Gina Wilkins - Dateline Matrimony

“I’m going to feed the ducks.” The boy held up a clear plastic bag filled with bread cubes.

Riley looked toward the lake, where several hungry-looking ducks were starting to congregate nearby, apparently deciding the boy looked like a promising food source. “I’m sure they’ll like that. How come you aren’t in school?”

“No school today,” the kid announced with pleasure. “It’s a teacher workday.”

Glancing around at the few other people in the park, none of whom seemed to be monitoring the boy’s actions, Riley asked, “You aren’t here by yourself, are you?”

“No, my sitter’s with me. Well, she’s in the rest room with my little sister. I’m supposed to wait for them before I start feeding the ducks, because Maggie gets mad if I start without her.”

“Maggie’s your sister?”

“Yep. My name’s Mark.”

Because it seemed like the right thing to do, Riley extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mark. I’m Riley.”

The boy pumped Riley’s hand gravely. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Now you’re not a stranger, right? It’s okay for us to talk, right?”

Riley couldn’t help chuckling. “Weren’t we strangers a few minutes ago—when you first spoke to me?”

The boy gave the question only a moment’s consideration before replying airily, “I was just being polite then.”

Although amused by the kid’s logic, Riley thought it was probably time for him to offer some wise-adult advice. “Maybe you’d better not be quite so polite to strangers when your sitter isn’t around.”

“I don’t talk to bad strangers,” Mark replied confidently. “Only nice ones like you.”

“But…” Riley paused and drew a deep breath, feeling himself hovering on the verge of stammering. This kid had an answer for everything. Must keep his parents on their toes all the time.

“Uh-oh! Mark’s talking to a stranger again. I’m going to tell Mom.”

The shrill announcement from behind them brought Mark’s chin up defensively. “He’s not a stranger. His name’s Riley and he’s my friend.”

The teenager trailing after Mark’s blond, blue-eyed little sister was someone Riley recognized. “Hi, Jenny.”

Her heavily mascaraed eyes lit up. “Hey, Riley. What are you doing here?”

“You know each other?” Mark seemed pleased.

“Oh, sure, I’ve known Jenny since she was younger than you.”

“Riley used to date my older sister,” Jenny confided to Mark with a giggle. “But she stopped going out with him because he wasn’t the marrying kind and she wanted someone who was.”

Riley cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject. “So your school is out today, too, Jenny?”

“Yes. They all are. So I’m making a little extra money watching my neighbor’s kids until their mom gets off work.”

Mark and Maggie had already headed for the hopeful-looking ducks that had gathered on the grass at the edge of the lake. The moment Mark reached a hand into the bag and tossed a handful of bread cubes onto the ground, the ducks went wild, quacking and jostling for the food, making the children laugh at their eager antics.

“This is just a suggestion,” Riley murmured to Jenny, “and of course I don’t know much about kids or baby-sitting, but you might want to keep a closer eye on Mark. He’s pretty chatty with strangers.”

Jenny bit her lip. “I know. The kid’s a real talker, and he’s curious about everyone and everything. His mom says he’s probably going to be a politician or something because he wants to talk to everyone he sees. I told him to stay close to the rest rooms while I was inside with his sister, but I guess he saw you and just couldn’t resist striking up a conversation. I’ll talk to him about it on the way home.”

“Good idea. He needs to know he can’t just start talking to any strange guy sitting in a park.”

Jenny giggled again. “You’re not a strange guy.”

“Your sister might disagree with that comment,” Riley murmured, his smile wry.

“Hey, Riley,” Mark shouted. “You want to feed a duck?”

Riley reached for the portion of bun left over from his hamburger. “Feeding ducks just happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.”

It was another generally held misconception that Riley didn’t like children. It was true he didn’t go to great lengths to seek them out, so he hadn’t spent a great deal of time with them on the whole, but he didn’t actively dislike them.

He enjoyed the time he spent feeding the ducks with Mark, Maggie and Jenny. Mark chattered almost endlessly, pelting Riley with a barrage of questions and humorous comments. A bit more shy at first, Maggie soon joined in the fun, treating Riley like a longtime friend, much the same way Jenny behaved toward him.

Knowing there were several people who’d be surprised to see him in this situation, Riley still had a good time. Cute tots, he thought. If more kids were as entertaining and well-behaved as these two—or three, if one counted a teenager as a kid—Riley wouldn’t feel compelled to avoid them quite so often.

Still, it wasn’t long before he glanced at his watch and said, “I’d better be going. I have a lot to do this afternoon.”

Jenny checked the time on her own watch. “Oh, gosh, we’d better go, too. The kids’ mom will be home soon.”

It was only two-thirty in the afternoon. Apparently, Mark and Maggie’s mom worked the early shift. A part-time job, perhaps.

“It was great seeing you, Riley,” Jenny said as she herded her charges toward the parking area.

“You, too. Give my best to your family.”

“I will. Bye, Riley.”

“Bye, Riley,” Maggie parroted, waving.

“See ya around, Riley,” Mark called over his shoulder.

“Yeah. See you around.” Who knew…it was a small town. Maybe they would see each other around sometime.

It occurred to him only then that he’d never gotten the kids’ last name. It was entirely possible that he knew their parents, though he couldn’t place them with anyone at the moment.

Cute kids, he thought again as he drove his car out of the parking lot. Their parents were obviously doing something right raising them. Not a job he wanted himself—way too much responsibility and pressure for Riley—but some folks seemed to have a talent for it.

He just didn’t happen to be one of them.

For some reason, Riley’s thoughts were turned to past events as he entered the Edstown High School football stadium that weekend, along with a crowd of local football fans.

It had been several months since young Eddie Stamps had been arrested for arson, bringing an end to a troubling series of local fires. Most of the buildings that had burned had been vacant, the fires more of a nuisance than a dangerous threat to the community. Two of the fires had had more serious repercussions.

The Hightower Insurance office had burned to the ground, destroying valuable personal records and expensive office equipment. Five employees had lost their jobs, since R. L. Hightower had decided to retire rather than rebuild. The most devastating incident had occurred two months before the insurance company fire, in mid-January. A small hunting cabin in the woods just outside of town had burned, killing Truman Kellogg, who’d died in bed of smoke inhalation.

Unlike the other fires, that had been the only one in which there’d been no clear-cut evidence of arson. The cause was still listed as undetermined. It had been a fluke that Kellogg had even been at his hunting cabin that night. He had visited it only infrequently during the past few years and almost never at that time of the year.

Eddie Stamps had finally confessed to most of the arsons, yet denied responsibility for the insurance company and the hunting cabin. Most locals believed he was willing to confess only to the fires with the least serious consequences, hoping for a lesser sentence. Dan had pointed out to Riley that there were some differences in those two fires, but he, too, suspected that Eddie might have been involved with them. The timing seemed too coincidental to believe otherwise.