The Older Woman (6 page)

“It’s all part of the code,” he said.

It was a small table for two, but it wasn’t half bad. Not too close to the music and not too far away. And nowhere near the kitchen. With a little effort they might even be able to talk to each other.

He decided to give it a try.

“So how are you doing?” he asked.

“Me?” she said in surprise. “I’m fine. Why?”

“Well, you had what I would call a trying day yesterday. Today, too, maybe.”

“I’m all right.”

“Is it all over with the boyfriend, then?” He had no business asking that, but it just sort of fell out of his mouth. He wanted to know. He’d wanted to know all day.

“It’s

over.”

“Maybe not. He came by this morning.”

“He came by because he wants me to do everything I can to keep him from feeling guilty.”

“So did you?”

“I hope not,” she said, and he smiled.

A waitress came with two beers in frosty mugs—ones they hadn’t ordered.

“Best wishes from the paratrooping people at table number seven,” she said, plunking them down. Doyle looked in the direction she indicated with her elbow. He raised his mug to the men and women sitting a few tables away, some of whom looked familiar, none of whom he knew by name.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. You don’t know them, either.”

“Nope.”

“Must be the haircut,” she said—which very well could be the case. It was nothing if not indicative of his chosen profession.

A different waitress came to take their orders. When she’d gone, a girl walked by the table, a girl who looked a lot like Rita from the back. She even tossed her long blond hair as she passed, just the way Rita always did. He watched her until she disappeared into the crowd still waiting to be seated.

“Poor old Bugs,” Meehan said when he looked back at her.

“It’s worse for you than it is for me,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I saw it coming. You didn’t.”

“Well, you’ve got me there.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, lifting his mug. “We’re going to be all right.”

She lifted her beer in return, but she didn’t drink much of it. “Maybe so,” she said, smiling. “This was a good idea, anyway. Tell me about the wedding—who was there?”

He ran down the guest list, described how cute little Olivia had looked, and what they had to eat at the reception.

“What’s the guy’s name?” he asked at the end of his debriefing.

“What

guy?”

“The bagel guy,” he said.

“Bugs,

this

is—”

“None of my business,” he finished for her. “I know, but I can’t help it. It’s a hobby of mine. I like to know things. It keeps me off the streets.”

“Maybe you should find yourself a new hobby.”

“This

is
a new hobby. I used to jump out of airplanes. So what does the bagel guy do for a living?”

“Real

estate.”

“Real estate. There’s money there, huh?”

“I really don’t know. So how are you and Mrs. Bee getting along?” she asked in a bold move to change the subject.

“Good so far. She’s a nice old lady. I never did tell you I appreciate you getting me in there. Thanks.”

“She likes you a lot.”

“Does

she?”

“Yes. She’s says you’re like Michael Mont.”

“Who’s Michael Mont?”

“He was a character in a book.
The Forsyte Saga,
I think. John Galsworthy.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said, but he didn’t doubt that Mrs. Bee had said it. She used to be an English teacher; she would know about characters in books. “So what kind of guy would this Michael Mont be?”

“I don’t know. Kind, probably. Optimistic.”

He looked at her, wondering if that was what
she
thought—or what she thought Mrs. Bee thought. It didn’t matter, really. They were both wrong. He wasn’t either of those things.

“So what’s the bagel guy’s name,” he asked again after a time.

“Why do you want to know?” Meehan said, clearly exasperated.

“Because I think I see him in line waiting to get in.”

She gave a quiet sigh, but she didn’t turn around to look. Doyle wondered idly if she knew the guy would be coming here and that was the reason she’d picked this particular place.

No,
he decided. Her whole demeanor had changed. If anything, she had on her

“lock and load” face. She didn’t know he’d be here.

Doyle was going to ask if she wanted to cut and run, but the steaks came, and the conversation switched to that. When it came to New York strips and onions, the cook in this place really knew how to shine. Meehan concentrated on her food, looking up from time to time to talk to him. Maybe she was having to work at it, but if she tried to locate the boyfriend’s whereabouts, he didn’t see her do it.

When they were nearly finished eating, he ordered two pieces of French apple pie to go. After the waitress had gone, he realized that Meehan was looking at him.

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just wondering where you were going to put all that pie.”

“One of them is for Mrs. Bee,” he said. “She came up with some outstanding transportation for this operation. She ought to get a little something out of it.”

“To Mrs. Bee,” Meehan said, lifting her beer mug.

“And those like her!” he countered, lifting his own mug.

“And damn few of them left!” they said together, laughing.

Well, check this out, he thought suddenly. He was having a good time here—

dumped and heartbroken or not. Everything was great. The food. The beer. The music. Meehan.

Somebody had punched up a real “oldie goldie” on the jukebox. The sing-along table in the far corner had quieted down, but one nearby started up. A bunch of old guys, ex-paratroopers from the sound of them—Vietnam vets, maybe—and boy, were they ready to take up the slack.

One of them slid his chair back from the table—then kept sliding in their direction.

“Hey, Sweet Darlin’,” he said to Meehan in keeping with the spirit of the song playing in the background, and Doyle braced himself to have to conk some pushy old guy over the head with his cane, brother soldier or not.

“Hey, Jake,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“I’m good as new. Come on—let me show you. What do you say you and me take a turn out on the floor? Can I borrow your lady, son?” he asked Doyle without giving Meehan a chance to answer.

“I don’t think they allow dancing, Jake,” Meehan said, laughing.

“Don’t worry. The song will be over before the MPs get here—okay?” he said, looking at Doyle.

“Just make sure you bring her back, sir,” Doyle said.

Meehan gave him a pointed, thanks-a-lot look, but she got up. The spontaneous dancing precipitated a round of applause. What Jake lacked in ability he made up for in enthusiasm—much to the approval of his buddies at the table, if not the entire restaurant.

Doyle kept his eyes on Meehan. She knew how to do this kind of dancing and she looked really
fine.
She was enjoying herself, too, he decided, regardless of where bagel boy might be at the moment. Watching, Doyle hoped. So he could see what he’d been dumb enough to turn loose.

When the song ended, Jake brought Meehan back to the table, delivering her into her chair and giving her a kiss on the cheek. To Doyle he offered a smart salute and left.

“Nice moves,” Doyle said to Meehan.

She laughed. “Oh, sure. I haven’t had an evening this wild since I was in nursing school.”

“‘Wild’ is good sometimes,” he said, waxing philosophical just for her benefit.

“Trust me.”

“Are you ready to go?” she asked, because the waitress was bringing the boxes of pie.

“I’m ready,” he said, sending the money for the meal and the tip with the waitress on her little payment tray. He let Meehan carry the pie, and he didn’t get up out of his chair as smoothly as he’d hoped. His legs were killing him, and he had to work hard to hide it.

“Shoulder,” Meehan said, when they’d gone a few steps.

He didn’t hesitate. He put his hand on her shoulder the way he had when he was trying to make it into her house, feeling her soft, warm skin under his fingers and bearing down hard with every step.

Eat your heart out, bagel boy, wherever you are.

“Wait or walk?” she asked when they were outside.

“Walk,” he said, not because he thought he could make it to the car, but because he just didn’t want to let go of her shoulder.

“Mrs. Bee’s or ninety miles an hour down I-95?” she asked when he’d finally gotten himself in the car.

“Interstate,” he said. “Crank up…the…music.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes, losing himself in the pain and the sounds from 96.5 FM.

Oldie

goldie

music.

The kind he never listened to. The kind that went with the car, and maybe with his sudden not-so-jolly mood.

The words flew past him, like the lights of downtown Fayetteville and then the traffic on the interstate.

“Light my fire…”

Hell, yes. He needed his fire lit. He needed it
bad.

“Love

hurts…”

Now there’s news.

He took a deep breath, fighting the pain in his legs more than the pain in his heart. He didn’t know where they were going; he didn’t care. Everything went by in a blur. Meehan was doing what little old Mrs. Bee asked her to do. Blowing the Thunderbird out.

Flying.

“The danger zone…”

Flying.

He could feel the wind in his face. Like jumping out of a C-130—with a sound track and no sensation of falling.

“Maggie

Mae…”

The anthem for lovesick college boys who had it bad for an older woman.

“Maggie

Mae….”

Chapter Four

T
he church ladies were downstairs. Some of them, anyway. Not a big crowd, but enough of them for Doyle to want to keep out of the way. For once he had no inclination to hit them up for free refreshments. He just wanted to…

…hang around upstairs and be on the lookout for Meehan, he thought with a candidness he’d been avoiding for days. Ordinarily he didn’t try to dodge the bullet when it came to knowing what was what, but there was just no getting around it. He hadn’t seen or talked to her since their steak and beer outing, and it was becoming increasingly clear to him how much he wanted to.

He kept telling himself that he was only interested in making sure she was all right. She had tried to maintain a certain level of indifference about her “dumped” status, but he knew better. He’d been front and center for that business of sitting in the rain. She’d taken the bagel guy’s wordy exit hard.

Regardless of all that, he could recognize the truth of the situation. There was nothing mysterious going on here. He wanted to see her. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to make her laugh, if he could. He wanted to know about her sisters and her uncle Patrick and who the kids were in the pictures she had sitting around.

And why a good-looking woman like her wasn’t married.

But, for all his diligence, he’d somehow managed to miss all her comings and goings. He hadn’t seen her leave for work, and he hadn’t seen her come home—and not for lack of trying. For three days he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d considered asking Mrs. Bee if she’d talked to Meehan, but ultimately he’d abandoned that plan. Rita Warren, the girl he seriously cared about, had just married another man. He should have learned some kind of lesson here. When it came to high-maintenance women, the last thing he needed was to get all entangled up in the personal problems of yet another one. He couldn’t ask Mrs. Bee. The fewer people who knew what an idiot he was when it came to women the better.

Yesterday—oh, man, yesterday. When it came to idiotic behavior, he’d really outdone himself. He’d had a doctor’s follow-up appointment, for which he’d come early and stayed late solely for the purpose of trying to track Meehan down at work. He just wanted to say hello, maybe see if she was interested in hearing what the doctor said—or whatever. He hadn’t quite mapped out that part. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t at her post, and he realized too late that he was getting entirely too many inquisitive looks for his comfort level. People who knew them both and were wondering what the hell Bugs Doyle wanted with Nurse Meehan.

And the thing was, he really didn’t know what he wanted—beyond the obvious—

or obvious to him, at any rate. He didn’t think it would occur to her that he was even remotely thinking of her as a sex object. A few days ago it wouldn’t have occurred to
him
that he was even remotely thinking of her as a sex object. There wasn’t a chance in hell that it was reciprocal. As far as Meehan was concerned, he was some kind of hard-luck case, a pity pal she needed to feel sorry for and maybe stop and pat on the head now and then. He’d all but begged her to let him buy her a steak dinner. The thing about wanting to pay her back for the blanket wasn’t exactly what he would call smooth. Of course, at the time he’d believed that was the reason. Now he…wasn’t so sure.

Man, she should never have worn that dress, he thought. He would have been just fine with this whole thing if she’d just looked the way she always looked at the hospital. Official. In command. Tough and a little mean. No soft, bare shoulders and little straps that kept falling off them, leaving him no alternative but to think about putting them back where they belonged. And no dresses he couldn’t see through but still managed to make him forget who she was and who he was and why he shouldn’t be thinking what he was thinking.

She was a
good
-looking woman. For a long time, he’d been traumatized in body, mind and spirit—but he wasn’t dead yet—as recent events proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“There’s nothing wrong with talking to her, damn it,” he said out loud. That shouldn’t be a problem for either of them, because he was absolutely certain—most of the time—that they had both enjoyed the steak-and-beer evening. They were

“comfortable” together. No expectations. No man-woman games. Just “buds.”

Sort

of.

He maneuvered across the room until he could look out the window. Again.