Say It Again Sam Page 3

  “Okay. I’ll swing by, take a look around, and talk to Lorna.”

  “No, don’t do that, Sam,” Blanche said. “She’s too embarrassed.”

  “About losing a pie?”

  “Not that. But something else went missing at the same time.”

  “What?”

  “The brassiere that was drying on the line in the backyard.”

  He almost laughed. First a flag, then an apple pie and a bra. Their mysterious thief seemed to be a starving, patriotic cross-dresser.

  “Poor Lorna’s mortified,” Blanche said. “You’ve seen her, Sam. She’s… well… she’s…”

  “Well endowed,” Sam suggested, glimpsing a brief and top-heavy mental image of the victim.

  With a sigh, Blanche seemed to concur. “Just go over there and take a look around outside. Maybe there are footprints or something.”

  Sam doubted that since it hadn’t rained for at least two weeks, but he agreed to snoop around anyway, for all the good a footprint would do. What then? Call the Mecklin County cops to cast the print of a hot pie and huge bra thief? They’d laugh him out of the county.

  “Oh, and Sam?” Blanche said. “I guess you heard about Beth Simon coming back.”

  “Yep.”

  “Wonder how long she plans to stay out there at the lake?”

  “Dunno.”

  He was sounding like Gary Cooper again, he thought. Grim and clipped. Yep. Nope. Dunno. He and Beth weren’t anybody’s business but their own. But he knew damn well that was wishful thinking in a town like Shelbyville, where everyone’s personal business was grist for the local mill. With the exception of his service with Delta Force, everyone in town knew pretty much everything about him. Hell, for all he knew, his secretive Army career was common knowledge, too.

  “I’m on my way to Loma’s, I should be there in five minutes,” he said, then quickly ended the call before Blanche could say anything else.

  Sam sat there a few minutes, staring at the spot on the shoulder of the road where the red Miata had been, thinking about Beth instead of business, wishing she hadn’t come back, wondering why she’d invited him to dinner and why he’d accepted the invitation and what sort of trouble tonight would bring.

  As for the trouble in town, Sam didn’t have a clue, and it occurred to him, as it often did, that he didn’t know how to do this job.

  He knew how to break into and hot-wire any vehicle—from a Beetle to a Bentley—with the aid of three simple tools.

  He knew the interior configuration of every aircraft from a DC-3 to a 777.

  He knew how to breach any door, using anything from a lockpick to C-4, and how to storm the room behind it, taking out the bad guys while leaving the good guys unharmed.

  He knew how to lie in the woods, in the mountains, in the desert, anywhere, behind a sniper scope for forty-eight hours or more, without moving, without company, without food, without losing his sanity or his cool.

  He knew at least a hundred ways to kill another human being and a thousand ways to keep from being killed.

  But, other than catching the son of a bitch red-handed, he didn’t know how to apprehend the pie snateher.

  And, other than leaving town this minute, he didn’t have a clue how to defend his heart from a certain blue-eyed blonde.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Beth pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, then sat there a while, trying to forget everything but the wonderful fact that she was back at Heart Lake and it couldn’t have been more aptly named, for her heart indeed belonged here.

  God, it was good to be home.

  She lowered all the Miata’s windows to let the cool breeze from the lake blow through the car. Leaning her head back, with her eyes closed, she inhaled deeply of evergreen and eternal June.

  She didn’t need to look at the house to see it. The three-story Victorian Italianate structure sat proudly on the crest of the sloping lawn against a backdrop of shimmering aspens and soft white pines. Her great-great-grandfather, Orvis Shelby, Sr., had built the mansion in the 1870s with the staggering profits from his lumber business. Both the house and the fortune had been handed down through the generations, but by the time they reached Beth’s mother, the fortune was long gone and only the house remained, the latter in a sorry state of disrepair, like Queen Victoria in tatters.

  Although her mother had migrated south to Chicago after she married Harry Simon, she brought her girls, Shelby and Beth, back to the old house in Michigan every summer.

  Of everyone in her family, it was Beth who truly loved the house at Heart Lake, who appreciated it not just for its history or its inhabitants but for its architectural beauty. As far back as she could remember, she’d been fascinated by every nook and cranny, every curve and knob, every seam and finely fitted joint.

  Given her love of architecture, it had always struck her family as odd that she hadn’t chosen it as a profession. But it wasn’t architecture per se that had captured Beth’s interest, but Victorian architecture. The buildings she adored hadn’t even been built in the past century. Thanks to Frank Lloyd Wright and others, the world had gone all sleek and modern, leaving the lovely grandes dames of the Victorian age to chip and peel and molder. Anyway, architecture was out as a career because her math skills were… Dismal was a polite, if not quite generous, description.

  So, instead of becoming a designer of homes, Beth had become a savior of homes. A renovator, A revivalist. That was her favorite job description even though it made people think she roamed from town to town, preaching in tents.

  After college, she’d worked with several interior designers in Chicago, but opportunities to use her expertise on a large scale were few and far between. Then, three years ago, her parents had given Beth the chance of a lifetime by turning the house at Heart Lake over to her for a total, rugs-to-rafters renovation, after which they would let Beth operate it as a bed-and-breakfast.

  Before even lifting a paintbrush, she’d spent several months doing research on the history of the place, rum- maging through local libraries and scouring every archival source.

  Mostly she patiently paged through the dozens of family photo albums and boxes of correspondence stored in the attic. The oldest photograph she was able to locate was taken sometime in the 1880s and showed clearly that the house had been painted in a multitude of colors, as was the custom in those years. Unfortunately, the sepia tones of the picture didn’t give her a clue what those colors had been before her great-grandparents slapped a coat of white paint on every exterior surface.

  In the end, Beth had painted the house to suit her very own Victorian sensibilities. She chose a pale Confederate gray with accents of midnight blue, rich burgundy, a deep ocher, and just a smidgen of gold. She’d paid equal attention to each detail of the interior. In fact, she’d done such a bang-up job that once her parents saw the results, they had reneged on their deal, deciding to live there year-round, obliterating Beth’s plans for a bed-and-breakfast.

  As much as Linda and Harry Simon had loved the house, though, it became impossible to run Linda’s increasingly successful designer knitwear business from rural Michigan. So six months ago, they’d moved back to Chicago and once more given their younger daughter carte blanche with the property. The bed-and-breakfast deal was back on.

  She opened her eyes to view the house and its wonderful colors and was gratified to see that they’d withstood three Michigan winters. The place looked great.

  Plucking her keys from the ignition, Beth jumped out of the car and raced up the hill. She bounded up the stairs of the wraparound front porch, then, before putting her key in the lock, she kissed the front door with a loud Mwah.

  The door creaked open several inches.

  Whoa.

  Beth took two steps backward. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

  Images from every scary movie she’d ever seen tumbled through her brain. That hadn’t been just any old door noise. It had been a Wes Craven creak. An Alfred Freaking Hitchcock creak, Nerve-jolting and scary as hell. If this were a movie, it was her cue, wasn’t it, to step across the threshold on wobbly legs, to blink in the dark interior, and to call out in a shaky voice Is anybody there?

  Fat chance.

  With her intuition screaming that something was really, really wrong, she leapt off the porch, ran down the lawn to her car, closed all the windows, and locked the doors. Convinced that an intruder was in the house, she grabbed her cell phone and started to punch 911, but then remembered that emergency calls went to the county sheriff in Mecklin, a good ten miles away. So instead she called Blanche at the Shelbyville Town Hall, whose number she knew by heart after dozens of permit calls during the renovation. With any luck, somebody would be hanging around who might be able to zip out to the lake and help her check out the house. Preferably with a gun or a baseball bat.

  The calmness of her own voice surprised her when she said, “Blanche, it’s Beth Simon. I’m at the house on Heart Lake, and I think there’s an intruder inside.”

  The town clerk responded instantly. “Okay, honey. Listen. You just sit tight now. I’ll call Sam.”

  Beth—so impressed by her own levelheadedness under frightening circumstances—lost it.

  “No! Don’t call Sam!”

  Why would Blanche call Sam? What did Sam have to do with this? Or anything? He was the last person she wanted to see right now, for heaven’s sake.

  “Well, Beth, if you’ve got a problem out there, Sam’s…”

  “Not Sam,” she insisted. “Isn’t there somebody hanging around your office? Maybe Coach Tillman? Doesn’t he come by for coffee every day? What about Bob Drew? Or that guy at the Gas Mart? The muscle-bound one? With the Mohawk? What’s his name? Nate? Tate?”

  “I’m callin
g Sam,” the woman said in a kind of take-no-prisoners tone. “He’s the constable.”

  “Oh, don’t,” Beth moaned.

  When there was no reply, she had the distinct feeling that she’d been put on hold if not actually hung up on.

  “Blanche?”

  The line was as good as dead. Beth tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. Dammit. She wished she’d never called for help. She wished she’d just walked into the house and gotten clunked on the head, or raced to her car and driven right back to San Francisco. She wished…

  Wait a minute! Sam was the constable?

  It suddenly dawned on her that this morning, when he’d pursued her along Eighteen Mile Road, it had actually been for speeding. It wasn’t personal. It had nothing to do with their past. He’d pursued her not because of a broken promise or a broken heart but because she was breaking the law. He was a cop, and she was a criminal. End of story.

  Except, of course, it wasn’t the end of the story because she’d invited Sam to dinner. In his capacity as town constable, he probably figured she was trying to bribe him.

  “Beth Simon, you are such a jerk,” she muttered, directing a glare into the rearview mirror. “Now what are you going to do? Huh?”

  Lacking an answer, she stared at the front door of the house. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not, but the door appeared to be open wider. In order to get a better view, she opened her window a few inches, sat up straighter, and squinted.

  It was open farther than she’d left it earlier. She was absolutely certain. And even as she watched, the door appeared to open even farther. Beth’s heart catapulted into her throat.

  Okay. Maybe she should call Blanche back. Maybe she wouldn’t mind so much right now if Constable Sam came to her rescue.

  Help!

  She was turning the key in the ignition, intending to back out of the driveway at about seventy miles per hour, when she saw a female backside emerge from the doorway. Above that rounded, jeans-clad backside hung a long, fat, honey-colored braid. The person’s identity registered in an instant. It wasn’t some strange intruder. It was her old friend, Kimmy Mortenson.

  Beth breathed a long, shaky sigh of relief while she turned off the engine, then once again got out of her car, happy to be home.

  Kimmy waved as she came down the front porch steps. “Beth,” she called. “Hey. I didn’t expect you until tomorrow. Your mother had me come in to get the house dusted and spiffed up for you.”

  “You’re looking great, Kimmy.”

  “I’m, feeling pretty good. A whole lot better than the last time I saw you.”

  As Beth well knew, that had been last year at Shelbyville’s annual Halloween bash, when Kimmy had been poisoned by a cup of punch intended for Shelby. Poor Kimmy had nearly died that hellish night. Thank God they’d gotten her to the hospital in time to keep her alive.

  Reaching out, Beth gently touched the woman’s arm. “I’m so glad you’re better.”

  “Me, too. My hands still shake a little. I get headaches once in a while, and my memory’s not as good as it should be, but—hey!—I’m alive. No complaints. It sure beats the alternative.” Kimmy gave a little laugh, accompanied by a shrug. “Anyway, your mother’s been paying me to come in and clean twice a week, and just generally to keep an eye on the place.”

  “I know. She told me.” Beth now told herself that she should’ve remembered that fact earlier when the door creaked. She wasn’t usually spooked so easily.

  “So, you’re back to stay, Beth?”

  She looked up the lawn to the house. It seemed she loved it more with every glance if that was possible. How could she even consider leaving? she wondered. The truth was—she couldn’t consider it.

  “I’m back to stay,” she said firmly.

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the roar of a car engine could be heard not too far away, and mere seconds later, Sam’s rusty jeep came clattering and careening into the driveway. The vehicle had barely come to a halt before he sprang out of it.

  Beth flicked a quick glance toward Kimmy. Oh, Lord. Only a person blind from birth couldn’t have recognized that the sudden flush on the woman’s cheeks and the smile on her face betrayed more than friendly feelings for the man who was just then walking toward them.

  As for Sam, his feelings were inscrutable, and Beth was

  disgusted with herself for even trying to discern them. What did she care how Sam felt about Kimmy, or vice versa? It didn’t matter a bit to her.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing, Sam,” Kimmy said, looking surprised by his question. “Why?”

  Sam shifted his gaze to Beth. “Blanche said you called about an intruder.”

  She nodded, feeling really foolish now. “I did,” she said, “but it turned out to be Kimmy. I guess I should’ve called Blanche back.”

  His expression, inscrutable as it was, seemed to relax considerably, “Okay, Well, that’s good.”

  Kimmy’s eyes widened as she stared at Beth. “You thought I was somebody breaking into the house? A burglar?”

  “Well…”

  It was one thing to feel stupid, Beth thought, and quite another thing to feel both stupid and skittish, like an embarrassing combination of the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. She quickly changed the subject.

  “So,” she said as gaily as she could, “what’s new since I’ve been gone?”

  “Not all that much,” Kimmy replied. “Sam’s our new constable, but I guess you already know that.”

  Beth nodded and finally made eye contact with Sam. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.”

  That one softly spoken word, uttered without sarcasm or embarrassment, suddenly made Beth realize how much the two of them had changed in the past decade and a half. The Sam she remembered—the nineteen-year-old boy— would’ve rolled his eyes and made some sort of silly, self-deprecating remark comparable to Aw, shucks. But this Sam was a man, one full of quiet confidence, obvious humility, and something that Beth could only describe as an aura of bone-deep pride. It nearly took her breath away, and she could barely speak.

  “Well…” Well what, idiot? Get a grip, will you? “I guess I better start getting settled in.”

  She walked to the back of the ear and opened the trunk, where most of her worldly possessions were crammed.

  “Here. Let me help,” Kimmy said.

  “That’s okay,” Beth answered, “You don’t…”

  Sam didn’t bother volunteering. He simply grabbed two heavy suitcases from the trunk and started walking up the hill.

  And so it went for the next twenty minutes, with Kimmy babbling about how good it was that Beth was home and Sam doggedly emptying the Miata of everything that wasn’t nailed down.

  When they were finished, he offered to drive the blushing Kimmy home, and it was only when Beth stood on the front porch and watched Sam’s jeep back out of the driveway that she realized she was feeling a weird blend of disappointment and relief, and that somewhere lurking beneath those emotions was pure green jealousy. How many times had she backed out of that driveway with Sam during their years together? Hundreds of times? Thousands?

  She told herself that what she was feeling was simply a knee-jerk reaction to seeing her old flame with somebody else. It was perfectly normal to experience a certain twinge of envy, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it?

  Briefly, she fingered the cell phone in her pocket, sorely tempted to call her sister, Shelby, for some much-needed advice. But then she decided that was a terrible idea. Just the worst. After all, if it weren’t for the wisdom of Ms. Shelby Simon, Beth and Sam would be celebrating their sixteenth wedding anniversary this year.

  Sam was negotiating the narrow, winding road that led from the Simon place to the blacktop, and his passenger was being far too quiet. He’d known Kimmy Mortenson since kindergarten, so he knew her uncharacteristic silence could only mean one thing. The woman was busting to talk. She was sitting there, bubbling inside like a little cauldron. Sooner than later, she’d boil over.

  If he drove fast enough to her trailer on the west side of Heart Lake, if he really floored the jeep’s bare metal accelerator, maybe he’d be able to avoid the inevitable commentary and speculation.

  But when they emerged from the woods to turn right on Eighteen Mile Road, Kimmy could no longer contain herself.