A Nuisance. Lass Small

if...what if she was allowing Pepper to...court her!

      Yeah. What if?

      And he found he was stunned by the idea. His mind rejected it. How could he be so upset over a woman whom he’d discarded three months and seventeen days ago?

      How come he knew exactly how long ago it had been?

      Was he sulking? Had he been waiting for her to call him and make up with him, saying he was right and she’d been rude? Yeah.

      So what was he supposed to do?

      * * *

      Knowing her family was still away, Stefan called her the rest of the day, and fortunately she didn’t have the pushy answering machine connected. Each time, he could let the phone ring twenty times. If she deliberately was not answering, it would be annoying for her to have to listen to the long rings, but he knew she wasn’t there. No single woman would resist a ringing phone.

      When he couldn’t contact her the next day, he began to get a breathing disorder. Where was she? How could he find out without seeming interested? A man’s life and times were a heavy burden.

      He drove by her house, using different cars from the lot so he could be anonymous. Sure. But he went by the next night and her driveway was filled with cars. She was having a party, and he hadn’t been invited?

      He was crushed. It was several days before he found out her visitors had been sorority sisters. Finding that out kept him from going into a decline. But...why would he care?

      * * *

      Then Pat Vernon called. He was one of the people from the TV station in San Antonio who had interviewed Stefan. Pat had called because Mac’s earpiece didn’t accept the telephone. Pat had found a World War II veteran who was only sixty-eight and he could still qualify to fly a single-engine plane.

      His name was Jerold Kraut. It would be good copy if Mac would go on a flight with Jerold. Pat asked Stefan, “Would you find out if Mac would be interested? We can land the plane right behind your car lot. It’d give you some free publicity.”

      Stefan said, “Great. Why don’t you come out and talk to the old man with me.”

      “Is there a motel around there? I don’t recall one in Blink.”

      “You can stay with me? I have the room. Mac’ll come into town, and it’ll probably be fun. My mother will fix the meals and you can’t get any better than that.”

      “You talked us into it. What day?”

      So they got that figured out.

      Stefan’s father and a couple of his brothers helped him move an extra bed out of the family storage in the barn. The struggle to put it into one of the vacant rooms at Stefan’s house was so difficult that it was hilarious, and they became weak from laughing. Then they decided they might just as well put a bed in the other room. So Stefan bought a case of beer.

      His mother told Stefan to buy some mattress covers so the stains wouldn’t show. She loaned him sheets and towels. And pillows. And dishes. And she donated two braided rugs. She told him that if he put one end under the bed no one would notice the indelible stains on one of the rugs. And she added a rocking chair to set on the stubborn stain on the other rug.

      Stefan said, “That’s the rocker you used for feeding us kids.”

      His mother looked at it critically. “It’ll last.”

      Slipping it in slyly, Stefan offhandedly asked his mother, “Can we come to your house at mealtime? Just supper.” He gestured as if that was no big deal, and “just supper” was letting her off the hook.

      She was agreeable, but she gave Stefan a look, and he knew she was collecting brownie points. She’d hit him with some god-awful job for him to solve, and he would be committed to it. The weight of that reality came down and landed heavily on his shoulders.

      Carrying the burden of probable obligation, Stefan checked with the area weatherman. He said the weather ought to be okay for the next several weeks, and to check back.

      In an afterthought, Stefan finally had to go see Mac because he couldn’t talk to him on the phone. Mac was willing to be involved in the filming. By then, Stefan wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the old geezer had flatly refused. Stefan’s confidence in himself wasn’t high.

      But then Mac hesitated. “You say the pilot’s not even seventy? A whippersnapper. You suppose he’ll know what the hell he’s doing? What’d you say? Don’t mumble, boy.”

      Therefore, it was a real fluke that Stefan had a valid excuse to call Carrie. She wasn’t at the TV station, but she was home.

      Before she could reject his call, he said, “I wonder if you’d be kind enough to set your VCRs to tape another string of great promo coverage.” He just went ahead and told her what and when and why.

      She said a calm, “Sure. No problem. I’ll contact your mother for the times.”

      “I’ll make a list and bring it to you.”

      “No need.” She rejected seeing him. “You’ll be busy.”

      “Carrie.”

      “Yes?”

      Quite serious and deliberately vulnerable, he told her, “I’d like you to be my guest for this. Would you?”

      “I’m very busy.”

      “Please.”

      There was a long silence. He resisted any of the crowding questions that he sweat over, like: Were she and Pepper sleeping together? Was she totally finished with Stefan Szyszko? Could she bring herself to be with him even just one or two days? He wanted her filmed with him, if the film crew did that.

      She said, “I suppose.”

      “You photograph so well, you’ll be the star.”

      “Why Stefan Szyszko, you’re a gentleman!”

      “I’m sure as hell trying.” And his breath caught in his chest over his own unexpected words. What was he saying?

      She waited then said, “Call me when the schedule is solid.”

      “Why don’t I pick you up now and we can figure where it’s best for the plane to land and take off?”

      She laughed low and very amused.

      Since he was dead serious, he wasn’t aware of anything except that she hadn’t hung up on him, yet.

      Carrie’s voice said in his ear, “Now, how will we know something like that?”

      And his tricky mind supplied, “We can figure how the wind blows and how we can get the takeoffs and landings with the car lot in the background.”

      “Smart. Ask the pilot.”

      Unhappily, his stupid tongue then demanded, “What were you doing in church with Pepper Hodges?”

      Just like that, she replied, “I was so surprised to see you there that I was a total blank.”

      His voice went low and velvety. “So you knew I was there.”

      “The other people all looked like good churchgoers...then there was you. You tend to stand out in any crowd, but you are a sore thumb in a church.”

      He was offended. “Why?”

      “You look like what most women are praying about.”

      “To get me?”

      And her voice was soft and gentle. “To get away from you.” And she quietly hung up.

      Thoughtfully serious, Stefan laid his phone gently in its cradle. He was sober and pensive. She wanted to get away from him. Why?

      So he went into a period of grief. He was being shunned. He forgot all about having discarded her...so recently. He only knew