Rachel Dahlrumple. Shea McMaster
it possible for me to live a somewhat normal life, including time in my allergy-friendly garden where I’d planted low pollen plants as defined by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Unfortunately, I was about an hour past my usual time, so I sneezed on Dan’s fine white t-shirt again.
He didn’t flinch, but he did stare at me for a few seconds.
“Sorry.” I reached to wipe away the miniscule spots, but he stopped me.
“Let’s get you inside. Don’t touch anything, hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve dealt with poison oak before. How’d you recognize it in the dark? My porch light isn’t very bright.”
“I have good night vision.”
I could only wonder what that meant as he dragged me past the screen door he held open. I liked to skinny dip in the pool out back from time to time, but only very late on the darkest nights. Had he been able to see me from his brother’s kitchen window? I’d almost done it tonight. Heat raced across my face.
“Where do you keep your first aid kit? I assume you have something to treat this.”
I lost my train of thought with my next sneeze, which echoed in the foyer as we passed through. “What?”
“Your first aid kit. Where is it?”
“The cabinet by the back door.” After a few bouts with stubbed toes on the pool apron and bug bites from working in the yard, I’d found it easier to have the kit on hand for fast grabbing.
Dan stopped by the sink and turned on the water so I didn’t have to touch the faucet. He had me drop the envelope into a plastic baggie, and after pumping soap into my hands he began searching the contents of the first aid box.
“Calamine? It doesn’t do diddly, Rumple. Not on poison oak.”
Rumple? Good heavens. I half snorted, half sneezed. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in twenty years.”
Once I’d cleaned my wedding rings, I pulled the set off and dropped it into the little dish on the window sill. I’d never liked wearing rings when doing dirty work in the kitchen and often left them there overnight. Burt objected every time he saw me do it, calling me irresponsible with how I treated the two-carat diamond on the engagement ring. I figured I saved the ring set some wear and tear. Especially on the days I forgot to wear the set altogether. The first time he’d caught me at work without… Well, I’d learned to be very careful when he was in town.
Dan stiffened, shot me an irritated glance, and kept digging. “Mint oil? Menthol? Camphor? Lanacaine? Do you have anything along those lines?”
“Aloe with Lanacaine? Witch hazel, rubbing alcohol…”
His hand plunged into the box. “Antihistamine cream and hydrocortisone. Those’ll work.” Appropriate tubes captured and officially subdued, he turned and observed my scrubbing efforts.
Unusually fast, the sting had started to set in. Thank God for his exceptional night vision. I would have carried the box into the house and set it on the counter before recognizing the toxic plants. The oil from the poison oak would have been everywhere, not to mention the evil pollen of the ragweed.
“Who’d you piss off?” Dan handed me a paper towel. “Pat, don’t rub.”
“Aye, aye, Deputy.” Off duty, he wore jeans, a no longer quite so pristine white t-shirt, and three day stubble. Yowzer. Even though I’d been married for seventeen years, I had no immunity to all that raw manliness standing six inches away from me for the second time that day. Young manliness. Two years younger than I. Twelve years younger than my husband. I patted my hands and face dry, did my best to delicately blow my running nose, and tossed the paper towels into the trash.
“Funny.” He squeezed out the antihistamine cream first. “Rub that in and we’ll follow with the hydrocortisone. Got a pair of chopsticks or tweezers?”
“What?” Out of the blue, the question struck me as bizarre.
“I want to read the card inside the envelope,” he said slowly with exaggerated patience and a touch of sarcasm. In truth, I’d been thinking about him to hide my real turmoil. My mind, still reeling from the fact someone would send me such a rotten arrangement, had trouble catching up to him.
“Tweezers equals no touchy.” He wiggled the fingers of one hand.
“Funny.” I repeated his one word sarcastic answer before sneezing, that time into the sink. “Top drawer, grab one of the wooden pairs of Japanese chopsticks. They have the pointier end.” I took the fresh paper towel he handed me, and oh-so-demurely wiped my running eyes and drippy nose.
“You’re a real comedian, library lady. Exactly what do you wear under your proper suit of straight skirt and prim white blouse, with your hair up in a bun?”
He gave me a look that raked me from head to toe and back again. Shocked at the appraisal as much as the comment, I stared back. I could have sworn he had X-Ray vision because he looked at me as if my clothes weren’t there at all, as if he knew what I didn’t have on underneath. If I hadn’t had goo all over my hands, I would have pulled my robe tighter. Instead, my entire body flushed and I squeezed my thighs together, internally swearing I’d never set foot outside my bedroom without panties ever again. Or had I really had the opposite thought, as in I’d never wear panties again? Damn, I needed a remedy to counteract what the man did to my brain.
“I’ve seen you in your natural habitat. You just need to raise the hem on your skirts four inches, change out the flats for stilettos, undo a couple more buttons and you’ll have all the teen boys hanging out. County literacy will soar.”
His comments were so outrageous, if I hadn’t known him for twenty–mumble–years, I’d have reported him to the Sheriff. Instead, my mouth dropped open partly in shock that he’d said so many words in a row to me. On the other hand I’d watched cop shows and recognized his attempt to distract me while he extracted the card enough to read it, but I was outraged all the same. To hide my hot face, I bent to the task of rubbing the soothing creams into my hands.
Seriously, he hadn’t tried walking, bending, crouching, and climbing step-stools all day in a thong. Even worse, a garter belt and stockings. Men! I’d like to see him do it. I’d stick to my comfy Lycra. Besides being comfortable, it gave a little tummy control, too. As for heels, he needed to get real.
But I did vow, silently, to think about the shorter skirts.
“I’ll ask again, Mrs. Bruckmeister, are you aware of any enemies?”
I looked up from my lotion rubbing and took in his expression. Blank. All teasing gone. Cop mode.
“I’m a simple person, Deputy Weston, you know that. Steady and calm. Boring. I don’t offend anyone, and no one gives me trouble. Unless you’re talking about Jose Delgado, who is three weeks late with the last book he checked out.”
“I don’t think Jose wrote this note.” He looked at it again, and his eyebrows drew together. With a deepening scowl, he turned it so I could read it through the clear plastic.
The handwriting on the card matched the envelope. Black, block letters, innocuous enough, aside from the message. Ah, yes, the kicker.
Let him go. We want to be together. Start divorce proceedings. Or better yet, end your pitiful life. Your choice. For now.
I could only imagine my expression at that moment. Dan’s gaze was glued to my face, which first felt hot, then cold. My head swam and my breathing wheezed in and out, as ragged as my stuttering heartbeat.
That bastard. The low down, scheming, rotten, lying, slimy, vile, despicable…
“Care to revise your statement?”
A few quick blinks brought the deputy back into focus, though I could feel the airways in my lungs constricting.