Skinny Dipping Season (6 page)

That stung.

“You don't know anything about me,” I said, ignoring the wobble in my voice.

I could almost feel the heat of his stare behind his Polaroids as he tilted his chin from the tip of my scuffed boots to my messy head. “After two encounters with you, there isn't a whole lot left to the imagination.”

His words hit hard. “It isn't—I don't always drink like I did last night,” I said, feeling my veneer slide a notch. The men in the corner had stopped their discussion and were staring at us. The waitress reappeared.

“Drink?” interrupted the woman. She moved toward us, pointing a finger at Officer Hardy. “Did you hear that, J. D.? This woman wants a drink. Our first fresh face in a dozen weeks and I can't give her one!”

Her words temporarily broke the tension. Officer Hardy held up his hands and tilted his head to the grease-stained ceiling. “Don't start with that liquor-license talk, Corinne. She is a perfect example of why we won't recommend the diner, for one. What kind of woman wants a drink before noon on a Monday morning?”

The slime. He was letting the waitress assume the worst. I was tired of being the fall guy. For a brief moment I was back in Toledo again, in the impossible position of having to explain the unexplainable. Officer Hardy's arrogant face merged with the titillated faces of reporters who loved slinging accusations.

Fine. Let this man believe what he wanted. If I was going to be judged no matter what I did—no matter how well-intentioned, albeit stupid, my motives were—then why bother? I was an addict, a self-centered rich girl, and a lawbreaker.

I stood up and pushed my hand against his rock-hard chest, wishing I could spear the most irritating man in the Midwest with only a finger. “What kind of girl wants a drink at eleven in the morning, Officer? You're so smart. You've already decided everything about me. So go ahead and figure it out.” I reached for my purse, ready to leave before I did something I would regret, like dump the nearby creamer over Officer Hardy's head. But I accidentally knocked my purse over and the contents spilled everywhere.

I dropped to my knees and scrambled to pick everything up, trying not to think of the dirty shoes that had touched the floor. I was almost finished when a hand holding my pack of cigarettes appeared in front of my face. “Don't forget your smokes.”

He said it loud enough that everyone in the diner heard.

God, I hated him right now. But I wasn't going to let him know.

“Wouldn't want to forget those,” I said with a little laugh of bravado. I angled my head toward the men in the booth. I placed a cigarette in the corner of my mouth like I saw people do in old movies and held the pack out to anyone who might be interested.

“Anyone want one?” The cigarette almost fell out when I spoke. The lady behind the counter put a hand over her mouth and snorted.

Officer Hardy moved closer. He was so near I could smell the same faint musk I remembered from his coat last night.

“Actually, smoking in a public restaurant is against the law these days.” He removed the cigarette from my mouth and threw it in the trash can behind the counter. “Welcome to the new millennium.”

Of course. I had forgotten about that.

Then, leaning down until his face was inches away, he said, “I suppose you think rules don't apply to you.”

I saw a different woman in his sunglasses now. Gone was the proper, straitlaced professional. In her place was a fierce woman I didn't recognize. It was too much. “Can you take those things off? You're inside, you know.”

He reached up and grabbed the glasses off his face. “Better?”

I should have kept my mouth shut. Now I saw his anger without a filter. I shook my head. “I am over trying to explain myself to you. I understand rules, Officer. But one of my own rules is about judging others before you know them. They must have forgotten that little bit of training back at the police academy.” My voice rose as I unleashed my temper. “Are you so perfect that you've never made a mistake?”

The diner was quiet. Officer Hardy leaned backward as if I had slapped him.

The voice of a corny weatherman on television talking about rainbows and sunshine cut through the silence. One of the men in the booth snickered.

Officer Hardy straightened and stuffed his glasses in his pocket. He didn't look so sure of himself now. He nodded to the waitress with a jaw that was clenched so hard I wondered if his teeth would crack. Then he walked out the door with restrained slowness, as if faster movement might shatter his control.

I had never in my entire life spoken to a virtual stranger the way I had to Officer Hardy. And now, for the second time in a day, I hadn't stopped to think before talking. Before shouting, in fact. And the strangest part was, I felt really good.

An embarrassed rustle of activity burst from the booth. Hopefully, the men weren't going to share my breakdown with half the town.

The lady behind the counter set a coffee mug down and smoothed her apron. She reached under the counter and handed me a menu.

Grinning, she said with a sparkle in her eye, “Just for the record, honey, would you really have ordered a drink if we served liquor?”

I hated beer and most mixed drinks. Colin only drank wine. Mom only drank gin. So, I had to dig to remember what kind of drink I might have enjoyed.

“Well, perhaps a chocolate martini,” I said tentatively.

The woman laughed so loudly I thought she would lose a part of the gold crown that covered her lower eyetooth. Taking a deep breath, I sat back down and smoothed my hair. Looking around the diner, I said, “I'm really sorry I yelled like that.”

“Honey, if you think that was yelling, then I need to introduce you to the mayor's wife. That was barely speaking above a whisper.” She winked at me. Reaching across the counter, she offered her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Name's Corinne Scott.”

I shook her hand and tilted my mouth. “I'm Elizabeth Lively.”

“Are you passing through or staying put?”

“Staying put for now. I'm living at my grandmother's house on Crooked Road.”

“Crooked Road? We love newcomers. Get 'em about once every two or three years.” I liked her immediately. “J. D. needs a little mischief to spice up his days.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Don't be too hard on him. He has a lot on his mind these days, being the acting sheriff while Sheriff Howe is out of town. You two may have gotten off to a bad start, but he isn't always like that.”

“Yes, he is,” said one of the men at the booth.

“You men don't know anything about J. D. That's the problem with this town. You oughtta take a lesson from Elizabeth here. You shouldn't judge a person by a few minor indiscretions.”

“Minor?” laughed another man. “How about stupid-ass mistakes?”

She rolled her eyes at the men. “J. D. had a tough time when he was younger. But he is doing everything by the book these days. He can even be downright pleasant when he tries.”

“Yeah, he was pleasant when he wrote me up for failing to get a new tag on my RV last year,” he said.

Corinne leaned in. “Ignore these wise guys. You're new here. So, here's my advice for you. There are a few jokesters in town, like those geezers in the booth. But with the exception of the mayor's wife and the guy who owns the ATV dealership, and maybe a few others, we have a lot of nice people in Truhart. Things are a little crazy this summer. We don't have our regular sheriff and his wife always runs the Timberfest. So, everyone in this town is like a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off. Oh—and one other thing: Watch out if you go to the Family Fare. I love her to pieces, but if you meet my friend Marva O'Shea, she'll corner you like a hunter in November and sign you up for all sorts of home-selling parties. She's sort of pushy when it comes to candles and makeup and . . . well . . . just about everything a woman might want to buy and never use.”

“I've already been initiated.” I leaned my elbows on the counter, surprised to realize I wasn't at all concerned with the tacky feel of dried syrup.

Corinne put her hand on her hip. “We'll make sure to invite you to our Wednesday ladies meetings here at the diner. You'll learn all about the town that way.” She thought for a moment. “So, Crooked Road?” One darkened brow arched up. “Well, that explains it. I heard there was a doozy of a call there last night. It's all over town.”

I winced. “Yeah, Officer Hardy and I sort of ran into each other. He doesn't like me much.”

“Give it some time, my dear. Just a little space and he'll calm down. Now, do you have an idea what you might like to eat, Miss Elizabeth Lively?”

Smiling, I knew exactly what I wanted. “Well, if you don't have chocolate martinis, do you still serve chocolate milkshakes?”

F
or several days, I read paperback vampire romances, watched television talk shows on my laptop, and devoured junk food. I visited Nestor and we made two Pottawatomi pies. And then we sat down and ate one. Now I was stuck with an overdose of sugar and sexual angst.

Then, this morning, Grandma's ancient Whirlpool gave its last gasp halfway through the soak cycle. It was pronounced DOA by the local repairman. He eyed me with curiosity and offered to sell me a used one, but I wasn't sure my feeble checking account could handle it.

The load of whites sat in a pile of suds at the bottom of the drum.

I grabbed the laundry basket and piled the soapy whites into it. Then I loaded the car and came back to grab my purse with a feeling of anticipation. It was a sad moment when the Sit and Spin became an exciting outing. It gave a new purpose to my day and an excuse to write another entry in my journal. For people with OCD, a Laundromat was therapy. One could only imagine how many sweaty clothes had been in the same spin cycle.

Officer Hardy's flashlight still sat in the middle of my coffee table. Every time I looked at it I remembered J. D. Hardy's eyes as he had walked away from me at the diner. Despite what Officer Hardy or the reporters in Toledo thought, I wasn't really a criminal. Respect for government property had been drilled into my mind since I was young. I grabbed the flashlight. Maybe if I brought it back it would ease my guilty conscience.

As I turned to leave, I looked around the living room. Way too clean. I grabbed the trash can from the corner and tipped it upside down. A swift kick sent the contents sprawling. A used Kleenex and several old pieces of junk mail were scattered across the floor. That was a bit too much. I left the mail and threw the Kleenex in the bin. Wimp. Oh, well. At least I had tried.

As if my thoughts had conjured him, I passed Officer Hardy's SUV parked on the side of M-33 on my way into town. He stood beside a pickup truck with a trailer hitch that had come undone. The trailer was halfway through a split-log fence. The obvious owner of the fence was standing by the road, shaking his head and gesturing toward the damage. The pickup-truck driver had his baseball hat in his hand and was waving it back and forth. Officer Hardy stood between the men with that expression of restrained control I was becoming familiar with, and he looked up when I passed him. I turned away, so he wouldn't see my look of sympathy.

At least I could return the flashlight without running into him in person at the sheriff's office.

Five minutes later, I parked in front of a small, single-story brick building and pushed open the steel door. A woman sat behind a long desk covered in stacks of papers and books. She looked up as I entered and pointed to a chair against the wall. Then she continued speaking on the phone.

I sat down and waited, trying not to listen to her conversation. She placed her hand over her eyes and spoke quietly, but in the silence of the room I could hear her as she explained that she couldn't make it to the school to meet with a counselor.

Trying to ignore her, I studied the room. A wanted poster, a fire-level chart, and a picture of the governor adorned the pine-paneled walls. A sign above a door next to my chair read
Sheriff Howe.
The door stood open and the light was on. I wondered if that was where Officer Hardy worked when he was in the office.

When the woman behind the desk hung up, she sighed. Then she picked up a pair of scissors and started cutting, forgetting that I still sat nearby. I stood up and approached the desk, noticing a pile of coupon clippings spread in front of her. She finished cutting a large one and placed it in one of several piles.

“You might want to put the orange-juice coupon with the dairy, not the meat,” I couldn't help commenting.

She raised her tired eyes and looked at me absently. “What?”

“The orange juice is technically with the dairy in grocery stores.”

Her mouth dropped open and she looked down at the coupons as if she were finishing a puzzle. “Oh yeah, right. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

She spread her hands on top of the coupons and gathered herself. “Sorry about that. Can I help you?”

“I just wanted to return this to the sheriff.”

“The sheriff isn't in th—” She stopped herself and then said, “Oh, you mean J. D. He should be here any minute. Why don't you sit over there,” she said, motioning to the chair again.

“Couldn't I just leave it?” Seeing Officer Hardy was not in my plan.

Just then, a deputy walked out of the sheriff's office holding a newspaper in front of his eyes. For a moment I thought it was my nemesis. But he was too short and paunchy. He lowered himself into the chair I had been sitting in and balanced back on two chair legs.

“Hey, Bob. Is that today's paper? J. D. was looking for that earlier,” the woman said. He lowered the newspaper and it sagged over, revealing the comics section.

“He can wait a few more days.”

I turned back to the woman, trying to get my errand done before Officer Hardy showed up. “So, can I just leave this?”

She shook her head. “J. D. should be back—”

The deputy interrupted. “Did J. D. make a fresh pot of coffee yet, Sandy?”

“Not yet. He had five calls this afternoon,” she said. “Feel free to give it a try yourself.” He seemed oblivious to her sarcasm.

I held out the flashlight. “I saw him on the side of the road and it looks like it will take some time before he can get back. Couldn't you just give the flashlight to Officer Hardy?”

“Yeah, I heard something about that on the radio. Guess J. D.'s gonna have more fans now,” the deputy said. Then he stuck out his cheek with his tongue and grinned before putting the paper back in front of his face.

Without looking at me, the woman named Sandy reached into a drawer and took out a piece of paper. “You'll have to fill out a form.”

“Why?”

She picked up the scissors and began cutting coupons again. “It's a lost-and-found report. We have to keep track of how we lose things with the county.”

“Couldn't I just leave a note?”

“Why would you do that?” Sandy cocked her head to the side as if she couldn't figure out my question.

“So that I could leave it with
Officer Hardy
.”

We were talking in circles and I felt like I was Alice down the rabbit hole.

“How do you know it's his?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders.

“Because he left it at my house.”

Her scissors stopped in the middle of a dollar discount for jarred spaghetti sauce. “Your house?”

“Well, my grandmother's house.”

“Was he visiting?” Her eyes scanned me with interest.

“You might say that.”

“Well, hey, hey,” the deputy said. The paper rested in his lap and his eyebrows wagged up and down.

“It wasn't like that,” I said, scowling at him.

They both waited for me to explain.

“It was a little misunderstanding.”

They still stared.

“Was it a date or something?” she asked.

“No. Someone thought I was breaking and entering. But it was my grandma's house.”

“Ah, Crooked Road,” Sandy said, frowning. She and the deputy sat back, disappointed. I couldn't help but picture J. D. Hardy and me doing what they thought we had been doing. I realized I was running my hand up and down the flashlight and immediately dropped my arms to my sides.

The deputy made a
tsk-tsk
sound with his lips. “We should have known. J. D. has no life. The only women he visits are in the line of duty. Still, Sandy, you remember him the next morning? His boots sounded like he'd gone swimming in them and he growled all day.”

The deputy turned to me with a grin. “He's usually as controlled as a robot. What did you do to him?”

I was beginning to feel sorry for Officer Hardy. The lack of respect he suffered reminded me of my own experience at family holidays.

I was thinking about defending him when Sandy spoke up. “J. D. took that shift for you, Bob. Show a little sympathy. If it weren't for him you wouldn't have been able to enjoy that candle party.”

Bob's attention was back in the paper again and he nodded absently. “I sure did. That pink champagne was
dee-lish
. But J. D. could have stopped by when he got off. One of these days he might actually socialize with the people he works with.”

“He wasn't invited to my party,” came a high-pitched voice from the door.

Bob fumbled with the newspaper and tried to straighten it, but it wasn't complying. It ended up in a wrinkled mess.

“Hello, Mrs. Mayor—uh, Mrs. Bloodworth,” said Bob.

Her perfume reached me before she stepped across the threshold. It was sweet and reminded me of the cloying type my mother used to spray all over herself before my father got home. Not because she wanted to smell good, but because she wanted to cover up the smell of alcohol on her breath.

Mrs. Bloodworth was curvy and dressed in tight-fitting cropped pants to make the most of her shape. Her blond hair was highlighted and perfectly curled and I highly doubted she had it styled anywhere near Truhart.

A blond-haired man was with her. He was tall and clean-cut. With his oxford shirt and khaki pants, he should have been my type. But something about him made me cringe. Maybe it was because he reminded me of Colin.

“Sandy, Dylan and I are going to check out some files in the sheriff's office,” she said. She sauntered toward the back office on her high heels. Then she halted as her dark eyes focused on me. Actually, just on my purse and my shoes. I had forgotten about my accessories. The sleek-looking dark leather handbag was Kate Spade and the shoes were Tory Burch. I had just flunked homework item 14:
be messy
.

“Do I know you?” Mrs. Bloodworth asked.

“I don't think so.” I hoped she hadn't been in Toledo recently.

She flipped her bangs out of her face. “Oh, well—I just thought I might know you from somewhere.” She pursed her lips and they headed around the corner.

“Uh, Mrs. Bloodworth, Mr. Schraeder, I don't think you should go in there—” Sandy was in the process of shoving the coupons in the drawer and trying to keep track of the mayor's wife. But Mrs. Mayor wasn't paying any attention. The sounds of rattling and knocking came from the office.

I was getting tired of being ignored. “Could I just leave this?” I asked again.

Mrs. Bloodworth's head reappeared, “The file cabinets are all locked.”

“That was the order from Officer Hardy, ma'am.”

The man stepped out of the office with his hand on the doorframe. “And where is the acting sheriff?” Something about the way he said the words
acting sheriff
bothered me.

“He'll be here soon, but this lady is in line to see him first.” Sandy gestured to me. I had the uneasy feeling that I was being used as an excuse.

I stepped back, but Sandy was suddenly interested in me. “I'm sorry, what was your name?”

I hesitated. Government property be damned. I should have kept the flashlight.

“Elizabeth.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and it sprang back refusing my help.

“My business won't take long,” explained Mrs. Bloodworth. “I just need to get some of the files on the Timberfest.”

“I can have J. D.—I mean, Officer Hardy—find them and get back to you,” Sandy explained.

“No need, just give me the key.”

“Well, there are some pretty confidential things inside the file cabinets that are unrelated to the Timberfest and J. D. keeps the key,” Sandy said.

“Really? How very interesting. The real sheriff is certainly putting a lot of faith in him, isn't he? I can't imagine what Sheriff Howe was thinking, can you, Dylan?”

The man scowled. “Tell the ‘acting sheriff' we are looking for him.” He put his fingers in the air as quotes when he said
acting sheriff
.

Mrs. Mayor strode toward the door and turned to me. Her hands stroked the strap of her purse. “Were you at the Art in the Park fund-raiser in Traverse City last month?”

“No.”

“Reeba Sweeney's Spring Fling party?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

She placed her purse higher on her shoulder and flipped her hair before leaving a jet stream of perfume in her wake. The man's gaze wandered from my head to my toes, pausing in between in a way that gave me the creeps. Then he followed her out the door.

All air seemed to suck itself out of the room when they left. Sandy put her head in her hands and Bob came over and placed a hip on the desk. “You know this summer is going to be a disaster with J. D. in charge. The last I heard the mayor wants us to hire the deputies in Harrisburg for the Timberfest. J. D. is going to be really ticked when he finds out. So be prepared for more bad mood from—”

“Bob, this lady doesn't need to hear about our little problems here,” she said through her teeth. “I can take the flashlight,” she said, holding her hand out.

I handed her the flashlight. “No forms?”

“No,” she said as she swiveled her chair toward a shelf against the wall. For the first time, I noticed a row of flashlights neatly lined up behind her. Sandy turned back to me. “Can I do anything else for you?”

“No, thank you.” I backed toward the door.

“Have a nice day and let us know if we can help you again in the future,” she said.

Fat chance
, I wanted to say.