Leonie's Luck
Yazar
Emma Goldrick
Okur
18,3K
Bölüm
11
CHAPTER ONE
LEONIE MARSHAL was a sturdy girl of twenty-seven summers. Woman, rather. At five feet nine her mass of lush brown hair curved around her neck and down to the middle of her back. Ordinarily she braided it to keep it out of the way. For some reason she could never bring herself to have it cut. The mass of hair outlined a heart-shaped face—with a dimple on each cheek, mind you, and a double handful of freckles spread across the bridge of her nose.
Her figure made men turn around to look after she passed. Her blue eyes matched her sunny disposition. But without her glasses Leonie could hardly tell near from not so near, and she hated to wear her horn-rims in public. It was not that she was blind. Not by any means. It was just that things were vaguely obscure, out of focus, as if they had no edges. She had tried contact lenses, but to no avail. So it was not unusual to discover that she had left her glasses somewhere in the car, as she had today. All of which was a distinct disadvantage when she pushed her way through the swinging doors of Fairview’s only supermarket on Friday afternoon.
‘Why, Leonie,’ one of the vague shadows said as she pulled a cart out of the rack.
‘Er—yes?’ Leonie mumbled as she struggled in her mind to identify the voice. ‘Oh, Mrs Simpson—’
‘Done it again?’ her neighbour laughed as she wheeled her car away down the fruit and vegetable line.
So everyone knows, Leonie lectured herself for the hundredth time. It’s no big secret. All you do is make yourself look stupid, kid. Brighten up. The first thing you know you’ll walk into some catastrophe, all because you won’t wear your glasses! And to keep track of them all you need to do is buy one of those cords that let you wear the darn things around your neck. Right? Right! Any child of ten could do it.
For the hundred-and-first time she moved her trolley over close to the edge of the vegetable bins and began her weekly shopping, mostly by the touch-and-squint-and-feel system.
By dint of aggressive trolley-pushing and nose-to-label reading she had weighed down the four-wheeled trolley in a short time. Those who knew her dodged out of the way; those who didn’t had the tendency to mutter certain nasty words under their breath as Leonie swept by. Leonie closed her ears, sighed for her reputation and charged along.
After all, she reminded herself, she had only a limited amount of time before she had to get back to the playschool. The school was open late on Friday because her two part-time assistants were available, and Friday afternoon was the time when the fewest other customers were in the supermarket. It was a case of trading time for space, neither of which she really had much to spare.
It was not until she came down aisle six, canned goods, that Leonie ran into trouble. She was wheeling away at a good clip when one of the vague shadows in front of her stopped unexpectedly, blossomed out into a large fixed pile of humanity, some part of which fell to the floor.
It was the sort of problem Leonie had not often faced before. Her mind was still wrestling with her financial problems at the school; there was a baby crying somewhere in front of her. Without thinking Leonie flexed her arm muscles and steered her trolley hard left to the other side of the aisle. It was no real problem. A girl who handled milk cans every morning at six o’clock when the truck from the milk-collective came around had enough muscles developed to shift a dozen trolleys. There seemed to be something on the floor in front of her, however. Her trolley bounced over it.
* * *
Charlie Wheeler was doing his best, but it wasn’t enough. The local store manager had half a dozen explanations why the tomatoes on aisle four were partially spoiled. Charlie took a deep breath. It was enough to bring the manager to an abrupt halt.
‘I don’t really want a lot of excuses,’ Charlie said. His voice was threateningly deep, as befitting a man who stood six feet four. The fact that he was worn to a magnificent splinter had nothing to do with anything. He had been lucky to survive the car crash. A month in the hospital and five more in rehabilitation had devoured the pounds.
And in the interim his wife had deserted him, his father had died, and the chain of Wheeler supermarkets had dwindled away to this one disreputable market.
‘I mean to restore this store,’ he told the manager, and then snorted at his own choice of words. ‘And if you can’t even get the tomatoes unspoiled to the racks, then—’
The threat floated heavily on the air between them. The girl at the check-out counter was almost crawling over the register, trying to hear every word. Charlie stifled his anger and brushed his long black hair back off his forehead. His face was sharp as a bone. Two parallel scars staggered across his forehead. White, normally, but when he became angry they turned red.
This argument isn’t for public display, he told himself, and then sighed. All he knew about grocery management he had learned at his grandfather’s knee, and long since he had put it behind him to follow a career in computer engineering. It was senseless to chew on the man in public. He waved the store manager away.
Charlie watched him go. The man dragged his feet for a moment or two, then took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. A manager needs something like that, Charlie thought, and smiled. He wasn’t aware of it but when he smiled he looked like an amiable bear. When he didn’t smile he didn’t look amiable.
Charlie had plans. Numberless plans, but now he was too restless to stand around thinking. He had been leaning on the corner of one of the check-out counters. Now he straightened up and tugged down the corner of his blue blazer. His legs ached. They always did by this time of day. A little walking would be good for them—and him.
There were few customers—too few for a weekend afternoon—but he smiled at all and sundry just the same. There seemed to be some confusion in aisle six. He came around the corner in his best management style. One of the shoppers had more children than groceries in her trolley. The little boy was dancing over the front wheels. The little girl was sitting high in the back, laughing away. And as he came up to them the girl giggled too much, leaned over too far, and fell out of the trolley. The child screamed. Her mother screamed. The little boy started crying—
And the shopping trolley behind them swerved over into the opposite side of the aisle, fully loaded, and ground over Charlie Wheeler’s sensitive foot! Charlie’s groan was more like a yelp. The foot had been mangled in his car accident, and was not exactly cured.
Charlie’s grandfather had been a carpenter before he went into the grocery business. A truly religious man, he never cursed, even when he hit his thumb with a hammer. And now Charlie used the only expression his grandfather had ever permitted.
With teeth clenched, eyes raised to heaven, he roared in words that were steel, ‘Jesus—Christ—is—my—saviour!’
Leonie stopped dead in her tracks. The little girl stopped yelling and turned around to stare up at him. The little boy stopped crying. The children’s mother, about to make a long vocal appeal to the management, froze in position.
In the silence that followed Leonie’s voice penetrated like a knife through butter. ‘Don’t you ever,’ she said indignantly, ‘yell at children!’
She moved a little closer, trying to bring him into focus. Her stomach pushed on the handle of the trolley and the vehicle rocked back and forth suggestively.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ he said, shifting his foot out of danger’s way. ‘Once is enough! You don’t get a second shot at me!’
What else she might have said went by the board. The little girl, caught between enjoyment and fear, lifted up her arms in his direction. He snatched her up off the floor and tossed her high above his head. The child giggled. The boy crowded over to Charlie’s knees.
‘Me?’ the child said.
Any other man would be hung up on the horns of dilemma. Whether to put the girl down and favour the boy, or cut them both off. Instead, one-handed, Charlie Wheeler picked the boy up as well, and juggled them both back and forth until laughter filled the aisle.
‘Thank you ever so much,’ the children’s mother said. In her voice was that background that made it seem she wished there were room and to spare for her in his arms.
Leonie’s stomach turned. Nothing, she told herself, there’s nothing worse than women pandering to this—person. Obviously there was a very great deal of man there. Peering closely, she began to get signals about his size—especially his height.
‘You mustn’t let your child ride anywhere in the cart except in the special child’s seat,’ Charlie said. His voice was no longer a roar, but rather a soft caress.
It was almost as if he were making love to the woman, Leonie told herself fiercely. Damned male chauvinist! I’d like to take him down a peg or two. The thought touched her funny-bone. Peg or two? Foot or two, more than likely! What do you suppose he is? The store manager? She doubted that, having done unsatisfactory business with the manager from time to time in the past. The chief bag boy? What the devil did he suppose the woman was going to do, with only one cart and two children?
He showed her. He was wearing a little whistle attached to the lapel of his jacket. It made barely a squeak. Almost immediately another young man appeared, received some instruction, procured and pushed a second trolley, and the happy family went off on its way.
‘Clever,’ Leonie told him. Once the family had departed she pushed her trolley over to the side of the aisle. He limped over to her. She could see the jerky motion without any trouble. All Leonie’s good nature popped to the surface.
‘I’ve really hurt you? I’m—terribly sorry.’ He would never know how much that simple admission cost her. This was the decade that Leonie Marshal had sworn off men. All kinds of men. The only exception from her male-avoidance was boys under seven. No other need apply.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. Leonie couldn’t see the shrug, but it seemed like something he would do.
‘Nothing? I’ve crippled you!’
‘Not exactly. Most of the damage was done by an automobile some months ago. You just added a little dollop on the top. Are you having some trouble with your eyes?’
‘Me? Never!’ Leonie crossed her fingers behind her back. Father Hennesy would demand ten hail Marys for that one—to pile on top of the round dozen other acts of contrition necessary from this week’s work.
‘Isn’t that strange? I would have sworn that your eyes were—but of course not, huh? The customer is always right. My name is Wheeler. Charlie Wheeler.’
And then he puts out his hand to seal the introduction, and I don’t know where the hand is, and he’ll immediately think that I’m too darn proud, or hate him like the devil, she told herself.
‘Leonie,’ she mumbled. ‘Leonie Marshal.’ She didn’t have to worry about where his hand was. He seized hers before she could get it more than an inch away from her side. Seized it and pumped it and then refused to let it go.
‘Leonie Marshal,’ he repeated. ‘Nice. Every family should have one.’
He was going too fast for her. ‘One what?’ she asked, and felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth.
‘One Leonie,’ he answered. The chuckle was big enough to fill an ordinary room. ‘One Leonie Marshal.’
Leonie felt crowded. She managed another step backwards, putting her elbows among the large canned tomatoes. The massive being in front of her came closer. Leonie, completely at sea, held her breath. He was close enough to touch. And he was touching.
She knew what to do, of course. Any woman knew. She told herself to stand stiffly at attention, pay no mind at all to the cruising lips that brushed past her eyebrows, seeking her mouth. Unfortunately it was more than a little difficult in practice. Leonie could not remember any time in the past six years when it seemed so impossible to stand still. Her upper lip quivered as his lips touched hers. Her arms, for some strange reason, reached up to go around his neck. Her spinal cord seemed to have broken into tiny pieces, and each little segment was doing its own wild dance.
After a moment he stopped. Leonie managed, with difficulty, to catch her breath. And her good sense. ‘Now why did you do that?’ she demanded.
He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘I don’t really know. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I enjoyed it. You didn’t?’
‘Enjoyment has nothing to do with it,’ she said firmly. ‘Propriety. One hardly expects to get kissed on aisle seven of the supermarket.’
‘Aisle six.’ He offered the correction and then grinned at her. He was very close, and his teeth were pearl-white. It was almost a challenge; Leonie managed to squeeze out an extra inch or two of distance between them. She squinted, and his form came more fully into view.
‘Propriety?’ he mused.
‘Propriety,’ she confirmed. ‘You don’t know the word?’
‘Not in this context,’ he said, sighing.
‘Well, really.’ The new voice came from behind them. ‘I don’t mind the kissing, but my husband will be home for supper in an hour, and I’ve got all his meal in this basket!’
‘I believe we’re blocking the aisle,’ Charlie Wheeler said. He faded away from Leonie who was, at her age, nobody’s fool. Leonie Marshal straightened the wheels of her trolley and dashed for the check-out counter, which, being brightly splashed with light and advertising, could be seen even by her. As the cashier totalled her purchases with lightning speed, Leonie could hear the deep, penetrating voice behind her, where Charlie Wheeler was making his excuses.
‘That man back there.’ Leonie prodded the cashier as she handed out her credit card.
‘Oh, him? Charlie Wheeler? The big man?’
‘Yes. Who is he?’
‘Charlie? This is the Wheeler Supermarket. Charlie owns it.’
* * *
It was moving towards late afternoon. Late autumn afternoon in New England. With daylight saving time coming to an end the sun would set somewhere around four-thirty. A little breeze had risen, rustling the colourful leaves of the maple trees that surrounded the car park. There was a small-town freshness to the air.
The high-intensity lights came on, lighting the car park up like a football field just before a night game. Leonie made her way without much trouble, to the 1976 station wagon that waited for her.
Not an eager waiting. The car matched its years, leaning somewhat to starboard as it sat. The silencer was still attached, but had a tendency to drag on bumpy streets. All of the six streets in Fairview were bumpy. Nevertheless, station wagons made in 1976 were built somewhat on the order of Sherman tanks, and despite all the rattles and bangs they managed to hang together. Maybe it was the paint job. Leonie often thought that could be the answer. The coat of green paint was chipped in places, but otherwise hung on desperately.
She was out of breath as she wheeled her trolley up to the rear of the station wagon. Out of breath and no good reason for it. She was a hard-working girl. Up at four to milk, muck out the barn, prepare the milk to be picked up. Back to the house at seven-thirty to make breakfast for herself and Aunt Agnes. Feed the cows and turn them out to graze by eight.
Off to school at nine, downtown. In fact the only decent space for a playschool in all of Fairview. The rent was cheap, the site matched all the ordinances for private schools, and the enrolment was at a maximum—twenty-eight charming little hellions from four to six years old. There were times when Leonie wished she were half deaf instead of half blind. Or, even better, the heiress daughter of the town’s richest citizen. But she had no luck in either concern.
Being a sunny woman at heart Leonie grinned at herself as she fumbled in the driver’s seat for her lost glasses. And—presto!—the world became distinct. ‘And I am never,’ Leonie told that world, ‘going to go without my glasses again! Never!’
Well, there is the high school alumni dance in six weeks. Maybe, just once? And I’ll wear that calf-length blue velvet with the deep-dip bodice, and I’ll convince at least one or two that I’m not getting as old as fast as some people think! And why did he kiss me? asked a little voice inside her head.
And so thinking, she managed to get all the groceries into the van and only cracked one egg.
* * *
Charlie Wheeler took one last look around the store. Big it was. As big as it had ever been when it was the keystone of the Wheeler chain—back in the days when everything newer or cheaper had appeared under the Wheeler name in thirty-two different stores. And it’ll be that again, he promised himself. Ten or more, and quickly, before Grandpa comes to the end of his chain. Before the cancer bug eats up his interest and his future. Something for Gramps now, and for Cecilia in her future.
A tiny smile lit up his face, transforming what might have looked like a sharp hatchet-face into a form of male beauty. There was a collective sigh from among the several cashiers as he went by, heading out into the car park, whistling.
The car park lights surprised him. The sun was not yet down, and the brilliant floodlights were expensive. He checked his wristwatch just to be sure. It gave him a little shock. Four-thirty already. He had one more important stop to make, and his daughter Cecilia was waiting for him at the downtown playschool. Not too patiently, he supposed. His daughter was not the patient kind.
He had parked his 1928 Packard touring car in one of the far corners of the car park. It was a completely refurbished old vehicle, worth four times as much now than when it was new. Not the sort of vehicle you park in the middle of a supermarket car park. Not by a darn sight. Which was one of the reasons he left Cecilia at the school rather than in the car.
As it happened, the car park, like the store behind him, was almost empty. But there was a car parked right in front of his. An old station wagon, with the boot opened. Somebody was trying their best to cram a few more items into it.
Being a long way from being dead, Charlie Wheeler licked his lips and stared. All that could be seen of the person at the old wagon was a well-rounded female posterior crammed into a tight pair of old grey jeans. There was a delightful wiggle or two involved. Evidently the groceries were fitting into the wagon almost as tightly as its owner fitted into the jeans. Charlie Wheeler, being a closet chauvinist, grinned his enjoyment.
But when the wagon owner popped out, Charlie wiped the grin away in micro-seconds, and did his best to appear the mature American male. ‘Miss Marshal,’ he called cheerily. ‘Need any help.’
She stared at him through a pair of brown horn-rimmed glasses. Stared him up and down as if she had never seen him before. ‘Charlie Wheeler,’ he reminded her. ‘Back in the store?’
‘I remember,’ she said, and stared some more. He was taller than she had thought. Basketball-player tall. Thin. Good lord, skinny was the appropriate word. Toothpick skinny. He wore a pair of grey trousers, a dark blue sweater, and a matching blazer. His hair was short and combed close. There were a pair of scars on his forehead. He stood slightly bent over, as if trying to hide his height.
‘Mr Wheeler,’ she repeated his name, and nodded her head. He didn’t appear to have enough strength to help. ‘No—no, thanks. I don’t need any help.’ And then a spurt of curiosity. ‘Are you the store owner?’
‘One of them,’ he acknowledged. ‘My grandfather is the major owner of the chain. Do you live in Fairview?’
‘All my life.’ She nodded to him again. It wasn’t quite true. She had left the town for five years when she went to the state university. She had planned on another year or two—perhaps a Ph.D in child psychology—but then a multiple series of accidents at home had called her back—too late as it happened, for her mother and father had both been lost in an aircraft accident while on tour to Italy. And her new life was totally changed from what she had known and expected.
The wind came up, eddying through her hair, spreading it out in an infinitely soft, thin haze that accentuated its beauty. Her hand came up and ran through the maze in a habitual movement beyond her control. When she looked up he was grinning at her. An engaging grin. She returned it as she slammed the boot shut and walked around to the driver’s door. He took it as a friendly dismissal, and offered her a half-salute, two fingers tipping at his forehead.
He walked back to the Packard, fingering the car keys in his pocket. She was a beautiful thing, no doubt about that. She wore a red ribbed sweater along with her jeans, and a tiny white scarf tied artfully around her neck. The sweater was as tight as a man could wish. And she was undoubtedly equipped with all the feminine structural requirements. As seen from a man’s point of view, that was. Even the glasses added a little fillip to the occasion. Her blue eyes looked a little vague behind those glasses, a little perturbed, as if all the weight of all the problems in Fairview rested on her shoulders. To emphasise the possibility, her right hand quivered. Grinning again, Charlie Wheeler leaned against the front fender of his car, content to watch what else might transpire.
* * *
Leonie settled back into the driver’s seat. It had been a pleasure—momentary, to be sure, but a pleasure. He was a delightful scarecrow, especially when he smiled. She would remember that smile. And that kiss was not to be ignored, either. Leonie Marshal had enjoyed more than one kiss in her lifetime. Hated some, come to think of it. Just because she was—well-built might be the word, she told herself—more males than she could enjoy had felt that an octopus grip would please her.
Of course he had kissed her. But not with a wrestling hold to strangle her into submission. All in all it had been very—nice. Charlie Wheeler. She made a mental note and checked his name off on the bright side of remembrance as she reached for the ignition key.
The engine sputtered and coughed a time or two, and then settled down into a dulcet roar. She sighed at the miracle. As with any careful driver, Leonie looked up into her rear-view mirror, and then checked in her side-mirror. He was still standing there, leaning on the front fender of his car. He waved as he caught her eye in the mirror. She checked again in the rear-view mirror. There was plenty of space between her car and his.
In front of her was a small concrete bump. The car park was full of them, to prevent speeders. She reached for her handbrake. The manoeuvre was simple. All she had to do was to back up a few feet, swing the wheel to the right, and move smartly out in to the main road. She took a second to stick her hand out of the window and wave back to him. Her hand moved to the gear lever. Not for Leonie the jaded life of automatic drive. Her foot moved to the clutch. Everything was so pleasant.
Old cars sometimes made strange noises, and very often did not respond immediately to the command to ‘go’. So Leonie was not surprised that she had to jiggle the clutch. Nor, when the heavy car began to move backwards, was she surprised to hear a grating noise from the rear end.
But when Charlie Wheeler screamed bloody murder, her attention was pulled from what she was doing. She looked over her shoulder out of the window. Charlie was no longer leaning on the front fender. Instead he was sprawled on the ground—and there seemed to be something wrong with the front end of his old car. Leonie jammed on the brakes and her station wagon came to a grinding stop.
‘Hell and damnation,’ Charlie Wheeler roared as he rolled over and fought his way to his feet. Leonie opened her car door and slipped out on to the tarmac. ‘What happened?’
‘What happened! You ask me what happened?’
Cautiously, trying not to get too close to him, Leonie walked to the back of her car. There had been plenty of room. She knew it was so. Her eyes were a small problem, but wearing her glasses she had good vision. So how could there be any problem that she caused?
‘What did you do?’ she queried him.
‘You mean today all day, or just now?’ he muttered as he swiped at his dirty trousers. ‘The worst thing I can think of is that I got out of bed this morning. The next worst is that I came and met you!’
‘It can’t be all that bad,’ Leonie assured him. Her eyes wandered to the back of the station wagon—and the messy construction of wires and wheels that once had been a sturdy shopping trolley. Which she had left parked directly behind her car when she’d finished loading the groceries. And which had been pushed back into his glorious old car with all the force of her heavy wagon. The carriage had splintered, and all the chrome rods from which it was made had opened up like daggers and thrust themselves into his beautiful old radiator.
‘Oh!’ she sputtered. ‘Oh, my goodness!’ The front end of his Packard had been chopped up by the shreds of the shopping trolley. One fender had lost all the splendour of its chrome decorations. Water dripped dismally from several punctures in the radiator.
‘I did that?’
‘You did that, lady.’ There was nothing pleasant at all in the rattle of his threatening voice.
‘Well, thank goodness that yours is a very old car,’ she reflected. ‘It can’t be worth much.’
‘That is a very old antique car,’ he corrected in a very steely voice. ‘Antique.’
Leonie gulped. Antique car. Worth—
‘About sixty-five thousand dollars’ worth of antique,’ he said, as if he could read her mind. ‘I hope to hell you’ve some insurance on that bomb of yours.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Leonie squeaked. It was true. She did have insurance. The minimum allowable in order to drive a car in Massachusetts, not anything like what the cost of repair on this—antique—would come to. Why did the legislature allow this—thing—to be on the road? She rambled desperately through her mind, trying to think of something, or someone, she could blame the whole affair on. Nothing came to mind.
‘I—I’m sorry.’
He nodded, but there was nothing like forgiveness on his face. All he reminded her of was the face of the operator of the guillotine, whom she had watched more than once in reruns of the movie Tale of Two Cities. Death and destruction, and Leonie was not ready for either of those. She shivered.
‘Here’s my card,’ she said as she pawed through her little purse and pulled out her business card. ‘Leonie Marshal, Fairview, Massachusetts’, the card said. ‘I do have to go,’ she told him anxiously. ‘I have a bunch of children waiting for me, and I—’
‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go already. Only the Lord knows what might happen to me if I stand around here next to you any longer. I’ll have my car repaired and then get in touch with you.’
‘Yes,’ she said. There was a mad itch running down her spine which told her to get out of here before something else happened. He didn’t look like the sort of man who beat up women. But if she could get out of the area quickly he might cool down. Or at the very least he would become just another one of her creditors. Whom she couldn’t pay, no matter how little the charge might be.
She turned on her heel and hurried back into her own car. The engine was still running. She shifted into first gear and moved off. There was a screech of metal as the shopping trolley was pulled out of his radiator and fell crashing on to the ground. Without a second look Leonie gunned the engine. Her tyres squealed as they took hold of the concrete. Smoke piled out of her exhaust. Black smoke, as usual. She came to a full stop at the turn where the car park met with Main Street, and managed another look out of her side window. He was standing by his car with a piece of metal in his hands, almost as if he were crying.
Leonie started off again, almost creaming the furniture truck that appeared out of her line of vision. She jammed on her brakes and spent a moment or two catching her breath. He was probably responsible for it all anyway, she told herself. That was stupid, parking an antique car in a supermarket car park!
* * *
Charlie Wheeler looked at the bright chrome wire that he picked up from under his car, the remnant of the shopping trolley. There was something suspiciously like a tear in his eye. He loved the old antique. It had been a wreck when he bought it, and now it was a wreck again. He shuddered as he remembered those earlier bills. Not that he didn’t have the money. The family was hardly broke. But there was always the principle of the thing!
He shook his head as he looked over the wreckage. But he had to go. There was another appointment he must keep, and Cecilia was an impatient little girl. Even her father quivered at the thought of a riled-up daughter. Nine years old, and she already qualified as the Dragon Lady! He fumbled with the door handle of the car. His battery-operated telephone was inside, locked between the two front seats. The door was jammed. Disgusted, he put one hand on the top of the door and vaulted over the side. His ascent was good, but his landing left a little to be desired. He managed to pull the telephone out and rested it on the top of the map case. Another ten minutes was required before he found the number of a tow shop. A longer argument ensued when he tried to have the car towed. And only the offer to rent a car from the same garage seemed to bring action on the towing.
The sun was completely gone behind the Berkshires by the time he managed both. The driver of the tow-truck went off, shaking his head as he did so. Parts for the Packard, he wanted Charlie to know, were hardly available on a Friday night in Fairview, and in any case the cost would be out the ears.
Charlie Wheeler was so glad to see him go that he almost agreed to anything. When the tow-truck went by him, his precious car riding a tow-tether at its back, he shook his head and fumbled in his pocket for the card Leonie Marshal had given him. It took him a minute or so to focus his eyes to read.
‘Hell and damnation,’ he muttered. There was no address, no telephone number, no nothing on the card. Just her name. Leonie Marshal, Fairview. He would need a sheriff’s posse to track her down.
Ordinarily he would be screaming bloody murder by this time, he told himself, but instead he was chuckling. The damn little minx! There would be a ‘next time’. There would absolutely be a ‘next time’! That kiss was too good to waste!
* * *
Four blocks north, Leonie had just finished the second of her four remaining errands, and had come up to the ‘stop’ sign at the junction of Main Street, when the procession went by. A tow-truck, with the ancient Packard trailing behind, and a black threatening Porsche, with that man at the wheel. That man! Already she recognised him as an enemy, a threat to her precariously balanced economy. Without thinking she stuck her tongue out at him, and then hastily clapped her hand over her mouth, for fear he might see even in the gathering darkness. There’s something behind that face of his, her mind acknowledged. Something that affected her strongly. But what?
The driver behind her sounded his horn; Leonie crashed her gears and hurried off to Shawmut Avenue, where the milk co-operative was already four weeks late with the monthly cheque.
