CHAPTER 30

Imogene

Imogene sat gingerly on the bench outside the cafeteria, her chicken-salad sandwich wrapped in paper and a Coca-Cola balanced beside her on one of the bench slats. She’d been awake for almost forty-eight hours, and nothing good ever came from her lacking in sleep. She either got remarkably sharp-tongued, became overly flirty and fun-loving, or just was an all-around basket case. Today she was on the verge of tears plus giggles. She stuffed the sandwich in her mouth and ignored the plant workers who were on break and passing by. The waft of cigarette smoke from one of them tickled her nose, then grew stronger. She looked up and met the sideways grin of Sam Pickett.

Honestly. The man could make a nun fall for him. It seemed while boys like Ivan and Ollie had brought home morose and serious dispositions, a boy like Sam had learned how to see the world for the best it had to offer. It was refreshing. Or else she was just feeling reckless.

Imogene sent a saucy grin his way and hoped her eye makeup hadn’t smeared. “Well, hello, Sam Pickett.”

“Same to you, Miss Grayson.”

Imogene smiled and took a smaller, more ladylike bite from her sandwich. She waited. Sam picked up her Coca-Cola bottle and sat down beside her, holding it between his hands.

“You’re looking mighty fine,” he observed.

Imogene raised an eyebrow. “Well, a girl has to try.”

“Don’t try too hard or Hollywood will come looking for you and make you into something way bigger than a cafeteria girl.”

“I’m all right with that.” Imogene had a sudden rush of sadness. She missed the beauty salon, the smell of perming chemicals, the fun of helping someone apply lipstick for the first time. Heck, she missed the afternoons of daydreaming that someone would paint her image on the side of a plane. A pinup girl. Mother would have to fan herself from a dead faint if she knew what Imogene’s silly dreams had been. Hazel’s death saved her from pursuing them. Funny, for she didn’t feel saved at all.

“Does it ever weigh on you?” Sam’s more serious inquiry startled Imogene from the flirtatious moment.

“Does what weigh on me?”

“Fact your sister used to work here at the plant?” While Sam’s question was stabbing, Imogene melted a little inside. She kept forgetting he was a widower. It had to be difficult trying to maneuver through life when memories of your dead wife were everywhere—including in the face of your child.

“Sometimes,” Imogene admitted. She wasn’t sure how much to say. Transparency with her brothers and Ollie hadn’t gone over well. “Hazel didn’t work the cafeteria, though. She was in laundry.”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded.

Imogene eyed him. “You knew Hazel?”

Sam shot her a surprised look. “Well, sure. She was Ida’s friend.”

Imogene twisted in her seat. Eagerness filled her, mixed with hope. “Tell me, did you ever have conversations with her? I mean, beyond just saying hello?”

Sam turned the Coca-Cola bottle in his hands. “Sure. I mean, I asked her to a dance once.”

“You did?” Imogene drew back. In another lifetime she might have been jealous of her younger sister.

Sam offered her a sheepish grin. “She told me no and pretty much gave me the cold shoulder. Not sure why. I always figured she had someone else, but I never saw her with anyone other than Harry Schneider.”

“But they weren’t together?” Imogene was a bit sorry she baited Sam.

Sam turned the bottle of soda in the opposite direction. “Haven’t a clue. To be honest, I was sorta glad she turned me down. I don’t think—she was too sweet. Man like me didn’t deserve her.”

Vulnerability splayed across Sam’s face for a moment, then was wiped away as he tossed her a smile.

“I don’t think you’re all that bad.” Imogene offered an encouraging smile in return, Chet’s and Ollie’s warnings pinging in the back of her mind.

Sam’s eyes clouded. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Wish the rest of Mill Creek thought that. But nope. I’m a Pickett, and with that comes the reputation.”

Imogene shifted, and the paper-wrapped sandwich crunched in her hand. “I never heard the rumors before—well, I suppose I didn’t pay attention.”

Sam handed her the bottle of Coca-Cola. He met her eyes, and there was a restlessness in his, a turmoil he didn’t try to hide. “Mill Creek ain’t the friendly town everyone always thinks it is.”

Imogene didn’t know what to say. She could ask, could pry for an explanation, but something made her bite her tongue.

“But!” Sam’s face perked up and he straightened, offering her a grin that rivaled any darkness that had now fled from his eyes. “I’m ready to prove that a Pickett can be a gentleman. Especially to a pretty dame like you.”

“Oh!” Imogene felt a warm blush creep up her neck. She elbowed him. “You’re trouble in a handbasket.”

Sam didn’t answer, but reached up to adjust the cigarette that hung lazily from his mouth. He scanned the stretch of buildings and busy streets. He narrowed his eyes, then removed the cigarette and ground it out on the cement at their feet. As he sat up, he glanced at Imogene. “Used to be this was all farmland around here.”

Imogene nodded. “I know.”

“Yeah?” Sam gave her a funny twist of his face. “Not anymore.”

Imogene felt that familiar pang of empathy for the folks who had been forced from their land. It’d touched her family too, but nowhere near as dramatically. At least as far as her daddy was concerned. Mother, on the other hand, she hadn’t taken it as well.

“My family owned some of the acres here,” Imogene confided in Sam. “Daddy used to farm part of the land.” Imogene remembered a few years back when Daddy came home and said the U.S. government wanted to buy them out. He hadn’t protested too much. It was difficult to maintain acreage this distance away from their actual farm. He’d only kept it because it’d been part of Mother’s family and they had a small family cemetery there. Grandpa and Grandma on Mother’s side were buried in the cemetery. And two of Mother’s babies who never made it. An uncle. Some cousins. It was where family was. It was where Hazel wasn’t. The government said they’d care for the existing graves, but they couldn’t add new ones. Imogene could only imagine the heated argument Mother must have had with Daddy behind closed doors, coming to terms with burying Hazel all alone in the old section of the Mill Creek Cemetery.

“We owned land here too.” Sam made a clicking noise with his tongue. It drew Imogene’s attention to his chiseled lips, his square jaw, and his eyes. They weren’t stormy, but they were vacant. Defeated. His jovial flippancy had disappeared again. “Now I play with nitro instead of plowing a field.”

“Are you angry?” Imogene ventured.

“Me?” Sam shook his head. “No. I don’t know what I’m cut out to be, especially now.”

Imogene took a sip of her Cola. She sensed Sam watching her. Watching her mouth, then roving her face with his eyes until she startled as he rested his hand on her knee.

“One of these days I’ll ask you to dance.”

“Oh!” Imogene squeaked. She eyed his hand. It wasn’t overtly improper—she supposed—but it did funny things to her insides. She wasn’t sure if she liked the advance or wanted to bat it away.

Sam removed his hand before she could react. He winked. “Just need someone to schedule a dance.” He stood and gave her a haphazard salute before walking away.

Sirens were wailing as the bus pulled into town after her shift was over. Imogene scrambled for her purse and exchanged glances with Ida. “What do you suppose happened now?” she whispered.

Ida responded with her customary wide-eyed look of hesitation.

Imogene pushed past her friend and urged the people in front of her to hurry off the bus. “What’s going on?” She craned her neck to try to see out the bus window.

“Fire!” someone hollered down the aisle.

Seconds later, Imogene was hit with a blast of fresh air as she stepped off the bus, but it was quickly followed with the distinct tang of smoke. She noticed plumes rising above the roof of the grocery store and the butcher shop.

“Town hall is burnin’ down!” a man yelled as he sprinted by.

“Oh no!” Imogene breathed. Hopefully, in the middle of a weekday, it wasn’t packed with people.

A hand grabbed her elbow and dragged her away from the throng of people getting off the bus and running toward the fire.

She yelped as she fell against Ollie.

“Honestly, Ollie! I swear you follow me around!” She wasn’t sure if she was perturbed or flattered.

Ollie ignored her and half shouted in her ear over the din. “Come with me!”

“Why?” She gave him a curious look.

He tugged her, and she followed, realizing that at this pace, her bruised hip was going to quickly start bothering her.

“Ollie, where’re we going?”

“C’mon.” His grip slid down her forearm until he grasped her hand. They rounded a corner, and he led her toward the city park. Tall trees stood in full foliage around a small fountain. Of course, it was completely empty now, as everyone had deserted it for the shock and horror of the town hall going up in flames.

“What’s going on?” Imogene stumbled to a halt, trying to yank her hand back from Ollie.

He didn’t release her, but glanced down at their hands. His overalls were covered with soot, as though he’d gotten too close to the fire. There was ash streaked across his face, and a reddening swell of flesh on his free hand.

“Heck, Ollie!” Imogene cried. “You’re hurt!”

He glanced at the burn, releasing her hand. “I’ve had worse.”

“Ollie, what happened?” Imogene grasped his forearm to survey the burn. “You need to get butter on that right away.”

She tried to ignore the strong corded tendons beneath her fingers. Ollie wasn’t a bruiser, so she hadn’t expected him to feel muscular. But he was manlier than she’d originally given her old neighbor credit for.

“I don’t need butter.” He stepped closer, his voice tense, his eyes burrowing into hers.

Imogene swallowed. She studied his face, the soot, the slightly singed hair on the side of his head. “Tell me you didn’t start the fire.”

She didn’t know why she said it. Didn’t know why she suddenly had visions of Ollie making a homemade bomb for the post office either, but she did. She was turning into a horrible person! Suspecting everyone near and dear to her.

And Ollie was dear. He was an old friend. He had been since they were kids. He was just Oliver Schneider, the neighbor who’d gone off to war, who’d remained vaguely in the back of her mind while he was stationed overseas, who’d come home and walked the trails between their adjoining land in his overalls and rolled-up shirtsleeves. He was Ollie.

He was kissing her.

His hands had come up and cupped both sides of her face. His mouth moved against hers hungrily, as though she was his—had always been his. As though he’d somehow come close to losing her.

Imogene whimpered and tried to pull away.

Ollie released her, but his face was a breath away, his eyes driving into hers.

Imogene’s breaths came in short puffs. She realized her hand had come up and was clutching the front of Ollie’s shirt where it showed above the bib of his overalls.

“What in tarnation?” she breathed.

Ollie leaned his forehead until it rested against hers. “I’m sorry, Genie. I got a phone call. Some guy on the other end said to hurry. That you were in the town hall and it was on fire.”

“What!” Genie cried.

“So I ran in. The flames, the smoke. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t get to ya.”

“Oh dear . . . !” Horror filled her, and along with it a strange jubilation that her soldier had come home from war only to rush without thought into a burning building.

Ollie stole another kiss. There was desperation in him. Relief and joy mixed with something else altogether.

“Ollie—” Imogene tried to speak, but he kissed her again. This time her lips moved in response, and she returned it. It was heady. Surreal.

It was Oliver Schneider.

“Ollie—”

“Don’t.” Ollie pulled back, lifting his burned hand and brushing his knuckles down her cheek. “Don’t say nothin’. It won’t happen again, but I just—” his breath came out in a great sigh—“I just couldn’t stand the thought of losin’ ya, when it was the thought of havin’ ya that brought me back.”

“What?”

Ollie’s chest heaved as he took in a deep breath of air to make up for what he’d released. He stepped back from her and glanced down at his burned hand. “Yeah. Okay. It’s stingin’ now.”

“You need butter,” Imogene said, but her voice was weak as their eyes remained locked together.

Ollie nodded. “Yeah. Butter.”

“My mother has butter.”

“So does mine,” he responded.

“Okay,” Imogene nodded.

“Yeah.” Ollie spun on his heel and hurried away, leaving her in the middle of an empty park, staring after his retreating form and wondering where on earth this side of Oliver Schneider had been hiding all these years.