it comes, Joslyn thought, inwardly bracing herself. “Sorry?” she echoed, stalling.
“That he died?” Slade prompted with just the hint of a grin dancing in his eyes and flirting with the corners of his mouth. For the most part, though, his expression was solemn. Thoughtful. Like she was the last person on earth he’d expected to run into in Parable, Montana, or anywhere else.
“Thanks for not adding ‘in prison,’” Joslyn said, without intending to say any such thing.
“I reckon that part goes without saying,” Slade replied easily. She knew he wanted to ask what she was doing back in Parable, and of course she couldn’t have told him, even if she’d been inclined to do so, because she still didn’t know herself. He nodded, started around her and her cart. “Anyhow, good to see you again,” he said.
It was a lie, of course, though cordially told.
“Same here,” Joslyn fibbed.
She’d have avoided Slade if she could have, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that Callie Barlow’s baby boy had grown up to be one good-looking hunk of cowboy.
Once he’d rounded the display of boxed doughnuts at the end of the aisle, Joslyn tried to concentrate on spices again, but all she added to the seasonings already in her cart were salt and pepper.
The shopping cart wheel creaked and grabbed at the floor with every revolution as she pressed on toward the meat, fish and poultry, showcased in a refrigerated cooler, sure that everyone in the store must be staring at her by now, suddenly recalling her former association with Elliott Rossiter.
She selected a package of tilapia, an organic game hen and some lean hamburger, trying to distract herself by ogling the prices—which were outrageous. She’d go broke if she did all her shopping at Mulligan’s, that was for sure, nostalgia or no nostalgia.
But she didn’t stay distracted for long.
Slade Barlow not only filled her thoughts, he seemed to permeate her body, too, as though there had been some quantum-level exchange of energy.
He was taller than she remembered, broader through the shoulders. It wasn’t even noon, and he had a five o’clock shadow, and, furthermore, that quiet confidence of his both drew her and made her want to sprint in the opposite direction.
What was that about?
She heard him exchange pleasantries with the clerk as he paid for the water, heard the little bell over the front door chime as he went out.
She stood frozen in front of the meat counter, strangely shaken, half expecting the sky to cave in, shattering the not-so-sturdy roof of Mulligan’s Grocery and landing all around her in big, blue chunks snagged with wispy strands of cloud.
“Aren’t you Elliott’s girl?” a quavery female voice asked.
Startled out of her daze, Joslyn turned and saw Daisy Mulligan herself standing at her side, shrunken and white-haired, with pink patches of scalp showing between her pin curls, but very much alive. Her blue eyes were watery behind the old-fashioned frames of her glasses.
Joslyn caught herself just before she would have blurted, “I thought you were dead,” and rummaged up a warm smile, putting out her hand. “Joslyn Kirk,” she said pleasantly. “Elliott was my stepfather.”
Daisy nodded slowly, her rheumy gaze watchful, as she shook Joslyn’s hand. “Nobody around here thought the Rossiter boy would grow up to be a crook,” she remarked. “His father and grandfather were both doctors. Solid citizens. We should have known there was something wrong with Elliott when he didn’t go to medical school.”
Joslyn tried to read the old woman, but it was impossible. Either Mrs. Mulligan was about to shout down the ceiling, calling Joslyn the spawn of Satan and ordering her out of the store, or she was just making conversation.
There was no way to tell.
“And when he didn’t marry a hometown girl,” Daisy added ruefully, following up with a sigh. She looked fragile as a bird in her cardigan sweater and simple cotton dress, though she walked without a cane and her shoes weren’t orthopedic.
Uh-oh, Joslyn thought.
“Not that your mama wasn’t a nice-looking woman,” Daisy allowed.
“Is,” Joslyn corrected awkwardly. “My mother is still—around.”
Daisy reached out and patted Joslyn’s left hand, where it rested on the handle of the rickety shopping cart. “That’s good to know, dear,” she said. Behind the smudged lenses of her glasses, her eyes grew a size. “Some of us thought you’d come back and marry up with Hutch Carmody, since the two of you seemed so crazy about each other, but the majority expected you to steer clear of Parable for good.”
Joslyn gripped the shopping cart handle with both hands now, her knuckles turning white. Daisy went on before she could think of anything to say.
“Fred’s brother-in-law lost a bundle in that mess of Elliott’s,” the old woman reminisced. “Died before that outfit in Denver started sending out checks.”
“Checks?” Joslyn managed, almost croaking the word.
“A settlement,” Daisy Mulligan said. “That’s what the letters from the lawyers said it was. Most everybody Elliott bamboozled got their money back, with interest, but it was too late for some.”
Joslyn’s throat tightened. She swallowed again. She’d known some of the people Elliott had fleeced were gone, known she’d have to face the living ones who remembered. But knowing hadn’t prepared her for the actuality, and neither had all the sensible answers she’d rehearsed on the drive up from Phoenix.
Daisy didn’t break her conversational stride. “Folks figure the tax people or the accountants or somebody must have tracked that money down to some foreign bank where Elliott stashed it before he went to jail, then gone in there and seized every nickel. It was like a miracle when those checks started showing up in people’s mailboxes.”
Joslyn nodded, and her smile felt plastered onto her face, about to crumble and fall away. “That must have been what happened,” she said, though she knew full well that none of the stolen money had been recovered. Elliott had certainly squandered most of it, if not all.
Daisy smiled benignly. “I can’t imagine what you’re doing back here in Parable,” she mused aloud, her tone sweetly confidential, as though she were sharing a secret. In the next instant, her wrinkled face brightened with speculation. “Unless you’re going to marry Hutch Carmody after all,” she said, almost breathless with excitement. “He could sure do with a wife. Might settle him down a little—he’s got that wild streak in him, you know, like his old daddy had. And his mama’s people, why, they might have acted fancy, but they made all their money bootlegging back in the 1920s. Before then, they were nothing but a bunch of hillbillies.”
Joslyn felt like someone trying to board a moving freight train. “Umm—no,” she finally said, stumbling lamely into an answer. “There isn’t going to be a wedding. I mean, Hutch and I are friends, but there’s nothing romantic going on between us.”
Daisy’s eyes twinkled. “Not so far, anyhow,” she said.
With
