On Dean's Watch. Linda Winstead Jones

to town in the company of another man?”

      The two older women’s eyes met, and they were silent for a long moment. “You don’t think…” Frances said in a soft voice.

      “Surely not,” Edna said, and then she pursed her lips.

      “Two attractive men, living together, suspiciously silent about why they’re here and who they are…”

      “When did they arrive?” Reva asked, knowing the answer. If Dean had been telling the truth, that is.

      “Last night,” Frances said.

      Reva laughed. “Why don’t we give them a chance to settle in and meet everyone before we make any rash judgments?”

      “She’s right, of course,” Edna agreed. “And there is the possibility that the one who doesn’t have a potbelly might come calling on Reva.”

      “No, thank you,” Reva said sharply. Men like Dean didn’t come calling, and even if they did, he wasn’t her type. She didn’t have a type!

      “Would you prefer the man with the potbelly?” Frances asked. “Is that why you won’t date Sheriff Andrews? I know he’s asked for permission to call on you several times, and you always refuse. I had no idea you were looking for a man with a little more meat on his bones. Sheriff Andrews is not a small man, by any means, but he’s certainly not soft in any way. If you’d like, we can keep taking him food at the station until he grows a nice little round tummy of his own—”

      Reva laughed. “No! Please, no. Why can’t you ladies just accept the fact that I don’t want any man to come calling on me?”

      “It’s not natural,” Frances said.

      “I wish I had a man.” Edna sighed. “I miss having someone to talk to in the evening, since my John passed away.”

      “I miss the sex,” Frances confided.

      “Well,” Edna said with a wicked smile, “your Billy Joe never was much for conversation.”

      The two women laughed, and Reva quietly excused herself from the kitchen.

      The women who worked for her had changed all her notions about growing older. They had fun, they enjoyed life. Oh, they battled arthritis and they moved more slowly than they used to, but they embraced life and enjoyed every minute.

      But try as they might, they had not changed her mind about men. Pot belly or no, Reva was finished with the opposite sex. She didn’t need a man, didn’t want one, which was why she’d sent every small-town Romeo packing during her three years in Somerset.

      She leaned against the wall in the hallway just outside the kitchen, wiped her hands on her apron and closed her eyes. Would they ever give up their efforts as matchmakers? Her life was good now. Settled. She was content. She didn’t want to go back, not a single step. Since she had horrible luck with men, she was better off without one. A man would turn everything upside down, and as for love, there was no such thing. She’d believed herself in love once, but it had been as elusive and fragile as a soap bubble. And when that bubble had burst, she’d been terribly lost.

      Never again. Absolutely, positively, never.

      Edna and Frances continued to share their suppositions about the men who’d rented a space across the street. As their ideas grew more and more outrageous, Reva almost felt sorry for the newcomers.

      He didn’t like this; he didn’t like it at all.

      The cars had begun arriving before noon. They parked on the street in the shade of ancient trees, as well as in a gravel parking lot on the far side of the house.

      Miss Reva’s was more popular than he’d imagined.

      People milled about in the yard, studied the flowers, rocked and swung on the wide front porch. They came and they kept coming. He couldn’t see the side parking lot nearly well enough to suit him. Eddie Pinchon could drive up to the side door and Dean wouldn’t see a thing.

      At fifteen minutes to one, as the crowd continued to grow, Dean made up his mind. He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on. No one else at Miss Reva’s was so formally dressed, which meant he’d stick out like a sore thumb, but he couldn’t conceal his pistol if he left the jacket behind.

      He didn’t run, but his trip down two flights of stairs was fast. He was ready to make his escape, but his landlady, Mrs. Evelyn Fister, stepped into his path without so much as batting an eyelash. He had to put on the brakes to keep from mowing her down.

      “Mr. Sinclair,” she said sweetly, “where are you off to this afternoon?”

      “I thought I’d grab a bite to eat,” he said, moving to step around her.

      She was quicker than she looked to be and moved with him, so that she remained between him and the front door. “My kitchen is fully stocked. If there’s anything you can’t find there—”

      “I thought I’d eat out,” he interrupted.

      She blinked, twice. “Out? Where? There’s a bakery downtown, Louella Vine’s place. The sign out front reads Somerset Bakery and Deli, but everyone calls it Louella’s. She’s a good cook, I suppose, but all you can get there are sweets and sandwiches. Why, you have to drive all the way to the interstate to get anything decent.”

      “What about the place across the street?” he asked. And why wasn’t Reva Macklin’s restaurant considered decent?

      His landlady laughed. “Sonny, you don’t just drop in at Miss Reva’s. You have to have a reservation. Let’s see, you might be able to get a space for next week. That’s not too long to wait. In the summer and the fall, when the tourists swarm all over the place, you need your reservations at least a week in advance.”

      Reservations? Somerset was a one-traffic-light town. It was barely a blip on the radar. Everyone knew everyone else, and you had to have reservations to get into Reva Macklin’s restaurant?

      “I can see you’re confused,” Mrs. Fister said with a tight smile.

      “A little,” Dean confessed.

      “Well,” Mrs. Fister said as she took Dean’s arm and led him onto her own front porch, “it’s rather interesting.” From the porch, they could see the crowd that continued to arrive. The patrons were dressed in various ways. Shorts and T-shirts, colorful sundresses, the occasional prim Sunday dress, jeans and neatly pressed button-up shirts. “When Reva came here a few years back, she was determined to make that old place a success. I’m not sure why she chose Somerset, but I suspect it had something to do with the price of the house. We’re a bit off the beaten path, and real-estate values have been dismal the past thirty years or so.”

      “I can imagine.”

      “In the first year, Reva managed to build a respectable business. Nothing spectacular, not at first, but the woman does know how to cook.” That last was said with pride from a woman who obviously thought this the greatest compliment. “It was the newspaper article that really got things rolling.”

      “Newspaper article.”

      “Some hotshot from Nashville came through and ate at Reva’s, and he ended up writing an article about the experience. A few months later, there was the magazine article…Better Homes and Gardens. That was almost two years ago, and since then you can’t get a seat at Miss Reva’s unless you have—”

      “A reservation,” Dean finished.

      Mrs. Fister consoled him by patting his hand. “You can walk on over there and ask to be put on the waiting list. They do occasionally have a no-show.” She cut him a wary glance. “Not often, but now and then. You might get lucky.”

      A quick look around would be enough. If Eddie Pinchon was there, Dean would recognize him. All he needed was a moment or two to eye all the patrons.

      Dean walked across