“What company?” Justin asked with a laugh.
“Okay, you’ll never be president, but you’ll be irreplaceable. You’re brilliant. You hungry?”
Justin laughed at him and began on the paperwork for the invoice.
“I’m going to get us a pizza,” Al said.
“I can help with that, too,” the kid said.
In the few weeks Al had been there he watched as Lucky’s became a little bit of a hangout, too. Laine was there regularly, whether she’d been out for a run or on her way home from one of her consulting jobs. She often checked in, asking Eric what they should do for dinner. When Mac filled up the sheriff’s department SUV, he managed to stay awhile because the crew at Lucky’s made good company. Such was the case with many residents. And, of course, there were Ray Anne’s visits, seldom for a full tank and never in a big hurry. If Al was aware she was at the pump, he took the job. He wiped off his hands, excused the rest of the garage team and spent a little quality time on Ray Anne’s little BMW. He knew he did a lot of grinning while she was there.
Eric said, “You ever wonder how she walks in those shoes?”
Al had lifted a brow and said, “Walking is way overrated.”
On one of her passes through the station she said, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night at Cliff’s, since it’s your night off.”
“I guess so,” he answered.
“You know, one of these nights you’ll have to stay for dinner....”
“I’ve had dinner there a time or two,” he said, grinning. “But I’m thinking it’s about time for something Italian.”
“Sure,” she said, clearly disappointed.
“You can probably recommend a good place.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m a full-service Realtor.”
“I thought you could. Let’s see—I’ll get to Cliff’s around five. Maybe five-thirty. That’s about when you get there, right? You think of some good Italian place and I’ll take you out. How’s that?”
The disappointment on her face melted instantly into a look of pure pleasure. “That would be perfect. I know all the best restaurants in Coos County.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Al found himself looking forward to a dinner out with Ray Anne more than he’d looked forward to a date in a long while, and it was entirely successful, starting with their hysterical laughter when he folded himself up in her BMW. “I don’t know if this is gonna work,” he said.
“I can’t get in that truck!” she said, laughing. “It’s as far off the ground as I am tall! And I’m in a tight skirt and heels!”
“And those heels do you proud, too. You don’t weigh much. I could pick you up and throw you in,” he suggested.
“Aw, you don’t think I weigh much? Not only do I love you for that, I can eat more Italian tonight than I’d planned to. Now just put your chin on your knees like a good boy and let me worry about getting you there!”
“Drive carefully,” he said. “If you hit a berm or pylon, I’ll have to have my knees removed from the back of my head.”
She took him to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant decorated with plastic vines and grapes and he told her he’d forgotten his reading glasses and asked her to order for them both. She did an expert job and they laughed all through dinner. He wanted to know all about what it was like growing up in Coos County and she wanted to know what it was like just moving from job to job with no real commitments.
“It’s not exactly like that,” he said. “I’ve worked for a few of the same people, like Eric, who are willing to hire me even though I don’t seem to be looking for a career. In a dozen years I’ve worked for Eric several different times, then I’d hear from someone who needs help or wants me back for a contract they can’t fulfill without extra help. I don’t like the north in the winter, I don’t like the south in the summer. I’m not saving up for a European vacation or big house, that’s just how I roll. I like Eric. I don’t work for people who don’t prove to me they’re honest and straightforward and Eric is.”
“So you’ll move on and probably come back in six months or a year?” she asked.
He tilted his head, wrinkled his brow and said, “That just seems to be the way of it. Maybe I like too many things. I like driving a truck, like mechanics, and since I was raised on a farm, that still has appeal. I go back to Iowa just about every year even though there’s hardly anyone there I know anymore. Sometimes I hang around, help out old neighbors.”
“What happened to the family farm?” she asked.
“We gave it up. Sold it. There’s just my sister and me. She gave her half to charity and I put my half into a few bonds and a new truck. It wasn’t that much land. It seemed like way too much farm when I was working it, but once it was for sale it turned out to be a little dinky farm.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“I do,” he admitted. “But I didn’t want to be a farmer all alone and with no other siblings and my parents gone, it didn’t hold much appeal. Plus, it didn’t take me long to see I could do without those really bad Midwestern winters....”
Ray Anne, he learned, loved what she did and where she did it. Loved it with a passion. Thunder Point was an easy place to live, she knew everyone, and her work took her all over Coos County and beyond. She loved being with people all day, as many days a week as she could stand it. She had a few really good friends in town, made a decent if modest living, mostly by managing rental property in the area, and life was as she liked it—maybe not cosmopolitan but satisfying. “If I could’ve talked Cooper out of that beachfront property, the commission would’ve been incredible, but the greedy bastard wouldn’t let it go. I love him, but that was on the selfish side.”
When they finally left the restaurant after a long dinner, Ray Anne drove them back to Cliff’s, Al’s chin on his knees. His truck sat in the parking lot, looking pretty lonely. It was late and the restaurant was near closing.
She turned toward him. “If you’re interested, you could follow me home to my house for a nightcap or cup of coffee.”
Al frowned a little bit. He gently touched her shoulder. “Listen, that’s nice. I have to mention a couple of things. You already know—I’m not likely to be here long-term. If I’m here a year, that’s real long-term for me.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “If I date you a month, you’re really something. I didn’t ask you if you wanted to make an investment. I asked you if you wanted a drink.”
“The other thing...I was married. It was a while ago. Over thirty years. I wasn’t good at it. I haven’t been tempted since.”And she laughed.
“I know you don’t think that’s funny,” he said.
“I do, as a matter of fact. I’ve been married three times. I’m a very slow learner. Apparently I’m not good at it, either. And I’m not looking for a family, for God’s sake.”
“What are you looking for?” he asked. “Because I like you, but I don’t want to end up in a bad situation. You know—where we’re angry at each other because of someone’s failed expectations. I like my job, the town, you, and I hate drama. I’d like things easy. Do you know what I mean?”
“Can we start with a drink?” she asked. “I like you, too. I think I’m past romantic expectations. Or illusions.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Forty-two,” she said. “Or fifty-two. Or sixty-one. I can never remember. How important is that?”
He grinned. “Show me the way, Ms. Ray Anne.”
He pried himself out of that little car, found his way into his truck with some relief in his joints. He followed her to a little house up the hill. It was a comfortable, small house, maybe a little overdecorated—lots of mirrors and candles and other girlie things. He had a Scotch. It turned out there was no duct tape or bailing wire involved in her figure—Ray Anne was nicely put together.
He left in the morning. With a smile on his face.
* * *
When Laine stopped by the diner on her way home one sunny afternoon, Ashley was behind the counter. She said, “Mom said to send you out to Cooper’s if you dropped by today.”
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I think it’s an impromptu hen party. In the sun for a change, instead of in a back booth.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” she said. “I’m walking and leaving my car right where it is.”
“I’ll make sure my new stepfather doesn’t tow it, how’s that?”
“You are a generous woman,” Laine said with a laugh.
By the time she got just past the marina she could hear the laughter of women floating down the beach. It put a little spring in her step. How long had it really been since she’d had the kind of women friends who could laugh like idiots over every other comment? She’d had women friends, of course, even though law enforcement was still dominated by men. But friends like these—from various walks of life, from waitress to Coast Guard pilot recently retired? Not even in college! If Eric was the greatest benefit from this hiatus from the FBI, the women here were a close second.
She could see them up there, commanding the deck. They had pulled a couple of tables together, divided by generation. At one small, round table sat Lou McCain and her best friends Carrie James, Gina’s mother and the deli owner, and Ray Anne Dysart, Realtor extraordinaire. At the table next to them were Gina, then Sarah, Cooper’s very pregnant wife, and Devon.
“Laine! Hurry! You have to hear this!” Gina shouted.
Laine took the steps two at a time.
“Maybe she already knows,” Ray Anne said.
“Know what?”
“She’s seeing Al, from the station,” Lou announced.
“I didn’t say ‘seeing,’” Ray Anne corrected. “I said we’d been out to dinner a couple of times. We happened to show up for happy hour at Cliff’s more than once, decided to have dinner.”
“At Cliffhanger’s?” Laine asked.
“Well, no. We just went to Bandon—not too far. We had Italian once. And once we went out for Chinese. And ended up getting takeout...” She fluttered her lashes.
Everyone howled.
“How’s he like that pole-dancing routine?” Lou asked, laughing.
“As a matter of fact, I took pole-dancing lessons to keep my legs in shape and he said he liked what I did to a pair of high heels. So there! He’s very polite. Not like you, Louise.”
“He is polite,” Laine acknowledged. “Very nice man.”
“Handsome man,” Sarah said. “He’s been out here a couple of times and he pumped my gas last week. He has very good teeth.”
“Yes, he does,” Ray Anne said. “I’m not even sure how old he is.”
“Yes, but does he know how old you are?” Carrie asked.
“Pfffttt. I don’t even know how old I am.”
“We do,” Carrie and Lou said in unison, making everyone laugh again.
Laine reached over and gave Sarah’s hand a pat. “How are you feeling?”
“All right,” she said. “I’m not sure where I’m going to put two more months of little girl.”
“A girl, then?” she asked.
Sarah smiled a little sentimentally. “Exactly what I ordered. We have Landon—he’s graduating in June. And Cooper has Austin. A girl should fit in just right. I asked Cooper to give me a girl and he got right on it.” Then she grinned.