“NO WAY!” Savannah insisted firmly just after her return to the shop.
“Bill Grayson is an old friend of Junior’s. They went to school together!” Olive argued.
“Olive, the last two times you’ve set me up on a date, the men have become corpses.”
“Oh, pooh,” Olive dismissed with a wave of her gnarled hand. “I know you didn’t kill them.”
“If Bill Grayson is a family friend, then why don’t you set him up with someone else?”
“Like who?”
“Taylor Reese,” Savannah suggested. “I’ve had coffee with her at the university. She’s nice, attractive—”
“Way too young,” Olive said after considering it. “The Landry’s housekeeper is too immature, too flighty. Bill is over forty. Besides, all I’m asking you to do is have dinner with him at the inn.”
“No.”
“Savannah?” Olive pleaded, “Please? How about if I send Junior along, too? He can sit at the bar and watch over the two of you? You won’t have to leave the inn. You just have a nice dinner in plain view of all the patrons. Junior will be there to make sure nothing happens to Bill or you.”
To me? A shiver danced along her spine. Jasper was supposed to be a safe haven. Right? Savannah closed her eyes. She knew her determination was slipping away. Olive and Junior were the closest thing she had to family.
She looked sternly at the shop owner. “First, you have to tell Bill about my last two dates.”
“Already did that,” Olive returned with a smile. “Once I told him what a beauty you were, he didn’t seem to mind.”
“Second, Junior has to stay at the bar the whole time. And he has to walk me to my car afterward.”
“Done.”
Savannah blew out a breath. “What time?”
“Eight.”
Savannah checked her watch. She had less than two hours to drive to her cabin, change and be at the inn on time.
As if sensing her calculations, Olive said, “Run along. And wear your new dress,” she added, handing Savannah the neatly wrapped beaded dress.
Nearly an hour later as she entered her cabin, Savannah asked, “What are the chances of it happening again? None? Less than none?”
She stripped off her clothes for a shower, then got ready faster than a trunk-show model. The pale ivory color of the dress complimented her olive-tinged skin. And the drop waist meant she could eat her fill and not have to worry about it showing.
Grabbing a pair of heels from her closet, she stuffed them into a bag. Then she began to switch items from her leather bag to a smaller evening bag. That’s when she came across the social security card and cursed.
It was completely unsullied and looked as if it had never seen the light of day. Quickly, Savannah crumpled it, then set a teapot on the stove to further steam-age the card. She even went so far as to smudge some ink on it. That should satisfy the handsome Sheriff Landry.
“Stop thinking of him as handsome,” she chided as she pulled on her boots. “Stop thinking of him period.”
Not even daring to use the word date, she scribbled a note to Seth explaining that she had other plans, then tacked the card to the front door before she headed back toward Jasper.
Junior greeted her in the Mountainview Inn’s parking lot. He was standing with an attractive man dressed in a Prada suit. Savannah’s expectations rose a notch.
“Savannah, this is Bill Grayson.” Junior introduced them.
She smiled as she extended her free hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Grayson.”
“Bill,” he fairly cooed.
I don’t like cooers, Savannah thought. They’re almost as bad as grovelers. But, hey, she was having dinner with him, not children.
Savannah went into the ladies’ room and switched her snow boots for her pumps. As was the custom, she left her boots on the tile floor inside the bathroom to dry during her meal.
When she emerged, Bill was seated at a table near the large window of the A-frame building. In her peripheral vision, she spotted Junior at the bar, watching her reflection in the glass behind the counter.
“I haven’t been back here in almost a year,” Bill said as he pulled out her chair. “But it isn’t like Jasper ever changes.”
“It’s pretty once you get used to it,” Savannah offered.
Bill’s blue eyes roamed freely over Savannah, in spite of her silent rebuke of crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“So, what brings you back to town?” Savannah asked after they had ordered drinks.
“Diamonds and rubies.”
She studied Bill’s expression and determined he was serious. “Real diamonds and rubies?”
He nodded as he took a sip of his beer. “My family made its money in gold mining. I didn’t want to join the family business, so I branched out.”
“Pretty expensive branch,” Savannah commented as an elegant salad of field greens and raspberry vinaigrette was placed before her.
“I used a small portion of my family trust to start my own wholesale business.”
“Why wholesale?” she asked. “Wouldn’t a store have a higher profit margin?”
He offered her a smile full of perfectly capped teeth at the very instant she noted a familiar silhouette reflected in the window behind Bill’s perfectly coifed hair.
Seth Landry. Damn! she thought silently.
Bill was explaining something about his business, but Savannah was distracted as she watched Seth join Junior at the bar. Whatever he said to Junior made the shy man laugh.
She watched for a few more seconds as anger formed and grew in the pit of her stomach. Seth and Junior seemed to be having a fine old time. Surely Junior had told Seth what he was doing at the bar. So why hadn’t Seth turned in her direction? Worse still, why did she want him to? The guy had her brain all twisted.
“…must be boring you,” Bill commented, his cheeks stained a pale pink.
Savannah regrouped and gave him her very best smile. In a feline fashion, Savannah reached out and touched Bill’s hand, then made breeze-soft circles on his palm. “Not at all,” she assured him. “I was just distracted for an instant. Please, continue.”
Bill’s fit body seemed to swell inside his designer silk jacket as a result of her suddenly rapt attention. And Bill wasn’t the only one to notice. In the reflection she could see that both Junior and Seth had swiveled on their bar stools and were openly watching them.
Bill, thankfully, was oblivious. He continued his mostly one-sided conversation even after their entrées were served. “At first I was going to go the jewelry store route, but if you grow up in a small town, you either love it or hate it,” he explained.
“I’ll guess you hated it,” Savannah said.
Bill nodded and then waved in the direction of the bar. To Savannah’s utter mortification, Junior was leaving. Actually, the mortification was because, apparently, Seth was staying. Nothing like having the sheriff as your babysitter on a date.
“You’re nice to Junior,” Savannah opined with genuine admiration.
“He had it rough,” Bill said. “He’s always had that lisp and those glasses. The kids were cruel to him growing up,