Lovers And Other Strangers

“Feels pretty good to me.” Reece’s thumbs rubbed distracting little circles on the points of her shoulders. His smile was wicked. “Maybe my technique is rusty. You could help me polish it up.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your technique.” With an effort, she planted her hands against his chest. “It’s just…it’s too fast…this isn’t what I want.” Honesty and nerves compelled her to add, “Well, I do want it, but I’m not going to do it.”

Reece opened his mouth but was cut off by the chime of the doorbell. “Saved by the bell,” he murmured.

His hands dropped away from her shoulders as he stepped back, and Shannon told herself that the little pang she felt was relief, not regret.

And if she tried hard enough, she might be able to make herself believe it.

Dallas Schulze

Lovers and Other Strangers

DALLAS SCHULZE

loves books, old movies, her husband and her cat, not necessarily in that order. A sucker for a happy ending, her writing has given her an outlet for her imagination. Dallas hopes that readers have half as much fun with her books as she does! She has more hobbies than there is space to list them, but is currently working on a doll collection. Dallas loves to hear from her readers, and you can write to her at her Web site at www.dallasschulze.com.

For Mary Anne, Kathleen and Denise for all the laughter, the quilting fun and the friendship.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

For the first one hundred years or so of its existence, the town of Serenity Falls had managed to live up to its name. It had been founded in the 1870s by a gentleman of uncertain background but considerable charisma. He liked to say he’d been called to California by a force from the stars, though there were those who suggested that the only stars involved had most likely been worn by members of a posse chasing him out of town. Whatever the reason, there was no question but that he’d ended up exactly where he was meant to be. Where else but California could a man adopt the name of Jonathan Everlasting Reconciliation and not find himself incarcerated in the nearest asylum?

Whatever his background, Brother Rec knew what he was doing when it came to laying out a new town, though there were complaints at the time about the amount of open space he insisted be incorporated into the town’s design. What was the point of leaving empty fields sitting cheek by jowl with the houses? Didn’t do anything but encourage mice and coyotes. Brother Rec spoke grandly of the need to retain a connection with nature, a close-up view of the good Lord’s work here on earth. Folks shook their heads over this foolishness, bought mousetraps and took potshots at any coyotes foolish enough to come within rifle range. As time passed, the mice and the coyotes moved on to less hostile environs and the fields became parks, giving the town a rural quality that was considered one of its biggest charms.

In the early 1890s, Brother Rec left Serenity Falls, taking with him five thousand dollars in town funds and the mayor’s sixteen-year-old daughter. The scandal rocked the community, not least of all because the mayor was more upset by the loss of the team of racing mules taken by the eloping couple than he was by the loss of his daughter. Then again, they were the finest mules in the county, if not in the state, and Millie Ann had been a pretty girl but not exceptionally bright so perhaps his reaction was understandable.

The town survived Brother Rec’s betrayal and, over the next ninety years or so, it also survived two world wars, a depression, earthquakes both major and minor and the advent of cars, television and rap music. Through it all, it remained pretty much what it had started out to be—a smallish town with an unusually strong sense of community.

There had, of course, been crises over the years. There was the flood of ’32, when boulders the size of small cars washed down out of the foothills and came to rest in the middle of town. In the midfifties, two lions escaped from a visiting circus, and citizens huddled inside their homes in fear of the ravening beasts. The lions, possibly confused by the lack of an audience, wandered the streets for a couple of hours before allowing themselves to be recaptured.

The sixties had brought the requisite amount of turmoil—long hair, blue jeans, even a sit-in or two. But all in all, Serenity Falls had weathered the years well.

Of course, there was a time, more than twenty years back, when some citizens had thought the town might be brought to rack and ruin through the efforts of a single individual. Reece Morgan had been a newly orphaned ten-year-old when he came to live with his grandfather. For the next eight years, Serenity Falls had been considerably less serene than usual. If there was trouble, he was bound to be in the midst of it, and if he wasn’t actually caught in the act, it was only because he’d just left the scene.

When he left town the day after getting his high school diploma, there was a general sigh of relief. Most folks agreed that he was bound to come to a bad end and they’d just as soon he did it somewhere else. With his departure, Serenity Falls settled back into its usual sleepy contentment.

But, small towns, like elephants, have long memories. When old Joe Morgan died and left his house to his erring grandson, transgressions more than twenty years old were suddenly news again. Those who had known Reece recalled his wild ways and shook their heads over the possibility of his return, but it was generally assumed that he would put the place up for sale as soon as the ink was dry on the title transfer.

Weeks passed. The lawn gradually turned brown under the heat of the summer sun, and the house took on a dusty, unlived-in look, but the expected For Sale sign did not materialize. Neighbors speculated on the possibility that the lawyers hadn’t been able to find Reece.

As summer crept toward autumn, the speculation grew more lurid. Reece was dead. He was in prison. He was an underworld drug lord and the Feds were waiting to nab him if he came forward to claim his grandfather’s house. Level-headed sorts pointed out that, according to the news and made-for-TV movies, drugs were a highly profitable business. If Reece was head of some sort of drug cartel, it didn’t seem likely that he’d risk capture in order to claim a slightly shabby two-bedroom house on a medium-size lot in Serenity Falls. California real estate wasn’t what it had been, after all. Besides, if the DEA or the FBI or any other set of initials was staking out the house, their presence would be known. Edith Hacklemeyer lived directly across from the Morgan place and there wasn’t a secret agent living who could slip past her sharp eyes.

Eventually the speculation began to die down. There were complaints about the way the house was being let go, comments that its unkempt condition might affect property values. Edith commented acidly that it would be just like Reece to let the place go to rack and ruin out of sheer spite. He never did have any respect for property. Hadn’t he once ridden his bicycle right through a bed of her best petunias? No one could tell her that had been an accident! No one tried. And no one offered much argument to her assertion that Reece Morgan was trouble—always had been, always would be.

By October, having the old Morgan house sitting empty had begun to seem almost normal, and most of the speculation had died down due to lack of information. But it revived quickly when Sam Larrabee’s brother, who worked for the electric company, told Sam that the power was being turned on again.

The word spread quickly. Ex-con, drug lord or walking dead, it seemed that Reece Morgan was finally coming home.

Shannon Devereux frowned at the calendars laid out in front of her. She sighed and then shuffled through the stack of index cards that held information on the classes she was supposed to be scheduling and then looked at the calendars again, seeking inspiration. Finding none, she shuffled the cards a little more before resolutely picking one out.

When she bought the quilt shop four years ago, she hadn’t known a thing about running her own business. She’d been looking for a focus in her life, something to fill her days and make the nights seem a little shorter. Patchwork Heaven had proven to be exactly what she needed. She felt a surge of pride as she looked around the shop. Shelves along two walls held bolts of fabric in a rainbow array of colors. Patterns and books were displayed in racks in the center of the shop. The front of the building was almost all glass, letting in sunlight and giving a pleasant view of the tree-lined street outside. At the back of the shop, where Shannon was sitting, were tables for classes, and every spare inch of wall was covered by class samples—a warm, multicolored wallpaper to entice potential students. The arrangement was both efficient and inviting.

She’d done a good job, she thought. Business had increased nicely. For the past two years, the shop had been making a small but steady profit. She wasn’t likely to make it into the Fortune 500, but she was solvent and that was more than most small businesses could say. Even better, she loved her work. Most of it, anyway. She looked down at the calendars and the stack of cards and sighed. Where was a scheduling fairy when you needed one?

“You know, there are easier ways to do that.” Kelly McKinnon paused next to the table, a stack of bolts in her arms.

“If you tell me that a computer would make this easier, I’m going to fire you.” Shannon fingered the edge of an index card, debating whether to slot the hand quilting class on a Saturday morning or Thursday evening. And should it be January or February?

“A computer would make that a lot easier,” Kelly said, ignoring the warning.

“You’re fired,” Shannon said without looking up.

“You can’t fire me.”

“Why not? You’re insubordinate. That’s a good reason to fire someone.”

“Insubordinate?” Kelly considered the accusation for a moment and then shook her head. “I think insubordination applies only to the military.”

“I don’t see why they should get to hog all the best words,” Shannon said, frowning.

“They’re selfish pigs, aren’t they?” Kelly said sympathetically.

Shannon sighed and sat back in her chair, looking up at her friend and employee. At five feet one inch tall—if she stretched a bit—with a mop of pale-blond hair and brown eyes that always seemed to hold a smile, Kelly made her think of the illustrations of pixies in old children’s books. “You’re sure I can’t fire you for insubordination?”

“I think you’d have to court martial me instead.”

“Too much trouble. You’ll have to stay.”

“Thanks, boss.” Her job security confirmed, Kelly nodded toward the calendars. “You want me to do that for you? It’s a lot easier when you can just click and drag the class names from place to place. Saves a lot of wear and tear on erasers. Why did you buy a computer for the office if you’re not going to use it?”

“People have been scheduling classes for centuries without using a computer.”

“You’re afraid of the computer.” Kelly’s tone made it a statement rather than question.

“I am not,” Shannon said defensively. “I just don’t see the point in using it to do something that I’m perfectly capable of doing by hand. People are too dependent on computers these days.”

“Well, you certainly don’t have to worry about that,” Kelly said dryly. She set the bolts she’d been carrying on the edge of the table and lifted the top one—a midnight-blue fabric printed with a scattering of tiny gold stars. “You never even turn it on.”

“I run it at least once a week,” Shannon said. “I figure that will keep its pistons clean.”

Kelly slid the bolt of fabric in amongst the other blues, turning her head to grin at Shannon. “Computers don’t have pistons. I’ll get that,” she added as the phone began to ring.

“Maybe I’d like them more if they did,” Shannon muttered as she walked away.

She could put away the rest of the fabric, she thought, eyeing the bolts on the edge of the table. It wouldn’t really be procrastinating if she was doing something productive, would it? She allowed herself a brief, wistful moment of self-delusion and then resolutely picked up the first index card. If she didn’t get this done soon, the winter class schedule was going to be going out next spring.

She heard Kelly say, “You’re kidding!” in a tone of breathless surprise and then tuned out the rest of the conversation. Kelly McKinnon was one of the kindest, most generous-hearted people you could ever hope to meet. She also happened to be hopelessly addicted to gossip. As near as Shannon could tell, she was the unofficial clearing house for information for the entire town.

It could have been an intolerable character flaw but Kelly’s interest came without a trace of malice. She was genuinely interested in everyone—not just what they were doing and with whom but what they were thinking and feeling. Which was probably why people were so willing to tell her things they wouldn’t even share with their hairdresser. Besides, Kelly was quite capable of keeping a secret. She might know where all the bodies were buried, but she rarely told anyone where to find them.

With an effort Shannon forced her attention back to the schedules. A strand of strawberry-blond hair fell forward and she tucked it absently back behind her ear. She penciled in the beginning quilt-making class on Tuesday night. Esther McIlroy was teaching that. Esther didn’t mind running the cash register to handle any purchases her students made, which meant that Shannon didn’t have to be here.

“You’ll never believe what Rhonda Whittaker just told me!” Kelly said as she hung up the phone.

“Don’t tell me.” Without looking up, Shannon sensed the other woman approaching from the front of the shop.

“Don’t you want to know?” Kelly asked impatiently.

“Know what?” Shannon went over the penciled line a little more heavily. Tuesday was a good night to learn how to make quilts, she decided. She’d double-check with Esther to make sure it was okay.

“What Rhonda just told me,” Kelly said. “Don’t you want to know what she said?”

Shannon set the pencil down and looked up, her blue eyes mock solemn. “You’ve already told me I won’t believe it, so why bother to tell me? If I want to hear things I’m not going to believe, I can watch the news.”

“This is firsthand information.”

“What makes you think Rhonda Whittaker is more trustworthy than Tom Brokaw? Isn’t she the one who says she saw Elvis going into a room at that motel on the edge of town?”

“That was Tricia Porter,” Kelly corrected her. “And it wasn’t Elvis she saw, it was Paul McCartney. And she saw him at the natural foods store, buying organic barley.”

“That’s sooo much more believable than seeing Elvis,” Shannon drawled.

“Well, I think he’s a vegetarian.”

“Elvis?”

“Paul McCartney,” Kelly said impatiently. “I think he’s a vegetarian so I guess it’s not totally beyond the realm of possibility to see him in a health food store.”

“Oh sure.” Shannon nodded agreeably. “I bet he flies over from England on a regular basis to buy barley at Finlay’s Flourishing Foods for Fitness. The name is probably known all over the world. Or maybe it’s that sign out front, the one that says Authentic Foods. I mean, how could Paul resist a chance to get ‘authentic’ food?”

“I never have known what that means,” Kelly admitted, momentarily diverted. “It sort of implies that other stores are selling fake food, doesn’t it?”

“I’m surprised they haven’t sued for defamation of inventory or something.”

“Defamation of inventory?” Kelly’s eyebrows rose in question.

“If it’s not already on the books, I’m sure there’s a lawyer somewhere who could make a case for it,” Shannon assured her.

“Probably. But that’s not the point.”

“What point?”

“Precisely! We’ve gotten away from the point.”

Laughing, Shannon dropped her pencil and leaned back in her chair. “I feel like I’ve fallen into an Abbott and Costello routine. You’re not going to ask me who’s on first, are you?”

“I’m trying to tell you what Rhonda Whittaker told me,” Kelly said sternly. “And you’re not making it easy.”

“Sorry.” Shannon did her best to look meek, but there was a suspicious tuck in her cheek and her eyes were bright with humor. “What did Rhonda tell you?”

“Reece Morgan is here.”

“In the shop?” Shannon’s eyes widened in surprise.

“No, you idiot. In Serenity Falls. Rhonda saw him herself. He stopped at the ’76 gas station on the north end of town. Rhonda was getting gas there when this mean-looking black pickup truck pulled in.”

“How does a truck look mean?” Shannon interrupted. “Did it lift its front bumper in a sneer?”

“Do you want to hear the story or do you want to ask irrelevant questions?” Kelly asked, exasperated.

“I’ll be quiet,” Shannon promised meekly.

“Thank you.” Kelly cleared her throat. “As I was saying, a black pickup pulled in.”

“A mean-looking black pickup,” Shannon reminded her helpfully.

“And a man got out of it.”

“Elvis?”

“Rhonda recognized him right away,” Kelly continued, ignoring the interruptions.

“If he was wearing one of those spangled jumpsuits, I wouldn’t think that would be very hard.”

“It was Reece Morgan.”

“In a spangled jumpsuit?”

“He was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and black boots.”

“No sequins?” Shannon asked, disappointed.

“Rhonda said he looked mean.”

“She thought his truck looked mean, too.” Shannon reminded her.

“Rhonda does sometimes let her imagination run wild,” Kelly admitted. “But however he looked, we at least know he’s back in town.”

“Unless it’s really Elvis or Paul McCartney,” Shannon murmured wickedly.

Kelly shook her head. “Rhonda wouldn’t have been nearly as interested in one of them. She said it was definitely Reece Morgan. They were in the same class. She said she’d have known him anywhere.”

Shannon shook her head, her soft mouth twisting in a half smile. Until she moved to Serenity Falls, she’d never lived in the same place for more than two or three years. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like to have lived in the same town your whole life, to be able to recognize a classmate from twenty years before.

“I never really thought Reece would come back here,” Kelly said.

“His grandfather left the house to him. It seems reasonable that he’d want to go through everything himself.”

“From what I’ve heard of his relationship with the old man, it doesn’t seem likely that Reece would come back looking for mementos,” Kelly said, shaking her head. “Everyone says they were pretty much oil and water.”

“Is this the same ‘everyone’ who saw Paul McCartney eating oats at the health food store?” Shannon asked dryly.

“It was barley, and even Frank says they didn’t get along.” Frank was Kelly’s husband. “He was a couple of years younger than Reece, but he knew him pretty well since Reece and Frank’s older brother were friends. He says Reece’s grandfather was a flinty old bastard.”

“I can’t argue with that description,” Shannon said, thinking of the old man who’d lived in the house next to hers. Tall and spare with a military bearing that made no concessions to age, he’d offered her a brief, rather formal welcome when she first moved in. For the next four years, their contact had been limited to an exchange of hellos if their paths happened to cross at the mailboxes. In all that time she couldn’t ever remember seeing him smile or even look as if he knew how.

“If Reece has come back to stay, you’re going to be living next door to him,” Kelly said, giving her a speculative look.

Shannon had no trouble reading the expression in her friend’s eyes. She shook her head. “Forget it. I am not going to spy on the man just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“No one said anything about spying,” Kelly said, all injured innocence. “But living next door to him, you’re bound to get to know him.”

“I lived next door to his grandfather for four years and the only thing I know about him was that he put out the neatest piles of trash I’ve ever seen. I think they were color coordinated.”

“Reece doesn’t sound like the type to color coordinate his trash.”

“It’s been twenty years since anyone in this town has seen him. He could have changed.”

“From hellion to neatnik?” Kelly wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t sound likely.”

“Anything’s possible.” Shannon dropped the index cards on top of the calendars, scooped them all into a haphazard stack and thrust them at Kelly. “Here. Make yourself useful. Feed these into your magic machine and give me back a schedule.”

“Aren’t you in the least bit curious about Reece?” Kelly asked as she took the papers. “I mean, what if he’s an escaped felon or something?”

“Right.” Shannon’s tone was dry as dust. “If I were an escaped felon, I’d make it a point to hide out in the one place where everyone knew me, in the one place the police would be sure to look for me, in the one place where I couldn’t possibly hide my presence. And I’d drive into town, in broad daylight, driving a mean-looking truck, wearing a spangled jumpsuit and buying barley at the natural food store.”

“You’re getting your celebrities mixed up,” Kelly pointed out, grinning. “Reece was driving the truck but he wasn’t wearing a jumpsuit and no one has seen him eating barley.”

“It’s only a matter of time.” Shannon waved one hand. “By the end of the day, the rumor mill will probably have him arriving in a spaceship complete with bug-eyed aliens for escort.”

Kelly laughed. “We haven’t had any alien sightings around here since Milt Farmer gave up corn liquor and found religion.”

“With Reece Morgan returning, can aliens be far behind?” Shannon’s smile lingered as she moved toward the front of the shop to wait on the customer who had just entered.

Despite herself, she couldn’t help but wonder about her new neighbor. After everything she’d heard about him, she was more than a little curious to actually meet the man in the flesh. The image in her mind was a cross between a young Marlon Brando and the Terminator. What a disappointment it was going to be if he turned out to be a plump, balding accountant.

Chapter 2

Groaning, Reece rolled over and opened his eyes. This must be what it felt like to spend a night on the rack, he thought, as he inventoried an assortment of aches and pains. The last time he could remember sleeping in a bed this uncomfortable, he’d been an unwilling guest in a South American prison.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he stared up at the water stain on the ceiling directly over the bed. If he squinted a little, it was a dead ringer for the outline of Australia. He contemplated it with some regret, thinking of wide beaches, cold beer and tall, tanned Aussie girls in very small bikinis. Now there was the perfect place for working through a midlife crisis. What on earth had made him decide to come back here—where he’d spent the most miserable years of his childhood?

It was all a matter of timing, he thought as he rolled out of bed and slowly straightened his aching spine. The news of his grandfather’s death had come at a time when he was reevaluating his life. A rainy night, a slick road, and he had regained consciousness in time to hear the paramedics weighing his odds of making it to the hospital alive. With the distance provided by shock, he’d pondered the irony of dying in a car wreck. He’d lived with the possibility of his own death for a long time, but he’d always assumed it would come in a more spectacular form—a bullet, a knife sliding between his ribs, a car bomb maybe. It seemed supremely ironic that death should come in the form of something as mundane as having a tire blow out.