On Pins and Needles

Tell him no thanks, she ordered herself. Tell him that if his business is finished he should get out, that he isn’t welcome here.

But the trouble was, as much as she knew she should say exactly that, she couldn’t quite do it.

Instead, another voice some where in her head said, He was the one who made the mess, he should be the one to clean it up….

And somehow that seemed perfectly reasonable.

“Where would you like to start?” she heard herself say suddenly.

“How about in the same order I messed things up? You can put your things back in the bathroom and the dresser drawers while I get the beds and bureaus against the walls again.”

Megan was about to agree when her stomach rumbled quietly and reminded her how hungry she was.

“Or you could go to work on the furniture and I could make us a couple of sandwiches,” she suggested.

“Better yet. It’s way past sup per time and I’m starving.”

And wasn’t this all amiable and companionable? Megan thought, feeling disloyal.

But again there was emotional confusion because she was also feeling a twinge of excitement at the prospect of the two of them sharing a light, impromptu supper alone together.

This was really crazy, she decided, wondering if she should rescind her own offer of sandwiches, reject his offer of help putting the house in order, and call it a night after all.

Only once more she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

It would be rude, she rationalized. Not to mention that being on the good side of the sheriff seemed wiser than alienating him any more than she already had.

It didn’t mean she was any less resentful of his suspicions of her parents or any less on their side. It was just good public relations, she assured herself.

“Sandwiches,” she repeated as if to remind herself.

“Furniture,” Josh said the same way.

Then he pushed off the door and spun around to the stair case.

And only when his eyes slid away from her then did she realize he’d been watching her very intently. So intently that it was almost as if she’d been under a heat lamp. A heat lamp that had just been turned off.

It was a strange sensation. Especially since it was ac companied by the slight wave of disappointment she was experiencing, as well as the desire to regain the warmth of that midnight-blue gaze in whatever way she could.

Crazy. Definitely crazy.

“Food,” Megan whispered to herself, again in reminder.

Maybe she hadn’t gone crazy, she thought then. Maybe hunger had made her go haywire. Maybe as soon as she got some thing in her stomach she’d be more resist ant to Josh Brimley’s effects.

And it was with the hope that that was true that she forced herself into motion and went to the kitchen.

It took nearly forty-five minutes for Megan to get the sandwiches ready. The search had left her kitchen in as much disarray as the rest of the house and she had to clear space among the dishes, pots and pans, utensils, and even food stuffs that had been left out of cup boards, drawers and pantry to litter the counter tops and kitchen table.

But even after making room to prepare their food there still wasn’t anywhere to eat it so, when she finished, she decided they’d have to dine picnic-style in the living room, around the coffee table.

With that in mind, she piled everything on a tray and pushed through the swinging door that connected the kitchen to the living room.

Josh was already in the living room, pushing the sofa against the wall facing the front door and the picture window. It was the last of the furniture to be put back where it had been and once it was he took a quick scan of the room.

“All done,” he announced just as Megan set the tray on the coffee table. “Upstairs and down. I think I have pretty much everything in order again. Except the books in that case in the upper hall. I thought you’d probably rather put them in whatever order they were in before and I didn’t know what that was.”

“I’ll do it later, when I put things back in the drawers and clean the kitchen,” Megan said. Then, glancing at the tray full of food, she added, “I thought we could eat in here.”

“A picnic,” he said as if he’d read her earlier thoughts.

“Mmm. The kitchen is in pretty bad shape.”

“Sorry. But I think eating in here is a great idea anyway. I like things casual.”

Megan knelt on the floor between the coffee table and the couch to set out the two food-laden plates, silver ware, napkins and tall glasses of iced tea.

“Cloth napkins aren’t too casual, though,” Josh observed as he sat just around the bend of the oval table, also on the floor, with his back against the sofa and one leg bent at the knee to brace his forearm while his hand dangled over his shin.

“We don’t use paper napkins. Cloth can be washed and reused. It’s better for the environment,” she explained.

“Ah.”

He didn’t say more on that subject and Megan appreciated his restraint.

“Big sandwiches,” he said then, nodding toward his plate as he used his free hand to flip open the cloth napkin and lay it across the thigh of the leg he had extended out in front of him.

“The bread is seven grain, homemade,” Megan explained. “Inside yours is a grilled portobello mushroom, tomato slices, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, black olives, onion, sprouts and a little vinaigrette.”

Some thing about that made him smile at the same time his brow wrinkled up. “I’d have been happy with meat and mayo. This sounds like more trouble to go through than a sandwich deserves.”

“Try it,” she urged.

He looked skeptical but in a more con genial way than he had the day before when they’d talked about acupuncture. Still, he didn’t dive in, though. It took him a moment of eyeing what was on his plate before he picked up one half of the three-inch-high sandwich. Then he gave it a meager taste, as if it might bite him back.

Megan waited for the verdict, watching him chew and pleased that it was with his mouth closed and without so much as a crumb on his supple lips.

Then he swallowed and his eyebrows rose. “It’s good. Almost tastes like a steak sandwich.”

Megan felt as if she’d finally won one small victory. She stretched out her own legs so she could sit more comfortably on the floor, too, and finally began to eat her own food.

“You told me what was inside my sandwich,” Josh said then. “Does that mean there’s some thing different in yours?”

“Turkey, ham and bacon,” she answered with a straight face once she’d swallowed her own bite.

His responding expression was exactly what she’d been going for and she laughed at him.

“I’m kidding. Mine is the same as yours. Want to see?”

He grinned at her joke. “Last time a girl asked me that she wasn’t talking about what was between two slices of bread.”

Megan laughed at his innuendo but didn’t give him the satisfaction of a comment.

Josh ate more sandwich, a few potato chips, and then poked his chin at the room in general. “Did I get the furniture pretty much back where you had it?”

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