the rock again. “I shoulda known better. And you were right. Nan’s already done heard about it and thinks I cheated on her.”

“Well,” B.J. answered. She didn’t want to be mean and say,
that’s what you get for opening your
pie hole, you big idiot
, but she was tempted.

“Anyhow, I brought you them tires you won.” He motioned lamely toward them with limp fingers.

B.J. nodded and stared at the set for a second.

“Thanks,” she said. Then with a sigh, she hopped into the bed and started to roll them out.

Ralphie lurched into action to give her a hand. “I went ahead and kept the wheels on,” he explained.

“In case you want them too.”

“They didn’t get bent when Rick Hopper

wrecked?” she asked, surprised.

Ralphie scratched at his chin. “Don’t seem to be.” “Well, then...thanks.” He must be damn sorry if he was going to give her the wheels too. That, or his problems with Nan were dour.

Once the set was rolled out and piled on the ground, Ralphie wiped sweat out of his eyes and glanced around. “Where’s your truck? I’ll get started putting these on right now.”

B.J. felt herself soften, unable to make him suffer anymore. “I’ll see to that,” she said. “You didn’t even have to do this much, Ralphie. Thanks.”

He nodded morosely.

“And…” She stalled for a moment before offering the next suggestion, “if you want, I’ll call Nan and try to smooth things out with her. Let her know she has nothing to worry about from me.”

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The Trouble with Tomboys

Ralphie jerked his face up, his cow eyes hopeful.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Now get out of here before

someone spots your rig and reports back to her, saying we’re doing the dirty mambo in the back of my plane as we speak.”

Eyes flaring with panic, Ralphie jumped toward his truck. “Damn, I hadn’t thought of that.”

B.J. wasn’t surprised.

He shimmied himself behind the wheel and

slammed his door. After starting the engine, he glanced at her once with worry. “You swear you’re going to call her?”

She rolled her eyes. “Smardo, just get outta here already. I got it under control.”

“Thanks, B.J.” He lifted his hand in farewell even as he put the engine into gear. Starting to roll away, he called, “You’re a real pal.”

B.J. sighed as she watched him book it out of there. The poor man was pitiful, absolutely hopeless.

Setting her hands on her hips, she studied the pile of tires and couldn’t help but grin. At least she’d gotten something profitable out of the deal.

Wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, she got to work, first lugging each tire back to the hangar, then piling them in the corner.

She might be slender, but B.J. wasn’t a puny stick by any means. By the time she returned to her plane to retrieve the last tire, though, she’d run full out of steam. Sweat pouring, stomach rolling, she dropped the tire by her feet and held it still as it bounced and tried to roll away.

Bent over, she sucked air through her gritted teeth and willed the nausea to pass. It didn’t, only working steadily up her throat and making her think she was going to urp all over the tarmac. Heat reflected off the glossy black surface, and suddenly, she wondered if she was going to pass out instead.

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Linda Kage

Closing her eyes, she counted to ten until both the dizziness and queasy stomach settled. Then she straightened and groaned as she lifted the tire again and hauled it in to rest with the others. She was so wiped out, she didn’t have the energy to return to her plane.

Slumping toward the corner office, she tried to remember what she’d eaten for breakfast. When she recalled the whole diner visit and how she’d completely deserted her bacon and eggs because of Grady and Ralphie, she sighed.

There was her problem right there. She was

starving. Hot and starving.

Once inside the stifling office, B.J. moved

immediately to the water cooler and poured herself a drink. She went and stood in front of the single oscillating fan as she guzzled. When only a swallow was left, she upended the rest of the cup over her head and delighted in the cool wetness trickling down her face and neck.

“Ahh.” She sighed, closing her eyes and

spreading her arms wide until the hot air from the fan lifted the back of her shirt and dried her sweaty skin. “Much better.”

Crumbling the paper cup, she tossed it in the trash and started for the phone. After looking up the number, she dialed Nan’s house.

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The Trouble with Tomboys

“You got a lot of nerve calling me,” Nan Lundy answered the phone three rings later.

At the sound of the woman’s righteous

indignation, B.J. sighed. Yep, she had her work cut out for her here. “Nan, listen—”

“No, you listen to me, hussy. I don’t care how much you want my Ralphie—”

“Oh, please. I don’t want—”

“You can’t have him, y’hear? That’s
my
man, so keep your damn paws off.”

“
Your
man?” B.J. snorted. “I thought you said he was boring?”

“I… I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Well, now, maybe you did,” B.J. said, changing her tune. Nan wasn’t going to listen to a word she said unless she played her cards right. So B.J. held her breath and said, “If you don’t appreciate
your
man the way you should, I just might snag him when you’re not looking.”

Even as she spoke, she wrinkled her nose at the very idea.

Nan gasped. “Why, you dirty little—”

“I think I can show Smardo a real good time,”

B.J. went on, cringing at the lie and trying not to gag before continuing. “He did just fine a few years ago when we went swimming in Eden’s Watering Hole.

So, I guess I wouldn’t much mind hooking up with him again.”

“In your dreams, Gilmore.”

“If you keep telling him it’s over between the two of you, it might just be in my reality.” Her 81

Linda Kage

stomach gave a lurch of pure revulsion, and she swallowed back rising bile.

“It’s…it’s not over between Ralphie and me.”

Nan sounded desperate. Worried. “What’re you talking about? What did he tell you?”

B.J. grinned, but managed to sound spiteful

when she answered, “He said you wouldn’t talk to him. Said you think he’s cheating on you, and you have no faith in him.”

“I never said—”

“So, the way I see it, he’s fair game.”

“He is
not
!” Nan fairly screamed. “You stay away from him. He’s mine.”

“Then claim him as yours and quit giving him the silent treatment, or I will steal him, Lundy. You just watch me.”

When Nan slammed the phone in her ear, B.J.

smiled.

“Score!” she called and fisted a hand to pump the air with it. “That ought to do the trick.” Satisfied with the way she’d handled the call, she brushed her palms against her thighs.