Where You Least Expect It (4 page)

She stood, dumbstruck, in the middle of the kitchen, watching through the open doorway as Mavis stuffed the sheets into a large old oil barrel that had been cleaned and filled with water. Wood burned underneath.

She closed her eyes, wondering if she was still dreaming.

No, not dreaming. This would definitely fall solidly into nightmare territory.

She opened her eyes again, but unfortunately everything was as it had been when she closed them.

She looked at the wristwatch still in her hand. She didn’t have time for this. She really didn’t.

“Gram, you…” she began, standing in the open doorway.

Mavis looked at her as if she were pulling weeds in the garden rather than destroying her bed linens.

“Oh, just forget it. I’ve got to get to the shop.” She slowly pointed her finger at the older woman, then back at herself. “You and me, we’re going to have a little talk later.”

She turned on her heel and headed back to her bedroom, only to come to a halt at the door. She eyed the piece of wood, relieved to find the hinges were accessible only from the inside. She backtracked to the kitchen, rummaged through the junk drawer for the five or so skeleton keys fastened by a twist tie, then went back to her bedroom and tried each key until she found the one that worked on her door. She wasn’t taking any chances. She was going to lock her bedroom lest she come home later and find Mavis had gotten rid of everything that was hers.

“Let her do what she wants to her own stuff,” she muttered, checking to make sure her window screen was secure, then slamming and locking the window itself, “but she had better not touch mine.”

She turned around and nearly tripped over Max.

“Out!” she yelled.

To her surprise, Max tilted his head, gave a little whine, then turned and left the room, his nails click-clicking against the floor.

Penelope drew a deep breath. If only bringing her grandmother back to reality were so easy….

T
hat evening at seven, Aidan called the Fourth of July committee meeting to order with a simple holding up of his hand and a clearing of his throat. Seeing as he was the only male in the group, that was about all it usually took. The fifteen women who weren’t already seated took their seats inside St. Joseph’s gymnasium. Aidan stared down at his notes, giving the others a few moments to settle.

But it wasn’t his notes he was thinking about. Rather, he was considering the suitcase that sat packed in his room, the bus schedule in his pocket, and what his life would be like when he left later that night.

That morning he’d decided to tie up some loose ends before he left. At school he’d left his teaching schedule, grading book and other pertinent information on top of his desk so a substitute teacher could easily pick up where he had left off. And if his fifteen summer school students thought his behavior a little odd as he pulled each of them aside to talk to them about their futures, well, they were at the age when they thought the world at large was strange.

He’d written a long note to Mrs. O’Malley, thanking her for her generosity, complimenting her on her impressive culinary skills, and including a passport application and a handful of banknotes for her to take that trip to Ireland she always talked about.

“Is someone in charge of this meeting or not?” Elva Mollenkopf muttered from where she sat at the opposite end of the table.

Aidan blinked and glanced at her.

“Mr. Kendall?” Mrs. Noonan asked from where she sat at his left. “Is everything all right?”

He managed a smile in the direction of the head of the Old Orchard Women’s Club. “Fine. Everything’s fine.” A lie, to be sure. Because he doubted anything ever would be fine in his life again.

“Now, the first order of business is the pink crepe paper that Jeanine has left over from the Valentine’s Day Dance….”

And off they went. The heated debate that had essentially taken up the bulk of time allotted for their meeting two nights ago once again threatened to monopolize the meeting. That was the whole reason they’d had to meet twice in one week, because they’d been unable to accomplish half of what needed to be done at the previous meeting. And Aidan intended to at least make some progress before he left tonight.

He held up his hand again. “I say it’s time we vote.”

All eyes turned toward him. Usually there was no reason for an official vote. In his experience over the past year, the members of the five or so groups on which he’d sat usually reached agreement. Just another reminder that things were not proceeding as normal in any aspect of his life just now.

He stoically held all of their gazes. “All in favor of going with the pink crepe paper, raise their hands.”

Jeanine’s hand immediately went up, followed more hesitantly by her best friend Kathy’s. Then six more.

Aidan made a note. “Okay, now, all against the pink color then and in favor of red, white and blue crepe paper…”

All the remaining hands shot up before he could finish the question.

“I vote against,” he said, then rubbed his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids. Dead even vote for and against.

Great.

The door on the opposite side of the gym opened, letting in a shaft of late-evening sunlight and making the person who was entering all but impossible to see. Then the metal door clanked shut.

All discussion immediately stopped as everyone turned toward the new arrival.

Penelope.

Aidan’s throat tightened as he looked at the woman who had paralyzed his thoughts for the better part of last night and today. She wore a simple powder-blue cotton dress and sandals, her hair pulled back into a long braid.

“What’s
she
doing here?” he heard Elva mutter.

Aidan stilled the woman with a glance. “I invited her.”

But he hadn’t had any idea that she would take him up on it.

He pushed himself from his chair when it looked as if Penelope was having second thoughts and about to turn for the door. “Miss Moon, welcome. I’m glad you could make it.”

Penelope stood on the polished floor of the basketball court, wondering what in the world she was doing here. She hadn’t been inside a school since her own awful memories of high school, and standing here as she was, everyone’s eyes on her, made her remember those days all too clearly.

She hadn’t even realized that this was where she was heading, until the door had closed behind her and she’d found herself staring at the small gathering across the gym. One minute she’d been at home wrapping up the dinner Mavis had refused to eat, her head pounding from where her grandmother had moved from the dining room into the living room with her hammer, the next she had been tying Max up outside the school.

Aidan stepped across the court to take her arm. The instant his hand made contact with her elbow, the world seemed to shift. She looked into his grinning face and knew exactly what she was doing here. She’d wanted to see him again. Needed to see him again. If only to verify that what had passed between them last night had, indeed, passed between them.

“Why don’t you come have a seat?” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Then he leaned closer and whispered, “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

She followed him to the table, and she began to move toward the only available chair, next to Elva.

But Aidan said, “Here, let me get a chair for you.”

He grabbed a metal folding one from a stack and opened it for her, placing it right next to where he’d been sitting.

“Thank you,” she said, clearing her throat and gazing into the curious faces of the other women present.

“Everyone, you know Penelope Moon, don’t you? I asked her to join us to give the group a fresh perspective.”

More like offer up fresh blood for the kill, Penelope thought, scanning the faces of the women and Elva’s puckered puss.

“What was that, Elva?” Aidan asked.

“I said, there’s nothing wrong with the current perspective.”

Aidan’s smile never wavered, Penelope noticed, wondering how he did it. How could he tolerate the intolerable woman when she seemed so bent on making everyone’s life miserable?

Another woman shifted to Elva’s right. “So, let’s hear what Miss Moon—”

“Penelope, please,” she said.

“Fine. Let’s hear what Penelope has in mind for the Fourth of July celebration that none of us has already thought of.”

“Jeanine,” Aidan said in a low voice.

Penelope reached out and lightly touched his arm. “No, that’s all right.” Her palm tingled from where it made contact with the springy hair on his forearm. She withdrew it and laid it with the other in her lap. “Actually, I was considering fashioning Lucas Circle after
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
”

Silence met her suggestion.

Aidan appeared surprised.

“Oh, Shakespeare,” Mrs. Noonan said, clapping her hands together, the first to break the silence. “I adore Shakespeare.”

Penelope looked at Aidan, who was grinning at her.

“I adore Shakespeare, too,” he murmured, making her feel as if they were alone. And making her feel that he wasn’t really talking about the playwright, but her.

He cleared his throat. “Okay, then. I take it everyone is in agreement in welcoming Penelope to our group?”

Everyone but Elva appeared to agree, but Penelope quickly reached out to stop Aidan. Her intention had never been to join. She’d thought for Aidan’s sake that she would stop by for this one meeting, not participate on the planning committee.

“Penelope?” Aidan asked. “Is there something you wanted to say?”

She dropped her gaze and her hand at the same time. Then she lifted her head and smiled.

“No. Well, aside from…thank you. I look forward to working with all of you.”

Two hours later the sun was setting behind the low buildings of downtown Old Orchard and the meeting had just broken up. Aidan held the door open for Mrs. Noonan and Penelope, the last two to exit the gym. He locked the doors after them, the simple action catching him off guard as he realized it would be his last time doing it. He solemnly pocketed the keys. As soon as he returned to the bed-and-breakfast he would put the keys into an addressed envelope to the school principal, along with his letter of resignation and apology.

“Aidan?” Penelope’s soft voice reached out to him from where she had freed Max from the steel bike rack and stood holding his leash. “Is everything all right?”

It was all too easy to fall into the darkness of her eyes, disappear there and forget the world existed. If he needed any evidence of this, he had only to think of the past two hours. From the moment she entered that gym he’d forgotten what lay ahead of him. And thought only of what he would be leaving behind.

Mrs. Noonan took a deep breath. “Well, I guess I’ll be running along now.” She stepped down the walk, her purse hanging from the crook of her elbow, her arm raised. “Good meeting, Aidan. I’ll see you next week for the final one.”

He found he couldn’t meet her gaze. “Good night, Mrs. N.”

She laughed quietly. “Mrs. N. Nobody’s called me that in eons,” she said absently to herself as she steadily walked away.

He stood there for a moment looking after her, all too aware that Penelope was next to him, waiting for an answer to her question.

“Shall I walk you home?” he asked.

Her smile, while small and self-conscious, lit up her entire face.

“That’s far too much to ask.” She tugged on Max’s leash when he tried to move away. “But I wouldn’t mind your keeping me company part of the way.”

He easily took her arm in his, but there was nothing easy about his immediate reaction to her skin rubbing against his. He didn’t think he’d ever felt skin so soft. The light scent of lavender teased his senses, making him want to bury his nose in her long, silky dark hair.

They walked in silence for a while, watching as the sky darkened from a light blue to a pregnant purple.

“This reminds me of summers in Rhode Island.”

He felt her gaze on his profile. In twelve months he’d never given away his true origins. Until now.

“I thought you were from Oregon,” she said softly.

He nodded. “I was raised in Oregon,” he lied, hating himself as he did so.

She smiled, her body brushing against his as she leaned slightly closer. “I’ve never been more than fifty miles outside Old Orchard. Tell me what Rhode Island is like.”

Rhode Island. Not Oregon. “Not much to tell, really. Inland, it is a lot like this.” He gestured to the neat tree-lined street around them. “Except for the smell of the sea.” Always the pungent smell of the sea.

She took a deep breath. “I bet it’s beautiful in the fall.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, but his gaze was glued to her face.

Max barked, then rushed out in front of them, pulling the lead and, by extension, Penelope’s hand, jerking her from Aidan’s half embrace.

“Max!” she scolded in a hushed tone.

Aidan spotted the cat sitting on the sidewalk some twenty feet in front of them. “He spotted Spot.”

Penelope regained control of the overgrown dog, and her smile seemed to reach inside and wrap itself around his heart.

Aidan grinned back. “That sounded odd, didn’t it.”

“No.”

She walked easily beside him, but neither made a move to link arms again. Aidan shoved his hands into the pockets of his Dockers to prevent himself from unconsciously reaching out for her.

“So, you’ve never been outside Old Orchard?”

She shook her head. “No. Well, not far, anyway. I think everyone here has been up to Toledo for some matter or another.”

He squinted at her in the growing darkness as the streetlights switched on. “I can’t imagine.”

“Have you been to a lot of places?” she asked.

“More than I can count.”

“Tell me about them.”

He tore his gaze from her face and stared at the sidewalk in front of them. They passed Spot with little fanfare. Max sniffed at the fearless feline, but was held at a safe distance with a firm hand by Penelope. They moved farther down the street, then Aidan turned. Was it him, or was the firehouse cat following them?

“You know, they say Spot is psychic.”

Aidan stared at Penelope.

“It’s true. For as long as the town’s been around, there’s been a Spot that’s hung around the firehouse—”

She leaned in closer, and he caught another whiff of her subtle scent.

“Some believe it’s the same cat.”

Aidan chuckled. “You don’t buy into it, do you?”

She shrugged. “I’m not as interested in that as I am the rumors that surround her.”

“What, that he’s drawn to those in need, then disappears when the trouble passes?”

She didn’t respond immediately. Aidan turned his head to find her watching him in silent contemplation.

He thought about what he’d just said. And about Spot’s presence, both in her shop the morning before and now.

He cleared his throat. “So, who do you think is the one in need?”

They walked for a ways before she said, “There’s a mystery about you, Aidan. The whole town talks about it.”

He swallowed hard.

“Well, maybe not the whole town. But Elva certainly lets her thoughts be known that you’re an outsider and that you don’t share much about yourself.”

Funny, then, that he’d shared more about himself in the past ten minutes with her than he had with everyone else put together.

“What would you like to know?” he said, tensing before he finished the sentence.

“Have you ever been married?”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to ask, but it wasn’t that.

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened slightly as the two of them slowed to allow Max to drink from a small puddle caused by the caretaker hosing down the sidewalk in front of the church.

“What happened?”

He glanced down, his hands forming fists in his pockets. “I lost her nearly a year and a half ago.”

“I’m…I’m sorry.”

Such simple words. Really the only response when someone shared news of that nature. But the meaning behind hers touched him.