Monkey Wrench

“I avoid dark alleys,” she replied primly.

“Scared?”

“No, just smart.”

“Sometimes even smart people have to take risks. Otherwise, life passes you by, Miss Suzie.”

“Children, children,” Rose cautioned, looking absurdly pleased as she carried two china cups of steaming cocoa to the table. Both cups were crowded with marshmallows. “You’re making assumptions about each other before giving this whole thing a chance.”

Susannah blinked in astonishment at her grandmother. “Five minutes ago you were threatening you’d never speak to this man again! Now you’re practically angling for a marriage proposal! What’s happened?”

Rose set the cups in front of her guests and said smugly, “I was blinded by a brilliant idea. I’ve never known two people who were more ideal for each other.”

“Ideal?” Susannah objected, laughing. “You’re always digging up men with whom I have nothing in common!”

“Hey!” Joe sat upright, feigning offense. “How bad do you think I am?”

“I don’t think you’re bad,” Susannah said quickly, making an effort to be polite despite her frustration. “It’s just that I’m perfectly happy the way I am, and I don’t need a husband to make my life complete.”

“Who said anything about becoming a husband?”

Susannah threw up her hands. “Oh, heavens, how did this conversation get started? Granny Rose, you never seemed to need a man in your life.”

“The right one came along at the right time,” Rose said peaceably, pouring herself a cup of cocoa from the saucepan and adding a generous pile of marshmallows on the top, “but he didn’t last, that’s all. When he passed away, I didn’t feel the need to go looking all over again. I had my happiness. But you haven’t had your chance yet, Suzie.”

“I am happy!”

Rose sniffed. “Drink your cocoa.”

“It’s delicious cocoa,” Joe said to Rose, cradling the cup in one rough hand and slurping marshmallows. “Unique, but classic.”

“Thank you, Joe.” Rose joined them at the table and sipped from her own cup approvingly. “I always add a dash of cinnamon and vanilla along with a pinch of sugar to sweeten the milk. I believe in going the extra step to make everything special...even with little things like cinnamon in cocoa. And I’ve taught Susannah to do the same. Why, you should taste her Christmas eggnog! It’s—”

“You don’t have to sell my wifely skills to Mr. Santori, Granny Rose,” Susannah interrupted dryly. “I am not a prize heifer on the auction block.”

“Don’t be rude, dear, while Joe and I are having an innocent conversation.”

“Must you be so obvious?”

“Obvious about what, dear?”

Susannah began to smile. It was impossible to stay angry with her grandmother, especially in such a ridiculous circumstance. In fact, it was almost a pleasure to be sitting comfortably around the old kitchen table, sharing a snack and laughing with old friends. And that was exactly how she felt about Joe Santori. For some reason, he fit right into the familiar scenery. He was relaxed and funny—surprisingly easy to be with. He bore Rose’s needling in the spirit it was intended. His laughter rang off the ceiling beams and rattled the delicate china cups on their hooks over the sink. His grin was friendly...and ever so slightly wicked. Susannah couldn’t help smiling back at him from across the table.

In a rough, manly kind of way, Joe Santori was very sexy. So sexy that Susannah found herself wondering if she hadn’t missed something in life, after all.

To Rose, Joe said, “So you’re not mad at me after all, Mrs. A.?”

“I’m annoyed, but not mad. I hired you to fix my back porch, not run my life.”

“Well, the porch is almost done, but there are a few other things this house could stand to have fixed, you know.”

“Like what?” Rose asked, drinking her cocoa.

“In layman’s terms, this old place is falling apart.”

Susannah said, “Surely you exaggerate.”

“Not at all.” Quite seriously, Joe addressed himself directly to Rose. “I took the liberty of looking around upstairs a little just now. I notice the roof leaks, for starters.”

“Oh, it’s nothing a few pots and pans can’t take care of when it rains,” Rose answered with a twinkle in her eye.

Susannah frowned. “I had no idea you were having problems with the house, Granny Rose. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Rose shrugged. “Why should I spend my time worrying about an old pile of wood? It just has to last as long as I do. The only reason I had Joe work on the porch was that the posts were rotting.”

Joe said, “You’re going to live a good, long time, Mrs. A., so I think we should make sure your house doesn’t fall down around your ears in the meantime.”

“Oh, Joe, you’re too busy to bother with an old woman like me.”

Despite her objection, Rose looked suspiciously delighted to be the center of an attractive man’s attention, Susannah noted. She said, “Maybe you ought to get some estimates from other carpenters, Granny Rose.”

“Oh, I don’t want anybody but Joe working on my house. If he’s got the time, that is.”

“I’ve got time,” Joe said.

“Aren’t you working on the old lodge for the Ingalls family?”

“It’s coming along fine.” Joe leaned comfortably back in his chair and reached for yet another cookie. “In fact, I think the Ingalls family is trying to decide if they’re going to sell the old place or not. My crew is moving right along on the major renovations while they think about it. The improvements we’ve made should certainly help them get a better price.”

Susannah’s curiosity was piqued by that bit of Tyler gossip. “The old lodge is for sale? I thought it was condemned years ago.”

“Not condemned, just closed up. It was in pretty bad shape,” Joe said, “but Liza has been fixing it up again. Do you know Liza?”

“The youngest Baron girl? Yes, she was several years behind me in school—her brother, Jeff, was closer to my age—but I remember her. She was...well, a little wild, as I recall.”

Joe grinned. “She hasn’t changed. She’s a pistol, but I like her. Liza’s got a real artist’s eye where old buildings are concerned.”

“And,” Rose added with a smile, “she got married recently. I think she’s finally on the right track. Her grandfather is very proud of her.”

The Ingallses were one of the town’s most prominent families, and whatever they did was grist for the gossip mill in Tyler. Old Judson Ingalls had long been a community leader, and his daughter, Alyssa, was respected as one of Tyler’s most gracious and generous ladies. Her good works were well known, and a great many people asked her advice on matters.

Alyssa’s apparently fairy-tale marriage to Ronald Baron had come to a tragic end when her husband took his own life after a financial setback, but Alyssa and her three children seemed to have weathered the tragedy as well as could be hoped. Daughter Amanda was a successful lawyer, if Susannah remembered correctly, and Jeffrey had become a doctor. Only Liza, known for her wild ways, had failed so far to make her mark in the world in a big way. Susannah had always liked the feisty youngest child of Alyssa Baron, and she was glad to hear Liza was finally coming into her own.

She said, “Liza was always very talented.”

“I hope she’s also a good detective,” Joe remarked.

“Why?”

Joe exchanged a glance with Rose. “Well, the Ingalls family has a mystery to solve.”

“A mystery?” Susannah repeated.

Rose’s expression brightened with excitement. “Yes, the whole town’s been buzzing for months. Joe and his men found a dead body buried up at the lodge.”

Susannah stared at Joe. “Whose body?”

He shrugged and appeared unaffected by the gruesome event. “Nobody knows. Whoever she was had been buried for a very long time—more than twenty years, I’m sure.”

“She? How did she get there?”

“That’s the mystery. We don’t know anything, except that it was a woman—the police just figured that out, apparently—and she died under suspicious circumstances.” Joe added, “In fact, I think she was probably murdered.”

Rose set her cup down and said firmly, “I’ll bet you a dozen doughnuts it’s Margaret Ingalls.”

“Judson’s wife?” Susannah asked, astonished by Rose’s revelation. “I thought she disappeared a long time ago. Her disappearance caused a big scandal years back, didn’t it?”

Nodding, Rose said, “Everyone assumed Margaret left Judson and ran off with one of her boyfriends—she had a bunch of them. What a naughty flirt she was! I know where Liza got her spunk. Margaret ran away, but we never really learned what happened to her. The murder story makes sense, don’t you think? Instead of abandoning her husband and never contacting her friends again, she was killed!”

Susannah couldn’t help grinning as she noted Rose’s fascination with the mystery. “That’s what this town needs. A juicy murder mystery to help pass the cold winter nights.”

“It’s been the talk of the town,” Joe agreed.

With even more fervor, Rose declared, “I always knew Margaret Ingalls would come to a bad end.”

“Wasn’t that wishful thinking, Granny Rose? You had a soft spot for Judson, if I remember correctly.”

Rose blushed and got up suddenly from the table. “Oh, that was a long time ago. I never meant for Margaret to get hurt. Judson and I were friends, that’s all, especially after my Henry died. That’s the way things work in a small town. Everybody’s known everybody else since the day they were born, and we look out for one another. Except Joe, of course. He’s not from Tyler, are you, Joe?”

Susannah saw that Rose didn’t want to talk about the details of her romantic past, and Joe must have seen the same thing. He played along, saying, “Tyler is my home now, and my daughter likes it here.”

“Joe has a daughter,” Rose said to Susannah, clearly relieved that the topic had been changed. “She’s a lovely girl. Perhaps you’ll get to meet her.”

Amused, Joe heard the hopeful note in Rose’s voice and knew exactly what the old girl was up to. Practically every woman in Tyler had tried to help Joe’s love life along by introducing him to their daughters, their sisters, their maiden cousins from Chicago—any female who didn’t have one foot in the grave.

And it wasn’t just the women who tried to hook him up with marriageable ladies. A great many fathers, brothers, uncles and even a grandfather or two had made overtures on behalf of their female relatives. A widower like Joe was a prime target in a small town. In fact, Joe figured he’d met every eligible woman within a hundred miles of Tyler.

He liked meeting eligible women, of course. But Joe wasn’t looking for one particular woman in his life. He was having enough trouble with his daughter. Another female around would surely spell disaster.

However, something about Susannah Atkins intrigued Joe, unlike all the other women he’d met since coming to Tyler nearly a decade earlier. He couldn’t help noticing that Susannah Atkins was different.

As she sat at the cluttered kitchen table, her delicate hands cupping her hot cocoa, she looked beautiful, stylish and smart—not the kind of woman Joe was usually introduced to. But he liked the sound of Susannah’s laughter, and he could hardly keep his eyes off her. His insides were churned up, too, with unmistakable physical attraction. And for some reason, he was fighting the urge to reach across the table and toy with her hand. She was that kind of lady.

He tried to figure out exactly why the bells and whistles were going off in his head. It wasn’t just her beauty that drew his gaze, although her fine blond hair had started to come loose, and framed her face in silky, touchable wisps. Her features were more precise than the television camera portrayed. Her eyes were bluer.

But there was something more appealing than good looks about Miss Suzie Atkins. With a start, Joe realized he also liked the fact that she wasn’t making bedroom eyes at him. In fact, she appeared to be downright determined not to start anything personal with him or anyone else.

Susannah was one woman who wasn’t going to chase him, Joe decided.

She’s a challenge, he said to himself.

For once, here was a woman who wasn’t going to bake him cookies he didn’t need or invite him to parties he didn’t want to attend or fuss over him until he paid a compliment. She was cool and lovely and sophisticated, a woman who knew her own mind and could laugh when the moment warranted.

She laughed at Rose’s suggestion of meeting Joe’s daughter and shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t get along very well with children. Forgive me if I beg off, Mr. Santori.”

“You don’t have kids?”

She blinked, looking prettily surprised. “Me? Heavens, no. I never had the time.”

“Not to mention a husband,” Rose grumbled from the other side of the kitchen. “Don’t you think it’s a shame, Joe? A nice-looking girl like Susannah ought to have a big house with lots of children. A woman her age—”

Susannah pretended to be pained by her grandmother’s not-so-subtle campaign. “Let’s not discuss my age, Granny Rose, if you please. Mr. Santori doesn’t need to learn all my secrets.”

“Whatever your age,” Joe heard himself saying, “it suits you very well.”

Susannah laughed and Rose applauded. “Bravo!”

“Don’t try turning my head with pretty talk,” Susannah cautioned with a wag of her forefinger. “You’re just trying to get me on your side, so you can spend the winter working on my grandmother’s house.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.” Joe grinned. Although he told himself he wasn’t looking for any female companionship, he found himself saying, “How about if I take you on a guided tour of this house tomorrow, Miss Suzie? You can help your grandmother decide if any repairs should be made.”

“I’m leaving for the Caribbean tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“I’m not...I don’t know.” For the first time, her confidence appeared to waver. “I’ll have to check with my secretary. I think the flight’s in the afternoon.”

“I’ll come in the morning.”

Rose said, “Come for breakfast. You two can have a nice chat together.”

Susannah covered her face with one hand and groaned. “Granny Rose, must you be so obvious?”

“It’s a date?” Joe asked with a grin.

“Yes, yes, all right. But please come early. I really do have a plane to catch.”

“It’s a deal.” Joe slapped the table and stood. “Now I’ve got to get home before my daughter burns down the kitchen. She’s just learning to cook.”

Rose piped up, “Oh, Susannah could teach her everything about cooking—”

“Granny Rose!” Susannah warned. She stood also and moved to escort Joe to the front door. “You’d better get out of here before my grandmother calls the nearest minister and marries us.”

“There are worse fates,” Joe murmured under his breath, bending to give Rose a quick kiss on her cheek. She gave him a bright look and winked, which caused Joe to laugh before he followed Susannah from the room.

He found her waiting at the front door, with one hand resting on the handle. She wore a soft suede skirt that clung to her hips and flared with feminine grace around her legs. When she was sure Rose hadn’t followed him, she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Thank you very much, Mr. Santori.”

Joe grabbed his parka from the small chair where he’d left it. “For what?”

“You know. Calling me about my grandmother. I appreciate your kindness.”

“I hope it didn’t screw up your day.”

“On the contrary,” she said, watching as Joe shrugged into his coat, “this trip has actually made my day.”

Joe collected his tool belt. “You think she’s going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll spend this evening with her, and tomorrow morning, before I decide.” Susannah met his gaze. “I must say, it’s a comfort knowing that people like you are still here in Tyler, looking after one another.”

He wrapped his tool belt around his hand, lingering. He wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, and Susannah hadn’t opened the door, either, he noted. He said, “I like your grandmother.”

“And she likes you.” With a hint of a blush starting, Susannah added, “I hope you don’t think she’s serious when she suggests...well, when she talks about you and me.”

“I think she’s dead serious.”

“But...of course it’s impossible—”

“She’s determined,” Joe said plainly, “to get you married and pregnant as soon as possible, Miss Suzie. And frankly, I agree with her theory.”

Her eyes flashed. “I will put up with my grandmother’s opinions, Mr. Santori, because I love her. But you—”

Joe chucked her playfully under the chin, unable to resist teasing her. “You ought to have a family and a home of your own, Miss Suzie, instead of spending your life showing everybody else how to do it.”

“I’m perfectly content with my life the way it is,” she said, turning cool. “I’m very busy.”

“So you keep saying. Personally, I think a woman who’s too busy to enjoy life is missing a hell of a lot.”

He’d gone too far, Joe saw as soon as the words left his mouth. Susannah stared at him for a long, silent moment, then opened the front door. She didn’t say goodbye. Joe considered apologizing, but decided the truth was the truth. He brushed past her, hunched up the collar of his parka and started down the steps.

But on the sidewalk, he paused and turned. Glancing back, he met her gaze and grinned. “See you in the morning, Miss Suzie.”

CHAPTER THREE

SUSANNAH CLOSED the front door, then kicked it, fuming.

“Where does he get off telling me how to live my life? He’s a carpenter, for crying out loud!”

What did a small-town, blue-collar, power-tool collector know about life in the fast lane? Susannah angrily glared out the beveled glass panes of the door and watched while Joe climbed into a battered pickup truck and drove away.

Hold on, her inner voice said. You’re being too touchy, my girl.

Which was true. What was the sense in getting hot under the collar at the remarks of a man she’d never see again after tomorrow? Besides, in less than twenty-four hours, Susannah planned to be sitting on an airplane with Roger, heading for sun and sand and more than a week of relaxation. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize a wonderful vacation.

Too bad Roger doesn’t look like Joe Santori, said that pesky inner voice again, breaking into her mental picture of softly waving palm trees. I’ll bet he’s got a body built for a bathing suit.

Susannah blushed at the thought and abruptly pulled herself together. She marched toward the kitchen, determined to have a shoot-out with her grandmother.

“Granny Rose, I can’t believe you’d embarrass me in front of a perfect stranger,” she lectured, once again entering the kitchen. “What in the world possessed you to think I’d have any interest whatsoever in a man like— Oh, God! Granny Rose!”

Susannah gasped and rushed to her grandmother, who was slumped over the sink, weakly grasping at the counter to stay on her feet. Just as Susannah reached her side, the elderly woman lost consciousness and slid limply into Susannah’s arms. Lowering her grandmother to the floor, Susannah cried, “Oh, Granny Rose!”

She cradled Rose’s head in her lap and fanned her grandmother’s ashen face with a dish towel, her own heart thumping madly in her chest.

“Please, please, let her be all right,” Susannah prayed. “Granny Rose? Can you hear me?”

A full minute passed—it felt like a week, at least—before Rose’s eyes flickered. A hint of color began to bloom in her cheeks, and she opened her eyes. “Suzie?”

“Thank heavens!”

Gradually Rose’s eyes focused, and she blinked. “What happened?”

“You fainted, I think. I was only gone for a minute or two, and when I came back, you—”

“I remember now. I blacked out. I was reaching for a casserole dish in that cupboard, and I—I—” Consternation filled Rose’s expression, and she clutched weakly at Susannah’s hand.

“Don’t talk,” Susannah commanded, holding tight. “Just rest quietly for a moment. Then I’ll call the paramedics.”

“Is Joe still here?”

“No, he just left. I’m here now.”

Rose frowned weakly. “You should go on your trip, Suzie.”

“Nonsense,” Susannah said. “The Caribbean will always be there.”

“But Roger—”

“Roger won’t mind. He knows how important you are to me, Granny Rose. He’ll want me to stay here as long as I’m needed. I want to be sure you’re going to be okay.”

“But you’re too busy—”

“Hush.” Susannah hugged her grandmother. “I’m never too busy to take care of you, Granny Rose.”

* * *

JOE POINTED his rattletrap truck down the street and headed for his own home, just a couple of blocks away. Snow swirled across his windshield, but he knew his way around Tyler as well as a native, so the trip wasn’t treacherous.

Joe Santori liked Tyler, Wisconsin. After growing up in Chicago and attending trade school and, later, engineering courses there, he’d been lured from the city by a job offer from the Ingalls Farm and Machinery Company at a time when he’d needed a change.

He’d never thought of himself as a small-town kind of guy. Despite years of hounding by his wife, Marie, who had wanted to raise their family somewhere other than the streets of a big city, Joe had resisted leaving the Windy City. But when Marie died of ovarian cancer, Joe decided to make the change she had always wanted.

He’d applied for the position with Ingalls Farm and Machinery before he was even sure he wanted to leave Chicago behind. But things had worked out well indeed, and Joe was glad he’d brought Gina to the rolling hills of Wisconsin.

For Joe, the culture shock had been tremendous at first. Wisconsin people didn’t lock their back doors, and they sometimes left their cars running while they dashed into the pharmacy to get a prescription filled. It had taken him a while to relax and get over his big-city paranoia.

But his daughter blended into the small-town milieu very easily. Perhaps because she was a motherless child, Gina had been an instant hit in the neighborhood, a darling of families up and down the street. At the age of six, she had learned to run out to the sidewalk after breakfast to find playmates to ride tricycles with until noon. Now nearly fifteen, Gina led the busy life of a teenager, complete with track-team practice, Ski Club, pickup games of street hockey and baseball—and her dreaded piano lessons, the only concession to femininity Gina would allow.

Joe’s only regret had to do with his wife, Marie. She would have loved the town, and he often wished he’d brought her to Tyler before her illness. He took consolation in the idea that she was watching from above and approved his choice of towns in which to raise Gina.

Joe pulled his truck into the driveway alongside the tall Victorian house on Church Street, just four blocks from the town square. He noticed the kitchen light was on, so he walked across the snow-dusted driveway and let himself in the back door, stomping slush from his boots and shaking the snow from his parka.

“No way, Gramps,” Gina was saying into the telephone. “You couldn’t pay me to be a cheerleader! It’s so stupid cheering for a bunch of stupid boys when I could be playing ball myself. Besides, I hate to wear skirts.”

Fourteen-year-old Gina lay flat on her back on the kitchen linoleum, her sneakered feet propped on the counter above, looking just as tomboyish as ever in her torn jeans and rumpled baseball shirt. She’d pinned the phone to her ear with her shoulder, leaving both hands free to braid her ponytail into a tight plait while she talked. When Gina spotted her father entering the house, she waggled her foot at him without breaking off her phone conversation.

“Forget it, Gramps,” she said into the receiver. “You can’t convince me it would be fun. I don’t care if Mom was the captain of the squad in her school. It’s demeaning to women. My piano teacher said so.”