His Small-Town Girl

“A few gallons,” he muttered. “I still have to fill up.”

She shook her head. The rich really did live differently than everyone else. “I hate to be an inconvenience, but I need to clean this room before I feed Granddad.”

Nodding, he hid a yawn behind one hand. “Yeah, okay, just give me a few minutes to get out of your way.”

“I’ll be right here when you’re ready,” she told him politely, linking her hands behind her back. No way was she going away again. Experience had taught her that a guest would just head straight back to bed and she’d have this exercise to repeat.

Tyler gave her a lopsided grin. “Swell. Uh, listen, can I get breakfast at that café downtown?”

“Sure,” she answered, and then for some reason she couldn’t begin to fathom she went on. “But if you’re willing to settle for lunch, you can eat with us again.”

He stopped rubbing his eyes long enough to stare at her, his brow beetled. “Lunch?”

Wondering why she’d issued the invitation, she hastily backtracked as far as good manners would allow. “Just sandwiches, I’m afraid. I don’t have time for anything else.”

“What time is it, anyway?”

She didn’t even have to look. “About ten minutes past noon.”

Tyler goggled his eyes. “Noon? You’re sure?” She held up her wrist, just in case he wanted to check for himself. His sky-blue eyes closed as he turned away. “I must’ve slept a lot better than I thought.”

“You mean you’re not used to sleeping till noon?” She clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked at herself. She never made unwarranted assumptions about people. Well, hardly ever. Fortunately he had not noticed.

“Not anymore,” he muttered enigmatically, looking for something. Finding it, he hurried over to snatch his foot-wear from the floor beside the low dresser that held the television set. Plopping down in the chair that pulled out from the small desk in front of the window, he began yanking on his socks. “Sorry about this. I’ll get out now and let you clean.”

“No problem.”

“Say, is there someplace I can buy a toothbrush and shaving gear?” he asked, rising to stomp into his shoes.

She hesitated a moment before telling him, but really, what harm could it do? “Booker’s will have everything you need. Just go out here and turn right.” She pointed behind her. “They’re a block east of downtown.”

Nodding, he stuffed in his shirttail and reached for his suit jacket. “Thanks.”

He started toward her, then stopped and went back to snatch his wallet and keys from the bedside table attached to the wall. With a glance in her direction, he picked up the room key and pocketed that, too.

Did he intend to stay another night? That didn’t seem like the behavior of a man who just happened to have gotten stranded by an empty gas tank. On the other hand, he’d obviously been unprepared to stay. Maybe he just needed someplace to clean up before he headed out of town. Knowing that she should give him the benefit of the doubt, she backed up as he came through the door.

He went to his car while she maneuvered the service cart into the room. A moment after that, the low-slung car rumbled to life.

She whispered a prayer as she stripped the sheets from the bed. “He’s not a bad sort, Lord, but the Bookers have been here a long time, generations, and I know You look after Your own.”

For the first time, she wondered if Tyler Aldrich, too, could be a believer. A shiver of…something…went through her, something too foolish to even ponder.

“Well, hello, there! Abe Houton.”

For at least the fourth time in the space of the past ten minutes, Tyler put down what could well be the best, not to mention the cheapest, cup of coffee he’d ever tasted in order to shake the hand of a stranger. Dallas owned a reputation as a friendly city, Tyler mused, but tiny Eden, Oklahoma, put it to ridiculous shame.

He cleared his throat, managed a brief smile and returned the greeting. “Tyler Aldrich.”

Built like a fireplug, short and squat, Abe Houton sported a fine handlebar mustache that would have made Wyatt Earp as proud as the tall brown beaver cowboy hat poised on Houton’s bald head.

“Good to meet you, Tyler. Welcome to Eden. Haven’t seen you around here before. What brings you to town?”

Tyler would have wondered if the shield pinned to Abe Houton’s white, Western-style shirt had more to do with the question than simple friendliness but for the fact that he’d been asked the same thing repeatedly since he’d come into the Garden of Eden café. And he hadn’t even had his buckwheat flapjacks yet.

When he’d sat down at this small, square table in the window, he’d intended to fill his time with people-watching while he dined on an egg-white omelet or a nice bagel with fat-free cream cheese and fruit. Unfortunately he’d become the center of attention for everyone who passed by and the healthiest breakfast he could come up with from the menu was whole-grain flapjacks. The forty-something waitress with the hairnet had openly gaped when he’d asked her to hold the butter and inquired about organic maple syrup.

Tyler looked the local policeman in the eye and repeated words he’d already said so many times that they were ringing in his ears. “Just passing through.”

“Aw, that’s too bad,” the diminutive lawman remarked, sounding as if he meant it. “This here is a right fine town.”

Tyler sat back against the speckled, off-white vinyl that padded the black, steel-framed chairs clustered around the red-topped tables. A floor of black-painted concrete and, oddly enough, knotty pine walls provided the backdrop. What really caught the eye, though, was the old-fashioned soda fountain behind the counter.

“I hope you don’t mind if I ask what’s so special about this town,” Tyler said, truly curious.

Houton rocked back on the substantial heels of his sharp-toed brown cowboy boots, one stubby hand adjusting the small holster on his belt. The pistol snapped inside looked like a toy. Then again, Houton himself resembled a stuffed doll. Tyler had to wonder just how lethal either might be.

“Why, this is Eden, son,” the little man declared, as if that answered everything. Then, with unabashed enthusiasm he added, “You should see our park.”

“You mean the park at the end of the street?”

“So you have seen it! Bet you didn’t notice the footbridge. My daddy helped build that footbridge out of old train rails. Prettiest little footbridge you’ll ever see. Really, you should stop by and take a look.”

Tyler didn’t know whether to laugh or run out and take a look at this local wonder. Fortunately, the waitress arrived just then with his flapjacks, along with a dish of mixed berries, a jug of something that passed for syrup and a refill of aromatic coffee. Houton excused himself with a doff of his hat to straddle a stool at the counter, his feet barely reaching the floor.

Lifting the top edge of a suspiciously tall stack, Tyler saw that succulent slices of ham had been sandwiched between the airy brown flapjacks. A sane, sensible, health-conscious man would remove the meat. A hungry man would just dive in. A self-indulgent one would pour on the so-called syrup and enjoy. Tyler reached for the jug, thinking that he had nothing better to do all day than work off a few extra calories.

An unexpected sense of freedom filled him as he watched the thick, golden-brown liquid flow down. Maybe, he thought, surprising himself, he’d even check out the park.

Nearly half an hour later, Tyler made his way out of the small café, nodding over his shoulder at those who called farewells in his wake. Stuffed to the gills and ridiculously happy about it, he decided that he might as well walk off some of what he’d just consumed and left the car sitting in the slanted space across the street where he’d parked it in front of a resale shop. Hands in his pockets, he strolled along the broad, street-level sidewalk, nodding at those who nodded at him in greeting, which was everyone he encountered. Even old ladies driving—or, more accurately, creeping—down the street in their pristine ten-or twenty-year-old cars waved at him. Tyler nodded back and kept an eye peeled for someplace to work up a good sweat.

He came rather quickly to the park and spied at a distance the aforementioned footbridge spanning the creek that bisected the gently rolling lawn studded with brightly leaved trees. Erosion from the banks of the creek colored the shallow water red-orange, which seemed oddly apt in this autumn setting.

Concrete benches scattered beneath the trees invited him to sit for a spell, but he resisted the urge. Picnic tables clustered in one section of the broad space.

A few children and a pair of adult women peopled a playground near the small parking area, where carelessly dropped bicycles awaited their young riders. Tyler turned away, wondering what he was doing in Eden, Oklahoma. He pondered that as he strolled back toward his car.

A plump woman in baggy jeans and an oversize sweater swept leaves off the sidewalk in front of a small white clapboard church on the corner nearest the park. Tyler thought he recognized the sedan parked in front of the modest brick house beside it as one he’d seen at the motel last night, but he couldn’t be sure. Walking on he realized that the boxy two-story building behind the church actually belonged to it, easily tripling the building’s size.

He got in the car and set off to purchase toiletries, taking in the town along the way. All of Eden had been laid out in neat, square blocks that made navigation laughably simple. Turning off Garden Avenue, he meandered along Elm and Ash streets. Elm offered primarily commercial buildings, but Ash hosted the most substantial homes he’d yet seen. Constructed of brick and mottled stone, most with square or round pillars supporting deep, broad porches, none could be described as stately and all dated from the 1920s and ’30s.

Noting that he’d driven into town on Pecan, he wondered if all the streets were named for trees. Turning on the GPS, he sat with the engine idling at a stop sign long enough to study a city map. It turned out that only the streets running east and west were named for trees. The streets running north and south were named for flowers. He smiled at such fanciful monikers as Lilac, Sunflower, Iris and Snapdragon.

Marveling at the neatness and simplicity of the city scheme, he looked up. A check of his rearview mirror revealed an SUV queued up behind him. He had no idea how long it had been there, but instead of blaring the horn, as any driver in Dallas would have done instantly, the frothy-haired woman behind the wheel gave him a cheery wave. Saluting in apology, Tyler pulled out and made his way to Booker’s.

The store fascinated him. Occupying a former ice house, it served as a historical microcosm of progress over the past half century, with goods ranging from a fair but mundane selection of groceries to cosmetics and cheap bedroom slippers.

He bought the necessary items, paying cash, before taking himself back to the motel, where he shaved and brushed his teeth. He put off showering in hopes of finding an adequate health club somewhere close by. Relishing the thought of working himself into a state of sweaty exhaustion, he walked over to the motel lobby in search of information.