Born in a Small Town Read online

  Hannah told him, then allowed him to help her on with her jacket at the desk. He had the hotel valet bring his car around, his old Mustang, the car he kept at a buddy’s place in Calgary whenever he was out in the field. He’d already put an ad in the paper to sell it. A sporty muscle car was not suitable transport for a farmer, and it hadn’t been much use for a prospector, either. He’d barely put ten thousand kilometers on it during the two years he’d owned it.

  He handed her in on the passenger side and shut the door firmly. He gave the attendant a ten-dollar bill in return for his keys.

  “Have a nice evening, sir,” the valet said, with a grin and a wink.

  Jack nodded and got into the driver’s side. He checked the rearview mirror and the side mirrors and shifted into gear. The Mustang moved away from the curb like a tightly leashed panther. It was a beautiful machine. Harvesters were beautiful machines, too, he reminded himself. Harvesters, tractors, grain trucks.

  “Snazzy car,” she said, with a smile and one eyebrow raised. The low bucket seat brought her minuscule skirt even higher on her silk-clad thighs. Her knees were pressed together and turned demurely toward the door. With an effort, Jack wrenched his eyes back to the road.

  “Yeah? What did you think I’d be driving?” he asked, rolling down his window for a breath of fresh air. “Too windy?”

  “No,” she said, tossing back her hair. “I thought you’d be driving more of a stockbroker’s type of vehicle. You know, a BMW or a Mercedes or something.”

  “Me?” Jack laughed. “No way!”

  “Is that what you are—a stockbroker? Lawyer?” she asked, adding quickly, “I’m just guessing.”

  “No.” He considered. Did he really want to tell her he was a small-time farmer? Or about to become one? They hadn’t had much chance to talk in the club or in the bar, which had been almost as noisy. “I’m a geologist by trade. Prospector.”

  “Really! Ever find anything exciting?”

  “You mean like diamonds or gold? No.” He shot her a look in the dark of the car, lit only by the instrument panel and the streetlights as they drove slowly up Edmonton Trail. He was in no hurry to get to the sister’s, where she said she was staying. He had the impression she was just visiting Calgary, that she was from somewhere else. Edmonton?

  “You ever find anything?”

  “Oh, sure. Boring useful stuff like zinc and copper. Molybdenum.”

  “Hmm.” She sounded dreamy, not really paying attention to him.

  “Turn here?” He indicated the quiet residential street that ran parallel to the Bow River valley at the top of the hill. She nodded.

  “It’s the house up there, the one with the van parked in the driveway.”

  Jack noticed the van had “Emily’s Kitchen” painted on the side. Her sister. There was another vehicle beside it, a new Bronco.

  He parked and got out of the Mustang, then walked around to her side, feeling real regret that the evening was over. He opened the door for her. “I’ll walk you to the house.”

  “All right.” She seemed at loose ends all of a sudden, the intimacy of the warm interior of the car shattered in the crisp night air. She shivered and drew her jacket closer, and Jack put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him for a few seconds, head bent. He squeezed her shoulders, then released her and reached for her hand. His heart was beating like crazy.

  They walked quietly up the frosty sidewalk.

  “Are you going to ring?” Jack asked, ready to push the doorbell with his thumb.

  “No,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

  “I’ve got a key. Well—” she looked up at him “—thank you for everything, Jack. I had a wonderful—”

  What the hell. He reached for her and lowered his mouth over hers, then wrapped his arms around her, pressing her tightly against him. Her mouth was soft and sweet. She’d long ago lost her vampy lipstick, and he liked that. He deepened the kiss, suddenly desperate to have her, all of her. It wasn’t going to happen, not in a million years. She was clearly a city gal, and he was looking for a different kind of woman to share his life. Not that one chance encounter at a noisy club meant he was even thinking along those lines, at least as far as she was concerned.

  But, man, she was luscious. And beautiful. And sexy. And…inexperienced. He could tell by the way she kissed. Awkward, yet intense. The very sense he had of her vulnerability had him pulling away from her.

  “Hannah?” He tilted her chin up. “I had a great time tonight. You’re one terrific lady. I won’t forget you.”

  He took the key from her, inserted it in the lock and held the door open as she stumbled inside. She looked as shaken as he felt. “Good night, Cinderella.”

  She lifted her hand in a feeble wave, and he closed the door and tore off down the sidewalk, cursing how quickly good luck could turn to bad.

  Still, in his business, wasn’t he used to that?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HANNAH MADE HER WAY quietly into Emily’s small living room. Sheets and blankets were piled on the arm of the sofa bed. A light on the end table was the only illumination in the otherwise dark room. Hannah hoped she hadn’t disturbed Emily and her…visitor, coming in late like this.

  She bent down to unzip her boots and kicked them off. Then she sank onto the soft chenille upholstery of the sofa and stretched and sighed.

  Jack had kissed her. He’d actually kissed her! He’d seemed to mean it. To really, truly want to kiss her. Hannah put her hands to her cheeks, still flushed and hot. What a night!

  And then a thought struck—it wasn’t her he’d kissed. He’d kissed the person she’d pretended to be, all dressed up in sexy clothes and hair dyed red. The makeup, the earrings, the—

  “Steve!” came a frightened yelp from the hallway that led to Emily’s bedroom, as well as the extra bedroom she used as a home office for her catering business, and the bathroom.

  “Em?”

  Hannah was bewildered. Her sister had appeared briefly at the end of the hall, in slippers and bathrobe, then turned and streaked back down the hallway. She could hear a furious low-pitched discussion, a man’s deep voice and then Emily appeared at the corner of the hallway again, just peeking into the living room.

  “Emily, for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?” Hannah smiled. Her sister was incorrigibly dramatic.

  “Hannah! Omigod, I didn’t recognize you! I thought it was someone else in my house. A burglar or something. Steve!” she yelled over her shoulder.

  “You can come out now—it’s my sister!” She came over to Hannah, shaking her head. “That guy! I swear he grabbed his cell phone and dived under the bed…”

  She came closer and did an exaggerated double take. “Look at you!” She grabbed Hannah’s shoulders. “What happened? What did you do to your hair? It looks fabulous. You look terrific. Are those your boots? Omigod—Prada?”

  Hannah shot her a wry glance. “A knockoff.”

  “Wow, you could be straight out of Vogue. What’s got into you?” Her sister stood up and switched on another table lamp.

  “You,” Hannah said wryly. She tossed her new jacket onto the arm of the sofa, revealing the glittery tank top in all its sexy splendor. It had cost a ridiculous amount of money. So had the boots, a knockoff or not. She was freezing. “Oh, Em. You’re always telling me I’m so dull. I just wanted to prove to you for once that I was capable of dressing up—and then you don’t show.”

  Emily looked guilty, but not as guilty or as sick as Hannah had expected.

  “You didn’t plan it this way, did you?” she asked suspiciously. “Throw the boring big sister out of the nest to see if she can wobble along on her own?”

  “No, definitely not!” Emily sniffed and sat down again. She did sound a little congested. “Was the club nice? I hear that band’s really hot. You have a good time?”

  Hannah threw her a superior look. She was enjoying this. “Oh, excellent.”

  “Uh, meet any guys?” Now her sister was
getting to the main point—at least the point that interested her the most.

  “A few.” She paused for effect. “One very nice man, in particular. He drove me home.”

  “He did?” Eyes alight, Emily moved closer to her on the sofa. She plucked at the soft leather of Hannah’s skirt. This foray into chic had cost Hannah a month’s wages. “Very cool. You get that in Glory?”

  Hannah nodded. “Maude’s.” She reached for the overnight bag she’d left at Emily’s earlier, when she’d come into town. Emily had been at work. She pulled out a nightgown, her usual rose-sprigged cotton flannel, and made a silent gesture toward the hall and mouthed, “Steve?”

  “Never mind him. Here, I’ll make up your bed while you go change.”

  “I’ll do it, Em,” Hannah said firmly, her hand on her sister’s arm. “You’re sick—remember?”

  She shooed her sister away and padded down the hall to the small, old-fashioned bathroom with her nightie and her toiletries bag. Back to being plain old Hannah Parrish. The car would be ready at noon. The adventure was over. It’d been a lot of fun, she had to admit. But she wasn’t going to make a habit of this kind of thing.

  She folded her new clothes carefully and stacked them in a little pile on Emily’s laundry hamper to repack. Back to sweaters and skirts. And comfortable shoes. And cotton underwear. She carefully peeled off the false eyelashes. Ouch! Back to no makeup—moisturizer and maybe lip gloss. The fake fingernails could stay for now. She’d paid forty bucks; she might as well enjoy them. She’d work on removing them when she got home. But what if she had to live with acrylic talons? Maybe they wouldn’t come off.

  I’ll never forget you. Had he really meant it? she wondered sadly, wiping off her eyeshadow. She’d never forget him, either, but that was irrelevant. The ball was over. The prince was still a prince—somewhere—but Cinderella would be back to her old life in the morning.

  HANNAH WENT to church with Mrs. Putty on Sunday, something she often did. The old lady was always so grateful to have company on the short walk to the church. Hannah didn’t care much about the sermon, but she liked the singing.

  The next day she did laundry and thoroughly cleaned her apartment, which barely needed cleaning. One person, especially a careful orderly person like Hannah, didn’t make much mess. She turned up the heat and gave Joan a bath. The parrot adored water and created such havoc in Hannah’s bathroom that she kept the bird’s bathing down to once a week, mostly in the summer because she worried about Joan’s catching cold. It wasn’t summer now, so this was a special treat. “Atta girl! Blimey! Atta girl! Take off, eh?” Joan squawked over and over, letting Hannah know the bath was appreciated.

  After her bath, Joan would spend the rest of the day quietly grooming herself, so it was worth the chaos in order to get the peace and quiet of a contented parrot.

  Mr. Spitz, who was black with a white spot on his head, was no trouble. He was getting on—Hannah had no idea how old he was, since she’d gotten him from the High River pound—and spent most of the day sleeping on top of the refrigerator or in Hannah’s bay-window seat.

  She washed her hair before she went to bed, the fifth shampoo since she’d tinted it. She was getting a little worried. Her hair didn’t show the slightest sign of fading back to its regular brown, and the tint was supposed to come out in eight washings. Good thing she still had her whole vacation ahead of her.

  That was Monday.

  Tuesday, she went shopping and restocked all her cupboards and made Seth Wilbee a pound cake. She put soy flour in it, too, and wondered if he’d notice. She could hardly cover up the flavor with spices, not in a pound cake. At the last minute she threw in a few handfuls of raisins. Now it was a raisin cake. Extra nutrition, she told herself.

  That evening she started a new needlepoint project—a bellpull she wanted to give to the senior librarian, who was retiring this year, as a Christmas gift—and watched something on public television. Beginning a new needlework project, usually a source of great satisfaction to Hannah, just didn’t hold her interest, and after half an hour, she put it away. Even the television bored her, and by half-past nine, she was in bed reading, hair damp from the sixth washing. But she couldn’t keep her mind on the story. All she saw on the page was a redheaded woman dancing with a mysterious stranger.

  Wednesday, Hannah wrapped up the cake and took it over to Seth. This time, she decided to walk under the bridge and along the overgrown path that led to his house and deliver it in person. She realized she hadn’t spoken to a soul except Joan—did talking to a parrot count?—since she’d gone to church on Sunday with Mrs. Putty. Seth Wilbee was working in his garden, an interesting hodgepodge of unrecognizable vegetables and weeds.

  “Hello there, miss,” he said, leaning on his spade.

  “Mighty fine cookies those were last week. Mi-ighty fine. I’m very partial to raisins.”

  “I brought you a cake today,” Hannah said, handing him the foil-wrapped loaf. Lucky about the raisins, she thought. “What are you digging up? I thought your garden would be done by now.”

  “Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that,” the tramp said. “Two or three parsnips for my supper and a bit of celery. Parsnips don’t mind the weather, you know.”

  “Celery!”

  “Yep. See these leaves?” He bent and lovingly ran his hand along a line of green fronds sticking out of the ground. They looked amazingly healthy for early November.

  “Don’t they freeze, Seth?”

  “Oh, yes. I generally kick a little straw over ’em this time of year. But a spot of frost improves a parsnip. Sweetens ’em right up. I don’t suppose you knew that.” His pale blue eyes twinkled as she shook her head. She wasn’t fond of parsnips, frost or no frost. He seemed delighted to be telling her something she didn’t know.

  “Come in for tea, miss. I’ve got something to show ya.” Seth planted his spade deeply and left it standing there. “Come in! Come in!” He waved her toward his shack.

  Hannah hesitated, remembering the last time she’d had tea, then thought, Oh, what the heck—we’re both lonely. And she followed him in.

  The shack was no more than six or seven feet wide—a corridor, really—and maybe twelve feet long. A cot at the far end, with a frayed curtain in front of it, which he hastily pulled shut as she entered, was obviously Seth’s bedroom. The front of the shack, near the door, had a wooden table and one chair, no doubt Seth’s own handiwork, and a potbellied stove, which threw out considerable heat. There was no electricity. No lights, beyond candles and an oil lamp. No books, no magazines. No personal items, no photographs. The few pictures on the wall—literally pasted to the boards—had been cut from calendars and magazines.

  “Here, sit, miss!” Seth pushed the chair toward her and rolled an empty wooden barrel on its edge to the other side of the table for himself. When Hannah had been there before, the barrel had contained an injured skunk, which Seth had been nursing back to health. There was no sign of the skunk now.

  Hannah sat down and watched her host as he busied himself making tea. He wasn’t an old man, probably no more than fifty. But he was worn-looking, thin and threadbare. She knew he reused tea bags that he collected in the town restaurants and cafés, but she also knew that he kept a small canister of unused tea bags for guests. Seth poured boiling water into the two mugs he’d set out on the table. She was relieved to see he was taking the cracked one for himself.

  Slowly he dipped a new tea bag into first one cup—hers—then the other. When the water in both mugs looked fairly brown, he removed the bag, let it drip for a few seconds, then carefully pegged it to a small line strung across a corner of the shack. He was saving it for another day.

  “Milk or sugar, miss?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, this is just fine. And please don’t cut the cake,” she protested. “I can’t stay long. I just had lunch anyway. I’m not a bit hungry.”

  “Well, if you say so,” Seth said. “If you say so.” He sat down and
stared at her while she drank her tea. Pretty insipid stuff. One could only guess at how old the tea bags were. Or where he’d found them.

  “You said you had something to show me,” she reminded him.

  Seth bolted up and went to his cot, where he rummaged under the mattress and produced an envelope. “A letter!” he said, brandishing it.

  “I see.” Hannah took the envelope. It was a little tatty-looking and had obviously been much handled, but Seth hadn’t opened it. The letter was from the Town of Glory, addressed to Mr. Seth Wilbee.

  “Aren’t you going to open it? Maybe it’s important,” Hannah said, laughing. The intense look on Seth’s face stopped her.

  “You go ahead, miss. You open it,” he said with a shrug that didn’t quite manage nonchalance. He leaned forward and took a great slurp of his tea. His eyes never left her face.

  Hannah opened the envelope carefully. There was one sheet inside. “Here—” She started to hand it over to him, but he gripped her wrist and pushed her hand with the letter in it back to her side of the table.

  “No! No, you go ahead. You tell me what it says.” His eyes still focused intently on hers. It was as though he was trying to tell her something without putting it into words. She suddenly realized: Seth Wilbee couldn’t read.

  “Okay,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her surprise. The poor man! She quickly scanned the letter, her heart sinking, then read its contents aloud to him. The town was informing him that his shack would have to be removed from municipal property immediately, that the town was planning to landscape the riverbank to integrate it into a walking and bicycle path connecting the town square to the municipal park farther upstream. He had until the middle of December to relocate.

  Hannah watched his pale eyes fill with tears and his big gnarled hands begin to tremble as he attempted to hold his tea mug steady. “Oh, my,” he said finally. Sadly. “Oh, my.”

  There were worse things, Hannah decided, than having a stubborn red tint that would not wash out of your hair and a parrot with a bad mouth.