Boy wasn’t how Kate would have described the man she’d seen, but she supposed when you were in your seventies, anything under forty qualified.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“I heard he’s a big one, too. Like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson,” Edith commented.
“Or John Cena,” Lydia added with an audible sigh. “I just love John Cena.”
They expectantly looked to Kate for confirmation.
She obliged, careful to keep her expression neutral. “He is.”
“Well?” Mona prompted.
“Well what?” she asked innocently, hiding her smile. Kate knew exactly what they wanted—a firsthand play-by-play account of her brief interaction with the mysterious stranger.
Mona impatiently clicked her tongue. Everyone pretended not to notice when her dentures slipped. “Don’t keep us in suspense, dear. What was he like? Other than Matt Winston, we don’t know much about them.”
“I heard Matt Winston’s changed quite a bit from the carefree young man he used to be,” Martha commented. At fortyish or so, she was the second youngest of the group next to Kate. Martha was also Mona’s protégé in terms of local scuttlebutt-gathering.
“Of course he’s changed.” Edith clucked. “The service does that to a man, and he was a SEAL, for goodness’ sake. I watch that show on television, the one about the SEAL teams. I should know.”
Lydia shook her head. “And after what happened to his family ...”
Kate listened to them banter back and forth, rehashing the fire that had claimed the lives of Matt’s family while he was off at basic training or boot camp or BUD/S—there was some debate as to what it was actually called. The discussion then predictably turned to what had prompted Matt to go off and join the Navy in the first place. Some of their theories were quite colorful, ranging from a rift with his father to getting a local girl “in the family way.”
Kate didn’t think anyone, except Matt Winston, knew the truth about what had really happened, and that was the way it should be, in her humble opinion. Thanks to Luther and his indiscretions, she’d been the focus of more than a few juicy discussions herself and knew how uncomfortable that kind of scrutiny could be.
Eventually though, their conversation quieted, and they turned back to Kate.
“So, Kate, enough stalling. What was he like?” Mona pumped yet again.
They glared at her, as if she’d been the one to push them off-topic.
She removed the last batch of baked pot pies from the commercial oven and slid in another before saying, “He didn’t say much. He was quiet. Very polite.”
Mona narrowed her eyes. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Kate shrugged. “He came in for rock salt and a shovel and got both. Oh, he also bought up all the brownies that were left from the Sumneyville Animal Shelter bake sale.”
Their eyes lit up.
“Does he know you baked them, dear?” Agnes asked.
Kate thought back. “Yes. He asked if they were homemade.”
“And did he buy them before or after you told him?”
Crap.
Kate saw where this was headed, but there was no swerving off the road now. She braced for impact. “After.”
They nodded in knowing synchronization.
“Hmm, I think he likes you, Kate,” Agnes commented.
She shook her head, even as a tendril of something tried to take hold. “He was just being nice.”
“Don’t be so quick to write him off,” Edith advised. “They’re very deliberate, those SEALs.”
“And you know what they say,” Lydia added. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“Yeah, and you’re not getting any younger, you know.”
“Stuff it, Mona,” Agnes said, coming to Kate’s defense and turning back to her. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just miserable, and she wants everyone else to be, too.”
Mona looked offended, but the spinster twins were nodding again.
“Exactly, dear. We never married, and we’re perfectly happy. Aren’t we, Lydia?”
Lydia sniffed. “Speak for yourself. If John Cena came to my door and bought my cookies, I’d leave you in a heartbeat.”
On that note, Kate packed prepared meals into several boxes, enough for everyone on her delivery list, plus a few extra. “I’m not reading anything into it, and neither should you, so don’t go starting any rumors, okay?” She looked at each of them in turn. “And if I do hear any, I’ll know exactly where they came from.”
Without giving them a chance to respond, Kate leaned out the door and called some of the guys hanging out in the hall to help her carry the boxes to her Jeep. Then, she skedaddled, leaving the cleanup and post-game analysis to the experts while she made her deliveries.
Several hours later, Kate pulled into her driveway, checking that all looked well at Handelmann’s. Living across the street made it convenient to get to and from work, even in bad weather. Duke trotted down the sidewalk, right on time.
“You should have heard the ladies tonight, Duke,” she said as she heated up pot pie for both of them. Like her, Duke was a huge fan of homemade chicken pot pie. “They’re trying to play matchmaker again. I told them about the guy who came in today and they think, because he bought all my brownies, he’s a potential suitor.”
Duke tilted his head.
“Yes, they actually used the word ‘suitor.’ Can you believe it?”
Kate spooned some of the potpie into a bowl and mixed it with some dry dog food before preparing a plate for herself, sans kibble. Duke had the bowl licked clean before she even sat down at the table.
“Hungry, huh?”
He picked up the bowl and placed it at her feet—his way of asking for seconds—then sat back on his haunches and waited patiently.
“What did you think of him?” she asked.
Duke’s tail wagged and he panted softly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. I’m not going to get my hopes up, though. Like I told them, he was just being nice. And if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, right?”
Kate saved a little on her plate and then scraped it into Duke’s bowl, which was a testament to exactly how much she liked him. He made quick work of that and then climbed up onto the sofa with her. After she turned on the television and covered them both with her grandma’s crocheted afghan, he was snoring softly, and Kate wasn’t too far behind.
Chapter Five
Mad Dog
Mad Dog turned the kitchen and bathroom taps on just enough to keep a steady drip going. The region was in the grips of frigid blast, and he’d learned the hard way that if he didn’t do that, he’d return to the trailer to find the pipes frozen. Now that Heff was living in one of the cabins, the onus was on him to ensure that didn’t happen.
After grabbing his keys, he locked up the place and headed to the main building. The scenery was breathtaking. Church’s land, a three-hundred-acre parcel in the mountains, was a veritable winter wonderland. Pine trees were iced with snow as far as the eyes could see. The blanket of snow on the ground shimmered in the sunlight, as if it had been encrusted with millions of tiny diamonds. He barely noticed the cold, biting air, thanks to the wool cap and Gore-Tex jacket Church had gotten for each of them.