and a few moments passed before he answered, his voice quiet. “I guess it took me this long to work up my courage.” He swallowed hard, met her gaze in a deliberate way. “Nobody would blame you if you told me to go straight to hell, Libby. Not after what I did.”
She took that in. Finally, she said, “Okay.”
“Is that an okay-yes, or an okay-go-take-a-flying-leap?”
Libby had to smile. “I guess it’s an okay-one-dinner-is-no-big-deal,” she answered. “We are still talking about dinner, right?”
Tate chuckled. God, he smelled good, like fresh air and newly cut grass distilled to their essences. And she’d missed bantering with him like this. “Yes, we’re still talking about dinner.”
“Then, yes,” Libby said, feeling dizzy. After all, she’d promised Calvin she’d undo her lie if she got the chance, and here it was.
“Right answer,” Tate murmured, and then he kissed her.
The world, perhaps even the whole universe, rocked wildly and dissolved, leaving Libby drifting in the aftermath, not standing in her shabby little coffee-shop kitchen.
Tate deepened the kiss, used his tongue. Oh, he was an expert tongue man, all right. Another thing she’d forgotten—or tried to forget.
Libby moaned a little, swayed on her feet.
Tate drew back. His hands dropped from her cheeks to her shoulders, steadying her.
“Pick you up at six?” It was more a statement than a question, but Libby didn’t care. She was taking a terrible risk, and she didn’t care about that, either.
“Six,” she confirmed. “What shall I wear?”
He grinned. “The twins are dining in shorts, tank tops and pointed princess hats with glitter and tassels,” he said. “Feel free to skip the hat.”
“Guess that leaves shorts and a tank top,” she said. “Which means you should pick me up at six-thirty, because I’m going to need to shave my legs.”
Mentally, Libby slapped a hand over her mouth. She’d just given this hot man a mental picture of her running a razor along hairy legs?
“Here or at your place?” Tate asked, apparently unfazed by the visual.
“My place,” Libby said. “I’d drive out on my own, but your friend the chief of police will arrest me if I so much as turn a wheel.”
“Therein lies a tale,” Tate said. “One I’d love to hear. Later.”
“Later,” Libby echoed, and then he was gone.
And she just stood there, long after he’d left her, the kiss still pulsing on her lips and rumbling through her like the seismic echoes of an earthquake.
CHAPTER FOUR
LIBBY CLOSED THE SHOP at five that day—no big sacrifice, since she’d only had one customer after lunch, a loan officer from First Cattleman’s who’d left, disgruntled, without buying anything once he learned there were no more of Julie’s scones to be had.
After cleaning up the various machines, stowing the day’s modest take in her zippered deposit bag and finally locking up, she crossed the alley—trying not to hurry—and let a grateful Hildie out into the backyard.
The place seemed a little lonely without the formerly nameless dogs, but she’d see them that night, at Tate’s. Given the way they’d thrown her under the proverbial bus when she’d dropped them off at the Silver Spur the night before, there was a good chance they’d ignore her completely.
“Now, you’re being silly,” she told herself, refreshing Hildie’s water bowl at the sink, then rinsing out and refilling the food dish with kibble.
While Hildie gobbled down her meal, Libby showered, taking care to shave her legs, but instead of the prescribed shorts and tank top, she chose a pink sundress with spaghetti straps and smocking at the bodice. She painted her toenails to match, spritzed herself with cologne and dried her freshly shampooed, shoulder-length hair until it fluffed out around her face.
Libby owned exactly two cosmetic products—a tube of mascara and some lip gloss—and she applied both with a little more care than usual.
The phone rang at five minutes to six, and she was instantly certain that Tate had changed his mind and meant to rescind the invitation to have supper at the Silver Spur. The wave of disappointment that washed over her was out of all proportion to the situation.
But it wasn’t Tate, as things turned out, calling with some lame excuse.
It was Gerbera Jackson, who cleaned for Marva three days a week, over at Poplar Bend.
“Libby? That you?”
“Hello, Gerbera,” Libby responded.
“I know it isn’t your week,” Gerbera went on apologetically, “but I couldn’t reach Miss Paige, or Miss Julia, either.”
Gerbera, an old-fashioned black woman, well into her sixties, still adhered to the mercifully outdated convention of addressing her white counterparts as “Miss.”
“That’s okay,” Libby said, hiding her disappointment. A problem with Marva meant the evening at the Silver Spur was history, the great event that never happened. “What’s up?”
“Well, it’s your mama, of course,” Gerbera said sadly.
Who else? Libby thought uncharitably.
“I’m worried about her,” the softhearted woman continued. “I recorded her stories for her, just like always, since her favorites are on while she’s out taking those longs walks of hers, but Miss Marva, she doesn’t want to look at them tonight. Told me not to bother putting a chicken potpie into the oven for her before I left, too. That’s one of her favorites, you know.”
Libby closed her eyes briefly, breathed deeply and slowly. Marva’s “stories” were soap operas, and she hadn’t missed an episode of As the World Turns, or so she claimed, since 1972, when, recovering from a twisted ankle, she’d gotten hooked.
“Not good,” Libby admitted. When Marva didn’t want to watch her soaps or eat chicken potpie, she was depressed. And when Marva was depressed, bad things happened.
“She hasn’t been herself since they eighty-sixed her from the bingo hall for lighting up a cigarette,” Gerbera added.
Just then, a rap sounded at the front door. Tate had arrived, probably looking cowboy-sexy, and now Libby was going to have to tell him she couldn’t go to the Silver Spur for supper.
“I hate to bother you,” Gerbera said, and she sounded like she meant it, but she also sounded relieved. If she had a fault, it was caring too much about the various ladies she cleaned and cooked for, whether they were crotchety or sweet-tempered. Until her nephew, Brent Brogan, had moved back to Blue River, with his children, after his wife’s death, Gerbera had managed Poplar Bend full-time, living in an apartment there.
She spent more time with her family now, cooking and mending and helping out wherever she could. Brent claimed her chicken-and-dumplings alone had put ten pounds on him.
“No bother,” Libby said, brightening her voice and stretching the kitchen phone cord far enough to see Tate standing on the other side of the front door. She gestured for him to come in. “She’s my mother.”
Some mother Marva had been, though. She’d left her husband and small, bewildered children years before, with a lot of noise and drama, and suddenly returned more than two decades later, after what she described as a personal epiphany, to install herself at Poplar Bend and demand regular visits from her daughters.
She had, for some reason, decided it was time to bond.
Better late than never—that seemed to be the theory.
Marva