“I’M COOKING,” BEN announced that evening at Corie’s. “PB and J or peanut butter on toast.”
Corie groaned emphatically. “Nothing for me.” After stuffing herself at lunch with chili-cheese fries, then helping Teresa and the children bake Christmas cookies, she was sure she wouldn’t be hungry until January.
He stood in the middle of her kitchen in T-shirt and jeans. She stared at him in amused disbelief. “You had a double burger, fries and onion rings at the mall and then you sampled the kids’ Christmas cookies all afternoon.”
“What’s your point?”
“You should be stuffed.”
“I mowed a lawn. I wrangled wild children. I’ve had to deal with you all day. I’ve worked it off.”
“Ha, ha. You’re lucky I always try to be less argumentative around the children. But, no thanks to dinner. And peanut butter’s hardly dinner, anyway.”
“Well.” He put the jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread on the table and turned to take a plate from the cupboard. “We Cordon Bleu-deprived types do what we have to do.” He smiled charmingly at her. “Unless you’d like to make me a fried-egg sandwich?”
She smiled, tempted. She’d love to linger with him in her cozy lamp-lit living room, talking about all the fun the children had had today—and her, too. But she didn’t know what her next step was so retreat seemed simpler. “No. I’m going to bed early and read. Good night.” She walked away.
“Some friend you are,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “Good night.”
She closed her bedroom door behind her, turned on the bedside lamp and reached under her pillow for her sleep shirt. Only then did she notice the small gift bag in the middle of her bed. It was decorated with a polar bear on skates and had a matching gift card attached. It read, “Something special just for you. Ben”
Pulling a thick wad of tissue out of the bag, she unwrapped it to reveal a large, sparkly star with several smaller stars dangling from it. The brilliance of it made her smile. When she pressed the button in the center, it played “O, Little Town of Bethlehem.”
She smiled to herself, remembering that Ben had left their noisy group at lunch, excusing himself to get batteries for his flashlight. He must have bought the ornament and put it on her bed when she’d run out to her truck to get her forgotten cell phone.
Guilt assailed her. She should go back out there and make him a fried-egg sandwich. But thinking this nice, inexplicable truce between them could last any longer than his visit to Querida was a pipe dream.
She did yank open her door. “Ben?” she shouted.
“Yeah?” he called back from the kitchen.
“Thank you for the ornament!”
“You’re welcome!”
“And...thanks for this afternoon. The kids had a great time.”
“Sure.”
“And, Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“I did, too.”
“Good.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
She closed her door and turned back to the dresser, thinking that had been an unsatisfying conversation. She’d thanked him, but talking to him without looking into his face diminished the challenge and the pleasure. She hadn’t gotten to see his taunting expression, the exasperated roll of his eyes, the often cryptic twist of his lips.
Sighing, she reached for the book on top of her dresser and turned toward the bed. She was interrupted by a knock on the door. She backtracked to open it wide, happy the conversation wasn’t terminated.
“Yes?” she asked.
Without answering her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. He looked down into her face, all that the earlier contact had lacked because he hadn’t been within sight, now filling her with all his nearness had come to mean. His eyes were bright with passion, his arm firmly possessive, the free hand that brushed the hair out of her eyes warm and slightly rough with calluses.
He kissed her long and lingeringly. Yes, she thought absently as her senses were bombarded with so many impressions she couldn’t untangle them. It was better to deal with him face-to-face.
The overall impact of his mouth on hers was both liberating and deliciously confining, filled with tension and still euphoric, a little alarming in its intensity and yet leaving her wanting more. Yes, she thought again, her breath coming in gasps as he raised his head. It was even better to have him within reach.
He studied her one last minute, that storm that was part clarity, part confusion, still in his eyes. He finally dropped his hands and took a step back, as though making himself create distance between them. “Good night, Corie,” he said and walked away.
“Good night, Ben,” she whispered after him. She closed the door.
* * *
BEN SAT AT the kitchen table with a cup of tea and looked over the information Will Fennerty had printed out for him. The folder held news of the mayor’s election almost two years ago and his choice of Roberto Pimental as deputy mayor. Several residents had written letters to the editor disputing the need for one in a town as small as theirs. Another letter cited the mayor’s health and questioned why he was elected when he required another person to help him do his job. A moot point, since the election had taken place.
Ben frowned over the casual government in Querida.
There was an editorial in which Will asked for proof of the deputy mayor’s salary. A pay stub in a very reasonable amount had been provided. There was an article about Corie’s arrest for assault along with a photo of the deputy mayor with a cut lip and a gash above his right eye.
The reporter repeated Corie’s claim that Pimental had tried to force sexual favors from her for his assistance in helping Teresa fight eviction. He also repeated Pimental’s denial and insistence that she had offered him sexual favors. Pimental had decided not to press charges and denied having seen the delivery person who claimed to have witnessed his advances.
Pimental removed parking meters in the downtown area just before last Christmas, which had resulted in a hail of letters of praise. “He’s doing a fine job.” The remark, from the proprietor of a downtown business, seemed based exclusively on the parking meters.
Fennerty had also included a printout from the local town government website about operational protocol relating to a deputy mayor. Several sentences were underlined. “The deputy mayor does not become mayor if a mayor resigns. The council selects a new mayor by majority vote if there is a vacancy. The deputy mayor serves only during the absence or temporary disability of the mayor.”
The mayor hadn’t officially resigned, according to Will’s note, but an absence of more than a year and a half was considerably more than temporary. So, he really had no right to be in office?
There was an item several years old about Gil Bigelow’s appointment as chief of police. A sticky note attached to the article by Will said that he’d tried to find a connection between Pimental and Bigelow but had been unable to so far. He was still investigating.
Unfortunately, Ben thought, most of the information related to what Pimental had done in public. What they needed to know was what went on behind closed doors.
And could Pimental possibly be related to the necklace that had showed up on Corie’s pillow? He and Tyree were cronies, but would Tyree have told him he’d gotten the jewelry back and was defrauding the insurance company? And, if so, did either man know that Corie had taken the jewelry in the first place?
Ben closed the folder, put it in his bag and went to his makeshift bed on the floor, distracted from his concerns about Pimental by the memory of Corie’s kiss. That was a more pleasant thought to sleep on.
* * *
IT WAS HARD for Ben to imagine that children would find pea gravel so exciting. Teresa had gone Christmas shopping and Corie had ordered the children, just home from school, to remain near the back door under pain of dessert deprivation for a lifetime. “And I’m not kidding!” she added forcefully when Soren and Carlos grinned.
The boys sobered instantly and watched with the other children in complete fascination as the dump truck tilted its red box and dropped a large mound of gravel. The driver moved the truck forward, then jumped out and ran to the controls at the back to increase the angle of the box so that it dumped another load right in front of the other. He repeated the process several more times until a long, four-foot hill of gravel stood in the middle of the backyard. The children shouted and applauded. The driver took a bow, handed Ben the bill, climbed back into the cab of the truck, righted the large red box and drove away.
“That’s so cool,” Soren said. He turned to Ben. “Can we climb on it before you spread it out?”
Corie turned to Ben. She still had a little trouble looking at him after their kiss last night, but he met her gaze evenly, as though he thought of nothing else but keeping her charges safe. He knew she wanted to tell the children they couldn’t but apparently hated to deprive them of fun. “Is it safe?” she asked.
He didn’t know how to answer that. He wouldn’t have thought a pile of gravel could hurt anyone, but since watching these children at play, he’d learned that their creativity could make a feather and a cotton ball into dangerous threats. “I’ll be right here,” he promised. “Give them half an hour on it then I’ll start smoothing. But we’ll set a few rules.”
“Fine. I’ll stand by just in case.”
He tried to mimic her firm expression and no-nonsense voice as he turned to the children. “You can stand on it, slide down on it, but no burrowing into it. Everybody got that?” He frowned fiercely. He could see them meeting his eyes and trying to determine just how serious he was. He didn’t flinch.
“Okay,” Soren finally said. “On it and down it, but not in it.”
“Right.”
“Got it.”
The children ran toward the pile of gravel screaming like a military force taking a hill. Later, Ben and Corie had to extend the time limit to an hour because the kids stuck meticulously to the rules and were having so much fun.
“Who’d have thought?” she asked, leaning toward him.
He caught a whiff of her cherry blossom/ginseng shampoo.
“That the gravel would be as much fun for them as the playground equipment? Maybe you could have saved yourself a lot of money.”
He smiled without taking his eyes off the kids. “Wait till the set gets here. It’s pretty cool.”
“Oh, no. I have to start honing my carpentry skills for Monday, right?”
“No,” he replied. “My partner on the police force has a couple of weeks off and he’s coming to help.”
She turned to him in surprise. “He has a couple of weeks off and he’s coming here to do manual labor with you?”
“The woman he loved is marrying someone else. He’s happy to be able to get away. It was come here or go with his mom and her sisters to Reno.”
Corie frowned. “Poor guy. Where’s he going to stay?”
“I got him my old room at the B and B. You’ll like him. He’s a great guy. His parents taught at an American school in Europe, then his father died and his mom wanted to move back to Oregon to be near her sisters. Grady came along to spend a little time to make sure she was going to be all right. He fell in love with Beggar’s Bay. He’s been there five years.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m disappointed that I don’t have to help you measure and hammer. But I will help you spread gravel. There are a couple of rakes in the shed.”
“Thank you.” He pointed toward the children. “You ready to break this up? You’re better at laying down the law than I am. I have to act tough.”
“But, you’re a cop. Don’t you lay down the law every day?”
“Sure, but adults are easier to intimidate.”
* * *
THE PLAY SET arrived on schedule Monday morning in four giant boxes. Corie gathered with Ben, Teresa and the younger children on the back patio to watch the delivery. Corie had driven the older children to school earlier.
Ben asked the men to place the boxes near the gravel base she’d helped him prepare. His friend Grady Nelson was due to arrive tomorrow and Ben planned to go through all the pieces today to arrange them for a more efficient assembly.
“I can’t believe all you’ve done for us.”
Corie had heard Teresa say that to Ben at least half a dozen times.
Ben’s reply was always the same. “I’m happy to.”
“But we’ve completely sidetracked you,” Teresa said. “You came here for a purpose, but you’ve spent all your time working for me and the children.” She indicated the enormous boxes sitting to one side of the yard. “There’s no way we can set it up without you, but once that’s done, you have to concentrate on what you came to Querida for.”
“I’ll get to that,” he said with a smiling glance of warning in Corie’s direction. He went to talk to the driver, signed paperwork and handed back the clipboard.
“I think Ben came for you,” Teresa said to Corie, giving her a maternal smile.
“He did, but not for the reason you think.”
Teresa herded the little ones into the house, Corie hiking Roberto onto her hip.
“Maybe the reason’s changed,” Teresa said. “You have to be open to that in life. Things start out one way and, before you know it, everything’s different. That can be okay. You have feelings for him, don’t you?”
“I do,” Corie admitted with a wide smile as Teresa took Roberto from her and put him in his playpen. “Frustration, exasperation, annoyance...”
She gathered dishes off the table to put them in the dishwasher. The arrival of the delivery trucks had interrupted her morning cleanup.
“He puts up with you, too.”
“Not without a lot of flak.” Teresa beckoned Bianca to the little rocker beside Roberto and put on the children’s favorite morning television show. They immediately began bouncing with the music.
“Corie, your being here has been wonderful for me. Like having a daughter. And you’ve made things so much easier. Still, this is my life. You have to find yours.”
“Well. You made life possible for me. If you hadn’t taken me in, I don’t know what would have happened to me. So I’m happy to be here.”
Teresa held her hand tightly and looked her in the eye. “I want you to reconnect with your brother. You should go to Oregon when Ben goes home and make a new life there.”
“Out of the question.” Corie dismissed the very thought by going back to the dishwasher. She continued to load then put in soap. “I don’t fit in there, Teresa.”
“You’d fit in anywhere now, Corie. You just have to want to.”
Life in Oregon with Ben and the Palmers. It was a nice thought but probably more in the realm of a fairy tale. For a while, at least, she had to focus on reality.