Free The Older Woman by Cheryl Reavis Page A

grapevine.
    He
    waited.
    And
    waited.

    He had to suffer a lot of insect pests of one kind or another in the time it took her to show—clearly he was the specialty of the day. When she pulled into her drive, he stood up and walked as casually as he could in her direction. The only problem was that his casual gait looked a lot like his I’m-about-to-fall-on-my-face one. Thankfully, she saw him at some point and walked to meet him.

    “Hey,” he said when she was close enough. “I’ve got a question.”

    “Go ahead,” she said, and it occurred to him that she probably thought it was about something medical.

    “Are you and the bagel guy on or off?”

    She seemed about to say something, but apparently she thought better of it, probably deciding—given their history—that she’d save herself a lot of aggravation in the long run if she just bit the bullet and answered him.

    “Off,” she said.

    Hot damn!

    “Okay,” he said. “So what do you think about you and me going out to eat again sometime?”

    “The same thing I thought last night. No.”
    “Why
    not?”

    “Why not? What is the matter with you? You should be going out with your—”
    she hunted for a word “—military associates. Get busy and make some new friends. Or better yet, you should find yourself some nice girl to go places with.”

    “I could do that,” he assured her. “But I haven’t got the strength.”

    “You haven’t got the strength,” she repeated—as if she’d heard him just fine, but buying it was something else again.

    “Right. See, if I go hang out with somebody from the unit, I got to be tough all the time—show them Bugs Doyle is one more steely-eyed, badass military man, and he can take it. If I go out with some girl, not only do I have to be tough, I have to be suave, too. You know how much work it takes to be tough and suave?”

    “I haven’t got a clue,” she assured him.

    “I didn’t think so. I’m better than I was, but I’m just not up for all that stuff yet. I don’t need a nice girl. I need a—”

    “Baby-sitter,” she finished for him.

    “No,” he said pointedly. “I need a friend—a bud. See, if we go out together, I don’t have to be bothered with keeping up my image. If I hurt, I can say so. If I’m all down about Rita, I can say so. And you won’t care. Same goes for you. I know about the bagel guy, so you can be however you want to be, too, because we don’t have any secrets. I thought we had a pretty good time the other night. I did, anyway. Going out with you was a big relief, and I wouldn’t mind going again. That’s all. See?”
    “Yes.”

    “So you’ll go?”

    “No,” she said. “But that was a nice try,” she added. “You might even say
    ‘suave.’ Tell Mrs. Bee I’ll be over to see the magazine soon.”

    She walked away, and he stared after her until she got inside.

    Well, that went pretty well, he thought. She didn’t threaten to report him to his commanding officer, at least.

    He hobbled back to the house, going in through the kitchen instead of around to be back stairs. The telephone was on a table in the wide hall, and he toyed with the idea of calling his COC contact. For what, he didn’t know. He could think of something, he supposed—if he hadn’t still been occupied with Meehan and her civil but firm rebuff.

    She’s just not getting this, he thought.

    And he was going to end up on the six o’clock news for stalking, if he wasn’t careful.

    He stood in the hall for a moment, then decided to hobble into the parlor. Mrs. Bee’s bookshelves were in there, and she’d said on more than one occasion that he could take a look and help himself. At the time, he distinctly remembered thinking that he wished the offer had extended to the downstairs refrigerator.

    She had a lot of books, essentially her own private Bee Library. He stood holding on to a shelf and reading the titles, finally taking down a photographic history of World War I. He