Wild Orchids Read online

  Oh, yeah, I knew what they wanted. I was sure Noble wanted a grubstake and the second I gave him money enough to open some business somewhere, he’d be off. And he’d leave the old man with me.

  So what would I do with a geriatric gnome?

  I didn’t get any further in my thoughts because Jackie knocked on the door, and when I told her to come in, right away, I saw that she wanted something from me. Let’s see. What could it be?

  When she started to speak, I wanted to tell her to spare me the lecture, that I’d just get out my checkbook. I’d buy Noble some business far away from the angry relatives (if I knew them, only the younger generation was angry; Uncle Clyde’s generation was probably laughing their heads off) and I’d send the old man to a nursing home.

  But as soon as I saw Jackie’s face, I decided to use her guilt to get her to tell me why she’d been so weird lately. First, though, I had to listen to what she was saying about family. She was saying how everyone needed one and how as a person got older, family meant more to him, and someday I’d regret not getting to know my father, and I should let bygones be bygones and—

  I’d seen my father sitting upright, eyes wide open, but sound asleep. After he’d unnecessarily told me who he was and before Jackie made her dramatic wet-dog entrance, Tessa had asked him how he could do that. He said that where he’d been he’d learned that he had to look as though he were alert at all times. He said that a man with his fine physical looks couldn’t let down his guard ever. Tessa had giggled because she thought he was joking about his “fine physical looks,” but I could see that he was serious.

  While Jackie was going on at me about family, I tried to see if I’d inherited this ability to sleep with my eyes open while sitting up. When I’d about decided I was going to be able to do it, Jackie stopped talking and looked down at her hands. Uh oh, I thought. She’d gone off family and was on to something else, but I hadn’t been listening. I searched my mind to remember what she’d been saying. Oh, yes. Camera. Something about a camera. Her new digital maybe? Or that fantastic little printer she’d bought?

  “Where’d you get it?” I asked. That seemed a safe question.

  “I…” she began. “I met this man and he lent me—”

  She couldn’t have woken me up more completely if she’d shot at me. “A man?” I asked.

  “You…” She looked hard at me. “He doesn’t want me to tell you about him because he said you’d tell Dessie. But I think you’re a better person than that. You are a better person than that, aren’t you?”

  “Much better,” I said. I saw no need to tell Jackie that Dessie’s mad passion for me had only been an attempt to make her jug-eared lawn boy jealous.

  Instantly, Jackie gave me so much information that I had trouble understanding it all. Of course my hearing may have been clogged by the fact that my temperature had risen approximately twelve and a half degrees. What kind of town was this? I’m a rich bachelor. Where were the women who were dying to have me? Women who would do anything to get me? Dessie wanted some kid who only knew how to push a lawn mower, and now Jackie had—my temperature went up two degrees more—“met a man.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “let’s backtrack. His name is—?”

  “Russell Dunne.”

  “And he is—?”

  “An associate professor of art history at the University of North Carolina.”

  “Right. And he gave you—?”

  “Lent me the digital camera and the printer. They’re his, not mine. At the picnic he took a photo, printed it out, and I thought it was—”

  “The printer isn’t battery-operated so how’d he use it out in the woods?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he had a battery pack. He had so much stuff in his bag it was almost magic.”

  I think she was trying to make me laugh, but laughter was the furthest thing from my mind. “Magic,” I said.

  “If you’re going to be nasty, I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  I apologized, but I was dying to ask her to spell the guy’s name. When I searched out his credentials on the Internet I wanted to be sure I had the name right.

  I listened politely as she told me how “nice” he was, but my mind was racing. She had to have met him on Sunday. While I was at Dessie’s, solving her love life and being a great friend to a woman I hardly knew, Jackie had been picking up men…Where?

  “Where did you meet him?” I asked. “Exactly where?” I added, in case she’d already told me.

  She waved her hand. “That doesn’t matter. I’d been taking photos of flowers and—”

  “You picked up a man on a trail somewhere?” I asked, truly shocked. “I didn’t think you were that kind of woman. But then, you’re not from my generation, are you?”

  Jackie didn’t take my bait. “He grew up in Cole Creek, but he—” She looked down at her hands. “He asked me not to tell you about him because of your relationship with Dessie.”

  Again with Dessie. Was I tied forever to her because I’d had dinner with her? First Rebecca and now Dessie. “What’s Dessie got to do with this?” I asked more sharply than I’d intended to.

  “Russell wrote a bad review of her work and since then the town has considered him a pariah.”

  That took me so aback I couldn’t prevent a smile. What an old-fashioned word. “A pariah, huh?” I stopped smiling. This thing needed some logic applied to it. “Why would the town care whether or not Dessie Mason gets good reviews?”

  “She’s the town celebrity so they don’t want her hurt.”

  “Really? It’s my opinion that this town pays no attention to celebrities. Take me, for example. In that town where I met you, they were all over me, but here, we’ve had one invitation to an afternoon in the park and since then, zilch.”

  “What does that mean?” Jackie asked, frowning.

  “Just that something isn’t ringing true.” I could see she was getting angry, so I smiled to soften what I wanted to say. “Are you sure this guy didn’t ask you not to tell me about him because I might stop him from getting what he wants?”

  Jackie narrowed her eyes at me. “And just what is it that you think he wants?”

  “You. In bed.”

  “Is that supposed to shock me? You just said that I’m from a different generation than you are. Women today aren’t eternally-virgin Doris Days. I hope he wants me in bed. I really, really, hope he does. But, so far, no luck.”

  I didn’t want Jackie to see my shock. Or was it shock? Was it, maybe, red-hot jealousy?

  “Let’s not fight, okay?” she said softly. “I really came up here to talk to you about your relatives. They don’t have any place to stay.”

  Sorry, but I couldn’t move my mind around that quickly. Some man had written a bad review of Dessie Mason’s work and now an entire town hated him for it? Did that include Miss Essie Lee? She was as dried-up as Dessie was luscious, and human nature told me that the Miss Essie Lees of the world did not defend the Dessies.

  I wanted to ask Jackie more questions about this man. Top of my list was to ask for his social security number so I could run a major search on him. But when I looked at Jackie, I could tell that she’d just asked me a question. Ah, yes. Toodles. My dear old dad.

  “You didn’t put it in your book,” Jackie said.

  That startled me. Had I ever had a thought that I hadn’t put in one of my books? She spoke again. Oh, yes, why had my dad been in prison? True, that particular story had not been put into any book. I had, of course, written the story, but that manuscript had been a thousand pages long, so Pat had done some cutting. She said it was better to leave out the reason the hero’s father was in prison because the missing story lent some mystery to the book. She didn’t say that I was revealing too much, but then Pat could sometimes be as polite as her mother.

  “When he was a baby,” I said, “my father was dropped on his head and afterward, he was always slow. Not retarded, but…” I thought. “Simple. Childlike. My mother to