Fathers and Other Strangers. Karen Templeton

my brothers. Two of ’em, anyway. This here’s Wade, and this is Frankie,” she said, jerking her head toward the littlest one. “He doesn’t talk much on account of he can’t hear out of one ear.”

      “Oh. Hi. I’m Blair. Blair Stanton.”

      The girl grinned, and Blair could see her eyeteeth were crooked. “Cool name! You new here?”

      “Yes. I mean, no. I’m staying with my aunt at the Double Arrow.”

      “Oh.” Libby scrunched up her nose. “We live up there.” She nodded toward the farm. “Where’re you from?”

      “Washington, D.C.”

      “Really?” the blond boy said. “Where the president lives?”

      In spite of herself, Blair laughed. “Yeah.”

      “Don’t mind him. He’s just a stupid boy—”

      “Am not!”

      “Are, too.”

      “Am not!”

      Libby gave Blair a pleading look. “You got brothers?”

      “Uh-uh.”

      “You’re so lucky. I’ve got five. All of ’em younger,” she said, which is when it finally dawned on Blair that this must be the girl the woman in the café was talking about. “How old are you?”

      Blair stuck her thumbs in her back shorts pockets and tried to look cool. “Thirteen.”

      Libby grinned so widely, her eyes practically disappeared. “Me, too. Hey—you wanna come up to the house, play some CDs or something?”

      Blair hesitated. Libby seemed okay and all, but she was nothing like Blair’s friends back home. What if she wanted to talk about…farm stuff? Or what if she was still into *NSYNC? Or Britney? Ewww.

      But then, she supposed it beat talking to the cat all afternoon.

      “Okay, sure. Long as I can call my aunt on her cell, let her know where I am.”

      Libby’s whole face lit up. “Cool,” she said.

      Chapter 3

      Hank pulled up in front of Darryl’s office at the garage, where madame was waiting for him, and thought, God save me from needy, moody females.

      At this point, Hank wasn’t sure who was agitating him more, Jenna Stanton with those half-scared, half-defiant blue eyes of hers, or her niece, who just plain rubbed him the wrong way. Not that he didn’t understand why she acted the way she did—only too well—but…well, it was just a good thing he didn’t have to deal with teenage girls on a regular basis. He’d go plumb out of his gourd.

      And he still couldn’t shake the feeling of something being off about this whole thing, about Jenna’s coming to Haven with the kid. Much as she tried to hide it, the woman was clearly nervous about something. Trouble was, Hank couldn’t tell if she was nervous about something specific, or just nervous in general, the way some women were. Nervous women made him uncomfortable. You never knew when they’d go off on you, usually for no particular reason.

      And since none of this was any of his business, he could just do himself a favor and keep his butt out and his mouth shut. All she and the gal were, were paying customers. Since he didn’t come by those any too often, ticking them off probably wasn’t the smartest thing he could do.

      “Thanks again for doing this,” she said through the open passenger side window when he pulled up. He’d noticed earlier she’d changed into one of those dresses that looked like a too-long golf shirt, ending just above her knees. Navy blue, white collar. Might’ve even been dowdy if it weren’t for the way the jersey clung to a curve here and there, especially when it hiked up her thighs as she climbed up into the truck. Since her hair was now hanging loose around her shoulders, he figured she must have washed it. Sure enough, the instant she settled in beside him, the cab smelled all flowery and womanly. Sweet. Sexy.

      He yanked the gearshift into drive. “So…what’d Darryl say? About the air conditioner?”

      She let out a sigh. “He has to order some part or something. So, like you said, it’ll be a couple of days. But his estimate did seem fair, at least.”

      Hank drove through the station and was out onto the road when, out of the blue, he said, “You need to pick up anything while we’re out?”

      She turned, her brows lifted over her sunglasses.

      “I don’t know what prompted me to say that, either,” he said, wanting a smoke so bad he thought he’d die, but figuring she probably wouldn’t appreciate him mucking up that sweet-smelling hair with cigarette smoke. “So you might as well take advantage of it, ’cause God alone knows when you’ll get an offer this good again.”

      A half laugh burbled out of her throat; he glanced over, noticed that the little commas around her mouth—which had a real nice shape to it—seemed a mite more pronounced.

      “I brought a ton of food with us,” she said, “so I don’t need to do any major shopping for a while. But I could stand to stop by a 7-Eleven or something for milk and juice. If it’s no bother.”

      “Nope. Not at all.”

      Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her cross her arms, staring out the windshield like it didn’t matter two hoots to her whether they talked or not. Well, fine. Offering to take her shopping didn’t mean he felt like having a conversation. But after about three seconds, he figured that was a damn sight better than sitting there and letting all that sweet, sexy, just-washed-hair scent take his mind down paths it had no business going down.

      “So,” he said. “What do you write?”

      She brushed her hair out of her face. In the sunlight, he could see it was about a hundred different shades of gold. He knew it was dyed—he’d seen the special shampoo in her bathroom—but that was okay. “Mystery novels,” she said.

      “Yeah? Under your own name?”

      “No. As Jennifer Phillips.”

      “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen those around.”

      She did this little mm-mm laugh. He glanced over. “What?”

      “I take it you’re not a fan, then?”

      “Well, no, can’t say that I am. Since I haven’t read them. No offense,” he added quickly. “I just got the feeling they were kinda girly.”

      Now she laughed full out, the sound doing far worse things for his mind-wandering problem than the shampoo fragrance ever even thought about. “Girly, huh? So. Who do you read? Assuming you do?”

      “Yeah, I read. My mama was real big on reading, so all of us were hooked early. Read every Hardy Boys there was. Then in high school I started in on Stephen King, went on to Koontz, Grisham, Lawrence Block. Just recently started reading Jeffrey Deaver.”

      He could feel, more than see, her smile. “You have good taste. If a bit gory at times.” And while Hank was wondering why it should make one shred of difference to him whether or not she approved of his reading matter, she added, “King’s just about my favorite writer. And probably one of the biggest influences on my own writing.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Yeah.”

      Huh. Hank wouldn’t’ve thought that a woman who blushed as easily as Jenna Stanton would get off on Stephen King. Let alone write stuff like that.

      At the Git ’n’ Go, Hank figured he might as well pick up a carton of cigarettes and a six-pack, since he was here. Not that he drank much, but he’d probably end up having pizza tonight, so the beer was a no-brainer.

      While Jenna went off in search of her milk and juice, Hank grabbed his Bud and a carton of Marlboros, then noticed the rack of paperbacks by the magazines.