slowed his step so Rachel could fall in beside him. “Sorry, miss. Mrs. Longabach, well, sometimes I don’t know if I’m comin’ or goin’ when she’s around. Mister says that he just circles her and that seems to work most times.”
That no-account Beatty boy stepped out of Wickham’s. “Hey, Johnny. Miss Bailey. You need some help with what you got there?”
Johnny Winslow thrust out his chin, immediately defensive. “I got it.”
For Johnny’s benefit, Rachel was careful to temper her smile, but her response was no less firm. “We can manage, Deputy Beatty. Thank you.”
“But you don’t mind if I tag along, do you?”
Rachel did mind. Very much. The trouble was she couldn’t think of a single credible reason to keep the deputy from joining her. She hoped Johnny would be inspired to offer an objection, but he’d just struck a resigned, sullen pose. “If that’s your pleasure,” she said. She was polite but unenthusiastic, and judging by Will Beatty’s quick grin he didn’t fail to notice. Nevertheless, he was undeterred and loped along beside them, his long and lanky arms swinging at his sides.
“Shall we cross the street here, gentlemen?” she asked. “Unless I am mistaken, that’s Mr. Dishman taking a stretch from his checkers game and he looks set to join our parade.” She didn’t need to mention that Abe Dishman, a widower of some ten years and at least thirty years her senior, was one of her most ardent, persistent admirers. Everyone in Reidsville knew that Abe made a marriage proposal to her on or around the seventh of every month. Today was the fifth, too close to Abe’s chosen date for Rachel to risk a public declaration. She’d been setting herself to the problem of how to turn him down this time, and since she hadn’t quite worked it out in her mind, she judged it was better to avoid him.
“Too bad for Abe that checkers is his game,” Beatty said, looking up and down the street before they made the diagonal crossing.
“Hmm?” Rachel was unhappily aware that the deputy had placed his palm under her elbow to assist her from the sidewalk to the street. Distracted, she realized she hadn’t heard him. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
Standing just behind them, Johnny stared hard at where Will Beatty’s hand rested on Rachel’s arm. “He said, ‘too bad for Abe that checkers is his game.’ Ain’t that right, Will? That’s what you said.”
Will nodded amiably. “I did.”
Rachel accepted the deputy’s help until she had firm footing on the dusty street, then gently disengaged herself from his fingers. “Why is that too bad?”
“Why, Miss Bailey, if he was a chess man, he’d have captured you long ago.”
“Is that so, Deputy?” She didn’t look at him but concentrated on keeping a step ahead so that when they reached the opposite sidewalk she could take the step up without his help. “Is that your notion alone or the prevailing thought?”
“Can’t take credit for it. Seems like I heard it somewhere else first. I guess that makes it the prevailing thought. It’s a good one, though, don’t you think?”
“I don’t suppose the person who observed it was moved to wonder if I play chess.”
Will Beatty chuckled. His grin spread easily, taking up most of the lower half of his face. Cradling that wide smile and lending it a mischievous, boyish charm were two deep, crescent-shaped dimples. He gave Rachel a nod and what passed for an appreciative salute by tipping his hat back with his forefinger. A shock of hair as light and feathery as corn silk was revealed in the gesture.
“I reckon you do play chess, Miss Bailey,” he said. “Probably good at it, too, ain’t you?”
“Do you play?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then let me just say I’m good enough to make the game interesting for my opponent.”
Beatty tugged at the brim of his hat so it settled securely on his head. “I’ll pass that along.”
She looked at him sharply. There was a decided lack of warmth in her coffee-colored eyes. “Pass that along?” she asked. “To whom? I’m sure I don’t like being the subject of anyone else’s conversation.”
“Now ye’re in for it,” Johnny told Will, clearly relishing the notion.
“I don’t need a Greek chorus tellin’ me what’s what,” Beatty said.
“Uh? That don’t make no kind of sense. I ain’t Greek.”
Rachel’s expression lost some of its chill. “Enough,” she said, sounding more than a little like a schoolmarm charged with settling two unruly boys. “Both of you. Look, here we are.” She stopped on the short flagstone walk leading up to her porch and spared a glance at her home. The sight of it warmed her and helped her draw deeper on her well of patience.
The small, whitewashed frame house beckoned as a sanctuary. The window boxes held a variety of herbs: dill, mint, thyme, and chive. Around the side was a modest vegetable garden that she’d already harvested and cleared in anticipation that a cold snap would be upon them soon. The greenery of morning glories covered the lattice that she’d painstakingly repaired and painted. She’d forgotten that she’d left the windows open at the front of the house. A breeze had drawn out both pairs of lace panels and they fluttered against the shutters as flirtatiously as a dewy-eyed coquette.
There was some talk in town when she painted her front door red, but folks had gotten used to it—more or less—and put it down to one of her many eccentricities. Come spring, she would paint the shutters.
“I’ll take my parcels now,” she said, turning to Johnny.
Johnny looked a bit longingly past her shoulder to the front porch and the intriguing red door. “It’s no problem, Miss Bailey. I’d be pleased to—”
“No, truly,” Rachel said, interrupting him. “I’ll see myself inside.” She held her ground, effectively blocking the path for both of her escorts, then held out her arms. “Pile them on.”
Johnny’s eyes darted to Will Beatty. “Ain’t there some law that says a fellow oughta help a lady?”
“Suppose we could pass an ordinance or some such fool thing, but that’d take time, and Miss Bailey’s lookin’ fit to be tied. Give her the parcels, Johnny, because neither one of us is goin’ to get on the other side of that red door today.”
Johnny Winslow’s expression was so perfectly hangdog that Rachel was moved to laugh. “I’m telling you, Mr. Winslow, that your imagination is far superior to anything you’d discover inside my home. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
Will Beatty didn’t wait for Johnny to object. He began taking the plainly wrapped packages from Johnny’s arms and placing them carefully in Rachel’s. “You don’t mind if we wait here to make sure you’re safely inside?”
“I don’t mind at all,” she said. She used her chin to secure the pyramid of parcels in her arms and gave them a smile that was at once warm and firm in its dismissal. “Thank you, gentlemen.” She turned away then, but not so quickly that she missed their preening, wanting to look every inch the gentlemen she’d named them.
Once inside the house, Rachel dropped her packages on the large dining table that she used for spreading material and cutting patterns but never once for eating or entertaining. She shook out her arms to remove the sensation of still carrying the parcels. Once the ghost weight was gone, she approached one of the windows at the front of the house but never went so close to it that she could be seen from the street. She was in time to see the deputy and Johnny Winslow turning away from her flagstone walk and heading to their respective destinations.
She nodded, satisfied that they weren’t going to loiter in front of her house until one of them arrived at an excuse to call on her. Stepping back from the window, she set