and laid it carefully across her lap. “Well, it’s a small town, Mrs. Kelsey—”
“Anna, dear. Only strangers call me Mrs. Kelsey.”
Karen’s smile was genuine but strained. “Until I have time to buy my own place, Anna, I’m bound to brush elbows with some of my men.”
Anna tried to swallow a chuckle as she pondered other possible interpretations of that phrase, but red-haired Tisha Olsen, never one to pull her punches, laughed outright.
“It’s a worthy goal for most girls your age, honey,” the eccentric hairdresser teased with a good-natured grin. “With all the fine boys on our force, I imagine you’ll find yourself a man in no time.”
Anna was surprised to see Karen color; she knew Tisha had meant no harm. Still, it wouldn’t be easy for any woman of Tisha’s generation to understand why the girl wanted to be a police captain. Tisha had certainly never understood why Anna’s future daughter-in-law, Pam, wanted to be a football coach. Anna didn’t really understand it, either, but if it was what Pam wanted, she wanted it for Pam, and if Karen wanted to take her job seriously, then so should everybody else at Kelsey’s. Granted, it was a bit hard for Anna to feel happy about anybody taking the job Brick had wanted for himself, but it wasn’t Karen’s fault she’d been appointed.
“A pretty girl like Karen could get married anytime she wanted to,” Anna pointed out cheerfully. “She’s just got more important things to do right now. Isn’t that right, Karen?”
Karen flashed Anna a grateful look. “That’s about the size of it. My job is my life. I can’t imagine that any man would put up with it.”
“Brick’s the same way,” Johnny added laconically. After thirty-five years of marriage, little that her stalwart husband said took Anna by surprise. Despite his apparent indifference to the conversation, she knew he was trying to bolster the new young boarder in his own quiet way. “There’s something about being a cop, he always says. It’s not a job, it’s a way of life. From the time he was a little boy, it’s all Brick ever wanted to be.”
“I thought he wanted to be a football player,” Tisha countered, reaching for another poppy-seed roll. “Isn’t that how he got his nickname?”
Anna watched Karen carefully. Yes, her eyebrows did rise a trifle. She was a bit interested in Brick’s personal life!
“He was a wonderful guard,” Anna explained with renewed enthusiasm after she’d recapped the story of his childhood for Karen. After all, shouldn’t the girl know that Brick had lived with his aunt and uncle since his father died when he was fifteen? Shouldn’t she know that his mother had died when he was ten? “One night he stopped the Belton team practically all by himself. The sports reporter said they’d have had the same luck trying to score through a brick wall. Our boy, Patrick, started calling him Brick the next day. It caught on, and we’ve been calling him that ever since.”
“Except for your mother,” Johnny corrected her. “She’s the only one I know who still calls him Donald.”
“Well, Martha’s a bit long in the tooth to start changing her ways,” Tisha replied with a chuckle. She served herself some meat loaf and passed the serving dish to Karen. “I keep hoping she’ll match up with some friendly old codger at Worthington House, but she seems content to sit and sew.”
“She quilts,” explained Anna, who didn’t like to think of her darling, bright-eyed mother as growing old. “She belongs to a group of ladies who get together and piece quilts the old-fashioned way. They made a lovely one for Phil when he hurt his hip— Oh, you don’t know Phil, do you, Karen?”
Karen was eating carefully now, but her pretty gray eyes reflected interest as she shook her head.
“Phil is another of our lodgers. He’s a retired gardener. Used to work for the Ingallses. Have you met Judson Ingalls?”
“Briefly, at Paul Schmidt’s party.”
Johnny snorted. “You probably met his daughter, Alyssa, too. She never misses an opportunity to make a public appearance.”
Anna hoped that Karen hadn’t heard the bitterness underlying his neutral tone. Years ago, Alyssa had spurned Johnny’s best friend, Eddie Wocheck, and as a result, Eddie had left town. The fact that he’d recently returned to visit, rolling in money and justifiably proud of his accomplishments, had not changed Johnny’s feelings toward the woman who’d broken Eddie’s heart. But because Alyssa was one of Anna’s best friends, he tried to keep those feelings to himself.
Anna pressed on with her story. “Well, Phil’s lived with us for years—was our first boarder—and he’s only been at Worthington House—that’s our local convalescent home—since he slipped and broke his hip. He’ll be back soon, God willing. He’s the dearest old man...”
She stopped as Johnny interrupted with a comment of his own. “Honey, I forgot to tell you that Eddie’s going to use Phil’s room.”
“Oh? He’s back in town?” To Karen, she said, “Eddie grew up in Tyler but he’s been gone a long time. Recently he bought Timberlake Lodge from Judson Ingalls, and he’s going to add a wing to create a resort out there. He drops by every now and then—”
“What I meant was, he’s coming back to stay. Until things get under way at the lodge, at least. I told him he could stay in Phil’s room until Phil’s ready to come back.”
Tisha smiled, clearly enjoying the Kelseys’ attempts to educate their boarder about the town. “Phil is Eddie’s daddy, Karen, and Anna and Johnny forgot to tell you that their daughter Kathleen lives here, too, when she’s not gallivanting off to Switzerland for the winter. You ought to take notes. You might forget some of this, and you cops need to keep track of local gossip to solve your cases, don’t you? Would you like to wiretap my shop?”
Karen smiled warily, so warily that Anna wondered if she’d already figured out that Tisha deliberately tossed off outrageous comments to help maintain her flamboyant image. Karen had chosen a tough career, so she must be a pretty tough person. But Anna suspected that she’d had a hard first day at work, and tonight she needed warmth and support from her fellow boarders. Tisha often showed her affection for people by teasing, but Anna didn’t think Karen was in the mood to be teased. “You were about to tell us how things went today,” she tried again.
Karen met her eyes gratefully. “Well, it was...exciting, Mrs. Kel—Anna. Demanding. Different from...just being a regular cop.”
“Honey, are you telling us it isn’t exciting to be a regular cop? Why, I can’t tell you the number of nights we’ve sat here and listened to Brick tell us how satisfying it is to—” Tisha broke off and turned to Anna. “Where is Brick, anyway? He loves meat loaf. Didn’t I hear him ask the cook to make it tonight?”
Now Anna flushed. This morning Brick had asked for meat loaf, but he’d called an hour ago and told her he’d be coming home late because he was helping Patrick fix Pam’s carburetor after work. But Anna wasn’t fooled for an instant. It was far too cold to fuss with a car outside after dark at this time of year. It bothered Anna that she’d heard a tension in Brick’s voice that hadn’t been there since Shelley Schmidt had dumped him.
As she glanced at Karen, she realized there was only one recent change in Brick’s life: Karen Keppler. Despite the incident at Paul Schmidt’s party, she still had hopes for the two of them. After all, what woman could
