The Talk of the Town (3 page)

Staring into his steely gray eyes, Roxie rapidly readjusted her thinking. She’d felt sorry for him, sorry for the years he’d wasted, sorry for the continual censure he had to endure. She’d felt a wave of pity when he’d entered her office wearing the same badly-fitting suit with the too-short jacket sleeves and pants cuffs that he’d worn the day of his homecoming. But looking at his hard, handsome face with those errant strands of thick black hair that refused to stay slicked-back and that thin scar streaking across his left cheekbone, she realized her mistake. This man didn’t need her pity. He didn’t look as if he needed anything or anyone at all.

She glanced down at her hands. She should be inquiring about his background, but she knew his background—everybody did. She should be testing his attitude, but she knew his attitude—and it wasn’t the attitude one usually looked for in an employee. No one else had thought him a suitable applicant. She’d heard of several shopkeepers and area farmers who’d refused to hire him for even a day’s work—not so much because they didn’t need the help as because they didn’t trust him.

She shouldn’t have agreed to interview him, she realized. It could only lead to trouble. But it was too late to worry about that now. She had agreed to it, and she needed to get on with it.

Toward that end, she started the process by introducing herself. “I’m Roxie Mitchell.”

He nodded, a single, economical inclination of his head, and replied politely. “Luke Bauer.”

The formalities behind them, she asked, “What kind of work are you looking for, Mr. Bauer?”

“I’ll do anything,” he answered.

Roxie didn’t know what to say to that. She lowered her eyes and then raised them again. His seemed to be focused on the wall behind her, yet she had the distinct, uncomfortable impression he was precisely aware of her least movement.

Tossing aside that nonsense, she cleared her throat into the stretching silence. “We’re a small company, Mr.—”

“I made overalls in prison,” he said at the same time.

She hesitated, trying to think of a tactful way to phrase it, and finally settled on simple honesty. “I’m afraid that isn’t much of a qualification for work here because we don’t manufacture anything.”

“I also did maintenance and custodial chores before I joined the road gang,” he supplied.

“I see,” she responded inanely.

“I’m willing to learn whatever I need to,” he said after a pause that grew more awkward by the second. “I’ve been told I’m a quick learner.”

“You never seemed much interested in learning back in school.” She spoke without thinking, remembering the Luke Bauer of a decade or more ago.

Flickers of surprise passed through his eyes, and she could see that he hadn’t expected her to make a remark like that. But how could he have? She hadn’t expected it herself.

“We went to school together,” she explained hastily.

His blank look prompted her to elucidate.

“Well, not together exactly,” she amended. “You were in my brother John’s class. John Mitchell,” she emphasized, hoping that his full name would ring a bell. “I was three years behind you. Too young for you to have paid any mind to, I’m sure.”

Now he studied her with open curiosity. His gaze traveled over her slowly, taking stock of each feature within her oval face. His own face remained blank, expressing none of the masculine appreciation she normally received, as he took note of her big blue eyes, her small, straight nose with its scattering of freckles, her full lips. She decided it was like trying to read that secret decoder ring one of her brothers sent away for years ago. A message was there, but she couldn’t decipher it.

“You don’t look much like John,” he finally said.

His remark brought a bubble of laughter to her lips. “I certainly hope not.”

He stared at her without so much as cracking a smile.

Flustered by his lack of emotion, she went on to say more than she intended, certainly more than she should have. “I don’t look much like anyone else in my family, either. I’ve always been told that. They’re all tall, even my mother, and they have brown eyes and hair, while I’m on the shorter side, with blue eyes, and my hair is—well, I don’t know what you’d call it, more blond than . . .”

Suddenly aware that she was prattling, she stopped and just sat there like the proverbial bump on a log.

“Not blond,” he corrected her. “Honey-colored.”

Roxie tilted her head in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your hair,” he explained. “It’s the color of the honey my grandfather used to gather from his bees.”

Almost of its own volition, her hand crept up to touch the hair that fell in soft waves just past her jaw. Honey-colored, she mused as her fingers twirled within a few strands. What a strange thing for him to have said. She suddenly realized that he was watching her and, self-consciously, she dropped her hand.

A gleam lit his silvery eyes, unsettling her further. Now this was more like the Luke Bauer the Ladies Aide members were talking about at their last meeting. The wolfish comment, the suggestive look in his eyes . . .

She straightened and sought to regain control of the interview. “Now, about—”

“You had another brother, as I recall,” he said then, his dark brows drawing together thoughtfully.

“Two more, actually.” She ticked off their names. “William—he’s the oldest and is named for our father, but he goes by Bill. Then Frederick, who’s two years younger than Bill but doesn’t like to be called Fred. And John, of course, who’s the same age as you—two years younger than Frederick and three years older than me.”

Whether he remembered them or not, he managed to look as if he was actually interested in them. “They’re all still living in Blue Ridge?”

No longer resisting being sidetracked, she nodded. “Bill sells insurance, Frederick manages the lumber yard on the south side of town, and John is farming our grandparents’ old place.”

“And your parents?” he asked then.

Roxie smiled with a daughter’s love. “They’re well, thank you. Father has kept the bank running in spite of the stock market crash and the financial disasters it spurred. And when Mother isn’t helping my brother Bill’s wife with their three sons, she volunteers her time at the county orphan’s home.”

His voice softened now. “I remember one time she brought a batch of oatmeal cookies still warm from the oven to our grade school class. To this day I don’t think I’ve ever had a cookie that good.”

“She’d feed the world if she could.”

“The way things are going, she might have to.”

That was her cue to get back to business. She clasped her hands together atop her desk and started again. “Obviously you realize that times are hard, that people everywhere are feeling the pinch.” When he only looked at her, his gray eyes giving nothing back, she continued, “What I’m trying to say is, our orders have slowed and jobs are at a premium nowadays, so—”

He scraped back his chair and rose in one fluid movement. Roxie tilted her head back as far as her neck would allow and gaped up at him. She could see that his jaw was tightly clamped shut, the muscles quivering as he stared down at her.

“I’m not much for games, Miss Mitchell, so let’s end the charade.” Though he was visibly struggling to contain his anger, his voice held no hint of emotion. “You can thank me for stopping by and I can thank you for your time. Then you can go back to what you were doing before I interrupted you.”

He reached the door in a single step.

Roxie catapulted from her chair. “Wait!”

To her surprise, he did.

She knew that she should let him go, knew it was best for both of them if she did, knew that she should feel relieved that he understood the situation. But she didn’t feel relieved. She felt pain and anger and embarrassment. Most of all, she felt a renewal of unbearable pity that he would so readily accept, even expect, rejection. She stared at his back, where his wide shoulders strained the seams of his suit jacket, wanting to tell him how sorry she was she couldn’t help him, wanting to apologize for the way the town was treating him, wanting to somehow ease his pain.

“All that’s available is part-time work,” she said impetuously. “Filling stock orders in the warehouse and loading or unloading trucks on the dock if one of the regulars doesn’t show up.”

He said nothing, but he didn’t have to speak. His tense stance loudly declared his skepticism.

The room seemed to be shrinking in size. Roxie could feel the wooden file cabinet closing in on her from the left, while the cement block wall crowded her from behind. She couldn’t possibly hire a man like Luke Bauer. What would people say? She’d be the talk of the town!

Determined not to let the possibility of becoming grist for the gossip mill keep her from doing what she thought was right, she moistened her dry lips. “The pay won’t be much. Fifty cents a day, with a raise to one dollar if orders pick up again or someone quits and you come on full time.”

He turned with slow deliberation. “Are you offering me a job?”

His insolent stare issued the real challenge, daring her to say that he’d misunderstood her, that she was doing nothing of the sort. It was the kind of cocksure arrogance one expected from him, the kind of look and tone that inevitably set people’s backs up. And it was the perfect excuse for her to say no.

But Roxie drew a deep breath and did what she’d somehow known all along she would do. “Yes,” she told him. “Subject to Mr. Stewart’s approval when he returns next week, I’m offering you a job.”

His insolence vanished like morning fog under the sun, though his posture remained rigid. So quickly she thought she might have imagined it, a spark of emotion flared in his eyes and then died. The tension seemed to drain from him as it did, and when he finally spoke, he spoke quietly.

“You don’t have to do this, Miss Mitchell,” he told her. “You don’t have to hire me out of pity.”

She flinched, started to deny it, but then met his perceptive gaze and said instead, “I happen to think you’re capable of the work, Mr. Bauer.”

“I know I am,” he replied with resolution. “And I intend to fully earn my pay wherever I work. But I don’t want to be given misplaced charity.”

Bauer pride collided with Mitchell obstinacy as they took each other’s measure across her desk. His reluctance to accept the job only increased her determination that he should have it, even if it meant that she had to round him up and haul him in on the days he was scheduled to work. Purposefully, she tore her gaze away from his and started toward the door.

“If you’ll follow me,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, “I’ll introduce you to the warehouse foreman, who will tell you how to check in each morning to see if he needs you.”

Passing him, her shoulder lightly brushed his arm. It was like sticking her finger in a light socket. Her hair seemed to crackle, her scalp to tingle. She stiffened and, mustering what dignity she could, she strode out. She wasn’t all that certain that he would follow her. Within seconds she realized just how much she wanted him to follow. Her heart sank to new depths as she paused in the hall. Should she wait? Walk on? Go back and confront him?

He came out of her office looking cool and composed. “Show me the warehouse,” he said.

They walked side by side down a long, poorly lit concrete corridor that seemed narrower than usual to Roxie. Each step resounded with a hollow thump that echoed the hammering of her heart. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore the crazy rhythm of her careening pulse. She told herself it wasn’t the taut caution of his catlike movements. She told herself it wasn’t the aura of strength, even danger, that emanated from him. She told herself it was the smell of his aftershave and hair oil that wasn’t doing its job. If she felt like an overwound clock, her heart ticking frantically and her nerves tightly coiled, she assured herself it had nothing whatsoever to do with the man beside her.

She cast him a sidelong look. He unexpectedly met her glance with one of his own. Both quickly looked away.

It must be guilt, she concluded, and promptly fell victim to self-recriminations. Sweet cracker sandwich, she’d hired him! How could she? Had she lost her mind? What would Mr. Stewart say to having an ex-convict working in his warehouse? Especially one who’d served time for armed robbery! Oh, why did the Stewarts have to be in St. Joseph to visit their daughter who was pregnant with their first grandchild this weekend? Why couldn’t Luke Bauer have waited to seek employment until Mr. Stewart got back?

Roxie pulled herself up short. There was nothing to be gained from such thoughts. She’d done what she believed was right. If Layton Stewart disagreed with her decision, he could rectify it when he returned.

Striving to regain her usual composure, she at least succeeded in maintaining the outward appearance of it as she began speaking in a breathy staccato. “Layton Stewart built Stewart’s Warehouse almost seven years ago.”

“Right after I went to prison,” Luke interjected.

It amazed her that he spoke so candidly about being incarcerated. Rather than dwell on that, she stayed on topic. “Mr. Stewart likes to say we have harmony of place, and that’s really not far from the truth. Being situated just a mile or so off Route 40 as well as on the rail line, Blue Ridge is perfectly located for what we do.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“We warehouse products—work boots, socks, shirts and what-have-you—for various manufacturers who don’t have their own storage facilities, and then we distribute them throughout the Midwest.”

“So you’re kind of a middleman?”

His acumen impressed her. “And we ship by truck all over the state of Missouri and the western half of Kansas, and by rail beyond.”

“Given the sorry state of the economy, I’m surprised to hear there’s any kind of successful business anywhere.”

“We do seem to be lilting along almost in defiance of the depression, but people still need clothes and shoes and such.” She was relieved to realize that her voice had finally steadied.

He tipped his head, mulling that over. “Just where do you get those clothes and shoes and such?”

“Mainly from manufacturers in Kansas City, where warehouse space costs a lot more than it does here.”