Asking For Trouble

Brad’s comment gave her pause. She sensed a change in his demeanor from last night. He seemed a tad more reserved, not quite as friendly. Or maybe it was just her imagination, which had been in overdrive lately. And after Stacy’s cruel comments, she was admittedly feeling a bit sensitive about things.

“My aunts can be quite talkative when they put their minds to it. Can’t you, dears?”

The two women burst into giggles, then stood. “We’ll leave you to entertain Dr. Donovan, dear,” Ivy stated, casting her sister a meaningful look.

“Iris is anxious to try another incantation. She’s trying to raise the dead,” the older woman explained to Brad, who nearly tipped his rocker backward into the front window but caught himself just in time.

Feeling her cheeks warm, Beth told her aunts, “You’d better go upstairs and rest. It wouldn’t be good to overtire yourselves.” She smiled apologetically at the handsome doctor, wondering what he must be thinking.

Her aunts sounded like a couple of nuts.

They are a couple of nuts!

She had no sooner formed that thought when out of the corner of her eye she spotted Buster dragging a large bone onto the front lawn. “Holy hell!” She covered her mouth when she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud and glanced at Brad to see that he had heard her.

Damn! She was really having a bad day…make that year.

“I beg your pardon,” Brad said, staring at her strangely.

“Nothing. I’ve…I’ve got to see about my dog. He’s gotten into…something…the garbage…yes…the garbage. Buster, shame on you!” The cellar doors were warped and didn’t always shut properly. What if Buster had gotten back in?

Good grief! What if Stacy had seen Buster dig up the bones? What if she told her father about them?

Vaulting over the porch railing effortlessly, as if she’d been doing it most of her life—which, of course, she had—Beth rushed toward the dog, knowing something had to be done about the bones buried in the cellar. Right now! Before Dr. Bradley Donovan insisted on having them all committed to the hospital for the—criminally?—insane.

CHAPTER FIVE

BRAD HAD BEEN THINKING about Beth all day. Though her strange behavior that morning had given him pause, he knew his obsession was much more than that.

He was attracted to her—to her crooked smile, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the way her butt looked so damned appealing in a pair of tight jeans. He was attracted and that confused the hell out of him—his father’s disappearance and her possible involvement in it, notwithstanding.

They really had very little in common. She was his total opposite, in every way imaginable. She seemed to live for the moment, while he planned everything out to the last detail. He’d already purchased the funeral plot next to Carol’s and had begun saving for Stacy’s college education. He was a stickler about his clothes; she seemed indifferent to what she was wearing. She always looked nice, just not coordinated.

So what did he find so compelling about her?

Beth was passionate about what she loved—the inn, her aunts and her desire to make something of herself. And he admired that about her, made him wonder if she’d be just as passionate with him in bed. He thought so. There was a lot of untapped desire in Beth; he could feel it.

She wasn’t afraid of hard work. He’d seen her up at dawn, helping out in the kitchen or readying guest rooms when the hired help needed assistance. And she was kind. The times he’d seen her interact with Stacy she’d shown patience and caring, even when his daughter didn’t respond in kind.

The back screen door banged, and he glanced over to find Beth hauling bags out to the garbage cans.

“Need some help?” he asked as he approached.

She gasped loudly and clasped her throat. “You startled me. You shouldn’t sneak up on someone like that. I could have had a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought you could use some help.” He nodded at the plastic garbage bags and shook his head. “Shouldn’t you use some ties at the ends? You’re going to spill whatever’s in there into your cans. It’ll make a disgusting mess.” He couldn’t hide his abhorrence, which made her smile.

“I let the garbageman worry about that. What are you, the garbage police? And what are you doing out here? It’s cold, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I was going to walk down to the pond before turning in. Care to join me?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. I—”

“Come on,” he urged, taking her hand. “Looks like you could use a break. You work too hard.”

Her hand fit perfectly in his and he squeezed it. She didn’t object and followed his lead. “There’s no one else to do the work, if I don’t,” she explained. “There are some days I wonder why I bit off so much, then others when the very idea of owning this place energizes me and makes me happy.”

“I feel the same way about my practice. It’s tiring as hell sometimes, but yet so rewarding.”

“I can’t even imagine what it must be like to save someone’s life.”

He smiled and pulled her down beside him onto a fallen log. “It’s like no other feeling in the world. And it makes all the years of study and hard work worth it.”

“I know what you mean. This place is everything to me. I never thought I could do it. My self-esteem was pretty much shot after my marriage ended. And I’m not really sure I had much to begin with.”

“You don’t seem insecure at all.”

“My mother was very strong-willed and made me feel as if I could never do anything right. I met Greg Randall in college, and his attention bolstered my flagging ego, so when he finally asked me to marry him, I jumped at the chance to defy Mother and get out from under her thumb.”

He nodded. “I take it things didn’t work out the way you expected.”

She sighed. “Marrying Greg didn’t solve any of my problems. If anything, it made them worse. Rather than stepping out from behind my mother’s shadow, I was swallowed up by my husband’s lifestyle and overbearing personality.

“When his infidelities surfaced, my insecurities and self-doubts magnified. And it took years for me to realize that I had married Greg for all the wrong reasons and that I wasn’t as stupid and worthless as I’d been led to believe.

“For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m succeeding, doing something important with my life. I’m not an extension of anyone else, but my own person, and I like the person I’ve become.”

“I like the person you’ve become, too, Beth.” He wrapped his arm about her and this time she didn’t pull away. “Thanks for sharing your story with me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me go on like that. Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.”

“Or maybe you just needed someone to talk to. I’ve found myself in that same boat many times.”

Beth turned in his embrace and looked up at him. There was yearning in her eyes, but also fear. He wanted to kiss her, to take her burdens away, but he knew she would never allow any man to do that. She was proud, and he was still confused, more now than ever.

PHINNEAS PICKENS HAD BEEN the loan officer for Mediocrity’s only bank for over twenty years and was a well-respected member of the community.

He was meticulous, almost persnickety about his dress, and it was his habit to wear three-piece suits to work. In the front pocket of his vest he carried a gold watch with a long gold chain that had once belonged to his grandfather. It was his habit to check that watch every fifteen minutes to make certain he remained on schedule.

Punctuality was a virtue. Phinneas’s mother had impressed that upon him at the tender age of six when he’d arrived home late for dinner one evening and had his backside thrashed as a result. He’d never been late again.

The banker had many routines, and he followed them without exception, almost religiously, in fact. On that sunny afternoon he found himself dining at Emma’s Café on Main Street, where it was his habit to eat lunch five out of seven days a week without fail.

Tuesday was meat loaf day and Phinneas loved Emma’s meat loaf. In fact, he loved everything Emma Harris cooked. His wife’s cooking left a lot to be desired, and that was putting it mildly. Finnola couldn’t boil water without burning it. He loved his wife, but he hated her cooking.

Across the table from the loan officer sat Seth Murdock, the town’s sheriff and one of Phinneas’s closest friends. He was a tall man, almost six foot three inches, with an appetite for food that equaled his passion for fishing. His uniforms were specially made for him by Mrs. Murdock to accommodate his large girth, which increased on a weekly basis, due to his fondness for beer and beer nuts.

“Had to inspect the old Swindel house yesterday,” Phinneas informed the sheriff between bites of mashed potato, savoring the lumpless creation beneath his tongue and sighing in appreciation. Finnola’s potatoes had lumps the size of small boulders. “Beth’s applied for a loan to finish up the repairs on the inn. She’s got her work cut out for her, that’s for certain.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Throwing away good money after bad, if you ask me. Never could abide those two old gals. My daddy never trusted them, and I don’t either.” He forked a Brussels sprout and continued, “If you ask me, they did away with Iris’s fiancé all those years ago. The man just up and disappeared, and I’d bet money the old witch and her sister did him in. They probably boiled him in oil and cast some spell on the poor guy. Daddy was sure of it, but he didn’t have any evidence that could prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe one day I will.”

Phinneas nodded. “I feel uncomfortable around those two, and that’s a fact. Why, just the other day I saw Ivy Swindel at the bank. I did my best to avoid her, but, of course, that’s like trying to avoid getting wet when it rains. That woman is always flapping her jaw about my schooldays, saying what a terrible student I was. It’s very annoying, not to mention totally untrue. I was an excellent student.” His indignant expression softened when he added, “But I don’t hold anything against their niece. Beth’s a good woman and has worked hard to make something of herself, after that miserable episode with Coach Randall.” He shook his head. “Such a shame. The man was a fool.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but I’ve always subscribed to the adage, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’d bet money that Beth knows more than she’s saying. After all, she’s lived with those two old hags for years.”

“But how could she? Beth wasn’t even alive when Lyle McMurtry disappeared.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t know. I just feel it in my gut.” He patted his protruding belly. “Damn good meat loaf.”

At the next table, Brad sat quietly eating his turkey sandwich. He had dropped Stacy off at the movie theater an hour ago to catch a matinee and had come into the café to grab a bite to eat, though the food at the café wasn’t nearly as good as the inn’s, he’d discovered.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but when the sheriff had mentioned the Swindel sisters and Iris Swindel’s missing fiancé, his interest, as well as several red flags went up. Someone by the name of Lyle McMurtry was missing; so was Brad’s father. Was there a connection, or was it merely coincidence? He decided to find out.

Turning in his chair, Brad tapped the burly sheriff on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Sheriff. I’m Dr. Bradley Donovan from Charlottesville, Virginia. I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation about the Swindel sisters.”

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