In fact, Natalie had been a sore spot between Liam and his cousin. Liam hadn’t known he was encroaching at the time, and the truth was, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Dirk thought Liam had stolen Natalie from him, and it had definitely driven a wedge between the two of them.
Liam felt sure that Natalie’s mom had been the one to tell of his and Natalie’s breakup. You knew you were in a crazy family when your former mother-in-law was the one telling your kin about your divorce.
“How long was Dirk here?” Liam asked. He was sorry he’d missed his cousin. He hadn’t seen him in probably six years or more.
“For a couple of months.”
Behind him, Tansy stood. He sensed her movement. The mirror beneath the stuffed moose head mounted on the back wall over the bar merely confirmed it.
Unlike nearly every other person in the room, she didn’t approach them for an introduction. He looked over his shoulder at her retreating backside as she headed for the door. Bull followed Liam’s gaze.
“So, what’s her story?” Liam said.
There was no point in anything other than cutting to the chase. Bull would see straight through it.
“She’s working on a book. She caught her fiancé fooling around on her and came here to get away for a while and finish up her work. She got here last week and she’ll be heading out at the end of the month.”
“Ah. One of those scorned women hating on men.”
“I wouldn’t say that. She strikes me as a nice gal. Now when she asks if you’re one of those scorned divorced men hating on women, what should I say?”
“What makes you think she’ll ask?”
“Oh, she’ll ask. What should I tell her?”
She’d sighted him in her crosshairs. She’d peered down her scope at him. He didn’t like it one damn bit. “Tell her it’s none of her business.”
TANSY STEPPED OUT INTO the September sun and hesitated as the door to Gus’s Restaurant and Bar swung shut behind her. Indecision washed through her. She really should just head back to the cabin and get to work. However, focus didn’t seem to be her strong suit these days. If she went back out there now without knowing who the stranger with the magnetic gray eyes was, well, she’d simply sit around and wonder.
Jenna was going to be tied up with a client so asking her was out, and the need to know burned inside her.
“What’s up, Tansy?”
Lost in her own indecision, she’d missed Alberta’s approach. Which merely proved how distracted Tansy had been by the nonverbal encounter with the stranger because Alberta was one hard lady to overlook.
Alberta was, in a word, “colorful.” A flowered kerchief covered some of her bright red hair. A brocade vest topped a mutton-sleeved cream blouse. Full, multicolored panels comprised her handkerchief-hemmed skirt, which ended right above her lace-up ankle boots. Turquoise eye shadow, Popsicle-orange lipstick and purple nail polish rounded out her full presentation of the color spectrum. There wasn’t a color known to God or man that Alberta wasn’t wearing today.
“Not a lot on going on,” Tansy said. “I just grabbed a bite to eat with Jenna. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.” Alberta issued a gap-toothed grin. “Me and Dwight are still in that honeymoon stage.”
The thought that she, Tansy, wouldn’t have a honeymoon because Bradley was a liar and a cheater, crossed her mind. She brushed it aside, focusing on Alberta and the conversation.
That was the remarkable thing about Good Riddance. Tansy had only been here a week, but between Jenna’s weekly emails and being here, she felt fully tuned-in to the town and its people.
Alberta, a traveling Gypsy matchmaker, had shown up in Good Riddance back in May. She’d wound up marrying the man who’d commissioned her to find him a wife.
Dwight Simmons had spent most of his life prospecting and his latter years playing chess and checkers with his prospecting partner, Jeb Taylor. When Jeb died, Dwight decided he was ready for a wife and sought Alberta’s expertise. She’d found him one all right—her.
At eighty-one, it was his first marriage. Dwight was Alberta’s sixth husband. It was all rather mind-boggling in a charming way.
Actually, Alberta had proven comforting. Within two days of Tansy’s arrival, Alberta had corralled her and told Tansy not to worry about Bradley. According to the psychic/matchmaker, Bradley wasn’t the one for Tansy and his infidelity was a reflection of him, not her. It was all standard comfort-your-dumped-friend verbiage. Tansy had found some solace in being told she hadn’t fallen short as a woman because it was all too easy to feel inadequate when you’d expected to spend your life with a man while he was busy seeking the next best thing.
It was sweet to hear Alberta talk about her new marriage. “A honeymoon stage is good.”
“You’d better believe it.” A sly wink and an elbow nudge accompanied her words. “I’m on my way to check in on my stud muffins. Why don’t you walk over and say hi with me?”
Dwight and Lord Byron, Alberta’s three-legged tomcat, both hung out at the airstrip center office. Tansy couldn’t exactly see either Dwight or Lord Byron as stud-muffin material, but, as with beauty, reality was in the eye of the beholder.
It sounded good to Tansy. She wasn’t ready to get back to work and perhaps if she knew who the stranger was, she could shake off the impact of those few seconds when his eyes had pierced hers. And the surest source of information was Merilee.
Tansy trailed along with Alberta to the door halfway down the front of the building.
They stepped into the airstrip office, the scent of cookies and coffee in the air. Merilee and one of the bush pilots, a pretty, newly married brunette named Juliette, had their heads together over paperwork at Merilee’s desk. Juliette and her husband, Sven, were her neighbors out at Shadow Lake. Juliette’s husky puppy, Baby, sat waiting patiently between the two women. Baby actually flew in the plane with Juliette on trips. It was cute.
The object of Alberta’s affections sat across the room, staring at the chess table before him. Dwight not only had a new wife, but a new chess partner had materialized in Jefferson Walker Monroe.
According to Jenna, Jefferson had simply walked into town one day and sat down in the rocking chair on the other side of the chess set and that had been that. It turned out that the only relative Jefferson had left was Curl, the town’s taxidermist, mortician and barber.
Curl hadn’t actually known he had a long-lost relative, particularly a man of color who recounted stories of playing the saxophone with greats such as Count Basie and Louis Armstrong and playing studio sessions with Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. However, Curl had embraced Jefferson, as had the rest of the town’s people.
Tansy had looked him up on Google. Jefferson Walker Monroe was the real deal.
In so many ways, Good Riddance was like the collection of Santa’s misfit toys from the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer TV classic. Maybe that’s why Tansy felt right at home.
Dwight and Jefferson sat on opposite sides of the chessboard. They were a study in juxtaposition, their only commonalities white hair and lined faces. Both men had witnessed the change of seasons for more than eight decades.
Dwight’s long white beard and fringe of white hair rested against the collar of his checked flannel shirt. Long summer days and harsh winters had weathered his skin to a permanent ruddiness. Tall and thin, his carriage bore a permanent stoop. His overalls, while clean, were as worn and weathered as his face.
Across the