Éclair and Present Danger (16 page)

She stopped, swallowed, and tried to hold her voice steady as she continued. “As hard as it is to accept she's gone, I'm glad she wasn't alive to see what happened to Bart—”

“Bart?” he repeated, sitting up. “What was the last name again?”

“Yes. I'm talking about the man who was murdered on Serenity Lane last Tuesday. He lived across the street from me.” She closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the image that came next, but it was no use. Bart's lifeless body, sprawled across his kitchen floor, was something she suspected she'd never forget. “I—I'm the one who found him.”

He reached across the table, tugged her right hand from the cup, and held it tight. “Wow. I'm sorry. That must have been awful.”

“It was.” There was no mistaking the electrical charge shooting up her arm at the feel of his hand on hers, and, for
a moment, she could think of nothing else. Then, shaking her head, she made herself reengage. “Bridget O'Keefe—the woman who wrote the article about me—lives next door. She's a nosy little thing who lives to talk about her ailments, but I love her.”

He smiled, although it stopped short of his eyes.

“And then there's Mr. Nelson. He lives on the first floor of our two-family home. He can't hear a thing without his hearing aids—or, rather, he can't hear an
accurate
thing without his hearing aids. But he's a hoot when he gets going. He's even nosier than Bridget which is why he's earned the nickname Nosy Nelson with a few of our neighbors. He's harmless, though Bridget would disagree with that assessment. Oh, you should see the way he yanks Bridget's chain at every turn. Your face actually hurts from laughing after even half a day with him.”

He looked down at their hands and then back up at Winnie, his eyes sparkling once again. “He sounds great. I'd love to meet him sometime.”

He'd love to meet him . . .

Reaching down, she secured a piece of skin near her thighs and squeezed. Hard.

Yep, still real . . .

“And, of course, I'd love to see
you
again, too, Winnie.”

She pinched even harder.

Real again . . .

W
innie shifted the ambulance into park and peeked at herself in the rearview mirror. She couldn't see much thanks to the tree that stood between the driveway and the dimmer-than-normal porch light, but that was okay. She could feel the smile on her face and knew it was a perfect match for the way she felt at that moment.

Jay was great. He really was.

He was kind, funny, open, and super cute. And he wanted to see her again . . .

She permitted herself the opportunity to squeal within the confines of the vehicle and then cut the engine. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that late—only nine fifteen—but she had a dump cake to create before calling it a night.

Shaking her head free of the lingering euphoria that was Jay Morgan, Winnie gathered her purse and stepped from the car. Just as she hit the walkway, a flash of lights over her left shoulder made her turn toward the road and the
dark-colored sports car slowing to a crawl at the end of the driveway.

“Hey, Winnie.”

She ducked her head out of the path of the porch light and tried to make out the identity of the man now parked at the end of her driveway in an unfamiliar car. “Hello?”

The man's interior dome light came on and put an end to any further need for guesswork. “Oh. Hey there, Lance.” She headed up to the road, her gaze moving from her neighbor's face to the car in which he drove. She couldn't make out much about the car in the night, but she could tell it was sporty. “Looks like you got your new car. Congratulations.”

“She's a real beauty, isn't she?” he asked, grinning.

“Why is it that men always refer to their cars as females? Is there some rule about that?”

“I don't know, but I'll research it and get back to you . . .”

She laughed. “That's okay. I imagine you have enough to do with your classes. How's that going? You liking the college? The students? The faculty?”

The faculty . . .

And just like that, she was seated across the table at Beans with Jay all over again, his eyes sparkling as he looked at her . . .

“I like it. The students in my entry-level history class could care less about what I'm teaching. They just want to mark off the required class and move on. But some of my more advanced classes have the kind of students that bring out my not-so-inner geek and solidify my decision to keep teaching.”

She saw Lance's mouth moving, even caught some of what he was saying (and yes, he was a history geek), but she just couldn't stop thinking about her date with Jay and the fact that he wanted another one.

With me . . .

“As for the faculty, I know my peers in the history department but not really anyone beyond that. I'm sure that will come in time, as they hear more about me and I get more acclimated to the campus and its offerings.”

“Are you anywhere near the Cully Business Building?” she made herself ask.

“Two buildings over. Why?”

“I know you're only a few months into the semester, but if you get a chance to stop by there, introduce yourself to Jay Morgan. He's about our age and he's one of the business teachers. Nice guy.”

Really nice guy . . .

Cute, too . . .

Lance lifted his hand from its spot along the base of the car window and pointed at Winnie. “He must be if he's got you smiling like that.”

Uh-oh.

“Anyway, I probably better let you get inside. I'm sure you've got things to bake for your new business, and I've got a mile-high stack of papers I need to tackle if I want to sleep in tomorrow morning.” He moved his left hand from the door to the steering wheel and his right hand to the gear shift. “Have a great rest of your evening, Winnie.”

“You, too, Lance. Good night.” She lingered at the curb for a moment as the narrow red squares of his taillights disappeared down the last driveway on the street. When Lance and his car were completely gone from sight, she turned and headed back toward the house, her too-full purse growing cumbersome on her shoulder.

She knew Lance was right. She needed to bake. Then again, how long did it really take to make a dump cake? Even one she needed to invent on the spot? Thirty minutes baking time, an hour if she factored in experimentation and prep?

Pulling her phone from her purse, she illuminated the screen and the clock. Nine thir—

A faint creek off to her left rooted her feet to the bottom porch step and sent her heart racing. “Hello?” she called, sliding her focus left. “Is—is anybody there?”

“It's just me, Winnie Girl.”

She resisted the urge to sag against the stair rail and, instead, concentrated on holding her voice steady. “Mr. Nelson? Where are you?”

“Corner of the porch.”

Stepping up the trio of steps that separated the porch of their home from the front walkway, she craned her head left, the wraparound corner difficult to see thanks to the moonless night and the location of the porch light. “I don't see you.”

“I'm here.”

She made her way around the wicker settee, the card table with the man's chessboard, and one of a pair of wooden rocking chairs normally positioned in such a way as to provide the best view of Serenity Lane. When she reached the far edge of the porch, she turned right and felt an odd chill skitter down her spine at the sight of Mr. Nelson sitting alone, staring off into space.

Sure, the man spent time alone on the front porch every day, but that alone time usually included the chessboard, the day's comics, or a ringside seat for the truest of all weather reports. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

“Sitting.”

“I see that, silly, but—”

“When I got back from Bridget's and saw you weren't home, I looked in on Lovey. She seems to be settling in nicely.”

“In terms of my windowsill, my chair, and my bed . . . if I'm not in it, Lovey's world is A-OK. She still hates me, though.” She paused for Mr. Nelson's usual it-will-work-
out response, but it didn't come. “Um, so . . . how was dinner? I heard Bridget made you pot roast?”

“It was dry and overcooked as usual, but at least I'm still alive to notice.”

“Of course you're still . . .” Her sentence drifted off into the night as the meaning behind the man's words hit home. Pivoting on her heels, she slipped her purse off her shoulder and onto the ground, crossed to Mr. Nelson's matching rocker, and carried it back to the darkened corner. Once she was settled and facing her friend, she took his hands in hers and held them gently. “I know you're hurting over Bart's death, Mr. Nelson. We all are. He was a good man.”

“A good man who should still be here.” Mr. Nelson looked down at Winnie's hands, squeezed them, and then wiggled his out and onto the flat wooden armrests. “Instead, he's in the ground, and that stepson of his is ready to hand Bart's house key to any old Tom, Dick, or Harry off the street.”

She opened her mouth to respond but closed it as the elderly man continued. “Within a couple of weeks, someone else will be living in that house—someone who ain't Bart and Ethel. Maybe they'll have little ones; maybe they won't. Maybe it'll be a married couple; maybe it won't. Maybe it'll be that ambulance fella who looked at the house today, or maybe it'll be someone who ain't never stepped foot in Silver Lake until now. But not a one of 'em will know that Bart laid the stonework for that patio out back all by himself . . . to surprise Ethel while she was down South visiting with her sister. Not a one of 'em will know that the bedroom at the top of the stairs was the purplest purple you could imagine for all of about a week when Mark was six or so.”

“Purple?” she asked, settling back for a story she already knew she wanted to hear. “Why?”

“Ethel got it in her head that purple was pretty. Bart
told her that was true for flowers and shirts and even grapes . . . but not bedroom walls. Still, he went to the paint store, ordered up some purple paint, stuck a paint brush in my hand, and put me to work. We put a nice thick coat of it on those walls, too.”

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the room as Mr. Nelson described, a smile tugging at her lips almost immediately. “And?”

“When it was all done, he called Ethel into the room to show her what we'd done. She took one look at the walls, scrunched her nose the way she did when she didn't like something, and said, ‘Maybe we should leave purple to the flowers, after all.'”

She smiled through the tears as she pictured her dear friend standing in the middle of a newly painted room, nose scrunched. Not a day went by that she didn't think of Ethel. Sometimes the thought came in a glance out the window. Sometimes it came while searching through the cookbook Ethel had given Winnie for Christmas—the recipes it held handed down from generation to generation of Ethel's own family. When Winnie had balked and suggested she save it for family, Ethel had corrected her and told her she
was
family.

“Oh, Mr. Nelson, I miss them . . . I really do. But when I get to talk about them with you, it's almost like they're still here.”

For the first time since she approached him, she saw him smile. It was slight, but it was there. “I feel it, too, Winnie.”

Pitching forward on the rocker, she placed her hands on his knees and held his gaze. “So it's up to us—you, me, and Bridget—to make sure that whoever moves in
does
know about the stone patio . . . and the purple room . . . and the significance of each and every flower Bart and Ethel planted around that house.”

“And what happens if they don't care?” Mr. Nelson asked, his eyes wide.

“Then Bridget will write about them in her column, you won't share any chess tips, and I'll . . .” She cast about for just the right form of retaliation and then shot her index finger into the air as she settled on the perfect one. “I'll sic Lovey on them!”

Mr. Nelson laughed and covered her hands with his own. “Lovey isn't the toughie you make her out to be.”

“You mean the one she makes herself out to be. To me, anyway.”

“She'll come around, Winnie. You just wait and see.”

Her Mr. Nelson was back . . .

“I think it's probably time we both call it a night, don't you think?” she asked, smiling. “It's been a busy day.”

“Was it a good day?”

She thought back over her first day with the Dessert Squad—the ups (two customers—one of which was Jay), the downs (hello, Lovey), an unexpected date, and time with her beloved Mr. Nelson. It didn't get any better than that . . .

Inhaling the cool, crisp night air, she let her feelings show on her face and in her answer. “It was a
great
day, Mr. Nelson.”

“I'm glad, Winnie.” She pulled her hands away as he slid forward on his chair and reached for his cane. “I've been thinking. I don't think Mark hurt Bart.”

Scooting back her rocker, she widened the gap Mr. Nelson needed to stand and then followed him across the porch and toward the door, doubling back momentarily to retrieve her purse. “You really think Sissy did it?”

He stopped at the door and fixed his gaze on the house across the street—the house that was no longer lit by Bart's hand-carved lamp. “Since she's the only other person that makes any sense, I guess so.”

“Why is Mark off your radar?”

“Because even though I think he's rushing the sale of that house for all the wrong reasons, I can't ignore the fact that he cared about Bart enough to bury him with that damn coin he loved so much. Most people wouldn't have given something like that a second thought. But Mark did. That's gotta count for something, don't you think?”