Cupid’s Confederates

hausfrau; she doubted she was capable of it, but his values were involved, too. She’d never questioned him. Maybe he found it more restful to sit at the kitchen table and use silverware and china than their old habit of paper plates on the floor in the living room. Stupid, yes?

“But it’s details that make up every day, Zach. I push the toothpaste tube from the middle, leave my shoes where you stumble over them at the door. Maybe-privately-you were annoyed. The thing is, I never thought to ask you.” Maybe working together so closely wore on him from time to time; maybe when he continually saw her ramming around on a tractor in jeans and sweatshirt he saw her as less feminine than he once had-

Between the peach orchard and the plum trees, Zach jammed on the brakes and turned off the engine again. The groove between his brows boded ill. “How the hell could you have let her do this to you?”

Bett gnawed on her lip. “Mother? She isn’t doing anything to me.”

“Four weeks in the house and she’s turned my confident, sassy wife into a worrywart. What is this? If I’d wanted a wife obsessed with ring around the collar, I would have married one. I happen to be a big boy with strong vocal cords, two bits, and I’m more than capable of telling you if I’m unhappy with how we’ve set up our life. I’m not. Now, if you are, we’ll work on it. If you’ve really suddenly decided you need the floor under the refrigerator waxed, we’ll hire someone to do it. You sure as hell aren’t going to devote a second to it. You happen to bloom best in fresh air, and I happen to get a kick out of watching you, tiny as a minute, ramming around inside the cab of a tractor ten times bigger than you are. It makes me feel protective, and proud of you, and good inside to know we’re sharing the same goals. Generally, it also makes me want to go up and whip you out of there and take you in the middle of a field, but that’s neither here nor there.” His frown leveled out, a wicked smile taking its place. “I’m used to that reaction, whenever you’re within a two-mile radius.”

Bett, for some strange reason, had tears in her eyes. Was he shouting? He reached out and tugged her close, drawing her onto his lap, irritated at the limitations imposed by the steering wheel.

“Have we got that stuff clear now?” he grumbled.

“Yes.” Very clear, Bett thought. Zach should shout at her more often. All the mindless anxieties that had been haunting her had abruptly fled.

“And in the meantime, there’s an answer for your mother.” Zach shifted her next to him, very close, as he started the truck again. “She likes to take care of people. She is never going to survive well alone. She needs to feel needed. Heaven knows, she’s into waiting on a man-”

Bett slapped his thigh. “Don’t get too used to it.”

“She’s still relatively young,” Zach continued absently. “Not unattractive. She’s got this rather crazy side and she talks continually and there’s that insomnia of hers, but maybe we could keep that kind of thing secret for a while.”

“Pardon?” Her husband was talking Greek.

He shot her a mischievous smile. “Are you ready for the campaign?”

“What campaign?” Bett asked bewilderedly.

“We’re about to get your mother married off, two bits. It’s the only answer.”

Chapter 9

Bett set down The Beekeeper’s Annual and glanced outside. The library at Silver Oaks was relatively new, with huge windows looking out on the main street of the town. Their small burg had one of everything-one grocer, one bookstore, one druggist, one department store; the single exception being, naturally, seven agricultural implements dealers. Kalamazoo and even Chicago weren’t that far to go for real shopping; but as it was, the community was small and exactly to Bett’s liking, a friendly, intimate, know-everyone type of place where it was perfectly safe to walk the streets at night.

Staring absently at the tree-lined street, she thought idly that the silver in the town’s name was a misnomer. The oaks were turning that smooth, buttery gold they always did in early October. A distracted thought; she seemed to have been distracted for the better part of a week. The thing was, whom did she know in the town who might be a good companion for her mother? Smoothing her navy skirt, she stood up and wandered toward the front of the long, book-lined room. Her skirt-donned especially for the trip to town-was paired with a red nubby sweater with a scooped neck and short sleeves. Her hair was tied back with a patterned scarf in the same colors.

She felt unusually pretty, and just a little more so when Mr. Hines looked up appreciatively as she paused in front of his desk. “I miss you in the summer,” he said warmly. “You and your husband are my best winter customers, you know.”

Bett chuckled, leaning on the counter. “I’m playing hooky this afternoon, I’m afraid. Though I did come here with a purpose. Word has it there’s a new virus attacking bees in the area, but I’ll be darned if I can find anything about it in any of the usual trade journals.”

Mr. Hines pushed back his glasses. “Do you have the name of it?”

Bett gave it. “But I don’t know anything about it except the rumor. Some disease brought up by a hive from Texas, settled in Ohio, moved into Michigan last spring?”

Mr. Hines’s forehead puckered, then smoothed out as he motioned to her to follow him. Bett stuck her hands in the pockets of her skirt, an amused and affectionate smile on her face as she trailed behind. Mr. Hines was a librarian to the core, but she had the feeling that he had secret fantasies of being a private eye. Mysteries were his obsession. Books were his turf, and somewhere in the billions of pages on the shelves there had to be answers for everyone.

“We’ll try here, first.” He motioned.

She had five magazines in front of her before she could have said boo, and rather than leaving her, Mr. Hines licked his thumb and started flicking through pages with her, pushing his glasses low on the bridge of his nose so he could see better.

Halfway through the second periodical, she found herself staring at him. Theodore Hines was rather short; in the five years she’d known him, he’d never worn anything but a gray suit. The kids loved him, in spite of his dignity. He’d probably help a convicted thief if the thief liked good literature-and didn’t use slang.

He had to be nearing sixty; Betty knew he was a bachelor. What would her dad have thought of him? she considered idly. Very thoughtful, very shy, occasionally just a little pompous, but no question; true-blue nice.

Mr. Hines turned absently and caught a sudden, radiant smile on Bett’s face. “You found what you needed?” he asked, as if thoroughly disappointed that the search had taken so little time.

“I think so-if I could take this out?”

“It’s supposed to be a reference for the library.” He frowned, and then offered her one of his tiny, very special smiles. “I can’t say we usually have a run on beekeeping material. If you could have it back to me in a day or two?”

“No problem.” Bett glanced at her watch. It was nearing five o’clock. “Are you working late tonight, Mr. Hines?”

“Not tonight.” He moved behind the librarian’s desk, searching distractedly for his date stamper. He had never once found it on the first attempt in the whole time Bett had known him. “Tuesdays and Thursdays I stay until nine, but Myra takes Mondays and Wednesdays. Then on Fridays-”

“I wonder,” Bett interrupted gently, “if you would like to come to dinner tonight?”

“Pardon?” The librarian blinked.

“All this time Zach and I have known you, you’ve always been so helpful to us. I can’t imagine why I’ve never asked you before,” Bett said smoothly. “We’re having lamb with a mint sauce tonight. My mother’s staying with us; she makes the most wonderful sponge cake. Wouldn’t you like to come?”

Mr. Hines turned a gentle shade of pink, clearly flustered. “I…I don’t know. I have no way…you see, I walk to work. It never occurred to me-”

“I could drive you out and Zach will bring you back. That’s no problem. You probably don’t like lamb, though,” Bett said sadly.