Ida Monroe had been staying open late on prom night for longer than any of these young ’uns had been alive and she expected to keep up the tradition as long as she still had anything to say about it.
Ida perched on her stool behind the counter, smiling fondly at the half-dozen youngsters attempting to look and act grown-up. She knew them all by name, remembered each and every one of them in diapers. Ida loved prom night.
There was Honey Lou Weidemann, looking like Scarlet O’Hara about to fall off her platform shoes. And Richie Holcomb, who didn’t know what to do with the tails on his cutaway when he sat. Stacy Tillman, the sheriff’s daughter, elegant as a model. And Winnie Wickerstaff, poured into something that ought to be illegal for underage girls. All of them sipping tea or coffee and nibbling on pastries and giggling over the night’s activities.
Ida was content to sit and watch.
Finally most of the couples paid up and left. She was down to one lingering couple, and preparing to lock up after they left, when the front door of the tearoom opened to admit a couple who weren’t dressed in formal wear. Maddie Sheffer and Leon Betton wore the uniforms of emergency medical technicians. They looked wrung-out.
“Thank goodness you’re still open,” Maddie said. She sounded as worn-out as she looked. “If we don’t get some coffee, they might have to come haul us down to County General.”
“Bad night?” Ida was already pouring the last of her coffee for them.
“Could’ve been worse, I suppose,” Leon said, taking the cup she brought and sprinkling in some sugar. “Didn’t lose anybody.”
“Yet,” Maddie added.
Ida stood beside the third chair at their table. “What happened?”
“Tood Grunkemeier. You know Tood?”
Ida’s breathing grew shallow. “What’s wrong with Tood?”
“Massive heart attack. He’s lucky to be alive.”
Leon shook his head. “He might not make it till morning. Seems sadder, somehow, him not having anybody.”
Maddie rubbed her eyes, a weary gesture. “When we were hooking him up to the heart monitor, he said, ‘Don’t bother. Ain’t nobody going to care one way or another.”’
“That really choked me up,” Leon said.
Ida felt her own heartbeat going haywire on her. She clutched the back of the little white metal chair. The room seemed to swim around her. Tood Grunkemeier, not expected to live.
“Ida, you okay?”
She tried to reply, but the words of reassurance wouldn’t come. Maddie reached for her and guided her into the seat.
“Sorry if we gave you a start.”
Ida nodded, realizing there were tears in her eyes. Tood Grunkemeier lay in a hospital a few miles away, his sad old heart giving out. Thinking nobody cared. What if he died without ever knowing the secret she’d kept all these years?
It was almost more than she could bear.
CHAPTER THREE
“WHERE ARE WE going to sleep?”
Ash hadn’t been thinking of sleeping. He’d been thinking of putting as much distance as possible between him and anyone who might have it in mind to harm Melina. He also had no cash to pay for sleeping anywhere and his credit cards would create a trail leading straight to him—and Melina.
“In the car,” he replied.
“This car?”
“What’s wrong with this car?”
“I get the back seat,” she said.
Figures. “I could look for a van.”
“Something in red, maybe? Brown isn’t my color.”
“Of course not. I wasn’t thinking.”
Now he was. Now he could see the impish quality he’d been drawn to three months earlier for what it really was. She was spoiled, that was all.
“Aren’t you getting sleepy?”
“It’s not even midnight.”
“That’s right. You’re a night owl.”
A spark touched off in him. She’d been a morning person. She’d laughingly suggested they compromise and spend the entire day in bed, getting up from ten at night until ten in the morning to accommodate them both. They’d spent the day in bed, all right, but they hadn’t slept.
“Are we going to get different clothes? Something to sleep in? Something for tomorrow?”
“Of course,” he said.
“When?”
How could a grown woman sound so guileless and so eager? She was good, no question of that. A shame she was so rich; she could be quite a success on stage.
“Soon,” he said brusquely.
But the truth was, he didn’t know where or when or how. He didn’t know what to do with her or who to trust. Worst of all, he was damned if he even knew why any of it mattered. This was her problem, not his.
They passed through a little town that promised to be the last one for quite a few miles. Ash slowed down, studying carefully the narrow, quiet streets, the tidy. little houses with their spring gardens that seemed to speak of trust and safety.
“Are we shopping for a new car again?” she whispered.
He wished she wouldn’t whisper. It stirred him in spite of himself. It reminded him of other whispers, other sighs, other nights alone with her in the dark.
When he didn’t reply, she asked, “Are you casing the joint?”
He was getting grumpier by the minute and he knew it. Her lack of concern for the gravity of their situation wasn’t helping. “You watch too much television.”
“I know.” She sounded pleased with herself.
He was looking for something with legroom, as well as something old enough that it could easily be hot-wired. He found a comfortable-looking van parked in the dark corner of a lot surrounding a stucco condominium. He left the brown sedan in its place and took some satisfaction in knowing that the knitting would be returned to its owner very soon. Ash didn’t like stealing cars; the last one he’d stolen was when he was fifteen, and his father had grounded him for six months. Cars were a necessity and stealing them was for emergency situations only. Bram Thorndyke had been clear on the matter of stolen cars.
Diamonds and rubies, however, were sheer extravagance and therefore fair game.
On the way out of town, Ash spotted a little boutique. He parked in a narrow alley behind the row of pastel-colored shops, hemmed in by a brick wall at the edge of a municipal golf course. “Wait here.”
She was already getting out of the van. “I’m not letting you pick out my clothes.”
He pinned her between the open door and the van.
“Yes, you are.”
She stared at him with those dark eyes and he knew he’d be undone if he didn’t back off. He could almost feel her breath, sweet with chocolate milk shake but no longer cool. Warm. Hot, even. He grew warm himself in the chill northern California night air.
“What if it doesn’t fit?”
“It will fit.”
And that mouth. Soft. Full. Wide. Trouble any way you looked at it.
“What if I hate it?”
“You’ll get over it.”