“So now you can go out with Ash Wolverson,” Kristen said. “You want me to call him, or will you?”
“Give me a couple of days, okay?” The idea didn’t sound horrible; matter of fact, it sounded quite good, but I knew that jumping out of one relationship and into another wasn’t the best idea. I pushed my bowl toward her a couple of inches. “Want some? I hear it’s the best in town.”
“Do I get my own spoon?” she asked.
“You can have mine,” I said, handing it over, “if you don’t mind sharing.”
She gave me a light elbow in the ribs. “I can share if you can share.”
I nodded and started to feel a little better. I would probably shed a few tears in the night, but between Kristen’s friendship and Eddie’s purrs, I had the feeling that I’d be smiling again soon.
• • •
“Hey, Minnie!”
My right foot had been poised to step onto the dock that led to my houseboat. Rafe’s call, however, startled me enough that I tripped on the small break between concrete sidewalk and wooden dock. I stumbled forward a few steps and saved myself from falling into the drink by grabbing a piling.
“Hey, Stumble Toes, you all right over there? Got a favor to ask you.”
I blew out a breath. There was no good reason for me to be annoyed at him—he probably hadn’t intended to surprise me—but I was still on edge about Tucker and men in general and my irritation level was close to the surface. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, walking back toward his house. When I got close, I asked, “What’s up?”
“Got a question.” He was on his front porch, waving something at me, but in the evening’s dusk, I couldn’t see what it was. “It’s a girl thing.”
“And I’m the only girl you know?” I asked, climbing up the front steps. Last summer they’d been old and weathered. Now they were solid and sturdy and freshly painted a bluish shade of gray.
“Nah.” He grinned. “You’re just the handiest one. Look at these and tell me what to do.” He held out a small rectangular stack of cardboard pieces at me.
I put my hands behind my back. “Nothing doing. No way am I going to help you choose what color to paint your house.”
“Not the whole house,” he said, fanning the samples out into a rainbow of colors. “The outside is easy. It’s the inside that’s hard.”
I squinted at him. “And you think I can help? I haven’t chosen a room color since I was eight and painted my bedroom dark green because I’d just read The Children of Green Knowe and wanted my room to match the cover of the book.”
Rafe looked at the paint samples. “Yeah? How did that turn out? I mean, that’s probably the stupidest reason I ever heard to pick a room color, but dark green might be okay, somewhere.”
My annoyance rushed back. “If you think I’m so stupid, why are you asking me anything? If you want decorating advice, talk to Holly Terpening. She’s all over paint colors.” I stomped down from the porch and was off into the night’s gloom before he could say another word.
• • •
My sleep that night was accompanied by a few tears, but by the time I woke up, I was mostly ashamed at how I’d treated Rafe. He hadn’t deserved to be on the receiving end of my little hissy fit, and I needed to tell him so.
“Would a phone call do?” I asked Eddie as I washed out our cereal bowl.
He was back to sitting on the dashboard, but he turned his head a millimeter when I asked the question.
“To apologize to Rafe,” I explained. “Can I just call? Or better yet, send him a text?”
Eddie heaved a heavy sigh and jumped to the floor. He padded the length of the kitchen, down the stairs, and into the bedroom, where he jumped up onto the bed he’d vacated five minutes before.
“Fine,” I said to the sink. “I’ll go over there at lunch.” Somehow I’d ended up with a cat who held me to the same moral code that my mother did. “Not fair,” I muttered, but then started smiling inside, because maybe it was, in fact, eminently fair.
The thought kept me amused all morning, which was good, because it was a day that needed all the amusement it could get. Recalcitrant computer programs, a water leak in the book return, and not a single response to my frantic calls for a new author to headline the book fair didn’t make for a happy Minnie.
I pushed out the door at lunchtime and sucked in a breath of fresh air. It felt so good that I pulled in two more, and then had to stop myself before I hyperventilated. Refreshed, I headed up the hill to the middle school and to Rafe’s office, where I knew he would be at his desk, eating a bologna sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise on white bread.
“When’s the last time you had anything different for lunch?” I flopped into his guest chair. “Kindergarten?”
He gave me an affronted look. “I’ll have you know that just last year I ate a turkey sandwich. Right here at this very desk.”
“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want you to get into a rut.”
“I prefer to think of it as a very deep comfort zone.” He took a bite of sandwich so big that it pouched out his right cheek enough to make him look like a squirrel feeding on a windfall of nuts.
For the millionth time, I wondered how Rafe managed to run a middle school so successfully. “Well, I wanted to stop by and apologize for last night.”
“Huh?” He swallowed hugely, then asked, “What are you talking about?”
I really should have known better. Some guys were sensitive to the moods of women, but most were not. Rafe fell deep into that second category. “I was a little cranky about the paint colors. If you really want help, I’ll do what I can.”
He squinted at me. “Cranky? You? How did that happen? Wait, I know. You lost your spot in a book and had to start over again.”
And to think I’d wasted my lunch hour coming over here. I started to stand, but froze in place when I saw his wall calendar.
“What?” he asked, his mouth once again full of sandwich.
“Your calendar.” I sat back down. “It’s wooden boats.”
“Yeah, so? It was a Christmas present. I like woodies. I’m not wacko about them like some people, but they’re pretty cool.”
Wacko. Like some people. Exactly. I looked at the calendar. Looked at him. Looked at the calendar again. “How do you feel,” I asked slowly, “about doing me a favor?”
• • •
A few minutes later, I’d explained what I wanted and Rafe was looking at me with an odd expression on his face. “Can I ask why you want me to do this?”
“Sure,” I said, and sat there, smiling.
He rolled his eyes. “So I can ask, but you’re not going to tell me why you want me to do this tremendous favor for you that will take up so much of my valuable time and pull me away from my many duties as a responsible and supportive school principal.”
“Exactly.” I beamed at him. What I wanted was to figure out was if Neva Chatham had brandished her gun at me because of trespassing, or because she was being protective of her boat. If it was the boat, maybe she was unhinged enough to have killed Henry and tried to kill Adam. “And quit with the whining. It’s a simple phone call and won’t take you more than five minutes.”
He heaved out an Eddie-quality sigh, pulled a tattered phone book from his desk drawer, and flipped though the flimsy pages. After giving a grunt when he found the correct entry, he picked up the phone and dialed.
“Good afternoon,” he said jovially. “Is this Neva Chatham? Hi, Neva, my name is Rafe Niswander. I live in Chilson—what’s that? Yes, Dave’s my cousin.” He squinted at me. “Well, sorry about that. He’s got a pretty good reputation for the plumbing work he does and—” He waited for her to finish. “Well, again, I’m sorry about that. I’ll be sure to mention it next time I see him.”