Lovers And Other Strangers

“I didn’t know cauliflowers had ears,” he said, responding to the unconventional greeting without missing a beat.

She widened her eyes in surprise. “Of course they have ears. How else could they know what’s being said on the grapevine?”

His smile widened into a quick grin that made Shannon’s breath catch. Over the past week, she’d almost convinced herself that her new neighbor couldn’t possibly be as attractive as she’d thought. Her imagination, fueled by months of whispered speculation about the mysterious Reece Morgan, had exaggerated his looks, created an image to suit his two-decade-old reputation. But the way her pulse stuttered when she looked up and saw him forced her to admit that no exaggeration had been necessary. Not when you had six feet four inches of dark-haired, dark-eyed, solidly muscled male standing right in front of you. Even on its best days, her imagination couldn’t improve on that reality.

With an effort she pulled her eyes away from his face and glanced at the contents of his shopping cart. Clicking her tongue, she shook her head in disapproval. “You don’t plan on buying that stuff, do you?”

Reece’s expression shifted to wary amusement. “You’re not going to tell me that they’ve decided that vegetables are carcinogenic, are you?”

“Not yet, though I’m fairly sure that further research will eventually prove Brussels sprouts were never intended to touch human lips,” she said darkly. “But that’s not the point now.” Shannon flicked her fingers at the bags of vegetables and the package of boneless chicken breasts. “You actually have fresh ginger in there.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Reece wondered if he should worry that her circuitous conversational style was starting to seem almost normal. The skinny blonde in the next line was craning her neck in what she probably thought was a subtle attempt to eavesdrop on their conversation. Reece ignored her.

“It hardly suits your image.” Her soft mouth primmed into a disapproving line. “Think about it. Bad boy returns home and buys vegetables? What kind of a message does that send?”

“Bad boy?” Reece repeated, not entirely pleased. “Is that what I’m supposed to be?”

“Of course.” She seemed surprised that he had to ask. “According to local myth, you were the scourge of Serenity Falls.”

“Scourge?” He was caught between irritation and amusement. “I think that’s overstating things a little. I may have raised a little hell, but I didn’t exactly pillage and burn the town.”

“You’re forgetting the petunias,” she pointed out.

“One flower bed and I’m a scourge?” How did she manage to pull him into these conversations?

Shannon looked regretful. “In a town this size, it doesn’t take much.” She shifted her shopping basket from her right hand to her left, and her voice took on a self-consciously pedantic tone that, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, made Reece wonder if her mouth could possibly be as soft as it looked. And wouldn’t that set the grapevine humming—news that that Morgan boy had kissed his very attractive neighbor right in the middle of the food mart with God and half the town looking on. With an effort, he dragged his attention back to what Shannon was saying.

“Actually, the Bad Boy is a classic figure in Western mythology. An important character in both film and literature. Think of James Dean.”

“James Dean?” Reece’s upper lip curled. “Kind of a skinny little twerp, wasn’t he?”

Shannon’s eyes widened in horror, and she pressed her free hand to her chest as if to protect her heart from the shock. “James Dean? The king of cool? You’re calling him a twerp?”

“Couldn’t have weighed more than one-fifty soaking wet and with his shoes on. Maybe if he’d eaten his vegetables, he’d have bulked up a little.”

Shannon’s mouth twitched and was sternly controlled. “Don’t you think that would have spoiled his lean and hungry look? It’s hard to seem tragically misunderstood when you look like you could eat hay with a fork.”

“So only the scrawny get sympathy?” Reece shook his head. “Doesn’t seem quite fair to me.”

“I’m told that life isn’t always fair.”

“I’ve heard that rumor.”

“Do you have plans for Thursday?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

“Thursday?” he repeated blankly.

“Thanksgiving?” Shannon arched her brows. “You know, turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie. Pilgrims shaking hands with the Indians they’re eventually going to wipe out. The fourth Thursday in November when we all get together and eat too much? This coming Thursday? Do you have plans?”

“Not that I know of,” Reece admitted cautiously.

“Well, you’re welcome to join the crowd at my house,” she offered. “It’s nothing formal. People just drop by.”

“Are you cooking?” he asked involuntarily, visions of freeze-dried turkey flashing before his eyes.

Shannon’s quick, throaty laugh made the skinny blonde sidle closer in an attempt to overhear what was being said. “Don’t worry, it’s potluck. Everyone brings something, and I’ve been strictly forbidden to set foot in the kitchen.”

“No Froot Loops?”

“Only in the stuffing,” she promised solemnly. Looking past him, she nodded toward the checkout counter. “Looks like you’re up next.”

Turning, Reece saw that the woman in the pink jumpsuit was paying for her purchases and the cashier was giving him a distinctly ominous look of bright-eyed interest.

“Watch out for Agatha,” Shannon said, confirming his concern. “She can wring information out of granite. If the Inquisition had had her, they wouldn’t have needed the rack.”

“Great, a full-service store,” Reece muttered as he pushed his cart forward. “They bag your groceries while they pump you for information.”

“Just say no,” Shannon advised solemnly but she was grinning as she turned away without waiting for a reply. “See you Thursday, maybe.”

Not likely, Reece thought as he began loading his groceries onto the conveyer belt. He didn’t want any involvement and, while attending a potluck Thanksgiving dinner along with half the town wasn’t exactly a prelude to a passionate love affair, it was too…neighborly. Too friendly. It suggested that he had a place here, which he didn’t—not now, not twenty years ago.

He glanced over his shoulder in time to see Shannon disappear down the frozen food aisle. It was nice of her to invite him, but he was perfectly content with his own company, on Thanksgiving or any other day. Still, he had to admit that it would be interesting to see if she really did manage to slip Froot Loops into the stuffing.

Chapter 4

For the past few years, the fourth Thursday in November had been just another number on the calendar to Reece, and he was perfectly content to keep it that way. So what was he doing standing on Shannon Devereux’s doorstep holding a spinach salad?

The door opened, saving him the necessity of having to come up with a satisfactory answer to his own question. He’d been expecting Shannon and had to adjust his gaze five inches lower and his thinking fifty years older. Suspiciously black hair topped a thin, wrinkled face. Reece had heard of someone applying makeup with a trowel, but he’d never seen anyone who looked as if they might actually have done just that until now. Foundation, blusher, concealer and possibly a bit of spackle coated every inch of skin from forehead to chin. False eyelashes, black eyeliner and royal-purple eyeshadow were balanced, more or less, by stoplight-red lipstick that had bled into the fine lines around her mouth.

Her clothing was no less colorful. A purple sweatshirt with a design of teddy bears at a picnic topped a pair of hot-pink pedal pushers. Her calves were bare and colored a streaky orangey brown that suggested either a severe nutritional problem or a badly applied tan-in-a-bottle. Purple sneakers with pink glitter and black laces completed the ensemble.

“What is that?” Her voice, surprisingly deep for a woman, brought Reece’s dazzled eyes back to her face. She was staring at the bowl in his hands, dark eyes full of suspicion.

“Spinach salad.”

“Does it have meat in it?”

“No.”

Her dark eyes flickered suspiciously from the bowl to his face. Reece half expected her to insist on an inspection, but she must have decided he had an honest face or maybe it just occurred to her that spinach salad was an unlikely place for meat to lurk. Whichever it was, she shuffled back into the entryway, letting the door open wide, spilling laughter and voices out into the warm afternoon.

His first impression was of wall-to-wall people. His second and third impressions pretty much confirmed the first. There were people standing in the entryway, clutching plastic cups holding liquid of assorted colors. There were more people in the living room, sitting on the sofa, the chairs, perched on the hearth, leaning against the wall next to the front windows. Yet more people standing in the hallway, which he assumed led back to the bedrooms. Everywhere he looked, there was someone standing or sitting. Fat people, skinny people, old, young, enough variations of skin tone to make a liberal cheer or a conservative weep. Male, female and…well, he wasn’t willing to hazard a guess about the one wearing the leather pants and a pink Mohawk.

“You can take that out to the patio.”

Reece blinked and focused his attention on the woman who’d let him in. Compared to the Mohawk wearer, she looked downright conservative. “Patio?”

“Go through the kitchen,” she said, reading the question he hadn’t asked.