Chapter 24 #2
The frock to which he refers is extremely casual: a gauzy, beige tank dress with buttons up the front and a small belt at the waist. The truth is, I don’t even know why I brought it, because life here hasn’t called for dresses, and my whole barely-there-hair vibe feels like a better fit with the most casual of shorts and capris.
But something made me open up another suitcase and put this on—maybe because a dinner party for three seems about as fancy as it’s going to get around here.
And maybe my slightly thickening hair makes me feel a little more .
.. like it’s okay to show a bit of interest in my appearance again, a hint of femininity.
Or ... maybe the sex did that—who can say?
Regardless, I accept the compliment graciously, with a small smile.
“Thank you.” Then I add, “The corn’s delicious. ”
“Sure is,” Grace says. “Ya outdone yourself at the grill, Matt.”
“Comin’ from a lifelong cook,” he tells her, “I’m flattered. How’s the family?” It never occurred to me, but I guess with Matt’s long history on Lost Valley Lane, he must know them.
“Doin’ good,” she answers, then talks about her granddaughter Leah’s job a little, before turning to me. “And, honey, I meant to tell ya, my other grandgirl, Lydia, seen you on the news in Saint Louis the other night!”
“Saint Louis?” I feel my eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure? Is she sure?” Maybe something was lost in translation.
Yet Grace is nodding emphatically. “That piece they showed on the Lexington news? Sounded the same. Was you talkin’ about the lost and found. She heard our little town mentioned and started payin’ attention. So ya didn’t know about this?”
I shake my head as I cut my steak. “Not at all. But it must’ve gotten picked up by some other outlets.
These days, human interest stories get passed around a lot as filler for slow days.
” I smile, pleased that attention to my endeavor here is continuing to expand.
“That’s great, though. It should draw more eyes to my social media, and to our lost items.”
“Good in some ways,” Matt says, appearing dubious as he forks a bite of potato into his mouth.
“Some ways?” I ask.
“Ran into Junior this afternoon on patrol and he said a couple more new lost things showed up today.”
I blow out a breath. “Wow. One yesterday and two today. That could add up to a lot, fast.”
“Yep.” He wipes a napkin across his mouth.
I nibble my lower lip. “Would you rather I’d never started this since I’m not able to see it through?”
Our gazes meet across the table, and even though we’re talking about the lost and found, I realize we’re also talking about something else. His smoldering eyes make my skin tingle.
“No,” he finally says. “I’m happy for ..
. whatever good comes from it while you’re here.
” And darn it, it’s hard not to like him.
He’s so utterly reasonable all the time.
Then he reverts back to talking solely about the items at the post office.
“Might have to go back to usin’ Mabel’s garage for storage, though, since Junior won’t be givin’ up his new office without a fight.
” He grins, teasing further. “See what you’ve gone and done. ”
I can’t resist giving him a smile. Teasing makes him more handsome.
“I’m going to the library tomorrow,” I inform him, “to share about the new necklace I picked up today from Jeannie at the post office. I’ll stop by again on my way. And I’ll post something to try to stem the tide of new items.” I blow out a breath. “A person could make a full-time job out of this.”
Matt chuckles. “Shitty pay, though.”
“You can say that again. Lucky for Mabel that she found the one sentimental bone in my body.”
I’m aware that, while eating, Grace has been switching her gaze back and forth between us as we’ve talked, and now she says, “Hogwash and hooey.”
I focus widened eyes on her. “Pardon me?”
“You care about things way more than ya like to let on, honey—I see it ever’ day.
Ya talk a good game, but you’re all caught up in my Walter’s art, and the pictures on my walls, and the stories I tell, and good Lord, you even like my noisy cat.
And those are only the things you’re sentimental about with me .
You care about ever’ dang one o’ them lost things ya try to find homes for.
Ya care about your job and your friends and your hair and .
.. for heaven’s sake, I cain’t think of much we’ve talked about that you don’t get wrapped up in. ”
It’s not often that I’m left speechless, but this blindsides me so thoroughly that I can’t concoct one single solitary comeback or argument.
So it’s Matt who chimes in, adding, “She’s right, you know. It’s like I keep tellin’ ya—you’re not nearly as tough as you like to think.”
“Keep it up, and neither one of you will get any pie,” I threaten. “And it’s Melva’s chocolate cream. That tough enough for ya?” I even toss my napkin on the table for good measure.
They both just laugh, though, and Grace challenges me with, “You ain’t got it in ya to keep pie from an old lady.”
I think that over for a minute and finally answer, “Okay, maybe not. But this one ...” I point in Matt’s direction. “You I’m perfectly willing to withhold things from.” Double entendre intended.
The look on his face seems to say: We’ll see about that since you liked it, too.
I’m trying to decide just where I’m going next with this when the pager at Matt’s belt begins to buzz.
He’s never without that pager, but in all the time I’ve spent with him, I’ve never heard it make a peep—until now. He looks down at it, his demeanor going more serious as he asks, “Use your phone?”
“Of course.”
He steps inside, and when he comes back out a minute later, he’s in a rush. “Gotta take a rain check on the pie, ladies.”
I sit up straighter, surprised. “There’s an actual emergency?”
“Yep.” Then he mutters under his breath, “Damn meth addicts.”
“Meth addicts?” I echo.
“One just walked right into Scooter and Betty Keel’s kitchen—gotta get over there as backup for my deputy.”
With that, he’s gone. And when I hear him actually activate a siren on his pickup truck, I’m almost amused given the lack of traffic here—but not quite.
I say to Grace, “I guess I’ve heard about drug problems in Eastern Kentucky, but since I got here, it never crossed my mind.”
She’s nodding in the chair next to me. “Lot better than it used to be,” she informs me. “There for a while they was poppin’ up right and left. For a time, I do believe it was only livin’ across from Matt that kept Daniel from draggin’ me over to Saint Louis.”
“What do they . . . do?”
“Break into places, and sometimes just walk right in folks’ houses, like Matt’s dealin’ with right now. Lookin’ for drugs or money or somethin’ to sell. Ain’t got no fear—the drugs make ’em too desperate for fear. That’s what’s scary.”
“Wow,” I say, taken aback. “Lost and Found seems so peaceful.”
“It is, honey, it is. But ever’ place has somethin’, I reckon. I imagine Matt’d tell ya drugs is about the only real problem we got here, and we’re lucky it seems to crop up less lately. There for a while, we even lost a few of our own.”
“Lost . . . how?”
“To the drugs,” she says, making me feel pretty ignorant.
“Carol Patterson’s daughter got hooked on the Oxy after a back injury and finally overdosed.
So did Bucky Grainger. In a lotta cases, like those, it’s folks who got prescribed too many painkillers after an accident and couldn’t get off ’em.
That’s how we lost Bobby Clark, Joy Lynn’s husband, too. ”
I gasp. “Joy Lynn’s husband?”
Grace nods. “Was a sad thing. Now, mind ya, he was never what you’d call a good egg, but she was just over the moon for him since they was teenagers.
She put up with a lot, let me tell ya, more than I thought she should’ve for Toby’s sake.
That boy’s seen a lotta hard things. And ended up losin’ Bobby in the end anyway. ”
“I knew it,” I say. “I just knew someone had broken her heart. But I had no idea it was ... by dying.”
“Look at you,” Grace replies, shaking her head. “Gettin’ all sentimental over a rough case like Joy Lynn Clark.”
I lift my eyes to hers. Damn it, she’s so right about me. “Point made.”
Then she grins. “See ya took my advice.”
I’m thrown by the abrupt change in subject. “About ...?”
“Matt, of course.”
I let out a sigh. I mean, I could deny it, but Grace seems to have my number. I’m still stunned, though. “How could you tell?”
“How could I miss it would be the better question. You two sittin’ there makin’ moon eyes at each other all through dinner.”
I have no idea what moon eyes are, but I object anyway. “I don’t believe we were making any kind of eyes at each other.”
“Then how did I know you done the deed? How was it anyway?”
Normally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing this with someone twice my age who I haven’t known very long, but given how much I adore Grace, I just roll with it. “Nice.”
She juts out her lower lip. “Just nice? That don’t speak very highly of the event.”
I bite my lip. Fair enough. “Okay, it was more than just nice. It was ... really, really, really ... hot,” I confess.
A broad smile unfurls across her face. “That’s more like it.”
“But I’m actually thinking it might be good he was called away for work, because now it’s complicated.”
“Honey, it’s only complicated if ya make it that way.”
“I don’t want to get attached,” I remind her. “Since I’m leaving and all.”
“Ya keep sayin’ that,” she points out.
“Well, it’s a valid concern.”
Her dismissive expression tells me she disagrees. “I’m just sayin’ that if I was somewhere temporary and found a fella I had that good of a time with between the sheets, don’t know as I’d worry so much about tomorrow as I would about today—and milkin’ every bit o’ fun from it I could.”